O Little Town (19 page)

“Are you riding home with us, Dad?”

“No. You two go on ahead.”

“How are you getting home?” his daughter asked.

“The same way I got here. Little pal and his girlfriend are going to take me.”

Just then Louis Wayne pulled up in his car. Shirley Ann got out and climbed into the back, making the front passenger seat available to Walter.

Doris stood on the corner not believing this scene, but she laughed in spite of her mood at the sight of her father and son and his young fiancée piling into a car together.

“Well, just where are you three going and what time are you coming home?”

“Don’t know,” Walter said and he closed the door. “Could be pretty late.”

Doris shook her head and smiled and waved and gave in to the spirit of the season. And as they drove away, they passed under a streetlight. Doris saw something lying in the back window. It looked like a bunch of roses. She shook her head. Where would anyone find roses on a cold winter night like this?

EPILOGUE

As I said at the beginning, I can see where almost all of it took place from where I’m sitting in my office overlooking Main Street. So much has changed and yet, with a little imagination, it’s not difficult to picture it as it was. Macalbee’s is now a local appliance center. The police station moved into a new building at the outskirts of town. Well, it’s twenty years old now. The original building just up the hill from here is gone. In its place is a parking lot for the hair salon next door.

The Crown Theater, which had flourished for so long, died in the ’70s when the new multiplex came in at the mall. It stood empty and dark for nearly two decades, but then a group of nostalgic citizens got together, raised some money, tore out the screen, and restored it to its original grandeur. Today it looks pretty much the way Adrienne Knoles must have seen it.

And the Mason Street Methodist Church? Still there. The congregation bought adjoining properties, tore down a few houses, and added a lot of Sunday school rooms and a fellowship hall, but all in all, it still looks the same as it did when the Franklins left the following year. They moved somewhere west; Illinois or Indiana, I think. I never really knew them but I did get to know Millie after she moved back to Mt. Jefferson. She taught high school here for years. She was my history teacher at MJHS. She was and still is a good friend to my parents, and, according to my dad and some old pictures I’ve seen, her mother, Dove, was every bit the beauty people said she was.

My great-grandpa Walter passed away quietly in his sleep—eleven years after that Christmas Eve—at the age of eighty-one. Turns out his illness was a virus just like they originally thought. For the undue agony he blamed the doctors, the doctors blamed the lab, and the lab blamed the technology. I didn’t care who was to blame, I was just glad we had him all those extra years. I count that as one of my many blessings and I think he did too. We spent many an after-school afternoon together just walking in the park, eating hamburgers and ice cream, and talking about anything and everything.

My great uncle Milton took an early retirement, and he and Aunt Colleen moved back to Richmond where he joined the family business. Office equipment I think. I never really knew them except for holiday get-togethers and a few family reunions.

Grandmother Doris and Pop Sterrett live in Florida and fish every morning and play bridge four times a week. She calls every Sunday night without fail and I have to tell her everything I had to eat for the past week, tell her what each of my kids did in school, and assure her that I’m still recycling. Pop seldom gets to talk but I know he cares.

Grandpa Buddy was offered the chief of police job, but turned it down and left the force. He took a less stressful job teaching a law enforcement class at a community college just down the road. And Grandma Amanda? Well, she held the family together. Some of the happiest moments in my life were spent in her kitchen and her backyard and simply in her presence. They, too, are gone and sorely missed. There’s a picture of the two of them just over there on the bookcase. They were a handsome couple.

Uncle Hoyt is a doctor and lives in Europe. I’m not real sure where, as his address seems to change nearly as often as his marital status. My kids get birthday cards from him stuffed with money every year but no one has seen him since he stopped in to show off a new bride nearly ten years ago.

And Mom and Dad. What can I say? They didn’t have it easy but they’re still in love, and you can’t get any better than that. Dad kept every promise he made at the precarious age of seventeen. He went to college, got his degree, and he and Mom raised three of us. We still get together on holidays and for family reunions. And though we enjoy Christmas mornings in our own homes, every Christmas Eve, we get together at Mom and Dad’s for an old fashioned bow-and-paper-strewn living room Christmas celebration with kids rolling on the floor and more food than ten families could eat. For some of us it’s a shorter night than it is for others. But no matter what time I finally get to bed, I can always be assured that sometime around 3 a.m., Dad will be sitting in the car in front of the house with two cups of coffee, waiting for me. To most people a middle-of-the-night Christmas Eve adventure might seem an imposition at best, or a fool’s errand at worst, but we wouldn’t miss it for all the roses in the world. Or even just for the eight long-stemmed ones that are always lying on the backseat of his car.

Four for Adrienne. And four for Walter.

… a little more …

When a delightful concert comes to an end,
the orchestra might offer an encore.
When a fine meal comes to an end,
it’s always nice to savor a bit of dessert.
When a great story comes to an end,
we think you may want to linger.

And so, we offer ...

AfterWords—
just a little something more after you
have finished a David C Cook novel.
We invite you to stay awhile in the story.

Thanks for reading!

Turn the page for ...

• A Conversation with Don Reid

• Discussion Question

A Conversation with Don Reid

What was the original inspiration for
O Little Town
?

Around the turn of the century, a member of a traveling circus troupe was murdered in Staunton, Virginia, the town upon which this story is based (and also my hometown). Her name was Eva Clark. Every year mysterious flowers are placed on her grave. That was the inspiration. The rest is fiction. 

What sort of research did you do as you wrote this novel?

I love research books. I have loads of them. I used them to check dates and become familiar with fashions and learn about common expressions from the early 1900s. I didn’t have to do much research for the 1958 storyline—I just referred to my own memories. I was only a kid then, but I was deep into that decade with my formative years.

Which character (or characters) do you relate to most in the story?

This may sound corny, but there’s a little bit of me in each of the characters. In order to really know them and develop them, I think I had to become a part of their thinking process. I love Walter—his grumpiness and wisdom. His matter-of-fact look at life. And I found Dove attractive even though she was full of problems of the heart. I really liked all these people. Even Doris. (Every family has one.)

How did you approach the writing of this novel? Did you map out the story before you dug into the writing, did you follow an idea to see where it took you, some combination of the two?

I did my own strange outline. This wasn’t anything like I learned in creative writing classes in school. I listed all my characters on a legal pad and drew lines from one name to the other and then wrote on the lines what their relationship was. Then I made notes about what I wanted to cover in each of the chapters—just three or four lines to remind me where the story would go. I knew from day one how the last page would read. 

As the book took shape, what surprised you most about the characters or storyline?

I don’t think anything about the storyline surprised me, but the people did. They all were more complex than I first thought—less “black and white.” There were no goodie-goodies and not a devil among them. They were the people next door and I was just looking in their windows. 

How would you describe the role of faith in
O Little Town
? The role of family?

The whole punch to the book is forgiveness. Every character whose family played a role came from a strong and good and faithful family. Some of the folks in the 1904 storyline didn’t have strong family connections. They were just out there drifting. And without God we all would be.

What was the most rewarding aspect of writing
O Little Town
?
The most challenging?

The most rewarding thing was seeing these people leap from my mind to the paper and take on life. That, and having people respond with a smile after reading it.

And the most challenging? Keeping the timelines in order. Making sure the ages checked out and worked within the time frame.


What do you hope readers will take away from the story?

I hope they’re entertained, inspired, and moved. I hope they recognize in the characters people in their own lives, and perhaps even see themselves in there somewhere.

Discussion Questions

Gather some friends together after reading
O Little Town
to talk about the themes and characters. Use these questions to spark a lively discussion.

1.
What’s your initial reaction to the main characters in the story? What did you like about them? What did you dislike?

2.
What intrigued you most about the storyline that was based in 1904?

3.
In what ways were the two different time periods similar? What were the most striking differences?

4.
What did you learn about Walter from the way he reminisced? From the way he interacted with his family?

5.
What surprised you most about Adrienne? About young Walter?

6.
What were some of the main characters’ greatest areas of personal growth?

7.
Which storyline was most compelling to you? Which one could you relate to most from your own experience?

8.
Which character do you relate to most? Why?

9.
What role did the Crown Theater play in the story? Macalbees? What are some of the buildings or locations that play important roles in your life?

10.
Describe your first impression of Millie. How did those first impressions change over the course of the novel?

11.
What role does forgiveness play in the two storylines?

12.
What does the novel teach about the role of families?

13.
What role does faith play in the lives of the main characters? In what ways do faith and family intersect?

14.
What story element made you most uncomfortable? What made you want to stand up and cheer?

15.
Describe acts of heroism and acts of cowardice from the story.

16.
What kind of sacrifices did the main characters have to make in this story? What does that tell you about their character?

17.
In what ways did this story inspire you? Challenge you?

18.
How did the imperfections of the characters play into the story? In what ways did they seem “real” to you?