No Distance Too Far (7 page)

Frank put the magazine down on the table beside the chair. “I’ll come over there.”

Joshua swallowed, feeling his heart pick up speed. Frank set a chair down and went for another. When the three of them sat, Joshua leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, hands loosely clasped in front of him. He hoped his heart wasn’t going to jump right out of his chest. “I come to ask for your forgiveness.”

His father’s eyes widened slightly.

Frank stared at him, shock blinking his eyes. “For what?”

“For the way I left here so angry and never wrote, never came back. Rage and hate are terrible sins. So will you please forgive me?” He stuttered on the last words. He looked to his father, who was slowly nodding. A tear leaked out of one eye and ran down his cheek.

He looked to Frank. He was shaking his head. “I never realized . . .” He stared at his brother. “Of course I forgive you. That’s what brothers do. Can you forgive me?”

Joshua nodded. “I did some time ago. That’s why I was able to come.”

Frank reached for Joshua’s hand on one side and his father’s on the other. “I wish Aaron was here. He’ll be glad to know you came.”

Joshua reached for his father’s hand and held it. The last time he remembered holding his father’s hand was when he was a young boy.

Joshua sat up on his bed at the boardinghouse and turned both his hands over to look at the palms. He’d held his father’s hand and felt nothing but love. How could that be? He would never understand, but returning to Blessing had not been easy. The only question remaining was why had he waited so long. If he was wrong about Astrid, was this God’s way of showing him it was time to return to Iowa for keeps?

5

W
hy did she feel this sense of dread?

“What’s bothering you?” Haakan asked his wife, his voice gentle in the predawn darkness.

“The quilters meeting today.”

“You don’t have to go, you know.” As they lay on their backs, he took her hand, holding it between them, his thumb rubbing the back of hers.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I know. So what is the problem at quilters?”

“The request from Astrid that we send a wagonload of supplies to the Rosebud Indian Reservation. The discussion was heating up last month, so we tabled it for people to pray about. I told you about that.”

“So why worry? Perhaps God will have sent a spirit of unity like you prayed for.”

“I did ask for that, didn’t I?” Was that a heavenly chuckle she heard or the wind?

“What else is bothering you?”

She rolled onto her side and laid her cheek on his shoulder. “I want Astrid to come home, not go to Africa. I know that is a selfish prayer, but I just can’t seem to let it go. You’d think I’d trust God’s will in this, but so far I can’t. I just want her to come back here.”

“I imagine when God asked Abraham to lay his son on the altar, he most likely felt the same way. After all, it was his only son. And he even thought God was asking him to kill his son. That’s what they did with sacrifices. You know the story. And step by step Abraham went ahead.”

“But what if I never see her alive again?” She heard him inhale deeply. “I left Norway, and I never saw my mother again. Astrid will go to Africa, and we’ll never see her again.”

“Then we’ll see her in heaven.”

Ingeborg fought the tears but gave up and soaked the shoulder of her husband’s long underwear. “That’s not enough,” she sobbed.

“Hush. It will be all right.” His voice shook as he tried to comfort her.

Ingeborg felt the covers lift behind her back and a small body crawl into the bed. Emmy snuggled up behind her, and a little hand patted her shoulder.

“Gamma, no cry.” The patting continued. “Pease, no cry.”

Ingeborg’s tears stopped. She raised her head. “Emmy can talk!”

Haakan’s soft chuckle floated through the darkness. “I knew one day she would.”

Ingeborg rolled over and gathered the little girl into her arms, feeling Haakan’s strong arm surrounding them. “All right, Emmy, Gamma no cry. Gamma kiss you instead.” And she did. All the while, her thank-yous danced heavenward.
Emmy can talk. Thank
you, Father. Emmy can talk.

“COME, FREDA,” INGEBORG said to her cousin later that morning. “Come to the quilting with me. You need to get out and be with our neighbors more.”

“No, thank you. You go. Me and Emmy are going to the cheese house. I need to wax a couple of wheels, and I’m experimenting with something.”

“What?”

“I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

Sometimes I wonder whose cheese house it is,
Ingeborg thought as she gathered her sewing things. “Will you help me carry the machine out to the buggy?”

“Sure. I have the stack of squares I stitched together. Didn’t get the long strips sewn together, though. Should make a top right quick.”

“I just don’t understand why you won’t come.” Ingeborg picked up one end of the treadle sewing machine cabinet and walked backward when her cousin took the other.

“Ingeborg, I’m just not cut out for meetings and such.” When she got a bit upset her strong Norwegian accent grew even heavier. Something like the sewing machine they carried. Usually Haakan and Andrew carried it out, but she’d forgotten to ask them. When they got to the steps, Haakan hollered at them to wait.

With a guilty sigh Ingeborg did just that. Much as she hated to admit it, hauling the machine to the sleigh in the winter wasn’t something she’d wanted to do.

“Why didn’t you ask?” Haakan said.

“I forgot.”

“So did I.” He and Freda settled it into the back seat of the sleigh. “There now. Anything else?”

“That basket on the table and the soup kettle. I need to tie the lid down on that.”

“You picking up Kaaren?”

“Ja, and Anna.” This was the first time for Anna. She’d been almost as stubborn as her mother-in-law.

“Then you can all three sit in front.”

Back in the house she tied a dish towel from the handles and over the top of the deep kettle and stepped back for Haakan to pick it up. “And you could pray I keep my mouth shut today.”

Haakan winked at her. “Now why would I want to do that?”

Ingeborg bent down to kiss Emmy. “Bye. You be good for Tante Freda.”

Emmy nodded, clutching her doll to her chest, her cough still not all gone.

I should have let her go to school today.
Ingeborg thought again of taking her along, but Inga had a cold and was staying home with Thelma. Andrew and Ellie’s two little ones both had runny noses, and Emmy didn’t know the other children. Now that she had spoken— not that she’d said anything else today—at least there was hope they’d learn more about her. Interesting how she’d picked up the language from Inga. No one else called her Gamma. Or maybe she already learned English from someone else. Hmm.

When she reached the front of the Knutsons’ house, Ingeborg hallooed from the sleigh, and the two women came out. The way the snow was melting, they’d soon be back to wheels. Spring couldn’t come soon enough for her.

Kaaren nestled her soup kettle on the floor and set her baskets on the back seat, as Ingeborg had.

“Are you sure there is room for me?” Anna asked.

“We can squeeze into the front.” Ingeborg sniffed. “You can smell spring in the air.”

“If I don’t get going on the spring cleaning, we won’t be done by Easter.” Kaaren waited for Anna to get in first, then climbed in and tucked the blanket around them. “We don’t really need this today, warm as it is.”

“Freda and I started on the upstairs yesterday. Scrubbing walls has never been one of my favorite things to do, but everything clean again feels so good.”

“Well, into the lion’s den,” Ingeborg muttered for Kaaren’s ears only when they arrived at the church and started to unload the sleigh. They set their pots of soup on the stove, and Ingeborg held open the door for Anna and Kaaren to bring in the sewing machine. As often as the sewing machines were hauled in and out, they should have bought one for the church.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you the news. Emmy can talk.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Gamma, don’t cry. Pease don’t cry.’ ”

“And the reason for the tears?”

“Not important, but isn’t that grand?”

“It is.” Kaaren studied her. “If it makes you cry, it’s important. Now, what brought it on?”

“Astrid. The thought of never seeing her again.”

“Isn’t that kind of borrowing trouble? If she goes, it will only be for two years. That’s what her letter said.”

“I know. But you know how easy it is to not make sense in the middle of the night.” Together they returned to the church and set their sewing baskets on the tables that were already set up. Hildegunn took seriously her responsibility to prepare for the day. This was the first year she’d not been president in a long time, so she’d taken over the quilting preparations.

“Good morning, everybody,” Sophie trilled as she burst through the doorway. “Guess what?”

They all turned to look. “What?”

“Remember Mr. Jeffers?”

“Who could forget him? That scum.”

“No, no. The
real
Mr. Jeffers, the young man who came looking for his father.” She set her basket on the table. “He checked into the boardinghouse after yesterday’s train. He’s over talking with Thorliff today. I’m so curious, I’m about to burst.”

“Leave it to Sophie,” Ingeborg said sotto voce.

“Did you ask him anything?”

“How could I? I didn’t know he was there until I checked the register this morning.” She unbuttoned her coat and laid it on the collection. “There’s a fascinating story in there somewhere. I just know there is. Where are the things we are collecting for the reservation?”

Silence hit the room like a lead blanket.

She looked around. “What? What did I do now?”

“We have not made that decision yet.” Hildegunn Valders straightened her shoulders, causing her considerable bosom to expand.

“Sorry.” Sophie rolled her eyes. “I forgot there was dissension about this. We all know it is the right thing to do, so let’s just go ahead with it.”

Mary Martha tapped her coffee cup for attention. “Let’s get seated, shall we, ladies, so we can get started with our meeting.”

Sophie stopped by her mother. “Gracious, you’d have thought I let a skunk loose in here the way the noses went up.”

“Hush.” Kaaren never had been able to keep ahead of Sophie, but her half-hidden grin said how much she didn’t care this time.

Ingeborg kept her face straight but knew it was perilous. At least Sophie was taking the onus off her. And Sophie couldn’t care less what Hildegunn thought. Maybe that was the best way to deal with a stubborn woman who wanted to rule the group and always felt she knew best.

“Is Ellie coming today?” Sophie asked Ingeborg as they sat down.

“No, she didn’t want to bring the children. Carl is ill again.” Earlier in the winter he’d had a bout with croup, and they weren’t taking a chance on it happening again.

“I’m glad Helga comes to our house to watch the children. I’d hate to bundle them all up to come. I tried to talk Maydell into coming, but she says she dislikes sewing about as much as cleaning the slop pail.”

“Sophie!”

“Well, that’s what she said.” Sophie shrugged. “And Rebecca spends every morning helping Benny catch up so he can go to school.”

“Ladies.”

They turned to face forward.

“Let us open by standing and singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers,’ ” Mary Martha said. “I’m sorry, but Elizabeth telephoned to say she could not come due to a waiting room full of sick people.”

“All she has to do is hang out the
Closed
sign.”

Mary Martha started the first line, and they all joined in. She led them in prayer after that, and then everyone sat.

“We’ll start with announcements. The fourth Saturday of this month we will be cleaning the church to be ready for Easter. The more people who show up, the sooner we’ll get finished. We are starting at nine o’clock, and dinner will be potluck. Bring cleaning supplies.” She looked up from her paper. “Does anyone have anything to add to that?”

“Bring ladders too so we can clean the gutters and dust the ceiling and rafters,” Hildegunn added.