The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [48]
For my mother’s sake, I wanted my stepfather to give a nod or smile. He wasn’t the kind of man to take Mama in his arms, at least not in front of us children, but it would be good if they could weep together for their lost child. I wanted them to be glad we were home, and I hoped they’d be happy once Mama told them about the book, that good had still come from the walk.
Arthur stepped forward then, the first. “Mama,” he said before Ida grabbed at his shoulder and pulled him back. He waved a small hand but didn’t approach again.
“Hi, Mama. Hi, Clara.” Billy followed with his own greetings, but he didn’t push ahead either. “We’re quan-tined,” he said, his five-year-old tongue stumbling on the word.
We’d be now too.
Ida had picked Lillian up, held her on her hip. The child lay her head on Ida’s shoulder, looked warily at us. She doesn’t recognize us. She doesn’t know who Mama is.
Olaf was the only one to actually smile. “Welcome home,” he said. “Though this isn’t much of a homecoming.”
“They shouldn’t expect a party,” Ida said.
Mama looked at Ida, and I felt or maybe even saw a wave of revulsion roll between them, daughter riding on hostility so thick and powerful that Mama actually stepped back. Something more was wrong, more than Lillian acting cautious, more than Bertha missing and my stepfather not giving even a nod of greeting to his wife, whom he’d not seen for more than a year.
Mama dropped the grip she’d held in her hand. She let her arms fall to her sides.
The hair at the back of my neck prickled.
“Where’s Johnny?” Mama whispered to the hedge of eyes and anger before us. “We brought along a frog for Johnny. Where is my son?”
“He’s dead,” Ida said. “Just like Bertha. And you weren’t here to save them.”
TWENTY-TWO
The Siblings of Sorrow
Lillian jerked her head up from my sister’s shoulder, Ida’s words like gunshots slamming into my heart.
I looked at Mama, ached for her.
She covered her mouth with her hands. I dropped my hat, stepped back to reach for her, caught in a crossfire. The frog jumped out and the dog gave chase.
“When?” Mama wailed. She dropped to her knees. “How?”
My stepfather came forward but didn’t reach to comfort. He lifted Lillian from Ida, who looked like she’d explode with rage. “What do you think?” she growled. “What do you think killed him?”
“Diphtheria,” Olaf said. “Four days after Bertha. We did what we could, but …”
“But the children were quarantined, weren’t they? You kept everything clean, sterile?”
Mama, grabbing at straws.
“I did what was needed,” my stepfather defended, his first words to Mama. “As soon as we know Johnny is ill, Olaf carries him from the pig barn, where Ida keeps the children when Bertha becomes ill. We had to do it without the help of a mother here to do her part.”
“I did everything I could,” Ida said. “Everything. But we were in the shed! The pig shed.”
It was a well-built barn with a loft entered from a ladder on the outside and a small stove inside for heating when the pigs birthed. But she wouldn’t appreciate my observations. Ida would have had to clean it, maybe with Olaf and the boys’ help. Cooking would have been complicated, and keeping the children entertained would have demanded much of her.
“It was so cold,” Ida said. “Papa couldn’t even bring blankets to us for fear they carried the disease. He left food on the porch and I picked it up. We ate cold things. Poor Johnny.” Ida started to cry now. “Arthur and William and Lillian, we cried over Johnny, and there was no one to cry over us.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Mama said softly through her own tears.
“I know that!” Ida snapped. The braids crowning the top of her sixteen-year-old head weren’t neatly done up the way she was known for. They shook now with the vehemence of her words. “I didn’t kill Bertha and Johnny.”
“But I did,” Mama whispered.
“No, Mama,” I said. Had we been here, the grieving would have been different, but there was no evidence