by Leisha Kelly
“You couldn’t have helped it,” I told him. “It was too dangerous in that storm. I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“I had to. Pa said—”
“No.” I almost told him his pa should’ve known better. He should’ve known it was too late, once the storm started beating down in its fury. But I couldn’t say those words. “There’s no use thinking on what might have been. We did the only thing we knew. Don’t be blaming yourself.”
George was suddenly yelling in the house. We all knew it was him, though it was impossible to make out just what he was saying.
“Is he drunk?” Sam asked.
“No,” his brother told him. “Out of his head, though. Hard tellin’ what he’ll do.”
The eldest Hammond shook his head, pain working deep in his eyes. I wished he would cry. At least Joe had done that. But Sam pulled himself up and looked at the house. “The kids over to your place still?” he asked me.
“Yes. And they’ll be glad to know you’re back safe.”
“Do they know? ’Bout Mama?”
Joe looked at me again and sighed. “Yeah. By now they know.”
Sam shook his head. “What’re we gonna do now? We could lose this place without Emma.”
“Pa said that,” Joe acknowledged. “He said there weren’t no use the kids comin’ back, ’cause it weren’t gonna be their home no more anyhow. I didn’t know how much a’ what he’s sayin’ to believe, though, with him like this.”
I could see their eyes meet. The two oldest boys, and here they were talking this out like everything would be up to them now.
“Without Mama, we ’bout got nothin’ left,” Sam said.
“There’s Aunt Chloe.”
“No. With Dude and Rachel, and Simon sick all the time, she ain’t gonna be much help. And Aunt Fedora won’t do nothin’ for Pa without Mama around.”
I wondered about those two boys. They’d always respected their father. He was always working at something, and they’d always done what he’d said. But right now they were expressing no confidence in him at all.
“We’ll be all right,” Joe said, trying to sound certain. “Lizbeth knows most ever’thin’ what to do with the little ones anyhow.”
“We’ll make it one way or another,” young Sam added gravely. “But it ain’t all right.”
Dr. Howell was already starting back from the house. “Wasn’t anything contagious that I can see,” he said as he approached us. “Rest assured of that much at least. I knew to expect it of Emma. Awful shame about that Mrs. Hammond, though. She been sick long?”
“Two or three days, maybe,” Joe told him. “Off an’ on the whole fall, afore that.”
Dr. Howell looked from one boy to the other. “Can’t be helped, then. Mighty sorry for you, sons.”
Sam only turned his head.
“You gotten a chance to send word to the undertaker?” the doctor asked me.
“Don’t need no undertaker,” Sam said immediately. “Can’t afford him. Don’t hardly know him anyhow. Mama’d want seen to by the folks that knowed her best.”
Dr. Howell didn’t respond to that. He only turned to me and solemnly shook my hand. “Shall I notify Emma’s kin for you when I get back to town?”
“Covey Mueller is supposed to be doing that. But you’ve known her a long time. I’d appreciate you checking to make sure he got through, and letting her friends know, at least all that you know of.”
He nodded. “Rita McPiery, of course. And Miss Sharpe from her church in Dearing.”
Of course he’d think of Mrs. McPiery right away. But Miss Sharpe? She was the crotchety old lady that had thought Emma was crazy for moving back home. She’d despised Juli and me from the start and tried to turn Albert Graham against us. But Emma loved her anyway. Emma loved everybody.
“So sorry, again,” the doctor was telling the boys. And then he glanced at me before making his way back to the sleigh. “Tell George I said I was sorry. Will you do that?”
He never said anything about what George had been yelling about. He didn’t say if he’d tried to talk to him or not. He just gave us all another nod and started off through the snow.
“Yes, sir,” I told his back, though I knew he wouldn’t hear me now. “I’ll tell him.”
Young Sam headed for the house then. Joe followed him, and so did I, not knowing what else to do. “He’s made a awful mess,” Joe told his brother. “He was crazy mad a while ago.”
“He hurt you?” Sam asked immediately.
And I was surprised at the question. I knew George spanked his children. Fiercely, sometimes. But I’d never heard any of them express any concern about abuse.
“Nah,” Joe replied. “He weren’t mad at me especially.”
“Who’s he mad at? God?”
“An’ Emma. An’ Mr. Wortham.” He glanced at me. “Whole world, I guess. Mama too.”
“That don’t make no sense.”
Joe’s reply about broke my heart. “I don’t guess nothin’ does.”
When we went inside, George was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. He didn’t look up, but Barrett, who’d been sitting across from him, stood. “Good to see you’re all right after such a trip,” he told the oldest boy. “Weren’t a fit night for a beast out there.”
Sam stopped and sighed. “Thanks for your concern, Mr. Post.”
“I want you to know that me an’ Clem’ll take care a’ what all needs done for your mama, so you boys don’t need to be concernin’ yourselves.”
“It’s our job to take care of,” George’s eldest protested. “Our mama raised us to do what we could for ourselves.”
“But she’d want you havin’ help, boy. That’s the way things is done. You let us see to the buryin’. You’d do us the favor. And maybe one day you’ll hafta do the same for us.”
Both boys nodded. Then they walked together toward their mother’s room. I waited with Barrett.
“They should be all right here, hard as it is,” he told me. “We need to get goin’ afore long and see to what else needs done.” He looked over at George. “It ain’t a good time just yet bringin’ the other children through the snow, if they’s okay with you a couple a’ days. George promised me not to go off half-cocked and not to touch no bottle. We can settle ’em back in over here day after next if the weather don’t worsen.”
After the funerals were done, I supposed, though Barrett didn’t put it that way. But didn’t the kids need their father before that? I thought they’d need him now more than ever. “Nobody has to stay here right now,” I said. “It might be easier not to for a couple of days. George, I’d like you and the boys to come with me tonight. It’d be a comfort to your younger children. They don’t know what to expect, things as strange as they are like this.”
“You’d think strange.” That was all George said, and I had no clue what he meant by it.
In Wilametta’s bedroom, the boys were just standing still. Both bodies were covered now. Everybody was suddenly quiet at once, and the silence was hurtful. I wanted to say something to them, anything that might help, but there was nothing to say.
Sam Hammond didn’t touch the blankets. He didn’t touch the bed at all. He didn’t sink to the floor and sob the way his brother had. He just stood. And there was nothing any of us could do but wait.
“Emma birthed pert near all of us,” he finally said. “She was better’n a grandma to have next door. Even said I’d make a fine gent one day.” He laughed. “Imagine that.”
He didn’t say anything about his mother. Perhaps he couldn’t. And in just a little while he came out of the room, looking young and scared. Thinking deep, the same as Joe’d been doing, taking things on himself. “Mr. Wortham, you’re awful good with makin’ things. Would you think to make the coffins for us?”
My heart ached inside. He was sixteen. Joe was thirteen. It wasn’t right that they should have to think on things like this. “Yes,” I said quickly. “I should’ve told you already I
would do it. And anything else you need help with.”
“Get out,” George suddenly growled at me. “Don’t need your help, Sam Wortham. Not with waterin’ stock or nothin’. Get out.”
The oldest boy shook his head and walked toward the door with Barrett and me. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll come see the kids later. Good you keepin’ ’em.”
“You don’t have to go through the snow later,” I told him again. “You can come now.”
“I best see to Pa a little while. Ain’t had time to speak with him yet.”
“You tell us,” Barrett said, “if there’s anythin’ else we can do.”
“Just you see us through the buryin’,” Sam said somberly. “That’s more’n enough. Most a’ what else we’re gonna need, there ain’t no helpin’ anyhow.”
Joe, standing behind him, just nodded his head.
I’d never seen a more defeated pair of young men in all my life.
NINE
Julia
Nobody’d eaten much lunch, so I had plenty to save back for Samuel. But I was fixing again, making a pie, just to have a way to keep the little girls busy alongside of me. I wanted to keep my mind only on that, but I couldn’t seem to stop thinking of Emma. She’d made the best pie I ever tasted. And she’d helped me finally learn a really good crust. I remembered her laboring in this kitchen the day before Robert was baptized in early October, turning out one perfect crust after another to fill and bake. Six apple pies and six pumpkin we’d made that day, enough to feed all the church folk that came out to the baptism. Such a time that was, with all the dressed-up ladies and the men in suits or clean overalls. Robert had acted so proper, so grown up. And Emma’d been proud as could be, just the same as if she’d been kin.
Now Robert was upstairs with Willy, all this time without a single sound. They’d been down two minutes, I guessed, when I called everyone for lunch, but they hardly ate anything and went right back up. I thought I should go see to them, but I had to get the girls to a stop first.
Sarah was sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on the cut apples while I helped Rorey roll the crust with Emma’s old rolling pin. Nearly everything we had was Emma’s. Right down to the apron I was wearing. It was enough to make me want to sit down and cry. But I kept going and got the bottom crust in a pan, and the apples into it. When the top crust went on, I had a time of it trying to show the girls how to pinch the edges together to make a good flutey pattern. And then Rorey, a first-grader who did some struggling with her letters, cut a big “M-E” on top with the butter knife. I thought she was just showing me one of the few words she could spell, but I soon learned different.
“M is for Mama,” she told me without looking up. “And E is for Emma.”
I almost dropped the bowl I was holding. Rorey set the knife down slow, and I hugged her. Then I hugged Sarah, and soon we were all three crying. But I knew we’d have to stop that. And quick too. I dried my face with the nearest dishtowel and told the girls to wash up and go play with Sarah’s doll a while. Lizbeth had seen our outburst, of course, but she didn’t say anything. She just watched me put the pie in the oven and cooed something at little Emma Grace, trying to coax her down for a nap. She was going through the motions, trying to act the same as ever, but when I looked her way, she turned her head.
I was glad. I didn’t want to see the hurt in her right then. I didn’t want her seeing it in me. If I could go on pretending we were both strong, maybe things would be all right. She was her mama’s best helper. And I needed her to be mine too, as long as they were all here. Or I’d simply fall apart.
Harry and Bert seemed happy enough now scampering around, playing wild animals. But Lizbeth told them it was about time they settled for a nap, and I wondered what Franky would do. He’d started the game and kept it going, though he still was looking white as a sheet. I wiped my hands on the towel and asked Lizbeth to please get him to lie down too.
“He don’t nap,” she declared almost sharply. “He’s all of eight years old.”
“I know. But he’s little and looking mighty tired today.”
She shook her head. “It ain’t tired he’s lookin’.”
I felt my hands start shaking, I was so surprised at her words, her tone. “Lizbeth, please. I need to go upstairs and see about Rob and Willy a minute. They haven’t said hardly two words.”
“I’ll take Franky outside,” Kirk offered. “We’ll bring more wood and maybe cut some if you don’t care.”
I hesitated, but the sun was bright now and Kirk seemed to like an outside chore. “All right. But don’t stay out too long. And don’t be hard on him. Don’t let him out of your sight. Not for a minute, all right?”
“Yes’m.”
“Check to see that Lula and Sukey got water, will you please?” I added. He knew Emma’s cows. They all did.
“Yes’m. Franky, get your coat!” he hollered. “We got work to do!”
Oh, he was so abrupt with his brother! Even when I’d warned him. “Kirk—”
He saw my concern and shook his head. “Franky wouldn’t know what to do with me pussyfootin’ him,” he said. “It ain’t the way we do, that’s all.”
They were out the door in a minute, and I was up the stairs, hoping to find Robert and Willy peaceful for all their quiet.
I found them side by side against the wall in the children’s room, on the floor because we had no chairs upstairs. Both with pocketknives in their hands, they had their heads low over a pile of wood shavings on the floor. I couldn’t tell what they’d been carving on until I saw the remains of the hickory wood horse Samuel had whittled out of a chunk of firewood one rainy evening.
Robert looked up and saw me. “It’s all right, Mom,” he said quietly. “I said he could have it.”
“No! It’s not all right!”
Willy’s head jerked up at me. No tears. Nothing readable in him at all. He had what was left of the horse’s back in his hands, carved to a jagged swayback. I wanted to yell at both of them. It wasn’t a fancy horse. A quick one, Samuel had called it. Not worth much. But it was in ruins now, as if these boys had wanted an object lesson about the state of their lives. We were all broken. Beyond repair, it seemed. And about to face God’s own Christmas without a reason to rejoice.
“Don’t you destroy anything else,” I told them as calmly as I could. “Don’t carve on another thing in this house unless you ask me first.”
“We won’t, Mom,” Robert assured me. “We’ll clean up too. I promise.”
Almost I turned to go. But Robert stood up suddenly, and I could see the fear in his eyes. “Will we all be homeless, Mom? Willy says we’ll be homeless.”
Robert knew what it was like, of course. He knew about sleeping wherever we could find a place and eating whatever we could manage to scrounge up. Bringing Emma home again had made a way for us to stay too. So it was no surprise that he would worry.
“Honey, Emma talked to Albert. I believe he’ll let us stay on.”
“Maybe you,” Willy said bitterly. “But he hates my pa. I know. I heard him say it.”
“Will he make them move?” Robert asked me, his deep eyes brimming wet.
“Don’t be fretting over such matters, all right?” I told them. “Why don’t you come down and draw me some fresh water for washing out the diapers?”
Robert stuffed his jackknife in his pocket but didn’t take a step. He was waiting for Willy, who made no move.
“Kirk’ll draw the water,” the boy declared.
“He’s seeing to the cows,” I said, impatient about being put off. “And bringing firewood.”
Finally Willy stood up. “I don’t feel like doin’ nothin’.”
I could understand that. But it wasn’t helping him to sit here all day, whittling things to pieces. And thinking too much, surely.
“You aren’t the only one that feels that way,” I admitted. “But it won’t help us. We have no choice.”
“C’mon,” Robert told him. “We can go i
n the loft when we’re done.” He stopped suddenly, hearing something outside. A horse’s whinny maybe. We both looked out the window to see Barrett Post drop Samuel off on the snowy lane before going on in the direction of his home.
“Dad!”
I hadn’t expected Robert to be so excited to see him. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might worry now with one of us gone. But it was genuine relief on his face.
“Dad’s home!”
Willy didn’t share his enthusiasm.
“C’mon,” Robert tried to coax him. “Let’s go outside like Mom said.”
Willy got up reluctantly, closed his jackknife, and shoved it in his pocket. “Anybody with him?”
“No,” Robert answered, and I felt sorry for Willy, who was surely thinking on his older brothers or even more likely his father. But he went along without any comment, and they clumped down the stairs together, completely forgetting the mess of shavings they’d promised to clean up.
For no reason at all I kicked at the stuff, and the bigger pieces went tumbling across the room. A little puff of sawdust lingered in the air a minute and then dusted down over the floor. We’re no better than that, I thought. Nothing but sawdust. And most anything can happen to scatter us hither and yon.
It was foolishness, but I stood there and cried. Samuel was outside, and I was so glad of that. He’d want to talk to me. And the baby was wailing again downstairs, and I knew I should do something to relieve Lizbeth. But I only turned toward the next room and stood looking through the doorway at the other thing Samuel had carved on a stormy night. A little oak cross with a pair of flowers at its base. I had it sitting on top of the overturned crates we used for shelves. A wonder the boys hadn’t carved it up too.
I stood looking at the little cross, the same question still driving itself into my mind. Why, God? Why Wilametta? Why now?
And why Emma over there, when she’d only wanted to be right here, in this house that whispered of her everywhere you turned? Emma’s curtains on the windows. Emma’s quilting keeping us warm at night. Oh, Lord! We owed her everything, and now there was no one to thank, no one to gratefully take care of. She’d always said what all we’d done for her, doing the work of the farm so she could come home again. But we’d been the ones with nothing.
