The Children's Blizzard(80)

“You will write to me?”

He nodded eagerly. “I would like a postcard from Lincoln,” he asked shyly. “If you can? I’ve never had a postcard before.”

“Of course I will! As many as you want, for as long as you want. I wish…goodbye, Tor.”

“Goodbye, Miss—Raina.” He lifted his hand in farewell, as she picked up her skirts to trudge back across the land, still soft with melted snow, that softness that was so fleeting, for soon it would be as hard as pavement, baked dry. She headed toward the Pedersens’, where her trunk was already packed, and in the morning Papa would come for her. Waving at Tor, she watched as he went inside the house to tell his mother his decision. And she moved over the prairie, feeling strange as she did so—almost as if she were a ghost, revisiting a lost life. Even though she stopped to pick flowers, sticking them in her hair like she was a little girl again; even though she paused now and then to inspect a gopher hole; even though she waded into a patch of prairie grass, not yet waist high, but still she felt the grasses tickling her knees, embraced that feeling, from her childhood, that if she just kept walking, she would be swallowed up, which might not be a bad thing.

    And when she got to the ravine behind the Pedersens’, she stopped to peer into it one last time, seeing once again the body of Fredrik Halvorsan. Then she shut her eyes resolutely to memory, marched across the log bridge—

And looked forward to tomorrow.





CHAPTER 36


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“RAINA IS HOME! RAINA IS home!” The words rang out like bells clanging as Mama ran outside to welcome her daughter. Soon the little house would be filled with neighbors to welcome home the prodigal schoolteacher, and Gerda was already planning her escape. She would take her crutch and stomp around to the barn and hide out there until the party was over.

She wasn’t angry; she didn’t begrudge her sister or her parents their celebration. Mama and Papa deserved, finally, to bask in the glow of a daughter who had done them proud. Gerda no more had it in her to feel jealous of their happiness than she had it in her to feel jealous of her sister. Her emotions—dulled these last few months of confinement, of banishment—never reached out to embrace or hurt anyone else but herself. Her mind was a constant waterwheel, ever churning up the same pattern of guilt, recrimination, the desire to go back in time and change that fateful decision, and fear for her future. It went round and round, churning up the waters of her soul.

As soon as Mama flew out of the house to greet Raina, Gerda took her crutch and a basket of knitting and slipped—well, stomped—out the back door. The crutch still hurt beneath her armpit; it had rubbed her skin almost raw, despite all the various materials—calico, sheepskin—that Mama had tied on it, hoping to find the perfect one that wouldn’t cause her daughter any extra pain. But nothing would help, except time, she supposed. In the same way that now the phantom pains of her missing foot had dulled to an ache, not electric jolts, the pain beneath her arm would dim, as well.

    Gerda actually wished that it wouldn’t.

She heard Raina’s happy cry at seeing Mama, and then the voices dropped and she knew they were talking about her. Gerda could not bear it one more second, this constant discussion of what was to become of her, a conversation that never included her at all, for she was assumed, apparently, to be unable to make decisions anymore, since she’d made such a tragic one. She thumped hastily through the yard to escape it, scattering the chicks and chickens in her wake. Her movements were uneven as her new boot, strapped to the stump just above where her ankle had been, made such a heavy track in the dirt while her other foot left only the ball of it as an imprint. The heavy fake boot wasn’t quite tall enough to match the length of her other leg so she was always slightly tilted, swaying as she walked.

The crutch wasn’t necessary inside the house; there, she could hobble about enough so that she had two good arms to use to work, to help, to seek atonement through extra sewing, feverish sweeping, scrubbing the clothes on the washboard so intently, Mama teased her that she might scrub them into rags. Anything that she could do with her arms and one good leg, she would do, and do it better than anyone else, and maybe then Papa would look at her again with that pride in his eyes. So far, he had not.

    He still couldn’t meet her gaze; it made mealtimes especially awkward. He could talk to her, say her name, but he always looked down at his plate or the bread in his hands or his cup of coffee or at Mama. But not at Gerda.

She was almost to the barn now; there was a special little corner she had fashioned into a hiding place. It was silly, really, as if she were still a little girl, playing house with Raina. The two of them were always making a little playhouse out of corners and shadows, fixing it up with twig furniture and cups made of grass; they got so good at weaving these tiny fairy cups that they actually did hold water. What was it about children and hiding places? But here she was, eighteen, nineteen in a month, and she was still hiding away. During the winter, there had been no visitors, naturally. But once the thaws and the floods were through, some of the neighbors did come around, ostensibly to see how everyone had gotten through the winter, to ask if Mama’s preserves had lasted, if they had any laying hens to trade for some seed—and to ask about Raina. But also, to gape at Gerda. She imagined they were hoping to find she’d grown a horn, or warts, or some outward symbol of evil. But she looked the same. The few that caught a glimpse of her always seemed disappointed by that. She didn’t let many catch her, though.