“Sister! I have been dying to see you. Even in the short couple of weeks since I was here!” I was completely bursting at the seams. “You’ve been more than gracious. Jim too. I love being here.”
Father seemed to squirm at the mention of my landing place being at Millicent’s rather than my childhood home, but now was not the time to count the cost of treachery or calculate the price of greed.
“And where’s our little Louise?” I gave Millicent a look, hoping the scars we’d endured were soothed by the salve our bond had provided, that our being sisters had helped us make it through the tumultuous years.
“She’ll be along after church tomorrow. Gets to spend the night at her Granny Carver’s. I wanted you all to myself for once! So now, tell me what’s happened since I last saw you!”
“I’ll visit only a short spell,” our father said, perhaps sensing the urgency of our desire to catch up or, better yet, his need to attend his esteemed thoroughbreds. “Truly, I must be on my way soon. Gracie, however, does have a mysterious bar of chocolate . . . and, shall we say, ‘lifted’ horehound?”
He was amused. His inference that I had some explaining to do had Sister on alert.
Sheepishly, I admitted I’d come with horehound candy that I had not paid for and nothing for Louise. “But I do have a gift from a gentleman. May I emphasize ‘gentleman’? Simon Hagan.” I felt the color explode on my cheeks as I went to the parlor and retrieved the bar of chocolate I’d stashed in my pocket. I plopped back down at the kitchen table. “Happy to share this with anyone interested.”
I continued. “You know the Hagan family’s farm, Millicent. It’s north, Father said. Half dozen boys, couple of girls, I think. Geoffrey Hagan married Zack Peterson’s widow—”
“Yes, I know the connection. They’re in the store, of course. Jim thinks highly of them, I’m sure,” Millicent said.
“And there’s more. The elder Mr. Hagan is responsible for my teaching job. Don’t think the particulars of that ever came up for discussion. Otherwise you’d have known. He was on the school board, and I met him. Guess it’s been three years ago now . . . the summer of ’28. Mr. Hagan appreciated the fact that I was getting my degree from Athens College. Anyway, enough about me. I have him to thank for my first teaching job.”
“Millicent’s right, Gracie. Geoffrey Hagan’s a well-respected man. I was merely teasing you a mite about the chocolate, odd as it is for Simon to . . . Well, anyway, a piece of news was associated with his farm. Interestingly enough, the skeletal remains of a Shawnee Indian turned up on the property. Been ’bout two years ago.” Father relaxed with his account of the story. Smoke from his cigarette curled in the air between us. “My understanding’s that it was discovered very much intact.”
“That is fascinating! Had I been living here at the time instead of Alabama I would have been extremely interested! I’d love to hear more!”
“The find attracted a good deal of chatter through these parts, and—”
“Humph!” Millicent rolled her eyes indignantly. “Is there any possible chance of my getting in a word, edgewise or otherwise? Fine, fine on dead Indians. What about Simon Hagan?”
Apparently Father took the mention as his cue to leave certain discussions to the women. Draining his cup, he stood. “Listen, ladies, I’m gonna head on. Just making sure, now, your plan is for Jim to get you back to Russellville. Correct, Gracie?”
A fragment of his smile remained, clinging to the charisma that had him suited up for more important things than sticking around to talk with two of his daughters.
I shrugged and turned to my sister. “Will that work out for Jim?”
“Of course, and Father,” Millicent said, “please let Francine know that we couldn’t have come out last night even if she’d invited us to celebrate your sixtieth birthday with you.”
Father looked deliberately at her and crushed his cigarette in a nearby ashtray, perhaps deciding he had misinterpreted the inflection. He pushed his chair from the table and smoothed his tweed vest as he stood. “Good to have you back, Gracie.”
I kept my seat as if a weight held me there, simply stirring more cream into my coffee. After what seemed forever I raised my head to look up at him. “You’ll always be my father. Always. It’s just probably best if it don’t go back out to—”
“Yes, I know,” Father said, and his dark, lamenting eyes sought to pierce my thoughts with a constant glare. Then came his attractive smile. He bent over to kiss me on the cheek, and the few small lines in his brow eased and vanished.
I waited in the kitchen as Millicent walked Father to the door.
“Well, Gracie?” she said with him gone. “Was my sarcasm terribly unbecoming?”
There was not a reason in the world I couldn’t speak my mind to my older sister, but moments passed and I did not answer. Her self-affirming nod said she was ashamed, but a twinkle in her eye said she was justified. Thick black waves in her hair framed the youthful face that held back a grin.
“Not really, but I think he’s past our disapproval of Francine.” I sipped the last of my coffee and gently set the cup down, part of me wanting to applaud her. The other part wanted the past to just heal itself, like a crab regenerating its lost leg. “There is a very high wall between me and Father. Rightly so. Maybe.”
“How was it?” Millicent sat down across from me, her mirth diminished. “Being there again. Be honest.”
“If you want my opinion, I don’t believe Father could ever have calculated the cost. Seems to me he was blinded . . . incapable of knowing what diminishing returns lay hidden beneath the surface.” I walked to the window, wiping away tears that brimmed from my eyes.
Being honest meant looking at the past, not running, not cowering, neither letting injustices destroy the essence of my core, nor come close to ripping apart the fiber of a family in the way Francine had Moe Lee’s.
“I’m hesitant to ask again, but has anyone heard from Moe Lee?” I turned to face Millicent.
She was wagging her head. “Not a word that I’ve heard,” she said, and my heart seemed to swell beneath the flattened hand I laid over it.
“You know my direction changed the day Henry told me Moe Lee and his family were run off the farm. There, behind the great white facade we call Hillbound, upstairs in my room, I made my decision to come here in the middle of the night. Remember?”
She hadn’t forgotten. None of the Maxwells could have, and in my remembrance I still credited the episode with my calling to go to the mission field.
“It was a terrible time, Gracie. I’m so glad you came here.” Millicent reached across the table and patted my arm. “And we’ve loved every minute you’ve spent. When you went down to that potter’s house in Madison County that year—even then you could have been here with us if we’d only been aware of what was happening.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without you and Jim giving me a place to live. My having your home to come back to during those four years of college was so generous of you. And I’m sure Emma would have been glad to have me except for lack of space and the children. She’s a wonderful sister, too.”
Talking provided some relief. I smiled. “Y’all are bound to have seen it yourself, just how Francine’s influence is trickling like a slow drip over a pile of stones, etching in Henry a visible erosion. That’s just what occurs over time. Do you know what I mean, Sister?”
I gave her a little space to answer, trying to get my concern in