The Last Letter (33 page)

“Katherine, a pie? That’s too utterly, utter. Really, that’s juvenile even for a lowly writer of everything domestic, wouldn’t you say? I was pained, crazy with fear. This baby will live and we will live, together, full of pleasures and hopes and happiness. Even if things are hard for a while. We will live and we will live together.”

“Well, you did start talking about dreaming that Father had no face, that you couldn’t see him even though he was standing right there. I suppose that is as fantastical as anything.” Katherine broke into a smile and lay down beside her mother.

“See that, dreams, delirium, none of it means anything in the real world.”

Jeanie reveled in the warmth of Katherine’s body, her sweet demeanor.

“Oh,
galoshes.
I worried myself for nothing.”

Katherine and Jeanie sighed at the same time in the same way, both satisfied that the other was okay, that the world had reset itself in their eyes, that they could push on.

“I feel better, Mama. Thank you.”

Jeanie did, too. She studied her daughter, smoothing her light hair back from her face. Yes, Katherine’s expression had relaxed and her shoulders released the tension she had clearly been holding. Jeanie savored the moment, Katherine laying on her side, molded into her body, while she dripped milk into the baby’s mouth, hoping if the infant couldn’t swallow correctly, that at least her throat would allow the milk to dribble into her belly without choking her to death in the process.

And so, the next month went. The baby girl was named Yale by her siblings who researched names in literature, the Bible, and by polling every person who walked into and through Darlington Township. They chose Yale because the original Yale in Greek mythology possessed remarkable strength that surprised all who said he was weak.

She wasn’t an easy baby, as Yale seemed to carry her strength into every area of her being. She did not give in easily to sleep, or happiness or anything that would be pleasing for other infants. She seemed to be miserable, as though an adult stuffed into a small skin with all sorts of ideas to tell and plans to enact but without any means to express them except for conveying her disgust with being in that very position.

But, for Jeanie, it didn’t matter. This miracle allowed her to funnel every bit of energy into her, knowing it would result in something good and great.

Frank was slow to warm to Yale. And that hurt Jeanie for a time, remembering the way they used to playfully fight over who would do what for which child. Jeanie smiled at the image of Frank changing a diaper, with his face reflecting the mutual joy he and the children took in one another’s presence. He never generated or reflected that emotion with Yale. That thought would trip Jeanie up, causing her to stop whatever she was doing and be grateful that she was the only living person who knew Frank’s behavior had transformed. For all the children knew, this was exactly how Frank had been with them.

Templeton had been kind enough to share his home with the Arthurs as they weren’t prepared to move Jeanie and the baby to the dugout until they were sure Jeanie was recovered from the birth. The days in Templeton’s house were emotionally warm even when it physically was cold. James enjoyed Templeton’s continuous companionship as they challenged one another in predicting the weather and they even went so far as to feel out a spot—near the bee tree where they claimed the best indications of weather could be garnered.

Frank enjoyed the month at Templeton’s because he could putz with his woodwork—creating useless though beautiful, intricate designs and then disappear to contemplate the beauties of nature for half the day. And Jeanie, in the swell of new motherhood, felt no interest toward Templeton beyond simple gratitude that he allowed them to stay on.

Katherine and Tommy enjoyed the use of Templeton’s horse so each could have their own to visit friends, even getting caught at the Zurchenko’s for six days when a snow storm blew through while they were warming up there after a ride.

Templeton and Frank had waited out the initial snowfall then made their way across the plain, plowing through the snow in order to discern the safety of the children. James fed the fire while Jeanie fed Yale, and in their silence, both were alone with their thoughts, sharing gentle laughs and stories of the past or reading books that the children had brought from home.

Every once in a while Jeanie would start at the thought that she wasn’t worried about Katherine and Tommy, that again she felt in her soul they were okay, that there was no way they weren’t. She wondered once for five minutes what this said about her. Did she really know in her bones that her children were safe or had she merely accepted that some day on that prairie one of them wouldn’t be? No, no, that definitely wasn’t right. She was not Greta, she could not mourn for a day and carry on as though a life stomped out was meant to be. She shook her head at herself.

“Mama?” James said squatting near the fire.

“I’m fine. Everything is fine, sweet James.”

James squinted at her and stood. “I’ve got to twist the hanks and I’m going to try to follow Father’s path, see if there are any buffalo chips there. I won’t go far, but we can’t let the fire go too low.”

“Are we out of cow chips and wood? Those hanks burn so fast they’re not always worth using.” Jeanie rocked the baby who had, after two hours of angry thrashing and screeching, finally dropped off to sleep.

James pulled on his boots, coat, overpants, and hat. “That’s all we have until the snow breaks a bit.”

“Be safe, my darling. I can’t have you not here,” Jeanie said.

“Are you talking to me or Yale, Mama?” James grinned.

Jeanie looked up from the baby. “I suppose I’m talking to you both.”

“Nothing will happen to me, Mama. That much I do know.” James knelt in front of Jeanie and snuggled his cheek against Yale’s. Jeanie inhaled the scent of both of them. Her babies.

James rose and strode across the floor, his swagger having transformed from boy to man at some point on the prairie. This was a person who could take care of himself. Someday Jeanie would have to let him go, let him marry, start his own home, but she didn’t need to think of that.

James yanked open the door and snow blew in, giving the wind eerie shape and weight. James raised his hand above his head in a wave goodbye, but didn’t look back to see Jeanie return it.

Jeanie nodded as the chill rushed through the room, over her skin, and she noticed her hairline was drenched. James finally got the door shut and snapped off the howling wind as though it never existed.

“I love you James. Keep safe, my son.” Jeanie said to the door, to herself more than anything.

Chapter 15

1905
Des Moines, Iowa

“Katherine.” Aleksey shook his wife’s shoulder. “It’s nearly six o’clock. Come down. I’ve made dinner.”

Katherine’s dry eyes burned as she rubbed them, her nose stuffed with old tears gave her voice a nasal quality. “Oh, my. I’m so sorry. Almost dinner? Tell me you’re teasing.”

“Don’t worry.” Aleksey started making new piles of the scattered letters. “I’ve made sandwiches and the boys made potato salad.”

Katherine covered her mouth laughing out loud at the thought. “No, please, tell me you’re not serious.”

“I am very serious. And, everyone is requesting the pleasure of your company.” Aleksey dusted off his hands, slapping them together. He pulled Katherine to her feet and wiped the back of her dress, pulling her body into his. Katherine curled into his embrace, her head nestled against his warm chest, his presence forever calming, loving and permanent.

“Why don’t you ask what I’m doing?” Katherine said.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“What?”

“Giving your past a funeral.”

Katherine sucked in her breath. “That’s ghoulish.”

“Sometimes the truth is.”

Katherine took Aleksey’s hand and studied it, the lines she memorized long ago.

“My mother was delirious, asking for Yale, saying she’d lost her, put her somewhere or something. But, until the other night she never let Yale out of her sight, ever. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“It’s probably nothing.” Aleksey started toward the steps, pulling Katherine’s hand.

Katherine looked back at the letters. One, in a dark envelope, the only one not pale yellow or creamy white, caught her eye. “Let me get that one.” Katherine picked it up and turned it over in her hand. It was addressed to Ruthie Moore.

“The sisters Moore. Remember them? They were so…the letter’s from Texas. Why would we have a letter written to her from someone in Texas? Just days before…”

Katherine didn’t have a chance to complete her thought or words as their son, Asher, flew up the attic stairs bearing news of a bloody sibling who was most definitely in need of stitches.

Katherine tossed the letter back on the floor relieved she wouldn’t have to read it until she was fully ready to absorb all it had to say.

Chapter 16

1887
Dakota Territory

Christmas came and went with sparse decoration, gift and commotion. But Jeanie and her family hadn’t felt as though those things were missing. To have had the dugout burst with crimson wrapped boxes, pine dripping from every surface, and the constant flow of exquisitely dressed gifts would have felt obscene on the prairie after the demise of their crops.

Six months before, Jeanie would have thought it were a disgrace not to somehow work all those brilliant holiday elements into their prairie Christmas, or recreate them symbolically. But, instead, the Arthurs celebrated under three feet of snow. Inside their dugout wearing their ugliest clothing, they reenacted the scene with the three wise men at Bethlehem and in between the time the one bearing myrrh (Jeanie) and one bearing Frankincense (Tommy) came on scene, baby Jesus (Yale, of course) had to have her dirty pants tended to three times. This actually gave Jeanie great feelings of joy as for the first few weeks of Yale’s life, she didn’t make much water and barely expelled any solid waste at all.

The little things thrilled Jeanie at that point—the rock candy she’d made after Templeton surprised them with sugar from Yankton, stringing popcorn with the children while singing carols. In those moments, she felt contentment and optimism that all that had gone wrong had merely been a dream, like the one she always had of Frank where she couldn’t see his face.

Christmas had renewed Jeanie’s determination to meet the spring thaw with her entire family intact, but to do so happily, warmly, with hope shading every contented moment—the kind that would allow their later years to be filled with fond memories of their first year on the prairie. She wouldn’t let the base elements of such an existence be what she remembered, not without the conquest of such nothingness being attached to the memories.

Once the wise men fulfilled their obligations and baby Jesus began to squawk for the food she didn’t seem to really want and the sleep she always seemed to push away, it was time to do the afternoon chores. After dinner they would settle in to enjoy their gifts.

As he always did, James would open the door and determine the degree of bite in the frigid air, determining whether Katherine and Tommy were too young or just old enough to help with a given series of chores at a given time of day and the corresponding coldness. Frank was remarkably cheered during this time as though his lack of choices in activity—he couldn’t light out over the prairie to do who knew what when the snow tumbled from the sky as though God were standing above, shaking it down himself. Frank was a lot of things, but ready to risk his life wasn’t one of them.

And in his capture, he seemed happier than he’d been in months. Seeing Frank jailed nearly gave Jeanie the opportunity to feel pity instead of resentment for him. It became clear in her mind that his dreams, the way his mind worked, was actually a burden. That, having a narrow vision of the world, like Nikolai Zurchenko, might be an easier brain to have to house.

A narrow man’s thoughts would never travel to exotic, alluring locales, betraying the body that had no means to travel even a mile for whatever the reason. And in that dugout, watching Frank yank on each piece of outerwear, she deemed him a frustrated genius who needed but the opportunity to add the real-life lathe and plaster to his air castles. And Jeanie would be there to help him do so. She knew she could achieve her goals—to create gowns so ethereal the wearer had to stop herself from taking a bite of it to be sure it wasn’t made of sugar and flour—and to create an existence on the prairie that spoke of larger ideas and a life filled with joy, not duties and manners that did nothing but frustrate and separate.

James read the thermometer that Templeton gave him as an early Christmas gift. Negative four degrees.

“Well, with the way the wind is blowing, I suspect it feels like twenty below out there, so I think it’s best Katherine and Tommy tend to duties inside the house, Mama,” James said. “Father and I will empty the chamber and slop pots, feed the livestock, and bring in the last of the buffalo chips and finished hanks.”

By the time James and Frank blew back into the dugout, their faces were frozen. It took a moment for Jeanie to grasp just how cold it had been outside. James burst through the door first, with an armload of hay for Katherine and Tommy to tie hanks to burn. Frank came behind him, arms piled high with chips that would need to dry a bit before burning.

Jeanie checked the water on the stove for coffee and when she didn’t hear laughter or conversation she turned and saw just how stiff the two Arthurs were. She and the twins helped peel off clothes, then decided to pull them back on to hold in any heat there was inside them. Frank and James’s faces were gleaming white as they’d never seen. They couldn’t even open their mouths to form words. Jeanie grabbed some snow from outside the door and she and Katherine rubbed it on their faces to ensure minimal damage.

The rubbing with snow erased the whiteness, but the image of red streaks where their faces weren’t frozen created a ghoulish picture more fitting Halloween than Christmas.