by Pamela Morsi
“He said light duty in a couple of weeks and then if my leg continues to heal at the rate it’s been going, I could be back in the trees in another month.”
Mr. Webb nodded. “That sounds about right.” The man was writing Sonny’s response into his notes.
“Well, we’re certainly looking forward to getting you back to work,” Mr. Webb said. “From everything I’ve seen and read about you, you are an exemplary employee. Just the kind of young man who has a real future with this company.”
“Thank you.”
“And,” he continued, “I think we can even give you something here that will tangibly demonstrate our appreciation and support.”
From his briefcase he pulled out a stack of papers held together with a clip.
“We have a check here for four thousand dollars,” Mr. Webb said. “We’d like to offer it to you as a settlement for your injury.”
“Oh?” Sonny was surprised. He shot a look to his father, who appeared to be taken off guard, as well.
“It’s the company’s way of covering any lost pay or extra expenses that you might incur,” he said.
“That’s really great,” Sonny said.
“We only need you to sign this agreement, accepting the money and pledging not to hold us responsible for the accident or be a participant in any legal proceeding stemming from the accident.”
He pulled the check off the top of the stack and handed the rest of the papers to Sonny.
“That is nice,” he said, though he felt strangely cautious as if something about this was not quite what it appeared to be.
He began perusing the documents. He didn’t get very far. The language of the legal world was difficult, hard to grasp. Mr. Webb leaned closer, he was smiling.
“Basically it’s a standard release of liability,” he said. “Lawyers? Whew, who can understand them?” He gave a little chuckle.
Sonny tried to smile, but in truth, he didn’t like the sound of it.
“Why don’t you just leave this here with me and I can look it over, study it a little before I sign,” he said.
“Of course, I can do that,” Mr. Webb replied. “But then I can’t leave you the check today. I’m sure you have a lot of bills and things you need to buy for your wife, your children. But I won’t be able to leave the check today.”
“That’s fine,” Sonny said.
“You wouldn’t want my son to sign papers he hadn’t read and understood,” Vern said.
“I’d be happy to go over them with you now,” Mr. Webb suggested.
“No,” Sonny said. “Leave them and leave your card. I’ll look them over and give you a call.”
Mr. Webb was hesitant, but Sonny finally did manage to get him out the front door.
“Wow! Four thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Dawn said.
Phrona agreed. “It seems like a very generous offer.”
“Maybe it is,” Sonny said. “I don’t know.”
“You weren’t thinking of suing them, were you?” Phrona asked.
Sonny shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’d need to. My medical bills are covered and I’m expecting a full recovery and a normal life ahead of me.”
Vern nodded. “I agree with Sonny, there’s no reason to sue, but I don’t know. Something doesn’t sound quite on the up-and-up with this.”
“Maybe it’s just a generous company,” Phrona said.
“No, not at all,” Sonny told her. “They are skinflints and corner cutters. Unless they’ve really turned over a new leaf, I can’t imagine them being charitable.”
“These people don’t know you,” Dawn said. “Maybe they think you might take them to court and they just want to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Sonny was reading over the papers.
“Dad, this thing about not being a participant in any legal action, what do you think that means?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you think that it means I couldn’t be a witness?” Sonny asked. “I might not be the victim or the court case they’re worried about.”
Vern nodded slowly. “I wonder what they offered the Beale family,” he said.
Sonny was curious, as well. “Those poor kids,” he said. “I hope, between the company and the state, they’re being taken care of.”
“Maybe you can check up on them when you go back to work,” Dawn suggested.
Vern cleared his throat meaningfully. Then there was a strangely quiet moment in the room.
“Sonny, I…” Vern began abruptly, shooting a look at Phrona. “Your mother and I meant to discuss this with you earlier.” He paused to wipe his nose and his wife continued.
“We don’t really want you out there cutting timber again,” Phrona said. “It’s too hard. It’s too dangerous. It’s not what we want for our son. And this…this close call has convinced us that we have to speak up.”
Sonny gave her a loving smile and when he answered, his tone was soft and dutiful.
“It’s hard and dangerous for everybody, Mama,” he said. “And nobody wants their children to do it. But somebody has to. It’s a very good job and I have a family to support.”
Vern interjected his own thoughts.
“We were hoping,” he said, “that we could talk you into returning to college.”
Sonny felt a momentary stab of longing, but he resisted it. That was not his life these days. And he was lucky to have the life he had.
“Dad, I appreciate it,” he said. “But I’m not a happy-go-lucky frat boy anymore. I’ve got a wife and two children. I have to make a living.”
“Phrona and I have talked about taking a second mortgage on the house,” Vern said. “If you went to school full-time, maybe you could complete your studies in three years. You’d be welcome to live here with us. I think we could swing it.”
Sonny was stunned. He glanced at Dawn. She looked wary.
“It would involve sacrifice on your part,” Phrona said. “We can pay your expenses and keep food on the table, but you wouldn’t be able to have your own place. You’d have to live crowded in here with us until you graduate.”
Sonny knew that his wife wouldn’t be interested in that. What woman would? To live in your mother-in-law’s house, under her scrutiny 24/7 for three years. No young mother would want to do that. And Dawn, who’d been running from unfavorable situations all her life, had finally made a place for herself, and would be less able than most to give up a home of her own.
“It’s really kind…” he began.
“It is really kind,” Dawn piped in. “Too kind. And if we were in any position to refuse it, we would. But I don’t know how Sonny will ever complete his education without your help. It is something that he really wants.”
She glanced toward Sonny and Vern and then met her mother-in-law eye to eye. “I will do whatever I can to get along here and make this easier on everybody. I want my girls to have a stable, happy home. I don’t really know how to give them that, because I never had it myself. You’ve given Sonny a wonderful childhood and now you’re offering a great start for Sierra and Dakota. I am very grateful, Mrs. Leland. I may not always show it, but I am very grateful.”
“Please, dear, call me…” she hesitated.
“Mama,” Vern stated firmly. “It won’t confuse the kids if Dawn and Sonny both just call you Mama.”
For an instant Dawn’s eyes bugged out like an insect’s and Phrona appeared likely to gag on the suggestion. But both women managed to choke out a response.
“If you would like that?” Dawn asked.
“That…that would be fine,” Phrona said.
“So great, that’s settled,” Vern said. “The kids will move in here semipermanently, Sonny starts back to school next semester. And I guess that means when he sees Mr. Webb about signing the papers to get his money, he can resign at the same time.”
It seemed like a very good plan.
Sonny continued to think about Lonnie’s children and the papers he was going to si
gn. He waited until Saturday and asked Vern to drive out to Strawberry Plains. It was a dark, rainy, ugly day—not really a great time for being out on the highway. But he didn’t know for sure where the children were living. And he was certain that he couldn’t visit during the week, because he assumed the children would all be in school.
Tonya was not. They found her working at a convenience store on the highway. She’d already lost that look of hopeful young teenager poised for university. After only a couple of months she’d already metamorphosed into the tough, real-life, working-class woman that the world expected her to be.
“I’ve got to keep the family together,” she told them. “I can’t do that if I’m going to high school.”
“Don’t you have any other relatives?” Sonny asked. “Uncles, aunts, somebody.”
“Of course we do,” she said. “But there’s nobody that can take all of us. I don’t want us to be split up.”
“Maybe you could get some help from welfare or something,” Vern said. “So you’d be able to stay together and still pay your bills.”
“Don’t breathe a word about us to the county,” Tonya said, horrified. “If they find out we’re trying to make it on our own, they’ll have us all farmed out in no time. We’ll be fine as long as we’re together. We’ve lost our parents. If we lose each other…”
Her words faded off into uncertainty.
“Did a man from the logging company come by and offer you money?” Sonny asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “He had a check for five thousand dollars! That would sure keep the bills paid up for a while.”
“So you signed for it.”
Tonya shook her head. “I was afraid to,” she admitted. “I’m not legal age. I don’t think I can sign anything. I thought maybe we could stall him until after my birthday in August. I don’t know what I’d do with a big check like that anyway. Who would I get to cash it?”
“You could deposit it in the bank,” he said.
“I haven’t been to the bank,” Tonya told him. “I’m afraid to talk to them. Dad’s got money saved that I know is ours. But I’m afraid they might not give it to me. They could call the county on us.”
The young woman’s fear of social services seemed overblown. But Sonny and Vern weren’t any more familiar with “the county” and what they might or might not do than Tonya. It occurred to Sonny that he knew someone who was.
He called Dawn at home.
“I know about Knox County,” she told him. “They live in Jefferson. But I’m sure the rules are probably the same.”
“What should she do?”
“She needs to get herself appointed guardian of the younger children,” Dawn said.
“She’s afraid to contact anyone,” Sonny told her. “She won’t even go to the bank for her father’s money. She’s afraid the welfare department will grab everybody up and throw them in foster care.”
“Like they want another half-dozen kids to worry about,” Dawn said with a cynical chuckle. “Let me call the woman here in town who helped me. I can keep Tonya’s name out of it and ask who she should talk to and how to get it done.”
Within the next few days, Dawn had the name of a lawyer in Dandridge, Melissa Curtis, who was not that much older than Tonya herself and very sympathetic. She easily got Tonya declared an adult. And the judge was perfectly willing to give her custody of the younger children with only minimum oversight by social workers. The lawyer also probated Lonnie’s will, giving Tonya financial discretion for the savings that their father had left them.
A few days later, they were surprised when Melissa called and asked to meet with Sonny and Dawn. Vern and Phrona baby-sat as they talked with her in the living room.
“I believe that the company was negligent in following safety standards for the cutting that day,” she said. “Could you tell me what you remember about the accident?”
Sonny related the details as clearly as he could remember.
“So there was concern about two felling crews working so close to each other,” she said.
Sonny nodded. “That’s why Lonnie had us stop cutting. We’d take our turn so there would be less chance of something going wrong.”
“But something went wrong anyway,” she said.
He nodded.
She wrote some things down in her notes as they waited.
“I understand that the company has offered you a settlement,” she said.
“Yeah,” Sonny told her. “They’re going to give us four thousand dollars. That’s generous considering I’m expecting a complete recovery. I haven’t accepted it yet. I wanted to be sure of what I was signing.”
“Good idea,” she said.
“It’s strange that they didn’t offer much more to the Beale family,” Sonny said.
She nodded. “I think they expected that the kids, being kids, would just jump at it.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. “And they probably would have if they’d known that it wouldn’t bring trouble down on them.”
“I’m going to see if I can get them more,” Melissa said. “They’ve been deprived of not only their father’s love and care but his income, as well. I think the company can do better by them.”
Sonny thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “I think they should pay more,” he said. “Not just because the kids deserve it, but because I do believe they were at fault. And the only language the company understands is money. The cost of working in risky situations has got to be higher than it is profitable. If not, more people are likely to be killed.”
“I agree,” Melissa said. “And I think most of the guys that were there that day agree. But they all have families to support and jobs to keep. There aren’t many who are willing to testify to what happened.”
Sonny was surprised at that. “It’s not like it’s a secret,” he said. “Everybody there knew what went wrong. We even talked about it at Lonnie’s funeral.”
“Talking about it and testifying about it are two different things,” Melissa pointed out. “As I said, they have jobs with the company. And you, well, I’m sure that agreement they want you to sign will preclude your opportunity of making any statements under oath.”
Dawn and Sonny turned to glance at each other. They could almost see their plans for that money going up in smoke before their eyes. But there was no hesitation or dispute in their response.
“I’ll testify,” Sonny said. “Lonnie saved my life. I am grateful just to be here to tell what happened.”
“Even if it means getting no money at all?” Melissa asked.
Sonny nodded affirmatively.
Dawn shrugged and clasped his hand in her own. “I guess that’s just four thousand dollars that my husband and I won’t need,” she said.
REAL LIFE
21
My mom was in a really tough place in her life. She was broke and sick and living among strangers. I finally began to get it that the only way I could really help her was to distract Mrs. Leland.
Sierra was doing a better job than me. She liked clothes and she liked to shop. Mrs. Leland enjoyed that. So the two of them spent some amount of time on that. But even my sister can’t shop every moment. And Sierra was getting deeper into her crush with Seth every day. The sound of his Spitfires on the sidewalk in front of the house became more and more familiar. So much so that Spence and I lost interest in the boring things they said to each other. They went out together to the movies. Vern took them. According to Sierra, he was very good at being right there and yet maintained invisibility. She thought him highly preferable over Seth’s parents, who she thought didn’t like her all that much.
So Sierra’s social life was going great, but that got in the way of her ability to keep Mom and Mrs. Leland separated. I needed to get the woman to like me, be interested in me. I couldn’t imagine any way to do that. So I went to somebody I thought might know.
“How do you get someone to like you?” I asked Del Tegge one hot afternoon as he
sat on his back-porch steps. He was dirty and sweaty from lawn mowing. His hair was all stuck down to head and his muscle shirt was all wet and plastered against his chest.
He raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “You mean, like a boy?” he asked.
“Yuk, no,” I assured him. “I leave the boys to Sierra. I mean like, well, a regular person. I mean, you like me. I can tell that. What makes it okay to hang out with me? How can I make, say, another grownup be interested?”
He didn’t shrug off my question. I knew he wouldn’t. And he didn’t just spout some canned answer like teachers do. He actually thought about it for a minute or two.
“I do like you,” he said. “And I think it’s for the same reason I like all my friends,” he said. “You’re smart and funny. I find you entertaining to talk to. You respect my interests and you’re willing to listen to me talk about them, sometimes more than you want. That’s what being a friend is.”
“Just listening while somebody talks about stuff?”
“Like Spence and his stargazing,” he said. “I know that’s not really your thing. But you let him talk about it. And you don’t get all mush-faced and say, ‘bor-ring,’ even though we both know that sometimes he is.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “It’s like Sierra listening to all that talk about skateboarding.”
Del chuckled. “Yes, I think that’s it exactly.”
“And that works on everybody?”
He thought about that a moment before nodding. “I think that’s true about everybody,” he agreed. “The trick, maybe, is figuring out what a person’s interests might be. It’s not always like Seth, where they just blurt it out. Some people are much more subtle.”
“I guess so.”
“Like your mother,” Del said. “Dawn will talk about her kids. She’ll tell jokes and funny stories. And she’ll also just gut you with that rapier cynicism of hers. But she’s not very revealing about what’s going on inside. What it is that she wants in life.”
“She wants a guy named Sonny,” I told him. “That’s all she ever wants.”
Del smiled. “Yeah, I’ve seen the tattoo,” he said.
