Chapter Nineteen Mattie

NINETEEN : MATTIE

DELANEY HORSE FARM

NOVEMBER 1969

Nurse Bradford was gone by the time Nash and I returned to the farm. I learned from Dad that Mama'd had a sponge bath and had eaten some oatmeal before the woman departed. Even though I enjoyed spending the morning with Nash and Fred without worrying about Mama, I couldn't shake the feeling of no longer being needed.

It's not surprising, then, that I spent the entire afternoon with her.

"Now it so happened, that, in spite of Emma's resolution of never marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea, of Mr. Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently thought—especially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylor—that if she were to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age, character, and condition."

I glanced up from the book in my hands to be sure Mama hadn't fallen asleep again. Although she'd read Jane Austen's Emma countless times through the years, she'd asked me to read it aloud to her today. I was pleased to see her eyes open, watching me.

"Emma wouldn't have been happy if she'd married Mr. Churchill." She gave a languid smile. "Nor would he have been happy with her. They were each meant to marry someone else."

My gaze drifted to the framed black-and-white photograph on the bureau of her and Dad. It was taken on the farm before Mark and I were born. While Mama smiled into the camera, Dad's expression was his usual solemn frown. Even as a little girl, I'd often wondered why my father was so unhappy.

"How did you know Dad was the man you were supposed to marry?"

She, too, looked at the photograph. "He needed me, and I needed him."

That didn't sound very romantic. Maybe that's why she enjoyed novels like Emma . Mr. Knightley was the epitome of manly excellence. Handsome. Rich. Kind. Honorable. It made me wonder if such men only existed in fiction. I had yet to come across one.

I read for another thirty minutes before she drifted to sleep. Closing the book, I walked over to the photograph and picked it up. Mama was so pretty. Not much older than I was now, she looked young and vibrant. Happiness radiated from her face.

My eyes studied Dad next.

Tall and handsome, I could see why Mama was attracted to him. But unlike Mr. Knightley, Dad's hero-like qualities ended there. He wasn't a mean drunk, like Nash's father, nor was he lazy, but I couldn't find anything in his character that clued me in to why Mama had married him. Other than the one time I'd seen him dancing with her in the kitchen, I couldn't recall witnessing marital affection between them.

I set the picture down, snuck one last peek at Mama, and tiptoed from the room. It was too early to start dinner, so I headed to my bedroom. On the way home from town, Nash and I had discussed the possibility of helping Fred ride a horse once again.

"Are we sure this is a good idea?" The moment we left Fred's cottage, I'd started to doubt the certainty I'd felt just minutes before. "I would hate to get his hopes up only to have it fail. Or worse. He could fall off the horse and get hurt."

Nash glanced over to me. "Did you see his face when you suggested it? I've never seen Fred that excited." He focused on the road again. "The fact that you would consider trying to help him get on a horse was enough to breathe life back into him."

We'd brainstormed designs for the type of platform we would need to build to get Fred level with a horse's back. A sturdy harness or belt of some sort would also be required. Nash said he'd run the idea of Fred coming out to the farm past Dad, but I couldn't see any reason why he would disagree. We made plans to get to work on the platform tomorrow morning while Nurse Bradford was here. By the time we reached home, my mind was spinning with the concept of helping a paralyzed war veteran ride a horse. I couldn't help but chuckle, thinking about how shocked my brother would be if he were here.

"You sure like to keep me guessing, don't you, Sis?" he used to say when I'd share my latest wild pipe dream.

Back in my room, I felt restless. My gaze landed on the shoebox of letters on my desk. Mama'd said they held secrets that needed to be revealed, yet after Nash and I read some of them last night, I'd found them harmless.

Settling on my unmade bed cross-legged, with the box in my lap, I took out the bundles of letters and read the addressee's name. Ava Delaney. The scrawled name on the envelopes of both bundles were the same. The returnees' names, however, were different. The first batch was from SN Richard Delaney. The second group came from someone named Gunther Schneider.

I studied the envelope in my hand.

Why would Mama have letters written to a woman named Ava Delaney? Did they perhaps belong to her mother? I couldn't recall my grandmother's first name. I'd only met her once. Had she been a Delaney too, like Granny?

Memories of the time Mama, Mark, and I took the train to Chicago when he and I were about five years old floated across my mind. I vaguely remembered meeting a woman with graying hair. She wasn't mean or grumpy, like Granny. She simply wasn't interested in us, her grandchildren from Tennessee. We didn't stay long, as I recall. Maybe a couple days at most. She'd passed away when Mark and I were in high school. Mama went to the funeral alone.

Laying the letters aside, I reached for the old book.

Die Bibel.

As I thumbed through the pages, I was convinced my first assumption was correct. It was most likely written in German, and it was unmistakably a Bible. But why it was in Mama's belongings, however, remained a mystery.

I leaned back against the pillows and turned to the front of the book. There I found neat but faded handwriting.

Für meinen Sohn, Ehre Gott immer. Ich liebe dich, Mutter.

I spoke the strange words aloud, no doubt destroying the correct pronunciation. Could the first sentence be For my son ? Possibly. The next words completely stumped me, but I felt certain Mutter was Mother. We'd once had an Amish family purchase a horse from us, and the cute little boy, dressed like his father in black pants, white shirt, and straw hat, had called his mother Mutter . If my guess was right, then it stood to reason that someone's mother gave them this Bible many years ago.

Again, the question I'd asked earlier returned.

Why did Mama have it?

I yawned, my eyelids suddenly heavy. After I returned the book and the letters to the box, I lay back against the pillows. Maybe Nash would have time this evening after dinner to read more of the letters with me. The mystery regarding Ava Delaney was starting to bug me. I wanted to know who she was and why Mama had her letters.

I awoke an hour later. The sky out my window still had light, but it was dwindling quickly. When I walked into the hallway, Mama's bedroom door was closed, but I could hear Dad speaking quietly.

I reached the kitchen to find Nash at the stove, frying hamburger patties.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just meant to close my eyes for a minute or two, but I fell asleep."

"It's no problem." He flipped the sizzling meat. "I cooked a lot of burgers when I was a kid. Mom worked at the Dairy Bar drive-in, and she'd bring home ground meat the owner was going to throw out."

As I helped chop onions and slice a tomato, I thought about Nash's mom. I hadn't known Mrs. McCallum well. She kept to herself for the most part. Mama'd tried to become friendly with her when the boys began to pal around, inviting her to come for lunch or join us at church. But Mrs. McCallum would politely decline, usually with some kind of excuse. If Mark and Nash ever talked about it, I didn't know the details. Nash's mom lived up north now. I hoped she'd found some happiness there.

Dad arrived in the kitchen, and we sat down to dinner.

"Nash says you offered to let his friend come out and ride," he said after a stretch of silence while we dug into our food.

I glanced up, trying to judge his tone and facial expression. The disapproval I usually saw when I expressed an opinion on a subject, however, wasn't there.

"I don't know if it will work, but I think we should try." I glanced at Nash. "I may not agree with the reason Fred was in Vietnam, but that doesn't matter now. He's home, he's injured, and he needs people in his life who care about that. You and the Grahams are doing your part." I gave a slight shrug. "I'd like to do mine."

Dad nodded. "I told Nash his friend is welcome here, anytime."

Long after we'd each finished eating the simple yet delicious meal, we sat at the table and discussed the details of teaching a paralyzed man to ride a horse again. Dad had a lot of great suggestions. He reminded us that Fred hadn't walked in nearly a year. His balance, therefore, wouldn't be the same as it was when both his legs functioned. There was also the fact that riding a horse typically required the rider to use pressure from their legs to guide the animal.

"He'll need a horse we can retrain." He rubbed his jaw. "Moonlight would have been good, but I don't want to take any risks with her. Dawn's Rose is our smallest mare. Her gait is smooth and won't jostle him."

"I was thinking about her too." I felt unusually pleased to find myself in agreement with my father. It didn't happen often. "Do you remember the belts you used when Mark and I were little and learning to ride? You'd hold on to the back of it while you walked beside the horse. I thought we could do something like that for Fred."

The corners of his mouth lifted, and he nodded. "I remember."

With plans in motion, Nash and I cleaned the kitchen while Dad took some soup to Mama.

"Thank you for offering to help Fred," Nash said as he scraped a leftover beef patty into Jake's bowl. The dog sniffed it, then gingerly picked it up with his teeth and carried it over to his rug to enjoy in comfort.

"It's the right thing to do." I met Nash's gaze. "I know it's hard for you and Dad to believe this, but I only wanted what was best. For our country. For Mark. Even for you. Going to fight a war on the other side of the world wasn't best. For anyone."

"And you may not believe this, but I agree with you."

I blinked. "What?"

"War is never best ," he said, "but sometimes it's necessary."

I narrowed my eyes. "If I ask you something, will you give me an honest answer?"

"Always."

"If you could go back to the summer of '65, knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently? Would you still go to Vietnam?"

He didn't respond right away. When he did finally answer, his words weren't what I expected to hear. "I'd do everything differently."

"What do you mean?"

He glanced out the window to the stars in the inky sky. "I wouldn't tell anyone I was joining the military. Not even Mark. Especially not Mark. I'd just catch a bus to Nashville and disappear."

"I don't understand. You'd still go to war?"

"I would, but I wouldn't take Mark with me." He shook his head, anguish in his eyes. "If I hadn't talked about becoming a Marine—hadn't bragged about doing my duty—Mark wouldn't have gone to 'Nam. He would've gone to Vanderbilt with you. He would've played football and married Paula." He turned away. "He wouldn't've died over there. It's my fault he isn't here."

Stunned, I could only stare at him.

For four years, I'd blamed Nash for everything he'd just confessed. I'd been convinced my brother would still be alive if it wasn't for him. In the months I lived in California, I'd hated Nash. How many times had I wished it was him who'd come home in a body bag instead of my brother?

But now, here in the stillness of the farmhouse, I knew I'd been wrong.

And Nash was wrong too.

"That isn't true," I said. When he looked at me, I offered a feeble shrug. "I used to think it was true. I was so angry at you. I was certain you were responsible for Mark going to Vietnam. For taking him away from me." Tears blurred my vision. "But the truth is, he would've gone anyway. He wasn't the kind of person to let someone else's decision sway his. He was determined to be a modern-day Dietrich Bonhoeffer."

Silence stood between us for a long moment.

"Are you saying you forgive me?" Nash asked, his voice full of emotion.

Was I?

Nash wasn't my enemy, I realized. He was a casualty of war, same as Mark. He'd gone to Vietnam whole and come back broken. So had Fred and countless others. I would still speak out against the wrongs done by our government and military leaders, but I could no longer hate the soldiers. Men who weren't much different than my brother and his best friend.

"I guess I am."

His expression eased. "Thank you."

We didn't say more on the subject.

When the kitchen was clean and the house quiet, I said, "I thought I'd go through more of those old letters of Mama's. I could use some company."

Nash smiled. "Sure thing."

We settled on the sofa after I went upstairs to retrieve the box. The door to my parents' room was closed. No sound came from inside. I hoped Mama was resting comfortably. I even hoped Dad could get some rest, too.

"I still think it's strange that the letters are addressed to someone named Ava Delaney." I took a folded sheet of paper from one of the envelopes that came from Hawaii. Like those we'd read yesterday, this too was signed Your loving husband, Richard .

We took turns reading out loud as we went through the stack of correspondences, all similar in content. It was clear Richard loved Ava. His anxiousness for her to join him in Hawaii was evident. When we reached the last one, I looked at the postmarked date on the envelope.

"This was mailed on December fifth, 1941." I glanced at Nash. "Wasn't that just a couple days before Pearl Harbor was attacked?"

Nash nodded. "I wonder if Richard was there."

"There aren't any more letters after this one."

When I finished reading it, I put it with the others. "Ava Delaney must've been a relative. That's why Mama has her letters."

"But didn't your mom say the letters held some sort of secret she wanted you to know?"

"She did, but so far I don't see anything out of the ordinary about them. I've never heard of Richard Delaney."

I picked up the second bundle of envelopes. "Then there are these, from someone named Gunther Schneider. I've never heard of him either. There aren't as many of these as there are from Richard, but from the dates on the postmarks," I said, thumbing through the right-hand corner of the stack, "they were all written in 1943, '44, and '45."

Nash nodded as he stifled a yawn.

I chuckled. "I better let you get some sleep. The mystery can wait. We'll read these tomorrow."

I bid him and Jake good night and quietly made my way upstairs. After my impromptu nap earlier, I wasn't ready to turn in yet. I'd enjoyed reading the letters with Nash, so I didn't want to start on the second bundle alone.

I took the old Bible from the box and stretched out on my bed.

Memories of attending church with Mama and Mark floated through my mind.

Even as a little girl, I'd always been one to ask questions during Sunday school. While the other children sat quietly and listened to the teacher share stories about Moses, David, and Jesus, I wanted to know details.

Why did God let baby Moses live while other baby boys died?

How could David kill a giant with one stone?

What happened to the little boy who gave his lunch of five loaves and two fish to Jesus? I bet he couldn't believe it when Jesus fed a big crowd with it.

On and on. I'd wave my hand in the air as soon as something popped into my head and keep waving until the teacher reluctantly called on me. Mark teased me about being so inquisitive, but I didn't care. I wanted to know why I should believe the stories. More than one teacher grew weary of my interruptions through the years.

Why don't you ask your mother when you get home, they'd say when they'd had enough. Then they'd finish the lesson using flannel board cutouts of Bible characters, palm trees, and plain-looking houses we were sometimes allowed to play with when the class ended. On the drive back to the farm, I would pepper Mama with questions, and she would patiently give the best answers she could.

I ran my fingers over the cover of the foreign Bible.

Why had I never had a childlike faith in the tales found in this book? Mark easily accepted everything it said, but I don't think I ever did. I believed in God, mainly because it seemed illogical not to, considering the world around us. But like young Mattie in Sunday school class, I still had many questions.

Why does God allow evil to exist?

If he loves his children, why do people like Fred suffer?

Where was God when my brother died?

No, I couldn't just blindly believe like Mama and Mark. I needed logical answers, and so far, I had yet to get them.

I turned page after page, studying beautiful illustrations when I came to them. I knew the names of the books in the Bible. We'd had to memorize them in Sunday school. But with no understanding of the language this Bible was written in, it was pointless to continue perusing it.

I'd just thumbed through the last book— Das Buch der Offenbarung —when I discovered a small, brown cardboard sheath stuck to the inside cover. It looked like the kind that held our grade school class pictures, with a flap to keep the photograph from getting scratched.

It didn't take much effort to free it from the back cover without doing damage to either the book or the case. Curious to see what it contained, I was mildly disappointed to find a black-and-white image of a woman standing with each arm around the shoulders of two school-age boys. The group stood outside, next to an old-fashioned, dark vehicle. There was no writing on the back to give clues as to who they were.

Could the woman be Ava Delaney? Maybe. It would make sense, being that the Bible was in the same box as the letters. But I still didn't know why Mama was in possession of the mysterious Ava's belongings.

I yawned.

I returned the photograph to where I'd found it and closed the book.

With everything we needed to do to get ready for Fred before he came to the farm this weekend, I didn't have time to waste on supposed family secrets.