The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [78]
“And your son as well,” I said. “He’s passed too. I’m sorry for your loss. I read of it in the paper.”
He squinted his eyes. “I thought you said your name was Gubner. Now you say it’s Doré? Clara Doré?”
“My people came from here, well, after arriving from Norway,” I said. “My grandparents were the Bings.” I looked for recognition on his face, some reaction. “They lived here in ’76, until moving to Yellow Medicine, Minnesota. My mother is Helga Bing.”
A slight narrowing of his eyes was the only change in his facial expression. He would have talked with my grandfather and grandmother, wouldn’t he? Maybe my mother never told him about me. Maybe her parents worked out the agreement to move to Yellow Medicine after I was born without ever giving him the chance to do right by my mother. Or perhaps his own parents intervened on his behalf. He looked to be about my mother’s age. No, older. He would have been old enough to be responsible, to do the right thing. Would his family have offered her money? Would they have taken it? Dirty money. Did Ole take such funds?
His face paled. “Why have you used false pretenses to see me?” he said. His arms crossed over his chest. “Using the name of my deceased mother.” The side of his lip quivered.
“I didn’t think you’d see me if I used my real name, which is Clara Doré. Helga Bing isn’t familiar?” I asked. “She might have gone by Helga Hauge. Bing was her stepfather’s name. She was pretty, slender, a narrow face, strong hands. A woman of high spirit.” My heart pounded like a farrier firming up a horseshoe nail, a hard yet steady throb. “What about Estby?” I asked. “Ole Estby. Surely that name is familiar. He rescued you.”
“Rescued me? Hundreds of people work for me. What’s this about?” He set his jaw and his face regained color. It turned red. “What do you want?”
I wasn’t sure where my clipped words were coming from. My stomach swirled. I took a deep breath. I suppose it wasn’t fair to spring this on him, but I’d committed to it now. “Ole Estby is my stepfather. He married my mother when she was quite young. My mother was fifteen. She was … with child.”
“What’s this got to do with me?”
“I’m Clara Doré,” I repeated. “She named me for your mother.”
He stared at me as though seeing me for the first time. “What did you say your mother’s name was?”
“Helga,” I said.
He sank into his high-back chair, his hands on the desk, knuckles white. “My family employed many domestics, you must understand.”
“This domestic, you … bedded,” I said. “And I’m the result.”
I could tell by the look on his face that he accepted the possibility of it, but he said, “You’ve read of my son’s death and you’ve come to what, make a claim on my family? You have no claim on Doré Lumber, no claim on me. I’ll have the sheriff arrest you for … extortion.”
“There is nothing you have that I want except your time,” I said. “And you’ve already given that. I only wanted to meet the man who changed my mother’s life and to see what I might have carried in my blood from him.”
“I think you’d better go.”
He moved around to the side of the desk, his hands rubbing at his chin. Being flummoxed must have been new for him.
I stood. Surely my mother was a better judge of character than to believe whatever this man might have promised her. Maybe we are all of us gullible at times. I would have to guard against it. “You don’t remember her at all? Were there so many?”
A flicker of pain moved across his face.
I wanted my mother to be distinctive to this man, to feel there’d been something more than opportunity that passed between them, giving me my life.
“I really have nothing to tell you.” His words came out softer, and he looked at me with greater intensity, as though seeing himself mirrored in my face or frame. “I’m sorry for any confusion you may have about your parentage,” he added. “There are many Dorés, as I mentioned before.”
“Only one in Manistee, Michigan, however,” I said.
“I’ll see you out,” he said. At the door I hesitated, wanting to look once more straight into his eyes to see what I could see of