Robin Lee Hatcher - [Coming to America 02] (17 page)

She heard the murmur of men’s voices from behind her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Didn’t care
what they were saying as she began to remove her husband’s damp and ice-covered clothing.

“Wake up. Look at me,
kära du.
You must look at me.”

I cannot lose him, God. He is my world. He is my everything. Do not take his life. Take me instead. Take anything I have. Anything! But do not take Dirk. Please save him. I will never ask for anything else if only you will spare his life. Please, oh please, spare his life.

When the last of his clothes had been tossed into a heap, she wrapped Dirk in several blankets, then resumed rubbing his hands and arms, feet and legs, attempting to bring warmth back to his limbs. Her father tried once to tell her to rest, to let him tend to her husband, but Inga refused his help. Dirk needed her, she insisted, and nothing would take her from his side. When he opened his eyes, she was going to be there. She was going to be the first person he saw.

In a voice so low only Dirk—if he were conscious—could have heard, she told him she loved him. She told him he was going to be a pappa. She commanded him to live. “We need you to live, Dirk,” she whispered, unaware of the tears streaking her cheeks. “Martha and Suzanne and the baby and me. We need you to live. Do not leave us this way. Not now. Not this way. On my word, I will never hold you to me or to this farm, but do not die. Just do not die.”

Dear Father, I will never ask for another thing if only you will spare him. I will not ask that he learn to love me. I will not ask that he forget his dreams and choose to stay with us. I will let him live the life he chooses without complaint. I swear it. Dear God, I swear it.

Gentle hands held her shoulders. Her mamma’s voice said, “Inga, come with me.”

She glanced up, surprised to find she wasn’t imagining it. Her mamma was there. So was Dr. Swenson.

“Come, Inga. Let the doctor tend to your husband.”

“But I—”

“Come with me, dearest. You are exhausted.”

“He cannot die.” Her throat hurt. “He cannot die. Do not let him die.”

“No. Of course not. Shh.” Bernadotte pulled her close in a tight embrace. “Of course not.”

“I love him so very much.”

“Of course you do.”

But her mamma didn’t understand. Couldn’t possibly understand. “I wanted too much,” she confessed. “I wanted too much.”

“What are you saying, darling? You are distraught. Come and lie down. You will feel better soon.”

Let him live, God, and I promise not to want for more than what I have. I promise.

The apartment that was to be Mr. and Mrs. Karl Gustav’s home was a cold-water, third-story walk-up with two rooms. For furniture, there were two leather-seated ladder-back chairs, a small table with one uneven leg, and an even lumpier looking mattress than the one Thea had slept on at the rooming house. But they had been searching for hours, and this was the best they had found for the price they could pay.

Perhaps the place wouldn’t have seemed so dismal to Thea if her wedding hadn’t also been a disappointment. They had taken their vows in front of a dour-faced justice of the peace who, obviously, couldn’t have cared less about the young couple before him. There had been no gifts, no food, no music and dancing. There had been no one there to bless them and wish them well. No friends. No family. Just Thea and Karl.

Why had it seemed so romantic when she had imagined it all in her mind? Instead of romantic, it had felt rushed and shoddy and a little bit shameful.

Still, she reminded herself, she was married to Karl. That was all she had thought about for more than a year. He was going to make her happy.

After their landlady left, clutching the first week’s rent in her filthy hands, Karl shut the door and turned toward his bride. “We will find something better as soon as I am working at the factory.”

She nodded.

“I love you, Thea.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I love you, Karl.”

He moved toward her. “Are you afraid?”

“Nej,”
she lied, while trying not to cry.

Vilhelm’s body was found the next morning, five miles downriver from the place of the accident. No one had expected to find him alive after a night in the subfreezing weather, but his death still came as a shock to his family and friends.

Gunda—bright, flirtatious, pretty Gunda—suffered from severe frostbite in her left leg. Dr. Swenson insisted Reverend and Mrs. Linberg take their daughter immediately to a surgeon he knew in Minneapolis, for he suspected amputation was the only course open if they were to save her life.

Dirk continued to lie unconscious in his bed.
Pneumonia,
the doctor had said as he’d listened to his patient’s labored breathing two days after the accident. One look at the doctor’s face had told Inga he didn’t expect her husband to survive.

But she swore she would prove him wrong. She wouldn’t let Dirk die. No matter what it took, no matter what she had to do, Dirk Bridger was going to live.

With Sven Gerhard’s help, Inga managed to keep the cows fed and milked. Frida Gerhard, Sven’s wife, kept an eye on the children, and women from the Prärieblomman Lutheran
Church brought food dishes out to the farm. Inga ate little and slept even less. Hour by hour, day after day, she sat beside her husband’s bed and willed him to live, for she would accept nothing less.

Miraculously, she didn’t have to.

On the fifth day after the accident, Dirk opened his eyes and met her worried gaze. Her heart nearly stopped as she leaned forward, clutching his left hand between both of hers. Tears welled in her eyes, and a lump formed in her throat.

“Gunda?” he whispered after a long while.

Inga nodded. “She will be okay. Do not worry.”

He sighed as his eyes drifted closed. “Good.”

He slept again, but it was a different sleep, a more restful sleep. Inga could hear and feel the difference.

With a prayer of thanksgiving in her heart, she lay down beside him on the bed, closed her eyes, and slept in peace.

Dirk was going to live.

D
irk was a lousy patient.

Inga was an unyielding nurse.

“Look at you,” he groused. “You’re workin’ your fingers to the bone. It’s time I was outta bed and doing my part.” He threw aside the covers.

Inga pulled them back to his waist. “You will do no such thing, Dirk Bridger. The doctor said you must stay in bed another week, and that is exactly what you will do.”

He scowled at her.

She scowled right back, hands on her hips, her chin thrust forward.

“Your pa was right. You’re darn stubborn.”

“Pappa would never say such a thing.”

“That you’re stubborn? Well, he—”

“Nej,
the other word. Pappa does not use coarse language.”

“Coarse? You call that coarse?” Dirk groaned in frustration. “This is why men don’t want t’get married. Women like you drive ’em crazy.”

“A woman who would want to marry a man like you is already crazy,” she retorted. She grabbed his empty lunch tray from the bed stand and marched out of the room.

For such a slender slip of a thing, she was mighty formidable. Stubborn woman.

His anger vanished, and he laughed out loud.

Then he sighed as he sank against the pillows at his back. The truth was, he
didn’t
have the strength to get out of bed yet, and he knew it. Just arguing with her had left him drained and weary. But he’d meant what he’d said about Inga. She looked near sick herself. She constantly insisted she was getting plenty of help from their neighbors and the women of the church. Still, Dirk knew she was doing far too much. Weariness shadowed her eyes, and her cheeks had a drawn, hollow appearance.

He glanced toward the window where sunlight filtered through the curtains. March winds rattled the panes of glass and whistled around the corners of the house. It was still cold outside, but spring was coming fast. He had a couple of cows due to calf by the end of March. He needed to be up and about before that happened, because he sure couldn’t count on them calving in the middle of the day when Sven might be there. There was equipment to be repaired before the first hay crop could be harvested. While June seemed a long way off, Dirk knew it really wasn’t. Time had a way of running out, like flour through a sieve.

He heard the thunder of children’s footsteps moments before Martha and Suzanne scampered into his bedroom.

“You awake?” Martha asked, even though she could see he was sitting up in bed.

He grinned. “I’m awake.”

“Good. Look what we brought you.” She handed him a piece of paper upon which was written,
Get well, Uncle Dirk.
The writing was Martha’s. The squiggly lines below it were obviously the work of Suzanne.

“Thanks,” he said. “I intend to.”

“Saturday’s your birthday. You gonna be up for your birthday?”

“Why? You plannin’ a party or somethin’?”

Martha’s eyes widened. “How’d you hear about it?” She glared at her sister. “Did you tell?”

Suzanne shook her head.

“Betcha did.”

Before the littlest one could burst into tears, Dirk said, “No one told me anything. I guessed.” Actually, he hadn’t known until Martha gave it away, but he was smart enough not to say so. “Let’s keep this between us. Okay?”

“Okay.” Martha wagged a finger at Suzanne. “You don’t tell. Okay?”

““kay.”

“You promise?”

“I promise, Martha.” Suzanne looked at her uncle and shook her head. “I won’t tell.”

Dirk suspected she didn’t have a clue what she wasn’t supposed to be telling.

Inga’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Martha? Are you and Suzanne upstairs?”

“They’re with me,” Dirk called back.

Her footsteps were much slower than the children’s had been. He could see her in his mind, one hand on the rail, the other resting on her thigh as she climbed the stairs for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

A short while later, she paused in the doorway. “I told you to only stay a moment,” she gently chided the girls.

“We’re sorry,” Martha replied.

Dirk patted his niece on the head while looking at Inga. “No, don’t be sorry. I liked havin’ the company.”

“But Dr. Swenson said you must rest,” his wife insisted.

He was sorry he’d argued with her. She had enough problems without him causing her more.

“You must sleep, Dirk. Please.”

He remembered thinking her name just before the river swallowed him. He’d been about to die, and his last thought had been of Inga. Strange. He couldn’t remember what life on this farm had been like without her.

“Come along, girls.” Inga motioned to them. “Downstairs now.”

“But—”

“Now, Martha.”

“Oh, all right,” his eldest niece grumbled.

Dirk watched them go, all the while wondering,
What would it be like without her?

He didn’t think he wanted to know.

“Thank you, Mr. Hansen,” Inga called as her husband’s friend mounted his saddle horse.

“You get some rest, now,” Erik called to her.

She nodded, thinking he sounded like Dirk, then stepped inside the house and closed the door. She looked at the letters Erik had brought from town, along with another casserole and a pie from his wife. One letter was from her mamma. She recognized the pretty handwriting. The other envelope didn’t say who it was from. She hoped it was a reply from that woman in Kentucky.

Inga sat down at the kitchen table and opened her mamma’s letter first.

Dear Inga and family,

I hope this letter finds Dirk well on the road to recovery. Dr. Swenson sent us word that our prayers were answered and he has awakened. We thank God daily for it. As you probably have heard, Dr. Nessle found it necessary to amputate Gunda’s left leg below the knee. He
feared for a time she might also lose toes from her right foot, or worse, the foot itself, but it seems now that such will not be necessary. We are very grateful she is alive. We could so easily have lost her as the Dolks lost Vilhelm.

Gunda’s spirits are sometimes good and sometimes very low. Her pappa spends many hours in prayer for her. We hope to return to Uppsala by the end of the month, but we have sent for Astrid and Kirsten to join us here in Minneapolis so that we might all be together until Gunda is able to travel. I wish you were with us, too.

Has there been any word from Thea? Please write to us soon in care of the hotel.

Love, Mamma

“Poor Gunda,” Inga whispered as she wiped tears from her eyes. “Poor Mamma.”

She opened the second letter.

My dear friend,
it began.

Her eyes scanned to the bottom of the paper. “Mary!” she whispered in surprise.

It is sorry I am not to have written all of these months, even though I was thankful for the letters I received from you and Beth. It is only now I find myself able to write about what happened after you left for Iowa.

Seamus died in a coal mining accident in West Virginia before he knew I was in America. His son, Keary, was born before his time had come, and I feared I would lose him, too. But he is doing well now and is the brightest, most handsome babe you have ever seen.

We are living on the Lower East Side with the Dougals, a nice Irish family, and I recently found employment with a fine gentleman and his wife who have a
grand house on Madison Avenue. I am beginning, at last, to feel there is hope for our future. For so very long, I had lost heart.

I will write again soon.

Yours very truly,

Mary Emeline Malone

Inga laid the letter on the table. “Oh, Mary. So this is why I have not heard from you before now.”

She placed the palm of her hand on her flat stomach as her gaze lifted toward the ceiling. Mary had lost Seamus before her baby was born, before he had even known he would be a father. The same could so easily have happened to Inga. Dirk had nearly died in that river, then again from pneumonia.

“How did Mary bear it?” she whispered. “I would have wanted to die, too.”

She had a sudden, urgent need to be near Dirk. She refolded both letters, returned them to their envelopes, and stuffed them in the pocket of her apron. Then she hurried upstairs. She found him sleeping. She tiptoed into the room and stared down at him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. It had been difficult to make him follow the doctor’s orders. She would rather have to milk a dozen more cows than argue with him one more time about it.

And
he
called
her
stubborn!

She thought again of Mary and Seamus and little fatherless Keary, felt a tightness in her heart, wished she could lie in Dirk’s arms and pour out her feelings to him. But she had made God a promise. She had sworn an oath that she would never again want for more, never ask for more than what she had, if he would spare Dirk’s life.

She turned away, walked to the window where she looked outside. The winter’s accumulation of snow, no longer a pris
tine white, was melting fast. The barnyard and driveway, as well as the road to town, had become a thick, sucking mixture of mud and muck. Everything within view appeared dismal, shoddy, bleak. A pewter sky, gunmetal gray clouds hiding the sun, only made things seem more bleak.

Weariness overwhelmed her, and she sank onto a nearby chair.

She hadn’t time to sit idle. Sven would be here soon to help with the milking. Then the girls would need their supper. Tomorrow she would need to do laundry, for she hadn’t done it on Monday, as was her custom.

She gave her head a shake, feeling ashamed of herself. She had no right to complain. No right at all.

She was about to rise from the chair when she saw a carriage turning into the drive off the main road. She didn’t recognize the vehicle and couldn’t imagine what would bring someone out to call so late in the day. She certainly hoped it wasn’t another woman from church bringing a casserole.

With a sigh, she went to greet her latest caller.

The coach pulled up to the front of the house just as Inga opened the door and stepped onto the porch. Now that the vehicle was closer, she realized this was no neighbor come calling. The black-and-green carriage was much too fine to belong to anyone around here. The team of matching black horses wore fancy ostrich plumes on the top of their harness, and the driver—a man of color—was dressed in red livery.

“Would this here be the Bridger farm?” he asked as he climbed down from his perch.

She nodded.

He opened the carriage door. “We be here, Miz Keene.”

Mrs. Keene? From Kentucky?

The young woman who emerged was no less elegant than the transportation that had carried her here. She was clad in a
gown of black moiré with a collar of sable and chinchilla furs. Unlike the muddied coach, which bore the evidence of long travel, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of her dressing room.

She glanced up, revealing a pretty, heart-shaped face and large brown eyes. When she saw Inga, she smiled what could only be described as a dazzling smile. “Mrs. Bridger?”

Inga nodded again.

“Thank goodness. I was afraid we’d become lost again. Jack and I have had the devil of a time finding you.” Holding the hem of her traveling dress out of the mud, she approached the porch. Once safely on the first step, she said, “I am Clara Keene. You wrote to me about a horse for your husband’s birthday.”

“Ja,”
Inga answered, “but I did not expect you to come in person.”

Clara laughed. “I’m an impetuous woman, Mrs. Bridger. I simply had to see you for myself.”

“See me? But I—”

“I’ve brought a filly which I believe your husband will approve of.” She motioned behind her.

Inga hadn’t noticed the bay-colored horse tied to the back of the carriage until then.

“This is Orient out of Emerald Seas by King Keene.” There was pride in Clara’s voice. “She’s one of our finest two-year-olds.”

Inga didn’t have to know anything about horses to see that. Everything about the filly, from her intelligent eyes to her long, fine-boned legs, proclaimed her excellent breeding.

She returned her gaze to Clara. “I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding, Mrs. Keene. We could never afford such an animal. I…I only meant to inquire. I never thought—”

“May we go inside?” Clara interrupted. “I am desperately in need of something warm to drink. I do declare, the grayness of this day has seeped right into my very bones.”

“Of course. I am sorry. I should not have kept you standing out here. Please, come in.”

Clara glanced over her shoulder at the driver. “Jack, put the animals up in the barn. See that they’re fed and get a good rubdown.”

“Right away, Miz Keene.”

Clara looked at Inga again. “I don’t suppose you have servants’ quarters? No, of course you don’t. Well, you can send something out to Jack later. He can stay in the barn.” She swept past Inga and entered the house. “My, my. I had no idea it would take us so long to get here from Des Moines. I declare, the train ride from Kentucky was dreadful, but I did so want to arrive before Dirk’s birthday. Otherwise, I would have taken a rest in Des Moines before starting up this way.”

There was little Inga could do except follow her inside.

Clara walked into the living room. She tossed her sable muff onto the sofa as her gaze swept over the small room. “How quaint.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment, and Inga swallowed the impulse to defend her home. “Won’t you please sit down?”

“And you, Mrs. Bridger”—Clara turned to face her—“are not at all what I expected.”

That
didn’t sound like a compliment either. “You wanted something warm to drink, Mrs. Keene. I will bring coffee.” She walked quickly toward the kitchen.

“Oh, do let me join you,” Clara said, following right on Inga’s heels. “Now, you must tell me everything.” Once in the kitchen, she settled onto a chair, reached up and unpinned her fur hat, then placed it on the table with one hand while patting
her dark brown hair with her other hand. “First of all, how is Dirk?”

Someone in town must have told Clara about the accident, Inga thought as she walked to the stove. Still, it irritated her, the way the woman used his first name in such a familiar manner. Things must be done quite differently in Kentucky.
“Mr.
Bridger is much better. The doctor says he will fully recover. Thank you for asking.” But she didn’t want to thank her. She didn’t like her. Was it money, beauty, or both that gave Clara her superior demeanor?