Rachel's Prayer (28 page)

I’d never heard him say anything like that before, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Pa . . . there’s more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“Like lovin’ you. And knowin’ that all the rest love you too. Wouldn’t matter if we was all rich as Solomon on our own. You’re still our pa. And we need you. ’Specially now.”

“You’re somethin’, Franky. You don’t never let go.”

“I can’t. Don’t you understand?”

He turned and looked at me. For the first time I saw the tears in his eyes. “I can’t handle this. Everybody’s gonna be cryin’ an’ all. I can’t do it.”

I nodded just a little. “I feel the same way. But we gotta do it. There ain’t no choice in the matter. Them younger ones—they ain’t got nobody else.”

“They got you. An’ the Worthams.”

“That ain’t the same as their pa.”

His shoulders kind of shook, and I might have hugged him, but I didn’t know what he’d do. “I ain’t no kinda pa,” he said. “You know that by now.”

“You’ve tried hard,” I told him. “Ten whole years since we lost Mama, and most a’ the times’s been good.”

He smiled, just a little, but even that was still sad. “Hard to picture you sayin’ that, boy. I’m well knowin’ I ain’t give you the best a’ times.”

“It’s all right, Pa. I’m just wantin’ you to do the best you can now.”

He sighed. “That’s just it. I ain’t got no best. Not for times like this.” He started walking.

I followed him. Pa was tall. He was strong and could move pretty fast if he wanted to, but I did my best at keepin’ up. “Where you goin’?” I called out.

“You aim to follow me all the way to town?” he shouted back. “It’s durn cold out here. Purt’ near eight miles too.”

“I reckon I can make it if I have to,” I answered him. He shook his head. “Then what? You gonna try a’ drink or two?”

“No, Pa.”

“You ain’t gonna stop me.”

“I would if I could. If I can’t, I’ll just wait. You gotta stop sometime. Then I’ll get you home.”

He kept right on going, but his voice was different, low and broken, like he was havin’ trouble saying any-thin’ more. “Willy told me once that you was lily-livered ’cause you wouldn’t fight at them boys that teased you. I reckon he was wrong.”

“Pa. It’s all right to be hurtin’. We’re all gonna be hurtin’.”

He shook his head at me again. “You know I can’t take you them places I been, don’t you, Frank? Last night with Ben was bad enough. That’s why you’re followin’ me, ain’t it? You don’t belong there. You know I ain’t gonna be able to do it.”

“I’m hopin’ you change your mind,” I agreed. “I just wanna get us back inside. You ain’t had no lunch. The kids’ll be home after a while.”

“I can’t eat, Franky. Not right now.” He stopped.

“I can’t either,” I said gently. “And it’s all right. Somehow or ’nother, God’ll help us, and it’ll be all right.”

“You really believe that?”

I took a deep breath. “Right now, Pa, it’s hard. But I’m gonna believe it anyhow.”

He turned and looked at me. I could see something workin’ in him, and I wished he’d just come out and say whatever it was, but he almost turned away. “Why don’t you go back inside?”

“Not without you.”

He sighed. Real deep. “Frank. I just need to be alone. I just need to walk a while. I can’t go to town. I see that, all right? I just wanna go by your mama’s grave a while an’ talk to her. I think . . . I wanna tell her to be watchin’ out for them boys—for Joe, an’ maybe even Willy if worse comes to worse. I need some time. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I understand that real well. I’ll come with you.”

His eyes turned angry again. “Franklin Drew—”

“I tol’ you I aim to follow you.” I hoped he could understand. I couldn’t let him go alone, not even to Mama’s grave, because I didn’t know what he’d do after that.

“Weasly cuss.”

“I love you, Pa.”

“You done said that already.”

“It’s important. I want you to know. We’re all gonna need each other. We’re gonna need a lotta love gettin’ through this.”

He started off again, his feet crunchin’ into the frozen, icy grass. We got to the timber, and he didn’t stop.

It was hard goin’. I couldn’t maneuver so good as him on account of my knee that don’t bend just right. But I kept at it, hoping he’d quit and go home. I didn’t know if he was really headin’ for Mama’s grave, or hopin’ to shake me and take off for Fraley’s or someplace else. I didn’t try to talk to him. He hadn’t wanted to listen. I just kept crunchin’ through the frozen timber after him, glad the snow had melted before it got so cold again. He was gettin’ further ahead. But I wouldn’t lose him. He could get a way off further than that, an’ I’d still see him and hear him.

Lord, if we ain’t home by the time the rest of ’em are, give Bert and everybody peace
.
They know Pa and they know me. They know I wouldn’t take off with no purpose. Help ’em understand that I’ll be back soon enough. An’ I’ll be bringin’ Pa with me.

For a minute I wondered if I wasn’t being too hardheaded. Maybe I oughta just let him go. But my heart was too heavy to trust him. And I knew there was time before anybody got home. Maybe I could still persuade him. Maybe the good Lord’d touch his heart.

Tears filled my eyes as I made myself keep going. I thought about Robert being shot so bad, and I wondered if Mr. Wortham had found out anythin’ more about Willy. Surely they’d been together. I hoped so, because that would have been comfort, not to be alone. I wished there’d been somebody there with Joe too.

I knew Pa was hurtin’. He couldn’t help that. Even if we’d known this might happen, it was still about the awfulest thing I could imagine. I thought of Job and what he’d said after everythin’ that happened to him. “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Those were strong words. Job had lost a lot. All his kids. And the Bible says he sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. I knew that Pa had started to charge God foolishly, when he’d said the Lord was punishin’ him, that it was his doing, as if God had caused Joe’s death on purpose. I knew that was wrong. It had to be wrong. And yet Job said, “The Lord hath taken away.” I had a hard time puttin’ all that together in my mind.

Pa slowed down. He knew I was still behind him. I knew that, even though he didn’t look back. We were goin’ in the direction of Mama’s grave, and I was glad. Maybe Pa needed that. Maybe he was right in what he said.
Lord, be with him. Give him peace.

I watched him slow some more through the trees. We weren’t far off now. I thought of Joe in these woods, fishing in the pond or searchin’ up crawdads ’tween there and the creek. Pa almost looked like Joe from the back. They were both tall and lanky, taller than me. With brown shaggy hair and shoulders that seemed too broad to fit the rest of ’em, they was built just alike. It’d never been hard to tell whose boy Joe was.

I sighed. It seemed like there must have been some kind of mistake. How could he be dead? Maybe he was still missing, and there’d been some kind of mix-up somehow. He was a good soldier. Smart and strong. With so much ahead of him. He was a good brother too. Quick to take care of us that was younger.

Maybe I had some of the same angry in me as Pa had. I could feel it, down inside. I wasn’t sure who I could be angry at. But it helped me understand Pa a little, at least right now. Who could blame him how he must feel? If he seemed a little hateful, how I could fault him, so long as he didn’t do nothin’ hurtful? Surely he wouldn’t.

Maybe he’d need someone when he got done talkin’ at Mama’s grave. Maybe I oughta give him a little time, like he said, so he could cry where no one could see him. Then when the cryin’ was done, maybe he’d be ready to not be alone.

The timber felt lonely, frigid, with slick patches of ice where puddles had gone solid after a freezing rain a couple of days ago. The wind was stirring the barren treetops, and here and there a tiny piece of ice would cascade down and hit the ground with a soft little plink. We were almost to Mama’s grave, where the buttercups and the daffodils and all the other flowers we’d planted so long ago bloomed so pretty every spring. But there was nothing bloomin’ now. The woods seemed as lifeless as Mama’s weathered stone.

I saw Pa up ahead. He just sunk to the ground in sight of Mama’s grave. I stopped, not wantin’ to bust in on something I figured he needed. I almost turned back so I could leave him truly alone for a minute like he wanted. I wished I could. I wished I could know that he wouldn’t take his chance to get shuck of me in the woods. It didn’t seem like respect to be followin’ him when he didn’t want it, but I could picture Emmie cryin’ in my mind. I could picture Bert’s sad face, and I knew how it had upset them last night when he disappeared.

This time was worse. This was the worst thing since Mama’s passing, and we wouldn’t have our pa with us today if Mr. Wortham hadn’t found him just in time when he’d took off then. It was a chance I just couldn’t take.

Seeing him all humped over made me hurt inside. I wished I could go and put my arm around him, but I thought sure he’d push me away. At least he looked to be prayin’, and I figured that was the thing he needed most.

I sighed deep, thinking of our growing-up years, the bad times and good times jumblin’ around together in my mind. I thought of Pa sick the first Christmas morning after Mama died, hungover from drinking the night before. He was a mess, weak as he’d ever been. But before the winter was out, he’d recovered himself enough to be some help to us, and he’d saved Mr. Wortham out of the pond ice and made himself a hero.

Surely it could work that way again. He’d recover himself. Somehow. We all would.

I sighed. Pa hadn’t moved. When he got ready to, I’d go over to him. I’d offer my shoulder, or anything at all I could do to be some help. I wondered if he was thinking on Joe. It was hard not to. I could picture him in the fields with his hair all sweaty, or strugglin’ over his books, ’cause even though he wasn’t a very good student, it’d been important to him. Willy used to throw me in the pond, clothes and all, and Joe’d be the only one to help fish me out and scold him for it. Joe was always kind. He’d helped Lizbeth with the little ones when she was havin’ to try an’ take Mama’s place.

With a sigh, I tried to push my mind off those things ’cause I knew I’d end up cryin’ if I didn’t.

God, I don’t understand it. This world don’t make any sense right now. Joe oughta be right here fellin’ trees for firewood, or seekin’ after a girlfriend, and instead he’s just gone, before ever gettin’ a chance to see what the rest of life might have been like.

I felt bad thinkin’ a prayer like that. Awful feelings had been tryin’ to drag my mind down for months, and even though I guess I’d known right about Joe, I still didn’t want to give in to the sad thoughts. I had to be able to be strong and keep up with everythin’ that was gonna need done, no matter what my feelings. Because the world didn’t just stop, much as it seemed like maybe it should.

All of a sudden a line jumped to my memory from that Hamlet book Mrs. Wortham had read: “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.”

I looked over to Pa and hoped he wouldn’t agree with words like that. It didn’t seem like the right attitude to take. But the world made no sense anymore. Maybe it was worth nothin’ at all, at least in the eternal scheme of things. And that would make Joe the blessed one, to be gone from here, from an unprofitable, stale, and weary world, and into a better one.

But it’d be foolishness to confuse Shakespeare with Scripture, and if I needed to train my thoughts on any-thin’ right now to provide any comfort, any answers, it had better be the Word of God.
In this world is tribulation,
I told myself immediately.
But the trials of our faith are more precious than gold.

There was reason to this world. There was purpose. Because God didn’t create in vain. He gives us blessings, he allows us trials, so we can grow and learn and bless somebody else. God’s the God who gives rest to the heavy-laden and comforts those who mourn. I thought of some of the words that had caused Jesus trouble when he read them in the synagogue, and words that came right after them in the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted . . . to comfort all that mourn . . . to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness . . .”

That’s what we need, God,
I prayed.
Beauty in this situation somehow. Oil of joy for the mourning. A garment of praise for this heaviness I feel. Help us.

I sat on a stump, wishing I knew better what to do. I didn’t want to make Pa mad by walkin’ up closer after he’d told me so plain he wanted to be alone. But it seemed kind of awful to let him have his way even this much. It didn’t seem right for him to be kneeling there alone.

He still had his back to me. The wind was chilly, and I realized for the first time that neither of us had a hat. I started prayin’ for him. After Mama died, it’d been hard for any of us to think or do anythin’ for days. What would happen this time?

I wondered what Pa would be like when he got up. I wondered if he’d cuss me an’ tell me to go home again, or if he’d want to come home as bad as I was hopin’ he would. I really did love him. And I wished I knew a way to help him. But I wasn’t sure there was anythin’ I could do if he didn’t want nothin’ done.

I prayed again for Pa and Willy, Robert and Kirk and the rest of my family and the Worthams. Then I figured I oughta go over and try to talk to Pa because it’d been a while. But before I got two steps I started cryin’. I knew I was cryin’ over Joe, plus Willy and Pa and even my own self about how bad it all felt. I cried for my whole family, because I knew how hard it was gonna be for everybody.

And then I saw Pa turn around. The woods was so quiet I heard the crunch of his boot when he started gettin’ up. And I dried my eyes real quick again, not sure what to expect.