A Flickering Light (16 page)

“Speaking of Mrs. Bauer,” Jessie said. “I wondered if you… Did you have an opportunity to discuss with her the concerns about my photographs?” She sometimes waited so long to bring up an issue that by the time she did, the trouble had faded itself out.

“I did,” he said. He’d turned his back to her and fussed with the camera wheel, raising it to prepare for the family he’d be photographing tomorrow. “And I must say I am no more clarified in my thinking than I was before. She insists that I made the comments and was quite upset that I should retract what I said and put the blame on her. That’s what she called it, ‘the blame.’”

“I didn’t think you were being unkind. I just didn’t understand what you meant about them, how I could improve them next time,” Jessie said.

“I tried to tell her that, but she—” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry. You’ve no need to be embroiled in our petty marital disputes,” he said. “I found the photographs to be not grand but satisfactory as I looked at them without fever. I regret that Mrs. Bauer felt compelled to share with you her delusions.
My
delusions,” he corrected. “Can we let it go at that?”

“Certainly.” She still wondered what wasn’t so grand about them. “I hope that if you have judgments about my photographs, should I be allowed to take some independent of you in the future, you’ll share any thoughts you have. To make them better.”

“Agreed,” he said. “Your asking is a sign of a professional mind. One never improves his art without curiosity and risk.”

He went to the kitchen to retrieve Winnie, and on the way back through he stopped at the desk where Jessie bent over a ledger. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, suggesting a birthday portrait for you. Sometimes I do things meant to be kind that turn out otherwise. I wouldn’t want that to be the case, with you especially. I’m very fond of you, Miss Gaebele. I hope you know that.”

He pressed his hat upon his head. Winnie rushed to kiss Jessie’s cheek as Jessie knelt to her, and then the two were gone, leaving Jessie with a wondering ache in her heart.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” FJ told his wife. “She’s simply a young woman who works for me. Nothing else. How do you get yourself into thinking these things?”

Mrs. Bauer had greeted him at the door several days later, fire in her eyes. “Winifred said you were fond of Miss Gaebele and making a birthday portrait of her, that you said it right in front of the child.”

“That alone should tell you there’s nothing to worry about. Of course I said it in front of the child. Both of them are children. Miss Gaebele is turning sixteen on the same day Winnie turns three. They’re children. Minnesota doesn’t recognize a girl as a woman until she turns eighteen, remember? Where is your mind going?”

“I was a child when you married me.” He turned away. “And those other shop girls you employed—”

“Who deserted me, if you remember.”

“You tried to make me out to be the bad person about those pictures,” she said.

Her eyes had that blaze to them that could mean hours of her ranting with nothing to stop it. The more he attempted to be reasonable, gentle, or sweet, the more her voice raised, and before long she would bring in “the history lesson” as he called it, reminders of all the low and thoughtless things he’d done through their nearly seventeen years of marriage.

“Jessie. Mrs. Bauer. Calm yourself. The children are here. There’s no need for your upset.”

“No need? You express fondness for some young girl. It’s probably not the first time. Maybe that’s why Miss Schulz and Miss Phalen left. How do I know that isn’t what you do when you’re off at your conventions? After all I do to raise your children, to prepare your meals, to take care of you when you’re ill, and this is how you repay me?” She tore off her apron and rolled it into a ball. “Fix your own supper, Mr. Bauer. Perhaps you should get used to it.”

She ran up the stairs, the argument ending with the slam of her door.

Winnie shook. He put his arm on her shoulder. “It’s nothing you did,
Liebchen
. Mama’s had a hard day. We’ll let her rest. Let’s find Russell, and the three of us will fix something to eat. Maybe I’ll try my hand at a little éclair. Would you like that? Hmm? You will help me stir the eggs.” Winnie nodded, but her lower lip pooched out. He tickled his fingers beneath her chin, and she smiled. “Good. Now where’s Russell? Is he in his room? You go get him. That’s a good girl. We’ll let Mama rest, and we’ll do this together.”

The child ran off, and he slumped into the kitchen chair. There had never been a partnership between him and Mrs. Bauer, never the reality of two people moving on the same path toward common hopes. The most precious things he had in his life were his children, and Mrs. Bauer had given him those. Yet nothing he did could assure her that he was faithful, reliable, dependable. Even if he came home every night without going to the lodge or to the Masonic temple, where his comrades all gathered, even if he neglected those possible commercial referrals so necessary in his business, and came here every day exactly by six o’clock, he would still have to face the uncertainty: perhaps silence, or more likely, unexplained rage. If she was even here. She’d gone home twice to her mother, and he fully expected her to do that again. He just didn’t know when or why.

Her behavior had worsened with Donald’s death, and he held himself accountable for that. Everyone said it was an accident, but he’d kept the boy standing between his knees. Donald would be alive today if he hadn’t done that, and so he’d carry the weight of his poor decision to his grave. The horse was a favorite of Mrs. Bauer’s too. Tame. Well trained. He shook his head. They’d all been in this malaise for nearly four years now.

Maybe Mrs. Bauer was right. Miss Gaebele did bring lightness to his days. She did make him feel as though he had something to offer by allowing him to help her develop skills. Even so, he thought of her as a child, which she was. Nothing more. And he didn’t know why he should deprive himself of pleasure in doing things for people who seemed to appreciate it, unlike his wife. He could do nothing to please her, or at least that was how it had come to seem.

“Papa?” Russell entered the room. “Is Mama all right?”

“She’ll be fine, Son. We’ll fix some supper and offer her some, but she may refuse it. We grownups have had a misunderstanding, but it isn’t about you. You mustn’t worry. Wash up now,” he said, standing. He picked up the apron and put it over his head, tying the sash around his waist. Russell started to smile. “What? You think a man can’t wear an apron? I know how to do a few things around here. Time you learned too. Here’s an apron for you as well.” He pulled one from the linen closet, tidy as his tackle box. Winnie giggled. “I’m giving you dish cleanup duty,” he told his son. “And you, missy, you’re the chief egg swamper.”

Winnie grabbed his legs and hugged him. Russell groaned, but it was a groan of joy. FJ touched his daughter’s soft curls, smiled at his son. At least he could still give pleasure to his children.

Jessie did bring in a pleated silk blouse, her Sunday best, and a string of pearls she “borrowed” from her mother under the guise that she wanted to try a new prop. She intended to weave them into her hair. He didn’t mention the portrait. Jessie swallowed her disappointment, to shy to bring it up. At the end of the day, she took the blouse and pearls home.

Jessie Gaebele turned sixteen in 1908 at a party her parents planned that included Voe, Clara Giese (who had run through the storm with her), and Jerome, who always seemed to be around when food was served. Voe had brought him along uninvited. Lilly told her if she didn’t want Jerome around she’d have to be blunt. “That’s how I dealt with Sam,” she said. Sam was one of Lilly’s beaus, and Jessie had liked him. But Lilly said he was fond of “brew,” and she’d never marry a man with that kind of palate.

Jessie’s uncle August appeared, as did several other friends of her parents’, and of course her sisters and brother, Roy. Sweet, gentle, damaged Roy.

After the cake, while people took turns on the White Mountain Ice Cream Freezer handle, Jessie opened gifts. Mr. Steffes gave her a certificate “good for a bicycle ride once a week.” Her uncle added another treasure from the world’s fair, a rose glass cup with her name etched into the red. “Did you do all this during the fair?” Jessie asked him.

“I must have,” he said, and he winked.

Lilly had sewn a new blouse for her, and Selma gave her a fragrant lily of the valley plant she’d nurtured from seed that would bloom in the spring. Her parents gave her a subscription to the monthly
Woman’s Home Companion
. Lilly scoffed at that.

“That magazine has articles by radical women. Like Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” Lilly said. “She advocates the woman of a house pay for household help so she can work outside, both contributing to the household coffers and helping the economy by giving some poor wretch a job cooking and cleaning.”

“I wasn’t aware of that,” her mother said, frowning. “But the editor is Reverend Edward Everett Hale. He always offers the most encouraging things to think about. I’ve bought an issue now and then. I think it will help all you girls think of womanly things.”

“‘Faith is looking up, hope is looking forward, and love is looking outward instead of inward,’” Jessie quoted. “I remember seeing that in one of the issues you bought, Mama. I’ll like looking at them. A photographer has to keep up with the times, Lilly.”

Her sister scoffed again.

“I like the stories they publish,” Selma said. “And the dress patterns. Won’t you like looking at those, Lilly?”

Voe gave Jessie a card she’d made with little pieces of dried flowers glued to make the shape of a Kodak. Inside she’d placed some coins.

“But you worked hard for this money, Voe. I’m sure you have things you’d like to buy.”

“I never would have kept that job while Mr. B. was ill if it hadn’t been for you organizing and directing. So it’s a little bit I set aside for your present and then figured you’d know better what to do with it.”

“I’ll get my prints developed,” she said, hugging Voe. “Thank you so much.”

“That was very thoughtful of you, Voe,” Jessie’s mother said.

Roy raised his hand and pointed before they heard the knock at the door. Selma opened it, and there stood FJ.

“Mr. Bauer,” Jessie gasped. “Are you lost?”

“On my way home.”

“He works very hard,” Jessie told everyone. “I should have been working this Tuesday, so thank you for giving me a day off to have my party.”

“Invite the man in,” her father said. There’d been an ice storm, and as Jessie motioned for him to enter, she looked at the trees outside. The ice pelted one side of the tree trunks, making them look nearly white in the late afternoon, while the backs of the trunks were bare and black. She wished she could rush out and take a photograph of this checkered contrast.

“It’s Jessie’s birthday,” Selma told Mr. Bauer. “That’s why we’re having a party.”

“My daughter’s birthday is today as well, so it was easy to remember Miss Gaebele’s special day. I just wanted to drop something off for her.” His spectacles had steamed in the warm room, and he looked over them as he handed Jessie the package, which felt damp to her hands but not cold. He must have carried it close to his person.