“The boys told me Camille is learnin’ them to read.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am. She said they’re picking it up fairly quickly.”
“That’s what she told me. I stopped by there to say thank you and she said it was all your idea.”
I could feel my face turning red. “I doubt they’re too happy with me. Camille is giving them homework.”
“They don’t seem too bothered.” She looked toward Samantha Rose’s house. “It’s good to see Mrs. Conley’s flowers around the place again. I’ve got a few in my yard that she gave me if you ever want a cutting.”
“That would be great. I still haven’t been able to find her peony bush.”
“There used to be one in the side yard,” Mrs. Barnes said, “but I think there’s an old car parked there now.” She moved forward to stand next to me. “I wanted to tell you I knew your mama. You look just like her.”
“You did?” I felt my heart leap. “You knew her from when she lived here?”
“That’s right. She was a couple of years ahead of me in school, but we played together some when we was little.” She looked toward the house on the hill. “Whenever things got real bad over there, she’d come spend the night.” She shook her head and smiled at me. “She was a real good person. I’d heard she was sick. The second I saw you I knew she’d done passed over.”
My mouth went dry like it did anytime someone mentioned Mama dying and I felt the familiar hot tears starting to gather in the corners of my eyes. “Why when you saw me?”
Mrs. Barnes smiled sadly. “I knew she wouldn’ta brung you back here if there’d been any strength left in her body.”
“Did you know my dad, too?” I asked.
“I knew of him, but Ronelda and I weren’t close by high school. But I saw her when she come back for Mrs. Conley’s funeral. She told me about you. She was happy she got a better life for you. I know people think I don’t want my boys to learn ’cause of the money. It’s not true. I want them to find a better life, too.” She gave another small smile and began to walk the dusty road toward their house.
The train whistled as it came around the curve and I watched as Frank and Baily raced for the tracks. The ping of their rocks hitting the metal mingled with their laughter and floated down the hollow.
There were hard things about Convict Holler, like living with Samantha Rose. But there was so much beauty here, too. And kind people that I would miss.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The second letter came on Tuesday and it was a pure miracle that I got it and Samantha Rose didn’t. I’d been watching for Flipper Johnson but then Gran yelled that she’d just pulled some biscuits out of the oven and they were so much better if you ate them hot. So I did. Four times. By the time I finally headed to the group of mailboxes at the bottom of the road, I saw three things.
Angel Davis.
Samantha Rose.
The end of a large tan envelope sticking out of the mailbox.
“You need to get back up the mountain, old man!” Samantha Rose said. “You stink.”
“Your daddy told me to take care of you,” Angel said. “You were supposed to be together with your sister!”
“You’re tetched in the head!” Samantha Rose yelled back.
While Samantha Rose and Angel yelled, I moved to the mailbox. If Samantha Rose got ahold of the letter first, there’d be a Wavie B. Conley headstone added to the cemetery.
I tugged on the envelope. It came out, bringing everything else with it, and landed in the dirt.
Samantha Rose whirled around. “What are you doing?”
“I dropped the mail,” I said. I hunkered over the strewn envelopes. A grocery circular lay in the middle of everything and I folded it around the envelope from the Bowmans.
“Get it off the ground, for crying out loud.”
I stood, hugging the mail against my shirt. “Hi Angel,” I said. “What were you saying about my grandpa?”
Angel scratched his beard. “I remember her father!” He towered over Samantha Rose like a giant insect. “I remember him. He told me to take care of her!”
Samantha Rose moved forward until she was nose to thorax with Angel.
I gawked. She had to be crazy furious to get that close to him and the cloud of stink.
“I’m gonna call the county on you, old man,” she yelled. “You’re a danger to yourself and you stink to high heaven! There’s no telling what kind of disease you’re spreading in the Holler.” She turned back to me and put her hand out. “Give me my mail.”
I handed her the stack of envelopes, but held on to the circular. “Flipper put Mrs. Barnes’s mail in our mailbox by mistake. I’ll run it over to her.”
“It’s junk. Save yourself the trouble and throw it away.”
“I can’t,” I said. “That’s a federal offense!”
She threw her hands up. “I’m surrounded by crazy people,” Samantha Rose said. “Suit yourself, but don’t stay gone all day.”
• • •
IN CASE SAMANTHA Rose was watching, I walked toward Frank and Baily’s house, and then doubled back through the woods and up to the cemetery.
I went inside the gate and sat down on the cracked bench. The flowers I’d planted were spreading nicely. It was quiet and peaceful.
I ripped the end of the envelope and spilled the contents onto my lap. There were two letters. I picked up the familiar blue stationery and began to read:
Dear Ronelda,
I don’t think you have any idea how excited we were to hear from you. It’s been so long, yet we’ve prayed for you so often these last eleven years, it feels like yesterday. Of course Wavie is glad that she stayed with you! I know how much you love each other.
John laughed when I read to him that Wavie didn’t think she’d have fit in. He said, “Babies don’t fit in with you. You change everything to fit in with them!” Who knows how raising Wavie would have made our lives different today. She was only here eight days yet it changed us profoundly.
Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge. You asked about our house. We still live in the same place. We had the kitchen remodeled last year, and of course we repainted the nursery and turned it into an office, but other than that it’s still the same.
I’ve enclosed the letter that the attorney advised you to write. Maybe it will help Wavie to see what you were thinking about back then.
If there is ever anything we can do for you, please let us know. I’m including my phone number, just in case.
XO,
Anita Bowman
I dropped the Bowman letter on the bench and picked up the other one. Slowly, I unfolded the letter, and gasped. Mama’s familiar handwriting was on the first page and it was to me!
Dear Wavie,
You’ll be here before I know it and I have so much to tell you.
I lowered the letter. I couldn’t do it. It was like Mama was speaking right to me. It was too hard. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down. I wanted to read it so badly, but I was afraid.
Be brave, Mama had said. I opened my eyes. I could do this.
Dear Wavie,
You’ll be here before I know it and I have so much to tell you.
Mr. Davis said I should write all of the stuff I want to tell you in a letter for when you’re older. The first thing is I love you.
I don’t know how old you’ll be when you read this but I like to imagine you sitting on your bed—a canopy type with a pink bedspread with ruffles. I saw one like that once at the Lexington Mall and I thought, if I ever have a daughter, that’s what she’ll have.
You wouldn’t have that—or a lot of things—if you were here. That’s the second thing I want to tell you. You are better off with your adopted parents than you would be with me.
I ain’t going to lie—giving you up was almost more than I could bea
r. The only way I found the strength was thinking about you and knowing it was the right thing to do. Being strong ain’t easy, but if you dig deep enough you can usually find a way. That’s my experience, anyhow.
Here are some things I like in case you like them, too, and you wonder where it came from.
Wildflowers.
Strawberries.
The mist that hovers over the mountains in the morning.
There are other things, but those are the top three.
I guess I should tell you about your dad. It’s hard to talk about but you deserve to know.
Your dad was a looker and nice as can be. We were crazy about each other but my daddy hated him. Then again, my daddy hated everybody. Maybe if things had been different I wouldn’t have decided to find you another family, but before I could tell your dad about you, he was killed in a mining accident.
That was the third thing I wanted to tell you.
I didn’t have much schooling but I think if I’d had half a chance I woulda made something of myself. It used to make me sad, all those other people living big lives and me stuck here, but not anymore. Now I get to think about you, living big for the both of us. And that’s enough.
The final thing I want to tell you is this. No matter what happens for me or to me from this point on, you are the best thing I ever did. I hope you’re happy. But if you have tough days, remember me. If I could be strong, I bet you can, too.
I love you, girl.
Ronelda May Conley, your mom
I wiped my eyes. I’d felt the loss of Mama every day since she’d been gone, but nothing had hurt as bad as this.
I held my stomach and doubled over, sobbing.
After a few minutes, I stuffed everything back in the envelope and stood. I would do it. I would write the Bowmans, right now before I could change my mind, and ask if I could come back.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I spent the weekend at Camille’s writing letters, tearing them up and starting again.
Frank and Baily were at one end of the table practicing their ABCs, while Edgar colored between them.
“How hard can it be?” Gilbert asked. “Just say, ‘Congratulations! It’s a girl!’”
Camille was more sympathetic. “Keep it simple. Stick to the facts.”
“It all sounds right in my head,” I said. “But then I put it on paper and it’s cuckoo.”
Edgar offered me a crayon. “Try writing it in blue, Wavie,” he said. “Blue is my favorite.”
“No thanks, Edgar.”
“It’s crazy,” Camille said. “Your dad died in a mining accident. You know it was probably the one Delmore Davis caused. Delmore’s dad helped your mom. Gilbert is right. Everything in Convict Holler is connected.”
“It’s like a spiderweb,” Gilbert said. “And Samantha Rose is the big fat spider in the middle.”
I scribbled another version on the paper.
“How about this?” I read:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bowman,
Thank you for writing. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t exactly truthful. My mom died recently and I’ve been staying with my aunt. She wants to be my guardian but I was hoping you’d think on being it instead. My aunt is not very nice. Also, I have my own money, so that wouldn’t be a problem. And I would do my best not to cause you any trouble. You don’t even have to adopt me, or think of me as a daughter, or anything like that. I had a really good mom and I’m just looking for a decent place that I can call home, even if it’s temporary. If yes, could you hurry? The hearing could be any day. If not, I understand.
Wavie Boncil Conley
“I think it sounds great,” Camille said. “They’ll say yes for sure!”
Gilbert pouted. “Yeah. You’ll be sitting in some fancy canoe catching tiny fish before summer’s over.”
I folded the letter and put it into an envelope. “I wish I had enough money to overnight this. Samantha Rose is being more squirrelly than usual. I’ve got a feeling the hearing is coming soon and she’s not telling me.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past her,” Gilbert said. “She called the county and told them Angel had lost his mind. They took him in for observation!”
I lowered my voice. “Well, he was talking crazy. He kept yelling that my grandpa told him to take care of Samantha Rose.”
“He also thought you were your mama, remember?” Camille said. She got up and opened a drawer. “Here’s a stamp. Send it as soon as possible. I’ll tell Mama to watch the mailboxes while we’re at school.”
• • •
ONE OF US was almost always standing at the mailboxes at the end of the road after I mailed the letter. Flipper Johnson came so close to running over Baily Barnes that he had to sit on the side of the road for an hour before he could drive again because his nerves were so shot. But no letter came for me.
In the mornings, I woke up early to catch the mist that “hovers over the mountains” (Mama was right, it was beautiful) and in the afternoons I picked her favorite wildflowers and arranged them in a Mason jar on my desk.
At night I stayed in my room and tried not to wonder too much about why the Bowmans hadn’t written. I imagined them sitting in their kitchen writing down the pros and cons on a sheet of paper. The problem was that when I tried to think of the pros for them, there weren’t any.
I pulled out my notepad.
E-I-G-H-T D-A-Y D-A-U-G-H-T-E-R.
DAD.
HEART.
HUG.
There were some good words in that phrase, but who was I kidding. AIRHEAD, DAGGERED, TRAGEDY: those words were there, too. I opened the drawer and pulled out the letter from Mama to read for what had to be the hundredth time.
I could feel how happy she must have been writing it and thinking of me having a good life. If I failed, it would be like letting her down. Now that she was gone, I had to live twice as big.
I turned off the light and lay in bed. I hadn’t washed Mama’s blanket since I’d been here but I could barely smell the lotion anymore. It was as if she was fading away little by little.
“Mama,” I whispered into the room. “I’m trying. I’m trying to be brave and live big, but I don’t know if I can.” I closed my eyes and imagined her coming into my room and lying down beside me. I could almost feel her hand rubbing my back. “I’m scared the Bowmans won’t take me and I’m scared they will.” I sighed. “I just miss you so much.”
I lay quietly, listening to the sounds of the house. Up above, Hoyt stomped across his room, and the theme song from Samantha Rose’s favorite reality show began to play from the living room. I imagined getting up and putting on my jeans. I could see it all in my mind. Walking quietly down the hallway, slipping out the kitchen door, walking into the backyard in the moonlight. I could feel the ground vibrate under my sneakers and I stood there at the curve of the mountain as the train rumbled by. I ran, faster than I’d ever run before. I reached out and grabbed hold of the metal door, then I was up and clinging to the train as we whipped through the trees. I turned around and watched as the light from Samantha Rose’s house grew smaller and smaller with each second, and Convict Holler disappeared into the darkness.
Somehow, I’d be flying, free, to wherever the train would take me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A week later, I found Samantha Rose waiting for me in the kitchen after school. She wore a smile about as real as her hair color. “Good news! The hearing’s been set. In two days, this will be your home for good.”
I felt all the blood drain out of my face. “Two days? From now?”
Samantha Rose nodded. “Yup. One o’clock. It’ll be good to get it all finalized, won’t it?”
No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening now. I’d call Mrs. Chipman and stall. “I can’t do it on Thursday,” I said. “I have a test at school!”
“Bull hockey! That’s
what makeup tests are for,” she said.
“But it’s too soon,” I blurted. “I need more time.”
Samantha Rose sighed. “Let’s not do this, okay?” She reached into the front of her shirt and pulled a folded piece of paper out of her bra. I knew it the second I saw the handwriting.
“If you’re waiting on an answer to this, it’s not coming.”
Samantha Rose had taken my letter. It had never even been mailed to the Bowmans.
I stared at my own handwriting. “That’s my letter!”
“That’s right. I saw you put it in the mailbox.” She laughed. “You kids have been hovering at those boxes like flies on a cow patty.”
“But you have no right! That was my letter!”
“Well, it was in my mailbox.”
“You’re not allowed to take mail out of a mailbox!” I said.
She grabbed my ear and gave it a hard twist. “Who are you to tell me what I can do? You’ve been writing those people behind my back. After I took you in!”
I jerked my head away and sat down in the nearest chair trying to catch my breath. “You can’t stop me from writing them,” I said. “Even if I have to do it from school.”
Samantha Rose leaned against the sink. “I don’t reckon they’ll be writing you back anytime soon.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
“Once I realized you were writing them, I figured I better take precautions. I’m no dummy, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“They seemed like the nosy type to me. I didn’t want them to get to wondering why you weren’t writing anymore, so I mailed them the letter I found in your room. One where you told them how glad you were not to be with them?”
I inhaled sharply, trying to remember what I’d written. All I knew was that it was angry and horrible and Samantha Rose had won.
“You think those uppity people would want you back? They gave you up quick enough.”
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