by Leisha Kelly
Frank surprised me then. “Robert’s going to be all right. Let’s go back to the house, okay?”
I just stared. “I don’t understand you. How can you be so sure, when just a minute ago you were all upset about Joe and your pa?”
“I don’t know. I guess I got faith when it comes to Robert.”
“But not your family?”
“Pa’s got some problems. I don’t know what kinda sick he is. But he’s not gonna get better without wantin’ to, an’ I don’t see much a’ that in him. I hope I’m real wrong about Joe. But when I pray on it, it seems like the only peace I feel is when I picture him with Mama. I think he’s gone. And I think Pa’s gonna let the next piece a’ bad news tear him away.”
I wanted to tell him we shouldn’t worry like this, that maybe it was a mistake to give voice to our fears. But I knew Frank had been carrying this burden, probably trying to rid his mind of it. Maybe talking it out was the only way to do that. But what surprised me most was that he was telling me, not my mother or father.
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” he confessed. “I don’t know how it’ll be with Bert and Emmie . . .”
“We’ll help,” I told him. “No matter what happens, we’ll help.”
He started walking toward the house, and I stayed beside him.
“I think it’ll be all right,” I said. “Maybe Joe’ll get home okay. And your pa’ll decide to pick himself up and go on all right, like he did after your mother died.”
He was quiet for a minute, but then he sighed. “Pa didn’t decide to be all right back then, Sarah Jean. He just decided to bide his time.”
We kept on walking to the house. His words were a heavy load for my mind to carry, and despite wishing I had something cheerful to say, I couldn’t answer him a word.
16
Julia
I almost went looking for Sarah and Frank, they were such a long time getting back to the house. Maybe Frank had decided to cut hedge trees a little farther out than what I’d told Sarah.
They were very quiet when they came in for tea. Frank drank his practically in one gulp and finished the coffee cake just as fast. I refilled his glass and would have given him another piece of cake too, but he turned it down.
“I’ll get the saw,” Sarah suddenly said. “And a pair of work gloves.”
Frank saw my surprise at her words and shook his head. “You oughta stay here. Help your mama with things. I’m doin’ fine at it.”
But Sarah didn’t give up easily. “Mom, I was planning to help Frank with the rest of the posts. Is that all right?”
It was certainly unexpected. With boys around much of the time, Sarah had never had to do much wood cutting of any kind, nor cared to. I looked at them both, wondering what might have transpired between them. “I’ve got Katie here, honey,” I said after a moment’s thought. “If you want to help Frank, it’s all right.”
“Good.” She nodded. “He’ll get done faster that way.” Frank didn’t say anything one way or the other. But when he got up from the table he surprised me too, by giving me a hug. “Thanks, Mrs. Wortham.”
Suddenly I wasn’t sure if he meant for the tea and cake, or for Sarah. He headed over to get his father’s wagon to haul the posts. Sarah went with him. And I stood for a minute, watching them go, still not sure what to think.
Mail usually came in the late afternoon, so after a while I was going to send Katie to check the box down the lane. But before I did, I heard an automobile coming and looked out to see the postman driving right up to our house. He honked the horn, and I ran outside.
“Thought you wouldn’t want to wait to see this,” he said as soon as I got close enough. “You haven’t had one of these for a while.”
I was tense, just hearing his words. Oh, precious Lord, I prayed. Let it be a letter from Joe telling us he’s all right. Mr. Tanner handed me the envelope, and I looked down at the return address before I could tell him a word.
It was from Kirk. I took a long, deep breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much. We’ve been waiting to hear from him.”
“I thought you surely were. God bless you, now.” With another toot of his horn, he wheeled his mail car around and headed away again down our lane.
“Thank you, Lord,” I whispered with my heart pounding. “At least Kirk’s all right.”
I opened the envelope before I even took a step. Kirk’s letter was long, rambling, and included an apology for not writing sooner. He’d not seen any combat, but he said he knew he would before the summer was out. He sounded terribly lonely, but he was all right. And there was no indication in his letter that he knew anything at all about Joe.
I let the rest of my plans for the afternoon go and sat down and wrote to Kirk everything we knew, everything about how his family was doing, and what a relief it was to hear from him again. I tried to sound as positive as possible, closing the letter with a Scripture verse. When I was finished with that, I packaged another box of cookies to send with the letter and prayed that the gesture would cheer him up.
Before I started supper I heard another car on our lane. We weren’t expecting anyone. Katie called to me that it was Sam Hammond and his family, but I would have known that before long anyway. Before they were stopped, I could hear Georgie yelling for me, even though I was still inside.
“Missus! Missus!”
I went out to meet them, wondering what had brought them out here on a week night. They used to come once in a while, close to supper when they knew I’d feed them. But they were getting along a little better now than they were, and they generally tried to let me know in advance when they were coming.
Right away, Thelma asked Katie if she wouldn’t mind playing with the kids outside for a few minutes. Sam came along with Thelma and me to the house. He was holding seven-month-old Dorothy, and he was all smiles. I knew they had something to tell me. I even thought I knew what it was. Sam was obviously pleased as punch, but I felt a little uneasy.
“Mrs. Wortham,” Thelma began. “After my mother, we wanted you to be the first to know that we’s expectin’ another baby.”
“Oh.” I tried to smile and wasn’t quite sure I’d succeeded. “My! Congratulations. Do you know when?”
“Maybe around Thanksgiving. We’re not altogether sure.”
“Ain’t it great?” Sam asked me. “Number five already.” Suddenly I wondered if George Hammond had ever been as enthusiastic as a young father. I’d never seen much of it from him. Even when his wife was alive. But then he hadn’t really seemed young like Sam any of the time I’d known him. “I suppose you have names all picked out?” I asked.
“Henry, if it’s a boy,” Sam answered immediately. “Irma Lee if it’s a girl.”
“You haven’t told your father yet?”
“No, we’re going there next.”
I suppose it was natural, to a certain extent, that they would bring the news here first. I’d been the one to deliver Rosemary, and I’d helped with both Albert and Dorothy. But not because I especially liked that kind of thing.
“Mrs. Wortham, I don’t suppose it’ll be no surprise that we want to have this one at home like the last ones,” Thelma told me. “And my mama would be more’n happy to have your help again too.”
“I’ve heard that Dr. Clyne in Mcleansboro is very knowledgeable with this sort of thing,” I offered.
But Thelma shook her head. “Mama raised me with the understandin’ that women you trust make the best midwives and a baby oughta be born in the comforts of home.”
I didn’t argue, but there was plenty I could have said. It certainly wasn’t comfortable for me, home or not, to have a part in birthing babies. Thelma’s mother loved it, but I didn’t intend to put my hands to that business again unless necessity demanded it. I would let them know that soon enough. But this wasn’t the right time. “Have you been feeling all right?”
“Oh, yes,” Thelma answered cheerfully. “But then I usually do, this early on. Only one I was reall
y sick with was Albert.”
Sam’s face changed suddenly. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Mrs. Wortham.”
“About what?”
“Albert. Do you remember my pa saying that Mama was real sick when she was carrying Franky?”
“I think it was Rorey who told us that, but what does it have to do with Albert?”
Sam looked down at baby Dorothy for a minute, and when he raised his eyes he looked nervous over the subject. “I been wonderin’, Mrs. Wortham. Franky’s a little different. Do you think Albert’s gonna be different too? I mean, do you think he might have a little trouble—”
I interrupted him right there. “I was very sick early on with both Robert and Sarah. And they’re fine. As far as I’m concerned, Franky’s fine too. There’s no reason at all for you to expect trouble for Albert.”
“But he’s already different,” Sam persisted. “Surely you’ve noticed. He ain’t never been one to cry. And he still don’t say a solitary word.”
“Robert was slow to talk too,” I said quickly. “That doesn’t mean anything at Albert’s age.”
“Georgie and Rosemary were talkin’ up a storm by now,” Thelma said with a worried sigh.
“Maybe he’s having trouble getting a word in edgewise,” I suggested.
Sam laughed a little. “Maybe so. It is a little noisy around our place.”
I invited them to stay for supper, and even to fetch George and the rest for supper too. I had Kirk’s letter to share, after all, and I thought we could all use a happy gathering. I was glad Lizbeth and Ben were still over at George’s. That way, we could all be together. At least as nearly as possible.
But when we were all eating, I thought a little more on what Sam had been saying about Albert. I didn’t believe for a minute that being sick in the first few months with child made any difference to the outcome. Or my own two would’ve had a hard time, indeed. But Sam was right that Albert was unusually quiet for a two-and-a-half-year-old. No doubt he was bright. He would point readily enough to what he wanted, and he loved to imitate his father or his uncles. He was a remarkably cooperative child. And he used to cry, but I hadn’t heard that out of him in a long time. I guess I’d assumed he made more noise at home. Most children do. But now I wondered.
After a while, Albert was playing on the kitchen floor as Lizbeth, Thelma, and I were cleaning up from supper.
“Does he answer to his name?” I asked Thelma.
“I don’t know. Not by sayin’ anything. Sometimes he don’t even look your way.”
I squatted down a little bit. Albert was busily removing all my rubber canning rings from a box. “Albert?”
He ignored me completely.
“Albert,” I called a little louder. Still no response. And I suddenly remembered that most of the time when Thelma was ready to go, she or Sam would just swoop up Dorothy and Albert. They usually only called for the other two, who were more likely to be farther away anyway. Sometimes Albert would see his mother getting up to get her purse or her sweater and just trot along behind her.
I called his name again, but he was intent now on stacking the rings on the floor beside his foot and didn’t pay me a bit of attention. So I scooted around directly in front of him and called his name one more time, softly. He saw my movement and looked up. With a gigantic smile, he got up and toddled over into my arms.
“Maybe he thinks deep on what he’s doin’, like Franky,” Thelma suggested.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I told her. “Not at his age anyway.” I looked up at the young mother standing over me with a handful of spoons and one of my dishrags in her hands. “I think you should get an appointment with Dr. Clyne to have his ears checked,” I said quietly, hoping that the words wouldn’t worry them unnecessarily. And yet I knew that this was something that shouldn’t be ignored.
Oh, Father in heaven, help, I prayed in my heart. But I couldn’t seem to pray anything more.
17
Sarah
I wrote to Robert and told him all the things Frank had told me.
“Why does he talk to me this way?” I asked my brother. “What can I do?”
After a while I got an answer. “He can talk to you because he trusts you,” Robert wrote back. “He must count you to be a special friend, so that’s all you have to do. Just be his friend.”
On the same day, Robert sent new pictures of himself and Willy in their uniforms to Mom and Dad and Mr. Hammond. They looked more handsome than anybody I’d ever seen. Like movie stars or something. And I was proud to know them.
That was toward the end of June, and folks around us started gearing up for the Hamilton County fair. Mom hadn’t been sure that they would even have one, since the state fair had been canceled this year. But I was glad they were. It seemed like putting on something normal and happy would be good for everybody.
Then Dad had read in the Times Leader newspaper that the Arnold’s Store in Mcleansboro would be having an Independence Day window honoring the servicemen. They wanted pictures brought in of all the young men from around our area serving in the military.
“Robert sent his pictures just in time,” I told my folks. “We can take them in to be in the window, can’t we?”
“So long as we get them back,” Mom said with a peculiar kind of lonely sound in her voice. She’d held Robert’s picture a long time when we first got it. Then she’d put it on the mantel, where he seemed to be looking over everything that happened in the sitting room. All this time, Mom hadn’t seemed to be very bothered over Robert being gone, but from the way she treasured that picture, I guessed that she was.
I walked over to the Hammonds’ place that same evening to tell Rorey and her father about the Independence Day window and get pictures of Kirk and Joe, because the pictures we had of them weren’t so close up and nice as a couple that Mr. Hammond had sitting on a shelf.
I was almost to the house when Rorey came running out practically screaming. At first I was scared to pieces that something terrible had happened. But Rorey was so excited to see me she was practically having conniptions right there on the porch.
“Oh, Sarah! Sarah! Wait’ll you see! I got a letter today! I just got home! Oh, Sarah, how did you know I wanted to tell you! I was just gonna run over there, but Pa tol’ me I oughta at least help Emmie put some vittles on the table!”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me in the house so hard I thought my arm would come off. Mr. Hammond wasn’t anywhere in sight. Emma Grace was in the kitchen wearing an old apron that made her look far too little. She was stirring something in a big bowl. She looked over at me with a funny look on her face but didn’t say a word.
“Oh, Sarah! Wait’ll you hear! It’s the most wonder-fullest thing—”
She plunked me in a chair and spun around to grab a letter that had been stuck under the Bible up on the shelf.
“What in the world—” I started to ask, but she didn’t even hear me.
“Oh, Sarah! I’m gonna get married! Just looky at this! Did you ever see anything so fine! Lester wrote it his-self and put little hearts on the paper! Pa was so happy he went to tell it around, I guess. Didn’t he go to your house?”
“No.”
She thrust the letter in front of me but didn’t let it loose from her hands. “You want I should read it for you, Sarah? He’s done proposed! He really did!”
I just sat for a minute, wondering how in the world I was supposed to react. Rorey was beside herself, she was so happy about this. But to me, Lester was still a lout. Him marrying a friend that was practically like family was almost as distasteful a notion as I could have come up with. Maybe Emmie felt the same way. Maybe their pa did too. I wondered for a minute where he’d gone, but Rorey didn’t give me half a second to think anymore about that.
“My dearest Rorey Jeanine,” she started reading, and already I could hardly stomach the words. I couldn’t picture Lester writing them. I couldn’t picture him standing in the church in front of every
body we knew, kissing his bride. I wondered how long since he’d been in a church, and if he’d ever choose to go again once he got married.
“I can’t stop thinkin’ about you since your last letter,” Rorey read on. “I put one a’ your pictures in my pocket an’ the other under my pillow so’s you’ll be near me all the time. Having nothin’ of you to hold ’cept your pictures has made me think a awful lot, and I been missing you fierce. I decided, Rorey Jeanine, that you’re the girl for me, and I hope you feel the same way. I know we’ve talked like that before, but this time I mean it. I want you to be my wife. Please write back as soon as you can and tell me yes ’cause I love you up and down and sideways.”
Rorey stopped and took a deep breath. She looked like she was gonna swoon. “Oh, Sarah! Ain’t that the greatest thing you ever heard? Lester’s what they call a born romantic. He’s so . . . he’s so . . .”
“Lonely,” I put it, without really thinking about it.
“Well, of course he’s lonely! So am I! Wouldn’t you be if the one you loved was far away? Honestly, Sarah, sometimes I wonder about you. Don’t you understand nothin’ ’bout romantic things?”
“Maybe not.”
“Well, you’re happy for me, ain’t you? I wish I hadn’t missed the mail going out today. It’s a shame to have to wait till tomorrow to answer a letter like this! I’m gonna write ‘yes’ ten or twenty times real big and then put double hearts all around the page! Will you be my maid of honor, Sarah? I can’t wait till he comes home! I’m gonna start makin’ plans now, so we don’t have to wait a minute longer than necessary. Do you think he wrote his mama? Should I go over there and show her this letter?”
“I’m sure he’ll tell her, Rorey.”
“How’d you know to come over? Did he tell Robert? Did you get a letter today too?”
“I came over to get a picture of Joe and Kirk for the special display they’re putting in the Arnold’s store window for Independence Day. We’ve got real nice pictures of Robert and Willy, but the ones your pa has of Kirk and Joe are better.”