Emma's Gift

by Leisha Kelly

  “It might help.”

  The tightness in my stomach was suddenly painful. “They just died, Sammy! What else can I say? They just died! And there was nothing to be done about it. Except fix them up nice as I could for the folks that might see. Oh, Lord, why do we do that? Why do folks come and look and walk around and say things that mean nothing and tell us what we already know? It’s useless! It’s all useless!”

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I guess it’s the only way we can think of to say good-bye.”

  “Emma took such care,” I managed to tell him. “She fussed over Wila. She did the best she could.”

  He tried to hold me close, but I pulled away. “I didn’t get her a dress,” I heard myself sob. “The best friend I ever had, and I didn’t even get her a decent Sunday dress! I should’ve thought—when I first got back over here—”

  Tears broke over me; I had no control over them whatsoever. Sammy hugged me, and I sobbed into his chest for I don’t know how long, thinking of Emma in that rocker over there. I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve never let her go to the Hammonds. She would still be here if I’d have just made her stay home and rest her selfless heart.

  It was late before we got to bed. I ended up telling Sammy all of what it had been like. Admitting my anger was not easy, nor was my anger only toward God. Worrying about George and thinking he was dead had scared me dreadfully. And then to find him the way that he was! Better if he had been dead—that’s what I’d come close to thinking. How dare he become such a broken vessel? If he’d been the one dead and Wila the one to go on, I could imagine her calling all her children in, telling them the news so gently, and then explaining to each and every one just what they must do from here on out. How dare he be so weak!

  There was life to go on living. Despite all the bitterness in my heart about it, at least I was changing diapers, washing cheeks, cooking meals, and such. At least I was trying to do what needed to be done. But God have mercy on me. Even though it broke my heart to say good-bye to Emma, my pain was different from what George was going through. I wasn’t losing a wife of twenty-some years. I wasn’t George without his Wilametta.

  “We have to have him over Christmas too,” Samuel said gently. “We need to find something we can give him and get him with his kids all we can. Maybe I can talk to him tomorrow and see if he’ll give Lizbeth word for them all to come home. Maybe that’s what he needs.”

  “What if he says no? What if he won’t even come Christmas?”

  “He’ll listen. Surely he will. It’s just hard, that’s all.”

  “He’s not quite like normal folks, Samuel. There was something less than sane in him, and I’m not sure if he’ll listen or not.”

  “Thank the Lord he hasn’t gone to drink. The Post brothers say if he ever did that, there’d be no way to save him. He drank when he was younger, and it had him clear out of his mind. Wilametta put a stop to it then.”

  “Surely we don’t have to worry about that. Where would he get it?”

  “Barrett says some people make their own around here. Even sell it, not caring much for the law, I guess.”

  “Well, anyway, I don’t know how anything could make him worse than he’s already been. Not even drink.”

  “Maybe he’ll be better from here,” Sam said with hope.

  I wondered what George was doing that night, the first night with the funerals done. I wondered if he was being warm and thoughtful toward his boys over there, or if he was pushing them away. Lord help him.

  And help me. Help me forgive you, Lord, for what death has done to all of us. Even though it never was your fault, from Adam on down the line. Help me forgive you, anyway, for the sake of my peace and because I know you want me to. So I can love you again the way I want to love you. So I can rejoice in every raindrop, strawberry blossom, and mustard plant, the way Emma did. I want to be like her, Lord. Because she was like you.

  FOURTEEN

  Samuel

  Lula Bell had never given generous milk, but she was down again the next morning, so I gave her extra feed, hoping it would bring production up. But Sukey was worrying me even more than Lula Bell, since I knew she was due to calve before spring. My city upbringing hadn’t prepared me to work with cows, and I was glad that Julia’d had some experience at least. But I knew we could use some more help, especially when it came time for the birthing. Maybe if I could stir George even to give me some advice, it would help take his mind off his problems. Worth a try, at least.

  Franky came looking for me in the barn as I was sorting through what was left of the lumber. I’d have to work on the sled at night or I’d never manage to make any kind of surprise with my new shadow right there looking on.

  “Whatcha doin’, Mr. Wortham?”

  “Just thinking a while.”

  “Gonna make somethin’?”

  I couldn’t answer that. “Up early, aren’t you?”

  “I’m always up early. Pa says I’ll make a good farmer if I can keep from droppin’ stuff an’ tippin’ over the milk.”

  “You’ll get over that. All boys are awkward some when they’re young. I know I was.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a frown. “But it’s extra for me. I can’t manage much a’ nothin’ right.”

  I hadn’t seen that to be so. Not a whit. He’d been good help to me, first with the planing and then with the sandpapering right alongside Mr. Mueller to get those casket sides smooth to the touch. He had a gift. I had to consider it so when an eight-year-old boy takes so natural to working wood, even pointing out a mistake I’d made while I still had time to fix it. Elvira Post had to be wrong about him, because he wasn’t slow. I thought he was brilliant. She just didn’t know how to see it.

  “Franky, just because you don’t do things like everybody else doesn’t mean you’re wrong. You’ve got a knack for making things, I can tell.”

  “You gonna do a coffin again?” he asked solemnly.

  Here I was, out here with the wood. Like before. “No. No, nothing like that.”

  “You know what I think?”

  I waited, knowing he would tell me.

  “You oughta make a sled! I know you could! An’ it wouldn’t take long. You just needs a couple pieces curvin’ just the same an’ the crosspieces cross the top. I got it all figgered out, but Pa never did let me the lumber an’ nails.”

  His words came out all a rush, and I stood there with a strange new quandary. How could I tell him my plan? But how could I do it and not tell him? How could I look at him and say no?

  “Franky? Can you keep a secret?”

  “Yes. What?”

  “I am going to make a sled. Maybe two. But you can’t tell the others. I’ll probably work when everybody’s sleeping so they won’t see.”

  “Robert’s going to love it!” Franky exclaimed, coming to an obvious conclusion. “Sarah too! I wish our pa made stuff like you do. You did the rightest, finest job on Emma’s wheelchair. The whole country was proud of ya!”

  I had to smile at such a wild exaggeration. “Thank you. But your pa’s busy putting meat on your table, which is something I haven’t been too good at.”

  “He says you’re tool smart, an’ he’s animal smart.”

  “I consider that a fine compliment from him. And I suppose he’s right, in a way. Everybody’s smart at one thing or another.”

  “Nope,” he told me. “Not me.”

  “Now, Franky, I can plainly see how smart you are.”

  But he only shook his head.

  We went in the house together and found Juli making oatmeal. Sarah and Rorey were playing school practically under her feet, teaching Bessie-doll a few simple words they’d written on some old scrap paper. Right away when we came in, Sarah tried to get Franky to read along, but he got red-faced and flustered and ran off into the other room.

  “He’s always that way,” Rorey told me. “He can’t read a stitch, not even his name, an’ he oughta be goin’ to third grade! Willy sa
ys it’s a good thing he’s sturdy, ’cause he sure is stupid.”

  “Rorey!” Julia exclaimed.

  “I only said what he said!”

  “He’s plenty smart,” I told her. “Just in his own way. God gives every one of us certain things.”

  “He’s got a double amount a’ clumsy. Pa said that.”

  Juli turned from the stove toward Rorey, but I didn’t stay to listen. I found Franky in the sitting room, poking up the fire, and I went and stood beside him.

  “School stuff comes hard, I take it.”

  He didn’t look up. “Worse’n hard. Ain’t much use me goin’. All I do is take up a seat.”

  “I bet you could make one of those old seats, though, couldn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said, suddenly brightening. “They ain’t nothin’ but a sanded plank an’ a straight back with a ledge stickin’ out for the folks sittin’ behind ya to put their books on. Couple a’ board legs too, curvin’ thinner in the middle.” He stopped and gave me an almost conspiratorial look. “Are you still tryin’ to tell me I’m smart?”

  “Yes. And don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

  “But what if I don’t never read?”

  “Just don’t give up. You may get it if you keep at it. But put in a good day’s work and do a good job, and one day people may pay you a lot of money for the things you make.”

  “Why don’t you do that?” he asked. “Make things and sell? And fix stuff too, like you fixed Willard’s tractor for Pa?”

  “Times are hard, son,” I told him, as though he were old enough to understand. “Too many folks out of work. Nobody’s got extra money to pay for anything they can possibly do without.”

  I turned around to find Robert behind me. He stood there for a moment and then walked up the stairs. And I knew he was hurt. That was plain in his eyes. But I wasn’t sure why.

  “Excuse me, Franky, okay? I’ve got to speak a minute to Robert.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and glanced over at Joe, who was cracking nuts in the corner. Joe handed him a nutcracker, and Franky sat down cross-legged on the floor to help.

  Robert was sitting on the bed when I got upstairs, looking sullen. I sat down beside him and put my arm around his shoulder.

  “I thought they’d be going home,” he said.

  “They will. Soon enough.”

  “Seems like they oughta be home. ’Least sometimes. What’s wrong with their dad, anyway?”

  “I don’t know all of it,” I answered honestly. “But it’s the grief affecting his thinking. He’ll get better in time. He needs to be with his children, you’re right about that. And they need him. I may go and talk to him again today. But son, if he can’t see to his kids for a while, it falls on us. Since their relatives aren’t able.”

  “They oughta come.”

  “I don’t know about that. I only know we have to be kind. I have to help them, and so do you, because we’re who they have right now. Do you understand?”

  He was quiet for a minute before finally looking up, his eyes full of emotion. “I heard you call Franky ‘son.’ But he’s not your son.”

  Oh. No wonder he was sore. “That’s just like saying ‘young fellow,’ or something, Robert. People do it all the time. Some of the older gentlemen around here even call me son.”

  “But he’s always right next to you, Dad! And you don’t hardly look at me anymore! I just want things to be the way they were.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “The problem is, things will never be like they were. Especially not for Franky and his brothers and sisters. I bet they’d like to go home and have things back to normal too, but it won’t be the same without their mother. They need help, and they probably will for a while.”

  “I still want you to do stuff with me.”

  “I know. And I will. Just give us all time.”

  He was thinking, I could tell. And I couldn’t help but consider how much alike Franky and Robert were sometimes. Very sensitive. But good with their hands too.

  “Hey, Dad, remember I told you I’d really like a sled?”

  I nodded, wondering at his abrupt change of subject. I’d made his sled when the weather first started getting cold and had hid it in Willard’s old tool shed. I wasn’t going to say anything about it to him, though.

  “I know something we could do together,” he continued. “When everybody else is sleeping, we could sneak out an’ make the Hammonds a sled for Christmas, maybe big enough for three or four to sit at once, and they can take turns. Willy told me they don’t get much of nothing for Christmas. Like maybe socks or some candy. Don’t you think they’d like a sled?”

  For a moment I couldn’t even answer. Here was God talking through a boy. How else could he know what I’d had in mind? Why else would he be so zealous for it, when only moments before he’d been upset?

  “That’s a great idea, Robert.” And I thought of Franky again, who’d had the same idea. Only he thought I’d be doing it just for my own two.

  “You don’t mind if I stay up?”

  There was no way I could deny him. It seemed fitting, for sure, that Robert should help me bring some blessing. “I don’t mind. With so little time before Christmas, I could use your help. Maybe we can even make two, since there’s so many of them.”

  “Did you make me one already?”

  “I guess you’ll have to wait and see about that.”

  He smiled, his clear brown eyes shining. “I know it ain’t Franky’s fault he’s here.”

  “Maybe you could be as much his friend as you are Willy’s.”

  “He’s kinda odd, though, Dad. And littler.”

  “Still—”

  From downstairs, Julia’s bell interrupted me, calling us to breakfast.

  “Okay,” Robert conceded and then grew quiet a moment. “I’m glad it wasn’t my mom. I don’t mean to be selfish about that. But I’m still glad.” He started down the steps ahead of me.

  “That’s no more than normal,” I said to his back, suddenly hearing something move in the next room. Somebody else was up here. I should’ve thought to check.

  Before I could reach the stairs, Harry sprung from the other doorway and grabbed me by the knees. “Got ya!” he yelled. “I’m a wild Injun and you’re a bear, and I’m gonna eat you up!”

  “I’d rather have oatmeal, wouldn’t you?”

  “Nah! I like bear meat! I’m gonna cook it and pick apples and stuff.”

  I had to smile at his make-believe. I could remember being an Indian too, when I was a little tike, even bear hunting in the backyard. “You just one brave, all by yourself?”

  “Yup. Berty wanted to play with Lizbeth.”

  “You’re gonna need a nice bowl of oatmeal, then, to give you strength for all the work you’ve got ahead.”

  “Really? What work?” He let go my legs and looked up at me. By that time Robert was already downstairs.

  “Takes an awful lot of work to skin a bear,” I went on. “Can’t eat it with the skin on. Too tough. If you don’t eat something first, you’ll get mighty hungry before you get the job done.”

  He shook his head. “I’m just playin’. Don’t you know I’m playin’?”

  “Sure.” I gave his brown hair a pat. “If you weren’t playing and I was a real bear, I might have to eat you up.”

  He laughed and then took my hand. “Are you really gonna make us a sled?”

  He’d heard. Oh boy. This was going to be a hard secret to keep.

  “I was spyin’ on you,” he boasted with a chuckle.

  “I see that. But don’t tell any of the others, okay? We want to surprise them.”

  “Are you really gonna make us one?” His eyes were wide, as if it were a difficult thing to believe.

  “You’ll see. But you can’t tell anybody. Are you a big enough boy to keep a secret?”

  I’d made the right appeal there. “I’m a real big boy!” he declared. “I’m sure big ’nough! I can even chop wood an’ f
eed hogs an’ ever’thin’!”

  I couldn’t quite imagine George having his five-year-old at such chores, but it was all right for the boy to think he could do them, at least. “I guess you are a big boy then. But let’s not keep Juli waiting. Maybe you’d like to help me fill the wood box after breakfast.”

  “Okay,” he said with a sly grin. “But then I’m gonna be a wild Injun again, an’ I’m gonna catch you an’ eat you up for sure.”

  He ran on down the stairs, laughing, and I thought of George and how much he was missing. He’d scarcely seen his kids for three days now. But did he ever really play with them? Was he missing even more than that?

  We weren’t finished with Julia’s cinnamon oatmeal when Kirk and Willy came with the morning milk from the Hammond place. Juli jumped up to strain it immediately when she saw that it wasn’t already done.

  Kirk scooped himself some of the oatmeal. “Sam sent us over here,” he said. “To help out.”

  “What did your father say?” Julia asked with obvious concern.

  “Nothin’.”

  She looked at me with a pained expression. Nothing. And neither boy offered a word of explanation. Willy reached for a piece of toast and went walking into the sitting room.

  “Why we lib here now?” Berty asked between mouthfuls.

  “We’re just visitin’,” Lizbeth said hurriedly. “Hush.”

  “I wan’ more milk.” Little Berty looked straight at Juli, who filled his glass and gave Harry, Rorey, and Sarah some besides.

  Lizbeth didn’t ask how her father was. Neither did Joe. The two of them had talked the night before, and Lizbeth had said precious little since. She was spooning milky oatmeal into Emma Grace’s mouth now, her face expressionless.

  “Do you think we’ll be home for Christmas?” Franky asked me.

  “We ain’t havin’ no Christmas,” Kirk declared.

  Rorey got up from her seat and ran into the other room in tears. Juli followed her, but there was no helping it. For all our assurances, most of the Hammond kids could not imagine the holiday without their parents. Us talking about decorations and cakes and whatever else just wasn’t going to be good enough. And I didn’t blame them for it, not one bit. I had to take a deep breath, remembering Juli’s words without really wanting to. “It’s not right,” she’d told the Lord and Pastor Jones. “It’s just not right!”