Years (39 page)

“I wasn’t really asleep.” He closed his eyes again.

“Yes you were. I was watching you.”

He grinned with one corner of his mouth, chuckled, and closed his eyes. “Oh you were, huh?”

She hugged the pillow and slouched down, resting her head on the sofa back. “You haven’t been saying much to me lately.”

“You haven’t been saying much to me either.”

“I know.”

She rested her chin on the pillow and studied his shiny Sunday boots, crossed at the ankle, then his bare arm, where brown skin met white cotton, the sun-bleached hair beginning to come in darker.

He opened his eyes slightly and watched her without moving another muscle. “You still mad?”

“What’s there to be mad about?”

Desultorily, he rolled his head toward her. “Don’t know. You tell me.”

She felt her cheeks warming and lowered her voice to a murmur. “I’m not
mad
at you.”

A full thirty seconds passed while their gazes held and the sound of the men’s soft snuffling continued through the peaceful room. At last he said, in a voice so low it was barely audible, “Good.” Then he settled his head squarely again and went on. “I hear you had quite a feast at school yesterday.”

“And you’re gloating, no doubt.”

He feigned an injured expression and they grinned at each other. “Gloating. Me?”

“About the rabbit.”

“Would I gloat?” But he arched one eyebrow, inquiring, “How was it?”

“I bow to your peculiar tastes. Delicious.”

He chuckled. “But you couldn’t quite bring yourself to bow to our peculiar tastes today, could you?”

“Nothing against Helen’s cooking, but there wasn’t any way I could bring myself to eat that... that Norwegian atrocity.”

Theodore laughed so unexpectedly his heels came up off the floor. Beside them, Lars shifted. Across the room John’s snoring halted, he snuffled, rubbed his nose, and slept on. Theodore grinned at Linnea with pure enjoyment.

“You know, I might learn to like you yet, even though you don’t eat
lutefisk.”

“Only a Norwegian would come up with a ridiculous standard like that. I suppose if I suddenly discovered I loved that rotten-smelling stuff, I’d pass muster, huh?” He took his sweet time deliberating until finally she advised wryly, “Don’t strain yourself, Theodore. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your committing any ethnic sins.”

He inquired, good-naturedly, “What’s that mean, then — ethnic?”

“Ethnic... ” She gestured searchingly. “You know — peculiar to your nationality.”

“I didn’t know sins came in Norwegian. I thought they was all the same in any country.”

“Were all the same.”

“Well, I see you’re back to correcting me. That must mean you got over whatever had you all dandered.”

“I was not dandered. I told you—”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” He wriggled into a more comfortable position with an air of disinterest that made her want to knock him off the edge of the sofa. How was a girl supposed to get his attention?

“Theodore, you know what I wish you’d do?” He didn’t even bother to grunt. “Go soak your head in the
lutefisk
barrel!” She hugged the pillow, crossed her ankles, and slammed her eyes closed. If he was grinning at her, let him grin, the damn fool! She’d lay there till she turned into a fossil before she’d let him see how his teasing riled her!

Several minutes passed. Her eyelids started twitching. Theodore sighed, wriggled down more comfortably, and let his arm touch Linnea’s. Her eyes flew open. Sure enough, he was grinning at her.

“I was thinking about your offer to teach me to read. When can we start lessons?”

She jerked her arm away and huffed, “I’m not interested.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“Pay me! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I can afford it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh. What did you mean?”

“Friendship cannot be bought, Theodore.”

He considered a moment, then told her, “You look about twelve years old when you stick out your bottom lip like that.”

She sucked it in, sat up, produced her most syrupy smile, and pointed. “The
lutefisk
barrel is that way.” She was half off the sofa when he grabbed her arm and hauled her back with a bounce. To her utter amazement, all his teasing disappeared.

“I want to learn to read. Will you teach me, Linnea?”

When he said her name that way she’d have done anything he asked. He had beautiful eyes, and when they rested on hers without teasing she wanted more than anything in the world for them to see her as a woman instead of a girl.

“Will you promise never to call me little missy again?”

Before speaking, he released her arm. “I promise.”

“All right. It’s a bargain.”

She stuck out her hand and he shook it — one sure, powerful pump.

“Bargain.”

She smiled.

“Miss Brandonberg,” he added.

“Theodore!” she scolded petulantly.

“Well, you’re my teacher now. Got to call you like your kids call you.”

“I
meant
I wanted you to keep calling me Linnea.”

“We’ll see about that,” was all he’d promise.

They began their lessons the following night. As soon as the supper dishes were done, Nissa settled down with her mending in a rocker by the stove. Kristian took a book to the kitchen table where he was joined by his father and Linnea.

Linnea was accustomed to facing a class full of fresh-scrubbed childish faces. It felt odd having to teach the ABCs to a full-grown man whose jaw showed the day’s growth of whiskers, whose enormous hands dwarfed a pencil, and whose brawny
chest and arms filled out a red plaid flannel shirt the way fifty pounds of grain fills a seed bag. On the other hand, she didn’t have to put up with the attention lapses and fidgeting inherent with younger children. She couldn’t have asked for a more eager or attentive student.

“We’ll start with the alphabet, but I’ll try to make it interesting by giving you something to spur your memory on each letter.” Having left all her books at school, Linnea took out a large tablet. After a minute’s thought she filled the first sheet with a sketch of a half-filled bottle, giving it a tall, narrow neck. In the upper right corner she formed a capital and small
A.

She turned the tablet to face Theodore,
“A
... is for aquavit.” Her eyes met his over the thick pad. A slow smile spread over his face, a soundless chuckle formed in his chest.

“A
is for aquavit,” he repeated obediently.

“Very good. Now don’t forget it.” She tore off a sheet of paper and formed two perfect
A’S.
“Here, you make each letter as you learn it. Make a row of them.”

He bent over the paper and began following orders while she explained.
“A
has several different sounds.
A
is for aquavit, and apple, and ace. Each word starts with an
A,
but as you can hear, they all have different sounds.
A
is for arm, and for always, and for automobile. Now you name me one.”

“Autumn.”

“Exactly. Now one that starts with a sound like apple.”

“Alfalfa.”

“Right again.”

“Now one with a sound like ace.”

“Eight.”

Linnea threw up her hands and let them flop to the table. “You should be right, and the dictionary should be wrong, but the first thing you have to learn about the English language is that its rules seem to have been made only to be broken. Eight starts with
E,
but we’ll get to that later. For now, just remember what
A
looks like, both capital and small.”

While Theodore worked on his small
A’S,
Linnea sketched a string of link sausages, forming them into a capital B.

“B
is for blood sausage,” she announced, flashing the picture at him.

“Blood sausage?” he repeated, surprised again by her quick
wit. She turned up her nose in distaste.
“B
is for bad, blukky, buckets of blood sausage!”

“B... blukky?” He laughed. Her sense of humor made the lesson anything but dull.

Across the table, Kristian listened and watched the proceedings with a grin, wishing it had been this much fun when he’d been in first grade.

Next Linnea ordered, “Name me a word that starts with
B.”

Theodore’s answer was immediate. “Bird wings.”

She feigned an injured expression, then scolded,
“B
is also for brat, so watch yourself, Theodore.”

Nissa peered over the top of her glasses at the sound of her son’s laughter, wondering when she’d last heard it. She glanced at Linnea, grinned appreciatively, and returned to her knitting. As the evening advanced, they laughed often. Nissa listened with one ear, yawning now and then.

c was supposed to be for Clippa, but Theodore declared that the horse Linnea drew looked more like a moose, so they changed c to coal. They progressed through the alphabet, searching for familiar items with which to associate the letters.
D
was for dipper.
E
was for eggs.
F
was for fence.
G
was for grain. H was for hymnal.

I was a little tougher. While they puzzled over it, Kristian began nodding heavily over his book.
I
became ice house as Nissa set aside her knitting, lumbered to her feet, and said, “Kristian, come along before you slip off your hand and break your chin.” The two of them toddled off to bed as Linnea and Theodore agreed on jar for J.

Theodore watched while Linnea sketched a fruit jar and put the appropriate letters in the comer. The kitchen was quiet without the creak of Nissa’s rocker and Kristian’s page turning. The kerosene lamp hissed softly and the room was warm and cozy.

Then came
K.

“K
is for—”

Kiss. The word popped into Linnea’s mind, and her blue eyes seemed to crash with the brown ones across the table. The memory came back, as vibrant and unnerving as if it had just happened, and she saw in his deep, dark eyes that he was remembering it, too.

“K
is for — ” he repeated quietly, his gaze unwavering.

“You think of one first this time,” she returned, hoping her face didn’t betray her thoughts. “It should sound just like the letter.”

“You’re the teacher.”

Becoming flustered by his steady regard, Linnea frantically searched for inspiration.
“K
is for
krumkaka
!” she rejoiced.

“No fair. That’s Norwegian.”

“So is aquavit, but we used it. Besides,
krumkaka
is one Norwegian food I love, so allow me.” She busied herself drawing the sweet Christmas delicacy she’d eaten so many times in her life, and came up with a perfect likeness of the delicate cone-shaped cookies.

Glancing at it, he praised, “Very good.” But she had the impression his mind wasn’t on
krumkaka
any more than hers was. In an effort to leaven their mood again, she went on to L.

“L
is for all the worst ideas Norwegians ever produced.
Lefse,
liver loaf, and
lutefisk.
Pick one.”

Theodore’s eyes met hers, his face golden and attractive in the lamplight as he leaned back and laughed. “Let’s make it
lutefisk.”

She drew her lower lip between her teeth, concentrating, trying to block out the electricity between Theodore and herself while she made the illustration. When the picture was done, she held it up. His head was bent low over his paper, the pencil moving.

“Theodore?”

He looked up. The tablet covered her face from the nose down. She peered at him over her depiction of a serving platter heaped high with chunks of nebulous matter emanating waving stink lines.

“L
is for
lutefisk,”
she reiterated.

He broke out laughing — how mischievous she looked, eyeing him from behind the silly sketch. She laughed, too, happier than she’d been in a long time. Then suddenly their laughter dwindled, fell away completely, and left a room so silent they could hear the cat breathe, curled up in Nissa’s abandoned chair. They stared at each other, stirred by feelings neither could control. She laid the picture down as if it were made of spun glass, nervous under his watchful eyes casting about for something to say to end the gripping awareness they suddenly felt with each other.

She looked up. He studied her as steadily as before, his jaw resting on one hand, the index finger along his cheek. Was that how he used to look at Melinda?

“It’s late,” she noted quietly.

“Oh... yes, I suppose it is.”

He made fists, stretched them out at shoulder level, quivering and bowing backward against the chair.

“I’d best get upstairs.” But instead she remained, bewitched by the sight of his flexed muscles, the fists bunched beside his ears, his trunk twisting while the chair went back on two legs. It was a heavenly spectacle.

The stretch ended.

She dropped an elbow to the table and propped her chin on a palm. “We worked a long time. I didn’t mean to wear you out.”

He grinned lazily. “I never knew going to school would be such fun.”

“It’s not always. I can be an old witch when I want to.”

“That’s not what Kristian says.”

Her eyelids drooped with veiled curiosity. “Oh? And do you spend time talking to Kristian about me?”

“He’s my son. It’s my job to know what goes on down at school.” She picked up a pencil and began absently fanning it across the tablet, sketching arc after arc.

“Oh.”

Eyes locked with hers, Theodore set the chair rocking... backward... forward... backward...

The house, cozy, silent, wrapped them in privacy, making them seem the only two in the world. She hooked the nail of a little finger into the corner of her mouth, lifting and misshaping her lip in an unconsciously sensual fashion while studying him: white underwear beneath red plaid shirt, both opened at the throat, exposing a wisp of dark curling hair; six inches of underwear showing at the wrist beneath the rolled-up cuffs of red plaid; thumbs hooked behind brass suspender clips, black trousers hugging spread thighs that straddled the chair, the shadows of his eyelashes throwing darker shadows upon his upper lids as he watched her unflinchingly, continuing the mesmerizing rocking motion.