The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [120]
“Yes, Mr. Raymond.” The phrase “exorbitant insurance” bothered me. It would cut into our profits.
“How long has your mister been gone this time?” he asked.
“He’s not my mister,” I said. “You know that.”
“Oh, brother then.”
I let that stand. “Where was it sent from?” I asked.
“Oh, let’s see. London. The Brits are in the worst of it, I hear. Guess he wants you to meet him in New York.”
I didn’t hear the telegram that way at all. But when Mr. Raymond delivered the paper copy to me, I did wonder if Franklin could possibly mean for me to come to New York. Maybe “reach” should have been “meet.” Commerce was terribly interrupted with the Russians, British, Hungarians, Germans, French, and so many other countries shooting at each other, and I couldn’t figure out what it was all about. We read of refugees. It occurred to me that few Europeans would be interested in upgrading their wardrobe of furs until after the conflict was over. Perhaps we’d picked a poor time for this venture.
At least America hadn’t entered the war, though the papers suggested that war machinery geared up even here. Billy was of age for enlisting if it came to that. Arthur might be considered too old at twenty-nine. I wouldn’t let myself think of that. My mother had lost enough sons and me enough brothers. I’d be glad when Franklin reached our shores and telegraphed or called saying all was well.
“Norway declared her neutrality,” Olea said, putting the newspaper down. “But the allies will cut off her trade to be sure we don’t support Germany.” She tapped her fingers on the paper.
“I’m glad Franklin’s getting out and the shipment is on its way.”
“With the war,” Olea said, “the demand might drop for luxury garments like the ones you’ve designed, but it could well increase for military use. Fur hats and trim, uniforms.”
“Nothing I’ve designed comes close to being suitable for military function,” I said.
“We’ll hope for the best,” she said.
We women busied ourselves. Louise knitted in between her snoring naps. Olea had made a cradle she carved for the pharmacist’s wife expecting in the spring. I sketched more designs and put them away, got out my album of stamps. I organized them by color shadings, almost the way a quilter might piece what was left of her little one’s dress or her husband’s trousers. Nothing interrupted the growing restlessness.
On a late January morning, Lucky couldn’t get up. Olea helped him stand as I entered the living room, the smell of bread baking in the oven. We watched him waddle to the porch. He turned back to look at me peering at him through the diamond-shaped glass in the door, then at the steps, then back at me. I opened the door, pulled my coat around me. “You need help?” I said. I lifted him and carried him down the steps. He wobbled a bit as all fours touched the snow, and I was surprised at how little he weighed. He shuffled to a leafless shrub, watered it without raising his leg, turning the snow yellow. He looked back at me as though apologizing for his lapse in manners, then made his way to lie beneath a tree.
“It’s too cold for you out here,” I said approaching. He was at least fifteen years old and had marked my life with Olea and Louise. I helped him stand again, and he let me. When he stumbled, I half carried him onto the screened back porch, where he plopped down on his rug. His doleful eyes stared up at me, and he panted as I squatted and stroked him. “We finally get everyone home and on a good, straight path, and you’re acting like you might leave us. You stay here and rest,” I said. He looked up at me and sighed, closed his eyes and went to sleep.
It’s where Olea found us at lunchtime, me lying beside him, stroking the now still fur.
Louise was nearly inconsolable when we told her of Lucky’s death. Olea rubbed her back and fixed her tea. “He lived a good long life, Louise. And you fed him like a child. When his time came, he just wanted