She could hear Erika banging around in the trunk of the car. When a certain teenager got into a snit, she let the whole world know about it.
With the slightest provocation, Ragni and Susan had acted much the same way, although if their parents were around, they’d been quiet about it.
“It was your turn, and you know it,” Susan hissed when Ragni dodged away before she got pinched.
“Prove it. I did the dishes twice for you, and you never did mine. You always make me do your chores and never live up to your promises to pay me back,” Ragni hissed. If they were heard arguing, they’d both pay the price.
“Ragni Clauson, I hate you.”
“And I hate you more.” Chin to chin, nose to nose, fists clenched on their hips, they stared each other down.
“What’s going on up there?” Their mother’s voice floated up from the bottom of the stairs.
“Nothing.” Their unison voices sounded sweet as June strawberries.
Ragni often wore purple bruises from where she’d been pinched, but she got even. Most of the time.
And now, surely she could think ahead of this grumpy young woman. After all, who was the adult here?
She stepped back and nodded at the newly blackened surface of the stove. She should have waited and blackened the whole thing at once, but she had to see if all the elbow grease was worth the effort. It was. After she poured the last of the hot water into the scrub bucket, she grabbed the pail and headed for the car. Sure enough, Erika sat in the front seat, earphones in place, bobbing in time to the music that leaked out only enough for Ragni to know it wasn’t the kind of music the girl should be listening to—at least not to Ragni’s way of thinking. Opening the car door, she clamped one hand on her hip and held out the bucket with the other.
Erika glared at her, stripped off the earphones, slammed her iPod down on her pack, and hurled herself from the car. But when she tried to grab the handle of the bucket, Ragni held on.
“Just wanted to remind you that you catch more flies with honey than with gritchey. Think about that.” She released the bucket handle and watched Erika stomp off toward the river.
“I’m sorry,” Erika said when she returned and set the bucket on the stoop.
Ragni kept from clutching her chest and feigning a swoon only with the greatest effort. Instead she smiled and answered, “You’re forgiven.” Where did that come from? “That’s okay” would have been fine.
“After I brush my teeth, you want me to start on those up there?” Erika motioned to the set of upper cabinets that framed the east-facing window.
“Yes, please. You are far more agile than me.”
“Why do you think she hid her paintings like that?”
“That’s been buggin’ you too, eh?” Ragni left off polishing the chrome along the warming shelf and stared up at the cupboards. “All I can think is that they were a secret.”
“But why? She was a good painter.”
“I don’t know, but I hope we can find out.” Ragni studied the warming shelf. “Do you know where the notebook is with our shopping list?”
“In the car. Why, what do we need now?”
“There’s a kind of paint you can buy for appliances. Thought I’d take this warming door along and see if I can match it. The rust has eaten through the enameled finish in a couple of places.”
Erika shook her head. “Why are you putting all that time into the stove? I mean, it will heat fine if we just start a fire in it.”
“I don’t know, I guess I… It just seems such a shame to let everything go to wrack and ruin. Like this house. It deserves a second chance.”
Erika tipped her head forward and looked out from under her eyebrows. “Because it’s an antique?”
“No, because I saw her standing here stirring a pot of something.” Ragni hadn’t meant to mention what some might call visions.
“Oh, great, I’m here with my psycho aunt…”
“I saw her out weeding her flowers too. The first day we were here.”
“…who sees ghosts.” Erika shook her head as she went out the door.
Ragni watched her leave. What a difference between the girl who got up this morning and the one who just left. Of course she wants something, but then who doesn’t? And I don’t see ghosts. I have a creative mind, that’s all.
But how do you know what she looked like? The one photograph her family had of Ragnilda and her husband was typical of the day. Sepia-toned, rigid and sober, the portrait hung on her mother’s wall. Ragni had dreamed of making a copy of it and colorizing it either with the computer or her own paints. If she ever got back to painting, that is. You could at least draw. The voice spoke clearly, so clearly she turned around to see if Erika had come in without her hearing her.
“What did you say?” Erika called from outside.
“Nothing.” Psycho aunt was right, one who sees people who aren’t there and talks to herself. Pretty soon I’ll be talking to the people who aren’t there. Her fingers cramped from holding the soap pad and scrubbing so hard. She flexed her hand and stripped off the rubber gloves, eying the stovepipe all the while. More rust. Would they be able to get the pipe down and clean it, or would it need to be replaced?
“Here.” Erika handed her the spiral notebook. She studied the stove. “I never thought it could look that good again.”
“I was hoping. Sure a lot of scrubbing to do.” Ragni rotated her shoulders and stretched her neck. “Inside the oven is going to be a real bear.”
“You really want to cook on it?”
“I do. Just think, if we get this place cleaned and fixed up some, we could come here to visit again. Perhaps your mother would like to come too. Maybe bring Grammy.”
“Oh, right. Mom leave her precious hospital and come clear out here? Get real.”
Whoa, a bit of resentment there. “Is that part of the reason you are so angry all the time?”
But Erika ignored her and boosted herself up on the counter under the clean cabinet. She stood up as much as she could, took paper and pencil from a lower shelf, and began drawing.
“What are you doing?”
“Copying her painting.”
“Why?”
Erika shrugged. “Just seemed like a good idea.” She squinted and erased a section. “Maybe Grammy would like something with this design on it. For Christmas.”
“How come you never draw anymore?” Ragni asked.
Another one of those shrugs that irritated the life out of Ragni. Ragni shook her head and took her scrub bucket outside to dump the water under the rosebush. A bud on one of the straggly branches showed a hint of yellow. “How you managed to live out here this long with no one tending you, I’ll never know.” She dropped to her knees and pulled out a hunk of grass from around the main cane, wishing she had a trowel.
Green grass fought for life in the weeds, several of which wore blossoms of their own. Somewhere she’d read that a weed was just a flower in the wrong place. Too bad she hadn’t found that book on native plants of North Dakota. Perhaps some of the shops in Medora would carry something like that, or maybe there was even a bookstore. Surely they didn’t need to go to Dickinson for everything.
You’re like a butterfly flitting from blossom to blossom. Get back inside so you get something done—-finished. She groaned as she pushed to her feet. Somehow the hours she spent at a computer and in never-ending meetings hadn’t prepared her for all this manual labor. Funny, I thought I’d be worried about my job—what is happening there and who’s been messing with the final ad layout—but this is the first time it’s even entered my mind. What kind of hinges will it take to fix the gate? Or can it be wired up until I have time to install new hinges? The gate seems far more important than events at the office. Strange doesn’t begin to describe it.
She took herself by the scruff of the neck, like a mother cat carrying her kittens, and forced herself back into the kitchen.
Erika jumped down to the floor at the same time.
“Sure.” Erika handed her the papers. While Ragni nodded, Erika pointed to the lettering. “I wrote in the colors so I don’t forget, but maybe next time we go to town, we could get some paints.”
“I guess.” Ragni nodded, still studying the drawing.
“What’s wrong with it?” Belligerence colored the tone, and Ragni glanced up to catch Erika’s frown and narrowed eyes.
“Nothing, why? Its very good.”
“Oh, I thought—”
“You thought what?”
One of those shrugs and an offhand grimace. “Well, you didn’t say anything, and it’s nothing, really.”
Ragni stared from the drawing to the girl. It was more than nothing. Something had happened somewhere that… “Remember when we used to draw and paint? How come you don’t anymore?”
The kitchen filled with a silence so abrupt that she could hear the whispering cottonwood leaves outside.
“Nothing.” That familiar mask of indifference, disdain, and boredom dropped over Erika’s face as she snatched the paper back.
Something happened. I wonder what and when—and most important, who and why. Did Susan say something? Not intentionally—she’d never hurt her daughter intentionally. But then, Susan can be pretty over-bearing when she gets on a roll. A friend? teacher? How to get Erika talking about it? That’s a monumental task in its own right.
Look who’s talking. This, the voice of her inner critic, the one who attacked so gleefully—all for her own good, of course. You don’t paint in oils, acrylics, or watercolors. You don’t draw, not even for pleasure on the computer any longer. Why, you hardly even doodle. No wonder you’re tight as a banjo string, so tight that even the spa didn’t do you a whole lot of good. Why worry about Erika? Look at yourself.
If there were any way to muzzle and cage the vicious creature inside her, she’d do it gladly.
“Ragni, come look.” Erika’s voice now cracked with excitement.
Ragni turned back to see her grinning like a little kid, the way she used to before goth. “There’s more, a lot more.” She pointed to the top two shelves. “And this is even prettier.”
Ragni brought the stepladder over. “You should have been using this. Its safer.”
“I didn’t think of it. Look.”
Ragni climbed up, feeling more stable on the ladder, and studied the painting. Nilda had used more colors this time, and while one shelf was the rosemaling like the former, the upper shelf was devoted to local plants. Were these the ones she’d had in her yard? The yellow climbing rose, sunflowers, bluebells, yellow daisies, and a couple Ragni didn’t recognize. I have to find a bookstore. We need not only a book about birds but one about plants and trees.
“Will you copy these too?” Ragni asked.
“If you want. What if there are other places in the house where she painted?”
“Like where?”
“I don’t know. Remember Paul—er, Mr. Heidelborg said he knew of a friend of hers? What if she has some of the GGM’s paintings?”
“The GGM?”
“Well, I have to call her something.”
Ragni rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and tapped Erika on the nose. “Good one, kiddo.”
Erika grinned back. “You always used to call me that.”
“You’d think my mother would have some of the paintings if Ragnilda ever painted on canvas, or…”
“Otherwise, what happened to them?”
Ragni climbed down from the ladder and stared around the kitchen. They hadn’t checked the bottom cabinets yet. Some of the walls had been wallpapered. Surely no one would have wallpapered over Nilda’s paintings.
The sound of a truck stopping on the road in front of the cabin drew them both outside to see Paul stepping out and settling his straw hat on his head. Another man in a baseball cap climbed down from the passenger side.
“Mornin’, Ragni, Erika. Herb here joined me for breakfast at the Cowboy Cafe and said he could spare a few minutes. Herb Benton, meet Ragni Clauson and her niece, Erika. They’re members of the Peterson clan. You remember Einer.”
“Of course, he and my dad used to be duck-hunting buddies. Welcome to Medora. Where you from?” He smiled at each of them.
“Chicago,” Ragni replied.
Herb lived with a round face that smiled easily and showed the creases of that propensity. A faded blue T-shirt with a Benton’s Roofing logo plus the company’s phone number covered a slightly slipping chest. “Thought I’d take a look at your roof.”
“Oh, you mean now?” Ragni said.
“Good a time as any.”
“W-well thanks. I-I’m not used to people showing up so quickly.”
“Hey, when Paul here twists your arm, you kinda go along with him. ’Specially since he’s about a foot taller and a few years younger. You don’t want to get on his bad side.” He frowned up at his friend, but his dancing eyes said he was teasing.
“You want the ladder? It’s in the house.”
“Nah, I can give you a good estimate from the ground. You want it patched or a new roof—which is what I would recommend.”
“Why don’t you give me an estimate both ways, and I’ll talk it over with my mother. She’s the legal owner.” They followed the men around the house. Herb made notes as he went, rolling a measuring wheel in front of them.
“Have you seen any water damage in the house?”
“Some sagging in the back bedroom.”
“I’ll check inside then. They usually didn’t insulate these old places. Is there an entrance to the crawl space? Low as this is, can’t rightly even call it an attic.”
Ragni shrugged. “Sorry, I never looked.” And if there’s a critter big enough to dig a burrow under the house, what might live in the attic?
They stopped at the west end of the house, and Herb pointed to the broken slats in the ventilator. “Most likely bats got in there. You heard anything up in the attic?”
Ragni looked at Erika, and they both shook their heads. “But then we’ve not been in the house at night.”
“Didn’t see any come out?”
“Never sat at this end and watched.” Bats. Ragni kept a shudder inside. Bats and snakes: no matter how many times she’d heard how good they were for the environment, she still didn’t want any kind of acquaintance with them. Knowing they were around was bad enough, but to see or hear them? Not daring to look at her niece, she kept a smile on her face—at least she hoped it was a smile.
After going through the house, Herb glanced at his notes. “I’ll go ahead then and work up a couple of different quotes. You’ll have to decide if you want shingles, or shakes—which due to the fire danger, we really don’t recommend. Or you could go with lightweight concrete or aluminum—the kind you see on Paul’s place. Then you have to choose the color. We have natural which is silver-like, red, blue, or green.”
“Once we decide, do you have any idea when you might be able to do it?”
He squinted his eyes, obviously thinking of his calendar. “Not until after the fifth. One of my guys is going on vacation. Dumb thing to do; you work when the weather allows, but you can’t tell the young folks that.”
But we’ll be going home by then. Ragni decided not to complicate things at the moment. “When can you get me the estimate?” “Tomorrow?”
“Good. We’ll be at the Bunkhouse Motel tonight. Would first thing in the morning be a possibility?”
“I’ll meet you at the Cowboy. Eight all right?”
“That’s the Cowboy Cafe, right?”
Both men nodded.
Ragni heard Erika groan. “That’ll be fine.”
“You got time to come play with Sparky?” Paul asked Erika, glancing at Ragni. “I can give you a ride over.”
At the pleading look on Erika’s face, Ragni smiled and nodded. “Go play.”
“I’ll work twice as hard when I get back, I promise.” Erika nearly danced in place.
&n
bsp; “What about you?” Paul’s smile looked friendlier than a general-purpose-good-for-anyone smile.
“I’ll stay here and work on my stove.” Horses aren’t my real love like they are yours. Or at least they aren’t anymore. Weren’t all young girls in love with horses and cowboys? And from the look on Erika’s face, she was falling for both.
Nilda never dreamed she’d be homesick, especially not for a place that wasn’t even her home. She’d just worked there. Be that as it may, the places where she worked were the only homes she knew.
And they were a world away. What in the world had she been thinking to come clear across the country in response to an advertisement paid for by a man about whom she knew next to nothing? Except he needed a cook and housekeeper. “Needed” scarcely covered the reality.
But he bought a milk cow because she mentioned her frail little daughter.
No matter how dirty the house, or how fierce he appeared, he must have a caring heart beating beneath that shirt that covered a chest broad enough to block a doorway, a shirt that needed a washboard as badly as the house needed a scrub brush. So how to handle the man, to tell him, “Thank you for the cow and please put on a clean shirt in the morning so I can wash your others”? What if he didn’t have a clean shirt? What if that was the only shirt he owned?
She lay in bed a few more moments, listening to Eloise breathe. Soft, gentle puffs of air, not the stentorian efforts that echoed across a room when her lungs couldn’t pull in enough air to keep her lips from turning blue. While she’d started the trip weak and pale, she’d already begun to improve even in the short amount of time they’d been at the house.
Thank You, heavenly Father. Now please make this move work. I need to be wise. Your Word promises wisdom to those who ask, and I am pleading. There is so much for me to learn. Thank You for a safe journey, for our first day here. May You be glorified. Amen. She lay a moment more, savoring the silence, then forced her aching body out of bed. Surely their arriving on a Sunday had been a good sign, even though they’d not gone to church.
Today Mr. Peterson would go to the store, so her list of supplies needed to be ready. But how long would it be before he went again? She hesitated to ask but knew she must. She heard the men getting up in the room next to her, coughing, and something thumping on the floor. The outside door yelped at being swung open.
The Brushstroke Legacy Page 13