“
C
hildren’s home? No, I don’t know of any children’s home around here.” The waitress poised, pad in hand, and totaled my breakfast bill. She looked to be around forty-plus, certainly old enough to remember. And a place that big couldn’t just disappear.
The woman refilled my coffee cup without my even asking and whisked away the empty plate. The doc had closed the clinic for the day because of his niece’s wedding and I’d taken advantage of my time off to drive almost eighty miles to the little foothill town of Hughes, North Carolina, where Summerwood was located. Now, having treated myself to sausage and biscuits, along with grits and red-eye gravy, at a tiny diner that was once a railroad car, I felt I’d driven into the Twilight Zone.
“Summerwood Acres,” I said. “It’s only a few miles outside of town.” What little spending money we’d had never made it farther than here. Hughes was synonymous to me with movies and ice cream cones. How could anyone overlook more than a hundred children?
“I’ve only been here a couple of years,” the waitress said, obviously noticing my disappointment. “Why don’t you ask Gail? She’s lived around here forever.”
I thanked her and left a tip, then stood in line to pay my bill and speak with the cashier who’d been pointed out to me.
Gail was a small, perky woman with bright brown eyes and a quick smile. “Oh, honey, are you one of the Summerwood kids?” she asked when I repeated my question, and I knew by the way she said it that something had gone wrong.
“I was for a while, but that was a long time ago. I just thought I’d look up some people I knew there.” I hadn’t been back to Summerwood Acres since I went to live with Aunt Caroline and Uncle Henry. My aunt was afraid it would upset me, remind me of my parents’ death, and with Sam gone, I had no good reason to visit.
“Oh, my goodness,” Gail said, and she didn’t look as vivacious anymore. “I guess you haven’t been here in a while. The children’s home burned—or most of it did—about three or four years ago. Lightning, they say. Happened during a storm. Thank goodness no one was hurt!”
I thought of all those records. “Was anything left?”
She gave me my change and shoved the cash drawer shut. “Not much, I’m afraid. The main hall burned to the ground, but they saved the kitchen wing and one of the dorms—I think it was the boys’. A while back somebody tried to turn the place into some kind of camp, but I reckon it must’ve fizzled. Haven’t heard any more about it.”
“What happened to the people who worked there?” I’d never find Sam now, or anybody who knew him.
She shook her head. “Oh, Lord, who knows! I expect some of them retired.” Then suddenly she smiled. “Hey, I’ll bet Ambrose would know! Ambrose Dunn. Remember him? Used to be caretaker there. Married to a cousin of mine, and hasn’t worked a lick since the fire.”
I didn’t remember Ambrose, I said, but I’d sure like to meet him.
“Then you won’t have far to go.” Gail led me to the window. “See that row of men on the bench in front of the hardware store? The second from the left is Ambrose. They’ve helped to solve the world’s problems three times over without ever leaving that bench. I’m sure you must’ve noticed a difference,” she added, laughing.
“I’ll try and remember to thank them,” I told her as I left.
Ambrose wore a neatly ironed short-sleeved dress shirt, Bermuda shorts—faded blue and baggy—and black calf-length socks with an expanse of skinny white leg in between. He looked like the type who might consider whittling if it weren’t too strenuous. But he was polite and offered me a seat.
“Thank you, no. Please don’t get up,” I said, as if there were any real danger of this. “I’m trying to find anyone who might have worked at the children’s home at Summerwood twenty years ago or more. I understand there was a fire.”
He nodded sadly. “Happened on a Sunday when ‘most everybody was at church. A miracle nobody was hurt.” The other four men inclined their heads in solemn agreement.
I stood surrounded by silence. Ambrose didn’t do anything quickly, I supposed. “You might try Bernice Butler, used to be matron in the boys’ building,” he said finally. “Somebody told me she’s working at that big department store over in High Point—or she was.”
I smiled. I remembered Mrs. Butler. Sam had called her Miss Pooh because she reminded him of the bear in the story. Ambrose looked as though he’d drifted off to sleep, and I resisted the urge to shake him. “What department store?” I asked. “Belk? Dillard’s?” I started to run through my list.
“That’s right, one of them. Or it could’ve been Sears.” He squinted at the sun, then glanced at his pocket watch, to see, I guess, if one of them was wrong. “Can’t remember which.” Ambrose Dunn was done.
“Oh, good! You’ve brought coffee.” Augusta waited in my car parked under the redbud tree in front of the Methodist church. “And my sausage biscuit?”
I handed over the paper-wrapped sandwich, thinking of all the calories I’d consumed. But with Augusta and Hairy to keep me company, I had started walking several miles at dusk almost every night, so maybe it wouldn’t all go to my hips.
Augusta took a bite of the biscuit and washed it down with coffee. She looked as if she might be in the midst of some kind of religious experience. I knew better than to interrupt. When the sausage biscuit was gone, she cleaned each finger with dainty little kitten kisses, arranged her chiffonlike skirt about her, and raised a brow. “Well, what did you find out?”
I told her. “Looks like we’ll have to drive to High Point, but it’s only about thirty miles from here.”
“I know that,” Augusta said, sipping primly from her cup.
“But first I’d like to take a look at the home, or what’s left of it,” I said. “It’s on the way … but then I guess you knew that too.”
The arch over the entrance, flanked by huge red oaks, still read Summerwood Acres, but at the end of the curving drive I saw nothing but weeds where the main hall used to be. Someone had evidently attempted to landscape the grounds around the kitchen and dining area with a border of petunias and what appeared to be a grape arbor. Several benches waited in its shade.
“Look, somebody’s planted a garden,” Augusta pointed out as I pulled timidly under the arch and stopped. A red pickup was parked in the shade of the building that used to house the boys, and behind it a man and several children picked something, probably beans.
I turned around quickly and headed out. “Looks like they’ve rented the land,” I said, glad that someone was using the property.
“Is there another way to High Point?” Augusta asked after a few minutes.
“A road runs parallel to this, but it winds around a lot. Might take longer that way. Why?”
“I think somebody’s following us,” she said, frowning over her shoulder. “Kind of a dingy gray car, see it coming around the curve there? It passed us when we turned into the drive back at Summerwood, but they must have parked somewhere and waited, because here it is behind us again.”
“Maybe they had to stop, check a map or something. Doesn’t mean they’re following us.” I glanced in the rearview mirror. Todd Burkholder had an old gray Mustang he loved almost as much as he loved himself. I stepped on the accelerator, but the other car maintained its distance behind me, lagging just far enough behind so I couldn’t get a good look. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Give me a break!” This was no place to meet up with an irrational ex-boyfriend.
According to the road map, we should be close to the turn-off to the connecting road to the other route, and about a mile later, I slowed just enough to make a right turn. Luckily a small convenience store, surrounded by cars, was just around the corner. I circled behind it and waited. Sure enough, here came the dusty gray car. It slowed just a little as it passed the store—to see if I was there, I guess—then drove on.
“A-ha!” Augusta said. “Didn’t I tell you? Could you see who it was?”
“Too far away. Might’ve been a Mustang, but I couldn’t tell from here.” Surely that fool Todd had gotten the message by now. I waited until the car disappeared over a hill, then scooted out the way we had come. The gray car might still overtake us, but it would require some swift maneuvering.
“Mustang? I thought that was a horse.” Augusta leaned out the window to watch behind us. “Can’t you go any faster, Mary George?” Her bright hair swirled about her, a tangle of silken firelight, and when she laughed I forgot about being afraid. Suddenly I started to giggle. I hadn’t felt like this since Sam and I stole Cookie’s double-D bra off the clothesline and put it on our “snow lady.”
I had dreamed again of Sam the night before—only this time he looked older, and he sat on the steps of the main building at Summerwood with my aunt’s cookie jar in his lap and a letter in his hand. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read what was written there.
When we drove into High Point a short while later, I had a feeling I was that much closer to finding him.
We started with the largest mall we could find. Bernice Butler, I was told, worked in the lingerie department at Belk, and while Augusta disappeared among the frothy undies, I selected a short summer gown and stood in line to wait. In spite of her graying hair, the former matron still resembled the bear of storybook fame, and when she looked up at me with her questioning brown eyes and rather large nose, I smiled wider than usual.
“I remember you from Summerwood,” I told her, introducing myself. “And I’m hoping you can help me locate a boy I used to know there … . He’d be a man now, of course. His name is Sam. I don’t think I ever knew his last name.”
Bernice grabbed my hand in both of hers and hung on for dear life. “My goodness … so you’re one of ours! Oh, I do miss that old place! Do you live around here?”
I told her I didn’t and reminded her about Sam as she finally got around to ringing up the gown.
“Sam? Goodness, I don’t remember anyone named Sam. Of course that was almost twenty years ago. But even if I did, I probably wouldn’t know where to find him. Some of my boys kept in touch for a while—mostly the older ones, but after the fire I’m afraid I lost track.”
She wore a mustard-colored dress with a white collar and had sort of a Pooh Bear shape. Now she rested her hands on her stomach. “Why don’t you try Mr. Mac? You remember him, don’t you? Lives in a retirement center this side of Charlotte. Might want to call before you go, though. He does a lot of volunteering over there.”
I did remember Mr. Mac, the minister who headed the children’s home, and was always a little in awe of him, although I had no reason to be. The Reverend Edwin J. McCallister was a quiet, preoccupied man who ate with us in the dining hall and called us each by name. Surely he would remember Sam.
While Augusta checked out the fast-food offerings, I phoned Mr. Mac at Carolina Towers from the concessions area of the mall. He was just getting ready to leave for a session with his literacy student he said, but would be glad to help if he could.
I told him about Sam. “Miss P—Mrs. Butler doesn’t remember him,” I said. “And I don’t even know his last name. Do you have any idea what happened to him? He would have been about ten or eleven when he left there eighteen years ago.”
“Goodness, that’s been a while. Sam. Sounds familiar, but I can’t place him, and of course you know our records were destroyed.”
“He had brown hair that wouldn’t stay down if you glued it … and freckles, I think. I’m almost sure about the freckles. His eyes were sort of a greenish gray … and he liked turtles.”
Mr. Mac laughed. “That description would fit several of our boys, but I think I know which one you mean. I just can’t come up with a name. Sam was a nickname, I believe. Do you remember him being called by anything other than that?”
“Just Sam,” I said.
“And you say he was several years older than you?”
“Three,” I said. “He was in the fifth grade when he left.”
“Well, there you are,” the reverend said. “The elementary school over in Hughes would have those records. In fact, I believe Geraldine Thompson’s still on the faculty there. She’s taught fifth grade about as long as I can remember. I’ll give her a call if you’d like, see if she has time to see you.”
“That would be great,” I said. Now, why didn’t I think of that?
I stood guard by the pay phone pretending to look up a number until the minister called back. Mrs. Thompson would be glad to speak with me, he said. She was just finishing with her early session of summer school, and if I could get there by three, I’d find her still there. “You do remember where the school is?” Mr. Mac asked.
That was one thing I wasn’t likely to forget, I assured him.
“It’s a shame that camp thing didn’t work out,” he said. “They lost their funding from the church, and I’m afraid they’ll have to close.”
“What happened?”
“Several people wanted to run Summerwood as a year-round camp for disadvantaged children. They depended on private funding, but just couldn’t seem to get the support they needed. Right now I think they have a skeleton summer staff with less than twenty campers. Wish it could’ve worked out for them.”