Mine was a good life.
A sandwich for supper followed by a bit of reading to clear my thoughts. I fought that bone-tired feeling that kept me in my chair some nights, and slowly pushed myself up, went to my room. As I passed by Mother’s door, I half expected to see her there. But I’d stopped being disappointed about being alone years ago.
That evening hard rain splattered the windows from the west, running through the drain spouts with such force a little river ran alongside the house into the back yard. The next morning, I put on rubber boots, opened my umbrella and stepped outside, lowering it to block the wind and sleet.
The nurse on duty at the front desk looked up when I came in. She informed me that Signy had left a few hours ago, that Mother was resting comfortably but didn’t have much time left.
“Signy seemed upset,” the nurse said quietly.
We both knew how difficult it was for those not accustomed to sitting with a dying loved one.
“Freyja? Where is Freyja?” Mother asked dreamy-eyed. “She was here.”
Though her body lacked strength, her eyes were bright.
“It’s alright, Mama, you will see her again,” I said. “How is the pain?”
“It is gone.” She sounded surprised, relieved.
“Then you should rest,” I said, checking her chart. When her eyes closed I slipped away to make the necessary phone calls.
We were all there when she died, early that evening, looking wistfully happy and at peace. Reunited, I suppose, with those who had gone before her, all the questions finally answered about her sister, and mine, too.
We buried Mother three days later beside Pabbi. J.K. and Gudrun’s headstones lined the next row. Still neighbors. She would be pleased.
My mind went back to the incident with Pall at the dance. J.K. waving good night to Pabbi then taking Gudrun by the hand, hollering out to the band it was time for a Red River Jig, how the hall erupted in cheers as the music flared up again. The incredible lightness to J.K.’s step, his confident cheer, as he spun Gudrun around the dance floor.
Gudrun had died at home a few years later and shortly afterwards J.K. moved to Winnipeg where Thora cared for him until his death in 1945.
We stood in the rain, listening to the Pastor reflect on Mother’s life, none of us needing to say anything out loud.
As the church basement began filling up after the service, we were heartened to see our elderly neighbors from Siglunes and Hayland, and their children who now owned the farms and fished the lake. Three generations were there to pay their respects.
Everyone handles the loss of a parent differently. Our brothers said very little. Solrun and I were serene and reflective. But Signy was struggling and we all saw it. She looked lost in the church kitchen, opening cupboard doors but not seeing anything inside. Two women from the Ladies Aid tried to usher her out but she refused. For a reason none of us understood, Signy became bitter after the funeral and stayed that way for months.
Leifur and I took charge. He made all of the arrangements, ordering modest, matching headstones for all the graves, including one for Freyja. The funeral director said he would have her remains moved once the situation in Winnipeg was resolved. He meant the impending flood. Not since 1861 had the Red River risen up as much as it did that spring. Two weeks after Mother’s funeral, the city of Winnipeg was devastated by water. The conditions that foretold the coming flood—a wet autumn, above-normal amounts of snow, below-normal temperatures and a late thaw, all combined with heavy rainfall—saw the Red and Assiniboine rivers overflow their banks. Our beloved lake was spared that spring but four wet years loomed on the horizon.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Beware of those who speak fairly but think falsely.
—The Saga of Bjarn of the Hitdoela Champions
I was charged with the task of settling Mother’s estate. After the funeral expenses were paid, the remainder was divided among the five of us. Mother had suggested in her will that those of us with children establish an education fund. We gathered on Thanksgiving at Eikheimar for an early afternoon meal. It was strange to see a new, one-and-a-half-storey home with a cement foundation where our house had once stood. I was pleased that the kitchen window still faced east. From it we could look out over Amma’s meadow and, as before, see the bay in the distance.
Once dinner was done, and everyone was sitting with their coffee and dessert, I laid out the ledger book with all the expenses and Mother’s bank account, then handed each of my brothers and sisters an envelope. Nobody bothered to check my figures so I didn’t have to explain why I’d divided the balance by four. They were all farming so they needed money more than I.
“You paid for the headstones?” Leifur asked. He’d met with the funeral director the month before and had been present when the stones were put in place. He seemed troubled.
“Yes, two days after they were delivered,” I said. “Is something wrong?”
Leifur sighed, setting his plate down. He picked up his coffee and winced. “I’m not sure exactly how to say this.” The room grew quiet. “But it appears whoever told you Freyja was buried in the Brookside Cemetery was wrong.”
“There must be a mistake,” I said. “I saw the marker. It was her grave.”
Leifur shook his head. “There is no record of Freyja being buried there.”
Signy went to the kitchen. She returned carrying the coffee pot and refilled everyone’s cup. “So we paid for a headstone and plot for nothing?” she said, annoyed.
“Mama did,” I snapped back.
She flung daggers at me, the first time in many years.
“It was her dying request,” I said, “to have Freyja home.”
Leifur handed me a copy of the Brookside Cemetery map.
I looked at it, my mind reeling. “If Freyja isn’t here then where is she?”
“I tried warning you all,” Signy said, but her words were directed at me. “All we ever talked about was Freyja, how sweet and wonderful she was, how perfect our lives would be if you found her.”
“You’d left home already,” I said. “You didn’t know what it was like for us, how we suffered.”
“Yes, I did,” she said, bottom lip quivering. “And that is why I cannot forgive her.”
“Forgive her? For what?” I said.
Signy pointed to the map I still held. “You wasted your whole life looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.”
I was so flabbergasted I barely took in what was said after that. I stared at the map again. Signy believed I had wasted my life.
“Freyja knows where we are,” she said, planting one hand on her hip; the other still held the coffee pot. She offered nothing more, just spun around and stomped back to the kitchen.
I turned the map. Finding the entrance, I used my finger to retrace my steps. Someone had scratched two crosses with a pen on the plot that I believed belonged to Freyja. Handwritten beside the crosses were the names Borga and Mundi Solmundsson with the dates of their deaths. Bjarni’s grandmother had died a year before his grandfather. I’d known that and yet . . .
“My God,” I said. “That bastard tricked me.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Pride and wrong often end badly.
—Víga Glúm’s Saga
Do you know the dying can hear everything that goes on around them?
A person’s sense of hearing and touch are the last to go. Remember this. It is why the infirm shouldn’t be discarded like old pieces of furniture, but treated with reverence like the antiques they are. A bit of polishing and admiring never hurts.
Freyja didn’t die. Deep inside my heart I’ve known it all along.
I feel a warm wind trying to lift me off the bed, a whispering of encouraging voices. I follow.
A chair is pushed abruptly back and heels run toward the hospital room door. This flur
ry of activity pulls me back. Once again I am confronted with light and noise.
“Solrun, please hurry,” I hear Thora call out.
Both of them are beside me now. They’ve summoned Doctor Steen. Minutes later I recognize his footfalls. His voice is calm and reassuring. Even though I cannot hear their whispers, I know what he is saying. There is no way to predict how long it will take now my breathing has begun to stop and start. Some die within hours, others linger for days.
* * *
My soul has been brought to the edge of the west hayfield, to where Leifur stands facing the Siglunes Creek, watching as it overflows its banks. Pelicans and seagulls paddle lazily where hay should be growing.
It is May, 1955—five years since Mother died and I found out that Bjarni had deceived me. The lake flooded last year so not enough hay was made. Another wet spring, more flooding and it is still raining.
Signy sloshes from the house wearing rubber boots. Leifur sees her coming but turns back to face the water.
“Sigrid said I’d find you here,” she says. “She tells me you’ve been out here for hours. She is worried you will catch your death, standing in the rain like this.”
I can feel the heaviness in his heart. Poor Leifur can barely remember back to those years when he believed all it took was hard work to be successful. The past few years have deepened the lines on his face, put sadness in his eyes. He is thankful that Pabbi and J.K. aren’t alive to witness the devastation. I want to reach out to comfort him, but all I can do in this ghostly state is watch.
“I never should have bought that place,” he says, pointing at Bensi’s bush. “Amma was right. That land is cursed.”
Truth be told, Bensi’s bush is still a solemn and dark place, despite its beauty. Even the cattle won’t graze there.
“I should have listened when you said Freyja ran away,” Leifur says.
Signy tilts her head in curiosity. “What does she have to do with this?”
He looks at the drowning grass. “This is all my fault.” His shoulders droop under the weight of his soaked jacket.
“Now you are being silly,” she says,
They both hear the uncertainty in her voice.
“Pabbi always said an eye-for-an-eye is wrong,” he says. “I punished Bensi years ago and now it is my turn. Like him, I may lose my farm.”
They stand for a few minutes staring at the raindrops pooling in the low spots on the land.
“I hid in the bush that morning,” he says. “When the family rode away to church I let the sheep go and lit the barn on fire, then ran to J.K.’s dock to catch the Lady Ellen across the lake to the ball tournament. I didn’t intend to burn the whole place.”
Signy gently shakes her head. “Did you tell Pabbi you were the one?”
“I think he knew. That is why he told the police not to come. We never spoke about it.”
“Who else have you told?”
“No one.”
Signy reaches out to pat his back, high up between the shoulder blades. “We are all worried about you.”
He takes another deep breath as he looks out over the waterlogged field.
They start walking back toward the house.
“I have a confession as well,” she says. “Freyja is very much alive.”
Leifur stops and turns to face her. “Are you sure?”
“I know it for a fact.” Signy looks away then defiantly crosses her arms. “I saw her.”
“You saw her? When?”
“At the hospital, the night before Mama died.”
He is speechless.
“After Asta went home from the hospital, I sat with Mama. Freyja arrived that evening on the train.”
“She came to Lundi?” he asks in disbelief.
Signy nods. “Thora found her. They bumped into each other in Vancouver. Thora told her that Mama was dying, so Freyja came home.”
Leifur brings his hands up to his face and rubs hard.
Signy’s eyes are brimming with tears. “I was so furious, I told her to leave.”
“Signy—”
“I didn’t think she’d go,” she says defensively. “But maybe it is for the best, after everything she put us through.”
“Did Mama see her?”
“Yes, and she forgave her. She didn’t even ask where Freyja had been all those years. She just said that she was thankful to have her home.”
It starts raining harder as they turn back toward the house and begin sloshing through the field, past the cattle huddled with their heads down under a bluff of trees, their young calves pressing in close for warmth. A cow coughs and I know Leifur thinks immediately of pneumonia and foot rot, that he will need to check them as soon as it stops raining. He is a farmer through and through. He pushes the barbed wire down and swings his legs over, holding it for Signy who does the same. As the house comes into view, he looks up at the roof. I can see the spot where the shingles have blown off in the wind. Hopefully his patch will hold and it won’t start leaking again.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” he asks.
“It wasn’t up to me,” she says. “If Freyja wanted us to know her whereabouts, she could have easily told us. Or written. But she hasn’t, has she?”
“We have to tell them,” he says.
“Why? So that we can invite her back into our lives as if nothing has happened?”
“They need to know the truth.”
“Solrun and Lars barely remember her. And you know how the story will be twisted. It will be all my fault.”
He stops at the foot of the verandah. “You should have told Asta right away, at Thanksgiving.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she cries, voice breaking. “I thought Asta would talk to Thora and find out on her own. How was I supposed to know she’d nearly get herself killed?”
“Are you afraid we’ll blame you for Asta’s accident?” he asks.
“Do you?”
He inhales slowly and sighs. “No, you are right. Freyja knows where we are.”
Leifur turns away from her to look out over the gray, dimpled lake drinking in every drop of rain. The beach is almost entirely under water.
“I do have a bit of good news,” she says brightening. “Bjorn Magnusson decided to sell the store in Swan River and has retired in Lundi.”
“Really?”
“You heard his wife died last fall?”
“No, I hadn’t.”
“We should pay him a visit. Take Asta along and talk about old times. I think it will be good for her.”
Leifur nods. “How is she doing?”
“Settling in at the care home, but it is painful to see her like this.”
They slowly climb the verandah steps.
“You should go visit her,” Signy says. She reaches out to pat his shoulder again.
“I will,” he says. “There is nothing more I can do here until it stops raining.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
A tale is but half told, when only one person tells it.
—The Saga of Grettir the Strong
So much to take in.
How could Signy have kept this from me?
There was an accident . . . yes, I vaguely remember. As soon as I realized Bjarni had deceived me, I went to Winnipeg to hire a private investigator to find Freyja. Something happened. My memories are vacant shadows after that.
Solrun sniffles and I hear her pull a tissue from the box. She sighs into it, stifling a sob.
Dr. Steen tries to explain to her and Thora that my soul is holding on longer than it should. They understand better when he says that my body will only live for so long.
They settle into the chairs beside my bed, determined I won’t take my final breaths alone.
My mind drifts in and out of the room. I am brought back by
the sound of a nurse at my side. Another needle of morphine in the hip.
Do you know that men have a decidedly different sound to their footfalls than women do? When I was with a patient I often guessed correctly by the echo coming down the hallway if the visitor was a man or woman. Generally speaking, women walk quicker than men, though not necessarily lighter.
The footsteps I hear now remind me of Pabbi. Lars, it must be. I hope he brought Leifur and Signy. It has been such a long time since I’ve seen them.
I am able to creak open my eyes a sliver and there in front of me are two wisps of glowing light.
Mama?
Although she doesn’t speak, there is a sweet understanding between us, one brimming with love. She senses my confusion.
Who is that with you? But already I know, even though the truth takes a few moments to register. It is Thora’s spirit. And while I do not remember ever knowing this, I realize that she died ten years ago.
Then who has been sitting at my bedside?
Mother smiles softly and I remember the morning she died, how she’d said Freyja came for a visit. Now everything makes sense.
Freyja is here at the hospital, beside Solrun. She has been sitting with me all along.
* * *
One last visit to the past and all my questions will be answered.
Solrun’s kitchen. Fifteen years since Mother died. It is October, 1965. Solrun is waiting impatiently by the sink, watching through the window that looks out onto the farmyard. I can feel her anticipation, read her thoughts as she glances at the clock over the kitchen table. Her husband and Olafur should be back from Winnipeg soon with Lars and Freyja, that is if the plane from Vancouver was on time. She has never been on one herself, but Lars has told her it is a wonderful way to travel.
Solrun wonders if she will still recognize our sister after all these years. The only photo of Freyja was taken when she was seven-years-old—two years before she was born. The family portrait that Mother treasured so much now hangs in her living room, over the end table beside the sofa. She doesn’t look at it often, but when she does it tugs sadly at her heart now that Amma, Pabbi, Mother and Signy are all gone.
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