THE HOUSE WAS LOSING SOME of its warmth, so Anna Pedersen went to the little lean-to off the kitchen to grab more wood. The lean-to was almost full; she thanked her foresight in having Gunner fill it up this morning, when it was warm, after those other two left for school.
She almost sang with joy when she saw them running away from the house this morning, the Schoolteacher—she refused to call her by her name—holding Anette by the hand as they flew away without a backward glance. If only they could truly flee and never come back! Even with the heavier workload, she would be glad to have both of these interlopers out of her house. She’d never asked for them to come here, had she? No. It was all his idea.
As it had been Gunner’s brilliant plan to leave Minneapolis, which she had loved—it had reminded her a little bit of Kristiania, Norway’s beautiful capital city, although it was not nearly so grand—to come here. To northeastern Nebraska, far from any city or town. A man who had never in his life tried to make a living from the earth, who had grown up in cities as had she, had gotten it into his idiotic head that owning acres of land was something he was owed now that he was an American. That living self-sufficiently, miles from any neighbor, was the true test of an American man. At least he hadn’t tried to grow any crops; she could at least be thankful about that. No, Gunner, who had been in the horse guards in the army back in Norway—and hadn’t she been smitten with him then, in his dashing uniform astride a sleek black horse?—had stuck with one thing he knew, anyway. And even Anna had to admit that breeding and selling horses was a reliable income in a land so newly settled, these Great Plains. People—poor farmers, too—had to have horses.
But he could have easily done this in Minneapolis. Oh, they had lived in a lovely neighborhood there, a little slice of home with bakeries and coffee shops and everyone speaking Norwegian. She was happy in Minneapolis; she had culture and streetcars and teas and parties. She’d had no desire to leave.
But he dragged her away from her family, her friends, to live like a peasant. To dirty her hands with daily labor, to have only him for companionship, to bear children alone with no help from her mother, her sisters. To nearly grow mad with the loneliness, the screeching of the wind driving her senseless; but the times when there were no sounds at all—not a wolf howling, a chicken scratching, a horse whinnying—were worse. Those times, with only her own heartbeat to remind her that she wasn’t trapped in someone else’s nightmare, that she was, in fact, alive and vulnerable, made her question her sanity. More than once, in such a state, she’d found a knife in her hand as she stood over her sleeping children’s beds with no idea how—or why—it had gotten there.
She felt she was losing not only her sanity but herself. She kept looking in the mirror to reassure herself she was still Anna; Anna of the golden hair and the sparkling eyes and the brilliant laugh and the pretty ways who had been the envy of all her sisters, the belle of all the men. Anna who had chosen Gunner, not the other way around. She had many suitors, many chances, but she chose this man, and she must never let him forget that. He needed to know this every single day of this life out here in the middle of nowhere; he needed to be reminded that he was lucky to have her.
And he behaved like a lucky man, he truly did—at times. Yes, he brought her presents from town, planted a flower garden for her in the best soil around the house, relegating the vegetables to a more troublesome plot of land and doing the hard work of coaxing them to grow. He sang her songs in the evening and made his gratitude known to her in bed, when she permitted it.
But she could never forget the other times. The times when he put everything else on this dreadful scrap of land ahead of her. Like the time when she was giving birth to her youngest, the baby. Anna lay panting and grunting in the bed, the other two children standing in the doorway, dumbstruck, staring at her while she strained to bring forth this new life. And Gunner, where was he? In the barn, with his prize mare who was foaling at the same time. But the mare was having trouble, a breech birth, and her husband stuck his hands into the mare to pull out a foal, while she, Anna, lay alone. Split open with pain, clammy with terror, during childbirth. Alone, she gave birth to a son for him, she pulled the child out from between her legs with her own shaking hands, she held him there while she screamed. Their youngest son was born in a webbed, scarlet fury of blood and pain, and in that moment she couldn’t help but feel this was his destiny.
That, she could not forget. Let alone forgive.
Then he brought them, those strangers, into her house. He presented each of them to her as he presented his pretty presents. With a flourish, a pleased flush on his handsome face. But with no real idea of how the practicalities of it all would work: who would feed them, clothe them, have to live with them day in and day out while he escaped to his everlasting stable.
“Anna, my love, you needed help, so I have arranged it,” he told her the day that Anette’s mother arrived with her in tow. “I heard of a woman who wanted to sell her girl—there’s trouble at home, I gathered, and the mother thinks it’s best to get rid of her. Someone in town told me, and I wrote to her, and she’ll be here today. To help you, my love!” He must have seen the darkness overtake her face; that darkness she couldn’t always control, even though she knew it distorted her pretty features, made her less than her usual self.
“A stranger? In my house?”
“You said you were lonely!”
“Lonely for my family, my sisters, my friends. Lonely for you. Not lonely for a girl her own mother doesn’t even want! What do we know about the family? Is she slatternly, the mother? Is the girl a bastard child?”
“I don’t know—I don’t think—”
“You didn’t even ask, did you?” Anna could have slapped his silly, stupid face right then; the man looked so surprised by her questions, so stunned at her refusal of his gift. Anna never refused gifts.
“It’s too late, they’ll be here today. I promised the mother. She was desperate—and so, my Anna, may I say, are you. You have too much to do with the children and this place, you know that’s true.”
“And why is that? Who dragged me out here to the ends of the earth?”
Gunner didn’t respond, he never did when she reminded him of his folly. He only pressed his lips together, passed his hand over his eyes, so that when they were visible again a little light had gone out of them. They weren’t such a polished, gleaming brown. Then he rose to go to the stable and tend to his horses, the only things he truly loved.
“Don’t think that I will be good to this—creature,” she called after him. “Don’t think that I’ll treat her as my own!”
And she hadn’t; she never would. The girl was stupid, there was no other word for it; she had a habit of staring into space, her eyes dull. Her skin was pockmarked, her hair a mustardy brown and thin, stringy. Anna feared that her own children, a girl and two boys, would catch whatever had made Anette this way, but she had no choice but to rely on the girl for help. The child was a hard worker, there was no denying that, but she worked in as dull a way as she lived, her movements ploddingly methodical, her face expressionless. Anna would never be able to stop adding up the cost of an extra mouth to feed, an extra body to clothe, and then there was school to think of. But she had learned to live with the girl, absorb her status in the household—servant only. Not family.
But then, the Schoolteacher arrived. And that was Gunner’s doing, too.
“Darling Anna, good news! I’ve been appointed to the school board—a sign of my importance in the community. Just you wait and see, I’ll run for office one day, my dearest!” And he’d puffed his chest out, patted his mustache, and looked ridiculous. The vanity of man!
“And we’ve just decided on the new teacher for this term,” he continued smugly. “This will be her first school, but her older sister has excellent references and she’s from a good home. The Olsens over in the next county, they farm, immigrants, Norwegians like us. The father is a deacon in the church, an impeccable character. When we visited to tell the girl she was chosen, I was very impressed by the family.”
“That’s nice.” She had been knitting a new muffler for him. Putting her pretty hands to labor for him. Completely unaware of the treachery he was about to deploy.
“And I volunteered our home, for her to board in. I felt it was the thing to do, being new to the school board. It’s a good way to show my value to them. She’ll start with the winter term, we can put her up in the attic with Anette. I thought I might insulate it, paint it up a bit—”
“You will not.” Anna’s voice was low and reasonable—but she felt the darkness blanket her face, the thick clouds impairing her vision. “You will not. How dare you, Gunner? How dare you do this without consulting me?” The man was too friendly, too stupid, too—everything. He wanted to make friends with these people, this community; he was putting down roots even when she was desperately trying to pull them up. She wanted to go home. She had not been reticent about telling him this, every single day. He knew her wishes, he knew he was lucky to have her—but he kept smiling and being neighborly and ingratiating himself with the community anyway. And now he wanted to introduce a young schoolteacher into this house? Because, of course, the schoolteacher would be pretty; she knew it. Not as pretty as herself. But still. Weren’t schoolteachers in the stories she read always pretty?
And that turned out to be the case. Raina was petite, a doll-like young woman. Her hair had glints of red in it, and her nose was pert, charmingly turned up. Her prettiness was much quieter than Anna’s; it wasn’t flashy. Instead, it coaxed, it made you want to come closer to take another look, rather than blinding you at first glance.
From the very first moment she set eyes on the Schoolteacher—and saw her husband looking at the girl with something she hadn’t seen in his eyes since they had courted back in Kristiania—Anna despised her. Despised him. She saw it all happen, right under her nose—the moony looks, the careful attention, the little presents, like flowers, fresh pencils. Gunner made a show every time he pulled the Schoolteacher’s seat out for her at dinner. He insisted that she eat with them, too, and he even grew a bit of a spine and started insisting Anette do the same, even though, before, he didn’t seem to care that Anette took her meals up in her attic. But once the Schoolteacher arrived, Gunner started to care about Anette, or at least to pretend to care about Anette. When before, he let Anna do as she liked regarding the girl.
At first, the Schoolteacher had been shy, and somewhat startled by the attention. But sure as the sun rises, the young woman began to blossom, color prettily, do her hair in elaborate twists instead of the simple braided coil she’d arrived with. She started to glare at Anna, defy her by speaking English to Anette, daring to help the girl with her lessons even after Anna told her not to. But she’d never spoken an impudent word to Anna, until last week.
And then came that dreadful night when she actually caught Gunner up in the attic in his coat and boots, kneeling beside her bed, preparing to take the Schoolteacher—where, exactly? He couldn’t say.
He was a stupid, stupid man.
She’d stopped him, stopped them both that night—the knife she’d started keeping beneath her mattress had done the job, for the most part; she had only to show it. He coaxed her down the stairs, wrested the knife out of her hand; it fell with a clang. She slapped him and threatened to do the same or worse to the Schoolteacher, but he said the right things: He didn’t know what had happened, he’d lost his head, it had to be the cabin fever, being cooped up so long in the bitter cold. He needed her, Anna; he needed his children, his family. His good name.
For a week he didn’t say one word to the Schoolteacher. But that didn’t prevent Anna from taking out her fury on them both—and Anette—at every chance.
Why didn’t the strangers leave? When would the punishing temperatures rise so that they could leave her in peace and give her a chance to breathe, to sit, to think—to plan?
Thank God the weather had cleared this morning, the temperatures warming the little house so that the stove actually seemed to radiate heat. As the Schoolteacher and Anette fled the house, Gunner hadn’t given either of them a glance; he’d only sat at the breakfast table, talking earnestly to Anna, something about the horses, she never truly listened to the words he said. She only needed to know that he was paying attention to her, and her alone.
But now—
“I’m going to get them.”
Gunner stood before her, wearing his heavy coat, carrying a buffalo robe, muffled up to his eyes, but still his words destroyed her complacency, her growing contentment with the storm raging outside while, inside, it was only her family again. Blessedly. No interlopers. No vipers in the nest.
“No, you’re not.” She said it calmly; no blackness overcame her this time. She saw everything clearly, almost too clearly; Gunner’s eyes were too meltingly brown, the china too sparkling, the light from the kerosene lanterns too bright.
The gun in her hand too silver. Too cool, too heavy. She stared at it in surprise; she’d forgotten, until that moment, that she’d retrieved it earlier from the loose brick behind the stove. She’d forgotten that she’d been carrying it all morning as she stirred up the stove fire, set the table for the children, mixed the batter for the flapjacks. It had become part of her, soothing her. Keeping her intact, her mind rational. Her heart beating steadily.
She raised her arm, she aimed the gun right at him—right at his heart.
The heart that could only belong to her.