Temple Secrets: Southern Humorous Fiction: (New for 2015) For Lovers of Southern Authors and Southern Novels (35 page)

Rose stops to eat a piece of peach from Violet’s bowl. The taste is so completely delicious, she takes another piece and then another.

There’s nothing in the world as rich and soulful as Georgia peaches
, Rose thinks, as peach juice runs down her chin.

“Welcome home,” Queenie says, and her words sound as sweet as the peaches. They exchange a hug full of history.

Rose and Queenie have waited a long time for a moment like this. A time when neither of them is haunted by secrets or shame, and they can completely be themselves. After Violet worked through all the hurt feelings with Queenie, the two women became practically inseparable. Violet spends part of every day learning the Gullah family traditions from Old Sally, as well as creating some special teas and tinctures she plans to sell at her shop.

On her way to the side porch, Rose admires Old Sally’s new window seat that has replaced the table and been expanded to her specifications. Colorful cushions have been added for Old Sally to sit on while she nurtures her collection of beautiful and ordinary things, as diverse as the people they represent, including the ones who now live in this house. The sandcastle Rose gave Old Sally nearly thirty years before sits in the center and next to it Rose places the second key.

Later, she plans to talk to Queenie and Violet about what to do with what’s in the safe deposit box at the bank, but she has a feeling a big bonfire on the beach may be in their future. She will also tell them that it was Edward who was releasing the secrets and why he felt the need to do it. She likes to think that her brother had good intentions at heart. She only wishes she had known this side of him.

After admiring the view again, Rose walks out the side door to find Old Sally and Katie sitting on the wraparound porch. At almost 102 years of age, Old Sally reminds Rose of the tree in the Temple garden. She has watched over all of them over the years and has also been one of the biggest blessings in Rose’s life. When she sees Rose, Old Sally smiles, igniting the love Rose has for this woman.

Rose flashes back to herself as a girl, leaning into Old Sally’s wide hip, her strong, brown arms wrapped around Rose.
Those memories make up for everything her mother did or didn’t do. As long as you feel love from somewhere, it’s enough,
she decides.

Katie holds Old Sally’s hand. Seeing the two of them together makes Rose smile.
This is what family is all about,
she thinks. Generations all under one roof, honoring and appreciating each other.

“Old Sally’s going to teach me some of her spells at the same time she teaches Violet,” Katie says.

“That’s terrific,” Rose says. She wonders what her mother would have to say about Katie learning what she considered “voodoo.”

Katie lets go of Old Sally’s hand and walks over to Rose and kisses her on the cheek. “I’ll leave you two alone and go help Angie,” she says.

Rose nods, noticing how pink Katie’s cheeks have already become.
This move is going to be good for her, too,
Rose thinks.

As Katie walks away, Old Sally stands to greet Rose. She moves more slowly these days. On the night of the fire, she seemed to pass the mantle to Violet. Yet her eyes remain bright. They embrace. For years whenever she and Old Sally embraced, Rose felt like a little girl in the arms of the Great Mother. This is the woman who not only baptized her with the sprinkler bottle while doing the ironing when Rose was a girl, but also the woman who sprinkled her with love throughout her life. But it’s her turn to take care of Old Sally now, with the help of Queenie and Violet, who were also raised in the shade of this grand woman.

Old Sally relaxes in Rose’s arms. Confirmation comes from somewhere deep inside that Rose has been moving toward this moment her entire life. A new feeling washes over her like a gentle ocean wave. She is home. She is finally home.

Thank you for reading!

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed
Temple Secrets.
I want you to know that I really loved writing this story. I especially loved the characters Queenie and Old Sally. I have actually missed spending time with them now that they have journeyed out into the world.

As an author, I rely on your feedback to complete the circle as the story travels from writer to reader and then back again. To be honest, you’re the reason I write. So tell me what you liked, what you loved, even what you wish I’d done differently. You can also let me know if you want more stories like this one. I’d love to hear from you!

You can write me at
[email protected]
or visit my website at:
https://www.susangabriel.com
.

Finally, I want to ask a favor.

If you’re so inclined, I’d love a review of
Temple Secrets.
Whether you loved it or not, I’d appreciate your feedback. Reviews can be tough to come by these days, and you, the reader, have the power to champion a book or ignore it.

Whether you bought this book at
Amazon
,
Nook,
Google Books
, iTunes, Kobo or elsewhere, you can review it there.

If you want, you can tell potential readers what you liked most about the book, what interested or surprised you, or whatever you feel like writing. It doesn’t have to be long.

Thanks so much for reading
Temple Secrets
and for spending time with me.

In gratitude,

Susan Gabriel

P.S. You can see all of my books, along with excerpts, videos, etc. at my Amazon author page here:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BLYGTW
or at my website
https://www.susangabriel.com

Acknowledgments

After twenty years of writing, I have a tremendous amount of gratitude any time one of my books makes it out into the world. I am especially grateful for my readers, who have told me what my books have meant to them, and encouraged me with emails and reviews.

For information on the Gullah culture, I am indebted to Bill Moyers’ story on the PBS show, NOW, as well as an article called Gullah: A Vanishing Culture, by Paige Williams, in the Charlotte Observer, along with other research.

I appreciate the input from my first readers: Anne Alexander, Krista Lunsford, Josephine Locklair, Jeanette Reid, Ann Bohan, Liz Gunn, Kendrick Wronski and Jane Kennedy. Thanks to Nancy Purcell and the Quotation’s writers group in Brevard, NC, who gave me feedback on the first chapter of
Temple Secrets
. I also appreciate the feedback given to me by my literary agent, Mary Grey James.

Special thanks to my partner in life, Anne, who has believed in and supported me through the ups and downs that are an inevitable part of a writer’s life.

P.S.

Insights, Interview & Reading Group Guide

About the author

--- Meet Susan Gabriel

About the book

--- Interview with Susan Gabriel

--- 13 Things I Reveal About Myself in the Writing of Temple Secrets

--- Reading Group Guide

--- Other Books by Susan Gabriel

About the Author

Susan Gabriel is an acclaimed writer who lives in the mountains of North Carolina. Her novel,
The Secret Sense of Wildflower
, earned a starred review ("for books of remarkable merit") from Kirkus Reviews and was selected as one of their Best Books of 2012.

She is also the author of
Grace, Grits and Ghosts: Southern Short Stories
and other novels. Discover more about Susan at
SusanGabriel.com
.

Interview with Susan Gabriel

This interview is based on the
From the Front Porch: Interview Series
on Susan’s blog, where she interviews other writers, musicians and artists about their creative lives. It also contains two questions that are specifically about
Temple Secrets
.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I am a writer of mostly novels, and I’ve been writing for nearly twenty years. I grew up in the South (Knoxville, Tennessee) and for years, I swore that I would NEVER ever write southern fiction. I had enough crazy “characters” in my gene pool to not want to spend any time there. But as they say: NEVER SAY NEVER. It was after living in Colorado for three years, that I discovered what a Southerner I actually was.

I live in the mountains of North Carolina, ten minutes from a national forest that has a river that I love to walk along. I am happily married, a mom of two grown daughters, and two rescue dogs and two cats who I also consider family members.

How did you get the idea for
Temple Secrets
?

Right after I returned from Colorado with my newly reclaimed Southern identity, I wanted to write another southern novel. I had already written
The Secret Sense of Wildflower
several years before, which I considered a fluke, as in my “only” southern novel. This was back in my “never” stage, also known as the doofus stage. Sometimes our destiny keeps tapping us on the shoulder until it finally throws a brick.

I started writing
Temple Secrets
before
The Help
came out. I say this because they are similar novels, dealing with some of the same themes. I imagine Kathryn Stockett (author of
The Help
) was working on her story about the same time I was working on mine. Perhaps we drank from the same iced tea pitcher or something, I don’t know.

The seed of the idea occurred to me at least 25 years before when I lived in Charleston, South Carolina. One of my South of Broad friends told me about housekeepers she knew who still worked for the same families that their ancestors had been slaves for. This intrigued me. I had already written a novel based in Charleston—one that I am putting the finishing touches on now—so I wanted to set
Temple Secrets
someplace different. Savannah is like a sister to Charleston and somewhere I’ve visited many times, so I decided to set it there.

With that in mind, I sat down and began to write and there the characters were, like they’d been waiting for me all those years to tell their story: Queenie, Iris, Violet, Rose, Spud and Edward. And of course, Old Sally. I watched and wrote as their lives played out in front of me.

Several of my novels have humor in them, and this one is no exception. At least a couple of early readers of the manuscript tried to steer me away from Iris’ flatulence—real southern ladies do not talk of such things—but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to edit it out. Iris’ condition was a result of Gullah folk magic. Something she could have prevented if she’d just been a little nicer. 

The ending, I think, is symbolic of what I think our culture needs to heal. Diversity in age, lifestyle, ethnicity and experience. Acceptance of all kinds of family.

Who is your favorite character in
Temple Secrets
?

I loved all of these characters, even Iris and Edward. They had reasons for being who they were, and I loved that Edward got some redemption at the end. I guess I would say that Queenie was my absolute favorite. I just loved her sense of humor and her resilience. I loved writing her dialogue. Old Sally was also a favorite, too. We desperately need old wise women in this world we live in, so the least I can do is put them in my stories.

Of course I also loved Violet and how she wanted to be an agent of change and open a tea shop. I love tea, by the way, and make a pot of it every morning when I write. (Organic Assam is my favorite.) Rose was the prodigal daughter returning, and she carries some of my experience of moving from the United States West back to the Southeast. I adored Spud, too, the vegetarian butcher. We humans are so fascinating with our paradoxes.

So, yes, I loved them all, even with their flaws. When you work on a manuscript for several years to get it ready for publication, it’s important that you find the story interesting and the characters compelling, otherwise it’s easy to lose interest. I never lost interest with this story, and I am honored whenever anyone chooses to read it.

When are you the most creative?

The mornings are my most creative time. I am usually alone, and I am usually working on whatever my current novel is. A typical morning for me is to write from around 9 am, to around 12:30. Then in the afternoons I work on the business end of writing: answering emails, creating blog posts, updating my facebook and goodreads author pages, etc.

When are you the least creative?

Late at night, or any day when I have a lot going on. I am also less creative when I am teaching writing classes, although I love to teach! All my creativity seems to go into whatever group of writers I’m meeting with. I am not very good at multi-tasking. I tend to focus on one thing at a time.

Share a favorite quote.

It is hard to only pick one. I love quotes. Here are two by Carl Jung: “Small and hidden is the door that leads inward.”

And: “You must go in quest of yourself, and you will find yourself again only in the simple and forgotten things. Why not go into the forest for a time, literally? Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books.”

And then one from Maya Angelou: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

What creative project are you working on now?

I am working on a sequel to
The Secret Sense of Wildflower
(southern historical fiction) that takes place 13 years later. And I’m editing a new novel of mine about a liberal family in Charleston, SC during the Civil Rights era. I also have a third novel that is finished and in a first draft, and a fourth that is three-quarters of the way finished that needs to be finished and then polished. In other words, I have plenty of creative projects waiting on their turn, as well as the new ones that I haven’t even thought about yet.