Going to the refrigerator, Emmeline nodded. “It’s tough for some students to commit to staying after school, probably. Some of the farm kids have a lot of chores.” She pulled out the chicken salad she’d made from last-night’s dinner remains and began spooning it onto slices of homemade bread.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Geoff agreed. He took down two glasses from the cupboard and poured water into them before setting them on the table.
His wife placed their lunch plates near the glasses. “For some, there’s not much choice, though. It’s either have the children do the chores or don’t eat.” Geoff pulled out her chair for her, his mouth watering as he looked at the chicken salad heaped high on the grainy bread.
“Let’s pray.” He reached for his wife’s small hands and asked the Lord’s blessing on their meal.
The chicken salad tasted as delicious as it looked, and Geoff enjoyed several bites before reviving their conversation. “Speaking of kids being poor, I did have one surprising student sign up for the chorus.”
“Oh?” Emmeline raised her eyebrows, mid-bite. “Who?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you know the family. Catholic, I believe. Or, if not, they don’t go to First Baptist,” he said, referring to the church that he and Emmeline attended.
She nodded. The large Catholic church rose tall across the street from the high school where Geoff taught, and it received hundreds of congregants each Saturday and Sunday for Mass. “Go on,” she said.
Geoff swallowed another bite before continuing. “Her name’s Grace Picoletti. I had her in a literature class last year and I’ve got her again this year. Good student, very quiet. I had her older sisters a couple years ago… and I think I might have had her brother or maybe a cousin of hers the first year I taught.” He shook his head. “Never expected her to sign up.”
“Did you have her sing for you?” Emmeline took an apple and bit into it.
“Yes, and, boy, can that girl sing.” Geoff reached for an apple, too, selecting a deep red one blushed with the gold of sunlight. “You wouldn’t know it to look at her. She seems like just another kid from one of those poor Italian families, the ones that scrape by, selling milk from the family cow, you know?” He smiled, remembering. “Her shoe nearly fell off as she was leaving. She had attached the sole with a rubber band.”
“Oh, poor thing,” Emmeline exclaimed. “I hope you didn’t have her sing in front of anyone, Geoff.”
“No, of course not. It was after school, and I think she waited purposely until everyone else had their turn and left. Nobody but she and I was there.”
“What part will you have her sing?”
“Soprano at first. That is,” he paused, “if she comes back. When that incident happened with her shoe, she pretty much fled the auditorium. And forgot her permission slip.” He shook his head, remembering how he’d found the paper in the aisle after the girl ran away.
Emmeline smiled. “She’ll probably be back.” She rose, the legs of her chair scraping the floor, and picked up Geoff’s empty plate, stacking it on her own. Geoff admired his wife’s easy grace as Emmeline brought the dirty dishes to the sink. She filled the basin with warm water and shook in a handful of soap flakes. “By the way,” she said, plunging the plates into the soapy mixture, “I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”
Geoff raised his eyebrows. “Why? Is something wrong?” He felt his throat tighten at the thought.
“No, I don’t think anything is wrong,” Emmeline answered, her back to him. He heard a happy note enter her voice.
Geoff sat for just a second, then he found himself at the sink beside Emmeline. “Emmeline!” He took her shoulders with both his hands, turning her toward him. He knew. He knew what secret Emmeline’s words held just by looking at her beaming face.
Yet, his chest tightened a little. They’d been through this so often, with so many disappointments… “Are you sure?” He hated to ask it.
But his wife’s eyes shone at him. “I waited until the fourth month this time, Geoff. All the other times… We lost them before then.” She gave him a butterfly of a kiss. “Don’t be afraid to hope, darling. I think that God has answered us at last.”
At an utter loss for words, Geoff could do nothing but fold Emmeline in his arms. Joy burst in his heart like firecrackers, lit by faith.
He has answered us.
CHAPTER SIX
“Hey, Ma,” Grace heard Ben say. It was his typical way of starting conversations that he didn’t want to begin in the first place. Poised halfway down the staircase, Grace stopped stock-still, barely breathing. She didn’t want to let Mama or Ben know that she stood just on the other side of the kitchen wall, its thin boards releasing nearly every sound into her hearing. Grace clutched her church dress in her hands; she’d been on her way to iron it.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Mama’s knife hit the table with a sure, unmusical rhythm as it cut through the raw carrots, surely for a soup tonight.
“Mama…” Ben dragged out her name again when she didn’t reply to his first statement. A pause ensued, and Grace figured that Mama must have glanced up, urging him with raised eyebrows to continue.
“Mama, I gotta go back to the track, you know.” Ben paused. “Got myself a good job there.”
Mama snorted. “What, as a gambler?”
“Aw, no, Mama, I’m a groom for some big-shot politician. The guy says he’s gonna be a senator.”
Mama didn’t speak, just kept chopping those vegetables. Thwack. Thwack. Ben waited through a few moments of anxious silence, then kept going out of sheer nervousness, Grace figured. “You don’t need me around here, Mama. You got Cliff-”
“Cliff,” Mama repeated, and Grace could imagine Mama’s eyes rolling around. The knife stopped its beat, and Grace heard the sound of the carrot pieces falling over each other as Mama poured them into the iron pot for boiling. “You think your brother Cliff is a help to me? A thirteen-year-old boy who can’t be trusted to water the chickens? Who plays hooky every chance he gets?” She blew out a disgusted breath. “Cliff’s gonna end up like his father.”
“Cliff ain’t like Papa,” Ben ground out, a rabid tone leaping into his smooth voice. “That good-for-nothing…” His words trailed off, and Grace could only hear the water running into the pot as Mama filled it at the sink.
“You know what I found out the other night, Mama.” It was a just a statement, no question hidden among its folds.
Quiet, then, “Told you not to go to Uncle Jack’s,” Mama nearly whispered. Then, “Yeah, I know what you found.”
Quiet again. “I knocked out his tooth, Mama,” Ben said.
“You what?”
Grace heard Ben begin pacing, his boots thudding on the wooden floor.
“Busted out his front tooth. At least one. There was a hole there when I left Uncle Jack’s and blood dripping down his blasted chin.”
“Ben, why’d you do that? Now your papa’s gonna have to see if he can get it fixed and-”
“Don’tcha get it, Mama? He’s cheating on you!” Ben burst out. Grace heard his hands slam on the table. “How can you care about that man’s teeth when…” Again, he let his words fade out, an explosion of empty shells. Ben would never use bad language in front of Mama.
Grace crept down the rest of the stairs, skipping the step that groaned. Hidden by shadows in the unlit living room, she peered through the crack between the kitchen door and the wall.
Over the bubbling pot, Mama stood slicing onions as if her life depended on it. Wiped her eyes with the back of her hand once or twice every ten seconds.
Ben moved over to her side, his steps slow and tired, sore from walking the valley of the shadow so many of his twenty years. He tenderly lifted Mama’s chin with one work-hardened hand and gazed into her round eyes set in that tough little face. “Mama, why don’t you just leave him?”
Deep silence reigned for seventeen heartbeats; Grace counted them. Then Mama removed Ben’s hand from her
chin. “Son,” she said, “you don’t know nothing. You think you’re so smart, bringing your big-city notions here. You think the neighbors don’t know what your papa does? They know, and they snicker behind my back and the children’s. What do you suppose they’d make of a mother of six – seven come February – leaving her husband? And what about the priest?”
“Seven… You’re gonna have another one, Mama?” Ben sounded incredulous. His eyes dropped to her midsection, then rose again to her face.
Mama nodded, staring at him with defiance for a moment. Then she turned back to slicing onions. They plunked into the pot, finding nests among the carrots.
“Since he’s got that other dame, you’d think he’d leave you alone at least!” Ben growled.
Mama darted Ben an angry glance. “Don’t say that about your papa, Ben!” She kept slicing the onions, wiping her eyes. “Besides, I know he loves me, no matter what he does, ya know.”
Ben grunted. “Yeah, Mama, he loves you. Just like he loves us, right?” The words crawled out, so acidic that Grace cringed in her hiding place in the shadows.
“I’m leaving now,” he stated more softly. “Don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Mama barely nodded.
“Do me a favor, Mama.” Ben grasped Mama’s shoulders and turned her to face him. “Take care of Grace, okay?”
Mama twisted out of Ben’s grip. “Take care of Grace?” she repeated. “Why? What’s she done?” Her voice colored with suspicion, and Grace tensed, wondering what Ben would reveal.
“She ain’t done nothing. Listen, I know you need her around the house and all, but she wants to join this choir-thing at school.”
“Choir? You mean, singing? What’s she gonna do with a choir?” Mama sounded skeptical, and Grace held her breath. “Sounds like a waste of time. Besides, I’ll need her here to help with the new baby soon. Lou and Nancy are too busy powder-puffing their noses to do me any good.”
“Yeah, but Mama, just think on it, alright? The kid’s gonna bring you a permission slip to sign. I think it’s only for a couple days afterschool every week, or something like that. Evelyn could help you on those days, too,” Ben coaxed.
“Evelyn’s got piano lessons to practice for,” Mama replied quickly, “and she’s too frail to do much in the house.” Then, looking at Ben’s serious face pleading with her, she added, “But I’ll think on it, Ben.”
He grinned and kissed Mama’s cheek, flushed hot from the boiling pot. “Thanks, Mama.” Without hesitation, he picked up his old leather pack, inherited from a second-cousin’s Great War days, slung it over his shoulder, and moved toward the door. “I love you, Mama,” he murmured, turning the knob but not his head.
Grace saw Mama nod and wipe her eyes again from those onions. Ben paused for a moment, then left. The door-latch lisped shut behind him.
Emmeline barely could keep from beaming her smile straight out at Doctor Philips. In her woman’s heart, Emmeline knew. Knew that God had granted her prayer at last. This long list of questions, this poking and prodding was all very well… but Emmeline didn’t need them. For she knew.
But Doctor Philips took his position as a medical practitioner very seriously, so Emmeline had humored him for the past twenty minutes or so. She’d sat atop his paper-lined examination table, not minding the cool office air or the glare from the lights shining in her eyes. Blue or pink, she mused, thinking of that room upstairs in their home, the one that presently housed the piano. Geoff would have no objection to her turning it into a nursery. The piano could stay; she would play hymns softly at night, soothing lullabies…
Maybe yellow…
“Mrs. Kinner, the bleeding you say that you’re experiencing concerns me. Very much.” The doctor kept his eyes on his clipboard as he scratched out notes. “You’ve had the same bleeding with each of your previous pregnancies. And none of them were viable.”
Startled, Emmeline’s mouth fell open. “Really? But when I used to help my mother with her midwifery, many of the women had some bleeding early in their pregnancies. It usually wasn’t an issue.”
The doctor didn’t say anything. His grave eyes met hers, robbing the last of the hope she felt.
Her heart began a slow hammer in her chest. “I know you’re a careful man, Doctor Philips, but really… I would think with something so common as…” She trailed off when she saw the doctor’s already-somber face fall into grimmer lines.
“What’s wrong? Is it not…” She couldn’t finish the question, didn’t know what she even meant to ask, as she gulped down the lump in her throat, questing for air. “I’m in my fourth month now. I’ve always lost the pregnancy before even two months passed.”
Doctor Philips shook his head. “I know how much you and your husband want this baby, Emmeline. However, as your doctor, I can’t assure you that this pregnancy will end happily when…” He paused, then released a heavy sigh. “When I’m certain that you will lose this one just as you did the others. In fact, I believe that you are undergoing a slow spontaneous abortion right now.”
Real apprehension lurked in the doctor’s expression. Seeing that, Emmeline swallowed back the tears that stung her eyes and threatened to close off her throat. She forced her lips to turn upward, her lungs to expand and deflate. “I see.”
Doctor Philips tapped his pen against his lips. “Emmeline.” He hesitated, evidently taking his time with phrasing what he wanted to tell her. “Some women are not capable of carrying a baby to full-term. This is the fifth pregnancy you’ve lost since you married four years ago. You and your husband may need to come to terms with that.”
Emmeline’s mind moved slowly from the shock. “Come to terms with what?” she heard herself ask. Was this conversation really happening?
“That you will never have children of your own.”
Stunned to hear the doctor voice her deepest fear as a probable reality, Emmeline stared at him wordlessly.
Doctor Philips’ tone softened. “And you can still have a full and productive life without children.”
You will never have children of your own…
Nodding, she moved to get down from the examination table, using the little stool that stood there for that purpose. She heard her own heels click loudly on the tile. Keeping her eyes down, she carefully adjusted her clothing. She fetched her good hat from the table near the door and placed it on her carefully-styled hair before turning. She met his eyes again at last. “Thank you, Doctor.”
He bobbed his head brusquely. “Because this pregnancy has progressed so far, the loss may be more painful and difficult,” Doctor Philips said, then added, “Physically, I mean. So please call the office if anything changes. Anything at all.”
“Yes.” She forced the words out. “Yes, I will.”
If asked, Emmeline wouldn’t have remembered the rest of her conversation with the town’s general practitioner. There wasn’t much to it; that she would have known. A good-bye, to be sure, and certainly well-wishes to be passed on to Mrs. Philips, the doctor’s wife and chairwoman of the Sunday School at the Kinners’ church.
Life had a way of turning out funny, Emmeline mused, as her feet found their way out the doctor’s door, down the porch’s two steps, and along the walkway toward home. She’d been counting on Mrs. Philips’ gossipy tongue to spread the happy news which Emmeline had been sure the doctor would give her: Emmeline Kinner is in the family way! Can you believe it? After four years of marriage and all those losses… and here she is, going to have a baby at last!
But those words wouldn’t come from Mrs. Philips’ mouth now. Though other words certainly will, thought Emmeline as she passed a red-haired young man, roughly dressed, carrying an old army pack. His face looked as grim as she felt. May You give him Your peace, she prayed, barely realizing she’d done it. During all of Emmeline’s growing-up years, her mother had emphasized the importance of prayer. Prayer for those closest. Prayer for enemies. Even prayer for those she met on the street, whom she might not speak to
or ever see again. “You do not know if you are the last remaining link to glory for that one. If God places you in anyone’s path, it’s for a reason. Pray for them, Emmeline.” Though her mother had died two years ago, her words still echoed in Emmeline’s heart as she passed that cheerless young man. So Emmeline prayed, though her own grief encircled and choked her.
What will I tell Geoff? The question shouted at Emmeline as she crossed the street.
I have no idea what to tell him, she finally admitted to herself. Then, the thought-prayer burst out: I didn’t prepare for this. I didn’t ask for this, Lord. I didn’t expect this, and it doesn’t seem fair. I even waited until the fourth month to be sure.
The tears sprang to her eyes, and on this quiet stretch of street, lined with houses full of busy mothers, Emmeline let a drop escape to run unchecked in protest down her cheek. I expected You to have answered me. I… I asked for bread, and I feel like You have given me a stone. Or that my bread has turned into a stone…
She let her feet move faster, clicking hurriedly down the remaining bit of sidewalk and up the walk to their front door. She turned the knob – always left unlocked – and let herself into the kitchen, still and sunny in the long Saturday afternoon. On the table, a note from Geoff told her that he’d run over to the school to fetch some papers and would be back by supper-time. Emmeline slipped into a chair at the table. So she had until five o’clock to figure out what to tell him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mr. Kinner looks sad today. The thought surprised Grace as she glanced up from her literature book and peeked around Kirby McMillan’s round body. In front of Grace’s desk, Kirby stood stiffly, shoulders bowed over like an old potato, droning out the stanzas of In Memoriam with as much emotion as a four-line newspaper obituary. Mr. Kinner, normally the sort of teacher who moved constantly around the classroom, sat at his rectangular desk, dwarfed by its massive width. Throughout Kirby’s reading, he’d remained motionless except for the steady blinking of his eyes.
The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) Page 4