“Luck perhaps—or the Lord.” Her eyes were still kind when she looked at me. “Why is it your concern, Nellie?” She added a smile; it was all in good humor. “You have a brood of your own already; surely you don’t envy me mine?”
“Of course not.” I laughed a little. “I was just wondering if they truly were yours. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you adopted them and passed them off as your own, I just—”
“Just what, Nellie?” Her voice whipped in the air. Little Myrtle startled, then promptly started to cry. I strongly regretted ever asking. “The girls are mine, through and through.” There was a hard cast to Bella’s jaw as she put down the knitting and set to comforting her daughter.
“Forgive me, Bella.” I tried to smile. “I was just curious, that’s all. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it—”
“We can talk all day if you like.” She straightened up with Myrtle in her arms, lifting her onto her lap. “I have nothing to hide.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I felt hot and nervous—angry with myself too, for bringing it up. “You are very lucky, then.” I bent my head over the knitting again, but the calm from before was gone.
Bella’s mood was all ruined, though. “Oh, I can’t wait to be away from the city for a while. They are hounding me, those people, saying all sorts of things to Jennie at school. It’s only a matter of time before her real father hears about it.” I wanted so dearly to go back to not having asked her about the children, but it was all too late, and she kept talking. Her jaws worked between the sentences, grinding her teeth together, and a deep scowl had appeared on her features. “How can they even say such things about a poor widow? Denying me my money—rightfully mine by law! As if I haven’t suffered enough, living with a sick husband for all these years—and when Jennie burned herself in the Alma Street fire, barely anyone asked how she fared . . .”
“Yes.” I felt faint. “It has been hard for you.”
“And that Oscar.” She did not appear to have heard me but rocked little Myrtle back and forth in her lap while she spoke; the girl was still mewling, but the tears had dried up. “He can forget about ever seeing his nieces after this. I won’t have that vile man anywhere near them. How could he do such a thing? Have poor Mads dug up? And for nothing! I hope he chokes on that phony letter he brought—Mads would never have written such things. Lies and accusations, all of it!”
I nodded, suddenly too exhausted to answer.
“And it’s surely not my fault that the houses caught fire—the city is rife with fires. It happens every day! I am so very sick of it, Nellie—all these lies that everyone is telling.”
“Are you truly moving away, then?” I lifted my gaze a little, shameful of the wild hope that suddenly flared in me. “Is that why we are going to Janesville? Are you looking to buy land there?”
“No.” Finally she stopped her angry rantings. “That is to see Sigrid, I told you.”
“Yes, but—I didn’t think you ever took to her.” I had been surprised, to say the least, when she had announced her plan to see her old companion from the ship to America. Bella had nothing but complaints about the woman after arriving in Chicago.
“Oh, but it’s different now.” Bella sighed and lifted Myrtle down to sit beside her again. She fumbled in her purse for another treat for the girl. “It was a very long time since that ship, and we have both changed for sure.”
I did not quite believe it and thought she must have some other reason to go there, but I was not about to upset things again, and so I did not ask her.
I remembered there was a time, not so long ago, when I would scold my little sister as if it were nothing, yell at her even—but I found that those days were gone. I no longer dared to raise my voice.
Mads’s sudden death had seen to that.
* * *
—
Sigrid’s farm was midsized but thriving, lying like an island in the midst of sprawling fields. The house was charming with two stories and a large cellar for storage. Hens littered the farmyard, and several horses traipsed behind a fence. Inside the red barn, there were both cows and pigs.
Sigrid herself had changed much. Gone was the slender girl from before; her hips had filled out and her bosom too, and her face showed the lines of someone who had worked much outdoors. Her hair, what could be seen of it under the headscarf, had become as white as chalk.
She was a lively woman, though, and brought us outside to look at every piece of equipment and every little space for storage, clearly proud of her home—of what her husband, Stefan, had accomplished. He was a Swede, which was an oddity. Norwegian girls usually married their own.
“I was so surprised to hear from you,” Sigrid said to Bella as she showed us the vegetable patch, mostly empty now so late in the year. Nora, Jennie, and Sigrid’s daughter, Louisa, were inside, practicing their poor skills on Sigrid’s piano and looking after the younger children. “I never thought I would see you again, truth be told.” Sigrid beamed. “I barely recall that journey; it was so very long ago. But I remember you were sick in Hull, and that you did not want to dance on the deck.” She laughed good-naturedly.
“How many children did you have?” Bella deftly changed the subject. She still wore that very large hat; satin roses and velvet bows bobbed before me on the narrow path.
“Five that lived and two that we lost. The older boys have moved away now, so there’s only Louisa and the twins left. What about you? Did you bring your whole brood?”
“Oh yes.” Bella laughed again, though it sounded a little strained. “I only have the girls.”
“And you, Mrs. Larson?” Sigrid’s gaze turned on me as I came hobbling up behind them. Even if the sun was out, there was a chill in the air that did me no favors but settled in my back like a bite of sharp teeth. “Two besides Nora, but they are both grown and have moved away too.”
“It’s so hard to lose them to adulthood.” Sigrid’s face fell into sympathetic folds. “But they cannot stay at home forever. You are lucky like that.” She looked at Bella. “Yours will not leave you for years to come.”
“Never, if I have a say in it.” Bella’s voice was light, but I did not like the sound of it. She had picked up a stick from the ground and was poking the dirt. “I was thinking of buying a farm myself,” she said. “City life does not much suit me since I became a widow, and I’d much like to leave Chicago. I was hoping to have a look at how you run things here.”