by Cathy LaGrow
“Can’t complain.” Roy’s voice was polite and even. He looked back at Minka. His eyes were almost level with hers. She found herself wishing she were a couple of inches shorter. He tilted his head and pinched the brim of his hat with a finger and thumb. “My name is Eugene LeRoy Disbrow, but everybody calls me Roy.”
Minka’s throat felt dry. “My name is Minnie,” she said. “Well, Minka. But most people call me Minnie. Pleased to meet you.”
Cecil chimed in behind them. “Minnie’s mom is the one who bought the store. They moved into the back yesterday. They’re still getting the lay of the land.” He looked at Minka. “Roy here is the salesman for Jewett Brothers. He’ll be bringing your fruit around every day. We go way back—went to school together.”
“Your family is new in town?” Roy asked her.
Minka shook her head, tried and failed to gather an explanation. “No.”
“I don’t remember you from Central High.”
The old shame twisted in Minka’s stomach. She raised her chin. “I didn’t go to Central,” she said. “I’ve lived in the area my whole life though. We ran Sunnyside Dairy, but sold it this summer . . . ’cause my stepfather died in January. My mom and sister are on errands right now.” If Jane were here, she would be breezily flirting by now, but Jane had gone with Jennie to pick up fabric for new curtains.
Minka hadn’t the slightest idea how to flirt.
Roy pointed a thumb behind him. “I’ve got a few more boxes in the car. I’ll be right back.” He turned and stepped through the doorway. The room felt suddenly empty.
Cecil whacked a piece of beef with a cleaver. He was wrapping roasts for customers who’d soon be coming in to prepare for weekend suppers. “Good ole Roy,” he murmured.
Roy returned twice, setting boxes on the floor, plums and apricots and cherries. Minka came around the counter and stooped beside the boxes.
“These look good,” she said, pointing to the apples. “The plums are small.”
Why did she have to sound so businesslike? She should have engaged in some small talk with him, but Minka was no good at it; and now they’d moved right into the haggling. Maybe Jane was right—Minka was hopeless when it came to men.
“You’re right,” Roy said. “They’re small. We’re lucky to get any at all. Plums have done about the worst, lately. These had to come from up north. What about these?” He lifted a handful of cherries and held them out to Minka.
There was no way to avoid displaying her hands. Minka took the cherries, poked at them with a finger. “These look good. Nice color, and firm. These would make a wonderful pie.”
“I’ll bet you can bake a delicious pie,” Roy said. Minka glanced at him. He looked amused about something.
“Well, yes,” Minka said. “I learned when I was a little girl. There’s a trick to a nice crust. If you put a little vinegar in the dough, and make sure the oven is hot enough before you put it in, it’ll be nice and flaky.”
Roy chuckled and glanced at Cecil. “Well, I’ll be sure to come to you when I need to know how to make a pie.”
“Oh . . . uh, I’m sure you could do well . . .” This conversation felt absurd to Minka. The chitchat stuck in her throat, and it seemed like she was missing something.
Roy got back to business.
“They’re cheap, too,” he said, gesturing to the cherries. “About the cheapest thing I have. The price has dropped even faster than the supply.”
“Yes, things have certainly been hard on the poor farmers,” Minka said. “I feel so badly for them. Some have lost everything.”
“So what’ll it be?” Roy asked. He’d shifted his weight to one foot, stuck his left hand in his pocket.
Minka glanced at Cecil, then back to Roy. “Well, uh, I’m not sure what they usually . . . or what they used to need. Or what we’ll need . . .”
Roy snapped his fingers. “Tell you what. How’s about I give you a few things, the same amount as usual, and then you can decide over the next few days if it’s too much or too little.”
“That sounds very good.” Minka felt the uncertainty lift.
She loved this store already, loved its cleanliness and order and the lack of barn animals. She couldn’t wait to feel at home in it.
Roy placed the fruit in the store’s baskets, gave Cecil some news about a mutual acquaintance, then touched his hat again.
“I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, ma’am,” he said to Minnie.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been called ma’am, but it was the first time since becoming a real professional woman. Minka felt buoyant. This was the new life she’d been dreaming of, the fresh beginning. And it was starting off well.
“Bye, Roy. Nice to meet you.”
He turned and left. The door scraped shut behind him.
“Good ole Roy,” Cecil said again. His tone was indecipherable.
* * *
When Honus had died suddenly of pneumonia early that year, Minka was surprised by the depth of her sorrow. Honus had ended her education and limited her life in many ways. But he’d been kind about Betty Jane, and he was the only father figure she would ever know.
Her brother, John, had moved back to Aberdeen several years before, after leaving the navy, and he had married a sweet girl named Dorothy, with whom Minka had especially bonded. When Dorothy became pregnant, Minka confided what she’d never told her own brother—that she’d had a baby of her own. Dorothy gave birth to a little girl and named her Betty Joanne, in tribute to the niece she’d never meet. Minka adored her brother’s child, who was just two years younger than her namesake, and playing with her had both eased and pricked the ache in Minka’s heart. Then John and Dorothy moved to faraway Rhode Island, and Minka had to say good-bye to another little girl.
Now, more than five long years into it, the Great Depression still had a choke hold on the country. In the early 1930s, people who’d managed to hang on to their farms had resorted to burning corn they couldn’t sell, in order to have fuel for cookstoves and furnaces. Plague-like swarms of grasshoppers had ruined millions of acres of crops. Massive dust storms, whipped up from land that had been too quickly cleared of prairie grasses, buried entire farms, decimating plants, blacking out sunlight, and killing whatever didn’t move out of the way.
Many farmers who’d escaped all other disasters were crushed by years of drought. Fields were so dry that sparks from passing trains set them on fire. Embers from a train’s smokestack had once ignited and burned all of Jennie’s apple and plum trees, and almost consumed Honus’s alfalfa crop.
Yet thanks to his and Jennie’s frugality—the very quality that had pinned Minka to the dairy during her teenaged years—the Vander Zees were not only surviving the Depression, they’d even managed to save some money. After Honus’s death in January of 1935, Jennie wore black dresses and grieved. But she was soon making practical plans to sell the dairy and provide for her daughters.
She found a corner grocery store for sale in Aberdeen, a stone’s throw from the towering brick walls of St. Luke’s 159-bed hospital. A grocery was a smart business choice, and this one included a butcher counter staffed with a skilled meat cutter. People weren’t buying luxuries, but they still had to eat. Recent poor weather had made it difficult for people to grow their own food. Jennie made an offer on the place. Twenty-two years after she’d been stranded in a foreign country with three babies and a smattering of English, the Dutch widow became a property and business owner.
The store had comfortable living quarters attached: a bedroom for Jane and Jennie to share and a closed-in porch where Minka could sleep. It would take Minka a while to get used to sleeping alone, but she was the most independent of the three women. At nearly twenty-four years old, she relished the thought of finally having her own bed, her own quiet space.
On only the rarest occasions was Minka jarred back to the memory of It and Scatterwood Lake. The loss of Betty Jane had pushed out all other trauma. Despite her prolonged suffering, she could never re
gret having had Betty Jane, and so she made an effort to not think about Mack at all. In the end, she tried to simply forget the details of that August day when her baby was conceived.
In the years since Betty Jane’s birth, Minka had continued to write to Miss Bragstad.
March 10, 1931
How is she getting along? Mother brought two little wooden shoes home [from Holland] for her. Possibly they would just about fit her. How we would love to see her patter in them just for a second. . . .
May 6, 1931
. . . Have you heard or seen anything of my baby girl? She must be a big girl by now. The older she gets the more I miss her. But know she has a lovely home & parents so there is nothing to worry about, but comes natural for a Mother I guess. Hope she has a happy birthday & will have many many more. . . .
Sunday is Mother’s Day and may the Lord bless them all. . . .
May 20, 1931
Just a few lines before I mail this pkg for my little girl. Hope she is well & happy & that her folks enjoy her birthday as she does. . . .
Hoping to hear from you soon & if possible give me some news of my Betty Jane.
August 6, 1931
I’m sure my little girl is growing like a weed. And getting into mischief at this age. I try & picture her in my mind all the time, but I wonder if she’s anything like I have her pictured? . . . Hope I may receive some good news for I’m getting lonesome for her.
October 1931
. . . Have you heard anything from Betty Jane? She’ll be 2 yrs & 5 mo tomorrow . . .
September 1932
I can’t believe my Betty Jane will soon be 4 yrs old. . . . Please write me about her if you have seen and talked with her as she is quite a girl and should be able to tell a big story. . . .
November 1933
Well Miss Bragstad I suppose it tires you to answer the thousands of questions similar to mine, but I would like to know how my big baby girl is getting along. Is she still a happy little girl and does she have good faith?
If you would only give me an answer on these if possible it would help me so much in carrying on. Some times the hills are hard to climb, and if I could only hear of her once in awhile it means so much. The sun shines much brighter, seems I can hardly endure it at times.
Next Fall she starts to kindergarten and soon a young lady. But seems she’s only a baby yet.
December 1934
. . . know Betty Jane’s folks must be busy also preparing for Christmas programs etc. She must be quite a girl by now. How is she getting along with her school work?
Minka’s thoughts of Betty Jane had scarcely diminished with the passage of time. She tried to picture her daughter growing. It was hard for Minka to believe that her “baby” would be in school now, wearing hair ribbons and making friends. Minka wondered if Betty Jane was plagued by the same shyness that Minka had battled. She hoped it wasn’t so. She prayed everything good for her child. Although her personal faith was still in its fledgling stages, she’d never prayed as much as she did after the House of Mercy.
When she wrote to Miss Bragstad, she imagined Betty Jane writing out the letters of the alphabet in perfect script. Minka was sure her little girl was smart. And pretty and kind.
She only ever envisioned the very best of her daughter.
* * *
The day after Minka met Roy, he came back with more fruit and a little less flirty amusement. Minka guessed he’d realized that the plain shopkeeper with the ruined hands was an inadequate target for his charms. It was almost a relief. Now she could pretend that he was just another business acquaintance and try to ignore his dashing good looks.
They fell into an easy rapport. Roy came in every morning, and they looked at boxes of fruit together, generally agreeing as to its quality. As weeks and then months passed, Minka grew confident in her new job. She served customers when they came in, filled phone orders, and selected food from vendors.
Other than the constant ache of missing Betty Jane, Minka had never been so content. No longer was she a quiet observer. Now she was in charge of her own life and part of a business, and it was immensely satisfying. Miss Bragstad’s kind attention at the House of Mercy, although it had been for only a short time, had helped Minka to blossom. She was pleased with her growing ability to chat with people, even strangers.
While housewives moved through the store placing food items in baskets, their children came straight to the counter, where penny candies gleamed from inside glass jars. They filled bags for a nickel: so many Boston Baked Beans, so many licorice Snaps, so many Tootsie Rolls. Minka treated the children like valued customers, bending down to help with their painstaking selections.
Almost always, the dainty little girls made Minka think of Betty Jane. One such girl, who had dark curls and a sweet tooth for lemon drops, told Minka that she was six years old. For a moment, Minka held her breath at the possibility that this might be her Betty Jane. But then Minka glanced at the girl’s older sister and mother and noticed that all three had the same dark-brown eyes and thick eyebrows—they were clearly related. She exhaled and politely filled their order.
The store was open six days a week, although if desperate customers came by on Sundays before or after church, Jennie would answer the door and get what they needed. Jane kept the books, sending out monthly invoices. Jennie purchased a car, her daughters bravely learned to drive it, and they all took turns making deliveries. Evenings were spent sewing, listening to new radio programs like Fibber McGee and Molly, and visiting with neighbors. Jennie befriended nurses from St. Luke’s, and when they needed to rest between shifts, they came to the store, went through to the family bedrooms, and lay down for a nap.
Roy and Minka’s conversations expanded to cover more than just fruit, and she now often voiced her opinions. With Cecil joining in, they talked about national news, like devastating tornadoes in the spring of 1936 or the businessman Howard Hughes, who was setting exciting aviation records in an industry that had not even existed when the three friends were born. They discussed the Berlin Olympics, where a black athlete named Jesse Owens was embarrassing Nazi Germany. Minka listened to the radio every night and read newspapers when she could, and she remembered everything she took in.
Events in the wider world were capable of affecting her daughter, and that knowledge added importance to news items both great and small.
Talking to Roy and Cecil was fun, and they seemed to enjoy it too. Minka was a good companion. Maybe, she thought as she inched toward spinsterhood, that’s all she was ever destined to be.
And then one day, two years after Minka had come to the grocery store and started her new life, Cecil stepped out for a sandwich, and in the quiet space that followed his departure, Roy asked Minka for a date.
* * *
Eight years had passed with Minka thinking desperately of someone she could never have, the baby she’d released in the flesh but never in the soul. What a change—and even an odd relief—to have someone new in her life who wanted her attention.
Roy took Minka to the Capitol Theatre, where they saw the wonder of a full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Two months later, the movie Test Pilot set both their hearts racing. Roy thrilled to the daredevil antics of the lead character, an aviator, while Minka lost part of her heart forever to the actor who portrayed him, a dashing Clark Gable.
Other times they went dancing at the pavilion in Wylie Park. This familiar place, home to Lake Minne-Eho, had always made her a little sad. Her young father had drowned here, just yards away from where a band now played and couples swung, sweating and laughing, beneath strings of lights. But to be here with a beau, to be an ordinary girl in a pretty dress at last, made Minka’s spirits soar. After so much sadness, being happy and falling in love was like being reborn.
Minka had only ever danced with a shuffling Honus and didn’t know the real steps. Roy was an excellent dancer and a patient teacher. According to him, the trick of being a good dancer was keeping your
knees flexible.
“Honey,” he said easily, “now, you’ll have to let me lead.” His warm hand on her back was an anchor, a thrilling promise.
He was so sure of himself, so worldly, so capable and smart! Being in Roy’s presence made Minka nearly dizzy after years of sitting in the background with her awkward manners, her big hands and feet, watching girls from church get married and start families. Now, half-educated, damaged-goods Minka was on the arm of the handsomest man in town.
Their dating was casual at first—weekend outings to a park or a show. Seasons came and went. The biggest news was no longer the economy, but the way the angry little German chancellor named Hitler was devouring whole sections of Europe. It seemed that Roy and Minka could talk about everything. They had matched minds, quick and curious. And if Roy never exactly told his girlfriend she was pretty, his attentions made her feel like she almost was.
Things were perfect, until the day Cecil brought up Roy’s wife.
* * *
Roy handed over the previous day’s orders, then leaned an elbow on the counter and lit a cigarette with a match. His schedule now included extra time at the grocery each day so he and Minka could chat.
Today their conversation turned to foreign affairs. Japan was at war with China. Spain was at war with itself. Germany was headed toward war with everybody.
“You know they’re gonna call us up,” Roy said, not for the first time. The prospect was on every young man’s mind. “This thing in Germany—it’s bad news. That guy is not going to stop.”
“No, doesn’t look like it.” Cecil sat on a wooden stool, wiping his hands with a rag. He’d been slicing up chickens.
Minka spoke up. “Maybe we won’t have to get into it. I mean, what if it ends before we get there?” She’d been a child during the last war, the Great War. Uncle had been too old for conscription, and the whole thing had seemed scarcely to touch their isolated farm. Honus had fought in Italy, but that had been before Jennie met him.