Coloring for Dawn

By Linda Powers-Daniel

In Coloring for Dark, Virginia native Linda Powers-Daniel tells a story of bootlegging, adultery and the proud resilient women who wont yield to betrayal or hardscrabble lives. Its a tale of three sisters who launch themselves on a quest to solve their fathers murder.

In the second book of the trilogy, Coloring for Dawn, Gee is happily married and Laurel and Scarlet were part of the divorce generation, becoming accomplished career women. They live in historic Abingdon, Virginia and travel the maize of equal pay, token woman status and sexual harassment in the 80s. Laurel is a serious executive, climbing the corporate ladder, hiding her femininity behind her tailored wardrobe. Scarlet is a meticulously accurate manager, using her femininity like a badge of courage; at the same time smiling in a petulant, reckless manner, guaranteed to garner attention. It was engrained in Laurel and her sisters that they could do anything they set their mind to and they totally believed it.

With careers and motherhood filling their lives the sisters search out chosen encounters, feeling a pull within their soul, to find the man who would fulfill the spiritual and erotic hole left by failures in love. Little did they know that within six years they both are destined to find loves many sides and deaths beckoning call, changing their lives forever.

Scarlet is a true romantic and will never give up on love and Laurel buries that desire deep down inside, and puts a lid on it and smiles as she was taught, until she meets the handsome Captain Daniel C. Bastian with his quiet alluring charm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514428535

Linda Powers-Daniel

Linda Powers-Daniel was born in Southern Appalachia, Virginia and presently lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is the author of “Coloring for Dark” and is working on “Sunrise” the final novel in the trilogy.

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Copyright © 2016 by Linda Powers-Daniel.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015919473

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-2852-8

                Softcover      978-1-5144-2854-2

                eBook         978-1-5144-2853-5

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.

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

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (AuthorizedVersion). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright ©

1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Rev. date: 07/15/2016

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prelude

Chapter 1 Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Chapter 2 The Token Woman

Chapter 3 Usda Prime

Chapter 4 Wrecked

Chapter 5 Burning Their Candles At Both Ends

Chapter 6 Full Circle

DEDICATION

Dedicated to the memory of my husband, Captain Edwin C. Daniel, who taught me water seeks its own level. Being married to him and our twenty three years together— resulted in a better version of myself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank my sisters, Myra Powers-Breeding and Charlotte Powers-Sutherland for their unwavering support while I was writing, Coloring for Dawn. I want to especially thank Charlotte for allowing me to develop the character and storyline of Scarlet Jewel. In addition, my heartfelt appreciation for her talent on the design of the dust jacket of the eighties ladies, in collaboration with Bill Waldorf, of Waldorf Photographic Art, Knoxville, Tennessee, for his photograph of Cades Cove, in the Great Smokey Mountains.

When I wrote my first novel, Coloring for Dark, I lived in beautiful Apalachicola, Florida, and had the support of a special group of friends. After I moved to Chattanooga in 2013 and began writing Coloring for Dawn, a mysterious stranger was put in my path, in the midst of a Chattanooga thunderstorm. Thank you to Bobby McCall for your generous contribution and astute feedback in the underpinning of this endeavor.

Thank you Mother, our prayer warrior, my spirited daughter, Mary Beth for intellectual insight, and to my son, Byron for his talented technical guidance.

PRELUDE

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy commeth in the morning. Psalm 30.5

I don’t know why I blocked out that day in July 1956, when I was eight years old. It was frozen in time and instantly I was transported, just like it was yesterday. There were five of us girlfriends, getting ready to begin fourth grade in September. During our third grade year I was invited, along with Mary Katherine, to join the girl’s only club, The Cat’s Meow, named after the founder and president, Catriona Rose Donovan. We paid our dues of twenty five cents and she put them in a glass jar taped with the club name and a picture of her doll face, Persian cat Queenie, and took it to the principal’s office for safe keeping.

Catriona insisted we call her Cat, and she had a way about her; everyone listened and did not mind her calling the shots. Cat had big, amazingly curly, tabby red hair, cornflower blue eyes, framed by thick tortoise shell glasses, and porcelain pale skin. I was glad Cat’s long hair was curlier than mine and had always longed for straight hair like Mary Katherine’s, until I met Cat.

Cat’s mother was the librarian at our school and she had a little brother Kade, who was the same age as Scarlet. Mrs. Donavan had been with Mother when they brought her home the morning Daddy was found murdered. They became especially close friends after that and we had visited many times at their house on Mause Creek, Virginia. Cat explained Mause, was named after the Indian word meaning plucks flowers. She was proud of the Indian heritage there on Mause Creek and we looked for arrow heads, hours at a time, during warm weather. Little sister Gee, always tagged along with us while baby sister, Scarlet and Kade waded at the edge of the water.

We had finished third grade with our presentation of Sleeping Beauty, an Operetta, with blond and blue-eyed Mary Katherine as the perfect Sleeping Beauty and Blaine Mullins as Prince Charming. Two of the good fairies Flora and Fauna were played by Cat and Gee, and I was the evil fairy Maleficent. It was a big event; and we had practiced all year.

Mother called us in the house and Mary Katherine and her mother Maureen were there. Everyone was crying and there was never crying in our house. Mother began to explain with a halting tremor in her voice. Girls, Little Cat was killed instantly by a tandem truck, backing over her this morning. She had set up a Coca Cola stand, across from her house, to sell to the thirsty construction crew. The loose dirt piled high on the side of the make shift road slid, pulling her under, as the truck backed up. Mary Katherine laid her head in her mother’s lap quietly sobbing. Mother sounded far away like in a dream; Cat had made friends with the workers, especially the driver of the truck, who was distraught by her tragic death. Now she will be a jewel in God’s crown in heaven just like the song," the way Mother described the deaths of all children.

I ran out of the room and buried myself in the pillows, in the middle of the bed sobbing. Gee ran after me and we both were plunged head first into another death of a loved one. It had only been a little over three years since our Daddy was murdered. I turned to Gee and hugged her thinking, who will be next? It could be one of us. Mary Katherine joined us and the three of us cried until there was nothing left.

Our teachers organized a choir of the classmates to sing, at the funeral, and we practiced at the First Presbyterian Church. The song was When He Commeth:

When He commeth, when He commeth

To Make up His Jewels,

All His jewels, precious jewels,

His loved and his own.

Like the stars of the morning,

His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty,

Bright gems for His crown….

The morning of the funeral, we wore our Sunday best dresses and patent leather shoes with white, laced trim socks. Our hair was adorned with ribbons or pretty barrettes.

Grace Baptist Church, on Mause Creek, was a small, white clapboard with a steeple and set back in the trees. On one side were picnic tables and flower gardens, and on the other side, a cemetery with head stones of different shapes and sizes. I pointed to the tiny ones and Mother said they were baby tombstones. Jimmy’s tombstone was taller and had a picture of him with his rocking chair, I said to Mother and she replied, Jimmy was three years old and needed one for a big boy, with a tremor in her voice, stopping short of crying. I though it sad that there was no picture for each stone, so we would know what they looked like. Daddy’s had a picture too; I remembered as we entered the church.

We walked with Mother, into the sanctuary, and were led up front to be seated in the first two pews, on the left marked with big white satin bows. I saw the white casket placed in front of The Alter, with a red rose painted on top, and a long green stem. Mary Katherine, Gee and I joined our other school friends with faces filled with stunned childhood grief. I don’t remember anything from that morning except when they called us to stand in front of the casket and sing, When He Commeth. It was like standing in front of Daddy’s casket with Mother and Gee three years ago. I did not want to be there and was overwhelmed with loss.

And at the end of the service they opened the casket, so we could say goodbye to our beautiful Cat. She looked like she was in a peaceful sleep. Her red curls were brilliant against the white satin. Her dress was white silk organza over white tulle with a single embroidered red rose and green leafed stem beginning at the bodice, going down as far as we could see. With lowered voices we paid our respect to Mrs. Donavan and Kade, as we had been instructed. Our voices were whispery low and our eyes wet with tears, as we walked single file, out of the church to the cemetery.

I was glad I didn’t see where the grave site had been prepared when Mother, Scarlet, Gee and I had been out there earlier that morning. We all stood together as they brought Mrs. Donavan and Kade to sit beside a man with dark auburn hair. He was tall and handsome but acted like he didn’t want to be there. There were relatives, mostly older people who sat with them on the chairs. I don’t think Mrs. Donavan saw us standing there and Kade kept his head lowered with his hands folded in his lap. He would be four years old in a few weeks just like Scarlet. He was the same age as Gee when we lost Daddy.

We were all given a white rose and walked single file again and placed the roses on Cat’s casket. The minister stood and looked around the silent room:

At the time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

After the funeral we went to Cat’s house for a party. Her house was a big, white two- story house with lots of trees and flowers. The porch went around three sides of the house. There were rocking chairs, a swing, and tables in clusters everywhere. You could enter the upstairs from a stairwell outside the house on the left side of the porch. Her room was on the second floor and had been left just the way it was, but now it had fresh flowers everywhere. Down stairs in the foyer, there was a picture of her in the same white dress on an easel; her favorite dress everyone knew. Someone was playing the piano and there was food being brought around on trays.

Scarlet came running up to us and said, Kade took my hand and led me up the stairs to Cat’s room and showed me her white patent shoes beside the bed.

Every year on the last day of school, after Cat was gone, Mrs. Donavan would bring cup- cakes to our end of school year party and at graduation she placed a dozen red roses on the stage, in remembrance of our beloved Cat.

Over the course of those years, Mother and Mrs. Donavan would get together mostly at Mrs. Donavan’s house on Mause Creek. Gee, Scarlet and I loved going to the creek and playing long hours with Kade, skipping rocks and looking for arrow heads.

Since I was the oldest I heard stories in passing about Mr. Donavan and Daddy. Daddy grew up not too far from Mr. Donavan’s family and by the time they were teenagers, they were known to be wild. Those stories, that use to have a hold on me, in a secretive way, were now well known by everyone.

Once I came down the stairs and heard Mrs. Donavan tell Mother: Kade’s father had taken him on a weekend trip and I had found out they were in the company of a woman of ill repute. When they came home Kade told me about them picking up Nell and that he had laid his head in her lap."

I realized I couldn’t enter the room and let them see me so I slipped under the stairwell listening to Mrs. Donavan. Maggie, I confronted him with Kade’s story and he turned red and hit me with the back of his hand. I fell against the dresser and hit my head, giving me a black eye. I had to wear dark glasses to school for a week. After that, it only got worse. I couldn’t keep him from taking Kade, so I filed for divorce and he gradually quit coming to see him, which had a terrible effect on a boy of his age. He turned his anger toward me and I have never been able to change that.

After high school graduation I lost touch with Mrs. Donavan but she and Mother would get together, so I always knew about Mrs. Donavan and Kade. She wanted Kade to go to college and had saved the life insurance money paid by the trucking company for Cat’s death, earmarked for his education. He refused to go and for some reason unknown to everyone, except himself, he went to work in the coal mines just like Daddy and Mr. Donavan. Later he would tell me that he felt guilty about taking Cat’s money for himself. He said after she died his Mother was never the same and he sometimes wished it had been him instead of Cat. He said his Mother would beg him to play the piano, but the only time he would play it was when she was gone. I remember that cold smile as he spoke in a get even voice, telling me, She knew I had been playing because she could tell by the dust on the piano.

I hadn’t seen Kade for many years after my marriage to Luther. I would have known him anywhere and it was instant recognition when Scarlet and I walked in Preston’s Pub that night at the Martha Washington Inn. He was more handsome than his father, but looked like him and had a confident, mysterious gaze when he smiled. He stood up, walked over to us and I gave him a hug saying, Scarlet, you won’t believe who this is. The trouble was she had already said to me, as we entered the room, That’s going to be my next husband.

CHAPTER I

SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY

It was an unusually cold day for November 1980, two days before Thanksgiving, as Scarlet and I topped middle fork, of Bold Camp Mountain in Wise County, Virginia. Scarlet awakened early and showed up in a spotted black and white rabbit fur coat complete with Aigner dress boots, and matching gloves. She had that serious look and wide eyed stare she always got when she was on a mission, We have to go see Ms. Lange to read my coffee grounds. Something is up with Kade. She handed me a cup of coffee from Hardees as I quickly pulled on my jeans, wool pull over sweater and sturdy walking boots, grabbing my faux fur bolero wrap and hat out of the closet. Out the door we went, as she asked me to toss the package of Folgers, for Ms. Lang to the back seat. That’s when I noticed a boxed, fifth of Chivas Regal 25, Scarlet’s favorite scotch. She had obviously bought it for the holiday, knowing we would need a little spirits to sooth our new place in society, of divorcee and children going for court ordered visitation.

We always parked Scarlet’s white Chrysler New Yorker, 5th Avenue, in the big curve on the side and walked down the steep rutted out hillside, to Ms. Lang’s house on the only flat land around. Scarlet had no problem walking down the hill in her high-heeled boots. There was a Cherokee jeep, an old but well-kept Mercedes and a bright red 1979 Trans Am already there, so we knew we would have to wait. Ms. Lange had an affluent clientele and did not have to work; everyone was more than happy to wait their turn when she took the rich folks first.

I did not believe in predictions of the future and always refused to participate in any techniques—Tarot, Sun Sign, Astrology, Palmistry and Numerology, but had accompanied Scarlet many times. She was addicted to this invaluable insight, she called it. It gave her a window into her character, other people’s personalities and the wide range of predictive skills from the extra dimension, capturing romance that might otherwise elude her. In fact, romance and money were her only concern with the future and being a good mother to Rachel was a given. She had proved that when she marched into the First Presbyterian church during service and took little Rachel out of Mother’s arms, because she felt Mother had not dressed her in proper Sunday clothes. Everyone bragged about them being a beautiful mother and baby and Scarlet even hid from Rachel to eat chocolate so she wouldn’t pick up a bad habit.

Ms. Lange had two teenage boys hanging around looking like they were Up to no good as Grandma Tori used to say. Ms. Lang called from the kitchen, Have a seat in the living room and I will be with you directly. We sat down on a love seat and I noticed a pretty young woman about our age and a young man who looked under twenty five. The woman smiled and spoke to Scarlet, who was uncomfortable, but I didn’t know why. About that time, an older distinguished man came out of the kitchen and the young woman said, Daddy what are you doing here? He didn’t answer, but smiled giving her a wink, as he glanced from her to Scarlet. Hello Miss Scarlet, I haven’t seen you in a long time—left your husband I heard. I miss seeing your smile around town, as he went out the door.

Ms. Lange asked the young man to come into the kitchen leaving just the three of us. Scarlet said, Hello Sam, I want you to meet my sister Laurel, from Abingdon where we both live now. She moved here from Tennessee, just after the flood and we are neighbors in Wolf Hill Villas. I can tell you are sisters, I’m Samantha Susanne but everyone calls me Sam. We really miss you Scarlet and Rachel too. How is she doing since you left her daddy? Lucky for Scarlet the young man came out and Ms. Lange called for Sam. Scarlet said, I don’t feel like dredging up the past and my decision to leave my marriage. I understood; I did not like to talk about my past either.

Scarlet breathed a sigh of relief and whispered that Sam was the daughter of one of the wealthiest businessmen in Cumberland Gap and that her husband had been killed in a mining accident when he was an inspector for Clinch Field Coal Company. Being left a widow with two young children gave her an instant estate and she was already an heiress. They became friends when Scarlet and Bobby Joe opened their insurance agency over five years ago in Cumberland Gap and her little girl, Candace, was the same age as Rachel and they became fast friends.

Scarlet and Sam liked each other but had a built in rivalry, meaning, Sam was the town toast until Scarlet moved in as the new girl in town. Both women enjoyed played the rivalry to the hilt giving people a lot to talk about. They had big velvet brown eyes and the first thing you noticed in their beautiful faces was their flashing smiles, that would often get them their way. Sam had a boyish good figure but Scarlet was curvy, sexy and she knew it. Sam was about eight years older and had a head for business. She owned a beauty salon, You’re Worth It, complete with spa and tanning bed. Even though Scarlet was a licensed property and casualty agent and had been co- owner of the agency, she liked the attention for her looks more than her intellect. There was always a friendly edge between them but the truth was if Scarlet was in the room the attention went to her, because she commanded it and always had. Now that she had moved she wanted to be more cautious, about her new life and reinvent it the way she wanted.

As Sam came out, she did not skip a beat saying, Nothing good for my love-life today. I am not surprised seeing Daddy here, he wants to know what his girlfriend is telling Ms. Lange and Mother too. Scarlet got up and headed toward the kitchen smiling, not giving Sam time to ask any questions. It’s nice to meet you Sam, as I followed Scarlet into the kitchen.

Scarlet gave the coffee to Ms. Lange, who put it in the cabinet, which was already full, but it was a rule everyone had to bring a bag or can of fresh coffee. As she spoke, she did not seem to mind the missing teeth. She was a thin woman with dark hair hanging down with gray streaks shot straight through, like it had been painted. At one time she had been a beauty, so it was hard to know her age because the hardship she had endured, showed in her face and posture. Some years ago her husband Went for a box of soda, (meaning the husband left without a word), and never came back, leaving her to raise two boys. She had worked at the high school cafeteria and read futures on the weekends until she was finally able to stay home and work at fortune telling full time. She discovered over the years, she had a wide range of predictive skills just like her mother and grandmother. She was staggeringly accurate and considered it a gift from God.

Ms. Lange used a pink, blue and gold fine