It took Clara only a few moments’ consideration to decide.
“Of course you can.” She cupped Linnea’s tear-shined cheek. “And I’ll be only too happy for the help. I’m already so enormous it’s an effort just to wobble around. Now... ” She boosted herself to her feet and spoke brusquely. “You’ll stay for supper, then Trigg can take you to Ma’s to get your things. How does that sound?”
When Linnea and Trigg walked into Nissa’s house a short time later, the atmosphere was funereal. The three members of Linnea’s “family” all stood back, uncertain, unhappy, not knowing what to say while she explained that Clara needed her during this last part of her pregnancy, so Trigg was taking her back there.
“Tonight?” Nissa asked.
“Yes, as soon as I get my things together.”
“A little sudden, ain’t it?”
Linnea knew Theodore didn’t believe her story, and it was questionable whether Nissa did, but all she wanted was to gather her things and escape as quickly as possible. She avoided Theodore’s eyes, but sensed his stunned disbelief as he hovered in the background, staring at her, saying nothing. Kristian kept glancing at Nissa as if expecting her to stop Linnea, while Nissa put on her prune face and tried to decide if she should feel hurt or not.
There wasn’t a lot for Linnea to pack — she hadn’t much more than she’d come with, except a pair of mink mittens, a carved cat, a crocheted shawl, and a leather-bound volume of Tennyson. She forced herself not to dwell on them as she stuffed them into her valise.
When she came back down she wasn’t sure she could manage the good-bye that was necessary. The tears were so close to the surface that the inside of her nose stung, and the clot of emotion in her throat made speaking an effort. But she did her best job of acting ever, pasting a bright smile on her face and injecting an excited bounce into her footstep.
The hug she gave Nissa was fleeting. “One less to cook for,” she chirped.
The finger she pointed at Kristian’s nose was playful. “Now see to it you do homework even when I’m not here at the table in the evenings.”
The handshake she gave Theodore was convincing. “You’ll do wonderfully with your reading, I know you will. Kristian can help you with it. Well, Trigg, all set.”
She whirled out with all the apparent eagerness of a child approaching a candy store, but when she was gone the three remaining Westgaards looked at each other and didn’t know what to say. Nissa finally broke the silence.
“Well, what do you know about this, Teddy?”
He swallowed and turned away. “Nothin’.”
“Kristian?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, that child had been cryin’, and cryin’ hard. She didn’t fool me one bit. Tomorrow I intend to march over there and find out what’s goin’ on.”
“Leave it, Ma.”
“Leave it?”
“She wants to go there and live, let her. Like she said, it’s one less mouth to feed.”
But nothing was good without her. It was as it had been when she’d gone home for Christmas, only worse, because this time she wasn’t coming back. Mealtime was a sullen ordeal. Nobody talked. They all stared at their plates and wondered why the food didn’t taste good. They caught each other glancing at Linnea’s empty chair and tried to pretend they hadn’t been. John was back — his cold was better — but though he’d come out of his shell since Linnea had come into their lives, now that she was gone, he was more indrawn then ever. He shuffled in with his head down and shuffled out the same way. Though Kristian saw her at school every day, he came and went without a word about how she was. How is she doing, Theodore wanted to ask. Does she seem happy? What was she wearing? It took an effort to get up mornings and pretend the day had some meaning. Evenings were torture. Nobody brought out a book, nobody brought out a slate. Trigg took her to school these cold days; his rig passed regularly, morning and afternoon. But he had the warming house on, and if she was in it, she couldn’t be seen. Theodore found himself hovering around the outbuildings at those times of day, straining for a glimpse of the vehicle that carried her.
At night he tossed in bed restlessly, pondering his future. Kristian was already sixteen. Ma was seventy. They wouldn’t be around forever. And when they weren’t, what then? Then there’d be him and John. Two old men batching it in their lonely prairie farmhouses, talking mostly to the animals, waving to wagons that passed on the road, hoping one of them would turn in and bring company.
He thought about Linnea, up there at Clara’s, wondered how she was getting on, and if she missed him. Lord, she was strong, that girl. He’d never thought she’d up and leave like she did. He reckoned she was happy up there, with the kids always making some kind of excitement — she sure loved kids, no doubt about it. Loved Clara, too, and the two of them got along like peas in a pod. He supposed when the new baby came Linnea would be in her glory being around it.
He thought about babies. Girl like that deserved babies, but a man his age had no business having ‘em. Still, he wondered what they’d look like, his and Linnea’s. Blond, probably, and robust and full of energy like her.
He saw her at church on Sunday and got all goggle-eyed and tight-chested. But she looked happy as a lark, wearing a great big smile and her bird-wing hat. She said, “Oh, hi, Teddy. Where’s Nissa?” Then she was gone before he could get his tongue unglued. After Sunday dinner he sneaked into his room and combed his hair, figuring they’d be here any time; Clara and Trigg always came to Ma’s on Sunday. But they didn’t come.
By late afternoon, when they hadn’t shown up, he hid his slate under his jacket and went down to the tack room to see if a little schoolwork would relieve his wretchedness. But he wasted a good half hour staring at the saddle on the sawhorse, and another staring at the name he’d written on the slate. Linnea. Linnea. Linnea. Lord God almighty, what should he do? He hurt. Hurt. Love wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. He wrenched himself to his feet and tried cleaning the tool bench, but it was already in perfect order. He reared back and threw a hoof trimmer so hard it knocked over three cans and sent horsehoe nails skittering to the floor. Then with a violent curse he swung, picked up the slate, and stormed from the room.
Nissa and Kristian were both in the kitchen when he came back in. They watched him but said nothing. He went to his bedroom, reappeared momentarily with his suspenders and underwear top turned down, filled the basin, washed, shaved for the second time that day, patted bay rum on his face, macassared his hair, combed it meticulously, disappeared once more, and returned shortly wearing his Sunday suit and a clean white shirt with a brand-new collar. He looked neither at his son nor mother but pulled on his coat, picked up the slate and speller, and announced, “I’m going up to Clara’s, see if I can get on with my reading lessons.”
When the door slammed behind him Kristian stared at it, speechless. Nissa’s knitting needles didn’t miss a beat as she studied her grandson over the rim of her spectacles.
“I could’ve given him a reading lesson,” Kristian declared belligerently.
“Yup.” Clickety-snickety went the knitting needles. Kristian’s eyes swerved to Nissa’s.
“Then why’d he have to go up to Clara’s?”
She dropped her eyes to the stitches, though she could form them blindfolded. “’Pears to me your pa’s gone courtin’,” she replied with a satisfied air.
At Clara’s, Linnea was preparing Monday’s lessons at the kitchen table, where the whole family sat eating popcorn. A sound filtered through the wall. “Somebody’s coming.” Trigg got up and squinted through the window into the dark. “Looks like Teddy.”
Linnea’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth and her heart jumped into doubletime. She scarcely had time to adjust to the announcement before the door was opening and there stood Theodore, turned out as if it were his burial day. He glanced at everybody in the room except Linnea.
“Howdy, Clara, Trigg, kids. Thought you’d come up’t the house today. Decid
ed to ride down and see if everything’s okay.”
“Everything’s fine. Come on in.”
“Cold out there.”
Linnea felt a blush rise.
“Uncle Teddy! Uncle Teddy! We got popcorn!” Little Christine barreled against him, reaching up. He set her on his arm and chucked her under the chin, smiling. Finally he met Linnea’s eyes above the child’s blond head. His smile dissolved and he gave a silent nod. She dropped her attention to her schoolwork.
“Pull up a chair,” Trigg invited, and stuck one between himself and Bent.
“What did you bring?” Bent inquired.
Theodore joined them at the table, with Christine on his knee. “My slate and speller.” He laid them on the table. “I’m learning how to read.”
“You are? Gosh, but you’re awful old to—”
“Bent!” his parents scolded simultaneously.
The little boy glanced from one parent to the other, wondering what he’d done wrong. “Well, he iiis.”
Linnea wanted to crawl beneath the table.
“A person’s never too old to learn,” Theodore told the eight-year-old. “What do you think, Miss Brandonberg?”
She met his eyes and not one blessed word came to her mind.
“If you can spare the time, I’d like to go on with the reading lessons.”
Reading lesson? Dressed like that he came claiming he wanted reading lessons? How could she possibly concentrate on teaching him when her blood had set up such a singing in her head?
“I... well... sure, why not?”
He smiled and nodded and reached for some popcorn, and one of the children said something that diverted his attention. Linnea felt Clara’s inquisitive scrutiny and wrote at the top of a paper, “Don’t leave!” Silently she flashed it toward Clara, praying she’d heed the message. It would have looked utterly conspicuous for Clara and Trigg to disappear suddenly; the kitchen was the warmest room in the house, the gathering place on cold evenings like this. The front room was rarely used in winter.
Thankfully, Clara took Linnea’s plea to heart. When the popcorn was gone, everyone shifted places so Linnea and Teddy could sit side by side, but everybody stayed. The children found a ball of yarn and played on the floor with Patches, their pet cat. Clara stitched on a baby quilt. Trigg read a Farm Journal. Linnea and Teddy tried to concentrate on a lesson that meant not a whit to either one of them. Though their elbows rested on the table, they made certain not to touch. When their knees bumped once beneath the table, they sat up straighter in their chairs. Though they studied each other’s hands, they never looked directly at each other. They had been working for nearly two hours when Teddy silently pushed the slate across the table to her. On it were written three words.
Please come home.
A heart-burst of reaction flooded Linnea’s body. Love, pain, renunciation. She glanced up sharply, but Trigg and Clara were occupied. Teddy studied her; she felt his eyes like a longing caress on her cheek. His knuckles were white as the chalk he gripped. It would be so easy to say yes, knowing how he felt about her. But he wasn’t offering anything permanent, only a temporary solution to their misery.
She reached for the chalk, slipping it from his fingers and watching as he forcibly relaxed them. She wrote only two words — I can’t — and for the first time that night, met his gaze directly.
Oh, Teddy, I love you. But I’ll have it all or nothing.
She saw that he understood clearly. She saw how fast he was breathing. She saw him fight with himself. And everything in her rushed outward toward him in a silent plea.
But he closed his speller, set it atop the slate, and pushed his chair back. “Well, it’s late, I’d best be going.” He stretched to his feet and reached for his coat. “Can I come again tomorrow?”
“Why sure,” Trigg answered.
“Linnea?”
She couldn’t quite find the strength to say no. “If you’d like.”
He nodded solemnly and said good night.
He came the next night, but not in his Sunday best. He wore a gray plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and the throat open, revealing the sleeves and placket of the ever-present winter underwear. He looked utterly masculine. Linnea wore her hair caught up in a ribbon, flowing down her back. In her navy and white middy dress she looked utterly young.
She gave him a story to read and he settled down to do so, slunk low in his chair with his temple propped on two fingertips. She looked up once to find that over the top of the book he was studying her breasts, which rested over her crossed wrists on the edge of the table. Her face turned red, she sat back, and his eyes returned to the book.
The following night she told him to write a sentence using the word blue and he wrote, Linnea has beautifull blue eyes.
In a snap, Linnea’s beautiful blue eyes met Theodore’s beautiful brown ones. Her face became a blushing red rose and Teddy smiled. Flustered, she took refuge in grabbing the slate and correcting his spelling. Unperturbed, he erased the whole thing, applied the chalk again and wrote, You look pretty when you blush.
He came six nights and still she refused to return home. They sat at the table as usual, Clara and Trigg with them, and Theodore covertly studied Linnea. She corrected papers while he was supposed to be reading, but it was impossible. She had done something different with her hair tonight, gathered it up in a loose puff with a tiny pug knot in the back, like an egg in a fat nest. At her temples tendrils trailed and she caught one around her finger, winding and rewinding it abstractedly. Suddenly she giggled at something on the paper. “You have to see this.” She angled it so they all could see. “It’s a spelling test I gave today. This word is supposed to be sheet.”
S-h-i-t, it said.
They all laughed and settled back. Theodore watched her giggles subside and her head bend over her work again. In time she finished and smacked the pile of papers straight, looked up, and caught him admiring her.
“Did you finish reading your assignment?”
He cleared his throat. “Ahh... no, not quite.”
“Theodore!” she scolded, “you can read faster than that.”
“Some nights.”
“Well, you can finish it at home. It’s time for a couple new words.” She pulled out the slate and they began working, elbows and heads close. She smelled like almonds again. It created havoc with his concentration. He remembered dancing with her, smelling that almond flavor up close. He remembered kissing her, and how she had made him feel. Young. Alive. Bursting. Just looking at her brought it all back again, made his blood surge and his heart knock. He reached for the slate as if he had no choice in the matter, and though he felt fearful and even a little timid, he had to ask. He just had to. It was pure hell without her.
Can I pick you up for the dance tomorow? he wrote.
This time she expressed no surprise. No blush lit her cheek. No excitement kindled her eyes. Only a sad resignation as their gazes met and she slowly shook her head.
He felt a brief flare of anger: what was she trying to do to him? But he knew, and he knew she was stubborn enough, strong enough to hold fast in her resolution to live the remainder of the year at Clara’s. And next fall she wouldn’t be back. He saw it all in her sad eyes as they confronted him, and suddenly his life stretched out before him like a bleak, eternal purgatory. He knew full well what he must do to turn that purgatory to heaven. He knew what she was waiting for.
He felt as if he were strangling. As if the walls of his chest would collapse at any moment. As if his heart would club its way out of his body — the hard ache beneath his ribs, the sweating palms and shaky hands. But he took the chalk anyway and wrote what all the common sense of the universe could not keep him from writing.
Then will you merry me?
There wasn’t a sound in the room as he turned the slate her way and waited. The muscles in his belly jumped.
When she read it the shock passed over her face. Her lips dropped open and she took
a sharp breath. Her eyes widened upon him and they stared at each other, breathing as if they’d just come up for the third time. Their faces were suffused with color and neither of them seemed capable of movement. At last she reached an unsteady hand for the chalk... and for once she didn’t correct his spelling.
Yes, she wrote. Then the blackboard was jerked from her hand and clapped upside down on the table. In one swift, impatient leap Theodore was on his feet, reaching for his jacket, carefully refraining from looking at her.
“There’s northern lights tonight. Linnea and I are going out and see ‘em.”
It seemed to take a year instead of a minute for them to button into their outerwear and close the door behind them. And the only lights they saw were those exploding behind their closed eyes as he swung her recklessly into his arms and crushed his mouth to hers. They kissed with a wild insatiability, until everything in the world seemed attainable, and life ran rampant in their veins. They freed their mouths, clutching each other till their muscles quivered, murmuring half-sentences in desperate haste.
“Nothing was good without... ”
“I’ve been miserable... ”
“Will you really... ”
“Yes... yes... ”
“I tried not to... ”
“I didn’t know how to get you to... ”
“Oh God, God, I love you... ”
“I love you so much I... ”
They kissed again, unable to climb into each other’s skins as they wanted to, striving nonetheless. They ran their hands over everything allowable and as close to the unallowable as they dared. They pulled back, giddy in the unaccustomed release brought by agreement. They kissed again, still astounded, then paused to find equilibrium.
She rested her forehead against his chin. “Remind me to teach you how to spell marry.”
“Don’t I know how?”
She pivoted her forehead against his chin: “No.”
He chuckled. “Seems like it didn’t make any difference.”
She smiled and rubbed up and down his sides with both hands. “M-a-r-r-y spells will you marry me. M-e-r-r-y spells will you happy me.”