She took him into her arms. He was aware that it was the same way she had held him that late morning in early May, not far from where they were sitting. They sat a long time. As he cried, she held on for his dear life, stroking his head and neck.
“You know somptink? I tink you come back to me vhen Victor die so you can help me. You saw me vit bik trouble, and you stay in town. I am verdy lucky to haff you vhen I was so sad. Dolly vas verdy happy vhen sees go. I don’t tink Victor go dat vay. He hurt me. He feel shame. Hees try fix tinks yust before hees die. It vas too late.” She sighed.
Liam leaned up from her arms. “What happened?” He had never heard the whole story from Eva.
Eva told Liam about Ellen’s discovery of Victor in the Widow Johnson’s house. “I could not forgiff him. He tried and tried, and I don’t …”
Liam pulled her closer.
“I tink vhy I don’t let him back to me, maybe he not die. I tink he go back to udder vomen, even after Vidow Yohnson.”
“Remember what ye told me that day, over there, by the big log?” Liam asked.
“Yes, it not you fault,” she recalled.
“Not any more than Victor’s death was yers,” Liam said.
Eva sat still for a long time as Liam held her. Then she spoke. “I tink you come to me dat day, vhen you sick. Ve don’t know it vhen you come, but you did. God take you to me. You tink?”
“More than likely,” Liam answered.
After putting more wood on the fire, Liam and Eva curled up under a quilt. He settled in behind her.
“You happy you say somptink?” she asked.
“Aye,” he answered. He put his hand on her baby belly. “I hope you understand if I get scared as we go along with yer pregnancy. Perhaps I already am.”
“Sees fall on a stairs.”
~~~
Eva received a letter from her sisters, Aili and Liisa, two days after the fish canning weekend.
Dear Eva,
It took us a long time to decide to tell you, but we could not bear it if we didn’t. Both families decided after a busy spring planting season to go to juhannus. What we discovered struck Mamma Mattson and the rest of us deep to our cores. We hadn’t seen Olga Hautala for years and had heard that Vilho had died earlier that spring. He had been sick with a blood disease for quite some time and had been training an apprentice, when he finally succumbed to it. He left Olga with four children. What was shocking was that her second child, Peter, almost eight when we met him, was the exact image of Victor. It was unmistakable to all of us. Mamma Mattson demanded she talk to Olga. Aili accompanied them. At Olga’s, Olga was honest and told them that she and Victor had begun an affair after high school. While it stopped when you became engaged to Victor, and she married Vilho, she admitted that while she was very fond of Vilho and loved him, she loved Victor and does so to this day. She admitted to having sex with Victor two times after their marriages. The first resulted in the birth of Peter. There were hard tears when she found out that Victor had died and she could never see him again. Peter is a great joy to her. Olga went further. She said she knew of other girls Victor had been with over those three years until he married you. We surreptitiously checked to see if any had had children during those years, but we found none, other than Peter.
Eva, we are so sorry to have to tell you these things, but since Victor is gone, it won’t disrupt your marriage. Now that you are married again, we hope Liam is consoling you with this news.
We love you so much and miss you.
Aili and Liisa.
There were accompanying letters from Mamma Mattson and Eva’s mother, no doubt wanting to talk of this news with her. She didn’t want to read them yet. Eva had never shared the troubles between her and Victor with her loved ones back home, and never would, as long as a Mattson was alive. None of them knew how wrong everything had gone since they left Finland. It would break their hearts even more, Eva thought.
~~~
When Liam arrived home from the hospital that night, he listened empathetically at the kitchen table while Eva interpreted the letter for him. She had to read him the whole letter, since it was all in Finnish. It was clearly painful for her to hear it again.
“Vhen it gonna stop?” she said when she was finished. “How many udder seeldren Victor have before he got mumps and his testicles damage?”
“How do you know he had that?” Liam asked.
“Vhen Ellen vas not qvite two, Victor take grains to farm near us. Lil boy dere have mumps. Victor didn’t have vhen he vas lil, so he got it den. His testicles get verdy big. Doctor Andersen here says dats vhat happen. Ve have no more babies.”
“He happened to squeeze at least one more in before the disease,” Liam muttered sardonically. He was angry that his wife was still having Victor’s transgressions thrown in her face.
“Vhat vordy me is Mamma Mattson. Sees tink Victor vas so vonderful. Ve all did. Many vays he vas. He luff his Mamma, and he luff his Villi Ruusu. Mamma Mattson feel bad now, I know. First Eino, now her best son.”
“Who’s Eino?” Liam asked.
“Victor’s brodder. I tell you later.”
Liam and Eva sat silent at the kitchen table. Eva seemed morose but tearless, staring at the letter as if it were poisonous.
“You know what this means?” Liam said finally.
“Vhat?”
“Ellen’s had a half-brother since she was two.”
They remained at the table. Eva continued to stare sullenly at the letter. After a while, Liam took her into his arms.
“I can’t tell Ellen yet. I burn ledder.”
“She has a right to know, eventually.”
“I know,” Eva said and finally began to weep.
~~~
Eva lay awake that night after Liam soothed her in the best way he knew how, thinking of those last days in Finland with Eino before he left the farm. He knew. Eino knew of Victor’s … other girls. He tried to tell me many times, but I wouldn’t listen. I was so infatuated with the charming older brother, that I forsook Eino for him. Eva began to cry. She was stunned at the revelation. All that time when she and Eino were sweet on each other, Victor was most likely running with a number of girls. No wonder Eino was heartbroken and hated his brother. I was just another one of Victor’s conquests. Victor called Olga a “city girl.” I think she didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife. Unlike me. I was the … convenient one. It didn’t matter to Victor if his brother was in love with me. He got his way. He fooled me … Suddenly Eva realized Liam’s arms were around her. “I tell you tomorrow.” She cried in his arms again.
~~~
Liam listened as Eva told him that morning at dawn. “Ye loved the other brother, and Victor took ye from him under false pretenses.”
“I vas so younk. I didn’t see …Victor …” her voice trailed off. “Den Eino start to drink and hate his brother, and I tink he hate me, too. Den Victor ask me to marry him. Hees let me know how good sex vas vit him, I get vit child. Eino’s too late.”
“Where did Eino go?”
“To sea. Nobody but me see him. I see him twice yust before hees go to sea.”
“Did he say anything then?”
“He’s try to tell me ’bout Victor ’gain, but I got angry vit him. First time hees kiss me. Hees vant me, but I don’t let him.”
“What about the second time ye saw him, before he went to sea?”
Eva hesitated and gazed into Liam’s eyes. She didn’t have to say a thing.
“Ye made love with him.”
Eva’s tears ran freely.
“There’s not a chance Ellen is Eino’s?”
She shook her head no. “I already ’bout tree mont.”
“Jesus,” he breathed and took her in his arms. “Ye loved him, but in all practicality, it couldn’t be him. It would’ve been scandalous.”
“I lose two brodders.”
“Ye lost two loves. I’m sorry, darlin’.”
Chapter 13
Harvest t
ime brought work for Saimi and Eva. They spent many hours canning, and digging up and storing the root vegetables planted by Eva and Liam that spring. It was a bumper crop.
One Saturday, Eva decided to pick apples at the local orchard. She liked to make and can applesauce, lots of it. Ellen wanted to come along and asked if she could bring her friend Katia. Katia’s mother Susanna, Eva’s friend, was coming as well.
Before heading to the hospital, Liam hitched up the buckboard to their horse Dandy and loaded all the bushel baskets that were stored in the barn.
Eva, Ellen, and Saimi drove to Katia’s house to pick them up. The orchard was five miles south-east of town, and the group had a pleasant ride.
It was a beautiful late summer day. The sky was a cloudless deep blue. It was still chilly, but it was promising to be a warm day. While Ellen and Katia sat in the back with a plethora empty bushel baskets, the ladies riding on the bench listened to the girls as they lamented the end of summer and the start of school.
When they arrived at the orchard neither of Eva's adult companions allowed her to climb the ladders set out to reach the higher apples. Her baby was just beginning to show.
“I have strict orders from Dr. Dady that you are not to climb any ladders. Your feet should stay firmly on the ground,” Saimi announced. “I am surprised he even let you come.”
“I have been pregnant before,” Eva answered in Finnish. “I am not a porcelain doll.”
“He let you come if I promised I would watch you like a hawk.”
Eva sighed. During the fish canning weekend, Liam had gently warned her that he was afraid for her safety during the pregnancy, not so much right then, but when it advanced. Eva got the feeling that this period of time was not going to be easy for Liam.
She’d gotten a bigger taste of Liam’s fear as he’d talked to her sternly that morning while he was dressing for the hospital. Eva thought he had turned insane for a moment.
“Don’t ye climb on the ladders,” he said. “Take extra care gettin’ on and off the buckboard. Let Saimi hitch the horse. No. I’ll hitch the horse.” He’d finished putting his suit on. “And don’t carry any of the full bushels. Do ye hear me, Eva?”
“I am fine, Liam,” Eva had insisted.
“Are ye gonna listen?” He had turned a bit more manic. “Because I’ll refuse to let ye go!”
Eva had been shocked at his behavior but had decided she had no recourse. “I listen to you,” she’d said.
Liam hadn’t seemed to know what to do with her hurt and shocked reaction, so he’d left without kissing her.
At the orchard, Eva and the girls were designated catchers on the ground. Up on the ladders, Susanna or Saimi tossed the apples down. It became hilarious when Eva kept missing the tossed ones, and all her dropped, damaged apples had to be put in the “cook first” basket. The other apples would either get cooked next or go in a basket for the storage area in the coldest corner of the cellar. Ellen was in stitches on the ground at one point.
“I don’t play catch like you, Ellen,” Eva said in Finnish to her daughter. “Maybe you can teach me at home.”
“Tomorrow after church,” Ellen suggested in English.
“Ve see how I feel. Today is lonk vit cookink and canning, not yust pickink.”
Eva resumed watching her daughter’s skillful catching of apples. Ellen continued to snicker at her mother.
“Eva,” Susanna called quite loudly. “Here comes more. Get ready.”
When they had arrived earlier, Eva noticed a rag-tag bunch of pickers about fifty yards from them, vagrants mostly. A while into the picking, Eva glanced up upon hearing the group. Something familiar registered in her as she scanned the group casually. Victor came to mind. She was used to having Victor and her family members show up often in her memories, so that familiar feeling was not something that would necessarily push anything to the front of her mind. Eva was glad the vagrants were far enough away from them so Ellen and Katia were safe. Vagrants as a rule were never to be trusted. Eva went back to apple picking and enjoying her time there.
~~~
The orchard owner, a raspy-voiced man in his sixties with a broad brimmed straw hat, drove a team of horses and a buckboard around the orchard. He picked up filled bushels for storage and selling and dropped off empty baskets. He supervised the group of temporary workers.
“You all finish up as fast as you can. I’m wasting time having to watch you bastards.” He turned to one of the vagrants. “Hey you! Keep picking. You don’t need to watch those good folks over there. If you want to earn your money, then pick.”
The vagrant gave the supervisor a frosty blue-eyed glance, then skulked back to the job.
~~~
Twelve bushels of apples, washed and ready to be stored or cooked, sat in the boarding house back yard. It was lunchtime and the ladies and girls sat at an outdoor table where they ate and rested for a while. Eva felt like she was nodding off over her sandwich.
“Eva,” Saimi said after they were finished with the meal. “Liam told me to insist you take a nap.”
“But you need help,” Eva protested, knowing how much work there was to be done.
“I vake you in an hour,” Saimi said. “Dr. Dady make me do dis. He vant you to be safe.” She smiled and waved Eva toward the door. “The girls vill help, and ve haff new apple peelers. It core dem, too.”
“Vhy hees Dr. Dady? Not Liam,” she asked rhetorically. At first Eva resisted, but truth be told, she was relieved at the prospect of a nap. She was exhausted before they’d even left the orchard. She didn’t remember being this tired when Ellen was on the way. Then she remembered she was ten years younger when she was expecting the first time. She took off her boots at the door and went to her room to rest. She put a flannel blanket over her and didn’t expect to fall asleep, but as soon as her head landed on the pillow, that’s exactly what she did. The last thing that flashed in her mind was Victor standing in the orchard near the group of vagrants.
~~~
Liam, upon returning from the hospital in the early evening, was momentarily impressed with the many quarts of mason jars filled with applesauce. His focus was to see Eva and check her condition after her long day. He found her sitting at the table with a cup of mehu.
“Come into the bedroom, Eva. Let me see how ye are.” He knew he was being short with her.
“Vhat is madder vit you? I am fine. See, I yust sit to have mehu.”
“Ye look like hell,” he barked at her. She looked exhausted to him, with dark circles under her eyes.
Eva, becoming irritated, barked back. “You don’t haff to—”
“Eva!” was all Liam said.
Eva stood up, shoving the chair with the backs of her legs. nearly knocking it over in her anger. She followed Liam into the bedroom. He shut the door.
“Sit,” he demanded, pointing to the bed.
She sat. “Liam, you can’t make me do notink dis whole time.”
“I don’t want you hurt or injured. Then what do I do, bury you too?” He paced in his pent-up anxiety.
“I can’t tell you vhat gonna happen, but you can’t be so vordy, you lock me inside.”
“Eva,” Liam said, his voice softening. He was no longer pacing. “It’s still so raw, especially now ye’re with child, my child.” He was on the verge of welling up.
“Liam,” she said. He saw compassion in her eyes. She patted the bed next to her, inviting him to sit. He let go of enough anxiety to sit down. They held hands and put their foreheads together.
“Ye’re right, Eva. I’m sorry I was so gruff.”
“I promise I take care, Liam, for you.” She thought for a few moments, then lifted her head up. Liam looked at her in anticipation of a new thought. “I vas tinking, if everytink so danger, maybe you and I can’t make love now.” She gave him a look of I-gotcha.
He sat for a moment, thinking. He began to nuzzle her neck. “I don’t think we need to go that far. Do you want that?” He gave her a gotcha lo
ok to match hers. She nuzzled him back. Then, lying back on the bed, she pulled him on top of her. He fumbled with his buttons, then yanked her skirts out of the way. She put her hand on his growing erection. “Uhh,” he uttered. He looked into her eyes. She was smiling and moving under him, rocking her hips into his.
“You like?”
“Oh, aye. Spread yer legs.”
Her knees bent and spread. “I like you penis,” she whispered and helped him inside. He found a pebble hard nipple through her blouse and put his teeth around it. His rhythm began. He watched her face as he came closer.
“Oh, Jesus,” he breathed with his many thrusts. He came strong when he heard her climax.
Afterwards, Liam could hear Saimi say the cab was there for Susanna and Katia. After they left, Liam came out of the bedroom and went out to the privy. On his way out, he sat on the back step to tie his work boots. With just the screen door between him and Ellen, he overheard Ellen talking to Saimi.
“Vhy does Liam vordy about the baby?” Ellen asked. “He yells at Mamma about it.”
“Liam did not tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“His first vife died in accident and she had baby, like you Mamma has now.”
“The baby died, too?”
“Yes, he lost his child.”
“He lost two, den,” Ellen said, almost to herself. “He vordies about Mamma. He don’t vanna lose her or the baby.”
Chapter 14
It was a cool fall day, five or six weeks into the school year, and just about the time Ellen would arrive home. Eva was working on a project on the loom and nearly screamed when Ellen walked through the front door. She could see that Ellen had been in some kind of fight, or had been assaulted. Her dress was ripped and she was smudged in dirt. Eva rushed to her daughter in the foyer and knelt beside her.
“Mamma, remember vhen you said I should tell you if big boys bodder me?”
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