Go Away Home

by Carol Bodensteiner

  Joe handed her the paper. “Why don’t you read? I’m going to close my eyes.”

  “Don’t you feel well?”

  “Just tired.”

  Liddie searched the headlines. “The war news sounds positive. This article says it could be over soon. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” A cough tickled her throat, and as she sipped some water, the cough broke through, and she splashed water on them both.

  Joe sat up. “That settles it. I’m going to town in the morning. Doc Milburn must have something for that.”

  “I’m fine, Joe. Really.”

  “I don’t want to risk you getting the fever back. Let’s go to bed. Now.” He took Liddie’s hands and pulled her to her feet. “You don’t know how sick you were.”

  “You’re right,” she acquiesced.

  “I’ll take Rose with me. You sleep while we’re gone,” Joe said at breakfast. He drained the last of his coffee. “We’ll take the auto.”

  She went to get Rose’s coat. “Come here, honey; let’s get your coat on. You’re going to town with Papa.”

  “Go town! Go town!” Rose parroted.

  “Oh, Rosie, not so loud,” Joe said. “You’re hurting Daddy’s head.”

  “You do have a headache.” Liddie scanned his face.

  “A little one. Maybe the doc will have something for me, too.” Joe buttoned his coat and scooped up Rose. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  Liddie stood at the door, watching until he had the car started and was out of sight. When she cleared the breakfast table, she saw half an egg congealed on his plate beside most of a slice of bread. It was not like him to leave food.

  She was beside herself by the time Joe returned three hours later from a trip that should have taken half the time. “Finally. I thought you were stuck somewhere.”

  She took Rose from him, slipped off her coat and scarf, and put her in the high chair. “Are you hungry, Rosie?” she asked as she set about getting food from the cupboard. “I bet you and Daddy didn’t eat, did you?”

  “Oh, that was noth—” Joe coughed harshly and sat without taking off his coat.

  The raspy sound focused her attention on him. “When did that start?”

  “In town. Got worse on the drive home. Probably caught it from you.” His attempt at a grin was erased by another cough. He pulled out a kerchief and covered his mouth as he hacked, then wadded it up when the cough subsided. He pulled a packet out of his other pocket. “Doc gave me this. Quinine. Mix it in some tea with honey. He says it should help.”

  Liddie took the packet and reached for the kettle on the stove. “It sounds like you need it more than I do.”

  When she looked at him again, a chill shot up her back. Joe sat with his arms wrapped around his chest, forehead resting on the table. Putting her hand on his cheek, she was shocked at how clammy his skin felt to her touch. The same fever chill she’d had.

  Liddie pulled out a chair and sat close enough that their knees touched. “Oh, Joe, you’ve got the flu.” She pushed back hair that was plastered to his forehead by sweat. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Said we both need to get more rest.” He doubled over coughing.

  When the spasms stopped, Joe’s hand dropped to his knee, and Liddie stared in disbelief at his kerchief, which was covered with bloody mucus.

  “Come. Let’s get you to bed.” His normally taut muscles felt flaccid under her fingers when she took his arm to help him stand. She gripped his arm tighter, alarmed by the sudden thought that he might slip away if she did not hold on to him.

  As she helped him into his nightshirt, she talked. “There now. That’s better. I’m going to make Doc’s tea. We’ll both have some.” She tucked in the blankets. “I’ll be right back with a cool cloth for your forehead.”

  When she returned, Joe’s eyes were glassy; sweat beaded on his forehead. She slid her arm under his shoulders, lifting him so he could drink. He swallowed a few sips and fell back on the pillow. She wiped his face and neck.

  “Feels good,” he whispered.

  “I’ll get fresh water and be right back.” Liddie stood to leave but couldn’t stop staring at him. His face was so slack. He looked like an old man.

  Throughout the afternoon, Liddie spent as much time at Joe’s side as she could while still taking care of Rose. Joe’s cough grew deeper, more ragged. Whenever he woke, she tried to get him to drink more of the tea, but he didn’t wake often.

  By midafternoon, she called Vern, trying in vain to quell the anxiety in her chest as she asked for help with the chores. When she hung up, Liddie realized she hadn’t coughed even once in the last couple of hours. She put wood in the firebox and brewed more tea.

  When she returned to the bedroom, she thought her eyes were deceiving her. Joe’s skin looked blue. She lit the lamp and held it closer to the bed. She’d heard neighbor women talk about babies born blue, but she’d never seen it herself. She ran to call the doctor. Fear clawed at her chest as she waited to be connected.

  “His skin is blue!” she exclaimed. “He was coughing badly when he got home from seeing you. And there was blood. And now he’s blue.”

  Liddie clutched the receiver tight to her ear, willing the doctor to tell her something to help. “Are you there?” she asked when he didn’t answer right away. “Can you come out? You need to see him. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Are you giving him the quinine?”

  “Yes. But he isn’t drinking much. I gave him aspirin, too.”

  “Good. Give him what tea you can. The fever has to run its course.”

  Joe’s coughing caused Liddie to race back to the bedroom as soon as she hung up. He’d thrown the covers back and sat upright. Blood dribbled down his chin. Sprays of blood dotted the sheets.

  “Oh, Joe.” She wiped away the blood that ran from his nose and threw the bloody handkerchiefs and towels into a bucket. She stripped off the bloody sheet and replaced it.

  No sooner had she got Joe cleaned up than she heard Rose crying. She’d totally forgotten about her daughter! She had no appetite herself, but she had to feed Rose. As she heated green beans, Vern called to her from the porch.

  “Come on in,” she called.

  “Only wanted you to know I was here,” he said through the closed door.

  “Wait. I’ll come out.” She threw on a coat and stepped out into the damp November air.

  When she came out, Vern backed off the porch. “How is he?”

  “As sick as I was,” she said. “Maybe worse.” She didn’t say anything about the blood or his blue skin. She was trying not to think about it herself. “It came on so fast. He was fine this morning.”

  “I’ll get goin’ on the chores.”

  She noticed that Vern kept backing away from her. Regardless, seeing her brother calmed her, and she was reluctant for him to leave. “How’s Minnie?”

  “Getting along fine.”

  “What will Amelia do?”

  “We’ll figure that out when she gets here. I gotta get goin’.”

  “Thanks for coming over, Vern.”

  He nodded.

  Liddie fed Rose and put the child in her crib long before her normal bedtime. Then she pulled the rocking chair close to sit by Joe. The color of his skin caused her stomach to clench with fear. From time to time, she wiped his face and straightened the blankets, talking as she did to still her fears.

  “I’ve been thinking about the garden. You could plow up a bigger area next spring. We’d plant enough vegetables for Amelia’s family, too.”

  As the evening wore on, she also talked to God, even though prayer was not her habit.

  “I love him so. For Rose. For me. Please make him well. Please.” Eventually, her prayer came down to one word. “Please.”

  By eleven, Joe was resting more easily. She slipped into bed b
eside him, laying one hand on his shoulder.

  “Schlaf schön, Liebchen.” She whispered his German words. “I love you, you know.” A low moan passed Joe’s lips, and Liddie felt him relax a little under her hand. She kissed him on the forehead and closed her eyes.

  When she woke the next morning, light filtered in at the edges of the window shades, and it took several seconds for her to recollect where she was. She had slept soundly and felt better than she had in days. She had not been wakened even once by Joe’s coughing. The doctor was right. Rest was exactly what they both needed.

  Propping herself up on her elbow, she laid her fingers against Joe’s cheek. It was stone cold.

  Chapter 49

  Liddie knelt at Joe’s side. She put her fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse. She pressed her palm against his chest, willing herself to feel his heart beating. There was nothing, and she felt the fabric of her heart tear.

  She laid her palm against his cheek. He’s so cold, Liddie thought. He shouldn’t be so cold. She stretched out beside her husband, pulled the quilt up over them, slipped her arm over his chest, and nestled her head against his shoulder. She knew he was dead. But she couldn’t leave him. Later, when tears erupted at every thought, she would wonder that she didn’t cry then.

  An hour later, she heard Rose calling from her crib. She forced herself out of bed and tucked the quilt back around Joe. She lit the lamp on the nightstand and looked at him for another long moment. “Schlaf schön, Liebchen,” she whispered. “Schlaf schön.” Then she kissed his cheek and went to get Rose and call Vern.

  The rest of the day, the phone rang relentlessly as news of Joe’s death and the signing of the armistice spread along the party line.

  The war was over. Liddie felt her life was over, too.

  Three days later, she stood in her front yard waiting for the funeral service to start. A mist so light she wasn’t conscious of it collected on her wool coat. Pulling the coat up around her neck, she saw the beads of moisture and wondered if they were her tears. She shivered, a quaking that came from inside her bones and set her whole body trembling.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Amelia asked.

  Liddie stared dumbly at her sister and returned her eyes to the casket. Amelia had arrived in Iowa the day after Joe died. Leaving her older children with Minnie, she brought the twins and moved in with Liddie to help prepare for the funeral.

  Liddie had scarcely taken her eyes off the casket since the undertaker and minister moved it from the porch to where it rested now atop two sawhorses some fifty feet from the house. She wanted to rip off the coffin lid, shake Joe awake, look into his eyes, and remind him that he had just told her they would live here for the rest of their lives. She wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told her their time together wouldn’t last more than forty-eight hours.

  Her mind barely registered the handful of neighbors forming a ring around the casket, white masks covering their noses and mouths. People who’d come in buggies and wagons a few minutes before the service, arriving so they wouldn’t be there much more than the time it took for the minister’s words.

  Her heart was with Joe. Joe who called her Liebchen. Joe who made her laugh. The father of her daughter, her friend, her husband, her lover. At the thought of Joe making love to her, Liddie felt pain rip through her gut, and she doubled over so fast Amelia barely caught her in time to ease her into a chair.

  Liddie buried her face in her hands and wept.

  When the minister finished, all the people who endured the bleak day and muddy roads, who faced their fears of the influenza because they could not face themselves if they did not, passed by Liddie murmuring condolences. None of them touched her.

  There was no luncheon after the funeral, no reminiscing with family and friends, no comfort for the widow. All her life, she would remember that only Dr. Milburn, the undertaker, and Amelia came into the house when Joe died. Though she herself had insisted Minnie not come over while she was pregnant, for years after, Liddie felt disappointment tinged with anger that Minnie had not been there when she needed her most.

  “Feed Rose.” Amelia slid a bowl in front of Liddie. “Here’s her peas.”

  Liddie looked up. Seeing Amelia in her kitchen was as unbelievable as having Joe gone. She still could not grasp that her husband had been alive one morning and dead the next. How did that happen?

  Liddie put the spoon in Rose’s hand. “You can feed yourself. Can’t you, sweetie?”

  Using her hands more than the spoon, the toddler scooped up peas, hitting her mouth with a few, smashing many on her cheeks, dropping most in her lap.

  Amelia put a dishrag in Liddie’s hands. Liddie dabbed at Rose’s face. “If you didn’t keep making me do something, I doubt I’d ever move.”

  “It’s hard.”

  “Here’s what I don’t understand. Everyone asked Joe for help. He never turned them away. Minerva’s funeral. Nessie’s. He never said no. Where were they when Joe died? Where are they now?”

  “They call,” Amelia said. “And seems like every time I go out on the porch, there’s a hot dish or a pie or a loaf of bread. I expect they’re afraid. If someone strong like Joe can die of the flu, who is safe?”

  “You aren’t afraid.”

  “I survived losing my husband. I’ll survive this, too.”

  Liddie blinked. She’d been in a fog. Amelia had lost her husband, too. Maybe he wasn’t dead, but he was gone just the same. “I’m sorry about Fred, Amelia. I haven’t said that before, have I? I am sorry.”

  Amelia sniffed. “He’s been gone a long time, as far as the children and I were concerned.” She swiped a dishrag over the table and shrugged in resignation. “Some men aren’t meant to be married.”

  “Aren’t you angry?”

  “More hurt than angry. I thought we could make a life for the babies. But even that . . .” She roughly wiped her nose on a handkerchief and stuffed the wadded cotton in her apron pocket.

  Liddie rose, wrapped her arms around Amelia’s waist, and rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Amelia.”

  “I know.” Amelia turned and pulled Liddie into the circle of her arms. “I know.”

  Her sister’s embrace sent grief sweeping through Liddie, and she trembled as tears soaked her cheeks.

  Amelia rocked her gently. “It’ll be all right, honey. It will.”

  “How will it be all right, Amelia?”

  Amelia stepped away from her sister, poured coffee for herself and Liddie, then sat down. She scooped sugar into her own cup and stirred it for a good while before speaking. “I’ll stay with Minnie when her baby comes. Any day now. Then as long after as she needs me.”

  “I’m happy for her. After all this time.” Liddie’s voice was flat. “Have you thought about after that?”

  “Vern’s looking into getting me a place in town. I expect he’ll be glad to have my brood out of his hair.”

  “What will you do? How will you get along?” Liddie pulled her chair closer to the table, cradling the hot coffee mug to warm her hands.

  “A widow woman in Lusk took in laundry and sewing.” Amelia tapped a spoon against the rim of her cup, then drank deeply. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t string two thoughts together anymore.” The discussion made her tired. It made her think of Joe. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I can’t . . .”

  Amelia squeezed Liddie’s hand. “You’re going to have to. You’re responsible for yourself and Rose. Vern said you and I could share a house in town. Help each other out with the children. Between the two of us, we could find enough work sewing and taking in laundry to pay the bills. With what you’d get from selling the farm, we’d make out okay.”

  Liddie stared at her sister. “Sell the farm?”

  “You can’t farm this place on your own.”


  “But . . .”

  “Vern’s been asking around. Looking for a buyer.”

  “I can’t sell this place. Joe and I . . . it’s our place.”

  Amelia shook her head. “I don’t mean to be harsh, Liddie, but you need to wake up. You can’t farm this place on your own, and you can’t expect Vern to take care of it.”

  “What if it was you and me? Couldn’t we do it together?”

  “Some of it we could do. But not the crops. Not without a man.”

  “I suppose not.” Liddie propped an elbow on the table, leaning her cheek on her fist. She felt so tired. Every movement took so much effort.

  “Together in town might be the best way,” Amelia said.

  Liddie looked at her sister. “Does that sound good to you? Really?”

  “Things don’t always turn out like you want. Besides, in town you might find another man.”

  Until that moment, Liddie had felt vaguely disconnected, as though the outcome of the conversation had no real effect on her, but Amelia’s last comment sliced through her lethargy. “Another man?”

  “You’re young, with only one child. You’d make some man a good wife yet. You’d have more suitors in town.”

  Anger burned color into Liddie’s cheeks. “My God, Amelia!” She shoved back from the table. “Joe is barely dead. Can’t you give me even a few days? And why are you so set on fixing things for me? What about you? Why don’t you get married?”

  Amelia’s face contorted in a bitter grimace. “Don’t you remember? I am married.”

  “Fred’s gone.”

  “A small detail as far as the law is concerned.”

  “But you could get a divorce, couldn’t you? Or have him declared dead?” Liddie choked on her words. Her own husband was dead, and she was suggesting her sister would want the same. She stood up. “I can’t talk about this now.”

  She grabbed her coat and ran to the barn. Up in the haymow, she threw herself into a stack of hay. Sell the farm? She clenched fists full of hay. Marry someone else? She burrowed her fists against her chest. Life without the farm? Life without Joe? She curled on her side, wrapped her arms around her head, and sobbed.