Believing the Dream

by Lauraine Snelling

  The look in her eyes made Elizabeth want to put her coat back on.

  “Not company.”

  “Why, yes. Thornton came by, and I thought you’d be home earlier, so I asked him to stay for . . .” Her voice trailed off, then regained its normal forcefulness. “Coffee and cookies.”

  If he brought me a present, I am going to . . . to . . . It’s your own fault if he did. Remember, you invited him to join you in that courting conspiracy. Any courting man would bring his intended a Christmas gift. Just because you don’t take the game seriously, remember that he has gone out of his way to make it look convincing.

  Elizabeth wished she could stuff a rag in that little voice that played at being her conscience. She’d just wanted to get her mother to call off the matrimony police. Asking Thornton to enter into a pretend courtship had seemed just the thing.

  And it worked, didn’t it?

  She forced a smile to lips that wanted to snap and followed her chatting parents into the parlor. The roaring fireplace drew her like children to light.

  “Good evening, Elizabeth.” Thornton Wickersham stood, setting his eggnog on the whatnot table beside his chair.

  “Good evening, Thornton.” She almost added the mister, but surely they’d progressed beyond that. “Cold out, isn’t it?”

  “Bitter.” He came to stand beside her, both of them with their backs to the heat. “I would have come for you had I known you were at the office.”

  “Thank you, but the walk home was good for us.” Liar. You could hardly breathe.

  “Do you want hot cider or eggnog?” Her mother had taken her place at the tea tray. “Or rather coffee?”

  “Hot cider sounds wonderful.” Since her gloved hands had been protected by her dyed rabbit muff, that was about the only warm part of her. But the thought of a hot cup was appealing.

  Before she could take a step, Thornton had crossed the room to fetch the cup for her.

  “Here you go.”

  She glanced up at him, about to say something biting, but swallowed the remark into a meek “Thank you,” her mother’s dogged training in manners winning out.

  “Elizabeth, are you not feeling well?” The twinkle in his amber eyes warned her more was coming.

  She rubbed her forehead, trying to banish the beginnings of a headache before it became full blown. “Just tired.” Taking a sip of the cider wafted cinnamon and nutmeg through her senses. She inhaled again. Along with the pine fragrance from the tree, cedar from the garlands outlining doorways and windows, and vanilla from the candles burning on the mantel, the house wore a potpourri of Christmas smells. She inhaled the steam from her cup again, feeling the muscles in her neck relax. Knowing which ones needed to let go and making them do so were two different operations entirely.

  “Thank you, dear Thornton, this indeed is just what I needed.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at the dear.

  She drowned an almost giggle in her cup. Her mother had heard.

  Thornton leaned closer. “I’m preaching at the Congregational church tomorrow evening. Will you come to hear me?”

  As a minister in training, Thornton often preached at some of the churches in town, but more often at smaller outlying congregations.

  Elizabeth glanced at her mother, who nodded. Agreement came easily if her mother thought an event might add to the romance she assumed to be budding between her daughter and this “fine upstanding young man,” to quote her mother.

  Guilt twanged.

  “Elizabeth, any chance you might grace us with some Christmas music?” Her father leaned back in his chair. ““We’ve been so busy, it seems like weeks since I’ve heard you play.”

  “That was me playing with the choir at school.”

  “Along with the orchestra. How about a private concert?”

  “Of course.” With a smile she placed her cup in Thornton’s extended right hand and crossed to the ebony Steinway in front of the drawn red velvet drapes. The piano was placed so she could see out to the gardens when she played.

  Stretching out fingers and loosening her hands and arms, she took her seat on the bench, not bothering to place sheet music on the rack. She knew what her father wanted—a medley of his favorite Christmas carols, and for those she needed no music. Placing her fingers on the keys took her beyond the doorway into another world, a private place where she floated on the notes. Stroking the keys like a lover might his beloved, she segued from melody to melody with nary a pause, her eyes closed, the better to feel the ecstasy.

  Her teachers, her mother, and sometimes her father had all encouraged her to continue with her music, but her entire being pleaded to become a doctor. Music was for delight. Healing people was her mission.

  She ended with “Silent Night,” letting the notes drift off like a memory.

  “That was magnificent.” Thornton leaned against the piano, reverence deepening his gaze.

  “Thank you.” Opening her eyes took a concentrated effort, staying transported with the dream was much easier.

  “I must be going before I wear out my welcome.”

  “Did you walk?” Phillip roused himself from his reverie.

  “Yes, but my uncle’s house is not far.”

  “I’ll have Tom hitch up the sleigh. If you slipped and fell on the ice or some such nonsense, you’d freeze before you hit the ground.” Phillip hefted himself to his feet. “Thank you, my dear. That was magnificent.”

  Moments later, hearing the jingle of harness bells, Elizabeth picked up her insistent cat, Jehoshaphat, and clutched him under her chin as she walked Thornton to the door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night then?” Thornton took her hand.

  “Not in the front row.”

  “Surely my intended should sit up close to the front.” His waggling eyebrows made her giggle.

  She put one finger to her lips. “You don’t have to go that far,” she whispered. “She believes. She believes.”

  “Your gift is under the tree.”

  She pulled her hand away. “I was afraid of that. Why did you—?”

  “Isn’t that proper?” He donned a stricken look.

  She stepped back, still shaking her head. “Good night and merry Christmas.” Now she’d have to come up with a gift for him. And she had planned on staying home tomorrow doing a whole lot of nothing. What kind of monster had her game of pretend created?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Blessing, North Dakota

  “Thorliff’s coming home, Mor, Thorliff’s coming home.” Astrid danced about the kitchen, twirling in place before the stove.

  “You be careful you don’t fall in the oven.”

  “Mor, I can’t fit in the oven no more.” Astrid tweaked her mother’s apron strings as she spun by again.

  “If you’ve got so much energy, you can haul in two more loads of wood. Why is Andrew late again?”

  Astrid stopped spinning and swooping. “Ah . . .”

  Ingeborg turned from checking the chicken baking in the oven. “Astrid?”

  “Ah, I’ll get the wood.” The girl dashed from the room, snagging her wool shawl off the peg by the door as she ran by.

  Ingeborg sighed and wiped her hands on her apron. What had that young son of hers gotten into now? She crossed the room to look out the window. The sun already hung low in the west, painting the scattered clouds in shades of vermilion and cerise. The snow on the ground caught matching tints. Surely Pastor Solberg wouldn’t keep Andrew into dusk?

  Astrid dumped the first armload into the woodbox and hustled out for the second before her mother could ask her anything else.

  Ingeborg picked up her rolling pin again and gave the sour-cream cookie dough another two passes. What could be going on with Andrew? Cutting the cookies, she tried to figure out ways to help her younger son deal with his too quick responses with his fists. Could Haakan talk with him again? She shook her head. Haakan thought Andrew’s method of championing the underdog quite remarkable, to the point of giving him les
sons in fisticuffs. Should she talk with Pastor Solberg—again? Somehow it didn’t seem fair that Andrew be set to chopping wood when the altercation was really someone else’s fault.

  She sighed and picked up the thread of an ongoing conversation with her Lord.

  “It really isn’t fair, you know. But I understand he has to learn better ways, and I do try to help him see that.” She made a mouth shrug. “And yes, I suppose the woodpile gives him time to think on other ways.” She stopped cutting cookies to lift them to the cookie sheet with a pancake turner. “But then, if I know Andrew, he uses that time to figure a way to get even with that Toby Valders.”

  “Who you talking to, Mor?” Astrid paused in the doorway, the pieces of split wood weighing her down. “I know, you and God, huh?” At her mother’s nod, she added, “About Andrew again, ja?”

  Ingeborg could feel the corners of her mouth tilt up. The look on her daughter’s face would make any mother laugh. When and where did Astrid learn to cock her head and raise an eyebrow just so?

  “Have a cookie.”

  Astrid dumped her load in a woodbox that looked close to becoming kindling itself.

  “You don’t have to worry—”

  “I don’t worry!” Ingeborg interrupted her daughter to receive another roll of the eyes and slight headshake. “Excuse me.”

  “Like I was saying”—Astrid’s grin held a wealth of secrets—“Andrew isn’t at school, but you can’t ask me where he is ‘cause then I’d have to break a promise, and you don’t ever want me to break a promise ‘cause you said a promise is a sacred thing, and I—”

  Ingeborg held both hands in the air, a sure sign of surrender. “Enough.”

  Astrid picked up two cookies still warm from the oven. “These sure are good. You make the best cookies anywhere.” Her grin pleaded with her mother to not ask more questions. “After all, it is almost Christmas.”

  “Oh.” Ingeborg felt a grin tickle her cheeks. “Guess I never thought about that.” At Astrid’s slow shake of her head, Ingeborg clarified. “For me, I mean.”

  “Now, you know I didn’t say nothing.”

  “Anything.”

  Raised eyebrows and rolled eyes. “Anything.”

  I wonder what he is making for me? Ingeborg knew she was nearly as bad as the children when it came to delight over presents. Why, the year Haakan surprised her with a Singer sewing machine . . . such finagling he’d had to go through to keep her from buying one herself.

  “What are you smiling about?” Astrid snatched another cookie.

  “Just thinking back to other Christmases.”

  “I sure do miss Thorliff. He would have written a new Christmas play if he was here.” She sank down on a chair and propped her elbows on the table. “Just ain’t the same without him here.”

  “Isn’t.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, you used ain’t, and that is not proper.”

  More eye rolling. “Sorry. How come we have to say everything right?

  Other kids don’t. Lots of the grown-ups don’t neither.”

  “Either.”

  This time a sigh. “They don’t.”

  “I know, but Tante Kaaren worked really hard to make sure we all learned to talk English right. I believe that since we live in America, we should talk like good Americans.”

  “That’s what Pastor Solberg says too.” Astrid traced a finger trail in the flour on the table. “Toby Valders said a bad word today and got his mouth washed out with soap, and then he had to write on the board fifty times. Used up two whole pieces of chalk.”

  Ingeborg sighed.

  Forgive me, Lord, but I sure am grateful you didn’t let Penny and Hjelmer adopt those two, no matter how disappointed she was at the time. And now look, you blessed them with Gustaf, the pride of Bridget’s heart. They had named their little son Gustaf after Hjelmer’s father, who had died after most of the family emigrated to America. How Penny would have managed those two ruffians along with her store is beyond me. But then, who but you knew all that in advance?

  Ingeborg slid her flat pan into the oven under the rack holding the roasting chicken. All the while she glanced out the window, checking the barns where the men, including George McBride from the deaf school, were busy milking. Andrew should be out there too. Did Haakan know where the boy was so he wasn’t worried?

  Astrid wrinkled her forehead, her book on the table as she studied for the morning.

  “You may light the lamp if you want.”

  “All right. But let me finish the chapter first.”

  That alone told Ingeborg her daughter wasn’t doing her arithmetic. Like her brothers, she loved to read.

  “You could read aloud. Goldie and I like stories too.” Ingeborg nodded at the orange-and-white-striped cat curled on the rug by the stove. At his name, the animal opened his eyes and treated them to a throat-inspecting yawn. The barbs on his tongue gleamed as he rolled and stretched that too, then began to straighten his fur.

  “It’s about a jumping frog contest. Do you know where Calaveras County is?”

  “Some place in California, I think. Ask Andrew. He read that story a couple of years ago.”

  “We could have a jumping frog contest in the summer. The bullfrogs from over in the swamp jump real good.”

  “Sure you could.”

  “The jumping frogs of Walsh County.” She wrinkled her nose. “Doesn’t sound as good, does it?”

  “Who cares. It would be fun. We could do it just before harvest starts. We’ll need a party about that time anyway.” Ingeborg pulled her cookie tray from the oven and looked up at the sound of boots kicking off the snow on the back porch.

  “Andrew’s home.” Astrid gave her mother a “don’t you say anything” look before the cold draft preceded Andrew into the kitchen.

  Thank you, Father God. I do feel more comfortable when all my chicks are home again. Please watch over Thorliff as he travels.

  She tried to ignore the glances that Andrew and Astrid swapped, including the giggle from her daughter. “How was school?”

  “Good.” He snagged three cookies as he went by. “Good.” This one came from a mouthful of crunchy cookie.

  “Is that all you can say?” Ingeborg put an arm out to stop him on his way past.

  “No, mange takk.” Another mutter around a full mouth, as he’d just stuffed in the third cookie. He paused, ducked around his mother’s arm, and reached for more cookies. “Tusen takk?” His eyebrow arched at the question.

  “Oh, go on with you. The cows are waiting.”

  “I sure hope Thorliff gets home before a blizzard hits.”

  Me too, oh Lord, me too. She shut the oven door and took down the kerosene lamps from the shelf behind the stove. “Astrid’s going to go blind if we don’t get some light in here.” She glanced over at her daughter, who had her nose so close to the pages that Ingeborg had no idea how she could read at all. Taking the scissors, she trimmed the wicks and lit them both with a spill lighted from the stove. Setting the chimneys back in place, she centered one on the table and kept the other to light the stove area. All the while she fought to keep her inner shivers to just that. Even after all these years and all the blizzards they’d been through, the memories came howling back with the wind.

  That terrible second winter when they’d all lived in the soddies, Carl and Kaaren with their two little girls in theirs and Roald, Thorliff, and her in the first one. They’d been housebound, some days not even making it to the barn because the blizzard was so severe and prolonged. When she closed her eyes, she could still hear the howling of the wind, but so much less now that they lived in a snug house. Many families had been sick, and when the blizzard broke, Roald took the mule and rode out to check on the other families. Carl and the two girls died of the fever, Kaaren bordered on insanity, and Roald never returned.

  The black pit of fear and despair nearly brought her down too, but by the grace of God, the four remaining Bjorklunds had made it
through. At times the abyss yawned at her feet again, but she’d learned to let God close it and keep her safe—most of the time.

  Andrew thumped back down the stairs and headed for the barn in a rush. He knew he was late, and while Haakan most likely had agreed to the tardiness, Andrew knew better than to take advantage of his father’s good nature.

  Later, when they were gathered around the table, the supper finished, Haakan clasped his hands above his head and stretched. “Takk for maten.”

  “Velbekomme.” Ingeborg made the age-old response with a smile as she brushed his shoulder with her hand on her way to finish clearing the table.

  “Astrid, your mor needs help.”

  “Ja, just a minute.”

  “No, now.” At his quiet command, she shut her book and picked up the remaining plates and silverware.

  “I was just trying to finish the story so Grace could have the book tomorrow.”

  “That is kind of you, but chores come first.”

  Ingeborg refilled the cookie plate and set it back on the table, at the same time refilling her husband’s coffee cup.

  “Ah, you do me good, wife.” Haakan patted her just below her apron strings as she went by. “You think Thorliff is really coming?”

  “He said he would.”

  “I know, but that was before—”

  “Before what?” She turned from shaving curls off the soap bar into the dishpan steaming on the stove. She smiled at Astrid as she took her book into the parlor.

  “Before, well, you know, the Anji thing.”

  The Anji thing. What a way to put it. Ingeborg tried to gather her thoughts sent awry by his doubt that Thorliff was indeed coming. Surely he would have sent a telegram if something happened to keep him in Northfield. Of course they would understand if he had to work, but the thought of not having everyone home for Christmas made her heart hurt.

  “He’ll be here.” Now if only her heart would agree with her mind. Please, God, bring him home, but mostly keep him safe.