A Fireproof Home for the Bride (27 page)

“What about Grandmother?” Emmy finished her food and wiped her mouth.

“Well, my dear sister Lida, who was as devout as Mother, went in a different direction, winding up in a temperance revival tent…” Josephine’s lower lip moved, as though she were missing the words she wanted. “She went in a Catholic and came out a prohibition-crazed Lutheran. Maybe it was Mother’s death or Father’s drinking. Who knows? Lida was already prone to holiness. Not gullible exactly, but the religious equivalent. She became fired by the cause and picketed with other ladies outside of Uncle Johan’s tavern just up the road here. She’d walk right behind Father the whole quarter mile, a Bible in one hand and a hand-lettered sign in the other. They’d take up their positions and eventually come back home, where I’d have some sort of supper waiting for them. Usually eggs. Clearly, Father won that battle—they were both so damn stubborn—by going to the grave a good year before the Volstead Act.” Josephine laughed as though it were a fonder memory than it appeared. “After the war took our brothers, her faith ossified. She always had a flair for the dramatic.”

“Is that what caused your rift?” Emmy asked, and just as quickly wished she hadn’t when she saw the fury clouding Josephine’s brow.

“Not today,” she barked. Her words hit Emmy with a sting akin to a fast slap. Josephine speared a glistening pea and held it in the air between them. “Religion is an accident of birth, no more, no less. This small green orb makes as much sense to me as any religion I’ve encountered. It’s at least as nourishing and far less judgmental.” Josephine pushed back her chair and began to clear the lunch dishes.

“Please let me do that,” Emmy said, recovering from the shock of her aunt’s changing moods. “I promise not to let it domesticate me.” Emmy winked and then clumsily caught the older woman up in her arms. They stood there together for an awkward moment as Emmy waited for Josephine to give an indication that she’d had enough. Finally her aunt gave her a small squeeze and they dropped the embrace in unison. When Josephine stepped away, Emmy saw a slight ripple of surprise pass over her aunt’s face, and she suddenly realized that Josephine had not been held affectionately in a very long time, a feeling no more familiar to Emmy. A car horn blared outside of the house and Emmy jumped.

“There he is,” Josephine said. Emmy looked quickly out of the window and then at the collected dishes. Josephine picked up a linen dish towel that was dotted in embroidered strawberries and snapped her with it. “Go on, now get lost in
love.
”

“Do I look all right?” Emmy asked, ruffling her fingers through her hair, which she had cut short the week before. It wasn’t quite as severe as Bev’s once was, but fluffy and sweet in a softening way. The look had gained her second glances from grown men, and she hoped that Bobby would like it, too. She wasn’t sure about love, but the feathers inside of her were already flying.

“I’m sure you do.” Josephine turned Emmy by the shoulders and pushed her toward the door. Emmy quickly straightened her clothing and stepped outside, instantly visoring her eyes with an upheld hand at her brow. Bobby slung his thumbs into the loops of his dungarees and squinted before shaking his head and breaking into a radiantly white smile. Emmy laughed and crossed the freshly cut lawn to stand in front of him.

“Isn’t it heaven?” she asked, looking around at the place.

He took her hand. “It sure is.”

She accidentally bit down on the side of her tongue and winced. “You want the tour?”

“Oh, you bet,” he replied.

“Well, this is the main cottage, which my ancestors homesteaded,” Emmy said, feeling her hand heat up in Bobby’s grasp as she led him along a blue-and-white-tiled pathway around the house and through a vine-laden trellis that opened on a wide field lined with rows of heavy stems in full multicolored bloom. “This is the gladiola garden, my aunt’s passion.”

“I’ve never seen so many flowers,” Bobby said, touching a pale pink blossom. “It’s magnificent.”

“She also grows tomatoes, cabbages, cucumbers, onions, you name it, and a man named Mr. Green sells whatever she grows at that little stand across the road,” Emmy said, her voice wobbly because Bobby was near. “I kid you not, that’s his real name.” She continued walking and talking, scared to turn her head and find him gone. “And in the fall the pumpkin patch next to it opens for people to come out and pick their own.”

They fell into an easy pace as they continued past the old milking barn.

“That’s where Kid lives,” Emmy said. “There used to be cows here, but I’m relieved not to have to milk anything anymore, and besides, he’s a fine old horse.”

Bobby stopped walking and looked at her hand in his. “I’m sorry about your engagement.” He tapped her palm. “Actually, I’m
not
sorry.”

“I’m not, either,” Emmy said, trying to sound casual. “I don’t know whether I’m fit for marriage in any case. I might just choose to be an independent woman.”

“I’ll get married. It’s part of the plan.” Bobby glanced at her and started walking again. “What’s that down by the river?”

“Oh, it’s a chicken coop,” she said, happy to change the subject. “Apparently, when Uncle Ray was still alive he had at least a hundred chickens. Now there’s maybe a dozen roaming the place and laying eggs down there. That and a pair of peacocks.”

“I saw them,” Bobby said. “They’re pretty.”

“Pretty loud, more like.” Emmy laughed. “The male sits on one side of the house and calls to the female over on the other. It’s sure annoying when it happens in the middle of the night. Sometimes Aunt Josephine is still out in the Jeep house working and will shoo them back together to restore peace.” As if to prove her point, the two birds mewled shrill notes between them. “See what I mean? I swear they sound like tomcats in heat.”

“I guess so, a bit,” Bobby said, laughing. He took off his cap and scratched the top of his head. “I’ve been wondering about you, Emmy. Worried, more like. This is good to see you here, with all this beauty. It suits you.” His staggered speech wasn’t that of the Bobby she’d remembered and dreamed about. Emmy leaned into the thought that he too was nervous. “I’ve been pouring cement since graduation,” he continued. “Dad says I’m the hardest worker on the site.”

“Mr. Utke gave me a satchel,” Emmy replied. “And Aunt Josephine gave me Ray’s car.” She gestured to the maroon-and-black Crestliner sedan parked next to Josephine’s wagon in the yard. It was more than six years old but drove like new. “She said it makes her happy to see it out again.”

They walked over to a small wooden bench next to the water pump and sat, staring at their own feet. Emmy gazed off toward the tree line, seeing movement, dismissing it as the peacocks. She cleared her throat as she tried to find something to say that wouldn’t break the fragility of the moment. “I help out the best I can, though Aunt Josephine has a field hand who does most of the heavy work, in addition to Mr. Green. It’s much easier here than back on the farm, that’s for sure.”

“What was that like?” Bobby said, lifting her hand and placing it once again in his own. She felt every bit of his skin where their palms connected.

“When my grandfather was alive the place seemed happy, but after he died it sort of lost its features.” Emmy glanced at Bobby, realizing how little they really knew about each other. “Grandfather Nelson was very quiet and strong. We’d go fishing or trapping or looking for arrowheads. I wasn’t good at the heavier chores, but I could collect eggs.” Emmy laughed and Bobby smiled. She leaned a little against him. “I miss the smell of freshly baled alfalfa, though, and all the dogs, especially Sky. She was this pitch-black lab who never left my side when I was a kid. After we moved to town, Mother didn’t allow any pets.” Emmy’s nervousness grew with Bobby’s silence, and she pressed on, trying not to think about what it would be like to kiss him. “I hope to have a puppy someday. Wouldn’t that be nice? I mean, you do like dogs, don’t you, because I love them and if you didn’t…”

Bobby pressed Emmy’s hand. “Stop talking,” he whispered, and drew the top line of her lip with the tip of his index finger. She opened her mouth to ask about his life, but he gently pressed the finger against both lips and then slid his knuckle under her chin, tipping her head back slightly. His lips pressed against hers, and the soft warmth of his kiss began the flow of yearning that she had nearly convinced herself she could live a lifetime without. When the tingling reached her toes, Emmy drew back and sighed.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to invite you out here,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.”

A wrinkle crossed his nose. “Don’t ever think that,” he said, and drew her into an embrace that brought a rush of longing up her spine. Their lips welded together in a feverish crush. They kissed like this, sitting in the middle of the yard, hands roaming and eyes slightly open, until Emmy’s senses prickled with something else: beyond the tree-filled lawn that separated them from the drive was the unmistakable brown slouch of Ambrose’s truck.

“Stay here,” she said to Bobby. She stood and wove her way back through the pergola and into the front yard in time enough to see Ambrose emerge from the cab with a stack of newspapers in his hand. Emmy caught sight of Josephine paused at the door to the old barn, arms folded, standing sentinel there.

“Hello,” Emmy said to Ambrose, echoing her aunt’s posture with the hope of finding some common strength.

“Good day, Emmy,” Ambrose said, removing a lightweight fedora-style hat that seemed to be woven from fine straw and was wrapped with a black band that sharpened the look of his black trousers and short-sleeved white shirt. Around his neck was knotted a thin tie that seemed out of place, and over the left pocket of his shirt Emmy noticed a small, embroidered
CC.
“I’ve come to personally invite you to a ladies’ gathering for the Citizens’ Council. And to give you these to read and distribute.” He extended the newspapers between them, where Emmy let them fold over his hand in midair.

“No thank you,” she said. “I’m working at
The Fargo Forum
now.”

Ambrose took a step forward and pressed the stack a foot closer. “That’s why it’s important you read these, Emmy, before it’s too late.” He looked over her shoulder and withdrew his arm. Emmy turned and, seeing Bobby, felt suspended on a tightrope between the tangible future and the dissipated past.

“Hello,” Bobby said, crossing the short distance with his hand extended. “I’m Robert Doyle.” Emmy had never heard him use his proper name, and given the circumstances, its invocation had all the gravity of a tricycle.

Ambrose shrugged away the handshake by elevating the papers and hat slightly, and Emmy was speechless, stunned by Bobby’s slightness next to Ambrose. “You’re that Shanley kid, right?” Ambrose asked.

“Yes, sir,” Bobby replied, sharpening the disparity of age and Emmy’s chagrin at the same time. It occurred to her that she had kissed both of these men, with far different results. Embarrassment pounded in her ears as she tried to figure a way out of the unhappy scene.

“Bobby, this is Ambrose,” she said, propping her fists on her hips. “My oldest friend.” She suspected that explanations weren’t necessary, and yet, having placed a true name on the nut of her relationship with Ambrose, Emmy knew she’d moved beyond everything they had attempted to be other than what they were. Friends.

“I see I’ve come at a bad time,” Ambrose said, and settled his hat in a way that Emmy read as disagreement with her assessment. He nodded slightly at her. “I’ll try you again another day.” He began to turn toward his truck, stopped, and swung back, holding out the newspapers one last time. “Just take a look. It’s all I ask.”

Emmy pushed the damp hair from her forehead with the back of her hand before reaching out and taking the papers in a roll, the rough print feeling as though it would scratch fine lines into her palm. “Thank you, I will.” It seemed easier than trying once more to say no. This time when he turned to go, he completed the effort without further words, not even a good-bye. Emmy held a flat hand above her eyes and watched his dusty departure down the road.

“That went well,” Bobby said, and she smiled with relief at his small joke, tossing the bundle of papers through the open window of her car as they walked together, hands entwined, to his truck.

“I haven’t even asked you what else is new,” she said, trying to look into his eyes and wincing with the effort of diminishing the brightness of the sunshine bearing down all around them.

“Let’s see,” he said, lifting one of her fingers at a time as he talked. “I graduated high school, I’m working for my father on the road crew, Pete and Sally’s going to have a baby, and this fall I’ll go to college at NDAC.” He stopped at her thumb, folding her hand inside of his slightly larger one. “Just regular stuff, I guess.”

“I guess so,” she whispered, closing her eyes and leaning into the relative shade of his chest. Her head tipped neatly onto his shoulder and she stayed there, still, until the heat of the day pressed them apart.

“So where do you want to go from here?” he asked, an uncommon shyness in his voice.

“I suppose we could see a movie,” she said. “That would be nice.”

Thirteen

All Progress Is Precarious

June bloomed and greened its way into the hottest July on record, and as the days snapped back from the long stretch of the solstice, Emmy eased into the trappings of her new life, distrusting the comfort even as she welcomed the routines. In particular, she looked forward to the long, looping afternoon drive from the estate to the
Fargo Forum
building, and the freedom she felt behind the wheel of her own car, going to earn her own paycheck. Even more than her growing relationship with Bobby, the work gave her a sense of security and place she hadn’t before known. A bird would only have to fly about a mile or two from point to point, but Emmy had to make her way over the Red River, a meandering coiled creature with its closest two bridges in opposite directions from Oakport Township. She could turn left out of the driveway and head up old Highway 3, ford the river just north of Hector Field, and then take Thirteenth Street along the edge of the college campus and down to First Avenue. Or she would go down Eleventh Avenue to the Second Avenue crossing and up Broadway. Either way it took about fifteen minutes, and she greatly preferred the country route with its wind-slanted fields of mellowing grain, the occasional sight of an airplane landing, and cruising her car along the edge of the place where she hoped to eventually study. Taking this route also meant avoiding the Crystal Sugar factory and thoughts of her father. She missed his silences more than their talks—his ability to calm her with his steady presence—but she wasn’t quite ready to seek him out and explain why she had left his house. In fact, the more she learned about the family rift, the less she understood her father’s ability to let it happen again in his own.