Earthly Vows

by Patricia Hickman

  “In town, your sister?” asked Jeb.

  “Norman. She’s coming Friday.”

  “Angel, I’m tickled to death! What good news, and here with us so close by. Does my mother know? How did Claudia find you here?” asked Fern.

  “Miz Abigail made a telephone call and, after some time, she found her.”

  “She’s a surprise a minute,” said Fern. “Never said a word to me.”

  Jeb opened the door and Fern went inside. He took a breath, pursing his lips, but not saying anything at all.

  “I can’t believe it, can you, Jeb?” asked Angel.

  “After all this time, no I can’t.” His brows came together, but he kept looking down, taking a breath as if he didn’t know what to say.

  Angel placed the telegram on the table next to the settee. “You think she’ll want us, Jeb?”

  “Of course she will. She’s your sister, isn’t she?”

  “How do you feel about that, Jeb? Us maybe leaving to go and be with Claudia?” There was a pause and then Angel said, “That’s what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it, Jeb?”

  “You’ve been waiting for this day, Angel. It’s not my business to say either way how I feel.” He opened the door for her as he had for Fern. Instead of following Fern into the kitchen, he ascended the stairs. Halfway up, he stopped and said, “Be happy, Angel. That’s all.”

  3

  JEB SLEPT RESTLESSLY THURSDAY NIGHT. HE woke up at twelve, at one-sixteen, four o’clock, and again as Abigail’s rooster crowed at five on Friday morning. His calves were tangled in the cotton linen sheets. The feather mattress had swallowed him up into its center and he sweated like a pig at slaughter. Plainly, morning came too soon.

  Ida May ran down the hall singing a cereal ditty on the way to Abigail Coulter’s washroom as she had every morning since they had arrived in Ardmore. Her high and tinny voice squeaked out the rhyme in step with her pounding feet.

  It’s good for growing babies, and grown-ups too to eat. For all the family’s breakfast, you can’t beat Cream of Wheat.

  The bedroom door opened. Angel stuck in her head and said, “Claudia’s bus will be coming soon, thirty minutes. You’ll be ready?”

  Jeb kicked off the sheet. “I will. Where’s my coffee, Biggest?”

  “Downstairs. Who am I? The maid?” She laughed and closed the door.

  Jeb showered, dressed, and, coming out into the hall, met Fern coming up the steps. She kissed him and said, “I’ve never seen Angel so excited.”

  He walked past, towel-drying his hair.

  “You forgot to shave,” she said.

  “I thought I’d go for coffee first.”

  “Did you sleep? You look like what the cat dragged in.”

  He stopped in front of a hall mirror and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t sleep well away from home.”

  “Is that it?”

  “What else would it be?” he asked.

  “How do you feel about Claudia coming to town? You’ve not said a word since Angel told you.”

  “Angel needs her family. I’m happy for her,” he told her. “It’s as I said, that I don’t sleep well away from home, that’s all.”

  “You know this means that we won’t be able to take the Welbys along with us into Oklahoma City tonight?”

  That was a good thought.

  “We can’t go, just the two of us, babe, although I’m tempted.” Jeb kissed her forehead. “We have to go. I promised.”

  “I’ll ask my sister Donna to join us. You’ve not met her. I’ll see her this morning after you leave to pick up Claudia. I forgot about all that until Mother reminded me. She’s going to make up my room today for Claudia after we leave.”

  “That means she’s got all three Welbys and then Claudia too. You sure she doesn’t mind?”

  “Says she doesn’t.”

  Jeb rested at the top of the staircase, staring down at the entry.

  “Are you all right?” asked Fern. “What is it, Jeb?”

  Angel’s and Willie’s voices drifted up from the kitchen.

  “Maybe it is Claudia. Or Nazareth. Or both.”

  Myrna called them down to breakfast. The pork sausage smell drifted up the stairwell.

  “I’ll go and shave and then meet you downstairs,” said Jeb. He lathered up and shaved and then put on a pair of brown trousers that would be good for travel for the day trip into Oklahoma City. Then he hurried downstairs. The Coulters sat around Abigail’s kitchen table. Fern sat beside him and they ate in a hurry so that he could drive Angel downtown.

  Ida May and Willie had already eaten. Willie kept peeking into the kitchen to see if Jeb was coming or not. He had a look about him that drew Jeb’s attention. “You needing to say something, Willie Boy?”

  “After you eat, maybe.” He disappeared into the parlor.

  Angel ran in breathless, holding a dark blue hat. “I’m ready to go to the bus station, Jeb,” she said. “You look awful.”

  Jeb picked up his napkin and fork and handed his plate to Myrna.

  “We’ll be waiting, Angel,” said Fern. “Can’t wait to meet the long-awaited Claudia.” She kept her eyes planted on Angel, came out of her chair, and then held out her arms. “Give us a hug, girl.”

  Angel put her arms around Fern. Instead of letting go after a few seconds, Fern held on, drawing Angel close. Angel buried her face in Fern’s shoulder.

  Fern’s face softened. She tightened her grip around Angel.

  Angel’s sniffling turned to sobbing. “It’s—been— so—long!”

  “Let it all out now, Angel. You’ll want Claudia to see your smiling self,” said Fern.

  Abigail brought her hands to her face and kept saying, “Dear me, dear me.”

  Ida May ran and gave Angel a handkerchief.

  “What’s wrong with everyone?” asked Willie.

  Jeb retrieved his hat from the hat stand and said, “Women’s business, Willie Boy. Let’s go outside.”

  Willie lagged behind Jeb, his gaze fixed behind him on the women all bawling in the kitchen. “Who gets the reason women cry all over one another?”

  Jeb opened the door and led Willie out under the shade of an oak once planted by Fern’s grandmother. “Speak to me, Willie. You look like you have something to say.”

  He stammered around for a minute before he finally said, “This may sound like I ain’t as happy as Angel about Claudia coming. I am. But I’ve been wondering about us. I mean, does this mean that we’re done with knowing you and Miss Coulter? Not that you ever asked for us. I know Angel finagled us under your roof.”

  “Willie, who says that Claudia is going to take you all in? Let’s meet her first and let her have her say. As for Fern and me being done with you, as you put it, no, we’ll never be done with you.”

  Willie cast his eyes across the pasture toward home.

  “How do you want all of this to turn out?” asked Jeb.

  “I wish I knew. Angel, she always knows what she wants and she’ll be the first to tell you too. Why is it I never seem to know what I want?”

  “Maybe you haven’t been asked often enough.”

  Willie looked up at Jeb, as though he were having his first reflection on life. “Haven’t we been a family, Jeb?” He crouched beneath the tree and wrote in the dirt with his finger.

  “You’re a smart boy, Willie. Give me your take on it.”

  “People who sleep under the same roof so’s they can all take care of one another, get in one another’s business and such.”

  “Do I get in your business?”

  “All the time.” He came to his feet. “If you didn’t, wouldn’t I go bad? I know I would.”

  “Families have to let go too. The question is, do you think it’s time to move on, to join your sister?”

  “I know I’m supposed to want to say yes, but something’s keeping me from it.” He laughed. “Fact is, I like things the way they are. Miss Coulter, she’s a good lady and looks after us and I had
this idea that after you-all married, she’d be my momma.” He swallowed hard. “I sound like a fool.”

  Jeb wanted to promise Willie that he would never have to leave, that he would go and meet Claudia at the bus stop and then send her back home. The two of them stood staring at the ground. A crow flew overhead calling to the sun.

  “I guess I’d better go and get your sister.”

  The door opened and Angel came through the doorway, wearing the blue hat.

  Willie turned and marched out into the pasture. He walked with a halting gait, his shoulders squared.

  Claudia’s bus arrived five minutes late. Angel’s eyes took in the stream of faces of the folks stepping off the bus, the people carrying suitcases and store bags packed with traveling items. There was one pretty auburn woman who assisted her two younger children down the steps and onto the street. Angel squinted in the hot sunshine and smiled at the lady. She walked around Angel and met her family under the depot’s overhang.

  Jeb gazed into the bus. After all those years, Angel said she feared that she had forgotten what Claudia looked like. A lone woman sat three seats from the front. She was looking down, her hat all that was visible.

  “She didn’t come,” said Angel.

  “Hold on, don’t get yourself in a lather,” said Jeb.

  The woman rose, said something to the driver, and then made her way to the front of the bus. She had two children by the hand, neither as big as a minute. The driver’s eyes softened as he followed the frail woman out of the bus. His head was cocked to one side, and when he saw Jeb and Angel waiting, he nodded as though he were handing off a fragile obligation.

  “Claudia! Claudia!” Angel’s hands came together almost in a prayer.

  The woman had a small face, small like Ida May’s, and eyes brown as pudding. She lowered her face and examined Angel. After she got the children onto the street, she shook her head and said, “I can’t believe it. Angel?”

  Angel trembled and her half smile gave way to, “Aren’t you a sight!”

  Claudia embraced her and Angel nearly knocked her over, which was not hard, since she weighed about as much as her two young’uns put together.

  “I couldn’t believe it when Mrs. Coulter told me she found you!”

  “You’re a sight too, girl. Daddy always said you’d be the beauty when you got grown, now look at you, all growed up.”

  Angel stepped back and took in her round-eyed brood. “You’ve got two babies. I heard that you were expecting again.”

  “I lost one, but no need to dampen the day with that kind of talk.” She turned her eyes on Jeb.

  Jeb introduced himself and took her by the hand. “I’ll get your things if you’ll point them out.”

  The driver alighted and led Jeb to the only remaining suitcase left near the bus on the street. Jeb thanked him. Angel heard him say to Jeb so Claudia wouldn’t hear, “I give her my dinner. It was just some bread and cheese and an apple. She’s nearly starved from hunger. I’m glad you-all are taking her in.”

  Jeb thanked him and turned and looked at the two sisters. Angel was enamored of Claudia, and as she talked, she reached and touched Claudia’s hair. She had outgrown her older sister by a good three inches. She walked her under the depot overhang and then knelt next to the little boy, her nephew.

  “This is John. John say something to your aunt Angel.”

  John buried his face in Claudia’s skirt.

  “He’s beautiful, Claudia.” Angel took the little girl’s hand. “I don’t know your name, Littlest.” It was the name Jeb had given to Ida May.

  “Thorne, give your aunt a smooch,” said Claudia.

  Angel came to her feet. “You named her after Momma?”

  “I’ve missed her so badly, and when she was born, I saw Momma in her eyes, so I just naturally called her Thorne.”

  Thorne reached up for Angel and Angel took the little girl in her arms. She balanced her on her hip and said, “I’ll never let go of you.”

  Thorne kissed her face.

  Jeb took Claudia’s suitcase from Angel. It hardly weighed anything at all. “This way to the car, ladies.”

  The two sisters talked all the way back to the Coulter estate. Angel asked about her husband, Bo, and his railroad job.

  “Bo went off to work last month like always. I’d fixed him cold chicken in his dinner bucket. He always liked that. That night, I sat out on the porch like I always did, me and ’ese two waiting for Daddy to come home. It was a hot night. I could hear the neighbors laughing over the picket fence out front, like everything was the same as always. We’ve had us a good house. But Bo never came home that night.”

  Jeb glanced obliquely at Angel.

  “I went to the police, went around the train depot asking if anyone had seen Bo. Finally I saw one of his drinking buddies standing in the unemployment line. He told me him and Bo had lost their jobs two weeks before. I guess Bo never had the guts to tell me he’d lost his job.”

  “So he left you and the children,” said Jeb. “Claudia, I’m sorry.”

  “Rent’s come due. I was glad I had a little money put back, enough for a bus ticket. I know I should have spent it on the rent. But I’ve been so lonely for my family. I had to see you, Angel. Where’s them other two?”

  “Waiting at the Coulters’ house. I’ve missed you too,” said Angel. “I’ve been trying to find you for so long. You must not have gotten any of my letters.”

  “We moved around too much for that, I reckon. Aunt Kate says you been living in Nazareth. Small world. That’s where Bo and I first lived.”

  “I know. We came there looking for you. But your house was empty. You left this behind.” Angel pulled out a small toy, a cloth rabbit.

  Claudia laughed. “That was John’s. Never knew what happened to it. You did find our old place. Aunt Kate told me in a letter Daddy sent you all off. I hated that. But Bo wouldn’t hear of taking in family. He said we had enough to contend with. After that, we moved twice and I lost touch.”

  “I wondered why you didn’t write to Aunt Kate, let her know where you were. I was worried sick, Claudia.”

  “Bo stopped all that. He was not one to let people into our lives. He brought home the money, wanted me to keep house and have babies. I figured I owed him that.”

  Angel came face forward in the front passenger seat, quiet.

  “We’re here,” said Jeb.

  “Would you look at this place? Whose house did you say this is?” asked Claudia.

  “It’s the home of my fiancée’s family, the Coulters,” said Jeb. “They’re fixing up a room for you for the weekend.” He drove them under the shade of an oak and parked. “How long did you say you were staying?”

  “In her letter, Mrs. Coulter said you would be here until Tuesday. If Angel can front me some cash, I can leave Tuesday,” said Claudia. “I’m not one to overstay my welcome.”

  Angel glanced at Jeb. “I’ll get Claudia’s luggage, Jeb,” she said. She fetched the suitcase and then corralled Thorne, leading her up the brick walk to the back porch.

  Claudia kept saying, “You’re doing well for yourself.” She followed Angel into the house.

  Fern came out into the parlor. “Glad you’re all back. I’m Fern. Angel, you can put her things in my room.”

  “I wouldn’t want to take your room, ma’am,” said Claudia.

  “You’ll love my room. It overlooks the pond. Jeb and I are leaving today for Oklahoma City.”

  “I live right outside there, Miss Coulter,” said Claudia. “You heard of Norman?”

  “I have.” She turned to Jeb and said, “Jeb, Donna said she can come with us. She’s glad to get away. A friend of hers works at the Skirvin Hotel and he’s getting us two rooms for the weekend.”

  “Fancy place, the Skirvin,” said Claudia. “I heard of that place.”

  “Jeb’s got a dinner there tonight,” said Fern. “We’ve got to get out of here. Jeb, you tried on those trousers Myrna fixed for you, didn’
t you?”

  Jeb had forgotten. He pursed his lips.

  “They’re laid out on your bed. I’ve packed everything else.”

  “Angel, are you sure you’ll be all right here, don’t mind us leaving?” he asked.

  “Claudia and I have a lot of catching up to do. Don’t worry about us. Are you going upstairs?” she asked.

  Jeb caught a look in her eye that said that they should go upstairs. “To try on my trousers, yes.”

  Angel followed him upstairs. Once they had made it to the upstairs landing, she said, “I don’t have any money to give Claudia. How will she get home?”

  “I’ll see she gets a bus ticket home.”

  “Bo shouldn’t have left her like that. But she shouldn’t have come here counting on someone else to give her the money home. I don’t know what she expects to do when she gets back to her place. Bo didn’t pay their last month’s rent and she found that out only yesterday.”

  “Maybe there’s work for her in Oklahoma City. I’ll ask around.”

  “I knew you’d help,” she said, and hugged him. “I’m sorry as I can be about her, though. I didn’t expect she’d be so bad off.”

  “I feel bad about leaving you all here with Mrs. Coulter.”

  “I’ll see to everyone, Jeb.”

  “I know. You always do, Angel.” She looked older than her years again. Her childhood slipped away once more when Claudia stepped off that bus.

  Donna lugged her suitcases across the lawn, a set of blue baggage, one small case and one large. She was blond like Fern, but more deeply bronzed from a summer spent on the course at Dornick Hills. She walked with a wobble, wearing a pair of Grecian-looking heels that laced around her ankles. But her head tilted the same as Fern’s, slightly back with her chin and nose up. It was a sure bet that they developed that posture as teens when all the Dornick Hills boys were chasing after the Coulter girls. She was pretty too, nearly as pretty as Fern.

  “Let’s split this joint!” she yelled. When she saw Jeb, her smile widened, showing off her teeth, and they were perfect little pearls.