Pray for Us Sinners

by Marilyn L. R. Hall

  They went for their usual Sunday excursion then, as if there hadn’t been a three month hiatus—into those towns where Jack might have been living. Only this time, Rose took Cynthia from Viola’s watchful eyes and brought her along to be with little John Christopher, or JC, as Walter chose to call him. JC was a month shy of 3 and small for his age, probably from lack of proper food. He was also very quiet and reserved. Although he didn’t turn down any love or attention that was offered him. Rose never saw him smile that first day, but he watched her with those Jack Nash eyes and an expression that seemed to bear the wisdom of the ages. After that ride ended she could hardly believe there was a three-year-old-baby mind behind those eyes. It was more likely the mind of some whimsical creature locked by a magic spell into his small boy-body. She didn’t voice that opinion to Walter though, for he saw only the boy child and she didn’t want to create any kind of enchantment around them other than the pride and love and joy that already existed in the new father’s heart.

  Her own daughter seemed captivated by her new cousin too. She smiled and jabbered at him the whole trip but for the most part she was rudely ignored. Not that she noticed. The boy spent most of the afternoon studying Rose’s face and the back of her head when she turned toward the windshield and because he looked so much like Jack, that surveillance gave her a really eerie feeling. It also attached her so strongly to him that she didn’t want to let him leave with Walter when the time came for them to go back to their big house on Grace Street. It was a really wrenching experience to watch him ride away from her. But she hugged her own little girl, who really was Jack Nash’s baby, to her bosom and thanked God that as far-fetched as it seemed, as far beyond anything she could ever have imagined, she would have that boy of Walter’s to watch mature and grow and become another Jack Nash. Just in case the original never did come back.

  After that, the years passed without anything much changing for Rose, other than Cynthia Jackleen getting older and prettier. The only thing disappointing about the girl was that except for her mouth and her lopsided grin, she didn’t look a thing like Jack Nash. Her hair turned out to be dark brown with a hint of Rose’s coppery-red in it and her eyes turned from the bright blue at birth to a sort of amber brown. She seemed pretty well adjusted and happy even though she never got to see her daddy. Rose guessed if you’d never had one you couldn’t miss him. Leo and Walter and the young man whose legal name was Ernest Scott but everybody called “Scotty,” gave her lots of attention and did whatever a daddy could have done for her anyway, except sleep with her Mama at night.

  Scotty had a shoeshine stand and he set it up sometimes outside Leo’s Grocery, and sometimes a couple of blocks down the street between Barney’s Newsstand and Santino’s Funeral Parlor. Cynthia liked to sit beside him while he slapped his polishing rag back and forth and made up songs to entertain her and his customers. He kept good watch and seemed to enjoy her company and because Cynthia was so very obedient, Rose wasn’t afraid to let her be as far away as the newsstand which was almost three blocks.

  April 1937

  Jack had been gone a little more than three years and Cynthia was two and a half, when Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bradley received a letter from Mississippi with the stunning message, “Mama is dead.” Just two months before her 52nd birthday.

  The details were brief and to the point; “Your mother passed away on Monday, the 12th of April in her own bed at home from a massive apoplexy on the 6th after suffering several minor attacks earlier in the year. We will be burying her in the Dobbin Cemetery on Friday the 16th of April.” Because the letter arrived on Friday the 16th, neither of her Illinois daughters would be able to attend, but Claire Louise and Walter, with JC, went ahead and made their yearly spring visit to the Saylor family anyway. Rose politely declined the invitation to join them. When they returned two weeks later, she received the entire story.

  Their unmarried sister Grace had been keeping house in her ailing mother’s stead most all winter after a series of what were thought to be minor strokes. But a week before her passing, something a lot more serious struck that left Olly bedridden. On the morning of the 12th, Papa was summoned from the field by his frantic daughter. Brother sped back to the house ahead of Papa to find their mother suffering a seizure. He was saddling the mule to ride for the doctor when his sister called to him from the porch that it was already too late. A little later, he did get a doctor to come out but she was dead long before he got there.

  She’d been feeling extra poorly for almost a year, so it hadn’t been as much of a surprise for them as it was for Claire Louise and Rose, who had never been apprised of her situation and were unprepared for her dying. They cried in each other’s arms, and Rose remembered that day Mama had talked Papa into using a horsewhip on Jack Nash instead of a shotgun, and the day Jack had sweet-talked Olly into blessing their marriage, and the very last time she was ever to lay eyes on her mama, when Rose lay bloodied and battered in the wagon in Mama’s arms while Brother drove her back to the Nash farmhouse.

  “O Sweet Jesus,” she grieved. All the memories of Mama conjured up memories of Jack Nash and the torture of losing them both was more than Rose could handle. Finally she was weeping hysterically and Viola went to Doctor Miller and got her something to calm her down and put her to sleep. And Rose was grateful for that sweet oblivion.

  It was several days later before she heard the rest of Claire Louise’s report. That Papa had already got himself another woman and moved her right into Mama’s house. She was a fairly young widow from the local rural area, who had three small children of her own. Grace, who had never married, who stayed on the farm to help care for Flora, was struck dumb when the woman showed up out of the blue with her suitcases and her children. It was less than two weeks after Ollie’s passing, and Claire and Walter were still guests there.

  Grace considered the embarrassingly hasty remarriage to be a betrayal of both her mother and herself, and she was packed up and gone before he could blink three times. She took with her everything she owned and most of what had belonged to her Mama and a bitterness Claire Louise would never have thought her capable of. She was living at least temporarily in a nearby town with Ida Belle and her husband. Ida Belle had married before Rose and had two children of her own. But Brother was staying, as was Cyrus William, who was only 17. Both sets of twins had set out on their own adventures in their mid or late teens

  Claire Louise had tried to talk Papa into letting her have Flora since she feared that the widow might not treat her well. But Papa was violently opposed to that notion. He got so incensed that after some hours of confrontation on the subject, he ordered Claire Louise, Walter, and JC off the farm forever. That didn’t surprise Rose a bit, but Claire Louise was devastated over it and felt the widow lady had put some terrible poison about her in her Papa’s mind. Rose just shook her head and wondered how Claire could have known Papa all her life and still believe there had ever been anything other than poison in his mind.

  After Mama’s dying, something began to happen to Rose. She became obsessed with her own mortality and the quick and unexpected way death comes. Her talks with Walter became so morbid at times, he began to worry about her sanity.

  July 1938

  It was a sunny July morning when they took a drive to a Forest Preserve with JC and Cynthia. While the children picked wildflowers and played running games among the trees, Rose sat on a blanket spread on the grass with Walter lying on his stomach beside her. He was raised up on his elbows and his chin rested in his cupped hands and he wasn’t thinking about anything, just enjoying the fresh air and the clean scent of the forest.

  Rose seemed unusually preoccupied though, so after a while he decided he should make an effort to cheer her up. She smiled absently at his silliness but there was no real mirth in her. Finally he reached for her hand which lay limply in her lap and as he squeezed it she turned her head down to look at him.

  “A penny for your thoughts, Rose?” he offered gently.


  She shrugged and gave him another wistful little smile but made no reply. Looking directly into her eyes like he was, Walter could see the depth of her sadness and that she was holding back a whole lot of tears. So he urged her to unburden herself. “You’ve always been our rock, Rose Sharon. Our little optimist. The girl who never gives up. You know I depend on you to keep me going, and now you’re letting me down.”

  Her eyes were meeting his but by then they were almost empty. He felt she was shutting him out. That she intended to keep all her bad feelings hidden away and share no more of herself with him or anybody. The bitter taste of fear slid down his throat into the pit of his stomach and he couldn’t speak for a minute, so they just looked at each other in silence.

  Finally, Walter couldn’t stand it any longer and he sat up and grabbed both her hands while he continued to stare into her peculiarly vacant eyes. “Talk to me, Rose Sharon!” He demanded. “Talk to me!”

  But she turned her face away from him.

  When he didn’t press her further, she looked at him again and shrugged, “I don’t know what to say.” Her voice was small and trembling. “I’m just so scared, Walter.”

  His voice caught on a barb of the fear that was filling his throat. “Of what, Rose? What are you afraid of?”

  She breathed a long sobbing sigh. “Oooooooooh! Of living, I guess. Of being alone. Of going to waste. Of dying.” Then there was a long pause but before Walter could think of anything to comfort her, she added, “Of not dying.” And with a feeble shrug, concluded. “Of everything.”

  Because he was speechless, he pressed her hands together and started rubbing them between his own as if they were in danger of frostbite and he had to make them warm again. “And I don’t know how to help you,” he said in a soft sorrowful voice. Then he rose to his knees and pulled her up in front of him. He drew her close and held her like that through several deep and thoughtful breaths. “I love you, Rose Sharon! You and JC and Cynthia mean more to me than my own life.”

  He was saying more, but Rose stopped listening after he said he loved her more than his own life. She’d heard that before. Truth be told, it was one of the very last lies Jack Nash had laid on her and now she pulled loose from Walter’s arms and snorted scornfully.

  “More than your life?” she asked and her expression was hard as stone while through narrowed eyes she scrutinized his face. “Don’t say things like that, Walter. I’ve heard things like that from better liars than you.”

  Then she scrambled away from him and got to her feet.

  “I always knew he’d come back to me and as long as I knew that, I could stand being alone. As long as I knew it wasn’t forever. But now I know he’s never coming back.” She was looking off into the trees and he couldn’t see if she was crying or still stony-faced. “He’s not ever coming back.” Walter saw her hug herself and shrivel up like a dead leaf right in front of his eyes. “He hated babies! He just plain hated babies and because I didn’t see how much and I didn’t get rid of her he’s never going to forgive me!”

  Her searching eyes finally spotted the two children among the trees and she glanced down at Walter again. “And Jack Nash never forgives anybody. Not one time in his whole life did he ever forgive anybody! Oh! how that man could hold onto hate! And I knew he did that. I just didn’t know he could ever hate me.” She sighed again and it came from so deep within her soul that Walter felt ashamed to have heard it. “And now I’m just wasted. I had all that love to give him. All that joy to share with him. I had so much to give him and now, it’s all wasted. And the most hurtful thing is, Walter, I know everything he’s got is not being wasted! I know he’s got somebody else. I know he’s giving everything that rightfully belongs to me to some other woman!”

  She started walking away then, very quickly, and Walter jumped up and grabbed her arm. “You’re not wasted, Rose. You’ve given more joy to more people!” He started his speech with no thought and so he had to wait a minute for his brain to catch up to his mouth. In the meantime, she was trying to get her arm away from him. “Listen to me, Rose Sharon! You are just feeling sorry for yourself and that’s nothing to be ashamed of after all you’ve been through, but you have to be honest with yourself, too. Nothing you’ve got to give to others is wasted. You’ve got more love in your heart than anybody I ever knew and you give it all the time. Every time you breathe out you are sending love to somebody. I can feel it! Claire feels it. Everybody who knows you feels the love that pours out of you and everybody is a better person for it. You are one of the light-bearers, Rose! You are one of those who bring God’s light to the rest of us who blunder around in the dark.”

  Rose giggled, “If you see me like that, Walter, then I thank you, but that’s not the kind of love I was talking about.” She stopped giggling and looked at him with bitter eyes. “The kind of love I bore for Jack Nash I had to let die in me. I had to just let it shrivel up and die in me. I couldn’t… I can’t give that love to anybody else. Not to anybody else, Walter, and now it’s dead and wasted and I’m dead and wasted, too, or anyway ….” She stopped talking all of a sudden and for a minute she was smiling. “Anyways, that was how Jack always said that word. He had a whole lot better way of talkin’ than me, but he always said that word wrong.” She finally got Walter’s hand off her arm and gave him a smug smirk, and then she went on talking. “Anyway, I’m the same as dead and I’m tired of pretending otherwise. How old am I, Walter? What year is this?”

  “It’s … it’s 1938, Rose. Don’t you know what year it is?” He sounded so concerned she let him take hold of her arms again.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know much of anything anymore, Walter. I don’t want to know much of anything either. I want to be dead. I want to be really dead and in my grave and not just this kind of dead!”

  Then she realized she was caught again and started pounding with both fists on his hands which were holding her. “Let me alone, Walter. Don’t try to be nice to me. I can’t stand it when you’re nice to me.”

  A sudden and desperate notion reared up in his mind. “Rose let me make love to you. You could pretend I was Jack if I made love to you. I could prove to you that you aren’t dead! Rose, I know you’ve still got that kind of love in you. You just hid it away because you weren’t using it. But I can make it come back. If you’ll let me. Please let me, Rose. Let me be Jack for you.”

  She stopped struggling and looked up at him. He was so tall, she thought, and such a big man. Jack was nowhere near as big.

  Walter waited a long time for her to say something. And when she did it was a disappointment to him.

  “Dear, dear Walter,” she sighed tenderly. “You are sure an extraordinary man! I wish I could let you make love to me.” She snorted. “But those days are long gone for me. I can’t be a woman anymore. Even if I was laying here naked and you were staring at me, I couldn’t feel like a woman. I’d just feel disgusting and ugly.” She swayed toward him and pressed her face against his chest. “I’m all wasted and dried up and dead. That’s just the way it is…” she paused for a moment. “And I wouldn’t want to pretend you’re Jack, anyway. I’ve come to despise Jack Nash for he’s the one that killed me!” She sighed another of those deep soulful sighs and Walter was struck dumb for a time. But she’d become passive again, so he led her back to the blanket.

  “Let’s just sit here and be quiet then, Rose. And after a while when you feel like it, you can talk to me about all these feelings you’re having. I want you to talk everything out. I think you need to get it all out in the open so you can look at it and separate what’s true from what isn’t. But I promise I’ll just sit here and listen. I won’t say anything and I won’t make you listen to my opinion about anything.”

  Several times the children ran up to sit beside them for a while until they got bored with the inactivity and darted away again. They were so animated and having such fun, Walter expected Rose to respond to their presence. But she didn’t beyond a half-hearted smile or a nod of h
er head.

  Eventually though, Rose looked over at him with affection in her eyes and laid her hand over his. “I ain’t talked about him for such a long time.” She said and then, to his relief her cold empty eyes started to get misty and pretty soon tears were pouring down her cheeks. “Maybe it would feel good to talk to somebody about him.” But she didn’t say any more and for a while she just sat there rubbing away her tears with the back of her hands and thinking. Walter had almost given up on her when she set her eyes on something way off in the distance and started to talk.

  “That time Mama tried to save me from Papa—she told me he hated me because I loved Jack Nash more than I loved him. Well, if that’s what he thought, he was sure right about that. I hated my Papa! Probably a lot more than he ever hated me.” She snickered. “Did you ever hate anyone, Walter? I bet you didn’t. You’re too good! You have to be bad in order to hate. But then you have to be bad in order to love, too. Or at least to love Jack Nash. If I’d a been good, I’d never have chased after him like I did, and I’d never have laid in the hay shed with him and let him touch me like he did.” Her voice twisted that word and she grimaced. “He sure knew how to “pleasure” me all right. He had mighty sweet hands. But I always made him swear he’d keep his zipper shut. And he always did, except that one time. And then papa caught him and thought sure we’d been up to something and Jack got himself horsewhipped. But we hadn’t really. Probably just because I got scared and hit him where it hurts!” She snickered again and Walter thought he saw just a smidgen of a real smile in it.

  Rose hugged her knees up under her chin. “Ain’t this awful ugly stuff for you to be hearin’ Walter?”

  Walter shook his head. “Say whatever you feel like saying, Rose.”

  She stared off into the past again. “Well, Jack Nash left me after that too, but I knew he’d be back. And that time he did come back and he married me too. Even though Papa wanted to kill him.”