Sophie's Dilemma (9 page)

‘‘Was Sophie with him?’’ Lars asked.

‘‘She didn’t come to the door with him, but I assume she was. I invited him to come in, but he just stood there. I-I didn’t know what to say. I prayed for God to give me wisdom. I thought that if I said yes, it might delay them, but then I wondered if I said no what would happen. So I said I would be delighted to marry them, but that Sophie needed to have your permission, and then we could have the wedding in a day or two, when their families could rejoice with them.’’ He stared at Kaaren and Lars sitting side by side on the horsehair sofa. ‘‘I was hoping to buy time, to keep them from making a big mistake.’’

‘‘It wasn’t your fault. It was theirs.’’ Lars’s voice wore a hardness not heard before.

‘‘Then today when Grace said Sophie was gone, I was heartbroken, as I know you are. I . . . I’m sorry. I should have gotten on the horse and come to tell you then, but I thought they were going to wait. Hamre thanked me and said something about changing plans. Please . . . will you forgive me?’’

‘‘There is nothing to forgive.’’ Kaaren took Lars’s hand and, glancing at his face, turned back to Pastor Solberg. She shook her head, carefully, as if she had a headache. ‘‘We can all say ‘if I had done this’ or ‘if we had done that,’ but that does no good.’’ She studied their clasped hands. ‘‘My mind says I will trust God, but my heart screams I want my daughter back.’’

‘‘To hurt her mother like this . . .’’ Jawline tight, Lars narrowed his eyes. ‘‘That is unforgivable.’’

‘‘No. Please don’t say that.’’ Kaaren squeezed his hand.

‘‘I asked at the livery. Sam said Hamre rented a horse and buggy, and it hadn’t come back yet.’’ Lars covered his wife’s hand with his other.

‘‘You think they drove it to Grafton?’’ Ingeborg asked.

‘‘Possibly. Take most of the night.’’

Ingeborg knew Kaaren was thinking the same thing she was: Surely they wouldn’t live in sin. Surely Sophie wouldn’t be that wild. Would a pastor or a judge marry them there? How were they going to live? Hamre said he lived in a boardinghouse. Uff da! No answers. The note said Sophie would write when they got to Seattle. But that was three days on the train. It would be at least a week before a letter could get back to Blessing, perhaps two.

‘‘How is Grace?’’ Solberg asked.

‘‘Angry. Disappointed. The same as the rest of us.’’

‘‘So all we can do is pray for her—for them—and wait,’’ Kaaren said with a catch in her voice.

‘‘Unless we send out a posse.’’ Lars leaned back, arms clamped across his chest.

‘‘Like her brothers?’’ Kaaren raised an eyebrow.

‘‘Good thing they aren’t older or I’m sure they would go.’’ Ingeborg felt a knot loosen inside. Kaaren had smiled on that last comment.

‘‘Well, we have God’s promise to care for His wayward children.’’ Pastor Solberg shook his head again. ‘‘If He can take care of sparrows, He will watch over them.’’

Ingeborg stood. ‘‘I need to be getting on home. You’ll let me know as soon as you hear anything?’’

‘‘Ja, we will do that.’’

‘‘Could we pray, please?’’ Without taking time for answers, Pastor Solberg bowed his head. ‘‘Lord, we come to you with pain that hurts even more when it involves our children. Thank you that our children are your children, as are we. We know you will watch over Sophie and that you will heal our hurts, for so you have promised. Let us cling to you, and I pray for extra grace and wisdom in the months ahead. In your son’s precious name, amen.’’ He stood. ‘‘I’ll be praying extra hard for all of you.’’

‘‘Thank you, Pastor.’’ Kaaren sniffed and forced a partial smile.

Lars thanked the pastor and shook his hand, but the tightness had not left his face or his voice.

After Pastor Solberg dropped Ingeborg off at her house, a thought stopped her on the back steps. Wait until Hildegunn Valders got a hold of this. All in the name of Christian caring, of course, but gossip was gossip, and this was going to cause a storm of it. How could she protect Kaaren from the worst of it?

8

September 9, 1901

‘‘
I
’M SORRY . . . she’s gone.’’

Garth Wiste stared at the midwife as if looking at her the wrong way through a telescope. ‘‘And the baby?’’ He forced the words past the block in his throat.

‘‘Still alive but weak.’’

My Maddie . . . how will I live?
‘‘I will see her now.’’

‘‘If you would wait until I clean things up a bit—’’

‘‘Now.’’ He pushed past the woman blocking the bedroom door and crossed to the bed to kneel by his wife’s side. Taking her hand in his, he kissed the skin so transparent he might look right through. The blood. All over like there had been a battle fought here. All her life drained out. ‘‘Oh, Maddie, I . . .’’ He fought the tears, but like stopping the ocean, it was impossible. He stroked her cheek, tucked her hair behind one ear with a tender finger. Never again would she tease him, make him laugh, hold him, play with her children, love him.

He gathered her close as if willing life back into her cooling body. ‘‘God, how could you? She had so much to live for, and you took her away. How could you?’’ Anger flared, a rage so hot that surely the tips of his fingers burned her skin. He kissed her forehead and laid her back down, arranging her hair, tucking the sheet around her arms. ‘‘Oh, God!’’ His groan rent the stillness. ‘‘I cannot do this. You ask too much of me.’’

A whimper came from the basket in the corner. Who would feed this baby? Surely the midwife would know someone to wet-nurse it. It? One did not refer to one’s infant as
it
. Was it a boy or a girl? He’d not bothered to ask, so concerned he was for his wife.

‘‘Mr. Wiste, please let me clean things up in here,’’ the midwife said from slightly behind him.

He’d not even heard her come in. ‘‘About the babe?’’

‘‘Your daughter, sir.’’

‘‘Ah, yes. Do you know someone who could take her, a wet nurse?’’

‘‘I have a friend who would help out, yes.’’

‘‘Fine.’’ He got to his feet and stared down. Were it not for the drying blood and the blue of her skin, he might think Maddie only slept.

‘‘It’s God’s will, Mr. Wiste.’’

He turned on her, impaling her with his eyes. ‘‘No! I cannot believe this is God’s will! If He is a God of love, this . . . this horror cannot be His will!’’
And if it is, I want nothing to do with Him!

He strode toward the door without a backward look. He’d said his good-bye.

‘‘Don’t you want to see the baby?’’

He jerked the bedroom door open and slammed it behind him.

A thin wail heaped flaming coals on his agony. Treating the stairs and the front door with the same force, he thundered down the sidewalk and onto the street. He recognized no one, heard nothing. Had he been at the mill, the heat of him might have caused an explosion— when heat and flour dust combusted it could bring down a mighty building.

He pounded the earth for miles until pain radiated from his feet, up his legs, and finally registered on his brain. He sank against a fence post, dazedly looking around, with no idea where he was. Other than in the country. Cows grazed in the field, unaware of his pain, as if nothing mattered but the next mouthful of grass. How could the birds fly about so unconcerned? The sun shone when surely it should be shrouded. He propped his elbows on his bent knees and buried his face in his hands. The tears drizzled on his chin, ran through his fingers, and soaked his sleeves.

When the deluge had put out the fire, he tipped his head back against the wood and permitted the setting sun to dry his face. Finally staggering to his feet, he found the cows in a semicircle behind him, watching him and chewing their cuds.

‘‘So do you know the way home—to my home in Minneapolis, that is?’’ He must be deranged, talking to cows like this.

One swished her tail and belched up another chaw.

‘‘No, I guess you don’t.’’ He looked around. A farmhouse lay up the road to the west. But which side of the city had he come through? He set off to ask his way.

The burial took place on Wednesday. Garth felt as though he were hovering up in the tree limbs, watching the action and not a part of it. Maddie was laid into the ground, and the mourners returned to the church for a noonday meal. He knew he’d accepted condolences and made the appropriate responses because later one of his brothers told him he had done well. What he didn’t know was how he would keep going day after day without her.

‘‘Grant is crying for you,’’ his sister Helga Larson announced while she and their two sisters cleaned up the kitchen at his house after the funeral. ‘‘He doesn’t understand why he can’t come home. He stands at the window watching every time you leave your house.’’

‘‘And what? Bring him here?’’ Even though Garth lived next door to Helga, he couldn’t bear the thought of having his son around. He knew how terrible he looked when he’d shaved that morning. Mirrors never lie. The thick mink-colored hair that Maddie loved to stroke looked like rats were nesting in it. His hazel eyes peered coldly out of black circles. A cut on his square chin told of his carelessness with the razor. ‘‘Can’t he stay with you?’’

‘‘He can, and after this babe is born I can take your daughter too.’’ She rested her hand on the mound that looked large enough for two in spite of the full dress designed to disguise her pregnancy. ‘‘She won’t need to stay with the wet nurse much longer.’’ Helga sank into a chair with a sigh. ‘‘But Grant needs his father.’’

‘‘He needs his mother, but we know how impossible that is.’’ Garth hated the words that were spewing forth, revealing his barely banked rage. He couldn’t look at her, despising the pity he knew to be in her eyes. ‘‘I-I’m sorry. I can’t.’’

‘‘You have to name the baby,’’ Garth’s mother said several days later when she came to make sure he ate something.

‘‘You name her.’’

‘‘Didn’t you and Maddie discuss baby names?’’

He shook his head. Perhaps, but not that he remembered.

‘‘Grant is asking for you. I’m taking him home with me when I leave here. Helga thinks her baby will come tonight.’’ She poured him a second cup of coffee, patting his shoulder at the same time.

‘‘Good. Mange takk.’’ He didn’t realize he’d slipped back into the language of his grandfather and father—the language he’d spoken until he had turned three and his father remarried.

On Monday he returned to work, for only there did he not see his Maddie’s beloved face or something that reminded him of her.

The flour mill became his refuge.

‘‘Hey, Wiste, you heard about that new mill they’re opening in a place called Blessing, North Dakota?’’ one of the millmen asked.

‘‘No. What about it?’’

‘‘They’re looking for a manager.’’

That night after gathering all the needed information, Garth sat down and wrote a letter to Hjelmer Bjorklund of Blessing, North Dakota, and posted it the next day.

One week later, after receiving a telegram from Hjelmer saying to come right away, Garth arrived in Blessing and asked the stationmaster for information.

‘‘The mill’s right down the street. You can’t miss it. Shoulda seen it coming in on the train like you did.’’

‘‘Thanks. Is there a place where I can get a room for a night or two?’’