Rachel's Prayer (13 page)

Pa rolled over on his bed and glared at me. “Jus’ keep ’em all outta here! I never asked for nobody to bring me no breakfast nor nothin’ else! An’ I never asked for you nor Lizbeth to be mindin’ what’s my business. Get!”

“Pa, we’d leave you alone real easy if you was seein’ to your own business—”

“I said get!”

I just stood for a minute, staring at him. I didn’t remember him gettin’ down this bad since his trouble when Mama died. He was probably thinkin’ like I was about Joe, but neither of us would dare speak somethin’ so bad as that. It would just make things worse to talk about him maybe bein’ dead. I wasn’t even sure how I’d act, let alone Pa. I was scared he’d go plumb crazy.

“Pa,” I tried to reason a little. “You know Joe. He wouldn’t want none a’ us to fall apart on his account. He’d want you to get up and take care a’ yourself.”

“Shut up.”

“But, Pa—”

“Tarnation, boy! Get out a’ here ’fore I hurt you.”

I stood still for a minute. I didn’t know what he’d do. But he’d lit into me plenty a’ times with his belt or a stick over the years, and I figured lettin’ that happen again might be worth it today just to get him stirred out of bed. But then I thought I heard a car outside. If it was Ben and Lizbeth and they had Mary Jane with ’em, I’d better just go and greet them. Better to shut the door and not let Mary Jane see her grandpa this-a-way. She was too little to understand. She’d prob’ly climb right up on the bed with him and end up gettin’ growled at.

I shut the door to Pa’s room with another prayer stirrin’ ’round inside me.

Lord, you’ve searched me and known me. You know all the inner ways of my heart. You know I’m more like my pa than I let on. Maybe I would just lay down too, if it weren’t for Emmie and Mary Jane and the rest. Help me. Help all of us. ’Cause we’re walkin’ around under a cloud. Not knowin’ about Joe is sappin’ everybody’s strength dead away.

I went on outside, smoothin’ my hair a little and tryin’ to look like I was doin’ all right. It was Lizbeth, just like I’d thought. Harry came from the barn as she and Ben were getting out of the car.

“Is Pa doin’ any better?” Lizbeth asked right away.

“No,” I said. “An’ I’m glad you come. If anybody can get him perked up, maybe it’ll be you.”

“I think the only one’d be Joe,” Harry said under his breath. And I heard him, but I didn’t look his way or say nothin’ in response.

“Where’s Mary Jane?” I asked.

“We stopped at the Worthams first,” Lizbeth explained. “We figured she’d have a nicer visit over there if I have trouble with Pa. Mrs. Wortham’s going to make cookies. I’m glad you sent Emmie.”

I wasn’t sure what Lizbeth meant to do, or if Pa’d respond to her any better than he did me. But she sure meant business. She headed in the house right away and started callin’ for Pa before she ever got to his door.

Lizbeth’s husband Ben hung back a little. “What Rorey said yesterday got us pretty concerned. I hope Lizbeth can talk some sense with your pa.”

“I hope so too,” I told him. “But the pastor already tried. Mr. Wortham too.”

“I know. But maybe you’re right that Lizbeth could perk him up. She’ll stay if you need her to, to make it easier for the rest of you. Maybe he’d do better with her here.”

“I don’t understand it,” Harry admitted. “He don’t have no thought for us.”

“He was the same way when Mama died,” I said solemnly, 116 my head almost reeling just thinkin’ about those horrible days.

“But Joe ain’t dead!” Harry protested. “They never said that!”

“I guess Pa don’t know how to expect the positive,” I said quietly, feelin’ like a hypocrite. I was so much like Pa in my own way. I wanted to believe as much as anybody that Joe was okay, hiding some place, or maybe in a hospital. I sure hoped he wasn’t a prisoner. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lookin’ down on us all the time now, watchin’ and knowin’ every move we made. And I didn’t know how to explain somethin’ like that except that he must be with Jesus.

I couldn’t give any words to that kind of thinking, and it was botherin’ me to have it occupying my brain, even after I tried shovin’ it away.

“We can believe he’ll come home,” Harry maintained. “That’s what the pastor said. We can keep on prayin’ for him.”

It was really good to hear words of faith from Harry. Especially since he’d never taken any interest in godly things before this. It used to be he’d sooner mock me over Bible words than ever repeat any for himself. And now here he stood, stronger than I was. So I agreed with him. What else could I do?

“We’ve got to keep prayin’,” I said. “You’re right. Can’t listen to worryin’ an’ sad feelin’s.” I took a deep breath and followed Lizbeth inside. Harry and Ben didn’t come. Maybe they didn’t want any part of Pa’s raging, and that was sensible enough. But I figured somebody oughta be close by, just in case Lizbeth needed a hand.

In the sitting room she called for Pa again, but he didn’t bother to answer. So she walked right into the bedroom and plunked herself down on the edge of his bed.

“Good morning, Pa. Did you know it’s almost ten o’clock?”

He turned his head a little and looked at her with a scowl. “What’s it matter? There ain’t no special doin’s nowhere today.”

“Would you go if there were?”

He started turnin’ around from her again. “No.”

“You’ve got company, Pa. You oughta get up.”

“You ain’t comp’ny. You’re flesh and blood.”

She sighed. “Fine. But Pa, layin’ around isn’t gonna help anything. Emmie and Bert and Harry need to see you up tryin’ to take care of things, no matter how worried you are for Joe. They’re pretty worried too.”

“Then they can leave me alone,” he grumped.

“Pa, you’re not listenin’ to me. They need your help.”

“They don’t need nothin’. Ain’t none of you need nothin’ from me! Get outta here.”

Lizbeth looked up at me for just a minute. An’ I remembered 118 a time when I was a little kid and Mama got so mad that she threw a sack a’ somethin’ right at Pa’s chest an’ then shoved him clear outta the house. Right now Lizbeth was lookin’ almost like Mama did then. She stood to her feet, took hold of the bedcovers with both her hands, and yanked them clear off the bed. Pa sat right up in his dirty old clothes, sputtering angry.

“What the blazes is got into you, girl!”

“It’s almost ten o’clock,” she answered him with a lot more calm than I expected. “I remember the times you got up with the chickens. Especially on good days. There’s work to be done, that’s what you told us. Rise and shine! Well, it’s a good day, Pa, whether you want to see it or not. The sun is shinin’. The fields are waitin’. There’s no sense at all you leavin’ this whole farm on the boys.”

“They ain’t no little boys,” he said. “And you don’t live here no more. Go home.”

“You can’t chase me out,” she told him. “I aim to see you shake off whatever it is that’s got hold of you.”

“Shut up.”

She sat beside him again. “Things happen, Pa. And they don’t just happen to you. Don’t you think Rorey and Frank and Emmie and all the rest are hurtin’ just as much as you are? Is it fair for you to lay here and make them face up to everythin’ when you won’t? Everybody’s trying to do their part except you. Is it gonna help Joe any for you to lay here like you’re half dead? Will it get him found any quicker?”

He looked miserable, and his voice was softer. “There ain’t nothin’ I can do, Lizbeth.”

“There’s plenty you can do. Right around you. You got your other kids. And the crops. ’Leven piglets and a calf too, I understand.”

He shook his head. “Just go home.”

She sighed again, looking awful sad. “I’m not leavin’, Pa. I’ve seen you do so well in times that were hard. I know you were heartbroke when Mama died, but you came out of it. You’ve done so much, and this place is producin’ more now, lookin’ better than ever. You’re a good man, Pa. You’ve managed all these years. I know it hurts.” She took his hand. “Thinkin’ ’bout Joe and what he might be going through makes me kind of sick inside too. But we’ve got to go on with things. Do you think he’d want you givin’ up, when we don’t even know what happened?”

Pa turned his eyes in my direction. “You asked her to come out here an’ get after me, didn’t you?”

“No, sir,” I told him. “But she’s right what she’s sayin’. Every bit.”

He looked at her and then at me and shook his head again. “There’s somethin’ neither one a’ you unnerstands,” he said real slow. “Things wasn’t s’posed to be like this. I had it worked out. But ever’thin’s fallin’ apart, and it’s gonna get worse, that’s all I can figure.”

“You had what worked out?” Lizbeth asked.

“What come next. I had it all figured when Joe went in the service. By the time he come home, I’d have more’n half my kids growed an’ on their own. But he stayed longer, an’ Kirk and Willy’s gone too, an’ I never planned on that.” He stopped and took a deep breath, looking over to the wall with something strange in his eyes. “War’s come up, an’ now Joe ain’t comin’. It ain’t gonna be like I thought. An’ I still got half at home.”

“What are you sayin’, Pa?” Lizbeth asked.

I was glad it was her asking the questions. I couldn’t have managed to. I was feelin’ bitter hurt inside for some reason, knowin’ that whatever Pa said next was gonna hit at us.

“Pa?” Lizbeth prompted when he didn’t answer right away. “What are you tellin’ us?”

“I wanted to be done by now,” he said. “I was thinkin’ Kirk an’ Willy’d marry like you an’ Sam. Rorey too, way before now. And Frank’d stay over there with Mr. Wortham. Only thing that makes sense for him. But now all I got’s him here with the kids, when I was lookin’ for Joe to come back an’ take over the farm . . .”

He just stopped, like he couldn’t go on.

“You got no call to doubt Frank,” Lizbeth maintained. “But all of the rest of that can still happen.”

I had an awful feelin’ in the pit of my stomach. There was more to what he was saying. “What do you mean?” I dared ask him. “About wantin’ to be done?”

He looked at me. He swallowed kind of hard and seemed almost scared all of a sudden. “I kinda made a deal,” he said with his voice soundin’ shaky. “’Least I thought I did. I kinda made a deal with God after your mama died and Mr. Wortham tol’ me I had to consider you young’uns. I had to be here for you.”

“What kind of deal?” I pressed him further.

“I tol’ the good Lord I’d stick ’round long enough to see over half a’ you big ’nough to get your own life, you know. Then you’d be so used to standin’ on your own you could see to the rest an’ you wouldn’t need me no more. I figured one of the boys’d take on the farm for me. I figured it’d be Joe. But some of you been slow to move on. An’ the army, that jus’ changes ever’thin’. It weren’t no part of the deal to be buryin’ none of you.”

“Pa?” Lizbeth looked shaken. “All these years you’ve been plannin’ on leavin’?”

“Oh, girl,” he moaned. “What diff’rence does it make? You got one brother gone already. Kirk and Willy, they’re next. They ain’t comin’ home. I been hearin’ it in my head for days. They ain’t comin’ home.”

“Pa!” Lizbeth exclaimed. “That’s the devil talking! That’s fears takin’ hold of you. There’s no reason to think—”

“God’s got all mad at me ’bout it, that’s what it is,” he said, staring down at the torn sheet underneath him. “God’s maybe done decided you’re all better off with your mama.”

“That’s crazy talk.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. It just come out before I could stop it. Lizbeth looked up at me and didn’t answer my words, but I could see in her eyes that she was thinkin’ the same thing. It wasn’t just Pa drinkin’ or feelin’ lazy sometimes that was the problem now. Nor even bein’ fretful over Joe. There was something bad wrong with his thinkin’. Maybe there had been for a long time and we just didn’t know. But it was scary to see it lookin’ at me out his eyes. He weren’t right, and it went past the worry. Lizbeth knew it too.

“Pa, there’s no sense at all talking like this,” she said. “Nobody’s died, and there’s no use expectin’ that anybody will. God is with Joe, wherever he is. And with Kirk and Willy too. They’re gonna make you proud. They’re heroes already, and they’ll come home and get married and give you loads of grandchildren.”

Pa didn’t even seem to hear her. “I still got five home. Half. Unless I figure Frank to be on his own, but I don’t know what he is. If I go now, what’s gonna happen? Are you an’ Ben gonna move out here? Or Sam? You got your own places already. Frank ain’t gonna take this place on. He can’t. He does all right with the wood, but he’s got his head in the clouds.”

“Pa,” Lizbeth kept trying to reason. “We don’t have to decide the future—”

“I ain’t talkin’ ’bout the future, girl! Are you gonna be the one seein’ ’bout Emmie and Harry and Bert, till they’re outta school an’ workin’ or somethin’? An’ Rorey, till she’s married? Sam’s got five in his own family to think about now. You gonna be the one to take on this farm an’ the kids? Are you? I promised God I wouldn’t leave it all on the Worthams! I swore I wouldn’t! But tarnation! It ain’t nothin’ to be left on Franky an’ Rorey! Who else I got?”

“Pa!” Lizbeth looked scared. “You’re not goin’ anywhere! You got no reason to talk like this—”

Before we could realize what he was doing, he shoved her away. Not hard, but it was a shock just the same. And I reached to help her steady herself.

“Franky,” she said stiffly. “Go tell Harry to fetch Mr. Wortham. He’s got the best sense of anybody I know talking to Pa. He’ll know what to do.”

More than anything else,
her
not knowing what to do shook me terrible. I’d always had faith in my big sister. Lizbeth held us together in rough times. Lizbeth had always known what to do.

I hurried outside, feeling as miserable as Pa looked. “Harry,” I called. “Lizbeth wants you to go ask Mr. Wortham to come an’ talk to Pa.”

“How come?” he asked immediately. “What’s wrong?” He must have thought like me that Lizbeth could surely handle this. I shook my head. “Pa’s thinkin’ muddleheaded, I don’t know. Just go on, okay? Don’t tell Emmie or Bert much a’ nothin’.”

“I don’t need Sam Wortham over here!” we heard Pa screamin’ at Lizbeth inside the house. “I’m doin’ just fine!”