Turner's Rainbow 2 - The Rainbow Promise (4 page)

❧

Julia Dobson glanced over at the bed in the corner of the room. Vance and Bonnie lay curled up together, their eyes wide open and fixed on their mother, Bonnie's thumb was firmly planted in her mouth. They were too frightened to go to sleep. They had been scared of their father in life. Now they were scared of him in death, Julia wished she could have put them in another room where they wouldn't have to see Will's dead body stretched out on the table, but their house consisted of only one large room, and there was no other place for the children to sleep.

Julia sighed and turned her attention back to the table where her husband lay. Will's death had stunned her. He was only thirty-seven years old; she had expected to live out most of the rest of her life with him. But Vance had come running to the house this morning, screaming that Daddy was sick, and she had found Will stretched out on the ground beside his plow, the team waiting patiently. He had been unconscious. She had sent for the doctor, but Will was dead by the time he came. The doctor had said it was probably a heart attack, uncommon in a man Will's age.

With her neighbor's help, Julia had washed the body and dressed it, folded his hands across his chest and weighted his eyelids with coins. Now all that was left was the long night of sitting up with the body. She supposed she ought to pray for Will, or recall pleasant memories of him. But there had been precious few pleasant memories, and at the moment she couldn't summon up a prayer, except maybe one of gratitude.

She was glad he was dead. Well, not glad, really; she didn't wish harm to anyone. But she was relieved. Yes, certainly she was relieved. She would no longer have to be afraid that he might hit her. She would no longer have to worry about protecting the children from him if he was mad or drunk. She wouldn't have to listen to him curse her or be reminded of the favor he had done her by marrying her. Nor would she have to lie quiescent under him, enduring his clumsy hands and the violation of his entering her.

He hadn't been a terrible husband. Julia guessed. He hadn't hit her as often as some men hit their wives, and he'd never taken his belt to her. He had kept a roof over their beads and food in their mouths, even if it had never been fancy. And he had given her child a name.

The trouble between them hadn't been all his fault. She didn't love him, had married him not loving him, just so the baby she carried would not be illegitimate. Will had wanted her so much that he had been willing to marry her, knowing that she carried another man's child, but the knowledge had always been a bitterness within him. Julia had cried on their wedding night, loving Jimmy, aching for his tender caresses instead of Will's rough fondling. Though she had cried into her pillow, trying to muffle the sound. Will had heard it. If Will hadn't been very good to her, neither had she been fair to him.

Even now when he was dead, she couldn't feel anything for him.

All she could feel was relief that he was dead and fear because she didn't know what she and the children would do. Will was sharecropping this land, so the house didn't belong to them. The owner of the property would want to put someone else here to work the land. Where would she go? How would she take care of two children all by herself?

She tried not to think about that. She folded her hands together, closed her eyes, and tried to pray for the repose of Will's soul. But Julia knew that deep inside, she was really praying for herself.

J
ulia buried Will Dobson in the cemetery beside the Antioch Baptist Church, three miles down the road from their house. Only Julia, her children, and their neighbor, Lula Braswell, and her two sons were there. The preacher said a few words over the grave, and Mrs. Braswell's sons lowered the pine casket into the open hole. Julia stood for a moment, staring down at the grave. Bonnie and Vance were on either side of her, dressed in their best clothes, holding Julia's hands.

"Is Daddy down there?" Bonnie asked.

"Yes, sweetheart."

"How will he get out?"

"He won't," Julia smoothed her hand over her daughter's hair, neatly captured in braids. "When you die, you don't get up anymore. You lie in the earth."

"How will he meet Jesus, then?"

"It's not his body that goes to Heaven." If, in fact, that was where Will was headed; Julia had her doubts. "It's his soul, and that's already left his body. When he died, his soul flew away to meet Jesus."

"I don't think Daddy—" Vance began, but Julia squeezed his shoulder sharply, casting a significant look at his younger sister, and the boy subsided.

Lula Braswell came up to them and hugged Julia affectionately. "Why don't I take the children on over to our place? You could have some time here to yourself, then you all could eat dinner with us. How about it, Bonnie? Would you like some of my gingerbread cookies? Vance?"

"Yes, ma'am," Vance answered, casting an uncertain look at his mother.

"Thank you." Julia smiled at the older woman. "But you've done too much for us already. I don't know what I'd have done without you." Mrs. Braswell had been more than kind. She had helped Julia lay Will out, and her two sons had built the casket. Julia couldn't have afforded to buy a coffin. Just paying for the pine slats for the box and giving the minister a stipend for the service had taken almost all of the money she had saved.

"It's no more than what you'd have done for me. Than what you have done for me." The Braswells' youngest girl had come down with a terrible fever the year before, and Mrs. Braswell herself had been so sick she hadn't been able to care for her, so Julia had nursed both of them until Lula was back on her feet. Mrs. Braswell had been Julia's fast friend since then, despite Will's obvious disapproval.

Julia smiled. "Thank you. I would appreciate it."

Lula led the children to her wagon while the Braswell boys lowered the coffin into the ground and shoveled the dirt back in on top of it. They patted the black earth down into a mound, and Lee, the youngest, stuck a crude wooden cross into the ground and held it while the other boy hammered it in with the back of the shovel. They shouldered their tools and tipped their hats to Julia.

"Sorry, ma'am."

"Sorry, Mrs. Dobson "

"Thank you."

They joined their mother and Julia's children in the wagon and drove off. The preacher took Julia's hand and offered his final condolences before he, too, left. Julia turned back to the fresh grave. She was alone. She stared down at the mounded grave. Now was when she should make her peace with Will. Now was when she should cry.

No tears came. Julia leaned over and placed half of the handful of wildflowers she had gathered at the base of Will's marker. She turned to the grave beside his. It was short, only half the length of Will's, and the earth had settled so much it was flat. It had, after all, been almost nine years. It, too, bore a simple cross of two small lengths of wood hammered together, so weatherbeaten that the words scratched into it were almost unreadable now:
Pamela Dobson, b. January 3, 1895, d. Nov. 8, 1896.

Weeds had sprung up on it, as they did every year. Julia yanked up each shoot and tossed it away. She knelt beside the marker and laid down the rest of the wildflowers. She took off her gloves and slid her hand over the ground in a kind of caress, as though it were the baby she touched.

"Pammy." She had been Jimmy's daughter, the child for whom Julia had married Will Dobson, and Julia had loved her to distraction. She had looked like Jimmy, with his thick, dark hair and chocolate brown eyes, and she had had a smile like sunshine. A thousand times over the past nine years, Julia had longed to sec that smile again.

But she had died of scarlet fever when she was less than two years old. Only the fact that Julia had just had Vance, who depended on her utterly, had kept her going after Pamela's death.

Julia touched the rough cross. She wished she had the money for a granite marker. Before many more years passed, no one would know that a sweet child lay here beside the man who was not her father but the man who had given her his name.

The tears that would not come for her newly dead husband gathered now in Julia's eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She had lived with Will for almost eleven years, cooked his meals, nursed him through sickness, borne his children because it was her duty, because she owed him. But she had loved Pamela.

Julia leaned her head against the faded marker and cried.

He glanced around the room. Julia realized with astonishment that he was nervous, too. He sighed. "I reckon you know why I'm here."

"Yes."

"If it was winter, I wouldn't hurry you none. I let the Widow Hall stay in their place all winter, you know, after Arthur died."

"Yes, I know."

"But with it being spring and all—well, I have to get this land planted soon, or there won't be a crop this spring. I have to give it to another tenant."

"I know."

He cleared his throat. "I talked to Gerald Miller about it this morning, and he and his family are going to move in here." Julia nodded. She didn't know what to say. "He— I'd like him to start as soon as possible. So I'm going to have to ask you to leave the house by day after tomorrow. That's when I told Miller he could move in."

Julia's eyes widened. She hadn't expected it to be quite this soon. She had thought she'd have a week, at least, to pack their things and decide where they would go.

Harrington's eyes darted around nervously. "The thing is, ma'am, your husband owed me some money. I loaned him the cash to get through that winter three years ago after the drought wiped out all the crops."

"Yes, I remember." Julia smoothed her hand across her forehead, pushing back the wisps of fine hair that had come loose and clung there. "I—how much did he owe you?"

"Well, I also loaned him the money to buy the new team and the wagon last month. Of course, he thought he'd have plenty of time to pay it back."

Of course. No one ever thought about a thirty-seven-year-old man dropping dead.

"The fact of the matter is, ma'am. Will owed me two hundred and forty-three dollars."

"Two hundred and forty-three dollars!" Julia's stomach plummeted. "But I—we don't—"

"Now, don't fret. I know you don't have the money. I've been thinking about it. You won't be needing Will's tools or the mule team and wagon. Why don't I just take those things in full payment of the debt?"

❧

The next day Mr. Harrington came to see her. The children were out in back playing and Julia was at the stove, stirring a mess of poke salad greens flavored with pork middlings, when she heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up in front of the house. She looked out the front window and saw Harrington, and her heart sank. He was the owner of the property they lived on, and she knew what he had come to say. She had hoped for more time to make up her mind about what she was going to do.

Julia lowered the Are under the greens and the pot of pinto beans and went out onto the front porch , nervously wiping her hands on her apron. "Morning, Mr Harrington."

"Morning, Mrs Dobson." He got out of the buggy and looped the reins around the porch post. "Mind if I come in?"

"Of course not. You're welcome."

She stepped back, clasping her hands together to hide her nervousness, and watched Harrington climb the steps and go into the house. He went to Will's chair, but remained politely standing. Julia caught her error and hurried to sit down. "Please, have a seat."

"Thank you. I was real sorry to hear about Will," Harrington began heavily. He was a portly man with thinning hair and a large, Teddy Roosevelt mustache of which he was inordinately proud. He owned half the land around Gideon, and Will had farmed for him for the past four years.

"Thank you."

Julia frantically tried to calculate how much the animals and tools were worth. But what choice did she have? She owed Harrington two hundred forty-three dollars, and she couldn't get the money except by selling those very things. It would be easier to swap them. It was just that she had been hoping she could sell the team and tools for a little money to pay for room and board in town until she could get some sort of work. But now she would have nothing. Nothing!

She looked away to hide the tears in her eyes. "All right,"

"Good. Then that settles it" Harrington looked relieved at having it done with so easily. "You're a reasonable woman, Mrs Dobson."

He rose and started toward the door. "I'm real sorry about Will." He opened the door and paused. "I'll send one of the boys over this afternoon to pick up those things."

Julia nodded.

"Good day, ma'am."

"Good day."

Julia stared sightlessly at the closed door. She was more scared than she had been at any time since she'd been pregnant with Pamela, knowing Jimmy would never marry her and not knowing where to turn. Then she had had a baby inside her that she had to take care of* Now she had two children. That was what made it so frightening—being responsible for someone else's life. If it had just been her, it wouldn't have been so hard to face. Somehow she would make her way, and if she starved, well, dying wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a person. But when there were children involved, she had to make the right decision. She couldn't let them starve or be cold or sick.

Mechanically, Julia went to the stove and stirred the contents of each pot, working out of habit, with little idea of what she was doing. Where was she to go?

She didn't have much choice. She had hoped that with a little money she would be able to manage on her own. But without it, she couldn't rent a room or even feed Bonnie and Vance until she found a way to make a living. There weren't many opportunities for a woman to make money. She could sew, take in laundry, or cook and clean house for someone else. It would take time to find a position in someone's house or to bring in enough sewing or laundry to live on. What she had planned to do now seemed impossible.

That left only one thing: She would have to throw herself on someone's mercy until she could find employment. Mrs. Braswell would be kind enough to take her in, but Julia couldn't ask it of her. Mr. Braswell sharecropped Harrington's land, just like Will had done, and they were barely able to keep their own family fed. Julia couldn't add three more mouths to their dinner table. Julia's grandmother had died two years ago, and after that her father had left the area. No one knew where he had gone. She had no other relatives to turn to, except Luke.

She thought Luke would take her in. They had been close when they were young. But it had been so long since they'd seen each other. His feelings might have changed. Will hadn't let her visit him, even when Luke had been on trial or when he had gotten married. Luke might think she'd snubbed him; he might be angry with her. Even if he was willing to take her in, she hated to ask it of him. He had a new life now. He was married to Sarah McGowan, who came from a "good" family. Sarah wouldn't want to have her around. Julia was afraid she would be an embarrassment to her brother, even a burden.

Julia looked down at her red, rough fingers and her faded, much-mended dress. She was as common as dirt; Sarah McGowan would be appalled. She might give her shelter out of pity or from love of Luke, but Julia knew that inside Sarah would be mortified at having her for a sister-in-law. Julia knew she didn't talk as nice as Sarah; she would do and say the wrong things. Sarah would think Julia was plain and cheap. There had been talk, she was sure, when she had married Will; folks would have said she had had to get married. Sarah would remember that. No. Sarah wouldn't want to have her around, and that would cause Luke trouble. She couldn't hurt Luke.

But what else could she do? She had to go to Luke's for the sake of the children. She would start looking for a job as soon as she got there; she'd take her family off Luke's hands quickly.

Julia called the children inside and dished up the cornbread, and beans. She poured buttermilk into glasses. The children dug into their food with gusto, but Julia couldn't work up an appetite. She sat and stared at her plate, crumbling her piece of cornbread into it.

"Bonnie, Vance, I have something to tell you."

The two children looked up at her as they continued to fork the food into their mouths.

"We have to leave this house. We've got to pack everything up."

"We're gonna go?" Bonnie asked, her face falling. "Forever?"

Julia nodded,

"Where are we going?" Vance asked.

Julia tried to smile. "Someplace you'll like, I bet. We're going to visit your Uncle Luke."