Dangerous Authority (14 page)

On another day, I listen to my Mommy talking to Mrs. Black about the boy in the park. “So sad about that boy,” my Mommy says.

“I know,” Mrs. Black responds, “it’s amazing he’s even alive! They say he’ll be brain damaged.”

Mommy gasps. “Do they have any clue who did this?” Mommy asks. Then she and Mrs. Black glance down at me. They both lower their voices so I won’t hear their disturbing conversation.

Now Mary and I aren’t allowed to go to the park alone anymore, and another horrifying secret lives between us.

***

One day, Mrs. Black is excited as she waits for Ryu to come out of his room. When he does emerge, he is dressed all in white, with a blue stripe of color around his collar. He also wears a funny white hat. A modest bit of excitement begins to blossom inside me as well. “Why is he wearing that?” I ask Mrs. Black since I never, ever speak to Ryu.

She looks full of pride looking at Ryu as she answers me. “Ryu has enlisted in the Navy! He’s going to serve our country, just like his dad!”

I am filled with such complete bliss at this news. I feel I might float right off the planet.

Before a week comes and goes, Ryu Black is gone.

***

The day after Mrs. Black’s party for Ryu to send him to the military, life returns to business as usual.

However, Mary does not return to Mrs. Black’s. She is missing from school. Mary’s family has moved away, and she didn’t even tell me good-bye.

1991

Chapter 1

Shadow Dale was the sort of picturesque, story book town that big city folk loved to visit to get away from it all. The streets were lined with majestic old trees, many of which bloomed plush with white and pink blossoms each spring. Springtime in Shadow Dale brought about a peaceful reverie of delicate falling petals, while autumn brought a gentle rain of vibrant leaves. The small town was brimming with ancient homes full of character and historic buildings that stood like squat sentries along the streets of a downtown scene that was like a stroll through a forgotten time. Shadow Dale was a rare place left with a small population, and surrounded by miles of plentiful fields and thriving farms. It was the sort of town where a stranger would feel safe leaving his doors unlocked when he laid down his head at night.

Olive Childress had spent many happy times in the town. Olive’s mother, Leonora Flint, had grown up and lived in Shadow Dale until she reached adulthood. Leonora’s parents, Olive’s grandparents, Ernest and Ruthie remained in Shadow Dale, and Olive spent a lot of time there visiting. Her grandparents took her to ride at the county fair each summer. She walked with them through crunching leaves along the tree-lined avenues each autumn. She enjoyed many late night ghost stories in the large, sprawling house of her grandparents.

However, when Leonora remarried and decided she wanted to return to Shadow Dale permanently with Olive, her new husband George, and the new little one the happy couple was expecting, the decision made Olive bitterly unhappy.

For so long, Olive and her mom had been on their own. Leonora had her share of boyfriends, but somehow it never worked out. Perhaps Leonora had a knack for choosing the wrong guys. Perhaps Olive was a bit of a jerk to new boyfriends to assist them in their decisions to dump Leonora. Whatever the case, the fact was, at the end of the day Leonora tucked Olive into bed, woke her up for school, packed her lunches, watched television sit coms with her, and explicitly lived her life for Olive.

Until George Flint came along.

The unexpected romance with George transpired in a whirlwind that happened so quickly Olive didn't know what hit her. Leonora met George when he went on a date with Leonora's sister Lydia. George hit it off with Leonora, and not Lydia. It happened so naturally that it didn't even seem to upset anybody. George was fun, handsome and different. When he spoke it sounded like music, and he said the silliest nonsense. When she thought George was her aunt's boyfriend, even Olive had a little crush on him. Until she found out it was actually her own mother that George loved…

It seemed like only a matter of weeks before George and Leonora married.

They had a small ceremony in Leonora and Olive's front yard. No amount of attitude or snide comments from Olive seemed to deter George or affect her mom, though the smart mouth routine had run guys off post haste in the past. When Leonora and George looked at each other, the rest of the world simply ceased to exist.

They were a family, whether Olive liked it or not.

Seemingly overnight, everything changed. Leonora got pregnant right away and they decided they didn't want to raise the kids in the big city and that was when the decision was hastily made to relocate back to Leonora's peaceful, small home town.

Olive had grown up in the big city. Goodview was the polar opposite of Shadow Dale. Goodview operated at breakneck speed and never slept. The buildings in downtown Goodview were gigantic, steel grey structures, seeming like living beings throbbing with activity as they stretched to line the sky. Olive loved the sights, smells, and sounds of the city and at one time, she thought her mother loved it too. Even at her young age, Olive suspected her mother was changing everything just to satisfy a man, not to find her own happiness.

In Goodview, a person could easily blend into any given sea of faces and Olive loved to be hidden away. Olive felt comfortable in her school and the people she already knew. The prospect of attempting to fit in with new kids in a diminutive town horrified Olive. The prospect of
anybody
new positively horrified Olive.

Most upsetting to Olive was the prospect of moving an hour and a half away from her dad. Bill Childress remained single several years after a break from Olive’s stepmother. In fact, Olive couldn’t believe Bill chose to go along with this nonsense and let her be taken away. She told her dad how upset she was to be moving away from Goodview and he brushed off her concerns and optimistically told her to make the most of it.

Even though she moved to Shadow Dale with her mother, new step dad, and a soon to be baby brother, she felt strangely forgotten and abandoned.

But, as had been the case with Olive at times in the past, she soon realized she could adjust and that life would go on. Leonora and George bought a house for them to live in that was just the sort of place that Olive liked. It was an old house filled with character, the air thick with history. Handy George Flint tinkered and soon turned the house into an interesting home. Not long after the move, George converted a huge, unfinished attic into the most amazing bedroom Olive had ever seen, especially for her. He covered the floor with scarlet colored carpeting that he found for a steal in a yard sale. Olive came to spend many happy hours lost in her imagination in the tower windows of her attic room.

***

The family made their move to Shadow Dale one week before the end of Olive's fifth grade year. Leonora and George had strategized a way for Olive to finish as much as the year as possible with her familiar friends, but also give her brief opportunity to meet some school kids in Shadow Dale before summer vacation.

On Olive's first day in the new school, Leonora accompanied her to her classroom. A far cry from the sprawling newer facility with huge playgrounds that Olive had been accustomed to in Goodview, the "new" building was a narrow structure with several levels and a small playground. To Olive, the brick building looked centuries old, and smelled that way as well.

Olive's fifth grade classroom lay nestled on the top floor of the creaking building. Olive and her mother climbed a huge staircase lined with massive, sunny windows. Leonora gazed about wistfully with eyes full of memory.

"This is the very same building where I went to elementary school," Leonora related to Olive.

"Wow! Really?” Olive found the fact interesting. She almost wished she'd come sooner to the new school to spend more time in the high ceilinged halls where her mother walked when she was a young girl.

"Yep, I sure did! And, Mr. Milton, the gentleman who will be your teacher this week, he was my fifth grade teacher, too!"

Olive regarded her mother with wide eyes. "Really? That is SO cool!" Olive imagined possible opportunities to find out forgotten stories about her mother.

Olive and Leonora entered a warmly lit room buzzing with early morning activity. Fifth graders congregated engaging in last minute tasks prior to the day's start. The floor consisted of faded tiles, marked by years of chair scooting and hurried footsteps. The walls were lined with colorful posters of every variety of educational topics. Windows taller than Olive hung open, inviting the early summer breeze, thick with the pleasant scent of fresh cut grass. Leonora convened with a stately looking elderly gentleman who embraced her warmly as they smiled and reminisced.

Meanwhile, a blond girl with a friendly smile and pleasant voice approached Olive. "Hi," she greeted, "I'm Ashley. Do you have your lunch money?"

Olive raised questioning eyes to her mother since she didn't know anything about any financial obligations in the Shadow Dale fifth grade. Leonora smiled and handed Olive a brown paper sack. "Olive will be a packer," she informed Ashley, her eyes twinkling and the corners of her mouth threatening laughter. She found Olive's nervousness cute and the business-like lunch money collector endearing. Leonora's apprehensions began to subside as she left Olive amongst new friends and in the care of her former teacher.

Olive's final week of elementary school in her new town progressed rapidly and without incident. Ashley proved to be a genuinely nice child. She lived three blocks away from Olive, and Olive was welcomed to Ashley’s home, the neighborhood hangout. It was a cheerful yellow house where Ashley lived with her older sister and their mother. There were large trees in the yard and a lovely herb garden. The house was always a noisy, joyful mess full of the smell of delicious cooking foods. Olive soon came to love being there, and spent more time there than in her own home. With any happy morsel, or with any childhood devastation, Olive ran first to Ashley’s home. Even when her grandfather Ernest passed away, Olive ran straight to the comfort of Ashley’s warm home.

Ashley and her mother took Olive to their church. The large, ancient building was called Peaceful Light Assembly. Olive loved sitting in the bright sanctuary awash in the colorful light streaming through the towering stained glass windows. At Peaceful Light, they sang songs, prayed together, and shared countless memories at the youth group meetings in the basement. Olive soon attended church with Ashley multiple times a week.

Many other students proved to be fast friends as well. They accepted her, to her surprise. She had an easier time at her new school, than new students at her old school typically had fitting in. The Shadow Dale pace moved slower. Olive found that she could take more time to think, enjoy and learn from her activities.

As summer vacation arrived, Olive found additional new friends in her neighborhood and at the city pool. Her mother and George began socializing with neighbors, who were friends that Leonora had known when she was a kid in school. Olive met them one evening in early summer when her parents had them over for a cookout.

The Angelwoods were a friendly, funny couple. Olive was surprised when they arrived with a young boy who was Olive’s age. Olive’s mom introduced the couple to Olive, and Olive politely greeted them.

“And this is our son, Brandon,” said Mrs. Angelwood, gently nudging forward the shy boy with the dark eyes.

“Hi,” said Brandon bashfully.

“Hey,” Olive replied.

The two families spent the evening laughing and munching on grilled treats on the back porch. Olive found Brandon kind and easy to talk to. Brandon and Olive played catch in the yard while the adults visited. He filled Olive in about life in Shadow Dale and what she could expect when middle school began in the fall. She liked his dark complexion, eyes, and hair, and especially his welcoming smile.

Brandon Angelwood naturally became another close friend who ran around with Olive’s neighborhood crew and attended Peaceful Light Assembly.

***

In Shadow Dale, Olive had more freedom from Leonora and George than she had ever known in her home in the larger city. George refurbished a bicycle for Olive, painting the ugly yellow seat a lovely purple. Subsequently, the seats of Olive's pairs of shorts were turned purple for a time, providing many laughs. Olive loved her bike, as she'd fly down the shady streets and alleys of Shadow Dale languishing in the ever-present sense of pending adventure.

Olive also cherished her moments of solidarity, lingering fears of being alone diminishing the longer she stayed in Shadow Dale. Olive loved nothing more than lying in the light of a sunny window with her nose buried in a book. She loved reading about times gone by, when all the world seemed a simple place, like Shadow Dale. Olive's imagination transported her to a world where she knew nothing of any other life than a simple and peaceful one.

***

Not long after meeting the Angelwoods, late on a June night, lights came on and Olive's new household became a flurry of activity.

"What's going on?" asked Olive, sleepily rubbing her eyes. Her extremely pregnant mother waddled about carrying various bags.

"The baby's coming," Leonora exclaimed with vibrant, excited eyes. Even fully pregnant, Olive’s mother was still gorgeous. Leonora was tall and shapely, her long brown hair falling freely down her back. Leonora had been blessed with an eternally youthful face, a soft voice, and unexplainable grace.

"Don't worry, your aunt will be right over to take care of you while we go have the baby," George explained as he raced about, in an extremely rushed manner; uncharacteristic of his normally relaxed demeanor. George was tall with brown hair that dusted his shoulders, which were always slightly stooped. He had a rich, deep voice, always sounding on the verge of erupting into laughter. George and Lenora made a handsome pair, and Olive couldn’t wait to see what her new sibling would be like.

Leonora's sister, Lydia arrived, and in a way strangely calm yet nervous, George whisked Leonora away into the quiet, summer night.

***

The next day, Olive's Aunt Lydia, drove her to the hospital to visit her mother and new baby brother. The first thing she noticed was that George appeared back to his normal, easy going self as he leisurely sipped coffee in a chair next to Leonora's bed. Seeing her step dad back to normal put her at ease. As soon as Olive entered the room and caught the festive vibe, she relaxed and she shifted her focus to a small baby bed positioned near Leonora's bed. Seeing the excitement on Olive's face, the occupants welcomed her to approach the baby.

She walked over to peek over the bed's rail to regard a squirming, pink bundle of baby brother where he lay.

Olive gazed down at the teensy thing in complete wonder. She had felt him moving when her mother had guided Olive's hand over her big belly. She'd imagined him and what he'd be like many times. She'd engaged in many family discussions regarding what he could possibly be named. And, now, he had finally arrived. Making cute noises, smelling like powder, and staring right into her big blue eyes, with his big brown ones. She reached down and he wrapped his miniature fingers around one of her fingers.