Carla Kelly (7 page)

He gave her a measuring, thoughtful look, which made her heart turn over, because he looked so much like his nephew just then. “So we just leave these little burdens…” He let his breath out in a rush, and she understood the gravity of what she was asking. “… these little burdens in the hands of the Lord.”

“We do because we can.” She traced the words on the tablet with her finger, as gently as though she caressed Paul's face. “We endure.”

She walked home again in the dusk, staying longer on the playground, smiling to think that someday maybe she and Paul would visit from the Double Tipi and take their little ones to the playground to swing. She pushed herself with one foot, which meant dragging her foot through the snow, and thought of Mary Anne Hickman, calling and calling for her brother.

A month ago, when she was fretting, Mama had suggested rather timidly that things generally work out for the good. Julia closed her eyes and stopped swinging. “I snapped at you, Mama,” she whispered, leaning her cheek against the iron chain. “You were right, though.”

After a thoughtful evening in the parlor, when she stood by the window and faced slightly northeast, she laughed out loud when Mama smiled at her. She kissed her mother before she went upstairs.

“Thanks, dearest,” Julia had murmured.

“For what?”

“For being right. Things do work out.”

There wasn't anything to do but cook between now and Christmas, Julia decided the next morning. At the first meeting of the Relief Society bazaar, the committee had promptly put her in charge of cakes and confections.

Papa was quick to notice the difference. When he came into the kitchen a few mornings after her visit to Uncle Albert, he leaped back in mock surprise to see her spinning sugar around a cylinder. He looked around elaborately.

“All right, where have you hidden Julia Darling, who's been frowning at all cookbooks recently?”

She made a face at him and slid the sugar off the cylinder. “I know I've been a bit of a moper.” She handed him the spun sugar to taste. “I thought I'd better practice my confectionary skills. Dear sir, all is somewhat better in Zion.”

He smiled at her, but there was no mistaking the relief in his eyes. “Uncle Albert was a bit of a tonic?” he asked.

If you only knew who helped whom
, she thought as she went happily into his one-sided embrace because he was concentrating on the sugar. “We've agreed to meet tomorrow. Before he leaves for Koosharem, he promised to tell me about Mary Anne's childhood in Devon. I want to write it into a booklet for Paul for Christmas.”

“Only ‘somewhat better in Zion?’ ” he asked.

She nodded. “Things won't be entirely better until Brother Otto graces us with his presence at Christmas!”

His presence was felt all the time. She was sleeping better, but even on a bad night, she could reach out with her toes and feel the suit at the foot of her bed. Most nights, she clutched his pillow to her body, even after the elusive scent of bay rum was gone. She wished she wouldn't find herself wrapped into a little ball each morning, as though she tried all night to find safety in the cut bank.
Patience, patience, Julia
, she told herself.

For a week, Julia visited Uncle Albert, who seemed more at peace with himself. It took a little coaxing at first, and banana cake this time, but soon he was telling her about the Hickmans’ years in Devonshire, always in sight of the sea, which he still missed. Each night, she sat at the rolltop desk in Papa's study and wrote up her notes.

Uncle Albert had already told her that under no circumstances would he tell her any more about the tragic journey to the Salt Lake Valley, so she was not surprised when he announced after Thanksgiving that he was returning to Koosharem. “I'll return with that daguerreotype of Mary Anne and the rest of us. I'm afraid it has to stay in my family, but I want him to see it,” he told Julia.

He looked into her eyes. “An old man couldn't have a better niece,” he told her. “Take good care of my nephew.”

Paul's letters since his departure were short. She expected that, knowing he and the other ranchers affected by the summer wildfires were spreading out across eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska and Colorado to find each others’ cattle, scattered when they cut the fences to let them run. She generally read his letters to her parents, or at least, most of them, but the last one she kept to herself, putting it in her apron pocket and taking it out now and then to read, as she blushed and then wondered. It had kept her awake last night just long enough for Mama to knock on her door and ask if everything was all right.

She took out the letter again after Papa left for work and Mama went to her weekly bridge game.
Dearest Darling, just a quick note here. I'm in Lusk with Matt and James, and we're finding more cattle, mine and McLemore's. I'm so tired. All I want to do is put my head in your lap and sleep for a week. Well, maybe not quite a week, especially
[underlined several times]
after March 17, when we get married. We'll probably think of something else to do. Thanks for the dignified calendar, or at least what used to be a dignified calendar. The boys in the bunkhouse are still ribbing me about it. Yrs, Paul
,
only half dead
.

She felt her face grow rosy, thinking of the staid 1911 calendar she had found and mailed, after circling March 17 in red, with little fireworks explosions radiating from it.
Heavens, what was I thinking?
she asked herself, then smiled because she knew precisely what she was thinking. That was not a letter to read aloud.

Still, that wasn't the hardest part. She turned over his letter, wishing that maybe this time there wouldn't be that postscript, dated a day later and scribbled in pencil, instead of his usual careful print:
P.S. Something happened this afternoon, and I'm worried. More later
.

Trouble was, there wasn't more later, not that week nor the next. She wrote her usual letters, telling of her visits to Uncle Albert, and of the cakes she was making for the bazaar, wracking her brain for topics of interest in her quiet life. In the last one, she included a picture one of her Primary students had drawn, which featured her short hair prominently. “‘He didn't draw a scar, so maybe I am the only one who sees it,’ ” she wrote.

As November slid into December—literally, because streets were too icy for Papa's Pierce-Arrow—she received a small package, which included a volume of Shakespeare's sonnets to replace the one burned in the fire. She smiled to see Paul had turned down the corner of Sonnet Eighteen, and written “My fav.,” in tiny letters on the dog ear.

The letter left her no wiser than before, except he said he was home briefly, and staring at the pile of lumber stacked on the foundation of their new house, halfway between the river and the other ranch buildings still standing. “Wish I had more time,” he had written. “See you in two weeks, morning train. Yrs, Paul.”

She glanced at the Cheyenne postmark, noting to her dismay that two weeks would be practically Christmas Eve. Then he would probably be off as soon as possible, because there was the Denver stock show.
I'll make him take me next year
, she thought as she added the letter to the little pile by her bed and put the book of sonnets under her pillow.

As the days crawled by, Julia watched her mother grow more and more silent. Papa was taking the streetcar to and from downtown now, because the roads were so icy. Julia watched him each evening as he approached the house. Standing back from the drapes so he couldn't see her, it tore at Julia's heart to watch his stooped posture, and the way he straightened up and squared his shoulders as he approached the front door, determined not to show his sorrow.

Iris, we're missing you
, she thought, meeting him at the door each night with a cheerful word, where she felt none as the anniversary of her sister's death came closer.

Nobody said anything until December 18, the day of her death. After an excellent dinner of stuffed filets of halibut, asparagus tips, everyone's favorite duchess potatoes, and prune whip with custard sauce, which all tasted to Julia like tissue paper, Papa looked at them.

“I received a letter yesterday from Paul,” he said. “He sent it to the bank and told me not to open it until tonight. With your permission, ladies?”

Her eyes bleak, Mama automatically handed him a hairpin. He slit open the letter, scanned it with his eyes, and looked at Julia.

“You know, Jules, I had high hopes of my daughters marrying well. Iris”—he couldn't help the catch in his voice—“Iris did quite well. I worried about you, though.” He managed a smile. “I shouldn't have. Maude, get out your handkerchief. Julia, your apron will do.” His smile at his wife was genuine. “I have this entire tablecloth.”

“Jed,” Mama said softly. “Just read it.”

He looked at the postmark. “Sidney, Nebraska. That boy does travel.” He cleared his throat. “‘Dearest Darlings, I've been working my way through Revelation. I'd give the world to be with you right now, but I can't. Will this do? ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’ ” Papa put down the letter and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, unable to continue.

Julia swallowed and picked up the letter. “You weren't quite done yet, Papa,” she said, her own voice strange to her ears. “‘If I were in your dining room right now, and I know it's a far remove from this flophouse in Sidney, I'd be hugging you all. With all my heart, Paul.’ ”

Then they were all in tears. Papa stood up finally. He gathered Mama and Julia into his arms, walking with them to the parlor, where they sat, all crowded onto the settee, crying until no one had a tear left.

“I've been wanting to do that for about a week now,” Papa said. He managed a watery chuckle. “My secretary, bless her heart, has been looking at me with such concern and solicitation that I wanted to pop her in the nose this morning.”

Mama's eyes widened. “Miss Halibut?”

Julia laughed. “Mama! We had halibut for dinner. I think you mean Halifax.”

“No, Halibut,” Mama insisted and blew her nose decisively. “She has buggy eyes.” She started to laugh then. “You can thump her once for me too, Jed, if you want.” Mama picked up the letter in Julia's lap. “My dear, how on earth did you find such a man, and in Wyoming, of all places?”

“Nothing easier. He was pacing back and forth on a train platform, waiting for a mature cook to materialize, and he took me anyway,” Julia said simply.

They sat in silence then. Julia looked at her parents, both of them thinking of Iris. When she had returned to Salt Lake City, Julia had returned Iris's burned baby quilt to Mama, who washed it carefully and tucked it away. Julia longed to touch it again and remember how it had saved her life in the cut bank.
Iris, you're not so far away
, she reminded herself.

She finally excused herself to return to the dining room, clear off the table, and do the dishes in peaceful solitude. When she finished, she returned to the parlor, where Mama and Papa were still sitting close together, Mama asleep, and Papa's lips on her hair.

He glanced at her, a question in his eyes.

“It's simple, really,” she whispered, not wanting to wake Mama. “All we have to do is endure.”

Paul's suit at the foot of the bed wasn't close enough that night. After reading the verse again in Revelation, pausing for a moment on “Write: for these words are true and faithful,” Julia pulled the suit higher and draped one sleeve over her shoulder. “We endure,” she whispered and closed her eyes. “That's all.”

Papa had her recollections of Mary Anne Hickman printed and bound, and the price was only a week of cecils and peanut brittle. Apologizing for the short notice, the stake president hired her to prepare a Christmas dinner on December 21 for the staff of his accounting firm. With her earnings, she went to Auerbach's and bought an extravagant paisley tie for Paul's suit, which was back in the closet, cleaned and ready for its owner; she saved the rest.

The opportunity to really show off her skills for the stake president—starting with consommé, meandering through roast goose and chicken croquettes, and easing to a tasty conclusion with plum pudding and bonbons—should have sent her into culinary ecstasy. All it did was make her sob into her apron while she dressed the lettuce with cheese straws and thought of the men of the Double Tipi, eating out of cans, and whatever else Paul's niece from the Wind River Rez could slap onto a plate.
If they even have plates
, she thought, miserable.

Besides that, Paul was probably still enduring greasy steaks and brittle biscuits in the various hotels and cafes along the route of his wandering livestock. She cried harder to think of the nights he was probably enduring on the open plains, with not a hotel in sight, and nothing to do but hunker down in a dry wash and pray someone would find his bleached bones on the prairie, come spring.

She sobbed all this into Mama's lap the afternoon after the stake president's dinner and was rewarded with a laugh and a little thump on her head.