Angel Sister

by Ann Gabhart

  “I haven’t seen him today.” It wasn’t a lie. Kate hadn’t seen him. “I came to see Lorena. Can she come outside?”

  “No Lorena here.” Mrs. Baxter had a smug look on her face.

  “Not here? Then where is she?” Kate asked.

  “Oh, you must mean Polly.” Mrs. Baxter emphasized the name Polly.

  “Polly? No, I mean Lorena. Lorena Birdsong.”

  Mrs. Baxter got a pained look on her face and covered her ears with her fingertips. “Please. That name is not to be spoken in this house.”

  “Why not? That’s Lorena’s name.”

  “Not anymore. She’s my responsibility now and she’ll be called what I say and not some gypsy Indian–sounding name. Polly Baxter is a good, respectable name.” Mrs. Baxter put her hands on her hips and glared at Kate through the screen. “Now it’s time for you to go home.”

  “But I have to see Lo—” Kate stopped when she saw the frown on Mrs. Baxter’s face deepen. She had to get past this woman to see Lorena. Kate licked her lips and said, “I mean Polly.”

  “That’s more like it.” Mrs. Baxter smiled as if she’d beaten Kate in some kind of contest. Then her smile was gone as she narrowed her eyes on Kate. “But I’m afraid Polly can’t have visitors right now. She needs to spend some time alone while she readjusts her attitude. And I’m sure it will be much better for her if you stay away from her. You’re not a good influence, Kate Merritt. And you can tell your mother I said so. Goodbye.” She stepped back and shut the wooden door in Kate’s face.

  Right before the door slammed shut, Kate called out, “Lorena!”

  From somewhere back in the house, Kate heard a muffled cry and then her name yelled over and over. “Kate! Kate!”

  Kate pulled on the screen door, but it was locked. She yanked on it, but it wouldn’t open. She stood there and stared at the closed door and didn’t know what to do.

  From inside she heard Mrs. Baxter’s voice. “Stop all that caterwauling or you’ll have to stay in there an hour longer.”

  Lorena quit yelling, and things got very quiet again.

  Kate’s heart was pounding up in her throat, but she couldn’t tear down the door no matter how much she wanted to. She turned around and went down the porch steps and out of the yard. Maybe her mother would know what to do.

  Kate nearly jumped out of her skin when somebody put a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around to come face-to-face with Fern. “You scared me,” Kate said when she caught her breath.

  “Sorry.” Fern’s lips turned up a bare bit. She had on a faded red flowered dress and rubber boots. She had to be walking in puddles of sweat inside those boots. Her gray hair was tied down with a rolled-up kerchief around her head like an Indian headdress. Her face was clean. She didn’t have the hatchet, and her eyes looked almost sane. Her mouth straightened out as all hint of a smile vanished from her face. “You help her. That woman put her in a closet. Little girl’s scared.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I looked through the window.”

  “But what can I do? Mrs. Baxter won’t let me in.”

  Fern’s eyes bored into Kate. “The back door’s open.” She grabbed Kate’s shoulder and gave it a shake. “You help her.”

  Kate turned back toward the Baxters’ house. Fern was right. She couldn’t just walk away when Lorena needed her. Her parents would understand. Grandfather Merritt wouldn’t, but her parents surely would. But even if they didn’t, she had to do it. She looked around behind her, but Fern was gone. Kate took a deep breath and began creeping toward Mrs. Baxter’s back door.

  The back screen door was unlocked just the way Fern said. Kate slowly pulled it open, hoping against hope that it wouldn’t squeak on its hinges. She hesitated just inside the door and looked around. The kitchen was empty. Kate’s heart was beating so loud inside her chest that she was sure Mrs. Baxter would be able to hear it from wherever she was in the house. She should have asked Fern which closet in which room.

  She held her breath and listened. When she heard steps in the next room, she looked around frantically for someplace to hide if the steps started toward the kitchen. But they didn’t. The front door opened and Mrs. Baxter went out on the porch. Kate pulled in a shaky breath. From behind a closed door on the other side of the kitchen, she heard a sniffle.

  Kate moved silently across the floor on her bare feet and opened the door. Lorena was huddled back in the corner of the pantry with her feet pulled up under her and her hands over her toes. Her eyes flew wide open when she saw Kate, and she scrambled up toward her. Kate shushed her by putting a finger against her lips and pulled the door of the pantry shut behind her just as the front door opened and closed again.

  “You better not be trying to open that door, missy,” Mrs. Baxter called back toward the kitchen. “Not if you don’t want to stay in there till bedtime.”

  Kate hugged Lorena close to her as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. The pantry was big enough to walk between two rows of shelves filled with canned food, cracker boxes, and sacks of flour and sugar. Kate had never seen so many groceries in one place except at her grandfather’s store. The shelves stopped a couple of feet from the door where brooms and mops leaned against the wall behind a lard can on one side. On the other side, aprons and old flour sacks hung from hooks on the end of the shelves.

  From somewhere in the house, music started playing and then a voice was talking. A radio. While the electric lines weren’t to Kate’s house yet, parts of Rosey Corner had gotten on the line last fall. Kate breathed easier. Perhaps Mrs. Baxter would be so tuned in to her program, she wouldn’t be listening for any noises coming from the pantry.

  Kate sat down on the floor beside Lorena and used her skirt tail to rub the tears off her cheeks. She whispered into Lorena’s ear, “We have to be real quiet.”

  “I knew Jesus would tell you to come. I prayed.” She threw her arms around Kate’s neck and kissed her cheek a half dozen times.

  “Then he must have told Fern.”

  “Fern?” Lorena leaned back to look at Kate. Her forehead wrinkled as she asked, “The woman who tried to chop off your nose?”

  “She was just trying to scare me. She wouldn’t really chop off my nose.”

  “Did she scare you?”

  “A little,” Kate admitted.

  “Oh.” Lorena grabbed Kate around the neck again and hugged tight. Her whisper was muffled against Kate’s shoulder. “I was scared. Before you got here. The rats were coming to chew off my toes. I heard them sneaking up under the shelves.”

  “Shh, sweetie. It’s all right. I won’t let the rats get anywhere close to your toes. I promise.” Kate rubbed her hand up and down Lorena’s back.

  “I know.” Lorena sniffed a little and raised up her head to look at Kate. “Can you sprinkle your special rat-proof angel powder in here? Like you did around the toilet this morning?”

  “Sure. I’ve got some in my pocket.” Kate put her hand in her pocket and pretended to pull out some powder to scatter around. “Now listen.” She stopped talking and held her breath. “Do you hear anything?”

  “No,” Lorena whispered.

  “Good. That means it worked.” Kate kissed Lorena’s nose and then pulled her close again. She stroked Lorena’s hair and whispered nursery rhymes in her ear. In the middle of Little Bo Peep losing her sheep, Lorena’s head relaxed against Kate’s shoulder as she fell asleep.

  Kate kept stroking Lorena’s hair. How could she leave her here? She had to get her mother and father to do something. They had to. Even if they had to get the sheriff in Edgeville to come and sort it all out. Of course, the sheriff might just haul Kate away for sneaking into Mrs. Baxter’s house without permission.

  The radio stopped playing. Kate kissed Lorena and shook her a little. Lorena blinked open her eyes and looked at Kate.

  Kate whispered in her ear. “Just do whatever she tells you to do, Lorena.”

  “But she gets mad when I say my name, and I have to s
ay my name.”

  “Whisper it after you go to bed. And we’ll be saying it real loud at our house. Your mommy will know.”

  Lorena sounded sad, but she said, “Okay.”

  Footsteps came toward the kitchen. Kate slid Lorena out of her lap down to the floor and quietly edged back in the corner behind the flour sacks. She held her breath as Mrs. Baxter jerked open the door.

  Mrs. Baxter stared at Lorena. “You can come out now if you think you can behave, Polly.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lorena sounded even sadder as she slowly stood up and went out into the kitchen. After Mrs. Baxter pushed the door shut, Lorena said, “Can I go play with my doll out on the porch?”

  “I suppose. If you stay on the porch and don’t get your feet dirty.”

  Kate heard Lorena go out of the kitchen, but she didn’t hear Mrs. Baxter following her. Kate’s heart began pounding again. Her breathing sounded loud in her ears. What if Mrs. Baxter heard her? Or opened the door again to get her apron?

  “I can’t get the door unhooked,” Lorena called.

  “Oh, my heavenly days. I’ve never seen such a helpless child.” Mrs. Baxter sounded cross, but she walked across the kitchen into the next room. “I think we may have made a big mistake taking you in.”

  Kate slipped out of the pantry and ran on tiptoes across the kitchen. She was out the door and behind the forsythia bush in ten seconds flat. Just in time too. Mrs. Baxter stuck her head out the back door to look around as if she’d heard something. After Mrs. Baxter closed the door, Kate counted to a hundred twice before she ran for the woods. If Fern was watching, she didn’t see her.

  34

  ______

  It was hard being sober. Forever sober. Victor had gone without drinking for days at a stretch before, but he’d always known where a bottle was hidden away to give the promise of relief if things got bad. Things always got bad. He didn’t have any bottles hidden away now. He’d broken them all. And he wasn’t going to buy any more. He wasn’t. No matter how much his hands shook. No matter how much it felt like the cooties were crawling around under his skin. No matter how the dreams tormented him. He wasn’t. He’d promised Nadine.

  She’d prayed for him. For them. She believed he could quit. All he had to do was find a way to believe it too. And he did. Most of the time. He could quit because he loved Nadine more than life itself. He loved her more than booze. He loved his girls more than booze. And he was trying to love himself more than booze.

  He was appealing to the Lord on that one. He whispered Nadine’s simple prayer a dozen times a day. “Lord, here am I. Help me.” So far he had. So far the prayers had kept Victor from turning up the familiar path to the place in Rosey Corner where the bottles beckoned. But the prayers hadn’t kept him from wanting to.

  What he needed was for the Lord to take the wanting of it away from him. To erase it from his mind. That’s what he told Aunt Hattie on the third day when she brought a jug of lemonade by the shop. Because it was so hot, she claimed, but Victor figured Nadine had enlisted Aunt Hattie to help pray him through.

  “Has you told the Lord that?” Aunt Hattie peered over at him as he chugged down the lemonade.

  “What do you mean?” Victor frowned a little as he lowered the jar of lemonade and wiped the sweat off his face with a blue bandana. “Doesn’t he already know what I need? Better than me.”

  “Ain’t no doubtin’ that. But that don’t mean he don’t want to hear us ask it.”

  “I’m not too good at prayer words.” Victor stared down at the lemon slices floating in what was left of the lemonade. He wondered how many shirts she’d had to wash and iron to buy the lemon and sugar.

  “You think the Lord don’t understand common talk? Just speak it out straight.”

  Victor could feel her eyes boring into him. He looked up at her. “Now?”

  “What better time than when you needs to? Ain’t nobody here but me and you and the Lord. So go ahead. He’s got his ear bent down towards us.”

  “All right.” Victor stared up at the ceiling in his shop. It was black from the forge fire. He shifted uneasily on his feet and tried to think up what to say with both the Lord and Aunt Hattie listening. At last he pushed out, “Lord, help me stay sober.”

  Aunt Hattie gave his arm a little shake. “That ain’t what you’s wantin’ to pray.”

  Victor looked at her and then back up at the ceiling. Why was it so hard to lay himself open to the Lord? The Lord already knew him, every inch. Inside and out. Even better than Aunt Hattie, who had caught him when he was born. “Take this desire to hide in a bottle away from me.”

  “Amen,” Aunt Hattie said. “That’s more like it.”

  Victor looked down at his hands. His fingers were still trembling. “I don’t feel any different.”

  “And you might never. That old thorn might always be prickin’ you.”

  Victor frowned at Aunt Hattie. “Then what good did it do to pray the words?”

  “‘My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ That’s what the good Lord told Paul about his thorn in the flesh. That’s what the good Lord told me when I told him I couldn’t make it without my Bo livin’ and breathin’. Whether he takes the want to away from you or not, his grace will turn your weakness into strength.”

  “But what if I’m too weak?” He rubbed his finger down through the moisture on the outside of the lemonade jar. “What if it’s too hard?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ too hard for the Lord. You hear me now.” She poked his chest with a bony finger. “We ain’t promised no easy ride through this life. Life ain’t easy. Ain’t never been since Adam and Eve was thrown out of the garden. Ain’t never gonna be. Leastways not for the most of us. Hard times come.”

  They both fell silent as they considered the hard times they’d seen and might yet see. After a minute, Aunt Hattie shook her head and said sadly, “I guess our Kate’s done findin’ that out right now, what with having that li’l child ripped away from her.”

  “She’s struggling with it.” Victor felt the familiar sorrow rising in him that he always felt when one of his girls was hurting.

  “I hear Mr. Preston done told Kate not to go see the girl. She listenin’?”

  “No. She’s been over there every morning before breakfast and maybe other times too. We haven’t told her not to.”

  “Mr. Preston must not be knowin’ about that yet, but best you keep in mind, don’t much stay secret long from Mr. Preston in Rosey Corner. And he ain’t gonna be happy with our Kate. Or with you,” Aunt Hattie warned as she picked up her bag and headed for the door. “He done wrong about all this, but we both knows your daddy ain’t one for ever admittin’ that. The more wrong he is, the more he’s out to prove he’s right.”

  That afternoon Victor was banking the coals in the forge to leave for home when his father appeared in the doorway. The light was behind him so Victor couldn’t see his face in the shadow, but he wouldn’t be there for any good reason. In the seventeen years Victor had done blacksmithing in Rosey Corner, his father had rarely darkened the door of his shop. Even when he had owned a horse that needed shoeing, Victor had always gone and fetched the horse and then taken it home.

  Victor squared his shoulders as if readying himself for a punch and faced his father. He didn’t bother with a greeting. “What do you want, Father?”

  “I want a son who doesn’t defy his father’s orders.” It was easy to hear the anger in his father’s voice.

  Victor kept his voice calm as he picked his words carefully. “I’m not a child, Father. It’s been years since I had to do as you said, but out of respect, I’ve never intentionally defied you.”

  “If you believe that, you surely must have a faulty memory.” He stepped into the shop. His mouth was hard and set, and his eyes were shooting sparks at Victor.

  “How so?” Victor stared straight at his father, not shying away from his anger.

  “I told you not to take over t
his place. I told you there wasn’t any money in smithing, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “I’ve gotten by.” Victor turned away from his father and pulled his leather apron off. He hated the way his hand trembled as he hung the apron up on its hook.

  “Hmph.” His father made a sound of disgust. “If you can call it that.”

  Victor took an extra moment to straighten the handles of his hammers on the shelf before he turned back to his father. “This is old stuff. Why don’t you say what you’ve come to say and get it over with?”

  “Can’t take looking at the truth, can you? Especially not sober. You’ve always been too weak to face the truth.”

  Blood rose in Victor’s face as he clenched his fists. “I faced the truth a long time ago, Father. The truth that I’d never be able to be the son you wanted. I’d never be able to be Press Jr.”

  “You aren’t even good enough to say his name.” His father was yelling now. “If it wasn’t for you, he’d still be alive.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Victor’s heart began pounding in his chest. It always came down to this. Him being alive and Press Jr. being dead. “I don’t even remember what happened.”

  “You don’t want to remember.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me?” Victor stepped over right in front of his father and stared him in the face. “What did happen?”

  “He died saving you.” He wasn’t yelling now, but his eyes were full of contempt.

  Victor didn’t back down from him. He kept his eyes locked on his father’s face. “Graham pulled me out of the river. Not Press.”

  “I thought you couldn’t remember.”

  “I don’t remember how I got in the river, but I do know Graham pulled me out.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  Victor stared at his father. This man who had never accepted him as a man or even as a son. He wasn’t going to change now. Victor made himself step away from him. He stopped beside his anvil and ran his hand over its familiar shape.

  He knew the anvil as well as he knew his own hands. When he was working the iron, it became part of him. He knew where to lay the shoes on its hard surface to shape them. When he brought his hammer down with care, the iron bent to his will. That’s what his father had never done. He’d tried to hammer Victor into the shape he thought he should be, but he’d never done it with any kind of caring. He’d just hammered him down. Victor should have long ago stopped worrying about what the man thought of him.