Dakota Blues Box Set

by Lynne M Spreen

  Her mother taught her how deep to bury seedlings, how much water they needed, and how to thin the growing plants so the strongest thrived. Every inch of the back yard was planted in rows of vegetables and herbs. By the end of the summer, their neighbors avoided eye contact so as not to receive yet another box of zucchini. Before she finished sixth grade, Karen knew how to can vegetables and preserves.

  The warming earth, well rested from a winter under snow and ice, pushed up bachelor buttons and morning glories. The tomato plants were covered with yellow flowers, and the squash and cucumbers already threatened to take over. The yard ended at a wire fence on the other side of which ran a lane, unpaved in her youth but now blacktopped.

  A lawn mower started up in the distance, recalling memories of playing outside in the summer, charging barefoot across a wet lawn and through the cold water arching from the chattering sprinkler. When she was older, she spent most of every day hanging out at the community pool with her girlfriends, flirting with boys, and showing off the cute new swimsuits she made herself. Life was so simple then.

  She took the empty bowl inside, rinsed it in the sink, and wandered around the house. In the living room, the front left window still stuck, and the floorboards in the hall creaked in exactly the same place they had when, as a child, she tried to watch TV instead of going to bed. The house seemed tiny now, almost more like a cottage, with two small bedrooms, a bath with a tub but no shower, and a root cellar.

  She ran her fingertips over a painted white wall, the plaster finish cool to the touch. One hundred years ago, her great-grandfather packed dirt into the gap between the interior and exterior walls. The primitive construction made for good insulation through winters severe enough to make her ancestors wish they had chosen Siberia, and how many summer tornadoes had threatened this poor structure? Yet in the start of the twenty-first century it still stood, defiant.

  Old homes–older than this one–lined the block. Instead of knocking them down and rebuilding, as was the practice in Southern California, owners here simply remodeled a bit on the inside, or kicked a wall out into the yard if they needed space. North Dakotans had a reputation for repurposing objects longer than anyone else in the country. A leaky hose became a garden drip line, an old tire became a planter, a glass insulator a doorstop. How well she remembered her parents admonishing her for tossing out a pair of ripped sneakers. “They can use these at the poorhouse,” her mother explained while fishing the shoes out of the trash can.

  Karen flopped on the sofa. Aunt Marie’s selection of reading material ranged from TV Guide to Readers Digest. The TV offered only game shows and the crop report. The house closed in on her. She jumped up, her chest constricting.

  Leaving the back door of the house unlocked, she went through the wire gate into the alley. At the end of the street she turned right and found the old path that ran next to the railroad. As a child, Karen and her little buddies rode their bikes along this path, darting like mosquitoes around the ruts and rocks and broken bottles left by hoboes. Yelling though the underpass, their voices echoing powerfully, the girls zipped up to Villard Street, intent on the five-and-dime with its rows of nickel candy. If they were short of coinage, they’d peer through the back door of the café until the cook noticed and slipped them freshly-cooked donuts.

  Following the map in her memory, Karen hiked eight blocks east through neighborhoods that seemed to have shrunk in the past thirty years. Clapboard homes stood alongside small bungalows, some dilapidated, others fiercely meticulous. The century-old sidewalk was cracked and buckled, turning back into aggregate in places. Except for an old woman sitting on her porch, the streets were deserted, the residents having left for work.

  She found the community park, abandoned in favor of the new recreation center. A chain link fence surrounded the swimming pool, now drained and peeling. The playground equipment stood rusted, the monkey bars a mottled red-brown. Swing sets lacked swings, grass grew in the sand boxes, and weeds carpeted the tetherball court. When she climbed on the merry-go-round and pushed, it screeched in complaint but turned, rough and slow at first and then faster, as if remembering how. Once she had it going she lay on her back, hands under her head, feet braced against a crossbar. The clouds whirled in circles overhead.

  A hundred yards to the south, the Heart River flowed silently past, the wind rattling the cat tails. Karen inhaled the new-oxygen smell, like putting her nose in a freshly-opened bag of potting soil. She and her friends played in and around the river, over the years graduating from making mud pies to sneaking smokes and kisses in the tall grasses along the banks. After school they skulked along the river, scuffing their Catholic saddle shoes in the dirt, their uniforms riddled with foxtails.

  Nothing stayed the same. This abandoned lot started out as prairie, but with the oil boom, contractors would soon scrape it off to build a new condominium or strip mall. Karen whirled around under the blue and white sky. The merry-go-round creaked and groaned. The funeral was a cloud with a thin silver lining. Instead of racing home, Karen could visit with long-lost relatives and old friends, fill her lungs with clean air, and rejuvenate. She could use the next few days in Dickinson as a retreat, meditating and resting. Having lost mother, father, and marriage, some downtime might be helpful. Wes would never know. By the time she saw him again, she would have a new attitude, her spirit renewed.

  Everything would be all right.

  Chapter Six

  AUNT MARIE STOOD AT the edge of the garden, watering seedlings with a faded green hose. She turned off the faucet when she saw Karen. “Come, I have something to show you.” Pulling a key from her apron pocket, she unlocked the creaking double doors of the wooden garage.

  The sweet, musty smell of old wood and yard equipment, baked in summer and frozen in winter, enveloped Karen. She had played in this garage, hidden in it, swept and cleaned it, and shared endless hours working on projects within it. There on the far side stood the workbench where she made a wooden table for her Barbie doll. Toward the back wall, the overhead shelf still bore tacks from the sheets she and her girlfriends hung as curtains for the plays they produced. An ink-stained wooden desk bore a hand-written note. “Saved when they tore down school,” said Lena’s graceful cursive.

  Atop the desk stood the wooden poppy seed grinder, handmade by a distant relative. Karen blew on it, launching dust into the dry air. As a kid she had watched her mother crank the silver handle until the ground seeds, as fine as black sand, fell through the blades into a petite wooden drawer. Then Lena would empty the drawer into a bowl and mix the seeds with sugar and melted butter. She troweled the mixture onto a rolled-out sheet of pastry and rolled it up, a black swirl decorating the side of the roll. After brushing the top with melted butter and sugar, she baked it. Karen would always associate the sweet, earthy taste of the seeds with this place, with North Dakota and her simple beginnings. “Do you still have her recipe?”

  “I’m sure somewhere,” Marie said. She opened a folding chair and sat down. “You can have the Singer, too. I never use the thing. I like things electrical. The old days are good to remember from time to time, but I don’t miss them.”

  Karen picked up a box of Ball jars and set it aside for the Goodwill. She did not see herself canning vegetables in California. A plastic tarp covered a mound in the center of the floor. Pulling it back, Karen found handmade quilts passed down from long-dead aunts and grannies, albums of black-and-white photos anchored on each corner with black chevrons, sewing patterns from her 4-H class in high school, and a collection of ceramic trinkets .

  “Hey, look at this. Grandma’s old phone.” A wooden telephone, twice the size of a shoebox, leaned against the back wall of the garage. A black metal microphone protruded from the front of the box, a hand crank attached to the right side. The phone lacked a dial, as the concept of personal phone numbers hadn’t then existed. Grandma had told of winding the crank on the side of the phone to summon the operator at the switchboard in town, who then connected
the caller to the other party. Later, when technology improved, customers could dial numbers for themselves, but every- one in the neighborhood shared the same line. No conversation was private, at least not in the view of the adolescent Karen and her girlfriends. They would eavesdrop on other people–until the victim caught on–and hang up screaming with laughter.

  “I love this phone,” she said. “I can see it on my wall at home.”

  “Only one problem,” said a voice from the doorway. “How are you planning to get it there?”

  Karen turned. A woman stood framed in the door of the garage, her thin hair sitting like a gossamer nest atop her head. Her grey polyester pants draped around stick legs, and she leaned on a metal cane, favoring one side.

  Aunt Marie stood. “Karen, this is Frieda Richter. She lives over on the next street.”

  “I would’ve come to the funeral but I was in the hospital. Just got out.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Karen.

  “Nothing important. A little shortness of breath. Thanks for asking.” Frieda aimed her chin at the pile of heirlooms. “Lena was a packrat.”

  “Would you like to sit down?” Karen stood, brushed the dust from her hands, and opened a folding chair. Without comment, Frieda shuffled across the dusty concrete to the empty chair and eased into it, her arms as thin and sharp as bird bones.

  Karen turned back to the pile and reached for a potato ricer. She remembered squeezing the metal arms together, forcing a boiled potato through the holes in the metal basket to create what looked like small, steaming grains of rice.

  “Lena was lucky.”

  “How so?” Karen looked up.

  “She’s dead and I’m stuck in North Dakota.” Frieda focused rheumy blue eyes on Karen. “Did you ever wish you could die?”

  “Acht, here we go,” said Aunt Marie.

  Karen stared at the woman. “Pardon?”

  Frieda pushed her glasses up on her nose and looked out the door of the garage. “The yard has gone downhill. You should hire someone.”

  Aunt Marie sighed and reached for a bread box.

  “That’s kind of blunt,” said Karen.

  Frieda nodded. “You will be too, you get to be my age.”

  The woman was obviously demented. Karen decided to follow Aunt Marie’s lead and focus on the work. She opened a cardboard box and gasped at the folds of delicate embroidery.

  “Now that’s worth saving.” Frieda leaned forward on her cane to get a better look. “Your mother was known all over North Dakota for her needlework. She used to win awards at county fairs.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Probably a lot you don’t know. For example, I have a new great-granddaughter. They’re calling her Sunshine. Don’t know why they didn’t give her a regular name.”

  “Congratulations.” Karen went back to sorting. She remembered when her mother picked up needlework, but she never thought of it as anything more than a hobby. These doilies and table- cloths were the work of an artist.

  Frieda nodded, or maybe it was palsy. Her head seemed unsteady on its neck. “She was born a couple weeks ago.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Not really, because I’ll never get to see her. Lena promised to take me to Denver but now that she’s dead, I don’t have anybody to drive me.”

  Karen fingered a table runner with delicate pastel threads.

  “You’re going to need a way to get all of this back to California.” The old woman gazed at the assortment of antiques, her mouth working silently, as if still involved in the process of speaking. “Have you thought of that?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Course not.” Frieda stared at Karen. “You’re young. You’ve got time. I’m ninety years old and I need a ride to Denver.”

  “Can’t Sandy come and get you?” asked Aunt Marie.

  “Sandy. Now there’s a laugh. No, she won’t drive this far and Richard works.”

  Karen’s knees were beginning to hurt from scrunching around on the floor, and her empty stomach rumbled. She stood, hoping Frieda would get the hint. “Well, good luck. I hope you can find a ride.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t have a ride. I have a vehicle but I can’t drive it anymore. Maybe you’d be interested.”

  “Actually, I have to be home in a week. Sorry.”

  “It’s a Roadtrek 190, a small RV. You pull into a campground and you’re good for the night. I need somebody to drive it. That somebody could be you.”

  Karen chuckled. “Not me, Frieda. I am not your camping type.”

  “Well, you might do yourself a favor and rethink that. Being in the Roadtrek isn’t like camping at all. It’s very comfortable, and it is one hundred percent self-contained. If you need a bathroom, it’s right there. Kitchen, too. Beds, all of it. And it’s easy to drive, I used to myself until I had the stroke.”

  Aunt Marie got up from her chair. “She has to go back to California, to her work.”

  “At her age she should be able to go on vacation when she feels like it.”

  “That’s between her and her employer,” said Aunt Marie.

  “She ought to stick up for herself. A person can’t go through life letting other people dictate what you’re going to do. Anyway it wouldn’t take that long. We could be in Denver in two days if you’re in that big of a hurry. Then a couple more to get to California. That’s all.” The speech seemed to exhaust her. She sat back, breathing hard.

  Karen wasn’t thinking about Denver. She was calculating how much of the loot she could take home in a cheap new suitcase from Walmart, and how much she would need to ship if she called a moving company. The cost would be significant but she still had access to the household account. At some point she and Steve would have to discuss how to divide it, but so far he’d left it alone.

  Frieda pointed at the pile with her cane. “In the Roadtrek, there’s room for some of this junk, if you pack it right. After you drop me in Denver you go on the rest of the way by yourself, if you’re not afraid. Sell it after you get home and send me the money. If it was me, I’d be thrilled to go somewhere by myself, but since I’m old, I’m resigned to company.”

  “She can leave these things here as long as she wants to,” said Aunt Marie. “In fact, Karen, maybe next summer you could fly back out here, rent a truck, and drive it home.”

  “By next summer we could get hit by a tornado.” Frieda worked her thin hips to the edge of her chair and, using the cane, levered herself upright. She shuffled past Karen, the top of her head barely reaching Karen’s chin. “Let me know when you make up your mind.”

  “I already have. I’d love to help you, but I just don’t have the time.”

  Frieda turned. “Young lady, you have nothing but.” She walked slowly down the street, the tip of her cane tapping on the sidewalk.

  Chapter Seven

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, Karen stopped at Dickinson Moving and Storage to arrange shipping. At the counter, she angled the Blackberry so the clerk could see the picture on the tiny screen.

  “Sure, we can handle all that. If you want, we’ll wrap and pack it, too. The woman consulted her charts, wrote down a figure, and pushed the paper across the counter. “That should do it. We charge half to get started and the rest on delivery.”

  “Yikes.” For that price, she could buy seats in first class and fly it all home with her. The woman took back the paper.

  “You could leave behind some of the bigger pieces, like the desk and that sewing machine.”

  “That’s my favorite piece.”

  “Then really, your only other option would be to see if you could borrow a truck from a friend. Drive it back yourself.”

  “Let’s do the bigger items. The Singer, and the desk. A couple of the boxes.” Karen handed over her card. “How soon can you get started?”

  Back at Aunt Marie’s, Karen bootlegged an unsecured internet connection from a neighbor and checked her email. She saw nothing but messages of support from her cow
orkers, so after sending appreciative responses, she shut the computer down.

  The screen door squeaked as her aunt shoved it open with one hip and carried a wooden box into the kitchen. “It’s getting too hot for lettuce, so Mary Jane cleaned out her garden.” Aunt Marie dumped the box on the counter. “Just look at all this.”

  Karen saw a ladybug trying to escape and put it outside. “What can I do?”

  “Get the stewpot and fill it with cold water.” Standing at the sink, the two of them rinsed, chopped, and bagged the greens, tomatoes, and corn while Aunt Marie caught her up on the news of the neighborhood. “I thought fried chicken for dinner?”

  “I’ll help.”

  “And tomorrow after Mass, I invited the relatives to come over so they can visit with you before you leave.” She shook the water off a head of lettuce and set it on a clean towel. “How long will you stay?”

  Karen dried her hands and leaned against the counter. “I’m going to take a chance and stay the week.”

  Aunt Marie looked out the window. The wind was picking up ahead of a late-afternoon monsoon. “Are you sure?”

  “I work hard. I don’t take vacations, and I’ve got about a year’s worth of sick leave saved up. I am never away from that stinking office and I’m tired of it.”

  “It’s all right, dear. I just asked.”

  “Let me explain something.” Karen felt reckless, as if admitting the narrowness of her existence now compelled the telling of more secrets. “I feel bad about ignoring Mom. I know you say there’s no need, but I feel guilty. I should have come to see her more often and I didn’t, and now I’d like to make amends. Even though she’s gone, I can at least spend time with the family, and with friends. I’d like to think Mom will somehow be aware I’m hanging around, and if she is, it will make her happy. So that’s my decision, and I don’t care if I get fired. Well, I do, but I don’t think I will, because I have too much history with the place and they’d be insane–well, anyway, my boss is out of town and he’ll never know.”