A Promise for Ellie (15 page)

“What are you doing up? Pa said you are sick.” Astrid turned from beating the eggs for pancakes.

“I’m not sick. It’s just a bad case of the monthlies.”

“Oh.” Astrid studied her mother. “Are you sure? You don’t look good.”

“Astrid, for heaven’s sake, surely I know what the matter is.” Ingeborg glared at her daughter, at the same time throwing her hands in the air.

Astrid narrowed her eyes and straightened her shoulders. “Maybe I should go get Tante Elizabeth.”

“Maybe you should just do as you are told.” At the sight of her daughter’s eyes filling with tears, Ingeborg flew across the room and threw her arms around Astrid. “Forgive me, please. I am not myself. I promise that if I need to, I will go see Elizabeth.”
Not that there is
anything she can do. How I wish Metiz were still here. Surely there must
be herbs to help with this
. She thought through her store of simples. Nothing came to mind, but then she was low on many things and needed the summer and fall to refill her stores. While Elizabeth had a lot of modern medical knowledge, she’d been quizzing Ingeborg and learning about herbs and the natural pharmacopoeia she harvested from the land. If Eve had had any idea what her desire to eat of the tree of life was going to cost her daughters through the ages, surely she would have resisted. “Uff da.”

She shook her head but carefully, since that seemed to aggravate a headache that hovered at the edges of her eyes. “Please, Astrid, don’t fret. I’ll be all right. Older women just have to go through this time.”

“Tante Penny calls it ‘The Curse.’ ”

“Not a bad description.” Ingeborg picked up the knife to cut slices off the venison haunch to fry for breakfast. How she missed the hams and bacon from last fall’s smoking. Haakan had a venison quarter hanging in the smokehouse now. The spike that Andrew had seen was nicely supplementing their larder. As always, they had shared the meat with Kaaren and Lars. Haakan had come in bragging about one shot bringing it down.

I always used only one shot. Maybe that’s what I need to do—don my
britches and go hunting. Killing something sounds real fine right about
now
.

“Ma, are you truly all right?”

Ingeborg looked up to find Astrid staring at her. She’d sliced off far more meat than was needed for breakfast. Even now her hand was clenched around the handle of the knife so tightly that it whitened her knuckles. She laid the knife down, only then realizing she felt quivers race up and down her arm.

“I will be, Astrid. I will be.”
If I could only touch the hem of his
garment. . . .
Tears burned at the back of her eyes and made her nose run. Blinking quickly like a young girl batting her eyes at a suitor, she sniffed and reached for one of the cast-iron frying pans hanging on hooks behind the stove. “We’d best hurry or we won’t be ready when they come in.” Useless words to cover up the gnawing tiger she felt inside. She’d thought of asking Bridget about this time of life, but nothing ever seemed to faze her mother-in-law. If only she could ask her own mother, but a letter more than a year ago informed her that her mor had died one night in her sleep at the ripe old age of seventynine. Women in the Strand family lived a good long time. Her far had died years earlier.

If only she could have come to this country too and seen how good we
have it here
. That thought only made her want to sniff again. For Astrid’s sake she had to quit acting strange.

She was forced to go change again once before the men came in and again before she climbed up into the buggy for the drive to church.

Perhaps I should knit myself some wool soakers like we use for the
babies
. The thought made her smile. Haakan reached over and patted her hand. Was he watching her all the time?

Henry and Bridget came walking up to the church at the same time they tied up the horses at the hitching rail.

“God dag.”
Bridget’s smile revealed two missing teeth, but she didn’t let that keep her from a cheerful greeting. Henry nodded and, like all the men, removed his hat when he entered the church.

“Why is it, Mor, that the men take off their hats for church and women make sure they wear one?” Astrid had always asked questions with difficult or no answers. She was wearing a straw hat that she would change the ribbons on to match whatever she was wearing. Today the deep rose of the ribbons matched the trim on her dimity dress and the ribbon that circled her trim waist.

Haakan would be frowning at more than one young man today, for more and more of them were noticing his daughter, especially the sons of the German family that had moved into the old Peterson place south of town. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads when the twins joined Astrid and the three sat together, rather than with their families.

When Heinrich, the eldest of the brothers, caught Ingeborg’s watchful eye, he blushed, red as the radishes that grew in her garden. As soon as Ingeborg sat down next to Kaaren, the two women glanced at each other and shared a mother smile. She’d noticed too.

The Valderses came in with only Gerald accompanying them. Mary Martha Solberg shushed her brood into the row in front of them. Anji, now Mrs. Moen, handed her nearly two-year-old son to one of his older stepsisters and smiled across the aisle at Ingeborg. From the looks of her dress, Anji would soon be a candidate for Dr. Elizabeth’s ministrations. Thorliff and Elizabeth took their places, their tiny daughter soundly sleeping in her mother’s arms.

Ah, Lord, please oversee all these your children, the young growing up
so fast, the old feeling their years. And I pray for me that I manage to
make it home without embarrassing myself or anyone else
.

“Good morning this blessed Lord’s day.” Reverend Solberg, wearing the new stole Ingeborg, Astrid, and several others had stitched in honor of the graduating class, smiled across his congregation. “Let us open with hymn number forty-three—‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ ” He nodded to the young woman who had taken Elizabeth’s place at the piano since the coming of the baby.

The congregation stood and raised their voices in four-part harmony, the sound of which always gave Ingeborg the shivers. Surely that was a foretaste of the heavenly choir.

After the sermon Pastor Solberg announced that the Bjorklund baby would be baptized next Sunday. Ingeborg smiled to herself. She’d almost finished sewing the baby’s dress, fussing over the lace on the tiny cap and the hem of the long garment.

“Thanks to all of you who helped out at the barn raising yesterday, and to those who can, we’ll be putting up the rafters today.” He glanced around the room. “Now if there are no more announcements, we’ll close with ‘Blest Be the Tie That Binds,’ number three hundred twenty-three. Let us stand.”

At the opening chords Ingeborg stood with the rest of those gathered, felt a gush, blinked, and tried to catch her breath. The room swirled, and before she could grab Haakan’s arm, she crumpled to the floor. She barely felt the slam of her chin on the back of the pew in front of her before her world went totally black.

She came to with her head in Astrid’s lap, Haakan patting her hand, and Elizabeth unbuttoning the top buttons of her waist.

“Welcome back.” Elizabeth smiled.

“What happened?”

“You fainted. I believe you and I should have a talk.”

“We tried to get her to go see you.” Astrid smoothed a wisp of hair from her mother’s cheek.

“Let’s get you to my surgery, and—”

“No, I . . .” Ingeborg cleared her throat and closed her eyes when the faces above her faded in and out. She started again, in a whisper this time. “I want to go home.”

Haakan scooped her up in his arms. “I’m sorry, but this time the decision is out of your stubborn hands. We are going to the surgery.” By the time he set her in the buggy, leaning her against Astrid, he had to stop to catch his breath.

Foolish man. You’re not the stalwart young buck who used to carry me
around like I weighed a hundred pounds
. But Ingeborg kept the thought to herself, enjoying a rush of good feelings that made her even dizzier.

Haakan turned to Andrew. “You go on over to the barn with the others. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Kaaren patted Ingeborg’s hand. “Don’t worry about feeding the builders. We’ll all take care of that.”

Ingeborg nodded and let her eyes close again, which they seemed to demand. The buggy shifted as Haakan climbed in and backed the team.

“You tell me if you need to stop.”

“You’re not carrying me into the surgery, so don’t even consider it.” She tried to put some steel in her voice but knew her words came out like a mewling kitten.

Once he’d stopped the team at the side door of the house that led to the surgery, Haakan and Thorliff locked hands and carried Ingeborg in together. They laid her on a bed, and when they stepped back, Ingeborg could have melted through the mattress in mortification. Both their hands and shirt cuffs were stained with her blood.

“Now don’t you go fretting on me,” Elizabeth ordered. “You men go wash off and go on out to finish raising that barn. We’ll be fine here.”

“Are you sure?” Haakan looked nearly as white as his wife. “She’s not going to bleed to death, now, is she?” His voice quivered on the last words.

“No. I know how to take care of this. You men go on.”

Haakan took his wife’s hand and looked into her eyes. “You vill listen to her?”

Ingeborg could tell how upset he was just by the deepening of his accent.

After the men left Elizabeth shook her head at her mother-inlaw. “You should have told me before church how bad it was.”

“I thought I was through with all this, but it started again yesterday. Worse than I’ve ever had. I was wishing Metiz were here to help me. I’m sure I have something that will—”

Elizabeth laid a gentle finger on her mother-in-law’s lips. “Who was here to help me give birth to my beautiful little daughter?”

“That was different.”

“Not a lot if we’re to get to the bottom of this.”

Ingeborg felt another gush of the wet warmth, as though her entire insides were flowing out. She watched carefully as Elizabeth took pestle and mortar, dropped several spoonfuls and pinches of something into the bowl, and began to mash them together.
I’ve seen
women bleed out after childbirth. I’ve had to stanch the flow—and failed.
Lord, if she doesn’t come up with something that works, will I lie here and
bleed to death?
The thought brought another rush, this time to her eyes.
I’m not ready to die
.

Dear Ellie,

I know you believe you have good reasons for not coming when you said you would. You felt you had to stay in Grafton, but I can’t tell you how much I miss you. I wish you could have been here to see our barn go up—we’re putting on the siding now, and the boys are spending every moment splitting shakes. Until I saw it up, I didn’t realize how big it would be and how many shakes it would take to cover that roof.We are working as many hours as there are light, for haying will soon be upon us. Trygve is getting really good with a hammer. He said he’d rather pound nails than split shakes any day of the week.

Ellie reread the first lines. Andrew was angry that she hadn’t come back to Blessing.
The nerve
. Had he no idea how difficult this was for her? After all, he didn’t have to leave
his
family behind. She read the lines again.
It’s a good thing you’re not here right now, or I’d tell you
exactly what I think
. She continued reading.

My sow ended up with twelve piglets. Astrid tried saving the runt, but he died during the night. I warned her not to get too attached to him, but you know Astrid. Other than you, there is none more tenderhearted.

Ellie stopped reading and watched Rachel swinging on the swing at the schoolhouse. They’d stopped by there on their way home from the post office. As if anyone could be more tenderhearted than Andrew.

I thought you were mad at him
.

I am
.

She remembered the time she fell and ripped her leg open on a stick. He’d held her hand and cried with her while Ingeborg stitched her up. Then while she’d had to lie with it up on pillows with hot poultices to stave off the infection, he’d read to her and brought her cookies. No wonder she loved him so. She’d always loved him. At the thought of love, her mind flitted back to the kiss that changed her world. The now familiar heat started in her middle and crept up to her face, forcing her to use the letter as a fan. She smoothed the sheet of paper and started to read again.
Oh, Andrew, how I miss
you
. She almost chuckled. She was mad one minute, pie-eyed the next.

“Look at me!” Rachel called. “See how high I can go.”

Ellie dutifully looked up, knowing that if she didn’t, Rachel would keep after her until she did. She caught herself from saying, “You be careful now.” She would sound just like her mother. Not that her mother sounded bad, but she did have a tendency to worry. She reread the part about Astrid being tenderhearted and smiled again.
My dear,
dear Andrew
.