Cammie Takes Flight

by Laura Best

  Let the squirming begin.

  “Oh, I think you’ll want to talk to me.” It’s time to state my purpose, let her have it with both barrels. “Bet you never dreamed in a million years I’d be smart enough to figure it all out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  I want to laugh.

  “Surprised that I’m in on your deepest, darkest secret, the one you don’t want anyone to know about?” Standing on my toes, I shove my face up close to hers. She pulls back like she’s stepped on a hot potato in her bare feet.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Cammie. I don’t have any secrets from you.” The trembling in her voice is music to my ears, and I move in for the kill. A big old smile is bearing down on me but I hold it in. You can’t look tough with your lips stretched out.

  “Look here, Brenda,” I say, using Aunt Millie’s rock-candy voice, how I think she’d sound right about now if she were in my shoes. My finger is wagging in the air. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as Evelyn Merry likes to say.

  “Brenda? I’m Beth—not Brenda. And you shouldn’t be using my first name.”

  Her confusion sounds almost genuine. She’s trying to throw me off. I could feel a little sorry for her if I didn’t know the truth, how she went on with her life and forgot all about me.

  “You mean Beth, otherwise known as Brenda, don’t you? I know who you are. You can’t fool me.” She clams up tight for a few minutes and looks down at me like she’s trying to come up with the perfect lie.

  “Cammie, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ve got to go.” She starts to take off on me. I have to do something or she’ll be gone and nothing will be settled. She isn’t going to slip away from me like she did the first time around.

  “You aren’t going anywhere. I need you to hear what I’ve got to say.” My words bunch up on me, coming out in quick bursts.

  “I don’t have time for this, Cammie. It’s nearly three,” she says, hurrying away from me. I take off after her, grabbing fast to her hand to make her stop, but she shakes me off.

  My brain kicks into gear and I call out real fast before she gets away from me for the second time in my life: “You had a baby twelve years ago and you just walked away.” That does it. Reeling around in the path, she’s finally ready to listen to what I have to say.

  “That’s just plain ridiculous. There’s no possible way you could know what you’re talking about.” Her voice is high-pitched like the squealing of a pig come butchering day.

  “Oh yeah? Well, I know all about the baby you had,” I say, closing the gap between us. Tears run down my cheeks, and I swat them away. No way am I going to let this get to me. The truth is on my side. And it’s going to set me free.

  “Why are you doing this, Cammie?”

  “Someone’s got to.”

  “People make mistakes in life. We all do.” Her voice is quivering like jelly on a plate, but I don’t let that influence me.

  “Well now your mistake is looking you in the face.”

  “Cammie, dear, you’re not making any sense.”

  “Don’t ‘Cammie dear’ me. Are you denying you had a baby that you threw away?”

  “Threw away?” Her words come out like sparks from a campfire. Pulling a hanky from her pocket, she lifts her glasses and dabs at her eyes, sniffing like she suddenly has a cold. I want to keep throwing words at her, get every last thing I’ve been thinking off my chest. I’ve seen people cry before. A few tears don’t fizz me none.

  “That’s what I said. Threw away. Dumped out. It doesn’t change what you did.”

  “And I’ve regretted it ever since—but how did you find out? No one knows…” She swallows a giant gulp of air. Her words trail away like dandelion fluff in the breeze, and she scrunches her face up at me. “Millie!” She gasps like the sudden pop of an overblown balloon. “But she said she’d never tell.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A sigh escapes Miss Turner’s lips, as uneven as the pot holder I cut out in manual training class a few weeks back. Good. The sound of that sigh is music to my ears. I’m ready to fly at her like that old bantam rooster Evelyn’s father use to have—so touchy it would come after you the moment you walked past.

  “Confession is good for the soul,” I cry out, something the minister said last week in church, even though I’m not completely sure what it means.

  “Okay, you’re right, Cammie,” she says, throwing her arms up in the air. “Is that what you want me to say?” Her sudden admission shoots through me like an arrow. “I had a baby at a home for unwed mothers. That’s where I met your aunt Millie. But I didn’t throw my baby away. He was adopted out. I’ve regretted it ever since. There—are you happy now?”

  The breeze comes to a screeching halt. Something catches up deep in the centre of me like a hiccough that won’t let go.

  “You had a boy?” I squeak out. My theory crumbles apart like brown sugar in milk.

  “Yes, Cammie, I had a boy and I miss him every day.”

  “But—but you live on Burnham Street. My mother lives on Burnham Street.” I pull out the envelope and hand it to her.

  “Where did you get this?” Miss Turner examines the envelope.

  “It came in the mail one day when I was small. Aunt Millie said it was from my mother. She burned the letter but I kept the envelope all these years.”

  Her blonde curls move as she shakes her head. “Oh, Cammie, I wrote that letter on a whim years ago. Millie said she was leaving Tanner but I took a chance. We were friends. I thought it would be nice to hear from her. When she didn’t answer I thought for sure she’d moved away like she’d planned. So I didn’t even put two and two together until you mentioned your aunt’s name. ”

  There’s a queer feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when the pieces of your life come together too fast and you’re trying to jam them into place before any of them get lost on you. But when you start to see that none of those pieces fit the way they’re supposed to, that’s the queerest feeling there is. All this time I thought my mother had written to find out how I was doing. Why would Aunt Millie lie like that? Things could start spinning out of control if I don’t do something to stop it. Old Herb was wrong. Miss Turner isn’t my mother at all. Funny how you can be so close to knowing a person’s secret yet be a million miles off at the same time.

  Dread curls ugly fingers around my heart and squeezes tight as I gather this information and put it in its proper place. Miss Turner had a boy. She met Aunt Millie at a home for unwed mothers. She wrote the letter, not my mother. The blood in my veins runs cold. This is the worst news imaginable—the very worst. My head spins and I can hardly think straight. When you’re facing your most secret fear your mind doesn’t work like it should.

  A crow caws out from the treetops, and a handful of wind slaps me in the face. It doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out the rest of the story. I don’t want to hear what Miss Turner has to say about Aunt Millie and her reason for being at that home for unwed mothers.

  “I’ve got to go…I’ve just got to go,” I say.

  When your world is caving in you don’t stop to consider the consequences, you just do the first thing that comes into your head.

  I race through the park without a thought as to where I’m going, past all the yellows, pinks, and oranges that I first thought were so pretty. My brain says run, run, run as my feet hit the dirt trail. From behind me, Nessa is shouting but I don’t care. A hodgepodge of colours continues to whirl past me, melding into a single blur that I can’t pick apart and make sense of. A tall grey figure up ahead draws me to it like a magnet. It might be a statue but I don’t have time to find out. Darting past it, I have no plans to stop anytime soon. Not until I’m as far away from Miss Turner as I can get.

  There’s a large black patch on the path in front of me. Charging toward it, a fluttering
sound fills the air. Hundreds of birds scatter in front of me, flapping their wings to find a safe place among the tree branches. All I can think about is going back home, finding Evelyn Merry, hashing this whole thing over with him. But I don’t have Evelyn or his sensible way. He’s not here to tell me that everything will be okay even when I’m sure there’s no possible way it can be. I miss Evelyn Merry more than anything imaginable. He’s the only one who knows the real Cammie Turple. Nessa’s a good enough friend but she’ll never take his place. Evelyn and me have been through too much together. Now, I have only myself to rely on and a whole bunch of new questions dogging me. If someone were to touch me I’d collapse on the spot.

  My throat aches and my chest heaves each time my foot hits the ground. No wonder Aunt Millie didn’t want Ed to adopt me. Ed—is he in on this too? Did he go along with Aunt Millie’s story just to keep her quiet? But no, he wouldn’t be talking about adopting me if he knew. Ed—what’s he going to say about all this? Does this mean he’s not my father after all? I cross the walking bridge over the pond. Nessa’s yelling out at me but I just can’t stop. When your life is dissolving around you there’s not much else you care about.

  I run so fast I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Strange sounds are coming out of me, sounds I don’t even recognize. Aunt Millie’s lies circle around me, poking fun each time my foot slaps the ground. Pieces of the past nip at my heels—nearly twelve years’ worth of deceit and trickery—pushing me to run even harder. My old life flashes before me, things I never wanted to think about again. No matter what I do, or how hard I try, things are never going to change. I’ll always be Cammie Turple from Tanner. Only now I’d give just about anything to be the bootlegger’s niece, and that’s something I never thought I’d ever end up saying.

  My chest feels like someone reached in and pulled my ribs apart. Nessa gains on me, yelling for me to slow down. I’d like to stop, I really would, but my legs and heart won’t let me. Miss Turner’s voice mixes in with Nessa’s as the truth starts closing in.

  I push harder and harder as Nessa’s voice drops farther behind me. I might just get away. But then my toe stubs up against something in my path and I’m sent flying. Seconds later, I crash down to earth. The burning in my palms and knees isn’t nearly as bad as the one in my chest. From behind feet thump against the ground, stopping suddenly beside me.

  “Are you okay?” asks Nessa, slowly helping me up off the ground. My head is spinning.

  “I’m fine,” I say, trying to loosen myself from her grip with my hands and knees still smarting.

  “You could have been hurt, Cammie. Are you sure you’re all right?” asks Miss Turner as she catches up to us. The tables have suddenly turned and now Miss Turner is holding all the cards. She should have scrammed when she had the chance. She’s not my mother. That’s all I need to know.

  Fear, disappointment, and confusion are circling like a swarm of mosquitoes. Heaving and snuffing, I’m holding back the tears as best I can.

  “Why did you run away from me?” asks Miss Turner.

  “Because I don’t want you to tell me.”

  “Don’t want me to tell you what?” Miss Turner puts an arm around my shoulder. My legs go to mush. Pushing down a lump the size of a watermelon, I pull in a deep breath.

  “I don’t want you to tell me Aunt Millie’s really my mother.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “You’ve got this whole thing all wrong, Cammie. Millie worked at the home—she didn’t go there to have a baby. She came in one day on the bus and was hired right on the spot. They were so short of staff. All those babies to look after in the nursery.”

  My mind slows to a crawl at this information. Miss Turner’s words are like raindrops hitting a bit of sun-parched ground. I want to drink in her words because they taste so good. Thinking Aunt Millie might really be my mother felt like the end of the world. But imagining Aunt Millie having a regular, everyday job—well, that’s enough to make even the sternest person giddy. Not to mention the relief I’m feeling at the moment now that I know she’s not my mother. At least Aunt Millie didn’t lie about that.

  We find a bench where we won’t be disturbed, right next to the pond. Colours reflect upon the water like a mirror. I can’t make out where the trees stop and the water starts. Ducks huddle in one corner, gossiping back and forth, sharing secrets like the old biddies down at Mae Cushion’s store. Running away was a babyish thing to do. It’s time for me to get tough, to hear the real truth about my life, no matter what that truth turns out to be. All this guessing and thinking and wondering is for the ducks. I’m ready to face the facts. With luck, Miss Turner will fill in some of the missing pieces of my life, the ones Aunt Millie protects like a mother bear. I can’t pick and choose my past, or trade it in for something I like better. But maybe Miss Turner’s version will help me make sense of the things Aunt Millie told me over the years, like how my mother left me back in Tanner and never once felt the need to check on me—not once. When you’re getting down to the particulars there’s a lot of digging and scraping to do before you reach the bottom.

  “Did you know my mother?” I ask with crossed fingers.

  Miss Turner shakes her head. “Millie asked everyone about her sister, but no one there remembered her. People came and went all the time from that place. And then they gave us new names when we arrived—to protect our privacy.”

  “But Aunt Millie knew your name. You wrote to her.”

  “We became friends, and friends confide in one another.” Friends, Aunt Millie and Miss Turner? It seems so unlikely. Aunt Millie never had any women friends that I knew of. She was always too busy selling moonshine.

  There’s nothing easy about this for either of us. My heart feels as tight as a fiddle string as I wait to hear the rest of the story. Miss Turner’s hand reaches out for mine and she squeezes it gently. I can’t imagine I ever believed she was my heartless mother.

  She tells me about the home for unwed mothers where she met Aunt Millie, and how scary it was being away from home for the first time.

  “The people who ran the place were nice enough, but it wasn’t like being home. My parents paid my way, but they didn’t visit or even write in case someone would discover my secret. I felt so alone until Millie came there to work. She really was a dear.”

  A dear? That doesn’t sound like Aunt Millie to me. I could make a snotty comment, but I just let Miss Turner keep going. By keeping my mouth shut I’ll find out where I fit into the picture. I’m sure of it. Then it will be my time to ask questions—not now.

  Miss Turner clears her throat. “I didn’t want to give my baby away, but my parents insisted.” Her voice cracks a little and she continues. “I said I wanted him back, but there was nothing that could be done. I signed papers. My baby had already been adopted.”

  Wind scrapes the top of my head and a crow squawks four times—four for a boy, like maybe it knows what we’re talking about. I think Miss Turner might cry, but she doesn’t. Listening with a closed mouth isn’t as easy as it sounds. The scariest part about the truth is facing the things you fear the most.

  When Miss Turner gets back to the subject of Aunt Millie, I cringe just a little. I can’t imagine her being kind and helpful the way Miss Turner described.

  “It didn’t take long to figure out that Millie hadn’t a clue when it came to looking after babies.” I would be laughing at that one if I weren’t the baby she ended up looking after for real. “So they eventually put her to work in the laundry. She’d slip up to the nursery, though. I’d see her there most every day. She asked so many questions. She told me she was undercover and not to tell. I don’t know what she expected to find out or why she just didn’t come right out and ask the owners about her sister. I suppose she had her reasons, though. When I left she was still working there.”

  Undercover? Aunt Millie? That would have been a sight to behold, although it doe
s sound more like the Aunt Millie I know—sneaking behind people’s backs like that. At least she tried to find my mother, make her come back and do the right thing by me. Maybe Aunt Millie isn’t the tough bird she makes herself out to be.

  “That’s all I know, Cammie, other than the letter I wrote.”

  “So I was born at a home for unwed mothers,” I say, testing out the sound of this new information. Aunt Millie always told me I was born in the back seat of someone’s car.

  “That would be my guess. Girls were coming in all the time. Some hardly stayed a week. Some, like me, stayed for months. The Youngs insisted on privacy. We were warned not to talk about our time at the home. But Millie must have known something or she wouldn’t have come there asking about her sister.”

  “But what about me? What did she do with me when she came there to work?” I only ever thought of Aunt Millie as a bootlegger, not someone with a regular job.

  “She never mentioned you. Just her sister. All she asked about was her sister.”

  If I ever get to where I can figure Aunt Millie out, I could probably send for a certificate to hang on the wall and have myself declared a genius, because figuring her out will be as complicated as bringing about peace to the entire planet. And with all the fighting going on around the world, that will be a miracle through and through. When it comes to my life, and me trying to find out any of the particulars, she can string out a bunch of malarkey without batting an eye. Never mind that none of it’s true. If I could tell lies as slick as Aunt Millie can, you can bet my life would have taken a whole other turn. Only what’s the good of making up lies just to suit yourself?

  Eventually, the truth comes out, and that’s when the trouble always starts. I’ve had plenty of experience in that department, dealing with Aunt Millie over the years. But I’m slowly getting to the bottom of things. When Christmas comes, I’ll get the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I won’t stop pestering until I do. Right now Miss Turner’s my ace in the hole. Just let Aunt Millie weasel her way out of this.