“I don’t see why you keep foster children at all! It does nothing to improve the poor man’s health to fill his house with strangers’ offspring—”
“We only have the one now,” I reminded him. “It’s been a longing in me always to have children to care for, and soon they might not be strangers.” I gently placed a hand on my belly and gave him a tiny smile.
The red color increased. “Do you—does he—?”
“No, he doesn’t know yet. I wanted to be sure.”
“And now you are?” He looked as if I had just told him I was about to sprout another leg.
“Yes, I am.” I made another few stitches. “So you see, not everything is wrong between us.”
He went quiet then, lost for words. “Well then,” he said at last, “I’ll leave you to it.”
Who could ever hate a woman carrying a longed-for child?
* * *
—
Though I had only told Oscar I was pregnant to appease him, the thought would not leave me alone. I kept touching my belly, though I knew there was nothing inside, and I dreamed of it at night, a belly swelling with a daughter of mine. Sometimes the dreams turned darker, and it was the grave I saw: the hole in the ground, next to a root, and the wet thing I slipped inside. The earth on top, so smooth under my hands, concealing the dread underneath.
As if it never happened.
When I woke up, sweat-drenched and breathless, I would be angry again and think of Anders and the damage that he did to me that night by the lake.
I clutched the pewter button around my neck for courage in those nights. James could always give me that. He was the only one besides myself I trusted, and even if the fever of our first years had mellowed some, he could still make me feel just as weak at the knees as I had been on that first day in the park.
It was a rare treasure to have a friend like that.
In those nights of dissatisfaction, I often imagined myself in his stead: What would I have done to better my situation if I had been James Lee?
Sometimes, if sleep evaded me, I would go downstairs and pour the brandy. I would light a lamp to finish my letters or pore over the newspapers. The first often brought to mind another dissatisfaction: though our letters were many, Peter Gunness never expressed any interest in me besides friendship. His wife was very ill but never seemed to die—much like Mads, I noted. Mr. Gunness dreamed of a farm where he could raise his own pigs and sell the best sausage on the market. I enjoyed dreaming with him. I could understand ambition, though my own had sadly turned to nothing but a useless husband with an empty wallet, borrowed children, and a pantry brimming with old food. Jennie was a blessing, yes, but she was already growing up, and though I did my best not to think of it, I could not completely forget that she was not truly mine. Her father sometimes spoke to Mads about it, how he meant to bring her home one day. My youth was waning—the years ran by. Was this all I would ever become, or could I still do something to save my bold vision: strike out on my own again and have that life I had so vividly imagined on the ship to America?
I read about clever schemes in the newspapers all the time: how they were done—and how they failed. I thought of H. H. Holmes and his magnificent enterprise that had so heavily relied on insurance fraud, and thought that maybe I could do the same. Only better. More clever. In a way that made sure I was never found out.
I thought about the sick man up in his bed, and then I thought of the house I sat in—both could certainly go—but there had to be a better way: a way that would not harm me at all.
I figured I should go into retail. I could build a business, burn it to the ground, and walk away unscathed. If I was a mother of a small child when it happened, nothing could be better. I saw it all so clearly: how I would clutch the child to my chest as I went to speak with the insurance man with tears dripping from my eyes: It all just went up in a blaze! Oh, I don’t know what to do! How am I to feed my child?
If I was lucky, there might be even be enough in a scheme like that to buy me a better house. A house without tarnish and emptiness inside. Enough that I did not need Mads’s pay anymore.
I still wanted the same things as I had when I arrived in this country: the happy home, money, and toddlers playing at my feet. My own children, not some other woman’s, or as close to that as I could come—and why should I be denied such a simple thing?
People are so foolish; they beg to be deceived.
I chuckled a little when I realized how this plan of mine was good news for Mads.
I could not have my children as a widow.
* * *
—
My daughter Caroline was delivered in January. She was a tiny, mewling thing wrapped in a piece of bloodstained cotton. The night was dark and chilly, the sky spangled with stars.
“I swear she’s of fine Norwegian breeding.” James was at the back door. He had buttoned his coat all the way up.
“Not so fine, I think.” I looked at the dirty swaddling. “Her natural mother must’ve fallen on hard times.”
“It’s a harsh world”—James offered me a smile—“but the girl seems healthy enough.”
I smiled down at the mewling bundle. “She is so fresh I can smell the womb on her. I could take her to the doctor in the morning and claim I had her myself!”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. Maybe he’d sense that something was wrong.”
“Men never do, not when it comes to children and birth; they would rather not think of it at all. But I’ll take your advice.”
“Good—and make sure to draw up an insurance policy. One never knows how long such tiny things last.” He put a finger on the swaddling to pull it down and have a look at the newborn’s face.
“I have hopes for this one.” I looked down at her at well, watched as her little mouth formed a soundless O and her little fist waved in the air.
I wanted to invite James inside but was unsure how deep Mads’s sleep was, as I had not tinkered with his coffee. The fool had not asked about my protruding belly, fat with cushions. He accepted mentions of “the happy event” with a gracious nod whenever it was brought up at church but seemed pained when I spoke of it at home. He knew it was not real, of course but had decided to go along with it. Maybe he was curious too, to see what this scheme of padding would produce.
James asked, “How is the old man?”
“Suffering from a faulty heart, according to the doctor. He takes prescribed powders and eats at certain times. Yet he does not seem to get better.” James and I shared a wicked smile over the baby’s soft head.
“A pity,” said he, who would rather see him dead.
“Not so much.” I quite enjoyed seeing him in pain.
James looked at the bundle in my arms. “Won’t people suspect it’s not yours when it’s taken so long? You have been married for how many years?”