Jennie’s sister, Mrs. Oleander, came to visit unannounced, shortly after Christmas. It was not convenient. The house was in quite a disarray. I had not found it in me to clean or even cook after Peter died. I kept worrying about the inquest, if something more would come of it. My heart jumped whenever a stranger entered the yard or if I saw Sheriff Smutzer in town. Though Smutzer was hardly a stellar sheriff but easy to dupe with a motherly smile, I felt frayed and hunted like a rabbit, and I did not like it at all.
I gathered the girls around me in bed at night and pulled the young ones so close I could smell the sweet scent of their skin. In those dark nights, my daughters brought me solace, for how could something truly bad happen to me when I kept these precious angels under my roof? The caress of a cherub’s hand on my cheek or a kiss good night could make my eyes water. I could not truly be so bad when my daughters thought me the world.
“Are you sad, Mama?” Myrtle would ask. Her brown eyes were large with worry.
“A little,” I would tell her. “I am sad that Papa died, but it will pass in time. All things that live must die. There’s just nothing to do for it.”
“We can pick flowers for his grave,” the little angel said to comfort me. It was what we had done back in Chicago when tending Mads’s final resting place. She had been very young then, but maybe she remembered.
“Yes, my dear, we can,” I said, and then I burst out in tears again, not from grief, though, not at all. My tears were from anger and disappointment. I loathed Peter for using me, for being so unfair about the dead child, and for leading me to believe that he could be a good father to my children.
I had had such hopes for my new husband, and now it had come to nothing.
I was in quite a state then when Mrs. Oleander arrived, yet there she was, standing in my parlor, waiting for refreshments, no doubt. Jennie had already come in and spoken politely with her sister. I let the woman sit down and remove her hat. She was young and lovely to look at, though not as lovely as Jennie was. Her clothes were fine but not new. I poured her tea and found some old biscuits.
“This is not a very good time, I’m afraid. We have so much to do with the butchering, I have little time to be indoors and sweep floors.”
“Oh, I just came to see Jennie.” Mrs. Oleander lifted her teacup; her voice was a little high-pitched and she seemed far too happy. “I’m aware that farmers are busy people. This is a very new life for you, Jennie, isn’t it?”
“It is very different from Chicago,” the girl agreed.
“She’s of great help,” I told Mrs. Oleander. “She’s in charge of the goats and the chickens, and goes to school too. She’s very bright.”
“How wonderful.” Mrs. Oleander smiled and showed her teeth; her incisors were stained a pale brown. “What do you like best in school?” she asked Jennie.
“Algebra,” said the girl.
“They are reading scripture too, and we go to church every Sunday. I wish we could be more involved in the good work of the church, but there simply isn’t time. Jennie and I knit socks for the orphans in Chicago, though.”
“I still play,” said Jennie. “I practice the piano every day.”
“You were always such a musical girl. Our mama was too, did you know that? She would be happy to know you are playing so much.” Mrs. Oleander had a strain in her too-happy voice; something was not right.
“Maybe Mama knows that I play.” Jennie slipped a spoonful of sugar into her tea. She always took her tea too sweet, but today I would not scold her. “They say that the angels can see everything we do, and Mama must surely be an angel now.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Oleander was touched; her voice had grown thick. “Mama is listening to your playing every time.”
I could not help then but sigh and nearly rolled my eyes. I ate a biscuit to cover my impatience. “Why don’t you play some now, Jennie?” That way we would not have to talk so much.
While Jennie made ready at the piano, Mrs. Oleander turned to me. “Isn’t it so that your husband just died?” There it was, then, the reason she had come.
“Yes, it is so. Just before Christmas. How did you learn about that?” Jennie had not written her, to my knowledge.
“I read about it in the newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.”
“My, was it in the Chicago papers?” I had certainly not anticipated that. I really should have dug him down, not left him on display in the kitchen.
“It said it was a mysterious death, that a sausage grinder hit him.” Her eyes were twinkling with that well-known light, that particular thrill of dread. People do like to see a spot of blood and have a nice soak in their neighbors’ misery.
“Oh no, there was nothing mysterious about it. He went to La Porte in the morning to purchase a sausage grinder and saw one on the shelf that he wanted. He reached up to get it and it slipped and fell on his head and killed him. They brought him home dead.” I sipped my tea.
“Oh! Well then!” She looked puzzled. Maybe the Chicago newspapers had given details.
“You cannot always trust the newspapers, they write what they like. No one ever came here to ask me what happened.”
“Of course.” She gave another smile, but the hand that lifted the teacup shivered. She ought to get herself some drops for her nerves.
Jennie was playing by then; her slender fingers danced on the keys.
It had been a very stupid thing to do, leaving him there on the floor, nose broken and skull crushed. I would never do such a foolish thing again.
* * *
—
Then it was the question of the insurance. Peter had drawn up policies for nearly thirty-five hundred dollars but with no named benefactors save for his next of kin. That, I figured, had to be me. That is, until Peter’s uncles in Janesville put forth a claim on his living daughter’s behalf. I had almost forgotten about that surly little girl. Now I had to deal with it all, her and his relatives both. Without writing first, I set out to travel all the way to Janesville. It was an arduous trip and I fumed all the way. For all the trouble I had had, at least I ought to receive whatever he left behind—even if it had to come through the girl.
When I arrived at the filthy old farm where she lived, I knocked on the door and introduced myself to the old man who opened it. At first, I was not sure if he would let me in at all. He kept standing there, staring at me through the crack. Finally, he relented and swung the door open.
“Come in, then,” he said, and shuffled inside while another man, just as old as the first, emerged from the bowels of the building.
“I have come to take Swanhild home with me,” I said when they served thin coffee at the stained kitchen table. “Peter would have wanted her to come home now, to her family. With her in the house, at least a part of him remains.”
The two old men across from me exchanged looks. “Peter wanted her to stay here with us. He was very clear on that,” said the one who had opened the door. I believed his name was Gunnar.
“Don’t you think it’s better for her to grow up with a mother and sisters who love her? You are not young, if I might say so, and raising a girl can be hard.”
Another look then. “He seemed to think it best that we took her,” said the other man, another Peter. His beard was so filthy and wild I could barely see his teeth when he spoke.