The Daughter's Walk (51 page)

“I didn't know,” I said. So someone else had taken on the mantle.

I was grateful to be speaking of safe things while grief settled on each person's shoulders. I wished I could find words to keep their hearts from breaking further, but I didn't know what to say.

“Norway,” Agnes said. “Arthur always said he wanted to go there one day.”

Maybe mundane things give way to deeper healing. “We visited Grandfather's grave, in Grue,” I said. My mother jerked her head up. “Yes. And walked at the Hauge farm. It's pretty there. Parts of this state remind me of Norway, with its towering trees and streams and mountain peaks. We stayed in Oslo. The river … So deep and winding right through town, just like here.”

“I was Thelma's age when I left there,” Mama said. She looked at
Thelma. “My mother remarried, but not before she sent me to an English-speaking school. That was so wise of her, and I know they sacrificed to pay for it.” She looked thoughtful. “It's funny, but I never felt at home in Michigan or Minnesota. Cyclones, prairie fires. But there's something comforting about Mica Creek and Spokane. Now that you say it, I do see the resemblance to Norway. Maybe our feet find the way along our ancestors' paths without our even knowing. It's good to walk them now and then.”

Ida opened her mouth as though to protest the very word
walk
, looked confused, didn't speak.

“I was glad I went there,” I said. “I find I like to travel. Maybe we could go there together one day.”

“Clara …” Ida's voice held warning. Vigilant, that was how I'd describe my sister, vigilant in holding resentment close as a fur coat. But she must have decided that not all travel discussion could be silenced because she didn't stop me as I continued.

“I traveled to Montreal, Paris, London, even Greece. And then I spent a little time in Minneapolis and Manistee, Michigan, too.”

My mother's hand shook a little, and the ice clinked in the glass as she brought it to her lips.

“What's in Michigan to see?” Lillian asked.

“A lighthouse. Timber. I walked where Ole worked and where Mother and Grandmother lived,” I said, looking at my mother. “I found I didn't leave anything there I need to go back for. And besides, coming home is always best.”

“It always is,” Mama said. She covered my hand with her own. “It always is.”

I didn't attend Arthur's funeral. It would detract from what Agnes needed then, which was all the Estby support geared toward her and nothing unpredictable coming from my presence. I planned to visit the cemetery later to lay flowers on Arthur's grave, and Ole's and the others.

Both Olea and Louise eagerly heard my story of the visit, and I saw relief when I told them how much I appreciated having them as a family to come home to.

“We're a pair,” Louise said.

“There are three of us,” Olea corrected.

“That's right. We're a triplet. They say good things come in threes.”

“It's trouble that comes in threes,” Olea said.

“Maybe. But this triplet's been good for each of us, hasn't it?”

“Indeed,” I said.

“And your mother forgave you?” Olea asked. “For your association with us?”

“I believe she did,” I said. “Though not in those words. We crossed a bridge, though. We'll see how things go once we're on the same side for a time.”

I lit a candle and reminded Louise not to move it. Then I slipped an apron over my head and started supper.

No one had said, “I forgive you.” No one had asked. It wasn't needed. Love would rebuild like bricks raising a cathedral.

I waited until a Saturday, when I was sure Ida would be at the Hutton Settlement House where she volunteered and Lillian would be working at the millinery on Sprague. Bill said he worked Saturdays
until noon. I called on my mother in the morning. I carried a package with me. If Mama was alone, I'd speak with her there; if Bill or Agnes and the children were around, I had other plans.

“Well, howdy, Clara,” Bill said when I stepped inside. He wasn't exactly warm, but he was cordial. “What brings you this way?”

“It's a lovely day. I thought I'd see if Mama might let me take her out to lunch.”

“Clara!” Mama said. “Come in. Did you say lunch?”

“I wondered if you'd like to join me for an outing.”

“Oh, I can fix us a bite right here. No need for you to spend your money.”

“I'd like to,” I said. “They make lovely cream puffs at the Davenport.”

“Go,” Bill told his mother. “Bring me one.”

“Can I come too?” Thelma asked. The child wore a big red hair ribbon, and Mama touched it when she put her hand to the back of the girl's head.

“If Clara doesn't mind,” Mama said.

“I'd like that,” I said. “If it's all right with your mother.”

“Maybe another time,” Agnes said. She pulled the girl to her as though I might be carrying disease. Who knew what Ida had said. But maybe she wanted her child near to help her face her loss. I decided to look at it that way.

“I'll look forward to that. Maybe we can all go to the Davenport together one day.”

“Too rich for my blood,” Bill said.

“She was inviting us girls,” Mama said.

Bill grunted, but he didn't look displeased.

We walked beneath a canopy of trees along Riverfront. As in the
past, my mother set the pace; this time I lessened my stride to remain beside her. Silence marked our steps though it was a pleasant calm. Mama asked about my work, and I told her what I did at the bank. “Well, that's a good job,” she said. “You were always good with numbers.”

“I was,” I said. “But it didn't keep me from making financial mistakes.”

“Oh?”

I told her then of our venture with the furs and how we might have made a profit to provide for ourselves and our family in later days, but the war had come. We couldn't afford insurance. “I lost ten thousand dollars,” I said.

“Oh, Clara.”

“I learned a great deal about how little we really control despite how hard we plan. In hindsight, insurance would have been a good investment, but it was so expensive that even Lloyd's didn't want to insure the shipment.”

“Hindsight,” Mama said. “Such a fine binocular into history, so crystal-clear. But you've recovered.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes, I recovered. With friends and good fortune too.”

“Providence provides,” Mama said, and I agreed.

At the restaurant, Mama ordered a beef sandwich with mayonnaise and onions. I ordered tomato soup and asked for extra cream puffs to take with us, enough for Bill, Agnes, the children, and all the rest when they got home from work.

“You have a package you've carried with you,” Mama said.

I pushed the large square box toward her. “It's for you.”

Mama looked pleased as she pulled the strings and lifted out the
slender book. She opened the cover and gasped. “Where did you get these?”

“I hid them for a time,” I said. “Behind the cabinet in the kitchen at Mica Creek. It's what I took with me … that day. Since then, as I traveled, I've stopped at newspaper offices and got copies of the interviews, a few of the photographs we sold. Not all of them.”

“The Minneapolis articles,” she said. Her shoulder rounded over the packet as though we might be arrested for looking at bad pictures.

“I thought … Well, I know Ida and Bill and maybe Lillian too don't want you talking about the trip, but it was the defining event of my life,” I said. “Everything began with that journey. It's something that belongs to you and me, if not to the world. I wanted you to know I will forever treasure those months we had, despite what happened while we were gone and what happened afterward. If I could bring them back—”

“I know, I know,” Mama said.

“I made a list of the signers, but the actual signatures, those I sold to Chauncey Depew. Remember him?” She nodded. “He loved memorabilia. I have the money for you, from that sale,” I said.

“Oh no, Clara, that's yours to keep. You have ‘occupied' well.” I looked puzzled. “We should use what we're given and invest it. You have. Besides, the union pension said they'd found additional payments meant for me after Ole died, so I'm fine, with what the children share. Maybe you can help Ida one day, after I'm gone. But you're the one who saved the signatures, so you keep that money for your family.”

“My family? You're my family.”

“Your friends are too, Clara. They've stood with you as mine did for me.”

“If only Ole had accepted the money.” I sighed. “None of this separation would have happened.”

Mama sat silent for a time. “When I became pregnant with you, the Dorés offered my family money. They gave it to Ole to help us make the move to Minnesota. I think he always regretted that. He wanted to do things on his own.”

Dirty money
. I wondered if he thought of the Dorés' funds that way.

“After Bertha and Johnny … died,” Mama continued, “and we lost the farm, they tended me, Clara—Ole and my children. They brought me back to myself in time. They reminded me once again that all things are possible, even keeping silent about a special time in my life. Our lives, if that's what it took to keep my children as close to me as I could.” I didn't say it was the least they could do after beating her down. The server brought our cream puffs. “After Ole died, I thought I'd contact you. I saved the cards you sent. But the others would have seen my seeking you out as a betrayal to them, to Ole too, I think. I chose,” she said. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Honour thy father and thy mother,” I said. “That's all I wanted to do. I'll always be Clara regardless of the last name I pick. I'll always belong to you—if you'll have me.”

Mama wiped at her cheeks. She sniffed, reached for her handkerchief.

“You'd had a terrible grief, to the bone,” I said.

“But I shouldn't have let them send you away.”

“I couldn't have stayed, Mama. I know that now. I thought maybe you'd write the book for yourself, for your grandchildren to have one day. What we did, it was nothing to be ashamed of. You were doing what you thought best in serving your family. That's what I did that day I left too. I didn't really understand then about sacrifice, but I do now. I understand why you've kept silent, why you did back then.”

Mama inhaled, took a sip of her lemonade. “After Ole died, I went back to the suffrage meetings. I never told the girls. I was careful, but I
loved the time with those women. I did talk about the trip then, I did.” She nodded her head. “Maybe I wasn't honoring Ole's death by doing that, but he was gone and my memories weren't.” She leaned toward me, whispered. “I started writing things down. I have many, many pages. I work on it late at night in my painting room. They never bother me there. Once, when I wrote of our crossing at the Dale trestle, Thelma came in to play in my upstairs room. She likes to do that. Such a sweet child who so misses her father, just as I did at her age. I was so enthused from remembering that I put my pen down on the yellow pages and looked up and said to her, ‘Thelma, don't ever forget my story.'

“ ‘I won't, Grandma,' she said, and she hadn't a clue what I was talking about. But maybe one day she'll get curious. Then the pages will be there in the bottom of my trunk. And this scrapbook of yours, that'll be there too.” She reached for my hand and held it. “What a treasure! What a treasure!” She turned the pages, let her fingers scroll down the articles. “Oh, a dried sunflower. Yes. I'd forgotten that.” She read further. “Oh, and when the Indians in Utah looked inside our bags that time and we had to show them what that curling iron was for, remember that?” We laughed. “The tramp and your pepper-box gun and how the papers called our bicycle outfits Weary Waggles after the comic hobo!” She laughed outright then. “Oh, and here's the mention of our modeling in Chicago and all the shoes and hats we went through!”