A Flickering Light (6 page)

Expectations

M
RS
. B
AUER
—
IT WAS HOW SHE
thought of herself—drifted through the house, feeling wispy and unfinished, dragging her palm across newly dusted tabletops, lifting the fern fronds to tease her fingertips. Winnie napped and Mrs. Bauer had tasks to do, as any mother did. It was time to reorganize the closets. It was a task she felt she must accomplish at least monthly. But a great emptiness veiled her today, a fog she couldn’t brush away. She had no energy, not even to argue with Mr. Bauer about weaning Winnie, a subject he’d inappropriately brought up some weeks before. Any residue of strength she might have had he’d robbed from her this morning by his intrusion. It was no concern of his, or ought not to be, this detail of child rearing. Weaning was within the purview of women, of mothers and grandmothers, not husbands and fathers. He still had so much to learn.

When her father had brought Mr. Bauer home following one of his photographic meetings, Jessie Otis, then a mere sixteen-year-old girl, had found him dashing and charming. He could make her laugh. He had a sweet smile and eyes as calm as Lake Winona on a still summer day. She could sink into those eyes. He was “going places” her father had told her. He had “property,” small cottages in Winona and a photographic studio in St. Charles a few miles away. He was a quick study, her father said, would learn photography in a snap.

They married on February 17, 1891, just a few months shy of her eighteenth birthday, and before long he bought out Grover Studio in Winona along with its enormous set of glass plate negatives, which her father said would make Mr. Bauer good money, all those pictures of landscapes that people wanted. Mr. Bauer had turned a good number of them into postcards once the postal service permitted both the address and a message to be written on the same side, leaving the opposite side for photographs. Some people still sent leather postcards, but Mr. Bauer was sure that would stop soon enough, though sometimes his “vision of the future” didn’t ring true. He said it was the timing of things that allowed an idea to become a practice one could pursue toward perfection. But sometimes timing took away a vision too. Donald had been taken from her by an inexplicable moment of tragically bad timing. She pressed her hand to her heart. Donald’s memories wore heavily.

Like a tablecloth unfurled, she lowered herself onto the divan with its claw feet and oak arms she could grip, her linen skirt settling over her knees. She liked the cool of the wood. It gave her strength, which she desperately needed to accomplish her tasks. But today the carved wood offered her no force. She aimlessly turned pages of a book, not remembering anything she’d read. She was vaguely conscious of birds outside the window chattering. Or was it neighborhood boys playing? Russell had come home from school, donned his playing knickers, and headed out the back door, barely stopping to give her a peck on her cool cheek. That was just as well. She didn’t like displays of affection, even from an eight-year-old.

Paper cut her finger and she stood, sucking on it, aware of the salty taste. At least she could notice it. She sighed and went to the cupboard where her husband kept his salve. His mixture did actually soothe. It was too bad that J. R. Watkins sold a product much like it. Watkins’s business had taken off when he moved it to Winona in 1885. Once, in a flash of argument, her husband had hinted that Watkins and he worked on a salve formula together, but Mrs. Bauer really doubted that. She wasn’t sure why. Her husband was a truthful man. As far as she knew. Still, they remained acquainted with the Watkins family, her husband having taken the great man’s photograph, which the company placed on a postcard and used for promotion. The Bauers didn’t exactly socialize with them, nor with the lumber people like the Lairds and Nortons. They weren’t in that class. But they’d attended the funeral of Mary Ellen, JR’s wife, when she passed in April 1904. It was the same year as Donald’s accident. She gasped a stuttered breath. She hated it when everything she thought of in a day seemed to come back to sweet Donald and the great emptiness of his death.

She looked for cleanser to clean the wound. Her husband was always a step behind other businessmen who prospered. Oh, they had a comfortable life, but he’d made investments in the salve, kept detailed ledgers, but nothing really came of the orders. A few were shipped, mostly to North Dakota and Seattle, where Watkins’s products weren’t so easily acquired. Mr. Bauer had seen military duty in the West and remembered the prairies, liked them, left behind the salve with some friends there, south of Bismarck. He received a few orders after that.

He’d left so much more behind in North Dakota.

Everyone had urged them to have another child as soon as they could after Donald’s death. Again, people intruding upon the intimacies of a marriage, making such suggestions. People had no idea of the strain.

Well, perhaps they did. At least the relatives knew she’d gone home to live with her mother when her father died in 1895 and stayed longer than was socially acceptable. She hadn’t cared. Her mother needed looking after, or at least she told herself that. Her sister and her brother, Orrin, were of no help even though they lived in the same town. Or had Orrin moved on by then? She couldn’t remember. She came back to Winona but returned to her mother’s again in the fall of 1900. Mr. Bauer had begged her to come back, to bring Russell, just a baby then. He’d been talking about investing in cropland in North Dakota, and she had put her foot down. As if such an investment made sense. They’d argued; she took Russell and went home to her mother’s.

But Mr. Bauer charmed her with his easy, persistent smile. He told her of the government’s plan to permit homestead claims to be proved up. He’d get a partner, someone to stay there to do the work. They’d share the crop profits. And he could even set up a photographic studio in nearby Hazelton, make it seasonal so it would pay. And then she could travel, take her mother and Russell and visit relatives wherever they’d like. There’d be resources.
Resources
. He spoke about money as though it was something to be consumed rather than saved for times of trial. She’d had plenty of trials.

She’d listened and returned to him. Nine months later, Donald was born, in late 1901. Dear, dear Donald with his light hair and sweet smile. She sighed. The paper-cut pain was almost desirable, distracting her thoughts of Donald. She pressed her finger, forcing blood she let drip over the dry sink. She watched it drop by drop, then decided to ease her discomfort with the salve, wrap the small throb in her handkerchief. Later she’d have to put extra bluing in the water to remove the stain. Scrub it hard.

Mrs. Bauer drifted back into the parlor and picked up the picture her husband had taken of the three of them, her and Russell and Donald. She evaluated herself. It wasn’t one of her best photographs. She looked harsh, half her face in shadow. She’d retouched it, hoping to bring out the natural fullness and a small lift to her single-strand lips, barely wider than a yarn thread. She’d held the brush in her mouth to keep it moist while she perused the detail on the plate. Russell stood behind her, his hand gently on her neck, so protective. Only Donald smiled, and now he was gone. She ran her fingers across the cool glass that covered Donald’s face.

She heard the door slam. Russell shouted, “Did you see me, Mother? I hit the ball further than anyone.”

“Farther than,” she corrected.

“They said I was too young to play with them, but I hit the ball fur…farther than even I thought I could.”

“That’s good. You ought to stay in now, wash up for supper. Your father will be home soon.” She looked at the kitchen clock, annoyance spearing her lethargy. He should already be here. He’d probably stopped off at one of his lodges. No telling when he’d be home now.

She thought she saw a flash of anger cross Russell’s eyes. Mrs. Bauer shared his sentiments, though for very different reasons. She simply could not count on her husband to be home at any given time. It was a small thing to expect, and yet he wouldn’t comply. “We’ll eat without him,” she said. “Wash up.” She grabbed at the cupboard door, jerked plates out, slammed them on the table.

Feeling angry was better than feeling nothing.

Chaos greeted Jessie once she reached Broadway Street and home. Her stomach growled to be fed, but her mother had other plans.

“I’ve had your father looking all over town. You had an interview this morning,” her mother said. “You left the house in the dead of night. Roy told us, though it took him a while.” Her little brother waved and grinned as he sat at the table, but then he almost always did grin. He burped then, a belch that sounded like a bullfrog’s croak and had earned him the nickname of Frog, at least from Jessie. “Roy,” her mother chastened.

“I left early morning,” Jessie corrected.

“You didn’t eat any breakfast and went off on your own without permission.” Her mother looked at the clock. “Nearly noon. What have you been doing? Never mind. You’ve missed your interview. I thought it was something you might even enjoy. Where have your thoughts gone these days! Do you know how rare it is to find work that waltzes with one’s interest?”

“Waltzes, Mama?” This from Selma. “I didn’t think we were allowed to dance.”

“Hush, child,” her mother said. She wiped imaginary dirt onto her white apron in that way she had when she was annoyed, crossed her arms over her broad chest. Ida Gaebele was a force to be reckoned with, and this morning that force was a full tornado.

“I didn’t miss the interview, Mama. I got the job,” Jessie said. “Voe and I were both hired.”

“You told Voe about the opening? Clara Deacon would have been so much the better companion for you than Voe. I didn’t know that girl cared much about photography or anything associated with a trade like that.”

“Voe’s a good girl, Mama. I don’t know why you don’t like her. Besides, Mr. Bauer wasn’t really looking for a camera girl.”

“But the ad said—”

“He wants someone blank as a school slate.”

“I see why Voe would qualify, then,” Lilly said. She’d come home for lunch from her work in the glove factory.

“Hush now. It isn’t nice to speak ill of others.”

“But Mr. Bauer was willing to take me on anyway,” Jessie continued. “We start on Monday.”

“That’s good, then, I suppose,” her mother said. “Though your disappearing this morning is still to be explained.” Jessie looked over at Selma. She hadn’t said anything about seeing Jessie leave. She’d kept the secret, but Roy with his tuned-in ears had heard her and told their parents anyway.

“What on earth happened to your sleeves? Did the man put you to work today? He’ll have to pay for repairs or provide a clothing allowance.”

“There was an…incident. Early this morning,” Jessie said. She reached for a dry slice of toast on the oven’s warming shelf. “Mr. Steffes of the bicycle shop was injured, and I helped him.” Jessie sat down and picked at the crumbs that dropped onto the checkered oilcloth spread over the table. “I got blood on my sleeves, so I tore them off as I didn’t have time to come home to change, and I knew you wouldn’t have wanted me to embarrass myself with stained clothing, or be late for the interview, either.”

“And what was so important that you had to leave this house without breakfast and without telling anyone where you were going
and
before you were properly attired for your interview?” Her mother squinted. “You’re not wearing a corset.”

“A photograph, Mama. I wanted to take this picture—”

“I might have known,” Lilly said.

“What sort of photograph would lure you to the cycle shop?”

“I was only… I heard him fall and I had to help him and get the doctor, so I missed the photograph anyway and then hurried along to Mr. Bauer’s. I had my priorities right, Mama.”

“Is Mr. Steffes all right?” Lilly asked as she removed pins and hung her small hat on the rack.

“I guess so. He was in good hands when I left.”

Jessie filled in the details, embellishing just a bit for Roy’s benefit. He liked stories. With Mr. Steffes “in good hands,” her mother became practical. “Did he let you use the bicycle to make your appointment?”