by Leisha Kelly
I smiled. “It’s all right to play under the table until time to eat. Then the chairs will all have to stand up again.”
Looking like he had serious business to accomplish, he pulled another chair over and moved it against the table legs to form a wall. Then apparently deciding that this game was too good to keep to himself, he went running into the sitting room, hollering with excitement.
“Sarah! Sarah! Can your dolly be Jesus? An’ you can be Mary! Or Rorey or Katie can! Or else angels! Franky! Come an’ be a shepherd!”
I didn’t try to shush him so he wouldn’t disturb Harry or get Emmie worked up. I wasn’t about to squelch his exuberance. I’d prayed for God to be with us and help us this Christmas. And he’d sure sunk Christmas deep into Berty’s heart. That was all the boy had wanted to think about all day.
But not Rorey. She was holding Sarah’s doll, and she did not want to give it up for Berty’s manger. And Franky’s perfect solution that Rorey pretend to be Mary did not sit well with her at all. “I don’t wanna play that! I wanna be a modern mommy! And we’s in a house, not some old manger.”
“I’ll be Mary,” Sarah volunteered sweetly. “We can pretend the baby isn’t borned yet.”
“But I want you to play with me,” Rorey immediately protested.
“I can play with you,” little Katie offered.
“No! I don’t want you!”
Rorey had never welcomed Katie’s arrival on the scene. She seemed to see the younger girl as nothing more than a distraction when what she wanted was Sarah’s undivided attention. But I couldn’t simply ignore her rude words. Katie had been brave even to offer. I left my bowl of dumpling batter in the kitchen and followed the voices into the sitting room.
“Rorey, please come here a moment.”
She stuck out her lip. “Are you gonna make me play Mary?”
“No. Absolutely not. But I do want to talk to you.”
She threw the doll down on the floor and stomped her little feet in my direction.
“Honey, Katie was being very nice to offer to play with you. You shouldn’t be so unkind to her.”
“But I don’t wanna play with that girl.”
“Fine. She can play with Sarah and Berty. She’d make a lovely angel or shepherd girl. You can come and sit in a chair beside me in the kitchen.”
“There ain’t no shepherd girls,” Rorey whined. “There’s only shepherd boys. An’ anyway, that girl oughta go away! She don’t b’long here with this fam’ly all the time. Her mama ain’t dead.”
“Rorey Jeanine!” Lizbeth scolded immediately.
And I was about to say something too, but the look on Katie’s face stopped me cold. She tried, she tried very hard, but there was no way to hold it back. The poor child burst into tears.
“Go sit in a chair, Rorey,” Lizbeth commanded. “Right this minute.”
Rorey stormed into the kitchen and Lizbeth followed her, taking Emmie along. I let them be and took Katie into my arms.
“Boy,” Sarah observed. “Rorey sure is mean when she don’t feel good.”
Katie clung to me, and I held her tight. I’d thought Rorey was feeling better, but even if she wasn’t, there was no excuse for such an outburst, especially at another child’s expense. I put my hand on Katie’s hair, but she wouldn’t raise her head enough for me to see her face. “Sweetie, she was just talking mean. You do belong with us. You’re family, and we love you.”
Sarah reached for the little girl’s hand. “I don’t want Katie to go away. I like her here.”
“So do I.”
Katie didn’t even seem to hear us. She’d buried her face into my shoulder and wept as though her heart had been broken. I felt like thrashing Rorey good, but I could hear Lizbeth scolding her in the kitchen, and it wasn’t long before Rorey was crying too. Robert and Willy came in from doing chores and glanced about at all the long faces.
“Man, is ever’body gettin’ sick?” Willy shook his head and threw a log on the fire. “Pa ain’t gonna like this one bit.”
“Mom,” Robert said somberly. “It’s thunderin’. You ever hear that before with snow?”
I hadn’t heard anything, but it wasn’t any wonder with all the commotion inside. “I think so. I’m just not sure right now when it was.”
“When’s Dad supposed to be here with the doctor? When did he leave?”
“Shortly after lunch.” I knew Robert was thinking way too hard about how much time it should have taken him, which I had not allowed myself to do.
“That’s plenty of time to get to town an’ back,” he told me with a troubled frown.
“He started off walking,” I explained. “And even if he got the use of the Posts’ truck, he might be driving more slowly than usual to see through the falling snow.”
“Mom—”
“He’ll be here any minute,” I spoke positively. “He won’t let himself be delayed.”
Robert didn’t answer. He just moved to the fire and added a log right on top of the one Willy had just thrown in. Rorey was still crying in the kitchen. Katie still clung to me, and I could hear Emmie fussing now too.
“It’ll be dark ’fore long,” Willy said glumly.
I ignored the implications, the worry, in those words. “I’ll light the lamps and finish the dumplings,” I told him cheerfully. “Robert, it would sure be nice if you could try to find us some pretty music to listen to on the radio. Hopefully it’ll work tonight.”
Berty was ready to go right back to playing manger scene, and Sarah helped to still Katie’s tears by asking her to please come and be an angel. Hand in hand they followed Berty under the table as Robert struggled to get any reception from our beat-up old radio. Finally we heard a few instrumental strains of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” but then he turned it off because it got too staticky to hear whatever played next. It didn’t matter. By then, Berty was singing again to beat the band. Rorey was still pouting, but at least she was quieter. And Harry, incredibly, slept through everything.
I could tell Lizbeth was concerned about Harry and about Emmie’s continuing fever. Berty seemed fine, but with Rorey it was difficult to tell. She sat. She sulked. She didn’t complain that she was feeling poorly. But she did complain about just about everything else. “Don’t want dumplin’s for supper,” she grouched at me. “Don’t want no soup neither.”
“Aren’t you getting hungry?”
“Nope.”
“You might want just a little bit, when the time comes.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well, that’s all right. I’m not going to make anybody eat who isn’t hungry.”
I put the dumplings in the pot, praying that Samuel would be back soon. Robert and Willy were starting a game of checkers, but that didn’t mean they were thinking any less. Rorey started fidgeting in the chair, but Lizbeth wouldn’t let her get up. She complained bitterly about the other children using Sarah’s doll now, but Lizbeth would not let her have it back because she’d behaved so badly to Katie and then thrown the doll on the floor.
“You can just stay where you are till you wise up and apologize,” Lizbeth told her.
But Rorey was in too stubborn of a mood today for that. She sat in the only upright kitchen chair with her arms crossed, her legs swinging, and her lip poked out far enough for a bird to land on it. And all the while, Berty went right on playing Joseph under the table as though she weren’t even there. He seemed so perky that it took me absolutely by surprise when he suddenly leaned against one of the tipped-over chairs and threw up almost in the exact spot where Rorey’d been sick this morning. She turned absolutely green at the sight and looked like she might lose it again too.
“Oh no,” I said, grabbing the nearest dishtowel.
“Sorry, sorry,” Berty told me, backing up a couple of steps and then plopping to the floor.
What next? I dismissed Rorey from her chair so she could get out of sight of the mess, and she hurried from the kitchen only to come very close to losing
the remains of her lunch in the sitting room.
“I think we have what Teacher calls the stomach bug around here,” Sarah told me.
“And an ear bug and a fever bug too,” I added. “But maybe it’s all part of the same thing.”
“That’s a bad bug,” Katie said quietly.
“I wouldn’t argue with that,” I answered her and cleaned up the mess the best I could. I was beginning to wonder who’d be able to eat around here, and whether this illness, whatever it was, would try to make its way through the rest of the kids. At least it hadn’t hit any of them too awfully hard. Franky had gotten so quiet I was beginning to wonder about him. He dipped a bowl of water to rinse my dishtowel and looked at me with such a serious expression.
“Mrs. Wortham, don’t ya think we need manger people that ain’t flat?”
That question had certainly come out of the blue. “What?”
“Like the perty manger scene at our church, or the glass one you put on the mantel outta reach. The flat paper ones is good for stickin’ on the wall, but don’t you think we need some to stand up like they’s supposed to—I mean, that it’s okay for kids to touch? They sure would look nice sittin’ on the table.”
“Um . . .” I wasn’t sure I could give that a lot of thought right now. A stand-up manger scene? A nice idea, of course, but with supper cooking and several sick kids . . .
“I gots it worked out,” he announced. “Wanna see?”
I finished wiping the floor and grasped a table leg to help pull myself off my knees. “Uh, all right.”
He ran to where the paper and Crayolas had been abandoned on the sitting room floor and came limping back to me with his rolled-up paper in his hand. “We can make a cone—see? That’d stand up real good. Then we can roll a little piece of paper and stick it right on top for a head and put hair or a shepherd’s hat or something on it. An’ we can color in the faces and the clothes an’ stuff. I ain’t got it all figgered how to make the manger that baby Jesus is layin’ in, but I think I can do it. I’d like to carve ever’thin’ outta wood someday for ya, but ever’body can help with this’un outta paper for this year.”
“That’s a very nice idea, Franky,” I told him, even though I wasn’t really sure it would work very well. I could just see Harry, or Emmie, or Bert carelessly squashing beyond repair any stand-up paper figures left within reach.
Bert had ducked back under the table and was eyeing me carefully. “That was a icky mess.”
“Yes, but you couldn’t help it. How are you feeling now? Do you need to lie down a little while?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sick no more. I think I cans get back t’ playin’.”
I wasn’t sure he’d ever stopped. Apparently he had a pretty strong constitution about him. Rorey, however, had gone back to my bed, and Harry was still conked out on the couch.
Berty linked arms with Sarah, and Katie majestically handed the “baby Jesus” Bessie doll under the table to them. I wondered for a moment if the girls ought to be playing so closely with him, but I figured that if there was anything to be caught, it would already be too late now, and there was no sense spoiling their fun. I moved to the stove to check my dumpling pot. Franky followed right behind me.
“Can we try them stand-up people?”
“Yes. I suppose so. But not right now. I—”
A sound outside stopped me. A vehicle on our drive. Thank the Lord! It must be Samuel with the doctor, or with George. Or both.
“Hallelujah!” I proclaimed. “I think that’s Samuel coming home.”
Frank gave a knowing nod. “Sure hope he brung the doctor. Some folks is kinda sick ’round here.”
In less than two shakes, we heard Samuel’s footsteps on the porch. I was thrilled he was finally home. But unfortunately, he was alone.
“The doctor’ll be here in a few minutes,” Samuel told me first thing as he came through the door. “Barrett asked that he stop at their house first since Louise is doing so much worse and it didn’t sound as if Emmie were too serious. I hope I did the right thing agreeing, but Barrett’s pretty worried about his wife today. He was glad I came by and mentioned the doctor. He wanted to go, but he didn’t want to leave her.”
“It’s all right,” I told him and gave him a big hug. “Just knowing the doctor’s on the way is a blessed relief. Emmie’s no worse, but she’s not the only one I want him to look at now. I pray Louise is all right.”
“Rorey feeling poorly again?” he asked me, looking around a little.
“And Harry. And Bert.”
Bert and the girls were still playing under the table. Samuel glanced their way and gave me a quizzical look. “Bert looks fine.”
“I’m glad he does, but he was sick to his stomach not ten minutes ago. It won’t hurt to have the doctor take a look, since he’ll be here anyway.”
“And Harry? Where’s he?”
“He laid down right after school and hasn’t got up since. He was fevering and complaining of earache.”
Samuel knew Harry as well as I did. “Maybe he’s the one the doctor ought to look at first when he gets over here. It’s not like Harry to want to lie down. Even at bedtime.”
“I know.”
Samuel gave me another hug and kissed the top of my head.
“Where’s George?” I asked him. “Didn’t he want to come with you?”
He looked over at the children again and took my hand. “Come here a minute, Julia. I’ve got something I need to show you.” He reached for my coat on the hook beside the back door. Lizbeth was just coming back to the kitchen from the other room.
“Rorey wants me to get her a glass of water,” she told us. “I’m sorry the way she behaved, but I think she’s feverin’ again. She’s just not herself.”
“It’s all right,” I told her. “I’ll be right back in.”
Lizbeth looked at us oddly as I pulled on my coat. But there was no way I could explain, and Samuel didn’t even try. I knew he had something to tell me that he didn’t want the children to hear, and that understanding was sitting sour in my stomach. Not more to bear, Lord. What could be wrong?
Samuel drew me close at the porch edge, and we looked out over our newly snowy yard. The breeze was cold, but there was nothing but flurries coming down now, like tiny stinging wet kisses.
“I didn’t find George,” he told me, holding me tight. “The house was empty. No sign of him. I met the boys over there doing chores. I offered to give them a ride back to get some supper, but they said they might wait awhile and see if he comes back. He didn’t take a horse, but Joe checked the house and said he did take what money was saved back in a fruit jar.”
“Oh, Samuel.”
“There’s no reason to think he won’t be back tonight.” “But he could be drunk and wild as anything! How much money did they have?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t much. And I thought it was going toward Christmas. He told me last week that since we’d be feeding them all, he was going to go to town and get a box of groceries to bring with them Christmas Eve.”
“Well, maybe . . . maybe he went to town today for that.”
He shook his head. “Not without the horse and wagon. Not without telling anybody. He’s gone off on foot, and I think he wanted the little ones with you today, sick or not, so he could do this.”
My heart was pounding, thinking about Lizbeth and the big boys. George left so much on them all the time. And on us. And now this. “What if he’s not back tonight?”
Samuel’s sigh was deep and pained. “You know how he was last year, Juli. I’m just hoping. But I don’t think I can wait and do nothing. He’s not on their farm. I checked best I could. I needed to talk to you so you wouldn’t wonder what was keeping me, but I think I should go and see if Buck Fraley’s seen him. There’s a few places I could check.”
I nodded. George was a grown man. We could just let it go. Wait. Surely he’d come back in good time. But he’d been out of his mind in his grief last y
ear. Forgetful of the children and everything else. Suicidal. And I knew Samuel was right. Even though a year had passed and George had been his normal self most of that time, we couldn’t be sure what shape he was in tonight.
“You should send those boys back over here, Samuel. Maybe it’s better that they not be home if their father comes in drunk—”
“I’ll stop and tell them to come for supper. Are you doing all right here, Juli, with several kids sick? I hate to leave you, not knowing how long I’ll be.”
“The doctor’s on his way. Lizbeth’s here. And Robert and Willy are old enough to be a big help if I need them.”
He kissed me. “All right. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He left in Mr. Post’s truck. Without eating a bite. What would we do if George just disappeared into the night, leaving ten kids without their father? How would they feel, how would they react? Surely George would think about their needs! I prayed that he was already.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before the children started asking questions. Probably Lizbeth or Franky first, since their father hadn’t come and Samuel had left again so quickly. What could I tell them? That he just went off, who knew where?
If it’d been any other man I knew, it wouldn’t have been a cause for worry, and I would feel silly for even dwelling on it. George could be helping a neighbor, looking for livestock that had gotten out, or working on a Christmas surprise for his family. It could be any number of things. But George was different. He had a hard time with liquor and an even harder time holding himself together if he got to thinking too much about the mother of his children. He’d done fairly well in the past year, considering the kind of father he’d been before Wila died. But he fell apart far too easily. Samuel and I’d had no idea we would become so tied to the lives of our neighbor children. But what else could we do?
I stood there looking out over the farmyard in the cold, trying to find words to pray. I knew I needed to get back inside. Probably all the children were wondering by now what in the world we were up to. They might worry, if they’d heard Samuel driving off. But I hesitated, feeling ill-equipped to face the questions of the precious children waiting in my house for the doctor, their father, and some good reason to celebrate this Christmas.