Julia's Hope (5 page)

“I mean to check the timber,” Julia told me suddenly. “Time’s good for mushrooms, especially after a rain.”

I shook my head, looking down the weedy drive toward the road. “Don’t you think we ought to be getting on while the day’s young?”

Julia set the skillet down and rose to her feet. “For what, Sammy?”

I looked at her in surprise, not expecting her to speak the futility that was in my heart. I didn’t quite know how to take that. “I want to get to Dewey’s by dark,” I said.

“What would we accomplish going to Dewey’s now?”

I reached out my hand and wasn’t surprised that she didn’t take it. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “But we’ve got nowhere else. Not yet.”

Her eyes suddenly blazed with an excitement that shocked me. “We’ve got
here,
Sam!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got
now!
And we can make the most of it! Look at the kids! First we moved in with Evie from the bank, then a city shelter, then we dragged them across the countryside, laying them to bed wherever we could find a place! Don’t you think they could use a rest from all that?”

A weight, pressing on my chest, settled in deeper. “Of course they could. But we’re so close to Dewey. They’ll enjoy the visit. We can’t stay here . . .”

Finally she took my hand and squeezed it, but what she said to me was no comfort. “Why not?” she argued. “We can’t stay there either. Let’s give it a day or two. I’m not ready to leave, and neither are they.”

“You know we can’t stay, Julia. We’re breaking the law—”

“Sam, will you look at them?”

Her words were so quick and certain that I turned toward my children. Robert was up the tree now. And Sarah was meandering across the yard, picking violets.

“Sam, they don’t want to go nowhere,” Julia insisted. “They’d be happy on a farm just like this. Maybe we could find the owner—”

“You’re talking crazy! We’ve got nothing! What are you going to tell an owner? That he should give us the place because our kids like it? The world doesn’t work like that, Julia! He’d either laugh in your face or call the law on us.”

“It’s been sitting empty for awhile—”

“That doesn’t matter! You can’t just claim it! It’s not right, not even to stay another day.”

“It can’t hurt to inquire,” she persisted. “I know we’ve got no money. But we could offer to fix up the place. It’ll just go downhill that much faster with no one here.”

“Julia—”

“No, hear me out—”

“You’re not talking sense. There’s no way we could stay here!”

She looked up at me then and scarcely seemed to be the same woman who’d followed me across so many miles. “There’s no way I’m leaving without giving this a chance.”

Her words were like a slap in the face. She’d follow me no more. I’d failed her, and she wasn’t having any more of it. No way she was leaving? Did that mean I could go or stay, and it wouldn’t matter to her? That she’d rather have me gone than spend another day following me anywhere? I couldn’t bear to think what her answer might be.

“What’s wrong with askin’ around a little, Sam?” she asked, taking my other hand. “How can it hurt just to ask the owner? Maybe he’d like somebody out here.”

“Juli, honey, we’ve got no way of knowing where they are. And there wouldn’t anybody just give away their land if we did find them. We’ve got nothing to offer them for rent, nothing to offer them at all. It seems like a nice idea, but it’s useless. The longer we’re here, the harder it’ll be on the kids to leave.”

She looked up at me, and her pretty green eyes were deep and stormy. “They need to rest. And you know Dewey’s got problems of his own right now with his job gone. We’ve got nowhere else. Not a decent soul would blame us for staying a couple of days.”

“And then what?” I couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t let the matter drop. “What good will it do sitting on this farm, getting hope up in these kids?”

She sighed. “Hope’s all we’ve got. I’m not leaving, Sam, till I’ve had a chance to try.”

I’d never known her to be so stubborn, and it made me furious. But more than that, it made me scared. Like she was already miles away, and I hadn’t taken a single step. “Try what?” I countered. “Getting thrown off of here by the law, maybe? Seeing the hurt in Rob and Sarah when we’re made to leave? You can’t just have whatever you come upon! Lord knows it don’t happen that way!”

She shook her head. “We won’t harm anything. I’ll clean up, leave things better than we found it. All we need is a chance to talk to the owner. They’re not using it. Maybe we could find some terms.”

She walked away from me.

“Julia.”

She turned, only for a moment, with a look strong as stone about her. “I mean to go look for mushrooms now, Sam. You and the kids are welcome to join me. We’ll take an extra bowl, in case the Lord would bless us with something else while we’re over there. I don’t want to have to go anywhere else today. We need a rest. We can find the town tomorrow if it doesn’t rain.”

I stood for a moment, just looking at her. Had poverty made her irrational, or my failure? She’d decided to make her own way; that was plain. She didn’t trust me anymore. Had no use for me, more than likely.

“Robert John!” she hollered. “Sarah Jean!” She turned away from me to watch our daughter amble toward her, flowers in hand.

Robert descended effortlessly from his perch in the apple tree and came running. “Mom!” he yelled. “There’s tiny apples in that tree. Lots of them. They’ll grow, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Julia answered him quietly. “But it’ll take months.”

“I wish we could stay that long,” he said wistfully. “It’d be fine, picking ’em. I could take a bucket up with me and lower it down to you with a rope.”

He didn’t seem to notice me standing there. Right then, none of them did.

“We’ll have us an apple tree of our own one day,” Julia told him. “Lots of space and a real big garden.”

“Flowers too?” Sarah asked, holding up her haphazard bouquet.

“Sure enough. And those are lovely,” Julia answered. “But right now, I’m going to take a walk in that timber over there and see if I can find some of those little morel mushrooms Grandma fried up for us once. Do you remember, Robert?”

“I think I do,” he said hesitantly. “Are you sure we’ll find some?”

“Well, no. But we can try. I need your help. The more eyes the better, okay?” She handed Robert the saucepan, and I stood in silence, watching them walk away.

But little Sarah suddenly turned around to me with her eyes sparkling. She held out her crumpled violets. “These are for you, Daddy,” she said with a smile. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

SEVEN

Julia

Walking out to the timber was a chore for me, knowing how I’d upset Sam. He didn’t understand any better than I’d expected him to. He was thinking of the way things usually work, the way people do things when they’ve got options. But we had nothing but hope left, and hope doesn’t work like anything else in this world. Even Papa would have admitted to that. Oh, but he’d scoff at me now, worse than Sam, even. Papa had to have his world in order. He wouldn’t cotton to me taking up with a notion like this.

I kept my eyes on the ground around us, looking for the edible mushrooms. But I kept thinking of the things we could do here, even without money. I knew enough of doctoring herbs so that I could gather and sell some, if there was anyone in the town who would buy them. We could clean up the house and try to close off the broken windows as a courtesy. There was plenty of firewood to be had out here. We could replace what we’d used from the basement, even if we didn’t stay another night.

I took a deep breath and looked into the trees stretching to the east in front of me. Shagbark hickory and sugar maples stood amongst the oak and cottonwood. The rain had left everything with a deliciously fresh smell, and I could imagine hickory nut pancakes with maple syrup. Grandma used to say that if a person had fertile land, they could provide for themselves everything they needed. “After you got a few chickens,” she’d said, “you and the good Lord can grow all the rest.”

As a child, I had dreamed of testing the idea, finding a place and living off what I could find and what I could produce. Papa had laughed at me, of course, telling me I should marry an upstanding city boy, one who knew how to make a company pay him what he was worth. I’d done it too. Or I’d thought I had. And things had been good for awhile. Papa would have liked the house we had, the neighborhood, and Sam’s ambition for more. But that wasn’t meant to be. And now my old dream was back, so strong that I tingled inside.

Robins and a woodthrush sang over our heads, and the spring beauties at our feet seemed to dance to their tune. I hadn’t found a thing to put in my bowl, but the kids didn’t care about that right now; they were too busy exploring. I told them just to stay within sight of me. And if they saw any mushrooms, ask to make sure they were the right ones, even before they touched them, since some kinds are poisonous.

Sam was only about three yards away from me, but we didn’t speak. I’d really put a cloud between us this time, just when I’d thought I was ready to be closer again. We walked along in silence, searching the ground.

Ahead of us, Robert found the stream so suddenly he almost fell in. With pebbles on its bottom and moss along its banks, the stream was a pretty sight, just the sort of stream a homestead should have. The only thing missing was the blackberries I’d imagined as a girl, plump and purple and free for the picking. Instead, thistles and joe-pye trailed uphill on the other side of the water, with pickerel dotted here and there and a half dozen clumps of winter cress. I squatted down and began to break off leaves.

“Did you find a mushroom, Mama?” Sarah asked, running to my side.

“Not a one. But this is cress, honey. Pretty good stuff.”

“Are we gonna eat leaves for supper too?” Her bright eyes revealed a hint of dismay at our menu.

But Robert was suddenly shouting, and I saw him pointing toward a fallen log. “Is that the right kind, Mom?” he yelled. “Is it a good one?”

With one hand over the leaves in my bowl and Sarah at my side, I ran to him and confirmed that he had indeed found our first morel among the rotting debris of an old oak. He was pretty proud. “Keep looking in this area,” I told the children. “There’s liable to be more where you find one.”

I searched among muddy leaves and carpetweed to no avail. Robert circled me for awhile, and then we all walked downstream in our search, with Robert in the lead. He was soon shouting his complaint that he couldn’t get where he wanted to go for the bramble bushes across his way.

I turned my eyes to where he stood and saw the band of thorny green and white stretched out to where the gurgling water made a sudden turn. I had to take a deep breath. So many bushes, dotting the woods to the south and east of us now. I could scarcely believe it. I took Sarah’s hand and walked closer, wanting to be sure. Delicate white flowers were sprinkled over every branch like a promise. Some of the petals had dropped away to reveal tiny berries, still green as grass and hard as stone. Blackberries.

Sarah squeezed my hand, as if she could sense the impact the sight had on me. The sight of more blackberries than I could possibly count. Ripe in a couple of months or so. A treasure. A temptation. I wanted to throw down my bowl and run. It was too good here, and too stupid of me to think of staying. Someone else’s land! We were stealing! I turned around in the direction of the farmhouse, not wanting Sarah to see the tears in my eyes.

“What’s the matter, Juli?” Sam was behind me, his gray-blue eyes filled with cares.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t be upset, not when they were all looking at me and waiting for the good I was always talking about. And I knew I had to show them. I had to make them see that we would make it, whether here or somewhere else, and that everything around us was a gift from God, no matter where we were standing.

Sam just stared at me, waiting for me to answer, but I had nothing to say yet. Sarah broke our silence with an excited squeal and a tug on my arm.

“Look, Mom! Right by your foot! You almost stepped on it!”

Another beautiful morel mushroom, much bigger than the first. I leaned to pick it up, and Sam reached for my hand. “We could go into town today,” he said. “Maybe there’s a boardinghouse in town, if you just need to stop for awhile. I could ask for work—”

“Mama,” Sarah interrupted. “Do these mushyrooms taste good as popcorn?”

I looked up at Sam and then tried my best to smile for Sarah. “
I
think so, sweetie. They’re one of my favorites.” As I spoke, I saw another spongy brown mushroom, as big as Sarah’s hand, not ten feet away.

“There might be someone willing to take us in for a few nights without money,” Sam continued, “if we do some work for them. It’s worth asking about. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws that way.”

I turned away from him and picked our third mushroom, and two more beside it. But they looked pretty meager in the bottom of my bowl with the handful of cress leaves. Sam wasn’t a hunter; he’d never been hunting in his life. And that was too bad, I found myself thinking. A rabbit would make a nice dinner for the kids, who were sure to be hungry even before noon today, considering our breakfast.

“Juli.”

I glanced his way, at the same time noticing the sudden flutter of my apron. The wind was picking up.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Look at the sky,” I told him. “We’re in for more rain.”

Clouds were moving in like a great gray blanket covering up the blue.
Lord, don’t let it rain yet,
I prayed.
Not till I
have a decent meal in my bowl! Then it can pour till the cows
come home.

We searched for more mushrooms till the sprinkles hit our backs. We had just started back toward the house when I spotted a couple of little wild rose bushes, just like we had on Grandpa’s farm. I had the kids help me strip off the old hips and some buds, being as careful as we could for thorns.

“This is fun,” Sarah told me, not minding the rain at all.

“I wish we could live on a farm,” Robert added. “We could run around outside all the time.”