The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [52]
I found the scissors and cut my hair. It would be easier to care for while working in the fields.
The farm became my refuge. I relieved Olaf so he could find work that paid, as his reputation hadn’t been sullied. I plowed the fields, harvested grain, milked cows. I stopped dreaming about Forest or even going on to school anymore. The one chance I had for acquiring a large sum of money meant writing the book and hoping the sponsors would honor their commitment, but that was a lost dream too. To attempt it would put Mama at risk and probably myself as well. I could move away to another city and try to write the story. But I was no author. I knew that. Even to call myself an artist was questionable. No, I was good with numbers and figures, with solving problems that weren’t a part of a family’s journey. I could design a breast supporter that I didn’t need now that we weren’t walking, walking. I hadn’t worn it since we’d come home.
No Estby would speak of our trek again. Our efforts would keep up the farm, but it was clear: there’d be no miracle of rescue. A foreclosure notice would be posted soon.
In the next two years, Ida mellowed. With no mention of the trip and Mama’s fading, her quiet sewing, her allowing Ida to discipline the little ones, Ida assumed a position of authority in the family as though she were the oldest sister. Ida no longer needed to send angry barbs at either Mama or me. Only if one of us forgot and spoke of the trek would she say, “Now, Mama, we’ll have none of that.” My mother clammed up as though slapped. Even Arthur spoke those words if we talked about anything that could be associated with the walk. Once, when I recalled the Chicago exposition, Billy said, “Now, none of that, Clara.” He sounded like my stepfather.
But otherwise, the family appeared to accept—or perhaps ignore—us.
My mother and I were passive participants in this family reconstellating. I felt powerless to change our status and so took solace in the fields, in watching the grain come up, in pulling at weeds, in feeling the heads between my fingers with the wish for a good harvest. I hoped for food to eat and maybe enough leftover to pay down the debt. The companionship of the landscape also kept me from watching my mother disappear into a woman I no longer recognized.
When everyone was asleep, I’d often pull out the old sketches I’d made and reread the news clippings as a reminder that once I’d done something unusual and brave, that I wasn’t always this woman who waited for her life to begin, who couldn’t hear the voice tell her to go this way, walk this path. I suppose it was a reminder of how a life can change. What we’d done had been remarkable by some standards, but foolish too. Perhaps the path to wisdom required making mistakes.
Our weekly routine included trading eggs for staples, and butter and milk for boots or coats for the growing children. At Christmastime, Ida made the julekaga. Mama slept, and when awake, she sighed. She was as fragile as a sandbakkel. Even the children singing in the Christmas choir didn’t brighten her eyes. Nothing seemed to interest her except conversations about saving the farm.
“We will keep this farm,” she said when my father counted out the money available to pay the interest on the loan. “They won’t foreclose. God will see to that.”
She carries a fantasy again, I thought. But then, we’d been back nearly three years, and still we hung on to the property. Maybe there was a guardian angel looking out for us.
In our Little Norway, as our neighbors described the Mica Creek valley, we lived inside an aquarium where everyone could see how we fared. They acted as though we were still under quarantine. Ole played cards with his friends, but few came to visit with Mama. I swam around in the same routine. My companions were family and the dog. And I was totally dependent on others for my survival.
I awoke in the night with hot sweats, fears of living my entire life this way, a wakeful nightmare.
The new century found us in the same straights as we’d been in before, and I