Wings of a Dream (19 page)

I laid my handbag on the table, amazed that it remained in my possession. Then I remembered my letter from Mama—and the one from Arthur.

“Where’re my letters?”

Ollie’s eyes grew big. “I didn’t see any letters.”

I tore through my purse, screeching out my fear. “Where are those letters? I have to have those letters!” They weren’t there. Neither one of them.

Ollie stepped away from me. James inched closer to my side. I rubbed my forehead. Where had I put them? I’d sat down, then run to the schoolyard. Eyes squeezed shut, teeth clamped tight, I commanded myself to remember. But nothing came. Only images of James in the dark depths.

I collapsed into the nearest chair, nearly bumping James’s head with mine. Then I saw the magazine on the bench. A deep breath moderated my voice. “Where did you get the magazine, Ollie?”

Her face twisted. Concentration? Confusion? I didn’t have any strength left to figure it out.

“I don’t know.” A frantic shaking of her head accompanied the words. “I don’t remember. Someone handed it to me as we were leaving. I don’t know.” She crumpled to the floor in tears. I wanted to do the same.

Help me, help me, help me
ran through my head as I tried to regain my composure. Those letters had to be somewhere. If someone thought to pick up the magazine, they’d have thought to get the letters, too. Unless, of course, they’d blown away when no one was watching.

I felt a scream rising to my lips. Mama would’ve slapped my face to calm me, but Mama wasn’t here. Like it or not, I was in charge. My jaw tightened as I tried to hold back the tornado of feelings twisting inside me.

James’s bottom lip jutted out, trembling just a bit. I pulled him onto my lap, crushing him to me until he squirmed to get free. Ollie still lay crying on the floor. Janie joined the chorus. Dan, I feared, wasn’t far behind.

I shoved Aunt Adabelle’s treasured magazine. It slid across the bench, then fell, skimming across the bare floor, flopping to a stop when it rammed into the wall.

Ollie gasped. “Rebekah! Look!”

Two envelopes spilled from between the pages of the magazine. Dropping to my knees, I gathered them up like precious jewels, suddenly remembering I’d stashed them there.

“God found them,” James squeaked from behind me.

“What?”

“God found them. I prayed and God found them.”

I stared at him. “You prayed?”

Ollie stood beside her brother now, her arm around his shoulders. “Like our mama taught us. Nothing is too big or too little to pray about. Mama and Miss Ada prayed about everything.”

My mouth opened, then shut again.
If you have the faith of a child
came to mind. But did I?

I stood, clutching the letters to my breast. “We’d all better get to bed.”

Ollie looked up at me with surprised eyes. Her wailing turned to a whine. “But we haven’t had any supper yet.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t howl, as I wanted to. I answered calmly, but my words held no sweetening forgiveness. “You’ll have to get your own, then. I’m going to bed.”

I stormed upstairs with my letters, half guilty that I’d left a nine-year-old with such a task and half relieved that none of them followed.

T
he next morning I burned Arthur’s letter. No part of his pathetic explanation soothed my pain. Mama’s letter, on the other hand, I read over again in the light of day.

She told me she felt much better now.
A lot of fuss over nothing,
she wrote. She’d be up and around and back to her old self again very soon. And didn’t I think I should come on home and leave those children to someone else’s care? Barney Graves had mentioned he missed seeing me.

It sounded like Mama, all right. But I’d told Adabelle and Frank and Sheriff Jeffries that I’d care for the children, and no matter how Mama prodded, I wouldn’t break my word.

I looked at the letter again. Shaky handwriting. Stray drops of ink at the edges of the page. Not Mama’s usual pristine letter. Maybe Daddy hadn’t overreacted after all.

I slid Mama’s letter into the drawer with my clothes. I’d answer it later, let her know, firmly but kindly, that I could make my own decisions now and that I intended to do my duty toward these children. But I wouldn’t tell her about Arthur. Not yet.

A few evenings later, I chewed the end of my pencil, trying to make a list of what we’d need to see us through the winter. Cornbread didn’t seem as monotonous now that I’d found the churn and made butter. I’d even pressed the creamy white lump into a mold carved with intricate curlicues surrounding a fancy G.

But we needed stamps. And the children wanted to make a Christmas box for their father. I hated to spend the last bit of cash, but I figured we could manage to purchase some trinkets for Frank—a comb, toothpaste, gum, Hershey’s bars, shaving cream, shoelaces. And yet, Thanksgiving would be upon us soon. And Christmas on the horizon after that. I’d need more money before then or there wouldn’t be presents for the children.

Thump. Bump. A chorus of screams.

I dropped my pencil and charged up the stairs two at a time, heart pumping faster than a steam engine, throat aching to release a wail of my own. But it wasn’t James having a nightmare. Two beady eyes stared back at me in the moonlight. Two beady eyes attached to a hissing possum.

A branch from a big cedar elm waved near the open window, letting in the breeze on this warm evening. Just a short jump for a cunning creature. And the clucking from the barnyard told me we were not this rascal’s first stop for the evening.

Ollie huddled the children on the far edge of the bed, next to the wall, the fear in her eyes naked in the pale wash of moonbeams. Dan’s screams filled the air, his eyes squeezed shut, mouth open wide. My anger flared, protective as a mama bird with helpless babies in the nest. I wouldn’t let them down.

I wanted to say the word I’d heard Will say when Daddy’s wagon rolled across his toes, but I dared not. Instead I did what Mama—and the children—had taught me. I prayed.

“Keep that nasty creature away from these children, Lord. And from our chickens, too.” I hissed the words toward the spitting possum, hoping it would frighten him away. It didn’t. He stood his ground.

We stared at each other, both wondering who would make the first move. I decided it had to be me. I hopped up on the bed. The possum turned its head to stare at me. I leapt toward a cane-seated chair, grabbed it up, and jabbed the legs at the overgrown rat the same way I’d seen the lion tamer do when the circus pitched its tent outside of Downington a few years ago.

“Get away.” I thrust the chair again. The possum backed toward the door. I poked again. He hissed and squirmed but kept scooting toward the hall.

When we reached the top of the stairs that mean old thing decided to make one last stand. He lunged toward me. Ollie screamed from the doorway of the bedroom. I pushed one leg of the chair into the possum’s chest.

Can a possum look surprised? This one did as he tumbled backward down the stairs. I followed his path as he rolled to the front door, scampered into the dining room, then through to the kitchen. I ran after him, picking up the broom and swatting him out the kitchen door before he could get his legs fully underneath him. Of course, by then I think he was glad to go. I slammed the door shut, barely missing the tip of his hairless tail.

The children swarmed around me, arms circling my legs and my waist, Ollie’s moist eyes staring up at me in the dim light.

“You saved our lives,” she said.

I chuckled, trying to diffuse her fear, but my knees shook like warm jelly as I ran my hand down the braided rope of hair that fell to the middle of her back. The lamp still shone in the parlor, dimming the darkness of the kitchen like a faraway star on a moonless night.

“Why don’t we all camp out in there?” I nodded my head toward the parlor.

Ollie’s head bobbed with such force I worried it would fall off her neck. We gathered quilts from the bedrooms. I wedged Janie between the back of the sofa and Ollie’s body before pulling and tucking the quilts around the rest of us on the floor. I didn’t even bother to extinguish the lamp.

Dan stirred first the next morning, bounding from atop the pile like a puppy ready for play. I raised my stiff neck and put a finger to my lips, but trying to keep a four-year-old quiet was, well, nigh impossible.

James’s head popped up, his eyes blinking at the light and the unfamiliar room. Then his face brightened. After he disentangled his foot from my ribs, I could actually draw breath again. He ran to the kitchen. “Let’s see if that ol’ possum is still hangin’ around, Dan.”

Dan followed, of course, as eager as his brother to see the creature that had scared him senseless in the night. Ollie groaned as I got up. She put her arms around Janie and they cuddled together.

Rubbing my neck, I stumbled into the hall. James was under my feet almost before I knew it.

“I bet I could get him with Daddy’s gun.” He looked up at me with the most serious expression I’d ever seen. As if he were fifteen, not six. My mouth twitched, but I determined not to laugh.

“You know you’re not allowed to touch Daddy’s gun,” Ollie’s half-asleep voice called from the parlor.

I put on my stern face. “Yes. I’m sure you know that, James.”

His whole body sagged in defeat as he turned and stomped away. “She said no,” I heard him say from the kitchen. A smile twitched at my lips.

“Rats,” came the younger voice, followed by the muffled thud of two bottoms hitting the floor.

A giggle escaped me. I imagined their little faces full of disappointment over not getting to take their daddy’s gun after the nasty creature. I clamped my hand over my mouth until my stomach hurt from holding it in. I fled up the stairs and screamed my laughter into a plump feather pillow, tears streaming down my face. It felt as good as a hot bath on a cold day and made the adventure of the night worthwhile. I climbed into clothes as fresh as my attitude and hurried downstairs to rejoin the children.

“Would you like me to take care of the milkin’ this morning?” Sheriff Jeffries’s baritone carried through the screen door.

Now I could hear Ol’ Bob bawling. “Yes, thank you.”

I stood at the door and watched him go, his boots crunching across the yard. Why couldn’t I have feelings for a man who always seemed to show up at the right time and say the right things? Mama would declare me a fool not to keep his ingredients in my pantry, so to speak. In fact, she might even put him ahead of Mr. Graves now.

But I couldn’t dwell on such things today. I returned to the kitchen. Ollie scrubbed her face and hands at the washbasin as I started breakfast. I’d had my fill of oatmeal, so I fried up some corn cakes to drizzle with molasses, wondering if I could make the leftovers do for both dinner and supper.

A clatter of voices rose in the yard. I glanced out the door. James and Dan sat on the porch, deep in conversation with the sheriff. The possum had grown in the retelling. It had nearly bitten off the baby’s hand, according to Dan. James had run it off, according to James. The sheriff nodded at each interjection, his face as serious as if they relayed the price of cotton.