If she were not there, she could not hurt me.
Then there was another part of me that whispered of a different solution. I could simply do as she wished and stop. Many of my troubles would be gone if I did, and not only Nellie’s threats. I was tired, for one; it took its toll, all this secrecy and planning—and then there was Jennie . . . The first few weeks after she left had been hard on us all. I caught myself about to call for her many times a day to help me with this or that, especially in regard to the children. I had not truly known before she was gone just how much I had relied on her. Philip fussed about the way I carved his meat, claiming that Jennie was the only one who did it right. Lucy cried every day for seven days while perched on the marble windowsill in the parlor, watching the yard outside in the hopes that her foster sister would come back. Myrtle kept her thoughts to herself, as was her habit, but she did not seem very happy either.
This annoyed me at the time. They should be glad that their foster sister got such an opportunity. Glad that she did not spend her life rotting away on a farm in La Porte but was able to see the world. There was nothing to grieve—only to celebrate—but my children did not understand that.
I tried to keep them occupied—keep us all occupied. I set out to teach them horseback riding, and we spent hours in the yard with Chocolate while their small fingers learned how to hold the reins. I tried to teach Myrtle some of the skills that Jennie had, like wringing laundry and cooking a roast, but she was only ten years old and unused to heavy lifting. She tended the goats in Jennie’s stead, though, and helped me with the younger children. Both she and Lucy were some help in the kitchen, but they were not as fast and experienced as Jennie.
I told myself they would learn—that all of this would pass in time. Soon it would be as if Jennie had never stayed with us at all, yet the sense of bereavement persisted. Not even the thought of California could make it all go away. Not even storing her clothes and belongings in the trunk room could stop me from wanting to call for her whenever I needed help. The house suffered from her absence too; nothing seemed as clean as before, even if I scoured with lemon. I often cursed the day she went down in the cellar—now she had left us all in a pinch.
My anger had left us all in a pinch.
Then there was the trouble with Ole Budsberg. The man himself was nothing at all: a farmer from Wisconsin with money to spare who had sold off his farm to come join me. For a man his age, he was still spry, with a thick and lustrous red mustache. He was not poor company, but neither did he inspire me to keep him very long.
He had sons, though, with their sticky fingers all over his business. They kept sending letters addressed to him, and I kept putting them away, until the size of the pile urged me to act before one of them came to look for their papa. I gathered up the letters and sent them back to Wisconsin, addressed to the late Mr. Budsberg. With the letters, I attached a note of my own where I wrote that I hoped he was not offended that I did not want to marry him, and that I certainly had not led him on. I wished him luck in finding a new homestead in the West. That ought to stop their prying, I thought, but alas, it did not, and one windy day a man stood on my porch. I recognized him at once as Mr. Buck from the bank in La Porte.
“Good morning, Mrs. Gunness.” He shuffled his feet and clutched his hat. Prince kept snapping at the hem of his coat.
I was very busy that morning, plucking poultry out back and boiling stock. My apron was dirty and feathers clung to my hands. I was not pleased to be disturbed.
“I’m looking for the whereabouts of a Mr. Ole Budsberg.”
“What for?” I plucked feathers from my fingers.
“It seems he has borrowed some money from the Farmer’s National Bank in Iola, and the payment is due. Since he withdrew some money here a while back, the bank in Iola has asked for our assistance in locating him.”
“Well, he is not here.”
“He did stay here with you, though, didn’t he? I remember you escorting him when he cashed his draft—”
“He left a short while after that.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t keep track of dates. He left to catch the two o’clock train; he was going to Oregon to buy some land.”
“And you don’t know when this was?”
“I don’t keep track of dates.” It was better that he thought me simple; it might prevent him from asking too many questions.
Mr. Buck left shortly after. It was an unfortunate thing, though, that Mr. Budsberg, despite all my warnings, would go and have unfinished business with that bank. I had told him to bring all he had in cash sewn into his clothes. He had not mentioned a loan.
Before long, another letter arrived, from the Farmer’s National Bank in Iola, addressed not to him but to me, asking for Mr. Budsberg’s whereabouts. The wording was strong and I worried that another stern man might soon arrive on my porch. I wrote to them then and said that Mr. Budsberg had been robbed of most of his money and clothes in Chicago, and that he was so embarrassed by it all, he had fled west to try to make up for it before his relatives learned of his shame. I think they believed me—they did not ask for him again—but the experience had been unpleasant. I did not care for such things at all. Other men came and went, but the trouble with Budsberg kept haunting me. What secrets did they keep from me, these men? Did they have loans and obligations too? Would more stern officials come to call? I kept staring out the windows, watching the road for signs of strangers.
I could not trust my suitors at all, and wondered as I sat there by the kitchen table, contemplating my sister’s possible demise, if the enterprise was truly worth all the hassle. Whenever I remembered the cause of my anger, I felt ashamed. I was no puppet on a stage, I thought, moved around by strings. I was not that girl by the lake, begging for her life. My money box would never be full, and so I could stop at any time, and that feeling I chased—that feeling—it was there sometimes and other times not, and it was never as delicious as it was after Anders. It still came washing over me, though, especially if the man had been brutal or very large of stature. If he had offended me, or reminded me somehow of my husbands. But the feeling never lasted, and there I was again: preparing for a new dance with the cleaver.
I had known all along it could not last; sooner or later it would all fall apart—and what would I do then? Trust in my devil’s luck, and hope that my tears would protect me? What would happen to my children if their mama hanged by the neck? They could never wash that stain away—it would haunt them always.
Unless I stopped. There was that.
I could do as my sister wished and stop. Nellie might never let me close to her again, even if I did, but at least she would not have me hanged.
And I would never lose a child again.
* * *