Five Brides (46 page)

Far brought his hands together in front of him, clasping them together. “I have prayed without ceasing these past many days,” he said, finally. “I have told God that I need him to answer me in haste as my daughter would not be able to hide her condition very long.”

Inga’s stomach clenched. How could it be, she wondered, that
she had allowed herself to come to this place? She could have easily gone away. Far away. Had her baby and put it up for adoption. Or moved in with Frank as he’d suggested. Anything. Anything would have been better than this . . . whatever her fate would be.

Mor shifted on the other end of the sofa. “And has God answered you, my dear?”

Far nodded once. “He has.”

Inga wanted to ask just how the answer had come. Telegraph? Telegram? Had God written the answer in the snow across the back lawn?

But she dared not, not even today—April Fool’s Day.

She’d taken the risk of coming here—coming
home
—in the hope that her sin could somehow be absolved by whatever punishment her father doled out. She’d have to sit and calmly listen now to what that entailed.

“I may have mentioned this before,” Far began again. “There is a young man who graduated a year ago. Nearly a year ago. One of the brightest students to ever set foot into one of my classrooms or ever grace our college, and one of the few young men with whom I’ve allowed a personal bond to form.”

Slowly—oh, so slowly—the blood eased from Inga’s brain and she somehow managed to step outside of herself to hear the rest of her father’s words.

“Since completing his vicarage, he has graduated and has stayed in contact with me. He is the minister of a small church, but he’s hungry for more. He sees himself with a larger congregation to lead and, one day, a wife and children to warm his home.

“I have made all the necessary calls, Inga. He will marry you quietly. Here. And the two of you will then move to Indianapolis, where Axel will lead the flock at one of the moderate Lutheran churches there.”

The words, heard through a veil of cotton-like tension, sat heavy in Inga’s ears. “Axel,” she said.

“Axel Johansson. He has agreed to this.” Far’s words were so firm, Inga wondered if he thought he was standing before a classroom, barking out the day’s lesson. “And he has assured me he will be good to you
and
to your child.”

Inga reached for her mother, but Mor’s face had grown as distant as her father’s. She turned back to her father, wildly wondering how she could have gone from independent woman to being ordered to such a barbaric fate. “I have no say in this?” she all but stormed.

“Daughter!”
Far’s voice boomed in the room and she jumped, aware now of the tension coming from the other end of the sofa.

Inga stood. “I’m sorry, Far, but . . . don’t you think
I
should have the right and the time to pray about this? To decide what is best for me and my baby?”

“Your time for praying will come later,” he said. “And I suggest you do so in a way that would have saved you, had you done it in the first place instead of lying down with some—” He caught himself as Mor gasped. “My apologies, dear.” He looked again to Inga, who remained standing. “Axel will be here in the morning to meet you. You’ll marry next Friday. I’ll perform the service and your mother and Magda will stand in as witnesses.”

“I need . . . I need to get my dress,” Inga said, although it sounded foolish even coming from her own lips.

“Dress?” Mor said, clearly shocked at the notion.

Inga turned to look at her, to see that—for the first time—Mor now looked directly at her. “I have a dress, Mor. My roommates and I bought it at Carson’s.” The words spilled out of her. “Betty’s only been back to work two days from her honeymoon, and I’m sure she hasn’t had time to have it dry-cleaned and . . .” She took
a long breath, shuddering during the intake. Was she really going along with this? Did the dress from Carson’s truly matter? “I have a dress,” she said.

“A dress,” Mor sighed, as though the dress were hanging right there before them.

“There will be no need for that,” Far said. “This isn’t going to be the wedding you dreamed of, Inga. This will be the wedding of—”

“A sinner?”

“Inga, no,” Mor said, standing.

Her father rested a hand on the curve of the piano’s top board. She stood transfixed as it flexed, then relaxed. “Do not defy me, Inga.” The instruction came from an eerily calm voice. “It will not go well for you.”

She felt her cheeks go hollow and she bit on a tiny layer of flesh to keep from screaming. “All right, Far. I’ll marry this man.” After all, marrying him didn’t mean
staying
married. As soon as the baby was born, as soon as it showed enough of its father’s features, she’d return to LA. Even marriage to Frank had to be better than marriage to a perfect stranger, a man of her father’s choosing. “But I’m wearing my dress. I paid my sixty dollars.”

Her mother took her hand. “Is it . . . is it
white
, Inga?”

Inga nodded. “It is.”

“That will never do,” Far stated, then turned on his heel and spoke to his feet. “I’ll expect you down here at ten in the morning, Inga. None of this staying in bed half the day. And you’ll be on your best behavior.” He walked across the room, stopping at the foyer entryway and turning to look at her once more. “After tomorrow, we will never speak of this again. You will marry, leave, and when you will return, it will be after the baby is born and old enough that no one will question who its
father is. There will be
no
further comments. Ever. Do I make myself clear?”

She had said it, hadn’t she? That she would accept whatever God handed to her? But as she stood before this punishment, she wasn’t sure she really could. To pretend none of it had ever happened—that her love for Frank had not happened—was nearly more than she could bear.

And yet—“Yes, Far. You have made yourself clear.”

Far’s cold eyes left her, turning tender as they rested on her mother. “Come, dear.”

Mor followed him out, and when their footsteps were nothing but muffled memory, Inga darted up the stairs to her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

The next morning, before the man she would marry stood at their front door, she placed a call to Mr. Ferguson’s office at Hertz in Chicago.

If Far had searched the world over, he could not have found a man more physically different from Frank Martindale, even if he’d given the search everything he had. To Frank’s dark hair, thick brow, and radiant blue eyes, Axel Johansson’s was blond, the longer hair at the top conservatively combed back. His brows rose at the bridge of his nose, as if he were in perpetual question. And his eyes—the color of a blue glass marble—were filled with wonder and innocence.

But he was tall—Inga would give him that—and broad-shouldered. The top lip had a deep Cupid’s bow, which gave him the appearance of always smiling. His boy-next-door charm, she thought before they’d even been properly introduced, would work in his favor before “the flock.” But she wasn’t sure how far it would go with her.

Far introduced them in the living room, as promised. Axel took her hand in his, shaking it as if they’d just met at a party. He glanced momentarily at the infinitesimal swell in her belly, then brought his eyes back up to hers, apologizing with them. Mor walked in then, carrying a tray boasting two cups from her best china. The aroma of coffee laced with fresh-ground cinnamon wafted around the room.

Axel smiled. “My
mormor
puts cinnamon in her coffee as well.”

Mormor. Of course Far has found a Swede through and through.

“Dr. Christenson and I will take our coffee in our sitting room,” Mor announced, setting the tray on the coffee table. She looked at Inga. “Inga, we’ll leave you to do the honors.” Mor slipped her arm into Far’s and, for the craziest of moments, Inga thought she saw Mor forcing him from the room.

“How do you take your coffee, Mr. Johansson?” she asked when she’d found her voice.

“Black, one sugar,” he said, surprising her. She’d expected he’d want cream. Lots and lots of cream.

Inga wore a high-neck, emerald-green twirling dress with bold stitching on the triangle-shaped pockets—one she’d purchased at David & DuRand one evening when Joan worked. She knew, as she prepared his coffee, that she appeared the picture of domesticity. And, perhaps, of purity—especially with the single strand of pearls at her neck and the triple strand at her right wrist.

She handed him the coffee, her fingers loosely gripping the fragile saucer. He took it, keeping his eyes on the cup rather than her. “Thank you,” he said.

Inga walked to the nearest chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

He didn’t answer her; he simply sat. Only then did she ease herself into her chair, making certain to cross her legs at the ankles. “Mr. Johansson—”

He cleared his throat as he took a sip of coffee. She noticed the length of his neck, and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Call me Axel,” he said, then smiled with discomfort as he looked up. “After all, we’re going to be married in a week.”

Inga laced her fingers, saying nothing.

“Don’t you want coffee?” he asked, his eyes cutting to the tray.

“No,” Inga replied. “I’m afraid my mother has forgotten—lately coffee doesn’t—I’d prefer tea.”

Axel pinked. “Oh.”

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are? Axel?”

“Twenty-three.” He took a hurried sip of coffee. “Twenty-four next month.”

Two years her junior . . . And so seemingly innocent. Indianapolis would eat him for lunch. “And do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?”

Axel set the cup and saucer on the octagon-shaped table next to his chair. “I—uh—your father said that we aren’t to talk about it.” He nodded toward her stomach. “About the father. The baby. We’re only supposed to talk about it as if it’s ours.”

“And you don’t want to rock the boat with my father, I take it.”

His eyes widened. “I want—” he began, but then pushed his weight against the back of the chair.

Inga waited, but when he didn’t continue, she finished for him. “You want the church in Indianapolis.”
Which you are clearly not ready for.

What had her father been thinking?

The line of his jaw grew firm. “Yes, I do. More than anything else.”

She laughed lightly. “Even if you have to give your life away to get it?”

“I don’t see it that way, Inga.”

Inga startled, hearing her name from his lips for the first time, as if he’d been practicing the syllables over and over the night before. Whispering them. Saying them with authority. In laughter and through tears. “How
do
you see it?”

“I trust God with the direction of my life. ‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,’ the Good Book tells us, ‘and
he delighteth in his way.’” He paused. “But I’ve not been happy in my present position and so I prayed for three days that a new door would open or that—at the very least—I would find joy in my present position. At the end of the three days, your father called. It seems to me that God heard my prayer as well as your father’s.”

But has he heard mine?
“I understand.”

“Do you?”

No.
“Yes, of course.”

He brought his hand up to his mouth, cupping it and pinching his nose before saying, “But right now you are struggling with your faith.”

Inga blinked. How sweet, his trying to play pastor. “I’ll be honest with you, Axel. There’s not a lot to struggle with.”

“Well, I hope to be a part of the rectifying of that,” he said. “If you’ll allow me to try, I think I can bring you some happiness. I know that, with the new position, I can take care of you and the baby.”

“With a marriage in name only,” she blurted. Heat rushed across her face.

His blushed as well. “There will be no pressure from me, Inga.”

She shifted, crossing one leg over the other. “All right then. I
do
feel it important we are up front with each other,” she said. “From the start.”

Axel stood—was he leaving?—and crossed the room to her.

Inga rose, waiting unsure until he offered his hand again, which she took. “Friends, then,” he said, his handshake less introductory and more businesslike.

She smiled, amazed that she could. “Friends.”

That night she wrote Frank a letter, letting him know the name of the man she would marry—unless he called to stop her—and
where they would reside.
I will send you a photo of your child in due time,
she wrote.
So that you will, one day, know the truth.