by Amy Scheibe
Helen clucked her tongue. “That’s Jo,” she said, tapping the photo with her index finger. “So that must be your grandmother, and there’s Uncle Raymond.” The finger rested on her lower lip for a moment, scratching at memory. “I don’t recall this fellow, but then, it’s well before I was born. It’s not Irv’s father.” She flipped the photo over and read the inscription: “Detroit Lakes Chautauqua, 1919.”
Emmy took the paper from Helen, careful to keep her fingertips on the white scalloped edge. She held it closer, astonished to see her grandmother looking like a girl, when she’d always seemed to Emmy as though she’d been born old—even more surprising was her own resemblance to Josephine: the high sculpture of her cheeks, the clear eyes, the pale hair braided down to her collarbones. The face of the slight man with his hand upon Lida’s small shoulder was half shaded by the brim of his straw boater, which was practically glowing from the reflection of the sun. “It’s not Grandfather; he was much taller. I could ask Aunt Josephine if you’d like.”
Helen shrugged. “It’s probably hers anyway.” She grazed through the remaining photos at the bottom of the box. “Well, would you look at that? It’s Daniel.”
“My brother?” Emmy asked, looking at the image of a boy in a sailor suit pushing a tiny wheelbarrow. There were no photos of any sort in the Nelson home, not of children, parents, grandparents—of no one. It only struck Emmy as odd now, sitting here holding the ghostly image of her dead older brother, along with the pancaked images of her family’s tree.
“I remember when your father gave this to Irv,” Helen said, resting her hand on Emmy’s knee. “Said Karin was throwing everything away, but he couldn’t bear to let her burn this one.”
“My father?” Emmy said, her voice breaking a little.
“He’s always been in touch with us. I think it’s been his way of defying his family. He’s a good man to stick it out. You have to admire that, even if it seems crazy from the outside.”
Dot got up and went into the kitchen. Emmy could hear her cleaning the final dishes and presetting the table for breakfast.
“Tell me,” Emmy said, searching Helen’s eyes. “Do you think I’ve done the right thing? Leaving home, I mean. It feels right most of the time, but I’m worried about my father.”
“I think it’s the best thing that’s happened to Christian in a very long time,” Helen said, turning to the box and re-ordering its contents. “You’ve done him quite a favor.”
“I have?” Emmy asked.
“Your mother’s not an easy woman, from all accounts.”
Emmy looked again at Daniel. “Maybe if he hadn’t died…” Emmy let the photo fall back into the box, among the still living and the long dead. “Maybe then she could have loved us all a little better.”
Helen put the top on snugly and rose to place it on the shelf beside the fireplace. “Your mother loves you,” Helen said with her back to Emmy. She turned and smiled. “In her way. Get some sleep.”
* * *
Around the time the crickets finally stopped their lazy chirps and the frogs found something better to do than plague Emmy’s ears with their croaking, she awoke from her fitful tossing to the sound of her name being whispered from someplace outside of the cabin. Pulling on her robe, she slipped onto the screen porch and attempted to still the pounding in her ears enough to listen more closely for the voice. A blue calm had infused the backyard, which was laden with long squat shadows and the occasional speck of light caused by some tiny insect. Taking a gray-hued throw from the glider, Emmy wrapped her shoulders and pushed the screen door silently open with her bare night-whitened foot.
“Hello?” she whispered, emboldened by the vibrant cast of full moonlight showing the emptiness of the yard around her. It must have been a dream, she thought as she wandered through the mulchy grass toward the shore, drawn by the melody of the ripples lapping up against the tiny makeshift boat dock. There, at the end of a length of floating slatted wood, the slight figure of a much younger Ambrose sat throwing pebbles into the distance, puncturing the still surface of the inky water, his shoulders sloped forward as though a great sadness was anchored around his neck. She knew him instantly as the lanky boy who had taught her how to shoot and dress a deer, a boy who had loved her more deeply and for such a long time that Emmy’s heart sickened at her own callousness.
“Ambrose?” she whispered, her voice hollowed out by the salty thirst of midnight. The boy didn’t respond, nor did he stop the perfect rhythm of the arcing rocks as he plucked each from his palm and sent them sailing against the dappled slash of moonlight stretching toward his feet. His blood-dark coat pooled behind him as Emmy set one foot on the dock and nearly fell into the water when it shifted and moved in front of her.
She started awake to find the cabin room around her, her cousins asleep in their beds, her aunt’s quiet snore echoing up into the open rafters overhead. Very slowly, Emmy pushed into a sitting position and looked out of the lakeside’s picture window. Though she could see that the dock remained bare, above the sleepy din of nocturnal solemnity, she could hear a noise that sounded like the quiet plinking of stones.
* * *
After breakfast the girls changed into swimsuits and went down to the dock, where Emmy was pleased to find a tiny patch of rough beach. Her dream slowly dissipated with the warming of the day, and she did her best to slip into the enjoyment of a Sunday spent at the lake. Bobby would be at church by now, her usual space next to his crowded by another Doyle. The wedding in Glyndon would be easier to forget if only he were with her, Emmy thought as she slipped off her sandals and looped the ankle straps over a finger. The silty dirt at the water’s edge felt cool under her tender feet as she dug her toes into its moistness. Looking around tentatively, she was somewhat relieved to see that the dock she had dreamed of in the night was farther away than she had imagined it. Exhaling into the damp air, she threw her towel down on a low-slung metal-framed chair with turquoise straps of woven material interlaced on the seat and backrest. She removed her slight linen cover-up to reveal an emerald green one-piece costume, cut low on the legs and high around the back, a halter tie around her neck. Into the warm, murky water she inched self-consciously, hesitating slightly at the pull of the sluggy lake bottom spiked with ankle-scratching reeds. The deeper she moved, the more real the world once again became and the tension she’d felt over the past days of calamity eased out of her joints and into the soupy foam swirling at her knees. Dot ran past her in a red two-piece suit with small Swiss dots and cute bows at each thigh and where the top met in the center of her ample bosom. She strapped a white cap with a large white flower onto her head and winked over her shoulder as she splashed into the lake. Gini hurried behind in a darling yellow maillot with tiny appliqued daisies along the trim. The sisters swam toward a raft that was anchored some yards away from shore. Emmy looked over her shoulder to see Helen in her pink chenille bathrobe already settled into a chair, a large-brimmed straw hat perched on her head and a magazine spread out on her lap. The day was a stunner—no clouds, no humidity, just dazzling sunshine and a slight breeze. Emmy shivered and waded deeper. She couldn’t swim. In fact, the green one-piece was the first bathing suit she had ever owned or worn, and it was no small thing to have put it on and walked brazenly out here to the edge of her modesty. The girls reached the raft and Dot hoisted herself out of the water, in turn helping Gini before yelling back to Emmy.
“C’mon in!” Dot called from the raft, hands on either side of her mouth.
“I can’t swim,” Emmy said.
Dot laughed, lifted a hand to shade her eyes, and pointed with the other to the dock. “Use the canoe, and don’t fall in!”
They passed the day sunning on the shore, paddling around on the lake, fishing from the dock, and wading to cool off. Late in the afternoon, Emmy picked up one of Helen’s magazines and turned a few pages before settling into a kind of day-trance, letting the cares slide away from her tightly held grasp. She drifted around a bit
through her thoughts, tried to focus in on Bobby, smiled with her eyes closed and her head tilted to one side. She wondered where he was right now this minute, and figured he was finished with Sunday dinner and back out on the road. The crew was working at full tilt, including Sunday afternoons, and Bobby’s current role was to sweat it out alongside the guys who mixed and poured the cement. She pictured Bobby with his tanned back bared to the sun, using a long-handled hoe to move the wet mixture of rocks and cement evenly around the boxed form lined with thin iron reinforcement bars. He’d described the process in great detail, explaining to her how important the four-lane road would be, how it would open up the state of North Dakota to the rest of the world. His enthusiasm was intoxicating when she was with him, but here, far away on another shore, she turned her mind away from his ambition and pressed upon the thin ice of her own. She could see beneath her own mundane responsibilities a growing desire to take up a pen, to explore subjects, and perhaps unravel details that could be spun up into the kind of stories people would want to read. Surely Jim meant it when he said her instincts being wrong was just a rookie mistake, even though Emmy still felt stupid. There had been kindness in his voice, after all, and a kindred spirit in the way he shared the Halsey boy’s situation. It didn’t seem likely Jim would trust her unless he saw some potential in her. If she just kept trying, working hard and paying attention, she’d learn how not to make those kinds of mistakes and before long she’d have the assignment she craved.
And yet, here was where the hitch always happened—something in her gut told her that once she and Bobby were engaged, her work would fade away, and he would eventually insist that she give it up. All the more reason to work harder, prove herself so good at it that he could never question the way being in that newsroom made her brain buzz like no place else.
Deeper into a sun-snooze Emmy went, applying her logic first to the Arthur fire and then the one before it, which led her to see Pete’s face shimmering in the heat of both—there to put them out even as he had started a fire of a different kind in her. A fly landed on her nose; she brushed it off lazily, annoyed at the disturbance it caused her train of thought. Where was she? Pete. At the car, telling her that Bobby didn’t love her, couldn’t. Why? Deeper still into the lull of the waves, the tinkling of ice in a brightly colored aluminum glass that felt cooler to the touch on her lip than the liquid felt on her tongue. A car door slamming, the sound reminiscent of Mr. Davidson’s car on the high prairie road, Ambrose’s profession of love, making her heart heavy in her chest. A hand on her shoulder, squeezing, gently shaking.
“Emmy, wake up,” Helen’s warm voice spoke from far off. Emmy sat up in her chair, wincing against the way the rays of the sun at this hour scattered across the top of the water. It hit her sleep-weakened vision with a million shards of dazzling light. She couldn’t remember a thing she had been thinking, only that she was incredibly thirsty.
“Emmy?” It was Helen again, but more firm this time. “Irv just got here. Your grandmother is back in the hospital. You need to go.”
Fifteen
My Peace Is Lost
The sun had set directly in Emmy’s vision as she drove through Dilworth, her skin feeling hot, tight, and increasingly painful to the touch. At one point she had pressed a finger to her forearm and was shocked to see how white the impression was compared to the surrounding bright pink skin. As she pushed the gas pedal nearly to the floor, glancing in the rearview every few seconds to check for flashing lights, all she could hope for was to arrive in time to say good-bye to Lida. No matter how Emmy felt about her family situation, she still deeply loved the grandmother who had stepped in and nurtured her when Karin couldn’t. In this way Lida and Josephine were clearly of the same blood—women who welcomed strays and reared foundlings as though they were their own children. Emmy felt lucky to have been cared for by both of them. The city limits finally closed in on the Crestliner, and Emmy made the turns toward the hospital as though pulled there instead of driven.
She walked into Saint Ansgar’s just as visiting hours were ending. Even so, when she asked the sister seated at the front desk about Lida Nelson, she was directed immediately to the third floor. Emmy’s pulse rose with the slow elevator, which rattled convulsively in a way that made her close her eyes. She’d never been in this hospital before, and suddenly wondered why her parents would bring Lida to a place run by Catholics. The large steel box shuddered to a stop and the doors made a scraping sound as they opened, over which Emmy could hear her mother’s loud voice from around the corner of the antiseptic-smelling hall.
“How dare you come here like this!” Karin was yelling at someone, and the words cut through Emmy as though they had been said to her own face. Emmy got out of the elevator, and though she could not hear the murmured reply, the tone was Josephine’s. “It’s not decent,” Karin continued with some restraint in her loud voice. “It’s bad enough she wanted to be brought here, without you showing up drunk.”
Emmy dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palms, focusing only on the sharp crescents of pain. She would have to take sides, as if it weren’t already clear to this scattering of blood ties exactly where she stood. As she turned the corner, a grim tableau appeared, framed by the overlit white of wall, ceiling, and floor: Christian seated on a hard wooden bench, hat dangling from one hand, face propped in the other; off to his right Birdie stood, wearing what could only be described as a traveling costume—a loose-fitting powder blue serge suit with matching navy hat and shoes, no doubt part of her trousseau—leaning against a somber Ambrose; two nuns dressed in white from toe to wimple, hovering and shushing outside Lida’s door.
“I showed up to make sure you did what she asked.” Josephine’s voice rose in volume to match that of Karin’s. “This has gone on for long enough. Let her die in peace.”
“I will not have it…” Karin yelled as she emerged from the room. She stopped short when her eyes met Emmy’s and the fire that was smoldering there burst into squinted blue flame. “And now you.” Karin looked up to the ceiling. “Please, Lord, give me the strength for all of this day.” She turned away from Emmy and walked off toward the elevator, followed by one of the nuns. The other approached Emmy and took her hand.
“We haven’t yet met, but I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, her voice as cool as her skin. “I’m Bobby’s Aunt Clare.” Emmy startled, taking in the sweet eyes, the smattering of freckles, all framed by the white wimple that fit tightly around Sister Clare’s face, and so smoothly across the top of her head that it made Emmy wonder whether she had any hair underneath it at all.
“Oh, hello,” Emmy said, managing a weak smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I called him when I realized Mrs. Nelson is your grandmother, and he called your aunt,” Sister Clare said, stroking Emmy’s palm in a way that made her sleepy.
“How bad is it?” Emmy asked, letting her eyelids drop as she waited for the worst.
“Father Munsch is on his way for the last rites,” Sister Clare said as softly as a drop of dew sliding down a blade of morning grass. “Are you ready to go in, dear? She’s been asking for you.”
“All right, then,” Emmy said, and followed the sister into the room, which was even whiter than the hallway had been, apart from the cold steel bars of the bed itself, and the curtain rod from which hung a white cotton drape. Behind this lay Emmy’s severely shrunken grandmother, whose skin seemed stretched tautly across her skeleton, as though it might take only a week for her to decompose. Sister Clare left the room with the door still open onto the murmuring hallway.
Josephine stood, wet-eyed, on the far side of the bed, gripping Lida’s tiny hand in her own much stronger one; both were rippled with wormy veins. It seemed to Emmy that far more than five years separated the sisters, Josephine’s loosely braided hair drawing back from her face in the same youthful way it had in the photo. I must remember to show it to Josephine, Emmy thought, but what did it really matter now, who the stranger
was? Whatever had happened that long time ago was no weightier than the vapor of memory about to rise out of the room on the back of Lida’s soul. History was nothing more substantial at this mortal threshold than something either long forgotten or not worth remembering in the first place. In any case, they would all be dust soon enough.
Lida lay motionless, her eyes closed except for a slight part where Emmy could see her grandmother’s rheumy gaze, her chest barely rising and falling beneath a small black Bible. Are we already at the visitation? Emmy thought, unable to look away, unable to focus on what lay before her. Death in all of its acuity. The end of Lida. When her grandfather had died, the body was swept away, returned in a closed casket without so much as a final look, and lowered into the ground later the same day.
Emmy looked at her aunt, and Josephine met her gaze. There was a sweet smell in the air right over the bed. Funny Emmy hadn’t noticed it before, but as she leaned in close to kiss her grandmother, the smell intensified, like a lilac or an Easter lily—cloying, inescapable, nauseating, pure. As her dry lips brushed Lida’s cheek, Emmy felt the old woman turn her head toward the kiss. Emmy turned her head at the same time, aligning ear to mouth.
“Bitter,” Lida rasped. Emmy waited, a dull pain in her lower back from falling asleep in the beach chair, sitting two hours in the car, hovering over the specter of death. Lida inhaled sharply, using the scant bit of air to say, “My rue is him.” It was barely a whisper and Emmy turned her head quickly to use her better listening ear. She waited as her grandmother’s chest rose, and on the thin exhale Emmy heard “My hurts unfair.” No more words came, and after a few moments of wheezy silence, Josephine walked around the bed, steadying her wobbly shuffle by dragging one arm across the thin cotton blanket, and eased Emmy up to standing. The inflammation of her skin where her aunt’s hand pinched as she led her toward the door shot sparks of light into Emmy’s vision. A different sort of spoiled fruit smell emanated from Josephine, as though she’d been working hard at pickling a patch of overripe watermelon.