Kind-Hearted Woman

by Spaeth, Janet

  How would he find her if she went with her brothers somewhere else? It wasn’t like she could exactly leave a note on the door for him.

  She missed him terribly. The thought of going through life without him was depressing for her to consider.

  Bruno padded over to lie at her feet, a half-eaten shoe hanging from his jaws. Grateful for the change in focus, she asked her brother, “Do you suppose that there’s a chance our dog is part goat?”

  “I think he’s kind of lonely,” he answered. “Think about it.”

  “Oh, because Colin’s gone?”

  “Never mind him. I think he misses Hildegard Hopper and Amelia Kramer and their shoes!”

  twelve

  I can’t forget him, and when I sleep, I find him. We run through frosted fields, leaving copper footprints on the silvered landscape. Always we hold hands, as if that will keep us together when this earthly sphere drives us apart. Our fingers are locked together in an endless lover’s knot, now and forever. I can’t let go.

  The grasses were crisping, and ice had begun to creep along the edges of the river in sheltered areas. In the waters along the edge, crystal touched fallen leaves, and the world glittered its way into winter.

  Lolly walked down to the pier by herself. They were moving out the next week, into Mankato, where George and Bud had both found small jobs work, George as a handyman at the teachers college and Bud as a busboy at the hotel restaurant. Neither job offered more than a day-to-day offer of employment, but, as Bud said, that was better than a poke in the eye.

  She’d go along with them. Perhaps she could clean houses or work as a cook’s assistant.

  And the farm would stay right where it was, but there wouldn’t be anyone in it to love it. George had figured out more numbers and come up with what he called the If Budget. If he and Bud worked at least six days out of every week, and if they were paid promptly, and if the apartment he’d found was all right, and if the cost of everything stayed right where it was at the moment, they could keep the farm. There were more ifs, but Lolly’s head spun with this short list.

  There was one more if on his list. It was the big one. If the nation’s economy didn’t get any worse. That was the one item that drove everything else.

  She didn’t want to leave the farm. It was everything to her. Her entire life had been spent on the land, and the river that flowed through it was like her own blood.

  Thanksgiving was coming up, and then Christmas, and the thought of spending those holidays in a tiny apartment made her heart sink. She’d asked George about the possibility of at least coming out to the farm for the holidays, and he’d thought about it and decided that if there was enough money to put gasoline in the truck and enough wood stored at the farm to heat the house with the fireplace, then yes, they could.

  It was a small sparkle, but it was good. Bud had been chopping firewood all week, without his usual snappish commentaries, so she knew it was important to him, too.

  The house was packed, for the most part. The crystal vase was cradled in layers of blankets and would ride to Mankato on Lolly’s lap, and the housewares had been divided between the two homes. The furniture was staying at the farm because the apartment was furnished and taking the sagging old tapestry couch wouldn’t be worth it, assuming it would even make the trip without falling apart.

  The apartment was small. One bedroom with a curtain dividing it from the rest of the place. Privacy was available only in the cramped bathroom. The first time she’d seen the tiny room, Lolly had stood in the doorway, amazed at the way the sink, bathtub, toilet, and a cabinet dovetailed into the space that effectively.

  The kitchen, which George had tried to tell her was efficient—“Look, you don’t even have to move! From one spot you can reach the stove, the ice box, the cabinets, and the sink!”—was dark but clean. They gave her the bedroom and with an elaborate arrangement of one brother on the couch and one on a pallet on the floor, with a rotating schedule of who got the couch and who was forced to sleep on the floor, they took the living room. Bruno, of course, got his choice. He was too big to argue with.

  Again, it was Bud who summed it up best. “The nice thing about living in a depression is that we don’t have anything, so this fits us just perfect!”

  Mankato was interesting, but she did not want to leave the farm, especially now when all around her, the change of the season was in full bore, the trees now in resplendent crimson, elegant gold, and fiery auburn.

  At least this was, for the moment, still hers, and as long as things went the way George had outlined them, she would still be able to come to the farm.

  The sun had melted the early morning frost, leaving the pier dark with moisture. She stepped out on it and sat on the edge and remembered the day they all went fishing and Bruno caught the catfish. On this pier, Colin had kissed her for the very first time.

  And on this pier, he had kissed her for the very last time.

  She didn’t write in the notebook that Bud had brought her. She’d tried, but her fingers would freeze up when she opened to a new page. Now the story ran only in her mind, and there were times when it was all that kept her going.

  ❧

  Each night, Colin and Grady leaned over Colin’s Bible. As they would say the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer or the Twenty-third Psalm, they would follow along on the page, matching word for sound. And when they tired of that, with a short piece of a pencil, Colin taught Grady the letters for his name.

  “I’m going to learn this for Imogene,” Grady said. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll ride with you until I get this in my brain. I have to do this for my Imogene.”

  One cold afternoon, Colin and Grady took refuge in the station in Pittsburgh. Colin found an abandoned newspaper and spread it out in front of them.

  “Let’s do the headline together,” he said. “ ‘President. Roosevelt. Visits. . .’ ”

  Grady stood and paced nervously and then sat back down.

  “Something under your skin?” Colin asked curiously as his new friend fidgeted.

  “I’m tired of living like this, always on the move. I want to find a place, settle down, maybe try the family thing again.” Grady touched his chest pocket where Colin knew the postcard from his granddaughter was. “I’ve let too many people go unloved. That’s wrong, and I’ve got to make it right. It’s been good knowing you, and thank you for trying to teach this old grizzled head how to read. At the very least, I can read some of the Bible.”

  “You don’t have a Bible, do you?” Colin asked; and when Grady shook his head no, Colin reached into his pack and pulled out his. “Here, take this.”

  “You’re giving me your Bible?” Grady looked at Colin in surprise.

  It was the Bible that had been given to him when he’d been on the road before and so in need of the Word, and now, it seemed right to pass it on to another traveler who would also benefit.

  “Are you sure?” Grady asked. “I’d be honored to carry it, knowing how it came into your possession.”

  “I’m sure. Here, let’s do this.”

  They opened the Bible, and under the name Colin Hammett, the new owner wrote in labored but proud letters, Grady Shields.

  Bible in hand, Grady touched his fingers to his forehead, turned, and was lost in the crowd.

  Colin watched him go, sending a prayer with him. Pad his footsteps with peace. Reunite him with love.

  He looked at the posted schedule board. If he hurried, he could slip out and catch the next train to New York City.

  It was amazing, he thought as he settled himself in for the long ride, how someone who’d come into his life for such a brief time had given him direction. People like Grady were truly gifts.

  He must have been truly exhausted, for when he awoke, the train was slowing down, pulling into the yard. He yawned and stretched, and when he stepped out, a familia
r cityscape surrounded him.

  Pulling his pack and bedroll onto his back, he headed for the neighborhood he knew so well.

  It was quite a long walk, but he jogged along happily. It was good to be home.

  At last he came to the building where his apartment was. The doorman stopped him. “You have business here?”

  “I live here.”

  “We don’t have bums living here. Go peddle your papers elsewhere!” The doorman lifted his whistle, ready to call for police assistance.

  “No, I live here. I’m Colin Hammett.”

  “Mr. Hammett disappeared—oh, sir!” The doorman’s face split into a wide beam, and Colin could tell he had stopped just short of hugging him. “It’s good to have you back. My, you’re looking a bit, well—”

  “Ragged?” Colin laughed. “Just let me in so I can bathe and shave and change my clothes. Oh, it’s so good to be home!”

  His apartment hadn’t changed at all. The maid service had come in and cleaned regularly, and even fresh towels were laid out in the bathroom. It was obvious that they had been ready for him to come back at any moment.

  Within an hour, he was comfortable again and ready to head off to his office.

  The doorman called for a driver, and as Colin rode the once-again familiar road to his business, he realized how truly changed he was. The people on the streets, hurrying toward their jobs or home after a day of labor, or those who had no employment and were going door to door, office to office, seeking anything—they now were real to him.

  The office staff fell silent when he entered the room. And then, pandemonium broke loose. “Mr. Hammett is back!”

  His cousin, Ralph, came out of the main office. “Colin!” The two embraced and then, after speaking to the staff and shaking hands with each one, Colin followed his cousin into the inner office.

  “Where have you been? What happened?” his cousin began as they sat on opposite sides of his desk.

  “I’ve been living in Minnesota after having my memory erased on a fence post. That’s the short version,” Colin said.

  “The short version?” Ralph raised his eyebrows. “How much time should I set aside for the long version? This sounds like a story I want to hear.”

  “And it’s a story I want to tell.”

  Ralph leaned across the desk. “What happened, Colin? Why did you leave so suddenly? One afternoon you simply came in here, told me you were off in search of yourself. You didn’t contact me at all to let me know you were all right. Do you have any idea how worried I was? How worried we all were?”

  “I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me.” Colin rubbed his forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I think you should begin that long story now. I think I deserve it.”

  Night was darkening the sky in the window behind Ralph by the time Colin finished.

  Ralph leaned back, his fingers laced behind his head. “Of course we want to help them. But what can we do, short of sending them money, which I’m glad to do.”

  Colin reached into his pocket and pulled out Lolly’s notebook. “Take a look at this and tell me what you think.”

  His cousin opened it and began to scan it. Soon, though, he was reading in earnest, and at last, he put it down in front of him. “Amazing. Who is this writer?”

  “She’s the woman who saved me, and she is as incredible as her writing.”

  “Can we get her?”

  “Let’s talk, Ralph,” Colin said.

  When he left two hours later, night had wrapped the city in darkness, punctuated by the bright stars of streetlights and marquees, and he had a thick envelope in his hand and a smile on his face. Two days after that, he was at the Grand Central Terminal buying a ticket—destination, Minnesota. This time, there was no bedroll, no backpack.

  ❧

  “It’s good to be back here again,” Bud said as he laid another log on the fire. “I’ve missed this old farm.”

  “It is nice, isn’t it?” George sat down on the couch, sinking down as the cushions sagged.

  “I like being able to move my arms like this,” Lolly swung them around in crazy windmills. “I can’t do that in the apartment without taking out a window or pulling down a towel rack or knocking the pictures off the wall.”

  “There’s no time like Thanksgiving to come home,” George said. “I look at these doors and these shelves and these walls and I think, my parents did this, with their own hands.”

  They didn’t speak for a while. This was probably going to be the last time they’d gather like this at the farm.

  The If Budget hadn’t worked out. The jobs that George and Bruno had were too irregularly scheduled, and they simply didn’t make enough money. Plus the rent on the tiny apartment was going up.

  They needed cash, and the only way they could see to do it was to put the farm on the market. It might sell, or it might not.

  For Lolly, either way was a nightmare.

  “Good dinner,” George said.

  Bruno raised his head and dropped it again, as if the effort to move were too great. He’d shared the meal with them, including two of the cobs from the corn that Lolly caught him trying to escape with.

  “I’m tired of chicken,” Bud complained, but Lolly wasn’t in the mood to argue with him. Of course he was tired of chicken. That was all they could afford.

  They’d had to sell her chickens when they moved into town, and the farm was remarkably quiet without the hens and the rooster constantly squawking and crowing.

  “I could stay here forever,” George said from the depths of the sofa.

  “Of course you could, “ Bud shot back. “You can’t get out of it. It’s kind of like a conversation with Hildegard and Amelia.”

  They had just started to laugh when they heard a car pull up and a knock on the door.

  “Oh no!” Bud said. “They’re here!”

  “Lolly, get rid of them,” George said.

  “You get rid of them,” she told him. “Why do I always have to do it?”

  “Because I can’t get up, that’s why.”

  She sighed and went to the door, mentally composing lines of conversation that would encourage the two women to leave.

  Whatever would have possessed them to come on a holiday evening?

  She opened the door and screamed as the snowy figure grabbed her and swung her around and around and around.

  Bud tore into the room, with Bruno hot on his heels, a treasured corncob in his teeth.

  Bud yelled and Bruno barked as Lolly cried and laughed and cried some more.

  George, finally motivated to extricate himself from the couch, joined them and boomed, “Colin!” He stood, and with his arms crossed over his chest and his heavy sweater, he looked as formidable as a prizefighter. “At last. Now, come in and explain yourself.”

  Bud stood beside him, his hands jammed onto his waist. “You owe us at least that,” he growled. “You owe Lolly that.”

  “Can’t you see he’s been traveling?” Lolly said. “Let him get his bearings again, and then you two can start grilling him. I have a few questions for him myself.”

  Finally, with a cup of warm tea in his hands and them all gathered in the kitchen around the table, he told them the story of finding the notebook and taking it to the publishing company.

  “Apparently Bruno felt you weren’t feeding him enough tires and feathers and books and such, so he’d started his own treasure chest of gastronomical delights out there where the back barn was. That’s where I found your notebook, Lolly.”

  “My notebook?” Lolly asked, feeling dull but very happy.

  “Your notebook. Bruno buried it where we took down the barn. He had quite the collection there. I know you’ll be delighted to know that your notebook ranked right up there with some feathers and a sock and a chewed candle stub in his doggy
mind.”

  “Oh, my.” Lolly looked at the dog that was now happily licking the snow off Colin’s boots. “He had it.”

  “He did. So I left here—”

  Remembered pain washed over her. “Why did you just leave like that? Didn’t you know that it would hurt?”

  “Hurt?”

  “To have you simply take off like that.”

  George nodded. “You could have at least left a note.”

  “I did. You didn’t see it? I put it on the table in the kitchen, and then I said good-bye to Bruno. . . .”

  Realization struck them all at once, and all four of them turned to look at the dog. He’d left Colin’s shoes and returned to his corncob and the fireplace, where he promptly fell asleep.

  “I wonder if a certain overgrown mutt might have had something to do with its disappearance,” George said.

  Bruno sighed in his sleep and moved his corncob closer to him so that his chin was resting on it.

  “So back to the notebook,” Bud prompted.

  “You know that my family owns a publishing company,” Colin continued. “Not a big one, mind you, but when I read your notebook—”

  “You read it!” Lolly sighed. “Well, why not. At this stage, it’s probably public record, thanks to Bud.”

  “Hey!” Bud objected. “I said I was sorry.”

  “It doesn’t undo what you did.”

  “You keep bringing it up, and I’ll quit being sorry.”

  “That’s what I mean. Living with you is a trial.”

  “Living with you is the crime.”

  “Stop!” George pounded the table with his hammy fist. “You two are the arguingest folks. Now stop so Colin can get on with what he has to say.”

  Lolly shot Bud one last I’m not happy glare, and he made a face at her.

  Colin grinned and continued with his story. “I took your notebook back to New York and showed it to my cousin, and he suggested that we publish it as part of our Fairy Dreams line. Your notebook fits right into it.”

  “So what does that mean?” George asked, his face serious.