Chapter 51 The Beginning
The Beginning
Kate Shaw
Such as today.
Three months ago the community met in Eli’s church at five o’clock on a Friday.
They were given no warning about change coming before strangers in blue suits said school would close and not reopen.
Ready or not, come September students would go to county schools.
Fresh gravel and a bridge over the creek were pledged, and the county has done a mediocre job.
A rudimentary bridge with framed sides and planked decking has been built, but it won’t hold when big rains come.
A better one will have to be built. That’s what the old-timers say.
But at summer’s end this story has a new chapter: Birdie Rocas died and left a startling legacy.
With funding coming from one of their own and not do-gooders off the mountain, people may be inclined to accept help.
Under Eli’s supervision, Sadie Blue will meet with families to determine what the students need to succeed.
They’ll get new textbooks and tutors and encouragement to help them adjust. Every year each child will get new shoes and a warm winter coat.
Birdie’s gift will help them fit in. This will be a paying job for Sadie. She’ll be good at it.
Lucy Flannery, Lydia’s sister, has found expanded purpose teaching at Mountain Heritage.
After Gus recounted Eddie’s work to prepare for change, Lucy wants to help.
She recommended he write for the school newspaper and create a unique column called “Creekrise.” His words will bridge old mountain ways with town life.
Lucy will meet weekly with the displaced children and be their sounding board.
With guidance on both ends of the new road they travel, their chance for success goes up exponentially.
The summer solving puzzles ends differently than we imagined.
The closing of the one-room schoolhouse could have meant a dead end, but the card EXPECT A MIRACLE continues to bestow blessings.
Before leaving the area, I went to the school where the October Festival was held last fall.
I was curious about the gypsy woman with the crystal ball in her tent of scarves.
I wanted to tell her about the good things that had turned me into a believer. But the strangest thing happened.
Neither the principal nor his secretary remembered a gypsy booth at the festival.
They said I must be thinking of a different carnival.
I assured them it was only theirs that I’d attended.
Then I asked Loretty if she recollected the gypsy reading my fortune.
She looked puzzled and said she remembered bobbing for apples, the man on stilts, and Jimbo throwing up from eating too much candy.
I’m left with only one conclusion: The gypsy with the card was a miracle for me, possibly conjured by Birdie.
Today is my final drive to Baines Creek, and it’s bittersweet.
I thought I came as penance and my expectations were simple.
But I leave reborn and open to more. My Edsel holds my meager possessions, and I cross the new bridge and park beside Lydia’s Jeep.
Rachel with his graying muzzle walks beside me.
It’s the last Friday in August and the community has been told to come at five o’clock to hear good news.
Long tables and folding chairs have been set up.
Food will be delivered by Easy Street Homecooked Meals in Burnsville.
Fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, corn on the cob, and baskets of angel rolls with creamery butter.
There will be apple pies and peach pies, too, and homemade ice cream packed in ice and rock salt and cranked in steel cylinders.
I wave to Sadie Blue and her brood standing beside Granny C and Lydia Brown, and there’s Gus and her mama laughing with Eli, Eddie, and his mama Jolene.
These are the faces of support for the future.
This is the moment I could not fathom when hope had dwindled to a grain of grit.
Birdie gave us a puzzle to solve, and it led to this moment.
There’s going to be standing room only in church.
It is the night that will change everything.