The Last Letter (13 page)

She told herself opium use was terrible, but she remembered her father’s doctor telling her, it was also common. Without offering names, the doctor had told her he had patients who were colleagues, housewives, farmers, and store owners. At the time Jeanie wasn’t comforted by the information, she was repulsed that so many despicable people populated her life. Now, seeing the Hunt’s family, the children, Jeanie felt sympathy slip into her body on the back of protectiveness for the family. Mostly she felt helpless that the lenient use of opium would only offer a soothing effect to the user’s feelings for so long before it ripped the entire operation asunder.

Max nodded and tipped his hat at Jeanie. “Okay, Ma’am. Thanks.” And with that, the Hunts came over the dugout, locked arm in arm, Mrs. Hunt giggling. Jeanie stared into her eyes, looking for foggy incomprehension, low muscle tone or anything that would indicate she had actually done what Jeanie saw with her own two eyes. Perhaps she’d been mistaken.

In the two months that passed since the Arthurs set up home in the dugout and filed the paperwork, the land transformed itself further into what resembled a jewelry box bursting with burnished gold, punctuated by precious colored gems. Sunflowers girded themselves, their faces toward the sun while pink prairie roses burst from greens in unexpected places.

Other bushes boasted fat berries of all shades of red and blue. Jeanie tried to remember what the grasses looked like when the land was jade and purple and yellow, but she couldn’t quite put her mind around it. Had she imagined it?

The Darlington Township cooperative was in full swing. The men took turns making runs to Yankton to drop letters at the post, buy flour, coffee, and thread for Jeanie’s sewing. When they were in a pinch, having too much work in the fields to warrant someone heading to the city, Jeanie used her coffee grinder to mill grain into flour and though it made for a bit lumpier flapjacks and pan bread, it was passable in taste and appearance. As long as no one allowed memories of servant-kneaded pastries, hotcakes, eggs, and bacon to enter their minds—that was the only way.

Fairly quickly Jeanie realized that their little Lutie offered nothing to the group but her beautiful face, slender waist, and a knack for weaving intricate wildflower crowns for herself and the young girls. Katherine was rarely without one of Lutie’s designs and soon fashioned her own.

Katherine displayed them above the children’s bedstead— much to the boys’ dismay as they graced the space above their heads forming a giant crown over the bed—so Katherine could rise in the morning and fix one atop her head according to her hair-style of choice.

Jealousy, envy, obsession about beauty Jeanie lacked; these things had never been part of her personality. Even knowing her chin was a bit pointy, her nose a tad thin, and her dark eyes a pinch close-set, with the gold-flecked brown irises being less pools of mystery than pits of unspectacular earth—Jeanie had been confident. She moved her elegant, slim hips with accidental grace. Her shoulders naturally found a relaxed position, down and back. Her backside stood up, just a bit so that even as bustled behinds fell from fashion, Jeanie’s body recalled the silhouette in just the right, subtle way. When she walked, normally lost in thoughts of books, sketches, her children, she was not always aware the image of her, was nothing short of mesmerizing—even with her plainer facial features.

She attributed her ease with her body as being due to the fact that in Des Moines, for the first twenty five years of her life, Jeanie was defined by her talents and family standing instead of mere, boring beauty. She felt fortunate to have been born with an intuitive inclination toward substance over style—even though she did adore style—but she knew it was her nonchalance that magnetized people.

The way she married fabrics, creating rooms that made one want to drop dead in them, just so their soul might hover there for eternity, and the manner in which she wove her prose into candid tomes that might be harsh if written by any other author, the way she conveyed the beauty of the small things in life, allowing other women, states away to create gracious homes. She’d built the life she wanted. Jeanie knew a woman of her standing, a married woman, to pursue a writing career while raising children was unusual, but she felt it was her birthright, even though it were unusual for society of the times.

Jeanie’s doting father set Frank and her up in the house next door to him, even after they ran away and eloped, defying him. She stepped into a domesticated life so structured that, in Jeanie’s opinion, only a truly lazy or inept woman could live it without also doing something constructive with her time. Had she not had fiery physical energy and the cool wits of an army general, she would have ignored her call to write for the benefit of housekeeping and Frank in an instant. She knew her job in the world was to coax the best out of Frank and help him be the best man he could possibly be. Luckily for her, she could do more.

But on the prairie, charged with creating work clothes, hardy shirts and utilitarian dresses, stripped of all the things that defined her as valuable, Jeanie saw herself in a warped reflection of Miss Lutie Moore, and what she saw was ugly and ordinary. This condition led her to irritation and spitefulness she hadn’t felt since before she learned to be a lady. And it didn’t help that every time Lutie and Ruthie were in their company that Lutie nearly crawled onto Frank’s lap and offered herself as his lady in waiting. Perhaps if she didn’t feel so dirty and ripe with smells that she’d only encountered on errant trips to the wrong side of Des Moine’s railroad line on a friendly dare, she wouldn’t have such jealous feelings.

A bathtub, what a luxury she’d enjoyed every day. Now, the image, the smell of cleanliness and soft relaxation was lost in her windblown memory, only asserting itself when something or someone stood in complete opposition to Jeanie’s filthy appearance. Usually that was Lutie.

It was with this frame of mind that Jeanie was often confronted with Lutie’s presence, appearing at first as though she’d come to help with this chore or that, but then before long, she’d settle onto the ground, the lounge, or just stand around, contemplating the beauty of her irresponsibility.

One Wednesday, Lutie showed up atop the dugout, and like a demon, her mere presence there, pulled Frank from behind the barn where he was building the Zurchenko’s bedstead. It was particularly hot and though Jeanie hadn’t cramped since they first arrived at their homestead, she wasn’t feeling particularly vigorous that day.

The children had scattered over the land, knowing precisely how far Jeanie would let them wander and it was only as far as Jeanie could see in any direction. The one exception was when she would send them to the well for water. But she knew exactly how long they could take before worrying should begin.

Lutie planted herself at the naked table, settled in with a mug of water, clearly expecting to offer nothing in the way of help with the lunch.

“We just bought ourselves a new cook-stove,” Lutie’s lethargic movements were further underwhelming in contrast to her yammering which rolled forth like a train across the country.

“Hmm, you don’t say,” Jeanie said.

“It’s a
beauty
at fifty-eight dollars,” Lutie went on. “It was the one you recommended in the last column you wrote. Templeton, that dear, just brought the paper from town the other day. There was a line at the bottom of the article, stating that Mrs. Jeanie Arthur, Maven of Domesticity had left her post for grander things. How about
that.”
Lutie chortled. “Grander things. Imagine that. I reckon they haven’t been to a dugout on the Dakota Territory prairie lately, do you?” Lutie chortled again.

“A new cook-stove. Well, my oh my,” Jeanie would not discuss the ruse she was living with Loopy Lutie. It was none of her business, but before she could stop herself she said what she was thinking. “I sure hope you won’t disgrace it with your paltry cooking.”

“Well, I won’t if you would just help me, just show me a bit of that magic in your fingertips. Maybe that way I can catch a man as fine as your Frank. I do adore that man of yours.”

Jeanie ignored the comment—the sarcastic way Lutie said it. “Lutie, is there any possibility on this earth that you’re a leather-maker, a cobbler, a shoe-maker in disguise?”

Lutie squinted at Jeanie.

“Look at these wretched boots I’m wearing. Any chance you could fashion me a pair that look as delicate as these?” Jeanie pulled her bejeweled slippers from one of her trunks. Lutie’s eye flew wide open and she took the shoes, running her finger over the sequins and jewels and satin.

“Those are the shoes a woman should be called to wear.”

“Your boots aren’t so bad,” Lutie said. She kept massaging the silky shoe in her hands, but narrowed her eyes at Jeanie’s boots. “Well, the boots are sort of…”

“Witchy,” Jeanie said.

“Well, yes, I suppose, the way the toes are curling, the scars in the leather they are—”

“Oh tighten it up, Lutie. What’s the point?” Jeanie ripped the shoe from Lutie’s hands and stomped into the dugout, tossing the shoes under her bedstead. “Lutie, get your lazy bones into this dugout.”

Lutie hopped to and skittered in, eyes widened again.

“Look at this place, Lutie. It’s the size of my pantry and in the condition of an old outhouse back home. It’s in the state of, well, nothing of my former life compares to this. It’s a blasted cave for pity’s sake. And somehow, even in its diminutive size I’m not managing to keep it as I think it should be. There’s nothing here that defines me as an expert of domesticity, that says I know
anything
about keeping a home. I
can’t
help
you.”

Lutie pulled at her slender fingers, shifting her weight, lowering her eyes, only stealing occasional glances at the woman she’d wanted to be her mentor. “Well, you do have all that beautiful material. Two trunks of it you said. The clothes you’re making, it’s all stunning. It’s all everything you ever preached in those books you wrote. You were telling the truth, right? A man like Frank certainly wouldn’t entertain a life with a woman not worthy.”

Jeanie turned toward her blackened, second-hand, ten dollar cook-stove and shuffled the coffee pot and fry pan around. Jeanie was tired to pretending she was managing well. What was the point? She hadn’t lied in those books, she’d simply been completely uneducated in the ways of the world she lived in now. Jeanie bit the inside of her cheek and poured chopped nuts, chicory, and the remaining “real” coffee grinds into the kettle of water and lit the fire.

There, she’d become functional in squalor. She should give herself credit, make a note of it on her barely used notebook, tuck the triumph away inside for later when she could write about it, and truly live it that way. In the sepia-toned dugout and the mood to match, Jeanie was suddenly protective of what was left of her, her world. Most especially Frank. No matter that Lutie knew nothing of his black moods, infantile needs, inability to follow through— Jeanie would not easily surrender the remaining shreds of the fabric of her life.

Jeanie turned to Lutie, trying to set aside the resentment that fueled her current thoughts. She forced confident relaxation into her limbs, as though she had nothing to lose to the numb-skulled beauty who busily haunted her home. “Heaven knows there is no greater misery on earth than when one’s life fabric is embroidered by the hand of a caustic, clapper claw. I won’t be that woman, Lutie. I won’t let trouble fester, nor will I look for it, so let me say this clearly. I’m not sure what you’re up to, but you have no rights to my husband or my life, in your mind or in reality.

“If you infringe beyond the limits set by me or society I will kill you. Like that jackrabbit I skewered the other day, the action that caused you to green at the gills and lose your breakfast over the prairie.
That’s
the book I haven’t written. The one I’m living. The other books weren’t lies when I wrote them, but they aren’t true anymore.” Jeanie took a deep breath, let it out and smiled. Smiling always brought the necessary cheer to her spirit, even when it seemed as though nothing possibly could.

“So, let’s work together and find a way to survive this hole that’s hot as Hades on its worst day. How about that. Are we clear? I feel better. Excuse me please. I had to say that whether you are deserving of it or not.”

Lutie stared at her nails, pushing back a cuticle. Finally she nodded. Jeanie ushered her back outside to light the fire for the laundry.

Jeanie splashed water over her face and filled her arms to overflowing with table linens and dishes. Coming from the dugout Jeanie stopped at the sight of Lutie. She was seated at the table, back against it, arms stretched out resting on the top, head back, sun on her face making her the picture of an angel.

Jeanie set the linens beside Lutie, who didn’t flinch, or pretend to notice. Jeanie held one end of the tablecloth and snapped it twice, airing it out. Lutie turned her head to Jeanie, irritation spread across her face.

“I’m bothering you,” Jeanie said. “Why don’t I bring you some hard-tac sweets and a swig of wine to assist you in your leisure. I know fires just start themselves on the prairie. I guess I just hadn’t realized you could will one to start from behind closed eyelids. Perhaps I can simply imagine someone doing my laundry and it will be so?”