I Shall Be Near to You (5 page)

I said, ‘Violetta so we could be a bunch of flowers,’ and she laughed and laughed so hard there wasn’t no sound.

Finally she said, ‘Thank the Lord I didn’t up and die, or this poor child! I was thinking Elisabeth Violet.’

Anyone could see she wasn’t thinking about it. It was done and she used both our names and made something better.

‘Rosetta,’ Mama said. ‘You bring Elisabeth Violet here.’

I opened my mouth to say I ain’t never held no baby before and I don’t much want to, but Mama’s face was turned away and Papa was sitting on the bed holding her hand so I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

The oaken crib was pushed along the wall on Mama’s side of the bed. It was the one Papa made for me and I must’ve looked like that in it, so small and flower-petal white, the veins showing through. The baby—Elisabeth—she was all swaddled up. I put my hands around the bundle and I didn’t know how tight I could hold, thinking of pumpkins and overripe tomatoes and what they do when someone drops them. I moved my hands and petted the peach fuzz of her head with its soft spot like a fruit bruise.

I didn’t know Papa was coming until he rested his hand on the back of my neck.

‘Here, Rosetta. You put your hand here and your other one here,’ and he slid one red chapped callused hand under her head and one under the middle of her bundle. I thought then that I was getting out of picking her up, but he took his hands away and said, ‘Now you try.’

I held her, thinking of the time I broke Mama’s special china teacup and feeling scared what would happen if I dropped this, the only sister I’ve ever had, if it would be like that baby bird all skin and dark lids and what happened when it fell out of its nest. I couldn’t get to Mama’s bed fast or slow enough and when Mama reached her hands out over her special wedding ring quilt for the baby, I had to sit because I made it without dropping my baby sister.

‘No,’ I say to Betsy now. But I can’t find my tongue to tell her the rest. I don’t tell her how babies are too delicate, how I am scared of having one after watching Mama labor over our dead brothers or how I can’t see myself raising a child with Jeremiah’s Ma hovering over me and Jeremiah gone and never seeing it, not even once. I don’t want a baby to remind me of Jeremiah, I just want him. I don’t tell her how I’ve come to ask Papa
something, so maybe after Jeremiah leaves I won’t have to stay at Wakefield farm, lonely in that house by myself.

Betsy says, ‘Oh. I thought maybe …’

‘No,’ I say. ‘That can wait for Jeremiah to come back.’

I take up those jars Mama pulled down for me.

‘When are you going to come visit again?’ she asks.

‘Soon, maybe. But I’ll see you at church,’ I say, and am out the door before she can ask me any more questions.

I button my coat against the cold wind. Inside the barn the smell of cow is thick on the air because they ain’t been out to pasture since the last storm. Papa is dumping a bucket of water from the barn well into the tie-up trough, water sloshing down his pant leg and bits of hay sticking to his hair and clothes.

After he gives me a hug, he says, ‘You look happy. Jeremiah being a good husband?’

I nod and wonder if Papa will think I am happy or that Jeremiah is a good husband once he hears what I am asking.

Papa says, ‘The farm misses you.’

‘I miss it too,’ I say, and start to tell Papa that I aim to keep on helping him.

But before I can say a word, Papa says, ‘I talked Isaac Lewis into being my farmhand now you’ve gone and grown up.’

Papa has to think about the farm and can’t see any other way, but it smarts to hear he has filled my shoes already. I hug those canning jars to my chest and say, ‘We aim to have our own farm someday, me and Jeremiah.’

Papa gives me his sad smile and says, ‘I know you do. You’ve always been a farmer at heart. But I bet about now you’ve got a husband getting hungry at home.’

I hear how I am dismissed, so I just say, ‘Good-bye, Papa,’ and show myself out. I walk down the lane and along the road where the snow ain’t so deep and look over my shoulder to the hill where all my baby brothers are buried.

I can still see Papa there, the last time he took his shovel, me watching
from the kitchen window, him stabbing the earth over and over, his back turned to the house. Betsy, she was in with Mama, both of them quiet like snow falling. There was that world out there and another world in Mama’s room and then there was me staring out the window.

I didn’t know my mind was made up to help him until my hand was on the door handle and the bitter wind was pulling at my hair. The chickens cackled as if there weren’t nothing different about today than any other day. Except for Papa on the hill again.

In the barn the cows were waiting, lowing because they had full udders. When I went through the tie-up and opened the lean-to door, the horses nickered their sweet talk to me, hoping on getting some breakfast.

‘You just have to wait some more,’ I said to them. ‘Like we all have to wait sometimes for nothing. Or for nothing good.’

Papa took the best shovel so I clattered around the lean- to looking for the other one. I found it, my hand on the splintery handle, and took it up that hill, tripping over the frozen mud.

At first there was only the metal punch of the shovel and Papa grunting. But the closer I got, the more it sounded like talking and then I had to stop because of the words he was saying and I heard how he didn’t want no audience, not for anything in the world. Not with the things he was saying.

‘God. Damn. You.’ After every word, the shovel pounded the ground. ‘Why can’t you keep to yourself! And what kind of God would? What kind of God, damn it! Taking all my sons! All my sons! Leaving me nothing but daughters!’

I should’ve stayed looking out that window. My heart was near to breaking, but that made me freeze right through. I listened too long and then I left Papa on that hill and took my shovel back to the lean-to. In the barn the horses and the cows were all waiting the same as before.

I threw down enough hay to keep them still and got to work milking. My head against warm cow flank, short hair drying my wet face. The metal pail rang with hot milk and the long scruffy barn cat came running, winding himself around my legs, hoping for the first squirts but we all hope for things we don’t get.

When I finished the first cow I dragged my stool to the next. The cat
came too; he just wouldn’t give up but I wouldn’t give in neither, not even when he bit my leg through Papa’s old work pants. I kicked that cat but he kept coming back for more, and I wondered how he could be so stupid to keep trying the same thing.

I milked every last cow, trying to forget everything but the hair smoothing my cheek, the rubbery teats in my hand, the cat twining my legs.

But I ain’t ever forgotten. All I can think is the hard work I’ve done and how it’s never enough. Not ever.

I
SPEND THE
last few days with Jeremiah organizing and packing things for him while he works the farm with his brothers. The last night we practice one more time in the big bed. Feeling Jeremiah’s seed spilling from me, I think maybe Betsy was right, maybe I should have thought more about getting a baby on me, on having something of Jeremiah’s to keep while he’s gone, but it’s too late for that now, the moon only a sliver in the sky.

In the morning, I wake to Jeremiah getting out of bed to stoke the fire. Watching his back as he leaves our room, I swallow back the tears.

When he comes back, he holds out a thin parcel, folded in his Mama’s parchment paper and tied with a blue grosgrain ribbon.

‘What’s this?’ I ask, sitting up, gathering the quilt to my chest.

‘Open it,’ he says.

I undo the ribbon and as Jeremiah looks on, I tie my hair back with it, all the time watching him, memorizing the lines of his face.

‘You are the slowest,’ he says, shaking his head at me.

I carefully unfold the parchment. The packet inside reads
The United States and Territories
. I wonder how Jeremiah can smile like that.

‘It’s a map. So you can follow where I am.’ He taps the word
Territories
with his finger. ‘And remember where we’re going.’

It is nice, but I can’t get any words out and that is what does it then. I reach to put that map on the bedside table, so Jeremiah won’t see the tears get to welling, but I don’t hide it good enough.

‘Let’s forget all about everything. Make our last morning nice.’ And then he leans across the bed to kiss me.

‘You can’t leave yet,’ I say, and pull him to me, kissing him until his breath comes fast.

‘I’ve got to chop some more wood,’ he says, breaking away.

‘You ain’t got to do that.’

‘I want you to be provisioned,’ he says.

‘There’s other things I can’t do by myself …’

‘I won’t be easy if that woodbox ain’t full,’ he says, sliding away from me.

‘Then I’ll come help—’

‘No, you stay here,’ he says. ‘Get a nice supper on … and then maybe …’ He opens his mouth like there is more he wants to say, but he turns around quick and heads for the door.

W
HEN I STOP
hearing the ax, I start supper like a good wife does, setting the table with our two plates and the gingham napkins from my hope chest, laying out the big spoons, buttering thick slices of bread. I’ve just got the pea soup boiling when the door bangs.

I say, ‘Oh, but it’s not ready yet!’

Only when I turn around, it ain’t Jeremiah standing there, it’s Timmy O’Malley, the littlest one, holding another folded paper out at me.

‘From Jeremiah,’ he says, and then he runs out the door before I can even ask a thing.

My hands shake, unfolding that paper. It is crisp and white as laundry from the line. Inside is Jeremiah’s bad penmanship that schooling ain’t never made nice. That writing makes me want to take my pea soup and scald him with it, throw the whole pot at his head.

February 19, 1862

Dear Mrs. Wakefield
,

I am writing this letter as your Husband, and that is something Good. It don’t mean a thing is different about my Feelings that I am setting off without you knowing, or seeing you one more time and telling you all my Thoughts. You will cry to Hear them said so that is why I am Going this way, so I can Make myself Leave without causing you any more Pain
.

I always knew you were someone Brave, the way you didn’t take Nothing from no one. And every time we talked about Farming, and Nebraska, I saw you weren’t scared about going. There ain’t another Girl who would Do for me. That is how I know that you will hold up while I am gone, because you are Strong, Mrs. Stone
.

It’s no easy thing, Parting, but it helps thinking of you in our house with all our People close, taken care of and Safe. We will have Our Farm when I am back. It is only because of what I want for us Together that I do this. It will be but a short while I am Gone and I’ll send you letters all that time
.

Already I am missing you
.

Your Faithful Servant and Loving Husband
,

Jeremiah Wakefield

He thought real hard, wrote nice things in that letter, but I can only think about how he has gone and I ain’t said good-bye, not really. I run to the lean- to and see what I ain’t seen before, how he must’ve moved his pack when he went out to the privy this morning. Seeing that empty space, I sink down to the floor. Days ago, I snuck up behind Jeremiah and wrapped my arms around him the moment the ax came down on the stump. But now, when I heft logs from the stack Jeremiah left me, I’ll think of how the wood split in two.

N
EAR TWILIGHT
I
get up and go to the washbasin in our room. Next to the pitcher, tucked under my brush, there is a folded-up piece of paper. Inside it says
I love you, Stone Lady
. I throw that paper down on the ground, but there’s a sweetness in what he’s done. I will be like that name he gave me. I won’t stay mad, but I will be strong, I can make this place my home, even without him. I can wait here for him.

Back in the kitchen, I eat my supper at the table, across from his empty place. I wash dishes and make everything clean so no one can say I ain’t doing my wifely duties. When there is nothing else, no other chores, I straighten our bed one more time. I go to the chest of drawers and take out a work shirt Jeremiah left, burying my nose into it. I lie down, holding that shirt, feeling how we will be together again because he has been bound to me almost since the first I knew of him.

And then I see the map, still on the bedside stand. I sit on the edge of the bed and unfold it carefully. Jeremiah has made a heart at Flat Creek and a star at Herkimer. But in the Nebraska Territory he has written,
I shall always be near to you
.

CHAPTER
4

WAKEFIELD FARM: FEBRUARY 1862

All night I play over one memory from the Summer. I was standing at the barn well, my back to the field, working to fill the jug with water because Mama’s lemonade don’t last longer than a lightning bug’s flash. The buckets for the horses were already as full as I dared make them, if I wanted to make one trip. But then there were legs swishing through the rye grass behind me.

‘I came to see if you needed help,’ Jeremiah said.

‘That bucket is ready for taking,’ I said, nodding at it sitting at the base of the pump.

He came round to take the bucket while I kept pumping.

‘I’m almost done, but the horses’ll be thirsty in this heat,’ I said.

‘This one’ll hold a little more,’ he said, looking me full in the face before he bent to move the jug and put the bucket under the spigot. I slowed my pumping so as to waste less water, my breath coming hard from the work or the heat or both. The warm wind coming off our hill blew loose
hair from my braid into my face where it stuck to my sweat-damp skin, working its way into my mouth. When he’d got the bucket set, he went back to watching me. I didn’t know what he was staring at until he reached for my face and trailed a work-rough dry finger down my cheek, pulling the hair loose. I was still sweating and my face got hotter, but my arms turned goosefleshy and there weren’t a thing I could do to hide it.