Skylark Page 4

  William smiled.

  “A poem. I only remember the first line: ‘Like a skylark Sarah sings!’ Papa said you’d never come to earth.”

  Sarah looked out over the sea, and I knew she was thinking of Maggie’s words to her on the dry prairie. Words I wasn’t supposed to hear. “You’re like the prairie lark, Sarah. You have not come to earth.”

  That night I wrote Papa a letter.

  Dear Papa,

  Caleb and I miss you. Sarah misses you, too. We are fine. We went fishing and rowing in William’s boat. Sometimes seals poke their heads out of the water to watch us. You would love the sea.

  Write soon,

  Love, Anna.

  P.S. I gave Sarah your kiss.

  I didn’t tell Papa about the rain.

  The aunts had tea in the moonlight. The light lay like a blanket over the water below.

  “Have you ever been married, Aunt Harriet?” asked Caleb.

  “Caleb! That’s private,” I said.

  But Aunt Harriet smiled. She took Caleb on her lap.

  “Private, maybe,” she said. “But like everything else, it’s history. No, I was never married. Almost, but not quite. I never met a dashing man like your father.”

  “What’s dashing?” asked Caleb.

  “That’s what I’m doing,” said Aunt Lou, coming down the path. She was dressed in a bathrobe. “I’m dashing into the water. Do you want to come? I’m going skinny-dipping.”

  “Do you mean you’re going to swim all naked?!” asked Caleb.

  Caleb followed Aunt Lou down the path. And then his voice came up the hill.

  “Anna! Come here! In the moonlight she looks like a big fish!”

  Aunt Harriet and Aunt Mattie laughed, Aunt Mattie so hard she spilled her tea. And then it was quiet again.

  “Everyone goes skinny-dipping,” said Sarah. Her voice was soft with memory.

  I thought about the pond at home when the moon came up so big and close it seemed you could touch it. Far off a loon cried on the water. The bell buoy made a lonely, sad sound.

  That night, under the same moon that Papa saw, we could see fireworks from the faraway town. Splashes of color in the sky, red and silver and green.

  “They’re like the dandelions that bloom in the fields at home in summer,” I told Sarah.

  Sarah reached over and took my hand.

  “Do you think the drought’s over yet?” asked Caleb, leaning against Sarah.

  “No,” said Sarah. “It’s not over, Caleb. It may be a long time.”

  Her voice was low, her eyes dark and sad. She looked at me.

  A long time. I didn’t like those words, a long time.

  13

  More letters came from Papa. The dogs missed us. Papa missed us. All our days were long days filled with green all around us, and the sea. The rain should have made us happy, but it didn’t. It made us think about Papa. Even Caleb looked sad now. One day Sarah showed him the woolly ragwort that grew in Maine, but it didn’t make Caleb laugh the way it used to.

  At night Caleb had bad dreams. I could hear him, and I could hear Sarah singing him back to sleep.

  Sarah wrote letters to Papa every day. At night she read his letters over and over again, the light from the oil lamp spilling into the hallway.

  Dear Anna and Caleb and Sarah,

  Somehow it isn’t so hot now. The nights are cooler and the dogs are sleeping in my room again. Sometimes Lottie tries to climb up on my bed.

  I love you all.

  Jacob

  And then, one day at dinner, Caleb said something that made my heart skip a beat.

  “It’s almost time for school,” he said.

  Fall was almost here, the air cool and crisp in the mornings as if frost would come soon. I had hardly thought about fall and school. My thoughts were about summer, and Papa, and the sweet smell of the prairie grass.

  The aunts looked at Sarah, then at Caleb and me.

  “Would you like to visit the school here, Caleb?” said Aunt Harriet.

  “It’s a wonderful school, Caleb,” said Sarah slowly. She sighed. “I went to school there.”

  Caleb stood up and looked at us. Very carefully he pushed in his chair.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to go to school here. I like you, but I don’t want to live here.”

  Caleb walked to the door, opened it.

  “I want to go home,” he said in a soft voice. He looked at Sarah. “Don’t you?” he asked. “Don’t you want to go home, Sarah?” Then he left.

  It was quiet. I stared at my plate of food. I could feel Aunt Mattie beside me, fiddling with her fork. Aunt Harriet cleared her throat. When I looked up again, Sarah was staring out the window at the sea. No one spoke.

  I looked everywhere for Caleb: behind the house, in the wooden rowboat, on the rocks where the seals sunned. I found him huddled by a driftwood log in the cove. Caleb was crying.

  I sat down next to him and listened to the waves come in. A wind came up and I put my arms around him.

  “Don’t cry, Caleb,” I said. “Please don’t cry.”

  After a moment Caleb looked up at me. I could see his eyes shining in the moonlight. I thought of Papa’s eyes shining when the barn burned.

  “Anna,” said Caleb, his voice soft, “will we see Papa again? Ever?”

  Caleb waited for me to answer. But I couldn’t find any words for him. He began to cry again. And we sat there as clouds moved across the moon—dark, then light, then dark again. Caleb fell asleep.

  14

  The August sun rose red, then turned gold. It touched the flowers of the aunts’ gardens, the beds of late roses and nasturtiums and asters. Geese flew in, sitting calmly on the water. A boat with two masts and a tall sail slipped by. Caleb went fishing with William and came home with two fish.

  “Flounder,” said William, smiling at us.

  But Caleb didn’t smile.

  In the afternoon we walked by the water, Aunt Lou and Sarah, Caleb and I. Caleb threw sticks for Brutus, who brought them back along with big rocks and seaweed and whatever came up with the tide. We began to walk up the path again, Caleb carrying sticks, Sarah stopping to pick a hatful of rose hips. A fisherman pulled up lobster pots in the cove. Then, suddenly, Caleb straightened and looked past me to the top of the hill. He didn’t speak, but his lips moved.

  “What?” I asked him, and I turned to see a figure standing there, looking out at the sea.

  Caleb’s mouth opened and he dropped his sticks.

  Papa. I leaned closer to hear him, and then he shouted.

  “Papa! Papa!”

  He began running up the hill calling Papa’s name over and over. And I saw Papa turn at the sound of Caleb’s voice. I ran, too, Sarah running behind me, and I began to cry.

  “Papa!”

  Caleb ran into Papa’s arms and Papa held him close. Papa picked me up, too, and my hat fell off, and I buried my face in his neck.

  Papa looked at Sarah.

  “It rained,” he said.

  He smiled at her.

  “I never thought you’d come,” whispered Sarah.

  “It rained,” Papa said again, his voice so soft that it could have been the wind I heard.

  Caleb sat on Papa’s lap.

  “And there were fireworks, Papa! Lots of them! How big are the kittens?”

  “Big, like you,” said Papa, smiling. He touched Caleb’s face.

  “Restless, like you.”

  “Do you want something to eat, Jacob?” asked Aunt Harriet.

  “Harriet’s solution to the problems of the world,” said Aunt Lou, making Papa smile.

  “No, thank you,” said Papa. “I couldn’t eat.”

  Caleb slid off Papa’s lap. Papa stood, looking out over the water. No one spoke.

  “That sound,” Papa whispered after a moment.

  “The sea,” said Sarah.

  Papa turned to look at her. She touched his arm and walked off down the path to the water. Papa looked
at Caleb and me quickly; then he followed her.

  Caleb started to walk after Papa, but I reached out and took his hand.

  “Caleb,” I said softly.

  “Where are they going?” Caleb asked.

  “They’ll come back,” I said. “It’s all right, Caleb.”

  Caleb and I stood and watched Sarah and Papa walk down the hill. They stopped. They talked. And then, after a moment, Papa put his arms around Sarah. I smiled.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered to Caleb.

  That night, after Aunt Harriet and Aunt Lou had played music for Papa, and Aunt Mattie had danced, we walked down by the water. And then Sarah and Papa told us that in the spring we would have a new baby.

  “A real baby?” asked Caleb, excited.

  “A real baby,” said Papa.

  “Our baby!” said Caleb, smiling.

  Sarah saw my face and she knew I was worried. Worried because Mama had died when Caleb was born.

  “It will be fine,” she told me. “I am healthy. The baby’s healthy. The doctor said so.”

  I looked at Papa.

  “It will be fine, Anna,” he said.

  Clouds passed, and the full moon spread out over the water.

  Papa put his arms around me.

  “It will be fine. And it will be wonderful,” he said.

  15

  “I see the house!” cried Caleb, standing up in the wagon. “And the new barn!”

  The wagon passed the cornfields, still dry, but we could see some green in the meadow. We turned into our yard, and Nick and Lottie ran and jumped up into the wagon before it stopped.

  “Nick, Lottie!”

  I laughed as they jumped on us, licking our faces.

  “There’s some water in the pond,” said Papa. He looked at Caleb and me. “And there are kittens waiting for you on the porch.”

  Caleb and I ran to the porch, where Seal washed her four kittens, three gray and one orange like Maggie’s cat, Sam. Someone had left a bowl of water nearby.

  “Look, Sarah!” Caleb held the orange cat for Sarah to see. She smiled at us, and then she and Papa began to walk out to the fields to see the green. I watched them, Papa dressed in his wedding suit, Sarah in her yellow bonnet. And then Sarah bent down suddenly, her traveling coat spread out behind her. She picked up a stick and began to write in the dry earth.

  “What is she doing?” asked Caleb.

  I knew, but I didn’t say anything.

  Papa turned and walked back to her, looking down at what she had written. She smiled up at him, and the two of them walked out into the fields in the late pale light of afternoon. Papa reached out and took Sarah’s hand.

  Caleb and I walked down the steps. Under the post where Caleb’s glass still stood, Sarah had written one word in the prairie dirt.

  Sarah.

  * * *

  Home.

  It has rained twice. But there is still dust. The corn still rattles in the wind.

  The green of Maine seems to be only a dream. When we came home by train, we passed trees and hills and lakes filled with water. They are beautiful, the trees and hills and lakes filled with water. But the prairie is home, the sky so big it takes your breath away, the land like a giant quilt tossed out.

  It will rain again. There is some water in the pond. Not enough for swimming, but there will be. There will be flowers in the spring, and the river will run again. And in the spring there will be the new baby, Papa and Sarah’s baby.

  Caleb, like Papa, is not always good with words. But I think Caleb says it best.

  Our baby.

  * * *

  Read on for an excerpt from Caleb’s Story

  1

  “Come find me, Caleb!” called my little sister, Cassie.

  She ran out the door and down the steps. Lottie barked and followed her. Nick was older than Lottie. He stayed on the porch and watched.

  “I don’t have time. I mean it, Cassie!” Cassie ignored me the way she always did when she wanted something.

  “And don’t look!” she called.

  I sighed and walked after her. I covered my eyes with my hand, but through my fingers I could see Cassie run to the barn.

  “One, two, three,” I counted.

  “Slower,” she cried.

  “Four . . . five . . . five and a half.”

  Papa was hitching Bess to the wagon.

  “Don’t be long,” he said. “Anna’s almost ready to leave.”

  “Don’t worry. This won’t take long, Papa.” “I don’t know, Caleb. Cassie’s getting better at hiding.”

  I laughed.

  “At least you don’t see her feet sticking out anymore. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” I called.

  I could hear Cassie laughing, but I couldn’t see her. I walked into the barn. It was cool and dark and quiet. A winter sharp smell filled the space.

  “Cassie?”

  There was no answer. There was a time when Cassie would answer me and give away her hiding place—she couldn’t help it. Not today.

  May, my favorite of all our horses, was in her stall. I reached over and touched her nose, and she nickered at me. I could see her breath in the cold air. There was silence, the only sound the sound of May’s breathing. Then I heard Lottie’s bark outside, and Cassie’s voice.

  “Cassie? I hear you!”

  I turned. Cassie tried to run by the barn door, and I rushed out and caught her, making her squeal.

  “I’ve got you, Pal!”

  Cassie laughed and we began to walk back to the house, Lottie leaping and jumping in front of us. Cassie reached up and took my hand, her face suddenly serious.

  “There’s a man.”

  “What man?”

  “Behind the barn,” said Cassie. “He’s wrapped in a green blanket. He asked me about Papa.”

  I smiled.

  “You and your imaginary friends, Cassie.”

  She scowled at me.

  “There’s a man,” she insisted.

  “You’re stubborn,” I told her. “Like Sarah.”

  “Like Mama,” Cassie corrected me. “You could call her Mama.”

  “I could,” I said. “But you know the story, Cassie. When she first came here Anna and I called her Sarah. We will always call her Sarah.”

  “I will call her Mama,” said Cassie.

  I picked her up—she was so light—and Cassie put her head on my shoulder as we walked to the house.

  “A man,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Do you have everything, Anna?”

  Sarah wrapped biscuits in a towel.

  “Give these to Sam.”

  Papa looked over Sarah’s shoulder.

  “Some,” he said. “Not all.”

  Sarah smiled.

  “Papa never gets enough biscuits,” said Anna.

  Anna tied up some letters with a long ribbon. Min, our orange cat, leaped up, trying to catch the ends. Her mother, Seal, slept in a basket by the fire, opening her eyes every so often to check on all of us.

  “Justin’s letters?” asked Sarah.

  Anna nodded.

  “I read them over and over,” she said softly. “Sometimes I feel he’s standing next to me.”

  Everyone was quiet. I used to tease Anna about her boyfriend, Justin. I called him Just-In-Time. But not anymore. Justin had gone to Europe to fight in the war. And no one teased Anna now. I think she worked for Doctor Sam because Justin was his son. It made her feel closer to Justin.

  “Letters,” said Papa, his voice low.

  “You were the masters of letter writing, you and Sarah,” said Anna.

  “What does that mean?” asked Cassie.

  “It means that they wrote letters to each other before they loved each other,” said Anna.

  “I never got to write letters,” complained Cassie.

  Papa smiled at her.

  “No, you came much later.”

  “You came during an early snowstorm,” I told Cassie, “with wind and snow and
cold. I remember.”

  “We all remember!” said Anna, laughing.

  “Did I come with letters?” asked Cassie.

  “No,” said Anna. “But you can write letters to me in town.”

  “I will,” said Cassie, excited. “I will write you a hundred plus seven letters!”

  “Here, Caleb,” said Anna. She handed me some books.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “My journals,” said Anna. “And new ones. It is your job now.”

  “Mine?! I’m not a writer like you, Anna,” I said.

  “You’ll figure it out, Caleb. One page at a time.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Everyone’s not a writer, Caleb,” said Anna. “But everyone can write.”

  Sarah looked out of the kitchen window.

  “What is it, Sarah?” asked Papa.

  “I thought I saw something. Someone, maybe. Over there.”

  Papa looked out, too.

  “I don’t see anyone. But I do see the beginnings of snow. And the wind is picking up. Let’s go!”

  “Snow!” said Cassie. “And wind! Will someone be born?”

  Sarah and Papa laughed.

  “Not here,” Sarah said. “Not tonight.”

  We picked up Anna’s suitcase and packages and went out the door.

  “She saw the man,” whispered Cassie.

  “Come on, Cass. There’s no man,” I said.

  I took Cassie’s hand and we went out where snow was coming down. Sarah looked worried.

  “Anna? I want you to be careful. There’s so much sickness.”

  “I know you worry about the influenza,” said Anna.

  “So many are sick,” said Sarah, putting her arm around Anna. “So many have died. And you see the worst of it.”

  “I love working with Sam,” said Anna. “You told me once that it is important to do what you love.”

  “I said that, did I?” said Sarah.

  “You did,” said Anna.

  “You did,” said Cassie, making Sarah laugh.