Sarah's Promise (2 page)

I couldn’t say another word about it. There was no way I could have told him no. But I couldn’t quite bear to encourage him either.

“I hope you understand,” he went on. “Sam needs the help. An’ about that store, I just thought it’d be worth it to us, you know, to find out more. Don’t be upset with me.”

“Do you really think you might like the place?”

“I don’t know.” He lifted my face a little so he could look in my eyes. “I just need to go find out. But if you hate the thought of bein’ that far away, I can come back after Sam’s settled in his new house. I can leave the whole idea alone.”

I could see his eyes pleading with me for a chance to follow his heart in this unhindered. I could read his hope so plain that it scared me all the more. He
wanted
to like that store up there. He was hoping it would all work out. But why?

“Oh, Franky.” I sighed, calling him the name everybody else used but I hardly ever said. “Don’t you like Dearing or Mcleansboro anymore? This is home.”

He nodded. “Always will be. I know. But home’s where you make it too. And I want us to have something that’s our own.”

“We will! We do.”

“The trip’ll go fine. Just let me look at the place. Please? Don’t be scared. I won’t do nothin’ till I talk to you first. I promise.”

Frank hardly ever asked for anything. He rarely did anything at all for himself. I couldn’t refuse him. I couldn’t dampen the spark in those eyes any further with my fears.

“All right,” I managed to say, my heart doing flip-flops I hoped he couldn’t feel.

“I love you,” he whispered.

I heard a car, and we both turned our heads. Harry and Kirk were driving up the lane in the old car they’d bought together from Mr. Post. Kirk liked horses better, just like their father had, but he’d come back from the service knowing the practicality of having a vehicle too. He was the one running the Hammond farm since he’d gotten home. Both of the Hammond parents were dead, and Frank had kept the farm going and most of the family together while Kirk was gone away in the war. They’d lost a brother in the fighting, and another brother, Willy, was still in the service.

For a while I’d been sure that Kirk would need Frank to stay on the farm with him, or at least close by. But the two younger brothers, Harry and Bert, were mostly grown now and good farm help. And it seemed that Frank was itching to get out on his own.

I sighed, thinking about WH Hardwoods, the woodworking business Frank had shared with my father since we were children. Frank’s talent with wood had shown itself young, and he’d made some money with it. He and my father had grown to be close friends besides business partners. Why wasn’t that good enough? Especially since Dad had gotten too busy with our farm and his work at Charlie Hunter’s service station in town to keep up WH anymore. It was all Frank’s now. If he went away, it would just shut down. Dad didn’t seem to mind, but to me it was like part of our lives dying away. How could I know what to expect next?

Harry and Kirk parked close beside the truck, and Frank took my hand and gave it a little squeeze.

“’Bout ready to go?” Kirk asked first thing.

“I better,” Frank told him. “Earlier start, the sooner I get there.”

“Think you’ll beat the train?”

“Not much chance a’ that.”

“Remember to hole up if the weather turns bad.”

I tensed, thinking of how Mr. Hammond, their father, had died one wintry night when the truck he’d been driving had run off the road and overturned. But that situation was nothing at all like this one. And Frank was nothing like his father, except for the tiniest bit of family resemblance.

“I’ve been knowing for a long time what to do with a storm,” Frank assured his older brother. “Besides, the forecast’s all right. Don’t be worryin’ Sarah with talk like that.”

Kirk looked at me and gave Frank a playful nudge. “Don’t be missin’ this knucklehead too awful bad,” Kirk told me. “He’ll be back.”

There was nothing especially bad in the way he said that. Surely he was only meaning to set my mind to ease, but I could see something strange working in Frank’s eyes. The words troubled him far more than I could have expected, but Kirk didn’t seem to notice and Frank didn’t say anything in reply.

“Got anything else to load?” Harry asked.

“Nope.” Frank looked toward the house. “Just got my good-byes to be sayin’.”

“You’ll sit down and have breakfast, won’t you?” I asked quickly. “There’s pancakes ready by now.”

“Better to leave on a full stomach,” Kirk agreed. “Take a bite with you too.”

Again, Frank didn’t answer. He started for the house, and I realized he wasn’t wearing his hat, scarf, or gloves. I hated to say anything about it. Frank got to thinking deep sometimes and forgot things like that, but he was almost twenty-three and he hated anybody treating him like a kid. Maybe I could just make sure he had them in the truck, and a blanket too, without making a fuss.

Dad came from the barn with the milk pail, and Frank was quick to take it out of his hand, even though with his limp it looked like he’d have more trouble with it than the rest of us. But Dad let him have it, even patting him on the back. My dad loved Frank. He believed in him. And he wasn’t scared by any of this going on. I took a deep breath and glanced over in time to see Kirk shake his head a little at Harry. I didn’t know why.

Mom poured us coffee as soon as we stepped in. She had a sack of cookies packed for Frank, plus some sandwiches and three or four hard-boiled eggs. I should have known she’d be thinking like me. “I folded a blanket for you to take,” she told him. “Just a winter precaution. Where are your gloves and hat?”

“On my front seat,” Frank answered her, picking up little Pearl from the chair where she stood reaching for him. He gave her a spin and then set her down again. Right away, Albert started tapping at the chair beside him. He didn’t do that with anybody but Frank, and Frank was always good to sit beside him when the tapping started. This time Albert set his wooden truck on Frank’s knee and gave one of the wheels a roll.

“You ready for pancakes?” Emmie asked.

“I better eat and go,” Frank answered her. “Give my buddy here some at the same time.”

“Me too!” Pearl whined. “Me too!”

I wasn’t sure if she was demanding pancakes or if she wanted to make it clear that she was Frank’s “buddy” just as much as Albert was. Maybe both. She climbed up on Frank’s lap and reached for a fork.

“You need your own chair, sweetie,” Thelma told her youngest daughter. “How’s a man gonna eat with you on his lap?”

“I can manage,” Frank offered graciously. “She’s all right.”

Frank really loved his nieces and nephews. But I knew he liked some time alone too. I wondered if he’d get a moment’s peace once he got up there staying with Sam’s family. Maybe he’d like all the attention. But maybe he’d get to missing his quiet woodshop on this usually quiet farm and try coming back all the sooner.

Emmie gave Frank, Albert, and Pearl each a plate of pancakes. Frank poured the warm maple syrup for all three of them, but it hardly took him any time to finish his.

“Want more?” Emmie asked immediately.

He shook his head and downed his coffee. “Got to get goin’.”

I stood looking at him with my heart thundering inside, and he turned to me with a smile. “Come ’ere, Sarah Jean.”

He looked so absolutely handsome. My heart hurt with the thought of missing him already. I wanted so badly to be alone with him again, just for a minute before he left, but I didn’t think we’d find a place away from everybody else now. Even Mom and Dad’s room had kids sleeping in it. And Georgie and Bert were upstairs. But Frank took my hand and pulled me toward the cellar steps.

“I wouldn’t mind takin’ along a jar a’ those bread and butter pickles you put up last summer, if it’s all right with you.”

“Sure,” I told him, feeling shaky again. “I’ll go down and get it.”

“I’ll help you.”

He followed me down the stairs, not caring what anybody thought, and took me into his arms as soon as we were at the bottom. “To everythin’ there is a season,” he quoted. “A time to every purpose under heaven. We got another season almost on us. Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure. Do you mean beginning a life together?”

“Seems like we’ve always been together. I mean a life on our own.”

I looked down for a minute and leaned into his shoulder. I knew how he felt about this and what he was talking about. Moving. “But I kind of like being in the middle of things with everybody here.”

“I do too, sometimes. But movin’ away from the farms—from your folks and all my fam’ly—would make things all the more ours.”

“Yes.” I struggled with my answer. “But we were talking about someplace just up the road, close enough to visit two or three times a week. Emmie’ll be awfully hurt if she doesn’t get to see us more than once or twice a year the way it’s been with Sam.”

He pulled away just enough to get a good look at me, and his eyes were shining with determination. “I’m not sayin’ nothing for sure ’bout movin’ up that way. But if it was to work out, I wouldn’t mind if Emmie came for a while. She could even stay with us and finish school up there if she wanted to.”

“But I thought you wanted a place away from family.”

“She’s my kid sister. That’s different.”

I wasn’t sure how. I probably should have asked. But he reached to a shelf for the jar of pickles and then leaned suddenly and kissed me.

“A time to plant, an’ a time to pluck up what’s planted.”

I knew he was still quoting the Bible, and I knew he meant something specific about it too, about us being plucked up from our childhood home and being planted in a new life as man and wife. But I was still scared for him about this drive, and I didn’t say anything at all about his Scripture.

He had a sudden question. “Do you remember the poem Mattie Mueller recited that same year you and Rorey and Kate sang together for the school program?”

I shook my head, stunned at his recollection. “She did a poem every year, Frank, but I don’t remember any of them.”

“The one her grandma wrote about trees in the forest. Sometimes I feel like that sapling growin’ in the shade, you know what I mean? I need to get off by myself—out away from the other trees—to be what I’m supposed to be, do you understand?”

“I guess so,” I told him, but I wasn’t really sure that I did, and he let it drop.

“Everything’ll be all right, Sarah, you’ll see. I’ll call your dad at the Marathon station tomorrow and tell you all about the trip. Sam says I’ll be able to use the telephone at the store up there.”

I wished we had a telephone at home already. But that wouldn’t happen till summer. Maybe Dad would let me ride to town with him tomorrow, so I could be there for Frank’s call. I already knew I’d be awfully anxious to hear his voice.

“You want to take some blackberry jam?” I asked, mainly to have something positive to say.

“If you wanna send a jar, I wouldn’t turn it down, but your mother’s already made me sandwiches. So I might be sharin’ the jam with Sam’s bunch once I get there.”

“I’d best send two jars then,” I told him, reaching for the shelf.

He took one of the jars for me. “Will you write?”

The question got me shaky inside all over again. It was bad enough that he would make this crazy trip, but he must be planning to stay awhile. He was all prepared for it, with woodworking tools and not just his truck tools packed in beside the cedar chest and his old suitcase full of clothes. Of course, moving Sam and Thelma and their houseful of things would take days. Sam had to continue working and they’d only have Frank’s truck, so they wouldn’t be able to move everything all at once. Sam’d already told me I ought to expect Frank to be gone at least two weeks. But since their new house needed some work, I figured he’d be happy if he could keep Frank around longer than that.

“I’ll write,” I promised, picturing Thelma reading the letters to Frank in the evenings, and maybe helping him to write me back. Two weeks. Maybe more. Maybe lots more. Once he got Sam’s family moved to Jacksonville, Frank might even fall in love with Camp Point and want to stay there forever. When I only wanted us to be home.

I could feel the tears welling inside me just thinking like that, but it was ridiculous and I wasn’t about to give them vent. If I turned all this around in my mind, I knew it wasn’t near enough to be crying about. Frank was sensible. And not facing any known dangers. Plenty of people dealt with far worse things. Frank’s sister Rorey had been separated from her fiancé by thousands of miles during the war, and then he got killed and never made it home. This wouldn’t be half so terrible as that. And it wasn’t quite so bold as my own brother, Robert, either, who was preaching half a world away even though he still needed crutches sometimes when his war injury got to bothering him. We often got letters from him and his wife, and they were truly happy.

The whole world had changed as we grew up, and some of the changes I didn’t like. Things had been good when we were little, with ten Hammond kids and two Worthams, plus Katie from my dad’s family, always around. I liked a crowd. So did Mom, I was pretty sure. The farther away we all got, the lonelier we were likely to be.

Poor Mom and Dad. Katie’s beau, a soldier friend of Kirk’s, lived all the way up in Wisconsin. If things kept on like they were going, would we ever get together the same anymore? Already this past Christmas, Robert and Rachel hadn’t come home. Neither had Frank’s brother Willy, nor his sister Rorey.

“Trust me,” Frank whispered, taking the other jar out of my hands even though he was already holding the pickles and the first jar of jam. “I’m just gonna look around up there. And help Sam.”

I nodded.

“I really got to get goin’, Sarah Jean,” he said with a sigh. “But I hate to be leaving you upset.”

“I’m okay,” I told him as convincingly as I could. “I’ll just miss you while you’re gone.”

“I’ll miss you too. But it’s only for a little while.”

We kissed again, and the jars jiggled together between us. I claimed one back, just to be sure it didn’t get dropped.
Lord, guide him every mile
, I prayed.
Touch his wonderful memory to keep track of every place he’s supposed to go through. Bless him. Go with him.