Hope in the Holler

by Lisa Lewis Tyre

  “Hey!” Samantha Rose yelled. “That’s more than five words.”

  The judge shook his head. “If you can’t control yourself, you’ll be asked to leave. Now, please continue as succinctly as possible.”

  Mr. Bowman put his arm around his wife. “Our adoption with Wavie was rescinded years ago. Now that Wavie’s mother has passed away, we’d like to begin the process again.”

  The judge looked surprised.

  Samantha Rose looked mad enough to spit.

  “That was eleven years ago,” she said, seething. “They got no claim now!”

  The judge leaned back. “In all my years on the bench, this is a first.” He looked toward Mrs. Chipman. “Is there a claim? Has an application for guardianship been filed?”

  “Just the one,” she answered. “That I know of.”

  “We just learned about the situation this morning,” Mr. Bowman said. “We downloaded the application and filled it out in the car.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his suit jacket pocket and passed it to the judge.

  “It doesn’t matter what they have!” Samantha Rose shouted. “You can’t break up a family. I’ll sue!”

  I listened to the adults talk back and forth about me and tried to shake the feeling that, no matter what, Samantha Rose was going to win. She would find a way to get guardianship or to keep the Bowmans from it.

  Judge Harders shifted in his chair. “Let me get this straight. Your adoption was rescinded but you want to try again?”

  Anita Bowman nodded. “Yes, Your Honor.” She turned to give me a quick smile, then turned back around. “We were Wavie’s parents for eight days before we learned that the father’s family was contesting the adoption. The attorneys thought they might win, so we agreed with Ronelda that the best thing was to send Wavie back to her mom.” Her voice cracked on that last word and John Bowman put his arm around her shoulders.

  Gilbert elbowed me in the ribs. “This is better than Judge Judy,” he whispered.

  “Why do I have to keep reminding everybody that that was eleven years ago,” Samantha Rose said.

  “We know exactly how long ago it was,” Anita Bowman snapped. For a small thing she was pretty darn feisty. “There hasn’t been a day since that we haven’t thought about Wavie.” She cleared her throat. “Your Honor, I don’t expect people who haven’t gone through an adoption to understand, but the second we held Wavie, we became her parents. The day we had to give her up was the hardest day of our lives. I’ve never seen my husband weep like that before or since.” She paused to catch her breath. “For the longest time, I could barely talk about Wavie without crying. Some years ago, I decided to contact Ronelda on Wavie’s birthday. We exchanged letters and she allowed us to send a small monetary gift a couple of times a year, on Wavie’s birthday and at Christmas.”

  Gilbert’s eyes widened. Small, he mouthed to me.

  Camille grabbed my hand tighter and leaned forward.

  Samantha Rose’s face turned even redder. “Your Honor. These folks think money solves everything. Just because I don’t have as much as they do doesn’t mean they can just barge in here and buy my niece!”

  “We weren’t trying to buy her,” John Bowman said loudly, “we loved her. We cared for Ronelda, too.” He shook his head. “She trusted us with Wavie and it might have been the worst day when we gave her back, but those first eight days were the best of our lives.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his front pocket and blew his nose.

  “Then she should have named you guardians,” Samantha Rose said. “But she didn’t, and family sticks together.”

  The judge raised both of his hands. “I think I’ve heard enough. I need to think for a second.” A few seconds later, he turned to Mrs. Chipman. “Did Wavie’s mom mention the Bowmans to you?”

  Mrs. Chipman shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. But then again she didn’t mention Samantha Rose either.”

  “Hmm. That’s unusual.”

  “Your Honor,” Anita Bowman said in a small voice. “Ronelda knew how devastated we were after the adoption fell through. I don’t think it would have occurred to her to ask us again after all of that.”

  The judge sighed. “I appreciate that you and your husband want to intervene, but unless I can find cause, the court tries very hard to place children with willing family members.”

  Samantha Rose stood tall at the judge’s words. I could practically see her grow two inches. She’d won. I was headed back to Convict Holler, where I’d probably stay forever until I was buried between Hap Conley and Alma Savage. If she buried me at all and didn’t just make me disappear in the woods like Marley Savage.

  Marley Savage.

  Hap Conley.

  Alma Savage.

  Angel Davis.

  Everything in Conley Holler was connected.

  “Gilbert,” I whispered. “Quick! Let me see that newspaper article.”

  He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to me. Angel kept mentioning Marley Savage.

  I stared at the grainy photo. My grandpa had been cropped out, but it was the same picture that was hanging on our wall. The same picture that Samantha Rose had shown me and mixed up which one was her dad. Excited, I read the clipping again: A fund has been set up for the Savages’ two daughters at Farley First Union.

  The truth had been in front of us the whole time. Angel had been trying to tell us.

  I bolted to my feet. “Judge?”

  Judge Harders motioned me forward. “Yes?”

  I cleared my throat. “Mrs. Chipman said that the court tends to favor family in matters like this?”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Well,” I said, “what if Samantha Rose wasn’t actually family? Would that matter?”

  “Liar!” Samantha Rose yelled.

  “One more word out of you, ma’am, and I’ll have you removed.” He turned back to me. “Go on.”

  “Everything in the Holler is connected. Don’t you see?” I turned and smiled at Gilbert and Camille. “We have a cemetery that holds my grandparents’ graves, but there are others. Mrs. Savage, for one. She died and left two children. Mr. Savage couldn’t take it and ran off.” I swallowed and kept talking. “There are pictures at the house of my mom and Samantha Rose. They don’t look anything alike, but there’s a bunch of pictures of Mr. Savage, too. I had to dust them every day and Samantha Rose looks just like him.”

  I passed the newspaper clipping to the judge. “You can’t tell much from that picture, but there are other clearer ones at the house.”

  Camille was nodding. “Tell him what Angel kept saying.”

  I clasped my hands together, fighting my nerves. “Angel Davis, our neighbor, kept yelling at Samantha Rose that he’d promised her daddy he’d take care of her. He said he wasn’t supposed to split her and her sister up but that my grandpa made him! We all thought he was crazy, but Samantha Rose must have known. That’s why she called the law on him. To get him out of Convict—I mean Conley—Holler!”

  Samantha Rose’s face was thunderous, but she didn’t dare speak.

  “It all makes sense now,” I said. “My mama didn’t lie. I asked her once if she had any siblings and she said no, only that one had died as a toddler.” I swallowed hard. “She was telling the truth. Samantha Rose wasn’t really her sister.”

  “I don’t understand,” the judge said. “Your grandpa made this Angel fellow do what?”

  “It was because of the child that died,” said a soft voice from the back of the room.

  Mrs. Barnes and Gran stood against the wall with Mrs. Rodriguez. I’d been so focused on the Bowmans, I hadn’t noticed them follow us into the judge’s chamber.

  “What’s that?” the judge asked. “Who are you?”

  Mrs. Barnes looked scared enough to faint, but she squared her shoulders and continued. “I’ve lived
next door to the Conleys since I was a girl. I grew up around Wavie’s mom and Samantha Rose.”

  The judge held the newspaper out. “Did you know this Marley fellow?”

  She shook her head. “No. But I remember my mama saying that Mrs. Conley, Ronelda’s mother, wasn’t ever the same after losing her first little girl, Darlene. If Hap told Angel to give him and his wife one of the Savage girls, he would have.”

  “Thank you,” the judge said. He turned to Samantha Rose. “Is this true? Are you the daughter of Marley Savage?”

  Samantha Rose crossed her arms, looking furious. For a minute, I thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Yes!” she finally spat. “And Hap Conley never let me forget it. The old goat kept promising he’d make it official, but once Ronelda was born it was like I didn’t rate.”

  The judge sighed and looked at me. “Young lady, you can have a seat. This may take a while.”

  Then he started talking really fast about birth certificates and wasn’t Angel Davis on the docket for the afternoon and could someone find him now and hadn’t Mrs. Chipman better process the Bowmans’ application and run a background check just in case.

  I sat between Gilbert and Camille and watched. I didn’t understand everything they were saying, but I knew what it meant when Samantha Rose finally left in a huff, slamming the door behind her. And I had an inkling that something big had just happened when Anita Bowman knelt in front of me, took my hand into hers and burst into happy tears.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Are you sure she’s not there?” I asked for the third time. It’d been four months since the day of the hearing, and three months, twenty-five days since I’d left Convict Holler. I flipped the window switch back and forth, sending the window up-down, up-down. Gilbert had written to say Samantha Rose, Hoyt and Uncle Philson had loaded up the Buick and left town a few weeks after the hearing, but I couldn’t stop worrying that I’d see her.

  John smiled from the driver’s seat. “We’re sure. She hasn’t been seen since she hightailed it out of town.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Don’t worry about Samantha Rose,” Anita said. “Last we heard, the whole family had moved in with her sister on the other side of the state.”

  I wondered if Angel had heard, or if he’d understand that the Savage girls were finally together.

  John turned off the highway and onto the dirt road. “Conley Hollow, at last.” He looked at his watch. “One hour and forty-eight minutes, door to door. That’s not bad.”

  “Can you stop here for a second?” I flipped the switch again to lower the glass and inhaled. “I’d forgotten how good it smells.” I turned my head taking it all in. “It really does look different.”

  They exchanged smiles. “The pictures didn’t do it justice?”

  “Not at all!” The dusty road was the same, but the entire neighborhood had been bush-hogged. No more briars and brambles lined the ditches. But the biggest changes were at the top of the hill. All the trash and old junk had been hauled off. Not one rusty old car was left. Even Spotted One was lying outside a fresh new dog kennel. I stared at the house. The porch was reattached and the old warped wood had been replaced. The flowers I’d planted stood out in bright colorful waves against the new siding. “I can’t believe it,” I said.

  Anita laughed. “Do you like it?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  When the Bowmans had first asked if I wanted to fix up the house, I’d been confused. “Why?”

  “It’s your family home,” John had said. “It’s in pretty bad shape, but the bones are good. I don’t see any reason to let it rot.”

  “But what would we do with it?”

  “Now, that’d be up to you,” he said. “We could sell it, or rent it, or just hang on to it until you’re older and decide then.”

  “What about Gilbert and Gran? Or Frank and Baily and their mom? Could I let them live there?”

  Anita had smiled at that. In fact, smiling seemed her favorite thing to do. “Absolutely.”

  It had been helpful, those first awkward weeks of getting to know one another, to have something to focus on. Anita and I had pored over paint colors and light fixtures and John had spread out blueprints on the dining room table. But seeing it finished, in real life, was a whole different story.

  The screen door opened, and Frank and Baily ran out, followed by Gilbert and Camille. “She’s here!” Gilbert yelled.

  Gran, Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. Rodriguez and even Edgar were there. They came outside and stood on the porch, watching as I got out and hugged everybody.

  “Can you believe it?” Gilbert said. “Me, living in your house!”

  “I know,” I said. “Which room did you take?”

  Gilbert smiled. “Hoyt’s, of course. Frank and Baily are in yours.”

  “Both of them?”

  “They took the billboard wall out. Mrs. Barnes says she’s going to put it back if they don’t quit fighting.”

  • • •

  WE’D KEPT FLIPPER Johnson busy by writing long letters back and forth in the months since I’d left. I knew that Camille’s dad might open a second restaurant in Lexington next year, which hopefully meant I’d get to see her some on weekends, and that Gilbert had gotten into the GT classes. Even Frank and Baily had sent me a note with a drawing of their cat. I’d told them about my new school and how John had built window boxes for me to plant so that I could see flowers from every room. And how the Bowmans had already taken me back to visit Andro so I could see Hannah and check on Mama’s grave.

  “Guess what?” Camille said. “We can start e-mailing each other soon!”

  “You’re getting computers?”

  Gilbert snorted. “Nah, but Camille’s daddy talked a bunch of business owners into donating more of them for Technology class. They had a fund-raiser to buy books for the library, too.”

  “What happened to private school?”

  Camille smiled. “I changed my mind. If I left, that’d make Gilbert the smartest kid in the school. His head would get so big it’d probably explode!”

  “You mean my smile would be so big it’d explode,” Gilbert grumbled.

  “I’m glad to see not everything has changed.” I pulled a picture out of my pocket and handed it to Gilbert. “Here. Camille said you were missing me.”

  “Whatever!” He grabbed it out of my hand, took one look and grinned. “Look at you. Haven’t been gone three months and already sitting in a fancy canoe like you belong there.”

  John came around the car and stood next to us. “Wavie says you’re quite the fisherman, Gilbert. If I bring my rod next time, will you give me a few pointers?”

  Gilbert pulled his shoulders back and stood up straighter. “I guess I could give you a tip or two.”

  “I’d appreciate it. Nothing like being on the river in the middle of the woods, you know what I mean?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everybody!” Gilbert turned to me and whispered, “He may be citified but at least he’s playing with a full deck.”

  Gran yelled for us all to come inside while the biscuits were still warm.

  I stood in the kitchen, staring. “This looks like something out of a magazine.”

  A round wooden table sat in the middle surrounded by real chairs, the kind with cushions for seats, and the beat-up linoleum had been replaced. The cabinets all had doors and there wasn’t a dirty dish to be found. Even the refrigerator was new.

  Mrs. Barnes smiled. “It’s the prettiest kitchen in all of Kentucky if you ask me.”

  Anita smoothed my hair. “Wavie chose the yellow.”

  The adults sat in the kitchen, while the rest of us took our plates to the living room and watched cartoons with Frank and Baily on the big television that Samantha Rose had bought with my first check.

  “I can’t belie
ve she didn’t take that with her.”

  “She would have had to go through my mother first,” Camille said.

  Gilbert put his plate down on the floor. “I forgot to show you something. Come here.”

  I followed him to the hallway. Anita had arranged for all the photos of my mom to be sent to us, and the walls were now empty except for one large frame. Gilbert stood in front of it grinning.

  It was the front page of the Farley Gazette. The headline read CHAOS ERUPTS AT COUNTY COURTHOUSE, and underneath was a black-and-white photo of Gilbert and Mrs. Chipman.

  “It’s kind of long,” Gilbert said, “but here’s the best line: ‘Gilbert F. Miller, pictured, was responsible for a dramatic day at the Farley County Courthouse. Due to his actions, a young ward of the state was reunited with her adoptive family after eleven years.’”

  “‘Young ward’? They didn’t even use my name!”

  Gilbert grinned. “At least you got mentioned. They forgot Camille totally.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said. “Did your mom see it?”

  “Are you kidding? We had to send her extra copies ’cause hers was so worn out from carrying it around all the time.” He stared at the framed print. “Gran’s renting out the trailer to a fellow from the mine,” he said softly, “so we’ll be able to buy a car and visit her soon.”

  Anita motioned for me from the kitchen. “You finished?”

  I nodded and followed her outside. She opened the trunk and handed me a pot and a small shovel. “Take all the time you need. When you’re done, do you want to walk up to the cemetery, then maybe visit with Angel?”

  “That’d be great.”

  She went inside while I knelt on the ground by the steps. It wouldn’t take long to get a piece of the peony.

  I made a small dent in the dirt around the root. I’d do all the things Mama had hoped I would, not because of a list she’d left behind, but because of the love and hope she’d planted in me for eleven years. I put the shovel into the dirt and cut through the roots, dumping a large portion into the pot beside me.