An Absence So Great: A Novel (Portraits of the Heart) Read online

  “Oh,” Jessie said.

  They watched as a rabbit came out of the grasses beyond the railroad tracks, wiggled its nose, then hopped back and disappeared.

  “Mrs. Butler says that second marriages last longer if people fall in love after a divorce, rather than before.”

  “She’s likely right. Sometimes people divorce thinking it’s for the love of another, but these past years of…strain between Mrs. Bauer and me have taught me differently.”

  She didn’t know if he’d continue, but she needed him to. It would help her answer a question she had carried with her: whether she had fallen in love with Fred Bauer not because he’d moved her heart but because he wasn’t available, because with him she could pursue her dreams of being a photographer on her own, independent. She’d happily imagined what life might be like as his wife, but she never had to face the realities of the less-than-lovely times: the day-to-day demands of fixing meals for two or more; washing clothes for five, perhaps; becoming aware of each other’s teeth yellowing, hair thinning; dealing with stomachaches, leg pains, skin blemishes. She touched her chin, brushed off the dried alum paste.

  Maybe she’d never been interested in men her age because she would have to risk the maintenance of love, as she thought of it, face the perils of a promise. Maybe she was incapable of that, so she chose to place her heart where such demands would never come. How would she find the answer?

  Fred moved his cane, set it between his knees and crossed his hands over it as he stared out onto the grasses that swept toward the horizon.

  “And what lessons have you learned?” she urged.

  “You might not like hearing the musings of an old man,” he said.

  “Didn’t you just turn forty-eight?” She smiled at him.

  “You remembered.”

  “Russell just had a birthday too, didn’t he?”

  “August 31,” Fred said.

  It seemed a good omen that a father remembered the birthdays of his children, Jessie thought.

  “I hope to get a car for them,” he said. “For him and Mrs. Bauer and the children to use.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “What have I learned, you asked?” She nodded. “That I was a big part of what happened between Mrs. Bauer and me. It wasn’t only Donald’s death and our own engulfing grief that separated us. I can be a demanding person, lacking patience.” He removed his hat and fanned his face. The afternoon was warm. “Sometimes I tell myself stories that bend the truth, ignoring what really is, yes? I imagine that’s how I have invested in things that weren’t all that profitable. My salve, for example. Property in Texas.” He looked shy almost, and Jessie could imagine him as a young man, charming and adventurous. He put his hat back on, and the knuckles of his hand on the cane turned pale. “I should have known, too, that when I insisted on driving to Eau Claire that day with Russell, I was using him, denying to myself the true reason for my trip. Which was to be with you.” He looked at her. “Telling you of George Haas’s job was meaningless. I only wanted to see you. I realized that as I lay there in Luise’s kitchen, knowing you were above me and out of reach. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Nor I,” she said. She remembered that night and her own desires.

  “But I knew I wanted to have in my life that longing to be with someone, just to sit beside her for a time, like we are now. To cherish her when she was out of sight, to look after her always. I had never imagined it might come to a man more than once in his life. But with you, it has.”

  She could feel the tears pool in her eyes.

  “Will you consider allowing me to… court you, Miss Gaebele? To see what more we might make of this… affair.”

  “Affair?” she said.

  “Confound it, I’ve done it again.” He reached for her hand. “I’ve offended you. I suspect it won’t be the last time, though I will try to learn from my mistakes. What I wanted to say was, will you forgive me, allow yourself to discover if you might truly love me as I am—as I love you—and to do it for the ages?”

  It was what she wanted, yet had stopped longing for… until she saw him standing in the studio.

  “More than all the grasses in North Dakota, that’s how much I love you, Jessie Gaebele. And even if you say no, I will be forever grateful that I’ve found you to ask.”

  What would her parents say? How would people in Winona act if she and Fred returned there as husband and wife? For Jessie knew what he was asking without saying it. She was certain she read the message in his eyes.

  “You’ve been gone such a long time,” he said then. “It was an absence so great that I thought my life had ended. I’m so grateful it hasn’t.”

  He removed his hat then and leaned into her face, holding the bowler to protect them from any who might pass by, though they were alone at the depot. Just the two of them cradled in the vast expanse of prairie.

  She allowed his kiss, returned it, pressed her face against the wool of his chest. She inhaled, and with the breath, the painful separation of the years disappeared, exploding like an ice dam from her heart.

  Abide

  FRED WHISTLED AS HE DROVE BACK TO HAZELTON. In nine months, June of 1915, the divorce would be final, and in nine months, they would marry. He was certain of it. But in the meantime, he couldn’t push her, couldn’t take her on a faster pace than she might wish to go. Besides, he needed time to prepare his children for the changes.

  He and Jessie would live in one of the cottages. He’d rent the others out for income. The one-room apartment at the Polonia was much too small for them both. Maybe they’d move to North Dakota. It seemed to agree with Jessie.

  But no, that was too far from the children.

  He heard himself singing as he drove along, passing the stubbled fields of flax and wheat. Even a flat tire that delayed his return did not deter his good humor. Jessie had agreed to write to him. That promise had taken twenty years off his life. He felt as young as the colts that raced along the fence as he turned into his ranch’s drive.

  That evening he made plans. He’d invest in those mining stocks he’d heard about, or that aerator. He might sell the Polonia Studio to get the cash. No, that would mean yet more competition. Better to rent the space for offices. His oil station attendant touted a new additive for gasoline to help with fuel efficiency. It had to be sold door to door, but that was how Watkins made his money. It might be the time to invest in such things, what with the war likely to include America before too long. These were all possibilities that would enable him to support his children and Jessie in the style he wanted for them. It wouldn’t be easy, but investing was the only way to move ahead; one had to take risk. That’s what his life had been all about. He’d done well with the ranch. The past two or three years had seen less rainfall, but that trend was sure to reverse itself.

  He sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. Stars winked at him through the window. Maybe he was too old to change.

  He must be cautious. He had to be. He’d learned lessons; he’d told the truth when he and Jessie sat on the depot bench and talked. He didn’t want to do anything that could be misunderstood or might drive her away, but he was capable of doing it. He tried to imagine how she might see any of those investment options.

  Before he acted on them, he’d talk with her. Write to her. It would be good to explore options with a trusted partner. That’s what marriage was about. He lay back down, pushed the sheet off in the evening heat. He’d almost jumped ahead, doing what he’d always done. That he hadn’t meant perhaps he wasn’t too old to learn new lessons.

  It was Jessie’s idea that she not return to Winona. Instead, she suggested, they should share each other’s lives and hopes by letter and in that way come to know each other without the pressures of what her return just then would mean. For her, it meant rewriting her letters to eliminate the mistakes. She’d never have that flowing penmanship Fred had. He’d learned English as a second language yet was better at it than she was. The exercise forced her to
think about what she really wanted to say before putting it on paper. They’d discover if theirs could be a marriage that would last a lifetime or disintegrate without the intrigue, the clandestine fantasies. They might discover they had no true love to strengthen while they waited.

  She knew they did though. The way she’d felt when he took her in his arms and simply held her before he left was enough to unleash all the feelings she’d set aside these many years. Just the touch of his arms on hers, the scent of his cologne, the twinkle in his eye when he looked at her and shook his head, as though not able to believe his great good fortune, all matched the longing she carried in her heart.

  Jessie believed.

  They had fences to cross, yes. She wasn’t looking forward to meeting up the first time with the other Mrs. Bauer, but she knew she could manage it. She’d found compassion when the woman attended her Polonia tea, and she could find it again. The same with the children. She adored Fred’s children, though she’d had little time with Robert. She could change that and set a goal not to be their “other mother,” but to find a place in their lives that didn’t require them to feel torn between two parents. She was not their parent, but like them, she loved one who was.

  Fred said Mrs. Bauer had a year to change her mind. If she did, things could drag on for years. What would she do then? Wait? She thought of those penitentiary wives. But she had someone to abide with her to make the wait so much easier.

  She stirred the potatoes, checked the fried grouse the Adams family had given them. Virginia set the table. They took their meals together, though Jessie still liked having her own cabin, her own place to call home.

  “What will your parents say?” Virginia asked as they finished their meal not long after Fred left.

  The truth was, the only hesitation Jessie had at all in going home was facing her family. She’d have to explain the circumstances of Fred’s return to her life and where she expected it to go. She wanted them to be at the wedding. She hoped Selma could sing and Roy play his guitar. Maybe Lilly would sew up her gown.

  “I don’t know. I’m not their little girl anymore. My father will ask if I’m telling myself the truth.”

  “Are you?” Virginia picked up the dishes while Jessie turned the stove on to heat the wash water.

  “I think I am. No, I am. I’ve confessed everything,” she said. “One day on those bluffs, I had this moment when I knew I was happy. I felt like I did when I rode Mr. Ferris’s wheel, when we sat for a few seconds at the top: full of expectation, with a tint of trepidation. But I think trepidation isn’t so much the anxiety of conscience as it is the prompting to listen to that inner voice. That’s how I feel now, about Fred. That’s what I’ll have to share with them, to assure them.”

  She wrote to them that night.

  She never got an answer.

  October 5, 1914

  Dear Sister,

  How are you? I am fine.

  I miss you. It doesn’t help to know that you’re in North Dakota, though I’m glad you finally wrote to tell us where you are. But North Dakota is as far away as Seattle when you’re stuck in Winona. I want to know when you’ll come home. Mama says you and Mr. Bauer are courting. That seems strange to me, because I see him here in Winona and you’re way out there in Bismarck. Mama and Papa don’t talk about it much, but I can tell they are waiting to “see what happens.” At least that’s what Mama always says when I ask how it will be if you and Mr. Bauer are married one day. What will his children call you? “Mrs. Bauer?” Where will you live? If you have children, how will they be related to the other Bauer children? “We’ll see what happens,” Mama says when I try to get answers. Her face looks as sour as Grandma’s vinegar pickles. I wonder if she thinks you will get married at all or if she hopes you won’t.

  I hope you do. Your letters sound so happy! It will be like one of the stories in my Woman’s Home Companion.

  Art and I are happy. I’m eighteen now, though Mama still treats me like I’m twelve. But Art is courting me openly too. He and a partner opened a grocery. He likes what he does. We might marry one day. Joe O’Brien still visits with Lilly, but she won’t agree to marry him unless he promises to stop drinking beer. He claims he has, but Lilly doesn’t believe him, or so she says. I think she’s afraid to take a risk, but that’s what love is, isn’t it? One can’t be sure of anything in love. Marriage is a promise we don’t really know if we can keep. We just have to hope we’ll have the strength and faith to endure if the risk we take proves too great. Art says our time of courting builds credit so we can believe in each other after we’re married and times get tough. He says they will get tough, but our belief’s will carry us through.

  Roy’s taken new interest in gardening. He says his chickens are the reason for his huge tomatoes. We canned and canned vegetables this year. He still takes his time in talking, but no one minds. He doesn’t seem to either. He says he doesn’t mind being who he is at all so long as he has his music and his travel books.

  What’s the weather like where you are? I just wonder. Please write soon.

  Your loving sister,

  Selma

  Erasing the Ache of Absence

  FRED’S LETTERS FILLED JESSIE WITH ASSURANCE. This Fred she met on paper, across the miles, listened. He responded to her questions and comments as though she sat before him while he wrote, but he didn’t interrupt her, didn’t jump ahead to finish her thoughts. Words of photography, business, of his lodges, poured out on the stationery with his name printed at the top. But there were always words of tenderness for her, of love expressed, and with them written, she could hold them to her heart.

  She began to anticipate seeing him, this time without guilt. She imagined them working side by side, his hand brushing hers, and the joy of what could be now filled her dreams.

  For Christmas, Fred sent her sheet music titled “When I Met You Last Night in Dreamland” from Woolworth’s in Winona. Her twenty-third birthday came and went. (Fred had phonograph records delivered from Bismarck’s Lucas and O’Hara Department Store. She played them on Virginia’s tabletop Victrola and danced around the room, imagining Fred’s holding her in his arms.) He also sent a photograph of a rose he’d labeled “My Bauer Rose.” She wondered if it was a rose he’d nurtured so he could give it his name, or if it was a picture of a rose from his garden at the studio and he was calling her his rose. Either way, the gifts gave words to her feelings, filled her heart with gratitude.

  Five days after her birthday, Lent began, and Jessie decided to commit the time to writing in her book each day, marking down things she was grateful for and letting Scripture lead her mornings. The exercise would remind her of how much she had and would help her live through what she didn’t have: time with Fred.

  The war across the ocean intensified. In Washington DC lawmakers rejected a law giving women the right to vote (even though women in some states already could). Congress designated a portion of the Rocky Mountains for a new national park. All since she’d looked at Fred’s face and tried to read their future in his eyes. She’d nearly forgotten what he looked like. As the months wore on, she found letters to be enduring, but not the same as holding a loved one. She’d ask him for a photograph of himself, surprised to realize that she’d never seen one. Longing took on new meaning. She never wavered, never wondered if he’d come in June. She knew him.

  “I could put your name up for the Fortnightly Club,” Virginia offered. It was the oldest women’s group in Bismarck. “It might keep your mind occupied,” she said.

  “My mind is occupied, all right,” Jessie told her. “It’s getting it settled that I’m having trouble with.”

  Old fears threatened, made her wonder if the anticipated joy was something she deserved. She shared them with Virginia, wondering if this nervous dread meant her conscience still carried weights she thought she’d given up.

  “It’s human nature to mistrust goodness. Part of our exile from Eden, I suspect,” Virginia told her as the two attacked
Virginia’s carpets, which hung on the line behind the studio. “We have to be vigilant in remembering that we all mess up our houses. And with grace we’re allowed to straighten things up once again.”

  “Do you think we can straighten two messed-up houses?” Jessie asked her. “That’s what we’ll face when we return to Winona.”

  “If you guard your hearts, yes.”

  As Jessie walked to her piano lesson later that afternoon, she thought about those two houses. Fred had once messed up his house. Would he be inclined to do so again? Might he one day find some other woman to press his devotion on? She also remembered the wording in the divorce decree about his having used “vile names.” Would he change for the worse once they married?

  The piano lesson took those thoughts away. Later she decided there could be no guarantee of Fred’s fidelity, but at least she had asked herself the question, had admitted the possibility. She’d trust that honesty, commitment, and faith would be the shelterbelt to keep them from succumbing in future storms.

  Fred’s postcard arrived in late May, but it was dated the fifth. Jessie turned it over in her hand. The picture was of the Johnson Street studio, and he stood in front of it. Voe must have taken the picture, or maybe Russell. Fred had written earlier that Russell followed his father’s interest in photography, though he’d already decided that if America joined the war, he’d enlist. Jessie didn’t want to think about that. Anti-German sentiment grew even here in North Dakota, especially toward Germans who spoke English with an accent. Even in church, the Burgers and Shultzes kept more to themselves near the back. The very idea that Fred might lose another son was unbearable to consider. She prayed the war would end before Russell was old enough to go.

  Fred hadn’t even put her name on the postcard when he mailed it, just her post office box of 344 and Bismarck, ND. He’d written: “Just a line. Received word. All is well.” He’d signed it F., with the top of the letter making a long line out from the single initial. The line was “allegro,” Jessie thought, smiling at the idea of her music lessons making their way into her future husband’s handwriting.