Angel Sister

by Ann Gabhart

  “Of course it’ll be all right,” Aunt Hattie said behind them. “You’re still breathing. That little girl child is still breathing over at Ella Baxter’s house. Ain’t nobody died.”

  Kate pulled away from her mother to look at Aunt Hattie. “It feels like somebody did.”

  Aunt Hattie mashed her mouth together and shook her head. “That’s just because you ain’t never felt what it really feels like when somebody you love ain’t never comin’ home no more. And that’s good. I’m glad you ain’t had to feel that way yet in your young life.” The old woman stepped over closer to Kate and peered at the scrape on her head. “Appears you’s bleedin’, child.”

  “Grandfather Merritt,” Kate started and then stopped. She stared down at the ground for a long moment before she went on. “I shouldn’t have talked back to Grandfather Merritt. He slapped me.”

  Nadine pulled in a sharp breath and reached out to wrap her arms around Kate again, but Aunt Hattie put a hand out to stop her.

  “Give the child time to tell us all of it.” Aunt Hattie peered into Kate’s face. “And that’s what made your head bleed?”

  “It made me fall down, and my head hit the apple tree.”

  Across from Victor, Nadine mashed her fist against her tightly closed lips. He could tell she was having to fight to hold back the words she wanted to say and that she was hurting just as much as Kate. Maybe more. He wanted to go to her, but he stayed rooted to his spot, afraid she’d push him away.

  “All right then, now that we’ve heard what happened, we’d best flush it out good and bandage it up proper so’s you won’t have to live with the sight of an ugly scar each and every time you look in the mirror to comb out your hair.”

  Aunt Hattie ordered Evangeline and Victoria to fetch the things she needed. Soap and water. A chair off the porch before the light faded too much to see what she was doing. Bandages and tape. Watkins’ brown salve.

  Once everything was gathered, Nadine held Kate’s hair back while Aunt Hattie wrung out a cloth and began to bathe the cut. Evangeline shivered and looked away, but Victoria leaned in close to be sure to see it all. Her nose was still red from her earlier tears. Kate stared straight ahead without flinching, while Aunt Hattie probed the cut to be sure it was clean.

  Victor watched a moment before he asked, “What are you doing here so late, Aunt Hattie? Did my father tell you to come?”

  “No, I ain’t seen Mr. Preston for a spell now. The man must be washin’ his own shirts. I just got the feelin’ in my bones that my doctorin’ might be needed. Like as how the Lord maybe was tapping me on the shoulder, tellin’ me there was something to do. ’Course I didn’t know about this scrape.” Aunt Hattie concentrated on dabbing her rag on the cut a few times before she went on. “I was thinkin’ more on soul sickness.” She raised her eyes to peer across at Victor.

  He met the little black woman’s eyes. She’d always known him too well. He said, “Kate is feeling low in the spirit.”

  “Uh-huh, ’pears the soul sickness is goin’ round.” Aunt Hattie laid her rag down and picked up the salve.

  “I prayed, Aunt Hattie,” Kate said softly. “And nobody listened.”

  Aunt Hattie clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Now, you just wrong about that, child. Wrong as can be. The good Lord always listens. Always.” When Kate didn’t say anything more, she went on. “Your mama here can tell you that. Even in the worst times. Even when it seems like there ain’t no answers to be had. Ain’t that right, Nadine?”

  “It is,” Nadine answered without a hint of doubt in her voice. “But there are times when you have to trust the Lord’s answer to come in his own perfect time.”

  “Or the answer ain’t what you’s wantin’ to hear but you know the Lord is gonna get you through it anyhows. Like when my Bo died. When you feel like there ain’t nothin’ out there to trust, that’s when you’s got to trust the most. That’s how a body’s faith grows.” Aunt Hattie put her hand on Kate’s shoulder as if she could transfer some of her mighty faith straight to the hurting girl. “If ever’thing was honey and sweet berries all the time, there wouldn’t be no need for faith.”

  “But what can I do, Aunt Hattie? I know Lorena’s crying. I can hear her in my heart.”

  At Kate’s words, Victoria began sniffling, and Evangeline reached over to put her arm around her little sister. Nadine’s lips were mashed together in a fierce line that Victor knew meant she was fighting tears too.

  “Hush that crying now.” Aunt Hattie frowned over at Victoria before she turned back to Kate and squeezed her shoulder.

  “It ain’t over yet, children. It ain’t over. We got to keep trusting, and when the time comes, the Lord will let us know what to do.”

  “How?” Kate asked.

  “I can’t tell you that, but we’ll know. We’ll surely know. So long as we don’t turn our backs on him.” She didn’t look over at Victor, but he knew the next words were for him. “There is some who do that. Who give up on the Lord helping ’em. I ain’t knowing how they stand the pain. Don’t let that be us, children. The good Lord won’t never turn his back on us. He’s a lovin’ us right on through this.”

  She made it sound so easy. Like all he had to do was turn around and face the other direction. Look up and say, Here am I, Lord. Take away my pain. Take away the way his mouth wanted a drink. Out behind the house, he heard old Ruby bawling. He was glad for the reason to walk away from Aunt Hattie’s sermon.

  “I’ve got to go milk the cow,” he said.

  He hated himself every step out to the barn, but even before he fastened Ruby in the stanchion, he climbed up into the loft and found the bottle he’d hid in behind one of the posts. He twisted off the top and breathed in the smell. He stared at the bottle in his hand for a long moment while below him Ruby bawled for her feed before he tipped it up and let the fiery liquid roll down his throat.

  29

  ______

  Aunt Hattie shook her head as Kate’s father disappeared around the house. Then she lifted her hands to the sky and started talking to the Lord as though he was perched up on the first star of evening, leaning his ear down toward her to hear her better.

  “Lord Almighty, we’s hurtin’ down here, but you knows that already. You hears ever’ beat of our hearts, sees ever’ tear that trickles down off our cheeks. You even keep count of the very hairs on our head. So’s we knows you can take care of this little child. And that you can help our hurtin’. And Lord, we’s gonna do our best to be ready if’n you give us something to do back. Let your powerful love fall down on us, Lord. Amen and amen.”

  Aunt Hattie stared up at the sky as her prayer shot straight up to heaven. Kate looked up too and waited to feel something, certain some answer would spring up in her heart, but she just felt empty. Useless and empty. She couldn’t feel even a speck of that mustard seed of faith left in her soul. No mountains were going to get up and walk anywhere for her. That thought scared her. She’d heard Grandfather Reece preach about how it was empty hearts the devil had no problem moving into. She didn’t want to be wicked.

  Aunt Hattie must have read her mind, because before the sound of her amen faded into the gloaming, she stepped right in front of Kate, grabbed hold of Kate’s chin, and gave it a little shake as she stared her straight in the eye. “Don’t you push yo’self down in no hole of your own making, Katherine Reece. Not even the thickest blanket of suffering can smother out our Lord. I knows that for a fact. I been covered with some mighty thick blankets now and again myself, but the good Lord was always right there beside me holdin’ my hand. He’s got hold of your hand too and he ain’t goin’ nowheres. You’ll see. And you be ready in case he speaks somethin’ for you to do.”

  Aunt Hattie turned loose of Kate’s chin and took another look toward the barn out back of the house, then she shook her head again and headed off through the gathering twilight toward home. They watched her till she was out of sight. Then Evie picked up the washpan and salve. Mama carried the
chair back up on the porch, and they went inside to go through the motions of putting supper on the table.

  After a while, Kate’s father carried the milk in from the barn. The smell of whiskey rode on him into the kitchen. Kate’s mother turned her face to the wall away from him. He reached a hand out toward her, but he didn’t touch her before he turned around and went back to the barn.

  Kate picked up the bucket of milk to pour it through the cloth strainer into the brown crock jar. Her mother rubbed off her face with her apron and helped hold the cloth in place as the milk seeped through.

  “We’ll have to make butter tomorrow,” she said. “And the beans will need picking again. This might be the last picking if it doesn’t rain soon.”

  Talk of the garden helped them be able to sit down and eat their crackers and cheese, but nobody wanted the last of the brown sugar pie. Kate thought about offering to carry it out to her father, but then she didn’t. As they got ready for bed, Evie chattered some about the new preacher, but it seemed like weeks instead of hours had passed since Kate’s heart had done a flip-flop when he smiled across the table at her over their bologna and cheese dinner.

  Tori looked at her cot and then climbed into the bed with Evie and Kate. It was hot with all three of them in the same bed, but none of them complained. Tori kissed Kate’s cheek, and Evie squeezed Kate’s hand and whispered, “She’ll always be our sister no matter where she is.”

  “Three sisters plus one,” Kate said into the darkness of the room.

  Tori scrambled back out of bed to stand and say, “Her name is Lorena Birdsong.”

  Kate and Evie got back up to hold hands in a circle with Tori and repeat it again. “Her name is Lorena Birdsong.” And somewhere out of the depths of Kate’s heart, there was an echo.

  Once back in the bed, Evie and Tori settled down and went right to sleep. Kate told herself to do the same. It didn’t do Lorena a bit of good for Kate to stare out at the grainy darkness with wide-open eyes. Even so, she didn’t go to sleep. The clock had already struck twelve when her father came into the house, but she didn’t get up to see if he needed help even after he bumped into the table. She couldn’t get up. She had to lie quiet as a mouse to keep from disturbing Evie and Tori, but then after her father landed on the couch and started snoring, Kate’s arms and legs kept twitching as though ants were crawling around inside her skin. She had to move.

  Slowly she scooted down to the end of the bed and out from in between Evie and Tori. She stood there a moment to see if she’d woken them, but neither of them stirred. The silence of the house pushed in on her until she could barely breathe. She grabbed the pillow off Tori’s bed and tiptoed out of the bedroom, past her father on the couch. In the moonlight coming in the windows she could see he had on his shoes, and she felt guilty. She should have helped him take them off. She stopped and carefully loosed the laces, but she didn’t try to pull the shoes off for fear of waking him. Better to let him sleep it off.

  It would be better if she could sleep it off. Not drinking. She was never going to touch that stuff. Ever. But the grief of how she had failed Lorena. That’s what she wished she could sleep off.

  She stuffed the pillow behind her in the swing and stared out at the trees bathed in moonlight. The sound of tree frogs, katydids, and crickets filled the night air. The swing swayed back and forth and then stopped when she kept her feet up on the swing seat. Kate felt very alone. She wished one of the barn cats would come find her on the porch and settle in her lap, but they would all be sleeping on the hay or hunting midnight mice.

  The screen door eased open and her mother stepped out onto the porch. “Too hot to sleep?” she asked softly.

  “I guess,” Kate said.

  Her mother came over to stand in front of Kate. “You want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know.” Kate moved her feet to make room for her mother to sit down on the swing beside her.

  “We could pray about it,” Mama suggested.

  “Aunt Hattie already did,” Kate said.

  “So she did.”

  Her mother pulled Kate’s feet over into her lap and began massaging them without saying anything more. They sat there and let the night noises fill their ears. It should have felt peaceful, but it didn’t. After a while, Kate asked her mother the same question she’d asked her father earlier over at the pond. “Do you believe in God?” She kept her eyes on the few stars the moonlight wasn’t blotting out.

  Mama’s hands stilled on Kate’s feet for a moment before her fingers began kneading Kate’s toes again. “Yes,” she said.

  “Even when he doesn’t answer your prayers?”

  “Yes,” Mama said again.

  “Have you ever said a prayer that wasn’t answered?”

  “I have. I prayed for my mother to live with all my heart, and then after she died, I prayed even harder for my baby sister. Poor, dear little Essie. She was so pretty. She lived almost three weeks.”

  Kate felt ashamed when she remembered how Aunt Hattie had taken her to task by saying at least she and Lorena were still breathing. Just the thought of losing her mother was enough to make her heart hurt. Kate reached over and clutched her mother’s arm. “Promise you won’t die, Mama. Not for a long, long time.”

  “I plan to hold your babies and be an old granny.” Mama put her hand over Kate’s and squeezed it, but then she smiled a little sadly as she said, “You know, I asked your father to make that same promise to me before he went overseas to the war.”

  “Did he promise?”

  “He wanted to, but he said no truthful man could make that kind of promise going to war. That no one had the promise of tomorrow. And I knew that then and I know it now. Tomorrow is in the Lord’s hands, but your father promised something even better. He promised his love for me would never die. That no matter what happened in the war, his love would always be alive in my heart.” Kate’s mother looked toward the window into the living room. Through it, they could see Kate’s father asleep on the couch.

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I believed him, but I wanted more. I wanted him back with me. I wanted to have babies with him. I wanted to have you.” Mama poked Kate’s leg with her finger. “So I prayed and prayed that the Lord would let your father come home to me.”

  “And he did.”

  “He did.” Kate’s mother rocked the swing back and forth with her foot. “And I was thankful. Am thankful. A lot of men didn’t come home.”

  “Like Aunt Hattie’s son.”

  Mama’s face looked sad in the moonlight. “That’s right. And nobody could have prayed more than Aunt Hattie did for her Bo.”

  “Then why did the Lord answer the prayers for Daddy and not for him?” Kate was trying hard to understand.

  “He answered both our prayers. Aunt Hattie would be the first to tell you that. Just in different ways. We can’t escape the sad parts of living no matter how much we pray. In wars, people die. Mothers die having babies. Bad things happen. But that doesn’t mean we should stop believing. Or praying. The Lord helps in good times and bad. And he’ll answer your prayers too, Kate. However he sees best.”

  “It can’t be best for Lorena to be there with the Baxters instead of with us. It just can’t.”

  Mama sighed. “I know. I feel the same way, but maybe we’re wrong. Why don’t we pray for Ella Baxter? That she will be a loving mother to Lorena.”

  “I don’t want to pray that. I want Lorena to be here,” Kate said.

  “Come here, sweetheart.” Her mother held out her arms and waited while Kate shifted in the swing to lean back against her. She wrapped her arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “It’ll work out. I don’t know how, but it will.”

  “Do you think Mrs. Baxter let Lorena say her name before she went to bed?”

  “I don’t see why not. It’s very important to Lorena.”

  They sat there in silence then for a while as Kate’s mother kept the swing swaying gently. Inside Kate�
�s father cried out in his sleep and her mother and Kate both jumped a little and held their breath until they heard him snoring again.

  Kate said, “Daddy must be having a bad dream.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “About the war, you think?” Kate asked.

  “Probably.”

  “The war must have been really bad.”

  “Worse than anything we can imagine.”

  “Is that why he drinks?” The question was out before Kate thought about it. She and her mother never talked about her father drinking in plain, out-in-the-open words, as though as long as they didn’t mention it, it might not be happening.

  Mama’s voice sounded a little stiff as she said, “That’s a question your father will have to answer for you.”

  “I hate it when he drinks.”

  Her mother tightened her arms around Kate. She kissed her hair again. “So do I, sweetheart. So do I.”

  The swing chains creaked a little as they swayed back and forth. After a minute, Kate said, “Daddy hates it too.”

  “Then he could quit.” The stiffness was back in Mama’s voice.

  “Do you think he could?” Kate twisted her head around to look at her mother.

  “A person can do whatever he sets his mind to,” Mama said firmly, but then she relented a little. “It might not be easy, but with the Lord’s help he could do it. He doesn’t seem to want to ask that help.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid to ask.”

  “Why would anyone be afraid to ask the Lord anything? The Lord wants us to ask him for help.” Her mother sounded almost angry.

  “Maybe he thinks the Lord doesn’t love him enough to help him.” That was the way Kate was feeling. If there was a God and he was love the way the Bible said, then the problem had to be that she, Kate, wasn’t lovable enough.

  Again her mother’s arms were tight around her. “The Lord’s love never changes. It’s always there, has always been there for us, and will always be there. All he wants is for us to step into that love. He won’t make us do that. He won’t make us pray and ask for help, but he’s there ready. Always there ready to help.”