Rachel's Prayer (7 page)

I didn’t say anything. Neither did he. I didn’t know why he was sitting there, except to rest a minute and maybe avoid going inside just yet. But he didn’t sit for long. He went and scooped the snow from in front and behind the wheels of the pastor’s car and our truck even though it wasn’t deep enough for either of them to have any trouble moving. I knew he’d put the shovel away and go on in after that, so I went in first. I was plenty cold by then too.

Mrs. Pastor set me right down with a cup of hot cocoa and a plate of buttermilk pancakes. “Goodness, girl,” she said. “Are you always so raring to go in the morning?”

I sipped my cocoa and looked across the room to my mom, who was scrambling eggs. “No, ma’am. Not always.”

Katie sat beside me. She had a different kind of look on her face. I wondered if she felt the same way about Robert as I did. Of course, she hadn’t known him as long, but she was bound to look on him as a brother anyway. I was glad my birthday wasn’t till August. Maybe by then things would seem right again.

Frank came inside, and Mrs. Pastor made him sit down with hot cocoa too. He hardly touched his pancakes. Maybe he wished he was going away today with the others. But I was glad he wasn’t. It would be strange enough without Robert around. Frank being gone too would make things extra odd, because we were all so used to him working with my dad every day and staying with us or in the wood shop. And before that, he’d been over all the time when Mom was teaching him. He ate with us a lot. He worked in our fields like they were just as much his.

“God be merciful to us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us,” Frank was suddenly saying almost under his breath.

My father smiled.

“That thy way may be known upon earth,” the pastor continued. “Thy saving health among all nations. Psalm 67. An excellent choice for today, Frank.”

But Frank didn’t even look up.

Breakfast was kind of stretched out, with the first of us eating, and then the next ones up, and finally Willy and Harry last of all. Katie and I helped Mrs. Jones clean the kitchen. Mom didn’t this time. She disappeared. But Robert was out of sight too, so I figured they were together. Mom had disappeared for a little while yesterday too, before we came to town. I knew she’d been in Robert’s room, helping him pack his bag and just being with him while she could. I thought of Mom hugging us in the summer sunshine or snuggling with us on the old davenport in our sitting room. “Just enjoying my babies,” she’d said once, and I of course responded that we weren’t babies anymore.

“You’ll always be my babies,” Mom had answered. Her kisses made me smile. And even though Robert had tried to wriggle out of them since he was about ten, I knew he liked her attention too. He was probably soaking up all he could right now.

That made me sorry for Willy, who didn’t have a mother to hug him good-bye. His father sat in the pastor’s chair and didn’t say a word to him or anyone else. But Willy didn’t act like he needed it. He was talking a mile a minute about “givin’ the Japs what for” and seeing some of the world besides. It kind of made me feel raw inside. Japan was a hard enemy. They’d already proved that.

Pretty soon after everybody’d eaten, Lizbeth and Ben drove up with Mary Jane wrapped in a quilt and tucked between them on the front seat of their Ford. They came inside and unbundled, and Lizbeth and Mary Jane looked so nice again in dresses made from matching print. Lizbeth sure did sew a lot, now that she wasn’t teaching school. She was always making something. And she was an awfully good cook too. She brought the pastor and his wife a pan of succotash and a big basket of hot rolls for dinner later. Those rolls smelled fantastic, right through the towel over top.

It wasn’t long before Sam and Thelma came too, because we’d all agreed to meet here and go to the train together. Their entrance was always something of a big event, much different than Lizbeth’s, because their kids let everybody know right away that they were getting close. We heard them outside before they even parked the car. It sounded like Georgie and Rosemary were singing at the top of their lungs again. And little Dorothy was crying like babies do.

Didn’t seem possible that Georgie could be almost six already. And precocious as anything. Smart as a whip and loud as firecrackers. Rosemary was a real pretty three-year-old and nearly as loud as her brother. Lizbeth’s Mary Jane kept her distance from them sometimes, when they got to be a little much.

Little Albert was the quiet one of Sam and Thelma’s bunch, and you wouldn’t expect it because he was barely two. But he’d sit quiet on his father’s knee for a long time, just watching everything going on around him. He liked to sit quiet with Frank too. Once in the fall I saw him with Frank, just looking up at the clouds in the backyard. After a while, he gave a nod like he was satisfied with something. Frank nodded right back, and the little tike hugged at him like they’d just shared something special. I didn’t know what, but Thelma said Franky probably did.

Dorothy was still a tiny thing. Only three months old, and Sam and Thelma were already talking about the names they’d use when they had another baby. It wasn’t strange for Sam to think about more children, coming from a family with ten. Or Thelma either—she had eleven brothers and sisters. But it worried Mom and Lizbeth a little, I think, about them having to stretch what little they had so far.

Mom came back to the kitchen and helped Lizbeth pack sandwiches to send with the boys on the train. Mrs. Jones put a cake in the oven for dinner later. She wanted us to come back here for that, so we wouldn’t have to drive all the way home and think about dinner right away. I knew she was trying to make things easier for Mom, but I wondered if anybody would care about dinner after the train left.

The kitchen started smelling really good, with the cake in the oven and the spices Mrs. Jones got out to mix with the meatloaf she was making ahead. Mom opened the bag of gingersnaps we’d baked at home and repacked them along with the sandwiches. They were Robert’s favorite. I was glad we’d made them.

Dad and Mr. Hammond sat in the sitting room with the pastor. Willy and Frank and Sam went walking outside, which I was glad to see because Willy didn’t pay much attention to Frank a lot of times. I figured they had things to talk over about their pa, and how things should be at home while Willy was gone.

Mr. Hammond acted a whole lot better this morning than he had last night, but I guess everybody still knew there’d be a lot on Frank’s shoulders, and on Rorey and Harry too. Mr. Hammond had trouble keeping up with things on their farm. And if something was bothering him badly enough, he didn’t even try.

Georgie and Rosemary tried to insist on playing with their grandpa, but he wasn’t in the mood to be climbed on or hear their racket. So Dad sent them upstairs with Emma Grace and Bert to play until it was time to go. Lizbeth’s husband, Ben, was pretty serious-faced, and he sat with Pastor and Dad and Mr. Hammond for a while, but everybody else left them alone.

Way too soon, it was time to get everybody’s coats and go meet the train. Sam and Ben carried Robert and William’s bags, though they wouldn’t have had to. William seemed even more excited than he had earlier. But Robert had gotten really quiet. We all went out of the house together to walk up the street past Charlie Hunter’s station to the train depot. Only Mrs. Jones and Thelma, with little Albert and the baby, stayed home. Mr. Hammond didn’t want to come. But I heard Sam remind him that he’d promised, so he dragged along with us, trying to act like he was at least doing better than last night.

Rorey was extra anxious again. She had her scarf over her head this time like a sensible person, but she was walking fast, hoping for the chance to linger with Lester for a while, still hoping he’d use his last minutes before the train left to propose to her.

There were more people than I expected waiting at the depot. Of course I knew the families of the boys that were leaving would all be there, but there were other folks too, friends and relations from church and from town. Rorey got all silly, running into Lester’s arms. Robert and Rachel were different, like they both wanted to savor the other one’s looks before they even got close. And when they did, they kissed. I hadn’t expected that.

Dad was holding Mom’s hand. I knew this had to be hard for them. It was hard for me, and just as hard for Katie. I saw tears in her eyes, so I took her hand.

“We’ve gotta pray for them every day,” she whispered.

“Okay,” I told her. “We will.”

There was so much hugging then. Mrs. Porter just about wouldn’t let Thomas go. Mom hugged William first. And then she held Robert a really long time. Lizbeth and Emmie and all the rest took their turns hugging William. Their father hung back. I don’t know why. He was just like that. And Rorey was busy with Lester.

Katie and I hugged William too. That was strange, because he was still our neighbor, and Rorey’s brother, even though they were all so close they were the same as family.

Emma Grace got teary. “I’m sure glad Franky’s not going too,” she told me. “I’m sure glad Harry and Bert is too young.”

I put my arm around her, and so did Lizbeth. Then Robert was hugging the rest of us. When he got to me, I just held on.

“It’ll be all right,” he told me. “You’ll see.” He gave me a big squeeze and told me not to let Mom listen to too much news.

Then he was hugging Dad and Mom again and it was time for all of them to get on the train. I saw him reach for Rachel’s hand one more time and leave a folded-up piece of paper in it. I wished I knew what that said.

Lester’s sister Rose seemed to be crying worse than anybody, and I didn’t quite understand that, because I’d seen Lester being awfully mean to her more than once. I didn’t figure there was much about him to miss. But I went over and gave Rose a hug. She was a nice girl. She couldn’t help what some of her family was like.

Katie went with me and hugged Lester’s mother, which was a gracious thing to do since a lot of people considered her an embarrassment to the community. Edna Turrey’d been arrested four times for stealing. The only reason she wasn’t in the women’s prison was because she had so many kids the judge figured the stealing was for their sakes. He’d ordered her to go to church and have her husband bring her to see an officer every week. But her husband wouldn’t bring her. Not to the church either. So the officer went to them. And the pastor did too, sometimes.

“We heard Earl Wilkins got killed,” Rose suddenly whispered to me.

It was hard to understand the words because of her crying. But they shook me. We knew Earl Wilkins’s family a little bit. He was a cousin of some people from church, and he’d gone in the army at the same time as William’s brother Kirk.

This was a bad time to hear news like that. I hated to let the train carry Robert away. But he was already up on the platform waving to us. William was right behind him. Thomas and Lester were just a little farther in, waving out a window. Rorey ran up and reached to touch Lester’s hand one last time. I shook my head at her, hoping William didn’t feel bad over not getting any of her attention. He didn’t seem to. He had the biggest smile on his face I’d ever seen.

The whistle blew. And it was a hard thing, watching the train pull away. I went over and reached for Mom’s hand, thinking maybe she’d be quiet the whole rest of the day. Maybe all of us would be. Everybody just stood there for a while, waving.

“Well,” Mom finally said when the train was out of sight. She might’ve meant to say something more than that. About going back to the pastor’s house. Or something. But not another word came out. She just stood there looking at the track. And then the sky started to sprinkle snow on us, teeny flakes floating down real slow.

“We’d better go, Juli,” Dad told my mom. But instead of going anywhere he gathered her in his arms and held her for a long, long time.

I didn’t care. I didn’t want to move anyway, even if I was getting cold. Watching the people around us, some of them leaving, some standing like they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, I felt like the whole world had changed. The things we heard on the radio had been thousands of miles away not so long ago. We’d cared a lot all along. We’d prayed about the war over and over again. But now it would fill our minds and squeeze on our hearts. Now it might as well be in our own backyard.

I looked down at my overshoes, feeling the tears well up in my eyes and not wanting anyone to see. Lizbeth came and put her arm around me, and Emmie took hold of Katie’s hand on the other side of me, and they stood together just as quiet as could be.

“They’ll be okay,” Lizbeth whispered to me. “God will go with them.”

I didn’t say anything. God had been with Earl Wilkins. Earl had wanted to be a preacher some day. But now he was dead. The first casualty we personally knew from a war that had just snatched Robert into its grasp.

I couldn’t reconcile that kind of thing in my mind. And if there was anybody who could, I figured it’d be Frank. It was so like him to quote Scripture at challenging moments that I could almost expect him to start any minute now. But he didn’t. I looked up and realized that he wasn’t there to tell us anything. Where could he have gone?

I turned from Lizbeth to look around a little more. Finally I spotted him up against the depot, looking terrible thin and pale in his overcoat and far more upset than I expected. His pa was right next to him, saying something I was too far away to hear. It didn’t look like Frank answered him. It didn’t look like he wanted to hear whatever it was.

“Pa?” Lizbeth called. “Are you ready to go?”

“Guess we better,” Mr. Hammond answered. “Ain’t nothin’ else to do here.”

But he didn’t move right away, and Lizbeth turned to my parents for a second. “I know Pa says he’s fine. But I’m not blind. I know he did some drinkin’ at the party last night. Has there been more of that?”

“I don’t know,” Dad told her. “Let’s hope that’s the end of it.”

“Tell me if he gets any worse. I’ll come out. I’ll stay with them a while if I have to.”

Daddy nodded. “Thank you, Lizbeth. We’ll keep an eye on things.”