Believing the Dream

by Lauraine Snelling

  By the time they’d finished their coffee and chat, Haakan pushed his way through the door. “Time to head home.”

  “You want coffee?” Mrs. Sam hoisted the pot she was just returning to the stove.

  “No thanks. Had some with Olaf.” He looked toward his wife. “You about ready?”

  “Ja, always in a rush.” Ingeborg stood and patted Bridget on the shoulder. “How about I send you some of that liniment I made up. Burns going on but helps the aches and pains.”

  “You do that. I thought to buy some from that drummer that came through, but then forgot.” Bridget shook her head. “Forgetting is just getting too easy.”

  “I’ll send it with Andrew in the morning, and he can bring it over after school.”

  “Tusen takk.” Bridget pushed herself up by bracing her arms on the table. “You want some of this cake for supper?”

  Ingeborg and Haakan exchanged a look that said he saw what she saw.

  Bridget followed them to the door and waved them off. “Come again soon. I never see enough of you.”

  Ingeborg waved again as they drove down the street. “That place takes so much out of her.”

  “She wouldn’t have it any other way. Perhaps we can talk her into bringing in more help, but you know how riled up she got the last time we suggested it.”

  “I know.” Another one I have to commit to God’s keeping. Such a stubborn old woman.

  That afternoon she cut out a dress for Astrid and had all but the handwork done before the children came home from school.

  “Oh, Mor, how pretty.” Astrid held the blue-and-white-checked gingham up in front of her.

  “Now you’ll have something new for spring.” Ingeborg eyed the hem length. She hadn’t cut it any too long. “You are growing so tall.”

  “Mange takk.” Astrid fingered the bow at the neck. “Blue is always my favorite color.”

  “Now, how did I happen to know that?” Ingeborg laid the dress across the sewing machine. “Perhaps you would like to hem it?”

  “Mor.” Andrew entered from the kitchen. “Paws didn’t eat his breakfast.”

  “I know.”

  “Did he go outside?”

  “Yes, but I had to help him back in.”

  “Oh.” The small word hung on the air. Andrew clenched his hands at his side. “He’s going to die soon, isn’t he?”

  Ingeborg nodded. “He’s an old dog, son.”

  “Is he suffering?”

  “I-I’m not sure.” She thought back to the look Paws had given her when he needed help.

  “Has . . . has Pa said . . .” Astrid’s eyes swam with tears.

  Ingeborg shook her head.

  “B-but we can’t even bury him.” Astrid flung her arms around her mother and buried her face in her shoulder.

  Ingeborg patted her daughter’s back and watched the battle going on in her son.

  “W-would it be kinder to . . . to . . .” Tenderhearted Andrew could not even say the words.

  “I think so.”

  “Can we wait until tomorrow?”

  “Would the waiting be worse?”

  “I don’t know.” Andrew turned and started up the stairs to his room, his shoulders bowed, each step weighted. “Thorliff will be sad too.”

  “I know. We’re all sad. Paws has been part of our family almost since we came from Norway.”

  “Mor, do dogs go to heaven?”

  “Ah, Astrid, sometimes you ask such hard questions.” Ingeborg tried to think of all she’d heard of heaven. “I don’t know.”

  “But God loves dogs too, just like we do.”

  “Ja, I am sure He does.”

  “After all, He made them.”

  Ah, my Astrid, how to answer you. So many things I have no answers for. Please, God, you answer.

  “So if God gave us dogs, why wouldn’t He take them to heaven too?” The young girl rubbed her chin the same way her father did. “But we will still miss him here, huh?” The tears choked her voice. She turned toward the kitchen, and Ingeborg heard her murmuring to the dog.

  Andrew clumped down the stairs and on outside without looking at her.

  That night when she was getting ready for bed, she found Andrew sound asleep in his quilt behind the stove, one hand resting on Paws. Ingeborg bent down and stroked the dog’s head. Paw’s tail lifted only a little at the tip. He licked her hand, barely moving his head.

  “I’m praying he’ll be gone by morning,” Haakan whispered when she joined him in bed.

  “Me too.”

  She woke in the middle of the night to Andrew’s shaking her shoulder.

  “He’s gone, Mor.” Andrew sat down on the edge of his bed. She could hear the tears in his voice. “I woke up because he licked my cheek. I petted him, and all of a sudden, I knew. He’d quit breathing.” Andrew knelt on the floor. “Do you think he was saying good-bye?”

  “Ja, I do.” Ingeborg dashed the tears from her own eyes. “That’s the kind of dog he was. A faithful friend.” She stroked her son’s shoulder as he snuffled his tears.

  “I have to write and tell Thorliff.”

  “If you want to.” She felt Haakan’s hand rest on her hip, so she knew he was awake.

  “Can we leave him by the stove until morning?”

  “Ja, that we will do.” Haakan cleared his throat. “You go on up to bed now.”

  “God natt, my son. You were a good friend to him too.”

  Ingeborg snuggled into her husband’s arms as she heard her son leave the room. “Thank you, God,” she whispered.

  “Ja, thank you, God, indeed. I didn’t want to have to shoot him.”

  “I know.” Ah, Thorliff, I hope this is the saddest news we have to send you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Northfield, Minnesota

  “How long have I been ill?”

  “A week.” Phillip spooned more chicken broth into his daughter’s mouth.

  “Can we please open the drapes? I’m not a good mole.” Elizabeth tried to keep the petulant tone out of her voice, but she could hear a whine.

  “Soon. Doc says as soon as your temperature is normal for twentyfour hours, you’ll get well quickly. You are young and strong.”

  “I don’t feel very strong right now, more like a newborn baby.” She rubbed her chest where it itched. “I really need a bath.”

  “Tomorrow.” The spoon clinked on the bottom of the bowl.

  “How’s Mother?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she raised up on her elbows, only to collapse back on her pillows.

  “She has a worse case than you.”

  “What are you saying?” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Please, God, how sick is she?

  “Doc says that measles is harder the older you are.”

  “Mother isn’t old.”

  “No, but . . .”

  She could hear the shake in his voice. “Has it gone into pneumonia?”

  “No, she’s just very weak.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead.

  “Have you been sleeping at all?”

  “Some.” He caught a yawn behind his hand. “The good news is that Thorliff got the paper out only one day late, and a fine job he did. That young man has a real future in journalism. He wrote a satire on the measles that made even me laugh.”

  “Can I read—” She stopped and shook her head. “I know, not until . . .” Now it was her turn to yawn. “I wish I could be up helping you.”

  “Tomorrow maybe. Cook is able to be up a bit now. I warned her that if she collapsed on the kitchen floor, I was going to fire her.”

  “Father!”

  “Well, I had to do something to keep her in bed. Doc Gaskin’s cook is sending food over. Not that anyone but me is eating real food.”

  Elizabeth heard his voice from a distance as she slipped back into healing sleep.

  Within three days she was up, and though moving slowly and resting often, she took over the care of her mother so her father could go back to work in
time to put out the next paper. Thorliff and his helpers from St. Olaf had put out the second paper also, much to Phillip’s relief.

  Tenderly she bathed her mother’s body, using cool water to help bring down the fever that spiked in the late afternoon.

  “I am sorry to be such a bother.” Annabelle’s voice swelled no higher than a whisper, and Elizabeth had to lean close to hear.

  “Oh, Mother, don’t fret. Just rest and get well again.” Elizabeth thought back to the night two days earlier. Barely out of bed herself, she had spent most of the hours at her mother’s bedside, praying for each rise of the covers, grateful for each new breath. At times like this she wished she knew nothing of medicine, nothing of how close to leaving her mother hovered. And there was nothing she could do but pray and keep sponging away the fever. She only knew her father had carried her away from her vigil because she woke up again in her own bed.

  “Father God, please leave my mother here for me, for us.” That prayer turned into a litany as she sent her father to sleep in another room while she, feeling much stronger, took over sponging her mother’s hot skin and dripping cool water between her mother’s parched and cracked lips. “Please, God, we need her more than you do.” Somewhere in the darkest hours of morning, she sensed a change, minuscule at first, the faintest cooling of skin, a deepening of breath. Fear clutched her heart. Is this the end? Do I call Father? Lord, what do I do? She smoothed tendrils of her mother’s limp hair back from her brow, now definitely cooler. Was that color returning to her cheeks?

  “Thank you, Lord God. Thank you. She has turned the corner, thank you.” Tears dripped as Elizabeth sponged her mother’s body once again and pulled the sheet back in place. She held a spoon of water to her mother’s lips, and this time, Annabelle swallowed immediately. Several spoonfuls later, she moved her head slightly to the side, signaling Elizabeth to stop. But it was a beginning.

  “How long have I been ill?” More hours had passed, and with each wakening, her mother’s voice was stronger.

  “I’m not sure. I got the measles first. Then when I started to get well, I . . .” She paused. There was no sense in telling her mother how close to death she had been.

  Annabelle opened her eyes and glanced around the room. “So dark.”

  “I know, but not for long.” Elizabeth folded the cloth and laid it over the edge of the basin. “Would you like me to read to you?”

  “Yes, if you are sure your eyes are all right.” With each word, her mother’s voice grew more firm.

  Elizabeth picked up the Bible that lay beside the lamp but found the light too dim to see the words. Were her eyes weaker, or was it the light? “I’m sorry, Mother, it is just too dark in here to read.” But when she looked up, she realized Annabelle was sound asleep again.

  Earlier, in her own room, she’d tried to read one of her textbooks but had fallen asleep before finishing a page. She had no idea what she had read. Now, hesitant to leave her mother, she kept one finger between the pages and thought back to all the Bible passages she had memorized while attending Sunday school. Needing to hear the words out loud, she whispered, “ ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.’ ” She continued until “Yea, though I walk . . .” And her voice cracked. Tears burned the backs of her eyes and drained into her nose. So close, her mother had been so close. She tried to sniff them back without sounding like that was what she was doing, but when that failed, she dug a handkerchief from her apron pocket and blew her nose.

  “I was in that valley.”

  Elizabeth stared at her mother, then took the trembling hand that reached out to her. “I know.”

  “And He was with me.” A pause stretched from then to the present. “I will never doubt again.” Annabelle kept her gaze on her daughter’s face. “I could feel your prayers, and your father’s. I heard him weeping one night, sitting right in that chair. I couldn’t even open my eyes or say a word, but . . .” A soft sigh escaped just as she slipped back into sleep.

  Elizabeth now let the tears run. She stroked the leather cover of the book still clutched in her hands. “ ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’ ” She repeated the words again, savoring them like sips of the finest nectar. “Lord, oh Lord, thank you for your mercy to us, your gracious kindness.” She rose from the bedside to go telephone her father and, after giving him the good news, returned to her own bed for much needed restoration.

  “ ‘Surely goodness and mercy’—Lord, a doctor needs those qualities in abundance.” Good wasn’t something Elizabeth was often described as being or even alluded to. Yes, she was good at her music and her studies, but this referred to something else, something that came from within. Good like Jesus was, not just a lack of bad or evil. She tried to keep grasp of the thoughts, positive they held a message of great importance. When they slipped away, she glanced at the pile of books on her nightstand. “I need to go back to school, and yet I am so tired.”

  Mercy, how did one become full of mercy? She slipped into sleep, the last picture in her mind of standing drenched under a waterfall labeled Mercy.

  The next morning Elizabeth served Dr. Gaskin coffee in the parlor. “Why is it taking me so long to get my strength back?” Elizabeth hated pleading almost worse than asking for forgiveness.

  Dr. Gaskin shook his head as he placed his stethoscope back in his medical bag. “I told you to get plenty of rest.”

  “I am.”

  “You are taking care of your mother, who is still unable to get out of bed for any length of time. You are studying in spite of my recommendations, and—”

  “If I don’t study, I may have to repeat this term, and that does not fit into my calendar.” She felt like stomping her foot and pounding her fists on the table but clamped them under her armpits instead.

  “Elizabeth, I have no other advice for you. You should be eating more than usual, especially beef, to help rebuild your strength, not running up and down stairs—”

  “I wasn’t running.”

  “No? Perhaps not, but I could hear you struggling for breath from clear down the hall. Now, if you recall, I warned you that measles also puts a strain on the heart and lungs, even though for you, your lungs stayed relatively clear.”

  “Relatively?” Her attention zeroed in on the word.

  “Meaning I heard only minor wheezing instead of a surfeit of fluid.”

  “So will my lungs be weakened permanently because of this?”

  Dr. Gaskin shrugged. “I don’t know.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word, the look on his face warning her that further interrogation would be unwise.

  Elizabeth sank into a chair, nibbling on her bottom lip. “And Mother is far worse off than I am.” She studied her hands clasped in her lap, one thumb smoothing the skin of the other. Sometimes her eyes burned, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to tears or overuse. But how to get anything done without using her eyes? And what made them hurt anyway? Granted they felt better in a dim room, but then she always fell asleep in a dim room, so of course they felt better when closed. Perhaps she could do an experiment on what soothed her eyes. The thought made her want to leap to her feet, but she knew Dr. Gaskin well enough that he would see through her and demand her strict obedience to his regimen. Not that he really had a regimen for her but to rest, eat well, and let time take its course.

  “Do you mind if I play the piano?” At the lift of his right eyebrow, she knew she’d failed in keeping any trace of sarcasm out of her voice.

  “Not at all, as long as you play from memory.” Dr. Gaskin winked at her as he hefted his bag and headed for the front door. “I’ll show myself out.” He stopped under the arch and looked back over his shoulder. “And keep the sheers drawn, at least. It will be easier on the eyes.”

  “Yes, sir!” But she refrained from saluting, confining her ready-to-offend hand with the other. Wande
ring over to the piano, she sat down on the bench and let her fingers trail over the keys, searching out chords and melodies to match her mood. But melancholy didn’t satisfy, so she segued to a march, then drifted into hymns, which she played for half an hour before her back complained to her that it was tired and she ought to lie down. On the way to her room, she peeked in to check on her mother.

  “Thank you, dear. Those old hymns were just what I needed.”

  “You are most welcome. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, I’m just floating on the music, wishing I had the strength to get up and do something, but it looks like I must be satisfied to think or sleep instead.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ll be lying down if you need anything.” Elizabeth blew her mother a kiss and left the door half open so she could hear a call if need be. Floating indeed. If that was what her mother needed, she would play again before supper. Strange how weary even playing the piano made her feel. Usually she gained strength at the keyboard, and that’s what she’d been hoping for, not the need for another nap. At the very least she should go help Cook in the kitchen. Sighing, she lay down and fell asleep like a candle being puffed out.

  Wrestling her way out of a nightmare left her dripping sweat. Elizabeth leaped to her feet, swayed while she waited for the room to cease spinning, and made her way to her mother’s room. Annabelle lay sleeping, her breath coming in short puffs but evenly and with little wheezing. In the dream, she’d closed her mother’s eyes in death, and her father had not been far behind.

  Sucking in a deep breath made her throat itch to cough, so she left the room and darted back to her own bedroom to cough until her chest ached and her throat burned with a scratching fire. She leaned against the wall, shivering in her damp clothing and from the aftermath of the coughing fit. Was she getting worse? Right now, that’s what she felt beyond certainty. She made her way to the bathroom and turned on the faucets to fill the tub. Soaking, breathing deeply of the steam, would surely help.