Small Town Girl (25 page)

Kate didn’t doubt. She didn’t. Not anymore. Once she had. She’d wanted to turn her back completely on the Lord. But the Lord hadn’t turned his back on her. He just waited out her doubts and then was right there the very same when she opened her eyes and reached for him again.

So now she breathed a soft amen and opened her eyes to look straight toward Jay standing by the door. He wasn’t there. She whipped her eyes around the room. He wasn’t anywhere. He must have slipped out the front door while
they were all concentrating on Aunt Hattie’s prayer. What had she said? That some among them had a fearful spirit. Maybe she hadn’t been talking about the war. Not the war of bombs and bullets, but a spiritual war that had made her prayer words poke him too hard. So hard he’d left. Without so much as a goodbye.

“Where’s Tanner?” Lorena asked.

“I guess he had to leave,” Kate said. She listened for his car to start up, but it was quiet out front other than the sound of a hen cackling and the wind rattling the screen door.

“Before the amen? He can’t do that. Nobody leaves before the amen.” Lorena frowned as she pulled away from Kate to go peer out the window. “His car’s still here.”

“Jay’s got some things bothering him right now,” Mike said. “I guess I should go talk to him.” He started to push up off the couch, but Evie put a hand on his arm to stop him.

“You’ll have to do it later,” she told him as she looked toward the clock on the mantel. “You don’t have time now. We’ve got to get ready for church.”

Evie’s words seemed to make them all remember that things needed to get done the same as always.

“Getting cool in here,” Kate’s father said as he pushed up out of his rocker. He lifted open the stove door and emptied the coal from the bucket on the hearth into the fire. “Best get more in before dark, and the old cow’s bawling. Time to milk.”

Mama stood up too and let her eyes sweep around the room. “Why don’t you all just stay here until church time? I’ll put supper on the table in case anybody’s hungry. Keep listening to see if more news comes on if you want.” She looked over at Tori. “You and Sammy need to pick up your books. Lorena, you best go gather the eggs and feed Trouble before we go.”

“But what about Tanner?” Lorena looked toward the front door.

Nobody said anything, but everybody looked at Kate. Kate hesitated, not sure what to say or do. He’d sneaked out in the middle of a prayer. He’d wanted to be away from them.

Her mother made her decision for her. “Kate can go tell him we’re saving a piece of pie for him.” Then she shifted her eyes to Lorena. “You go get the eggs like I told you to.”

“Okay.” Lorena let out a long sigh and her shoulders slumped, but she headed toward the back door. She looked over her shoulder at Kate. “But you tell Tanner he’s not supposed to leave before the amen.”

“I’ll tell him,” Kate said, surprised to feel a smile curling up her lips. A smile that was mirrored on the other faces in the room. How could they be smiling with all these bad things happening? But they were. “If he’s still here.”

Graham spoke up. “He’ll still be here or I miss my guess. It’s just that the boy don’t understand about families.”

“And what he doesn’t know scares him,” Mike said.

“True enough for all of us,” Graham agreed. “But could be things aren’t so nerve-wracking when a man’s got friends and a hand to hold on to.”

“The Lord’s hand is ever reaching down to help us,” Mike said.

“You is right as rain, Reverend Mike, about that.” Aunt Hattie lifted her hands up toward the ceiling again before she sank back down in the rocker.

“I’m not disagreeing. But I’ve known the times it took somebody else reaching out a hand to help me see the good Lord’s hand ready for me.” Graham peered over at Kate, practically pushing her out the door with his eyes.

Jay was leaning against the tree where he’d parked his car. Where Lorena liked flying high into the sky on the swing in the summer. Where the swing hung deserted and still, except for bouncing a bit in the wind this time of the year. Where Carl had proposed and then forced a kiss on
Kate. Where she had welcomed Jay’s kisses the last week. Laughter and tears.

She pulled her sweater closer around her. She should have grabbed her coat. The day had turned colder. Everything about the day was colder and not just because of the north wind.

Jay didn’t look up at her, but she could tell he knew she was walking across the yard toward him. He kept his eyes on the ground even after she stopped in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope I didn’t upset everybody slipping out the door like that.”

“Nobody but Lorena. She said to tell you that you couldn’t leave before the amen.”

“I’ll make it up to her.”

“No more dogs.” Kate held her hand palm out toward him. “Trouble is enough.”

He looked up at her and almost smiled. “Then maybe a cat she could call Scout. Wasn’t that what she said once she wanted to name a dog if she had one?”

“She used to say that.”

Every trace of smile disappeared. “Then I brought her Trouble.”

“She loves Trouble,” Kate said. “But all she really wants you to bring her is you. She loves you.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say she loved him too, but she held back the words. She didn’t know why.

“But I’ll just end up disappointing her. I disappoint everybody.”

“You haven’t disappointed us.” Kate reached her hand toward him.

“Yet.” He stared down at the ground, refusing her offered hand. He had to see it, but he kept his own hands in his pockets.

She tucked her hand back up under her sweater as she
wrapped her arms tight around her waist and tried not to shiver. She didn’t know what to say. He was putting up a wall between them and she didn’t know why. “What are you afraid of?” she finally asked. She couldn’t keep her teeth from chattering.

“You’re cold.”

“A little,” she admitted.

He took off his jacket and covered the space between them in one step to drape it over her shoulders. “You should go back in the house.”

The jacket carried his warmth, and even better, he didn’t step away from her but kept hold of the coat lapels, pulling it tight around her. She looked up at him. “You didn’t answer me.”

“What am I afraid of?” His hands dropped away from the coat, but he stayed where he was and kept looking into her eyes. After a moment he said, “Everything. Only everything.”

“The war?”

“I’ll have to go, but that’s not what I’m most afraid of.”

“Then what is it that scares you so much?” The air was so cool, she could see her breath. Her words seemed to hang there with it.

“Love.”

Kate frowned a little. “Why would you be afraid of love?”

“What else can hurt you so much?” He looked away from her then, toward the field on the other side of the house.

“‘There is no fear in love, for perfect love casteth out fear.’” When she saw the look on his face, she wanted to take the words back. Not because she didn’t believe them. She did, but that was talking about the perfect love of the Lord. Not the kind of love that poked and prodded, sent a person heavenward one minute, to the depths the next. Besides, she didn’t want him to think she was preaching at him like Aunt Hattie or Mike. It was okay when they started preaching, but not
Kate. She was struggling to figure things out like everybody else.

His eyes came back to her face. “See, even that scares me. That you quote Scripture at me. It just shows how much I don’t belong. How wrong I am for you.”

“Then I won’t do it anymore.”

“But you can’t pretend to be somebody you’re not. You can’t. I can’t. And I want you to be you, Kate. More than anything in the world.”

“Then love me the way I am. Love yourself the way you are. Don’t stir fear into it.”

“It’s a good day to be afraid,” he said.

She stared up into his eyes for a long moment before she held up her hand to him. “Dance with me, Jay Tanner.”

He took her hand and stepped closer to her to put his arm around her. “There’s no moonlight. No snow. No music.”

“There’s the wind.” She began to move and he followed. “The music is always there if you only listen. Isn’t that what Fern told us?”

J
ay didn’t need to hear music to dance with Kate. All he needed was her hand in his, her head against his shoulder. Why did it scare him so much to be in love with her? To see her with her family. Why couldn’t he simply accept the blessing of their love? And let them know he loved them in return. Especially Kate. She was practically begging him to love her.

At this moment as they swayed to the music of the wind, he wasn’t even sure she wouldn’t get in the car with him and ride away from her beloved home if he asked her to elope. But he didn’t ask her. He clamped his lips together and didn’t let any of the words come out that were crowding into his heart. He must have been wrong when he told her he wasn’t a coward. While he could face down any man and was ready to stand up for his country, he couldn’t say three simple words.
I love you
.

He knew what Mike would tell him. And had told him many times. That he feared giving love because he’d never accepted the gift of the Lord’s love. Mike’s words echoed in his head.

“It is a gift, Jay. You can’t earn it. You can’t buy it. You can’t get it for another person. All you have to do is accept it.”

“And believe it,” Jay had told him once.

That upset Mike. “How can you not believe? The whole world is proof of God’s love. The sunrise each morning. The stars and the moon. Flowers in the spring. But most of all, his touch on so many lives.”

And now Jay had even more proof. Dancing to Kate’s music. Yet he hesitated. The music always ended.

With Trouble at her heels, Birdie came running across the yard to end the music this time. “Mama says if you want to eat anything before we go to church, you’ll have to come in now.” She stopped short when she came around the car and saw them standing close together, paused in the dance. “You were dancing again, weren’t you?”

Kate stepped away from Jay when the pup jumped up on him. Jay didn’t try to hold onto her, even though he wanted to cling to her and never let go.

“Caught red-handed.” Jay rubbed Trouble’s ears and smiled at Birdie. “Or maybe red-footed.”

“But you never have any music,” Birdie said.

“You mean you didn’t hear the music when you came around the car?” Jay asked. “Tell her, Kate. Tell her how loud the music was. I think she better have her ears checked.”

“It was pretty loud,” Kate said, then laughed a little at the look on Birdie’s face. “But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her ears. The music must have clicked off right before she got here.”

“Could be,” Jay said.

“Must have been so loud it knocked off your coat, Tanner.” Birdie picked up his coat to keep the pup from getting it.

“Guess so.” Jay took it from her. Neither he nor Kate had noticed it slipping off her shoulders while they danced.

“Brrr!” Birdie hugged herself and shivered. “It’s freezing out here.”

Kate was shivering again too. Without thinking about it, Jay wrapped his arms around them both to warm them up.
He shut his eyes a moment and thought this had to be what heaven felt like. But they were still trembling from the cold and Kate’s teeth were chattering again.

“You two better go in by the fire.” He stepped back from them.

Birdie kept hold of his hand. “But you’ve got to come in with us. Mama’s saving you a piece of pie and then we’re all going to church to pray about Pearl Harbor. Graham says the news keeps getting worse. A ship blew up.” She looked sad. “That means people died, doesn’t it?”

“Probably,” Jay said.

“I wish they’d turn the radio off,” Birdie said.

“That won’t change what’s happening,” Kate said softly.

“I know.” Birdie clutched Jay’s hand tighter. “But you’ve got to come eat your pie.”

Jay smiled at her. “I’m going to let you eat my pie for me tonight. All this news has ruined my appetite, and to tell the truth I need a little time to think about it. To try to figure some things out.”

“Mike says a good place to do that is church,” Birdie said.

“Mike knows,” Jay admitted. “But sometimes a man needs to be by himself to figure things out too.”

“Let him go, Lorena.” Kate’s voice sounded a little stiff, like she wasn’t happy with him going either. “If he wants to go, we can’t stop him.”

“But I’m afraid he won’t come back,” the girl said, even as she turned loose of his hand.

Jay knelt down to look Birdie in the face. “Haven’t I always come back?”

“But you might not next time.”

Jay touched her cheek with his hand. “I’ll always come back as long as you want me to.” He stood up and looked from her to Kate. “As long as you both want me to.”

“Make him promise, Kate. Like you promised me.
Remember?” Birdie tugged on Kate’s sweater. “A promise of the heart.”

“He’s already promised you, Lorena. Each person makes promises in his or her own way.” Kate put her arm around Birdie and turned her toward the house.

Birdie looked over her shoulder at Jay, but Kate did not. There was a determined set to her shoulders as she moved away from him. After he got in his car and backed it around to head to the road, he waited, watching them in the rearview mirror. Kate finally glanced back right before they went through the front door, but she didn’t wave.

He didn’t know why he didn’t go inside with them to the warmth that awaited there. Warmth and love and pie. But he hadn’t lied when he said he needed time to get used to things. He loved Kate. He wanted to pledge his love to her forever. But now he’d be going to the Army. There was no longer any doubt as to when. The Japanese bombs meant war. War meant every able-bodied man would have to step up to the mark for his country. There was no need waiting for the envelope to arrive. He’d have to join up. Do what he had to do for his country. But what would he do before then?

For a moment, his foot hovered over the brake. He could turn around. He could go back and ask Kate to elope. Or even better, ask if she would stand in front of Mike with him while he promised his love to her forever. Mike might not want to marry them, but he would. That wouldn’t change him believing Kate was making a mistake.

That’s what Jay had to think out. Whether Kate would be making a mistake. Whether he loved her enough to disappear from her life if that was what was best for her. He would be going to war. Men died in wars. Was it even right to ask for promises of love when that was about to happen?

He didn’t really want to go back to Graham’s and see the questions that would be in his eyes when he came home
from church. He wouldn’t ask them, but they’d be there. And maybe disappointment too. But it was too cold to sleep in the car. His feet were already feeling like chunks of ice. The heater was spitting out more cold air than warm. Plus he couldn’t just run out all his gasoline with no place to fill up before he had to be at work the next day. He needed to show up for work if for no other reason than to let them know he’d be enlisting in the Army and they would have to find a new hand. The same scene would be playing out all over the country. Men making decisions to leave behind everything they knew and loved to fight for their country.

Many of them would have more to give up. Families. Homes. Jay didn’t have any of that. Nothing but this old car. And Kate.

Jay sat in his car after the motor died and thought about all the people who would be gathering at the church to pray. He wondered what he’d be praying for if he were sitting in the church with them. Not peace. It was too late for that. Courage maybe. They were all going to need that. Then he knew what he needed to ask for more than anything was belief. Belief that his prayer would even matter.

“Are you listening, God?” he whispered.

The dead silence beat against his ears. Mike would tell him that of course God was listening. He was always listening.

“All right, God. Just in case Mike’s right, I’m talking to you. I need some help down here figuring things out. We’re all going to need some help down here.”

Words bubbled up from somewhere deep in his mind.
The Lord is a very present help in trouble
. Scripture. Had Kate become such a part of him that she could be putting Bible words in his head even when she wasn’t actually with him? That was foolish. No way that could happen. The words were just left over from the times he’d gone to church as a kid. It didn’t mean anything. His memory had just decided to play a trick on him.

Even so, the words stayed with him.
A very present help in trouble.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt anything to let those words linger in his mind where he could pull them out now and again.

The wind cut through his suit jacket when he got out of the car. He’d been putting off buying a winter coat. Like he thought summer would last forever. Maybe that was how he was with Kate too. Thinking he could just continue forever with her the way they were. Dancing toward love but with no hurry.

He was already in bed with the cover pulled up over his head when Graham and Poe came back from church. Poe flopped down with a satisfied dog sigh on his rug. Graham’s bed creaked as he sat down on it and began unlacing his shoes.

“You asleep, boy?” he asked.

Jay breathed in and out heavily and didn’t answer.

Graham pulled off one of his shoes with a grunt and dropped it on the floor. He took his other shoe off, making even more noise than he had with the first one. Jay shifted a little in the cot, but kept pretending to be dead to the world.

He could almost feel Graham’s eyes boring into him as he said, “You can play possum if you want. Don’t change nothing. You should have come back inside with the girls. You can’t run scared all your livelong days. That’s all I’m saying.”

Jay almost sat up then to ask Graham how come he’d never found a girl to marry if he believed that was true.

Graham threw his pants over the chair by his bed and pounded his pillow a couple of times. The old springs creaked as he shifted around for a comfortable position. Finally things got quiet, and Jay was expecting the old man’s snores. But instead, almost as if he had sensed Jay’s unspoken question, he began talking in the dark.

“You’re wondering about me. How come I’m telling you not to be like you might be thinking I am.” A long moment passed,
and Jay didn’t think he was going to say any more. Then he started up again. “I was in love once, but things happened, and I figured in my head that she wouldn’t want to have any part in my troubles. With Fern and all. Could be I was right. Could be I was wrong. But I never gave her the chance.”

Jay didn’t say anything, but he turned on his back and stared up at the ceiling. Waiting. Knowing there would be more.

“You got to give Kate that chance. For the both of you.”

Jay stared at the dark air above him. The night pressed down on him with the seconds ticking by. He wanted to say something, to let Graham know he’d heard him and that he did want to give Kate that chance. But just when he opened his mouth to speak up, Graham started snoring.

Far into the night, Jay listened to Graham snore and the old dog grumble in his sleep. The news bulletins kept playing over and over in his head. The imagined sounds of the airplanes dropping bombs. Ships exploding, sinking.

And over it all was the memory of Kate in his arms. The questions kept swirling around him. Right before he finally dozed off, he remembered her words, the Scripture she had quoted to him and other Bible words rising out of his memory.
No fear in perfect love. A very present help in trouble. God is love. No greater love than a man willing to lay down his life
. Jay wanted to put his hands over his ears to block it out, but the words weren’t coming from the outside. They were inside his head.

He got up early and slipped out before Graham was awake. Tonight would be soon enough to talk to him about what he’d said in the dark.
Give Kate that chance
.

Jay’s boss at the feed store brought in a newspaper. The headline type took up a quarter of the front page. Just after noon everything in the store stopped as the workers and farmers all huddled around the radio to listen to President Roosevelt address Congress. Once they heard his voice, nobody
shifted their feet or made any kind of noise as they focused on his words coming across the air.

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

The president’s voice was very grave as he told how the Japanese ambassador had broken off diplomatic negotiations, but without threat of war, even though the bombing of Pearl Harbor had already commenced.

He went on.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

There was the slightest pause, a second of dead air, before the president continued in a voice obviously saddened by the weight of his message.