“That happens sometimes.”
“Then I wrote a poem about my mama and how I felt about her and how angry I am at her,” Jazleen said. “It just felt so good to say it. And once I could say it, it’s like I finally know that I can handle it.”
“That’s wonderful, Jazleen.”
“Would you like to hear it?”
“Your poem? Yes, I’d love to. Darlada says you’re the best poet in the whole book club.”
Jazleen waved off the compliment. “There’s all kinds of different writers in the group. I have lots of vocabulary, more than a lot of the girls. But some of them have a richness or a deepness that I can’t come close to.”
“Still, I’d like to hear your poem.”
Jazleen nodded and went to the living room where she’d left her book bag. A couple of minutes later she was back with her book group journal. She set it on the table in front of her and began leafing through it. Calla knew that she was being offered a trust that was rarely given. She silently vowed to always deserve it.
“Here it is,” Jazleen said. “I call it The Gift from God.”
She glanced up at Calla, who gave her a reassuring nod.
“I am the gift from God
That’s what she told me.
I believed it.
I love you. I need you. I don’t regret you.
That’s what she told me.
I believed it.
Then the day the choice came
Between the dealer and the daughter.
It was the dealer who got deference
And the daughter who got done.
Damaged.
Damn you.
How could you?
I am the gift of God
Given to pay down
Debt on a dirty drug deal.
You better believe it.
Some gifts get tossed.
Even a gift from God.
But inside my mama, hidden
By the glaze from a needle,
Is the love she bears for me always.
I still believe it.”
Calla didn’t know what to say. She got up from her chair and went to kneel next to Jazleen. She took the young woman in her arms and held her tightly. Sometimes only words could express and sometimes words were unnecessary.
* * *
Spring finally came to Canasta Street. The Carnaby children played stickball in the street. Old Mr. Whitten snored in the sunshine on his front porch. And the dirty gray snow that had been part of the landscape for so long magically retreated for another year.
Nathan prepared to cross the stage as a high school graduate. Calla would be there as she’d always imagined, but she would not be alone. She’d have Landry on one side and Jazleen on the other. Nathan got a full-ride scholarship to Northwestern, which was everything they had hoped for. Jazleen, too, now had college as her goal, but it would take another year at least.
Darlada had her baby, a healthy little girl. Surprisingly she’d moved in with the Gambles. Mrs. Gamble had suffered a fall late in the winter and Eunice realized that she needed help. Bringing Darlada and the baby into their household was like a tonic to the older woman and a breath of freedom for Eunice.
Early one morning Landry came knocking at Calla’s door. She was still in her bathrobe and her hair was in a towel.
“Come outside,” he said.
“What?”
“I have something to show you.”
“Let me get dressed.”
“No time for clothes. You’ve got to come right now.”
Calla followed him down the porch, out through the gate and around the fence to his backyard. There in the small plot of ground, just poking their little green shoots out of the brown earth, were the bulbs he had planted.
“It really happened,” she said. “After all the cold, dark waiting, there are really going to be full-grown flowers here.”
Landry nodded. “And I want us to be together when our daffodils all come into bloom.”
He held her hand in his and pulled her closer. “Calla, you are the most stately flower in my garden. I don’t think it would even be a garden for me without you. Do you understand my meaning? It’s pretty muddy here, but I’ll drop down on one knee if I have to.”
Calla smiled. “I understand your meaning, Landry. And my answer is yes!”
* * * * *
Dear Reader,
Karen Thomson was not looking to change the world. A stay-at-home mom with a desire to do work she liked on her own schedule, Karen utilized her education and love of books by becoming a professional book-group leader. She loved her job and was having marvelous success. Her work was personally fulfilling and she was completely satisfied with the direction of her life.
Then one day a person in her group suggested that the power of the book club was such a wonderful thing, wouldn’t it be great if they could find a way to share it with at-risk young women in the city’s urban core?
Karen thought that was an interesting idea, but she didn’t feel qualified. She wasn’t a social worker. She wasn’t a youth counselor. She wasn’t a survivor of a depressed inner-city community. She wasn’t young and she wasn’t a minority. Surely she wasn’t the person for the job.
For a year she went on with her day-to-day life as the idea percolated in the back of her mind, calling her, pushing her.
Finally she decided to do one group. Just one group, she assured herself, just to see if the concept was even feasible.
That first group was almost an homage to her own career. She remembered how she got started: how alone and isolated she’d been as a young mother, and how desperate to think about something besides babies and diapers and the cost of the light bill.
Her first group was made up entirely of teenage moms. Many, including Karen, worried that they might not have any interest at all in reading, writing or each other.
From that very first day, Literature for All of Us changed lives. To hear Karen talk about it is like listening to the witness of a miracle. Reading stories, responding to the themes presented and talking about how they pertained to their own lives had the power to alter the young people’s perception of themselves and the world around them. “Their self-esteem and self-confidence went up.” Using the literature they read as a model, Karen asked them to write poetry about themselves. “At a difficult time in their lives...they wrote the truth...and realized how much strength they had.”
Today, in collaboration with alternative high schools, GED providers and after-school programs, the organization carries the book-group model to young men and women in underserved neighborhoods impacted by poverty, violence, gangs and drugs. More than half of their clients are pregnant or parenting teens. The program not only enriches their lives, but allows them to pass on the gift of family literacy to the next generation.
If you would like to share your love of reading and the magic of its impact on your life, please check out the website literatureforallofus.org or write to Literature for All of Us, 2010 Dewey Avenue, Evanston, IL 60201.
Volunteers, trained book-group leaders and financial donations all help to change lives. And changing lives is changing the world.
Pamela Morsi
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ISBN: 9781460306536
MORE THAN WORDS: WHERE DREAMS BEGIN
Copyright © 2013 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Sherryl Woods is acknowledged as the author of Black Tie and Promises
Christina Skye is acknowledged as the author of Safely Home
Pamela Morsi is acknowledged as the author of Daffodils in Spring
All rights reserved. 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 publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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