by Cathy LaGrow
“What is wrong with her?” Agatha muttered to another girl.
Minka waited until the engines came alive and their sewing teacher was counting heads before she sought a different vehicle, any vehicle but the one Clara was in.
On the drive home to Aberdeen, Minka squeezed her eyes shut against the golden hues slanting over the wheat fields. She was sticky with sweat, not just her own, and nearly overwhelmed by the desire to leap from the car and scrub herself clean in some deep, cool well.
Minka made a promise to herself as the car bounced down the dirt road. She was a thoroughly honest person, but Minka knew that she must keep this day folded up and buried inside. She would not tell a soul what had just happened. As long as Clara didn’t tell either, it would disappear and be forgotten.
But Minka would be unable to keep her vow of silence. She could not imagine it now, but an agonizing journey lay ahead. And every day in the years to come would be inexorably linked to this solitary afternoon at Scatterwood Lake.
Time would scrub from her memory whatever words her assailant spoke, the clothes he wore, the contours of his face. But that cowboy hat, moving back and forth against a bleached-out August sky, was the image that endured.
Minka would never forget that single detail for as long as she lived. And that was going to be a very, very long time.
Chapter Two
“GIRLS.”
Honus’s soft voice came from the bottom of the stairwell. After three years at the dairy, that one word was all the alarm clock Minka and Jane needed to wake every morning.
It was pitch-dark, and the air on the other side of their goose-down blanket was cold, although not yet freezing as it would be by the end of the year. The bedroom’s paltry heat emanated from the stovepipe, which came up through the floor in one corner and exited into the ceiling on its way to the roof.
Jane’s cat had returned from prowling during the night and now lay curled between the girls, adding welcome warmth. Jane insisted that they leave the window open a few inches for him when they went to bed, even when it was snowing outside. Often, the damp paw prints he left scattered across the bedcovers would turn to ice by morning.
Today, November 10, was Minka’s seventeenth birthday, although she didn’t remember the date when she woke. Her family didn’t celebrate birthdays, so this morning felt no different from any other—unlike that morning three months ago, when she’d woken up with sore places under her nightgown and the previous day’s event huge in her mind.
The day when It had occurred.
She’d tried to put It out of her mind. The memory had stubbornly crept back at the oddest moments: when she was sitting on a milking stool or hanging out the wash; or especially when she sat in the bathtub on Saturday nights, the places he had seen and hurt all exposed beneath the water. Sometimes panic had bubbled up and she’d fought a longing to escape her life, to just pack a bag and board a train and go anyplace else, to be someone else. Other times she’d wanted to run all the way back to Uncle’s and hide in his dark, quiet root cellar, where no one would think to look for her.
The week after It happened, she’d dropped her dinner tin at the meatpacking house where she worked in the afternoons, twisting sausages alongside grown men. One of the Germans had knelt beside her. As he handed up the tin, he said, “Ach, Minnie, Sie mussen achtgeben.” Minnie, you must be careful. Though his words were innocuous and his tone gentle, he’d been so close that she could smell his sweat and something he’d cooked, maybe cabbage. Minka’s skin had gone clammy, and it had taken half an hour for her hands to stop trembling.
She was better now. She’d stopped drifting to a soundless place where she didn’t hear people right next to her, a habit that caused Jane to ask crossly, “What’s wrong with you?” Time passed, and her body healed. She hadn’t told a soul. Most people had secrets, didn’t they? Jennie had kept it secret when she married Honus. To this day, none of the children knew when or where their own mother’s wedding had occurred—they’d just been packed off to Honus’s to live one day, and that was that.
“Hurry,” Jane said on this unnoticed birthday morning.
Minka swung her legs to the edge of the bed. She usually had to prod Jane along, but this was the third time this week that her sister had gotten up first. Everything seemed harder to do lately, starting with getting her legs out from under the covers.
There was no lantern in their room, but Minka and Jane knew every inch of the plain bedroom by heart. They grabbed their overalls and bulky work shirts from the iron bedstead. Jane murmured good-bye to the cat, then followed Minka down the stairs. The cold floorboards leached warmth from their bare feet.
During the winter they dressed in the dining room, where a coal heater kept the air toasty. A faint, red glow showed through narrow openings in the grate, providing them with enough dim light to see armholes and buttons. As she reached the last step, Minka’s head began to swim. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself.
She’d been getting these light-headed flashes lately. Probably she wasn’t eating enough. Her appetite had been poor, and several times she’d asked her mother for the bright-blue bottle of Bromo-Seltzer, hoping the salty medicine would ease her indigestion.
After stepping into their overalls and adjusting the straps, the girls passed through the kitchen and said good morning to Jennie, who sat peeling potatoes at the table. She’d already lit the fire in the cookstove, and its heat was beginning to swallow the chill in the room. The girls pulled on their leather boots and stepped outside.
The predawn air slapped away any remaining sleepiness. Frost coated the ground, glittering in the moonlight and crunching beneath the girls’ boots. The quiet was broken by clanks and rumbles at the Milwaukee train yard across the road. The girls passed the coop where Jennie’s chickens still slept and headed for a wedge of light spilling from the door of the main barn. Honus had already lit lanterns along the barn posts inside. It was warmer there, where cows shifted in the stalls, udders bulging between their legs. Round, black eyes turned toward the sisters, and low moans rolled like murmurs from the more impatient heifers.
Jane took one side of the barn; Minka, the other. After filling the corn bins in front of each cow, Minka wound a chain around the leg of the first animal on her row. This one was a kicker, and Minka wore the large, dark bruises to prove it. Last week, the cow had deliberately fallen over on her. Minka’s leg had been pinned, and she’d spilled a full pail of milk—a wasteful accident on a farm where frugality was prized.
Minka was leaning against the warm side of a cow when the day’s first light spilled through the half-open barn door. As she shifted on the hard stool, straw dust floated upward, irritating her nose. Her strong fingers gripped a teat, pulling and squeezing downward. Warm milk hissed into the pail in a smooth rhythm.
The cow shifted its back foot, almost coming down on her toes. She pushed her shoulder into its leg, and the cow swung its head, giving her a disinterested glance before dipping back into its corn bin. When the stream of milk turned to drops, Minka lifted the bucket and poured the milk into a large metal canister. She moved on to the next cow.
At least today was Saturday, which meant she didn’t have to think about classes going on without her over at the high school. She’d hoped to stop feeling the loss of her education, given enough time, but it continued to niggle at her mind like a pesky little sibling with a pointed stick. She would’ve learned on her own if she could have. But there were no books at Honus’s, and she didn’t have time to go to the public library in Aberdeen, as inviting as she found its large, columned front porch and rooms full of books.
It didn’t help that Honus occasionally brought her along on deliveries, saying she “needed to learn the route.” They’d pass Central High School, the pretty, redbrick building with its triple rows of gleaming windows, and it was as if Minka could see big letters splashed across the front in white paint, spelling out a message: This Is Not for You.
Ironica
lly, when they’d lived at Uncle’s, Minka had often dreaded going to school. The din in the one-room prairie schoolhouse had been so loud that she couldn’t think straight. She didn’t know that her vision was poor, that eyestrain caused her frequent headaches—she assumed that everyone was born with a headache. When she squinted at the blackboard or held a book up to her face so she could see the letters, the spinster teacher barked impatiently at her.
Her favorite part of each school day had been the long trek there and back, walking through neighbors’ fields and climbing over splintery fences. As she’d passed under a dome of endless sky and felt prairie winds sweep across the open acres, she’d had a delicious sense of freedom, of solitude, even with John and Jane chattering beside her. Sitting in the schoolroom, by contrast, had made her feel like she was in captivity.
Minka didn’t realize how much she needed the nourishing pride of learning until after her education ended, at the conclusion of eighth grade. School had tried her quiet personality, but it had also fed her hungry mind, giving her a sense of moving forward through life. She’d had something precious, and now it was gone.
And she would have given most anything to have it back.
* * *
Milking the dairy’s dozen cows was only part of Minka and Jane’s twice-daily routine. Once the gray, ten-gallon canisters were full, the girls lugged them to the cooling room, set up in a separate building away from earthy barn odors that could spoil milk. After running the milk through a cooler to prevent bacterial growth, they carried the cans to the house, where a large room held the bottling machine. This was the easiest and most satisfying part of the job, pulling levers and watching glass bottles fill with the milk they’d worked so hard to collect. During the last step, the machine stamped paper caps on the bottles and set them down in uniform rows. Both girls loved the clean, soothing pattern of it.
Minka could remember when a fondness for order, combined with her iron will, had gotten her in trouble. As a little girl, she’d wanted everything in its proper place, including the food on her plate. She didn’t want the meat touching the carrots, or the potatoes slopping onto the biscuits. Sometimes, if Jennie was in a hurry dishing out food, the separate components of Minka’s meal all slid together.
A well-raised Dutch girl wouldn’t dream of sassing an adult or voicing a complaint. Instead, Minka would sit back in her chair and cross her small arms. As everyone else dug into their food, Minka stared at her plate.
Jennie usually chose to ignore her daughter’s silent protest, but on a bad day it might strike Uncle wrong. He’d set down his fork, raise a thick finger, and bellow.
“Schmeiss sie in den Keller!” Throw her in the cellar!
Minka would push back her chair and march to the cellar door with the grave air of someone unjustly convicted of a crime. She’d take the rickety stairs down and sidle along the dirt floor in front of the canning shelves. Plopping next to the potato mound, she’d wait in the dark for the basement salamanders to creep over. Then she’d play with them until everyone had finished supper and Jennie called her back upstairs.
Minka no longer staged childish protests over slopped food, although she still often felt that old stubbornness rise up. It seemed as much a part of her as her brown hair and big feet. These days, more and more, she wielded that determination, used it to force herself from bed to perform her work as required, to not be pressed down by despair, to hold out hope for some kind of future that involved anything but cleaning and cows.
She used that obstinacy to keep It pushed to the furthest corner of her mind, a place she could will herself not to access. Of course, the never-ending daily physical work kept those thoughts at bay too.
When all the milk bottles were filled that November morning, the girls carried the heavy crates out to Honus’s truck. Jane brought a container of skimmed cream to the house. Near the kitchen doorway they passed Honus leaving for his morning deliveries.
Jennie had breakfast waiting: thick oatmeal bubbling in a pot, salty strips of bacon, and potatoes fried into crispy wedges. Coffee simmered on the stove, bitter and ready for the sweet cream to smooth it out. The scents mixed in the air, filling the room with a warm and satisfying homeyness.
But Minka’s stomach rolled with a wave of nausea.
“I’ll just have oatmeal this morning, Mom.” Minka spooned some from the pot. The thick porridge settled into lumps in her bowl, looking as if someone had been sick in it. She sat down, pushing away the thought. Jane stood by the stove, picking strips of bacon out of the frying pan.
Jennie twisted toward Minka, peering at her with a concerned expression. A drop of bacon grease fell from the wooden spoon in her hand and splattered onto the rag rug beneath her feet. A new thought leapt into Minka’s mind: Is something wrong with Mom?
Minka felt too tired to think of a way to ask. She picked at her oatmeal.
“Would you girls like to go to the house of Janssens dis afternoon?” Jennie asked from where she knelt scrubbing at the grease spot with a towel. “I talk vit Mrs. Janssen, and she said dat we come for a visit. After dinner, maybe?”
Jane looked up quickly, eyes flashing with delight.
“Yes! Can we? Oh, maybe Nellie will play piano for us. I’m going to wear my blue dress—is it clean?”
Jennie chuckled. “Ja, Jane, is clean. In de closet.” She looked at Minka. She seemed to be waiting for something. Looking for something.
“That sounds fun, Mom.” The bland response didn’t seem sufficient, even to Minka. “I’ll wear my plaid dress.” She smiled at Jennie, trying not to look as tired as she felt.
Minka was always happy to get away from the dairy, and a girls-only visit was a rare treat. She just wished she weren’t so tired. And she hoped this indigestion would be gone by then.
* * *
Minka sat in the Janssens’ living room, poking her fork at a slice of still-warm spice cake Mom had baked. The Janssens were fellow Dutch, and Minka saw them at church every Sunday. Like most of the other teenaged girls in town, the sisters, Jette and Nellie, attended high school, went to school football games and dances, and regularly saw movies at the theater. They had little in common with Minka or Jane, could not relate to their callused hands or their ignorance of higher mathematics. But Jette and Nellie had been properly brought up and were polite to the DeYoung girls. They sat on the couch, chatting with Jane.
Jane, as always, was perfectly at ease.
Spice cake was Minka’s favorite, and treats were rare in their household, where Honus and Jennie sat and pored over each monthly grocery bill. But today the cake tasted sickeningly sweet; she had to force every forkful into her mouth.
Maybe I caught something riding along the milk route on Thursday, she thought. She’d been the one hopping out of the truck to retrieve empty bottles off porches, replacing them with quarts of fresh milk, helping Honus carry crates into the grocery stores, speaking politely to the clerks. Ever since the horrible, worldwide Spanish flu pandemic a decade earlier, everyone worried about diseases and infections that spread from one person to another. Two months earlier, a Scottish scientist had discovered something he called “mould juice,” but no one had yet realized the significance of the find; it would be a dozen more years before penicillin was put into production.
“Nellie.” Mrs. Janssen stepped in from the kitchen, where she’d been visiting with Minka’s mother.
The girls stopped talking and turned in her direction. When adults spoke, children hushed—it was a law of the universe, as surely as the way a stone cupped in your palm and then released would drop straight to the ground.
“Why don’t you play something on the piano for our guests?” Mrs. Janssen gestured toward a tall, brown instrument pushed against the wall.
Nellie hesitated, glanced at Jane and then Minka. “Would you like to hear something?”
There were no instruments at Honus’s. Minka and Jane nodded at once.
As Nellie raised the sleek lid, revealing the wh
ite and black keys, longing and envy vied for Minka’s emotions. She watched Nellie flip through a songbook, the thick pages rasping against each other, a prelude to the music. Nellie couldn’t play as well as Mrs. Johnston, the organist at church—but she produced a real song. She was making music.
Minka looked down at her ruined fingers, now clasped together. It was possible that even if she had a piano, and even if she were offered lessons, she’d never manage the keys smoothly, not with her crooked bones. But if she were Nellie, Minka was sure that she would play every day. She’d play until her hands were too tired to move.
Self-pity was an unknown trait in Minka’s world. Jennie didn’t complain about her misfortunes, about the backbreaking work that had fallen to her every day since her first husband had died. Minka’s earliest memory was of her mother polishing the cookstove at Uncle’s with a soft cotton rag, one of a hundred daily tasks she performed from sunup until sundown. This work ethic had been imprinted on Minka’s and Jane’s souls, and they emulated it faithfully, unconsciously.
But lately Minka felt plagued by a discontent that filled her like a sickness. Nellie’s song stirred a wave of sadness and guilt that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. Minka swallowed hard and gritted her teeth to keep from crying, to keep from embarrassing all of them, to keep from drawing another strange look from Jennie. She shifted in Nellie’s direction and then caught her mother’s eyes already upon her. Minka wished she could go home.
Cleaning and milking were better than this turmoil, these emotions, whatever this was.
* * *
The following day after church, Jennie asked Minka to help hang the washing.
Minka carried the heavy basket outside and set it on the cold, crusted ground. Rays of weak sunshine poked through the clouds, but a steady breeze from across the prairie pushed against her face, chilling her skin. Wet laundry was hung outside no matter how cold it was, even if the clothes froze stiff and had to be thawed inside before folding.