Years (68 page)

“I wish I could be as sure as you.”

Another woman would have reached out a comforting hand. Not Isabelle. Her chin only jutted more stubbornly.

“A man as happy as he is about that baby and his new wife’s got a lot o’ reason to fight.”

“He... he told you he was happy?”

“Told me everything. Told me about your fight, told me the reason you were sleepin’ in the spare room. He was heartsick.”

Linnea dropped her gaze to her lap. “I didn’t think he’d tell you all that.”

Isabelle spread her knees wide, leaned forward, and rested her elbows on them. “We could usually talk, Ted and I.”

Linnea didn’t know what to say. She found herself no longer able to harbor jealousy.

Isabelle went on, her eyes on Theodore while she leaned forward in her masculine pose. “It’s nothin’ you need to worry about, what me and Ted did together. You’re young yet, you got things to learn about human urges. They just got to be satisfied, that’s all. Why, shoot, he never loved me — the word never come up once.” She sat back, reached in her pocket for cigarette makings, and started rolling herself a smoke. “But he’s a kind man, a damn kind man. Don’t think I don’t know it... I mean, a woman like me, why... ” Her words trailed away and she gave a single self-deprecating sniff, studying the cigarette as she sealed the seam, then stroked it smooth. She reached in her apron pocket and found a match, set it aflame with the flick of a blunt thumbnail, and sent fragrant smoke into the room. She leaned back, rested her crossed feet on the edge of the mattress, and puffed away silently, squinting through the smoke. After some time she said, “You’re a damned lucky woman.”

Linnea turned to study Isabelle. Her apron was filthy. Her stomach looked more pregnant than Linnea’s. She held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger like a man would, and her chair was tilted back on two legs. But in the corner of her left eye Linnea thought she detected the glint of a single tear.

Impulsively, she reached and lay a hand on Isabelle’s arm.

The redhead looked down at it, sniffed again, clamped the cigarette between her teeth, patted the hand twice, then reached for the cigarette again.

“You’ll be back next year, won’t you?” the younger woman asked.

“Damn tootin’. I’ll be dyin’ to git a gander at Ted’s young ‘un.”

On the seventh day they knew that Theodore would live.

26

T
HE VERY OLD,
the very weak, the very young. Indeed, the Spanish influenza preyed first upon these, and it chose from the Westgaard family one of each. Of the very old it took Nissa. Of the very weak, Tony. And of the very young, Roseanne. Nissa died never knowing her grandchildren, too, had fallen ill.

It was a mercurial disease, indiscriminately ravaging home after home on the Dakota prairie, while leaving others totally untouched. There seemed no rhyme nor reason as to whom it took, whom it left. Its very unpredictability made it the more deadly. But as if Providence had better things in mind for Theodore and Linnea Westgaard, Theodore pulled through with nothing longer lasting than a ten-pound weight loss, and Linnea was untouched.

On the morning Theodore awakened clear-eyed and clearheaded, she was there alone beside the bed, asleep in a chair, looking as if she’d fought the war single-handedly. He opened his eyes and saw her — slumped, breathing evenly, hands folded over her high-mounded stomach. Linnea, he tried to say, but his mouth was so dry. He touched his forehead; it felt scaly. He touched his hair, it felt oily. He touched his cheek; it felt raspy. He wondered what day it was. Ma was dead, wasn’t
she? Oh, and Kristian — was there any news of him? And what about the wheat... the milking... Linnea...

He rolled to one side and touched her knee. Her eyes flew open.

“Teddy! You’re awake!” She tested his forehead then gripped his hand. “You made it.”

“Ma... “he croaked.

“They buried her over a week ago.” She brought a cup to his lips and he drank gratefully, then fell back weakly.

“What day is it?”

“Thursday. You’ve been sick for two weeks.”

Two weeks. He’d lain here two weeks while she looked after him. She and Isabelle. He had a vague recollection of Isabelle tending him, too, but how could that be?

“Are you all right?”

“Me, oh I’m fine. I’ve come through unscathed. Now no more questions until I get you something to eat and you feel stronger.”

She would brook no more talking until she’d brought him strong beef broth and, after he’d drunk it, washed his face and helped him shave. She herself had found time to change her dress and comb her hair, but even so, he could see on her face the effects of her long vigil. When she was bustling about, cleaning up the room, he made her sit down beside the bed and rest for a minute.

“Your eyes look like bruises.”

“I lost a little sleep, that’s all. But I had good help.” She glanced at her lap and toyed with the edge of her apron.

“Isabelle?” he asked.

“Yes. Do you remember?”

“Some.”

“She refused to obey the quarantine sign. She came in and stayed for nine days and took care of both of us.”

“And she didn’t get it either?”

Linnea shook her head. “She’s some woman, Teddy.” Her voice softened as her gaze met her husband’s. “She loves you very much, you know.”

“Aww... ”

“She does. She risked her own life to come in here and take care of you, and of me because she knew it would hurt you if anything happened to either me or the baby. We owe her a lot.”

He didn’t know what to say. “Where is she now?”

“Out in the cook wagon, sleeping.”

“What about the wheat?”

“The wheat is all done. The threshing crew kept right on working.”

“And the milking?”

“They took care of that, too. Now you’re not to worry about a thing. Cope says he’ll stay on until you’re strong enough to take over again.”

“Has there been any news from Kristian?”

“A letter came two days ago and Orlin read it from the end of the driveway.” Orlin was their mail carrier. “Kristian said he hadn’t seen the front yet, and he was just fine.”

“How long ago did he write the letter?”

“More than three weeks.”

Three weeks, they both thought. So many shells were fired in three weeks. She wished there were a way to reassure Theodore, but what could she say? He looked gaunt and pale and inutterably sapped. She hated to be the one to add new lines of despair to his face, but there was no escaping it. She leaned both elbows on the bed, took his hand in both of hers, turning the loose-fitting wedding ring around and around his finger.

“Teddy, there’s more bad news, I’m afraid. The influenza... ” How difficult it was to say the words. She saw the faces of those blessed children she’d come to love so much. Such innocents, taken before their time.

“Who?” Theodore asked simply.

“Roseanne and Tony.”

His hand gripped hers and his eyes closed. “Oh, dear God.”

There was nothing she could say. She herself ached, remembering Roseanne’s lisp, Tony’s thin shoulders.

Still with his eyes closed, Theodore drew Linnea down atop the coverlets. She lay beside him and he held her, drew strength from her.

“But they were so young. They hadn’t even lived yet,” he railed uselessly.

“I know... I know.”

“And Ma... ” Linnea felt him swallow against the crown of her head. “She was such a good woman. And sometimes, when she’d... when she’d get bossy and order me around I’d wish to myself that she wasn’t here. But I never meant I w... wanted her to die.”

“You mustn’t feel guilty about thoughts that were only
human. You were good to her, Teddy, you gave her a home. She knew you loved her.”

“But she was such a good old soul.”

So were they all, Linnea thought, holding him close. John, Nissa, the children. They’d lost so many... so many:
Lord, keep Kristian safe.

“Oh, Teddy,” she whispered against his chest, “I thought I was going to lose you, too.”

He swallowed thickly. “And I thought the same thing about you and the baby. At times I’d wish I could die real quick, before you got it, too. Then other times, I’d come to and see you sitting there beside the bed and know I just had to live.”

His heartbeat drummed steadily beneath her ear while she spoke a silent prayer of thanks that he’d been spared. Between them pressed the bulk of their thriving, unborn child and an old quilt that had been pieced and tied by Nissa’s hands years and years ago. She who had passed on. He who was yet to come. A new life to replace an old.

“It’s as if we and our baby were spared to carry on. To take the place of those who are gone,” she told him.

And carry on is what they did, like many others who d suffered losses. The epidemic ran its course. The quarantine signs disappeared one by one, and the Westgaards bid goodbye to Isabelle Lawler, waving her away while she bellowed that she’d be back next year to see the young ‘un. Still, there were the dead to mourn, the living to console. The Lutheran church had a new minister now that the Severts had moved away. Reverend Helgeson held one bitterly sad memorial service for the seven members of his congregation who had died and been buried while their families were not allowed at the gravesides, and together they prayed for peace and gave thanks that the service stars on the church flag yet remained blue. The bereaved drew strength from above and lifted their eyes toward tomorrow.

There came a day in November when Theodore was outside beneath a chilly overcast sky, ballasting the foundation of the house with hay. It was a typical late-autumn day, dreary, with a bite to the wind. The leaves of the cottonwoods had long since fallen. The wind lifted topsoil and sent it against the legs of Theodore’s overalls as he wielded the pitchfork, time and again. The job would normally have been done much earlier,
but had been delayed this year due to his illness. But his strength had returned, and Cope had gone back home to Minnesota.

From overhead came the rusty carping of a tardy flock of Canadian honkers headed south. Theodore paused and glanced up, watching the birds fly in majestic formation. Kristian hadn’t got to fly those airplanes like he’d wanted to. But he’d ridden in one, his last letter said. Theodore smiled, thinking of it. His boy riding up there as high as those geese. What was this world coming to? There was talk about those airplanes being the up-and-coming thing, and that when and if this war ever ended, they’d be used for something better than killing people.

Was Kristian still alive? He had to be. And when he came home Theodore wondered how he’d like to be set up in a business of his own, transporting goods by airplane maybe, like folks said was going to be the coming way. What the hell, he was a rich man. The war had forced wheat up to the landmark price of $2. 15 a bushel. It had never seemed right, getting rich off the war, but as long as he was, he might as well share some of that wealth with his son who’d gone to fight it. Heck, Kristian didn’t want to be no wheat farmer, and if that boy would just make it home, Theodore promised himself he’d never try to force him again, after all, it wasn’t—

“Teddy! Teddy!” Linnea came flying out of the house, leaving the door open wide behind her. “Teddy, the war’s over!”

“What!”

The pitchfork went clunking to the ground as she came barreling into his arms, shouting and crying all at once. “It’s over! The news just came on the radio! The armistice was signed at five o’clock this morning!”

“It’s over? It’s really over?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she rejoiced.

He spun her off her feet. “It’s over! It’s over!” They couldn’t quit saying it. They danced around the yard and tripped on the pitchfork. Beside them Nelly and Fly stood before a wagonload of hay and turned curious heads to watch their antics. Nelly whickered, and Linnea flew out of Theodore’s arms and kissed the horse on her nose. When she’d likewise kissed Fly, Theodore swooped her into his arms again and lifted her toward the wagon seat.

“We got to go be with the others.”

They were scarcely out of their driveway before the school
bell began clanging in the east. They had not traveled one mile before it was joined by the church bell from the west. They met Ulmer and Helen on the road halfway to Lars’s house and got down from the wagons to hug and kiss and listen to the bells resounding from both directions. While they were celebrating in the middle of the gravel road, Clara and Trigg appeared, with baby Maren swaddled warm but howling loudly, upset by all the unusual commotion. On their heels came others, including Lars and Evie, and old man Tveit, who was out delivering a load of coal.