“I’m glad to have Swanhild safely away.” He swayed on his feet from the whiskey, and even spilled some on the kitchen floor. “I’m glad she is somewhere you cannot touch her. You are no mother, Bella . . . The only thing that comes from you is death.”
Any woman would be angry then. “How can you even say that to me, who cooks your meals and mends your shirts? Me, who have let you into my house on my land, to let you raise pigs in my barn!”
He shook his head and took another swig. “The price for my greed was too steep.”
“Was it?” I was so mad that my teeth gnashed in my mouth, and my jaw felt like it was on fire. “I rather thought that ugly little child a bargain! She wasn’t worth anything at all.” I did not think of the child then; I was only thinking of him, of cutting deep where it hurt the most.
He lifted his hand then and lunged at me. I barely avoided the strike. Then I was there, back at the lake, with fists pummeling my face and feet kicking in my gut. The cleaver was clean on the table, ready for another day of chopping for the grinder. I took it and I struck him, and he did not see it coming. His nose exploded with blood as it cracked and he fell to the floor. I gave him another heavy whack then, buried the cleaver in the back of his head. That was the price for his insolence, I thought, as I sank back on the chair, breathing.
Suddenly it was upon me: waves upon waves of that delicious feeling I had so yearned for after Mads died. I was back in my bed behind the kitchen in Selbu, with Gurine resting beside me, sucking the sweet victory like a creamy caramel. I had bested him, that man on my floor. He had come at me but I whacked him down, and now he was nothing but so much meat, his blood seeping down between the floorboards, dripping into the bones of my house. My jaw throbbed with a dull ache, but it did nothing to calm the wild triumph that coursed through me. I was breathless with the excitement, and wished for him to come back to life so I could do the same thing all over again: hear the sound when his nose crushed, feel when the cleaver split his skull apart. Best him, once again.
That was what he got for coming at me with his fist raised. That was what he got for accusing me of his daughter’s death.
He should not have done that.
When I regained my senses, I realized my mistake. I knelt down beside him feeling for a pulse, although I was sure he was gone. I had been careless—stupid even. How could I explain such a bloody death? I looked around me in the kitchen and tried to think of an explanation.
No sickness of the heart had ever looked like this.
I thought to blame an intruder at first but dismissed the idea at once. Peter was a strong man; no thief would be foolish enough to try him on. No one but me knew how weak the whiskey made him, how he would stagger and lose his balance, sway on his feet like a newborn foal.
I saw the brine on the range then, and the grinder on the shelf, took the scalding-hot brine and poured it on his head and shoulders. I took down the grinder next and put it on the floor.
It had just been an accident, all of it.
After I had taken a few drinks and thought out what to say, I woke Jennie up and sent her to Nicholson. Perhaps I should not have done that. It would have been better if I said he had left me. I had so much land now where one could hide a lump of flesh, even one as big as Peter Gunness.
Instead, I blamed it on the meat grinder.
31.
Nellie
John, the children, and I arrived at Brookside Farm shortly before the funeral service. We barely made it there at all, as it had all happened so fast. The message from Bella had been short and curt, and I could not help but think she wished we would rather stay at home.
Of course, we could not. Peter had been family, too, even if we hardly knew him.
I had been to the farm only once since they moved there; John had not been there at all. Bella had invited me back many times, but I always opted not to go.
I blamed my bad back or blamed the horrid weather. The long train ride or a lack of an escort. My English was not so good that I dared venture such a long trip on my own.
In truth, life had been good for me since Bella moved to La Porte. I no longer suffered from stomach pains and poor sleep. I no longer spent hours wondering and fretting, worrying about the state of my sister. I thought of my own children more often than I thought of hers, and the image of Mads had become but a specter in my mind, a memory softened by time. I no longer felt anxious when I thought of his death; the doubt could not unsettle me as it had before.
I had let it go.
This new death had brought it all back, of course, though I still felt composed as we sat on the train, heading for Indiana. I told myself that it was different this time. Peter had died from an accident, that was all—it happened often on farms—but before that, they had been happy together as far as I knew. It was unfortunate that it had ended so abruptly, though, and I thought that Bella had to be devastated—but then I recalled her eager baking after Mads’s sudden demise, and figured that she might be all right.
Olga did not share my composure but wept silently into her handkerchief as the train rushed toward our destination. She was a grown woman now; her hair had darkened to golden wheat and she was almost as tall as her aunt was. She had begged a day off from the hosiery store to join us on this trip.
“Why are you crying?” Nora said beside her. “You did not even know him.” At fifteen, she had yet to grasp the importance of decorum. She had put on her dark dress for mourning, but it did nothing to diminish her spirit. She was supposed to read a book on the journey, but instead she moved restlessly on the seat and watched the other passengers without any trace of shame. It made me sigh just to look at her, but I knew it would do no good to correct her. My youngest daughter had a strong will.
“I cry for Aunt Bella.” Olga looked up from the handkerchief to lecture her sister. “Can you even imagine what it must be like to be widowed again so soon?”
“Husbands die all the time, Aunt Bella said that to me herself.” Nora remained unconcerned and fished an apple out the paper bag propped up between them. It was wrinkled and old but sweeter for it.
“That was an incredibly foolish thing for her to say,” I remarked, annoyed with my sister and daughter both. “When did she say that to you?”
“After Uncle Mads died.” Nora bit into the apple and closed her eyes; when she was quite done chewing, she spoke again. “She said it when we went to the graveyard with flowers. Then she gave me a piece of candy to make me stop crying.”
“She only said that so you would not feel so bad.” Olga’s nose was red from crying.
“She seemed to mean it.” Nora shrugged.