When the house next to ours became available, I purchased it as well. “I’ll rent it out to young families,” I told Olea, “and keep the rent low.” The upkeep and management of renters occupied me on Saturdays, and Olea enjoyed the work of repairing porch steps and painting fences while Louise bought material she turned into slipcovers and drapes. The real estate agent came to dinner often with new properties to invest in, and so I did, buying and selling, accepting an occasional loss but mostly modest gain.
In the new decade, with hemlines and hairstyles much shorter, we planned a trip—we added Franklin and Sharon—traveling to Paris and Sorrento and later to Norway, where Louise and Olea visited relatives. Franklin, Sharon, and I took a boat ride on one of the sparkling lakes near the women’s family home, and we returned refreshed from seeing other lives and ways. We even bought a settee and rocker from France and had it shipped back to Spokane. Olea said her sister would be proud that we found such a bargain.
Small goals accomplished with and for family were worthy, I decided.
Then one June day in 1924, I read the Spokane paper as I usually did and found a story that told me I had steps to take. The Voice I couldn’t hear but felt said, This is the way, walk ye in it. Walking. I’d spent my life walking toward goals and then away from them. Unlike my numbers and columns, this journey I couldn’t control. I swallowed. Would she acknowledge my existence, allow me back into their lives without requiring I set aside my friends? It was time to find out.
I approached my mother’s house and paused. This fine structure would have been Ole’s satisfaction, that and taking care of his family without the world knowing that his wife had defied him. That was all he really wanted. I could forgive him for not taking the money but not for diminishing what we’d done those years ago, denying how we’d accomplished something remarkable, refusing her the comfort of that story. But he was gone now; hanging on to resentment hurt only me. And my mother had lost another child, her sixth. I wanted to grieve with her.
I took a deep breath. I knocked on the door. Ida opened it.
“Oh,” she said, her eyes as big as biscuits.
“Who is it?” I heard my mother speak from another room, her voice a sigh from the past. “Has someone brought another casserole?”
My mother entered from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
There she stood, white hair, eyes with lines, skin drawn tight against that strong face and chin, glasses slipping on her nose. She pushed them up. She was still a handsome woman, shoulders straight as railroad ties. She no longer looked defeated, just profoundly sad.
She stepped next to Ida, stopped. “Clara?”
I am five years old, aching for her arms to comfort me when I’ve scraped my knee; I am fifteen, angry that she’s told me I must leave the farm and go to work to serve the family but still longing for her words of reassurance; I am eighteen and she has taken me from love to walk across the continent, propelling me to life.
I am a young woman standing at the edge of the Dale Creek trestle. My mother is across the chasm looking back.
I am a forty-seven-year-old child, walking this way and that, aching for my mother to call me home.
My heart was pounding, pounding. She has not put her arms out. Should I reach out to her? Can I withstand the pain if she steps back?
I am her daughter. She is the mother who started me on this walk.
I stepped forward.
PART THREE
Reunion
FORTY-FOUR
Out of Exile
Clara?” Mama repeated. “You’ve come home.”
I put my arms up and she walked into them, the daughter giving comfort to her mother, but she reached her arms around me too. I felt the bones in her back, her spine built of pearls, delicate but strong.
Tears streaked the powder on my face. She isn’t sending me away. “Oh, Clara. You’ve come home, when we needed you.” We held each other, seemingly alone in the room, the longing slipping away, my soul filling up.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Bill said then, coming from the other room. At least I assumed it was my brother Bill. It wasn’t spoken cruelly but was Bill’s way of broaching awkwardness, I decided.
“Better than a mouse, I hope,” I said releasing Mama. “Though I eat more, Billy. Do you even have a cat?” I asked.
“Not much more,” he commented. “You always were thin, as I remember.” Bill patted his own stomach, flat as an iron. “Can’t say the same for myself.” Self-deprecating. That was a Norwegian man for you, I thought.
“Your carpentry work keeps you fit,” I said.
“Meat cutting,” Bill said. “I stopped carpentry a few years back. Lost the lust for it after Papa … Well.” He lifted his palms, dropped them.
Lillian said, “I was seven or eight when I last saw you.” I nodded. A beautiful woman.
“Though one day I walked by as you sat on the steps, writing in your diary with your friend … Marcia. You might have been eleven or twelve.”
Lillian’s brow furrowed. “Yes. Years ago,” she said. A man came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulder. “My husband,” she said.
“You’re old enough to be married,” I said.
“Of course.” She smiled. A warm and direct gaze met mine.
“You were always lovely and still are,” I said. “Ida,” I turned to her. “It’s good to see you.” I didn’t add “again,” not certain if my mother had ever known of our encounters those years before.
“Would you like coffee?” Ida asked, and when I nodded, she left the room.
Maybe that’s what was necessary now as we gathered our bearings. These mundane words, spoken like garden tools making room for bulbs, people setting themselves into this surprise, forming a new planting to bloom in the future. Maybe Mama wouldn’t ever speak of the day I’d left or of the intervening years between.
“I came because I read in the paper, about Arthur,” I said. “I’m so very sorry.”
A woman stood beside Mama, a child huddled behind her. I wondered if it was Agnes, the name I’d read in the directory. A toddler sat on the rag rug picking at loose threads. “We haven’t met,” I said. I put my hand out. “I’m Arthur’s sister Clara, and I’m so sorry that he’s left us all.”
The woman’s eyes pooled with tears. “Agnes,” she said. She patted her daughter’s shoulder and pulled the girl to stand in front of her, arms soft on the child’s shoulders. “This is Thelma. And that’s Roland, our son.” He had a small piece of Hardanger lace pinned to the front of his shirt. Her voice broke, and I watched as Mama moved to stand beside her, handing her a tissue. I stared at the lace piece.
“It was Arthur’s,” Agnes said in explanation. “I have no idea why he kept it. You’re the sister Arthur wouldn’t talk about.”
I winced. What despicable crime might she think I’d committed?
“I’ve been gone a long time.”
“Well, come in, sit down,” Mama said. “Lillian, help your sister. You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you? People have been so generous, bringing food. Meningitis,” she said then. “As bad as diphtheria, tuberculosis. Poor Arthur. Survived the flu and then … so very sudden.” Her eyes pooled again with grief.
“I’d be pleased to, but I don’t want to disrupt.” I looked at Agnes. “I came … to pay my respects. To witness to our loss.”
“Hardly your loss,” Ida said, holding the tray with coffee on it. “You haven’t seen him in more than twenty years.”
“Ida,” Mama said.
“To me he’ll always be that young man who loved horses and dogs—”
“And cats,” Thelma said. The child’s lip trembled. “We had to leave our cat. Grandma and Aunt Ida say there’s no room here.”
“Hush,” her mother cautioned.
“I’ve … rental property,” I said. “You’re welcome to it, and a cat would be fine. Your family could stay until—”
“They don’t need charity,” Ida sa
id. “They need family around them, and that’s what they’ll have living here. We can take care of you, can’t we, Thelma?” She set the tray down and with one hand hugged the child, a gesture genuine and warm. Thelma hugged her back. “We’ll find ourselves an alley cat to feed. He’ll be an outdoor cat. Take care of those mice.” Thelma nodded her head, wiped at her eyes.
I wished I hadn’t made the offer of the property. It sounded crass—or worse, boastful that I had something like that to give. Ida was right. They needed family now to ease the pain. All the money in the world could not relieve that. Money never could.
“The service will be Thursday, in Wilbur,” Agnes said. “That’s where we live. Lived. I’m not sure what we’ll do …”
“You’ll let us take care of you,” Mama said. “It’ll be good to have the voice of children echo in these walls for however long you need. You’re doing us a favor by joining us. That’s what families are for.”
Agnes dabbed at her eyes, and Mama nodded once in that firm way she had that indicated, Well, that’s settled. “I’ll get us cookies.” She left the room.
“So,” Bill said. “What have you been doing all these years? Been in jail?” He grinned.
“Not the kind with walls,” I said. “I haven’t really been held hostage except by my own doing.” He frowned. “I’ve ranched, out at Coulee City.”
“You, a farmer?”
“Yes, and then I trapped for a while, got involved in the fur trade.”
“Wouldn’t have pictured you doing anything like trapping. Not exactly a woman’s task, that.”
“No, but I learned to do it. Not all that well, but adequate.”
“Wait,” Mama called from the kitchen. She stuck her head out through the door opening. “Wait until we’re out there so we can catch up too.”
I asked Bill what made him decide to become a butcher.
“Oh, I fell into it mostly. A friend told me about the work, and it pays good. Always thought it odd to call it butchering when it requires such precision.” He shrugged. I wondered if he’d been in the war, then saw a photograph on the mantel of him in a uniform. “I still like music,” he said. “I took up the violin.”
“Did you?”
“We go to concerts now. Mother enjoys them. We heard Rubinstein play.”
“I love the concerts,” Mama said, entering with food she set on the dining room table. She straightened the lace doily in the center. “They remind me of the concert halls when we were in New York and—”
“Now, Mother,” Bill warned. He wagged his finger. “None of that.”
“We don’t need to hear about New York,” Ida agreed, dragging the name out as though it was scum. Ida cast a frowning glance at me. So the rule still stood: no talking of anything related to our journey, our time of perseverance, of pain and disappointment. Mama wasn’t to draw nurture from that journey in front of them, not even as she faced the death of yet another son.
“Bill’s quite good on the violin,” Mama said skipping over her chastisement. “Here, fresh sandbakkels. Sit, all of you.” We did. “Tell us about what you’ve done, Clara. Did I hear fur trapping? Goodness, what a job that would be.”
I told them of my work at Merchants, my flirtation with designs, my association with Franklin. I didn’t mention his last name. “And I continue to care for and live with my two friends.” Ida fidgeted on her chair at the mention of them. I watched Mama’s face. “They stood with me through the drought and when some of my business ventures turned sour.”
“You had misfortune?” Mama asked.
“Despite all that money they gave you?” Ida said.
“Trials come to everyone,” I said. “Whether you have money or not.”
My mother nodded. “It does. And love and faith see us through.”
“That’s from your book, Grandma,” Thelma said.
She is writing her book.
“The book you like me to read to you,” Mama said as I held my breath. “Yes, I read that one to all my children. Your father loved that book too.” Her eyes teared again.
“I considered fur ranching,” I continued. “I went to Finland and Norway to see their operations.”
“I heard there’s a farm south of here trying to raise mink and fox,” Billy said. “A wild scheme, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. So someone else had taken on the mantle.
I was grateful to be speaking of safe things while grief settled on each person’s shoulders. I wished I could find words to keep their hearts from breaking further, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Norway,” Agnes said. “Arthur always said he wanted to go there one day.”
Maybe mundane things give way to deeper healing. “We visited Grandfather’s grave, in Grue,” I said. My mother jerked her head up. “Yes. And walked at the Hauge farm. It’s pretty there. Parts of this state remind me of Norway, with its towering trees and streams and mountain peaks. We stayed in Oslo. The river … So deep and winding right through town, just like here.”
“I was Thelma’s age when I left there,” Mama said. She looked at Thelma. “My mother remarried, but not before she sent me to an English-speaking school. That was so wise of her, and I know they sacrificed to pay for it.” She looked thoughtful. “It’s funny, but I never felt at home in Michigan or Minnesota. Cyclones, prairie fires. But there’s something comforting about Mica Creek and Spokane. Now that you say it, I do see the resemblance to Norway. Maybe our feet find the way along our ancestors’ paths without our even knowing. It’s good to walk them now and then.”
Ida opened her mouth as though to protest the very word walk, looked confused, didn’t speak.
“I was glad I went there,” I said. “I find I like to travel. Maybe we could go there together one day.”
“Clara …” Ida’s voice held warning. Vigilant, that was how I’d describe my sister, vigilant in holding resentment close as a fur coat. But she must have decided that not all travel discussion could be silenced because she didn’t stop me as I continued.
“I traveled to Montreal, Paris, London, even Greece. And then I spent a little time in Minneapolis and Manistee, Michigan, too.”
My mother’s hand shook a little, and the ice clinked in the glass as she brought it to her lips.
“What’s in Michigan to see?” Lillian asked.
“A lighthouse. Timber. I walked where Ole worked and where Mother and Grandmother lived,” I said, looking at my mother. “I found I didn’t leave anything there I need to go back for. And besides, coming home is always best.”
“It always is,” Mama said. She covered my hand with her own. “It always is.”
I didn’t attend Arthur’s funeral. It would detract from what Agnes needed then, which was all the Estby support geared toward her and nothing unpredictable coming from my presence. I planned to visit the cemetery later to lay flowers on Arthur’s grave, and Ole’s and the others.
Both Olea and Louise eagerly heard my story of the visit, and I saw relief when I told them how much I appreciated having them as a family to come home to.
“We’re a pair,” Louise said.
“There are three of us,” Olea corrected.
“That’s right. We’re a triplet. They say good things come in threes.”
“It’s trouble that comes in threes,” Olea said.
“Maybe. But this triplet’s been good for each of us, hasn’t it?”
“Indeed,” I said.
“And your mother forgave you?” Olea asked. “For your association with us?”
“I believe she did,” I said. “Though not in those words. We crossed a bridge, though. We’ll see how things go once we’re on the same side for a time.”
I lit a candle and reminded Louise not to move it. Then I slipped an apron over my head and started supper.
No one had said, “I forgive you.” No one had asked. It wasn’t needed. Love would rebuild like bricks raising a cathedral.
I waited until a Sa
turday, when I was sure Ida would be at the Hutton Settlement House where she volunteered and Lillian would be working at the millinery on Sprague. Bill said he worked Saturdays until noon. I called on my mother in the morning. I carried a package with me. If Mama was alone, I’d speak with her there; if Bill or Agnes and the children were around, I had other plans.
“Well, howdy, Clara,” Bill said when I stepped inside. He wasn’t exactly warm, but he was cordial. “What brings you this way?”
“It’s a lovely day. I thought I’d see if Mama might let me take her out to lunch.”
“Clara!” Mama said. “Come in. Did you say lunch?”
“I wondered if you’d like to join me for an outing.”
“Oh, I can fix us a bite right here. No need for you to spend your money.”
“I’d like to,” I said. “They make lovely cream puffs at the Davenport.”
“Go,” Bill told his mother. “Bring me one.”
“Can I come too?” Thelma asked. The child wore a big red hair ribbon, and Mama touched it when she put her hand to the back of the girl’s head.
“If Clara doesn’t mind,” Mama said.
“I’d like that,” I said. “If it’s all right with your mother.”
“Maybe another time,” Agnes said. She pulled the girl to her as though I might be carrying disease. Who knew what Ida had said. But maybe she wanted her child near to help her face her loss. I decided to look at it that way.
“I’ll look forward to that. Maybe we can all go to the Davenport together one day.”
“Too rich for my blood,” Bill said.
“She was inviting us girls,” Mama said.
Bill grunted, but he didn’t look displeased.
We walked beneath a canopy of trees along Riverfront. As in the past, my mother set the pace; this time I lessened my stride to remain beside her. Silence marked our steps though it was a pleasant calm. Mama asked about my work, and I told her what I did at the bank. “Well, that’s a good job,” she said. “You were always good with numbers.”