Little Sacrifices Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  About the author

  Jamie Scott is the pen name of Michele Gorman, who writes chick lit (Single in the City, Misfortune Cookie, etc.) under her own name. Michele is represented by Caroline Hardman at Hardman Swainson Literary Agency (http://www.hardmanswainson.com).

  Copyright

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Jamie Scott

  Cover Illustration copyright © Media Union

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-908426-22-2

  Thank you

  I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Jewell Anderson, formerly of the Georgia Historical Society. For more than a year, she patiently answered countless phone calls and emails, sent me packages of photocopied photos, maps and historical documents. She was instrumental in ensuring that all of the facts, people, and settings in Little Sacrifices are historically accurate, so any slip-ups are mine alone. Because of Jewell, I was able to visualize the Savannah of the 1940s.

  Chapter 1

  Fifty–five years has made me a Savannahian by inclination if not origin. Everyone who meets me hears the taffy pull drawl of a native and feels the Southern hospitality for which we are known. They are surprised to find that I was once a Yankee, so well have I acclimated. The process began when we moved, but will never really be complete. In unguarded moments memories of Mount Greylock or white Christmases still sneak up on me and make me homesick. Even after so long.

  I’d be lying if I said my conversion came easy. It was a long, tender process to pick apart the beliefs I’d knitted together growing up, to decide which threads to follow and which to cut away. It wasn’t until we moved that there was anything to decide. There’s no need for self–examination where everyone thinks like you. It was only when I looked around and didn’t see myself reflected back that the questioning began.

  It was my parents’ fault that we had to move in the first place, not necessarily to Savannah but at least away from my hometown. Being card–carrying pacifists during the Second World War while the rest of the country whipped itself into a patriotic froth made us unpopular. Duncan’s pig–headed desire to share his views made us despicable. He served up his anti–war rants over dinner more often than Ma did her pot roast and potatoes. At home his warnings played to a narrow audience, but in his history lectures they got him into trouble. By the time Williams College introduced military classes to make soldiers of its students, Duncan had had enough of the war and the Dean had had enough of Duncan. Fortunately, all the young professors were off fighting, so he couldn’t fire my father outright. Instead he killed his career by inches. Anger and hurt feelings were liberally shared around. Word went out that we didn’t support the war or the brave boys fighting it. Subtly and not so subtly we felt the change. In town, smiles were less friendly and a general mistrust settled upon our neighbors. A decade later, Senator McCarthy would officially call us un–American, but at the time it was the beginning of the end of our days in the little town nestled in the Berkshire Hills. It took Duncan the better part of five years to leave his dead–end job for another. So eventually we moved, when I was fifteen, in nineteen forty–seven. We were likely to be as welcome in the South as monkeys in church.

  We drove to our new home. Those were the days before I–95 was built, so our move was almost as uncomfortable physically as it was emotionally. We made our way along busy two lane roads that tied themselves in knots around the cities. For Duncan the trip was bursting with educational promise. He regaled us with geographic trivia, recalculated our gas mileage at each filling station and reported hourly on our progress towards Savannah. After the first couple of hours I stopped humoring him. Ma did enough of that for both of us, so much so that I suspected Doc Ewing gave her something to improve her outlook. I preferred to let a strong case of resentment cheer me up, so I busied myself in the back seat wishing all manner of minor tragedy on her, as fitting punishment for letting Duncan get us into this mess. It was, after all, her job to make him behave like a responsible adult. That was one of their problems. No one wanted to be the grownup.

  After four long days, I was almost grateful to see South Carolina’s piney woods drift into marshland as we approached Georgia. Duncan started making won’t–be–long–now promises when we crossed the bridge and left the rest of the country behind to become Savannahians. Downtown was shaggy and sun–bleached. Live oaks, oil palms and palmettos shaded the walkways, and mansions skirted the squares that the city is now so famous for. They didn’t make for such a pretty picture then. At least half the houses were abandoned, boarded up and falling down. The squares were trampled flat and strewn with rubbish. I pitied the few azaleas and banana trees trying to maintain their dignity in the face of so much decay. Duncan said that just the year before Lady Astor visited Savannah and liked what she saw. The city, she said, was like a beautiful lady with a dirty face. She was either near–sighted or remarkably charitable.

  The hand–drawn map sent by the lawyer left us in no doubt about his cartography skills. He’d forgotten a few things, like the detail that Savannah’s streets only wind in one direction around the squares, and that a large park with no through roads separated us from our new house. We made a fairly comprehensive tour of town over the next few hours. After several stops to ask directions, Ma started crying in the front seat. Doc Ewing’s pills were simply no match for the geographic challenge of Savannah’s roads.

  Our house was in the Victorian district, the first suburb I’d ever seen. The streets were wide and straight with houses sitting on both sides like polite diners at a very long table. Everyone had a little yard with flowers and a sidewalk running to their front door. What a difference from my home town. Our houses were built along one–time cart paths that meandered through the hills. Nothing about them indicated a predisposition for planning. I liked the idea of moving into a real neighborhood. As I watched Ma sniffle, an unexpected spoonful of pity mixed with the ample pot of resentment I was brewing. She didn’t want to be there any more than I did, though she’d never said so to me. Parents didn’t unburden themselves on their kids then, but I was an accomplished snoop and listened behind enough doors to know the move wasn’t as uncontested as they let on.

  When we spilled
sweating from the car to inspect our new address Ma grabbed my arm, leaving Duncan to lope ahead. ‘May,’ she hissed with tears still in her eyes. ‘I know this has been difficult for you, but I want you to remember that it’s important to your father. So don’t be too hard on him today, okay?’

  I didn’t plan to stick around long enough to be hard on anyone. When I said okay she squeezed my arm. ‘Good girl.’ Taking a deep, ragged breath she hoisted her face into a smile and went to join Duncan as he peered at the sagging steps.

  ‘It’s a nice porch, Duncan. A good scrub and a couple coats of paint and it’ll be just like home.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Uh hmm.’

  ‘Really?’ His voice was unused to accommodating doubt.

  ‘Just fine, you’ll see.’

  She was a good sport. They stood with linked arms, Ma smiling and Duncan looking grateful as he fished around his pockets for the house keys. ‘Ready? Here we go!’ He pushed open the door and ushered us into our new home.

  ‘What on earth. Duncan,’ Ma said. ‘Are you sure she’s gone?’

  ‘Sweet Jesus.’ The house was full of the old lady’s belongings. Heavy dark furniture crowded the living room. The sofa and every chair were covered with afghans that clashed with their fabrics. Crocheted doilies still protected the tabletops from the bric–a–brac that hovered on them. Almost every inch of wall was covered with little pictures, paintings, lithographs and photos. Considering that she’d taken her curtain call almost a year earlier I didn’t expect my new home to look quite so lived in. She might have merely stepped out for a loaf of bread.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly our style is it?’ Ma asked.

  I squinted into a dusty bell–shaped glass where a tattered blue jay perched. ‘Do we have to keep all this stuff?’

  ‘Good gracious, I hope not. We don’t ... do we?’

  ‘No, the place is ours,’ Duncan confirmed. ‘We can do whatever we want with it.’

  But we were caught in limbo by the furnishings, our own left behind in the faculty house, no doubt being viewed with suspicion by some new professor’s family. Until I began packing for the move, no one bothered telling me that everything I thought we owned, right down to the pots and pans, belonged to the school. My parents were honest people but their penchant for disclosure was rough around the edges. Our shortage of earthly belongings left us with no choice but to find a place already furnished. We were hostages to the old woman’s taste. Ma walked around the living room picking things up and carefully putting them down again. ‘Why didn’t the family take her things?’ She wondered. ‘Look at all these photographs. Do you think they’ll come back for any of it?’

  Duncan shook his head. ‘The lawyer was very clear about it. There aren’t any kids, only a sister and she doesn’t want any of it. It’s all ours, like it or not!’ He gave Ma a playful squeeze and smiled at me just as an incessant buzz ricocheted through the house.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Ma cried.

  ‘Must be the doorbell. Probably one of the neighbors come over to be neighborly. May, please go see who it is.’

  I hadn’t heard a doorbell in all my years in Williamstown. It was a rude thing; as if we needed a warning to stop getting up to whatever the ringer was afraid we were getting up to. What good were neighbors if you couldn’t walk in on them unannounced?

  Chapter 2

  A skinny teenager balanced a pie in one hand while leaning on the buzzer with the other. His glasses had slid so far down his nose that he had to tip his head back to see. As I came to the door I looked up his nostrils.

  ‘Hey, I hear you. You can quit with the bell.’ He didn’t spare me a glance when I opened the screen, but shot into the hall like he lived there. It was only when it dawned on him that he was trapped, surrounded by us Powells, that he had the courtesy to look uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to foot, adjusted his glasses and pulled on his shirt. He introduced himself as Jim Rumer, our new next–door neighbor.

  ‘I’m not really new of course, you are. I’ve lived my whole life next door. With my Nan, she made the pie by the way. Pecan. Southerners always introduce themselves with a pecan pie. I’m not sure why, I guess it’s like a pineapple. You know, like you see on signs and newel posts. It’s a sign of welcome. Not that anyone’d just hand you a pineapple, and why always a pie I’m not sure either. You could probably do with a chicken or something instead, cooked I mean. What would you do with a raw chicken on your first day in your new house? I reckon you don’t even have a baking dish handy. Do you?’

  Ma blinked at him, smiling a little uncertainly. His was the most unprovoked conversation she’d had from a teenager in years. She thanked him, we all did. Duncan, in a particularly warm–hearted gesture, suggested I run along to make friends.

  As Jim and I sat in pollen–covered rockers on the porch, my first impression of Southerners was that they were long–winded. He waxed poetic about Savannah and talked like he was personally acquainted with Oglethorpe and the rest of the founding fathers. His fascination with history was evident. Within a minute I’d learned that Camp Stewart, not forty miles from Savannah, had imprisoned German POWs during the war, and that I’d moved to a city where things happened first. The first horserace was run and public school was opened (not in the same place). The Girl Scouts were born there and the first motorized fire department in the country was set up. I nodded encouragement every so often, but it was an unnecessary gesture. There was no stopping him.

  ‘We have ghosts you know.’ He looked pleased to be the one to tell me.

  ‘What do you mean, we?’

  ‘Oh they’re all over, in town, in some of the houses. In fact, I’d say most of the houses are haunted.’

  ‘When you say most, do you mean, on our street?’

  ‘No, not here. These houses aren’t that old. But on the squares. There’re a lot of ghosts there. And out at the plantations too.’

  ‘What plantations?’ I thought Sherman took care of those four generations earlier.

  ‘There’re loads of plantations. Geez, don’t you know anything?’

  Sure I did. I knew everything my parents told me about the South. Unfortunately they weren’t views that made for comfortable conversation when the other person was a Southerner. In fact, my parents had quite a few perspectives that were unlikely to make me any friends. That everyone ought to get treated the same, for example, no matter what color they are. No, I didn’t plan to enlighten anyone about their ideas. I stared across the road at a woman stooped in her flowerbeds. I could tell by the tilt of her gardening hat that she was watching us, no doubt speculating on how long we planned to wait before fixing the place up. Our grass grew knee–high, and weeds made the flowers cry uncle in the borders. A coat of paint wouldn’t be unwelcome on the clapboards. The only sounds to reach me were the grasshoppers courting in the bushes.

  It took a minute to notice that Jim was asking me something. From the sound of it he was getting tired of asking. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘I asked what brought you down here.’

  ‘Duncan’s going to teach at Armstrong next week. History.’ It was a little bit of the whole truth anyway.

  ‘Who’s Duncan?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘You call him by his Christian name? Why?’

  Like so many other things, it wasn’t something I thought about. ‘It was one of my first words. Well, Dundun. I guess my parents thought I’d outgrow it and eventually start calling him Dad. But he’s always been Duncan.’

  ‘Your parents have some weird ideas.’

  He didn’t know the half of it.

  ‘What grade are you starting?’ He asked. Tenth I told him. He said he was going to be a sophomore too, a claim that made me look closely at my one and only potential friend. His face carried the downy patina of childhood and his features were as delicate as a girl’s. Through his Coke–bottle lenses I could just make out blue eyes. His hair stood up in all directions like a
hayfield recovering from a good trampling, and if he was any skinnier he’d blow away. Even in such a sun–soaked place he was ridiculously pale. He looked no more than ten years old. It seemed bad–mannered to call someone a liar less than an hour after they introduce themselves, so I smiled and nodded.

  ‘You’re not Catholic, are you?’ He asked.

  What a question. ‘No.’

  ‘Then what are you?’

  What was I? I was a teenager, white like Jim and from what I could see, like everyone else in the neighborhood. I was the new kid. Other than that, I wasn’t so sure. ‘I don’t know.’

  Jim wasn’t looking for a philosophical answer. ‘I mean you’re not going to St Vincent’s, are you?’ Embarrassed, I said no. ‘Then we’ll both be Blue Jackets! You’ll love it. Just wait till basketball season. The gym is packed to the beams. I’ve been waiting my whole life to go. To high school I mean, not the gym. Won’t it be great? A whole new start. New school, new teachers, new chance to make friends. Don’t you think so, May?’

  Growing up in the Northeastern sticks, I had only the vaguest notion that America continued south of New York City. My peculiar view of geography wasn’t uncommon among yokels like me. My old life seemed a world away and I snapped without meaning to. ‘No I don’t actually, Jim. My friends are back home and I’d rather be starting high school with them. I don’t know a soul here.’

  He inched uncomfortably close. ‘Yes you do. You know me. I’ll be your first friend in Savannah.’ Looking at him, I knew with the infallible radar teenagers have that Jim Rumer was a misfit. He was a by–the–way boy, living his life quietly at the fringes and only noticed after the fact. ‘By the way, this is Jim.’ I was willing to bet he didn’t have any friends. I felt tears sting my eyes. Who was I to be choosy about the company I kept? ‘Thanks.’