Chapter Four

OVER THE WEEKS, Minka caught her sister eyeing her, once when Minka reached for a cow’s udder and a sharp pain made her gasp, and several times when she lifted her nightdress over her head.

“You’re getting fat,” Jane finally said one Sunday morning when Minka struggled with the buttons of her dress.

What overalls could hide all week, Minka’s church dresses could not. Her breasts had grown, making her figure resemble that of a curvy movie star. Minka shrugged at Jane’s comment. She was afraid to offer an excuse her sister would see right through.

When Jane repeated the observation to their mother over breakfast, Jennie replied without pause. “Minnie seventeen, no little girl now.”

For weeks, Minka had fought the compulsion to rub her hands over her growing stomach. She was ever mindful of her sister, who didn’t hide her frustration about the underlying changes that had occurred within the house. Their mother treated Jane with a thread of impatience, while being kinder to her older sister. Even Honus tiptoed around them more than usual. And Minka acted oddly, avoiding her sister even at bedtime. There were secrets woven into their lives now, but of course Jane could not suspect the enormity of the deceit.

Shortly after Christmas, Jennie told Minka that she and Honus would be driving her to Tante Hogerhide’s house in Iowa the following week. Minka barely knew Honus’s aunt, but the girl knew she needed to leave soon.

When the day came, Jane was not happy to be left behind. A couple of Honus’s friends were helping with the milking and deliveries, and Mrs. Janssen would check on Jane every day, but Jane would be alone with her routine unchanged —except for Minka’s glaring absence. That morning Jane barely said good-bye as she stomped to the barn, looking pretty as usual, even in her worn overalls.

Jane had been told that Minka was headed to Tante’s house, but she knew that the dead of winter was not the typical season for visiting distant relatives. Who on earth went traipsing around the countryside when they could get caught in a snowstorm? She worked at the reasons behind her sister’s departure, dropping hints, watching for reactions. Maybe Tante Hogerhide needed help or was sick or dying, and her grown sons were of little assistance. But then why couldn’t they just tell Jane that?

Or perhaps Honus and Jennie were already seeking a husband for Minka. The sisters knew one or two girls, barely older than Minka, who’d already gotten betrothed.

As Minka, wearing her Sunday best under her wool coat and clutching a borrowed luggage bag, waited for Honus to bring the truck around, she knew she appeared to be a favored child going on an adventure.

In reality, she was so nervous she felt like throwing up.

If Jane only knew.

* * *

A great unknown waited over the frozen plains, beyond the icy morning horizon. Minka, who’d never been more than fifteen miles from Aberdeen, was filled with both apprehension and curiosity.

The milk truck jostled down slushy roads and the occasional paved highway, moving toward a future that felt like puzzle pieces, scattered and loose in the wind. And no matter how tightly Minka wished to grasp all that remained behind her —her sister, the dairy, and the routine that divided each day and week into a steady, predictable rhythm —hour after hour this unknown approached, and the familiarity of home receded.

With one hand resting on the door for balance and the other holding the blanket around her winter coat, Minka rode on a milk crate in the enclosed back of the rattling truck. The luggage bag sat at her feet. She’d never used such a thing before.

As Honus drove, his eyes stared forward, flashing on occasion to the rearview mirror, then back to the road. Jennie sat stiffly in the passenger seat, rarely speaking except in short conversations with Honus that Minka did not try to hear.

Minka had never been an excitable girl, except during threshing time at Uncle’s, when the sight of the big machines thundering up the lane made even grown adults giddy. Minka remembered running to hang off fences when the great threshing caravan arrived on a late-summer morning. But now her emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Her breath came shallow, and her pulse pounded in her throat, prompting her to undo several buttons near her neck. She’d already added to the waistline of this dress when her flat stomach started rounding out, but her belly still constricted against the fabric at every deep breath.

She wiped her hand across the cold glass where her breath kept clouding out the landscape. The prairie’s continuity made her think of her mother’s descriptions of the endless ocean that had carried Jennie from Holland. The familiar vista of open farmland helped to steady Minka.

A visitor to South Dakota might not see the variations in the landscape. But Minka watched how the land took on different characteristics over the miles: rising up tall like enormous piles of hay, or bunching up like a porch rug rumpled against the front door. Then the rolling hills flattened out for miles, as if pressed down with an iron.

Farms cut up sections of prairie, but at this early time of year they were stripped bare of crops and dusted with snow. Stands of elm, willow, and cottonwood trees reached bare arms skyward or stood like sentries protecting rivers and streams. Towns, some large and others barely outposts, were a welcome distraction. Whenever the truck passed through one, Minka drew close to the glass, holding her breath to keep the view clear as she studied people and buildings.

In one town, as Honus slowed to navigate between pedestrians and autos and wagons, Minka caught the eye of a young girl who stood yanking at her mother’s long coat. The mother was engrossed in a heated discussion with a butcher wearing a bloodstained apron. The girl stared at the truck, then waved at Minka, who lifted a hand in return as the milk truck continued by.

Minka had once been that girl watching people travel on, wondering if they were headed to the exciting places she heard about on the radio, places she had seen only in newsreels at the movie theater, where the black-and-white images seemed not particularly connected to the real world. She knew there were exciting and dangerous places like New York —Jennie had told of her first glimpse of America, in a city that seemed big enough to swallow up all of Holland —or shimmering playgrounds like Hollywood, where palm trees stood tall and the weather was so warm that men and women lounged around wearing bathing suits as revealing as underwear. These worlds half-existed to Minka, like the imaginary lands in fairy tales.

Now she traveled not just to another town but to a different state. Minka would have given anything to go home, but her sentence had been handed out. Not until this baby was born would Minka be allowed to return.

* * *

After a short break for lunch and then more cold miles in the truck, Honus pulled to a stop in front of a two-story bungalow with white clapboard siding and a tidy front porch. They were in northern Iowa, not far from her ultimate destination of Sioux Falls. The houses here were lined up with trim lawns and long walkways, and it was quiet. This place was nothing like home, where barns and silos were surrounded by acres of crops and a clanking rail yard stood across the street.

Minka stretched her aching limbs as she stepped from the truck. It was warmer here than in Aberdeen, although in this case “warmer” was still well below freezing. Honus carried Minka’s bag with a kind of silent compassion that had been subtly on display since her troubles began.

Tante Hogerhide opened the door as they reached the porch steps. She ushered them inside, out of the biting afternoon air.

“Welkom, welkom, kom je maar opwarmen bij het vuur,” Tante said. Come and warm yourself by the fire. She touched Minka’s shoulder, drawing her deeper into the house. Her gentle hand brought a small relief. At least Minka wasn’t being abandoned into the hands of a tyrant.

“Danke,” Minka murmured. Her face flushed. Kind aunt notwithstanding, this whole thing was deeply embarrassing.

Minka stood at the small coal stove and discreetly glanced around. This house was as neat and clean as her own home, but it didn’t smell the same —there was no overlying scent of train smokestacks and barn animals. The three adults excused themselves, speaking quietly as though at a funeral. Lowered voices moved up the stairs and through the rooms as Tante showed Honus where to place Minka’s bag and they discussed plans for the girl.

Honus and Jennie remained for less than an hour. They were needed at the dairy and hoped to return before the evening milking. A thick lump rose in Minka’s throat, threatening to choke her. She had a childish urge to wrap her arms around her mother’s legs, to beg Jennie to take her with them.

In Minka’s whole life, she’d only been away from her mother once before. She’d been around eleven years old and had just had her tonsils out. Her mother couldn’t leave Uncle’s farm, so Minka spent a week in Aberdeen with another Dutch family, to be near the doctor. Although recovering from surgery, Minka had been expected to get up and help tend to a passel of little kids for the week. She’d been terribly homesick and had been weak with relief when she got back to Uncle’s, back to Jennie.

Now, she’d be much farther away, for months. And she was facing a much more frightening ordeal.

Minka walked outside with her mother and stepfather. “I write. Will try . . . every day,” Jennie said and embraced Minka, clinging a moment longer as if she too fought against this good-bye. Then Jennie dropped her arms. Mother and daughter stood facing each other, eyes locked in an acknowledgment of shared resilience. In that moment, Jennie saw herself all those years ago, facing insurmountable obstacles and being completely alone. She couldn’t spare Minka from this burden, no matter how much she wished it.

Minka understood the basics of the days ahead. She would live with Tante Hogerhide and her adult son Bill for the coming weeks. Minka’s stomach would get bigger. It still amazed her to think a life was growing there. She would have a baby, then not have a baby. Eventually, the milk truck would return her to the dairy, to Jane, to milking cows and working at the slaughterhouse.

It would be as though nothing had changed. Was that even possible?

Minka watched her mother and Honus climb into the milk truck without a backward glance. The windows were fogged, but she thought she saw her mother swipe at her cheeks.

With her arms wrapped above the small bulge of her stomach, Minka remained stock-still until the truck disappeared down the street. She turned inside without protest or tears. She did not run after the milk truck, as her heart and feet yearned to do. As Minka closed the door behind her, she wondered what she should do next.

At home, nearly every moment was filled with scheduled chores. Now she stood awkwardly until Tante told her to sit. Minka clasped her hands tightly in her lap. She wished Jane were there with her easy chatter. Minka believed that if her sister tried, she could charm a starving man into handing over his last piece of bread. Jane would never have let this room descend into such uneasy silence.

That first night, Tante refused Minka’s help getting supper on the table. Her son Bill came home, parking his car in the garage and joining them in the dining room. Minka tried releasing the tension she felt around them both, particularly around Bill. She caught herself straightening her posture, then remembering and trying to cover her stomach. Her face burned when Bill seemed to notice.

“You’ll like it here, I think. It’s nothing like Minneapolis or Chicago, but it’s a sight better than Aberdeen,” Bill said with a jovial wink.

“Aberdeen is a nice town too,” Tante said with a frown to her son. “South Dakota . . . it is all a nice place. Dey have lakes, and de Black Hills . . .”

“Yes,” Bill said. “But do they have a president-elect?”

Tante tilted her head in acknowledgment.

“No, I suppose not. But is still a nice place.”

Having trounced his Roman Catholic opponent the previous fall, Republican Herbert Hoover was awaiting his March inauguration. Hoover had been born in eastern Iowa, and although he’d left ages ago, proud Iowans claimed him as their own.

Minka smiled at Tante’s attempt to defend Aberdeen, and she realized that for the first time adults were speaking to her as if she were one of them, including her in the conversation.

Minka ate quickly. The meal, like the house and everything else here, was pleasant but different, enough to make her feel unsettled. Afterward, Tante wouldn’t allow Minka to help with the cleanup.

“You must be tired, ja? Rest now.”

Bill invited her to listen to the radio, but Minka excused herself to the quietness of her upstairs bedroom. A cast-iron apparatus Tante called a radiator took the chill from the room. Minka slowly unpacked her belongings, refolding linens several times, setting them into an empty wooden dresser. This was the first time she’d had a room to herself.

Daylight had vanished outside, and when Minka held up a lantern near the window, she could see snow falling in the dark. The delicious feeling of solitude drained away and was replaced by a sense of lonely abandonment. She changed into a loose nightgown and slid between the cold sheets. Minka felt convinced that she’d never sleep, not with her thoughts crowding one on top of the other, not without Jane’s warmth beside her. Change had really come —there was no going back. It was terrifying.

Minka woke to a sensation that something was wrong. Then she remembered where she was. Someone walked past her door and into another room.

The night passed in restless dozing, interrupted by spans of being fully awake, staring into the pitch-black night. The suburban quiet, unbroken by sounds of animals and trains, was disconcerting.

Long before winter dawn touched the horizon, Minka sat up in bed, drawing her knees to her chest. Jane would be awake, putting on her overalls and heading to the barn. How had her sister slept on her first night alone? Minka wondered.

Minka thought of her sister every morning as the first day turned to the first week and to the first month. There wasn’t a single night that she didn’t miss Jane’s presence in the bed, or a morning she didn’t mentally walk through the milking chores with her. It was even harder for her sister, Minka guessed. It was always harder to be left behind.

While Minka ached for home, she was surprised by how well she’d adapted to a new life. The queasiness in her stomach passed. Even without the protection of her family, she did not fall to pieces. Physically she seemed to be as strong as ever, and she eagerly performed as many chores around the house as Tante permitted. The older woman exclaimed at how clean everything was with a girl instead of only boys in her house.

Tante moved with the same briskness as Honus, but less rigidly. There were no hugs or understanding talks, no direct mention of Minka’s pregnancy —that was danced around with comments: “until you leave” or “when your time draws near.” But Tante’s welcome was implicit in her kind words and generous nature, and Minka appreciated it. Tante even brought her a pattern and fabric for a new dress, one with an expanded waist.

Tante sometimes insisted that Minka rest. Since empty spaces of time could magnify the loneliness, Minka wrote letters. She addressed them to Jennie, but knowing that Jane would eagerly read whatever she wrote, she omitted any mention of her pregnancy.

By March the icy streets had thawed, and when Tante took her to church on Sunday or out shopping in the bustling city shops, Minka began to notice women pushing babies in frilly carriages. She was thankful that a large wool coat could help mask her now-obvious belly, but sometimes she caught someone giving her a long glance —and her face burned like a confession.

It was not uncommon for girls her age to be married, of course, and none of these people knew she wasn’t —that was the whole reason for her having come to this city full of strangers. Still, the thought that passersby might know her condition made her want to hide away in the house.

One sunny day Tante coaxed Minka outside to visit the Sergeant Floyd Monument, a striking, hundred-foot sandstone obelisk towering over the Missouri River, built to honor the one member of the Lewis and Clark expedition who died during the journey. Much later, in 1960, the monument would become America’s first National Historic Landmark.

Tante did not treat Minka like a child. She spoke openly of her own concerns, lamenting over her son’s drinking. Prohibition was the law of the land, but alcohol was fairly easy to come by, especially in corn-rich Iowa. Some nights when Bill pulled his car into the garage at an especially late hour, Minka could hear Tante helping her son to his room and murmuring, “Oh, Bill, Bill, Bill.”

When Minka was alone, she unabashedly held her stomach and winced in troubled wonder at the sharp kicks and movements. How much larger could she possibly grow?

* * *

Back in Aberdeen, the Reverend Kraushaar had followed through on his promise to contact the facility in Sioux Falls that aided expectant unmarried young ladies. Not long after, he received the reply he’d been waiting for.

April 5, 1929

Dear Rev. Kraushaar,

We have your letter with reference to a case in your congregation who may need such care as we are able to give.

. . . our rates here are $25.00 per month while the patient is with us. Then there is the charge of $50.00 covering confinement care. All confinements are taken care of in one of our local hospitals, which insures the patient of the best of care, and they have made us this special rate covering each case.

Mothers are required to return from the hospital with the child and remain in the home one month before final plans are made for the child.

We require patients to furnish, before entering, a doctor’s certificate, showing that she is free from venereal disease as we are not equipped to care for diseased cases and we must protect the others who may be here. . . .

We do have a home finding department which finds good Christian homes for babies . . . and Lutheran babies are placed in Lutheran homes. . . .

We shall be very glad to cooperate in the care of this case, and shall be glad to hear from you again.

Very sincerely,

Miss Bragstad

Lutheran House of Mercy

One hundred and fifty miles east of Tante’s home, a mother of sons longed for a girl. Nine years earlier, Olava Nordsletten and her husband had adopted a baby son only weeks after her own newborn’s death. She’d taken him into her arms so soon that she was able to nurse him, a comfort to them both. The years following brought her more pregnancies, and these didn’t end with death, but with two healthy boys.

As the three boys grew older and explored the world outside, Olava imagined frilly dresses, matching aprons, and a little girl asleep in her lap. She went to her husband. Adoption was once again on her mind.

“I want a daughter to call my own.”