by Laura Golden
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2013 by Laura Golden
Jacket art copyright © 2013 by Masterfile
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Zondervan for permission to reprint the poem “Wits’ End Corner” by Antoinette Wilson from Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings by L. B. Cowman, copyright © 1996, 1997 by Zondervan. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Zondervan.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Golden, Laura.
Every day after / Laura Golden. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: “A young girl fights to keep her mama out of the mental ward, her home away from the bank, and herself out of the orphanage after her father abandons her and her mother in depression era Alabama”—Provided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-307-98312-1
[1. Self-reliance—Fiction. 2. Abandoned children—Fiction.
3. Family problems—Fiction. 4. Depressions—1929—Fiction.
5. Alabama—History—1819–1950—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G56474Ev 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012015770
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
For Michael, who told me to write a
novel in the first place
And in memory of Jake and Nelda Perry—
one part Ben, one part Lizzie,
both deeply missed
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
One: A Gem Is Not Polished Without Rubbing, nor a Man Perfected Without Trials
Two: After Honour and State Follow Envy and Hate
Three: He Who Would Gather Roses Must Not Fear Thorns
Four: Luck Follows the Hopeful, Ill Luck the Fearful
Five: Heaven Is at the Feet of Mothers
Six: When I Did Well, I Heard It Never; When I Did Ill, I Heard It Ever
Seven: Life Is Like the Moon: Now Full, Now Dark
Eight: If Not for Hope, the Heart Would Break
Nine: Nice Doesn’t Always Mean Good
Ten: A Loyal Heart May Be Landed Under Traitor’s Bridge
Eleven: Pride Goeth Before Destruction and a Haughty Spirit Before a Fall
Twelve: Banks Lend Umbrellas When the Sun Is Shining and Ask for Them Back When It Starts to Rain
Thirteen: Hard Work Means Prosperity; Only a Fool Idles Away His Time
Fourteen: The Sting of a Reproach Is the Truth of It
Fifteen: The Days Are Prolonged and Every Vision Faileth
Sixteen: By Land or Water, the Wind Is Ever in My Face
Seventeen: He Who Makes a Mouse of Himself Will Be Eaten by the Cats
Eighteen: ’Tis Perseverance That Prevails
Nineteen: A True Friend Is Known in the Day of Adversity
Twenty: The Greatest Conqueror Is He Who Conquers Himself
Twenty-one: A Friend Is Not Known Till He Is Lost
Twenty-two: Misfortune Is a Good Teacher
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
One
A Gem Is Not Polished Without Rubbing, nor a Man Perfected Without Trials
I learned a lot from my daddy, but the number one most important thing is this: never, ever, under any circumstances, let something get the best of you. To do this, you gotta work with what you got, play the cards you been dealt, turn lemons into lemonade. Too bad he wasn’t around to see me doing just that, because one thing’s for sure: when it rains in the South, it pours.
The late-April thunderstorm that had occurred overnight made my walk to school particularly interesting. Plodding a mile through red mud in shoes a size too small with four holes too many ain’t the easiest thing to try. With the depression on, I wasn’t the only one with this problem, but I might’ve been the only one who knew how to make the best of it. I’d turn lemons into lemonade by using Mother Nature’s mess as an excuse not to worry about Daddy. Or Mama. I’d only worry about the mud, and how to get more of it. Instead of trying to keep it off my shoes, I’d see how much I could pack onto them. At least the cardboard cutouts inside would keep the bottoms of my socks from staining.
About every fifteen yards the mud would reach its highest clumping point and fall off. Maybe lighter steps would help it last longer.
A gruff voice broke my concentration. “Hey, Lizzie, wait up!”
“I was starting to wonder what’d happened to you,” I said without turning around so I wouldn’t break my mud.
I’d have known that voice anywhere. Ben’s voice. I’d known him practically since birth. We were born within days of each other, and our mothers had once been best friends. Ben was my one true friend. I learned that over three years back, at the tail end of third grade. Myra Robinson had dared me to go up to crazy old Mr. Reed’s and knock on his door. And that wasn’t the worst of it. She expected me to talk to him. Me. Talk to a man older than the hills who probably hadn’t said a hundred words since I’d been born. I figured if he’d felt like talking, he’d have talked, and I didn’t care to be the one forcing him to do it.
I might not have been so nervous if Mr. Reed had been like any regular man and gone into town a good bit, or if he’d have darkened the doors of the Bittersweet Baptist Church at least on Easter Sundays. But Mr. Reed wasn’t any regular man. He never went to church, and he headed into town exactly twice a month—on the first and the fifteenth from one p.m. till three p.m. But Myra had to go and dare me at precisely 3:17 p.m. on the eighth of March in the year 1929. Dang. He’d be home.
Ben had put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll go with you, Lizzie. I ain’t scared.”
Myra, along with about ten other nosy bystanders, trailed us into town. We turned off Main onto Oak Street, then onto Mr. Reed’s rutted dirt drive, which led directly to his house up on the hill behind town. I didn’t know about Ben, but I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. We tiptoed over the junk in the front yard—cracked mirrors, broken chairs, rusty pitchforks and hoes—and onto the sagging front porch. Daddy said Mr. Reed had lived alone for close to fifty years. I knew two things for certain: the house hadn’t had a fresh coat of paint in all that time, and anything that broke got thrown out in the yard, not in the trash. Ben and I faced the splintered wooden door. He looked at me and nodded. I knocked. Slowly, the door creaked open, and there stood Mr. Reed, all leathery and wrinkled and thin as a bone.
He looked at us like we were the crazy ones. “What you kids need?” he asked. His voice was as rough as sandpaper. He put a cigarette to his mouth and took a long suck off it. Ben and I stood there blinking. Neither one of us knew what to say. We didn’t need anything, except to get the heck out of there.
Ben was the one to find words. “Sorry to trouble ya, Mr. Reed. I don’t reckon we need much of anything. We’ll just be goin’.”
Mr. Reed nodded and closed the door, and Ben and I took off like our tails were on fire.
“Did you do it?” Myr
a asked at the bottom of the hill. “What’d he say?”
“Yeah, we did it,” I said. “And if you want to know, you go ask him yourself.”
All the bystanders went abuzz, and Ben and I walked away. I could still hear my heart pounding in my ears. I’d never been gladder to have Ben by my side than I was that day. We’d been extra close ever since.
Now Ben walked beside me, staring down at my mud-covered shoes. “Sorry I’m late. Had to help Ma make the beds and clean the kitchen on top of my regular chores. What in the heck are you doin’?”
“Is she sick?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Naw, she ain’t sick. She’s real busy tryin’ to get a wedding quilt finished for Mrs. Martin’s daughter. Mrs. Martin told Ma she needed it done by this evenin’, nearly a week sooner than it was supposed to be due. Said she’d misfigured the time it’d take the postal service to get it out west to her daughter. Put Ma in a real hard spot.”
I shook my head and sank into some soft mud. The clumps on my shoes grew. “I guess all those boarders living with her put her mind in a tizzy. The last few times I’ve gone to pick up some mending, she’s either been in a big hurry or snappy. Charlie told me he and John have to share their room with two other boys no more than five years old. If there was that many people crammed into my house, I’d probably have trouble thinking straight too.”
Ben pulled a small rock from his pocket and placed it in his slingshot. Huge wads of mud covered my shoes. The weight nearly pulled them right off my feet. It was rather relaxing. Not up there with fishing or anything, but relaxing. Ben snapped his slingshot, and the rock smacked a pine.
“Why don’t you teach me how to do that? Then we could have contests.” I glanced over at him. “Contests I could win.”
Ben pretended not to hear me. “I can’t much blame Mrs. Martin either. A bunch of strangers stuffed in my house is the last thing I’d want.”
I nudged Ben with my shoulder. “You’re the one person who wouldn’t wear me thin.”
“No, Lizzie, I’m the only person you can’t wear thin.”
I reared back my fist, and if Ben hadn’t been Ben, I would’ve let it fly. He held up his hands in surrender. I’m a girl, but I sure as heck don’t hit like one, and Ben knew it. I stomped the mud off my shoes instead.
“I surely hope Ma finds a way to finish that quilt. Mrs. Martin’s supposed to give her five dollars for it. Without it, we’re likely gonna miss the mortgage again this month. Course, even with that money, making it still ain’t a sure bet.” The right corner of Ben’s mouth retreated into his plump cheek. That meant one thing and one thing only: he was worried about something and he didn’t want to yap on and on about it. I let him be.
Mud squished beneath our feet and leaves rustled in the breeze. I tried my hardest not to think of Daddy in the quiet, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help wondering why he had to go, and why he hadn’t said good-bye.
It was little more than a month since he’d left, but it might as well have been an eternity. I didn’t know how much longer me and Mama could last without him. Like Ben, I’d already opened one overdue mortgage bill since Daddy left, but I felt sure he wasn’t gonna let me open another. He’d be back in time to save us from the bank. He had to.
I clutched my gold locket, rubbing its rough lines of engraving with my thumb: ELIZABETH CLAIRE HAWKINS 1876. Elizabeth Claire Hawkins—Daddy’s mama and my namesake. Daddy had shown me the locket only a few times over the years, but I’d memorized it the first time I’d laid eyes on it: a shiny golden oval with a face of delicate loops and swirls. Inside were tiny portraits of Grandmother and Grandfather wearing their most serious faces.
The locket was meant for my eighteenth birthday. Daddy said I had to earn it by growing into a fearless young woman worthy of the Hawkins name—just like Grandma. Well, it wasn’t my eighteenth birthday, and I was toting around more than a pound of fear, but here was the locket dangling from my neck. I’d inherited it a little over six years too soon, on the morning Daddy disappeared. He’d left a note for Mama, the locket for me. He didn’t have to tell me what it meant to get it early. I knew. He was telling me it was time to prove my worth, and he expected me to do it by passing the hardest of tests: I had to hold everything together until he came home. I couldn’t let him down.
Daddy had replaced the pictures of Grandmother and Grandfather, and I pictured the two faces now tucked inside—one wrinkled and weathered from thirty-seven years on this earth, the other much smoother, much younger. Both heads were topped with white-blond hair so thin light shone right through it. Mama always said Daddy and me didn’t have hair, we had down.
Ben let out a soft whistle beside me. I looked at him. His face had relaxed. We were the same, Ben and me, both trying our hardest not to think about having to play the cards we’d been dealt. We knew they weren’t good hands, and it wasn’t fair. He let one last rock fly, then stuffed his slingshot into his back pocket as we entered the schoolyard.
Two
After Honour and State Follow Envy and Hate
Nearly every student older than six was out in front of the school. The older ones stood talking in their usual groups of three or four; the youngest took turns sliding down the smooth boulders jutting up from the ground beside the school. Only two or three of the shyest were already making their way inside.
I pulled off my shoes and scraped them through the grass. Clumped mud smeared across the ground. I couldn’t get the shoes perfectly clean, but I reckoned I’d known that before I’d started trying. I put them back on and followed Ben as we ducked and dodged around the groups. I spotted Erin Sawyer peering at us from around Scott McClain’s blubbery belly. His massive body, the largest in school and him only an eighth grader, dwarfed Erin’s tiny one.
“Excuse us,” Ben mumbled to the dirt as he edged past Scott on his way over to Erin.
I refused to excuse myself to a blamed brat, especially one who made a never-ending habit of calling my daddy a hobo. I’d already taught him a lesson once, and he could bet his last nickel I’d do it again. I scowled as I passed. To my delight, Scott grabbed his swollen nose and retreated.
That was one bully down, one left to go. Erin stood there staring, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Wasn’t nothin’ new. She’d hated most everyone around here from the time she’d showed up in Bittersweet back in August. She’d arrived complete with her lawyer daddy and know-it-all mother. They’d come over from Georgia. Mr. Sawyer had told Daddy that law work wasn’t any good over there, but I didn’t see how a tiny town like Bittersweet would be much different. Even Dr. Heimler had been forced to shut down his office and work from his house. I figured if there wasn’t enough money to pay the town doctor, there sure wasn’t enough to pay for a new lawyer, and the Sawyers needed to go on back where they came from.
It wouldn’t have been a big loss. About the only kid who liked Erin was Ben. He’d always gone out of his way to be nice to her, even when he shouldn’t have. But then again, I’d never actually seen Ben be mean to anyone or anything. He wouldn’t even do in a rattlesnake we once found in his barn, coiled up and rattling in front of a bale of hay. When I told him to whack it with a shovel, he refused. “That rattler’s one of God’s creatures too. It’ll leave when it’s ready.” A couple of hours later, it slithered away. I figured if Ben could like a rattlesnake, it was entirely possible for him to like Erin, ’cause there was no denying she was just as mean as one.
“Hey, Erin,” Ben said, shoving his hands deep inside his pockets. By the way he was acting, you’d think Erin Sawyer was the prettiest thing in all God’s creation. While she wasn’t ugly on the outside, I could assure Ben her insides didn’t match.
Erin wouldn’t look at Ben. She was too busy scowling at me. Her eyes squinted into slits behind her glasses. Her fists balled, turning her knuckles white.
“What’d I do now?” I asked, though I already knew. But why should I give her what she wanted? She’d still be mad
all the time anyway, and she couldn’t hurt me.
“What you always do. Acted like the selfish person you are.”
Ben placed his hand on her shoulder in typical peacemaker fashion. “Just calm down and tell Lizzie why you’re upset.”
“I will not tell her, because she knows,” Erin snapped. Her eyes had gone from slits to saucers, and the way her glasses magnified them, I was afraid they might pop out.
“I’m going inside,” I said. “I’m tired of this.”
But instead of walking inside, I landed facedown on the ground, the musty smell of mud drifting up my nose.
“You ain’t gotta trip her, Erin,” said Ben, reaching to help me up.
“You stay out of this, Ben.” Erin glared at me. She pointed at my face. “I’m through playing games with you, Lizzie. I’m gonna give you one last chance to take your name off that list.”
I stood and tried to brush the mud from the front of my dress. I figured Erin was ready to wring my neck ’cause I’d gone off and signed up for the essay contest Miss Jones ran for the sixth-grade class twice each term. The winner received extra points toward their final grade. After I’d won the last three contests, Erin had been at me about this one. I’d come in first place with the highest grades last term. She’d come in second. She couldn’t stand it. She probably thought if she could win the extra credit, it’d give her enough to beat me out at the end of this term. Well, I wasn’t about to let that happen. I had to hold on to my top spot for Daddy, and I needed those extra points to do it. More than ever. “It’s a free country, Erin. I’ve got just as much right to be in that contest as you. I like to keep my grades in top shape. Daddy always told me getting good grades is my most important job.”
“Your daddy told you!” She laughed. “You may not have noticed, but your daddy’s gone.”
I should’ve let her words roll off me like water off a duck’s feathers, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. “He’ll be back, and I’ll have the grades he’ll expect to see.” The words poured out smooth and easy, like warm honey. “I wouldn’t pull out of that essay contest now if it was your dying wish. It’s too much fun beating you.”