Old Wounds

by Vicki Lane

  The big iron gates were open as they turned up the driveway. It’s like a real road, said Rosemary, not all bumpy like ours.

  Sam—Mum’s eyes were wide as she looked at the pavement that stretched ahead of them—what would it cost to make a road like this?

  Liz, it’s one of those “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” things.

  And look at the landscaping! Japanese maples and azaleas and rhododendrons—it’s a miniature Biltmore Estate.

  Rosemary remembered going to Biltmore. Mum had declared she needed a day off and had taken the two girls to wander the huge house and gardens. It had been okay but a little boring. Her favorite part had been sitting on the terrace to eat ice cream. She had pretended that it was her house and that all the tourists were people she had invited to visit. The whole time they were at the Biltmore House, Laurie kept asking again and again when they would see the king and queen.

  The road curled through the trees. Then there was a sharp turn and they were in a big wide meadow that was surrounded by wooded slopes. Right there in the very middle of the meadow rose a big house. Rosemary felt a little pang of disappointment when she saw it was nowhere near as big as the Biltmore House. Still—

  Oh, my god, it’s a Tudor mansion. Look at that, Sam!

  The big house was part redbrick and part cream-colored stuff with wide strips of wood making patterns on it. Rosemary stuck her head out of the window to see it more clearly—one, two, three, there were four stories! And five chimneys, and instead of one big roof there were lots of different ones. The windows were made of tiny little diamond-shaped panes that shimmered in the fall sunshine like a thousand winking eyes.

  It’s like a house in a fairy tale, Rosemary decided, eager to be out of the car and exploring.

  MULLAMOE! crowed Laurel, as they pulled round the circle drive and came to a stop at the broad marble steps. Heeere’s Mullamoe!

  9.

  ROAD TO REDEMPTION

  Sunday, October 9

  The note was propped against the coffeepot. Mum, it read…

  Sorry to do this but my mind is so full of tags and rags of half memories right now that I think I’ll be better off alone, where I can sort things out a bit. Driving always calms me, so I’m heading back to Chapel Hill now. It’ll be a good chance to let all this information simmer. I’ve realized that I have to go slower—one thing at a time—so I’m not going to try to follow up on Jared’s father this weekend.

  I know you had invited Phillip out today and I’m really sorry not to be here. But I’ll be back next weekend.

  Mum, it’s as if the past is a huge lake and I’m diving deep, trying to find something. But I have to keep coming up for air in the present. If I could just stay under long enough, maybe I could find what I’m after. I know this must sound crazy to you—but don’t worry, I’m fine. Just a little overwhelmed with the task I’ve set myself, I think.

  I’ll give you a call when I get back to my house.

  Love you. R

  “Rosemary decided to go back to Chapel Hill today instead of tomorrow. She said she felt overwhelmed by all the old memories.” Elizabeth gripped the telephone a little too tightly and went on. “I have to tell you, Phillip, I’m not happy about her and this…this wallowing in the past. I’m afraid she’s going to be hurt—either by what she does find, or maybe by what she doesn’t. But since I can’t stop her, I’m going to help her. I want to talk to Maythorn’s stepfather and find out how to get in touch with Patricia. The sooner Rosie’s satisfied, the better. And anything I can do to speed the whole thing up—”

  Phillip broke in, his voice calm. “Why don’t you come by my place and I’ll go with you to see this guy? It’ll be something different to meet a born-again saint. And then let me take you to dinner here—there’s a new Thai place I think you’d like.”

  “Well…Sure, that would be great.” Elizabeth looked again at the note in her hand. She felt like crying. “Thank you. This is so unfair to you, Phillip, and you’re being a really good sport. I don’t know what’s up with Rosie—she was looking forward to meeting you, but then something changed.

  “Nothing to do with you,” she added hastily, “more that Rosie’s…preoccupied. When she went in to Asheville to have drinks at the Grove Park with Jared, she was just going to get some basic information about where the rest of the family is living. Then drinks stretched into dinner. And when she finally got back, she was really quiet; said something about how seeing Jared had made her realize how much she had forgotten.

  “But Phillip, the other thing I called about—have you talked to Sheriff Blaine today? Has he found out anything about the little boy—about Calven?”

  “No, I’m afraid he hasn’t. He told me he sent someone out to look around Bib’s trailer over on Hog Run Branch, but there was no sign that anyone had been there recently. He did talk to Calven’s grandmother, but she didn’t know anything either—evidently Calven’s mama isn’t likely to live and the old lady’s all to pieces.”

  “Phillip, I’m really worried about that little boy. It’s like Maythorn all over; he’s simply vanished. And his family’s not wealthy—no chance of kidnapping here.”

  She had picked him up at his house in Weaverville and they were on their way into Asheville to find Moon Mullins at the mission he called Redemption House. Her anxiety about Calven jostled with concern for Rosemary and a nagging feeling that something had been left undone.

  “I think this is different,” Phillip replied. “I told you what his grandmother said. ‘That young un’s got kin all over the county and he’s got sense enough to find him a place to stay.’ She was worried about her daughter, not Calven. He’s probably just fine. But Blaine’s still on it.”

  She said nothing, her thoughts still with the little boy on the run. Phillip watched her for a moment, then said, “Let it go, Elizabeth; you’ve got enough to worry about. What was the deal with the note she left?”

  Elizabeth sighed, knowing he referred to Rosemary. “It was a weird, rambling sort of note; it made me wish to god she’d just forget about the whole thing.”

  “But that’s what she did before, isn’t it? And it didn’t work.” Phillip reached over and rubbed his knuckles against her arm. “Elizabeth, this is the right thing for her to do. And it’s right that you’re helping.” His hand rose to brush her cheek. “Why don’t you tell me about the Mullins family and when you first got together with them? Give me some background.”

  “The first time we went to Mullmore…I’ll certainly never forget that. Phillip, I can’t begin to describe how weird it was that first time we went to their house. There we were, so-called ‘back-to-the-land hippies,’ just moved from the barn, where we’d lived all summer, into our unfinished house—I mean, we hadn’t even put in a septic tank yet, so we had an outhouse, for god’s sake! And here, just over the ridge from our humble abode, we’re being met at the door of this veritable castle by what seems to be a butler.”

  Phillip’s lips curled in amusement. “Tell me about the family. I looked at the newspaper stories and talked to one of Blaine’s deputies who was around back then, but I’d like to hear what you thought of the Mullins.”

  “Well, we’d seen a good bit of Maythorn during the summer but it wasn’t till fall that we actually met the rest of them. What did I think?”

  Elizabeth fell silent, trying to remember her first impressions of the Mullins—first impressions untainted by later experience. She smiled at a sudden memory. “Patricia came over to invite us to dinner—we didn’t have a phone yet. When she left, Rosie said that she looked like a Barbie doll. And she did! I’m afraid that Sam and I referred to her as Mrs. Barbie for a while. My first thought was that she had married up—out of her class.” A rueful laugh escaped her. “Lord, is that un-PC or what? I sound like a Victorian novel—or my mother. What I really mean is that Patricia wasn’t as educated as her husband. I’m sorry to say I pegged her as a dumb blonde; though, in time, I came to see that she was
really quite sharp.”

  She hoped that Phillip hadn’t noticed the bitterness creeping into her voice. But his expression was neutral as he asked, “And what about her husband—Moon?”

  “Moon was smart enough to make it through some Ivy League college—though the kind of money his family had may have helped some. He used proper grammar and seemed well read, but the main thing about Moon is that he was a drunk. Not a falling-down or yelling sort of drunk, he just worked on a bottomless glass of iced tea and vodka all day long, and by the afternoon he wasn’t particularly coherent.”

  “Yeah, Blaine’s guy mentioned that about him. ‘Drunk as an owl’ was what he said. But the deputy put it down to the shock that the whole family was going through at the disappearance of the little girl.”

  Phillip’s face grew still as if he were trying to unravel some knotty conundrum. Elizabeth waited for further comment but none came. Finally she said, “Moon was drinking heavily when we first met them…. Patricia told me all about ‘his little problem’ that first time we went over there.”

  She glanced over at him. “Phillip, you aren’t thinking that…?”

  His head jerked. “Wha—? No, I’m not thinking about Mullins. I was wondering about ‘drunk as an owl.’ I always think of owls as pretty solemn, sober types. Sorry. Go on. Who else was there in the household?”

  “Maythorn, of course, and her half-sister, Krystalle—a baby Barbie—very like her mom. Krystalle was four or five years younger—around Laurel’s age. And Jared, the stepbrother. He was from Moon’s first marriage. I guess Jared was at least sixteen back in ’84; I seem to remember he had his own car.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Rosie seemed impressed with him last night; she said he was very helpful—”

  “No, not now. Then. What was Jared like then?”

  “I don’t really remember him that well. He was very handsome…they all were. I started looking through some old photo albums last night after Rosie went to bed—I was pretty sure that the Mullins had sent us one of those Christmas cards that first year, with a family picture. And that I’d stuck it in an album.”

  She reached for the envelope propped on the dashboard in front of her. “Just seeing the pictures brought a lot back.” Maybe more than I wanted, she added silently as she passed the envelope over to Phillip.

  “There’re three guys.” Phillip was frowning at the photo card. “The one with his arm around Mrs. Barbie—appropriate name, by the way—I assume is Moon. But then there’re two more—and they’ve all got that white-blond, blue-eyed Aryan look. Kind of creepy, actually. And Mrs. Barbie and Barbie junior are blondes too—Maythorn’s definitely odd man out in that family. Wonder if she felt that way. But who’s the third guy? It just says ‘Season’s Greetings from all the Mullins.’”

  “That third one would be Mike—Moon’s younger brother.” Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed on the highway. “He was there as a kind of mentor-slash-tutor for Jared. I think, if I’m remembering this right, Jared stayed with his mother when Moon left her for Patricia. Then, not too long before we moved here, Jared’s mother sent him to live with Moon. I don’t remember if I ever heard why exactly; I think Patricia mentioned his mother couldn’t handle him.” Whereas Patricia let him do anything he wanted. Most of the time she treated him as though he were her age, flirted with him outrageously…and god knows what else.

  Elizabeth realized that her jaw was set in an unbecoming clench and that her teeth were beginning to grind. “But anyway, Moon’s brother, Mike, had some experience working with quote ‘troubled youth’ and he was brought in to kind of pal around with Jared. As I told you, Moon was hopeless—he just wandered around with that drink in his hand and occasionally told the lawn crew that came in twice a week from Asheville what to do. And Patricia had about as much idea of how to deal with a teenage boy as…as a Barbie doll would.”

  The large brown-shingled house sat on the corner of a busy street, just across the expressway, where the stores and businesses of Asheville faded into a run-down residential area. The size and location of the building, together with the long utilitarian-looking clapboard addition at the rear, hinted at its probable past as a boardinghouse from an earlier time, when invalids flocked to Asheville for the health-giving mountain air. A sign by the front walkway read, REDEMPTION HOUSE. Patches of well-trodden grass and weeds on either side of the walkway were adorned by semicircles of white plastic lawn chairs, all occupied by bedraggled-looking men and women enjoying the mild weather and warm sun. They ranged in age from teens to completely indeterminate.

  A heavy, pasty-faced woman in green sweatpants and an ample Hawaiian shirt stubbed out her cigarette on the arm of her chair, tossed the butt into the scrawny evergreens that did service as foundation planting, and hailed Phillip and Elizabeth as they approached the steps.

  “You folks in the market for good help?” she rasped. “I work cheap. Cook, clean, take care of kids? Hell, I’m a goddam Mary Poppins.”

  “Thanks, but we’re looking for Mr. Mullins. Is he here today?” Elizabeth attempted a nonchalant demeanor as she and Phillip made their way through the lounging residents, who watched their progress with varying degrees of interest.

  “Moon? Shee-it, Moon’s here every day.” A gaunt black man seated next to Mary Poppins looked at the cheap watch on his wrist. “Meetin’ ought to be windin’ up right about now. Go on in; closed meeting but you can wait in the hall.” As they entered the wide hallway, its yellow-painted walls covered with motivational posters, rosters, and sign-up sheets for various activities, the door to the right swung open and a swarm of chattering people surrounded by a fog of cigarette smoke poured out into the hall.

  Most kept moving toward the front door; a few started for the broad wooden stairs that swept majestically toward a landing graced by a full-length stained-glass panel depicting Jesus as a gentle shepherd; and a small group made for the door at the back of the hall, from which issued the industrial clatter and steamy odors of an institutional kitchen.

  Elizabeth and Phillip stood transfixed as the swarm of humanity surged around them. When the hallway cleared, they saw a tall thin figure coming slowly out of the room. His arm was around a well-dressed man who seemed to be in the throes of some deep emotion.

  “Thank you, Moon. I…I can’t tell you what it means.” The well-dressed man had his hand over his face. Phillip took Elizabeth’s arm and swung her around to put their backs to the two men. They stood there, pretending to study the poster of a kitten dangling by its front paws from a branch. “Hang in There,” the poster urged.

  “It’s an AA meeting,” Phillip whispered. “Most of the participants take the anonymous part very seriously.”

  Behind them, good-byes were being exchanged. There was the sound of the front door opening and closing. Then a quiet voice inquired, “How can I help you?”

  She would have recognized him anyway, she decided. The silver-blond hair was mostly silver now and the pale blue-gray eyes were clear instead of reddened. Moon’s face, once puffy and soft, was now thin and ascetic. But the gentleness of his manner was the same, as was his careful selection of each word. Yes, she would have recognized him anywhere.

  “Mr. Mullins—Moon—I don’t know if you remember me…Elizabeth Goodweather? We lived in the holler next to you…out on Ridley Branch—”

  The tall thin man took a step toward her and held out both hands. “Elizabeth! I’m…I’m amazed! How long has it been? You’ve hardly changed, but…” He eyed Hawkins curiously. “Sam?…”

  Moon Mullins, it turned out, did not know of Sam Goodweather’s untimely death six years earlier.

  “I stay so busy with the work of the foundation…and I rarely read the newspaper or hear the news. I got out of that habit during my lost years.”

  A rueful smile played across his still-handsome face. “Almost ten years gone from my life forever. After Maythorn…went away, everything fell apart. I know now that I was a drunk back then—had been a
drunk for years. But it took the…the tragedy to bring things to a head. I fell so deep into the bottle that I lost my wife and daughter; my son went back to his mother. My drinking drove them away and I became the lowest of the low.”

  A slow smile played across his features as he went on. The familiar words, polished to smoothness by frequent repetition, slipped easily from his lips. “And the Lord saw me in my wretchedness and took pity on my misery. He led me to an AA meeting and step by step I came back to the world, to the pleasures of a cool glass of water, the low voice of a friend, the glory of the morning sun. I had been a stranger to these simple gifts for too long, wandering in low dives and dark streets.”

  A quiet radiance shone from his face. “I’ve been sober for nine years, eight months, and four days. When I turned my life over to a higher power, I also turned over my assets. Now that I have nothing, I find that I have everything. The foundation and the people we help are my life.”

  Moon led them to his small, starkly furnished office, where he offered them coffee in plastic foam cups. He listened gravely as Elizabeth explained her mission, saying when she’d finished that he was willing to help in spite of being dubious of any positive outcome. “And little Rosie’s a professor of English now? It hardly seems possible. So many years gone, so much lost to me now.”

  He sat, head bowed, looking at his folded hands. Elizabeth followed his gaze and noticed that the wrist of his left hand was heavily scarred.

  “Mr. Mullins, there’ve been some problems with trespassers on your property out in Marshall County—” Phillip began.

  “Not my property, Mullmore belongs to the foundation,” Moon corrected him. “I own nothing now—the land and buildings on Ridley Branch belong to Redemption Way—and very soon we hope to begin work to turn Mullmore into a retreat for recovering alcoholics. It’s my hope that Mullmore’s tragic past will become a future of hope for many.”