The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [25]
“Now you’re talking Bryan again.” I wagged my finger at my mother.
“Everyone’s talking politics, my daughter. The campaign begins soon.”
“Why is it so important to you—getting the vote, knowing about the elections and all of that?”
“You have to pay attention, Clara. Otherwise laws get passed that come to haunt you. Maybe interest rates on mortgage loans are raised without you knowing. Wages. We women get paid so little, yet we work so hard! I think of Hedvig having to work out; you and Olaf, all so young for poor wages. Crop prices, those are all part of public life. Unions.” She had found her footing on this subject, and she kicked up dirt as we walked. “If it weren’t for the union, we would have starved after your father’s accident. This isn’t about government and politics, Clara. It’s about family and knowing what you have to do to take care of them.”
“I know. It’s what Estbys do,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s what Estbys do. And you as well.”
I had no idea what she meant and was too startled to ask.
TWELVE
Crossing the Bridge
We tried to walk side by side, but our strides varied. We didn’t say much to each other even when we were so very close, our now brown hands bumping each other beneath the hot sun, the only connection we might have for hours at a time. Mama walked faster than I, so I found my pace behind her. I walked silently in her footsteps.
It might have been the beef stew with potatoes and carrots that looked to me as though it had a scum on it. But Mama ate it too when we were offered it before Laramie by a friendly woman hanging clothes on her line.
“Maybe it was the cream pie,” Mama said. “You had a piece but I didn’t.”
“What could make me sick from that?” I groaned. “Wait, don’t tell me.” I buried my head in a bucket and threw up, then set it down outside the outhouse door while another part of my body took my attention. My entire innards ripped channels as deep as those silver mines.
“You’ve got to get fluid back into you, Clara. Here, sip a little water now.”
“I … I can’t hold anything down,” I said.
I wanted to die, to be left alone to die.
Mama pointed out that at least we had the graciousness of a widowed grandma here in Percy, Wyoming. Living on the outskirts of town, she’d shown us comfort, offered her outhouse. I groaned again. Mama rose. “I’m going to ask her where the doctor is and see about finding a little work while you’re down.”
“No, don’t leave me,” I said. The thought of sitting alone in the disgust of my own aroma gave me chills. I started to shake.
“I have to go, Clara. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I imagined this was what my sisters felt when we left Mica Creek: wanting to believe she’d be back but feeling like they’d die while she was gone.
I tried sipping water again, watched a spider make its way up the side of the door, then spin a web. Bees hovered on the hollyhock branches; the sun moved across the sky.
“Here we are.” Mama’s cheery voice reached through my agony. “The doctor said water then a little rice, if you can hold it down. The lady of the house has dried apples we can mash later. And tea, he told me tea will help.” She handed me the bowl, but another wave of cramping coursed through me. I was grateful this hadn’t happened in the wide-open spaces. Thunder rumbled in the distance and lightning crackled in the foothills. At least I had a roof over my head. And Mama was taking care of me and didn’t seem upset with me even though this delay was bad. We weren’t even halfway to New York yet.
“I’ll contact the sponsors,” Mama said later that evening. “Get an extension. They said we could do that for illnesses, and the doctor will surely verify that you’ve been sick. I’ve got a laundry job for tomorrow. And here,