On a Cold Dark Sea(56)
Anna did consider other possibilities. She could write to the White Star Line office in New York, which would have passenger records. She could ask the Swedish Immigrant Aid Society for help. Somehow, Anna never got around to writing those letters. She kept intending to, every time she opened her top drawer and pulled out a clean pair of stockings. It was one of those important but nonurgent chores that never seemed to get done.
And the longer the money stayed in the house, the more Anna came to think of it as hers. Josef worked from sunup to past dark, running the farm while also hiring himself out on building sites. Anna never coveted Charlotte’s money for herself, only for how it might help Josef. What if they could afford a hired hand? What if Josef bought one of those new electric drills? The more Anna considered the possibilities, the easier they became to justify: Josef needed the money more than Charlotte, who most likely didn’t even know it was hidden in the coat. Charlotte would never miss what she didn’t know she had.
And if Anna hadn’t been meant to keep the money, would a perfect excuse have come so easily? A year into her marriage, Anna received word from Papa that her great-uncle in Stockholm had died. He was a bachelor, a loner, and a bit of an eccentric, whom she barely remembered from a long-ago visit. But his death felt like a sign. A few weeks later, Anna told Josef she’d inherited some money, which would soon be wired to a bank in Minneapolis.
Josef never thought to question her story. He didn’t ask to see proof of her inheritance or the bank transfer; he didn’t ask why a man Anna never spoke of had left her a legacy. Anna took the pounds to the downtown branch of the Minnesota Bank & Trust, where she exchanged them for $250.
That night, mimicking the clerk who’d handed her the pristine, crisp currency, Anna laid the dollars out on the dining-room table as Josef watched, astounded. When he’d added up how much it was, he pulled Anna into his arms, pressing his face into her hair.
“Our luck’s turned at last!” he marveled.
They laughed and kissed and laughed as they kissed, both of them surrendering to joy they’d never been carefree enough to embrace. In that euphoric moment, Anna knew she’d made the right decision. She’d given Josef the gift of freedom.
With the money for new tools and hired labor, Andersson Construction finished its first house ahead of schedule, and Josef soon signed contracts for three more. By the time Anna was expecting her first child, they had two farmhands and Josef was spending most of his days in town. When Sarah was learning to walk, they added a second floor to their house, and Anna spent the summer clearing stray nails away from her curious daughter. When Sarah was four and John a gurgling baby, Tomas sold Josef his portion of the farm, and they were landowners at last. Anna’s children were never true farmers’ offspring, not like she and Josef had been. They regarded the horses as playmates rather than work machines and the barn as their playground. They had daily chores, but they never knew what it meant to live solely off the food you grow. By the time Susan was born, the fields were no longer being cultivated, and all but two horses had been sold to pay for a new Oldsmobile.
If Anna came face-to-face with her past self, she had no doubt the girl in the lifeboat would be astonished by all she’d accomplished. She’d had a good life. A happy life. Sarah was now the same age Anna had been when she married, but her daughter had greater ambitions; she was at a secretarial college in Saint Paul. John, though only fourteen, was already learning about the family business; he had a quiet depth that reminded Anna of Emil. John could achieve great things, she believed, if he ever came out of his shell. Susan was still a work in progress, an eight-year-old who shifted moods as quickly as a clotheshorse sorts through new gowns. Spoiled, as the youngest often is. Anna knew her children thought her dowdy and old-fashioned, that they rolled their eyes at her broken English when they thought she wouldn’t see. She couldn’t fault them for favoring Josef over her. Anna would have done the same, in their place.
Anna was sitting on the bed, the coat wrapped around her like a blanket, when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. It must be Susan, home from school. Anna knew she should get up but couldn’t quite muster her arms and legs to obey. The steps came closer, and Anna looked up and saw Josef in the doorway, looking at her, surprised.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Anna’s only response was to reflect Josef’s own confusion back at him.
“I’m meeting Mr. Wilton at the factory at four o’clock. I was going over the plans last night and left them on my desk.”
Josef walked over to the bed and put a hand on Anna’s cheek. She was moved by the gesture, until he slid his hand to her forehead: he was checking for fever. Josef looked down at the coat, and his lips dipped into a frown.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
A simple enough question. A question she felt too overwhelmed to answer. Seeing the picture of Mr. Van Hausen had brought it all back: the men at the oars, Charlotte’s arm around her shoulders, her own pleading sobs. Time and age had distanced Anna from that bewildered, half-frozen girl, so much that she might as well be another person. Yet Anna was still carrying the guilt of that previous self. Why? She’d been so young, so frightened. Wasn’t it time that poor girl was forgiven?
Speaking softly, looking at her pillow rather than Josef, Anna tried to make her husband understand. “An Englishwoman gave me this coat, when I was pulled into the lifeboat. I was so cold—I could hardly breathe. She wrapped it around me, and it felt like she’d brought me back to life. Her name was Charlotte.”