A Necessary Woman

Part One

Each man has a guardian angel appointed to him.

Thomas Aquinas

1225 – 1274

If I Had Wings

Everything changed the year they shot President Kennedy.

I was lost in a world you don’t know. All of us were lost, really, the five females whose lives collided that long hot summer and tumultuous fall, some of us searching for the impossible, some of us hiding from a past so shameful it would turn your soul black just thinking about it, and some so broken we were afraid to search at all.

There was a while, when the gardenias were in bloom and the wind chimes predicted change, that we believed we could grow wings and fly, cardinal-like, straight up to the blue sky. But none of us knew how to ask for red wings.

And after a hail of bullets shattered hope, we hardly knew if we could even survive our own personal assassinations.

For some, that scorching season forged us in a fire that was the beginning. For others, it burned away the lies and left behind nothing but the painful, inevitable truth that could only be an ending.

Chapter 1

Just before the water snatched her up, Jolene heard her mother say, Come back. I didn’t mean it. But the waves took her anyhow and flung her deep into the river, a tiny wad of rage in a homemade hope chest with a rose carved on the top.

Jolene fought to get out, fought against the lid that was shut tight, fought to see her mother’s face. Instead, she found herself upright in her sleeping bag, straining for any remnant of the dream that might tell her who had thrown her away.

In Jolene’s dreams, it was always her mother. This time her mother had said she didn’t mean to set her baby adrift in the Tennessee River. Other times she said, I’m sorry, but never in all the years did the phantom mother of Jolene’s dreams say, I love you.

She fumbled in her sleeping bag and brought out the purse she slept with every night, red straw with a little hole she’d taped over with a piece of silver duct tape she’d borrowed at her place of work when nobody was looking. The money she’d been saving for her college fund was in there, nine dollars and six cents. Not nearly enough, no matter how many times she counted it. But it wasn’t money she wanted today. It was the cross somebody had pinned to her diaper before they tried to kill her.

Pure gold with a shining gold rose in the middle, the cross screamed money; it shouted prestige. What it didn’t say was why anybody would pin the symbol of love and redemption on a child they were trying to drown. What it didn’t say was that Jolene’s life was worth a grain of salt.

She reckoned if she wanted to be worth a grain of salt, she’d have to prove it herself.

With the money and the cross tucked safely back into her purse, she sat in her sleeping bag a while mulling over her dream and looking for signs. She was a great believer that you could learn just about everything you needed to know by listening to your dreams and observing the world around you.

It was the river that told Jolene her life was about to take a sharp turn. When she heard the new note in the river’s song, a deep bass rumble that told of the water’s unrest, she grabbed her purse, exited the tent she called home and stepped into a morning so blue it hurt to look.

Dew soaked the hem of her nightgown and squished through the toes of her bare feet as she walked to the water’s edge. Catfish made every step she did, sticking close by her side as if he knew this was no ordinary day; it was a day that required strict attention lest you get left behind in your own befuddlement.

Jolene put her hand on the head of the big shaggy dog, a yellow stray somebody had tossed aside and left for dead till she came along with her cane pole and fished him right out of the Tennessee. She knew then he was destined to be her dog.

She’d been fished out at the same secluded spot, a newborn screaming till her face had turned a peculiar shade Mr. Luther Kimball, who had found her, described as the color of a black concord grape. She still had that tint, as if fate didn’t want her to forget that part of her belonged to the river that had spit her out.

He’d carried her to St. Margaret of Mercy orphanage in Decatur, Alabama, where he taught history, and though he did his best to be father, mother and best friend to her, she’d ended up being teased by the other orphans who called her grape jam.

Catfish, she told her dog who sat down politely the minute they reached the water’s edge. After today, nobody’s ever going to call me grape jam again.

He cocked his head to one side, which showed how much he respected Jolene’s announcement.

We’re going on a big adventure, and when I finish, everybody is going to know I’m somebody. Even the nuns.

Jolene still stung at the future they’d imagined for her. If you’ll keep your mouth shut and learn to do as you’re told, the nuns had said to her, you might graduate from here and become a maid.

She hadn’t wanted to graduate from there, which was just a fancy term for being kicked out of St. Margaret of Mercy Orphanage when you turned eighteen, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to end up a maid.

Jolene knew there was a better future for her. Mr. Luther and President Kennedy had said so. But first, she had to know whether her mother had meant to kill her or to save her. She was hoping for the latter. Moses had been saved because his mother set him afloat among the bulrushes. Why not Jolene Huckstable?

As she unbuttoned her gown, she thought about her journey from the river and back. When Mr. Luther had to leave his teaching position at the orphanage because of a stroke, Jolene had left too, escaping in the middle of the night, pulling the hope chest she’d rigged with wheels. Nobody came looking; Jolene’s color made her invisible. And she’d ended up right back at the river where she started.

The records at St. Margaret’s of Mercy said she was fifteen that day she left, but her birthday was as much a fantasy as her name, just words in a book Sister Mary Joseph wrote down the night Mr. Luther brought her screaming to the orphanage door.

By their calculations she’d now be seventeen, but she felt old as the river sighing and quarreling as it beat against the banks that confined it.

Jolene looked in all directions, and seeing not a soul, she set her purse on the ground and slipped out of her gown, a voluminous cotton rendered colorless by too many washings. It landed at the feet of her dog, but Catfish kept his dignity, his paws solidly planted and his head cocked as if the universe were whispering secrets only he could hear.

Watch my purse, Catfish. If you see somebody coming, bark.

It always shocked Jolene that the river was cold this time of morning, even in summertime. Ordinarily she’d make quick work of her bath, but today she took extra care, even ducking under and scrubbing her hair. When she came back out, she removed the tangles with her hands. She wished she had a red ribbon to tie her hair back, but she might as well long for the moon. Every penny she could spare went into her college fund.

Your turn, Catfish.

He smiled in that lopsided way that always made her laugh and then hit the water with the exuberance of a dog with retrievers in his lineage and the pure joy of frolic in his blood.

Some folks might not think a dog can smile; they might not think he’d care whether you waited for him by the river or walked off and left him to trail along behind, but Jolene knew better. Catfish had a kind soul, and he was one of only three in the world who cared about her. The other two were Mr. Luther Kimball, who had saved her, and John F. Kennedy, who had given her the dream of being Somebody with a capital S.

She planned on writing the President a thank you letter. Last fall when he sent troops to make sure a black man named James Meredith got to enter the University of Mississippi, Jolene saw that it might be possible for her to go to college the same as anybody who was pure lily white. As excited as if she’d already put Dear President Kennedy on the cream-colored stationery Mr. Luther kept in the cherry wood desk in his room, Jolene skipped all the way to her tent.

It was perched under the hill overlooking the Tennessee, out of sight of the riverside park just beyond a copse of oak and pine trees but close enough that she could use the park’s outdoor toilet and their drinking fountains when nobody was looking. Sometimes she even found abandoned hamburgers only half-eaten and still warm to the touch. There was no accounting for what people would throw away.

I’m wearing my best dress today, Catfish.

Actually, it was her only dress, but her dog wagged his tail as if she’d selected the cotton print with yellow daisies from a hope chest that held dresses in every color. It also held a heavy package wrapped in newspaper she’d got out of the trash can at the nursing home then tied with a piece of twine she found near the river.

After she’d fed Catfish, she laced up her high-top tennis shoes, grabbed her purse and the package then set out toward the nursing home where Mr. Luther had helped her get a job. Perched on the highest bluff in Decatur, it was called Southern Pines Rest Home in spite of the fact that there was not a pine tree in sight and hardly anybody ever rested there. Haunted by lost dreams and fading memories of family who found too many excuses not to come, the residents prowled the halls in their walkers and their wheelchairs, hoping to see a familiar face or find an unlocked door that might open up to the life they once had.

The nursing home was only a mile down the river, an easy walk in the summertime with the sun shining and her dog beside her.

They came upon a squat, ugly building with the bricks painted a dingy brown color that not even Jolene could find a thing to recommend it.

She rubbed Catfish’s ears, and he sat down to wait until she went into the building.

He’d be there when she came back, too. Jolene didn’t know how he spent his days, but she imagined him back at the river cooling off in the water and dreaming of being a Dog of Great Importance.

Inside, she put her purse into the utility cart and hurried down to room 16. Unlike the other rooms, which held only a bed, a table, a chair and sometimes a few faded family pictures on the wall, Mr. Luther Kimball’s room was the kind of place you’d want to come inside and explore. There were books on shelves, books in baskets, books stacked in boxes under the bed. Travel posters lined his walls, maps of every place you’d want to go spilled from a box on his desk, and a collection of water globes decorated the windowsill, each one featuring a miniature replica of places he’d been – the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, the pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal. But her personal favorite was a little yellow cottage with a dog, a tire swing and a tiny oak tree that covered itself with snow every time you tilted the globe.

Mr. Luther himself sat in his wheelchair, peering out the window, his thinning gray hair slicked back and his skinny frame thrust into a tuxedo two sizes too big.

Happy birthday, Mr. Luther!

Jolene! How nice you look today.

So do you. I brought you a present. But you can’t open it till the party.

As she dug the package out of her cleaning cart and set it on the windowsill, she imagined how he’d smile when she saw what the river had tossed up this time.

Not one little peek?

Not a one. She grabbed her dust rag and set to work. It wouldn’t do for Estelle Crumpett, the head housekeeper, to poke her head through the door and find Jolene standing in the middle of the floor, idle as some people’s tongues. What time will your son be here?

Any minute now. George likes to leave early, before the traffic gets heavy. He’s scared somebody up there in Nashville will put a dent in his new silver Cadillac.

The minute he gets here, you start the party and open your presents, Mr. Luther.

George and I will visit. We have lots of catching up to do. I’m not having the party until you’re off work, Jolene. You’re my special guest.

I won’t be so special if my boss catches me in here lollygagging.

Loitering, my dear.

I like that fancy word. I’ll try it out on Catfish and see what he thinks.

Someday you’ll be trying it out on kings and queens. You’re that smart.

Bourne upward by Mr. Luther’s opinion, Jolene felt as if she were flying above the mop bucket, looking down from the top of the Eiffel Tower onto the teenager teetering on the brink of womanhood in her high-top sneakers that needed another piece of cardboard in the soles.

The buoyant feeling stayed with her all day. From time to time, she’d come off the mountaintop of her own imagination to search out the window, but she wouldn’t know a Cadillac from a pumpkin.

At five o’clock on the dot, Jolene stowed her cart and went to find Catfish sitting beside the employee’s entrance. Squatting down to scratch his ears, she told him what a good dog he was, how noble and brave and smart. Unlike the nuns, who held such low expectations for Jolene it’s a wonder she could ever find a dream, she wanted her dog to have reason to hold his head high.

"Now, you wait right here a little while longer. I’m going back inside for a birthday party with Mr. Luther and George. I’m the special guest!"

She giggled at Catfish’s expression, a cross between being suitably impressed and eager to go fetch sticks on the river. She tried not to skip going back down the hall in case old Mrs. Crumpett was looking, but she was so happy to be special to somebody, it was hard to keep her feet from flying off in every direction. When she got to room 16, she reached into her red purse for one of the treasures she’d found, a perfectly good spoon somebody had tossed into the trash at the park. Polished up with river sand, it made a mirror where Jolene could view a miniature of herself. She wiped the smudge off her cheek, but there was nothing she could do for her hair which grew so wild all over her head it looked like a bank of kudzu gone crazy. She mashed it down on each side then pushed open the door.

Mr. Luther was lying on his bed, lost in his tuxedo, his face still turned to the window. The TV was on, Jolene’s gift was unopened, and George was nowhere in sight. Jolene’s gut feeling said he hadn’t just slipped out to get candy from the vending machine or bring a cake from his silver car.

Mr. Luther?

Oh…Jolene. He fumbled on the bedside table for his glasses then turned to smile at her. Do come in, my dear. The party cake is already here!

A cupcake with pink icing and one blue candle sat on his dinner tray beside a partially-eaten meal, meatloaf and green peas congealing in grease, and a glass of tea half-empty. Jolene rescued the cupcake and put it on the windowsill so it would look festive beside the water globes and her gift, still wrapped in newspaper. She wished she’d spent a dime on a pack of balloons.

You take the best chair, Jolene.

Besides the wheelchair, the rocking chair was the only one in the room. It was a running joke between them that she always had the best chair on her Sundays off and the weeknights when she’d come back to visit and read from one of his books or listen to him recount historical events as if he’d personally witnessed them all. Some evenings they’d do nothing but solve math problems or pour over maps of the world. Afterward, he’d turn on his TV and they’d listen to classical music by the Boston Symphony Orchestra or a speech by President Kennedy.

Jolene had learned so much from him, she thought Mr. Luther must be smarter than God.

Thank you, she told him, and then sat down in the chair. She’d learned manners from him, too, which was the reason she didn’t ask where George was or why he hadn’t come.

Still, should she say she was sorry about George or not even mention his name?

The silence in the room became huge, filled only by a hullabaloo on the TV. The National Guard was called in yesterday, the reporter said as a replay of events showed protestors holding signs while Governor Wallace barred the entrance of two scared black kids who were trying to enroll at the University of Alabama.

Jolene’s face got as hot as if the governor were standing between her and her dream. If it was her TV, she’d smack him.

When Mr. Luther finally said, Do you think we should eat the birthday cake first or open your gift? she was relieved to think about something else.

Oh, do open your present first. I can’t wait for you to see it!

As he untied the twine and peeled back the newspaper, the piece of driftwood emerged bit by bit. If you looked closely and used your imagination, you’d see the face of a woman with flowing hair, the curve of her hip and the fan-shape of her tail.

Why thank you, Jolene. She’s beautiful.

You can never get lost now. You have a mermaid who will always sing you home.

He admired her gift from all angles, and Jolene filled with as much pride as if she’d gone to J.C. Penney and paid a whole dollar for the mermaid instead of finding her washed up from the river. Of all the legends and myths Mr. Luther had taught her, the one of the mermaid whose song guided lost souls through the fog was her favorite.

Lately, Mr. Luther’s mind seemed to be vanishing right along with the flesh on his bones. It broke Jolene’s heart to find him wandering down the hall in his wheelchair, wearing a hat with his pajamas. He was heading to teach his classes, he’d say, or going to see his son George at the peewee baseball game.

Jolene didn’t trust people who threw their children in the river or left their daddy searching out the window while they went about their own selfish business. But she did trust in songs of the heart that would pull you home.

The driftwood mermaid had not simply come to her on a river swollen by the thunderstorm that made her and Catfish cower under her blanket. It had washed ashore on a wave of destiny, maybe even the same wave that had caused her to stumble upon the perfect hideaway beside the river when the moon was full and her stomach was empty, that night when she’d set out alone from the orphanage and thought she couldn’t drag her hope chest another inch.

Mr. Luther set his mermaid among the water globes while Jolene found a match to light his birthday candle. They admired the glow a while, and then she told him to make a wish. He closed his eyes and she closed hers, too, hoping that wishes made on someone else’s birthday candle might come true.

It took two tries for Mr. Luther to blow out his candle. Heart trouble, she’d head one of the nurses say. Suddenly she longed to go back and change her wish to a stronger heart for her friend. But it was too late. You can’t take back a wish, just as you can’t take back a past that leaves you with a fake name and an unknown mother.

Jolene sang Happy Birthday, and Mr. Luther clapped as if she were the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Brava, Jolene. You have a coloratura voice.

She didn’t know what that was, but it sounded excellent to her, as if she had standing ovations in her future. She leaned in close and caught one of Mr. Luther’s liver-spotted hands.

Mr. Luther, I have to be going.

I’ll see you tomorrow, Jolene.

No, not tomorrow. Maybe not for a long time.

Or maybe not ever. What if he died before she got back?

She felt Mr. Luther studying her until he saw the breakable orphan behind the self-confident young women who didn’t depend on anybody to put beans on her table.

Tell me what this is all about, Jolene.

I’m going to find my mother.

That’s not a good idea. Besides, where would you start?

The nuns always said there was a car with a Pontotoc, Mississippi license plate down by the river the day I was thrown away.

Listen to me now. I may not be much, but in my heyday I guided many a young person with a promising future. You’re exceptional.

"Thank you.’

I want you to move on and not look back. I’ll help you get your GED and go to college.

He could, too. Mr. Luther was a lifelong teacher with connections all over Mississippi and Alabama.

I want to go to college more than just about anything I can think of. But how can I forget my mother? I need to know why I was not good enough to keep.

Finding her won’t change who you are.

The truth struck a chord so strong she could feel the vibration in her bones. And yet her dreams kept calling her back. Even the river urged her to find its long held secrets.

Mr. Luther pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket. When he pressed them into Jolene’s hand, she felt electrocuted and resurrected, all at the same time.

What’s that?

The keys to my car. It’s brand new, but if somebody doesn’t drive it, it’s just going to sit under that tree and rust.

The brand new Volkswagen Beetle was in fact nearly ten years old, mostly red but rusting in places from sitting idle too long in the nursing home parking lot. Mr. Luther had taught her to drive in that car, back when both of them first came to Southern Pines and he still had enough strength to go on Sunday picnics by the river.

She studied him, trying to see if he was in the present or lost once more in time, but nothing presented itself except an aging man, forgotten by his family on his birthday.

I wish I could take your car, I really do, but I don’t think it’d be right.

It’s better than all right. It’s in top notch condition.

Maybe he hadn’t seen the dent on the fender and the collection of dead bugs on the windshield. Failing eyesight was so common at Southern Pines, half the residents wore their clothes inside out.

Still, the freedom in that key held her spellbound.

But what about George? she asked. Won’t he be upset that you’re giving away your things? Mr. Luther dismissed George and his ideas with a wave of his hand. What if somebody says I stole it? Mrs. Crumpett’s bound to report it gone.

I’ll fix that.

He wheeled to his desk and proceeded to write in his shaky hand. When he’d finished, he handed her a note with a telephone number and the name Wayne Tucker written on it, as well as a transfer of ownership. From the looks of things, she’d purchased the car for and in consideration of a dollar.

I want you to go straight to Pontotoc. It was my hometown, you know. When you get there, call my old friend Wayne. He helped James Meredith get into the University over at Oxford last year and he’ll help you. Promise me you’ll do this.

I promise. Suddenly Jolene felt herself teetering on a threshold, filled with longing for what lay ahead and aching with regret for what she’d leave behind. I’m going to miss you, Mr. Luther.

No sad goodbyes. You’re taking bold action. This is cause for celebration!