Emma's Gift (9 page)

“Pa?” Joe's voice was broken. “What's happened? What're you doin' out here?”

He didn't say “How's Ma?” He didn't ask anything more. He just stood there, looking almost like his father, pale and lean, his jaw set tense and his eyes washed with worry.

“Regardless of anything that's happened,” I told them both, “we have to get to the house. George, I mean to take you if we have to carry you. Don't fight me.”

He shook his head. “I can't go.”

“You have to. I'm sorry, but you have to. You're ice cold, and it's a blessing of God your boy insisted on coming over here. You got your family to think about. You stay out here like this, you're gonna freeze to death.”

I pulled him up out of the hay, and he didn't fight me. “Bring the blankets, Joe.”

I managed to get George to his feet, but he could barely stand. He was bigger than me. Too big for me to carry alone, truth be told. But I could hold him up and half drag him and get the job done. Joe got on the other side, the blankets all bundled up under his other arm.

The trail to the house was a sorry one. It was plain to see where somebody had fallen in the snow and left a chunk of wood behind. Juli, surely. God help her. By the porch steps it looked like she'd fallen again. I could see a handprint in the snow on the bottom step, still clear even after more snow had fallen. And then I noticed the crook end of one of Emma's canes on the porch, nearly buried in snow. Why on earth would she go out? Why on earth would Juli let her?

The door opened abruptly, and there stood Juli, no hat, no gloves, a steaming cup in her hand. She saw me, she saw George, and she made one choked little sound and went back in just long enough to set the cup down. She came rushing out, tears in her eyes, and took all the blankets from Joe's arms. I thought she was going to say something when her sad, green eyes met mine, but she didn't. She just got out of our way and held the door so we could get George into the house.

“Thank God you've come,” she finally told us as we propped George in a chair by the fire. “I couldn't get him in by myself.” She spread one of the blankets over him and hurried to retrieve the cup. George wouldn't hold it, so she handed it to me when she saw Joe on his way to the closed bedroom door.

“Wait.” She took his arm and pulled him back toward the fire. For just a second, she glanced at me again, and I saw the pain in her like it was in George, stark and huge. But there was no void in Juli. She was filled with something I hadn't seen in her before. Some kind of deep, consuming resolve.

“Joey, your mama was talking about heaven yesterday.”

He hung his head for a minute and then stared back at the bedroom door.

George clamped his eyes shut, suddenly shaking.

“She was assured of it,” Juli continued. “She would want you to know that.”

Joe's mouth dropped open, and he stared at his father. “You can't tell me she's gone. She wouldn't a' died! She weren't that bad, was she?”

Juli reached for my hand, and I set the cup down.

“Last night, Joey,” Juli said gently. “Past suppertime. She was real bad. But she was peaceful. She went on home.”

Joe took straight for the door again, but Juli grabbed his arm as she had before, and I went with her, wanting to hold her and wipe away the tears that coursed down her cheeks. “Oh, Joe, I'm so sorry,” she said. “We did all we knew. We sent for the doctor. Emma did her best, but—but…”

Joe reached his hand to the doorknob. Juli couldn't stop him. She knew she couldn't, but she wasn't finished. “Oh, Joey! Sammy! Emma's—Emma's…”

Joe pulled the door open and just stood there. I could feel the cold draft of that room; I could see both of them lying there. My breath stopped. I couldn't imagine what Joe must be feeling.

In a moment he rushed forward and collapsed at the side of the bed.

I started to move toward the room, but a voice behind me stopped me short.

“Leave him be,” George commanded. “Leave him be.”

I could see the boy's shoulders sag and heave, and I knew he was weeping now. But George, so far from a decent state himself, was right. There was precious little any of us could do for Joe but let him grieve. I took Juli in my arms, and she seemed to break. She felt so small.

“Sammy, I'm so glad you came, but what about the kids?”

I kissed her smooth, brown hair, held her tight. But I looked past her, feeling numb on my feet. I'd known. With Wila I'd known. And miserable as it was, there'd have been some way to manage it. But Emma too! It was like taking the very world away. Nothing would ever be the same.

SEVEN

Julia

We didn't want to go. We didn't want to leave Joey in the cold horror of that house with his father so distraught he hadn't moved from the chair we put him in. There was life in George's body, plenty of it. He was a tough one, tough enough to withstand a night in the cold barn without even frostbite. Warmed by the fire, he might've seemed like himself again if it weren't for his eyes. Soulless they looked. Bottomless. It scared me to look into them now, as if they were a pit that I might fall into and not arise from. I knew I had to get out of here. I had to get back to those vibrant children, even if I was the bearer of such news that would tear their little hearts. But George would not come. And Joey, once he left the bedside and shut the door behind him, would not leave his father's side.

“You go,” he told us. “I'll stay in case the doctor comes. Got the chores to finish too.”

He clutched Samuel's arm with urgency. Fear. And I knew in my heart what he hadn't said. The doctor didn't matter, the chores didn't even matter so much now as his father did. He was staying because someone must, to make sure George was still here when we got back, to make sure he didn't do something stupid again in the desolate state he was in.

George said nothing to us, not even when Samuel asked him who we needed to reach with word of this. He didn't even seem to hear. He just stared at the fire, his tight jaw quivering.

“The preacher,” Joey said after his father's long pause. “He'll know what to do.”

He took my hand for just a moment, a gesture I couldn't begin to understand. He wouldn't look at me plainly, and it was just as well, because I wasn't sure if I could have stood it anyway.

Samuel wanted to carry me back over their boot-tracked trail through the woods, but I wouldn't let him. He tried to get me to talk, but I wouldn't do that either. I knew Emma would want me to talk about heaven right now and keep talking about it like it was the most joyous occasion any of us could imagine. But I was failing her and failing Samuel too. He was so worried about me, he was barely paying any attention to where he was going. He held my arm, and I could feel his eyes on me almost the whole time. But I wouldn't look at him. I didn't want to break down and cry again. I didn't want my face to be all red and puffy when we stepped foot back home. Maybe I couldn't be strong for Samuel. But I'd have to hold it together for the kids. I couldn't fail them too.

We marched on through the snow, and I realized suddenly that Sammy was talking, so soft I could barely hear him. He'd taken to praying so much in the past few months. And he was praying again. For me. Almost I stopped and whirled on him. Almost I shouted that he had no right, no right to decide that I of all people needed his prayers, or deserved them! He should be praying for Joey, for George, for the children we had to face. He should be praying for their futures. For their sad little hearts about to be shattered into a thousand pieces. Oh, Lord, and Christmas just around the corner!

I couldn't say any of it. He was right to be praying at all. I knew that. Sure as I'd read Emma's psalm not even an hour ago. God was our refuge, our strength. Even in this. But I wasn't comforted, thinking about Rorey and Harry and Bert. I wasn't joyful that Emma's days of weak heart and wheelchair were over.

They were gone too soon, both of them. Emma away from her beloved home. And Wila while she still had a baby yearning for her breast. My heart warred with my mind about it. Knowing God as good, I was still shaken by the unfairness of it all. How could he—he who controls the universe—let this happen?

“Juli?” Samuel's voice was as cautious as I'd ever heard it. “Honey, I'll have to go on to the Posts to get the word out. Ought to ask him to keep his eye out for Sam Hammond too, I think, and the doctor. I'll be right back as soon as I can. Might have to go and see about George after that. Didn't want to leave you there. You need to be with the children right now.”

I thought of Sarah, and tears filled my eyes again. She was only six and loved Emma as dearly as if the woman had been her own grandma. I couldn't imagine how she'd react, couldn't picture it for all the world. And she was only one of ten there waiting.

Walking into that house and telling those children would be the hardest thing I'd ever do in all my life. I knew it. I hadn't the strength for the task. Emma'd been wrong about that. God was wrong. This was just plain too much.

It was just how you might picture it. They heard us coming before we got in the door, and every last one of them was in the kitchen waiting for the word I'd bring them. Samuel squeezed my hand, and I knew he was about to talk, to say the things I needed to say. But I couldn't let him. Not yet. Not till I'd told them everything I could think to tell about heaven. That's what Emma would've wanted. Wilametta too.

But Franky had hold of my arm already, and Lizbeth didn't wait two shakes before asking about her mother. Lord, how she suddenly looked like Wila, though I'd never thought it before, Lizbeth being so much skinnier.

“Mama, I missed you!” Little Sarah ran up and threw her arms around me. Her best friend, Rorey, stood beside her, her dark eyes looking up at me in question. And I almost lost it. I was weak from the walk and the worry and the pain. Samuel got me a chair, and I wondered if he knew just how badly I needed it then.

“What's wrong?” Lizbeth pressed. And I knew I couldn't hold back anything from them. They could read me like the Marion newspaper, and I had precious little time to touch them with a shred of the glory that Emma had wanted. Maybe, maybe, they would forgive me if I started with her.

“You all know how Emma talked so much about Jesus and the things of God?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Kirk answered for all of them, looking painful fierce.

Bert tried to climb on to my lap but slid back down. Sarah and Franky were flanking my sides so close they hardly left him any room.

“She told me to tell you something. She wanted me to say that heaven is a beautiful, endless place where no one is ever sick. People who have struggled with pain or sorrow don't have to struggle anymore, because in heaven they're whole and happy and all of their needs are supplied.”

All of the children waited, surely wondering what I was going to say next and why. Except Lizbeth, who was turning white as a new lamb. Baby Emma Grace wailed from somewhere in the house, but Lizbeth didn't move to fetch her. She looked frail, young as a baby herself, not half able to take on all that was left to her.
Oh, George!
I lamented in my heart.
You're going to have to find your will! You'll have to be strong, because this poor, dear soul can't carry all the mothering Wila left behind!

“Children, you know Emma's been sick a long time,” I told them, hoping I could tell all before any of them managed another question. I wasn't sure what I would do, what I would say, if they did. “She told us months ago she'd be moving on, and she was right. Emma passed on last night. She's in heaven now.”

I could see the fear fall away from Lizbeth, and Kirk too. But Sarah was struck hard. Tears were soon streaming down her face. I put my arm around my baby girl, wishing I could comfort her proper, but the rest of them were still staring at me, stunned and silent and only knowing half. I looked at the boys' faces. Willy and Kirk. Franky, who'd melted to tears like Sarah. And the little ones, Harry and Bert, who scarcely understood. My own eldest, Robert, had turned his face to his father. And Samuel, seeming to understand the mission before him, spread his comforting arms not only around his own son but three of the Hammonds as well.

“What about Mama?” It was Franky asking, somehow looking like a ghost, his face nearly as drawn and hollow as his father's.

I tried to take a breath, but it wouldn't come. I made myself keep looking at them, knowing that what I was about to say would tear their little hearts apart. “Your mama was very sick too.” I tried, oh, I tried to keep my voice steady for their sakes. “She loved every one of you. I know she did. We wanted her to get better, but she—she couldn't—”

“No!” Lizbeth screamed. Somewhere Emma Grace was wailing, louder now, as if she too had heard.

“She ain't dead,” Kirk said. It was the same reaction his father'd had, and I feared lest he too might disappear out the door in despair. But he wasn't minded to let me off so easily. “You tell us!” he demanded, his face torn with a fierce, raw anger. “You tell us she ain't dead!”

Like the kick of a horse or the impact of a cannonball, the pain knocked away what little air I had left, and it was all I could do to draw in enough air to answer him. “I can't. I—I can't tell you that, because she's with Emma. They're not hurting anymore. They—they both passed on—last night…”

Lizbeth sunk to the floor, and I couldn't tell if she'd fainted or not. Willy and Kirk both took off in the direction of the baby's cry, but the crying didn't stop. Pretty soon I heard the footsteps of at least one of them going up the stairs. Rorey and Sarah were next to each other, next to me, both crying now. And Samuel had taken Harry and Bert, who both looked utterly lost, into his arms.

It was Robert who finally went and got the baby and brought her to me. His eyes met mine as he set the child on my lap. It was a terrible thing, to see all the pain and uncertainty alive in him again. I could see the question in his eyes.
What will become of us now?