by Leisha Kelly
THIRTY-FIVE
Julia
He finally told me his name was Albert Graham and that he was absolutely furious to find us here. I wished for Sam and Emma to get back, but at the same time was almost glad they weren’t here. Mr. Graham wouldn’t listen to a word I said. He told me I could make any excuse I wanted or try to paint things up as pretty as could be. Words didn’t change things.
“A cheat’s a cheat,” he snapped. “You’re here, using what’s hers, while she wastes away.” He turned toward the timber and looked as if he were thinking of running out there.
Not a bad idea, I thought. “How long since you’ve seen your uncle’s grave? Do you know the way?”
“Of course I know the way!” he snapped and stomped away from me. But in the sudden silence, I heard them. And I knew he’d heard them too. He stopped in his tracks.
It wasn’t half a minute till we saw them, coming through the weeds, with Emma singing, Sam pushing with all his might, and Sarah dancing around them with flowers in her hand.
I just stood there, knowing what an impact the sight of them must be making on Albert Graham. Strange that they didn’t seem to pay us the slightest attention.
It was Sarah who noticed us first. Then the singing and the wheelchair stopped. For a split second nothing could be heard but the rustle of breeze and a lark across the field.
Emma broke the silence, as only Emma could, with her excited yell. “Albert Tucker Graham! Oh, praise the Lord! If it ain’t the finest thing to see you! Come here, boy!”
He stood for a moment, seeming surprised at the welcoming joy in Emma’s voice; maybe he’d expected us to turn her against him. Then he walked in her direction, taking a good look at Sarah as she ran past him on her way to me. Samuel still stood there, his hands on the old hammer handles he’d fastened to the back of the chair. I took Sarah in my arms and stepped closer, not sure what to expect.
“Albert, meet Samuel and Julia Wortham,” Emma said, but Albert didn’t reply. He leaned over to give his aunt a hug and then stood again, just looking at Sam.
“Where’d you get the chair?”
Sam took a step to the side, as if giving Albert room. “It was made for her.”
I looked at Sam and shook my head. Why doesn’t he just say he made it himself? It might matter.
Albert went around behind the chair, looking it over. “You all right, Aunt Emma?”
“I am. I been to see Willard. Can’t believe how long it’s been. Oh, Albert, you oughta go. He loved you so.”
“There’s not even anything to hold you in on this thing.”
Emma turned and looked at him with just a touch of indignation. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be tied to no chair, would I? That’s what these here arm things is for, to hold on. I ain’t feeble, Albert! No more’n I was the last time you was here.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“You can’t believe ever’thin’. Oughta know that by now.”
Albert glanced at each of us for a moment, then turned his attention back to his aunt. “Hold on then, Aunt Emma.
I’m taking you to the house.”
It was with a great deal of difficulty that he got the wheelchair moving through the tall grass. Pushing it across the wide farmyard was an obvious strain, but he wasn’t about to accept Samuel’s help.
“Aunt Emma, it must have been a pitiful trip with this thing through the woods.”
“A few bumps is nothin’, to get where you want to go!”
Emma countered. “I’ve heard there’s folks in the mountains that’ll walk more’n a hunderd mile over rocks, just to hear a preacher. This ain’t nothin’ like that.”
“I doubt those stories are true.”
“Well, you ain’t never been there to know.”
Albert cracked his first hint of a smile. “You’re well enough to argue, at least.”
When he finally got Emma wheeled up to the porch, he stopped a minute to look over the chair again before he turned to Sam. “You did this yourself. Those are my grandfather’s wagon wheels. Still got the G he always marked on the inside there.”
Samuel didn’t say anything, and no wonder. It was impossible to tell if Albert was expressing appreciation for the work done or disapproval for the use of those wheels.
“I came to talk to you, Aunt Emma,” Albert said. “And I mean only you. I’m taking you in the house, and I want you to tell everybody to stay outside.”
“Ain’t no need bein’ rude to m’ friends,” Emma scolded. “I reckon they heard you. C’mere, Sarey, honey.” She reached her hands to my daughter, and I let Sarah down to go and hold Emma’s hand.
“You ain’t been proper introduced,” Emma told her nephew. “This here’s Sarah Jean. Sweetest thing that ever did run ’round out here. A shame none a’ the Grahams ever had ’em no daughters.”
She gestured toward me. “That’s Julia. I seen you met her first. Hope you wasn’t too terrible rude. There’s a boy, Robert. He’s off t’ school. And that’un’s Samuel. He built this, all right. Surprised me with it this mornin’. Should a’ known that’s what he was up to so late.”
“It’s not a very pretty contraption.”
“Got the job done,” she argued. “Think a’ me tryin’ to get back there any other way! You borrowed Lowell Jacoby’s horse cart, Albert, an’ nearly lost me in the crick! This is a sight better’n that.”
“Will you let me take you inside?”
“I will. You want I get Juli to put us on some tea?”
Albert shook his head. “I don’t want anything but time to talk things out. I’ve heard some bad things that need to be set straight.”
“Well, I can do that. We’ll have us the tea after.”
Albert picked her up easily, but her apron fell open, showering the chair and the porch steps with wildflowers. Albert stopped and stared a minute, taken by surprise.
“Don’t worry,” little Sarah offered sweetly. “I’ll pick ’em up for you. Me and Emma, we like flowers.”
“I can see that.” He looked a minute at the colorful mess and the little girl’s bright smile. Then he turned back to the house.
“You all excuse us,” Emma said. “We’ll be a minute or two.”
They went inside, and Albert shut the door.
“Is he gonna live here?” Sarah asked us.
“I think he’s got a home in Chicago,” I explained.
“Then maybe we’ll all go there.”
“No, honey.”
Sarah started piling flowers on the top step, and I sat next to them and looked over at Albert’s nice car.
“Emma’s our family now, Mama,” Sarah declared, her eyes serious. “And he’s Emma’s family too. Don’t that mean he’ll stay?”
THIRTY-SIX
Emma
Albert eased me inta my rocker real careful, like I was somebody’s baby doll. ’Fore I could say anything, he dragged up a kitchen chair and sat in front of me, all serious.
“Aunt Emma, why do you want to be out here with these people?”
It made me smile, knowing how concerned he was, and him treatin’ me like a child. What might that Hazel’ve told him, anyhow? “Truth is, I’d wanna be out here whether they was or not,” I told him. “Couldn’t get it done afore, though.”
“But why are they here?”
“’Cause I told ’em to stay. They ain’t got no home to go to, Albert. They ain’t got much a’ nothin’.”
“But why is it your responsibility? You hardly know them.”
“I know ’em plenty by now. And they’s the most decent folks you could care to meet. You oughta visit a bit with that Samuel. You’d like him.”
“Emma, he’s living off of you! And not turning a tap to care for his own family!”
“Hogwash! You oughta see him work ’round here! He don’t sit idle, that’s for sure! You got no right to talk, none at all, when you ain’t got the least notion how it is!”
“Did he even try to find a job
?”
“He’s got him one with Mr. Post, part time. Bothers him plenty that he ain’t found nothin’ better. But it ain’t his fault.”
Albert wasn’t convinced, though. “I know a lot of people are out of work. That doesn’t excuse him trying to take what’s yours.”
I scrunched back in my seat. Albert and me always did disagree a lot, seemed like, but we always come ’round to agreein’ in the end. “Albert Graham, what d’ya think? That he’s talked me inta givin’ him this place?”
“Has he?”
I just rocked forward and laughed. “I tried! I tried givin’ it to him, Albert, an’ he wouldn’t let me! Ain’t it the most a’ somethin’, you comin’ accusin’ him of stealin’, when he won’t so much as take a gift! You been list’nin’ to the wrong breeze blowin’!”
He shook his head. “Miss Hazel told me—”
“There’s your problem. Right there. You know her, how she’d skin the cat for comin’ in sideways! She don’t like nobody. She don’t know nothin’.”
“She cares about you, Aunt Emma,” Albert was careful to say. “I know she’s coarse and all that, but she’s just concerned. She says the Worthams are just fooling you, to get the land.”
I could almost laugh again at such a notion. “Well, then, they’re foolin’ theirselves too, to turn it down when it’s offered! They didn’t have to help me none, neither. Coulda left me at Rita’s. I tol’ ’em they could stay anyhow.”
He was quiet. Had to take a minute to consider that.
“You really tried to give them the farm?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“’Cause they’d value it. They’s good people. And they need it. But Samuel didn’t think it was right.”
Albert crossed his arms. “Why not?”
“I reckon he don’t figger he’s earned it, and that there might be some kin a’ mine in’erested. Like maybe you.”
I don’t think he was expectin’ that. Him and me’d talked about this farm before, but he wouldn’t of thought Samuel to care. Took him awhile to answer. And then he reached over and took my hand.
“Aunt Emma, I know you love this place. But you haven’t known them very long. I guess I can understand if you wanted to tenant it out to them. But wouldn’t you be better off over there with Rita?”
“It was fine enough, all right,” I admitted. “But it ain’t like bein’ home.”
“Then do you want to come to Chicago?”
“What for?” I asked him, all puzzled.
“To stay with me and Stell, of course. We’ve got room.”
Couldn’t help smiling at that. Albert was always a good boy. “It’s real nice of ya,” I said. “But that wouldn’t be like home, neither. An’ I heared you was comin’ to run them off, not me.”
He took a deep breath and reached for my other hand. “My main concern here is you, Aunt Em. Eventually this place’ll have to sell, anyway—”
“I ain’t sellin’ it! I’m leavin’ it to somebody.”
“Fine. But you need to look out for yourself in the meantime.”
I guess it rankled me that he didn’t think I was. “I’m right where I wanna be, Albert. And these folks is good as fam’ly. You’ll see, if you give ’em a chance. The good Lord knowed what I needed, and he sent ’em. I true believe it. And I wanna die right here one of these days, just like Willard did. I don’t wanna be no place else, and that’s possible now, ’cause of the Worthams. They don’t much like me talkin’ thisaway. But we got facts to face, Albert. You up to that?”
He wasn’t happy, that was plain. I was worryin’ him good. But he nodded his head. “I think I’m up to it. If that’s what you need.”
It was. I had to say this to somebody, an’ it sure couldn’t be Samuel. “I’ll tell you straight out, Albert. I ain’t gonna see another summer after this’un. I knows it in my heart, you understand? This here’s m’ last chance to be out here, and that’s what I want. I’m gonna be leavin’ this place to somebody ’fore long. You want it to be you?”
He frowned but squeezed both of my hands. “If that’s what you want.”
“Would you come here if it was so? Would you care ’bout it?”
“I’d come. I’d see about things.” He sighed. “But I’d have to sell it, Aunt Emma. I can’t live down here, not with all I’ve got up north. I hope you understand. I wish I could tell you something else, but that’s the truth.”
“I know it. You always been that way. But I’d leave it to ya anyhow if you tell me it’s right. You’re the closest family I got.”
He was lookin’ pained by all this. “I can’t decide that for you.”
“Well, if not you, Albert, I’ll be leavin’ it t’ Sam Wortham. That’s m’ mind on it, but I don’t want you sore at me.”
“I don’t understand it. I don’t know why you want them around.”
“I tol’ you. They’s good people. An’ it’s the only way I had a’ comin’ home. I’m happy with things the way they is. Real blessed.”
“I guess I can see that.”
“I don’t want ’em put out. You wouldn’t try, would you, Albert?”
He was quiet a minute. “You sure you know what you’re doing, Aunt Em?”
“I’m havin’ the time a’ my life! It’s sweet, seein’ all the activity ’round here again. You oughta stay awhile, Albert, an’ see what I mean.”
He looked down at the floor. “What about the Hammonds? You still plan to give that bonehead his plot of ground too?”
That weren’t right, and I let him know it. “He ain’t as bad as that! An’ it oughta be his! Willard didn’t have to be s’ hard all them years ago, makin’ George’s pappy sign it over! When he was still laid up in the bed with his back broke too! Coulda give him time to gain strength an’ see if he could turn things aroun’. He mighta paid us what he owed!”
“The way I heard it, George’s father was never good at paying anything, any better than George is.”
“I’m tellin’ you, Albert, Grahams ain’t always been a merciful lot! Your grandpappy came by this place less than kind too. Buyin’ it for next to nothin’ from folks that was too busy grievin’ to know better! I can’t be the same way!”
“You’re not. You never were.”
“Oh yes, I was. Me an’ Willard was both selfish as the dickens when we was younger, but you learn a thing or two over time, thank God! I’m glad as can be that Willard decided to give George a chance. He was thrown off once as a child, an’ I ain’t gonna be the one to do it again!”
Albert sighed. “So you let him keep his place without money, Aunt Emma? For mercy’s sake? You just give it back, when neither he nor his father could make good? That’s not our fault! You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of! You don’t have to do it. And you don’t have to give your home to strangers, either.”
“It ain’t have to. I want to. But you got a right to contest it, Albert. Just tell me now. I’m givin’ ya the chance.”
He got out of his chair and walked to the window. He turned and looked at me, then turned right back to the window again. It was a long time ’fore he said anything. And when he did, he said it real slow.
“Aunt Emma, you know me. You know I’ve got enough. I could tell you it was my grandfather and Uncle Willard, and I’ve got a right to step in. But you’d go to your grave thinking me the stingiest beast you ever laid eyes on.”
“Now, Albert—”
“Let me finish! Nothing’s changed with you. I can see you’re not going to be swindled, unless it’s by choice! And I should have understood when Miss Hazel called me that it was just you up to your own ways again. I ought to be able to talk sense into you, but the truth is, you won’t ever change. You got it about you that you’re supposed to be some kind of saint! Maybe we can give away our shirts and be blessed for it. Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. But I can’t argue with you. It’s your land.”
“They need it, Albert. Hammonds and Worthams. They got not
hin’.”
“You think they’d have anything more? Really? Would it change them? Or would they lose it in a few months or years, anyhow?”
“They’d ’least have a chance. I like to give ’em that, if you don’t mind.”
He didn’t say nothin’.
“They been good to me, Albert.”
“Maybe so, Emma. I’m willing to see things your way. But if I ever find out different, I’ll pin them to a wall someplace.”
“Don’t be angry at ’em, now. Wasn’t none a’ them asked me to do this.”
“Emma, it doesn’t hurt to look out for yourself sometimes.”
“It surely can. I knows what I was like, Albert, and it ain’t a happy feelin’. But it was Lizbeth changed me. She was real sick her first winter, an’ I come to care that she make it through. Changed the whole way I look at that family ever since.”
“I certainly hope they’re grateful.”
“All them babies is mine.”
“So are a lot more in these parts, looking at it that way. Including me.”
“An’ I’d do all I can for any one of ya, if you was needin’ as much. But you ain’t, Albert. You ain’t. But they is. We gotta care for ’em. God give us that.”
“There’s no talking you out of anything.”
I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me or not. “Lord love ya, Albert. I sure hope you can stay awhile.”
“I can’t. Not long.” He was quiet, lookin’ out the window again with his shoulders kinda sagged.
“You oughta go an’ see Willard while you’re here.”
He turned and looked at me. “What do you think he’d say about all this?”
“I don’t pertend to know. But he was a good man most a’ the time, ’specially when he was older. An’ when he weren’t good, he was sorry on it later. You’ll un’erstand me better, Albert, in your time. You got the same kinda good in you.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Samuel
Emma and Albert were quite awhile in the house alone. I went and chopped wood while Juli and Sarah took to pulling weeds.