Five Brides (47 page)

Evanston, Illinois

Barry found Magda a room for rent in a boardinghouse not far from where he lived with his children and their grandmother.

“I need to stop calling her my mother-in-law,” he told Magda as he helped her move the last of her things to the Victorian where he wasn’t allowed to go past the living room. Jessie Higgins—a spinster friend of Harriet’s who owned the house—wouldn’t hear of it. She already looked down her nose at Magda, and the notion of Barry carrying a large box up the stairs to Magda’s bedroom went over like the proverbial balloon made of lead. “She can carry it just fine,” the stout, graying woman declared that Saturday morning. “If it’s too heavy, she can separate the contents and make two trips.”

Later, as they sat on the front porch, their hands clasped between two rockers, Barry chuckled. “She’s a tough old broad,” he muttered into the cool night air.

“Shhh.” Magda bit her lip until the desire to laugh subsided. “She’ll hear you.”

Barry turned his face toward her. “I have to get going soon,” he said.

She laid her head back, resting it against the hard slats of the rocker. “I know. I wish you didn’t.” She grinned at him. “But if she won’t let you take a box up, I guess the notion of you and me staying out here all night is out.”

“Very out.”

Magda stopped rocking, sat up, and slid to the end of the seat. “Barry? How
are
the kids doing with this? My moving so close and
our getting married? You said they’d come around, but that doesn’t really tell me anything.”

Barry looked at her, his dark eyes becoming more imperceptible as the gray closed in around them. “You know how Douglas feels.”

“Rock,”
Magda corrected.

“Rock.” He grinned and she sighed, loving the moments he smiled at her as though she’d just said something to set the world right. “Not to worry. Deanne
will
come around. So will Nana. Although she did insist on bringing a silver-framed photograph of Barbara to the living room the other day.”

“Where had it been?”

“In her room.”

“Did she say why?”

“No, and I didn’t ask.”

“I think we are both smart enough to figure that one out.” Magda returned to sitting fully in the chair, looking out across the lawn to the houses on the other side of the street. Yellow light glowed behind many of the windows. In the house directly before them—the one with the Priscilla curtains drawn away from the living room window—a family bustled about. A mother, a father, and two children—a boy and a girl. “It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting,” Magda whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing,” she said. A story had begun to form. The perfect family . . . from the outside looking in. And perhaps they sat in the warmth of their home, staring out the window at the man and woman holding hands on the front porch of a boardinghouse. Young lovers, they supposed, with a bright future in front of them.

But in real life, nothing was perfect and little was bright.

That
would be her next story for the magazine.

She jumped up. “I have to go upstairs,” she said quickly, reaching down to kiss him briefly. “I’ve got an idea.”

Barry chuckled as if he understood—and maybe he did—but he shook his head as he stood. “I thought we were going to set a wedding date tonight.”

Magda shook her head. “Let’s wait a couple of months, okay?”

“Months?”
His voice held the squeak of a prepubescent boy’s.

“Let my parents get over this thing with Inga, and give Deanne time to get used to me being so close.” She glanced from the front door to the house across the street. “I need to get upstairs,” she said, kissing him again. “Give the kids my best.”

“What about Nana?” he teased. She could see him plainly now, standing there in the light coming from a streetlamp that had just flickered on. She smiled contentedly—he looked all put together, even in casual pants and a simple short-sleeved shirt tucked loosely at the waist—and, soon enough, he would be hers for life. Her husband.

“I love you,” she answered, then opened the door and dashed up the stairs without so much as a good night to Jessie Higgins.

Plymouth, Minnesota

The wedding would take place in the church—Inga’s father had given her that much—but without music. Without a cake or punch or a receiving line. Far would officiate with Axel at his left and Inga at his right. Mor’s place would be where it should be, the first seat behind the bride.

And Magda would walk before her down the aisle.

“Did you bring it?” Inga whispered to her on Thursday evening after Magda arrived at the family home and all the niceties had been spoken.

Magda nodded as they exchanged unspoken words of understanding.

Of course, Far had wondered why Magda had brought two suitcases for such a short visit. Magda only shrugged. “I brought some extra things,” she said.

“What things?” Mor asked.

Again Magda shrugged. “This and that.” Then she cuddled against their father, nuzzling him as only she would be allowed to do—at least for a while. “Far,
try
to be happy, all right? Your oldest daughter is getting married and, soon, you’ll hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet in this house again. Won’t that be lovely?”

Far smiled at the younger of his two girls, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “We’ll see,” he said.

“Far,” Magda said, squeezing his hands. “Can you imagine how Mary’s parents must have felt when she came home from seeing Elizabeth and told them she was with child?” She waved a hand. “I’m not saying, of course, that we can compare her pregnancy to Inga’s, but all babies are a blessing, are they not? And this one, Far, shall likely have traces of the Christenson spark in its eyes, the upturn of Mor’s nose. Won’t that be lovely?”

And with those words, Far’s eyes regained some of the love he had for Inga. She felt it again as he looked across the room at her and at the roundness of her belly.

As soon as the sisters made it upstairs to their old bedroom, Magda tossed one of the suitcases onto her bed, popped open the latches, and threw back the top. The dress lay there, bodice up, in all its glory. “Oh, Magda,” Inga breathed, pulling it from the case. “It’s as gorgeous as I remember it.”

Magda reached out. “Get undressed and let’s try it on. Hopefully it will still fit.”

Inga stripped out of her clothes as fast as her fingers would
allow. She stood before her sister in nothing but a brassiere, slip, and her nylons as she ducked her head, allowing Magda to drape the luxury over her body. “I’ve tried hard not to eat too much,” she whispered, dipping her arms into the sleeves. “Or only eat rabbit food.”

Magda giggled. “Okay. Here goes. Let’s see if these buttons will meet in the middle.” She started at the bottom and then, when she’d reached the buttons closest to Inga’s waist, she switched to those at the top, working her way down. Inga felt the tugging. The pulling. The lifting of fabric to reposition it around her. “Well?” she asked, knowing full well she still felt cool air against her lower back.

Magda walked around her, frowning. “There’s about a two-inch gap.”

Inga’s shoulders slumped as her brow shot up. “Well, I guess Far has won.” She hiked up the skirt of the dress, walked to the closet door, and opened it wide. “I’m sure there is
something
in here that will do.”

Magda pushed her aside. “Go. Go stand over there in front of the mirror and get a good look at how beautiful you are. Let me look for an alternative.”

If wearing the dress in her bedroom for these few minutes was all she’d get, then so be it. She stepped slowly toward the dresser, eyes on her face, imagining that the mirror was Frank, watching her march down the aisle. Eyes full of love. A face filled with wonder—
amazement
—that he had landed such a beautiful bride.

“Inga,”
Magda exclaimed.

Inga turned.

“Look.” She held up a wide pink satin ribbon—the sash from a gown she’d worn to a high school dance. “Come, come.”

Inga retraced her steps and threw her arms out wide. Magda
worked the middle of the sash across her waist, then wrapped it around, tying it off in a large, full bow. She walked back around her sister and brought her hand to her lips. “Perfect,” she sighed, and bit her bottom lip.

Inga turned slowly until her eyes found the mirror and the reflection of a young bride, gowned in white and swathed in sassy pink.
Not quite Mary,
she thought wistfully.

But not Hosea’s Gomer, either.

April 3, 1953

The next morning, Magda readied herself for her father’s wrath and her mother’s disappointment. She’d experienced neither in her lifetime, but if it meant taking a little of the heat away from Inga, she was glad to do it. If Mor and Far asked, she would take full blame for the dress. And the sash.

As Inga spent a few final moments in the church’s bridal room—truly no more than an oversize restroom—Magda went into the richly paneled sanctuary, where her mother had already found her seat and her father, dressed in his pastoral robes, stood near the altar with a suited someone who looked more overgrown boy than man. She stopped halfway down the aisle, swallowed, and then continued on. “You must be Axel,” she said, smiling, extending her right hand as she reached him.

He took it, squeezing. “And you must be Magda.”

She nodded once. “I am.”

“Where is your sister?” Far demanded, and Magda noted that the gruffness in his voice had returned.

“A little powder on her nose, Far.” She looked around at the stained-glass windows and the pipes rising from behind the organ.
“I don’t see a fire. And aren’t you the one who always says patience is a virtue?”

Mor stood. “I’ll go see if I can be of assis—”

“Mor, no.” Magda hoped she didn’t sound too anxious. “I’ll go.” She patted her mother’s shoulder. “You sit here and enjoy being the mother of the bride.”

She hurried back up the aisle, almost colliding with Inga in the vestibule. They smiled at each other and Magda held up her hands. “Wait. Don’t go in quite yet.”

She reentered the sanctuary, stopping at the pew farthest in the back. She opened her deep, wide purse, pulled out a small book, and stepped back to where Inga waited, fluffing the skirt of the gown. “Here,” she said, presenting a white leather Bible.

Inga took it, reverently holding it in her hands. “Where did you get this?”

“I bought it. I wanted you to have something to hold since I knew Far wouldn’t allow you to carry flowers.” She reached for Inga’s hand. “Promise me, if that baby is a girl, you’ll give it to her one day to carry at her own wedding.”

Inga smiled softly. “I promise. And if it’s a boy, I’ll give it to
his
bride.” But then she frowned. “Did you happen to notice—by chance—if a letter might have come for me in the mail?”

“Noooo. Why?” A sense of dread washed over her. “What have you done?”

Inga shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing. Obviously, nothing. I’d only hoped . . .” She glanced at the open doorway to the sanctuary. “Is Axel in there?”

Magda nodded.

“What do you think? Be honest.”

Magda knew she could tell her exactly what she thought. That she could have done worse with a young man who’d made
a bargain with their father. That he seemed nice enough and that kindness danced in his eyes. But she chose another route. “I feel quite sorry for him, actually.”

Inga’s brow furrowed. “For
him
? He’s getting a wife and a baby and the church of his dreams. Why would you feel sorry for him?”

“Because,” Magda answered slowly, “he has to live with
you
the rest of his life.” She winked, then jerked her head toward the inner door of the sanctuary. “Give me one minute; then
glide
down the aisle. Make this moment everything you want it to be and then some, okay?”

Inga nodded, tears glistening in her eyes.

“Ready?” Magda asked.

Inga’s chest rose and fell behind shimmering illusion. “As I’ll ever be.”