“Andy could make it go,” she said. She crossed her little arms over her chest, her lip still shaking.
“Ach, he’s not here.”
“When’s he come home, Mama?”
I didn’t know. My shoulders sagged. I pulled her toward me and she let me comfort her. “I’m sorry, Liebchen. I’m so sorry. I miss him too.”
“Did he go away like Papa did?”
“No. Not like Papa. He’s with Oma and Opa.”
I was like that little sailboat tipping in the wind and no amount of setting it back up would take me to where I wanted to be. It wouldn’t do any good to try to get Andy returned, I knew that. My son was healthy—at least if I believed Martin—and maybe Andy wouldn’t even be alive if I hadn’t handed him off to Jack.
Yet I felt betrayed and had since that day.
I walked hard all the way back that day, resisting Jack’s cajoling that I should ride. At the river crossing I did let myself be pulled up—behind Jack this time—onto the mule, but as soon as he splashed across the water I slid off over the animal’s rump and continued my purposeful stride.
“Did you know that Andy was gone, Mary?” I asked when we reached their homestead.
“Gone where? Didn’t he come back with you?”
She was either a marvelous actress or didn’t know, for her grief, when she looked behind me and realized Andy wasn’t with me, was a gasp that any mother would recognize.
“Andreas and Barbara took Andy to Aurora. They didn’t say a word to me, not one. They just rode off with my son, probably putting him on board a ship and sailing across the very sea his father died in. With not a word to me, as though I were nothing more than a heavy anchor hung around their necks.”
“Maybe they went to have Herr Keil look at him, give him special herbs?”
“No one said anything about his still being ill. They were just ‘traveling,’ enjoying themselves and stealing my son.” With the last of the words my fury caught in my throat and I felt the lump there clog and strangle.
“How awful, Emma.” Mary patted my arm. “I can’t imagine that they did this to harm you. Andreas and Barbara are loving people. It’s only for a family visit.”
“Why not tell me then?” I swallowed, my breath short. “Because they don’t have to. Because I’m just this widow and they can justify anything they want by pointing out to all how much they’re helping me. ‘She has three little ones at home, you know. A widow, too, and not all that skilled in her needlework, don’t you know. Helping her son is the least we could do.’ ”
“Emma. They’re not like that, they aren’t.”
“I feel so … useless.”
She put her arms around me and that touch of comfort, warmth against my shoulders after so very long, brought the heartache to my eyes. “Just wait,” she said. “It will get better.”
Jack had put the mule up, and I heard him come up toward the house. He stayed silent, for which I was grateful. No teasing comment about the strong Emma Giesy withering like the last leaves of fall, nothing funny to try to set aside my powerlessness pouring out as tears.
“What you’re going to do now is have some tea,” Mary said. “Karl and Boshie are at the mill and won’t be home for a time. We can just sit and be. Your Kate missed you, and Christian, well he’s quite the chunk. You’re feeding him well, Emma. Come along, now.” She urged me toward the door.
“Opal and the cows feed him well, not me,” I corrected. One more inadequacy pointed my way.
Jack opened the door and I let them lead me into the house like a lamb.
“Where’s Andy?” Kate asked when she saw me.
“With his Oma and Opa.” I wiped at my eyes. “He’ll be home shortly,” I said, hoping it wasn’t a lie.
“I miss him,” she sighed, looked at my tear-stained face. She patted my hand as I sat at the table, then returned to her play with Elizabeth.
Later, after the tea had soothed me and the children’s laughter had pierced the afternoon malaise, I lifted Christian from his nap and told Kate we needed to go home.
Jack did not protest when I declined his offer to help me take the children to our cabin. “This is something I can do myself,” I said. I had to keep finding those things I could make happen, or like an untethered boat, I’d simply drift away.
I did drift during the following weeks. I felt as though I walked while asleep doing just what I must, answering the children without inflection. Later in the week, Jack came by again and startled me out of my lassitude.
He made an offer. He proposed it like that, that he “maybe could have an offer to make,” and I thought it probably had something to do with the work around my cabin in return for my sewing up his clothes. Or to maybe go to Aurora and bring Andy back. That thought perked me up. Or at the very least to go there and find out when they planned to return. For a moment I wondered if he’d offer to take us there and I wondered if I’d go. All those thoughts in the span of a few seconds.
Instead Jack asked for my hand in marriage.
I laughed. “Why would I ever consider marriage, especially to you, Jack Giesy, a confirmed bachelor?”
“I wouldn’t be such a bad catch,” he said. I thought I smelled alcohol on his breath and he had a bit of a glassy look in his eye. Maybe that was why he was being so bold as to “maybe could” make his offer.
I sighed. I had little time for such nonsense. “Are Mary and Boshie moving you out with their family expanding?” I said.
“Maybe could be. But that’s not the reason I’m—”
“It’s out of the question. Simply not possible,” I said. I brushed my hands at him as though shooing flies. “I thought maybe you’d offer to find out when Barbara and Andreas were coming back. That’s an offer I’d consider.”
“Has it occurred to you that if you were married and Andy had a father that maybe Andreas wouldn’t feel the need to have Andy with them? They’d know he had a man to look after him, raise him up correctly.”
I stared at him. “That would never be a reason to remarry,” I said.
“Haven’t heard about wagon-train weddings, I guess. Women do what they gotta do to survive.” He walked to the saltbox I kept near the fireplace, lifted the lid. He wet his finger then stuck it into the salt, returned it to his mouth, his eyes holding mine while he sucked on his finger. “There are worse reasons to marry,” he said at last. “For money. Now that’s not necessary in our little communal lives, is it?” He licked his lips of the salt. “Or for convenience. Maybe could marry because it’s easier than courting. Or because your bed’s been cold long enough.” He reached for the salt lid again but I grabbed his wrist.
“There’s no sense in spoiling the salt,” I said. “I’ll get a spoon and salt dish and you can have your own.”
“Will you now?” His look darkened. I still held his wrist. He was close enough I could smell the rye on his breath. I felt my heart pound; my face grew hot. I hadn’t touched a man with any kind of emotion for over a year. I was aware of the strong bones of his wrist, how my small hand didn’t begin to surround it. Confusion rattled my thoughts.
Christian crawled between us then, and Kate followed him as though Christian was a mule leading a wagon. Kate shouted, “Gee! Haw!” I released Jack’s wrist and he stepped back to let the children pass. Then before I could catch my breath he reached for my arm and held it tight, pulling me toward him.
“Why not marry so you can show your saltiness in the way God intended? And have your sons with you?” Jack said. “Seems like a mother would do anything to accomplish that.”
“You’re hurting me,” I said. He wasn’t but I couldn’t explain what was happening, how uncomfortable I felt yet how … invigorated. This is insane. “Let loose. Please.”
“Aren’t you the salty Frau Giesy?” he said. “Can’t you break the hold?”
“If you don’t release me I’ll—”
“There’s nothing you can do or say to make me do a thing, Emma Giesy. Time you le
arned that.” He reached his free hand past my ear, flicked the saltbox lid open, then licked his finger. He stuck it into the saltbox, pressed it toward my lips. “We’re to be salt and light in the world, ja?” I tasted the salt, had all I could do not to bite his finger. “A good wife knows how to be such salt.” He released me then, like an animal trap sprung open.
I stumbled back. My hearted pounded like the butter churn. “There has to be another way for a mother to raise her children without having to … to marry for it.” I was certain that I could do this without the Jacks of this world. I just hadn’t thought how. And now I couldn’t think clearly at all because Jack stood before me and he was smiling, head cocked, dark swath of hair angled across his eyes, his face flushed.
“Ah, Emma.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “In time you’ll cease to resist.”
“Never,” I said. Oddly, I felt as though a light breeze pushed wind at my sails.
I made the trip back to Fort Willapa each week, hoping to see Andy returned. I talked briefly to Martin, hearing his “don’t you knows,” resisting a retort that no, I didn’t. I held no ill will toward him, not really. He spoke quietly and carried on the work that needed doing to manage the farm. I knew it wasn’t easy work they tended to. A twinge of guilt came with our having chosen this landscape that made so many demands on everyone. Maybe the thing for me to do was to go back to Bethel, to be with my parents. Go to Aurora, get Andy, and then head back East, though I wasn’t sure how I’d finance that. Sell the land, perhaps, but I doubted any of the colonists would purchase it and I might be many years finding someone wanting to move into the region and live in our little cabin. My life had taken on twists as tangled as a tobacco string.
During the school term, Karl stayed at Fort Willapa, so I seldom saw him. He was busy with the students. Andy should have been among them. I did see Sarah. I didn’t tell her about Jack’s offer. I put that evening in an oyster shell, clasped tight the hinge. I didn’t want to find the meaning of my confused emotions by blurting it out without having considered every aspect of it first.
Instead, I heard Sarah’s news. She was pregnant. “December,” she told me. Her blond hair looked silky and the luster on her skin shone like a fresh peach. “Maybe he’ll have the same birthday as your Kate,” she said. “We can celebrate birthdays together.”
“Ja, that would be gut.”
She knew about my frustration with my in-laws and how they’d taken Andy visiting. I still considered them just “visiting.” I had no need to see Herr Keil or any of those colonists again, but I’d given Andreas until fall, feeling certain they’d return home to help with the harvest. If they didn’t bring Andy back then, I’d go to Aurora Mills and get him. Somehow. Meanwhile, I clung to the thread that said what everyone else did: my in-laws were simply trying to be helpful, and they’d bring Andy home in due time.
I also told Sarah about the day I’d been abrupt with Kate, had taken her toy boat and chastised her for trying to do the same thing over and over with no hope of it ever getting better. “Sometimes I think I do that myself,” I said.
“We do what we know to do and hope it will work. It takes great courage to change. Anytime we do something new, it’s risky. I’m nervous about this baby,” she said. “Sam says I’m so soft that I cry when the chickens squawk. I don’t know how I’ll be with an infant to watch over.”
“You’ll be gut,” I said. “The very best. And you won’t have in-laws living close by to make you question yourself.”
“I talked with Sam about your drawings,” Sarah told me then. She rocked Christian on her lap, his head against her breast, eyes closed in comfort. “He says he could take one or two to Olympia to see if there’s interest.”
“I’d pay him for his time,” I said. “Out of whatever was paid me.”
“It would be a gift to you, Emma.” She patted my hand. “Sam wonders if you might have someone take your pictures south into Oregon City. There’s a teacher there, a woman, who has taught painting now for over ten years. She shows her work at fairs and sells them. There must be enough interest if she’s taught a class that long.”
I hadn’t imagined people could be taught to paint, that it was something more than a natural bent. But even a gift could be made better with practice, wisdom, and time.
“Maybe my work isn’t good enough yet,” I said, suddenly cautious. “Maybe I should take some classes, if I could afford them, if there was an instructor close by.”
“Don’t be afraid now, Emma,” Sarah said. “You make lovely drawings. Let Sam take them. I’m not sure I can be a mother but I’m going to do it; you have to have confidence that you have natural talent and can do this, even without lessons.” She hesitated. “If you feel strongly that you need lessons, maybe Jack would—”
“No. Jack has nothing to teach me.”
I wrote again to my parents. I told them about Andy being with the Giesys and how much I missed him and how if they were here, if David lived here or Papa, then there’d be no question about where Andy belonged. I even asked my father if there was some legal means by which I could make sure Andy wasn’t kept from me. We seldom used lawyers for anything in the colony. I wasn’t sure there were even agreements signed about the land people worked in Bethel. It seemed all was in Keil’s name and there hadn’t been a lawyer involved in any of it except between Keil and whomever he bought the land from. The sellers never knew that the money they received came from the efforts of many.
But I heard nothing more from my parents. Just school-girl letters from my sister Catherine that reminded me that once I’d been young, with problems no larger than whether to put ruffles on my crinolines and wondering if I’d ever grow up enough to marry.
Finally, in time for the harvest, Andreas and Barbara returned home and this time, when the leaves were turning their vibrant red and the air begged for the rains to begin, this time when I made the trek with Kate, Christian carried in a sack on my back, this time when we arrived, Andy was there to meet us.
I was never more soundly greeted in my life than by my son that day. “Mama,” he said, running to me. “Mama.”
My heart pounded and I could hear his too. I felt relief in his arms clinging to my neck as I squatted to him. He enclosed Christian too, then Kate threw herself into the bundle of us. “I’m so glad you’re here, so glad,” I said and kissed his hair, his forehead, his cheeks. Such a reunion! “Look at me. You’ve grown taller. What do you have to say to that?” I said, not expecting an answer.
“Why didn’t you come get me?” he challenged. “Why didn’t you ever come back?”
I hadn’t planned what I’d say to my son, an amazing lapse on my part, for here he was, asking why I’d abandoned him. How to answer without creating a greater rift between his grandparents and me? Or maybe that was just what I should do; put a distance between us that wouldn’t be easily bridged.
I had dreamed of what I’d say when I finally saw Barbara and Andreas eye to eye. No, I did not pray about it despite my sister’s insistence that prayers were like kisses sent to the wind. I’d had little time for prayers of late, and when I had in desperation sent one out, Jack had been the answer. One could never be certain with Jack, and that’s how I felt about prayer.
The speeches for my in-laws I’d composed in my head would have made the president of the States nod his head in approval for their eloquence and passion. But once these two people stood before me, once Andreas’s cane tapped unsteadily and Barbara’s eyes filled with tears, once Andy shivered beside me, I said very little at all.
Instead I inhaled and breathed out slowly. “I knew you were safe, Andy,” I said. “I knew you were all right, but when I came back—”
“We trust you had a good summer,” Barbara said. “People in Aurora send greetings.”
“That’s good of them.” I kept Andy in the crook of my arm, my fingers firmly planted at his elbow. I didn’t look at him. I knew there’d be more to say to him but better if I could do th
at when we were alone, in our home, safe. I could protect him under my wing. I didn’t want to let him go. He did look healthy. I was certain they’d been good to him. It was just the separation that confounded and their unwillingness to acknowledge my authority over my son.
“He’s had no recurrence of the bronchitis,” Barbara said. “And we’ve returned with extra supplies in case it happens again this winter. We’ll be prepared.”
“I’ll be pleased to take the supplies with me along with Andy’s things,” I said. I held my breath, waiting for resistance.
“Ja. I’ll get them for you,” she said and turned back into the house. Her compliance surprised. I’d thought I might have to demand that they let me have Andy back. Once again, I appeared to have little intuition.
Andreas tapped with his cane. “We enjoyed the boy very much,” he said. “Good boy. Smart. Needs good tutoring. Needs to be in school.”
“He missed most of his schooling this summer,” I snapped. “John had any number of children enrolled. Karl taught them, but Andy was with you.”
“Ja. We gave him an education in traveling from here to Aurora. He saw the orchards planted there. He heard the band play. He could play a brass instrument himself before long. They have no school yet in Aurora. Still, you should let him stay here to go to school now, until the rains come, ja? Then he comes home to be with you for Christmas.”
Here it was: the demand had just been delayed to throw me off my guard. “I’ve missed my son. His brother and sister have missed him as well, and you heard him ask why I didn’t come to get him.”
“Young children must not make these decisions. It is up to us, those who know better,” Andreas said. He coughed.
“I’ll get him into school in a day or so. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll do it,” I said. “Me.” I tapped my chest. “His mother.”
“Maybe we erred,” Barbara said, handing me the cloth bag tied with a braided rope that held his things. She didn’t let go, so we held it in tension between us. “We meant no harm. We wanted only to help you, Emma. This is all any of us wants to do for you. Yet you seem so unwilling to allow it.”