The Children's Blizzard

by Melanie Benjamin

  What no one knew but her was that she had seen something bright, something possibly beautiful, glistening on the horizon. She’d never had anything bright or beautiful in her life—except for that spoon, which, in truth, she’d stolen. She’d only known misery, poverty, hunger. She couldn’t remember why she came to America in the first place. Poverty was poverty wherever you lived. Maybe she’d just been swept up in the tide of others coming. She wasn’t the type of person to display initiative on her own. Life was short and cruel; it had its own plans and it was only fools who tried to outsmart it.

  But this was different. This was providence. And she’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.

  The woman aimed her mule in the direction she had traveled only a year and a half before. Did she have any shame when she remembered that previous journey? Any remorse, when she recalled her daughter’s questions, her bewildered eyes—her pathetic tears?

  There was no remorse, no shame; she’d done what she had to do, what would make her life easier.

  She snorted, thinking that her journey this time was so similar. She had troubles—that hadn’t changed much in the ensuing months, not even with one less mouth to feed—and a solution had presented itself yet again. All she had to do was go to the same house she’d gone to before. Tying her nag of a mule up outside the prosperous two-story home, she realized that if all went according to plan, she had left her husband and sons without any means of transportation. Oh, well. Maybe, if she was feeling particularly generous, she would drag the beast home behind a new carriage, a farewell present before she turned her back on that damned miserable cave and rode off to live in a grand house with servants, a house full of gleaming furniture and plush carpets and china plates, a house that didn’t smell of shit and sweat and boiled potatoes. That didn’t smell of him and the brats, still unable to make it outside—they didn’t have an outhouse, only holes in the ground—before they pissed themselves.

  But probably she wouldn’t do that, after all. Her husband was a lot like her; it wouldn’t be smart to let him know she was suddenly rolling in money.

  If all went according to plan.

  She walked to the front door and knocked. And when the door was answered by the woman she remembered—that beautiful woman who had looked at her with such distaste the other time, too—she calmly stated her business.

  “I am Anette’s mother. I heard about her from the papers. And I am here to take her home.”

  CHAPTER 31

  •••••

  ANETTE HAD GROWN USED TO the funny man who kept coming to sit by her bedside. He read her many letters from strange people who were worried about her and prayed for her and sent her presents of dolls and books. She was getting better with her English, thanks to Mother Pedersen letting Teacher give her lessons. The funny man—Mr. Woodson—didn’t know any Norwegian.

  But Mr. Woodson liked her; Anette could tell. The pain of losing Fredrik never left her; she too easily could conjure up his laughing face, his flashing feet, the way he had of pushing his hair up from his forehead until it stood straight on end. Tor and his mother came to visit once—they had come before, she was told, when she was sick—and they reminded her so much of him that it had hurt her inside, like bees stinging her heart. Tor looked so like his little brother, except he had a calm, soothing presence, unlike the whirligig Fredrik had been. Fredrik’s mother had been so sad, and had taken Anette’s hand in hers and asked, urgently, “But he saved you, didn’t he, my Fredrik? He saved your life, my boy did.”

  Anette nodded, and this made Mrs. Halvorsan smile, finally, and she spent the afternoon telling story after story of Fredrik—the time when he was three, when they thought they’d lost him in the tallgrass, but he was asleep in the barn and never heard them calling for him; the time he almost tumbled down the well but got his foot tangled up in the bucket rope, which saved him; the time he found a toad and put it in his mother’s drawer where she kept the good linen, because he thought it was the nicest place in the world for a toad to live. Anette loved the stories and could have listened to them forever, although Tor didn’t seem to enjoy them. He watched his mother anxiously, and Anette didn’t know what he was afraid of, only that he relaxed when his mother stopped telling the stories and decided it was time to go back home to get supper. That was when his mother was brisk and more like, well—a mother, and Tor looked almost like his old self.

  Anette had never really paid much attention to Tor at school, other than to take Fredrik’s side against him whenever the two brothers bickered. Tor was just one of the big boys, outside of her thoughts. He was friendly, he was helpful to Teacher, but he was older and smarter and almost gone from the schoolhouse anyway.

  But now it was different; they shared something, it seemed to Anette. Even though he didn’t say much to her—really, he didn’t seem all that interested in her, his attention was all on his mother during the visit. Still, when he gruffly said goodbye, Anette knew she didn’t imagine some connection between them, some different way he looked at her—as if seeing inside her, straight to her grief. And there was something to that look that made her miss Fredrik less, that night.

  But she wouldn’t see Tor again, not for a very long time. She wouldn’t be going back to school for a while, not with her wound that, while getting better, still was a long way off from allowing her out of doors. By the time she got back to school, Tor would be gone, working in the fields. Taking the place of his father.

  Anette began to get restless, stuck in the bed. Now that she was awake and aware, she was very uncomfortable with Mother Pedersen’s nursing. To have this woman, who had never before uttered a kind word to her, bathe her was embarrassing to the extreme. Anette wished she could bathe herself but she couldn’t yet manage it with one hand, although Doc Eriksen assured her that in time, she would be able to do almost everything she’d been able to do with two hands. For now, she had to squeeze her eyes shut so she didn’t see Mother Pedersen’s face when she removed her nightshirt and helped her into the tub, and rubbed at her, gently, with a big sponge and soft soap that smelled like lavender. Anette did like the soap; she’d never known anything like it, a soap that did not hurt her skin, something so fragrant it made her smell nice for days after. Sometimes Mother Pedersen dabbed at Anette’s neck and wrists with cologne, and Anette giggled and felt very grown up. But still so strange! This new way of being treated lovingly, like a special guest, startled her almost more than it soothed her.

  But then it began to worry her, no matter what Mr. Woodson said, with his letters promising all sorts of things she’d never imagined—money, schooling (which frankly terrified her). If Anette wasn’t of use to anyone, if she couldn’t work, who would want her? All those people writing—surely they would demand something back in return, cooking and scrubbing and cleaning and sewing, and how could she do that with only one hand? The last two years had taught her some things, mostly things she hadn’t wanted to learn. But primarily it had taught her that, with the exception of Fredrik, the only thing people liked about her was her ability to work hard without complaint. It was her only value. And even that wasn’t enough, because look at her own mother. Anette had always worked hard back in the dugout, but that hadn’t been enough for her mother to keep her. And Mother Pedersen, before—before—

  Anette understood that something had happened to her surrogate mother during the blizzard. Just as if Mother Pedersen, too, had been lost in it, turned around like she and Fredrik had been so that she had no idea what was earth and what was sky. Something had happened to change her, too. It was what made her prone to weeping when she caught sight of Anette’s still-raw stump, the stitches still black against her skin. It was what caused her, one night when she must have thought Anette was sleeping, to creep in and kneel by the bed and lay an anguished head on the mattress and whisper, “I’m so sorry, you poor creature. Can you ever forgive me? I will never forgive myself.” And
then she’d sobbed noisily, as if there was an untapped well of bitter tears she’d just discovered within.

  Anette didn’t know what she should forgive, although she did feel pity for her, in a way. But she couldn’t forget the harsh words and backbreaking work, either. The strange, stifling atmosphere in that house was gone, but it was, in Anette’s mind, only banished temporarily, lurking outside like another inevitable storm. Maybe Mother Pedersen could change overnight, but Anette doubted it; it was more like one obsession had been replaced by another. Just as she’d once been violently angry, now she was sorry. And violently caring; her focus on Anette was almost suffocating.

  Yet everyone treated Anette as if she were the one who had changed. Teacher, too, was the recipient of this attention; people came from miles around to bring the two of them presents, to shake Teacher’s hand, to gaze in at Anette as she lay there like a prize pig. Anette simply didn’t understand it, even though Mr. Woodson tried to explain it to her—the people had read about them in his newspaper. Mr. Woodson had shared their stories, because he liked them both very much and thought they deserved something special for what they’d gone through. He even showed her one of his newspapers and she saw her own name in the tiny black print. But still, she couldn’t quite understand it all.

  He was so nice to her, Mr. Woodson was! Nicer than anyone had ever been. He never failed to break into an enormous grin when he saw her. He was always glad to see Teacher, polite enough to the Pedersens, but only when he held Anette’s hand did he laugh as if she brought him—joy, was it?

  He visited a lot, traveling back and forth from the big city of Omaha, which he sometimes tried to describe to Anette, but she couldn’t grasp it. Tall buildings! Something called a cable car that carried people about! Stores of untold riches and goods—one entire store just for shoes! Another just for hats! Many churches of many different kinds, people called Jews, Bohemians, Italians, all with different customs and languages and foods and ways of living, yet they were all still part of one city! And when he began to tell her about a place called New York that was about one hundred times the size of Omaha, with even more cable cars and a place called Wall Street where all the money in the United States was made—she guessed he meant that was where all the dollars were printed up and the coins produced by some kind of magic—well! It all overwhelmed her imagination and she pleaded with him to stop because her brain was too small to keep it all in, which made him laugh heartily, although she didn’t know why.

  Every time he visited he brought satchels of letters, baskets of fruit. The first time in her life that Anette saw a pineapple, she laughed so hard tears came to her eyes. Who could eat such a prickly fruit, like a porcupine? But then Mr. Woodson showed Mother Pedersen how to chop the top off, slice away the prickly skin, and remove the core of sweet, juicy fruit; and when they all tasted it, Anette thought she’d never eaten anything so heavenly in her life. It tasted like all the dreams she’d never had.

  But sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t watching, Mr. Woodson would study her with a troubled frown. He would look at her, then at Mother Pedersen, and shake his head. As if he didn’t quite trust the situation in front of his own eyes. As if he somehow could see into the past, see how it was before the blizzard. Then he would grow silent, and thoughtful.

  There came a day when Anette was allowed to sit in a chair for an entire afternoon, with real clothes on, not a nightgown. She’d expected to put on her old clothes, but instead there was a bright blue gingham dress with rows of buttons up the back that Mother Pedersen fastened for her. She had new underthings, too—pretty, snow-white underthings with little frills. And new black slippers with red ribbons across the instep—Anette could not stop looking at them; she sat in the chair and extended her legs, pointing her feet, admiring them. Her hair had been washed and brushed. It was like a holiday, if she’d ever known what a holiday was before, which she didn’t. But that was how Mr. Woodson described it, the day she got out of bed for the first time.

  She heard Mother Pedersen flying about the house in her usual way, and once it was time to start dinner Anette came out of the bedroom on unsteady legs, gingerly crossing the floor in her pretty new shoes; she held her one hand against the wall for balance. She had no idea how long she’d been in bed; she’d never thought to ask, but her legs felt like jelly that hadn’t jelled. Still, now that she was dressed and up, she knew she ought to be helping get dinner.

  “Anette! What are you doing?” Mother Pedersen asked, aghast, as Anette tried to grasp a pail; she could at least bring in some snow to melt on the stove.

  “Helping.”

  “You sit right down! You’re too weak. Let me.” And Mother Pedersen snatched the pail from her hand with something like her old anger, and marched outside to get the snow, bringing it inside to melt by the stove.

  “I—I don’t know….” Anette had no idea what to say, how to ask the question she was desperate to ask: Would she be able to stay here, now that she couldn’t work so much? If not, where would she go—who would take her in? She just wished someone would explain it to her. Mr. Woodson might be able to tell her, but he wasn’t here today, and Teacher wasn’t yet back from school.

  “You don’t know what?” Mother Pedersen—obviously harried and tired—snapped. But then she caught herself, brought the back of her hand up to her red face as if to cool it, and presented a forced, but not malicious, smile to Anette. It struck her that Mother Pedersen, too, was uncertain about how to proceed with this new—softness?—between them.

  “I don’t know—”

  But then there was a knock at the door. Mother Pedersen frowned, put down the skillet of cornbread she was about to slide into the hot oven, and dashed to answer it, muttering, “Now what?” All the visitors were beginning to wear on her, Anette could tell.

  Anette heard a commotion at the door, then a voice, a voice from her memory, or a dream, perhaps. Then into the kitchen rushed someone radiating emotion and exuding a familiar smell—a combination of potatoes and horse and sweat. Before she knew what was happening, Anette felt arms around her neck and for a moment, the world turned black as she was enfolded into those arms that might have once rocked her, but probably not. Still, the sensation she felt with them around her reached back to before she’d been born. It was both familiar and startlingly strange.

  But her heart knew; her heart forced the cry of “Mama!” out of her throat before her mind could put everything together. Anette was astonished to feel a rush of tears flood down her cheeks; longing—pent up this last year and a half, longing for something she’d never truly known—nearly burst her chest wide open. She sobbed with pure relief, a feeling as basic as breathing, as natural as seeing, to be in her mother’s arms.

  Other emotions—anger, hurt—beckoned at her across this great gulf of belonging, but for now she shut her eyes to them. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? Wasn’t this what she’d forbidden herself to cry for, because she knew it would never happen? And yet here she was!

  “Mama!”

  “My Anette! My poor girl! Oh, to have you in my arms again, my poor thing! What have they done to you?”

  At this, Mother Pedersen began to sputter angrily. But before she could say anything, Anette’s mama was pulling her down on her lap and rocking her, none too gently—Anette winced as her mother touched her stump too roughly—and Anette laid her head against her mother’s shoulder and allowed herself to feel like someone’s daughter again. Or maybe for the first time?

  Because even as she fell into this womb-like embrace, she couldn’t help but think that never, not once that she could remember, had she been cuddled and exclaimed over. Loved.

  So why was her mother being so nice to her now?

  CHAPTER 32

  •••••

  WHEN GAVIN WOODSON MADE THE now-familiar journey from the Newman Grove train station to the Pedersen homestead on a borrow
ed horse, lugging all the letters and gifts that were small enough to carry (Christ, this good deed of his, while it may have given him a conscience, a soul, and a heart, was about to break his back), the last thing he expected to find was Anette’s mother sitting on a chair in the kitchen like a queen on a throne—and Anette cuddled on her lap.

  Good Lord, the woman was ugly—that was his first, uncharitable thought. He actively flinched from her. His Anette—yes, that was how he thought of her now, with no embarrassment—was not a pretty creature, not at all. But she was not ugly, he would never hear her called that. She was as yet unformed; she still had time to grow into a beauty—he knew he had an idiot’s touching faith in the transformative power of a few years. But when Gavin beheld Anette’s mother, for the first time he doubted whether that would happen.

  The woman hadn’t seen a bath in weeks; her hair was greasy and scraped into a bun, and she had a round, porous nose, few teeth, heavy eyebrows. She obviously had not put on her good clothes for the occasion—then it struck him with horror that maybe she had. Misery and poverty clung to her like the ragged shawl she was wearing, the dirty apron, the soiled dress. She was the most pathetic creature he’d ever laid eyes on.

  But there was a gleam in her eyes, which were small and shrewd. She smelled opportunity, that was immediately obvious even to someone who played poker as badly as Gavin did. Opportunity in the being of the daughter she had sold to the Pedersens a year and a half ago.

  “Sold her for two chickens and a pig,” Gunner confirmed when he came in from the barn a few minutes later. The two men were in the parlor, while Anette’s mother fawned over the girl in the kitchen. “The woman sold me her child for livestock. I heard of the situation through a neighbor, that there was this family that lived about a day’s ride away in a hovel. The mother was eager to get Anette out of the house—she didn’t seem able to stand the sight of her; she didn’t shed a tear when she left the girl here. We’ve not heard a peep from her since.”