by Anne Mateer
Nola Jean pushed potatoes around her plate with her fork. “That don’t seem likely, Miss Rebekah.”
“What brought y’all to this place, anyway?” I directed the question to Irene, but I knew the answer would come from Brother Latham. And maybe Frank would reveal a bit of his history on that, as well.
Brother Latham took another bite of ham and chewed it down before he answered. “Blackland Prairie’s good for growing things. Especially cotton.”
“Blackland? Because of that awful black mud?”
He chuckled. “Pretty much. But it’s fertile ground. Hard on man and mule, but you have to take the hard with the pleasant in this life. We don’t live in the Garden of Eden any longer.”
The contrast struck me funny—the Garden of Eden compared to the Blackland Prairie. One lush and green and full. One flat and almost barren, and so far as I’d seen, almost colorless. Was that why Clara and Aunt Adabelle had cultivated such a profusion of flowers around the house? To bring a reminder of Eden?
“My family’s been on this land since the War Between the States,” Brother Latham said. “Frank here is a regular newcomer. Brought his bride, worked for the railroad, and then bought his land.”
“Railroad?” My gaze landed on Frank. I’d heard nothing of this before. Frank pushed his empty plate away, his jaw tightening as Janie’s wail wandered through the house.
He wiped his mouth and stood. “Thank you for another mighty fine meal, Irene, but we best be on our way.”
Sheriff Jeffries leapt to his feet, too. “I can bring Rebekah home, if you don’t mind.”
Frank stopped. He glanced at me, then looked away. “I’m guessing you should ask her that question, not me.”
Sheriff Jeffries put his hand on the back of my chair. “Rebekah?”
Irene folded her hands and propped them beneath her chin. My gaze searched hers, begging her to tell me what to do and not wanting her advice, all at the same time.
“Of course.” I pushed away from the table and dabbed at the corners of my mouth. “But I’ll help clean up first.”
Irene waved her hand toward me, as if shooing off a fly. “Don’t you bother about that. You go on.”
So Frank, the children, the sheriff, and I made our way outside. I helped the children into the buggy with Frank, gave them instructions to hold Janie and to be good. Dandy trotted off, trying to drag my heart along behind him.
“May I drive again?” I asked as I watched them disappear down the road.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Sheriff Jeffries pulled at my arm, leading me toward the car.
“Why not?” I walked backward in front of him now, trying to read his face. “I’ll be more careful this time. And besides, it’s daylight.”
He shook his head, opened the passenger-side door for me. “I don’t like it. I’d rather you ride here.”
I started to protest but climbed inside. When he got behind the wheel, I yelled over the engine’s roar. “So do you prefer I don’t drive, or women in general?”
He didn’t answer, just steered us over the road, arms stiff, eyes straight ahead. I wanted to force him to look at me, talk to me. Instead, I folded my arms and stared out the window. Maybe this wasn’t the man God meant for me, after all.
James, I need your help.” Authority oozed from Frank’s voice the next afternoon, but James didn’t budge.
“I want to stay with Bekah and Janie.” He slumped his shoulders and stuck out his bottom lip.
“They don’t need you in their way. Now, c’mon.” The growl in Frank’s voice grew deeper. James fled from the room. Frank started to follow, then stopped, hands on his hips, chest heaving.
His eyes didn’t meet mine. He just took Dan by the hand and marched out the door. I smiled a bit. I couldn’t help it. If he’d asked me, I could have persuaded James to join them. But he didn’t. He didn’t think I knew how to handle his children. At least not the way he wanted them handled. Yet I suspected that my way was more like his wife’s or Aunt Adabelle’s.
The look on James’s face had told me what I felt was true. He, more than the others it seemed, deeply felt his mama’s absence. And in some small way I had filled her place for him.
Janie sat on my hip as I climbed the stairs to find my little man. I’d show Frank I knew how to deal with the children.
“James?”
Head and shoulders jutted out from under the bed. I sat down on the floor, Janie in my lap. “You staying under there all day?”
“No.” He scooted back a bit, leaving only his head exposed. “But I wanna stay here with you.”
“You’re such a good helper.” I held his chin in my hand.
He inched forward.
“But your daddy needs a helper, too.”
“He has Dan.”
“Yes, he does. But Dan’s still little. He can’t do as much as a big six-year-old. Let me see how strong you are.”
He slid from beneath the bed and hopped to his feet. He lifted a large trunk just a smidgen off the floor and let it drop again. Dust scattered into my eyes and nose.
“See what I mean? They need your help with the heavy work.”
“But I could help you.”
“That’s true. But I could call for you when I needed your help.”
His nose crinkled, and his head turned toward the window.
“It’s such a sunshiny day. I wish I could do my work outside,” I said, trying to push him over into the decision I wanted him to make.
“Well, okay. If you think you won’t need me right away.”
I stood up, Janie in my arms again. “We’ll be fine. You run along and find your daddy and your brother.”
He dashed away, his face split into a grin. I might not have spent much time around mothers and their children, studying their ways, recognizing their feelings, but I knew what would have motivated me. And it was exactly the opposite of what Mama and Frank would have done.
Satisfied, I let Janie walk the stairs in front of me, her hands above her head, her fingers secure in mine. As we tidied the house, little boy laughter carried through the open windows. James with his daddy, just where he needed to be. But what would happen to my little man when I left him alone with Frank? Or worse yet, with a new mother?
I couldn’t think about that. So I laid Janie in her crib and took the short walk to the mailbox. Inside, the newspaper—and a letter.
I cringed as Mama’s handwriting met my gaze. I’d chosen not to write her of Frank’s homecoming. Not yet. She’d insist I come home immediately. And right this minute, that was the last place I wanted to go. She still thought of me as a child to be shielded from life, even while considering me grown up enough to marry off to Barney Graves.
Bracing myself with a strong cup of coffee, I opened the letter, thankful that Mama remained a day’s train ride away. Two pages of nothing, mostly. Until her usual cajoling for me to return home.
The boys are coming home from France daily now. When that man arrives, you just pack up and come on home. I expect Mr. Samson will visit soon enough. Someone else can take on those children now.
As her words meandered through my head, sermons I’d heard during my growing-up years hailed down on me, words about giving a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name, of suffering the little children to come to Him. I couldn’t quite feel the rightness of Mama’s directive, in spite of the fact that she’d offered an escape from Frank’s enigmatic nature.
I curled my hands around my coffee cup, wishing I could see through the walls of the house to where the boys and their daddy worked. I imagined Frank’s big hands taking his sons’ smaller ones, teaching them, training them. I couldn’t envision him barking orders or sitting idly by watching his sons struggle.
“Bekah! Bekah! Come quick! Dan fell out of the hayloft, and he’s cryin’ for you.”
Coffee ran in a river across Mama’s letter as my chair thumped to the floor. “Stay here and listen for Janie,” I called to James as I ran out the do
or.
Please, Lord, not Dan. I raced through the barn door and dropped to my knees, hovering above the four-year-old’s tear-streaked face. I pushed his hair away from his eyes.
“Hush, baby. Tell me where you hurt. Tell Bekah.”
No words. Just sobs.
My gaze flew from one end of the barn to the other, frantic anger wrestling with fear. Where was Frank? Where was he?
I slid one arm beneath Dan’s knees, the other beneath his neck and lifted him into my lap, his body pressed next to mine. He cried out. I loosened my grip.
“Frank!” My scream echoed through the cavernous building. “Frank!”
I tried to stand, but Dan’s limp weight threw me off balance. “Frank!”
“What?” The barn door framed him as he barked the word.
“We have to help him.” I stumbled to my feet this time, lurching toward the wild-eyed man.
“What do you think I’ve been doing? The buggy’s hitched. I’m taking him to Doc.”
I blinked into the sunlight. “But you left him all alone.”
Frank held out his arms, his face paler than I remembered. “Give him to me so I can get him to town.” Measured words through rigid lips.
He stalked away, Dan crying more loudly with the jostle of every step. I hurried behind them. “You can’t drive and hold him at the same time.”
Frank mashed his lips together as Dan screamed louder.
I scrambled into the buggy and reached for Dan. “Let’s go.”
“Someone has to stay with the others.”
“Ollie will be home soon. They’ll be fine. Now give him to me.”
He laid his son in my arms and leapt onto the seat beside us.
“Stop at the house and we’ll tell James.”
Frank’s jaw tensed, but he did as I suggested. Then he slapped the reins on Dandy’s back and we took off toward town.
I refused to look at him as we traveled. Instead, I wiped Dan’s face and whispered in his ear until his crying quieted. When we pulled up in front of Doc Risinger’s house, I handed Dan to his father and watched them disappear inside.
My hands shook in my lap as I begged God to heal Dan—and to be with Frank, too. For when he’d taken Dan from my arms, the look of utter despair on the man’s face had swept every strand of frustration from my body. I might doubt that he’d ever approve of me, but I could never question how much he loved his children.
We returned home hours later, my stomach in knots over the state of the other children and the house. The last thing I needed was an “I told you so” from Frank. I held my breath as we neared the yard. The buggy stopped. Dan’s feet hit the ground with eagerness to display his latest badge of courage—a tight sling to keep his sprained arm still. Doc seemed to think he would be fine in no time.
I refused to wait for Frank to help me down from the buggy, although my steps weren’t as energetic as Dan’s. I lingered on the porch, listening to the children’s banter from inside while Frank took the buggy to the barn to unhitch. Just as he strode into the yard, the screen door creaked open.
“Supper’s ready.” Ollie let the door slap shut again.
Frank sighed. “You were right. Ollie has everything under control.”
“She’s an amazing girl, really.” I managed a weary smile as I read in his eyes the apology he didn’t speak.
With the dishes finished and the children settled in bed, I eased down on the porch steps near the kitchen door. The aching tired of a crisis survived had seeped into my very bones. I leaned back on my elbows and looked into the evening sky. Had it been only a month since Arthur’s visit? Two months since he’d shattered all my dreams?
Orange and pink melted into the darkening blue of twilight. What did a sunset look like from an airplane? Were the colors more intense or less noticeable? Maybe the whole thing could only be appreciated with your feet planted firmly on the ground.
Frank’s footfalls sounded across the dirt, stopping just inside the house yard, a pail of milk in his hand. I shivered and started to rise.
“Don’t get up,” he said.
I sat back down. He set the milk pail on the porch.
“I’ve missed this.” He eased down on the wide stair beneath me, hands folded, elbows resting on his knees. “Clara and I used to sit out here most nights, except the cold ones, after the babies were abed. Just sit and enjoy.” His voice cracked on the last word.
I twirled my shoelace, not sure how he felt about me witnessing his grief. I squinted into the waning day and contemplated the rock-edged path that led to the barnyard and outbuildings.
The crickets chirped. A few chickens squawked before calming. Ol’ Bob let out a plaintive moo. The pungent scent of manure wafted on the gentle breeze.
Frank shifted on the step, cleared his throat.
I made the effort of conversation. “Y’all certainly made a nice place here.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “It’s all Clara and I ever dreamed of. Growing livestock and crops and children. Hard work, but honest. I can’t imagine a better life than this one.”
“But Brother Latham said something about railroad money.” I bit my lip as I remembered the strain between us that day, dining with the Lathams.
He pulled a weed and stripped the leaves from its stalk as he spoke. “I hired on at the railroad shortly after we married. Found I caught on quick about how things worked, how best to build. And where.” He shrugged. “It paid for this farm. We didn’t want to buy it on credit.”
My cheeks warmed. He hadn’t yet mentioned the five dollars on account at Crenshaw’s store. Did he know?
“It was why the army needed me,” he said.
Needed him? He hadn’t run off searching for adventure or wanting a reprieve from responsibility. He’d been asked to go. And in doing so, he’d missed a final good-bye to his wife. My throat tightened, imagining the agony of such a decision. “So what will you do now?”
“Keep on. God gives us dreams of what our lives will be, but He doesn’t guarantee them. Just asks us to trust Him with the changes.” Frank rose, extending his hand to help me to my feet, the lopsided grin on his face making him look no older than I. “Besides, I have you to help take care of things for a while.”
My fingers rested against his calloused ones for only a moment, but tingles raced all the way to my toes. I ducked my head and hurried into the kitchen. On the table, I spied Mama’s soggy letter.
No, she didn’t need to know Frank had come home. Not yet.
Wondered if you’d like a little company.” Sheriff Jeffries stood in the kitchen doorway, his hat in its usual place—his hands. Interesting how he arrived just minutes after Frank left to help a neighbor repair some fencing.
I pushed back a strand of hair with my wrist, hoping the flour coating my hands didn’t dust my face in the process. “I just put a pie in the oven. You’re welcome to stay.”
Sheriff Jeffries slid into a seat at the kitchen table, laying his hat on his knee. I turned to the wash bucket and plunged my hands into the tepid water. The part of me that desperately needed a friend thrilled to see the sheriff. But the part that pondered my future trembled. Did I dare do as Frank and trust God to work out the changes to my dreams?
I dried my hands on a towel and pushed away thoughts of city lights and evenings at the theater and purchasing my own automobile. I had enough to occupy the present. The pie would take the greater part of an hour to cook. After that, it would need to cool. And in the meantime, the sheriff and I could share some friendly conversation.
“So what brings you out our way today?” I counted scoops of coffee into the pot before resting it on the hot stove.
“Nothing special. Helped pull a touring car from a ditch. Someone from over in Terrell.” He recounted the story, making me laugh. My spirit settled into comfortable as we talked of everyday things, neither of us mentioning the awkwardness of the past Sunday.
As I poured each of us another cup of coffee, the kitchen
door swung wide.
“Smells good, Bekah.” James plopped himself on the bench at the table, his little legs swinging, his chin resting in his upturned hands. Dan’s actions mirrored his brother’s.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Would you boys like a glass of milk?”
They both nodded. Then I heard Janie’s babble from upstairs. When I returned with her, the sheriff sat chatting with the boys and Ollie, just home from school.
“Pie’ll come out of the oven soon.” I set Janie’s feet on the floor, her hands banging on the bench seat. “We can all have a small piece now and still have some for after supper.”
Dan threw a wary look my direction. “Even Janie? She’s awful little.”
We all looked at the baby. She moved her feet until her hands gripped the spindles that formed the back of the sheriff’s chair. Two new teeth gleaming white in the midst of pink gums; she laughed as if she knew we spoke of her.
Then her fingers flew free of their grip. She tottered two steps and fell on her behind.
For a moment, no one said a word. Then Dan busted out laughing. “Janie walked.”
Ollie squealed and ran to her little sister. “Janie! You walked!”
Pride swelled my chest as I joined the celebration around the baby.
“What’s all the commotion?” Frank stood in the doorway, his face weary, his clothes dusty, but his eyes lit with our joy, even without knowing the source.
“Daddy! Janie walked! All by herself! Watch!” Ollie coaxed her sister into two more steps. I clapped my hands. Then I looked at Frank. The grief covering his face killed the laughter on my lips.
He walked from the room without a word.
By the time I pulled the custard pie from the oven, Frank had returned. But in spite of his efforts, I read the sorrow behind his eyes. The wishing that he could share the moment with Janie’s mother, not me. Not Sheriff Jeffries.
