In the very bottom of the trunk was a packet of letters bound with a faded pink ribbon. Probably love letters—so private. Did I dare read them? Was it a violation beyond my privilege as only child of Washington and Marian Overton? I’ll read just one, I decided after some thought. From the middle, I selected a blue-gray envelope addressed to Marian Mills, with the return address of the University of Virginia, the alma mater of all three Overton brothers.
“Hi, Marian,” the letter began. “College is a groove! Of course, it would be so much better if you were here to share it with me, but I won’t get on that old saw again, I promise. I know your folks don’t believe in higher education for their women, and I DO realize you have to work to help out your family. Look, do you think you can get away for Homecoming here? It’ll be a rad weekend—football against you-know-who—our biggest rival. Lots of parties and bands dishing live music at all the frat houses. Madison can drive down to get you and you can catch a ride back easily enough. What do you say? I hope you’ll say yes!
“Speaking of Madison, he’s gotten into a scrape here. He has to go before the honor court for alleged cheating. We know who set him up—can you believe one of his frat brothers? It’s very complicated, but he is absolutely innocent. Problem is Dad will NOT believe Madison was framed. He insists he leave school, come back home and work the farm and pay penance or something. At the very least, Dad is cutting Maddy off financially. With only a semester left to go. What a stubborn SOB Dad can be! Madison is furious and I doubt he’ll ever forgive Dad for this one. He’s determined to finish and graduate, despite Dad, even if it takes another year to do so.
“So, how’s everything at home? I miss the mountains and the lake and I miss you. I know your father and mine think this separation will make us forget each other, but they’ve forgotten that absence makes the heart grow fonder. My heart is bursting and I can’t wait to see you again, Sweetheart. I love you, Wash.”
I rocked back on my knees. I’d just learned more about my family and natural parents and their past than anyone had told me in my life. The Mills and Overton families both opposed the relationship between Marian and Washington. It also looked like there was a good-sized difference in the economic status of the two clans, so this was no Romeo-Juliet scenario. And my adoptive father had quarreled with his own father who would not believe in his innocence. Yes, that would sure be a blow to Dad and his integrity, the ever-upright Madison Overton. I could see how it would estrange Dad from his family. Bad, bad family feelings. Stirring up the past. Miss Emma knew what she was talking about.
I placed the packet of letters back in their corner, knowing I would return to read the rest at some point.
There was only one more item in the trunk I had not checked out, a cool, red-leather diary. This time I did not hesitate. I opened it, surprised to find only one entry, dated July 1st:
What a scum-bag my father-in-law is! He couldn’t prevent us from getting married, and he cannot make us stay under his roof. “I thought you might want to keep a diary,” he tells me. “My wife keeps one, and all the Overton women before her did, too.” I know very well why Thomas Overton, who rarely gives anyone anything, has presented me this diary as a “gift.” He wants me to write all our secrets, mine and Washington’s plans and hopes, so that he can sneak my diary away and read it and plot how to screw us. He’s so afraid my “family of lesser means” will try to get their hands on some of his precious money. He even insinuates that I am carrying someone else’s baby in my belly! What a bastard! A meddling, conniving, controlling fool who’ll die friendless and loveless. He’s even worse than Wash and Madison have described. Read THAT, you old SOB! Wash and I will be out of here as fast as we can get our wits together.
Nothing wishy-washy about these two. I’d evidently inherited my streak of determination from both parents. But another, equally interesting thought intruded. If Grandmother Lenore kept a diary, she surely must have written something about Rosabelle in her life. If Miss Emma and Abe were unable or unwilling to help me find out what I wanted to know about the strange and scary episodes I’d encountered, perhaps I could get the down-low from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Sorry about the mixed metaphor. All the Overton women had kept diaries, according to Marian. So, where are they? A family as fixated on history as the Overtons would keep such treasured heirlooms in a safe place. I began another search of the cluttered attic. Likely-looking bureau drawers and cedar chests held only disintegrating ball gowns, rusting swords, and pieces of cracked china, pottery, and glass. Old wooden toys, a mildewed, leather-covered Bible, dozens of yellowed National Geographic. No diaries.
At last, I discovered a closet I had not before noticed. Paneled like the walls, it was virtually hidden from view. The door gave way reluctantly, spewing dust and woody splinters at my face. Phew! Stepping in, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dusty gloom. Pushed back against the closet wall was a large, old-fashioned wooden desk; on top was a long, rusting footlocker that looked like a metal coffin. It was locked tight. Could I force the lock? Maybe a screw driver. Or a hammer. I bent to peer into the keyhole. Maybe a strong piece of wire or a crochet hook could work like a key. After all, if the diaries were here, a virtual library of Overton history, I was entitled to read them, wasn’t I? Snoop that I was, I’d lost all shame.
Shutting the door, I ran over some plans in my head. Like a homing pigeon, I returned to Marian and Washington’s trunk one more time, rummaging until I found, again, the packet of letters. If I could not find the diaries, I’d read more of the letters. Fair enough, right? Stuffing the packet under my T-shirt, which was sticky from sweat, I found my way out of the attic. I would hide the letters in my room and read them at my leisure. In the meantime, I’d think hard about how to get into that enticing footlocker. My instincts told me the family diaries must be locked inside. I had a fleeting, pleasing thought: All the Overton women kept diaries. How naturally I am following the tradition with my own diary. Someday, in the way distant future, would some curious young Overton get a kick out of reading my personal memoirs?
In a funk, I left the attic. Seeing photos of my biological parents, reading their thoughts, touching their possessions. Okay, I’d felt a connection like never before. But I was left with such a cold, empty sensation, a numbness, a dead feeling. I knew I should look for Jeff, but I only wanted to be alone with my misery and tears, free to feel sorry for myself.
THIRTEEN
Absorbed in my thoughts, I puttered aimlessly around the grounds. The way the creek snakes between the trees reminded me of a paint-by-numbers picture I had worked on as a child, a bright mix of greens and blues meandering between vine-shadowed banks, highlighted now and then by golden shafts of light. Jeff and I liked to sit beside the water here and watch the eddies suck in leaves and sticks as we tossed them into the water. After a good rain, the currents could run surprisingly swift and deep for such a merry little stream. I stood, feeling the pleasant warmth of the fading sun on my arms. Had Marian and Washington sat on this bank and watched these very same whirlpools? Had Lenore? Does time stand still as people move in and out of its dimensions, or do people stand still as time moves them on a continuum?
The clatter of approaching hooves broke into my musings. Uncle Hunter and Jeff were well into a late afternoon ride, judging from the color in Jeff’s cheeks and the sweat beading over his nose freckles.
“Whoa!” Uncle Hunter called from the saddle. “Whoa, Goblin.” He reigned in the spirited chestnut, a big gelding of seventeen hands. Four white stockings and a white blaze set off the shining auburn coat. Impatient to get on with his run, Goblin snorted and stamped.
Mounted on Sunshine, Jeff called to me. “Hey, Ashby. Come ride with us.” He looked at his father.
“Yes, do.” My uncle nodded.
“Thanks, Jeff. Maybe I will. A brisk ride might be just what I need.”
“You look sad,” Jeff said. “Are you sad, Ashby?”
I managed a feeble smile. “Oh, I’ve
just been thinking, that’s all. Sitting here beside the creek and thinking.”
“Is everything all right?” my uncle asked.
I knew those eyes of his could see into my soul. “I’m okay. It’s just that today I went through the trunk, you know, my…Marian’s trunk. It’s left me kinda blue.” I knew I would break down crying if I had to say much more.
“I came within an inch of not telling you about that trunk, Ashby. I was afraid your digging into the past would be more hurtful than beneficial.”
I stood up very straight. “Thanks, Uncle Hunter. But, it’s all good. I’m glad you told me about the trunk. I guess you could say I found both comfort and grief in it.”
“All right, then. I’m glad it worked out for you. Will you join us?”
“Wait! Wait a minute, please. I wanted to ask you about something I discovered today.”
My uncle raised his brows. “Oh? What would that be?”
“My mother’s maiden name was Mills. Luke said it was Eddie Mills’ dog that attacked me. Are…were they related? Eddie and Marian?”
His pupils contracted until they almost disappeared and a little vein pulsed in his forehead. His voice was perfectly even, however, when he replied. “Unfortunately, yes. Eddie would be Marian’s cousin. Her first cousin, that is. A large, clannish family.” He hesitated. “Marian was nothing like Eddie, though.”
“Luke says Eddie—” Jeff began, but his father cut him off.
“Not now, Jefferson.”
I gave Jeff a look that asked him to be patient. “I found a letter in the trunk my father wrote to my mother. It sounded like their parents opposed their romance.”
“Oh, there was a great deal of opposition, Ashby. My father considered the Mills family to be beneath the Overtons. Socially inferior, that is. The Mills people had always worked as tenant farmers, but until some slightly more prosperous relative left Marian’s father a piece of worthless red clay, they never owned so much as a blade of grass.” My uncle shook his head. “Owning property, rising up the economic ladder, would have elevated the Mills family, and Marian, to an ‘acceptable’ position so that she and Washington could marry well enough, without a lot of nasty gossip about social climbing.” When he caught my incredulous look, he added. “It was a generation ago. Things have changed, but we are in the South, you understand, my dear.”
My uncle was silent for several moments. “Though I’m not sure exactly when the feud started, my thought is the whole thing climaxed over the claim by Otis Mills, Marian’s father, that our father, Thomas Overton, stole his acreage through some legal shenanigans.”
Abe’s unflattering description of Thomas Overton flickered though my mind. “Thomas Overton got what he went after in these parts.” Something to that effect. And Marian’s diary was even more graphic.
“In the end, it was all about the money. Worthless as Mills’ supposed property was, when the dam was built and the farms flooded to create the lake, my father received a tidy sum of money for selling off those acres that Mills claimed were his. And ever after, condemned to poverty, Otis Mills and the rest of his clan have had it in for us Overtons.”
“Then, it all started a long time ago,” I said.
“Yes. But when you were born, the families declared a sort of truce. Babies can effect such a change, you know.”
“Then—they both died.” My voice was as flat as my feelings.
The vein in my uncle’s forehead jumped to life again. “I—”
He was interrupted by the sound of his cell phone ringing in his pocket. “Excuse me, Ashby. I’m expecting an important call,” he said, removing the cell and putting it to his ear. He spoke only a few words, then closed the phone and slipped it into his pocket. “I’m off. I must attend to business.”
Jeff’s face fell. “Awww, Dad. Can we ride a little longer? Please?”
“Sorry, Jefferson. Duty calls. Come along now and be quick about it.”
I watched my cousin’s expression change from hope to…to what? Was that a flicker of resentment in those Overton eyes? Jeff did not move.
“Jefferson! I will not accept disobedience,” Uncle Hunter barked. Suddenly Hunter shifted gears. “But, I’ll tell you what, son. We’ll go back to the barn and you can help Ashby saddle up Sasha.”
“An’ me and Ashby can ride? On the trail?”
My uncle threw me his piercing look. “I’ll let Ashby decide.”
All thoughts of my gloomy discoveries left me, to be replaced with a sense of responsibility that I found both welcome and worrisome. “We’ll be careful, Uncle Hunter,” I told him. “I can’t think of anything I’d like to do better right now than ride with Jeff.”
“You rock, Ashby!” Jeff cried. “Bye, Dad,” he remembered to say at the last minute.
I noticed an odd expression on my uncle’s lofty brow—almost a look of disappointment. Did he regret his decision to allow me to take over as Jeff’s riding companion? Other than driving his boat, his rides with his son seemed to be his only source of real pleasure. The thought unsettled me. Why would my uncle encourage me to do something he’d end up resenting?
All the way to the stables, Jeff prattled about our anticipated ride. As we went through the motions of saddling Sasha, he suddenly remembered something he’d wanted to say about Eddie Mills. “Ashby, Luke says Eddie has an axe to grind. What does that mean, anyway?”
“An axe to grind means he’s got a problem with someone or something.”
“So, if Eddie’s got a problem with Dad…” He trailed off. “Then Dad’s the axe?”
“Something like that, Jeff. Sounds like it goes back a long, long way. Maybe it’s best to forget it, huh?”
“Let’s ask Luke! He hates Eddie. Then maybe you won’t be sad anymore, Ashby.”
My young cousin had picked up on a lot of my conflicting emotions, I realized. With his mention of Luke, I suddenly realized how much I wanted to see him. Wanted to get back that brief moment of camaraderie we’d achieved in Luke’s tidy kitchen.
As I saddled Sasha, Jeff poked around looking for Luke, calling his name. Just then, I heard the sound of tires spinning out of the stable parking area, and I looked up in time to catch sight of Luke leaving in his pickup. “I wonder where he’s off to,” I said in a half-voice. Wherever it was, it had nothing to do with work, judging from the neatly combed hair and fresh shirt I had observed in the seconds before he pulled away. The mystery date. The phantom girl friend. Bummer.
Dear Diary, My first “solo flight” with Jeff ended almost before it began due to a sudden thunderstorm that drove us back to the stables. The cool news is I now have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from my uncle. He actually entrusted his son to ride with me and only me. The thought of some sort of accident for Jeff while under my supervision gave me the jitters, though. As Monica said, Hunter can be rather intense when it comes to their son.
Well, I’m an emotional mess. Going through my parents’ trunk has taken me up and down so many times, I am beyond dizzy. Beyond nausea. All I want to do is fold myself into the ancient arms of my room and let my favorite lullaby sing me to sleep. Is the melody in my head, or is it in the chemistry of the air breathed only in this room?
Of course, I’m consumed with curiosity over the love letters I stole. But, I haven’t the heart for dealing with all that was lost when Washington and Marian died. I have hidden the packet in a place where no one would ever think to look. On a better day, I’ll find the guts to read them and scour them for anything that can clue me in as to what my birth parents were like and, consequently, who I am.
For now, I have to move on, think about something else. Call me a regular Nancy Drew, but there are lots of other clues I’m itching to investigate, clues about someone or something that has been waiting a long time for me. What a pity I can’t count on Luke to share in my quest. Luke, the skeptic. Luke who does not believe in ghosts. Luke who is not interested in the past. Luke who has a ravishingly beautiful girlfriend he gets a
ll gussied up for. Sigh.
So, now I’ll take time to smell the roses, so to speak, and let Sweet Afton lull me to repose.
FOURTEEN
I awoke in the dark to find myself fully clothed and curled against the old headboard. My computer lay open in my lap. A storm lashed its fury outside my doors. Everything is larger than life here, was my first thought. The grass is greener. The trees taller. The storms fiercer. Feeling a chill in spite of my layer of clothing, I pulled the covers up under my chin. The room was more than dark and I knew the electricity had failed again. Ever thoughtful, Miss Emma had placed a fresh candle in the holder. I planned with the next flash of lightning to run to the dresser and light it, for comfort, if nothing else. Just then, the sky exploded and I leaped from bed, half out of fright, to grope for the matches and light the candle.
So, so quiet. Dark and quiet. Another whiplash of thunder shattered the silence, so startling that I almost dropped the lighted candle. At that moment, the music started. There were no lyrics, but the gentle, mournfully flowing rhythm was tangible enough to reach out and grasp in my fingers. Lilting tones filled the space around me until I was dizzy with the swirling notes.
As suddenly as it began, the music stopped. Bewildered, I held out the candle as though it might illuminate the melody I had heard so clearly only moments ago. Except for the dying sputter of the storm, all was quiet again. My ears strained, listening. Faintly, yet distinctly, I heard the tune again, this time in the hall outside my closed bedroom door. Barefoot, holding the candlestick in front of me, I moved slowly to the door, drew the latch, and, without thinking, only feeling the music, I followed the mellow strains, like a child of Hamlin behind the Pied Piper. Descending the steep steps, on the first floor, now, I continued to follow the path of the music, through the dining room, to the keeping room and out a door I had never used or even noticed before,
A Red Red Rose Page 9