Such Sweet Sorrow: A Novel

By Carolyn P. Ellis

As a photographer I am always aware that faces ... especially eyes ... have a story to tell. As a writer, I often call up the visual image to lead me into a descriptive narrative.

When I photographed these children in 1971, their faces had a story to tell. I believe I have that story in my novel, "Such Sweet Sorrow."

This suspense thriller is set in the hills of East Tennessee. The story begins when a rural school teacher's seven-year-old student, Donna-Dean Silcox, says she has been told not to come home from school. This situation ultimately leads to the discovery by the County Sheriff, of an "outlandish" murder. The Sheriff quickly endears himself to the child, to the teacher, and to the reader.

This piece of Southern fiction keeps you turning pages through cliff-hanging chapters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450077644

Carolyn P. Ellis

Carolyn Ellis, a native Tennessean, is a first-time author whose love of photography began at age 10 when she used an Ansco Press Camera for a 4-H project. After college, Carolyn worked for a Public Broadcasting television station and honed her photojournalism skills in the Public Relations Department. Those skills would be enhanced at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York while working as a Research Assistant on a Local Government grant project. Moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma, Carolyn discovered yet another aspect of photography, that of photographing newborn babies at several Tulsa hospital nurseries. Transferring with this nationwide company back home to Tennessee, she has spent 23 years photographing babies. As "Such Sweet Sorrow" began to unfold, Carolyn focused her writing on character-driven Southern fiction, recalling a beloved college Professor's constant reprimand of "who's story is this, and why do we care?" For the past four years, another passion has entered Carolyn's life. She is a Historical Interpreter at The Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson near Nashville, Tennessee.

Book preview

SUCH SWEET SORROW

A Novel

Carolyn P. Ellis

Copyright © 2010 by Carolyn P. Ellis.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2010906639

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4500-9999-8

   Softcover   978-1-4500-9998-1

   Ebook   978-1-4500-7764-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

80387

CONTENTS

Prologue

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

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Chapter Seventy-Six

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Chapter Seventy Eight

Chapter Seventy Nine

Chapter Eighty

Chapter Eighty One

Chapter Eighty-Two

Chapter Eighty Three

Chapter Eighty Four

Chapter Eighty Five

Chapter Eighty Six

Chapter Eighty Seven

Chapter Eighty Eight

Chapter Eighty Nine

Chapter Ninety

Chapter Ninety One

Chapter Ninety Two

Chapter Ninety Three

Chapter Ninety Four

Chapter Ninety Five

DEDICATION

FOR THE TWO LOVES OF MY LIFE, JIM AND JEFF!

PROLOGUE

Teacher’s Journal—3 Springs School

Sometimes I feel burrowed into these mountains like a field mouse or one of those nasty white possums I’ve met on the school house porch. Life here is so very slow and monotonous. There’s no energy or rhythm to life. Nothing for any of us to look forward to.

This, I have learned, is the way mountain people have cycled their lives. Complacency suits them just fine. They don’t go looking for changin’ thangs. They don’t care to know that life can be made better for them, or for their children. They feel they have lived perfectly all right and their children can live this way, too. This is how they were raised by past generations, and they see no need for thangs to be different for their young’uns.

When I first came here, I thought this was an interesting way of thinking. I also felt I had a great deal to offer them as the new teacher in their two-room school. Now it seems as if they have worn me down, or cycled me down, to accepting this culture and stifling my educated enthusiasm.

I drove my brand-spankin’ new Jeep Grand Cherokee back into this valley four years ago, imagining my life would become a piece of juvenile fiction: Randa Stratton… Rural Teacher. I was excited to meet these children, ready to bring the outside world in here to them. I wanted to bear the message that life itself was over that big mountain, down the super road to Knoxville.

Coming here was like entering a foreign country: I struggled to learn their language, eat their food, to second-guess what they were thinking. Their stares at me were of wonder, disbelief, and a stubbornness to accept what I was all about. I soon learned the stares meant their attention had left me and gone on to something else. When both the children and adults don’t want to understand, they simply turn a deaf ear and acquire a blind eye.

These children are similar to inner-city ghetto kids, scraping out the same kind of life. These hills and hollows are their mean streets. In the city, they acquire street smarts; out here it would be called survival of the fittest, even within their own family.

During that first year, I was fascinated with them, and I think I became their student. I was quickly told by the parents what I could not do. They implied I had boundaries with my teachin’s, and that I’d best just stick to the readin’ and the writin’. The children didn’t need much else.

At our school Christmas party that year, I gave each of the little girls Barbie dolls and Walk-Man radios to the older children. My church in Knoxville had provided my shopping money.

One little girl’s daddy apparently thought Barbie to be just a little too anatomically correct. He brought the unwrapped and undressed doll to me saying, She won’t be needin’ such as this, and took his daughter out the door to go home.

It seems they all love to eat: the mothers and dads, the grandmas who wear their sun bonnets year ‘round, the grandpas who gather on the grocery store steps to whittle and spit. Our best interactions have been at dish-to-pass suppers. They always come bearing what they’re most proud of: country ham biscuits, homemade sausage, chow-chow from an age-old recipe.

They are saying to me, in some language, that they appreciate my work. But when I try to get close to them, they draw back, away from an outsider’s questions that might expose something.

Their mountain vocabulary has taken me back in time. Antique words like toddy, salve, and dipper are still widely used here, as are silly words like dagnabbit, dadgummit, and shoot fire. Phrases like he shore is beside hisself, she’s rich as all git out, or my particular favorite it’s a snowin’ to beat the band, have touched my heart.

I’ve learned that something might get your goat or be clean as a pin, or someone would not want to raise a stink. One might have Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, a holier than thou look, or be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

It’s very hard for these children to stay in school beyond the eighth grade. There is no encouragement for them to finish high school thirty miles away in Brandensburg. The boys are destined to work grubbing out a living on their family farm, or to work in the zinc mine. The girls will link up with the boys, get married early and quickly get pregnant, or vice versa. Our most successful alumnus owns a bowling alley in Trentville.

I have decided the blankness in their eyes has come down through the years within their mountain genealogy. It’s an inherited blankness of heart, mind, and spirit. These families have been defeated by poverty and ignorance. Not one single person hereabouts has any kind of dream or motivation. Even the youngest of them seems wound up by key to perform the basic functions of living, and nothing more.

Obviously, my efforts to charge these children up with something that might spark an interest have failed. They give me no feedback. They come here, sit here looking at me, they eat the butterbiscuits in their sack lunches, look at me some more through the afternoon, and they go home. Nothing more, nothing less. We are all fulfilling someone’s idea of the educational process!

CHAPTER ONE

The Gray Days of Winter—January 2000

The girls seemed quiet today. Forlorn and melancholy. Randa wanted to ask them what was wrong, but she knew they would only duck their heads in response. Yesterday, they had giggled quite a bit. She liked them when they were silly; it was as close to a spark of life as she could get.

Something was wrong with one of them. Randa had learned these children could feel each other’s pain; they could bear each other’s burdens. They were too young to have burdens. They seemed to be little old women in knot-kneed, little girl bodies.

At seven years old, Donna-Dean Silcox was the ringleader of her group. If she was sad, the other four girls were sad. If Donna-Dean giggled, they giggled. Randa couldn’t understand how this shy, introverted little cutie had such an influence over the others.

Today, Donna-Dean had said nothing, not even when Randa called her up to her desk to give her some M&M’s hidden in the drawer.

Donna-Dean, are you sick? Randa asked.

No’m, she said softly.

Later, when the others were eating their lunches, Donna-Dean came over to Randa and said she didn’t want to go home from school today. She said her mother did not want her to come home, and had told her this morning that they wouldn’t be there, if she did come home.

Donna-Dean was almost in tears. My momma said I should jist go on off somewheres.

Randa believed what she was saying. Several weeks back, the mother had threatened to set Donna-Dean’s hair on fire if she lied about doing some insignificant something. Randa felt this child’s fear in the pit of her stomach. Her head flooded with all of the do’s and don’ts she had been taught for situations like this.

Miss Mattie Lou Carnes, Randa’s teaching partner and about thirty years her senior, would know what to do. They had divided their twenty three regular students into two groups. The young ones, grades first through fourth, were in Randa’s classroom. Miss Mattie had wanted the older ones, grades fifth through eighth. Mattie was a teacher from the old school. She knew the people of this valley and met them head on. She demanded everyone’s respect. And she got it.

Randa took Donna-Dean to Miss Mattie and asked her to tell her story about going home.

Well, Donna-Dean, Miss Mattie said rather sharply, where do you want to go?

I’ll jist stay right here, Donna-Dean said. Randa thought perhaps Miss Mattie had met her match.

Where is David-Jack today? Miss Mattie asked about Donna-Dean’s fourteen-year-old brother, who was absent from school. I don’t know, she replied. Randa led Donna-Dean back to her room and gave her pieces of colored chalk to draw pictures on the blackboard.

Moments later, Randa almost ran back to have a private talk with Miss Mattie. They reviewed many stories the children had been telling about Donna-Dean and David-Jack. Supposedly, the mother had stuck a straight pin through David-Jack’s tongue when he dared to sass her at the supper table one evening. David-Jack had never said much more than ‘huh’ at school anyway, so no one could have possibly been able to detect a pin-sticking.

We’ll just have to call Sheriff Hawkins in on this. I’ll go call and have him come on over here when school is out, Mattie said.

At three o’clock the school bus came. They all knew Donna-Dean wasn’t going to get on it. Randa watched her go to the back corner of the classroom to sit on the floor while the others gathered their things to rush out the door.

CHAPTER TWO

Outside, Sheriff Royce Hawkins leaned against the front of his car. Randa went out to introduce herself. A handsome man under the Smokey-the-Bear hat he was tipping at her. He seemed rather young for this powerful job. A nice blend of Andy and Barney, she thought.

Randa invited him inside. As the two of them looked across the classroom toward Donna-Dean, Randa whispered that Mrs. Silcox had warned Donna-Dean not to come home from school.

Her brother, David-Jack, was not here at school today.

Is that right? the sheriff said, as he raised a skeptical brow.

His first suggestion was they wait at the school to see if anyone would come to get her. He concluded they might send the brother for her once she didn’t get off the school bus. Donna-Dean remained in the corner of the classroom, crouched on the floor. As the winter sky began to darken at four-thirty, the sheriff began to think of another plan.

Thing of it is, these people can be really spooky about what they consider to be their business, he said. They just wouldn’t want us messing in their family matters.

Oh well, that’s fine, but am I supposed to let this little seven-year-old girl stay here in the school house overnight, or am I supposed to drive her out there and leave her to walk up her lane in the dark, not knowing if anyone is there? Randa asked.

The house is about a quarter of a mile back up that hollow, off the main road. She can’t be left to walk to the house by herself, he said. And I’m afraid if they see me coming up in the sheriff’s car, there’s no telling what they’ll do to her after I leave. We have to try to approach this in a peaceable fashion until we need to do otherwise, he explained. I do need to ask if you might ride with us?

Yes, I will, Randa said. Let’s convince her to go.

Donna-Dean had moved from the corner to the front of the room where she was playing with the erasers on the blackboard tray. She had been crying. The tear trails had etched their way down her dirty little face.

Donna-Dean, this is Sheriff Hawkins. He’s going to go with us to take you home. We’ll get to ride in his car and you can show us the way, Randa said, trying to make this sound like a most exciting adventure.

Donna-Dean said nothing as Royce Hawkins offered her his hand to lead her out to his car. She grasped his hand quickly, eyeing him cautiously, and looked over her shoulder to make sure Randa was following.

The drive out past the stand, the mountain term for grocery store, and the three other buildings in the valley settlement of 3 Springs, was silent. Each of them was lost in their individual thoughts on this tense situation that had an uncertain outcome.

It was pitch dark on the two-lane highway, once they had passed under the street lights on either side of the post office. The dark gathered close into the sides of the car, with only the headlights streaking out toward the double yellow line. They made two or three turns onto smaller roads. Sheriff Hawkins seemed to know where he was going. Had he been out to this house before?

Donna-Dean sat between them on the seat. Royce stopped the car near a leaning mail box on the left side of the road.

Is that your daddy’s mail box? he asked.

Yessir.

I’ll turn in here. he said. Hang on. This is probably a bumpy old wagon road.

Once off the paved highway, the trees and bushes folded over the car in a frightening thicket of darkness. The wintry arms of trees on one side grew up and across to gather in the arms of trees growing up from the other side of the lane, forming a canopy above them. Randa saw no sign of a house, just woods to the right and to the left as far as she could see. The road was passable, but branches switched heavily into the sides of the car. If they lived back in here, they were certainly camouflaged against the outside world.

Finally, up ahead, the car lights focused on the shape of a house. It was a two-story brick, antebellum country home, run down from the lack of funds to maintain it. There were no lights in any of its tall windows.

Donna-Dean, do you see your daddy’s truck? Royce asked.

Does he keep it around back?

No, Donna-Dean answered both questions, reserving any further comment. She kept her head ducked below the car dashboard, occasionally peering over to take quick glimpses of the scene before them.

The car lights, on full beam since they turned off the main highway, blared directly through the rickety yard fence, past a gate hanging by one rusty hinge. Randa noticed the wooden porch was bare. No porch swing to invite a visitor to sit, no flower pots with frostbitten winter plants, no outward indication a family lived here.

Royce blew the car horn, quite unexpectedly, jump starting Randa’s heart and scaring Donna-Dean. He blew a second and third time. No lights came on, no one appeared at the door. The three of them sat in silence, waiting.

Well, I’m going to go up there, Royce said. Maybe walk around back. I need to show you how to use this, in case you need to.

Randa felt her head turn toward him, almost in slow motion, not sure what he might be talking about… God, don’t let it be his gun. No, he was holding the microphone to his dispatch radio. She was to call for help.

Oh no. If I think you’re not coming back, I’ll drive this car out of here, into town. You’ll just be out here to fend for yourself until I can get help, she found herself getting a loud panic to her voice. I would need to get Donna-Dean out of here, she said, using the child as a mental hostage against whatever his arguments might be.

Well, give me time to investigate the situation. I’ve got to at least walk around the house to see if they’re out back. Maybe they are out at the barn, he explained.

Look, if they couldn’t hear this blaring car horn, why don’t you try giving the siren a little whirl. That should bring the relatives up out of the cemetery, Randa said. She immediately regretted that Donna-Dean had heard the dead relatives remark.

Okay, that’s an idea, he agreed. Donna-Dean, do you want to push that button right there? She seemed to have the hint of a smile. She pushed and the blue light on top swept across the front of the house and yard, scanning the place like a Hollywood beacon light. The siren shrieked two or three times, then Royce turned it off. No use, no one was roused, from the dead or otherwise.

All right. Now. I’m going in. Give me ten minutes by our watches. They checked their wrists as if they were espionage agents in a movie.

If I’m not back in ten minutes… he began a scripted dialogue as Randa interrupted.

I’ll tell you, Royce, she disregarded the formal reference to Sheriff in an effort to make her point. I’m not going to sit back in this thicket, in the black dark, with this little girl, while someone over the mountain somewhere tries to decide if they’re going to come help us or not. If I drive up to the county courthouse in your car, they would definitely know you needed help… wouldn’t they?

Well, what if I… He stopped in mid-sentence, realizing he couldn’t lay out a scenario in front of Donna-Dean. Okay, he conceded. Do what you have to do, I’m going in.

He grabbed a flashlight from under the car seat and was out the door. As the door slammed shut behind his boots, Randa slapped down the car door lock, feeling only a tiny bit of security. Donna-Dean scrambled over and pulled herself up to drive the steering wheel.

CHAPTER THREE

Royce unsnapped the holster which had clasped around his gun. He made his way to the gate and punched it open with the end of the flashlight. The rusty hinge made a loud creak that broke through the silent darkness. A cold wind swept across his feet, racing a cluster of dried leaves into the far shadows of the yard.

He stepped quickly to the left side of the house. The flashlight traced along the fence where Mrs. Silcox had cleverly topped each picket with a glass fruit jar. The light caught the word Mason on the inverted glass. Odd place for jars, he thought.

There was no light anywhere from within the house. Royce pointed the flashlight up to the second floor… nothing of interest there. When he approached the back corner of the house, he switched the flashlight off and stepped in close to the brick wall.

There was no moon on this cold winter night. Royce turned up the collar on his leather jacket. He strained into the wind as he leaned out trying to see, or hear, something, anything, across this great backyard. Nothing. No truck. He hated to admit it, but nobody was here. God, what would he do with this child? His mind raced through the possibilities.

He turned on the flashlight, and walked toward the screened-in back porch. The yard was covered with trash and clutter. The light found its way to a mattress that had been tossed out the back door. It smelled as if it had been recently burned. He put his hand across the charred end to see if it was smoldering. It wasn’t. Don’t jump to conclusions here, he warned himself.

The torn screen door to the porch was slightly ajar, no light from within. Suddenly, there was a sound. What was that, he thought? He stood quiet. Maybe he would hear that again.

Nothing.

Scanning with the flashlight once again, through the screen door, Royce decided to announce himself.

Mrs. Silcox? It’s Sheriff Hawkins.

Nothing.

Anybody here? he shouted.

Nothing.

There… that was the sound again. It sounded like a gurgle. It seemed to be coming from the far right corner of the porch.

Royce jerked the light beam across the emptiness to what appeared to be a pile of clothes on the floor. He pulled open the screen door and jumped quickly up the steps onto the creaking floor boards. The light fell across the boy’s head and face.

David-Jack?

Propping the flashlight under his chin, Royce quickly gathered him into his arms.

The boy was bleeding from a massive head wound, as well as from a deep-seated gash across his stomach. Blood was everywhere.

He was obviously close to bleeding to death. There was no struggle, no response to Royce’s supporting his head, no groan of pain. His eyes were almost fixed. There was only a glimmer of life.

DAVID-JACK! Who did this to you? Can you tell me? The boy slowly rolled his eyes toward Royce.

Who, David-Jack, who would do this? Tell me, NOW! Royce leaned close to the bloody mouth eager to hear a whisper.

My ma… , he said.

Royce didn’t know what to say to him, what hope to offer. Where is she… David-Jack, where did she go?

Royce felt the body go limp. He watched as the boy’s eyes told him life had gone. The Lord had mercifully called him home.

Thank you, Jesus. Take him to the best part of Heaven you have. He rested David-Jack back down onto the floor.

God, what kind of mother could have done this to her child? What could he possibly have done to make her do this? Royce rubbed his coat sleeves across each other to paw away the streaks of David-Jack’s blood, and fumbled for the shirttail inside his jacket to wipe his hands clean. Donna-Dean can’t see this, he thought.

He ran, now, off the porch at a full gallop around the corner of the house to get to the car. Oh God, please let her still be there.