Katherine walked toward her mother then patted the bedstead for Jeanie to sit. Jeanie stared at Katherine’s hand.
“I’ll do your hair back up, Mama. I know you’re so tired with the baby sapping your strength. I know you must be so…well, just sit, Mama.” Katherine sat and held her open arms to Jeanie.
Jeanie’s head dipped with shame and contentment that her daughter was not only kind and loving, but she was observant enough to notice when another needed a moment to be loved with gentle hands and soothing touches.
Jeanie collapsed onto the bedstead beside Katherine and let her preening begin. Jeanie’s hair pulled her scalp giving her chills as Katherine worked the brown strands into braids then into a bun.
“The braids should keep it in the bun while we entertain this wind, Mama. I told Mr. Templeton that Father’s sick. I can help you make supper. That Mr. Templeton is really something else. Early back from the rails, he is.” Katherine said as though she were the one with the crush on Templeton.
“I’ll make sure everything’s ready for our meal.” Jeanie reached for Katherine’s hand and pulled it to her lips then nestled into her lap. “You’ve been so helpful already. I don’t know how I would live without you.” She kissed Katherine’s hand again.
“Just make sure the animals have water then go play.” Jeanie didn’t wait for a reply but pulled Katherine to standing as she heard Templeton and James nearing the dugout door again. She shuffled Katherine out and stood by the door, unseen, listening to her son and Templeton prattle on about warm air rising from the south, accompanied by wispy clouds, meant a rainstorm was coming. Jeanie couldn’t help but see them as father and son. When was the last time Frank and James spoke of anything other than who would go to the well and who would muck the horses’ waste or settle them under the falling down structure they called a barn?
Back at her cook-stove Jeanie ground chicory, seeds, and a touch of cocoa, using it as a barely tolerable replacement for coffee as the grounds from Yankton had long been used. James brought a load of buffalo chips into the house and Jeanie began the process of loading them into the stove, lighting them, washing her hands, making the buckwheat cakes, and then repeating the process. She knew it didn’t make sense that Templeton was here in their home while her husband lay in another woman’s bed across the plain.
She wiped her mouth with her sleeve again, removing any trace of Templeton. She had no hard evidence Frank gave or even offered his heart or body to Lutie. Yet, Jeanie had plenty that she’d done so to Templeton. Frank was simply in his blackness, the shroud that paralyzed him as much as a disease or accident might. It was simply who he was when he wasn’t the man she married. For better or worse. For better or worse. Perhaps it wasn’t opium, just his moods, perhaps the cause of his actions didn’t really matter.
Jeanie told herself her strength was creating beauty from nothing, joining fabrics in surprising or delicate ways to create clothing that made people lose their breath upon seeing them. Or writing, communicating the beauty of homemaking to millions of other housewives. And with her marriage it was the same, she was the tailor of it, adding and removing details, coaxing unusual components together and in the end reaping beauty and function from nothing. Knowing this made her happy, settled her, gave her the peace with which she could carry on her duties as woman, mother and wife.
And with that final thought she wiped out every bit of Templeton, as anything but a neighbor, from her heart and mind. She couldn’t afford to let romantic thoughts of him inside her. It was that simple. Or so she would will it to be. She would have to consent to visions of Templeton, the feel of his arms around her, the sensation his mere gaze incited in her and she was strong enough to resist the temptation of all those memories.
As the brown of fall months collapsed grey into November, the rest of the men returned from the railroad and brought with them frigid weather and mounds of snow that often layered so high, the Arthurs couldn’t leave their dugout without tunneling out. The first of this weather brought another influx of vermin and creatures that Jeanie never felt comfortable killing, but always did because living with them seemed worse.
Frank had drawn a visible sigh of relief when the men returned with the Darlington Township cooperative funds in hand, when they divvied up the resources and planned for each family, to some degree, to withdraw into their own units during the winter months. Ruthie continued to offer her expertise, teaching, when the weather permitted the children to trek over the plains.
And, on the days when the children were studying with Ruthie and the chores were done early, Frank would crawl back into bed and pull the covers over his head or disappear into the horizon, returning with an emaciated pheasant or tiny prairie chicken for dinner. He rarely spoke to Jeanie, his nightly “Good Night Sweet Friend” being his sole verbal offering on many days. The scant words were always splashed with sarcasm and made Jeanie ache all the more for what she lacked in marriage.
Seeing him, his lost expressions and quiet whir of repetitive carving, reminded Jeanie so much of her father’s opium use that she pushed Frank on the topic. This line of questioning was the only thing that brought his face to life and animated him at all as he cursed her for not trusting him, for thinking he could have such a problem.
When Jeanie reminded him that even Quaker ministers fell prey to the substance, that knowing Abby Hunt had her own supply, would make obtaining it easy, understandable even when a person felt taken by hopelessness, Frank recognized the ploy for what it was—an attempted seduction for information.
This seduction would incite anger. Frank would throw anything fist-sized around the dugout, sending the children into the necessary where they sat out the storm, waiting to come out, ready to pretend nothing was going wrong in their lives. Jeanie was paralyzed by what she suspected, as though broaching it would only make life worse. Besides, due to the weather, he was around more. She could watch him and she’d seen no signs of him sneaking off to ply himself with drugs. Just his typical, ever-shifting moods.
The cramped lifestyle—tucked within the walls of the earth— was suffocating to Jeanie. From cooking with buffalo chips to the way dirt fell through the ceiling, stuffing the wagon sheet so full Jeanie had to empty and hang it twice in the fall. The stuffy quarters, in combination with Jeanie’s growing belly and the sluggishness pregnancy brought on, made bathing harder. Jeanie, daily, drew a whiff of herself, and her stomach would turn, that her body was so unclean. Though Jeanie accepted her former habits of cleanliness were in stark contrast to what could be achieved on the prairie, the desire for a fresh-smelling home, clean linens, hair, and body was fully present in Jeanie, making her fight back her own depression each day.
Jeanie worked hard to find some cheer inside the home, laughing and reading with the children, playing all manner of childish games to please the bored youngsters. At night when silence came she scooted to the edge of the bed as far from Frank as possible. She teetered there recalling her intimate moment with Templeton. She hugged herself and evoked the sensation of his lips on hers, the way her hair felt as he released it from its bun and it swooped down her back, his fingertips dancing down her spine as he worked his hand through the long brown strands.
That single collection of moments would have shamed her if she ever entertained any aspect of the fantasy during the day. For Jeanie the act never happened, it was merely a dream and therefore could be repeatedly explored in deep, private nighttime.
It had been decided that the five families of the Darlington Township cooperative would gather for Thanksgiving at Templeton’s home. When that day arrived, Jeanie’s spirits rose with the mere thought of seeing her sturdy Greta and reliable Ruthie. Jeanie hummed as she boiled water and prepared her stove for stew and cakes and squash pie as her contributions to Thanksgiving dinner. Every once in a while her mood would dampen with the sight of Frank, out of the corner of her eye, lying in bed so still he could be deemed a corpse.
If the dugout itself was und
esirable for Jeanie, for its filth and lack of privacy, the sheer snugness of it threatened her mood as much as anything. If they had another bedroom, Frank could burrow into his nest and at least be out of sight and out of Jeanie’s mind.
It was times like this—when the thought of Thanksgiving, the gathering of her new friends, surrounded by warmth and food and hope and what should be joy—that little bits of hate for Frank, for his character flaws, threatened Jeanie’s soul. She couldn’t afford to hate him, to see him as only lazy or a failure or selfish for when she did see him that way she found her only recourse was to take to the bed herself.
So, in the presence of such kernels of discontent, Jeanie dug deeper into her mind, her heart and past to call up exactly what she felt for Frank when she fell in love with him twelve years before. And, each time she was able to access that place inside her, to see Frank through the compassionate eyes of love, she grew in strength and hope. From nothing came these things and that made her powerful.
And in the condition of strength grown from weakness, she felt content. She could care for her family, give them what they needed and in the process give Frank the space to finally find his path to satisfaction and wholeness.
James removed his wet boots and peeled off the rest of his outer clothing revealing his red long johns. Jeanie stopped stirring and turned to see James stand over his father, hands on hips, as though determining whether Frank was alive or dead or silently daring Frank to wake and interact with his family. He shook his head and without looking at Jeanie sat in front of the fire and pulled his legs to his chest, staring into the red and orange jumping flames. Jeanie turned back to her stew then began to grind the coffee.
“I know you hate this dugout, Mama,” James said.
“Oh, James. I didn’t know you were there.” She didn’t want to discuss gloomy topics in front of Frank.
“I know that every time one of us kids or a cow or horse runs overtop, causing the roof to shudder like a salt shaker, releasing dirt onto your scalp, settling in like some sort of perverse fairy dust, that your stomach turns in disgust.” James paused. He removed his hat and hung it on a hook inside the door.
“But really, I just left Templeton’s and his place is frigid. He’s excited to host Thanksgiving and all, but I couldn’t help but notice that even with the thick layers of plaster we set, there are spots where the air sails through like wind off the ocean. For as hard as this winter will be, I think we have the prize home, the smallest, most insulated, being that we are basically one with the earth and thus one with God and how could we go wrong? We’re essentially living in the womb of God. If he had a womb, I mean.”
Jeanie turned from the coffee she was grinding. James shivered so hard his body jerked. Jeanie pulled a blanket from the chair and set it around his back, smoothing it over his shoulders several times. James grabbed her hand.
“We’re going to be all right, Mama. I have this feeling in my gut. I don’t know where it comes from—maybe the Hunts are right about the Lord living right inside each of us, because I feel it, that sort of Grace they talk about. All the talk of sin we heard at church in Des Moines, that never struck me as pertaining to me at all. I never felt particularly sinful but never holy either. Now, out here, on the prairie, it’s as though I was born here.”
“James, my sweet, you are profound this morning. Is it simply thoughts of Thanksgiving on this special day that has you so full of this Grace?”
James shook his head and shrugged before turning his face up at his mother. “I don’t know, Mama. This swell of hope and near glee has been building in me. Every time Templeton teaches me a new way of thinking about weather, patterns, stuff that barely exists in terms of schooling but is so obviously true in this environment, I feel powerful, like I can do anything. And with each problem we encounter and surmount, I feel as though we are imbued with strength that can’t lead to anything but success.”
“Well, then all I can imagine is that you will indeed find nothing but success because in your hopes and dreams is purposeful action, James. And that is what matters.”
When James didn’t respond, Jeanie turned. James had stood and now towered over his father, peering down on him as though he were the parent, awaiting his lazy child’s wakening.
“That is the difference,” James said not moving. “I see that as clear as the wind blusters right through the seemingly sturdy walls of Templeton’s frame house. Sometimes, what things look like is not at all what they are.”
Jeanie watched as James’s posture straightened with each word as though saying them, their full weight, was realized in his bones and made him into the man his father would never be. Jeanie buckled at the picture of the two of them, grasped her chest, surprised at the pain she felt and in the next breath she took, felt the grip of contractions.
Chapter 14
Jeanie had fought through Thanksgiving morning’s contractions by sipping tea and sitting quietly whenever her duties would allow.
The weather was odd for November. In the morning it had been frigid, the ground blanketed with snow. But by noon it had warmed enough to obliterate the whiteness and create a pleasurable day. James, Tommy and Katherine rode to the Zurchenko’s to see what they needed in terms of hauling food or preparing it for Thanksgiving.
And, as though the mild weather seeped into Frank’s blood, he rose at noon and with no more than six words reported that he would stop by the Moore’s to see what they needed in terms of chores and hauling food and supplies to Templeton’s. Jeanie, who had been resting for a moment on the edge of the bed rose at this pronouncement.
“No,” Jeanie said.
Frank turned his hands palm up and smirked.
“I mean it.”
“I heard you.”
Jeanie shifted her weight not knowing what he meant. He buttoned his work shirt, a dirty one.
“Wear this one.” Jeanie held up a clean shirt.
“I’m working, I don’t need a clean shirt.”
“You’re going to the well?”
“Yep.” He raised his hand over his head in that way he always did to signify he was moving on. He headed to the door.
“You’re going to the well for us, right?” Jeanie hated that her statement came out as a question.
“After I tend to the neighbors. You’re always saying to be neighborly, manners and such, so I’m doing that. Just for you.”
Jeanie nearly doubled over from the pain that sentiment caused, the way he used her words against her, made her into a vixenish woman, deserving to be resented. As though her actions pushed them into a prairie life.
She ran after him. “Frank. We need you here. We need you to laugh in the house, talk with us, help us, to be the man you used to be.”
Frank’s eyes widened then a cold smile came over his face. “I’m not sure I’m the one who needs fixing. You’ve been riding me since we arrived on this great land. Nothing I do is good enough for you. And instead of giving me a few seconds to catch my breath and scratch my ass, you do my work for me then you seethe over the cook-stove, angry because you’re doing everyone’s work. Well, my sweet Jeanie, if you don’t want to do everyone’s work, then just stop doing it. Simple as that.”
Jeanie processed his words and realized she’d folded into herself, pushing back at the contractions that wracked her, taking the verbal blows, partly feeling like he was right, but knowing he was wrong.
“And you hit me,” Frank said. Jeanie thought she saw his lip quiver.
“I will never forgive myself for hitting you, Frank. When I thought you were using opium, I lost all sense. That’s no excuse, but we are your family, Frank.” Jeanie shouted. She took deep, fast breaths to bring her voice back to normal, so her words wouldn’t careen into the air, carry over the plains into their neighbor’s ears.
Jeanie bent into another contraction. “Like it or not. You are stuck with us and you better ride tall and satisfied from now on. We are your life.” Jeanie’s voice was thin, barely f
ull of the zeal enough to get them out of her mouth let alone convey strength. Frank sauntered to his horse, Night, and mounted it with the ease of a teenager. Nothing in his body communicated the blackness that clearly lived in his soul and nothing seemed to show he cared for his wife in the least.
She watched him disappear, dragging her soul behind him, pitting her heart with his callousness, leaving what was already a hobbled marriage, further crippled. She cleared her throat. There were mouths to feed and chores to be done. She returned to the stew. For some time she fussed with the dishes she was to prepare. Her anger grew though she didn’t want it to. She stirred the stew, nearly punishing it. The spoon flew from her hand and clanked against the pot, spewing meaty broth against the wagon sheet. “Blame-it!” Jeanie said. She spun around looking for a rag. She dipped it into the water and rubbed at the stain as though her life depended upon its removal.
Frank came back into the house, stood beside her, trying to look busy, searching for something. Jeanie huffed and puffed, hoping he’d just do what she needed him to. But instead of him agreeing to do what was his responsibility anyway, he began picking his nose. Jeanie tried not to watch out of the corner of her eye, to give him the space to do what he needed to without embarrassing him, by telling him it was grotesque and she’d had enough of such things. The act of plowing through his nose with one finger then the other would be, she was sure, the thing that would in the end make her hate him. She shuddered and turned her back fully toward him.
“It’s okay, Jeanie. I love you and everything will be okay. I just need to get out of this mood. You know how these moods take me and I can’t, I just, well, I love you and I promised the Moores, you know, Ruthie especially, she’s been a big help to us and I just want to repay… “
Jeanie wanted to soften into his arms, to understand how one minute he was hard and the next he was loving. She searched his face for an answer. Nothing was telling. She called up portions of his letters to her, the way they made her feel. Nothing came. She tried to love him right. He was right, she told herself, Ruthie had done a lot for their family, even if Lutie had done nearly nothing for them and the cooperative.
B004XR50K6 EBOK Page 22
