The Waiting

by Cathy LaGrow

  Minka pulled one of Honus’s damp shirts from the pile, draped it over the line, clipped it in place. She reached for another. Her mother worked next to her, hanging a pair of Honus’s pants. After a moment, Jennie spoke.

  “Minnie, where are your rags?”

  Minka was distracted, thinking about the cute little boy with soft, black curls and a missing front tooth who’d sat in the pew in front of her that morning. He’d kept turning around and making faces at Minka until his mother whispered fiercely in his ear.

  “Hmmm?” she said.

  Jennie repeated her question, adding, “Your monthlies.”

  “Oh.” That. Those had been blessedly absent for a while. “I haven’t been getting them.” She hauled a long sheet over the line.

  “Not getting? Since when?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of months now.”

  Jennie had stopped moving.

  “Since de summer?”

  Minka thought for a moment. “Well . . . I think so. Yes.”

  Jennie stared at Minka, her soft face anxious. There was a long pause.

  “Minnie,” her mother said. “Haf you . . . haf you ever . . . been wit a boy?”

  A jolt of adrenaline raced through Minka. Even though her mother’s words didn’t make sense, at the word boy, her mind flashed back to It—to hot, dry grass crushed under her back, to a trickle of blood, to a cowboy hat against a blazing sky.

  “What do you mean?” Her voice came out high-pitched.

  “I mean . . . haf you been alone wit a boy? Wanneer hij . . . jou aangeraakt?” When he touched you?

  How does Mom know about that? Minka thought. How could she possibly know? Did someone see and tell her? Had Clara said something, or had Mack come around?

  Minka stammered. She couldn’t seem to form words.

  “Minnie.” This time Jennie’s voice was firmer. She dropped the sheet she was holding, right on the dirt. She took Minka by the hands and pulled her close. “Tell what happen.”

  So Minka told. She told about the skating rink, about the walk with Clara, about the camera and the men. Red faced and haltingly and staring at the ground, she told it all.

  “Oh, Minnie.” Minka looked up at the sound of her mother’s torn voice. Jennie’s gentle eyes spilled over with tears. The white sheet lay around her feet like a wet cloud.

  “Minnie . . . I think you are going to haf a baby.”

  Chapter Three

  REVEREND WILLIAM F. KRAUSHAAR’S office at Zion Lutheran Church was a fitting backdrop for the dignified minister Minka had known all her life. Important-looking documents hung in fancy frames on the walls, and glass-fronted cabinets were stuffed with thick books. The large desk was wooden, scratched but shiny. The office looked capable of imparting wisdom and serenity to anyone who merely sat in it for a while, which would have been a welcome miracle for Minka. Her entire body seemed to radiate a deep and horrid shame, one that was surely visible to everyone.

  She’d never entered the office before today, had never walked down the private hallway that led here. It was another place meant for adults, with closed doors and austere furnishings and silence. She’d tried to step lightly, but the sound of her shoes knocking on the wooden floor echoed much too loudly.

  Minka had dressed well for this meeting. In the back of the family’s one shared closet at home, she’d caught a glimpse of the white-and-green dress she’d sewn with such expectation, as if the garment might open a door to a new life. Now it hung in a dark corner, worn only that day at Scatterwood Lake and then passed over, time and again, ever since.

  As Minka took in the room, her fingers touched the soft pearls that lay against the bodice of her nicest church dress. She was wearing a favorite of her mother’s necklaces. Jennie had taken it from a drawer that morning and fastened it around her daughter’s neck. The feel of Jennie’s arm brushing her shoulder and the familiar smell of the homemade soap she’d used on the dinner dishes had filled Minka’s eyes with tears.

  Now Minka sat beside Jennie, wishing with all her might that she were somewhere else. A week earlier, when Jennie had made her baffling pronouncement—“You’re going to have a baby”—Minka didn’t understand at first.

  “You mean the stork is coming?” she’d asked.

  In an anguished mixture of Dutch and English, her mother had explained that, no, there’d never been a stork; well, there were storks, but they were only birds, not mythical messengers skimming heaven and returning with newborns.

  The adults in Minka’s life, like their parents before them, had taken great pains to play out the cherished fable from their Old World tradition. Some years earlier the family had visited Jennie’s brother, who’d also immigrated to America and then married a housemaid. Jennie and Aunt Teresa were talking in the kitchen while Minka and Jane played with their toddler cousin. Abruptly, the sharp wail of a baby sounded from another room.

  “Oh my goodness.” Teresa covered her mouth in surprise. “Where is dat coming from?”

  Minka and Jane looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

  “Go on.” Teresa prodded the girls. “Go see what it is.”

  The girls crept into Teresa’s bedroom and found a newborn baby lying on the bed, squalling. The window was wide open, the curtains blowing against the wall.

  “De stork brought another baby!” Minka’s aunt and mother exclaimed.

  Minka had raced to the window, trying to catch a glimpse of flapping wings, of this magical bird she’d never seen.

  She’d never questioned the story. Although they’d been raised on a farm, there had been a tangled code of propriety governing what she and Jane were exposed to. When Jennie cut off the heads of chickens or geese, the girls stood by to boil the bodies and pluck the feathers, but they weren’t allowed near the barn when the big animals—the cows or pigs—were being slaughtered. They knew Uncle drowned the occasional sackful of unwanted barn kittens, but the girls never knew exactly where those kittens had come from, since they were kept from seeing any births.

  Until her painful awakening, Minka had pictured storks as heavenly creatures that drew up close to God and returned with soft, wrinkly gifts. She’d looked forward to some distant day, after she was married, when the graceful bird would fly to her home and deliver the babies who were meant for her.

  But not a word of it was true. Jennie had explained that a child grew here, touching her own stomach. It filled Minka with dread and the sense that she was falling through an unfamiliar space. What more did she believe that was untrue? What other facets of life lacked the wonder and beauty she hoped existed beyond dust, barns, and crates of milk bottles?

  With a week to ponder these revelations, the story Minka had trusted all her life sounded silly. She couldn’t believe she’d never questioned why Aunt Teresa and some of the church ladies occasionally gained weight—concealed under billowing aprons, yes, but still there—then mysteriously lost it. She couldn’t believe that in seventeen years, Mom had not found the right moment to turn the page on childhood, to tell her daughters the truth. Minka felt duped.

  And now they’d come to Reverend Kraushaar’s office.

  The Reverend entered the room with a warm hello and sat down behind his desk. When his chair scraped the floor, Minka flinched. She couldn’t tell where he was looking, because she kept her eyes locked on the worn edge of a hymnal resting near his arm. She had an urge to pick it up and flip through the pages, to lose herself in the words of familiar songs. To focus on something else for the next half hour.

  He already knew, of course. Jennie had visited him earlier this week. At least Minka would not have to sit through hearing the story again—or worse, tell it herself. When Minka was a toddler, her family had attended the small Lutheran church in Warner, near Uncle’s farm. Every Sunday, after conducting services here in Aberdeen, Reverend had driven his buggy ten miles to minister to that country congregation too. He was a kind man with daughters of his own, but Minka couldn’t imagine telling the Revere
nd about It.

  “Minka,” he said in a gentle tone, then hesitated. Minka heard him sigh. Her eyes stayed locked on the hymnal. “Your mother told me what happened.”

  Minka had believed herself incapable of more embarrassment, but hearing him allude to It, her face flushed hot all over again. Her head spun until she gripped the arms of the chair to steady herself. Manners dictated a reply.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, trying and failing to look at his face. Her eyes moved to a seam along the edge of his dark wool suit.

  “We’ve been talking about the best course of action. What would be the best for you and the . . . ah, the child.”

  Jennie placed a hand on Minka’s left arm. Minka was grateful for the pressure. Perhaps it would keep her from sliding away through the floorboards.

  The Reverend continued. “While this is certainly a troublesome situation, a terrible wrong bestowed upon you, we have a solution in mind. A way for you to . . . retain your good character. Which I am in no doubt of.” To emphasize, he placed one broad hand on his chest, right where Minka was staring. “I know this was not your fault. You are innocent of any wrongdoing. But now we must . . . we must think of your future. And that of the . . . the child to come.”

  Jennie was evidently not going to interject. Her hand stayed on Minka’s arm.

  “You see, there is a place I know of. A place down in Sioux Falls where they help girls . . . like you. Girls who have found themselves in, ah, delicate situations. When your time approaches, I will write them and ask for their help.

  “In the meantime, your mother and stepfather have decided you will stay with Mr. Vander Zee’s aunt in Iowa.”

  Minka looked at her mother and saw the drawn eyebrows and pressed lips she wore when worried. So this was true. They were sending her away? This felt like a punishment. She’d never been to Sioux Falls or to another state, but she knew these places were far away from home. Minka had dreamed of escaping her dairy life, but not like this.

  “It is best if you tell no one of this,” the Reverend continued. “Not even your sister. You will deliver the baby, and then . . . there are people who will want to adopt the child. To give it a good home. And you can then return back here. No one will know what happened. You can go on with life as before. . . .”

  His voice was drowned out by Minka’s own frightened thoughts. Never before had she so wished that children’s questions were not verboten. Who was going with her? How would she sleep without her sister on the other side of the bed? Would she ever see her family again?

  And how could she possibly prepare for this event that was coming?

  * * *

  Back at home, Jennie patted Minka’s back and suggested she “go lie down,” something unheard of in the middle of the day if a person was not deathly sick. Minka did feel unnaturally exhausted, as if she’d been out in the garden hoeing rows all day. But pulsing through her was a strong need to be doing something, to lose herself in the familiar rigors of work. After grabbing a dusting rag from a kitchen drawer and stopping in the family’s closet to change into overalls, she fled to the second story. She sought escape from her mother’s anguished eyes, her sister’s puzzled glances, the chattering in her own mind.

  But the chattering came right along with her.

  So this is it. Everything decided, before she’d walked into Reverend’s office. She would have a baby, and then she wouldn’t have a baby.

  She placed one hand on her stomach. Minka now understood how It had become this. Minka’s “troubles,” as the Reverend referred to her situation, were something that was supposed to happen after marriage, with her husband, not forced upon her by a stranger. Jennie had explained it last week. Minka still struggled to accept it all.

  She could hear Jane walking around downstairs, closing doors and drawers as she dusted the first floor. Jane wouldn’t pepper their mother with questions. Minka knew those would be saved up for her, once they were alone in their room tonight. And she was going to have to be dishonest, again.

  “What is wrong with you? Are you sick?” Jane had asked her one morning this week while shaking Minka awake. Honus’s simple “Girls” hadn’t roused her. And although Jane wasn’t as observant as Minka, she’d noticed that their mother treated Minka differently now, almost as she’d always treated Jane. As if she were more fragile, needed some tending to.

  Minka had never lied or kept anything from her sister; she’d never had anything to hide until Scatterwood Lake. A baby seemed an impossible thing to conceal, but in the Reverend’s office this afternoon, Minka had been assured that she needed to do just that. For her own sake.

  Minka took the cloth rag and scrubbed at the banister surrounding the staircase, as though the repetitive movement could wipe away her distress. During warmer months, when windows were left open for circulation, this dusting had to be done every afternoon, even when the air upstairs was hotter than a kettle of boiling peaches at canning time. Between smoke and soot billowing from the trains, and dust being churned up by cows in the nearby stockyard, everything in the house was coated with grime every day.

  Now the windows were closed tight against the winter weather and dusting was needed only twice weekly. This had always been Minka’s favorite chore—she savored the time alone. She usually practiced singing in front of the mirror, pretending she was the great opera diva from the radio, Madame Schumann-Heink. She envisioned Douglas Fairbanks, or one of the other dark-haired silent film stars who made her pulse flutter, appearing in a doorway, tossing her dust rags and whisking her away from the farm.

  Those hours of daydreaming had been a harmless way to pass dull afternoons, but today her thoughts raced. Jane still believed in storks bringing babies. Minka wanted to warn her. Not a stork, but It. What if the same thing happened to Jane?

  A longing for her sister’s friendship rolled over her, a desire for a stronger connection. Their differences often created a wedge between them, with Jane mercilessly teasing her shy sister and Minka envying Jane’s ease with strangers, with their own mother. But they’d been each other’s only companion all these years, and in rare moments such as this, Minka realized how tightly they were bound together.

  After finishing the banisters and baseboards in the hallway, Minka moved into the first of four upstairs bedrooms, the one she and Jane shared. The room was plainly furnished with a double bed and a wooden dresser. The bedspread was creaseless; the rag rug below lined up perfectly with the dresser. Weak daylight spilled in from the side window, and when Minka saw her reflection in the mirror, half of her was illuminated in the soft light and the other half appeared smudged, as though she weren’t entirely there. She placed a hand on her stomach again. It was as flat and firm as ever. Yet somewhere in there was a baby, underneath the skin and blood and bones. How could a real baby be that tiny, smaller than a mouse?

  Minka had never had many toys, but she had owned a doll once. At Uncle’s, the money Jennie earned by selling butter or chickens in town usually went to buy fabric, school shoes, and kitchen supplies. One Christmas Minka had opened a paper-and-twine package and was amazed to find a fancy doll with a leather body and china feet and hands. The doll’s eyes closed when it was laid flat. Minka had treated the plaything like a live baby, holding it close and staring at it for long stretches of time. A short time later, toddling Jane had gotten ahold of it and promptly poked its eyes out. But Minka could remember clearly how much she’d treasured that doll, even after it was damaged.

  She’d spent countless moments the last week imagining the baby inside of her. She’d pictured herself holding it, patting its back. She’d held Aunt Teresa’s baby a few times—she knew how soft a baby’s skin was. How helpless they were. Maybe her baby would be a boy, like that boy she’d seen in church last week.

  And yet she and this child were destined to be strangers. Would this baby grow up to look like her? Would she know her own son or daughter, if she saw the child on the street?

  Minka couldn’t guess how long she
’d been standing in one spot, looking at the mirror but seeing one scene after another flash by, possibilities and ultimatums and uncertainties. Memories tangled together with thoughts of the future. Maybe if she didn’t move, none of these things would happen. She would just be suspended in time, right here, with no decisions to be made or actions to be taken.

  Terrible reality slapped Minka awake, leaving no room in her mind for pretending. She, and It, had made an actual baby. An unmarried teenager was going to become a mother. And, as Reverend and Mom had made perfectly clear, that girl was going to come home without that baby. This, too, was another piece to process.

  What woman received a baby only to give it away?

  * * *

  Her mother was the best person to chart a path for Minka, but even at thirty-nine years old, Jennie didn’t know how to break down the stiff boundaries between parents and children. During her childhood in Holland, though Jennie never doubted the love of her mother and father, they did not speak the words. They didn’t share their thoughts or affectionately touch their children. It had never occurred to Jennie to tell her own children “I love you,” although she did love them, with everything in her.

  A week ago, in the middle of the night, Jennie’s eyes had flashed open with the possibility of what was wrong with Minka. It couldn’t be—and yet, as she’d discovered, it was. As her daughter revealed what she had endured and kept locked inside, Jennie’s heart felt sliced in half. Since then Jennie had performed all her daily tasks—preparing food and scrubbing floors and feeding chickens and washing clothes—with a deep, sharp ache inside.

  She already knew the crushing weight of sudden tragedy. She knew it all too well.

  Jennie could not help wondering if this would have happened in the world she’d grown up in. She’d come to this foreign country as a young wife, the first in her family to emigrate, full of hope for adventure. Old memories rushed to the surface, mingling with this new trouble until the weight of it threatened to sink Jennie. Might she be to blame, somehow? Had her youthful choices paved the way for this outcome?