Vermont Recovered

By Kim Traverse

In 1971, Tolly Mansfield, from Charleston, South Carolina, drops out of college to join the love of his life (who he has met only once) on a folk music commune in rural Vermont. When Johanna tells him she is pregnant with someone else's child he decides to stay and do his best being a father. Four months after twin boys are born, Johanna, disappears with barely an apology leaving Tolly to decide just what he is cut out for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kim Traverse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311640543

Kim Traverse

I have lived in the Midwest, on the East Coast and now I live on the West Coast. My novels are set in places similar to where I have lived but never exactly. These are works of fiction not biography, although occasionally real people make cameo appearances: friendly nods to my family and friends! I love to write but find everything to do with publishing and marketing very difficult. I mostly write about ordinary people having interesting experiences.

Book preview

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight.

About the Author

Other Books by Kim Traverse

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Chapter One

The year nineteen-seventy-one started off with the usual optimistic predictions of certain victory in Vietnam and an improved economy at home—only now the victory would be won by the South Vietnamese and the US would have a ‘peacetime economy’ instead of a ‘wartime economy’. All the US had to do was find ‘the right way out’ of Vietnam. A shell game writ large.

Charleston, South Carolina was experiencing a surge in commercial development–shopping centers were becoming a big part of a suburban landscape where a dozen years before only farms would have been seen. Even for people who had been through the Great Depression and WWII, the changes seemed pretty big. For someone about twenty, the changes seemed momentous.

Tolly Mansfield was home for the summer and he was at loose ends. He’d just completed his second year at Morehead State University in Kentucky, his father’s alma mater, but he was seriously considering quitting. The enthusiasm he had felt when he started just wasn’t there anymore. He had begun to feel like he was hiding there. It wasn’t because of the draft—he probably didn’t even need his student deferment because of loss of hearing in his right ear. Libby Hamilton, a friend of his sister, had been careless with a cherry bomb toss when Tolly was nine and it left him bleeding from that ear and suffering from months of headaches. It was the first time Tolly ever heard the word, but his dad called Libby a bitch. Somehow, maybe because he had more trouble hearing the teachers and was compensating, Tolly studied the harder. He had graduated fourth in his high school class of two hundred and two.

So it wasn’t the war that was keeping him in school. And even as a successful college student, he still received brochures soliciting for the Army or the Navy or, worst of all, the Marines. He would look at the slick Madison Avenue bullshit and wonder who could fall for this moronic stuff. Still, he had the feeling that he was hiding from most of what life had to offer—the adventure and uncertainty that should be a part of everyone’s life—at least when they were young. The military was out, but he was looking for something. And he really had begun to hate the endless classes and assignments. There was a real world out there and it wasn’t in school. And all he could think about was Johanna. She was the most magical being he had ever encountered. Even she had said they ‘just seemed right’ and the way he felt was even stronger. They hadn’t slept together but they had gotten stoned and talked nearly all night long. She was a year younger than Tolly but she seemed so much wiser. She had gone to Loyola for a semester but had dropped out and hitchhiked around Europe and the stories she had from just that one trip were incredible. She was a free spirit in the truest sense of the word while he had been a dedicated little lab rat. The scant free time classes left him at school had been spent recording data for his professor. It seemed like he was a glutton for boring work.

He had met Johanna at a friend-of-a-friend’s party in Dayton when he had gone home with his roommate for Easter break. That had been an absence that his mother still wouldn’t forgive him for. We sent you the extra money for the train home so we could see you. Holidays are for family at your age. She had written this on the back of a postcard reproduction of Whistler’s Mother. He had, in fact, used the ‘extra’ money—fifty dollars over his usual allowance of twenty-five per month, to buy enough grass to keep him and his roommate in total bliss for most of the spring. He’d also, of course, been generous with the rest of his dorm. He couldn’t expect a windfall like that again anytime soon.

At the party, actually outside of Dayton, they had been attracted to each other immediately. The house where the party took place seemed to belong to someone unrelated even to the friend-of-a-friend. It had started crazy and after only about twenty minutes, Tolly realized he didn’t want to be there. Johanna had somehow sensed this and had taken him by the hand and led him outside. The party was on a small lake and they had walked past and over docks until they got to a relatively secluded spot, maybe a park, where they had sat smoking and making out a little. But mostly they had talked. She was the first person he had ever met who seemed to understand everything he said even as it was coming out of his mouth. And she had complained that nobody ‘got’ her and told him that he seemed to, right off. They were still sitting at a picnic table as the eastern sky started to turn pink. Rosy-fingered dawn. she had said and, because Tolly had been only interested in science the last eight years, the allusion went right over his head. He wondered who Rosy was. She had given him a telephone number but when he finally got the courage to call her, a few weeks later, some old fart told him she didn’t live there anymore. Somehow though, he knew he would find her again.

So the summer wasn’t going so well for Tolly. His parents were away more than usual looking for a new location for their furniture store and although they kept asking him to go with them, he really couldn’t stand the prattle of commercial real estate people. Keith, his best friend from high school, who had hung out with Tolly all last summer, had taken a job as a park ranger in Idaho and Tolly would be lucky to see him for a few days before they both headed back to their respective schools. And the family of Tolly’s high school girlfriend had moved so Louise no longer even returned to their town as far as Tolly knew. Anyway, they had broken up during the summer after their senior year; for good reasons. What was the point of even thinking about her?

Tolly had taken to sleeping late and watching too much TV: especially the late showings of old movies. He figured this would be his last summer ‘off’. Next summer he hoped to be working at a lab in Louisville doing research with one of his professors who consulted there. It would be his first chance at establishing his career path. He hoped to develop the interest that would sustain him through his master’s and doctorate. It would be a crucial summer for him but it no longer seemed as exciting as when his prof first suggested it. So he was stuck with another boring hot summer at home; just what he most wanted to avoid.

Get the mail for me before you go over to Eddie’s, will you, Hon? His mother was making cucumber sandwiches for lunch although they would count as breakfast for Tolly. She didn’t really like him spending so much time with Eddie, his one friend from high school who had opted to go into sales at a candy factory instead of attending college. Now Eddie had a Corvette and his own apartment at a new complex that even had a swimming pool. A ‘string of chicks’ kept him happily single. Tolly envied his maturity but knew a lot of it was silly, too. Eddie’s conversation seemed more limited each time he saw him.

They lived north of the city proper on an old dead-end that had been created when a highway was pushed through a short time after Tolly was born. In fact, there were pictures of Tolly being pulled in a wagon by his older sister right where the road embankment now stood twenty feet high. Fortunately, they lived at the end farthest from the road sounds. Their mail was delivered into a big barrel-vaulted mailbox set on a post at the street. Tolly wondered what his mother did when he was away—she had never liked walking out to get the mail herself. She must have adapted.

The letter had weird leaves drawn in colored ink on the envelope and he didn’t even need to look for a return address to know that it was from her. He stuffed it into his back pocket, handed his mother the rest of the mail, and jumped in his Beetle. He pulled over part way to Eddie’s and read the letter over and over again. His life was changed forever and he knew it as certainly as if WWIII had broken out.

"Summersaults and winterpeppers. I love you, tam mucho que yo no soy puedo decir. I just couldn’t hack being back with my folks and sisters so I headed out the next morning after I got there. My dad was too uptight for words. I know this might sound sudden to you but I have joined a commune up in Vermont and I think you should find me there as quickly as you can!!! This place is so beautiful and full of nature. There are seventeen of us and we’re raising all our food and have something like a government that decides what we do but doesn’t have all the crappy rules that the rest of the world drags you down with. I live in the ‘Pear House’, which is just so damned incredible I can hardly believe it’s mine to live in. The walls are like three feet thick out of stone and it’s where they used to store the pears that they made cider with on this incredibly old farm way at the end of a dirt road. You can see mountains in the distance and at night it’s so much darker than in the city that at first I thought there was something wrong with my eyes---like I was going blind at night or something. But there are a million stars I’ve never seen before. Mind is jumping around to too many things too fast to get down. Guess I think I’m putting down a lot that I’ve just been thinking. I know you understand even what I don’t say! Been cooking dinners lately. I’m into Morrocan stews at the moment. Everyone thought they were really good. At least there were nothing left over, and that’s a pretty good sign I guess. I’ve been putting silver and gold glitter in my hair. I was working in the local ‘super’ market and you wouldn’t believe the looks I was getting. One girl wanted to know if it was dandruff. If your heads not into seeing me, I’ll understand but Baby, are you making a mistake! When I first told everybody about you we were all totally wasted but the next morning everyone remembered everything I said about you! They’re all really good heads here so I know you’ll like it. I can’t wait to see you! How about that? It only took one night for me to know- you are so far out to me. Don’t even think about it, just come. I tried to hitch the two miles to work one day and nobody stopped for me. The rain is such a drag. Anyway it’s an experience. We’ve been visiting this fucking haunted house about five miles from here. We only go at night when it’s really spooky. We’ve been getting all this furniture and old clothes. I swear I see ghosts. All the people were killed in 1952 and nothing has been touched since except by looters. Their dishes with moldy food are still on the kitchen table! I feel really creepy wearing their clothes but they are so far out you wouldn’t believe. I know your mother is a drag but you shouldn’t let her run your life. I feel so much better since I left home- it’s worth anything to feel really free. If I had the bread I’d send it to you to get up here but all my money from the grocery store goes to-guess what?- groceries. Please don’t stop to think of it---just come! I just know that this is the right thing for us so try to trust me. I’ve told everyone here about you and they are all agreed that you would fit right in with what we’re trying to do. Please come as soon as you get this!"

When he did finally look, he realized there was no return address –no way to write back to her– the only way he would even be able to reach her was to follow the directions she had enclosed and just show up. Nothing in his life had ever felt so absolutely right.

Chapter Two

Eddie wasn’t home when he went by and he turned back into town and went to the library to look up what he could about Eastman, Vermont. There wasn’t much he could find, even with the help of the librarian. It had been settled by a family of the same name, was known for its forests before they were logged off, and was a favorite haunt of urbanites searching for antiques and Vermont Maple Syrup. There was mention of an Indian monument made of huge stones. The population, in 1960, had been 879. It sounded so different from anything he had ever experienced—it sounded like a kind of paradise.

He wouldn’t be able to just leave for Vermont though. For one thing, he had virtually no money. Most of the little money he had was in a Christmas account that he couldn’t get anything out of until December. And there was only about eighty-five dollars in that. At home, he didn’t even get the twenty-five bucks a month allowance and he had argued that he didn’t want to work that summer. He racked his brains but couldn’t come up with anything that would raise any cash quickly but when his father got home from work a couple of days later, he solved the problem for him. It was like magic was happening.

Tolly, if you’re not going to get a job like I wanted you to, then we think you could at least paint the house while you’re home. We could buy the paint and pay you a couple of hundred dollars if the work is complete and done well. I can’t have the house half painted…if you do it– you have to commit to doing the whole thing. Shouldn’t take you more than a few weeks.

Tolly about went mad as his folks argued over the paint for days before finally deciding to go with the same colors that were already on. And that made the painting harder because though Tolly never could see the difference between layers, his dad would come home and point out all the places he had missed. Finally he got the hang of it and he got the whole thing done and he did it well. He got up early every morning for the next three weeks, painted until it got hot, screwed around or napped for a few hours and then painted into the evening. His folks were so happily surprised that they paid him five hundred dollars. He felt really guilty taking the money from them, as he knew they would hit the roof when he didn’t go back to college, but he was sure he knew what was best for himself. This was the excitement of real life. Adventure– travel to a part of the country he’d never imagined ever going, being part of what was really happening in the country, and looking for the love of his life. No qualms were going to keep him from it. But he wasn’t going to risk a jinx by discussing any of it with his parents. He couldn’t face them trying to dissuade him when they really had no idea what Johanna was like. Really, they didn’t have much idea of what he was like.

The next hurdle was solved easily; again by his father.

We were thinking you might want the car with you this year…it’s only about six hours by car and it’s a lot longer by train. Maybe with the car we’d get to see you more often. Your mother really missed you at Easter, Tolly. Anyway, we thought we’d just put the car in your name…we can keep you under our insurance until you’re twenty-one and then you’ll have to take over the insurance and upkeep.

But you have to promise to drive home to see us on holidays. It’s really lonely here with you and your sister both gone. his mother added.

Tolly inured himself to their concerns and, four days after the VW title was in his name, he had packed what he thought he most might need, left an apologetic letter for his folks, and headed out after his dad had gone to work and before his mother got up. It would be late in the day, at least, before they thought to check his room and find the letter. He felt crappy about it but realized that some things like that were necessary when you were following your heart. He had never even considered doing anything like this before. Following his heart suddenly seemed the most important and necessary thing in the world. It just seemed so obvious.

And driving north seemed the most beautiful thing a person could do. Everything seemed different in a day-glo way. Everything was too beautiful for words. The radio in the VW didn’t work real well and he had to keep changing stations as he drove but three times, as he was tuning, they were playing his favorite song. It was like an additional message was being sent to him. He’d sing along every time– ‘Cause my baby wrote me a letter…

He had never been north of New York City before and he had only been that far once when he had driven up with two friends from high school. Todd Lomax and Melvin, who’s last name he could never remember, were both crazy about folk music and had played around Charleston together for a while before deciding to make the pilgrimage to Greenwich Village. Tolly, the only one of them with a driver’s license, had done most of the driving in a car that Melvin’s parents let them take. They had stayed with a cousin of Melvin’s way out in Queens. They didn’t realize they could waste a whole morning getting into Manhattan from there. The whole trip had been a mess. They had been sure they would find somewhere they could perform but all they ever got were some ‘come back laters’, a visit to Matt Uminov’s Guitars, and one chance to play for change near a subway entrance. Since then Tolly had heard that Todd, at least, had moved up there permanent and was playing with some rock and roll band. He thought about looking him up but it had been three years and he wanted to get further north as fast as possible.

He screwed up trying to take the New York Thruway to the New England Thruway because he had thought he wanted to keep going north. He used I-84 to course correct and it got him over to I-91 probably faster than I-96 would have but he ran into a tangle of highway construction and detours around Hartford that messed him up for almost forty minutes. Finally he found I-91 north and felt like nothing more could go wrong.

Chapter Three

He stopped for gas near Springfield, Mass. after getting mired in another highway mess. He was starting to feel disheartened and really pretty exhausted but as he was getting back in the car after he had used the restroom, a guy ran up and pounded on his roof.

You aren’t headed north are you? I’m trying to get up to Lebanon.

Where’s that? Tolly really had no idea.

You’re not headed north then?

I’m headed for Vermont…where is it you want to go?

How far you going up? Lebanon’s on the New Hampshire side of the river.

What river?

Connecticut is the border between the two states.

Connecticut is south of Massachusetts. Tolly pointed out, based on the little geography that he knew.

Yeah?

Tolly was thoroughly confused by this point.

You’re not from around here are you? The guy offered like it was a salve.

Well, I am not, but I am headed north and wouldn’t mind the company.

Cool. Let me grab my duffle and axe.

They had some trouble getting the duffle bag and guitar case into the already crowded back seat but finally managed and got back on the highway.

Tolly. he said and offered his hand.

Really? Fucking great name, man. He grasped Tolly’s hand in the soul shake. I’m Ernie Box. Looks like you’re moving into the great unknown.

What do you mean? Tolly almost flinched at the guy’s perception.

You got a lot of shit packed but you don’t know anything about where you’re headed. No better way to travel in my book. Ernie was already at work rolling a joint.

I’m trying to find this girl I met last spring. She joined a commune in Vermont. Invited me to move in with her. Just saying it made Tolly feel more real.

Whoa! I’d be pretty careful about that. I was living in an intentional community in Cambridge and you wouldn’t believe the fucking rules they tried to lay on everyone. Some of the communes I’ve heard about have pretty bad reputations along those same lines. I thought I was going to get all this pussy and right off they started with rules about who could visit who’s room every third fucking Friday of months that has no a’s in them. It was fucking medieval after awhile. They wanted to hold on to my guitar when I said I was going to leave because they said I owed the whole house for my staying there, but no one, and I mean no one! gets to touch my axe except me. Ernie lit the joint, took a good toke and offered it to Tolly. Tolly had never driven stoned but he took a hit anyway. Something seemed to almost require it.

Tolly wanted to change the subject. What kind of music do you play?

All original stuff. Lot of songs about the sea. Modern sea chanteys, I guess.

Folk music, then?

Man, there really isn’t any other kind, if you think about it. Classical composers all just stole folk tunes. It’s only the People who make up anything worth listening to.

I got a couple of friends into it. One of them moved to New York and I guess he’s in a band now.

Moved from where to New York?

"Charleston. We were all from Charleston

No shit? Did you ever know Todd Lomax?

That was one of my friends!

No way! You shitting me? I crashed with Todd last time I played the Village. He’s got a fine old lady but they’re both messing with smack and I had to get out of there. Not going to do ‘anything that my soul could kill’. He was playing in some crappy rock band, too. Cat can pick, though. We jammed all night every night I was there. That’s just too fucking bizarre that you’re his friend. Only person I ever met from Charleston; now I meet up with another.

On the map, Lebanon was hardly out of his way so Tolly said he would give Ernie a ride the whole distance but the road got so small and twisty as it followed the river that progress was much slower than what he had been making on the Interstate before it pooped out on him.

Where the hell did you say you were heading?

Sunshadow is the name of the commune. It’s somewhere west of Eastman.

And what’s that near? I never heard of Eastman.

It looks like it’s somewhere near Peru and North Landgrove.

That’s gotta be a long way. Hey! You can crash with my friends if you want to finish your drive in the morning.

But all Tolly would agree to was a quick supper at a greasy spoon, compliments of Ernie, before heading back into Vermont. Ernie gave him another warning before he left: Don’t have too much in front of you– the good stuff comes from the side, my man!

Chapter Four

The road almost scared Tolly, winding and winding and hitting the tiniest towns he’d ever seen every ten miles or so. He’d slow down for wide spots in the road that proclaimed populations of 270 on their signs. How could you have a town with so few people, he wondered. What would be the point? Some areas seemed to be devoid of any population. Miles with no built structure anywhere. And then there would be a few houses and sometimes barns that seemed to huddle in close to the hills or the edges of small valleys. And it was the first time Tolly had seen that architectural style peculiar to the North East where houses seemed to be a train of odd attachments that connected finally to the barn. It was pretty easy to guess harsh winters as the reason behind it but it was like visiting another planet to Tolly.

The closer he got, the more excited he felt and the more interesting everything about the landscape became. He’d been following the course of a fair sized river, driving slow so he wouldn’t miss his left turn. Even though Johanna’s directions had said it was after an old iron bridge he wasn’t positive she meant that he crossed it. He kept his eye out and drove a little slower. Some of the larger vistas were breathtaking. Where the road, temporarily higher up the hillside, came to a sudden opening, the view across a rich green valley, threaded with the silver and white of the river and with hazy blue-gray mountains in the distance, was just beautiful. He was gawking as he drove and barely missed hitting what looked like a solid steel sign; hand-painted with the ominous words: Are you prepared to meet thy maker? It seemed to threaten something–a huge fist maybe– poised just around the next bend and ready to flatten his Volkswagen. It pissed him off.

Finally he arrived at, and crossed, the old iron bridge. He could see the turn off– an unpaved road that disappeared almost immediately up the hill and under the overhanging branches of trees. In spite of it being dirt, it was well tended—smooth and with adequate ditching on both sides to deter washouts.

It was much darker on the road as the trees made just about a tunnel of it and the light was fading. He rolled down his window as he made the turn and the sudden chill made him wonder if the heater on his car would even work. But he was almost there. Excitement made every detail stand out. About a half mile or so on the left was a small house with a middle sized and unattached barn well behind. There was no mailbox but a sign at the road said ‘Gilman’. He knew Sunshadow was at the very end of the road and after another mile and three-quarters, he realized that Gilman must be the nearest neighbor. Every fiber of his body was keyed up, wondering at what lay ahead—both the place and the potential. There was a cheery painted sign in rainbow colors that said ‘Welcome to Sunshadow’ –but it looked like some holes had been shot in it. An old house and a number of weathered outbuildings spread out around a short driveway.

Everything looked quiet and really pretty damned idyllic.

There was an old bicycle leaning against the wall of an addition to the house and it looked like the door there had become the main entrance. An old, dark maroon Ford Falcon parked in the drive looked like it might run again. There was a small garden across from the house with vines growing up tripods of saplings ten feet tall. As different as it was to anything he had experienced, somehow it all seemed right.

Tolly parked and stood for a moment soaking in the silence before he went to the door. There was a little light from the room on the other side of a second door. There were lugs of carrots and some wilted lettuce heads. Another bucket was a haze of fruit flies. He knocked and after a few moments a very lovely woman came to the door– but she wasn’t Johanna.

Hi, is Johanna here?

You have to be Tolly. she smiled with something like approval. Welcome to Sunshadow. Come in and meet everyone.

Tolly immediately felt better.

This is Johanna’s Tolly– finally. the woman announced to everyone. Then she turned to him. We were starting to think you weren’t coming.

I’m Molly. A dark haired woman with long braids wrapped around her head offered her hand. It was bright red. We’re canning raspberry jam, she explained, all our hands are stained.

Tolly was introduced then to Ingrid, Julie, Esther, and Madge. All beautiful women but not a one of them Johanna.

Johanna’s not here right now. She had to make a quick visit home but she’s been waiting forever for you so she’ll probably be back soon. All the men are over in New Hampshire picking apples in case you’re wondering. Depending on the harvest they may not be home until next week. It was Molly, Tolly was pretty sure, who was explaining things.

Well, would it be ok for me to stay and wait for Johanna to come back?

Oh, of course! You were expected. You can move right into the Pear House– that’s the old stone building behind this. It’s where Johanna lives…we all have our little spots. Julie and I live here in the main house but Ingrid and Baxter do too only you have to go around because there aren’t any inside doors connecting that addition to this. Isn’t that weird? Esther lives with James down past the garden. Molly indicated the brown haired woman smoking at the table. Madge lives with Jack and that’s in this house too but it’s the upstairs part that you have to use a ladder to get to. She laughed like this was incredibly funny. Tolly was pretty sure it was.

Madge used to live with Jack but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to climb that beanstalk again!

Madge has been threatening to leave every day since she got here- a year ago. Molly laughed but it looked to Tolly like Madge was serious.

Whew. I was afraid I’d have to sleep in my car until she came back. Tolly didn’t really know how to behave with this bunch but he sure was willing to try.

"Do you have