The Daughter's Walk (44 page)

Storm clouds gathered but misted over us instead of dropping the cleansing, soaking rains we so badly needed for our dryland crop. We had more insects each year too, which lowered the yield. The newspapers carried no new information about selling bonds to build the reclamation dam for irrigating our coulee lands. I read that drought spread in the plains states too. We all depended on the rain. Another year like this one, and we'd be unable even to buy seed.

That same year, the train changed its schedule, not coming as often round the Big Bend, as we locals called our little coulee town. Our boarders left, and we found no one to replace them except occasional visitors riding or driving through. I heard from two of the Spokane renters that they were leaving town, their jobs having disappeared. I advertised for others but paid the mortgage for several months without benefit of the rent. It was a great relief to me when I lowered the rent and the homes finally filled up again.

Once or twice a bachelor farmer approached us after church and asked to walk us home. I often let them, fed them, reminded of my brothers. We spoke of crop prices, rainfall, the growing insect problems.
The discourse was safe and friendly and didn't trespass on safe borders; we didn't talk of any alien doors needing to be opened.

I drew from my reserves to buy winter coal and to pay our taxes that year. I had the pelts I bought from the Warrens and made a little at the sale, but my account books showed more going out for doctors' bills too. Louise seemed to like the blond physician despite the fact that she claimed he was “one of those Danes.” But in checking the books as I closed out for November 1913, it soon became clear that the pelts, the poor grain yield, and Louise's small income left from the sale of the furrier business would not be enough to keep us solvent. I had to do something different.

I planned to sell the smaller acreage along the Spokane, the one with the orchard. I wouldn't get much gain selling this time of year, but people liked to make a purchase close to Christmas to celebrate in a new home. I hoped for that kind of buyer. Selling the rentals was part of my plan too. I asked Olea if she'd look after Louise while I was gone. “It might be a day or two,” I said.

“Of course. If she'll stay here,” Olea said.

Louise agreed when I assured her it would be a vacation and I'd be back in a flash.

When I finished my legal business, I drove to the city library to read the latest
New York Times
, which we no longer subscribed to. Wars kept the Balkans busy, the front page announced. I checked the financial section, where extensive commentaries waged about the Sixteenth Amendment and federal income tax becoming law. In New York City, one hundred fifty thousand garment workers went on strike for better
working conditions and wages. I wondered if I'd met some of the seamstresses when Franklin and I had been in the city.
Not much comfort in the news
, I thought.

I put the paper back and picked up the latest city directory. My family was the only Estby listed now, all living on Mallon Avenue, Arthur and Billy as carpenters, Ida as a domestic, and Lillian as a dressmaker. My stepfather's name was missing.
Has he found work out of town? Has the printer made an error?
I'd had no return from the cards I'd sent. I flipped to the
D
section to see if any Dorés appeared: one did. Marion Doré, a carpenters' union representative. On a lark, I drove to that office. They'd know if Ole worked out of town. Maybe his absence meant I was to try to see my mother without fear of running into him.

“I'm looking for Marion Doré,” I told a chubby-looking man shorter than I.

“Found him,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

I wasn't sure what to say. “I … I'm a Doré. My father was from Manistee, Michigan. I always like to see if I'm related to any Dorés I encounter.”

“Don't think so. I'm from Minnesota originally.”

“I am too. But my name wasn't Doré then, it was Estby.”

“We got Estbys here in Spokane,” he said.

“Yes. I wonder if you have an Ole Estby on your rolls. What's he working on?”

“He a relative?”

“My stepfather,” I said.

He looked on his ledger, his finger running down lists of names. “Well, then I'm sorry for your loss, Miss. Missus.”

“My loss?”

“Earlier this year. Accident while roofing a house. Fell and died. He
was a good man. Always paid his dues without complaint. You didn't know?” I shook my head. “Oh, I forget. You hail from Michigan.”

Maybe they thought I wouldn't care, but I found I did. Ole was stubborn and had sent me away, but he was also the only father I'd ever known. Why hadn't my mother contacted me? Without Ole to enforce my separation, she was free to choose. My eyes started to water, and I excused myself from the carpenters' union office, sat in my car, and cried.
Should I go there? Is this an alien door I should open? Should I walk that way?
I prayed into the sounds of the Spokane Falls, hoping the thundering water could numb the pain from such deep old wounds. Without choosing, I drove and pulled up in front of the Mallon address, hands sweaty beneath white gloves. I pulled the brake. I sat. Did I hear,
Walk this way?
or were those my own wishing words? Wind whipped the elm trees in a swirl and then settled still as stains. I left the car, walked up the stone steps, and knocked on the door. I hoped Mama would be home alone.

Instead, Ida opened the door.

“Clara? Why, Clara, what are you doing here?” Little lines around her eyes suggested she'd aged beyond her years, but she still stood board-straight tall, her embroidered apron colored with stylized Norwegian birds and flowers at the bodice and the hemline.

“I'm fine. I … didn't know about Papa. I just learned. I'm sorry for you all.”

A flash of irritation crossed her eyes. “Are you?”

“Yes. I mean I was angry when he sent me away but—”

“He didn't send you away, Clara. You chose to go away … with your dirty money and those women. You abandoned us.”

I blinked. That wasn't at all how I'd seen it. Papa said I wasn't an Estby, as no Estby would take the money offered. Mama let him. My
family practically applauded! They
sent
me away. How could she not see that?

My throat felt tight, but I spoke. “Taking the money wasn't meant to discount your suffering, Ida,” I said. “I know that time in the hog shed must have been horrible.”

“It's not about that.” She looked away.

“We suffered too, Mama and me while in New York. Everyone suffers. We make do the best we can.”

“You did well with your
money.
”

“That money belonged to us,” I said, keeping my voice calm, though my hands felt damp and my chest ached. “Mama and I earned it.”

She shook her head. She did not invite me in but came out to the porch instead. Wicker rockers sat waiting, but we both stood.
I'm not allowed inside
.

“Papa was right. He got better; he worked until his accident. We're doing fine. We all support each other, Arthur and Billy and now Lillian too. We take care of Mama. The union gave a small life insurance payment. God provides, Clara, without taking dirty money.”

A rush of emotion surged up my neck and flushed my face, but I kept my tongue. There was no need to argue. Her wounds ran deep and defined her life even after all these years.

“I just stopped to see how you're doing.” I should have kept quiet then, but I added, “I thought with Papa gone Mama might speak again of our walk and—”

“No!” She raised her hand. “It is not talked about. That's what Papa wanted, and that's what we all want too. You're the only one who has trouble with it. We didn't appreciate your postcard from Finland about suffrage. Mama has no more interest in that. I don't think she even signed up to vote last year. They ask for our birth dates; how
disgusting.” She shivered as though she'd eaten raw liver. “She paints now. It's good for her. Talk of that walk, never.”

“Ida,” I said, tears brimming in my eyes. “I'm not a terrible person. I only wanted to make my way. I would have helped you, but you wouldn't accept—”

“You could come home now, Clara. We'd welcome you. Take your name back. Doré. That's so … affected, really, isn't it? Let those women make their own way. You've done enough for them. Leave them and their money behind and start over with us. You could get a job here. You could serve your family. We don't mind if you're poor.”

“Turn my back on my friends?”
Live with rules of what can be said as though Papa were still alive?

“It's a small sacrifice to pay for your family.”

“I can't leave them, Ida. They gave me a job when I needed one, paid for my schooling, taught me a trade. They nursed me when I was ill. I'm in the furrier business with them. I ranch, own properties. They—”

“No talk of them,” she said. “Come home.” She reached for my hand.

This was what I'd been waiting for all along, to be invited back. Yet the joy of it escaped me riding on Ida's conditions. This wasn't how the Israelites were called out of exile, was it? They weren't asked to deny the stories of where they'd been and what God had done in their lives. Why, God commanded people to tell their stories to their children.

A bird chirped over Ida's shoulder. “I … can't come home, not the way you want.” I couldn't stop the tears. I wiped at them with my fingertips. I reached to hug her and she allowed it, though her arms did not hug back. “I have another family now; I can't leave them,” I whispered.

“They're not family, Clara. You've chosen wrongly.” She brushed
my arms aside, moved past me back into the house. From the other side of the screen door she said, “I won't tell Mama you were here. It would just upset her that you've chosen not to return after you've been welcomed.” She turned away, then looked back, squinted. “Your hair looks nice with that shorter style. And the color is good. You look like an Estby now.”

I drove home, aware that I did have a family, with its ups and downs, but that family didn't silence me, didn't stand in my way of success or making my own mistakes. Maybe Mama knew the price I would have paid if I'd remained. I would have suffocated inside the silence, watching my tongue, not pursuing what I wanted. I had a freedom Ida never knew, never chose. My mother gave me a gift by sending me out, an expression of confidence that I could make it on my own.

The idea of a shopping spree crossed my mind, but I resisted. The sound of the car engine numbed as I chugged along but soothed too. I knew I had work to do. I needed to bring Olea back home. I needed to move forward on something that could sustain us through the years. I needed to be grateful I'd chosen the road I'd been given, even if I could never be sure where such roads would take me. Maybe I was my mother's daughter after all.