The Children's Blizzard(13)

    But Mother Pedersen was both; she sometimes would stop what she was doing and sit down and cry, so fiercely it looked like her face might split in two while her narrow shoulders sliced through the air in sharp upward thrusts. And her anger! As much a part of her as her bright flaxen hair that she took such care of, her fury was like a harsh, metallic thread woven into her perfectly fitted dresses. You followed the glint of it throughout the house as she darted from bedroom to kitchen to parlor, only staying in one place when she concentrated on baking intricate, dainty pastries that were so light and airy they didn’t seem to belong on the prairie. Their very beauty made Anette shy about eating them—not that she was often offered any. But when she did eat them, she was always disappointed; as sweet as they were, they never did fill her up.

Mother and Father Pedersen rarely visited the second floor. Mother Pedersen left clean linens at the bottom step of the crude stairs every week, but it was the job of Teacher and Anette to make the beds, empty the slop jugs, sweep and dust what little there was to dust. The rest of the house was nicely furnished, at least in Anette’s opinion, since her old home—and funny how she now thought of it that way—had been sparse, with little furniture, no rugs, a dirt floor. But the upstairs, where the two boarders slept, was just the two bedsteads separated by a curtain. No pictures. The only decoration was the flowers that Father Pedersen brought Teacher.

But one night last week, Anette had awoken to sounds that were unfamiliar enough to pull her from her exhausted sleep; it had been laundry day but so cold that the water pump froze outside, so Anette had been forced to carry shovels full of snow inside instead, where they melted in a big tub by the stove. When she awoke, her arms and shoulders still ached so much that she couldn’t move them right away, so she merely lay still, listening.

    First she heard Teacher murmuring something—was she talking in her sleep? But then Anette heard more murmurs. Different murmurs. A voice that didn’t belong—

It was Father Pedersen. Saying something so low, but so sweet that Anette felt her heart yearn for more. She could make out no words; she only knew that it was a song she would have loved to hear, if only she could.

Then Teacher said something that was interrupted by a creak of the stairs, and Father Pedersen was walking toward the top of the staircase—Anette by this time had pushed herself up on her elbow. She could only see his feet, in his sturdy boots that were dripping melting snow; he must have just come in from seeing to the horses. Although why he would have been doing that in the middle of the night, Anette had no idea. Then she saw Teacher’s bare feet hit the floor, and she had been amazed at seeing the small, bony feet, the little pink toes; it was so cold, why didn’t she sleep with her socks on as Anette did?

This fact—this odd, distracting thought—so puzzled Anette that she almost didn’t hear Father Pedersen say, “Anna.” Just the one word—Mother Pedersen’s name—but the way he said it was terrible. Anette bolted upright, hugging the quilt to her chest for protection. His voice was vibrant with terror and supplication.

Teacher cried out.

There was another creak of the stairs, then something metallic clattered to the floor and Father Pedersen was rushing down, and Teacher must have flung herself back on her bed. She sobbed so piteously, Anette didn’t know what to do. Should she go to her?

    From downstairs she could hear the sound of voices being raised, and the littlest Pedersen wailing from his basket, and doors slamming, a sound like a scream cut off before it was uttered. So Anette remained in her own bed. It was as if a line had truly been drawn—a wall, bricked up—between the two beds. They seemed intended for different things, these two bedsteads. And Anette had never known that before, that beds might have purposes other than for sleeping.

The days after that strange night had made Anette want to scream; the house was too small for so many people with so many troubles. As the temperature remained well below zero, they were trapped, and everyone behaved so oddly. Father Pedersen wouldn’t talk to Mother Pedersen, who wouldn’t speak to Teacher, who acted terrified of both of them and suddenly both younger and older than she had been before, and no one thought of Anette at all. She felt like she was a ghost, almost; no one could see her, but she saw everything. More than she wanted to. But she wasn’t invisible, at that; all the things she didn’t want to see made her so confused that Mother Pedersen slapped her for allowing a pan of milk intended for the baby to scald.

Teacher, observing, rushed to Anette’s side; she pulled her into her arms.

“You are a cruel, cruel person,” she scolded Mother Pedersen. It was the first time Anette had ever heard her speak angrily to the older woman, and the pain of the slap was forgotten in her astonishment.

“You know nothing about me,” Mother Pedersen responded coolly. “And despite your silly fantasies, you know nothing about him.”

Teacher had fled upstairs, sobbing. With a strangled cry, Mother Pedersen erupted in fury, becoming a demon before Anette’s very eyes—her face scarlet, the blue eyes blazing while the coils of her hair seemed to dance with electricity. Mother Pedersen snatched the scalded milk off the top of the cookstove and ran to the door to throw it out, only she closed the door on her hand and collapsed in a heap on the floor, pounding her chest with her fists and hissing, “This cursed place, this cursed land,” over and over again. Teacher’s sobs were audible and the baby started to cry and Liane, the oldest Pedersen child, hit Martin, the middle one, and the two started to scream and tear at each other’s clothes. And Anette simply stood where she was, in the middle of hell.