Emma's Gift

by Leisha Kelly

  Pouring water over the tea took just seconds, and I was back by the fire with the tray, thinking to sit and read while the tea steeped on the hearth.

  “Psalm 46. Is that what you said, Emma?”

  She didn’t answer, and I thought her asleep. She had every reason in the world to be exhausted, for sure. I turned and saw her head leaned back so serene, and my gut clenched tight as a clamp. She was asleep. She had to be! But something bitter and cold inside me didn’t believe it.

  “No.” I stood, barely aware of the thump of Wila’s Bible on the floor. “No, God.”

  In a panic I reached toward Emma but somehow couldn’t touch her. I called her name, knowing already there wouldn’t be an answer. Her quiet breath was stopped; her tender voice was stilled. For a moment I stood there, just staring. It couldn’t be. Not now. Not Emma too, when every last one of us needed her so much.

  I fell on my knees, forcing myself to reach and take hold of her hand. But it was not Emma’s hand now. The life that had touched me so often was gone.

  “No!” It had to be a mistake. It had to. She was just asleep! Sick. And so very tired. “Emma? Oh, please, Emma!” I laid one hand against the side of her neck, the other on her chest. “Emma?”

  I knew. There was no thump of her heart, no weary little breath. Nothing but her coldness, her deadness, and the fury of my pain.

  “No!” Tears clouded my vision as I reached for a cup of apple mint tea and flung it into the flames. “God, how could you do this? How could you leave me alone like this?” I pulled myself to my feet against the woven chair. One foot bumped against the fallen Bible, and I stared down at it, anger seething raw and vicious inside me.

  “Why? Why Emma too? You’re supposed to help people! You’re supposed to care!”

  The tears were so strong that no other words could come. I walked and I cried in the Hammond living room, almost wishing it was me sitting there cold in that chair.

  The wind was howling outside, and I knew the sky was still spitting snow. It would be hours, maybe days, before Samuel could get through. But he was over there with all of the children, having no idea what he’d be coming to face. I wanted to go to them, but I wasn’t sure if I’d make it through the cold and darkness. Where George had gone, I had no idea, but he wasn’t with Samuel. Somehow I knew that.

  I ran to the door, only to be nearly knocked over by the rush of furious wind, so much worse than before.

  “Mr. Hammond!” I screamed. But the only answer was the distant low of cattle. They’re going to starve, I thought. They’re going to starve if George hasn’t tended to them. And then those Hammond kids will all starve too.

  “Mr. Hammond!”

  I looked up at the sky, hoping to see some ray of dawn. Hadn’t it been night for an eternity already? But there was only darkness over the swirling snow. No break in the clouds, no stars, any more than there’d been moments ago when Emma had so anxiously looked up.

  It wasn’t right. The stars should be out, like Emma said, to welcome not one but two dear saints. They should be shining for Emma brighter than they’d ever shone before, instead of hiding themselves behind the cruelty of the storm. I shut the door, feeling that I was walking in a horrible dream. It couldn’t be real, this nightmare I was in.

  I thought of Grandma Pearl and how we’d found her, dead in her bed all stretched out like the undertaker had been there already. I knew I should lay Emma down somewhere so she wouldn’t stiffen, sitting like she was. But it seemed a sacrilege to move her, to touch her at all.

  But what if George comes in and finds her there? There was no telling what he might do. Better that he not see her first thing. Better to soften the blow the best I could. Emma would want that.

  Numb on my feet, I pulled the rocker with Emma in it toward the closed bedroom door. Oh, God! Where have you gone?

  With my eyes ablur I wrestled that rocker to the side of Wila’s bed. It seemed foolish what I was doing. Foolish. But I had to do it. Emma would want me to. She would do it if she were in my place.

  I folded the covers back and struggled to lift Emma from the chair, feeling all the while that my heart was dying. She was small, surely lighter than I was, but there was nothing easy to it just the same.

  I laid her there next to Wilametta, and they looked like sleeping sisters who shared some precious secret. There was no worry, no hurt on either one of them. I sunk away from the bed, breathing in short little gasps, wanting to scream and run for Samuel’s arms.

  For a moment or two I couldn’t move. My chest muscles were stiff, clenched. I shook but could not shake away the horror. I tried to breathe more deeply, and felt like I was choking. But I still had to do what I could for Emma. She’d said I was strong. I wasn’t. God knew I wasn’t. But I’d act it, if I could, for her sake.

  Carefully, I pulled off her coat, knowing in my heart that she would want Lizbeth to have it. But I couldn’t put a Sunday dress on her. I sat on the edge of the bed, my vision blurred again. Emma had picked out Wila’s finest right away, but I couldn’t do that. There were no other clothes here for Emma. Still, I brought water and washed her face, wishing she could feel it, open her eyes, and give me some word of comfort. I let her hair down, combed it proper with Wila’s comb, and then braided it and put it up the way she liked to wear it for church. I didn’t have any nickels, but Emma did, two more of them and a penny in her pocket with a paper dollar. I put the nickels on her eyes the way she’d showed me, though I’d never before seen anyone do that. There can’t be any more dying now, I thought. Only one little penny left, and that isn’t enough.

  I smoothed her dress and laid her hands against her chest, imagining her somewhere else right now, hugging on her long-departed husband, Willard. She wouldn’t be missing us, not the way we’d miss her. I pulled the covers to her chin, though I supposed it didn’t matter.

  I couldn’t cover her face. She’d claimed me for family many times, but I knew I didn’t have the strength to do it. I backed out of the room, leaving the rocker there by the bed. I closed the door with shaking hands. I picked up the tray of tea things and set them on the kitchen table. Then I looked about the room, thinking to make myself useful again. But instead I sank to the floor, my heart pounding and my head aching with the hurt that would surely never stop.

  FOUR

  Samuel

  I woke before light, something restless in me nudging me awake. The first thing I noticed was the calm outside. The wind had died down. The snow too, hopefully. Maybe the doctor would be at the Hammond house by now, or at least before long. Maybe Juli would be home pretty soon. I hoped she’d managed to get some rest.

  I was quiet, slipping away from Sarah, who was curled beside me. All the kids were still asleep, sprawled in every direction, but most of them up against somebody else. I poked the coals in the fireplace, blew on them, and added a couple of cobs and some tinder to get the fire blazing again.

  Lizbeth was the first to waken, anticipating by a fraction of a second the movement of the baby, who had somehow gotten to her side in the night.

  “Gonna need some of the goat milk for her, aren’t you?” I asked quietly, hoping the baby wasn’t about to bawl loud enough to shake the heavens.

  “Yes, sir, if you don’t mind.”

  I set in a little more wood, lit a kerosene lamp from a shelf, and carried it with me to get the baby’s milk. I knew Robert would be up before long. He was always an early riser, as I expected at least some of the Hammond boys to be. But I hoped that most of them would sleep in as long as possible. They might be itching to head home and check on their mother, and I wasn’t sure yet what to tell them.

  Franky was rolling over as I came back with the milk. He wiped his eyes and his nose on his sleeve and looked up at me. Lizbeth gave her sister the milk right away, and the baby started slurping it down hungrily. I’d been quick enough to avoid the otherwise inevitable wail.

  “Got to milk Lula Bell,” I told Lizbeth. “But I’ll be right back in t
o start some breakfast.”

  She nodded at me, her eyes still on Emma Grace.

  “Can I go with you?” Franky whispered.

  “You better stay here. Liable to be pretty fierce for cold. You watch the fire for me and throw on a log or two. Can you do that real quiet?”

  “Yes, sir.” He slid away from his cover toward the fire, wiping his eyes again almost as if he’d been crying.

  “Worried about your mom?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll find something out before long. But I expect she’s all right.”

  Robert rolled over, and I told him to feed the chickens. I went and lit the stove in the kitchen and stocked it with wood. Then I was ready to get the milk pail and head outside.

  The wind was gone but not the clouds. It was just getting light in the east and trying to snow quiet flurries at the same time. It was hard to figure just how much it had snowed yesterday and through the night. In some patches there were just inches on the ground, but there were also drifts standing in great glistening piles higher than my head. It was a strange, sparkling-white landscape in which the trees stood like silent angels, their powdery wings lifted to the sky. The worst of the storm was past, at least for now, leaving this pure, cold beauty in its wake.

  I prayed for Juli, that any storm was past in that house too, and all was well. But as I looked at the shape of the road, I didn’t think it likely that the doctor could have gotten through. I wondered if Sam Hammond had even reached him, and where he might be if he hadn’t. Our lane was drifted closed, and beyond that you could barely distinguish road from the flat fields stretching past it. There wouldn’t be any automobiles through today. And Hammonds’ wagon was stuck in a drift by the barn, its front wheels completely hidden in the snow.

  I’d have to feed old Teddy first thing. But it took me a time just getting the snow cleared from the door to get into the barn. Our dog, Whiskers, jumped out at me with his happy tail bouncing. Dorcas the cat, with a kitten now as big as she was, came rubbing at my ankles. I expected they’d all spent the night snuggled together in the hay.

  Teddy appeared to be asleep, standing up in the stall where we’d put him last night. I pulled the end of a bale of hay and threw it in at his feet. Lula Bell was calling me, ready for the milking to be over and done. I patted her soft neck and pulled up the stool. I’d never milked a cow before her, nor even touched one, but she and I had come to a pretty decent understanding in the seven months we’d been here.

  I could hear Robert and at least one of the Hammond boys hollering back and forth in the general direction of the chicken coop. No doubt the better part of them would want to play a while in the snow, if they had decent clothes for it, which most of them didn’t. It set me to wondering about the walk to school after New Year’s. I’d still send my two, even in the cold, or probably walk them there myself. But maybe the Hammonds would be missing a lot of days through the worst of the winter. They seemed to miss a lot of days anyway. Especially the older ones, who hardly ever went.

  And then I thought of Christmas. Only five days away. I’d made sleds for my kids, since buying anything was out of the question. But what about the Hammonds? Had George found a way to provide anything other than Patches the pig for their Christmas? He had more livestock than we did, but that was about all. I’d worked a part of the harvest for Barrett Post, and that helped us buy groceries at least, but I wasn’t sure if George had gotten much cash for anything, even what little he’d managed to pull out of his and Emma’s dry field. I thought maybe we ought to have them all over. With Wilametta being sick like this, they might appreciate somebody else doing a little Christmas for them. Juli could probably even turn out a cake good enough to suit Rorey if she had to.

  I was almost done milking, with the cat rolling around my ankles, when Joe came out to the barn looking for me.

  “Snowing,” he said. “Starting to come down pretty good again.”

  I shook my head. That was about the opposite of what I’d expected and wanted right now.

  “Was thinking maybe I oughta go over and see if Pa could use a hand with chores.”

  He was worrying, I could see it in him. But here was another thin Hammond boy in barely adequate clothing, about to head out through the drifts. “Better get something in your belly first,” I told him. “It’ll take a lot longer than usual getting through that timber today.”

  Robert suddenly showed up in the doorway behind him. “You gonna cook breakfast for all of us?”

  “I guess I will. Unless you want to.”

  “There wasn’t but four eggs. They’s way down.”

  “It’s the cold. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make pancakes. Get Whiskers that other bone your mother boiled for the soup yesterday.”

  Robert was quiet a minute, thinking. “You s’pose she’ll be able to get home today with all this snow?”

  “Remains to be seen, buddy.” I picked up the milk pail, not near full, and started for the house with Joe and Robert following me. It was snowing harder, all right. Willy was sitting in the middle of a snowdrift, and Joe scolded him soundly with the reminder that they had no dry clothes to change into. And I thought of Juli, only a mile away.

  But what a mile it was on a day like this.

  FIVE

  Julia

  It was getting light, but not near light enough to lift my soul that morning. No more firewood in the house. Water bucket empty. Not a sign from George or anyone else through the many long, cold hours. I sat on the floor where I’d sunk last night, but there were no more tears, and I could barely put two thoughts together. I just sat staring at the grimy kitchen walls, the peeling paint and once-rosy paper border now curling downward from the tattered corners. Everywhere was loss. And decay. Everywhere I looked.

  It occurred to me that I didn’t have to stay here, that I could try to push my way through the woods to my family, snow or no snow. I was sturdy enough. I’d walked it several times in fine weather and always enjoyed myself. But Emma was here. Here.

  She might’ve been in Belle Rive just a skip away from the doctor if she hadn’t loved her farm so much. She’d come to live her last days and die at home and be buried next to her beloved Willard. But this was a cruel, ugly trick. Just a mile away. Just a mile. But she died here.

  The thought gave me a deep, seething anger that scared me. I felt like throwing things at the faceless sky. I might have done it and felt justified too, if there’d been much of anything handy that was mine to throw.

  It was plain unfair, and anyone could see it. Emma was good. The best person I’d ever known. She’d given her whole heart to people, and everything else she could think of to give, even though she never had much for herself. Emma was a saint if I ever met one. How could it possibly have hurt the plan of heaven to allow her to die where she wanted to die, right in her own bed, in her own house, on the farm that had been her life for more than seventy years?

  I rose up off the floor, a darkness clouding over me like I’d never known before, a deep, searing hurt that soaked through me like oil. “She prayed to you, God,” I said aloud, startled at the raspiness of my voice. “Why would you let this happen?”

  My hands were like ice, and it was no help at all trying to rub a little warmth into my stiff arms. It’s so cold, I thought. At least there won’t be much change to the bodies by the time someone finds us. Maybe I’ll be dead by then too.

  I thought of George, still out there somewhere. He was the one who might be dead, and truly. Maybe I should’ve looked for him. Maybe I should’ve run over to Samuel, or somewhere, last night, trying to get help. Maybe there was something I could’ve done to save somebody. But now there were children to face. Children. Oh, God, why?

  I pulled on my coat, not knowing why I hadn’t thought of that before. I’d been sitting half froze, with blankets and my coat just a few feet away. And there was wood outside, surely. George would have a stock of it somewhere. The barn, maybe.

  Through the w
indow I saw that it was snowing, and I wanted to curse. I didn’t do it, but having the feeling shook me. I used to think I was strong. Even after losing our home in Pennsylvania and all we had, I’d managed to be all right. I’d felt God’s protective hand. But this was different. Wilametta’s was a senseless, premature death. Like my mother, so long ago. But Wila had left ten needy souls behind her, not just one. It brought tears to my eyes again, thinking especially of Rorey, who was about the size I was when I’d heard the news of my own mother. And then there was Emma. An angel on earth. If this could happen to her, then anything could happen. Lord have mercy.

  I couldn’t leave till someone came. I couldn’t leave Emma here, even in death. But I knew I should look for George. Emma would want me to. I had daylight now if I had nothing else, and I could get to the barn at least, just to see if he might’ve gone there. At least I’d know that much.

  But it was a terrifying thought, knowing there might be another body to face. Or he might just be gone, never to be found. What would I tell his children then? Might they look at me forever as the one who’d been here, the one who might’ve done something to make a difference but didn’t? I couldn’t think of anything I could’ve done differently, and yet I’d failed. Utterly and desperately.

  I buttoned my coat, forgetting the hat and scarf that lay at the top of my bag. I’d never taken off the boots, the only pair Emma had kept two of. She’d said they were so nice they ought to be shared. I turned and looked at the door that separated me from the sight of her and Wila. I thought of them here, just this summer, enjoying sassafras together while Emma looked over Emma Grace with a smile. So much they’d shared. And they were still sharing, even now.

  With the deepest breath I could muster out of lungs that felt like lead, I turned and shoved the outer door open. It wasn’t as windy as it had been, but it was cold, and the snow was heavy again, piling on top of all that was already there. Barren, frigid wasteland as far as the eye could see. Quiet as the death that encompassed it. It seemed as if a spell had been cast over this place that had always before been boisterous enough to make a body tired.