Chapter 27

The place where they had the court was in an office next to the jail, plain but for a picture of President Coolidge and the American and Kansas flags in the corners. The floors creaked as we walked in. We settled into the front row of folding chairs. The lawyer was already there, and Sam set down next to him. Then come me, Sarah—she crawled onto my lap, and her four year old—and then Trouble and then Hiram. Opal set in the second row. The lawyer, Jim Nevins, he was trading with Sam for pulling tree stumps. He was a farmer and done law on the side. I’d thought about inviting Alta Bea, but I didn’t.

The judge set at a table reading papers. The ceiling fan rotated, making shadows that traveled along the walls, around and around. Even with the fan, it was hot in there. I’d already sweat through my Sunday dress.

Directly the judge lifted his face and took off his eyeglasses. You could see that the bridge of his nose was red where the glasses pinched him.

Our lawyer stood up and said, “Your honor, this here’s Sam Frownfelter and his wife, and these three are the children in question.”

The judge nodded. “Sam Frownfelter,” he said, “is it your intention and desire to support these children here present until they reach their majority?”

“Here present,” Trouble said. “Here present.” Evidently he thought he was going to get a present. I slipped him a piece of penny candy, and thank the Lord he started sucking on it and quieted down.

Sam said, “It is.” His voice trailed off. He told me later he started to say, “Your Majesty.” He knowed that wasn’t the proper thing to call the judge, but he couldn’t remember what was.

“So ordered,” the judge said. He picked up an ink pen and signed his name.

The lawyer leaned over and whispered to Sam, “That’s it.”

I swallowed. That was it? That was it? We picked up and scurried out of there like we was breaking out of jail, at least it felt like it. Before we headed home we stopped and got our picture took, all five of us together, plus Opal. That’s my favorite picture I have.

That night, as me and Sam was getting ready for bed, he turned to me. “If you’re gonna be running around town with a bunch of children, we can’t have folks thinking you’re a trollop.” He took my hand and put a gold ring in it.

I was flabbergasted. “Good Lord.”

He smiled and run a finger up and down my arm. “Like it?”

“We can’t afford this.” I put it on my finger. It glowed in the lamp light.

“Got it anyhow.” He leaned over and kissed me a good one.

I couldn’t stop looking at that ring. I never had any earthly treasure so beautiful.

We went to bed and settled in back-to-back.

“Big day,” he said.

It was quiet for a moment, and then I said, “You reckon we’ll ever see Dacia again?” I’m human, I picked at my scabs to see would they bleed.

“You still afraid she’ll come back for them?”

“Might,” I said. “I keep dreaming about it.” Then I asked him, “Do you think I was too hard on her when she was coming up? Me and her didn’t hardly get along.”

“She wasn’t easy to get along with.”

“First thing she said after Mama died, I remember, ‘You ain’t my mama, you ain’t gonna be my mama, I ain’t gonna do what you say.’ And she never did.”

“Losing your mama’s hard on anybody,” he said then. “You and her both.”

“But she—”

“You and her both.” He sighed. “I sure hate to think of what she had to go through, to get to wherever she’s at now.” His voice was so soft I could barely hear him. Unless I was mistaken, there was tears in it.

It wasn’t like we hadn’t talked about all this before. We had. But things wasn’t the same since that day at the funeral home.

He spoke again. “It’s the ones like Dacia—the ones that are hard to love—” I heard him swallow. “They’re the ones need it the most. Mom used to say that.”

“Mine too.” I reached back far into my memory, and for the first time in years, I was able to picture Mama young, back home, in all her glory, her back bent over the table, her hands dipping into the flour sack like a natural-born woman.

I lost my breath, and I had to suck in air.

“Seems like there’s one like Dacia in ever family,” Sam said.

Now I seen Dacia in my mind’s eye. “Lord knows, she never got no love from me. From nobody really, except Mama, but then Mama . . .” I felt pity for Dacia then, deep-down pity, not strained no more with my own pain and grief and shame.

Now he turned over to face me, and he run his finger along my cheek. “Don’t you reckon she sent them here because she knowed you would, though? Love them? Look after them?”

I nodded, and tears sprung to my eyes. I laid my hand against his. “And because she figured you would be here to daddy them.”

We laid there like that for a long time. Finally he kissed me and turned back over, and I rubbed his back till I heard him snore.

My muscles felt like jelly. I was so grateful for him, I felt like I could float up to the ceiling. If it hadn’t been for the children, I felt like I would gladly have gone to be with the Lord at that very moment.

Then I got to thinking, what name did we put on the court papers—Trouble or Travis? And where did I put the scissors after I used them yesterday? And what did we have in the house for breakfast in the morning, was we out of bread? Did me and Sarah remember to close up the chickens for the night? Did Sam have a clean shirt for work? I was thinking so hard I almost forgot to say my prayer. It was a prayer of joy, sure enough, a prayer of thanksgiving for the good things the day had brought, and all the blessings the Lord seen fit to bestow on me, a sinner saved by grace.

Then I thought, tomorrow I should start writing it all down. The time’s going to come when Sarah’s going to want to know about her mama.