by Leisha Kelly
Sarah was inside helping Emmie with her homework. The younger girl needed a lot of help, and Sarah was always glad to do it. I wondered about the school board’s decision to graduate most of the high schoolers early. It didn’t seem to me that any of them were ready. Especially not Rorey, though she fancied herself the most grown-up of them all and was the only one to have gotten a job.
Rorey was a worry sometimes, more than her brothers. Headstrong and willful, she didn’t always make the wisest of choices. Samuel and I had tried to guide her, but George scarcely thought she needed guidance.
“Let her pick a boy an’ get married soon as she’s a mind to,” he’d said. And in his opinion, that was all the thought for her future that was necessary.
I dumped empty pods from my apron into a bucket for Frank to take over to the pigs later. Then I took my bowl of peas toward the house to start supper. The sky was clouding over. It looked like we were in for some rain.
Heavenly Father, let the natural rain water our fields, and at the same time rain peace down on our hearts about Joe. Rain your faith and courage upon George, and Joe too. And Kirk, Robert, and William. Bring us all together again.
With another sigh and a glance at the clouds above me, I went in the house. Sarah and Emmie were just closing their books at the kitchen table.
“I can help you make supper,” Emmie was quick to offer.
Sarah moved the books and started setting the table without saying a word. I asked Emmie to get me the butter from the cellar, and she ran to obey as quickly as she could.
For some reason, my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t imagine loving any of these kids more. I couldn’t imagine any other kind of life. But I felt like we were at the junction of changes that I didn’t want. I couldn’t have explained anything to the girls about it. I just leaned to the cupboard to get a pan for the peas, dipped in a little water from the pail, and turned to the stove.
Life was never easy. It was like a bendy road, first this way, and then that. Up and down and around corners, till you didn’t know what direction you were going or what you’d meet up with next. But God works all things for good. I remembered reading that. He works all things for good for those that love him.
And we love you, Lord, I prayed in my heart. Joe loves you. Even George loves you, at least I think he does, in his own way. Let good come. Like the rain, let it pour down on our lives. Let the war end swiftly, and then the sun come out. Let the clouds of uncertainty be swept away.
For some reason I thought of the book that Frank had liked so well, In His Steps. No wonder he’d liked it. I’d found it pretty inspiring too. Adding a chunk of wood to the stove, I thought about the pledge all those characters had made and what it had done in their lives. What would Jesus do in this situation, right here and right now? I dropped a piece of wood, and it went rolling a few feet.
Sarah looked up. “Mom? Are you all right?”
“Sure, honey. Just dropping things.” I picked up the wood, gave it a sling into the stove, and shut the iron door with a clank. There was a war going on. A terrible war with enemies who committed terrible things. My only son was about to be in the very midst of it. Along with three young Hammonds that I’d fed, guided, and loved all these years. And one of them was missing. What would Jesus do in my place?
It was a good thing I’d set the pot down and wasn’t holding anything else. It was a good thing Sarah had turned around getting plates out of the cupboard and Emmie was out of the room. I started shaking. Standing there at the stove, my hands were shaking. And churning in my heart was the knowledge of exactly what Jesus would be doing.
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
I didn’t know of a single thing I could do good for someone so far away as Germany or Japan. But I knew I could pray. The knowledge of it nearly choked me somehow, it came so fast. Pray for our enemies. Oh, God, how?
“Sarah, do you mind watching the peas and helping Emmie make everybody some egg salad?”
She looked at me with some surprise. “I don’t mind.” I went straight for the bedroom.
“Are you all right, Mom?” Sarah asked again.
“Yes,” I assured her from the bedroom doorway. I closed the door behind me and got down on my knees.
I didn’t know how to pray the kind of words a situation like this warranted, but I expected there were plenty of Germans who prayed, plenty of Japanese who wouldn’t harm a fly. I prayed for them. I prayed for their soldiers. And then, hardest of all, I prayed for their leaders, selfish, power hungry, or mad; I prayed for them all. And then my strength spent, I lay on the bed for a moment. My eyes filled with tears, but only a single one dripped down. I wiped at it and then at my whole face before I could present myself to the girls again. By that time they had supper on the table and didn’t ask what I’d been doing. I was glad, because I didn’t think I could find the words to tell them.
14
Frank
I tried to pour myself into workin’ just as much as I could in the days and weeks after we got that letter. When I wasn’t in the field I was fixing tools or in the garden, tending stock, or mending fence. Seemed like there were a hundred things waitin’ on a pair of willing hands, just like every spring. For a while, I didn’t get much wood work done, but that was all right with me.
Pa stayed in bed a lot, but at least he wasn’t takin’ off again. I guess Mr. Wortham had pretty much talked him out of that. Rorey wouldn’t hear any more about school now that she had a job, but I made Emmie and Harry and Bert keep goin’ to the end of the school year, even though there were days they didn’t feel like it. Harry especially thought he oughta stay home and work. And there was plenty to do, so he was glad when they let out for the summer.
It wasn’t hard to keep everybody busy, but I didn’t push Pa ’cause I didn’t figure it’d do any real good. He would get up a little while, ’specially if Mr. Wortham was around, and act like he was gonna be busy at somethin’ or other around our place. But he didn’t get much of anythin’ done, he didn’t join us in the fields, an’ he was always back in bed ’fore I got back to the house.
Mr. Wortham talked to him some more. Pastor come out and talked to him too. But I wasn’t sure if it was really doin’ any good. He got so he’d cuss me when I come to check on him, and then he’d hardly get up at all. After another week or so of that, I told Mr. Wortham that Pa was taking things too hard about Joe, that thinkin’ about him and waitin’ to hear some kind of word was making him sick. I understood him in it, at least a little, but it wasn’t doin’ him nor anybody else any good.
“I understand it too,” Mr. Wortham told me. “But life is going on around him, especially with the rest of his kids. He’ll have to open his eyes and see that.”
I told Pa about my talk with Mr. Wortham when I got home from the field that day. I was hopin’ that and the farm work waitin’d be enough motivation to stir him back to himself at least a little, but he didn’t pay no attention. He didn’t eat supper that night, didn’t even answer when Rorey came home an’ tol’ him she’d make a cake just for him.
I knew there was somethin’ wrong about Pa different than the way the rest of us was handling being worried over Joe. But I didn’t know what to do about it. I was glad when Rorey said she’d stopped to see Lizbeth in town an’ told her how Pa was acting. The next day was Saturday and Lizbeth’d be out to see us. I knew that. And she was always good at reasonin’ with Pa. She’d know what to do.
I prayed for him that night. I prayed a lot, that we’d get answers and everything’d be all right again. But in the morning, Pa was worse. I didn’t so much mind him cussin’ at me. That wasn’t far off normal ’cause he’d always had a short fuse with me anyhow. But Bert checked on Pa first, an’ he tore into him jus’ for knockin’ on the door. And then Emmie tried bringin’ him breakfast right to his bed, and he yelled at her so hard it made her cry. I
sent ’em both to the Worthams again. There wasn’t no use them stickin’ around bein’ treated like that. They’d seen too much a’ Pa bein’ ugly already.
We ate without him since he didn’t want nothin’ anyway. Then after Bert and Emmie left and Rorey took off to her job, Harry and me worked a while in the barn. Harry was pretty solemn, the quietest I ever seen him, and it bothered me, knowin’ he was concerned over Pa right now maybe as much as he was about Joe. Finally, I left him alone a while and decided to try talkin’ to Pa myself ’fore Lizbeth got there.
I prayed on the way in the house. Lord, help me handle this the way you would. Help me to be wise and kind and patient, and strong enough not to be upset if he don’t respond.
I went in the house with my breath feelin’ heavy, like somethin’ about the air around our place was getting harder to breathe. I knew it was just the gloom. Just sadness hangin’ over the place like a fog. I wished I could take Mama’s old broom and sweep it away.
“You oughta get up,” I told Pa as gentle as I could when I got to his room. “You wanna put a comb through your hair? Lizbeth’s comin’ over.”
“Lizbeth knows her way ’round this place,” he grouched at me without even moving. “She don’t need me for nothin’.”
“She’ll think you oughta put your hands to somethin’, Pa. You’re makin’ things worse for Emmie and Bert, and Harry too, carryin’ on like this. It’s got ’em upset. More’n they oughta be.”
Pa rolled over on his bed and glared at me. “Jus’ keep ’em all outta here! I never asked for nobody to bring me no breakfast nor nothin’ else! An’ I never asked for you nor Lizbeth to be mindin’ what’s my business. Get!”
“Pa, we’d leave you alone real easy if you was seein’ to your own business—”
“I said get!”
I just stood for a minute, staring at him. I didn’t remember him gettin’ down this bad since his trouble when Mama died. He was probably thinkin’ like I was about Joe, but neither of us would dare speak somethin’ so bad as that. It would just make things worse to talk about him maybe bein’ dead. I wasn’t even sure how I’d act, let alone Pa. I was scared he’d go plumb crazy.
“Pa,” I tried to reason a little. “You know Joe. He wouldn’t want none a’ us to fall apart on his account. He’d want you to get up and take care a’ yourself.”
“Shut up.”
“But, Pa—”
“Tarnation, boy! Get out a’ here ’fore I hurt you.”
I stood still for a minute. I didn’t know what he’d do. But he’d lit into me plenty a’ times with his belt or a stick over the years, and I figured lettin’ that happen again might be worth it today just to get him stirred out of bed. But then I thought I heard a car outside. If it was Ben and Lizbeth and they had Mary Jane with ’em, I’d better just go and greet them. Better to shut the door and not let Mary Jane see her grandpa this-a-way. She was too little to understand. She’d prob’ly climb right up on the bed with him and end up gettin’ growled at.
I shut the door to Pa’s room with another prayer stirrin’ ’round inside me.
Lord, you’ve searched me and known me. You know all the inner ways of my heart. You know I’m more like my pa than I let on. Maybe I would just lay down too, if it weren’t for Emmie and Mary Jane and the rest. Help me. Help all of us. ’Cause we’re walkin’ around under a cloud. Not knowin’ about Joe is sappin’ everybody’s strength dead away.
I went on outside, smoothin’ my hair a little and tryin’ to look like I was doin’ all right. It was Lizbeth, just like I’d thought. Harry came from the barn as she and Ben were getting out of the car.
“Is Pa doin’ any better?” Lizbeth asked right away.
“No,” I said. “An’ I’m glad you come. If anybody can get him perked up, maybe it’ll be you.”
“I think the only one’d be Joe,” Harry said under his breath. And I heard him, but I didn’t look his way or say nothin’ in response.
“Where’s Mary Jane?” I asked.
“We stopped at the Worthams first,” Lizbeth explained. “We figured she’d have a nicer visit over there if I have trouble with Pa. Mrs. Wortham’s going to make cookies. I’m glad you sent Emmie.”
I wasn’t sure what Lizbeth meant to do, or if Pa’d respond to her any better than he did me. But she sure meant business. She headed in the house right away and started callin’ for Pa before she ever got to his door.
Lizbeth’s husband Ben hung back a little. “What Rorey said yesterday got us pretty concerned. I hope Lizbeth can talk some sense with your pa.”
“I hope so too,” I told him. “But the pastor already tried. Mr. Wortham too.”
“I know. But maybe you’re right that Lizbeth could perk him up. She’ll stay if you need her to, to make it easier for the rest of you. Maybe he’d do better with her here.”
“I don’t understand it,” Harry admitted. “He don’t have no thought for us.”
“He was the same way when Mama died,” I said solemnly, 116 my head almost reeling just thinkin’ about those horrible days.
“But Joe ain’t dead!” Harry protested. “They never said that!”
“I guess Pa don’t know how to expect the positive,” I said quietly, feelin’ like a hypocrite. I was so much like Pa in my own way. I wanted to believe as much as anybody that Joe was okay, hiding some place, or maybe in a hospital. I sure hoped he wasn’t a prisoner. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lookin’ down on us all the time now, watchin’ and knowin’ every move we made. And I didn’t know how to explain somethin’ like that except that he must be with Jesus.
I couldn’t give any words to that kind of thinking, and it was botherin’ me to have it occupying my brain, even after I tried shovin’ it away.
“We can believe he’ll come home,” Harry maintained. “That’s what the pastor said. We can keep on prayin’ for him.”
It was really good to hear words of faith from Harry. Especially since he’d never taken any interest in godly things before this. It used to be he’d sooner mock me over Bible words than ever repeat any for himself. And now here he stood, stronger than I was. So I agreed with him. What else could I do?
“We’ve got to keep prayin’,” I said. “You’re right. Can’t listen to worryin’ an’ sad feelin’s.” I took a deep breath and followed Lizbeth inside. Harry and Ben didn’t come. Maybe they didn’t want any part of Pa’s raging, and that was sensible enough. But I figured somebody oughta be close by, just in case Lizbeth needed a hand.
In the sitting room she called for Pa again, but he didn’t bother to answer. So she walked right into the bedroom and plunked herself down on the edge of his bed.
“Good morning, Pa. Did you know it’s almost ten o’clock?”
He turned his head a little and looked at her with a scowl. “What’s it matter? There ain’t no special doin’s nowhere today.”
“Would you go if there were?”
He started turnin’ around from her again. “No.”
“You’ve got company, Pa. You oughta get up.”
“You ain’t comp’ny. You’re flesh and blood.”
She sighed. “Fine. But Pa, layin’ around isn’t gonna help anything. Emmie and Bert and Harry need to see you up tryin’ to take care of things, no matter how worried you are for Joe. They’re pretty worried too.”
“Then they can leave me alone,” he grumped.
“Pa, you’re not listenin’ to me. They need your help.”
“They don’t need nothin’. Ain’t none of you need nothin’ from me! Get outta here.”
Lizbeth looked up at me for just a minute. An’ I remembered 118 a time when I was a little kid and Mama got so mad that she threw a sack a’ somethin’ right at Pa’s chest an’ then shoved him clear outta the house. Right now Lizbeth was lookin’ almost like Mama did then. She stood to her feet, took hold of the bedcovers with both her hands, and yanked them clear off the bed. Pa sat right up in his dirty old clothes, sputterin
g angry.
“What the blazes is got into you, girl!”
“It’s almost ten o’clock,” she answered him with a lot more calm than I expected. “I remember the times you got up with the chickens. Especially on good days. There’s work to be done, that’s what you told us. Rise and shine! Well, it’s a good day, Pa, whether you want to see it or not. The sun is shinin’. The fields are waitin’. There’s no sense at all you leavin’ this whole farm on the boys.”
“They ain’t no little boys,” he said. “And you don’t live here no more. Go home.”
“You can’t chase me out,” she told him. “I aim to see you shake off whatever it is that’s got hold of you.”
“Shut up.”
She sat beside him again. “Things happen, Pa. And they don’t just happen to you. Don’t you think Rorey and Frank and Emmie and all the rest are hurtin’ just as much as you are? Is it fair for you to lay here and make them face up to everythin’ when you won’t? Everybody’s trying to do their part except you. Is it gonna help Joe any for you to lay here like you’re half dead? Will it get him found any quicker?”
He looked miserable, and his voice was softer. “There ain’t nothin’ I can do, Lizbeth.”
“There’s plenty you can do. Right around you. You got your other kids. And the crops. ’Leven piglets and a calf too, I understand.”
He shook his head. “Just go home.”
She sighed again, looking awful sad. “I’m not leavin’, Pa. I’ve seen you do so well in times that were hard. I know you were heartbroke when Mama died, but you came out of it. You’ve done so much, and this place is producin’ more now, lookin’ better than ever. You’re a good man, Pa. You’ve managed all these years. I know it hurts.” She took his hand. “Thinkin’ ’bout Joe and what he might be going through makes me kind of sick inside too. But we’ve got to go on with things. Do you think he’d want you givin’ up, when we don’t even know what happened?”
Pa turned his eyes in my direction. “You asked her to come out here an’ get after me, didn’t you?”