Family Trust: A Novel

By Ann Miller Hopkins

Family Trust is Ann Miller Hopkins’s second novel set in Alabama and Florida. A large family bands together, pooling resources to elevate their golden years and live a far greater lifestyle together than any of the sisters and cousins could experience individually. An attorney and close companion of the extended family forms a family trust, which protects and enhances their last decades on this earth. The novel reveals love and companionship on a higher plane, one shared by the witty, fun-loving elderly.

In Family Trust, a mixed bag of love, laughter, and arguments over whether their favorite dance is the Carolina shag or the Birmingham bop keeps the reader laughing out loud. A rehab suicide, a hurricane, and a justified murder at sea add suspense and danger to a thought-provoking plan for a beautiful old age.

Grown children present problems that bring cousins together to stand in the gap and eventually prepare the stage for another generation of family trusts. Jealousy is always an element when beautiful women of any age are in the equation. A grocery store battle in the produce aisle and a volunteer dog-bathing job in a rescue shelter could have been written for Lucille Ball.

Ray, a Nashville singer and songwriter, famous for Don’t Make Cadillacs Like They Used To, is the youngest cousin to commit to the family trust. In her sixties, she writes Dancin’ to Heaven to tell the world to dance and sing every day with the people they love. Surrounded by family who know each other better than anyone, the cousins and a few spouses enjoy a grand lifestyle via family pod living. Secure within the family, the aging cousins and siblings avoid dreaded assisted living and retirement homes. Instead, they enjoy luxurious in-home care. A sprawling Gulf-front beach house flanked by walled gardens of fragrant herbs and orange trees is the setting for renewal of childhood bonds, making the golden years golden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781546277965

Ann Miller Hopkins

Ann Miller Hopkins is a graduate of Auburn University with a diverse background in journalism, landscape painting, teaching, beauty pageants and European antiques. Her large Southern family is a bouillabaisse of singers, dancers, artists, designers, and beauty queens. Her novels are fiction, but there is never a shortage of familiar characters, conflicts and adventures drawn from a long life of travel and observation of beautiful Southern families. Mrs. Hopkins lives with her husband on Florida’s Gulf coast and in the North Carolina mountains. Five grand children add to the laughter that is a part of her life and writing.

Book preview

Family

Trust

A NOVEL

Ann Miller Hopkins

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© 2019 Ann Miller Hopkins. 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 02/19/2019

ISBN: 978-1-5462-7797-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-7798-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-7796-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019901048

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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

Part One

Husbands

Index of Cousins

Eloise Was Here

On the Road

The Beginning of the End

Losing Louise

Together

A Sign

Life Sentence at the Beach House

May’s Funeral

Quail Season

The Ambush

The Arbor

Full House

Miss Molly

Captains Courageous

Maiden Voyage

The Social Circle

Part Two

Finding Mary

Quinn and Company

Hurricane Stella

Ouija Board Fling

Staying in the Shallow Water

Big Sky

Texas Hill Country

Holidays Together

Spend Thrift

Dog Days

Search for a Cook

House Call

Celebration of Tyrone Townsend

Clean-up on Aisle Three

Dancing to Heaven

Part

ONE

1929 Clanton, Al

THREE SISTERS HUDDLED TOGETHER ON A WET NOVEMBER AFTERNOON IN an unpainted farm house filled with neighbors, but no family. The little girls stood in the only room without a fire because their Mother was laid out on a narrow bed in one corner. She died during the night and would be buried in two days. The kitchen and front room had small coal fires glowing, but this room must stay cold.

Somebody make a fire in here. Mama’s cold. Louise’s five- year-old voice sounded loud in the hush of the house. Louise was the middle sister and had always demanded the most attention. Ann, seven, pulled Louise onto her lap near the cold fireplace. The blonde baby girl, May, stood by Ann’s chair and leaned her head against her knee.

A woman whose garden backed up to the Quinn’s neatly weeded half acre patch started to cry at the sight of the sleepy, motherless three-year-old. Old Miss Tatum walked to the sleeping porch and pulled a quilt off one of the three small beds. Here, young’uns, wrap yourselves up a little.

Put a quilt on Mama, please. Little May cried softly.

Mrs. Tatum hurried to the kitchen to repeat arranging the food, piled on the table. Mrs. Quinn would want me to take those girls, but I can’t do it. I’m too old.

Stop crying. Mr. Quinn’s a fine lookin’ feller. He’ll have a woman in here to take care of them girls In no time, Bess Hawkins said while she patted Mrs. Tatum’s shawled shoulders. Men don’t pine like we do. But I tell you what. He won’t find another one like that precious, pretty thing laying in there.

Remember how she used to play in the garden with the girls while she picked peas. She let them make little animals out of squash and such. Her bean strings looked like church steeples for the babies to get under. Row on row of vines, too pretty to be a garden, Mrs. Tatum said. The old woman timed her garden work to visit with Nancy Quinn.

Everything she done was pretty. Mrs. Hawkins added. I heard Mr. Quinn’s brother Charlie tried to court her before he did. That’s why Charlie picked up and moved to Mobile when she married. Nobody’s heard from him since. Just left this place without a claim, though half of the farm is his by rights. Just washed his hands of it all. I figure he was that heart-broke.

In February, Mr. Quinn introduced his three daughters to their new mama, Pearl. The short, young woman squinted at them with her hands like fists on wide hips.

She ain’t my mama. She’s ugly, Louise yelled and ran out of the room. Her Father caught her at the door, took off his belt and whipped her in front of her sisters and new mother. He held one of her arms while she ran in circles around him until she fell in the floor and wet herself.

May sobbed into the hem of her dress and Ann ran to the kitchen to get a mop. The pattern of their lives was set out and changed very little for the next thirteen years.

1942

ANN, LOUISE AND MAY CLIMBED ABOARD A BUS TO BIRMINGHAM IN APRIL with a little money they had saved from picking and packing strawberries. Before Pearl could claim their wages to feed them, Louise bought three tickets for the fifty-three-mile journey.

Ann wrote to her Mother’s cousin, Dixie. In the bottom of a trunk at the foot of Pearl’s bed, she found a small stack of ribbon tied letters from Dixie. They had been hidden by heavy quilts for many winters. Pearl’s habit of saving anything good and using worn quilts kept her from seeing the letters first. The delicate, slanted words chronicled a young woman going to work in a bank, marrying and moving to a rambling house on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham. So many possibilities, she wrote. There was a small birth announcement the year their Mother died, then the letters stopped. Perhaps they were returned. Ann remembered her Mother’s laughter when she told stories about her cousin. People thought she was my younger sister, we looked so much alike. Ann’s father squinted his eyes to silence her laughter. Ann prayed that their Mother’s only living relative would take them in.

She has a large home in Birmingham and only one child. Everybody says people pull together with the war effort, you know, pool what they have and do without, I don’t know, but they say things like that at the sundry. Ann explained to her sisters. They sometimes slipped into the Davis’ Sundry Shop when the packing shed closed early. For a nickel each, they could have an ice cream cone or a limeade at the fountain counter. It’s our only chance, Ann whispered to her younger sisters.

In bed that night, they kissed each other’s hands to seal their decision to leave if Dixie answered Ann’s letter and welcomed them.

The sisters took turns watching the mail box at the end of the dirt road. Thank you, Jesus Ann shouted when she opened the envelope and read the few sentences that made her world. In a brief note on monogramed stationery, Cousin Dixie agreed to rent upstairs bedrooms with kitchen privileges to her second cousins. Pearl stood behind her with folded arms.

Surprised? Pearl took the letter from her hand. I’ll just take this to Mr. Quinn to see what you’re up to. You been watching this post box for a week. I thought maybe you stole some of that strawberry-pickin’ money and ordered yourself something foolish. She stuffed the letter in her apron pocket and turned to walk back to the house. I seen you thumbing through them catalogs like somebody made out of money.

She can’t read it for herself, Ann thought, suddenly she realized Pearl was bluffing. She looked away to hide her smile. It will just make him sad, it’s all about Mama and how beautiful she was. Her cousin wrote the letter about how her little girl looks just like our Mama and how happy she is and all. Said she just thought he might like to know and remember after all these years. She wants to come and visit.

Pearl looked hard into Ann’s eyes. You don’t say nothin’ to Mr. Quinn about this letter. I’m puttin’ it in the fire, if he knows about it, I’ll know it’s you. You’ll be sayin’ more than thank you, Jesus when I get through with you.

Pearl still thought the sisters were afraid of her, as they had been as children. Ann knew the days of being held down for a hen to peck her face because she could not catch it for Sunday dinner were long gone.

Dixie was waiting on the front steps of the two-story brick house on Clairmont Avenue when the three sisters got off the street car that ran from the bus station to Clairmont. Everybody’s sharing now, with the war going on. We can’t get tires for the car, or much gas, but the streetcar runs right by our house, Dixie said to the excited girls, lugging cloth sacks bulging with their few belongings. Their pretty cousin was only eight years older than Ann but seemed much older. She had married well and had a good job at a bank downtown.

First thing we do is get you girls jobs. Birmingham has lots of jobs. But I’ll have to loan you some decent clothes to interview. Such pretty girls dressed like hired help is a sin. Dixie was all business. Rent was paid weekly.

I resent her sayin’ we look like hired help, Louise said when they were upstairs I look as pretty as she does. Maybe she’s jealous.

She just wants to help us, Ann said to her sisters when they were alone, sitting on one of the double beds. The two attic rooms were small, but there was a bathroom with a bath tub in the hall, a new luxury in their lives.

I guess we do look a little country, May said. She wore the best of the two dresses she owned. Pearl did not waste Mr. Quinn’s money on frills. Standing next to Dixie when they arrived, May felt homely and poor. Her blue, cotton dress was too long, and her shoes were cheap and worn out. Her attempt at polishing them only made the brown oxfords splotchy.

We’re going to stick together and leave our mark on this place. I love Birmingham already. How much money does it take to ride that streetcar? Louise asked.

How would I look with a bob like Dixie’s. Her hair’s black like mine, but not as thick, Ann said, bundling her long hair at the nap of her neck.

Five cents. Ann gave a delayed answer and dumped her black cloth purse out on one of the beds. We can ride for a couple of weeks or get jobs and buy new clothes and stay here. She put her hands on her slim waist. Ann’s shirtwaist dress was tan and cinched with a small leather belt. Only on close inspection were the frayed, ironed- slick cuffs noticeable.

May rubbed her hand across the white chenille bedspread. Of course, Pearl said we’re supposed to send half of what we make back home.

Shit on that. We’re never going back there, and neither is our money, Louise said. For once, Ann did not scold her feisty younger sister for cursing.

Pearl had carefully counted out starchy food, old clothing and thin quilts to the three sisters all their lives. She was generous only with their chores. Jobs too heavy, too dirty or needing more skill and concentration than a child could muster were parceled out every morning. They walked to school with switch- striped legs, when they went at all. Their work was never good enough for Pearl’s ever-changing requirements. They were conditioned to dread her. Papa, May’s fingers are bleeding bad, Louise said outside the smoke house. Miss Pearl won’t let her stop shelling pecans until she finishes the bucket. Louise’s refusal to call Pearl Mother had finally been accepted.

Your step mother runs the house. You girls need to learn to work things out with her. Don’t put me in the middle. He stepped back into the wooden shed where a low fire smoked sausage, hams and thick bacon. He smelled like the hickory fire.

Just come in the house and look. Don’t act like I said anything to you, please, Papa.

When he came into the kitchen to wash grease from his hands, he patted Pearl’s wide hips and finally looked at May hovering over a bucket sitting by the wood stove. Looks like we’ll have plenty of pecans for Christmas fruit cakes. He said. There had not been a cake baked in this kitchen since their Mother died. The sisters still remembered bundling up to take a heavy, round fruit cake to each neighbor a few days before Christmas.

What’s wrong with your hands?

May held them up without looking at her father.

Will you look at that. I can’t sell them shelled pecans with blood on ‘em. Go wash your hands in the dish pan. What’s wrong with you, girl? Pearl said, shaking her head at May’s Papa. Louise looked at her father for a long time and finally knew he did not care what happened to them, that he would always side with Pearl.

I don’t know where ya’ll got being so lazy and dumb. Your Daddy’s a right smart man. Pearl said later in the day, when Louise couldn’t reach the clothes line. There’s a box on the porch you could stand on, but you rather get a whipping, I guess.

Dixie had left magazines on the desk in the larger of the two upstairs bedrooms. Louise and Ann poured over the advertisements until Dixie called up the wide stairwell for them to come down. She served coffee and donuts and pointed to a pile of clothes on the sofa she thought Might do. A navy dress with white cuffs and collar lay next to a light-yellow dress with pin tucks on the bodice and a full skirt. When Ann and May picked up the treasures and squealed, Louise saw the suit she remembered the rest of her life. It was light weight gray wool with a jacket lined in pale blue silk. A blue silk scarf was pinned to the jacket. She pressed the suit to her chest without looking at her sisters. May and Ann knew it was for Louise. Louise turned her back to Dixie and her sisters to hide her tears.

Dixie’s blue and white kitchen with a linoleum floor and new Frigidaire became the planning place for the sisters. During the war years, decisions about jobs, home-weddings, victory gardens, recipes and meager savings were made over coffee served in Blue Willow cups. As old women the sisters would talk about these years with a sweet remembrance of detail.

May, the youngest, was the first to be employed, much to Ann and Louise’s surprise.

May, I have an appointment for you to take a test at my bank this afternoon, Dixie called over her shoulder. Two o’clock sharp. My boss doesn’t have any patience with tardiness. He just gives the aptitude tests once a month.

At the bank? Dixie, I don’t even have a diploma. I don’t know anything. May was almost in tears. Ann’s the smart one.

When we play Scrabble, you add up everybody’s scores faster than I can mix the tiles. You divide all the rent expenses and prorate the electric bill. I’ve watched you. You are a natural teller. Dixie took pride in her word skills and owning the newly invented Scrabble game. The young women played Scrabble every Wednesday night. Dixie always won. I laid out something for you to wear on my bed. Don’t spill anything on that dress and hang it back in my closet tonight. You can pay me back for the shoes. Mine were way too small for you.

May could not stop posing when she put on the black patent- leather pumps. She stood on her bed to see her feet in the dresser mirror. She had never taken shoes from a box, new shoes, shoes that fit.

The following week, Ann found a job at Kress’s Dime Store behind a large candy counter. She enjoyed weighing and putting candy in the small white bags. This job was a cleaner version of the strawberry packing house where she had spent six weeks every April and early May since childhood. At least she didn’t have to stoop and squat to pick the candy. At the candy counter she had a small scoop and scale that suited her just fine. At the end of the day her back hurt from having to stand eight hours, but it was better than the strawberry fields. Not handing over her money to Pearl was the best gift. Kress supervisor, Miss Hanna, required her girls to stand and look busy, no sitting on the job. Ann secretly slipped off her shoes at every opportunity and leaned on the back counter. The most delightful part of her job was eating at the Dime Store’s long lunch counter during her half hour lunch break. She especially looked forward to Tuesday’s special: meatloaf covered and baked in catsup, mashed potatoes and string beans served in a compartmented plate with a small corn muffin balanced on one side. Fridays were fried fish days, with French fries and Cole slaw at the lunch counter. Ann tasted tartar sauce for the first time.

Dixie’s kitchen was beautiful and well equipped. Unfortunately, none of the women who talked and played games on the large breakfast table were cooks, but they could dance.

Help me push the table to the wall, Louise said to her sisters, after they returned from work. A girl at the drug store showed me a new step in the bathroom. She had already found a radio station playing Big Band Swing.

Dixie will have a fit when she sees this, Ann whispered. She was already doing a little kick step to the beat. Pull off your shoes. We won’t scuff the floor and we can really spin in our socks.

They danced together as couple, soloists and chorus line to In the Mood, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and Tuxedo Junction before Dixie came home.

What’s going on in there? Dixie called from the front door.

May turned the volume down. Dancing, she said sheepishly when Dixie came into the kitchen.

That’s Slim and Sam, Dixie said, taking off her high-heels. "Turn it up. I love Flat Foot Floogie."

The sisters stood open-mouthed as Dixie leaned over at the waist, snapped her fingers, then pulled Louise toward her. Dixie and Louise danced themselves into a frenzy. Their dancing was loose, rhythmical and pretty at the same time. As the taller partner, Louise spun and dipped Dixie. For the first time, May and Ann recognized a beautiful family resemblance, even their timing and movements were like sisters who practiced dancing regularly. Cousins are something, May said.

Dixie was out of breath. One more, before Bill gets home. Lord knows he’s not a dancer. She held her hand out to Ann. All four danced to Benny Goodman’s Sing, Sing, Sing, then pulled the table and chairs back into place.

Tomorrow morning you ride the streetcar with me and go to Woolworth’s. They’re hiring, Ann said to Louise. Let’s do your hair tonight. In their attic bedroom, Louise’s dark hair was divided into small sections and swirled into tiny pin curls, each secured with a bobby pin from a tin the sisters shared.

Louise followed her older sister’s lead and applied at Woolworth’s Five and Dime Store, across the street from Kress and Co. Ann and Louise rode the streetcar together every day and became as close as they had been as small children. You were like a mother to me and May. How in the world did you put up with me? I remember pitching fits and running away, Louise said on one of their return streetcar trips after dark.

I always found you, Ann laughed. At least we had each other. They held hands like girls. Painful memories form a bond as strong as love. A mist began to fill the air and they huddled under an old umbrella.

Dixie’s husband, Bill, sold life insurance and was never in a hurry to leave for his office on the fifth floor of the Jefferson building. He tries to be a little late to show he’s the boss, Dixie laughed.

Every morning he drove their three-year-old Buick to Miller’s Bakery for donuts or apple turnovers for the girls. Just far enough to make sure she still runs. He said as excuse for using rationed gasoline. Dixie always made coffee and put out sugar cubes and cream with no excuse. The ration books were kept in a red tin box, next to the coffee percolator. Only Dixie decided how they were spent each month. After Louise and Ann left by streetcar, Dixie and Bill took the Buick to his office. Her bank was half a block away and she was too well dressed to ride the streetcar. Now that she was a teller, May could ride with them in the back seat each morning.

I hope I’m not intruding on you and Dixie, May said from the cavernous back seat on the way to the bank.

I love having you with us. It’s good to feel like a family, good for everybody. Bill said. Dixie seemed happier since her cousins had arrived. He wanted her to be herself again. The beautiful, somber woman she had become since they lost their son was not the fun-loving girl he had married. He missed that girl. Bill liked the laughter and energy in the house now.

Monday was a bank holiday. Dixie slept late but May went to the kitchen in her new robe and slippers to begin a lazy day off and to tease her sisters before they had to hurry out the door and down the steep stone steps to wait for the streetcar.

Cinnamon rolls at the bakery, this morning. Had to wait until they came out of the oven. Bill Brasher said, holding up a white bag. Louise and Ann took a sticky roll, licking icing from fingertips.

No coffee? Louise fumed. Before Louise could complain in earnest, she was distracted by Jessie letting herself in the kitchen door. Monday was her day to do laundry, change sheets, clean bathrooms and iron six shirts for Mr. Brasher. Louise usually had something to add to Jessie’s work load, but gave her a dollar, folded small. Neither ever mentioned the dollar.

Jessie was tall, lean and old. Her dark brown skin was smooth, and she moved like a young woman in no hurry, but on close observation made no wasted motion. She had worked every Monday at Miss Dixie’s house for almost twelve years. They were not friends but quietly understood and appreciated each other.

The five-bedroom, two and a half bath household had far more work to be done in one day than the three smaller houses Jessie kept clean each week. The sisters stripped their beds and carried sheets and towels downstairs on Monday mornings. A ringer washer and two tin tubs on stands stood in what had once been a trunk room at the back of the old brick house. Bill had hot water piped to the small room with shelves and a drain installed in the adjacent half bath. Jessie’s other houses had washing machines on back porches. Her hands stayed raw In the Winter from feeding sheets and clothing through the ringer from wash water to rinse water, then hanging everything on clothes lines in the cruel wind.

I truly dread wash days, Jessie said to her sister who now lived with her. I guess we are a comfort to each other in our old age. She explained to Dixie. Miss Dixie’s Mondays were pleasant, except for carrying heavy, wet laundry down stone stairs leading to a side yard outlined with clothes lines. The terraced back yard was large with neat, rock lined beds of flowers, tomatoes and peppers in Spring and Summer. Jessie considered the fertile side yard a waste. She mumbled to herself If I had a little piece of land like this, I’d have me a real garden.

I feel positively royal, having a maid. Louise said, buttoning the back of Ann’s dress. I’m going to always have somebody do my laundry.

I bet Pearl is missing you doing her wash about now. Ann said, slipping on her coat.

They both remembered the sting of cold, numb hands on a scrub board, fighting old clothes that would never be clean. Dingy, worn clothes reek of a poverty deeper than dirt.

Dixie and Jessie rarely had a conversation beyond the weather and routine instructions, but Dixie often made generous donations of clothing without a comment. There was no production of giving, just a stack of dresses, coats, and shoes on her bed, when she purged her bulging closet. Jessie could wear everything except the size seven shoes. Jewel, Jessie’s younger sister was the proud recipient of the well-kept shoes, still boxed, but out of fashion. Jessie and Jewel were the best dressed women in Saint John’s AME Church.

A well-dressed woman who ain’t stingy is a joy to work for. Jessie told her church sisters.

May was sitting on a bed devoid of sheets when Jessie climbed the stairs with clean linens. Am I in your way? May asked.

No, Miss May. Jessie snapped the sheet in the air and let it settle on the bed next to May. May watched it flutter down before being quickly tucked. It reminded her of something, she didn’t know what. She smiled at the smooth sheets.

You didn’t have no mama, did you, baby?

How did you know that? Did Dixie tell you all about us? May was hurt that Dixie, who never mentioned their childhood, or what passed for a childhood, would tell her business to a maid.

No, ma’am. You got that empty look a child keeps who ain’t had enough mother-love. I can spot them in the back of the church or on the streetcar every day.

May’s eyes stung with the first hot tears in many years.

Come here, baby girl. Without hesitation, May sat on the bed Jessie was making and cried on her boney shoulder. Jessie smelled like starch steam under a hot iron, clean and acrid at once. She stroked May’s glossy, chestnut hair. Your Mama gave you a fine head of hair. If she lookin’ down, she proud of you.

Jessie stood up. Did your mama look like Miss Dixie? She returned to the sheets. That Miss Dixie is a looker. She could be a movie star.

I don’t remember. My step-mother put her picture away. She told Papa it would make us sad. Ann said Pearl didn’t want him to remember Mama was pretty and she wasn’t.

May didn’t want to talk about those days. It was too hard, but she felt good talking to Jessie and needed more. You have children?

Í done raised my children and my grands. Just me and my sister, now. I work for four nice ladies. Four work days and three off days. I ain’t got any complaints. Jessie walked into the second bedroom to put on sheets. It was Louise’s, covered in newspapers, paint brushes, water color paper and glass jars.

Miss Vickers got a victory garden in her back yard. I work it a little, so I have fresh vegetables most of the time. Of course, it’s cold now, so we just have collards. Jessie stopped talking to see if May was still listening. That girl might need a little garden to keep her mind right. She thought.

Something good about a garden, like you been there before. Like you supposed to be there, plantin’ and gatherin’. Jessie moved to the bathroom and bent over the tub with powdered cleanser and a rag.

I think Mama had a garden. May stood in the hall outside the bathroom to talk while Jessie worked.

"You got a nice spot for a garden by the garage, between the house and the back alley. Maybe you and your sisters might make one for Miss Dixie. Be good for