Eddie Hinkley was dead.
I dropped the cleaver and looked down at my shaking hands and red-stained skirt, and then I looked at the blue-lipped children who rested by the kitchen table, their features waxen and unfamiliar in death. I looked at the open door to the pantry, where stale food crammed the shelves, and to the nook above the range, where the sausage grinder rested on the night of Peter’s death, and then I stepped over Hinkley’s slumped body and went outside.
I did not stop before I was in the orchard, below the naked branches of the apple trees. There I sank to my knees in the cool night air and buried my hands deep in the soil, just to feel something real. Around me, the world moved on: a crow cawed, a cow lowed, and a light breeze touched my skin—but it had nothing to do with me anymore.
It was all lost. There was nothing left for me to want.
48.
Nellie
FOUR LIVES ARE LOST
Fearful Fire at La Porte Results in Shocking Tragedy.
LA PORTE, IND., APRIL 28.—The farm residence of Mrs. Belle Gunness was destroyed by fire at an early hour this morning. Four lives—those of Mrs. Gunness, who is a widow, and three children ranging in age from 5 to 11 years—are believed to be burned in the ruins. The theory is advanced that the fire was started by a former hired man with whom Mrs. Gunness had been having legal trouble, and whom she attempted to have declared insane. Mr. Gunness died under suspicious circumstances several years ago.
Chicago, 1908
No one came to tell me that my sister and her children were dead, no officer of the law, nor a priest. It was Rudolph who learned of it first, having read about it in the newspaper at work. I was at home preparing some cabbage for dinner when he suddenly burst through the door, waving the greasy newspaper in the air. I could tell at once that my son was upset; his face was pale and his eyes were wild. When he saw me sitting there by the table, there were even tears gathering in his eyes.
“Mama.” He staggered toward me. “Mama . . .” He bent down and embraced me, holding me tight to his chest, while his body shook with sobbing.
“What is it? What is it?” I patted his shoulders with nervous hands, like bird wings flapping. “What has happened to have you in such a state?”
He put the newspaper down on the table then, but of course, I could not read it. I recognized her name, though—I recognized the name, and at first, I went cold with fear, thinking that she had killed someone and been caught red-handed.
That her secrets would all come tumbling down.
“What is it?” My voice seemed to come from that cave again, that vast place built of dread. “What did she do? What did they find?” Now it was I who clung to my son’s shoulders for support, as the world around me became hazy and spun.
“They are dead, Mama! All of them are!” Another sob shook his body. “Aunt Bella is, and Myrtle and Lucy, and little Philip, too . . . There’s been a fire, Mama, at the farm. A terrible, terrible fire!”
It was too much—was just too much. I leaned on my son and keened.
* * *
—
We gathered in the sitting room later. John and I, Rudolph and Nora. Olga was at the house too, but in the kitchen just then, rummaging through the pantry for a bit of liquor to settle our nerves. It was all for our benefit, as she was heavy with child and abhorred strong drinks in those days.
John looked gray and old, sitting in the chair next to mine. I had never before seen it so clearly, how age had changed my husband’s handsome features.
Nora was as pale as her father was gray, weeping into a handkerchief. When she looked at me, I could tell from the expression in her eyes that it was not as much grief as shock that had her so in tears. She had not yet embraced the truth of the ink.
Neither had I, and perhaps I never would.
“Those little children,” she muttered. “How can it be? How can someone do something so vile?”
“It does happen.” Her brother sat on the sofa; his hands lay aimlessly in his lap. “Men do mad things for all sorts of reasons, and Aunt Bella did not always get along with people—not to speak ill of the dead.” He sent me an apologetic look. He was trying so hard to keep it together, my boy, but the thin line of his lips and the redness of his eyes gave him all away.
“But who is this ‘hired man’?” John folded the newspaper and smacked it lightly against the table. “Who is he? What is this story about her wanting to declare him insane?” He looked to me, but I could not answer. I had not been there in a year. I did not know what sort of squabble they had, and I could never voice the suggestions that ran through my head: that she had tried to kill him but failed; that he had caught her in some unspeakable act . . . The worst thought of all was that she might have killed this foe of hers instead of trying her luck in court—and thus saved the children’s lives—if only I had not gone there with my anger and demands . . . The guilt was almost as strong as the grief, though I knew it held no reason . . .
“Clearly Aunt Bella was right.” Nora curled her feet up in the chair and clutched the handkerchief in her hand. “The man was truly insane! Who would set fire to a house full of children but a madman?”
“I only wish we knew more.” Rudolph rose from the chair and started pacing the floor, back and forth in the cramped room. “I wish we knew more before—what went down between them.”
“It does no good to think like that.” Olga entered with a tray of bottles and glasses. “It won’t change what has happened—it won’t bring them back.” Her voice broke a little when she said that last part.
“Jennie will be devastated when she learns what has happened,” Nora muttered in the chair, and my heart skipped a beat. They would find out now, when they tried to reach Jennie Olson. They would find out that she was already gone. The thought of that would have worried me before, but now it barely touched me. The day had numbed me; I had nothing left to give—and the truth had very few left to harm.
“Those poor children.” Olga’s hand shook a little when she poured for us all; drops of liquor spilled down on the tablecloth. “Innocent victims in a dispute that had nothing to do with them.”
“We must go there, of course,” said John, still holding the folded-up newspaper. “We must go there and find out what happened—make sure that the man stands trial.”
“Mama, what do you think?” Nora looked at me with concern. “You are awfully quiet tonight; did you take a few of your laudanum drops?”
I nodded to her, though I had not. I had not even thought to do so, even if they would doubtlessly settle me some. I only was quiet because I could not find my voice—because what I grieved was different from what they mourned.
In my head, I did see her one final time, that little girl from before, rushing across the moor. Her large eyes and her tousled hair peeking out from the headscarf. Her laughter, loud and carefree, rising toward the mountains—beautiful and wild.