AFTER THE WORK AND FUN OF THANKSGIVING, life on the farm returned to a slower pace, and Kari again helped Max with his chores each morning.
I do love it here, Lord, she prayed as they fed the chickens and gathered eggs. I love the peace and the simple, uncluttered routine. And I love our time in your word as a family! But I also love my life in NOLA—my house, my work, my friends there.
Søren says he wants me here. Always. But when I think about leaving NOLA forever, when I imagine pulling apart from those other things and people I love, I feel grieved. Confused.
You must show me the way, Lord. You must show me how a marriage to Søren could work. Because right now I don’t see it, Lord.
I don’t see it.
She prayed as she awoke each morning, she prayed as she worked, she prayed as she climbed into bed in the evening. She heard only a single word.
Christmas.
—
WHEN FAMILY DEVOTIONS ENDED ON HER LAST FULL DAY in Nebraska, Kari asked everyone to wait. “I have something to ask the three of you,” she announced.
“What is it?” Max, who had been given permission to stay home from school on Kari’s last day, leaned against her arm and stared up at her. “Shucks, Kari, you know we’ll do it, whatever it is.”
His adoring gaze almost undid Kari. She laughed aloud. “Well, then its settled. You are all going to spend Christmas with me.”
“What?” The word burst from three mouths simultaneously.
Søren was the first to add on, “You mean go to New Orleans?” even while he shook his head “no.”
“Yes, silly. Come to New Orleans. Why, when was the last time you or Ilsa had a vacation? Come stay with me over the holidays. I’m thinking ten days or two weeks? We’ll have a perfect, wonderful time.”
“Say yes, Papa! Please?”
But Søren shrugged and still shook his head “no.” “We can’t pick up and go like you can, Kari. We don’t have anyone to take care of the farm while we’re gone. And, frankly, I couldn’t afford to pay someone if we did.”
Kari nodded and tapped a finger on her cheek, thinking. “What if you did have the money to pay someone, someone to house sit for you and manage the day-to-day chores? Say, a young unmarried farmer from church? Someone you know and trust.”
Ilsa, her face shining in anticipation, looked from Kari to Søren. “What about Seth Norquist? We’ve known him all his life. We know his parents. He is engaged to Jenny Frisk and he is looking to make extra money before they get married in the spring. He would jump at the chance.”
“Yes, he is a fine, responsible young man, but again, I cannot afford to pay him to care for our farm.”
“It would be part of my Christmas gift to all of you,” Kari said softly. “I would pay his wages and buy your plane tickets, and you would stay at my house. I want you to see my world, Søren, and I don’t want to be alone for Christmas. I want my family to be with me.”
Kari watched him fold his arms in that stubborn Norwegian/Irish manner she knew well.
“I don’t take money from a woman. And that’s the end of it.”
But it wasn’t the end of it for Kari—and she was prepared to do battle. “Søren, look at me.”
From under glowering brows, his intense blue eye lifted to hers. “You won’t change my mind, Kari.”
“Well, then I guess there is no future for us, is there?”
Ilsa and Max stilled. Søren’s brows bunched closer together and his gaze shifted away.
“You listen to me, Søren Thoresen. You spoke to me from your heart the other day, and I said I would pray on and think about what you said.
“Well, guess what? I am a wealthy woman. No, I am a stinking, filthy rich woman. That isn’t going to change. And I think that if you can’t take me as I am, then you can’t take me at all.
“Consider this Christmas trip as an experiment of sorts, Søren, because if we are to have any future together, we have many, many details to sort out. And as I have thought and prayed—as I promised you I would—I have realized that I can’t commit to be the kind of wife who only stays in the kitchen—or one who only lives on this farm year round.
“I have big responsibilities back in New Orleans, and I will not shirk them. If we are to have a future, you need to know my life firsthand and accept from the get-go that ours would not be a conventional marriage.
“So what will it be? Will you accept my Christmas gift and come dip your toes into my world? Or will you and I remain as we are—‘cousins in Christ’ and nothing more?”
Max was staring so intently at his father that Kari was certain the man’s shirt was going to spontaneously combust. Ilsa, mouth pursed, slid her eyes from her brother and back to Kari, uncertain whose argument would prevail.
Finally, Søren muttered, “Is that how it would be then, Kari? A part-time marriage? Only half of a commitment?”
Kari chose her answer with care. “Of course it would be an entire commitment—on both our parts. We would be wholly committed to each other, which in my estimation means we would also commit to supporting each other’s work and sharing our responsibilities.”
She softened her tone further. “What is so wrong with my sharing my money with you and Max and Ilsa, Søren? Can you not consider it a blessing from God rather than an affront to your manhood?”
She smiled and cocked her head a little. “And I was really looking forward to having the three of you with me for Christmas, to spoiling all of you a little. All right, spoiling you a lot. Can’t you imagine the fun we could have? Can’t you loosen up and enjoy yourself a bit?”
Max wriggled in his seat. “Please, Papa?”
Søren chewed his lip and hesitated.
Tired of waiting for him to answer, Ilsa slapped her hand on the old wood planks of the table. “For heaven’s sake, Søren! I want to go. I haven’t had a real vacation in five years.”
She grinned at Kari. “On behalf of the three of us, I accept. With pleasure! Thank you for such a thoughtful Christmas gift.”
Max jumped up and hugged Ilsa, then Kari. Then he ran to his father. “Gosh, Papa! Just think! We get to spend Christmas at Kari’s house in New Orleans! And fly on a real airplane!”
Søren huffed and shook his head. “All right. You win.”
He put his hands on Max’s shoulders. The boy was positively vibrating with eagerness. “Settle down now, Son. You need to be calm when you are around our animals.”
When Max bounced out the door, Søren sighed and studied Kari. “You should understand, Kari. What you propose is . . . a lot different from what I’d had in mind. A lot different. It is hard for me to consider it.”
“Yes. Change is hard, I know. But if you meant what you told me in the barn, then shouldn’t we approach, er, things realistically?
“Not having money is a problem you are accustomed to, Søren. Well, having money is a different kind of problem—but it is still a problem. The money won’t go away if we ignore it, and I am still charged by God to steward it well. That requires time and effort on my part.”
He ran his hand up his neck and across the top of his close-cropped hair. “I’m beginning to see that. . . but I don’t particularly like it.”
~~**~~
Chapter 12
KARI FINISHED HER MORNING DEVOTIONS and glanced at the calendar.
December 12. They will be here in exactly seven days! It will be so wonderful to have them here for two whole weeks.
Kari was both excited and nervous for Søren, Max, and Ilsa to arrive. She stacked her Bible and Rose’s journals to place them in the bottom desk drawer. However, when she grabbed the drawer’s pull, the drawer was stuck. It would not move.
With more effort, Kari yanked on the handle and the slides gave. As the drawer flew outwards, Kari heard something inside shift.
Again.
She felt around in its deep recesses but found nothing.
Again.
I keep hearing something sliding about in this drawer, but there’
s nothing in it!
Kari pushed away from her desk and got on her knees. By lifting the front end of the drawer, she was able to free the drawer from the wooden slide stops and remove it from the desk. She set it on its end—and heard the movement of something as it slid and thudded against the end of the drawer.
There’s definitely something . . .
Kari tipped the drawer over so she could examine its underside, but it looked normal—securely tacked in place. It did not budge. She set the drawer on one side, then placed a hand on the drawer’s bottom side and the other inside the drawer.
“What? That can’t be right.” Rather than the quarter- to half-inch breadth she anticipated, two inches or more separated her hands.
“This drawer has a false bottom,” Kari whispered. “It has a secret compartment—and that compartment is not empty!”
Excited and a little nervous, Kari placed the drawer right side up on her desk’s blotter and swiveled her desk lamp over the drawer to give her better light. She examined the inside of the drawer from one end to the other.
At the back, she found a small metal piece protruding from the end of the drawer. She pressed down on it, but nothing happened. However, when she pressed it in, the bottom popped up. Kari slid the thin board a tiny bit toward the back, which released the front end from the groove that held it in place.
More eager than ever, Kari lifted the false bottom out. There, in the space between the two bottoms, lay a thin album. With nervous fingers, Kari picked it up.
She moved the drawer and false bottom to the floor and then laid the volume on her desk. Standing over it, she opened it.
It was a scrapbook, filled with newspaper clippings.
Kari’s breath caught in her throat. She thumbed slowly through the pages. Every clipping was meticulously trimmed and glued to a page. And every clipping had to do with the one topic: The kidnapping of Edmund Thoresen Michaels.
“Oh! O dear Jesus!” Kari whispered. She sat hard in her chair and turned back to the front of the book.
Headlines from the Denver Post screamed the story, but the book contained excerpts from other newspapers, too—papers in Boulder, Cheyenne, Lincoln and Omaha, and even farther away in Billings, Spokane, Seattle, and Portland.
Kari read intently, seeing for the first time the facts of her father’s abduction laid out in cold black on white. As Joy and Grant had experienced their loss. As Rose had.
The clippings went on for months.
Dean Morgan—Peter Granger—kept track of the investigation this way, Kari realized. It is how he knew he was safe here in New Orleans.
Kari devoured the articles but stopped when she came across clippings from two Seattle papers—articles covering a related topic: The arrest of Fang-Hua Chen.
Shan-Rose’s grandmother!
Not many days later the same papers reported Fang-Hua’s untimely death: She had been beaten to death in her jail cell.
No one had been arrested in her death. The men who had beaten her were never identified.
Kari felt not one ounce of compassion for the woman.
“If this woman had been dealt with earlier, I might have grown up in the bosom of my family, my real family.”
She sighed. “I know, Lord. I can’t go there. I can’t live on fruitless ‘what-ifs’ and futile ‘what-might-have-beens.’ Lord, please show me how to live for today?”
She recalled only one allusion to Fang-Hua’s death in Rose’s blue journal, what had been, as Kari had read it, an oblique and passing reference to the event.
She picked up the cracked blue book and searched for the right page to reread the entry with new eyes.
Journal Entry, January 16, 1912
I found myself thinking today of the woman responsible for Edmund’s abduction: Fang-Hua Chen. When I am tempted to anger and hatred, Lord, you remind me that she has already faced your judgment. She has faced you in all of your power, glory, and righteousness without the saving blood of Jesus to cover her sins. What could be more punishment than that?
No, when I am tempted to dwell upon her actions and the recriminations that rise up with those thoughts, I lay claim to the Scripture found in Romans 12:21, and I purpose again to spend my heart and energy on what you have given me to do.
Be not overcome with evil,
but overcome evil with good.
Lord, I have laid my hand to the plow; I have counted the cost of my complete commitment. I will not turn back, Father. I will not falter to do all the good I can in the time you allot me.
Electrified, Kari sat back. Overcome evil with good. I will not falter to do all the good I can in the time you allot me.
Miss Em said ‘and keep doing the good God leads you to do.’
“Lord, you know I have been tinkering with an idea, an idea I think is from you. I will place it before Oskar and ask for his counsel and help. If it is of you, would you please speak to both of us about it? I want to do what you ask of me.”
As she prayed and her idea started to clarify, she pulled paper from another drawer and started to outline a business plan to support it.
“Yes, Lord! Thank you for helping me to put my thoughts into practical terms. Now to broach the idea with Oskar.”
—
KARI MET WITH OSKAR THE NEXT MORNING on her regularly scheduled day with him. They perused reports together, examined stock and bond prices, and read letters from managers and boards.
Recently, he had begun asking her to state her opinions and make suggestions. He played the devil’s advocate to get her to think and justify her position. Through these exchanges, Kari learned to articulate herself in clear, succinct statements. She even started emulating Oskar’s judicious tone.
“I’d like you to dictate the responses to these letters,” Oskar said. “I’ll look them over and suggest changes or improvements. They will go out under my signature, but I wish you to have the experience of writing business correspondence from a manager’s perspective.”
Kari took the letters and walked down the hall to Miss Fletcher’s office. As she left, Clover slipped into Oskar’s office.
“Good morning, Son.”
“Hello, Father! I didn’t know you were in today.”
Clover sat down in one of the armchairs in front of Oskar’s desk. “Miss Dawes tells me that Kari has been working with you regularly. I thought I’d drop in and see how she’s doing.”
“She’s doing well, actually. Has an excellent head for business—despite what she’s been led to believe about herself.”
Clover nodded his agreement. “That ex-husband did some damage.”
Oskar’s face reddened a bit, but he kept his temper in check. “Well, we’ll undo that damage, if I have anything to say about it.”
He looked across his desk to his father. “You want to know how Kari is doing? She is a natural analytic. She sees the heart of an issue within seconds or minutes of taking in the relevant facts. And she’s good with people—open and transparent, frank but not overbearing. So far the money hasn’t affected her, hasn’t engendered an attitude of entitlement or privilege.”
Clover smiled at his son. “I agree. My hope is that it never does.”
—
HALF AN HOUR LATER, while Miss Fletcher typed the responses she had dictated, Kari returned to Oskar’s office. “Miss Fletcher will bring the letters as soon as they are ready. If . . .” Kari fidgeted a little, “if we have a few minutes, may I talk to you about something else?”
“Certainly. What did you have in mind?”
Kari took a file folder from her briefcase. “You might not know this, but my Bible study group spends one afternoon a week at a women’s shelter. These are women who have been threatened or abused, some beaten, by their spouses or boyfriends. By their pimps. Some of them are in fear for their lives. Most of them have children with them.
“It is horrid to see the emotional damage on their faces, in their eyes, in how they talk. It will take time for that damage to ease
, for them to find a way forward with their lives.
“It is true that many of them are in this predicament because of wrong choices or wrong behaviors. We can even call it sin. But all I see are women who don’t know Jesus, women whose lives will never change until they have him.
“You see, I was in a similar situation . . . in my last marriage. David abused and controlled me until Anthony helped me throw him out. But when he was gone from my life, I still had no job, no money, and no hope. I was damaged—that’s why I have compassion for these women. And I cannot imagine the plight of abused women who also have children to care for.”
Kari cleared her throat. “Of course, I see needs at the shelter—repairs and upgrades to the house, food, immediate necessities I can help with.
“One of the shelter’s greatest needs is for additional space. More women flee domestic violence each day than the shelter can house. Yes, I could add on to the existing house or buy a second home, but none of those improvements addresses the spiritual needs of the women.
“I would like to do something more overarching, something with Jesus at its core. My Bible study group can only speak of the Lord the few hours we are there. I feel he should be the essence of the shelter’s mission.
“And so I have been noodling on an idea. You know of my grandmother and great-grandmother’s work in Denver—I’ve told you about Palmer House. I would like to start a foundation to carry on their work. I want to fund domestic violence shelters that operate from a Christian perspective.”
She laid her business plan before Oskar. “This is a rough outline of what I have in mind.”
Oskar read the plan from start to finish and then read it again. “You are suggesting an endowment?”
“Yes, that’s the word I was looking for.” She wet her lips. “Er, what do you think?”
“The cost aside, I think it is a noble plan but easier to conceive on paper than in reality.”
Kari exhaled. “You mean because people aren’t things that you can fix by throwing money at them? That people can’t be ordered into neat little roles?”
All God's Promises (A Prairie Heritage Book 7) Page 15
