The Last April

by Belinda Kroll

  “Does it have to do with how my uncle died?” Gretchen regretted saying anything as soon as it left her mouth.

  Tante Klegg lost color, and her mother grabbed the table to stay upright.

  “What do you know of Baldemar?” her aunt asked.

  “You have no right to mention him,” her mother said.

  “Why not?” Gretchen said. “Why wouldn’t you tell me I have—had—an uncle?”

  “Because of who killed him.” Tante Klegg’s soft tone silenced Gretchen.

  “It was Edelgard’s verlobter,” her mother said. “He went against his friends and family, and our Baldemar suffered for it. Died for it. You want to know what it is to have a friend kill your brother? You want to know what it is for the verlobter of your sister to kill your brother? You will know if Werner returns and that—that Karl remains here.”

  This was more than Gretchen anticipated. Not only did she have a long dead uncle, but her aunt had not always been a spinster. Someone in this world, once upon a time, had wanted to marry Tante Klegg. And that same someone was why Gretchen no longer had an uncle.

  Gretchen stepped back. She bumped into Karl, who stood in the doorway. She did not have to ask whether he had heard. “Karl wouldn’t kill anyone,” Gretchen said. She turned to Tante Klegg. “You said yourself he isn’t a soldier.”

  “But Werner is,” Tante Klegg pointed out.

  “Werner wouldn’t kill Karl, either,” Gretchen said.

  “War does things to people,” Karl said behind her. “Can’t know how Werner will be once he’s come home.”

  “He speaks the truth,” Tante Klegg said. Her voice hardened. “The same way Karl does not know who he is, Werner may have forgotten. Or, Werner saw so many things that he does not want to remember.”

  Gretchen stared at the tears in Tante Klegg’s eyes. Tante Klegg never cried.

  Tante Klegg could burn herself on the stove. She could stick herself with a knife. She could trip and land on her face. It did not matter; she would get right back to whatever she was doing as if nothing had happened.

  “Is that why you came to the United States?” Gretchen asked. She ignored Tante Klegg’s downcast eyes and her prayers for forgiveness.

  “We came here because we had nowhere else to go,” her mother said. “Our parents died before any of this happened. I thank the Lord for that. But when Edelgard’s verlobter did what he did, we could not stay with family. She chose her partner like you choose yours, with patriotic fervor.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gretchen said.“I haven’t chosen anyone.”

  “Well,” Karl said, “you did choose to bring me into your home.”

  “Will you shut up?” Gretchen said.

  “It is a decision I regret,” Tante Klegg retorted, glaring at her sister, “but only because of its terrible ending.” She turned to Gretchen, her expression beseeching. “This is why you must marry Karl.”

  Gretchen’s mouth went dry. “What does this have to do with me and Karl?”

  “What else?” her mother said, annoyance and sarcasm spearing each word. “My sister cannot make a mistake. And if she does… heaven help us all, she will keep trying until she gets it right. You are her chance to fix her mistakes. You, my little Gretchen, are her salvation.”

  Tante Klegg lifted the kettle so she could slam it down onto the stove. “Do not speak blasphemy, Adelaide!”

  Karl cleared his throat. “Not to be a nuisance, ma’am, but… I’m not understanding this at all. How does me marrying or not marrying Gretchen help Ms. Klegg?”

  Gretchen’s mother blinked as if seeing Karl for the first time. “My brother and her verlobter—they died before their time because of her.”

  “The war?” Gretchen breathed. She had heard time and again how the threat of war in the Germanic states had chased them to America back in the 1840s.

  Her mother’s laugh was cruel and mirthless. “No! Baldemar caught Edelgard in a… in a… a compromising position! My older sister who could do no wrong!” She pointed a shaking finger at Tante Klegg. Every word was more strident. “My brother challenged her verlobter to a duel. Stupid, proud boy, he should have left Edelgard to her fate. Her verlobter accepted the duel. He killed my brother and then himself.”

  “What?” Karl exclaimed. “Why would he do that?”

  “My Alric, he killed my brother,” Tante Klegg explained. She ran her hands down her apron front, smoothing wrinkles that were not there. “Alric knew I could never marry him.”

  Gretchen’s head swiveled back to her mother. This was worse than those novels Alina always read, except… this was not a story. This was her life. Her life built on a crumbling pile of lies and betrayals.

  Her mother sniffed. “We are lucky I married the traveling American and he paid for our passage before—” A look from Tante Klegg silenced her.

  Gretchen’s head spun. She had thought Tante Klegg had found passage out of a war-ridden Germanic state by her cunning. She had thought her mother married her father long after their arrival in Ohio.

  “You’d marry your niece to a man without a past and an unknown future so you could say… what?” Karl said, when neither Gretchen’s mother nor Tante Klegg continued.

  “Better married than living off the charity of bitter, resentful family,” Tante Klegg said. She threw her arms wide. “Gretchen is too like me. She will end up alone and dependent because she is so stubborn.”

  “I am nothing like you,” Gretchen said.

  “Oh, but you are,” Tante Klegg said. With a long, slow exhale, she admitted, “Because you are my daughter.”

  Nineteen

  Tuesday, 25 April 1865 / Grove City, Ohio

  Gretchen had always thought those girls who fainted in Alina’s books were plain silly. It felt odd to want to faint and be jealous of those girls who knew the exact moment when to faint and make it count. Fainting had to be better than what she was doing, which amounted to a whole lot of nothing.

  “Did you hear me?” Tante Klegg said.

  Gretchen blinked. She could not think of an answer because she had so many questions of her own. Of course, she had heard Tante Klegg. But she had not understood.

  “What do you mean?” Karl said. He put his hand on Gretchen’s shoulder.

  Gretchen did not move. She could not. She had forgotten how.

  “I mean that Gretchen is my daughter,” Tante Klegg said.

  A sharp pain jabbed behind Gretchen’s temple, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind raced, trying to remember how they got to this point. She did not realize asking about an unknown uncle would destroy her family.

  “We discovered my condition when we arrived in this country.” Tante Klegg spoke to Karl since Gretchen would not look at her. “We could not be outcasts in our new—” She paused, struggling to master a myriad of emotions. “A foreign mother, unwed, is only meant for the poor house if she has no family to speak for her. When we settled in Grove City… Well. We never corrected assumptions. Gretchen looked like Adelaide.”

  Gretchen pressed her palm against her forehead. She did not understand how they could be so matter-of-fact. Tante Klegg made it sound like they were talking about weeding the garden. Gretchen felt as if her world was a pile of loose dirt at the edge of a stream, breaking in chunks to float with a mind of its own. Everything was falling apart…

  Except for the things that clicked together. Gretchen did not get along with Tante Klegg. But Gretchen could read Tante Klegg’s moods, because she recognized them in herself, unlike Adelaide Miller, who was a complete mystery.

  No matter what Gretchen did or said, she could never win the affection of the woman who she thought was her mother. At least when Gretchen was clever, Tante Klegg would express resentful pride.

  Gretchen’s heart shattered. What Gretchen had interpreted as resentment was more likely sorrow. Tante Klegg could not, should not, get too close to a daughter who was not supposed to be hers. This was why her aunt and mother h
ad warned her to not ask questions she did not want the answers to.

  Her mother—well, Tante Miller if this was true—had never referred to Werner as Gretchen’s brother. Never of her own accord, that is. That had always bothered Gretchen.

  Of course, if Gretchen was Tante Klegg’s daughter, then she would be Werner’s cousin, not his sister. And Gretchen’s father was not her father after all. He had always made a point of treating her like a beloved, trusted daughter, because he was—is—a good man.

  Gretchen was not sure she could say the same of her aunt and mother. Were they good people for spending all these years lying to her to save their reputations in a small town?

  “You married off your sister so she could be your child’s respectable parent?” Karl sounded outraged.

  Gretchen was grateful that Karl’s thoughts mirrored her own.

  Tante Klegg exchanged a glance with her sister. Gretchen felt as if they measured each other against years of wary truces.

  “Adelaide’s marriage to Gregory was well-timed, but not my doing,” Tante Klegg said. “She was pretty and pleasant.”

  Gretchen glanced at Adelaide Miller, thinking how few were the times she had been pleasant over the years.

  “We knew I would not get a husband unless he needed a hand at his farm. And I did not want to be someone’s brood-hen or farmhand after losing my Alric. But Adelaide,” Tante Klegg continued, “she charmed the American—”

  Gretchen winced, now knowing “the American” was her beloved, adoptive father, Gregory.

  “—and he convinced himself he loved her dreams of beautiful things. Gregory was a good man, we could see that, but he was stupid to be traveling in our land during times of unrest. Of course, we saw our way out. Adelaide made Gregory promise to bring me with her.” Tante Klegg glared at her sister, who glared in return. “I now know I should have remained in Größe Deutsch rather than suffering your foolishness all these years.”

  Adelaide Miller gasped. “My foolishness!”

  Gretchen felt hot and cold. She both sweated and had chills running down her back. She felt stupid, and betrayed, and simple. And angry. Her head ached from all the blood pulsing through it. Gretchen was sure she was going to explode.

  “All this talking and arguing and y’all never say nothing,” Karl said in wonder. “You bicker and fight worse than the Rebs and Yanks and over what? A mistake from years and years ago?”

  Gretchen cleared her throat. She was starting to question everything, including whether Werner was actually her older brother. “How old am I?”

  “You were born in 1848,” Tante Klegg replied without hesitation.

  “Mein Gott,” Gretchen swore. Tante Klegg’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m the same age as Werner?”

  “You are older by six months,” Tante Klegg explained. “Werner was always bigger than you. It was easy to say he was your older brother.”

  Gretchen looked at the ceiling, determined not to let tears of frustration burst from her. This meant she was seventeen, not fifteen, and of age. No wonder Adelaide was eager to marry her off. She spun, skirts whipping around her ankles. “He knew, didn’t he? Werner knew I was older than him,” she shouted. “And that was why he was always so mean to me, to keep me in my place so I would never think about it.”

  “He could not have known,” Tante Klegg protested. “We all promised each other.”

  A tiny noise escaped Adelaide Miller.

  Twenty

  Tuesday, 25 April 1865 / Grove City, Ohio

  “This is all your fault, you know,” Gretchen said to Karl.

  Tante Klegg had decided they did not need another body in the house to contribute to the stoked tempers. Gretchen, the ever-dutiful daughter it seemed, led Karl to the barn.

  “My fault!” he exclaimed, rounding on Gretchen. He steadied himself by resting against the corner of the barn. If he moved too fast, he felt dizzy still.

  “If you hadn’t arrived, I never would have found out those terrible things about my family. We would have gone on as we always had.” Gretchen opened the barn door and motioned for him to climb up the ladder to the hayloft.

  “Because that was working for you.”

  Gretchen pressed her lips together, swung open the barn door, and waved him inside. As soon as he stepped out of the waning light, she followed and slammed the door behind them. “I should have reported you as soon as you fell in my garden.”

  Karl shook his head. “Amazing.”

  That was not the reaction Gretchen had expected, and she forgot what she was going to say next.

  “All y’all, I don’t even know what to call y’all, but you’re confused.” Karl laughed and rubbed both hands down the sides of his face. “You’re more confused than I am, and I don’t even know who I am.”

  “You’re taking your time about knowing who you are, too,” Gretchen said. “If you’d figured yourself out sooner, you’d have left by now, and I’d have the family I thought I had.”

  Karl pointed at her. “This ain’t about me, Gretchen. Thank God it’s finally not about me. And I’ll remind you, I was the only one in that room standing on your side, whatever that side was.”

  Gretchen crossed her arms. She was not about to admit she had appreciated the way he had stood up for her, not when she was so gall-darned angry. She knew she was being unfair, but she did not know what else to do or how else to feel.

  Karl placed a hand on one of the ladder rungs. “All I know is you’d have found out, one way or another, about your aunt.”

  “Mother,” Gretchen corrected. “She claims to be my mother.”

  “So she does,” Karl agreed. He swung his leg up and began to climb to the loft. “What do you want to do about it?”

  What an odd question to ask. What could Gretchen do about it? Either Tante Klegg was her mother, or she was not. Either Gretchen was Tante Klegg’s daughter, or she was not. There were rules about daughters and mothers in their little world.

  “I need to think on it.” Years of her interactions with Tante Klegg were cast in this new light. She was afraid she did not fare well. “Get up there to the hayloft. I’ll let you out in the morning.”

  “You do that,” Karl said. He climbed the last rung and dropped into the hay. “Good night, Gretchen.”

  Gretchen stared at the ladder, feeling alone. She knew if she did not have Karl on her side, she did not have anyone.

  Her aunt and mother had shown her they only ever worried about themselves. Her father had left to fight for his ideals of what the union should be and could be, unified and without slavery. Werner thought of himself as a little hero. That had to be why he signed up for the army, despite his father’s orders otherwise.

  Their agendas swirled around Gretchen. They never asked what she thought or felt. Of anyone on the farm, Gretchen had to keep Karl as a friend.

  She waited to hear rustling in the hay. Gretchen figured Karl had had enough for the night, and he was waiting for her to leave. She slipped out of the barn. As she fumbled with the padlock and key, a twig cracked behind her. Gretchen froze.

  “You trust that boy,” Tante Klegg said.

  “He gave me no reason not to,” Gretchen said without turning around.

  “But we have? That is what you are saying,” Tante Klegg said. She took the key from Gretchen and locked the barn. “Walk with me.”

  Sullen, Gretchen followed her to the well. She watched Tante Klegg drop the bucket into the water and crank the handle to retrieve it.

  “You do not have to believe that I am your mother,” Tante Klegg said. She stared into the bucket full of water, focusing on the ripples in the water from the breeze.

  Gretchen could see now why Karl had thought Tante Klegg was some sort of witch. Her fierce expression was downright uncanny. Gretchen shivered in the cooling air and rubbed her arms. “I don’t?”

  “No, you do not. I cannot control what you think or do, the same way you cannot control me, or Alina, or my sister, or this Karl.”


  Gretchen crossed her arms.

  “You do have to respect that I have had a large hand in your rearing. Despite my methods, you must see I made severe decisions so that you may live protected.”

  Gretchen made a small scoffing noise.

  “This country is not kind to unwed mothers,” Tante Klegg warned. “It will be better because so many young men will not return home from the war. Their wives must find ways to take care of their homes and children. When we arrived in this country, if I had told someone of my condition, I would have lost you. I could not let that happen.”

  Gretchen chewed her lip. This was too unlike Tante Klegg. She never explained herself. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You need to know I did these things so that I could watch over you.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because you are of age to know. You are not a child.”

  Gretchen threw up her hands. “I know I’m not a child! You and Mama—” she stopped because she knew she was going to cry, and she did not want to with Tante Klegg staring at her. “I guess I need to call her Tante Miller.” Gretchen pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “You two keep treating me like a child and all I’m trying to do is contribute. Mr. Lincoln wanted reconstruction… I guess that goes for our family, too.”

  Tante Klegg’s eyes brightened.

  “When I told you about Karl in the garden, you helped me. Why?”

  “Because you said he reminded you of Werner,” Tante Klegg said. She wrapped her hand around the bucket handle and hefted it from the top of the well.

  “You don’t even like Werner,” Gretchen said. “You were always calling him a spoiled brat.”

  “He is a spoiled brat,” Tante Klegg said. “But he is my nephew and family. You believed he was your brother, and you took his absence hard. Even though you also thought he was spoiled.”

  Gretchen could not deny any of that. “But as soon as we heard about Mr. Lincoln, you blamed me for bringing him into the house and got Mama all riled up. But it wasn’t only me. You helped me. We brought Karl into the house.”