“Come,” she said. “Aasta, please serve up some tea. Hot tea, Sadie? Yes?”
I nodded. “Yes. But only if Aasta and Hans join us.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Worthington said, as if it were a surprising suggestion, as if I were hers and hers alone. “Why, of course!” She forced cheeriness.
Mr. Worthington met us at the doorstep. “Finally,” he said, swinging the door wide enough for his wife, and then stepping in. “You’ve put us through no end of trouble, young lady.”
I pictured Trinity, threatening with a knife. Whatever angst I’d caused the Worthingtons, it seemed thin compared to the worry the Bairds shared over their daughter. Could they ever trust her to be alone again?
“I’m sorry,” I said as I passed him, setting down my traveling bag near my chair at the dining room table. I rested my hands on the back of the chair. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the piano, tall and proud, the last sheet music I’d played still turned open. I felt a great need to spend hours at the keys, to let the music wash over me, to retreat to a world without words—with only chords, notes, rhythms, and melodies.
After an awkward pause, Mr. Worthington said, “Sorry? You’re sorry?” He’d been standing in the archway between the living area and dining room, watching me. Then he turned to the Chinese lacquered serving table, pulled the glass top off a crystal bottle, paused, and then put it back on again, as if debating whether to pour himself a drink. But I knew he wouldn’t. It was a “respectably early hour.” Instead he spun back toward me.
“As if that’s enough. My poor wife, fit to be tied with worry. And then blasted editorials accusing me of murder? All I can say is it’s good you’re back, or I may have had to find you and kill you myself.”
He must have seen the color wash from my face.
“Go,” he said. “Change into dry clothes and come back down.”
My bedroom was tidied, the bed made. I felt I’d been away for years, as if I were no longer the girl who once slept here. I slipped out of my clothes and into a soft yellow dress and returned to the dining room.
At its threshold, Mr. Worthington stopped me.
“Sadie Rose,” he said in hushed tones, “I didn’t mean ‘kill you’ literally. I meant it as—okay, that was an admittedly terrible gaff. It’s just that pressure from Ennis, from townsfolk, and with the campaign, little things can topple everything.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”
“Little things,” I said crisply, aware that Mrs. Worthington, Aasta, and Hans had joined us in the dining room, though none sat down. I eased closer to them. “Little things,” I continued, “like when my mother said she was going to leave and Ennis killed her?” My voice was raised, and my questions flowed like an unstoppable river. “Someone had to do something with her body, Mr. Worthington, yes?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Worthington said, dismissing me. He turned back to the decanter and filled a goblet halfway with amber liquid. “You were only a child then. What could you possibly remember?”
I pressed ahead, as if possessed by cornering him. “She was Ennis’s favorite, his exclusive fancy lady—yes?”
I reached into my traveling bag and pulled out the photographs and set them out in a fan on the table.
Slowly, he turned, his attention to the images.
Hans registered recognition. “Oh, Sadie. You should not find these. I thought someday I would tell you, but it never seemed the right time—”
I rushed headlong, aiming my anger at Mr. Worthington. “That’s why when I showed these photographs to Mr. Foxridge, he nearly pushed me out of his office. He knew what could happen with Ennis if you stick your nose in his business.”
Walter Worthington sat down heavily at the head of the table and tipped back his tumbler. “Oh, the hell with everything!” he raged. “I should kick you out right now! But you know I can’t. I can just imagine the headlines . . .” He painted them with his hands in front of his face, as if he were doing the actual mockup of the newsprint. “Senator Worthington Sends Orphan Girl Packing!” Now that would tug at their heartstrings, wouldn’t it? The kind of thing that friend of yours Victor would just love, wouldn’t he?”
“Walt, what are you talking about?” Mrs. Worthington turned fragile as ice on a puddle. I felt sympathy for her. Her world had been constructed so carefully around everything her husband accomplished. Now everything was shifting, with no solid bottom. “I don’t understand, Walter.” She pressed her palms together, as if in prayer, and then pressed her fingertips to her lips. “Aren’t you glad to have Sadie back with us?”
He looked at his wife, then beyond, and drew a deep breath, the way he always did before embarking on a long and cumbersome speech.
For once I had to speak up and not let them take the reins away from me. “I was behind the parlor stove,” I blurted. Before my legs buckled, I pulled the chair under me.
“You remember. I pretended to be sleeping when you and Ennis were talking. Then later, I followed into the storm. I thought it had been Ennis carrying her, but then I realized that Ennis wouldn’t do that kind of thing. He doesn’t clean up his messes, does he? He has you to do that. Like when my father—Frank Ladovitch—started sending off photographs of shorelines after logging . . . started making trouble . . . and he conveniently drowned. Did you help Ennis with that problem, too? Or did he send another underling out to silence him?”
Walter Worthington slammed his fist onto the glossy table. “This is ridiculous. You were too little then to know what you’re talking about. And I didn’t have anything to do with that photographer’s death. It was suicide, that’s all I know. Where are you going with all this anyway?”
“I was little—it’s true—the night my mother died. But I remember things clearly. The pants, the shoes, the stride, the voice.” I held his gaze. “It was you.”
“I didn’t break any laws, damn it!”
He looked to his wife, as if seeking support. She only offered a bewildered expression in return. “I could have sent someone else in to deal with it,” he said. “God knows I’m not the kind of man who hangs out at brothels. But when Ennis said she was already gone, I thought, why not find something positive out of the situation. And—” He looked around desperately, eyes both pleading and defensive. He pulled at fine hairs at his hairline. “Okay, if you want to know, I lugged her body outside and set her down gently in front of the town hall. And I was right. It caused a big stir. Got people thinking that things needed to change, that Ranier should be a place to raise families—with schools, churches, and common decency. No one wanted to think of such a woman, frozen with an empty bottle of booze in her hand.”
“That you placed there.” My voice was oak-solid with deep, sure roots.
Beyond, a train whistle sounded, one short, two long, in usual warning to clear the tracks.
“What difference does that make? She was already dead! Who cares now anyway after all these years? She was just a prostitute, for God’s sake.”
In an explosion of motion beside me, Hans jumped from his chair and pounced on Mr. Worthington, knocking him backward. The chair cracked against the floor, as Hans shouted in Norwegian, and they rolled against the hutch in a heap of arms and legs.
Then just as fast as it had happened, Hans was on his feet. He stepped back, fists up, waiting for Walter Worthington to rise.
We left our chairs and gathered around.
“Walter!” Elizabeth cried, kneeling beside her husband. “Are you hurt? Hans, how could you?”
I looked at Hans, amazed.
Then Hans was crying. “The difference is, Mr. Worthington,” he said, his voice breaking, “—Sigrid was my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” Aasta whispered.
“Sigrid?” Elizabeth Worthington looked up. I felt bad for her. Her tidy world was unrave
ling at every seam.
“Bella Rose was her working name,” I said. “Sigrid was my mother’s real name.”
Hans pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, dabbed his eyes, and then offered it to Mr. Worthington as he rose to his elbow on the floor.
Unceremoniously, Walter Worthington grabbed the handkerchief and pressed it to the red seeping at the corner of his mouth. Then he stood up, chest heaving, and stared at Hans. Then he looked at Aasta. And me. “Lord,” he said, his teeth streaked red.
He righted his chair and then sat back down, dabbing at his mouth. And almost as if he’d called a meeting to order, everyone sat again at the table.
Mr. Worthington sagged. “After all these years . . . and you didn’t say a word? I thought she was just another—” He sat tall, but his jaw hung slack as he looked from Aasta to Hans to me and back around again. I’d never seen him so undone, as if his podium had been kicked over.
“Walter?” Elizabeth asked, leaning close to him. “Will you tell me what in the world is going on?”
He glanced up, his eyes avoiding hers. “Sadie Rose. Hans and Aasta. You, you wouldn’t talk about this to anyone else . . . would you?”
For a few seconds, none of us said a word.
“If Ennis murdered my mama,” I said, “how can you expect me to be quiet?”
“Shouldn’t he be brought to trial?” Hans asked. “You would be witness. I know he’s powerful, but if it be murder . . .”
Mr. Worthington cleared his throat. “No, not murder. Ennis told me they’d been arguing and that she fell back and hit her head against a sharp corner. He said it was an accident.”
I held his gaze. “Do you really believe that?”
He shrugged. “There’s no way to ever know for sure. All I know is what he told me. Looking back, I should have called the sheriff to deal with her body. But I didn’t. I regret that now.” He looked around the table at each of us. “Soon as this gets out, it’ll be the end of my career.”
Silence fell like heavy snowflakes.
I looked to Hans, his fists unclenched, and then I realized that everything had changed. Before the photographs, Mr. Worthington had held all the cards, but now they were in my hands. I chose my words carefully.
“Mr. Worthington, over the years I’ve listened as you’ve negotiated lots of compromises. Made deals. I don’t think this has to be the end of your career, as long as none of us talks—”
“True. Oh, Sadie Rose, you’re exactly—” Mr. Worthington brightened.
“We won’t need to say a word . . . about the likely murder of my mother . . . about who dragged her body into the storm. We don’t need to say a word about the possible murder of my father . . .” The deck of cards felt weighty in my hands. “As long as you’ll agree to a few things.”
He pushed back in his chair and pulled himself to his usual straight posture. “I’m listening.”
I glanced to Hans and Aasta, hoping for their agreement. “First, that you refuse another nickel from Ennis for your campaign.”
Mr. Worthington removed the handkerchief from his mouth, studied the blood, then reapplied it. “Ennis,” he said, then let out a jagged breath, as if seeing a wide array of complications before him. “And?”
“Second,” I said, “that you listen to Victor Guttenberg’s ideas. Hear him out, consider what he has to say, and offer your support.”
He pushed away from the table and filled his glass from the decanter. After a long moment, he turned, his free palm up. “And?”
“And then we won’t say another word about it.”
The senator ran his hands slowly down the sides of his face. In that moment, I saw him not as a rising senator with increasing power and influence, but as an older man. Possibly alone, abandoned. His hands stopped at his chin, palms joined, fingers splayed, as if holding up a great weight.
I forced myself to look away—to give him a moment to consider—and turned my gaze toward the centerpiece on the table, the cut-glass vase filled with deep pink peonies. Rising from her chair across from me, Elizabeth Worthington cleared her throat and tucked her silk blouse more snuggly into her skirt band. Her tiny chin trembled. “Sadie Rose,” she said, “I hope you have felt a little bit of my love for you. I know I haven’t always been the best at . . . please,” she said, looking around the table. “No one is getting fired. Don’t leave, any of you. Please. Stay. You’re the closest thing I have—to family.”
Then, as the senator turned from the decanter, she challenged him. “Walter Worthington,” she said with iron conviction, and I glimpsed the child she must have once been. “I want you to hear me this time! Your political life needn’t come to an end. For years you have refused my family’s money, saying you couldn’t accept money from a newspaper baron, that it would bind you somehow to compromising political views—and to my father. But where has Ennis’s money gotten you?”
Mr. Worthington sat in silence.
“You’ve been in his back pocket ever since you went into business together with the building of the bridge. You’ve sold out for his money, his help in your rise to power. But don’t you see? You’re not just an engineer of modest means anymore. You’re no longer the mayor of Ranier. You don’t have to be bound to Ennis anymore. You have options, Walter, if for once you’re willing to put your pride aside.” Then she smoothed her skirt and was almost seated when she bounced back to her feet. “And wait. There’s one more thing since I have the floor.”
“What more can you possibly have to say, Lizzy?” Mr. Worthington said, shaking his head.
“For years I’ve pleaded that we adopt Sadie Rose. For years I’ve wanted nothing more than to offer her a true home and family, but you’ve put your concerns first, always worried about political fallout.”
“Now, wait—”
“No, this time—you wait. You’ve told me I couldn’t get it all my way. Well, neither can you, Walt. And I’ve decided that we will adopt Sadie Rose and give her—if she’s willing—all the privileges of family. This time you’ll have to choose, Walter Worthington, between a family or none at all.”
“What’s that suppose to mean?” he asked, his voice barely audible. “Or you’ll leave me?”
“I didn’t know it until this moment, but yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. This time, I’m offering you a choice.”
On the dining room wall, the German cuckoo clock began to chime. Mrs. Worthington sat back down, her head high, as the little doors above the clock’s numbers opened wide, and out popped the wooden bird—in and out, ten times—until it retreated silently.
“Stupid little bird,” Hans said, cracking the tension.
Familiar knocks sounded on the porch door. I guessed who it was and sprang from my chair. As I stepped from the table, I could see the visitor adjusting his glasses. At his side he held a leather satchel, no doubt holding maps, reports, and various letters in his campaign to save the waterways.
“It’s Victor,” I called back. I doubted Victor had yet heard about Trinity’s ordeal. I would tell him about all that had transpired, when the time was right.
On my heels, Mr. Worthington strode after me.
“Victor, this isn’t the best time—,” he began, pushing open the screen door.
I placed my hand on Mr. Worthington’s shoulder, stopping him midsentence. It was the first time I’d ever touched him. “On the contrary,” I said with a smile, as if this were another carefree moment in my life with the Worthingtons. “I can’t think of a better time to see what Victor has to say, can you, Mr. Worthington?”
I held my breath, waiting for another icy dismissal. If it came, I would have to make good on my threat. Above the bay, seagulls cried, swooping in wide arcs on the warm breeze.
Instead, Walter Worthington met my eyes. From the moment he’d carried my nearly frozen body ho
me, he’d always held me at arm’s length, worried that I would bring him down. Now a crack emerged in his political armor, and with it, something new—a softening in his brooding eyes. He gave a single nod to me, then extended his arm to Victor. “Come in, yes.”
Victor stepped inside, tucking his shirttail into his khakis and shooting me a quizzical glance.
I shrugged my shoulders, as if I had no idea how or why things had shifted.
“By the way,” I whispered to Victor, as he passed. “I found my last name.”
“Is that so?”
“Ladovitch,” I said. “Sadie Rose Ladovitch. My father was a photographer.”
Victor looked taken aback. “Your father? I know of his work. He captured how something wild can be so easily lost.”
The senator cleared his throat. “Indeed . . . it was a different era.” When he motioned toward the porch’s wicker chairs, I turned to rejoin the others in the dining room, but Mr. Worthington stopped me with his hand lightly on mine. “Please, Sadie Rose. Stay. Join us. You’re right, you know,” he said. “It’s high time I hear some fresh ideas.”
Chapter 31
St. Peter, Minnesota
May 1922
A new driver picked me up from outside the women’s dorm at Gustavus Adolphus College. I settled in the back seat with the confidence of a junior.
“And what are you studying?” the man asked.
“Music education.”
“I have six kids,” he offered. “Hope one of ’em can go to college someday. I never went past eighth grade.”
I nodded politely, then pulled my journal from my satchel. The journal was a gift from Aasta and Hans after I had arrived in the river valley of St. Peter, Minnesota. I turned to the inscription on the inside cover: It was your mother’s. Now it’s yours. Aasta and Hans.
When I’d first held the journal, I hesitated to turn to the first page, expecting to read Mama’s own words from when she was my age. But every page between the brown calfskin cover was blank. I would have to tell her story, I decided then, and my own. I found a pencil and turned toward the end of the journal; its pages fluffed wide with inserted cards, notes, and coffee stains. I wrote.
Frozen Page 21