Somewhere Between Luck and Trust

Between sips Edna was delving into philosophy. “How can something that makes me feel so good be bad for me?”

“That’s a question you’ll ask yourself a million times in the next ten years, kiddo. Just remember that something that makes you feel good in the short-term might be a problem in the long-term. That’s why you have to think things through.”

“Like I could gain too much weight or my cholesterol could go up, only worse.”

“Exactly.”

“I wonder if taking the diamond ring made Cristy feel good until they put her in jail.”

Georgia and Edna had already talked about Cristy Haviland. Samantha had told her daughter the facts—that Cristy had been caught shoplifting a very valuable ring. She had served time in prison for it, and now that she was out, she needed a place to stay.

“I think, in that case, justice was pretty swift. I think your mom said she was caught outside in the parking lot. So I doubt she had any time to enjoy what she’d done. In fact, I imagine the moment she did it, she was terrified somebody would catch her.”

“But why didn’t she figure out ahead of time that she was going to get caught? It seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Does it?”

“A ring’s not like a pack of gum or a candy bar. If something is valuable, it’s sure to be missed immediately.”

“Then it sounds like something she did on impulse, don’t you think? Without thinking or planning?”

“Maybe it was just a mistake. Maybe she set the ring on the counter and somebody knocked it into her purse, or wherever they found it when they searched her.”

Georgia wasn’t sure whether Edna wanted to think the best of Cristy, or whether for her this was just an interesting mystery to solve.

“I imagine the authorities considered that possibility and discarded it,” she said. “They must have had a pretty good idea she did what they accused her of before they took the case to trial.”

“I don’t know.” Edna didn’t sound convinced. “I guess we’d have to know her to figure that out. I mean, I know people who always do impulsive things. Like they blurt out whatever they’re thinking, and afterward you can tell they wish they’d stayed quiet. There’s this one kid in my class who’ll take any dare, even if it’s impossible, and he’s always getting in trouble. Once he got stuck in a tree on the playground, and the custodian had to bring the longest ladder in the school to get him down.”

“Maybe that kind of behavior’s been a problem for Cristy.”

“Maybe so, but if it hasn’t? Isn’t stealing a ring when you’re sure you’ll get caught more than impulsive? Maybe it’s...what do they call it? A cry for help?”

Georgia could tell Edna wasn’t going to let go of this. She was reaching the age when the things she did or would do really mattered, and she knew it. Her mother had almost destroyed her own life at seventeen, something she candidly discussed with her daughter, and while Edna was only twelve, she was mature beyond her years. So Cristy, and what she had and hadn’t done, had made an impression on her, even though they hadn’t yet met.

“I can tell you this much,” Georgia said. “If she needs help, we’ll try to be sure she gets it.”

“Mom said she had a baby when she was in prison. I don’t know which would be worse, going to prison or having a baby you can’t keep.”

Georgia thought of her own mother, whoever she was, who hadn’t given birth to her in prison. That her mother had given birth in a hospital was one of the few things Georgia did know about the woman.

They fell into an easy silence for the rest of the trip. It was past five when the twisting road straightened and dipped, and they followed swiftly flowing Spring Creek into the township of Trust.

Township was another word for nowhere. Trust was nothing more than a spot where two roads met, where an attractive general store with a part-time restaurant had sprung from the foundation of an old one, where a covered bridge gave ammunition for jokes about the “bridge” of Madison County. Some grateful soul had built a thimble-size roadside chapel here and dedicated it to St. Jude. But other than houses nestled on gravel roads and plenty of fresh air, there wasn’t much else to the place. As they turned toward Luck, an even smaller destination, Georgia tried to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in this part of the state.

The Goddess House was located somewhere between the two townships. Theoretically it might be inside one and not the other, but nobody really cared. Analiese Wagner, who was a minister in Asheville, had decided that the house was at the crossroads, and everybody liked that, although no roads actually crossed here. But the women they hoped to help would probably be standing at very real crossroads in their own lives, so what was more fitting? Trust was vital. And luck? Well luck never hurt, either.

The road up to the house was unpaved and required second gear. Georgia took her time. Since becoming trustees of the house, the goddesses had made sure to have the approach graded twice, and she suspected that spring rain was going to necessitate another go at it soon. Luckily there were lots of people in the vicinity with big tractors and time before planting season, and none of them charged much.

Once they parked, Edna was the first out of the car, and Georgia knew she was off to find her mother. There was so little to get, just a small rolling suitcase and Edna’s backpack, that she got them as her granddaughter disappeared up the hill and into the house. She was just about to carry them up the steps when Samantha hailed her from the hillside behind her, where a small family graveyard had been created.

Since Edna would quickly discover her mother wasn’t inside, Georgia turned toward the hill and left the backpack and suitcase beside the car.

The small family plot had special meaning for the women. Charlotte Hale, whose family home the Goddess House had been and who had left the house and land in their care, was buried here. She was fifty-three when she’d died, but she had left large footprints for them to fill.

Samantha met her mother halfway down the hill, and after a quick hug they stood there to chat.

“Your daughter’s looking for you,” Georgia said.

“She’ll find me. You look tired. Long day?”

“Not as long as yours. That was a lot of driving.”

“I’m whupped,” Samantha admitted. “And Cristy’s napping, I hope, unless Edna wakes her up.”

“She won’t. Unless she’s sleeping on the sofa?”

“No, I gave her the big room in the back. I figure she needs privacy, and if we’re coming and going in the next months, which we will be, she can shut herself in that room when she needs peace and quiet.”

“That’s what I would have done.” Georgia realized the sun was well on its way to setting, and she turned so they could start toward the house. “How did the trip go?”

“I’ll tell you all about it, but first I want to tell you something more important, something that was confirmed on the trip.”

Georgia verbalized her fears. “That the girl needs a lot of help? That she’s going to need supervision while she’s here, and we need to find somebody willing to do it?”

“She does need a lot of help, but not the kind you’re envisioning.” They had almost reached the car now, and Samantha stopped beside it. Georgia knew in a moment Edna would come running down the steps to find her.

“What kind of help?” Georgia asked.

“The kind you’re best at.” Samantha shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “I am absolutely sure that Cristy can’t read. I had my suspicions before, when she was in my class, but now it’s clear. She couldn’t read the menu when we ate lunch, so she pretended she wasn’t hungry. She couldn’t read the signs at the store when we shopped. If she reads at all, it sure wasn’t apparent today. If she’s ever going to get out of this hole she’s in, she’s going to have to learn how—and quickly.”

Samantha rested her hand on her mother’s arm in emphasis, not quite digging in her fingertips to hold her there, but close. “I think you know what I’m leading up to.”

“I’m afraid I might.”

“Nobody in the world has a better chance of teaching that young woman to read than you do. Please think it over. If we’re really going to help her, this is where we have to start.”

Chapter Five

CRISTY LAY ON one side and stared out the wide windows just beyond her bed. Mountains were forming in the midst of haze, cinder-gray peaks deepening slowly to a smoky purple as the landscape warmed. She knew the sun itself would emerge later in the morning, that the very mountains she was admiring would hide it from view until it burst forth in glory.

During her stay in Raleigh she had yearned for mountains. The world had seemed as flat as ancient explorers had believed, and she’d felt dizzied by that, as if the moment she ventured outside, she might slip off the rim.

Mountains anchored the earth, gave it form and definition. But sometimes, as now, they simply menaced the horizon. These mountains, whose names she didn’t know, reminded her she was a stranger in this house, this place, and that Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, would never be her mountain again.

She turned onto her back and stared at the slatted ceiling. She hadn’t known what to say when Samantha had led her to this room and told her it was hers for the duration of her stay. The room was the largest in the old house and the most private. Cristy had tried to tell her this felt wrong, discordant somehow, but Samantha had said that giving Cristy the biggest only made sense. She would be spending every day here, while the other women who were trustees or guests would come for only short stays.

Cristy wasn’t to worry. Didn’t she deserve to be treated well? And didn’t she deserve a little space and privacy after what she had endured?