by Ann Gabhart
Didn’t he know they had no hope, no hope at all, of hanging onto Lorena if he was staying out all night drinking? It was a funny thing but Nadine’s arms seemed to miss holding Lorena more than her own girls. Of course Kate and Evangeline were too old to even consider needing holding, and Victoria was on the way to thinking she was grown up too. Lorena needed her. Nadine hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having a little child in her lap until Kate found Lorena. Not that Lorena was exactly a baby. She was five years old, but she needed loving. She needed holding and Nadine needed to hold her.
It had seemed so simple when Kate brought Lorena home. Before her father and Father Merritt got involved. Why did everything have to get so complicated?
With a sigh, Nadine went to help her father get dressed. When she went in the bedroom, he was already sitting on the side of the bed. “Well, Father, you’re making progress. Maybe you can go sit on the porch today. You’re sure to have a pile of visitors coming by this afternoon.”
“Friday,” he said.
She hesitated a moment before she said, “No, it’s Sunday.” It would do little good to avoid saying it was the Lord’s Day. Somebody would be sure to mention it was Sunday before the day was over. Carla herself would be home full of what they did at church in a little over an hour.
He reached over and touched the Bible they left on his bed now. He didn’t try to read it by himself, but every once in a while he’d open it up and point to something for Nadine to read aloud to him. Once or twice it had even seemed to be a passage he might have intended to point out at the time. “Carmel,” he said and then looked irritated.
Nadine picked up the shirt she’d ironed the night before and helped him shove his stroke-affected arm into the sleeve. “Carla has gone to church.” For a second Nadine imagined the same whisper of relief blowing across his face that she’d felt when she’d seen Carla out the door.
As she worked his trousers on his legs, she kept up a steady stream of chatter, about how much they were surely missing him at church. By the time she got his socks and shoes on, her hair was sticking to her forehead and rivulets of sweat rolled down between her breasts. She sat back on her heels in front of him to catch her breath and try to cool off by fanning herself with her apron.
He surprised her by reaching out and touching her cheek. “Amen.”
“I’m on my knees and I need prayer. We both do,” she said.
He held his hand up in the air and shut his eyes. His lips moved but no sound came out, but somehow she knew he was praying for her and not for himself. The stroke had changed him. He was cross and irritated by his inability to do what he wanted to do, but at the same time he didn’t fight against her help. He didn’t stare displeasure at her or frown condemnation down on Kate. Instead he had reached out to Kate with gentleness and forgiveness. Two things Nadine had not often seen in her father. Nadine wondered if he knew why Kate had asked for forgiveness. Did he even remember anything about Lorena and what had led to his stroke?
When he opened his eyes, she said, “Amen. And thank you, Father, for praying for me. I know the Lord will help us both.”
She waited until he was situated in the big rocking chair in the next room before she pulled a chair up in front of him and said, “We need to talk before Carla gets back.”
He shook his head a little before he said, “Need rain.”
“Yes, we do, but listen, Father, I have to go home.” He shook his head with more vigor, but she kept talking. “You’re getting better. Dr. Blackburn said so when he was here Friday. So it’s time for me to go home. My girls need me. Victor needs me.”
She stopped and pulled in a breath, waiting for the frown that always came when she said Victor’s name. But this time her father didn’t frown. He just looked sad and maybe even a little scared as he stared down at his hands in his lap.
She reached over and touched his arm. “I’m not deserting you. I’ll be back every day.” When he looked up at her, she added, “Carla will be here and Elbert Hastings and Bob Smith are going to take turns sitting with you at night for a few days. They’re like brothers to you. Good brothers.”
“Amen.” The word sounded sad.
She felt guilty, but she couldn’t tell him she would change her mind. She couldn’t change her mind. She had to go home. She was needed there too. Perhaps even more than here. When she started to stand up to go straighten the bedroom, he reached out and grasped her arm. “Read.” He let go of her arm and picked up his Bible. It fell open in the middle and he turned a few of the whisper-thin pages before he pointed at one of them.
“Isaiah 40,” she said as she took the Bible from him and sat back down. She had no problem picking out the verses he wanted her to read. They’d been marked by him some time in the past for a sermon perhaps. “‘Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.’”
She stopped, but he motioned her to go on. “‘He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’” She laid the Bible still open to Isaiah back in his lap. “Oh, to be an eagle soaring with the Lord’s power.”
“With . . . ,” her father started but couldn’t find the word he wanted. He clasped his hands together and pulled them up in front of his chest and slowly straightened the fingers of the stroke-crippled hand until he could hold his hands together in a position of prayer.
“With prayer,” she said for him. “I think we just had church, Father. Thank you. The Lord must have given you that sermon just for me.”
He smiled with half his face. Dr. Blackburn had warned her that the muscles in the face were often the last to make any recovery after a stroke. Then he lifted his hands, even the crippled one without help, and floated them in front of him. “God makes right,” he said.
“He’ll make you all right again,” Nadine said.
“Right here.” He put his fist over his heart.
“Amen,” Nadine said. She went to the bedroom and stripped the sheets off the bed. When she dropped them on the floor, she wanted to drop down on top of them. She was so tired. She had only slept a few hours here and there all week. But she pushed aside her exhaustion and pulled out the clean sheets and spread them on the bed. She had to keep moving. Keep trying to do what had to be done. Keep hoping the Lord would give power to the faint and strengthen the weak. Keep praying that she could look past her anger and somehow find a way to be strong enough to help Victor. To be there for her girls. To protect Lorena.
22
______
When her mother came home late Sunday afternoon, Kate couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe everything was going to work out after all. Grandfather Reece was better, sitting up in his chair and sometimes even saying the words he intended. Her father was there with them. No work on Sunday and no drinking either, unless Kate’s nose was tricking her. Her mother must not have smelled any alcohol on him either as she stepped into his embrace and let him hug her for a long moment. That had made Kate feel best of all.
Evening services at Rosey Corner Baptist Church had been canceled, so they stayed home. They ate peanut butter and jam sandwiches out on the front porch to escape the heat inside the house and washed them down with sweet iced tea. Daddy said they might as well enjoy the ice instead of just letting it melt away in the icebox. Besides, the iceman would bring more on Tuesday. For dessert Kate and Evie had stirred up some caramel icing to spread between graham crackers. Lorena ate so many that Mama said she was sure to be sick.
When the neighborhood kids started showing up after supper, Tori ran out to play hide-and-seek with them, but Kate stayed with Lorena, who thought hide-and-seek was scary after the sun wen
t down. Kate told her the fading daylight just helped them stay hidden, but Lorena said she didn’t want to hide. Ever. Instead they ran after lightning bugs rising up out of the grass and caught them on the wing. They didn’t put them in a jar, because Lorena worried that the bugs wouldn’t have enough air even if they did poke holes in the lids.
“Why do they light up like that?” Lorena asked as she watched one of the lightning bugs crawl across Kate’s hand.
“Because that’s how the Lord made them.” Kate gently pushed the bug over onto Lorena’s hand.
Lorena held her hand very still while the lightning bug crawled across her fingers. “But why did he make them that way? He didn’t make the bugs like that back home. None of them lit up.”
Kate was surprised. “You didn’t have lightning bugs at night?”
“Uh-uh. Mommy woke me up to see them right after we crossed over the big river. I thought they were fairy lights.” The bug opened its wings and lifted off Lorena’s hand. She watched it rise up in the air. “Do you think God made them light up so we would believe in fairies?”
“I don’t think so, sweetie.”
“Then why did he?” Lorena looked at Kate.
“I don’t know. Let’s go ask Daddy.”
Kate’s father laughed when Lorena asked him about the lightning bugs. “That’s the easiest question I’ve had all year,” he said. “The good Lord made them that way so they can find the special one they love.”
“But how can they find the one they’re looking for? All their lights look alike.” Lorena stared out at the lightning bugs twinkling in the twilight.
“To you perhaps, but not to all those lightning bugs. They’re probably looking back at you and saying we all look alike, and wondering how we ever find the right love for us with no little lights to guide us.” He smiled at Lorena.
Lorena giggled and looked at Kate. “Your daddy’s silly.”
“But he has the answers,” Kate said.
“That answer.” Kate’s father sounded a little sad as he looked away from Kate and Lorena out toward the sky. “Not all the answers.”
“Nobody ever has all the answers,” Kate’s mother said softly.
Kate spoke up fast right behind her. She wanted her father to keep smiling and laughing tonight. “I’ll bet you can tell Lorena how people find the right love without having flashing lights.”
He kept looking up at the stars, but the smile was back on his face. “That I can. It’s up there in the stars.” He pointed toward the sky. “When each new baby is born, the Lord has one of his angels write that baby’s name on a star. Two per star. Then when the right time comes, the boy and girl gaze up at the stars, see their names there, and the rest is history.”
“Is it really that easy? That sure?” Kate asked as she gazed up at the stars too. It might be nice to see her name there and know who her one true love was going to be.
Mama laughed a little. “Not at all. Sometimes it takes a poem.” She reached across the space between her and Daddy to hold his hand.
“Oh yeah,” Kate said. “Like Evangeline.”
“Evie?” Lorena looked up at the stars and then out toward the road where Evie and George were leaning against his car talking. “Is her name up there on a star with George’s?”
“Whoa. Let’s slow down. I don’t think Evangeline has looked at the right star as yet,” Mama said as she held her free hand out to Lorena. “You look tired, sweetheart. Come, sit in my lap and Daddy Victor will tell you a story.”
Lorena hesitated. “I can’t. I might go to sleep.”
“That’s all right. I can carry you to bed,” Mama said.
Lorena stepped back away from the porch. “I can’t go to sleep. Not yet.”
Kate touched the little girl’s shoulder. “You can go ahead and say it. Right here on the porch. We’ll say it with you if you want.”
Mama looked puzzled. “Say what?”
“Her name,” Kate explained. “Lorena’s mama told her to say it every night and every morning so she wouldn’t forget.”
“Mommy’s saying it too. She said if I listened real hard I’d be able to hear her in my heart.” Lorena put her hand over her heart and looked at them fiercely as though she didn’t think they would believe her. “And I can too.” Her fierce look faded until she just looked sad. “Sometimes.”
Mama blinked her eyes fast as she reached over to touch Lorena’s cheek. “Of course you can. And even when it doesn’t sound out real loud, you can be sure your mother’s love is still whispering in your heart. Softly like angel wings.”
“But you’re right about keeping your part of the bargain,” Daddy said as he leaned toward Lorena. “So let’s hear you say it.”
Lorena stepped out to the edge of the porch and raised her arms over her head as she looked up at the stars. “My name is Lorena Birdsong.” Her voice was strong and true.
On the porch, Kate and her parents echoed Lorena’s name. “Lorena Birdsong.”
Out in the yard, Tori shouted out Lorena’s name too when she heard them say it, even though it gave away her hiding place to Pete Wiley, who was it. Over by George’s car, Evie looked up and called the little girl’s name too.
“I hear her.” Lorena wrapped her arms around her middle to give herself a hug before she crawled up into Mama’s lap and smiled over at Daddy. “Now you can tell me a story.”
Kate leaned back against one of the porch posts as her father told a story about two lightning bugs searching for one another. The neighborhood kids began leaving for home, and Tori came up to the porch to lay her head in Kate’s lap and listen to the story too. The soft murmur of Evie’s and George’s voices floated across the yard.
Kate wondered if this was what people meant when they said that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. She felt so peaceful, so happy. Grandfather Reece was getting better. He wasn’t mad at her. Lorena was safe in Mama’s lap. Kate’s parents were holding hands, and the story Daddy was telling made a smile bubble up inside Kate.
Lorena fell asleep, but Kate’s father kept on with his story. Even after he finally had the lightning bugs to their happily-ever-after ending, they sat on the porch and talked about whatever came to mind as the moon came up and cast night shadows across the yard. None of them wanted such a perfect day to end.
But in spite of prayers to hold off tomorrow, Monday came. It started off better than the Monday before, when Kate had smoked up the kitchen trying to get the fire going in the cookstove. So she felt like Christmas in June was still happening when she smelled coffee perking, bacon frying, and biscuits baking when she went into the kitchen.
“You want me to do something?” she asked.
Mama looked over her shoulder at Kate from where she was turning the bacon. “Oh, Kate. You’re up early. You should have slept in like the other girls.”
“I like being up early.” Kate gave her mother a good morning hug. “Especially when it’s hot like today’s going to be.” Kate grabbed a piece of the newspaper off the table to fan herself. “It’s hot as blue blazes in here already. How do you stand it cooking in here all summer? Sometimes last week I had to go out on the porch to get my breath. I think we should just eat apples and peanut butter till it gets cooler.”
“That’s an idea.” Mama laughed and wiped the sweat off her face with her apron. “But the good Lord gave us wood and a stove to use it in and good things to cook on it, so I guess I can stand the heat. Besides, I’m used to it. I had to start doing all the cooking when I was twelve.”
“Yeah, when your mother died. That had to be awful.” Kate took the metal fork from her mother and turned the bacon.
Mama peeked in the oven at the biscuits and then stirred the oatmeal. “Well, the cooking wasn’t all that bad, but losing my mother was. I still miss her.”
“I missed you last week,” Kate said without looking up.
“I wasn’t that far away, and you were over there almost every day,” Mama said as she li
fted some plates out of the cabinet.
“I know, but it wasn’t the same. It was scary here without you.” Kate flattened one of the pieces of bacon against the pan and watched the grease sizzle out of it.
Her mother set the plates down, took hold of Kate’s shoulders, and turned her around to face her. “Look at me, Katherine Reece. What do you mean scary?”
“I didn’t know how to do things,” Kate said.
“But you did it. Everybody got fed. The beans even got canned.” Her mother’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “That’s what you need to remember.”
“But everything was so hard.” Kate hated the whiny sound in her voice. She cleared her throat a little. “I didn’t think everything would be so hard.”
“With no one to help you,” Mama said softly.
“Well, Evie and Tori helped. I didn’t do it all. And Aunt Hattie helped with the beans or we would have never gotten them done.”
“What about your father?” Mama’s eyes seemed to burn into her. “He was here to help you, wasn’t he?”
“He was at the shop most of the time.” Kate slid her eyes away from her mother’s face. She couldn’t see what it would help to get Mama upset about Daddy staying out all night drinking, even if that was the scariest thing. She wanted to keep having Christmas in June and not open up a box of trouble. “I didn’t think he’d know that much about cooking.”
Kate’s mother pulled her close against her and stroked her hair. “Your father knows about a lot of things. We just need to trust him.”
“I do, Mama.” Kate’s voice sounded muffled against her mother’s chest. “I love Daddy.”
“I do too, sweetheart. I do too.” Her mother stepped back and patted Kate’s cheek. “But I guess we shouldn’t let breakfast burn up.” She turned to take the biscuits out of the oven.
Kate forked the bacon strips and laid them out on a piece of brown paper sack to drain out some of the grease. She wished she could drain out her worries as easily, but the worries were like a thorn deep in her mind that kept poking her. She looked over at her mother. “But what happens when somebody trusts us and we let them down?”
