PROLOGUE …

We must protect the forests for our children and grandchildren yet to be born.

We must protect the forests for those who cannot speak for themselves such as

the birds, animals and fish. -Native American proverb LAST YEAR I JOURNEYED to the plains of South Texas looking for links to my mother’s

early life, one she left behind fifty-five years ago. Much of what happened there was unknown to

my sisters and me. Whether our father who died long ago knew anything about Charlotte’s past

is unclear, but I suspect he was clueless, too.

This story reveals how my mother was forced to walk away from loved ones and enter a

lonely journey to protect something more important than herself. That she chose to be a giver of

goodness and light in the darkness of our selfish world still leaves me speechless. I am not sure I

would have been as brave or had the conviction to turn my back on my family for the sake of

thousands of unknown people who need wilderness like they need blood in their veins. But she

did. And I am proud to say she was my kin.

NOW

and

THEN

CHAPTER ONE

Remember Whose Child You Are

Omaha, Nebraska-March 2000

ANNIE’S CALL WAS NO surprise. Our mother had been ill on and off for quite a while and it

was obvious the end was near. The week before she died I left my job in Connecticut and flew to

her bedside in Omaha.

I had no special gifts tending to the terminally ill nor did I consider myself an overly

compassionate human being fit for such a serious job. I was there for her, but also for me, for

my own suffering, to see if Charlotte could give me one last thing before she walked out the

door. I wanted to hear the words—I love you. See it fall from her lips. For her to mean it.

Charlotte was seventy-five years old and gravely ill. She never complained. If you met

her on the street you would not have guessed the clock was ticking on her. Sharp blue eyes and

porcelain skin disguised her age. The Southern sun, the place of her birth, hadn’t stolen a

single year from her plate. Her quick-witted retorts belonged to someone decades younger.

Despite the monster that brewed within, Charlotte was ambulatory, cognizant and high-

spirited. I will also report that she was, as usual, obsessed with fashion. While I was there she

dressed in lovely attire: skirts with ribbons and blouses with sequins even though it was noon.

Every morning, I combed out her long grey hair and arranged it in a chignon just north of her

neck fixing my handwork with a jeweled comb of her choosing.

“Mother, which of these combs would you like?”

“Oh, something with pearls and rhinestones would be nice. Isn’t it Friday? she said.

“Could be…”

“What’s the matter? Shouldn’t you know? It’s me who’s sick, not you.”

“Well, that’s a matter of opinion---” I said.

#

I’m the first to admit I had a funny relationship with my mother. When talking to her

directly I always called her Mother. Not Mom or Mommy or even Ma. Those names seemed too

intimate, too telling of a romanticized love that movies convince us to believe about affection

between a parent and a child. Ours was not a typical relationship—Mother seemed more like an

older sister to me, so I took to calling her Charlotte. It just seemed to fit. Charlotte only heard me

slip up once or twice and never seemed to mind. She always said I was her creative one. So when

I called her Charlotte to her face she chalked it up to art.

#

Doctors spewed information pertinent to Charlotte’s condition and nurses scolded about

the need to move her to a medical facility. Intestinal cancer seemed bad enough without sending

her to the cold cruel world of metal beds and sterility in her last days on earth. It is something I

did not have the heart to do.

Every morning before Charlotte wiped sleep from her eyes, I dragged a chair to her

bedside and listened to her reminisce about her Texas childhood and about her parents, May and

Charlie Butler. She spoke of the good life she had with my father—not shedding a tear. Nary was

there a word of criticism or disappointment about how things turned out or didn’t turn out . If

Charlotte was to error—It was on the side of accepting what was and not should have been. She

found fault in little. Something I never understood.

Before I left her that Saturday afternoon in March, before I shut the glass doors to her

bedroom, before I left her helpless to the Monster of Death that was closing in to snatch her up, I

remember how she looked at me, pointed a finger and boasted: “I did do good in my life. I

stopped some men from destroying a piece of paradise. “Bending closer, I cupped my hands to

my mouth and said, “Mother, what are you talking about? What paradise?”

“Oh, something from long ago that nobody should have ever tried to mess with because it

woulda been sinful to ruin something so beautiful. I don’t know what it is with men they’re

always trying to build things up or break things down. They can’t leave well enough alone.”

“Mother, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. What men?” I asked as I weighed

whether she was migrating into delusional thinking.

“Don’t be angry. Some things I couldn’t tell you about my early life in Texas. I hope you

understand.”

“Can you tell me now?”

“No, I made a promise never to mention what happened back in San Antonio. It is a

secret. You’re the only one I told.”

“Are you sure it has to stay a secret?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Okay, I understand,” I said as I swallowed her in a hug—one she did not or could not

return.

“Watch out for your sisters. Most of all, remember whose child you are.”

I knew what she meant and it went straight to my heart. Charlotte instilled in us an

appreciation for her Southern culture. She wanted us to remember her stories and not forget our

roots. Charlotte seemed to sense I was the one daughter with the gumption to follow through and

find out the truth of what happened so long ago. She wasn’t one to break a promise but she

figured if there was a story to be told I was the one to find it and do the telling. And she probably

thought if there was one who would be willing to break a promise—it was me. I’m not sure if it

was a compliment or not, but I took no offense.

Our hands met in the middle of the bed and held tight, but her smile faded as she melted

into the bedding below and became one with it. With eyes closed, she fell away to a world that

did not call my name. And all along… I thought I knew all there was to know about her, but I

was wrong—very wrong.

I departed with a silent goodbye and left Charlotte to the care of my younger sister,

Annie. It was clear she would not see another sunrise or sunset; something my fractured heart

could not bare to face. Her emotional coolness never warmed my soul, but any starving person

will tell you that cardboard tastes just fine, if it’s all you have.

#

Hours later as my plane was easing into the terminal at JFK, I called my sister Annie and

discovered Charlotte died three hours after I’d left her bedside. My heart wept without consent.

One hand covered my eyes as the other eased my body to the floor in front of a wave of

passengers who were doing their best not to trip on me.

“Are you alright? Do you need a doctor?” a woman with a kind voice said.

“My mother just died,” I said.

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” the woman said as she lifted me with the help of another and

corralled me to the safety of a chair until there was nothing else to be done.

Now, Charlotte is dead, but the then and what happened to her so many years ago in

Texas still lingered in my mind. I was just looking for love when I went out to stay with her, but

instead she handed me a secret and I had to figure out what to do with it.

CHAPTER TWO

Charlotte’s Birth Adventure

Victoria, Texas-January 1925

MAY BUTLER WENT INTO premature labor with her second child during a freak snowstorm

on January 28, 1925, the only one South Texas had experienced in recorded history. It was a

black day filled with a foreboding that only a cynic could appreciate. The winds howled and

whipped up loose items filling the sky with debris that destroyed homes all over the county.

May was inconsolable after her first-born daughter died from scarlet fever the week prior.

Emily was four and had been a robust child from all accounts. Her fever spawned a strawberry

colored tongue and pink rash on her cheeks, which was barely visible. If her face had turned a

vibrant red maybe someone might have been able to save her. Maybe someone would have

guessed how ill she really was. But the internal brewings went unnoticed until she migrated to

the point of no return. And because of this, May Butler who was heavy with child, could not and

would not forgive herself. Her first born daughter’s death seemed a prelude to more bad that was

about to happen.

#

A queer smell fell upon the pastures, one of rotting and stagnation. Gone was the whistle

in the wind that carried the breeze and the sweet smell of the open land that one took for granted.

The animals were the first to feel the strangeness and the coming trouble. Horses ran in circles

and reared on their hind legs inside their corrals. Cows rocked back and forth in a hypnotic

frenzy trying to break fences that kept them from escaping to safer ground. Farmers purposely

avoided getting too close to all of the commotion for fear of bodily harm. It was only on the

second day prior to the storm that people took to acting peculiar themselves and high alert was

on the minds of all.

When Pastor John was found outside the hen house stark naked and frothing at the

mouth, some folks said it was punishment for some prior misdeed he neglected to share with his

parishioners.

It was said he was heard screaming, “Repent before it’s too late. Save yourself from the

wrath of our Almighty God. It is He who is out to punish the sinners. Of which I am one!”

The smarter folks in town knew the meteoric pressure from the approaching storm had

probably sent him into an orbit that was too much to bare. The modern age would have pegged

him for someone in need of strong medicine for a migraine at the very least.

#

The day of the storm, Charlie Butler could tell his wife was ready to deliver. He figured it might

be the last chance he had to save the family that was left to him after the death of their dear

Emily. This time he was determined to get medical assistance and consult a doctor.

Folks in rural areas birthed their babies at home with a mid-wife. The whole concept of

delivering a baby at a hospital seemed decadent and only for rich city folk. In the early twentieth

century, only people of means were the intended consumers of this new fangled trend.

Charlie knew it was time to hitch the wagon to his horse and take his young wife to town

despite her objections to the contrary. He didn’t want to second guess a bad decision later

because he lacked money for medical services. He figured he could barter his way out of the big

hole he was about to fall into, if need be.

May Butler was too depressed to care about much of anything after her precious angel

was gone. A farm girl all her life, May had seen a lot of pain and misery and early death. Her

Uncle Paul lost his arm and then his life after getting too close to a threshing machine. But

Emily’s funeral caused May to snap. She fell into her bed and never wanted to get up again.

Crying is about all she could do. Even though May had contractions, the coming of this next

child did not register with her. Charlie had to take control and do the thinking for her. Like when

a cripple needs assistance to walk. Charlie assumed the job of the crutches willingly and told

May another baby was on the way whether she liked it or not. Charlie knew the hour long ride to

town would not be pleasant due to the deep rivets in the road and the bucking of the wagon. But

they had no automobile and no choice in the matter.

“Now, May, I knowed this is gonna be a rough trip, but we got no choice about the

matter. God was calling me just a bit ago and told me to take you to the doctor. I did hear him

straight and clear,” said Charlie.

“Oh, did you? Since when have you become God-fearing?” said his wife between

spasms of psychic pain.

“When I decided to be the man o’ the house and speak my mind. God just was right

behind me nudging me on to make you do the right thing and go ta the hospital in town.”

“Has God told you how we are gonna pay for this?” she questioned while he gently

picked her up in his arms, wrapping her in a soft blanket and gallantly placing her down in the

fresh hay he had put at the bottom of the wagon. An old pup tent was jerry-rigged overhead to

keep the outside out and the inside in. Not a flake of snow trespassed.

May was secretly glad they were on their way, but humiliated that the old tent was the

only thing he could find to shield her from the elements. For a second, she thought she should

have married Marvin, the fella from town with the rich daddy. She never thought she would be in

such a predicament of having lost a child and facing the birth of another while looking like such

a fool with that tent propped up over her head like an inverted ice cream cone. All because they

were poor as church mice.

Wrapped up tight May felt like an Easter egg sitting in holiday grass. Life inside the tent

wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be. It was just something in her that made her torture the likes

of her sweet husband from morning’ til night, and it was something they both accepted about her.

She was one of those women who held a tight reins on her man with a mighty might and that was

fine with the both of them, most of the time. Something Marvin, with the rich daddy, never

would have put up with. Just for the record.

Life outside the tent was another matter entirely. Charlie, a tall, fair-haired man in his late

thirties, was strikingly handsome in spite of his prematurely wrinkled skin earned from years of

working the land. His sunup to sundown, seven days a week regime of labor in the fields laid

waste to his body. Every ounce of fat was sucked from his flesh in order to fuel his internal fire

allowing him to put one foot in front of the other foot without a thought.

Now, with the storm engulfing him in glorious flakes of white, obscuring his vision, he

could do nothing but pray that his tattered oiled coat would keep him safe for the sake of his

family and that he could find his way through Mother Nature’s maelstrom. He was unknowingly

noble, because back then men stuck by their woman folk regardless of the consequences and

hardships. No real man considered his own comfort because it was automatic that family always

came first. Ahead of all else.

“May, how are you do’in in there? You just gotta hold on till we get to the doctor. Ya

hear!”

“Charlie, this old wagon is throwing me around like an old rag doll. It’s no way to treat

a woman with child. I been through enough and can’t take much more. If you want more babies

you’re gonna have to have ‘em yourself. My heart’s done broken and I ain’t got nothin’ left.”

“Now, May just settle down and things will be just fine. You’ll see,” he said.

“I don’t see nothing.”

“Yes, dear.”

By noon, they’d be pulling up to the only hospital that existed in the county. It was a new

business that opened its doors only months before the winter of 1925. Word of mouth advertised

the young doctor’s arrival and helped pave the way for an auspicious beginning for both the town

and the medical man. The Butlers hadn’t heard any complaints about the doctor but they also

hadn’t put their ears to the pavement to pick up any scuttlebutt either. At this point, they figured

a doctor was a doctor, they didn’t know any better. After all neither one of them had finished the

sixth grade, but that is a secret few talked about but everyone knew. So, if you said you were a

doctor that was good enough.

Just as they crested the hill into town, a tiny, unborn foot broke free and waved in

triumph as it stuck out of May’s under parts. She was terrified and her screams alerted Charlie

that it was time to whip that old mare and gain speed. It wasn’t clear whether the wagon was

carried down the hill faster due to the encouragement of the whip or whether the angle of the hill

with the slick of the snow catapulted them at record speed.

Fortunately, the Good Doctor happened to be looking out the window, noted the

emergency and ran outside to assist. May was carried through the back door and into the large

makeshift delivery room with all the care the Good Doctor could muster. Unfortunately for them,

Samuel Quinn wasn’t a real doctor.

CHAPTER THREE

Oh, Rats!

Head of the Harbor, Long Island, New York-March 2000

CHARLOTTE’S BODY WAS SHIPPED back east so she could be laid to rest next to our father

at a gravesite in Calverton, New York. There was little time to mourn her death because I needed

to return to Charlotte’s house on Long Island and get it on the market, pronto. The house was

nothing but trouble. It became an albatross around our necks after Charlotte became ill and

moved to Omaha to be near Annie. There were no takers when it was put on the market back

then. So, it was left empty for two years.

My sisters asked me to tackle this project on my own. I told them I didn’t mind. But that

was a lie. Annie cared for Charlotte while she was ill and Jeanette paid all the bills. It was time

for me to kick in and do my part and stop being neurotic. Returning to Long Island would stir up

a pot of misery if I let it, causing troubles from my past to resurface. I just didn’t want to whine

about it to my siblings. So, eight days were designated to discard forty years worth of Charlotte’s

belongings and a stiff upper lip needed to be adopted until I turned the key over to a local realtor.

#

Charlotte’s house sat back from the road at the end of a long meandering driveway which

was etched with crumble and cracks. Seventy-foot pin oak trees lined the way standing like

guarding warriors ready to defend. Thick weeds sprawled over acres of unattended land that had

once claimed to be a proud lawn.

While the landscaping was wild, the house was its sad sister. Dirty clapboard flirted with

blue shutters, while rotten flowerboxes screamed foul. It was all an insult to the eye. Yet, it still

had a magical air in spite of its dilapidated state and all the incongruities. I knew the real story

behind the misplaced design that had embarrassed me throughout my teenage years when things

like that mattered.

#

As I stood outside the door with my hand poised on the doorknob memories came

flooding back as I knew they would. I thought of my father, Louis Lombardo and how he built

our family home over forty years ago in this small town on the north shore of Long Island . He

did not want to announce his Italian heritage to the world since his nationality was a constant

point of embarrassment. Instead of constructing the typical stone monstrosity with the gratuitous

fountains and complying nymphs—standard for his ethnicity—he stole a neighbor’s design right

down to the color of navy blue paint. He really didn’t do it with malicious intent, he was just a

fish out of water.

After Father purchased two and a half acres of premier land in Head of the Harbor; he

strolled over to a neighbor’s house with pencil and paper in hand, hid behind a large flowering

bush and sketched away until he copied the design of their house down to the placement of the

mailbox. Father handed his plans to a contractor and then five months later surprised his lovely

bride with a home in which to raise their young. They left the city and settled into the house of

their dreams. It took a good month before; the jig was up, the cat was out of the bag and father’s

goose was cooked.

One evening, after the sun had begun its ritualistic descent in the sky an innocent stroll

brought Charlotte to a harsh reality when she froze in disbelief in front of the house just a

quarter mile down the road. She thought she was seeing double and pinched herself to make sure

she was not caught in a nightmare. Her milk-white hand reached her mouth and let out a petite

scream when she embarrassingly realized her beautiful home was not so beautiful any more. It is

one thing to show up at a garden party in the same dress as another guest, but that does not

translate to houses and especially if they sit side by side on the same damn road. Charlotte was

humiliated. Fury pushed her as she raced home to confront the man who committed this crime.

“Louis Lombardo, how could you?”

“How could I what? he said.

“How could you think I wouldn’t notice that you copied the house next door. Do you

think I’m stupid and wouldn’t notice?” she cried.

“I’m so sorry. I just wanted to please you.”

“Well, you didn’t.”

And so, Father camped out on the front lawn for the next month as he secured do-dads

and columns here and there whether it was architecturally appropriate or not. It all looked

ridiculous according to my father, but he capitulated when it became apparent that the greater sin

had been his in thinking his wife would live in something so embarrassingly similar to its twin

down the road.

With the renovations coming to an end, Charlotte succumbed to the inevitable, found

herself pregnant and giving birth to a succession of four sweet-faced babies in close order. After

the last one popped out she confirmed motherhood wasn’t really for her and withdrew into world

of artistic denial. We were loved, but it was an odd and distant affection void of touching and

whisperings of sweet little things that would naturally be expected. The daily grind of domestic

duties and responsibilities were impossible for Charlotte to swallow, but she did the best she

could under the circumstances.

#

A second memory popped in my head when I was inside the house and entered the

kitchen. I remember long after my father died, an electrician was summoned to repair a broken

light. A dead rat playing with the ceiling wires had screamed Sweet Jesus in the middle of

night, got fried and took the electricity with it, leaving the overheard fixture worthless. Its

blackened body was hidden behind sheetrock and told the story of its unlucky demise and the

mystery of Charlotte’s dead light. The only things that survived were its skeleton and pearly-

white choppers. For months, Charlotte had eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dark,

oblivious to the noxious smell. It was only when I came for a visit—did the situation rightly get

addressed. She was upset about the matter—not for herself and the inconvenience of it all—but

for the rat. After she saw its remains and understood how it met its untimely death, Charlotte

hung her head and moaned, “Poor little thing.”

I found myself acting as the butt-girl for Charlotte’s insurance company since she was

old and required assistance. Extensive documentation was needed before the big boys in

Hartford were going to cut a check to cover the extensive repairs. I figured where there was

smoke there was fire, so with camera in one hand and ladder in the other I investigated further.

To my dismay, but not surprise, more evidence of rats were discovered in the common wall

between the kitchen and the garage. The furry critters had left five feet worth of poop in the

rafters as well. It was a disaster created by her good will and concern for wild things.

While my finger was going click, click, click taking picture after picture Charlotte

was back to her old tricks and sneaking out the back door, placing a bowl of dog food under the

maple tree not five feet from the house. Even though I lectured her about feeding wild animals,

she figured the damage was already done, I guess. When I caught her in the act and she saw my

furrowed brow, she smiled without apology.

Her voice sang, “Darlin’, you know all critters have to eat. Rats are God’s children, too.”

#

As the noon day horn pierced the sky on my first day back on Long Island, I paused. I

thought it funny (but not haha funny) that I didn’t cry at either of my parent’s funerals. I had

been a stoic void of emotion, like a lifeless doll. Now here, in the family house the memories

nudged my true feelings. My breath slowed while my arms crossed against my chest. I let the

tears fall from my eyes and bathe me as if being christened by something that was deep in my

heart but not able to be fully realized.