Excerpt
Prologue
Sidda is a girl again in the hot
heart of Louisiana, the bayou
world of Catholic saints and
voodoo queens. It is Labor Day,
1959, at Pecan Grove Plantation,
on the day of her daddy's annual
dove hunt. While the men sweat
and shoot, Sidda's gorgeous mother, Vivi, and
her gang of girlfriends, the Ya-Yas, play
bourrée, a cut-throat Louisiana poker, inside
the air-conditioned house. On the kitchen
blackboard is scrawled: SMOKE, DRINK,
NEVER THINK--borrowed from Billie Holiday.
When the ladies take a break, they feed the
Petites Ya-Yas (as Ya-Ya offspring are
called) sickly sweet maraschino cherries from
the fridge in the wet bar.
That night, after dove gumbo (tiny bird bones
floating in Haviland china bowls), Sidda goes
to bed. Hours later, she wakes with a gasp
from a mean dream. She tiptoes to the side of
her mother's bed, but she cannot awaken Vivi
from her bourbon-soaked sleep.
She walks barefoot into the humid night,
moonlight on her freckled shoulders. Near a
huge, live oak tree on the edge of her father's
cotton fields, Sidda looks up into the sky. In
the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy
Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful
heart.
She kicks her splendid legs like the moon is
her swing and the sky, her front porch. She
waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted
an old buddy.
Sidda stands in the moonlight and lets the
Blessed Mother love every hair on her
six-year-old head. Tenderness flows down
from the moon and up from the earth. For one
fleeting, luminous moment, Sidda Walker
knows there has never been a time when she
has not been loved.