Novels – Page 29 – Richard L. Fricks

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 5

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman. Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune. She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective. The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 5

I left the College and drove to the Sand Mountain Reporter. I don’t know why for sure. It may have been the lingering nostalgia that was morphing in a different direction. I had married Jennifer, but it was Regina who was my first love and the one I had walked away from. Was my mind playing tricks on me? Or, was my heart reminding me of what I was blind to see nearly fifty years ago? I had to find the answer. Regina would know. As I pulled into the parking lot I was happy to remember that Regina had invited me to drop by. We could at least talk shop. Talking about how we were nearly half a century ago might be a little premature.

It was almost 4:30 p.m. when I asked the receptionist if Regina was available. I told her my name and she disappeared. Just as I sat down and picked up the latest edition of the Reporter from a table in the corner, the receptionist reappeared and instructed me to follow her. Behind a desk in an office that dwarfed the size and intimidated the furnishings of Dean Naylor’s office, sat the gorgeous Regina. I shook my head to push back the past as she motioned for me to sit with her at a round table in the corner.

“I’m so glad you dropped by. What’s up Mr. Walt?”

“Nothing much. I’ve been by to see Dean Naylor and confirm the details on the class I’ll be teaching.”

“You’re taking Stella Gillman’s position, aren’t you? I heard she accepted a position at Wake Forest?”

“A great promotion for her but also the opportunity to be near her aging parents in Winston-Salem. I’m happy for her.” I said glancing at Regina’s straight, short-cropped brown hair. Brown sounded so bland.

There should be one word to describe silky, brilliantly bright, and sexy. “Talking about opportunity. Snead State is rather fortunate to have a world-renowned stenographer like you. One with a radical reputation at that.”

“I’m just me, plain and simple Walt.”

“Oh, give me a break. You’ve always undersold and underestimated yourself. Of course, I do admit you are rather lame in some respects.” Regina said sitting back and crossing her legs.

“What department are you referring to?” I said feeling a little sweat breaking out on my forehead.

“Women, your ability to choose women, is grossly inadequate.”

“Funny, funny.”

The receptionist announced over an open intercom she was leaving. Regina rushed out and when she returned she said, “I was overwhelmingly the best choice for you when you were a teenager and look what you did.”

“I have recently thought about that. You may be right.”

“Right? You know I’m right. But, that was a lifetime ago. Hey, I owe you an apology. I don’t have a clue how I got us started on that little conversation.”

“No apology needed. In fact, let’s continue the conversation over dinner, tonight, my place.”

“I’d love to Walt, but I have a Board meeting tonight. Rain check?”

“Absolutely.”

“In fact, I need about an hour to prepare then I have to run a couple of errands. I hate to push you out but duty calls.” Regina said coming towards me reaching out her right hand offering a friendly handshake.

“Thanks for seeing me without any notice.” I said, standing and taking her hand. Her grasp lingered a few seconds more than normal. It seemed 45 years of adult scales fell off our eyes and we were back in the barn loft the night before our high school graduation. It was there, a place we had met late at night for nearly two years, I told her Jennifer was wanting a full commitment. Now, standing here, what I had done those many years ago, seemed the most stupid thing a man could ever do.

“Oh, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. I was in Guntersville this morning at the Courthouse. After the Draper sentencing hearing was over, I lingered while the courtroom emptied, hoping to get an interview with the District Attorney. The court reporter, Ginger, something like that, and I, got to talking as she was packing up her steno stuff. She was frantic to leave saying she had to drive to Huntsville for a deposition. Long story short. She works for Rains & Associates, a big court-reporting agency based in Birmingham. Ginger said they were very short-handed, so much she was driving herself mad as she drove all over North Alabama trying to meet demands. Anyway, I thought of you, thought you might like another part time job. Something to keep the restless Walt out of the bars and honky tonks.

“Again, funny. Thanks for the tip. I’ll give it some thought. Now, you go do what you need to do. I’ll call you later to remind you of the rain check you owe me.” I said glancing over at Regina who by now was back at her desk ruffling through a stack of files and papers.

“Later gator.” She said without looking up.

I dropped by Pizza Hut for a large Supreme and drove home feeling more nostalgic than ever.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 4

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Chapter 4

My meeting with Dean Naylor was cut short by a ‘human issue’ as he called it. Seems like an assistant coach and the new head basketball coach hired during the Christmas holidays were having difficulty expressing brotherly love. During the twenty minutes we had before Naylor was called to the gymnasium, we discussed the second semester stenographic course I was to teach on Monday and Thursday evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., including lab time. From his bragging about Snead State winning last year’s Tri-State Regional Stenographic Tournament, I could tell he had high expectations. He also was supportive of my decision to stand up against the President. As Naylor was rushing out of his office he said, “Thanks for being a man of principle when you chose truth over job security. Let’s have lunch one day soon and I’ll introduce you to a couple of other supporters.” With that, he was gone leaving me sitting in his office.

For five minutes or so I continued to sit and reminisce. After graduating from Boaz High School in 1972, I couldn’t make my mind up about what profession I wanted to pursue. So, I spent the next year here, what was then called Snead State Junior College, taking general curriculum courses. The Dean’s secretary came in and said she had to run an errand and needed to lock-up his office. I walked out and instead of descending the nearby stairs to the first floor I walked down the long hallway towards the classroom Jennifer and I had taken a Speech class together. The room was the old auditorium. I sat down in a seat closest to the area I remembered sitting every day during that semester. I imagined Jennifer right beside me, her blowing that crazy, unruly black curl out of her right eye. That was January 1973. Where in hell had forty-five years gone? “You got to leave, I’m locking up.” A short, older man holding a key ring with a hundred keys shouted from the double doors by the hallway.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 3

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Chapter 3

I spent the next three days unpacking. The moving company had placed all my furniture neatly around the outer walls of the great room, study, and two bedrooms, and stacked the dozens and dozens of boxes inside the master bedroom. All the boxes, except my White House transcripts. I moved them to a safe and secure, climate-controlled, unit at Paradise Self Storage in Albertville. I toiled with this decision, but for now decided it more prudent to spend the extra money to protect the fruits of my 35 years working with five Presidents until I could have the documents scanned.

I had mixed feelings about moving back into my childhood home, what my paternal great-grandfather had dubbed, Shepherd’s Cove. Mom and Dad had deeded the home-place to DeeDee, my sister, and me in 2007. Dad died in 2012 and Mom had moved into Brookdale Assisted Living in Albertville three years ago. She was not doing well. DeeDee had listed Mom and Dad’s place with a realtor in 2015. There had been a little activity during the first few months after it was listed, but none for nearly the past two years. Since I was moving back home anyway and needed a place to live, I decided to buy the 118-year-old thrice-remodeled cabin that Stephen Parker Shepherd had built in 1899, motivated greatly by my DeeDee’s offer to buy her out at a great price.

This morning, Thursday, would be a change of my recently created routine. I had to meet with Dean Naylor at Snead State to finalize my adjunct professor duties in the business department. That meeting wasn’t until 3:30 p.m., which gave me plenty of time to waste here sitting in a padded lounging chair on the back porch, one that likely was the same one I sat in as mother and I talked when I was 15. I had been here since daylight watching three ducks swim and frolic in the pond along the edge closest to the old barn which was built shortly after the house.

At 6:50 a.m., I heard a car horn. I really didn’t want any visitors, so I stayed put, lowering the back of my chair into a sleeping position. If it’s important, the person will find me. I shut my eyes as though I was asleep.

“Walt, you can hide from your troubles all day.” Vann Elkins shouted from the porch steps. I kept my eyes closed until he walked over and shook me with both hands until I nearly fell out of my chair.

“I wasn’t hiding from my troubles. I was hiding from you. Well, I guess that’s about the same thing.”

“Good to see you Walt. I’ve been seeing activity around here for nearly a week. I just figured DeeDee had sold the place and my new neighbors were moving in.” Vann said unfolding another lounge chair.

I raised the back of my chair. “I hear you’ve retired?”

“Thought it was time to fish, hunt, garden, and gossip anytime I wanted without distraction from 250 high schoolers.” Vann said fiddling with the settings on his chair.

“I’m glad you stopped by but I’m hungry. Let’s go grab a bite and we can catch up. That good for you?” I said finding it difficult to get up out of my low-slung chair.

“Sounds great, I was headed to Grumpy’s Diner when I decided to pull in.”

I rode with Vann in his 90’s model Ford pickup and found one table available. Three men I didn’t know were just abandoning the table in the far left-hand corner. I followed Vann and stopped every time he did to greet folks at four other tables. I felt like a member of the Secret Service. He didn’t introduce me to anyone and no one even looked my way. Maybe I’m invisible. That might not be a bad thing.

After the waitress brought us coffee and took our orders, I asked Vann why he had really retired. I knew he wasn’t much of an outdoorsman, even though his wife insisted he help her in the garden. The truth is, he was a bookworm.

“I’ve been teaching American History at Boaz High School since 1978, two years after I graduated from the University. Time for a change. I might finally get to writing that book I’ve been dreaming about for a quarter of a century.” Vann said.

‘University,’ in these parts always referred to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. And, no other college in the world. Cross-state rivalry Auburn could never earn such a title. “How will you survive without the interaction with your students? I’ve always heard and believed that was the key to your longevity.”

“Oh, horse radishes, let’s talk about you for a while. I see where you really got your ass in a crack with old man Kane. I have one question. Did you quit or were you fired?”

“Both. I quit and got fired.”

“That makes sense.” Vann said hesitating to go on while the waitress delivered our food. “Clarify please.”

I realized for the first time since high school why Vann Elkins and I were best friends. We had always been totally transparent with each other. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, that we couldn’t ask or divulge to the other. “Before my meeting with the President I had already decided how I would respond. If he asked me to lie, then I was out of there. That’s what happened. The President let my boss, Zack Quitman, have the honors of telling me to change the transcript or hit the road.”

“You’re my hero man. The rest of the country’s also. Well, except for ninety-nine percent of the Wacko’s supporters.” Vann said.

“You’re right. Just like Kane said, ‘I could be in the street in downtown Manhattan and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose a one of my supporters.’ The man is a Presidential disgrace. But, his day is coming. I feel it in my bones.” I said noticing my voice rising as I spoke. “Not so loud my friend. Half of Kane’s’ supporters live here in Boaz. Since you’ve never been so good at math, that means most every person you will encounter in Boaz, no matter where you are, Walmart, church, here in the diner, are die-hard Kane fans.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Surely, it’s not more than 50%.

Wouldn’t that be what it should be given the general election results?” I said.

“Kane math doesn’t work that way. For some unknown reason,

Boaz voted nearly 100% for Kane. But, that might change.”

“Vann, who’s your new friend?” The waitress, Gloria, said pressing a large and protruding hip into Vann’s shoulder.

“Some nut job liberal I found on Highway 431 broke down heading to New York City. No, sorry. Gloria Brown, this is my best friend since high school, Walt Shepherd.”

“Nice to meet you Walt, can I call you Walt?” Gloria said walking over and filling my coffee cup.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Nice to meet you Gloria.”

“Hot stuff, coffee please.” A sixtyish looking man sitting with three younger men halfway across the dining room shouted at Gloria.

And, she was gone.

“What did you mean before Gloria came up? You said something might change.” I said.

“Regina Gillan, your old flame, has taken over as Chief Editor at the Sand Mountain Reporter. You do know she has spent the past hundred years or so with one of the most liberal newspapers in America, the Chicago Tribune?”

“Funny you mention her. Last Friday I ran into her at Walmart. She mentioned moving back and her new job.” I said with my mouth stuffed with the best pancakes I’d eaten since my mother’s when I was a kid.

“I predict things around here are going to get interesting.

Especially since Belinda, you know, Regina’s twin sister, is married to Frankie Olinger.”

“Oh shit. When did Belinda lose her mind? You are talking about the same Frankie Olinger we went to school with?”

“Yep, and we thought he was crazy 45 years ago. He is bat-shit crazy now. He’d have to be to be head honcho with the local Kanites. I forget what they call themselves. Oh yea, Kane Tribe.” Vann said.

“I thought I was moving away from a screwed-up city. Looks like this town may be just as bad, maybe worse. I got to go.” I said cramming a whole slice of bacon in my mouth.

Gloria brought us two coffees to-go as we were walking to the checkout counter beside the front door. As we were leaving, I heard behind me, “Vann, remember Sand Mountain Tire needs your business. I thought you were coming by after our little chat at Walmart a couple of weeks ago.” It was the older man who had yelled at Gloria for coffee from across the restaurant.

“I’ve been busy.” Vann responded. “Who’s your friend?”

“Frankie, don’t you remember Walt Shepherd? We all went to school together.” Vann said.

“Oh hell no. Walt, good to see you. It’s a shame you didn’t have the balls to support our President. I read all about it.”

I wanted to kick him in the balls, but I just stood there and looked at him. Frankie was bigger than ever, a couple of inches taller than my six feet and probably weighed three hundred pounds. Even with half of it being fat, I didn’t want to wrestle a bear. I also didn’t want to smell like oil and gas for my meeting with Dean Naylor. “Nice to see you Frankie. I don’t think I’ve seen you since you quit school at the end of the eleventh grade.”

Vann gently pushed in between Frankie and me and said, “hurry up you two, there’s people waiting. Let’s go.”

Vann dropped me off at my mailbox next to the road. As he started to drive off, he stopped, leaned out his window, and said, “you better stay away from the foxy Regina. You know she’ll come with a

Frankie bonus.”

I waved him off, checked my mailbox, and walked the long and winding driveway home.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 2

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Chapter 2

It was almost 8:30 p.m. before the moving van arrived. After Ed and Larry parked the van and left for a hotel, I drove to Walmart to pick up a few things. As I was loading up on ten kinds of yogurt, I glanced over and saw an attractive woman at the milk cooler pulling out and returning several gallons of milk. The woman had on tight jeans and a sleeveless pink top. I had a feeling I knew the woman but all I could see was her profile.

After she finally selected a gallon of milk, placed it into her buggy, and headed towards me, I knew exactly who she was. “Regina

Gillan, is that you?”

“Who’s asking?” She replied looking towards me for a second before abandoning her cart and walking over to the eggs directly opposite the yogurt coolers.

“Walt Shepherd is asking.” I said.

She then ignored her need for eggs and walked over and hugged my neck without saying anything. We just stood and looked at each other for what seemed like a minute or more. By now, I couldn’t help but notice her pink top was exposing just enough cleavage to remind me she still had a teenage figure. Even though I hadn’t seen her in nearly 50 years, memories of our last conversation flooded my mind.

“I can’t believe this. Last week I heard you quit the White House and now you’re in Boaz Walmart?”

“My story isn’t as good as yours Miss Gina. Not long ago at all you were giving President Kane hell in editorials at the Chicago Tribune. Now, you’re checking out expiration dates on twenty gallons of milk in Boaz Walmart.” I said.

“You always were a smart-ass Walt Shepherd.”

“Seriously Regina, you here for a New Year’s visit or still hanging around after Christmas?”

“Neither. As of ten days ago I am the Editor-In-Chief of the

Sand Mountain Reporter.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Why would the editor of the editorial page for the Chicago Tribune jump from that high pedestal and fall so far south? Living around a bunch of liberals is one thing, but living amongst red-neck Christian fundamentalists can get you killed?”

“Not only a smart ass but rather insulting too, aren’t you?” Regina said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It just seems such a radical move.”

“It wasn’t as sudden as it might appear. I’ve been wanting a change for a while. Over forty years in the windy city is enough. Since our class reunion in 2012 I’ve been homesick of a sort. It was surprising that my nostalgia from hanging around a bunch of our classmates, all who still live around here, didn’t go away. No doubt, it was a post-midlife crisis of a sort. By the way, why didn’t you come to one of our class reunions?

We’ve had them at least every ten years.”

“I didn’t want the pain.”

“Pain? What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s a long story, but you are one of the leading characters.”

“That’s a story I would love to hear, but now I have to get back. Mother needed milk for her banana pudding. She makes me swear to triple-check the expiration dates.”

“It was nice seeing you.”

“Oh, I forgot to ask. What are you doing in Boaz?” Regina asked.

“I not only quit the White House Stenographic staff, but have moved back home, home as in right here in Boaz. I just got in town around an hour ago. I guess you could say I’ve retired.”

“Walt Shepherd, you will never retire. You can’t sit still. Come talk to me at the Reporter. I’ll be in the office first thing Monday morning.”

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 1

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Chapter 1

I will not lie for President Kane. I will not lie for the President. I kept saying to myself as I waited in the secretary’s office just one door away from where the world’s most powerful man sat with Fritz Archer, the President’s Chief of Staff, and Zack Quitman, my boss and Head of the Stenographic core.

“You can come in now Mr. Shepherd.” Jane Goodman, the President’s secretary said as she walked in from the Oval Office.

I tapped my forehead with my handkerchief one final time, stood, and walked through the door into a room with six eyes of hot steel that instantly wounded my determination to hold unwaveringly to honesty and truth. These men would give me only two choices, lie or walk my integrity off the gang plank into a raging ocean.

“Good afternoon Walt.” Fritz said, reaching out to shake my hand. The President sat behind his desk without a word, or glimmer of a smile. Zack twisted in his seat and gave me a slight affirmative nod, like he was signaling me to say yes to whatever demand was coming my way.

“Thank you for coming. Please sit here.”

“My meeting with Billy Graham yesterday in the Rose Garden has created quite a stir.” The President said while looking at his laptop screen that sat on his desk in front of him.

“Walt, I have reviewed your transcript of the President’s and Mr. Graham’s meeting. I’ve also reviewed Tad Goldstein’s transcript. Tad, as you know, was the closest to the President when he said, ‘Billy, I never met with a single Russian during my campaign.’ Why is it that you didn’t hear the word never?” Zack asked.

“Sirs, I can only record what I hear. I heard the President say, ‘Billy, I met with a single Russian during my campaign.’”

“Mr. Shepherd, even though you have worked nearly 35 years as a White House stenographer, Tad Goldstein has won every major competition the National Stenographic Society has held in the past five years. I believe you simply misheard. Why is it that you cannot acknowledge that?” The President said, continuing to look at his laptop screen.

“Sir, in all due respect, I am not the only one who did not hear the word ‘never’ in the subject sentence. I’m aware that several reporters have said they did not hear the word.” I said feeling the sweat run down my back.

Fritz glared at me and sat forward to the edge of his seat, “Sharon Hawkings with Fox News, who, like Tad, was closer to the President than the reporters you mention, is adamant. She says the President never said he had met with a Russian during his campaign. In fact, she said his next sentence confirms that. ‘I am the most patriotic president this country has ever had.’”

I didn’t respond but acted like a school kid who had been caught cheating on an exam.

“Let’s be very clear Mr. Shepherd. You will change your transcript to match Tad’s or you’re fired. Do you understand what I’m saying here?” the President said.

“Yes, clearly.” I said wanting to stand up and run out of the Oval Office.

“Walt, it’s 3:30 now. I’ll give you until 5:00 p.m. today to make your decision. I fully expect you to get on board with Tad.” Zack said, continuing to give me an affirmative nod.

“Am I dismissed?” I said as I stood up directly facing the President. He never made eye contact. He never even looked up from his laptop.

“You may leave Mr. Shepherd but please know there is a price to pay for blindly following your principles. I trust you are hearing what I am saying.” Fritz said as the door to Jane Goodman’s office opened and she herded me like I was a cull cow headed for the slaughter house.

As I walked outside the West Wing and toward the Eisenhower

Executive Office Building I knew my thirty-five-year career here at the White House was over. No Administration had ever asked me to lie. No one had even asked me to correct a verb tense. But, that hadn’t stopped me from making the biggest mistake of my White House career. The only time I ever modified what a President said was in 2000 when I changed President Bush’s ‘is’ to ‘are.’ At a stump speech in Florence, South Carolina on Jan. 11, 2000, Bush asked a question — “Is our children learning?” I had caught hell over transcribing the statement to “Are our children learning?” I was wrong. It was not my job to protect the President. My duty was to record the truth, exactly what was said. I swore then I would die before I ever recorded anything except exactly what the President said. I was not about to change my mind. I didn’t care if it cost me my job.

Three days later, at 6:35 a.m., we left Washington, D.C. It was me in my loaded down 2014 Ford F150 pickup with all my boxed-up transcripts in the truck’s bed under a new camper shell. Behind me, for now at least, were two men in a Peterbilt with a growling CAT engine pulling a 53-foot dry box trailer loaded down with the remainder of my worldly possessions.

The two men crew and rig from Elrod Moving and Storage arrived yesterday shortly after noon and began the ten-hour loading sprint. I had paid their overnight hotel bill at the Georgetown Inn on Wisconsin Avenue and they had returned at 6:00 a.m. to conduct their required 26-point truck and trailer inspection, and to eat a Hardee’s breakfast I had waiting for them. Our plan was simple: drive, virtually non-stop, to 5583 Crosson Road in Boaz, Alabama. They would manage their own schedule, I would mine. I could lead or follow, go on without them, or stop for a nap. One of the requirements was for all to meet at

6:00 a.m. in the morning at the designated spot and start unloading the trailer.

Eighty miles after leaving my home on Rosalyn Street in Georgetown, somewhere around Middleton, Virginia, I pulled past the long semi and settled in to endure one of my least favorite things. I always thought driving, and even worse, riding as a passenger, was boring. For a little over seven chapters I listened to The Last Juror, a John

Grisham book, but surprisingly got tired of Clanton, Mississippi and Willie Traynor, although it was one of my favorite stories, having previously read it in hardcover and on my Kindle.

My mind took a different direction just as Miss Callie Ruffin finished her prayer, and her and Willie were about to eat a feast for lunch out on her front porch in Lowtown. I was 15 and was walking up the back-porch steps to my parents’ house, my home on Crosson Road, when I was startled by a woman’s voice coming from the swing on the far side of the porch. Vann Elkins, my 16-year-old friend, the same grade as me but a few months older, had just dropped me off from an after-church gathering at the Dickerson’s house in Country Club. The back-porch lights were off, and I hadn’t seen Mother. I also hadn’t seen her crying. This is what altered her voice and startled me.

“Walt, let’s talk.” Mother’s voice was clearer now.

I walked over and sat down in a lounging chair. “Are you okay? It’s after 10:00, late for you. What’s wrong?” Mother was always in bed by 9:00 p.m. sharp.

“I’m worried about you. You’re changing, and I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like me growing up?” I was really confused. Why would Mother be worried about how much I was growing. Since last year, the beginning of 9th grade, I had grown nearly three inches taller and gained fifty pounds. She knew how hard I had worked with Coach Hicks in the weight room, on the practice field, and running an obstacle course, he had helped lay out here at Shepherd’s Cove, our 40acre domain off Crosson Road.

“No, silly, it’s not that. I am very proud of how you have stuck to your goal of playing football. Son, what is breaking my heart is how you are falling away from God.” Mother barely got the words out.

Before I could think of what to say Dad opened the back door and turned on the porch light. He didn’t get a word out before Mother shooed him back inside.

“Mom, I was at church tonight and I led the prayer at the

Dickerson’s before ice cream and cake.”

“That’s good Walt, but don’t patronize me. I hear the type of questions you are asking in Mr. Smith’s Sunday School class and I see how you act during Brother Walter’s sermons. When you slouch down in the pew I know you are not listening or you are disagreeing with what you are hearing. Be honest with me. Tell me what is going on.” Mother had laid her tissues aside. She was gaining composure. I knew my goose was cooked.

“I have my doubts about Christianity. There, I said it.” I said standing up and moving over by the porch rails.

I know now a little more how those words broke Mother’s heart.

That night we talked until after midnight. I told her how the year before I had started reading how the Bible came about, and, this year, had gotten interested in evolution, thanks to Dr. Ayers, my Biology teacher. At the end of those two hours, the only thing we accomplished was to agree to disagree. For sure, one thing didn’t change, and that was my love for my Mother and her love for me.

My mind was now solidly in the past. I kept driving. By the end of high school, I was, at a minimum, a closet atheist. No, I didn’t stop going to First Baptist Church of Christ. I respected my Mother more than that, Dad too. By graduation night, May 25, 1972, I had accumulated nearly four years of reading, studying, and contemplating. Atheist was not the right word. I didn’t have the right word to describe me. What do you call a person who strongly doubts most of the stories from the Bible? Who believes in an old, old earth, and that all life is connected and has arisen through the evolutionary process? What do you label a person who both doubts God and loves God, or the things my life had associated with God? Whatever I was, by the end of high school, I still was open to God, most days was eager to hear from Him.

I truly was open to knowing Him. I just needed evidence.

Mother was the most open-minded about my fall from grace, as she put it. In fact, her and Dr. Ayers were the only two people I knew of who didn’t think I was a disgrace to the community. It didn’t take long for word to spread around church and around town that I was different. It didn’t take me long to figure out that a closed mind is such a dangerous thing. In a way, I felt like church folks threw me into the same camp with homosexuals. We were all heathens and destined for hell.

After graduating, I attended Snead State Community College for one year. During the summer of 1973, Jennifer Ericson and I married, and her rich father opted to pay our way at the University of Virginia, a truly great school, and the one I had dreamed of attending since the tenth grade. I majored in English and minored in Creative Writing. We had stayed in Charlottesville during the summer after our sophomore year. I got a job at Pizza Hut and right before the end of summer I delivered a pizza to Craig Langston sitting on the steps of the Rotunda. He was a talkative professor. After he learned I was an English major, he invited me to sit, even gave me a slice of his pizza. He asked me a dozen questions and ended advising me to take a couple of stenographic courses. He said I needed to find a way to, as efficiently as possible, take notes from what I was reading. He warned me that my sophomore year was going to be heck, but my junior and senior years would be hell. He strongly encouraged me to pursue “the best note-taking system known to man.” I will never forget those words.

I did follow his advice, ultimately taking six courses over the next three years, almost deciding to change my major. I’ve often wondered if Craig Langston was an angel sent from God to guide my life. Probably not, but for sure he played a significant role in my future. After graduating, I tried for over a year to find a teaching position. I wanted to teach at the college level but soon learned I needed a PhD. That wasn’t happening. I wound up teaching night classes in stenography at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland. How I got there was a whole other story. It was only fate that I met Sally Pelham, the sister of the College’s President who had been a stenographer at the White House for nearly twenty years. Out of the blue one Thursday evening, nearly six years after I started teaching at Prince George, Sally and her sister, Suzie, the College’s President, dropped by my class. They stayed the remaining hour of the class, even had me demonstrate my ability on the steno machine. After all my students left, Sally gave me her card telling me to call her if I wanted “a note-taking job in a high stress environment.” A month later, November 18, 1982, I was the newest staff member of the White House’s stenographic core.

Over the next eight hours, my mind jumped between alternating scenes, from my 35-year career at the White House, back to high school girlfriends Regina Gillan, and the late Jennifer Ericson. At 6:35 p.m., twelve hours after leaving my townhouse in Georgetown, I pulled my Ford pickup into the driveway at Shepherd’s Cove, 5583 Crosson Road, Boaz, Alabama.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Secrets, Epilogue

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ. Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.

Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends. Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends. She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ. Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs.

June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.

The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present. The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018. After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart. However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart. They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.

In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith. Will these religious differences unite them? The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept. Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?

Epilogue

October 2018

I’m glad I was able to control my anger. Instead of pursuing a way to wreak holy-hell revenge on Wade, I had allowed Olivia to persuade me that her justice was coming. She was right. It came just four months after we married.

To avoid the death penalty, Wade Tillman and James Adams plead guilty to the murders of Wade’s wife, Gina Tillman, and Alma Castenada. In addition, they plead guilty to four counts of kidnapping for sexual exploitation, and conspiracy to commit a hate crime against a specific people group. They were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 30 years. They are currently serving their time incarcerated at the Federal Penitentiary on Cumberland Island in Georgia.

At the time Wade and James settled their federal cases, four of the fathers of the Flaming Five agreed to plead guilty in the Circuit Court of Marshall County, Alabama. Walter Tillman and Franklin Ericson agreed to plead guilty to embezzlement and extortion, and to be sentenced to eight years in prison. David Adams and Raymond Radford agreed to plead guilty to two counts of murder in the deaths of Harold Maples and Shawn Saylor, and to be sentenced to twenty years in prison.

Fitz Billingsley, in exchange for assisting the U.S. attorney in prosecuting these cases, avoided all federal and state charges. The four fathers were allowed three days freedom in which to get their affairs in order before surrendering to the county sheriff.

Sometime in the afternoon after the pleas were entered and the agreements reached, Walter Tillman, Franklin Ericson, David Adams, and Raymond Radford kidnapped and murdered Fitz Billingsley. Less than two hours later, the four fathers died in a horrific gun battle with Gina Tillman’s attorney, Micaden Lewis Tanner, at Oak Hollow, his farm off Cox Gap Road, eight miles south of Boaz.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Secrets, Chapter 35

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Chapter 35

June 2018

Turns out it was simple. Mine and Olivia’s decision for her to resign her position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and relocate to Chicago. There were two main reasons: Paul Cummins and my revolutionary work with the renowned Jerry Coyne.

Olivia and Paul, with him already living and working only a few miles from the University of Chicago, naturally, could bond as any normal mother and son. I think the horrible situation that had ignited their eternal connection made each of them realize, although neither had a choice to begin with, life was too short to live in the past. The present became their joy and peace and allowed Olivia’s mothering instinct to drive her need and desire to be close to the one her body had helped create. Over the past five plus months the three of us had fallen in love regardless of the real dysfunction that should have driven us part.

My work as a geneticist was also important to me. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Susan Ayers at Boaz High School I likely would never have been in my current position. She had inspired me to follow my heart and, if possible, find something to do that would make life better for future generations. I think she saw Ellen in me, or rather, I became a surrogate for the loss of Ellen. I suspect that Ellen, brighter in every way than her mother, according to Dr. Ayers, would have changed the world. If not as a scientist, for sure, as one who taught by example that love is not a straight line.

My work with Jerry was important to the world. We had spent the last several months planning a road show of sorts. The show was the end of several years of research and planning before I had gone to Boaz last December. Mine and Jerry’s intention was to present Boards of Education around the country, beginning with the Chicago school system, that the powerful evidence for evolution lies in the genetic code. It had been known for years that humans and chimpanzees were closely related genetically, and that they had evolved separately for millions of years from a common ancestor. Jerry and I had a long-term desire to convince more and more high school Biology teachers the absolute truth concerning evolution. We had developed a teaching kit of sorts, including manipulatives, a slide show, and a video, that illustrated how Chromosome #2 in humans had fused into one longer chromosome while in chimps it continued separated into two shorter sections. This discovery, first in 1982, and more clearly confirmed by studies in 2005 and 2012, illustrated how evolution itself predicted what likely had occurred. The discovery of the fused site in the human genome confirmed the shared ancestry of humans and chimps. Olivia, a kind and generous soul, had agreed, almost from January, that my work had the opportunity to lead generations of America’s youth to the truth of science.

On Saturday, June 10, 2018, forty-seven years to the day after Dad and I drove away from Boaz, Alabama, Olivia and I married at Loft on Lake, a beautiful wedding venue in North Chicago. Paul was my best man and Randi Radford was Olivia’s maid of honor. John Cummins attended as well as about a hundred of my professional associates and a surprising number of Olivia’s family and friends from Boaz.

During the ceremony I placed two rings on Olivia’s hands. The Cameo ring I had given her shortly after she turned 15 and while the two of us burrowed down in our theater seats towards the end of the movie Shane. For some reason, I had saved and protected it after she had mailed it to me in the fall of 1972 along with her ‘Dear John’ letter. I wished I could say that I knew all along that someday we would unite, that something would happen to cause the most beautiful once in life love to be restored. I would be lying.

The other ring, a one carat diamond solitaire that we had purchased in January at Ethan Lord Jewelry off Wabash Avenue, was, for us, the true symbol of the rarest of loves, something that happens to only a few. I couldn’t help as I was sliding the beautiful diamond on Olivia’s left hand and considering her mystifying blue eyes, how I had felt seeing her, face to face, the first time, standing on the stage down in the Church’s basement after having performed a silly little skit. I had a feeling that one common ingredient for these rarest forms of love is the fact each partner knows, almost instantly upon meeting for the first time, that something spectacular is happening.

I will never forget the most interesting and unusual part of our vows.

Vow master: “Olivia, do you promise to love, honor, and cherish Matthew as long as you shall live?”

Olivia: “I do, and I will not stop then. I will eternally love, honor, and cherish gentleman Matthew, even after we both have returned to stardust.”

The highlight of the afternoon’s party was 89-year-old Betty Tillman’s imitation of Olivia trying to explain why she was so wet and muddy when she came in from a secret afternoon with Matt at Aurora Lake.

The happiness of the day was only slightly overshadowed by the sadness of Dad’s absence. It would have been degrees and degrees different if, before his death just a month earlier, he hadn’t prepared Olivia and me. He had someway known his cancer-battling days were ending when he challenged us to live simply and frugally, enjoying each day as though it was our last. He had given Olivia my notes from my one-year undercover work that he had someway preserved and encouraged us to never forget that but for his decision to choose Boaz over Sanford, North Carolina, we would have likely never met.

Olivia and I continued to live in my two-bedroom townhouse on Claremont Drive knowing we would sell in a few years, after my retirement, and move to Alabama. Our dream was to purchase and operate the Mountain Laurel Inn Bed and Breakfast in Mentone and to woo couples from around the world to visit “a quaint, welcoming mountain village nestled atop the west brow of Lookout Mountain,” and to experience Triple T: Time, Touch, and Talk, while bathing in a mysterious romantic brew.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Secrets, Chapter 34

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Chapter 34

January 4, 2018

While Olivia and I had been in Mentone for two days, Tiffany had arranged to have some discarded furniture from younger son Devan’s room moved to my virtually empty little pad on College Avenue. It seems Tiffany had run into Brandi Ridgeway at Boaz Furniture sometime last week while shopping. Brandi was there exploring the idea of furnishing one of her two rental houses and offering them to visiting professors at Snead College and others who might be in town on a short-term basis. I was glad to have, even though just for a few more days, an actual bed to sleep on and a comfortable couch for napping. Olivia was also pleased since she suggested we change our plans for their post New Year’s Day party. The party would be Thursday night at Warren and Tiffany’s, more particularly, in the basement man-cave.

Olivia and I had agreed during our last trip to Mentone that we would spend the day in Warren’s basement with Olivia’s family. I hadn’t liked the idea even though a few hours watching football on Warren’s giant TV would be enjoyable. As things often do, our plans changed. It was Olivia’s idea.

I didn’t resist. It would give a much better opportunity to see if I could tease out a few old and deeply hidden secrets from the woman I unconditionally loved. Now, a day alone, a day alone with Olivia to see if she would open the dark corner of her mind where she had locked away the most horrible memories of her life. But, that would have to wait a few hours. I had something I had to do before Olivia arrived at 11:00 a.m.

Betty Tillman had, just last week, moved from Branchwater in Boaz to Brookdale in Albertville, both were relatively new assisted living facilities. Betty had lived at Branchwater for several months, ever since the beginning of Walter’s legal troubles. She had moved to Albertville to be neighbors with her best friend, Reba Ericson.

I arrived at 8:45 a.m. and found Betty and Reba in the cafeteria. They were just finishing up breakfast and offered to buy mine. I declined and said I had an important question for Betty and was hoping we could discuss it in private. “I bet it’s about my darling daughter. That’s always been your main interest.”

I wheeled her to her room, followed by a nurse’s assistance with Reba in a similar chair. We said goodbye to her at Betty’s door. When we were settled inside in the privacy of her room, without prompting at all Betty said, “horrible, simply horrible, what Randy Miller did to Olivia.”

“How did you know that was what I wanted to talk about?” I said, as shocked as I could recall.

“You should know Reba and I talk about everything. She shared with me about your recent visit.”

“Betty, I really need to ask you a few difficult questions. May I have your permission to do so?”

“Ask me anything. I’m tired of secrets. A woman not far from ninety years old shouldn’t have to watch her words.”

“Did you know that Walter raped Olivia?” I thought there was no use in dancing around the issues. I doubted Betty had a clue what she had agreed to.

“Oh Matt, you have your story wrong. That would have been horrible. As though it wasn’t horrible enough what Brother Randy did. Things that got him killed.”

I was certain I now had the truth but was confused over Betty’s apparent confusion. “What do you mean?” I said, feeling I was about to be hit with something I had never considered.

“Here’s the deal. I think you will admit that I pulled a few strings for you back when you lived in Boaz as a teenager. Even lied for you a few times to give you and Olivia a little time together. Now, will you do something for me?” Betty could have asked me for virtually anything and I would have agreed. Her memory was spot on.

“I will do my best. What are you asking me to do?”

“Keep a secret. A big one.”

“I promise.” What was I to say?

“Reba helped me. It was the late eighties. I had just learned that it was Brother Randy’s baby that Olivia had when she was a teenager. Walter had always told me he didn’t know. There had been a rumor around town about Randy and Olivia and I had confronted Walter. He finally confessed. Reba helped me give our dear Brother Randy a little justice.”

I wanted details but didn’t have the stomach. I certainly wondered how Walter had been able to keep his dark secret from his wife for so many years. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth, that Brother Randy wasn’t the father of Paul Cummins. Her and Reba had done something horrible, something that would, even now, be grounds for criminal charges, possibly prison. I had promised to keep her secret. I would do so.

I finally said, “I knew you would know the truth. Thanks so much for talking with me.”

“I thought you had several questions. Go ahead, ask whatever you want.” Betty said as though there was no limit to what she would divulge.

“That’s all for now. I need to be going. Olivia and I are spending the day together. What about you?” I hoped she didn’t think I might be asking her to join Olivia and me.

“Warren is coming after me late morning. I’m spending the day with his family and my husband. You know things don’t look to good for Walter.”

“I’ve heard. I’m sorry. Have a nice day Betty and thanks so much for talking with me.”

On my drive back to Boaz, Olivia called and said she might be a little late. Eugene Lackey had died late Wednesday night and the funeral was today. What a terrible New Year’s week for that dear family. Olivia wanted to go by and give her condolences during the public viewing time. Eugene was the Boaz High School basketball coach who had valiantly fought cancer. The whole community, led by Warren and First Baptist Church of Christ, had given him and his family unlimited support over the past two years. According to Warren, prayer had given Eugene the remission he had needed. I guess prayer couldn’t give him the healing he, his wife and family, and the entire community had so desperately sought.

Olivia was sad when she arrived at 11:40 a.m. “I feel so sorry for so many people I saw this morning. Certainly, for Eugene’s family. I will never understand how so many people believe that prayer is real.”

“You used to be just like them. Fortunately, you had a breakthrough. You know, that rarely happens to someone who is indoctrinated from birth.” I said, not knowing where this conversation was going. I had other things I deeply needed for Olivia to talk about.

“Looking back, I am amazed at how gullible I was. John 15:7 says ‘If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.’ That’s so clear a Fifth grader could easily explain it. Yet, Christians eagerly stand up for God when confronted with, ‘why didn’t God heal Eugene when you asked Him to?’ They offer any number of arguments for God, ‘God is mysterious, how can we know His plans?’ or ‘I must have not abided in Him.’ Olivia’s words were not filled with bitterness but sadness over the unwillingness of so many of her hometown friends to ask questions seeking the truth.

“I guess, today, all those you saw at the funeral home would say that you have to have faith to truly understand God’s Word, He gives His Holy Spirit as a guide to proper interpretation. Of course, it could be that there is not one single one of the dozens, hundreds I suppose, who prayed for Eugene who were in the right relationship with God to justify Him to answer their prayers for the young man’s healing.” I said, munching on a huge vegetable tray Olivia had brought with her and set on the kitchen counter.

“They are truly gullible, my friends, most of my friends here in Boaz, but they don’t hold a candle to the most gullible person who ever lived. Me.” Olivia’s statement pricked my ears. Where was she going with this?

“What do you mean?”

“Matt, I’ve put it off as long as I can. You won’t agree with me, and you shouldn’t. I’m not really a good liar. I have been gullible in two ways. At least two ways. The first one concerned how I thought you would be better off not knowing the truth about Paul and John, me not telling you that you and I had children. The second was more recent, of me telling you at Cracker Barrel that I got pregnant the night before you left Boaz at the end of your eleventh-grade year.”

“Olivia.” I said walking over to her standing with her back to the kitchen sink. “Stop, please stop. I know a lot more than you think I know. I’m sorry but I’ve been doing a little investigating myself. In a way, I’m ashamed of that. I should have been totally open with you. For some reason, one I’ll probably never know, I had to determine for myself if I was the father of John and Paul Cummins. My dear Olivia, I think you know the answer to that question is no.”

Olivia pulled me into her and laid her head on my shoulder. We didn’t say a word for minutes. I could hear her sobbing. I could feel her tears wetting my shirt. “Matt, please believe me. I was about to tell you the full truth when I stated the two times I had been most gullible.”

“Let’s go sit in on the sofa and talk. Why don’t you just tell me the full truth. But, before you do, let me say, it’s not going to matter. Olivia, I fell for you the first time I saw you. That instant anchored my heart forever. Your telling me the truth, now, shouldn’t present any hesitation or fear to your mind. Okay?” I said, leading her by hand to the den.

“It started at the beginning of my ninth-grade year. He said that it was God’s will and I believed him. It didn’t happen every day or every week, sometimes a month or more would go by and he wouldn’t come into my bedroom. I was such a fool to not seek help, to not tell a single soul, even though I came close to confiding in Brother Randy. I know I could have talked to him about anything. He would have taken care of me. Even after the Valentine’s dance, when I knew you cared so much for me, I could have confided in you. I was such a fool, such a gullible fool. Here is the most stupid way to put it, “I didn’t know that I could, I didn’t know I could tell someone. I truly, fully believed it was God’s will. How was I to question that?”

“Honey, you were a victim. Your father should be taken out and shot.” I said as angry as I have ever been. Before this conversation, I had known the truth but now it was triply hard coming straight from Olivia’s mouth.

“Father? Oh Matt, I guess I haven’t been clear. I didn’t become pregnant by my father, it was Wade.”

I probably should have fainted. Instead, I stood and walked over to the kitchen doorway, looking away from Olivia still seated on the couch. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. There was no better way to say it, cliché and all. I had been such a dumb ass, and I held a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and had spent the past thirty plus years teaching and researching genetics. I understood, not to Jerry Coyne’s degree, genetics as good as most anyone. When Jerry had told me that Walter’s sample matched Olivia’s and Paul’s I had not considered what no doubt would have been a first-year graduate student’s first question, ‘what about Wade?’ His DNA sample would have produced the same result as Walter’s. Of course, I hadn’t secured and submitted a sample from him. I never considered it; he was in jail anyway.

I was glad Olivia had remained silent while she remained seated. During my extended contemplation, my emotions alternated between relief and anger. I was relieved to know the truth, but more so, I was angry. I had never had such a thought. If Wade had been in the room I’m sure I would have tried my best to tear out his heart. Finally, I spoke. “I’m sorry that I’ve been a poor investigator. I had concluded Paul Cummin’s father had to be Walter Tillman.”

“In a way, Dad was as guilty as Wade. It was Dad who beguiled me into keeping quiet, even believing it was God’s will. He, Walter, orchestrated the elaborate plan, scheme is a better word. Some would say that it was a gift from God that John Ericson got Jessie Dawson pregnant about the same time. Dad and Franklin Ericson conspired to get rid of the two babies and bury a secret that would likely have destroyed them all, including Wade.”

I had been wrong. Olivia’s news did matter to me, not that it affected my love for her, but it struck me differently than how the news of Walter had. I, some way, could wrap my head around Walter and his power over Olivia, sexually abusing her, getting her pregnant. He was, like allegedly Roy Moore was, a dirty old man. But Wade? How had he persuaded Olivia? How had he kept her quiet? I had to fight off thoughts and feelings that subtly included Olivia as a partially guilty party. One thing I didn’t question was how Wade had gone on to become a pastor as though nothing of the sort had ever happened. Christians were masters of compartmentalization.

Olivia and I explored every detail imaginable about her horrible experience. At 4:00 p.m., we took a break, returned to the kitchen, and stood and ate a lite supper. Neither of us were very hungry. For food. For each other was a different story. It was like we were needing to help the other wash away the dirt, the filth of what we had been discussing. We migrated to my bedroom and kissed, cried, made love, and started all over again for the next four hours before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

At midnight Olivia woke me, sitting alongside me eating a carrot. “Hey, what’s up doc?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Carrots? I want pancakes.”

“And bacon and sausage and coffee.” She said reaching down and pressing her lips onto mine. “I love you Matt Benson. I want to be with you forever. Can you do me a little favor and spend the rest of your life in my bed, in my heart, head, and soul?”

Sitting up leaning back on my elbows I said, “I’ll tell you after pancakes. A lot depends on the pancakes. Now get dressed and let’s head to the Waffle House.”

The pancakes were extraordinary. I was glad they were, but they didn’t have to be for me to agree to Olivia’s little request. We even made a little progress on putting together our post-Boaz plans. We would go our separate ways tomorrow. Olivia would drive back to Chapel Hill and I would drive back to Chicago. Friday afternoon I would board a plane to Chapel Hill for a weekend with Olivia. The following weekend she would come to me. By February 1st we would easily decide which one was moving to the other. Simple. For a couple who had been given a second chance on their once in life love, it would be a piece of cake.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Secrets, Chapter 33

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Chapter 33

December 31, 2017 through January 3, 2018

Yesterday had been unseasonably warm. It felt as though it was at least six months after Christmas. In fact, it had been less than a week. I had picked Olivia up at Warren’s just after sunrise. We spent the entire day in Mentone, Alabama. It was a place I had always wanted to visit. Dr. Ayers, my high school Biology teacher, had introduced me to this inviting place over lunch one day in her classroom while she was describing how it had helped shape the most unique and beautiful love affair that had ever been. It was her daughter Ellen, and her soul mate, Ruthie Brown, who had fallen in love at first sight when they both were about to enter the ninth grade. Dr. Ayers said the two teenagers had spent Fall weekends in Mentone during their Freshman and Sophomore years, and that they had always come home looking as though they had bathed in a mysterious romantic brew. She said, “the girls often referred to their time in Mentone as ‘Triple T: Time, Touch, and Talk,’ and always claimed without these three ingredients their relationship would be as bland as that of Romeo and Juliet.” All during the remainder of my eleventh-grade year I had been intrigued by Ellen and Ruthie and whether in fact there could be a love affair that greatly exceeded that of the legendary Romeo and Juliet’s. I had tried my best to find a way for Olivia and me to visit Mentone to see if it would have the same effect on us. The trip never happened. Until yesterday.

Mentone’s website described itself as “a “quaint, welcoming mountain village nestled atop the west brow of Lookout Mountain.” Olivia and I had spent the morning ambling through two antique shops and touring the Mountain Laurel Inn that was across the street in downtown Mentone. A rarest of coincidences occurred when the current operator and her grandmother, the former operator, took time to sit with us in the large den. Over a cup of coffee and out of the blue I had asked the grandmother if she remembered two teenage girls, Ellen and Ruthie, who had visited in the late sixties. Riddled with arthritis and confined to a wheel chair had not slowed the elderly woman’s mind. She almost instantly responded. “How could I forget the face of pure love. Those two young ladies, unwise as most all teenagers, realized that true love is the rarest of things. It’s a gift from the most miserly god. It’s like a thriving, virtually extinct plant the day it arrives but without constant attention, will pack its bags and walk off without word-to-word and skin-to-skin nourishment.” I think Olivia and the granddaughter got bored with mine and the grandmother’s conversation. Finally, Olivia pulled me away and we enjoyed a late breakfast at the Wildflower Cafe across the street.

The afternoon was spent at DeSoto Falls sitting with our backs against a huge rock as we watched and listened to the constant roar of water tumbling down over one hundred feet. I couldn’t help but think of Ellen and Ruthie sitting on their Rock of Ages up on the mountain just downstream from where we sat below the falls. I was pleasantly surprised that my memory was so acute.

Olivia was like a different person. For the first time since we met in Boaz nearly a month ago, she had asked about our future. I had wanted several times to bring up the subject. But, unfortunately, I had gotten sidetracked with my little investigation. Yesterday, Olivia had shared how she didn’t want us to make the same mistake again, to let each other go. “If you move back to Chicago and me to Chapel Hill, it will be the same thing all over again. Matt, I cannot stand to lose you, a second time. What do we do? Oh, I forgot to say, I love you.” Olivia had said laying back against my chest as I held her close with both my arms and my legs. We both had kept our attention on the cascading water, feeling a slight mist landing on our faces and hands.

We had not come to any definitive conclusion even though we had spent nearly three hours in the same spot. The best idea that we had come up with was to alternate weekends flying to the other until we could figure something out. One thing we had no trouble deciding was there was no turning back. We had now been given a second chance and we both knew how rare, exceedingly rare, it was for a once in life love, unnourished for decades, to be miraculously revived.

We had returned to Boaz a little past sunset. I was glad I had not shipped G and H, the two samples I had retrieved from Robert Miller. I had just kissed Olivia and said goodbye on Warren’s front porch when Tiffany opened the door and asked me to stay for supper. Olivia indicated she wanted me to stay but didn’t seem overeager. That second was a light bulb moment. I eagerly accepted Tiffany’s invitation. I wanted to see Walter Tillman.

The light would have never come on if it hadn’t been for a political story I had been following for the past few weeks. Alabama Senatorial candidate Roy Moore had been enthralled in a story of horrible sexual allegations. Six or seven women, all now in their early to late fifties, had come forward accusing Mr. Moore of sexually abusing them as teenagers, some forty years ago. The first woman to come forward had said that she was only 14 when Mr. Moore, as a 32-year-old assistant district attorney in Etowah County, had taken her to his home in the woods and sexually assaulted her. For some strange reason these accusations, and especially the one about the 14-year-old, had spawned an idea. What if Walter had sexually abused his own daughter? I still don’t know why I had thought this. I really had no basis for thinking such a vile thought about Pastor Walter, a man who I had respected even midst the talk and rumors he was strict with Olivia, almost unbearable. Nevertheless, I had pursued my hypothesis. Without success Sunday night, even though I had shared a meal with the weak and pitiful Walter Tillman, I was unable to secure his DNA.

This didn’t mean I had quit trying. After a New Year’s Day repeating most everything Olivia and I had done on Christmas Day, I had stumbled on a better idea. Tuesday morning and the Post Office would be open. I had packed a copy of Walter’s book, I’m From Boaz, that was published a little over a year after Dad and I had moved away from Boaz in 1971. Olivia, we were still together, albeit at a distance, had talked about it and she had mailed me a copy. I had not finished reading the book. I had gotten bored with his monotonous story, how he was descended somehow from Boaz in the Old Testament and had miraculously wound up in Alabama at a city named after his Israelite ancestor.

While Warren was playing golf and Tiffany and Olivia were looking for good deals at the new shopping center in Albertville, I had arranged to again visit with Walter. My excuse was to have him autograph my book, well actually, the copy I had luckily located in a local bookstore. This time I was successful. It’s because I was prepared. I had a plan. I had carefully sanitized the Class Century Cross pen that Dean Stillman, my boss at the University of Chicago, had given me last Christmas. I had been careful to insert it inside I’m From Boaz. As I sat and watched Walter write an elaborate note on the inside title page I couldn’t help but wonder what my life would be like if I had become a private detective. I wondered if there were professional schools for that. “Just put the pen inside the book, I’ll probably never use it again.” I had told Pastor Walter chuckling aloud as I looked at him and pondered his future fate. He just couldn’t be a criminal.

After leaving the harmless-looking Walter, I had arrived at the Post Office just in time for Freda to process the box that contained, individually secure in their own evidence bags, a fork, a spoon, and a pen. As I paid her, she looked straight in my eyes and said, “when you complete your investigation I sure hope you will tell me who killed Mr. Boddy.” I stood confused. Quickly, she had said, “you know, from the game Clue.” No doubt, Freda was on to something. She either had an uncanny nose for these type things or she had installed some high-tech form of spy-ware inside my mind.

To my complete surprise, Olivia had surprised me early Tuesday morning with an unarguable declaration we were headed back to Mentone. I was lucky to have had time to drop by the Post Office before she whisked me away to dream land.

While I had been enthralled with the grandmother’s memories of Ellen and Ruthie, Olivia had cornered the current bed and breakfast operator and arranged for us to return to the Mountain Laurel Inn for a couple of days. I had not resisted. We had arrived mid-afternoon and spent the next two hours until dark beneath the sheets in the Inn’s ‘Orange Room.’ Olivia, ever the observer, had made sure that the bedtime activities had included all three of the Triple T’s. “Matt, baby, I promise I will always spend quality time with you, touch you all over every day, and talk with you, in person, all night long.” I had responded, “you don’t miss a thing, do you?”

Olivia’s third surprise for our Mentone adventure was her planned activity Wednesday morning. Since our first trip here less than a week ago Olivia had tracked down Dr. Susan Ayers. She was now living in Gulf Shores, a widow after losing her husband Travis to a freak car accident. I suspect the two, Dr. Ayers and Olivia, had made good use of the occasion with Olivia leading with a sincere apology. From what I had gathered, Olivia and Dr. Ayers had butted heads as the young teen, zealous for Christ, had argued with the evolutionary biologist over facts from the natural world and how they clearly conflicted with what the Bible claimed.

No matter, Olivia had come away with enough information to lead us to Ellen and Ruthie’s Rock of Ages, a real giant of a rock that supposedly jutted out from the mountain high above DeSoto Falls just south of where Olivia and I had spent three hours Thursday. Dr. Ayers’ directions were spot on. We found the Rock of Ages with hardly any trouble at all. Our day spent there couldn’t have been better. If Olivia and I were at all lacking any degree of commitment to each other before we set foot on the giant rock, three hours later, there was no doubt. No doubt, Ellen and Ruthie, had discovered the fountain of love.

Jerry’s email arrived late Wednesday night, shortly after Olivia and I returned from Mentone. He explained his change of holiday plans which included him working most all week and then taking off a few days beginning Monday, January 8^th. It was fine with me as if I had any influence on Jerry’s schedule.

Jerry’s altered working scheduled was the only good news his email contained. “G & H are foreign to B, and I, E, F & B are four peas in a pod.” Slowly, I reread the two statements. G and H, the Robert Miller samples, are not a match for B, Paul Cummins. Randy Miller was not Paul’s biological father. I wished that Jerry hadn’t used the word, ‘foreign,’ but I had little doubt what he meant. Then, as though I had missed it the first time, when I simply had cruised through Jerry’s math-like equation, I nearly fell to the floor. Sample I, Walter Tillman’s DNA, matches both of Olivia’s samples, the E and F samples, and the B sample from Paul Cummins. This meant only one thing, that Paul Cummins was Walter’s son. And, Olivia Kaye Tillman, Walter’s only daughter, was the mother of Paul Cummins.

My blood began to boil. I hated clichés, I hated Walter Tillman, and I almost hated ever having moved to Boaz, Alabama, including meeting Olivia. Now, I knew why I had been almost enthralled with the story of Roy Moore and what he had allegedly done to that 14-year-old girl almost forty years ago.

I also now knew why Olivia had never told me the truth. She was a victim of the worst kind. She had been raped by her own father. She had become pregnant by a man who claimed to love her and to love God with all his heart. I didn’t have a clue as to what I would do with this information. One thing I never doubted, was that I had to someway reveal to Olivia that I was still her protector, just like I was so, so long ago at that Valentine’s dance when another predator was touching the one girl who was eternally destined to be mine and mine alone.

Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Secrets, Chapter 32

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Chapter 32

May 1971

The next to the last week of school was filled with review and preparation for semester exams. It seemed Pastor Walter and even Betty herself conspired against me and kept Olivia figuratively locked in her room after school pouring through a half-year of notes in seven subjects. More likely it was their way of attempting to convince her that boys were and would forever be an impediment to her lifelong dream of becoming a missionary.

Mr. Jackson in Vo-Ag and Dr. Ayers in Biology had achieved something no two teachers had ever accomplished in my life. Each of them, in their own way, had become a trusted adviser. Dr. Ayers was comfortable relaying her perspective on most anything I wanted to discuss. She knew she had taken on, at least in part, the mother role to me. Mr. Jackson was a totally different story. I don’t think he had a clue how his insights were burrowing into my psyche. His little sayings as we worked in the shop or hung out as a class in the large grove of pine trees next to the school on his side of the building were not intended just for me. He treated everybody the same. I think he had a hard time growing up. He had been in the military and after a time trying to find a way to make a living, had gone to college at Auburn to become a teacher.

Tuesday in Vo-Ag, Ryan and I were working on a lawn-mower in the shop when he walked by and overheard us talking about my upcoming date Friday night with Olivia. He saw we were having trouble with the pull rope and gave us a hand. When he finished he said, “sometimes the cover is better than the book.” He then walked over to Larry and Tinsley who were goofing off as usual. When Mr. Jackson left I thought, ‘sometimes, you say such stupid things.’ It was normal for me to fail to see the connections he was making. In this case, was our lawnmower the cover? Or, was he referring to Olivia? If so, did he know something I didn’t? Whatever he meant, I suspected there was some wisdom buried in there somewhere.

Mine and Olivia’s first date was disappointing at best. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy every second with her. I had picked her up and driven us to the Dairy Queen. Wade and James were there, predictably according to Olivia. She insisted we share a foot-long hot dog knowing we would want popcorn and candy at the movie. Shane was ten times better than I had anticipated. I someway identified with Alan Ladd as Shane. He came to the small Wyoming town with one simple purpose, to be a farmhand. Then, his world was turned upside down by a local conflict. Both Shane and myself got involved with violence. His of the real kind, physical, but my experience was also one of aggression. Olivia Kaye Tillman had involuntarily torn my life apart. She had infiltrated my soul, my mind, my body. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The best part of the night was the sweet time we had before the movie ended. I figured with the guns blazing on the big screen might be the time to privately present the Cameo ring I had purchased for Olivia. We burrowed down in our seats where we could exchange all the words needed. She was flabbergasted and cried. I told her this was just practice. Practice for the time in three years for me to give her a real engagement ring. For now, I was wishing her health, happiness, and hope for our future. Since everything was timed, after the movie I drove Olivia back to her house and was hoping for a long and passionate goodnight kiss on her front porch. Just as I was about to press my lips onto Olivia’s, Wade and James appeared out of nowhere. No doubt this was part of Pastor Walter’s plan, as was the beaming porch light, aglow with, I suspected, a higher wattage bulb than needed to cast darkness away from an entire parking lot.

I saw Olivia less during the final week of school than I did the week before. Her schedule was rigid. All, no doubt, the creation of her father. Taking exams during the day and studying for more exams at night. I had never had much trouble taking tests. I did study but nothing like Olivia. For someone who bought into the Bible she was extremely critical of everything else she read. I was thankful for her curiosity because that gave her a good reason to call and talk every night during this last week. She shared how important her questions were and someway convinced Pastor Walter that I could help her find the answers she needed. I was impressed with Olivia’s cunning. Maybe I was wrong. Probably was. Likely, she truly was curious about things seemingly unconnected to us or most of the subjects she was studying.

The only good thing about the last week was when it was over. I hadn’t seen her except in Poetry class and Mr. Johnson had been unusually strict, and focused on getting through the last two chapters of our textbook. Wednesday night was a bust also. Olivia, like over half of the other youth group, was absent. I regretted going just as soon as Brother Randy stood in the middle of the circles. I think he spoke about the body as the temple of the Holy Ghost and specifically encouraged us to eat a healthy diet. He ended his forty-five-minute lecture by saying, “feed the Ghost too much sweets and Satan will devour you.” I think he meant to say Holy Ghost. I didn’t understand if Satan would devour me for the sweets or what. I didn’t care too much for sweets anyway, so I guess Satan would choose kids like Tommy Dobbins who kept staring at me from his seat behind where Brother Randy was standing. Tommy looked like he needed to lay off the sweets. I had seen him eat two slices of chocolate cake in the Fellowship Hall less than an hour earlier.

I had been dreading it for over a month. At the end of April Olivia had told me that the youth group’s annual mission trip to New Mexico was the first week after school was out. She had asked me, repeatedly, to go with her. At first, I wanted to but after talking with Ryan I decided I would rarely see Olivia, she would be teaching Vacation Bible School all day while I was getting sunburned helping put a roof on a new building another Southern Baptist church would have waiting for the adult men and the older male teenagers. Nights would be spent singing and listening to testimonies about God showing up and showing out.

The eighty-member team left the Church’s parking lot at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday. I had said my goodbyes to Olivia the night before at the Lighthouse. I had wanted us to practice dating some more, even make another attempt at a real date like we had two weeks earlier. A new rule put that to rest. It seemed Brother Walter had forgotten to spell out some of the fine print. Olivia could go out with the same boy but only at three-week intervals. At midnight, right after Randy had quieted the band and said one of the shortest prayers I had heard him say, Olivia grabbed my hand and pulled me out through the front door. “Darn rules, come on and walk me home. I’m leaving early in the morning and away from Daddy for a week.” We had taken our time and stopped at the darkest spot on Elm Street, where the street lights didn’t quite reach. It was our first real embrace and kiss since our lovemaking on the leafy, muddy forest floor on the trail beyond Club Eden. I may have been wrong, but Olivia seemed more passionate than ever, like, if it weren’t for her careful scruples she would have easily let me do a little exploring. It was getting more difficult to recall Mother’s exact instructions on being a perfect gentleman.

James and I spent the next week hanging out at his house and at the gym with him trying to teach me how to dribble, shoot, and pass the round ball he loved nearly as much as life itself. He shared with me how this year was the second in a row he had refused to go on the youth group’s mission trip. “Seems to me the same people get saved again every year. And, I hate trying to be a carpenter. It may have been good enough for Jesus, but he didn’t know about basketball.” James was always a straight-shooter in multiple ways.

The youth group had left on May 28th and were supposed to return Saturday, June the 5th. However, one of the buses broke down in Amarillo, Texas five hours after leaving Albuquerque, New Mexico. A delay in obtaining the needed parts delayed the three-bus caravan from arriving in Boaz until late Tuesday evening. Instead of having four days with Olivia before Dad and I pulled out of Boaz on Thursday the tenth, we would have one day, only one day to say our goodbyes.

No doubt it was Betty who came to our rescue. She did everything imaginable to distract Pastor Walter. I think she created two emergencies, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The first one was a fender-bender her and Reba Ericson got into in Albertville. The second was an extended prayer meeting. It seemed three different people had special prayer requests and needed some counseling after the service disbanded. At the time, I hadn’t known any of this, but Olivia had shared it with me in a letter the week after Dad and I got back to Chicago.

After youth group Wednesday night, Olivia and I had set outside on the front steps of the old auditorium. I wanted to be alone, alone, with Olivia. I invited her to go home with me and help me finish packing. I knew Dad would be late. He and Travis Ayers were visiting one final time with Brother Gorham at Clear Creek Baptist Church. He had invited them to go out after the service for coffee and dessert at Shoney’s in Albertville.

I had donated mine and Dad’s beanbag chairs to the Lighthouse, so they were still in the den. Olivia and I packed up my bookshelves and settled down in the two chairs for our final talk, hand in hand, for possibly three long years. We both cried as we repeated the same words we had for weeks. This time it seemed we both, especially Olivia, were running through the short version.

“Let’s go back to your room.” Olivia said squeezing my hand.

My bed was still in total disarray. It was rented furniture and only the covers would make their way back to Chicago. I hated making my bed every morning and had pretty much stopped after Mother had died. Dad hadn’t seemed to care. “Okay.”

After we entered my room Olivia turned in close to me and pressed her head against my neck and shoulder. She was too tall to lay her head over my heart but that was what she wanted. “Lay down across your bed. I want to hear your heart.” It had happened during Spring Break, at Aurora Lake. She had discovered our talks took on an even more intense nature when she was listening to my heartbeat. Tonight, I assumed our talks would return to that verbal zone that reminded me of the physical component that had been added during the rain dance we had laying on the forest floor.

It was the most natural thing, at least what I assumed was natural. I didn’t have experience to draw on. Only my imagination, fed by a few steamy novels I had some way read at home thanks to one of my three Chicago amigos, painted a clear picture of how it would be. Our talk and Olivia’s heart monitoring had quickly evolved into her laying on top of me and kissing me like never. I mean never. The evolution continued. She rolled over and moved straighter up in my bed placing her head on one of my pillows. I followed her lead and lay beside her. Our bodies drew closer and our lips encouraged our hands. Mother seemed to leave the room. I was glad. I can’t remember who made the first move. I think it was mutual. We giggled a little as our clothes came off, but seriousness took over. I raised myself on my elbow and considered Olivia’s precious face, intermittently kissing her and asking her if she was okay with what we were doing. I told her, “I love you too much to destroy our relationship. I want all of you. Right now, but only if that is what you want.”

It was more than natural. If Olivia had asked me during our time, the time our bodies were joined and dancing, to admit I believed in a supernatural being, I would have eagerly agreed. Thankfully, she didn’t. I would have thought we would have been so much more awkward than what we were. It was like Olivia was my teacher. Maybe she had read a little more broadly than I had thought. The only interruption that we had once we were committed to sharing our bodies was my total lack of preparation. I didn’t have a condom. I had never had a condom. I didn’t even know where you bought a condom. The decision came quickly. Neither of us, during these precious moments, were patient. “Make love to me Matt.” Those were words I heard. I’m still not sure my mind hadn’t played a trick on me as it often had. We did make love, and I have never regretted it. Olivia was all the woman I would ever want.

The walk back to Olivia’s was too quick. I don’t think either of us said a word. Our hands, together, said volumes. I was the happiest I had ever been. Our heads and our hearts were as one. We were committed to each other forever. Ours was truly a once in life love.

Dad and I pulled out of Boaz at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. Olivia had wanted to come see me off, but I had convinced her it wasn’t for the best. I wanted our time together at my house and our walk back to hers to be our last memories of being together until we would be together forever in just three short years.