Believing the Dream

by Lauraine Snelling

  Thorliff walked in on his skis, not stopping to unbuckle the bindings until he stood in the warmth of the barn. Haakan shut the door behind him. “Mange takk.” He tried to sniff, but the sides of his nose didn’t move, so he breathed through his mouth, as he realized he’d been doing for some time. He rubbed his nose with the back of his mittened hand and felt the ice fall away, likewise from his eyebrows.

  Haakan knelt in front of him and undid the buckles of the straps so Thorliff could step off the skis. “Your mother is waiting.”

  Thorliff swiped at the tears running down his cheeks. “Pa, I was so afraid.”

  “I know. Us too.”

  “Forgive me for being so bullheaded. I left there as soon as it started to snow and thought sure I could beat it home.”

  Haakan put both arms around his son and held him close. “God is good to us this day. Come, Andrew’s arm must be falling off by now.” They could hear the ringing as the blasts of the blizzard fell and rose. “Can you walk?”

  “Ja.” Thorliff took a step and would have fallen had his father’s strong arm not held him up. Together they made their way down the long aisle and pushed the north door open, the wind and snow trying to seal them in. With each step, Thorliff felt the life coming back into his feet, but when the blizzard hit him full on again, he staggered.

  “Here, I will go first.” Haakan, skis in one hand, used his other to clamp Thorliff ’s hand on the rope that led to the house.

  Thorliff ducked his head and shut his eyes against the biting snow. One foot in front of the other, that’s all he had to do. Hold on to the rope and put one foot in front of the other. I’m home. Thank you, Lord, I’m home. The triangle rang again. He stumbled against his father’s broad back.

  “You’ve got Thorliff!” Andrew screamed above the wind. He turned and yelled again through the door, then grabbed his brother’s arm and helped him up the steps. Between Andrew on one side and Haakan on the other, Thorliff staggered into the kitchen and collapsed in his mother’s arms.

  Ingeborg hugged him for a moment. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. Thank you, thank you.” Between her and Haakan, they walked Thorliff to a chair and sat him in it, then Andrew unlaced his boots while the others stripped off his outerwear. “Get snow.”

  Astrid grabbed a pan and hurried outside to fill it.

  “Do your hands have feeling?” Ingeborg squeezed Thorliff ’s white hands. He nodded and squeezed back. Thank you, Lord.

  “Your feet?” Andrew removed Thorliff ’s socks and moved one of his feet in a circle and pinched his toes.

  “Ja, I think so. They are full of pins and needles right now.”

  Using her thumb, Ingeborg pressed against his nose, his cheeks, his forehead.

  “Looks like the end of his nose might be frostbit.” Haakan took the pan from Astrid. “Go get a quilt off my bed.”

  Ingeborg cupped snow in her hand and applied it to Thorliff ’s nose and a white spot on one cheek. “If this is all you come away with, God protected you beyond belief.”

  Thorliff felt the shiver start in his feet and work its way up his body. He shook so hard his teeth clacked together.

  “Good, your body is fighting back.” Haakan wrapped the quilt around him. “You see any white marks on his feet?”

  Ingeborg shook her head. “Andrew, hand me that lamp. Or rather, hold it down here so I can see.” She carefully inspected his toes and his feet, then shook her head and began chafing them with her hands. “Astrid, dip some warm water into that pan, and we’ll put his feet in that. Not hot, just barely warm.” She rolled up his pant legs and set his feet in the enameled pan. “Too hot?”

  Thorliff shook his head. “I-if I c-can just q-quit shivering . . .”

  “No, that means the circulation is coming back.” Haakan took one of the dish towels off the rack behind the stove and wrapped the warm cloth around Thorliff ’s head.

  Ingeborg poured a cup of coffee, added two spoons of sugar and some cream, and held it to Thorliff ’s lips. “Here, drink this.”

  “You better put some of that whiskey in it. That’ll warm his insides faster.”

  “You’re right.” Ingeborg fetched the dark bottle from the cupboard and added some to the coffee. “Drink.”

  Thorliff took a deep swallow and double blinked as the heat hit his throat. He swallowed again at his mother’s insistence.

  “Drink it all.” She set it in his hands, and he gratefully cupped them around the heat.

  Ingeborg opened the oven door, and they half-carried, half-pulled Thorliff ’s chair closer to the heat pouring out of the oven.

  “Ah.” He closed his eyes in bliss as the heat washed over him. Sip by sip he drank the potent brew and felt the heat curling in his middle, stretching out to his limbs with every beat of his heart. So easy I could have missed . . . He cut off the thought with the dregs of his cup. No sense worrying about what if. Just be grateful for what is. In everything give thanks. The Bible verse was easy to follow right now. To give thanks for his family, for the warmth, for the stove, for the wood to heat the stove, for the house that protected them from the fury outside, for the clang and the shot that had called him home. He could feel a tear trickle down his cheek. So much to be grateful for.

  “We need to get to milking since there’s just the two of us.” Haakan nodded to Andrew.

  “I’ll help.” Astrid looked up from pouring warmer water into the basin around Thorliff ’s feet.

  “And so will I.” Thorliff sat forward. The shudders had lessened, and the cold block inside him had melted. He flexed his hands and feet. “Everything is working fine.” Please, I really need to do this.

  When the four returned a long time later, Ingeborg sighed in relief. While she’d known they were safe in the barn and, thanks to the rope, could get back and forth, still fear lurked like a pickpocket, ready to take advantage of any doubt.

  The blizzard lasted through the night, drifting snow so high they shoveled a tunnel out in the morning.

  At the breakfast table after chores were finished, Haakan leaned back in his chair. “One good thing, all the snow really insulates the house. You can hardly hear the wind in here.”

  “Ja, we must be grateful for everything.” Ingeborg laid both hands on Thorliff ’s shoulders. “And to think you are having no ill effects from yesterday.”

  “Well, I don’t want to go skiing right now. In fact, I have no desire to go skiing any time in the near future.” Thorliff flexed his fingers and twisted his wrists. “Although how one can lose so much milking muscle in three months is amazing.” He rubbed the muscles on his arms. “I got a cramp on that last cow and didn’t think I could finish.”

  “I bet Mr. McBride is real sad he isn’t getting to milk.” Astrid giggled around her mouthful of cinnamon roll. “Christmas won’t be the same without everyone here though.”

  “Who knows, this might blow over by evening, and then we’ll all go to church, same as ever.” Andrew reached for another roll. “You make the best rolls, Mor.”

  As Astrid and Ingeborg cleared away the dishes, Haakan shook his head and punched Thorliff in the shoulder, a bit harder than a light tap. “One thing I got to tell you, son: No matter how wonderful she is, no woman is worth losing your life in a blizzard.”

  “Haakan!”

  “Unless, of course, it’s your ma there.” The half smile he sent his wife didn’t reach his eyes that bored into Thorliff ’s. “You can’t love and comfort someone from the grave.”

  Thorliff nodded. He’d come to much the same realization before falling asleep. “Ja, you’re right.”

  “I know we all got to learn by our mistakes, but I hope to heaven you don’t ever do something so foolish again. Leastways not where your mother and I can hear about it.”

  Thorliff looked up in time to catch a shine in his father’s eyes. Haakan went back to scraping the bowl of his pipe with his knife. Ja, some mistakes can be fatal, that is for sure. I hope I never do something so foolish
again too, but . . . Ah, Anji, what will become of us?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Northfield, Minnesota

  December 24, 1893

  “I cannot believe you said that!”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. Neither can I.” Elizabeth felt the weight of her transgression dragging her down into the oriental rug under their feet. If she could sink through it, perhaps she could wriggle out of the room without anyone seeing her, and if she got stepped on, so be it. She’d earned being stepped on. Screaming at a guest that way, screaming at anyone like that, was beyond the pale for a young woman brought up with her standard. Let alone a Christian woman or a Christian, period. “But when he said ‘only a girl’ and the baby died and then Mrs. Mueller died, I wanted to strangle the man with my bare hands.” She stared down at her hands, flexing the long fingers that searched out music for the soul and hoped to bring healing to the sick and injured. “Perhaps shrieking at him like a fishwife wasn’t proper, but . . .” Elizabeth could hardly hold her head up, both from weariness and a remorse so heavy that if she wasn’t sure she’d do the same again, given the same provocation, she’d have let it pound her right through the floor.

  “I trained you better than that. A lady never loses her temper in front of others.” Annabelle wore her stern look, tight about the mouth and eyes, that had always made Elizabeth flinch and wish she were somewhere else—anywhere else

  Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to look her mother in the eye, instead worrying a hangnail on her right forefinger. “I am truly sorry. I shall write Reverend Mueller an apology immediately.” She’d already been composing it in her head. “Will that be sufficient, or is there something else you think I could do?”

  “I don’t know.” Annabelle rubbed her forehead. “I have a headache coming on, and here it is, Christmas Eve day. So much I have left to do. Even after we finally went to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep right away. I kept wishing I had done something more.”

  “Like what?” At the look on her mother’s face, Elizabeth knew the lecture was over, but the action not forgiven. She could feel herself switching into doctor mode at the pain evident on her mother’s face.

  “Oh, like realized what was happening and made her comfortable or . . .” Annabelle rubbed the spot again. “I don’t know.”

  “How about if I mix your medicine and you go take a lie-down? You’ll wake up feeling good again, so you can attend church tonight. Christmas Eve is your favorite service.” As it is mine, and I really don’t feel like going. All I feel like doing is sitting in a corner and bawling. And sleeping for a week. And here it is Christmas and time to be celebrating. Elizabeth rubbed her eyes that still carried a shovelful of grit in spite of washing them twice.

  “Here, Mother, I’ll mix your medicine. You’ll feel better soon.”

  “I think of those poor boys with no mother to turn to. Poor, poor lads.”

  Elizabeth noted her mother didn’t mention Reverend Mueller.

  “Think I’ll ask Cook to fix extra, and we’ll take it over to them. Although I’m sure members of the church have already done that.”

  “With four boys, whatever is brought will disappear quickly.”

  “Will you get the door, dear? I just cannot be seen looking like this.”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth did as asked. Pulling open the door to a solid white world under a gray sky, she motioned the man on the steps to enter. “How are you this morning, Doctor?”

  “Same as you. Trying to figure what I could have done differently to somehow have kept that poor woman alive.” He shook his head. “I forgot to tell you the other news last night. You know that croupy baby?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “He didn’t make it either. Died during the blizzard when no one could get help. Those young folks are some despondent.”

  “But I taught them—”

  “Sometimes steam tents work, but sometimes the only thing is a tracheotomy, and even that’s not sure. But they couldn’t get out, and they did the best they could by not sending someone else out to die in vain.”

  Tears smarted her eyes again. She sniffed and dug out a handkerchief. “What a terrible Christmas for both families. Can you stay for a cup of coffee?”

  “No. I have calls to make before this weather gets any worse. One thing you learn if you want to be a good doctor. You try to figure if you could have done something different, and then you admit to the good Lord that He’s in charge, not you, that you did your best. And then you go on. You can’t let it eat at you, or you better go into another field. I’ve seen doctors eaten alive by circumstances they could not control. Life and death in particular.”

  Elizabeth’s sigh let go half the weight, and another did the same. “But did you ever rail at one of your patients like I did?”

  “No, but sure wanted to more than once. I can’t hold you accountable for that.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “ ’Sides, between you, me, and the gatepost, he had it comin’.”

  “I thought he was a friend of yours.”

  “He is. Been so for the ten years he’s been in town. But—” The doctor stopped and gave Elizabeth a pat on the arm. “I want to thank you for making Miss Browne feel so welcome last night. Thank your mother too. I better be off. And blessed Christmas in spite of all this.”

  “You too.” Elizabeth reached up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “And thank you.”

  Dr. Gaskin huffed and turned to leave but not before Elizabeth caught the sheen of moisture in his faded blue eyes.

  “God bless.”

  “Yes, lass. God bless.”

  Elizabeth closed the door behind him, glancing out just long enough to realize the snowfall had picked up. Lord, please let us have Christmas Eve services. I need to hear the story and see the manger. I need to be reminded that you did indeed send your son as a baby. Two dead babies here this week. Are they really with you? I don’t think I could bear this if I doubted that.

  After settling her mother with darkened shades, her powder mixed and drank, and a cool cloth on her forehead, Elizabeth trailed her fingers down the carved banister, straightening the cedar garland as she took the stairs slowly, one conscious step at a time, to the library, where she seated herself at her father’s desk. I wonder where he is. The thought stayed just that, rather than translating into action, which was what her feet twitched to do. Walk in the falling snow, shovel the walk, anything was preferable to writing this letter. Heaving a sigh, she pulled out the drawer and rifled through the paper until she found a half sheet suitable for a note. In this case writing a book would not be sufficient. A big book.

  Dear Reverend Mueller . . . She nibbled the end of her pen. Get to it, ninny, and get it done so you can go play the piano or take a nap or bury your head in a snowbank.

  She dipped the pen point in the ink and continued.

  Please forgive me for shouting at you like that. I am heartily sorry to have added to your sorrow. Mrs. Mueller was always more than kind to me and to everyone she came in contact with. When I think of a good Christian woman, she is a shining example. Her faith and fortitude in the face of . . .

  Calling herself several uncomplimentary names, Elizabeth scratched that out, set her pen in the ink and tore the sheet in half. Starting over, she wrote again, then stopped and chewed the end of the pen again.

  “You want hot chocolate, tea . . . ?” Cook peered in the doorway.

  “Tea would be good.”

  “Ja, and I fix the fire.”

  Only at the mention did Elizabeth realize it had grown chilly in the room. She raised her gray lace knit shawl back over her shoulders and returned to her mess. Taking up the ink pen again she noticed a gigantic blot desecrated half the words.

  She wrinkled this paper up and tossed it, along with the first, into the fireplace. The flames flared and gobbled the paper, wrinkling it to gray ash. Gray ash, a good metaphor for how she felt.

  Starting a third sheet, she wrote swiftly, closing with I do
hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. Sincerely, Elizabeth Rogers. She waited for the ink to dry, being careful to avoid reading the words again so that she wouldn’t feel compelled to rewrite the painful missive.

  “There now, do you feel better?” Her father turned from studying the fire.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were here.” She folded the paper and inserted it into an envelope. “I might feel better, but what about Mother? I cause her such distress at times.”

  “But not intentionally. Your heart is in the right place, my dear.”

  “Thank you. That helps—I think.”

  “Would you please help me replace the tree candles? I know that is on your mother’s list of things to do before tomorrow’s gathering.”

  “And would perhaps help me redeem myself a little?” She quirked one eyebrow.

  “That too.” Together they left the study, and Elizabeth fetched the candle box from the pantry.

  “This one came mighty close.” He held up a nub of hardened wax. “We need to keep better watch so we don’t end up with a fire.”

  “Now, that would really fire mother off.” The two exchanged small chuckles at the pun intended.

  When Reverend Mueller stood up to conduct the Christmas Eve service, the entire congregation sucked in a breath, the whoosh could be heard distinctly. What is the matter with that man? She glanced at her mother to see her quickly cover her shocked look with her company face. Her father covered his choking spell with a genteel cough behind his hand.

  “A blessed Chrstmas to you all. Grace and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” While he lacked the normal Christmas smile, he seemed otherwise normal.

  Elizabeth swallowed her ire, setting her stomach to roiling. How could he?

  “I want to thank all of you for your caring for me and mine in this time of sorrow. Mrs. Mueller would be so touched by your generosity, as I am.” He cleared his throat. “And now let us continue to rejoice in this night of our greatest gift, the birth of the Christ.”