By the end of the service, Roald had finally fallen asleep, until they rose for the benediction and he saw his mother, letting out a crow of delight that made those around them try not to laugh out loud.
“Thank you, Roald,” Reverend Solberg said as he raised his arms to give the benediction. “The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord look with favor upon thee and give thee his peace. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Everyone joined the amen, Elizabeth and Jonathan played a duet, and the congregation rose to make their way out the doors, where Solberg greeted them all.
“Never a dull moment, is there?” Thorliff asked his mor.
“At least he wasn’t crying.” The baby had done that more than once too. She reached for him and Roald came to her immediately, patting her cheeks and beaming at her.
Halfway down the aisle, Ingeborg kissed the baby cheeks. And to think I didn’t think of Haakan even once or cry. Thank you, Lord.
Pastor Solberg came to dinner at Ingeborg’s that afternoon, although Mary Martha and his children had been invited to another get-together in town. When all the family had left after enjoying Sunday dinner, Pastor Solberg stayed behind at Ingeborg’s request.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, her rocking chair singing a slow tune.
“I am not surprised. Winter and the coming of spring are always good times for thinking. I know this has been a hard winter for you.”
“It caught me by surprise. I thought I would be more accustomed to Haakan’s leaving by now, but I think I missed him more this winter than the last, the first after he went on to heaven. I know the number of days is the same and this was even a milder winter than last, but the days just seemed darker, or the nights longer, or something.”
“Perhaps last winter you were still numb, but you have not seemed terribly sad or depressed.”
“I know. I haven’t been. That’s why this is so puzzling to me. I keep looking in the Word, and God speaks to me through it, over and over. Ah, so many promises, and I treasure them. Perhaps that’s the reason I’ve needed the dark, to drive me to His Word.”
“The pit?”
“No, that was last winter. I call it the fear of the pit time. But just dark.” She rocked, her head resting against the back of the rocker. She felt a smile begin somewhere inside where smiles are born. “Is that why we need the dark and hard times, to make us draw closer to Him?”
“Ja, that is true. Hard lessons to learn, but—”
“But we need to learn them.” It was not a question. The rocker sang along with the snap and crackle of the logs in the stove. “I know clear down to my bones that He is always with me, and I think that I am finally understanding that when I can’t sense Him near, it isn’t that He has left me alone.”
“No. He never does. He promises over and over to never leave us nor forsake us. I believe that with everything that I am.”
“I always thought that the hard places would get fewer, or at least not as painful, as we get older.”
“I think as we draw closer to Him, He keeps training us up in even more ways, so that we are prepared to do what He has put us on earth to do.”
“Do you ever wonder?” She paused, searching for words. “I mean, is there really more for us to do?”
“After all this town has been through these last two years, you think you’ve not been doing His will in all the love and prayers and healing you help bring about? Look around you, Ingeborg. You are raising two children He has given you. All the people who come here for love and a listening ear. All the prayers you have prayed for those around you. Your grandchildren like nothing better than to come to Grandma’s house. And the young woman from the hospital. You were right there with your hands and your prayers. When you fret that you may not be doing enough, remember where that kind of thought comes from—the enemy, who always comes to lie, steal, and kill. Trust that God will always guide you in the right direction.”
Ingeborg sighed. “I do trust, most of the time. It is so easy to let my mind get away from me.”
“Ah, Ingeborg, it is just a good thing He knows us so well and loves us anyway. We all struggle with trusting and praising Him in all things. But He won the war.”
“Ja, He did. But these skirmishes sure can be painful.”
His smile warmed her heart as always. “Ja, but we get stronger.”
I sure hope so, she thought, rocking. I truly hope so. No, I trust so. Go away, worm of doubt.
CHAPTER 7
What are we going to do with her?” Astrid looked from Elizabeth to head nurse Deborah MacCallister, and Miriam and Ingeborg, who had just been giving their patient one of her combination conversation, muscle work, and prayer times. They were gathered in Astrid’s office at the hospital.
“The more difficult question is how do we help her want to live?” Ingeborg picked up her knitting.
“You’d think she’d want to live for her baby’s sake.” Deborah studied the chart Miriam passed her. “We’ve done all we can for the pneumonia. I mean, even though she still coughs a lot, she has not run a temperature for the last twenty-four hours, and thanks to the percussive thumping, her lungs are clearing. We’ve force-fed her, but she is still not eating enough for that baby too.”
Astrid shook her head. “Thorliff has had no success with finding out who brought her in, so where did she live and who with? We have absolutely no history. How far did that man travel to bring her here? And why didn’t he take her to Grafton or Grand Forks?”
“Why do we keep thinking she came from south of here? To the north and northwest, we have more small towns with no medical help.” Elizabeth reached for the chart. “As you said, we’ve done all that we can do. Ingeborg, you said she could come to your house, but I hate to burden you with another patient. Do we have anyone else willing to take her in? She should be strong enough soon to be a help around the house.”
Astrid nodded. “If we could figure out how to communicate with her.”
Elizabeth passed the chart to Ingeborg. “Has she said a word?”
All of them shook their heads.
“Can she speak?”
Leaning over, Ingeborg put the chart on Astrid’s desk. “She understands Norwegian. When I ask her to move her legs or arms, she can do that. When she opens her eyes, she is following me. She does not seem to be afraid of me any longer.” She picked up her knitting again. Her needles kept up their soft clicking as she spoke. “But she does not respond to a direct question, and yet she can hear. So is this non-response by choice or . . . ?”
“And that is the question. Can fear make someone go mute or was she already mute or . . . ?” Astrid tongued a canker sore on the inside of her cheek. “When Reverend Solberg went into her room, she was all right, but when Thorliff tried to ask her questions, had she been able, she would have pushed herself right through the bed or the wall. She shook for an hour after he left.”
“So it seems a man was cruel to her.”
“But not a minister. She trusted him. Or at least was not afraid of him.”
“I think my house is the best idea. I speak Norwegian and no men live there, though she will have to get used to Trygve and the others. Once she settles in and gets stronger, we will be able to figure this out.” Ingeborg nodded at Astrid and the others. “To me, this just seems the best plan for now.” She tipped her head slightly to the side. “And maybe having the children around will be a good thing too.”
Astrid rolled her eyes. Leave it to her mor. “Let’s go lay this out before her and see how she reacts. I guess what bothers me the most is that we have no history. I mean, what if . . .”
Ingeborg spoke gently. “We need not fear any what ifs. We have all prayed about this. Has anyone else come up with a plan?” She waited.
No one said anything.
Ingeborg put her knitting aside. “For some reason, God brought this woman to us to be cared for. All the while I have been praying God’s will be done. He knows who she is, an
d I trust we will learn what she needs in good time.”
While the others returned to their jobs, she, along with Astrid and Elizabeth, returned to private room two.
“Let me be the observer, and I will take notes,” Elizabeth said.
“Good idea,” Astrid commented before taking a deep breath and leading the way into the room.
The mysterious young woman was sleeping, so Ingeborg touched her shoulder and smiled when her eyes flew open, fear leaping out. But she relaxed when she saw who it was.
Ingeborg spoke in Norwegian. “I know you can understand me, so please nod and answer my questions. All right?”
The woman blinked and dipped her chin, keeping her gaze on Ingeborg until Astrid picked up her hand, holding on when she tried to jerk it out.
“This is my daughter, Dr. Astrid, and this is my daughter-in-law, Dr. Elizabeth. Our last names are the same: Bjorklund. Do you remember that?”
Astrid would have missed the nod had she not been watching.
“You have been very sick with pneumonia, but you are getting better every day. Ja?”
Another slight nod.
“Do you know you are with child?”
The woman clamped her eyes shut and started to shake again.
Ingeborg smoothed her hair back and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I know this should not be, but we have to be realistic. Am I right that you are not married and this pregnancy is not your fault?”
Tears leaked from under the clamped shut eyes and ran down the girl’s cheeks. They’d referred to her as a woman, but they had no idea how old she was. She covered her face with both hands and shuddered with the force of her sobs.
Astrid muttered, “I’d say that was a yes.”
Ingeborg handed her a muslin square to wipe her tears and blow her nose as the sobs let up. “We will take care of you. You do not need to be afraid. No one will hurt you here.”
Astrid watched the tears run down her mor’s cheeks and mopped at the ones on her own. Such terror. No one should be like this.
“Ah, dear one, as soon as you are strong enough, I am going to take you to my house. You are now a member of my family, and you need not be afraid. No one will come for you. I am going to call you Clara until you can tell me your real name. Clara means clear and bright, and your future is clear and bright. So, Clara, one of the nurses is going to bring you soup and bread with cheese that came from my cheese house. I will stay with you while you eat. No, do not shake your head. You will eat and get strong, and you now have a new life in Blessing, North Dakota, where you will be known as Clara Bjorklund for as long as you so desire.”
“We will help you sit up.” Astrid smiled as she and Elizabeth moved to the head of the bed and lifted as Ingeborg stacked pillows behind their patient. “There now. The tray will be here in a few minutes. You will eat, right?”
Clara heaved a sigh and let her head fall back against the pillows. She nodded, as if she had no more will to fight them.
“Good.” Astrid patted the hand now lying flat on the bedclothes. “Takk. We just want to help you. And I have always wanted a sister named Clara.”
Clara’s eyes opened wide, and she stared at Astrid, then flashed a look to Ingeborg, who was nodding and smiling.
“Ja, that is so.” Ingeborg sat in the chair beside the bed and picked up her knitting again. “Do you know how to knit?”
Astrid and Elizabeth left the room and, after giving orders to one of the new student nurses, retreated to the office.
“I could quite cheerfully shoot the man who did this to her.” Elizabeth sank into one of the chairs by the office door. “It would probably be better if Thorliff gave up his search as to where she came from. Let her just have a new life and not bring up the old unless she volunteers more information.”
“I have no trouble with that. Other than my curiosity is in rampage mode. The line that keeps going through my mind is ‘one of the least of these.’”
“As in ‘What you have done unto the least of these, you have done so unto me’? A paraphrase, but you get the gist.”
“Ja, that one.” Astrid propped her head up on her hands, elbows on her desk. “Have you noticed how many people who have come to Blessing seem to fit into that category, at least until they’ve been here a while? Emmy, Manny, some of our immigrants, so many of our deaf students, our Indian nurses . . .”
“Thorliff told me about Gerald and Toby all those years ago.”
“I forgot about them. But Deborah would have been one too. She and Manda.”
“All those years ago when everyone got together and named their little town Blessing. Who would have dreamed of all this ahead?” Elizabeth commented.
“God did.”
“Ja, God did. And to think I did not really want to come here. I thought I would be a doctor in Minnesota. Until Thorliff came into my life.”
“As Mor says so often, God does good work when we let Him.”
“Dr. Astrid, we have a patient waiting,” Miriam said after tapping at the door.
“I’m going on home, then,” Elizabeth said. “Remember, you have tomorrow off. Thelma will do just fine with Roald. He needs to learn that I am not always there.”
“If you insist.”
“I’ll check in on Clara before I leave.” Elizabeth slid her notes into her bag. “I’ll rewrite these to make some sense for the records.”
Astrid checked to make sure she had her stethoscope in her apron pocket and headed for the examining room. Lord, please give me the same wisdom you give my mother. Thank you for blessing our hospital the way you do, and help us especially with Clara. You know I would like to get even with whoever abused her, but as Mor would say, vengeance is yours, not ours. But if there is a special place in hell for a man like that, please see to it. She tapped on the door and entered the examining room to see Johnny Solberg sitting on the table with a foot so swollen he couldn’t wear a shoe.
“What happened?” Astrid asked him as she rolled up his pant leg.
He looked to his mother, Mary Martha Solberg, who was sitting in the chair by the door. She shook her head. “You tell her.”
“I, um, we were playing soccer and I, um, accidentally hit the tree.”
Astrid gave him a questioning look. “You kicked the tree?”
“Well, Gunner and I were scrambling for the ball, and I kicked at it but he kicked it first and I hit the tree instead.” He scrunched his face and tried to pull back when she, trying to be as gentle as possible, probed the foot. “Oww.”
“Sorry, Johnny, but I have to see if any bones are broken. When did this happen?”
“Yesterday after school.”
“Why did you not come in then?”
“He tried to hide it, but when he couldn’t walk this morning, I packed some ice around it, which I would have done last night had I known about it.” Mary Martha glared at her son. “Last night he said he didn’t feel well and just wanted to go to bed, so I thought he was coming down with something and didn’t bother to look at his foot, which was under the covers.”
“I see.” Astrid shook her head. “Until we get this swelling down, I can’t tell anything. Let’s get you in a bed, and we’ll get your foot elevated and iced and see what happens. Can you bend your ankle?” He did with a groan. “Move your toes?” This time he clamped his jaw tight and his face paled.
“Let’s hope it is just a sprain and bruised. I’ll call the nurses to get a bed set up and in the meantime, we’ll give you some pain medicine.” She looked to his mother. “You’ll want to bring him some nightclothes. We’re going to have to open that pant leg to get it over his foot. You wait here, and I’ll be right back.” Outside the door, it was all she could do to keep from laughing. Not that the injury was funny, but what a story.
She explained to Miriam and the student nurse what they would do and stopped in Clara’s room to see if her mother was still there. When they said she’d gone home, she asked Deborah to call Ingeborg and ask if someone could b
ring in Manny’s crutches when they came to town. No rush. Johnny would be off that foot for a couple of days at least. If only they had one of those wonderful new inventions, the x-ray machine. Oh to be able to see those bones without having to cut the foot open. What a shame it would be if the bones were broken and she was not able to set them correctly.
That night at the supper table she told them about Johnny kicking the tree. “Talk about a crazy accident.”
“Well, at least he’ll still be able to play the guitar.” Astrid’s husband, Daniel, tried to keep back a snort.
“I’d be careful not to laugh if I were you,” his mother, Amelia, admonished. “I seem to remember a few accidents that were more than strange at our house too.”
“Like the time I got my tongue stuck in that bottle?”
Astrid’s mouth fell open. “You did what?”
Amelia scowled. “I had to break the bottle, and I was scared to pieces it might slash his tongue to bits.”
“May I ask why you . . .”
The scowl did not soften. “He said it was an experiment. His father said he understood since he was of an experiential nature also.”
“You couldn’t get any oil . . . ?”
“We tried everything.”
“I see.” Astrid cocked an eyebrow. “Remind me when we have children not to tell them things like that, just in case they might want to try it.”
But Amelia was not done with the conversation. “Remember when your pa said don’t put your tongue on the pump handle in the winter, and you did, and we had to pour warm water over the handle for what seemed like hours to get your tongue loose?”
“I’ve always wondered why he said that. I never would have thought to do such a thing.” Daniel shrugged. “I asked him once, and he never answered.”
Astrid giggled. “I wonder how much of his tongue was left on the pump handle when he was a boy.”
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