Chapter 2 #2
“Thanks, you know, for having my back.”
“Always have, always will. No matter what you decide to do, you have us. We won’t let anyone, even your own father, hurt you.
” She kissed his forehead and then went to see about food for the troops.
There was never a time when their children couldn’t eat, but the thought of food with this decision weighing on him turned Linc’s stomach.
His thoughts were all over the place, but he kept coming back to the moment that changed his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined, the first time he’d laid eyes on young Molly Stillman, fresh off a thirty-hour bus ride from Vermont to Mississippi to spend a summer building homes for those who’d lost theirs in a devastating hurricane the year before.
She’d been a recent graduate of Middlebury College, wanting to see more of the country and volunteer to help others before she went to work for the family business in Vermont.
Back then, she’d had long honey-colored hair, freckles on her nose and an inquisitive nature that had immediately intrigued him.
He saw young Molly in all three of their daughters—in Hannah’s curiosity, in Ella’s kindness, in Charley’s determination.
Fresh out of grad school at Yale, Linc was volunteering on the housing project before spending a post-graduate year at Oxford.
As a lifelong Anglophile, he’d dreamed of living in the UK and retracing the steps of The Beatles, his favorite band of all time.
The two months in Mississippi were supposed to have been a brief interlude before he got on with the rest of his life.
Little had he known then that those two months would change everything.
The first thing Linc had noticed when he arrived in Gulfport, Mississippi (population 39,600 at the time), was the heat.
He’d been told it would be hot, but nothing could’ve properly prepared him for the thick blanket of humidity that made it almost hurt to breathe.
Thankfully, Gulfport benefited from the sea breezes off the Gulf of Mexico, which provided a bit of relief.
He’d been met at the bus depot by Joseph Tolman, a tall, muscular Black man with a big smile and a crushing handshake.
“Thanks so much for coming.” He gestured for Linc to follow him to his pickup truck.
“We need all the help we can get to finish this project in time to receive the second half of our federal funding.”
In the wake of Hurricane Frederic the year before, Tolman and several local contractors had committed to building a hundred and fifty affordable housing units by September 1 and had advertised nationally for volunteers willing to spend a summer learning on the job.
Linc had been immediately intrigued by the opportunity to acquire practical skills while also helping people before he left for Oxford.
Since they’d lost his older brother Hunter three years earlier, nothing had been the same.
Linc had grappled with his own grief after the staggering loss and had found it harder to be home, where pervasive sadness hung over their family.
Spending the summer in Philadelphia hadn’t been an option he’d been willing to entertain.
When he’d heard about the project in Mississippi, he’d jumped at the chance to have something else to do.
“My friend who told me about your project said it wouldn’t matter that I don’t have any construction experience,” Linc said.
When Joseph started the engine, AC/DC’s new song, “You Shook Me All Night Long,” came blasting out of the radio. Smiling, Joseph turned down the volume. “Your friend was right. We’ll teach you what you need to know and rough up those soft hands in the process.”
Linc laughed at the teasing jab that was delivered in the sweetest Southern accent. “I’ve been in school my entire life, or at least that’s how it seems.”
“Now it’s time for some life skills.”
“That’s the idea.”
“We work six days a week from sunup to sundown, but Sundays are all yours. We have almost seven miles of white sand beaches here in Gulfport.”
“I read about that and can’t wait to check it out. I can see myself spending a lot of Sundays there.” Some of his favorite summers as a kid had been spent at the Jersey Shore with his grandparents, who’d had a summer home there.
“We’ve set up a campsite for the volunteers. It’s nothing fancy, but it has everything you need.”
“I’m sure it’s great.”
“When we realized we were in danger of missing our deadline to keep our federal funding, one of my partners suggested we put out a call for volunteers to the colleges. We really appreciate y’all coming.”
“I appreciate you keeping me from having to spend the summer at home under my father’s thumb.”
“It’s a pretty strong thumb, is it?”
“You have no idea. He’s waiting for me to finish school and come into the family business.”
“Which is?”
“Commercial real estate.”
“Sounds exciting.”
Linc laughed. “Not so much, but it pays the bills.” The company was enormously successful, thanks to his father’s vision and hard work. However, as the date got closer for Linc to join the company’s executive team, he felt more and more trapped in a life of someone else’s design.
“And that’s what you want to do?” Joseph asked.
“I’m not exactly excited about it, if that’s what you’re asking, but that’s the plan.
” All their plans had changed when Hunter died, and his father turned his sights on Linc as the new heir apparent.
What Linc wanted didn’t seem to matter, but since he didn’t have a viable alternative, he’d gone along with his father’s plan for him, albeit reluctantly.
“Huh,” Joseph said.
“It’s okay to say what you really think.”
“Then I’ll just say life is short. You should do what makes you happy, not what’s expected of you.”
“I couldn’t agree more, but I’ve yet to find anything that makes more sense to me than the family business.”
“Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places.”
“I suspect that might be the case, which is why I jumped at the chance to spend the summer somewhere I’ve never been, working on something meaningful.”
“The work you’ll do here will mean so much to so many. We have a hundred and fifty families who were displaced by the storm lined up to get the first group of new houses. Many of them will be first-time homeowners, and they’re so excited.”
“It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing.”
“I think so, too, but it’s turned out to be far more stressful than we expected due to the rigid deadlines that come with federal funding. It’s giving me gray hair.”
Linc figured Joseph to be in his late thirties, and sure enough, he had a few grays in his otherwise dark hair. “It’ll be worth it in the end when those families are happily settled.”
“Keep telling me that.” Joseph hooked a left onto a dirt road that led to the campsite where a bunch of tents had been set up. “Y’all have your own tents, but you’ll share the bathrooms,” he said, pointing to a building to the far left.
In another large tent with open sides, a group of people bustled about.
“Food,” Joseph said when he saw Linc looking at the larger tent. “My wife, Keisha, and several of the other wives are in charge of feeding the volunteers. Keisha also runs the business side of things for my company, while taking care of our kids.”
“You all are busy.”
“You have no idea. Come meet my bride and the others.”
Lincoln got out of the truck and followed Joseph into the tent. “This is Lincoln Abbott from Pennsylvania by way of Yale. Linc, this is my wife, Keisha, our daughter, Jasmine, my business partner, Desmond, his wife, Charity, and their daughter, Shanda.”
Linc shook hands with the adults and bent to say hello to little Shanda, who was about three. “Nice to meet you all.”
“You, too.” Keisha had a warm, welcoming smile, golden-brown skin and bright brown eyes. Her braided hair was captured in a high ponytail to keep it out of her way while she worked. “You have no idea what you’ve signed on for around here.”
“That’s probably true, but something smells really good.”
“We’re going to work you hard, but one thing I can promise is that you’ll eat like a king,” Joseph said.
Linc’s mouth watered from the aromas coming from the pans. “Sounds like a fair deal to me.”