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“I’m taking a bowl of stew over to your mother, Harold.”
Harold barely looked up from the radio announcer comparing the Battle of Buna with Guadalcanal.
Allied forces, lacking food and medicine, and attacked by Pacific island scourges like dengue fever, malaria, and tropical dysentery and bush typhus, engage the Japanese fortifications with inadequate weapons. This will prove to be a long, arduous fight. Pray for our boys.
Wet wind whipped the framework of the eight porch windows, and the grove wailed as Addie pulled on her boots, but she still looked forward to going outside. Furious wind blew her prayer back at her, “Help them, please. Such an impossible mission, but help them somehow.”
She tried to imagine those soldiers with so much against them, but succeeded only in mixing hot tears with the pulsing blast from the north. With her free hand, she captured the season’s first lazy snowflakes, soft, sticky, and enormous, the kind to roll for snowmen.
She and Ruth had made so many snow forts and taught Herman and Bonnie how. One Saturday afternoon, Aunt Alvina let Kate come over, and they dug seven feet into a drift to craft a winding tunnel that lasted until a late March melt.
Remembering Kate standing on a wall six feet high and giving orders like a military commander brought a smile. Addie wiped her eyes with her sleeve and breathed in the cold.
“Come on in, Addie.” Berthea’s call led her into the cozy living room, and the heat warmed her cheeks. So did the scene she entered, with George and Berthea nestled on the couch listening to a radio show.
“Sorry, I didn’t see your truck, George.”
He smiled and waved her in. “I parked in the shed so I can shovel myself out tonight and get right out. I’m used to driving in all sorts of weather.”
Addie set the bowl down in the table. “Beef stew from supper, Berthea. You won’t have to cook tomorrow night.”
“Thank you. I have a library board meeting in the afternoon, so that will be a big help. Will you sit down and listen with us?”
An advertisement on KXEL enticed her.
Join the KXEL War bond club and tune in when Union Pacific presents “Your America,” Saturdays at four p.m.
“I know Harold looks down on anything out of Waterloo, with its Negro population.” Berthea made a face. “But this new station is just as good as WHO. I think he misses out by sticking with only one station.”
“Surely he realizes Des Moines has its share of colored folks, too?” George reached across Berthea for the June Life issue. “And he must have heard about the 761st Negro Battalion formed down in Louisiana.”
Berthea shook her head. “I’ve kept that issue hidden. Don’t want to set him off again.”
George crossed his arms. “Besides, KXEL’s the first station in the nation to be granted 50,000 megawatts of power—brings some shows in clearer.”
After the Cavalcade of America, we bring you the Voice of America and The Firestone Hour.
Harold’s warnings traipsed through Addie’s mind. “It’s best to stick with a channel you can trust. Charles Lindbergh defied American principles when he accepted that Nazi award, but WHO told us the truth.”
His logic made no sense at the time, but she acquiesced, and their radio dial seldom ventured away from WHO-1040.
“I’d better do some knitting tonight. Have to do some every evening if I want to keep up with Jane.”
“All right. Thanks again for the stew.”
Despite the cold, she took her time going home. Berthea and George had become good friends, but this looked more like—
She glanced back through the window. In the soft light from the corner lamp, they created a contented picture.
“They both look so happy. And why shouldn’t they be?”
At the back steps, the moonlit night, cool and mysterious, wooed her to linger. Why not circle the house?
Even out here, Edward R. Murrow’s voice clarified the latest battle. His first broadcast, describing a full British moon making the gray buildings around him white, had stayed with her. Amazing that that “beautiful and lonely city where men and women are trying to snatch a few hours’ sleep underground” was now Kate’s home. As usual, she’d gone directly to the center of the action.
A fat flake plopped on Addie’s nose, and she pulled up her collar. Static filled the broadcast she could still hear from the living room, but it never kept Harold from listening.
Snow bunched on fence posts and barren maple branches, beginning winter’s transformation. For Kate, change seemed inevitable. Maybe change employed different rhythms for each person, and hers moved at turtle-speed, like her hollyhock starts.
But things altered fast for Berthea, too. Not long ago, she nursed Orville. Tonight, she snuggled with George. She looked brighter by the day, as though hope burrowed in her heart now. But Harold still had no kind words for George.
“Ma can’t be serious. Anybody with a name like Miller can’t be trusted these days. George might even be related to that crazy Glen—you know, the wild bandleader from Clarinda. His kind of music stirs everyone up—there’s no good in it.”
Moonlight Serenade and Tuxedo Junction? Addie kept quiet, aware that Kate would have challenged him into a verbal tussle.
But he quieted down in September, when Glen Miller petitioned the Army to allow him to join. Berthea told them about it one Sunday at dinner. “They rejected him because of his age. Mrs. Monson says he’s in his late 30s and wouldn’t have had to go at all. But he petitioned a Brigadier General. Can you believe his patriotism?”
Harold answered by screeching his chair back and creating a fuss before he walked out. “Yeah, but I bet he won’t fight.”
“I don’t know. Jimmy Stewart’s been in since ’41, and he’s a pilot.”
“Next thing we know, Charlie Chaplin’ll join up.”
The cold tweaked Addie’s nose as light from the living room window projected Harold’s elongated profile over the dead grass. The sight of him holding his chin in his hands weighed her down.
A long-ago conversation with Ruthie came to mind. They discussed a neighbor girl who married young when she discovered she carried a man’s child.
“Does Ella want to marry him?”
“No, she had dreams of becoming a nurse, but she says she made her bed, and now she’s got to lie in it. I feel so sad for her. She can’t finish high school, and the pastor in Benson won’t even allow them to marry in his church.”
“Why did she—?”
“You ask so many questions. Mama wouldn’t want us talking about this, but I don’t think Ella had much choice. He forced her.”
Addie heard nothing more about Ella after Ruthie left for Minnesota. What was her life like now? Did she ever think about her nursing dream?
“And what about your dreams?” The question floated like wayward flakes in the stillness. Kate set her sights on college and then on an adventurous life with Alexandre, but after Harold invited her to the winter ball her senior year, she had no need to dream.
Everyone said she should thank her lucky stars—as Harold’s wife, she’d be set. She agreed, since he offered her a good home.
A maple stump absorbed her kick. “And that night, we danced to Glen Miller’s “String of Pearls” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” Harold seemed to enjoy himself back then. Didn’t he realize Glen’s German heritage, or had he been play-acting?”
Beyond the yard, the grove hovered like a dark lake. Clouds flitted across the moon, quickening the north wind with the promise of more snow. Addie rounded the house again.
Sometimes people like Berthea got a second chance. But second chances weren’t guaranteed, just as babies didn’t always come when you prayed. What if she never did become a mother? She stopped short at the brutal thought.“What if, for the rest of our lives, it’s just Harold and me?”
The frozen road stretched beyond their empty mailbox, but suddenly winter’s artistry appeared stark and fickle. It all could melt tomorrow. Jane said the weatherman had forecast an abnormally warm Christmas.
By the time she went in, Harold already snored, but anxiety for Kate and the troops hindered her sleep.
Morning brought heavy clouds and low-hanging fog. Snowdrifts and pines were tinged dingy brown. Thanksgiving neared, always Addie’s favorite holiday, but melancholy enveloped her spirit.
On Wednesday, she helped Berthea chop onions, celery and boiled turkey giblets for dressing. She made pies, deviled eggs, and walnut cake, but her heart wasn’t in her work. That evening, she closed the chicken house door without even saying goodnight to the girls. Halfway to the house, she turned back.
“Sorry, ladies. I was lost in my own thoughts. Stay warm tonight.”
By the time she washed the dishes and brought enough corn from the basement to scallop in the morning, Harold had already gone to bed. She waited until he snored and slipped in without a sound.
v
When Bill burst through Berthea’s door midmorning with Sue and their youngsters close behind, Addie wiped her hands on her apron and ran to take the smallest child from him.
Bill sniffed the air. “Got anything to eat? Sue could hardly make it here, she’s so hungry.”
Berthea gestured toward a big basket on the table. “Have a roll, Sue. You’re eating for two now.”
Sue hurried in and hugged Addie. “How are you? It’s been so long since we’ve seen you.” She draped a roll with raspberry jam and took a bite. “Oh, my. Who made this jam?”
Berthea piped up. “Addie. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Mine always ends up runny. Tell me your secret.”
“I let a slow boil thicken the fruit instead of adding pectin.”
“Really?”
“Mama taught us if you cook fruit long enough, the natural pectin rises.” That’s the way you do it if you can’t afford a luxury like pectin.
“You’re such a hard worker.”
“She never stops. This place looks so much better since she’s come into the family.”
After dinner, Addie and Sue sent Berthea to the living room with the grandchildren while they did the dishes. Harold and Bill pushed back from the table with their coffee. Then Harold threw a verbal dart, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Next year at this time, you’ll have another one crawling around the living room.”
Bill crossed his arms over his bulging stomach. “Hopefully the powers that be will call four enough. Don’t know if I can afford any more.”
“If you have another, maybe Addie and I can take it. The war ending tomorrow is about as likely as her ever have a baby.”
Addie dropped one of Berthea’s best glasses on the floor and sliced her finger when she bent to clean it up. Sue squatted down to help her find the pieces.
Harold whistled. “Whoo-hoo! She’s as good at doing dishes as she is at producing babies, huh? But the problem is, she doesn’t want to be a mother.”
Addie willed the floor to open up and swallow her, but Sue pulled on her elbow. “Come with me.”
“Go on. I’ll straighten the kitchen up in a jiffy.” Berthea smoothed Addie’s shoulder, and Sue dragged her down the hall, with Bill confronting Harold in the background.
“What’s the matter with you? She can’t help it if—”
Harold’s voice rose to fever pitch. “She’s driven me to this.”
“Can’t you see—” Bill’s voice took on an incredulous tone.
Sue slammed the bathroom door and clenched her teeth. “That selfish brute—I could wring his neck.” She bandaged Addie’s trembling finger, pushed her into the bedroom, and sank on the bed beside her.
“Sorry. I—”
“I’d be in worse shape if Bill spoke like that to me.”
“What if I never... what if...” The words stopped short in Addie’s throat.
“I have a friend who’s tried for years. She says it’s not always the woman’s fault. Her doctor believes things can go wrong in the man, too. What gets me is Harold acting like he sees your motives. Normally, men and women think differently. Why would he even pretend to know you don’t want children?”
The unanswerable question revolved in Addie’s head. She only knew she never wanted to face the family again. Thankfully, George’s daughter invited him to her house today, so he missed this.
Harold stormed out and was already doing chores when Sue and Bill left for Cedar Rapids. Their youngest clung to Addie when she carried her to the car.
“We’ll see Aunt Addie soon, Lissa—maybe at Christmas. It all depends on the weather.” Sue gave Addie a hug. “Thanks for helping me with them. Keep your spirits up, all right?”
But winter gloom descended in earnest, along with early December storms. Twice, Addie pulled on her heavy sweater and sat in the little room at the end of the hall to read Kate’s old letters, but glumness stuck to her like winter sludge.
Harold’s wall of silence tore at her worse than if he hit her. She might as well be dead, for all the notice he paid her. She gave thanks for every minute he spent in the barn, but one hopeful fact kept her expectant during his stonewalling. December twelfth would soon be here, when he would leave for St. Louis. She counted the days.
Berthea created excuses for Addie to come over. “All kinds of things to do around here, but I have so many commitments. Would you mind helping me carry some boxes to the basement?”
One day, when Addie stopped in with the mail, Berthea was scrubbing her kitchen sink in a fury. An invigorating scent filled the kitchen.
“Lemon juice and Borax—it’s a miracle worker. Come see, Addie—I’m trying this on my saucepans next. I doubt the stains in that old sink of yours would respond, but would you like a little of the mixture?”
“Sure. You ought to write a book about all the uses for Borax, Berthea. You could title it, Household Transformation, Cheap and Simple or Fifty Inexpensive Ways to Cleanliness.”
Arms akimbo, Berthea grinned. “You have no idea—it’s good for fleas, rust, and washing combs and brushes. Orville even took a little in water for—you know, when he had trouble in the bathroom. Besides that, did you see the Mercantile ran a special on lemons the other day?”
Addie shook her head.
“Can’t imagine why, but I took advantage of it. Here, I’ll send some home with you.”
Although she felt a little guilty because of the shortages in London, Addie gave her own sink a thorough going-over. It looked a little better, but Berthea was right—those stains were here to stay.
She packed canned goods for Harold’s trip, ironed everything in sight, and baked cookies for him to take. But when evening came, none of her accomplishments cheered her.
Even her hens produced pale, placid yolks these days. Old Brown lazed in the most protected corner of the back porch, and George brought no news from Kate. On the eleventh, Berthea invited them over for supper, giving Addie extra time during late afternoon while Harold worked on a barn stall.
Through the dining room window, she eyed the closed barn door. Should she risk writing Kate with him so near? Hopefully, this long silence from London didn’t mean bad news about Alexandre, but if it did, she needed support more than ever.
In the broad window seat where she could see Harold coming and stash her paper and pen under a cushion, Addie wrote a couple of pages.
As Harold emerged from the barn, she buried the envelope in her coat pocket to give to George.
While Harold was still washing up, she met George on Berthea’s steps.
He smiled at the address. “Aha—good girl. Mighty rough times over there. Gotta keep Kate encouraged.”
He ushered her into the homey scent of scalloped potatoes and ham, buttered corn, and rich cherry pie. George set the table and Berthea drew her into the pantry.
“I have something to tell you before supper. I got the job!” Her eyes sparkled as she accepted Addie’s hug. “Shhh... I want to break the news to Harold with other people around,”
“Good idea.”
Harold meandered in, and George tried to make conversation with him. Once they started eating, Berthea cleared her throat.
“I found out something today, and want you all to know.” She waited for Harold to look up.
“The school principal has hired me as his secretary. I start on January third.”
Addie clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.”
Harold balanced a biscuit midair. “At your age, working in an office? What can you be thinking, Ma?”
George opened his mouth, but Berthea touched his arm and stood, hands on her hips. “Harold Duane Bledsoe, I’m sure you have no idea what I’m thinking, and if you knew, you wouldn’t like it at all. Stop acting so much like your father. I’ve wanted to work in a school my whole life.”
“Oh, come on, Ma.”
“No, you come on. I rejoiced at your opportunity to go to the seminary. Why can’t you do the same for me?”
The vein in Harold’s forehead burgeoned to Mississippi River size. He reddened, and Addie thought he might leave the table, but he merely lanced Berthea a stormy look.
“You’ll be facing roads that need plowed. Remember, I won’t be here to pull you out of the ditch any more, or plow the driveway.”
“No, you won’t, but I’ve thought ahead about that. I do have a brain, you know! I’m going to practice with the tractor and loader. I’ve driven it before, and besides that, my back-up plan is quite reliable.”
Harold fidgeted under Berthea’s smug smile. When she gestured toward George, Harold’s lips twisted like a gargoyle’s.
He’d barely said hello to George tonight and made no attempt to hide his scowl. Now, Addie leaned back to study his jaw’s firm set. George had been their mail carrier for over 20 years. Didn’t that count for anything?
A few days earlier, Harold had tramped into the house livid, threw down his coat and tore off his boots as though attempting to break his ankles. He muttered under his breath and then exploded.
“That Miller’s parked at Ma’s again. Some men have to work, but he has nothing better to do than visit her. German vermin, they say. For all we know, George might be a spy.”
That time, Addie couldn’t hold her tongue. “He works hard, Harold. He starts his route at five in the morning and goes until three. And I’ve never known George to speak German. He was born here, and even fought in the Great War.”
Harold huffed and switched on the radio. After supper when she went in to knit, he looked up from his book. “I have a notion to talk with the postmaster. It’s dangerous to have a German for our mail carrier.”
She gulped down her retort. Why borrow trouble?
After Berthea faced off with him tonight, Harold hung his head, but still ignored George. Over the dishpan, Berthea fumed.
“I don’t know how you put up with him, Addie. Guess I spoiled him, because we’d wanted another child for so long, and...” She took out her frustration on the plates and soapsuds spilled on the floor. Addie raced to keep up with her.
“After his accident when he was 12, I let him have his way too much. But I have a life of my own now, and he has to accept it.” Wrinkles wrapped her forehead. “Do you understand?”
“That you need to start a new life?”
Berthea nodded and swiped bubbles across her forehead.
“Yes, and I’m so happy about your new job. I’ve wanted to work, too, maybe at the newspaper office, but Harold is so—”
Berthea interrupted. “Stubborn and selfish and bigoted when it comes to women. And Germans. And Negros. And a few others, I suppose. The next thing I know, he’ll be saying George spies for the Nazis.”
Better to let that one go. Berthea fumed on about Harold, and the tiny kitchen’s warmth stole over Addie. Hearing Harold’s mother fuss about him warmed her heart. When they hung up their aprons, Berthea took her hand.
“Thanks for your help, and for listening.”
When the evening news ended, Harold yawned. “Time to get home. I have to clean out the barn in the morning.”
Berthea touched his sleeve. “What time does the train leave?”
“Midafternoon. Mr. Lundene’s taking me, since you’re always gone.”
Berthea blinked at the ice in his voice. “You know I’d have been happy to drive you.”
He left without a word and let the door slam behind him. Berthea’s face fell and Addie felt she should apologize for Harold.
“Thank you for dinner. Don’t let him make you miserable.”
Berthea squared her shoulders. “I won’t. My whole life, I’ve asked people permission to do things, but now things have changed. Instead I ask, ‘Who’s going to stop me?’ And his attitude certainly won’t.” The spunk returned to her tone, and she gave Addie a hug.
“Thanks for mailing my letter, George.” The warmth in his eyes increased Addie’s desire to stay longer, and the way he squeezed Berthea’s hand revealed his tenderness.
She wouldn’t be surprised if they married, although that would make Harold even more livid. But for Berthea to finally have someone interested in what she wanted—how wonderful would that be?
Aunt Alvina had said George’s wife died when their children were young, so he raised them alone. She and Kate benefited from his neighborliness, and now, finding a companion like Berthea seemed ideal for him, too.
In a flurry, Harold left the barn, covered the yard in a few long strides, and shut the porch door as Addie started home. Knowing icy silence awaited her, even this cold night seemed warmer than their house.
