Emma's Gift (5 page)

“Why was that terrible?” Rorey asked.

“Because Bismark was afraid. He didn't want to go see who was calling. He didn't want to know why they needed help. He just wanted somebody else to come so he wouldn't have to move.”

“Did somebody come?”

“No. Nobody. Not a butterfly or a dragonfly or a person. Nobody. So Bismark finally flew down, down, down, though he was very scared, to see what he could do.”

“What did he do?”

I smiled at Rorey's persistent inquiries. “First he saw caterpillars,” I explained. “Lots of caterpillars. They were so young they'd just hatched from their eggs. Some were still in their eggs. And they'd all fallen when the wind knocked their leaf down into a puddle.”

“Caterpillars can't swim,” Rorey pointed out.

“That's exactly the problem. That's why they were calling for help. So do you know what Bismark did?”

“Went to find their mama?”

“He would have. If he'd known where to look. If there was time. But there wasn't. So he flew down and picked one up and carried it all the way to safety.”

“Just one?” This time it was Sarah.

“No. He went back over and over until he saved them all. But just when they were about to thank him, the wind blew very hard and blew him high into the sky, in twirling circles. He tried and tried to fly, but the wind was too strong. It blew him so far that he didn't even know where he was. But you know what? When he finally flew down again, there were many butterflies there and many other creatures, but Bismark wasn't afraid of any of them. He was bigger now, with big, bright wings just as fast and as strong as anybody else's.”

“Where did he get new wings?” Rorey asked, her eyes glistening with the firelight's reflection.

“That's the point of the whole story,” I told them. “Some say the wind gave Bismark new wings because he was a hero. But maybe his wings weren't new at all. Maybe he just looked at them differently because he knew what he could do now. He could help somebody smaller, and that made him feel big and strong.”

“Maybe he died,” Franky solemnly added. “Maybe the wind blew him into a rock, and he went to heaven and got better wings there.”

The little boy's words struck me silent. Why hadn't I had the sense to anticipate such a thought? Franky wasn't slow, that was sure. He was quicker than I was tonight.

My little story hadn't lulled anybody to sleep, except the youngest two, who would've dropped off anyway. I made more popcorn, scooping it out of the mixing bowl where I'd dumped most of Harry's excess. We opened jars of home-canned grape juice, and with bellies full once again, the boys put up the checkers, and everybody lay down. Lizbeth's gentle voice floated over us, singing a lullaby I'd never heard before. I couldn't imagine how she could relax with three of her little siblings laying across her, but maybe she was used to it by now. Sleeping quarters at the Hammond house were probably tight. I stretched out on a quilt on the floor, and Sarah curled up beside me.

As I looked up at the high ceiling, I listened to all of their breathing around me, and I prayed like I scarcely remembered praying before, for that other Sam, off someplace in the blowing snow. And for Wilametta, Emma, and Juli. The howling wind outside sounded monstrous, large enough to pick up this whole house and everybody in it. Just like Bismark and his little monarch wings.

I felt somebody push up against me and found Franky seeking my hand. He didn't say anything, just clung to me with a finger in his mouth, the firelight dancing across his cheeks. I prayed for him too, and his brothers and sisters. They looked comfortable enough just now, dropping off to sleep, but they were lost in their own way, having nothing much in life but dirt and dreams, and gaining little so far from either one. It made me want to pray for George too, who'd told me more than once that he had too many kids. If there were only one, he'd said, he'd have something to give. But a little doesn't stretch very far across ten young backs.

That was easy for me to understand, since I'd found it hard enough just with the two I had. And my wife was well.
Lord, be kind to George Hammond. He needs your strength right now, your grace, and your love.

THREE

Julia

We should fix her up, Emma insisted, because it'd just be harder later. So we washed Wila's body carefully, and I combed her long hair while Emma picked out the nicest dress she owned. We cut the back of it to make it easier going on, and it was one of the hardest things I'd ever done, as if taking the scissors to Wila's Sunday clothes in itself marked the finality of all this.

Emma set a couple of nickels on her eyelids, just to make sure they wouldn't open. She fussed about her hair a while and then decided if it was too nice it wouldn't be quite like Wila, who'd always looked like she'd been all day out in the wind. She folded Wila's hands together and smoothed the bedcovers, but she wouldn't cover her face. Not yet, because there wasn't family there to tell us so.

“Don't she look peaceful, Juli?” she said. “She's with the Lord now, can't you just see it?”

I couldn't say anything. Wila was a mother. Far from old. How could I rejoice?

“It should have been me,” Emma whispered, gently touching Wila's hand. “God love 'em. It should have been me.”

“Emma—”

“Don't tell me nothin', now. There ain't nothin' more to say.”

“It's not your fault—”

“I shoulda knowed how to save her, Juli. I shoulda figured somethin' else to do.”

She didn't sound like Emma anymore. Not the Emma I knew. Swallowed up in the death of that room, she seemed helpless and shriveled, and I was unable to respond.

She made her way slowly along the edge of the bed to the foot and then leaned down and reached for her coat and boot. “Should take the chairs out and shut the door,” she told me. “Best to close off the heat. Hard to say how long 'fore somebody can get here to help George with the arrangements.”

I moved both chairs like she told me to. But then she pulled on her boot and started on with her coat, and I didn't understand why.

“We can't go for anyone,” I said. “There's no wagon.”

“I just want to get outside, Juli. Help me.”

I helped her into the sitting room and shut the door behind us. I figured maybe I could get her into a chair. “Emma, you should rest. It's awful cold and blowing snow—”

“I don't care if it's sixty below,” she told me. “I'm goin' outside.”

For a moment I was dumbstruck. Why go outside? What possible purpose could it serve? But I remembered George. Surely that was it. She was worrying for him, no doubt.

“Emma, he'll surely come back in soon—”

“There ain't no tellin' what he'll do, Juli. None at all.”

It struck hard, knowing she was right. It was foolish and dangerous, what he'd done, and if he didn't care, that just made it all the worse. But there was nothing Emma could do, I was sure about that. “There's no sign where he went. You can't make it in all that snow.”

“I know, child.” She sighed, and it cut me. “There ain't no helpin' it, bad as I'd like to. If he comes back, he comes back, God love him. Help me to the door.”

I wondered now if she was thinking right. “Why, Emma? Where are you going?”

“Just out, child. Just enough to see the stars.”

Had it escaped her attention that it'd been snowing all afternoon? And snowing still? White in every direction, including up. Seeing stars tonight was about as likely as Wilametta Hammond rising up off her bed. “It's awfully cloudy, Emma.”

“I don't care.” She glanced over at the one frosty window and shook her head. “I need to look. I need to see clean up to God's own heaven, Juli. Help me.”

There was a weight in her words pressing against my heart. I almost protested again, but the look in her eyes stopped me. She took my hand in hers. “If ever I'd had a daughter, she couldn't be no better than you. You brung me home, Juli, an' I couldn't be no more grateful.”

“I'm the one should be grateful. Always. You didn't have to let us stay.” Not even a year ago, my family had hitchhiked across the countryside on the promise of a job. But when that fell through and we were stranded with nothing, Emma had offered us her own farm, though she'd been longing for it so much herself. It had only been right to give her the chance to come home too.

She was looking up at me. “You're strong as the hills, child. Was the plan a' God havin' you here, to help all the rest make it through this. You can do it. I know you can.”

Maybe she couldn't see how close I was to sinking into a sobbing heap right then. All those kids. It left me tight inside. “Oh, Emma—”

She pulled herself up but still looked so small. “I need to look out,” she said again. “For just a minute. I got to see the sky.” She stood there on her one old leg, and I wiped my eyes and took her arm. Determined as she sounded, she might just go without me, even if she had to crawl. I'd have to help her, whether I understood it or not. She was the only one I could do a thing for now anyway.

It was hard without the wheelchair and Sam's strong hands. Emma leaned heavily on me and one of her canes, hobbling slowly through the Hammonds' sitting room toward the door. She was weak, I could tell, and breathing hard. I longed for someone else to be here, anyone, just to help me, though what they could do, I did not know.

The blast of cold pierced us when we finally made it out into the weather. But Emma didn't seem to notice. She just stared into the swirling mass in front of us. Sky and yard and timber all blurred together till they were almost indistinguishable in the darkness.

“Please, Emma, don't you want to go back in where it's warmer?”

She didn't seem to hear the question. “Juli, you'll hafta see that Albert keeps his word to me, you unnerstand? You see that them Hammond kids get to keep this place, no matter what else happens. Their mama's gonna be buried out here. That's what she'd want. And it ain't right it ever bein' sold to no stranger after that.”

Cold tears bit at my face, and I wanted to argue that she had no reason, no reason at all to be laying such a charge on me tonight. But she wasn't through. “Give me your word right now, Julia Wortham, that you'll speak for me if he comes down here thinkin' to sell this land.”

I couldn't answer her. I just wiped at those cold, hard tears. I didn't want to think about Albert. He had nothing to do with this. He was the only kin of hers I'd ever met, but he kept his distance. And she had no business thinking on him now when she just needed to get in by the fire and rest what little of the night was left.

“God, I pray you George is safe,” she said. “Oh, Juli, I fear he's done himself in.”

“No, Emma! He wouldn't! He's got the kids to think about!”

“He weren't thinkin'. An' it's been awful long.”

“Let's go inside.”

“There weren't nothin' I could do,” she said. “Maybe nothin' nobody could do.” She leaned to the side against the porch wall, ankle deep in frozen white.

“Please let me take you in.”

“She was a good woman, Juli.”

“Emma—”

“I'd a' told anybody she'd be fine, that I was gonna be the next 'un to go. Not her.” Her right hand was shaking, and she was looking strangely sunken. Then I noticed that her left hand was clutching the cloth at her chest. “Gonna have to take Lizbeth under your wing, Juli-girl…”

I took her arm around my shoulder and pulled her away from the wall. Her cane fell soundlessly into the drifts, but I was too scared to care. “It's too cold, Emma! You can't stay outside!” With all my might I struggled to get her back toward the door, pulling her, carrying her along. She was nearly limp, not bearing her own weight.

“Juli,” she whispered, “I'm so sorry.”

“You shush, now,” I commanded, tears streaming down my face. “You got nothing to be sorry about! You did your level best over here, and that's all anyone could ask. You've been the best, Emma, the very best you could ever be!”

Still pulling her, half dragging, half carrying, I shoved the door open with my foot.
God! Where are you tonight? Help me!

“Can you get me to the bedroom?” Emma sounded quiet, far away.

“We're going straight to the fire! You feel just like ice!”

Somehow I managed to get her to the closest kitchen chair. I pulled the door shut. Then I ran for the rocker, shifted her into that, and pulled her just as close to the hearth as I could. I turned around long enough to poke the blaze and throw on more wood. Then I spun around again, the fear in me rising swift and horrible. Emma looked like a specter in the dancing firelight, all shrunken and gray. I pulled a frayed old lap blanket off another chair and spread it over her. She reached her thin hand to me but didn't speak.

“You want I make you something warm to drink?” I forced myself to say it, and to sound cheerful too. But she didn't even try to answer, just nodded and leaned her head to meet the rocker's high back.

She wouldn't let go my hand, though, not till I looked her in the eye.

“Psalm 46,” she whispered.

I knew I shouldn't have left my Bible at the house. I should've known better than that. “I—I can't read it without my Bible. I'm sorry.”

“Wilametta's got a Bible.”

Something about the suggestion made me stiffen. It was there, all right. As always, right on her bedside table. And Emma just kept looking at me, waiting.

“All right,” I surrendered with a sigh. “I'm certain she wouldn't mind. I'll put us on some tea and fetch it right away.”

Satisfied, Emma turned her eyes to the fire. Her hands lay folded across her lap, and it suddenly seemed strange to see them like this—idle. It was so like Emma to always have some sewing or something at hand. I leaned and kissed her cheek, reluctant to leave her side.