The Telling Tree of Andovia

The Telling Tree of Andovia

Nona Austin Roberts

ISBN 979-8-88832-070-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88832-071-6 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Nona Austin Roberts

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

About the Author

Prologue

There are still sights and sounds of Andovia that come back to me in my dreams or in certain moments of solitude or when certain voices, faces, or smells attack my memory in sudden unexpected bursts.

It is during those times that I remember getting up, simultaneously, with the other girls to the 5:00 a.m. bell, the sound of the bare bulb lights clicking on one by one as we pulled the rusty little chains hanging from the sockets attached to the wall behind our beds; the opening of the drawers in the dressers sitting between each bed as each girl took out her neatly folded underwear, draped it over her left arm, and placed it against her waist where she held it with her right hand while standing at the end of our rickety wooden beds, both arms now engaged, like little soldiers facing the girls across the aisle, standing in exactly the same way, while Miss Bjorklund, a switch in one hand, waited and watched at the door ready to pounce if we dallied too long before lineup or engaged in unnecessary chatter.

At the second bell, exactly two minutes later, Miss Bjorklund would waddle down the row, keys clanging in her hip pocket which was closed with a single large button, and slowly pass each one of us.

There was no talking, no chewing, no looking around, and no moving (not even the hairs in our noses). Any infraction and you were yanked out of line and hit twice on the leg with the switch. When she got to the end of the row, she called out, Get ready to march. That was our signal to turn, face the door, and wait for the third bell.

When it rang, exactly three minutes later, we marched, single file, out the door and down the hall to the bathroom with Miss Bjorklund watching our every step, tapping the switch against the palm of her left hand.

This was the way we started each day at the Andovia Home for Orphaned, Abandoned, and Wayward Girls (meaning pregnant and unwed). It was the place I lived for the better part of my childhood.

Chapter 1

Spring 1950

For many years Andovia was a military school for boys from wealthy families, but somewhere along the way it was abandoned and eventually turned into an orphanage.

There were two large buildings made of wood with a brick facing around the bottom, two wide passageways that connected them, and a cement quad in the middle between them.

A wide staircase led to the entrance and to the porch that circled around the main building. We were housed behind the brick facing, basically in the basement.

It was spring, not too cold but not warm enough for our cotton gowns, so we still had the flannel ones. They were plain, a solid dull gray, with round necks wide enough for us to put them over our heads so that buttons and zippers were not necessary.

They fell to our ankles, unless you had grown a lot in one year like Sybil, with sleeves to our wrists. That was good since the blankets were thin, and it was the gown that kept most of the cold from us.

There were small windows across the top of the brick wall, way above our heads, which were cracked open and held that way, summer, winter, spring, and fall, by metal braces. They provided most of the light in the room. In addition, there were four ceiling lights that were never anything more than dim.

During the heat of the summer, the room was damp and cool, but in the winter, it was so cold that you had to pull the blanket over your head and curl up into a tight ball, even though there were two radiators, one at each end of the cavernous room. But the heat never seemed to get to us (in fact, you could actually sit on them and never get a burn).

I am beginning this story not when I arrived at Andovia but five and a half years later, because of what happened in my life starting with that Monday morning in the spring of 1950.

We were at breakfast, and in between bits of yucky mush, Sybil whispered that a new girl, who was odd-looking, a mulatto, was coming soon, and no one really wanted her, but they were forced to take her. She didn't know exactly why, but she was sure that it was true.

I didn't know what a mulatto was or if Sybil was right, but she was such a know-it-all, always acting like she knew things nobody else knew and giving you that superior attitude if you asked questions, that I didn't ask.

I didn't care anyway. It was just another girl. There'd been several dozen new ones since I'd been there. What was one more? Besides, she wasn't going to be in our ward because there weren't any empty beds. Then the very next day, Fanny was suddenly adopted.

She had been in the bed next to mine. I suppose I wasn't surprised because she was the perfect type to be adopted if anybody was going to be adopted—beautiful blond curls, big blue eyes, dimples, shy, and in good health.

Anyway, that made the bed next to mine available, and sure enough, when the girl arrived, a few days later, Miss Bjorklund came down the row followed by this odd-looking girl carrying her bundle in her arms. They stopped in front of my bed. I was sitting on it.

Miss Bjorklund looked at me, her mouth curling up at the corners into a kind of sneer, and placed her hands firmly on the girl's shoulders. Amelia, she said to me, this is Susie Maitland. She's going to take Fanny's bed.

She then told Susie, Amelia's been here for five and a half years. She'll show you where to put your things. Won't you, Amelia?

In my mind, I mocked her. Won't you, Amelia? Won't you, Amelia? Someday I'll say no, I thought.

We called her Porky Borky behind her back or just plain Borky. Sybil could imitate her exactly. My name, she would say with Borky's same heavy accent, "is Miss Bjorklund, spelled, BJORKLUND and pronounced Bee-york-lund. Then she would pound her fist on something and say, Do you hear?"

We would all laugh. Of course, this was only done in the ward at night after we were supposed to be asleep.

Yes, Miss Bjorklund. I will.

Susie sat on the bed holding her small bundle in her lap. When Miss Bjorklund had waddled her way past the row of beds and out the door, I said, Hi.

She looked down at her hands wrapped around her possessions and said back, Hi, in a barely audible voice.

Was she stupid? Or did mulatto mean quiet? But I didn't care one hoot either way. If she didn't want to talk, it was no skin off me.

Fanny had talked too much, always yapping about her great family, always saying how her aunt was going to adopt her as soon as she could get the paperwork done. What paperwork could there be to adopting? Either you wanted a kid or you didn't.

I have the two top drawers of the dresser, I said (the privilege of being there first). You have the bottom two. There's a plastic container for your toothbrush and one for your comb and hair brush, if you have any. I wondered if she even had a brush since her hair was a tangled mess.

I then asked her if she had anything valuable. Not that I thought she did, by the look of her, but we were supposed to ask anyway. She looked up at me like she didn't know the meaning of the word, her huge brown eyes wide and blank, and shrugged her shoulders. Dumb, just like I thought.

Well, if you have anything, you have to give it to Miss Bjorklund. We aren't allowed to have anything valuable in the ward.

I waited a few seconds to see if she would put her stuff away, but she didn't move. Her arms were still holding on to the bundle for dear life. A little bug crawled along the floor under her dangling feet. I stomped on it. She flinched. A scaredy-cat too, I thought. Brother!

She was so little and skinny. You had to be at least eight and a half to be in our ward. She looked six. I told her to leave her stuff on the bed and follow me. It was probably junk anyway, and I knew no one would take it. They'd look through it, but they wouldn't take it.

Like a dutiful daughter, she followed me through the ward. Everybody stared at us. Barbara grabbed for her but missed. Marva called out, Where'd you come from? Mars?

There was laughter and boos. All of a sudden, whack. She went down on the floor behind me. I turned around. No one was there except Susie. Who did that? I asked her.

Nobody, she said in a wee voice. I tripped.

At least she wasn't a tattletale. Get up, I said sternly. I didn't offer to help. She was new and looked different, and this was the way it was going to be, and she might as well get used to it. I knew. I'd been there myself. She stood up slowly, clutching her arm. It obviously hurt.

We continued to the bathroom. I switched on the light and showed her the showers lined up in a row, little square troughs with spigots up on the walls and no curtains. Her eyes popped and not with pleasure. Maybe she was one of those, someone who had been loved and pampered until recently, when she lost both her parents.

If that were so, she certainly didn't look the part—only that one small bundle.

And the clothes on her back were definitely not from the rich. They had several holes and spots that I could tell wouldn't come out in the wash.

Maybe they had already taken her good clothes and had given them to someone else who needed them more. Maybe she was another one like Fanny and Sybil, someone who fancied themselves to be above the rest of us. If that was it, she was in for a lot of trouble and would get more than her share.

There ain't no bathtubs here, I said caustically. We all take showers. And you gotta get here early too or there's no hot water. You're small, so you probably won't see hot water for a year at least.

I added more just to make my point and maybe nauseate her a little bit. In the winter, it's so cold in here you can freeze up stiffer than a board before you even get clean. It worked. Her little body trembled. I had to turn my head to hide a giggle.

I wanted to bring her down a peg or two more and really scare the daylights out of her by taking her to the concrete room where the long leather belts were hanging, but the door was always locked. Sybil had a key. Sybil had keys to everything, but nobody knew it (I wasn't supposed to know it either).

It didn't matter anyway, because the bell rang, which meant we had only ten minutes to get to chapel, be in our seats in an orderly fashion, or receive twenty-five demerits and a smack across the hands with a stick.

Since it was her first day, she would be forgiven as Miss Bjorklund hadn't told her yet where she was supposed to sit. I would not be.

What's the bell for? she whispered.

Chapel, I answered. It's across the quad in the other building on the second floor. She just looked at me, bewildered. Hurry. Go see Miss Bjorklund. She'll tell you what to do. I have to put on my uniform.

I don't have a uniform, she said sheepishly.

Was she hopelessly stupid? Then you can't wear one, can you? I retorted sarcastically. I told you to go see Miss Bjorklund.

I don't know where she is.

Then go to the chapel. I told you how to get there. Across the quad and up to the second floor. She still didn't move, and she looked scared. Why was she given to me to show around? I didn't want her. She could get me in a lot of trouble, as well as herself. You have to go! I yelled.

She grabbed her injured arm. Her eyes clouded up, and her lips quivered. I don't know what a quad is, she said, shaking her head.

Was I supposed to feel sorry for her? Second by second, I was getting madder and madder. Where are you from? It's the concrete square in between the buildings where we play games and have recess from school. Just go through that door, I said, pointing to the door at the end of the hall, and up the stairs to the first floor and through the door, across the quad, into the other building and up to the second floor. You can't miss it.

I left her standing in the hall outside the bathroom and ran back to the ward. I grabbed the white cotton blouse and navy-blue pleated skirt from the clothes rack at the far end of the room and hurriedly put them on. My stockings and ribbon for my collar, of the same color, were in the second drawer of the dresser. Last were my black lace-up shoes. They were under the bed.

Before I put them on, I looked them over to make sure they were still polished shiny and had no spots on them. My hair didn't need combing as it was parted in the middle and braided in short braids.

Amazingly, I made it to my seat just as the second bell sounded, stepping on Helene in the process. Watch it, she complained in a low voice.

Mimi, on my other side, leaned across me and whispered to Helene, She was with that new mulatto girl. You liked her, huh, Meely?

No, I didn't like her, I said angrily. She's just a stupid mulatto. Couldn't find the bathroom by herself if she had to pee.

They laughed. I was vindicated.

When we stood up for the first song, I surreptitiously looked for her. Only out of curiosity. I didn't care, really. I just wondered if she made it. My eyes were still searching when we heard giggling behind us. Helene, Mimi, and I turned around, along with the rest of our row.

Miss Bjorklund had Susie by