by Leisha Kelly
“Well,” Rorey said. “Next time I see her, I’m gonna tell Teacher you ain’t dumb, ’least about bees!”
Samuel wasn’t paying a bit of attention to Franky or Rorey. Little Katie’s hand had crept toward him, and he took it in his.
“I wish you was really my daddy,” she whispered. “Maybe you could be.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back. “But I can be your friend. Just like those bees.”
Samuel stayed in the sitting room until they were all asleep and then eased up quietly and went in to our bed. I followed and sat beside him, hoping he’d want to talk.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Thank you.” He sounded so far away.
I knew he was hurt that I might not believe him. No matter what, I should believe him. What was wrong with my thinking?
“I forgot to tell you,” he said suddenly. “I saw Miss Hazel in town. She said Pastor’s wife would be talking to you about starting a church choir. She’s pretty upset about it.”
“I guess she always needs to be upset about something.”
He lay there with his shirt off in the heat of our house as the wind tossed cooler air through the still-open window. Staring up at the ceiling, maybe deep in thought, he didn’t answer me.
I’d shared so much with Samuel. The wonders of two children. The grief of losing Emma. But especially love like I’d never known before. I should’ve apologized to him. I should’ve told him his word meant more to me than all the evidence in the world, more than pictures or names or what anyone else could say. But just as I was about to speak, I thought I heard a sound from the sitting room again. A sob and then movement.
Samuel started to get up, but I stopped him. “Stay and rest. I’ll go.”
I went quickly, knowing it would be Katie who I found up. She was leaning her head against the wall in the corner closest to Sarah, crying so quietly now I could barely hear her. The others were still asleep, and I wondered if Katie might really be too. But when I came near, she grasped hold of me, breathing hard. The poor child was scared, just scared in the thunderous dark, here in our house that still seemed so strange to her. I held her, and she clung to me, crying softly into my blouse.
After a while I could hear it start to drip rain. And then I heard Samuel rise up and shut our bedroom window, then move through the house, shutting other windows. Finally he stood in the doorway, looking in at us, but he didn’t say anything before going back to our room.
I just stayed where I was until Katie finally dropped back to sleep. Then I scooted a pillow close and eased her carefully down onto the blanket beside Sarah. I tiptoed back to bed, hoping to find Samuel still awake. I needed the talk we should’ve had before, the strong and gentle arms I should’ve taken advantage of earlier in the barn. But Samuel lay with one arm across his face, still in his work denims, sound asleep.
EIGHT
Samuel
Mother’s liquor bottles were strewn over her dresser top, most empty, some on their sides, some with a bit of their poison remaining. She lay on the floor by the bed, where she’d fallen on her face the night before.
My father was on the couch in the living room, an uninvited guest after an absence of nearly a year. Edward was gone again. I wasn’t sure if he’d even been home last night.
I got my books from the corner table, my sweater from a pile of clothes on the floor. I could get to school. If I managed to get out the door without waking anyone.
Asleep on the couch, our father didn’t look much older than Edward. Mother called him a “young buck,” but she despised him as much as he despised her.
I thought about breakfast, about lunch at school, but I didn’t even bother to check our kitchen cupboards. I knew what I’d find. Endless bottles. I often wondered why my mother valued them so much that she never threw any away. Edward did. Edward would collect them in gunny-sacks and throw them at the school building or the street-lights or the front window of Calding’s Corner Store.
I almost made it out. I was only three feet from the door when Dad sat up and stopped me cold with his yell. “Samuel!”
His face was white. Chalky white. His dark eyes were big and frightening. He grabbed me, threw my books across the room . . .
I opened my eyes in the darkness. Dreaming again. An irritating habit I’d somehow fallen back into.
It was hot. Too hot to stay in bed next to Julia’s warmth, at least until I found a way to cool off a bit. I walked to the kitchen and then outside, wondering what time it could be. Buckley the rooster hadn’t crowed. And there was no sign of the sun.
I went to the well and doused my head with water. The storm was over, but it had rained little and left no cooling influence. This would be a steamy day if it was this hot even before daylight.
I sat on the edge of the well’s hard wood platform, letting the cool water drip down over my shoulders and back. I thought of Mother actually reading me a book once and another time kissing my cheek as she tucked the covers tight around me on a snowy night. Such moments were rare, but they happened, and they made me want to pray for her all the more. She had a goodness about her, hidden under all the garbage that enslaved her. Maybe Father had too, but his was even more buried. I only saw it once.
“Samuel’s a strong name,” he told me when I was eight. “I always did like it. I gave you a decent, strong name so you’d have that even if I couldn’t give you nothing else.”
That was the last time I saw him. For so long he’d been dropping in unexpected, with months or even years between visits. But he never came back after that. And then when I was Robert’s size, Mother said he was dead. Drowned in some river somewhere.
Whiskers sauntered up and pushed his nose under my hand. I petted him, feeling obligated, I guess. It wasn’t often he was so insistent. “Silly dog,” I scolded. “What are you doing awake at this hour?”
Over in the timber I could hear the frogs singing. A howl swept in with the breeze coming from the other way. Coyote, maybe. Whiskers heard it too. His hair bristled a bit, and he looked out over the field.
“Relax,” I told him. “They’re not going to bother you. You’re bigger than they are.”
But he whined a little, prancing back and forth. Maybe he’d been dreaming too.
I stood up and stretched, thinking I could catch a little more sleep before the day started. But Sukey started lowing in the barn. I don’t know if she heard me or not, but she usually didn’t make a sound. I went to the house for a lantern so I could check on her and Lula Bell, just to make sure there was no disturbance.
Sukey was bawling when I got to the barn. Her calf was asleep in the hay. The howling I’d heard was sounding closer, but such a thing had never bothered her before. I patted her nose and told her everything was all right. Then I went to check on Lula Bell, two stalls down.
I was used to finding her standing up. She stayed on her feet nearly all the time now, whether she was awake or not. But this time she was down. I thought she was asleep. I petted her neck, expecting to feel the steady rhythm of her life flowing beneath the soft, warm fur. But she was stone cold and still.
At first my mind whirled. She must have gone some time after supper last night, after I’d milked Sukey and come to check on her. She’d been standing up then, seeming just the same. But it must not have been long after, for her to be so far gone. Stiff. I couldn’t use the meat now. In this heat, I couldn’t trust it.
Flies were already buzzing around her. I took the lantern and left the barn just as Buckley let loose with his first morning song. The rooster crowed twice, and I just stood there, staring out over the yard. George had lost a cow last year and three pigs in the winter. Maybe it was the way of things. The pigs had been babies, born when it was still too cold. But the cow had been younger than Lula Bell, just suddenly sick.
It made me worry for Sukey and for the rest of George’s cows. Maybe it was the same sickness with Lula Bell, and not her age at all. Only three days ago, she’d see
med strong enough not only to make it to fall but longer than that. Two weeks ago, we’d talked of breeding her, trying to get her milk flowing again. Sure, she was getting old for a cow, but this was too fast.
My gut ached, thinking about disposing of the carcass, and the loss of the meat. I knew I should tell Juli and then head on over to George’s. I was going to need his help. Lula Bell was too big for me to handle, even with Robert and Juli’s help.
Quietly I went in the house, taking the lantern with me into our room, where Juli was just stirring on the bed. For a moment I watched her, thinking of yesterday in the barn when she’d offered her consoling touch to Lula Bell at the same time she was refusing mine. I never dreamed Juli would look at me the way she looked at me then. I never wanted to see it again.
“Samuel?” She turned her eyes to me and then reached out her hand.
I didn’t take it. I just stood there with the lantern in my hand, feeling cold and wasted. “Lula Bell’s dead, Juli. I’ll have to go get George.”
She sat up. “Oh no.” She was quiet, but then she tried reaching for me again. “Samuel, please sit with me a minute.”
“No. Better not to wait on these things. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She got out of bed. But I didn’t linger. I set the lantern on the kitchen table as I went through, knowing I wouldn’t need it outside much longer. And sure enough, as I started through the timber, the first pink light was showing itself in the east. Buckley was crowing again, and I heard some dog besides Whiskers barking somewhere to the north.
I walked fast, putting distance between me and Juli as much as I was going to find George. Maybe the day would be full. Maybe she’d be so busy with Katie and Sarah and our world of things to do that she wouldn’t have time to talk. Maybe I’d be so busy looking at everything else that I wouldn’t have to see the doubt staring out of her eyes.
NINE
Julia
I felt sick. Because of Lula Bell, but even more because Samuel had gotten up and gone before I’d had a chance to tell him how sorry I was. He looked so tired this morning.
But I scarcely had time to think about it. Robert was up with the dawn, and I told him to milk Sukey and put her and the calf out to graze but to leave Lula Bell’s stall alone. He knew what I meant, and I saw the worry cloud his face. “Mom, I was prayin’ she’d get better. I was thinkin’ if she had milk again, we could be selling some and still have enough to make butter and cheese.”
“I know, Robert. But Sukey’s healthy and giving good milk. We’ll be all right.”
“We been makin’ it, Mom. But we’re not gettin’ ahead.”
“The same as everybody we know,” I told him. “We can be grateful for food on the table.”
But he frowned. “Last winter there wasn’t enough. We come short a few times, I know, but you pretended we was just fine and that you didn’t want much anyway. Dad prob’ly lost ten pounds. It kinda scares me, thinkin’ about this winter. What if we don’t have enough again?”
“Oh, Robert. You’re too young to worry.”
“Hammonds is the same way. They’re gonna have to butcher a lot to have enough, and then what do they do for next year?”
“The Lord will provide.”
He picked up the milk pail. “Yesterday he only give us two little fish and another mouth to feed. I guess we’re s’posed to do a miracle.”
He marched outside before I could say anything else. And I felt like crying.
Franky was up next and volunteered to get the eggs. Then Sarah, Katie, and Rorey came in the kitchen, all holding hands.
“Can we get us a magazine from Mrs. Post today?” Sarah asked first thing.
“No. At least not till we get other things taken care of.”
“What things?”
“Never you mind. We always have plenty to do.”
“Well, maybe sometime soon,” she said agreeably. “That’s okay.”
She was easy to please. Often easy to delight, with no worries at all. I sometimes wondered why Robert was not so. God said we should be like little children. Trusting, I thought that meant. But Robert had been prone to worry even at Sarah’s age. I began to consider how Sarah would react when she learned her favorite cow had died. I should probably distract her or maybe even take her to pick what was left of the wild raspberries, just to make sure she wouldn’t be standing there watching them deal with the body.
It was sultry already. I had the girls pick up sticks for me, and I lit a fire in our outside ring of rocks and put a pot of water on to boil. With the old rooster following at his heels, Franky brought me nine eggs. All but one went in the water pot, and I used the last in a batch of cornbread.
Robert wasn’t very hungry. Neither were Franky and the girls. I had plenty left for Samuel when he came back. But he wasn’t in the mood for eating.
He had George and Joe with him in their wagon, and Robert and Franky followed them to the barn. I cut a handful of rhubarb and took the girls in the house to help me mix a bowl of batter for a quick cake. I decided to put the last of our old potatoes in the coals too, so we’d have something for lunch already done.
Maybe Robert was right to worry. The new potatoes weren’t ready to dig yet. So many things in the garden needed more time and weren’t bearing as well as I’d hoped. We had so little left in the cupboards. And no way to shop. I knew George would be discussing whether or not we could use that meat.
Finally Samuel came up to the house looking pretty solemn, and I sent the girls into the next room to make sure the bedding was all folded and stacked.
“We’ll take her to the edge of the field and dig a hole,” Samuel told me. “Not much else we can do. Can’t take a chance on the meat. Can’t be sure what she died of.”
I nodded to him, knowing we were left with no meat of our own to put up for winter. Except the chickens. Or Sukey’s calf, which we were hoping to raise bigger.
He turned around, but his weary shoulders grieved me. “Samuel—can we talk just a minute?”
“I can’t leave George waiting.”
“Why not? You’ve waited for him plenty of times.”
He turned to me only for a second. “I’m not going to leave him waiting. I want to get this over with. Keep the little girls away, all right?”
I hardly knew how to respond to him, he was so abrupt. “I’ll take them to the timber,” I said quickly. “We need to get what’s left of the raspberries and check the blackberries too. We’ll be needing all we can find.”
“Good.”
That was all he said. He went back to George and the boys, where they’d left the horses hitched and were tying a length of rope at the back of the wagon. They were going to pull the carcass, I realized. Much easier moving it that way. I grabbed four little pails, my foraging bag, and a knife.
“Sarah! Katie! Rorey!”
They poked their little heads in from the sitting room, where they’d been pretending the paper dolls were dancing at a ball.
“Let’s go picking. We’ll get berries if there are any, or whatever else we can find.”
I took them out the front door, which we almost never used, because I wanted to avoid what the men were doing in the back. Sarah thought it was funny, going out that way. We’d have to make a curve toward the path, but I didn’t mind. I’d just be looking for whatever we could use.
“Mom, what’s Daddy doing today?” Sarah asked me. “He ain’t gonna take Katie to town again, is he?”
“No. Not today.”
Katie looked up at me, and I tried to smile. I didn’t know how long she’d be here. Until Sheriff Law came out to bring us some word, I supposed. However long that might be. “He believed Edward’s words better than mine,” Samuel had said. I hadn’t expected that. I hadn’t expected anyone to believe Edward or to doubt Samuel. Especially not myself.
I tried to put it all out of my mind. I stopped and cut a bunch of wood sorrel because its leaves and flowers could be eaten raw or steamed like spi
nach. I tried not to think about Katie. But she was right here with me, watching me, quiet as a new lamb.
She’d heard Samuel’s name before she met Edward. She’d seen a picture. Oh, Lord, let it stop. Let it all have some reasonable, credible explanation. What would people think? What did I think? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted it all to go away.
We walked on, each with a pail in hand and me with the bag I used every time I went walking through this timber to harvest what I could find. All across the countryside women were probably doing the same thing. Lots of folks would be taking to the timber before long, looking for blackberries, due to ripen in a couple of weeks, maybe less. The raspberries were an extra blessing, and not as plentiful. Emma had told me about them, that they were planted by her husband Willard’s grandmother and long since gone wild. We’d already gotten a few. There wouldn’t be many this year. But I was hoping for better from the blackberries. Today it seemed almost a matter of survival.
“Mommy, I hope there’s eight hundred tons of berries!” Sarah exclaimed, as though she could hear my thoughts.
“Goodness, that would be a lot.”
“We’d eat ’em. We could make jelly like last year!”
We needed plenty, but I knew that picking berries would turn my thoughts to Emma. She’d been with us last summer, and it had been a joy working beside her, making what jelly we could. There hadn’t been enough to last the winter through, and it would be good to have more. But it wouldn’t be the same without Emma’s wise words and willing hands working beside me. I thought of how hard it must be for Lizbeth this summer, trying to do all the things that her mother was here for last year. We’d done well, after a fashion, making it this far. But it still hurt, being without them.
Thinking of Emma made me wonder how she would have reacted to Katie being here. Oh, she’d have loved the girl, I had no doubt about that. But what would she have done about Edward? And what would she say to Samuel?