EXCERPT 1:
Katrina had destroyed my city in August of 2005. Afterward, she huffed away like a diva without a backward glance. Her coming and going from the city I loved had proved more dramatic than my own.

I paid the cabbie for the wild ride and then stood on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the mausoleum. My hands shook when I slipped the strap of my purse over my shoulder. My knees wobbled, but I remained upright. My heart thudded like a bass drum in a second line parade. 

Thudding so hard it cut off my breath. Paralyzed, I stood in the merciless Louisiana sun. 

Humidity clung to my skin like olive oil on a sweet potato before roasting in the oven. My reflection in the mausoleum’s glass doors showed a tidy dress, tidy shoes, tidy hair. 

Outside, calmness. 

Inside, untidy screams.

I swallowed back a ball of fear, took a first unsteady step, then another. Plodding, I entered the building and nodded to the guard at the reception desk. 

“Need help finding a loved one?” He scrutinized me as though he recognized me. 

“No, thank you.” 

“Sign in here.” He rose and pointed to an open guest book.

I wrote Jane and started to write Maucele beside it to prove I had every right to be there but changed my mind and scribbled Landry instead.

My father had told me where to find Mark. I searched for the correct aisle. My leather flats shruffed against the hard marble floors. Mausoleums reminded me of morgues I’d seen on TV, not burial grounds. A collection of people who were dead—they couldn’t hear if I made noise. But I continued on my tiptoes just in case. 

Finding the correct hallway, I let go of a raggedy breath and claimed a seat in the middle of a long, cold granite bench, then extracted a week-old envelope from my purse. 

Did the words inside hold the truth of what Mark wanted? 

Clutching the official message, I fought against the impulse to wad up the paper and throw it at him, the same way I’d thrown heated words the last time before we parted. Then, he’d been alive. Able to fight back. I wanted him to fight now.

Anguish spewed like liquid from a shaken can of Nehi soda. “NOoooo! NOoooo! NOoooo! Dammit, Mark.”  

“Miss Landry, are you okay?” The guard’s voice echoed down the wing of the mausoleum along with the sound of footsteps beating a path in my direction. “Ma’am?” 

“I apologize. Grief hit me.”

“Excuse me? Who hit you?” He frowned as though I were a naughty child. 

“Never mind. I’ll be quiet.” My inner pain fought for further release, but my outer calm took control.

His eyebrows became a unibrow. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you are unable to contain yourself.”

“It won’t happen again.” I waved apologetically. 

His toe-to-head scan told me he was trying to decide if he had a dangerous mental case and needed backup.

 

EXCERPT 2:
“So what were the two of you doing?” Suzanne parked on the end of the bench next to me, sandwiching me between her and Maggie like a prisoner with a security detail. 

“Praying,” Maggie snipped. “You might try it sometime.”

“Praying for Mark is a waste of time. We all know he was a saint.” Suzanne’s gaze lifted upward. “And Maggie, don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”

“I took a moment of silence.” I had started to pray… Fact was, I gave up on God when Momma died. But it looked like I needed to renew His acquaintance. The indisputable data proved I needed my friends way more than they needed me, and His assistance might come in handy now. 

“Mark wouldn’t want all this maudlin crap. You know how he hated cemeteries. He’d want us to celebrate. Gather a second line band, wave our hankies, and parade through the Quarter. You know, Mark always blamed himself for… I hate to say ‘our break-up,’ but that fits.”

“Mark would want us to celebrate.” Maggie’s eyes flickered, and I recognized Catholic good-girl guilt. 

“I’m feelin’ the need for a beer. Cold. Longneck bottle. It’s not every day this woman gets to gossip with her two oldest, bestest friends.” Suzanne chuckled.

Dizziness pulled me under. Emotionally drunk, I blinked, searching for my focus. I checked my watch. I could manage one drink. 

Fate had brought us together again. That had to be a positive sign, yeah? 

“I don’t know about a beer because I haven’t eaten.” They didn’t know it would be my first real meal in days. My traitorous stomach rumbled loudly. “I’d love to have a po’boy at Brunnings.”

“Oh, darlin’, that’d be nice, but PK, it closed.” Suzanne’s tone was that of an old book being snapped shut. 

“PK?”

“Everything with her is either BK or PK. I don’t mean Burger King or Preacher’s Kid. It’s before Katrina or post Katrina.” Maggie sighed and stood. “Let’s go.” 

“I hear a brew calling my name.” Suzanne moonwalked out to the hallway. Her performance would make Michael Jackson proud. Her fingers motioned “follow me.”  

I grabbed my purse and trailed after Suzanne in Pied-Piper mode. Maggie brought up the rear.

The door chimed as we left the building. Pulling sunglasses from my purse, I dropped the letter. Bending to scoop it up, Maggie got there at the same time as me, and we bumped heads.

“My goodness, you’re hardheaded.” Maggie rubbed the injured spot.

I snatched the paper from Maggie’s grasp and quickly leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Sorry. As for hardheaded, you don’t know the half of it.”

 

EXCERPT 3:
“You’re awful silent over there. I knew you’d come. Didn’t know exactly when. But that knowing feeling hit me, so I asked the security guard to keep a lookout. Gave him a photo your dad sent me. And Jane, I wanted you to ride with me to tell me why you came now.” 

Maggie’s directness slapped me. Could I say I needed proof my father had remained sober for the last nine months? Could I say I needed a mother for my son? Could I say that cancer hadn’t skipped a generation? 

Words stuck in my throat. I couldn’t say my diagnosis is fatal. I hadn’t quite accepted reality yet. “Well, ah–” I rambled and then clutched the seat to steady myself against Maggie’s mad-dash driving.

“How long are you going to stay? Will we ever see you again? What can I do to make you stay? What could possibly be so important in Salem or Boston? We’re here. Your daddy’s here.” Maggie’s voice rushed and steadily rose. “Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph, your Momma’s buried here. I’m the one who puts flowers on her grave.” 

I couldn’t process the words she threw at me. 

“And another thing,” Maggie continued, “I don’t want Suzanne hurt. When you and Mark went away after high school, she wandered around like a lost child abandoned. Then Mark came back, but you didn’t.” Maggie’s tone hardened. “She loves you like a sister. Still misses you.” Maggie shook her head. “She’s reading all sorts of new-age, self-help crap, but…so far, no cure.”

Surprise hit me harder than Maggie’s tone. 

Suzanne had felt abandoned? 

I was well acquainted with abandonment. Abandoned when my mother died. Abandoned when my father drank himself into a stupor. Abandoned when Mark joined the Army, then again when our marriage failed… I had inflicted that kind of pain? 

Assumptions made an ass of me. I had always assumed when Mark returned home Suzanne would take his side. Mark got our friends in the divorce. It never dawned on me that Suzanne would want the same relationship we’d had since childhood.

I clutched the door handle. My head pounded with the erratic beat of a thousand out-of-sync drums. I slipped deeper into numbness. 

Somehow, I had to come clean to Maggie and Suzanne.

Would they come to my aid? 

Would Maggie be my savior? 

 

EXCERPT 4:
Sonny Boy sat up. I twisted around and sat cross-legged on the bed. Suzanne lounged with her shoulder against the door jamb and her arms folded. Skinny jeans accentuated her long legs, and the combination of jeans and white t-shirt made me think of her skipping rocks down by the river. Evidently, Maggie had gotten ahold of her toes last night. They shined bubblegum pink.

“She’s from Terrebonne parish. She made breakfast. She and I decided not to wake you. Sonny Boy was hungry. Oh, and Maggie left early. I think she’s rejoining the world. She’s off to run errands. A first since…” 

I reached and poked a spot on my son’s side. “There’s your Cajun bone. You’re a Landry. Don’t ever forget it. Now, go brush your teeth and I’ll inspect when you’re done.”

Sonny Boy slid down from the bed. The second his feet hit the floor, he fisted his hands and scampered from the room like he intended to leap and fly—the bathroom was only two doors down the hall. 

“He hasn’t broken anything, has he?” I asked. “I’ll pay for it.” 

Suzanne chuckled. “I put away the priceless items—I was expecting a dog. I’m more worried about him falling in the pool than him breaking anything.”

“He can swim.”

“You said that yesterday. Really?”

“Threw him into a canal. Said, ‘Happy birthday, boy. Swim or be gator bait.’” I mimicked a man from our past. 

“My dad.” Suzanne crossed the room. Moving the curtains aside, she opened the shutters. Sunlight poured in. She sat in the wingback chair near the window, curling her feet under her. 

“Actually, he took floating lessons after he learned to walk,” I explained. “However, I don’t want him around the pool unsupervised. But should he fall in, he can swim from the deep to the shallow end. He’s tough, my little man.” I gathered the robe from the foot of the bed and pulled it on. 

“Athletic. Hmm. Not a trait from you. You hate to break a sweat. Does he get his natural athletic ability from his daddy?”

I jerked my attention to Suzanne. Had I revealed something last night in my drunkenness?