Rorey's Secret (17 page)

We were hardly in the house for two minutes when Barrett and Louise drove up too. I knew to expect them. I’d asked Barrett for more ice. And he’d told me plain that Louise was fixing things to bring over later. But still, more people, more bustle. I was grateful that they cared, but I didn’t like it anyway.

The Posts came carrying in more dishes than were reasonably necessary, and after getting ice on Samuel’s head and Bert’s foot again, I retreated back to Samuel’s room, not wanting to be in the middle of everything. Juanita left us alone and shut the door behind her when she went out.
Bless that woman, Lord. She’s got sense that comes straight from you.

“Come here, Juli,” Sammy said so softly it was almost a whisper. “Come up here and rest.”

I snuggled beside him. I lay my head against his shoulder, and he pulled me close.

“Does it hurt, me leaning on you?” I asked.

“No.”

I closed my eyes, just for a minute. Things got quieter. I don’t know how long I stayed like that. But it seemed like only a moment, and Grandma Pearl was walking along beside me, pointing out the bee balms and a clump of trillium in the Pennsylvania woods.

But then I heard what was surely Harry clomping down the stairs, and I jumped awake with a start. How could I sleep at a time like this?

I got up to help Delores and Louise in the kitchen. They were wrapping up a lot of the food to send over to the Hammond house. George and Kirk and a good many of the others, including Lizbeth and Ben, were about to head over, looking to salvage what they could from the barn rubble and see what they could do for the house.

“Franky’ll be stayin’ to work on them orders him an’ Samuel’ve got,” George told me.

I nodded. I wanted to ask about his talk with Pastor and Pastor’s talk with Franky, but I didn’t. “Where’s Rorey?” I did ask, realizing I hadn’t seen her for quite a while.

“I b’lieve she went on over there,” he said. “Prob’ly openin’ the house, and settin’ things out t’ air. Don’t know what I’d do without that girl. I tell you, Mrs. Wortham, since Lizbeth got married, she’s been holdin’ things together.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. Rorey certainly didn’t display any great diligence at my house. “That’s nice,” I finally told him. “All of your children do their part.”

“Gonna need ever’body to get back on m’ feet,” he went on. “Just when it was startin’ to look like we was doin’ okay, now we’s worse off than ever.”

“It’ll come out all right,” I told him. “You’ll see.”

“That’s the kinda thing you always say.”

He went in to see Samuel again, and the pastor went in too. I left the three men alone and went outside.

Sarah looked up at me from the garden, dropped a handful of henbit, and started in my direction. I came down off the porch and met her on the stone walk Emma Graham had put in so long ago.

“Mom . . .”

She looked so tall. So much a young woman with her apron on and her hair back. And her face so plainly mirroring the worries of the day.

“Mom, I guess Frank’s going to be all right, but he’s taking it awful hard about being blamed, and it’s not fair—”

“I know it, honey.”

“Mom, there’s something about Rorey . . .”

“Yes. I heard what she was saying, and I’d like a chance to talk to her, but I guess she’s gone back home already.”

“But, Mom—”

I didn’t get a chance to hear whatever she was about to tell me. Emmie was suddenly hollering at us from the barn lot. I hadn’t even known she was outside.

“Mama! Mama! Come quick!”

Emmie was standing with her feet on the bottom rail of the fence, looking over at her father’s goats. I couldn’t imagine what could be wrong, but there was distress plain enough in her voice, and Sarah and I both hurried to her side.

“Looky!” she cried. “Janie May’s hurt! Look at ’er! Her leg’s real bad!”

I’m sure it looked bad to a seven-year-old in the middle of an already trying day, but I knew the young goat’s jagged cut on a hindquarter was not all that serious. Nobody’d noticed it before, and she was walking on it fine.

“Thanks for letting us know,” I told the girl. “But it really isn’t bad. All she needs is a little bag balm and a bandage. You might even be able to take care of that yourself.”

“Really?”

“With a little help. You’ll help her, won’t you, Sarah?”

Sarah gave me a funny look, I’m not sure why. But she went to get the balm and a rag of some kind.

“Ain’t nobody else gonna get hurt, is there, Mama?” Emmie asked me.

“I don’t think so. We’ve had more than enough for one day.”

She looked at me with her big eyes full of questions. It took her a minute to speak again, perhaps because she was trying to decide which of the questions to ask first. “Why’s everybody mad at Franky?”

“Not everybody is. Nobody will be, once they’ve had time to cool off and think about all this. Fires happen sometimes. Bad as it is, there’s no sense trying to blame anyone for what was surely an accident—”

“But it ain’t only about the fire,” she maintained. “Rorey was mad at Franky yesterday. She said he was a puritan, only she said it kinda ugly, an’ I don’t even know what it means. An’ I think she musta said he was a sourpuss too, ’cause prob’ly Sarah didn’t think a’ that herself.”

What in the world could this be about? I remembered Franky looking over at Rorey when he came home all beat up last night, but neither of them had said anything. “Emma Grace, can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I ain’t for sure. I only heard Sarah an’ Rorey talkin’. An’ they didn’t want me to hear ’cause they sent me to get Bessie’s blanket an’ she didn’t even need it right then.”

“Last night? Before you all went home?”

“Yeah,” she affirmed, nodding her little head up and down. “An’ the very oddest thing is when Rorey said Franky was mad at her for talkin’ to Lester Turrey. An’ I never did see him come over, not even once. You think she made that up?”

“No, Emmie, I’m sure she didn’t.”

“Well, then, when did she see him? He don’t go to our school, nor even to church.”

“I’m not sure. But thank you for telling me.”

“I was jus’ wonderin’ ’bout this, that’s all.” She turned her eyes back to the goats.

“It is something to wonder about,” I agreed, thinking Emma Grace a very bright girl for her age, regardless of what others might say.

Sarah was coming back to us, the bag balm and a cloth all in one hand. I looked at her and wondered if I should ask her right now about this strange conversation with Rorey. She’d been wanting to tell me something just a few minutes back. And it might well be more than repeating what Rorey had said about the fire.

But I thought of Franky alone in the woodshop. I was sure it must have helped him to have Sarah follow him into the woods, and then to have Pastor come in and see him. But I thought of that fight yesterday and how he’d looked, and him refusing to tell me what had happened.

“Sarah, would you mind taking care of the goat while I speak to Franky a minute? We can talk when I’m through.”

She nodded, but she seemed different. Tense.
Lord, what in the world is going on? Probably better not to get into it any further in front of Emma Grace.
I left them to bandage up the goat’s leg and went to see Franky.

The door creaked as I gently pushed it open. Franky was carving out a chair leg. He looked up at me but didn’t stop his work.

“I’m doin’ all right, Mrs. Wortham,” he said. “You don’t gotta check on me.”

“Your hands aren’t hurting you too bad then?”

“No, ma’am. Not too bad.”

“What about your other bruises?”

“Tell the truth, it’s been easy t’ forget about ’em, what with ever’thin’ else goin’ on.”

“I can expect.” I set a scrap board across a keg of nails and seated myself near him. “Franky, I want to talk about yesterday. Was it Lester Turrey who fought you?”

He stopped what he was doing and looked up just long enough for me to see the surprise on his face. But there was no surprise in his voice. He tried his best to sound as though this particular subject meant nothing at all to him. “Why would you be askin’ somethin’ like that?”

“Because I think it’s time you told me what happened. I can understand you not going to your father right now. Sometimes I know he’s not all that anxious to hear what you have to say, Lord knows why. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell me or Samuel whatever it is. And your father too, eventually. I’m sure he’ll change his mind if he hasn’t already and be more willing to listen—”

“Can’t count on that, Mrs. Wortham. Pa ain’t gonna change a whole lot. You oughta see that by now.”

“Maybe you’re right. But you still need to tell us whatever this is with Rorey and Lester Turrey. Why would she be upset with you? And why would he want to fight?”

He kept his eyes away. “I never said it was him.”

“But it was, wasn’t it?”

“Who tol’ you all this? How can you know this stuff?”

“I was just talking to Emma Grace. She’s a lot brighter than what some people give her credit for. And like you, she remembers what she hears.”

“An’ what was that?”

“That you weren’t happy with Rorey talking to Lester, and that Rorey was upset with you about it.”

He turned his eyes back to the chair. “Don’t know how she come to hear that, but it ain’t nothin’ to talk about.”

“Why not? If Rorey’s trying to meet with Lester, don’t you think your father should know?”

He stopped. He put down his tool and faced me. “It weren’t but once, an’ she made me promise not to tell.”

“Franky, why would you promise something like that?”

“Because she started cryin’, beggin’ me not to mess up how peaceful things has been at home. She said she already decided not to see him no more, so me tellin’ would just get her in trouble over nothin’.”

“When was it that she saw him?”

“Week ago tonight, perty late.”

“After dark, without your father knowing?”

“Yes, ma’am. I heard her go outside, an’ I followed her, ’cause I wanted to know what she was doin’ in the middle a’ the night. That’s what Lester fought at me for yesterday. He said I didn’t have no business followin’ her around, my sister or not.”

“You could have told us.”

“Nope. ’Cause I promised her.”

“Oh, Franky.”

“Besides, Lester said if I tell anybody it was him who hit me, he’ll jus’ deny ever talkin’ to her an’ say he only tol’ me he liked her a little an’ I got mad an’ hit at him over it. He’ll say I started it, so then he had to bust me up.”

“Do you really think anyone would believe him? It’s not like you to start a fight.”

“Pa would believe it. ’Specially if Rorey said she didn’t never meet with him. Then Pa’d reason it all to be how Lester said it was.” Franky sighed. “It weren’t so much to promise not to tell Pa ’bout seein’ her with Lester. He’d b’lieve her over me anyhow. But I wasn’t s’posed to tell you neither. An’ I didn’t. Not all. You had it mostly figgered.”

“Where did they meet?”

“Out by the Claybanks bridge. But she promised me she ain’t gonna do it again.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Do you think she knows that Lester fought you?”

“Prob’ly. Ain’t sure how she’s feelin’ on that, though.”

“You know I’ll have to tell your father this.”

“No, ma’am. Don’t seem to me you’d have to. He’d only think I’m tryin’ to get her in trouble after what she said ’bout me.”

“Then you know what she’s told about the fire?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned back to his work, not offering to say another word.

“Franky, why would she accuse you?”

“I guess she seen me out there an’ jus’ figgered she knew what happened.”

“Then you’re saying it’s a mistake.”

He looked up at me with his strange silvery eyes awfully sad. “What else would it be?”

14

Sarah

It made me feel all strange inside for Mom to put off talking to me and go see Franky first. I shouldn’t have wondered, since he’d run off into the woods and all. She’d want to check on him after that. Of course she would. But she knew I was wanting to say something about Rorey, and she was looking at me kind of different.

Janie May wouldn’t stand still for us, and I had to hold her real tight with one hand and try to help Emmie bandage her with the other. Good thing this wasn’t a billy. I didn’t even know where their billy was. Maybe they’d lost him in the fire along with so much else.

“Is our animals yours now?” Emmie asked me.

“No more than they ever was.”

“But they’s over here now.”

“Just for a while. Till your pa gets another barn and pen built back up.”

“I don’t think Pa knows how to build us a barn,” she said sadly. “An’ your pa can’t help. He’s still in bed.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Finally we got the little goat all fixed up. She hopped away from us and immediately started stretching her neck, trying to chew on that bandage. All that trouble to doctor her, and it wouldn’t last ten minutes, I’d just about bet.

“What’s a puritan?” Emmie suddenly asked.

“What?”

“A puritan. Yesterday Rorey said Franky was one, remember? Is it some kinda stupid guy?”

I shook my head, wishing she hadn’t heard a word of all that. “No. Puritans weren’t stupid. They were just . . . real strict. And real religious. Rorey just meant that Franky don’t think like a kid sometimes, that he don’t approve of shenanigans.”

“Oh,” she said, thinking it over. “That ain’t so bad. Rorey won’t even get in no trouble over sayin’ somethin’ like that. I wonder how come your mama didn’t go ahead an’ esplain when I tol’ her I didn’t know what it meant.”

“You told Mom that Rorey said that?” My heart suddenly pounded harder. “What else did you tell her?”
What else did she hear? Oh, Lord! Now Mom’ll think I was trying to hide stuff from her! Now Mom’ll think I’m in on what Rorey’s been doing.

“I jus’ wanted to know how come folks is mad at Franky. Rorey was even mad at him yesterday—”

“And you told Mom that?”

“Yeah.” She looked at me with her eyes getting damp. “I’m sorry, Sarah. Was I not s’posed to?”

I sighed. “It’s okay. We’re not supposed to keep secrets from our folks anyway.”