Guarded

by Angela Correll

  “This was supposed to happen on Monday night. I had it all planned out with a fire, champagne, the ring and a proposal.”

  “We can re-enact it, if you like. I wouldn’t mind looking a little better for the official one,” she said, her heart light and filled with anticipation.

  “Your father wants to come to the wedding,” Jake said. “He wants you to call him when you get a chance.”

  “Well, he’s never participated in any of my life events. Maybe it’s time he started.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  LINDY SQUEALED WHEN she heard the news, while Evelyn and Beulah looked on with satisfied smiles. They had been given the privilege of knowing before everyone else, before they had each left for church in the morning.

  “Real nice,” Woody said, pumping Jake’s hand. “You got ‘chee self a good one!”

  After Sunday dinner, they all sat around and had coffee, replaying the events from the weekend.

  “Scott and Mary Beth took it all very well, but Scott’s aunt wasn’t any too happy. I think she was afraid one of those goats was going to nibble on her Chanel suit,” said Evelyn.

  “It was a beautiful outfit,” Annie said.

  “Lindy, you seemed to take up with Scott’s brother,” Evelyn said.

  Lindy smiled. “We danced quite a bit, but I don’t think there’s a love connection. The truth is, I still have some healing to do and it’s okay to just be alone for a while.”

  “It was lovely to have Stella here,” Beulah said, directing the statement at Woody. “She was pleased to see the house in good shape after all that happened.”

  “Thank you for keeping her, Beulah. I showed her around my farm, and town, even introduced her to my momma, though Momma don’t know a thing.”

  “So what’s the deal, Woody? Are you dating her? I mean, don’t keep us in suspense,” Lindy said.

  All eyes turned to Woody.

  “Well, we do have us a date two weeks from today. She’s taking me to a Bears game,” Woody said, smiling. “One of her church members give her the free tickets.” His face grew serious. “Can I ask y’all a question?”

  “Sure,” Lindy said, and the others nodded and waited.

  “I was wondering,” he said, his face turning red. “Y’all think I should get my teeth fixed?”

  “YES!” shouted the group in unison.

  ***

  With Annie’s blessing, Beulah called Betty Gibson to share the good news.

  “Heavens to Betsy, two weddings all in a row,” Betty said. “Have they set a date?”

  “Not yet. They’re talking it all over. We’ll wait and let Annie tell us when she’s ready.”

  “Will they live in the old stone house? It was a good thing you didn’t tear the place down after all. You know, Beulah, I told you not to. Why, there’s so much history there, and once it’s gone, you could never get it back.”

  She bit her tongue and let Betty prattle on.

  “And what did you think of the Alabama crowd?” Betty asked. “Why, I’ve never heard so much talk of football in all my life. Law have mercy, you’d have thought that’s all those people know. I confess, when it comes to basketball season, some folks around here can be the same way. Did you know Scott’s father was over here watching Alabama play on the TV with Joe until right before the wedding? He left with barely enough time to get across the road and conduct the ceremony.

  “After the wedding, some of them snuck over here to watch more football. Joe loved it, him being the only one around with sports stations. If you remember, I was a cheerleader back in my day, and I could have cheered for Kentucky. But I decided to marry Joe instead.”

  Betty took a deep sigh, as if it had been her cross to bear.

  Beulah decided to jump in then or else it might be another twenty minutes. “Betty, I need to go. It’s time to put up the chickens.”

  ***

  On Monday afternoon following the wedding, she drove to the May Family Cemetery off Gibson’s Creek Road for her weekly ritual. It was nearly November now, and while the trees were still rich in color, a brisk wind would soon blow in the rains and strip the trees for another year. As one season departed, it made room for another.

  Next to the old stones, Beulah gave her thanks for the rich heritage her parents provided her, and for the life of her brother Ephraim. In his humanness he had found grace and forgiveness and had given her a beautiful gift, long beyond the grave, through his son Benito and his family.

  Even through the sorrows of the graves of her husband, her daughter, and her infant son gone so long ago, she raised her head in thanksgiving for the lives entrusted, even for such a short time.

  She gave thanks for Annie, Jo Anne’s beautiful daughter, and for God leading her back to Somerville. She gave thanks for Evelyn, and her son Jake, who would now be Annie’s husband. She gave thanks for Woody and Stella, Lindy and Tom Childress, Joe and Betty Gibson, and for Janice, who had helped bring about their reunion with Benito. She even gave thanks for Rossella DeVechio, who had helped her see how she needed to receive from others and she shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

  After leaving the cemetery she parked the Mercury at home and walked to the garden. The killing frost would come tonight. The vines would wither and the tomatoes would shrivel. There was work ahead in putting the garden to bed for the winter. As Ecclesiastes said, “There was a time to plant and a time to uproot,” and now was the time to uproot.

  The warmth of tears filled her eyes, and it surprised her at how the emotions came so quickly these days. Perhaps with the ending of this growing season and the onset of winter, there was every chance God might see fit to take her home. Nothing should be taken for granted these days, or ever, really. If God allowed, she would love to have more time—to see Annie settled with Jake, to see Benito on the land his father loved.

  Time to be a great-grandmother and usher the next generation into this beautiful place. There was a new season beginning and Beulah wanted to be a part of it. She also missed Fred, her children, her parents and Ephraim and realized there was much to look forward to, no matter what God had in store.

  The old metal box sat open on the nightstand next to her bed. One by one, she placed the pictures of Benito and Angelina, Vincenzo and his family, all into the metal box, along with all the brown V-mail envelopes, the letter from Arnie Mason, and the letter from Lilliana Caivano. On top of all the letters, she placed the sepia-toned picture of Elena. This time, nothing would be hidden under the false bottom.

  There were no secrets left to guard.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my husband, Jess Correll, who once again saw this book through from the early drafts, eternal cups of coffee and even a trip to Italy.

  Thanks to Dr. Brian Ellis for sharing the valuable letters from his great-uncle Samuel Baker, who inspired the letters from World War II. Please see my author’s note for more information.

  There were two books that provided background and language that helped guide the letter writing from both the 1940s and the late 1700s. To Hell and Back, Audie Murphy’s classic memoir of World Ward II by America’s most decorated soldier and Westward into Kentucky, the Narrative of Daniel Trabue edited by Chester Raymond Young. Both are fascinating reading if you want to know more about these topics.

  Gratitude for the following people who all provided expertise in their particular areas: Preston Correll, sustainable farming; Joe Hafley, David Cornelius, and Jerry Strehl on house fire damage; Honorable Bruce Petrie, county attorneys; Lynda Clossen, Kentucky history; Spence Clossen, international flight buddy passes; Elisabeth DeRossi, Italian language; Barthenia Brown for cultural guidance. Thank you to Mariella Spinelli for providing a lovely place to write the second half of the book in Montefollonico, Italy; Tina Young and Jay Blount with the American Battle Monuments Commission for valuable information on the American cemetery in Anzio, Italy; the staff at the Anzio Beachhead Museum, who were so very helpful; Rachel Correll, Emma Sleeth Davis, B
eth Dotson Brown, and Jan Watson for suffering through early drafts; Adrienne Correll for reading an early draft and also for the Annie photographs; Jason Asa McKinley for the artistic renderings and cover shoot, along with rock climbing insight; Bret Lott, who shared his experience and wisdom to make this book much better; Jason Gabbert for his creative cover design; and McKenzie Reid, for modeling for the front cover.

  Finally, thanks to Jenni Burke, my faithful agent; John Koehler, publisher; and Joe Coccaro, executive editor, for all taking a chance on me.

  Author’s Note

  My father, Kenneth Crouch, served with the Navy in World War II. As the youngest son of a farm family, he was a late enlistment; he didn’t enter service until August of 1944. By that time, the Allies had taken Italy, and the Normandy landing was just two months prior. Hitler was still fighting back hard, and the war in the Pacific still raged. After training camp in Great Lakes, Michigan, my father went to Solomons, Maryland, for amphibious warfare training.

  Later, there was the long train ride across country to Portland, Oregon, and then on to Seattle, Washington, where they waited for their ship to carry them out to sea and battle. During that time, my father contracted a severe respiratory infection that put him in the infirmary. The ship sailed without him, and he was sent to the Naval Hospital in Sun Valley, Idaho, for recovery. I am thankful for that infection. Otherwise, I might not be here today.

  My father spoke of his time in the Navy often, and I loved hearing his stories. When I went to Italy the first time, my dad, who never traveled outside the country, said if he could go anywhere it would be Italy. He had a friend who “fell in Italy” during the war and his body was never brought home.

  The reality of a trip at that point was too much for him, but when my husband and I returned to Italy on a later trip, we decided to explore some of the World War II sites. We talked with my husband’s uncle, Clark Farley, who also served in Italy and was on the trail from Sicily to Salerno to Cassino and on to Rome.

  On that trip, we made time for the Anzio Cemetery, the American burial site for all the soldiers who died in the Italian Campaign, except for the nearly forty percent who were returned home for burial by their families.

  The peaceful rows of white crosses against the verdant green grass was a visual that stuck with me when I wrote Grounded. I included a character, Ephraim, who was long dead but had served in World War II, falling at Anzio. I couldn’t get this character out of my head, and even though he wasn’t an active character in my first book, I knew there was more to his story that had to be told in Guarded.

  I also knew that I wanted to tell Ephraim’s story through letters. By God’s divine providence, I was at a dinner party when the subject of my next book came up. When I shared my plans to research this era and write letters, Dr. Brian Ellis said he had a great-uncle who wrote letters home from the North Africa/Italy campaign during World War II—and would I like to borrow them? This great-uncle was from a Kentucky farm family, just like my character.

  Reading those letters from Samuel Baker, who left his farm in Lewisport, Kentucky, to serve our country in a land far away filled me with the language and thoughts such a boy would have. He often comforted and assured his mother of his eventual return. He sometimes spoke of his current life. Mostly he talked of the farm and peppered the letters with questions of what was going on back home. In some cases, I used the exact language of those letters in order to give readers a sense of what he felt and thought.

  The plotline of Ephraim falling in love with Elena, the shopkeeper’s daughter, is entirely fictional, as is the character of Ephraim. Samuel Baker survived the war and was able to return home to his beloved farm; he was tragically killed in a car accident by a drunk driver not many years later.

  I am very grateful to Dr. Brian and Laurie Ellis, along with his mother, Sue, who had a similar relationship with her uncle that I imagined Beulah and Ephraim to have. The cover of Guarded shows “Annie” holding letters sent home from Samuel Baker.

  Before writing this book, I was completely naïve to all the “G.I. babies” that were left on foreign soil by American soldiers. Some soldiers, like Ephraim, were killed and never knew a child existed. Some moved on to other points of battle and may have never known they left children behind. Sadly, some were simply abandoned. There are websites dedicated to reunited fathers with children, although the overlap between the Internet’s accessibility and the advancing age of the fathers made for a small window of opportunity. There are success stories, and I cried many tears reading them.

  Another outstanding resource for my writing was Audie Murphy’s autobiography, To Hell and Back, which details America’s most decorated soldier’s account of the Italian Campaign. The fictional letter from Arnie Mason was written in the style of Audie Murphy. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about the Italian Campaign from someone who lived it.

  In early 2014, my husband and I returned to Italy to do the on-the-ground research. We started in Morocco, North Africa, then moved to Sicily and then up the coast of Italy, retracing the path as much as we could. All of this was not necessary to the writing, but while reading To Hell and Back, I wanted to have a greater understanding of what these brave troops endured and risked. We stood on the banks of the Volturno River and saw what a terrible advantage the Germans had, and then even more up the road at Monte Cassino. We traveled back to Anzio and this time toured the museum and beachhead where the Allies landed and were stalled for several deadly months. Like so many of our boys, this is where Ephraim’s journey ended.

  We visited again the cemetery at Anzio and the white crosses stretching over green grass. There I found the name of my father’s friend, but it was not on a cross. It was on a wall inside a memorial for those whose bodies were never found. Strangely enough, we were there on the 70th anniversary of the Anzio landings.

  My father’s voice is silent now, like most of our World War II veterans, but I would like to think he would be especially proud of this book.

  Discussion Questions

  1. When you think of the title, Guarded, where do you see that theme carried out throughout the book?

  2. The old stone house represents more to Annie than just a building. Why is she so attached to it? What places do you have that are sentimental or meaningful to you?

  3. Why does Beulah struggle with the idea of searching for her brother’s lost child? Have you ever used excuses to avoid a situation that makes you uncomfortable?

  4. Vesta’s family and Annie’s family are intertwined by history and geography, yet separated by race and culture. Can you think of those possibilities in your own family history? Is there anything you can do—either by forgiving, like Vesta, or apologizing, like Annie—to repair the relationship?

  5. Beulah is irritated with her houseguest, Rossella, yet she realizes later they may have more in common than she allowed herself to believe in the beginning. Is there a situation in your life where you struggle to see beyond the irritations of a relationship?

  6. Betty Gibson seems intent on stirring up trouble, especially with Annie. Why?

  7. Annie’s relationship with her father comes back to haunt her new relationship with Jake. How does she finally make her peace with her old hurts? Or has she?

  8. How did Jake contribute to the strain between Annie and himself?

  9. Beulah’s sacred space is in the kitchen, where she feels most in control. She also uses the garden and the family cemetery for reflection and prayer. Do you have places that serve certain needs in your life?

  10. Annie experiences small town prejudice against her family name due to the unsavory actions of her relatives. Have you ever experienced this—or possibly been on the other side of it?

 

 

 
ends