Together Apart

Houghton Mifflin Company
BOSTON 2002

A poem by Ted Kooser, published in his book
The Blizzard Voices
(1986), was excerpted with the permission of the Bieler Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Copyright © 2002 by Dianne E. Gray
All rights reserved. For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com
The text of this book is set in Centaur MT.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gray, Dianne E.
Together apart / by Dianne E. Gray,
p. cm.
Summary: In 1888 in Prairie Hill, Nebraska, a few months after barely surviving a deadly blizzard
that has killed two of her brothers, fourteen-year-old Hannah goes to work at the home of a
wealthy widow with progressive social ideas, where she finds Isaac, who is also trying to make a new
life for himself. Told from alternating points of view of Hannah and Isaac.
ISBN 0-618-18721-9 (hardcover)
[I. Sex role—Fiction. 2. Blizzards—Fiction. 3. Grief—Fiction. 4. Nebraska—History—19th
century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G7763 To 2002
[Fic]—dc21
2002000408

Manufactured in the United States of America
QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my husband, Lee,
who was, is, and will always be—my Isaac

Many and heartfelt thanks go to the following people: Mary François Rockcastle and the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Hamline University for their continued encouragement and support; Kirsten Dierking, Kay Korsgaard, Sue Montgomery, and Kathy MacKnight, dear friends and inexhaustible cheerleaders; Amy Flynn for her patience and brilliant editing; my Nebraska family, for always welcoming me home; my daughters, Leanne Knott and Shelley Paulson, who bring joy to my life; and my husband, Lee, who lights and lightens my days with his love.

Visit the author's Web site at
www.prairievoices.com.

...the wind in the hedgerow,
the wind lifting the dust
in the empty schools,
the wind which in the tin fan
of the windmill catches,
turning the wheel to the north—
that wind remembers their names.

—Ted Kooser, from
The Blizzard Voices

WE MUST HAVE MADE A SORRY SIGHT, MY BROTHER, SISTER,
and me, hurrying along the wooden sidewalk, soaked to the bone. The sky had been a gloomy gray when we'd left Fowlers Emporium on Main Street, and there had been only a misty hint of rain when we'd stopped by Papas farm wagon to drop off our trades—eggs and butter for a tin of chamomile tea, lamp oil and wicks, and a paper of sewing needles. Halfway to the place I hoped would be my chance at a fresh start, the wind had begun to gust and the rain to pour. I was greatly annoyed, though not surprised. I'd lived all my life on the Nebraska prairie. Lightning-quick changes in the weather were as common as flies around a milk bucket.

We were about to cross a puddle-pocked street when Joey, his jaw chattering, looked up at me and said, "I'm cold."

I scooped him up. "Make believe that you are the captain of a sailing ship and the rain is spray from a warm-water sea."

"A big ship?"

"Yes, a very big ship."

Megan tugged at my skirts. "Are there pretty ladies on the ship, too?"

"Fine ladies in fancy dresses," I answered just as a team and freight wagon sped past, splattering us with filthy water.

"Change that to a steamboat on the muddy Missouri. A steamboat that must make haste. If we're not back at the wagon when Papas ready to start for home, it will be a month of Sundays before he allows us to come to town with him again." What I didn't say was that it would probably be a month of Sundays before I came to town again—late to the wagon or not. Mama could only spare one of us older girls, and more often than not I was the one who drew the shortest straw when it came to deciding who would go. My being in town that day, heading where I was heading, was a wonder in and of itself.

***

Rows of tidy, wood-framed houses lined either side of the street. Some were watched over by picket fences; some had stone paths that led to sturdy-looking front doors. Most were painted white, and I wondered why this was so. Orange, plum, or apple red would be easier to find in a blinding snow.

Two street crossings farther along, we arrived at the edge of town. The sidewalk angled off to the right, but I saw only the prairie beyond. The wild grasses, fresh up after the long winter and wetted a deep and fragrant green, swept me up in a moment of forgetfulness. My bones felt lighter, my breathing easier, and I left myself standing there, Joey on my hip, Megan at my side, and imagined myself into the prairie, arms spread wide, turning in circles until dizzy with the joy of it. A hint of music, far off in the distance, kept time.

I'd been drawn to the openness of the prairie for as long as I remembered, and, according to Mama, for even longer than that. Of her nine babies, I'd been the most impatient to get myself born, and once born, the hardest for her to keep her eye on. I'd made my first trek into the world of grasses and wildflowers and sky when I was only eleven months old. When Mama found me two frantic hours later, she said I wasn't scared and crying like she'd expected. I looked up at her, grinned, then turned and toddled away. And that had only been the beginning.

The longer my legs grew, the faster and farther away I wandered. I imagined myself the wild, galloping stallion or the red-tailed hawk, soaring circles against the empty sky. The butterfly. The prairie air seemed easier to breathe than the stale and crowded air inside our sod house. There was more room to think out there. More room to let my body move in whatever way it wanted. Mama had tried to put a stop to my wandering—with a spank when I was little and by assigning me extra chores when I got older—but I'd always found a way, always found the time. While my brothers and sisters kept to the road on their way to and from Harmony School, more often than not I chose a prairie path. As the years passed, more and more of the prairie had been plowed into fields, but enough remained to draw me in. Until the blizzard, which reared in my imagination just then, stomped my chest, choked my breath, blinded my eyes with white, swallowed me.

A tug on my hand pulled me back. "Look, Hannah," Megan said. "Its a castle, like the one in the picture book at school."

The blizzard shrank back into hiding. Breath returned. My vision cleared, and I looked in the direction Megan was pointing. "Nearly so," I answered.

Megan let go of my hand then and began to run along the angled sidewalk. She hadn't gone far when she stumbled on an uneven plank and fell. I caught up to her, lowered Joey to the sidewalk, and then bent over Megan. Blood seeped from a small cut on her quivering chin. I lifted my skirt modest inches, thinking to dab at the blood with the hem of my petticoat. The bleached muslin was caked with mud. There was nothing to do save untuck the tail of my white shirtwaist.

As I dabbed, I glanced first at the house and then in the direction we had come. Turning back before some worse calamity befell us seemed the sensible choice, and I might have done just that if not for the promise of the handbill I'd found posted at Fowler's and memorized as if a part in a school play. "Ready?" I asked. Megan nodded and slipped her hand into mine. I took Joey's hand in the other, and we walked on.

Standing alone at the edge of the prairie, the house was built of
red
brick and rose three stories under a many-gabled roof. Stone arches, like curious brows, topped each of the many windows. Painted trim that put me in mind of wooden teeth decorated the spaces beneath the eaves. Attached to a rear corner of the house was a one-story frame building, and attached to this was a smallish barn. It was an arrangement the likes of which I'd never seen, though I thought it quite clever. One could go from house to barn without being tormented by the weather. A brick drive, laid out in a crisscross pattern, entered the property at one point along the dirt street, curved, and then returned to the street at another, like a rust-red rainbow. Trees of varying size and variety dotted the lawn.

I'd meant to make my inquiry at a rear door but chose instead the wide veranda that wrapped the front of the house. Its roof would get us out from under the rain, if only for a little while. We scraped the mud from our shoes as best we could in the grass next to the stone path, then climbed the steps slowly, as if the steps to a church.

It wasn't until I stood before the mirrorlike glass oval in the door that my heart scolded me for my foolishness. My hair looked like a mop just used to wash the floor. My lips were blue, and my sopping shirtwaist clung like another layer of skin. Foolish, indeed. The handbill had asked for a "Clever and Forward-Thinking Young Person." I was only fourteen. I knew next to nothing about town life and even less about the duties an "Apprentice in a Growing Business Concern" might require. Fresh starts being about as hard to find as a four-leaf clover, I wasn't about to leave until I'd at least had a chance to come face to face with mine.

Thinking the brass knocker too bold, I rapped lightly with my knuckles. I waited for what seemed a fitting length of time and rapped again. Still no one answered. I clapped the knocker, thrice and loud enough to wake the dead. Then, just as we turned to leave, Joey said, "I have to go."

"But you've only just arrived."

I spun around. Standing there at the open door was the most peculiar town woman I'd ever seen. Her cinnamon-colored hair was mussed. Her ivory cheeks were smudged with black, as were her hands and the full-length canvas apron she wore. She was youngish, early thirties perhaps, too young to be the lady of so grand a house, the widow of the Judge Harlan Moore of the handbill. Surely the position had been filled. The words I'd planned to say stuck in my throat, causing me to hiccup.

"I'd offer my hand, but you can see that it's stained with printer's ink. My name is Eliza Moore. Eliza if you have come as a friend, the Widow Moore if you have not."

I hiccupped again, then said, "I am Hannah Barnett, and this is my brother, Joey, and sister, Megan."

Joey squeezed my hand. I looked down at him and saw from the pained look on his face that asking him to wait wouldn't do. "I've come to ask about the position. But first we need to go around back and use your necessary house."

Eliza smiled. "There's no need to go around back, especially in this rain. I have a water closet inside."

"Oh, no, we mustn't. Our shoes"—hiccup—"are soiled."

"Remove them, then," she said, scandalously sliding a shoeless foot out from under the hem of her skirt and wiggling it around.

Megan, whose shoes had been passed down through three sisters and were yet two sizes too large, was in her stocking feet quicker than a frightened prairie dog down its hole. Before I could catch up her hand, she had darted through the door. There was nothing to be done save remove mine and Joey's shoes and follow after her.

I found her standing stone still with her mouth agape in front of a larger-than-life portrait that hung in the wide front hall. The portrait was of a handsome, finely dressed woman.

"Is she a queen?" Megan whispered.

"Not quite. Though there was a time when I thought her my fairy godmother. This is my late husband's mother, Madeline Moore. She was the kindest woman I have ever known." Eliza took up Joey's hand then and said, "This way to the water closet."

I followed Eliza down the wood-paneled hall, lifting my skirts so as not to leave a trail of mud on the wine-colored carpets. Megan zigzagged from one side of the hall to the other, peeking into every room. I couldn't blame her. Truth be told, if I hadn't been there to apply for a position, I wouldn't have minded peeking myself.

At the end of the hall, we turned and passed through the kitchen before stopping at the door to the indoor necessary. "Do you know how a water closet works?" Eliza asked Joey.

Joey hid his face in my skirts. Eliza winked at me and said, "Just pull the chain when he's finished. In the meantime I'll gather up some amusements to entertain the children."

I nodded, hiccupped, and then shepherded the little ones inside and closed the door behind us. Joey took one look at the indoor necessary, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, "I don't have to go anymore."

"None of that, young man. You said you had to go, and we've put Mrs. Moore to all the trouble, so you'll go."

"I wont."

"Oh, yes you will, and you'll do it now. Just make believe that you are a king and the indoor necessary is your throne."

"Do I have a crown?"

"The biggest crown ever."

"Me too? Can I be a queen and have a crown too?" Megan asked.

"Yes, of course, but be quick about it."

While the young ones were using the royal throne, I stood at the sink and turned one of the spigots. Water, as if by magic, gushed out and into my hands. Warm water! Warm, then running hot as I gulped handfuls, hoping to drown my hiccups.

***

Back in the kitchen, Megan and Joey sat together on a pressed-back chair. Open on the table before them was a picture book of fairy tales, the pages of which Megan carefully turned. Milk mustaches outlined their smiles.

I, too, sat at the table, staring at the pattern of leaves in the bottom of a dainty teacup. We would need to be leaving soon, so I knew I mustn't tarry. I returned the teacup to its saucer with a rattle and was about to tell Eliza that I believed myself to be a hard worker when she asked, "Has your mother sent you to inquire after the position?"

"No, ma'am. I've come on my own." I wasn't sure this was the wisest answer, though it was the truthful one.

She smiled. "If offered the position, could your mother spare you?"

"I have one older sister, Hester, who is seventeen, and another sister, Lila, who is a year younger than I am."