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KIM BALDWIN. began clearing a wider space
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began clearing a wider space. Amid the pieces of wood and f ooring, she found a framed photograph, the glass shattered. She picked it up and shone her f ashlight beam on it.
It was an eight-by-ten of a bride and groom, circa early 1940s, she guessed, by the man’s World War Two U.S. Army uniform. He looked a bit like Van Johnson, with blond hair combed back and a movie-star smile. The bride, petite and delicate, was recognizable as such only by her veil; she was otherwise clad in a nice, but everyday dress.
She looked very young, and she was carrying what appeared to be a checkerboard. Kind of odd.
“I found a picture out here in a frame. A wedding couple. Are these your parents?”
“Yup, that’s them. Dad passed away a couple of years ago. Mom’s still going strong—nearly eighty but going on twenty, and a real pip. I can’t keep up with her.”
“They both look so young.”
“They were. Mom was only seventeen, Dad was eighteen. They were high school sweethearts, and he was going off to war.”
“Can I ask why she’s carrying a checkerboard?”
Gable heard the sound of laughter through the wall. It made her smile.
“That’s her purse. It was the height of style then, she keeps insisting. But we—my sister and I—we kidded her and Dad for years about how exciting their honeymoon must have been.”
That got Gable laughing too. There was another long, sustained creak, as if the house were groaning, from directly overhead. It startled them both into silence.
Gable shone her f ashlight around. It didn’t look like anything had moved. But she knew Erin had to be as nervous as she was, probably much more so. Keep talking. Keep her mind off it. “So what did your dad do?”
“He was a high school teacher,” Erin said. “Calculus and trigonometry.”
“My worst subjects.”
“Mine too, unfortunately. Apparently a talent for advanced mathematics is not genetic.”
Gable smiled.
• 30 •
FORCE OF NATURE
“But he did pass down his love of education. I always wanted to be a teacher. So you’re a volunteer F reF ghter, you said? Do you have another job?”
“Yeah. I’m a pharmacist at Lakin’s drugstore in Meriwether. I’ve always done some kind of volunteering, though, wherever I lived. In Chattanooga I helped out with the Red Cross.”
“Is volunteering something you get from your parents?”
“Not really,” Gable said. “My folks were wonderful people. But they both worked long hours. My dad usually held down two jobs. They didn’t have a lot of spare time for anything. I’d have to say it was Camp Fire that got me into volunteering.”
“Camp Fire? You mean, like in Camp Fire Girls?”
“Yup. I was involved in it for a long time. Heard of the Boy Scout oath?”
“Sure. Do your duty, be honest, and all that?”
“Exactly. Well, we had the Camp Fire Law. And even as an adult, I always thought it was a pretty good thing to live by. One of the ‘laws’
is ‘Give Service.’ You know—do what you can to make the world a better place.”
“Well, I admire that,” Erin said. “I can’t say I’ve done my share.
I’d like to argue I never seem to have the time, but I guess that’s just an excuse. Other people make the time.”
“It’s never too late to make a difference,” Gable said.
“That’s true.”
“So you teach piano, you said. Do you play anything else?” Gable asked.
“Well, as a music teacher I have to know something about most every instrument. But the only other ones I’ve actually played a lot are f ute and trombone.”
“That’s an odd combination.”
“Well, my parents started me on piano lessons when I was seven,”
Erin said. “I took up f ute to play in my junior high school band, back at a time when girls were discouraged from playing what I really wanted to play—trombone. I F nally got myself one a few years ago on eBay.”
“I wanted to play drums. But they made me play clarinet.”
“Didn’t you hate that? That was just so unfair.”
“Sure was.”
• 31 •
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