“Take your time,” he said. “I’m in no hurry.”
“That’s good,” I said. “While things are finishing perhaps we could—”
“No mood for talking. You’ll get used to my moods, but talking won’t be a mood I’m in much.”
I ladled the cornmeal onto the dutch oven top, slipped the pot close to the fire, then sat. “I’m confused, Jack. I thought we shared a number of interesting conversations over the past months about this and that. We had lovely dinners together in Olympia. We talked about the Pony Express making its first run from St. Joseph to Sacramento, how that would improve communication between us and those back in Bethel. We visited stores. We carried on as though we were two adults. Did I dream that? Did I just imagine that, Jack Giesy?”
“I’m a complicated man,” he said, apparently forgetting that he had claimed otherwise not long ago. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs at the ankle, his arms over his chest. “Just the sort of challenge I would have thought the independent Emma Giesy would have liked.” He grinned. I was heartened.
“I know we both need time to adjust to this … arrangement. But you seem so inflexible suddenly when before you’d been, well, congenial. Surprising, yes, but even your teasing stopped eventually. See, I’ve already put the painted shell up on the shelf.” I pointed to the gift he’d bought me. “But this side of you, this … dare I use the word … this rigidness. Well, that’s something I never saw reflected—”
“Don’t know how to reign right now do you, Frau Giesy?”
“I’m not trying to reign over you at all. I just want to walk beside you and have some say in my own life.”
“Christian spoiled you. Everyone talked about that, you want to have words about something. Indulged you. It made you a problem to yourself once he wasn’t here to take care of things.”
I felt tears burn behind my nose but I wouldn’t let him see that, I wouldn’t. “I just want a good life for my sons and my daughter, with me in it.”
“Your sons. Always it’s about your sons.”
“And Kate. The children. I’m a mother, Jack.”
“You’d better widen your kingdom a bit then, for you have a husband now, in more than just a document. You remember that.”
“I’d like to make my home a safe and welcoming place for all of us.”
“My home,” he said. “And a nice one it is, too.” He looked around. “Did Christian make all those lovely shelves with the curlicues at the edge?”
“I did those. It filled my long evenings. Don’t change the subject, Jack. You should know this: I’d be a better companion and wife if I knew what I could count on.”
“You might at that,” he said. He drew close and breathed against my face, then leaned back. “But it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”
Jack refused to let Andy ride the mule back and forth, so he still stayed with his grandparents while in school. Jack’s swagger increased after Andreas died in late October.
I knew Andreas had looked frail, but I hadn’t imagined him so ill as to die. He’d always recovered. His dying made me grieve Christian anew. I grieved for Barbara, too. Losing a son and a husband. Word was sent to Bethel and to Aurora Mills of Andreas’s death, but we couldn’t delay the burial. John decided we’d bury him in the cemetery with a small ceremony led by Karl, and when the Giesys from Bethel arrived, then they’d have to come to Willapa with Rudy to mourn their father’s death.
If only I had waited to marry Jack, I thought the morning of the burial. My sister would have said I should have let God handle things, not kindled my own fire. She might have been right. Now there was no one voicing the need for Andy to have a father in his life. Martin wouldn’t try to take the children from me. Barbara had no more standing than me. Rudy and Henry were too interested in farming to worry over the upbringing of their nephews.
I assessed my present status. Maybe if I hadn’t married Jack, I would have faced increasing pressure to keep Andy from me. But with Andreas’s death I’d gained nothing by marrying Jack, not one thing. And I’d lost a great deal.
We were all together now, though. Perhaps we’d figure out what made Jack happy or tense and we could begin to function as a family, though a strange one. I imagined the next school term when my sons would be old enough to ride the mule, Christian behind his brother. They’d return to be with me every evening. I’d be the primary influence in their lives, and that’s what this marriage had been all about.
Only Jack’s demand for compliance of wifely duties brought me sorrow. I had no love for him and any congeniality we experienced together could be shattered in a moment by his teasing or his brusqueness with the children. Before we married he hadn’t shown the intensity of such precarious colors.
So when the children were tucked in the week after Andreas’s burial and he said, “Wife. Such is the time,” I knew of his intentions. It was my duty. I betrayed Christian by being with Jack, by demeaning a portion of our marriage that had been loving and good, trading all that in for this. My mind soared to those tidal places that had been gentle in my memory. They told me I could do this. I could meet my obligations so long as I did not let Jack intrude on this place that was me. During those intimate moments, I traveled somewhere safe in my history or my dreams, far from Jack’s bed.
I’m doing this for my children. Those were the words that moved through my head: for the children. That loving choice could surely cause no real long-term harm.
In November, I threw up my supper. I tried to reach the slop jar. I’d woken up sick. My head throbbed as I fell back onto the bed, the back of my hand wiping the scum from my mouth.
“Ach, jammer!” Jack said rolling over, sniffing the air like a dog. “What kind of sickness is this that wakes you up? What did you feed us that was bad?”
“You won’t get this,” I said. “I can assure you of that.”
The rains came, though not steady as they’d be by December. Already my sickness was greater with this child than with the other pregnancies. I thought back. It had been August when I’d had my last flow: I was probably three months along. I must have conceived the first night as Jack’s wife. My bones ached and my legs swelled. I thought of Herr Keil and his charge that difficult childbearing was the result of Eve’s sin. I’d had no difficult deliveries as yet; I’d count on my stubbornness to see me through this childbirthing too.
There were the usual chores to attend to, milking the goat and the cows, and I continued to do this while Jack worked at the mill. He was good with fixing problems there, making things work. I cherished the time with my children while he was gone, all of us relieved by Jack’s absences. I found myself wishing he would find a job that would take him away as it had before we were married. But Joe Knight had sold out his oyster operation and headed back to Bethel. And they wouldn’t work much in the woods with the heavy rains, so Jack seemed content to be a millwright and a farmer, a grouchy stepfather and demanding husband.
My stomach roiled daily. When the time came for Jack to arrive home, I noticed that all of us became a little noisier. We laughed a little louder at the antics of Christian attempting to do a somersault. Kate needed greater comforting in the late afternoons. Andy grew quiet, almost sullen. Our world of ease and closeness seeped away from us with the waning of the day.
Would I have prepared the venison stew in the way Jack preferred, or would he fly into a rage about my trying to kill him? Would he object to my using millet flour to make him a berry Strudel, or would he object if I didn’t? He might complain that I’d wasted time with my redwood shelves that lined the walls now. Sometimes he brought the children little gifts, but if they didn’t give him proper gratitude, he fumed. His irritations increased rather than lessened after I’d met my wifely obligations.
“You need to bake things,” he said one day as he brought word that several from Aurora would be arriving to honor Andreas’s death. I hoped I wouldn’t have to attend this second service just because I felt so ill and travel
made me sicker. I’d already gained more weight than I had with the other children in just these first few months.
“Ja,” I said. “You can take my Strudel with you.”
“We’ll all go,” he said. “Let them all see that we’re a family and that I’ve done my part to carry on the Giesy name.”
“Jack, the travel, with the river higher now from the rains, will just be troublesome for us all. Why don’t you go alone, Husband? It’ll be easier on you. I’ll stay here with the children.”
He stared at me as though I were an unsolved problem. “You don’t want to see Keil, do you? That’s it. Don’t want to face the consequences of your getting Christian to push him aside.”
“Keil is coming? Ach, that has no bearing. I’m just tired. Your child is—”
“You bore a baby in this wilderness,” he said. “Then two more. Don’t tell me you’re not sturdy as an ox. This is about you whining your way out of something.”
“I’m strong, but sometimes women have difficulties that—”
“What you’re owed,” he said, “for being a woman. For being one who … drives others away.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” I sighed. “No one’s left Willapa because of me. They chose on their own to head for Portland and then Aurora Mills. I just wanted us to remain here. Christian wanted to remain.” I kneaded dough for cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon was the only spice that quelled my stomach.
“It maybe could be you drove someone away long after Keil left, long after Christian died,” he said.
“Ja, well, it can’t be the great Jack Giesy because you’re still here, aren’t you?”
His hand stopped just short of my face.
“You will go with me to the service,” he said. “We’ll honor my uncle’s death and you’ll meet up with Wilhelm Keil. Maybe even apologize to him for your part in the separation of the colony.”
He was insane, my husband, all interested in the well-being of the colony. I touched the side of my face where I’d felt the rush of air just before he stopped his hand. “You will not go away from me,” he warned.
“I’m standing right in front of you,” I said. I used soft words so as not to aggravate him. I was grateful the children were occupied in the half barn, tending the goat.
“You go away when we are as man and wife,” he said.
That was a truth, and it was likely to remain. I had to keep something of myself, something he could not control. This new infant had to have a strong mother ready for it. I moved away from him. I was going to be sick.
24
Louisa
We are going north to Willapa this December, such a terrible time with all the rains, but then death does not consult our almanac. It will be a safe time to be away from here with all running smoothly, harvests all in, thanks to the help of those joining us from Portland and beyond, from my prayers being answered. Is it prideful to believe my prayers for assistance were the ones God heard?
So we go to Willapa. We remember Willie’s burial. We’ll have a ceremony for Andreas, my husband’s longtime supporter, and we’ll honor my boy’s life too. It will be good to comfort Barbara by holding her in my arms and not just sending letters. Even good rag paper is a poor substitute for flesh.
With all disappointments come possibilities. Andreas’s death is the perfect occasion to urge the Willapites to come to their true home here in Aurora Mills. Giesys have good heads for business and they could manage a colony store for us. My husband misses John’s fine leadership and Boshie’s good will, and I miss that Boshie’s round red face. He shares a limp with me too, and we encouraged each other in the Bethel days.
My husband misses those he sent back to Bethel, too: Jonathan Wagner and August, but they are needed to urge the Bethelites to proceed with haste to sell the lands there so we can purchase more here. Quit claim deeds have been signed and sent back by Pony Express, a luxury of the outside world that we have not had before this far west. There should be no problem selling the land there. No legal problems, though there is much talk of that war, and perhaps people will not want to invest in farms or businesses when one does not know whether blood will be shed on the soil they’ve purchased. The old country knew many wars, and people in this place have known few save for the Indian wars. They don’t know how long wounds fester even after the last shot’s fired.
My husband foretold the future and we are safer here in this Oregon State. I want my sons with me on this soil. Maybe they won’t be required to fight if that time comes.
The band plays again at Butteville on the Willamette, and the Old Settlers still plan a ball for January. I saved the invitation from a few years back, printed as though the occasion when our band played was for royalty. We attended another harvest fair this fall. The Oregon Agricultural Society formed, so there is strong interest in farming and markets just as my husband predicted. My husband says we will become a part of this in time, when all of us are here together again at Aurora Mills. I wonder if then it will feel like home and this Sehnsucht, this yearning, for home will cease its pull on me. Or with Willie buried elsewhere and with Bethel far away, perhaps it never will.
Jack Giesy took a wife! That it is Emma Giesy made all of us drop our soup spoons at the news. Perhaps that’s why she failed to answer my invitation to come here. I asked her to let old disappointments go, to let us all be together to help each other as we once did in Bethel. With three little children she might see now the advantage of friends close by, of sharing worry as well as wealth. I even told her that my husband now acknowledged that he was too harsh on Christian Giesy, that he didn’t give sufficient weight to the demands on such a small group asked to build houses for so many. These nearly five years since have told well how many hands it takes to build a colony, and there were too few, just too few for the Willapa colony to adequately prepare for all of us. My husband never spoke those words out loud to me, but I have a sense that it’s how he feels now. We have not enough hands to prepare for the next Bethel group, which my husband hopes will come next year, 1861, for sure. The Willapa group needs us too. No community can just give; it must receive as well. But without my husband to rein them in each day, well, they’ll stray. I can’t imagine why Jack Giesy chose Emma except that somehow, Jack strayed.
Truth? Emma did enliven us. She made us laugh with her unique views that bubbled like good brew. Oh, we looked aghast at things she said but she did make us think a little differently about our work. Sometimes, about ourselves. I didn’t tell her all of that, of course. I only told her that forgiveness came with the letter and I even asked her to forgive my husband. I didn’t tell him that, of course, but it must go both ways I think. Those two are like two strong rivers coming together where there is bound to be froth.
I thought I’d offended her in my letter but now I understand; it was her marriage that took her time. Jack Giesy. Ach, who can know the ways of men? Jack’s sense of humor will make her laugh, and this is a good thing for a woman as she grows older. My husband finds little humor in life with me it seems, though he does dance at the Old Settlers’ Ball, if not much with me. Well, I have a bad hip. Aurora is his favorite partner; she’s young and so light on her feet.
We leave in the morning for Willapa. Karl Ruge was here a week ago buying tobacco and shoes and he reminded us that after harvest, the Hebrews held the Feast of Tabernacles where they celebrated God’s bounty in their lives. We have had a good harvest. The hops do well. Grain grows tall. The soil is deep and black and truly could grow anything, I think. We have apples and cider in our Eden.
We will rejoice and, as Scripture says, the Lord God will bless us in our harvest and in all the work of our hands, and our joy will be complete. Joy. Perhaps now in her life again, Emma will have joy. Jack can bring that and maybe she will discover that being a wife among the colonists will not be so constraining as she always seemed to think. Perhaps she will find her Sehnsucht satisfied at last too. A woman of faith can hope for such things for her sister. br />
25
Emma
The Keel of Confusion
The Aurora Mills group came up the Cowlitz Trail. They followed the Willapa so they reached us first. We heard the horses and the dogs they’d brought with them as the afternoon waned. In the rainy months, I told time more by when the children expressed hunger than by any afternoon change in light. Pewter clouds greeted us in the morning and dropped rain on us throughout the day. We kept the fire going inside and listened to the drizzle against the cedar shingles. With the group’s arrival I began to prepare a meal for ten or twelve. I heard no children’s voices, but then a journey with little ones slowed travelers. This was meant to be a quick trip.
Jack was at home when they arrived, and he greeted Herr Keil and several of the others as the men now tended to the horses. Three women came into the cabin led by Helena, her presence a surprise. They took chairs, weary from their journey, their dark dresses and bonnets indicating they’d come to mourn. I hung their capes on the pegs near the fire. I fluttered around them, trying to make them comfortable, knowing that Helena would be judging my efforts and that before long Herr Keil would be standing in my home. He’d probably begin with chastising me for my being with child, for my having married without asking his consent.
“Well, Sister Giesy,” Louisa said. “I hear you wed again. And to Jack Giesy at that.” She sounded happy for me. “Perhaps you’ve calmed that jokester down some?”
Helena said, “It might have been better to let others help you rather than add to your trials with a marriage.”
I dropped my eyes. “Widows do what they must to provide for their children. May I get you something to eat? You must all be hungry.” I didn’t look at them. I didn’t want Louisa or Helena to see the pain in my eyes.