Forever Friends
Authors: Lynne Hinton
A Novel
For Judy Haughee-Bartlett
and Tina Heck,
and Anna Bess Brown
My forever friends.
Be careful of that desk drawer.”
Margaret, your mammogram is clear; the results from your bloodâ¦
I know it's here somewhere.” Beatrice walked into the farthestâ¦
Oh, Lord, that's going to make a mess!” Jessie wasâ¦
Well, how did she get it in her hair?” Lanaâ¦
You smoke?” Lamont opened the glove compartment and found theâ¦
Dick!” Beatrice came in from her morning walk and tookâ¦
You need to come to the church.” That was allâ¦
Excuse me, but are you finished with the dryer?” Lanaâ¦
It tastes a little like cinnamon.” Louise took the firstâ¦
Are you sure it's full?” Charlotte stood behind the mechanic,â¦
THE PILOT NEWS
* AUNT * DOT'S * HELPFUL * HINTS *
Dear Aunt Dot,
Are there any household uses for old pairs of panty hose? It seems so wasteful just to throw them away when they get runs.
âRunaround Sue
Dear Sue,
Of course you can make use of those old hose. You can cover leafy plants in your garden to eliminate the bug problem, and you can use them in your cleaning kit. Simply ball them up and use them like scouring pads. You'll find they're not nearly as abrasive as most cleansers on the market.
B
e careful of that desk drawer.”
The warning came too late. Charlotte walked right around the corner and into the open bottom drawer and
nicked her shin, ripping a large hole in her hose and causing a painful contusion just below her knee.
“Gosh. Sorry about that.” The desk sergeant winced at the sight of the young woman's leg. “That desk needs to be put somewhere else.” She made a clucking noise with her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “You're the second one to run into it this morning.”
Charlotte started to ask why the woman hadn't moved the desk aside herself or, at the very least, taped the gaping drawer shut, but since she was not one to make such bold suggestions, especially to strangers who wore guns and handcuffs on their belts, she simply bent down and calculated the damage.
There was a little blood from the gash, but the worst consequence was the unsightly rip she now had in her stockings. She knew there wasn't any way to hide the tear, and she wished she had followed her instincts when she was getting ready and wore pants instead of this dress and panty hose or, even better, that she had listened to her original inclination, which was not to come in the first place.
She was at the correctional facility in Winston-Salem to visit Peggy DuVaughn's grandson, Lamont, who was in jail on a robbery charge. Peggy asked Charlotte to go because she was concerned about his safety and well-being and because she had heard that ministers had unlimited opportunities to see inmates, whereas family members had strict rules about their visitations.
“It's different this time,” the older woman said to her pas
tor after she finally confessed what it was that was troubling her. “He's really going to do better. I know it.”
Charlotte had assumed when her parishioner called and asked if she could drop by and talk that she was concerned about her husband, Vastine. His doctor had given him a terminal diagnosis of congestive heart failure and he had only recently become a hospice patient. But the older woman had come into the office and fidgeted and changed the subject from first one thing and then another until Charlotte finally asked what she was doing there. Peggy broke down and told her about her youngest daughter's son, who had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd in junior high school and had never gotten away from it.
“It's those drugs,” she said as if she knew for sure the cause of his downfall. “They get hooked on that stuff and then there's just no way to save them.” She tugged at the back of her collar and dropped her hands in her lap. “It's the devil's work,” she added with a pained expression.
Charlotte nodded in sympathy with a passing thought of Serena, remembering her own hopes for a family member's recovery.
“Vastine and I tried to keep him, you know, when he was little. Sherry was going through the divorce then and just had so much on her.” The older woman's face was pinched and crossed in worry. “We kept him for almost three years.”
Charlotte had not heard this part of the DuVaughn family history.
“He was such a sweet boy.” Peggy rubbed her hands together. “He and Vastine were real close.” Then she paused, looking up. “We never had boys.”
Charlotte listened. She knew there were three daughters, Sherry, Bernice, and Madison. They had all attended the church at one time or another. Madison's oldest child had been confirmed at Hope Springs. Charlotte thought she was at college out of state somewhere.
“Little Lamont was a handful, but we were doing the best we could.” She stopped. “We got him enrolled in the kindergarten at the school. We put him in Scouts and baseball.”
She sat quietly for a few moments.
“We would have kept him, you know.” Then she sighed with the sound of regret. “But he got to be too much for us.” Peggy shifted from side to side in her chair. “So Sherry took him back and they moved down to Lexington.” Her movement in the chair stopped. “And then things just got worse.”
The pastor handed Peggy a tissue. She took it and wiped her eyes.
“It's always been little things before now, mostly just boy stuff. I mean, I knew he was heading in the wrong direction, but I kept thinking he'd grow out of it, mature.” She paused. “It was stealing this time,” she confessed. “He broke into a convenience store. Tried to get into the cash drawer but was only able to take some merchandise. When they caught him,” she hesitated and shook her head, “he had a gun.”
The older woman wiped her eyes again. “It's serious.” She peered up at Charlotte. “He's in the adult unit. They say he threatened the police officer.” She dropped her head. “He's definitely going to prison. I saw him when he first got there. He was so scared he cried.” Peggy spoke softly. “It just about broke my heart.”
Charlotte went around her desk and knelt down in front of her parishioner.
“Sherry won't have anything to do with him, says she's through, told me not to waste my time trying to help him.”
The pastor reached up and placed her hand on Peggy's shoulder.
“But how can a mother, a grandmother, let one of her babies stay in a place like that and not visit, not try to get him out? He was so scared,” she said again as she reached in her purse for another tissue and held it in her hands.
Charlotte nodded, a gesture of sympathy, but she still did not speak.
The older woman looked down at the young minister kneeling in front of her. “I can only visit on Friday nights, for just fifteen minutes,” she said, leading up to the request. “But I was thinking that maybe you could go, say you're his pastor.” Peggy hesitated. “Maybe you can check on him today or tomorrow.” She seemed embarrassed. “If you could just go and make sure he's okay.”
Charlotte wasn't sure what to say. She had never gone to a jail before, and the sudden request from her church member was disconcerting.
“Peggy,” the minister replied sincerely, “I'm not sure they'll let me see him.”
The older woman nodded submissively. “I understand. You don't even know him. And it is a big thing to ask of you to go all the way over there.”
Charlotte rolled back to rest on her heels and read the woman's face. Peggy DuVaughn was quiet but strong. She wasn't really a leader in the church, not very active or out-spoken, but watching her as she sat in the pastor's office, so broken and vulnerable, Charlotte thought of who she had been in the church. She considered all the years that Peggy had been caring for her husband, years without complaint or request, years of displayed gratitude for her church's support and her pastor's visits.
Peggy always thanked Charlotte for her prayers, even wrote her notes from time to time to tell her how much the sermons on tape had meant to the two of them when they were unable to attend the worship services, how appreciative they both were for her care during her husband's more critical times.
Charlotte focused on the older woman, thinking that she had believed that Peggy's only problem had been Vastine's health, that this was all she thought about or dealt with or worried over. The pastor felt surprised and sad to learn that Peggy had been troubled for so long about her grandson and that she had never felt free enough to say anything to her pastor or to anyone else in the church.
The burden of shame for this woman, she thought to her
self, is as serious as Vastine's heart condition. This disappointment and regret, this dysfunction of her family, has broken her and chained her spirit even more than her husband's terminal illness. Peggy DuVaughn had borne the weight of her grandson's addiction and troubles in silence, as if his choices, his mistakes, were a reflection of her years of care or lack of care, depending on which situation she felt more guilty about.
“Of course I'll try,” Charlotte said to Peggy. “I'll call the chaplain this afternoon and see if they'll let me see him.”
And that had been it. With that promise made to her parishioner less than twenty-four hours earlier, she had visited Margaret to tell her that she was not able to go with her and the other friends to her doctor's appointment, and she was now standing in the Forsyth County Jail, her panty hose ruined, her leg cut and bleeding, and she was about to go behind guarded and locked doors to visit an armed thief she had never laid eyes on.
“You'll need to leave your purse in one of those.”
The desk sergeant pointed to the lockers on the wall to their right. “It's fifty cents,” she added.
Charlotte pulled out her wallet and took out two quarters. She walked over and placed the change in the slots and opened the locker. She put her purse inside, remembering that she had already given her driver's license to another police officer and hoping that she wouldn't forget it. She shut the door and pulled out the key. She walked back to the sergeant.
“Okay, just stand there and they'll open that door for you. Then you'll be in a waiting cell and they'll open the next set
of doors. Then you turn to the left, and the visiting booths will be right in front of you. A guard will send the prisoner to you in a few minutes. Just wait until he comes.”
Then the sergeant left Charlotte standing in front of a large steel door before the minister was able to ask the woman to repeat the instructions.
Suddenly, the large door in front of her opened, and she heard a voice on the intercom telling her to step inside. When she did, the door shut hard behind her. A few seconds passed, and another door in front slid open with a loud clang. She stepped through the doorway and it closed. She scanned the area to her right and then to her left, noticing a hallway with a set of doors. She moved in that direction, aware that she was being watched, and opened one of the doors in front of her. It was a small chamber with a stool in front of a large glass window, a telephone receiver hanging on the right.
She walked in as the door shut behind her and sat down on the stool, wondering if someone was still observing her.
Through the window before her, Charlotte was able to see to the other side, where there was a narrow hallway. Several inmates walked past in bright orange coveralls. A couple of them stared at her as they passed by. She tried to appear unalarmed and unafraid as she sat waiting for her visit to begin. There were sounds of men laughing and doors opening and closing; it seemed that at least fifteen minutes had passed since she had been inside the booth.
She was just about to go out and ask for assistance when,
finally, she heard a door on the other side of the booth open. Two men, one a guard, the other an inmate, walked by her, passing without any attention, and then turned around and walked back. They stood directly in front of her.
“Lamont?” she asked but wasn't sure they could hear her. Then the young man in the orange suit nodded.
The guard stared suspiciously at the female visitor and then spoke to the young man. “You got twenty minutes with your pastor,” he said sharply and then turned to Charlotte as if he questioned her professional standing.
Lamont sat down on the stool on the other side of the window.
“Can you hear me or do we need to use these?” She picked up the telephone receiver.
“No,” he shook his head. “I can hear you all right.”
The woman nodded. “I'm Charlotte Stewart,” she said as an introduction. “I'm your grandparents' pastor.”
He didn't respond.
“In Hope Springs,” she continued.
He nodded but didn't speak.
“Your grandmother Peggy asked me to visit.”
He nodded again.
“She was worried about you.”
Still no response.
He was bigger than she had expected him to be, broad across the shoulders and built like a football player. Charlotte had not really known how he would look since Peggy had only shown her pictures of him when he was a little boy. And
since she knew he had been on drugs a long time, she had just assumed he would be skinny, frail, poorly in appearance.
His size and healthy presence surprised the young pastor, and she realized how the demeanor of addicts can be deceiving. Even until the last days of Serena's life she had shown none of the usual signs of addiction. She wasn't gray or wiry or used up. Just the opposite. She seemed like the girl next door, strong, vibrant, alive. She had fooled everyone, especially her own sister, into thinking that she didn't have a problem.
Charlotte scanned the young man before her and wondered how long it had taken for his family to accept that he was addictedâhow many lies they had heard, how many cover-ups of disappearances and stories of why he needed money they had sat through. She wondered at what point he had started stealing from them, first just a few dollars from his mother's wallet, then jewelry and small items, and then finally scheming robberies. Serena hadn't gone that far, but Charlotte certainly knew the stories of the people her sister had associated with.
“Granddaddy okay?” Finally the young man spoke.
This time it was Charlotte who nodded.
The young man seemed unsure of what to say next.
“Nothing's wrong with Granny Peg, is it?”
Then Charlotte realized he was trying to figure out why she had come.
“No,” she answered reassuringly. “Everybody's okay.” Then she set her arms on the steel counter in front of her.
“I'm here because your grandmother asked me to come see you.”