Sarah's Promise (25 page)

I wondered if I would make friends as quickly as Frank had. He’d told me about Mr. Willings from the church and an elderly lady named Hannah Haywood, a brandnew neighbor, who helped with his letters to me. I liked her already, because she always included a nice little note of her own.

There were good things about Frank’s move. Kirk acknowledged that he had real “guts” and plenty of brains to even make a start. I was proud when I heard things like that. And sitting with Mom over a cup of tea, I found it easier to level my thinking and relax. The idea of moving didn’t seem so strange right now. Just an inevitable part of life. I prayed to keep this frame of mind and not let fretful thinking bog me down again. I was in for an adventure, so I might as well enjoy it.

Emmie came over that day when she got out of school. By then, Mom was making noodles and Emmie was glad to help her. Bert and Harry joined us for supper, and even though it wasn’t her birthday yet, Katie went ahead and opened the package. It was a fat photograph album in a binder that could be opened to add more pages. Her boyfriend, Dave, had started the first page with a picture of himself at home and one in the service, plus a picture of him and Katie together when he’d visited last November. She said she loved the album because it was ready to fill up with memories. And I wished I had one with pictures from when we were kids.

We popped popcorn that evening, and Dad played checkers with Harry while the rest of us sat around the table with pens and paper. Mom was working on a letter to Robert, Katie was writing to Dave, and I started another letter to Frank. Emmie was copying several of Mom’s recipes, and Bert was finishing an article he was working on for the Mcleansboro newspaper. I liked evenings like this, except that it would have been even better if Frank were sitting here too, carving one of his angel figures or something.

I wondered if he missed us as badly as I missed him. I wondered what he did up there evening after evening all alone. In a way, I would feel comfort to leave here and be with him as soon as possible, just so nobody would have to be by themselves.

February flew by us, and March rushed in. Dad started taking fewer hours at the station, getting ready for spring planting. And the telephone company was making preparations for stringing wire out our way. Frank was still speaking at that church. Mr. Willings had become the pastor. And I was getting so eager to see Frank at Easter that just the thought of it consumed a great deal of my attention.

Rorey’s plans vexed me, though it didn’t seem to bother Frank when I explained. She still wanted her wedding in our yard, which was complicated enough. But I was most exasperated that she insisted on having it such a short while before ours. I’d asked her to consider changing her date but she refused, even though preparing for both weddings was going to throw everything into a tizzy. We’d chosen our date first. Why did she have to do this? I couldn’t help thinking that she was wanting to turn as much of the attention on herself as she could.

Frank didn’t care. He said if she was determined to get married then the date was up to her. And if people were too tuckered out after her wedding to celebrate ours then we’d just be blessed in the quiet. But I knew that’d never happen. Everybody’d do both, which would have my mother whirling busy, since she was something of a mother to Rorey too.

As if Rorey’s timing weren’t already bad enough, in the middle of March I got a letter from her. I knew I wouldn’t like it when she said at the beginning to please not get mad, just consider what she had to say. Knowing Rorey, that meant she was about to get obnoxious, and it didn’t take her long.

I hope you’re doing a lot of thinking while Franky is away. I didn’t wanna upset you while we was there, but there’s something I have to ask. Don’t it bother you what people will think about you marrying someone you grew up with? I mean, we’re all practically brothers and sisters. I’ve been asked if your parents adopted all of us, especially Emmie cause she’s youngest and Franky cause he’s mostly lived at your house since he was fifteen. Don’t that make him almost your brother? People I know think so.

By the time I got to that point, I was already mad. What was wrong with Rorey that she would try again with her stupid arguments to convince me not to marry her brother? Was it me she despised, or Frank, or both? I didn’t really want to read on, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did.

You’re scared of change, Sarah. You like Frank cause he’s familiar. You never gave no other boy a chance cause you wanted things to stay the same. But it ain’t a healthy way to look at life. How do you know he’s the one for you? I couldn’t have married Robert. We were over to your house and at your table too much. He seems like my brother too. And Franky’s been over there more than the rest of us. You just want what’s comfortable, like a little kid dragging a old blanket. Why don’t you take a chance? Be brave enough to give somebody else an opportunity before it’s too late.

I crumpled the letter in my hand. How dare she? She didn’t mention Donald Mueller directly, but I knew what she was getting at. Had he put her up to this? Or was she hard-hearted enough to come up with it on her own?

How could I respond? I was in the kitchen alone reading the letter. Should I show Mom and Dad? How would they react? What would Frank think, or Lizbeth, or Emmie?

Everybody else had seemed happy all along that Frank and I had chosen to be together. Rorey was risking angering more than just me by writing this letter. Why didn’t she care? Did she seriously think I’d listen to her and start dating now? How could she want me to?

She was just hateful, vicious, and cruel. She always had been, throwing my doll down the stairs when we were little girls, and years later lying to blame Frank for the barn fire that was her and her boyfriend’s fault. I didn’t know how she could grow up so mean, but she had, and she was meaner now than ever.

Of course Frank was familiar, but I loved him for plenty of reasons besides that. And he’d stayed at our house more than the other Hammonds because their pa didn’t want him home. Where else would he go? He was already working with my father, and he slept in the woodshop almost as much as in the house anyway.

Nobody’d been adopted. They’d had their pa till Frank was eighteen, and then it was Frank who moved back to their farmhouse to care for the younger ones. Of course we were all close, like family. But we weren’t blood kin, and nobody else saw anything wrong with Frank and I deciding to marry. Leave it to Rorey to invent something like this to try to mess up our happiness.

I grabbed paper and started a letter in reply, but I felt like I was just spitting fury.

How could you be so hateful? I’m going to marry your brother regardless of what you think, and you and Eugene and Donald Mueller can all go suck eggs. Don’t you dare write me another letter suggesting I date somebody else, or I’ll . . .

I couldn’t finish. There wasn’t any use. I crumpled my letter up with Rorey’s and threw them both into the cookstove. Maybe the best response was none at all. Even telling anybody else would just flame tempers, and what good would that do? It was going to be hard enough for everybody as it was to accept Rorey and Eugene marrying, and their abrasive, intrusive presence at our wedding time. Why make it harder? If I kept quiet, maybe she’d forget her nonsense. Or at least have the intelligence to keep her mouth shut.

Only later did I stop and think that Mom had seen the letter when I first brought it in the house. I prayed she wouldn’t ask what was inside, but that evening she wanted to know if Rorey had said anything specific about her wedding plans.

“No,” I said simply, hoping she wouldn’t ask further.

“I was hoping she’d tell us what she’d decided about a wedding dress, and her guest list, decorations, and such.”

“Nothing about her wedding, Mom.”

“Well, she doesn’t write a letter often. What did she have to say? May I see it?”

My stomach tensed. “Um . . . she was just kind of rambling. I burned it.”

I bit my lower lip and looked away, wondering how Mom was going to react. We normally shared letters from Robert or Rorey or Willy. And burning it would have seemed strange even if we didn’t.

To my surprise, Mom didn’t press me further. Maybe she knew something had upset me. It might have been plain on my face. But she didn’t ask. Until bedtime. And then she had only one tender question.

“Is everything all right, honey?”

I didn’t want to say anything, but part of it came rolling out before I could stop it.

“Rorey thinks I ought to date somebody else, Mom. She says I never gave anybody else a chance and I ought to before it’s too late.”

Mom shook her head. “That’s why you burned the letter.”

“Yeah! What’s she trying to do? Why would she want to break us up? It’s her own brother!”

“Rorey’s behavior toward Frank has always been puzzling, honey. Just like her father’s.”

“I know. But this is just stupid. Maybe it’s because Donald Mueller is Eugene’s friend. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t think it would help matters to get anybody else as mad as I am.”

“I can understand that. But I’m glad you said something.” She gave me a hug. “Rorey can be a trial sometimes, I’m well aware. And if Donald asked her to intervene for him, they’re both just being foolish. Did she mention him directly?”

“No. She didn’t give any names. Are you going to tell Dad?”

“Probably.”

“Do you think he’ll be mad?”

“Disgusted, more like. At Rorey’s impudent behavior.”

“I started to write back, but I’m not sure what to say.”

“That’s all right. Maybe you don’t need to answer. I’ll write and ask her how she’s coming with her wedding plans. And crow a little about how happy you and Frank are with each other.”

I smiled. “Okay. Thanks.”

That should have been the end of Rorey’s dumb ideas bothering my mind, but late that night I woke up remembering Betty Weir from the bank asking me once if Frank was my adopted brother. People knew he’d been around my family for years. Not only since he was fifteen, but since his mother died years before that. People had seen us with the Hammond kids, and had seen Frank working alongside my father and assumed they were father and son. Might it seem odd that we would want to be together?
Was
it odd?

Could Rorey be right? Did people think Frank was like my brother? But why would it matter what people thought?

I tried to dismiss such thinking, but it was hard to quiet the awkward, accusing voice that suddenly pestered me.

You
are
afraid of change. That’s why you wanted to marry Frank and didn’t think of other boys. You thought he would be just like this farm. Comfortable. You thought everything would stay the same.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be, because my feelings for Frank were so much deeper than that. I hadn’t wanted to date the boys from our one-room school because I’d seen them be cruel and unkind, mostly to Frank. But I’d never seen Frank treat anyone the way he’d been treated. He was stronger. Quieter. And far more empathetic. Special, just like our pastor had said. It was grossly unfair to think I only wanted to be with him because I was afraid of the unknown.

I didn’t know why I was having such a ridiculous mental battle. Maybe it was a test, to see if I was strong and sensible enough to stay with the commitment I’d made. But what bothered me most was that nothing should be bothering me about it. I was weak, pitifully so, to be feeling tested at all. Why would I doubt my own motives and my love for Frank? It didn’t make sense.

“Father, help me,” I prayed. “Am I really afraid of the unknown? I want to love Frank the way I should and let him be his own man the way Mom said. I want to put my life in your hands and not worry for tomorrow. I promise again to trust you. Help me do better. I promise to trust Frank too, and not let these crazy thoughts, or foolish people, come between us.”

I lay still in the darkness. I could hear Horse’s distant barking outside.

Why?
I kept wondering.
Why have my thoughts been so back-and-forth? What would Frank say if he knew even half of all this?