Faith's Reckoning, page 26
It had been a year since the explosion of Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into full-scale war. The isolationist illusion that the Pacific and Atlantic oceans would somehow buffer Americans from world war was shattered. When Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, Germany foolishly responded by declaring war on the United States three days later. It allowed President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to finally join forces, publicly and unequivocally. The demand for the machinery of war being waged on two fronts had sent the country into a buzz of industry. Good paying jobs were plentiful, and people finally had extra money in their pockets. They were ready to spend it, but between the needs of soldiers and the disruption of imports, the supply of goods could not keep up with consumption. Commodity prices had soared, and the Roosevelt Administration had been forced to freeze prices and institute rationing of scarce resources. Rubber was especially scarce since the Japanese had occupied Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies. For the past six months sugar, coffee, and gasoline had been limited to weekly rations. Even shoes were restricted.
The need for high-grade steel had secured Hardee a tidy nest egg from his automobile salvage business. But wealth could not compensate for the real cost of the war. He and Maudie faced the unbearable loss of Brett who was missing in action. They had moved into a log cabin on a farm deep in the piney woods south of Wingate, hoping to find the ability to breathe again and some days wishing they couldn’t.
Brett had been missing in action since May 14th, 1942, after flying a mission out of Port Moresby, New Guinea on a bombing raid of the Japanese at Lae. His plane never returned to the air station. Maudie chose to believe that her son was one of the American soldiers spotted on a small, deserted atoll in the Coral Sea some weeks later. She ignored the account of another B-25 pilot who said Brett’s plane had been seen flaming its way into the Solomon Sea.
Hardee took Faith’s suitcase and put it beneath a cover in the back of the truck. He opened the passenger door for her then walked around and got behind the driver’s seat. He patted her knee as they pulled back onto the road. It was a while before they could find words to bridge their unspoken anguish.
“How’s Mama?” Faith finally asked.
“’Bout to wear out her prayer bones, I’m afraid,” he replied. “I ‘spect those knees are permanently purple.”
“Any word about Brother?”
“No, Honey, he’s still officially missing in action.”
“What about that story about the soldiers on the island in the Coral Sea?”
“It’s just a story, Faith.” Hardee’s face fell slack. “Freddie Tanner told it to your mama when he came back in September. You know he lost his leg in the Battle of Savo Island, off Guadalcanal.”
“I’ve seen pictures in the New York Times from that place. Gives me nightmares.”
“I know, I know. You can tell from their faces that they are still just boys and a long way from home. Anyway, I think Freddie was just so glad to be alive he wanted to give your mama a wish to hold onto.”
Faith was silent.
“I’m not so sure myself that hope doesn’t make the cut that much deeper,” Hardee continued, his voice growing softer. “But we all grieve in our own way and in our own time.”
Faith recounted stories of nursing school as they drove down the dirt road, strewn with the spent needles of longleaf pines. After about twenty minutes, they reached the farm, crossing beneath a rough-hewn pole entrance from which hung a sign, ‘Plum Nelly’. A hundred feet ahead sat a four-room log cabin with a shed off to one side. A small Victory Garden lay in a clearing a little way from the house. It had been bedded down for winter.
Faith smiled when she read the sign and felt her shoulders relax.
“Plum Nelly?” she asked.
“Plum outa the county an’ Nelly outa the state,” Hardee answered, “That’s what your mama asked for after we got the telegram about your brother. She asked me to take her away from Hattiesburg for a while, far away. So I went looking for a little farm. And here we are.”
Faith paused to consider her father and the estrangement she had felt over the last five years. He had given up the bottle and reformed his appetite for other women shortly after Brother left for college, but the specter of that night remained. The stench of Fletcher Moody’s blood-soaked clothes burning in the old wood stove had stayed with her. She struggled to reconcile her feelings. This man, through the shroud of secrecy, had played a part in the suffering of Delsey, abetting an injustice. Yet now, he was loving her mother in a fundamental and steadfast way.
“I love you, Daddy,” Faith said, as he nosed the truck a few feet into the shed and turned off the engine.
“I love you, too, Honey,” Hardee said, the question in his voice betraying that he had not expected to hear those words from her.
Hardee reached up and retrieved a large manila envelope containing a handful of letters from the visor overhead.
“Mail from home,” he said waving the envelope before tucking it inside his jacket. “Ava and Cecil are doing a great job keeping things going in Hattiesburg and taking care of your little sisters. Frankly, I think Grace is thrilled to be finishing high school out from under the watchful eye of your mother and me. And Hannah is happy enough living with them, although we’ll probably have her come down here for the summer.”
“How about the Trading Post?” Faith asked. She opened the door of the truck and stepped out.
“Well, I had pretty much consolidated the business down to auto salvage seeing as how the money is in scrap iron and steel these days. Cecil is a good enough mechanic to tear a car down for parts, and we bought a crusher for the frames. So he’s running the business and I let him keep most of the money. It works out, all around.” He dismounted the cab of the truck.
“What about the rest of the stuff from the Trading Post?”
Hardee nodded his head toward the inside of the shed, stuffed with a chaotic arrangement of odds and ends.
“What I couldn’t sell at clearance I brought down here. There may be a few valuables amidst the clutter in there.”
Faith craned her neck then took a step forward to see what was in the shed.
“Tell you what,” he said, “if you’re willing to sort through that stuff, you can take anything you want and I’ll take what’s left to Carter Hill Church.”
“Church?” Faith smiled.
“Your mother has adopted the church and let’s just say we reached an understanding. I’ll help the church out and drive her to services every week, as long as I only have to attend the sermon once a month.”
“Well, wonder of wonders!” Faith laughed.
“Don’t think that means I’ve been saved,” Hardee cautioned, “at least not in your mama’s eyes. You know her standards. Even whole-body baptism in the river don’t mean much to her.”
Faith recalled her mother’s admonition against Baptists, ‘They just go in a dry sinner and come out a wet one.’ She made her way around the truck and reached for her father’s elbow, walking arm in arm with him towards the cabin as the last of the daylight faded.
“So maybe you aren’t saved, Daddy, but it doesn’t mean you are beyond redemption.”
“Well, we can only hope,” he smiled.
Maudie turned around from the kitchen sink when they walked through the front door, wiping her soapy hands on a dishtowel before spreading her arms wide to embrace Faith.
“Thank you, sweet Jesus, for bringing my angel Faith home to me, safe and sound.”
Even in the dim light of the overhead lamp, Faith could see how much her mother had aged. There were deep lines at the corners of her mouth, and she was thinner. Her hair, which had been more salt than pepper when Faith had seen Maudie in August, was now a snowy white. Faith held her mother in her arms and rocked her gently from side to side.
“I love you, Mama,” she said as she let go.
Hardee dropped the mail on the kitchen counter where it landed with a plop.
“Another batch of mail from Ava,” he said, kissing the top of Maudie’s head. “Maybe there’s some good news in there this week.”
Maudie patted his cheek and gave him a weak smile. “We shall take whatever the Lord brings, rain or shine. Stew’s just about ready if you two want some supper.”
Maudie spooned drop biscuits from the bowl onto the cookie sheet and put them in the oven. Hardee went to the fireplace to stoke the flames and add some wood. The rain outside came down harder, pinging against the tin roof.
“You’ll need an extra quilt on your bed tonight, Honey, with this storm blowing in,” Maudie said, then stopped to take a good look at Faith.
“I don’t know if I have ever seen a uniform more befitting a person. You look like you were born to be a nurse.”
“Or a doctor! But I do love nursing.”
“And what a beautiful woman you have grown into, both inside and out.”
She put her arms around Faith, who was six inches taller than her mother. Maudie held onto her daughter.
“I can’t wait to tell you about school, Mama, and what I am learning. The other girls in the dormitory are really swell. Did you know they are going to start a Cadet Nursing Program next year? It could pay my tuition.”
“I want to hear everything over supper,” Maudie said, “Why don’t you unpack. You can take your Daddy’s room. Supper will be ready in ten minutes.”
Faith returned, having changed into a cotton shirtwaist dress. She set the table with napkins and spoons.
Maudie dished up three bowls of stew and put them on the table, then pulled the biscuits from the oven.
“Hardee, could you get some butter from the icebox on the porch?”
“Coming up,” he said.
They ate their supper between talk of school and country life and news from Hattiesburg. Faith avoided talking about the wounded soldiers who were returning from the Pacific front. The night unfolded in a slow parade of stories, until Hardee finally excused himself and retired to his chair next to the fireplace. He read his newspaper while Maudie and Faith continued their conversation.
“Why don’t you grab that mail and let’s see what’s in it,” Maudie said, needing Faith’s company to approach whatever was contained in those letters.
Faith picked up the large manila envelope and poured the contents onto the table. There was a newsletter from the Nazarene church in Hattiesburg, a letter for Hardee from the Lions Club, a pledge card from the Shiner’s Hospital and a letter from Justine, who wrote to Maudie every week. There was also an unexpected envelope with a postmark from Washington, D.C., the return address written in neat block print: D. Clemons Walker.
“A letter from Delsey!” Faith said, opening it without even asking her mother.
Maudie’s face lit up. “What does it say?”
Faith read from the delicate onionskin pages.
“It says that Jesse read about Brother in the Hometown Heroes section of the Montgomery Advertiser last summer. Says she and McLeod are down for a visit with Jesse in Alabama and after he told her about Brother, she got hold of Ava who told her where you were.”
Faith handed the letter to her mother. “She’s coming to visit, Mama!”
Maudie’s face was flushed from the mention of Brett and the prospect of seeing Delsey again. All that feeling had squeezed her heart into more action that she was accustomed to.
“Well the Lord is sendin’ us some sunshine, child.”
“And they’ll be here tomorrow!” Faith said.
“Well we had better get ourselves some sleep then. Come on, I’ll help you change the sheets on the bed.”
The smell of bread baking in the kitchen woke her up. Maudie must have heard the rustling of the covers as Faith sat up in bed because she was in her room the next minute, pulling back the curtains to let in the sunshine. Faith stretched her arms above her head and let her hands drift back down to her side.
“What happened to the winter storm?” Faith yawned.
“Blew through overnight, looks like. And what a glorious day we’ve been given!”
Faith hopped out of bed, suddenly energized.
“That means you can show me around the farm this morning.”
She had not been to the farm since her parents moved there. Faith had helped her mother close up the Hattiesburg house and pack some things for the move in August, but she had returned to nursing school before her parents had driven down to Plum Nelly. This was her first chance to get to see their new home.
“First thing after breakfast,” Maudie said, rushing back to the stove before the bacon burned. She hollered from the kitchen back to Faith, who was putting on a flannel robe.
“Hens aren’t laying much so just one egg each but there’s plenty of grits and slab bacon.”
Faith joined her mother in the kitchen and poured them both a cup of coffee.
“There’s fresh milk in the icebox. I haven’t separated the cream on top if you want some in your coffee. I’ll take mine black.”
“OK, I think I will indulge myself this morning,” Faith said, deciding a little cream was a fitting celebration.
She returned from the porch with the milk and sat down at the kitchen table, running her hand over the smooth tight grain of the oak before spooning some cream into her coffee. She took a sip and relished that first taste of the morning.
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked, looking around.
Maudie brought the plates with bacon, grits, leftover biscuits and eggs, sunny side up, to the table. She handed Faith a cloth napkin before sitting down.
“Oh, he just left for the train station to fetch Delsey and Jesse and McLeod. He had to go by the feed and dry goods store first but it’s later than you think. I decided to let you sleep in.”
“No wonder I feel so good this morning. I slept like a baby. It was so cozy under that quilt with the rain tapping on the roof. Is that a new featherbed on the mattress?”
“Yes, Honey, just for you. I know you like a soft bed. It’s that princess-and-the-pea skin of yours.”
Faith reached over and kissed her mother on the cheek. “Oh, Mama, how did I get so lucky that God gave me to you?”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” she said, her eyes showing a bit of her old sparkle. “Wait ‘til I show you my nandinas. It’s too early for the hydrangea and azalea blooms but you’ll be able to imagine what my garden will look like this spring.”
They finished breakfast and Faith changed into a cotton blouse and knit pants for her tour of her mother’s garden. It had become the favorite ritual of her homecomings. Last year when Faith returned from nursing school, the first thing she did was roam the yard in Hattiesburg with her mother. They would amble as if they had all the time in the world to see what little space had been culled of weeds or grass or flagging vines and replaced with a new flowering bush. Today the air was still, and the sun overhead warmed then. As they walked the five-acre grounds, Faith noticed for the first time that Maudie had developed a roll to her gait, a faint sideways limp when she stepped forward on her right leg.
“Mama, is your hip hurting?” Faith asked.
“Nothin’ worth complainin’ about. A body gets older if we’re lucky! Come over here and see this camellia. Have you ever seen a prettier red blossom? God bless ‘em for bloomin’ in winter.”
They spent almost two hours walking and talking, sitting for a spell at times, and finally tending the chickens before returning to the cabin. Around noon they heard Hardee’s truck rattle across the cattle guard into the front yard. Faith felt her pulse quicken at the sound and tried to remember the last time she had seen Delsey. It must have been Christmas five years ago, just before she and Plessy had moved North. McLeod had only been three years old at the time. She wondered what he looked like now.
She and Maudie opened the front door and walked out onto the porch. They watched as Jesse jumped out of the back of the truck and opened the passenger door. Delsey and McLeod spilled out of the cab, giggling about something or other. Hardee closed the door on his side.
“Sorry about the dusty ride Jess, but I figured it was better than squeezin’ you into the front.”
“It’s OK, Mr. Wiggins. The sun’s obliging us today.”
Faith found herself flying off the porch to grab Delsey and hug her, surprising them both. Delsey took a small step back to take in the sight of Faith.
“Good Lord, girl, you are a full-grown woman now,” she said, patting McLeod on the back. He was holding onto the side of her skirt.
“McLeod, this is Miss Faith Wiggins and I think you two might come to be real fast friends. She’s a nurse, you know.”
“You doctor sick people?” he asked, letting go of his mother and looking up at Faith. He trusted his mother’s sense of people and Faith, at nineteen, was at the tender beginning of womanhood and quite lovely to his eye.
“Sort of,” Faith said, kneeling to look at him face to face.
“Well I might be a doctor when I grow up,” he said, “or a lawyer. The name’s McLeod T. Walker and I’m pleased to meet you.” He stuck out his hand.
She took his hand, from her squatted position, and gave it a solid shake.
“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Walker,” Faith said. “How about you come on inside and help me make some sweet tea.”
Faith nodded to Jesse as she stood up. “Thanks for coming all this way to see us, Jesse.”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Faith. I’m happy to.”
Faith held out her hand to McLeod. “Want me to show you the cabin? Then we can make that tea.”
“OK,” he said, then looked back at Delsey to be sure.
“Run along,” she said, “I’ll be right there. I need to give Miss Maudie a proper greeting first.”
