The Promise of Home (21 page)

As they drove on in silence, Karen allowed herself to reminisce about happier times in Mill River. On those nights when her father had come home from work after being away for days, their house had been filled to the rafters with joy. So, too, had it been later on, after she'd left home, when she'd return to visit her parents. There was no length of time or physical distance that could have broken their loving bond.

Karen believed with all her heart that the bond had also withstood the assault of her father's terrible disease. She had no proof. In fact, his behavior indicated otherwise, but still, she believed.

She would continue to bring Ben with her from time to time. Even if her father truly didn't recognize them anymore, being able to visit him was a blessing, and he was still deserving of love.

Thursday, May 1, 1934

I
t took a couple of days after he and his uncle had buried the hobo for Michael to feel something close to normalcy. He hadn't slept at all that first night, when his uncle had dropped him back at the farm in the early hours of the morning. He'd sat in the tepid washtub of water his grandmother had left out for him, scrubbing his skin, trying to remove the mud and grime caked on the outside and to free the remorse festering just beneath the surface.

Sunday night, his sleep hadn't been much better. He'd slept, yes, but his rest had been fraught with vivid nightmares full of headstones and hoboes, the smells of blood and death and the feelings of being hurled into an open grave, and of wet earth falling in clumps, covering his face. He'd awakened on the edge of a scream in his dark bedroom. School on Monday had been difficult, too. He'd passed the day in a stupor, barely able to follow along in the various lessons. Monday night, finally, he'd collapsed into an exhausted slumber, the deep sleep that comes instantaneously upon one's head touching a pillow.

Today he'd awakened feeling refreshed and calm. School was fine if uneventful, and the early-spring sunshine was out in full force as he descended the steps from the school bus outside the farmhouse.

His good humor turned to elation when he found a letter from his father waiting in the mailbox. That excitement was tempered when he saw the St. Joseph's parish sedan parked in front of the house.

Fearful that his uncle had driven out to bring bad news, Michael ran down the driveway and burst through the front door. There, seated at the kitchen table, were his grandmother, his uncle Frank, and his mother.

“You're home!” he yelled, and swooped down to grab his mother in a hug. “I don't believe it! Are you all right now?”

“I'm much better,” his mother said, laughing. “I still feel sick sometimes, but I've been able to drink and eat enough that Dr. Washburn let me come home.”

“Thank goodness,” his grandmother said. “The hospital treatment worked a miracle.”

“Medicine these days sure is something,” his uncle agreed.

Michael just stood there, beaming at the three of them. Only when he moved to put down his book bag did he remember the letter in his hand.

“There's another letter from Father,” he said, holding it out to his mother. “It was in the mailbox. I can't believe I forgot about it just now.”

His mother eagerly took it and stuck her finger beneath the envelope flap to open it. “I couldn't ask for a better homecoming present,” she said. “I'll read it so we can all hear.” She unfolded the paper inside. Two ten-dollar bills were wrapped inside the letter, and she carefully laid them on the table and smoothed them flat before she began to read.

April 23, 1934

Dear Anna, Mother, and Michael,

I hope that all of you are well. I write this letter with a heavy heart, as I have considerable serious news to tell you.

Last weekend, Seamus was involved in a fight in a local pub. I was not there with him, as he went out cavorting with several other young men his own age. He did not return that night or report for work the next morning. The details about what happened are still uncertain. I do not know whether Seamus started the fight or was merely defending himself, but at some point, Seamus struck another man with a broken bottle and cut his throat badly.

The man was taken to the hospital and survived, thank the Lord. Seamus was arrested. The local authorities, it seems, are set on making an example out of Seamus by charging him with attempted murder. I don't know yet when a trial will be held, but I have spoken with a defense lawyer who has agreed to represent him.

My salary alone is easily enough to cover the rent on our shared room and other necessities, but I must also pay the considerable lawyer's fees if Seamus is to have any chance of avoiding conviction. I do not know what else I can do at present except continue to work. I have no other employment option, and I couldn't leave Seamus here in this predicament. But I fear that the twenty dollars I have enclosed for you is most likely the last money I will be able to send for some time.

I feel truly ill and helpless about Seamus. I blame myself for not advising him more strongly against visiting the pubs, but I wonder whether it would have made any difference. He is brash and strong-willed, as you know.

There's nothing more I have to say at the moment, other than to ask for your thoughts and prayers that some favorable resolution to the situation comes to pass.

With all my love,

Niall

By the time his mother had finished the letter, her trembling hands were clenched around the sides of the paper, and she could barely speak for the breathing that had become more and more ragged.

Every bit of the buoyancy Michael had felt upon seeing his mother at home had left his body. He was numb from shock, as they all were. The only thing that snapped his mind back into more active thought was the sight of his mother leaning over in her chair and retching on the floor.

“Anna!” His grandmother was up and around the table to his mother before Michael realized what had happened. “Listen, Anna, you can't start this again. You have to be strong. Do you hear me? Seamus will be fine. Niall is with him, and he'll take care of it. Frank, Michael, help her to her room, please, while I clean up in here.”

Michael went to his mother, as did his uncle, and they walked her down the hall and into her bedroom. Once she was lying down comfortably and his grandmother had cleaned the floor beneath the chair where his mother had been sitting, the three of them gathered solemnly around the kitchen table.

“We've got to figure out a way to make do without Niall,” his grandmother said finally. “We've had a difficult time of things, to be sure, but I can't imagine what he and Seamus must be going through right now. Still, the hospital bill will be along any day now, and I shudder to think what it will be.”

“How much does it cost to stay in a hospital?” Michael asked.

“It varies a little depending on what treatment the patient receives, but usually around six dollars per day,” his uncle said.

Michael did the math in his head. His mother had been in the hospital for a week and three days.
Sixty dollars.
Even with the twenty dollars his father had sent, plus the money his grandmother had left from the secret sale of the hobo's watch, they were woefully short.

“We've got Doc Washburn's private bill coming, too,” his grandmother said. “There's no telling whether Anna's out of the woods yet. She may need more medical care, and there's the birth to worry about. Plus, we'll need gas for the car. The electric bill is due each month and property taxes at the end of the summer. If Niall can't send anything more, I don't know how we'll manage.”

“I'll help as much as I'm able,” his uncle said, “but my stipend is meager. Priests do take a vow of poverty, after all.” He was reaching into his jacket pocket as he spoke. He withdrew a creased leather billfold. It contained a five-dollar bill and two one-dollar silver certificates, and he took all of them and added them to the bills already on the table.

“What about the cow?” Michael asked. “We always have extra milk. You usually give it to the Whibleys, but couldn't we sell it? Or maybe make butter or cheese and sell that?”

His grandmother shook her head. “Nobody wants dairy products these days if they haven't been pasteurized, and we don't have the equipment to do that. Besides, Onion's going to have her calf in a few months, and I'll have to dry her out to make sure she's ready to go again when the calf comes.”

“We can sell the calf,” Michael said.

“Yes, we can,” his grandmother agreed. “Let's hope it's healthy and a heifer. We'd get more for a future milk cow. But it won't be enough.”

“You never know. Niall might be able to sort out the mess with Seamus within a month or two,” his uncle said. “The lawyer he's hired might be able to get the charges reduced or dismissed entirely. I can't believe Seamus would ever try to kill someone.”

“Drink does bad things to that boy,” his grandmother said. “There's no telling what he intended—”

“I can get a job!”

His uncle and grandmother looked at him.

“Grandma, I can get a job. That would bring in a little more money until Father is able to send it to us again.”

“Michael…” The look on his uncle's face was a mixture of admiration and pity.

“There are no jobs to be had around here,” his grandmother said. “If there were, your father would never have left.”

“Maybe that will change in the summer. What if lots of men have left, like Father? There might be places that have temporary work, and I wouldn't be picky. I can work inside, in an office or factory, or outside. There are lots of farms. Maybe one of them needs an extra hand?”

“I admire your optimism, Michael,” his uncle said. “But I'm not as optimistic as you are that a situation would open up for you.”

“Besides, until school's finished for the year, that's what you should concern yourself with,” Lizzie said. “Your mother would want you to focus on your studies. We'll figure out something in the meantime.” Uncle Frank nodded his agreement.

“I'm going to keep my eyes open for anything,” Michael said. “I can ask around after school whether anyone has a job I could do for the summer.”

His grandmother sighed. “No harm in asking, I guess. After I fix supper tonight, we'll have no fresh meat in the house, and I want to make sure your mother gets plenty to eat. There are a few hours of daylight left. Do you think you could go hunting and have time to finish your homework this evening?”

“I think I could,” Michael said. He rose from the table, put on his jacket and cap, and went to the gun cabinet. His .22 was there, along with his game bag, where he had last left them. With the memory of the hobo's burial so fresh in his mind, though, the sight of the gun and the thought of using it again made him feel queasy.

He stood there before the cabinet, willing himself to reach for his gun and hunting supplies. He could feel his grandmother and uncle watching him. Their stares were becoming heavier and heavier until they forced his arm into action. He threw open the glass door of the cabinet and removed his game bag and a box of cartridges. Instead of taking the .22, his hand closed around the barrel of his .30-30 Winchester rifle.

“Are you going for squirrel?” his grandmother asked. “That's a lot of firepower for squirrels.”

Michael turned around, the gun in his hand. “I don't want to use the twenty-two,” he whispered. Before his grandmother or uncle could respond, he was out the back door.

To hunt squirrels, he would have headed for the woods. The rifle he carried was for larger game. It would be better to get something more substantial, something that would provide more meat for a longer period of time. This was especially true for two reasons. Since his father wouldn't be sending money for the foreseeable future, they would have to live off the food they could grow and hunt for much of the summer, if not longer. And, Michael admitted to himself, he truly didn't want to hunt anymore. After what had happened with the hobo, he wasn't sure he could bear to do it.

There was a small brook that ran along the edge of the pasture behind the barn. Since it was mud season, the melted snow had made the water level a bit deeper than usual, and the banks were slippery and soft. Rather than hop over it and continue into the forest, Michael turned and walked alongside it for a few hundred yards, past the orchard on the far end of the property, until the brush became a dense thicket. He took up a position behind the curved interwoven briars and tall stalks of dead grass from the previous year. It was damp and cold, sitting on the ground, but the spot offered him a well-concealed place with a clear view of the brook.

Michael tried to remain as motionless as he could, his rifle at the ready. Even if any game that might pass by didn't catch his scent, it would almost certainly spot him or hear him if he made a sudden movement. He endured mosquito bites and ignored his nose or places on his back when they begged to be scratched. When his foot fell asleep from sitting cross-legged, he altered his position very slowly and deliberately, moving only a few inches at a time.

As the sun dropped below the trees and shadows began to loom over the thicket, he caught a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head slightly, carefully. In the distance, a young deer lowered its head to drink from the brook. It was either a doe or a button buck, he couldn't tell which from where he was sitting. Not that it mattered. Venison was venison.

Since it wasn't deer hunting season, taking the deer now would constitute poaching, but that didn't matter, either. He'd hunted year-round since he was twelve without license or repercussion, and he suspected the authorities had been overlooking hunting violations for some time. People were desperate these days, and hunting kept the hungry from increasing in number.

He slowly pressed his cheek against the rifle and took aim. The deer was perhaps fifty yards away, well within range. He had a perfect shot lined up through the iron sights, but he hesitated. Just the anticipation of hearing the gunshot and feeling the recoil against his shoulder made him feel queasy again.

Michael tried to steady himself. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

The deer's head snapped up. It stared in the direction of the forest, its huge ears cupped forward, and then turned to look directly where he was sitting. Michael tried to be absolutely still.
You're going to miss your chance if you don't do it
, he told himself.
Your family is depending on you to provide for them. You promised your father you would take care of everything.