Edgar ran out of Camille’s trailer and jumped onto the swing set. The Rodriguez family didn’t have a whole lot more than the rest of us, but they seemed happy. I felt an ache deep down in my marrow so painful I had to catch my breath. I had been happy too, before.
Mama said life made people hard, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was moms that made the difference. My mom had kept the hardness away and now that she was gone, there was nothing to stop its coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Camille dropped her tray down on the table. “Okay. I have really good news. Also, some really bad news. Which do you want first?”
Gilbert rolled a carrot around with his fork. “Can we just have the one?”
“I wish.” She bit her thumbnail. “I am seriously freaking out here.”
“Tell us the good news!” I said. “Then we can decide if we want to hear any more.”
“Okay.” She placed both hands on the table and paused dramatically. “I think I found the lawyer who did your adoption!” She squealed. “Can you believe it?”
“You’re joking,” Gilbert said. “How?”
“It was on one of the adoption registry sites. I check it every day when I’m helping Mrs. Winn, and today I had a notice in the inbox!”
My heart stuttered. “Oh my gosh! What did it say?”
“It was from a woman named Josephine Logan. She’s from the county next door and she’s looking for her birth daughter.”
“She told you all of that?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. She said to share it on Facebook—like I have an account! Anyway, turns out that she used an attorney from Farley. She said he handled adoptions for lots of people in the area.”
“What’s the bad news?” Gilbert asked. “Is he dead, too?”
“No,” Camille said. “Not exactly.”
“So he’s only sort of dead. That seems about right,” I said.
“He’s not dead at all,” Camille said. She took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to spit it out. The attorney’s name is Ralph P. Davis.”
“Get out!” Gilbert said. “You’re making that up.”
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Who’s Ralph P. Davis?”
Camille frowned. “Nobody calls him that, Wavie. Around here he’s known as Angel.”
I dropped my fork. “The sad, stinky Angel that hovers around the cemetery like a grief-stricken giant?”
“Sí. The very one.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Gilbert said. “Everything and everybody in Convict Holler is connected somehow. Now we just need to ask him about the adoption.”
“Sure,” I said. “Did I mention that yesterday he thought I was dead? The man actually believed he was talking to a ghost.”
“To be fair, you were in a cemetery,” Camille said.
“And you are kinda pale,” Gilbert added.
“So what do you two think I should do?” I asked. “Hang out over the graves until he comes back?”
“First thing we do is find out how crazy he really is,” Gilbert said. “And I know just who to ask.”
• • •
“GRAN,” GILBERT SAID. “We need your help.”
The three of us were sitting elbow to elbow on one side of the table in Gilbert’s tiny trailer.
It was the first time I had seen inside and I was surprised at how nice everything was. There wasn’t much space, but everything was organized. A tiny refrigerator sat under a tiny stove. The kitchen was barely as big as the hallway in Samantha Rose’s house.
“Where’s your bed?” I whispered.
“You’re on it,” Gilbert said. “The table lowers down.”
“Y’all want some cathead biscuits?” Mrs. Miller asked. “I made ’em this morning. They’re cold, but they’re good.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. Gran put the plate of big round biscuits between us with a jar of jam. “Help yourself. Those strawberries grew right on this mountain.”
“Gran,” Gilbert said, spreading jam. “What’s the 411 on Angel Davis? Is he crazy or dangerous?”
Mrs. Miller sat down on the other side of the table and stirred a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “What’s a 411?”
“It means information,” he said.
“Why didn’t you say so?” she asked. “And why you asking about Angel Davis?”
“He lives right here, ain’t that reason enough to wonder?” Gilbert said.
“How can he live up there like a hermit?” Camille asked. “Doesn’t he have to leave for groceries? Or get his mail?”
Gran leaned her elbows on the table. “I don’t reckon he needs much. He’s got a well and a garden. I seen Bertha Loftis’s pickup truck parked over by the pathway every now and then.” She took a sip of coffee. “She helps him put up beans and taters ever year, so with that and the groceries she gets for him, he probably has enough to get through the winter.”
“He’s a lawyer, right?” Gilbert said. “What happened to that?”
Gran nodded and began to tell us the story.
“Angel Davis was born Ralph Patrick Davis. He was tall like his daddy, and so puny his shoulder blades stuck out like angel wings through his shirts—so that’s how he got his nickname.
“By the time Angel started high school, he wasn’t only the poorest kid in three counties, but also the tallest. The basketball coach at Farley High took a look at Angel and figured he was just the kid to make his dream of a state championship a reality. Angel was athletic, and smart as a whip, and sure ’nuff, during his senior year, Farley High School became Kentucky state champions for the first time in the school’s history. And then Angel got hisself a scholarship to college, went to law school and passed the bar exam with flying colors.
“The town was right proud of their young lawyer.
“Angel married a girl from across the mountain named Sara Beth Moody and they had one son—Delmore. That’s when the hoopla started. Angel was set on giving his son everything he had done without, and spoiled Delmore plumb rotten. It was so bad that no one could stand to be around him, not even his mother. One day, she got in the passenger seat of a F-150 belonging to a coal executive and never looked back.
“If it bothered Angel, he didn’t show it. He had Delmore and his law practice and that was all he needed.
“Delmore wasn’t the athlete his daddy was, and what with his bad attitude and ornery nature, he was in and out of trouble during high school. But he did have his daddy’s brains and his money, so off to college he went. He come back to Farley a few years later with a engineering degree and a job offer from Appalachian Mining.
“Delmore was older, but he wasn’t none wiser. He was still the same spoiled boy and before long he was cutting corners, pushing the men and the equipment too hard.
“In a mine you gotta worry about the gas level getting too high and causing an explosion. In the old days they used a canary. Now they have a sensor that sends an alarm so you know to cut everything off and let it vent. Every now and then you’ll find a manager that doesn’t let anyone know ’cause it means he’d have to stop production. Delmore was like that. The explosion killed eight men.
“There was a long investigation, and when it was over, Appalachian Mining blamed Delmore. At the trial, some folks claimed Delmore had unhooked the sensor and told the men to keep working. Jail seemed likely, but then the judge called a mistrial and the case was dismissed. Folks ’round here said Angel bribed the judge.
“That weekend Delmore took his car to town to celebrate his winning. They found it in a heap at the bottom of Wilder Mountain, with Delmore dead as a doornail. After that, Angel just gave up. Closed his business and moved back to the empty shack where he’d grown up.”
“Wow. How long ago did this happen?” Gilbert asked.
Gran scratched
her nose, thinking. “Eleven or twelve years ago, I reckon.”
“Around the time you were born, Wavie, so it makes sense,” Camille said. “Your case must have been one of the last ones he did.”
“I sure don’t like the thought of going up there to ask him,” I said.
“Ask him what?” Gran asked.
“Wavie thinks he might have handled something for her mama,” Camille said.
“Well, if he did, I’d chance the asking. Lord knows that man used to love to yammer. He had enough tongue for six rows of teeth.”
“See, Wavie,” Gilbert said. “He’s probably bored up there by himself. You just have to get him started.”
“Sounds to me like you have it figured out,” I said. “I’ll wait here with Gran and you two go!”
“This thing you want to know,” Gran said. “How important is it?”
Camille and Gilbert turned to stare at me. I sighed. “Pretty important.”
Gran grinned her crooked smile. “Then it seems to me you’re burning daylight, girl. Good luck.”
• • •
GRAN MIGHT HAVE thought time was wasting, but I was in a different frame of mind. I’d already been toe-to-stinky-toe with Angel, and starting a conversation with him was something I’d have to do at my own pace. Plus, I wanted to plant some flowers on Delmore’s grave first. If someone planted flowers by Mama’s plaque, I’d tell them anything they wanted to know and then some.
I separated a clump of Shasta daisies I’d found growing behind Gilbert’s trailer. They’d do nicely at the cemetery, and there was a spot by the back door of Samantha Rose’s house that could use some color.
The kitchen had plenty of dishes to hold the transplanted flowers. I pulled a handful of large plastic bowls out from under the cabinet. Everything was upside down to keep the bugs out, but I washed them anyway. Even plant roots deserved a bug-free beginning.
“’Sup, nerd?” Hoyt stomped into the kitchen and jerked open the refrigerator door. He pulled a milk carton out and shook it. “This is empty.” He glared his mean eyes at me. “I thought Mama said to stay out of it!”
“I do my milk drinking at school,” I said. “Uncle Philson had cereal twice today.” I should know; I had washed both of his bowls.
Hoyt threw the carton across the room and into the trash can. “I hate this house.” He stomped over to the pantry and pulled out a Kool-Aid packet. “Give me some water.”
I turned on the tap and filled a pitcher, then handed it to him.
He poured the Kool-Aid in and mixed it with his finger, then took a long drink from the spout.
I was pretty sure the image of his dirty purple fingernail would haunt me forever. “Samantha Rose threw some of your jeans in the wash with mine. I put them on the stairs.”
Hoyt licked a trail of grape Kool-Aid off his wrist. “Good. Wash my baseball pants, too. I need them for a game.”
I put my thumb and pinkie up to my ear like a phone. “Wavie’s Laundromat is closed. Sorry.”
He leaned forward, his greasy patch of hair just inches from my face. Teenage boys are gross up close and personal. He smelled like grape Kool-Aid and feet.
“Did you moo something? I don’t speak cow.”
“Samantha Rose didn’t say anything about me doing your laundry, Hoyt.”
He grabbed my hand and turned it upside down, bending my fingers back.
“Oww!”
“My baseball pants. And my socks. Got it?”
“Yes!” I said, wincing. It took everything I had not to cry but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
I held my palm against my stomach after he stomped off, and tried flexing my fingers. I was going to do everything I could to leave this place, even if it meant visiting a smelly half-baked hermit like Angel Davis.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Samantha Rose’s house was a dump, but it was a palace compared to the shack where Angel lived. We peered through the thick brush and I pointed to the side of the house. A clothesline hanging between two rusty poles held a bedsheet and a red long-sleeved shirt. “He does laundry. That’s normal, right?”
“Yeah, completely,” Gilbert said. “So what’s the plan?”
“We’ll go into the yard and yell hello from a respectable distance,” I suggested.
“What’s a respectable distance?” Gilbert asked.
“Far enough away you can breathe over the stink,” I said.
“Then what?”
“That’s as far as I got.”
Gilbert’s hair was getting long and he flicked it out of his face. “Did you plant the flowers on Delmore’s grave?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t know if he’s noticed yet. It’s only been two days.”
“Everybody knows everything in Convict Holler.”
“Then why’d you ask if I planted them?”
“Good point!” Gilbert said. He shook his head. “Angel don’t have anything better to do. He knows.”
“Wavie’s going to graduate before we get this over,” Camille said. “Are you ready or not?”
“Not. But let’s go anyway.” I moved from behind the bush and walked to the edge of the clearing. Angel Davis’s house loomed in front of me. The sun had moved lower in the sky and everything was bathed in a soft gold.
“Hello!” I shouted. Even though my run-ins with Angel hadn’t been bad, unless you counted the stink of a thousand dirty socks soaked in the carcass of a sewer rat as bad, I was still scared—especially approaching him on his property. I could hear Gilbert and Camille breathing heavy beside me.
It seemed like forever, but the wooden door slowly opened and Angel Davis walked out onto the porch.
“I’m pretty sure I just tooted,” Gilbert whispered.
“Good afternoon,” Camille called. “We came to talk to you.”
He glared at us from the porch. “What about?” he yelled.
I clasped my hands in front of me to stop them from shaking. “It’s about my mama, Ronelda Conley.”
For a second he didn’t react, then he shuffled toward the end of the porch. “Ronelda. Right.”
“So you knew her?” I asked.
Angel nodded. “Of course I knew her!” He folded himself onto a metal chair. He rested his long arms on top of his knees. I thought he looked like a very old, very hairy Daddy Long Legs.
“What about the rest of you. Who’s your kin?” Angel asked.
“I’m Effie Miller’s grandson,” Gilbert said. He pointed to Camille. “Her family just moved here a couple of years ago.”
“A-huh,” he grunted. A few long seconds passed as he stared at us. “Well,” he yelled, “get on with it! I make three hundred dollars an hour, you’re costing money.”
We exchanged confused glances. “Okay,” I said. “Do you remember helping my mom put a baby up for adoption?”
“Adoptions?” he said loudly. “I don’t do those now. Too much trouble.”
“No, sir,” I said. “It’s about an adoption you did about eleven years ago. For my mom, Ronelda.”
“Ronelda. Right. Of course I knew her!”
Gilbert shook his head. “This conversation has more circles than the Daytona 500.”
I took a step closer and tried again. “Did you help Ronelda put her baby up for adoption? To a woman named Anita Bowman?”
Angel nodded his head without speaking.
“I think he’s going to sleep,” Camille whispered.
“Yes!” Angel yelled. “No, wait.” He rubbed his beard. “We had a problem with that one.”
“That’s right,” I said. “The adoption didn’t go through.”
“It didn’t.” He looked at me. “You placed your baby, then all the trouble started and you changed your mind. How’s your baby?”
I moved up onto the porch u
ntil I was standing next to Angel, which, considering the smell of him, was no easy thing. “She’s fine. Thanks for asking.”
His eyes cleared for a moment. “You planted daisies on Delmore’s grave.”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “I lost my mama, too, remember?”
Gilbert and Camille came to stand on the porch steps.
“You said trouble?” Gilbert asked. “What kind of trouble?”
Angel stretched his knee out. “The dad’s people got involved. It’s always the way.” He pointed a long bony finger at me. “But you didn’t let them get her, did you?”
“No,” I said softly. “They didn’t get her.”
“You done good, just wanting the best for your baby girl.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you. For helping.”
He just sat and stared without moving as we left the yard.
• • •
IT WAS SHAME-A-LOT day and the Farley Middle School cafeteria was wilder than a shopping mall the week before Christmas. Frank and Beans were chasing two fourth-graders, homework was being passed back and forth, and tired teachers were gossiping over their coffee cups in the corner.
Camille hurried into the room and sat down. “I’m starving. Can I have a bite of your muffin?”
I handed it over. “What took you so long?”
“Mrs. Rivers wasn’t exactly thrilled to let me go to the library by myself. I think she has trust issues.”
Gilbert nodded. “She hugged me extra-long today. You get lice once and they never let you forget it.”
“Did you find out anything?” I asked.
“Oh yeah! That registry website is full of information. Kentucky gives the birth mom ten days to change her mind, right? But if there’s any other trouble during that time, say another family member steps in or something, then the adoptive family becomes foster parents until the whole thing gets settled.”
“So technically I’ve already been in foster care?”
“If Angel had the story straight,” Camille said.
“That’s a big if,” Gilbert said. “Angel don’t have both oars in the water on a good day.”
“I’ve been adopted, in foster care and an orphan all by the age of eleven,” I grumbled. “Did I break a mirror in the delivery room or something? That’s some streak of bad luck.”
Hope in the Holler Page 10
