The Daughter's Walk (43 page)

L
ike the coloring of the leaves, slowly but inevitably, life began to change. I contacted Franklin and told him how things were here. I couldn't see a way to keep him in my employ as the women no longer required my service as a bookkeeper either. He wrote back, said he'd fill his schedule and now was the time to reach for something more. Would I reconsider his proposal? He included a book of poems by Tagore with his request. In it I found this: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I served and understood that service was joy.” I quoted it back to him and said I'd be taking care of Louise now; she needed me.

I didn't know how to bridge the gulf between Olea and me, though Louise waited in the middle, ready to help. Olea was civil, even offered to teach me how to drive the car, because she'd read the manual. I could use her help but resisted it.
How dare she?
began my thoughts, though I knew that harboring self-righteousness made me more like Ida than I cared to admit.

Families accommodated, did things for each other that might not be explainable to those outside—or even those inside. What had Franklin told me?
Family
came from that Latin word
famulus
, meaning “servant.”

So I became a servant, putting aside what I'd hoped would be a fur ranch one day.

The ad I ran got us new boarders, and I cooked for them myself on days when Louise rested or forgot. Louise couldn't be left alone for very long. I was especially concerned around the stove, as she'd forget the pans were hot and pick them up with her bare palms. Once she even grabbed up my curling iron, forgetting she'd fixed my hair with it. We used as much butter on her burns as in what we ate. It amazed me that nothing bad had happened while I'd been gone with Louise home alone, but maybe Olea had dropped by more than she'd let on.

When I saw the cost of the touring car, I had words with Olea. We stood in her kitchen where I'd been invited to sit for tea, but I preferred to stand instead. “Two thousand dollars? I can't afford that! Especially now that I no longer have employment,” I said.

“Well, perhaps I did go overboard,” Olea admitted. “But you often mentioned owning an auto. It would make it easier to visit your properties.”

“Yes, it would, but at that price? I'm going to take it back,” I said, “see how much money I can get for it. And then … I'll buy a Model N. They're only six hundred dollars. I think I can manage that.”

“Let me teach you how to drive in the touring car first,” Olea said. I thought it might be a way to engage with her without the discontent of her living away from us. So Olea taught me how to drive. It was a despicable affair, really. She didn't know enough herself, but together we figured out how to check the petroleum level, how to move the stick to go faster or slow down. I held tight to the side as we sped down a hill,
and Olea shouted, “It says forty-five on that thing!” I'd never gone so fast outside of a train. Louise squealed in the backseat.

I especially loved the gas headlamps that allowed for evening spins in the cool, dry air of the coulee. The Model N didn't have such details, but then it was far less expensive. It was a good investment that brought a little passion and pleasure with it.

The Warren men and I continued our arrangement; I bought their pelts and took the hides to Spokane myself in my Model N. With that sale and the wheat harvest, if rains continued, we'd be all right. The boarders' payments gave us a little more income. I'd spent a great deal of money on the trip, more than I should have, and I had that car now. I'd “hunker down,” as I'd heard men say, and do what I must. That's what families did for each other.

Perhaps they overlooked the quirkiness too and the times when one might overstep the bounds.

Snow came, and daily living consumed our time. I shoveled the walkway, ordered books on stamp collecting from the library to occupy me through the winter. Louise now read with a magnifying glass in the mornings, and at night she wrote.

“What are you working on so hard?” I asked one evening.

“Oh, I take little phrases from Scripture in the morning and think about them all day, then at night I write down how God spoke to me through them.”

“That's nice,” I said as I stuck another stamp into my book.

“Like this one,” she continued. “ ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.' Now, I've always thought of that as a command, but it's also a promise that one day I
shall
love God that way. Isn't that lovely? That came out of my day yesterday. And the rest of it is a promise too, that I
shall
love my neighbor as myself,
that I can count on that, and not only because it's commanded.”

Honour thy father and thy mother
came to mind. Maybe that held a promise too. I decided to send a birthday card to my mother. I'd never done that. It was May, and she'd be forty-seven. Love might be more about giving even when nothing was given in return. She could decide on her own if I was worth replying to.

The Fourth of July celebrations saw Louise and me cheering at the races for our favorite horse, though we never bet a dime. Indians camped for the event in the coulee chanted into moonlight while hot breezes flirted with curtains. I checked on Louise before settling in myself for the night. Sometimes as she slept I'd hear the sounds of her snores and be comforted by them.

At the Presbyterian church on Sundays, Olea nodded recognition, then turned away to go back to her home. But she didn't join the Lutheran Danes, so I read hope when I saw her each Sunday.

“We should invite her for dinner,” Louise said.

“She doesn't want to be with us,” I told her.

“That doesn't matter. We want to be with her. All she can do is say no, and we're strong enough to live through that, aren't we?”

We were, but Olea had chosen to go away; Olea should choose to come back.

The real estate agent I'd had my property-buying fling with contacted me about a small rental house I might want to invest in. I looked at the figures, thought it through, and told him to buy it. The rents would make the payments. Over time, he told me of two or three others, and I invested. The home values increased; I kept the rents low to help young families in Spokane. It was better than fur ranching and, as the drought came, better than wheat farming too.

When Louise began having trouble tying her apron strings with
hands that she said “acted like sticks,” I sewed an apron for her that went on over her head. It covered both the front and back of her dress, with no ties but big pockets.

“It's a perfect design, Clara,” she told me. “You should make several for the Ladies Aid Society bazaar. We're raising money for the Turkish refugees.”

It was something I could do, and the satisfaction of making useful things to give away surprised me. I came to cherish our slow and steady life, with just a hint of sadness for the empty chair beside the extra place setting that Louise always put out for Olea. The three of us were like a tree struck by lightning. We gaped at an open wound and yet lived on as though it wasn't even there, though all the world could see.

In February 1908, Franklin surprised us. The drayage firm delivered wood and coal to our door, and Franklin arrived from the train seated beside the driver. He hugged me close when I greeted him, offering the same affection toward Louise.

“I'm inviting Olea,” Louise said. “She'll be pleased to see Franklin.”

Olea accepted our invitation for dinner while Franklin visited, and it felt like old times with Franklin regaling us about his trips and Olea and Louise blushing to his attention. Louise invited Olea for Easter dinner and again at Christmas. Our family might be fractured, but every now and then it reformed itself into something warm and substantial, just like a carefully crafted fur coat that is split open then re-sewn to make it lie so perfectly.

Following one of our Franklin dinners, in 1909, after he'd escorted Olea home and Louise had retired for the night, Franklin said, “Louise
doesn't look well.” We discussed her swollen ankles and the perpetual rosy blotches on her face. “She nodded off several times during dinner,” he said.

“It's my cooking,” I said. “I've never really gotten the hang of it.”

He laughed. “Neither of you is starving. In fact, you look quite perfect. I'll bet the motor coat still fits.”

“It does.” I winced as I stepped to pick up the dessert plates.

“Are you all right?”

“It's just my foot,” I said. “A bunion, the doctor says. I favor the ankle I sprained all those years ago.”

“Let me,” he said. He rose and took the dishes and put them in the kitchen. I knew of few men who ever stepped inside a kitchen except to eat, let alone pick up after himself if a woman was about. When he returned, he said, “Take your shoes off, and I'll rub your feet for you.”

“Oh no, I …”

“I'm practically your brother,” he said. “Now just do it.”

I sat and unlaced the hooks. “I'm looking after her,” I said. “The doctor says it's likely her heart's not working well enough to move everything through her body, so water settles in her feet, maybe her lungs. That all affects her thinking too.”

“She has someone good to care for her,” he said. He sat down on the stuffed hassock and lifted my foot, careful to keep my skirts chastely near my ankle. The massage felt wonderful, though I worried about my feet bearing smells. “You need someone to take care of you, though. And so do I.” His eyes met mine.

“Surely you meet lovely women all the time,” I told him. “You could find one willing to look after you.”

“It wouldn't be the same,” he said. “Did you know that Cleopatra bathed in wine?”

“That's fascinating. No, I didn't know that.”

“Picked that tidbit up in Egypt.”

“You're full of delightful trivia.”

“You see? Who is there that understands what I do better than you?”

“Olea. And Louise,” I said. “And dozens you must meet in your travels.”

“None as comfortable as you, Clara. I truly mean that. And none with such beautiful feet as you either.” He grinned. “I've checked.”

“People change,” I said. I thanked him and pulled my feet up under my skirts as I sat on the divan. He took a chair, sighed. “If we spent more time together,” I said, “you might discover whatever it was I did that made Olea want to separate herself from me.”

“There are always strains in families, Clara. The cleavage remains unless someone is willing to risk hurt feelings to bridge the chasm.”

“That's why you keep bringing up us.” I smiled.

“For that, yes, and because I know the three of you would be happier under the same roof. But one of you has to be brave enough to take the first step. Louise would benefit from it, don't you think? Do it for her.”

Fur ranching became an idea left on the back of the stove to simmer. Farming of another kind consumed me the rest of the year as we planted our wheat. I made visits to my land along the Spokane River, checked on my rentals driving Louise with Lucky in the backseat. At home in Coulee City, Louise and I planted a big garden. Turning dirt calmed Louise, and I found I liked the weeding, tending, and then the harvest.
We dried fruit, canned beets and beans to have a taste of summer every winter. Louise remained about the same, but I couldn't see myself risking her well-being for the bustle and uncertainties of fur ranching. Gradually I came to accept that I was never going to be the grand success I thought I'd be one day, that I was just an ordinary woman separated from her family of birth, teamed up with a kind older woman who needed me. Could the two of us really be the family God formed in the heart of exile?

The wheat yield in 1912 proved light. None of us ranchers who chatted at the feed mill thought it was a pattern. “It'll be better next year,” we told ourselves.