The Gardens of Covington

by Joan A. Medlicott

  With that, a wide grin spread across Hannah’s angular face.

  Hannah’s almost beautiful when she smiles and her eyes light up, Grace thought. They’re not the deep blue like Amelia’s eyes, but blue enough.

  Amelia’s knuckles rapped the table. “Me too, I’m family.”

  “That you are, Amelia,” Grace said. Reaching out, she touched both their hands. “Chosen family. The best kind, often better than flesh and blood relations.” Saying that, she flashed back to how much Roger, her only child, had hurt her. After his father’s death, and after her “little” heart attack, he had dashed in from his life in Saudi Arabia to insist that she sell her furniture, rent her home in Dentry, Ohio, and move to Olive Pruitt’s boardinghouse in Pennsylvania. Upon his return from Saudi Arabia, he had pressed her to sell her home in Dentry so that he and Charles might invest in a new business. For the same reason, and at the same time, Miranda harangued Hannah to sell Hannah’s former plant nursery, which Miranda ran, and in which her mother retained a financial and emotional interest.

  Grace and Hannah had both capitulated. In hindsight it seemed that, young and old, they had all been reaching for new lives that year. Providentially, their dreams had materialized. Their children’s business was successful, as were Amelia, Hannah, and herself, each in her own way, here, in rural North Carolina.

  “One more sentence,” Grace said.

  “Well, this is all for now, Mother. My love to you three ladies of Covington. Miranda.”

  Grace folded and handed the letter back to Hannah, who shoved it back into her pocket. It had set Grace thinking about her son and Charles. “I’d like to see Roger and Charles. Charles is like a son to me. I worry about him so much since the diagnosis.” She sighed. “Even if he’s lucky and never gets AIDS, the threat’s always there.”

  Charles had been diagnosed nearly five years ago.

  “If I were Charles, I’d be frantic. I’d never sleep,” Amelia said.

  “At least, so far, his T cell count’s high, well up over nine hundred, so that’s good,” Hannah said. They all nodded, then spoke no more of Charles.

  She turned back to the plastic topographic map and squinted at its configurations.

  “What are you doing?” Grace asked again.

  “I’ve been trying to find Covington.”

  “Before we came down here we couldn’t find Covington on any map.” Tracings marked the sheet of paper Grace picked up. She turned it this way and that and studied it.

  “I’m trying to rough out a map of Covington,” Hannah said. “There is none.” She nodded at the heavy-ridged map. “So many mountains and hills, and the French Broad River runs right through the county.”

  “A map of Covington.” Amelia spread wide her fingers. “It somewhat resembles a hand without a thumb, the valleys would be the space between my fingers.” She wiggled her hand.

  “Show me.”

  With a black marker, Amelia traced the outline of her hand on a blank sheet of paper. With a green marker, she filled in the three valleys between her fingers: Cove Road, Loring Valley, McCorkle Creek. Using a brown marker, Amelia scribbled in the spaces where her fingers had been. “These are the mountains that separate the valleys.”

  Grace inspected it. “I think you’re right, Covington does resemble a palm.”

  Hannah looked and nodded. “I think you’ve got it. This will help the graphic artist I’ve hired to get a map made.”

  Amelia rose, turned toward the refrigerator, and pulled out a baked ham wrapped snug in heavy tinfoil. Amelia set it on the sink counter, and as the ham was pre-sliced, she eased off a slice with her fingers.” Anyone want a ham sandwich?” She tossed her head and laughed. “I’ll use a fork and knife.” No one did. Amelia helped herself to another slice of ham, ate it, then resealed the heavy foil. “I don’t know what I want to eat. That didn’t do it.”

  Turning to Hannah, Grace asked, “Why do you want a map, Hannah?”

  “Need a map so people can see what we’re talking about, to explain to interested parties why they should join the Cove Road Preserve Coalition.”

  “Who may these interested parties be?” Amelia asked.

  “Audubon Society, Sierra Club, hiking groups, other concerned citizens, private funding sources. I’ve got addresses for the Sierra Clubs in Buncombe, Madison, and Yancey Counties. Flyer being printed to send out. When they come will you help me address them?”

  “Of course,” Grace said. Amelia, whose mouth was full, nodded yes.

  “I’d be glad to help, too, Hannah,” Bob, who had been silent, said.

  “Did you have a good time tonight?” Grace asked Amelia.

  “Mike and I went to Be Here Now, a club in Asheville. I felt old enough to be everyone’s grandmother.” She flung back her head and laughed. “A young man with tattoos on both arms asked me to dance. Mike glowered at him, and he nearly tripped in his hurry to get away.” Amelia returned the ham to the refrigerator, peered inside, shuffled things around, and took out an English muffin and red raspberry jam. “Cake’s too sweet this time of night. Maybe a muffin.”

  Hannah’s eyes followed Amelia. “You have neat handwriting. Print ‘Masterson Land,’ ‘Elk Road,’ ‘Loring Valley,’ and ‘McCorkle Creek’ on this paper, and make a little house with a cross to designate Cove Road Church, will you, Amelia?”

  “And little houses for the seven farmhouses on Cove Road, and their owners’ names,” Grace said. “And be sure to put in Maxwell’s windmill, and show how the hills drift away one after the other, the way they look in the evening. You can do that, can’t you?”

  Pop went the toaster. Amelia removed the English muffin. “I can try, but I’m no artist.”

  Bob studied the very rough sketch. He reached for a blue marker and drew a curving line across the area to represent Masterson’s land. “Bad River,” he said. “What a name. Why Bad River?”

  “Lurina told me that years ago it flooded so high that all the crops were destroyed, animals drowned, and the house was nearly dragged off its foundation,” Grace said.

  Hannah’s brows knitted as she pulled the sketch toward her. She added a straight brown line across where the knuckles on the hand would be. “And this would be Elk Road.” She looked at it carefully, then, using a marker, she thickened Elk Road. “Grover Masterson set aside this five-mile strip, three hundred feet deep along Elk Road for commercial use.” She brown-marked it in.

  “Soon to be home to a strip mall, as well as P. J. Prancer’s and the old gas station,” Amelia said.

  “And our tearoom,” Bob added.

  Amelia slathered jam on her muffin and picked up her cup. She yawned. “Leave it on the table, Hannah. I promise, early tomorrow I’ll print in the names. Now, I’m off to bed. Bonne nuit.”

  “See you tomorrow.” With Amelia gone, Grace shoved the fledgling map toward Hannah. “You do it. You can print small. At least do Cove Road, Loring Valley, and McCorkle Creek.”

  Hannah rummaged among the pencils and paper and found a fine-tipped pen. Carefully she printed MCCORKLE CREEK.

  “The McCorkles are Scotch-Irish,” Grace said. “Hardy folk, with strong family and religious ties. Did you know this area’s famous for its authentic folk music and that Madison County’s noted for its excellent folk musicians?”

  “How do you know all of that?” Bob asked.

  “Librarian at Caster Elementary,” Grace replied. “I ask questions. Jane, the librarian, loaned me a spiral-bound book published in 1974 to mark the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. It’s called This Is Madison County. It tells all about the county, its geography, where the settlers came from and when, the ups and downs of the economy, about the music and songs from the old country that have been kept pure here.

  “There’s a chapter on floods: 1876, 1916 . . .” She hesitated, tapped her forehead with a finger. “1928, 1940. People still argue about which was the absolute worst.”

  “How can you remember all those dates, Gra
ce?” Hannah asked.

  “I wonder myself. I can’t remember the names of new people to save my soul, and I forget the grocery list, but . . .” She shrugged. “Maybe I remember what interests me. You know I’m a history buff.”

  The fire in the woodstove had died down to a mere glow, but the room was warm, and Bob removed his sweater. He made no move to leave. If he didn’t feel like driving home, he was welcome here and would spend the night either with Grace or in the guest room. He and Grace would decide that later.

  Hannah stacked the maps and papers and topped them with the topographic map and set them on the floor beside her chair. Only the budding map of Covington lay on the table. “Cove Road’s the shortest valley, like a pinkie,” Hannah said. “Shortest valley. Farthest one in along Elk Road.”

  “Who were the Covingtons?” Bob asked.

  “Harold’s family. Covingtons settled here in 1871. Covington’s named for them,” Grace said. “Harold says when they came it was still dense forest with patches of grassland. They tried growing cotton but gave it up for tobacco. The Mastersons arrived in 1875, then the McCorkles.”

  “Loring Valley may be the widest valley, but Cove Road’s the most beautiful,” Bob said.

  “And those confounded developers built villas no more than fifty feet back from Little River, right on the flood-plain in Loring Valley. Piled rocks at the river’s edge, as if that’ll hold back rampaging water,” Hannah said.

  Grace felt the hair rise on her arms. They hadn’t had a really heavy rain since they’d arrived here, but she remembered Harold’s saying they had sixty-five to seventy inches of rain most years, and flooding happened if the rain was intense and frequent enough. Heavy rains, he warned them, had been known to propel their small stream over its banks. Luckily their house was built on a foundation three feet above the ground, and their land sloped gently toward Cove Road. Grace tried to recall if the Hammers’ villa was raised or set on a slab, and couldn’t remember, then she was distracted by the creaking of Hannah’s chair. Hannah sat back, drew her robe tight about her, and knotted the red belt.

  Red belt. Green pajamas. Christmas was coming. Grace smiled. Having taken advantage of after-Christmas sales last January, she had only to wrap her presents when the time came.

  Night sounds wafted through the half-open window: leaves rustling, a car passing, an acorn, perhaps, from the great oak pinging onto the porch roof. Hannah said, “Every time I think of Loring Valley my blood boils.” She knotted her fists.

  Grace remembered. The noise of construction had reverberated between sky-scraping mountains, poured from Loring Valley, and hurled shivers of sound along Elk Road, into McCorkle Creek, over Masterson land, and down Cove Road. Grace covered her ears. “I’ll never forget the sounds of it. Miss Lurina says she’s sure the blasting made her deaf.”

  Hannah handed the fledgling map to Grace, who changed several lines in the sketch of McCorkle Creek. “McCorkle Creek’s very narrow except for the flat area close to the entrance, and that’s jammed with McCorkle farms and houses.” She held up the drawing. “When McCorkle children and grandchildren marry, they build a house, share the barns and farm machinery. Laura Hill, our librarian, told me that she camped up on Beef Mountain once. She could look right down on that valley. She says the McCorkle complex resembles Brigadoon at night; by day it’s a dowdy collection of weathered buildings. And the street names: McCorkle Ditch, Lone Pasture Lane, Plant and Pick Road, Old Horse Lane, Fall Down Corner, and so on, and they’re all no wider than the width of a truck.” Grace stood, covered the Vienna cake, and put it on top of the refrigerator.

  Bob closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. “Being in this kitchen always makes me feel warm inside and happy. My mother’s kitchen smelled of vanilla.”

  Grace ran her finger along his cheek. For several minutes, the only sounds in the room came from Bob’s chair as he shifted his weight, and the intermittent whistles from the kettle that was about to boil again. A tiny mouse scurried across the floor. Amelia would have screamed and stood on a chair, Grace thought, as she watched the tiny critter disappear behind the refrigerator. She wondered how many mice raised families behind their walls.

  Bob’s voice cut into her thoughts. “McCorkle Creek’s got a splendid waterfall.”

  “Ever walk to that waterfall? Exacting terrain along that stream, like someone took tons of jagged boulders and tossed them helter-skelter.” Hannah shook her head. “But Loring Valley.” Her eyes grew speculative. “How could it happen that Bracken and Woodward Corporation out of South Georgia found this out-of-the-way place? One morning we woke up to the roar of their equipment charging along Elk Road and into Loring Valley. If we can’t stop them, Cove Road is next.”

  10

  Lance Lundquist

  “They’ve closed the Blue Ridge Parkway, Amelia. The fog’s too heavy,” Mike said on the phone. “But it should be gorgeous with all that fog drifting about and skirting trees in the forest. What say we meet at Ingle’s, off New Stock Road in Weaverville, and go on up Reems Creek Road to Ox Bow? We’ll head up the mountain. Even if we get only a little way, it should be glorious for photography.”

  The house was quiet. Hannah had gone to Hendersonville with Wayne to check out a potential retail outlet for the ornamental flowering plants they grew in the greenhouse out back, and to talk to a graphic artist about her map.

  This being the last week of October, the fall foliage was at its peak, and Grace, Bob, Russell, and Emily were off to Jonesborough, a quaint and charming town in Tennessee where a storytelling festival was held every year. Amelia didn’t like being alone in the farmhouse. Noises, barely audible when the others were there, frightened her. Was it really old boards contracting as they cooled or warmed, or was it the light steps of a thief on the stairs? Or a ghost? It was, after all, an old house. Or was it a small animal trapped indoors? Thank goodness Mike had called.

  “I’d love to go,” she said. Pulling aside the curtain at the kitchen window, Amelia peered into the mist. Fog blanketed everything within her sight, even the windmill at the Maxwell farm was invisible, and it was ten in the morning. She felt momentary panic at the idea of being on the road in this pea soup. Silly. She could do it. She’d just crawl along getting to Weaverville. “It’s foggy out here. I may be late,” she said to Mike.

  “You’re never late, but considering the fog, I’ll wait, do some grocery shopping. If I’m not in the van when you get here, look for me in the Fresh Market.”

  “Will do.” She hung up, checked the front and back doors to be sure they were locked, walked away, then returned and propped a chair against the kitchen doorknob. Showering when she was alone in the house invariably stirred memories of Hitchcock’s movie Psycho. Pity she’d ever seen it. Well, she’d showered yesterday. Amelia sniffed at her underarm. Smelled of violets from her cologne. She wouldn’t shower after all.

  The ceiling of the foyer resembled a medieval battlefield of confused ladybugs unsure of procedures on the field of battle. The living room ceiling brought the same image to mind. Amelia resisted the urge to shwoosh at them with a broom, dash them to the floor. No, she’d get up on a sturdy chair and vacuum them. Amelia started upstairs, turned, came back down, and speculated again about the ladybugs. Why bother now? They’d only come back in droves. Was she becoming resigned to ladybugs? Heaven forbid. Someone in this household had to fight the good fight, or the little creatures would inundate them. But later. They would be there later and so would she.

  It was ten-thirty in the morning when Amelia, encased in plastic rainwear, slid into her Tauruss and snapped fast her seat belt. The strap pressing against her chest bothered her. Nervous, and overcautious, Amelia scanned the road right and left a minimum of three times prior to turning from the driveway onto Cove Road. Signs indicating a curve ahead brought her to a crawl. Railroad crossings with their lights off and their railings raised brought her to a dead halt. On entering or exiting ramps on or off of Highway 19-23, the four-lane into As
heville, Amelia held her breath and drove much too slowly.

  Years ago, after the big sedan with darkened windows ran a stop sign and plowed into their car, killing Thomas and leaving her with horrid burn scars about her neck and shoulder, she swore she would never own a car again, much less drive one. So much for vows. Living in the country, depending on a ride from others every time she needed a jar of rejuvenating night cream for her face, or film, or notepaper, anything, had grown unbearable. With Grace’s and Hannah’s encouragement, she had asked Harold Tate to help her select a car. They chose a Tauruss, not too big, not too small, just right for a person five feet three and slight of build.

  Amelia inched the Taurus down the driveway and stopped at Cove Road. The Maxwells’ farmhouse was barely visible in the resolute, opalescent pall that lay thick upon the land. No oncoming headlights honeycombed the furlongs of yawning fog to left or right. Amelia considered fog fickle and unpredictable, at time dense and unyielding, at times pliant and tensile, at times peripheral, hugging roadsides, or floating in patches over dips in the road. There were times she could see her way on one street, turn a corner, and have to pull off the road and wait for a car or truck to pass her, then follow those taillights, tiny red gleams in the murk.

  Amelia turned right on Cove Road. Visibility was perhaps fifty feet. The first twenty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit sign that she passed lay bent and twisted at an angle. It had been that way for months. The second, though erect, bore the pitted scars of bullets. Too many teenagers had guns, and target practice on street signs was standard entertainment. Relieved that no car appeared in her rearview mirror, Amelia drove at ten miles an hour.

  At Elk Road she stopped, waited, then turned left. She looked for markers: the entrance to Loring Valley Road, then she would pass McCorkle Creek Road. Beyond Elk Road, the two-lane to Mars Hill was wider and considerably less foggy than these roads in Covington. Something, Harold Tate said, about this area being lower and enclosed by hills and with several rivers. Once she was out of Covington, visibility would improve, and Amelia planned to increase her speed to thirty-five, maybe even forty miles an hour.