Good Hope Road (19 page)

“Oh, good Lord,” Janet muttered. “I left her in the car.” Leaning down, she took Lacy’s face gently in her hands. Lacy looked right through her. “Lacy, honey, I told you to stay in the car. You can’t wander off like that. Next time you better stay home with the other kids, all right? It’ll be best that way.”

Lacy stared off across the field.

Janet closed her eyes and pulled her eyebrows together in the middle. She blinked hard and stood up, turning away from Lacy and wiping her eyes.

“Mama, I really want you to come on home, now that you’re finished helping with breakfast here, all right? You’re trying to do too much,” she said, her back turned toward me and Lacy, and her arms wrapped around herself. “Weldon will be here. He promised if we were needed here, he’d get word to us.”

“All right. All of a sudden I feel like the life’s gone out of me, anyway. Guess it’s all catching up with me.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go home and have a little rest, then go down to the creek where it’s quiet. It would be good to sit down there, don’t you think?”

Janet nodded, sniffing as she turned toward the car and my hand fell away from her. “Um-hmm. It would.”

“Lacy, you can dangle your feet in the water. It’ll feel good,” I said, but Lacy didn’t answer.

Janet opened the car door, helped Lacy in, then buckled her seat belt like she was a baby. I opened my door and climbed in, my joints creaking like old hinges as I pulled my legs around.

I laid my head against the seat, watching Lacy in the side mirror as we pulled away. “Sometimes a little quiet is what a soul needs,” I whispered as my eyes closed.

In the darkness of my mind, I saw Ivy’s angel, her face a mirror of Lacy’s. She was trying to talk to me again, but just like with Lacy, I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

 

 

A
round me, people sat up in their bunks, or stood and came over to watch as I taped pictures to the wall.

“Oh!” a woman said behind me. “Oh, goodness, that’s my wedding picture.” I turned to see the school librarian reaching for the picture in my hand. She stopped and picked up one from the floor. “And here’s the day we brought my son Kyle home from the hospital. That’s my granddad holding him. I thought for sure this picture was lost for good.” She cupped her fingers around mine for a moment, then slowly took the picture, looking at it through tear-filled eyes. “You don’t know what this means to me. This was the last picture we ever took of Granddad. It was such a happy day. Thank you for bringing it back. The picture, I mean.”

“You’re welcome.”

I turned back to the photographs, taping them carefully to the wall, bringing back a time and a world that right now seemed lost, a Kodacolor dream that had evaporated, leaving behind only gray reality. The pictures were evidence of the lives we had come from, and to which we would someday return.

As people came closer, surveying the pictures, I taped up the last photograph—the newborn baby girl with the cloudy blue eyes.

Only the old letter remained on the floor where the pile of pictures had been. Unfolding it, I stared at it for a moment, thinking that it didn’t belong on the wall, that it was meant to be private, shared only between two people, two lovers of long ago.

Finally I taped it to the wall with all of the others, wondering if those lovers would ever find it there. I imagined where they might be as I read the last words of the letter.

When I turned around, Drew was standing in the doorway, as if the words had brought him there.

I stared at him for a long moment, afraid to believe. He looked different, older, more like my father, with his dark hair and eyes, and the high cheekbones that made his face look stern. He was wearing a National Guard uniform.

I took a step forward, afraid he would disappear like a mirage. “Drew?” I whispered.

He nodded, and suddenly I realized he was real. He was here. He stretched out his arms, and I knew he was going to say what I had hoped for him to say all those years ago when he left.
Don’t worry about a thing, Jenilee. I’ll take care of everything.

I no longer needed for him to say it. I didn’t need to be rescued.

The idea of it stopped me where I stood. I didn’t want to be dragged back to the place I had been six years ago, six months ago, two days ago. I didn’t want that world to return.

Drew turned his hands palms up, then lowered them to his sides, disappointed by my reaction. “It’s me.”

I stood close enough to touch him, but I didn’t close the last inches between us. I wasn’t sure why. For four years I had been hoping he would come back. Now he had, and I didn’t know what to say. “I know it’s you,” I said. “Are you all right? I was . . . umm . . . worried about you.”

He nodded, wiping the back of his sleeve across his forehead. “My guard reserve unit was called up to help with rescue efforts right after the tornado. I couldn’t get here until this morning when a relief unit came to take over our sector. I went out to the house, and it was empty. I looked all around the sheds, the fields, the neighbors’ places. I couldn’t figure out where you might be. Finally I came into town and started asking around. I heard you were helping the doctors here at the armory. I heard you saved old lady Gibson’s life.”

I looked away from him, embarrassed to hear it described that way. “I pulled her out of the cellar. Everyone made a bigger deal of it than it was.”

“That’s not how people around town tell it. They say you were a regular hero—saved her and her granddaughter and helped the doctor here yesterday when things were pretty bad.”

I started to tell him I was only here because I couldn’t stand the silence at home, because I was afraid to be there alone any longer, but then I didn’t say it. Drew was finally looking at me with something other than pity and guilt, and it felt good.

“Mrs. Gibson’s a nice lady.” I wanted to turn the subject away from me. “She’s been up here taking care of people and making sure all the food got handed out, even though her home place is wrecked. Not everybody would do that.”

Drew nodded. It probably wasn’t coincidental that he thought of Daddy at that point. “I talked to the hospital before I left for Poetry this morning. The doctors took Daddy in for surgery again. Nate’s doing better today, though. They think he ought to be ready to leave as soon as they get his leg in a cast.”

I took in a quick breath of air, and the room seemed to spin around me. “You’ve seen Daddy and Nate?” I gasped, trying to process what he had said. “Are they all right? Where are they?”

He frowned, looking confused. “You mean you didn’t know? The hospital didn’t get in touch with you?”

“No.” Did he have any idea what the last two days had been like in Poetry? “We haven’t had much communication here. Mostly it’s emergency only.” Reaching out, I touched his arm, trying to connect, through him, to Nate. “How’s Nate? Is he all right? What happened?” I realized how it sounded, and quickly added, “Is Daddy all right?”

Drew took a deep breath and hesitated.

A veil of tears crowded my eyes. I could tell he was going to say things that would be hard to hear. “Drew,
tell me
.” I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to say. How did I want things to be after this moment? So many needs and desires, strengths and weaknesses were at war inside me.

Drew grabbed my shoulders, not tenderly but roughly. “Daddy’s pretty busted up.” His raven eyes searched mine, as if he needed to know what I was thinking. “They were in the truck on Highway Seventy-one almost to the Hindsville exit when the tornado came through. It rolled the truck several times and broke the trailer free, then threw the truck off an embankment. It was a bad crash. The highway patrol said they were lucky to be alive. They’ve been taken south to the hospital in Springfield because all the hospitals up north toward Kansas City are full and some of them have tornado damage, also.”

“Nate’s all right?” I heard myself whisper.

“Nate’s darned lucky. It could have been a lot worse. He’s shattered some bones in his leg, and they had to put a plate in there to hold them together. He asked about you.”

I pictured Nate in a hospital bed somewhere, smiling beneath that mop of blond hair, asking about me. A warm feeling washed through me. “I knew Nate was all right. I saw him in a dream the night after the tornado
.” I saw you too, Drew.
But I couldn’t make myself say it. So many old resentments were at battle inside me. I didn’t want him to know how glad I was that he’d come home.

Drew smiled a little, not a real smile like Nate’s. Drew never smiled like that. There was a closed, apprehensive look behind Drew’s smiles. He never smiled with his eyes.

“What did the doctors say about Daddy?” I was almost afraid to ask. There was a load of worry and guilt and fear wrapped in the question, and Drew knew it. Blood throbbed in my ears as I waited for him to answer. The rushing grew louder and louder, as if my body wanted to drown out whatever Drew had to say.

“Daddy’s in bad shape.” He looked at the floor to hide the thoughts behind his dark eyes. “He’s bleeding inside. They did surgery yesterday to try to stop the bleeding, but so far they haven’t gotten it under control. They took him in again this morning. He was conscious for a little while, but not since then. He’s been on oxygen and they’ve been giving him blood transfusions. They say he lost a lot of blood before he and Nate were found. They said he would have been dead if Nate hadn’t finally dragged himself out of the pickup and gone for help. The truck was half-buried in some debris down in a creek bottom, and they could have stayed there for days. Nate tore his leg up good trying to get it loose from under the seat.”

I shivered, imagining Nate leaving Daddy behind, breaking free, crawling away to get help, to save Daddy’s life. A flush of shame went through me, hot and bitter, because some part of me had been enjoying the freedom from Daddy and all his craziness these last few days.
What kind of a person would think such things?

Drew’s arms went around me, strong and solid and warm. I leaned into him, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

“I know,” he whispered, and I had a feeling he understood. I knew he was just as confused, and lost, and afraid of the world as I was.

I couldn’t remember Drew ever putting his arms around me like that before, or speaking with his voice strangled by emotion. Drew was always loud and solid, a little threatening. He was an island with no approachable harbor.

I wrapped my arms around him and hung on because I didn’t know what else to do. The world was spinning again. We were powerless to stop it, with no way of knowing where we would land.

“I want to see Nate,” I choked out, needing to be with Nate, to touch him, to hold his hand the way I used to when he had the flu or the chicken pox. Even though he was sixteen, he still got lonely and scared when he was sick.

Drew released me and I stepped back. “Drew, can you take me there?” I stood there, afraid he would say no, afraid he would walk away from Nate and me again. “I . . . I don’t have a car or anything.”

Drew ran his thumb and forefinger wearily along the crest of his dark brows. “We can try. Just don’t get your hopes up, all right? A lot of roads are flooded, and the guard may have closed some of the bridges I took. It was pretty hairy getting here.”

I nodded, unable to push words past the lump in my throat.
Nate’s all right
, was all I could think.
Nate’s all right, and you’re here, Drew
. Tears crowded my eyes, and I turned away, so Drew wouldn’t see how much I needed him.

On his cot nearby, Mr. Jaans held his hand out to me, and I moved forward until my fingers touched his.

“You just remember you done a good thing today. This day. Right now.” I didn’t know if he was talking about the pictures on the wall, or about Drew and me. “It don’t do any good to dwell on whatever come before. A bad past is like gristle. You can chew on it forever and starve yourself to death, or you can spit it out and see what else is on the table. You just go on from here, Jenilee, and you’ll be all right.”

I nodded, but all I could say was, “When I get back home, I’ll look after your cows.”

“Tell my cows I’m comin’ home soon.” He gave my hand a squeeze, then let his fingers fall away. “Keep an eye out for my bull, too, all right? The sheriff come in a while ago and said Charlie got away from them again. Keep an eye out for him, will ya? He don’t mean to hurt anybody.”

“I will.”

“Sure hope that bull makes it home. My wife and I raised that little cuss on a bottle just before she passed on. . . .” He trailed off, then relaxed against the pillow and closed his eyes. “I told Tom he better not let them trigger-happy deputies shoot my bull.”

“I’m sure he’ll show up at home,” I said. “He always does.”

Mr. Jaans let out a long sigh. “Ya know, I think I’d just as soon lose the house as lose that old bull. Don’t know what I’d do without him showing up at my window bellering in the mornings.” His lips curved upward with the thought. “Guess that goes to show it’s the small things you miss. It’s not houses, or cars, or furniture that ya want back. It’s the way someone smiled or the sound of a voice, or a silly old bull bellering at the window
.
”

Drew came back to the doorway, and I turned to follow him out, looking at the wall of pictures as I walked away.

Drew followed my gaze. “Who put those up there?”

“I did,” I said. “I wanted people to be able to find them.”

“It’s a good idea.”