The Waiting

by Cathy LaGrow

  Jennie eventually sold the grocery in Aberdeen, moved to Minneapolis, and bought a whole apartment building a few blocks from Minka’s house. Jane, in her midthirties now but still unmarried, came with her. Although Minka was busy with work and her children, the women were thrilled to live close to each other again. Jennie retained her married name, Vander Zee, so Dianna and Donnie called her “Grandma Van.” They loved to spend the night at her place. In the mornings she’d bake cinnamon rolls while ever-vivacious Aunt Janie cleaned house in her slip, dancing and teasing the kids, who adored her.

  The family’s joy was clouded by the darkness that seemed to follow Roy. By now, he stopped at the bar every night. At home he smoked cigarettes compulsively. His fingertips reeked of unfiltered smoke, and Dianna and Donnie would hold their breath in the haze around his chair. Sometimes he seemed to be another person, a cruel and cunning stranger. The children learned to be watchful of this other Daddy.

  Minka began attending a Lutheran church in Minneapolis, where the rituals were familiar and comforting. The weekly reflection and prayers grounded her.

  Roy would not go along, but he found some solace in gardening. He spent hours in the yard, planting bright, puffy dahlias along the back fence, a fragrant lilac in one corner. He built a sandbox for the children. But Roy couldn’t always remain with his hands in the rich soil and warm sunshine on his back. Other responsibilities tugged at him. Before long the seasons changed, and his garden spent months buried beneath the heavy snow. This outdoor therapy could not last.

  The Disbrows’ lives lurched between darkness and light. Sometimes Roy was the smart, charming man Minka had fallen in love with. The whole family would go “to town” for dinner, the children acting grown-up in their best clothes. They’d sit at the bar with their parents, dipping cherries in their Shirley Temples, smiling at the barkeep. In summer, Roy rented a small cabin on the lake, where they’d fish and swim and wake up from naps with sweaty hair plastered to their necks. Roy bought gifts for his wife and children—an engine for Donnie’s ever-expanding train set, a fancy new doll for Dianna. He’d put a record on the player and sweep Minka around the living room, dancing as he’d taught her to do years before, while Dianna and Donnie giggled and grinned.

  As hard as they all tried, it kept crashing down around them. It was as though the happiness was too heavy to prop up, for long.

  * * *

  The first sign of a problem with Dianna came when she was three years old. She’d gone to the sink to get a drink of water before naptime. Minka heard the faucet splashing, splashing, and followed the sounds into the kitchen.

  “Dianna? Honey? What are you doing?”

  Dianna stared at the wall above the sink, her tiny fingers gripping a cup.

  “Dianna? Come to bed.”

  There was no reply, no movement. After turning off the faucet, Minka stroked Dianna’s curls and tried to turn her chin up. The little face was as blank as a porcelain doll’s.

  No amount of shaking or talking got the slightest response.

  Minka lifted Dianna and hurried into the living room. She picked up the clunky black phone and yelled into the receiver.

  “Operator! I need a taxi! My little girl . . . she’s . . . something’s wrong . . . please, get me a taxi!”

  Heart thumping, breath quick and sharp, Minka ran to get Donnie from his crib. Dianna lay against her shoulder, stiff and hot. Minka staggered to grab her purse, then inched her way down the stairs to wait at the curb. During the ride, she kept trying to rouse Dianna. In her hurry to propel herself into the hospital, she forgot to pay the taxi driver.

  Dianna woke up the next day, seemingly undamaged, but the doctors had a sobering diagnosis: the pretty little girl had experienced a grand mal seizure. She had epilepsy. The doctors prescribed Phenobarbital and Dilantin in high dosages, which managed the seizures but temporarily dulled Dianna’s lightning-quick mind. When she started school, she struggled to earn good grades, swimming through a fog of medication and fatigue until her doctor finally determined the proper dosage.

  There was more trouble to come. One Sunday, two weeks before her seventh birthday, Dianna spent the night with Grandma Van. The next morning, Roy brought her home to see Minka before school. It was cold outside, so Minka watched from the screened upstairs porch, holding Donnie in her arms. He was almost five but small for his age, and Minka didn’t mind carrying him—the gentle boy was her last baby.

  She watched Roy park across the street. Dianna rounded the car. She was wearing a tan wool coat that Minka had sewn, the buttons fastened tight against the icy air. Her hair was pinned back. She looked up, saw Minka, waved. Her curls bobbed. She started running across the street, her breath trailing behind her.

  The approaching car was a brand-new Buick sedan with a monstrous metal grille in front. There wasn’t time to stop, and the street was slick. Brakes screeched, Roy hollered, Minka cried out helplessly from above. Dianna’s dark curls disappeared under one whitewall tire.

  By the time Minka lurched down the stairs, Dianna’s blood was smeared across the rough pavement. A patch of her hair had been torn off, exposing a white square streaked with red. Roy yanked a wool army blanket from his trunk, spread it on the frozen pavement, and laid Dianna on it. Her eyes fluttered open.

  A neighbor appeared with a cup of cocoa, a helpless gesture for a hurt little girl. An ambulance raced up, sirens blaring. Minka sat in the back, cradling Dianna in her arms as the driver sped to the hospital. Roy followed in their car.

  After X-rays, lab tests, and a few nights in the hospital, Dianna was pronounced well enough to come home, minus some hair and with a permanent flat spot on the back of her skull. For years afterward, Minka watched her closely for signs of long-term damage. Dianna had nearly been killed. Minka had almost lost another daughter.

  As tough as she was, Minka felt certain she couldn’t have borne that.

  * * *

  Minka found a new church within walking distance of her home, a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation, and began nurturing her spiritual life in earnest. She was greatly intrigued by the CMA’s outreach programs around the world. Visiting missionaries came to services and told spellbinding tales of remote tribes of cannibals, of angels standing guard around campsites. Such stories opened Minka’s eyes to parts of the world that she hadn’t had the opportunity to learn about in school.

  After Dianna saw Minka baptized at the church, she asked to follow suit. As mother and children attended each week, Minka began to view God as more of a heavenly Father—someone who was interested not just in mankind as a whole, but in her personal life as well. She began tentatively praying for wisdom and guidance in her chaotic relationship with Roy.

  More and more, wisdom and guidance were desperately needed.

  One morning when Dianna was still a toddler, Minka was at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. Roy came in, eyes glittering. He paced behind her. He spoke abruptly.

  “Who is he? Did you see him last night?”

  Minka’s stomach clenched. The water on her hands was suddenly too hot. She adjusted the faucet, squeezed the rag, scrubbed at the tines of a fork. These absurd ramblings came out of nowhere these days.

  “Roy. Stop it.”

  “Who is he? Who’re you two-timing with?” He halted right behind her.

  “Roy, I said stop it. I’ve never two-timed on you, and you know it.” She slid a cup into the soapy water, jammed a washrag into it. “When on earth would I have time for such foolishness? After riding the bus home late at night? After working fourteen-hour days?”

  He was a B-17 bomber, homing in.

  “Are you gonna see him tonight, honey?” The familiar endearment held no lazy tenderness. “You gonna have some fun?”

  She’d had enough.

  “Oh Roy, be quiet. Why don’t you clean up your own backyard?”

  For two seconds the water ran, bubbles popped. Then Minka’s right arm was jerked backward as Roy spun her around. The dish
rag slapped against her dress. A blurry shape approached her face, too fast.

  Roy’s fist slammed into her nose, crunching the cartilage.

  A warm gush of blood followed the shocking pain. Minka staggered sideways, turned toward the sink. Tears ran, blending with blood and dripping onto her dress. She watched the mixture swirl in the dishwater, cloudy and dark.

  The blow jarred loose a memory from long ago. She’d been perhaps seven years old, splitting wood for the cookstove. Her hand slipped as she was trying to wrench the ax free, and the wooden handle slammed squarely into her face. Blood poured and Minka cried and Jennie came running.

  Accidents happened on a farm, and medical help was a long buggy ride away. Jennie used the edges of both her hands to force Minka’s nose back into place, then taped it up and put her daughter to bed. Lie very still, she’d instructed gently.

  This time, Jennie wasn’t there to comfort her. Behind her, silence. Then Roy’s hand was on her back. His other hand pushed a dish towel in front of her. They mopped at her face together.

  Neither one of them noticed their young daughter, watching from an alcove in the hallway.

  “I think it’s broken,” Minka cried. She had never felt so small, crumpled. “You broke my nose.”

  “Let’s . . . uh . . . You need to go see a doctor. C’mon. I’ll take you.” The old Roy was back, and contrite.

  Minka held the towel to her face. Roy fetched her shoes, the car keys, the children. He helped her to the car. He told her not to tell the doctor what had happened. And he made the timeless vow of a volatile man.

  “It won’t happen again, honey.”

  * * *

  Surprisingly, this man kept that promise. Although he continued to drink and the dark voices continued to scratch at his mind, Roy never hit his wife again. But the ugliness persisted, and became more frequent. Sometimes he slept under the outside stairs with a pair of brass knuckles, threatening to accost Minka’s imaginary boyfriends when they showed up. Once he threw whiskey on his wife and took off down the street holding Dianna, with Minka running after him. When a policeman stopped him, Roy pointed to the alcohol stains on Minka’s dress and accused her of drinking. Then the former soldier drew himself up and spit in the policeman’s face, earning himself a whack from a billy club.

  Roy’s father had passed away, but his mother, Florence, still lived near Aberdeen. When she needed an operation for cancer, Roy and Minka invited her to stay with them in Minneapolis. Minka changed her bandages and cared for her during recovery. Florence loved her son but hated his drinking, hated what it was doing to his dependable wife, to their family. She dragged a cot near the front door and laid Roy’s baseball bat next to it.

  “Just let him come up here drunk,” she said. “He’ll have to deal with me.”

  Roy’s mind clanged and clattered. He read newspaper articles about the American boys now fighting in Korea, and at night two different wars comingled in his dreams. He sought distraction at the cinema, watching black-and-white horror films that he found more manageable than his full-color nightmares. Alcohol brought a lessening, a loosening, so he drank. He didn’t realize that the drinking also worsened his mania and hallucinations.

  Talking relieved the pressure. Sometimes when Minka was working late, he told Dianna and Donnie macabre bedtime stories of buddies burning in their planes and begging him over the intercom to shoot them dead. Although he’d been nowhere near the Asian theater, he talked about Japanese soldiers putting splinters under the fingernails of POWs to torture them.

  He seemed a million miles away, unaware that his horrified audience was a little girl in a lace nightgown and a little boy in footie pajamas.

  Desperate for hope and help, Minka took a bus to Fort Snelling, which had become the site of the regional Veterans Administration after World War II. But harried officers there couldn’t offer help, other than to suggest that she was fortunate—at least he wasn’t beating the children. During one bad episode Roy threatened to divorce Minka, even hired a lawyer to draw up papers that accused his wife of outlandish wrongdoings. Florence came to visit again and went down to the lawyer’s office with her daughter-in-law. “I am his mother,” she declared. “And this,” she said, stabbing a finger at Roy’s papers, “is a bunch of lies.”

  Nobody knew how to help, how to fix a broken man.

  Roy withdrew the papers. The couple would remain married for the rest of his life. But it was all too much for Minka. She couldn’t take the stress and threats, the rages that made no sense. She couldn’t stand her children’s frightened eyes, the way they shrank into corners. Roy’s drinking was the problem, she decided, and sobriety was the solution. It had to be.

  John and Dorothy had moved to California, a place they assured her was bright and busy, a good spot for a new beginning. It was far away, near an ocean she’d never seen. Far enough away from Roy and the troubles that he would not, or could not, discard.

  Minka made an agonizing decision. She would sell the house, the pretty place she’d been so proud of. She would leave the city she loved, her church, her mother and sister. She would uproot her children and issue an ultimatum to her husband.

  He could come to them when he got sober.

  And not a moment before.

  Chapter Twelve

  1955–1961

  MINKA HUGGED her mother and sister good-bye at the airport. Jennie grasped Minka’s arms, giving her a long, searching look that shared the words they didn’t speak: You can do this. You’ve faced adversity before. You are strong and are making the right decision.

  Jennie and Jane stood side by side, watching Minka and the two children cross the tarmac and walk up the steep stairs into the airplane.

  “Good-bye!” Donnie called to them.

  Minka held her children’s hands, helping them board. She kept her sadness inside, as did Jane and Jennie. Tears were reserved for privacy.

  The excitement of Donnie and Dianna’s first flight was tempered by all they were leaving behind.

  “Is Daddy coming too?” Donnie asked timidly. Minka couldn’t offer a good explanation. Though she wanted her children to understand, how could she explain without speaking badly of their father? Her answers were vague and nondescript. “He has to stay and work.” “He loves you but he can’t come right now . . . he’ll come later.”

  Dianna didn’t ask. She’d witnessed more of the fighting, heard her mother crying behind closed doors, and felt her heart race at Roy’s increasingly violent threats and manic behavior.

  Inside the plane, the children stared out the small windows in amazement. For a moment, Minka wished Roy were there to tell his eight-year-old daughter and six-year-old son just how safe air travel had become—nothing like war, nothing like his nightmares. This flight was quite different from Roy’s European sorties. Here, pretty ladies in starched caps and tailored uniforms passed out coffee and lunch. The children tried to ignore the sharp pain jabbing their ears, as thick cigarette smoke floated around the closed cabin.

  California offered hope. That same summer of 1955, Walt Disney opened a theme park like no other in Anaheim, California, with the inviting words: To all who come to this happy place: Welcome.

  Four hundred miles north in the same golden state, Minka hoped she’d brought her children to a happier place, that in this unfamiliar Bay Area they’d find safe, brand-new lives. She tried to bury the residual fears about leaving behind her husband and being away from her mother and sister, and the sense that the final tie to Betty Jane was being irrevocably broken by moving so far away.

  After landing, Minka, Dianna, and Donnie were greeted at the gate by John and Dorothy. As they headed to John’s car, Minka realized that she and her children had stepped into a California landscape that did not resemble her vision of tropical heat and warm beaches. This was a region of light and shadows. A cool summer breeze teased the sunshine outside the city of Oakland, while across the bay, San Francisco was hidden in fog so thick that every skyscraper had d
isappeared.

  Jutting out from the gray mist were the massive towers and concrete pilings of the Bay Bridge, connecting Oakland to San Francisco. Boats skimmed across the choppy waters of the bay, steering clear of massive cargo ships coming from all over the world to deliver and pick up supplies at the Port of Oakland.

  “Where are the coconuts?” Donnie asked, resting his arms over the front seat of John and Dorothy’s fancy car. John had become a successful car salesman after moving out West. His only child, Betty, was already an adult.

  “No coconut trees around here,” John said, reaching back to ruffle his nephew’s hair. “But if you look far out that way on a clear day, you’ll see the orange-colored arches of the Golden Gate Bridge and even the flash of light from the Rock.”

  John told his awed niece and nephew about the 250 federal prisoners who lived on Alcatraz Island, including Robert Stroud, the brainy, violent “Birdman of Alcatraz.”

  “You’re going to scare them,” Dorothy ventured.

  “They need to know about the place they’ve moved to,” he said with a laugh.

  John and Dorothy would house them at first, but Minka liked having her own private space. And she knew her brother and his wife were well past the time of having little ones racing through their rooms.

  Within a few months, with money from the sale of her Minneapolis home, Minka bought a small stucco house on Linwood Avenue, just four miles from the bay. The place had no basement, and Minka, who’d grown up under the threat of tornadoes, at first felt as if her house could easily be swept right off the earth.

  There was no yard to speak of either, no garden bursting with dahlias. But the living room boasted a bay window, built-in bookshelves, and carpeting patterned in pretty pink roses. The kitchen was modern, with an oven built right into the wall. Minka soon had the house arranged to her old DeYoung perfection.