DECEMBER, 1947
Carrie Marie Hutchins came home from school that day full of gossip to tell her mother. Mama loved to hear the goings-on at the school, especially about the teachers and the lunch-room ladies, even though Mama had taken to her bed with the vapors. She’d been up in her room ever since they’d got that telegram from the War Office telling them how Daddy had been killed on D-Day.
Home was a two-and-a-half story, gingerbread Victorian that had belonged to Mama’s mama and her mama before her, built by Carrie Marie’s great-great-great grandfather, who had come to Texas from Tennessee when he was only eighteen and Texas was still its own country. Carrie Marie loved the high ceilings that echoed and the wood floors that made her shoes sound like tap shoes. She loved that Mama didn’t mind if she rode the bannister down from the second floor, as long as she didn’t do it in front of company.
But they hadn’t had company for a while now, not since the telegram from the War Office. People had come by at first with food and stuff; one man had mowed the lawn, and another used his own coupons to fill Daddy’s car up with gasoline. But since Mama didn’t drive, Carrie Marie figured it was sort of a waste of good ration coupons.
That day Carrie Marie ran up the long flight of stairs two at a time, even though Mama said it wasn’t lady-like. She called her mama’s name a couple of times, and was surprised when Mama didn’t call back to her. She rushed into her mama’s bedroom and stopped short.
Carrie Marie’s mama was lying in a bloody heap on the floor next to the bed, her throat slashed. Standing over her was a man with a shiny, bloody thing in his hand. Unfortunately for Carrie Marie’s future, that man was her daddy.
Of course nobody believed her, but the sheriff of Toledo County, Texas, where Carrie Marie’s hometown of Peaceful was, checked with the War Office anyway. They said that not only was Norris Manford Hutchins dead, but they’d sent his dog tags to his widow, Mrs Helen Bishop Hutchins, on January 4, 1945. So word got around and Carrie Marie started getting teased by some of the boys and ostrasized by most of the girls in school. Her only living relative was her daddy’s younger brother, Herbert, who was 4F – medically disqualified – and didn’t serve. He came to live in the old Victorian to look after Carrie Marie, not that he ever did much of that. Mostly he drank whiskey and listened to the radio.
At fifteen, five years after her mama’s death, Carrie Marie couldn’t take school anymore and got her Uncle Herbert to sign the papers for her to quit. She got a job at the Goldman’s Five & Ten in downtown Peaceful, and worked there for twenty-two years, until Mr Goldman died and his children decided to sell the store. But five and dimes were rapidly disappearing by 1972, and the dollar stores were taking over. The one moving into Peaceful was simply called ‘$$’, and Carrie Marie got in line fast and told the person hiring that she’d been the manager of Goldman’s Five & Ten store. Since Mr Goldman’s children had taken the money and gotten the hell out of Peaceful, Carrie Marie figured her little white lie wasn’t going to hurt anybody. She got the job as assistant manager, which was OK with Carrie Marie, because she wasn’t sure exactly what an actual manager did.
And so life went on. Having been born with what they called in those days a ‘withered arm,’ caused by what Carrie Marie finally learned was a birth injury called shoulder dystocia, she hadn’t been real popular with the boys. Add the fact that she had small breasts and a big butt to the withered arm, and there weren’t many – if any – gentleman callers.
Carrie Marie never married, and lived with her Uncle Herbert until he died. He was ninety-seven at the time and Carrie Marie was seventy-four. It was then that she discovered that living off Carrie Marie had been a fairly good thing for her uncle Herbert. Since he didn’t pay rent or buy groceries – other than whiskey – he had managed to squirrel away a hefty sum from his disability payments. When he died he didn’t leave a will, but as Carrie Marie was his only living relative she got everything that was his. And what was his amounted to $74,352.75. It was at this point that Carrie Marie decided to give up her job at the $$ store and add yet another B&B to the town of Peaceful.
And she did OK. She actually made money because of her beautiful home full of the treasures of four generations. That is, until Daddy started showing up again.