Katie's Dream (21 page)

Nothing I could say made any difference. George didn't seem to hear Lizbeth or Julia about it, either. Only the teacher's words: “He's not learning. I don't know if he
can
learn.”

Franky hollered once when we went over a bump, and I held him tighter. Lizbeth held him too, with tears in her eyes. He started crying, trying hard to be so still, and I knew he was hurting badly. He was one tough little kid.

George was the only one of us who'd ever been to Mcleansboro, and that was before the hospital had opened in 1929. But it wasn't hard to find someone who could direct us. We found Market Street pretty quickly, and Edward pulled up in front of the hospital with a lurch that almost made me yell at him again.

The place looked like a house. Had been once, I could tell. “One of you go in and see if they have a cart,” I said.

But Franky shook his head. “Carry me.”

So I carried him. Nine years old and barely heavier than Sarah. He rested his head against my shoulder, took a deep breath, and whispered the name of Jesus.

“He's with you,” Lizbeth assured him, hurrying along at my side. George was following, I knew he was. But Edward didn't get out of the car.

THIRTEEN

Julia

“Is he gonna be okay?” Sarah asked me for the tenth time as we dragged rugs out of the house.

Busy work. Something to tax my muscles but not my brain. “Of course, he'll be okay. He may have to stay in bed a while, but he'll be okay.”

I shook out every rug as the girls watched. Then I sent them to go and make whatever they wanted with that clay before it dried out entirely. I threw the rugs over the clothesline and retrieved Emma's rug beater. It was new in 1911, she'd told me once. It didn't look new now.

I wondered if Emma had ever beat her rugs just to have an excuse for beating at something. Grandma Pearl had told me once about making beaten biscuits, where you pound the dough with a wooden paddle till you're nigh exhausted. I couldn't do that. I'd lost the recipe clear back
in Pennsylvania. But I could get the dust out of these rugs if it killed me.

I beat and I beat, tears streaming down my cheeks. I was so mad I scared myself. I could scarcely imagine Emma or my grandma or any other woman feeling so mad as I was. It wasn't like me. Not even with all we'd been through.

I knew it was different because it was Edward, shaking Samuel in ways I didn't understand. Making me doubt my own love and trust in him. And now hurting an innocent little boy without even the decency to admit his mistake or say he was sorry. I could have whacked him as easily as one of those rugs.

It took me a minute to realize I wasn't alone. I'd thought Robert was back in the barn and all three girls under the apple tree with that clay. But I turned, feeling eyes on me. And I found Katie, her face full of question.

“Why are you doing that?” she asked, looking fearful.

“To get the dust out.” I whacked at the nearest rug again, but not so viciously.

“Seems like you'd tear 'em all to pieces.” She was looking at me with her eyes wide, but she had to turn her head to cough for a minute, I was stirring up so much dust.

“Rugs are sturdy,” I told her. “Or they wouldn't bear walking on. They can take a beating. Best way to get the dirt out.”

“Mama only shook hers,” she said after a pause. “She only had one, an' we took it with us every place, rolled up in the bottom of Mama's bag. But it was stole in Newark 'long with the other stuff, and Mama cried.”

I stopped and looked at her. “Why would your mother travel with a rug?”

“'Cause her grandmama made it. She said it was a keepsake.”

I couldn't help wondering how a woman who would abandon her daughter could get sentimental over a throw
rug. “Your mother's grandmother?” I asked. “Did you ever meet her?”

“Don't think so. Only my own grandma. Not Mama's.”

“Do you know her name?”

Katie smiled. “Pearly. Just like pearly gates in the sky.”

I almost dropped the rug beater. Katie's mother had a Grandma Pearly?
Lord, this is too much!
Doing things with my Grandma Pearl had been the dearest part of my childhood. Where had this girl come from? Finding such a coincidence startled me.

“Lacey Pearly,” Katie continued. “Mama told me once she should have named me after her. 'Cause it sounds so much like a wedding dress. Lacey Pearly. Ain't it pretty? But she's dead now. That's why I didn't tell that sheriff her name. He won't find her, unless he goes to the pearly gates.”

The name wasn't the same after all. Pearl had been my grandmother's first name. Pearl Evan Carlton. But I wondered why this grandmother had been so special to a woman like Trudy Vale. Why did Katie even know about her when she knew so little about her mother's mother, who, hopefully, was still living? “Katie, did your mother talk about her grandma a lot?”

“Sometimes. 'Specially when she was sad.”

“Well, the sheriff ought to know. You might have some other relatives named Pearly. Wouldn't it be nice to find them?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“'Cause Mama said none of 'em care about her.” She glanced up at me and then quickly down at her shoes. “An' I wanna stay here.”

I leaned the rug beater against the clothesline pole. “But we don't know yet how long—”

“I—I mean all the time.” She took a deep breath and let the words roll out. “I promise I'll be good every single day.
I'll help you with everything all the time, just tell me what to do. I can be quiet too, I promise, only . . . only . . .”

“Katie—”

She was looking at me with pleading in her eyes. “I'm sorry what happened to that little boy, Mrs. Wortham. I—I'll do his chores. I'll help you, I promise. You don't have to be mad. Not at me or Mr. Wortham, 'cause I'll be good. I promise.”

I stared at her, stunned for a moment. “Honey, that accident was not your fault.”

“I know,” she said as a tear slid to her cheek only to be wiped away furiously.

“I'm not mad at you. It's just that you're bound to have family somewhere else who cares for you—”

“I don't think so. I think Sarah's daddy is the only daddy I got. It's just like Mama said—he's got two other kids. And I promise I won't be no extra trouble.”

For a moment I was speechless. “Edward told you we had two children?”

“I dunno. Mama said my daddy told her, before he left the last time, because she asked him if he had family someplace else.”

Suddenly my heart was racing. “How old are you?”

“Six. Didn't I tell you?”

“Yes. But . . . but when is your birthday?”

“I was six in winter. In January.”

Sarah'd been six in August. She was less than a year old when Katie'd been born. But we'd had two children.

Suddenly I thought of the picture. Stolen with the rug and who knew what all else. But a picture. My eyes filled with tears. “He really does look like your daddy?”

She nodded, and I reached my hand to the clothesline above me, just to steady myself.

“Please don't be mad.”

“I'm not.” I managed to choke out the words. “I'm not . . . mad.”

FOURTEEN

Samuel

Only one leg was broken. The other was bruised and sore, but they didn't find a break. The right leg was broken just below the knee. Painful. More than one nurse told us how brave Franky had been not to scream when they had to touch it and try to set it.

He was clinging tight to Lizbeth and me both. They thought I was his father at first, until we told them different. George just stood looking on.

“Be strong, now, boy,” he said once or twice. “Don't fuss no more'n you have to.”

I knew it touched George to see his child in pain. I could see it in his eyes. But he didn't move to touch him, even when I tried to get him to Franky's side.

“We'll have to keep him here awhile,” Doctor Hall told us. “I believe we have it set right, but I'll want to check him, and he shouldn't be moving it.”

George clenched his hat in both hands. “How long's a while?”

“Weeks. Three at least. Maybe he could go home then. If you can get him there easily enough and he can stay in bed.”

The doctor left us, and George shook his head and paced the floor a while. “I don't like doctors,” he finally told me. “Don't like hospitals. Can't pay 'em. You know that.”

“I don't think you have any choice right now,” I said. “And they haven't asked for money, but we'll find a way.”

“You're still sayin' we, Samuel. Still claimin' us all?”

“Why wouldn't I? I guess you claim us too.”

“We's more trouble than you ever been.”

It was strange to hear George admit something like that. Finally he went to Franky's bedside and touched the boy's hand. But by that time, the medicine they'd given Franky for the pain had put him to sleep. He looked peaceful, and more like George than I'd ever noticed.

“He's a good boy, George. Way smarter than you know.”

“You always did think that. He oughta been your boy. At least you unnerstand him.”

“You could. If you talked to him more.”

“Nah. Tried that. He'll say stuff like he's a grain a' wheat or he's wonderin' what'd happen if some storybook character was to show up in our backyard.”

“All children have a strong imagination.”

“But he's differ'nt! You know that! He's clumsy an' awkward. He ain't normal, staring off into space and thinkin' 'bout how come the sky's blue an' dirt ain't. It don't make a lick a' sense to me. He asked me the other day what the world'd be like if there weren't no trees an' the cows weren't no bigger'n m' arm! He can't milk without tippin'
the bucket. He can't read a lick. Only thing he can do right is whittle wood an' hammer an' saw with you when you got the time. An' now this! I dunno what'll come of him, Samuel, don't you see? What if he's cripple on top a' ever'thin' else?”

At Franky's bedside, Lizbeth was watching us and listening but not saying a word.

“I see he's a thinker, George. And he
is
good with wood. But he knows what he's talking about with a lot more than that. He'll be all right, one way or another.”

George was shaking his head, and it bothered me.

“I happen to know that you don't read, either,” I said quietly.

“Well, it weren't 'cuz I failed at tryin'!” George snapped. “I didn't go to school like Franky goes! Never went but one day, so it ain't the same a'tall!”

Maybe he was a little too loud. Maybe we both were. A nurse came in, looking at us rather sternly, and asked again which one of us was the boy's father.

“That'd be me,” George said, suddenly looking timid.

The nurse told us I'd have to leave in a little while. Only Franky's parents could stay with him after visiting time.

“He don't have a mama livin',” Lizbeth told the woman. “So can I stay an' take her place?”

“You're the sister?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The nurse agreed. And I wondered how any of us would manage to get back home. Me tonight. But then Lizbeth and George and eventually Franky. Barrett Post would come in after them, if I could get to his house to tell him about it. But if Edward hadn't stayed, how was I going to get across the miles back home? A long walk, I guessed. Or hitchhiking, the way my family had done to get out here from Pennsylvania.