Sunflower

by Jill Marie Landis

  She set Kase to work sweeping an already clean floor and then resorted to having him help her make an apple pie. As she worked, adding spices to apples dried earlier in the fall, Kase rolled and rerolled his portion of pie dough on the floured surface of the table. Once he tired of rolling and reshaping the dough, he cut it into various shapes with tin cookie cutters and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar. The treats made of excess dough were always a favorite.

  Occasionally he would glance toward Opa’s bed in the corner near the stove and cease his chatter, his eyes meeting Analisa’s own, his brows knit in worry. She wondered, as she watched the movements of his sturdy, capable brown hands, if he at all resembled the man who had fathered him. Perhaps only his coloring came from the Sioux? His features could belong to a distant relative of hers. And yet, she argued with herself, he looked so like Caleb, who was of Indian blood himself, that Kase must have inherited his features from the man who fathered him. It mattered little, she told herself, because no matter who the boy favored, he was her flesh and blood and she loved him beyond a doubt.

  The first day after the storm passed into the second and then the third. Finally the earth began to warm gradually and the crust that had formed atop the settling snow began to soften. Analisa wrapped herself once again in her heaviest clothes, this time donning Jan’s long-legged underwear and trousers before she tramped about in the snow in the yard. Kase was bundled to the ears, unwilling to stay indoors and needing his time outside in the fresh air and sunlight. She allowed him to roam the short path she had made outside the door and to roll and play in the well-packed snow near the soddie. Analisa supplied Tulip-the-Ox and Honey with feed for the next week and piled more hay near the shed. She sank the edge of the shovel into the snow behind the soddie, methodically testing the ground inch by inch in her search for Opa. In her heart she dreaded finding him, but also knew that she must continue the search until she did.

  It was thus Dominie Julius Wierstra found her as he made his way into the yard driving a sleigh pulled by a heavy-sided draft horse. She heard the merry sound of the sleighbells before he was near the front of the property, and so stopped her search to stand with Kase at the gate to meet him. They followed the sleigh into the yard and watched as the young assistant pastor jumped down from the high seat.

  “Welcome, Dominie Wierstra.”

  “Analisa.” He nodded politely to her and then looked to the boy. “And this is Kase, isn’t it? I was out traveling the road to see how the folks on the outlying homesteads weathered the storm. The roads have been quite impassable for the last three days, so I had to wait until the snow became packed a bit before I set out. You came through the storm without mishap?”

  Analisa noted that he had not inquired about Caleb and wondered if word of her husband’s absence had been reported in the village.

  “My grandfather is missing.”

  There was no subtle way to tell the man, but Analisa saw by his reaction to her words that he must think her unmoved.

  “What? Surely not, Mrs. Storm.”

  “He went out the day of the blizzard and didn’t return. I searched for him until I feared that I, too, would be lost. This is the first day I have been able to get across the snow to continue searching.”

  “Where is your husband? Shouldn’t he be helping you?” The man’s gaze registered her appearance. Her face was flushed with the effects of the sharp air and the sun reflecting off of the snow, her eyes a brilliant blue above the ruddy cheeks. Tendrils of yellow-gold hair escaped her tightly wound scarf, framing her face and creating an innocent, appealing air.

  “Caleb is away on a business trip to the East. I’m not sure when he will return.”

  Or if he will return, the man thought to himself. He’d long ago regretted letting Clara Heusinkveld push him into marrying Analisa and Storm. Mrs. Heusinkveld and her gaggle of biddies were overly concerned with the morals of other people, but the pastor would not let him ignore one of the dorp’s most generous contributors to the church.

  “Do you have any idea where Edvard might be?” he asked.

  “If I did, Dominie Wierstra, I would have found him by now.”

  “Yes. Well ...” How was it this young woman could make him feel so inept? Her ice-blue eyes did not waver as she continued.

  “He is lost somewhere within the yard. I think he must have become disoriented by the storm on his way in from the outhouse.”

  The minister blushed red to the roots of his hair, and Analisa looked away to avoid his embarrassment. Caleb, no doubt, would have laughed aloud at the man’s discomfort over the mere mention of the outhouse.

  “Miss Van Meeteren—that is, Mrs. Storm—I can’t let you go on searching for your grandfather alone. He is entitled to a Christian burial, and I will brook no interference from the townspeople on this score. I’m returning to Pella at once to organize the men to accompany me out here to search for Edvard. We have ignored your plight for far too long.”

  “Dominie Wierstra—” She started to object, then stopped as she thought of her grandfather’s body lying somewhere beneath the snow. This was no time to let stubborn pride stand in the way. “That would be most welcome help. My father, mother, and older brother are buried in the cemetery in Pella. I know that Opa would be content to lie beside them.”

  “Then I’ll be on my way and will return as soon as I can gather the men.”

  “Would you like some hot coffee first, perhaps some breakfast?”

  “No. I needn’t waste the time. Perhaps you will have food ready for the men when they arrive?”

  Analisa nodded in agreement and stood aside as he mounted the sled again and turned the heavy horse back toward the gate. She watched as the snow packed itself under the runners.

  It was two hours before the sleighbells could again be heard singing across the frozen landscape as the minister’s sleigh, filled with four well-bundled men, moved into the yard. Behind it was a smaller sleigh driven by a tall blond man. The five men of the village seemed to need no direction as they hopped from the rigs and began to work their way around the yard. Each carried a long pole or the handle of a rake or hoe. Moving in a determined line, the men carefully searched through the snowdrifts for some sign of Edvard Van Meeteren.

  Unable to watch, Analisa went inside and stood near the stove, arms folded against her breasts, trying to still the tremors that began as she waited in dread of a word or shout from one of the men. She kept Kase indoors on the pretext of helping her with the food she would serve. Dominie Wierstra divided his time between the kitchen and the yard, often bringing one or two of the men indoors with him for hot coffee and thick slabs of warm bread. Analisa served them with distracted politeness. She had met few of the townspeople during the time she’d lived in Iowa, and she did not know any of these men, but one or two names were familiar to her, their wives having placed orders for gowns. All treated her with a quiet reserve, attempting to study her when her attention was drawn away from them. More than once Analisa found them staring at her and wondered what questions their minds held. Uncomfortable under the scrutiny, she turned away from their prying eyes, all the while hating herself for her cowardice.

  For his part, Kase kept out of the way, sensing his mother’s unease and the way the men stared at both of them. Caleb had been different from these men. The boy discovered that fact when the men in the room failed to pay him any attention beyond curious stares in his direction. Unlike his mother, Kase met their questioning looks with luminous blue eyes that were disarming in their honesty. When he found that the men turned away from any open attempt at friendship, he stayed near his mother.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Analisa heard a shout from the yard. The heavy sound of the men pushing away from the table and their boots tramping across the floor filled the room. Talk turned to speculation as they shrugged into heavy coats and mufflers, shoving their hands into woolen mittens and gloves as they filed outdoors.

  Dominie Wierstra turned to
Analisa and met her wide, frightened eyes across the room. He thought of the disservice the small, narrow-minded congregation had done this young woman, casting her out to fend for herself and the old man simply because she was forced to bear a child conceived during a brutal attack. If he had been the pastor of Pella four years ago, he asked himself, would he have had the strength and courage to stand up to the openly hostile church members in defense of Analisa? How different would her life have been if he had? As he looked across the room and met her deep blue eyes, eyes filled with fear of what the shout in the yard would bring, he felt an overwhelming compassion for the young beauty and knew that beneath his compassion dwelt some stronger feeling. He pushed the acknowledgment of that feeling aside and became the comforting minister he’d been trained to be.

  “Mrs. Storm, would you like me to go out alone?”

  “No. I will go with you.”

  Somehow he had known that would be her answer. He stepped aside as she crossed the room, drew her heavy coat off of the peg, and pulled it on. The dark gray wool did little to dull her appearance. Instead it called attention to her corn-silk hair and bright eyes, her cheeks flushed from nervousness. He watched her take a deep breath and then turn toward him as she drew on her gloves.

  “Will you walk with me, Dominie?”

  “Of course.” Julius was sorry that she had felt the need to ask.

  She instructed Kase to wait inside, fearing he would balk at her request. Her son’s eyes were bright with tears, but he held them back bravely and sat at the table to await her return.

  The men were speculating in hushed tones, a mixture of Dutch and English words floating on the air around them. They stood in a circle around a spot not far from the outhouse but beyond it. As Analisa and Dominie Wierstra approached the men, the circle broke and widened to admit them. Standing tall and proud, slowly drawing the cold air into her lungs, the shock of its iciness helping to calm her, Analisa looked down at the figure of her grandfather. Edvard Van Meeteren looked as peaceful as if he had just fallen into a deep sleep. Her fear slid away. Analisa knelt in the snow and looked carefully into Opa’s face. His eyes were closed as if in sleep, snow still clinging to his hair and clothing where the men had not brushed it away. He looked almost young, the creases of his skin less noticeable. Leaning close to him, Analisa whispered, “Be happy now, Opa. You are with the others.” She knelt near him a few moments longer, the men respecting her grief and standing silently, shifting their feet and blowing on their mittened hands to ward off the cold.

  Analisa rose and, looking slowly around the circle of men, drew their attention with her silence. “My grandfather was a good man, a simple man,” she said at last. “He was a fisherman in the old country, working the seas around the north islands. He came here because of my father’s dream of a new life, no doubt the same dream you or perhaps your fathers came to find. Now he is at peace. My son and I thank you for your help.”

  She spoke clearly in English, her Dutch accent apparent but not obscuring her words, When she had finished, Analisa turned away from the men without waiting for them to respond. Julius Wierstra followed her, gently holding her elbow to guide her across the snow. He saved Analisa the embarrassment of inquiring into the procedure for her grandfather’s burial by taking the initiative in directing events.

  “Close up your home and get your son ready to leave. We will take your grandfather’s body back into Pella and make arrangements for him to be buried in the church cemetery as soon as possible. You will stay the night in the village.” Seeing that she was prepared to object, he forestalled the interruption with a shake of his head. “The pastor is away for two months, spending the holidays in the East. If need be, you will stay in the parsonage with your son, and I will find other lodgings. I will accept no excuses, Mrs. Storm. Surely you will do this for your grandfather?”

  She watched the man’s open features as he stood next to her, a figure wrapped in dark, heavy clothing, a stark contrast against the bright blue winter sky. The land all around them was vast and white with snow. Analisa suddenly felt small and insignificant, lost against the wide horizon, blue meeting white where the sky dipped to the earth, surrounding them in every direction. She had to get away from this house, away from the terrible, stark aloneness of the open prairie, if only for a day or two.

  “We will be ready.” She turned toward the soddie and then remembered to thank the quiet young man who stood watching her with such a forlorn expression. Turning back toward the minister, she reached out tentatively to shake his hand. As he closed the space between them to take her hand, she fought the tears that had welled up in her eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”

  As the sleigh traveled through the snow-packed streets of Pella, Analisa and Kase huddled beneath a lap robe, surveying the town from the high seat. The late afternoon cold had driven the townsfolk indoors as the sunlight began to wane. Pella stretched out in neat straight lines on the flat, unbroken landscape, halfway between the Skunk and Des Moines rivers. Settled in 1847 by Dominie Hendrike Pieter Scholte and his congregation of eight hundred men, women, and children the town had taken root and flourished on the plains much like the precious tulip bulbs the immigrants carried with them.

  Analisa watched as the sleigh slipped past houses and stores. A grand white structure, the Reverend Mr. Scholte’s two-story home, stood in quiet splendor on Washington Street, many of its windows shuttered against the cold. At the corner of First and Washington, the minister’s sleigh turned north and stopped before his own small white frame house.

  The sound of their footsteps against the polished floor disturbed the serenity of Dominie Wierstra’s home. Analisa was tempted to tiptoe as she crossed the glossy oak floor in the small entry way. Hat in hand, Kase released his mother’s fingers but stayed near her side, his eyes taking in every detail of the wooden structure. The house was warmed by glowing fires in the drawing room and in the kitchen. The delicious aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted through the house.

  Although the house was small by town standards, built to house visiting clergymen and the assistant pastor, Analisa knew it must seem like a palace to Kase, who had never set foot inside a home other than his own. She smiled down at him reassuringly and followed Julius Wierstra into the drawing room.

  “Let me take your coats, and if you’ll just have a seat, I’ll tell Mrs. Eide, my housekeeper, to serve us some coffee as soon as she can have it ready. Excuse me.” He bowed slightly, awkward and formal even in his own home.

  Analisa arranged her heavy wheat-colored shawl around her shoulders and straightened the skirt of her plaid wool dress before she sat down carefully on the brocade settee opposite the fireplace. The dress had been her mother’s and was the fashion of a decade ago, with its wide full skirt and long sleeves gathered at the cuff. It was her warmest presentable winter gown. Settling Kase beside her, Analisa took in the peaceful room.

  A small but ornate Belgian rug lay before the fireplace, the settee and two tall wing chairs drawn up in a comfortable grouping around it. Against the wall behind them, a tall standing clock chimed the quarter-hour and ticked away the minutes, breaking the silence in the room. Exhausted, Analisa could do little more than let her eyes wander about the room. She realized how little she’d slept since Opa’s disappearance. She was certain she would sleep soundly tonight no matter where she was.

  Glancing down at Kase, she felt a tug at her heart. The little boy was sitting straight and still, his spine pressed against the firm back of the settee, his short legs straight out before him, feet dangling in space. The high tops of his boots were exposed where his pantlegs had hiked up. His sturdy garments were clean and well tailored, made by Analisa herself. Short trousers of wool, a thick flannel shirt, and a woolen jacket completed his outfit. His thick socks kept his feet warm and dry and extended to above his knees. His hair, she noticed, was sorely in need of a trim.

  Kase looked quite foreign in the polished atmosphere and traditional surroundings of the m
inister’s house. The stiff formal furniture, fabric-covered walls, and gilt-edged books lining the bookcase served as an unlikely backdrop for her half-breed son. It was hard for Analisa to imagine him in such surroundings for long. Yet, where did he belong? Surely not in a mission on some reservation, among barely civilized nomads. Would he ever live in a world that accepted him? Analisa wished she’d been able to talk to Caleb about his own life, to ask him how he had come to terms with his heritage. For her son’s sake she should have put aside her pride and asked.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the minister’s entrance. His housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Eide, followed, carrying a large silver tray laden with fine china cups and saucers, a silver coffee service, and an assortment of turnovers. The minister drew a low table up in front of the fire, and the woman set the tray before them.

  Mrs. Eide was a short, elderly woman whose figure gave testimony to her skill as a cook. Her round-collared long-sleeved dress with its row of tiny buttons down the bodice was typical of the old-country style. A full, starched white apron covered the dress front and back, allowing only the collar, sleeves, and six inches of the skirt hem to show. A tiny white cap was perched atop the woman’s thick gray curls. Her blue eyes snapped above ruddy pink cheeks as she sullenly met Analisa’s gaze. At Julius’s introduction, the woman nodded, gave Analisa a cursory “Pleased,” and, ignoring Kase entirely, swept from the room.

  “Would you like to serve the coffee, Mrs. Storm?”

  Julius Wierstra drew her attention away from Mrs. Eide’s rude exit, attempting to set her at ease. He smiled at Kase and extended the plate of turnovers.

  “I seem to have upset your cook,” Analisa said softly, handing him a cup and saucer.