Finding Eliza Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Quote

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Author’s Note & Resources

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Finding Eliza

  Stephanie Pitcher Fishman

  Copyright © Stephanie Pitcher Fishman (2014). All rights reserved.

  Finding Eliza by Stephanie Pitcher Fishman

  Published by Rebecca Hills Books

  Edited by Staci Troilo (www.stacitroilo.com)

  ISBN-13: 978-0692238097 (Rebecca Hills Books)

  ISBN-10: 0692238093

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Please visit the author’s website at www.stephaniefishman.com.

  Thank you for taking the time to read this work. Please consider leaving a review on the page that you purchased this book. By reviewing it and telling your friends about it, you will help me share my word with the world. I greatly appreciate your support.

  ***

  TO ERICA AND CAITLIN

  Never stop dreaming.

  Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander

  be put away from you, along with all malice.

  Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,

  forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

  Ephesians 4:31-32 (NIV)

  Chapter One

  Fall held deep meaning for Lizzie. It meant that the pain of summer was over. The transition into a busy schedule after the lazy days of summer usually brought a renewed joy and purpose into Lizzie’s life. Not this year. This year it marked the second decade since she became an orphan. The brightly colored leaves of fall couldn’t wipe the stains of death away with the same ease of years past. This year, it lingered.

  Twenty years ago she had been a happy twelve-year-old girl. The biggest tragedy she had faced in life was finding out that Jimmy Thompson was taking another girl to the fall dance.

  Did I even go to that dance after all? she thought.

  Lizzie tilted her head as if it could allow her to see the past a little clearer. Thinking back, she realized that she couldn’t remember one thing about the dance or even Jimmy Thompson.

  Shielding her eyes from the mid-day sun, Lizzie took a moment to drink in the colors that rained down around her as the wind sent leaves from above to their resting place in the grass below. Her eyes lingered on the ground as memories flooded back to remind her of how much her father loved the red Georgia clay.

  As a child, Lizzie’s mother would give a spiritual nature to the clay. She would tell her young daughter, “Lizzie girl, God made us out of clay. He formed us from the muddy earth, and to that earth we will one day return. It’s how we’re designed.”

  Growing up, Lizzie sat in church between her parents every Sunday. She knew from years of Southern Baptist sermons that her life here wasn’t meant to be permanent. Still, the idea that it would end terrified her. It was as stifling as the summer’s heat, pulling the air out of her body and bringing on panic as if she was fighting for her own life right there and then. Heaven was for those who were old and unattached to her. It wasn’t a place she wanted to go any time soon.

  Fear always appeared on Lizzie’s face first. It crept across her eyebrows as the muscles in her forehead squeezed her fair skin into heavy crinkles and crevices. With a sly grin and a quick wink, her father would lighten the mood by reminding her that the Hines family wasn’t made from just any old dirt.

  Elton Hines would take her into his arms and whisper into her ear the most important secret he could pass to his young child. “No need to worry, kiddo. Our clay is strong. God didn’t use regular old dirt on the Hines family. We’re made from red Georgia clay; God’s dirt of champions. Nothing will break it before it’s old and brittle. You’ve got a lifetime to live before that happens.”

  Her father was wrong. It did break sooner than was necessary.

  Stories like these were all she had left of her parents. Sitting on the wooden park bench under her favorite old oak tree, she couldn’t help but think about times gone by. She leaned deep into the park bench and squeezed her arms across her body while her father’s words and memories flooded her heart. It was almost as if he was whispering in her ear from afar. Lizzie missed her parents with a deep ache that overwhelmed her even two decades later.

  A visit to a familiar place like the Everett Springs City Park helped Lizzie shorten the distance between earth and heaven. This small act brought the memories from so many years ago into the present. It was a small, deliberate act of time travel that Lizzie perfected as a child. She could make memories seem like they happened only yesterday. It helped her feel as if her parents were still a part of her day. Adding in a pimento cheese sandwich on toast just like her mother made didn’t hurt either. Because of its simple power, she added it to her lunchtime routine whenever the weather would allow.

  The park was a beautiful respite from the heat that refused to believe it was already fall. Tucked away among the flowering trees and bushes, the park created an escape in the middle of small town streets and buildings. The jewel in its crown was the garden that surrounded the band stand. The ladies of the First Baptist Church of Everett Springs prided themselves on the blooms that they could coax out of the red clay each spring. Careful to maintain humility, they dedicated it each year to the members of the church along with a signature verse and flower. Bright colors popped everywhere. In the spring, deep purple irises and bright jewel-toned gladiolas swayed in the breeze while they waited for the zinnias to bring out their color in the fall. Creeping ground cover plants and smaller annuals filled in the empty spaces preventing gaps and holes in the landscape. While she enjoyed the fall foliage, Lizzie missed seeing the Climbing Cherokee Roses that wound around the weathered wooden railings and whitewashed sides of the park’s bandstand in the spring. It made her think of her mother.

  Deep in her heart Lizzie knew that they weren’t the same beautiful plants that Grace Hines pruned during her years of helping with the garden. Still, on days like this they were an acceptable surrogate. To Lizzie, it was good enough to imagine her mother kneeling before them in her ripped and faded jeans. She could almost see her mother wiping the sweat from her forehead with her cotton handkerchief or the back of a scratchy work glove. A delicate smile swept across Lizzie’s face as she pictured her mother’s hand leaving just a trace of dirt across her brow.

  Her f
ather was right: Georgia clay had deep roots into all her memories. Most times it was something that people took for granted. Not Lizzie. She understood the importance that it held. The dust and dirt from her home state’s ground intertwined into the entire being of every resident. Even photographs from their childhood showed the stains of the colorful earth. It seeped through cracks in screen doors and open windows on any day with a light breeze. Mothers cursed the sports uniforms baring the raw scars of the minerals that refused to fade no matter how much Clorox they used. Farmers found it caked on machinery while their wives fought to shake it out of their field clothes with great frustration. That dark red dirt was the backdrop of every memory and experience Lizzie had throughout her life. Georgia’s red clay was everywhere; it was part of her very soul. She couldn’t shake it off if she tried.

  Without warning, a familiar Southern drawl snatched her out of her daydream.

  “Lizzie! What are you doing all by yourself on a day like this?” a stately older woman called out to her from across the aged stone walk. “It’s too pretty an afternoon to be all alone. We need to get you more friends.”

  Gertrude Hines was a sight to behold in her pillbox hat and her dainty lace gloves that fastened with pearl button at the wrists. Lizzie loved seeing her grandmother’s gloved hands. Much like the park, the gloves took her back to her childhood and days of playing dress up in her grandmother’s closet.

  After her parents’ death, Lizzie moved in with Grandma Tru. It was her turn to live in the home that saw her father grow from a boy to a man. The stylish woman before her set aside what should have been her golden days of playing Bridge and lunching with the ladies. Instead, she spent years raising a broken and moody teenager. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she realized the sacrifice her grandmother had made to repair her broken foundation. Lizzie knew that her grandmother’s actions were a special blessing. She tried to keep that in mind during the times when her intense anger at her situation would take control. Her experience could have been much worse.

  “Gran, stop fussing over me. I’m just having myself a think over lunch. I’ll head back to the center in a little while. It’s so hectic at work lately that I’m happy for some quiet time.” Lizzie looked up at her grandmother with a smile. “What are you doing downtown? I thought you had to meet Pastor Aldrich at the church this morning. Isn’t it a little late for you to be here?”

  “Oh, I was, but of course it got rescheduled. We’re looking at the proposed renovations for the old chapel and the Fellowship Hall. You’ll have to come see the plans. Everyone is up in arms over the changes. Heaven forbid we change a swatch of carpet or a scratch of old blue paint. They act like it’s against the convention rules to have anything but green carpet in a Southern Baptist church.” Gertrude waved her gloved hand in the air, dismissing the inferior ideas as if she was swatting flies.

  Lizzie couldn’t help but giggle at her grandmother.

  “I think they are all trying to kill me. It will be death by decorating. I’ll end up on some bad cable television special. You just watch.”

  “Now, Gran, don’t be so hard on them. Some of us like the things of the past. I think you are a little partial to them, too. What year did you buy that outfit again?” Lizzie teased as she took another bite of her pimento cheese sandwich.

  “Don’t you go being cheeky, Miss. No one likes a woman with an attitude. They do, however, like a woman with class and a classic style.” True to her humor, Lizzie’s grandmother struck a pose on queue. With one hand on her hip and another tilted in the air, she looked just like Coco Chanel on a Paris runway. A slight toss of her head and a raised eyebrow only added to the effect.

  “You’re absolutely correct, Gran. Your style is definitely beautiful,” Lizzie agreed. “However could I have doubted you?”

  Gertrude smoothed the bodice of her charcoal gray peplum jacket. How she managed to keep her 1950s style current was beyond Lizzie. Her grandmother could wear a pencil skirt and look fabulous. Gertrude’s silver hair stood perfectly coiffed. Her dainty red and black plaid hat set at the perfect angle to finish the ensemble. It was Georgia at the start of football season after all. Everyone had their colors out to support the boys in Athens, even the ladies. Every year Lizzie’s dad would take her up to The University of Georgia for the first home game. The Georgia Bulldogs were their favorite, and nothing could compare to being between the hedges at Sanford Stadium for that opening kickoff. Lizzie hadn’t been on campus once without her father, and watching it on television just wasn’t the same.

  “Will you be joining me and the ladies for our meeting tomorrow night?” Gertrude asked.

  “I told you that I’d think about it, and I have. I just don’t think this is the right week for me to start something new.”

  Lizzie had been trying to find a way to put her grandmother off yet another time. As much as Gertrude loved genealogy, Lizzie just couldn’t find a passion for it. Grandma Tru had been trying since Lizzie was a teenager. Everyone always told Lizzie to live in the present and let go of the past. Getting involved with a hobby based in that nightmare felt counter-intuitive. It was like giving a junkie a fix. Maintaining the present while looking back was difficult and dangerous without the proper preparation. Lizzie was certain that she could say with complete honesty that she was definitely not prepared. Discussing the past now of all times would only remind her of all she had lost the day of her parents’ accident. It was fine to remember those days while sitting in a park. Looking back at the past through death certificates and headstones was something else altogether.

  “I’ve just got so much to do at the center. You said it yourself. The kids need me.” As a volunteer adviser for the Clarette County Youth Center, she spent her days reaching out to at-risk kids. Labeled at-risk when her parents Elton and Grace died, she had a special bond with the kids there. She could understand what many of them were going through despite the differences in their stories. It was a match made in heaven.

  Lizzie threw an angelic grin at her grandmother hoping that the point would land with the appropriate effect. It, unfortunately, did not.

  “I’ve decided that I’m not taking no for an answer this time. You’re coming, and that’s that,” answered Gertrude.

  “But Gran…”

  “No ‘but Gran’ this time, young lady. You will accompany me to the church tomorrow for our group. End of discussion. The Gals will love to see you.”

  Whoever decided that Southern women were sweet and soft spoken hadn’t met Lizzie’s grandmother. Gertrude could be feisty when she liked. At times the only thing genteel about her was the look of her wardrobe, especially when it involved Lizzie. Gertrude learned to take the bull by the horns when raising that child. Many believed it was the only way they both had survived the adventure.

  “You do remember that I’m not a child anymore, right?” Lizzie snapped before finishing the last bite of her sandwich.

  Straightening her hat, Gertrude started walking toward the park entrance. “I’m sorry dear. I didn’t hear you. My ears are seventy-seven years old, you know.” Her grandmother always knew how to play the age card when she needed it to work to her own advantage. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Give my love to Jack.” Blowing a kiss into the air, she was off.

  Lizzie watched her grandmother cross the road and head toward the church. She couldn’t help but say a silent prayer for Pastor Aldrich. She doubted that her Gran was in the mood to haggle over remodeling ideas any longer. Gertrude left the park armed and loaded for bear. She had accepted the challenge of convincing the board that the chapel was going to be re-decorated to her liking. Brushing the crumbs off her jeans, Lizzie stood to look around the park one last time, saying goodbye to the memories of the past.

  Chapter Two

  After working all day with the children at the community center, Lizzie was glad to head for home. As she turned onto her long and winding dirt driveway, she felt the weight of the day slide off her shoulders immediately.
A happy sigh of relief escaped Lizzie’s lips as her home came into view just up the hill.

  Not long after they married, Lizzie Hines and Jack Clydell purchased their twenty-five-acre slice of small town heaven. It wasn’t filled with modern conveniences like the newer houses recently built in town. The walls held bumps and bruises left behind from a lifetime of memories created by the first owners. Still, the home they nicknamed Clydell Manor represented paradise to the newlyweds.

  Hidden away behind the rusted red gate and overgrown flowering bushes, the home sat a half-mile from the road. Lizzie had just enough time to unwind and release the stress of the day as she made the bumpy transition from the road to her front door. Elegant dogwood trees lined both sides of the dirt and gravel drive. Grandma Tru believed that dogwoods brought protection to the families they surround. Whether there was truth to her story or not, Lizzie found peace in the beauty that met her each time she entered or exited the property. She usually preferred to walk among them on stressful days, but she welcomed a drive through the micro-grove all the same. After an emotional afternoon of time travel in the park, the dogwoods’ presence brought a smile to her face. Today’s memories were good, but they took a toll on her emotions. A slow drive through the trees’ deep scarlet and purple fall colors helped Lizzie could transition from past to present before hitting her doorstep.

  Polite friends would refer to their home as “lived in” or even rustic. In truth, the Clydell farmhouse was just old. Though it still needed a little bit of work, the white wooden structure was in better shape than when the couple took ownership. Lizzie and Jack loved the feel that the rough wood and asymmetrical boards brought to the home. The large wrap-around porch felt as though it kept the world at bay. The heavy wooden shutters that framed each window further met Lizzie’s need for protection.