Rachel's Prayer (33 page)

He was limping straight out across the yard, I didn’t know why, or where he was headed. I ran up behind him. “Frank?”

To my surprise, he spun around and answered me more harshly than I’d ever heard him speak. “Leave me alone! I’m not like my father, do you hear? I don’t need you runnin’ after me! I don’t need you to say nothin’! Go away!”

I just stood for a moment, seeing the pain working deep in his eyes. “All right,” I answered him softly. “I just wanted to be here—in case you need anything.”

“Like what? Huh?” he shot back. “What could you do if I did need something?”

His words were like a slap. My eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry about all this.” I stood watching him, wondering if I should turn my feet back to the house. But I couldn’t make them go.

And suddenly his face changed. “Oh, Sarah Jean. Oh, Lord, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I told him.

“No. It’s not. I can’t be yellin’ at you.”

“You’re just upset.”

He struggled to say the next words. “But . . . but Pa used to do that! He always used to . . . to take things out on me . . .”

He did indeed look like his father then, more than I’d ever seen, his gaunt face drawn tight with strain.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him.

But he bowed his head. He almost walked away from me. I could see that he wanted to. “I was leavin’,” he said with tears in his eyes. “Just straight into the trees or somethin’, just to get some distance from the house—” “That’s all right for a little while, Frank. You told me before that sometimes you need time to think. I understand that. Especially now.”

“But I wasn’t thinkin’. I was just walkin’ away.”

“You’re not like your father,” I said, not sure what else to tell him.

He took a deep breath, and the weight of it seemed to press him down. “He planned this, Sarah Jean. Whether it was an accident or not. He meant to get away from us.”

“Oh, Frank.”

“I used to think he hated me. But I was wrong. I can see now that he counted on me. He counted on me to find him, to keep a jump ahead and make things okay. But this time, when he needed me most, I failed him.” “You can’t blame yourself. Remember what you told Lizbeth.”

“I know.” He bowed his head. “I know Pa meant those words for me. For this. But it don’t help. Not one bit.” He turned away.

“Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” I said softly. “The God of all comfort . . .”

“Oh, Sarah.” He sunk suddenly to his knees. “Help me. I feel like I ain’t got nothin’ left. I oughta be inside helpin’ them. I oughta be the one speakin’ God’s words of comfort . . .”

I knelt beside him. “It’s all right. You don’t have to be strong. Not right now—”

“You don’t understand. If I ain’t that, I ain’t nothin’.” He stood to his feet again. “He counted on me. He . . .” Frank couldn’t finish. He turned away again, and I knew he was in tears.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”

I barely heard his answer. “No.”

He stood crying, staring out into the clouds. I rose and put my arm around him. There wasn’t anything else I knew to say. Maybe he just needed me to be here beside him, quiet as the trees, just so he wouldn’t feel alone.

“Thanks for stoppin’ me, Sarah Jean. It don’t do no good to run.”

My father came out on the porch. I heard the door and turned my head enough to see him. He only stood watching for a minute, as though he were wondering if we needed him to come closer.

“You can’t be strong all the time,” I told Frank. “Sometimes life can knock you flat.”

“Yeah,” he agreed solemnly. “But why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

I smiled. “Is that from a psalm?”

“Forty-two. Maybe we should go back in. I’m glad Emmie’s not here yet. But she prob’ly will be soon. And Sam. And your mother. We’re gonna have to talk some things through, about what happens next.”

“It doesn’t have to be right away. You can give yourself time . . .”

“I’m of age, Sarah Jean. But the younger ones is orphans. Whether Pa thought that much through or not, we need to decide some things today, for their sake. I can’t be runnin’ off, nor knocked flat for long. I gotta take my part.”

To my surprise, he took my hand as he turned back toward the house. My father was just turning to go in.

“Mr. Wortham,” Frank called.

Dad looked back at us.

“If you could, I want you to help me do what we did for Mama, to make the coffin ourselves. Do you think that would be all right?”

“If you want it, son.”

“Thank you,” Frank told him then. “For being here for us today just as much as always. I promise you, it ain’t gonna be left on you to see to things for us. We’re not so little anymore. It won’t all be on your hands.”

My father and Frank hugged each other, and I felt at least a little more warm and solid inside. We’d all be okay, I felt sure now. Even the Hammonds. Even after this.

“It’s never all been on me,” Daddy said then. “We’ve been in God’s hands all along. We’re one family. And he’ll continue to take care of us. Together.”

That understanding was the Hammonds’ foundation after that. We really became one family. With two farms and one heart.

Because of the paperwork signed years ago by Albert Graham, Emma’s nephew, their farm was to remain in the hands of the oldest child willing to live on it and work it, and that meant it fell to Frank, at least until one of his older brothers came home.

They buried their father beside their mother in the plot across the timber, and Frank and Sam worked tearfully to put up a nice little fence and prepare a place for Joe’s body when it came home. I didn’t think that if I lived to be a hundred and ninety I’d ever see such strength, to do what they did and go on with life. But it wasn’t easy for them. The younger four Hammonds especially had trouble. Who could understand a man like George Hammond? If treasure were counted in the hearts of children, then he’d been rich. But he’d also been blind, to all that was in them, and all the rest of living he could have known.

No one ever did know what caused his wreck. I know they thought that Rorey might have been right, that he might have met his end by his own purpose and plan, but I think it was a relief at least for Frank not to know for sure. And Mr. Post himself offered an explanation about why Mr. Hammond might have chosen to take the Posts’ truck and not one of his own family’s vehicles, or one of the horses that could easily have been found in our barn.

“He told me more’n once I was the only farmer ’round here that could afford a loss,” Mr. Post said. “He knew it wouldn’t hurt me so bad as it would somebody else. He couldn’t take a horse and leave you without a pair for the wagon. He couldn’t take Ben’s car without hurting family.”

It was sad to think that Mr. Hammond hadn’t had a chance to learn that Willy wasn’t wounded all that badly. I wondered if things might have been different if he had known, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. Willy and Robert were coming home. Robert to stay. Willy was going back, of his own free choice, once Robert was here and he had the visit he wanted.

I worried about Rorey more than ever, and more than the rest of her family, even when things were so hard for all of them. She talked bitter words nearly all the time, and the only bright thoughts she seemed to have were about marrying Lester and expecting he’d be home too, since Robert and Willy were coming. But life can be cruel. Too cruel for any kind of explanation sometimes. Lester died on a military hospital ship. Lester wasn’t coming home. It was one blow too many for Rorey. She threw the wedding dress she’d made such beautiful progress on into the fireplace and started running off at night with a crowd of boys we knew to be trouble.

I felt horrible. I wished to goodness I’d been far kinder, far more open to her feelings for Lester so she’d listen to me now. But she wouldn’t listen. Not to me or my mother or Lizbeth or anyone. Finally, she got tired of being talked to, and she ran off to St. Louis with Lester’s brother Eugene and a friend of his that we didn’t even know. They said they had jobs. Rorey wrote and told us they’d gotten an apartment, and she had a job. But it felt like a hole in my life to have her gone.

I kept praying Rachel’s prayer because it seemed like it had extra meaning now. We needed strength. We needed peace. In this time of being apart from our loved ones, whether in St. Louis, or across the ocean, or already waiting on heaven’s golden shore.
Help me understand you better, God,
I prayed.
Help me understand the mysteries, the struggles of life. Because everything you do, everything you lead us through, has a purpose, a significance, if we can see it. Trials can shake us apart from you and each other, or draw us closer. Help us, Lord, to be knit together in one strand.

Mom and Dad spent what they had to for the train to St. Louis to meet Robert’s airplane. We knew by then that he wasn’t walking, that he wasn’t expected to walk for months yet, and he was coming home more because he’d insisted on it than that they were really ready to let him go. But there wasn’t much to be done except to let the healing progress and to work what muscles he could, so they let him go. We were still worried for him but excited that he’d be home.

Rachel wanted to go to St. Louis with my parents. She could hardly wait to see Robert again. The strain had been awful for her. I could tell that, despite the calm she tried to maintain on the outside. But her father made her wait. He said they weren’t engaged, and it wasn’t right her being there when Robert’s parents ought to be able to joy in their son first.

So she waited at home with us. She cried just thinking about what Robert had been through and how he might react to all that had happened at home. But I think mostly she cried because Robert was alive. We’d come closer to losing him than any of us wanted to think about, and now at last he’d be with us again. Rachel was hopeful, I knew she was, that Robert still felt the same way about her as he had when he left. That he’d look at her the same, and not be so changed that he didn’t want to be together.

The day they were due to be home, Frank drove us all to the train station and we waited, all of us so anxious that we could hardly speak. It would be so good to have Robert home. To see Willy safe and sound. But things were still hard for the Hammonds with grieving that seemed to never stop. And I fretted for Robert’s struggles. I worried about the challenges he would face. Would he have to be in bed a lot? Could he get up at all?

The train was fifteen minutes late, but it seemed like an eternity. Emmie started crying. I took her hand, only to realize that Frank had reached for her other one.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Rorey’s not here,” she said in a solemn voice, and then the tears got worse. “Nor Pa and Joe.”

“Rorey’s gonna sow her oats till she can get things settled in her heart,” Frank answered quietly. “But Pa and Joe are with us. They always will be, Emmie. You remember that.”

Rachel joined us, her gloved hands nervously crumpling a wrapped package for Robert. The train thundered into the station. Rachel wiped away tears.
Oh Lord,
I prayed
. Let Robert be Robert. Let him be all right, and look at Rachel the way he did when they were dancing. Bring their hearts together. He needs her right now. They need each other.

I felt almost weak with the anticipation. Two people we didn’t know got off the train and met the Clarkson family that lived east of town. But it was a while before anyone else got off. We just stood, nobody daring to ask anything, everybody just standing, just waiting as long as it took. Finally Mom came to the platform. She was smiling, but I could see the strain in her face, some of the worry still in her eyes. Behind her, slowly, came Dad and then Willy bringing Robert with them in a wheeled chair that was a little bit like the one Daddy had put together for Emma Graham so long ago.

Robert looked so fine in his uniform. So handsome. Even strong. But far, far, thinner, with something different in his eyes that I had no way to describe. Rachel stood for a moment, a bright smile and new tears meeting her face at the same time. And then she hurried forward as Dad and Willy lifted Robert down. We all gathered around.

This much closer, I could see the weariness in Robert. I knew the trip had exhausted him, and he was far weaker than he was willing to let on.

“Looks like you’ve all grown up,” he said.

Emmie hugged on Willy, and I leaned forward to hug Robert a little, gently, not sure how much he could take. But he grabbed me and gave me a squeeze.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Sis. Are you all right?”

I nodded, amazed that he would ask me that. Everybody hugged him, and Willy too. Except Rachel. She’d moved to the side just a little to give our whole family room. But I reached for her hand and drew her close again.

Rachel couldn’t seem to say anything. She only stood with the package in her hands, all dressed up the prettiest I’d ever seen her, with hope and maybe a little fear mixed up in her eyes. Finally she managed to put her bundle in Robert’s hands. He looked at her as though for him too, words had failed. And then she leaned forward and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. She took his hand and kissed that too. But she didn’t let go. Even though neither of them spoke, she stayed beside him all the way to the truck as Daddy and now Frank maneuvered the chair down steps and over the rough ground to where we were parked.

I felt like singing, I wasn’t sure why. It was still a sad time, despite the happiness. I took a deep breath, with a hymn already circling my mind, and with a faltering voice I did my best to try to sing. Katie joined me, and her beautiful voice seemed to make it all right. Mom hugged us both and then joined in too. Pretty soon Emmie was singing, and even Bert. And beside the truck, Rachel finally found her voice.

“I love you, Robby. I thank God you’re home.”

He hugged her. And then my big brother cried. We all just waited there in the parking lot while he held her. I cried too. So did Mom.