“The days are hot; it couldn’t wait.” She held up her hands as to ward him off.
“I will tell you this, though.” The man hardly seemed to hear her. “I won’t rest easy before I have proven your guilt. I have arranged to have him dug up.” Oscar’s lips twisted up in triumph, and a chill ran through my body, from my scalp and all the way to my toes.
“Whatever for?” Bella had placed a hand on the door frame, and I could see how her fingernails clawed at the wood.
“To look for evidence of foul play!” He pressed his lips tightly together.
“I would think his widow has a say in what happens to her husband’s remains.” My sister was not lost for words. Though I could not see it, I imagined how her chin had tilted up.
“I’m a brother and that counts for something,” Oscar Sorensen sneered.
At that point, my silent watching ended. I could not let this go on. I quickly stepped up to the door. “Please,” I said. “All this shouting! There are children here, and neighbors. Surely whatever is amiss can be discussed in a calm manner.”
“Oscar thinks I did away with his brother.” Bella’s voice was filled with scorn.
“Please stay out of this, Mrs. Larson.” Oscar pointed at me with his walking stick.
“I will not.” I looked him up and down. Who was he to speak to me in such a way? “There has been a death in this house—”
“Oh, believe me, I am well aware!” He spoke with such anger that spittle flew from his lips and landed on my cheek.
“Then you should act appropriately!” I was so shocked at that point that my whole body shook when I pushed by him, wanting to reach the children, to get them away from the furious couple.
“They did an autopsy before he went in the ground,” I heard Bella say behind me as I strode across the lawn. I was marching toward Jennie and Myrtle, who sat there in their mourning clothes, adorning the latter’s new doll with flowers. Their hands had stopped midmotion, though, and their eyes had fastened on the spectacle on the porch.
“You ought to leave your brother to rest in peace!” Bella told her brother-in-law.
“Apparently the autopsy wasn’t thorough enough—”
“His heart was enlarged! You know this!” She did not try to appease him any longer; her voice had colored with anger too.
“I have spoken to Mr. Jackson at the insurance company and informed him of my plans.” His voice was nothing but triumphant.
“You’re being a fool, Oscar. Whatever did you do that for?”
I turned back to see that Bella’s brow had creased. Then I was with the girls and reached out my hands, waiting for them to latch on with their fingers.
“He said they have found that there was another policy as well, expiring on just that date,” said Oscar—and despite the chaos that reigned in that moment, the words left me feeling cold.
“I have already spoken to Mr. Jackson—” she said.
“Fed him your lies for sure!” he cried.
“Dr. Miller said it was his heart and I have no reason to doubt that!”
From the open window to the parlor, I heard Lucy wailing in the cradle, wanting a change and some milk. I decided that I did not want to push by the screaming couple again, not with the two girls.
“Come,” I told my charges. “We will go in through the back and leave your mama to speak to your uncle in peace.”
“Why is he so mad?” Jennie’s eyes were wide with concern.
“Oh, he is only upset that his brother is dead.” I tried for a reassuring smile.
Just then, his dry, rasping laughter sounded from the porch. “You won’t get away with this,” he said. “I’ll see to it that you don’t!”
I rushed the girls along to the corner of the house, but even as we stepped onto the flagstones that led to the garden in the back, we could still hear their voices.
“Have you no shame, saying such things in front of his daughters? Attacking a defenseless widow—”
“Rich widow,” he interrupted.
“Who is only trying to do what’s best after an awful tragedy.” She would not be silenced so easily. “If I had wanted Mads dead, why would I have waited all these years?”
“I don’t know the workings of an evil mind—”
“Don’t even think Mr. Jackson will help you in your folly. You will have to pay for your insanity yourself!” There was real fury in her voice now, and I found I feared for his safety. I silently begged that she would not invite him inside, where she had all sorts of things within reach.
“Oh, I’ll pay if it comes to that.” His voice was fainter now, as we had arrived on the other side of the building. “I cannot leave my brother to rot without justice!”
“It’s all in vain, Oscar. The only culprit in his death was his weak heart!”
“We’ll see about that, Mrs. Sorensen!”
By the time we reached the kitchen, it was over. Bella came back inside with a red face and foul mood that did not lessen all day.
I changed Lucy and brought the stew back to a boil. Jennie helped me set the table while Myrtle trailed behind her, wanting to play with her doll again. Bella sat in a chair, looking through the door to the stove, left ajar for the airflow. She watched the crackling flames without a word.
When Lucy fell asleep again and the other girls went outside to bring in the wash on the line, I could no longer hold my tongue.
“What was that?” I turned to her with the wooden spoon in my hand.
She came back to life slowly, as if surfacing from somewhere deep in her mind. Her voice when she spoke was slow and quiet. “Oh, it was just Oscar who—”
“No! Not that. The insurance policies—he said there were two.”
“Well, it’s just a silly coincidence.” She did not look at me but at the woven rug on the floor. “It happens that on the day Mads died, our old insurance ended and the new policy began.” She lifted her gaze a little so it lingered on the spoon, which was steadily dripping stew down on the floor. “It turns out that both of them are valid, so I will get paid by both companies.”
I was so calm in that moment, even if my heart raced. I dropped the spoon back in the stew and sat down on the other side of the table, folding my hands on the tabletop.
Bella continued to speak. “Now Oscar thinks all sorts of bad things about me—he claims that Mads sent him a letter, but I think he wrote it himself. He says that it’s my fault that he’s dead, that I did away with him on just that day so that I would get double pay.”
My voice barely carried when I asked, “Did you?”
“Well, of course not!” She abruptly rose from the chair and started pacing the floor, her hands gesturing wildly in the air. “It just happened to be the right day, that’s all! I did not even know that he had signed the new papers—I never took an interest in such things!”
“Was it the only day that they overlapped?” My voice was still calm—I was still calm—and I could not quite figure why that was. My heart pounded heavy and fast in my chest.