Before The White Rose

Blurb

Before the White Rose

Vicki Hinze

A New Short Story Plus Excerpts From The Classic Seascape Novels

Poignant, inspiring and romantic selections from a favorite author

Bell Bridge Books is proud to present Vicki Hinze’s never-before-published short story, Before the White Rose and, as a bonus, lengthy excerpts from three Hinze novels: the mystically romantic Seascape Trilogy: Beyond a Mystic Shore, Upon a Mystic Tide, and Beside a Dreamswept Sea.

All three novels are being re-issued by Bell Bridge Books in multi-format ebook editions and new trade paperback editions, beginning with Beyond a Mystic Shore in September 2011. For more information visit Bell Bridge Books at http://bellbridgebooks.com.

Vicki Hinze is the award-winning author of 24 novels, 4 nonfiction books and hundreds of articles, published in as many as sixty-three countries. She is recognized by Who’s Who in the World as an author and as an educator. You can visit Vicki here:

Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/vicki.hinze.author or on

Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/vickihinze and at

http://www.vickihinze.com

Before the White Rose

by

Vicki Hinze

Bell Bridge Books

Copyrights

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

Bell Bridge Books

PO BOX 300921

Memphis, TN 38130

eISBN: 978-1-61194-061-9

Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

Before the White Rose Copyright 2011 by Vicki Hinze

Beyond the Misty Shore Copyright March 1996 by Vicki Hinze writing as Victoria Barrett; first published in mass market paperback by St. Martins Press, NY

Upon A Mystic Tide Copyright December 1996 by Vicki Hinze writing as Victoria Barrett; first published in mass market paperback by Forge, NY

Beside a Dreamswept Sea Copyright June 1997 by Vicki Hinze writing as Victoria Barrett; first published in mass market paperback

by St. Martins Press, NY

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

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Cover design: Debra Dixon

Interior design: Hank Smith

Photo credits:

Cemetery (manipulated) © Linda Bucklin | Dreamstime.com

Grunge Tree with background (manipulates) © Knud Nielsen | Dreamstime.com

Rose © Jaguarwoman Designs

Fencing (manipulated) © Ravnheart | Renderosity.com

:Etbw:01:

Dedication

To My Readers

You stuck with me through thick and thin, no matter how many different types of stories I’ve written, no matter where or how I’ve written them, and you’ve always been supportive of whatever fanciful journey I’ve next decided to take.

There are no words to tell you what that means to me, and no way to translate the confidence it instills in this writer’s heart. But know each day that I am grateful to you and for you. It’s because of you, I awaken each day and wonder what adventure we shall embark upon next!

With gratitude and wishes for many...

Blessings,

Vicki

Author’s Note

Nearly four years ago, I got this idea. It was a strange idea for a strange story—or so I thought. I tried to push it out of mind, but it kept coming back and nagging me. So I wrote it. But I never published it.

About three years ago, I began writing faith-affirming romantic thrillers, and I thought then that this story would be one more that I’d keep tucked away the rest of my life. Yet the story stayed on my mind, and so I pulled it out and read it.

It is still a strange little story. But there is also a message in it, and I suspect that this message is the reason the story keeps nagging me. And so I’m releasing it into the world, praying as I do that it will offer some hope to one feeling hopeless, some strength to one feeling weak or vulnerable, and some reassurance to one feeling doubt and uncertainty.

We’ve all heard the old saying about be careful what you wish for. We’ve also heard the one about when you think things can’t get worse, they do. What we don’t often hear—and probably should hear a little more—is that when things are really bad, if we just hold on, they will get better.

We know that of course. Sometimes we hear, sometimes we don’t. And that is the nagging message in Before The White Rose. Listen... and come along with me for yet another adventure. This one, in my strange but beloved little story...

Blessings,

Vicki

Before the White Rose

Malum consilium quod mutari non potest.

(It’s a bad plan that can’t be changed.)

—Publilius Syrus

Chapter 1

Life can turn on a dime.

You drift along, complaining about things you won’t recall in a week much less in a lifetime, then fate kicks up a storm and, when the dust settles, life as you knew it no longer exists and you’re left baffled, struggling to figure out where you went wrong and where you are now.

I learned that little lesson the hard way—and, God, but I resent it.

In my whole life, nothing has ever come easy. I did everything I was supposed to do, when and the way I was supposed to do it. Me, Elisa Baker, salt of the earth and pillar of the community, married for over two decades to John, the most successful attorney in Picayune, Mississippi. Okay, so I only had one child, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying to get that second one to make the ideal family. I sat on all the right charity boards, did my time entertaining, worked like a dog for PTA, attended every ball game in four counties, and I even did a stint on the city council. I shot for a Norman Rockwell kind of life, and I had it. I had it! And then came the storm, and when it was over, my life—all of it—was just... gone.

Brooding over it didn’t help; I tried. Actually, I tried everything, but nothing worked. As they say, done is done and all that’s left is the accepting it. Now that’s done, too, and only one thing is important: Justin.

Justin. I glanced across the kitchen to the wall calendar at the bright red circle I’d drawn around September 12th. Justin’s birthday. Today. Finally, I’d see him again. A tender hitch tightened in my chest.

Rubbing it, I walked over to the wooden table and wadded up the note from the mailman asking me to please empty the mailbox. It had been stuffed. Handled that, but since I’d already taken out the trash, I crammed the note into my pocket and mentally went down my checklist. I’d paid the bills, picked up my favorite navy suit from the cleaners, had Pat color my hair—I would not see Justin with gray roots—and I’d picked up my Xanax refill at the drug store.

Anti-anxiety drugs. I hadn’t wanted them, or wanted to hear another single word about grief or therapy or clinical depression, but Dr. Bly had insisted I take them since the Prozac he’d prescribed hadn’t worked. In fairness, it might have if I’d taken it, but Elisa Baker on Prozac? I don’t think so. I do carry Dr. Bly’s bottle of Xanax in my purse, and when he asks if I’m taking the pills, I can honestly say yes. I do take them wherever I go.

That’s a fair compromise. Well, it has been. Today, it’d become downright ironic.

Turning from the kitchen, I did a final walk-through of the house to make sure everything was in order. In the last two days, I’d dusted and cleaned every surface. The bed was made, the dishwasher emptied, the closets and dresser drawers all organized. In the guest bath, I smoothed a tag from sight on a towel hanging on the ring, knowing it would be for the last time...

Memories crowded me, pushing at the walls of my mind, of my heart. I shunned them, ducked into my hobby room and looked at my desk to the neat row of papers on the left, to the photo of Justin on the right. My nose tingled, the backs of my eyes burned. Don’t do this, Elisa. You can’t fall apart now. Justin...

I rushed back to the kitchen then snagged my purse and umbrella. On my way out, I clicked off the kitchen light then slammed the door shut.

For fifteen years, I’d lived in this house. Most were good years. But the last two...

I couldn’t shake the dust from my shoes fast enough.

Chapter 2

The windshield wipers clacked and a hard rain pinged against the Camry. By the time I’d made it across town, down the winding two-lane, and had pulled alongside the chain-link fence surrounding the cemetery, my nerves were fried.

The cemetery had served locals for generations. It sat on land claimed as a buffer zone for a NASA testing site back before John and I had married. Its little white chapel, where funeral services had been held, fell due to testing, and what part of it hadn’t crumbled into rubble, Hurricane Katrina destroyed. But newly deceased family members of cemetery residents were still permitted to join their relatives in eternal rest. They just had to settle in with graveside services.

Looking out across the rows of headstones and vases concreted into the ground filled with fresh flowers, I spotted Mary Elizabeth wearing a bright yellow rain slicker and jeans, working on a grave under the craggy old oak. Now she was a strange one, and I bet she had a story to tell, though in five years, no one in town had gotten it out of her.

She just showed up at the cemetery one day and started tending to the graves. I don’t recall being out here since when she wasn’t busy working. Always humming happily, which is annoying as hell to someone grieving. She sets out little flags on Veteran’s Day, poinsettias at Christmas, gardenias and lilies on Mother’s Day and, every year when Picayune plays its local rival high school, she puts the #27 football helmet on its former star quarterback’s grave to wish the team good luck. For that kindness, I forgive Mary Elizabeth anything.

The grave she puts the helmet on is my son’s.

During the third quarter of the game two years ago, Justin had a heart attack on the ten-yard line. The coroner said due to dehydration and heat. Seeing that helmet in her hands now, and how gently she places it on his grave, puts a lump in my throat. It’s the first comfort I’ve felt in a long time. Eighteen months and four days, to be exact. That’s the day John left me for his current wife—a woman a mere five years older than our son.

Sometimes pain runs too deep to be shared and survived.

Mary Elizabeth waved.

I waved back through the window and reached for my purse. Speculation about her has been endless. She doesn’t live in town; no one has ever seen her outside the cemetery, but she seems content with the life she’s made for herself. She’s barely forty, awfully young to be settling for a life humming her songs and caring for the dead. Truthfully, the graves would be in awful shape without her. Many loved ones of those buried here have long since moved away, seeking jobs, or they’ve died off.

Back when I sat on the city council, we came out here and offered Mary Elizabeth a small salary for her work tending the graves. She gave us an odd smile and declined, saying the work was her privilege and pleasure.

Where she lives, or how she pays for the fresh flowers and flags, or even buys groceries or gas for her beat-up truck (which everyone agrees she must own outright since it’s more rust than metal and no dealers around offer twenty-year loans) remains a mystery. One normally I don’t think on much. But today it seems important to know the answers to those questions.

I got out and she walked over, her already lined face beaming. We dispensed with the usual greetings, and then I eased into my questions. You shouldn’t be out here in the rain. You’ll catch a cold.

I’m fine, Elisa. She smiled, but the look in her eyes pierced. Go on. Ask me.

The rain eased to a sprinkle of fat drops. Okay. My stomach fluttered. You know about the rumors...

I’ve heard. She nodded. Some say I’m a saint. Others think I’m an angel.

Are you? That sounded ridiculous even to me, so I rephrased. Who are you?

Definitely not a saint or an angel. Mary Elizabeth laughed, lusty and deep. I’m just a woman with a decent heart and a green thumb.

Then why do you do all this? I waved at the graves.

She followed my hand with her gaze. Because these people lived, she said softly then looked back at me. Like everybody else, they laughed and cried and loved.

Of course, but they’re not your responsibility.

They’re all someone’s children, Elisa. She pulled her hat down on her ears. They put a lot into life, doing a neighbor a good turn, getting turned on by others and hurt.

Everyone has good and bad times, I conceded.

Joys and heartbreaks, she said. That’s my point.

What point?

They lived.

I didn’t even pretend to follow the mental leap that made her their dutiful caretaker.

Indulgent, she dipped her chin. Rain gathered on the brim of her hat dripped onto her chest. The specifics of their lives are lost to time—it’s the way of things. But so long as I tend the graves, the memory that they lived and that there were specifics goes on. See what I mean?

I didn’t. Well, I did, but I didn’t want to, because if I did, that could make me feel responsible, too, and I’ve had all the duty and responsibility I can stomach. Maybe solving the mysteries didn’t matter, after all. Soon enough, I’d know the answers.

Why are you here, Elisa?

I’ve been stuck asking myself that question for two years. No family left, happy home gone. I’ve been condemned to living a no-man’s life. Empty. Wasted. What had I done so awful that everything good had been taken away? What?

But Mary Elizabeth didn’t mean here—as in, alive. She meant here at the cemetery. It’s Justin’s birthday.

She nodded. I’d best move on and leave you to it, then.

I walked around her on the uneven ground, the heels of my pumps sinking into the soft, wet earth. Move on. I’ve come to hate those words. Everyone tells me that’s what I should do, move on, but how? That, no one knows—or if they do know, they’re not telling.

The dark heaviness shrouding me closed in tight. The truth is I’ve lived too long. Time isn’t measured in years. It’s measured in life lived, and the good in mine is behind me. I’ve tried looking ahead, but nothing there promises anything except more pain. No thank you. I’ve had my share... and done my time.

I ran a hand over the smooth marble, traced Justin’s name with my fingertip. No tears filled my eyes. I thought they would, but they just didn’t. Happy birthday, honey. I miss you. Life without you... it’s lonely, Justin, and I’m too weary to do it anymore. I summoned my courage to tell him the rest. I don’t want to do it anymore, so I’ve come to join you.

Unsnapping my purse latch, I reached inside for the brown bottle of Xanax.

Elisa? Mary Elizabeth called out from under the old oak. The fog was so thick; I could barely see her. I’ve got a fresh pitcher of sweet tea. Come, have a glass with me.

Startled, I squeezed the pill bottle, sucked in damp, hot air. No, thanks. Before she could insist, I turned my back... and found myself sitting on the bench beneath the tree, a mason jar of iced-tea in my hand, a cold sip of it sliding down my throat. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember walking over there, but obviously I had.

John was out earlier—to see Justin, Mary Elizabeth said with a little snort. He brought the yellow carnations. I prefer lilies for birthdays.

I’m surprised he remembered, I said, opting for brutal honesty. He always forgot—not that it bothered Justin.

But miss a football game, and he’d sulk. Mary Elizabeth smiled. Am I right?

You are. The memory made me smile. He’d forgive anything except football infractions. Justin had his flaws, like everybody else, but he had such courage and wit. He was so determined to make his team the best.

He worked and sacrificed to earn his place. Mary Elizabeth stared at the tumbling gray clouds. And he won. She looked back to me. He built the life he wanted.

"He won?" Anger roiled in me. A young teen sat on the wet grass at one of the graves. Seeing her startled me; I’d have sworn only Mary Elizabeth and I had been inside the cemetery gates. Strange girl. Justin did his part and it killed him.

Did it? Mary Elizabeth tilted her head. Imagine him passing on without realizing his dream. Your Justin inspired many others. Remember that... and let him inspire you.

More platitudes. More empty words that change nothing. It’s too late, I said before realizing I’d opened my mouth. What good in me Justin’s death didn’t take, John’s leaving did. I’m used up and bone-dry, Mary Elizabeth.

There’s always something left.

Not always. False hope was foolish. I left it behind and glanced at the teen. She was wearing boy’s clothes—a la Goodwill—black lipstick. Her eyebrow and nose were pierced and her hair was dyed in patches of bright blue and green. What a disgrace to her gender... Pulling the petals off the flowers, tossing them onto the grave. And no respect. With a delicate grunt, I gazed grave-to-grave to see if the girl had destroyed all the flowers. She hadn’t touched any others, but... they were all white. I’d never noticed that before. Mary Elizabeth loved color—or she had in the past. Since Justin’s death, I can’t say I’ve noticed much of anything, much less Mary Elizabeth’s flower-color preference.

The girl tossed more petals.

She lives and my precious Justin dies. There is no justice. Who is that girl? I asked Mary Elizabeth.

Sara Ladner. Mary Elizabeth looked over, worry deepening the fine lines in her face. She’s here every day—has been for a year, pulling petals off the flowers.

I didn’t recognize her. She was about thirteen, caught in that gawky age between girl and woman. Why do you keep putting fresh flowers out, then? Waste of time and money.

Mary Elizabeth tilted her glass. Ice chinked against its sides. "Every day carries new hope. Maybe it will be the day the girl no longer needs to rip up the flowers."

Ridiculous comment. Yet curiosity still tugged at me. Who’s buried in the grave?

Her mother, Meg.

Surprise rippled through me. I’d gone to school with Meg, though I followed her by a few years. All through high school, I thought she was an idiot, dating off-and-on again that bully, Ben Granger. Worthless man.

Did you know her?

From school. I nodded. She was a cashier at Green’s Grocery, until she got pregnant with Sara and married Ben. Word around town was that he made Meg’s life a living hell. Once a bully, always a bully.

Marriage didn’t change him, Mary Elizabeth said. Meg was abused, not that she’d ever admit it. Sara learned to dial 911 before she learned to write her name, and that’s about all that needs saying on that.

Tension rippled in the air between us. Meg didn’t die falling down the stairs, did she?

No. Mary Elizabeth stabbed her turning tool into the wet earth. Sara wasn’t home to call 911.

Oh, God. At the time Meg had died, I’d been so consumed with my own grief I’d just pushed her out of my mind. Ben killed her.

Officially, he’s a person of interest. Between us, they have to find him to try and convict him—in court, anyway. The court of public opinion’s already nailed him.

I hadn’t realized. What about Sara?