All eyes in the room were on Jillian.
“From Dr. Samuel Strickland Davies of Meriwether County, Georgia, to Eliza Davies of Memphis. She was a well-to-do white woman who found him when he was three in the house where the rest of his family had died during the epidemic and sent him to Canfield. It was three years before he was adopted, and she made sure he never wanted for anything while he was there. When he was grown, he took her surname by his own choice.”
“And named his daughter for her,” Meri said.
Jillian nodded. “They reconnected when he was in his thirties and she was seventy and corresponded for the next eight years until her death. She never had children of her own, but she spent her life looking after other people’s.”
A sob choked its way up Meri’s throat. “She cared for children?”
“It was her vocation,” Jillian said. “She believed she should use her privilege in this way, to ‘do unto the least of these’ and make their lives better.”
“She said that?” Meri’s shoulders heaved.
“My friend took pictures of the letters and emailed them.” Jillian slid several sheets out of the folder and spread them in front of Meri.
Meri leaned forward gingerly, studying the printed pages.
“The letters are not complete,” Jillian said. “Some of Samuel’s letters were found tucked into various books around the house after Eliza died. Some of them are only pieces, not the entire letters. The personal contents of the house were left to someone locally to dispose of. Even in 1917 someone had the good sense to write to Sam and ask if he still had Eliza’s letters, but there’d been a house fire. He only had one left and didn’t want to part with it. No one knows what became of it.”
“He loved her.” Meri’s eyes darted along the tight script of Sam’s letters. “I wonder if his daughter ever met her.”
Jillian shuffled the pages and pointed to a line. “Read this.”
“‘Our Eliza cannot stop talking of our visit to your home.’” Meri looked up. “They did meet! In Memphis! There are a lot of old homes. Maybe I’ve driven by her house.”
“Quite possibly. After her parents passed away, Eliza gave away a lot of her money to charitable causes, mostly orphanages and social agencies, and lived very simply. When she died, she left what remained to Samuel, in trust for his children’s higher education. It wasn’t a great deal by then—primarily the value of the family home in Memphis after it was sold—but it got them started. I have pictures of her will also.”
“Dad, you have to see these. Your great-grandfather’s handwriting.” Meri passed the pages across the table. “His own words about his life and what it meant to him to be a doctor.”
The room was hushed, nearly breathless, while Michael and Juliette hunched over fragments of the letters. Even Canny had nothing to say. Jillian smoothed the pages of notes and set down her pen.
Nolan cleared his throat. “I think Meriwether Eliza Davies of Chattanooga, Tennessee, of late of Canyon Mines, Colorado, might be ready to say something about what she is running toward. Am I right?”
Behind her glasses, liquid slithered across Meri’s wide eyes, ready to spill down her narrow face. She nodded.
“I got an email just before I came back. I got in.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jillian cradled the mug in both hands the next morning, three fingers through the handle on one side, her palm fitted around the curve of the stoneware on the other. In the last twelve days, she’d tried every mug in the kitchen cupboard. Sizes, weights, color. Vacation logos. Scripture verses. Pithy sayings. Artsy designs. Many she’d forgotten they had. In a few cases she’d seen quickly why the mugs had been relegated to the back of the cabinet. A chip might be tiny, but it was damaging if it hit your lip at the wrong angle. She had them sorted now.
She had her new favorite. This one. Taupe—not beige—with a maroon swirl around the lower portion and large enough to suit the concoctions she liked to create.
And it had been her mother’s. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t wanted to use it all these years. Now, in this crossover year to the season of living more of her life without her mother than with her, she wanted to hold something her mother often had held. It might stain. It might chip. It might even break. But each time Jillian held it, she would be sharing a moment with her mother. She would take the risk.
Jillian was on the porch, watching Canny load the car. Today it was without urgency or vengeance or authority or any of yesterday’s commotion.
Juliette came out. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye to your father.”
“He had a seven o’clock breakfast meeting in Denver,” Jillian said. “I didn’t see him either.”
“Thank him again for us. For everything.”
“I will.”
“But you’re coming to breakfast at the Inn, aren’t you?”
Jillian nodded.
“There’s room in the car.”
“You all go ahead. It’s only a ten-minute walk. I’ll be right behind you.”
Michael came out with both their briefcases. “I’ve got everything.”
“Ready!” Canny closed the rear hatch.
“I’ll see you there.” Jillian went in the house and breathed in the peace and quiet. This is what she was used to. She’d made it through three days of chaos with the Davies family, an all-nighter piecing together the story behind their family tree, and a long day yesterday witnessing the cathartic result of leading them through information they’d never known and watching what happened when Meri’s connection with Eliza Davies fell into place, and her plans for the future transformed her family’s understanding of her.
And Memphis. The city was still full of children in need and pockets of community ripe for rebuilding into new, lasting wholeness. It wasn’t the place that made Meri feel out of sorts. It was the calling that was wrong. Once she finished her graduate work, she might well go back to Memphis and take up where Eliza Davies left off with the children.
Jillian had missed an entire day of work on Monday and hadn’t even kept up with checking email. But all that would have to wait another couple of hours. Breakfast at the Inn with Meri and her family was on the schedule. She left by the main door, pulling it closed, tugging it twice, and double-checking the lock.
At the Inn, amiable bits of conversation wafted from the dining room on the fragrance of one of Nia’s egg-and-sausage casseroles. It wasn’t the weekend, and on a Tuesday between summer tourism and ski season, there was only one couple at breakfast other than the Davieses. Jillian was here because Meri asked her to be. Perhaps she didn’t yet believe her family dynamics had turned a corner, and it was a fair concern. A few hours of bonding—forced bonding, one might say—over long-forgotten family history would not change every ingrained pattern of interaction or temperament.
But it was a start. And there had been no more talk of Meri returning to medical school in Tennessee. Breakfast was easy conversation about the history and architecture of the Inn, Juliette’s favorite traditions of southern hospitality, Michael’s small but impressive collection of rare books, and Canny shocking Meri with the news that he had a serious girlfriend who wanted to meet his little sister.
“Christmas,” Meri said.
“Promise?”
“Promise. I’ll stay here, make sure Nia gets someone to replace me, find a place to live in Denver, and come home for a break in December before I start school.”
“You’re sure about all this?”
“Absolutely. It’s a vocation to ‘do for the least of these.’”
“All right, then. If any of those kids in your future need doctors, at least you’ll know where to find them.”
“Count on it.”
Canny checked his watch. “We should leave.”
“I’ll go out with you.”
Jillian helped Nia clear the table. “You’re walking better.”
“The swelling is way down,” Nia said. “I have to admit I was
a little wild that day, but you have to admit I wasn’t completely wrong. Meri did eventually end up at the old mine.”
“I’ll give you that.” Jillian scraped the remains of food off several plates.
“I was also right from day one that something was up with her.”
“Right again.” Jillian ran some water to rinse dishes.
“Do you think she’ll be all right?”
“She’s already a lot better than she was. She and her brother had a bona fide conversation just now.”
“I’ve got this,” Nia said. “Go say goodbye to your favorite houseguests.”
“Ha-ha.”
Jillian moved through the Inn to the front porch. Canny and Meri were embracing. Awkwardly, but it was an actual hug. No telling how many years it had been since they did that.
Michael was next, taking his daughter in his arms in a daddy’s bear hug that made Jillian believe he’d been wanting to do that for a long time but wasn’t sure Meri would welcome it. But she did.
Meri and Juliette stared at each other and took synchronized deep breaths. Then Juliette opened her arms, and Meri fell into them and the tears started.
Mom, I miss you. So much.
The Davieses had a lot to figure out. And they’d have to figure it out one day at a time. One step at a time. One phone call at a time. They’d disappoint each other. Wound each other. Leave holes in each other’s lives. Jillian had worked on enough family trees to know these things were true, and sometimes they led to entire branches being lopped off and dropping into obscurity. But they’d also try to graft over their wounds. To nurture buds of new life on the tree. To stand strong against the winds. Because families also did those things.
Jillian descended the porch steps and stood beside Meri as together they waved goodbye to the family inside the SUV pulling away from the curb. Next time Meri would be running toward them. Next time.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One of my favorite photos of my son is when he is about two, sitting on the front steps of the house we lived in then beside his cousin, my brother’s daughter. First cousins who couldn’t look less alike. Those two kids share fifty percent of their family heritage, each with a parent whose father was an immigrant from Brazil. But my son was white haired, blue eyed, and fair skinned while his cousin had dark eyes, black hair, and dark skin.
Of course, part of the reason I produced two blond, blue-eyed children despite my Brazilian heritage had to do with marrying someone from a carefully guarded Swedish gene pool until I came along. Or so I’m told.
Genetics is a curious thing.
And lots of people are curious!
But the information we get from spitting in a tube and sending it off for DNA analysis isn’t everything. We also need the stories that come through the generations, and so often we miss those. By the time we’re old enough to appreciate them, the people who could tell them to us are gone, and with them the cumulative family memories that could help us understand where we came from—and why.
Meri Davies is, of course, fictitious. But the family line I created for her why leads back to real events in the history of Memphis. Other cities in the southern states experienced repeated outbreaks of yellow fever as well, particularly those along waterways, which were the commercial highways of the times—and of course breeding ground for mosquitos.
Historians believe yellow fever was imported to the Americans with the West African slave trade and continues to affect the equatorial tropics. While it did spread with the movement of ships carrying cargo from the Caribbean, through Louisiana ports, and up the Mississippi River, how individuals became infected was erroneously understood in the late nineteenth century, at the time of “Constance and Her Companions,” as the nuns in Memphis are remembered for their sacrificial work. In 1900, US Army physicians James Carroll and Walter Reed proved that mosquitos transmitted the disease, rather than contact with an infected person so feared during the epidemics.
Eliza Davies is fictitious, but the nuns and priests of St. Mary’s are not. Many of the scenes in the historical parts of this book are rooted in notes written by one of the nuns about what their daily ministrations were like and the horror of the scenes they encountered. Canfield Asylum is also historical and played a key role in caring for dozens of orphans. Sister Constance really did stand up to men with guns determined she would not bring orphans from the city to Canfield.
On one visit to Memphis I strolled an area known as Victorian Village, toured one of the historic homes that is now a museum, and heard a story of a former occupant. She lived out her last days with her African American companion occupying the bedroom next to hers. It was the only way she could get the care she needed, even if it was scandalous. I couldn’t help but make Eliza forward thinking enough that sharing a meal with Callie would have brought her satisfaction—though it never happened—and in the end she was living out her days sharing her home with a companion to look after her, even though real change in race relations was a long way off.
In this first story of the Tree of Life series, my hope is that you will wonder about the why and how questions of your family. If you have a piece of the saga, be sure to share it with someone younger. If you wonder about decisions or circumstances that shaped your family, ask someone older—or even someone sideways in your family tree. Putting bits and pieces together can make the picture whole, and sometimes as the picture becomes whole, so does the person seeking it.
Olivia Newport
2019
COMING NOVEMBER 2019
TREE OF LIFE
Book 2
Turn the page to read a preview chapter.
CHAPTER ONE
Jillian Parisi-Duffy was of firm enough character to defend her choice regardless of the criticism, and there had been plenty.
First her father before she left the house that morning. “If you plan to spend most of your time sitting in the lodge with a book, at least take a novel.”
“Bye, Dad” was all she said as she shoved her choice in her bag and went out the front door to meet Kristina Bryant in her idling car.
Then there was Kris. “That’s the book you brought to read while I ski?”
“It’s been at the top of my pile for weeks. I can finally dig in.”
Then there were other guests in the lodge, coming and going to warm up between runs and plopping down beside her on the sofa in front of the massive fire with their hot chocolate.
“What are you reading?”
She’d shown them the cover and watched their predictable expressions.
“That’s a mouthful,” they said, or “Not exactly leisure reading,” or “Is somebody making you read that?”
“How’s the skiing?” she replied every time. They’d chattered about snow pack and powder for a few minutes and then been ready to go back out.
Jillian had been out on the lodge’s deck a few times to stretch her legs, inhale the bracing mountain air, and try to spot Kris’s purple ski jacket on the slopes against the cerulean sky and sprays of glimmering alabaster powder. But most of the time she remained camped in front of the stone fireplace, with one of a progression of steaming beverages—hot chocolate piled with whipped cream, rich caramel latte, and finally dark hot chocolate with hazelnut syrup. Once she interrupted the flow of beverages for one of the simple sandwich and chips fare the lodge offered, because her father would later ask if she’d eaten anything all day. With a turn of her head in either direction, she could gaze out floor-to-ceiling windows at the luminous Colorado day and the ski lifts moving people to the tops of the runs. The day was stunning, no question.
But so was her book. She didn’t have her laptop with her and hadn’t even brought a yellow legal pad for notes, so technically this wasn’t work. It was recreational reading that happened to be of an academic nature and coincidentally intersected with her profession as a genealogist. With her hands free of both hot beverage or food, at least temporarily, Jillian slipped her feet out of her low-cut fur-li
ned boots and folded them under her legs on the deep, thick-cushioned leather sofa to begin a new chapter, letting the sounds of the lodge fade into the background.
“How’s the book?”
“Fantabulous.” She knew the voice and angled her head toward the inquirer. “How’s the skiing?”
“Astonishing!” Kris unzipped her jacket and shirked out of it as she dropped onto the sofa beside Jillian.
“What’s so astonishing?” Jillian moved her bookmark, closed the book, and twisted toward her best friend. “You’ve skied here dozens of times.”
“Of course I am always an astonishing skier.” Kris tugged off her cap and tucked it into the helmet in her lap.
“And humble,” Jillian said.
“There is a dude out there you would not believe. You know how you always say that the way I ski is one of the biggest arguments for why you don’t ski?”
“It is. You’re a maniac daredevil.”
“You would reconsider that description if you saw this guy.”
“Who is he?”
Kris shook her head. “Not a clue. But I’ve never seen a more audacious skier.”
“That’s saying a lot.”
“And I mean it. If you hear sirens for the ski patrol, they will be for him. He’s going to kill himself.”
“Come on, Kris. This is a family-friendly ski business.”
“Tell that to him. He’s looking for danger. When I do the double-black runs here, I don’t usually have much company. Not many people have the skills. But he didn’t even take a minute at the top to see where the path down was. He just got off the lift at the top and pushed off without a breath or a beat.”
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