Angel Sister

by Ann Gabhart

  Kate wanted to pull away and run home. She didn’t like being in the sickroom. It had a funny smell. Not a dirty smell. It was clean. She and her mother had seen to that the first day, but there wasn’t any way to keep out the sick smell. That smell just seemed to ooze out of the pores of somebody as sick as Grandfather Reece.

  But Kate couldn’t say no to her mother. Her mother needed help and who else was there to give it? Certainly not Evie, who turned pale at even the thought of having to visit Grandfather Reece, or Tori, who was way too young. No, it had to be Kate, the middle sister, the one who always did whatever had to be done. The responsible one.

  So Kate took a deep breath of air that she hoped would be enough to last as she moved a few steps farther into the room. The man on the bed scared her. To be truthful, her grandfather had always scared her. Even when he was patting her on the head as a little girl, she’d kept expecting him to yank her up by the collar and let her have it for something she’d done.

  Kate heard her mother go out the front door. Miss Carla was snoring on the couch. No church people were visiting. Nobody there but Kate to take care of her grandfather.

  She tiptoed over to the chair by the bed. He was asleep or seemed to be. That was good. She could sit there beside him and be very quiet. Better even than that, she could close her eyes and pray. Sometimes she jumped up in the morning and forgot about praying. She didn’t intend to. She just did. And now wasn’t a good time to be forgetting about praying. Not with so much she needed help with.

  Of course it wasn’t right to only pray when she needed something. She was supposed to pray about everything. Good things, bad things, in-between things, ordinary things. The Bible said the Lord wanted to hear from his people. And she was one of his people. She’d been baptized down at the river when she was younger than Tori, and not just because her grandfather and mother told her she should be. She’d felt the Lord telling her in her own heart.

  Grandfather Reece had baptized her and Evie, who had run down the aisle that same day after Kate stepped out. He’d called her Sister Katherine Reece Merritt, thanked the Lord for her soul, and dipped her down under the water. It was the closest she had ever felt to Grandfather Reece.

  Now as she sat beside her grandfather’s bed, she bowed her head and shut her eyes, but she couldn’t seem to settle her thoughts down enough to pray. Her legs were all jerky and itchy. She wanted to move, to run outside and down the road to check on Lorena. Lorena. Lorena. Lorena. Dear Lord up in heaven, help me take care of Lorena. Let me keep being her sister. I’ll try to be extra good and do the things I should and not do the things I shouldn’t.

  “Amen,” her grandfather said.

  She opened her eyes and peeked over at her grandfather to see if he had noticed her praying and was trying to help her out, or if he wanted a drink of water or something. It was hard to tell since “amen” was the only word he said that anybody could understand and he said it for everything.

  He was staring at her out of his good eye, and she almost expected him to rise up out of the bed and start preaching at her the way he’d done plenty of times in the past when somebody had told him some wrong she’d done. She’d almost be glad to get preached at that way again, because that would mean he was back to his old self. But instead he just lay there and kept staring at her. Not a stern stare or a reproachful stare. But more as if he wanted her to do something for him.

  “Can I get you something?” she said softly after a few minutes.

  “Amen,” he said.

  “You want me to pray?” she asked. “I’m not too good at praying out loud, but I can do the Lord’s Prayer if you want me to.”

  He waved his right hand as if to shoo off that idea and pointed to the nightstand.

  “The Bible. You want me to read the Bible to you again? I can do that.” She reached over and picked up her grandfather’s Bible. “I could read it all the way through for you, but that would take too long. You’d be back preaching before I got out of Exodus. How about if I just open it up and start reading wherever?”

  Her grandfather said amen again. She didn’t know whether that meant yes or no, but his eyelids drooped down over both his eyes, and he seemed to be listening when she opened up to the Gospel of John and started reading. She remembered him preaching sermons on some of the verses she read, and when she told him that, he opened his eyes and looked at her and said, “Amen.” This time it sounded as if the very word he intended came out of his mouth.

  By the time her mother came back in the room to let Kate go home, Kate had read through five chapters of John. Before she left, Kate leaned over to kiss her grandfather goodbye, something she hadn’t done since she was a little girl like Lorena and her mother told Kate to kiss him goodbye. She hadn’t wanted to then, but now it just seemed right. She owed him that much, and some of the worry seemed to evaporate with her lips touching his forehead.

  But it came back when her mother asked how things were at home. Kate sort of skipped over the truth. She couldn’t tell her how she and Evie kept fighting over who had to do what or that Tori kept saying she wasn’t hungry and not eating like she should or that Daddy hadn’t come home for supper two nights in a row. So she mumbled something about needing to pick the beans before she kissed her mother goodbye and hurried out the door. It was easy to see her mother was already worried enough without Kate adding to it.

  The only person not covered up with worry was Lorena. She was trusting Kate to take care of her. Every morning she got out of bed and stretched up as tall as she could there in the middle of their bedroom and said, “My name is Lorena Birdsong.” Every night she did the same thing before she went to bed. Some days she spoke her name in little more than a whisper. Other times she practically shouted it out. The whisper made Kate want to cry and the shouts made her laugh.

  Some mornings, Kate would pick Lorena up and dance her through the house to the kitchen, singing her name. “Lorena. Lorena. Lorena Birdsong. My sweet Lorena Birdsong.”

  That made Lorena giggle, and for a minute Kate could forget all the things she had to worry about. Grandfather Reece might be getting better, and Daddy did finally come home even if it was late. It wasn’t that much of a problem to keep the household going while Mama was gone. Getting the fire to burn right in the cookstove wasn’t easy—sometimes it just wanted to smoke up the kitchen—but she kept waving the smoke out the back door with a dishtowel and poking at the fire until the stove finally got hot enough to perk coffee and fry eggs for Tori and Lorena.

  And Evie was trying to do her part even if she was sort of bossy about it. The first morning she got up and tried to make biscuits just like their mother’s, but while Mama’s biscuits were light and fluffy, Evie’s were hard as rocks. She cried when their father tried to bite into one before he said some things just weren’t possible and that he always did like light bread with his honey.

  On Thursday Tori and Lorena helped Kate pick the green beans. When they ended up with over a bushel of beans, Kate didn’t know what to do. She knew about as much about canning beans as Evie did about making biscuits. She knew about breaking them up and washing them and packing them in quart jars. She’d helped with that plenty of times. Then Mama put them down in big pots of water and cooked and cooked them, but Evie said if they didn’t do it right, they’d end up with ptomaine poisoning when they tried to eat the beans come winter.

  “But we can’t just let them sit here and ruin,” Kate said.

  Evie eyed the beans a minute before she said, “When’s Mama coming home?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you go ask her? You ought to go see Grandfather Reece anyway.”

  “I can’t, Kate. I don’t do sickrooms very well. I get all trembly and feel like I’m going to faint.” Evie grabbed hold of one of the posts on the back porch as if she thought the faint was coming on already.

  “You wouldn’t faint,” Kate said.

  “You can’t know that. Lots of people faint for all kinds of reasons. Just b
ecause you think you can bite nails in two doesn’t mean that everybody can.” Evie gave her a mean look.

  “Who’s bitin’ nails in two out here?” Aunt Hattie said as she came around the house and found them on the back porch staring at the beans.

  “Oh, Aunt Hattie,” Kate said with a big smile. “You must be an answer to prayer.”

  “Why’s that, child?”

  “All these beans.” Kate waved her hand at the green beans.

  “You’s been prayin’ over beans?” Aunt Hattie raised her gray eyebrows at Kate.

  “Well, no, but I should have been. Mama’s still over with Grandfather Reece and Evie says if we don’t do them right we could get ptomaine poisoning, but we can’t just let them go to ruin. You can help us can them, can’t you? Please, please, please.” Kate grabbed Aunt Hattie’s hand and pulled her up on the porch.

  “I was a-thinkin’ you might need some help about nows.” Aunt Hattie laughed and looked around. Her smile faded into a frown. “Where’s the young one?”

  “She’s inside looking at books with Victoria,” Evie said.

  A look of relief flashed across Aunt Hattie’s face as she shut her eyes for a second almost like she was praying. When she opened her eyes, she said, “Gets them on out here. The storybooks ain’t going nowhere. Them young’uns can break beans same as we can.” She grabbed the old straight chair they kept on the porch and sat down before she filled her apron with beans and began breaking off the ends. “And bring on out some pans for the beans. We ain’t got all day. Canning beans ain’t no short job.”

  Later with the beans in the jars boiling in the kettles and the kitchen so hot Kate could barely breathe, she shoved more wood into the cookstove the way Aunt Hattie told her. She wiped the sweat off her face with her skirt tail and said, “No wonder people put cookstoves outside to can on.” She and Aunt Hattie were alone in the kitchen.

  “It ain’t no bad idea in the kind of summer we’s having now,” Aunt Hattie agreed. “We’ll make us some tea and sit out on the back porch when we’re sure we’ve got the jars boilin’ proper. You got any ice?”

  “The iceman came yesterday, but we’ve got it so hot in here, it’s probably all melted in the icebox.”

  “Don’t be worryin’ over ever’thing, child.” Aunt Hattie put her hands on Kate’s shoulders and looked straight into her face.

  “But I have to, Aunt Hattie.” Kate was almost glad for the sweat on her face. If a few tears sneaked out, Aunt Hattie wouldn’t notice.

  “No, you don’t. You can’t do one thing about the ice meltin’.” Aunt Hattie’s brown eyes bored into Kate, and they both knew she was talking about more than ice. When Kate didn’t say anything for a moment, Aunt Hattie tightened her hands on her shoulders and said, “I knows about your mama. She’s done workin’ herself to a frazzle over there with your granddaddy whilst that ol’ Carla sits on her hands. I’d a done gone over there and helped her, but I don’t figure I’d better show my face around that place right now. But what I don’t know is about your daddy. He been comin’ home like he oughta?”

  Kate dropped her eyes away from Aunt Hattie’s to stare down at the floor. She didn’t want to answer her. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “You look back up here at me, child.” Aunt Hattie waited till Kate raised her eyes back up to her face before she went on. “Ain’t no need in you tiptoeing around the truth with me. There ain’t nobody on this green earth I ever loved more than I love your daddy except my own boy, Bo. But lovin’ somebody don’t mean you think they don’t never do nothing wrong. Ain’t a one of us that ain’t done some wrongs.”

  Kate’s throat felt tight, but she made herself say, “He didn’t come home last night till almost daybreak.”

  Aunt Hattie mashed her mouth together and shook her head. She pushed a breath out her nose before she said, “That ain’t no way for him to be acting right now.”

  “No, ma’am, but he can’t help it, Aunt Hattie. He just can’t help it.”

  “Ain’t no truth in that, child. Ever’body can help it. With the good Lord’s help.”

  Kate stared down at the floor again. She didn’t know what to say to that.

  After a moment, Aunt Hattie went on. “Your mama, she needs to come on home. You tell her I said for her to let the church people help. Some of them are wantin’ to. They think a heap and all of your grandpappy at that church. There ain’t no shame in askin’ for help. And she’s needin’ to be home.”

  “All right,” Kate said. “I’ll tell her.”

  Aunt Hattie gave Kate’s shoulders one last squeeze before she said, “I’m praying for you, Katherine Reece Merritt. Whatever happens you’s gonna be able to handle it just like you is handlin’ the heat in this kitchen to fix these here beans. It ain’t easy, but you is doin’ it.”

  20

  ______

  When Victor saw Aunt Hattie coming toward his blacksmith shop, he wanted to run out the back door and hide. She wouldn’t be coming for any good reason. Not with the way he could see the frown creasing her face from all the way across the yard. He almost went over and lifted up the saddle blanket on his shelf to take a nip from his bottle. But he knew better. If she saw him, she’d break it for sure.

  He wished she’d been there to break the first bottle he’d tipped up to his mouth way back when he was in France. He hadn’t messed with the women over there the way some of the other men had. But drinking hadn’t seemed so wrong. He hadn’t thought about it burrowing down inside him and coming home with him. At the time he hadn’t been all that sure he’d live long enough to come home.

  War was worse than anything he had ever imagined. Even before they got to the fighting, the whole thing was one misery after another. He’d thought he couldn’t get any more miserable when he boarded the train and left Nadine behind. But then they loaded them on those old ships, stuck them down below, and wouldn’t let them up on the deck more than an hour or two here and there on their way to France. Victor was sick the whole way along with most of the other men. In rough water there weren’t enough buckets to go around, and sometimes the floor was slimy with vomit. A man couldn’t get away from the smell of it.

  Things didn’t get a lot better in France. Not with the way they stuffed them in trains to go to their training grounds. Then the cooties were waiting at the training camps. It was almost a relief to get to the trenches. At least until it rained and they were walking in mud all day long. And kept raining so that the mud got deeper in the trenches and swallowed up the planks they laid down to walk on and sometimes pulled a man’s boots right off his feet. There were stories of men sucked down into the muck never to be seen again.

  Victor didn’t know if the stories were true, but he did think it possible. The mud was everywhere. In their hair under their helmets, flavoring their food, between their toes in their boots, layering their canteens, permeating their very souls. They couldn’t get away from the mud. They slept in it, fought in it, lived in it. Died in it.

  Sometimes after a hard downpour a new body part appeared out of the mud. Victor told himself it didn’t matter. Whoever he was, the man was dead, gone from his body to meet his Maker. What was left was just bone, sinew, and skin. And if Victor was ordered over the top and got hit by enemy fire to end up one of those bodies sunk down in the mud, what difference would it make if the soldiers lucky enough to still be breathing used his hand sticking out of the side of the trench to hold something up out of the mud. That’s how they were using Oscar’s. Nobody really knew the dead man’s name or even his nationality, but it only seemed right to name him, to make him part of their company when his hand emerged from the side of the trench.

  That’s how war was. A man had to survive as best he could. He couldn’t worry about what he’d left back home. He couldn’t worry about how long he was going to live. A man just had to follow orders and give all he had to win the war and save democracy.

  War wasn’t a thing like Victor had expected or maybe anything
like anybody back in the States had expected. Back there, they’d taught them to march. Wasn’t much use for marching in the trenches. It was just hunkering down and hoping a sharpshooter didn’t spot your helmet if you forgot and lifted your head a few inches too high. Or that your gas mask would work when the Germans launched their mustard gas barrages. Or that you wouldn’t get the order to go over the top.

  Up out of the trenches, the German artillery had made rubble of the buildings and splintered the trees. Barbed wire barriers laced the no-man’s-zone between them and the Boches. Not a good place to be. Of course sometimes a man imagined it might be better to get the order to charge out into battle. At least then he’d be moving and not just sitting in the mud waiting for the enemy’s artillery to find its mark.

  Victor couldn’t see how they could ever expect to win the war by simply taking up existence in the trenches with the rats and body lice and mud. Squads sneaked out at night to spy out the enemy’s position and try to take German prisoners, and the engineer companies kept adding more barbed wire to the barriers meant to deter the enemy from making their way undetected through no-man’s-land to their frontline trenches. On both sides above the trenches, men peered out of baskets suspended below balloons tethered to the ground to catch a view of any unusual activity along the enemy lines, and occasionally a plane would buzz over. Some of the soldiers took potshots at the planes when they saw the German colors, but they never brought one down.

  If it hadn’t been for Nadine’s letters making their slow way across the ocean to him, Victor wasn’t sure he could have survived the trenches even with no German fire. There were three rows of trenches—the forward front line where the soldiers had to be on guard at all times, the second row where the doughboys were ready to go forward to relieve the front line, and the back trench where a man could relax for a few days without worrying about getting his helmet too high out of the trench. The mud and the rats and the cooties didn’t go away, but here at least a man might get a letter from home.