Rorey's Secret (19 page)

Most sincerely,
Julia

I read the letter over and very nearly crumpled it up to throw in the kindling box. It would take quite a few days to get it to Albany, New York. Surely Samuel would be up and ready to go to town for his telephone call by then, and he could tell his mother what he wanted to say better than I could. But I set the letter aside on the dresser anyway.

Suddenly Samuel said something about “goompus.” I spun around. He wasn’t awake. He was muttering something in his sleep about “goompus” jumping downstairs. Good thing I remembered that name from the bedtime stories Samuel used to tell the children. “Goompus” was a funny little bird Samuel had made up long ago. I hadn’t heard the name in years. It wasn’t exactly a comfort to hear it now.

I could hear the back door opening. Sarah coming in the house.

“It’s starting to rain,” I heard her say, but I didn’t hear if anyone answered her.

Wonderful,
I thought.
We needed rain all summer, and it comes again now, when so much of the crop is lost and the rest is stuck in the field unharvested. And the Hammonds are over there needing to fix a roof! Why, Lord? Why now?

I stopped myself quickly from such bitter thoughts. Thank the good Lord for his rain. It had stopped the fire last night. So much more might have been lost!

Why couldn’t I see the good in all this? No one was killed. Everybody would be all right. And God had intervened by sending his wonderful rain when the fire might have spread beyond anyone’s control and swallowed up who knows how many acres or farmhouses. God was still faithful to us, just like always.

Suddenly I thought of dear old Emma Graham singing one of her favorite songs. I could almost hear some of the words in her sweet, clear voice.

“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth. Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!”

How I needed strength for today! How I needed to rejoice in our bright hope for tomorrow! Always, always, God had taken care of us. When we had nothing at all but each other and three little bags of belongings, God had provided Emma Graham and this wonderful home for us. When dear Emma and Mrs. Hammond died on the same day and we thought our hearts would burst with the pain of it, God had given us his comfort and his light.

When George took up drink and didn’t think he could bear to go on, when Samuel fell through the pond ice, when Katie came to us in the midst of accusation and hardship, in every incident, at every moment of our lives, God had been there to take care of us, to take care of it all. Surely he was here just the same now. Surely he would take care of Samuel and our present need. How could I doubt? How could I continue to question him?

“Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; all I have needed Thy hand hath provided, great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”

No wonder Emma had loved that song. It spoke her heart, and could just as well be speaking mine.

Samuel moved just a little, turning his head to one side. I leaned over close and kissed his cheek. He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t wake like I wanted him to, but it was all right. He would, when he’d rested all he needed to. I climbed up beside him, ever so gently. I lay my head against his arm, careful not to jar him. “Thank you, Jesus,” I whispered, and my heart felt lighter. Soon I closed my eyes and I could feel the tension falling away.

The voices in the kitchen sounded miles distant. Strangely it seemed that Joanna, Samuel’s mother, was walking toward us looking terribly old and more tired than I’d ever seen her. But I didn’t see the cold, hard eyes I remembered so well. Instead, this Joanna’s eyes were altogether different, like those of some other person. She came up to the bed with a big box and dumped its contents all over us. Piles and piles of letters.

16

Sarah

No doubt Mom needed the rest. But I wasn’t sure what to think when I peeked in and found her and Dad both asleep together. I shushed Emmie quick and told her we’d better do something real quiet.

“I’ll bet the little dumplin’s needin’ a nap,” Mrs. Pratt said behind me. At first I thought she was talking about Georgie, but after being up in the middle of the night like she was, Emmie would benefit from a nap too.

“Maybe you should go upstairs an’ lie down with her a while,” Mrs. Pratt suggested.

It wasn’t exactly an idea I favored much, but she was probably right. And surprisingly, Emmie didn’t protest. She was tired, I could tell.

“You oughta get a nap in too, Berty,” Thelma’s mother continued. “Though you ain’t supposed to be up them stairs on that ankle. Let me plump you a pillow right where you sit. Maybe Katie’d like to lie down too, with Georgie beside her.”

I saw what Mrs. Pratt was doing. She was hoping all of us would sleep. Even Katie and me, old as we were. I’d lie down, all right. I’d do that much to help Emmie get a nap, just like I was sure Katie would do with Georgie, but I wasn’t going to sleep. Franky was up working in the woodshop. Robert was with Willy and Rorey and all of the other Hammonds over to their place working hard. So I couldn’t sleep. No way.

I’d heat the iron over the stove in a little while, that’s what I’d do. I’d take a good look at everybody’s church clothes and iron whatever needed it. After all, tomorrow was Sunday, and surely we’d be going to church, just like usual.

I’d make sure Daddy’s best shirt was all crisp and neat and Mom’s flowered dress was looking its best. And we’d go into that church building tomorrow looking swell and feeling like the most blessed people in the whole world. Because we were. Because of Daddy still being here, when it’d been so awful close, so awful scary that it still hurt to think about it.

Mom was still asleep when I came downstairs. I was going to peek in and see her, but Mrs. Pratt had just done that and motioned me away from the door.

“Let ’em have every moment a’ rest they can possibly get,” she told me. “Your mama’ll be up soon enough.”

Dad too,
I thought, suddenly uncomfortable with the way her words had come out. Did she mean it to sound the way it had, like she was expecting Daddy not to get up? Surely he would, though the doctor had said to rest. Because I knew my dad. And he wasn’t one to sit or lie around for long. He just wasn’t. Hurt or not, he’d be out of that bed.

“Joanna must be some kin a’ yours. That so?”

It took me a moment to figure who Mrs. Pratt was talking about. “Do you mean my grandma? Daddy’s mom?” I couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Pratt would know her.

“That must be it. I found a letter your mama wrote. Thought we could save her a bit a’ time if you was to know where the envelopes and yer grandma’s address is at.”

“Well, yeah. I think so.” I went to the cupboard where Mom kept such things. There was even an extra stamp in the envelope box. I wrote Grandma’s address real careful, and our return address too. Then I read the letter.

For Mom to admit that we were worried came as a surprise. I thought that for her to say so in a letter, she’d have to be very, very worried indeed.

I guess I had been too. Right at first, when I thought Daddy was lost to us in the barn, and then when he didn’t talk, and then all that ride home just fretting over how bad it might be. But now—now, we could relax, couldn’t we? With him resting peaceful, eating good, and talking to us with a smile? He’d even teased Mom about her getting her hand in that plate of pancakes, however that had happened. He’d laughed about it. So surely he was okay.

“I suppose your mama’d appreciate it if one of the boys was to run to town and mail that for her, since the post’s been by already,” Mrs. Pratt said to me. “If she’d had it done, Richard could’ve taken it when he left.”

“I don’t guess there’s any hurry,” I said quietly.

“No hurry? You gotta send out word! This is your papa’s mama, didn’t you say? I didn’t realize, ’cause a’ your mama calling her Joanna and all. But—”

“My grandma’s a little different,” I tried to explain. “She probably didn’t want my mom to call her Mama or anything like that. And—and even a letter like this I don’t s’pose she’ll answer.”

“Not answer?” Mrs. Pratt plopped down beside me. She was suddenly looking at me like I was some little lost fawn or something. “I’d think a letter like this’d make her hop a train an’ come just as quick as she can! I’m surprised your mama didn’t hurry someone to town to call her, after the close call your papa had. His mama’s bound to want to be here to nurse him back to health. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I haven’t seen Grandma since I was about four. I used to make her cards and stuff all the time, but she never did answer anything, even from me or Robert. She won’t hardly even talk on the telephone to us when we get the chance. And she’s never come here.”

“Well, this is different than any ol’ day!” Mrs. Pratt exclaimed with a huff. “This is her very own son’s close brush with death!”

I looked at her, and after those words I just couldn’t help myself. My eyes filled with tears, and I couldn’t hold them in for all I tried.
Close brush with death! Oh, God, that sounds so horrible! But I know it’s true! Mom knows it’s true, and she’s still worrying. That’s what the letter means. She’s still scared.

“Oh, honey, honey,” Mrs. Pratt started carrying on. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ve known folks so poor they couldn’t afford not even a postage stamp! Don’t you reckon that might be the problem, why you don’t see nor hear from her?”

“No, ma’am.” I sniffed.

She just looked at me. I was trying to stop sniveling, and for a moment I guess she didn’t know what to say. But it didn’t take her long to come up with something.

“I know just what we oughta do, honey.”

She waited a minute for my answer, but I didn’t say anything.

“We oughta pray, you an’ me right now, for that grandma a’ yours. Whatever it is causin’ her to be so distant from her own kin—an’ I ain’t talkin’ ’bout miles—the good Lord, he can take care a’ that, don’t you think?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, though I had to push the words out of my mouth and they sounded weak, even to me.

“Does your grandma know the Lord, honey?”

“I—I don’t think so, ’cause Daddy prays about that sometimes. I know he wants her to.”

“Well, then, there it is. That’s exactly what we oughta pray on. Right now. That your grandma turn to the Lord. And that he touch her heart to come out here to see you after all this time. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

I wasn’t sure if she meant the praying or Grandma’s visit, but it didn’t really matter. “Yes, ma’am.”

I tried to dry my eyes, knowing she didn’t understand that it was Daddy I was crying for, not Grandma. Maybe if I got my nerve up I’d ask her to pray for him too, that everything would be okay so Mom wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

She took both of my hands. She started praying right out loud that God send just the right message to Grandma’s heart to turn her toward the things of God. And that she get in a car or on a train or something to make the trip to come out and see us.

“Your daddy needs her,” she said when she was done praying. “No matter what things has been like between ’em, when folks get hurt bad, even grown men, they need their mama’s comfort, I can tell you.”

I didn’t say anything to that. I figured Daddy’d been so used to his mother not being around that he wouldn’t think on it much. It was Mom’s comfort he needed, and he was getting hers, so he’d do all right.

“Your mama’s mama’s dead, isn’t she? I think I heard her tell that one time.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s too bad, that is. No wonder all a’ you took to Emma Graham so well when you first come out here. You was needin’ her, I guess.”

I smiled a little at that. It’d been a while since I’d thought about Emma Graham. She’d been my special friend, even though she was so old. I’d always remember that we had the same middle name, and she said that made us like sisters. I’d laughed at first, thinking about being a sister to a woman in her eighties when I was only five at the time. But now I understood a little better. Back then, I could talk to Emma about anything, and it wasn’t because of our names. I missed her now. She’d be able to tell me why I wasn’t telling on Rorey yet. She’d be able to tell what I was afraid of that was more important than telling my own mother the whole truth.

“You gonna add a note a’ your own in the envelope?” Mrs. Pratt asked me.

I doubt I would’ve thought of that. But obediently, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down the first thing that came to mind.

Dear Grandma,
We love you and miss you.

I stopped. What else could I say to a woman I’d never really had a chance to know? Suddenly I remembered the days when Katie first came to us. Uncle Edward had brought her, and he’d been so scary. I knew Mom didn’t like having him around, even if he was Daddy’s brother, because he’d acted so downright mean. But even so, she’d come right out and told him that she loved him and God did too. It didn’t look like it would make much difference, but by the time he left Uncle Edward had softened considerably. He even wrote to us sometimes still, and they were nice enough letters to read out loud.

I turned my eyes back to the page in front of me. This didn’t have to be a long letter. Mom had already written the important stuff. There was just one more thing that needed to be said. I took pencil in hand again to write it.

God loves you too.

And then I signed my name. I folded my short little letter and stuck it in the envelope with Mom’s. I could remember all the lacy heart valentines I used to make and the Christmas cards with stars and baby Jesus all over them in Crayola. I’d always hoped those things would make Grandma smile. And write back. Now, I wasn’t concerned so much about that.
Just let her think, dear God,
I prayed.
Let her think about Daddy. And you.

Katie was up. She came walking in the room, pushing her wavy hair behind one ear. Folks said I was the one who looked like Mom. She looked like Dad, just because she was kin of his family. I wondered if Grandma looked anything like Dad too. I couldn’t remember, not her eyes or her hair or anything.