Free Blue by Joyce Moyer Hostetter Page B

for human conduct don’t apply to a fellow’s dog.
    “That’s our dog!” squealed Ida.
    “Pete’s in the newspaper,” said Ellie. “Ann Fay, why didn’t you tell us?”
    “I didn’t know he was in the paper. I just now seen this.”
    “But you read the paper every day,” said Ida.
    “And you skip things so we won’t cry,” said Ellie.
    “I didn’t know nothing about Pete being at that hospital. I was so upset about Bobby I didn’t even miss that dog till you mentioned him. I betcha he hopped in the back of that hearse and hid there till it got to the hospital. That dog is too smart for his mangy britches.”
    “How come Momma didn’t tell us about Pete?”
    “Well, if you ain’t noticed,” I said, “we can’t exactly talk to her. Besides, I think she’s keeping it a secret. If that hospital finds out whose dog it is, they might take a notion to send him home again. Momma probably wants him there close to Bobby.”
    “Is Bobby gonna come home soon?”
    That bad feeling hit me again when Ida asked it. But I said what she wanted to hear. “Yeah,” I said. “He’ll be home real soon. And Pete and Momma will too.”
    “And Daddy? Is Daddy coming home?”
    “Of course,” I said. “Ain’t that what he says in his letters? He’s going to win that war, and before you know it he’ll be back. Then we’ll all be together again.”
    It was easy to say what my sisters wanted to hear. But I didn’t feel so sure of any of it.
    That night when I put the girls to bed, we prayed for God to bring Bobby and Daddy home safe, just like we prayed every night. Then I went outside and sat on the front porch and looked up at the moon. I imagined God was sitting on the top edge of it with His legs hanging over the sides.
    So I didn’t bother to close my eyes. I just looked at the moon and talked to Him. “What’s happening to us?” I asked. “When we sent Daddy off to the war, I felt like our family was breaking apart. And today I felt it again. Why did I feel like that today when Momma was squeezing me so hard?Oh, God, please, please, keep us together.”
    I thought praying was supposed to make me feel better, but all I could feel was Momma’s fingers digging into my arms and her hanging on to us three girls like we was all she had left in the world.

12
The Hearse Comes Back
    August 1944
    Not even a week after we seen Momma at the hospital, that big black hearse drove up to our house again.
    Ida and Ellie was playing hopscotch in the dirt and I was picking green beans in the garden. Momma was in the front seat, but I didn’t see no sign of Bobby. I went running to the car to see if they had him laying in the back.
    But then I seen Momma’s face and she wasn’t smiling. When I got to her door, she just sat there, unraveling the blue trim she had crocheted onto her handkerchief. She didn’t look at me. But I could see her eyes was all red from crying.
    Ellie and Ida was crowded up to the car door, asking for Bobby. I pulled them back and said, “Let Momma out. Can’t you see Bobby ain’t with her?”
    I could see they was fixing to hit her with a flood of questions. But even with the door shut and the window rolled up, she was shrinking away from them like she was scared of her own young’uns. So I just blurted it out, which I should not have done. But it’s not like I had time to plan the right way to say such a terrible thing. So I just said it fast and straight.
    “Bobby ain’t coming home. He’s dead.”
    And even if I did know it in my heart already, it still got me by surprise. I still felt like somebody had put a knife in my stomach.
    I held the girls back while the driver helped Momma into the house. She sunk into the sofa and didn’t say a word. Ida and Ellie was hanging on to her, begging her to say it wasn’t true. She didn’t answer them one way or another. Instead, she shrunk herself into the corner of the sofa till it seemed like she was smaller than the twins.
    The man stood at