The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [59]
“So what can we do for you?” Olea asked.
“I have a business proposition,” I said. Olea opened the windows, letting in the cold air. Louise shivered, causing Olea to think twice and close it. Louise sat, and the cat that she had recently adopted, Lucy, curled up on her lap. Blue jays argued outside where snow lingered on the lawn. “I’d like to borrow fifteen hundred dollars to repay my parents’ mortgage,” I said. I’d rehearsed a preface to my request, but my heart pounded so that I didn’t remember how to sound professional and confident. I cleared my throat.
“What?” Louise said. “You want to borrow money from us?”
“I’d pay it back to you in monthly payments with interest you deem fair. I’ll be out of school soon. I could get other work, pay you cash each week, and continue to do your books and domestic work to cover my room and board. I’m a hard worker, and my grades at Blair are very good.” I caught my breath.
This isn’t begging; it’s business. For family.
The women glanced at each other, an exchange between relatives that excluded me.
“Do you remember,” Olea said then, “the day Louise happened to mention the signatures of people you’d met on the walk east?” I nodded. “You’ve never talked about that trip much.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t phrase my question well. I don’t want to talk about the trip. I … hope to borrow funds.”
“On the train, you’d been so happy to discuss the journey with me. You described it as worthy of a college education,” Olea said.
“It was that,” I said softly. “I shouldn’t have mentioned meeting the McKinleys that night. I was prideful.” I dropped my eyes.
“Nonsense, you have a right to talk about your own experiences,” Olea said. “They belong to you.”
“It struck us as odd that it was the very first time you mentioned walking to New York,” Louise said. She stroked the black and white cat with shiny fur. I could hear Lucy purring from across the room. “We thought maybe you disliked the new reform dresses after all. It’s the coming thing in the apparel industry. With the death of Queen Victoria, there’ll be changes. Her son Edward is already wearing a different kind of suit. Deaths of prominent people always bring a fashion change.”
“It wasn’t the dress. Nothing like that. Tragedy … happened. After we got back.”
“The death of your sister,” Louise nodded.
“And my brother,” I said. “Then, after we returned our family, my father—my stepfather took our making the trip as an affront to him. He—and my brothers and sisters—blame my mother for not being there when the children got sick. She blames herself too. He forbade my mother ever to speak of the trip again. Any of us. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you all these intimate details. You know we Norwegians aren’t like that. We keep things to ourselves. Or should.”
“The old Norwegian ways aren’t always wise,” Olea said. “It can be healing for the soul to share its stories.”
“I’m not to speak or write about it either. Ever. Ole, he’s not a mean man. It’s. He thought our trip shamed him in our family and in Mica Creek. People acted like we were in quarantine long after the sign came down. We’d violated what they expected of a good mother and decent Norwegian women. Some might have even thought the deaths were punishment for our bringing attention to ourselves so publicly.”
“Nonsense,” Louise said. “That’s not how God does things.”
“Part of the reason why I need the loan,” I said, glad for a path back to the subject, “is that if I could prevent the sale of the farm, maybe my stepfather would allow my mother to speak of the trip again. Maybe she wouldn’t be so sad then, so … listless. She only undertook the trip to save the farm.”
Olea inhaled deeply. She looked