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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781456725891 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 02/22/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 666 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Ostrich in the Sand
By Ramona Farley
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Ramona FarleyAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-2590-7
Chapter One
Carol had just finished her morning workout and was sitting in her sauna. This was the hardest part of the workout, she thought. It was at this time that her thoughts would begin their daily torment. When Paul built the exercise room, he thought a sauna would be great to help rid his body of the impurities he had picked up while traveling in foreign countries. It would be so nice if it could rid her mind of its thoughts and memories.When she returned from Europe over twenty years ago, she carried the burdens of the world on her shoulders. The big empty home she had shared with Paul imprisoned her yet protected her from the rest of the world. Unable to cope or face the everyday problems of life, she chose to seclude herself from her friends until the overwhelming side effects of loss and hurt subsided.
With no where to turn for sympathy, she thought it would be best to keep to herself for awhile and lick her wounds. When the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, it was just easier to continue in that state rather than to change. She rejected her friends' phone calls and their attempted visits until they no longer bothered with her. When she subconsciously made the decision to withdraw from society, to get out of everyone's life, she had no idea how much that decision would affect everyone.
Beulah and Eugene had worked for the previous owners and stayed on when Paul and Carol bought their home. When she went to Europe they took care of everything for her. When she returned they were there for her. They encouraged her to get out of the house and do something with her life but she chose to ignore their concern. Instead she watched the world go by through her television set and the daily newspaper.
Poor Beulah had gone home to be with her Lord five years ago. Now it was just old Eugene shuffling around the place talking to himself. He never really got over losing his precious Beulah.
Carol knew all too well what it was like to lose someone you really loved. She had spent a lifetime of losing. She lost her mother and father respectively not long after she and Paul were married. Paul, the love of her life, was killed after ten years of marriage.
Paul taught her so much about life. He took an old ragged doll and made her into a Cinderella. He taught her how to love and more than anything; he taught her how to dream. She had wished so many times that it had been her instead of him. The mess she had made of her life was so unlike anything she could have ever imagined. If he could see her now, she knew he would be very disappointed with her.
Wrapped in her terry cloth robe, Carol relaxed to give her body some time to cool down before she took her morning shower. She looked around at the red and gold flocked wallpaper, the gold shag carpet and thought to herself. "I'm stuck in the middle of the 1970's while the outside world is getting ready to go into the next century.
Day after day she tortured herself with the ghost's of the past and the skeletons in her closet refusing to deal with the present life that was continuing to go on all around her. Perhaps the article in the newspaper the previous day had brought about this overwhelming sense of guilt.
John and June Mason's son was dying and her heart was breaking for them. At one time they had been as close to her as anyone could be, but not anymore. Over the past twenty years, she had read the tragedies of their life in the paper but this one had to be the worst of all and she wanted so much to reach out to them. The old wounds were still festering and she had to restrain from making that call.
As Carol stepped out of the shower, she noticed herself in the floor length mirror. Her body was toned to perfection and looked much younger than the fifty-six years she had put it through. Why shouldn't it look good? She had had twenty years of nothing to do but work on it. Such a waste, she thought as she wrapped her terry robe around her.
Eugene had her morning coffee and the newspaper on the table when she went into the breakfast parlor. She heard him humming in the kitchen. He was probably fixing himself some sausage and grits. Since Beulah died, he wouldn't cook at his cabin or eat there anymore.
"Monin, Miz Carol. How's ya doin t'day?" Eugene shuffled into the room with a plate of toast and sat them down in front of her.
"As well as expected, Eugene. Thanks for the toast." Carol knew better than to ask him how he was doing. Once you got him started, he would go on forever. Bless his dear soul.
"You can sit with me if you want, Eugene."
"Now, Miz Carol, you knows I can't do dat. When you gonna learn dat I'm jes an ole black man. We's not s'posed to do thangs like dat. What wud foks thank?"
"Eugene, you need to get that out of your mind. You are so dear to me. I would enjoy your company. Besides, what folks are ever going to know?"
"Miz Carol, it's too bad the world don't see thangs the way you does. Why jest yesteday in town someone made a bad remark to me. I was jest mindin my own besness and they almos run me over. I jes played def and wen on bout my way."
"Eugene, I'm sorry."
"I know you es, Missy. Don't werry yer pretty lil head bout it. This ole man don't have too long to last. I'll be goin home to Mama fo too long. I sho miss dat gal."
"I know you do, Eugene. You have a lot more years before you'll be ready to leave this place. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Miz Carol, I's been thinkin jest about dat same thang. Ya needs to be gittin ya someone else to take my place. I's not goin to be here long, I's a tellin ya. I knows a coupla that wud make you's some good hep. I's wud like to brang em out here to meet ya."
Carol felt a tug at her heart. She hadn't thought about what she would do if something happened to Eugene. He'd been the only stable thing in her life. How would she handle someone else? Eugene understood her and didn't meddle in her business.
"Now Eugene, quit putting me on. You know I don't like to think about things like that. You'll be all right."
"Lawse Miz Carol, you need to listen to this ole man. I got a feelin in my bonz an it ain't good."
"Ok, Eugene, bring them out to meet me. Just let me know when they are coming so I can prepare myself for them."
"Oh shoot, Miz Carol, yous always a lookin good. Ya need to quit wastin away in thiz house and get yoself a life."
"We're not going to go there again Eugene. I'm quite content the way things are." Carol realized not only was she lying to Eugene, she was lying to herself. She had not been content in a long time.
The first few years of her self-induced confinement, she justified to herself as punishment for all the mistakes she had made. She poured herself into her writing and the results proved to be quite profitable. She was firing off articles monthly to several leading travel magazines and wrote a couple of novels. Lately, however, it just wasn't there. She had at least five novels started but couldn't get any of them completed.
As she followed everyone's lives through the paper over the years, she realized her self-inflicted punishment had probably gone unnoticed by the world she left behind. Maybe she had wasted her life. If so, it was her choice and she would have to live with it since there was nothing she could do to change it now.
Ever since the article about John Mason's son hit the paper a couple of months ago, Carol's mind had been tormented about her own child. The child she had given up at birth without knowing if it was a boy or a girl. That child was going to be twenty-one years of age in April of the coming year. On that day she would know what it was and just maybe she might get an opportunity to meet him or her.
"I'm taking my coffee to the patio, Eugene. Would you care to join me?"
"No, jes go on out a here. Me ole bonz ain't ready for dat dere chilly air."
Relieved that he'd declined, Carol picked up her coffee and the carafe and slipped through the sliding patio doors. The scent of roses drifted across the patio and surrounded her as she sat at the table.
She loved her roses. When she and Paul had bought this old plantation, the rose garden was just about dead. Paul carefully pruned each bush and fertilized them until they were brought back to life. Over the ten years of their marriage, he had added some very beautiful and unusual hybrids to the garden. He took a lot of pride in his roses.
Carol had spent many days just sitting and looking at their beauty. She worked the roses. The rest of the landscaping and maintenance was left up to Eugene. He used to attend the roses as well but Carol got tired of stepping on the whiskey bottles when she walked through them.
Eugene had always nipped at the jug but his drinking problem had worsened after Beulah passed on. Beulah kept him under control while she was alive. Carol was finding that more and more bottles were stashed under bushes, in the closets and any other inconspicuous spot that he found to hide them.
Carol had given up a long time ago on trying to get him to quit. When she confronted him about it, he said he'd always had to have a nip. Just a nip wasn't going to hurt anything. And the only time it really worried Carol was when he would drive his old jalopy into town. She always held her breath until he pulled back into the drive.
One day when Carol was talking to him about his drinking, he told her about himself. She was so intrigued by his story of his life that she wrote a story about it and sold it. It was published and she put the money into an account for him and Beulah. To this day, he hadn't touched any of it. He wanted to spend it on Beulah's funeral but Carol insisted on covering the expenses.
It seems as though back when Eugene was born, his mother was a field hand and didn't have anyplace for them to live. She dropped him off at the doorstep of the old hag who lived in the swamp area. Eugene said he didn't know when he was born or even how old he was but it was evident from the looks of him that he actually was born. Carol had laughed and agreed with him. From his estimation, he would have to be nearing eighty-six years of age.
The old hag didn't want any children or anybody else as far as that goes but when she went about trying to find his mother she decided that he was better off with her. From what she told him, it was a good thing she didn't because his so-called mama had been killed when she was caught in a white man's bed. No one ever knew the man that fathered him. From what the old hag said, it could have been any one of a number of men in the area.
From the time Eugene was just a little tike; the hag taught him how to survive in the swamps. They pretty much lived off the land and ate all sorts of things that most people wouldn't think of eating. The hag made moonshine to get the money for the essentials they couldn't get from the land or bartering. It was a crude life but Eugene said he had loved the hag and really appreciated everything she had done for him.
When he was a young man of somewhere around 16, he lied about his age and went off to join the U.S. Navy. Of course, Eugene said he didn't really lie about his age. As far as he knew he might have been telling the truth. The hag thought he was crazy but was sure proud of him when he came strutting home in his uniform.
A lot of his time in the service was spent overseas. He came home every chance he had but sometimes he would be gone a long time. One of the times when he returned he found the hag was dead and the old cabin had been destroyed. The land was taken over by some logging company who said they had bought it from her before she died.
Eugene knew that was not right but he wasn't going to fight all the white folks to get it back. He took his bag and went back to town and found him a room. There wasn't much work after he returned from his short career with the Navy so he just hung around the ports. He'd been on the water all his life and didn't know much about anything except boats.
There was a company with a few small boats that carried people up into the swampland to hunt alligators. This was perfect for Eugene. He'd been hunting alligators all his life and could handle anything in the swamps.
His ability to navigate and find the alligators made him one of the most sought after guides. Unfortunately, he sickened of the job quickly and despised what the hunters were doing to the alligators and other swamp creatures. The hag may have had her shortcomings, but she taught him to respect the land and water and the animals they harbored. The sport of killing alligators for the fun of it was not to his liking so he quit.
By this time, he'd developed quite a taste for whiskey. He missed the moonshine the hag had made and had to acquire a taste for the manufactured stuff. His longing for the swamps and the moonshine took him back into the woods.
He set up his own still and started production. He said the old hag was one of the best corn squeezers ever hit the face of the earth. She taught him well. This made him a lot of money and before long every revenuer in the land was after him. He said it was the white folks who turned against him. He was cutting in on their action. When he came home one day to find his little cabin in shambles and his still destroyed, he cut out and never looked back.
One night when the whiskey had taken control and he had lost all his senses, he passed out under a bridge in a little old town down deep in Louisiana. That's when he found his Beulah.
Someone shaking his arm awakened him the next morning. "Are you dead mister?"
"If I was dead, I certainly wouldn't be answering you now would I?"
"No sir, it's just that you wasn't moving and I couldn't tell if you were breathing or not."
Eugene said he opened his bloodshot eyes and just knew he had died and gone to Heaven. He told me she was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. She nursed him back to good health and sobered him up and he stayed that way for almost ten years. They fell deeply in love and were married within the month of her coming to his rescue.
Eugene said that if they had never lost their baby he'd probably still be a sober man today. That was the hardest thing they ever had to go through. They both wanted a baby so bad and it was a little boy to boot. Eugene still gets teary-eyed talking about it.
He said they never had another chance. Guessed it just wasn't meant to be. He and Beulah ended up here on the plantation and stayed on when Paul and I bought the place.
It was obvious to everyone that Beulah was still in love with the rascal until the day she died. Eugene had always tried to hide his drinking from Beulah and continued to be a closet drinker after she was gone. As long as he didn't do anyone any harm, Carol couldn't bring herself to say anything to him.
She found half pint bottles everywhere and just carried them to the trash. The trash collectors probably thought she was the one consuming all the liquor. It was probably the talk in the town but she didn't really care what they talked about.
Carol was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't hear the commotion in the house. It was not until the patio doors flew open that she realized she had a visitor; a much-unwanted visitor at that.
"Well if it's not Miss Queen Aster out here lounging on her patio. You sit here and enjoy your life while the whole damned world is falling apart and you don't even care."
"Millie, what on earth are you doing here? I'm surprised that you can still get around, you have to be as old as the Ark."
"You can say whatever you want to say to me but this visit is not about me, it's about John."
Carol squirmed a little at the mention of his name. "What about John? Has something happened to him?"
"As if you'd care anyway?" Millie started walking towards Carol shaking her bony arthritic finger at her. "Nothing has happened to him but he's about to lose his pride and joy and you don't even give a damned."
"That's not quite completely true. I do care about John and his son. I've been reading in the newspaper and I know it doesn't look good for him."
"If he doesn't get that transplant soon, he'll die. You could help but you stay out here in your castle and don't try to do anything."
"What are you talking about, you batty old woman. How in the world can I help his son to live?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ostrich in the Sand by Ramona Farley Copyright © 2011 by Ramona Farley. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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