“I’m still a little sick, but I can do my share of the work.”
Mother sat down beside me, smelling faintly of fresh river water. “He always had a hungry eye, that boy down there. I’ve seen him in church, looking down the aisle as the girls arrive.” I could see her scalp through her thin hair. She had lost most of her teeth in the lower jaw, none of them knocked out as far as I knew. She shook her head as she stared out on St?rsetgjerdet: the timbered shed and the tiny barn, the small well house farther up, and the dark, dense woods that surrounded the place. Then her hand circled my wrist and squeezed so hard it hurt. When I turned my head in surprise, her gaze bore into mine. “Little Brynhild, now you’ll listen to me! You nearly died from that beating; he nearly killed you, that boy, and he still could! You shouldn’t be anywhere near him . . .”
I scoffed and tried to pull my hand away. The pot had fallen to the ground. “I didn’t die.”
“But you could have.” Her gaze burned in the dusky light. “You lay in that bed for weeks. Not talking, not eating, bleeding down in the hay—”
“But I rose.” I finally managed to free my hand and rubbed it where it hurt. “I got up, and it wasn’t even a week before I ate—”
“Don’t you think I know death when I see it? It was plain on your face! You could have died, believe me! You have to find service elsewhere.” She sounded angry, but for once, she was not. It was fear for me I saw in her eyes, and it was a strange thing to witness. No one ever feared for me that way.
“I shouldn’t have been so stupid,” I murmured. “Shouldn’t have—”
“Well, you did, and nothing to do for that now. Just don’t let him get another chance to finish what he started.”
“My jaw might be broken.” I rubbed the tenderness.
“It will heal in time.” She pulled her pipe out of the pocket of her apron, the little tin box she kept with it too, and set to stuff the pipe with tobacco. “Your womb, though, might not. There was a lot of blood.”
“I know.”
“Why would you even want to see him?”
“I don’t hope for him anymore.”
“Never should have, either . . . What were you thinking? Farmers’ sons don’t marry us, you know that. You never should have tried to force him—never should have messed with him at all.”
“I was only thinking that—”
“Well, it’s the thinking, Little Brynhild.” She knocked her own head lightly with her fist. “It’s that thinking that gets you into trouble. That teacher put ideas in you.”
“He said I had a good head on my shoulders.” I could not help that my voice bristled a little with pride.
“Well, what are you going to use it for? Have yourself killed? Beaten to death by some smug boy?” She lit her pipe; the sour smoke came wafting from the dark wood.
“I want to go to America.”
She gave me a look sharp enough to cut timber. “Bad enough I lost one daughter over there.”
“She is doing fine. Nellie is happy as can be.” My voice grew thick with envy.
“Nellie.” Mother snorted. “As if her Christian name wasn’t good enough for her.”
“They can’t say Brynhild properly. She wrote that in the letter.”
“Stupid girls.” She stretched out her legs on the grass before her as she sucked on her pipe. “They always want something more than they have . . . Well, go to America or China for all I care, but don’t go back to that boy. You have to seek service elsewhere.”
“I won’t go back to him”—he would not even want me to—“but I will stay on.”
She looked at me then, through the pipe smoke, and shook her head with confusion. “But why, Little Brynhild? Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“And I bet they are poor.”
“He won’t lay a hand on me again.” I lifted my chin and fixed her with my gaze.
“No?” She squinted back at me. “How do you know? Have you cooked up some fine plan in that clever head of yours?”
“It was just a lump of flesh.” The words came unbidden, tumbled out of me, lay there between us like so much gristle.
“No.” Her hair bun bobbed when she shook her head. “Don’t even try to fool yourself. It was a child, not some lump.”
“Nothing worse than a piglet. I cut pig’s meat all the time—”
“It was not just a lump of flesh.” Her pipe waved in the air.
“Yes, it was: a lump that no one wanted me to have, so now I’m better off anyway.”
She sighed. “Things are certainly easier.”
“Just flesh . . .” My brow was wet with perspiration; I had to wipe it with the hem of my apron. Mother looked away.
“I tried to get your clothes clean again.” She touched the bundle of wet fabrics with the tip of her shoe. “I think the skirt is better, but the blouse with the lace is gone.”
“Some stains won’t wash away.” I meant for it to be a comfort, but instead she started to cry. I did not know what to do with that, so I just sat there beside her while her shoulders shook and she wiped tears with the back of her hand.
“Promise me you will work somewhere else,” she said when her tears had all dried up. “They won’t let you forget about this, Little Brynhild. They will always find ways to remind you . . . That night will stick to you always.”
“Oh, I’ll go.” I picked up the pot and the rag from the ground, resumed that eager scrubbing. “But I won’t go just yet.”
5.
Anders had a shot of liquor every night before he went to bed. The last thing I did at the end of each day was to leave it for him on the narrow stairs so he could take it with him to his room. Before, he had wanted the whole bottle, but his father had put an end to that by the time I returned to work, so now he just got that one dram to see him to sleep at night. It was I who poured that drink for him from a bottle stored in the kitchen.
It was such a little thing—entrusting him to the maid. Let her make sure it was only that one drop, not enough to make him useless the next day. Maids also helped with other small things, like keeping the kitchen free from rodents when the lazy cats failed to do their jobs.
They never expected me to hold a grudge.
I waited for months to be certain they had forgotten. Waited, until the trees shed their leaves and the cattle came home and the men ceased calling to me whenever I crossed the yard, asking me if I wanted to take a stroll to the lake or hike up my skirts for some pebbles and a fist. If it was true that I bled like a pig. I waited, until Anders forgot to look away and clench his jaw when I entered the room. Until his gaze slid off me as if I were not even there.
Then I waited some more.