by Cathy Gohlke
“I’ll show you how to do Mary.” Janice Richards again. I was tempted to peek but made myself stay put in the next room. There was a long pause, and I could imagine Janice’s portrayal—serene and smug smile, arms cradling an invisible baby, eyes daring anyone to challenge her. I pitied Celia.
“Okay, anybody else want to audition for Mary?” Celia offered, quieter now.
“Not if you care about costumes, they don’t,” Janice countered boldly. “Coltrane, I think it’s time we went home. This is all over anyhow. Let’s get our coats.”
“It’s not over, Janice,” Celia nearly whined. “We still have to finish auditions, and Mama made cookies.”
“Auditions for the minor roles. We don’t need to stay for that. Besides, we have cake at our house. Just be sure to give us plenty of lines. I don’t want to be one of those Marys that never says anything—and lines for Coltrane, too.”
“What about rehearsals?” Chester asked, seconds before the bell jingled over the front door, signaling the departure of Janice and Coltrane.
“I’ll post the schedule at the general store. We’ll rehearse Thursday afternoons—after school at the church—once Thanksgiving’s past.” Celia’s words might have reached Janice’s ears before the door closed, but I wondered. Clearly Celia tried to maintain order after that inauspicious departure, but the wind had been stolen from her sails. The rest, all but the cookies, was an uphill climb.
Chapter Forty-Eight
CELIA CONFESSED TO MISS LILL Thanksgiving morning that she’d hoped to have a whole choir of baby angels singing carols around Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. “But there’s no white robes to be had. And I was hopin’ somebody’d build a stable backdrop out of wood they had laying around. But nobody wants to give up two-by-fours, and everybody’s broke and busier than bugs, even Olney Tate. I don’t know what I was thinking, Miss Lill. I don’t even have a costume for the angel of the Lord.”
“What about an old sheet or tablecloth? I’m sure we can find something in the linen closet. We can cut something out of one of those. I’m fairly handy with a needle and thread.”
“I already asked Mama. She looked and said there wasn’t anything but Miz Hyacinth’s lace and damask tablecloths, and she’d defy the whole Union army before she’d let anybody cut those up.”
“The whole Union army?” Miss Lill chuckled.
“Her very words.” Celia sighed but didn’t dare say she’d already given the extra old linens her mama had remembered to the couple in the church shed, along with one of the pies baked yesterday for Thanksgiving. Her mama hadn’t checked the outdoor pantry yet. Celia wasn’t looking forward to that.
“I sort of hoped some dads would give up their Klan robes, but Mama said I can’t ask. It might bring on trouble. It sure seems like ‘peace on earth’ would turn those to a good use.”
Miss Lill’s breath caught and she straightened. Her eyes, full of sympathy before, flashed fear, the very reaction Celia’s mother had warned her about.
Something about that reminded Celia of the letter she was supposed to give Miss Lill—the one Ida Mae had given her. Before her mother gave her another job, she’d best run upstairs and find it, make sure she hadn’t lost it.
Thankfully, it was still there, tucked inside her schoolbook, not creased or mussed in any way. She’d withheld the letter out of love for Miss Lill, but her conscience pricked just the same. Still, she struggled. It would be awful to give her something from her rotten husband on Thanksgiving Day. Maybe this should just disappear.
“Celia! Are you up there with your nose in a book? Get down here and help your brother set the table!” Celia’s mama brooked no argument.
Celia couldn’t decide what to do with the letter. Ruining the whole of Thanksgiving seemed cruel. Later. Tomorrow or Saturday. Not today.
“Celia Percy! Did you hear me?” her mother’s call came again.
“Right away, Mama!” Celia stuffed the letter beneath her mattress. Out of sight, out of mind.
Joe and Joleen Earl arrived half an hour before dinner. Reverend Willard arrived right on time. Celia had never seen a table laden with so many good things. It pushed every worry about the letter from her mind. Her mama had baked for hours yesterday, glazed the ham Ida Mae sent, and plucked the turkey Joe Earl shot. That morning she’d stuffed and roasted it in a hot oven, filling all of Garden’s Gate with fragrances of clove, wild thyme, sage, onion, and turkey.
Miss Lill had spent the morning peeling and chopping root vegetables for Celia’s mama. Celia and Chester set the table over Miz Hyacinth’s ivory lace tablecloth. The reverend brought bouquets of sweet-smelling cedar and juniper berries. Miss Lill twined them through groups of tiny gourds and pumpkins, then set beeswax candles aflame down the center of the table.
Never had Celia seen a prettier picture—sparkling glassware and silver, white china that gleamed in the candlelight, and the faces of people who loved one another—like something out of a magazine.
When Reverend Willard asked the blessing, it was one of true thanksgiving. Celia felt she approached a burning bush . . . holy ground. The wonder of the day and the peace and joy of the makeshift family gathered there filled her like no meal ever had, ever could.
It wasn’t until time for dessert that the fat hit the fire.
“Lilliana,” Celia’s mother called, “could you help me in the kitchen? Celia, you and Chester clear the plates.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Celia didn’t need to be asked twice. And she didn’t need to strain her ears to hear her mother.
“I just don’t understand it! I baked three pies—apple, sweet potato, and pecan—and put them in the pantry on the porch. The apple is gone—simply gone.”
“You don’t imagine somebody just came up on the porch and took it, do you?” Miss Lill looked at Celia, who busied herself scraping plates into the compost bucket without being asked.
“Who would know where to look?” her mother worried. “Olney made that door so you’d never see it if you didn’t know it was there. And that’s another thing. Marshall came up to split wood yesterday, and here it was already split while I’d been down at the store. What’s goin’ on? Am I losin’ my mind?”
“Well, I don’t know anything about the wood, but don’t worry now. Two pies is plenty. The dinner was lovely, Gladys. Please don’t fret. I’ll get the coffee.” Miss Lill patted Celia’s mama on the back to reassure her.
Celia finished scraping the plates, then lifted the bowls and platters from the table, eager to help. It also gave her an opportunity to pile a cookie tin with leftover turkey and stuffing and all the fixings, cover it with a tea towel, and set it in the pantry on the porch, praying there’d be a moment when her mama and Miss Lill were distracted so she could slip it over to the church shed. She just didn’t expect that moment to come in the form it did.
Chapter Forty-Nine
THE EARLS HAD JUST LEFT and Reverend Willard was saying his goodbyes, standing long at the front door, turning the brim of his fedora in his hands, as if loath to leave.
“Thank you for inviting me, Lilliana. It means everything to me to be included in your family here.”
The pupils in his eyes grew, and I knew his words were not spoken lightly, but I also knew it was more than my family he longed for. As much as I wanted to, I could not reach out to him, dared not respond. The moment grew awkward, just before Ruby Lynne crept from the shadows.
“Miss Lilliana?”
Reverend Willard stepped back as if caught stealing cookies.
“Ruby Lynne! It’s so good to see you. Happy Thanksgiving!”
“It’s not.” She shook her head. “Can I come in?”
“Ruby Lynne—” Reverend Willard reached for her hand—“can I help you?”
“No, Reverend. You can’t. I need Miss Lilliana. Please.”
The girl looked so frightened and pitiable that I nodded to Reverend Willard, trusting he’d understand my message to go, that we’d be all right. He tipped hi
s hat to both of us. “Good night, ladies.” Then he added to me, “Call me if you need anything.” That warmed my heart. Galahad at the ready. I couldn’t help my thoughts.
“Come, Ruby Lynne. You’re always welcome.” I reached my hand out to her and she ran up the steps into my arms. “Ruby Lynne! What is it?” I thought I saw something move in the trees beyond. “Come inside.”
I peered into the gathering gloom and demanded as fiercely as I could muster, “Who’s there?” Images of Rhoan Wishon and even Gerald sped through my brain. But no one answered, and Ruby Lynne fell to weeping. “Come in. Come right in.” I pulled her into the parlor, where we’d already built a fire. Celia and Chester stood wide-eyed in the hallway.
“I’m in trouble—so much trouble, Miss Lilliana.” The girl was trembling, frozen clear through in a coat that barely covered her.
“Ruby Lynne, what’s happened? Are you hurt? Did your fa—did someone hurt you?”
She cried harder.
“Celia, Chester, go ask your mother to bring us a pot of tea—and the sugar bowl. Then you two get upstairs and stay there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The two ran off.
“Now tell me what’s happened. Should I call Dr. Vishnevsky?”
“No! Please don’t do that!”
I was at a loss. I saw no signs of bruising, no cuts. But I of all people knew that such marks were easily hidden by winter clothing. “Tell me what I can do.”
Listen. It came as clear to my mind as an audible voice.
I guided Ruby Lynne to the settee nearest the fire and pulled an afghan around her shoulders. She clung to it, still shivering.
“You’re frozen through. Let me take off your boots.” I knelt to pull them off, but she cringed backward.
“I can’t stay. I just . . .” But she couldn’t finish.
I sat next to her, waiting. Ruby Lynne alternately stared into the fire and searched the room. I saw longing in her eyes, then worry bordering fear.
“We can wait until you’re ready, Ruby Lynne. There’s no hurry. You’re safe here and welcome—always.”
Gladys must have already had hot water on the stove because it was no time at all before she carried in a tray of hot tea and slim slices of sweet potato pie dolloped with whipped cream.
“Just tea, please,” Ruby Lynne said, her fingers still shaking as she cradled the warm cup in her hands.
“That’s not like you, Ruby Lynne Wishon. You’ve never turned down one of my pies.” Gladys’s concern matched my own.
Twin tears trickled down Ruby Lynne’s cheeks. “I can’t eat. I just can’t.”
“You look mighty peaked, child.” Gladys pressed the back of her hand to Ruby Lynne’s forehead, then her palm to her cheek. “You don’t feel feverish.”
“I missed my monthly. Twice. Maybe three times now.” Ruby Lynne blurted the words, surely before she lost courage.
Gladys sat down on the rocker with a thump. “Lord, help us now.”
“You’ve been through horrendous things, Ruby Lynne. It could just be the stress of all that’s gone on. That’s happened to me before.”
Momentarily, Ruby Lynne looked hopeful, then shook her head and stared into the fire. “My breasts are swollen. The sight of food makes me sick. Most anything I eat comes back up. I heard Ida Mae tell her daughter once those are signs.” She turned to Gladys and me. “I’m scared. If my daddy finds out, he’ll kill me. I know he will.”
Not if he’s the father! But then, he just might—if he’s the father. I looked at Gladys. I was out of my territory.
Gladys breathed deeply and rose to the occasion with the sense we needed. “We need to get Granny Chree or Dr. Vishnevsky to examine you. Pregnancy is one thing. But it could be something else.”
“Daddy’d never let Granny Chree touch me.”
“But she’s a woman, and that might be easier—”
“Don’t matter what’s easier for me. It matters what he’ll say, what he’ll do if he finds out. I know from last time she helped me. I can’t risk it. I just can’t.”
Gladys and I looked at one another.
“You’re willing for Dr. Vishnevsky to examine you?” I asked, thinking how brave and frightened this young girl was.
Ruby Lynne bit her lip till I saw a spot of blood, then nodded, swiping away tears that insisted on falling. “But you can’t tell—not Daddy. Not anybody. Promise me.”
I had no intention of telling her father, but pregnancy was not something she’d be able to hide long—if that’s what it was.
“There’s nobody we want to tell, Ruby Lynne,” Gladys answered for me. “But if you’re pregnant, you’ll need special care. You’re far too young.”
Ruby cried all the harder and I pulled her into my arms, glaring at Gladys. Why did she have to be so blunt—as if Ruby Lynne had any say in this? If Rhoan Wishon had raped his daughter, it was not her fault in any way. “Gladys, call Dr. Vishnevsky.”
Before she could, the telephone rang. I gasped, fearing it might be Ruby Lynne’s father, not sure I could keep the anger from my voice, determined though I was not to give her away.
“I’ll get it,” Gladys said.
But it wasn’t her house or her battle. I drew a deep breath. “No. Let me. . . . Hello?”
“Did you have a happy Thanksgiving, Lilliana? A shame you missed your father’s wedding this morning.”
My heart jumped into my throat and every muscle in my neck and jaw tightened. There was no mistaking the voice at the other end of the line. “Gerald.”
“Why haven’t you returned the papers I sent?”
A million things swept through my brain the moment I recognized his voice, making it hard to concentrate on what he was saying, except that Father had remarried. It felt like he’d spit on Mama’s grave. “Where are you?”
I heard the smirk in his voice. “In Philadelphia, at the moment. Do you want me to come down there?”
“No.” That was one thing I was certain of.
“Then sign the papers and send them back.”
“What papers?”
“Don’t play games, Lilliana. You’re not good at them. I’m holding a signed card from your postmistress that tells me my attorney’s letter was received at the No Creek post office well over a week ago. You should have signed the papers and sent them by return mail. Are you telling me your Ida Mae didn’t give it to you?”
“Ida Mae’s gone to her sister’s in New York. I don’t know when she’ll be back, and she didn’t give me anything before she left. What are you talking about?”
“An easy way out for you, if you want it, if you’re smart enough to take it.”
“Gerald, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m tired of this, Lilliana. Stop playing games. Either you come back to Philadelphia and we go the medical route, or you sign those papers saying you deserted me. Your choice—I plead that you’re insane and guilty of adultery, or I plead that you’ve deserted me and committed adultery. Either way, you don’t get a penny. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t want anything of yours.”
“I suppose you’re living off your aunt’s estate.”
“I haven’t inherited anything—just as I told you I wouldn’t. I’m living here thanks to my aunt’s blessing through a trust, but I don’t own Garden’s Gate, and neither can you, no matter what you do or how long you wait. I imagine your lawyers already know that. Contact Rudolph Bellmont, my family’s lawyer in North Wilkesboro, if you don’t believe me. I know he’ll explain everything.”
“A pity that. But that does mean there’s no reason to prolong this.”
I didn’t know what to say, and I knew anything I said would be used against me.
“Don’t push me, and don’t sleep too soundly, Lilliana.” The phone clicked into its cradle.
There was no chance of that.
Chapter Fifty
CELIA AND CHESTER HAD GONE UPSTAIRS as Miss Lill ordered. They’d even brushed
their teeth and gotten ready for bed. Celia heard Miss Lill talking on the phone but figured it was Doc Vishy. After she heard the telephone click, Celia cracked her door into the hallway to listen, and she heard plenty.
“You all right, Lilliana?” Celia heard her mother ask.
Miss Lill didn’t answer right away. When she did, Celia didn’t know who she meant.
“He’s intent on ruining me. I just don’t understand—” But she stopped talking then. “I can’t think about this now. We’ve got to help Ruby Lynne.”
Celia wondered if she meant Rhoan, Ruby Lynne’s daddy, but couldn’t figure how. Celia didn’t know a lot about courting, but she knew about dogs in heat and that’s how they came to have pups. Humans couldn’t be much different. She also knew there would be yelling and screaming and crying when Rhoan Wishon found out. Even Celia knew a girl was supposed to keep her legs together until marriage. And who was the father, anyway? Celia prayed it wasn’t Marshall. They’d kill him for that, she was certain.
Celia stuffed her pillow and dirty clothes into a long sausage roll and pulled her quilt over the mound, shaping it to look like a body on her bed. If her mama peeked in, Celia hoped she’d quietly shut the door, believing she was sound asleep for the night.
Celia pulled her shoes off and her coat on, waiting until she heard her mother and Miss Lill usher Ruby Lynne into Miz Hyacinth’s old room before slipping down the stairs in her socks and out the back door. They were saying things her mama didn’t want Celia or Chester to hear, and that meant all the grown-ups would likely be busy for another half hour or more, once Doc Vishy came.
Celia tied her shoes on the back porch in the light that shone from the kitchen window and pulled the cookie tin of food from the outdoor pantry. It felt ice-cold, but she figured cold food was better than no food. Her breath fogged in front of her face. She shivered in the frigid air that swept down from the mountain but ran, as fast as her feet would carry her, over the familiar dirt road to the church, circled wide through the graveyard, and crept quietly toward the shed.