by Cathy LaGrow
And then somehow they were in the truck and driving away. Minka could not look back, or she would scream. Ordinary trees flashed by the windows, ordinary sunshine glinted off the glass, and meanwhile Minka’s insides were breaking apart and crumbling to dust. This must be what dying felt like. To know that the life created inside of her, the life she had held in her arms—that life was better off without her. To leave the most important part of her behind, forever.
No. Death would probably be kinder than this.
Chapter Eight
HOURS LATER, Jennie and Minka stepped out of the truck at Riverside Park in Tante’s hometown. Instantly they were enveloped by sounds and smells: organ music pumped up and down, mixing with happy screams and the aroma of grease, meat, and sugary treats. Electric lights hung from tree branches and wooden signs. Booths with striped skirts offered sales of Coca-Cola, Kewpie dolls, and fairy floss, a spun-sugar confection that some people called “cotton candy.” The combined effect was so startling that the pressure on Minka’s heart loosened. She’d never seen or heard such commotion.
Jennie’s instinct had been a good one. At the end of this terrible day, the thing they needed was distraction, and this place certainly provided it. After leaving the House of Mercy, they had made the two-hour drive to Iowa, where they were spending the night with Tante Hogerhide. On the way, Jennie had sat in the front of the truck, every muscle in her body clenched. Although only a few muffled sounds came from the back, Minka’s grief was like a damp fog pushing into every inch of the vehicle. Jennie didn’t know what to say and therefore said little, even to Honus.
When they arrived at Tante’s house, there was a spread of food waiting. Tante had prepared enough for a banquet, as if the varied dishes might soothe the pain. Honus mumbled something about needing to look at a sag in the roof eaves before dark and escaped to the yard. Minka tried to be polite but couldn’t swallow more than a couple of bites. Then Tante mentioned nearby Riverside Park. Jennie jumped at the chance to get her daughter out of the too-quiet house, where a missing baby girl seemed to fill every room.
A breeze pushed off the lazy Big Sioux River. The sun hung low in the sky, drawing away the day’s heat and casting a soft light over trees and water. There had been a trace of warm rain earlier in the day, but it had passed and the ground was now dry. Mosquitoes dipped and jabbed while pedestrians slapped at arms and necks.
“Look at that,” Minka murmured, pointing to a wooden roller coaster carrying a compact train of screaming people into the air. Her voice wasn’t joyful, but the note of curiosity belonged to the old Minnie. It was the first unprompted thing she’d said since leaving the House of Mercy. Jennie was quick to reply.
“I haf never seen such a thing,” she said. “So high in sky . . . so fast . . . I would fear to fall off.” They stood and watched the passengers swooping around. Crowds of people moved along the pathways. Every several yards there was a new spectacle: a merry-go-round, an enclosure with people driving miniature cars around in a circle, something called a Tilt-A-Whirl.
They were standing near a giant wooden wheel carrying swinging carts into the air when Jennie noticed Minka staring at a young woman holding a small bundle, a bundle just like the one Minka had held only that morning. A baby. Two small children wiggled around the woman’s legs. The woman patted her baby’s back as she listened to a barker calling from a small booth.
Minka’s eyes shone with tears. Her jaw was tight. Jennie sifted through words in three different languages but couldn’t find any that meant anything useful.
Still, Jennie’s plan was working as well as it could. Jennie and Minka wove between the performers and crowds lined up for rides, their eyes sweeping around the sights. Minka looked at everything, although little seemed to truly captivate her. When Jennie bought some fairy floss, Minka ate from the paper cone with mechanical movements, as if unaware that she was pulling at the pieces of fluffy confection and putting them into her mouth.
In the fading light, Minka moved like a ghost. Jennie half-wondered if her daughter would start passing through walls and trees, if people would soon walk right through her.
Minka spoke.
“Miss Bragstad said they’d come for her soon—within a couple of days.” They’d wandered near the Big Sioux River, away from the crowds. Electric lights reflected in the black, mirrored surface of the water.
“Ja.” Jennie’s mind snatched at scraps of phrases. “Dat will be good. Dey will take good care of her, you know.”
“I know, Mom.” Minka stood perfectly still, a pale statue wearing a fabric dress. Only her lips moved. “It will be a good home.”
Jennie didn’t know if they should talk about the baby. She wanted to connect with this wounded part of her daughter, which right now seemed to be all of her, but she didn’t want to cause more pain. Surely a compliment wouldn’t hurt?
“I remember how she look at me, her eyes,” Jennie said. “She is smart baby, ja? She will do well.” Two boys ran past them, headed toward the merry-go-round. Their excited voices broke the quiet, then faded out again.
Jennie pressed on. “She had ears like you, I think. You had ears dat stuck out from your head. I will never forget.”
Minka’s reply was quiet, but there was granite in her voice. Her words were a benediction. A promise.
“I’ll never forget anything about her, Mom.”
Jennie gazed at her daughter, filled with worry. How was Minka supposed to heal if she couldn’t forget about Betty Jane?
* * *
Once they had hugged Tante good-bye the following morning, Honus turned the truck northward again. The more miles that separated Minka from her little girl, the more she felt her absence, and the more the silence seemed to settle in the truck like a heavy burden.
Honus drove all that day, while Minka slept in the back on a blanket—numb, exhausted, and sweaty. That night, in the middle of South Dakota, they stayed with more Vander Zee kin. These people knew nothing of Minka’s ordeal, and Jennie excused her daughter by murmuring, “Ze voelt zich ziek”: She isn’t feeling well. Minka fell into a guest bed early in the evening. The room was stuffy, and the sheets were as warm as though freshly ironed. She lay watching the summer sun’s last light fade across the bedroom walls and cried herself into the welcome oblivion of sleep.
The following day they started the final leg of their return. Minka’s fatigue seemed to consume her. She curled up on the blanket and had just about fallen asleep again when Jennie cried out from the front seat. Minka sat up with a start and looked in the direction her mother was pointing. Honus was already pulling over to the side of the road.
The roof of the farmhouse to their right was engulfed in flames.
Her heart pounding, Minka jumped from the truck, one thought echoing through her mind: Are there children in there? Panic sliced through her, and she raced to the front door. When no one responded to her frantic knocks, Minka rushed inside ahead of Jennie and Honus.
Seeing no one and hearing no cries, the threesome began carrying furnishings and other items out of the house. They even managed to remove an upright piano from the parlor. A few neighbors arrived and helped to salvage everything they could. In the end, they saved everything except the stove. Finally, the lady of the house pulled up, frantically crying out as she held on to the hands of her children.
Though the house couldn’t be saved, the woman thanked Honus, Jennie, and Minka for rescuing so many of her family’s things. A neighbor offered lodging to the distraught homeowner and led her and her children away. Shaken but relieved, Honus, Jennie, and Minka got back into their truck and drove the final hours home.
At last the trio turned into the driveway of the dairy. The truck’s headlights swept across the house, then onto the barn. Honus’s bulldog, which had been lying panting near the shop, ran out to greet them. The sky had gone fully dark thirty minutes ago, but the air was stifling. Earlier that day, across town, a volunteer observer had penciled the day’s high temperatu
re in a weather bureau log: 103 degrees.
It was long past dairy bedtime. The travelers stepped from the truck and stretched out sweaty arms and legs. Honus lifted the lantern from its hook near the kitchen door, scratched a match, raised the wick. Jennie entered the kitchen, holding her carpetbag and leftovers from dinner.
Minka carried her luggage bag. Its contents were a poor representation of her momentous journey. Three pairs of underwear. A loose nightgown. Two long-sleeved dresses. She’d taken these with her months before, when snow lay on the ground.
The huge dress she’d worn every day near the end of her pregnancy had been left with Miss Bragstad, for another girl to use.
Jane emerged from the darkened hallway.
She’d been dozing and hadn’t heard the engine turn into the drive, but the dog’s bark and the shutting car doors had roused her. Her eyes went first to her sister, whom she hadn’t seen in nearly half a year. The lantern light revealed softer planes on Minka’s face—softer than when she’d left. She looked bedraggled. All three of them did.
“Well, hello,” Jane said. “Welcome home.”
“You are nog wakker, Jane?” Jennie said. You are still up? When she was tired, her Dutch and English blurred together. “I thought you would sleep.”
“I knew you’d be back today,” Jane said, stepping closer and looking at Jennie, then Minka. “I thought it would be earlier. It was too hot upstairs, so I was in the spare room down here.” Noticing their red faces, she asked, “Jeepers, were you in the sun?”
“We had an avontuur.” Adventure. Jennie chuckled. “Did you eat, Jane? I haf some ham and bread.” She set the dinner basket on the table.
Honus picked up the lantern from the sideboard. “I want to look in de barn,” he said and stepped back into the night.
“Did you miss us, Minnie?” Jane asked. She sat down on a kitchen chair. “You were gone forever. What did you do there?”
“Yes, it was . . . yes,” Minka said. After hours in a car, her limbs were stiff. She remained standing. “I, uh, I helped Tante around the house. She needed some help.”
“Did you get to travel anywhere? What did you see?”
“No, I just . . . I didn’t get out too much—”
Jennie interrupted.
“Minnie, tell Jane what happen today. Wit de fire.” She placed a plate in front of Jane, with slices of ham and a biscuit smeared with strawberry preserves. “You want something too, Minnie?” She pulled out three glasses and filled them under the faucet.
Minka shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Fire? Did you catch on fire?” Jane took a bite of biscuit.
“No, not us. We were near Mitchell . . . ,” Minka began.
“Oh. Did you see the Corn Palace?” Jane had heard of the elaborate meeting hall established in the last century and heralded as “The World’s Only Corn Palace”—but of course she had never been as far away as Mitchell.
“Well, we drove by it. It’s really big, and it has all these paintings on the outside and flags all around the top. There were people lined up alongside it.”
“But you didn’t go in? I wish you would’ve gone in.”
“We were late because of de fire, Jane.” Jennie handed water to the girls and sat down with her own glass. She would have tidied up the kitchen, but it wasn’t necessary. Jane had kept things immaculate.
“Was the fire in Mitchell?” Jane asked.
“No, just before it.” Minka took a drink of water. “We saw a farmhouse by the road, and there was smoke just pouring out of it.”
“From de top,” Jennie said. “A big gray . . . poof.” She lifted her arms.
“Was anyone in it?” Jane asked.
“No, I went to the door and knocked,” Minka said. “But no one was home. I went in to check. The fire was up in the attic, so we started carrying stuff out.”
“Dat is why our skin is sunburned,” Jennie said. “And dirty. Was so hot!”
“Goodness,” Jane said. “Did the people ever come back?”
Minka was staring at the cookstove, her face as empty as blank paper. The silence stretched a few beats too long.
Jennie jumped into the gap.
“Ja, de lady came back wit her children when we had almost everything out. A cow had got loose . . . she went to put it back inside de fence. And so . . . everything was burned inside, while dey were gone. But at least we save her things.”
Jane finished her snack. She rose and went to the sink, turned on the faucet, scrubbed her plate clean.
“Well, girls,” Jennie said with a small sigh, “you haf better sleep now. Tomorrow is de good-bye sermon of Reverend, and we haf to get up early to bake pies for de dinner.”
Minka pushed back from the table. “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said to Jane. “I need to go to the bathroom, clean up a little.” More than anything, she craved a few moments of solitude. There was pressure building in her chest and around her eyes, a sensation that was quickly becoming familiar.
Once behind the bathroom door, Minka sank to the floor as broken sobs ripped through her. She clutched the bottom of the sink to balance the tilting room, clapped her other hand over her mouth. She was finally back home, the place she’d desperately longed for over the past six months. Yet it wasn’t the same and never would be. There was no solace here. She’d left her true home behind, in an upstairs room, in a bassinet, in the soft bundle she’d never hold again.
* * *
The following morning, the Vander Zee family were in their places at Zion Lutheran as Reverend Kraushaar said good-bye to his tearful congregation. Everyone was sad to see the beloved Reverend go. After the service, he welcomed Minka back privately. She told him all about her sweet baby, and he reassured her that the Lord had helped her make this decision.
“You will not be sorry for this, Minnie,” he said gently.
Monday night, after Jane went up to bed alone, Minka sat down at the kitchen table. The room was dark, and the kerosene lantern cast a ringed light onto a small stack of white paper. She’d pared the end of a pencil, making a nice point of the lead. Her hands were weak with eagerness. She was about to compose a letter to the House of Mercy, her sole link to her daughter.
Minka knew her baby may have already gone home with her new parents, but she could still feel Betty Jane’s presence at the other end of the letter.
This first missive covered six pages.
. . . But first of all I want to know how little Betty Jane is getting along? And did Reverend come after her all ready and how did they like her and just what did they say about her. And did you dress her up nice? You don’t know how good we all feel about it that she is getting such a nice home. I just can’t feel bad about it when I stop & think it over.
I also got a nice Baby book for my self so I could keep little Betty’s record. . . .
Everybody says I sure look good and they don’t seem to know a thing. I sure feel good about it to. . . .
I will never forget what a good home I had and I surely appreciated what you folks have done for me and little Betty Jane. I’m going to make all of you something as I think you will appreciate that more than gitting it out of the store. . . .
. . . I wish you would write me back a big fat letter & tell me all about Betty & her new parents. That is, what they said. And did you ask them if they would receive gifts from me?
. . . Please over looks all the errors and write and let me know all about little Betty. If she is there yet kiss her for me. . . .
. . . Will you put ‘personal’ on my mail? Please.
Minka slipped the envelope into the mail. Every day for a week, she ran out to greet the mailman first, her heart thumping. Then, a reply came.
July 5, 1929
My Dear Minnie:
. . . No, there surely is no need of you worrying about Betty Jane, because she will be taken well care of. The people came to get her Monday afternoon. When they came I went up and told Ella she should dress her up in
her new togs, and she did look so cute. I put Betty in her new Mother’s arms, and the mother seemed she was so overtaken with joy, both the mother and father said she was far beyond their expectations and said to greet you and tell you they were some proud parents. . . . In regards to sending her things later they would rather you would remember other unfortunates that needed it. As she would always have all she needed. . . .
Ella did so well in taking care of two babies, and I’m sure she made no preferences, yours got as good care as her own. . . . Yes it was so hard for Ella to leave her baby, but it too gets a good home. . . .
Grateful to have those few details, Minka wrote again.
July 15, 1929
Dear Miss Bragstad & Questad . . .
I received your letter a number of days ago and sure was glad to hear from you and to know that little Betty Jane pleased them so. I know that was a great gift to them. I sure hated to give her up. But I know it was for the best. I miss her so every night because they keep me busy in the day time.
I got me a little Baby Book and I wonder if you would write to them and ask them if I could get a lock of hair from Betty for it? That is later on—as I don’t think she has much hair now.
I got me a big doll and put the same clothes on it like Betty had. It sounds foolish doesn’t it?
. . . I am sending you folks each a little gift to show you my appreciation and I hope you like it. I made a little pillow slip for the bed Betty slept in as I had a little cloth left.
. . . Did you hear from Betty’s folks since they got her? For I’m so anxious to know how she is getting along.
. . . I am making Door Stops now out of oil cloth you have probably seen them. And selling them for a Dollar so am making a little money.
Minka continued to write letters as the hot months of summer passed, but even she couldn’t have guessed how faithful her correspondence would be. Minka would eventually compose exactly sixty such letters. She always inquired after Miss Bragstad and other girls from the home. She shared news of her own life. But the desperate thread running through each letter would always be a plea for news, any news, about a silky-haired baby girl.