Dorothy Garlock (27 page)

Read Dorothy Garlock Online

Authors: More Than Memory

He got up and went to the door.
“I left the gun in the cabinet above the refrigerator.” He waited; but when she didn’t speak, he went out the door and down the stairs. She heard him close the back door. Soon she heard the sound of his pickup going down the lane toward the road.
• • •
He called at noon the next day.
“Hello, Nelda. This is Lute.”
“I know who it is,” she said tightly.
“Are you still upset?”
“I’m busy, Lute. What do you want?” she asked sharply, trying to erect a barrier around her feelings.
“I’ve talked to the boys who were at your place last night. They want you to accept their apology. They won’t trespass on your property again.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. It’s good of them.”
“Well?”
“Well . . . what?”
“Do you accept their apology? Is this the end of it?”
“What did you think I’d do? Carry on a vendetta, put out a contract, notify my Chicago gangster friends?”
“Knock off the sarcasm. I’m in no mood for it. Is someone else bothering you besides that pervert making the phone calls?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Last night you, said something about . . . that other thing.”
“You’re mistaken. Is that all, Lute?”
There was a silence, and she thought she heard him say, “Shit!” Then he asked in a calm controlled voice. “Did you get someone out there to fix that window?”
She couldn’t take another moment of his solicitousness, knowing it had nothing to do with his heart and everything to do with his concern for some high-school boys’ criminal records.
“Good-bye, Lute,” she whispered hoarsely, and hung up the phone.
Soon thereafter the man from the hardware store came out to replace the broken windowpane.
“Are you John Miller?” she asked before she let him in the house.
“No, ma’am. John’s putting in windows across the lake. I’m giving him a hand today.” He handed her a bill on a Miller Hardware letterhead.
“I’d like you to put a heavy bolt on the inside of the door.”
“John told me. Somebody try to break in, did they?”
“Uh-huh.” She said nothing more, and the man remained silent.
Nelda took the bill and went to the other room to write a check, trying to stay busy there until he finished his work.
As soon as he left, she called Norris and asked his help in finding an apartment, explaining simply that she wanted to move to Minneapolis as soon as possible.
“Honey, I’ve been called back to Chicago to straighten out some business. I plan to fly into Minneapolis just for Christmas Day, but I’ll be back there right after the first of the year. Can you wait that long? If not, go on up and stay in a hotel. I can make a reservation for you.”
“I can wait, Norris, but thanks anyway.”
“What will you do on Christmas?”
“I’ve not decided.”
“I hate to think of you alone.”
She laughed nervously. “I can assure you that I’ll not be alone.”
“I’m glad of that.”
When she finished talking to Norris, she got out the calendar. Eight days until Christmas. She had promised Rhetta she would go shopping on Saturday. They would go only as far as a few miles south of Minneapolis. Rhetta had said that she would rather not get into the Christmas traffic in the downtown area. Nelda was glad now that she had said she would go. It would be one day fewer to fill until she could leave.
By noon she was in a better frame of mind. It’s surprising, she said to herself, as she drove out of the farmyard on her way to Mason City, how a person’s mind can adjust to change. Today she felt reconciled to what lay ahead. Her future would hold both joy and sadness.
After a few hours of shopping, she headed home to decorate the small tree she had bought to put on Becky’s grave. Kelly greeted her with yips of joy. She put him on the end of his rope and brought her purchases into the house. Since she was going to the cemetery, she left the car in the yard.
An hour later she put the small tree, decorated with tiny angels tied securely to the branches and a silver star on the top, in the front seat of the car.
“Get in, Kelly. You can go this time.” She opened the back door. The dog didn’t need a second invitation.
During the months she had been here, Nelda had made many trips to the cemetery. It was always so peaceful, especially so this time of year, with the ground covered with snow. Green Christmas wreaths
with red bows decorated the newer section. Devoid of adornment, the older gravestones on the hill surrounding the statue of Abraham Lincoln were a stark reminder that immediate relatives of the loved ones buried there also were gone.
Nelda drove to the far end, and even before she stopped the car, she could see that Lute had put a small wreath on their daughter’s grave.
“Stay in the car, Kelly. The snow is too deep. You’d just get all wet,” she said as she took the small tree from the car. Glad to be wearing boots, because the snow was a foot deep or more, she carried the tree to the grave.
“Merry Christmas, Becky,” she said aloud, and backed away after she had made sure the tree was solidly set in the snow. The small silver angels fluttered in the slight breeze. Next Christmas she would have the baby, Becky’s baby brother or sister, who would be almost the same age as Becky was when she died. She forcibly banished the thought from her mind.
Back in the car Nelda sat for a long while looking at the fluttering angels. Her heart felt like a rock in her chest. She had to stop grieving over Lute and take care of herself. The baby growing inside her deserved the best start in life she could give him.

 

 

C
hapter
S
ixteen
N
ELDA LEFT THE CEMETERY AND WENT TO THE
grain elevator, where she bought a large sack of dog food, then to the post office for stamps to put on the Christmas cards she must get in the mail within the next few days.
Noticing that she had less than a quarter tank of gas in her car, she drove to the Herb’s Shell, a station a block off Main Street, and pulled up to the pumps. She had been trading here since the incident at the station on the highway. A small, fast-moving man named Eddie came out to wait on her.
“Howdy, Mrs. Hanson. Fill’er up?”
“Yes, please.”
After he had filled the tank, he washed her windshield, then the back window.
“What else can we do for you? Need your oil checked?”
“You did that last time, Eddie.”
“By golly, we did.”
When he came back to the car with her change, he gave her a candy cane.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Hanson.”
“Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you too, Eddie.”
Nelda left the station feeling a little bit as if she belonged. Never had a service-station attendant in Chicago called her by name or given her a small Christmas treat. It would be as impersonal in Minneapolis when she moved there. After her baby was born, she would decide where she wanted to live permanently. She made a mental note to see Mr. Hutchinson in the next few days and decide if it would be wise to sell the farm or rent it and live off the income it provided.
Nelda was halfway down the lane to the house when she saw the flashy blue car parked beneath the oak tree and Lute’s black pickup in front of the barn.
“Who in the world . . . ?” She slowed as she made the turn into the yard, then stopped the car.
Kelly had spied Lute and was jumping and barking to get out. Nelda stepped from the car and opened the door for the dog who bounded over the snow heading straight for Lute in a frenzy of delight.
Nelda was stunned for a moment after the realization hit her that the man standing in the middle of the yard with Lute was her father. Her whole thought process shut down. By the time her feet had taken her around the car she was thinking again.
Major Hansen still looked every bit the dignified officer of the United States Marines. He wore a long, blue-belted overcoat, and on his head was the officer’s cap: blue with gold braid. Nelda had no doubt that beneath his coat was an immaculate
Marine uniform with officer’s braid and possibly several lines of service ribbons.
The hair beneath the hat on his head was silver . . . what she could see of it, and his face was as hard as a stone. She felt no gladness at seeing this man who never had one ounce of compassion for her or her child, who had been ashamed of his hardworking father and gentle mother, and who had never in all the eight years since she left his Virginia home made any effort to see to her welfare, even when she had been only seventeen.
Lute was coming toward her. He stopped with his back to her father and bent his head as if to kiss her cheek.
“I let him think that we’re together again.” He breathed the words, then turned and put his arm across her shoulders and walked with her across the yard to where her father stood beside his car.
“Hello, Nelda.” The major made no attempt to touch her.
“What are doing here?” she asked bluntly.
“I wanted my wife to meet you.”
“Why?”
“The two women in my life should know each other.”
“Then you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m not in your life.”
“I would like you to be.”
“Who are you trying to fool? You don’t like me, and I detest you.”
“I expect you to be civil when you meet her.”
He showed signs of anger in his tone and the tightening of his mouth.
“You’ve no right to expect anything from me.” Nelda glanced at the car, where a blond woman sat watching them. “Is she number four or five?”
“Don’t be crude,” he snapped. “My wife would like to see the place where I grew up.”
“It’s not a log cabin, but close, by your standards. Is she impressed with how you pulled yourself up by your boot straps to become the important man you are?”
Major Donald Hansen turned frosty eyes on Lute, then back to Nelda, and looked at her in the way that used to shrivel her insides. This time she didn’t feel a thing.
“Are you going to show my wife my home or not?”
“Not.” Nelda said the one word and looked him straight in the eyes. Then, with a half smile, “It’s not
your
home.”
“Donald? Is something wrong?” The blonde had rolled down the window.
“Nothing, dear. I’ll be there in a minute.” When he turned back, he spoke bitingly. “I thought we could have a civil conversation. Did Hutchinson tell you that I’m interested in buying the farm?”
“He told me.”
“I’m prepared to pay what you want . . . more than you could get from a local buyer.” He looked at Lute. “Do you have any say in this?”
“Not a word. I back Nelda in whatever she decides to do.”
“I decided a long time ago. I’ll not sell to you. I’ll give the farm to the Salvation Army first.”
“I see.” His mouth snapped shut. “You’re paying me back for forcing you to marry, so that your offspring would have a legal name.” He put his hand on the lapels of his coat and seemed to be adjusting it on his shoulders, his anger overriding his judgment. “I was right in my assessment of you—an ignorant little slut. From the time you first knew the difference between the sexes, you’ve been attracted to the lower classes.” His cold eyes went to Lute. “And he came running back as soon as you got your hands on the farm, didn’t he?”
Lute hit him. Nelda never saw the blow coming and neither did her father. Lute’s fist landed solidly on the major’s mouth. He backstepped several times before he sat down hard in the snow. His hat bounced off.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for nine years. Get up so I can do it again.” Lute stood over him. Blood was flowing from the major’s cut lips. “Call her another name like that, and I’ll beat you to a pulp.”

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