The sound of the lawnmowers woke Cora from her sleep. Her hand instantly went to her head before she’d even opened her eyes. The pain was continuous. No amount of aspirin seemed to help now. If she wasn’t careful her pain would become her life. Just like it had before, so many years ago. She rolled over and looked at the light coming into her room. Her thoughts immediately went to Harrison. He’d calmed her the other night; his reasonable manor and soft voice had convinced her to come back home, that they would figure this out. Together.
She knew she could count on him. Harrison and Virginia had been with her as long as she could remember. When she was a girl, the Cooper house was the only one that was close to her own. They were the only family she’d ever known, the only children she’d ever had contact with. Her father didn’t allow her to go to school or to play with other children. She never saw anyone that didn’t come onto her property and very few people had reason to venture past the front gate. Hired help, delivery people. That was it.
Cora’s father hated the Coopers. The Cooper house was built on a small lot of property that Cora’s grandfather sold off when he needed money. That white clapboard house represented Monroe weakness. That’s what Cora’s father had always told her. She didn’t understand anything about that when she was a girl. She just wanted someone to play with, to share her days, to help pass the time. After her mother died, Cora was achingly lonely for companionship. Her mother had always found ingenious ways to entertain the little girl; the two were inseparable until that horrible day she died.
Cora didn’t remember when she met Ginny and Harrison, exactly. They had just always been there. From her earliest memories they were either running along the fence-line at the back of the property or climbing over those wrought iron bars. Cora was different than the other children they knew, they’d told her, and they found her to be both odd and interesting.
The Monroe property, so isolated and private, yet so close to the little bustling town, was a magical place for the Cooper children. The three could transform those woods into a private island full of Indians or pirates, depending on the day. They tied a rope to a tree over the swimming hole and would spend afternoons swinging and splashing. Cora couldn’t leave to experience the world so they brought the world to her in the things that mattered to children: candy, comic books, soda, toys. Ginny gave her ribbons and plastic jewelry. Harrison showed her how to play cards, how to climb trees, how to imagine, and how to hope.
Cora had a tutor that came to the house for a few hours in the morning to oversee her studies. Her father did that much. He said that Monroes were not stupid, illiterate people; that she needed to know how to read, that she needed to understand basic math but little else. Girls had no need for formal education, he’d told her. Ginny taught her so much more. She gave Cora her lessons from school, picture books, maps, all her grade school primers. Ginny went to school and then climbed the fence in the afternoon to bring Cora all her schoolwork. Cora loved those lessons. They found a little spot in the woods where they could sit and not be seen. Cora would pour over maps of the world for hours and imagine life outside her iron prison. She looked forward to those meetings all day. It was all she had.
Harrison gave Cora her first Bible. Cora and her father never went to church. He didn’t believe in God. He hated God. Her father told her that God was for people who had nothing and were trying to make peace with it. The Monroes did not need religion, he’d told her, over and over. They were able to take care of themselves.
One Sunday afternoon Harrison climbed the fence and showed Cora his church school papers from the First Baptist Church of Chestnut Hill. She was mesmerized. She carried them in her pocket for a whole week and then asked for more. Harrison was just a boy, but he told her everything he knew about God. It made her smile. There was something out there that was bigger and more powerful on this earth than her father? Her thirst for knowledge was unquenchable.
One Sunday afternoon Harrison and Cora sat in their little hiding spot in the woods. He was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. He’d gone to church that morning and had already eaten his Sunday supper. She thought he had more church papers for her and she waited expectantly. Instead he pulled out a little package covered in tissue paper. It wasn’t wrapped very well. It was mostly tape.
“What is it, Harry?” she asked
“It’s for you. They gave it to me in church today for finishing my Sunday school class this year. It will teach you everything you want to know about God. That’s what Pastor Dave told us. You can have it.” He smiled. One of his front teeth was missing. It had fallen out the week before.
She took that book with her to bed and started reading it. It was hard and it didn’t make much sense at first. She kept reading and reading. When she had questions she would ask Harrison. He would ask Pastor Dave at church and then he’d come back and tell her what he said. She studied on her own all week but she began to live for those Sundays with Harrison in the woods. They continued all the way up until he went to college. The Coopers, her son and her Bible were all that she had in the whole world. Now Nick was gone.
Her head throbbed but she had to get up. Nick’s wife was, no doubt, awake and already up to something.