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Is the character of Margaret Kenyon based on the life of one person, or is she a composite of several people, or purely made up? She lives in Amarillo, Texas, and in the pages of this very true-to-life novel, with its frame structure: a third-person narrator telling Margaret’s story and Margaret telling Frankie Bergeron’s story to Charles Bailey, who contacted Margaret to write a feature article on her for the newspaper, Margaret being Amarillo’s oldest nurse. About halfway through the novel, Charles suspects Frankie is Margaret, and that they are one in and the same is revealed shortly after the novel’s climax, the death of Sweet, Frankie’s months-old son. Frankie’s story is Margaret’s, with one difference: Frankie’s story ends in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Margaret’s continues.

Charles asks Margaret about Frankie. “What happened to her?”

“One day she just wasn’t there anymore. Disappeared.”

But she is vivid in Margaret’s memory. This is a novel about having a voice to tell a story; it’s about hope, revenge, grief, abuse, and the will to live. For the care and craft of what’s on the page, it is memorable.   

The challenge for the reviewer of any novel is not to spoil the story. After the tragic climax, there’s (for this reviewer) an abrupt shift in tone that is encapsulated in one word: hope. Hope is evoked in the presence of Dr. Head, Ada, Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Collingsworth, and Imogene and Sue Ellen Good, two characters from Teddy Jones’ previous novel A Family of Good Women, much of which, like this novel, is set in Borger, Texas.  All the aforementioned are good people, helping Frankie literally and figuratively to get back on her feet.

“She’d been without hope when she turned up there among those kind people.”

There being Head’s Hospital, in Borger, in 1929. Frankie was brought there comatose, clinging to life, as a result of injuries incurred from Dix Bergeron, a gambler, a drug addict-alcoholic, and a womanizer, who in a fit of rage took the life of Frankie’s infant son.

Ironically, early in the novel, Dix recuses Frankie from a life of abuse in Uncertain, Texas, taking her away, buying her clothes, teaching her how to present herself, and also how to get money by picking pockets. At first, their life together is glamorous and exciting in Wichita Falls, then in Lawton, Oklahoma. Dix teaches Frankie to drive an automobile, and she accompanies him on bootleg liquor runs. At one point in the story, Margaret asks Charles to suspend judgment on Frankie and Dix. The latter, who seems kind at first, becomes more and more controlling, and more and more out of control. 

Teddy Jones, by way of Margaret, does not tell readers what to think about Dix, but suggests they make up their own minds. Margaret doesn’t say Dix is evil, but rather shows it through his actions. Like Frankie, he is not one-dimensional. And, like Frankie, he is believable. But frighteningly real in ways Frankie is not.  Unlike her, Dix always carries a knife. 

One similarity between Margaret and Frankie involves touch, physical closeness. In Borger, Frankie finds work in a dance hall, earning money by dancing short dances for long hours with men. When she asks Dix, “Why do they pay?”

He replies, “Loneliness. They pay to hold a woman, even for a short time.”

In Amarillo, Margaret, as part of her work, goes to the hospital and holds newborn infants, emphasizing to Charles, who accompanies her on one visit, the infants’ need for human contact, a gentle touch. She tells Charles, “The other three days I work as an advocate for the elderly.” She tells him, “But even more important than not being noticed is what I call becoming inaudible.”

Charles accompanies her on a visit and witnesses her listening to an elderly man who tells her he enjoys sitting outdoors, listening to birds, and says it would be good to have a bird feeder to attract more birds. Margaret suggests how he could make that happen. She is a voice for the elderly, helping them help themselves. Similarly, the people in Head Hospital helped Frankie to take back her life. 

Dix is a bad seed, and older than Frankie, who is almost sixteen when they meet. At one point toward the end of the novel, Margaret mentions character flaws in Frankie. Did Frankie, by complying, enable Dix’s illicit and abusive behavior? After all, she stole for both of them. One mark against both is behavior that results in the loss of human life, a fact Margaret, by way of Frankie, lives with.

Dix manipulates Frankie, uses her till he no longer needs her. A foil to this toxic relationship is the positive relationship of Margaret and Charles. Both are kind and considerate, and trusting and honest with each other.  Each fulfills a need in the other. Charles contacts Margaret to write her story. Gradually, he learns her story is Frankie’s.

Margaret says, “…I promised I would be sure the story was told.”  Margaret keeps a promise she made to herself. 

From Frankie’s perspective, Charles hears, “—some memories leave scars, others smiles. She could do without the smiles if avoiding memory prevented more scars.”

Frankie’s story involves coming to terms with herself. 

Readers leave Frankie in Fort Worth, on her way back to Wichita Falls. She has a plan. Readers leave Margaret at her front door, watching Charles walk against the wind out to his car. Like Frankie, they have a plan. 

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