The Children's Blizzard(77)

“Oh, heavens.” Mrs. Halvorsan appeared truly distressed; she twisted the apron in her lap and there was a flash of tears in her eyes that she turned away to hide, but not quickly enough. Then she tried to laugh at herself. “I cry so easily these days.”

“That’s understandable—so do I,” Raina admitted, reaching over to clasp the woman’s hand. It was a hand that was red from scrubbing, the fingers long and sinewy, very little fat in the pads. There were shiny spots where burns—from cooking—had healed. The nails were short, but not dirty. There was strength in this hand.

    “I am sorry you won’t be back. But you have so many nice things ahead of you, I don’t blame you.” The woman turned to face Raina, the tears wiped away. “Get away from here while you can. Once you break the ground with a hoe, you will never be able to leave.” And she looked out the window, to where Tor was in the fields, slapping the reins against an ox pulling a plow.

“I love the prairie,” Raina said, and it was true. She loved the beauty of it, the wide openness, the songbirds and flowers, the waving, russet grasses in the fall. The shadows falling across the land, like patchwork, as the clouds danced beneath the sun. The people. But she still felt trapped like an insect beneath a glass jar whenever she truly took in the scope of it. Despite its optimistic vastness, there was little to do with it but stay and plow and hope for the best.

“I love it, but I am excited to go to college. I’m going to Lincoln on a scholarship to the Latin School there, to prepare for the university in two years. I’ll be able to save the sum I was given, by all the kind people. And that’s what I wanted to see you about—I don’t think I deserved all that. Tor was just as responsible for getting the children here safely. Mrs. Halvorsan, please, won’t you let me give Tor some of the funds so he can go to college, too?”

“Tor? College?” Mrs. Halvorsan was so startled, she had to clutch the table for support. She rose and rushed to the window to watch her oldest son in the fields. She stayed there for a very long time, and when she finally turned around, her eyes were shining, proud. “You think he could get in? The entrance exams—like to this Latin school?”

    “He could if I helped him study, and I would be privileged to.”

“My Tor! In college—imagine!” Again that shining light in her tired but resolute eyes. She shook her head and repeated herself. “I wonder what he could be? Maybe a doctor, you think?”

“Maybe.” Raina smiled.

Then Mrs. Halvorsan’s smile faded; she looked around the small house until her gaze fell on the kitchen table where Raina still sat. Once, there had been a father at the head of that table. Now the chair was empty. Once, there had been another boy—still needing to grow into his strength, but he would—to help out.

Now there was only Tor. For several years, it would be only him; the other children were too young.

Raina understood the struggle evident on the older woman’s face—the pride, the unexpected gift of opportunity. The reality of the money and time already sunk into the homestead, which was theirs now, outright; they had proved it up, it was a working farm now. Could she afford to hire hands to do the work when Tor was gone? Raina didn’t know but suspected not.

“I would never stand in the way of any of my children,” Mrs. Halvorsan was saying, as if to herself. “That would make me a bad mother. But now…” And she didn’t have to say more.

“I can’t presume to know how it is here, now that Mr. Halvorsan and Fredrik are gone. I know that they are missed, for so many reasons. All I can do is offer this to Tor.”

“I will let Tor decide,” Mrs. Halvorsan said reluctantly. Raina didn’t know if she was fearful that Tor would take the offer or that he wouldn’t, and maybe Mrs. Halvorsan didn’t know this herself. The thing was, as she herself had learned ever since Gavin Woodson showed up at the Pedersens’ door, choice and opportunity were not the uncomplicated gifts most people thought they were.

    They were burdens, different but no less heavy than the burden of getting a good crop in, of fighting off a prairie fire, of worrying how to make it through a long winter with little fuel or food. The weight of making the right choice wore heavily on someone with a conscience.

“How is Anette?” Mrs. Halvorsan asked.

“Anette is doing well. Her hand looks very natural, especially when she wears long sleeves and gloves. She’s learned to button herself up in the back with a special button hook that also helps with her shoes.” Raina shook her head, remembering how quickly Anette had adapted to her loss, coming up with little tricks and cunning shortcuts—like jamming a knitting needle cast with yarn into a jar filled with dried corn to keep it upright, while she maneuvered the other needle with her one hand. This way, she could knit simple patterns, pot holders, and scarves. “Anette is just—stronger, somehow. I used to think that Fredrik was the one who gave her courage. She didn’t seem to possess any on her own. But now I see that Fredrik just gave her the key to unlock it herself.”

“And her mother?” Mrs. Halvorsan’s brows drew together in disapproval. Raina had no idea how the neighborhood had heard about Mrs. Thorkelsen’s visit, but somehow they had.

Raina still didn’t quite understand what happened to Anette’s mother; she simply didn’t believe she could have been paid off, as Anna Pedersen insisted, by all the pin money she’d been saving up. And that she disappeared in the middle of the night, depriving herself of a touching scene of farewell for all to witness—that, too, made little sense.