My Sweet Vidalia

Deborah Mantella

Description

An achievement in Southern literature and a rare, wonderful look at hope, unconditional love, and the strength of the human spirit.

On July 4, 1955, in rural Georgia, an act of violence threatens the life of Vidalia Lee Kandal Jackson’s pre-born daughter. Despite the direst of circumstances, the spirit of the lost child refuses to leave her ill-equipped young mother's side.

For as long as she is needed—through troubled pregnancies, through poverty, through spousal abuse and agonizing betrayals—Cieli Mae, the determined spirit child, narrates their journey. Serving as a safe place and sounding board for Vidalia's innermost thoughts and confusions, lending a strength to her momma's emerging voice, Cieli Mae provides her own special brand of comfort and encouragement, all the while honoring the restrictions imposed by her otherworldly status.

Vidalia finds further support in such unlikely townsfolk and relations as Doc Feldman, Gamma Gert and her Wild Women of God, and, most particularly, in Ruby Pearl Banks, the kind, courageous church lady, who has suffered her own share of heartache in their small Southern town of yesteryear's prejudices and presumptions.

My Sweet Vidalia is wise and witty, outstanding for its use of vibrant, poetic language and understated Southern dialect, as well as Mantella's clear-eyed observations of race relations as human relations, a cast of unforgettable characters, an in-depth exploration of the ties that bind, and its creative perspective. My Sweet Vidalia is a rare, wonderful, and complex look at hope, strength, the unparalleled power of unconditional love, and a young mother's refusal to give up.

Sujets

• Literary
• American literature
• Southern United States
• Georgia
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 06 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781630269609
• Langue: English

Extrait

M Y S WEET V IDALIA
M Y S WEET V IDALIA
TURNER
Turner Publishing Company
424 Church Street Suite 2240 Nashville, Tennessee 37219
445 Park Avenue 9th Floor New York, New York 10022
www.turnerpublishing.com
My Sweet Vidalia
Copyright 2015 Deborah Mantella. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
My Sweet Vidalia is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical figures, are products of the author s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situation, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Nellys Liang Book design: Kym Whitley
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mantella, Deborah.
My sweet Vidalia / Deborah Mantella. pages cm
ISBN 978-1-63026-959-3 (hardback)
I. Title.
PS3613.A577M93 2015
813 .6--dc23
2015013873
Printed in the United States of America
15 16 17 18 19 20 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my dad, who taught me to always measure twice.
C ONTENTS
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Two
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Three
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Part Four
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Part Five
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eieght
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Epilogue
P ROLOGUE

Still / adv. existing even at this time
M Y MOMMA BELIEVES ALL BABIES to be gifts from God, no matter what. But for as sure as she was in that truth she understood how, time to time, one or another of them cherubs might get lost or redirected.
Momma reckoned only the bravest of the brave dared commit to this earth, and that, irregardless of pronouncements otherwise, I was one of those.
Still - was all she d heard. Why, she wished it so hard I could almost see my reflection in her eyes.
The body doesn t always have a choice, she whispered. "But the spirit does. Ain t that right, baby girl?"

MY NAME IS CIELI MAE Jackson, birthed in 1955 on the Fourth of July to Vidalia Lee Kandal Jackson, seventeen, of Willin County, Georgia.
Of importance in this telling is that upon First Breath any omniscience is expunged. Annulled. Poof. Gone.
In plain-speak, had I but gasped, wheezed, panted, or sighed, even one little sigh, I d have no recollection of events past, present, or to come. As I never did pull that first breath I see most all of what was, what is, and what could be.
I cannot say what might have happened had I come unto Momma by way of more common channels-I can only tell what did happen-because I did not.
P ART O NE
CHAPTER ONE
F IXED BETWEEN BREASTS AND PLUMPED belly, that tattered apron bound her despite its ties dangling loose by her sides.
Glancing sideways at the crumpled cap and shredded gown, she tsk-tsked. She did what she could to keep from thinking ahead but every now and again, well, my momma-to-be just couldn t help herself.
In late March but a few months shy of her high school graduation she d dropped out. This was not unusual for a girl in these parts back then. Truth be told, most folk supposed it peculiar she had made it that far.
Irrespective of a quirky set of values and a staunch dedication to her studies my Vidalia had got herself caught. A former A+ student, she was even more confounded by the misunderstanding than the predicament itself.
JB Jackson had sworn to her there wasn t no way she could get pregnant so long s he was on top and she took nothing to drink until two hours after. Somehow she d trusted him over what she suspected.

AND SO IT CAME TO PASS that way across town, as a gaggle of her former schoolmates, survivors of Willin County High School s class of 1955, received their diplomas, my momma I-do d and JB, well, he I-reckon d.
Preacher Tidwell raced through his part of the ceremony intent only on a strong enough finish. Memaw Veta Sue looked on indifferent and Pawpaw Clyde Royce Kandal mopped at a sweat-brimmed brow with the sleeve of his faded work shirt while Granny LuLa culled tobacco from her teeth with a good-as-new toothpick.
It was barely noon when, through a spit of stale rice, Pawpaw watched his new son-in-law dump two quarts of white lightning into the clouded plastic punch bowl of cherry flavored Kool-Aid.
Pawpaw backed away, his face tight.
Paw! my Vidalia exclaimed, sidestepping a collision just in the nick of time. Something a matter?
Here now, Vida Lee, Pawpaw whisper-warned, pulling her aside. You best keep this.
My Vidalia looked back over one pale freckled shoulder exposing a slender neck, chalk-like and smooth but for the scab meant to ve been hidden by her makeshift ribbon choker. Heart aflutter, she slid the short barrel, a J-frame Chief s Special and her only dowry of sorts, into the side pocket of her borrowed wedding smock.
Her palm absorbed the warmth of the pistol s wooden handle while her fingers lingered over the chill of its blue steel frame. Though my Vidalia had never taken aim at more than a rusted tin can or a rattler, she d been a crack shot worth reckoning even as a child.
On impulse, she planted a quick kiss on Pawpaw s whiskered cheek.
Pawpaw gave the scruffy spot a pat, nodded once in her direction, and turned back to rejoin the others.
Memaw Veta Sue stood by, prickly and stiff. Shoulders squared, elbows snug to her sides, hands clasped below an ample bosom. If she relaxed she might give way like a silk slip from a bowed hanger.
We done our due here, Mister Kandal, Memaw told Pawpaw with an elbow prod to his side. We best be getting home now.
Memaw Veta Sue hadn t always been as unflappable. Why, she herself had come undone but a few years after birthing my Vidalia.
But Memaw s unraveling had less to do with the child she d had than the one she didn t. More to do with an unloving life than the one she might ve had. Despair, brought on by grace discarded, had taken hold of her mind and hardened her heart.
Since then, time, with its own peculiar set of powers and peccadilloes, pressed Memaw into a being of a cold brand of sturdy. Untouchable. Unreachable.
Lie down with dogs, Vida Lee, you re gonna wake up with chiggers, Memaw Veta Sue admonished her only child. Seemed to me she was a pinch late with that advice. My Vidalia pushed out a contorted smile. Fixing a hungry gaze upon her folks, she shrugged. Well then, Maw. Paw. I surely do thank y all for coming.
My Vidalia shook Pawpaw s hand and then, with her own still outstretched toward Memaw Veta Sue, caught one of her white rubber flip-flops in the hem of that frayed pinafore and took a tumble. It broke my heart to see Memaw step back, steeling her hold only on her own self.
Watching her walk away my Vidalia murmured, I love you, Maw, under her breath. And she did love her. She just couldn t trust her was all.
CHAPTER TWO
A LMOST BEFORE WE KNEW it there we were starting in on July. Me and my Vidalia. Me and my momma-to-be.
It d been six and a half weeks since the wedding. In all that time we hadn t seen more than a glimpse of her folks. Back there in that ramshackle vault, standing over the sorely stained, badly-nicked kitchen sink, looking out from the wrong side of that open window, my Vidalia shook her head ever so slowly. She liked to believe such a motion might dislodge any leftover supposes.
Scabs of dried caulk pocked the knotty pine-look panel surround. A nasty gray bled through a slipshod, watered-down whitewash. Just looking at the state of it all left my Vidalia with a bad case of the prickles. She wondered why JB had forbade her from asking their fair-weather landlord to hold off some on those touch ups, and I wondered why she d heeded him. Even in her condition she d have done a better job than Mister Heyhey.
Pawpaw Clyde Royce hadn t taught my Vidalia much else of value, other than the basics of a sort of carpentry, but he did instill a proper understanding of preparation as crucial to final product-more so even, than the quality or quantity of any cover-up slopped on down the road.
The post office, situated just across the street on Main, closed itself to business each weekday afternoon at three o clock. At least that s what the sign said. Some days though, things ran amuck with certain persons needing extra services or something done over, after the hour. That was all fine and good as, for the most part, no one in this town ever seemed in much of a hurry to get things right the first time around.
My Vidalia usually always finished her chores early so she might sneak out and set herself on the tipsy porch, one floor up. Ever since the first floor tenant, a just-jilted Corilyn Muckle, made her hasty departure in the middle of one starless June night some weeks past, that porch with its blue painted ceiling had been my Vidalia s most favorite place in this world.
From there she could see weeds running riot as hardy stalks of thistle and pokeweed bu