Carol didn’t look pleased, but she obliged without sayin’ anything, slowly maneuvering herself onto the nearest blanket. Max sat behind her and she leaned back against him. Rorey and Eugene sat beside them, and when Rorey leaned into him, Eugene gave her a kiss on the cheek. That was awkward to see, ’cause he looked so much like Lester and I could remember Lester kissing Rorey. It didn’t seem so awful long ago, and I wondered how much Rorey thought about that. Hopefully not a lot, ’cause it’d prob’ly make her sad. She’d been convinced she was in love with Lester. And now Eugene. I hoped she really understood what she was doing.
Everything went fine through eatin’, and then some a’ the group went swimmin’ in the pond. It was all so peaceful that Mr. and Mrs. Wortham went back to the house with some of the dishes. Nobody got riled till Eugene brought his dripping wet self to the blanket where I was sitting with Sarah and asked how long I figured it’d be ’fore she had her fill a’ me.
I could almost see the steam rising in Sarah’s eyes, but I squeezed her hand and answered before she got the chance. “I ’spect the Lord’ll take care of us an’ we’ll manage together fine. I hope the same for your marriage.”
He smiled big. “Do you now?”
Kirk stepped up. My brother’d taunted me plenty over the years and let other boys do the same, but it was clear he wasn’t fixin’ to let Eugene by with it today. Harry and Bert got out of the water. Dave was watchin’ close, and so was Lizbeth.
“I wish the best for my sister,” I said. “I’ll be prayin’ for both of you.”
Eugene tilted his head a little, way too cocky to stop and think about me having three brothers close by. His voice came out hard, just like I was used to.
“An’ why do you think we’re ’specially needin’ your prayers, Mr. Retard-Holier-Than-Thou?”
That was enough for Kirk. He got hold on Eugene’s wet clothes and threw him to the dirt path. “Get outta here! You don’t walk on our farm and insult my family!”
“Kirk,” Sarah suddenly spoke up. “He surely didn’t mean it. Probably just an old habit.”
Eugene stared at her.
“You know, like biting fingernails or twirling hair,” she went on. “We all know how Eugene used to tease Frank, like so many other boys around here. Maybe he can’t help it if he hasn’t been able to outgrow it.”
Kirk smiled. “Maybe you’re right. Takes some people longer’n others t’ grow up.”
Eugene was frowning, and Rorey had turned red as a beet.
“Frank was just saying how he hopes the best for you both, Eugene,” Sarah said sweetly. “We’ll gladly continue praying for you always, and we’d be happy to receive your prayers as well.”
“Him?” Max laughed. “Pray?”
“Shut up,” Rorey told him.
“You never know who the Lord’ll see fit to touch and use.” Sarah smiled.
Eugene moved away from Kirk and went to shove Max back into the water.
“He oughta apologize,” Harry said.
But Lizbeth shook her head. “Let it go.”
Sarah had cooled the fires, even in herself. I was proud. And things got almost back to normal. But the picnic didn’t last much longer, at least for Eugene and his friends. Minutes later, they decided to go get a change of clothes and go bowling. Eugene was disappointed when Rorey told him she needed to stay and work on her dress. To everybody’s surprise, he asked Katie and Dave to join them, but Kate said she was going to be sewing with Rorey, and Dave declined so he could spend the rest of the afternoon haying with Kirk.
I joined them at the work, along with Harry and Bert. Seemed like old times, us brothers working side by side like that. Only instead of Dave with us, it oughta have been Sam. Or Joe.
“Good thing Willy wasn’t here today,” Bert observed. “He’d a’ lit into Eugene quicker’n we could do anything about it.”
“Are you kiddin’?” Harry said with a sideways glance at me. “Maybe he’d agree with him. He’s said plenty a’ things about Franky his own self.”
“If
you
said it he might go along, yeah,” Bert went on. “But not comin’ from Eugene. You remember after the fire. That was some fight, and Willy’s said more’n once he’d like another chance at the Turrey boys.”
“That was years back,” I told them. “A lot has happened. Willy’s grown up in the service. He served with Lester for a while. His feelings is bound to have changed.”
“About Lester, yeah. But not Eugene. He was mad about him runnin’ off with Rorey. It wasn’t honor to Lester’s memory nor to our family, especially so soon.”
Words slowed as we progressed with the work needin’ done, but I took to praying in my head for Willy and the weddings next week. Too bad Robert wasn’t here. He’d always had a good influence on Willy. Kirk had let Sarah’s words stop him, but I wasn’t sure Willy’d do the same.
Sarah
On Monday morning, Frank drove me to Dearing to pick up the shoes I’d ordered and choose a pair for himself. I’d only been in Hollstetter’s new shoe store once before, with Mom, to pick out the style to go with my dress. Frank wasn’t keen on new shoes. He was comfortable with his old boots, but I’d insisted he needed a nice new pair for the wedding. He went to the men’s section to try some on while I talked to Mrs. Hollstetter.
“Oh yes, they’ve come in,” she told me. “I left them in back so we wouldn’t sell them by mistake. I need to be leaving for an appointment, but I’ll have my sales assistant bring them right up.”
She disappeared, and I occupied myself looking at a display of purses made to match shoe colors. The store was quiet, and I was just thinking of joining Frank by the men’s shoes when I heard a sudden noise behind me. Before I could turn around, strong arms grabbed me. Donald Mueller. He gripped my arms and leaned his face at mine, trying to force a kiss. I struggled, but I couldn’t pull myself out of his grasp.
And then I heard another noise—the clunk of something hitting the floor. Frank was around the corner of the display in a second, and he lit into Donald faster than I’d seen anybody move. I’d never seen Frank fight. He hadn’t even been close to getting mad over Eugene’s spiteful words at the picnic. But he hit Donald, and he hit him hard. Donald fell back against a rack of shoes, and Frank turned his attention to me.
That was the first I noticed that Donald was wearing a vest with the store name on it. He was the sales assistant Mrs. Hollstetter had sent me. I felt like fleeing, even without my wedding shoes.
“Are you all right?” Frank was asking.
I nodded, still too stunned to speak.
“I just wanted to talk to her,” Donald stammered, holding his jaw.
“That was no talk,” Frank said fiercely. “Do you want me to call the law, Sarah?”
I stared at him, unable to answer for a moment. I didn’t think Frank had ever hit anyone. In all the years I’d known him. Not when he’d been so cruelly teased or even when Lester Turrey beat on him and blamed him for the barn fire. But he’d never had to defend
me
before.
Slowly, I shook my head. “W-we don’t have to call the law if he promises never to touch me again.”
Frank was doubtful. “You sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. I just want my shoes.”
Donald stared up at both of us, still holding his jaw. It looked like he had a bump over one eye too.
“You heard her,” Frank demanded. “Where’s the shoes we ordered?”
Donald pointed to the display across the aisle from the purses. He must have seen me and set them down there, maybe thinking there was no one else in the store.
Frank picked up the shoes and took my arm. Donald pulled himself to his feet, still staring at us.
“You won’t be gettin’ up so easy if you ever come near her again,” Frank told him. “An’ you’ll have a jail cell waitin’. You owe her an apology. Right now.”
“I’m sorry,” Donald muttered, looking pale. He would never have imagined Frank rushing so strongly to my rescue. And I hated to think what might have happened if Frank hadn’t been there.
I gave Frank a hug, my eyes filling with tears. It was a good thing Mom and I had prepaid the order, because he was ready to go without waiting another second.
Later in the week, we picked up a pair of shoes for Frank at O’Flannery’s in Mcleansboro. And I didn’t see Donald again after that. Not ever.
Frank
Sam and his family came on Tuesday’s train, and the kids were full a’ bounce and noise. Except Albert, who greeted me with the same simple hand signs he’d used last time I saw him. I signed him back the very same thing—“I love you”—and he smiled. Then he made some other signs, and I had to ask Thelma what he meant.
“Come home with us again. That’s what he’s asking you,” she told me, and it was real plain that it made her happy how quick Albert had taken to the sign language. He could talk now for the first time, at least to her and his tutor. Thelma’d worked hard to learn the signs with him, and Rosemary and Georgie had learned a few too, but Sam hadn’t. “Too busy,” he said.
“Teach me more,” I asked Thelma, and she promised she would when the time allowed.
Wednesday was Rorey’s wedding day. Kirk and I went alone to the train to get Willy. It made me think of the day he come home after bein’ injured in the war. He’d been traveling with Robert, who’d been hurt a lot worse. We were all tense and excited then, both worried and relieved that they were home. And Willy’d been home twice since. He’d been fine, glad to continue with the service, planning to keep on for another tour of duty. Kirk had been happy to get out of the military. But Willy was different. He’d become a Marine sergeant first class, and it seemed to suit him just fine.
He was lookin’ broader of shoulder than I remembered. And he was the tallest of us, ’less Bert or Harry’d manage to keep growin’ and pass him by. He was in his uniform, and he smiled big when he saw us. He gave me a hug, which I hadn’t known to expect.
“Has anybody asked Sarah if she’s sure ’bout this?” he joked at me. “There’s prob’ly two or three other guys that’d have her.”
I thought of Donald Mueller immediately and felt my dander rise. But my brothers kept right on with their talk.
“Frank’s got her hoodwinked,” Kirk was saying. “And she’s even happy about it.”
Willy gave me a little shove. “I knew it’d happen, son of a gun.” But his face and whole mood changed pretty quick. “Rorey still got her fool notion?”
Kirk nodded. “Yup. Five o’clock this evening.”
Willy shook his head and grimaced. “She’s outta her senses. How can she think about him?”
“She’s just bein’ Rorey,” Kirk said.
But I had a different answer. “I think it’s the only thing she knows to do.”
“That’s stupid,” Willy said right away. “She could tell him to get lost, and then move back home where she belongs.”
“I think she took off with Eugene to run from the grievin’. And if she don’t stay with him, she thinks she’ll feel lost where all the hurt can get hold on her again.”
He gave me a funny look. “Franky, you got the most convoluted way a’ thinkin’ things through I ever heard of. She’s just bein’ a idiot takin’ up with idiots.”
Despite his harsh words, Willy didn’t seem to have planned anything to spark any trouble or disrupt the wedding that would take place that evening. “Let ’em have their foolishness if that’s what they want.”
He borrowed Kirk’s car to pick up Lucinda Tower for the ceremony. And he sat clear in back, silent as a stone, in his uniform, with nothing resembling a smile.
Rorey’s dress turned out nice despite the short amount of time they’d had. She wasn’t completely satisfied, but that was Rorey. She had Carol, Lizbeth, and Emmie stand with her, but she hadn’t picked out matching dresses, so Carol was dressed in some kind of spotted thing I’d never seen anything like before, and Lizbeth and Emmie were in their Sunday best.
Eugene had two of his brothers and Max beside him, and they had a Turrey niece and nephew to be flower girl and ring bearer. It was a beautiful evening to be outdoors, but it still seemed peculiar to have chairs and everything set up in the Worthams’ yard like this. There was a bunch of Turreys, and it was awkward watchin’ my brothers tolerate ’em being here. And tolerate this whole proceeding. Mrs. Turrey cried and cried about her little boy gettin’ married, even though she had five already married and three more still at home.
Rorey had Sam give her away ’cause Pa was dead, but I thought if Pa’d been asked, he woulda said that Mr. Wortham had earned the right. Funny thing about Rorey; she didn’t use no Worthams in any way in her ceremony, even though she’d wanted it in their yard. But the reception wasn’t to be here. The Worthams made most of the food, but Eugene had wanted the doin’s at the community hall in town, with his sister-in-law in charge of the punch bowl and other drinks. I knew what that meant, and so did Sarah.
“Do you think we should even go?” she asked me.
“Might insult Rorey if we don’t show up for a little while, but we can leave early if you want. Might get a little crazy in there late.”
All of Sarah’s family and most of mine felt the same way about that. But we shoulda known it would have been wiser for more of us to stay to the end. Willy seemed to be having a good time dancin’ with Lucinda, and Harry was spending an awful lot of time with Eugene’s sister Rose. But after Sarah and I left, along with her folks, Lizbeth, and Emmie, the ruckus started.
Katie told us later that Willy cornered Eugene and shoved him against the wall, making threats of what would happen if he wasn’t good to our sister. Sam tried to break ’em up, but they’d both been drinking too much, Eugene’s brothers tried gettin’ involved, and then Harry and Kirk flew off the handle and got in the middle a’ things too. Sam lost his cool, and poor Dave had an impossible job tryin’ to calm everybody down.
The way it turned out, Eugene got a black eye, and everybody else was looking pretty banged up too.
Rorey threatened to never speak to her brothers again, including me, even though I hadn’t been there. But I shoulda been. Maybe that was why she was mad. I mighta been able to do somethin’ to stop it.
I felt miserable bad over the whole thing. So did Katie, who’d had the misfortune a’ having to see it all. I wasn’t quite sure why Dave had stayed so long, knowing he was just as uncomfortable with the drinkin’ as I was, but he told me later that he owed Kirk a lot, and he’d learned to watch out for him in his moments of weakness.