Katerina's Wish (21 page)

Then I remembered the picture in the newspaper that Momma had seen. If she had seen jars in the paper, that meant someone in Trinidad had them for sale. And that gave me an idea.

“Never mind,” I said to Mr. Johnson, “excuse me,” and I hurried out of the store.

Mark was still on the porch, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his mouth open to speak, but I hurried past and down the steps. Mr. Torentino's wagon was disappearing down the road in a cloud of dust and I had to hurry to catch it. I gathered my skirts into my hands and I ran. I had to shout several times before he heard me over the creak and clatter of his wagon. He pulled up on the reins and looked down at me, breathing too hard to speak.

“Yes, missy? What is it?” he said in his musical Italian accent.

“Do you have a store in Trinidad?” I asked.

“Yes, ma'am. Torentino and Sons, on Main Street.”

“I need pickle jars, but Mr. Johnson doesn't carry them. Could I get them from your store?”

“Sure. We have plenty. With so many farms around, there's ready demand at this time of year. Come in the next time you're in Trinidad.”

“But we don't go to Trinidad,” I said. It was too far, and with Papa off work only one day a week and always needing to rest on that day, we hadn't left the camp since we'd arrived. I took a deep breath before venturing further on my idea. “If I paid you for them now, would you bring them with you on your next trip back up here?”

Mr. Torentino stroked his mustache as he considered it. “I don't usually make deliveries outside of town, but since I bring the supply wagon up here every Monday anyway, I don't see why not. Do you have the money?”

“How much are they?” I asked, praying he wouldn't add too much for delivering them so far from his store.

“Eighty-five cents a dozen,” he said.

“That's so much cheaper than what Mr. Johnson's asking. Could you bring two dozen?”

Torentino glanced back toward Johnson's store. “I imagine everything seems cheap to you after dealing with Johnson,” he said. “All right. Two dozen, next Monday at this same time.”

“Thank you, sir!” I counted out the money and handed it up to him, then stepped back so he could be on his way again. I remembered Mark then, and how he'd probably been about to say something to me when I had run past him and after Torentino. I walked back to the store to apologize and explain, but when I got there, Mark had gone.

I walked home again, hoping I had done the right thing. What if Mr. Torentino forgot, or what if he had taken my money with no real intention of bringing me the jars? I realized he hadn't given me any receipt or anything to prove the deal. In my heart, though, I had a good feeling about the man. He had granted Aneshka's wish—not that he had known anything about the wish itself—and he'd been polite and kind.

Since I wasn't sure whether or not I'd done the right thing, I only told my mother that I had had to order the jars. Things had been so much better between us since I had stopped dreaming of a farm and agreed to a match with Mark. I didn't want to tell her that I was scheming again. Besides, I didn't want to worry her by telling her of Mr. Johnson's grudge against me.

I was finishing the ironing the next afternoon when I heard Old Jan call a greeting to my mother from the street. I stepped outside behind Momma, hoping Mark would be with him, but he was not. Old Jan was standing in the road, grinning from ear to ear, and I saw why right off. He had no crutches. His leg stump was neatly cradled in a wooden leg.

“My heavens,” Momma said.

He grinned and waved at us with both hands.

“What do you think? My hands are free now—no more crutches for me!”

“It's wonderful! Where did you get it?” I asked. I couldn't imagine how they had come up with the money for it now, with all their other troubles.

“My Marek made it for me,” he said, “from a post he found in the mine dump.”

I looked again at the leg, and I could see now that it was homemade, but made well, shaped and smoothed with care. The cup at the top that cradled Old Jan's leg stump was padded with rags, and the strap that secured the wooden leg to the real one was an old leather belt.

“He's always been clever at making things,” Old Jan said.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Old Jan sighed heavily. “Down at the creek, I think. I suppose you've heard they wouldn't take him back at the mine. Frankly, I don't think he is ready either, but it's certain now that we'll have to rely on Karel until the fall. That means we can't start catching up on the doctor bills or the rent, and that Karel and his bride will have to suffer the company of me and Marek for a while still. Marek blames himself, though I told him it couldn't be helped. If you'd go find him, Trina, I'm sure you could cheer him up.”

Momma gave me permission to go even before I asked, so I set off for the creek, taking with me the buckets for Papa's washwater. I knew where Mark would be—exactly the place I would be if I were upset.

As I expected, Mark was sitting under the tree by the pool. He was throwing pebbles into the water. I called his name and
he glanced up, then returned to glumly tossing pebbles without so much as a greeting. Though he didn't invite me to join him, I stepped under the tree and sat down on its raised root. He shifted, keeping his back to me.

“Mark, what is the matter?” I asked.

He shrugged and said nothing. I waited. I knew he would speak when he was ready.

“I could have been something, you know. If things had been different. If Papa hadn't gotten hurt, I could have gone to high school. If I hadn't gotten hurt, I'd have a job.”

“You'll have a job again,” I said. “You just need time to heal.”

“But it's not good enough, is it? I'll never walk right. I don't blame you. I can see why you don't want a lame husband.”

“What are you talking about? I never said—”

“When you found out I couldn't work yesterday, you couldn't wait to get away from me. You ran off into the store, and then when you'd finished with Mr. Johnson you left without even looking at me.”

“No, Mark! I ran after the supply wagon to buy jars,” I said.

“Jars?”

Quickly I explained to him what had happened at the store. “He's bringing them, and for much less than Mr. Johnson wanted to charge me.”

“It's still true, though, isn't it. I'm not worth much to anyone anymore—a cripple who can't get a job.”

“You're hardly a cripple!” I insisted. “You'll get a job again, and in the meantime you can do other things. Look at the leg you made for your father. It's beautiful! How can you say you're of no use?”

He shrugged, but I could see he was proud of the leg and pleased by the compliment, so I went on.

“The mine isn't the only job in the world. There must be other things you could do.”

“If you're trying to talk me into farming, forget it.”

“It wouldn't have to be farming. There are all kinds of jobs in town.”

“Not for me. We owe the mine owners here, two months' back rent on the house, and all that credit at the store. We'd have to pay it back if we left here, and we don't have the money.”

“But you'll never have the money if you stay here,” I said. It was so unfair the way the mine trapped us all with debt. “Karel is still working in the mine. He could take care of things here and you could look for work in town. Surely you could find work there where your foot wouldn't matter.”

Mark looked at me, his eyes reflecting both hope and fear. “You want me to go? To leave here?”

“I want to get out of here, don't you? And if they don't hire you back soon, the debt is only going to grow. There must be something you could do in town, but you won't know if you never try.”

His face had been brightening as we talked, the hope slowly overpowering the fear. “I wish you could come with me, Trina.”

I nodded, wishing I could too, but we both knew that was impossible. Mark reached over and took my hand.

“You will wait for me, won't you? Promise me you will,” he said.

“I promise,” I said, my heart swelling until I could barely speak. Suddenly I regretted encouraging him. Life would be so dreary here with him gone, and what if he never came back? What were the chances he would still even want me after he'd been away, meeting the pretty, sophisticated girls in town?

“I promise to come back, Trina,” he said, as if he had read my fear. Perhaps he had. “The mines always need more men by
September or October. That's just two months away. And by then I'll be stronger; surely they will hire me. When I'm back and our debts are paid, I promise we will get on with all our other plans, Trina.”

“If you get out of here, Mark—” I began, but he suddenly clutched me in a tight hug and repeated his words.

“I'll come back, Trina. I promise. And I'll think about you every minute that I'm gone.”

I wrapped my arms around him and shut my eyes. I wanted my whole world to be him for a moment—his warmth, his smell, and the strong muscles of his chest against my cheek. I breathed in the mingled scents of shaving soap, sweat, and coal dust, with the faintest perfume of Old Jan's pipe tobacco. For just a moment, I wanted to let the warmth and strength of his embrace push away any thoughts of the future. I didn't want to think about the dreams or plans or problems before us.
Dreams only hurt us,
I reminded myself, and I held him tighter while I still could.

Too soon Mark released me from the embrace and I opened my eyes. He was fishing around in his pocket. He drew out a piece of copper wire and began twisting it around itself into a single braid. Then he curled it into a ring, knotting the ends together to finish it. Smiling, he slipped the band onto my finger.

“This is so you will remember my promise, okay?”

I nodded, my heart thumping as I looked at the simple wire ring on my finger.

I had nothing to offer in return, so I bent to the edge of the pool where pebbles glinted colorfully from under the water, and I picked a pretty red-and-yellow-speckled stone, smooth and wet and glistening.

“So you will remember too,” I said, placing it in his hand and curling his fingers around it.

He grinned, a little mischievously, then quickly leaned forward and stole a kiss, right on my lips. He pulled back and looked at me, and when I gave no objection he leaned in again. This time, I kissed him back—at least, until we were interrupted by the whistle from the mine.

“Oh—Papa's washwater!” I said, remembering the buckets I had abandoned just upstream.

“I'll help you,” he said.

He stepped over the tree root awkwardly, holding the trunk for support as he swung his bad foot over. Despite his own difficulty, he turned and held his hand out to assist me once he was on the other side. I had stepped over the root many times without help, but it was a gentlemanly gesture, so I took his hand. But as I stepped over to his side, I saw his gaze was falling somewhere behind me.

“Look,” he said, pointing toward the pool. Even before I turned, I knew what I would see. The fish was there, waving softly in the current in the center of the pool.

“I've seen that fish before, but I can never catch it,” Mark said. “I guess it can see us, too.”

And it had seen me accept Mark's ring and give him my promise. “Holena says it's a lucky fish,” I said. “Like in your papa's stories.”

“Maybe it is,” Mark said, encircling my waist with his arm and pulling me toward him. “Maybe we can make a wish for our future, and it will all come true.”

I shook my head and pulled him away from the pool. Wishes and dreams were for fools; that was what I had learned. That was the moral of all the stories, including my own. I felt the twist of copper wire around my finger. Whatever my future would be, I refused to make a magic fish a part of it again.