Chapter 5
The last of the daylight was nearly exhausted by the time they gathered in the large dining hall on the bottom floor of the orphanage. The older girls moved quickly down each side of the long table, lighting candles and setting out plates and cutlery.
“I want to carry out the roast!” Lonnie begged at the kitchen door.
Sister Andrews held the large platter between her hands and looked down at him uncertainly. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“But you’re always saying everyone needs to help,” Lonnie countered, his skinny arms reaching up toward the platter. “I’m just trying to do my part.”
“I think you could do your part better by carrying out the green beans.” Sister Andrews moved gently past him and set the roast on the table. It’d already been carved in the kitchen, and steam whisked up from it toward the ceiling.
Lonnie’s skinny shoulders sagged. “The green beans aren’t as exciting.”
“Please fetch them, and you can set them right here next to the roast,” she said patiently.
As Ben had unhitched his horse and put it in the barn, Sister Matthews had explained that Sister Andrews had been brought on to help with the cooking and cleaning.
“She’s infinitely patient with them, far more than I ever have been,” she’d admitted as she’d leaned on the stall wall and watched him brush the saddle marks from the horse’s coat. “I think you’ll find that the food is much better than anything I used to make, too.”
Indeed, as the children carried in the platters of food, Ben was astonished at all he saw.
The garden had produced plenty, including small new potatoes, roasted peppers, fat tomatoes, several varieties of greens, and the beans that a disappointed Lonnie had carried in.
The children each had full cups of milk thanks to the goats, as well as little slices of a soft goat cheese.
Ben’s mouth watered at all the scents. “I was worried I’d be taking something from one of the children if I ate with you,” he noted to Sister Matthews, “but it seems I was wrong.”
“We don’t have much here,” she admitted, “but God provides, as I said. It doesn’t hurt that we’ve learned a lot about which vegetables do best here in our soil and when to plant them.”
The door slammed as Shane came rushing in. He pushed his way through a couple of the girls, who were still passing around napkins. “I made it! I thought you might’ve started without me.”
Sister Matthews gave him an appraising look. “Did you close the barn door when you finished with the goats?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He wasn’t looking at her. His head was craned around to eye the pies that Sister Andrews was setting on the sideboard to cool.
“And did you wash your hands?”
“Y---no,” Shane replied glumly. He scooted his chair back with a loud screech and stomped slowly out of the room, heading outside to the pump.
Sister Matthews smiled as she watched him go, and then she turned to Ben. “He’s come a long way. When he first arrived, I couldn’t get him to wash his hands at all. He refused to do any chores, and every word that came out of his mouth was a lie. Poor thing.”
She cleared her throat as the table was set and the last of the children clambered into their seats. “Florence, would you please say grace for us?”
Sister Matthews had introduced Ben to most of the children as they’d come in for dinner, and he was trying to keep all their names straight.
The oldest girl, who had mousy brown hair in a tight braid down her back, smiled proudly. She bowed her head, and everyone around the table followed suit. “Dear Lord,” she began.
Ben studied the plate in front of him. There was a small chip on the edge in the shape of a heart.
He knew that chip, and so he knew that plate.
He was once again caught in the strange contrast of how much had changed and how much hadn’t.
The children were all different, and Sister Andrews was a new addition, but he could easily close his eyes and pretend that he’d never left.
“Amen.”
“Amen,” the children echoed, and the brief moment of silence and stillness that’d encompassed the dining hall broke into a burst of energy and a flurry of movement.
“I want the end piece!” Emmitt declared, jabbing his fork into the heel of the roast.
“Aw, I wanted it,” another boy complained bitterly from across the table.
“You’ll just have to be faster next time,” Emmitt retorted as he put his prize on his plate.
“Nobody is as fast as me,” Lonnie boasted. “It’s lucky for you that I didn’t want that one.”
“Emmitt, that’s not very generous of you,” Sister Matthews scolded. “Perhaps you should share that piece with Caleb.”
Lonnie snickered at Emmitt’s misfortune.
“And Lonnie, you shouldn’t boast. You are very fast, indeed, but you can be proud without being prideful.”
“Yes’m.” Lonnie scooped potatoes onto his plate.
Sister Andrews sat at the other end of the table with the girls, which was more peaceful but just as energetic.
“Here you go, Alice,” Florence cooed as she fed the little one before putting a single morsel on her own plate. “Nice, soft potatoes. Eat those up now!”
Alice grinned happily.
“Florence, will you please braid my hair tonight?” asked a blonde girl of about eight. “I want my hair to look as pretty as yours.”
“I will, but you have to sit still,” Florence replied. “I can’t do a thing if you’re wiggling around like a little fish.”
“Fish!” Alice cried out.
They were all so busy, eating and chatting, barely sitting still in their seats, while Ben’s own body felt like stone. His fork was heavy as he brought it to his lips. As much as he enjoyed the food, he wondered if he’d have the strength to get through the entire meal.
“You used to be just like them,” Sister Matthews said.
“It’s hard to believe.” Was his homecoming supposed to be this difficult?
“You’ve changed a lot, I can tell, but you’re still a young man,” Sister Matthews reminded him. “Everyone is young compared to me, but you have plenty of your life left.”
He put his fork into a potato, which cleaved neatly in half. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Well, now!”
Ben looked up as a tall, slim figure entered the room. His brown hair had turned a dusty gray, and his dark eyes glittered with friendliness in the candlelight. “Father Tillman.” He began to rise from his seat.
“No, no.” The priest waved Ben back down into his seat. “Don’t get up on my behalf. I apologize that my errands brought me late to the table, Sister Matthews. I see we have a guest, but I never imagined it would be our dear Ben!” He took a seat on the other side of Ben.
“That’s quite all right, Father Tillman,” Sister Matthews answered with her usual grace. “How was your trip into town?”
Father Tillman made a deep noise in his throat. “I don’t think anyone wants to hear about that, when we have such an illustrious guest in our midst! It’s good to see you, my boy.”
He clapped Ben on the shoulder, and his smile slipped a little. “It seems as though you can benefit from some of Sister Andrews’ delicious food.”
“It’s wonderful,” Ben said politely. “It’s some of the best food I’ve had since….”
His mind raced out of the dining room at the orphanage and back into a tent filled with cigar smoke.
A general whose fat stomach pressed against his uniform sat in a rocking chair.
“That’s right, eat up!” the old man roared.
“You’ll need your energy for the next leg of your trip.
You’ll be slipping right through enemy territory! ”
His stomach swirled. The noise around him in the dining room was muffled, as though he’d put his head under water, but it slowly clarified into words and phrases once again.
“…received some of your letters, and we were mighty glad for it,” Father Tillman was saying. “We wrote back, but I was never sure if they reached you.”
Ben felt a twinge of pain in his chest. “I didn’t. I moved around a lot, though, so the army probably had a hard time tracking me down.”
“I imagine they did!” Father Tillman replied. “The war has been over for a bit now. What have you been doing in the meantime?”
“Um…” Ben hesitated with a piece of roast halfway to his mouth. He slowly lowered it to his plate as the last year ran swiftly through his mind. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, and eventually I decided to work my way back here. To where I started.”
Those strange, dusty days as he slowly moved back toward Arizona were nothing he could tell Father Tillman about. The crucifix on the wall at the other end of the room reminded him that he couldn’t hide the truth from the Almighty.
“To begin again!” Tillman enthused. “I think it’s a wonderful thing. And what does your future hold for you now?”
A loud bang echoed through the room and vibrated through Ben’s bones. He jumped, his knees hitting the underside of the table and nearly upsetting his plate. His heart thundered. His muscles clenched with the urge to move, to take cover.
“Please be careful, Shane,” Sister Matthews admonished.
“I only spilled a little bit!” he insisted.
“As I was saying,” Father Tillman went on, “what are your plans, Ben?”
His blood thrust through his veins with remarkable speed. It made Ben dizzy just sitting still when every fiber of his being told him to run.
But this wasn’t the war. He was no longer a courier. A sharp twinge of pain near his hip reminded him of how difficult his service had been.
“I’m not sure,” he finally said breathlessly.
“A man knows when he’s found his true calling.” Father Tillman cut into his roast with vigor. “It took me much longer to become a man of the cloth than many others of my station, but I made it here nevertheless. I have no doubt you’ll find your way.”
* * *
While the children cleaned the dishes, wiped the table, and dressed for bed, Ben slipped through the door and into the church. He’d come through that very same door so many times in his life, but it was smaller and narrower than he recalled.