Asked For

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  ****

  Magdalena was like cold water on a fire. She’d never burn; she did her best to make sure of it.

  The heat rose during the night, late, so late it woke James, and probably the rest of the house.

  “You know what you are, don’t you?” Pop’s voice boomed.

  James sat up and rubbed his eyes. His brothers, who slept in the same room with him, lay still. Maybe they didn’t hear, but surely they did.

  “I’m Magdalena Paine,” his sister responded. There was no waver, no shame, no excuse for what she was. James admired Magdalena, but he feared for her, too. Pop was never one to strike them, other than to whip them with his belt. He didn’t have to strike them—his temper was harsh enough. But James listened, still expecting to hear the sound of Pop’s large hand across his sister’s face.

  “Say it, Pop,” Magdalena’s voice went on. “Say, ‘No Paine would ever be a whore or a hag.’ ”

  The silence that followed felt heavy, so heavy James could hardly breathe. He fought to listen through it, praying Pop would drop it, let Magdalena go, and not call her the names James was finally beginning to understand.

  A door slammed. Someone had gone out into the night. James threw back the covers to run downstairs and find Magdalena.

  “Don’t.” Alex lifted his head from the pillow. “Stay where you are.”

  “But…”

  Then James heard it. Female voices, soft and quiet. He wanted to go to the door and listen, but Alex’s gaze held him. He stayed on his bed. The voices were low. Mama’s was there and it rose; he recognized it.

  “If Pop hurts Mama,” James muttered.

  “Just stay put,” Alex said.

  Harold lifted his head. “Pop’s outside.”

  “But that was Magdalena that left…” James listened harder. The voices contrasted, Mama’s soft one and Magdalena’s coarse one. His brothers were right. “I thought… Why’d Pop go out?”

  “Got a lot to think about,” Alex said. Both brothers dropped their heads to their pillows. “I imagine he’ll get another jab at Magdalena, but she’ll do what she always does and get him back.”

  “Get to sleep, little brother,” Harold said. “Someday Pop and Magdalena will figure out this battle’s already done and realize who the winner is.”

  Chapter 6

  Lana 1930

  No one had ever told Lana how beautiful a baby could be, or how wonderful she’d feel as she looked at a child of her own. She’d been just a child herself when she’d come to be Cletus’ wife, and now she was a mother. Cletus had done his part making this baby, and now she had done hers. Almost. This new daughter, their first child… Lana saw her as a good beginning, proof of what she was capable of, a promise she would bear more for him, especially sons.

  Ella Canfield stood at the side of Lana’s bed, stains from the birth discoloring her hands and apron. Ella tipped her head and brushed a wisp of gray hair aside with her shoulder as she gazed down at the new baby. “She’s beautiful. Just like you.”

  Lana shook her head. I’m a wife, but I’ve made a beautiful baby. Jeanie’s notions about love and marriage had been wrong. Marriage wasn’t like those childish fairy tales. Cletus wanted uncomplicated, he wanted his meals on time and his silverware in a line. He had been good to her, considerate of her condition while she carried what was supposed to be his son, but he didn’t care about beautiful. And she knew he didn’t care about daughters. But this baby was perfect. “She is beautiful, just look at her.” The fact his first one wasn’t a son wouldn’t matter when Cletus saw his new baby girl. He would feel like Lana felt, he would say this daughter was wonderful and their next one would be a son.

  The still air in the bedroom felt almost cool, she and the baby both still damp. Soft grunts came from the bundle, making the infant quiver in her arms. Lana stared at their new daughter, admiring the fair-haired, red-skinned baby in her arms. Ella tucked the small blanket under the baby’s chin, her hands like Grandma’s, worn, leathery, and kind. Wife hands. What Lana’s would become with time.

  “Thank you,” Lana said. Thank you for helping me with the birth, and for all of the invisible lessons you’ve given me since I married Cletus.

  Ella lived more than a mile down the road, and little in these months of learning to be a wife had made Lana’s heart beat with more excitement than the stout form of Ella coming over the rise, plodding through the dust and rocks to see her, to show her how to do things good enough to satisfy Cletus. “You think I can handle a baby all right?” The baby squirmed, emitted a soft cry that made Lana feel as helpless as it sounded.

  “Of course you can, even though you’re barely older than she is.” Ella laughed. “Brides get younger and younger every year, I swear.”

  Lana tried to smile. Grandma was right about that, too. Lana hadn’t been a bride, only a wife. But wives sure made beautiful babies. She thought of the nearby picture on Cletus’ chest of drawers, the wife who was bright, happy, pretty, and holding onto his son. Lana didn’t look up at the woman. She hurt, she was bleeding, but she was alive, and so was Cletus’ daughter. Their family was started. This was a new beginning.

  Cletus had touched her belly while she carried this child, his eyes prying to look inside at his son. He had tamed his passion at night, made sure she was comfortable and her belly out of his way, all the while explaining sons’ value, how they kept a man alive. She’d slowly begun to understand the liberty sons had. It didn’t matter if they were beautiful, it didn’t matter if they were there or gone. Making love wasn’t an issue for them, either, only making babies, and having a wife who gave them sons.

  Lana drew her daughter against her breast and held her there. If this baby had been a boy instead of a girl… Lana pressed the baby tighter, leaned close, and whispered against her head. You’ll always be beautiful. Someday you will be a bride. You’re a girl, and that’s still special.

  “What are you going to name her?” Ella asked. Lana looked up. Ella was gathering wet and bloody towels and rags from around the bed, taking away the stains that said this had been a painful experience. It had been painful. Lana relaxed her hold on the baby and drew in a long breath. It was still painful. This tiny bundle had stretched and torn Lana’s body to make its way to her arms, but it was worth it. The pain was welcome. None of what she’d gone through would frighten her away from the marvel of having more children, lots of sons, maybe even another girl.

  “We never talked about what to name her. Cletus planned on a boy, so he probably never thought much about a girl’s name.” Her head felt heavy, and she let it sink deep into the pillow. She was so tired and yet so exuberant.

  “What about you? You thought of any names?”

  Lana looked down at her daughter. Her misshapen face, her matted light hair, her puffy eyes. Ella’d told her all infants looked like this right after birth, as if the shock of leaving a womb was something to be apologized for. It didn’t matter to Lana how her baby looked now or a year from now. She was precious, and she always would be. It was the rest of the world that would think differently, the men who needed sons, Cletus who was outside waiting to greet his new boy. “She has to have a special name,” Lana said in a whisper. “One that will shout how beautiful she is.”

  Ella tucked the dirty towels into a bag and leaned over the bed, peering down at Lana’s daughter. “You could call her Rose,” she suggested. “Roses are beautiful.”

  “They are.” Lana nodded. “But I want a name even more special than Rose. I want a name that will remind her and everyone else she’s exceptional.”

  Ella straightened and frowned.

  “You know. A name people will notice.” Lana traced a finger around the dried crust on her baby’s skin, thinking of the few women she’d known, books about heroines she’d read, and stories Jeanie had shared about fabled princesses. “Like Magdalena,” she said. Magdalena Trenton was a girl from Jeanie’s tales, a girl who’d suffered years of desolation and hardship, only to find ou
t later she was actually royalty, mistakenly thrown into the wrong environment as an infant, but related to a king.

  The back door opened and closed. Ella puckered her lips as she looked from mother to daughter. They both listened to the sound of Cletus coming through the house. “Your husband’s here.” Ella shifted her gaze to the door.

  Knuckles rounded on the door in sharp, distinct raps.

  The knock that had said hurry the first time Lana heard it said hurry again. Hurry and marry me. Hurry and fix my supper. Hurry and let me see my son.

  “Magdalena and I are ready.” Lana nodded to Ella. She winced as she straightened in the bed and snuggled Magdalena even closer to her breast. “He’ll love the daughter I’ve given him. You can let him in.”

  Chapter 7

  Lana 1932

  Three years. Three years of being Cletus’ wife. Three years of being mother to his children, first to Magdalena, now to Betsy, and soon to another which was well on its way. Two girls in three years. Two reasons Cletus was disappointed in her, two reasons that proved Lana wasn’t being the wife she was supposed to be. Lana squeezed her daughters onto her lap as Ella’s husband, Carl, closed his truck’s door for her.

  “Want me to take one?” Ella twisted Lana’s way from the center of the truck’s seat, extending her forearms to take one of the girls.

  “Here, take Betsy.” Lana wrapped an arm around Magdalena and let Betsy be drawn from her small lap onto Ella’s much fuller one. Carl climbed into the driver’s side, slamming the door behind him. The farm truck roared and smelled of fumes as he pushed the starter and revved the engine. Both girls jumped, Betsy fading into Ella’s soft skin and Magdalena giggling with delight. Lana smiled. Magdalena always managed a laugh, even though she had little to laugh about in her small world. Betsy was the opposite. She mirrored the quietness of their home, the disappointment there were no boys, doing her best to stay invisible even at her tiny age, mostly vanishing into the woodwork.

  Magdalena squirmed while Betsy burrowed into Ella’s arms, her eyelids already half closed as Carl pulled onto the dirt road.

  “You want to trade girls?” Ella whispered, even though she could have shouted since the truck’s engine would have muffled her yell.

  Lana tried to manage Magdalena’s wiggles around her protruding belly, rolling the truck’s window up against the dust that was swirling in. A trade would be wonderful, but Ella would be better off with Betsy. “Magdalena might take over the driving if she gets close to Carl.” Lana laughed.

  The scenery hadn’t changed much since three years ago when she’d traveled this road the opposite way, going from Grandma’s to Cletus’. She had come his way shattered, a child with a heart that was broken from missing her father. She was going to Grandma’s a woman, a wife with her heart in her throat, terrified this unborn baby was going to be a girl, another girl. Cletus probably worried about the same. She saw it in the way he looked at her, the way he looked at his daughters every day.

  Lana needed answers, going this way from Cletus’ to Grandma’s. Grandma’d sent her his way with the orders to work hard and let him do whatever he wanted. Cletus had sent her Grandma’s way with the reminder he’d be home at 6:30 and expected his supper then. She promised she’d be back in time. She’d touched his arm, felt the bristly hair she’d longed to feel three years ago. He’d pulled away, nodded goodbye, then glanced at the girls. Grandma would surely have the answers. Grandma would know what to do.

  Lana showed Carl where to turn after an hour and a half of dusty roads, jarring ruts, two- and three-word conversations, and soft snores from Ella between them. The truck rumbled down the narrow dirt road, and Lana’s heart beat harder as the terrain changed from familiar to home, grasses that were common everywhere suddenly waving at her as if they recognized her and welcomed her back. These were her grasses, grasses that didn’t, yet did, belong to Grandma. A road and fields that weren’t Grandma’s either, but they were hers, because they were landmarks of home. Lana pinned her gaze on the horizon, waiting for the low-pitched roof that was theirs—Grandma’s—and the cottonwood tree next to it she’d never thought much about until now. Why hadn’t she cared about it when she was a girl? Now that tree was like a beacon, a comfort, a memory of the way things used to be.

  “Right there!” She didn’t mean to shout, but she did, and she pointed, acting like Magdalena instead of herself. Ella stirred, Betsy opened her eyes, and Carl gunned the engine, eating up the last of the road between her and her old home. The truck bounded into the lane the same way Cletus’ had bounded out. Lana squeezed Magdalena tighter as she scanned Grandma’s weedy yard, unpainted chicken coop, and sagging shed where they always kept a milk cow. She and Grandma’d written letters to each other, Grandma with little to say and Lana with little she wanted to say on paper. She’d told Grandma she’d be here one day this week, depending on Carl’s schedule and Cletus not changing his mind. It didn’t matter if Grandma didn’t know what day they would come. Grandma would be here. Like Lana, she rarely went anywhere.

  Before Carl stopped, Grandma’s thin form appeared in the doorway of the shed. Her hair was neat, neater than usual, as if she’d taken more care this morning. Her dress was tucked evenly within a makeshift belt, another scrap of material promoted to something more glorious than being just a rag. Lana pressed her hand against the truck’s window as Carl slowed to stop, watching Grandma’s form disappear on the other side of Lana’s fingers. She wanted to grasp her grandmother and hold on as she passed, remake the connection she never realized they had until it was gone, soak in some of Grandma’s wisdom that had always been there teaching her, though she just hadn’t realized it until now.

  “Grandma,” Lana said to Magdalena. Her daughter stared out the window, lifted her tiny hand, and plastered it next to Lana’s on the glass.

  Lana dropped out of the truck’s cab the instant Carl stopped. With Magdalena on one hip, she reached for Betsy and settled her sleepy daughter on the other, her stomach, where the next child lay, protruding between her two girls. She balanced herself like a tightrope performer, pivoted toward Grandma, and waddled her way. “Grandma…” Her voice sounded like a child’s, the knot in her throat choking the confidence she’d meant to portray. Grandma’s face looked just like Lana felt, and Lana knew she understood.

  Betsy nuzzled her head against Lana’s shoulder as they drew up in front of Grandma. Magdalena squirmed and made gleeful nonsense noises. Lana gripped her tighter.

  “My, aren’t you a sight!” Grandma tried to sound brash and bossy, but her eyes betrayed how happy she really was. Lana hadn’t thought to come here not looking like a sight. Her dresses were all baggy—until she was pregnant, like now. Then they bulged forward, hiking the skirt up in front, making her dress look like a bell in the middle of a toll. She wore her auburn hair longer now because Cletus liked it that way, but it was pulled back out of Magdalena’s and Betsy’s reaches. And no makeup. She’d come plain, the way she always was, plain and tired.

  “I probably am a sight.” Lana felt her face flush, but tried to ignore it. She wasn’t here to be told how good she looked. She was here to see Grandma, see herself and her new life against her old one and the person who’d told her how this new one was supposed to be lived.

  “You look just fine, actually.” A tall shadow filled the shed’s doorway behind Grandma. “If anything, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Jim…”

  Jim Dillon stepped from the shed’s dark interior. He’d changed. She was shocked at what he’d become. He’d grown in three years, muscles where scrawny arms used to be, tanned skin and chiseled features where softness used to be. There was still the boy in his eyes, though, the boy who’d helped her with chores before she left to get married. The boy Grandma had said really wasn’t there to help Lana but was there because he needed the pay. A bucket half full of milk dangled from one of Jim’s hands. Grandma was right again. He was here not because Lana was but because he needed the pay.


  Jim didn’t stare at her daughters, or the bulge of her stomach, or the worn dress that covered it. He just looked at her face, his eyes scanning every feature as if relearning, even admiring, who she’d become. Lana’s hand twitched. She wanted to run it over her hair, smooth it, or pull it out of its knot and let it hang loose so she’d look like the girl she used to be, not the worn-out housewife she’d become. Her face warmed. She was being silly. Jim didn’t care, he was just a childhood friend.

  “Let me take one of those girls.” Ella appeared at Lana’s side and took Magdalena from one hip. Before Lana could reposition Betsy, the tiny girl was lifted away also, up into the air, Jim’s big hands around her ribs. Lana watched her shy daughter go, bracing herself for the wail the frightened Betsy would let go. Jim talked to Betsy, let her have a good long look at him, then settled her gently at his side.

  “She looks kind of like you.” He turned to Lana.

  Betsy was actually pretty. She had Lana’s complexion and some of her fine features. Lana looked at her daughter, a semblance of what Lana used to be when she grew up here near Jim. She glanced at him. Please don’t say it, don’t say what’s too late to say. Too much had happened, too much had changed. A strand of hair came loose and blew across Lana’s face. She didn’t straighten it. She let it blow.

  “And this one’s like her daddy,” Ella chimed in, bouncing Magdalena on her hip. “Got his fair hair and skin.”

  Every eye went to her oldest daughter, the lanky girl who really was like her father, except she knew how to laugh and smile. Lana hurried to say everyone’s names and explain who everyone was. Everyone except Cletus, the daddy Magdalena favored. He wasn’t here, and Ella’s comparison was enough of a tribute, so she finished the introductions and left it at that.