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

cabin, Sidda unpacked the books she’d brought—from Chekhov to Cirlot’s Dictionary of Symbols to a biography of Clare Boothe Luce to a book called On the Way to the Wedding: Transforming the Love Relationship. She unpacked her clothes: khaki pants, shorts, some linen shirts, a pair of sweatpants, and one voluminous soft white cotton nightgown. She unpacked the talismans she always traveled with: the feather pillow she’d had since infancy and could not part with; the framed engagement photo of her and Connor; a frayed stuffed bear that May Sorenson had given her at the first staged reading of Women on the Cusp ; a Ziploc bag with two cotton bolls grown on Pecan Grove Plantation; and a tiny antique vial found in a shop in London.
    Sidda arranged her talismans on the mantel above the fireplace, along with a sanctuary candle with a picture of Saint Jude, and one with a picture of our Lady of Guadalupe surrounded by roses.
    She put away fresh pasta, apples, cantaloupes, and Gouda cheese; she refrigerated the bottles of champagne; and she laid out Hueylene’s travel bed.
    But she did not touch her mother’s box. Not yet.
    It was not until she woke up in the middle of the night and could not fall back asleep that Sidda gave up trying to resist Vivi’s box. She pulled on her robe, a poodle-and-rose-patterned creation that Wade Coenen had whipped up from a 1950’s chenille bedspread, which made her feel a little like Lucille Ball on acid. It had begun to rain, and the air was chilly. August in the Northwest was like November in Louisiana.
    Hueylene followed her from the bedroom into the greatroom. Sidda stood frozen for a moment. Then she pulled the lamp that hung over the table closer to the tabletop, sat down, and opened her mother’s box.
    What she found inside was a large, heavy-duty plastic garbage bag sealed carefully with strapping tape. Taped to the bag was an envelope with Sidda’s name written on it.
    Inside the envelope was a letter, written not on Vivi’s monogrammed stationery, but on Garnet Bank and Trust Company notepaper, which always sat next to the phone in Vivi’s kitchen. The note looked like it had been dashed off quickly, then ripped from the pad before Vivi could change her mind.
    Pecan Grove Plantation
Thornton, Louisiana
August 15, 1993
5:30 A.M.
    Siddalee—
    Good God, child! What do you mean, you “don’t know how to love”? Do you think any of us know how to love?! Do you think anybody would ever do anything if they waited until they knew how to love?! Do you think that babies would ever get made or meals cooked or crops planted or books written or what Goddamn-have-you? Do you think people would even get out of the bed in the morning if they waited until they knew how to love?
    You have had too much therapy. Or not enough. God knows how to love, Kiddo. The rest of us are only good actors .
    Forget love. Try good manners. —Vivi Abbott Walker
    P.S. Have decided to send along some Ya-Ya memories. You lose this album or give it to The New York Times and I’ll put a contract out on you. I want it returned to me safely and in impeccable condition.
    P.P.S. Don’t think this means I’m giving you all my secrets. There is more to me than you will ever know.
    Sidda put the letter back inside its envelope, as though to restrain all her mother’s question marks, exclamations, and italics. She turned instead to the plastic garbage bag.
    From the bag she pulled a large brown leather scrapbook, stuffed fat with papers and various little items falling out. Its spine was cracked, and the leather was scratched and scarred. It appeared that the album had been taken apart and rebound after more pages had been added, and that those extra pages could barely be contained within the binding. The cover of the book was edged in gold, and in the lower right-hand corner, embossed in gold, was the name Vivi Walker.
    The first thing Sidda did was to smell the leather. Then she held the album to her chest and