Angel Sister (19 page)

Grandfather Merritt pulled out his handkerchief and threw it toward Kate. “Here, use this. We’ll wait on the back porch.”

“Tori, go get Lorena’s clothes and the doll she sleeps with.” Kate picked up the handkerchief and dabbed at the cut on her head before she held her arms out to Lorena. “Come here, baby.”

She held her close against her without worrying about the blood that dripped down her face to mix with her tears. Lorena nuzzled her head up against Kate. For a minute they sat like that without saying a word. Then Kate whispered in her ear, “I’ll still take care of you, Lorena. They can’t keep me from doing that. I’ll always take care of you. I promise.”

“I know,” Lorena said. “You’re my angel.”

If only, Kate thought as she tightened her arms around Lorena and kissed her head. “I love you.”

“I know.” Lorena reached up and touched the hurt place on Kate’s head. “I know.”

Then she pushed away from Kate to stand up. She looked at Kate a long moment before she turned and slowly began walking over toward the porch where Grandfather Merritt and the Baxters were waiting with the bundle of clothes Tori had gathered up. Lorena let Ella Baxter take her hand and lead her away.

Kate sat like stone as they walked around the house and disappeared from sight. Tori’s voice came through to Kate as if it was traveling through a long tunnel. “What do you want me to do now, Kate?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing to be done.” Kate stood up and began walking across the field toward the woods. Her feet felt as if they each weighed three hundred pounds, but she kept walking. She was glad when Tori didn’t follow her. Then she noticed the handkerchief her grandfather had given her still in her hand. She opened her hand and let it fall to the ground.

______

They were on the porch saying their goodbyes when Victoria came running across the yard. As soon as Victor saw her, his throat tightened and his muscles went stiff. Something bad had happened. Something he probably wasn’t going to be able to fix, from the look on Victoria’s face. There were so many things he couldn’t fix. He could bend and shape iron horseshoes to keep a horse’s feet in good shape. He could fashion iron pins to fix a broken gate or wagon, but the iron of life wasn’t so easily shaped. Instead it was always bending and twisting him. He dreaded her news as his mouth went dry. Too dry. He needed a drink.

It was almost a relief when she leaned on the porch rail by the steps and blurted out her news between pants for breath. “They came and took Lorena.”

At least everybody was still breathing. That was the way he’d always felt in France with the German shells exploding around him. It came down to whether you and the buddy next to you were still breathing when the battle was over. Sometimes the buddy wasn’t. Then you were just glad to feel the breath filling your own lungs.

Not that he didn’t see Victoria’s sorrow and, even more, ache for Kate.

Nadine hurried off the porch to wrap her arms around Victoria. Evangeline followed her halfway down the steps before she stopped to look back at Brother Mike as if hung between her duty to her family and her desire to stay close to the young preacher.

“Who came?” Nadine asked. “Her parents?”

“No, no.” Victoria had caught her breath and was able to talk now. “Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. Grandfather Merritt brought them. Kate told him to go away, but he wouldn’t.” Victoria looked up at her mother with big sad eyes. “He hit Kate.”

“Your grandfather hit Kate?” Nadine’s voice sounded disbelieving.

Victoria nodded her head. “But she didn’t cry. Not then. Not until she had to tell Lorena goodbye.” Then Victoria burst out in tears.

Nadine put her arms around Victoria and looked over the top of her head at Victor. In her eyes he could see the same thought he’d had earlier. He wasn’t going to be able to fix this. Pain came with life, but it was doubly painful when it was your daughters hurting.

On the porch behind them, Brother Mike’s smile was gone. “Is there some way I can help?” he asked.

Carla pushed her heavy frame up from her porch rocker to face the young preacher. “There’s no reason to help, Brother Mike. This is the way it was supposed to be. The way Orrin said before he was felled by the stroke. My sister will give that child a fine home. Finer than she could have ever had with those vagabond parents of hers who just pushed her out of their car and drove off without her. That’s for certain.”

“Or with me?” Nadine straightened her shoulders a little and looked directly at Carla. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well no, I don’t think I said that exactly.” Carla fanned herself with her handkerchief as beads of sweat popped out on her upper lip and forehead. Then she patted her upper lip with her handkerchief and pulled herself together. “But now that you say so, it’s the truth. You have your hands more than full already with your three girls. Ella doesn’t have any children. So it’s only fair and reasonable.”

“How about for Lorena? What’s fair and reasonable for her? Or for Kate?” Nadine asked. She looked ready to burst into tears like Victoria, who was sobbing beside her.

Victor stepped down off the porch past Evangeline to stand beside Nadine. He wanted to hold Nadine, tell her he could make it right, but she wouldn’t believe him. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she shot him a look as if she blamed him for what his father had done.

On the porch, Carla made a sound of disgust. “Kate needs to remember her place. That child . . .”

Nadine’s father stirred in his chair and waved his good hand to silence Carla. “Wrong,” he said. “Wrong.”

“See.” Carla looked pleased. “Listen to what your father’s trying to tell you. You’re wrong. Ella will be a wonderful mother.”

“I’m sure she will.” Brother Mike tried to pull his smile back on his face. “Perhaps we should pray for her and for the little girl. For all of us.” His voice held a hint of panic as beside him Brother Orrin grew more agitated.

Nadine looked at her father and handed off Victoria to Victor. She rushed back up the porch steps to lean over her father. “Father, remember the doctor told you not to get upset. You don’t want to have another stroke.” She kept her voice level and calm as she took hold of his hand to calm him. She glanced up at Evangeline. “Run get some cool water and a cloth.”

He jerked his hand loose from Nadine even as Evangeline ran into the house for the cold water. The screen door slammed behind her.

“No,” he said as he gripped the arm of the chair he was sitting in and breathed in and out two or three times.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Carla was saying. “Gotten him all in a stir.”

“No,” Nadine’s father repeated. “Wrong. I was wrong.” He said the words very distinctly. “Kate right.”

“Why, Orrin, what in the world are you saying?” Carla asked. She looked over at Brother Mike. “Poor man. That stroke has addled his thinking. That can happen, you know, with a stroke. The doctor told me that right up front so I’d be prepared.”

Brother Orrin raised his head and glared at her before he picked up his cane and poked it against her. He looked like he wanted to preach her an entire sermon, but all he came out with was “Hush, woman.”

Carla’s eyes flew open wide as she gasped, “Well, I never.” She gave her husband a look as she slowly lowered herself back down in her rocker. The chair groaned under her weight. She leaned back and began fanning herself furiously with one of the wooden handled cardboard fans she must have carried home from the church. She kept muttering under her breath, but Victor didn’t try to hear what she was saying. The woman was always talking. She seemed to need the sound of her voice in her ears.

The new preacher shifted back and forth on his feet as if he wasn’t sure what to do first. He was still young enough to think he could fix things.

Brother Orrin ignored him and Carla as he looked at Nadine and said, “Tell . . . Kate. Sorry.” His chin drooped down on his chest, and for one awful moment Victor thought he might have suffered another stroke, but then he realized the old preacher was coming face-to-face with the same thing Victor was. He couldn’t fix it and he knew it.

At least Victor hadn’t been part of the reason for the problem. He wasn’t, but his father was. His father who thought he could control everything that happened in Rosey Corner. But he hadn’t always been able to fix everything either. Victor closed his mind to old, long-dead memories. Weren’t there enough problems dancing around him already? He didn’t want to think about Press Jr. and how his father hadn’t been able to fix that. All he’d been able to do was get a boat with grappling hooks and drag the bottom of the river until they found Press Jr.

His father had made him go out in the boat with him along with Graham, who had pointed out the place where he’d seen Press Jr. go under. But Press hadn’t been there. He’d been downriver. When the men working the hooks had snagged the body and pulled it up out of the water, Victor had been sure it couldn’t be his brother. It didn’t matter that he recognized the blue college sweater with his fraternity symbol on the sleeve. The face was all wrong—misshapen and gray. Not a thing like Press Jr. It wasn’t until his father cried out, fell across the body, and began weeping that Victor knew it had to be his brother.

Victor had never seen his father cry. It frightened him. The sight of his brother’s dead body frightened him. He was ten years old and only hours before had nearly drowned himself. Would have drowned if Graham hadn’t pulled him out of the river. He began sobbing uncontrollably. His father rose up off Press Jr.’s body and backhanded Victor across the face. Victor had to clutch the hard metal seat to keep from falling out into the river. His father drew back his hand to strike him again.

The owner of the boat, a man Victor had never seen before, grabbed his father’s arm. “What’s the matter with you, man? You’ve just lost one son. Are you trying to kill the only one you have left?”

Victor’s father shook off the man’s hand. For a moment he kept his arm raised as he glared at Victor. Beside Victor, Graham spoke up. “If you have to hit somebody, hit me. Not the kid.” Graham’s voice was flat, nothing at all like he usually sounded. It was as if all the dives into the river to try to save Press Jr. had drained the life out of him too.

Graham didn’t duck away from the blow or raise his hands to ward it off. Victor’s father’s fist smashed into Graham’s face with a sickening thud. The force of the blow knocked Graham against the side of the boat, which began rocking back and forth violently. The man in the front of the boat was yelling again, but Victor didn’t hear what he was saying. He was staring at his father, who was trying to keep his balance, and then at the body of Press Jr. behind him. The legs jerked and one of the hands with its fingers curled into claws reached up into the air. The whole body rolled toward Victor and one of the eyelids popped open.

Victor stared at what was left of Press Jr. and wondered if he was glad he was moving or sorry. Then he leaned his head over the side of the boat and began heaving. Nothing came out but hot water. It seemed like days had passed since he’d last eaten, and he didn’t care if he ever ate again. He almost hoped his father would knock him back into the river. If he did, Victor was going to sink down below the velvety water and not make a ripple. But then he thought about those grappling hooks digging into his body and he heaved again.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and held him steady as he heaved. For one crazy moment Victor thought his father was holding him, but when his heaving stopped and he turned to look, it was Graham, not his father. His father stood in the middle of the boat, staring at him with disgust. Then he turned away from Victor to sit back down beside Press Jr., who once more was still as stone. Victor’s father kept his fists clenched like he thought there might yet be someone he could hit to change who had lived and who had died.

And now he had hit Kate. Victor’s own hands curled into fists. He squeezed them so tight that pain shot up past his elbows to his shoulders. Somewhere behind him in a voice that seemed far away, the young preacher was trying to pray over the sound of Victoria’s sobbing and Carla’s muttering and Brother Orrin’s labored breathing. Victor wondered if Nadine was listening to the man’s prayer. She had always been more devout than Victor. More sure of her faith. Sure the Lord would help her through whatever troubles came. Maybe she’d be sure he’d help her through this one too, but would he help Kate?

Kate. He had to go find her. Victor blew air out of his lungs and made his hands relax before he took hold of Victoria’s shoulders. “Hush, baby. You’re going to make yourself sick,” he said softly and pulled her close against him. Behind them the preacher stopped praying. Victor didn’t know if he said amen or not. Evangeline might know. She’d come back outside with the water. She stood there staring at Victor with a face almost as pale as the white rag Nadine wrung out to dab off her father’s face.

After a moment, Victor leaned down to look right into Victoria’s face. She was still crying. He took out his handkerchief and gently wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “Shh. It will be all right.”

She looked at him as if she wanted to believe him, as she hiccupped and swallowed her tears. He handed her the handkerchief so she could blow her nose. Once she was through mopping up, he asked, “Where’s Kate now?”

“I don’t know. She went into the woods. I yelled at her, but she just kept walking. She didn’t even look back.” New tears slid out of the corners of her eyes and made tracks down her cheeks.

He hugged her again as he looked over the top of his head toward where Nadine was ministering to her father. She didn’t look up. “You stay with your mother and Evangeline. I’ll go find her.”

“But what about Lorena?” Victoria asked.

“One daughter at a time,” he said. He turned her loose and walked across the yard and through the gate. He didn’t look back at Nadine. He wanted to, but he was afraid of what he might see on her face.

______

He found Kate on the bank of Graham’s pond, staring out at the water. She didn’t turn her head to look at him even after he sat down beside her.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Blood was seeping out of an ugly scrape on her forehead. Victoria hadn’t told them Kate was bleeding. He felt the hurt of it all the way down in his gut. “Did he do this to you?”

His fingers trembled as he dabbed at the wound with his handkerchief. Inside he was raging. He wanted to hit somebody in return. No, not just somebody. He wanted to smash his father into the ground and stomp on him.

“I told him to go away.” Kate’s voice wasn’t much above a whisper. “I thought God would help me. That he’d make him go away. I thought I had enough faith. That I could be Lorena’s angel like she kept saying. But I couldn’t.” Now her voice carried pain. “Evie told me. She said there was no way I could be an angel. She was right.”

Finally she turned to look at him, and the bruise in her eyes was far worse than the cut on her head. The scrape would heal quickly. Not so the bruises to her soul. He knew, for he carried like bruises inside himself. “You’re still Lorena’s angel,” he said.

“Lorena didn’t want to go with them. She cried.” She looked back out at the water. “An angel who can’t protect you is not much good.”

“You can go see her.”

“I told her that.” She kept her eyes on the water. “But Grandfather Merritt may not let me make it true.”

“We’ll make him.” Victor put his arm around her shoulder, but she stayed stiff under his touch.

“Nobody makes Grandfather Merritt do anything.”

He didn’t see any need in pushing useless words at her. Words she wouldn’t believe. Words even he couldn’t believe. He couldn’t make his father do anything. Even if he was able to smash him to the ground. He could only sit there beside his wounded daughter and share her pain. And try not to think about how much he could use a drink.

It was hot there on the pond bank. Not a breath of air came off the water to cool them. Now and again a ripple disturbed the surface of the water when a fish came up to check out a bug. Behind them the bushes rustled, but when Victor turned his head to look, he could see nothing there. Perhaps Fern on her way past them to her cedar palace. He was just as glad she didn’t show herself.

The minutes passed, didn’t get any easier. The sun began to head toward the western horizon. The pond bank got harder, but still they didn’t move, as if waiting for some miracle to spring out of the water and change everything.

At last Kate spoke. “Do you believe in God?” She kept her eyes on the pond.

Nobody had asked him that since he’d come home from France. Over there it was a question often voiced but not always answered. No sense risking a wrong answer when at any moment a man might be sent straight out into eternity to discover the true answer once and for all.

Victor stared out at the pond too and wished Nadine was there to answer her. Or Aunt Hattie. Neither of them had ever once doubted that the Lord walked beside them even through the worst of times. That’s when the good Lord carried you, Aunt Hattie always told him. They would know the words to say to keep the joy from leaking out of Kate’s heart.

At last he said, “I believe there is a God.” What kind of man would tell his young daughter any different? And it wasn’t a lie. He did believe there was a God. He just had never been sure he’d done anything to deserve his favor. But Kate surely did. Kate had always been a mirror of joy.

“I don’t.” Her voice was flat and devoid of feeling. “If there was a God, he wouldn’t have let them take Lorena when she didn’t want to go. He wouldn’t have let that happen.”

Her words stabbed through him.
If there was a God.
How could a loving God let bad things happen? But bad things did happen. Over and over. The war was proof enough of that.

The pond in front of him faded away, and he was back in the shattered forests of France, moving into the face of German fire, fearing each step could be his last, but going forward nevertheless. What other choice did he have? What other choice did any of them have? It was war. Shells blew men apart whether they carried belief of the Lord in their hearts or not.

Half the men in his company were dead, their bodies scattered through the woods before they advanced a half-mile. But their orders were plain. Overrun the German guns or die trying. They’d gathered to pray before they’d gone over the top of the trenches to begin their assault on the Germans. Perhaps the Germans were praying too. When darkness fell and the only light was the artillery shells exploding over their heads, they crouched down in holes dug out in the mud and tried to keep the cold rain off their heads with their blankets, too miserable to sleep. Victor’s teeth chattered so violently that he feared the Germans would hear and aim their artillery straight toward his muddy hole. A hole that would become his grave. He shut his eyes and tried to make his body believe he was back home in Maudie McElroy’s feather bed with Nadine cuddled close against him.

The next morning those still breathing ate their meager rations, climbed out of their holes, and forced their legs to carry them forward. The artillery had turned the trees into giant rooted toothpicks. Fragments of the branches rolled under their feet in the mud and made for hard going. Sometimes they stepped on something soft and dared not look too closely for fear of seeing whatever was left of one of the men they’d exchanged greetings with just the day before. And finally they took out the German guns.

Victor stumbled over the top of the earthen barrier and fell right on top of a dead German soldier. He stared up at Victor with lifeless eyes. He wore a German uniform, but he could have been Victor. He looked that much like him. He’d come halfway across the world to kill a man who looked just like him.

He scrambled away from the body. Then he slowly crept back for another look, sure he’d been imagining things. But the man had his eyes and nose and mouth. He stared at the dead German, mesmerized even as he heard his captain yelling at him. There was something unnerving staring down at what you would look like if you were dead. Victor’s captain yelled again. Victor reached down and yanked one of the buttons off the man’s uniform. He didn’t know why.

That afternoon he took shrapnel in his shoulder, and the war ended for him just as it had ended for his German twin earlier in the day. He’d made his slow way back through the lines to the medical tents and then sat half out of his head with pain and watched other men waiting for treatment die. The artillery went on booming. He wasn’t sure he could really hear it or if it was an echo in his head that would never go away. He thought he should say a prayer thanking the Lord for letting him live when so many others had died, but that seemed wrong. What about him was any worthier of continuing to breathe than any of the others? Than the German boy who had looked like him? Victor had put his hand in his pocket and felt the button. And he’d been glad for the pain in his shoulder.

He kept the button. It was in a cigar box under the Purple Heart he’d received for being wounded, under the letter from Nadine that said his mother had died of influenza, under the scrap of yellowed newsprint that reported the death of one Negro soldier from Rosey Corner, Bo Johnson. On the bottom rattling around with the button was an Indian-head penny Press Jr. had pitched to him the week before he died.

A box filled with death. It was stuck back in the corner of the wardrobe in the bedroom. He hadn’t pulled the button out of the box to look at it since he’d put it there. There was no need. He knew exactly what it looked like. He didn’t know why he’d kept it. There was so much he didn’t know. And now he didn’t know what to say to his daughter who was hurting.

“Come on, baby. Let’s go home. Your mama will be worried about you.” He stood up and held his hand down to her. She let him pull her to her feet. “Besides, it’s going on night. Old Ruby will be waiting at the barn door to be milked, and somebody has to feed the chickens before they go to roost.”

Too late Victor remembered that gathering the eggs had been Lorena’s job, as Kate got a stricken look on her face. “She won’t get to see the baby chicks hatch out,” Kate said. “The old red hen went to setting last week, and Mama put extra eggs under her. Mrs. Baxter doesn’t have hens.”

He didn’t try to tell her that Lorena could come see the little chicks. Kate was right about that. Who knew what the Baxters would let her do? And could be it might be for the best to make a clean break, if indeed the break had to be made.

Kate followed him obediently through the woods back to the house. It was the quietest he could ever remember her being. Usually she was pointing out the birds that flew up in front of them or badgering him for a story about the crow family in the back pasture. Or laughing when he ran his face into a spiderweb across the path. Quiet didn’t suit Kate.

Nadine was on the front porch watching for them when they came across the yard. Victoria and Evangeline stood a step behind her, frozen in the late afternoon light. His beautiful girls, blessings he didn’t deserve. Blessings he couldn’t protect from the hard knocks of life.

He thought of the cut on Kate’s forehead again and wanted to walk on past the house straight to his father’s house and knock him out of the chair he’d be sitting in on his back porch. Sitting there no doubt full of the righteous assurance that he’d done what needed to be done. For the good of them all.

Victor didn’t notice Aunt Hattie on the porch until she stood up from the swing and set it to shaking on its chains. She and the girls followed Nadine down off the porch but stood back as Nadine wrapped her arms around Kate.

“It’ll be all right, sweetheart. I don’t know how, but it will,” Nadine whispered into Kate’s hair.

“Of course it’ll be all right,” Aunt Hattie said behind them. “You’re still breathing. That little girl child is still breathing over at Ella Baxter’s house. Ain’t nobody died.”

Kate pulled away from her mother to look at Aunt Hattie. “It feels like somebody did.”

Aunt Hattie mashed her mouth together and shook her head. “That’s just because you ain’t never felt what it really feels like when somebody you love ain’t never comin’ home no more. And that’s good. I’m glad you ain’t had to feel that way yet in your young life.” The old woman stepped over closer to Kate and peered at the scrape on her head. “Appears you’s bleedin’, child.”

“Grandfather Merritt,” Kate started and then stopped. She stared down at the ground for a long moment before she went on. “I shouldn’t have talked back to Grandfather Merritt. He slapped me.”

Nadine pulled in a sharp breath and reached out to wrap her arms around Kate again, but Aunt Hattie put a hand out to stop her.

“Give the child time to tell us all of it.” Aunt Hattie peered into Kate’s face. “And that’s what made your head bleed?”

“It made me fall down, and my head hit the apple tree.”

Across from Victor, Nadine mashed her fist against her tightly closed lips. He could tell she was having to fight to hold back the words she wanted to say and that she was hurting just as much as Kate. Maybe more. He wanted to go to her, but he stayed rooted to his spot, afraid she’d push him away.

“All right then, now that we’ve heard what happened, we’d best flush it out good and bandage it up proper so’s you won’t have to live with the sight of an ugly scar each and every time you look in the mirror to comb out your hair.”

Aunt Hattie ordered Evangeline and Victoria to fetch the things she needed. Soap and water. A chair off the porch before the light faded too much to see what she was doing. Bandages and tape. Watkins’ brown salve.

Once everything was gathered, Nadine held Kate’s hair back while Aunt Hattie wrung out a cloth and began to bathe the cut. Evangeline shivered and looked away, but Victoria leaned in close to be sure to see it all. Her nose was still red from her earlier tears. Kate stared straight ahead without flinching, while Aunt Hattie probed the cut to be sure it was clean.

Victor watched a moment before he asked, “What are you doing here so late, Aunt Hattie? Did my father tell you to come?”

“No, I ain’t seen Mr. Preston for a spell now. The man must be washin’ his own shirts. I just got the feelin’ in my bones that my doctorin’ might be needed. Like as how the Lord maybe was tapping me on the shoulder, tellin’ me there was something to do. ’Course I didn’t know about this scrape.” Aunt Hattie concentrated on dabbing her rag on the cut a few times before she went on. “I was thinkin’ more on soul sickness.” She raised her eyes to peer across at Victor.

He met the little black woman’s eyes. She’d always known him too well. He said, “Kate is feeling low in the spirit.”

“Uh-huh, ’pears the soul sickness is goin’ round.” Aunt Hattie laid her rag down and picked up the salve.

“I prayed, Aunt Hattie,” Kate said softly. “And nobody listened.”

Aunt Hattie clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Now, you just wrong about that, child. Wrong as can be. The good Lord always listens. Always.” When Kate didn’t say anything more, she went on. “Your mama here can tell you that. Even in the worst times. Even when it seems like there ain’t no answers to be had. Ain’t that right, Nadine?”

“It is,” Nadine answered without a hint of doubt in her voice. “But there are times when you have to trust the Lord’s answer to come in his own perfect time.”

“Or the answer ain’t what you’s wantin’ to hear but you know the Lord is gonna get you through it anyhows. Like when my Bo died. When you feel like there ain’t nothin’ out there to trust, that’s when you’s got to trust the most. That’s how a body’s faith grows.” Aunt Hattie put her hand on Kate’s shoulder as if she could transfer some of her mighty faith straight to the hurting girl. “If ever’thing was honey and sweet berries all the time, there wouldn’t be no need for faith.”

“But what can I do, Aunt Hattie? I know Lorena’s crying. I can hear her in my heart.”

At Kate’s words, Victoria began sniffling, and Evangeline reached over to put her arm around her little sister. Nadine’s lips were mashed together in a fierce line that Victor knew meant she was fighting tears too.