Eva woke to Liam sleeping peacefully next to her. She rolled to face him. He stirred from her movement, seemingly still vigilant. He opened his eyes.
“I am happy you here,” she whispered.
“I’m happy I’m here,” he croaked. They lay looking at each other for quite some time.
“Victor come to me, my dream.”
“What did he do?”
“He come and marry us in church covered vit vild roses. He vas verdy happy, and he gave you gold ring to put on my finger.”
Liam smiled softly and put his hand on her cheek.
“Dat don’t scare you?” she asked.
“No,” he said. He knew it was in their future because of the child she was carrying.
She said nothing more as they moved closer and held each other.
~~~
The next morning, Liam went to work for Dr. Andersen as a physician. At lunch, Liam had a chance to fill Dr. Andersen in about the incident the night before and the turning of the corner for Eva.
“She’s making progress,” Dr. Andersen said. “Unfortunately, to get ‘home,’ there oftentimes is a wicked, cruel road to travel.”
“Don’t I know it,” Liam said.
Liam came home that evening with a few textbooks from Dr. Andersen to refresh his medical knowledge. Ellen was fascinated. She was pouring over them that night, especially the anatomy book. After supper, the three of them sat comfortably in Eva’s bedroom. Liam liked the cozy privacy it afforded, since he and Eva were not officially man and wife, but were behaving as if they were. He was reading the book on Medical Diagnoses. He looked up from the text.
“Dr. Andersen recommends I become naturalized as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s done in Duluth. I just need to apply with the appropriate documents. I can get them at the town hall here. Then we can go to the ceremony, probably in mid-July.”
“We went there, Mamma, is that right?” Ellen asked.
“Yes, ve go.”
Chapter 10
It was just past dawn on the morning of juhannus. Eva was sponge bathing in the sauna. She had come to Liam on the summer porch a few hours earlier, and was taking special care to be quiet so he wouldn’t hear her from there. The galvanized buckets used for washing could clang loudly, so she took care as she moved them about. Her sleep had been restive earlier that morning, so she’d lain watching Liam. He’s such a handsome man, she’d thought. He looks so sweet when he sleeps. But finally, she absolutely had to slip on her robe and go to the privy. From there she’d gone to the sauna. She felt butterflies in her belly as she thought of Liam and how he gained so much pleasure making love to her. While he loved the climax from sex, he was so much more attentive to her than her first lover, and got so much joy from her pleasure. Victor had seemed more Victor-centered. He satisfied me, but it was always after him. Liam is different with that. He takes me along with him.
Her thoughts turned to a more urgent matter. She hadn’t gotten her monthly since mid-April and it was the third week in June. I’m afraid to tell him. What if he leaves?
She sat on the lower bench with her washcloth. Without warning, an overwhelming feeling of nausea came over her. “Ei taas,” she said. Not again. It had happened the morning before when she had gone to the privy. The morning before that, it had happened after she went upstairs to dust mop, causing a rush to the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. She pushed open the back door of the sauna that opened to a six-foot-high, fenced-in private patio. In her rush, the door slammed into the building. Eva ran to a bucket next to the fence and promptly began to heave her guts out.
~~~
Liam woke with a start from a loud bang. He sat up, trying to blink away the blurry clouds in his eyes. He heard the retching and immediately got up to see. He found Eva leaning over a bucket, holding her hair out of the way. Naked like Eva, he walked from the summer porch door to the patio.
“Are ye ill, Eva?” he asked.
“No,” she said, shaking and white-faced. She leaned a hand on the privacy fence. “It happen tree early morninks now.”
“Is it what I think it is?”
“I tink so,” she said. “I haff no mont-ly two times.”
“I know. It’s all right,” he murmured. He walked to her and took her in his arms. “It’ll be all right, sweetheart.”
“I vas fright to tell you.”
“When ye swooned at Dr. Andersen’s, he saw it in ye. That’s what he told me when he called me back in and asked ye to wait.”
“Vhy don’t you tell me?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps I was scared. Remember at Murphy’s ye asked what the matter was?”
“Yes.”
“You thought I was feelin’ worried about the new job.”
He assisted her back to the sauna. He sat her down, wet a cloth, and wiped her pale face. He took the dipping ladle and gave her a drink from the cold tap that fed the sauna its water.
He touched her belly with his fingertips. “That took no time at all,” he said. “Perhaps it happened the first time. Even if it wasn’t the first time, we shouldn’t be surprised. We haven’t stopped since.”
“You are vordied, Liam?”
“I’m a little worried,” he said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
She looked up at him. He felt hesitant to continue, but eventually it came out. “I never told ye that when Dolly died she was nearly seven months pregnant.”
She seemed shocked at his confession. She pulled him close to her carefully, as if he would break. She pulled his head to her shoulder. “I so sordy, Liam.” She began to cry. He felt her emotions spilling out of her, no doubt combined with their mutual discovery of her pregnancy. It was his turn to comfort her.
“You don’t vant baby, maybe,” she said. “You too fright. Ve can’t take it back.”
He thought she was starting to have a moment of panic. “Shh, darlin’. Shh.” He took her in his lap and rocked her. She calmed after a few moments, much the way she did those first few days he came to stay. He spoke into her hair.
“Don’t ever think that I don’t want ye to have a baby,” he said. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it since Dr. Andersen told me.”
She looked up at his eyes as if to study him.
“I see how ye are with Ellen,” he said. “Ye’re a grand mamma to her. I’d be lyin’ if I told ye I wasn’t a little scared.” He took his thumb and softly wiped her tears.
They sat in the sauna for many tender minutes. Feeling calmer himself, Liam took a deep breath. “How’s yer belly? Better?”
“I fine now.”
He smiled at her as they stood to finish washing.
“Vhat you smile at?” she asked.
“I’m feelin’ manly and proud.”
She averted her eyes and blushed.
~~~
Later that morning, Eva and Ellen dressed in their Rauma regional costumes. Liam thought Ellen was especially adorable, Eva in miniature, he thought, with her head wreath streaming with long blue and white ribbons.
At the Virginia Finnish Social Hall and grounds, Saimi brought Liam and Eva to all her friends. She explained before they left the house, “I gonna get you to know people so you don’t get part of gossip. Dey gonna know you as nice man.”
She introduced him as The Irishman. He’d never traveled except to France, but at least he’d known some French. He was at a loss with the Finns and was feeling a little unnerved. I can’t go around saying the Finnish words for bread or butter or milk. As they walked around the hall, Saimi would say a number of Finnish words and then in English she would say “Irishman,” with a heavy inflection. Many of the young women stared at Liam with a bit of flirting and, sometimes, barely hidden lust.
“You didn’t like that one woman,” Liam said to Eva.
She glanced at him and did not answer. He took it to mean it was one of Victor’s possible liaisons.
They followed Saimi to the next group of people. Liam got the impression the Finnish Community w
as happy for Eva, glad that she was not alone. Most welcomed him amiably and seemed impressed that he was a doctor. Many of the men Liam was introduced to worked either at the Mesabi mine or in the forests, lumberjacking. All of them had known Victor. This was the first time since Victor’s death that Eva was out and about. Most people were just so happy to see her that they didn’t mind seeing her with someone who was not a Finn. It occurred to Liam, at one point, that some of these mine workers must’ve known about Victor’s wild behavior in the taverns and with the women. Perhaps some of the women here were complicit in his dalliances. He noticed the ones who steered clear of Eva. He may have recognized one or two from the tavern the night Eva had her tirade. They really made an effort to avoid Eva altogether. Liam was glad Eva did not notice.
~~~
Although Eva felt self-conscious because of her failed marriage with Victor and her arrival at the Hall with a new man only a half-year after Victor’s death, she stood up well to the onslaught of well-wishers. She knew her community cared for her and most likely many of them had heard of Victor’s straying. Show some Suomi Sisu, that resolve and guts, she thought to herself. She took a deep breath and let it out. She wondered if any of the community had admonished Victor. Will they admonish me when they find out I’m unmarried and pregnant with another man’s baby six months from my first husband’s death? She heaved another big breath with that thought. Her belly churned.
The new couple got separated for a time after she went to the ladies room in the hall. Eva took a quick scan of the large social hall, but she could not see Liam. It should have been easy to spot him; his dark hair would stand out in a sea of towheads. She went to get a mug of coffee and something sweet to eat at the coffee table in the hall, choosing the sweetest whipped cream-filled pastry she could find. With her mug of coffee and handful of pastry, she set out to find Liam.
Exiting the hall, Eva saw that many people had arrived already. Watching all the women and men donned in their regional costumes gave her a pang of homesickness. She wondered if her family had gone to Rauma for their juhannus. She walked past the tables of artisanal products—from rag rugs and runners to knitted hats to woven birch-bark baskets to Rauma lace. Seeing the lace gave her another pang in her heart, thinking of her mother and Mamma Mattson. She sighed. It was one of the most difficult things she had done, to write to the Mattsons that their beloved eldest son had died. She had no idea how she’d gotten through writing it. Saimi had been a tremendous help.
Eva found Liam standing near the bonfire. He had a bevy of young women around him. They were giggling and flirting as he chatted with them. Eva could hear herself growl slightly as she made her way to him. They don’t learn anything, those stupid women. She involuntarily squeezed the pastry, making the cream run through her fingers.
Upon seeing her, Liam chirped, “Oh, there ye are Eva, I couldn’t find ye. All you women have blonde hair and have the same clothes on. So, I decided to stand here and wait for ye to find me.”
She stopped, stood by him, and said nothing. She did not greet him in a friendly way.
“I know what this may look like,” he said. “I assure ye it is not what ye think.”
Eva, with her coffee and pastry, turned to the chattering she-beasts, now silent with her presence, and tersely addressed them in Finnish. Some of her addressees blanched, and some reddened, but all of them promptly walked away.
Feeling quite satisfied, Eva turned back to Liam. “I take my power back,” she said, her Finnish inflection strong.
“They must’ve heard of yer visit to the tavern and just had a wee taste of it.”
Giving him a side-glance, she burst into giggles. She tried very hard to stop, but she looked at Liam, who was also quite amused with what he said, and couldn’t.
“Seeyut up you mout, Liam,” she said in her worst English.
“What’s that ye say?” he said in his strongest Belfast lilt. He put his hand up and shrugged.
She belly-laughed. “Open you mout,” she said.
“Ye just told me to shut it.”
“Open, please,” she said again.
He did, and she put her half-eaten, cream-filled pastry into it and pushed. They both hooted like lunatics as Liam stood there, cream-covered and barely managing the mouthful. The crowd passed by, all gaping wide-eyed at the child-like antics.
~~~
There was a wide variety of music, dancing, singing, and plays throughout the day. Ellen and her dance group performed first. Then Ellen sang in a children’s choir from church. As Eva heard them sing, she realized she missed church. She had not attended for a long time. When the choir sang, Eva cried at the performance of the mostly first-generation Finnish-Americans singing the nostalgic songs from the Old Country. Ellen was not first generation. She was a true immigrant. Liam put his arm around Eva and wiped her tears with his kerchief.
“I was noticin’ that Finnish music is not that much different from Irish. I enjoy hearin’ the music you grew up with.”
~~~
At dinnertime, Liam and Eva were standing with the Huttunens and talking with Saimi when Eva fainted with no warning. She hit the ground with a thud.
“Jesus, Eva!” Liam knelt to revive her. Someone came with a cup of cool water from the hall. Liam helped her to stand. They walked to the side porch of the hall. “Sit here in the shade while I get ye a bite to eat. Ye’ve had nothin’ since the pastry.” He found her a bench. “I’ll bring a wet napkin to wipe the dirt from yer face.”
He went to find sustenance for his pregnant—he wanted to say wife, but he couldn’t. Possibly he could use the word ‘intended,’ but she wasn’t even that yet. “Jesus,” he sighed as he went to a food table. There were many entrees and appetizers to choose from. He took two plates and loaded them. The young woman helping at the table smiled more than amiably at him, casting her line. He smiled cordially but made sure she got the impression he was not biting. Victor was probably in heaven comin’ to these events. There are plenty of pretty women. He most likely snuck off when Eva was talking with other people. It was probably easy to do that. He could get a lot accomplished in a few minutes, Liam thought. He looked around, seeing how easy it would be to get lost in a big crowd like this. He picked up the two filled plates after paying. Oh, aye, it would’ve been easy enough, poor Eva. Well, if she’ll have me, she’ll be mine, and I’m no Victor. He grabbed two napkins and forks from the table and headed back.
~~~
As Eva waited in the shade for Liam and the food, she saw Saimi walk toward her. She didn’t realize how hungry she was. Saimi sat down next to her on the bench and took her hand.
“Are you going to be all right?” Saimi asked in Finn.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’m telling Liam to take you home.”
“Maybe, but—”
“Are Liam and you going to marry now that you are vit child?” Saimi spoke quietly.
Eva looked at her in astonishment. “You are just like my mother when Victor and I got pregnant,” Eva spoke softly, in Finn. “I couldn’t hide anything from her.”
Saimi smiled.
Liam came back with an array of Finnish entrées on two plates, including pickled herring, salmon-beet salad, meatballs, and rye bread and butter. “I didn’t know what ye wanted so I got a few things. I’ll help ye eat it.” He and Anna looked at each other for several moments. Liam took a deep breath and let it out. “Ye know?”
“Vomen yust don’t faint for notink.” Saimi’s face softened, but she still looked concerned.
“We just found out this morning,” Liam explained, “so we’ve discussed nothin’ yet.”
“Maybe you take her home. See still look pale. See could get her feet up.”
“Vhat ’bout Ellen?” Eva said.
“I take care her. Here see is now.”
Ellen ran up to them. “Mamma, somebody said you fell down. Are you all right?”
“Yes, honey.”
“Is the baby all r
ight?”
The three adults, dumbfounded, looked at Ellen. Eva and Liam looked at each other and at the same time blurted out, “I said nothing.”
“I know everytink. I heard you puke. The children at school say they know their mammas are pregnant when they start puking,” Ellen said confidently. “Saimi can vatch me and I’ll come home vit her. You take Mamma home, Liam.” Ellen hugged her mother. Turning back into a nine-year-old again, she ran off with her friend Katia. A multitude of colorful ribbons flowed from their hair in the breeze. “Let’s go find Arvid,” Ellen said to Katia.
~~~
At home, there were lemons to make lemonade. Liam was relieved to get Eva home. She seemed fine now, just in need of something to eat. Liam squeezed the lemons while Eva readied the pitcher with water and sugar. He inhaled the tangy freshness when he poured the juice into the pitcher. He chipped some ice from the icebox and added it to their glasses. She suggested they sit on the front porch. The sun was still high and hot, but they found a patch of cooler shade for the rockers at the east end of the porch.
“I got my paperwork back from the government,” he said, remembering. “I went through the hospital mail to speed things up, and I have a spot in the naturalization ceremony this Wednesday in Duluth. Andersen’s givin’ me the day off. I was going to tell you this morning, but that news got sidetracked by something a little more important.” He took Eva’s hand and looked in her eyes. “I think it would be grand altogether if you and I, and Ellen, made a day of it. Would ye like to come with me?”
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