The Gardens of Covington

by Joan A. Medlicott

  She blessed Hannah, who had been on her own for so many years. Hannah had pushed and prodded Grace, and offered her new ways of being and thinking. Hannah had challenged Grace to be spontaneous, adventurous, creative, and brave, ah, yes, brave. Grace felt braver than she ever had in her life. It takes gumption to question ingrained beliefs about how things ought to be, how a person ought to act, and then to dispute one’s expectations, and she had done that.

  “You’re ripe and ready for change,” Hannah had said.

  Ginger was another matter. Grace had no sense that, miserable as she seemed, Emily’s mother was aware that there was anything she needed to change. She seemed locked in the armor of her attitudes and beliefs. Mind your own business, Grace said to herself.

  “You can’t fix anyone’s life but your own,” Hannah was forever preaching, and, of course, she was right.

  Streetlights were not a part of Covington’s nightscape, and without a moon, the grassy shoulders melded into the dark road, making it essential to focus on driving. Several times the tires on the right side of Russell’s car slipped off the road, jarring them. Obviously, Russell’s mind was elsewhere. He talked of nothing but Emily. “Isn’t she beautiful? I love her laugh, don’t you? She’s smart, very smart. She doesn’t do divorce in her practice,” and on and on.

  “Her eyes are beautiful, such long lashes,” Grace concurred.

  “They’re incredible,” Russell said.

  “Watch the road, son.”

  “Yes, sir.” Russell slowed the car.

  “If there’s no car coming, use your blights. You won’t find yourself on the shoulder if you focus on the white line in the middle,” Bob advised.

  Russell complied. “Did you like her, Dad?”

  “Why, yes, I did. Seems a fine, intelligent young woman,” his father said as his hand flew to the dashboard. “Just take it slow around that curve.”

  “When did you get to be such a backseat driver?” From the backseat, Grace nudged Bob’s shoulder.

  “Russell’s distracted, and he’s not paying any attention to where he’s driving.”

  “She’s leaving next week,” Russell said.

  “So, will you go to Florida, see her in her own environment?” Bob asked. “Could she live here is a big question.”

  “If you love someone you can live anywhere,” Russell replied.

  Spoken with the love-struck heart of a forty-year-old teenager, Grace thought. But she felt great empathy for Russell. When Amy died in that car crash, he had nearly stopped functioning. It had been a hard two years, and Grace was glad that Russell seemed ready to start a new life. It was Tyler she worried about.

  “Go slow,” Bob said, and this time he did not refer to Russell’s driving.

  “I am,” Russell said. “I’m only driving twenty miles an hour.”

  “What your dad means is give your relationship with Emily some time. Tyler will have to meet her. He’ll need to get used to seeing you with a woman.”

  “Tyler will love her,” Russell replied with absolute assurance.

  A dreamer, Grace thought, and she directed her attention to Bob. “You liked Martin, then?”

  “Martin’s interesting,” Bob said. “He’s signed up for my January class on World War Two at the Center for Creative Retirement at the university. The man knows those war years as well as he knows the lines on his face. He’ll keep me on my toes.”

  Grace decided this was not the time to tell them that she hoped never to see Ginger Hammer again.

  5

  Was It an Apple or a Mango?

  A plate of sugar cookies in one hand, her purse tucked under her arm, Grace walked up the unpainted, slightly tilting steps to the porch of Lurina Masterson’s farmhouse. The old lady opened the front door slowly, her eyes squeezed to the crack, then wider, smiling broadly.

  “Well if it ain’t Grace. Come on in and sit a bit.”

  “I’ve brought you my homemade sugar cookies.”

  “Well, ain’t that nice.”

  Grace followed Lurina into the kitchen at the back of the house. The floor was covered by old green linoleum worn bare in places. The rear door stood ajar, and Grace heard the cackling of chickens. “You keep chickens?”

  “Special chickens.” Lurina opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a dish filled with eggs ranging in color from olive blue to turquoise. She laughed. “Surprised at the color? One day I’ll take you out back and introduce you to ’em.”

  That said, Lurina returned the bowl to the refrigerator and reached for a cookie. “Good,” she said. “Old-time-like, thin, not too sweet. Just right for dunkin’. Your ma hand you down this recipe?”

  “My mother didn’t like to cook. She had no special recipes. All of mine came from friends, their family recipes.”

  “Imagine that.” Lurina took Grace’s arm and propelled her into the room she called the front parlor. On an old velvet couch sat a large Bible whose pages had yellowed with age. Lurina eased herself onto the couch alongside the Good Book, took it into her lap, and tapped the open page with a finger. “Read the Bible, Grace?”

  “I have. Long ago.”

  “I been readin’ real careful like, that part about Adam and Eve livin’ in the Garden of Eden.” She patted the page. “Now it says here that Adam and Eve were naked. The Garden of Eden must have been in a warm climate, tropical like, wouldn’t you say?”

  Grace nodded. She respected other people’s religious beliefs. This was only her second visit with Lurina, but Lurina seemed not to care, and proceeded as if they were lifelong friends. She’s lonely, Grace thought, and settled down to listen.

  Lurina continued. “Well, I reckon, apple trees don’t grow in the tropics.” She grinned, excited now, and leaned forward. “So, I come to think that Eve couldn’t have picked an apple.” She fell silent and waited. Grace said nothing. “What Eve picked and gave to Adam was a tropical fruit. I figure it was a mango.” Lurina squinted up at Grace with such intensity that it made Grace uncomfortable. “A mango,” Lurina repeated. “Ate one once, right sweet it was.”

  Grace waited, expecting more, but Lurina had finished. She closed the Bible, seemingly satisfied with her interpretation. “I gotta talk to Pastor Johnson ’bout this.”

  They chatted a bit. “I seen too many changes in my lifetime,” Lurina said. “I used to walk behind Pa’s plow settin’ potatoes. Times are, I wake up at night from dreamin’, and think I feel the cold mud of that field oozin’ through my toes. I cried a pint when Pa stowed our old buggy, and turned the old horse to pasture, and got him one of those new Fords. Telephone, radio, television, big old stores you can’t find anything in.” She shook her head, and the braids atop her head bobbed. Her eyes grew sad. “I done watched ’em rip and tear hills and all over in Loring Valley.” She shook her head. “Glad I’m old. Too much change. I hear tell they’ve called another meetin’ at the church hall tonight. You goin’?”

  “Yes. We are.”

  Lurina’s brows knitted. “Tell me, Grace, you get a letter about sellin’ your property?”

  “Everyone on Cove Road got a letter. I could come by tomorrow, if you’d like, and tell you what happened at tonight’s meeting.”

  “That’d be right nice of you.”

  Grace shared Lurina’s concerns about the development of Loring Valley, but now she asked Lurina how she felt after her recent fall, and in reply, Lurina launched into a description of her family’s solid history of good health. “We Mastersons die of old age, sometimes more than a hundred, like my pa. We never get operated on, never have strokes, nothin’ like that. We just lie in bed, and when the Lord calls we go, and that ain’t early on. He ain’t in no hurry for us Mastersons. We’re an ornery bunch.”

  Lurina launched into a story about her father’s death, the first of many death stories that she would tell Grace. “Pa, he wasn’t sick or nothin’. Just took to his bed one July afternoon. Lordy me, it was hot that day. ‘Lurrie,’ he said. That’s what he called me
, Lurrie. ‘Come sit in this here chair next my bed.’ Time was he could heft him a calf under each arm and walk a mile. Well, that afternoon, he raised up his arms a ways, and they just plopped back on the bed. ‘Strength’s gone,’ he said, ‘time to go.’ Then he heaved his self a big sigh, turned his head to the window. ‘Look at all that light. Ain’t it fine, Lurrie?’ is what he said.” At that Lurina fell silent. She stared down at her gnarled and wrinkled hands.

  A heavy stillness filled the room, much like the stillness in the doctor’s office the day when he had told Grace and her husband that Ted’s cancer was inoperable. At that moment, Lurina lifted her head, and her eyes sought Grace’s.

  “Pa, he seen a light. I ain’t seen no light.” She sighed. “Well, he got him the most peaceful look in those old eyes of his.” Lurina flicked her wrist. “Quick as a lamb can twitch its tail, he was gone.” Her mood changed, lifted. “Mighty fine way to go, wouldn’t you say?” She laughed.

  If I closed my eyes and heard that laugh, Grace thought, I’d think she was a much younger woman. Grace’s moment of melancholy lifted, and she laughed lightly with Lurina. It was a mighty fine way to go. Then Grace helped Lurina from the couch, took the older woman’s arm, and they ambled out to the front porch, where Lurina settled herself in her weatherworn and creaky rocking chair.

  “Won’t you come with us to this meeting, Lurina? We’d pick you up and bring you home. You’ve seen what’s happened to Loring Valley firsthand. You could tell them.”

  Lurina stiffened. “I told you, I don’t go out at night.”

  “Yes, you did. I’m sorry,” Grace said, preparing to leave. “Well, I’ll see you.”

  “Come back soon.”

  When Grace reached her car, she turned and called to Lurina, “I’ll bring Hannah and Amelia to meet you.” And thus began a friendship between Grace Singleton and Lurina Masterson that led, in time, to Grace’s ongoing involvement in Lurina’s life.

  6

  Hannah Steps to the Podium

  Tired and frazzled, Harold leaned on the podium. His shirt bunched above his belt, and his tie hung loose and limp. Using a gavel, Harold silenced the crowd. “Everyone get a letter?”

  This second church hall gathering to discuss the offer from the developers took place on a Sunday evening. The hall was packed, standing room only. Once again, the ladies sat with Brenda while Russell and Bob, who had accompanied them tonight, stood with others at the rear of the room.

  Hands, holding letters, shot up. Everyone yammered. Harold slammed the gavel hard. “Raise your hands, and I’ll call you to this podium, and you can all have your say.”

  Hands fell, rose, some fell again. “Charlie Herrill, get on up here,” Harold said, and stepped aside to accommodate the husky farmer, in overalls and a baseball cap, who strode from the back of the hall. The crowd parted for him, several of the men stood as he passed them and congenially slapped his back. “You tell ’em, Charlie,” someone yelled.

  Charlie grinned, pulled out a big checkered handkerchief—it reminded Grace of her own bandanna—and wiped his face. “Folks. We’ve got us a peck of trouble. These here folks”—he waved his letter—”they know how to sweet-talk. Me and my kin been in this valley nigh onto ninety years.” He smoothed his letter on the podium, then lifted it high in the air. “Here’s the Herrills’ answer.” Huge hands tore the letter in two, then in four. The pieces see-sawed to the floor. Cheers and claps exploded. Low murmurs and objections followed.

  Charlie Herrill, smiling and pleased with himself, left the podium, stomped down the aisle, and stood behind the chair at the back of the room, where his wife, Velma, sat.

  Harold recognized Jake Anson, patriarch of the Anson clan, and waved him forward. An Ichabod Crane type, gangly, slightly stooped, with an Adam’s apple that bobbed even when he wasn’t talking or swallowing, Jake rose from the second row and ambled up to the podium.

  “I reckon I don’t see it like old Charlie here does. Times are changin’. My girl, Louise, you know, she ain’t so good, got the cancer, and we carry her to the hospital every couple of weeks for treatments. My boy Timmie’s wantin’ to open him up a mechanic shop over in West Asheville. Our oldest gal Susan’s married and lives over yonder off Patton Avenue in West Asheville. Maggie and I been wonderin’ what’s the sense to stay out here.” He paused.

  Everyone in that meeting hall collectively held their breath.

  Jake continued. “We ain’t gettin’ younger, my missus and me. We could use a little ease.” His eyes scanned the room, and for a long moment Jake hesitated. Then he stepped away from the podium and straightened his shoulders. “I’m sorry, folks. I know a lot of you gonna be darn mad, but a person’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.”

  The neighbors of Jake Anson turned in slow motion and watched as he plodded down the aisle, took the arms of his son and wife. Linked together they walked slowly, heavily from the church hall. Then, the room exploded. “Just what you’d expect from a man whose kin fought with the Union,” someone yelled.

  Grace looked quizzically at Brenda, who bent and whispered in her ear. “Anson’s family goes back a real long time. They settled over in Walnut, only it was called Jewell Hill back then. It’s common knowledge the Anson men fought with the Union; their womenfolk hid deserters. Story is Jake’s granny buried her own Bible and a handkerchief with her initials embroidered on it with a Union soldier.”

  That the Civil War had divided Madison County families, friends, and neighbors, Grace knew, but this information about the Ansons concretized what she suspected. In this mountain fastness, old feuds and angers faded but never disappeared.

  “Turncoat,” another voice called. “Selling out on us. Just like your kin.” The words struck the walls, jounced here and there about the room, piercing minds and hearts, stirring old angers. Then came silence.

  Finally Harold said, “Well, what do you know about that?”

  The jam-packed room smoldered with a jumble of body heat and heightened emotions. Driblets of perspiration tickled Grace’s skin under her arm. She pressed her cotton shirt against her skin, just as a purl of protest came from the front row. Beside her, Amelia fanned herself with a Japanese fan hand painted with lotus blossoms. It was one of several fans she had collected on her world travels, and that now decorated the wall above Amelia’s dressing table. She turned her head, hoping to catch a draft from Amelia’s fan.

  Harold touched the gavel to the podium. “Y’all know Hannah Parrish. She’d like to say a few words.”

  Hannah rose. No crowd parted for her as she made her way, with many “excuse me’s” and “pardon me’s,” to where Harold waited. She made a mental note of two young men who stuck out a hand and edged a foot toward her indicating that if they could, they would bar her way. She noticed Zachary, the Maxwells’ son, sitting third in the second row eyeing her sheepishly.

  “Let the lady pass,” Harold said firmly.

  Relieved, Hannah reached the podium. “Jake Anson’s got troubles, illness,” Hannah began. “I’m sorry. But, I ask you all to think what happens to this valley if one owner sells. Everything changes. Anson’s land sweeps the curve, a huge tract that greedy developers will ruin with hundreds of houses and condominiums.” Hannah waited a moment. Then her voice rose. “First there’ll be bulldozers and blasting, then there’ll be huge trucks delivering cement, and gravel, and lumber, then cars, two at least for every family. Imagine the traffic, the dust, the noise on Cove Road.”

  Voices buzzed and muttered. Harold wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, stepped closer to Hannah, and lowered the gavel on the podium.

  Even with the noise, Hannah seemed unflustered, cool, and sure of herself. “Kids won’t be able to play ball in the road on Sundays, as they do now. Then there’s the pollution. Runoff from the construction will pollute our streams and creeks.”

  Whispers seeped like mist through the room. Harold silenced them once again with his gavel. He looked wornout, Grace thought, almost defeated, st
anding there behind Hannah.

  “What makes Cove Road so unique,” Hannah continued, “is that all of us, you, me, we all love its quiet beauty. We enjoy sitting out on our porches. It’s a comfort visiting with passersby, and relaxing. Isn’t that so?”

  Heads nodded.

  “The way it is now, we can set our clocks by when folks drive past. Charlie Herrill, there.” She pointed at Charlie. “He drives his big blue truck past our place at nine o’clock sharp six days a week. If he didn’t, I’d call Velma to inquire if he was sick. Brenda Tate leaves for her school at seven-thirty in the morning. If she drives by before seven, I know she’s got a meeting, and when I see her, I ask, “How’d the meeting go the other morning, Brenda?”

  It was true. The whole room knew it, and laughed lightly.

  “And Molly Lund. Every afternoon at five-thirty when she comes home she waves, whether she can see any of us or not. Even if we’re inside, one or the other of us sees her. She brightens our day, makes us feel connected. All that will change with the development of our valley.”

  “It’s not your valley,” a disgruntled voice said. “Jake’s got a right to sell.”

  “True, he does, but I’m suggesting there might be a way to buy his land and find another use for it other than housing.”

  “You’re makin’ a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “No, I’m not,” she replied. “Development, so-called progress, will eliminate the very things you hold dear.”

  “What we got that it’ll eliminate?” a voice called.

  Hannah lifted her chin. “What folks all over America crave: a sense of belonging, of knowing your neighbors, of people caring what happens to others.” She gestured with both hands, intending to encompass everyone in the room. “You come to church; you know everyone. Someone’s sick, you bring food. When there’s a death, you visit and comfort, at a birth you celebrate. Community.” The word came out reverentially in almost a whisper, and she repeated louder, “Community, that’s what people crave.”