“I’m hungry, too,” Yale said.
“Oh fine, there, everyone go on ahead, enjoy your meals.” Jeanie sunk into the bed, turning toward the window, pulling the quilts over her head.
“Mama, just a minute and we’ll be back. We won’t throw a party in there. I’ll send in the children to sit with you while we get Tommy settled. If you’re up to it, we can bring you to the kitchen. Aleksey can carry you.”
“Pfft. See what bearing and raising children gets you,” Jeanie said.
Tommy chortled at the ceiling.
Katherine felt the hardened tension crack, flying from her skin in great chunks. She couldn’t hold her temper.
She balled her fists at her sides. “I won’t have this argument in my home. My home. I’m in charge and we won’t entertain incivility, especially at a time like this. Tommy, you find some respect and Mama, we’re not dying people. I can see from your rising spirit that we’ll have you for many a week, month or year.”
“Pfft,” Jeanie said.
“Bathroom. I need the bathroom,” Yale said. Katherine led her from the room and Tommy followed, pulling the door shut.
In the white tiled kitchen, Tommy sat at the pine table, digging his thumbnail through a worn groove while his nieces, nephews, and Yale gathered to hear tales of his adventures—bona fide air castle building—he called it. Katherine wiped the final dish dry and shooed them out of the kitchen to sit with their grandmother and get ready for bed.
Katherine sat at the table across from her brother. The silence was thick and scratchy, as until that moment, Tommy hadn’t stopped talking. His yammering had been soothing to Katherine’s prickly worries.
“You’re so much like Father,” Katherine said.
“Is that an insult?”
“Should it be an insult?”
Tommy pulled a knife from his pocket and used it to push his cuticles.
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve done my best not to contemplate our family life as I plow through my own and tend my flock.”
“Don’t talk like that. You sound affected.”
“Let’s not get judgmental about one’s life.”
Katherine nodded.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Katherine’s mouth dried like batting in an old blanket. She didn’t know where to start.
“It seems that perhaps we misjudged our mother and what she had to deal with that year.”
Tommy stopped with the knife, closed it, and tossed it on the tabletop. “Meaning what? That driving our father from our lives and then turning down the proposal of the one man who might be able to overlook her inability to soothe a man’s constitution properly, that boarding us out like farm animals, is forgivable, that there might be a solid reason for such choices?”
“Think of all the changes she went through that year. In Des Moines she was a writer, wealthy, pampered…and then we lost it all…how hard that must have been for her. That was just the beginning. Yet she took it all on and did a good job until…“
“Right. Until” Tommy said.
“Where’s all that Lord and Bible stuff you were so fond of until apparently today? It didn’t happen like that.”
“Like what?”
Katherine took his pocketknife, opening and closing it. He watched her, but Katherine had no idea what thoughts he entertained.
She leaned forward. “Listen, every time I think of the Millers, the years I spent in that house with the pitiful weak wife and subhuman husband…the desperation I felt trying to service each of them in utterly different ways, the utter loss at knowing our mother was down the street, protecting Yale, who should have been institutionalized by the age of three, all of that…I know what anger and blame are, what they do to people. But she’s dying. Strong as she appears at this moment…” Katherine rubbed her face with both hands.
“My sweet sister. There’s a difference between respecting and loving your parents. You’ve done the former and done it well. I couldn’t have lived in the same town with her, inviting her to functions, acting as though what happened to us was proper. You don’t have to beat yourself with her pending death. We don’t have to say we forgive her. Well, maybe I should say it, but you’ve already said as much with your actions over the years.”
“No, I haven’t. I hate that woman. I hate her and that’s wrong. Even now, making a case for her, I can feel the hate, less of it, but it’s still there, mixed with crusty old love. In my head I know the story—”
“What story?”
Katherine took a deep breath and then pieced together most of what she’d learned over the last weeks regarding their family for Tommy, who listened intently.
“It’s the letters from Templeton that really…“
“What letters from Templeton? I thought the only letters she cared for were those she burned—the engagement letters between her and father.”
“I rescued half those letters before we left the prairie. She started to burn them, some from Father, and then got distracted and I pulled the others off. But Templeton wrote to her for the last seventeen years. If not for those letters, I might not know everything that I do.”
“Katherine,” Tommy said, “it’s easy to love from afar. Notice Templeton didn’t call our mother to him in Boston or come back once she said no. He knew better than to wrap his life in her cold arms.”
“Stop it! You are a Presbyterian minister, for Pete’s sakes.”
“Irrelevant to my experience with my mother. You saw how she treated Father. No wonder he sought warmth—”
“Stop it, Tommy! Father is not the hero you make him out to be. I can only hope that you don’t see your marriage—”
“My marriage is just fine, thank you. My wife understands her role in the world. And our mother should have done better by us. Maybe Father was weak, but that doesn’t give her the right to—”
“Tommy. It wasn’t the cheating that did their marriage in, it was the fact that he put opium and his lover over his family and the result was James’death.”
“Sweet James. Doesn’t the cloud of James remain forever over our heads?”
“Stop it. Imagine that. Imagine your firstborn taken from you in that gruesome way, due to the ridiculousness of your husband. The father of that boy. Imagine that! He was our brother. How can you claim the Lord and all his trappings but have nothing in generosity for your family?”
“Well, it sounds as if you’ve more than forgiven our mother, Katherine. I hear it in your voice, your words, your defense of her.”
Katherine stood. She shook with fear, sadness, knowing he was right. In some way she’d forgiven her mother, though Tommy was wrong about her actions over the years being proof. She operated with resentment, not love.
Tommy shook his head, smirking. Clearly he hadn’t bought into what Katherine had presented so far. He was not ready to find compassion for his mother. Katherine felt the need to be more convincing.
“You’re right, I have begun to see her differently,” she said. “It was the letters. If I hadn’t read Templeton’s letters. If I hadn’t read that last letter, I might never have forgiven her.”
Tommy narrowed his eyes at Katherine. “What? What last letter?”
Katherine sat back down took his hand in hers, his calluses pricking her fingers. She shrugged. How much should she reveal?
“Just spill it,” Tommy said. “After all this time, just say it.”
“Father left us. He intended to replace Mama with Ruthie. He wrote it in a letter to her. Templeton’s letters confirm the information as well. Templeton’s letters verify Father was partly responsible for James’ death. But that last one from Father. It was clear. He gave us up for Ruthie and all the while we thought Mama gave us away. It wasn’t her. She tried to hide his weakness from us and in turn made herself into the rotten one. It wasn’t her fault. She loved us more than anything. She did her best. I believe that now.”
Tommy pulled his hand from Katherine’s and pushed it thr
ough his hair. “Wait. Ruthie died on the way to her aunt and uncle’s. That had nothing to do with Father. If anything I’d say he had an interest in Lutie, not Ruthie, if I recall correctly.”
Katherine’s eyes began to sting. She wiped away a tear. She was about to tell Tommy that she thought Yale, that she knew Yale, the one in the bedroom with their mother was the daughter of Frank and Ruthie. But, she hadn’t had a chance to thread together how that could have happened.
Ruthie was supposedly on that train to Canada. Perhaps she boarded it. None of them ever knew she was pregnant. But Frank’s letter was so clear. Her father stated firmly, he was leaving Jeanie and the kids for Ruthie and her unborn baby.
“Well?” Tommy threw his hands in the air, his face folded in angry creases. And in that moment Katherine decided it was better to keep Jeanie’s final secret like a precious heirloom. She would not humiliate their mother by allowing Tommy to accuse Jeanie of somehow raising a child that was not hers—to question her actions further. She would honor her mother that way. And in doing so Katherine hoped it might serve to mend the broken fence of their once stalwart relationship.
Katherine stiffened, her jaw clenched as she turned away from her brother, unable to look him in the eye anymore. Tommy did not want to know the whole truth. He had too much invested in his anger. So when he still refused to believe their mother had entertained goodness in all her bad decisions, Katherine reiterated everything she knew, face in hands, peering through her web of fingers at the table. She made her case, but left out that one small sliver of information. Yale. Tommy remained unconvinced.
In his opposition, Katherine was suddenly struck by a sensation of Grace. Her posture softened and she lowered her hands and looked into her brother’s face again. She imagined he preached about Grace on a regular basis, but clearly did not know it by experience.
“Listen Tommy,” she cupped his cheek. He drew back then relaxed into her gesture, putting his hand over hers. “Father’s letter was clear, but that’s just half the matter. Still, stung by our mother’s actions as I am, I understand how James’death left her beaten, unable to act as she would have before then. The way she was before the storm. That changed everything. If only he hadn’t died, I believe she might have been totally different. And, when she dies I’m going to take in Yale.”
“After what she did to us?”
Katherine took her hand from Tommy’s face and put it in her lap.
“Because of all that, actually. I’ve been cruel. My upset over Mama. It colored everything, all my interactions with Yale. I’ve been unfair. I can’t shake the ugly feeling still inside me for Mama. Even though I understand intellectually. But, I’ve been…What she did for us, up until she boarded us. It’s just, well, I can’t judge her anymore.” A loud crash from upstairs made Katherine get up from the table and run toward the commotion.
Yale was in her mother’s room, pulling her up and down in the bed, crying.
Katherine went to the other side of the bed. “What is it?”
“She threw up,” Yale said. “She says her heart hurts.”
Katherine put her head on her mother’s chest listening for heartbeats. She felt Jeanie’s neck. Nothing.
“No! No! Mama! Please, let me tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I forgive you. I, I, I see how you were left without choices, all that you had and in one year to lose it all. I’m so sorry.”
Katherine yanked on her mother’s body. She groaned with fresh pain, intermingled with the old. “Please don’t die, Mama, please let me say I forgive you.”
Katherine bent over her mother, sobbing, begging her to stay alive, to give them the time they needed to forgive each other. Yale simply lay beside Jeanie, nestled up to her, holding her hand.
“Now shush, my sister Katherine.” Yale’s voice was small. “Now you know we’re not crying people. Mama always said, you know.”
And as Yale spoke those words, Jeanie moved. Her frail hand flailed upward. Katherine grabbed it and clutched it to her chest. She kissed her mother’s fingers, begging her to stay strong.
And then there it was.
Katherine felt it.
Clear as a summer prairie sky on a rare windless day. The pressure was delicate, but distinct.
Three squeezes.
Katherine’s gaze jerked to their clenched hands, to her mother’s face then back to their hands.
She held her breath and returned the silent I love you to her mother.
She closed her eyes, hoping for more.
Nothing came except Jeanie’s labored breath that seemed to grasp for the last of her life.
Katherine had felt her mother squeeze her hand as sure as she felt her own dizzying heartbeat rail against her ribcage. Her mother was aware. She had let Katherine know that.
Now Katherine needed to tell Jeanie, to help her find the quiet she needed—the kind of stillness that came with forgiveness, the sort that arrived upon knowing you were understood.
“Mama,” Katherine put her lips to Jeanie’s ear. “I know you did your best. You were my everything. I will hold your secret with me forever.”
Katherine pulled back from Jeanie. She wished so much she could ask how it was one Yale was exchanged for another. She wanted years back, more time to talk with her mother like they had so long ago. But, right then, all Katherine needed was to discern whether Jeanie heard anything she said at all.
“Mama? Did you hear?”
Jeanie turned her face up to Katherine and, though her eyes were closed, her mouth turned up in what looked like a small smile. She seemed to nod. Katherine swore she did and that was her only comfort—knowing her mother heard her forgiveness, that Jeanie felt the redemption in her fragile soul as it left her body bound for final, deserved peace.
Katherine couldn’t offer Yale much comfort as she sobbed on into the night, wracked with mashed emotions, wishing everything about their lives could have been reversed seventeen years, just so she could redo it all for her mother. To save her mother the way she always trusted Jeanie could save her.
Aleksey rubbed Katherine’s back, sitting with her through the night. Tommy stood in the doorway, mumbling prayers, but unable to let the crusty resentment soften in his heart. Katherine stared at her brother—so removed from feeling, from Yale, Aleksey, Katherine and his mother.
Katherine would deal with him later. For those moments, she allowed herself to feel her mother’s spirit, she was sure it was still in the room, accepting her forgiveness, pardoning her own stubbornness. She was grateful that somehow, she was not as hardened as her brother. She could grow and forgive.
And, as the sun peeked over the horizon, glowing around the edges of the shades, Katherine realized the pain that built up over the years would not completely pass, but that she was absolutely sure Jeanie had heard Katherine’s pleas. And though Katherine didn’t have the chance to tell Jeanie of her plan, she was sure Jeanie would be looking down on her, watching as she took in Yale and gave her a home, keeping them together in a way that Jeanie never could.
For that opportunity, Katherine felt lighter, as though darkness had lifted from her soul, selfishness that she’d never really admitted was even there was gone, leaving her with wide open acreage in her heart to devote to a sister she had only begun to get to know. Finally, she could look at her sister and understand her mother a little more. Her mama. Mama. Jeanie Arthur.
The End
Acknowledgments
This book is pure fiction, but was inspired by the long gone lives of my great-great grandparents. As was typical of the time, they logged endless hours writing letters. What’s unusual is that so many of them survived. The letters depict the simplicity, love, worries, successes and failures, and hardscrabble lives of a family who lived together well over 100 years ago.
Sadly the real Jeanie and Frank did not live happily ever after, but they left a legacy that still matters to those who know their story.
Besides using family correspondence to inspire the plot
and characters in The Last Letter, the letters were full of details regarding every day prairie and pioneer life and did much to inform the story happenings.
In addition to my stash of letters, I tapped countless resources that shaped the novel. Most prominent was the nonfiction book “The Children’s Blizzard,” by David Laskin. His meticulous and beautifully written account of the deadly blizzard allowed for me to time the blizzard in my story and helped shape what the characters might have experienced in such a storm. I did my best to keep my blizzard timeline in line with the real one and if I didn’t succeed, it isn’t because he didn’t give me enough to work with.
Thanks to my dad for ensuring that the desire to write was inescapable.
Thanks to my mother who passed the letters to me and kept bothering me to pay attention to them—without you this story would not exist.
To Lisa Mcshea, without you the novel would not have been written. You read every revision and helped solve every major problem in it. You are my muse. Not in a weird way, though.
To Beth, Jamie, John, their spouses, and my sisters and brothers in-law on Bill’s side. You’re always good for support and a laugh when I need it most.
To Catherine—it’s tremendous to have a writing partner in town! Your feedback is insightful and much needed. To Michelle and Gwen. Thanks for reading drafts of books you don’t normally buy! Mary Kay—especially thanks to you for your multiple reads, love of everything historic, and the title!
To my summer friends—being stuck at the pool has an upside—a captive audience who gossip about my characters as though they are real people who just might wander into the grill for a salmon salad at any moment. For your never-ending title suggestions—thank you ladies!
To Critique Group North, Fat Plum, Pennwriters, and Sisters in Crime. The endless stream of enthusiastic support for my work that I find in those groups makes writing easier.
Many thanks to my in-laws who raised a son who sees the value in what I do!
To Jake and Beth—two great kids who think I’m a New York Times bestselling author. It’s all the same to you.
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