An Absence So Great: A Novel (Portraits of the Heart) Page 35

  Her future husband.

  The note did look happy, with its up-tempo line, though she didn’t know why or what the words meant. The plan had been for him to return to North Dakota in June, when the year of waiting was over and they could marry. Except that Jessie didn’t want to marry in North Dakota because she didn’t want people in Minnesota thinking theirs was one of those quick marriages destined to fail, as they would wed just after a divorce was made final. So they would travel back to Minnesota, and then they would marry with her family all around her, proof that theirs was a marriage that would endure.

  “I have a mystery for you, Virginia,” Jessie said. She showed the postcard to her employer. It had taken several weeks to arrive.

  “What word did he receive? That the divorce is final?”

  “Maybe, though I think not until June. He looks happy on the postcard, don’t you think?”

  “A woman in love,” Virginia said, squinting at the tiny figure of the man, “is a telescope to amazement.” Her smile joined Jessie’s. She really would have to get a photograph of him that was larger than a hatpin head. There were so many things to look forward to.

  Fred had said they’d wait until mid-June to see each other again, but Herman wanted him out for spring planting. How fortunate. Fred made arrangements to meet Herman in Hazelton, then left Winona a day earlier. He hadn’t told Jessie he was coming for fear she’d tell him to stay away until the agreed-upon time, but he’d thought it through. This wasn’t impulsive; it was necessity. He needed to show her Emmons County, the ranch, the place where Donald died, and speak of what it meant for them.

  The train lumbered into the Bismarck station at noon. His plan: meet Jessie, return to Hazelton with her, be picked up by Herman. He’d booked a room in the hotel. He felt like a child about to enter a candy store without pennies in his pocket. So close, and yet…

  Jessie’s eyes grew large when she saw him in the Butler Studio reception room. “Fred? What are you doing here?”

  He swept her into his arms, and she allowed it. He kissed her, right there in front of Virginia Butler and the surprised eyes of a patron waiting in the reception area. “I think we’re ready for that portrait,” Virginia said, and she hustled her customer into the operating room.

  “Fred, please.” Jessie pushed back against his chest. “Goodness.” She blushed.

  “Hear me out,” he said. “I’ll, well, I’m…” He swallowed. The room felt warm. He stepped back and removed his hat, held it in one hand, his cane in the other. “I know what I said, about our waiting, but Herman wanted me out this month. And it’s almost a full year since Mrs. Bauer and I came to terms. I need to show you the ranch, the place where…Donald died. Maybe as much for me as for you,” he said, realizing the truth. “Come with me to the ranch. I’ll bring you back tomorrow.”

  She conferred with Virginia, then packed a small satchel. “Bring a special dress,” he said. “We’ll have dinner at the hotel.”

  They walked the two blocks to the depot, and Fred thought the petunias planted in old shoes and the daffodils leaning their yellow heads against picket fences behaved like royal flowers marking their way. He barely noticed the fields as they headed east, then south, his eyes on Jessie, his hand holding hers tucked discreetly between them on the leather seat.

  Herman awaited. “You must be Miss Gaebele.” Jessie nodded. “Ja, well then, welcome.” Herman wiggled his eyebrows and winked as he turned toward Fred and picked up Jessie’s satchel. “Women in the back. You won’t be minding?”

  “Not at all,” Jessie said.

  The men spoke of the crop season, of moisture through the winter, but Fred’s thoughts were on Jessie sitting behind him. He turned frequently as though to keep her engaged in the conversation, but mostly he wanted to look at her, take in the outline of her profile, the gentle point of her chin, the chinalike cheekbones and the way her hat feather dipped as she became aware he stared, turned toward him and smiled. His heart swelled.

  When they reached the borders of the ranch, he pointed out the fields that had been plowed and seeded. “We had dozens of teams working it,” Herman said. Fred wondered what she thought of the vast expanse with so little to break the horizon. At the ranch house, a two-story building without flowers or fences, Fred suggested she rest upstairs. He filled the water pitcher for her. A breeze pushed the lace curtains through the open bedroom window. “I’ll finish up with Herman, and then we’ll take a drive out to… where it happened.”

  Sunset waited in the wings as they approached the place in the road where Donald had died. When he traveled to the ranch, Fred often came to this spot to think, to seek comfort as he stood over the wooden cross bearing Donald’s name. Sometimes he talked to Donald, though just as often he bowed his head, hat in hand, while the wind blew and meadowlarks quieted, landing on bending grass. The loneliness lessened with Jessie beside him.

  He told the story then of Donald’s death: Mrs. Bauer’s gentle horse harnessed to the wagon; his holding Donald in his lap, then letting the boy stand behind the dashboard; the hooves rising up higher than what could ever be imagined, who knew why—a bee, some other startle; one strike above Donald’s eyes. The child died instantly, no lingering, no chance to say good-bye. “I could not believe it,” Fred said. “I could not believe it.”

  He spoke of cradling the boy and noticed his arms wrapped around an empty space all these years later. He felt Jessie’s touch on his arm as he spoke. He’d held the boy while Herman drove back to the ranch, with Russell’s sobbing and Herman’s “Oh no, oh no, oh no” ringing in his ears. His dread deepened as he thought of telling his wife, his dear, fragile wife, and he feared she would die from the shock. She sank to her knees when Fred carried the lifeless form to her, and Russell patted at his mother’s back.

  “How hard for all of you, for Russell too.”

  He nodded. “We’d gone out to find a couple of lost horses, yes? At the last minute both Donald and Russell asked to go along. Level ground, it was.” He extended his cane out to show Jessie how innocent the landscape looked. He noticed Jessie’s tears as he continued, couldn’t stop to wipe them from her cheeks.

  “If only I’d said no… If only I’d told them to wait, let those horses go!” She patted his arm. “I was angry at everyone, blamed everyone—God, but especially myself. For a long time. A wound formed between Jessie and me. No salve could heal it,” Fred told her. “Later, I sought an explanation for such a tragedy.” He bent to pick stems of prairie smoke, the pinkish blossoms curling over his fingers. The entire length of the fence looked lavender bordered by the wild-flower.

  “Did you find it?” Jessie asked. “An explanation? Meaning?”

  He said, “Did you know that these flowers grow most in areas that are overgrazed or just used up? They turned brown the day Donald died.” He twirled the stem. “They always marked the end of a season for me rather than a beginning.” He handed her one. “But when I see them now, I’m reminded that Donald really had only a beginning. He never experienced more than four springs. Only four.” He sighed, stared out over the shimmering horizon. “Donald reminds me that those of us still posed in this portrait we call life must live honestly and fully, take in all there is to its goodness and tell ourselves the truth, pray to lead a better life. That’s the meaning I’ve found.” He slipped her arm through his, feeling the warmth of her through the yellow linen sleeve. He thumbed a spilled tear at her eye. “Once, our minister said Jesus told His disciples to go forth, to find worthiness, and to abide until they left. A simple direction. We all stay until we go, of course, but sometimes we’re there in body only, not in spirit. Sometimes we don’t abide at all, we don’t cover and protect. I haven’t always abided since Donald’s death—haven’t sought worthiness, stayed, lived truthfully—but I wish to from now on.”

  “I remember that scripture,” Jessie said. “It’s my reminder to listen to what’s happening around me, to hear those voices before I make a terrible mistake.”
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br />   “That too, I suppose,” Fred said. “I want my life to be a memorial to Donald, to live fully and faithfully because he couldn’t.”

  “Are you… That is, are you having second thoughts about leaving Mrs. Bauer?” she asked. “Because if there is anything you feel you can do to put the pieces back together, you should do that. You must do that.”

  He thought he heard a quiver in her voice. How brave she was to speak those words.

  He laid the prairie smoke on the ground. He had to finish what he intended before he lost his nerve. “I will be there for the children and for you. And yes, even for Mrs. Bauer as she needs. I hope you understand that, Jessie. It’s not an easy house I’m inviting you into, but I will do my best to make it a faithful house despite what’s happened. With you in it, it’ll be a good home. You will marry me, won’t you? Live with me in Winona, come here at times, despite the complications?”

  “I bring complications of my own,” Jessie said.

  But none of them were as complex as what he asked her to marry into. He took both hands in his, looked at her. “Mrs. Bauer… She makes demands,” he said. “I’ll have to go there now and then, tend the house as needed. She’s not always well, and we may have the children at times.” He faced her, held both her hands in his. “The truth is, Jessie, she won’t be out of the picture.”

  He waited for her response.

  “She can’t be,” Jessie said finally. “She’s the mother of your children, all your children, including Donald. I bear responsibility for some of this…undoing. I’ve thought it might be my punishment never to be able to love you fully because I came between you and your wife.”

  He shook his head. “We all had our…poses, if you will. You stayed away as you could, and painful as it was, I’m grateful for that. It forced sense into my head.”

  “I’ll do my best to be kind to her, I truly will. And I love your children, I always have.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “You are more gracious than I have any right to expect.”

  Fred kissed her then and tasted sweetness, all the sweetness of a candy store with plenty of pennies in the waiting. Prairie smoke’s whiskery blooms danced in the wind.

  His wife will not be out of the picture. Jessie remembered Misha, the Russian child she’d photographed on the plant stand. Only the child was posed in the portrait; his parents stood apart. Whenever Jessie looked at that print, she could see the father’s ache of anticipated absence. Fred faced the same thing now, and she knew he’d want to do whatever he could to maintain a relationship with his sons and daughter. She’d be in the middle of that, stepping back when the occasion called for it, supporting from the backseat, keeping herself from feeling disappointed when plans changed because of Mrs. Bauer or the children. It was part of what she’d be inviting into her life with this marriage. Was she strong enough? Was she taking the right path? She must not allow self-pity or the future’s uncertainty to erase present joys. Abide until you leave.

  Fred spoke. She looked at him. His eyes showed apprehension. She loved him: the gray in his mustache, the thinning brown hair she reached to soften as the wind lifted it, his passionate eyes, the broken-down body. She loved it all. She asked him to repeat what he’d said.

  “I said, will you marry me tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? But—”

  “I don’t want to wait another moment to call you my wife, to hold you without guilt or shame. I want to take a new picture of our lives without posing as anything other than what we are to be forever: husband and wife.”

  “But you know how I feel about a marriage in North Dakota—”

  “We’ll marry a second time in Minnesota, I promise. When everything is arranged back there. To be certain we’re legal. But we’ve waited long enough. And besides, we have work to do as soon as we return to Winona. I’ve had word, as I told you on the postcard. Things have sold.”

  “The Polonia, I imagine?”

  She’d held hope that the business would be their way to begin again, the two of them in her studio, because Mrs. Bauer owned the Bauer Studio now. She prepared for his words.

  He shook his head. “I’ve sold property so we can keep the Polonia. But you’ve got to run it, make it pay, Jessie. I know you can. Your specialty of photographing women… It distinguishes you. You’re missed in Winona.”

  “But you won’t be there?”

  “Yes and no. Mrs. Bauer agreed to exchange the cottages on the river for the Johnson Street studio lease. I’ve rented us an apartment not far from the Polonia, the Bauer Studio, and the children.”

  “What? But how will she provide for the children? Wasn’t that part of the—”

  “She has the houses near the railroad, three of them, and she can rent them out to boarders if need be. She can sell the cottages if she chooses. It finally made sense to her that I keep the studio. It’s my profession. We reworked the terms of the divorce, Jessie,” Fred said into her confusion. “The court just recently accepted it. I’m asking you to work beside me at Bauer Art Studio, though one will be on Fourth Street and one on Johnson. We’ll be partners, working side by side.”

  “I’m to have the one I love and a studio of my own? This I don’t deserve,” she whispered.

  She didn’t warrant her own studio, but in truth, nothing was just hers or even theirs. They were stewards of the talents, the gifts they’d been given. She looked down at Donald’s marker. Especially the gift of life.

  This was what Virginia must have meant by grace, an unwarranted opportunity to begin again, this time with assurance that she walked a lighted path.

  She waited to hear that inner voice tell her not to do it. Abide in me, is what she heard, and she took it as assent. She hugged him, then stepped back and shook his hand. “Partners,” she told him. “We’ll make this family portrait together.”

  They married in Hazelton at the minister’s home, his wife acting as a witness. Fred spoke the vows clearly and loudly and told her later that he really understood them now. They dined later at the Hazelton hotel while storm clouds rolled in, looking like feather pillows spread open across the sky. In the distance, dark rain streaked the landscape, but in Hazelton, sunlight fractured the clouds like shards of melting ice. Except for the rumble of thunder, Jessie noticed only the man sitting across from her.

  “Let’s go,” Fred said.

  Jessie lifted her skirts as they ascended the carpeted steps to their room. He opened the door, and she stepped inside to the fragrance of roses. “Where did you…?”

  “Ordered them in. Herman picked them up yesterday.”

  “You were pretty certain of yourself, Mr. Bauer,” Jessie said.

  “Always one to take a risk, Mrs. Bauer. And apparently”—he wrapped her in his arms—“so are you.”

  It was what love required.

  Jessie Ann Bauer, wedding portrait

  November 15, 1915

  Contentment

  December 1939. My husband, Frederick John Bauer, took this photograph of me on November 15, 1915, in Winona. We married a second time on November 2 that same year in Anoka, Minnesota, but we took a honeymoon rest in Minneapolis for a few days before our nuptial party. My family did not attend either of our wedding ceremonies but joined us later at our apartment on Broadway, a few blocks down from where they lived and from where I spent my childhood. It was quite a gathering. Even my uncle August, who bought me my first camera after the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, greeted us both with a handshake for Fred and a swinging lift at my waist for me. My mother’s eyes grew large with worry as her brother swung me around. I knew her look wasn’t over Uncle August’s dancing with his niece. She worried over the baby. I was five months into carrying our first child when we officially remarried in Minnesota.

  I didn’t return with Fred after our weekend wedding in North Dakota. I stayed on at Virginia’s because we thought it wise for me to wait until after June, the official year’s end to the divorce waiting period, and also because Virginia n
eeded me until she could hire another assistant. I thought I’d return in July but “things” seemed to keep happening, a state of affairs that followed my loving husband.

  Mrs. Bauer did not leave the picture of our lives by any means, and getting her settled with boarders, helping her sell one of the cottages on the river, keeping up the studio… All of that took time. That’s what Fred wrote. I hadn’t been aware of his tendency to put things off, because we’d married sooner than planned. But like all perfectionists, he waited for the right and perfect solution to a problem before saying it was finished, forgetting that perfection means “complete” and not “free of mistakes or snags.” This divorce from his wife would never be without challenge, and neither would our marriage. It was what living looked like, I decided.

  I could have helped him if I’d been there, operating those two studios all that time. But he wanted to settle things down, as he put it, before bringing me home. Of course, he’d added new investments to his duties, ventures that didn’t always turn out, but we’d discussed them together at least. We’d made the decisions together.

  I wrote to him in August telling him of my condition and urging him to come and get me. In September I told him Virginia had a new assistant who needed the cabin I still occupied, though Virginia certainly wasn’t pushing me out.

  Apart of me worried that Fred had changed his mind and didn’t know how to tell me! Virginia said that was nonsense. She’d seen a man in love, and Fred was certainly it. I scolded him about that at one point. He wrote back with full assurance. But he didn’t come to get me.