Homefires (26 page)

Dale waved and made her exit amid a roar of applause.

My gaze swept over Krissie and Toby, then sought out Heather’s animated features in the sea of young faces. Dale’s account left me a bit troubled. If this could happen to Dale Evans, the perfect mom, then who was safe?

My self-assurance began to wilt, to lose substance. I didn’t like the feeling.

You worry too much, Neecy.
Kirk’s litany echoed. It was true. I
did
fret too much.

I pushed away the unsettling emotions.
Each case is unique.
Faith in maternal mindfulness recoagulated. Godly vigilance could and
would
ward off harm.

“Andre’s plane still has not arrived,” the loudspeakers blared.

“We’ve gotta go,” Kirk murmured, motioning to the teen group. “We’ll be late for evening church service if we don’t leave now.” They nodded while gathering blankets and paraphernalia for the forty-five minute drive to Solomon.

There, I caught up with Heather on the church lawn and walked with her up the portico steps. “Can’t
believe
we didn’t get to hear
Andre Crouche,
” she groaned as we entered the church. “A wasted trip.”

“No,” I slid my arm around her shoulders, where, these days, she was more inclined to accept it, “nothing is
wasted
in the spiritual realm. Don’t ever forget that.”

Her fingers slid into mine and the soft reply just barely reached me. “True.”

And I thanked God for where He’d brought us.

CHAPTER NINE

The following Thursday dawned golden and unseasonably warm, even by coastal standards. January 31, 1974 was so perfect, like Spring, my favorite season. Years later, I look back and still feel the peaceful ambience of it. I’ve been told that the eye of a hurricane is that quiet and tranquil.

That morning was – Inow know – the pinnacle of my life.

I worked on a college English theme while Kirk, in gray coveralls, worked on our balky VW. That afternoon, he stopped long enough to collect the kids from school as I continued typing.

Krissie and Heather breezed in the door and I stretched my stiff back.

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked over my shoulder. “And Toby?”

I heard Heather’s bedroom door close behind her.
Into her lair, my lovely one goes... When she’ll come out, nobody knows.

It’s not personal
, I reminded myself.

“Ahh, he’s on the carport, working on the car. And Toby’s with him,” Krissie informed me as she put two eggs on to boil and poured a tall glass of iced tea, a ritual now for her as she fought to put on weight. Also ritual was record music blaring from her room, Harvest Kings’ tinkling rendition of “
Dancing in the Moonlight.”

“Could you turn it down a tad, Krissie?” I called, frowning at the text staring back at me, challenging my concentration. I simply
had
to finish the darned paper today.

Immediately, the noise softened and I relaxed as she returned to the kitchen to fix a fat deviled egg sandwich to munch, then thoughtfully move to the den to eat, giving me solitude for my task. She only broke silence once, to tell me, “Grandma called last night and said a little girl named Tammy was kidnapped from a laundromat this week. They found her body in a river today. Grandma said for me to be careful and not talk to strangers.”

“Good advice,” I said, warmed by Anne’s call. True to her word, she had done everything in her power to make up to Trish for those wasted years. “Grandma’s smart. And she loves you like I do.” I resumed typing.

A little after three, Jaclyn Beauregard sauntered in, trailed by her younger brother, Zach. I barely looked up as they brushed past me to visit with the girls. Husky little Zach, twelve and ‘fudgy’ as Trish would say, with Indian dark hair, eyes and features, migrated toward Krissie, whom he saw at school, church and Hopewell Skateland Rink. Skating was their topic today.

“Man,” outgoing Zach gushed, “that Toby can skate good for a little kid.” Then he began singing,
“Hey! Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?”
a song played repeatedly at Skateland. Krissie sang along, blushing a little but obviously enjoying Zach’s uninhibitedness
.

I smiled, glad Toby was hanging out with his Dad, watching him mechanic, asking endless questions. He wouldn’t cotton to being called a ‘little kid.’ I again receded into the aura of my essay theme, whose subject was Heather’s growing pains.

“Can Heather go home with me for awhile?”

I blinked at the intrusion and gazed up into Jaclyn Beauregard’s strong, dark features, ones that matched her assertiveness. “I – ahh – no, I don’t think so, Jaclyn.” Six months had not given me enough time to know these people that well. I knew I’d come across as standoffish, not a good thing with Kirk’s parishioners, but I couldn’t help it.

“Please?” she clasped her hands together, as in
beg
. And charm.

I frowned, fortifying myself. My gut said ‘no.’ “I’m sorry, honey. But I think not.”

Heather appeared behind another oak dinette chair, facing me. “Why not, Mama?” she challenged, though affably. “We have choir practice at six so she’s coming back this way.”

“Go ask your Dad.” Kirk would recognize my distress signal and issue a firm ‘no.’ I was astounded when moments later, they reappeared.

“It’s okay with him if it is with you,” Heather ventured. “See? I told you you’re too protective.”
“...and you smother me,”
she’d accused just days ago.

Was I? Being too protective? Smothery? I remembered my Dad’s heavy-handed control and nearly shuddered. Still –

“I don’t think so.” I began typing again, hoping to dispense them. “Besides, you haven’t cleaned your rooms.” I went
back to pecking as they scattered, again battling the snobbery I whiffed in me.

Within minutes, they were back. “Now can she go?” the undaunted Jaclyn asked. “We cleaned their rooms.”

“Aww, Mama,” Krissie now joined the circle around the table, hooking her thin elbows over the chair back. “C’mon. Why doncha let her go?”

I gazed at her, moved. She, the overlooked, the
uninvited
, pleaded Heather’s cause.

An idea flashed. Without forethought, I said, “Only if Krissie can go, too.”

They’ll be safer together.
Krissie would spread her wings and at the same time, with her little sis along, Heather wouldn’t be apt to misbehave.

The older girls looked at each other as in “what now?” Then they shrugged in unison. “Sure,” Jaclyn said.

“Neat!” Zach quipped, grinning broadly at Krissie, whose blue eyes rounded in surprise.

Suddenly, second thoughts ambushed me.
Krissie
, a homebody,
may not want to go
. She was too polite to refuse and chance offending the Beauregards.

“Of course, you have homework to do, Krissie.” I offered her a graceful way out. Her consistent studying
had
brought her grades up.

“I’ll help her,” Zach Beauregard chirped, beside himself with bliss, and I only then sensed his crush on my middle child.

“I’ll do homework there.” Krissie’s joy was gaining momentum. “We took the Achievement Tests today at school, Mama.” She then added quietly, “I think I did okay.”

“That’s great, honey.” Then beneath my breath, “Sure you want to go?”

Her countenance brightened. “Yeah, Mama.”

My doubts vanished at her happy face. “Okay.” I sighed and returned to my work.

“I’ll go change my top. This one’s too hot. Ya’ll wait for me!” Krissie cried and scampered off to her room to shed the red sweater for a cooler top to match her flared jeans. The day had warmed up during the morning until now, midafternoon, the outdoors beckoned.

Settling back down to my typing, I fought niggling little misgivings. I reassured myself again that together, the girls would be safer. Levelheaded Krissie would safeguard Heather’s good behavior. More relaxed about the whole thing, I proceeded with my paper and only glanced up when the four of them filed past me as they left.

Heather kissed my cheek, “Thanks, Mama.”

“Bye, Mama!” I glimpsed Krissie’s hummingbird departure over my shoulder.
Still afraid they’ll leave her.

“Bye, honey,” I called as Zach sprinted out the back door last.

I sat very still, staring blankly at the typewriter and felt a strange compulsion to call over my shoulder. “Hey! Be
good!”
I glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty.

“We will,” came Zach’s faraway cry. “We always are!”

Toby played outside while I finished my paper and cooked a quick supper of grilled pork chops, rice, gravy, peas and fluffy buttermilk biscuits. The aroma was wonderful, reminding me that Krissie loved pork chops and Heather always
oohed
and
ahhed
over hot biscuits and my homemade strawberry jam.

At four-thirty, I moved to the phone, then stopped, my hand mid-motion. They’d only been gone little over an hour.
“I told you you’re too protective, Mama.”

Am I?
I lowered my hand.
But Krissie loves pork chops.
I aided and abetted her weight-gain efforts, which were beginning to fluff up her small hips in an attractive way. I lifted the receiver again.

Choir practice is at six. That’s only an hour and a half away.
I put the phone down, feeling selfish. It was unreasonable of me to ask Jaclyn to drive the distance twice in less than an hour. At the same time, since I had no intention of allowing a repetition of today’s subtle coercion, I’d allow the girls to make an afternoon of it. It would have to last for a long spell.

Toby and I ate together. Kirk had driven into town to find needed repair parts. We finished our meal just as the Volkswagen pulled into the carport next to the kitchen.

I cleared the table, put away the food to heat up later and resumed work on my paper.

At five-fifteen, Kirk burst into the house. “Come on, Neecy!” He yanked off his oily coveralls in three swift movements.

“What?” I froze, recoiling from something in his voice, dreading I knew not what.

“The kids are gone,” he gasped, his green eyes wild. “Something’s happened to them! Come on.”

My bare feet remained riveted to the floor. My mind swirled. “What – who’s gone?” My words sounded far away. The earth tilted at a grotesque angle. I swayed and caught hold of the counter’s edge.

“Janeece!” Kirk implored frantically at my lack of response. “Get dressed quickly. We’ve
got to find them!”

Jaclyn appeared in the doorway. I tried not to read her pale face.

Then Larry, Jaclyn’s older married brother who attended Solomon Methodist Church, appeared, his white face registering shock. He moved toward me...he and Jaclyn were both talking at once.

“Krissie and Zach went for a walk and we can’t find them.”

Panic seized me. “What do you mean, you can’t find them?” I steeled myself not to become hysterical. They’d probably wandered off somewhere.
There’s hope.

I shook my head wildly, “But Krissie doesn’t do things like that. She’s so care – ”

Larry’s pasty features loomed before me. “Mrs. Crenshaw, they were walking on the trestle. A train came through – they radioed back to the caboose that they’d hit two kids.”

“Oh-h-h, Mama – ” Heather moaned from the doorway, her eyes stark with horror.

“Oh, God....” I groaned and turned away.
This can’t be happening. It’s a bad dream. That’s all. It has to be.
I turned to escape – God wouldn’t let this happen. He
wouldn’t.

“Janeece!” Kirk’s commanding voice cut into my stupor. “Get dressed.
We have to find them
.”

In that moment, a terrible vision flashed before me, of faceless kids in the muddy river that runs beneath the trestle, drowning....

No!
I blinked. No! Another memory zapped in like lightening – only last year I’d insisted that Hopewell Church fence in the parsonage yard, to protect our children from railway tracks that bordered the property.