by Leisha Kelly
“No, sir,” I told him. “But she’s right what she’s sayin’. Every bit.”
He looked at her and then at me and shook his head again. “There’s somethin’ neither one a’ you unnerstands,” he said real slow. “Things wasn’t s’posed to be like this. I had it worked out. But ever’thin’s fallin’ apart, and it’s gonna get worse, that’s all I can figure.”
“You had what worked out?” Lizbeth asked.
“What come next. I had it all figured when Joe went in the service. By the time he come home, I’d have more’n half my kids growed an’ on their own. But he stayed longer, an’ Kirk and Willy’s gone too, an’ I never planned on that.” He stopped and took a deep breath, looking over to the wall with something strange in his eyes. “War’s come up, an’ now Joe ain’t comin’. It ain’t gonna be like I thought. An’ I still got half at home.”
“What are you sayin’, Pa?” Lizbeth asked.
I was glad it was her asking the questions. I couldn’t have managed to. I was feelin’ bitter hurt inside for some reason, knowin’ that whatever Pa said next was gonna hit at us.
“Pa?” Lizbeth prompted when he didn’t answer right away. “What are you tellin’ us?”
“I wanted to be done by now,” he said. “I was thinkin’ Kirk an’ Willy’d marry like you an’ Sam. Rorey too, way before now. And Frank’d stay over there with Mr. Wortham. Only thing that makes sense for him. But now all I got’s him here with the kids, when I was lookin’ for Joe to come back an’ take over the farm . . .”
He just stopped, like he couldn’t go on.
“You got no call to doubt Frank,” Lizbeth maintained. “But all of the rest of that can still happen.”
I had an awful feelin’ in the pit of my stomach. There was more to what he was saying. “What do you mean?” I dared ask him. “About wantin’ to be done?”
He looked at me. He swallowed kind of hard and seemed almost scared all of a sudden. “I kinda made a deal,” he said with his voice soundin’ shaky. “’Least I thought I did. I kinda made a deal with God after your mama died and Mr. Wortham tol’ me I had to consider you young’uns. I had to be here for you.”
“What kind of deal?” I pressed him further.
“I tol’ the good Lord I’d stick ’round long enough to see over half a’ you big ’nough to get your own life, you know. Then you’d be so used to standin’ on your own you could see to the rest an’ you wouldn’t need me no more. I figured one of the boys’d take on the farm for me. I figured it’d be Joe. But some of you been slow to move on. An’ the army, that jus’ changes ever’thin’. It weren’t no part of the deal to be buryin’ none of you.”
“Pa?” Lizbeth looked shaken. “All these years you’ve been plannin’ on leavin’?”
“Oh, girl,” he moaned. “What diff’rence does it make? You got one brother gone already. Kirk and Willy, they’re next. They ain’t comin’ home. I been hearin’ it in my head for days. They ain’t comin’ home.”
“Pa!” Lizbeth exclaimed. “That’s the devil talking! That’s fears takin’ hold of you. There’s no reason to think—”
“God’s got all mad at me ’bout it, that’s what it is,” he said, staring down at the torn sheet underneath him. “God’s maybe done decided you’re all better off with your mama.”
“That’s crazy talk.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. It just come out before I could stop it. Lizbeth looked up at me and didn’t answer my words, but I could see in her eyes that she was thinkin’ the same thing. It wasn’t just Pa drinkin’ or feelin’ lazy sometimes that was the problem now. Nor even bein’ fretful over Joe. There was something bad wrong with his thinkin’. Maybe there had been for a long time and we just didn’t know. But it was scary to see it lookin’ at me out his eyes. He weren’t right, and it went past the worry. Lizbeth knew it too.
“Pa, there’s no sense at all talking like this,” she said. “Nobody’s died, and there’s no use expectin’ that anybody will. God is with Joe, wherever he is. And with Kirk and Willy too. They’re gonna make you proud. They’re heroes already, and they’ll come home and get married and give you loads of grandchildren.”
Pa didn’t even seem to hear her. “I still got five home. Half. Unless I figure Frank to be on his own, but I don’t know what he is. If I go now, what’s gonna happen? Are you an’ Ben gonna move out here? Or Sam? You got your own places already. Frank ain’t gonna take this place on. He can’t. He does all right with the wood, but he’s got his head in the clouds.”
“Pa,” Lizbeth kept trying to reason. “We don’t have to decide the future—”
“I ain’t talkin’ ’bout the future, girl! Are you gonna be the one seein’ ’bout Emmie and Harry and Bert, till they’re outta school an’ workin’ or somethin’? An’ Rorey, till she’s married? Sam’s got five in his own family to think about now. You gonna be the one to take on this farm an’ the kids? Are you? I promised God I wouldn’t leave it all on the Worthams! I swore I wouldn’t! But tarnation! It ain’t nothin’ to be left on Franky an’ Rorey! Who else I got?”
“Pa!” Lizbeth looked scared. “You’re not goin’ anywhere! You got no reason to talk like this—”
Before we could realize what he was doing, he shoved her away. Not hard, but it was a shock just the same. And I reached to help her steady herself.
“Franky,” she said stiffly. “Go tell Harry to fetch Mr. Wortham. He’s got the best sense of anybody I know talking to Pa. He’ll know what to do.”
More than anything else, her not knowing what to do shook me terrible. I’d always had faith in my big sister. Lizbeth held us together in rough times. Lizbeth had always known what to do.
I hurried outside, feeling as miserable as Pa looked. “Harry,” I called. “Lizbeth wants you to go ask Mr. Wortham to come an’ talk to Pa.”
“How come?” he asked immediately. “What’s wrong?” He must have thought like me that Lizbeth could surely handle this. I shook my head. “Pa’s thinkin’ muddleheaded, I don’t know. Just go on, okay? Don’t tell Emmie or Bert much a’ nothin’.”
“I don’t need Sam Wortham over here!” we heard Pa screamin’ at Lizbeth inside the house. “I’m doin’ just fine!”
Harry looked at me questioningly.
“Go on,” I told him. “Lizbeth says go.”
He went. And I stood, feeling a little shaky. It was bad enough that Pa was expectin’ trouble for Willy and Kirk as much as Joe. But besides that, he had talked like he didn’t expect to be here much longer, or maybe was choosing not to be. Was he thinkin’ on running off? Or dying?
Lizbeth came out and told Ben and me that Pa was getting dressed. She looked kind of pale. She knew as well as I did that he’d confessed something to us that he hadn’t really meant to share, and never would have if he weren’t feelin’ so low. But now what? Here he was gettin’ up, just like we’d wanted. Maybe he’d eat and go about his farm work as though everything was all right. But was he really different? What was he thinking to do?
It scared me, even though I was tryin’ to strengthen myself with the Scripture that says “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” That could apply to my pa as much as anyone, if he believed it. But I didn’t know where he stood. And I knew if he wanted to bad enough, he could hide. His drinking. His thinking. Maybe even some careless plans.
“Lizbeth,” I said, “I’m glad he’s up, but I don’t think it’s settled.”
“I know.” She reached for Ben’s hand. “Honey, I’ll have to stay a while. Even with you working Monday, I need to be here to make sure Pa don’t take off and do somethin’ stupid.”
He nodded and then put his arms around her. Ben was a good fellow. And it was a good relief to have them stay. I could hear Pa in the sitting room of the house now, muttering somethin’.
God Almighty, I prayed. What kind of things have we got in store?
15
Sarah
I was knea
ding bread dough when Harry came to get Daddy. Nobody was sure what was going to happen. Daddy went and talked to Mr. Hammond, but he didn’t come back for hours. The regular baking got done and then dinner too. Katie and I went outside to weed the garden while Mom finished up the cookies with Emmie and Mary Jane. After a while Emmie came to help us. She told us she knew her pa was sick because he’d yelled at her that morning just for bringing him breakfast and well people don’t do that. Bert looked over at us from where he’d been splitting kindling by the back door, and stopped to join us for a while.
“Frances Mueller says bad things happen in threes,” he said.
“That’s just superstition,” Katie answered.
“But what if it’s true? What if the news about Joe is jus’ the beginnin’?”
Looking at him, I knew he was already scared. I tried to think what the preacher might tell him. “Numbers don’t matter,” I said. “The devil brings whatever bad he can, and we just make his job easier if we expect it. We’re supposed to look on the bright side of things and expect good because God sends his angels around those who believe.”
Katie nodded her approval as she pulled a handful of henbit and threw it in the pile behind her. Of course I knew that my parents would approve of such words too. But I felt a little funny inside when I said them. I guess because there was a tiny seed of doubt taking root in me. Earl Wilkins had believed. I knew that very well. And Earl Wilkins was dead.
I didn’t like such thoughts. I even felt guilty, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it. I still believed in God, but it seemed to me that faith would be much easier if godly people were blessed all the time and ungodly people had trouble till they decided to mend their ways. But life wasn’t like that. Good people still went through plenty of trouble.
I sighed and yanked at a dandelion. It snapped off, leaving the root in the ground. And it was almost like a message. That’s just like me, I thought. I know how to seem all right on the surface. But down underneath I’ve still got questions that won’t go away.
I heard the back door, and little Mary Jane ran out to us all excited. She was having the time of her life staying with us today. She didn’t have an inkling that everybody was feeling sad and worried for her Uncle Joe and bothered for her grandfather’s sake. She was full of cookies and fun and didn’t have a care in this world.
Mary Jane went bouncing around the garden and then stopped to stare in wonder at a bug crawling on a little spinach leaf. I remembered that I’d liked critters too when I was little. And I usually liked little kids and their boundless curiosity. But right then, I didn’t feel like watching her. I don’t know why, but her joyful ignorance of our problems made me uncomfortable. “Maybe I’d better go help Mom with something,” I said, looking over at Katie. “Do you know what she’s planning for supper?”
“No. Do you suppose Lizbeth and Ben’ll be over by then?”
“Maybe not to eat. But they’ll be back for Mary Jane before it gets late.”
Evening came, and Ben and Lizbeth weren’t there for supper. Dad wasn’t back, either. But he and Ben came through the timber together a little while after our supper, and neither of them said there was anything wrong. Mary Jane went running for Ben like she hadn’t seen him in a month.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
Ben laughed and picked her up.
“I was just coming to find out if you wanted to go over to your mama and Uncle Frank,” Ben told her. “And Grandpa too.”
“Yeah!” Mary Jane squealed.
“Bert and Emmie,” Ben called. “Lizbeth said you might as well come too, so you can get settled in and ready for church in the morning.”
Bert looked skeptical. “Did Pa say to come back?”
Ben shook his head. “He didn’t really say. But you’re used to listening to Lizbeth, aren’t you? She said you might as well be home. Come on.”
They all went down the path through the timber toward the Hammond farm. I watched them for a while. Mary Jane was bouncing on her daddy’s shoulders and waving her arms like she was directing the trees in glorious song. I wished I could be more like her. I suppose I was odd in that way, when so many people my age were glad to be nearly grown, and wishing they were even older. But I was in no hurry. Better to be a kid as long as possible, I thought. When you’re little, people don’t wonder at you if you cry. And the world is still your great big plaything.
I sighed, and turned my attention to the Saturday night bathing. At almost seventeen, I was too old to act like a child. There was a war going on. The world wasn’t playing anymore.
It was hard for me to sleep that night. I guess I was thinking too much. I wondered how Mom and Dad would react if it were Robert that was missing. And how I’d react. And then, after those notions drove me near to tears, I wondered how Mr. Hammond would react if they never did find Joe. Or if he died. My stomach got to feeling sour, but I didn’t get up or tell anybody about it. I just tried to pray, the best that I could. But I couldn’t put words together the way the pastor did. Or Frank. Or Rachel. Finally I went to sleep with Rachel’s prayer still on my mind. God give us peace in this time of being apart, make us stronger . . .
In the morning we got around for church a little earlier than usual. Oftentimes, Hammonds got to church on their own, so we usually drove straight to town without them if they didn’t come by early for a ride. But that day, Dad drove over to the Hammond farm and told us all to wait. The kids were ready. Lizbeth and Mary Jane were ready. But Dad wouldn’t leave until Mr. Hammond came out to go to church too. We waited quite a while.
“He promised me, Julia,” Dad told Mom. And then he jumped out of the truck to go inside. Frank and Ben must have been in the house too. I didn’t know what to expect. So I guess everybody was relieved when Mr. Hammond finally came out in Sunday clothes, looking cleaner than I’d seen him in a long time. That must have been Lizbeth’s doing. None of the rest of the kids had been able to persuade him in much of anything.
Dad wanted him up front in our truck, to talk to him a little. Rorey and Emma Grace climbed in the car with Lizbeth, Ben, and Mary Jane. The rest of us were in the back of our truck, even Mom. She looked so pretty in her calico dress with her hair all pinned up. I wished I could tell what she was thinking.
Mr. Hammond seemed mostly normal at church, and everybody else was trying to act like normal too. I kept thinking about Robert’s letter to me, and especially Rachel’s prayer again: “. . . that God give us peace in this time of being apart, make us stronger, and give us a greater understanding of himself.”
Rachel was pretty wise. I wasn’t surprised that Robert would think she might relate well to Frank. I’d thought him wise too, ever since the day of the accident so long ago when his leg got broken. He’d been just a little boy trying to tell my Uncle Edward about the love of Jesus. And then the accident happened. Uncle Edward didn’t listen real well back then, but he respected Franky’s bravery and he remembered. He’d come to God since then, partly because of the things Frank had said.
I looked at the next pew, where Frank and his brothers were sitting across the aisle from us. All of their hair looked a little too long, and Frank especially looked so tired. I could tell it in his eyes. Dad asked the church again to pray for Joe, and when he did, Frank bowed his head and started to cry. My stomach got sour like last night, and I almost couldn’t stand to just sit there. Frank hadn’t cried on the day they got the letter, or in all the time since then, so far as I knew. Seeing him do it now made me want to cry too. I remembered Robert telling me that I should help Frank if I got the chance, but I didn’t know how.
The whole church prayed for Joe. And that felt good in a way, but I could tell it didn’t take away Frank’s hurt. I looked at Mr. Hammond, and he was staring down at his lap. He didn’t even lift his head when the prayer was done. Lizbeth put her hand in his, but he didn’t look up at her or move at all.
I wondered what could cause a soldier to go missing. Dad said some men had died on t
he last day that Joe was accounted for. There was probably a lot of shooting, but I couldn’t picture Joe running from it. Especially not since he had men under him.
Where is he, God? What’s happened to him?
For some reason I kept thinking of Rachel’s prayer again. “God, give us peace in this time of being apart.”
We needed the peace, all right. I needed peace not to worry about Robert. But much more than that, the Hammonds needed peace about Joe. And Joe, wherever he was, however he was, needed peace too. But I knew only God could give us that kind of peace in uncertainty. I took a deep breath and turned my eyes to Pastor Jones at the front of the church. He was just starting to read from the Gospel of Matthew:
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I didn’t remember very much of what else he said, because thoughts of my own kept crowding my mind. “Make us stronger,” Rachel had written. And that part of her prayer was almost a surprise. Robert was so strong already. A sturdy young man who could do hours of hard work without complaint. And while Rachel herself was much daintier, she was strong in what my mother would call womanly ways. She could cook and can, sew, crochet, and make her own soap and candles. I once saw a quilt she’d made, and I was impressed that somebody younger than my mother could do such nice work. My quilting left much to be desired. But more than all that, Rachel was strong in godly things. She believed in prayer. But she’d prayed to be even stronger.
She’d prayed for God to give us a greater understanding of himself. Sitting there in church with a Bible on my lap and the preacher’s words as a soft backdrop to my thinking, I had to admit that I wasn’t sure whether what she’d written was even possible. Could we understand God better? He was almost incomprehensible. And invisible. Good thing he’d given us the Bible. And church. And people like my parents.
I remembered professing my belief when I was twelve and being baptized by the pastor in our farm pond. But things hadn’t really changed since then. I had the same feelings about God, the same understanding, as I’d had then. I didn’t have a greater understanding. Was I supposed to?
