“No,” I answered. “I never had any problems after I had my children.”
“Not even with the latest one? They say it’s harder the older you get.”
“No, I’m as spry as I ever was.” I laced my hands and stretched out my arms to demonstrate.
She gave me a curious look. “So you seem,” she agreed. “It’s rare, though, having a child so late, and with his father dead and everything.” Was it distrust that surfaced in her eyes?
“Yes, it’s a shame.” I fanned my face with my hand. It was a warm day. Far too warm for our heavy dresses. “The boy never knew him, though, so he won’t grieve the loss.”
“How do you like it, being a widow?” Another glance in my direction.
“Oh, I miss him terribly, of course. I had so many hopes pinned on Peter.”
“And to die from the sausage grinder—” Nellie choked, and I gave her a curious look. Her face looked pinched and pained all of a sudden, and I moved uneasy in the wicker chair. My jaw tensed up a little.
“Indeed,” I said. “It was a terrible affair, but such is life; you never know what’s waiting.”
“Your daughters must be distraught.” Her voice was clipped and she looked at the chickens, not me.
“Well, they didn’t know him very long, and I bought them a pony.” The little animal, aptly named Chocolate, had become everyone’s darling and was the envy of the children on McClung Road. I was very pleased with the purchase.
“Still, though.” Nellie shifted on the white-painted wicker seat. “I got a letter from Olina.” The pained expression intensified. “Little Bry—Bella, why didn’t you tell me about that man in Selbu, the one who died?”
“Who?” I feigned ignorance, though my heart began to race.
“The heir at the farm, he who attacked you!” Her gaze shifted to me, brimming with tears.
My jaw ached. What was it to her? Bringing up that ugly story. “There was nothing to tell.” My voice had grown harsh. I rubbed my throbbing jaw.
“Olina spoke of it as if everyone knew.” She blinked rapidly to chase the tears away; her gaze was on the sky. “She said it was a shame that all your men keeled over and died.”
I felt my cheeks go red—what sort of an ambush was this? “That’s a terrible thing to say.” I suddenly felt hot all over.
“Yes, isn’t it just? But that’s just like her, though; she never held anything back. She reminds me of Father in that way.” Nellie lifted a hand to wipe at the tears.
“What else did she tell you?” I did not want to but had to ask. I was sweating profusely under my clothing.
“Oh, she said that the man who got you pregnant—pregnant, Bella?—died, but not before he had kicked the child out of you.” I could not tell if that was anger in her voice. I had never heard her speak in such a tone, as if the words were traveling through rocks—through pebbles on a beach.
Having it spelled out in such a crude manner made me cringe. For a brief moment, I saw my hands curl around Nellie’s neck to stop the foul words from coming out of her mouth. “Yes,” I managed to say. “I worked at the farm still when he died; but what happened between us was an old story even then.”
She went quiet for a moment. “It could make a person change, couldn’t it? It could inflict wounds on one’s soul.” She was still wiping tears and I wished she would stop. “I heard of a man who lost his memory after a fall—”
“Life is a perilous journey,” I cut in, “or was there something else on your mind?” My own mind was racing. Why did she speak of my soul?
Nellie took a deep breath. “Little Brynhild, it wouldn’t be a person’s own fault if they were . . . different after something so vile. Perhaps something in the head went wrong, like with that man after the fall—”
“Do you think there’s something wrong with my head?” I felt an urge to laugh, but this was certainly not a laughing matter. I did not like where she was headed with this unfortunate train of thought. She had clearly not been sufficiently fooled by my grief.
“No.” Nellie answered my question, but there was no true fire in the denial. “I just think that if one is in pain, there is help to be had—from a priest perhaps . . . Just because one has done something, it doesn’t mean one has to do it again.” She rubbed her forehead with her hands and her breathing became labored. Her scrawny frame quivered beside me.
“Calm yourself, Nellie.” I held on to the armrests so hard that it hurt, and it helped—I did not quite lose my temper. This was neither the time nor the place. “I am sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The words came tumbling through gritted teeth.
“Oh come, Bella, of course you do.” It was her eyes, not mine, that flashed with anger. “You should have told me! I should have known! I wouldn’t have let them go at you about the scissors, or been so mad about your treatment of Mads had I known about that man . . . though Edvard died too, of course . . .”
“They are gossiping about Peter’s death in Chicago now, I reckon.” I was proud of how calm my voice sounded to my ears.
“Well, yes—it was so sudden, and they wrote about it, but—”
“That is not a very Christian thing to do, blaming a poor widow.” I lifted my chin and gazed at the sun, letting the bright light blind me. My jaw was burning, throbbing and aching.
“You know how people are not always kind—and then when I heard about that man in Selbu—”
“Perhaps it’s the Lord’s way of weeding out the bad seeds.” I made no secret of my scorn. The sun was searing in my eyes, distracting me from the fury inside. Why would she bring this up? She was going at it like a thoughtless boy poking with a stick at something raw and fragile: a sea creature out of its shell, or a baby bird tumbled from the nest.
Why would she hurt me so?
“What do you mean, Bella?” She sounded breathless.
“Only that a man who kicks a child out of its mother’s belly perhaps deserves to die.”
“Yes.” Her voice was very quiet. “That’s what Olina said too, that he deserved it.”
I suddenly felt more sympathetic toward my homebound sister. “Olina would know, she saw me when I—”
“Yes, that’s what she wrote.”
“It’s too late to mourn now, Nellie. I wanted America to be a fresh start.”
“Yes, but some things you can’t run away from.” She spoke so quietly that I had to strain my ears to make out the words.
“Clearly I could.” I finally looked away from the sun; my eyes watered and my vision was impaired. I blinked away the red while I motioned to the yard with my hand, presenting the glistening green of cedars, the frilly-clad girls with the dog, and the fat hogs rolling in their pen. “I recovered just fine, I would say.”
“Did you, though?” Her voice was still so quiet that it was hard to catch the words.
“I would not speak more of this if I were you.” Though I almost admired her for being so plain with me. “Nothing good can come of it.”
“But, Bella—”
“No!” Now it was I who shook. The anger in me boiled and lashed. “Leave it be, Nellie.”