The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [85]
“It’s a way for me to become independent financially,” I said. “And we can be in business together. If we control all aspects of it, we can’t be exploited.”
“We can’t control every piece of a business, Clara. Or of living. It’s naive to think that way. It’s how one deals with the unexpected that marks a successful business.”
“I’ve wandered around for almost a year,” I said. “I need to be responsible for my fate.”
She looked like she wanted to speak, shook her head, then added, “Our lives will change dramatically if we do this. You know that. A move is the least of it.”
“I do.”
“Elizabeth Cady Stanton used to say that ‘Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility.’ I can hear the quickening in your voice.”
I nodded.
She brushed at my collar. “Coulee City. Goodness. I’d say you’re avoiding Spokane.”
“I’m not ready yet to bump into members of my family,” I said. “That’s true.”
“Do you know when you might be?”
I thought for a moment, my fingers pressing down on the pewter sunflower of the hatpin. “When what they need is what I have to give and I have more hope that they’ll accept it.”
It had been a full afternoon and evening, much of it spent at Thompson and Dundy’s amusement park. Franklin gave us little dolls he won throwing balls at bottles. I laughed more than I had in weeks. The lights flickered over the water, and the joy lingered on the Thompson-Culver ferry line that took us back to the hotel. Both Louise and Olea chastised us for coming back with them.
“You were having such a good time. We old folks surely didn’t need to stand in your way,” Louise said.
“You’re not that old,” I said. “And besides, we haven’t come to a conclusion yet about my suggestions. Business is more important to me than pleasure.”
“Pity,” Franklin said. He didn’t elaborate.
At our suite, Louise hustled about getting us hot water for tea while Franklin sipped at a glass of red wine. When they were all settled and before I could speak, Olea said, “I’m wondering why you bring this up now, Clara, this big plan to trap and travel and relegate us all to Coulee City.”
“I … You and Louise, you have your business, and I can tell that you’re slowing down while I’m just beginning. You’ve been a success. I haven’t. I want this to be an operation that eventually I’ll be able to manage on my own,” I said, “after I’ve had good training.”
“She’s leaving us,” Louise told Olea. “I mean you have every right to, but I thought.” Louise looked genuinely distressed.
“I’m not,” I insisted. I wished my mother or even Ida had looked that unhappy at the idea of my going away.
“You and Olea can stay in Spokane if you want. I thought, well, if you lived with me in Coulee City, I’d have a place to come back to that wouldn’t …”
“Put you where you’ll see your family,” Olea said. “You wouldn’t see them in Seattle either, and that would be a much better place to settle in.”
“It rains too much there,” I said. “It’s too far from property with streams. And we can’t raise wheat there. We visited Seattle in the spring, and it’s beautiful with rhododendron blooms the size of Lucy, but I know I’d suffer in the constant dreariness of winter mists and downpours.”
I wondered whether to mention now the Finland fox-farming experiments but decided not to.
“I’d like to know that you were at home looking after things. I’d like to have a place to come home to that was well, my own.”
“You want us to work for you?” Louise said.
“No. I’d own the house and you’d look after it and maybe even operate it as a boardinghouse.” That thought had just occurred. “You love to cook and take care of people, Louise. When I’m not there, you’d have others to spoil besides Olea.”
“I’d always have Olea,” Louise said. “I guess it would make us money, having boarders.”
“Assuming people want to come to Coulee City,” Olea said.
“The dam,” I said. “It’ll bring in people. The New York Times