Rorey's Secret (4 page)

Thelma was sitting up when I got there, looking pretty worn.

When she scrunched up her face again, Sam about jumped out of his skin. “Ain’t there somethin’ we can do ’bout the pain?”

“The doctor might know something,” I told him. “But there’s not much I can do right now but wait it out, the same as you. And pray. I can do that.”

He nodded, but as soon as I was done with a prayer, he stood up and started pacing. I wondered if he might not be more comfortable outside like his father had said. But I didn’t say so. It wasn’t my place or George’s to decide something like that.

“You need you a baby too,” Thelma told Lizbeth between puffs of breath, but Lizbeth just shook her head.

In a little while, I was aware of the big boys eating in the next room, little Georgie fussing for his mother, and Sarah gradually settling him down. Thelma tried to drink a little tea but couldn’t manage much. She tossed about on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. Then, strangely enough, the pains seemed to just stop. When we were expecting another contraction, it didn’t come.

“I better rest while I can,” she said.

She curled up with her head on the pillow, and within a few minutes she was asleep.

“Is that normal, Mrs. Wortham?” Lizbeth asked me.

“I don’t know,” I had to say. “I hope so. We did pray for her to have less pain.”

Sam got himself a plate but scarcely ate a bite. I couldn’t eat either and kept watching out the windows, thinking that Samuel and Ben ought to be coming before long. Surely they’d had plenty of time to get to Belle Rive and back.

I started pacing worse than Sam and George put together. There wasn’t much talking going on in the house. Not even between Rorey and Sarah, who were sitting together but silent. George cut the birthday cake, and most of it disappeared without any comment. Hammonds were never ones to give birthday presents, but when I offered to start reading Franky’s book, George said it was Willy’s right to decide what he wanted to do. Willy chose a radio show, which pleased almost everybody. But Franky went and sat outside.

“We’ll jus’ stay till Samuel gets back,” George assured me. “Be bad luck all a’ us in your hair any longer than that.”

For a long time it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to have Hammonds in my living room and Hammonds such a big part of my life. But that night it suddenly felt strange again, like the first time, and I hardly knew what to do.

2

Sarah

Mom had her hands full. And it worried me a little seeing her anxious, so I did what I could to keep Georgie quiet and Emma Grace occupied. I ended up on the floor with them, playing dolly in the corner while the radio show was going on. Rorey followed me over and sat down too, but she just pushed the dolly away when Georgie tried to hand it to her.

“Franky’s such a sourpuss,” she whispered so quiet that not even Emma Grace heard, and she was on the other side of me.

“He’s not so bad,” I defended. “Just a little different, that’s all.”

“You just don’t know.” She scrunched up her face. “He’s not
your
brother.”

“Same as. He’s over here all the time. Between school and work—”

“School’s worth nothin’ with him, and you know it.” I was used to her saying whatever she felt, but I could easily take offense to that. It was
my
mother trying to teach him, after all. “He doesn’t see it as nothing. Mom says he tries real hard. And he’s sharp too, on most subjects.”

“Yeah,” she scoffed. “Long as he doesn’t have to read it for himself.”

“I don’t see why it matters to you.”

“That part don’t. An’ he does make some nice wood things once in a while.”

“So how does that make him a sourpuss?”

Emma Grace looked at me. She was hearing us now.

“Oh, Sarah.” Rorey rolled her eyes. “You’re so simple sometimes. It’s not his school or work. He’s just such a puritan! He got all riled up just ’cause me and Lester Turrey were talkin’ the other night.”

I had to hear more, but I knew Emma Grace shouldn’t. “Emmie, run and get the dolly’s blanket, would you?” I said quickly. She looked at me funny, but she got up and obeyed.

“When?” I prompted Rorey. “When were you talking to Lester Turrey?”

Lester was an older boy. Almost eighteen. He’d quit school last year just when Mrs. Post was about to kick him out. He was an awful lot of trouble.

Rorey leaned toward me and whispered even more quietly. “Last Saturday night. I snuck out to the bridge and met him. Didn’t know Franky’d see me and take it in his head to follow.”

“Does your pa know?”

“No. An’ I made Franky promise not to say nothin’. Lester’s my boyfriend. I’m meeting him tonight too. Don’t you tell.”

For a minute my head felt like it was swimming. For the life of me I couldn’t see what Rorey would want with a big lug like Lester.

“Promise me, Sarah,” she pushed. “You’re my best friend in the whole world.”

“Where are you meeting him?”

“In the barn. At midnight. Promise you won’t tell. You’d get me in an awful mess of trouble. I think it might’ve been Lester who busted up Franky today. He said he might, just to make sure he wouldn’t wanna follow me no more. Franky don’t know, though, that we’re meetin’ again.”

I was suddenly uncomfortable. No wonder she didn’t want me to tell. We weren’t old enough for boyfriends yet. She wasn’t even fourteen till December, two whole months away. My mom and dad would be just as upset as her pa. “Rorey, are you sure about this? We’re not old enough to be seein’ boys.”

Georgie was pulling on my sleeve, and Emma was on her way back to us. Katie was coming our way too, from across the room. “Mama was thirteen when she started seein’ Pa,” Rorey informed me importantly. “So it’s not so strange. Promise me you won’t tell, Sarah. Promise me. Hurry up.”

I felt sort of squeamish inside, like my innards were arguing over having to hold this kind of information. But Rorey was Rorey. My friend even before first grade. She wouldn’t do anything too stupid, surely. “I won’t tell,” I whispered just as Katie and Emmie were sitting down.

“Tell what?” Katie asked us.

Rorey shook her head. “Nothing.” She’d no sooner tell Katie any secrets than she would one of the grown-ups. She’d never liked Katie as much as she liked me.

Emmie spread the blanket out and tried to get Georgie to play along like we were all at a picnic. Rorey’s pa and all the bigger boys were so caught up in their radio show that they might not have even noticed if we’d been talking about Lester full out loud. Only Franky was outside someplace. And I felt bad about that. I felt bad that probably he’d followed Rorey innocent, just wondering what she was up to, like a brother would. And then to get beat up for it, if it truly was Lester who had done it. But whether he had or not, I didn’t like Lester, no matter what Rorey thought. He’d been a bully at school. He was still a bully. And I didn’t want anything to do with him.

I wished Rorey hadn’t told me. I wished she wasn’t foolish enough to be sweet on somebody like Lester, who was four years older than her. Franky might be in for a lot of trouble if he was trying to protect his sister.

I swallowed kind of hard, thinking about that. I kind of wished he’d tell. But I knew he wouldn’t, not if he’d promised. Not any more than I would. But there ought to be some way to let Rorey’s pa know. Or the rest of her brothers.

“You be the mama, Sarah,” Emmie was telling me, putting baby Bessie into my hands. I looked down at the doll I used to drag around with me every place, and for the first time I wished I was Emmie’s age again. Being thirteen was getting kind of complicated.

3

Julia

Thelma stirred before long, and the pains were back, but I was confident we had some time before the baby came. The big girls were playing dolls with Emmie and Georgie, and Lizbeth and Sam stayed with Thelma. So with everybody else sitting and listening to “Spiral Hayes and the Dew Drop Gang,” I stepped outside to check on Franky.

At first I didn’t see him in the dark. He was clear over by the apple tree, sitting silent with his back to the house. He liked to be alone often enough, but this night I worried about him.

“Franky? Are you feeling all right?”

He turned his head just a little. “Yes, ma’am.”

He didn’t volunteer another word. I stepped closer. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry you’re not getting much sympathy from your family.”

“It’s not a night for that.”

I had to marvel at him. No hard feelings toward them. He just accepted it all as a matter of course. Picked on, beat up, and ignored. All in a day’s work.

“Franky, I could heat you some water if you want to soak. A chamomile bath would help the soreness—”

He shook his head. “You have enough to do. I’m all right.”

“Are you just going to let somebody hurt you and not say anything at all? And let them get by with it?”

Finally he faced me. “I guess you don’t understand. The way I see it, talkin’ about it wouldn’t do no good.”

I was absolutely incensed. “But you’re no dummy, Franky! No matter what they say! You’re—”

“It wasn’t about that.”

His words stopped me cold. What else could it be? Mild-mannered Franky, always minding his own affairs. “Tell me, Franky. Please.”

“I can’t. I swore I wouldn’t.”

“Swore? To who? Franky, what’s going on?”

“I wish you’d quit your worrying. It’s not no big deal.”

“You came limping in all bruised up, and you tell me it’s no big deal? Why, Franky? Tell me—”

Lizbeth opened the back door and hollered for me. My stomach squeezed tight as a knot.

“You better hurry back in,” Franky said quietly.

And I turned and left him, suddenly very angry at his father and his brothers. All of them, for just leaving Franky out here alone.

The radio show was just ending and George was standing up as I came in. “Gettin’ later,” he said. “I know I tol’ you we’d wait till Samuel got back. But he’ll be along any minute, and it’s high time we got ourselves outta here.”

I could hear Lizbeth back in the bedroom, urging Thelma to take a breath.

“I wanna stay!” Emmie protested.

“Ain’t no use none of us stayin’,” George maintained. “We been here too long a’ready. It’s jus’ with no radio over to home, it give William a little treat. But Lizbeth’s here, and they’re gonna have more help’n that ’fore long. We’d be complicatin’ things to linger. Time to be gettin’ out.”

I went into the bedroom, glad they were going. I didn’t want all the kids hearing any more. Things were getting harder for Thelma, and we had a ways to go. “Take what’s left of the cake with you,” I called out to them.

“Oh! Mrs. Wortham!” Thelma exclaimed as soon as she saw me. “I’m ready for this baby to be here.”

“I know you are, honey.”

“Can’t I stay?” Emmie’s voice was persisting out in the sitting room. “I wanna see the baby!”

“We can see it in the mornin’. That’s good enough,” George was telling her. “Hey, Sam!”

Sam had been petting at Thelma’s hair and jumped at his father’s call. “What, Pa?”

George didn’t stick his head in this time, just called loud enough for Sam to hear. “You’re welcome to come along and rest over t’ home with us if you want. You hadn’t oughta be in the middle a’ things anyhow! Samuel’d be glad to bring us the news later. Or they can send Robert.”

Sam Hammond looked genuinely insulted at his father’s suggestion, and I was glad about it for Thelma’s sake. “No, Pa. I ain’t about to go nowhere.”

“Suit yourself. Bad luck, if you ask me.”

I shook my head, and Thelma was shaking hers too. “Don’t listen to him,” she whispered. “You was there for Georgie, and he’s strong as a bull elephant.”

“I know.” Sam sighed. “I know. It’s just Pa says it ain’t what’s done, me stickin’ around you so close. He gets testy at times like this.”

I was feeling a little testy myself. Worrying. Over the baby, of course. A little over Franky. And now I was really wondering what could be keeping Samuel and Ben. It was almost 8:00, and they’d been gone more than two hours. A blessing that Thelma wasn’t further along by now.

“Ah—” she started to cry out but then just clenched her teeth together.

“Are you pushing? Thelma, are you pushing?” I could feel my heart thumping through my chest. Maybe I’d just
thought
we had time.

“No. I don’t think so,” she told me when she could breathe. “Oh!”

There it was again!
Lord, have mercy! These pains are close now. Samuel, Ben, Dr. Howell! Where are you?

“I wish I was pushin’!” she groaned. “I wish it was done!” She grabbed for Sam, missed his hand, and got hold of his shirt.

“Why didn’t I think about this part?” she lamented. “A wonder any woman ever has more’n one!”

“They make up for themselves,” I reminded her. “Don’t they, now?”

I could hear George ushering all his clan out the door. Little Georgie started crying, and I heard Sarah taking him upstairs.

Robert poked his head in. “It’s been awfully long, Mom. Dad wouldn’t stop for nothing else. You think I should go after them in the truck?”

Ordinarily I would have said no, but this night was different, and I knew he was right. I’d tried to talk myself out of worrying over it, but I knew they’d been too long. And now I wondered if maybe they were lying smashed up along the road someplace. Maybe Ben had been hurrying too fast.

I couldn’t voice such a thing, though. “You’ll probably just find them coming up the road,” I told him as calmly as I could. “But go ahead and go. It won’t hurt anything. Drive careful.”

If George Hammond had waited two minutes, I might have sent one of his boys with Robert. But it was surprising, really, that George had stayed as long as he did.

Robert seemed glad to have something constructive to do. He was out the door in seconds, and I prayed I’d told him right.

“What are you hopin’ for?” Thelma suddenly asked her husband. “Another boy?”

“I don’t much care,” Sam said quietly. “So long as you’re both strong as Georgie.”

She wiped at her face with a hanky Lizbeth must have given her. “Did I sleep long?” she asked me.