I watched Mama close, always looking for a sign, some word she might say or a look of guilt if I casually brought up how quick Mr. Fowler had died. Aunt Ruth wasn’t compassionate at all.
She’d said, “Good riddance.”
As to Mama, she was slowly returning to her old self, gaining weight from Aunt Ruth’s cooking, a pink flush coloring her cheeks once again. The idea she’d do something like that seemed so far-fetched, until I thought of how he’d been, knowing he could’ve killed her, and then it wasn’t.
I started to the same junior high school Trent was attending for his last year, and it intimidated me, this concept of having a locker and changing classes for each course.When I went from one room to another, I looked for Daniel, having to remind myself his hair would be short, although it had to have grown out some by now. The first few days, I got so wound up with wanting to see him, my stomach hurt. It wasn’t until the second week, when I no longer scrutinized the masses of students moving through the hallways that I spotted him coming toward me. I came to a dead standstill, disrupting the flow of bodies, like a car blocking a lane. It had been months since I’d seen him. He still carried the tan of summer, and his hair was cut like Ross’s now, like every other boy I knew, a purposeful crew cut.
Excited, yet nervous, I called out, “Daniel!”
He stared right through me as he went by with two other girls I didn’t know. They hung on to him, laughing, flirting, and why not. Daniel was the best-looking boy in the entire school.
I heard one girl say, “Isn’t that the water witch?”
For all the sorrow and anguish of the past year, nothing hurt as bad as what I heard him say in passing.
“Her? I don’t know who she is.”
“Well, she knows you.”
“I don’t know how.”
He did look at me then, eyes empty of any recognition. A rush of heat, a knot of pain blossomed in my chest. I moved on, feeling awkward while fighting the prick of tears behind my eyelids. The pain in my heart was as intense as when Daddy died. I knew then, that was my last attempt to fix what I’d done. It was getting to the point of embarrassing myself. If Daniel wanted to associate himself to me in any way, it would have happened by now. I had to accept what he wanted. He’d found a way to go on, and I would have to as well.
Becky Hill was in my class and I began to eat lunch with her. She introduced me to Doreen Walker and another girl, Crissy McLamb, who said she’d had a crush on Trent since first grade. It became normal, somehow, to be with them, and when I found out Crissy was only about five miles down the road from us, in the opposite direction of where we usually went into town, we agreed to visit one another. Her daddy farmed too, but she didn’t like working the cotton like I did.
One day during lunch, she said, “Is it true, you can find water? With a stick?”
I looked at her carefully, assessing if I ought to talk about this with her. I didn’t know if I could trust her yet. She bit into an apple, and crunched on it enthusiastically, leaning forward with an openness, appearing eager to hear about it. I decided I ought not be ashamed. Daddy never had been.
I nodded and said, “I don’t talk about it much.”
She said, “I wish I could do something like that. The reason I asked is my daddy, I think he’s gonna call your mama. He wants you to come find water on our farm for next year. After that drought, he told Mama he ain’t inclined to go through it again. Your daddy told him once you were just as good.”
Hearing Daddy had talked about me like that was a comfort and it was good to have new friends, but even as I tried to forget Daniel, my mind refused. He’d been by my side for so long, not having him around disturbed me to the point Mama threatened the castor oil again. That, or she thought it might be something else.
She said, “Remember what we discussed. Your monthlies might be about to start—if they haven’t already.”
The question hung in the air, and it was like her eyes bored into my head, trying to see what had me in such a mood.
“No, ma’am.”
She finally said, “Is this about Daniel?”
I broke down. Holding it in had been like trying to drag a hundred-pound sack of cotton around.
I sobbed, “He doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
Mama rubbed my shoulder. “Time will take care of this. I promise.”
She didn’t understand. Time wasn’t doing a thing except making it worse. My self-respect went missing once more as I again rode my bike to his house just to see if I could see him. I rode to the water tower at least twice. I stared up at the Lucky Strike sign, and wished with all my might Daniel would appear at the railing and at least wave to me. My sense of loss was so real, so difficult, that when I went to Daddy’s grave, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him like I usually did. Silent, I pictured my grief coming out of all sides of me, through my feet even, penetrating deep into the ground like the water that flowed there.
The days at school passed one after the other, all of them sort of blurring together. One evening there was an early chill in the air, and I realized it wouldn’t be long before we’d be ready to pick again. I was looking out over the fields, the white of the cotton against a sky growing dark earlier and earlier. I had my arms wrapped around my waist, and shook ever so slightly. I was about to go in when I saw a small yellow flash in the distance. I was always on the lookout for shooting stars, and instantly made a wish even though I’d lost sight of it. The small flicker came again, only it appeared precise and without the thin trailing tale a meteorite would have.
And, again.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
My hands grew sweaty, despite the chill. I ran inside, rushing by Aunt Ruth who stood at the sink.
Mama was sitting at the table and said, “What in the world?”
I dug around in the hall closet. “Where’s that big flashlight of Daddy’s, the one he used when he was working at night?”
She said, “What do you need that for?”
“I just do!”
“It was out in the barn, remember? Sonny, what . . . ?”
Bang! went the screen door. I ran, stumbling around in the dark in the first stall until my hands felt the square box with the big bulb. Praying the battery wasn’t dead, I pushed the button on top. It came on, flooding the barn with light. I turned it off, and tried to ignore the strange lights floating in front of my eyes. I ran back into the yard, my legs tingly, and my arms too, almost like when I would divine water. I pointed the light toward the Lucky Strike tower. I turned it on, off, on, off, on, off. I waited, and five seconds later came an answer. Blink. Blink. Blink.
Daniel. It was Daniel.
I remembered him saying he took a flashlight up there sometimes when he went at night. I turned my light off and on again three times more.
He did too.
I grew warm all over. I didn’t know what it might mean. I didn’t know if it would change anything between us. I smiled at the heavens, and hugged the light, sitting down on the damp ground to face the tower. Grateful tears trickled down to my neck. All that mattered was Daniel had sent me a sign by way of a tiny, twinkling light, an offer of forgiveness, and for me, that little light was big as the night sky above us.
Author’s Note
Not far from where I live today, there used to be a sign along a stretch of I-95 South near Smithfield that declared, “You Are in the Heart of Klan Country! Welcome to North Carolina! Join the United Klans of America, Inc.!” And below that main billboard sign, a smaller one that said, “Help fight integration and communism!” There are varying dates for when it’s said to have existed, from 1970 to as late as 1982. As I set out to write The Forgiving Kind, I thought about how I’d never tackled the difficult topic of bigotry in the stories I’ve written thus far. Writing about this narrow-mindedness and prejudice which used to saturate my lovely home state’s early history, and yes, still exists to some degree today, is not easy. Progress is being made in North Carolina. It’
s much different than it was in the 1950s, but there is always room for improvement, because for all of the idyllic living, the Southern hospitality, the genteel way of life, intolerance and narrow-mindedness can still be found. It is not completely gone. Bigotry is a huge topic and not one I feel I can address adequately in this space, and shouldn’t.
What I do want to talk about is my antagonist, Frank Fowler, and Daniel Lassiter, the lovable, affable, and utterly confused twelve-year-old best friend of my main character, Sonny Creech. Frank Fowler’s backstory, while not too in-depth, gives hints here and there of his upbringing in a well-to-do family. We learn of the abrupt, mysterious demise of his father, and his feeling of uselessness when it came to his mother’s needing him on their own farm, so he goes off to war to “kill him some Nazis.” As I wrote, I kept circling back around to the question: Why is Frank Fowler like he is? What are his motivations, his reasons for being so hateful and cruel to Daniel? Why did he do what he did? I toyed with the idea that maybe he was having his own identity crisis, but then it struck me sometimes there doesn’t have to be a definitive reason. What I believe is sometimes people are the way they are simply because they’re born that way and perhaps a characteristic evil is then influenced by societal norms for the given time period in which they’re living. The nature of what was taking place with regard to Daniel’s confusion was against the law back then. Even within our own government, individuals were called “lavender lads,” and removed from job positions. Purged is the word I want to use.
Frank Fowler, as a character, is a person who is inherently evil. It’s in his nature. I knew what was going to happen between him and Daniel. Writing scenes like these is never easy and there are risks as a writer when taking on such a challenging subject. There is worry and concern it will be misunderstood, or not written about with enough knowledge or sensitivity and regard for those who’ve been on the receiving end of such hate. I tried to do my best. I tried to put myself into the shoes of a bewildered, twelve-year-old boy who understands he is different, yet is having difficulty grasping this uniqueness. I hope I did him justice. I hope I captured the complexities and difficulties a child going through this, during this timeframe, would have experienced. Most of all, I want the reader to know that I tried to write about this sensitive issue with compassion and empathy. What I came away with was the knowledge I cared deeply about Daniel, and his emotional well-being, and I hope I’ve conveyed this through my writing.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE FORGIVING KIND
Donna Everhart
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Donna Everhart’s The Forgiving Kind!
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What did you like best about this book?
2. What did you like least?
3. How believable were the characters, and did they remind you of anyone you know?
4. The story takes place in 1955. Do you think the author did a good job at depicting this time period and setting for the story?
5. Issues of racism, bigotry, and intolerance are introduced, highlighting the era Sonny and her family lived in. Do you like stories that address these issues, or not?
6. How did you find the pacing of the story, do you think it was too fast, too slow, or just right?
7. The Creech siblings, for the most part, have normal, typical relationships with one another. What did you find special or different about the bond between Ross and Sonny, and Trent and Sonny?
8. Sonny’s best friend, Daniel, struggles to understand what sets him apart from the rest of his peers. When did you first have an understanding of what was going on with Daniel?
9. Do you believe the author had a purpose in writing this story, and if so, what do you think was the message intended?
10. The title of the book is The Forgiving Kind. Did it suit the story told? Is there a different title you would have chosen?
Set in North Carolina in 1960 and brimming with authenticity and grit, The Moonshiner’s Daughter evokes the singular life of sixteen-year-old Jessie Sasser, a young woman determined to escape her family’s past . . .
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser’s daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she’s concerned, moonshine caused her mother’s death a dozen years ago.
Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth—one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school’s gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the “monster” inside Jessie.
Resenting her father’s insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals long-held grudges. As she endeavors to right wrongs old and new, Jessie’s loyalties will bring her to unexpected revelations about her family, her strengths—and a legacy that may provide her with the answers she has been longing for.
Contents
PRAISE FOR DONNA EVERHART’S THE EDUCATION OF DIXIE DUPREE
Also by
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Author’s Note
THE FORGIVING KIND
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Teaser Chapter
The Forgiving Kind Page 32
