The Daughter's Walk (38 page)

“Where have you been? We've been worried about you,” Louise said when I stepped up on the porch.

“I should have called,” I said.

“You're not required to apprise us of your whereabouts,” Olea said. “But a week—”

“It was rude of me. I'm sorry. I had business to tend to.” I chewed on my nail.

“What is it?” Louise said. “You're so pale.” She came to sit beside me.

“My brother Olaf died,” I said.

Louise gasped. “I'm so sorry.” Olea put her arm around my shoulder. “We would have come to be with you. Were there funeral arrangements to make?”

“He died years ago. I … didn't know.”

Louise squatted down in front of me. “The brother you hoped to come here to help farm?” I nodded. “Oh, that's so sad, so very sad. What happened?”

I gave her the obituary I'd gotten when I stopped at the newspaper
office. I imagined my mother giving the newspaper the information for it. Yet one more child, gone from her life.

“What about one of your other brothers?” Louise asked. “Could you invite them to visit and consider farming it with you?”

“Louise, she needs time to grieve,” Olea corrected. “We can fix things later.”

But I liked solving a problem rather than dwelling on the sadness. Arthur would be twenty-one. He'd always shown more interest in Ole's carpentry work than in farming. Billy would be fourteen, too young to manage a farm even if he had an interest. Olaf had been the one with soil in his soul.

“I doubt any of the others would be interested,” I said.

“Which brother was it again?” Louise asked.

“Olaf,” I repeated.

“Why don't you contact your family?” Olea said. Her voice held sorrow. “Let them know you grieve with them.”

“They would have seen my letters to Olaf among his things,” I said. “It had my address on it. So did the birthday cards I've sent.”

“Maybe he didn't keep them,” Louise said.

Maybe he hadn't, but someone in the house knew where I lived. No, there'd been no effort to reach me.

I shook my head. I'd been growing new flesh over the cuts of the past, but they still weren't healed. My family, not I, held the key to ending this separation.

“What will you do now?” Louise asked.

I inhaled a deep breath. “I'm going to Finland.”

I
t's about time,” Franklin yelled at me over the phone when I told him I thought we should make the trip.

“It's not necessary to shout,” I told him. “I can hear you fine.”

“So can our neighbors,” Louise said. She gave woolen mittens to children in the winter, so she sat knitting as Franklin spoke. It was eighty degrees outside, but she wore a sweater. Working with wool “keeps my hands warm,” she often told me. I'd begun to notice that she was often cold while the rest of us sweltered. Perhaps a sign of aging.

“Sorry,” he said and lowered his voice, but old habits die hard, and he soon shouted again. “I'll meet the train on the fifteenth,” he shouted. His voice quieted down again on the phone with me. “I'm looking forward to seeing you,” he said, “and hearing firsthand about your progress. I intend to see if I can make progress of my own.”

His words fell into silence, then I said, “Every man ought to have good intentions.” I said good-bye, then hung up.

I dragged the trunk from the attic, ironed shirtwaists, and brushed
Lucy and Lucky's hair from the linen. Franklin and I would be gone no more than four weeks. There were too many demands here at home. I'd contacted the real estate agent and told him to sell the Alta Vista property too. Those were impulsive buys. I'd need to sign papers for that.

Two nights before I was to leave, I passed by Olea's room on the first floor and saw her trunk packed too. I wondered where she was going.

“I had no idea you planned to go to Finland too,” I told Olea and Louise. We stood in the living room, Lucky relegated to the back porch. He was happier there anyway, as the house heated up by late afternoon while the porch remained in the shade of maples and elms. Lucy curled on the divan. “I mean, all of us travel abroad? What about this place? Our home?” The air had begun to cool enough that I'd stopped sweating while I packed. I perspired now for other reasons. The scent of coffeecake filled the air, and the sky was magnificent with frothy clouds like shattered silk kissing the coulee ridges.

“The farm takes care of itself,” Olea said.

“Yes, but our boarders. There's no time to hire a cook, and the animals—”

“The pastor's wife will look after Lucy,” Louise said. “And Lucky can go to … What's their name again, on the farm?” I told her our sharecropper's name. “Yes. And the boarders can eat at the restaurant. The house will be fine.”

“We're interested in what might come of your fur ranching plans,” Olea said. “My cousin in Norway writes that they've had success in
crossing an Icelandic arctic fox with Norwegian reds. They raise the kits on islands. We intend to visit both Norway and Finland. It would be a waste of time not to.”

In my conversations about making the trip, Olea and Louise had never once said they planned to go along. I knew they loved to travel. I should have anticipated. “You've never indicated much support for my fur ranching idea,” I said.

“That was before I learned that Norwegians were doing it,” Olea said. “I'd only heard about the Finns, and frankly, I was a little suspect of that. But Norwegians are a very persistent people. If we can do it, then it can be done elsewhere. We told you that going abroad should have been the first thing you did rather than wasting your time with your trapping period. Now we can all go.”

“I always like to travel,” Louise said. She watched my face, glanced at Olea, then back to me. “But of course, if you don't want to bother with two old women tagging along, well, I understand that.” She glanced back at Olea again, then looked at her hands.

“It's not the bother,” I said. “It's. Well, Franklin and I worked the expenses out. I'm paying for this trip. We'll go first to Finland and then visit manufacturing houses in Europe. We only plan to be gone about four weeks.”

“It'll take nearly that long by ship to get there,” Olea said, disgusted with my naiveté. She exaggerated. “If you're going, you ought to make it worth your time. Three months at a minimum. We've worked everything out,” Olea added.

She didn't name her annoyance, and I couldn't find words for mine either. Traveling with them would be an adventure. It always was, and yet I didn't want them along.

I must have scowled, because Louise said, “Let's not be too hasty,
Olea. These are things we didn't consider. Maybe Clara and Franklin, well, maybe they wanted time … together. We might not have thought of that.”

“They can be alone all they want except when we're talking furs. This is a business trip for Clara and Franklin, but we have an interest in this too. It'll affect our lives as well. We'll travel as the family we are.”

“Then you'll have to make this a family trip without me,” I said. “I could as easily end up spending a month or more visiting your relatives or taking a side trip to Oslo that could last a month, as New York did. I spent a winter in Minneapolis because I didn't speak up. I'm speaking up today.”

Olea raised one eyebrow. “You appeared perfectly happy to accept my sister's hospitality.” She roughly folded a shawl, threw it into her trunk. “We'll take a different ship, do what we want, won't we, Louise?”

“I didn't think about leaving the house with no one in it for so long,” Louise said. “What if they forget to come feed Lucky? And I didn't get anyone to look after Lucy.” She blinked rapidly in that frightened way she had.

“The pastor's wife,” Olea said quietly.

“Lucy won't adapt well to others coming to take care of her. I … I think maybe I'll stay home.” She swallowed and tugged on her apron, picking at the tiny embroidered strawberries. “There might be an earthquake to hit us here, like in San Francisco. That's only been two months ago. We can plan another time to go to Norway.”

It was such a silly thing to argue over. Maybe if they had told me of their plans earlier, it wouldn't have bothered me. Some of the silver fox pelts raised by the Finns were earning more than a hundred dollars a pelt at the auctions. Olea had a good head for money; maybe that's why she wanted to go along.

If I didn't assert myself with this, I could imagine Olea deciding everything about the ranching operation: where the large pens should go, what the animals should be fed, when the kits should be weaned, which animals to breed. There might not be much demand for ermine yet, but by the time I had the ranching operation down—beginning with fox but moving to mink—there would be. I wasn't interested in importing Norwegian stock; I wanted to do this my own way. The longhaired furs like silver fox had been popular for decades; it was time for the fashion to change, and I could open the door. I felt my heart pound. Despite the uncertainty, I felt … alive.

“I intend to go alone,” I said.

Olea sighed loudly. “I thought we were family. We've traveled together before … I simply … Well, perhaps it's time we did do things differently.” She straightened a lace doily at the back of the divan, patted it with her long fingers. She didn't look at anyone.

Louise said. “I don't want to travel right now, Olea. My hip … You and Franklin go ahead,” she said to me. “We'll make it a foursome another time, won't we, Olea?”

Olea stood quietly for a time, her hands touching the cameo at her neck. Her bearing reminded me of Ida's when Mama and I had returned from New York, anger tensed in a frame as slender as barbed wire and just as dangerous if one didn't know how to get through it.

“Yes, let them go.” Olea sighed. “But for heaven's sake, take the time you need. Take three months.”

“I can't stay that long. What if I need to sign papers about my properties?”

“Give me your power of attorney then,” Olea said. “I can sign for you.”

She was my friend. But what if my not wanting the women to come along sharpened Olea's nails on a power of attorney? Still, giving her the
power would serve as a backup plan if I did want to stay a little longer, knowing she could handle my affairs.

“Good,” I said. I didn't apologize for asking for what I wanted. I didn't back down. “I'd appreciate that. We'll get it signed and recorded in the morning.”

Both women waved me off at the start of my journey. The power of attorney niggled at the back of my mind, but by the time the train hit southern Idaho, the changing landscapes, eavesdropping on strangers' stories, and settling in with my book brought me ease. I couldn't help but think of my mother and our journey.