A Mending at the Edge: A Novel (Change And Cherish)

  “I only wish suffering weren’t so much a part of living,” I sighed. “Surely that’s not a desire for life.”

  “That’s what family is for,” Karl told me.

  “Family is for suffering?” I asked. “Well, that explains a few things.”

  “Nein, nein.” He laughed. “Family helps us through our suffering.”

  I considered that, then replied, “I’m not sure my family understands that’s part of their task. I’d hoped that with them here, my life would be easier. But instead…”

  He whittled as we spoke, though I noticed he had a Shakespeare book open on his table. Next to it lay a soft journal called The Atlantic Monthly. He never said I’d interrupted his reading, but then, he wouldn’t.

  “Each day events that trouble you can draw you closer to Providence, Emma.” Karl always came back to Providence’s place, never passing judgment, though, when I failed to recognize it on my own. “Can you see God weaving through your confusion?”

  It was a difficult question for me to answer. He’d asked me that before, when Jack arrived and then was sent away. I did think I’d seen protection, with friends who had reached out to me, with my having the courage to risk leaving Willapa to come here. There my husband’s family had stepped away from me, drawn a veil over what they didn’t want to see. Here the colony had kept us from Jack’s harm. The Aurora community had allowed me back, even opened their hearts to me, in that reticent German way of touching with a nodded head more than embracing arms.

  “God is there, Emma, present at the end of a thread, pulling us toward Him. And if we ask ourselves in every situation how He is working in that experience or even our worry or disappointment, then we can feel that tug on the thread.”

  “I suppose I’ll know that it’s not me, hung up on a twisted twine that will simply break if I pull back too hard?” I said and smiled.

  “Ja. You’ll know. If you let yourself.”

  “There’s grace in that thread, I suppose.”

  He handed me a wooden doll he’d carved for Ida, then bent to slurp his soup. “Gut,” he said. “Just the right amount of pepper too.”

  I left, strangely reassured. Only later did I remember I hadn’t asked him what it might mean that my parents had fostered an adult child. I probably couldn’t have said it without petulance pouting from my tongue. Maybe God was in my forgetting.

  The suffering of the Keil children did eventually end; but for those who cared about them, our suffering did not. Nineteen-year-old Elias Keil died first, followed by Louisa. She was eighteen, close to the age of Kitty. Amelia suffered on, but Gloriunda died the same day as Louisa, just short of her sixteenth birthday. And then Aurora, amiable, adorable, admirable Aurora, passed away on December 14. Aurora, the dawn, was thirteen.

  Kate was inconsolable. She was nearly six now and old enough to feel the pain of loss, especially of her friend Aurora.

  “She’s sleeping, Mama. Wake her up.” Kate hiccupped from all her crying. We stood at the doorway of the Keils’ large room, on the second floor above his workroom. I had my hand on her slender shoulder, keeping her from entering. Louisa knelt at Aurora’s bedside, still as a blue heron. That bird quilt Aurora had stitched now lay across her, the reds and blues splashing in each block like spring birds against a stormy sky. They moved as through the air across Aurora’s still form. Soon we women would help wash the body of this latest child to die, and wrap her in the loving folds of quilts, and then place her in the ground. My mother and sisters would work at my side. I’d sent them word.

  Though she insisted that Aurora was sleeping, Kate must have known it was more than that. She cried so hard, but still she hoped. I didn’t want Kate worrying about going to sleep or fearing she might not wake up when she went to her mat. “No. She’s not sleeping, Kate. She’s died,” I said.

  “Is it like when the tomato died because we didn’t water it enough?”

  “Something like that, only she didn’t die because of anything you or I or her mama and papa didn’t do.”

  “Is she with Papa?” To this I concurred, grateful that once again I believed in the words I’d spoken to my daughter about when we’d see the Keil children again.

  “What’s heaven like, Mama?” Christian asked me later.

  “We don’t really know,” I said, brushing his blond hair from his forehead. Kate sat up, turned her head to me. Her eyes were swollen. “But let’s imagine that for our beloved Aurora, it’s a place where young girls quilt, all day long, because she loved to stitch, remember?” Kate and Christian both nodded their heads. “And she never has to take any stitches out, and there’s always enough material to make the perfect block and border; always another one to piece together, with each one telling Aurora’s story.”

  “Are there people around?” Kate asked.

  “Chattering like squirrels. Outside a choir is practicing, and Aurora is healthy and well and happy, surrounded by those who love her, who sit and stitch beside her.”

  “When I see a quilt, I’ll think of Aurora,” Kate said.

  “When I see birds, that’s when I’ll think of her,” Christian said. “She liked birds and got mad at me when I brought one down with my sling shot. I didn’t mean to. Well, maybe I did, but she sure got mad.”

  “Remember the good things, Christian. She’d like that.”

  We buried the Keil children in a fresh graveyard on the hillside above the gross Haus. Lucinda had been buried in the Aurora Cemetery, in the dip of the valley, but Keil wanted his children closer to “where the church will one day be.”

  Louisa clasped in her arms the bird quilt Aurora had so beautifully stitched. “She worked so hard on this,” she said. “See here, where she poked her finger. There’s a little bloodstain on the pink bird. I forgot to tell her that it would have come out with her own spittle on it. No one else’s will take blood from wool, only the one who poked herself.” Louisa’s lips trembled. “Here’s where she made a mistake and started over.” She fingered tiny white stitches that formed a V against the madder red block. “So many things I never got to tell her. Or Elias or Gloriunda or Louisa.” She whispered that last name. “Oh, Emma.” Her eyes grew large, and I could see that the reality of her own death became clearer too, with the unnatural outliving of her children. As I held her, the rough wool of Aurora’s quilt brushed against my cheek.

  Brother Keil did not preach his usual sermon about the sins of fathers being passed on to children. He could barely speak at all, his grief so raw, his throat constricted by his tears. Louisa stood beside him in the cold, holding him up as she balanced at his elbow. The cardboard of her black bonnet sagged to hide her face. Twenty-two-year-old Frederick stood on Keil’s other side, while nine-year-old Emanuel huddled against Louisa’s skirts. Amelia still wasn’t completely recovered and remained at home.

  The band played a funeral dirge made all the more morose by the accompaniment of drizzling rain. John Wolfer, still reeling from his own great loss, Karl Ruge, and several other men, including my father, carried forth the scriptures for the day. Adam Schuele stood off to the side. Whatever rift had split him and Keil was still continuing, but he’d put it aside to grieve with his old friend. I looked around. We were not alone in our sorrow. So many in the outside community beyond had died of the pox as well, and I wondered if they had such arms of comfort to surround them.

  Every death brought Christian’s back for me. In mourning him, I’d turned inside, hoping to mend the tears in my heart alone, praying there’d be no more sorrow. But there always is. Loved ones left. Friends departed. I’d have to dare to make new ones. I’d come to see that it was the mark of our character, how we let others be the patch in our lives when we felt the most torn apart. If only I could remember it.

  In the weeks that followed, Brother Keil walked the halls at night, came to his workroom, and puttered there until early morning. His face wore a vacant look, and when people requested aid, he sighed heavily and sent them looking for Martin. He didn??
?t come out often to the blue cabinet near where we slept to select vials or healing potions nor put any new concoction inside. Instead he stayed in the room, surrounded by healing herbs that did little for his soul. I wondered if he blamed the herbs for failing to heal his children, or if he blamed himself. Or God, the way I once had. He never said.

  He discouraged Louisa from entering his workroom, but did allow Helena to come in once or twice. Louisa would look expectantly at Helena, who shook her head sadly when she came out, often carrying a pot of tea that had cooled without his having tasted of it. In the morning, if he did leave his workroom, Keil’s eyes would be rimmed in red. Helena finally coaxed him to join us at the large plank table for a meal one day in January. He ate but failed to brush breadcrumbs from his beard and the frock coat, now stained. Louisa tried to talk him into changing it, “to brush the soil, Husband.” But he resisted, rubbing the frayed edges of the hem. He’d worn that coat when he nursed his children, held their frail bodies to his chest. Perhaps he thought that taking it off would break the bond he still felt with them.

  I remembered wearing Christian’s clothes after he died, and the comfort of that scented cloth.

  Men came to ask Keil about the mill contracts or the purchase of horses or selling a wagon or an order for barrels. They left shaking their heads and talking of his “hollow eyes.” If they had some question about finances or land, they found him disinterested. “Do what you will,” he said, waving them away with his hands.

  Even my father was unable to rouse him. He came out of the office and told my mother it was like “talking to a post.”

  “Maybe you and Adam Schuele together could get him interested,” I said.

  “We’re in his craw, old Adam and me,” my father said.

  While Keil grieved, my father, David Jr., and William spent their time scouring the area for the perfect land to purchase. Somehow my family had means to buy, without the colony’s help. I wasn’t sure how my father had arranged that—he must have sold property back in Bethel or had private contracts we’d never known about—and so far we had yet to be alone so I could ask him. His silence, with his presence so near, was almost worse than when we’d been separated by a thousand miles. At least then I could make up reasons why I hadn’t heard from them: the letter had gotten lost, Lou’s health took much of their time, they were busy helping manage things at Bethel. Once here, I could see that my wish to bridge our differences was not a bridge he wished to cross. I had thought I’d find a time to sit with my father and chip away at the wedge between us, but his physical presence hadn’t opened that door. I’d have to open it myself.

  We did not celebrate Christday that year. No sweets or treats, no band playing songs to make our feet tap. Even the boys’ and girls’ choirs did not practice their singing. The Feast of Epiphany that others in the surrounding community might celebrate in January was a day like any other in Aurora. Our community felt like a backwater—water swirling in one place. Only a flood would wash new water in and remove unwanted debris.

  In the spring, Henry C. Finck decided to plant an orchard at the far edge of the village, up on a point not far from Keil’s house, but on land deeded to the musician rather than the colony. Like my parents, he seemed to have independent funds. He and his children set about planting apple starts he’d purchased from Luelling. He had a dozen varieties, from yellow bellflower to Rhode Island greening and my favorite, rambo. He had plans to sell the apples in California. But every day, he came by to visit Brother Keil, encouraging him with talk of music. He said they ought to order bells for the church that would be built one day. Keil apparently said nothing, and Henry C would come out of the room, and if another man was waiting, they’d talk for a time.

  Henry C and Karl Ruge spoke of education, since they were the only university graduates at the Aurora Colony. Keil had hoped Christopher Wolff would come from Bethel and bring his university expertise, but so far, he hadn’t. They had camaraderie at least, Henry C and Karl. I served them hot coffee with cinnamon buns swathed in butter and envied their discussions, while most of what we women explored as we sewed or sipped steaming black tea was mundane, the merits of yeast over saleratus or the best cork bluing recipe to use.

  Even though Brother Keil and Louisa still had each other, they slipped past each other in the wide halls, sometimes without even nodding their heads in acknowledgment. Once or twice “tailor Keil” entered our sewing room, where we women stitched on quilts or patched and mended. He had a fine eye for design and had always encouraged us to make dresses without such full skirts, so we would not catch our hems on fire at the hearths. He approved our hiking the hems up into our apron waistbands too when we worked. Again, for safety. He sometimes nodded at Louisa’s stitching, and I saw her beam at his notice. Was I ever so needful of recognition from my husband?

  None of us knew what to do to help Brother Keil and, in so doing, comfort Louisa.

  Jonathan had already moved into the Keil and Company Store, which was still being run out of one of the log buildings. He’d begun taking over the bookkeeping. There’d been a bit of a tussle with the existing shopkeeper over Jonathan’s role. Both men had asked for an audience with Keil, who’d said something like, “Jonathan was here before. He knows what to do,” and that had been taken as the proper transition of authority, at least on my brother’s part. Jonathan had opened a ledger page with my father’s name on it and written, Brandy, yds. of hickory, tobacco for Jonathan on the page. My father was taking from the common fund, so he must have planned to contribute to it as well.

  I asked to see my page and saw more debits than entries. Few of the former were mine.

  “Someone has to do something,” Helena said one afternoon. We sat in the Keils’ room, where Helena and Louisa spun yarn. My mother and sisters knitted, and even my foster sister, Christine, sat there. Her hands clicked needles as fast as my sister Johanna’s. I noticed Johanna’s kind smile and how good she was with Lou, quick to respond when my sister had one of her quaking episodes. I could see that Johanna’d been good help to my mother.

  I supervised Kate with a sampler and mended Andy’s pants. He’d torn them when he and Christian had climbed down the banks of the Pudding to watch logs float by. When I chastised him about the river, he told me they looked for crawfish to serve at the hotel so it wasn’t all play. I’d warned them to avoid the rivers, but the Finck boy, with his new ideas and adventurous ways, had set my sons to doing risky things, even when he wasn’t with them. He hadn’t grown up around Keil and didn’t hold the same reverence for him that most young people in Aurora did. Water had always been a fright for me, one that increased after Christian’s drowning, but I wasn’t sure the boys listened.

  Kate raised her sampler to me, and I leaned over to guide her little hands. Ida played with a wooden duck Martin had carved for her. At least today my boys were with Martin, at a new building finally going up. Martin had suggested a pharmacy be built, more central to the colony, one that he and Brother Keil could stock and distribute from—if Brother Keil ever showed any interest again. Martin and Helena, brother and sister, had argued in their quiet way, as Helena insisted that the church should be next.

  Earlier, when I’d gone to the site to watch the latest house going up, I noticed Frederick Keil there, sweat dripping from his brow. He grieved the deaths of his brother and sisters with a hammer in his hand. I’d seen Kitty bring bread and cuts of ham out to Frederick. They were of an age together. Frederick was a good boy and might be a match for my sister. She blushed with the young man’s attention.

  Together, Kitty and I had walked back to the gross Haus. I wanted to talk to her about Frederick but hesitated breaking into her happy spell. Then we’d begun our stitching, spinning, and weaving in the presence of Frederick’s mother, and it didn’t seem the time.

  Brother Keil was in the workroom below us. He’d placed a mat there, and Louisa said he now slept every night on the hard floor, as though “paying penance.” I hoped she’d r
esumed sleeping in their softer bed and had given up the hard floor herself, but I noticed the bed in the room where we worked did not look slept on. The quilt frame was kept by a pulley above the bed and lowered when we began work, double stitching so many of the rows. Perhaps it was too difficult for her to sleep in it, since her girls had died among the quilts.

  “If only more Bethelites would come out. Perhaps Henry C will write them and encourage them to come. Or do you let them know of how things are here, Catherina?” Louisa directed her question to my mother.

  “Or those from Willapa,” Helena said. “They could come here. They’re much closer.”

  “We tell them how it is here,” my mother said.

  “Ja. If people returned to our folds, then Dr. Keil would become interested in living again, I know it.” Louisa’s eyes pooled with tears.

  I worried more about her than Brother Keil. He could lock himself in his workroom, but Louisa still had the daily obligations that never went away: meal preparation, laundry, tending to the children, endless work. We couldn’t give Louisa the things she needed most: her children back or her husband able to share in her mourning. Louisa kept on, wearing herself thin. Her arms sticking out at the end of mourning-dark sleeves looked like Clara’s legs. Keil was…neutralized in his grief. He was bread without yeast. It didn’t need as much watching.

  “Jonathan helps with the ledgers, doesn’t he?” I asked. “I see him and Brother Keil smoking their pipes together. Maybe that helps him, Louisa.”

  “And the music, the choral practices, those ease him, wouldn’t you say? ‘Music washes the soul of the dirt of daily living,’” my mother finished by quoting an old German proverb.