In the Garden of Spite

by Camilla Bruce

  Then an unwanted solution arrived, as a godsend from a fiery place.

  I had grown attached to Caroline. I loved being the mother of this beautiful child, the way she depended upon me and closed her little hand around my fingers. I certainly did not ignore it when her body grew hot and her cheeks turned red with fever. I gave her drops to keep her calm and relieve some of the discomfort. I washed her little body with cold cloths and dripped laudanum and brandy into her milk, but the girl’s illness had deep roots, and she did not get any better. Perhaps she should have seen a doctor sooner, but I was too worried about his verdict. It was better to just tell myself that everything would be fine.

  There was just so much in those days: the candy store and the finances, and everyone knows what it is like with sick infants; either the fever breaks or it does not.

  When my sweet little Caroline died, I was beset with anger. I screamed and wailed so loudly that Dr. Miller had to prescribe me a powder. Mads’s face was ashen; his eyes looked like pieces of coal, but he did not share the rage I felt so deep within my bones. How could it be that I wasn’t allowed to keep this girl who had been all mine? I ached with longing and regret and my jaw hurt me all the time. I felt it was a punishment—an insult from above. I thought that my house was cursed, and that the rooms always strived to be empty. I kept Jennie in my bed at night to have her safely under my watchful eye, lest the void in that house would take her too.

  “It happens,” said the doctor, and he was right, of course. He signed the death certificate and listed the cause of death as congestion. Caroline was shrouded in white and placed in a casket, while Mads arranged for a plot at the cemetery. We sang Norwegian hymns at the funeral, standing by the open grave. All our friends from church were there, shedding tears for that innocent life and telling me how sad it was—but how blessed we were there was another on the way. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh. His will is in everything, they said. We were blessed to have had her even for a time.

  * * *

  —

  The insurance company paid out after Caroline died and that kept us going for a while longer, but I could not force those numbers. As the padding on my belly grew, the debts of our candy store followed suit. The storage filled up with uneaten candy, worthless when it was not on the shelves. Jennie had become quite obese, and so had I under the cushions. I grew worried that the longer I waited, the less profit I would make when the store burned down.

  Finally, I decided I could not wait for the numbers to turn.

  I bought coal oil and kerosene and placed it next to the rose and wintergreen candy in the storage room. Then I sent for James Lee. He arrived at the store at midday and served himself from the open jars of soft licorice and vanilla kisses. Jennie was playing out in the back, which made me feel a little nervous. I looked around the room, took in the colors in the jars, the scent of spice and molasses, knowing I would never see them again. Then I motioned for James to follow and showed him the fuel and the box of matches.

  “I’ll make it look like an accident.” I spoke quietly so the child would not hear us. “I’ll say that the lamp fell over in here, igniting some of the newspapers.”

  James was chewing on a piece of licorice; his breath was strong and sweet when he kissed me. He laughed when he felt my padded belly against him and gave the cushion a slap.

  “Jennie is here,” I warned him.

  “To hell with the child.” He still kissed me, and made me feel heady too. I hiked up my skirts and let him get to it, up against the storage room wall. I tried to be quiet so Jennie would not hear us, but he did not care at all. He lifted my leg up and held it while he burrowed in between my legs. Glass jars and tobacco tins rattled on the shelves. I came undone with his lips on mine, and a fine dust of sugar in my hair, but it did me good, yes, it did. I was no longer nervous when he lowered my leg and helped me brush off my dress. His kisses tasted of strawberry drops.

  No matter how severe my hardships, James could always make me forget.

  When I stepped outside, Jennie was still playing with her dolls in the back. She was humming to herself, quite oblivious. Little did she know that soon she and I would be running out in the street while tall flames ravaged the store behind us, leaving nothing but cracked jars, ashes, and glassy rivers of candy in its wake.

  * * *

  —

  It was a bad year for the Sorensen family. They lost the store and lost a child. Thank the Lord for Myrtle, then, who arrived in 1897. Always a plump and wholesome child, she was greedy on the milk but slept like an angel. It was a lovely spring, green and lush. I felt a peace with Myrtle that I had not sensed before, perhaps because she was so utterly content. Jennie treated her like a sister from the very first day and wheeled her around in the backyard. Myrtle was never sick and she never complained. How could I not love her?

  The insurance money from the store was not as much as I had hoped for when all the debts were settled. I had been hoping we could finally shed that wicked house, but no—we did not have enough to do so.

  I kept worrying about what we would do when the money ran out. How would I stock my pantry then? The house around me seemed filthier than ever, covered in grime I could not wash away. No matter how hard I scrubbed, everything seemed gray and greasy. I cleaned my hands, and cleaned them again, but I could still see soot clogging my pores. My whole kitchen reeked of mold, it seemed, and I inspected the cupboards daily, expecting to see black spots marring the painted wood. Just thinking of the day when the cash had shrunk to nothing made me heave for breath and grab for a rag to wipe cold sweat from my brow. I could see them so clearly in my mind’s eye: Mother and Father at Størsetgjerdet, boiling thin porridge on water and rye. The taste of stale lard and rotting potatoes coated the back of my tongue and made my heart race in my chest.

  The only thing that brought me some comfort were the smiles on my little girls’ lips.

  * * *

  —

  Not two months later, I sat up one night in the children’s room, waiting for the scent of smoke. When I could hear the crackle of flames from the parlor, I raised the alarm and got us out in the yard. There I looked on while my husband in his pajamas uselessly battled the flames with buckets of water handed to him by neighbors. I held Myrtle in my arms and had Jennie by the hand. My belly was padded with a cushion.

  James Lee was long gone by then, shirt singed and hands sooty.

  I was rid of the house at last, and relished watching it burn to the ground.

  23.

  Bella

  Chicago, 1900

  Our new house on Alma Street was in every way better than the one that burned. The cast-iron range was twice as big as my old one and we could even afford an icebox with the insurance money after the fire.

  Behind the white house grew cherry trees and currants, bursting with glossy fruits. It felt like living in a garden, that house, with flowers bursting from every surface, both inside and out, as the walls were papered with floral designs. On hot days, the air smelled green and sweet, not stale and moldy at all. The house had a proper porch as well, where I enjoyed spending my evenings reading letters, mending clothes, and polishing pairs of small shoes. Myrtle and Jennie each got a kitten upon our arrival to comfort them after the horrors of the flames. They turned out to be toms and were at each other’s throats constantly, leaving festering wounds. They were at peace on the porch with me, though, keeping me company while I worked by kerosene light.

  My new daughter, Lucy, was sleeping soundly in a cradle. If she stirred, I rocked it with my foot. She was a peaceful child, just as Myrtle had been.

  I felt content in the new house and set my pride in making our home hospitable and nice. I made the beds every day, aired every mattress and every sheet, cleaned every pot with salt and lemons—took care that the pantry was always full but that nothing was left to rot.

  My girls w
ere immaculately dressed in the pretty frocks we bought after the fire. My chickens had a brand-new home out back and I even considered that pig again.

  It made me feel close to Peter Gunness.

  There was no doubt I had done right in torching our house on Elizabeth Street. The money we collected had given us the new beginning that I had so longed for. I did not miss my days in commerce but thrived on being a mother and a housewife whose biggest concerns were her daughter’s painful teething and finding time to iron ribbons for the girls’ perfect braids.

  The only thing that did not work in those days of honey was Mads. What little trust he had had in me was gone, and he did his very best to make my days miserable. I suppose I should have expected it. He was a fool—but not that much of a fool. Even he would eventually notice how his sickness rose and fell with my moods, and the fires had done nothing to ease his suspicions. Not even the insurance money they brought in was enough to lighten his mood. He ought to have relished all the good food on our table, but instead he had become fearful of it, insisting on feeding himself from the pot or waiting to see if I ate what I brought before tasting it himself.

  “What’s in all those bottles you keep in the cupboard?” he asked me one day as we were enjoying a pleasant dinner of lamb chops.

  I instantly went stiff with annoyance. He had no business in those cupboards. “They are tinctures and such that can come in handy.” I lifted my chin a little.

  “Arsenic and cyanide?” His mouth twisted up as if the lamb on his fork was distasteful. He clearly knew just what was in there.

  “The first one is for rats and other pests. The cyanide is to clean jewelry.” I wanted to smile at his foolishness but did not. The knife slid through the tender meat on my plate, met the fine china with a clicking sound.

  “Is that so?” He rubbed the stubble on his cheeks. “Do we have many rats around?”

  “We used to, but not anymore.” Now I could not help but smile, though I certainly did try not to. He wanted to intimidate me, though he should have known better after all these years. I was not so easily rattled—and he could not prove a thing. Even Dr. Miller blamed his poor heart.

  “The arsenic took care of that?” His voice was as dry as kindling.

  “It did.” I was still smiling as I chewed a piece of mutton.

  “You and your potions.” His lips twitched. “Do not for a minute think I don’t know what’s going on!” He hissed the words in my direction.

  “What is going on?” Little Jennie looked between us with her innocent blue eyes, her pretty features marred by worry. She was twelve, and in charge of cutting Myrtle’s meat at meals and helping the smaller girl spoon the food into her mouth. She had been so absorbed by this task, by completing it to my satisfaction, that she had not paid much attention to our words. The venom in my husband’s voice had changed that.

  “Look what you’ve done!” I hissed right back at him. “Worrying the children—have you no shame?” I grabbed my plate off the table and marched to the counter, where I finished my meal, standing. “I will not sit at the table with you when you act in such a foolish, unbecoming way,” I told him.

  He thought himself so clever, Mads, being cautious about the food—but I noted early on that if given a choice, he would most frequently choose the option in my right hand, or the one that I held back and not the one I reached out. I tried it out many times to be sure, offering coffee or a piece of pie, and eating the one he did not pick myself, just to put him at ease. After a while, I knew that I could surely work around his new, annoying habits and feed him whatever I liked just by using these tricks. Not that he needed my help to be miserable; though I rarely gave him anything at all, the man looked gray, just a shadow moving through my rooms.

  Another night, as we sat out on the porch, he launched another feeble attack.

  “I will have you know that I have written to Oscar and told him that if something happens to me, he should look to you for answers,” he suddenly said.

  I was sewing on a blue striped dress for Myrtle just then, squinting in the poor kerosene light, while rocking Lucy’s cradle with my foot. When I heard what he said, I looked up.

  “What could possibly—” I did not get to finish the sentence.

  “If I end up dead in my bed, know that he will look into it and won’t be satisfied before he knows the truth!”

  I wetted my lips with the tip of my tongue; my vision swam for a moment. “You are sick and not yourself. Surely Oscar won’t believe a word of your nonsense.”

  He sighed and sat back in his chair. “I’ve known you for too long, Bella. Long enough that your constant talk of the size of my life insurance bothers me.”

  “Well, that’s for the children’s sake. What would happen to them if something happened to us?” I lifted my chin when I looked at him.

  “I know that you say that, but the fires got me thinking—”

  “Some very bad thoughts, Mads. None of them worthy of a good man such as yourself.” Inside, I was cold with fury.

  “Well, how can I ever trust you after those fires?” His mouth fell open under the mustache and remained that way for quite some time.

  “What exactly is it you’re accusing me of?” I lifted my chin a little more.

  “Well, arson and—murder!” he burst out. “You poison me with your tinctures and powders! You are a vile woman, Bella—vile!” His jowls shook and his skin beaded with sweat.

  I was so surprised that I stabbed my own finger and a fat drop of blood bloomed on my thumb. “How can you even say that to me, who cooks your meals and irons your shirts? I have never ever done anything but strive for a good life for us all.”

  “Sometimes I think you quite despise me!”

  “Only when you talk like that . . . Look at what we have, Mads: a beautiful home and beautiful children. You just need a bit of rest. These last few years have been hard on us both.”

  He placed his palm over his heart and squeezed the fabric of his shirt. “I wish I could believe it’s all in my head.” Were those tears I saw in his eyes?

  “Of course it is! Look at me! Do I look like a villain to you? I’m a woman past forty with small children and an unwell husband doing her best to make the most of things.”

  “Sometimes you’re both hard and cruel—”

  “Only because I’m tired. It’s not easy taking care of everything. But all of that will be better now that we have this new home and money in the bank. I won’t have to worry so much.” I went back to the sewing, adding another stitch.

  His hand relaxed on his chest. “Maybe you’re right—I surely wish to think so.”

  “Of course I am, and you’re sick and afraid. Write to your brother and tell him you were wrong. We shall speak no more of this.”

  The next day, Mads was in bed, retching into a bucket.

  He stayed in that bed for days. Every time I thought of letting him heal, of not adding something to his food, my anger got the better of me. I sat by the bed, in a room reeking of vomit and piss, and spooned liquids into his mouth—into mine too, to put him at ease, but my health was robust so I was barely affected. I had not added much. He, on the other hand, was weak already, and the soup made him weaker still.

  I wanted him dead; but then I wanted him alive, just so I could see him ache.

  “When was the last time you felt sorry for someone?” he asked as we slowly went through a bowl of broth. “You always seem so cold to me. You cried at Caroline’s funeral, that’s true, but not after that, and never at home.”

  “I cried for a chicken just this morning,” I lied. “Her leg was broken and I had to wring her neck. It was hard on me.” I bit my lip as if battling tears.

  “It just seems so wrong to me that you did not even seek my comfort—” He tried to sit up in the bed but failed, falling back onto the pillows propped up against the headboard. T
he pillow casings were stained with sour sweat.

  “A wife ought to be strong for the family’s sake and not give in to her own grief.” What did he know of how I grieved my daughter? That sorrow was my own and not for someone else to see.

  “Is that how it is?” I thought he smiled. Mocking me, perhaps.

  “It is.” I looked down into the broth and stirred it with the spoon, hoping—yet not hoping—that this would be the meal that did it. I had almost come to love my scorn for him. Living with hatred is like living with a being, an entity made of spikes and thorns. You get used to it—you embrace it and nurture it. Eventually it becomes a part of your soul.

  I found I was reluctant to let it go.

  Mads had been quiet for a moment, lying there with a thoughtful expression and broth on his stubbly chin. “I still think my illness is your doing.”

  I did not even hide my smile this time. “How can it be my doing when I eat and drink the same as you?” I lifted the spoon to my lips just to demonstrate.

  “I don’t know how you do it, but I know that you do. You have fed me wicked drops for years.” His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared.

  “If you are so certain, why don’t you go to the police with what you think you know?” I gave him another smile, one with hard edges.

  “Oh, I have thought of it, but what can I do when the doctor blames my heart? And you are such a wonderful liar.” His voice was quiet, void of emotion. He looked up at the ceiling, not at me, while blinking back tears. “I figure you could spin them right around.”

  “Leave me, then.” I held out another spoonful of broth. My heart had sped up its pace, but only a little. My jaw, though, was pounding and aching.