The Daughter's Walk (24 page)

“What?” Louise said. “You want to borrow money from us?”

“I'd pay it back to you in monthly payments with interest you deem fair. I'll be out of school soon. I could get other work, pay you cash each week, and continue to do your books and domestic work to cover my room and board. I'm a hard worker, and my grades at Blair are very good.” I caught my breath.

This isn't begging; it's business. For family
.

The women glanced at each other, an exchange between relatives that excluded me.

“Do you remember,” Olea said then, “the day Louise happened to mention the signatures of people you'd met on the walk east?” I nodded. “You've never talked about that trip much.”

“I'm sorry, I guess I didn't phrase my question well. I don't want to talk about the trip. I … hope to borrow funds.”

“On the train, you'd been so happy to discuss the journey with me. You described it as worthy of a college education,” Olea said.

“It was that,” I said softly. “I shouldn't have mentioned meeting the McKinleys that night. I was prideful.” I dropped my eyes.

“Nonsense, you have a right to talk about your own experiences,” Olea said. “They belong to you.”

“It struck us as odd that it was the very first time you mentioned walking to New York,” Louise said. She stroked the black and white cat with shiny fur. I could hear Lucy purring from across the room. “We thought maybe you disliked the new reform dresses after all. It's the
coming thing in the apparel industry. With the death of Queen Victoria, there'll be changes. Her son Edward is already wearing a different kind of suit. Deaths of prominent people always bring a fashion change.”

“It wasn't the dress. Nothing like that. Tragedy … happened. After we got back.”

“The death of your sister,” Louise nodded.

“And my brother,” I said. “Then, after we returned our family, my father—my stepfather took our making the trip as an affront to him. He—and my brothers and sisters—blame my mother for not being there when the children got sick. She blames herself too. He forbade my mother ever to speak of the trip again. Any of us. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be telling you all these intimate details. You know we Norwegians aren't like that. We keep things to ourselves. Or should.”

“The old Norwegian ways aren't always wise,” Olea said. “It can be healing for the soul to share its stories.”

“I'm not to speak or write about it either. Ever. Ole, he's not a mean man. It's. He thought our trip shamed him in our family and in Mica Creek. People acted like we were in quarantine long after the sign came down. We'd violated what they expected of a good mother and decent Norwegian women. Some might have even thought the deaths were punishment for our bringing attention to ourselves so publicly.”

“Nonsense,” Louise said. “That's not how God does things.”

“Part of the reason why I need the loan,” I said, glad for a path back to the subject, “is that if I could prevent the sale of the farm, maybe my stepfather would allow my mother to speak of the trip again. Maybe she wouldn't be so sad then, so … listless. She only undertook the trip to save the farm.”

Olea inhaled deeply. She looked at Louise, who nodded her head. “The truth is, Clara,” Olea began, “we know something about your trip and what happened when you reached New York.”

“We didn't make it on time,” I said. “I sprained my ankle and the sponsors wouldn't pay. That added to Ole's upset.”

“We never thought that was fair,” Louise said. “After all, a sprained ankle on a walking trip is certainly predictive of a consequence not unlike food poisoning, and we made an adjustment for that.”

I frowned. Had the newspaper articles covered my food poisoning?

“So we felt we ought to tell you …” Louise looked to Olea. “We were going to in time, but your request gives us the opening.”

“What?” I said. My heart started to pound, and my breath tried to disappear. “What do you have to tell me?”

“We, that is, we know about the sponsors, the ‘parties' in New York. There were five sponsors,” Olea said. “Each put up two thousand dollars to make the wager. We hoped to raise awareness of new trends in the fashion industry. It was an investment. We were … two of those investors.”

My face burned at their betrayal. These very women had been the ones to victimize Mama and me? How could I have come to trust them, to think of them almost as family? I stood. I had to get out. “You … withheld the money? What kind of people would do that?”

“Please sit. Let us explain,” Olea said.

“No! You made us beg to get back home. You didn't keep your part in the—”

“Please. Sit,” Olea said.

In my confusion I sank onto the divan, shaking. I nipped at my nails, then clutched my hands in my lap.

“Louise and I were in Europe when you arrived, and the other sponsors didn't even advise us of the details until we returned in May, when the only thing in bargaining position by then was the book. We protested. It didn't seem fair at all, but we were outvoted by the other three, and even that was after the fact. You were on your way back to
Spokane, and there was this agreement about a book, which they said they wouldn't honor if we gave you some of the money ahead of time for having reached New York at all.”

“There'd been a bit of a downturn in their resources,” Louise said. “Well, ours too. They were looking for an honorable way out. It got very confused. And didn't feel right at all. We made the trip to Spokane that summer to get away from it, thinking a change of scenery would be good. And we knew Mary Latham, but she had no part in the decisions.”

“They did urge Mr. Depew to advance the ticket,” Olea said. “I'm sorry it took them so long to arrange for that.”

“It was an ugly business,” Louise said. “We consider it a gift that Olea met you and we saw what a fine young woman you are and that you had such hopes to finish the book. We hoped everything would work out, but then there was never any book.”

“Because of my stepfather.” I didn't add that my mother's sorrow might have prevented her from writing the book at all, but because of Ole, she wasn't even allowed to try. And neither was I. “But you … I …” I ought to leave, have nothing to do with them, and yet they had been so kind. I was as torn as an old bed sheet.

“So, no. You cannot have the loan for fifteen hundred dollars,” Olea said.

I nodded. Of course not. These were wealthy people, and they played by their rules. I'd violated my own rule by trusting someone and then letting money become part of the equation. How foolish I'd been. Foolish and trusting, just like my mother.

I stood. “I'll pack my things and be gone in the morning,” I said.

“What we will do is
give
you what we'd committed back then,” Olea said. “We'll give you four thousand dollars, two thousand from
each of us. You can give half to save the farm if that's what you'd like, and we hope you'll keep half for yourself to invest or to make your own start. No strings attached.”

“You'll
give
it to me? But—” My words faltered. Such generosity was unheard of! Were there truly gifts without obligation?

“We won't loan it; it's yours. We'd consider it one of our best investments ever if you'd forgive us for the very long delay.”

I
took the train to Mica Creek the weekend before the auction. I thought about simply sending Mama a money order, but Ole would surely ask where she'd gotten the funds, and she'd have to say where it came from. Maybe he wouldn't mind knowing it came from reform women, though he'd be very upset if he knew the women had been part of the sponsors and that Mama and I had accepted funds from them. Besides, giving her the money and the mortgage wouldn't necessarily allow Ole to relieve Mama of his order that she never speak about the trip. What I wanted was a way for Mama to be freed from both the agony of the foreclosure and to speak again of her experiences. Olea was right. Our stories belonged to us. Mama ought to be able to speak about hers.

As the train clicked south, I thought it would be best if I spoke to my stepfather alone. I'd tell him I had the money to save the farm and the condition was that he must let Mama speak again of the journey. I'd been right to tell Olea that he wasn't a mean-spirited person. Only
stubborn at times, seeing things in certain ways that no amount of evidence or even practicality could change. I'd have to be a superb negotiator.

I breathed a prayer of relief as I stepped off the train and saw my stepfather's wagon parked in front of Schwartz's store. Perfect timing. I opened my parasol against the cold drizzle. The scent of snow filled the air. I'd wait until he picked up whatever he'd come to town for and then ride home with him. On the way I'd put my proposition to him.

But when my stepfather came out, my mother was with him. Well, it might work fine to have them both together, so Mama could hear me fight for her, stand up to my stepfather the way she used to. And Ida and the others wouldn't be around to witness it.

Martin, my stepfather's friend, walked out with them, helped Mama into the wagon as I approached.

“Well, look who's here?” Martin said. “Your lovely daughter all dressed like a fine lady.”

“
Ja
. She's grown up now,” my stepfather said.

“Clara?” Mama said. I put my foot on the step, covered us with the umbrella.

“May I ride with you?”

“Must be doing pretty good, all that store-bought finery she's wearing,” Martin said. “Your fine shoes will get muddy.”

“I have a good job in town now, Mr. Siverson,” I said.

“Maybe she'll attract a rich farmer and you can borrow his tractor after she goes in wedding thoughts,” Martin said.

Norwegian men had no trouble speaking of money with each other or assuming where a woman's thoughts might go, wedding or naught. But women taking on financial matters, that was an affront.

“I'll get one of my own one of these days,” my stepfather said.

“
Ja
, that would be good for your back and all. Make harvest easier.”

His friend still held out hope that they wouldn't lose the farm, or Martin wouldn't have spoken quite so teasingly nor have ended with encouragement about a tractor. Yet everyone must know about the auction and its purpose.

“It's good to have girls to take care of you in your old age,” Martin said. “Otherwise age only leads to worse things.”

My stepfather laughed. “One generation plants the trees, the next one gets the shade.”

Martin lifted my fabric bag into the back and pulled the canvas over it and the lumber loaded there. I held on to my fur purse. “What are you going to build?” I asked.

“Making repairs,” Ole said. “Before the sale. It should go into the hands of someone new in best condition.”

My mother winced.

He flicked the reins and we started off as Martin stepped back under the store porch and waved.

“That's the reason I came to talk to you,” I said. “I have a proposition.” I cleared my throat from its soreness. “Mama. Papa. I've come into money of late. You won't have to have the auction. I can pay the mortgage and the back taxes. You can start fresh.”

“What are you saying?” Mama said. She twisted to look at me.

My stepfather pulled the wagon up short, clucked to the horses so they knew to relax. “What's this?”

“I have enough money to stop the foreclosure. That's why I came, to give it to you.”

“Where would you get such funds?” he demanded.

“Does it matter?”

“From these women you work for,” Mama said.

“Yes.”

“They would loan money to a girl such as you? Why would they do that?”

“Maybe because they see promise in me,” I said. “I'm not a girl any longer. Twenty-five in November.”

“What do you do that they give you such money?
Betre tom pung enn rangt skaffa pengar,
” he added.

“Better an empty purse than wrongly got money?” I repeated in English. “It's not ill-gotten gain, Ole. In fact, it's a just reward for work accomplished. ‘A woman doesn't have to be shy about asking for what she wants nor bow too low in gratitude for what she rightfully deserves,' ” I quoted.

He snorted. “Suffragette talk.”

“Yes, it is, but it's the truth.”

“These women you work for are suffragettes.”

“I am too,” Mama said.

“None of that,” my stepfather cautioned. “None of that now.”

Mama lowered her eyes and looked away as though struck.

“They're businesswomen. They've earned their money through wise investment and business decisions. I'm learning from them.”