Addie sniffed hard, her lower lip wobbling. “I doubt there’s anything you can do, but I’ll tell you anyway.” She relayed her conversations with the dean and Mr. Bowles and details from Mother’s letter. As Addie spoke, Felicity’s mouth fell open and her eyebrows shot so high they nearly disappeared beneath her carefully coiffed bangs. Her explanation complete, Addie hung her head and shrugged. “So, there you have it. I’m…expelled, and I have nowhere to go.”
“Barred from class and even from the cafeteria? How uncivilized! What do they expect you to do, starve to death?” Felicity bolted to her feet and paced back and forth in the narrow space between the beds, waving her arms. “The dean of students is supposed to defend students, not defeat them. If Ol’ Ichabod won’t do his job, then I’ll start a petition. I’ll organize a protest. I’ll paint banners and assign students to march in front of the administration building while calling for—”
Addie grabbed Felicity’s arm and pulled her onto the mattress. “You’ll do no such things.”
“But when people know what’s happened to you, they’ll—”
“No, Felicity.”
Felicity twisted loose and glared. “Yes, Addie. It must be done. You must be vindicated.”
Addie took hold of Felicity’s shoulders. “Listen to me. The school can’t allow me to attend classes or eat meals for free. How would that be fair to the students who are paying?” What about the balance she still owed? How would she pay the outstanding bill? She dropped her hands to her lap and heaved a huge sigh. “It’s not Dean Crane’s fault. He’s only doing his job.”
Felicity blinked rapidly. “But, Addie, you’re my best friend in the whole wide world. How can I sit here and do nothing to help?”
Addie sent her a sidelong look. “Do you really want to help?”
“You know I do!”
“Then”—Addie offered a weak grin—“could you maybe sneak me a sandwich from the cafeteria? I didn’t have breakfast, and I’m famished.”
Felicity rose so quickly the mattress bounced. “A sandwich? Oh, no, my dear, I’ll bring you something hot and hearty, even if I have to carry it out in my pockets.” She marched to the door, hands clenched into fists and arms pumping. “Wait here. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” She paused in the doorway and cast a sorrowful look over her shoulder. “I wish I had lots of money. I’d pay your bill.”
Addie’s heart rolled over in her chest. “You’re a good friend, Felicity. Thank you.”
With a nod, she scurried out of the room.
Addie picked up Mother’s letter. She sniffed, cleared the moisture from her eyes with a sweep of the back of her hand, and focused on Mother’s precise penmanship.
Your daddy and I are praying for you, asking God to comfort your aching heart and to provide for you. We remind ourselves that He is better equipped to meet your needs than we are, and we trust Him to guide and protect you. I do hope you’ll find the time to write. Even if you only want to rail at us and complain, we still want to hear from you.
We love you forever and always,
Mother
Addie read the other two letters, then folded them all together. She held the stack against her bodice and eased backward until her spine met the mattress. Her feet dangling toward the floor, she stared at the painted ceiling. When she was very young, before Mother and Daddy adopted her from the orphanage, she often lay awake at night and stared out the window at the sky, searching for a falling star on which to make a wish. The wish was always the same. She whispered it now. “I wish I had a daddy and mama to love me.”
God had heard her little-girl wish and sent Penrose and Fern Cowherd to rescue her from that dreary place. Mother and Daddy often said God chose her specially just for them, but she knew the opposite was true. She had a few fuzzy memories of the parents who’d birthed her, and they had been good people, but she couldn’t imagine better parents than the ones who’d adopted her.
“Even if you only want to rail at us and complain, we still want to hear from you.”
Addie pushed off the bed and hurried to the desk. She slid Felicity’s books aside, retrieved paper and a pen from the drawer, and smacked them onto the desktop. A letter formed in her mind. She would not rail at and complain to the wonderful people who’d taken her into their home and loved her as their own. First, she would apologize for not writing sooner. Then she would thank them for everything they’d done for her. Finally, she would promise to get them out of that awful boardinghouse. They didn’t belong there any more than she had belonged in the orphans’ asylum.
A plan unfolded. She would find a job, save every cent possible, and send it to Mother and Daddy. Lexington was larger than Georgetown. Surely there were opportunities here for a girl to make an honest wage. It meant putting off her own plans for her future, but what kind of daughter would she be if she gave in to her selfish wants and left her parents in need? They’d rescued her. Now she would rescue them.
She took up the pen and wrote, “Dearest Mother and Daddy…”
Addie
AFTER SHE FINISHED THE FLAVORFUL chicken and dumplings Felicity brought from the cafeteria—which she carried in a bowl, thank goodness, and not in her pocket—Addie set off for the Lexington Public Library. She needed solace and would find it there. Had she really awakened only a few short hours ago lighthearted, secure in her world, and with a carefree summer stretching before her? So quickly her life had changed, and the uncertainties now looming ahead rested heavily on her shoulders. Even so, she caught herself walking with a bounce in her step. And why not? How could anyone, even someone burdened with cares and woes, trudge along when something as wondrous as a library waited at the end of the pathway?
She’d thanked God dozens of times in the past three years for the opportunity to work in the beautiful neoclassical building that was constructed at the edge of Gratz Park thirty years ago, thanks to a generous donation from Andrew Carnegie. The one-mile route from the university campus led more directly to the library’s back door, but Addie always walked the additional yards needed to enter from the front. Every time she ascended the library’s concrete steps and crossed between a pair of its two-story-high fluted columns, she experienced a chill of delight. Books! How she loved books. The clean or musty smell, depending on the book’s age. The weightiness in her hands. The joy of discovery as the words printed on a piece of paper formed pictures in her mind. Was there anything more magical or satisfying than a book?
Had her fascination begun with the stories Mother read to her each bedtime from the first day of her adoption on, or did it go back even further to the short years before she became Adelaide Cowherd? She couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that books were a marvelous invention, and a novel bearing the name A. F. Penrose—didn’t combining her and her parents’ names create an authorly ring?—on its cover would stand proud one day on library shelves across the state. Perhaps across the entire nation.