Where The Heart Is

Where the Heart Is

Not yet alone and beginning her journey, Novalee Nation, her boyfriend, Wily Jack, and her unborn baby set out to find themselves a home that has wheels. Novalee is just a teenager and has no idea what she has gotten, nor what she will be getting, herself into. This journey was the result of a mistake. She made a bad choice with an unreliable boy and it got her pregnant. She has never gone to school and can barely read a book, let alone raise a child single-handedly. Her mother left her and her father for a baseball player and went to New Orleans when she was five years old. And her father is now diseased. To begin her life with her boyfriend and their baby she has left her two best friends and is unsure of what may happen in the future. The Call for Novalee was self-driven. She went willingly and excitedly. She began upon her journey to find security for herself, her boyfriend, and their baby. She got herself a job by living in a Wal-Mart. When she first arrived in Sequoyah she and Willy stopped at a Wal-Mart to get her some house shoes. Willie gave her ten dollars to go in and buy some but when she came back outside to get in the car, he was gone. She has nothing to do and no where to go so she decides to go back inside the Wal-Mart. She nonchalantly leaves herself in the bathroom until all of the lights in side the Wal-Mart have been turned off. She develops a routine that she goes through every night until the next morning when the store re-opens. She uses the sleeping bags, eats the food and drinks, uses the shower heads from the shelf, and the alarm clocks to wake herself up, among many other things. Although she does keep a journal of what she owes Wal-Mart so that she can pay them back when she finally gets a job and some money. She proceeds to live this way for six weeks without anyone noticing. Her plan is only foiled when she goes into labor in the middle of the night and Forney, the town librarian, jumps through a plate glass window to deliver her baby (he had seen her entering the Wal-Mart through the rear of the store earlier that day and figured out that she was living there).

Novalee passed through the threshold with Thelma "Sister" Husband. Sister Husband is a woman whom Novalee encountered when she first arrived in Sequoyah. The woman mistook her for a little girl who she used to know that she commented, "Couldn't say Thelma so called me Telma. Can you say Thelma?" Novalee was a little unsure of this new territory at the time. The woman gave her a buckeye tree to take care of that was supposed to bring her good luck and a basket with some coupons in it. . Having no place to plant the tree and not wanting it to die Novalee went to Sister's house and asked if she could plant the tree there if she came back to water it and take care of it every day. Of course, Sister said yes. The day Novalee was in the hospital for her baby, Sister came and, realizing Novalee had no place to go, offered her a home. She said that her and Mr. Sprock (the man with whom she had been close for almost 30 years) just did not have enough time or energy to take of the tree. Novalee was happy to take her offer. Sister and Mr. Sprock took Novalee and her baby in and gave them a great, kind, and loving home. While she continued to live here, her relationship with Forney also grew. He became close to her daughter, Americus. Novalee also took up photography, which she later won an award for a picture of Americus she will take.

It is not to say that Novalee did not have her obstacles. She had to make difficult decisions and overcome a few temptations to get to where she is at this point in the story. Right now in the story Americus is almost five years old. When she was five months old, some people from Midnight, Mississippi sent Novalee a letter saying that her baby was an abomination--"The Wal-Mart baby." Then this couple proceeded to travel to Oklahoma and came to Sister's house trying to spread the word of God. Sister smart mouthed them and slammed the door in their faces. Later that night, the couple kid napped Americus and placed her in a nativity scene at the local church. Novalee and Forney were out getting a Christmas tree and came home to police cars all around the house. Finally the couple was tracked down and told the police where Americus was. Also right before Americus turned five years old, a tornado blew through their town, leaving people dead and injured. One of the people that were killed was Sister. She was taking a casserole over to the neighbor's