Little Altars Everywhere (26 page)

It was too late, Mother, I tell her.

Oh well, anyway—I simply must ask you a crucial question.

I can picture her in the bathroom, rushing to get moisturized and made up, cigarette perched in the bathroom ashtray with “Vivi Dahling, Happy Forty!”
engraved on it. The Ya-Yas love giving anything that’s silver and engraved.

Is it too late in the year to wear aqua?! my mother asks. I’ve got to know!

She says this like she has 9-1-1 on the line and is asking for instructions on how to give CPR.

I’ve got eighty-four-thousand things to wear, she gasps, but I just feel
called
by the aqua!

Mother, I reply, you’ve got to be kidding! Aqua was made for this time of year. You will be the belle of the Baptism.

Oh, thank God, she says. I am so relieved to have you home! I didn’t know who I was going to ask for advice! All the Ya-Yas are down in Baton Rouge for the LSU-Auburn game. What are you wearing?

Oh, I tell her, I just thought I’d go with my basic rhinestone tiara and my green sequin Mardi Gras Queen gown. You know, the complete fairy-godmother look.

You crazy fool, she said. Sounds perfect.

You can say a lot about my mother. Jungians, Freudians, Reichians—you name it, they’d all have a field day with her. But she is funny. She is quick and she is funny.

At our Lady of Divine Compassion Church they’ve moved the Baptismal font up to the side of the altar. Mama’s wearing the aqua with a matching hat, her hands still shaking like always. She hugs me and whispers: I think you’ve lost weight!

Daddy is shifting his weight from one foot to an
other the way he has always done inside a Catholic church.

Hey babe, he says, you looking good. New York not treating you too bad, I guess.

I hardly recognize Little Shep. He’s gained about forty pounds and his face is all puffy, like a middle-aged man, which I suppose he’s moving in the direction of being. (Strange, I never think of myself as anything near middle-aged, but when Mama and Daddy were in their late thirties, that’s certainly what they were called.)

Little Shep gives me a starched hug and says, Hey, Miss Broadway, how you doin?

Kane looks tall and tailored as usual. I’ve always liked her because I’ve never once seen her wear high heels, which is a monumental statement of individuality for a woman in the Gret Stet of Loosiana.

She shakes my hand and says, Welcome home, Sidd. Dorey and Kurt, do yall remember Aunt Sidda?

No, Kurt says.

I try not to die.

Dorey says, I remember you. You’re the movie star in the picture on Uncle Bay’s desk.

Uncle Bay has a picture of me on his desk? I ask.

It’s one of the glamorous ones from the big play you directed, Kane explains.

I’ve directed a “big play?” I think.

Oh right, I say. The head shot where I looked gorgeous for one hour after spending a hundred dollars for
a professional makeup job? Looks sort of like I’m auditioning for
Dallas?

Kane laughs and says, Glad you could make it, Sidd. Then she turns to say something to Melissa.

Then Lulu shows up in a mauve silk suit with a slit up the side of the skirt, and heels so high she stands six inches taller than me, which she is definitely not. Her hair is about three inches long—far shorter than her fingernails. We hug and her perfume is so strong it makes my eyes water.

So you made it down, huh? she asks.

How could I miss it? I say. I’m the G.M.

Right, she says. I figured you would be. I’m Dorey’s godmother, you know. She adores me.

Yes, Lulu, I remember.

I’d kill for a cigarette, she says, wouldn’t you? Being in a Catholic church still gives me the fucking willies. Reminds me of all those lesbo penguins.

Still sweet-lipped after all these years, I remark.

I try, Lulu says, and rolls her eyes. Think anyone’ll mind if I light up in here?

Hell no, I tell her. The Catholic Church now actively encourages smoking in church, just to try and bring stray lambs back into the fold!

Lulu laughs and gives me a kiss through the air and says, Love your hair color.

Thanks, I tell her. I like yours too. What there is of it.

My new approach is just to cut off all the damn gray.

How are you? I ask her.

Like the Ya-Yas, she says: Simply mahvelous, dahling. Couldn’t be better.

Oh God, you can smell her perfume throughout the entire church. Her makeup is perfectly done, her blush applied like a Lancôme ad. Isn’t she going to just die standing in those heels for the whole ceremony? I want to run and get her a chair.

Calm down, I think. You do not have to take care of Lulu.

I hear Mama squeal, and I turn to see Willetta and Chaney slip in through the side door of Divine Compassion. Willetta is wearing one of her glorious hats and Chaney has on a suit of Daddy’s I remember from Bay’s law school graduation.

Mama crosses over to them at the same time I do. I didn’t know yall were coming! she says.

Yas’m, Willetta says, Mister Bay say we better be here.

Then Willetta gives me one of her hugs. This is the woman who invented hugs. When Letta and I hug, my arms reach right about at her sternum—that’s how tall she is. She hugs me with every cell of her body.

Oooh, Miz Siddy, I done missed you so much! It ain’t the same just talkin on the phone. Babygirl, you looks
good
. You looks real good.

Willetta still smells the same: like Lipton tea and Ajax. As far as I’m concerned, if you could bottle that smell, all the companies that make Xanax, Prozac, and Valium would be out of business. You could just open
the bottle and smell Willetta and never feel panicked or depressed again.

Chaney takes my hand in his and says, We sure glad to see you, Miz Siddy. Been too long. You be lookin healthy.

He has gray curling through his hair and he is more stooped over than the last time I’d seen him. Even though I call them twice a month, I never realized they were actually getting old. Time is a strange thing when you live so far away from your home soil.

Mid-afternoon light shines through a large stained glass above the baptismal font. Even though that glass has been there forever, seeing it in that particular October afternoon light, it looks all new to me. Like I’ve never seen it before. In blues and purples, it’s a window of Our Lady holding Baby Jesus. The infant has a round baby belly and the slightest of dimples. The Virgin looks as holy as ever, but I have never noticed the sadness in her eyes before. They are eyes that have seen all the suffering in the world and have managed to still stay open.

Maybe that is a new stained glass
, I think,
I don’t remember those eyes. Maybe some artist has changed those eyes.

Monsignor Messina appears just like priests do, silently, out of nowhere. Short and chubby as ever, he smiles at us and actually reaches up and knuckles Baylor’s head the way he used to do when we were little. Monsignor Messina was a green young priest when he was first sent to our parish. Back then he was in the
shadow of Monsignor O’Ryan (or “Pig-face,” as we lovingly called him). Pig-face was the man of God who snowed Mama for awhile with the idea of becoming a saint right here on earth. But Monsignor Messina was the kind of priest who always reminded me of spaghetti dinners and bright purple and gold satin robes and Blessed Virgins all smothered in jewelry and flowers.

Then I am holding Lee in my arms, with her body facing out so all can witness her baby beauty. Her baptismal gown falls in perfect folds against my hip. This is a princess baptism. My mother is recording it all on the video recorder. I feel Lee’s tiny, fragile hand curve over my finger. I wonder who held me like this when I was baptized. I can’t remember my godmother. Surely it must have been one of the Ya-Yas. Lee’s godfather stands next to me, a shy CPA, one of Melissa’s brothers. He looks to me for his cues.

Monsignor Messina pours the holy water over Lee’s baby head. She lets out an indignant little cry as the water drips over her sweet, defenseless brow.

May you be born again in the spirit, Monsignor Messina says.

He anoints her with oil. He touches her eyes: May your eyes be open to the beauty of God’s world all around you. He touches her ears: May your ears hear the sound of God’s voice and the comfort of His words.

Her
, I silently correct him.
Her
words.

Then he asks Melissa’s brother and me: Will you care for Siddalee Durant Walker’s soul in a world filled with storm and temptation?

Yes I will, I answer out loud. I think,
I will love you, little baby, I will do my best to protect you from harm. I will not be able to stop you from suffering, but I will do my best to protect you from deliberate cruelty.

The smell of the Knights of Columbus BBQ dinner is drifting over from the parish hall. It mixes in with the age-old smell of incense and prayer books in the church. The Saturday afternoon light pours in through the stained-glass window. Little Shep snaps a million pictures, his flash popping in our faces. Mama stalks the baptismal font with her video recorder like she’s a professional documentary maker. She always loved Super-8s, but she really flipped once she discovered home video recorders.

Now Baylor stands with his hands clasped in front of him and he cries. Daddy cries too and does not try to wipe away the tears. Lulu puts on her sunglasses. Then Lee starts crying. At first it is only little whimpers and I softly pat her back. But then she cranks it up to rock-concert level. She is gasping and her little body convulses with the sobs. So much stimulation, I think. She can’t relax.

I turn her face away from the flash and the video camera and hold her against me. I can feel the tender pressure of her head against my breast. Mama makes a frantic gesture for me to turn Lee back around to face
the camera, but I ignore her. Finally my godchild begins to calm down. She is tired, I think, this is a big day for her. Her gown is all wadded up and people can no longer witness her little sacred face. She is offstage now and soon she grows very quiet and starts to nod off. Mama steps forward and tries to straighten the baptismal gown, but Daddy reaches out and pulls her back. She winces as though he has slapped her, and then she glares at me as she angrily flicks off the video recorder. I can see her mouth say something to me, which I choose to think is just a little prayer.

I make myself breathe slowly. I begin to feel the beating of my heart. I feel Lee’s young heartbeat.
I feel your life, baby girl. Can you feel mine?
Then I begin to feel the beating of each one of their hearts: Baylor’s, Little Shep’s, Lulu’s, Daddy’s, Mama’s, Letta’s, Chaney’s. All of our hearts beating in concert. I remember the picture at Buggy’s house when we were little: the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the crown of thorns, the blood dripping out. The heart cracked open again and again and again. The heart utterly open. A tree could grow out of a cracked heart, tears giving moisture to the dry places so the roots can live. Mama and the Ya-Yas:
Spring Creek has always been in a dry parish and it’s our job to moisten it up!

And I realize for the first time in my life: All their longing was pure! My parents stand in front of me, two people growing old. Mama in her aqua outfit. Daddy in black dress shoes. Where are his cowboy boots? All their longing was pure. All the longing was for the
Spirit. It got trapped in the bottle, but some of the pure longing got through. That is why we are standing here in the sacrament of this moment.

I feel a hairline fracture of pain in my heart. Can I continue to breathe or will I have to reach for my inhaler? I can see the outline of Daddy’s in his shirt pocket. Keep breathing, keep breathing with baby Lee. And I feel it: the sweet pure longing of each of us, still intact. Our Lady of Divine Compassion, no wonder you look so sad. My family stands in a circle around me. All the innocence, the old woundings. It grows so quiet. I feel my godchild’s breathing, but it is also the breathing of parched babies in drought-stricken lands. I feel each member of my family’s breath dropping in and out, until it seems like we are all part of one giant bellows. And all the suffering spirals down into one shaft of sunlight, which shines through one stained glass window in Thornton, Louisiana.
This is what I come home to.
I do not have to crawl across the desert on my knees. I do not have to swim through turbulent oceans to stop the drownings. All I have to do is watch and pray, and love what I love. I can hold the baby and not hurt her. I can hold them all and not hurt them. Not save them, not hurt them, just hold them.

And then Baylor catches my eye. And we are standing perfectly balanced on a tractor inner-tube at Little Spring Creek. Perfectly balanced and the sky is a big blue dome above us and there is room for everything—for every thought, for every feel
ing, for every speck. And I catch his eye back and he winks, and Mama is bringing him home from the hospital and I am four years old talking on the phone to Aunt Jezie and I hang up the receiver and walk toward him. And I see him in her arms and the sun is hitting the rag rug next to the hassock. Baylor is so tiny. Mama says, Count his fingers, Sidda. I proudly count: One two three four five. Mama says, You are so smart, Siddalee, you are brilliant.

I’m not brilliant, Mama. I can’t lead you out of the darkness. But I will not close my heart.

Mama and Daddy are the last to leave the post-baptism party. Daddy hugs me goodbye and when the hug ends, we’re both teary-eyed. Love you, babe, he says. Lemme know if you need anything, hear?

It strikes me for the first time how much my father cries now that he is older.

As my mother hugs me, she says out loud, You’re a gutsy woman, Siddalee. Then as she hugs me tighter, she hisses, You ruined my entire baptism video!

What? I ask, stepping back, only mildly shocked.

You deliberately turned that darling baby girl away from me so I could not shoot her.

Mother, I respond, I turned her away because she was crying. I was trying to comfort her.