A Fireproof Home for the Bride (40 page)

“Hello there, old man.” She squeezed his arm. “Long day?”

“Smells good in here, Emmy,” he said, moving his fingers from where they scratched the dog’s left ear in order to give her hand a light press in return. His skin felt papery and not exactly cold, but completely devoid of heat. Emmy could feel the bones collect neatly together as she held on to his grasp. She knelt at the side of his chair and looked him in the eye, allowing Coffee to bumble her great-pawed way into Emmy’s lap, where she hugged the dog’s warmth and nuzzled her fleecy neck.

“Pot roast special,” Emmy said to Christian. “Hope you’re hungry.”

“Smells good.” He leaned his head against the chair and closed his eyes, relaxing his grip on Emmy. A tiny arrow of worry entered her heart and sunk into her stomach. This is how he would look in his coffin, she thought, shaking her head hard against the gloomy notion.

She patted his arm and stood. “How about I get out some trays and we can eat in here while we listen to the radio?”

He nodded. Emmy went back into the kitchen, expecting Coffee to follow her as usual, but wasn’t completely surprised when she didn’t—she’d developed a keen attachment to Christian, or at least to the way that he would generously scratch and rub the dog all over and for a lot longer than anyone else had the inclination to do. Emmy started to hum as she tried not to hold her breath, waiting for the sound of her father rising from his chair to dial in a program of interest. She plated the food and placed it on trays, carrying his into the living room first. He was asleep, Coffee spread against his stocking-clad feet like the bearskin rug out at the lake cabin.

Emmy retied her apron and placed the hot plates in the still-warm oven, and then she went to the radio and turned the old worn plastic dial until the scratching stopped and some music without words cut through her father’s snoring. She looked at the clock: seven. She looked at her watch, also seven. Sitting down in her mother’s straight-backed chair, Emmy picked up her crocheting and waited for Christian to wake up.

*   *   *

An hour later, Emmy sat across from her still-sleeping father, working on another square of yarn. The music on the radio swelled and stopped, the announcer murmuring about
Scheherazade
, Rimsky-Korsakov, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, and as Emmy waited for the next piece to start she gazed about the room from the discomfort of her mother’s chair. All other touches of Karin were long gone, taken back out to the farmhouse as a way of telegraphing their owner’s intention of never returning, though she wouldn’t say as much to Christian. There were lighter-colored rectangles on the walls where pictures of Jesus had once hung. Even the doily on the radio had been removed, leaving a permanently darker circle of wood where the slight piece of lace had blocked the effects of the sun. Yet even with the absence of what could be called a feminine touch, the room felt somehow warmer and better used, welcoming. Coffee lifted her head as a car drove past on the street outside. She sniffed the air, but detecting no move on Emmy’s part toward the kitchen and the promise of food scraps, Coffee lowered her muzzle onto her elegantly outstretched foreleg, keeping her eyes slightly open and her nose twitching at the yarn that Emmy pulled up out of the basket next to her feet.

Christian opened his eyes.

“Still here?” he asked.

Emmy nodded. “Hungry?”

“I reckon I could eat a little.” He shifted in his chair, possibly in pain, but not showing any signs of it. Maybe he’s just tired, Emmy thought, maybe he’s just sad. Maybe this is what it looked like to grieve your last parent, to bury your mother before your children had all grown. Perhaps the freedom of the solitary life was less appealing to those actually living it. Coffee leaped onto all four feet and led the way into the kitchen ahead of Emmy, who stopped at Christian’s chair to help him up with both hands. It was like lifting a boy.

“Great,” she said, trying to cover her concern with a soft smile. “I kept everything warm, just like the good old days.”

*   *   *

By the time they finished their meal Christian had renewed color in his face, which cheered Emmy considerably. She could almost convince herself that his drawn appearance was merely the result of long work hours and poor appetite, though something else kept gnawing at her as she pretended not to notice his fumbling attempts to sneak food from his plate and into his co-conspirator’s mouth, which rested dutifully on Christian’s knee under the table. No wonder Coffee prefers him, Emmy thought, and it gave her an idea.

“Dad,” she said as she rose to pour him a cup of coffee from the pot she’d put up while he had slept, “I wonder if I could drop Coffee by on the nights I cover the switchboard? She gets so lonely when I’m not home, and I can’t expect Aunt Josephine to always mind her.” At the mention of her name, the dog sloped out from under the table and ran a quick circle around Emmy’s legs, nearly tripping her return to the table. Christian smiled at the antics and nodded.

“We wouldn’t mind it, would we, girl?” He poured a small amount of sugar into the cup and began his ritual slow stir, the sound of the spoon scraping up the sweetness at the bottom of the hard plastic the only noise other than the ticking of the clock out in the entryway. She wondered how he could bear the sight of sugar, considering how much he must see in a day’s work.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he finally said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “It can get so quiet.”

“Me too,” she said, and patted his hand. He placed his other hand on top of hers and caught her eye.

“I’m proud of you, little sister,” he said. “I really am.”

Emmy smiled. “That means a lot.”

Christian blew on the surface of his coffee and took a tentative sip just as the phone rang two short bursts. Emmy jumped to her feet, the insistent tone of the seldom used bell drawing her quickly toward it in order to make it stop, if nothing else.

“Hello?” she asked, remembering the last time she’d answered this same phone, all those months ago, to find Bev on the other end.

“Emmy?” Birdie’s unmistakable voice sounded odd to Emmy.

“What is it?” Emmy asked, alarmed by the strained tone. “Is Mother okay?”

“She’s fine, she’s here,” Birdie whispered with a tremble. “A terrible thing’s happened out at the Hansen farm; it’s all over the radio.”

“Just tell me.” Emmy said. Christian walked through the living room, his hand extended for the phone. Emmy held up a flat palm. “Birdie? Speak up. What’s happened?”

“It’s just awful.” Birdie started to sniff through her words. “John’s been so lost since Svenja left … his parents have … and, oh, God.” Birdie’s tears became muffled and Emmy heard the phone clatter to the floor and other voices in the background.

“Emmaline.” Ambrose’s voice cut through the noise. “This is not your concern. Birdie was mistaken to call.” The phone clicked off at the other end and Emmy set the receiver into the cradle.

“Turn the radio to WDAY,” she said to Christian. “Something’s wrong.”

He carefully worked the dial from one end of the radio to the other, stopping wherever the scratch of words compelled, but nothing more than the usual assortment of disc jockeys, sermons, and advertising could be found. Emmy went back to the phone and dialed rapidly a number she knew better than any other.

“Carole?” Emmy said. “It’s Emmy. Get me Jim.” In the moment it took for the call to be connected, she waved her father closer and held the receiver between their ears.

“I tried your house,” Jim said, sounding concerned. “Where are you?”

“At Dad’s,” Emmy said, glancing at her father. “He’s on the line with me.”

“Good evening, Mr. Nelson,” Jim said, and then cleared his throat. “I assume you’ve heard about the murder out in Glyndon. Hansen farm.”

Emmy’s fingers felt cold as the blood drained away from her extremities in order to better protect her heart from what she didn’t want to hear. “Is it John?”

“I figured you knew them,” Jim said.

“They go to my church,” Emmy said, thinking of the fear on Svenja’s beautiful face. She could feel her father’s breath as he listened. “My mother’s church,” she amended.

“Well, there aren’t many details,” Jim said. “But there’s word a Mexican might be responsible. He’s run off, and some men have gone after him, led by something called the”—Emmy heard the sound of Jim flipping through his notebook—“the Citizens’ Council. I talked to their chief—”

“Stephen Davidson,” Christian said, cutting Jim off.

“No, sir,” Jim replied. “His name was Curtis. He was very helpful.”

“Whatever he calls himself,” Christian said, an unusual sarcasm spiking his words. “That’s him. Helpful.”

“I take it you don’t care much for him,” Jim said. Emmy handed the receiver to her father but stayed within listening distance, less confused by the mix-up with Mr. Davidson’s name that she would have liked, her grandmother’s words flowing into her head:
I loved Stephen, but he loved Josie, and she loved Ray
.

Christian grimaced. “Let me just say that anything he tells you is probably a lie.”

“Good to know,” Jim said. “What else?”

“Look,” Christian said, covering his forehead with the palm of his hand as though checking for fever. “It doesn’t matter what I know, but if the police don’t find that migrant first, you’ll be reporting a whole different story.”

“Got it,” Jim said. “Emmy, stay clear of this, okay?”

Emmy shook her head. “But what’s happened?” she asked again.

“John Hansen’s dead,” Jim said without softening his voice or the blow of his words. “Shot in the back with his own gun.”

Emmy sat down on the chair next to the telephone table and heard her father ask Jim to call Irv Randall and send him over. The shock roiled through her body and settled in her ears, hot and unrelenting, until she felt her father’s hands on her arms, easing her up and into the kitchen, where he placed her in a chair. The glare of the overhead light did nothing to improve upon Emmy’s sense of being in a cruel new world, one where people die at the point of a gun while dreaming of better things.

“Svenja came to me last month,” Emmy said. “She was scared. I gave her money for the bus to Saint Paul.”

“You did good.” Christian squeezed Emmy’s shoulder. She shook her head, trying to make the axis of her childhood tilt back to where it had always been.

“I can’t just sit here,” she finally said, hushing her voice in an attempt to calm her nerves. “We should go out there, help.”

Christian made a sound deep in his throat, a strangled gasp of air that could have been a mirthless laugh. “It’s not safe for you.”

Emmy widened her eyes, taking on as much light as possible to fight the dark thoughts swimming in her head. “Do you think the Mexican is still out there?”

“No.” Christian folded a hand over his mouth and pulled down on his stubbled cheeks until his fingertips rested lightly on his chin. “I hope not.”

“But Jim said they think he did it.”

“Jim doesn’t know these people.” Christian took a neatly folded handkerchief from his front pants pocket and mopped his damp brow. “Any of them.”

“You don’t mean the Mexicans, do you?” Emmy asked, the spent rush of adrenaline leaving sorrow aching in her joints.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Christian said, and Emmy’s body started to hum as though she might catch fire from the dismay his voice instilled. “A very long time ago, well before you were born, back when I was a boy.” He began to cough and covered his mouth with the handkerchief. Emmy fetched a glass of water from the tap, pausing as it ran cold enough over her wrist to revive her stunned senses. She screwed the tap closed and took the glass to Christian, who drank it between racks of coughing.

“It’s okay, whatever it is,” Emmy said in an effort to calm her father. He held up his hand and shook his head, and as Emmy purposefully set aside the ugly imaginings of John Hansen’s death, she focused on her father’s words. Without pause, he told her about her grandfather’s profound faith, his love of the land, his service to his country—all things that Emmy knew well, but she found this new telling tinged with confession rather than soaring with pride for a man who fought in the Great War and returned with hardened notions about true patriotism.

“He’d seen things, I suppose,” Christian said. “Things that to him were un-American, and he found plenty of other men who shared his views.” Christian scratched Coffee’s muzzle and the dog licked at the droplets of water that had clung to his hand as he told Emmy of a preacher in Grand Forks who drew men like her grandfather in with his rhetoric—the fire of angels on his tongue—named Frederick Ambrose Halsey.

“Ambrose?” Emmy asked. “Halsey?”

“Reckon that’s where they got the name,” Christian said. “I went with my parents to meetings, and then to rallies, and even marched in parades. Around the time I was sixteen we went to a big gathering where I first saw Davidson speak.”

“Curtis?” Emmy asked. “Or is it Stephen?”

“It’s Stephen Curtis Davidson.” Christian blinked and then closed his eyes as though he were describing from a picture in his mind, painting for Emmy the details of how Mr. Davidson had arrived from Indiana as the mouthpiece of this poisonous patriotism, talking of the Negro diaspora from the South, and how they were headed north to take over the land, the guns, and the women. Mr. Davidson had preached about how the local government was being infiltrated by papists and Jews, and that the good God-fearing Christians needed to form an army of the Lord to defend what was rightfully theirs. Lida, in particular, had sparked to Davidson’s notions of liquor prohibition, and saw him as some sort of savior.

“And there, in the front row, was your mother,” Christian said. “Looking up at Davidson as he spoke about God, country, and the sanctity of womanhood.” He frowned. “She couldn’t have been more than fourteen.”

“Where was she from?” Emmy asked, eager to know more of history he’d never before shared.

“Down toward Fergus Falls,” he replied. “Her mother had run off with a sewing machine salesman.” Christian pressed his lips together in debate. “Her father took it out on Karin. My mother found out and hired Karin as a maid to make it stop.”