Emilie Richards - Somewhere Between Luck and Trust

Edna gave her a quick hug, and Georgia forgot everything except how glad she was to be this child’s grandmother.

Chapter Four

WHEN SHE WAS growing up, Cristy’s father would often make her sit in a corner of the parsonage basement as punishment. While he paced back and forth in front of her, shaking his head, she would unsuccessfully squirm to find a comfortable spot on the unforgiving wooden chair. Then, just as she was certain her father had forgotten she was there, he would ask why she had done something—or sometimes, why she hadn’t. He would listen to her halting explanations, and finally hand her a sheet of paper and tell her to list everything she had done wrong, and what she had learned from the consequences.

The child Cristy had tried to cooperate, but in later years the teenager had refused. The Reverend Roger Haviland had never touched his daughter in anger, but when Cristy couldn’t or wouldn’t do what he wanted, he’d always left her there to consider her sins until bedtime. Had he ever asked what she’d learned from this “ritual,” she would have told him that after thinking about it, she had concluded that all sins were best committed after dinner.

But he had never asked.

Today, as she got out of Samantha’s car and gazed up at the old log house that was home until fate tossed her elsewhere, her father’s question sprang into her mind. Not why she had done what she had, since that was irrelevant, but what she had learned.

Standing under the shade of a massive oak tree at the bottom of a rock-crusted hillside, she realized she had carried away two things from her eight months in prison. One, that trusting anybody, no matter how nice they seemed, was foolish. And two, that there was no point in fighting for justice, because the world wasn’t a just or fair place. You were either lucky or you weren’t.

Samantha walked around the car, stretching her arms over her head. “Long trip. How are you doing?”

Cristy’s stomach was tied in a million knots. She was sorry she had eaten lunch, because even now, hours later, she wasn’t sure the hamburger was going to stay down. After lunch and shopping she had napped most of the way here, but the sleep hadn’t relaxed her.

She felt Samantha watching and met her eyes.

“I say we take a walk,” Samantha said. “Just a short one. Once everybody gets here you’ll be bombarded. My mom. Edna. Fresh air might be a good transition.”

Overhead a bird was chirping in rhythm, as if practicing feathered Morse code, but otherwise the clearing was silent. No noise from the road, no hunting dogs in pursuit of some small, terrified creature. The silence seemed to thrum with foreboding.

“It seems so...” Words eluded her. “Large,” Cristy finished at last.

“The house?”

“The outside. I could walk and walk and nothing would stop me. If I came to a fence, I could just step over it or walk around it....”

“They call that freedom. It’s going to take a little getting used to.”

“We were outside a lot in Raleigh. There were places to walk, unless you were in the segregation unit. But it wasn’t like this.”

“Yeah, we’re short on razor wire at the Goddess House. And we got rid of the guard tower last week. It messed up the view.”

Samantha was pointing out that she no longer had to worry about prison officials, but Cristy didn’t know how to respond. There was no razor wire or guard tower, but she still felt imprisoned by fear.

Samantha started along a path leading toward what looked like an old barn in the distance. “Since we had to get it last week, we put your car in the barn. Let’s take a peek, then I’ll show you around a little more.”

Cristy was afraid to venture off with Samantha and more afraid to go up to the house alone. What she could see of it looked foreboding, too, as if the long front porch sheltered glass-paned eyes that were watching and waiting for her to make a mistake. Reluctantly she fell into step.

“The house is really off by itself, isn’t it?” Cristy said.

“If you follow this path a ways you have neighbors. Bill and Zettie Johnston live maybe a quarter of a mile over the crest of the hill. Really nice folks. I’m sure you’ll meet them. By the road you’re not far from the Trust General Store, and there are people all up and down these hills. There’s even a community center down the main road a bit, what used to be the local school before they consolidated, and from what Zettie says, they schedule events there from time to time.”

Cristy realized she had better sound more confident, or Samantha might be afraid to leave her alone. “I hope that didn’t sound like I was complaining. I like silence. My little house in Berle...” Her voice trailed off.

“I’ve been there. Your employer’s daughter stored all your things in her attic, but Taylor and I—you’ll meet Taylor and her daughter, Maddie, one day soon—we drove to the flower shop to pick up some florist tools she hadn’t packed. I saw your house behind it and peeked in the windows.”

Cristy already knew that Samantha and the other woman, Taylor, had driven to Berle to pick up her belongings and car, but now she thanked her again.

Samantha hesitated. “The house where you lived has been for sale for a few months. No one’s living in it now.”

“I guess Betsy’s Bouquets will be sold, too.”

“Betsy’s daughter wants to sell, but it’s not a good time to sell anything. She sent you some things that belonged to Betsy. She said nobody else would appreciate her mother’s tools the way you would.”

Cristy was so touched that for a moment she couldn’t speak. Betsy had hired her when she dropped out of high school, and when her angry parents told her to pack her bags, Betsy had given her the little house behind the shop to live in. The arrangement had been mutually beneficial. Betsy had believed in Cristy as no one else had, and when she had suffered her first heart attack, she’d gratefully turned over much of the work to her young employee, supervising and instructing from a comfortable chair in the workroom. In turn Cristy had gotten the best possible education in floral design, as well as a roof over her head and a loyal friend.

Then, while Cristy was in the county jail waiting for trial, sixty-four-year-old Betsy had suffered her second heart attack. Cristy hadn’t been allowed to attend the funeral.

“How long did you live in the house?” Samantha asked.

“Almost five years. Betsy couldn’t afford to pay much, so the house was part of my salary. I fixed it up myself.”

“You sure did. It’s adorable.”

“Betsy didn’t care if I experimented. I tried anything I thought of. I rescued furniture from the trash and bought things at yard sales.”

“Some of us could do that and end up with a mess. I kept expecting to see an HGTV film crew come up the walkway.”

Cristy told herself to be careful. Compliments were wonderful, but that was what had brought her to this place in her life. “I won’t mind being out here,” she said. “I know how lucky I am you offered this chance.”

“We’re about an hour from Mars Hill.”

Cristy was wearing a light jacket Samantha had bought her, but the air was colder here than it was in Raleigh, crisper and more penetrating. She shivered.

“Do you want to talk about your son?” Samantha asked. “Or shall we stay away from the subject?”

Cristy found it odd to be asked her preference, but it was refreshing, too. “I guess you know Michael’s with my second cousin, Berdine Bates, and her husband, Wayne. I thought that was better than sending him to live with strangers.”

“I know you must have felt they would give him a better home than your parents could.”