Her Mother's Hope (41 page)

Polite, always respectful, considerate, too, he and Donna never failed to ask, even knowing the answer would always the same. “Not a thing, Hitch.” Marta liked having ready excuses to get in her car and take a drive.

Hitch stood arms akimbo, admiring the trees. “Looks to be a good crop coming, don’t it?” The hives they had set out were busy.

“It does, indeed.” Barring a strong wind or late driving rain to ruin it. The bees were certainly doing their work.

“Someday I hope to have a place of my own like this.” He gave her a quick, shy glance. “In case I haven’t said it lately, Mrs. Waltert, I surely do appreciate you hiring me and letting us use the big house.” Hitch looked more fit than when she’d hired him—plenty of good food, a decent roof over his head, and fewer worries about how he was going to take care of his four children brought change.

“It’s as much to my benefit as yours.” Maybe more so. She had hours to herself these days to do what she pleased, which made her grateful. She remembered what it had been like to live in a drafty tent with four children and only a barn for respites of privacy with her husband. She remembered spending three years slaving through blistering summers and arctic winters for a man who cheated them of their fair share of profits. She swore she’d never treat anyone who worked for her that way. The Martins were good people and she intended to see they did well.

Hitch seemed in no hurry to leave. “Listen to them bees.”

“We’ll have plenty of honey to sell.” She would smoke the hives and steal the honey soon. Donna spun the rich sweetness from the combs and filled and labeled the jars for market.

“Nothing tastier than honey from almond blossoms, ma’am. Oh, by the way, I heared your phone ringing on the way out.”

Probably one of her friends from church needed something cooked for someone sick or bereaved. “They’ll call back.”

Marta and Hitch talked farm business on the walk back to the wide drive. The windmill needed repairs. They’d have to start digging the irrigation ditches soon, get a head start. Now that they had a bathroom with a shower in the house, the small building with a water tank on top could be converted to something more useful. The barn would need repainting in another year. She could hire extra help if he wanted it for that project. “I don’t want to see you up on an extension ladder, Hitch.” He laughed and said he’d send one of his sons up to do the high work.

Hitch told her the tractor was acting up again, but he felt sure he could fix it, if he had a few parts. Marta gave him the go-ahead to buy whatever he needed. She always had a list of chores, but he’d begun anticipating her requests and getting the work done before she needed to ask. He was a good man, a good farmer.

After the Martins drove off in their old truck, Marta wandered the place. The fruit trees alongside the big house had grown. She and Donna would be canning peaches and pears together. The plums would make good prunes and jam. Plenty of apples for Donna’s growing children and a few neighbor kids to pluck and eat. And there would be lots of oranges and lemons, too.

Now that Donna tended the chickens and rabbits and kept up the vegetable garden, Marta had little work to do. She’d done laundry yesterday and baked bread this morning, enough for herself and the Martins. She could always spend the rest of the afternoon finishing up that five-thousand-piece puzzle Bernhard and Elizabeth had given her for Christmas last year. Bernhard had laughed and said that ought to keep her busy and out of Hitch Martin’s hair for a while. She calculated how many hours she’d already spent on it and groaned. All that work for what? To break it up when she finished, put it back in the box, and give it away to someone else with time on their hands.

God, help me. I do not want to spend my life working puzzles and watching game shows. Time enough for that when I’m really old. At eighty-five or ninety.

The telephone rang.

Marta let the screen door slam behind her. She answered on the fourth ring.

“It’s Trip, Mama.”

She knew by his voice he hadn’t called with good news. “Hildemara’s sick again, isn’t she?” She eased herself onto a kitchen chair. Maybe there had been a reason she’d been thinking so much about her eldest daughter lately.

“She’s back in the hospital.”

“She should start getting better then.”

“She’s been there two months and no improvement.”

Two months!
“And you’re just telling me about it now?”

“Hildie thought she’d be home in a few weeks. She didn’t want to worry you. We both hoped . . .” He fell silent again.

Lies, all of it, but Marta could imagine the worry on his face and calmed herself. “How are you managing alone with the children?”

“A neighbor lady takes care of them while I’m at work.”

A neighbor lady. Well, wasn’t that just grand. Hildemara and Trip would rather have a stranger taking care of their children than call her for help. How had this happened? Marta rested her elbows on the table. Holding the phone in one hand, she rubbed her forehead with the other. She could feel a headache coming on. She’d better speak before she couldn’t. “She needs time, I suppose.”

“Time.” His voice choked up. “All she does is worry about hospital bills and leaving me in debt.” He cleared his throat. “She says if she’s going to die, she wants to die at home.”

Marta felt the heat rise up inside her. So Hildemara had given up again. “You remind her she has a husband and two children to live for. She’s not done with this life yet.”

“It’s worse this time. Wanting to live isn’t always enough.”

It seemed Hildemara wasn’t the only one who had given up. Marta thought of her mother. Had she wanted to live? Or had she given up, too? Had she become so tired of the struggle to hold on to life, even for Elise, that she gave up?

“We could use your help, Mama.”

“If you’re asking me to come up and help bury her, the answer is no.”

He drew in a sharp breath and swore. His tone hardened. “Hildie said you wouldn’t help her.”

The words stabbed deep. Marta wanted to say she’d helped Hildemara more than the girl would ever understand, but that wouldn’t help Trip handle what was happening or make Hildemara get better.

Squaring her shoulders, Marta scraped her chair back and stood. “If my daughter can hold on so tight to old grievances, with God’s help, she can hold on to life, too, Trip Arundel.”

“I shouldn’t have called.” He sounded defeated.

“No. You should’ve called sooner! The trouble is I can’t do anything right this minute.” She had things to settle, and she’d have to work quickly. She and Hitch Martin had made a gentleman’s agreement. Maybe it was time to put things into writing. She’d need to talk to Hitch first and then a lawyer. She wanted to make certain things were spelled out good and properly so both she and the Martins benefited.

“I’m sorry,” Trip mumbled, voice tear-soaked.

Her son-in-law sounded so tired, so out of hope, Marta felt the sorrow rise up in her. Would she lose her daughter after all? Would she have to watch Hildemara suffer as Mama had, gasping for breath, coughing up blood into a handkerchief?

“We’re talking now. And we’re going to pray hard and get others praying with us. I’ve got a whole group of women with plenty of time for that kind of work. Come down to Murietta, Trip. I’ll have to get busy and sort out a few things here. But you come. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. We can sit under the bay tree and talk about what I can and can’t do.”

Trip said he’d drive down with the children on Saturday.

* * *

Marta sat down and wrote a list in her journal. First things first.
Talk to Hitch and Donna about taking over the ranch.
Hitch had said today he’d like to have a place of his own someday. Running this place in her absence would move him toward that goal. They’d need a legal contract to protect both of them. Charles Landau had a good reputation as a lawyer. She had accounts at the hardware store and feed and grain. She’d add Hitch to them so he could get what he needed without having to clear everything through her. She needed to copy the ranch maintenance schedule from her journal and give that to Hitch as well, though he seemed to know it already. Niclas had wanted to be sure she knew what needed to be done and when throughout the year.

Marta spent all day thinking over ranch business and things she’d need to get settled. Concerns buzzed like flies in her head, and she swatted them with prayers. Finally exhausted, Marta went to bed, but couldn’t sleep. She’d talk to Hitch and Donna first thing in the morning, then go to town, set up an appointment with Charles Landau, and take care of the store accounts. Annoyed, she told herself to let go of it all and get some sleep.

Hildemara hadn’t wanted Trip to call.
“Hildie said you wouldn’t help her.”
Did her daughter really believe that?

Lying in the darkening room, Marta weighed her actions from the past. She prayed God would help her see through Hildemara’s eyes, and as she did, she wondered.
Does Hildemara Rose even know how much I love her?

If only she’d been a gentler person, like Mama, one given to prayer and trusting in God from the beginning no matter how bad the circumstances. Life with Marta’s father had been dire indeed. Nothing pleased the man. And yet, Mama had treated him with loving respect. She worked hard, never complained, never gave in to despair, and continued to love him, even at his worst. Marta saw how she had made her mother’s life even more difficult. Hot-tempered, stubborn, willful, she had never been an easy child. She’d fought her father, refusing to be cowed, even when he beat her. How many times had Mama been in the middle, pleading, trying to protect?

Mama had only hurt her once.
“You are more like your father than you are like me.”

Marta had been offended at the time, but she should’ve listened. She should’ve been warned! Harsh words, fierce anger, a desire to achieve her goals at all cost—hadn’t she inherited all that from Papa? Mama hadn’t meant to hurt her. She had only wanted Marta to see her father in another way, without hatred and condemnation.

Did Hildemara look upon her the same way? Did her daughter see her as unbending, never satisfied with Hildemara’s efforts, always looking for faults, unfeeling, unable to love? If Hildemara didn’t feel she could ask for help, didn’t that say it all?

How could such misunderstanding have grown between them?

Yes, Marta conceded, she had hurt her daughter at times, but to make her strong, not to tear her down. Had she been so determined to make Hildemara rise up and fight back that she had become as intractable, cruel, and heartless as her own father? God forbid!

But she saw clearly how she had been harder on Hildemara than the others. She had done it out of love. She had done it to save Hildemara from Elise’s fate. She didn’t want her girl growing up frightened of the world, hiding away inside a house controlled by a tyrant, utterly dependent on her mother.

And Hildemara hadn’t.

Marta had hated her father. She realized now she’d never forgiven him. When he wired for her to come back, she had burned his message and wished him in hell. How dare she hope for forgiveness from Hildemara if she couldn’t forgive her own father?

Pain clutched at Marta so fiercely, she sat up and hunched over.

She had never used her fists on Hildemara, or whipped her with a strap until she bled, the way her father had. She never called her ugly or told her she was stupid. She’d never told her she had no right to go to school, that education was wasted on her. She’d never made Hildemara work and then taken away her wages. Despised and rejected, Marta had fought back, lashing out in fury against her father for trying to bury her spirit beneath the avalanche of his own disappointments.

And Mama had held her and whispered words of encouragement. Mama had held her head up so she could breathe. She’d sent Marta away because she knew, if she remained, she’d become exactly like him: discontent, selfish, cruel, blaming others for what hadn’t turned out well in his life.

She’d always been Papa’s scapegoat.

As you made him yours.

Getting up, Marta went to the window and looked out on the moon-cast yard, the closed barn doors, the white-veiled almond trees.

Would she have left Switzerland and set out on her own journey if not for her father? She’d always credited Mama for her freedom, but Papa played a part, too. She’d been the least favored child. Hermann, firstborn son; Elise, so beautiful, like an angel.

She could see now how she had treated her own children differently. She’d taken pride in Bernhard as her firstborn son. Clotilde thrived, possessed from birth of an independent spirit. Nothing would hold that girl down. And Rikka, with her ethereal beauty and childlike delight in God’s creation, had been like a star fallen from the heavens, not quite of this world. Rikka knew no fear. She would flit and float through life, delighting in the wonder of it, seeing shadows, but ignoring them.

And where had Hildemara fit in?

Hildemara, the smallest, the least hearty, the most dependent, had struggled from the beginning—to live, to grow, later to find a dream, to build her own life, to thrive. And now, she must struggle to survive. If she didn’t have the courage to do that on her own, Marta must find a way to give it to her.

A flash of memory came of Hildemara racing home, terrified after Mr. Kimball had tried to rape her. But it occurred to Marta now, her daughter had kicked free of a grown man stronger than Niclas. She had been smart enough to run. Hildemara had shown real spunk that day, and at other times, too. She’d gone out and gotten herself a job. She’d said no to college and gone off to nurses’ training. She’d followed Trip from one base to another, finding housing in strange cities, making new friends. She’d crossed the country by herself and come home to help Bernhard and Elizabeth hold on to the Musashis’ land despite threats and fire and bricks through their windows.

My daughter has courage, Lord!

Despite appearances, and though Marta loathed to admit it, she’d always favored Hildemara a little above the others. From the moment her daughter came into the world, Marta had bonded fast to her.
“She looks like her mother,”
Niclas had said, unwittingly setting things in motion. All the cruel words her father had said about her appearance rose up inside her when she saw Hildemara Rose was plain. And like Elise, she was frail.