Till Morning Is Nigh (14 page)

“A lot,” young Sam added.

Pastor and Juanita hugged every one of the children, as well as Samuel and me again. We were so blessed to have them, such good friends. I knew they’d been praying for us and would continue to, and that was comfort beyond words for me.

We rode home through the crystal snow, Berty singing his special song again. I joined him at it and then sang “Silent Night” for Katie. She’d gotten so terribly quiet and now was at my side again. I knew she was close to tears, the very nearness of Christmas weighing on her heart with a terrible ache. Why had her mother left her? Didn’t she love her? Didn’t she care? I’d had those questions when my father went away so long ago, and not even Grandma Pearl could answer them for me. But she’d made Christmas happy anyway. She’d made things seem at least a little all right again. And I hoped, I prayed, that I was doing that for Katie. For all of them.

Something was different as we came up to the house through newly fallen snow. There were tracks across the yard where there’d been none before, and when we got close we could see the back door hanging open as though someone had just rushed in and left it swinging.

Samuel looked at me, but I couldn’t read what I saw in his eyes. Young Sam stopped the wagon in the drive and was down off the seat in a flash. Samuel hurried down too. My heart was suddenly thundering. Willy jumped up, and I knew I couldn’t stop him or any of the other big boys from rushing inside. But Kirk didn’t rush in that direction. He jumped from the wagon and went straight for the barn.

Harry wanted to go in. Everybody else seemed hesitant. But we were home, and it was cold outside. Despite my thundering heart, I rose from the wagon seat, bringing Emmie and a blanket up with me. “We may as well go on inside,” I said slowly. “Don’t run, all right?”

“Is it Pa?” Franky asked.

Lizbeth looked at me.

“Maybe.” That was all I could say. But who else could it be? Samuel’s brother Edward coming back to see us? Somehow I doubted that. The last we knew, he was in Tennessee.

Lizbeth bundled a quilt around her shoulders and took Berty’s hand. “We oughta go in then.”

Joe drew in a deep breath. “I think I’ll walk out to the barn with Kirk if you don’t mind.”

“That would be good,” Lizbeth told him.

She and I ushered the young children toward the porch, Katie clinging to my hand like she was scared to death, and Harry stumbling in the snow and rushing ahead.

“I hope he’s okay,” Franky said softly.

I couldn’t even answer. Maybe I was feeling as afraid as Katie was. If it was George, how would he be? Where had he gone? And why? For so long! What had he been thinking?

It was George. Sprawled on our davenport. Samuel and young Sam were just stirring him as we came in, though I would have left him lay.

“Pa!” Harry yelled, rushing forward and destroying their attempt to rouse him gently. Harry jumped on the davenport without hesitation, landing right on his father’s legs. Despite Lizbeth’s efforts to hold him back, Berty was right behind him, leaping at George’s chest before the man managed to sit himself up.

Rorey was a great deal more reserved, standing back with her arms folded.

Willy was too. “Where you been, Pa?”

George just looked around at all of us, his eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t tell if he was drunk. I wouldn’t have been surprised. He smelled like a sewer rat and looked almost as bad.

“Pa, what happened?” Lizbeth asked more gently.

“I . . . I couldn’t do it. I was gonna . . . I was gonna . . .” He looked up at Samuel, seeming almost unable to speak. “I couldn’t do it—”

“Do what?” Willy asked. “Leave us for good?”

George looked frightened. Bruised. Filthy. Wherever he’d been, whatever he’d been up to, it hadn’t been pleasant. He stared at Samuel. “I remembered . . . the promise . . . last year I promised you . . .”

“Yes, you did,” Samuel answered him solemnly. “Need some coffee?”

George nodded. He seemed to be shaking. He had yet to tell us any details of where he’d been, but I figured that had best wait. Till the children were in bed, probably. At least the little ones. It wasn’t something they needed to hear. George hugged Berty, who was squeezing his neck. He hugged Harry too. Lizbeth put Emmie in his arms, and he hugged at both of them. Rorey and Willy still hung back. Joe and Kirk hadn’t come inside yet. Slowly, George turned his eyes to his oldest son.

“Glad you could make it for Christmas, Pa,” young Sam said, his face almost devoid of expression.

“Glad—glad you could make it, boy. I . . . I’m sorry.”

I suddenly realized Franky hadn’t followed us to the sitting room. When I went to make the coffee and a bite to eat, I found him sitting at the kitchen table with his head down.

“Franky, don’t you want to greet your father?”

“Yeah. In a while. When’s he’s ready. He won’t be anxious.” He sniffed, and my eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, Franky. Don’t you think he wants to see you? He did come back.”

He nodded, fighting the tears that tried to press at him. “I prayed he would. I’m so glad he did—”

“What’s the matter?”

“I . . . I just thought I better wait, that’s all, ’fore he sees me.”

It broke my heart, seeing Franky’s assessment of his father’s feelings for him. George was always so hard on him, so impatient, and so cruelly blind to Franky’s bright mind, loving heart, and gentle spirit. I couldn’t remember ever seeing George extend any affection toward Franky, and Franky clearly didn’t expect any now. He felt like the castoff, the least desired, who needed to wait while his father greeted the others before darkening his view. I hoped he was wrong about it, but I just wasn’t sure. I’d seen such lack of feeling in George so many times. And yet I knew that Franky loved him anyway.

“Would you like to help me? I’m going to make everyone a sandwich.”

He nodded.

Sarah and Katie came and sat at the table, with Katie hugging tight at Sarah’s doll. Her face was ashen.

“Everything’s all right, honey,” I assured her. “Mr. Hammond is home, and we’re going to go on with a happy Christmas Eve.”

She burst into tears.

“Honey . . .” I took her in my arms, and thankfully Samuel came in the kitchen to make progress with the coffee and sandwiches, or they would never have gotten done.

Katie cried into my blouse, inconsolable. I tried to calm her, but I was helpless to do much of anything except hold her and let the tears flow. Sarah stood beside us the whole time, her hand gently resting on Katie’s back.

Samuel and Franky made sandwiches at the table in front of us, but there was nothing I could do but wait with Katie until she could talk to me. I smoothed her hair, I kissed her brow, but nothing seemed to help.

Harry and Bert in the sitting room were loudly telling their father all the things we’d done while he was gone. Lizbeth tried to shush them a little, but it did no good that I could tell. Everyone else in the sitting room seemed painfully quiet, especially George. Until I heard a strange choked sound and realized George was sobbing.

“I don’t think he’s drunk,” Samuel told me. “Not anymore.”

“Thank God,” I replied.

I carried Katie into the bedroom away from everyone else to try and help her calm down. Only Sarah followed us, and I couldn’t refuse her. She shut the door for me, and I sat on the edge of the bed with Katie on my lap.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong, honey? Everybody’s okay.”

She sniffed. She struggled. But finally she could speak. “I—I was scared it was my mommy or—or Uncle Eddie come to take me away.”

She sniffed again, wiped her face on the hankie I gave her, and then tried to go on. “But then—then I saw Rorey’s daddy.” She looked up at me and drew in a sniffly breath. “He—he must love them because—because—he came back—”

I thought I understood. The poor child was torn apart, afraid of her mother taking her away and yet brokenhearted if the woman didn’t care enough to come and try. “Honey, I believe your mother loves you.”

“No, she doesn’t! She won’t come! She won’t!”

There was nothing I could do but hold her and let her cry some more. What could I say?

Sarah was bold and kind enough to say it for me. “I bet she does love you. She just don’t know how to show it. An’ we all love you too. I hopes you’re feeling better in a minute, ’cause I’m gonna need you.”

Katie tried again to dry her eyes. “Why?”

“We got to move Mary and Joseph again, remember? They’re supposed to get to Bethlehem today!”

I smiled at my little girl. The culmination of the journey they’d been working on for days was enough to pull Katie out of her sorrow, at least a little.

“Okay. I’ll help. Can—can I make Mary walk this time?”

“Yeah. You can move ’em both if you want. And the kings too.”

It seemed strange to have George back, but good. A relief to all of us. Rorey warmed up to him slowly, showing him the Christmas angel cookies she’d made for her mother. She hugged him when he offered to take them out to Wila’s grave, with a note so that real angels would know where to take them. Willy and Kirk were angry. I knew that and I think their father did too. Sam and Joe shared some of the same feelings, I’m sure, though they were better at keeping them hidden. I understood that Kirk resented his father for being gone without a word and then showing up for Christmas suddenly and expecting everyone to welcome him as though nothing had happened. It was hard to wash all the worries and uncertainty under the bridge.

George seemed to understand that. He gave them space. He apologized. He could hardly seem to keep from crying.

Fortunately we had the children’s magical Christmas Eve to take part in. After supper, Sarah wanted Samuel to read the Christmas story, and then she and the other children put it in action right in front of us, using Franky’s paper cone figures.

Mary and Joseph proceeded slowly, wearily, to a kitchen chair, where they tried to get lodging but were turned away. They had no choice but to venture to the tabletop, domain of the stable animals, and settle in as best they could. Then Sarah ran frantically upstairs for the baby Jesus. The moment had arrived. But she came tearing right back down again. “Mommy! Mommy! He’s gone again!”

I looked around at the other little faces. “Does anyone know where the baby Jesus is?”

Berty looked at Franky with a tiny smile and then confessed. “He’s hided in Katie’s shoe.”

Sarah and Katie ran together to the spot. “You gotta get outta there now!” Sarah exclaimed. “It’s time to get borned!”

“Why’d he get in my shoe?” Katie wanted to know.

“He was jus’ visitin’ you for awhile,” Franky explained.

I smiled. Jesus’s travels made sense to me now. I’d known very well that Franky hadn’t been moving him. I’d asked him about it more than once. But I could well imagine Franky putting Berty up to it, to provide a childish touch of grace on various ones who’d seemed to need it at the time. I marveled at him, cheerfully standing beside his father, though I’d yet to see George acknowledge him directly.

Sarah hurried back to the manger scene with the paper baby cupped in her hand. Katie raced behind her, and the rest of us stayed close enough to watch. Much to his parents’ delight, Jesus appeared almost instantly in the manger, and the angels flew like lightning to the far end of the table to tell the shepherds the good news.

Harry and Bert hurried the shepherds and sheep to the baby’s side, where Berty soon had them all singing. The angels joined in, even Rorey’s crying one, which she perched precariously on the stable’s top.

And then Sarah hurried for the wise men.

“Look!” she had one of them exclaim. “See that bright star! It’s right over top Bethlehem!”

But the wise men wouldn’t reach the manger that night. Sarah and Franky had decided that they must arrive in the morning with their gifts, making our Christmas gift-giving all the more appropriate. Such thinking, however, left Harry with a question.

“If Jesus is borned in the night, why do we have to wait till morning for a present?”

“Because he was borned on Christmas, silly,” Rorey said. “You can’t stay up till the real part of the night when he was borned. We just know it already happened when we wake up in the morning.”

“I wish we could open somethin’ tonight,” he lamented.

Willy glanced grudgingly at his father. “How you know we even got anythin’?”

George sprung up and fumbled toward the pantry door. “You do. You do. I—I got the Christmas candy. I couldn’t let it go without—without—you know—”

Tears sprung to Lizbeth’s eyes. George fumbled about in our pantry. “It’s a . . . it’s a special occasion,” he mumbled. “Samuel, do you think unner the circumstance it’d be all right—”

“Yes,” Samuel answered without waiting for George’s words to come out right. “It feels like Christmas is already here.”

Finally George found what he was looking for. A sack he must have thrown in on a shelf before we got home. The Hammonds’ Christmas candy. One long striped red-and-white stick for each child. And this year, he’d even brought extra for the three Wortham children. I could scarcely believe he’d managed to be that thoughtful. This was something he’d been doing for his children for as long as any of them could remember. Most years they didn’t have anything else. But Sam and Lizbeth had known it wouldn’t quite seem like Christmas without it.

One taste of the candy, and then it was time for bed. It wasn’t hard getting the little ones settled tonight. But the older ones still wanted further explanation from their father. So I made them all tea or cocoa and let Willy, Kirk, Sam, Joe, and Lizbeth sit around the table and listen to their father’s story.

“I hitched a ride from the blacktop road,” he began. “Got all the way to St. Louis. I won’t lie to you none. Got liquored up first. Got good and drunk an’ stayed that way ’long as I could.”

Lizbeth looked down in her lap. Kirk shuffled in his seat like he really didn’t want to hear any more. But they were all quiet as George continued.

“Didn’t think I could go on, you know. I thought the city way off’d be the place to be done with everythin’— didn’t want none a’ you findin’ me. Was gonna jump off the river bridge, that’s what I had in my mind to do. Leave you in the care a’ the Worthams here. Figured you’d be better off.”