Chapter 44
RUNNING LATE, Josephine set the dining room table for breakfast then returned to the kitchen. “How can I help you this morning, Calla?”
Calla, standing with her back to her, didn’t answer. She’d gone quiet again over the last couple of days, despite Josephine’s efforts to draw her out.
“Calla?” she tried again, stepping closer. Only then did she see Calla’s hands, trembling uncontrollably.
“I’m trying to stop, Josephine, but—” Her voice caught.
“I can hardly do my work for the jitters it’s giving me.
I dropped a dish yesterday and told Miss Mary I done forgot it was hot.
” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I ain’t never lied to her before.
And her being so good to me. For all the world, I wish the Lord would just take me like I been asking him.
I’m so tired of doing what I know I shouldn’t .
. . all to dull a hurt that seems set on never healing. ”
Josephine hugged her tight, sorrow and anger battling for dominance. “I wish I knew what to do to help you.”
“I think maybe I’m past help,” Calla whispered, staring at her clenched hands.
Josephine covered them with her own. She knew the steps for helping women leave men enslaved to drink—had taught them, recited them, believed them.
But since she’d fled Atlanta, those steps no longer felt simple.
She remembered standing outside saloons with her suffragist sisters, handing out pledge cards, chanting the vow printed in bold black type: I hereby solemnly promise, by God’s help, to abstain from all intoxicating liquors.
Most men, defiant, had tossed the cards back in their faces.
The mere thought of handing Calla a pledge card seemed calloused and cruel. Calla wasn’t defiant. She was hurting miserably, desperate to be freed from her addiction. And Josephine wondered, uncomfortably . . . how many of those men in Atlanta had secretly been desperate and hurting, too?
“Oh Jesus, help me,” Calla whispered, bowing her head.
“Sit down for a minute.” Josephine urged her toward the kitchen table.
“I can’t. Gotta get breakfast going.”
“Just sit, and I’ll get the coffee started. Maybe that will help.”
Calla didn’t argue, just stared, hollow-eyed.
Minutes later, Josephine handed her a steaming mug. “Drink this and I’ll get you something to eat.”
“I ain’t hungry, but thank you.” She sipped the hot coffee, hands wrapped around the warmth. “I don’t know how I ended up here.” Her shoulders sagged. “And I for sure don’t know how to climb back out of this pit.”
“I don’t either. But we’ll figure it out. Together.”
Calla pulled an envelope from her apron pocket. “Got this from Nannie yesterday. She writes how proud she is of me.” She shook her head. “But she got no idea who I really am.”
“Listen to me . . .” Josephine moved to where Calla couldn’t look away.
“You are so much more than the problem you’re having with drinking.
” She gripped her hands. “You are a kind, caring, wonderful person who, yes, is struggling. You’re grieving unimaginable loss, Calla.
The death of your husband. Your son.” Her eyes filled.
“I can hardly fathom that. But you will get through this. Impossible as that feels.”
Calla didn’t respond.
After a minute, she looked up. “I heard about your shooting adventure Sunday. Is it true? Bethie would’ve been gored if not for you?”
Josephine shook her head. “If not for Dodge shooting the boar, is the real story.”
“Way I heard it, she fell from the tree and you jumped down and got her back up just in time.” Calla’s eyes shone. “I love that girl. Ain’t nothing like a child to bring light to the world.”
Josephine’s heart broke at the loss etched in Calla’s features.
The sound of the front door opening carried toward them, as did Miss Mary’s voice, and Calla’s eyes widened.
Josephine rose. “I’ll go talk to her for a few minutes. Give you time to collect yourself.”
Gripping her hands tight, Calla nodded.
Josephine poured two more mugs of coffee and met Miss Mary and her husband in the lobby. As they chatted, she hoped—no, she prayed—for Calla, hoping God would listen. Please Lord, listen . . . For her sake, even if not for mine.
When she followed Miss Mary back into the kitchen minutes later, Calla was already mixing biscuits, sausage frying on the stove, hands no longer shaking.
Calla barely glanced at her before turning away, and Josephine knew.
And her chest ached with the awful truth of it.
Not so much that Calla had turned to whiskey again for comfort.
But the awful truth that as whiskey comforted, it also enslaved.
A while later, her heart still heavy, Josephine approached the distillery office and could hear cursing even before she opened the door. When she did, she saw Mr. Daniel hobbling around on one foot, still cursing up a storm. “Mr. Daniel, are you all right?”
He turned, red-faced. “Do I look all right, Mrs. Dunham!” Groaning through clenched teeth, he leaned against the desk and glared at the floor safe. “Five times I tried the combination and that confounded thing still won’t open! So I hauled off and kicked the good-for-nothing piece of—”
A string of expletives followed that she didn’t fully catch and didn’t need to. His gaze darted back to her as though he dared her to show even an ounce of humor at his expense.
“Sit down, sir. Please!” Josephine set her purse on the desk and rolled his office chair toward him.
“That dang safe is going to be the death of me!” He tried to put weight on his left foot and winced as he eased into the chair. “I finally have that meeting with Mr. Prince this morning, so I got here early. I need to get the gauger’s ledger out of that dad blame—”
“I can help you get whatever you need. And not to worry, we have time. Mr. Prince was still at the boarding house when I left. He’s moving very slowly after having been sick for the past two days.”
He leaned forward, staring down at his left boot. “I heard he was feeling poorly. What’s been ailing him?”
“Between us? I think it’s too many buttermilk biscuits and slices of fudge pie. That gentleman loves Calla’s cooking and eats to excess, despite his determination not to.”
He peered up at her. “At least he’s able to work it off by riding that bicycle of his.”
Maybe it was his barbed wit or the image of poor Mr. Prince pushing that one-wheeled bicycle all the way through town to the distillery, but Josephine had to laugh.
He managed a smile. “Ah, Mrs. Dunham, if only I could bottle that, I’d make a fortune.” He shrugged. “Or . . . another one.”
It took her a moment to realize what he was referring to.
She shook her head. The man was a shameless flirt, even though he meant nothing by it.
It seemed to come naturally to him. Yet for all of the differences between them, and there were many, she would actually miss Jack Daniel very much when the time came to leave Lynchburg.
His actions toward her had been more than generous, which made what she still intended to do all the more difficult.
“Dodge!” Mr. Daniel called when the front door opened. “Just the man I need to see.”
Dodge nodded a “good morning” to Josephine, then frowned when Mr. Daniel rose and started limping toward the safe. “What happened to you, Uncle Jack?”
“I’ll tell you what happened to him.” Josephine pointed toward the safe. “He finally just hauled off and kicked it!”
“You didn’t.” Disbelief swept Dodge’s face.
“Dodge, this infernal, cast-iron demon has been my nemesis almost from the day I got it!” He grimaced, hand resting on the safe to steady himself. “If you’ll get out the gauger’s book, I want to look over the figures before Mr. Prince gets here.”
Tempted to watch over Dodge’s shoulder as he turned the dial on the tumblers, Josephine refrained. A few minutes with that ledger was all she needed. Now if Mr. Daniel would only take his customary morning walk around the distillery.
“How’s Bethie doing?” Mr. Daniel asked, easing into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Everybody in town’s talking about what happened.”
Dodge handed him the ledger. “She’s already much better. Doc said it was a sprain and should heal within a week or two. But she’s milking it for all it’s worth.”
“And how about you, Mrs. Dunham.” Mr. Daniel looked over. “Bet that was a first. Wild boars charging at you.”
“Yes, it was. I’m glad to hear Bethie’s doing well, and I’m especially grateful for Mr. Coburn’s quick reflexes that day.”
Mr. Daniel smirked. “Oh he’s got quick reflexes all right. You know that’s how he got his name, don’t you?”
“She doesn’t need to hear that story, Uncle Jack.”
“Yes, sirree,” Mr. Daniel continued undaunted. “How old were you? About fifteen or so?”
Dodge shook his head. “I’m not contributing to this.”
Mr. Daniel’s expression turned indulgent.
“Bunch of us were up at the farm. It was early fall. I can still smell the crispness in the air and that faint tang of whiskey mash rolling up the hill. A shipment of new bulls had just arrived from nearby Lois, and the hands were unloading them from a rickety old stock cart.” He shook his head.
“I don’t know how that old cart held up under the weight of those three bulls, even for the handful of miles between towns.
Anyway, a much younger Mr. Coburn here had been working on the farm for a while, doing odd jobs.
But on that particular day, he was helping to get the bulls into the corral. ”
Josephine glanced at Dodge who seemed intent on not paying attention.
“Anyway, the older hands were shouting orders and swinging ropes, prodding the bulls down the ramp and through the gate when the last bull, a massive brute of a beast, started down. He was snorting, swinging those horns from side to side. Dodge, you remember how big he was?”
“Like I could ever forget. I thought I was going to die that day.” He offered a self-deprecating smile.