When Nighttime Shadows Fall , livre ebook
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2017
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121
pages
English
Ebook
2017
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Publié par
Date de parution
30 novembre 2017
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781611178333
Langue
English
A young social worker from Atlanta struggles to gain the trust of pregnant teens in rural Appalachia
In the early 1970s, Laura Bauer decides to leave college and head fifty miles north of her comfortable Atlanta home to manage a federally funded project aiding pregnant teenagers from the back roads of Appalachia. Almost as young as her clients, Laura is immediately confronted with—and almost overwhelmed by—a variety of young women in desperate circumstances, having no other source of prenatal care.
When Nighttime Shadows Fall, Diane Michael Cantor's second novel, portrays the world of these girls with compassion, hardscrabble humor, and reverence for their families' capacities to prevail despite hardships. Among the characters are Mavis, a defiant, tough-as-nails preacher's daughter; Lisa, a victimized thirteen-year-old; Nell, a shy girl who is constantly berated by herdomineering mother; and self-conscious Mandy, whose proud husband, twice her age, detests any form of charity. As an outsider whose urban upbringing is vastly different from those of her clients, Laura must win their trust and overcome her own inexperience and the magnitude of the need she finds.
The novel follows Laura as she struggles to locate her clients during their first trimesters, when they are still eligible for the project's services but often trying to conceal their pregnancies. As she overcomes their suspicions and tries to help them during those first critical months, Laura comes to realize she has prepared at least a few of them to open doors to their unexpected futures, just as they have helped her find the determination to face her own.
When Nighttime Shadows Fall movingly portrays Laura's clients as they search for love from boyfriends, husbands, and babies. Some find it, but ultimately, through powerful revelations, their strength comes from within.
Publié par
Date de parution
30 novembre 2017
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781611178333
Langue
English
When Nighttime Shadows Fall
When Nighttime Shadows Fall
a novel
Diane Michael Cantor
The University of South Carolina Press
2017 Diane Michael Cantor
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-832-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-61117-833-3 (ebook)
Front cover design by Faceout Studio
Images by Thinkstock and Getty Images
In Memory of Grace Paley 1922-2007
Who inspired a generation of writers to tell the stories of those all around them, and by honestly expressing such stories, learn better how to tell their own.
In Honor of Constance M. Park, M.D.
Who encouraged a generation of medical students to see in each patient a unique personality and brave story rather than only the manifestations of illness.
When Nighttime Shadows Fall
I need someone to love me most every time of day,
Someone who truly loves me, no matter what folks say,
Just like a tiny baby when nighttime shadows fall,
I need someone to love me more than anyone at all.
Someone who cares about me
Who ll always take my side
Won t let nobody curse me
Less they want to step outside.
I need someone who wants me to be there all the time,
Who won t have any friend who s not a friend of mine.
Just like springtime waters flow down the mountainside
I need someone to help me against the raging tide.
Someone who cares about me
Who ll always take my side
Won t let nobody curse me
Less they want to step outside.
I need someone to hold me when the winter wind is cold
Someone who ll never leave me or let our love grow old,
Just like a little puppy who s left out all alone
I need someone to find me and take me to their home.
Someone who cares about me
Who ll always take my side
Won t let nobody curse me
Less they want to step outside.
I need someone to love me most every time of day,
Someone who truly loves me, no matter what folks say,
Just like a tiny baby when nighttime shadows fall,
I need someone to love me more than anyone at all.
by Mickey Osgood and performed by Steel Vulture, Canton, Georgia, 1973
Contents
Preface
CHAPTER 1 First Days
CHAPTER 2 In This Locale
CHAPTER 3 One Part Peanut Butter
CHAPTER 4 My Little Girl
CHAPTER 5 Mountain Breezes
CHAPTER 6 In Its Proper Place
CHAPTER 7 Mondays
CHAPTER 8 Girl!
CHAPTER 9 A Beautiful Build
CHAPTER 10 A Red Velvet Sofa
CHAPTER 11 Afternoon Tea
CHAPTER 12 For Three Lousy Bucks
CHAPTER 13 Just an Accident
CHAPTER 14 No Special Trouble
CHAPTER 15 A Little Lie
CHAPTER 16 The Right Thing
CHAPTER 17 Nothin
CHAPTER 18 Just One Night
CHAPTER 19 Your Dan-Dan
CHAPTER 20 The Sampler
CHAPTER 21 Something Borrowed
CHAPTER 22 This Bounty
CHAPTER 23 Michelle s Daddy
CHAPTER 24 When Nighttime Shadows Fall
Preface
This is a work of fiction. All characters and situations are invented, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional.
In Appalachian Georgia in the early 1970s, before the expansion of Medicaid benefits, prenatal care was unavailable to those who could not pay for it or who did not receive private insurance benefits. Pregnant teenagers, a population highly susceptible to complications during pregnancy and most at risk of giving birth to premature or low-birth-weight babies or those with birth defects, often had no access to prenatal care and nutrition and only saw a doctor for the first time when they appeared at a hospital emergency room ready to deliver.
D IANE M ICHAEL C ANTOR Savannah, Georgia 2016
CHAPTER 1
First Days
Atlanta, Georgia, 1973
My father was always very kind unless you crossed him. When it was time to return to college my junior year, I crossed him. I didn t mean to, but I was nineteen and knew what I wanted didn t include attending classes. At an early age I had figured out the reason my father s old army buddies called him Bull and why, when I acted particularly stubborn about wearing my cowgirl outfit out to a family dinner instead of the nice dress my mother had selected, or when I insisted I could pop open a can of spinach with my bare hand just like Popeye instead of using a can opener, I was just like him.
He never yelled at the people who worked at his downtown jewelry store. He considered raising his voice an admission of his inability to maintain authority, as well as ungentlemanly conduct. But when I told him I planned to leave college so I could be in the real world, he puffed out his chest like an aggressive Scottish terrier and yelled at me, veins showing in his neck, the muscles rippling in his arms as he clenched his fists.
Laura, that s the dumbest thing I ve heard of, he shouted, pounding the kitchen counter between us. You re gonna throw away a scholarship to a New York college people practically have to die to get into so you can work in this health project doing something you re unqualified to do. It s out of the question. He turned away from me, focusing his attention on the special everything-but-the-kitchen-sink scrambled eggs he was fixing for us that Saturday morning, indicating that the matter was settled.
It s not up to you, Dad! I nervously dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands, but I still managed to speak up. I m not a kid anymore. You can t make me go to college.
Maybe not, he conceded, dishing us up generous plates of eggs and setting down two mugs of strong black coffee. But I don t have to keep supporting you either. Ever think of that? His startlingly blue eyes stared me down.
I ll live on my salary. I ll be fine. I m not asking you to support me.
Well, Miss Independence, how bout when you get sick of playing social worker and you ve used up all your money just getting by, and there s no more scholarship? How re you gonna finish your degree then? He doused his eggs with Tabasco sauce. Don t come crying to me.
Dad, I ve never come crying to you, I insisted, knowing I hadn t done that even when I was a little kid and scraped my knee. Anyhow, what about how you always say that all work is honorable? Besides, it s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If some lady hadn t turned it down at the last minute, they d never have considered me without a degree.
Maybe they shouldn t. What do you know about social work? he asked more calmly, clearly hoping to reason with me. This is a dead end. Even if nobody cares right now because they re in a pinch, it ll mess you up later not having a degree. Doors will shut in your face. I can t stand by and watch you throw away your opportunities. If you only knew what your mother or I would have given for the chance to go to college full time.
I was tempted to say I did know since he d told me a hundred times how hard it was after my grandfather died, when he had to drop out of school to support his family any way he could while he went to night school. But something about his frustration and the suffering in my mother s eyes whenever she relived memories of what had happened in Europe silenced me.
But nobody told you what to do, Daddy, I reminded him. They wouldn t have dared.
Even with his head bent over his plate, I could see the crinkling around his eyes as he started to smile. I had scored big acknowledging that no one pushed Bull Bauer around.
You re right about that, he agreed proudly. But I never tried to do things I knew nothing about. Being smart isn t everything. You don t know a thing about poor North Georgia towns or finding pregnant teenagers. Before they show, they ll be hiding. And what about all the people you can t help? He sighed deeply. Laura, you re too young to deal with turning people away when you re their last resort.
I assured him it wouldn t be that way at all. I had read the New Families Project guidelines and knew it would be easy to attract clients since the services were free and the families had so much to gain. I pictured myself leading a dedicated team, dispensing hope to those who had been ignored by an unjust healthcare system and abandoned by their boyfriends. I would be trained, just as high school assignments had prepared me for college and going away to college had equipped me for the challenge of standing up to my father, who, though he loved me, didn t know everything.
Chadwick, Georgia (a few weeks later)
I arrived at the Project office, expecting to be oriented by the administrator, who was driving over to explain our admissions process. Since I was early, I let myself in with the key I d picked up in the Atlanta office and began glancing through the several large manuals on my desk. I had hardly slept the night before in my excitement about leaving student life for the work world. My parents had lent me money to buy a used Plymouth Duster, which though dented by its previous owners, I had proudly driven forty miles to work wearing my new blue suit. I had filled out and brought with me all the necessary application and insurance forms. I was ready for anything.
When after an hour the office manager had still not come in, I checked the blinking answering machine and learned she had stayed home with a sick grandchild. Another message informed me that due to a collision between a chicken truck and a logging trailer near Ellijay, the highway was shut down and Mrs. Cremins, our regional administrator, was unable t
