An Absence So Great: A Novel (Portraits of the Heart) Page 14

  Roy jumped off the porch and marched in circles on the walk, tooting his new toy.

  “You’ll have to do more discussing tomorrow too,” her mother said after a time. “To bed, all of you.”

  “Mother,” Lilly said, “we agreed you wouldn’t treat me like a child.”

  “Oh, you may remain up, Lilly. But Roy and Selma, tomorrow is another workday, and a good night’s sleep is just what you need.”

  Roy groaned, but he joined Selma as they kissed their parents. “Save my place in the middle of the bed,” Jessie told Selma.

  “It’s so nice to have all my children clucked around me,” her mother said. “Safe and secure. I don’t like all this talk about doing things on your own. It’s not good for a woman’s mind, Jessie. I’ve read about brain poisonings for girls who went on to college. The Republican-Herald had an article about that. We women just can’t handle that much knowledge.”

  “You better not let Selma read any more of her book then,” Lilly said. “Louisa May Alcott thinks it’s as much a right and duty for women to make good of their lives as it is for men.”

  “That does sound like a good book,” Jessie agreed. She and Lilly exchanged a knowing look.

  Mrs. Bauer felt strong enough now to do it. Melba had put Robert to bed, Fred had read a bit to Winnie before she slipped off to sleep, and Mrs. Bauer had looked in on Russell sitting at his desk, studying an old camera his father had given him. Her oldest son had a talent for picture taking, and Mrs. Bauer thought one day he might take over the business or perhaps begin working beside his father before long. After he’d finished school of course. She wanted him to go on to college. They’d have to save money for that, but they could afford it. Surely they could.

  She approached her husband reading in the living room, catching a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. Her mink-colored hair had few gray streaks, but her deep blue eyes looked cold as Lake Winona, even to herself. She closed her eyes and imagined warmth, wanting to be compassionate, not critical, as she brought up the issue. Still, it was now or never. She opened her eyes and joined her husband. “Could we talk about what happened last week, when you first arrived home with Winnie?”

  FJ raised his eyes from the American Magazine. “I’d like to finish this article on efficiency, yes? I didn’t get to it last month. It’s the final installment. Quite informative, all about management. Requires sound goals to begin with, then time can be distributed accordingly, led by scientific principles.”

  His level of detail about something of limited interest to her while she exposed her emotions nearly caused her to snap at him, but she didn’t. Reverend Carleton would be proud of her. She was glad she’d decided to speak with the evangelist rather than her own pastor, who might share what she said to him with her husband, and she didn’t want that. FJ thought it was the Mayo hospital doctors who directed her, but she’d found their assistance less useful than the reverend’s. The doctors focused on what she ate and on exercise and such, while the pastor knew it was her heart and soul that needed healing.

  “When might that be, when you’ve finished your article on such important, sound goals?” She heard the thread of sarcasm in her voice. She needed to counter that. No sense bringing fuel to a fire she wanted to put out. “Maybe I could prepare us tea while I wait.”

  He put the magazine down. “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that very much. Good.” He smiled warmly at her, and she turned and headed to the kitchen, hoping he wasn’t watching her walk away. She didn’t want him ogling her, and she couldn’t trust that smile. Where might it lead?

  She set the teakettle on the Monarch, turned the knob. She heard the pilot light pusch as it caught the flame. She only wished to talk about her irritation and propose a way through it. She needed to see if they could have a civil conversation that wouldn’t end up with fury rushing through them by the end. That smile, though. She didn’t want anything intimate, anything passionate, to result from this upcoming conversation. When she let her guard down, attempted pleasantries, he assumed she offered more. Reverend Carleton didn’t understand that. He’d said she must be submissive, which didn’t mean she had to take whatever her husband gave her, only that at times she might not get her own way. There was wifely duty to consider, but a husband’s duty as well, he’d assured her. She couldn’t remember when her husband hadn’t gotten what he wanted. Well, she supposed he didn’t like having separate bedrooms with locks. But when it came to intimacy, she had to have her own way or she’d suffocate.

  The teakettle whistled. She poured the hot water through the leaves and inhaled the sweet scent. She could feel the steam above her lip as she placed the cups on a tray. Cookies. Should she put cookies on a plate? No, that would suggest ordinary, and she didn’t feel ordinary. Besides, he might not like the ones she chose. He didn’t like sugar cookies, as they crumbled and he had to brush his suit. She didn’t have oatmeal, the ones he preferred. Better to leave cookies behind. She headed into the living room.

  “There you are, Mrs. Bauer,” he said, walking toward her. “I thought I heard the kettle whistle. You turned the stove off, yes?” His eyes looked past her. Had she? He clucked his tongue. “I’ll do it. No sense wasting gas, and it’s dangerous I’m sure you know.”

  That tone again, the one that made her feel like a child. “I intended to come back and take care of it after I took care of you,” she said. No! This wasn’t what she wanted. Think. Think.

  He took the tray from her and set it on the sideboard. “This is very pleasant,” he said. “Very pleasant. Just the two of us, having tea. No cookies?” She shook her head. “I don’t need them anyway,” he said and patted his stomach, which was flatter than a glove press. Was that a veiled reference to my widening hips? She smoothed the linen over her burgeoning waist. “Now, what was it you wished to discuss, Mrs. Bauer?”

  “Call me Jessie,” she said. “I think it’s time I had you call me by my given name.”

  He sat back on the settee. “You’ve always insisted on Mrs. Bauer.”

  “I know. And it’s how I think of myself, as your wife, now and forevermore. But I need to be my own person too.”

  “This is from the doctors?”

  “It’s my own thinking,” she snapped. “I let you think too much for me. I believe I waste my time trying to imagine what you want. I’ve forgotten what it was like to know what I want.”

  “The very point of my efficiency article,” he said. “One has to know precisely what the goal is, and then all can be worked toward accomplishing it. If you wish me to call you Jessie, I’ll certainly comply.” He picked up his spoon and blew across the tea, then swallowed. He’d drink the entire cup that way, one teaspoon at a time. “But what is the goal you’re attempting to attain by having me do so?”

  She frowned. She hadn’t sorted out any real plan. “I thought that if I heard you call me by my name that I’d be less… upset whenever I heard Miss Gaebele’s name, Jessie Gaebele’s name.”

  She thought his hand shook when he lifted the spoon to his mouth. “The Gaebeles have been more than helpful to our family. Selma took good care of the children. You like the tailoring of Lilly, yes?”

  “Yes, of course. But when you mentioned having her sew for Winnie, I felt, well, that you were being critical of me.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “You’re imagining things.”

  “I thought you were finding fault.”

  “You were wrong.”

  Her chest tightened. This wasn’t what she’d wanted to say.

  “I’m not certain why hearing Miss Gaebele’s name upset me, but it did.”

  “Nothing there to worry over,” he said. “Maybe you’re… envious that Winnie spoke of her with such exuberance.”

  Envy was not a word she would have used to describe how she’d felt. It was more like…fear. Could she tell him that? He’d say it was senseless.

  “Her coming back to Winona causes me to feel, oh, a bit alarmed I guess, though I c
an’t imagine why.” She felt hot. Why didn’t she serve him iced tea instead of hot tea? What was she thinking, with this sultry weather bearing down on them?

  “I can’t imagine why either,” he said. “Maybe it reminds you of my illness and how the girl had to run our studio that year. That’s likely it. But I’m healthy now.”

  “I’m not so certain,” she said. “It…frightens me that I feel these things but can’t explain why. You or Winnie speak, and I skip right over what you might have meant and find myself falling into a frightened place.” She could hear her heart pounding as she talked to him, exposed a portion of her darkness.

  “Well any worry over the Gaebeles is wasted time, won’t get you nearer to your goal, which was what again?”

  “Yes, but I thought I saw Mr. Gaebele, at the shore last year, refuse the offer of your hand,” she said. Where had that memory come from? “Maybe it’s good that I bear reluctance toward them if there’s contention between the two of you.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” he said. “Something you misinterpreted I’m sure… Jessie.” He smiled again. “Sounds good. There, you see. You’ve accomplished your goal, Jessie.”

  Had she? A portion perhaps, but she couldn’t be sure. Still she said, “Yes. Yes, I believe I have.” Maybe it was the tea that soothed her.

  Roy and his chickens

  July 1, 1911, Gaebele parlor on Broadway, Winona

  Relief

  I love this photograph because my only brother got the chickens calmed, and yet his hands are blurred a bit, fingers in motion as they are in life. When he comes to mind, it’s always in the presence of an object: he carries a hoe for his garden patch or a small screwdriver to repair Selma’s glasses. His long fingers strum his banjo, which he plays quite well now, and he sings sometimes when he thinks no one is listening, the words tripping off his tongue as smooth as any of ours. He just can’t translate that pacing into speech. The photograph shows his closed mouth and fingers always busy when his tongue can’t be. Here he looks atypical boy even though he isn’t. What typical boy would choose to put his suit on in July when he didn’t have to? “L-l-look prof-f-fessional,” he said. “L-l-like you, J-J-Jessie.”

  “Men can be professional even when they have dirt on their pants,” I told him. “Papa is professional. He works hard, is good at what he does. A professional is someone well schooled in their work, their profession,” I told him. “It’s not about how they dress. That goes for women too.”

  “I look af-af-after ch-ch-chickens.”

  “You’re right. That’s your profession today. I’m sure they won’t mind you dressing up for them.”

  The heavy drape in the parlor formed the backdrop. It kept the light from fading Mama’s finest furniture and on a hot day kept the room the coolest place in the house, except for the root cellar underneath.

  After printing the photograph, I noticed the scratch. We’d removed the runner on that library table so the chickens wouldn’t slip and slide as much, but I honestly don’t know if the gouge in the finish was there beforehand or if we made it. The scratch was so large I wondered why I hadn’t seen it when I clicked the shutter. Maybe I didn’t want to see it so I didn’t have to explain it to Mama. That German doctor, Mr. Freud, in his new book about our minds, says there are no mistakes. We do and say things that might get us into trouble, but we do them for a reason even when we claim we don’t. I wondered if that explained why I slip and say things that stumble me. Maybe I just want my path out in the open, where those who love me can warn me of the cliff ahead.

  I retouched this print and took the scratches out before I sent it to Roy. It’s one of the benefits of the art: one doesn’t always have to live forever with one’s mistakes.

  It may be my imagination, but now that I look at the photograph more closely, Roy’s eyes look sad to me. They’re kind eyes. He wore gentleness and generosity all the days of his life, and yet I see no sparkle here. I know he enjoyed the chickens I gave him as his special gift. He named them Pancho, Madero, and Díaz, the principals of the Mexican war going on. Roy kept in tune with what happened in the larger world. I think the people in newspaper stories and books became his companions, when so many children his age avoided him for his lack of conversation.

  Selma distracted the birds, so they looked at her off to Roy’s left rather than at the camera, and while I wanted Roy to be the subject of this shot, the chickens stole the show. I had good intentions; but then I always did.

  My mother wasn’t pleased that we brought the poultry into the house in the first place. She put up a fuss about it. She’d have been even more troubled if she’d known what had happened earlier that day.

  As a courtesy to my parents’ wishes, I’d stopped at Ralph Carleton’s offices, and he was in. He wore his usual white suit, but he’d taken the jacket off in the ghastly heat and placed it around the back of a chair. His blue vest hung unbuttoned. His receptionist was out—it was lunchtime—and he welcomed me warmly, rising from behind his oak desk. Jovial and kind, he’d be a good man to work for, but I didn’t want that now. Before he could raise the issue that I was sure my mother had primed him for, Mrs. Bauer came through the door.

  My heart leapt, I confess. I looked immediately past her to see if her husband came behind her, hoping that he wasn’t—hoping that he was. Of two minds I am, always needing retouching.

  “You know Mrs. Bauer?” Ralph Carleton asked, preparing to introduce us. I guess I must have gasped. I nodded. She wore a large straw hat over thick brown hair that showed just a trace of gray. Her dress had a scoop neckline revealing ivory skin. The pale blue skirt skimmed the tops of her white kid shoes. She carried a parasol against the sun and gloves with tiny embroidered flowers on the back.

  “Miss Gaebele.” She nodded. “We’re acquainted, though I haven’t seen you for a time. I heard you were back. Are you home for good then?” She swirled the closed parasol at its point, both hands resting on the handle. Her blue eyes bore into me.

  “If we can talk her into it,” Ralph Carleton said cheerfully. My mother obviously hadn’t told him everything she knew.

  The blue of her eyes faded, or maybe the effect was from their narrowing. I hoped I could restore their color with my own response. “No ma’am,” I said. “I have employment in Eau Claire.”

  “Do you now?” I thought I saw relief flicker in her eyes. I wondered what Fred might have told her. But if he had confessed, surely she would not have stood so civilly before me, nor dismissed me so easily. “Well, I wish you well.” She turned to Ralph and asked, “Shall I come back later?”

  “No, no. This is your time, dear lady.” To me he said, “The offer is always open.”

  I didn’t remind him that he’d made no offer, but we both knew of my mother’s intent. I walked back to Broadway with time to think of Mrs. Bauer, what her business with Reverend Carleton might be. I knew she attended the Second Congregational Church, and Ralph was an evangelist, not a pastor with his own church. Maybe he served on a committee with her, because he had said it was “her time” there. Yes, that was probably it.

  The look in her blue eyes when she thought I might be remaining in Winona stayed with me. I tried to find the words to describe it. Caution? No, fear.

  Curiosity pricked at how Mrs. Bauer might have heard of my being home. Maybe Lilly mentioned it when she sewed for Mrs. Bauer. Apart of me was pleased that I might have been a topic of conversation within the Bauer family, and then I felt shamed for such a thought. I had no place within that family conversation, no place at all.

  I reached home, and Roy and I headed off for our chicken buying. We carried one cage, as I was planning on purchasing only one bird. Roy and I cheered each other with our musings about which chicken to buy, and then when we found the rooster, he said, “H-h-he’ll be l-l-lonely,” so when the farmer added that the three had been together a long time and it was a shame to split them up, I said all right, we’ll buy three. I told Roy he was a professional salesman. “S-s-sales
men t-t-talk.” Indeed they do, I assured him, which made him smile and show his even white teeth.

  We settled on the Barred Rock rooster and a white Plymouth Rock and a single hen. Only the roosters remained on the table for photos. The hen hopped off, heading toward Selma and the parlor’s horsehair couch.

  After the photograph was taken, we prepared to introduce Roy’s chickens to the others in my mother’s flock. “You’ll have to wait to put the new ones in with the other hens Mama has,” I reminded Roy.

  “W-w-why?”

  “Because otherwise they’ll argue with each other. Grandma Gaebele told me that if you wait until it’s dark and the old chickens are roosting, and then slip these new chickens into the pens, when the others wake in the morning, they’ll see them and think to themselves, Oh, they must have been here all along and I just didn’t notice them before. They won’t peck at them as intruders that way.”

  “Ch-ch-chickens can be t-t-tricked?”

  “Like most of us,” I said. “We even trick ourselves sometimes,” I told him.

  I made a point of going to the Bauer Studio early the next morning, slipping out so I could be there when he opened. If Voe arrived first, it would be fine. I wanted to see her too, but there wasn’t much time before heading to Eau Claire, so I hoped Fred would come first.

  My last visit to the studio had been filled with drama. He’d surprised me at that encounter, where my thoughts jumbled like a cat caught up in yarn. This time I was prepared, all business, professional. Yet my resolve almost wavered when I saw him drive up and back the car into the shed.

  Be strong.

  “Jessie,” he said, stopping at the bottom of the steps. He removed his hat.

  “Mr. Bauer,” I said. I stood.