Katie's Dream (7 page)

I went inside with the milk bucket and found Juli stirring cornmeal in a pot of water on the cookstove. Mush again. Not my favorite but passable with molasses. We had more cornmeal in the house than anything else.

She looked up at me with her tender green eyes. “Are you all right this morning?”

“Sure. And Katie seems all right. I'll need to go over to Barrett's now that I've got the truck. Maybe he won't need it today.”

“That can wait till after breakfast, can't it?”

“I hate to put it off.”

“Won't take me more than two minutes,” she said, pulling a pan of muffins from the oven. She was baking something else, her soda bread, I guessed. There were at least two loaves in behind the muffin pan. I couldn't imagine my mother baking so early or so happily, especially if someone had just left off a child at her doorstep.

“Sammy,” Julia asked suddenly, “what's ‘bear paws'? I mean, other than the paws of a bear?”

I stared at her. To anyone but me or my cousin Dewey, that question would sound utterly ridiculous. How could Julia know about it?

“You were talking in your sleep,” she told me, reaching for my hand. “But that's all you said.”

“Just a password. Just a dumb thing.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Julia, it doesn't mean anything. Dewey and I, we used to run off to play alone sometimes. It was just a signal we used. I'd say ‘bear paws,' and he'd know it was me coming, or he'd leave me a sign, and I'd know to meet him as soon as I could. We played Indian. It was part of the game.”

She smiled. “I wish you'd talk about those things more.”

“Not much point.”

“Robby'd like to hear it.”

I didn't reply, and she turned to face me. “I thought you might have been dreaming.”

I nodded. But I didn't answer. I still remembered the dream. I was running for our secret spot. A temporary refuge.

“Sammy, I talk about Grandma Pearl all the time. All the things we used to do when I was little. I guess you know all there is to know about it. But you only mention Dewey once in a while. And you never talk about Edward. Or anybody else.”

“I've got enough to think about with who's around here now.”

“Yes. But—” She stopped, hearing Robert's footsteps on the porch.

He and Willy ran in the house. Surely they hadn't found enough worms yet.

“Mom, can we just go? We can dig around the pond for worms and catch grasshoppers and stuff.”

“Wait two minutes and you can have some good breakfast first.”

Willy took a strong whiff of Juli's muffins, even reached his hand for one, but they were still hot. “We can take some of these if you don't mind.”

“All right,” Juli relented. “I'll wrap a few in a towel for you. You'd better go get Franky.”

“Ahhh . . .” Willy protested. “He won't catch nothin'.”

Juli shook her head. “Willy, if he wants to go—”

“He doesn't,” I told her. “He wants to stay in the workshop. I said he could put together an idea he has.”

“Gee, thanks!” Willy exclaimed, as though I had done him a favor.

Juli wrapped some of the hot muffins in a dish towel and gave them to Willy. Robert grabbed his fishing pole from a hook in the back of the pantry, and they were out the door as fast as they could go. If eagerness counted for anything, maybe they'd catch aplenty.

“I need to go too,” I told Juli again. “I'll just walk back if Barrett needs his truck. But if I can get to town this morning, I'll be back for Katie pretty soon.”

“Sit down, and I'll feed you first. It's ready. You want eggs?”

“No. Give 'em to the kids.”

She turned and looked at me. “The biggest eaters just left. It's just the little girls. And Franky, if he wants anything.”

I always hated to eat the eggs. She might need them for baking. Or for somebody else. But she was trying to bless me, and I guessed I ought to let her. “I'll take a couple, then.”

She leaned over and kissed me.

“What was that for?”

“Just because.”

I reached for her hand. “Thank you. For being so good about this.”

“I only wish you weren't so uncomfortable.”

“I'm fine.”

She turned toward the stove again and gave the mush another stir. “Was it a bad dream you had? Was it about Edward?”

For a moment, I closed my eyes. I would never have mentioned it. Not in a hundred years. And I really didn't want to talk about it. But she was asking, and I could hardly refuse to answer. “You really want to know?”

“Of course.”

I stretched my hands out on the table in front of me, wishing I had something to busy them with while I sat. I looked away from her, out the window at the swaying branches of our old maple, thinking suddenly of the eagle tattoo my father'd been so proud of. It had always seemed to be looking at us when that arm was upraised.

“It wasn't Edward, Juli. It was my father. Hitting Mother. I got in the way, and he grabbed me. I thought he was going to throw me over the stair rail.”

She turned away from the stove and put her spoon down, but I kept talking.

“When I got out of there, I ran to find Dewey. He was hiding, and I had to signal him. Then we disappeared until dark, when his parents started calling him. Mine were too drunk by then to care, and I just stayed outside.”

She knelt in front of me. “Sammy—”

“I've got to get going, Juli. I better eat.”

“It really happened, didn't it?”

“A lot of things happened.”

“Where was Edward?”

I just shook my head. “I don't know. Lots of times I didn't know. You want me to call the kids in?”

“Yes. In a minute.” She put her arms around me, and it felt so good that I pulled her onto my lap and just held on.

“What do we do, Juli, if it takes a while to find Katie's people, and Ben Law doesn't have a place to put her?”

She smiled at my change of subject. “She can stay here, Sammy, if you're comfortable with that. I'm sure she'd rather.”

“Do you want to go into town with me, in case Edward comes back?”

She looked surprised that I would ask. “I'm not afraid of him. And there's a lot of work to do here. Besides, we don't want to be dragging kids into something like this.”

“I guess you're right. And I don't really expect him. It's just with Edward, you never know.”

“He was a thief. Right? He didn't hurt anyone?”

“Not that I know of. At least none that weren't trying to hurt him. He got in a lot of fights.”

“We'll be fine, Samuel. Besides, if I came along, we'd have to take Franky back home and tell Robert and Willy to go that way for lunch in case we're not back. And then there's Sarah. I wouldn't want to leave them all on Lizbeth. She's got her hands full now.”

She got up to serve the food, and I went out to call the kids. Franky wouldn't hear me clear in the workshop, so I started in that direction, calling to the girls at the same time. But Sarah didn't move. For a moment I didn't even see Katie, half-buried under the lilacs, her head in her hands.

“Daddy!” Sarah yelled. “Come here, Daddy!”

I went quickly. Katie raised her head to look at me with her teary, puffy eyes, but she didn't say a word. The poor child had been crying.

“This girl says you're her daddy,” Sarah told me. “But I told her you're not
her
daddy. You're
my
daddy.”

“Sarah. She's been told a lot of things. We can be considerate.”

Katie stared up at me, her little lip quivering. I hadn't thought enough about how she might be handling things
this morning. I hadn't taken the time. “Sarah, go on in the house. We'll be in in a minute.”

“I wasn't tryin' to be mean,” she explained. “I like her real good.”

“I know, honey, and it's okay. But go on inside, all right? And get Franky from the workshop if he wants to eat anything.”

She went, though she didn't want to. Katie kept looking at me, sitting on her knees with her hands clenched together in her lap.

“Would you mind coming out of the bush a little?” I asked her. “I won't fit under there as well as you do.”

She didn't move.

“I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Neither did Sarah. We're sorry.”

She wiped at her eyes with one little fist and spoke very softly. “Why don't you want me?”

Lord!
I sat down in the grass beside the bushes. “Come here. Come closer.”

She eased out just a little, and I took a deep breath.

“It's not that I don't want you. If you were really mine, I'd be proud. You're a good girl, I can see that. But it's just not possible that you're my child. I never heard of your mother till last night. Robert and Sarah are the only children I've got.”

She sniffed and came out a little farther. “Maybe you just didn't know.”

“I would know, honey. A man knows these things.”

“Do you want me to go away? You didn't want me to go with Mr. Eddie—”

“Eddie wasn't very good to you. And you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. But we need to go to town today if we can, you and me, and talk to a man who can help us find your mother.”

“I don't think Mama would want that. She said I wasn't gonna live with her no more.”

I took her hand. “Maybe you won't, if she feels that way. Maybe you shouldn't. Do you have other relatives?”

Her eyes teared up all over again. “Mr. Eddie's my uncle. And you're . . . you're—”

“No. I'm sorry, honey, but I'm not your daddy. You're a very strong little girl, and I respect that. But I can't help what my brother told you. Ed Wortham isn't somebody you can trust all the time—”

“But he didn't say it! My mama said it!”

Her words shook me. I'd assumed that Edward must have just cooked up these “daddy” ideas.

“Mama told him, but first he didn't believe her. He said you wouldn't. But Mama told him my daddy is Samuel Wortham! And she's told me that before, lots a' times. But I never thought I'd see you—”

She stopped, shaking just a little. And I felt sorry for the child, despite the bizarre story she was telling.

“Come here.”

She crawled into my arms. I held her, and she clung to me the way she had last night.

“My wife said it might be something like this,” I whispered. “Unbelievable, I know. But there must be another Samuel Wortham out there somewhere. And he doesn't know what he's missing.”

“But Eddie says I look like you.”

It was strange to hear her calling him that. Edward had never liked being called Eddie. He'd hit me once when I'd dared to call him that after hearing another kid say it. But maybe he'd done some changing, after all. Maybe he was just part of a misunderstanding now, as Julia had suggested. But that didn't excuse him entirely.

“I'm sorry he was rough to you,” I told her.

“He wasn't so bad as some a' Mama's boyfriends. George Call, he was the worstest.”

“Your mother and you—did you have a house?”

“No, sir. We was travelin' too much. And that's why
Mama give me up. She said she could travel better without me, an' Eddie ought to bring me to find you.”

“That's pretty much what he told me.”

“He said you'd be mad.”

“I was. At him.”

“But it wasn't his fault.”

“I guess not.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder. “Can't I stay here? You're bein' nice. And . . . and maybe you just forgot me or somethin'. You sure look like that picture Mama showed me once.”

“What picture?” I felt my heart jump in my chest.

“Mama had a picture of my daddy. In a park in Pennsa-vay-na.”

I shook my head. This couldn't be real. At least I was sure I'd never been photographed in a park. Not knowingly. “Did Edward see this picture?”

“I don't think so. I think it got lost when Mama's bag got stole one time in Newark.”

“You've been very helpful,” I told her. “You're a bright girl.”

My insides were churning. How could this be? The only thing I could think of was my father. Another Samuel. He'd left us when I was very young, showing up from time to time and making trouble until I was about eight. Then we never saw him again. We never knew what he did, where he went, until he died when I was twelve. Maybe I had another brother somewhere. Maybe more than one. But would he give another child the same name?

“Let's eat,” I suggested. “What do you say?”

She was looking up at me, her dark eyes still misty with tears. Juli was right. Edward was right. She looked like me. What was Ben Law going to think?

“I wished you knew about me,” she whispered. “I wished you wanted me to be your little girl.”

What could I do? She'd already heard me say it wasn't
so. She just didn't believe it. I held her for a minute, dried her eyes with my kerchief. It was too bad that picture had been lost. I would've liked to have seen it for myself.

Katie laid her head against my shoulder, holding tight to my shirt. She'd already lost her mother, maybe for good. But I wasn't her father. Someone, somewhere, knew the truth.

Carefully I stood up and set her down beside me. Breakfast was waiting. We had the day to face. I took her hand and started for the house.

FIVE

Julia

It scared me the way Samuel looked when he brought Katie into the kitchen. Not like the Samuel I knew. It was because of Edward. And Katie being here. Somehow it was stirring things in him I wasn't sure I understood.

He ate quickly and hardly said a word. Katie was just as solemn, glancing up at me from time to time, her eyes never losing their almost-tears. She wanted to stay. I knew she wanted to stay. Maybe she had good reason not to want to go back.