“Apple mint,” she said, and I smiled, taking the request as a hopeful sign.
I took a couple cups of water from the bucket, put them into the heavy enamel kettle, and set it on the stove. I threw in another chunk of wood and then went back to poke at the fire again.
“Did you see the stars?” Emma whispered.
I glanced her way in time to see her tiny, tender smile.
Stars?
I thought.
In that swirling, snowy mass?
It was clouds I'd seen, maybe all the way to eternity, and no relief in sight.
“Heavenly,” she said, closing her eyes.
I stared at her, wondering what she'd seen or maybe what she was still seeing.
“Wila ain't sufferin' no more.” Her voice sounded warm, accepting, like the Emma I knew.
“She's not. You're right. I hope George and the children bear that in mind.” I didn't want to think about it. All those kids. But it was impossible not to.
“The stars is twinklin' finer for another saint upstairs. That's what my mammy used to say.” She pulled the blanket a little closer. “So sorry, Juli.”
“For what?”
“All a' this. You away from your family thisaway.”
“Not your fault.”
She laid a bony hand across the side of her face and relaxed against it. I looked at her a moment longer, then made my way back to the kitchen where my bag sat on the floor, leaning against a potato box. Emma wanted tea. Apple mint. Good thing I'd brought that kind with the others. She'd always loved it. It grew in dainty circles around the clothesline poles back home. Emma's home, which now seemed a million miles away.
I searched through cupboards till I found the cups and spoons, sugar, and a tray to carry everything on. I'd take it all to the fireside, just as soon as the water was hot.
But going back into Wilametta's room was a hard thing. The chill hit me as soon as I went through the door. Strange that it could cool down so fast. Or maybe it was just me, feeling the death in that place.
Wila lay there looking larger than life. Looking like she could just float away into the wintery clouds, her white covers spreading themselves into great feathery wings to lift her and all our worries straight up to heaven. I stood for a moment, stopped by such a thought. What was wrong with us? Emma seeing stars, and meâme fancying all the pain could just drift away so easily. For Wila it could, now that her struggle was done. But not for the rest of us. We had tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that.
I turned to the bedside table. The Bible lay there with its edges bent and with one little tear in a corner. It had been read. It had surely been in Wilametta's hands many times. “Forgive me,” I whispered, though I was doing nothing wrong by taking her Bible to comfort a friend. It was heavy in my hand, like an armload of bricks, and I turned as quickly as I could to go out. But I shut the door carefully behind me, not wanting to make the slightest sound.
Almost it seemed that death was a living thing in the house. It made me ache just picturing Wila on the other side of the door. She'd picked up hickory nuts with me in the fall. She'd gotten her share of blackberries, maybe more than her share, every morning bright and early while they were in season. It seemed I should've told her good-bye, still should, maybe. But I couldn't go back in and face her lying there. Not again. Not yet.
Bible in hand, I headed back to the fireside, seeing Emma sitting there so calm. I set the book on the chair nearest her and hurried to the kitchen for the tea fixings. How I wished George would come back in, or that I knew where to find him. Surely he was all right, despite Emma's worries. In the barn maybe. Or with Samuel and the children.
How I wished they were all right here, sharing this hearth and the psalm with Emma, wrapping each other's comfort around the grief they'd be knowing soon enough. We'd weather this. We'd have to. The good Lord would see us through it and give Emma the strength to help us along. She was the one Lizbeth would need to help her pick up the responsibilities left to her. She was the one strong as the hills. And she'd be there for us, as long as it took. I believed it. I trusted for it.
Pouring water over the tea took just seconds, and I was back by the fire with the tray, thinking to sit and read while the tea steeped on the hearth.
“Psalm 46. Is that what you said, Emma?”
She didn't answer, and I thought her asleep. She had every reason in the world to be exhausted, for sure. I turned and saw her head leaned back so serene, and my gut clenched tight as a clamp. She was asleep. She had to be! But something bitter and cold inside me didn't believe it.
“No.” I stood, barely aware of the thump of Wila's Bible on the floor. “No, God.”
In a panic I reached toward Emma but somehow couldn't touch her. I called her name, knowing already there wouldn't be an answer. Her quiet breath was stopped; her tender voice was stilled. For a moment I stood there, just staring. It couldn't be. Not now. Not Emma too, when every last one of us needed her so much.
I fell on my knees, forcing myself to reach and take hold of her hand. But it was not Emma's hand now. The life that had touched me so often was gone.
“No!” It had to be a mistake. It had to. She was just asleep! Sick. And so very tired. “Emma? Oh, please, Emma!” I laid one hand against the side of her neck, the other on her chest. “Emma?”
I knew. There was no thump of her heart, no weary little breath. Nothing but her coldness, her deadness, and the fury of my pain.
“No!” Tears clouded my vision as I reached for a cup of apple mint tea and flung it into the flames. “God, how could you do this? How could you leave me alone like this?” I pulled myself to my feet against the woven chair. One foot bumped against the fallen Bible, and I stared down at it, anger seething raw and vicious inside me.
“Why? Why Emma too? You're supposed to help people! You're supposed to care!”
The tears were so strong that no other words could come. I walked and I cried in the Hammond living room, almost wishing it was me sitting there cold in that chair.
The wind was howling outside, and I knew the sky was still spitting snow. It would be hours, maybe days, before Samuel could get through. But he was over there with all of the children, having no idea what he'd be coming to face. I wanted to go to them, but I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the cold and darkness. Where George had gone, I had no idea, but he wasn't with Samuel. Somehow I knew that.
I ran to the door, only to be nearly knocked over by the rush of furious wind, so much worse than before.
“Mr. Hammond!” I screamed. But the only answer was the distant low of cattle.
They're going to starve,
I thought.
They're going to starve if George hasn't tended to them. And then those Hammond kids will all starve too.
“Mr. Hammond!”
I looked up at the sky, hoping to see some ray of dawn. Hadn't it been night for an eternity already? But there was only darkness over the swirling snow. No break in the clouds, no stars, any more than there'd been moments ago when Emma had so anxiously looked up.
It wasn't right. The stars should be out, like Emma said, to welcome not one but two dear saints. They should be shining for Emma brighter than they'd ever shone before, instead of hiding themselves behind the cruelty of the storm. I shut the door, feeling that I was walking in a horrible dream. It couldn't be real, this nightmare I was in.
I thought of Grandma Pearl and how we'd found her, dead in her bed all stretched out like the undertaker had been there already. I knew I should lay Emma down somewhere so she wouldn't stiffen, sitting like she was. But it seemed a sacrilege to move her, to touch her at all.
But what if George comes in and finds her there?
There was no telling what he might do. Better that he not see her first thing. Better to soften the blow the best I could. Emma would want that.
Numb on my feet, I pulled the rocker with Emma in it toward the closed bedroom door.
Oh, God! Where have you gone?
With my eyes ablur I wrestled that rocker to the side of Wila's bed. It seemed foolish what I was doing. Foolish. But I had to do it. Emma would want me to. She would do it if she were in my place.
I folded the covers back and struggled to lift Emma from the chair, feeling all the while that my heart was dying. She was small, surely lighter than I was, but there was nothing easy to it just the same.
I laid her there next to Wilametta, and they looked like sleeping sisters who shared some precious secret. There was no worry, no hurt on either one of them. I sunk away from the bed, breathing in short little gasps, wanting to scream and run for Samuel's arms.
For a moment or two I couldn't move. My chest muscles were stiff, clenched. I shook but could not shake away the horror. I tried to breathe more deeply, and felt like I was choking. But I still had to do what I could for Emma. She'd said I was strong. I wasn't. God knew I wasn't. But I'd act it, if I could, for her sake.
Carefully, I pulled off her coat, knowing in my heart that she would want Lizbeth to have it. But I couldn't put a Sunday dress on her. I sat on the edge of the bed, my vision blurred again. Emma had picked out Wila's finest right away, but I couldn't do that. There were no other clothes here for Emma. Still, I brought water and washed her face, wishing she could feel it, open her eyes, and give me some word of comfort. I let her hair down, combed it proper with Wila's comb, and then braided it and put it up the way she liked to wear it for church. I didn't have any nickels, but Emma did, two more of them and a penny in her pocket with a paper dollar. I put the nickels on her eyes the way she'd showed me, though I'd never before seen anyone do that.
There can't be any more dying now,
I thought.
Only one little penny left, and that isn't enough.
I smoothed her dress and laid her hands against her chest, imagining her somewhere else right now, hugging on her long-departed husband, Willard. She wouldn't be missing us, not the way we'd miss her. I pulled the covers to her chin, though I supposed it didn't matter.
I couldn't cover her face. She'd claimed me for family many times, but I knew I didn't have the strength to do it. I backed out of the room, leaving the rocker there by the bed. I closed the door with shaking hands. I picked up the tray of tea things and set them on the kitchen table. Then I looked about the room, thinking to make myself useful again. But instead I sank to the floor, my heart pounding and my head aching with the hurt that would surely never stop.
FOUR
Samuel
I woke before light, something restless in me nudging me awake. The first thing I noticed was the calm outside. The wind had died down. The snow too, hopefully. Maybe the doctor would be at the Hammond house by now, or at least before long. Maybe Juli would be home pretty soon. I hoped she'd managed to get some rest.
I was quiet, slipping away from Sarah, who was curled beside me. All the kids were still asleep, sprawled in every direction, but most of them up against somebody else. I poked the coals in the fireplace, blew on them, and added a couple of cobs and some tinder to get the fire blazing again.
Lizbeth was the first to waken, anticipating by a fraction of a second the movement of the baby, who had somehow gotten to her side in the night.
“Gonna need some of the goat milk for her, aren't you?” I asked quietly, hoping the baby wasn't about to bawl loud enough to shake the heavens.
“Yes, sir, if you don't mind.”
I set in a little more wood, lit a kerosene lamp from a shelf, and carried it with me to get the baby's milk. I knew Robert would be up before long. He was always an early riser, as I expected at least some of the Hammond boys to be. But I hoped that most of them would sleep in as long as possible. They might be itching to head home and check on their mother, and I wasn't sure yet what to tell them.
Franky was rolling over as I came back with the milk. He wiped his eyes and his nose on his sleeve and looked up at me. Lizbeth gave her sister the milk right away, and the baby started slurping it down hungrily. I'd been quick enough to avoid the otherwise inevitable wail.
“Got to milk Lula Bell,” I told Lizbeth. “But I'll be right back in to start some breakfast.”
She nodded at me, her eyes still on Emma Grace.
“Can I go with you?” Franky whispered.
“You better stay here. Liable to be pretty fierce for cold. You watch the fire for me and throw on a log or two. Can you do that real quiet?”
“Yes, sir.” He slid away from his cover toward the fire, wiping his eyes again almost as if he'd been crying.
“Worried about your mom?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We'll find something out before long. But I expect she's all right.”
Robert rolled over, and I told him to feed the chickens. I went and lit the stove in the kitchen and stocked it with wood. Then I was ready to get the milk pail and head outside.
The wind was gone but not the clouds. It was just getting light in the east and trying to snow quiet flurries at the same time. It was hard to figure just how much it had snowed yesterday and through the night. In some patches there were just inches on the ground, but there were also drifts standing in great glistening piles higher than my head. It was a strange, sparkling-white landscape in which the trees stood like silent angels, their powdery wings lifted to the sky. The worst of the storm was past, at least for now, leaving this pure, cold beauty in its wake.
I prayed for Juli, that any storm was past in that house too, and all was well. But as I looked at the shape of the road, I didn't think it likely that the doctor could have gotten through. I wondered if Sam Hammond had even reached him, and where he might be if he hadn't. Our lane was drifted closed, and beyond that you could barely distinguish road from the flat fields stretching past it. There wouldn't be any automobiles through today. And Hammonds' wagon was stuck in a drift by the barn, its front wheels completely hidden in the snow.