The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [56]
The women were frugal and careful managers. I found the bookkeeping well in hand and thought they used it more as an excuse for my learning than because they truly needed an employee. The only real office work I thought they lacked was a secretary to write the letters Olea dictated. I liked the secretarial part, learning how to phrase words. Their correspondence went to places like Romania and France, Italy and Greece, to London and Oslo. Over supper they often told stories of their trips there and of their lives in Norway before New York.
“We were schoolgirl friends in Christiania as well as cousins,” Louise told me one day. “Olea was always smarter and faster than I.”
“And Louise attracted every lost soul in the city,” Olea said, “from children to cats.”
“We complement each other,” Louise said as I served chicken and dumplings for supper. Louise cooked, but I insisted on serving. At first, I also declined to sit with them at their table.
“I’m a servant,” I insisted. “It wouldn’t be right to assume I was your equal, eating with you side by side as though we were family.”
I stood while Louise spoke grace before the meals. She offered not the childhood prayers I’d learned in Norwegian, but original words each day, asking for guidance, talking about the day’s events. After grace, I sat in the kitchen alone to pick at my food. When they were finished and the table cleared, they’d drink their coffees and I’d join them then.
“You treat food like life,” Louise commented once. “Like you don’t deserve a full plate shared with friends.”
I didn’t think that was so, but I had no response to her either.
Olea often explored theological questions during the coffee time, posing thoughts like whether one ought to worship Jesus as a signpost or by following His direction. “If you see the sign saying ‘Seventy Miles to Coulee City,’ you don’t stay there saying, ‘Yes, this is what matters. I will worship the sign.’ No, you follow the directions; you follow Him. That’s true worship, by doing what He asks of us.”
“Would Jesus want to go to Coulee City?” Louise said.
“He might,” said Olea. They laughed and I joined them. Coulee City was a little town an hour’s train ride west that had as many rabbits as people.
Once or twice the conversation turned to lost loves, men who had come into the women’s lives and then departed. Olea had watched her future husband go off to the North Sea fishing and not return. Louise’s love interest had married another.
“My only attraction was to the son of my employer,” I said. “And my mother made sure by taking me on the walk to New York that I didn’t violate any employer-employee rules.”
“Did you meet any interesting young men on your trip?” Louise asked.
“She’s a romantic,” Olea explained.
“No. No one.”
“Well, one day,” Louise said. “You’re a lovely young woman. A nice man to take care of you will be good.”
“A woman ought to be able to take care of herself. I want to be financially independent one day.” I didn’t want to violate that employee barrier, but I added, “The two of you have done well without a man to take care of you.”
“Yes. That’s true,” Olea said. “But one mustn’t ignore the treasures God provides in companionship. We all need companionship,” she said.
“An independent woman can push men away,” Louise said. “Olea finds that true, don’t you? She can be intimidating if you don’t know her. Smart women have to think of that. And frankly, two independent women living together makes some men only worry they might have to support two women rather than just one.” Her eyes blinked rapidly.
“Then three of us must scare them terribly,” I said before I realized how the words might be interpreted, as though we were a set of three and not the two of them with me, an employee, sipping coffee with them at their pleasure. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“We know what you meant.” Olea patted my hand. “Since you’ve joined us, we do think of us as three women making our way together. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Olea’s words warmed.