The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [134]
“Providence provides,” Mama said, and I agreed.
At the restaurant, Mama ordered a beef sandwich with mayonnaise and onions. I ordered tomato soup and asked for extra cream puffs to take with us, enough for Bill, Agnes, the children, and all the rest when they got home from work.
“You have a package you’ve carried with you,” Mama said.
I pushed the large square box toward her. “It’s for you.”
Mama looked pleased as she pulled the strings and lifted out the slender book. She opened the cover and gasped. “Where did you get these?”
“I hid them for a time,” I said. “Behind the cabinet in the kitchen at Mica Creek. It’s what I took with me … that day. Since then, as I traveled, I’ve stopped at newspaper offices and got copies of the interviews, a few of the photographs we sold. Not all of them.”
“The Minneapolis articles,” she said. Her shoulder rounded over the packet as though we might be arrested for looking at bad pictures.
“I thought … Well, I know Ida and Bill and maybe Lillian too don’t want you talking about the trip, but it was the defining event of my life,” I said. “Everything began with that journey. It’s something that belongs to you and me, if not to the world. I wanted you to know I will forever treasure those months we had, despite what happened while we were gone and what happened afterward. If I could bring them back—”
“I know, I know,” Mama said.
“I made a list of the signers, but the actual signatures, those I sold to Chauncey Depew. Remember him?” She nodded. “He loved memorabilia. I have the money for you, from that sale,” I said.
“Oh no, Clara, that’s yours to keep. You have ‘occupied’ well.” I looked puzzled. “We should use what we’re given and invest it. You have. Besides, the union pension said they’d found additional payments meant for me after Ole died, so I’m fine, with what the children share. Maybe you can help Ida one day, after I’m gone. But you’re the one who saved the signatures, so you keep that money for your family.”
“My family? You’re my family.”
“Your friends are too, Clara. They’ve stood with you as mine did for me.”
“If only Ole had accepted the money.” I sighed. “None of this separation would have happened.”
Mama sat silent for a time. “When I became pregnant with you, the Dorés offered my family money. They gave it to Ole to help us make the move to Minnesota. I think he always regretted that. He wanted to do things on his own.”
Dirty money. I wondered if he thought of the Dorés’ funds that way.
“After Bertha and Johnny … died,” Mama continued, “and we lost the farm, they tended me, Clara—Ole and my children. They brought me back to myself in time. They reminded me once again that all things are possible, even keeping silent about a special time in my life. Our lives, if that’s what it took to keep my children as close to me as I could.” I didn’t say it was the least they could do after beating her down. The server brought our cream puffs. “After Ole died, I thought I’d contact you. I saved the cards you sent. But the others would have seen my seeking you out as a betrayal to them, to Ole too, I think. I chose,” she said. “I hope you can forgive me.”
“Honour thy father and thy mother,” I said. “That’s all I wanted to do. I’ll always be Clara regardless of the last name I pick. I’ll always belong to you—if you’ll have me.”
Mama wiped at her cheeks. She sniffed, reached for her handkerchief.
“You’d had a terrible grief, to the bone,” I said.
“But I shouldn’t have let them send you away.”
“I couldn’t have stayed, Mama. I know that now. I thought maybe you’d write the book for yourself, for your grandchildren to have one day. What we did, it was nothing to be ashamed of. You were doing what you thought best in serving your family. That’s what I did that day I left too. I didn’t really understand then about sacrifice, but I do now. I understand why you’ve kept silent, why you did back then.”
Mama inhaled, took a sip of her lemonade. “After Ole died, I went back to the suffrage meetings. I never told the girls. I was careful, but I