Coldwater Revival: A Novel (3 page)

Five

After Papa accepted Mr. Peavy’s offer, we abode winter on the farm, dreaming of the hour we’d relocate to the foreman’s house. Mama alone dragged her feet at the prospect of leaving.

I recalled the day we left our home, having not the slightest suspicion that our lives were about to change forever. When winter had bid its final adieu, we packed the wagon and loaded our belongings to the hilt. Spring hovered at the gateway, prodding tiny buds into yawning blossoms, and gentle breezes kissed our faces as we plodded down the road to new beginnings. How were we to know that the indulgent gusts ruffling our hair that day would evolve into howling gales of pitch-black sorrow?

As we traversed the rutted artery leading to Mr. Peavy’s property, Mama glanced back at the old homestead—more than once. Years later, she confided that vacating her birthplace, even for a few months, had been a heart-wrenching decision she hoped never to make again. While the wagon jostled us like dice in the hands of a desperate gambler, I clenched a firm stare on Mama. My instincts shouted she might “jump ship” and swim back to port any minute.

We were a ragged sight, our bounty spiking the air like a gigantic pile of pickup sticks. As Lily and Old Jack strained the harness and snorted crisp March air, I sat atop our worldly possessions, my mind fastened on the future and grand adventures waiting ahead. As I rode in my high carriage of creaking springs and groaning sideboards, I felt like a princess who was about to enter her kingdom.

Through the discord of clanking metal, shambling hooves, and rattling sideboards, I heard the gentle whisper of spring’s arrival. I saw it in the swooping dive of a blue jay, and in the trackless winds that stirred field grasses to life. I smelled its arrival in the wild honeysuckle that grew beside the road, and in a host of other scents that anointed this newborn season.

“Doesn’t the breeze feel good, Mama?” Polly Pauline asked as she smoothed her skirt with dainty fingers.

Mama glanced at trees rooted along the roadside; branches of elms and weeping willows spiked with tightfisted buds.

“Yes, dear, but don’t get too used to them. Remember—March comes in like a lamb, but it goes out like a lion.”

As our wagon wheels trundled over the outlying portion of Mr. Oswalt Peavy’s grand estate, I watched a slow-turning windmill siphon water from the earth and deposit it in a trestle-supported tank. Cattle loitered nearby, prospecting for food, young calves abiding in the shadows of their mothers.

At midmorning, Lily and Old Jack pulled to a halt in the drive of our new home. As Papa hauled me down from my roost in the furniture tree, I set my gaze upon the two-story house with the alfalfa-green roof. It appeared recently painted and had more windows on the front side than our old weather-beaten house had altogether. With shivers telegraphing up my arms, I leaned against my crutch and sighed with anticipation. I could hardly wait to explore the house.

We unloaded the wagon, much to the horses’ delight, I’m sure, and padded through the front door in stocking feet. Mama’s orders. As we entered light, airy rooms, whose floors were burnished to a high sheen, it felt as though we were crossing the portals of a glass castle.

In typical gauche fashion, Elo whistled through his teeth. “If this ain’t the cat’s meeooww.”

“Boys,” Papa said to Elo and Nathan, “heft your beds up to the loft. You and the twins will be sleeping up there. I’ll get things settled down here. Micah and Caleb, come help your papa.”

“We’ll stock the pantry and kitchen first,” Mama said, motioning for The Ollys and me to follow. “Then we’ll tackle the root cellar.” Mama viewed the kitchen range with what looked like suspicion. She groaned and chewed on her lip, as was her habit back then. “How in heaven’s name will I ever learn to cook on a gas stove?”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You could fry our food in boar grease and pack it with swamp mud and this bunch would still eat it,” Papa said. He laughed and tucked a box beneath each arm, banking his head, grazing Mama’s cheek with his lips. I supposed the boxes curtailed further smooching, for he turned and walked to the hallway, speaking over his shoulder. “It’s for sure the boys and I won’t miss having to fill the wood box for a while.”

After stocking the kitchen and cellar, Mama and The Ollys unpacked our belongings, hanging clothes in real closets, not on hooks. They made beds, stored linens, and dusted furniture Papa and the boys had situated about the house.

While Papa worked in the barn, sorting implements and storing saddles, harnesses, and feed, Elo secured Old Jack and Lily in the corral and released our milk cow, Rumple, and her calf, Itsy Bitsy, to the pasture. Nathan and I made sandwiches and poured glasses of milk for everyone.

“Caleb and Micah! Quit flipping those light switches,” I scolded. “You’re going to wear them out.” I hated fussing at the boys about something I would love to be doing, the wonders of electricity being truly fascinating.

On-off, off-on, the light switches traveled. Screwing my face into what I hoped was a feral glare, I marched to the twins and perched my head inches from their bright eyes. “I told you not to turn the lights on and off. Papa’s gonna get you good.”

The twins peered into the depths of my eyes, Caleb gauging the gravity of my warning. He glanced at Micah and passed him a silent message, then outdoors they scampered, seeking a new road of mischief to travel.

Though I knew of the existence of the mysterious, mute language the twins shared, I had not yet glimpsed its interpretation. Inaudible signals coursed the air, linking the twins’ eyes in a sharing of thoughts. This uncanny communication, almost mystical in nature, kept me hopping all the time.

I sank to the window seat in the bay area of the kitchen, restlessness spurring my heart until I spied my brothers dangling from a tire swing in the front yard.
Emma Grace,
I warned myself,
you can’t let them out of your sight for a minute.

A feeling of estrangement crept across the first evening in our new home. In place of soft lantern glow, overhead fixtures reflected brightness off paperless walls, revealing the plight of our condition. “Worthwhile weariness,” Mama had called it. Having brought order to our domicile in a single day, we were too dog-tired to prepare a hearty supper. We filled our stomachs with cold potato soup, cold cuts, and cold biscuits. Afterward, we gathered in the fancy parlor, our furniture appearing rough-hewn when compared to the polished floor and high-beamed ceiling. I feared to blink an eyelash, lest the magical scene disappear before my eyes and I awaken in my bed at home.

“What’re you ladies sewing on?” Papa asked. “Making some fancy pillowcases for Widow Lindstrom?” He stilled his hands on the whittling stick and set a gaze on Mama and The Ollys. Had not a mischievous grin twitched his sandy-gray mustache, one might have trusted his sincerity.

“Now, Roan …” Mama began.

“I heard she’s having an awful time of it. Down to threadbare sheets—linens you could poke your fingers through.”

“And from whom,
exactly
, did you hear that?”

“Well … I’m thinking it was Henry Lee. Yep, her nephew Henry Lee told me how bad off she was. Poor thing can’t tell a doorknob from a cucumber. Take care when you hand over all that fine stitchery. The excitement might up and kill her.”

Being well acquainted with Papa’s teasing, The Ollys spewed batches of giggles at his outrageousness.

“Don’t pay him a bit of mind, girls. He knows quite well what we’re working on—and
why
.”

Seems the ladies in our household were intent on stocking Holly Heleen’s hope chest, but Papa wasn’t about to let them work without a little grievance. Mama penciled trailing designs on a flour sack, her flair for curlicues and wispy vines taking shape before our eyes. Less-gifted ladies in the community had shown signs of envy from time to time, drooling over sackcloth Mama had turned into flower gardens. Not quite on the scale of Jesus turning water into wine, but a miracle just the same—especially to inept stitchers like myself. Mama wasn’t stingy with her talent. She’d passed it on to her oldest daughters.

Flynn Aarsgard had courted Holly for most of a year. In six weeks, when she turned eighteen, we anticipated he would propose to her.

I liked Flynn. He never gawked at my leg, and I never laughed at his Norwegian accent.

I glanced at Nathan, buried in a book at the kitchen table, and then I cringed when I heard the twins in a rear bedroom, flipping light switches.

“Micah and Caleb … in here, right now,” Papa roared.

Within seconds, two moppy heads popped around the parlor entrance, followed more slowly by the rest of their bodies.

“Yes, Papa?” they said in unison.

“What did I tell you about the light switches?”

The twins lowered their heads and ambled to separate corners of the parlor. Facing the wall, they sat crossed-legged, backs to the room.

My heart went out to them, though I dared not say a word. I knew exactly how they felt. In my days of hard-fought discipline, hadn’t I passed an inordinate amount of time sitting thusly? After a time, I raised my gaze above the pages of the book I pretended to read. Papa seemed quite pleased with the boys’ repentant behavior, but I wasn’t fooled for a minute. Papa didn’t recognize the secret code racing from one twin’s fingers to the other twin’s lowered eyes. Nor did he realize their head hanging stemmed from remorseless scheming, not regret. I smiled behind my book, wishing I’d had a co-conspirator during my corner-sitting days.

Perhaps it was because they were childless, or because Micah’s and Caleb’s allure proved too compelling to resist. Whatever the cause, Mr. and Mrs. Peavy took to the twins something awful, their affectionate doting on my brothers more dominant than that of blood kin. Mrs. Peavy invited them to her house daily; bribing them with bubblegum, store-bought toys, and peppermint sticks. She asked Mama if they could spend the night, to which Mama explained they were too young for such outings. Mr. Peavy told them stories. Perching one of the boys atop his knee, he wrapped his arm around the other, reciting tales that captured their imaginations and rendered them spellbound. The boys gawked openly, eyes widening like a cellar door in a windstorm whenever Mr. Peavy’s bushy eyebrows rose up like the tufted horns of a great owl.

This kidnapping of my brothers by the Peavys left me frustrated and angry, for I possessed no ransom worthy of securing their release.

Mr. Peavy gave the boys a puppy, a furry ball of indistinct pedigree. We all fell under the puppy’s spell, but none harder than Micah and Caleb. They named him Whisper. I thought the name ironic since the twins never spoke below a shout. Whisper followed my brothers everywhere, and they followed Whisper everywhere.

The puppy played with the boys, slept with the boys—even tried to eat with the boys. Micah and Caleb loved the puppy with every bit of their beings. At the time, I didn’t know that their strong attachment to Whisper would change the course of our lives for all time.

Six

“Molly Marie Falin, quit spying on those two lovebirds and come cut the cakes.” Mama’s voice droned low as she tugged Molly from the parlor window.

My gaze darted from my book to Mama. Cakes? Quick as a doe, I followed Molly’s heels to the kitchen, feeling my eyelids widen at the tribute set forth on our table. While I’d been tumbling with the twins at the creek this afternoon, Mama’s hands had not been idle. Apple strudel, cinnamon coffeecake, sweet potato and buttermilk pies, peach cobbler, and a chocolate layer cake filled our fanciest serving dishes. I couldn’t remember a time when Mama had baked with such abundance, though I wonder now why her exuberance had stunned me so that night. It was, after all, a most notable occasion—Holly Heleen’s eighteenth birthday. Before the evening ended, I believed Mama and Papa’s firstborn would have another, even more hallowed rite of passage to celebrate.

As I returned to the parlor, I envisioned the front-porch scene. Within the stirring of nocturnal breezes, but out of range of the night bird’s call, Holly and Flynn would be sitting on the swing, heads together in whispered secrets. No doubt, their breaths interlocked with vows of eternal love. Love not measured in mere days and years … but in forever. Holly and Flynn would be holding hands in the moon’s full glow, their promises signaling a beginning with no end. An unbroken circle in the curve of time, like the ring Holly would soon wear. As my fanciful mind conjured up romantic pictures that titillated my senses and sped the beat of my heart, my eyes filled with moisture. I’d been fighting back tears the entire day.

Papa smoked his pipe and Elo scanned the newspaper, both looking uncomfortably rigid in their starched shirts. Polly thumbed the Sears catalog, the toe of her slipper compelling the rocker back and forth. She had spruced herself up, wearing her Sunday-best bodice and the flowered skirt that flowed in a multitude of tiers. Even I had donned a dress for the affair.

Earlier in the evening, as I had studied my reflection in Mama’s freestanding mirror, I considered marked changes in my almost thirteen-year-old body. It had sprouted in places, extended in others, narrowing my face and middle. Even my gimpy leg seemed to be feeling the effects of the growth spurt Mama claimed had overtaken me.

A few weeks earlier, I used Mama’s tape measure to mark the breach between my right and left legs. The difference: a trifling inch-and-a-half. Thus began my feverish pleas for God to narrow the gap even more. Not allowing my excitement to take center stage, I continued putting on airs for the family, as though a waltz around the house on one good leg and a crutch suited me fine. Nevertheless, my heart held the hope that someday my leg would grow to its rightful length. Oh, to run across a meadow, free of crutch; slide into home plate; attract the attention of whisker-sprouting young men who worked the fields.

Though I had packed my heart with love for Mama and Papa, I wearied at the thought of living my entire life with them. Discontent filled my soul, knowing there’d be no handsome stranger to sweep me off my feet. No one to plunge head over heels for me as Flynn had fallen for Holly. Who would want to marry a three-legged lass when pretty girls were in such abundance?

When I was in Holly’s presence, the joyous expressions on my countenance seemed artificially valiant, for her elation reminded me of my own impossible dreams. At the oddest moments, murky playscapes wiggled to the forefront of my mind, granting me glimpses of secret places I had yet to visit. They whispered tales about the true nature of romantic love, filling my head with puzzling questions. I felt defenseless to parry the emptiness they left behind, when, invariably, they faded from view.

I sat beside Nathan on the settee and waited with the rest of the family for Holly and Flynn to vacate their love nest. I lowered my voice, choosing Nathan alone to witness the lonely outburst of my heart. I dared not speak of romance, or lack thereof, as I felt certain that romance remained as great a mystery to Nathan as it did to me.

“It’s like I’ve got this vacuum in my heart that needs filling, Nathan. I can tell the hurt isn’t going away anytime soon.” A whisper of irritation rose in my voice as I talked, along with a scrapping of tears.

Nathan scooted a few inches away, granting me more space on the love seat. Or, perhaps he sought distance between himself and the gloomy cloud perched over my head.

“It won’t be the same without Holly here,” I drawled on. Nathan gave me his skeptical look, the one suggesting I’d been reading too many tragic tales.

Now a foot taller than I, having shot up like Jack’s beanstalk these past months, Nathan peered down at me over the rim of his spectacles. Using his pointer finger, he shoved his glasses a bit higher on his nose.

“You know, Sis, it’s only 6.3 miles to the Aarsgard place. Old Jack could get you there in … one hour and twenty-three minutes.”

“I know,” I sputtered, somewhere between a sob and giggle. Nathan’s seriousness always unmuzzled a case of the sniggers in me. “Guess I’m just feeling a little blue tonight.” Then a true batch of melancholy hit me between the eyes. “First Holly will leave, then it’ll be Molly, then Polly. I’m afraid every time one of The Ollys leaves, they’ll take a piece of my heart with them.”

Nathan’s eyebrows closed rank. I knew the gears of his rapier-sharp mind were grinding away in search of comfort words.

We heard the creak of the porch swing and watched with unconfined interest as Holly and Flynn entered the house, ill-disguised blushes firing their cheeks. Holly unfurled her left hand, displaying a small stone of exquisite beauty, embedded in gold.

“Holly … it’s lovely,” Mama stammered. “Just … beautiful.”

Falin clutches entangled the couple, squeals and laughter flying unfettered about the room. The twins, however, fled grasping arms and cheek kisses as though the family had contracted a deadly disease.

“Hey, Flynn, old boy—pretty shrewd—getting engaged on Holly’s birthday. That way you just had to buy one gift. Right?” Elo smirked as he shook Flynn’s hand, but his eyes gleamed with what looked like the stamp of approval.

The April night hummed with laughter and claps on the back. Soon we perceived the sound of the Aarsgard wagon, winding its way up our drive. We rushed outdoors in greeting as Aarsgard offspring spilled onto yard and porch. As our family welcomed family-to-be, I was torn between wanting to discuss wedding plans with the adults and the desire to linger a while longer in the realm of my childhood. After a moment’s deliberation, I scampered off to the barn, joining those oblivious to the ways of love.

On June 30, 1928, the belfry chimes of Christ’s Chapel pealed across the township of Coldwater, announcing Holly’s marriage to Flynn Aarsgard. From high noon until one o’clock, a chime tolled every sixty seconds, symbolizing the townspeople’s wish for sixty years of wedded bliss. Such was the tradition of our small community.

Two weeks after Holly’s wedding, my thirteenth birthday arrived, at the peak time of cotton season we called, “working from can-see to can’t.”

Like popcorn in Mama’s kettle, seedpods burst open, each boll releasing five locks of pure-white cotton. Overnight, Mr. Peavy’s green fields turned as white as the snow-capped mountains I’d viewed in Papa’s periodicals. To maintain high market value, Mr. Peavy harvested his cotton crop with haste, prompting a flood of pickers into his overripe fields. ’Twas a season in which we talked, breathed, and lived cotton.

Images of my family during cotton season remained engraved on my mind. They never changed.

At twilight, the twins and I habitually gathered at the kitchen window, making a game out of who could spy the family first. I thought of Papa and his brood as a troop of weary cotton soldiers, trudging home at dusk after a long day’s battle with the hot Texas sun. While the family made their way across washboard fields of ebony loam, I reheated supper and poured tall glasses of cool milk. And while my family tended swollen fingers, lacerated by razor-sharp cotton tines, I tamped down my guilt, for I was the sole adult in our family who didn’t sweat out each summer in Mr. Peavy’s cotton furnace.