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This morning Harold sowed a second oat crop on the creek bottomland, and after picking the strawberry bed clean, Addie hurried to town. A little before eight, she wheeled around Main and Third and followed Mrs. Heber into the library.
The dignified librarian untied her black and white checkered scarf. “This dratted late humidity flattens my thin hair.” She folded the silky fabric into a square and slid it into her pocketbook. “Don’t know what I’d do without my scarf.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Addie leaned against the chest-high counter.
“What might I do for you?”
“I need a map of London, please. Kathryn Isaacs wrote me, and I’d like—”
Mrs. Heber’s heavy eyebrows danced a jig.
“Hmm—surely we have one somewhere. Why don’t you thumb through the reference section under L, or E for England, or G for Great while I try a few other places.”
Addie entered the reference section where Harold once researched his debate topics. She seldom found anything she could use, but this morning, the leather volumes held promise, and she plunged in with resolve.
Reproducing a detailed copy by hand would take some time, so she should have specified that she needed to check out a map. She’d have to add the book to her letter stash, for times when she could draw with Harold gone.
As she pored over the pages, the unmistakable tenor of Fern McCluskey’s voice gave way to Mrs. Heber’s monotone. Addie paid no attention until a phrase caught her ear.
“—wild little alley cat, ran after that Canadian boy when he visited her aunt, and now she’s run off to London. Couldn’t wait, like other wives have to do. Liz Sweeter’s Anthony fights over there, too, but would Liz up and head to London? Mercy me, no!”
The insults made Addie’s head spin. What did Fern know about Kate or Alexandre? And compared to Fernella’s younger days, Alexandre and Kate’s wild might seem mild.
“Well, I never! Do you suppose Addie keeps in regular contact with her? I’d think she would keep busy enough on the farm, now that Orville has passed. Harold bears all the farm work besides his new ministry.
“With his upcoming seminary interview, I wonder if he realizes his wife’s connection with that Kathryn Isaacs. I doubt he would approve—can’t be too careful about appearances, don’t you know? These orphan types—one never knows what sort of stock they hail from.”
“Keep in mind that Addie is still a Shields at heart, Fern.”
The emphasis on her maiden name swelled Addie’s throat and she rubbed her thumbnail to calm her reckless pulse. What would Kate do at such a time? Panicking would never occur to her for one thing, and she’d come up with a plan. But Addie felt like slinking to the other side of the clerk’s desk and wiggling toward the door at the level of Daisy’s new foal.
Mrs. Heber would wonder where she went, and perhaps realize that she’d heard. But then, that precious London map would never materialize.
That would never do—she’d gone without a map long enough, and today was the day to find one.
“No use throwing the baby out with the bath water,” Mama used to say.
Or should she confront the obnoxious women head-on with an innocent question. Like what? “Have you found any maps of London yet?”
Then she could continue, “Oh, Fern, I didn’t recognize you with that new hair color. What do they call it, Brazen, like the stuff you put on your eyelids?”
That was Kate’s style, and these old gossips deserved it, but Addie knew she could never pull it off. Hunched in the reference section, she fumed at her ineptitude. Maybe she ought to write scripts for other people, since she took so little action in her own daily life.
In the end, she decided to sit still until further notice. That is, until the clock showed 8:22. She’d promised to take Lucille’s place for a while this morning, and it wouldn’t do to turn up late.
Mrs. Heber’s heavy footfall vibrated the floorboards. “I’ve found just what you need, dear.” She held a book upside down in front of Addie’s nose.
“What good work, ma’am. I appreciate your kindness.”
Page 264—she and Kate had a long history of reading things upside down and sideways. Addie followed Mrs. Heber to her desk. As if by magic, Fern appeared.
“Why, hello, Addie. How do you do on this fine day?”
“Good, thank you. And you?”
Fern swung her lashes low to reveal an outrageous amount of black coating. “I am well. Do you still visit Mr. Allen in the mornings, dear?”
Like the imperceptible rise in barometric pressure before a storm, something happened inside. Mrs. Heber set her purple stamp on the take-out card and readied her fist to trounce the silver handle to produce a blue inked date due.
As she made her move, Addie took a deep breath and hardly recognized her own voice.
“I do visit Norman, no longer for First Methodist, but as a friend. His war stories, especially from after the war, intrigue me. My, how that poor man has suffered, and he has such a remarkable memory for details.”
Mrs. Heber handed the book over, but Addie stretched the moment to savor the drop of Fern’s lower lip and her stunned silence. Speechless, she wrung her perennial white gloves in her hands.
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Heber. I’m certain Kate will appreciate any information I can send her. By the way, have you heard that the enemy shot down her husband’s plane twice?”
“Indeed?” Mrs. Heber’s fingers flexed and Fern clung to the wooden counter.
“Ah, yes. Who knows what injuries Alexandre sustained, or if he’s even alive—so sad. Harold knows him well from his visits here. They share a liking for Tom Mix movies and World War I airplanes. Isn’t it courageous of him, volunteering to pilot a Spitfire?”
She turned on her heel, and near the door, glanced back. Fern’s attempts to arrange a normal expression on her face had failed.
“Thank you again, Mrs. Heber, and so nice to see you, Fern. Perhaps our paths will cross sometime over at Norman’s house.”
v
A friendly breeze scuttled through Halberton. Addie flew down the library steps, straddled her bike with no thought for her skirt, and sped east on Second Street. Her heart still pounded as she made a right turn and pedaled another block. All the way, she chattered to herself.
“Well, old girl, now you’ve done it. If Fern goes to see Norman and he thinks you gave anything away...”
But an unfamiliar calmness quieted her fears. On her left, in the shade of a weeping willow, little Billy Hayes played with his cherub twin sister in their yard, and the innocence of their waves touched her. She waved back and rounded the turn toward Norman’s place.
“But you didn’t give anything away. No—you kept your dignity. You only hinted enough to unsettle Fern’s arrogance. Nothing wrong in that.”
No nurse’s car parked out front. She breathed a relieved sigh, parked her bike and readjusted a bobby pin in her windblown curls. “No more thinking about that—what’s done is done. That’s what Kate would say, and she’d be cheering your performance. After all, you stood up for her and Alexandre.”
A deep breath later she tapped on the back door and faced Lucille, whose uncombed hair resembled a hay field after a bad storm. Thick bags drooped below her watery eyes.
“Sorry if I’m a little late, ma’am. Are you all right?”
“We’ve had a bad night, but Norman finally dozed off a few minutes ago. Never thought I’d say it, but I do wish he could pass. He suffers so, and there’s so little a body can do for him.”
“Yes. You deserve a little time off.”
“You’re an angel, Addie. Norman always speaks well of you. I admit, I haven’t a clean dress in the house.”
“I don’t need to head back home until eleven. Will that give you enough time?”
“Oh, a bath would be just the thing right now.” Lucille grabbed her sweater and Addie tiptoed into the kitchen. From the living room, a mixture of honk and snore issued from Norman’s slack mouth.
Still dazed by the powerful instinct that overcame her in the library, she poured the kettle half full and set it on a burner. For once she’d said what she meant without raining fire down on her own head. Even Mrs. Allen’s wilted wallpaper sent her a quiet message: we only have today, and we’d better make the most of it. Like those faded pink teapots on the wallpaper, Norman couldn’t last forever. This might be the last time she saw him.
A tender awareness overcame her, something akin to what she experienced when she entered the First Methodist sanctuary. Her final time with Norman. Though she wished the foreboding away, it persisted.
With the teapot beginning to burble, she pressed her forehead against the cool cupboard door, and the mustiness of outdated baking ingredients inundated her.
“Oh God, please allow Norman to wake up, and direct his mind to where he left off in the story. It sounds selfish, but I really want to know what happened, and so does Kate.”
The clock measured human undertakings and desires in seconds. The bottom of the kettle clicked faster and faster as the water heated. Addie sat at the table and folded her hands, as a Sunday school teacher once instructed. “When we fold our hands and pray out loud, children, our Father in heaven sees our earnestness.”
It couldn’t hurt to repeat her request. Afterward, she opened her eyes to the faded teapots. “I wish we had met, Millie. I think we’d have been fast friends, since you loved Norman, and you loved tea, too.”
The kettle whistled. Breathless, she ground a fistful of crumbly black tea leaves into the teakettle, covered them with boiling water, and let them steep. Then she carried her steaming concoction and a cup of coffee to the living room.
“Yer back. What took ya so long?” Clarity stoked Norman’s eyes as if he’d just treated himself to a shave and haircut down at Libersky’s barbershop.
“I’ve been working in my garden.”
“Mm—good coffee, just like Millie’s. She planted a victory garden with her mother, ya know?” He gestured toward an end table. “Look in that newspaper. My niece won the 4-H Sears Roebuck garden contest over in Cerro Gordo County.”
Addie fetched the paper, replete with a large photograph of a girl with a flagrant ponytail. Rows of enormous cabbage plants and string beans flanked her.
“Mind readin’ it for me?”
“Joanie sold over two-hundred pounds of cabbage for almost ten dollars. She’s fifteen and a half, she says, not fifteen or sixteen, and that precise, exacting nature led to her victory. She sold 46 pounds of green beans, too.”
“Wow, that’s a lot.”
“Yeah. Mrs. MacNeider in Mason City bought most of it. She can afford to hire help for all that canning. Joanie’s my brother Hank’s girl, and she’s entering the northeast Iowa contest now. Might end up in the national one, too.”
Addie set the paper down and sipped her tea.
“Yup. Right proud of her. Hank come to see me a couple days ago.” Norman smacked his lips. A bird brushed the leaded front window just below its glass diamond.
“Do you have other brothers and sisters?”
“A few, scattered around the state like chicken feed.” Norman lapsed into a fog, and Addie imagined his siblings passing before his mind’s eye.
Then he cleared his throat. “Been waitin’ for ya. Stopped the story standin’ there starin’ after the train, didn’t I? Been stuck there ever since, ’cause nobody else knows how to listen like you.”
His left eye popped in its socket, seeking an eternal home. He struggled to maneuver his arm, so Addie pulled up his pillow. Caramel-colored earwax decorated his striped pajama collar, and hair oil stained the pillowslip.
The open window let in air still cool from the dew, but Addie’s knees went weak. A sick wave threatened to take her, and she gripped her teacup. She would really miss Norman.
He reached for his cup, took another sip, and something about the quiet in the room soothed her.
He sniffed. “That Millie’s tea ya got there?”
“Yes.”
“Take the rest home with you, hear?”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t, why it was—”
“Millie’s. She could care less in Paradise, where tea ain’t scarce.” He chuckled. “’Sides, I’ll be with her real soon. I can tell.”
“You can?”
“Yeah.” He chewed the insides of his mouth with his three good teeth. Some squirrels fought in the side yard’s maple, and Norman’s sucking noises fit right in.
The sensation that she landed in the right place at the right time washed over Addie. Where two or three are gathered...
A profound silence held her when that ancient phrase tumbled through her mind, as though heaven had broken through. Maybe this was what Mama meant about feeling God with her before she died.
If only I had been old enough—or wise enough—to understand.
Did Norman sense this other presence too? Addie patted his pale fingers, and his voice blossomed like her daylily bursting forth with flowers again at the end of August last year, when she thought for sure it had already given its all.
“Fernella come back home. Not that night, but a few days later. Three times I called at the house, but her Mama said she was real sick. Then Fernella found me at the church one night, and her cheeks was white as maggots.
“‘The baby’s gone,’ she said.”
“Gone?”
“‘Daddy paid a man to take care of it.’ She turned and run out, but when I reached her, she wouldn’t let me come near.”
His trembling sigh quaked forth. “You can ’magine my heart bustin’ in two. I had to know more.” His wild eye traveled the room and he brushed it shut with the side of his hand.
“So I watched for her down her alley, and one evening, she come out to take a walk. I fell in with her, and a strong gust blew up right then. Maybe the Almighty felt sad, too. Fernella’s voice wavered like a haunt’s when she whispered she was sorry. She bent double and held her insides like she would die.”
Norman chewed on his bottom lip with a single tooth. “Even after what I saw in the war, I couldn’t... Fernella commenced to sobbing so hard, it like to have killed me.”
Salt niggled Addie’s throat, in tune with the knot in her stomach. Norman stretched his neck from side to side. Lucille’s ministrations had almost cleared up that scab on his scalp.
“When she finally let me touch her, I talked to her real soft, but she shook so hard I feared she might stop breathin’.”
He stared at the diamond in the window, a lighter pink in this light. “Did the same thing once with a buddy during the war. Don’t hafta say much at times like that, ya know.”
The tea’s steam cleared her eyes as Norman sank back against his pillow. Some small animal scrounged in the honeysuckle bush below the window.
“When Walt come on the scene, I give up hopin’ Fernella would talk to her daddy, and he’d change his heart. When I went into the railroad office for my pay, I always felt somethin’ between us, like those wooden trench walls in France.
“It was all on my part, though—a person can ’magine somethin’ into bein’ real. Just before her wedding, Fernella told me her daddy still didn’t know who I was, and she’d found her peace.”
The breeze blew the curtains in. “But that feelin’ never quite come to me, though marryin’ Millie helped me put it all behind me.” His moan fractured the morning quiet.
“She never had children, neither, and I always wondered if...” His breathing thinned, and Addie thought he slept.
She refreshed her tea and remembered her prayer, right here at this table. Dim wallpaper teapots uttered amen, and hope entered her little by little, like dawn’s light gradually overtaking the horizon while she did her early chicken chores.
Such a selfish request, but it had been granted. Maybe her prayers about Harold would be, too. They seemed selfish, but Jane said just the other day, “Seems to me the Almighty intends for us to be happy.”
Back in the living room, Norman’s eyelids shuttered open. “Yer husband asked me if I wanted to be forgiven, ya know.” He reached for her hand.“Said I already was, and he didn’t like it one bit. He wants to say he done it, so’s folks’ll know he done good.”
Outside the window, a cardinal chirruped.
“Well, he won’t git the chance, I seen to that. But you know how to keep a story to yerself, I can tell.”
The backs of Addie’s eyes stung—just this morning, she’d come so close in the library.
Then Norman asked, “Know anything ’bout forgiveness?”
At the very top of the far wall, a small black spider hung in limbo between floor and ceiling. Which way would it go from here on out? And how should she answer? A full minute passed before a flash from the pink diamond caught Addie’s eye, and finally, words came.
“Maybe forgiveness is more about what you know than what you feel. You said the feeling never quite came to you that it was all right about Fernella and the...”
“Yeah.”
“Yet you told Harold you’ve been forgiven, and the other day, you said you believed, remember?”
Norman’s hair scratched the yellowed pillowcase, and for the first time that morning, his left eye tracked in sync with his right.
“Forgiveness goes deeper than feelings, I think. We can be awful hard on ourselves—harder than we are on anyone else. I’m like that, Kate says, so that makes it hard to believe God would forgive me.
“But what if the feeling finally comes to us on the other side of this life? Maybe that’s what it means for all of our troubles and doubts to vanish, and we finally see things clearly.”
Norman pressed her hand in his. The fragile blue lines traversing his temple won her as her crazy heartbeat knocked against her eardrums. He spoke once more as the screen door squeaked, and they heard Lucille burst into the kitchen.
“Take that tea ’long now, Addie girl. Doncha forget.”
She leaned close, stroked his cavernous cheekbone, and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you, Norman. You’ve been such a good friend to me. Good-bye.”
