Believing the Dream (16 page)

“You go play. I’ll make sure the door is open.”

Elizabeth did as told, wishing they had kept Mrs. Mueller downstairs so she could hear better. If this was soothing to her, more power to the gift of music.

But she couldn’t lose herself in the songs, even caught herself stumbling in places, because she couldn’t forget about the scene upstairs. While she hadn’t heard any more interrupted screams, she hadn’t heard a baby’s first cry either. What was going on up there?

Cook climbed the stairs with something else. The argument in the study grew louder. Had her father doctored the coffee with something stronger? When had Thornton left? Or hadn’t he?

When Cook came back down, she stepped into the parlor. “Mrs. Mueller is asking for you.”

With a nod Elizabeth slipped away from the piano and, hiking her skirts, dashed up the stairs.

“How is she?”

Dr. Gaskin shook his head. “See if you can get her to push. We’ve got to get that baby moving.”

Elizabeth leaned over the side of the bed and stroked the sweat-soaked hair off the pale forehead. “Mrs. Mueller, you asked for me?”

A brief nod and her eyes fluttered open. “Th-thank you.” Her voice barely above a whisper, Mrs. Mueller reached for the younger woman’s hand. “Please don’t be angry at Reverend Mueller. He does the best he can.”

Elizabeth ducked her head.
Had her feelings been that obvious?
All words fled her mind. What to say? Right now she wanted to take a horsewhip to the man. He hadn’t even asked about his wife, as if she were nothing more than the drudge who worked at his house. Yet she’d seen him show such compassion to ailing members of his church. Why not his wife?

“You just think about getting this baby born. Doctor says it’s time to push.”

A faint nod. “I . . . I’m afraid . . . I d-don’t have much . . .” She clenched both eyes and teeth against another contraction.

“Please, push! Push with all you have, Mrs. Mueller, come on.” Elizabeth gripped the woman’s hands as if she could share her own strength. “Push!”

“I a-m-m.” As if drawing on her last ounce of strength, she reared up, face, hands, body straining, her keening high and pitiful in its weakness.

“Again. Here, push against me.” Elizabeth pulled the woman against her and braced her back on the head of the bed. “When the contraction comes, push. Your baby needs you to push.” The young woman whispered in the weary woman’s ear and brushed the soaked hair off her forehead.
Lord God, help us here. Please give her the strength she
needs
.

The next contraction gathered force and tore at the woman’s body. With another keening, she pushed against Elizabeth’s strength, crying against the agony. “G-God, h-help me.”

With a gush of bright red blood, the tiny baby girl slid into the world, flaccid and still.

Nurse Browne snatched up the baby, being careful of the cord, and blew in the blue-tinged face. “Come, little one, you must breathe.” When nothing happened, she shook the tiny form. “God in heaven, help this lamb.” She dangled the child by the feet and slapped first the soles, then the minute buttocks.

“Doctor, she’s not breathing.”

“Dip her in warm water,” Dr. Gaskin ordered over his shoulder as he fought to stem the tide of red. Rolling one of the towels, he pressed it against the flood and kneaded the belly to get the uterus to contract. “Come on, Mrs. Mueller, fight back.”

Elizabeth kept one eye on the nurse swishing the baby in a pan of warm water and another on the patient. She stroked Mrs. Mueller’s hair back again, coaxing her to respond, all the while fighting the tears that threatened to break loose.

“Get her husband up here—now!”

Elizabeth ran out the door and down the stairs. “Reverend Mueller, Doctor says you better come quickly.”

“Is the baby born?” He rose and strode to the door, brushing past her.

“Yes.”

“What is it?” He took the stairs two at a time.

“A little girl.” She didn’t say the baby had yet to breathe.

“Only a girl, eh.”

Rage clamped hands around Elizabeth’s throat and cut off her air, melded her hands to the banister and locked her knees. Only a girl? His wife fought to bring a baby to life, she might be dying, and he says ‘only a girl’?

Only a girl!
The words beat time with each foot she placed on a stair tread. She stopped outside the room to calm her heart and breathing, both of which were going full throttle, like a steam engine out of control.
Breathe,
she ordered herself.
Easy now. You can be of no help
in this state
. She took a third deep breath and felt her shoulders drop from where they’d been pinching her ears.

She entered the room to see Reverend Mueller sitting beside his wife on the bed, the bed a sea of blood. Surely she had none left. The thought made Elizabeth half gag. Never had she seen so much blood.

Exhaustion painted blue shadows on Mrs. Mueller’s gray-white face. The sheet over her chest barely registered breath.

But still she bled.

Dr. Gaskin looked up at Elizabeth, and a minute shake of his head told her far more than she wanted to know.

He’d given up hope. Dr. Gaskin, who insisted on hope until the last breath is drawn, had none.

“The baby?” Elizabeth’s whisper was answered by Nurse Browne shaking her head, tears leaking over her rounded cheeks.

The sheet on Mrs. Mueller’s chest was still. “She’s gone.”

Reverend Mueller bowed his head. “The baby?”

Dr. Gaskin shook his head. “We did everything we could.”

“I know.” He turned to his wife, stroking her hair back, tracing a finger down her cheek. “God keep you.” He ducked his head, and a shudder racked his shoulders.

Like a mother black bear defending her cubs, Elizabeth turned on him. “If you’d taken better care of her, this might not have happened. You wore her out with babies every year in spite of Doctor’s warning.”

“Elizabeth!” Phillip entered the room just in time to hear his daughter’s attack.

“You act like—like . . .”

“Elizabeth Marie Rogers!”

She heard the voice from the other end of a long dark tunnel. God himself. But she didn’t say that. She pushed by her father and ran across the hall into her own room.

Dear God, what have I done?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Blessing, North Dakota

Thorliff pushed off again, then stopped. Had he heard something not of the wind? He strained to hear, holding his breath. Nothing but the howling of the gale. He leaned forward to start again but stopped. He whipped the cap off his ears, the cold slashing into his sweaty hair. “Lord God, let it come again if it is what I hope.”

The bell rang again, faint. The wind dropped, and this time he heard it clearly. Off to the left and slightly behind him. He pulled his hat back down over his ears and turned his skis at a right angle. A rifle roared closer than the ringing. Thorliff drove his ski poles in and pushed off again. The rifle spoke again, closer this time. He angled to his left and skied four, six, and ten strides when the rifle blast sounded almost next to him. A dark shape loomed out of the swirling white. The barn.

Thank you, God, thank you. I’m home. You brought me out of the
wilderness. I’m home
. Left or right. The door has to be near here.

The rifle roared to his right. Three strides, and he could see Haakan. “Don’t shoot again, I’m here.” He shouted to be heard above the wind.

“Thorliff! Oh, thank God. Thank God.” Haakan threw his arms around his son, thunking him on the back with the rifle butt. “Here, get in out of the wind. Are you frozen?”

Thorliff walked in on his skis, not stopping to unbuckle the bindings until he stood in the warmth of the barn. Haakan shut the door behind him. “Mange takk.” He tried to sniff, but the sides of his nose didn’t move, so he breathed through his mouth, as he realized he’d been doing for some time. He rubbed his nose with the back of his mittened hand and felt the ice fall away, likewise from his eyebrows.

Haakan knelt in front of him and undid the buckles of the straps so Thorliff could step off the skis. “Your mother is waiting.”

Thorliff swiped at the tears running down his cheeks. “Pa, I was so afraid.”

“I know. Us too.”

“Forgive me for being so bullheaded. I left there as soon as it started to snow and thought sure I could beat it home.”

Haakan put both arms around his son and held him close. “God is good to us this day. Come, Andrew’s arm must be falling off by now.” They could hear the ringing as the blasts of the blizzard fell and rose. “Can you walk?”

“Ja.” Thorliff took a step and would have fallen had his father’s strong arm not held him up. Together they made their way down the long aisle and pushed the north door open, the wind and snow trying to seal them in. With each step, Thorliff felt the life coming back into his feet, but when the blizzard hit him full on again, he staggered.

“Here, I will go first.” Haakan, skis in one hand, used his other to clamp Thorliff ’s hand on the rope that led to the house.

Thorliff ducked his head and shut his eyes against the biting snow. One foot in front of the other, that’s all he had to do. Hold on to the rope and put one foot in front of the other.
I’m home. Thank you, Lord, I’m home
. The triangle rang again. He stumbled against his father’s broad back.

“You’ve got Thorliff!” Andrew screamed above the wind. He turned and yelled again through the door, then grabbed his brother’s arm and helped him up the steps. Between Andrew on one side and Haakan on the other, Thorliff staggered into the kitchen and collapsed in his mother’s arms.

Ingeborg hugged him for a moment. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. Thank you, thank you.” Between her and Haakan, they walked Thorliff to a chair and sat him in it, then Andrew unlaced his boots while the others stripped off his outerwear. “Get snow.”

Astrid grabbed a pan and hurried outside to fill it.

“Do your hands have feeling?” Ingeborg squeezed Thorliff ’s white hands. He nodded and squeezed back.
Thank you, Lord
.

“Your feet?” Andrew removed Thorliff ’s socks and moved one of his feet in a circle and pinched his toes.

“Ja, I think so. They are full of pins and needles right now.”

Using her thumb, Ingeborg pressed against his nose, his cheeks, his forehead.

“Looks like the end of his nose might be frostbit.” Haakan took the pan from Astrid. “Go get a quilt off my bed.”

Ingeborg cupped snow in her hand and applied it to Thorliff ’s nose and a white spot on one cheek. “If this is all you come away with, God protected you beyond belief.”

Thorliff felt the shiver start in his feet and work its way up his body. He shook so hard his teeth clacked together.

“Good, your body is fighting back.” Haakan wrapped the quilt around him. “You see any white marks on his feet?”

Ingeborg shook her head. “Andrew, hand me that lamp. Or rather, hold it down here so I can see.” She carefully inspected his toes and his feet, then shook her head and began chafing them with her hands. “Astrid, dip some warm water into that pan, and we’ll put his feet in that. Not hot, just barely warm.” She rolled up his pant legs and set his feet in the enameled pan. “Too hot?”

Thorliff shook his head. “I-if I c-can just q-quit shivering . . .”

“No, that means the circulation is coming back.” Haakan took one of the dish towels off the rack behind the stove and wrapped the warm cloth around Thorliff ’s head.

Ingeborg poured a cup of coffee, added two spoons of sugar and some cream, and held it to Thorliff ’s lips. “Here, drink this.”

“You better put some of that whiskey in it. That’ll warm his insides faster.”

“You’re right.” Ingeborg fetched the dark bottle from the cupboard and added some to the coffee. “Drink.”

Thorliff took a deep swallow and double blinked as the heat hit his throat. He swallowed again at his mother’s insistence.

“Drink it all.” She set it in his hands, and he gratefully cupped them around the heat.

Ingeborg opened the oven door, and they half-carried, half-pulled Thorliff ’s chair closer to the heat pouring out of the oven.

“Ah.” He closed his eyes in bliss as the heat washed over him. Sip by sip he drank the potent brew and felt the heat curling in his middle, stretching out to his limbs with every beat of his heart.
So easy I could
have missed
. . . He cut off the thought with the dregs of his cup. No sense worrying about what if. Just be grateful for what is.
In everything
give thanks
. The Bible verse was easy to follow right now. To give thanks for his family, for the warmth, for the stove, for the wood to heat the stove, for the house that protected them from the fury outside, for the clang and the shot that had called him home. He could feel a tear trickle down his cheek. So much to be grateful for.

“We need to get to milking since there’s just the two of us.” Haakan nodded to Andrew.

“I’ll help.” Astrid looked up from pouring warmer water into the basin around Thorliff ’s feet.

“And so will I.” Thorliff sat forward. The shudders had lessened, and the cold block inside him had melted. He flexed his hands and feet. “Everything is working fine.”
Please, I really need to do this
.