The Marriage Agreement

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  Her father stared at him for a moment and then scoffed. “I’m not going to apologize to you. You’re nothing but a boy.”

  “I’m twenty-three. I own this land and this house. I have a son. I have a horse, two cows, and a couple of hens. That makes me a grown man.”

  “I hear you had to take out a loan to pay for the lumber for this house. Until you own everything free and clear, you’re a boy.”

  The only reason Jesse had done that was to get Fanny to stop yapping at him about not having a suitable home for Elliot. But it’d do no good to explain that to Laura’s father. The man was determined to think the worst of him.

  With a moan, Jesse put Elliot in the highchair and got a bottle ready for him while Laura’s father checked every nook and cranny in the place. The man even checked in a closet that was much too small for a grown woman to hide. Jesse rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything. Some people couldn’t be reasoned with, especially if they were Fanny and Mr. Rufus.

  By the time Jesse had Elliot’s bottle ready, Laura’s father stormed back into the kitchen. “Where is she?”

  Jesse gave the bottle to Elliot then turned to face him, not hiding his irritation. “I told you she’s not here. Now that you’ve seen it for yourself, you can get off my property.” Even if he didn’t technically own every single little thing on the place, it was still his land.

  “Is she in the barn? Or in the house where your mother-in-law is staying?”

  “Go on and check.”

  He narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t use that tone with me, boy.”

  “I wouldn’t have to use that tone if you were reasonable. She’s not here. She’s not in the house, she’s not in the barn, she’s not at Fanny’s, she’s not on the horse, she’s not in the cookie jar, and she’s not on the roof. She is nowhere on this land. You will have to take your search elsewhere.”

  Her father took a step toward him, and Jesse instinctively backed up. “You listen to me,” her father said, pointing his finger in Jesse’s face. “I’m her father, and I have every right to do what’s best for her. You are not the best thing for her. You’re a boy playing house, and you let your wife die giving birth to that baby over there. On top of that, you’re in debt. You aren’t ready for a family. The only reason I can think that she’s insistent on marrying you is because you stole her innocence.”

  Jesse’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “I never laid a hand on her.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Is that what she told you?”

  “Of course not. She wouldn’t dare say anything bad about you.”

  Now his anger was returning. “If she didn’t say it, then don’t assume it.” Shoving the man’s finger out of his face, Jesse glared at him. “Get out of my house. As I said, you can check the barn and Fanny’s house if you want, but you’re done here.”

  Her father glared right back at him, and for a moment, Jesse thought he wasn’t going to leave. But finally, mercifully, he spun on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.

  Jesse released his breath. Why couldn’t he get a break? It seemed that no matter what he did, he couldn’t get a break. Maybe moving to Nebraska had been a mistake. At the time he’d asked Elsie to leave New York, he’d thought the one-hundred and fifty acres would be a great place to raise a family, and he thought farming would lead to a stable job where he could better provide for them.

  He had no idea Elsie would go into labor before they were due to arrive in Omaha, nor did he anticipate having to provide for his mother-in-law after Elsie died. Then, as Laura’s father had pointed out, he’d needed to go into debt so he could appease the woman.

  Life had turned out so differently from how he’d planned. If he’d stayed in New York, Elsie wouldn’t have gone into labor early, she wouldn’t have died during childbirth, he wouldn’t be living with his mother-in-law, and he wouldn’t be in debt.

  Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been God’s will for him to come out here. Maybe he’d misunderstood his restless feeling. For a year, he’d felt as if he was supposed to leave New York and make a life elsewhere. Elsie had been all for it when he had asked her about it. She’d looked at their new life in Omaha as an adventure.

  They had stayed up late into the night making plans on the kind of home they’d have, what crops he’d grow, how they would take care of the animals, and imagining how nice it’d be for their child to be able to play outside rather than being stuck in an apartment all the time.

  Swallowing the lump in his throat, he turned to Elliot, who’d finished his bottle. Though it was the two of them in the kitchen, the room felt empty. The dreams he’d had of sitting at the table with Elsie and all of their children, eating one of her delicious meals while talking about their day, had vanished the moment Elsie took her last breath. Now it was just him and Elliot, and poor Elliot wouldn’t have brothers and sisters like he’d thought.

  Elliot threw the bottle to the floor and laughed.

  Forcing himself to smile, Jesse picked it up, but Jesse didn’t put it back on his tray like he usually did. Elliot’s favorite game was watching him retrieve things he dropped, but tonight, Jesse wasn’t in the mood for it. “Sorry, Elliot. I’m not playing the game tonight. It’s too late. We need to get back to sleep.”

  Elliot laughed again and banged the tray, letting Jesse know he had no intention of going back to sleep, at least not any time soon.

  With a sigh, Jesse rinsed the bottle then set it on the worktable to dry. It was going to be a long night, and tomorrow, he would have to get up at dawn to do the job that was a lot more work than he’d expected when he left New York. If Fanny claimed Elliot was too much to watch tomorrow, he didn’t know what he was going to do. It was getting harder and harder to convince Elliot to stay by his side when he was doing his chores.

  “Look,” he told the baby, “I need to sleep. I don’t think Laura’s coming out tomorrow, and we both know how things are when your grandma watches you. Do you think you can give me a break and lie quietly in the crib so I can sleep?”

  Elliot giggled and banged the top of the tray. Then he squealed in excitement and lifted his arms toward Jesse.

  Just as Jesse feared. Elliot wasn’t even remotely tired. He had a mind to make Laura’s father watch him through the night and go to work tomorrow. From the window, he saw the man leaving the barn. Jesse shook his head. Unbelievable. Her father honestly thought Laura would be hiding out in the barn?

  With a groan, Jesse took Elliot out of the highchair and went to the rocking chair in Elliot’s room. Maybe, just maybe Elliot would sit in his arms while he rocked in the chair. Sometimes Elliot would even fall asleep, thereby allowing Jesse to sleep sooner than he would otherwise. Jesse settled into the chair and hummed a tune he hoped would make Elliot go to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  The next day, Laura barely ducked in time to miss the biscuit Joel flung at Tom at the dinner table. She couldn’t believe it. For an eight-year-old, Joel had a strong arm! The biscuit landed right on Tom’s jaw and sent him tipping back in his chair. If Laura hadn’t been sitting next to him, she wouldn’t have been able to straighten his chair in time, thereby stopping him from falling to the floor. Who knew what mess he would have made if his feet hit the table?

  “Joel!” Mrs. Larson gasped as she bolted to her feet. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “He was looking at me funny,” Joel said, pointing to Tom, who was rubbing his jaw and moaning in pain.

  Sally glared at Joel. “You threw food at him because he gave you a funny look?”

  “He does it on purpose,” Joel argued, crossing his arms. “He sits over there for every meal and looks at me as if I have something stuck between my teeth.”

  Laura glanced from Joel to Tom. The two sat on opposite sides of the table and diagonally from each other. Sally had told her that their parents had chosen this particular arrangement because it meant the two couldn’t kick each other under the table or touch each other. But it seemed n
o matter where they placed them, the two brothers still found a way to get in trouble.

  Mrs. Larson looked at Mr. Larson, silently begging him to help.

  Mr. Larson placed his napkin on the table and gave both boys a pointed look. “If you can’t sit at the table and eat the meal in peace, you can go to bed hungry. Now, are you going to finish the rest of this dinner in peace, or are you done eating?”

  “He started it,” Joel said.

  “Did not,” Tom replied indignantly.

  “Did, too,” Joel countered.

  “I didn’t ask who started it,” Mr. Larson spoke up. “This stops. Now.”

  After a moment, both boys relented and turned back to their meals. Mrs. Larson relaxed and sat back down.

  Sally shook her head. “We’re sorry you had to witness this, Laura. Brothers are the worst. And you’d think since Tom’s sixteen, he’d know better.”

  “Whoa,” Dave, the thirteen-year-old, piped up. “I did nothing to get in trouble.”

  Sally’s eyebrows rose in a way that meant to challenge him. “You’re just as bad as Tom and Joel. I’ve heard you competing with them in your burping and farting contests.”

  Eleven-year-old Jenny gagged. “I’m trying to eat.”

  Sally smiled as if Jenny had just proven her point. “See? Jenny is disgusted by it because she’s a girl. I swear, boys have no redeeming value at all. Sometimes I think I’d be better off living my life as a spinster. Who needs all this to deal with for the rest of her life?”

  Mrs. Larson waved her fork at Sally. “It seems to me you were prettying yourself up last Sunday in hopes Jimmy would notice you at church.”

  “Ha!” Joel cried out and stuck his tongue out at his sister.

  Sally’s face went red, but to her credit, she refused to admit she had a weakness for members of the opposite sex. Instead, she said, “I’m no longer concerned about Jimmy.”

  Joel smirked. “Because he asked Annie if he could court her.”

  “No,” Sally began. “I got close to him and realized he smells awful.” She turned her gaze to Laura and added, “That’s another thing about living with a bunch of boys. They never wash up, and they often wear the same clothes for days. Sure, it saves on laundry, but it sometimes smells worse in here than it does in the barn.”

  “That’s enough, Sally,” Mr. Larson said. “You’re eighteen. You won’t be living here much longer.”

  “You’re father’s right,” Mrs. Larson added. “Whether you want to admit it or not, soon you’ll meet someone and fall in love with him, and then you’ll want to marry him and start a family of your own.”

  “I can only hope he knows how to change his clothes and manages to keep his farts and burps to himself,” Sally muttered.

  Mrs. Larson let out a heavy sigh, and Sally took that as a warning to stop complaining.

  Laura found the whole thing fascinating. She’d been an only child, so she had no idea what it was like for people who had brothers and sisters. While the boys were definitely a source of frustration to Sally and, to a lesser extent, Jenny, Laura thought the family was a happy one.

  Everyone felt free to voice their opinion, and even if others didn’t agree with it, there was still the underlying sense of love in the group. Laura hadn’t realized such a thing was possible. Too bad things weren’t the same in her family.

  She wondered if she might have this kind of thing with Jesse. Granted, she and Jesse weren’t marrying for love like Mr. and Mrs. Larson did. Theirs would be a marriage in name only. But she thought he was a good friend, and she felt they got along well enough to make a happy home for Elliot. Elliot wouldn’t have brothers and sisters like the Larsons did, but she and Jesse would treat him differently than the way her parents had treated her. And that right there was a big improvement.

  From next to her, Tom crossed his eyes at Joel. This, in turn, led to Joel pointing his finger at Tom and shrieking, “He’s doing it again!” in a pitch so high that only a young boy could manage it.

  Laura’s ears rang, and she blinked back the tears filling up her eyes. Thank goodness she was sitting next to Tom instead of Joel. She could only imagine how much worse it’d be to have to deal with that shrill tone when it was directly in her ear.

  “Both of you, out,” Mr. Larson told Tom and Joel.

  Tom gasped. “I didn’t even look at him.”

  “I don’t care if you did or not,” Mr. Larson said. “I’ve had it with you two. It’s bad enough when you do it when it’s just us, but we have company.” He gestured to Laura. “The least you could do is be on your best behavior for her sake. Apologize to her then do your chores.”

  Tom and Joel both apologized before leaving the room. From there, the rest of the meal went along peacefully.

  Afterwards, Laura helped Mrs. Larson, Sally, and Jenny clear the table and clean the dishes. As she and Sally were finishing up with drying the plates, Sally continued to bemoan her lot in life.

  “I’ll never understand why boys have to be so disgusting and rude,” Sally muttered. “You’d think we could get through one meal—one meal!—without them doing something to spoil it. But you can’t. It’s impossible. No matter how much you punish them, they keep doing it.” She shook her head and put a clean plate on the shelf. Then she turned to face Laura. “You’re so lucky. You’re an only child. You never had to go through this.”

  Laura offered her a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t mind Tom and Joel’s antics. I thought it was funny.”

  Sally grimaced. “It was awful. It’s always awful.”

  Laura bit her tongue so she wouldn’t laugh. Sally had a tendency to be a little dramatic about things, but to be fair, she did end up having to help her mother with the bulk of the work.

  “I have an idea,” Sally said, picking up another plate and running the towel over it. “Why don’t we go to Jesse’s tomorrow?”

  “You’d be willing to do that?” Laura had wanted to ask, but she’d been afraid of imposing. The Larsons had already been generous to her. It didn’t seem fair to take more from them.

  “You wouldn’t be imposing at all,” Sally assured her. “I need an excuse to get out of here. I can take you in the buggy after breakfast.”

  “It would be nice to see Elliot. I miss him.”

  “You miss Jesse, too, don’t you?”

  “Well…” Not really. But did she dare tell Sally that?

  “You’ll be Jesse’s wife. Surely, you want to be with him.”

  Laura glanced around the kitchen to make sure they were alone before she answered Sally. “The truth is, it’s not that kind of marriage.” When Sally’s eyebrows furrowed, she clarified, “I mean, I’ll be his wife, but not in the romantic sense.”

  “I don’t understand. How does that work?”

  “We’ll be sharing a house and raising Elliot together. But that’s it. We agreed it would only be a marriage of convenience.”

  “Why?”

  “For one, I adore Elliot. He’s such a sweet boy. I feel like I’m his mother.” Realizing she’d spoken out of turn, she quickly amended, “I don’t mean that I want to take Elsie’s place. I’d never do that. She’ll always be his mother. I’d just like to have the honor of raising him.”

  “I know what you meant,” Sally assured her. “So I suppose what Jesse gets is a mother for his son.”

  “Yes. And he gets someone to help buffer him from the kind of things Mrs. Shaw does out there.”

  Sally’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is Mrs. Shaw still as irritable as she was on the wagon train?”

  “I’m afraid so. She still blames him for Elsie’s death, and I think because of that, things will never be good between them. I’d like to help ease some of the tension out there.”

  Sally bit her lower lip as she dried the plate in her hands.

  Laura sensed she wanted to say something but was weighing the pros and cons of doing so. “It’s alright. You can tell me what’s on your mind. I won’t get upset.”

 
Sally put the plate on top of the other ones and turned her gaze to her. “Mrs. Shaw might resent you coming out to take Elsie’s place.”

  “I’m not trying to take Elsie’s place.”

  “I know that’s not your intention, but she might interpret things differently.”

  Sally had a point. A good one. But… “Jesse needs help raising Elliot, and Mrs. Shaw is too old to do a good job of it.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it. She could barely manage to take care of him while we were coming to Omaha.” After a moment, Sally asked, “What about other men? Is it a good idea to sacrifice a future with someone you can fall in love with? I know you adore Elliot and all, but what about the possibility of having a man who loves you that you love back?” She lowered her voice. “I might not be able to stand the things my brothers do, but I still want to get married and have children. I want to experience love. Are you sure you want to deny yourself that?”

  Laura finally finished drying the dish in her hands then put it away. Since they were now done with everything, she set the towel on the edge of a kitchen chair and turned to face Sally.

  “There’s no one here to marry,” Laura admitted. “My parents have been bringing over men my father comes in contact with, and they’re his age or older.”

  Sally grimaced. “Really?”

  Laura nodded. “My parents have been pushing me to get married. They’re afraid I’ll end up a spinster, and to be honest, I don’t want to be one, either. It was easy in Pennsylvania. I had men to pick from who were my age. But out here, they’re either too old or too young. Amanda took the only brother you have that is close to my age.”

  “Richard’s loved Amanda ever since they were in school together, so you would never have had a chance with him.”

  “I suspected that was the case, even if it took Amanda time to return his feelings.”

  “Well, I’ll take you out to Jesse’s tomorrow. It’ll be a good way to get a break from my brothers, and you can plan your upcoming wedding.”