The note was written in a scrawl

Chapter 1) The Love Card 
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It was a peculiar accident, the way it happened.
The morning was exhilarating to that point, with the dew burning off and the sun getting higher.
The fingers of warmth finally reached Maggie's face, but now she was on the ground, sitting undignified on her rump in the leaves.

She was caught by the ankle in a hole by a root.
She watched Carl drive by on the tractor a while back, but now he was long gone to the fields and she couldn't stand up.

She should have known better than getting distracted watching for snakes because you wouldn't see them anyway.
It was the river that enticed her to walk down the hill where she waited for nearly an hour after the suitor who promised to meet that day never showed up.

You couldn’t forget Maggie.
Tall. Beautiful.

She was only there because of the note.
She didn't like intrigue, but there was a mystery about it.
The note felt warm in her hand and the words made her laugh.

The handwriting was a bit of a scrawl, written in brown ink.
The brown ink was unusual, and the handwriting not anybody she recognized.
Even so, it might've been someone she knew.
It was worth the chance.

The note spoke of romance. She would meet a man.
Next year was her senior year. She was almost 17 and expected to have things settled by now.
Quite popular at school. The other girls liked her, but there were some that probably didn’t.
The boys knew her. But not like that, she was a nice person.

She liked the boys but mostly she liked one more than the others.
The man in her eye was Tad. They looked forward to seeing each other, and going to parties and social events.
He was popular too, and together they were admired by teachers and parents alike for the standard of courtship they embraced.
While she hoped the note came from him, the handwriting didn't match.
She was realistic. Tad might be the one, but she was holding herself for a man with a good job.

Her mother had five children, two of them died young, leaving the family haunted in sadness.
The death of her youngest brother was still fresh.
He was 5 years old. She remembered the turmoil of his fever and her mother's wails and sobs that could never be washed off that room, even with a new coat of oil.
Her older sister, Bonnie recovered.

Her middle sister, Joddie was numbed.
They used to have such fun together, Maggie and Joddie, but the death changed Joddie. After that, she was still a perfect girl, but her eyes turned empty and she seemed lost.

The note said ‘they would meet between the trees.’
It had to be the Live Oaks at the top of the hill where she stood.
She loved those trees and the long branches that swung down touching the ground and then back up.
The note must have come from someone who knew those trees held special memories when her family was happy and they ventured far from town for picnics and adventure.

It was disappointing that nobody showed up.
Who would play such a joke?
She was sitting on one of the low branches looking down into the field below when Carl drove by.
He was a trusted Negro and worked for some of the men around town including her father.  That might have been why she felt safe walking down to the river.

Her father, Joel Winston, was an important man. He owned the feed store. He was a decent quiet strong person, and expected a rigid backbone from those around him.
Most Tuesdays, a railcar arrived at the siding and the men would unload bags into the storeroom.
Each morning the trucks would back up to the platform to load feed and fertilizer.
The men would talk.
That's the way it was in her beautiful little town of Trinity.
She was born there, and it would be her home forever.

Her oldest sister, Bonnie was married the year before to an ambitious man, Howard Ray who went to work at the feed store with her father to learn the business and become a partner.
Howard and Bonnie moved into the corner house down the street. The first baby was due in August.

The middle sister, Joddie turned a different way. She talked ordinary and wore her mother's Christian cross but then ran off and married an older man. That man, Richard Bob Stewart was a strange one. Greasy and loud, without manner or prospect.
Maggie felt like cold flesh when he was around. He called her Maybe, and was constantly confused about proper names and who he was married to.

Maggie's parents pretended things were fine. But they weren’t, and now both sisters were gone, and Maggie was the last child left in that big empty house.
She worried what would happen to her mother after she moved out. There was pressure to stay, but Maggie refused to see herself trapped in the heartache.

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