The Brushstroke Legacy (34 page)

She returned with a fully loaded taper and began on the walls. She
would let one of the men do the ceiling. How difficult would it be to get power in? What more would she need? She resolved to ask Ivar while they ate.

“We’re going swimming,” Erika called from the doorway.

Ragni looked up. “Have fun!”

“Be careful,” Myra added.

“Grandma!”

“Gee, that sounded almost like Mo-om.” Ragni intoned the two-syllable word in the proper teen fashion.

The kids left, giggling, and Myra laughed. “You said it right.”

Ragni’s arm had begun to ache when the taper ran out of tape, and she had to go out for more. When she returned, she shook her head in amazement at Myra and Ivar. “You two are something else. This room looks three times bigger than it did before. The floor is beautiful.”

The tan squares of vinyl had faint lines of rust that vaguely resembled the striations of marble. They looked even better than she’d thought they would—she wished she’d bought enough for the two bedrooms, too. She could put those down herself during the week since everything else she’d thought of doing was being done— in one day.

“I think we need another trip to town,” Paul said later while they were eating on the deck of his house.

“Why?” Ragni laid the remains of her hamburger down on a paper plate and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“We didn’t buy paint, flooring for the other rooms, or insulation for the ceiling.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Ivar leaned back in his chair.

“You need a circuit box for inside and a service box for outside. Then you’ll be ready for the power company installers to string you a line. Be easy with the power poles right on the other side of the road. Need one pole and right to the house. Got to keep it high enough for hay or cattle trucks to run under it, not like when Einer put it in years ago.”

So many things to think of
. Ragni dug in her purse for pad and pencil. “I’ll start the list.”

“You’ll need exterior paint for the window trims and doors,” Myra said as she passed the platter with squares of Texas sheet cake fast disappearing from it.

That night, after another trip to Dickinson and another dent in her bank account, she wandered the house alone. Erika was staying overnight with Sarah, her closest friend in this group of cousins, and while Ragni was glad for her niece, she felt surprisingly bereft. She’d thought she would paint, but restlessness itched like a tick caught under the skin.

Ivar and Myra had finished laying the floor in the big room—as she was beginning to call the combination kitchen, dining area, and living room with its beautiful expanse of flooring. The dividing wall was Sheetrocked and taped, ready to texture and paint the next day, as were the bedrooms. Ceilings sagging with water damage were a thing of the past. Electrical outlets in the walls and receptacles in the ceilings were ready for fixtures. She’d bought the plain-Jane variety, not taking the time to choose with aesthetics in mind.

“Grandma Nilda, what would you think of this now?” On Monday, they were going to visit with Aida Gardner, who owned the paintings Ragni was dying to see.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could buy them and put them up here?
She was almost afraid to contemplate such an idea, knowing that the disappointment would be acute if she couldn’t.

A knock at the door made her heart race.

“Its just me.” Pauls voice through the screen door sent warmth to her fingertips.

“Come on in.”

“I saw the light and thought perhaps you were painting. I can go away.”

“Nope, too restless. Come on in.” She watched as he entered and removed his hat. So many men nowadays wore their hats in the house. Her father always removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. As always, thoughts of her dad cut deep. So many “he’ll never again” kinds of thoughts.

Paul glanced around the room and nodded. “What a difference.”

“Isn’t it? Your family is something else.”

“I know that now. I tried to run away for a while, but like that old saw says, ‘There’s no place like home.’” He leaned his hip pockets against the counter. “Mom was really impressed with your painting. You should have heard her raving.”

“Thanks.” Ragni glanced over at the two easels. In the dimness,
Storm
looked nearly black. Like most things, light brought out the shadows. She closed her eyes for a moment, took in a deep breath, and let it out. She had to restart because her voice hadn’t caught up yet with her thoughts. Should she tell him?

“I’ve never painted like this in my entire life.”

The words dropped gently into the stillness. She raised her gaze to meet Paul’s.

“I thought it must always be like this,” Paul said.

Were they both talking of painting, or were there deeper currents swirling like the clouds in
Storm?

I have to go back. I don’t want to go back. Back to Chicago. All jobs in my field have killer deadlines. That’s no longer what I want.
“What do I want to do?” she asked the cabin.

“Come here.” He opened his arms, and she walked right into them. He folded her into his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head. She could hear his heart beneath her ear, steady and strong like the man himself, like the land where he lived and the God he believed in.

“I want to understand God’s plan for me,” Ragni said softly.

“I want God’s plan for you to include me.”

She smiled and leaned back to look up into his face. “Me too.” She waited a heartbeat for him to tip his head and cover her lips with his. This first kiss was friendly and comforting, an “I want to get to know you better” kiss. He lifted his mouth and cupped his hands
along her jaw line. “You are so beautiful. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first day I came to the cabin. I’ve been so afraid you’d leave before I said anything.”

“Really?” She smiled back, sighed, and laid her cheek against his chest. His heartbeat had picked up.

“If you could do anything you wanted, what would it be?” Paul asked, his arms still around her.

“Your mother asked me that same question.” Her hands found their way around his waist and met in back.

“So what did you tell her?”

She could feel another kiss on the top of her head. “I said I’d paint and…” She thought for a moment. “I can’t remember what else I said. Being this close to you is muddling up my thinking.”

“But painting came first?”

“Yes.”
Well, sort of. I kind of like this too.

“Can you paint like this in Chicago?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that I could do it here. That’s why I quit doing more than play-painting with Erika back home. None of my work turned out the way I saw it in my head. But here my life hasn’t turned out the way I pictured it either.”
At least up until now.

“You want my opinion?”

“Of course.”

“I think you should stay right here and marry me.”

She jerked back, her eyes wide and jaw hanging open. “Did you say what I think you said?”

“If you think I said you should stay here and marry me, then you heard right.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I love you, Ragni Clauson.” His voice cracked. “For now and forever.”

“But you can’t…I mean…how do you know?”
This is too soon. I’ve known you for only two weeks.

He drew her back to his chest where she could hear his chuckle reverberating within. “I’ve waited a long time to find the woman who is right for me, and now I know I have. I learned long ago, once I make up my mind, there is no sense letting grass grow under my feet.”

“Oh.” How comforting his heart sounded. Now the big question:
Do I love this man?
When the
Yes!
echoed around her brain, she felt sure it was loud enough for him to hear.
Yes
, her mind screamed again.
Just tell him, you idiot girl. But do you know this is the real thing?
Thoughts of Daren skittered through her mind.
Had she really loved him or only thought so?

She sucked in a deep breath and sighed, “Yes. I think so.”
Am I doing the right thing, the only thing?
She waited for her heart to settle back down. The pause lengthened.

He gave her a tiny shake. “Yes, what?”

“Hmm.” She stared up at him, his smile kicking up her pulse again. “Paul, I’ve never been one to make quick decisions, and when it comes right down to it…we hardly know each other.” Her fingers ignored her words and reached up to trace the curves on either side of his mouth, something she’d wanted to do for days. “Can you give me some time to think about it? Pray about it?”

“How much time? An hour, a day?” He kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers.

She felt the warmth clear to her toes. How could she not say yes? “Yes, I love you, and yes, I’ll marry you.”
For someone known to never make snap decisions, she sure was changing
—
big time.

“Whew, I’m glad that’s taken care of.” He kissed her again. “Now, when?”

“Can I take a rain check on that part? I mean, I have a lot of stuff to work out.”
Like getting to know you better.
She thought a moment longer, then reached up to stroke his face. “Did you really ask me to marry you, or am I dreaming?”

“I really did. You want to hear it again?”

“Yes.” If this was what floating on a dream felt like, she fully intended to keep afloat.

“Ragni Clauson, I love you, and I want to marry you—the sooner the better.”

“Don’t you think you should meet my family first?”

“They can come for the wedding.”

“Hmm. Isn’t the wedding supposed to be where the bride wants it?” How she loved hearing his heartbeat.

“If you want to be married in Chicago, that’s fine with me. If you want to elope, that’s finer with me. All I ask is that we don’t do a huge wedding with hundreds of people.”

“Nope, no huge wedding. But I do want a long white dress—and Susan and Erika for my attendants.”

“September?”

“Would you mind if we had the ceremony right here? In my great-grandmother’s home?”

“Not at all.”

Ragni thought for a moment.
Her home, the woman I came to meet. Dear Great-grandma Ragnilda, knowing you is changing my life. I hope this makes you as happy as it’s making me.

Weddings, even simple ones, are not for the faint of heart.

Ragni stared at the boxes around her, the remnants from her Chicago apartment now sitting in a cabin in North Dakota. While she’d sold some of the bigger pieces of furniture, she’d kept things that could be used in the cabin: her drop-leaf table and chairs, her bedroom furniture that now resided in the front bedroom, the art supplies and drafting table that took up most of the back bedroom.

She’d deliberately not brought much into the living room since that would be the setting for the main event. Tomorrow. Her wedding day was tomorrow. Right now her mother, Susan, and Erika were at the motel in Medora. They would come here to stay when she and Paul left on their brief honeymoon.

She glanced at her watch. Later that morning they’d be back out here to go through Great-grandma Nilda’s boxes. Three of Nilda’s paintings now hung on the walls of the cabin, back where they belonged. Mrs. Gardner had been most generous in allowing Ragni to buy them back. One hung at the local museum along with the works of other artists of the region. Another hung at the State Historical
Museum in Bismarck. In her later years, her great-grandmother had been an artist of some repute—and they’d never known that. What happened in the intervening years that would cause Eloise not to tell Judy of Nilda’s talents? Would they ever know?

Ragni stepped outside to inhale fall. She’d noticed the changes in the air even before the leaves started turning—-the cottonwoods going yellow, the juneberries picking up scarlet and orange. One of the maples across the valley now had splotches of red, along with golding green. But the fragrance caught her. Did each season have its own perfume? How to describe it? If only she could paint it. She closed her eyes. What colors, forms? She took another sip of coffee, made on the big, black range she’d slaved over and loved like a favorite chair.

While she liked Paul’s house and the huge window she’d already found ideal for painting by, here in the space permeated with her family’s history was where she most loved to paint. True, the light wasn’t the best, but there was something about this place. Sometimes she felt her great-grandmother hovering over her shoulder. She felt it so strongly she was sure that if she turned quickly enough, she would catch her smile, feel her hands guiding her own, smell the lingering fragrance of baking bread.

Paul said they could have frost any night, although it was a bit early. He said it froze sometimes before Labor Day.
Paul said.
Could she think of anything for more than three minutes before something he said or did or the way he looked crept in? She finished her coffee, tossed the dregs in the grass that had been mowed often enough it had begun to resemble a lawn, and went back inside. She could have stayed in town with the others last night but she wanted her last two nights in this house all by herself.

The way she’d originally planned her vacation.

“Father God, You sure did plan things differently than I did.” Her Bible lay open on the counter. She left it open at 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter on love. The minister would read that again tomorrow. As Paul had said, their adventure in love was just beginning.

She wandered into the bedroom where her dress hung in its protective bag from a hook in the new ceiling. She planned to hang a lamp there sometime, but now her dress shimmered in the wrappings. Old-fashioned with a high neck of Belgian lace that inset the scooped neck. Rich satin puffed in leg-of-mutton sleeves, a fitted and dropped waist that formed a point, the piping setting off the pleats of the full skirt with a small train. Lace medallions edged the hemline and bordered the center seam. She’d designed it herself and had a woman in Medora sew it for her. She felt regal wearing it, like a queen.

“We’re here!” Susan’s voice came from the kitchen door.

“Ragni, where are you?” Erika hollered.

“In the bedroom.”

“We brought caramel rolls from the Cowboy.”

“Bless you.” She left off gazing at her dress and joined them around the counter. “You look like you finally got enough sleep, Mom.”

“Twelve hours surely should be enough.” Judy shook her head. “I didn’t even call the nursing home this morning.”

“I nearly broke her arm to keep the phone away from her, but who’s confessing that?” Susan took a bite of her caramel roll. “Coffee hot?”

“Right behind you.”

“How will we live here this winter without a shower?” Erika pulled the first ring off her roll. “Will I have to get up early and go to Paul’s to take a shower before school?”

“Were adding on to the house.” Susan poured her own coffee and filled cups for the others.

“You— We are?” Ragni stared from Susan to their mother.

“If we want to come here for any length of time and perhaps in the winter, we’ll need indoor plumbing,” Susan said, as if it should be obvious that a privy and no shower was not acceptable. “I mean the summer is one thing, but you can’t swim in a frozen river.”

Erika rolled her eyes in one of those “Oh, mother” looks.

Ragni almost laughed out loud. “Whatever.” Discussions had been raging about Erika not wanting to go back to Chicago. Why couldn’t she stay here with Paul and Ragni? Susan shocked them all when she mentioned she might like to stay in the cabin for a while too. Ragni picked up a roll and took a bite straight in.

Erika set her roll down on a plate and dug into the first box. “We waited for you guys before we really went through these boxes, you know.”

“I know.” Susan nudged her daughter with her hip. “That was very good of you. Why don’t you lay things out on the table, and then we can all see them?”

Erika sneezed. “Sure, you just don’t want the dust.”

“You saw through her.” Ragni pulled out a chair. “You sit here, Mom.”
She looks better this morning
—
she’s aged ten years over the summer.
She patted her mother’s shoulder, then leaned over to hug her. “I’m so glad you came.”

Clinging to her daughter’s hands, she nodded. “I just wish your father could have come for this.”

“I know, Mom. Me too.”

After untying the cord around it, Erika handed Ragni a photograph that opened with two flaps. “Aunt Ragni, look at this.”

“Oh.” Ragni’s voice squeaked on the word. It might have been her standing in her wedding dress, but she knew it was Ragnilda, with Joseph Peterson rigid at her left shoulder. “But I—I never saw this picture before.”

Susan looked over her shoulder. “Oh, my word, look at that.” She handed the picture to her mother. “They could be twins in both looks and dress.”

Ragni took the picture back and stared at it, searching for differences. “I used satin instead of lawn, the waist is dropped, and I don’t wear my hair that way.”

“She was beautiful.” Erika studied the photo, then her aunt. “And you are too, when you let yourself be.”

“Uh-oh, fashion police.”

“No, think about it, especially since you fell in love.”

Ragni could feel the heat creeping up her face. “Was it that obvious?”

“Sorta.” Erika dug more things out of the box and laid them on the table. “Awesome.”

Ragni looked up to see Erika flipping through the pages of a bound book. “What?”

“Wait until you see this.” Erika brought the book and stood between Ragni and Susan. “Look.” She held a page open. Faded ink
words on the left, a faded drawing of local flowers on the right. On the next page, the drawing was of a little girl sniffing a flower.

Ragni read the entry on the left.
“Eloise loves flowers as much as I do, and delights in watching the garden come up in the spring. She has grown so since we came to Medora. I cannot believe she is the same sickly child I brought west on the train. I thank my God every day for the miracles He has given us here.”

Erika carefully turned a page. “Oh, look, a sketch of her wedding dress.” She read the entry aloud.
“Joseph wanted to get married immediately but when I asked if I could have time to sew a new dress, he agreed, but he said it made him sad, but for only a little while. I made Eloise a lovely dress from the leftovers. I wish she could have been in our wedding picture too, but Joseph insisted we go to Dickinson alone. I never dreamed I would have a wedding, let alone a honeymoon.”

Ragni turned the page.
“Joseph calls these my scribbles, but always with a smile now. He did not smile at first, but we taught him how. He laughs at my painting on the cupboards since he plans to put doors on them someday. I just love the decorations. They bring much needed color
into this house.
” She looked up to see tears in her mother’s eyes.

“I should have made more effort to keep in close touch.” Judy used her napkin to dab her eyes. “Letters are good, but visits would have been better.”

“When did your mother die?” Erika asked.

“When I was thirty-five. Your poppa and I were living in Chicago with our two little girls. It was such a shock. She had been ill, and Einer never told me. After the funeral, I never came back.”

“But why?

Judy wove her fingers together. “It was your father’s decision.
Einer had been drinking pretty heavily and said…something to your father. He never told me what it was.”

“And Dad refused to come back?” Susan said.

And you couldn’t come back.
The thought made Ragni sad. “Did you know what an artist Nilda was?”

“I knew she painted. I remember some of the paintings on the walls. When I asked for one, Einer refused so I let it drop. I wish I had come back, but…”

But I did. I came here, and look what all has happened.
There it was again. Paul leaped into her thoughts and took right over. And every time he did, she could feel her inner temperature rise and suffuse her neck and face. At the rate she was going, she’d look like a red beet in her wedding pictures.

“Anybody home?” Paul knocked on the door.

“You don’t need to knock, cowboy. Come on in.”

“Just wanted to make sure everyone was decent.” He nodded. “Morning, all.”

“We’re going through Great-grandmother’s boxes.” Ragni handed him the wedding picture. “What do you think?”

He studied it, looked up at Ragni, and back at the picture. “I think we should get this blown up and framed. I have one of my grandparents too.” He studied the picture again. “You sure bear a strong resemblance to her.”

“I’ve seen her here. Several times.” Ragni swallowed. “You know what an active imagination I have,” she added.

Silence fell, broken only by the sound of wood settling in the stove. She could feel them all staring at her.

“Tell me,” Erika whispered.

“She was out in the south flower bed, wearing one of those aprons that cross in the back, weeding her rosebush and bending over. I could see the backs of her legs. She wore stockings rolled just below her knees.” Ragni closed her eyes to remember better. “Another time she was standing at the counter, rolling out dough. I could see the top of her head. She wore her hair braided and in a coronet. I wanted her to look at me so I could see her face.”

“But she didn’t?” Paul stared at her across the table.

“No.”
He probably thinks I’m nuts and wants to run for the hills.