“I never thought I’d be raising a whole flock of somebody else’s kids. How are these young people going to know how to raise a family when they come from broken homes and get shuffled to places like this where God knows what can happen?” He stared at the Christmas tree, his voice becoming lighter. “I always loved strings of tree lights—the ones that were all colors. Remember how cheap those things were? I had them strung in my college dorm room all year round. I ordered myself a string for my room here as my own Christmas gift.” He shook his head and gave a small whistle. “Crazy expensive.”
I started laughing. “If you have a minute, you need to come with me.” I led him to my quarters.
“Director David isn’t gonna enjoy seeing another man being dragged to your rooms, lady. Man, the woman gets some, and she can’t curb her appetite.
Terrell could dish out such things with me, make me feel my age. I opened the door to my quarters, set it to stay ajar and pulled him in. From the shelves I pulled a long box and shoved it his way. “Unwrap it now.”
“Lady, tomorrow’s Christmas. You’re like my kid sister, who can never wait for presents.” He slid off the top and whistled at the two-hundred-bulb light set. “This is going to make Terrell’s space a festive place. I didn’t tell you that story about my dorm room before?”
“About a dozen times. I wish there were two or three strings because of all we’ve been through.” I hesitated. “I’ll always remember you as the years take us to other places.” And, forgetting this wasn’t a decade ago, I gave him a huge hug. “Happy holidays, Terrell.”
“Same to you, Anne.” Folded in his strong arms I smelled food, soap, and the slightest scent of holiday spirits.
And, as I led the estate through our worship service Christmas morning, I prayed that above respect, our children would all know love. We walked into breakfast to find stockings with names attached hung all over the dining room, each filled with a piece of fruit, a few pieces of candy, a pencil and small toy. Magda and Jack watched from the sides like parents enjoying their kids’ excitement on Christmas morning.
As Terrell served a wonderful welcome dinner and the kids performed their pageant, I found myself thinking about the future instead of the present. Maybe these child workers would grow into adults who really understood the old adage about “it takes a village to raise a child.” Hopefully more kids were living in places like Ashwood, not Giant Pines, and would experience the goodwill of caring adults in this new world of bureaucratic life.
40
Frequent calls from Tia kept David up to date on her partying through the holidays in Romania and the troubled plant melt down. There was talk about sending him to help her DOE handlers, but his own projects held top priority. David said his supervisor reminded him daily that this new generation energy system produced more product and revenue than Tia’s big international project team could realize for many years. Energy fed a hungry world. Revenue fed a hungry DOE.
The big Christmas tree came down the day before New Year’s Eve. The men of Ashwood began preparing for that festival, an odd tradition centering on sports that developed during the recovery years. I’d never been to an estate celebration and was told there would be friendly competitive games outdoors, a bonfire with foods roasted on sticks. At midnight, the men planned to shoot off fireworks.
Keeping the business of Ashwood moving forward after the holidays, as we dealt with the Giant Pine’s people, demanded more time than existed in a day. Magda found two excellent workers and considered firing the assistant agronomist whose knowledge seemed outdated. Lao, always skeptical, wouldn’t trust any of the people assigned to engineering to do more than simple rewiring in a production building. Ladd stepped into the role of Terrell’s chief kitchen worker and began supervising food preparation and serving.
I daydreamed about getting away from Ashwood, about walking through a park with other leisurely strollers, about eating in a restaurant without thirty people I saw every day, about taking David off the estate somewhere so we could get to know each other without our regular backdrop.
Chief Baylor held her final security briefing January third, which brought Auditor Milan back to Ashwood. Unlike that first day in December, only five of us sat around the table—Baylor, Oluf, Milan, Lao, and me. Results of a thorough audit completed the prior day dominated the meeting, with Lao assigned responsibilities to make corrections or order updated equipment. The DOE reduced its presence, but I guessed with my new status I’d become one of theirs to protect.
Oluf and Milan stayed behind for a more private discussion. We walked to the office building, to a former work space now transformed into a totally secure communications conference room. While the Bureau’s blatant disdain in treatment of estate people left me unhappy, the DOE displayed an underbelly of paranoia I found uncomfortable. We settled around the small table, the door closed.
“Director Tia is disintegrating,” Oluf stated as I sat down. “She’s associating with a Russian known to distribute narcotics.”
“She’s had a weakness for the Eastern European types in the past,” David added. “Bring her home.”
“She says she’ll pull herself together if the nurse and baby can join her there. You know the department will offer complete protection so the child is never in danger.” Oluf checked his data pad. “We can give them their own security squad, find a second licensed nurse if that makes you feel more comfortable. One who speaks Russian or Romanian, something other than Korean.”
“Nurse Kim also speaks French and Greek,” I mentioned as Oluf’s ignorant disregard of the real dangers for Phoebe soured the discussion.
David shook his head. “I didn’t just negotiate with the Bureau of Human Capital schmucks for permanent custody of my own daughter to risk sending her to Eastern Europe. Let’s put the dirty cards on the table. When my wife is off her meds, she is capable of trading anything for the promise of a high. I’ve been talking with her almost every hour, around the clock, for the last three days—a sign that she’s in extremely tough shape. I’m not sending Phoebe. Bring Tia home or get her to a good clinic over there.”
Tension increased as Oluf refused to accept David’s stand. “You’ve been reasonable about helping us out with Tia. Think of her project and her reputation. I’m sure we can keep the baby safe and help your wife through a month or two.”
“Our daughter is not DOE property. She was not born to keep Tia on track.” David thumped a hand on the table. “Phoebe will not be going to Romania. Find another handler or take Tia out of there.”
Two angry men faced each other across the table. If the DOE felt money could pay David for the inconvenience of taking his child to Romania, someone seriously underestimated him as a parent.
“Who are you representing here,” I asked Milan. “Are you a Bureau representative or a DOE operative?”
“I’m the baby’s assigned legal guardian.”
I looked to David for confirmation that he knew this and understood he was also in the dark. Oluf cursed.
Milan seemed to weave himself into every aspect of Ashwood. No easy smile, no questions, this time he held the most precious prize in his power.
“This is where the future trumps the present.” He sat straight in his chair, not focusing on any of us as he spoke. “Think of the potential of Phoebe and her brother—the controlled genetic mixing of Tia and David brought up by David and Anne in an estate supported by both the Bureau and DOE. That’s what human capital management is about—providing today’s world with the right mixture of talent and labor while building for tomorrow. It was all in the surrogacy arrangement you signed, David. Your daughter will be a person of gigantic potential if we stay on plan.”
He slowed down, gave us time to absorb what he said, then turned to Oluf. “So, the baby does not go to Romania. She doesn’t go anywhere outside of this country without clearance from my office until she reaches her adult maturity.”
A battle took place between the bureaucrats with
David and I as witnesses. Oluf, clearly in a corner, twitched in his chair. Spittle flew as he threw down his next challenge.
“Hell, why don’t you go along, Milan, if you’re sure DOE won’t protect the baby. You don’t think we’ve got investment in her as well? Who co-signed all those pre-Christmas settlements to build these Regan kids a perfect little place on earth?”
Milan spoke softly, “Not you, Oluf. The decisions were made higher, much higher. You know I’m open to many collaborative thoughts, but Phoebe Regan stays here. Bring her mother home, send her to a clinic, buy her a playmate with a phobia for drugs, but the children are out of bounds. Always will be. I hold Phoebe’s passport.”
He stood and bowed to us. “That’s why I’m here, General Manager Hartford and Director Regan. I’ll remain close to assure the Regan children grow up healthy and intellectually prepared for their futures.” He picked up his black briefcase. “Do you want a ride back to the city, Oluf?”
In silence, Oluf picked up his bag. The door closed again behind them. In the odd white noise of this clean room I could not even hear my own breathing, but felt each pump of my heart as shock and fear settled in my consciousness. David rose from his chair, brought his arm back, hand in a fist looking for a hard surface of plasterboard.
Grabbing at his arm, I pulled him back. “Don’t, David. The walls are reinforced. You’ll break your hand.”
He shook me off. Hit the wall. “Fuck, who cares.” He thumped the wall, cursed again. Leaned against the wall, head down.
“Did you understand any of this would happen?” I asked, wondering how this could all be so surprising.
“How would I? We signed a lot of papers when we were married by the state. I wanted kids so bad, I signed every form. Every fucking form. God, I don’t even have legal rights for my own kids. My kids. My flesh and blood. That baby has my mother’s nose and the family birthmark on her shoulder blade. She’s mine.”
“Milan didn’t say anything that contradicts that, David. Nothing at all.”
He turned and leaned against the wall, gently tapped the back of his head against it once, twice.
“Stop that. Phoebe’s safe. You know she’ll always be safe. You just have to get over this outside guardian thing. I’m sure it’s for the best.”
“You couldn’t understand.”
We sat across the table, two ordinary people caught in a definitely not ordinary state. He raised his head first to speak. “I didn’t mean to diminish you, Annie. It’s just that I’ve lived in this damn marriage for so many years just to have kids, and then that creep tells me I don’t have legal guardianship of my own flesh and blood.” His voice choked. I didn’t want to hear what would come next, knew we were coming to an awful understanding at the same time. “That they are … in essence … owned by the government … that they’re investment material. What’s that?”
“That’s something we’ll figure out as they grow up.” I would do almost anything for David and his daughter, but there wasn’t anything to be done. Another dreadful question jumped into my mind. “Do you think someone planned we might be attracted to each other?”
He didn’t answer. I didn’t care. I stood up and left the conference room, grabbed my outer wear and took a walk to the barns until I remembered it was a day for artificial insemination of the pigs. So I headed for our newest growing building to smell plant life and found Magda grafting plum tree shoots onto some other plant’s stalk. And, finally, I just walked in the deep snow of my estate out where no one could hear me crying.
41
On the day that winter released its hold on Ashwood, the call came to David that Tia’s body had been found. He told me Oluf said she had begun living on the street. That she had been stabbed numerous times and left to die with no identification except the DOE tracker chip. An operative in Romania lost her job for assuming Tia was spending days with another low-life lover and not calling in an alert. Like watching two trains traveling toward each other on the same track, there was shock when the call came, but not surprise.
There was no question about bringing her remains back to Ashwood, the home she never wanted. So David traveled to New York City to be with Tia’s remaining family as her ashes were interred next to her parents in an old Jewish cemetery. Tia’s daughter, dark curly hair framing an exquisite petite face, sat up on her own for the first time while her father flew home to Ashwood in a DOE jet.
Neither David nor I were quite as comfortable in our own skins since Milan claimed responsibility for the future of Phoebe and her still unborn brother. Now committed to a future at Ashwood, the estate felt alternatively like a goodly sized prison or just a good place to make a living and raise kids. We agreed to have our own babies, no surrogacy or signed consents, just kids not owned by any outside bureau or department or entity.
David, having fulfilled one arranged marriage obligation, insisted traveling a leisurely plan toward a summer wedding to be held by the small pond outside the kitchen window. No one gave away the bride and everyone who attended served as our witnesses. We pledged our love and assumed respect followed.
On Earth Day, I assigned a crew to paint the residence front doors a shade of willow then plant forsythia and spirea in the gardens below the front windows. We replaced the empty ornamental bird cages that made me think of Tia with trellises to hold up sweet-smelling roses this summer.
“Ms. Hartford.” Amber stood in the hall outside my bedroom door. “Cook Terrell found herbs growing next to the porch and wanted you to come see.”
We walked side by side, her head a bit higher up my arm. “How are you doing, Amber? Is school good?”
“I remember that you made us sing our lessons the very first morning you were our matron. I remember that, Ms. Hartford. It was hard for me to remember things before that.”
“How would Teacher Jason say you’re doing with lessons?”
The same little girl who knocked on my door six months ago studied my face with serious dark eyes. Her face was more rounded, her smile more ready, her steps threatened to turn into dance as she hummed through her work.
“Well, I have learned a lot of Korean and French, even if I’m not so good at grammar. Are there jobs for women who can speak lots of languages?”
“You know you have a place at Ashwood for many, many years so how about you just take it one day at a time. But what do you know in Korean?”
“The alphabet, a bunch of nursery songs, numbers, stuff like that.”
“Tell Nurse Kim good job.”
“Sometimes I get some of the French stuff mixed up with Spanish talk.”
“Why is that?” With Teacher Jason directing the workers’ individual development planning I no longer studied their Bureau files, but Amber’s background remained clear because of the stripes on her back—Canadian mother, father of mixed European background.
“The neighbors. You know, the people who I stayed with after my parents went away.”
Gently and with what society called “respect,” I pulled Amber toward the long wooden bench made by David that stood in Ashwood’s foyer. My hand stayed on her back, but I no longer felt the scars through her lightweight work tunic. “Why don’t you just tell me what happened. It seems like a secret that makes you sad.”
“I already told Nurse Kim that he didn’t hurt me in that bad way, he just whipped me when I was stupid and bought the wrong street packets. Drugs, you know.”
“And what did Nurse Kim say?”
“She said the lotion she put on my back will make the stripes go away so I can grow up to be strong and beautiful. Like you.” And she giggled. “But I don’t want to be a matron. Not at all.”
“That makes two of us,” I said. “Let me tell you what I wanted to be when I was a girl your age …”
With David’s son due in weeks, thoughts about the future of all these children seemed closer than usual. On this sunny day I wanted to believe Phoebe and Amber and all the kids would have unlimited options when really non
e of us knew what would come next in this bureaucratic-driven nation. The only child I could hope to protect from bureaus and agencies and contract relationships was the one I carried within.
Acknowledgements
For their love and support, I am most grateful to my family. My thanks for the joy they’ve brought to every step in the success of Minnesota Cold from spreading the word about my writing to keeping the lights turned on financially. Thanks as well to the many friends (new and old) who have shared this journey with so much kindness.
The first words of Ashwood were written after an evening of faculty poetry readings at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing. Something in the magic and rhythm in Tim Seibles’ poems that cold Maine winter night inspired me to begin a short story before I could sleep about a young woman arriving at a forbidding residence called Ashwood. With the incredible support of Suzanne Strempek Shea plus the keen insights of Michael Kimball, Ashwood grew from a simple short story featuring a great gray house offering no welcome into my graduate project and this book.
To my writing group, I am indebted for hours of reading and feedback. Thanks to Roger, Charlie, Paul, Pam, Paul and Loren.
Once again I’d like to thank the Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards organization for their recognition of Minnesota Cold. Finally, a special tip of the head to my publisher— North Star Press of St. Cloud.
About the Author
Cynthia Kraack’s first novel, Minnesota Cold, won the 2010 Northeastern Minnesota Book Award for fiction. Ashwood is the first book in a planned trilogy about a family living in post-global depression. She has had short stories published and received professional recognition for her work in writing business simulation games. Cynthia, a graduate of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast M.F.A.Program in Creative Writing, also holds a graduate degree from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Marquette University. She is a native of Wisconsin and has lived in Minnesota all her adult life.
Ashwood Page 31