by Karen Kirst
He put the paddle-like spoon into the washtub on the workbench. “So everything is mortgaged, land and livestock?”
She nodded. “Johann got the loans to build the new house and to buy a blooded bull to improve the herd. The bull was a fine-looking animal, but he was very mean. If Johann had known how mean, he never would’ve brought him here. Johann was an experienced herdsman, but the bull got loose one day from his pen and attacked Johann, cornered him between the fence and the barn wall. Grossvater had to shoot the bull to get to Johann, but by then it was too late.” Now, months later, the shock and first grief had worn off, but the persistent ache remained. The “what if” questions that never seemed to fade.
What if Johann had never bought that bull in the first place?
What if he had been able to fend off the attack?
What if…
She rested her hand on the baby. “He didn’t even know he was going to be a father.”
“That’s too bad. It’s life-changing news.”
“How did you take the news?”
He frowned, and she wondered if she had overstepped.
Finally, he shrugged. “When Gaelle told me she was going to have a baby, I had to sit down. My knees got wobbly and my head started to spin.” A rare smile twitched his lips. “She never let me forget that, either. She said she didn’t know which one of us had the more difficult time when Liesl was born.”
It was the first time he had mentioned his wife by name. Gaelle. Pretty name.
“What was your wife like?” Kate admitted to being curious, but more, she felt as if he needed to talk about it.
He leaned on the workbench and crossed his arms. “Like Liesl. Always moving, always chattering, always interested in everything.” It was almost as if he was speaking to himself, and his eyes had a faraway look.
“I haven’t been around children much,” Kate admitted. “Liesl’s like a little sponge, following Grossmutter or me around. She wants to try everything.” Kate smiled. “She seems very enamored of the idea of Christmas. She and Grossmutter are twins at heart, there. Christmas is Grossmutter’s favorite time of year.”
Oscar’s eyes sharpened, and his lips tightened. “Mrs. Hale tucked a flyer into one of the grocery boxes one Saturday a few weeks ago, about some sales she would be having at Christmas and some of the community events. Liesl asked what it was, and I made the mistake of telling her. Now she can hardly talk of anything else. If it was up to me, I would let the day go by without any notice.”
Kate blinked at the bleakness in his tone. Not celebrate the Savior’s birth? Why? But his expression forbade her asking any questions. It appeared the time of confidences was over. “Let’s check the milk.”
Oscar removed the flat lid for her, and she stood on tiptoe to reach into the center of the kettle. “We’re looking for a clean break.” She slipped her little finger straight down into the coagulated milk and slowly bent it, pulling up. The mixture split in a straight line as her finger broke the surface. “Perfect.”
Oscar poked the semi-gelatinous mass, eyebrows raised. “That was fast. Only twenty minutes?”
“Now comes the hard part.” Kate smiled. She took one of the cheese cutters off the wall, a wooden frame with wires strung horizontally across it, about a quarter inch separating each strand. Lowering it into the mixture with one side in the center of the kettle, the other against the outer edge, she rotated the cutter in a circle, cutting the curds into half-inch layers. Then she took the other cutter, this one with wires strung vertically, and repeated the procedure, making cubes of the loose curd.
“Could you bring me some water to wash these?” Kate asked, setting the cutters on the drain board. “We’ll let the curds rest for a few minutes while we wash up, which will help with separating the whey.”
Kate was surprised how easy Oscar was to work with. He had never made cheese before, but he learned quickly, and he only needed to be told something once. When the curds had rested long enough, she gave him the large spoon once more. “We can take turns, but the curds need to be stirred for about forty minutes.” She checked the time and made a note on her clipboard.
“You usually do this by yourself?” He bent to his task, scooping deep into the kettle, lifting the curds in long strokes.
She nodded. “Grossmutter helps sometimes, when the cows are giving lots of milk, but most of the time, I work alone.”
He stirred, digging deeply into the mass from bottom to top, his muscles moving under his plaid shirt. He was broader and taller than Johann had been, she noted. His movements were more deliberate, as if he thought about things before acting, unlike Johann’s quicksilver ways.
Was it wrong to observe such things? To notice that Oscar was strong and steady, capable and helpful?
They took turns stirring, but he wouldn’t let her go as long as he did. After forty minutes, she added more wood to the fire and opened the damper further. “Now we raise the temperature of the curds another thirty degrees or so and go on stirring for another half hour.”
“More stirring?” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m in pretty good shape, but I’ll be feeling this tomorrow.”
The curds, which had started out as half-inch cubes, were now the size of small peas, and much of the thin, yellowish whey had been released. “After this next round, it will be done cooking and you won’t have to stir it anymore.”
When it was her turn to stir, she forced herself to say what she had been trying to get out all morning. “I wanted to thank you for taking us in. I know we’re an imposition, and I hope it isn’t for too long, but we are grateful. I don’t know what we would do if you hadn’t opened your home. And you’ve taken us to town and helped with our chores, and now with the cheese. I don’t know how we can repay you.”
He shook his head. “There was no one else, not if you wanted to stay together.”
And if there had been anyone else, he would not have volunteered?
“And besides, it’s only for a week or two, at the most.”
He must be looking forward to the time when they would be out of his house. Until then, they would be as helpful as they could without intruding more than they had to.
Oscar swirled the long spoon in the mixture. “When Liesl woke me up this morning, she was still talking about your Advent Nativity set. I’m sorry about that. She doesn’t realize how painful it must be now that you’ve lost it to the fire.”
“It’s all right. She’s too young to understand. Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to talk about it as much as it hurts to keep it all inside.” Kate removed wooden cheese hoops from the shelves and began lining them with clean cheesecloth. “I learned that right after Johann died. I missed him so much it was hard to even talk about him, but if I didn’t, it was like he never existed at all. It’s the remembering, recalling the memories and good times, that hurts and heals.”
Oscar frowned, staring into the kettle as he stirred.
“And I didn’t want to make others feel as if they couldn’t speak of him for fear of hurting me. Grossmutter and Grossvater needed to be able to talk about their grandson—the man they had raised from infancy—without worrying about me bursting into tears all the time.” She paused, wondering if he might need to hear of her experience as much as she needed to voice it. “I have learned enough about myself these past few months to know that talking about things makes me feel better. I need to let my emotions breathe instead of stuffing them down. Even if they are emotions I don’t want to have, like grief, loss, frustration, fear. The problem is finding someone to talk to about them. I don’t want to burden Grossmutter and Grossvater with more than they should carry. So I talk to myself.”
She chuckled. “Working alone in the cheese house this summer gave me lots of time to work things out, to pray, to remember. When things got overwhelming, I tried to remember the good times and focu
s on those. So when Liesl asked about the Nativity set, the pain of loss came up, but it’s overlaid with good memories of family and Christmas.”
He stirred, looking into the kettle and not at her. “I guess that’s where we’re different. Talking about Gaelle is…” He shook his head. “At first there was no one to talk to her about, Liesl being so little at the time, and then later…” He shrugged.
Her heart went out to him, newly widowed with a toddler and a farm.
“Was there no one to help you?”
“Gaelle’s parents wanted me to let them raise Liesl, but I couldn’t do that. They had been none too happy when their daughter married a farmer like me. Didn’t even come to the wedding. No way would I let them raise my child. They don’t have much contact with Liesl now.”
So he hadn’t shirked his responsibility and shipped Liesl off, even though it would’ve been easier on him. He was a man who did what was right, even if it was hard.
Like opening his house to strangers even though he didn’t want to.
The sound of a wagon approaching broke the moment, and she glanced out the window. Grossvater, Grossmutter and Liesl. It was too early for lunch. Why were they here? A tickle of unease feathered across her skin.
Liesl peeked around the corner, spotted her father and bounded into the room. “Daddy, guess what? We made butter, and Grossmutter said I am a good helper. Did you know if you shake cream it makes butter? That’s what we did. Grossmutter put some in a jar for me, and I shook it and rolled it and it took forever, but then there was butter. And a man came to the door, and he had a telegram for Grossvater, and then we came here.”
Oscar lifted her into his arms, brushing a kiss on her head.
Kate checked the curds. They could wait for a bit.
Grossvater followed Grossmutter inside the cheese house, his face sober, no light in his eyes. He pressed his hand to his chest, coughing. Kate hurried over to him, guiding him to the bench along the wall. Grossmutter handed him a dipper of water. When the cough had passed and he had emptied the dipper, he leaned back, a red flush to his cheeks.
“George Frankel brought this out from town since he was headed this way.” Grossvater removed the yellow paper from his pocket. “My brother says we should come live with him…”
Kate’s heart fell. The most she had hoped for was a loan to tide them over, perhaps enough to build a small house. A loan they would repay, of course, no matter how long it took. But to have to leave the farm…
Grossvater continued. “But he will not have room for us or a job for me until after the new year. He says to come in January.”
Kate took the paper, quickly reading the block letters. A reprieve of sorts, but it didn’t solve the immediate problem. What could they do in the meantime? It was seven weeks until Christmas, eight until the new year. In that time, her baby would come. Where would she be when that happened?
“My brother will send more information in a letter, but I know he will say we should sell the farm and livestock and come back to Ohio.”
Kate shook her head. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. The farm was their home, her baby’s inheritance from the father he would never know. There had to be another way. She handed the yellow page back to Grossvater.
Grossmutter went to the kettle and peered in. “This is ready. We should remove the curds.” She took off her coat and rolled up her sleeves. Her lined face was grim, but true to her nature, she would work first and worry later.
Kate handed her a strainer and took one herself, dipping into the kettle. They couldn’t afford to waste time or their limited resources, but while her hands did the familiar tasks, her mind raced, circled, knotted and spun.
Grossvater put the telegram into his pocket and with slow movements began setting the lined cheese molds onto the slanted, grooved drain board. He had to stop to cough into his handkerchief, his face reddening and eyes watering.
Oscar took over for him moving the molds. “Why don’t you sit for a while? I can do this.”
“What are you doing?” Liesl asked. “Can I help?” She nudged Kate’s elbow.
“We’re packing each of the molds, then folding the cheesecloth over and putting a lid on top.” Kate scooped a handful of curds into a wooden mold and showed the little girl how to cover it. “You can put lids on all of these.” The lid fit inside the mold perfectly. “When we get them all full, we’ll press them to squeeze all the liquid out.”
They worked quickly, and soon, sixteen cheeses were ready to press. “Liesl, can you bring me a brick?” Kate pointed to the stack in the corner. “Careful, and don’t drop it on your toe.”
Liesl hefted one of the blocks with an “Oomph.” She wrapped her arms around it and staggered over.
Grossmutter made sure the tub on the floor at the end of the draining table was in place to catch the whey.
“What do you do with that?” Liesl pointed to the thin, yellow liquid dripping into the tub.
“We mix it with bran and feed it to the calves, Schätzchen.” Grossmutter dipped a metal bucket into the kettle, pouring the whey into one of the cans the milk had been stored in. “And Mr. Frankel comes to get some for his pigs when we have a lot.”
“You have a lot now.” Liesl nodded to emphasize her pronouncement. “What does Schätzchen mean again?”
“It means ‘sweetheart.’” Grossmutter filled the can to the top and pressed the lid on tight.
“Schätzchen. I like it.” Liesl beamed.
Grossvater stood, bracing against the wall for a moment to steady himself. “Why don’t you and I go feed the calves? They are a bit old for bran and whey now, but they will still like it.” He took a bucketful from Grossmutter. “It will be a treat for them.”
Kate marked the time on her clipboard for when they had started pressing the cheese, her mind not really focusing on the numbers.
Grossmutter sighed, wiping the now empty kettle with a vinegar-soaked cloth. “What are we going to do? Martin does not wish to work for his brother, or to lose the farm. If it was not winter coming, I would say we should move in here, to the Käsehaus. We could sleep on straw pallets on the floor, like I did when we went to the high pastures as a girl. But with the baby coming and now Martin has a cough…”
Oscar leaned on the workbench, arms crossed. “You can’t stay here. There isn’t even glass in the windows.”
Kate brushed her hair back from her temples with both hands, squeezing, wanting to force the desperation out of her head. They couldn’t winter in the cheese house.
“We’ll have to go to town. Mrs. Tipford has found places for us to stay,” Kate said.
“But not together.” Grossmutter shook her head. “We would have to be separated. And the baby will come, and we will not be there.”
Kate’s throat grew thick at the despair in Grossmutter’s voice. She wasn’t ungrateful for the people who had offered to house them in town, but it made her anxious to think about staying somewhere without her family, of having her baby in a stranger’s house.
She looked at Oscar, but he said nothing.
Though disappointment weighed on her shoulders, she couldn’t be angry with him. After all, he wasn’t obligated to solve the Amakers’ problems.
CHAPTER SIX
Oscar went outside the cheese house, his boots hitting the dirt hard. God, I’ve done my part. I let them stay overnight, and I extended the stay until they heard from back east. They have other places to go. Pastor and Mrs. Tipford have it set up. They would be better off in town, wouldn’t they?
Because he couldn’t have them at his house any longer. Methodically he laid out his reasons, making his argument plain.
Liesl would grow too attached to them. When they left after Christmas, she would be heartbroken.
Having them in the house brought back too many memorie
s. Memories of the good times with Gaelle when they had been a complete family, and there had been love and laughter. It hurt too much having them there, reminding him, digging up the old feelings he worked very hard to keep buried.
And then there was Kate. His biggest concern was that if Kate stayed in his house for another two months, she would be here when her baby arrived.
He couldn’t let that happen. What if something went wrong, like it had for Gaelle? He couldn’t be responsible for another expectant mother. Berne didn’t even have a doctor. If something went awry, they would have to send down to Mantorville for a physician.
The accusation had rung in his ears when Gaelle’s parents had descended on the farm for the funeral. It was his fault for taking their daughter away from the civilized city where she’d been brought up. Away from adequate medical care. By the time the midwife had sent for a doctor, and he traveled through the snow to the farm, it had been too late.
Oscar didn’t want to ever live through something like that again, not even just providing a place for his neighbors to stay temporarily. No. They had to go. And sooner rather than later.
Liesl came bounding up the path, Rolf on her heels, barking happily. Her cheeks and nose were pink, and her mittens dangled from the string threaded through the sleeves of her plaid coat. “Daddy, Grossvater says tomorrow is Sunday, and they are going to church. Can we go to church? He says there is singing, and talking about Jesus.”
She collided with his legs, looking up, expectant eagerness making her eyes sparkle. A fist closed around his windpipe. He hadn’t been to church for almost two years, since Gaelle died. At first, he’d wrestled with God, blaming the Almighty for taking his wife and child. And he hadn’t wanted to face the community, the people who wanted to help, to ask questions, to see how he was feeling. How did they think he was feeling? So he just hadn’t gone. And after a while, it had become easier and easier to stay home.
Pastor and Mrs. Tipford hadn’t been satisfied to let him go, though. They visited regularly, always encouraged him to come back, and he had known he would need to, someday. Gaelle would want Liesl brought up in the church.
