Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Read Online Free PDF Page A

capture their image. Smiling. Wind blowing their hair. Not leaning on each other, heading to trouble, but standing side by side, holding hands like in an old-time photograph.
    Sidda drove off the ferry and headed west toward the Olympic Peninsula. An hour or so into the drive, she began passing vast corporate “managed forests,” where the land had been logged, burned, then replanted. Through small towns with sad-looking houses with Day-Glo orange signs in windows which read, T HIS F AMILY S UPPORTED BY T IMBER D OLLARS . She drove past wide, angry swaths of clear-cuts where bleached-looking tree stumps and gnarled branches looked like human bones.
    She passed a poster in a gas-station window that showed three generations of robust loggers. The caption read E NDANGERED S PECIES /S UPPORT T HEM . At one point, Sidda almost drove off the road at the sight of a logging truck, stacked high with old trees, rolling past her. On the front of the truck a tattered spotted owl hung in effigy from the grille.
    Late that afternoon, Sidda turned onto the dirt road that led to May’s cabin. It was an old white clapboard from the thirties set up off Lake Quinault, on the edge of the rain forest. From its deck, Sidda could see almost the entire lake. To her right she could see the lush growth of the Quinault River’s floodplain as it disappeared into rugged, snow-laced Olympic peaks. The sky was gray, and it was so quiet she could hear a loon as it surfaced on the flat water.
    Inside, the cabin was dark and cozy, with old knotty pine paneling that gave off a golden glow even on the darkest Northwest days. A kitchen, one sizable bedroom, and one great room lined in windows and glass doors that openedout onto a deck comprised the building. Along one wall in the great room were photos of May Sorenson and her family. Sidda felt welcomed by the sight of books and overstuffed chairs, and the jigsaw puzzle of Venice that was still set up on a small table in the corner.
    After she had hauled her bags in from the car, Sidda made a cup of tea and immediately began to regret her decision to get away. She itched to call her agent and check in. She kicked herself for not having brought along a cellular phone. She was too used to being plugged in.
    Once she’d forced herself not to run out in search of a telephone, she decided to go out to the car and bring in an unfamiliar box that Connor had put in at the last minute. She set the box in the middle of the big room of the cabin, on an old pink-and-faded-green hooked rug, in front of the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck overlooking the lake. The doors leading to the deck were open, and a light breeze blew in off the lake.
    Hueylene was circling the box, sniffing with curiosity. It bore Vivi’s handwriting and Pecan Grove as a return address. Following Hueylene’s example, Sidda too began to circle the box. She thought about bending down and sniffing it, along with her dog, but stopped herself. That thing is emitting Mama-rays, she thought. It had FedEx stickers plastered on it, and the word “Fragile” written large in Vivi’s hand.
    Sidda leaned down and picked up the box. She leaned her ear to it. Not ticking at least. It weighed perhaps twenty pounds, and didn’t have any odor. She placed it on the table and walked into the kitchen, where she slowly drank a glass of water. Then she walked back into the big room and stared at the box again.
    Hueylene went to the door and stood with her ears pricked up and tail wagging, waiting to go outside.
    Sidda changed into her swimsuit and led Hueylene down a set of rough steps until she reached the dock that juttedout into the lake. She stuck her foot into the water and immediately pulled it back out. She was not about to dive into such cold water. It invited a heart attack for any Southerner. So she sat on the dock and watched her dog run, delighted, up and down the dock, until the cocker came to rest at a spot beside her.
    Back inside the