“I really didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Jenny protested.
“Dr. Garrett says I’m taking real good care of Baron’s leg. When the weather gets warmer and he can exercise a little it will be fine. And, Mrs. Krueger, I tell you, now I check that stable door ten times every day.”
Jenny knew what he meant. Unconsciously she had begun to check so many little things a second time, things she never would have dreamed of noticing before. Erich was more than tidy, he was a perfectionist. She quickly learned to tell by a certain tenseness in his face and body if something had upset him—a closet door left open, a glass standing in the sink.
The mornings Erich didn’t go to the cabin, he worked in the farm office next to the stable with Clyde Toomis, the farm manager. Clyde, a stocky man of about sixty with a leathery, wrinkled face, and thick, yellow-white hair, had a matter-of-fact manner that approached brusqueness.
When he introduced Jenny to him, Erich said, “Clyde really runs the farm. Sometimes I think I’m just window dressing around here.”
“Well, you’re certainly not window dressing in front of an easel,” she laughed, but was surprised that Clyde did not make even a perfunctory effort to contradict Erich.
“Think you’ll like it here?” Clyde asked her.
“I do like it here,” she smiled.
“It’s quite a change for a city person,” Clyde said abruptly. “Hope it isn’t too much for you.”
“It isn’t.”
“Funny business,” Clyde said. “The country girls hanker after the city. The city girls claim they love the country.” She thought she heard a note of bitterness in his voice and wondered if he was thinking about his own daughter. She decided he was when he added, “My wife’s all excited about having you and the children here. If she starts dropping in on you, just let me know. Rooney don’t mean to bother people but sometimes she kind of forgets herself.”
It seemed to Jenny there was a defensive tone in his voice when he spoke of Rooney. “I enjoyed visiting with her,” she said sincerely.
The brusque manner softened. “That’s good to hear. And she’s looking up patterns to make jumpers or some such things for your girls. Is that all right?”
“It’s fine.”
When they left the office Erich said, “Jenny, Jenny, don’t encourage Rooney.”
“I promise I won’t let it get out of hand. Erich, she’s just lonely.”
Every afternoon after lunch while the children napped, she and Erich put on cross-country skis and explored the farm. Elsa was willing to mind the children as they slept. In fact it was she who suggested the arrangement. It occurred to Jenny that Elsa was trying to make up for accusing Erich of damaging the dining-room wall.
And yet she wondered if it weren’t possible that he had caused the stain. Often when he came in for lunch his hands would still have paint or charcoal smudges. If he noticed anything out of order, a curtain not centered on the rod, bric-a-brac not exactly in place, he would automatically adjust it. Several times Jenny stopped him before he touched something with paint-spattered fingers.
The paper in the dining room was replaced. When the paperhanger and his assistant came in, they were incredulous. “You mean to say that he bought eight double rolls at these prices and he’s replacing exactly what he has?”
“My husband knows what he wants.”
When they were finished, the room looked exactly the same except that the smudge was gone.
During the evenings she and Erich liked to settle in the library reading, listening to music, talking. He asked her about the faint scar at her hairline. “An automobile accident when I was sixteen. Someone jumped the divider and plowed into us.”
“You must have been frightened, darling.”
“I don’t remember a thing about it,” Jenny laughed. “I’d just leaned my head back and fallen asleep. The next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital three days later. I had a pretty bad concussion—enough to give me amnesia for those days. Nana was frantic. She was sure I’d be brain-damaged or something. I did have headaches for a while and even did some sleepwalking around final exam time. Stress brought it on according to the doctor. But gradually it stopped.”
At first hesitantly, then the words tumbling out, Erich talked about his mother’s accident. “Caroline and I had just gone into the dairy barn to see the new calf. It was being weaned and Caroline held the nursing bottle to its lips. The stock tank—that’s that thing that looks like a bathtub in the calving pen—was full of water. It was muddy underfoot and Caroline slipped. She tried to grab something to keep from falling. The something was the lamp cord. She fell into the tank, pulling the lamp with her. That fool of a workman, Joe’s uncle incidentally, was rewiring the barn and he’d left the lamp slung over a nail on the wall. In a minute it was all over.”
“I hadn’t realized you were with her.”
“I don’t like to talk about it. Luke Garrett, Mark’s father, was here. He tried to revive her but it was hopeless. And I stood there holding the hockey stick she’d just given me for my birthday. . . .”
Jenny was sitting on the hassock at the foot of Erich’s leather easy chair. She raised his hands to her lips. Leaning down he lifted her up and held her tightly against him. “For a long time I hated the sight of that hockey stick. Then I started to think of it as her last present to me.” He kissed her eyelids. “Don’t look so sad, Jenny. Having you makes up for everything. Please, Jenny, promise me.”
She knew what he wanted to hear. With a wrench of tenderness, she whispered, “I’ll never leave you.”
10
One morning when she was walking with Tina and Beth, Jenny spotted Rooney leaning over the picket fence at the southern end of the graveyard. She seemed to be looking down at Caroline’s grave.
“I was just thinking of all the nice times I had when Caroline and I were young and Erich was little and then when Arden was born. Caroline drew a picture of Arden once. It was so pretty. I don’t know what happened to it. It disappeared right out of my room. Clyde says I was probably carrying it around like I used to do sometimes. Why don’t you come visit me again?”
Jenny had braced herself for the question. “It’s just we’ve been so busy settling. Beth, Tina, aren’t you going to say hello to Mrs. Toomis?”
Beth said hello, shyly. Tina ran forward and raised her face for a kiss. Rooney bent down and smoothed Tina’s hair from her forehead. “She reminds me of Arden, this one. Always jumping from one place to the next. Erich probably told you to keep away from me. Well, I can’t say I blame him. I guess I am an awful nuisance sometimes. But I found the pattern I was looking for. Can I make the jumpers for the girls?”
“I’d like that,” Jenny said, deciding that Erich would have to get used to the idea that she would become friendly with Rooney. There was something infinitely appealing about the woman.
Rooney turned so that once again she was gazing into the graveyard. “Do you get lonesome here yet?” she asked.
“No,” Jenny said honestly. “It’s different, of course. I was used to a busy job and talking to people all day, and the phones ringing and friends popping into my apartment. Some of that I miss, I suppose. But mostly I’m just so glad to be here.”
“So was Caroline,” Rooney said. “So happy for a while. And then it changed.” She stared down at the simple headstone on the other side of the fence. There were snow clouds in the air and the pines threw restless shadows across the pale pink granite. “Oh, indeed it changed for Caroline,” she whispered, “and after she was gone, it started right then to change for us all.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” Erich protested. “I don’t want to go.”
“Sure I’m trying to get rid of you,” Jenny agreed. “Oh, Erich, this is perfectly beautiful.” She held up a three-by-four-foot oil to examine it more closely. “You’ve caught the haze that comes around the trees just before they start to bud. And that dark spot circling the ice in the river. Tha
t shows the ice is about to break up, that there’s moving water below, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve got a good eye, darling. That’s right.”
“Well, don’t forget I was a fine arts major. Changing Seasons is a lovely title. The change is so subtle here.”
Erich draped an arm across her shoulders and studied the painting with her. “Remember, anything you want us to keep, I won’t exhibit.”
“No, that’s foolish. This is the time to keep building your reputation. I won’t mind at all eventually being known as the wife of the most prestigious artist in America. They’ll point me out and say, ‘See, isn’t she lucky? And he’s gorgeous too!’”
Erich pulled her hair. “Is that what they’ll say?”
“Uh-huh, and they’ll be right.”
“I could just as easily send word that I can’t make the show.”
“Erich, don’t do it. They’ve already planned a reception for you. I just wish I could go but I can’t leave the kids yet and dragging them with us won’t work. Next time.”
He began to stack the canvases. “Promise you’ll miss me, Jenny.”
“I’ll miss you lots. It’s going to be a lonesome four days.” Unconsciously Jenny sighed. In nearly three weeks, she’d spoken only to a handful of people: Clyde, Joe, Elsa, Rooney and Mark.
Elsa was taciturn almost to the point of absolute silence. Rooney, Clyde and Joe were hardly companions. She’d only chatted with Mark briefly once since that first evening, even though she knew from Joe that he’d checked on Baron at least half a dozen times.
She’d been on the farm a week before she realized that the telephone never rang. “Haven’t they heard about the ‘reach out and touch someone’ campaign around here?” she joked.
“The calls all go through the office,” Erich explained. “I only have them come directly to the house if I’m expecting a particular one. Otherwise whoever is in the office will buzz me.”
“But suppose no one’s in the office?”
“Then the Phone-Mate will take messages.”
“But Erich, why?”
“Darling, if I have one quirk, it’s that I despise the intrusion of a telephone ringing constantly. Of course whenever I’m away, Clyde will set the line to ring through to the house at night so I can call you.”
Jenny wanted to protest, then decided against it. Later on when she had friends in the community it would be time enough to coax Erich into normal phone service.
He finished separating the canvases. “Jenny, I was thinking. It’s about time I showed you off a bit. Would you like to go to church next Sunday?”
“I swear you can read my mind,” she laughed. “I was just thinking that I’d like to meet some of your friends.”
“I’m better at donating money than attending services, Jen. How about you?”
“I never missed Sunday Mass growing up. Then after Kev and I were married, I got careless. But as Nana always said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’ll probably be back at Mass regularly one of these days.”
They attended Zion Lutheran the following Sunday. The church was old and not very large, actually almost chapel-sized. The delicate stained-glass windows diffused the winter light so that it shone blue and green and gold and red on the sanctuary. She could read the names on some of the windows: DONATED BY ERICH AND GRETCHEN KRUEGER, 1906 . . . DONATED BY ERICH AND OLGA KRUEGER, 1930.
The window over the alter, an Adoration of the Magi scene, was particularly beautiful. She gasped at the inscription: IN LOVING MEMORY OF CAROLINE BONARDI KRUEGER, DONATED BY ERICH KRUEGER.
She tugged at his arm. “When did you give that window?”
“Last year when the sanctuary was renovated.”
Tina and Beth sat between them, sedately conscious of their new blue coats and bonnets. People looked over at the children throughout the service. She knew Erich was aware of the glances too. He had a contented smile on his face and during the sermon slipped his hand into hers.
Midway through the sermon he whispered, “You’re beautiful, Jenny. Everybody is looking at you and the girls.”
After the service he introduced her to Pastor Barstrom, a slight man in his late sixties with a gentle face. “We’re happy to have you with us, Jenny,” he said warmly. He looked down at the girls. “Now who’s Beth and who’s Tina?”
“You know their names,” Jenny commented, pleased.
“Indeed I do. Erich told me all about you when he stopped by the parsonage. I hope you realize what a very generous husband you have. Thanks to him our new senior citizen center will be very comfortable and well-equipped. I’ve known Erich since he was a boy and we’re all very happy for him now.”
“I’m mighty happy too,” Jenny smiled.
“There’s a meeting of the women in the parish Thursday night. Perhaps you’d like to join them? We want to get to know you.”
“I’d love to,” Jenny agreed.
“Darling, we’d better start,” Erich said. “There are others who want to visit with the pastor.”
“Of course.” As she extended her hand, the pastor said, “It certainly must have been very difficult for you to be widowed so young with such little babies, Jenny. Both you and Erich are surely deserving of much good fortune and many blessings now.”
Erich propelled her forward before she could do more than gasp. In the car she exclaimed, “Erich, surely you didn’t tell Pastor Barstrom that I was widowed, did you?”
Erich steered the car from the curb. “Jenny, Granite Place isn’t New York. It’s a small town in the Mid-west. People around here were shocked to hear I was getting married a month after I met you. At least a young widow is a sympathetic image; a New York divorcée says something quite different in this community. And I never exactly said you were a widow. I told Pastor Barstrom you had lost your husband. He surmised the rest.”
“So you didn’t lie but in effect I’ve lied for you by not correcting him,” Jenny said. “Erich, don’t you understand the kind of position that places me in?”
“No, I don’t, dear. And I won’t have people around here wondering if I had my head turned by a sophisticated New Yorker taking advantage of a hayseed.”
Erich had a mortal fear of looking ridiculous, so much so that he would lie to his clergyman to avoid the possibility.
“Erich, I will have to tell Pastor Barstrom the truth when I go to the meeting Thursday night.”
“I’ll be gone Thursday.”
“I know. That’s why I think it would be pleasant to be there. I’d like to meet the people around here.”
“Are you planning to leave the children alone?”
“Of course not. Surely there are baby-sitters?”
“Surely you don’t intend to leave the children with just anyone?”
“Pastor Barstrom could recommend . . .”
“Jenny, please wait. Don’t start getting involved in activities. And don’t tell Pastor Barstrom you’re a divorcée. Knowing him, he’ll never bring up the subject again unless you introduce it.”
“But why do you object to my going?”
Erich took his eyes from the road and looked at her. “Because I love you so much I’m not ready to share you with other people, Jenny. I won’t share you with anyone, Jenny.”
11
Erich was leaving for Atlanta on February 23. On the twenty-first, he told Jenny he had an errand to do and would be late for lunch. It was nearly one-thirty when he returned. “Come over to the stable,” he invited. “I’ve got a surprise for you.” Grabbing a jacket, she ran out with him.
Mark Garrett was waiting there, smiling broadly. “Meet the new tenants,” he said.
Two Shetland ponies stood side by side in the stalls nearest the door. Their manes and tails were full and lustrous, their copper bodies gleaming. “My present to my new daughters,” Erich said proudly. “I thought we’d call them Mouse and Tinker Bell. Then the Krueger girls will never forget their pet names.”
He hurried her
to the next stall.
“And this is your gift.”
Speechless, Jenny stared at a bay Morgan mare who returned her gaze amiably.
“She’s a treasure,” Erich exulted. “Four years old, impeccable breeding, gentle. She’s already won half a dozen ribbons. Do you like her?”
Jenny reached a hand to pat the mare’s head and was thrilled that the animal did not draw back. “What’s her name?”
“The breeder called her Fire Maid. Claims she has fire and heart as well as heritage. Of course you can call her anything you want.”
“Fire and heart,” Jenny whispered. “That’s a lovely combination. Erich, I’m so delighted.”
He looked pleased. “I don’t want you riding yet. The fields are still too icy. But if you and the girls start making friends with the horses and visiting them every day, by next month you can get started on lessons. Now if you don’t mind, how about lunch?”
Impulsively Jenny turned to Mark. “You can’t have had lunch either. Won’t you join us? It’s just cold meat and a salad.”
She caught Erich’s frown but was relieved to see it disappear as fast as it came. “Please do, Mark,” he urged.
Over lunch Jenny realized that she was constantly thinking about Fire Maid. Finally Erich said, “Darling, you have the most happy-child smile on your face. Is it me or the bay mare?”
“Erich, I have to say I’m so darn delighted about that horse I haven’t even begun to think about thanking you.”
“Have you ever had a pet, Jenny?” Mark asked.
There was something sturdy and easygoing about Mark that made her feel instantly at home in his presence. “I almost had a pet,” she laughed. “One of our neighbors in New York had a miniature poodle. When puppies were born I used to stop every afternoon on my way home from school to help take care of them. I was about eleven or twelve. But we weren’t allowed to have pets in our apartment.”
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