Jeanie vowed to make her children’s lives good. She took a private oath not to sully Frank’s reputation in the eyes of her children. She knew how damaging it was to discover one’s father was weak and lacked integrity. She would protect them from the knowledge that their father had chosen Ruthie and her unborn baby over them. Even if it meant a few weeks of discomfort, a short time apart, Jeanie thought in the end it would be best for them to strike out on their own.
That last time she saw Templeton at the hotel she had almost given in. Their explosive argument had slammed into heavy silence, the quiet daring each to make the next move.
Had Templeton stood in front of her one more second, begging her to join him in Boston, Jeanie thought she might have weakened enough to leave with him. But she couldn’t get rid of the certainty that had he looked deeper into her soul, to where the truth of what she felt for him lived, he would have not been able to leave her. She could not gamble on another man. Not ever. Not after choosing so poorly the first time. A man would have to gamble on her. And as Templeton left that day, she knew in the thinning marrow of her bones that he had declined the bet.
Her future had been mapped and she had no choice but to follow its path.
1888
Yankton
Katherine squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the argument she was overhearing. She was hidden away, under the bed in the hotel room. Her mother and Templeton shouted over one another. Finally over his pneumonia, he was on his way to Boston. He seemed so excited with the news, to return to his maternal home.
But Katherine’s mother was not pleased. From under the bed, Katherine watched Jeanie’s feet pace across the floor, stopping at the window then turning, traipsing back to Mr. Templeton. Their boots nose to nose.
“I will not allow myself to be treated like cattle, not ever again. My heart is through resting on the love of another as there is no lasting trust in the world except that which lives between mother and child.”
“I can provide. I want you in Boston. Or wait for me here. I will return.” Templeton said.
“I’ve heard that song and dance, Mr. Templeton. And all I’ve got to show for the exercise is bloodied, blistered feet. Frank is gone, but that does not mean I’m free to leave.”
Silence fell. Katherine edged under the bed, moving to where she could see what was taking up all the quiet.
Katherine could hear her pulse in her ears. She began to sweat as she dug her fingers into the braided rug under her body. What was Templeton suggesting? They had a father to provide for them. One who Jeanie had promised would return. She had told them, he was only grieving for his first-born, their wonderful James, that Frank would return. But, Katherine could hear the cold strength in Jeanie’s words. Heavy gloom fell over Katherine and she began to shudder, afraid her mother would discover her hiding spot.
As Jeanie and Templeton stood face to face, Katherine felt the realization that her father would never return, settle in. It didn’t matter that she didn’t fully grasp this discussion between her mother and Templeton, what mattered was that she knew from the depths of her being that her father was not coming back and they were on their own.
“I promise to return,” Templeton said.
I want my father to return! Katherine thought.
Katherine watched Jeanie’s feet shift to the opposite wall then move across the floor.
“Time will be the judge of that,” Jeanie said, barely above a whisper. “I am loyal to my children. We are safer here than anywhere and I won’t simply gallivant around the country to please a man. I will stay right here and craft the life that was meant for me. I will make this work.”
Katherine almost crawled from under the bed to comfort her mother, but as the conversation went on, her mind had turned off, knowing one thing—her mother swore she would take care of her children. She couldn’t listen to any more talk. She covered her ears and tried to convince herself that her mother would not let any harm come to them. That her mother, the Jeanie she’d known and loved for her entire life, was much too strong to let anything else come between them.
Katherine stood outside the hotel, her clothing wrapped in a blanket, sitting at her feet. Tommy paced back and forth, muttering Bible verses and Jeanie cooed at baby Yale, trying to get her to smile.
Katherine’s mouth felt dry like dirt without enough saliva to moisten the grainy earthy sensation. Her stomach ached. She wrapped herself up in her arms.
“Please, Mama, we’ll be good, we’ll do anything to earn money, anything, but please don’t send me with strangers. I can’t do it. I need you, I need you. Please, Mama.”
“Just read the Word,” Tommy said as he paced by. “The Lord is here for you if you let Him into your empty soul.”
Jeanie smacked the back of Tommy’s head as he paced by. “That’s enough young man. That kind of talk is hurtful not helpful.”
“As though boarding us out is helpful?” Katherine’s mouth was wide and misshapen with her pain. “You will kill me Mama. Please, you are strong, there is nothing you can’t do, I know you don’t want to do this. I know how much you love your children. I know you want us with you.” Katherine had heard her mother swear she loved her children more than anything in the world. Hadn’t she said that to Templeton?
Jeanie pulled Katherine into her side, kissing the top of her head. “That is all true. It will only be for two weeks. I promise. Until I can find a benefactor to take us all. You’re right. I’m strong. Don’t ever forget that. I will do right by you. I promise. But more important than that is that you are strong. There is nothing you can’t do. You are indomitable. You are Katherine the Great. Simply follow the woman of the house’s rules and you’ll do well and within no time, a flash of time, I’ll be on your doorstep, bringing us back together. Tommy will be two doors down from you.”
“Where will you and Yale be?” Katherine sobbed. She coughed in between sobs, staring up into her mother’s upturned face.
“I don’t know that yet, but we’ll be okay. I promise.” Katherine saw her mother’s eyes fill with tears as she looked up and looked beyond them. Katherine turned her head then latched onto her mother’s waist at the sight of a proper, but stern, pinched woman coming their way. She was attended by a burly man with wiry hair that shot out from under his hat and a glint in his eye when he made eye contact with Katherine that made her turn and vomit.
“She’s not a sickly child is she?” the woman said once she reached them.
“Oh, no, no, just a little nervous is all. She’s well schooled, mannerly, strong, has common sense.”
Katherine wiped her mouth and re-latched onto her mother’s side. Jeanie looked down at her. “Now Katherine, it’s time for you to go, be grown up. You can do this.”
Jeanie tried to pry Katherine’s hands away, but Katherine gripped harder, ripping some of her buttons off her blouse, begging her mother to stop. Spit flew from Katherine’s mouth as she thought at that moment, she felt what her mother had when James had died, that a piece of her was being torn away.
Katherine thought for sure her mother would see how much she loved her and needed her, that she would break down and stop this transaction from occurring. She knew how much her mother loved her children, how she ached for James, how she’d do anything to keep them together.
The woman tried to pry Katherine from her savoir.
“Her finger?” The woman yanked her hand away from Katherine as though on fire. “Is she malformed in other ways? Retarded?”
“Yes!” Katherine screeched. “I’m malformed in every way. You must find another girl who suits your needs. I cannot possibly attend you properly with a hand like this!” Katherine shoved her hand into the woman’s face. The woman drew back, causing her hat to fly off. She ran for it as the wind took it away.
Katherine grasped her mother around the waist, her fingers laced together like vice-grips, hoping the woman might be disgusted with her.
“She’ll do just fine. She’s more t
han pleasing to the eye everywhere else.” The master of the house stood over Jeanie and Katherine. Katherine saw fear take her mother’s expression and she knew Jeanie would never let her go. Never.
“If you harm one hair on her body,” Jeanie said through gritted teeth. “I will kill you with my own hands.” Jeanie nodded. The man grimaced. Katherine felt a flicker of relief. Her mother would keep them together. Always.
So, Katherine couldn’t form coherent thoughts when her mother nodded at the master of the home to which Katherine would be employed, satisfied she wouldn’t be harmed. Katherine’s heart folded in on itself, her blood racing through her head, blocking out the words the adults were saying, making her dizzy. Katherine would not go. She held her mother so tight her nails dug into her own skin, little knives making it perfectly clear what was happening.
The man gripped Katherine’s wrists, tearing her off her mother. Katherine pulled backward, digging her heels into the dirt. Finally he simply lifted her like a sack of feed and flung her over his shoulder, carrying her away. Katherine lifted her torso off the man’s shoulder, reaching out for her mother, screaming.
The chilling screams finally caused Tommy to stop pacing and praying. Everyone in hearing distance stopped. They watched, mouths dropped open as Katherine’s world was ripped apart. And the one person who could have stopped it stood there and did nothing. Katherine saw her mother’s face, quivering, as she bowed her head into her hands and her cries met Katherine’s over the muddy street. Katherine was sure, seeing her mother’s pain, that she would rescue her after just hours. She would just have to survive for the shortest time as Jeanie Arthur was not the type to let a child go.
“Katherine the Great!” Jeanie suddenly lifted her face from her hands and yelled, her voice lilting over the space that was growing between them.
“You did this Mama, you buried our family on the prairie with James. You murdered our family when you sent Father away! Muuurrrrderrrr!”
It was there that a two-week plan morphed into years, never seeing the Arthurs reunited under the same roof. Again and again, Jeanie stopped by the home in which Katherine worked, promising the next week they would be together. That Yale was sick and Jeanie couldn’t find work. That the woman she was working for shorted her. There was an excuse every time. But, it only took a few more disappointments for Katherine to stop feeling anything but resentment for her mother. How could the woman who could do anything as far as Katherine was concerned choose to do nothing? That was unforgivable.
And for Katherine, the only spot in her heart softened to the world at all was inhabited by Aleksey Zurchenko and it didn’t take long before it was he who rescued her from her lonely life, filling her with all the love her mother couldn’t.
Chapter 23
1905
Des Moines
Dearest brother Tommy,
You must come now. I hope the swamps of Texas haven’t swallowed you, that you are pieced whole and able to make this trip. No one understands more than I that our mother isn’t wonderful. I know you think she did not marry for love—she spoiled one man’s life and the other left her…what a dreadful thing it must be to marry without love, what a life of misery must surely follow. It did follow for Mother and Father, but circumstances may have been different than we suspected as children. It is clear that death is less objectionable than marital separation, but it is with this letter I say that Mama is at death’s door. Her cancer is real and I’m left to care for her and find a proper home for Yale thereafter. Though being in the same room with Mama turns my blood acrid, I can’t deny I hate to see her pained this way. You must find it in your minister’s heart and come or you will never forgive yourself. Please.
Your adoring sister,
Katherine
Katherine sat cross-legged on her mother’s sick bed with yellowed letters littered over her lap, crisp recently written ones from Templeton over those. Yale was stretched long against Jeanie. Both were sleeping on their backs, heads cocked to the same side at the same angle.
So much had changed for Katherine, she had learned so much, but she still felt agonizing grit was lodged in her heart, like there was no way to fully carve it out and forgive the way she wanted to. She dropped her face into her hands. There was much she still wanted to know. Their Yale? How had the babies been switched? Why?
“I couldn’t let your father stay.”
Katherine’s head snapped toward Jeanie who was now staring at her.
“What?” Katherine said. She straightened her posture when her mother’s papery hand wrapped around her wrist with a weakened grip.
“You must be wondering why,” Jeanie whispered. The tendons in her neck strained with every word.
Katherine couldn’t move.
“It was because of James. Frank sent him into the blizzard to lie for him. James was trying to protect me and cover for his Father when he died…I never wanted you to know that. I thought a fate of knowing your father failed in so many ways was the worst kind of blow for a child.”
“And Yale?” Katherine’s voice was thin as spring wind.
Jeanie’s eyes widened. “I…” Her voice cracked, breaking into a cough, choking her.
Katherine flew off the bed and poured fresh water into a glass. She rushed back to Jeanie and held her up from behind, slowly dripping water into her mouth a sip at a time, practically the same way they had fed baby Yale when she was too small to nurse.
Katherine slid onto the bed, behind her mother, cradling her between life and death, between their former roles of mother and daughter. Her mother’s bird-like bones against Katherine’s chest filled her with sadness, the bitterness crumbling away.
“This bun must give you a headache,” Katherine said to her mother, who had fallen asleep. She loosened Jeanie’s hair and fluffed it at her scalp as the rest of it fell in a wave. Yale stirred and woke, and reached for a brush. She took sections of her mother’s soft locks and brushed tenderly, gently laying each finished section around her shoulders while Katherine put herself in her mother’s shoes—those curled black boots.
She imagined one of her daughters or sons dying, she pictured it being Aleksey’s fault. Could she live with him? She didn’t have that answer. Nor did she have every answer she wanted about that year on the prairie. Though, she thought, perhaps she was finding that she had every answer she needed.
Yale finished brushing her mother’s hair, picked up one of Templeton’s letters and began to read. One by one, she read them starting back from 1888. Although Katherine knew she had chores to attend, listening to the letters riveted her, made it impossible to do anything but absorb Yale’s sweet voice as the letters answered many of the questions Jeanie couldn’t.
“This is cozy,” a voice came from the hall.
Katherine jumped and turned to the doorway. Tommy stood there, tapping his leg, shifting his weight. Katherine lifted a photo from under one of the letters still sprawled over the bed, holding it up in the air. “My God, you are Father, standing there, the exact image of him seventeen years ago.”
“You call that a greeting? How about a hug for your old brother?”
Katherine nodded and slipped out from under the stacks of letters, trying not to disturb her mother. She laid her back on the pillows and nestled the quilt around her chin to keep her warm.
Katherine stretched her arms out to her Tommy and they collapsed into a hug that felt as good as anything Katherine ever experienced. As though the presence of Tommy took her home. They pulled apart.
“Now don’t cry, dearest Katherine. I’m here aren’t I?”
Katherine wiped her tears away with her ring finger, nodding. Tommy’s gaze went to her missing pinky-finger then back to Katherine. She shrugged. “Oh, I’ve put that worry to rest, Tommy. Who really uses their pinky-finger anyhow, right?” She gave him a playful nudge in the shoulder.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I certainly did employ my pinky-finger just the other day when I lost my toe-hold on a cold mo
untainside and—”
“Tommy. Don’t you think you should say hello to your Mama?”
Katherine and Tommy were startled at their mother’s voice. Katherine hadn’t heard it so strong in weeks. Tommy hadn’t heard it in years.
Tommy stepped forward, removed his hat and finally moved toward Yale and Jeanie. Yale was stretching, smiling at her brother. He grinned and went to Yale, hugged her then kissed his mother’s cheek.
“That’s it? I’m dying and all I get is a little peck on the cheek? My darling son.” Jeanie’s lips curled up, but never broke into a full smile.
Katherine felt tension between her brother and mother as though it were fast drying plaster that adhered to her skin pulling at it while sinking into her pores. She hadn’t had the opportunity to fill her brother in on what she’d remembered and found out about her parents and Yale nor had she had the chance to ask her mother more questions, to ask her why she lied to her about Yale, why she didn’t come back for her, ever?
Still, Katherine found pity for her mother, seeing her weakened, reading those letters. And seeing Tommy treat Jeanie coldly, she’d finally found some warmth for the mother she’d grown to hate.
“Now, Mama, now, I’m sure Tommy is simply spent from climbing down off his mountain and finding you in this condition. Allow me to feed him and then you can have him back in better humor.”
“Pfft,” Jeanie said. “I could be still and cold by then, you know.”
“Just a few minutes, Mama. That’s it.”
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