Emma's Gift

by Leisha Kelly

  It was like a dream, everybody stone silent. Even the baby. Nobody moved, nobody made a sound until little Berty fell off his seat and sat kicking furiously at a chair leg. Then whatever it was that got hold of him swept through the room, because Franky let out a wail, Harry ran in the kitchen to sulk under the table, and Lizbeth broke down in choking sobs that seemed to spread to almost everybody. I didn’t see how we could manage getting out to the timber to see this through, but before I knew it, they had the coffins loaded in the back of Covey Mueller’s wagon again, and folks were starting off in that direction.

  It was a sunny day, not near so cold as it had been. Just the way it needed to be, I guessed, for what we needed to do. But I almost didn’t go. I took a look at the children around me and cried out to Juanita in protest.

  “It’s too much for them. I can’t expect more from them today. To see those boxes lowered into the ground. It’s not right! I’ll stay right here with all of them. We’ll sing maybe, and work on our Christmas angels.”

  Juanita might’ve agreed. I certainly couldn’t expect her to argue, but before she could say anything, Franky was shaking his head. “It’s something we gotta do, for Mama.”

  His brother Willy agreed, and to my surprise, so did Rorey. “I’m gonna go,” she said. “Hold my hand.”

  So we went, all of us but Harry and Berty, who we left at the house with young Thelma Pratt. We trudged down the path worn between drifts of snow. Every time I’d been out to the pond before, the half-mile walk had been easy. But this time it seemed to take forever. I was glad we’d delayed long enough not to see Mueller’s wagon in front of us. Everybody was walking, though I wasn’t sure why. We’d left at least three sleighs behind us in the farmyard.

  But it had been the same way when Robert was baptized. All the church people walked out from the house, though at that time of year they could’ve gotten a car quite close to the pond. But Emma said it was the way things were done. For generations. Even at the TannyBrook Cemetery where her parents were buried, people stopped just off the road and walked the rest of the way. Maybe they figured it took a little walking in the fresh air to get your head together for what came next.

  With Sarah on one side of me and Rorey on the other, I tried to keep some strength about me. I wanted to cry the way I had last night. I wanted to argue with heaven about all of this. But it wouldn’t do. Not in front of the children.

  I tried to look around and enjoy the timber a little. In the summer it was such a beautiful place, with wildflowers and willows swaying in the breeze. But now it was a wasteland of slushy gray and white, and when we got close enough to see it, Willard’s grave marker stood up stark and cold. But no longer alone.

  Samuel was already standing there with George’s oldest boys and Mr. Post. I looked around for the pastor, knowing he’d gone ahead with the wagon and should be here. But he was nowhere in sight.

  “Mommy?” It was Sarah talking, sounding suddenly frightened. “Does it hurt them to be put down in the ground?”

  “No, honey. They aren’t here anymore. They left right out of their bodies when they went to heaven. So they’re with Jesus now, having more fun than we could imagine.”

  “Is it spring there?” Sarah asked me. “Emma told me she likes spring.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, just a little. “I suppose it’s spring there all the time. And anything else we could want it to be.”

  When we got closer to Willard’s marker, Rorey squeezed at my hand, just staring at Emma’s coffin on the lump of dirt, with the blanket stretched beneath it. I wished I could turn her attention away. But maybe it was better that I couldn’t, so she wouldn’t be looking off down the hill and toward the little grove of birch trees where her mother’s empty grave lay waiting. Lord God, how will we ever get through this day?

  George wasn’t here. I should’ve seen it immediately and known it was why Pastor Jones wasn’t here either. He’d be off somewhere, trying to coax enough strength into George to stand beside his little ones at such a time as this.

  I looked around at Louise Post, Elvira Post, the Muellers, Juanita Jones, Bonnie Gray, and all the rest. It was a marvel to me that they all had taken the trouble to get here, cold as it was. But Emma had given them all cause to love her, and they’d have gotten here if there was any way at all.

  I didn’t expect anyone else. There were already quite a few people, all the ones that had been at the house. But then I heard someone else coming on the path behind us, and I was amazed to see that it was Miss Hazel Sharpe, despite her advanced years, hurrying down the path with her usual quick step. Charlie Hunter was right beside her, looking as though he’d like to find some way to help. But Hazel hardly ever needed help with anything, though she was stooped so low she could barely look up.

  I was grateful to Charlie for coming. He’d been so faithful to see that Emma, and all of us, got to church. And he’d always called Emma “Grandma” since having her in Sunday school years before.

  But seeing Miss Hazel scared me. Things were already so difficult to manage. And I’d never seen her, not once in seven months, when she wasn’t all worked up and snippety at somebody. Lord have mercy. I knew how she’d loved Emma, at least she’d said she did. They’d been schoolgirls together, nearly eighty years before. But she had despised us being here and had despised George Hammond’s poor kind of ways, and I prayed right there on the spot that she would have the decency to hold her tongue.

  Lizbeth came and stood beside me with Emma Grace all bundled in blankets. I’d wanted to leave the baby with Thelma too, but Lizbeth insisted on carrying her, saying she’d do nothing but cry without her there. Elvira and her husband came up on Lizbeth’s other side.

  I looked over at Robert, who’d had so little of my attention lately. He was with Willy and Kirk and Joe, all standing in a line. Franky had gone straight to my Samuel and stood clinging to his hand. I was glad we’d managed to leave the two little boys behind.

  Somebody started singing a hymn, and I thought again of all the church folks that had come for Robert’s baptism and how excited Emma had been about it all.

  “Just like old times,” she’d told me over and over. “Ever’body comin’ to sing an’ celebrate an’ then eat till they could just about bust.”

  We’d had tables set up back at the yard then, full of food the people had brought with them. And people had brought food again this morning too, mostly for George and his children, I expected. But it was no celebration. Should’ve been maybe, at least for Emma’s sake; that’s what she would’ve wanted. But even she had had a hard time swallowing it down about Wila.

  Lizbeth was sniffing beside me, and Elvira put her arm around her. Finally Pastor Jones came up the hill, but there was no George. Sam Hammond, who’d been standing quietly beside the Mueller boy, looked white as the sky suddenly and disappeared, not getting back in time for one minute of Emma’s service.

  Paxton Jones knew exactly what Emma wanted in a sermon. He painted a picture of heaven so grand that all of us should’ve been fairly floating with assurance for her sake. But we stood there weeping or stone silent like the stubborn mortals we are, never really grasping the little looks at eternity we get. The sadness was so big it seemed like not even God could be bigger, that not even God would be able to fill up the void that Emma and Wila were leaving behind. Even if the whole world had stood still, things could not have been more strange, more fiercesome, or more final.

  TWELVE

  Samuel

  “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

  We lowered Emma’s coffin slowly with one silk rose resting atop it. Miss Hazel had placed it there because, she said, “Emma always did like a flower.”

  Most of the people lingered only for a moment before moving slowly down the hill toward Wilametta Hammond’s grave. Beside me Franky was silent, his face showing no expre
ssion. I saw Robert nearer to the frozen pond, kicking at a clump of snow. Willy and Kirk were beside him, looking almost dazed, and I wished that they could just break down and cry. They were all still children, no matter how big and strong they’d gotten.

  Miss Hazel looked at me for a second as she went past. Her eyes were stern, but not with their usual blazing fire. She looked down at Franky hanging on tight to my hand and gave his shoulder a little pat. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was, not recalling her ever extending an ounce of affection to any of us before this. Bless her, Lord, I prayed. Despite her crotchety exterior, she cares down inside. Maybe she always has.

  I waited for Julia, who with Sarah and the Hammond girls was the last to leave Emma’s grave. I wanted to reach for her, to hold her again for just a minute, but we both had children needing us to hold them a while longer first.

  We had just started down the hill when I heard George’s voice bouncing through the snowy trees.

  “I ain’t standin’, I’m tellin’ you! I ain’t movin’ again!”

  I could see him sitting with his back against an old birch tree, and young Sam leaning over him, saying something I couldn’t hear. Lizbeth, Willy, and the rest stared at their father. The first glimpse of him they’d had in almost three days, and there he sat looking wild and disheveled and shouting loud enough surely to scatter the wildlife in the timber beyond.

  “Leave me alone!” he exclaimed, jerking his arm back from his son. “You been hoverin’ over me like a mother cat! Just get!”

  Young Sam stood there for a moment until Pastor Jones put an arm around his shoulder and led him away. That was for the best. We’d all tried, me and his boys, Pastor and Barrett and Covey Mueller. But George would have to see to George, because nobody else could. Much as we’d wanted to, he wouldn’t have it so.

  Paxton spoke of Wilametta as a kind mother and free spirit who loved to do things out of doors. When he said she was a good wife, George slowly rose to his feet and came close enough to touch the edge of the coffin. Franky let go of me and tried to get his hand, but he turned away too soon.

  “I can’t see it,” George muttered. “I can’t see you put her in the ground.”

  The words hit every one of his children like a gale force wind. Both of the girls broke into sobs, and poor Joe sunk to his knees in the snow. Willy turned on his heels to run, and when Robert tried to stop him, Kirk shoved him to the ground. “Let him go!” he hollered. “Just let him go!”

  Robert lay there in a drift, looking stunned, and Kirk went running after Willy. They were going the same way their father had just gone, through the trees toward home. I half expected young Sam to go after them, but he didn’t. Tears in his eyes, he took Emma Grace from Lizbeth’s arms and gave a nod to the pastor. “My mama would want a song.”

  Pastor Jones, looking suddenly younger and pale with worry, turned to Julia and asked if she could sing “Blessed Assurance.” I knew that had been arranged already, that one of the Hammond boys had asked her to do it when he found out she’d sung for his mama the night of her passing. But Juli could barely get the words out. She tried, she tried hard, but Franky’s wailing was louder and there wasn’t a person standing could keep an eye dry.

  Paxton spoke a little more and prayed, but he must’ve known the best thing was just to have all this done. He dismissed everyone with a blessing, and people started moving away, those that could. Lizbeth was just staring at the grave, standing there shaking. And Joe was still on his knees, looking around like he didn’t know what the world had come to. The schoolteacher went to Lizbeth and Pastor went to Joe and Julia tried to turn the little girls away to the house.

  I wanted to send Franky with them and do my part to fill in the graves without him watching in anguish. But when the Post brothers started shoveling in the dirt, he wanted to help. He pulled those dead-looking flower bulbs out of his pocket and told us he wanted to bury them with his mama. “Emma had a nice rose,” he said. “My mama liked flowers too.”

  Barrett took the bulbs from him with the greatest of care, glanced over at me for a second, and then patted the boy on the shoulder. “You’re right,” he said. “And it’s the thing to do. You’re a right fine boy.”

  Those bulbs were tamped into the ground right in front of the wooden temporary marker that Clement Post had made. None of us said a word about whether those flowers would ever grow, though I’m sure with so much of the winter left ahead of us, they knew as well as I did what chance there would be. Summer bulbs. Meant to be dug up and sheltered before the bitter wind hit.

  It seemed to me that we were all a little like that. Hardy for our season and then gone. Emma had told us months ago that she was going to be dug up and planted in another place, and I could imagine her blooming there just as happy as anything. And Wila was there too, maybe even holding Franky’s flowers in her hand.

  THIRTEEN

  Julia

  We were in a strange fog the rest of that day and night. Most of the people went on their way, and we had tons of food and nobody much feeling like eating it. If I’d thought it would be just me and Samuel and our two children after the funerals, I was wrong, because we still had seven of the ten Hammond children with us.

  “I’m not going home,” Lizbeth maintained again. “Not till Pa says so.”

  Nobody argued with her. Kirk and Willy were home, presumably, and the biggest boy, Sam, had gone to see about them. But George in his sorry state had not acknowledged any of his children, except for shoving young Sam away. We couldn’t send the littler ones home, not knowing what George would be like. Emma would want us to watch out for them, and I couldn’t help but think Wila would too. So Samuel and I sat with them that night, me reading Bible stories to them first, and then Samuel telling a couple of stories that he made up on his own. They slept here and there, scattered about our sitting room, with only Robert and Joe upstairs.

  “What are we gonna do with them?” I asked Samuel when the house was quiet. And he held me in his arms for so long I wasn’t sure he would answer.

  “I guess we’d better figure out how to give them Christmas,” he finally said. “George doesn’t have much, honey, even if he does manage to think about it.”

  I couldn’t protest, though something inside me almost wanted to. We didn’t have much either. We’d worked and worked and pinched what few pennies had come our way the whole summer long, just to get our small family ready for the winter. What could we do for so many?

  “I’ve got the sleds,” Samuel told me, as if in answer. “I’m sure Robert and Sarah would understand sharing one of them. I might even have time to make another.”

  “Oh, Sammy.”

  “What else can we do, Juli? They need our help. There’s no escaping it.”

  “Emma was making a dress for the baby.” My mind went racing over such things. Samuel had made the sleds, one for Robert, one for Sarah. And I had made a hat for Robert and a new dress for Sarah’s doll. If we gave one of those sleds to the Hammond children, they should each have something more besides. “Does Rorey have a doll?” I asked out loud. The girl dearly loved playing with Sarah’s Bessie, but it had never occurred to me to ask if she had a doll at home.

  “You’ve been over there,” Samuel said. “They have scarce little of anything. Except milk and bacon.”

  “I didn’t see a toy or a book in the place,” I agreed. Oh, we had so little time! What could we do? It was rousing in some strange way, knowing what a lot of purposeful work had to be done, trying to make them all something. But still I knew that no matter what we came up with, it could never make up for what was lost. Wilametta’s absence would eclipse whatever else Christmas might mean for them this year, and maybe for years to come.

  And I would be grieving for Emma. Already we’d shared stories of Christmas—things she used to do when Warren and Albert were little and things I’d done with the children back in Pennsylvania.

  “I already give Rita my nativity set,” she’d tol
d me once. “So sorry, honey. We’ll come up with another’n by then.”

  Cookies were what she had wanted. Star shaped and cane shaped and sprinkled with red sugar. Oh, how I would’ve loved sharing a Christmas with Emma! Apple-raisin pie. Sprigs of evergreen and little paper stand-up angels on the mantle. Lots and lots of Christmas songs.

  Do it for the kids, she would tell me. Every bit of it, for all twelve of them. There was a little hope thinking of it. And a little dismay. What if none of them wanted any part of it at all?

  “We’ll figure something out,” Samuel said. “At least we can try to feed them something special. And make Rorey her birthday cake.”

  Oh, the dear girl. I’d make her a cake all right. I would do all I could. But it would not be, and could not be, enough.

  “Sammy, it’s too much!” I protested again. “How can God expect us to manage all this! It would’ve been bad enough, just losing Emma! But why Mrs. Hammond? Why not George? He’s been the same as useless to his own family all this time!”

  Samuel didn’t say anything, and my stomach twisted tight as a knot. Here I was so resentful over George, and yet I was making things harder the same as he was. I was making things harder for Samuel just talking like this. When had I gotten so coarse and unfeeling that I could talk about a grief-struck soul so harshly?

  “I’m sorry,” I told Samuel. “Maybe I should get some sleep.” I turned from him, my head suddenly aching. I was angry, that’s what it was. Angry at God, and nothing would ever be good again as long as that lasted. But I knew no way to change.

  He took my hand and pulled me back into his arms. Samuel, my saint. He understood, maybe better than I did. “You want to talk about that night, honey?”

  “No. I don’t think I can.”