Sisterchicks on the Loose (16 page)

She followed me and helped lift the heavy bags, carrying them to a small room to the right of the kitchen area. The room had one double bed, a cupboard-style closet in the far corner, and a straight-backed wooden chair in the other corner. The bed was covered with a puffy ivory comforter. A single picture of a basket of roses hung above the bed. As soon as we dropped the excessive and bulky luggage on the floor, no room was left.

I stepped over Penny’s largest suitcase and trailed Marketta into the kitchen, feeling like a duckling that had lost its leader and was trying to fall in line.

“A coffee?” Marketta already was opening a white cupboard door and reaching for a ceramic cup and saucer.

“Yes, thank you. If it’s no trouble. Don’t make a fresh pot of coffee on my account.”

Marketta turned and gave me a strange look. I froze, realizing I sounded just like my mother-in-law.
I can’t believe that came out of my mouth!
I thought of Penny’s recent encouragement about how I was changing and becoming more
confident.
Come on, shoulders back. Head high. Strength. Dignity. You are not going to grow up to be like Gloria
.

I vowed right then and there that I wouldn’t allow myself to sound like a weepy, whiny, overlooked wisp of a woman. Ever.

Everything in Marketta’s kitchen was simple and honest. A thick-legged wooden table dominated the area with its three straight-backed chairs. The chair in our little guest room obviously was the fourth chair to the kitchen set. I sat at the table and smoothed my hand across the green and white linen table-cloth.

“Milk and sugar?” Marketta asked.

This time I kept my answer simple, like all things should be in this kitchen. “Yes.”

Marketta plugged a teakettle into the wall and prepared a painted tray with two cups and a French press coffeemaker. None of her movements seemed wasted. She placed the tray on the table and motioned that I should serve myself. I stirred a bit of brown raw sugar into my coffee using a small spoon that was adorned with a British flag.

“My mother collects decorative teaspoons.” I didn’t add that my meticulous mother hangs them in a display box on the wall and never uses them. I loved feeling as if I were special enough at Marketta’s house to use one of her fancy teaspoons.

“Please,” Marketta said, after she had seated herself across from me. “Take the spoon home to your mother. Tell her it is a gift from me.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s your spoon. I’m sure it’s special to you.”

“I can get another. My daughter lives now in England. She
sends me whatever I want. If I miss the spoon after you take it to your mother, I will have Elina send me a new one.”

Clearly the matter was settled in Marketta’s mind.

“Thank you.” I remembered my only Finnish word and added, “
Kiitos
.”

Marketta’s face lit up with delight. “
Eipä kestä
.” She continued with a full sentence in Finnish, a question, I guessed, based on the inflection.

I shook my head. “I only know how to say
kiitos
.”

“That is a good start. You will learn more. For now, we will use English. Tell me of you.”

I couldn’t remember ever being asked such a thing. I tried to speak slowly and gave her an overview of where I lived, my family, and how I had met Penny.

Marketta listened. She seemed to catch every word the way the birdbath in my small garden caught the rainwater. I wondered if I was pouring out too much at one time and if she would overflow.

“And your loves?” Marketta asked. “Tell me of your loves in life.”

I wasn’t used to having all this attention. Marketta had a wonderful way of leaning forward slightly and focusing her gaze on me, as if each word meant something to her personally. I recognized it as a trait that had sifted down to Penny in a slightly different form.

“Do you mean my children? My family?”

Marketta smiled, revealing deep laugh lines around her clear green eyes. “Yes? You have a close family?”

“Yes, my children and my husband bring me a lot of joy. I have a good life.” My answer made me feel noble, as if my life carried the same simplicity and calm that Marketta’s home exuded.

“What about you?” I asked Marketta. “I’ve been talking about myself too much. Tell me about you and the loves of your life.”

“My husband is gone. We can speak of him later. My first son lives in the north of Finland. My daughter lives in England with her husband. They have three children. I have made a good life, too, here in Porvoo. We have lived in this apartment only two years, and sometimes I miss my garden. But I am happy. My work has been making chocolates.”

“Really? Chocolate. Penny and I have been eating Finnish chocolate ever since we arrived.”

“You have then tasted some of mine, I am sure. I have made chocolate for thirty-four years. Suklaavuori is the best chocolate in Finland. It is made here in Porvoo. Would you like some?” Marketta rose, opened a box on her counter, and carefully took out a dozen small milk chocolate blocks that looked like chunks of fudge. She placed them on a small plate and explained how the chocolate was still made in the traditional way. “I am an expert on chocolate.”

“Mmm. This is the best. You’re right.” I tried to picture Marketta in a white chef’s coat and hat, stirring large copper vats of chocolate with a paddle. That would explain the strong arms.

Over our rich coffee and melt-on-your-tongue chocolate, Marketta and I settled into a comfortable pocket of friendship. She told me more about her life and especially about her childhood with Penny’s mom.

“Do you remember going fishing when you were young?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. Many times.”

“Penny has a picture of you and her mother holding up a fish.”

“Ah yes, Elsa’s big fish. Of course. That was at Porosaari. In the summers we went to our summer cottage before the war. Our family had a small house by a beautiful lake not far from here. Every year, on the day school was over, my mother took us children and our servants to the lake cottage. My father would come for the weekends and for Midsummer’s Eve. Do you have midsummer festivals where you live?”

“No.”

“It is a big celebration time here. When we were young, festivals were held every year. Everyone would come. All night there would be music and dancing and much food like pancakes, fish, sausages, and bear.”

“Did you say ‘bear’?”

“Yes, bear. Do you not drink bear at festivals in Washington?”

I laughed. “
Beer
. I thought you said ‘bear.’ ”

“Oh no! We do not eat bear! Some persons may enjoy eating bear, but not usually. I have never eaten bear.”

“Neither have I,” I confessed. “But I had reindeer for the first time the other night at the hotel restaurant.”

“Ah, then I have another Finnish word for you.
Poro
. It means ‘reindeer.’ The lake we went to for summer has a small island called
Porosaari
.
Saari
is, of course ‘island.’
Porosaari
. This means ‘Reindeer Island.’ ”

“Were reindeer on the island?”

“No, no, only ants. Many busy ants. This is the island in the picture. I have a good memory of this because Elsa caught the big fish on Midsummer’s Eve. Our mother and father said we could go to Porosaari with our brothers. This was important because it meant Elsa and I were no longer the babies. Do you see?”

I nodded.

“The sun does not set, of course, on Midsummer’s Eve. This makes it light all day and all night. It is not easy to explain how this feels unless you live with so much light, and then in the winter, you have so much dark. It makes you ready to have a celebration for summer and feel like you also have new green leaves growing on you, like the trees. Do you know this feeling?”

I nodded again, but in my heart I knew I had never fully opened up to the wonders of life and allowed myself to feel things as openly as Marketta was now describing her childhood memory. I was selective about what I celebrated. Summer and light had not yet appeared on my party list.

“The island is not so very close to our cottage. I think six kilometers. We took food, blankets, and our father’s boat. It was not a boat with a motor. No, only a wooden boat with long oars and two strong brothers.

“I do not think my brothers wanted any girls to go with them. As soon as our parents could not see us from our cottage, my brothers began to make the boat like this …”

Marketta leaned from one side to the other, as if riding in a boat that was about to tip. “Elsa told them we would die in the cold water, and they would be arrested for making us fall in.”

“Did you? Did they tip the boat and make you fall in the water?”

“No, my brothers only wanted to make us afraid. We got to the island, and a man was already there with a camera. He was from Scotland. He said he was taking pictures for a book he was making.

“My brothers were not happy. They wanted to have the island to themselves like they did other times. The man with
the camera wanted to take pictures of our small fire and of us looking at the sky. My brothers thought he was silly. Elsa thought he was handsome. I think she wanted him to take pictures of her.”

I could imagine Penny as a young girl being just like her mother and wanting the photographer from Scotland to have eyes only for her.

“I made a fishing pole from a stick.” Marketta leaned back and looked proud of herself. “We took some of my brothers’ hooks and string and told them we would catch a fish. We said they could sit and do nothing because Elsa and I were going to catch the fish for our breakfast.”

“Did your brothers laugh at you?”

“Of course. They called us babies, but Elsa and I went walking away from them, around the shore. I was a little frightened, but Elsa was strong enough for both of us and took me to a place where she said the fish came to look in the clear water and see their own beauty.”

Marketta paused, and a faraway glimmer appeared in her eyes. “Do you know how much magic is in a summer night, when the sun plays on the water like small, jumping fires and the wind makes music in the trees?”

I smiled.

“All night it is like that. The earth is wide awake, and everywhere there is a happy feeling. I don’t think magic is the word I want to use. I do not know the right word in English.”

“I think I know what you mean, Marketta. I’ve never been to a place far enough north that the sun hasn’t gone down all day. But I know what you mean about sunlight on the water and wind in the trees. I can only image how beautiful it is here in Finland during that time of year.”

“You must come again to see it.”

I was touched by her kindness. Her simple, gracious invitation filled in all the spaces where I felt awkward being the substitute guest while Penny slept off her overdose. “I would like to come back some day. I would like to bring my husband.”

“Yes, you must! I will take you to Porosaari and show you where Elsa caught the big fish with the fancy fishing pole.”

“Do you mean the stick with the string and hooks?”

“No, that stick was not strong enough to catch anything but ants. All those busy ants! But the man with the camera also had a fishing pole. He saw us trying to catch a fish with our stick and felt a tenderness in his heart for these two young girls. Elsa could speak very good English, so he told her she could use his pole. Right away she caught the big fish, and he took our picture with Elsa holding it. He put the picture in his book.”

“He actually had a book published?”

“Yes, three books. One book about Finland, one book about Scotland, and one book about Spain. Would you like to see the book on Finland?”

“Yes!”

Marketta slipped out of the room. A vaguely familiar feeling crept over me. I realized the feeling came from a memory of Gloria that I had pushed deep inside. About eight years ago at Christmas, Gloria mixed up the tags on some of the presents. I opened a shiny set of expensive mixing bowls, and Gloria let out a shriek. “Those are Bonnie’s!”

My sister-in-law, Bonnie, was about to open the box that Gloria had intended for me. Gloria bustled over and swapped our gifts. My “correct” gift was a pot holder shaped like a big
strawberry. “Your pot holders are atrocious,” Gloria had said.

As I waited for Marketta to return with the book, I half expected her to notice Penny on the couch and let out a shriek when she realized that she had given her wonderful story to the wrong person.

But Marketta returned with a warm smile and placed the charming old book on the table in front of me.

I touched the cover and then looked up. “Thank you, Marketta. Thank you for telling me your stories.”

She reached across the green and white linen tablecloth and patted my hand. “I have many stories. Perhaps I will serve you story and story until you have had enough. If I serve you too much, you must tell me.”

I choked up. “I’m not full yet.”

That’s when I realized that my mother-in-law didn’t fill me. She emptied me every time I was around her. I let her empty me. Or at least, for many years I had let her empty me. Why did I do that?

Page by page, Marketta and I went through the book from the Scottish photographer named Loch McCallum. He had captured a unique sense of place on that midsummer’s night. The light from the midnight sun cast otherworldly shadows on the smooth, sandy beach of the pristine Reindeer Island. In the background, tall evergreens stood like sentinels guarding a deep, enchanting forest.

We sat with our feet beneath Marketta’s sturdy kitchen table for more than three hours. She made more coffee and poured out more and more fanciful tales until I was the one being filled to overflowing like a birdbath in the rain. But I wasn’t too full. I still wanted more tales from her.

“Penny is going to love hearing all these stories about her
mother. Elsa sounds like she was a wonderful woman.”

“She was. I missed her with my deepest heart when she went to America. Our parents did not want her to go. She was in love with Hank, that I know for certain. Nothing could stop Elsa. She was young, and he was persuasive. I think that is the right word in English. He easily could convince people to do things, and in the end, they thought it was their own idea.”