by James, Anne
With an abrupt turn, Laurel marched to her trusty vehicle. A vintage dark-green Toyota Landcruiser, rugged and practical, the truck helped ground her to the present. She had stored the vehicle in her brother, Andrew’s, barn. Her plan was to drive the Landcruiser back to Florida, as most all her family business was finished.
Opening the passenger door she reached for a red rose purchased at the local convenience gas station. An old glass Pepsi bottle was the vase. These were both in homage to her father who liked to drive to the gas station … just because. No particular reason, except to purchase a Pepsi and sometimes The Wall Street Journal. Even that wasn't his reason for going there. It was ... just because. She shook her head in a NO gesture as a smile slid across her face. This upward motion of her cheeks caused the tears to overflow. I will not cry, she thought with her new-found determination, a hard-won attitude that carried over from her mother's funeral where she had spoken at the service—a place where women did not speak in a public format. Where the women wore hats on their heads to The Meeting. No church name. Just ‘The Meeting.’
Her right hand picked up a potted purple violet that she'd purchased from the small town greenhouse. Violets were her mother's favorite flower.
Laurel shoved the door shut with her right hip. Clutching the offerings in each hand, she willed her legs to carry her back to the headstone. Kneeling, she placed the rose on the granite shelf under her father's name and the potted violet under her mother's name. Red and purple. Vibrant splashes of color in the otherwise bleak landscape. Brown and gray. Death.
Tipping her head back, she saw the evening star twinkling through the gathering dusk—the planet, Venus. Thoughts of wonderment filled her mind as she gazed at this light, which had traveled thousands of light years. In reality, she was looking back in time. How many people realized that when they looked at a star, they were traveling back in time? A wry grimace crossed her face. Returning to the farm, her birthplace, for her mother's imminent death and the funeral was similar to smiling in the middle of a war zone. A quiet war zone, but a place where religious fervor held sway over any worldly practices, even friendship.
As she knelt in front of her parents’ headstone, she bowed her head. The pit of her stomach felt as if she'd swallowed a chunk of lead. If hearts could bleed internally from pain, she was hemorrhaging. Liza Jane, her best friend beginning when she was twelve, still shunned her. Even the death of her mother didn't warrant a loving hug of condolence. Some parody of a smile and scrunching of Liza Jane’s face was all the warmth extended to her. How could religious beliefs come before friendship? Where was love? Forgiveness? These thoughts strained in her head until she placed both gloved hands over her ears, allowing the racking sobs to contort her body, rocking with a slight motion.
The years? Where had they all gone?
Gripping the headstone she pulled herself up. Enough of this.
Her cell phone vibrated against her side. Taking it out of her coat pocket, she squinted through the tears at the name. Boyd Warner, manager at Timucuan Springs State Park in central Florida. Her supervisor.
Laurel cleared her throat, wiped her nose with the back of her gloved hand, quickening her stride to the car as she answered the demands of another world—the work world of being a park ranger.
“Hello, Boyd!”
“Laurel? I hope this isn't a bad time?”
Lying, she produced a sound that she hoped was a laugh. “No, not at all.” Opening the Landcruiser's door with her free hand, she sat on the cold seat. The car was freezing.
“Okay, but you sound as if you have a bad cold. Everything okay up there on the farm?” Concern laced through his deep, booming voice.
She turned the ignition switch and the motor throbbed to life. An inward smile filled her, as she counted on this old vehicle as if it was part of her family. With a graceful, quick gesture she turned on the heat full blast. Cold air came out of the vents.
“Thanks for asking, Boyd. Things will be okay once I get back down to the park! Bit out of my comfort zone here.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Other than live in my body … can't think of a thing.” She produced another hoarse sound.
A gravely growl filled her ear. “Can't say as I've ever had any leanings to be a woman. We could swap positions?” Boyd gave a slight, evil chuckle.
Laurel smiled. “We all know you love your job. What's up?”
“Well, I didn't want to bother you, but Janice insisted.”
She nodded in understanding. Janice LaPlume was the hard-core assistant administrator who barked her way through the day acting menacing and mean. A bluff. All the rangers loved her and the administration staff depended on her to keep all nit-picky financial matters pertaining to Tallahassee up to snuff.
Boyd continued, weariness dogging his tone. “I'm holding a letter addressed to you. Return address, Ernie Buckle. I wouldn't have called, but the more I looked at it, the more bothered I became, especially with Janice harassing the hell out of me to telephone you! There's a red skull and crossbones on the back of the envelope with some preschool printing. Says, I'm watching you.”
Slumping back in the worn seat, Laurel squeezed her eyes shut as she took a deep breath.
“Laurel, I'm sorry as hell. I know you have enough going on but I went with my gut feeling. Even though Ernie is supposed to be in some back of beyond western location like Nevada, I thought you should know.”
“Open it.”
“Naw, Laurel, I'd rather you do that.”
She'd reached her limit of being screwed with. “Open it, Boyd. I need to know what's inside.” Immediately she regretted her tone. She'd never spoken to her boss that way. “Sorry.”
“If you say so.”
The sound of paper ripping open came through the phone. Silence. The deathlike stillness stretched into the cemetery where she was parked.
If the lump in her stomach was as heavy as lead a few minutes before, now it outweighed a bag of lead.
She pounded the steering wheel with both hands as she felt a meltdown washing over her. “God dammit! Tell me what's inside!” Her voice was sliding up the scale even as remorse tickled her reality for screeching at her supervisor.
In a voice that was much too calm Boyd said, “It’s one sheet of paper with a colored photo of you in uniform copied at the top. There's a circle drawn around you with what looks to be a red marker.” He stopped for a deep breath, then continued, “The red printing below your picture says, ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’ At the bottom he signed it, Valiant.”
“Coward? Now I'm a coward? Dear God! That's just great. He's quoting Shakespeare. Self-aggrandizing piece of filth!”
“Laurel, I wouldn't be so concerned except for some of the stories I recall. Such as ...”
She interrupted, triggered reactions producing words before thought. “ ... such as when my tires had ninety-pounds of pressure the day I drove from Pensacola to Tallahassee for a meeting. A state vehicle that I’d thoroughly checked out the night before I went to a class. A class where Ranger Ernie oddly opted to drive his own personal vehicle rather than ride on the state's dollar. And where Ernie mysteriously pulled a pressure gauge out of his pocket when we were requested to drive our park's vehicle as an overflow for a field trip to St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge and the scumbag had to ride with me!” She knew she was rambling.
“Laurel ...”
“I know years have passed and that was an entirely different park in the panhandle. Grand Lake State Park.”
Boyd cleared his throat.
“Sorry, again.” Shame colored her tone as if Mary Magdalene kneeling at the feet of Jesus. “Why me?”
Digging deep, Boyd found reserves of patience that were his to draw on as park manager. If he didn't have these reservoirs to draw from, his professio
n would have ended long ago. Managing 44,000 acres of natural and cultural resources for the State of Florida with a staff of fifteen demanded a lot with very little to compensate.
“As disturbing as this envelope and letter are, I believe there is nothing to worry about at this moment. Ernie can have no idea that you are tending to family matters in Illinois. When are you driving back?”
“Day after tomorrow. My brother and I have a date with the lawyer tomorrow. Most of my mother's estate was very tidy. Just a few loose ends.”
She didn't want to tell her boss that the Brethren in The Meeting were requesting more answers from her. Ugly questions from being placed under discipline ten years previous. He would be hard put to understand. To grasp all the unspoken intricacies of the Brethren's doctrine—what many excommunicated members and other folks outside the fold would refer to as a cult. She wasn't that close to Boyd and didn't have that intimate a relationship with him.
A weighty silence hung between them.
“You travel safe. I'll check on things at this end and see if Ernie has had any contact with any other parks.”
Endeavoring to lighten her tone, she responded, “Thank you. I'll see you in about three days.”
A thought tickled her memory. “Boyd?”
“Yes?”
“The incident that happened down near the springs several months ago involving the two women? Was it ever decided if Ernie had a part in that?”
Warren’s voice was grim. “The two men that the women described haven’t been apprehended yet. I understand the case is still under investigation.”
Laurel exhaled noisily. “Not very satisfactory for me.”
“You’ve got that right. District and Tallahassee are pushing to find answers but so far, nothing.”
Ending the call, Laurel sat glued to her seat. Windows fogged from her breathing, creating an arctic tomb. Hollow as a cave, she concentrated on her position with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Parks and Recreation, Park Services Specialist. Responsibilities. Happiness. How am I to live out the next half of my life with contentment and happiness? I'm forty-eight years old.
She pulled a glove off her frozen right hand. Typing in the password to unlock her Blackberry phone, she scrolled down to the name, Brodie.
Chapter 6
Interstate 24 wound like a snake through the Chattahoochee National Forest. After Chattanooga, Tennessee, northern Georgia opened before Laurel in all its vivid colors! Blue sky, white, puffy clouds over a crimson, gold Monet canvas of an autumn landscape. An array of natural beauty that helped cleanse some of the uncleanness from religious beliefs held by many relatives that made up the group of people called The Meeting, a group of Christian believers who broke away from the Church of England in the early 1800s to follow the teachings of John Nelson Darby.
Drumming her fingers on the old steering wheel, she remembered as a young girl trying to figure out why her schoolmates went to church, but if she used that word, she was remonstrated by her parents. The correct word was Meeting, a group of fundamental Christians that didn't want to have a formal name such as existed in organized religion but held firm in the belief according to the New Testament of the King James Bible. They strive to live and worship as close as possible to the Christians such as are in the book of Acts. The main focus of their Sunday morning meeting is to break bread, known as communion in church groups. The conditions placed on this form of worship are strict. She had experienced this first hand.
Deep in thought, her mind returned to ten years earlier when she was publicly read out of the assembly—another word The Meeting approved, Assembly. Much like the earliest meeting halls in America. Or so she assumed. The pain accompanying this punishment had been horrific. Shunning by her relatives was excruciatingly painful. Even uglier was the toll it took on those dearest to her—her 83-year-old mother of whom she was the caretaker. This shunning continued for more than two horrible years, until even her mother knew it was best if she moved away from the farm.
Laurel rolled the window down about an inch. Cool, crisp air blew into the truck. She sucked in a deep breath letting it out with a whoosh. The sound of the tires eating up the pavement returned her to the present. Thinking of the pain the disciplinarian action had caused her two children was almost more than she could bear. Guilt, shame, horror, all were hers to carry to the grave. Would she ever be free of soul-sucking, joy- depriving guilt?
The monumental decision to move to Pensacola, Florida, with her daughter, Amelia, had been made seven years ago. Building a home and getting a job as a park ranger for the State of Florida had all been huge undertakings—the many ordeals that accompanied such a move from the security and familiarity of being an accepted woman of the blessed to an outcast in the world. She had to make a living. Thank God, the park ranger position had opened for her at Grand Lake. Or did she thank God? Was all of this part of a divine plan or was it just random living and applying oneself to life? Questions that were occupying more and more of her time.
The loneliness of settling in a new place was enormous. Adjusting to a new way of life. The divorce from her husband had been final two years before her move to Pensacola. All the changes combined with finding a career were just a tip of the iceberg in this new life.
Having had no affiliation with any religion for the last several years was allowing her mind to expand. The narrowness of the Christian beliefs that had been ground into her as a child were beginning to crumble, such as the rigid belief that the Lord, meaning Jesus Christ, was only in this one particular holy place of the Protestant faith, The Meeting. How had she accepted this belief all these years? She hadn’t, but she had embraced parts of the Brethren’s doctrine as a way of life. The life she had been born into, a life as full of security and comfort as hot cross buns on a chilly morning. A community that lived together, worked together and worshipped together. Why did humans have such a need for a herd mentality? Knowing the answer, she shook her head in affirmation. Belonging. A tribal need to be a part of a group. Safety. Security. The huge problem with this bucolic, pastoral way of life brought together by the farming community was exclusiveness. By adopting this way of life, she and all the other people in The Meeting had made themselves separate from the world. God knew what would befall one of them for such worldly actions as voting, participating in scholastic sports, associating with friends outside The Meeting. She remembered the guilty giggling with her cousins when she was a little girl at all the awful ways they could choose to go outside the fold.
Her father’s mother, Grandma Gordon, had introduced this belief into her life as a new bride from east St Louis when she had married Victor Gordon in the late 1800s. As a married couple, they raised their nine children on the Illinois farm, conducting Sunday worship service in their living room. Hence, The Meeting, was brought to that part of Illinois. The matriarch of the Gordon clan.
Noticing that her fuel gauge read a quarter of a tank, she took the next exit and pulled into a Shell plaza. As she nudged open the driver’s door, her aching joints and muscles made themselves known. Perhaps it was time for some caffeine—a coffee frappe from the MacDonald’s attached to the gas station.
After fueling the truck, Laurel, considered whether she was in the mood for music or more soul-searching ruminating. Realizing that the jarring effect of facing a place on earth that had been knit into the very fiber of her being and then becoming an outcast where she had to remake herself and gain a new identity took over the need for music. She was in the mood to reflect and consider.
The crisp, autumn chill caused her to shiver. Having placed an old woolen vest on the seat beside her for this very purpose, she wondered why she hadn’t put it on while safely stopped at the gas station. Preoccupied was the excuse she decided. With this observation concluded, she shrugged into the dark green vest. This was an agility act of steering with one knee and pushing one arm through the
sleeve hole and then the other arm.
In front of her was a Jeep Cherokee with a man driving. Presumably, his wife was the woman in the passenger seat. Children were lined up in the back seat. A vinyl luggage carrier on top of the roof was bursting with additional needs of the family. Easing into the passing lane, Laurel studied the blue vehicle as she passed it. A feeling of relief filled her. Examining this feeling, she realized it was completely due to the fact that she wasn’t under the thumb of a man. All her childhood and teenage years, she had been taught to revere the male species. He was the head of the house. The males made the decisions and the females abided by them. Submission. The head coverings worn to Meeting were to show the angels that the women were in submission to the man. This way of life works as long as it isn’t questioned or a woman became so bold as to think on her own without the Bible to spell out what exactly was her role in this world.
Laurel squirmed in her seat and propped her left knee against the door with her foot on the column of the steering wheel. The only thing missing from her enjoyment of driving the ancient Landcruiser was cruise control. Her right knee threatened to kink into a tight knot of pain if she didn’t change positions every few minutes. A glance at her K-Swiss wristwatch helped her calculate about seven more hours of driving. A sigh escaped from her lips. She missed her children. Sometimes the longing was irrational, she knew, but the intensity was piercing. Although both of them were successful, daughter with a professional career, her son an engineer, the physical distance separating them was painful. She had always been close to her children. If this modern way of living didn’t mean they were strewn all over the United States in their various careers, some of her loneliness would be alleviated.