Wildflowers Fading into Winter

By Rebecca M. Brown

In a sleepy southern town, Wendy Ramburger and Abbigail Phelps gladly take in two young sisters, after learning that the girls have been placed in harm's way. During the process, Ms. Ramburger catches the eye of interesting young officer, Eric Lee. Day to day life quickly becomes something none of them are used to. With school life, and sleepless nights, wiping tears, and sharing fears, the story unfolds in a heart wrenching way. Not everything is as it seems, when the strangers are brought together to ultimately find true love, and a family bond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491826423

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© 2014 Rebecca M. Brown. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/26/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2643-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2642-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918390

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

About the Author

Chapter 1

D own here, summer was something to be in awe of.

Everything had life and a purpose. Trees stood strong, their weighted branches casting shadows, giving shade from the heat of the day. Wonderfully scented flowering bushes were beautiful to see, as their limbs swayed this way and that on the breeze. This time of year in the south was solely unlike anything else the world had to offer.

The only drawback to summer were the pesky mosquitoes. You learned to tolerate them, though.

From the sanctity of my mammy’s screened in wraparound porch (that wasn’t truly a wraparound at all, it flanked only three sides of the charming little house), I was protected from any from the stinging bites of those mosquitoes. I wasn’t immune to the sound and light show performed by the rest of the of the insect world, though. Closing my eyes, I still saw the stream of green light, given off by the lightning bugs zipping through the night air.

As a kid, I’d caught them in glass jars, sealing them within, stealing their glow. Once I was older, the idea of capturing and keeping them no longer appealed to me. I realized that doing so didn’t really serve any purpose. Instead, now I just enjoyed them for the moment they were with me.

The natural music provided on a balmy summer night was equally as unparallel to anything else I’d ever heard. The crickets, with their unending hum were probably my favorite sound, though the errant croak of a faraway bullfrog expanding its whole body with each breath often took me by delighted surprise.

Even those mosquitoes, with their unnerving buzz were a pleasure to listen to this time of year. So long as you were guarded from them, that is.

I swear, once you’d spent even one warm evening outdoors down here, it got in your blood, and you became addicted to all of it. The harmonious songs of the whip-poor-will, playing its tune until the first rooster’s crow, the flowers that came to you in the warm air, intoxicating the senses. The electric feeling swimming in the atmosphere just before a thunderstorm.

Yes, take my word on it, the southern states held beauty abundant.

I’d been here for almost twelve years. As a matter of fact, it was twelve years this month, although I couldn’t give you an exact date.

My mama and me had packed everything we could fit in the backseat of her car the week she had learned of the cancer living inside her. (Incidentally, that was the same week that my Daddy had left us) Once my mammy, Ms. Abigail Phelps, had given the invitation for us to join her here, me and mama were heading due south from upstate Illinois to Georgia. I still remembered the look on my mama’s face when she said we couldn’t get there fast enough.

Georgia was my home now, and to be honest, I’d never thought of another place as home, not even Pontiac, where me, mama and daddy had lived for the first eleven years of my life.

That’s not to say my life there hadn’t been good.

It was, but I hadn’t really been living. Mama hadn’t ever seemed happy there either. Down here, our lives had begun.

We had been getting on rather happily here for many years, until the cancer came out of remission. That winter, mammy and I did all we could to make my mama comfortable. We knew she would soon be taken from us, though neither of us wanted to accept that.

She’d been gone from us for four years now. We missed her more than we could say. We’d said our final goodbyes, and laid her to rest, surrounded by the whole town that winter. You’ve probably never seen two more lost souls as mammy and me were then.

I remembered how we had got a hold of my daddy, to let him know of mama’s passing. To our surprise, he came down for the services by himself.

The fact that he had came wasn’t what had surprised us.

My daddy had always been a stickler for propriety.

What had been the surprising part was that he hadn’t been accompanied to mama’s funeral by my step mother, or by either of my half siblings. I was grateful to him, at least, for that. I’d never had any kinship with them. In fact, I found his wife to be unkind, and their children annoying.

To give them credit, though, they were several years younger than I was, and so had nothing in common with me. Still the constant whining and sniveling reminded me in no way of myself at their age.

While sitting in the pew beside mammy and myself, he had seemed sincerely upset. After the ceremony, after mama was lowered in the ground, he found us leaving the graveyard. He hugged us both, let us know it had been good seeing us, then said he had to get back home.

That he had promised his family he would return as soon as he could.

When he’d said those words, it’d felt like I’d been stung.

I got over the hurt as soon as I realized I hadn’t been a part of his family, nor he mine for quiet some time, if ever.

The only family I had, or needed, for that matter was my mammy, and my mama.

The five and a half years I spent with the two women who had my heart were wonderful. I wouldn’t have traded a single day with them for a million without.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson had absolutely gotten that one right, when he’d penned the infamous line, ’tis better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all.

Even so, saying goodbye to mama was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

The two of us always had some kind of project going on to hold our attention. She’d been my best friend in those days

Though mammy’s lawn was well maintained, we had put a lot of blood, sweat and tears, as the saying goes, into making it stunning.

From the beginning of a school year, until its end, I’d almost literally marked off the days on my calendar. Until summer break came back around, and we could spend all of our time together.

The stoned paths, as well as those little dirt trails that led from one point to another in mammy’s massive yard were a product of our work worn hands. Every sore muscle we’d endured had been worth it, I thought, looking out toward the landscape now.

Through the darkness, I saw, in my mind the red maples that dotted the landscape, luscious beds of purple and red impatiens at their feet.

In a short while, I knew, the trees’ green leaves would give way to crimson, and hold onto the limbs as long as they could. Then, at the end of autumn, the green lawn before me now would be littered, unrecognizable as anything other than those leaves final resting place.

Back when she was alive, mama and me would spend chilly weekend mornings with yard rakes in our hands. Pulling and tugging, only to then bend and scoop. We’d get most of those leaves into a pile to burn. That was another pleasure we had down here that I looked forward to the whole year through: the smell of burning leaves.

Now that I thought about it, summer had its flowers, and honeysuckles, and all of God’s creature putting on a show, but Autumn had her leaves.

I’d take Autumn any day. There was something about that time, be it the first crisp chill in the air, or the cozy feel of a bowl of steaming stew nestled in my lap, that made me yearn for it when it was away.

It was the time to put everything to rest as winter approached. When the promise of hot chocolate, while in our socked feet pulled us to the back porch for an impressive scene.

The sound of the rustling winds through the trees, causing those leaves to finally loosen their hold and fall to the ground still had me stopping to listen, after all this time.

This porch, where so many of my fondest memories were made, is where I came to every night, no matter the time of year to be alone with my thoughts.

With a sigh, I noticed the light of the day giving way to dusk, and knew that in a short while, that light would be all gone, and night would be here.

Looking down at my watch, I saw that it was almost 8:30. I didn’t know where this day had gone, but gone it had. I grabbed my empty glass off the table. A ring of water marked where it had been.

I went into the house, slipping my shoes off at the backdoor (Mammy said that shoes were made for walking outside where dirt lived, and she didn’t want it packed in here where we lived, thank you.). I heard the roar of the T.V. from down the hall in the living room.

Once I’d straightened up the kitchen, I would join mammy in there. Our nightly ritual in the order of supper, porch, dishes, then TV had been longstanding. Nowadays after supper, though mammy skipped the porch, going straight to the television. She’d say her old bones deserved a rest after the day they’d been through. I used to offer to join her on the couch, instead of taking my glass of sweet tea to the porch, but she had always grumbled, saying it was the only time she got a moment to herself, and she’d thank me not to intrude.

Years ago, when mama and I first came to live with mammy, she had taught me an invaluable trick to the supper dishes. She’d shown me that if you leave them soaking in a sink of Dawn dish detergent and scalding hot water while you had your tea on the porch, they were much easier to clean. In fact, all I had to do at that point was run a sudsy dishrag over them, rinse them, then leave them standing to drain in the drain board.

Once I tended to the rest of the kitchen, I would simply wipe them dry with a dishtowel, and put them back in the cabinet.

Mammy’s generation had a wisdom I had been wise to foster while growing up.

They knew perfectly how to tackle many of their chores effortlessly, although efficiently and quickly. She’d been quick to point out that back then many of the resources of today hadn’t existed, so they had to self teach time management.

When you grew up in a house with ten brothers and sisters, mammy was fond of saying, you had to have the knack for getting things done. And she did, let me tell you. Her house was impeccable. A little outdated, to be sure, but you wouldn’t find dust keeping company in any of its corners. Much of what I now knew, what I’d carry with me through life, had been taught to me by her.

I considered myself fortunate for having come to live with her at such a young age. If I had came here later in life, I probably would’ve had the mindset that I knew everything there was to know about everything there was to know. Most teenagers did.

Yes, mammy had played a part in molding me into who I was today. I considered myself fortunate because of that. I was almost twenty-four, and she assured me that I was far more capable than most of the young ladies my age today were. My head wasn’t full of air, or up in the clouds, and I had plenty of common sense, she’d say.

Chuckling to myself, I closed the cabinet on the last dinner plate, then made my way toward the living room. As could be expected, mammy sat in the overstuffed chair, her feet disappearing beneath a wool afghan that was older than me.

Cold, mammy? I asked, settling myself down into the equally oversized sofa next to her.

I reached over, and gave the knob of the lamp two turns, as she replied, Always, then burrowed deeper into the lap blanket, if that was possible.

It’s at least 80 out this evening, mammy. Are you feeling alright? Do you need me to take you in to see Dr. Mavory? although I knew she would decline my offer, I wanted to ask, on the off chance she’d finally agree to go.

There’s nothing wrong with these old bones, she protested, keeping her eyes on the television, except that they’re old. She looked at me then, giving me a warm smile.

Well, they’re tired, she amended. Old and tired. That’s it. Now, I’m taking my old tired bones to bed, she said, attempting twice to push herself up from where she sat. When she stumbled where she stood, finally catching herself against the arm of the chair, I saw the whole thing from the corner of my eye. I made no move to help her right herself, though. Mammy was as independent as they came. She’d said more than once that if she ever got to be a burden, I should just put her in a home somewhere.

Although I would never do anything of the sort, for mammy’s sake, I’d always just smiled and nodded, going along with her.

I watched as she made her way down the hall where our bedrooms could be found. Hers was the smallest of the three. She gave mama the biggest, and me the second biggest when we moved in. She’d said that she was older, with fewer things, and so needed less space.

After mama’s passing, mammy mentioned that I should move into the room. At the time, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Days had gone by, turning into weeks, weeks to months, and so on. Here it was, four years since her death, her room still sat unoccupied.

Not empty, just unoccupied. We decided some time ago to fix it up as a guestroom. I couldn’t remember an overnight guest ever being in this house, though.

She never brought up again my taking the room over. Wisely, she knew that it would hurt me to do so. So, the room had remained as it was today, an ever vacant guestroom.

Grabbing the remote from the table that held the lamp, I turned the volume of the television set down, watching the numbers roll backward across the bottom of the screen from 40, to a more sensible 23. Mammy was hard of hearing, and so the volume was usually turned up enough to make the speakers in the back thump on occasion, and the higher pitched voices squelch some. She had always been oblivious to those two facts. It was one more thing I found absolutely charming about her.

With the volume turned down, I began paying attention to the lovely brunette, as she spoke, The two adults in the vehicle suffered head injuries, and are now in critical condition in the ICU at County Memorial. Little has been released, so far on the future of the two juvenile females in the vehicle, though we are told that the pair were wearing their seatbelts, thankfully suffering no injuries, and are presently in the custody of the Rock County police department. We’ll keep you up to date on the story as it unfolds. Jim, back to you, the lady spoke in a clipped, nasal voice, as those reporters were famous for.

The screen jumped to a black headed man wearing a light brown suit and blue tie. Still imprinted in my mind, though was the image of the banged up car on the screen as the lady had been speaking.

It was plain to see the car had been a full sized, but looked half of that now, as it sat against a bridge embankment. The man was saying something now about alcohol playing a role in the crash. The fact made me sick, so much so, that I couldn’t watch anymore of the story. I turned the television off.

Looking down the hall, I saw that the curtains over the window were opened, with ample moonlight spilling in. With two turns of the knob, I turned the lamp off, and made my way by filtered moonlight to my room just across the hall from Mammy.

My bed felt strangely uncomfortable as I pulled the sheets back, and sank down into it. I wasn’t a praying sort, but as my eyes closed, I prayed for those young girls whose lives had been changed forever tonight.

Chapter 2

A ll night, I was fitful, never really falling to sleep. The stories of the news hadn’t ever affected me in such a way, but those girls were on my mind all night. The sympathy I had for them and their new, unasked for situation had kept me awake.

I rubbed at my eyes with my knuckles, stretched what felt like a mile, yawned loudly, and pulled myself from the sheets. Sitting on the side of the bed, I heard the usual morning sounds coming from the kitchen. Mammy’s soothing hums carried to me as she went about making what would prove to be a fine breakfast.

I believed that she could make a simple pot of boiling water smell mouth watering, and taste just as good.

I shuffled my way down the hall, and into the bathroom. After tending to nature’s call, I stood before the sink, combing my hair. I pulled it’s dark brown length into a clasped twist on top of my head, then brushed my teeth, and washed my face.

When finally I came into the kitchen, the delicious smells there made my stomach growl.

Oh, good morning, sugar, mammy said to me, though her eyes never left the cast iron skillet where the whisk in her hand was working on some pepper gravy. Breakfast won’t be ready for a little bit, but coffee’s on, her white capped head nodded to the counter, where, indeed a pot of steaming, black coffee sat.

Passing her on my way to the pot, I stopped and kissed her cheek. Thanks, mammy. It smells delicious.

As I got two cups off the hooks under the cabinet, I heard her reply, You know it. I just grinned and shook my head. What could I say? Mammy was arrogant in the kitchen. With good reason.

I poured the two cups of coffee, adding a spoon of sugar to mine. Going to the fridge, I got out the milk, and from the freezer, a single ice cube for mammy’s coffee.

Since I’d started drinking the stuff, which was not many years after moving here, I never saw how she could drink hers that way: nothing in it, straight up black, she called it. To me, it tasted bitter.

I asked her once why she did, and she told me that’s how her daddy drank it, and how he’d shown her to drink it. She was eighteen, and married before she knew that anybody put sugar or milk in their coffee.

Her eyes took on a faraway nostalgic look when she’d told me the story a long time ago of wanting to surprise my grandpa, her new husband at the time, with breakfast in bed. She said she’d been so pleased with herself, and her thoughtfulness.

She’d laugh at how she’d brought his coffee to him straight up black. She said he’d made the awfulest face she’d ever seen. That’s the day she learned about sugar in coffee.

She was full of funny stories like that.

I sat her cup beside her on the counter, and carried mine to the table. Out the opened window to my left, past the shaded porch, I saw a group of young children riding bikes down the sidewalk, some with baskets on the front, some with those colorful streamers coming from the handlebars. They all seemed to be having a good time in the warm morning sun.

Until the girl riding in the back of the line tumbled off her bike, and landed with a screech in the grass. It hadn’t seemed so serious, but the girl cried out in fear, I think more than from pain.

I didn’t have time to blink before a man rushed to where she lay, and bent to pull her into his arms. I saw the panic cross his face, as he turned to carry her back the direction he had came from. A young woman met them in the street, stroking the young girl’s hair.

By now, the other children in the convoy had noticed their fallen comrade, and abandoning their bikes, hurried over to see that she was alright. As she was packed inside, the others stood in a semicircle in the driveway, concern on their young faces.

After all the commotion died down, my thoughts turned to the two little ones on the news last night. They didn’t deserve the fate they had been dealt. They deserved to be as safe and secure as the little girl with the skinned up knee.

I’d toyed around with an idea last night, but now it started to take shape in my mind. As it did, I knew mammy would agree with me wholeheartedly, once she warmed to it, that is.

Though I hated to, I began somewhat misleadingly, Did you hear about those two little girls being held out at the police station? My words flowed easily, simply. I watched her over the rim of my coffee cup.

Pulling the biscuits from the oven, mammy asked, her back to me, "What could two little angels possibly have done that was as bad as all that? I mean, the police station? After setting the pan on the stovetop, she turned back to me shaking her head, wiping her hands on the dishtowel she wore over her shoulder. The wrinkles of her face were pursed together questioningly, The police station, you say?" Making her way to where I sat, she grabbed the back of one of the chairs with both hands, waiting for me to explain.

They’re not there because they did anything, I corrected. Their parents got into a drunk driving accident, and were banged up pretty bad. The little girls were in the car with them. They’re not hurt. For the time being, though, at least until they find out what’s going on with the parents, the little girls will be in the Sherriff’s custody, I peered at her over the rim of my coffee cup, to judge her reaction.

With a scowl, mammy’s next words didn’t disappoint. Well, that sure ain’t no place for two little girls to be, she sounded bothered by the idea of it. I could see in her eyes that I’d gotten the wheels to turning in her mind.

I knew my mammy, knew that she was the kindest, most dear lady, and that she would move Heaven and earth to right a wrong. Though I couldn’t agree more with what she’d said, I didn’t say so. Instead, I simply sat there, letting her come to her own conclusion. I didn’t have to wait all that long.

If you’re up for it, after breakfast, me and you are going to see about getting things straightened out for those two. I hid the smile that crept across my face behind my coffee cup.

For the next half hour, as we ate, mammy started to lay out a plan to me. I didn’t interject, but nodded along in silence. I had had all night, and most of this morning to think about what was best for the little girls, yet mammy’s hastily thrown together ideas trumped mine to pieces.

The parking lot held two cruisers, and a third that had the word sheriff painted on either side. The big black letters were outlined in gold, and spanned both the front and back doors. On top of this car, as well as the cruisers sat rows of lights. The three cars were painted mostly bright white, and stood out against the red brick of the building.

Traffic on the street in front of the station was almost nonexistent. Other than a dark blue SUV, no one passed as we rounded the corner of the lot, and started towards the double doors leading inside.

An antiseptic smell greeted us as we came through those doors. The room had solid brick walls that were painted white. There was a decent sized notch-out in that wall to the right. Through it, was a large room that held three desks on either side of an aisle.

In front of us sat a woman with a lovely youthful smile, though the gray roots contrasting the auburn color in her hair hinted that she was more than likely nearing mammy’s age rather than my own.

When she noticed us, she told the person on the the phone to hold on. In a fluid motion, she covered the receiver with her hand, asking, Can I help ya’ll?, As she spoke, the thick drawl of her accent poured slower than honey.

I hope so, mammy said, walking in front of me. She extended