Homesick (27 page)

With all that unscheduled time on the farm, too, Austin is discovering another talent: he’s learning how to be a big brother. When he and Anabella were younger, he seemed a little taken aback by his sister’s presence; every so often I’d see a look on his face that read very plainly,
A sister? What do you mean, a sister? Can’t you send her back?
But in these last few visits he’s been markedly kinder with her, patient and caring. They fill their days with terrific kid stuff—the blow-up pool, the trampoline, a Slip ‘n Slide whose purpose he took great pains to explain to her. The other night, when they were jumping on the bed together, he slowed down for a moment and looked at me quizzically. “You know, I can’t even remember when there was just only me,” he said. “I wonder what that was like.”

What keeps Anabella excited about Mississippi are her cousins Anne Tyler and Savannah. Back in L.A. we’re usually too busy to spend a lot of time talking about Meridian, but not a week goes by without Anabella telling some story about her cousins. These days, though, I think she’s starting to recognize that she’s the youngest of the bunch, which is why I’m glad Austin is around to look after her. Like all the other women in her family, she’s always had an independent streak; where her brother used to grow bored easily, she can lose herself for hours in imaginary games. But if there’s one thing Anabella couldn’t live without, it’s Austin. She dotes on him unconditionally: when he comes home at night after a day out with the other boys, she’s waiting by the door to wrap her arms around him and say, “That’s my brother.”

While we’re down on the farm, then, the kids lead a different life, and the very thought of it makes me grin from ear to ear. They ride horses, tumble on the trampoline, pedal paddleboats around the pond, and go scooting about the farm on golf carts with their parents. And they behave differently, too. In the city they have a backyard, but they seem to need to be entertained all the time. Here there’s no Nintendo—and they don’t miss it.

Howard and I have a little game going these days. With the state of the world as it is, I tell him I’ve decided: I want to move back here for good. I don’t really mean it—not entirely, anyway—and he knows it. He rolls his eyes and makes one of his gentle cracks about Southern ways, about the lazy days and the Waffle House cuisine.
You wouldn’t last ten minutes down here, Sela.
But he doesn’t really mean it, I tell myself—not entirely.

The other day he turned to me with a glint in his eye. “You know, this afternoon I said to Austin, ‘Your mama’s thinking maybe we should move down here to Mississippi full-time.’ “ He chuckled, winding up for the punch line. “Honey, he looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Like I was
crazy.
”

I gave him a good hard look, the kind I learned from Mama. “Howard,” I whispered—there were other people around—“don’t you mess with my Mississippi.”

But then later that night, when he didn’t know I was in earshot, I heard him talking to one of our friends after supper. He told the same story—“It was like I just told him the world was flat.” But then he continued. “So, you know, tonight I asked Anabella the same thing. And she just lit up like a candle.”

It is morning at Honeysuckle Farms, and I am standing by myself in the cool, dewy grass atop the hill behind the Rose Cottage. My mother is buried here. Someday we will all gather on this hilltop again, this time to bury Daddy. And then, years later, Berry, Jenna, Brock, and I will find our rest here, along with our husbands, wives, and children. This land, this good red earth, is ours, and we will be here forever.

My wish is that all of us should be gathered here together not just in death, but even more in life. I look out past the lakes and across the rolling fields, and think what a fine thing it will be if, a hundred years from now, little white houses have grown there like toadstools after the rain, and that in every one of them is a descendant of Annie Kate Boswell and Granberry Holland Ward. This is my gift to my family, even those I won’t live to see.

Mama, I cannot give Austin and Anabella the childhood I had. But I can give them a home down South, where the people and the countryside can nurture them as it did me. I can give them grass to run barefoot in, and rowboats, and cane poles, and tomato vines, and horse rides, and lunches under the Picnic Tree. I can give them aunts and uncles and cousins, just over the ridge, to share with them the stories that make this place home. I can work harder to give them a home in Los Angeles, where they’ll be raised to cherish above all else fairness, self-discipline, kindness to others, and devotion to family—the greatest legacy we Ward kids took from the childhood you and Daddy and our hometown gave us. I can also give them refuge here in Mississippi, in a place where somebody will always be there to take them in. And, I hope, I can give them the faith that will keep them coming back, the way their mother did years before, when they were young.

Mama, I hope that makes you as happy as it makes me.

If they say it takes a village to raise a child, it truly takes a city, state, or nation to birth a book. And while I spent so much time at the computer that I finally became familiar with the inner and outer workings of Word, without the assistance, support, and encouragement of my team, this book would have remained just a dream.

I pay tribute to the people who helped me to urge this story into the light of day and onto paper. I thank you and I love you, for I would not be writing these acknowledgments without you. . . .

Rod Dreher—my friend, who helped give structure and voice to the story I wanted to tell, and whose own Southern roots enriched the who, what, where, when, and how of the final product.

Cal Morgan—my amazing editor, who guided me back onto the path when I strayed, and who helped me in countless ways to tell the broader story through the details of my life experiences.

Joni Evans—my fabulous agent, who fought for and won me the freedom and time to tell the story that I wanted to tell.

Judith Regan—my ever-talented publisher, who started it all with an offer and followed it up with belief and support in the book that I really wanted to write.

David Seltzer—my manager, who read and critiqued the book so many times he practically has it committed to memory.

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Joe—who shared their love, their stories, and their insight into our family.

Hallie Ward—my sister-in-law, for spinning her tales, and for the love and laughter she adds to the family.

Kate and Val—raconteurs extraordinaire, who brought life and a third dimension to the colorful and eccentric side of being Southern, and who kept me hysterically laughing through much of the research portion of the book.

Jackie Moses—my assistant, whose many mad dashes to FedEx and late-night sessions combing through boxes and boxes of photos saved the day time after time.

Manny and Melanie Mitchell—for reminding me that you don’t catch brim with minnows, and a number of other good ol’ Southern notes.

Rina Freedman—for the gift of amazing wisdom and contribution to my life and thus to this book.

Patrick Sinclair—who rode in like the cavalry at the eleventh hour to lend his unique insight and perspective and sense of humor just before the book wrapped.

Carrie Wiatt—a two-time author who shared her experiences in the writing process and the perseverance required.

And finally, to my husband, Howard, who encouraged me when I was tired, who helped me when I was weary, and who found just the right turn of phrase when I was stuck.

I love y’all. . . .
Sela

Sela Ward is the recipient of two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for her work on Once & Again and Sisters, and a Cable Ace Award for her role as Jessica Savitch in Almost Golden. She recently founded Hope Village for Children, a permanent home for abused and neglected children, in Meridian, Mississippi. Sela lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and their two children, and returns frequently with her family to her Mississippi hometown.

www.selawardtv.com

Jacket design by Judith Regan and Brenden Hitt
Front jacket photographs: Sela Ward by Mikael Jansson; Sela’s daughter, Anabella, by Beth D. Carr; house by Melanie Acevedo

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted material: lyrics from “Avalon Blues” by Mississippi John Hurt, © and renewed by Wynwood Music Co., Inc. Used by permission.

HOMESICK. Copyright © 2002 by Sela Ward. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.

PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

MS Reader edition v 1. November 2002 ISBN 0-06-051670-4

Print edition first published in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

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