FORTY-THREE
We had roast goose for dinner. I’d never eaten roast goose, but it came out of the oven moist on the inside and crispy on the outside. Sue held her hand over Biz’s and let her “carve” the breast. When she proudly held up the first dark, juicy piece, everyone cheered.
I ate foods I’d never heard of before. Creamed chestnuts, some kind of puff pastry with lobster and a pink champagne sauce inside, chunks of grilled root vegetables served with bowls of nuts—which Kendra explained symbolized the African harvest—potatoes mashed with so much Vermont cheddar cheese they turned orange, and cranberry sauce that didn’t start in a can. And pies. The Parker family did love their pies. But the best part was the delicious, happy noise that filled the house from bottom to top.
Before dessert Mama tapped her glass with a knife. “I want to thank all of y’all for making this the merriest Christmas ever. And I want to especially thank the McCarthys for letting me bring them from Boston and giving such a gift to Magnolia.”
The McCarthys blushed and mumbled something about not having kids of their own.
“In the excitement of all y’all coming, I forgot to give Magnolia her real gift.” She held out a flat, rectangular package, decked out with a silver bow and shimmery streamers draping end to end. “Open it, sugar.”
Thirteen pairs of eyes watched while I tore off the paper. Fourteen, if you include Quince. Inside was a giant book of maps. One page for each of the fifty states. My heart sank to my feet.
Mama saw the look on my face. “Open it up.”
My hand shook as I turned to the first page. An index.
“No, go to the first state. What’s the first state in the alphabet?”
“Alabama!” Biz cried out. “Look at Alabama!”
“Quiet—you don’t even know what’s going to be there,” Haily said.
Alabama had been marked with a black X across the whole page.
“Go to the next one,” Mama said urgently.
“Alaska!” Biz yelled.
“Shhhh.” James clamped his hand over her mouth, but she wiggled out.
Alaska had a big, black X through it, too. So did Arizona, Arkansas, and California. Every single page had been crossed off, all the way through Utah.
“Vermont’s next! We’re next!” Biz could barely keep her bottom in her chair.
My fingers cramped when I turned the page. No black X crossed off Vermont. Instead, about three quarters to the top and slightly right of center, was a hot-pink sticky note with an arrow pointing to a tiny green dot. In Mama’s handwriting the note read We live here! followed by a little happy face.
I couldn’t even look up. Salty tears drenched the entire state of Vermont. My shoulders shook so forcefully I almost dropped the book. Mama laid her hand on the back of my neck, and pressed her cheek against the top of my head.
“I do understand you,” Mama whispered. “It took me a while, but I do.”
Once the electric moment had passed, after I’d blown my nose and washed my face, after everyone had settled down and talk of dessert buzzed, Mama said there was something else.
“Y’all know I loved working at the store that day—I had so much fun. And I love spending time at the veterans home with Freda and all of them. But I want to go to college. It’s always been my dream to study fashion design. But it’s not right for me to live off the money your daddy left you, sugar. That should pay for your college, and whatever else you want. I’ve talked this over with Deacon, and with your permission, I’d like to lease out part of the farm.”
“Lease it to who? For what?”
“Mr. Jim is interested in a twenty-year lease of the maple sugar factory. He would rent all but one hundred acres. That would give us enough money to live on so we could stay here, in the house, plus add a little more to your college fund.”
“What about Peter? He said he’d always look out for us.”
“And I’m sure he would. But wouldn’t you rather cut ties with Georgia and be on our own?”
I looked at Deacon. He gave a slight nod. “That’s why he kept everything all these years, so you could decide yourself what to do with it. If leasing out the factory his father built means you get to stay here, I have no doubt he would approve.”
Everyone leaned forward in their chairs, waiting. Mama’s hand rested on my back. Her bright-blue eye shadow had faded, most of her lipstick was gone, and mascara smudged into half-moons under each eye. What was left was the most beautiful future-fashion-designer face in the entire state of Vermont.
FORTY-FOUR
After dinner I put on my parka and mittens and snuck out to the front porch in search of quiet. It was a lot, all the stuff happening inside. I needed to think about what it meant that we’d get to stay. My cheeks ached from smiling all afternoon. It was the best kind of ache.
The front door opened and Sonnet poked her face out. “Do you need to be alone?”
“I’m okay. You can come out.”
She sat down beside me and handed me a brown document folder tied shut with a string.
“I want you to have these. Your dad made them.”
Inside were four colored-pencil drawings: a mermaid, a kitten with a girl’s face, a princess, and a magnolia bloom.
“I don’t know what to say. These are yours, he gave them to you.”
She shook her head. “They were always meant for you. I was just the guardian.”
I rubbed a finger across the mermaid’s face. “Does it make you sad to give them away?”
“No. I was there when he drew them. You didn’t get that part. That makes me sad.”
I thought about that for a minute, that I’d missed things like watching him draw mermaids and tell stories. But if we’d stayed when I was little, he would have been a different father than the one I’d come to know. There’d probably be no Deacon, no Quince, and no Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy. He wouldn’t have gravitated to Sonnet and helped her get well. In the end, Mama might have left anyway if she hadn’t been able to cope with his brokenness.
I carried the folder through the woods as carefully as I imagined a person carried a newborn baby. Sonnet and I had just passed through the birch grove when something jumped out of the snow. I jerked to a stop, but it was gone.
“Did you see?”
“Shhh,” Sonnet whispered. “Watch.”
A bump in the snow trailed away from the hole where it had disappeared. White powder flew into the air again, and two black eyes popped out. Black eyes and a pink nose darted left, then right, then got sucked away again.
“What is it?”
“A winter ermine.”
She put a finger to her lips. The ermine shot up again like a bullet, spun around in midair, and dived headfirst into the snow. He was solid white except for the tip of his tail, which looked like it had been dipped in black paint. Sonnet pointed to a mound moving away from us.
“He’s under there, making that ridge.”
“I’ve never seen an ermine.”
“You probably have,” she said. “They’re brown in the summer and turn white in the winter.”
“He was so cute.”
“People think they’re so cute they make coats out of them. It’s disgusting.”
I turned away and started through the woods again, wondering if Sonnet had ever seen Mama wearing her fur coat. Maybe now she’d put those kinds of things away. The things that she’d used to fake her way through a tough time, along with all the Georgia rules that had no place in Vermont.
It took both of us to push enough snow away from the door to the sugar shack so we could squeeze inside. Sonnet stopped in front of the fireplace and looked around the room.
“I’ve haven’t been here since he died,” she said.
“I love this place. This is where I started to learn about him.”
“Did you know I was there, at the accident?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She turned away so I couldn’t see her face. “It w
as so fast. He took me to Middlebury to see an exhibit of his art. He didn’t usually go, but the moms said he was trying to reach out. You know, be more active in the community. On the way home we stopped to help those people. He told me to wait for him, but he never came back.”
I shuddered. She stood straight and tall. Her long black hair tumbled from under a fuzzy blue hat.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever said that to out loud. Maybe you’ll be a shrink someday.” She turned and sat at the table, tracing the carved heart with her fingers.
“You can still use the piano if you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m definitely, positively sure. He’d want you to.”
She tipped her head a little. “Yeah, he would. Thank you.”
I leaned against the wall and inhaled deeply. “I love the smell in here. Maple syrup and smoke. It smells like home.”
“Are you going to make syrup in the spring?”
“I don’t know—I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Deacon does. He still carves spiles from birch wood. Those are what go into the tree so the sap runs into the buckets. Johnny Austin didn’t like metal spiles, so Deacon keeps a bucket of sticks in his house and whittles them.”
“Did my daddy make syrup this year?”
“He died just before sugar season. It’s usually close to the first day of spring.”
“So is my birthday.”
“I know.”
“Why does Deacon keep making spiles?”
“He said in case you wanted to make syrup. But really I think it’s because it helped him not be sad.”
“Like the way you do art, and the way I run?”
“Yeah, like that.”
I could barely see through the windows for all the frost covering the glass, but right outside were hundreds of maple trees my daddy had made syrup from for years.
“Is it hard to make?”
Sonnet shrugged. “It’s not my thing, but it’s not hard. Takes time and someone who knows what they’re doing. Deacon’s done it his whole life.”
“Then we should make it, right?”
“That’s up to you. It’s your farm now.”
“It’s my farm now.” I touched my cheek. “It really is.”
Wind blew through a gap in the door. I handed Sonnet the folder and ran out to an opening between the maples. The trees waved frosted branches, losing their shine as daylight waned. Casting my arms to the side, I fell backward and landed softly in a bed of fresh snow and made my very first angel. When I was done, Sonnet was outside sketching me. And she was smiling.
By the time we got back it was nearly dark. The whole house was lit up, and new candles Mama’d bought in Boston flickered in each window. Sonnet and I walked wordlessly across the field, breaking a new trail. It was okay being with her—she didn’t talk nonstop like some of the others. We could be quiet together.
From outside the kitchen I could see all the way to the family room. A bright fire glowed, and the lights on the mantel twinkled. Deacon stood beside the fireplace with Quince at his feet, watching the rest of them play charades. Mama was in the center of the room, flanked by Biz and Lucy, making odd gestures with her hands and laughing. I’d never seen her laugh that way before. Every few seconds one of the girls whispered to her and she made new awkward motions until everyone in that room was in stitches.
Mr. McCarthy leaned over and kissed Mrs. McCarthy. Haily and Ethan Edward were stuffed together in the window seat. James sat on the stairs, his fake leg stretched out in front of him. Kori and Sue shared a floral wing chair, and Kendra sat cross-legged in the other. Even she was smiling.
“The moms got approval to adopt Kendra. They told her this morning.”
“No wonder she’s been happy all day. She’s lucky.”
“We’re lucky, too,” Sonnet said. “You and me. Even in our unluckiness, we’re lucky.”
I looked at the people playing games in the family room, all of them brought together by a bit of luck and the strangest of circumstances, like a hodgepodge quilt that had been stitched together by the one person who was no longer here. The familiar warmth started at the top of my head and spread down my neck, through my heart, all the way to my toes, and his voice cradled me again.
“Family, Magnolia Grace. A beautiful, perfect family.”
Acknowledgments
Every story that resides within us must wait for a completely innocent happening to unlatch the door that sets it free. There is no knob you can turn, no key, and no button to push to gain access. There is only the magic of a split second when something triggers the release of a story that must be told.
After reading a short essay by Frederick Buechner in a class I was taking a few years ago, Magnolia Grace and the Vermont setting slipped out that door and landed on the piece of paper I had been using to take notes. I wrote the beginnings of this book during class that evening. Many thanks to my insightful and patient teachers, Brian Nystrom and Becky Strout, and to all my EFM classmates for your understanding and encouragement.
The journey of this story was revealed to me through the words of a friend who offered an emotional testimony about a job she’d had as a fundraiser for pediatric heart patients, work that resulted in three children receiving life-saving heart transplants. Thank you, Clare Payne Symmons, for sharing that special time in your life with someone you barely knew, and for always seeing in me what I cannot.
To my children, Parker and James, who still have no idea how much my love for them influences the hard work that goes into writing a novel. It is for you that I will never, ever quit.
Love and gratitude to Bettina Whyte, who graciously offered me sanctuary and creative space within her beautiful home. Your friendship and love shine throughout this book.
To my high school friends Carol (Hurley) Hemphill and Karen (Murphy) Rochelli, who swooped in to rescue me when I was lost, even though we hadn’t seen each other in more years than I care to put on paper. There are not enough words to express my gratitude to you both, and to Carol’s husband, Ron. I can’t wait for the next reunion.
I am forever indebted to Kelly Hatch and Kathy Flickinger, who allow me the freedom to be creative and crazy during the workday. Thank you for supporting my writing, and for listening to me wade through plot points and scenes while counting crickets.
To my loyal friend and supporter Ruth Boggs, who makes me feel like maybe I do actually know what I’m doing. You are such a blessing.
This book is also for The Real Biz, who spoke the honest and innocent words from which many of these characters were born.
To my superhuman editor, Andrew Harwell, whose brilliant and thoughtful vision and guidance turn my chicken scratch into something beautiful, and all the hardworking and uber-creative folks at HarperCollins, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I will forever be amazed that my agent, Al Zuckerman, the legendary founder of Writers House, plucked me off the streets and agreed to represent neurotic and needy me. Thank you for always having my back.
And last, but far from least, so many thanks to the powerful women who understand the value of shenanigans. Never would I have found my way without your guiding lights, your words of wisdom, your prayers, good juju, and all things brass. I love you all.
About the Author
Photo by Ashley Turner
NANCI TURNER STEVESON grew up in Connecticut, England, and Texas, always with a book in one hand, the reins of a pony in the other. She wrote her first “novel” at the age of nine about a wild horse named Liberty. Nanci works with the Off Square Theatre Company as a stage manager and youth-performer shepherd. She is a reading fairy to book-hungry children and a riding instructor. The mother of two grown sons, Nanci lives in a meadow at the foot of the Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with her Arabian horse and a 100-pound rescue dog named Story. She is the founder of the Literacy for Hope project, dedicated to getting books into the hands of the homeless. Visit her online at www.na
nciturnersteveson.com.
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Credits
Cover art by Dawn Cooper
Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
Copyright
GEORGIA RULES. Copyright © 2017 by Nanci Turner Steveson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016960400
ISBN 978-0-06-237457-8 (trade bdg.)
EPub Edition © April 2017 ISBN 9780062374592
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FIRST EDITION
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