Julia's Hope

by Leisha Kelly

  It was hard for me to think of anything except this nephew who’d come charging down clear from Chicago to help his aunt. Whether she needed it or not, he’d thought she did, and he cared about her or he wouldn’t have come. He was the one that had rights here. Including the right to make decisions about Emma, should it come to that. When you got down to brass tacks, I was the one who didn’t belong.

  Emma would speak her mind, I knew that. And he would probably listen. He might even let her have her way, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  I whacked at a chunk of hickory with all the strength I had in my tired arms and tried to put myself in the place of Albert Graham. What would I feel like if it were me called to see about a relative who couldn’t manage too well on her own?

  That was a hard thought, and I had to consider my mother. What if it were her, sick and needing someone with her? I’d go. I’d have to. But right now, she didn’t even know where I was, unless Dewey had told her. I couldn’t imagine her welcoming me the way Emma had welcomed Albert.

  But I knew I should write. I should let the relatives back east know how we were doing and how to get in touch with us. They were kin, after all. I could admire Albert Graham for his sense of that.

  When Albert finally came outside, the first thing he did was ask Julia to fix Emma’s tea. Then he went walking into the timber without another word to any of us.

  He was gone for at least three hours, longer than we had been, even with the unwieldy chair to maneuver. Juli had made lunch, fed us, and kept back some warm food for him. Eventually he came back with his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up, and his nice shoes as dusty as an old book. He sat with Emma again, ate his lunch, and then found me in the side yard, cutting wood.

  “Aunt Emma’s got her mind made up,” he said with a shake of his head. “She wants to be all the way out here, miles from a doctor.”

  “That concerns me too,” I admitted. “Doesn’t seem to bother her, though.”

  “She’s ready to die. She even says so right out. Maybe I would be too, at eighty-four, but I wanted her seen to by someone I knew. I like Rita McPiery. She’d do anything for you. Anything at all.”

  I didn’t know why he was talking to me. I couldn’t even tell just how he was feeling about things, or why he’d come out here. “I believe that,” was all I could say. Rita McPiery was a decent lady, there was no doubt of that, and Emma had been in good hands with her.

  “She won’t come to Chicago with me,” he said. “Too far. She’s just as planted out here as if she were a tree with roots. I guess it’d be like chopping her down, expecting her to live anywhere else.”

  He took the axe out of my hands and gave the nearest log a vicious whack. I stepped back a couple of paces.

  “I guess you know what she thinks of you,” he said. “I guess you know she wants to give you this whole place. You and George Hammond, the ignorant freeloader.”

  “I told her no.”

  “That’s what she said. But you’re still here.”

  I sighed. “Truth is, I don’t know where else to go. We didn’t plan this. And now if we move on, I’m not sure what’d come of her.”

  Albert let the axe head drop to the ground and leaned onto the handle. “She doesn’t want you going anywhere. She wants you to see about things for her till she joins Willard on the hill over there.” He looked off into the clouds. “I don’t like thinking about it. I guess if I could, I’d keep things the way they’ve always been, with Aunt Em and this place to come to. I don’t want her gone, you know? I know I don’t get down here much, but I’ll miss her. I’ll miss the whole thing.”

  There was nothing for me to say, and I wondered why he was talking like she might be gone tomorrow.

  “She wants you to have the farm, free and clear,” he said. “She wrote it all down, and she wants me to help her make it a legal will.”

  He seemed almost resigned to the fact. But it didn’t sit well with me. “Please believe I don’t want her doing that,” I told him. “I don’t want to take anything that ought to be yours.”

  He shook his head and looked me straight in the eyes. “It’s not up to you. It’s all hers. And what Aunt Emma wants to will to whom, that’s for her to decide. There’s nobody has any right arguing with that. Not even me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I wasn’t trying to influence her at all.”

  “Well, you’re not insistent, I can tell that. You could’ve had the deed already. You think my aunt’s pretty much a fool, thinking like this?”

  “No. I think she’s glad to be home. But I’d like you to tell me what I should do. It’s not my intention to cause friction between you.”

  He glanced over at the house. “I guess you haven’t. She asked me, you know, if I wanted the farm. But I’ve got my own life. I couldn’t move down here now, even if it was mine. I’d have to sell it, that’s what I told her. And if that’s not what she wants, then she’ll have to do whatever she will.”

  I swallowed hard at that news. “I’m not sure I want it.

  I’m not sure I can make this work.”

  “That’s something you’ll have to work out, I guess,” he said. “I should’ve known better when Miss Hazel told me Aunt Emma was slipping from reality. She’s sounder of mind than I am.”

  I could agree with that. “I owe her. I guess I always will.”

  Albert Graham nodded. “At least you’ve got the decency to be grateful. That was the best surprise coming down here. They told me you were cold as winter hills. I brought my father’s shotgun, in case I had to scare you out of here.”

  Albert ended up staying overnight and part of Saturday. We went to Barrett Post’s to see the heifer he’d promised us. Albert and Barrett laughed and joked like they’d known each other for years, which was more than likely the case.

  Emma wanted Albert to stay and go to church with us on Sunday, but he had to get back. So Juli got busy and made him a batch of cookies for the trip. He promised to send Robert a fishing pole he had around but didn’t have time to use. It sure was a relief to be parting on such friendly terms.

  There seemed to be something different about Robert the next morning. He was up with the sunrise, slipping out of the house. I found him in the hayloft with the kittens and the Bible storybook he’d gotten from the library, reading out loud. That day, he went forward in his Sunday school class, even though no one else did and the other boys snickered just like he’d feared. He told me about it later and said he’d never been so glad to do anything.

  Something was different about me too. I found that I was happy, even though I still didn’t know what to do about the barn or about anything else around here. Maybe it was because my wife and children were happy. Maybe it was because I found I could belong a little bit, just like they did.

  Nobody argued to our faces at church this time or came bustling up to set Emma straight. Not even Miss Hazel, who snubbed her nose and turned her attention to Selma Turrey’s scandalous daughter who was caught wearing knickers the night before.

  The next evening I sat down and wrote my mother a letter. It was the right thing to do. And it didn’t even matter if she didn’t write back. I had to tell her I loved her. I had to say that God can see much farther than any of us can, that he has a way of working out even the hopeless things if we just give him a chance. He planted us here because it was time. And here we’ll stay, until he designs it otherwise. That’s life. More of a marvel than I ever knew it could be. And not near so much in my own hands.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Julia

  Chuckles the hen was sitting on four eggs now. And George Hammond came over, bringing two more hens to pay Emma for her help with the baby. I could almost taste the chicken we’d have come winter. He said he’d thought on bringing us another cow, but wasn’t sure we’d be ready for that yet, since Posts were already giving us one.

  Sam didn’t get as much work with Barrett Post as he wanted in the next few weeks, and I knew it bo
thered him not to have the cash. But he did get Willard’s tractor running for George, in exchange for the pledge of a decent share of the crop for Emma. A promise I prayed Mr. Hammond would keep. At least he sent over a chunk of salt pork and a casing of sausage, just because Emma loved them so well.

  I found myself doing a lot of singing, picking strawberries, and managing to do a bit better with the milk gravy. Corn and lettuce and all the rest came poking their little heads up, but days went by without any clouds, and I started praying for rain.

  It was hard to wait for the blackberries and the hickory nuts and all the other things that come in their own good time. I kept on picking weed greens, even canned a few, hoping we’d have plenty of other things to can by the time the cold weather came. I felt a little scared, just thinking of the things we’d need by then. Coats and everything. Lord have mercy.

  Emma gave her quilt to the Hammonds and started piecing a coat for Sarah out of scraps she had around. “I had me a crazy coat one time,” she said. “Sure did love them colors.” Seemed a little strange to be thinking of coats when summer was just starting. Sensible though. The way we ought to be.

  Even though there was so much work to be done before winter, we still took the time to set Emma’s precious little violas in a spot of their own beside the shed, and to move a batch of black-eyed Susan and trillium up to the yard.

  Sarah named our new puppy Whiskers just as soon as we’d gotten him home. He kept us up half the first night, but finally settled down to sleep right outside the back door. Now I have to step out real easy to keep from colliding with the bouncy little thing. He chews sticks and barks at all the critters he should bark at, and the place seems complete, now that’s he’s here.

  If Grandma Pearl could take a look around, she’d say, “Julia, you’ve got yourself a home. Don’t worry about what you haven’t got. Do your best, and God will make up the difference.”

  Leisha Kelly is a native of Illinois and grew up around gardens and hardworking families. She and her husband, K.J., have two children, eighteen peaceful acres, and several pets. This novel is her first book.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight