Finding Eliza
Authors: Stephanie Pitcher Fishman
Tags: #christian fiction, #georgia history, #interracial romance, #lynching in america, #southern fiction, #genealogy, #family history
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
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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 father 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.
