Angel Sister (2 page)

______

Nadine Merritt heard her husband step up on the porch. She’d been staring into the dark waiting for that sound for hours. One minute she would send up impassioned prayers that he’d make it home safely, and the next she would berate herself for not turning over, going to sleep, and leaving him to his just deserts. Victor was a grown man. He made his own choices. She couldn’t make them for him. The trouble was, he wasn’t the only one who had to live with the choices he made. They all did. Not just Nadine, but the girls too.

Drinking took money, and heaven only knew, there was little of that in their pockets right now. In anybody’s pockets, for that matter. The whole country was deep in depression. President Roosevelt had started some work programs, but plenty of people were still hungry. Some of them had moved past being merely hungry to starving out west where the dust storms had blown away even the chance of growing something to eat. At least here in Rosey Corner, Kentucky, anybody with a patch of ground could grow a few vegetables to keep food on the table. Nadine had just spent the whole day canning beans. Stifling heat from the long hours of boiling the jars lingered in the house.

Of course Father Merritt wouldn’t let them go hungry. He ran a tab for them and just about everybody else in Rosey Corner at his store. People thought Preston Merritt was a hard man, and Nadine wouldn’t argue that he wasn’t, but he didn’t hold back beans or cornmeal from anybody. And he didn’t hold back anything from Victor’s family. At the same time he didn’t make it easy when Nadine needed a sack of sugar or flour. His eyes would squint and his mouth would twist sideways as he pulled out his ledger book, licked the tip of his pencil lead, and added the price of whatever she laid on the counter to what they already owed.

Then he’d look up at her through his bushy gray eyebrows and say, “Victor should have never let his uncle Jonas talk him into taking over that blacksmith shop. I told the boy shoeing horses wasn’t going to make him any money. People need gasoline now, not horseshoes. That’s how come I put in that gas pump out front. A man has to keep up with the times. But Victor never did have much head for making sensible choices, now did he?” Sometimes he said the words out loud and sometimes she just heard him thinking them. And she knew she was one of those choices that he was talking about.

There was another store in Rosey Corner. Smaller, but with most grocery stock a person might need. But there was no way she could go buy anything from Bill Baxter instead of going to Father Merritt’s store. So she had stopped going to the store at all. Evangeline and Kate fetched whatever she needed. Nadine had pretty much stopped going anywhere except to church.

She might have stopped that too if her father hadn’t been the preacher. She wouldn’t have stopped believing in the Lord. She would have just stopped going to sit on the church pew and knowing people were whispering about her and Victor. Worse, sometimes her father preached straight at her. As if she could go back in time and break that first bottle Victor had picked up. Over in France.

At least that’s where Aunt Hattie said he’d learned to drink. France. But Nadine wasn’t so sure about that. What about Victor’s sister? Gertie was all the time swallowing handfuls of aspirin to get through the day. She’d never been in France.

Out in the living room Victor stumbled over the rocking chair and muttered something under his breath. Nadine shut her eyes and whispered the beginning of a prayer. “Dear Lord.” Then the boozy smell wafted back to her and her stomach turned over. She put her hand over her nose. Through the door she saw the flicker of an oil lamp and heard Kate talking to Victor.

“It’s all right, Daddy. Come on over to the couch and I’ll help you take your shoes off.” Kate’s voice was low, not much more than a whisper, but Nadine heard every word.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, my Kate. I was trying to be extra quiet. I really was.” Victor sounded like he might cry.

“I know, Dad.”

“I didn’t aim to stay out so late, but the boys wanted me to have a little drink with them. I couldn’t turn down the boys.”

The boys? Who were the boys who were more important than his family? Nadine wanted to scream out at him. But it never did any good to yell at him when he was drunk. He just cried, and then she cried and the girls cried. All but Kate. She hadn’t cried over a half-dozen times since she was out of diapers. So it was better to let Kate get him down on the couch. Nadine slid out of bed and crept over to the open window. She needed more air.

“I turn down the boys all the time,” Kate was telling Victor.

“What boys?” For a minute Victor sounded almost sober.

“All the ones who want me to marry them, of course.” Nadine could hear the smile in Kate’s voice.

“You’re joshing me, aren’t you, Kate? You’re way too young to be thinking about marrying. What are you now? Twelve?”

“Fourteen, Daddy. And I know girls who got married at fourteen.”

“Big mistake.” The couch springs creaked under his weight.

Kate laughed softly. “And not one I’m going to make. Unless I kiss a frog and he turns into a handsome prince.”

“You been kissing frogs?” Victor asked her.

“At least one a day if I can catch them. You never know where that handsome prince might turn up. But alas, all I’ve gotten so far are warts.”

Victor laughed. “Oh, my Katherine. You’re one for the books. Maybe someday I’ll write a story about you. I used to tell my mother stories, you know. She said I was going to grow up and be a famous writer.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“She said it. Not me.”

“You’re always reading. You and Mama both.”

“Your sainted mama.” The tears were back in Victor’s voice now. “Oh, to be the man she deserves. But me, I’m lower than the lowest worm.”

Again it was all Nadine could do not to shout out at him that he was the man she deserved and wanted. But not drunk. Never drunk. Nadine leaned closer to the window and pulled in a deep breath. If only she could go back to those early days when they sat together in the evening and read to one another. What had happened?

“Don’t you start caterwauling on me,” Kate said firmly. Nadine heard her set Victor’s shoes down on the floor beside the couch. “Now, not another word. Go to sleep. You have to get up and make horseshoes tomorrow.”

“Horses need shoes. Clip clop. Clip clop down the road.” The tears were gone again as Victor sang the words of a song he’d made up for Victoria when she was a baby. She had giggled every time he said clip clop and bounced her up and down on his knees. “I like horses, Kate. Do you like horses, Kate?”

“Everybody likes horses,” Kate said.

“I wish I had one. I wish you had one. Haven’t you always wanted a horse?”

“I don’t need a horse. I’ve got rollerskates. Goodnight, Daddy.”

“Rollerskates. Do you think I could make rollerskates?”

“I guess you could try. Now hush and go to sleep. It will be morning soon. And no bad dreams. Not one. Do you hear me?”

“Yes sir, Sergeant Kate. Whatever you say, Sergeant Sir. I will not sing. I will not cry. I will not make any noise at all till the morning sun comes up in the sky.” Victor laughed a little. “A poet I am. A poet you will see. Call me Willy and Willy I will be.”

“I don’t want a daddy named Willy. I like Victor,” Kate said.

“Nay, nay. Willy I say. A new day. A new way.”

“All right, Daddy. Be Willy if you want, but that’s enough poetry. You promised not to make any noise till morning. So keep your promise and go to sleep.” Kate picked up the lamp and moved away from the couch. Nadine saw the shadows dancing on the wall above her head.

“Go to sleep. Not a peep. Promises keep.”

“Daddy.” Kate tried to sound stern, but Nadine could hear a giggle in her voice.

“Accidental poetry, my Kate. A danger to the liter-ate.” He stretched out the last word to make it rhyme with Kate.

Kate laughed, and even Nadine staring out her bedroom window into the dark night couldn’t keep her lips from curling up. Victor had always been able to make her smile. Even at the worst of times. He’d left her smiling when he climbed aboard the train to be shipped out to France. He’d made her smile after her father had refused to perform their wedding ceremony. He’d kept her smiling through the long months of carrying Evangeline with the memory of her mother dying in childbirth stalking her every moment.

And now, even now with her heart breaking because he chose the bottle over her, he could still make her smile. At least for a fleeting moment. In the living room, Victor was snoring already. Over the snores, Nadine heard Kate’s bed creak as she settled back beside Evangeline.

Nadine shut her eyes and whispered softly, “May the Lord rock you in his arms and give you sleep so peaceful.” She’d been whispering that same prayer over her girls ever since they were newborn babies. In the words, she heard the echo of her mother’s whispered words over her from years before.

What mother didn’t want the Lord’s protection over her children? To shield them from hurt and bad things. And yet she hid in her bedroom and offered Kate no help.
Forgive me, Kate.

She tiptoed to her bedroom door to peer over toward the girls’ bedroom. She needed to see with her own eyes that Kate had turned out the oil lamp so there would be no danger of it getting knocked over in the night and catching the curtains or bedclothes on fire.

Nadine feared fires. Had seen houses engulfed in flames. Had heard people speak of parents who didn’t wake in time to reach their children before the fire blocked their way. So many reasons to fear. Snakes. Storms. Childbirth. Death. The wrath of God. Victor told her it wasn’t the Lord’s wrath she feared, but instead the wrath of her father. As a child, Nadine had thought they were one and the same.

She wanted to slip over to the other bedroom and stand over her sleeping children. She wanted to tuck the covers up under Victoria’s chin, touch Evangeline’s beautiful red hair, and lay her hand on Kate’s warm cheek. She wanted to stand over Victor and stroke his head and be glad he was home even with the smell of alcohol on him. But instead she turned back into her room.

Nadine didn’t bother lying back down. Even if her mind wasn’t swirling with memories, she wouldn’t be able to sleep through Victor’s snoring. She’d been a light sleeper since the age of twelve, when her mother had died bringing Essie into the world. Her father had been unable to even look upon the baby, so Nadine had taken over her care. For two weeks she fought for the life of her tiny little sister, but she lost the battle. The baby joined her mother in heaven. People said it was for the best.

Now Nadine quietly moved a straight chair over to the window. She sat down and rested her head on the windowsill. Out in the woods beyond the creek, a whippoorwill called. And she remembered falling in love.

______

The first time Nadine really saw Victor, he was reading from
Evangeline
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was a Wednesday in November, with a cold rain hitting the classroom windows as though the drops might be turning to ice. They had no more than sat down at their desks in English class when Miss Opal jumped up on the small platform she kept in front of the chalkboard and shouted, “Poetry day!”

Miss Opal needed the platform because she was shorter than any of her students, but when it came to poetry, every inch of her petite body seemed to vibrate and expand with enthusiasm.

“Poetry is a gift from the good Lord, and it is my calling to see that your young minds are opened to the joys of that wonderful gift,” she was fond of saying. Then she would pop her ruler sharply on her desk as she ordered, “So get cracking.”

While some of her classmates groaned at the mention of any poem, Nadine loved poetry. At times she hugged the very volumes of verse tight against her chest in an attempt to absorb the words that so stirred her heart while her favorite line from John Keats’s
Endymion
sang through her head.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

That was what Victor’s reading of Longfellow’s
Evangeline
was that day. A thing of beauty. So beautiful that Miss Opal didn’t stop him to allow anyone else a turn. She just settled into his empty desk and let him keep reading about Evangeline searching for her lost love. Nadine couldn’t take her eyes off Victor. It was as if she had never before seen him, although that, of course, wasn’t even close to the truth. She had seen Victor. Hundreds of times.

They had both been born in Rosey Corner, had lived there all their lives. They learned their 3 Rs together as children in the same schoolhouse. On top of all that, Victor had been waiting on people at his father’s grocery since he was tall enough to see over the counter, and Nadine was the preacher’s daughter. Everybody knew the Reverend Reece. He’d been telling people at the Rosey Corner Baptist Church how the Lord wanted them to live since before Nadine was born.

Victor and his family didn’t attend her father’s church. They went to the Rosey Corner Christian Church across the road, but the churches were always having this or that special service together. Nadine had lived her whole life right alongside Victor Merritt.

But until that day, she had never paid him much attention. Never gave any boy much more than a passing glance, even though she was seventeen. She had her fill of boys at home with her older brother, Orrin Jr., and her little brother, James Robert. She spent half her time nagging after them to chop the wood the right length for the cookstove, to wash their bodies, to not ruin their good clothes, to leave snakes or various other wild creatures outside the house, to go to school, on and on. She had no desire to invite another male person into her life.

Not that a few of the boys her age hadn’t done all they could to catch her eye. This or that boy was always trying some foolish stunt to get her to notice him, and Jackson Perry followed her around like a puppy dog, telling her how pretty she was. She didn’t need him to tell her. She had a mirror. She could see that her features lined up nicely and her eyes were an exceptional shade of blue. When she tied her honey brown hair back with a ribbon at the nape of her neck, it curled softly down her back.

Her father lectured her on the dangers of vanity if he caught her looking in a mirror, but he had little reason to worry. She only used the mirror to be sure her face was clean and her hair was neat. If she had extra time after she finished her chores, she certainly didn’t waste it staring in a mirror. Not with all the wonderful stories out there waiting to be read.

Another danger, her father warned. Novels encouraged impure thoughts. She should concentrate on the truths in the Bible. She had read the Bible. All the way through once, by reading a couple of chapters every day the year she was sixteen, but her heart ran after the romantic stories and poems her teachers let her carry home from school. Books she wrapped in her bloomers and stuck in the back of her underwear drawer, away from her father’s eyes.

She hated the darkest months of winter when her chores took all the daylight hours after school. On those winter evenings, she had no choice but to sit beside her father by the fire or the lamp while he studied his sermons. There in his shadow she could only read her textbooks or Sunday school lessons. Her father said they wouldn’t be good stewards of the money the Lord had given them if they wasted it on extra oil for a lamp they didn’t need to light. Now and again she smuggled the end of a nearly burnt-down candle into her bedroom. The stories she read by those candles—lit after her father was asleep—were the most exciting of all. She felt blessed when she reached the last line of the story before the candle guttered out.

But reading about romance and love didn’t mean she had any plans to seek romance for herself. Certainly not with any of the boys who had presented themselves to her as candidates. And definitely not Jackson Perry, who sometimes came to her house to pitch small rocks at the kitchen roof in a vain attempt to get her to come out and talk to him. He didn’t have the nerve to walk up on her front porch and knock on the door. None of the boys did. Not and face the possible ire of the Reverend Reece.

There were times when Nadine thought she might marry the first boy with nerve enough to knock on her front door. Sort of the way fairy-tale princesses married the suitor who accomplished some incredibly courageous feat. As long as it wasn’t Jackson Perry. Nothing could make her look upon Jackson Perry with favor. Something she wished she had told him straight out when he first started following her around. But she hadn’t, and one thing had led to another until the church people decided they were a couple just because where they saw Nadine they saw Jackson.

One of the church’s busybodies had even brought the courtship that was a figment of Jackson’s and the church ladies’ imaginations to her father’s attention last August, after a revival service. All the way across the field back to their house, her father had preached at her until she almost wished she were in love with Jackson Perry so she could elope with him.

Her father had a strong voice, given to him by the Lord when he surrendered to preach at the age of eighteen, and as they walked through the night, Nadine imagined every ear in Rosey Corner tuning in to his words. “I trust you and Jackson Perry have not done anything to bring shame upon your family and your Lord.”

Nadine was glad for the velvety darkness of the summer night as she answered, “I have absolutely no interest in Jackson Perry, Father.”

“That’s not what Mrs. Miller tells me.”

“And who should know the truth of this better? Mrs. Miller or me?”

“Don’t be impertinent,” her father said sternly. “Mrs. Miller is a fine woman and a good worker in the church.”

“Yes sir,” Nadine said as she steeled herself to listen silently to whatever he had to say about her and Jackson Perry. She had never been able to win any kind of dispute with her father. He owned the truth, pure and simple.

“I’m not saying Jackson isn’t a fine young man. He is. He’s grown up in the church. I baptized him when he was twelve, and as far as I know he’s never fallen away from his beliefs. He works hard helping his father on their farm. The oldest of ten children. Respectful to his mother.”

Nadine began to worry as the praises went on that her father was going to get in line with all the church ladies and decide Jackson was the perfect match for her. She spoke up. “I’m not ready to entertain suitors. Any suitors.”

“What are you now? Sixteen?” He slowed his walk and turned his head to stare at her.

“I turned seventeen in June,” Nadine said quietly. “But I have another year of school.”

“There are those who think girls have little need for higher learning.” He started walking faster again, and Nadine hurried to keep up.

“Thank goodness you don’t think that way,” Nadine said, praying if she said it quickly enough it would be true. She could not imagine life without school and books. It would just be one endless day of chores after another. That’s how she thought life would be with Jackson Perry, who had quit school after the sixth grade and had not picked up a book other than the Bible since. Or so he claimed. Somewhat proudly.

Her father didn’t say anything for so long that Nadine’s heart started pounding inside her chest. She was sure he was going to say getting her to the high school in Edgeville five miles away would prove to be too much hassle. The last year she’d ridden with Louis Prentice, who took a whole buggy full of girls in to school with him every morning. The other girls paid him a dollar a month, but Louis, who went to their church, didn’t charge Nadine. Louis had graduated last spring and was heading to Lexington to study law at Transylvania College. Nadine had found another ride. One of the girls’ fathers was going to let her drive a buggy to school, but that girl didn’t go to their church and she might expect to be paid. Nadine’s father didn’t part with dollars very easily even when he had them in his pocket.

They reached their yard and her father lifted the latch that held the gate, still silent and deep in thought. Nadine normally wouldn’t have worried one whit about that. Her father often sank into deep silences as he pondered this or that truth from the Bible, but she feared he wasn’t pondering Bible truths now. She feared he was pondering her last year of school. With the silence pounding like a pulse against her ears, she said, “It is all right if I ride with Becky to school next month?”

“What’s that?” Her father turned toward her as if surprised she was still walking beside him.

“School,” Nadine repeated. “I’m supposed to ride with Becky next month.”

“Yes, yes. That was all arranged weeks ago.” His voice sounded impatient. He looked up and around as though surprised to find himself in his own yard. “Where are your brothers?”

“James Robert is on the steps. I told him he could run ahead. Orrin Jr. was planning to walk Arabelle home before he came in.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Did your brother tell you he has asked Arabelle’s father for her hand in marriage?”

“He said he was going to.” Nadine looked over at her father, but could not see his face in the dark. His voice did not sound as if he thought it good news.

“They want me to marry them next month. Orrin Jr. says he sees no need to wait since her father has agreed to let them live in a small house on his farm. The boy will probably make me a grandfather before summer comes again.”

Her father sighed as he pushed open their door and lit the lamp they always left on the table by the door. After he adjusted the wick and replaced the chimney, he turned to stare at Nadine in the soft light of the lamp. After a moment he said, “‘And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply. And it was so.’”

“Arabelle does love children,” Nadine said.

“I wasn’t thinking of Arabelle.” Her father’s eyes narrowed on her. “Or Orrin Jr., but you.”

“Don’t look so concerned, Father. I’m not going anywhere except to school. I’ll be here to fix your supper and take care of James Robert.”

“But for how long? You do lust after your romantic stories.”

Nadine dropped her eyes down to the floor as she said, “Everyone needs a bit of entertainment, Father. Some joy in one’s life.” She peeked back up at his face to see if she’d said too much.

“I get my joy from the Word of the Lord.” His eyebrows almost met over his dark brown eyes. “‘I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.’ That’s where we find the proper joy.”

“Yes, Father.” Nadine set her Bible down on the table and carefully lifted the lamp chimney to light a candle as she tried to waylay his lecture on the evils of modern literature. “Would you like some tea and perhaps a piece of the apple pie Mrs. Grant made for us?”

“I would.” James Robert made a beeline for the kitchen. At thirteen James Robert was already six inches taller than Nadine and always ready to eat.

Over the following months, Nadine had often caught her father studying her with a frown settling between his eyes, but he did not mention Jackson Perry to her again. For that she was grateful, even as she took more care to hide her books from his eyes. She could not stop reading, but she didn’t want to have to defy his orders.

Then Miss Opal had poetry day, and the dreary November day melted away as Nadine saw Victor with more than her eyes as he made the words of
Evangeline
come alive. Nadine knew the story. Had read it herself from beginning to end more than once. Had cried over the love lost through no fault of Evangeline. Tears swelled up in her eyes as Victor read the end of the poem. Love found and lost again.

Miss Opal was dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, but Nadine hardly noticed. Nor did Victor, as he looked up from reading the last line. Whether it was by accident or intent, his eyes settled on Nadine. She didn’t know if he was seeing her for the first time or not, but she did know he was seeing her. All noise in the room faded away, and the air around her held the intense clarity of a moment in time that ever after changes one’s life. She looked back at him and knew Victor Merritt was the man she was going to marry.