The Missouri Trail

By Jan Sparkman

An incident that happened when she was nine severed Hope from loving relatives on her mothers side of the family. The mystery of this abandonment, which sentenced her and her parents to life in a shabby Detroit neighborhood, colored her growing-up years.

When a call from an all-but-forgotten aunt brings news of the death of Lily, the grandmother Hope remembers from that long-ago childhood, old memories and hurts she thought she had buried rise up again.

In The Missouri Trail, Hope returns to Kentucky to attend her grandmothers funeral and to confront the mystery, but her odyssey to unravel the secrets of the past only brings up more questions. What are the aunts hiding? Do the cousins know more than they say they do? And why does her step-cousin Marty insist on talking about forgiveness?

As the truth unfolds, Hope is forced to address her parents culpability and her own spiritual deficit. She draws strength from a legacy left her by Grandma Lilythe journal of Hopes great-great-grandmother Marys 1860 wagon journey to southwestern Missouri where her husband will find work in the lead mines. The journal becomes a road map that points Hope in a new direction and helps her make sense of Martys wise words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512781595

Jan Sparkman

Jan Sparkman’s published works include four novels, three books of nonfiction, a collection of short stories, and a book of poetry, as well as magazine articles and hundreds of newspaper columns. For sixteen years, she facilitated a writers’ group in her hometown of London, Kentucky.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 Jan Sparkman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

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.

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.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8157-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8158-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8159-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017904979

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/14/2017

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

Epilogue

Hope’s Family Tree

hopeschart0002.jpg

For my Grandchildren

J.R., Natalie, Ralph, Rachel,

Hannah, William, and Brian,

and for those

they have added to our family,

Nicole, Jimmy, Amber,

Abby, Candace, and Brooklyn

Prologue

June 1986

She was nine that summer, happy to be back at Grandma Lily’s for the school break, and eager to see her cousins again. Margaret and Jonathan, her parents, had brought her to Pitman’s Crossing on Friday and were to stay with her until Monday before leaving on their annual two-month mission trip to Mexico. Jonathan was especially excited about that.

The people are beginning to trust us, Lily, he said. They didn’t at first, you know. But it’s amazing what a team like ours can accomplish with food and clothing and medicine.

Lily listened to him, smiled at his enthusiasm. And Bibles, she said.

Jonathan nodded. That’s the important part, of course, but we have to play it down. Keep the politicians happy.

Margaret said, Being able to leave Hope here with you takes such a load off my mind.

You know Hope is always welcome, Lily answered.

Everything had seemed normal. Hope’s parents had given her the usual admonitions to be good while they were gone, to mind her grandmother, and to get along with the other children. Because the rest of the family was expected that day, Margaret had offered to stay home from church and have the noon meal ready when Lily got back. Hope was allowed to stay, too, and even Jonathan begged off.

It’s our last day together for a while, he said when Grandma Lily protested.

After Grandma had driven off in her old truck, Hope made herself comfortable in the fork of the tall oak tree where she could see the end of the long driveway and get the first glimpse of her cousins’ arrival. Scotty and Dot were twins, a novelty for her. She thought it was neat how they seemed to think alike, to understand each other without words. Sometimes she was jealous of them, in spite of loving them so much.

Margaret came out of the house and joined Jonathan on the porch swing. I think the chicken and dumplings will be just about right by the time Mother gets home, Hope heard her say. The sight of them swinging gently back and forth and talking together in low voices made her feel safe.

Then the phone rang, and Margaret said, Wouldn’t you know. Just when I sit down. But she stopped the movement of the swing with her foot, pushed her plump body up, and went inside.

It better not be Aunt Georgia saying they can’t come, Hope called down to her father.

He looked in her direction but didn’t answer. She was used to this sort of benign inattention from her parents. Young as she was Hope sensed that there was between them something that did not necessarily exist between all married couples.

Margaret came to the door. Jonathan, she said in a strangled voice.

He got up quickly and went to her, and they disappeared into the house.

Hope struggled with whether to leave the tree to see if her mother was all right or to continue the vigil for the cousins. She decided that Father could handle whatever it was.

It was twenty minutes before a car turned in at the end of the lane. It must be Aunt Georgia bringing Scotty and Dot! And Skip, of course. She sighed as she scrambled down from the tree. Why did he have to come? Just because Aunt Georgia had married his father didn’t make him a part of the family as far as she was concerned, but Grandma Lily insisted that Skip be included in all their games. Hope had found ways around it, though. After all, he wasn’t a real relative.

To her disappointment, the car contained not her cousins, but the other aunts, Ardell and Emily.

Margaret? Ardell shouted, pushing past Hope as if she weren’t there.

Emily patted Hope on the head and said, How are you, dear? But her face was solemn.

Mother and Father had come out on the porch. Ardell… Mother’s voice shook.

Hope began to be scared.

Don’t start with me, Margaret. I’ve taken steps. I told you on the phone.

Father said, Don’t threaten us, Ardell.

It’s no threat, Jonathan. You will never get away with this if I have to hire lawyers from coast to coast.

Ardell, this will kill Mother, Margaret was crying, Please…

Hope started to go to her parents, but just then Aunt Georgia drove up, and the cousins erupted from her car.

Hope, Scotty shouted, running over to her and grabbing her hand.

Come on, Dot was pulling at her from the other side. Let’s go play.

Take Skip with you, said Aunt Georgia. She pushed the skinny little boy with the perpetually crooked glasses toward them and went to join Emily. The two whispered together.

What’s the matter with everybody? Hope asked Scotty, as they walked toward the barn.

Beats me. I think Mama was crying in the car. And she was driving way too fast. He gave Dot a push.

You stop that, Scotty Buford, said Dot. I’ll tell Mama.

Scotty stuck out his tongue. Tattle-tale, tattle-tale, stick your nose in the well.

Then he gave Hope a push, too, and soon she forgot the grown-ups in the joy of chasing her cousins through the clearing behind the barn. Skip climbed to the top of the fence around the corral and watched them like an owl in a tree.

Then all at once Father was there, saying, Come on, Hope. We’re leaving.

I have to go tell Mama goodbye, Hope said to Dot. I’ll be right back.

No, Hope, I mean we’re all leaving.

But I don’t want to leave, Daddy. You said I could spend the summer.

Right now, Hope. Something in his face made her give up and follow him back to the house.

CHAPTER ONE

May, 2011

S hakespeare had been in the flowers. The purple and yellow pansies Hope had set out with such pains the day before lay shredded and withering among the scattered mulch. If the dog had been within her grasp at that moment, there’s no telling what she might have done. But of course, Shakespeare was nowhere to be seen. If she knew him—and she did—he’d made a dash for the doggie door and his bed beside the water heater in the utility room the minute he heard her car in the driveway. Who could blame him? It wasn’t his fault that the yard was not big enough to contain his abundant energy.

She had thought of trying to find him a home in the country, but she had no rural friends who would take him. She could not bring herself to give him away to strangers. This was his home. No doubt he saw Grandfather Lewis’s ghost in the narrow garden where the two of them had so often planted shrubs or raked leaves together.

At least his doggie memories were happy. Most of Hope’s were bleak, for her parents had been lonely, dysfunctional people who seemed to find her incomprehensible. She sensed this before she could articulate it, but as surely as she knew it, she also knew that this lack of concern was something they were unable to overcome.

The persistent sadness of their lives puzzled her all her growing up years. It wasn’t because they were poor, though of course they were. Until Grandpa Lewis died and left her father his house, they’d had no place to call their own. On the other hand, they never went hungry. Her father’s job was not glamorous, but it paid the bills. What catastrophe had changed them from the smiling, playful parents she dimly remembered from her early years to the morose caretakers of her youth? That mystery held her captive.

The wide front porch was dim and cool. Bordered on both ends with ivy that twined wildly along shabby lattices attached to the roof and shaded in the front by two aging oaks, the porch had been her childhood sanctuary as she tried to find a place for herself in the impaired environment of her life. Now the latticework needed to be torn away before it collapsed under the weight of the matted vines, but the memory of long afternoons spent reading or playing with her dolls under cover of the ivy’s dappled shadow had so far kept her from taking any action. She stood there now, forcing herself to see the sagging porch roof, the rotted places in the floor, the furniture’s peeling paint. It was obvious that she could not afford to be sentimental much longer.

Inside the house the phone rang. She fumbled in her purse for the key to the front door and found it just as the ringing stopped. A telemarketer, probably. It wouldn’t be Trent. Not that she wanted it to be, of course. In her saner moments, she was glad that he was not the type to keep calling. After all, she was the one who had broken it off, so talking to him could serve no real purpose. Still, every time the phone rang her heart raced with the expectation that she’d pick up the receiver and hear his voice.

She unlocked the door and stepped inside. She listened, but the whispers and creaks common to old houses were all she heard. Trent had made a habit of leaving the radio on all the time. They’d argued about it. Hope said it was a waste of electricity; Trent insisted it didn’t use enough to matter. It was one of a hundred things they’d differed on. It was over, and she was glad, but she missed the music.

She kicked off her shoes and padded toward the kitchen to check the answering machine. The light was not flashing, but she punched the ‘play’ button, just to be sure. You have no messages, said an electronic voice.

I have no life! She dropped her purse on the table so hard that the vase of daffodils in the center overturned, drenching the linen tablecloth. A word her father would have slapped her for using burst from her lips. She grabbed a dishtowel but not in time to staunch the stream of water as it poured onto the floor.

A trail of dirt led from the rug beneath the doggie door to the utility room, telling her that Shakespeare was, indeed, inside. When she called his name, he ambled out. From habit, she reached to scratch him between the ears, but she kept her voice stern as she said, Shakespeare, you ruined my flowerbed! He merely shook himself, adding to the mess he’d already left on the kitchen’s tile floor.

I can see you’re really sorry, she said, as she wiped up the water. His blasé demeanor almost made her smile until she thought of the money she’d spent at the nursery and felt like crying instead. Her job as a freelance editor did not give her much financial security.

She got out the broom and dustpan. She might as well clean up the dog’s mess while she was at it. Shakespeare lay down on his rug with his head on his paws. Somehow, his total unflappability raised Hope’s spirits. She cleaned up the floor and was giving the daffodils fresh water when the phone rang again.

Are we still on for tonight? It was Beth.

Oh, Hope said. Pizza. I almost forgot.

You are so out of it, girl. The last thing I said to you this afternoon was ‘Meet me at Giovanni’s at six.’ And you said—

I know, I know. Hope tried to sound enthusiastic. I’ll be there, but let’s make it six-thirty. Okay? I’ve got a couple things to do before I come.

Are you all right?

I’m fine, but Shakespeare got into the pansies and then he tracked up the floor. I spilled water—

Earth-shattering, said Beth.

Hey, I can do without the quips, Hope said, and it felt good to laugh. "You didn’t have to clean it up. And don’t worry. I’ll be there soon. Oh, by