Emma's Gift

by Leisha Kelly

  “But she ain’t a boy,” Harry pointed out.

  “It’s just for play,” Rorey told him, suddenly an expert. “An’ I weren’t a boy neither when I done it.”

  “Then I wanna be Joseph,” Harry declared.

  “Can we, Mrs. Wortham?” Rorey persisted.

  Their enthusiasm surprised me. And I thought it a grand notion. With Emma all those years ago, it would’ve been a fine thing to see. “Sure, why not?” I’d noticed George sitting in the corner. Maybe seeing his kids at such a project would lift his spirits some.

  “Put on a show for your father,” I told the kids. “It’ll be fun. You two can be Mary and Joseph. Franky and Willy and Robert would make good wise men.”

  “Huh-uh!” Willy protested.

  “Mom,” Robert echoed his dismay. “We want to go sledding.”

  “This won’t take long, honey, and the younger ones want to. It won’t hurt you to indulge them a little.”

  “I wanna be Jozep!” Berty hollered.

  “Honey, we need you to be a shepherd, to take care of all the sheep and goats and such.”

  Berty smiled brightly. “Okay. That’s importan’ too, ain’t it?”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “What about me?” Sarah asked. “What can I be?”

  “An angel.”

  Joe graciously volunteered to be Berty’s herd of animals, and it was decided that Lizbeth becoming the manger would be the only way to keep “baby Jesus” lying still. It was a cute little show for George and Pastor and Juanita and the rest, and it lasted maybe all of ten minutes. By then, I could smell the turkey coming along and knew I’d better start in with the rest of our big meal, so I agreed to let all the kids go sledding with Samuel.

  Samuel, however, didn’t seem to want to go. I wasn’t sure why not. But he agreed to put the finishing touches on the Hammond sled so the boys could all go.

  “Won’t you come?” Samuel asked George.

  “Nah. I believe I’ll set right here.”

  “Want to sled with them, then, in a little bit?”

  “Nope.”

  “They’d like your company.”

  “I’ll be right here when they come in fer dinner.” He folded his arms and leaned back, and that was it about it. Samuel went on out, and every one of the kids but Lizbeth and the baby piled out of the house with him, leaving the place suddenly quiet.

  “Don’t you want to go?” Juanita asked Lizbeth. “I’ll watch the baby.”

  Lizbeth glanced at her father and shook her head. “They won’t be out long. Not with a turkey comin’ on.” She started singing to the baby, and from across the room I could see George’s pained expression worsen. Lizbeth noticed too and abruptly stopped.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Pa. I wasn’t thinkin’.” She looked up at me. “That was Mama’s song. Her favorite.”

  “Go on an’ sing it,” George told her. “I always did like it too.”

  So Lizbeth sang, looking unsure of herself. And before long, little Emma was sound asleep in her arms.

  “You’re good with that baby,” her father told her. “Like you was born to it.”

  “Maybe I was, Pa. There’s always been a baby ’round, ’long as I can remember.”

  “I got somethin’ special for you, girl.”

  Lizbeth looked at her father in surprise, and he started fishing something small out of his pocket.

  “Your mama tol’ me to do this. I almost forgot it, but I got an obligation to fulfill.”

  Lizbeth stepped closer, and he presented her with a shiny chain—a tiny gold locket.

  “Gramma’s necklace.” Lizbeth stared at her father, making no move to touch it. “Oh, Pa!”

  “Your mama wanted you to have it. And it’s right, on account a’ you bein’ the oldest girl.” He looked down for a minute, fishing in a pants pocket. “An’ I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What, Pa?”

  He pulled out a pocket watch on a leather fob. “I want you to save this back an’ give to your brother Sam. I’d do it m’self, but he prob’ly wouldn’t take it just yet, on account a’ he’s sore at me.”

  “But he’ll get over that, Pa! ’Specially if you don’t drink no more!” She stopped for a moment, gauging his reaction to such words. But his expression did not change. “Pa, there ain’t no hurry.”

  “It’s Christmas,” he said. “An’ besides, you two been right grown up ’bout all this. I oughta show you how’s I ’preciate it.”

  Lizbeth took the locket and the watch in her hands and stood there looking at them for a minute. Then she turned her eyes to her father. “We love you, Pa.”

  “I know you do. An’ I love every one a’ you.” Then he suddenly lifted his voice. “Mrs. Wortham! Come put this on my girl an’ see how grown-up an’ purty she looks!”

  I did as he said and quickly saw how worried she was. But she didn’t say anything about that. “Thank you,” she murmured, reaching up with one hand to touch the delicate golden locket at her throat.

  “I b’lieve you’re purtier’n your mother was,” George said. “Oh, she was purty enough. She used to say, though, that she weren’t built for lookin’ at.”

  “I’d like to see her right now,” Lizbeth said softly.

  “So would I, girl. So would I.”

  Pastor was picking up the scattered paper all over the sitting room and looking to be praying at the same time. Juanita had gone back to the kitchen and was working on fixings for dinner.

  “I should be helpin’,” Lizbeth suddenly said. “I s’pose you’re plannin’ to fill the table with food.”

  “There’ll be plenty,” I assured her. “With what the Posts brought and your father’s ham. But I’ll see to it. You stay here with your father.” I turned to George with a question, but his eyes were so stormy strange, I wasn’t sure he’d hear me. “Will Rorey expect her cake today, Mr. Hammond, or tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “I ’preciate you bein’ willin’ t’ make it, Mrs. Wortham, even if I didn’t say so before. Lizbeth, you need to be ’bout helpin’ her. That’s the thing to do, even if she says she don’t need it. You be good as gold for her, just like you always been for me an’ your mama.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lizbeth was looking at me, her hand still on her locket.

  “Keep the watch back now for Sam,” he told her again. “Till he’s good an’ ready for it. You’ll know when that is.”

  “Yes, Pa.” She turned and walked away into the kitchen because she knew it was expected of her. And I just stood there looking George in the eye, and him looking right back. I wanted to reprove him. I wanted to tell him exactly how I felt about him worrying Lizbeth so. But I couldn’t say a word. Finally I just turned my head to the pastor, and he gave a solemn, understanding nod.

  No wonder she thought he didn’t want them. He hadn’t said a word about taking them back home. Now that he’d fulfilled his obligation to Wilametta, it was almost as if he believed he could just turn his back on them and walk away.

  Lizbeth was cutting sweet potatoes with her head down. I knew she was trying hard not to cry. “My mama’s only necklace,” she told me.

  “It was good of your father to give it to you.”

  “It weren’t good about the watch. That was Mama’s pa’s watch that he wanted kep’ with his children. Pa knows he ain’t got no business keepin’ it, ’less he stays with us, an’ no reason not to keep it, ’less he’s fixin’ to leave.”

  “Now, Lizbeth, it’s natural to pass things along as soon as the next generation is old enough to appreciate them, and you certainly are.” But my words had a hollow sort of sound, even to me.

  “You know what Sam said?” she asked me.

  “No.”

  “He said we can’t make Pa do nothin’. Not have us home nor stay around nor nothin’ else. We gotta jus’ let him do what he’s gonna do and make the most of it.”

  “I suppose he’s right up to a point. But your father does love
you. I expect that, given time, he’ll make the right choice.”

  “Sure,” she agreed. “To his mind. But his mind ain’t thinkin’ like yours.”

  As we got food on the table, Emma’s favorite Scripture floated through my mind.

  “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

  So many times she’d quoted those words to me!

  “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.”

  She’d been so careful to let me know what those passages meant to her, as if she were a pansy or something, plucked up by God’s gentle hands and added to a flower garden in heaven. But while everybody filled their plates with that fine dinner, I couldn’t help but consider one of the passages that came next:

  “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…”

  Nobody was dancing here. Nobody was laughing, though they’d had a fair enough time trying out the sleds. Most of the kids were eating better now, and at least that was a start. Maybe they would laugh before long.

  And George was seeming suddenly more cheerful, much to my relief. He ate heartily too, and just seeing him seem so nearly like himself was putting all the children at greater ease. Except maybe Lizbeth. She seemed genuinely surprised when he accepted Willy’s challenge of a game of checkers.

  “Pa’s doin’ better,” Kirk told me a bit later in the day. “Reckon we’ll go over home tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “You all can stay here if you like. Him too.”

  “Nah. Got the chores to think about.”

  Harry and Bert were busy throwing their cloth balls up and down the stairs to each other. Franky had moved from Samuel’s side to his father’s. Rorey and Sarah were sitting under the wall of paper angels, rocking their babies to sleep. I sat down in the kitchen for a minute, feeling numb on my feet.

  “Wish we could stay longer,” Juanita told me. “You could use the help.”

  “You have to go?” The news was dismaying.

  “We promised Oltmeiers we’d stop in tonight. Better to go before dark.”

  “Well, you’ve been so much help. A godsend.”

  “That’s what I think of you.”

  Strange to hear her say such a thing. I’d been wondering what they must think of me, with the attitude I’d had.

  “You’ve been my honest-to-goodness friend, Julia, when some of the ladies of the church seemed afraid to be that. You were pure blessing to Emma too. She told me. And now, helping George—”

  “I’m not helping George,” I blurted without thinking. “I’m helping his kids.” Immediately I regretted opening my mouth.

  “Now, Juli, it comes out about the same, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry. But you ought to know, I guess, that I’m not so good as you think I am. It’s too much that he doesn’t even try.”

  “Maybe he’s trying, in his own way. It takes time, sometimes, settling everything in your heart when hard things happen.”

  “Well, he’s had time to think, that’s for sure. But we haven’t. Not without a hundred other things going on around us. Juanita, I just want to sit in the quiet and think on Emma a little, if that doesn’t sound silly.”

  “Oh, Juli, I know.” She reached out and took my hand.

  “She used to talk to the Lord like she could see clear to heaven or like he was standing right at her elbow or something. I’m needing that. Lately he seems so far away. And I’ve come close to being too tired to care.”

  “It’ll get better. George knows he can’t just keep leaving it all on you. Don’t feel guilty about sending them home when you get the chance. You made it, Juli. And they’ll make it too.”

  I’d made it, losing my mother young. Yes, they’d make it too, though I was not much comforted by her words.

  Samuel went out to hitch the horse to the sleigh, and Pastor took the time to speak with George. “Just try,” I heard him say. “Give the hand of the Lord a chance.”

  “He don’t need nothin’ from me,” George replied stubbornly. “He’s the one ain’t give us much a chance, seems to me.”

  “You know what I’m saying,” Pastor persisted. “Trust him. Believe he’ll provide for you and the children and—”

  “Right fine bit a’ Christmas they’ve had,” George interrupted.

  “Yes. And God has plans to take care of all of you beyond this.”

  “He can get to doin’ it, then.”

  Pastor was quieted a moment by George’s embittered words. When he spoke again, his words were quiet. “He’s available to you. But it’s not all on him. You’re their father, and you’ll have to do your part. Your kids need you to do what’s right by them. They need to know they’ll be taken care of.”

  “They will be,” George promised. “I been doin’ plenty a’ thinkin’ on it, an’ I’ll do the best I can for ’em. You got my word.”

  I sucked in my breath, hoping he meant those words as much as he seemed to.

  “We have to be going,” Pastor was telling him. “But we’ll be looking in on you again in a few days.”

  George nodded his head and shook the pastor’s hand. I gave Juanita a hug. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered in my ear. “He’s going to be okay.”

  But as soon as Pastor and Juanita left, George was looking just as gloomy as he had a while before. “Be better t’ have the kids here another night,” he told me. “Seein’s it’s Rorey’s birthday tomorrow an’ you’re bein’ so good as to fix the cake. No sense walkin’ ’em over an’ back in the cold.”

  “We could bring the cake to you there,” I offered.

  “Oh no. Rorey’s enjoyin’ bein’ with yer little Sarah, anyhow. That’s the kinda birthday she’d want.”

  I didn’t feel like arguing, though I could almost shake him silly for going back on his word so soon. How could it be best for the kids to keep on staying with us and not go home? It just left them wondering if they really had a home anymore. “After a birthday dinner, then,” I told him, “you need to take them all back. It’s hard on them, missing their own house.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ ’bout that to miss,” he maintained. “Nothing but their mama, an’ there ain’t no help for that.”

  He started to go. He would have gone. But Samuel stopped him when he went to put on his coat. “It’s still Christmas,” he told George. “And tomorrow’s like a holiday for your family too. If you want the kids to stay for it, then you ought to stay and keep the day along with them. That’s the way it should be. So long as they’re here, George, I want you here too.”

  He obviously wasn’t happy with that. “You’re doin’ fine,” he told us. “Better’n I could do.”

  “No. We can’t replace you.” Samuel was adamant. “And we won’t.”

  George didn’t make any effort to reply to that. But he stayed. He sat in the corner by the fireplace hearth and watched the boys in one checkers game after another. He let Berty sit on his lap for a little while, and I was glad of it. But Berty went to Joe when he needed the outhouse, to me when he wanted a drink, and to Lizbeth when he started to get tired.

  We made popcorn. We read the beginning of Pilgrim’s Progress out loud, up to the point where Pliable abandons the truth at the Slough of Despond.

  “That’s the most tomfoolinest story I ever heard,” George complained.

  “I think it’s sorta wise,” said Lizbeth, surprising me. “It shows pretty plain that we hadn’t ought to just quit and go back when things gets hard.”

  George looked at her. “What do you know about it? That Christian fellow’s as much the fool as t’other one, goin’ off on some journey without his wife when she didn’t even want him to go!”

  “He had to, Pa!” Franky added. “He couldn’t help it if she wouldn’t go! Besides, it don’t mean a real journey, like going up to Belle Rive or somewhere.”

  Franky looked at me as if he were hoping f
or verification. And I was even more amazed at him than I was at Lizbeth. How could an eight-year-old who couldn’t read have such a grasp of John Bunyan’s sometimes difficult wording? To my astonishment, Franky continued.

  “It just means the kinda stuff that happens when we’re doin’ what we’re suppose to. Right, Mrs. Wortham? All a’ that journey stuff might a’ been goin’ on and him still in the very same house as his wife the whole time.”

  “That’s a bunch a’ baloney!” Kirk declared. “It plain said he was out across the field, didn’t it? You’re jus’ ignorant!”

  Not wanting to take sides, I tried to be as gentle as I could. “Now, we could consider you both to be right. It does say he was walking in the fields and then fell into a bog. But it’s also true that the whole journey represents our Christian walk, whether we leave our houses or not. The author says that too, in his apology at the beginning.”

  “I never heard a’ nobody apologizin’ for his book,” Willy said. “If he thought it was so bad, why’d he write it?”

  I almost laughed. “Not an apology like saying you’re sorry. It means an explanation, a defense. His book isn’t bad at all. It’s helped a lot of people for hundreds of years.”

  George shook his head. “Don’t much see how them crazy kind a’ words can help anybody.”

  “It’s Old English.”

  “I’m not old,” Rorey said quickly. “I guess that’s why I don’t unnerstand it.”

  Several other children nodded in agreement. But not Franky or Lizbeth.

  “Can’t we read some more?” Franky asked timidly.

  “No!” Harry protested.

  “I’ll tell you what. It is a little hard for children to grasp.” I glanced at Franky, who truly looked puzzled. “I’ll read something else now and then read more of this to whoever wants to hear more later.”

  Franky smiled, and Willy elbowed him in the ribs. I read the story of Jonah from our Bible storybook, though some of the bigger boys paid precious little attention.

  What a mixed bag they were! Ruffians and sensitive sorts. Loud, quiet, insulting, insightful. How could George and Wilametta have come up with a lot like this? I looked over to George and realized that his children were well on the way to surpassing him. He had no education, no ambition, and didn’t seem particularly concerned that they acquire any either. What would they do, this whole family, if they were left alone?