Rachel's Prayer (4 page)

Someone said the snow had started again. And I hoped it snowed so hard the train couldn’t come.

3

Frank

The place was fillin’ up with people. I sat over in the corner with Pastor Jones. That was the best place for me, where I could watch most everything goin’ on. ’Course, Rorey was still with Lester. I didn’t figure they’d turn loose a’ one another the whole night. Willy danced with a Mueller girl, and Robert switched and danced with his mama while Mr. Wortham give Kate a turn. Sarah Jean left the dance floor with Emma Grace and went and got some punch.

“Anybody you have in mind to dance with?” the pastor asked me all of a sudden.

“No, sir.”

“Want some punch then?”

“No, sir.”

Pastor was quiet a minute. “You know,” he finally told me, “I realize there’ll be some changes for your family with William away for a while. Do you suppose your father’ll need some extra help?”

“He’s still got me an’ Harry an’ Bert. An’ Mr. Wortham. We’ll manage all right.”

“Mr. Wortham will have more to shoulder without Robert around. And I hear you’ve got a lot of work of your own in the wood shop. How’s that been?”

“Mrs. Chafey wants a step stool. An’ I’m makin’ a hope chest for Pearl Daugherty. There ain’t so much right now. Be good if there was more, ’cause we could use the cash. But we’ll make it fine.”

I looked over to the table where the pastor’s wife was helpin’ Mrs. Porter cut the cakes. Lizbeth and Ben come in the door about then, and I was glad to see them. Looked like they’d brought some snowflakes in on their shoulders.

“Do you still give the money you earn to your father, Frank?” Pastor was asking.

I turned my head his way, not sure why he’d inquire on somethin’ like that, especially when I wasn’t keen on talking right then. But he was the pastor. I figured he had a reason. “No, sir, I don’t. Not direct, at least. Mostly I just buy what’s needed.”

“A lot of working young men would be saving for their futures, if they have any way they can manage it. To get a place to settle down and start a family of their own.” “I got no special plans ’side from the business.”

“I know that, Frank, and I don’t mean to imply that you should.”

“You meanin’ somethin’ else particular then?” I asked him straight out. The pastor and me had a pretty good understandin’ by now, and we could talk about most anythin’.

“It just seems that most of your money’s going to your family. Or to the church. I thought I’d mention that you have a right to set aside some.”

I shook my head. “Couldn’t much do that an’ see my brothers an’ sisters do without.”

The pastor frowned. “I thought your father was doing a little better with things on the farm.”

“He ain’t doin’ better with his money. But I’m not meaning nothin’ against him.”

Truth was, Pa drank away some of the farm money. Not all of it, thank the Lord, and I wasn’t anxious to talk about Pa’s drinkin’. I’d told the pastor about it one time, but it only made Pa sore at me. He did better for a while after the pastor talked to him. But then later he took the drinkin’ back up, just like all the other times, when he figured nobody’d know. This time he was hidin’ it as good as he knew how. I didn’t think anybody knew for sure he’d started up again ’cept me an’ Willy. An’ Willy’d told me to leave him alone about it. Just help him with things and let it go. He said there weren’t nothin’ else we could do. But it didn’t seem right to hide things from the pastor if he was asking.

“You think it would help if I talk to him again?” Pastor said with a sigh.

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause Pa’s headstrong,” I tried to explain. “He wants what he wants. Ain’t no convincin’ him what he don’t want. It’s just the way he is. He ain’t gonna change.” I shook my head at myself talking so much. But maybe it needed to be said, at least to Pastor Jones.

“Any man can change with the Lord’s help,” he told me.

“Sure. If he wants it,” I agreed. “But Pa don’t. He wants to lose his thinkin’ in a bottle a’ Buck Fraley’s brew now and then. But it ain’t so bad as it could be, Pastor. ’Least he’s got it about him to hide it from Emma Grace an’ the rest. He don’t get drunk ’less he’s alone, an’ he ain’t been hurtin’ nobody but hisself.”

Pastor give another long sigh. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Well, it don’t seem to do no good to talk at him over it. Prayin’s the only thing I know to do.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind me praying on this a bit?” “No, sir. I wouldn’t never mind that.” I rose to my feet, knowing I’d given my pa cause to be sore at me again. Pa had respect for the pastor most of the time, but he didn’t much like me bein’ so straight-out honest with him. “I b’lieve I best go an’ greet Lizbeth over there.”

Pastor nodded. “Does Mr. Wortham know your father’s drinking again?”

“No, sir. ’Least I don’t think so. It ain’t come up in our conversation.”

“Maybe you should tell him, so he can keep an eye on things.”

“He keeps an eye on things anyhow. He’s always bein’ a help. An’ he’s likely to find out sooner or later.”

“I think it’d be better for him to know sooner, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. The Word says true love covers a multitude a’ sins. Don’t seem right to go to him against my pa. I only told you ’cause you’re the pastor an’ I figured you’d keep on askin’ me things.”

“I would think Mr. Wortham would ask about it.”

“He does. Sometimes. So maybe he sees more’n I know. But I just tell him we’re all right ’cause God’s got his hand on us. I know it’s true.”

“Frank, just the same—I think I ought to talk to Mr. Wortham and maybe your father too. It’s not a time for him to be separating himself with a bottle. He’s got three sons in the service. Your younger brothers and sisters are bound to miss them and be very worried for them. They’ll need stability from him at home all the more.”

I just nodded my head. I didn’t know what else I could say. Pa’s ire would be stirred at me already once the pastor talked to him again. Not that that mattered so much. But I hated that Mr. Wortham might feel some kind of obligation to us in this. He’d been doing for us for so long I figured it ought to be enough by now.

I had a lot of mixed feelings right then. I walked away from the pastor, thinkin’ I oughta be able to take care a’ things at home and with the woodworkin’ too. Even without William. Even if Pa kept himself drunk and unavailable. Me an’ Harry an’ Bert, Rorey an’ Emma Grace could handle most anything, an’ there was always Lizbeth and Ben we could fetch, or Sam and Thelma, if we needed to. And Mr. and Mrs. Wortham, though they didn’t need to do anythin’ else for us.

But at the same time that I was thinkin’ all that, I was also wishin’ I could just get away. Go far across the ocean my own self and fight like a man oughta fight to defend the country he believes in. I’d wanted to be goin’ away tomorrow along with William and Robert. I didn’t care what Mrs. Wortham said, that we could see it a blessing for me to be turned away ’cause I was needed so bad right here at home. When I looked at it straight I knew she was probably right, but I still hated it to be this way. I hated that they were goin’ without me. I knew I should be grateful for stayin’, ’cause war’s a terrible thing. But I wasn’t grateful, even though I wasn’t sure why I wanted so bad to leave.

Crossing the community hall toward my sister an’ her family, I hated the limp that everybody could see even when I was tryin’ my hardest to hide it. I hated that I couldn’t read the forms an’ papers the recruiter’d had on his desk. I hated whatever reasons there was that made me like I am.

“You’re 4F, son.”
That’s what the man had said
. “You might as well go home and work hard at what you can.”
I couldn’t remember questioning God like this before, not through any of the things that had happened in my life. I don’t know why that soldier’s words was so hard for me to take. I just wanted to bust back in there an’ tell him he was wrong. That I could work hard anywhere, just as hard as anybody else. That I was just as good as my brothers or anybody that ever walked through those doors.

It scared me how I’d felt on the way home that day— like yellin’ at God for makin’ me the way I was. I’d never been bothered like that before. I’d never blamed God for nothin’ before. And I still felt kinda angry and ashamed at the same time. Because I couldn’t shake the feelings, but I well knew the Scripture. So I figured I didn’t have no excuse. “O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?”

Lizbeth was lookin’ my way. I did my best to smile at her and Ben, and at little Mary Jane, who came runnin’ up to grab at my legs like she always does. I picked up the teeny little girl and twirled her, trying to choke down my bitter thoughts so she wouldn’t see her Uncle Franky frownin’. Mary Jane wasn’t but two and a half. And when you’re that age, life oughta be light.

“Everything okay, Franky?” Lizbeth asked me right away. Lizbeth was like that. She could sniff out problems faster’n a coon dog. But I didn’t want to talk no more tonight. I’d done talked enough.

“Yeah,” I said ’cause I had to answer. “I’m all right. It’s just differ’nt for everybody, thinkin’ about Willy and Robert leavin’.”

“I know. I haven’t thought much on anythin’ else all day.”

She gave me a hug. An’ I hugged her back. In that, she was like Mrs. Wortham. There wasn’t nobody else in our family quite so much on huggin’.

“Rorey’s with that Turrey boy again,” Lizbeth said with a shake of her head. “I thought she learned her lesson a long time ago on that. What’s she see in him anyway?” “I couldn’t say.”

“He doesn’t still give you a hard time, does he?”

“I don’t reckon there’s time most days. Don’t see much of him.”

Mary Jane was tuggin’ at my hand now. Her smile was big as sunshine. “Ride Unca Fwanky?” she asked. “Up? Up?”

But Lizbeth shook her head right away. “We’re not out to the farm, Mary Jane. And I’m sure your Uncle Frank’s had a full day. It’s not the time to be gettin’ shoulder rides right now.”

I looked out at the dance floor. Rorey and Lester were doin’ some kinda steps I didn’t know the name of. Willy was with the Mueller girl again. Charlie and Millie were dancin’. And several other folks I knew. Pastor’d asked if I was gonna dance with anybody. I could almost laugh on that. Unless Emma Grace got the hankerin’, I didn’t expect nobody’d wanna dance with me.

“Don’t know why I couldn’t dance her around a little,” I said. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ else.”

I lifted Mary Jane right on up like she wanted. Lizbeth give me a look that said,
Are you sure?
But I just smiled at her. Wouldn’t be nothin’ wrong with makin’ Mary Jane happy. I’d probably look like a fool dancin’ around, but when there’s a two-year-old on your shoulders, that’s all right.

Robert found his girl, Rachel Gray. They were talkin’ over against the wall. Oliver Mueller come in with his new wife, Elizabeth. They’d be havin’ a little one before long, that was plain to tell. Richard Pratt an’ his wife already had twins.

Mary Jane was hoppin’ on my shoulders. Squealin’ and lovin’ every minute of my silly bouncin’ that she could get. But I was hurting inside, and it was more than I could understand.
“A lot of young men save for their futures,”
Pastor had said.
“To start a family of their own.”

Lookin’ around, I could plainly see that most of the young fellas I knew were workin’ on that very thing. Even Willy and Robert, I guessed, in their own way. I wasn’t but eighteen. Nineteen in another month. But a lot of boys I’d known all my life were married already, or making plans to be. Or going to the war. Or already gone. It felt like they had something I didn’t have. Like life was leavin’ me behind.

That’s stupid,
I told myself.
You ain’t supposed to have your whole life planned when you’re eighteen. You don’t need a girl yet. You don’t need nothin’ but to be the kinda brother you’re supposed to be.

“Dancey! Dancey!” Mary Jane squealed.

So I danced till my shoulders an’ legs were tired an’ Mary Jane’s daddy came over to get her. Then I twirled her down and around and right into Ben’s waitin’ hands. She laughed and laughed.

“Fun, Unca Fwanky!”

“How ’bout some punch?” Ben asked me.

“Guess I could use some by now.”

We went to the table together, Mary Jane reachin’ over to pat at my shoulder most of the way. Seemed like makin’ her happy had worn me out more’n usual. My leg was botherin’ me some. But I wasn’t gonna limp no worse. Lookin’ a fool for Mary Jane was all right. But lookin’ like a lame fool was not.

4

Sarah

I’d never seen all the Turrey boys behave themselves before. Usually it didn’t take them long to find a way to start trouble. Maybe somebody’d told them that they’d better have respect for the Porters and for the occasion. Eugene tried several times to catch my eye, but I made sure to look away and act like I didn’t notice him. I sat down to talk to Katie, hoping he would just turn his mind to something else. But finally he came right up and asked me to dance.

“No, thank you.” I tried to sound polite.

“How come? You was dancin’ with your pa a while ago.”

“Well, he’s family. That’s different.”

Katie gave me a tiny smile.

“What about Wilbur Rush?” Eugene persisted. “You mean to tell me that you wouldn’t dance with him if he asked ya? He ain’t kin neither.”

It had never occurred to me that Wilbur would ever ask, but my answer was just the same. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“What about Tom Porter then?” he said, making a face. “All the girls wanna dance with Tom Porter.” He looked at Katie, as if he were expecting her agreement.

But she just shook her head.

“If Tom asked me,” I said with a sigh, “I might do it just once. But only to be nice because he’s leaving tomorrow for the service.”

Eugene folded his arms across his chest. “Then you’d dance with Lester, but not me.”

“No. I wouldn’t dance with Lester. Rorey might get mad.”

He shook his head. “You’re hard to figure, Sarah Wortham. You gonna sit an’ turn the boys away all night?”