Return to Franklin Hill

by Elizabeth Walker Jennings

  “Grace?!” It was Bernadine, frantic.

  “Everything all right, Bernadine?” Grace could hear a clamoring wail in the background. It sounded exactly as though someone was sitting on a cat.

  “No. It’s Gus’s father. I’m here with him and he’s fallen and I can’t get him back in this chair. The home nurses aren’t answering the phone and—” Bernadine was close to tears.

  “What’s the address there, Bernadine?” This was no time for niceties. Bernadine Turner had saved her hide from assault by the viperous Nola more than once and it was time to repay those unasked-for favors.

  “It’s the one with the green porch! Halfway down Harper Street.”

  The snow was coming down hard when Grace pulled under the portico of the dimmed Victorian. Gus Turner’s old red pickup truck sat parked in the drive, engine still running, beside the clambering tangle of dying ivy scaling the chalky and chipped white walls.

  Grace walked through a musty entrance hall into the dark house and stood at the bottom of a lengthy oak staircase, listening for Bernadine. One foot on the stairs, she heard the cursing.

  “Get off me, woman and get out of here or I’ll call the sheriff! I don’t want you or your help!” the rasping voice broke off with a yelp.

  “Mr. Turner, you are going to have to hold onto me to get back into that chair or I will have to call the paramedics. If I call the paramedics you will end up at the nursing home.” Bernadine. Definitely exasperated, her voice clipped.

  Grace climbed the stairs and looked around her, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. At the end of a wide, dark hallway, past door after door guarding long-unused rooms, Grace finally found them. Bernadine, in dark green stretch pants and an oddly stylish hooded sweatshirt with Aunt Sis emblazoned in baseball script across the back, was standing, hands on hips. With labored breath, she took a step backward away from the patient.

  Elwyn Turner lay sprawled on the floor of the room at the end of the corridor, a burgundy silk dressing gown hitched up over thin legs, arms desperately clutching one leg of a Queen Anne writing desk. The room was a parlor, his wheelchair sat next to the writing desk. An overstuffed chair with fragile legs, no doubt worth a fortune, was overturned on the floor. As she moved into the parlor, Grace could just make out a doorway and the shadow of a large old four-poster bed. It was dismal, gloomy, and smelled of sickness and age.

  “Get away from me!” The scratching wail that Grace had heard on the phone started again.

  Bernadine was in a state of emotion that Grace was certain she rarely experienced. She sighed, shook her head and turned helplessly to Grace, wringing her hands. “He won’t let me touch him.”

  Grace approached Bernadine, attempting to soothe her worried secretary before they moved the wailing old man.

  “He’s skeered.” A small voice sounded from the doorway. Both women jumped.

  “Leland. Augustus. Turner. I told you to stay put!” Bernadine looked sharply at the small blond boy standing in the doorway.

  The wailing from the floor stopped abruptly.

  “Aunt Sis, he’s afraid of you touching him. You got to use those gloves.” His small mittened hand clumsily pointed to a box of disposable gloves on the parlor table. “Don’t you be skeered of Aunt Sis, Mister.”

  Two small feet encased in sturdy snow boots thumped across the floor to the old man, who was now half sitting up in astonishment.

  “What did you say your name was, boy?”

  “Little Gus. That’s what they call me when I’m not in trouble.” Large blue eyes stared at Elwyn Turner, guileless.

  Grace and Bernadine peeled the latex gloves from the box and approached the patient. Boy and old man assessed each other. Elwyn Turner made no protest as the women stepped on either side of his bent frame and lifted him back into the nearby wheelchair.

  “You said Leland Augustus Turner.” Elwyn accused, turning to his daughter-in-law.

  “That’s right, Mr. Turner. This,” she put her arm around the small boy and smiled fondly at him, “is Little Gus Turner.”

  “Where did he come from?” The old man’s face was pale.

  “He’s Nathan’s youngest grandson.”

  It was one thing to disinherit an entire unknown family. It was another to see that progeny face-to-face. Elwyn Turner grew even paler.

  Nathan Turner, Elwyn and Meredith’s second child, had not spoken to his father in thirty years, the bitter memories of neglect never fading. Unable to bring himself, as Gus Turner had done, to care for the old man, Nathan joined the rest of his siblings in leaving their father to his own life. Elwyn did not know of Nathan’s burgeoning family or of the many grandchildren that filled Nathan’s heart.

  Elwyn, convinced that his offspring wanted nothing more than to rob him of his hard-earned money, had found another reason to hang onto what was his and guard himself against personal intrusion. In doing so, he severed all ties, except with the ever loyal and reticent Gus, and so lost all connection with family. An amazing feat in a town so small.

  The old banker had long ago stopped reading the Franklin Hill newspaper so the births and deaths of the Turner clan came and went unnoticed and unmarked by him. The priest who offered him communion stopped mentioning his relatives after Turner had threatened him with the silver handled cane.

  “Leave me be!” He’d shouted at the owl-eyed cleric. “They’re having them in litters and I want no part of it.” this comment after the birth of twins to Judith, his daughter. Praying under his breath, the priest had scurried from the mansion in complete awe of the fallibility of mankind in general and the temper of this parishioner in specific.

  Now little Gus sat in a chair, legs swinging, looking around him, occasionally smiling, oblivious to the effect his presence had wrought on the miserable man that was his great-grandfather. While Grace and Bernadine cleared the tea tray and lunch dishes, the child chattered.

  “Your name’s Turner, too. That’s a good name, you know. Mama says it’s English. She says we been here for a long time, with the Pilgrims even. We made turkeys in school for Thanksgiving. That’s what those Pilgrims ate, was turkey.” The boy surveyed the dishes as they disappeared.

  “Aunt Sis brung you puddin’.” The blond head shook solemnly. “You better eat that puddin’ cause you won’t get any other dessert. I got a spankin’ once cause I put my puddin’ on Merry’s head.”

  A pause ensued. Turner leaned toward the little visitor.

  “Mary?” It was a choked question.

  “Yes, sir. That’s my sister. Merry. Mer-e-dith Des-i-ree Turner.” The child drew out the name in long syllables. “That’s a great big name.” He paused, then added, as if clarifying the statement, “She still wets the bed.”

  “Meredith Desiree Turner.” Elywn muttered to himself. Named for Meredith, his great love and Desiree, his mother. The only two women on earth with whom he had truly shared his life or any part of his soul.

  “You don’t like nobody, do you?” In the way of children, Little Gus made his insightful observation conversationally and patiently waited for an answer. With his unseeing eyes an empty glimmer, Elwyn Turner absently shook his head and looked inside himself. Had he ever liked anyone? Anyone at all? He couldn’t remember.

  Gus agreed, with the empathy of the innocent.

  “That happened to me once. I didn’t like nobody one day. My bicycle broked and daddy couldn’t fix it, and then I got hit with a soccer ball right in the face and everybody laughed at me, then we had meatloaf for supper and it had onions. I just hate meatloaf.” The boy’s face screwed up in a grimace of distaste. “So I didn’t like nobody, not even Little Merry, and I’m s’posed to protect her cause I’m her big brother and all. And even my dog, Jericho, didn’t make me feel better. I just didn’t like nobody!” Nodding his head emphatically that he understood Elwyn Turner. Yes, he did.

  “My Mama, she sat me down and hugged me hard. You know what she said? She said, ‘Little Gus, even if you don’t like us, well,
we like you. And tomorrow,’ the child was triumphant, ‘we’ll have fried chicken!’ ” The boy jumped down from the chair and paused in front of Elwyn.

  “Maybe tomorrow you’ll get fried chicken!” He waved a farewell to Elwyn Turner and ran out the door in search of his aunt.

  The old man watched the blond head bob down the corridor, snow boots scuffing. The child was like, very much like, another small blond boy he remembered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Grace drove home on streets already coated with the thick white of the season’s first snow. Bernadine had swung Little Gus in her arms when they left the mansion. The boy, giggling, threw back his head and caught frozen sky on his tongue.

  Strapping her charge into the booster seat in the red truck, Bernadine turned to Grace and hugged her. Grace hugged back, “It will be okay, Bernadine. You hang in there.”

  “I want one, too!” a small voice called from the cab of the pickup. Grace leaned in to have her neck squeezed by the child.

  “Have a Merry Christmas, Leland Augustus Turner. I hope Santa is good to you.”

  “Santa is always good to us Turners. ‘Cause Uncle Gus is up there coachin’ him, Daddy says. So he better be good to us!” Gus looked to his Great Aunt for agreement. She smiled and climbed into the truck with her small companion.

  “That’s right, Little Gus. That’s absolutely right.”

  Grace turned up the carols on the radio, smiling as she recognized the silken voice of Nat King Cole. She hummed along thinking to herself that Little Gus Turner was the personification of the season.

  She cancelled the painful yoga session, choosing instead to watch the snow fall and then bundled herself up to go see Granny Stillwell. She could use some sidewalk shoveling for exercise, she supposed. Stopping at the IGA, she picked up milk and bread for Granny, the other shoppers having already ransacked the shelves at the thought of winter weather, the store now empty.

  Streets in Franklin Hill were clear of traffic other than Ellie’s son, Jason, snowplow attached to the front of his pickup truck, out to make a few extra Christmas dollars shoveling parking lots on Main Street. He waved and turned a doughnut on her behalf in the lot behind the dime store.

  Granny Stillwell’s front steps were already clear, although more snow fell, covering them as quickly as a bevy of great-grandchildren could shovel. She engaged in a quick snowball fight with muffled and gloved nieces and nephews, dropped in the snow to make angels with the girls, and then went to seek out the warmth of Granny’s comfortable house.

  “Elwyn Turner was as mean as ever they come.” They sat at the kitchen table, elbows on the lace tablecloth. Granny lapsed into the twang of her country upbringing as she sipped cocoa with Grace. “Your great grandpa had a to-do with him a couple of years before the run on the banks in 1932. He went up there to get a loan for the family business. Elwyn told him he was a “worthless Phillips” and he’d not lend to one of Harold Phillips’ boys. Your Great-Grandpa Phillips didn’t believe in banks and that didn’t set right with Elwyn Turner. But Mr. Elwyn Turner was mistaken in thinkin’ that the Phillips had no money. Harold wasn’t rich like Elwyn Turner’s people but he had some set aside. It just wasn’t in that stone building up on Main Street. Mason Craig and Hilliard Schull were standing there when Elwyn turned your great grandpa down flat for the loan he needed for his business.”

  Grace knew the family name of Craig. She assumed Mason Craig or his father had founded the Craig Shirt Factory which still stood on Beacon Street and had been converted to a senior citizen apartment complex.

  “Those men owned all the acreage around Dinken’s Pond and most of what ran along the river bottom. Farmers, they were. Some of the first Germans that come along here after the Civil War, he and his brothers. There’s still money in that family, you can be sure. Schull Holler is where they settled.” Grace listened as Granny’s eyes grew distant with memory. Granny was a great purveyor of family history and in that sweet grey head there rested a wealth of information not only about the family, but about the founding of the town and the history of many of its citizens.

  “The old farmers didn’t care for the way Elwyn Turner spoke to your Great-Grandpa Phillips. They stood up to Turner. Elwyn was fresh back from college and thought mighty highly of himself. The old men made it clear, in no uncertain terms that he’d better give your great grandpa the time of day or he’d not see the likes of their business in that bank. In those days, The Craig Factory was the largest depositor in Franklin Hill and the Schull farmers was right up there with ‘em, keepin’ that bank in business. Those men didn’t spend a dime on anything. Grandpa Phillips used to say it was the ‘Dutchmen’ in them,” she laughed.

  “Two years later Franklin Hill was in the middle of the Depression. I was still a girl then, barely old enough to understand what was goin’ on. Roosevelt hadn’t declared the bank holiday yet and trouble was comin’ fast in town. Elwyn Turner stood in front of that bank and every farmer for fifty miles, plus a lot of the folks in town that wanted their money. There was yellin’, and arguin’. Somebody went and got an axe, they were going to break through those doors and get the money from the bank. It was theirs and by golly they wanted it. Your great grandpa got up and stood next to Turner, crossed his arms and talked sense. Turner treated him like the dirt under his feet not two years before and now Harold was up there practically savin’ that devil’s life.” Granny paused, sipping cocoa.

  “They stepped up there with him. They said later Elwyn was as anxious as a sinner in a cyclone. He had good reason to be scared of that crowd. Since the crash, he’d been puttin’ widows out of their houses and selling farmers’ land from under them. But, we didn’t suffer here like they did in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The dustbowl, those storms . . . we heard stories about how bad it was. There was those of us who had relatives starvin’ to death out in Kansas and there were some that didn’t do so well here t’either.” Granny patted Grace’s hand. Grace thought she was consoling herself more than her granddaughter. “Your great grandpa used to take the johnboat across the river to his people and take them food. He had fourteen brothers and sisters, all of their families trying to keep their farms together and here he was making a small living in town, running his store. But he never forgot his family.”

  Granny moved to the rocker near the kitchen stove where a ham baked for dinner. She took up her crocheting as Grace cleared their cups. The great-grandchildren came in, stomping wet feet on the rag rug in front of the door. They bestowed cold kisses and hugs on Granny Stillwell and Grace, and then departed to drink lattes at Darla Jinks’ espresso bar.

  “Meredith Turner used to pack up baskets and go see the very folks Elwyn turned out of their houses. She took ‘em butter and eggs. Made sure their babies had milk to drink. She took mending to the old Widow Jeffers down in Schull’s Holler and paid her well for it when the Widow came near to losin’ her farm. They said Elwyn Turner found out and was madder than a hornet. But that was Meredith’s dower money she was giving away to those folks. Meredith Turner didn’t abide by treating people bad. Her daddy let her accept Elwyn Turner when she wasn’t old enough to know better, barely a day over sixteen. They say she loved him. She gave him all those babies,” Granny sighed and began to rock.

  “Judith was born first, but Nathan was the oldest boy. In those days, having a son was the big thing, you know. Good Lord, when that child Nathan was born his daddy was the happiest man. I remember he sent clear to St. Louis for roses for Meredith and he passed cigars around the bank to all the customers.” The lined face grew solemn. “By the time Gus came along the sun didn’t shine a day for Elwyn Turner. He’d turned into a money-grubbing old black-heart. The boy couldn’t do a thing right for his daddy, though he was the sweetest soul, just like his mother.”

  “What happened to Meredith Turner?”

  “Honey, she got killed driving that old Packard out on Route Five, taking medicine out to Schull Holler one evening. Elwyn wasn’t known for kee
ping up her car — so cheap he wouldn’t spend a nickel to save a dime. She was stuck there in a ditch with a flat tire. Farm truck came over the hill and hit the Packard. All the kids were grown then, except for Gus. He was just eighteen. Tore those children up to lose her that way. Gus moved out of the house and went to live with Nathan and his wife. Nathan was stubborn as a mule, just like his father. He blamed Elwyn for Meredith’s death. They said Elwyn just got worse after Meredith died. Meaner than an old snake. Whatever love that old man had in him died with Meredith Turner, God rest her soul.”

  Granny rose to check on the ham, then pulled biscuits, rising on a sheet pan above the warming rack, to place them in the oven. Grace settled in. There were far worse ways to spend a snowy evening than eating ham and biscuits with Granny Stillwell.

  “Who was Desiree, Granny?” She recalled the name Little Gus had spouted with his long, drawn out “Des-i-ree”.

  “Where did you go hearin’ that? I believe that’s Elwyn Turner’s mother!” Granny, triumphant at being the font of all knowledge in Franklin Hill, offered plates to Grace.

  Grace related the circumstances and details of that afternoon and her meeting Little Gus Turner.

  “Well, they stick together those Turners, tight as the bark on a tree, they are. So they named that little girl Meredith Desiree. My goodness what a mouthful.” Grace tossed a salad while Granny sliced the ham and ladled browned potatoes onto a platter.

  “I’ll bet that put Elwyn Turner to thinking. Of course after ninety-four years of doing as he pleased and ignorin’ his children, maybe he can see now what he was a missin’. All he ever cared about was owning that big old house and getting Meredith to marry him. Now look at him— all alone. His Judith has twins and they were beautiful children who had wonderful grandchildren.” They sat at the small table and Granny bowed her head to pray with Grace.