“What kind of a job does he have? What does he do for a living?” Mother’s practicality was evident, and I had no real response.
“He told me he doesn’t have a ‘pot to piss in’—I’m using his words!—‘or a window to throw it out of,’ but that we had better get married before ‘this thing’ gets any bigger.”
“What thing?”
“I think… he was referring… to… the way… we felt. . . about each other… and about… how wonderful… the kissing had been… and about… the danger that we were in… of…”
“Going too far.” Mother finished my sentence without a moment’s wait. “Well, I’ll give him something for having had that much good sense.” Her voice indicated the benefit of the doubt had been given grudgingly.
“When did you say he’s coming?” she asked.
“This morning.”
“This is a big step for you even to consider. Having known him only at dances, you haven’t formed much of an opinion of him except he’s a good dancer… and that he’s experienced.”
“Experienced?”
“Obviously he’s been in that situation before so he knew when to call a halt to the activity. That kind of knowledge comes only from experience. That’s another thing in his favor… or not, depending.” She took a sip of coffee. “Let me think on it.
It seemed that was her last word on the subject… at least this morning.
I was clutching my nightgown as if it could ward off destruction. That was what I most feared—destruction—of Arvo, of the relationship between Mother and me, and of the feeling growing between Arvo and me. I wanted things to stay the same. I didn’t want to have to face this kind of reality. I wanted to have this Sunday morning be like every other Sunday morning, with chores to do and maybe church to attend. I wanted… but I didn’t want… there to be any one named Arvo Mattson in the world. I didn’t want any part of this big decision that loomed like a mountain—or like a high hill—in front of me.
“You’d better get ready,” Mother told me. “Just in case he comes early.”
I nodded but served myself a generous helping of the pancakes that Mother had piled in the center of the table. The extras that the boys didn’t eat she always rolled up with sugar and butter for me. They were delicious, and the coffee was good and hot.
It seemed like any other morning. Why, oh why, couldn’t it just be like any other morning? I asked myself.
And about then I heard a chug, chug, chug coming down Highway 25. I knew it would turn into our yard and the driver would get out and it would be Arvo and I would have to face him… and Mother… and I fled upstairs to wash at the dry sink and filled the pitcher to pour into its matching bowl so I could wash my face. Glancing in the mirror hung on the opposite wall, I could just see the back of my head and the way my hair had been flattened during the night. Desperately, I brushed it, leaning over to do so from the nape up, and then down again. The bob was easy to redo—much simpler than the long hair I used to have to braid every night and then unbraid and brush out and re-braid for the day.
Looking at my dresses, I debated. Should I get dressed up? Or would it be better if I just wore a housedress? Leaning on the side of caution, I donned one of the freshly ironed and starched housedresses Mother had hung from two nails so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. We didn’t have a real closet, but one corner of the first bedroom had been set aside with a curtain to hold our dresses. The boys had a similar one in one corner of their bedroom, which they reached by going through ours.
Mother and I had shared a bed ever since I got home, and I had enjoyed the intimacy. Sometimes she would rub or tickle my back, especially if I did the same to her. We would argue about who would be last because that one could fall asleep while she was being tickled. Sometimes we had talked into the night, Mother sharing facts about Father I had never known.
I had not been aware, for example, that he had worked for a lumber company one spring when the tanning business had been slow. He had worked on the river, staying overnight in a “Wanigan”—a sort of bunk house/cook shed—built on the river for the lumbermen to use. His job had been a dangerous one. He had been assigned to clear logjams. The timber that had been cut by men during the winter had been brought to the big river—I think it was the St. Louis River, but I’m not sure—to float downstream toward the sawmills. Sometimes the logs got bunched up, and then the log-jammers had to run out on logs with picks to push them apart and get them going again. It had been hard work, but Father had loved it, Mother had told me. “He got paid really well, too, by the lumber company, which got the logs from the river and cut them into boards. I remember he worked for the Rainy River Lumber and Sawmill Company out of Virginia.”
That was a side of Father that I had not known.
“Of course, on his way home after he got paid, he had to stop at the Roosevelt Bar in Virginia. He got rolled the first time he went there.”
“What does that mean?” I had asked.
“It means someone gets a fellow drunk and then robs him of all of the money he’d made. It only happened just once with your Father, though,” she remembered. “After that, he just bought a bottle of moonshine and brought it home. You must remember that,” she asked, leaning up on her elbow to look down at me. “You were old enough to remember how he was… at the end.”
“Of course I do,” I answered. “And I’ve hated him for that. It’s good to know that at least once in a while he was a good man.”
Leaning back, she touched my hand, “He was a very good man when we were first married and until… well… you know the story.”
I did and I didn’t want to have to remember it, so I reached over to start tickling her back, and she fell asleep quickly. That had been another long night for me as I remembered.
But that had involved Mother and Father. I had only been an observer, rarely a participant in their fights, except for the times when he really lost it—like the time he’d thrown knives at us as we ran for the neighborhood grocery store.
Now the problem involved me. And I was very poorly equipped to handle it. I’d had no other suitor, no other “boyfriend” especially during the years I had spent with the Lappalas. It would have been unthinkable then. And since I got home, I had so immersed myself in this world I’d had no time for the young men I had met at dances who had sometimes offered to walk me home, or drive me home if one had a horse and buggy, or invite himself over for a Saturday night. Saturday nights were family nights—with visitors including whole families, not just one young man. I was ill prepared to face Arvo—or Mother—or myself for that matter. Sometimes I felt as if I had found myself in a quagmire that seemed to be pulling me down, down, down into an abyss, the depths of which I couldn’t fathom. Sometimes, on the other hand, I thought of what I was facing as offering a glance into a heaven I hadn’t known existed. Which was the true alternative? I had absolutely no idea.
Arvo’s polite knock on the door drew me back to the present in a hurry. I rushed downstairs to greet him only to find that Mother had opened the door herself and was in the process of introducing herself and Ronny and Eino to this young man, who was putting himself forward, not shying back or away. With an easy grace, he reached out to shake hands with Ronny and Eino, making a small comment to each of them.
“I understand you’re the force behind the success of this farm,” he told Ronny. And to Eino, he said, “Young man, you’re a fine example of what youth can be. Are you going to school?”
Of course, Ronny responded with some comments about the farm, and Eino answered his question with a positive, “Yes, sir. I’m going to be a freshman at the Alango High School (rebuilt and added to) this coming fall.” And then Arvo had turned to Mother, came close to hugging her, and chose instead to put an arm around her shoulders and squeeze her. “So you are the mother of the girl I want to marry,” was his opening statement.<
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Wow! I thought, he’s not wasting any time. I hesitated to come forward, but once he saw me, he took several big strides toward me, gave me a big hug, and said, “I hope you have the right answer for me this morning.”
Flabbergasted, Mother motioned us toward the table, which she had set with our best dishes—the ones she had ordered from the catalog—the ones that came in a blue willow pattern. I knew it had been quite the thing among the ladies in Virginia, and I couldn’t help but be pleased Mother had had the right instincts when she had set out to purchase a new set.
Ronny and Eino excused themselves, obviously anxious to leave this meeting in one piece.
Mother poured coffee into Arvo’s cup, and indicated the bowls of sugar and cream and teaspoons in the middle of the table beside the quart jar of lupines and daisies that I had arranged for a centerpiece.
“Now, young man,” she began, sitting down across from him, “I understand you’re here to court my daughter.”
“Well…” he answered, “if ‘to court’ means I want to marry her, that’s why I’m here. But I’m really not courting. I’m looking for an answer to a very important question I asked her last night,” and he turned to me, “Will you marry me?”
It was as simple as that. Mother pinned him down about his prospects, and he answered her honestly. “I don’t have a thing to offer her but my heart,” he said. “But that is full of love. I know we haven’t known each other a long time, and I do want to get to know her—all of you—much better… but I’m not willing to wait to marry her. I knew from the first time I saw her she was the one for me. You can ask anyone at the CCC camp what I said when I got home from that first dance. And I’ve told Ivan and Sunny, my brother and sister-in-law about her and about how I feel about her. They’ve given me their blessing. My Ma and Pa, who are now living in Iron, aren’t much when it comes to parenting. In fact, they kind of just gave birth to us and let us grow as we could. I left home when I was fourteen to get away from Pa, whose answer to any disagreement was a beating. I’ve got marks on my back if you want to see them. So I know exactly how a family shouldn’t be,” he went on. “And I have a dream about how a family could be—with a husband who adores his wife and would do anything for her, with a wife who doesn’t obey but respects her husband and cares about him with all her heart, and some children who will grow up without beating but with a lot of love.”
It was a long speech. I don’t think he had given any of it much thought before he came. Everything just kind of spilled out. But he was being very honest and forthright, and I could tell Mother was impressed with that.
“I’ll treat her like a queen if she’ll marry me,” he continued, “insofar as I’m able. And I’ll work like a dog to earn my way—whether it’s at Williams’ store or around here.”
“You’ve done farm work before?” Mother asked.
“Of course” was his answer. “You can’t grow up around here without learning your way around a farm. I’ve worked for Victor Makis on and off during haying season and, in fact, am set to go to work for your daughter Aini and her husband Karl Luoma as soon as they start haying. So you see, I’m almost a member of the family.”
His tone was so hopeful, and he looked so woebegone that my heart went out to him.
“He might not have much as far as finances go,” I thought, “but his heart is definitely in the right place.”
Obviously Mother thought so, too, but she still had qualms, which she voiced. “I just wish you knew each other better,” she began. “After all, dancing together doesn’t teach you much about the other person.”
“I beg to disagree,” he said. “I think it tells the most important thing—that they move to the same music, that they trust each other enough for one to follow where the other leads, that each one cares about the other enough to hold each other close—but not too close. And that brings me to the real point of my offer.” He looked straight into Mother’s eyes as he continued, “If what happened in the car last night is any indication, we’re ready to be joined together in another way, and I don’t want that to happen before we’re married.”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. I didn’t think we had done anything but kiss the night before. What more was he talking about?
“There’s a time and a place for everything, the Bible says. I’m not a church-going man although I do like what Reverend Lappala preaches, and if Maria wants to attend her church, I’d be happy to join her. But I’m digressing. There’s a time and place for the kind of closeness both of us want, and that’s in the marriage bed, not in the front or back seat of a motor car. I hope you agree,” he concluded, continuing to look Mother straight in the eyes.
“Oh, dear,” Mother said. “You’ve taken me completely by surprise. I didn’t… expect… you to be so… frank.” That was the only word she seemed to be able to muster. “But you’re absolutely right. I just can’t quite come to terms with how quickly this is all happening.”
“I’m sorry,” Arvo said. “Neither can I. But it is happening, and we need to act now before… things. . . get out of hand.”
He turned to me for the first time since he had begun his speech. “Maria, do you agree with me?”
I don’t think he had any question about my stand on this situation. I realized he thought I agreed with him with all my heart. And I did… to a point. But… marriage! I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. I thought about what Aini had said about her feelings and worried. If I reacted to Arvo the same way, what would we have left? Our whole relationship so far had been based on the physical connection between us. I couldn’t help but fear that might not be enough.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. His face fell, really fell. I had never seen that happen before, but it did at that moment. “I think I love you, but this has all happened so quickly, and I’m… afraid,” I admitted.
“Please don’t be,” he reached for my hand. “I’ll take good care of you, I promise.”
As far as taking any further action, that ended our “conference” that morning. He got up, looking distraught, reached for me again, thought better of it, and turned toward the door.
“Don’t leave!” I exclaimed.
“I think it’s best if I do… for now,” he said, his voice filled with sadness. “We obviously aren’t on the same page with all of this yet. I was so sure…” but then he broke off and, looking down at me, said, “I will love you for the rest of my life… and in the life to come.”
With those words, he left, leaving me behind bewildered, crying, terribly upset, and yet not quite sure of what I could say in response to those words.
Mother came to my side, hugging me hard. “I think you made the right decision.”
“But how can I be sure?” I asked, desperately.
“Time will tell” was her only answer. And it did.
19: The Wedding and Its Aftermath
The minute he walked out of the room, I started to sob. Crying uncontrollably, I whimpered, “I don’t know what to do! I don’t want him to leave! But I can’t bear having him stay either!”
“Now, now,” Mother soothed me, “if he is serious about you, and it seems as if he is, he’ll be back. I don’t think he’ll give up this easily if he really cares about you, and it seems as if he does.”
“When?” I asked with desperation.
“I think you’ll see him next Saturday either at the dance or here. Something tells me he’ll come here for a sauna before the dance.”
She was absolutely right.
All through that long week, I vacillated. On one hand, I knew how much I enjoyed being with him and how much I wanted to be with him more and more; on the other hand, I had to admit my feelings were entirely physical—well mostly, that is. We had shared stories about our lives—some of them very difficult stories to tell. But still, he’d had very little education. E
ven though technically I hadn’t had any more, I’d picked up a lot of “knowledge” from the Lappalas, and some of it, I knew, went beyond the eighth grade and into one’s high school years.
Moreover I had been confirmed by Milma, Pastor of the Unitarian Church. I thought that stood for something important. Was the relationship between Arvo and me “true, honorable, just, pure, and lovely”? It certainly wasn’t “pure”! There was a definite physical aspect to our “love.” Did that mean it was wrong? But Arvo was trying to be “honorable, true, and just.” I really did spend time trying to “think on those things.”
I wondered if Arvo had ever considered going through a Confirmation class, decided against it, and reveled in the awareness that I had. Then I wondered if it really made any difference whether or not a person had been confirmed providing they had a sound belief in God. What did Arvo believe? I had no idea, and I vowed to find out the next time I saw him… if, indeed, I ever did see him again, which I doubted and yet believed with Mother to be true.
Sure enough, the following Saturday evening, early, about six o’clock, we heard the now familiar chug-chug-chug of the car he drove turning into our yard. He hopped out, carrying fresh clothing, carefully folded, and a towel and washcloth, and came into the house without knocking saying, “I’ve come for sauna. I hope it’s hot already!”
Of course it was. Ronny and Eino were already inside so he joined them, came out a couple of times wearing a towel to cool off just as they did, and the last time wearing his dress pants, a white shirt and tie, carrying his dirty clothes wrapped in a towel, which he put into the back seat of the car.
Then he came into the house, sat down at the table—although neither Mother nor I had invited him in—and looked at both of us, one after another. Finally he asked, “Am I welcome? Or do you want me just to leave?”
Gifts of the Spirit Page 22
