“Andreas and Barbara wanted to raise my boys. They kept Andy there while he was at school. I didn’t feel I could argue much since I was such a burden on everyone. That could happen here too.”
“Ach, no. Here you are cooking. That is enough. You go now and get some drawing things when we finish here, ja? I insist.”
I tried to imagine what I’d draw. The fields around Aurora Mills? The little house with the window box? The tollman asleep at his post? Would Keil approve of this frivolousness, a woman drawing pictures when she could otherwise be working?
“Will Herr Keil object?”
“He has his music. We have our needlework, show towels. Some men weave baskets and work with the looms, too, or they play in the band. These are practical, but they also lend beauty and lighten another’s day. That is a contribution too.”
“I suppose I could draw the girls,” I said. “Aurora and Gloriunda, my Kate.”
“Send one back to your parents. They’d like that. I’d like that. A drawing of my Aurora and Louisa and Amelia and Gloriunda.”
“My parents do not write to me.”
“Maybe they do but Jack intercepted their letters. They will write now to Aurora Mills and you can know you’ll receive the letters. I still think they’ll come here, and they won’t have to make a detour to Willapa.”
“Unless Martin fails to bring the boys.”
“Did he say he’d bring them?” I nodded. “Then don’t borrow trouble. Practice thinking good thoughts.” She cocked her head as though she’d just said something out loud that surprised even herself.
I did go to the store and ask for paper and lead. I sketched eleven-year-old Aurora as she sat with Kate peeling an apple to eat. I drew my daughters, even Ida. I watched the other children as they played and saw the harvest of this colony, this place where people helped one another. There was a cost, yes, the little gripes and disappointments that flared up between people living close together. But the common bond of caring helped put the firebursts out. The heat diminished with familiarity and reminded me that in this living church, which is how I’d come to think of the people if not the colony, there were challenges, but none too big for God to turn around. Had I taken all the children and spent the time with Andreas and Barbara after Christian died, I might have been able to keep my home and my family together in Willapa. Instead I’d spoken vows with another and here I was, separated from the very children I’d hoped to always have with me. But no, I must not dwell on what was past. I had made the best decision I could then with no intention of making a poor choice. I’d done the best I could then; that’s what I had to remember.
While I worked, I healed. I thought of that dream I’d had on the ship and decided it was a spiritual feast I’d been missing. I’d been trying so hard to get to the table but always doing it my own way. Someone strong sat at the head of the table. It wasn’t Keil or Louisa or Karl. Most importantly, it wasn’t me.
I hung wash on the line strung between two trees beside the washhouse. I heard a child’s voice shouting, “Mama, Mama!” It wasn’t Kate.
“Christian?” I turned toward the sound, and there my youngest son came running like a happy dog, his arms out and his legs swinging sideways as he tried to keep his balance with such uneven ground matched against his speed. I knelt as he approached, the cane dropping at my side. He knocked me over with his joy. “Christian, Christian, Christian, how good you look. How good you feel!”
“I took a bath. Martin made us.”
“You were reluctant to take that bath. Tell her that,” Martin said, as he caught up with Christian in the bundle of my arms.
“What’s ‘lucktent’ mean, Mama?” Christian said, a small frown on his face.
“Unwilling,” I said, kissing his sweet-smelling hair. “Mama can get reluctant, too, sometimes, avoiding things she doesn’t want to face.”
“Thank you, Martin,” I continued. “For bringing him. Them.” I wanted to ask if Jack had interfered at all, but I didn’t want to upset Christian with such talk. I looked around. “Where’s Andy?” I stood up. My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t see him.
“At the tollman’s house. Karl’s there, and Andy recognized him.”
“Oh, good,” I said. It was a sign that Andy could wait to see me. I felt a twinge of regret. He nursed a wound still open. I’d missed him more and needed to seek him out. “Take Christian inside to Keil’s, will you, Martin? Kate’s there and Ida. I’ll go greet Andy, if I can.”
I limped as I walked, thinking of what to say, of how I could explain why I’d left him behind again. Why I’d had to. I imagined Martin had told him some of it, but I wasn’t sure how much Andy understood.
I sidestepped down the little knoll to the bridge. The stage already moved on up the road, having just brought Martin and my sons. Andy stood between Karl and the tollman, his hands on his hips as though the men spoke of harvest troubles or the price of wheat.
“Andy,” I called to him. I was sure he heard me. Karl looked my way, said something to my son. “Andy.” He turned to me then. “Come join me,” I shouted. I walked closer, babbling as he stood, a solemn look on his face. “I’m so glad you came. I prayed that Martin would bring you. I missed you so.” I knelt down. He looked through me, as though I were a stranger, someone he wasn’t sure he’d met before. “Andy, I’m so sorry I had to leave you and had to make you wait. I’m so sorry. But you’re here now. We’re all together at last.”
I don’t know if it was the prayers I’d spoken daily since the day we’d arrived or if it was the prayers of preparation spoken by so many, but my oldest son did then walk toward me and put his arms around my neck. I pulled him to me, breathing in the sweetness of him, relishing his soft and tender skin, the clean smell of his neck as I kissed it. “It’s a new beginning, Andy. We’ll make our way here.” He let me hold him and then he pushed away.
“You left us.”
“I had to, Andy. It was the only way to trick Jack. I had to trick him so I could get here safely. And now you’re here safely, too, so you see, it worked out.” He stared. “Forgive me, Andy. Please. I should have done so many things differently and I’m sorry. I truly am.”
He turned from me and walked away.
“Where are you going?” I asked. My heart thudded.
“To get something.” At the tollman’s house he lifted an object from a satchel. I recognized it and my throat caught in tightness. He carried the lantern that Christian had made the holder for; the one he’d held above us the last time we’d walked on the beach.
“Oh, Andy. You risked—”
“I went when I knew Jack wouldn’t be home. It was Papa’s. I carried it at his funeral, remember? I couldn’t let Papa’s light stay behind.”
While I pulled weeds in the herb garden, Martin reported of Jack’s return the day we’d left. He’d railed against me for changing my mind and heading off on “some fool trip to Aurora Mills,” but he had calmed when he saw Andy and Christian still with my in-laws. I winced as Martin told the story, for it confirmed that I had used my sons to ward off the wrath of their stepfather. “But Henry and John, they both talked to him about how it might be good for you to go to Aurora with the girls. We reminded him that the children annoyed him and he agreed. We might have mentioned that he had the land to keep up; he owned that farm, so why not head home and farm it regardless of how long it took for you to return; we promised to keep the boys with us. Seemed to calm him,” Martin said.
“Do you think he’ll come here?” I asked. I could smell the woolly applemint when I brushed at its leaves in the late garden.
Martin squatted beside me. “Ja, he’ll come here.” He paused. “We should have spoken up when you said you planned to marry him. Most of us knew of his … ways.”
“Ja, but I wouldn’t have listened,” I said. “So you can forgive yourself for that.”
“Just let us help you when he comes.”
As the grain harvest moved to a rush and the pumpkins
were nearly ripe, we had fruit to turn into butter, vinegar to make. In late September when nights turned cooler and the mill race filled with confetti of colorful leaves, Louisa insisted that the portrait I’d drawn with colored pencils of Aurora should be entered in the state fair competition. I blushed.
“I like the one of the tollkeeper,” Karl said. “You captured his sleepy look with his head against his chest while people wait for him to collect the toll. We could have the state contract for mail if we kept alert eyes, by golly. I think that man needs looking for another job.”
“Well, then, enter both,” Louisa said. “Ja. Enter them both.”
So I did.
It felt like play as we walked around the fair grounds in October, looking at the harvest people brought as examples of their efforts. We ate our lunch, and the aroma of our warm potato salad and herbed sausages brought people our way, asking if we had any for sale. We had none but invited people to join us, and we laughed together over the food and the fair. At one booth I encountered the Wagonblast family. After hugs all around, I learned they’d gone from Willapa to Cathlamet, then down to Oregon City. They were practically neighbors!
In the booths showing crafts and wares, I lingered over the paintings and noted the name of one Nancy M. Thornton on several. One of her paintings already had a ribbon on it from the Benton County Fair, dated 1859. Women were painting here that early, I thought. The notation said she now taught in Oregon City at the Female School for Instruction of Young Ladies and Misses. Maybe I could take classes from her. Maybe my daughters could go there one day. And that took me to thoughts of my sons, who ran freely around the grounds, their little flat-top hats like lily pads in the sea of people. They would all go to school here. Andy would have a chance to be a doctor as he said he wished to be. He was still standoffish with me, but I prayed he’d warm again to his mother. Christian’s stuttering had ceased since coming to Aurora Mills.
If only I’d done this before. If only I’d let Christian’s family help me. No, I would stop such thoughts. I still had control over how I thought, and my meanderings must buoy me up, not hold me hostage.
After sunset, we rode back in a wagon, many of us from the colony gathered together on loose grass hay. Several sang, and the men had their brass instruments and a concertina they played now as we bounced along. The boys sat in a cluster of children. I shifted to find a better way to sit, grateful the stitches had at last healed. I held Ida in my arms. Kate had her head in my lap, already asleep, her fingers wrapped around a pale pink ribbon. The picture of Aurora had won an award. Not the top prize, but recognition just the same. A half dime came with the prize, the first real currency of my own I’d earned. I had it wrapped in the handkerchief that also held my pearls. My life was blessed.
It was dark when we reached Aurora Mills, and we carried sleepy children from the wagon. Aurora walked with Kate in hand and I had Ida in my arms. Both Christian and Andy slept on the grass hay of the wagon. I’d come back and fetch them later. I felt a lightness in my steps despite my fatigue. It almost felt like joy. Hope, that was it. I felt hope in my heart for the future I’d create here.
Helena opened the door, and Karl carried in some jars of vinegar that had also won ribbons and quarters to boot. Keil’s “strongly medicinal” Oregon grape wine had won Keil a blue ribbon, which he held as he entered. Ida lay in the crook of my arm. Louisa brushed past me as Kate plopped down on the mat next to the door. “Let me light the lantern,” she said. I moved Kate toward her own mat in the room on the other side and planned to return to get Christian when I heard Louisa exclaim, “Oh, you startled me!”
“I maybe could have done more than that,” Jack said. “For keeping me from my Kind.”
It doesn’t take much to shatter a silky peace. I should have sensed that he was there, waiting for us. If I’d had any kind of motherly intuitiveness I’d have known, should have felt his glowering in the dark, menacing my children and my life. What a terrible thing I’d attracted into our lives with my willful ways.
“Now Jack,” Keil said. “There’s no reason to be upsetting.”
“My wife and children defy me? That’s reason to be more than upsetting. You’ve no right to harbor them”—he poked at Keil’s chest—“as though they needed shelter in a storm.”
“Every right in the world, Jack. We are Sister Giesy’s family, and she’s come to visit us.” Visit. Does he intend to send me back? “Now just settle down. We are all tired. You bunk up there with the bachelors, and we can talk in the morning. It’s been a long day. I imagine for you as well, ja.”
We might have staved off the suffering and loss then but for Louisa’s meant-for-cheering words: “Emma won a ribbon for her drawings,” Louisa said. “See what a fine job she did penciling our Aurora?” She held the drawing up beside the lamp she’d lit.
“A perfect likeness,” Helena agreed. She pushed the drawing toward Jack, who stood across from me.
Neither of them could have known how their praise of my work would enrage Jack. But I did.
Fearing he’d punch a hole through the drawing, I stepped in front of it.
“But it’s not as fine a job as you might do, Jack,” I said. “Jack’s quite an artist himself.” I turned toward Louisa.
Quick as a slap, Jack lunged across the space between us and swung to strike me with the back of his hand. The back of his hand cracked against the side of my face. I stumbled back, still holding Ida in my arms. “Come here, Wife!” It was just like him to cause pain then wonder why I resisted his commands.
Louisa cried out, “Ach, nein,” and I heard Kate scream as she ran toward me. I held Ida close to my chest but ducked my head over her, pushed Kate behind me to protect them both, knowing in a moment he would strike at me again. I hoped the boys remained asleep outside. Cajoling, capitulating, surrendering to such as Jack was not the answer. Neither was defiance. Maybe stating the obvious was.
I faced him. Something in my eyes must have reached him. His arm, midair, stopped. “It’s over, Jack,” I said. “You were right about our arrangement. Our loveless marriage never worked.”
“You made a vow,” he hissed.
“Not to let you destroy my life or the lives of my children. I made no vow about that. You go, Jack. You must go. I won’t try to make a claim on the property that once belonged to me or ask you for help to raise your child. I’ve made my way here, and here I’ll make my life.”
He stepped closer, but I didn’t back away. “Take Ida, Louisa,” I said. She moved like an angel, whisking in then out of the scene of destruction. With her free arm she moved Kate before her.
Jack towered above me. “You—” He raised his fist again. Let the blow come; my children are safe. I closed my eyes. Waited.
“No, no, no, no, no! You will not do this, Jacob Giesy.” It was Keil. He was slightly shorter than Jack, but his words held greater force. “This is the widow of a man whom I loved as a son, and you will harm her no more. You will go now. Now. Right now. You will return to Willapa or go wherever you wish, but you will not approach Sister Giesy again. We will protect her as a widow. Leave her be.”
“She holds my child.”
“Whom you paid no heed to when you struck at the child’s mother.” This from Karl, who had lit candles and the lamps to tint the room with light. “You might have hurt your daughter too.”
“You too, Karl?” Jack said. He stood like a frightened animal now, cornered.
“No sympathy, Jack,” Keil said. “The deed is done. Now go.”
“Where are my sons?” he shouted then. I was sure Jack would strike Karl, but he didn’t. Instead he glared at me, his face grotesque in the flickering light. “What have you done with those boys?”
“Take care of yourself, Jack,” Helena told him. “Go now before you do something you will later regret.” He acted as though he’d just become aware that Helena was even there. Her voice seemed to soothe him with its firmness.
“Those boys are in good hands,”
Keil said.
“There’ll come a time, Emma Giesy,” Jack said, “when you are not pampered by people you’ve bewitched. You’ll not know when you’re alone and then we’ll see what maybe could happen.”
We gave him the last word, and when no one responded, no one added fuel to his fire, his passion died. He lumbered out. I watched him while standing in the doorway, hoping that he wouldn’t stop at the wagon where the boys slept. He headed toward the tollhouse and never saw Andy’s head pop up from the grass hay, never saw Christian slide down on the opposite side of the wagon and watch their “Papa Jack” walk away before rushing up the steps of Elim and into my arms.
“You’re shaking,” Louisa said as she helped me to the chair. “Boys, help me get some water for your mama’s face.”
“Will he come back?” Andy asked.
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Louisa told them. “We’ll see what happens in the morning.”
Jack was nowhere around by morning. No one reported seeing him about, not near the furniture building nor at Rudy’s sheep farm. The tollman said a big man had crossed in the night, his shoulders hunched up like “a firecracker ready to explode.” He’d headed north, away from Aurora Mills. Away from us.
33
Emma
The Found Coin
I hardly slept, still wearing that fogginess of danger past without time to let peace massage my soul.
“We must build the church next,” Helena noted in the morning as we cleaned up following the morning meal. “The prophet Haggai warns about building for ourselves before we build for God.”
“My husband has been busy,” Louisa defended. Then she added, “But if we had a church, I’d take you there, Emma, and we could just sit in the cool and thank God for your good fortune in arriving here, your children being safe. And you’ve earned recognition for your work, all in one month’s time.” She looked at the drawing of Aurora she’d hung on the wall.