A Fireproof Home for the Bride

by Amy Scheibe

  Pete took a step closer to her and she caught sight of the tip of a toothpick that was tucked into his cheek. “You need a ride someplace?”

  “Oh, no,” Emmy said, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “If I could use a phone, my parents are just over in Moorhead and they’ll…”

  “We just finished cleaning up after CYO,” Pete interrupted. The way his smile turned down on the sliver of wood put Emmy on her guard. He turned his head slowly. “I’m the youth coordinator, and Bobby’s a junior mentor. We don’t bite.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Emmy faltered, her voice on the edge of cracking.

  “Cut it out, Pete.” Bobby pushed his hand into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a key. “If it’s okay with you, I’d be happy to drive you. Pete can drop Jesse.”

  Emmy looked up at the ceiling in relief. “I guess that would be all right,” she said, letting the last of the cold air leave her lungs.

  “You run right along, Bob,” Pete said, crossing his arms and not moving. “I’ll get the lights.”

  “Thanks,” Bobby said, and ushered Emmy through the door. “It’s all settled.” He pulled the door closed, and laid a hand on the small of her back, guiding her toward a cream and red pickup truck down the street. His palm felt hot through her coat, and when he moved his hand to open the cab door, the spot where he had touched her stayed warm for a very long time.

  Four

  Clad in the Cloth

  By the time Bobby drove his Sweptside up to the curb outside the Nelson house, Emmy had said little, but learned much: His father was in the concrete business; he was the oldest of eight children; he drove with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping on the seat between them to “Wake Up Little Susie”; he was mad for the Everly Brothers; and he played basketball for Shanley High School, which turned out to be an all boys’ Catholic school in North Fargo.

  “Well, I hope I haven’t talked your ear off,” he said, swinging the gearshift into park and switching off the engine. “Gee, you haven’t told me anything about you. I guess when you have so many kids around all the time it’s a relief to hear your own voice. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” she replied, nervously taking in the stillness of the nearly dark house, wondering if Karin lay awake, listening for the door to creak open. At least Emmy hadn’t spent all the money, and it really wasn’t her fault that she had been left behind. “I’d better go.” Emmy opened the door and the light in the middle of the cab came on, firing Bobby’s wavy comb-back and making his eyes nearly glow. She inhaled sharply, and then put her foot out into the cold.

  “Hey, let me help,” he said, and was out of the truck and running around the front before she could stop him. She said a silent prayer that no one was watching them as she ran her hand over the fine cream-colored leather of the seat, new smelling and soft to the touch. It was a far cry from the beaten old Coronet her family drove. Bobby took hold of the door and swung it open. She reached for his hand and he met her grasp midway. Their eyes locked again and this time she didn’t break the gaze and so missed the curb as she stepped down. He caught her in his arms and they stayed that way for a moment before she broke free, clumsily, and uttered a hoarse “Thank you very much” as he let go of her. She backed up the sidewalk, pushing her hat an inch higher up her brow.

  “Sorry if Pete was rude,” Bobby said. “He’s kind of like everyone’s big brother. He runs the CYO and makes sure we don’t all turn into delinquents.”

  “He wasn’t rude,” Emmy said quietly, glancing at the house and relieved to see no other lights had come on. “It’s not every day a strange girl walks into a church, after all.”

  “You’re welcome to walk in again any time.” Bobby turned halfway and stopped. “I guess this is good night, Emmy Nelson.”

  “Good night, Bobby Doyle.” She stood there, her body midway between the street and the house, shoulders squared and head turned toward the boy as he walked to his truck, jumped into the cab, and drove away. Floating now, Emmy sprinted to the house, abuzz with the sparkling stillness in the air, as if the sky had become a net of crystals arrayed for the first time just for her. She opened the door as noiselessly as possible and then leaned against the closed door, completely incapable of slowing her breath. She pressed a hand to her heart, holding it in her chest as best she could, her ears ringing with the silence of the house. It was too quiet.

  Looking around, she saw a small light on in the kitchen and moved quickly toward it. There was a note for her on the table. Her grandmother was in the hospital; they were all there with her. Emmy glanced at the clock; it was nearing midnight. The phone jangled in the front hall and Emmy shrieked at the noise before dashing to it and grabbing the receiver.

  “Hello,” she whispered hoarsely. “Mother?”

  “Oh, thank God, Emmy, you’re home,” Bev said. “We kept circling and looking and I feel just terrible that you got left. We didn’t realize until we were a block away, but we went right back to get you and you were nowhere to be found.”

  “It’s all right,” Emmy said, pulling off her coat and hanging it in the hall closet. “I’m just happy you care.”

  “Care!” Bev said. “I would have killed myself if anything had happened to you.”

  Emmy smiled in relief. “Thanks, Bev. I’ll see you at school.”

  “See you later, alligator,” Bev said, and the line went dead in Emmy’s hand.

  How about that, she thought, my first phone call from my first friend. She shook her head and sat down with the note, reading it more slowly this time. Her instructions were to make the doughnuts for church, and she set to this assignment, feeling a mix of relief and worry settle over the strange excitements of the evening. Grandmother Nelson had these spells; she’d be fine, Emmy told herself, even as she couldn’t explain away the fact that her father and sister were required at her grandmother’s side, too. She hurried with the doughnuts, anticipating with each moment that someone would return home and figure out her ill timing. Once the job was completed and the doughnuts were cooling on the counter, the clock ticked past two and Emmy fell asleep on the couch, fully dressed, prepared for the worst.

  * * *

  A ray of weak light shone against Emmy’s closed eyes, and she awoke to find the house still. She rolled over, thinking about all the colorful, exciting, shifting people and cars and images of the night before. She sighed, remembering the brown slice of Ambrose’s truck, his scowl at Howie, her sickening response as she sighted another girl next to her supposed beau. But then came Bobby Doyle and how absolutely perfect he seemed, and how completely forbidden he would be in the eyes of her parents. Catholics were unwelcome in the minds of some Lutherans, and her grandmother had told her that marrying one was a sin against God. Her grandmother. Still no word. Emmy tossed over to her side and sat up. Might as well get dressed for church, she thought. Nothing stops the car from pointing east on Sunday morning, especially when prayer was going to be needed.

  By the time Emmy was washed and dressed and had the doughnuts in their tin, she heard the old car crunch up the drive. She ran to the window. There they were, her family. It was as though she had never been with them on the other side of the glass. She could already feel the pull away from these small gray-shaded people. Even Birdie looked pinched and drawn, as though she had fallen in line with the family history of slope-shouldered farm women overnight. Emmy sighed and opened the door.

  “How bad is it?” she asked her mother as she took Karin’s hat and coat.

  “Bad. But she’s home now, and resting. Ambrose is sitting with her,” Karin said, going to the kitchen and inspecting the doughnuts. “Thank you, Emmy. It’s a great relief not to fall short this morning. I need to pack.” Christian followed her up the stairs, smoothing a few hairs on his head and turning left toward the bathroom at the top landing. Birdie clutched her sister’s arm and dragged her into the kitchen.

  “Oh, it was grim,” she whispered, looking over Emmy’s shou
lder as she talked. “She was just fine one minute, and then that man came to the house while Dad and I were unloading the silage, saying he needed to see her.”

  “Which man?” Emmy asked.

  “You know, the strange one who came to dinner after church.” Birdie trembled. “Mr. Davidson. He went in the front door and came out the back, shouting that she had fallen. By the time we got to the kitchen, she was just lying there on the cold floor, crumpled up. They say it was a stroke, but she isn’t crippled. She’s been awake and talking this morning, weak as a kitten.” Emmy poured her sister a cup of coffee and they huddled at the kitchen table.

  “The strange thing was, that man didn’t wait for the doctor to arrive,” Birdie continued, leaning in closer. “Said he’d get help, and that he’d be back. I had to help Dad carry her to the couch, she really doesn’t weigh more than a feather. Next thing you know, Ambrose showed up with the doctor, so I guess Mr. Davidson told him.”

  “Maybe he’s still staying at the Branns’,” Emmy guessed, feeling that her sister was paying closest attention to the details that mattered the least. “The important thing is that she’s going to be okay.”

  Birdie drank down her cup of coffee in one long swallow. “Ambrose and I tried to find you, but you weren’t at the movie. We waited outside for it to end, but you didn’t come out.”

  A shock of guilt unfolded inside Emmy. All of her rebellious actions had been based in vain suspicion and nothing else. Bobby’s face appeared in her imagination, and she covered her eyes for the shame of how she’d let herself be so childish when her grandmother lay in the hospital, ill.

  “They’ve worked it all out,” Birdie said, grabbing both of Emmy’s hands. A knot tucked upward in the middle of the girl’s delicate forehead. “I’m to help Mother at the farm during the week, and you’re to stay with Grandmother Nelson on the weekends.”

  Emmy felt her sister’s hands tremble and she squeezed them, hard.

  “But what about school, Birdie, and choir?” Emmy asked, and her sister burst into silent tears, her mouth opening and closing in small round Os. Emmy had never seen Birdie too distraught to cry. “Oh there, there, dear, it won’t be for very long. And I’ll ask Mother if I can take the weekdays instead. I can always finish my studies at summer school.” She said these things knowing that what she and Birdie decided between them wouldn’t matter in the least. They heard the toilet flush upstairs and moments later their father’s footsteps heavy down the risers.

  “Don’t tell him I told you, please, Emmy.” Birdie took the cups to the sink. “Especially about Mr. Davidson being there. I don’t think Dad likes him much.”

  “I promise,” Emmy said, and she went to help her father with the coat he had shed minutes before. There was a small red cut on his jaw where he’d done a hasty job of shaving. Emmy pulled the sleeve of her woolen dress over her thumb and dabbed at the blood. Christian gingerly caught her wrist and held it to his cheek.

  “Let’s get a move on,” he said. He turned up his collar and went out the door to where the car sat, idling its plume of blue exhaust into the frosty air.

  * * *

  Before Emmy could count the days it was already Friday, her first night to spend alone in the old groaning farmhouse with her grandmother tucked into the big bed upstairs. She had tried to convince Karin to switch the schedule, and was not surprised when the idea was met with a shake of the head and nothing more. Lida had regained some strength but was still unable to do so much as sit up by herself. Emmy didn’t mind tending to her grandmother; it was the settling of the house, the dark rooms with their dusty furniture, the small noises of animals in the eaves, the large noise of the wind howling across the fields outside, and the cows lowing out in the barn, preparing to give birth, that set Emmy’s teeth together. Her parents had put their faith in her ability to handle this situation. She hadn’t dared mention that she was scared to death to stay out on the farm practically alone.

  Her father had checked both of the expecting animals before heading back to town with her exhausted mother and sister, and the Branns’ cattle hand, Pedro, was to drive by and check the cows in the middle of the night. The heifer was likely to calve early, and there had been talk about how restless she’d been during the day. Even though she’d known Pedro and Maria Gonzales since she was small, the thought that anyone might drive into the yard while Emmy was asleep made her uneasy. She went to the window at the sound of a scraping branch, but met only the reflection of her face, startled and pale. The warp of the old glass distorted Emmy’s features, turning her normally small and pert nose into something flat and slightly askew. Bending her knees just a bit, she watched as the warp moved to her wide-set eyes and accentuated the space in between, giving them a pitched alien look that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The longer she gazed, the more the hinge that held her fear in check creaked open toward mild panic.

  The radio was on and playing a violin concerto, and Emmy picked up the Bible and tried to soothe herself with the Book of Psalms until she could grow sleepy enough to go up to the cold bed that had been her father’s before he had married Karin. Too distracted to fully take in the words, Emmy thought instead of the rapid passing of the previous week and tried to absorb just how much had happened in the small slice of time.

  Sunday they had packed the car with clothes for her mother and Birdie and driven directly from church to Grandmother Nelson’s, where Maria Gonzales had stayed by her bedside. Emmy hadn’t had a moment to do right by Ambrose after the service, and the brief time she did meet his eyes, she still felt a hint of shame. She couldn’t continue to look at him, though, as she felt the magnetic scorch of Mr. Davidson’s stare affixed to her own. Christian had steered them all past the Brann pew without stopping to engage the three men. An hour later Ambrose had surprised Emmy by driving Pastor Erickson out to the farm to attend to Lida’s prayers. She’d never missed a day of church under his watch, not for childbirth, not for harvest, not for blinding snow. Her face glowed at the approach of the pastor and the door swung shut behind the old man. What a gift that must be, Emmy had thought, and had hurried to bring them tea in order to witness Lida’s powerful faith. But Ambrose had intercepted the tray and carried it up himself, asking her to stay and wait for him in the kitchen. When he had returned, he preempted her desire to confess the details of her night out by getting down on one knee in front of her.

  “I’m no good for you, Emmy,” he’d said, looking at her hand. “But if you’ll consider me, I’d like to make our engagement formal as soon as possible, and put all others aside.”

  The heat on Emmy’s face had risen hotter, and she had stayed perfectly still, finding herself incapable of returning the sentiment. This moment had been expected for so long, and yet it had none of the thrill she had once imagined it would have. She wanted to be swept with the notion that Ambrose would always take care of her, but all she could see was the small spot of scalp that was slowly being revealed on the very top of his head, a spot that foretold nothing but sheer, rapid decline. There were a few gray hairs mixed into the sandy brown she’d taken for granted, and from this angle, she could see the first deep lines etched into his brow. The handsome lanky boy had somehow vanished while he’d been away at school, leaving behind only sinew and the grit of being a Brann. He was already old. She hadn’t even started being young.

  “Oh.” Her voice had caught, as she knew she must say something and fast. She could sense her mother lingering just outside the kitchen door, quietly folding napkins on the kitchen table, her hushed whispers to Emmy’s father an indication that she was anxious for a response. Emmy had no choice. “Well, yes, I suppose that’s right.”

  Ambrose had leaped to his feet and drawn her into his arms, bending over to bury his face in her hair. Suddenly and inexplicably unable to return his tenderness, she had tensed up with the urge to push him away. The shame of such an ungrateful feeling consumed her, so she had held his embrace as long as she could stand. When they at last parted,
she gripped his arm with her right hand, counting to ten before she let the touch fall away. Now that their union was suddenly real, the affection she had for Ambrose was like a window shade drawn against the weak light of a slivered moon, cutting off the warmth she had expected to feel, even as she realized there was so little there.

  The effect that Ambrose and Emmy’s official engagement had on Karin was like boiling water poured over a block of ice. Emmy had never felt so genuinely respected by her mother before, nor treated as though her opinion held weight. Every night after school, Karin had telephoned from the farm to make suggestions to Emmy of things she should be doing over the next year, in preparation for both the wedding and for married life. Karin had also told her of Ambrose’s frequent visits to the farmhouse, his kind gestures to Birdie, and his constant help. When he had offered for Pedro to check the gravid cows every night, Karin insisted on paying for the help, even though it was understood that Ambrose would merely roll the cost up into the accounts of his eventual ownership of both farms. Emmy had only begun to grasp the method by which the Nelson farm acreage had slowly seeped over the years since Grandfather Nelson’s death into the Branns’ sugar beet expanse, but she was all too aware that the grim necessity of her central role in this usurpation was to be accepted with fortitude and grace.

  Sitting in the cold parlor with the Bible open in her lap, Emmy felt the constricted mobility of her situation hem tighter and tighter around her heart, until hot, silent tears slipped down her cheeks as she listened to the low undertones of Lida snoring away upstairs, a fine companion sound to the doleful strains of the violin on the radio. The car ride with Bobby Doyle felt as if it had never happened. Ambrose was certain to appear at the farmhouse bright and early; it was best that Emmy try to sleep. She exhaled and was surprised to see her breath plume out into the room. The temperature had dropped considerably and the wind was howling yet more frigid gales out in the yard. Emmy checked the thermostat on the wall. The needle hovered around fifty degrees. She tapped it, frowning. Rubbing her hands briskly together, she first went to the kitchen to put a kettle on for filling hot water bottles. Dreading the trip belowstairs into the cobwebby undertow of the cellar, she recalled her father’s detailed instructions on how to relight the pilot on the furnace should it snuff out, which it most likely had. There was no way she could let it slide until the morning or pretend the heat had failed while she was asleep. She would have to face down her fear of the dark spaces buried under the house and do her best to fix the thing without help.