A Mending at the Edge: A Novel (Change And Cherish) Read online

  We churned awhile more, and then she asked, “Will you ever…divorce and remarry?”

  “I’ve no plans to,” I said. “Where would I find a husband who could put up with me?” She laughed with me. “No, I have my sons. I have my daughters. I have my goat and chicken and dog, and I have you all! I have Providence to guide me. What more could I want?”

  “I’m glad you’re not disappointed about being left behind,” Christine said. She stayed silent for a time, and then she told me why it was good I hadn’t come along, a reason that had nothing to do with my father and mother’s needing me. “This man stopped by,” she said. “It was late. He was loud and boisterous and asked for you. Wanted his wife to serve him. I didn’t know who he was, but Louisa did, and she tried to calm him. Kitty acted rattled. Has she ever met your husband before?”

  I dipped my head yes. “But Kitty holds a fantasy about Jack Giesy. He was someone she thought she fancied, when he was back in Bethel. She hadn’t seen him since he’d come west. And I didn’t think she believed me about the reason I left him years before. Unfortunately, he still is my husband.”

  “It was good that you weren’t there,” Christine repeated.

  “If I go next fall, at least I’ll know to expect him,” I said. The thought didn’t frighten me, as it might have once, or keep me from doing what I’d decided.

  “Oh, and that little Zwerg, your friend Brita asked for you,” Christine said.

  “How was she?”

  “Gut. She had her boys with her. She said she’d come to see us here one day soon, but she had work she did now ‘year around,’ as she put it. I was to tell you that you were right, things always did change, and she could look for the people who’d be around to help. She had, and they did.”

  “I wish she’d come here,” I said. “We have plenty of room. Or we did. I won’t be able to be so free with my invitations now, will I? I’ll have others to negotiate with.”

  “That’s a family. It ebbs and flows,” Christine said. “Maybe next year we’ll have more people out from Bethel or new immigrants, people who might need a place of rest for a time. Confederate soldiers heading west, freed slaves. Widows and orphans. They might all show up at your doorstep. It’s pretty certain that the railroad is coming through, isn’t it? That’ll bring visitors.”

  But I hadn’t wanted to just have visitors. I’d wanted my home to be a place to offer an everyday feast, as Kate put it, for those needing mending, as I’d needed it once. That would change now too.

  “‘The help of God is closer than the door,’” Christine said. “Brita said that.”

  “She’s apparently swept well in front of her own.”

  Stitching Pieces of a Family

  On October 4, 1870, the wood-powered steam engine roared into Aurora with its passenger cars and stopped in front of the hotel. The men had laid a wooden bridge across the track for easier walking, so while the Aurora Band played a welcoming tune, women from the outside lifted the hems of their long skirts and managed their hoops to climb the hotel steps and look back. They waved at the welcoming Aurora crowd.

  I stood on the hotel porch, ready to slip back inside and finish serving that first train car full of guests. We had fifteen minutes to deliver this meal and somehow not let the guests feel rushed, while the train hissed and heaved outside the door, waiting for their return. Hospitality had its challenges.

  But we accomplished it! Potato salad with warm vinegar, roasted beef, sliced hams cured with sugar, and a large fish that one of the surviving Calapooias had caught that morning were served beside greens plucked from the gardens behind the hotel. Nuts and dried fruits, plumped up with spring water, and mounds of whipped cream that Kitty and others had beat up minutes before the train’s arrival, provided the finishing touches to our gastronomical scene. Flowers from my brother’s garden made bright bouquets for the table. While we cooked, we sang—those who could carry a tune—and then we sent them satisfied, we hoped, on their way.

  We cheered ourselves along with guests who weren’t being carted away to Portland by train. Those guests who’d come by buggy or ridden in could be more leisurely in their eating. Back in the kitchen, Kitty began a round, and the rest of us joined in as we scoured pans and opened the back door to let out some of the oven heat.

  “Did I tell you,” Kitty said at the end of the song, “that the Indian who brought the fish in this morning asked if his girls could take singing lessons here?”

  “From Henry C?” I asked.

  “From me.” Her face turned the softest shade of pink. “He heard me singing. I guess he’s heard me before, and he said his daughters wished that they could sing like the White Bird.”

  “You’ll have something to look forward to this winter,” I told her.

  “Do you think I should ask permission from Brother Keil or maybe Henry C?”

  “You’re using a talent of yours.” I thought again of Goethe, with talent formed in stillness and character in storm. Kitty had had her share of storms too. Not being married when you wished you were was a storm. It might not compare to the loss of children, but it was character-building just the same. Yet she had talents to offer and did. I looped my arm in hers and put my head to her temple. “You’re making someone else’s life better than your own. Who could argue with that?”

  “Ja. That’s what I’ll tell them if they ask.”

  The fair that year was the biggest ever, and I was called to cook. It was the first of a new decade. Men on stilt legs ambled around as I imagined giraffes must walk, shouting about demonstrations, markets, or products to buy. The horse barns boasted a record number of equines, and the races promised to be close. The Household Arts exhibit was twice as large as before, with dozens of samplers and quilts on display, flowering plants, and preserves lining the shelves like perfect children dressed in pinks and blues. Dr. Keil had his wine there; Mr. Ehlen’s tightly woven baskets stood out, and he had several clarinet reeds for sale. Some were purchased by visitors from New York, who said they were of the finest.

  Christian had made a basket to enter in the fair. He grabbed my hand to show me as soon as Martin and Martha and the boys arrived.

  “It’s been a while since you’ve been to this fair, hasn’t it?” I asked him after we’d admired his fine work. We made our way along the grass-beaten paths back to the restaurant. It was after the band’s performance, and most of the restaurant patrons had eaten and left. Martin drank his coffee, and Martha sat with her hands clasped in her lap. Her hat shadowed her face in the lantern light. Po lay on the floor by the door, being good by staying outside but not running off whenever another dog sniffed by.

  “We came one time when Brita was here,” Christian said. “Remember, Andy? We rolled rings and had a kite.” My older son nodded, as he swirled a spoon into a coffee drink he’d added sweet cream to. His brother was twelve and could be annoying, I was sure, but Andy treated him with respect. “I like the fair.”

  “I do too,” I told Christian. “Thank you for bringing them along.” I nodded to Martin and Martha.

  “It’s our pleasure,” Martin said.

  “You know, you could invite them yourself, anytime you want, Emma. And come visit them more often too.” Martha still had that sweet, youngish voice of women her age.

  “It’s an awkward thing, isn’t it?” I said, deciding not to step over the discomfort. “I did talk with Brother Keil, and he says the current arrangement is working well, with the boys on track like a steam engine to go on to the university one day. That’s what I’ve always wanted for them. Medical school for you,” I said as I turned to Andy. He didn’t look at me. “With us living a distance from the colony now, it isn’t always easy to work out times to come by.”

  Kate, Ida, the Ehlen boy, and several others huddled together, walking near the dance hall. They stopped chattering when they saw us sitting in the restaurant with the door wide open. “It’s time you settled down,” I said. They groaned, their pleasant plans so rudel
y interrupted. “Lorenz, I thank you for escorting my daughters safely here,” I told him.

  He clicked his heels and said, “I’m heading to the bachelor tents right now, Mrs. Giesy.” Then, along with several other young men who had been with the mixed young people’s group, he did.

  “You could come visit us anytime,” I continued to Andy, telling Martin too. “I would love to have you waking up every day at your grandparent’s home, to fix your breakfast, to…cut your hair. But I know that staying where you are, you’re of help to people.”

  “The same way you are,” Christian said. “That’s what Martha says.”

  Martha blushed, and I felt my own face grow warm with the compliment.

  “I’m helping Opa and Oma, ja. Maybe Johanna too, so she’s not the only one who can look after your aunt Louisa. And I believe I’m helping both of you, because you’ll be able to go on to school. And your sisters are getting a good education. The hotel will make money; the money can go to pay your tuition; I work at the hotel; it all comes around. Like that. We’re all busy doing.”

  “Andy is good help to me,” Martin said. He patted Martha’s hand. It must be difficult for her to take on the raising of boys.

  “And you too, Martha, are certainly helping make another’s life better than your own. I’m grateful to you,” I added.

  “Are you? I assumed, well, that you’d be upset. It’s why I didn’t say anything about our getting married any earlier than I did. I didn’t want to have to explain why I wasn’t coming to the house church anymore.”

  “But then you offered your home,” I said.

  “And you’ve rarely come.”

  “I’ll make a point of it. Next Sunday.”

  “Good. We’ll see what we see,” Martha said. It was a phrase I remembered from my friend Sarah Woodard, back in Willapa.

  “Let things flow as they will. Ja.”

  We heard the scrapes and thumps of the band putting their instruments away in wooden cases. The hawkers at the carnival sites had settled down. Even the dogs had stopped barking.

  “I’d like to live with Mama and Opa and Oma,” Christian said then. He looked at me. My eyes must have shown great surprise. “Uncle Martin?”

  Andy stared at his brother, his thoughts, as usual, well hidden.

  “I don’t know,” Martin said. “Maybe you could. You’d have your Opa’s influence, and things have changed here with Keil. Emma, you no longer occupy the house…He might feel that having one of your boys live with you and your parents is warranted.” Martin looked at me. “Would you like me to speak with Wilhelm, Emma?”

  “Ja,” I said, when I got my voice back. “I’ll accept all the help I can get.”

  A few days later at the end of the fair, we were packing up when Almira came by. She had the children with her, which gave Christine delight. Almira’s eyes sparkled as she accepted a child from Almira’s daughter-in-law. Christine and Almira shared a one-arm embrace. We welcomed Almira and her daughter-in-law to rest on one of the blue benches we’d brought with us. Kate got the women jugs of water, and we sat for a moment, catching up.

  It was then that Jack Giesy sauntered through the grounds. Almira gasped when he stared at us from a distance. My own heart had started to pound. “Do you know that man?” I asked.

  She shook her head no. “He looks so much like my former husband,” Almira said. “Those brooding eyes, that clenched jaw.” She shook her head again. “I’m relieved it isn’t him.”

  “I know him,” I said. “That is my husband.”

  He’d aged since I’d seen him last. As he moved closer I saw the lines that drained what had once been a handsome face. He looked worn as old shoe leather. Thinning hair robbed him of some of his height, though when he stood in front of me, I still looked up at him and felt myself step back from the force of him.

  He put his hands down on the table in front of us and pushed his chest toward me, his face close. And while my heart pounded, I didn’t feel the terror that had once caused me to cower or run. I knew I wasn’t alone.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked.

  “Serve me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, but we’ve closed down for the season.”

  Po had stood up at the sound of Jack’s gruffness, but now he lay back down, and that encouraged me. I had friends and more, an attitude refreshed.

  “Aren’t you the hospitable one?” He sneered the words, then sat. He leaned back and tossed coins at me. “Brother Keil would object to your turning away good cash,” he said. “Figure something out to feed a man. You’re good at figuring.” A coin spun on the table, the only sound besides my own shortened breathing. “How much hospitality will this coin buy me?”

  “More than you deserve,” I said. “If you weren’t the father of one of my children, I wouldn’t give you a cup of water. But then I’d give a poor dog even that.”

  A dark cloud of disgust shadowed his face, and I knew I’d gone too far. I still have much to learn.

  Quick as a snake strike, Jack grabbed at my wrist. “You’d compare a Giesy to a dog?”

  I pulled back as Ida interrupted. “There’s a sausage left, Mama,” she said. She came from behind me and handed it to me. “Would the man like it?” I hope Ida didn’t hear me say what I did about his being the father of one of my children! I wondered if Jack would recognize his daughter. He was in one of his dark moods that could sometimes leave as quickly as a squall passing over the Willapa firs. I prayed that would happen now, but it didn’t. Instead, he took the sausage, tossed it on the ground. Po grabbed it and ran off.

  Jack swung his arm to signal to someone. “Bastian! Mary! Come see your rel-a-tive Emma—my dear wife.” He dragged the words to remind me of my status.

  I hadn’t seen Mary and Sebastian Giesy since the day they left Aurora after bringing me the rocker that matched Jack’s. And leaving me that Compass quilt. Compass. I know the direction I’m going now. I hadn’t known they were even at the fair. Mary had probably kept Jack away, hoping to spare me of this.

  “Look what I’ve found here,” Jack shouted.

  “Let’s go, Jack,” Sebastian said. He stood nearly as tall as Jack, and he held Jack’s arm, attempting to turn him from the small crowd growing around us. “No need to make a fuss.”

  “Make a fuss? The way you make fusses?” Jack said. He pushed at Sebastian.

  “Sebastian, let’s go,” Mary pleaded.

  “Women should be seen and not heard,” Jack shouted at her, choosing to confront a woman’s pleas as opposed to Sebastian’s. Jack swayed. He must have been drinking.

  Mary pulled on Sebastian’s suit coat. “Let’s just go. Please.”

  It all happened so fast! Sebastian pushed her out of the way, not in protection but with the familiarity of force, and Mary stumbled, her hooped skirts catching on the side of the table. Her straw hat was askew, and the reticule she carried at her wrist had tightened with obvious pain above her glove. I caught her before she fell, and she gave me a look. I saw in her eyes understanding mixed with my own former fears.

  It has happened to her. I’d never known. We’d kept the secrets all those years ago in Willapa, and in so doing I’d disintegrated, the way caustic chemicals tender the finest cloth.

  “Mary,” I whispered as I held her arm, untwisted her purse. “I didn’t know. We could have helped each—”

  “Feed me, Wife!” Jack shouted over Sebastian’s shoulder as he was being pushed away.

  Andy intervened then.

  “Jack, we’ll get you something to eat,” he said. “Won’t we, Mama?” His voice was calm and assured. He didn’t try to touch Jack, and while my son was nearly as tall as his stepfather, he stood sideways to him, nothing to intimidate, a young man using his wisdom as strength.

  Jack shook off Sebastian’s arm. He straightened. “About time someone maybe could pay attention to what I need,” Jack said to the crowd.

  My son was right: Feed the man what he asked for.
Don’t challenge him straight on. Let him save face and move on.

  “I’ll help you,” Mary said. She moved with me to the wagon.

  Beyond earshot I said to her, “You don’t need to put up with—”

  “No, no, Emma. It’s all right. I’ll be all right. It’s only happened once. Really. Jack urged Sebastian on one time. But Jack will settle down. I was afraid this would happen. It’s why I didn’t want Sebastian to come by the restaurant. I thought Jack might recognize Ida or be angry if he saw you happy. Boshie wouldn’t have pushed at me except that he knew I’d been right to try to keep Jack away.”

  “My fears have always been for Andy,” I said. “That he and Jack would—”

  “He did good, Emma. You did good to take him away years ago, give him tools to deal with such men. He’s a good man, a good Giesy, your son. So is my Sebastian. My husband doesn’t…” Her eyes dropped to the bread she cut. The knife shook in her hands. “I’m safe there; truly, I am.”

  “If you ever aren’t, don’t do what I did. Ask for help before it’s too late. You have a place to call home. In Aurora.”

  We served the cold potato salad and big slices of bread with Aurora pear butter to my husband. He ate in haste while he and Andy spoke of the weather and crops as though they’d often talked of such men things. Then he succumbed to Sebastian’s encouragement, and the three of them left. Mary turned back to me and mouthed the words, I’ll remember.” I prayed that she would.

  “That’s my father, isn’t it?” Ida asked. “I knew he was your husband, Mama. I just didn’t know that he…You said he was the father of one of your children. It has to be me.”

  “He is,” I said. “And there was a time when he wasn’t as he is now. His behavior is no reflection on you, Ida.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to say that I’d made such a mistake once. All I knew and know is that you’re the best thing that ever happened between us. A gift I didn’t deserve.”