Cold Determination

by Jennifer Lyons

  Peter and I looked at each other; we couldn’t even argue, we were so surprised. It was Friday, not Monday, and we had never bathed in the middle of any day. I followed Peter in and we shut the door without questioning the order.

  “You boys are filthy; wash twice!” came another whispered order from Miss Vicki. I washed and re-washed. Peter looked me over and pointed me back to the tub. I grumbled and had to wash again too.

  Peter looked at my nails and inspected the area behind my ears. I washed his back and after what seemed like hours of washing, we were finally done. My skin was pink from all the scrubbing and our hair squeaked when Miss Vicki pulled a comb through. “Your hair, it is too curly to be wasted on boys. You don’t ever care.” She was right; I didn’t care, and those curls hurt when she combed.

  We pulled on our clean clothes and followed her out. She put a finger to her mouth and carefully, quietly, led the way down the long hallway. She didn’t bring us to our room nor did we follow her down to the kitchen again. Instead, she took us to the end of the hall to the door that opened to the fire escape.

  “You boys, you go straight down these stairs and then meet me outside in front of the building. You wait for me if I am not there. Take care not to get dirty or tear your shirts or pants.” Then, she handed us our dirty clothes and towels she had neatly bundled together and pointed us out the door. Peter and I obeyed her orders.

  We hardly ever got to go down that fire escape. It was another exciting adventure. The metal stairs were open and shaky. I grew dizzy as we spiraled closer to the ground. Miss Vicki wasn’t there yet. We waited, just as she’d told us to. We waited a long time.

  After what I thought were hours, I peeked around the side. Mama wasn’t out front and neither was Miss Vicki. I could tell Peter was getting as nervous as I was while we waited. I wondered why we were in clean clothes and why we had to bathe. The street was normal. There were the typical people out, with the typical noise.

  After a while longer, Miss Vicki walked up behind us, startling Peter. Miss Kate was with her. They had put on nice dresses and neither of them wore aprons. Miss Kate looked absolutely delighted as she and Miss Vicki led us up the street. Peter shoved our bundle to me and ran ahead. Those women led us to a big, important looking building right in the middle of town. The sign labeled it as Town Hall. I saw Nils inside. Someone made him clean up too, I could tell.

  His hair was neatly combed. His pants were clean and his shirt was all tucked in. Even his boots looked clean. He smiled at us and nodded to Miss Vicki and Miss Kate. “She’s in there,” he said, pointing off to our right.

  Miss Vicki brought us in to a large room, opposite to where Nils pointed. They sat us down in a row of chairs, near the front. She followed Miss Kate out the door across the hall. They knocked on the door and hurried through it.

  I looked all around. That pinching feeling was back in my stomach. Peter and I still had not been told what was going on, and I was still holding our bundle. Nils came over and took the bundle. He put it down at the back of the room. It was only then I noticed how happy he looked. “Today is the day, boys. Today is when I marry your mama.”

  “Well, that explains a lot,” I told him. “Miss Vicki made us wash twice.” Peter nodded vigorously. Nils smiled and asked us to be patient for just a little while longer.

  I was terribly excited. We only had to wait a few more minutes. Miss Vick and Miss Kate came in first and sat just behind us. Then, a door opened in the back. There was our mama. Her hair was all up tucked into a new hat. Her dress was new, too. It was the prettiest dress we ever saw here wear. It fell just below her knees and had lace for the sleeves. She was carrying some white flowers that I knew would make me sneeze if I got too close. Her eyes looked happy when she saw us sitting there. Miss Vicki told us to stand and put our shoulders straight.

  Nils waited quietly for Mama to join him up at the front. I hadn’t noticed before, but now I saw another man there. He had a loud, kind voice. He asked Mama if she wanted to marry Nils. She nodded. Then, he asked Nils if he wanted to marry Mama. Nils grinned his response. I heard a sniffle and turned to see Miss Vicki take out a handkerchief. She wiped at her cheeks. That was all that happened. It only took a few minutes.

  The man told us they were married now. Nils kissed Mama so exuberantly, I wasn’t sure how her hat stayed on. Then, he led her out the door. I remembered our bundle as the four of us followed them out the door.

  When we got outside, Nils kissed Mama again and said, “I have a reservation at the hotel for lunch today. Miss Vicki and Miss Kate, I hope you come too.” Mama kissed Nils cheek.

  She looked into my eyes. “I am very happy for us; I will tell you why we kept it so quiet later.” She kissed Peter’s cheek and took my hand in both of hers. “We aren’t going back to our room; Nils has a surprise for us after lunch.” Peter and I grinned at each other. She hadn’t seen the house yet.

  That was the best lunch of our life. It was in the best hotel in town. It was on the good end of town. All the tables had tablecloths and Mama made us put the napkins in the front of our shirts before lunch arrived. Nils got her a bubbly drink that was pink. Miss Vicki was “terribly impressed” with everything. Mama and Nils ordered our food for us and while we waited, we watched our mama.

  She looked like a different woman. Her eyes were happy and her hair shiny. She smiled, showing her whole mouth instead of hiding her stained teeth. Mama was always graceful and today she shined more than ever. I noticed how careful Nils was with her. He was as gentle with her as if he was touching the most delicate flower. He sat very close to her and hardly looked anywhere else the whole day.

  We ate our fill and laughed a lot. When all the food was gone, Nils led us out. The three ladies hugged. Peter and I hugged them. When we parted ways, I saw Miss Kate brush tears from her eyes. They walked north, and we turned south.

  Nils led us all the way down to the neat street we visited before. Peter picked up the bundle when I dropped it. Mama was very quiet. I noticed her grip on Nils arm tighten as we neared the little white square trimmed in blue.

  Nils was so excited, he picked her up. “Boys, get the door!” He carried her right over the threshold. Mama’s arms were wrapped around his neck, and he gently placed her on the ground in her new living room. She was shaking. Peter and I just stood, not sure what to do. Peter held onto the bundle.

  Mama was crying and laughing and asking Nils what this was. He took her by the hand and led her around. He showed her the kitchen and living room and all of it. Mama couldn’t talk. She was still shaking and by now she was really crying. I heard her whisper that she loved him.

  As the evening grew cooler, Nils showed Mama how to warm up our house and how to work the lights. Peter and I sat at the table in the kitchen as the sky grew dark, playing with the deck of cards Peter always kept with him.

  The neat little square warmed quickly. Nils and Mama sat talking in the living room late into the night. Finally, Mama reached up and unpinned her hat. “Thank you, Nils; thank you for my dress and for my hat. Thank you for making us this home.” She nestled deep into him.

  Peter finally stood up and asked what we were supposed to do. Nils whispered, “Well, there are two beds up there, one for each of you. Go pick one out and you boys can go get some sleep.” We didn’t need to be told twice. We each had our own bed!

  Peter and I raced up the stairs and into the smaller of the two rooms. Peter took the bed by the window, and I gladly took the one near the door. Mine would be warmer. I sat on my own bed, gingerly at first, testing it a bit and, then, allowing myself to become heavier and heavier.

  Peter propped himself up on his elbow. “Can you believe it? I never thought we would have our own house! I think Mama was so excited and happy, she just got tired.”

  I wasn’t sure why Mama was so tired. I nodded, though. I never dreamed we would have our own house with my own bed. I climbed under the blanket and as I fell asleep, I thought how life was full of surpri
ses. Just that morning, Peter and I had gone off to school not knowing we would move. Now, here we were, sleeping in our own beds. Nils was with our mama, and she didn’t have to work for Mr. Joclav anymore. The biggest surprise was how quiet our home was.

  There was no trolley clanging past. Our rooms weren’t filled with people yelling and laughing and cursing. There was just the four of us, all quiet in our neat little square.

  First Love

  Nils changed our lives more than we ever imagined possible. His hard work with Burlington Railroad paid off. He provided the four of us with a good life. We weren’t wealthy, but it felt as if we were. After all, only a year prior we had one room for three.

  Nils was completely taken with Mama. She was beautiful. As I grew, I noticed how many people took extra notice of her as she walked down the street. She was tall and slender and kept her hair in thick braids encircling her head. She had a graceful face. It was nearly perfectly symmetrical had the end of her nose not been slightly off to the right. Her wide, blue eyes sparkled with intellect and happiness. She was confident and assured of her importance in the world. Hard life hadn’t broken her as it often does to many. Instead, it strengthened her and it showed in every aspect of her. Her wide mouth stretched into smiles effortlessly. Her teeth were stained, but her lips were so rosy red I don’t think anyone noticed her teeth. Nils certainly didn’t.

  He worked hard to make her happy. When he got home, he raced to her. He picked her up hugging her to him and kissed her face and neck. He touched her hair and held her hand when they walked places. He showed her off proudly, always introducing her as “the most wonderful woman I ever met, my wife, Kat.” Mama liked the extra attention, I could tell. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes brighter than I had seen in a long time.

  She loved the little home Nils bought for us and she always worked to keep it clean and beautiful. It was a typical home for the day. It wasn’t stuffed with treasures. A few precious items adorned a set of shelves in the living room and our best vase sat in the middle of our table. It was a happy place, filled with love and growing us boys into fit young men.

  Mama took great pride in the whole place and especially loved the garden. Nils dug a large part of the yard into fine straight rows. We all helped Mama plant cabbages, beans, squash, onions, and carrots each spring. I loved the magic of the growing plants. I eagerly watched for seedlings to break through the earth. After no time at all, they stretched into flower bearing plants. Mama loved the harvest. She always told us it would feed us all winter and then ensured it would. She canned everything. Her sauerkraut and pickles were my favorite. After the jars were all sealed, she lined them neatly on narrow shelves in our pantry. She loved feeding us and called us her “uprawy chłopców.”

  When Mama and Nils celebrated their two-year wedding anniversary, I noticed just how much Peter and I had grown. Peter was now taller than Mama. As usual, I was close behind and by the end of the year, I had grown taller than not only Mama, but Nils and Peter as well. Mama told me it was all in my legs.

  That fall, I entered into high school, nothing more than a gangly wayward youth, clumsily tripping through life and happiest when I was fishing and trapping. The country was gripped with depression and even though Nils had a good job, our family struggled alongside everyone else. Mama was still grateful for the extra food Peter and I brought home each day.

  It was a turning point for the entire world. The path before us was strewn with idealization. People idealized the perfect life, the perfect family and only two short decades later, the fifties realized this idealization. Behind us, revered traditions idealized proper manners, hard work, and religious belief. We were caught in a turbulent turning tide that produced the greatest generation. I didn’t take too much notice; all I was learning was hard work was needed to survive life.

  Peter and I trapped every day and, through the years, had built ourselves a respectable practice. We had several customers who relied on us. Mama relied on us to bring food to the table each day. Most days we caught enough fish to feed the four of us, and other days, Mama served up the rabbits caught in our traps. Nils told us every day how he was proud of us, and Peter and I didn’t worry too much about school.

  We couldn’t skip out on high school as we had in our grammar school days with Miss Fink. High school classes were serious and Mama was adamant we would graduate. Peter struggled, just like before, and even though school wasn’t my favorite place to be, I found I enjoyed it. Beside a fine academic education, there were girls.

  Girls were mysterious for Peter and I. Mama never had another child after Rosie, so it was just us two boys. Most of our friends had sisters, but I never knew them. When we were younger, they were bossy, telling us to wash up and to be careful as if they were our mothers. They didn’t like war games. I steered clear of most girls until that summer.

  Peter still nursed a soft spot for Victoria and it turned out that she had a younger sister, Clara. She was younger, prettier, and smarter than Victoria, and I was smitten from the moment I first saw her.

  Clara was unlike any other girl I had ever known. She was short with golden hair that looked soft. She had wide brown eyes, and her cheeks were slightly full. For whatever reason, she decided to be my friend, and we talked every day when Peter and I stopped at Smith’s.

  By that fall, I found myself thinking of Clara most of the day every day. She was curious about me and listened when I said anything. I knew she was smart, smarter than me; she could add in her head and she read any book she saw. She never acted like she was smarter than me or anyone else, though. She asked to follow us on our trapping line and was unappalled when she found the traps full. Instead, she asked what the next step was and then the next. She was learning to trap and genuinely wanted to do it well. She was the same with fishing. She wasn’t very good at either sport, but I liked having her around, and when she wasn’t, my day was just a little sad.

  I wanted to do something nice for her but I really didn’t know what I could do. Peter was no help—he talked to a lot of girls but never seemed to be serious about any of them. He talked to them, and I knew he kissed several, but after that, he moved on. Plus, he never made any progress with Victoria. She looked at him as if he were a child or worse, a younger brother.

  It was different with Clara and me. She was happy to see me and never laughed at how short my pants were. I looked forward to just hearing her soft voice. I wanted to show her how much I thought of her but, for a few weeks, I had no idea what to do or even how to plan something nice. The only person I ever gave a present to was Mama. I finally decided to ask Miss Kate.

  It had been awhile since I had seen her. After we moved out of that building, it was like our lives were just different and we hardly saw most people who had once been part of our daily routines. Peter and I stopped by a few times throughout the year to say our hellos and check in on her and Miss Vicki. Our chats were always short but became more sporadic as the years went by.

  It had been a full year since I last visited our first home in Sheridan. I was myself excited to talk with Miss Kate. She was the first pretty girl I knew and liked and she was always nice to me. I think she figured out my crush on her but she didn’t seem to mind. She still talked about moving to San Francisco and she still had her eastern accent. Going into that rear kitchen door felt like going home. It creaked familiarly and the smell of food engulfed me as I went through.

  It didn’t take long to find Miss Kate. She was doing dishes in the large sink and threw her arms around me when she saw me, dripping water all over my shirt.

  “You’re so tall, Jurak! How did this happen? You got all handsome on me and all grown up! Here, sit, sit down over there, I’ll bring some tea.” She pointed me to the nook I once took every meal of my day in, but someone had added a small table with two chairs filling the small space, making it more comfortable. I was too tall to put my legs beneath that table, so I sat sideways waiting for her and feeling awkward.

  She cam
e bustling back, and I admired how pretty she still was. Her hair was still short and shining ebony. Her face was slightly lined. Her eyes wrinkled at the edges even when she wasn’t smiling now, but they still sparkled. I noticed how fine her legs were and how short her dress was. I tried not to stare as she sat opposite me.

  “So, what brings ya here, hun?”

  I couldn’t remember. I picked up my cup of tea and desperately tried to recall what had prompted me to visit. I was keenly aware of how close she sat and how good she smelled. I drank my tea and watched her over the rim of my cup.

  “It’s all same old, same old ’round here. We had a big fight the other night, and Mr. Joclav kicked out several of our girls. I dunno where they went.” She talked, in her normal way, too much about everything going on in the building until a crash from around the corner interrupted us. She peeked around the corner. When she turned around, her face was white.

  “Hun, you go on upstairs, I’ll be there in a minute.” She handed me a key to a room.

  I don’t know what frightened her and I didn’t ask, I just followed her directions and left the kitchen in the opposite direction of the noise. I ran up the stairs and down the same hall we had lived in, stopping in front of a door that was supposed to be marked 24 but no numbers hung there any longer.

  Stepping inside, I realized I was in Miss Kate’s room. It was small, furnished with a bed, dresser, and radiator. It was cluttered, she obviously had done her wash the night prior, and the fresh smell of the powder lingered in the air. Her bed was untidy, the quilt hastily pulled into place, and the pillows carelessly tossed on top. A cord, strung diagonally across the room held her sensitive clothing. I tried not to look at those items while I waited. On top of the dresser, she had a small stack of books. I looked through those, curious what Miss Kate would read about. They all seemed to take place next to the ocean in San Francisco.