Dakota December and Dakota Destiny (16 page)

“I loved most every minute of it. I had to study hard, but I knew that.” Mary adopted the other post and turned to face him, her back against the warm surface.

Will held his hat in his hands, one finger outlining the brim. When he looked up at her, the sadness that had lurked in the background leaped forward. “Mary, there is so much I wanted to say, have wanted to say for years, and now—” He looked up at the sky as if asking for guidance.

“Will, I know something is wrong. What is it?”

He sat down on the step and gestured for her to do the same. “First of all, I have to know. Do you love me as I love you—with the kind of love between a man and a woman, not the kind between friends and kids?”

Mary clasped her hands around her skirted knees. All the dreaming of this time, and here it was: no preparation, just boom. “Will, I have always loved you.” Her voice came softly but surely.

“I mean as more than friends.”

“Will Dunfey, understand me.” She turned so she faced him. “I love you. I always have, and I always will.”

“I had hoped to ask you to marry me.” He laid a calloused hand over hers.

“Had hoped?” She could feel a knot tightening in her breast.

“I thought by the time you graduated I would perhaps own part of the business or one of my own so I could support you.”

“Will, you are scaring me.” Mary laid her hand over his.

Will looked up at her, his eyes crying for understanding. “I signed up last week.”

“Signed up?”

“Enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight against the Germans. They say this is the war to end all wars and they need strong young men.” Mary felt a small part of her die at his words.

“Oh, Will, you can’t leave!”

The cry escaped before Mary could trap it. He studied the hat in his hands. “You know I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t.” Mary clasped her hands together, her fingers winding themselves together as if they had a mind of their own. “I . . . I just got home.”

“I know.” He looked up at her, his eyes filled with love and longing. “But they need men like me to stop the Huns. I couldn’t say no. You wouldn’t really want me to.”

Yes, I would. I want you here. I’ve been looking forward to this summer for months. It made the hard times bearable.
But she wouldn’t say those words, couldn’t say them. No one had ever accused Mary Moen of being selfish. “Of course not.” Now she studied her hands. If she looked at him, he would see the lie in her eyes.

A bee buzzed by and landed on the lilac that had yet to open its blossoms.

Will cleared his throat. “I . . . I want you to know that I love you. I’ve wanted to tell you that for years, and I promised I would wait until we—” His voice broke. He sighed. “Aw, Mary, this isn’t the way I dreamed it at all.” He crossed the narrow gap separating them and took her hands in his. “I want to marry you, but that will have to wait until I come back. No, that’s not what I wanted to say at all.” He dropped her hands and leaned against the post above her. “What I mean is—”

“I don’t care what you mean, Will, darling. I will be here waiting for you, so you keep that in your mind. I will write to you every day and mail the letters once a week, if I can wait that long.” She grasped the front of his shirt with both hands. “And you will come back to me, Mr. Will Dunfey. You will come back.” She lifted her face to his for the loss she had dreamed of in the many lonely nights away at school.

His lips felt warm and soft and unbearably sweet. She could feel the tears pooling at the back of her throat.
Dear God, please bring him home again. Watch over him for me.

“We will all be praying for you,” she murmured against his mouth. “I love you. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“I won’t.” He kissed her again. When he stepped back, he clasped her shoulders in his strong hands. “I’ll see you tonight?”

She nodded. “Come for supper.”

She watched him leap off the porch and trot down the walk to the gate. When the gate swung shut, the squeal of it grated on Mary’s ears. It sounded like an animal in pain. Maybe it was her.

“Did he say when he was leaving?” Ingeborg asked when Mary finally returned to the kitchen.

Mary shook her head. “And I forgot to ask.” She slapped the palms of her hands on the counter. “It’s . . . it’s just not fair.”

“Much of life isn’t.”

“But why should our young men go fight a war in Europe?” She raised a hand. “I know, Mother. I read the newspapers, too. Some want us to be at the front and some want us to pretend it’s not there. I just never thought we would be affected so soon. Are others of our boys already signed up, too?”

Ingeborg shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“Then why Will?”

“Now that he has, others will follow. He’s always been a leader of the young men—you know that.”

“But I had such dreams for this summer—and next year . . .” Her voice dwindled. “And for the years after that.”

“No need to give up the dreams.” Ingeborg watched her beloved daughter wrestling with forces against which she had no power. “But . . . but what if . . .”

The ticking clock sounded loud in the silence. Ashes crumbled in the freshly blacked cast-iron range.

Mary lifted tear-filled eyes and looked directly at her mother. “What if he doesn’t come back?”

“Then with God’s strength and blessing you go on with your life, always remembering Will with fondness and pride.” Ingeborg crossed to her daughter. “You would not be the only woman in the country with such a burden to bear. Or the world, for that matter. Perhaps if our boys get in and get the job done, there won’t be so many women longing for husbands, lovers, and sons.”

“How will I do this?” Mary whispered.

“By the grace of God and by keeping busy making life better for others. That is how women always get through the hard parts of life.”

Mary looked up at her mother, wondering as always at the quiet wisdom Ingeborg lived. Her mother didn’t say things like that lightly. She who so often sat beside the dying in the wee hours of the morning had been there herself when one child was stillborn and another died in infancy. Mary put her arms around her mother’s waist and pillowed her cheek on the familiar shoulder. “Oh, Mor, I’ve missed you more than words could say.”

Ingeborg patted her daughter’s back. “God always provides, child, remember that.”

After supper that night, Mary and Will strolled down the street in the sweet evening air. They’d talked of many things by the time they returned to her front fence, but one question she had not been able to utter. Finally she blurted it out.

“When will you be leaving?”

“Next week, on Monday.”

“But this is already Thursday.”

“I know.”

Mary swallowed all the words that demanded speech. “Oh.” Did a heart shatter and fall in pieces, or did it just seem so?

Would her heart never quit bleeding? Mary stood waving long after the train left. Will had hung half out the side to see her as long as he could. The memory of the sun glinting off his hair and him waving his cap would have to last her a good long time. She had managed to send him off with a smile. She’d promised herself the night before that she would do that. No tears, only smiles.

“We are all praying for him,” a familiar voice said from behind her.

“Mrs. Norgaard, how good of you to come.” Mary wiped her eyes before turning around. She sniffed and forced a smile to her face.

“He’s been one of my boys for more years than I care to count,” Mrs. Norgaard said with a thump of her cane. “And I’ll be right here waiting when he returns, too.” A tear slid down the parchment cheek from under the black veil of her hat. With her back as ramrod straight as ever, Mrs. Norgaard refused to give in to the ravages of time, albeit her step had slowed and spectacles now perched on her straight nose.

“Now, then, we can stand here sniveling or we can get to doing something worthwhile. I know you were praying for him as I was, and we will continue to do that on a daily, or hourly if need be, basis. God only knows what’s in store for our boy, but we will keep reminding our Father to be on the lookout.” She stepped forward and, hooking her cane over her own arm, slid her other into Mary’s. “Mrs. Hanson has coffee and some kind of special treat for all of us, so let us not keep her waiting.”

And with that the Moens, Dag and Clara, the doctor and his wife, and several others found themselves back at “the mansion,” enjoying a repast much as if they’d just come for a party. With everyone asking her about school and life in Fargo, Mary felt her heart lighten. If she’d done what she planned, she’d have been home flat out across her bed, crying till she dried up.

Dr. Harmon came up to her, tucking a last bite of frosted cake into his mouth. Crumbs caught on his mustache, and he brushed them away with a nonchalant finger. “So, missy, what are you planning for the summer?”

“I was planning on picnics with Will, helping my mother with the canning and garden, and going riding with Will.”

Doc nodded his balding head. “That so.” He continued to nod. “I ‘spect that’s changed somewhat.” The twinkle in his eye let her know he understood how she felt. “You given thought to anything else?”

Mary looked at him, her head cocked slightly sideways. “All right, let’s have it. I’ve seen that look on your face too many times through the years to think you are just being polite.”

“He’s never been ‘just polite’ in his entire life.” Gudrun Norgaard said from her chair off to the side. “What is it, Harmon? Is there something going on I don’t know about?”

“How could that be? You got your nose into more business than a hive’s got bees.”

“Be that as it may, what are you up to?” Mrs. Norgaard crossed her age-spotted hands over the carved head of her cane. Dag had made the cane for her the year her husband died, when she hadn’t much cared if she’d lived either.

“I think the two of you are cooking something up again.” Clara Weinlander, wife of Dag and mother of their three children, stopped beside her benefactress’s chair. “I know that look.”

Doc attempted an injured air but stopped when he saw the knowing smile lifting the corners of Gudrun’s narrow lips. “All right,” he said to the older woman. “You know the Oiens?”

“Of course, that new family that moved into the Erickson property. He works for the railroad, I believe. And she has some kind of health problem—ah, that’s it.” Gudrun nodded as she spoke. “A good idea, Harmon.”

Mary looked from one to the other as if a spectator at that new sport she’d seen at school. Even the women played tennis—well, not her, but those who had a superfluous amount of time and money.

Clara came around to Mary and slipped an arm through hers. “Why do I get the feeling they are messing with someone else’s life again?”

“It never did you any harm, did it?” Doc rocked back on his heels, glancing over to where Dag, owner of the local livery and blacksmith, now stood talking with the Reverend Moen. Sunlight from the bay window set both their faces in shadow, but the deep laugh could only come from Dag.

“No, that it didn’t.” Clara agreed. It had taken her a long time to get Dag to laugh so freely. “So, what do you have planned for Mary here?”

“I thought since she didn’t have a position for the summer, she might be willing to help the Oiens care for their children. There are two of them: a boy, four, and the girl, two. And perhaps she could do some fetching for the missus. Mrs. Oien resists the idea of needing help, but I know this would be a big load off her mind.”

“What is wrong with her?” Mary asked.

“I just wish I knew. She keeps getting weaker, though she has some good days. You think you could help them out?”

“I’ll gladly do what I can.”

“I figured as much. After all, you are your mother’s daughter.” Doc Harmon gave her a nod of approbation. “I’ll talk with them tomorrow.”

That night Mary wrote her first letter to Will, telling him about the party at the mansion and how it looked like she would be very busy that summer after all. As her letter lengthened, she thought of him on the train traveling east. Hoping he was thinking of her as she was him, she went to stand at her window.

“Look up to the Big Dipper every night,” he’d said, “and think of me standing right on that handle, waving to you.”

Mary closed her eyes against the tears that blurred the stars above. “Oh, God, keep him safe, please, and thank You.” She looked out again, and the heavens seemed brighter, especially the star right at the end of the dipper handle.

Each morning she greeted the day with, “Thank You for the day, Lord, and thank You that You are watching over Will.” After that, she was usually too busy to think.

The Erickson house sported a new coat of white paint, and the yard had not only been trimmed, but the flower beds along the walk were all dug, ready for planting the annuals now that the likelihood of a last frost was past.

I could do that for them,
Mary thought as she lingered so as to arrive at the time Doc Harmon had set.
After all, two little children won’t take all my time. And Mrs. Norgaard said a woman came to clean and do some of the cooking. I know Clarissa will come help me if I need it.
Clarissa was her younger sister, after Grace. With six kids in their family, there was always someone to help out, even with all the work they did around home.

The two cars arrived at nearly the same time. The man getting out of the first wore a black wool coat as if it were still winter. A homburg hat covered hair the color of oak bark and shaded dark eyes that seemed to have lost all their life. His smile barely touched his mouth, let alone his eyes. Tall and lean, he stooped some, as if the load he bore was getting far too heavy.

Dr. Harmon crossed the grass to take Mary’s arm and guide her to meet her host. “Kenneth Oien, I want you to meet Mary Moen, the young woman who has agreed to help you for the summer.” As the introductions were completed, Mary studied the man from under her eyelashes. Always one to bring home the stray and injured—both animals and people—Mary recognized pain when she saw it.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice. As the doctor might have told you, my wife, Elizabeth, has not wanted to have help with the children. I finally prevailed upon her to let me hire a woman to clean and do some of the cooking. I’m hoping you can make her days a bit easier. She frets so.”

“I hope so, too.”

“I . . . I haven’t told her you were coming.”

Mary shot a questioning look at the doctor, who just happened to be studying the leaves in the tree above.
I thought this was all set up. What if she hates me?

“Perhaps you could just meet her and visit awhile, then come back tomorrow after I see how she responds?”

“Of course,” Mary answered, still trying to catch the good doctor’s attention.

“I’d best be going then—got a woman about to deliver out west aways.” Doc tipped his hat. “Nice seeing you, Kenneth, Mary.” He scooted off to his automobile before Mary could get in a word edgewise.

Mr. Oien ushered Mary into the front room of the two-story square home. “Elizabeth, I brought you company.”

“Back here,” the call came from a room that faced north and in most houses like this one was a bedroom. A child’s giggle broke the stillness, followed by another.

When they entered the room, the little ones were playing on a bench at the foot of the bed where Elizabeth lay.

“I’m sorry, Kenneth, I was so weak, I had to come back to bed before I fell over.”

“Did you eat something?”

She shook her head.

“Have the children eaten?”

“We ate, Papa.” The little boy lifted his head from playing with the Sears catalog.

The little girl scooted around the bed and peeped over the far side.

“Elizabeth, Jenny, and Joey, I brought you some company. This is Mary Moen, just returned from college where she is studying to be a teacher.”

Elizabeth smoothed her hair back with a white hand. “I . . . I wasn’t expecting company. Please forgive me for . . . for—” She made a general gesture at her dishevelment and the toys spread about the room.

“I’m sorry, but I have to get back to my job. There is no one else there, you see, and I—” Mr. Oien dropped a kiss on his wife’s forehead, waved to the children, and vanished out the door.

Mary heard the front door close behind him. So much for that source of help. She looked around for a chair to draw up to the bed. None. The little girl, Jenny, peered at her from across the bed, nose buried in the covers so all Mary could see was round brown eyes and uncombed, curly hair.

“Jenny don’t like strangers,” Joey announced from his place on the bench.

“I’m sorry, Miss Moen, I—” Elizabeth sighed. “I know Kenneth is trying to help, but he so often doesn’t know how.” She shook her head. “But then who would?”

“Sometimes talking to another woman helps.” Mary came closer to the bed. “Doctor said you have a woman who comes in to clean.”

“She is nice enough, a good worker, but she speaks Norwegian, and I don’t. My grandmother came from Sweden and Kenneth’s grandparents from Norway. He only knows the table grace and a few phrases. Dear God, I don’t know what we are going to do.”

Mary nodded. “Well, I know what I am going to do. I didn’t come here just to visit. I came to help, and you and I will do much better if we are honest up front. Dr. Harmon and Mrs. Norgaard have a habit of fixing things in people’s lives, and they decided I could help you and that way I would be too busy this summer to miss my Will, who left on the train three days ago to fight the Germans.”

She felt a thrill at saying the words
my Will
out loud. In the secret places of her heart, he’d been her Will since she was ten and he stuck up for her the first time. She looked around the room again. “How about if I move a chair in here for you to sit in while I fix your hair? Then you can hold Jenny while I brush hers.”

“I combed my own hair.” Still Joey didn’t look up. Though he just kept turning the pages of the catalog, he was obviously keeping track of the conversation.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Elizabeth asked, the ray of hope peeping from her eyes belying the words.

“Ja, I am sure.”

By noon when Kenneth came home for dinner, his wife had a smile on her face, Jenny wore a ribbon in her hair, and Joey had helped set the table. Mary took the chicken and dumplings from the stove and set the pot in the middle of the table.

“My land, why I . . . I . . .” He clasped his wife’s hand and sat down beside her at the table.

“Thank you, Kenneth. You brought us a miracle worker.”

“Mary said—” Joey slid into his place.

“Miss Moen,” his father corrected him.

“Oh.” A frown creased his forehead. “She said her name was Mary.”

Mary set a platter of sliced bread next to the stew pot. “Okay, we can all say grace and then eat. How’s that?” She took the chair closest to the food, just as her mother had always done, so she could serve.

“Mary, you are indeed an answer to prayer,” Elizabeth said, extending her hand when Mary was ready to leave for home.

“You want me to come back then?”

“With all my heart.”

Mary thought about the Oien family as she walked home in the late afternoon. Mr. Larson, the banker, tipped his hat as he passed her on the way home. Mrs. Johnson called hello from the door of the general store, and Miss Mabel waved from behind her display of hats in the ladies’ shoppe. How good it felt to be home, where she knew everyone and everyone knew her.

That night around the supper table, Knute, the oldest of the Moen boys, announced, “I want to enlist like Will did, before there ain’t no more Germans to fight.”

Mary’s heart sprung a new crack. Not her brother, too.