A spring rain surprised us and patted against the windowpanes. Matilda’s death, and her baby’s, had left us subdued as we sewed. We’d brought Matilda’s Sunflower quilt back with us and were reinforcing the hex wheel pattern, as though doing so would make the quilt stronger and last longer for her surviving child.
“When I knew the rest of you were praying, I guess it did help some,” Christine said. “I didn’t feel so alone.”
“It’s what I like about all of us living here together,” Kitty said.
“We don’t all live here,” Martha Miller pointed out.
“I know that,” Kitty defended. “But we all live in this place together, this Aurora, and that has the same…I don’t know, comfort, I guess. People know one another and care about one another, even if there are skirmishes now and then. There always are in families.”
“I’ve wondered if I should have…meddled,” I said. “Getting them married and all.” I’m not sure why I confessed such a thing. But saying it out loud gave relief. I took in a deep breath. Perhaps my wayward ways could be curtailed by confession now and then.
“My husband has good reasons not to permit marriages,” Louisa said. She held her needle up in the air, making her point. “There is pain within those vows. You ought to remember that, Emma.”
“Yet if we avoid making a commitment to someone else, hoping to avoid pain, that doesn’t work, either,” Almira said. “Separation is just another sort of pain.”
“I suppose there are wounds outside of marriage too,” Louisa said. “But listening to my husband when he refuses permission to marry can prevent a good share of such discomfort.”
“Who’s to say that I might not have had even more pain in my life if I hadn’t married Christian? We had more than five years together, and they were good years.”
“Apparently not enough to last a lifetime,” Louisa said. “You married again.”
“Even the apostle Paul said it was better to marry than to burn,” Kitty said. She pooched her lower lip out the way Kate sometimes did. “You’d think God would send someone my way, so I wouldn’t burn up.”
“I remember reading Goethe, our old German poet,” Martha said. “‘Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.’” I didn’t know she read the classics. “You made a way for Jacob and Matilda. I suspect that for a time, they soared.”
“Thank you for that, Martha.” My words came out as a whisper.
“We all pushed it along,” Kitty said. “And Matilda was happy for it. You helped give her that happiness. And baby Matilda’s life testifies to their love. And who knows? Jacob may marry again one day since the first time was a joy for him.” She looked up at the rain coming against the window. “Maybe I’ll bake a special torte for him. I’ll take it out there myself, and I’ll just hearken to him.”
“Goethe also said that ‘a useless life is an early death,’” Martha continued. “Matilda’s life was far from useless.”
We talked more about who was to say whether Matilda’s few short years of happiness with Jacob were enough to outweigh her youthful death. My girls listened intently, their eyes moving back and forth between the speakers, but staying silent as though they understood the importance of this discussion. Po yawned in the corner near the fireplace, got up, turned around three times, and plopped back down.
Christine said, “She had a loving husband, months of knowing she would give birth to twins. She had a family caring for her. She had a beautiful home. She had us. She gave away gifts to friends. She laughed often. She quilted with such truth and beauty. And she had her faith. One of her babies survived and is being loved by many. I’m not sure there is more to a full life than that, even if she’d lived to be one hundred.”
We all nodded, hearkening together.
Private conversations were difficult to have at my home.
“Christine,” I said when she’d returned from work at the Keil house. She pulled her straw hat off, set it on the table beside the door. “I wonder if you’d care to take a walk with me.” I was tired from working at the new hotel myself and then coming home to help Almira with the wash. Kitty and Christine had said they’d do the ironing tomorrow. It had grown hot in the dip where our village settled, but at least near the river we had a breeze in the evening, and often it pushed away the mosquitoes and other insects too. Mount Hood loomed white and lustrous in the distance. Christine put her hat back on, and I locked my arm in hers as we walked down the steps side by side. “Have I done something wrong?” she said.
“No. But it’s nearly your time and—”
“You’re wondering what will happen,” she said. We’d found the path, but it was now unmarked, except for our own worn footsteps from the season before. The pine cones and branches the girls lined the paths with had been brushed away by winds and animals, including Po. We walked around the path in silence for a while, following the footsteps of others. Po sniffed at twigs and lifted his head from time to time to assure himself that we stayed close.
I’d told Christine that praying for ourselves as we walked toward the center and praying for others on the way out was a good practice. It’s what I did now, hearing only the crunch of our feet on the pebbles and last year’s leaves. Crows called to us. When we made it back out, I could smell the cooking fires from homes near my house. Bacon and bean and sausage scents drifted in the air.
“So let’s discuss this plan. You’re going to leave us and go to Portland?” She nodded. “I wonder when you thought to do that, or how you planned to get there.”
She shrugged her now broad shoulders, picked up a long stem of grass, and chewed on it. My father often did that as he thought. “I’ll catch a ride with someone. Maybe take the stage?” She sounded tentative.
“Before the baby arrives or after?”
“Oh, before.”
“So you have somewhere to stay, to deliver the baby once you reach Portland?”
“No. But I can find someone, someplace. I did last time.”
“Christine, I want to say this kindly, but I believe you’re in this situation because you really didn’t think things through the last time. And now you’re avoiding thinking of things again.”
“I’m not avoiding it, exactly,” she said.
“Planning ahead does remind us of times when we didn’t do it before,” I said. “I know about that. But remember those little foxes that can spoil the fruit? Well, putting off important things can spoil the vineyard too.”
Christine raised her voice. “Matilda and Jacob planned a life, and see what happened? Maybe we’re meant to float along and let fate take us where it will, like a leaf in the stream.”
“Christine, waiting for things to occur—”
“He didn’t overcome me. I was willing,” she blurted out. “That’s what I feel so terrible about. It means I’ll probably do it again. And maybe again, because I don’t know how to judge what’s genuine affection or not. I don’t know how to say no to something I should.”
“You said he wasn’t the marrying kind. What made you say that?”
I hoped her answer wouldn’t be, “Because he’s already married.”
“He likes his ale, and he goes to Portland at times, and he says he plays cards there. He isn’t a musician. He doesn’t have anything to really fill his time after he works, except to be flirtatious, to find willing girls, I guess. A man serious about finding a wife wouldn’t do that. Jacob Stauffer never did those things. What Matilda said about him, why she liked him, that’s what I’d like in a husband one day too, though after this, who would ever marry me?”
“Any number of good men might marry you. But you might never find a husband, Christine, and it would have not a thing to do with your worthiness for one. A lot of women don’t marry and not only because they’re a part of a colony where the leader frowns on weddings. After wars, when so many men die, there often aren’t enough men available to marry every willing woman. Some women prefer alone time and not having to ask permis
sion or explain.” These were good things I found about not living with Jack, especially that not-seeking-permission part.
“I’ll meet someone in Portland,” she said. “Or maybe I’ll curl up after the baby comes and…” She shrugged.
“You’ve been walking on a path that takes you to the same place, all the while telling yourself you aren’t there. When you can trust yourself to act in your best interest, Christine, then you’ll have a full life, even if you never marry.”
“Are we supposed to think so much about ourselves? Isn’t that self-centered? Our mother often mentioned that.”
“Scripture says to love our neighbor as ourselves. We can best care for others if we truly care about ourselves. A healthy person has more to give than one who thinks of curling up and…disappearing.”
“What do you think I should do?” she said.
“I’m not sure, but leaving it to chance isn’t wise. Sometimes we have to lean on friends and trust them for the next step.”
“I worry about Almira,” Christine said after we’d walked in silence. I assumed that Christine had had enough of “planning” for one day.
“You know the German poet Martha mentioned, Goethe?” She nodded her head. “He also wrote that when we sweep in front of our own doors, then the whole world will be clean. Don’t you worry about Almira. You have just one door to worry about, but how well you sweep in front of it will help the rest of this world get tended to as well.”
I stopped at the pharmacy to talk to Martin about Christian celebrating his birthday with us at the end of the month. The only birthdays the colony really celebrated were the Keils’, in March. Most of us didn’t make any fuss over our children’s birthdays or our own, but even after Christian turned nine, I still wanted a little celebration for him. And I wanted something more for my headaches too. The headaches had increased after Matilda’s death, and my own cycle of living made a change in flow. I knew I couldn’t be with child but wondered whether I wasn’t too young for such bodily changes so early. Or maybe they weren’t early. Maybe this was the sign that my own body was slowing down. What would be left for me to do, once my girls were raised? Would I find a life as Helena had, at times strident and other times serene, just being in service? Whatever might have passed between Helena and Wilhelm Keil had apparently ceased, for I saw no evidence of special treatment or even the distant looks of longing that I’d once thought I’d seen. Maybe my skills of observation were fading along with my body, my flow being replaced by headaches, pinched eyes, and an occasional cough.
Andy was there. His back was to me, and he concentrated so intensely on his work that I startled him when I spoke from across the counter. He dropped the mortar he’d been holding. I apologized; he cleaned up what had been spilled and then asked how he could help me. I’m merely a customer to him. Where is that tenderness I thought we were finding?
“I need to speak to Martin, about headache medicine,” I said. “I wanted to ask him, too, if he had anything for weeping eyes. Your aunt Johanna has that trouble.”
“Martin sent a poultice to her,” he said.
“Did he? Well, that was thoughtful. Did she come by?”
“Often. But I noticed it, too, when I visit.”
“Well, that’s good, then.” We stood awkwardly, my head throbbing, and a strange ache settled in my heart. “I never see the family unless I go there,” I said. “They never visit me. I run into them at the Park House sometimes. Well, it’s good she gets out, then.”
“He has powders for Aunt Lou too. Aunt Louisa, I mean. She prefers to be called Louisa, did you know that?” I hadn’t. “I’ll tell him you were here.”
I almost raised the question of his coming to our home for my little party for Christian, but another customer walked in, nodded to me, and asked Andy if he had something for an aching tooth.
“A hops pack works well,” I said.
Andy frowned. I’d intruded. This was his place, not mine.
“It’ll have to be pulled,” Andy told him, as he looked in the man’s mouth. “Martin told you that before.”
The man looked sheepish but nodded his head. “Ja, I dread that. When should I come back, then, Andrew? May as well get it over with. I can’t go seranatin’ with a bad tooth, now, can I?”
My son set up an appointment for him, and I saw in the interaction a strong young man, capable of garnering confidence from his elders, though he had few years and much yet to learn. But it saddened me that he didn’t smile at the man whose tooth hurt him so; it saddened me that he was growing older and would soon have no need for a mother’s influence, even from a distance. And I grieved a bit that he didn’t call me Mother when he said good-bye.
I found Christian at the Ehlen house. Mr. Ehlen and his daughters cooked good meals, Christian told me. He looked torn when I asked him if he’d like to come to dinner, a late birthday celebration at the end of the month. “We was going to go up into the mountains and do some fishing,” he said. I let his grammar error go, and he continued, “It’ll be a good time of year, won’t it, Mr. Ehlen?” The older man nodded. “Can we do it some other time, Mama?”
“Of course,” I said. “You can all come, Mr. Ehlen, if you’d like.”
Everyone nodded agreement, but they didn’t offer up a date.
I walked back slowly toward my house. Keil or the committee had ordered signs made for the streets, and one day we’d have addresses like when we lived in Bethel. But for now if anyone came looking for another, they’d simply knock on any door and be directed.
I wasn’t ready to go home yet. My head hurt, but the sun felt good on my face, so I kept walking. My boys had their own lives. Soon my girls, too, would find pursuits with friends. They’d marry and be gone, and how would I fill my time, then? Stitch clothes. Put up preserves. Cook and bake. Karl said there were women hoping to change laws, so they could vote and keep their own earnings. Maybe my persuasive talents could be applied to such work. Making a meaningful life as a single woman was a challenge for more people than Christine or Kitty or Almira. It was my challenge too, even though I wasn’t a single woman.
I walked past the Park House. The late afternoon shadows were like ripples of changing light across the green. It reminded me of the material Karl had purchased for me, the one that changed colors as you lifted it to the sunlight. I walked the paths for a time, then came through the trees to stand before the church. It was open and I went inside. Christine sat there. I didn’t make a sound, but I wondered if perhaps the answer to her need was with me.
“There’s something I want to tell you all,” Christine began.
The four of us remained in the parlor: Kitty, Almira, Christine, and me. I’d not spoken to her that day in the church. Instead I’d gone back through the paths at the Park House and spent that evening with my aching head out beneath the stars, wrapped in my Running Squares quilt. The longer I stayed there, the better I felt about telling Christine that I’d take her child and raise it as my own. It would be my renewal.
I knew about babies. What could anyone do to me if I suddenly appeared with a child in my arms? No one would ever have to know where the child came from, and I could simply say that I was acting on the Diamond Rule, making another’s life better than my own.
So when Christine spoke, I thought she would tell the others of her dilemma, and I could offer my solution.
“Almira is going to take my baby,” Christine said instead.
“What baby?” Kitty asked.
“The one I’m going to have sometime soon. It’s a very long story,” she said, silencing questions already forming on Kitty’s tongue. “She’s made plans to return to the Clatsop Plains to be closer to her children. I’ll go with her.”
“You have?” I turned to Almira.
She looked back serenely.
“But won’t people wonder where you got this child?” Kitty asked. “Won’t they say despicable things about you, Almira, arriving as a divorced woman, with a baby?”
&n
bsp; “They might,” Almira said. “But I’m stronger now because of my time here. And this baby needs a good home that I can provide with my son and his wife. They’ve invited me to return to them, since I finally wrote and told them where I’d been. It will be a good thing for me to do, to care for their children and for this one.”
“I’ll have the baby there, Emma. At Almira’s children’s home. No one here will need to know, if everything goes all right.”
“Your first child, it could be difficult,” Kitty said. “Mama was a midwife for first-time mothers, and she said it was always a surprise what might happen.”
“Don’t you think it’s a good idea, Emma?” Christine asked me directly now. “I planned it out, just like you said I should. I worked out the details with Almira.”
“Yes. Of course. I thought you’d…stay here. Have the baby here. I’ll be sorry to see you and Almira both leave.”
“There’ll be someone else to take my place,” Almira said. “I couldn’t be moving on if you hadn’t rescued me.”
“Wagners do that,” Kitty said. She looked at Christine. “But you don’t even look like you’ll soon have a baby.”
“You don’t have to see to believe.”
“Is the father someone we know?” Kitty asked.
“It’s better if I don’t say. Almira will be the baby’s mother, and she can make up whatever story she wants.”
“Well, I am flummoxed,” Kitty said. She put the yardage she’d been stitching in a heap on her lap. “So much going on, and I didn’t even know it. You knew, Emma?”
“I knew that Christine worked out a problem. I didn’t know that she’d found so…agreeable a solution.”
“It’s just the beginning,” Christine said. “I’ve been thinking of what you said, Emma. I’ve thought of sweeping in front of my own door and keeping it clean.”