“I wouldn’t go . . . that far. Not a cure, dear Jennie. But I am . . . so grateful for these last days. To be aware. To hold Baby Winifred. To see my children . . . all settled in their lives before leaving mine.”
Jennie didn’t like to hear her talk like this, as though Elizabeth gave up hope.
“I’ll be seeing Lamberson soon.”
Lamberson. Their oldest child who had died before I was even born. “Is it wise to speak of such things?” Jennie said. “Would you like some iced tea?”
“Yes and no.” She smiled. “Come. Sit. I . . . enjoy your company.”
“I can get Josiah for you.”
“No. He will want to stay until the end. I want . . . a few words with you . . . before then.”
Jennie sat, but not before she smoothed Elizabeth’s bed jacket, then took her hand in hers. Such elegant hands. Van snored quietly on the bed, the little spaniel stretched out now the length of Elizabeth’s narrow rib cage. She waited for Elizabeth to gain strength to speak, prayed she would say the right things, do the right things.
I should get Josiah so he can alert the children.
“We’ve been married . . . thirty-six years. Grand years. I’ve never stopped loving him . . . nor has he ever stopped loving me. And he won’t, I don’t believe, unless . . . someone takes him under their wing and helps him see. He still has much to do, much to give. Much to love.”
“He will grieve you deeply.”
“He will. And I . . .” She closed her eyes.
“You’re tired. Why don’t you rest while I get Josiah. He’ll want to be here.”
She opened her eyes. “Not yet. Let me say this. Jennie . . . stay with him. He will want to move to Portland . . . not remain in this house after I’m gone. I don’t want him to sell it right away. He will come back here. He must. This is where . . . his life has been the richest. So when he asks . . . agree to stay with him and help take care of him. Please . . . say you’ll do that.”
She couldn’t imagine he’d need any help from her once Elizabeth passed. He’d never mentioned Portland at all. Most of his business interests were in Salem. His Merinos were here, and he talked of breeding rare Angora goats, something that would occupy his time and perhaps distract him from his grief. The land Elizabeth had donated for the new orphanage was her legacy. He’d want to oversee its construction.
But she didn’t want to deny a deathbed request. “I could continue to work for him, for a time.” Doing what? She could bring Douglas with her. Josiah had raised four boys. He’d know how to help bring Douglas around. “I owe so much to you both. It would be a way to repay the debt.”
“The debt has already been repaid. In so many ways.” She closed her eyes.
Jennie knew the loan was not close to being paid off. Elizabeth’s comments were about the philosophy of the debt, not the practical part of it. Jennie quietly stood up.
“I want you to remain . . . with Josiah until his feet are on the ground again,” she said. “I hope . . . he’ll remarry. He’s a loving man and needs . . . someone to love deeply. Someone who can love him back. Would you stay with him . . . until he finds that person?”
Did she want her to continue nursing Josiah, who didn’t need it? What Elizabeth asked—on her deathbed—was for someone to shepherd him through the grief. Whether he found another to love in the way Elizabeth imagined was out of her control. It was time to support herself and Douglas and begin that arduous journey to bridge the chasm in their lives. And repay the debt the more typical way, by making payments from her earnings. Her life ought not be wrapped up in whether Josiah Parrish found someone to love.
But this was a deathbed request.
“I will stay for as long as is necessary,” Jennie told her.
“That’s not exactly . . . the commitment I hoped for.” She opened her eyes and grinned this time, and a flush of color rose to her face, and for a moment she was young again, the wrinkles faded into smooth. “But it will do. I only ask that you don’t . . . settle for the first time he says you may depart. Offer to stay a little longer. When he says it the second time . . . then, yes, you may leave. Promise me?”
“I promise.” How will she ever know?
“And don’t think I won’t know . . . if you renege.” She shook a finger at Jennie, who laughed out loud. Elizabeth smiled. Jennie wished she’d known her longer.
“Worse . . . is that you will know . . . if you fail to keep that commitment. I know you, Jennie Lichtenthaler Pickett. And not keeping a promise you’ve made—even one to yourself—is a worse torture . . . for you than losing a friend.”
“No.” Jennie patted her hand and suppressed a sob. “There’s nothing worse than losing a good friend.”
Elizabeth’s health declined. The family gathered. Henrietta sang sweet hymns standing at the foot of the bed. Samuel, their middle son, came in his Portland police uniform and knelt at his mother’s bedside, whispering prayers. Two old Indian women sat outside in the hall, keening a high-pitched strangely soothing tone. A single drummer beat out a rhythm that made Jennie think of ancestors witnessing this woman’s life. Josiah welcomed their presence, nodding, offering them food and drink for the vigil.
“She is beloved. The Paiute called her White Dove when I agented at the Malheur reservation,” Josiah said when Jennie commented on the Indian women with their calico headscarves, shawls, and faces lined with age. His blue eyes looked far away to another time, a shared memory that only he and Elizabeth had. How the Indians knew of Elizabeth’s dying Jennie didn’t know. But they honored her and Josiah with their presence.
Baby Winifred slept in a cradle brought into Elizabeth’s room, the youngest of the clan there with the oldest. Jennie burned a candle laced with lavender, the scent sweet comfort as they listened to Elizabeth’s labored breathing. Jennie kept soothing facecloths as cool as August allowed, replenishing them as needed, moving in and out of the room, hoping to be as silent as a shadow.
“It’s not all that different from a birthing, is it?” Annie said. She rocked the cradle as she sat farther back than the Parrish siblings and Josiah, Josiah honoring Indian tradition that a newborn not be too close to one dying, lest the deceased seek out the fragile soul of the young one to go with them.
“The waiting, watching, loving,” Jennie agreed. She remembered Ariyah’s birth and death, within minutes of each other. To ask to love and grieve at the same moment can only be accomplished with the strength of God’s cradling. Charles might have drawn hope from that moment too, if he’d been present. But he hadn’t been. It had been one of many losses liquor had begun.
“Would you like a sassafras?” Jennie had served everyone who wished it, and now she approached Josiah, who chewed his lower lip.
He shook his head. He’d been at Elizabeth’s bedside for a full day and night, holding her hand. He rubbed his nose now and then with his handkerchief. Jennie could tell he prayed.
And when the moment came, when Elizabeth left this life behind, he laid his head down on the bedsheets and he wept.
19
Winnowing
Elizabeth Winn Parrish died August 30, 1869. Peacefully, with her husband and children beside her.
The family and close friends had returned to the Parrish house after the funeral attended by hundreds, and now most had spoken their comforting words to Josiah and the children and left. Jennie tidied up the parlor, taking dishes and dainty teacups to the kitchen where she found Chen sniffling. She opened her arms and he bowed, took her hands, and let her offer comfort. She returned to brush crumbs into the silver pan. Josiah had retired and she could hear a baby crying in the upstairs bedroom.
“I know my mother asked that you remain, at least for a time, to help my father.” Charles Winn surprised her in the parlor.
“She did.”
“I’ve talked it over with my father and he says he doesn’t think he needs anyone tending him.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t. I agreed only as a courtesy to your
mother, to ease her last days as she worries about your father. She loves him very much.”
“Loved him,” he corrected.
“And still does. As does your father still love her.”
Charles Winn nodded. He had curly brown hair, like his father’s. “It wouldn’t be seemly to have you remain.”
That thought had never occurred to Jennie. Nor did she think Josiah Parrish would care what other people might think. She had been his wife’s nurse, a housekeeper of sorts, nothing more.
“Whatever your father wishes.”
“It’s what we wish.”
The Parrishes had been there for her and her family in ways she could never have imagined. She was indebted to them and always would be. “I can leave in the morning.”
Am I doing the right thing? After all, she’d promised Elizabeth to wait for two occasions of being told she wasn’t needed before accepting Josiah’s request that she leave. But Charles Winn was adamant—he was likely the executor of his mother’s estate as well—and neither he nor his father needed any challenge from a nurse.
In the morning she served breakfast for the Parrish clan. “We’ll see you again, won’t we?” Henrietta asked. “You’re practically a part of the family.”
“The sister we never had,” Samuel offered. He poured honey on his johnnycake. She hadn’t had much time with the police-officer-Parrish and she held him at a caution, knowing he was involved in work that might put him in contact with her now former husband while arresting drunks on the streets of Portland. Samuel was always very kind to her. It was a Parrish trait, though Charles Winn modeled directness more than mediation.
“I’m sure we’ll have occasion to encounter each other.” She filled coffee cups. “My son and I will go to the fair. I have to see how Josiah’s Merinos show.”
“It might be wise to refer to Father as Reverend Parrish now,” Charles Winn corrected.
Norman, his older brother, frowned.
“Oh. Of course. I’ll bring more huckleberry jam.” Jennie slipped into the kitchen to cauterize the wound sliced by Charles’s sharp words. He was right. Things were different. Elizabeth had chinked them all together with her glue of love and acceptance. Now she was gone, so cool winds could blow through space between the logs of this once-solid shelter.
When she returned, Josiah—Mr. Parrish—sat at the head of the table. Jennie asked if he’d like waffles or pancakes and he shook his head. “Just coffee if you please, Jennie. Just coffee.”
The table remained silent for a moment or two, and she wondered if his children were thinking he ought to call her Mrs. Pickett now too, or if it was his sallow look and his turning down food that brought them all to silence.
“Jennie.” Mr. Parrish cleared his throat. “I know that Charles Winn discussed your status here.”
“I’m packed. After breakfast I’ll have the livery pick up my trunk.”
“I’ve been thinking. Maybe it would be good for you to remain. I’ll need to go through Elizabeth’s things and—”
“The girls can assist with that, Father.” Charles Winn spoke between bites of waffle.
“We can come back in October and do that while we attend the Harvest fair. Would that work, Father Parrish?” Henrietta made the offer. She always sounded as though she had a cold.
“I appreciate that, Daughter. And last night I thought I’d like to be left alone, close up the house, sell it, move to Portland.”
Elizabeth knows him so well.
“But I’ve decided to go through Elizabeth’s things, set aside certain treasures for each of you. I’ve already given several of her shawls to our Indian singers. I could still smell her perfume—” His voice caught. He blinked and looked down at his hands.
“Too soon to go through her things,” Charles Winn said. “Go to Portland. We’ll help in October.”
“The Indians, they give away the precious things of the deceased.” Josiah paused. “So her spirit can leave and not be held back by the people who love her and don’t want her to go. No. I think I shouldn’t wait.” He looked at Jennie then. “What do you think of that, Jennie?”
“Me? I . . .” It wasn’t her place to comment, but her healer heart spoke to him, even though she felt uncomfortable discussing this great loss with his family staring at her. She knew that people “telling” you what to do in time of sorrow only seemed to heighten the powerlessness that death brings. She put the huckleberry jam down and stood without the protection of something in her hands, folded now over her pinafore. She struggled for the right words, spoke a silent prayer. “Grief has many siblings,” she said. “It’s good to honor all of them—the sadness, emptiness, anger sometimes, a wish to do something of merit on behalf of the person. I don’t think it’s too soon nor too long to do those things that help us memorialize a life.”
“Spoken like a preacher,” Samuel mused.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no. What you said was perfect.” Josiah looked around the table. “I’m asking Jennie to stay to assist me. Elizabeth loved her. She can help divide her jewelry, precious things, without family rancor—” He anticipated the objections, held up his palm. “Oh, I know that can happen in the best of families. Besides, you have your lives to return to, and if Jennie is willing to delay the return to hers for a few weeks, then I’ll close up the house and head to Portland after we’ve sorted things here. Yes, I think that’s best. Don’t you, Van?”
The spaniel lay with his nose on his paws near the sideboard, his thick ears that dragged the floor jiggled. He raised his head to his name.
There didn’t seem to be room for disagreement, or perhaps his children respected their father’s steps on his mournful journey.
“Are you agreeable, Jennie? I’m not sure I want to try this without you.”
“As you wish, Mr. Parrish.” She curtsied. “I’ll unpack my things after breakfast.”
“Mr. Parrish? Who would that be?” He looked around the room. Charles Winn’s eyes moved toward the coffee urn, and he rose to refill his cup, stepping over Van. “Josiah.” He spoke to them all. “I’ve always been Josiah to my friends.”
Later, Charles Winn stopped her in the upstairs hall as the livery men carried down the family’s trunks. “I’m still wary of your being here, but I do understand that my father has asked for your help. And it does give you a way to continue to pay off your debt. Which, if anyone asks about the ‘arrangement’ here is what I’ll say. That you continue to work to meet your and your former husband’s obligations.” Almost to himself, he added, “Yes, that’s the story I’ll tell.”
They’d been winnowing, as he called it, for several days now, spending a few hours in the morning and a few more in the afternoon. At dusk he walked out among his sheep, and Jennie read, often removing her glasses to think until the light failed when the clock struck nine chimes. They took breakfast together and other meals that Chen served them, the cook often being asked to join them at the table. Josiah told her stories. But he also asked for hers.
Early one day, he held a fine wool cape of Elizabeth’s with a fox collar, and she told him about her fox and the joy she’d had in sharing the inventiveness of that animal with Douglas.
“Plucked wool from the willows, did he? They are clever, those foxes.”
“I was impressed that he took care of his problems all by himself.”
Josiah frowned. “Perhaps. But he had the help of the sheep leaving wool, the willows, and the river. So he wasn’t totally independent.”
That hadn’t occurred to her. There were always gifts from others if one took the time to look.
Jennie enjoyed the winnowing, the rhythm of sorting and storytelling not unlike the spinning wheel’s contentment.
“And what’s the story of this?” Jennie held up a gold ring with an eagle imprinted onto it.
“Let’s see.” Josiah reached for it, showed her that the eagle lifted, revealing a tiny container. “It’s English and supposedly salts went th
ere, for when women fainted from their tight corsets, forgive the liberty of my language.”
Jennie laughed. “‘Corset’ is hardly a curse. Well, possibly.” He laughed then. “But what’s the story of Elizabeth having it?”
“You know, I can’t remember. She must have liked it. It’s in her ‘precious box.’”
“I guess you could write a note about the ring, that it was in with her treasures.” Jennie still held the jewel in her hand.
“It’ll come to me.” He leaned back in the Windsor chair, hands restful on his thighs. “Elizabeth often picked things up that I never remember her ever wearing. She liked the story, I think. This ring”—he nodded—“I suspect was one of those. Why do women even wear such things as whale bone corsets, so tight they faint and need smelling salts to revive them?”
“I suspect if you ever broke a rib, being trussed into a good corset could prove a comfort.”
“Oh, ho, I like that idea. An everyday solution to a problem. Very inventive.” He tapped his temple. “You’ve a good mind, Jennie Pickett.”
She blushed. A man and a woman were having a conversation about women’s underthings without the least bit of embarrassment—until he complimented her on her thinking.
“Not to mention the effect on the poor whales who gave their lives for the stays,” she added.
“Yes!” He clapped his hands. “It takes courage to defy the fashion patrollers. Elizabeth did just that. Let’s write that story down, about Elizabeth choosing the ring as a reminder to not suffer corsets—unless there’s a broken rib in the story. You know, well, of course you know, she rarely wore them, even when she was quite well. I think it might have been as a tribute to the whales. We watched for them when we lived in Clatsop. She loved the coast.” He reached for the ring, his hands touching Jennie’s for just a moment.
She wrote his words down in her slow and steady pace, her cursive like a child’s, not as smooth nor looped as Josiah’s. He didn’t seem to mind. He watched, deep in thought. “Have you been to the coast, Jennie?”