“Ah, little one.” He smiled and pulled her closer. “Don’t you know that when you’re my wife you’ll do both?”
She had not known a heart could smile.
They kissed again, less hurried now — the initial rush was sated; they could explore at leisure. She caught his neck, drew his head down, tasting his warm, wet mouth with her own, savoring every texture, experimenting with seduction. His head moved in lazy circles, his hands kneaded her ribs. Impatience became a thing to be reckoned with and he forced himself to back off. “I said I was bringing you out here to look at the northern lights. Maybe we should take a look anyway.”
“Bad idea,” she murmured, crowding, kissing his neck.
He chuckled low. She felt it against her lips. “Such an unappreciative girl. Nature putting on a show like that and she doesn’t even care.”
“Nature’s putting on another show right here and I’m trying to show you exactly how much I care.”
But Theodore was noble, not heroic. He swung her around in his arms and planted her back against his chest, circling her from behind.
“Look.”
She looked. And was awed.
The indigo sky to the north radiated an unearthly glow, shifting fingers of pinkish light that reached and receded in ever-changing patterns. The aurora borealis spread like the earth’s halo lit from below, reflecting from the white-mantled land. At times not only the sky, but the earth itself seemed to radiate, creating a night vista much as if the earth’s fiery core were glowing up through a vast opaque window. For as far as the eye could see the land lay sleeping, swaddled in snow. Flat, endless space, leading away to forever, like the rest of their lives together.
“Oh, Teddy,” she sighed and tilted her head back against his shoulder. “We’re going to be so happy together.”
“I think we already are.” He rocked them gently while they watched the sky brighten and dim, by turns.
“And we’ll live to tell the story of this night to our grandchildren. I’m just sure of it.”
He kissed the crest of her cheek, envisioning it.
She covered his arms with hers. “Do you think our horses are out there somewhere?”
“Somewhere.”
“Do you think they’re warm and full?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Just like us.”
That’s what he loved’ about her: she never took joy for granted.
“Just like us.”
“Some of the best moments we’ve shared have been like mis, just looking at nothing... and everything. Oh, look!” The lights shifted, like fresh milk spilling upward. “They’re beautiful!”
“The only place they’re brighter is in Norway,” Theodore told her.
“Norway. Mmm... I’d like to go there sometime.”
“The land of the midnight sun, Ma calls it. When she and Pa first came here they thought they’d never get used to this prairie. No fjords, no trees, no water to speak of, no mountains. The only thing that was the same was ‘the lights.’ She said when they got to missing the old country so much they couldn’t stand it, they used to stand just like we are now, and it got them through.”
Somehow Theodore’s hand had come to rest on Linnea’s breast. It seemed right and good so she held his wrist to keep it there.
“I’ve missed Nissa this past week,” she said.
“Then come home with me. Tonight.”
They both realized where his hand was and he moved it. She turned to face him.
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“With her and Kristian right there all the time?” He pressed her collar up, leaving his hands circling her neck. “Please, Linnea. I want you back there, and we’ll be married as soon as Martin can heat up the church. A week. Two weeks at the most.”
She wanted very badly to give in. She’d enjoyed her stay with Clara, but it wasn’t home. And it was farther to school, and Trigg had put himself out to get her there these cold mornings. And she’d missed Theodore with an ache so fierce it was frightening. She raised up on tiptoe and hugged him, sudden and hard.
“Yes, I’ll come. But they’ll be the longest two weeks of our lives.”
He crushed her to his sturdy chest and lowered his face to her almond-scented neck and thought that if he had no more than two score years with her he’d be grateful.
He singled out Kristian at the dance the following night. “I need to talk to you, son. Think we could go outside a minute?”
Kristian seemed to measure his father a moment before replying, “Sure.”
They went out where the air was brittle and the moon no bigger than a fingernail paring. The surface of the snow crunched beneath their feet and they ambled with no apparent destination, until they found themselves near the clustered wagons. The horses stood asleep with hoarfrost trimming their coarse nose hairs. Unconsciously the two men gravitated toward their own Cub and Toots and stood before their great heads, silent for some time. Down in the barn the music stopped, and the only sound was that of the horses breathing like enormous bellows.
“No lights tonight,” Theodore observed at length.
“Nope.”
“Lots of ‘em last night.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, Linnea and me we... ” Theodore trailed off and started again. “Son, remember the day you and me we went to Zahl for coal?”
“I remember.” Kristian knew already; it wasn’t often Theodore called him son, and when he did it was something serious.
“Well, you told me that day how you felt about Linnea, and I want you to know I didn’t take it lightly.”
It was the second time he’d referred to her as Linnea when he’d never used her given name before.
“You’re gonna marry her, aren’t you?”
Theodore’s heavy hand fell to Kristian’s shoulder. “I am, but I got to know how you feel about it.”
There was disappointment, but nothing like Kristian had expected. He’d had time to absorb the idea since Nissa’s startling deduction.
“When?”
“Week from today if we can arrange it, two weeks if we can’t.”
“Wow, that’s fast.”
“Son, it rankled, knowing how you felt about her. I didn’t set out to fall in love with her, you got to know that — I mean, after all, there’s sixteen years difference between us — but it didn’t seem to matter in how we felt. Guess we don’t have much choice about who we fall in love with. When it happens it happens, but when it did I had plenty of guilt pangs since you’d set your cap for her first.”
Kristian knew what he must say.
“Aw, she just thinks of me as a kid. I can see that now.”
“It might surprise you to know that’s not true. We’ve talked about you, and she—”
“You mean she knew how I felt about her?” Kristian’s head came up in consternation. “You told her?”
“I didn’t have to tell her. What you have to understand is that a woman can tell a thing like that without being told. She could see how you felt and she was scared it’d make for problems in the family.” Theodore put his palm beneath Toots’s nose, feeling the white puffs of breath push against his glove. “Will it?”
They wouldn’t have any problems from Kristian no matter how tough it was for him to get used to her being his father’s wife. “Naw. It was probably just puppy love anyway, like Ray says.” Kristian strove to lighten the mood. “But I won’t have to call her Mother, will I?”
Theodore laughed. “I hardly think so. She’ll still be your friend. Why don’t you call her Linnea?”
Kristian peered at his father. “Would you mind?”
Theodore was the one who’d come out here to ask that question. It struck him how lucky he was to have a son like Kristian, and he turned to do something he rarely did; he took Kristian in his arms and pressed him close for a minute.
“You’d do well, son, to try to get a boy like you someday. They don’t come much better.”
“Oh, Pa.” Kristian’s arms tightened against Theodore’s back.
Behind them Cub set up a gentle snoring, and from the barn came the dim sound of a concertina starting another song. In another part of the world soldiers fought for peace, but here, where a father and son pressed heart to heart, peace had already spread its blessing.
20
THEODORE AND LINNEA were married on the first Saturday of February in the little country church where Theodore and most of the wedding guests had been baptized. Its pure white spire, like an inverted lily, was set off majestically against the sky’s blue breast. The one-note chime of the bell reverberated for miles on the crisp, clean air. In the graveled patch before the building the hitching rails were crowded, but the curious horses turned their blinders toward the automobiles that arrived with sound unlike any whinny they’d ever heard and left a tracery of scent definitely not resembling any leavings of their kind.
Across the delphinium sky a raucous flock of blackbirds sent forth their incessant noise, while from a field of untaken corn came the tuneless roup of pheasants. A freshly fallen snow lay upon the shorn wheat fields like a fine ermine cape, and the sun poured into the modest prairie church through the row of unadorned arched windows, as if to add an omen of joyful promise to the vows about to the exchanged.
Almost all the people who mattered most to Theodore and Linnea were present in the congregation. The horseless carriages belonged to Superintendent Dahl and Selmer Brandonberg, who along with his wife and daughters had arrived early that morning. All the students from P.S. 28 were there, and all of Theodore’s family except Clara and Trigg — she’d had a baby girl two days earlier and was still confined to bed. Kristian was Theodore’s attendant; Carrie, Linnea’s.
The bride wore a simple dress of soft oyster-white wool, brought by her mother from the city. Its hobble skirt was shaped like an unopened tulip bud, no wider at the hem than a ten-gallon barrel. Her matching wide-brimmed hat was wrapped with a frothy nest of white net that made it seem as if a covey of industrious spiders were artfully spinning homes about her head. On her feet were delicate satin pumps with high heels that brought her eyes to a level with Theodore’s lips and elicited sighs of envy from all of her female students.
To Theodore, Linnea had never looked prettier.
The groom wore a crisp new suit of charcoal woolen worsted, white shirt, black tie, and a fresh haircut that accentuated his one lop ear and made his neck look like a whooping crane’s. His hair was severely slicked back, revealing the remnants of his summer tan that ended an inch above his eyebrows.
To Linnea, Theodore had never looked handsomer.
“Dearly beloved... ”
Standing before Reverend Severt, the groom was stiff, the bride eager. Speaking their vows, he was sober, she smiling. Bestowing the gold ring, his fingers shook while hers remained steady. When they were pronounced man and wife Theodore emitted a shaky sigh while Linnea beamed. When Reverend Severt said, “You may kiss the bride,” he blushed and she licked her lips.
His kiss was brief and self-conscious, with their wedding guests looking on. He leaned from the waist, making certain to touch nothing but her lips while she rested a hand on his sleeve and lifted her face to him as naturally as a sunflower lifts its petals to the sun. Her eyelids drifted closed but his remained open.
In the carriage on the way to the schoolhouse, with her father’s and Superintendent Dahl’s automobiles spluttering along behind them, he sat stiff as an oak bole while she contentedly pressed her breast and cheek against his arm.
At the schoolhouse, throughout a dinner provided by all the church women, he was stiff and formal while conversing with her parents, acting as if he were scared to death to touch their daughter in front of them. When the dancing started he waltzed mechanically with Linnea, making certain their bodies stayed a respectable distance apart.
The most romantic thing he said all day was when Selmer and Judith congratulated them. “I’ll take very good care of her. You don’t have to worry about that, sir.”
But at the dubious expression on her father’s face and the crestfallen one on her mother’s, Linnea could see they were not reassured.
She herself was rather amused by Theodore’s uncharacteristic nervousness. There were times when she looked up and caught him studying her across the room, and to her delight, he’d be the one to blush. She watched him drinking beer and was fully aware of his taking care not to drink too much. And when she danced with Lars, or Ulmer, or John, she knew his eyes followed admiringly. But he was careful not to get caught at it.
Now they stood in the dusk of late afternoon with her father’s car chugging off down the road and the new snow shimmering in the brilliant glow of a tangerine sunset. From inside the school building it sounded as if the fun were just beginning. Theodore buried his hands in his pockets as he looked at his wife. “Well... ” He cleared his throat and glanced at the building. “Should we go back in?”
The last thing in the world she wanted to do was go back in to mingle and dance like a pair of wooden Indians. They were husband and wife now. She wanted them to be alone... and close.
“For how long?”
“Well... I mean, do you want to dance?”
“Not really, Theodore. Do you?” she inquired, gazing up fetchingly.
“I... well... ” He shrugged, glanced at the schoolhouse door again, tugged out his watch, and snapped it open. “It’s only a little after five,” he noted nervously, then put the watch away.
Her eyes followed as it flashed in the waning daylight and disappeared inside the pocket of a tapered vest that had captivated her all day long, clinging to his ribs and pointing to his stomach.
“And people would think it was strange if we left at such an odd time of the day?”
Her bold conjecture corrupted his calm. He swallowed hard and stared at her, wondering exactly what people would say if they left now.
“Wouldn’t they?” he choked out.
Poor Teddy, suffering with buck fever on his wedding night. She could see she’d have to be the one to get things started.
“We could tell them we’re going to stop by Clara and Trigg’s, like we promised.”
“But we already did that on the way to the church.”
She stepped close and rested a hand on his breast. “I want to go home, Teddy,” she requested softly.
“Oh, well then, of course. If you’re tired, we’ll leave right away.”
“I’m not tired. I just want to go home. Don’t you want to?”
At her request Theodore’s skin grew damp in selective spots. Lord, where did she get the calm? His stomach felt as if it held a hundred fists that clenched tighter every time he thought about the night ahead.
“Well, I... yes.” He worked a finger inside his celluloid collar and stretched his neck. “It would feel good to get this thing off.”
She raised up on tiptoe, balanced eight fingertips against his chest, and kissed him lightly. “Then let’s go,” she whispered. She heard the sharp hiss of indrawn breath as his palms dropped over her upper arms. He cast a cautious glance at the schoolhouse door and dropped a light kiss on her forehead.
“We’ll have to say our good-byes.”
“Let’s say them then.”
He turned her by an elbow and they moved around a horse and buggy and up the steps.
Kristian was having a wonderful time. He’d had a couple of beers, and danced with all the girls. It was plain as the pug nose on Carrie Brandonberg’s face that she liked him. A lot. But every time he danced with her, Patricia Lommen’s eyes followed every move they made. A song ended and he sought her out, teasing, “Next one’s yours, Patricia, if you want it.”
“Think you’re special, don’t you, Westgaard? Like you’re the only boy in the place I’d care to waltz with.”
“Well, ain’t I?”
“Hmph!” She turned her nose in the air and tried to whip away, but he swung her into his arms without asking permission
, and in seconds they were cozying up in a waltz. The longer they danced, the closer they got. Her breasts brushed his suit coat and one thing led to another, and somehow, by some magic, she was pressed against him. He thought nothing had ever felt so good in his entire life.
“You sure smell good, Patricia,” he said against her ear.
“I borrowed my mother’s violet water.”
Her cheek rested on his jaw and the warmth of their skins seemed to mingle.
“Well, I sure like it.”
“Smells like you got into your pa’s bay rum, too.”
They backed up and looked into each other’s eyes and laughed and laughed. And both fell silent at once. And felt a wondrous tug in their vitals, and moved close again, learning what it feels like when two bodies brush.
When the song ended he held her hand. His heart slammed with the uncertainty of all first times. “It’s kinda warm in here. Want to go cool off in the cloakroom for a while?”
She nodded and led the way. They had the chilly room to themselves, but moved to a far corner. From behind, he watched as she fluffed the hair up off her neck.
“Hoo! It was warm in there.”
“You might get chilled. You want me to get your coat?”
She swung to face him. “No. This feels good.”
“Hey, you’re a good dancer, you know that?”
“Not as good as you, though.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not, but I have better grammar. At least I don’t say ain’t.”
“I don’t say ain’t anymore.”
“You just did. When I was teasing you about being the only boy in the place I wanted to waltz with.”
“I did?”
They laughed and fell silent, trying to think of something else to say.
“Last time we were in the cloakroom alone you gave me the scarf you made for me for Christmas. I felt bad cause I didn’t have anything to give you back.”
She shrugged and toyed with the sleeve of somebody’s jacket hanging beside them. “I didn’t want anything back.”
She had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen, and when she looked away shyly, as she was doing now, he wanted to raise her chin and say, “Don’t look away from me.” But he was scared to death to touch her.