Dakota Blues

by Lynne Spreen

  Chapter Nine

  Glenda turned onto the two-lane highway away from town and headed deeper into farm country. Rows of evergreen trees ran from north to south, protecting the farm fields from wind and reminding Karen of the Christmas tree farms back in California. In the middle of a yellow canola field stood a herd of deer, antlers still covered in velvet.

  Twenty miles south they drove into the remote community of Regent, which consisted of a sleepy main street and a few dozen houses. Glenda parked in front of an old feed store bearing the name Farmers Health Collective. Inside the clinic, crayon drawings by school children were taped up on the walls and soft music wafted from an iPod player at the receptionist’s window. Two women thumbed through magazines while a child played in the corner with alphabet blocks.

  Glenda waved to the receptionist. “Is Annie around?”

  “She’s giving a tetanus shot. Should be done any time.”

  “Would you ask her to see me? I’ll be in my office.”

  Karen followed Glenda down the hall and into a cramped room. On the desk, a multicolored array of case folders was stacked next to medical textbooks. A teddy bear, clad in surgical scrubs, grinned at them from the top of the books.

  Karen spotted the nameplate on the door. “You’re the boss?”

  Glenda reached in the drawer and pulled out a jar of candy. “Unofficially. There’s a chief physician in Grand Forks who’s technically responsible for the whole network, but I only see him a couple times a year. Otherwise, we do video conferencing, email, and phone calls. Want a peppermint?”

  Karen unwrapped a candy and popped it in her mouth. “I’m guessing you’re the main health care in the area?”

  “Yup.” Glenda leaned back in her chair, put her feet up, and rolled a peppermint around in her mouth. “The only. We serve the whole south end of the county. If they need more, they go to Bismarck or Dickinson.”

  “You’re pretty far away from things. Is it hard to find staff?”

  Glenda nodded. She gestured toward the door and lowered her voice. “I’m worried about my assistant, Annie. She’s burning out. She doesn’t complain, but I can tell. There isn’t much more I can do to make things easier. The work is what it is.”

  “How’s the pay?”

  “About two-thirds of what they can earn in Grand Forks or Bismarck, but the cost of living is proportionate, and it’s a lot quieter out here at night. Lots of stars.”

  “Hard to hire people based on that.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Karen rolled the candy wrapper between her fingers until it was shaped like a ball. Laughter resonated from down the hall, and a copier hummed outside the door. Hand-made mobiles of colored foil dangled in front of the windows, reflecting the late afternoon sun. The pen scratched across paper as Glenda signed checks. The clinic had that peaceful, Friday afternoon feeling she missed.

  When a shriek knifed through the air, Glenda was out the door before Karen had managed to stand up. They reached the waiting room just as a young woman lost her hold on her husband. He slipped to the floor, leaving streaks of blood on his wife’s chest. Glenda knelt at his side while the receptionist tucked a jacket under his head. One of the other patients braced herself against the far wall, hands covering her mouth.

  “Easy, easy, Johnny, we’re here.” Glenda tucked a stethoscope under his shirt and cocked her head. The man’s blond hair was dark with sweat, and a blood-soaked towel was wrapped around his right hand. His wife clutched the other. “He was working on the thresher,” she said, “and the wheel turned when he wasn’t expecting. The blade fell on his arm. I saw it out the kitchen window.”

  A woman knelt beside Glenda with a satchel of medical instruments. “Annie. Thank God you’re here.” Annie filled a syringe and handed it over.

  Karen stood back, her nostrils flaring at the metallic tang of blood. The young wife stared at her husband, who moaned as the soothing molecules of morphine began circulating through his system. Glenda and Annie prepared to transfer the man to a gurney.

  The receptionist touched the wife on the shoulder. “Lanie, you can ride in the ambulance.”

  “How can I? I got cows, and the kids’re about due home from school.” The woman, looking at her husband, began to tremble. “What am I gonna do? I told him to be careful. He thinks he’s a gosh-darn hero all the time.”

  “Most men do.” Karen stifled her urge to bolt out the door and instead knelt down next to Lanie. Working in the administrative offices of an HMO was very different from doing actual medicine. Lanie smelled of sweat and blood.

  “I thought we’d never get here. The darned truck died every time I slowed down. I thought he was gonna bleed to death.”

  “When did it happen?” asked Glenda.

  “‘Bout fifteen minutes ago.”

  Karen checked the clock on the wall. It was almost three.

  “The kids’ll be getting home from school, and I always pick them up at the bus stop. If I’m not there they’ll worry. And the cows need milked. We got two of ‘em.” Lanie wiped snot and tears against the back of her hand.

  “Do you have a neighbor?” asked Karen. “Somebody you can call?”

  “John’s folks can meet me at the farm but they’re gonna want to head to Bismarck right away. I’m shakin’ so bad, I don’t think I can drive. Can you help me?”

  Karen hesitated. After so many years in the big city, she was leery of getting pulled into the drama of strangers. If she could hand this duty off to someone else–but there was no one. Glenda, Annie, and the receptionist had their hands full.

  She picked up Lanie’s purse. “Let’s go.”

  “Are they going to move him pretty soon?”

  Glenda nodded.

  “We’ll hurry.” Karen held the door open. They ran to Lanie’s truck, a rusting green hulk with a horse blanket across the front seat. Karen got behind the wheel and stopped cold when she saw the three-speed shifter on the steering column. She glanced over at Lanie, who seemed about to pass out. Running quickly through memories from her teen years, Karen took a deep breath, pushed in the clutch, turned the key, and gassed it slightly. She eased the gearshift into what she hoped was reverse. Clenching her jaw, she let the clutch out slowly, and the truck started backward. She covered the brake pedal with her right foot until the truck had rolled back enough, wiggling the shifter around until it slipped into first gear. Just as the old Chevy began to stutter forward, Lanie yanked her door open and threw up.

  A half hour later, Karen was perched on a three-legged stool with her forehead nudged up against the warm flank of a cow. Pigeons cooed from the rafters overhead. Karen tugged gently on the cow’s teat. Nothing in her city-girl adult life prepared her for this. The cow snorted.

  “It’s the opposite of what your hand is used to.” Lanie, milking the cow next to her, had calmed with the routine of chores. Her own bucket was already half-full. “Get your hand up by the top, right against the bag, then tighten your grip from the index fingers down, that will squeeze the milk from top to bottom so it comes down through the teat. Alternate your hands and get a rhythm. Remember, it’s not pulling, she won’t appreciate that. You get kicked and I’ll be taking you to the doc’s, too.”

  A giggle escaped the little girl who leaned against her mother’s shoulder. “Mommy, she don’t know how.”

  Karen got in a good squeeze, and the milk squirted out.

  “Hush. She’s getting it now.” Lanie grinned at Karen. “You keep at it, miss. You’re doing’ fine.”

  A truck pulled up out front, its front tires biting hard into the gravel.

  “Grandpa’s here! Grandpa’s here!” shouted the little girl.

  “Go in the house and tell Buddy we’re leaving in two minutes.” Lanie took the bucket from Karen and poured it into her own. “You can drive yourself back in the truck. Just leave the keys in it.” Lanie quick-walked out of the barn, milk sloshing from the bucket.

  Chapter Ten

  The re
st of the week passed quietly. Every morning, Karen let the sun awaken her, ate a hearty breakfast and read the Dickinson Press. Using the internet signal from a router somewhere in the neighborhood, she handled as much work as was possible, with help from Peggy and Stacey. Wes checked in periodically but seemed oblivious to the game.

  Every few days she went to Mass with Aunt Marie, for no better reason than she had the time and she wanted to be a good houseguest. It turned out to be a pretty good form of meditation, forcing her to slow down and relearn the rituals.

  Karen wasn’t geared for sitting around doing nothing though, so she helped with housework and laundry, weeded the garden, and shopped for groceries. Aunt Marie taught her a few simple recipes, meals that had strengthened the backbone of the Midwest for the better part of a century: Swiss steak smothered in brown gravy with a hint of barbeque sauce; scalloped potatoes from scratch; and pork chops, mashed potatoes, and green beans, all baked together in a Pyrex bowl. And although the calories and fat content nagged at her, Karen found herself sleeping better than she had in years.

  On Friday they went for lunch at a downtown diner. The waitress, led them to a booth at the front of the diner where they could watch the action on Villard Street. A few minutes later, Lorraine slid into the booth wearing stylish trousers, heels, and a blazer. As her mother gave her an update, Lorraine unwrapped a straw, laughing. “You’re not getting that much rest, Cuz.”

  “I’m relaxing. It’s nice.” Karen glanced at the lunch menu. It looked like a choice between fried and fried. She chose a Reuben, figuring she’d burn it off doing chores.

  Lorraine ordered soup. “I can’t stay long. Everything’s crazy at the office.”

  “What’s going on?” Karen asked.

  “It’s like a ‘be careful what you wish for’ story. A couple months ago I had this idea and it worked so well the partners made me the marketing director. So now I’m doing that, on top of my old job of office manager.” Lorraine’s phone buzzed. “Gosh darn it; not again.” She read a new text, tapped a quick reply, and stuck it in her purse. “I hate being a supervisor.”

  Karen felt her pulse quicken. “What’s the problem? Maybe I can help.”

  “You can’t help.”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay. There are these two legal secretaries in my office, and they’re in a competition to see who can do the least work. So nothing gets done, the attorneys get mad, and I get blamed.”

  “And you’re the supervisor?”

  “In name only.” Lorraine paused as the waitress brought their entrées. She placed a steaming Reuben sandwich in front of Karen.

  Sauce dripped out the sides and the aroma of hot pastrami made her weak with longing. She bit into the sandwich. The rich tang of warm Thousand Island dressing nearly brought tears to her eyes.

  Lorraine took a couple of quick tastes of soup and set the spoon down. “The three of us used to be friends, but then I got promoted so that got messed up.”

  “But you’re the boss now,” said Karen.

  “I’m a glorified paralegal. I know zip about supervision and don’t have time to learn. It’s hopeless.”

  Karen stirred artificial sweetener into her drink. “Law offices are all about billable hours, right? So why not have the women keep work logs, and have them do a weekly review with the managing partner. Tell them it’s a new policy to make sure the office bills enough. That way they’ll be forced to show how much work they do, but it won’t look punitive.”

  “They’d hate that.” Lorraine cocked her head to the side. “You know what? That is actually a brilliant suggestion. Thanks.”

  “Welcome.” Karen took another hearty bite of the sandwich. The sauce alone was to die for. She licked a finger.

  “So are you going to hang around for a while? Glenda and the rest of the girls want to hang out. We could drink too much and complain about work.”

  “She can probably use a day off,” said Aunt Marie. “I’ve worked her pretty hard.”

  “It depends on how things are going back at the office.” Karen set the sandwich down. With the help of Skype and email, and the excellent camouflage provided by Peggy and Stacey, she had managed easily. “As long as I get back by Tuesday morning, I’m good.”

  “What about Steve?” asked Aunt Marie.

  Lorraine stirred her soup. Karen took a gulp of iced tea, which gave her brain-freeze and bought her a few agonized moments to figure out how to break the news.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  With Aunt Marie, it was best to be honest. She’d figure it out anyway. “We’re separated. He moved out a couple months ago.”

  “I am sorry,” said Aunt Marie, “but I’m not surprised.”

  “You’re not?” Karen and Lorraine spoke in unison.

  “No. Lena saw it coming. She told me she was worried about you two. Then, when he didn’t show up here, I thought something must have happened.”

  “How could Mom have known? I never said anything.”

  “She’s your mother.” Aunt Marie reached over and grasped Karen’s hand. “Every Sunday after you called, Lena and I would talk, and we agreed there were signs. For example, you rarely mentioned him.”

  “But why didn’t she ask me?”

  “She didn’t want to pry. She figured she’d wait until you said something.”

  Karen thought she had done a pretty good job of hiding the truth from her mother, couching any marital updates in vague terms. Now she felt sick. “I made her worry, and she knew I was lying.”

  “She knew you were unhappy, but she said her prayers and hoped it would work out.”

  “I tried,” said Karen, her eyes settling on an indeterminate point in front of her. “We both did. We’ve been struggling for years. It goes all the way back to when I was trying to get pregnant.”

  “Lena thought you were going to separate back then,” said Aunt Marie.

  “We almost did. It was hard for both of us, but for Steve–I don’t know. People thought he was a workaholic but I knew why he stayed so busy.” They were a perfectly matched pair, hiding in their work. She couldn’t remember the last time they had dinner together, let alone sex. Karen had tried to tell herself it was about middle age. Given their work schedules, he’d taken to sleeping in the guest bedroom, and she didn’t resist, although some nights she missed the simple comfort of his body next to hers.

  “Every couple finds their own way of coping.” Aunt Marie turned to Karen. “Is there any chance you two might be able to work things out? Have you tried counseling?”

  “He had an affair, and now his girlfriend is pregnant.”

  Aunt Marie looked down at her plate, but Lorraine was not so subtle. “What an unbelievable bastard.”

  “I can’t imagine him having children at his age, dear.”

  “Nevertheless.” Karen signed the bill, aware that her hand was shaking, and put the pen back on the plastic tray. The three of them sat in silence.

  “Well, this is depressing” Lorraine moved to stand. “I don’t want to seem heartless, but I have to get back to work. You guys doing anything fun this afternoon?”

  Aunt Marie nodded. “We have an appointment with Patrick at the mortuary.”

  Chapter Eleven

  At Stevenson’s, they almost ran into Patrick on his way out the door. “Oh my gosh, I apologize, but I have to leave right away. Our bookkeeper can help you. Let me show you to her office.” He led them down a deeply carpeted hallway, past the chapel and into a bright, well-organized room. “This is Jennie. She’ll take real good care of you.”

  Jennie smirked when she saw him. “Aren’t you going to be late for your meeting with Dr. Green?” She pantomimed a golf swing.

  Patrick blushed. “Again, ladies, I apologize.”

  “Where are you playing?” asked Karen.

  “The Bully Pulpit, in Medora. Do you golf?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “Why don’t you join us?”

  “I don’
t have clubs or the proper clothes.” Karen indicated her new Walmart ensemble.

  “You’re fine,” said Patrick. “They rent clubs, and I don’t think you’re going to violate the North Dakota dress code. Why don’t you come?”

  Karen knew the Bully Pulpit was challenging, and her game was rusty. On the other hand, it would be good to get outside, and she could use the exercise. She looked at her aunt, who made a gesture like get outta here!

  “Are you sure you don’t need me?”

  “No, you kids go on. Have fun.”

  The Bully Pulpit clubhouse sat on a bluff overlooking the Little Missouri River. Down below, the fairways wove in and out of a miniature Grand Canyon, with extreme elevation changes between tee box and green. Karen hoped she wouldn’t embarrass herself.

  At the pro shop, she bought a logo shirt, glove, and visor. Outside, Patrick was high-fiving a man who looked vaguely familiar. When they came through the door she extended her hand in wonder. “Curt Hoffman.”

  “All I get is a handshake? Come here.” He swept her into a hug, and then held her at arms’ length. Karen studied him back. His dark hair was now short and dusted with gray, and his eyebrows perched full and straight over deep-set brown eyes. He wore beige linen slacks that nipped his waist and flowed to the cuff. The boy who at seventeen seemed a toothpick with shoulders had evened out nicely.

  Patrick ambled over, pulling on a glove. “You two know each other?”

  “Earth science. Eleventh grade. I helped him with a term paper,” Karen said.

  “Remember those sparkly pink sneakers you used to wear?”

  “I still have them.” What else did he remember? The way she and her best friend watched him like two sad-eyed puppies?

  The man behind the cash register pointed out the window. “Folks, you’re up.”

  Curt held the door, and as she passed, she glanced sideways at him, curious to examine his middle-aged face and body, but he caught her looking. They both laughed, and she looked away, blushing. At the carts, she saw he had placed her bag next to his. Patrick was left to drive solo. They drove through the crowd of golfers waiting their turn to play.