The True History of Lyndie B. Hawkins Read online

  Then, one day after school, I was up in my room making ink, like the Civil War soldiers did when they wrote letters home. It was Mrs. Dooley down at Love’s Forge Library who told me how lonely the soldiers were during that long war, how they went to the trouble to make ink out of berries to write their families, and used feathers or stiff straw for pens. Writing home helped the soldiers keep up their spirits, Mrs. Dooley said.

  I mashed up a cup of raspberries and two tablespoons of vinegar in a bowl with the back of a spoon and scissored a pointed end on a crow feather from Ma’s vegetable garden. I was imagining how it felt to be a frostbitten, exhausted, starving, homesick soldier, missing his beloved sister with all his heart. “My Dearest Annie,” I wrote, smudgily, but with lots of attractive watery pink flourishes, at the top of the paper. “I trust this letter finds you well . . .”

  I was dipping my quill pen back in the berry ink when I heard the crash and tinkle of glass breaking downstairs.

  It wasn’t only one crash, either. It was a crash, pause, crash, pause, crash, pause.

  I threw down my quill pen and jumped to my feet.

  Daddy opened his bedroom door right as I was slipping downstairs on tiptoe. His face was rigid, he’d heard too, and I knew strange sounds always scared him. When he saw me, he backed away into his room. I could tell the smashing was coming from the kitchen. When I ran downstairs and peeked around the doorjamb, I saw Ma.

  She was standing at our kitchen window in her pajamas with a ballpeen hammer in one fist. Each and every one of the little panes of glass in the window had been broken, one by one, deliberately.

  “Ma!” I cried. “Why are you bashing out our windows?” Ma’s face was white with fury when she spun around, but her expression crumpled soon as she saw me.

  “You’d better ask your father why,” she said. She set the ballpeen hammer carefully on the kitchen table. “I’m going for a walk,” she said. “You stay.”

  I crept back upstairs. Daddy’s door was closed, and though I knocked softly, he grunted and yelled in a muffled voice, “Go away!” It didn’t seem like a good time to ask him why Ma was smashing windows.

  I watched from my bedroom window while Ma marched down our driveway wearing rain boots and plaid pajamas under her winter coat, her scarf fluttering behind her in the wind. When she’d marched out of sight, I took up my quill pen again.

  But my writing was illegible and blotchy now, and the whole idea of letters from homesick soldiers to waiting, anxious sisters made me so sad, all I could do was sit on the floor gasping. I’d never seen Ma do anything even halfway so confounding as to bash out those windows. She was a born and bred peacenik from a whole family of peaceniks and raised on a commune with four other families, in harmony and goodwill. Ma didn’t believe in swatting flies.

  Plus, if Ma and Daddy had ever said a harsh word to each other, I hadn’t heard it. But that night, when I lay awake in bed, I heard plenty of harsh words. There was a freak ice storm outside, and Ma’s angry, accusing voice rose above the sleet that tapped at our windows. And underneath it all in a steady rhythm, Daddy talked low and soothing. I mashed my ear hard to my bedroom door and tried to will away the whistling wind and patter of ice, to make out what topic they were fighting over. “You are a disappointed man,” I heard Ma yell. Or did she say disappointing? I’m not sure of the word, only the emotion of it. But the two words I did hear clear, over and over, were promise me. Promise me.

  Next morning, Daddy came down early in a pressed shirt and smelling less like sour apples and more like Aqua Velva aftershave lotion. Every day after that, he went out, asking up and down Love’s Forge and Gatlinburg and even as far as Knoxville for work. Afternoons, when he got home, the sharp crease in his slacks had gone flat and his work application papers, telling about who he was and all the marvelous things he could do, were crumpled and folded all which way. Pretty soon there were no more boxes of Lucky Charms cereal in our pantry, much less any Hostess cherry pies.

  Then, after two weeks, Ma marched out again and came back with a job at Miller’s Department Store selling foundation garments. It paid “a pittance,” and she had to have lots of sincere discussions about hosiery, girdles, and underwear. Ma looked older and more tired in her Miller’s uniform. It kind of made me sad that when she was younger her and her friends took off their bras and set them on fire to stand up for women’s rights. Now she was selling brassieres to rich old ladies. She had to work from afternoon until eight o’clock most nights.

  By then, except for Hoopdee practicing his baying, whooooooarrrrr, yo, yo, yooooo, our house had gone full silent. Once or twice, sitting at breakfast, I saw Daddy try to touch Ma’s hand, but she quick grabbed her juice glass, or pulled her fingers out of reach. Seeing her do that was like watching loneliness take shape from thin air.

  * * *

  —

  Packing my things to move into Lady and Grandpa Tad’s house, it felt super important to organize all my stuff in the exact right-size boxes, with handwritten labels, and plenty of tape. Especially the arrowheads and antique shell casings and other historical paraphernalia I’d been collecting on our road trips. I was going to offer them to the Love’s Forge History Museum soon as I had a highly significant collection, and I didn’t want anything to get lost.

  On our last day, there was still plenty to do. I had all my history books in one pile and the overdue Civil War library books for Mrs. Dooley in another. I couldn’t help looking at those books one last time before I put them in a box. I got sucked in, reading about Abraham Lincoln. I think I would have liked old Abraham, who was a lawyer, like Grandpa Tad. There was something about his eyes looking out from his photographic portraits. I pictured sitting with him by the fire in the shabby White House on a threadbare rug—just me and Mr. Lincoln and his bodyguard William H. Johnson, who was his best friend, listening to the president read his first draft of the Gettysburg Address, him stopping to cross out a line or add one, until he got the words to match how he was hearing them in his heart.

  Ma poked in six, seven, eight times to check on me. “The clock is ticking, Lyndie,” she said. “Please finish your packing.” On the ninth time, she marched in and started throwing stuff into random boxes.

  “For goodness’ sake, Ma!” I yelled. “You can’t put Hoopdee’s doggy blanket in the same box with maps and clothes and postcards. Stop it. You’re mixing everything up.”

  “You can sort it out when we get to your grandparents’ house,” Ma said, exasperated. “It’s time we got out of here. Please, Lyndie. My head is killing me.”

  “We can’t just get out of some place I spent my whole life since I was a tiny infant!” I cried.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Ma said. “There’s nothing else to do. We closed on the house day before yesterday. Mr. Grubecker is moving in this afternoon.”

  “Will we buy our house back after Daddy finds work?”

  Ma didn’t answer as Daddy came in and took the boxes.

  I trudged outside, still fuming, and stuffed everything I could carry into the flatbed of Daddy’s Blue Bullet, between Ma’s gardening supplies and my precious boxes of collectibles. Daddy threw a tarp over everything and started putting on bungee cords. His hands were shaking so bad, he could hardly fix the cords.

  I opened my mouth to ask him why his hands were jumping around like that, but the look on his face made me change my mind. I watched while he went back to the house and locked our front door. He fumbled the key under a flowerpot. Like we were going on vacation. Like we’d be back and unpacking our suitcases before Wally Grubecker had the first chance to move his leatherette La-Z-Boy recliner into our living room.

  Then we stuffed ourselves into the Blue Bullet. Ma insisted on driving—good thing, since I doubt Daddy could have held a steering wheel with those jumpy hands. I craned around one last time to see out the back window when we drove off. Between all the boxes and suitcases on the flatbed I could glimpse our cottage, and the little matching dog- and bird- and kid-houses, getting smaller and vaguer.

  Babe, they say your ears are long, I sang softly to Hoopdee, to the tune of Sonny and Cher, trying to calm myself down and calm Hoopdee down too. He was sliding around in great agitation on my lap between Ma and Daddy in the front seat. He usually rode in the flatbed and that was his preference. I got you, babe, I whispered. Hoopdee’s neck fur smelled like warm bread baked by a bear.

  And I still had Ma and Daddy, sort of, even if they had gone nearly full silent on each other. They were not on the same side anymore. I was really hoping my parents would hurry up and sign a peace treaty.

  I decided I would not let them sit in awkward wordlessness for the whole darn drive. “When you find a new job, can we buy our house back from Mr. Grubecker?” I sat up and asked Daddy.

  “I don’t know about that,” Daddy said. “But I promise someday you and me will build a better house, with all the mod cons.”

  “Better start keeping one promise at a time,” Ma said, her eyes steady on the road.

  “I don’t want a better house,” I said. “I don’t want any mod cons.”

  “We’ll be closer to school now,” Daddy said.

  “Seven miles closer to Covenant Academy,” I said peevishly. “I feel so blessed. And nine miles farther away from the library and Mrs. Dooley. What a great deal.” After Daddy and Ma and Dawn Spurlock, Mrs. Dooley the librarian was pretty much my favorite person in the known universe.

  “You can hold the sarcasm, Lyndon Baines,” Ma said.

  “Grandpa and Grandma’s house is not far uphill from Spurlocks’,” Daddy said. He was still twitchy, but I could tell he was trying hard to be still. “You and Daw
n Spurlock can run up and down to see each other all the time now.”

  Dawn is my only true and best friend. I’d hardly laid eyes on her for half the summer, with all our packing and moving rigmarole.

  “Maybe the Tennessee Valley Authority will give you your job back,” I said. Daddy’s mouth turned down, and his hands trembled in his lap. He clenched them tighter.

  “What’s wrong with your hands?” I said.

  “Ah,” Daddy said. “Just nerves, punkin’.”

  “Jobs don’t find themselves.” Ma blew a long breath through her lips and let up on the gas to take a curve. “You don’t look, you don’t get hired.” Ma fished a Kleenex out of her purse between us. Her eyes were glistening. That made my heart soften a little. I was sorry I yelled at her about packing my boxes.

  “Do you still feel headachy?” I put my cheek against her arm, which was smooth and powdery.

  “Yes.” Ma was taking deep breaths. “But I’m okay.”

  I looked at Daddy, then at Ma, and for the first time ever in my life, I thought, I don’t think my parents know how to head us in the right direction. We were driving straight down the highway into a future I did not want and never agreed to.

  Chapter Three

  A full twenty-four hours after the time I promised Lady we’d be home from Trilby Bigwitch’s funeral, me and Daddy are pulling in past the American flag tied to the gate at the end of Lady and Grandpa Tad’s driveway. It’s late Sunday afternoon.

  A police car sits parked out front. Lady stands talking to two officers, a woman and her skinny partner. The air is electric with the crackle of walkie-talkies. Grandpa Tad has one leg in the cab of his truck, and Hoopdee is circling and bawling. Mr. Spurlock, Dawn’s dad, is there, and so is Dawn.

  Dawn gets to me first and about yanks me through the open window of Daddy’s Blue Bullet. “You’re going to be grounded until pigs quit oinking,” she says, hugging me tight. She smells like rose soap. “But school starts tomorrow, so we’ll see each other all the time anyway.”

  Dawn has on a sweater vest she’s knitted, with armholes askew and a neckline that looks like hamsters gnawed on it. She’s been practice-knitting for months. I admire her grim persistence in the face of repeated failures.

  Daddy gets out of the car and strides over to talk to Lady and the police and Grandpa Tad. The conversation looks like it might turn explosive.

  I climb out too. “How mad are they?” I put one hand on my hip and cut my eyes at Lady.

  “I think they might be somewhat upset?” Dawn says. “I definitely heard the words missing persons report?”

  “Oh, hell’s bells,” I say. “Did you hear the word APB?”

  “I don’t think APB is technically a word,” Dawn says.

  “It’s an acronym,” I say. “Did you hear the phrase All-Points Bulletin?”

  “There was a lot of police radio talk,” Dawn says. “I didn’t catch the exact sense. Just the general tone.” She adds brightly, “I don’t believe Hoopdee is at all mad at you, though.”

  “So you’re saying, one-sixth of the Hawkins clan doesn’t want to kill me.” Dawn cocks one eyebrow. She never laughs at my jokes.

  “Guess what else?” she says. “We’re getting a boy to come live with us for the whole school year. From a juvenile detention center.” She looks smug as a bug. “He’s a criminal, and we are going to rehabilitate him.”

  Dawn’s family is big on charity projects. But the care and feeding of juvenile delinquent criminals has never come up before. “Hoo-boy,” I say. “Aren’t you worried? He could steal your jewelry. Empty your bank accounts. Or poison your whole family with strychnine-laced waffles. What if he pummels your little brothers on an ongoing basis?”

  “That stuff only happens in movies, Lyndie. Not in Love’s Forge.”

  But now the grown-ups rush over and Grandpa Tad swallows us up with his angry, anxious questions. He glares at me over his horn-rimmed glasses. Am I in one piece? Well, thank heavens for that. And why couldn’t I find myself a dad-gummed phone booth and dial home? Didn’t I think my grandmother’s peace of mind was worth the twenty-five cents it would cost me?

  My grandmother’s peace of mind? Without me there, Daddy might have been driving along those curvy roads tipsy and half-blind. She is lucky I was with him the whole time. I don’t say any of that.

  Lady stands over me with her white hair in a perfect up-do and her lipsticked mouth set in a line that’s a lot more formidable than Grandpa Tad’s yelling about the price of a Bell Telephone call.

  “How was I to know you all weren’t tumped over in a ditch?” she snaps. “Or something worse?”

  “I’m sorry, Lady,” I say. “We got lost, and, well.”

  “Enough.” Lady freezes me with one look. “Sorry is as sorry does. School starts tomorrow. Get inside and organize your school clothes. We’ll hash this out soon enough, you’d better believe it.”

  She marches me inside. So I don’t get to hear any more about the criminal boy coming to live with Dawn.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t get to tell Dawn I met my first real dead person, either, at the Longhouse Funeral Home in Cherokee, North Carolina.

  It didn’t throw me much, least, not at first. I have a pretty strong tolerance for grossness, on account of all the research I’ve conducted on the Civil War, where soldiers had rotten feet and amputated limbs and scurvy, and sometimes got left dying on the battlefield to be eaten by hogs. This particular dead soldier in his coffin, he was a fine picture in comparison to those Union and Confederate corpses: Trilby Bigwitch wore his dress army uniform and gray cap. The only thing that made it bad in particular was that Trilby was Daddy’s buddy, and Daddy got shook up to see him.

  Trilby Bigwitch had a face full of parts that had nothing in common—a nose like the prow of a ship, a hairline that darted down into his forehead like it had somewhere to get to. He had a gold earring in one ear.

  Looking down into Trilby’s coffin, Daddy folded his hands, took a long breath, and said, “Trilby, buddy. You broke our deal. You saved my life. I was supposed to save yours. Remember?”

  “What deal?” I whispered. “He saved your life?” Daddy shrugged and turned away.

  A man got up to speak the service first in the Cherokee language, second in English, one sentence at a time, back and forth: “It is good to see our cousins here today. It is good to see our brothers and our family here today. We have come to build one fire.”

  Wow, I thought, craning around. All these hundred and fifty people are family? The trumpeter played “Taps,” slow and mournful. Daddy and three other soldiers, all in full dress uniform, folded up the American flag into a beautiful triangle, and Daddy presented it to Trilby’s wife.

  Behind me in a pew, a lady said quietly, “That woman has had sorrow piled on top of sorrow. To have her husband do such a terrible thing. It’s more trouble than anybody deserves.”

  “Well, bless him, Trilby is free now. He’s out of pain,” said her neighbor.

  “He’ll be going to a better home.”

  What terrible thing did he do? What pain was he in? How is he free? The conversation reminded me of our school textbooks, skimming over the glossy surface.

  * * *

  —

  “We should go back to Lady’s house now,” I told Daddy after the service. I had a million questions I needed answers for.

  “Not yet,” Daddy said. “There’s a wake.”

  I didn’t know why you’d have a wake for a person who would never be woken again.

  “People used to stay awake all night,” Daddy explained. “Keeping watch over the body.” Reading my thoughts. He does that sometimes.

  The wake was in another room of the funeral home. I went over and told Mrs. Bigwitch I was really sorry about Trilby. “I never met him,” I said. “But Daddy thought the world of him. Daddy wished he had kept in better touch with Trilby.” Mrs. Bigwitch tried to smile, but her smile came out upside down and her eyes went shiny. I wondered about what other sorrows she’d had piling up. She looked so kindly.