Her Life as She Knew It

By Karen Schwind

For readers who believe that the best lives are built on the firmest foundations.

Karen Schwind brings us Caroline McKee, a girl on the cusp of womanhood who is determined to use her wit and fearlessness to right the wrongs former friends did to her. She gets her chance when Billy Taylor, a veteran of the Great War, returns to Greensboro and opens a newspaper in the spring of 1919. Together they dig into the lives of townspeople until Caroline discovers a secret that lays bare the sorrow and shame of people she’s known all her life. Publishing a front-page story of betrayal and tragedy, Caroline learns a lesson that only her devout Christian father could teach--about love, loyalty and letting go. Schwind has crafted “a memorable setting that feels historically authentic” and “portrays Caroline McKee's longing for an idealized childhood . . . in tender, nostalgic” language that captures the reader’s imagination until the last unexpected turn of this amazing story.

"Her Life as She Knew It is a beautiful and heartfelt Southern story about the ways in which the past we hide from ourselves emerges no matter what we do to stop it. Debut novelist Karen Schwind takes us deep into the thoughts and feelings of a young woman in 1919 who deals with betrayal on several fronts. Crafting a memorable setting that feels historically authentic, Schwind portrays Caroline McKee's longing for an idealized childhood, as well as her response to betrayal, in tender, nostalgic ways. Schwind knows this world/this memorable time in America's history, she understands why we need to keep secrets from ourselves, and she shares it all in her lyrical language."

-Julie L. Cannon, author of Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Schwind
• Release date: Dec 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452479415

Karen Schwind

Karen Schwind is the former editor of and writer for The Conspirator, a literary magazine that first published authors Julie L. Cannon and Augusta Trobaugh, among others. Ms. Schwind has written essays for GA public radio and taught English at the University of Georgia and Truett-McConnell College. She presented sections of Her Life as She Knew It at the Southern Women’s Literary Conference and has a story in Christmas Stories in Georgia, published by the University of Mississippi Press.

Book preview

Preface

I grew up in the Piedmont where land rolled like the ocean. Corn and tobacco grew in rows extending into the night sky, and I remember that, in the yellow haze of the moon, they looked as if they reached the Milky Way. I was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, had lived there all my life and knew practically everyone, including Billy Taylor. Not that our families ever socialized. At least, not until Jenny Green, my then-best friend, took up with Billy one spring. He became for a time one of us. We met the year we all turned thirteen and stayed together until a great gust of wind came and spread us like leaves in the fall.

That occurred at the end of our senior year.

But I remember the years before the great gust, years when days wafted by in a haze of classes and parties and summers spent walking through pastures or sitting on front porches drinking sweet tea. Saturdays spent in the Bijou watching motion pictures, Sundays at home contemplating the morning’s sermon. Midway through our senior year, Greensboro College for Women accepted me, and Billy and Jenny announced their engagement.

History had other plans.

Three years earlier, in June of 1914, a Bosnian terrorist had killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I remember that August, how the papers carried stories about Germany marching through Belgium. What came to be called World War I had begun. By 1916, European soldiers fought in muddy trenches snaking across Europe.

America hadn’t joined the war, though, had sent no young men to the trenches, and Jenny and I had other things to think about.

In Guilford County, rain fell like small crystals and transformed winter’s gray world into something beautiful. Dogwoods and maples shot out as green as ever I remember them, daffodils and jonquils so yellow they broke my heart. We forgot about the war and talked endlessly about the Spring Cotillion—who would get her card filled with boys’ names first and whose card wouldn’t get filled at all. We planned our trip to New York City to buy Jenny’s trousseau and my touring outfits. It was as if all of us hovered, transfixed by possibility, in the spring of 1917.

First, Mother moved to Charleston to care for Nana Davis.

Then Jenny died of the fever in late April.

I did not attend her funeral.

In November, the United States declared war on Germany, and for the first time since the Civil War, the government drafted young men. Surprisingly, Billy Taylor had already left. He volunteered in June right after graduation. I remember walking to the depot to see him board a train and take off to defend a country he had not even seen pictures of to fight in a war that, for the next twenty years, we called The Great War.

He turned after he stepped up, looked back, and made sure he caught my eye before he shot me a tiny salute and marched on. I wanted to snatch him back down the steps, to stop the fighting, to make everything right again. I could not. I stood on the edge of the crowd and watched the train become a speck against the deep blue sky.

Later, December thirtieth, six months after Jenny’s death: My sister Lizzie and I walked to the depot to wave at what seemed like a legion of boys, all going to fight. I stood on the edge of the platform waving a handkerchief as they boarded, each looking through the crowd one last time. See you in a few months, Mama, most of them hollered back. Fathers shook hands and watched in amazement as their sons went to do what they themselves had never done.

While our young men fought the Germans, we fought the Spanish influenza. It erupted in the spring of 1918 and proceeded to kill like nothing we had ever seen. Public meeting houses—theaters, schools, churches—closed. We wore gauze masks over our mouths and noses whenever we went out. Everyone wore them, even the men. Businesses closed one day a week so people could help in tent hospitals that sprouted up like field mushrooms outside town, white transitory cities of death. And, just when we thought the epidemic had burned itself out, the boys came home, bringing with them another, more virulent, wave, spread as they rode in the parades and danced in the streets and kissed their girls in town squares. Those who survived the war became both victims and perpetrators of yet another war. So death came to each of us, soldier and citizen alike. How well I remember the stench of death.

Men rode home past the same dry corn stalks and muddy farms they had waved goodbye to, but by the time they saw snow lie once more on fields of stubble, they had changed forever. The towns had changed, and those of us who never left the towns had changed because, as it turned out, the whole country had changed. Though we didn’t know it, we lived on the cusp of a new world—a world that was like nothing we could have dreamed up.

April 1919

And Billy Taylor Has Come Home

When the poet referred to April as the cruelest month, he could not have remembered April of 1919. Crystalline drops of dew lay on new, half-formed leaves, green almost beyond endurance after the brown of winter.

I returned to my morning walks in late April, determining on the last Monday of that month that I would not sit inside one more day. I shall walk to town, I announced to the cat as she stretched her long body, arching her back upward and yawning. The sun had risen bright enough against the bluing sky to force me to throw my hand across my forehead as I stepped off the porch, and I grabbed last year’s bonnet from a nail on the wall before heading up the front yard to the road.

My father, tall with ruddy coloring and the paunch of middle-age, stood with his men as they replaced rotting fence posts across the front pasture. He looked out on the rolling hills, contemplating Creek Hollow, his eyes full of the land—too full my mother would say. He dressed in overalls and work boots, dirty gloves dangling from his right hand. I thought his eyes were too intoxicated with green to notice me until he asked in his quiet, firm voice, Where you going?

For my morning walk, I answered, wheeling around to face him. I need to wake up after such a cold winter, I said, knowing that he of all people understood too well.

Daddy fixed me in his brown gaze. Why can’t you walk the pasture? he asked. He stared at me until my eyes dropped.

I’ll be back by nine, before traffic comes to the road, I said.

See that you are, he said. And stay away from town. He put on his gloves, his attention now turned fully to the work at hand.

I walked a lot in those days and so started off at a good pace, invigorated by the morning nip. At first, I did stay on narrow dirt lanes bordered by fence posts that looked like brown dots converging at some future point. Within a mile, though, I stood on the edge of town, looking down East Market Street. Mother used to warn me about walking into town unescorted. People will think you’ll become a woman who wears her hair down, she told me once.

A woman who wears her hair down. Jenny and I pondered the meaning of that phrase for weeks, maybe months, knowing that behind it lay some woman-mystery to which we had yet to be initiated. We could neither fathom the meaning nor pry it from our mothers—especially mine, whose usual reticence in such matters had reasserted itself.

As I walked up East Market that morning, my eyes darted nervously back and forth, alert for businessmen who had come to work early. By then I knew what men thought about women who walked alone in the odd hours when doors were closed and lights dimmed.

The streets were quiet, new brick sidewalks swept clean of the previous day’s wear, storefronts shuttered and dark. Brick buildings lined each side, the names of the owners printed on store-front windows or, if the owner happened to be a solicitor, a small, discreet sign hanging by the front door. Trolley lines ran down the middle of the street, empty at that hour. Soon, the trolleys would come to life like miniature locomotives ferrying townspeople from home to work, but for a few minutes more, the streets of Greensboro remained quiet.

I stopped midway down the sidewalk and pretended to look into a storefront window while I wondered what I should do for the rest of the morning—or the rest of the day or the rest of the year or the rest of my life. Then my eyes focused on a sign taped to the door of the Lundsford Building:

HELP WANTED

WRITING SKILLS NECESSARY

I caught my breath. Despite Daddy’s pressing me to sign up for classes at Greensboro College in the spring, I had stayed around the house cooking and cleaning, letting four months slide by. I felt as if I could see the globe of the earth twirling like a top while all who rode it—save myself—moved forward. For circumstances beyond my control had displaced me. I longed to find that rightful place that had once seemed so obvious—before the flat earth suddenly became round, before I spent afternoons alone instead of sorting through invitations to see if I had gotten the same ones Jenny got. I did. I always did.

But we had gone more than a year with no invitations. Not one.

Atrophy had set in. I wanted something more than days spent cleaning house. I wanted an invitation to the party again. Writers Wanted, the sign said. Well, I could write. I had made A’s in my English classes the first year of college. Straight A’s.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside where absolute silence greeted me. I shut the door and walked farther into a grime-filled room littered with yellowed slips of paper and two chairs sitting precariously on legs slanted at odd angles to the seat.

Hello, I called and waited. Then again, Hello.

No one answered.

Helloooooo, I called again, this time letting the O echo against the ceiling. I was rewarded by the sound of boots descending the stairway.

An answering Hello floated down the stairs before the speaker arrived, but I knew that voice, had known it for years. Billy Taylor. Tall and lanky, with brown hair and sun-darkened skin, he stopped when he saw me. I had not spoken to him since a month before Jenny’s funeral.

Caroline.

Billy.

He remained immobile except for one hand that lifted a cigarette from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. Then, coming to himself, he raised his eyebrows and asked, Mind if I smoke?

My mother, had she seen me, would have lectured me on being alone with a man.

Jenny would have laughed. Tell him what an insult the mere question is, she would have said. And stomp your foot for good measure. Me, I only gave my head a swift jerk to the left and right and thought how odd it seemed that Billy had taken up smoking. He lit the cigarette.

What can I do for you? he asked, blowing a gray cloud into the air above him and leaning against the railing.

I saw the sign, I said, my voice sounding small in the cavernous room.

He waited for me to say more, but words stuck like lead weights in my throat. He finally filled the dead space himself as he glided down the stairs and across the floor. "I’m starting a newspaper, the Guilford Tribune. I need writers."

At last I remembered myself, and us, and the warm affection we had once felt and said, I didn’t know you were home yet. When did you arrive? Your mother must be . . . she must be so relieved.

How could I have failed to notice Billy Taylor’s name on the list of returning soldiers? Somehow I had. Or perhaps the editors of the Daily News had forgotten that one name, concentrating as they so often did on the Cooks and the Salters, the Shaws and the Greens, those whose homes lined North Elm Street—what we called the Gold Coast.

The thought of North Elm took me back. And why not? It had been both my second home and my nemesis for eleven years. How I longed, for my mother’s sake, to be one of them. How Billy must have longed for his own sake.

What are the Greens thinking? demanded Mrs. Shaw one afternoon as she sipped tea in our parlor. Letting Jenny traipse around with that mill boy.

I gazed up at Billy and let memories haunt us, seeing him and Jenny together as if she stood in the room, as if Billy could not exist without her.

I don’t recall your mentioning an interest in newspapers, I finally said.

He stared at me, his face no longer round and boyish but thinner, darker, lined around his mouth.

Times change, Caroline. He shifted position, sitting on the edge of an old oak desk and swinging one foot as he spoke. I met a fella whose family owns a paper out Missouri-way somewhere, and he taught me a thing or two.

Well, if you want advice, I started.

I don’t, he said abruptly, cutting off my reply.

Silence stretched between us until I plunged breathlessly on, determined by then to do something besides make blackberry jam all summer.

As you might have heard, I attended Greensboro College for Women, but I’ve not been to class for four months. I might go back in the fall. For now I’m looking for a job, something to pick up experience.

He stared at me, while I stood in silence, wondering if Billy could hear the beat of my heart, there in that quiet room. He had tossed the cigarette on the floor and smashed it with his boot as soon as he got to the bottom of the stairs. His hands, now empty, didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves. He grabbed a dust-covered hammer lying on the desk and wrapped long brown fingers around the handle while he looked hard at me. Suddenly, I understood. I’ll work for free at first, till you get things up and running, I told him.

That’s good, he sighed, looking down at the hammer as if he wondered how it got in his hand. Thank you, Caroline. He looked up at last and smiled, but his eyes remained flat, immobile.

I looked for a moment at the wall behind Billy’s head but only for a moment before I looked him in the eye, square on. I know what I would like to write.

Oh, you do, he laughed, his laughter catching me off guard. I wouldn’t want to impose my idea on Miss-know-it-all. What do you think you should write? He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, the hammer lying beside his thigh.

My courage rose with his humor and his challenge. I raised my chin and said, People always want to read about themselves, Billy. I think I should write a weekly column. I’ll tell about parties and birthdays and who went where for vacation. Everyone will buy the paper, I said, talking fast now and almost breathlessly in my excitement, for I could see the parks of Greensboro filled with people sitting on benches and blankets scanning the paper for my column, looking to see if Miss Caroline McKee had mentioned their name this week. They’ll all want to see if they’re in the paper—every week!

Billy’s brows went up and he frowned. I plan for this to be a serious paper, Caroline, not some gossip sheet.

Gossip, I snapped back. "Who said the word gossip? I said news. People care more about what their neighbor does on Saturday afternoon than they care about President Wilson anytime. I tell you, Billy, local news is the thing." My hands flew through the air as I talked, each stroke painting a picture of how life would be once my column came out.

Billy sat and stared at me, apparently turning over my idea in his mind. He stood up abruptly, and I jumped back, surprised. I don’t bite, he said, and you can have your column. On the movie page, he added. The real news will be on the front page. His smile, his laughter, had fled already. A shadow lay over him and spread outward. Nevertheless, his comment was not sarcastic. He stated it merely as a fact.

I ignored it and dashed out as soon as we had decided that I would call the column About Town. Despite Billy’s distance, I walked home with a whole new outlook, seeing leaves festooned with morning rain drops as a promise of the renewed spring of my life, a spring delayed, a promise postponed, a moment hanging mid-air. Surely, all of Greensboro would wish to be my friend again. And Billy Taylor had come home.

I walked along the side of the road rejoicing in my good fortune. Then I rounded the corner and saw Daddy and Robert standing in the lower pasture. Though Robert had dark hair and a wiry frame, while Daddy bore strong resemblance to his Scotch-Irish ancestors, I knew that their minds and hearts ran on the same track. Both stood without speaking and watched a brown and white heifer munch grass, oblivious to the train whistle announcing the 9:10 from Charleston.

As I watched the two of them, I realized that there before me stood the greatest obstacle to my destiny: Daddy. In 1919, a girl couldn’t just go out and get a job. Not if she came from a good family. I had to get Daddy’s permission. Had to convince him that writing for the paper would be a valuable use of my time. Had to convince him to let me go.

Robert left for school, late because Daddy had needed help that morning. As soon as he was gone, I took a glass of cold milk and a slice of bread and jam to the barn.

I brought you something to eat, I said, handing them to Daddy.

Thank you, sweetheart. He bit into the bread and chewed for a few seconds. Lot of work to do today. I got to get the fields over the other side plowed. Should have already done it, he said between bites of bread and gulps of milk. No time for anything else today. He handed back the glass, smiled, and pick up a hoe as if he planned to plow the entire farm with a hand-held hoe. I decided that mid-day might not be the best time to discuss my destiny.

Later that afternoon, when seventeen-year-old Lizzie got home from school, I made her do her homework first thing so she could help me with supper. We need to slice some bread and put the butter out, and then I want you to make sure we have something sweet—cookies would be good. Oatmeal.

Lizzie smiled and I thought how much like our mother she looked—pale skin, dark hair, and blue eyes slanted upwards like a cat’s. Oddly, she never seemed to notice her astonishing beauty.

I’ll hurry and do my algebra, which I don’t need anyway, and then bake cookies. I hope we have enough sugar, she said, her voice rising in a question at the end.

Yes, we do, I said. We have everything, including raisins.

I had made bean soup with lots of ham, letting it simmer all afternoon.

As the time for Daddy and Robert to come in neared, Lizzie and I moved around the kitchen like dancers, each of us doing whatever we saw undone: Here’s the tureen, Lizzie said, placing the large blue porcelain tureen on the table.

I took the cookies out but didn’t put the next batch in, I said, handing her a spatula. And so it went until the table was finished, completed by Daddy at the head, Robert at the foot, and Lizzie and me in the side seats.

I waited until Daddy had eaten three helpings and two cookies. Then, after the small talk about school or animals or the spring planting had died down, I took a deep breath.

I’m going to be a newspaper reporter, I announced into the calm silence.

Daddy’s brows shot up. And how did you manage to become a newspaper reporter? You went for a walk at 7:30 this morning and been home the rest of the day.

Well, I began and stalled and gathered myself and pushed on, determined. "This morning on my walk, I ran into someone who works for a paper, and I got offered this job writing a column I’m going to call About Town. It’ll be about the goings on in Greensboro. You know, weddings, funerals, parties." I wrapped my napkin into a tiny ball before finally giving up on it and stuffing it half under one side of my plate.

Lizzie grabbed Robert’s arm and smiled at him before turning to me. "For the Daily News? How grand, Caroline," she breathed, sliding down in her seat and looking at Daddy for confirmation.

Robert, fourteen that summer, cocked an eyebrow and looked at Daddy as if to say, Girls are so silly. Then he stood up and put his dishes in the sink. I think I’ll go check on that heifer, Daddy. I didn’t have time this afternoon cause I was helping Jimmy in the barn. He went outside, letting the screen door slam.

Daddy, I said, you need to say something to Robert. His attitude annoys me no end.

Daddy sat and thought before he said, Leave him be. He’s got a lot on his mind.

I thought about reminding him that for two years, we had all had a lot on our minds but decided instead to answer Lizzie’s question about the paper. "No, actually, I’ll be writing for a new paper. One called the Guilford Tribune." I smiled while I waited for my words to make their impact.

Daddy shifted in his seat. Who owns it? he asked.

I hesitated. Billy Taylor.

Billy Taylor? both Daddy and Lizzie said in unison.

Yes, I said before they could say anything else. I ran into him this morning, and he says he learned how from some boy whose family owns a paper out West. He’s bought the Lundsford building, or rented it or something, and anyway, he’s starting a paper, and he’s hired me to write for him. At first for nothing, but as soon as money comes in, of course, I’ll get paid. I stopped and took a breath.

Daddy wrinkled his freckled nose and frowned as he pushed his belt down to let his belly lap over it. I thought I told you not to walk to town.

Lizzie’s hand froze halfway to the plate of cookies. She drew it back and let it drop into her lap.

I held my breath then said, Town?

Daddy managed to pin me to the wall without so much as raising his voice. Don’t play me a fool, Caroline. I know you didn’t happen to run into Billy out on McKee Road. You must have gone to town. Where I told you not to go. And you said you wouldn’t.

I’m so sorry, Daddy. I am. It’s just that I got to walking and . . . and . . .

And nothing, Daddy said. "You defied me and then you lied to me. I have no intention of letting