“RAINA IS HOME! RAINA IS home!” The words rang out like bells clanging as Mama ran outside to welcome her daughter. Soon the little house would be filled with neighbors to welcome home the prodigal schoolteacher, and Gerda was already planning her escape. She would take her crutch and stomp around to the barn and hide out there until the party was over.
She wasn’t angry; she didn’t begrudge her sister or her parents their celebration. Mama and Papa deserved, finally, to bask in the glow of a daughter who had done them proud. Gerda no more had it in her to feel jealous of their happiness than she had it in her to feel jealous of her sister. Her emotions—dulled these last few months of confinement, of banishment—never reached out to embrace or hurt anyone else but herself. Her mind was a constant waterwheel, ever churning up the same pattern of guilt, recrimination, the desire to go back in time and change that fateful decision, and fear for her future. It went round and round, churning up the waters of her soul.
As soon as Mama flew out of the house to greet Raina, Gerda took her crutch and a basket of knitting and slipped—well, stomped—out the back door. The crutch still hurt beneath her armpit; it had rubbed her skin almost raw, despite all the various materials—calico, sheepskin—that Mama had tied on it, hoping to find the perfect one that wouldn’t cause her daughter any extra pain. But nothing would help, except time, she supposed. In the same way that now the phantom pains of her missing foot had dulled to an ache, not electric jolts, the pain beneath her arm would dim, as well.
Gerda actually wished that it wouldn’t.
She heard Raina’s happy cry at seeing Mama, and then the voices dropped and she knew they were talking about her. Gerda could not bear it one more second, this constant discussion of what was to become of her, a conversation that never included her at all, for she was assumed, apparently, to be unable to make decisions anymore, since she’d made such a tragic one. She thumped hastily through the yard to escape it, scattering the chicks and chickens in her wake. Her movements were uneven as her new boot, strapped to the stump just above where her ankle had been, made such a heavy track in the dirt while her other foot left only the ball of it as an imprint. The heavy fake boot wasn’t quite tall enough to match the length of her other leg so she was always slightly tilted, swaying as she walked.
The crutch wasn’t necessary inside the house; there, she could hobble about enough so that she had two good arms to use to work, to help, to seek atonement through extra sewing, feverish sweeping, scrubbing the clothes on the washboard so intently, Mama teased her that she might scrub them into rags. Anything that she could do with her arms and one good leg, she would do, and do it better than anyone else, and maybe then Papa would look at her again with that pride in his eyes. So far, he had not.
He still couldn’t meet her gaze; it made mealtimes especially awkward. He could talk to her, say her name, but he always looked down at his plate or the bread in his hands or his cup of coffee or at Mama. But not at Gerda.
She was almost to the barn now; there was a special little corner she had fashioned into a hiding place. It was silly, really, as if she were still a little girl, playing house with Raina. The two of them were always making a little playhouse out of corners and shadows, fixing it up with twig furniture and cups made of grass; they got so good at weaving these tiny fairy cups that they actually did hold water. What was it about children and hiding places? But here she was, eighteen, nineteen in a month, and she was still hiding away. During the winter, there had been no visitors, naturally. But once the thaws and the floods were through, some of the neighbors did come around, ostensibly to see how everyone had gotten through the winter, to ask if Mama’s preserves had lasted, if they had any laying hens to trade for some seed—and to ask about Raina. But also, to gape at Gerda. She imagined they were hoping to find she’d grown a horn, or warts, or some outward symbol of evil. But she looked the same. The few that caught a glimpse of her always seemed disappointed by that. She didn’t let many catch her, though.
Now she heard her name being called by Raina—“Gerda! Gerda?”—so she hobbled even faster to her corner, where there was a milk stool, a lantern, a blanket, some of her schoolteacher books. She reread them—she’d memorized them. Anything to try to take her mind off…things.
Or course, she couldn’t teach again, not anywhere around here in northeastern Nebraska or Dakota. But she also couldn’t imagine remaining in her parents’ house much longer. She couldn’t forever blot out the sun that still shone on her parents and her sister. She had received several letters that Mama and Papa would not allow her to read, they’d burned them up without a word after they had read them first, but she knew what was in them. How could you? My son is gone forever, my daughter. How could you do that to them? How could you let them go to their deaths?
Tiny’s parents never wrote, however. Her parents never spoke his name. She couldn’t allow herself to, either, for fear she would let slip the damning truth behind her actions that day and kill her parents on the spot.
Sometimes she let her imagination loose, picturing herself older, odder every year that she remained here. Children would make up songs about her, cruel songs. They would sneak around at night to see if they could catch a glimpse of her—afraid but excited, too, to see her face. They would shriek and run off in the night when she came to the window to see who was throwing pebbles at it. In their telling, she would grow uglier and crazier each year, until she was a witch, an ogress.
But also in her imagination, she sometimes saw herself curled up on her bed, shrinking with the passing seasons. Doing her best to take up less air, less space. Withering away until she was like one of those creepy apple-head dolls that Mrs. Kristiansen made, dolls with wizened, wrinkled faces as if all substance had been sucked from them.
“Gerda!” Raina had crept into the barn while she’d been arranging herself—not an easy thing to do—on the low milk stool, preparing to wait out the party. “Gerda, you are trying my patience—oh, there you are!”
There was scolding in Raina’s voice. And other things—adult things, maturity and weariness and resoluteness, too. No nonsense. This was not the slightly singsong voice of the little sister she’d last seen months ago. Gerda steeled herself to look up into her sister’s face.
There was no accusation in it. No hate. A steeliness—new—in her eyes, but it didn’t obscure the love she’d always seen there. Her sister would never look up to her again, but she would still love her. And Gerda assumed that burden, too—just when had her family’s love and care started feeling like the worst punishment she could imagine?
“Gerda, why are you hiding away? And oh—how thin you are!” Raina clucked like a mother hen; she shook her head. She was dusty from the trip, her braided bun slightly undone, she hadn’t even paused to splash water on her face. But she looked well; she looked pretty—prettier than she had when she left, her cheeks less full, her cheekbones more pronounced. She looked somewhat guarded, too; it was evident that she had not come through these months unscathed emotionally. Gerda remembered her odd letters when she first left home, and she wondered.
Raina looked tested, that was it—and she’d obviously passed that test, spectacularly. The two of them had never been equals; Gerda had always been the leader, Raina the docile follower. But now their positions were reversed, their relationship redefined, and Gerda frankly didn’t think she had the strength to adjust to its new parameters.
“I’m not hiding, I’m—” But then Gerda sighed. “Yes, I’m hiding.”
“Not from me, I hope?”
“No, but from the others. You know Mama invited some neighbors to welcome you home.”
“To show me off, you mean.”
Gerda had to laugh. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Ach, I thought I was through with all that, once I came home.” And Raina slid down next to her sister, not caring that she was sitting in murky straw. She even took a piece of straw and began to suck on it, just like she used to when she was small. “I am tired of it, these people looking at me like I’m some saint. When all I did was what anyone would have done—” Then she stopped, and looked away.
“Why did you send them home, Gerda?” Raina finally asked the question that no one else had dared. In all this time, all the accusation and anger, no one had asked her why she’d let the children out early; they all just assumed she’d gotten confused in the storm and made the wrong decision, and that was bad enough.
But Gerda had been carrying the answer around in her stomach like a heavy stone; it weighed her down, it filled her up so that she couldn’t eat, couldn’t do anything but be aware of it, always. Here was a chance to give it to someone else, at least for a brief moment—and she took it, almost crying with the relief of unburdening herself.
“Oh, Raina—it was because of Tiny! I wanted to be alone with him, and I knew that the Andersons were going to be gone for the day, it was so nice, so much warmer than it had been—remember?” And Gerda shut her eyes and felt, again, the surprising gift of the soft air that morning, bearing with it promises. Promises of the future. “I told Tiny, that morning, that I was going to let school out early and he should come for me and the girls, and then the storm came. So suddenly! But the children were already wearing their cloaks and had all their slates and pails—I’d already rung the bell. I told them to run. As if they could have, those little things. Then I jumped in the sleigh with Minna and Ingrid and Tiny and we went off. Laughing—laughing, Raina! It seemed exciting, in that moment, to outrun the storm. But I did turn back, once. And I saw that the children had already disappeared in the snow and wind, and I worried, then. I wondered if I should make Tiny turn around so we could call them back. But I didn’t. I told Tiny to keep going, I didn’t want to spoil my plans. And that is why I am a criminal. A murderess.”
“Oh, Gerda.” Raina looked as shocked as a person could, and Gerda was glad. She’d longed to tell someone, but the only people around were Papa and Mama, and she just couldn’t hurt them any more. But now that she had told Raina, she was strangely relieved and free.
“So you see, Raina, I am not like you, I’m not like anyone. I am evil. I am lost. I haven’t told Papa and Mama this—about Tiny. I haven’t told anyone. Just you. You’re the only one who knows the truth about me.” Gerda shifted on her stool; her lower leg ached in this position, but she welcomed the pain.
“It’s good that you told me, you needed to tell someone. You’re not bad, Gerda, you just let—you just let a boy turn your head for a minute.” Raina seemed thoughtful; she tucked her legs up and hugged them against her chest. “That could happen to anyone.”
“Not you. You wouldn’t have endangered those children for a man.”
Raina took a very long time to answer this. She opened her mouth to speak, shut it, then finally lay her head in her hands before looking at her again. “No, you are not evil. I—I almost ran off with a man. The husband of the family I boarded with. I tell you, Gerda, it was awful in that house, he paid me too much attention and I was a fool, I let him. The first man to give me flowers, I put all my heart in his hands. And one night, right before the storm—when it had been so cold, remember? And we couldn’t leave the house for days, I thought I might go mad. He came to me and he told me we would leave, just the two of us. And even though he was a man who would leave his wife and family alone on the prairie—God help me, Gerda, I would have gone with him. I might have, I think. All that time in that house—those terrible weeks—I always asked myself, ‘What would Gerda do?’ Because you were the strong one, you always told me what to do, my sister.” Raina reached for Gerda’s hand.
“Why—what stopped you?”
“His wife. She came at him with a knife.”
“Good Lord! I had no idea—your letters were odd, but I had no idea you landed in such an evil place.” The two Olsen girls sat hand in hand for a long while. Gerda remembered their uncomplicated childhood, being loved, being wanted. How had these two, raised in such a manner, ended up here—both of them wracked with guilt over a man?
But just like a fairy tale, one sister remained good, while the other was branded forever.
“You didn’t go,” Gerda reminded her sister.
“I might have.”
“You didn’t. For whatever reason, you didn’t.”
“And then when the storm hit, I thought he would come for me and the children at the schoolhouse. I waited, hoping he would. But of course, he didn’t.” Raina raised her head and stared at the barn wall, tracking the movement of a small brown mouse that had poked its head out from a hollow in one of the slats. “Only when the wind blew the window out did I finally act on my own. I might have waited there all night, letting the children freeze to death.”
“You didn’t. You did the right thing in the end. Don’t forget that, Raina. Don’t ever forget that. I did not.” Gerda embraced her guilt once more, returned to its rightful place in the pit of her stomach. Raina would walk around with little bits of it—the jagged, painful edges of knowledge—but this stone was hers alone.
“What do you plan to do now?” Raina asked after a long moment. “Teach again?”
“Not here, no. I can’t. No one would hire me.”
“You could—I could help you—let me help you!” Raina looked up, her eyes sparkling. “I could take you to Lincoln with me, help with your education. You could go to college, too!”
“No!” Gerda didn’t mean to shout, but she couldn’t bear this—her little sister so eager to help, to give her absolution. “No, Raina, no—you don’t understand. I cannot stay in Nebraska.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am outside now—an outcast. This community, they will not have me, nor should they. There’s a pact out here, I’ve come to believe. Unwritten, but still. You don’t think of yourself first. And you don’t want too much. The people here—good people, don’t get me wrong—they abide by these rules, they never ask for more than what Providence has given them. Other than sailing across an ocean to take a piece of the earth as their own, they have never asked for more. They have never thought of themselves first. But I did, you see. I broke the pact. I can’t stay here.”
“So where will you go, Gerda? Not too far away?”
“I have a plan, I think. I’ve written to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Do you remember that school we visited long ago, where the little Indian children were? With Papa?”
“Yes, and Papa got so angry?”
“There are other schools like it. Out west—I mean to go west. Tiny always wanted to—” Gerda felt tears threaten. It did not help that Raina immediately scooted over and put her arms around her; Gerda stiffened, tried to push her sister away, but Raina refused to let go and finally, Gerda dissolved into tears for her beau, missing him so much, more than she had thought she would. She missed the children, of course, but Tiny—the thought of him dying out there alone; they’d found his body up against a fence post, far from his pony’s, he’d never even gotten close—caused her to muffle a scream of agony, feeling everything he must have felt. Terror, confusion, pain. Love and worry for her, too. She hoped.
The two sisters sat in this embrace for a long while, and finally, Gerda felt the last tears drain from her. She was cleansed, although this feeling wouldn’t last. She would fill up again with the guilt and the grief and the shame, always the shame. As long as she had to look at her mama and especially her papa. So she had to leave. And live—alone.
How do you grow old on the prairie?
She wouldn’t stay around long enough to find out.
“Raina? Raina!” Their mother was calling. Both sisters registered that she was only calling one of their names; Gerda smiled ruefully, already used to being forgotten. “Come, people are arriving!”
“Oh, I don’t want to go!” Raina let go of her sister, and Gerda was amused to see her face in a familiar, childish pout.
“You have to,” she admonished, for the last time the big sister scolding the little one; she wiped Raina’s dusty face with her apron, tried to corral the loose locks about her face, tucking them into the braided knot at her neck. “Now stand up, wipe your eyes, put on a smile. Mama and Papa are waiting for you. You have to do this for them. For me.”
“All right,” Raina said reluctantly, scrambling up. “I must look a fright.”
“You do, but such a pretty fright! And no one will care. They’ll see what they want to see—the heroine of the prairie.”
“Still, I need to wash up. You’ll come in, too?”
Gerda shook her head firmly; she picked up a book and held it up. “They don’t want me. They want you. I’m fine out here, believe me—content, even. In my own way.”
“Well…” Raina looked doubtful.
“Raina!” It was Papa’s booming voice now, and there was something in it that Gerda hadn’t heard since she’d been home—pride.
“Go—go!” Gerda shooed her little sister away like she was a mouse. “You’ll see me at supper.”
Raina nodded, brushed the dust and hay off her dress, looked at her dirty hands with a shudder, and ran off to be welcomed back home—to be admired and petted. To be the joy of Mama and Papa.
Gerda returned to her book, settling down in her little corner.
Outside.