by Leisha Kelly
“Listen, boy,” Mr. Fraley said nervously. “I don’t think you’re accomplishin’ nothing out here. I could get in a lot a’ trouble, bringin’ you an’ then you climbing in an’ all.”
“You can go if you want.”
“Let me take you home first. You hadn’t oughta be runnin’ around like this. Get some sleep. Maybe your pa’s home by now.”
I didn’t like it, but I had to admit he was probably right. I ought to at least go home long enough to see where the others had searched and whether they’d found anything. Mr. Fraley seemed real relieved to take me, and even more relieved to be goin’ on once he’d dropped me off. I thanked him, but I didn’t take the time for anything else. Ben’s car was back, in a slightly different spot. I wanted to know if he’d found out anythin’.
He and Harry, along with Lizbeth and Sarah, were all sittin’ at the table when I came in. Sarah and Lizbeth both jumped up right away.
“Frank!” Lizbeth exclaimed. “Lordy, you must be half froze. We were pretty worried. Thank God you got back all right.” She hurried to pour me some coffee.
Sarah didn’t say a word, but she was the one that grabbed Mama’s quilt and pulled it around my shoulders when I managed to get myself to a seat. I must have looked pretty bad. They were all starin’ at me.
“What about Pa?” I asked them.
“Oh, Franky,” Lizbeth answered for all of them. “There’s no sign. But—but I think you’re bleeding. What happened?”
I had a cut, just a little one, on my cheek from the schoolhouse glass. And another one on one hand. I wasn’t bleedin’ anymore. It must have looked like I was still bleedin’ a little because I hadn’t wiped the blood away. But I hadn’t even noticed till now. And I didn’t care.
“You didn’t find nothin’?” I pressed them, looking at Ben this time.
“No, Frank,” he answered me. But he was solemn over something, and I knew he wasn’t done. I waited.
“Frank, Mr. Post’s truck was stolen a little while ago. It was there when we went by, but Mr. Wortham and Sam stopped when they saw Mr. Post in his yard. He told them he’d heard somebody start his truck and leave with it. He tried to run out and see, but he couldn’t get there fast enough. He knows they went up to the corner, but there was no telling which way after that. By the time Mr. Wortham got there, there was no way of knowing which way to go. They’re on their way into town now to talk to the sheriff. Mr. Wortham said we might as well be home and let the sheriff handle it from here. No telling which way Dad Hammond could have gone. And we were starting to get worried for you. I was about to go looking.”
None of what he was sayin’ made much sense to me. “Do you think Pa stole Mr. Post’s truck?” I had to ask him. “Why would he do that? He ain’t even drove but once or twice in his life! And if he was gonna take a vehicle, why wouldn’t he just get in yours? It was right outside.”
“We don’t know,” Lizbeth answered. “Maybe he didn’t want to take somethin’ that belonged to family.”
“Mr. Post is a good neighbor,” I protested. “That’s almost the same thing. And Pa knows stealin’ ain’t right anyhow.”
“I know he knows,” Lizbeth said sadly. “But something’s wrong with his thinkin’. He’s sick, Frank, even if we never heard of a name for any kind of illness like this. It’s surely the grief and worry doin’ it, but he’s still sick.”
They didn’t have any better answers for me. There was nothin’ else anybody could say. And I was so chilled through that I couldn’t get warm even with the quilt around me, so Lizbeth and Sarah made me move to the fireside while Harry threw a couple more logs on. They doted on me, bringin’ me more coffee when I hadn’t even finished the first cup. It bothered everybody about Pa being gone, I could see that. But they also seemed to be bothered for me, and I didn’t like that one bit.
“I’m just warmin’ up a minute,” I told them. “I can go right back to searching—”
“Frank.” Ben shook his head. “We can’t do any good if we don’t know where to go.” He looked so weary when he said it that I felt sorry for him.
“I know,” I answered him. “I just don’t wanna give up.”
“We have to,” Harry said gravely. “We shoulda known all along it wasn’t no use. We shoulda just let Pa do whatever he wants.”
But Lizbeth disagreed. “We can’t do anythin’ to help what he does now. But when he was here, you did right to look out for him. He hasn’t been himself for a long time. I should have known better, when he got up tonight. I should have thought this through and been more watchful.”
Pa’s words from the timber came back into my mind, and I knew I should tell her what he’d said. It occurred to me now that despite whatever was wrong with him, he’d had a lot of things all thought out. “Lizbeth, Pa told me today that there was none of this that was my fault, that I wasn’t supposed to blame myself for anythin’ that happened. I think that was a message for all of us. For right now.”
She looked at me with tears in her eyes, and I had to go on.
“He also said he loved us. Every one of us, and I was supposed to tell you all, because he couldn’t say it himself.”
Lizbeth lowered her head to her hands. “Oh, Lord.”
Sarah reached and touched her. “Why does that make you more sad?” she asked innocently. “Maybe he’s doing the kind of thinking that he needs to. Maybe he’s going to try to be closer to you all.”
But Lizbeth wasn’t comforted. “Pa’s different than that, Sarah,” she said tearfully. “I’m afraid it was his way of saying good-bye.”
29
Sarah
I’d wondered if Lizbeth and Frank were worrying too much about their father. Surely he’d just come home once he’d gotten his fill of his foolish drinking like usual.
But this time they were right. Sheriff Law found Mr. Post’s truck overturned in a ravine near Rend Lake. Mr. Hammond’s body was beneath it. No one knew whether drunkenness, his driving inexperience, or something else had caused the wreck. My father came with the sheriff about midmorning to tell us.
Harry shoved his chair hard against the kitchen wall. A metal bowl fell from a shelf with a clang, but nobody moved to touch it. Dad and Ben had to sit Harry down to calm him. Lizbeth fell apart in tears. Rorey cussed their father, yelling that he’d probably done it all on purpose, and that made Berty yell at her. Only Frank was quiet. He sat for a long time like he didn’t even hear what was going on around him. In a little while the sheriff left, and I was glad that Emmie was with my mother. It would be hard enough when she was told, but I didn’t think she could have handled it very well over here right now.
“Mr. Wortham, what are we gonna do?” Bert asked.
Dad sighed. I knew he didn’t know how to answer that. Frank stood to his feet, and I hoped he would quote a Scripture. I wanted him to so badly, because I knew that Frank’s spirit as well as mine and everybody else’s could latch onto one of the Scriptures and find some kind of foothold. But he didn’t say anything. He just walked to the window and stared outside.
“We’ll help,” Dad finally said. “We’ll work things out.”
“Does the pastor know?” Lizbeth asked gently.
“We asked the deputy to tell him,” Daddy answered her.
“Didn’t he think of us?” Harry raged. “How could he do this?”
“Maybe we won’t ever know that,” Lizbeth answered quietly.
I was watching Frank. His eyes seemed to be focused on something far away, but I had no idea what it could be. Touch him, Lord God. Help him. Everybody looks to Frank around here, maybe more than any of us have really known. We need him to be all right.
“Sam’s still at our house with his family and Emmie,” my father said solemnly. “They don’t know yet. Do you need me to stay? Or would you rather I take them the news?”
Ben was the only one who knew how to answer him. “Maybe you’d better stay here, Mr. Wortham. I can go tell them.”
Lizbeth nod
ded and hugged her husband. Mary Jane was playing on the floor like she knew nothing of what was happening. My father hugged Ben as he was leaving, and then sat down to pray with Bert and Harry. Bert was still sick, coughing some, but I knew it wasn’t the cold now that was making him shake. And Harry was still angry. With one fist doubled, he looked like he’d like nothing better than to find somebody to blame and then whale into them for all he was worth.
Rorey went up the loft ladder, and I could hear her upstairs crying on her bed. I prayed that Frank would cry. Or talk. Or get mad, or something. But he just kept staring out the window, until finally he turned. Without a word he went past everybody and walked outside.
“Daddy,” I said. But I couldn’t wait for his response. Something was moving my feet without me hardly thinking about it. Frank hadn’t spoken to anyone, hadn’t given his hand to comfort any of the others. He hadn’t even looked at me, or at my father, who was the friend he’d shared work and wisdom with for years now. For him to close us off scared me because it seemed like Frank always coped best by first helping someone else cope. I didn’t know what I could do. But I couldn’t stay still. Without waiting on anybody else’s word, I took off out the door following him.
He was limping straight out across the yard, I didn’t know why, or where he was headed. I ran up behind him. “Frank?”
To my surprise, he spun around and answered me more harshly than I’d ever heard him speak. “Leave me alone! I’m not like my father, do you hear? I don’t need you runnin’ after me! I don’t need you to say nothin’! Go away!”
I just stood for a moment, seeing the pain working deep in his eyes. “All right,” I answered him softly. “I just wanted to be here—in case you need anything.”
“Like what? Huh?” he shot back. “What could you do if I did need something?”
His words were like a slap. My eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry about all this.” I stood watching him, wondering if I should turn my feet back to the house. But I couldn’t make them go.
And suddenly his face changed. “Oh, Sarah Jean. Oh, Lord, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I told him.
“No. It’s not. I can’t be yellin’ at you.”
“You’re just upset.”
He struggled to say the next words. “But . . . but Pa used to do that! He always used to . . . to take things out on me . . .”
He did indeed look like his father then, more than I’d ever seen, his gaunt face drawn tight with strain.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him.
But he bowed his head. He almost walked away from me. I could see that he wanted to. “I was leavin’,” he said with tears in his eyes. “Just straight into the trees or somethin’, just to get some distance from the house—” “That’s all right for a little while, Frank. You told me before that sometimes you need time to think. I understand that. Especially now.”
“But I wasn’t thinkin’. I was just walkin’ away.”
“You’re not like your father,” I said, not sure what else to tell him.
He took a deep breath, and the weight of it seemed to press him down. “He planned this, Sarah Jean. Whether it was an accident or not. He meant to get away from us.”
“Oh, Frank.”
“I used to think he hated me. But I was wrong. I can see now that he counted on me. He counted on me to find him, to keep a jump ahead and make things okay. But this time, when he needed me most, I failed him.” “You can’t blame yourself. Remember what you told Lizbeth.”
“I know.” He bowed his head. “I know Pa meant those words for me. For this. But it don’t help. Not one bit.” He turned away.
“Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” I said softly. “The God of all comfort . . .”
“Oh, Sarah.” He sunk suddenly to his knees. “Help me. I feel like I ain’t got nothin’ left. I oughta be inside helpin’ them. I oughta be the one speakin’ God’s words of comfort . . .”
I knelt beside him. “It’s all right. You don’t have to be strong. Not right now—”
“You don’t understand. If I ain’t that, I ain’t nothin’.” He stood to his feet again. “He counted on me. He . . .” Frank couldn’t finish. He turned away again, and I knew he was in tears.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
I barely heard his answer. “No.”
He stood crying, staring out into the clouds. I rose and put my arm around him. There wasn’t anything else I knew to say. Maybe he just needed me to be here beside him, quiet as the trees, just so he wouldn’t feel alone.
“Thanks for stoppin’ me, Sarah Jean. It don’t do no good to run.”
My father came out on the porch. I heard the door and turned my head enough to see him. He only stood watching for a minute, as though he were wondering if we needed him to come closer.
“You can’t be strong all the time,” I told Frank. “Sometimes life can knock you flat.”
“Yeah,” he agreed solemnly. “But why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
I smiled. “Is that from a psalm?”
“Forty-two. Maybe we should go back in. I’m glad Emmie’s not here yet. But she prob’ly will be soon. And Sam. And your mother. We’re gonna have to talk some things through, about what happens next.”
“It doesn’t have to be right away. You can give yourself time . . .”
“I’m of age, Sarah Jean. But the younger ones is orphans. Whether Pa thought that much through or not, we need to decide some things today, for their sake. I can’t be runnin’ off, nor knocked flat for long. I gotta take my part.”
To my surprise, he took my hand as he turned back toward the house. My father was just turning to go in.
“Mr. Wortham,” Frank called.
Dad looked back at us.
“If you could, I want you to help me do what we did for Mama, to make the coffin ourselves. Do you think that would be all right?”
“If you want it, son.”
“Thank you,” Frank told him then. “For being here for us today just as much as always. I promise you, it ain’t gonna be left on you to see to things for us. We’re not so little anymore. It won’t all be on your hands.”
My father and Frank hugged each other, and I felt at least a little more warm and solid inside. We’d all be okay, I felt sure now. Even the Hammonds. Even after this.
“It’s never all been on me,” Daddy said then. “We’ve been in God’s hands all along. We’re one family. And he’ll continue to take care of us. Together.”
That understanding was the Hammonds’ foundation after that. We really became one family. With two farms and one heart.
Because of the paperwork signed years ago by Albert Graham, Emma’s nephew, their farm was to remain in the hands of the oldest child willing to live on it and work it, and that meant it fell to Frank, at least until one of his older brothers came home.
They buried their father beside their mother in the plot across the timber, and Frank and Sam worked tearfully to put up a nice little fence and prepare a place for Joe’s body when it came home. I didn’t think that if I lived to be a hundred and ninety I’d ever see such strength, to do what they did and go on with life. But it wasn’t easy for them. The younger four Hammonds especially had trouble. Who could understand a man like George Hammond? If treasure were counted in the hearts of children, then he’d been rich. But he’d also been blind, to all that was in them, and all the rest of living he could have known.
No one ever did know what caused his wreck. I know they thought that Rorey might have been right, that he might have met his end by his own purpose and plan, but I think it was a relief at least for Frank not to know for sure. And Mr. Post himself offered an explanation about why Mr. Hammond might have chosen to take the Posts’ truck and not one of his own family’s vehicles, or o
ne of the horses that could easily have been found in our barn.
“He told me more’n once I was the only farmer ’round here that could afford a loss,” Mr. Post said. “He knew it wouldn’t hurt me so bad as it would somebody else. He couldn’t take a horse and leave you without a pair for the wagon. He couldn’t take Ben’s car without hurting family.”
It was sad to think that Mr. Hammond hadn’t had a chance to learn that Willy wasn’t wounded all that badly. I wondered if things might have been different if he had known, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. Willy and Robert were coming home. Robert to stay. Willy was going back, of his own free choice, once Robert was here and he had the visit he wanted.
I worried about Rorey more than ever, and more than the rest of her family, even when things were so hard for all of them. She talked bitter words nearly all the time, and the only bright thoughts she seemed to have were about marrying Lester and expecting he’d be home too, since Robert and Willy were coming. But life can be cruel. Too cruel for any kind of explanation sometimes. Lester died on a military hospital ship. Lester wasn’t coming home. It was one blow too many for Rorey. She threw the wedding dress she’d made such beautiful progress on into the fireplace and started running off at night with a crowd of boys we knew to be trouble.
I felt horrible. I wished to goodness I’d been far kinder, far more open to her feelings for Lester so she’d listen to me now. But she wouldn’t listen. Not to me or my mother or Lizbeth or anyone. Finally, she got tired of being talked to, and she ran off to St. Louis with Lester’s brother Eugene and a friend of his that we didn’t even know. They said they had jobs. Rorey wrote and told us they’d gotten an apartment, and she had a job. But it felt like a hole in my life to have her gone.
I kept praying Rachel’s prayer because it seemed like it had extra meaning now. We needed strength. We needed peace. In this time of being apart from our loved ones, whether in St. Louis, or across the ocean, or already waiting on heaven’s golden shore. Help me understand you better, God, I prayed. Help me understand the mysteries, the struggles of life. Because everything you do, everything you lead us through, has a purpose, a significance, if we can see it. Trials can shake us apart from you and each other, or draw us closer. Help us, Lord, to be knit together in one strand.