Wings of a Dream (33 page)

Mama pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. “It’s too cold out here. We’d best get inside.”

I wanted to walk around to the back door, to enjoy just a few minutes away from her. But one look at the front steps and I knew she’d have trouble with them on her own. I reached her side in a few strides, steadying her as she lifted her foot to the first riser.

“I can do it,” she snapped.

I pulled my hand away but didn’t leave. She teetered just a bit. Then she clutched at my arm before taking the next step up. Without a word, she shuffled across the porch, into the hall, and past the parlor. Letting go of my arm, she entered the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

No thanks. No apology.

At least the boys and men got to leave the house.

I bounced Janie on my hip. “Let’s find Daddy. I’ll bet he’s down with Ol’ Bob.” Janie didn’t care if I meant her daddy or mine.

The barn smelled of horse and mules and manure. Dust twirled in the weak streams of winter sunshine slithering through the cracks between the wall planks. My heart jumped and twirled as well, but settled fast when Frank didn’t appear. Had he needed to go farther than the barn for some peace?

Daddy stood up from beneath Ol’ Bob. His arms stretched toward the roof of the barn as his back curved into a long arch.

“Thank you, Daddy.” I kissed him on the cheek. He grunted in reply and patted Ol’ Bob’s rump before he shut the stall and handed me the bucket of warm milk. But I wasn’t ready to return to the house yet. I leaned against the barn door, watching Daddy work. He drew the boys into each task. Janie, too. His big finger tickled her beneath her chin and brushed one of her golden curls from her chubby face.

“Daddy?” I put the milk pail on a nearby stool.

He faced me, more pain in his eyes than I’d ever seen there before.

“Tell me what’s really wrong, Daddy.”

His jaw clenched, visible even in the half-light. Over the course of my life, I’d never had an intimate conversation with my father. But I’d always felt closer to him than to Mama. Maybe I didn’t feel the need to try so hard to please him. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I needed him to talk to me now.

He slipped his hands into his pockets. “It’s been difficult for your mother, you know. It hurt her for your brother to go off like that. She wanted to be with him at the end, as hard as it would have been. You know she hasn’t been strong since . . . October.” He glanced in the direction of the children, but they paid us no mind, running and shrieking from corner to corner.

“Losing her sister was grievous for her, too.”

I hadn’t expected him to say that. I slipped my thumbnail between my teeth and clamped down until it snapped. I brushed it away and picked up one of the barn cats, a striped one, and stroked until it purred. Mama wouldn’t even come help her sister, so how could her death have brought grief? “But Mama never even talked to her. Or at least, not for a long time.”

Daddy rubbed the back of his neck. “When Adabelle left Downington, your mama hurt real bad. She didn’t know much about the man her little sister married, and she’d felt responsible for her after their father left.”

Janie toddled toward the barn door, squealing with delight. I captured her, swung her up into the air. She giggled in my arms. I smacked a kiss on her lips and directed her tottering steps toward the back wall instead.

“What do you mean? I never heard anything about her daddy leaving.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” He picked up a rake and started to spread fresh hay in Dandy’s empty stall. Frank must have taken the horse out. “His leaving shamed her. Adabelle running away with a stranger did the same thing. Then we got news her husband had died. And Adabelle went to work caring for other people’s houses, other people’s families, instead of coming home to her own.”

His hands rested one on top of the other as he leaned into the rake handle. “Your mama’s a good woman, Rebekah, but a proud one. She doesn’t like to show when she’s hurt.” His eyes found mine. “It might look like anger, but it’s really hurt.”

He resumed his work. “Now her boy’s gone, too.”

I put my hand on his arm. “But he was your boy, too. Are you saying it doesn’t feel the same to you?”

The agony that colored his smile pierced my heart like a needle through silk.

“You raise your kids how you see fit and hope for the best. But you can’t know what’s going to happen. And you can’t change it when it does. It’s painful, but life goes on.”

It was the most I’d heard my daddy say at one time. I chewed on his words, understanding them far better now than I would have before. Poor Mama. She didn’t like having those she loved grow up and make their own decisions, live their own lives.

Even Will, who’d done almost everything she wanted him to, disappointed her in the end. Maybe I could be more patient with her, now that I understood.

“Want milk in your tea, Mama?”

She’d told me long ago it was how the English took their tea. I don’t know how she knew, but she let me drink it that way when I was just a girl, when Santa Claus brought me a tea set for Christmas—a real china pot with matching cups and saucers, but tiny. Mama sat with me that afternoon, her hands trading work for play. I hoped my words would spark some remembrance of that time.

“Are you making cornbread again?”

Yesterday’s resolve to be patient wilted like a morning glory in afternoon heat. I set the cup of tea in front of her and glanced at the almost flat sack of flour in the corner, next to the fat sack filled with cornmeal. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

“The batch this morning was too dry. Add more milk this time.”

I slammed a pot onto the range top and waited for her to scold. But she didn’t.

“Is that an automobile I hear?” She hurried to the window, as if the car held her dearest friend.

Over her head I could see a cloud of dust surrounding a familiar Model T. I waited for my heart to leap into my throat. Instead, my stomach dropped to the floor. Would Mama latch on to him or freeze him with her silent stare? Either prospect rattled me.

I blew out a long breath. “It’s Sheriff Jeffries.”

“The sheriff!” Horror colored her words. “What’s he doing here?”

I dusted off my hands, removed my apron. “He’s a friend, that’s all.”

She whirled around, eyes narrowed. “That man’s friend, or yours?”

Before I could answer, the sheriff stood in the doorway, hat twirling in his hands.

“Rebekah.”

Mama’s lips twisted into the kind of encouragement I’d come to dread.

“Sheriff Jeffries.” I cringed at the disappointment on his face. After all, just last week I’d called him Henry. “Please meet my mama, Margaret Hendricks.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Hendricks?” His hat whirled faster. I grabbed it and set it on the table.

His hands fumbled for some other occupation. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Hendricks. Y’all have been in our prayers.”

Mama’s lips flattened. I noticed tight lines at their edges. I’d been waiting for her to mention Will, but she hadn’t. I guessed she didn’t want to discuss her grief. Either that or Frank’s presence had distracted her from it.

“What brings you by today, Sheriff?” I prayed he’d say business of some kind.

A flush crept up his neck. “I came to see if you wanted to go for a drive, Rebekah.” His gaze skittered to Mama now, as if seeking her approval.

Her face brightened. “Dinner’s almost ready, Sheriff. Why don’t you stay and eat? After dinner, we’d love to take a drive.”

I wanted to sink through the floor. “Yes, please stay.”

Dinner and the drive took ages. Or at least it seemed ages. The sun was on its way down when the sheriff left Mama and me back at the front gate.

“Thank you for dinner, ma’am.” He tipped his hat to Mama, even though I was the one who had prepared the meal. Then his hungry eyes swept over me before he cranked the engine once more.

“We’ll look forward to seeing you at church, Sheriff.” Mama raised her arm to wave.

I stepped back to avoid the dust. Poor Henry. He didn’t deserve to be a rope tugged at both ends by Mama and me. As we walked back to the house, I wondered again if he was the man God had planned for me. Mama liked Sheriff Jeffries, even if she didn’t yet know that his dreams would carry us even farther from her than Prater’s Junction.

And Henry was a sight more interesting than old Barney Graves. But could I sacrifice my own happiness for Mama’s? Was that the kind of faith God wanted me to have?

I glanced at Mama. She frowned at James careening into our path, jabbering like a magpie.

“Did ya see me, Bekah? Daddy said I run faster than the Kaiser from Uncle Sam!”

Frank followed close behind, arms filled with his smallest son and daughter, Ollie trotting alongside. My heart surged like a horse in full gallop, and I could find no desire to rein it in.

Mama sat rigid in the front seat of the buggy long before Frank and I managed to get the children readied for church and out the door. Daddy sat behind Dandy with a grim smile. His eyes met Frank’s in what seemed to be a hesitant handshake. Some sort of agreement not spoken aloud.

I climbed up beside Mama. Frank set Janie in my lap before squeezing in the back with the rest of his children, as if he were a child himself instead of the owner of the conveyance and the master of all he surveyed. He’d put himself in the lower place to avoid unleashing Mama’s tongue. Not many men would do so.

Mama’s presence on our journey hushed even the smallest voices. I don’t think even a bird dared chirp as we passed. And as the buggy wheels devoured each inch of road, another part of me tightened.

The people of Prater’s Junction had become my friends. Would Mama turn up her nose at them or would she cultivate their good graces and push me more firmly toward the sheriff’s arms? I lifted my thumbnail to my mouth. Mama gently pushed my hand back down.

“I hope your preacher isn’t in the habit of spinning long sermons, Mr. Gresham,” she said.

Silence answered.

“No, Mama. Brother Latham is always very timely. Not too short. Not too long.”

I chewed my bottom lip, hoping my answer would stifle her comments.

“Such a nice man, that sheriff. He’s a man a girl could depend on. Don’t you agree, Mr. Gresham?”

Help me, Lord. Help me, Lord.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. I waited for Frank to say something. Anything.

Mama turned her head. “Don’t you agree, Mr.—”

“Look, Mama, there’s a redbird.”

“Where?” She whipped around like a distracted child.

I breathed out relief as I pointed out the church steeple instead.