A Touch of Grace (15 page)

She sat quietly, listening to the night noises as the house settled into the cooler evening. A breeze fluttered the sheer white curtains at the open window, an owl hooted on its nightly patrol, both it and the bats leaving their haunts in the top rafters of the barn and swooping out to hunt. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. June bugs clattered against the window screen, seeking the light, and a mosquito whined around her head.

She reached up to cup her hand around the chimney lamp and blew out the flame, releasing an odor of smoke and kerosene. Leaving her Bible on the table by the chair, she rose and made her way into the bedroom. At least if she was sleeping, she would quit thinking about all the ramifications. Leaving today’s troubles with this day was excellent advice. After all, she had enough to do tomorrow already. Happy Fourth of July. At least it had started out happy.

She had to smile at the memory of little Inga. Now, that one could light up a whole room with her smile. Quicksilver for sure. On that happy note she hung her clothes on the peg on the wall and slipped her cambric nightdress over her head, shimmying out of her underthings as the dress fell about her ankles. The chill on the moist breeze tingled up her back, and sliding under the sheet and light blanket felt like a luxury. She turned on her side and laid her arm over Haakan’s upper arm, his gentle snoring pausing a moment as he shifted from his side to flat on his back.

“You all right?” His voice came soft in the dark.

“Ja, I am now.”

“Good.” He brought her hand to his lips for a kiss and was snoring again before she could respond.

Thank you for Haakan too
. She added more to her thank-you list and fell asleep some time along the way.

“Where’s Grace?” Ingeborg asked Astrid in the morning when she returned from milking.

“I don’t know. I hated to ask.” She set a small crock of butter she’d brought from the well house on the table. “This was the last one.”

“I know. We’ll churn today too. Why did you not ask Lars?”

“He wasn’t smiling.”

Ingeborg nodded. While Lars was not one to say a lot, he always greeted you with a smile. Except when Sophie left. “Are the boys here?”

“Ja, but Trygve didn’t have much to say either. He grumbled at Samuel.” Astrid dried her hands after washing them in the dishwater.

“I think I’ll go see Kaaren while you hull the strawberries.” She nodded to the flat baskets she’d already brought in from the well house. “I did enough to go on the pancakes. That will make your father happy.” Haakan loved strawberries. She planned on strawberry shortcake for dinner, his favorite.

It didn’t sound like God had taken care of the whole matter overnight. Ingeborg stepped up her praying. With the shadow of Sophie’s runaway wedding still lingering, she hoped Lars would not overreact with Grace.

I
DON’T HAVE TO TALK
if I don’t want to
.

Grace dropped the too soft strawberry in the pail for the chickens and picked up another to hull. The fragrance of bubbling strawberry jam filled the room and her senses. Ignoring her mother’s questioning looks was easy if she didn’t look at her. Kaaren had tapped Grace’s shoulder once and, laying a gentle finger under her chin, forced her to look up. But when Grace shook her head, her mother nodded, her brow furrowed, her eyes filled with concern.

“When you want to talk, you know I want to listen.”

Grace nodded and went back to her strawberries. Instead of going to the barn for milking, she had gone out to the garden to pick what was left of the ripe strawberries. She should have been home picking the berries yesterday, in spite of the rain, rather than going to join the dancing. Whatever had possessed her to ask Toby to dance? It served her right when he turned away. What man would want to dance with a girl so forward as she had been. Mor must be appalled and her father furious. Girls just did not do such a thing, especially
his
girls. First Sophie runs off, and now Grace is chasing a man. If it wasn’t so pathetic, she might think it funny.

If only her heart didn’t hurt so much.

And here she had scolded Sophie for being so foolish as to think her heart would break if Hamre went back to Ballard without her. Broken hearts hurt terribly. The pain was like slicing her finger with a knife, only deeper. She sniffed back a tear. Or a river of tears. Surely she had cried enough last night.

She dumped the hulled berries into another saucepan, added the sugar, and mashed the berries with a potato masher. She set the kettle on the back of the stove to heat slowly. Stirring the other kettle, where the thickening jam bubbled gently, she eyed the jars lined up and waiting. Keeping the jam from burning on the bottom kept her hopping. Her mother and Ilse had gone out to pick the peas.

If she cut rhubarb to add to the second kettle, that would extend the berries. Pushing the fuller kettle to the back of the stove, she headed outside, knife in one hand to cut off the rhubarb tops and a basket in the other. She paused on the steps and raised her face to the sun. The warmth on her face made her close her eyes. At least the sun liked her.

But I don’t want Toby to just like me. I know he’s my friend, although
what kind of friend would be so rude. I want him to love me. Like I love
him. Like I have always loved him
.

A rooster crowing broke her concentration. If she didn’t quit looking at the sun, she’d get freckles, and no man wanted a woman with freckles. She stomped down the steps and strode out to the south side of the garden, where the rhubarb grew lush with big leaves. Pulling out the stalks and whacking off the leaves gave her a perverse sense of pleasure. She stuffed the leaves back under the plants to help keep the weeds down and stomped back to the house. Men!

The fragrance of cooking strawberries met her at the door, reminding her to stir the kettle contents. Then she added wood to the stove, pulled both kettles out to a hotter section, and stirred them again. After washing the stalks, she chopped them into small pieces and dumped them into the smaller kettle, adding more sugar. Rhubarb took a lot of sugar, but it still cut the sweetness of the strawberries.

She sensed someone coming into the kitchen by the reverberations of the floor, thought about greeting whoever it was, and decided she wasn’t ready to talk yet. Perhaps she’d never be ready to talk. She lifted a ladle of jam to see if it was thick enough. No longer did the jam pour back into the pot in a stream but now clumped with the bright red deepened to carmine. After pulling the pot to the cool end of the stove, where she skimmed the froth off the top and into a saucer, she flipped the waiting jars upright and began filling them with the rich preserves. As she filled them, she tapped each jar on the wood surface to make sure there were no air bubbles. Grace glanced out of the corner of her eye. Whoever had come in had left again.

With the jars sealed with melted paraffin and lined up, she stepped back to appreciate the sun glinting on the shoulders of the jars. The deep red made her wish for a dress of the same hue. A dress that would catch Toby’s attention and …
Do not do that
, she ordered herself and dabbed at her nose and eyes with the corner of her apron.

At a tap on her shoulder, she turned to face her mother.

“Tell me what is wrong.” Kaaren kept her hands on her daughter’s shoulders so she couldn’t leave.

Grace shook her head. “I will be all right,” she signed, then ducked out of the grip to go stir the other kettle. In a passing glance she caught Ilse shaking her head. Knowing the way gossip flew about Blessing, the probability of everyone knowing of her rebuff made her clamp her teeth. Perhaps she should get on the train and head west. Surely Penny could use some help, and in a big town like Bismarck, no one would know that Toby left the schoolhouse rather than dance with her. They’d just look at her strangely, like new children did when they moved to Blessing, because she talked funny. She gave the jam such a ferocious stir that the kettle rocked.

After the second kettle of jam was bottled, she took out a loaf of bread, sliced off three pieces, smothered them in the skimmings, and set them on a plate to take outside on the porch, where Ilse and her mother were shelling peas. Remorse for the way she’d acted rode with a heavy hand on the bit.

“Here. Would you like buttermilk also?”

Kaaren shook her head and patted the wooden step beside her. “But thank you for asking.”

Grace fought with herself over her mother’s gentle action. Then she sank down and, setting the plate on the low table, picked up the remaining slice of bread and jam. The flavors exploded on her tongue, making her close her eyes to savor them more fully. At least she could make good—no, make that excellent—strawberry jam. She felt her mother’s shoulder leaning into hers. If she kept her eyes closed, she’d not have to respond. And since her hands were busy with the bread, she couldn’t sign.

But years of being the dutiful daughter caught up with her, and she leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Please don’t say anything, because then I’ll cry some more, and I don’t want to do that.” She felt her mother’s nod.

When she finished her bread, she automatically picked up a pea pod and dropped the empty pod into her skirt lap after tossing the peas into her mother’s pan. She ate the peas out of the second one. Focusing on shelling peas worked about as well as stirring jam at keeping others out.

Her mother finally tapped her wrist. When Grace looked at her, she signed, “Where did you go this morning?”

“To the river. I couldn’t face Astrid.”

“They were all worried about you.”

“I know.” The words flew from her fingers. “Did Samuel tell you too?”

Kaaren nodded.

“I guess everyone in all of North Dakota knows by now.”

“I doubt that even all of Blessing knows. Your friends are very protective of you, as are your brothers.”

“I am so mortified.”

“I can guess so.”

“You’d never do anything so stupid.”

“Perhaps that’s why we have rules of etiquette.”

Grace blinked and then nodded when her mother signed the last word again. “And I broke them.” She reached down and wrapped her arms around her legs just above her ankles. Sitting on steps allowed one all manner of positions. She laid her cheek on her apron and skirt-clothed knees. One minute she was so angry she could spit horseshoe nails, the next she wanted to fling herself into her mother’s arms and cry her eyes out.

“What can I do?” she finally muttered.

“You could go help Sophie with the children. I’m sure that—” She stopped. “Why don’t we both do that.” She called to Ilse, “Would you mind canning the peas by yourself? The men are all eating dinner at Ingeborg’s, so Grace and I will take the afternoon and go help Sophie. With the wedding coming up in a week, I’m sure she’d be glad of some extra help.”

Grace spent the night before the wedding at the boardinghouse with Sophie. They shared a bed like they had for so many years, returning to their secret hand signals to talk before they fell asleep. When the babies cried for their very early morning feeding and Sophie motioned a sign, Grace rose and brought them to her to be nursed. When they finished, Grace changed them and put them back in their cradle on their sides, spoon fashion like she and Sophie had slept. She rocked the cradle with one foot, sitting on the bed where Sophie lay propped against the pillows.