The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [63]
But my mother wasn’t the woman who had defied her husband to walk across the country. She wasn’t that woman. She shook her head, no.
“I’ll pay the mortgage myself, then. Pay it for you,” I said. “Mama doesn’t have to be able to talk about the walk, but you could stay here, on this land you both love. It’s a business decision, nothing more. Turning down money …”
“Don’t you listen?” He shook his finger in my face, eyes narrowed in fury. “You do not pay our bills with dirty money. You hear me? If you even speak of this to any of our family, I will send your mother out. She will no longer be under my roof. You have made your choice, but you will not sour the rest of my family. If you were an Estby, you would give the money back. You would not work with those women who caused your brother and sister to die.”
“It was a tragedy! Even if Mama had been here, she likely wouldn’t have done any better than you did.”
How can he say this in front of Mama, who already bears the weight of their deaths?
“You are nothing but a girl. How can you know the way of things? A daughter of mine would never touch such money.”
“I’m not a daughter of yours.”
“Never were. We are foreclosed. The auction is set. That is God’s will.” He snapped the reins, jerking me backward, forcing me to grab at the seat as we headed toward the house.
Bare trees without leaves blurred through my tears. The purse warmed my belly. I held a pocketful of money I couldn’t use to save my family, while my mother … my mother sat broken in silence, tears streaming down her face.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sacrifice
Well, aren’t you the fancy one?” Ida said. We stood in the kitchen. I reached to give her a hug, and she accepted it. I took Mama’s coat, hung it. She stood, uncertain, it seemed to me. She moved to the cupboard, opened the door, closed it, went to the icebox. Ida shooed her away. “I’ll take care of that, Mama,” she said. “You set the table.”
Through the window, I watched as Arthur and Billy helped my stepfather unload the wagon, then bring my bag toward the house. I took off my fur jacket, removed my hat, and Ida said, “Lovely work,” then set the hat on the table, tested the felt’s thickness. “Those women must pay you well.”
“I work for it, but they’re very kind. The purse was part of their inventory when they leased their furrier shop.” I didn’t add where. “The coat was a Christmas present.”
Ida raised an eyebrow.
“Are those blue things beads?” Seven-year-old Lillian pointed at the purse.
“They are. Imported from Spain.” I tried to keep my voice steady and light while my heart ached for Mama. I could rescue them all; I couldn’t. I wanted to be away, not watch this scene play out, but I didn’t want to desert them.
“I’d like to work in a millinery that sells that kind of quality,” Ida said.
“You should then.”
“Not while I’m needed here.”
“Working in a millinery would be a good job once you’re in Spokane,” I said. “Crescent’s department store employs several.”
“Can you whip the cream?” Ida asked me then. Mama had taken down the creamery bowl but seemed lost at what to do next.
I crossed the room to stand beside her, touched her slender back. She is so thin.
I removed the pitcher from the icebox and began to whip, turning my frustration and disappointment into spiky peaks of cream.
“You must take whatever you left here, Clara,” Mama said then. “We can’t move everything to Aunt Hannah’s.”
“It looks like you’ve already sold some things,” I said.
“Papa’s furniture gets a good price,” Ida said. “He’s very talented.”
“I think the buyers purchase out of pity for us.” Mama shook her head in shame. “I have my red slippers, the ones I brought from Norway when I was a little girl. I’ll take those with me.”
“Of course you will, Mama.” She sounds like a little girl.
It makes no sense, their refusal of my help.
What would I want to take with me? The packet! I’d nearly forgotten it. Fortunately they hadn’t sold the kitchen flour cupboard that