The Longest Road by Jeanne Williams Page A

since Buddy’ll be sleepin’ with the boys in the bed. You’ll be on the sofa with Belle, honey. Plenty of room if you each sleep with your head at a different end and don’t kick much.”
    â€œI kick like a Missoury mule, Pa says.” Belle sounded proud of it. She picked up the little cedar box with the brass plate engraved with Mama’s first name. “What’s, in here?”
    â€œHandkerchiefs.” The child’s hands, miraculously dirty again after having come clean from the rinsed dishes, left fingerprints on the metal and polished rosy wood. Laurie flinched, restraining an impulse to grab for the chest.
    This wasn’t her home. Rosalie wasn’t even her grandmother, but was taking her and Buddy in out of kindness. Even though Laurie would much rather have gone with Daddy, even though she cringed from the thought of having to sleep on the sofa with Belle’s feet in her face, Laurie had to remember that and behave the way Mama would expect.
    The handkerchiefs, mostly gifts to Mama from women friends, were lawn and voile and linen, fancy with embroidery, cutwork, or lace, much too nice to use, Mama said, and anyway, they’d scratch your nose. Mama’s only jewelry besides her wedding ring, with which she’d been buried, was a little lavaliere, an amethyst pendant on a fine silver chain that Daddy had given her while they were courting. Wedding rings and watches were the only jewelry the tabernacle allowed so after she got sanctified, Mama had put the lavaliere in the box along with locks of her mother’s and children’s hair—Laurie’s had been yellow though it was now a dreary dishwater blond—and other small treasures.
    Rosalie swept the chest out of Belle’s hands. “Now listen, Belle, you leave Laurie’s things alone, hear? Don’t you touch her stuff unless she says you can.” Rosalie handed the box to Laurie, who felt selfish and ashamed enough to lift the catch and select a pink lawn handkerchief embroidered in silk with deeper pink roses for Belle and a lace-edged white linen one for Rosalie.
    â€œPlease take them,” Laurie urged over Rosalie’s protest. “Mama would have liked you to have a remembrance.”
    â€œShe was a real lady.” Tears glinted in Rosalie’s dark eyes and her voice trembled. “I know Rachel didn’t approve of Harry but she was always nice to me. I’d have given the moon to talk educated like she did, have good manners, and—well, be like she was, exceptin’ for quite so much religion.” Rosalie laughed sheepishly. “No offense, honey, but your mama was so good it plumb discouraged me. Only time I ever saw her rile up was when Harry made some kind of slightin’ remark about Ed.” Rosalie gave Laurie’s shoulder a pat. “I’m going to change the baby and lay down with her and a magazine for a little bit. You just make yourself at home. We’re glad to have you. Here, let me put away your winter coats and mittens and caps. You won’t need ’em till October, maybe later.”
    Oh Mama , Laurie pleaded. Help us be gone by then! Help Daddy get a job quick so he can send for us! Shooing Babe into the bedroom, Rosalie closed the door most of the way. Laurie put the chest in the bottom of the box along with the ruby-glass pitcher and sugar bowl and then looked helplessly at the bird quilt and piles of belongings, hers and Buddy’s, that had been dumped on the bed.
    It gave her a funny, sick feeling to realize this was all they had left in the world, that they truly didn’t have a home but were just stuffed into the corners of another family’s life. Laurie chewed her lip, blinked at tears, and conjured up Morrigan’s smile, his deep, warm voice saying, “If any part of us lasts, it has to be love.”
    Steadied, Laurie went at her task. Daddy was taking Mama’s red-letter Bible, but Laurie had