Angel at Troublesome Creek

by Ballard, Mignon F.

  Augusta sat in my aunt’s rocking chair with a sewing basket on her lap. She was making a skirt for herself, a beautiful filmy skirt of gold and green and blue all melting into each other. It didn’t even look like the same cloth I’d bought for her at Dorothy’s Fabric Shop. “That’s all very well and good,” she said with a slight flutter. “But you’re much too young to rely on a dog for company, Mary George.”

  “You can depend on dogs,” I said. “Unlike some people I know.”

  She raised her eyes toward the ceiling. “For heaven’s sake, child, you’ve had one unfortunate romance …”

  “Guess again,” I said.

  “Oh. Well, then, there’s that young man upstairs. He certainly seems interested.”

  “Huh!” I said. “I doubt it. Desperate’s more like it.”

  Augusta frowned. “Now, why would you say that? I don’t like to encourage vanity, Mary George. Pretty is as pretty does, I’ve always said, but there’s not a thing wrong with your looks. In fact, you remind me a bit of Shirley Sue Hawthorne.”

  “Shirley Sue Hawthorne? Who’s that?” I tried to keep a straight face. I was still having a problem with the vanity bit.

  “One of my temp assignments back in the thirties—just after talkies came out. An actress. Did very well in silent films, but talked like she had marbles up her nose.”

  “I thought all those early movie stars were tiny and blond.” Augusta was only trying to boost my confidence. I couldn’t imagine looking like a film star, silent or otherwise.

  “Not Shirley Sue.” Augusta shook out her skirt and examined it. It looked iridescent in the lamplight. “In fact, she might have been a little taller than you, and her eyes were brown as buckeyes. You have hair like hers too, except yours might have a bit more red in it.” Augusta sat down and began to hem her skirt. The needle flashed in and out faster than any sewing machine. “There’s not a thing wrong with your looks, Mary George Murphy!”

  I smiled. Couldn’t help it. Maybe she was making this up, but I didn’t care. “What happened to her?” I asked. “Shirley Sue. Did she have to give up acting?”

  “Naturally I had to guide her into another profession,” Augusta said. “Fortunately Shirley Sue was tall and willowy, fantastic dancer, and that was just before they started making all those grand musicals. She didn’t want for work. And later, I believe, she opened her own studio.”

  Augusta swirled the skirt over her head and fastened it at the waist. “Fact is, she was the one who taught me to dance,” she said, twirling into the bedroom and out—with just a light pause in front of the mirror.

  “Good thing you didn’t have to wait to learn from me,” I said, and found myself being pulled to my feet and whisked to the middle of the floor while Augusta punched a tape into the VCR. She detested daytime television—it embarrassed her, she said—all those intimate commercials, and people doing and saying things to make even a statue blush, although sometimes I’d hear her late at night laughing at I Love Lucy reruns. But she loved the VCR, and I kept her supplied with rented tapes of the good old forties stuff. In fact, I was becoming addicted myself.

  Now, with Augusta at my side and “Achy Breaky Heart” coming at me from the TV screen, I was being forced to do confusing, bouncy things with my feet in time to the music.

  “Don’t look down!” Augusta commanded, jabbing me in the ribs with a sling of her wrist. “Watch the screen, watch me. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  We went through the steps six times, and just when I thought I’d get to rest, she fast-forwarded into a fiendish stomper called “The Boot-Scootin’ Boogie.”

  I slept like a zombie that night. And when Kent called the next day and invited me out for Saturday night, I secretly hoped we’d go dancing.

  We went to a movie instead—Dutch, because Kent was a little short on cash, but that was okay—and stopped afterward for ice cream at the Hound Dog Cafe.

  Kent kissed me good night at the door, but I didn’t ask him in, although I think he expected me to. Frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for anything more. Not with Kent, not with anybody. Not yet.

  What was the matter with me? Was it because of what happened with Todd? Although any positive feelings I’d had for the man were zilch, and I felt I owed a thank-you note to his little aerobics bimbo. After a couple of days of comparative peace, he’d called me twice at home and once at the clinic, until finally I’d threatened him with the police. My taste of sweet revenge had turned to vinegar, and I just wanted this creep to leave me alone.

  Now I lay in bed listening to night noises outside my window. Hairy Brown snoozed on the floor beside me, and Augusta had taken off to wherever she goes when she’s not around. A squirrel scuttled over the roof, and branches brushed the side of the old house. At least I hoped it was branches.

  Could Todd Burkholder have had anything to do with what happened to Aunt Caroline? But that didn’t add up. On the day my aunt died, Todd was still making out hot and heavy with that woman next door. Wasn’t he? Yet Delia had mentioned seeing a strange man across the street, someone my aunt hadn’t wanted to discuss.

  I had an awful thought that Aunt Caroline might have bribed Todd to break off with me, but bribed him with what? And what was Bonita Moody trying to hide? She had denied being at Aunt Caroline’s the day my aunt died, even though Delia swears she saw her there. Unless Delia herself wasn’t telling the truth … but I didn’t want to think about that.

  The only thing I was certain of was that whoever was responsible for my aunt’s death was looking for my family Bible, and for all I knew, they had already found it. Unless Aunt Caroline hid it where none of us would ever think to look.

  Suddenly the room seemed close and dark. And quiet. I seemed to exist in a black void. Alone. I had felt this way when I was five and my parents died in that horrible wreck, until Sam made the ultimate gesture and let me keep his turtle overnight. From then on, he made every day an adventure: stringing a vine bridge over the creek (we both fell in), following the tracks of the wild and terrible “clopadopalous” that turned out to be a neighbor’s mule. I smiled, remembering how we’d collected lightning bugs and turned them loose in Cookie’s room while she slept. Cindy, the young apprentice cook, was generous and noted for her sticky buns, but hateful Cookie was not only stingy with her portions but a tattletale as well.

  I remembered Sam’s face at ten, sunburned and smiling, his eyes sparkling with exciting news he just couldn’t wait to tell. What would he be like now? And why would I even care? But I did. Lately he had been more and more on my mind.

  “Night is just day painted over,” I thought just before sleep. I wanted my old friend back. Maybe I’d never find him; or worse, I might be sorry if I did. But I knew I had to try. I had to find my Sam.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Children’s home? No, I don’t know of any children’s home around here.” The waitress poised, pad in hand, and totaled my breakfast bill. She looked to be around forty-plus, certainly old enough to remember. And a place that big couldn’t just disappear.

  The woman refilled my coffee cup without my even asking and whisked away the empty plate. The doc had closed the clinic for the day because of his niece’s wedding and I’d taken advantage of my time off to drive almost eighty miles to the little foothill town of Hughes, North Carolina, where Summerwood was located. Now, having treated myself to sausage and biscuits, along with grits and red-eye gravy, at a tiny diner that was once a railroad car, I felt I’d driven into the Twilight Zone.

  “Summerwood Acres,” I said. “It’s only a few miles outside of town.” What little spending money we’d had never made it farther than here. Hughes was synonymous to me with movies and ice cream cones. How could anyone overlook more than a hundred children?

  “I’ve only been here a couple of years,” the waitress said, obviously noticing my disappointment. “Why don’t you ask Gail? She’s lived around here forever.”

  I thanked her and left a tip, then stood in line t
o pay my bill and speak with the cashier who’d been pointed out to me.

  Gail was a small, perky woman with bright brown eyes and a quick smile. “Oh, honey, are you one of the Summerwood kids?” she asked when I repeated my question, and I knew by the way she said it that something had gone wrong.

  “I was for a while, but that was a long time ago. I just thought I’d look up some people I knew there.” I hadn’t been back to Summerwood Acres since I went to live with Aunt Caroline and Uncle Henry. My aunt was afraid it would upset me, remind me of my parents’ death, and with Sam gone, I had no good reason to visit.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Gail said, and she didn’t look as vivacious anymore. “I guess you haven’t been here in a while. The children’s home burned—or most of it did—about three or four years ago. Lightning, they say. Happened during a storm. Thank goodness no one was hurt!”

  I thought of all those records. “Was anything left?”

  She gave me my change and shoved the cash drawer shut. “Not much, I’m afraid. The main hall burned to the ground, but they saved the kitchen wing and one of the dorms—I think it was the boys’. A while back somebody tried to turn the place into some kind of camp, but I reckon it must’ve fizzled. Haven’t heard any more about it.”

  “What happened to the people who worked there?” I’d never find Sam now, or anybody who knew him.

  She shook her head. “Oh, Lord, who knows! I expect some of them retired.” Then suddenly she smiled. “Hey, I’ll bet Ambrose would know! Ambrose Dunn. Remember him? Used to be caretaker there. Married to a cousin of mine, and hasn’t worked a lick since the fire.”

  I didn’t remember Ambrose, I said, but I’d sure like to meet him.

  “Then you won’t have far to go.” Gail led me to the window. “See that row of men on the bench in front of the hardware store? The second from the left is Ambrose. They’ve helped to solve the world’s problems three times over without ever leaving that bench. I’m sure you must’ve noticed a difference,” she added, laughing.

  “I’ll try and remember to thank them,” I told her as I left.

  Ambrose wore a neatly ironed short-sleeved dress shirt, Bermuda shorts—faded blue and baggy—and black calf-length socks with an expanse of skinny white leg in between. He looked like the type who might consider whittling if it weren’t too strenuous. But he was polite and offered me a seat.

  “Thank you, no. Please don’t get up,” I said, as if there were any real danger of this. “I’m trying to find anyone who might have worked at the children’s home at Summerwood twenty years ago or more. I understand there was a fire.”

  He nodded sadly. “Happened on a Sunday when ‘most everybody was at church. A miracle nobody was hurt.” The other four men inclined their heads in solemn agreement.

  I stood surrounded by silence. Ambrose didn’t do anything quickly, I supposed. “You might try Bernice Butler, used to be matron in the boys’ building,” he said finally. “Somebody told me she’s working at that big department store over in High Point—or she was.”

  I smiled. I remembered Mrs. Butler. Sam had called her Miss Pooh because she reminded him of the bear in the story. Ambrose looked as though he’d drifted off to sleep, and I resisted the urge to shake him. “What department store?” I asked. “Belk? Dillard’s?” I started to run through my list.

  “That’s right, one of them. Or it could’ve been Sears.” He squinted at the sun, then glanced at his pocket watch, to see, I guess, if one of them was wrong. “Can’t remember which.” Ambrose Dunn was done.

  “Oh, good! You’ve brought coffee.” Augusta waited in my car parked under the redbud tree in front of the Methodist church. “And my sausage biscuit?”

  I handed over the paper-wrapped sandwich, thinking of all the calories I’d consumed. But with Augusta and Hairy to keep me company, I had started walking several miles at dusk almost every night, so maybe it wouldn’t all go to my hips.

  Augusta took a bite of the biscuit and washed it down with coffee. She looked as if she might be in the midst of some kind of religious experience. I knew better than to interrupt. When the sausage biscuit was gone, she cleaned each finger with dainty little kitten kisses, arranged her chiffonlike skirt about her, and raised a brow. “Well, what did you find out?”

  I told her. “Looks like we’ll have to drive to High Point, but it’s only about thirty miles from here.”

  “I know that,” Augusta said, sipping primly from her cup.

  “But first I’d like to take a look at the home, or what’s left of it,” I said. “It’s on the way … but then I guess you knew that too.”

  The arch over the entrance, flanked by huge red oaks, still read Summerwood Acres, but at the end of the curving drive I saw nothing but weeds where the main hall used to be. Someone had evidently attempted to landscape the grounds around the kitchen and dining area with a border of petunias and what appeared to be a grape arbor. Several benches waited in its shade.

  “Look, somebody’s planted a garden,” Augusta pointed out as I pulled timidly under the arch and stopped. A red pickup was parked in the shade of the building that used to house the boys, and behind it a man and several children picked something, probably beans.

  I turned around quickly and headed out. “Looks like they’ve rented the land,” I said, glad that someone was using the property.

  “Is there another way to High Point?” Augusta asked after a few minutes.

  “A road runs parallel to this, but it winds around a lot. Might take longer that way. Why?”

  “I think somebody’s following us,” she said, frowning over her shoulder. “Kind of a dingy gray car, see it coming around the curve there? It passed us when we turned into the drive back at Summerwood, but they must have parked somewhere and waited, because here it is behind us again.”

  “Maybe they had to stop, check a map or something. Doesn’t mean they’re following us.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. Todd Burkholder had an old gray Mustang he loved almost as much as he loved himself. I stepped on the accelerator, but the other car maintained its distance behind me, lagging just far enough behind so I couldn’t get a good look. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Give me a break!” This was no place to meet up with an irrational ex-boyfriend.

  According to the road map, we should be close to the turn-off to the connecting road to the other route, and about a mile later, I slowed just enough to make a right turn. Luckily a small convenience store, surrounded by cars, was just around the corner. I circled behind it and waited. Sure enough, here came the dusty gray car. It slowed just a little as it passed the store—to see if I was there, I guess—then drove on.

  “A-ha!” Augusta said. “Didn’t I tell you? Could you see who it was?”

  “Too far away. Might’ve been a Mustang, but I couldn’t tell from here.” Surely that fool Todd had gotten the message by now. I waited until the car disappeared over a hill, then scooted out the way we had come. The gray car might still overtake us, but it would require some swift maneuvering.

  “Mustang? I thought that was a horse.” Augusta leaned out the window to watch behind us. “Can’t you go any faster, Mary George?” Her bright hair swirled about her, a tangle of silken firelight, and when she laughed I forgot about being afraid. Suddenly I started to giggle. I hadn’t felt like this since Sam and I stole Cookie’s double-D bra off the clothesline and put it on our “snow lady.”

  I had dreamed again of Sam the night before—only this time he looked older, and he sat on the steps of the main building at Summerwood with my aunt’s cookie jar in his lap and a letter in his hand. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read what was written there.

  When we drove into High Point a short while later, I had a feeling I was that much closer to finding him.

  We started with the largest mall we could find. Bernice Butler, I was told, worked in the lingerie department at Belk, and while Augusta disappeared among the frothy undies, I selected a short summer gown and stood in line t
o wait. In spite of her graying hair, the former matron still resembled the bear of storybook fame, and when she looked up at me with her questioning brown eyes and rather large nose, I smiled wider than usual.

  “I remember you from Summerwood,” I told her, introducing myself. “And I’m hoping you can help me locate a boy I used to know there … . He’d be a man now, of course. His name is Sam. I don’t think I ever knew his last name.”

  Bernice grabbed my hand in both of hers and hung on for dear life. “My goodness … so you’re one of ours! Oh, I do miss that old place! Do you live around here?”

  I told her I didn’t and reminded her about Sam as she finally got around to ringing up the gown.

  “Sam? Goodness, I don’t remember anyone named Sam. Of course that was almost twenty years ago. But even if I did, I probably wouldn’t know where to find him. Some of my boys kept in touch for a while—mostly the older ones, but after the fire I’m afraid I lost track.”

  She wore a mustard-colored dress with a white collar and had sort of a Pooh Bear shape. Now she rested her hands on her stomach. “Why don’t you try Mr. Mac? You remember him, don’t you? Lives in a retirement center this side of Charlotte. Might want to call before you go, though. He does a lot of volunteering over there.”

  I did remember Mr. Mac, the minister who headed the children’s home, and was always a little in awe of him, although I had no reason to be. The Reverend Edwin J. McCallister was a quiet, preoccupied man who ate with us in the dining hall and called us each by name. Surely he would remember Sam.

  While Augusta checked out the fast-food offerings, I phoned Mr. Mac at Carolina Towers from the concessions area of the mall. He was just getting ready to leave for a session with his literacy student he said, but would be glad to help if he could.