even the most minor of characters, and above all the humor woven throughout the work that helps us—Bernice, her characters, her readers, all of us together—thrive and survive.
But what makes a person know they’re reading a McFadden novel when reading Loving Donovan is the manner in which her ever-present resuscitation of memory and drive to connect is mirrored in the book’s ingenious structure. Told in three parts—“Her,” “Him,” and “Them”—the novel separately introduces two yearning, living, loving, fractured characters in their adolescence and sends them on their own paths of self-discovery that we know from the structure of the work are destined to converge in their adulthood.
Through the first two parts, we get to know her (Campbell’s) and his (Donovan’s) scars so intimately—and watch them strive to heal so McFaddenly—that at times we can feel them. And “Them.” We smile with Campbell as she finally wonders, somewhere in the middle of “Them,” Is this how it starts?
This must be how it starts. The sudden loss of breath and the on and off again sound of your heart in your ears. Words caught in your throat and the sudden urge to lick your lips. Wanting to look away, but wanting more just to reach across the table and place your hand on some part of him.
Our smiles widen as she admits to herself with certainty that, Yes, this is how it begins. And thanks to this reissue, so it now can begin for you.
Terry McMillan is the best-selling author of many novels, including Waiting to Exhale, Disappearing Acts, and Who Asked You? She lives in Northern California.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although this is a work of fiction, the emotions are real: pain, longing, love.
I am grateful to God, family, and friends, who constantly lift me up. Their support has been tremendous, and their love overwhelming. Thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you.
To my daughter, R’yane Azsa, who knew the years would go by so quickly? You’ve grown into such a beautiful young lady . . . I regret not having a dozen more. I love you so very much.
To my family at Dutton and the Vines agency, I am indebted and grateful.
Terry McMillan, your words of wisdom and friendship have been a source of great comfort for me. Thank you.
Pat Houser, thank you for your friendship and immense support.
To my readers, thank you for your continued support. Please keep the e-mails and letters coming; they are a constant source of joy for me.
All we need is love . . .
des-ti-ny (des-ti-nee) n. (pl. –nies) 1. Fate considered as a power. 2. That which happens to a person or thing, thought of as determined in advance by fate.
—Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 1980
The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
—W. Somerset Maugham, recalled on his death, December 16, 1965
PROLOGUE
JANUARY 2003
When she recalls that period in her life, she likens it to a piece of the hard candy she’d often enjoyed as a child. Round, colorful, tangy, sweet on the outside, and bitter at the center.
Three years had come and gone, and since then Campbell had married a wonderful man from Kentucky, given birth to a son, moved to another part of the state, taken up pottery and yoga, leased a Mercedes, and purchased a beach house in Anguilla; her daughter, Macon, had made her a grandmother, and even with all of those life changes, her heart remained the same. Her heart remained with him.
She wished she could say that she thought of Donovan only when she heard Etta James belt out “At Last,” or in the dead of night, midsummer, when it rained or snowed, or when the sun shone so brightly, it made the day too beautiful to behold.
He had been beautiful.
She wished she could say that her mind reached back to those times only when life was unbalanced and sad, but that would be an outright lie because she thought about that man even when she was happy and wrapped up tight in her husband’s arms.
She thought about him when she held her newborn son to her breast, pulled her fingers through her hair, when she sighed, sneezed, breathed.
She thought about him.
She found him on her mind when she was surrounded by silence, engulfed by noise, when she sat, walked, stood in line at the grocery store.
Nikki Giovanni must have known someone similar, because she wrote about him in “Cancers (not necessarily a love poem).”
Damn! She thought about him.
And she asked herself, would she leave? Would she leave everything she’d ever wanted and had finally gotten? Would she put all she had behind her if she opened her door one day and found him standing there, empty-handed but with a full heart?
Would she leave everything and everyone she had if he opened his mouth and simply said, “Hello. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Would she go?
Shit, she believed she would.
Her
1973–1980
AGE EIGHT
She can hear her mama in the kitchen talking loud to the walls, beating the pots, slapping her forehead with the palm of her hand, and wailing, Lord, why this man do the things he do to me!
Millie cries a little, small tears that cling to her cheeks like the tiny diamond earrings she swoons over in the JCPenney catalog. The same diamond earrings her husband Fred always promises to buy her, but never does.
When Campbell sees those tears, those wet diamonds, she thinks that they are pieces of her mama’s fragile heart her daddy went and broke again.
Millie don’t know why he act the way he do, say the things he say, and he don’t seem to know either, ’cause when she ask him, he just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Baby, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I spent the rent money, stayed out till dawn, had my hand on Viola Sampson’s knee . . . Millie, baby, I just don’t know.”
He don’t ever know, and he’s always sorry.
Sorry is what he says all the time, and whenever Millie hears those words, she behaves as if it’s the first time Fred’s been ignorant and sorry, and she spit and cuss, slap at his head and punch at his chest, holler out how much she hates him, screams she wishes he was dead, and still climbs into bed with him at night.
Luscious says Millie married Fred because Millie felt she was getting
