“I cannot believe she’s getting married,” I said in my sweetest voice, to make her feel more at ease. “She was a little girl only yesterday.”
“Don’t I know it.” Nellie sighed. “And with a Catholic! Can you imagine that? Mother would have been aghast.”
“Oh, she knew well enough that children will do as they please. She wasn’t too thrilled about us coming here either.” I lifted a long-tined fork and wiped off a tiny smear with my sleeve.
“She is old enough, it’s not that, but it still feels like losing her somehow.” Her voice was a little thick with emotion.
“I think all mothers feel that way. I sure will, when it’s my turn.” I handed her an ornate knife, one of my very finest. “This is a lovely pattern, don’t you think? It’s very modern, with the lilies.”
Nellie inspected the silver in her hand, “Oh, she would like that. She wants everything to be elegant.”
“How is it with money? You know you only have to ask if you need to borrow some for the wedding.” It would suit me well, truth be told. Perhaps Nellie would let her suspicions slide if she were indebted to me. It never hurts to have a hold over another.
“We’ll manage,” she said, her lips pursed tightly together. I thought she was foolish. Surely they could use the help. True, they had more now than they did before, but a wedding was still a large obligation, and Nellie’s new son-in-law had four older siblings with families of their own and several aunts and uncles in America. It would be a large party. I could not help but wonder if my sister saw through me—that it was my money she deemed tainted somehow. That she did not want to owe me. The thought sent my heart racing in my chest, and I quenched a wave of anger.
“Thank you, though,” Nellie said. Her gaze darted from knife to fork to chandelier. She looked flustered; her cheeks had turned a crimson red. “I certainly appreciate the offer.” She gave a wan smile.
“You need only say,” I repeated, but Nellie did not reply. She was fingering the knife with a pained expression, and though I tried very hard to make things light and good between us, she never did seem to relax—which annoyed me and set me on edge in equal measure.
* * *
—
The real trouble started later that day. Nellie was in the kitchen with the children preparing vegetables for dinner while I was out caring for the horses. When I came back inside through the back door and set to unlacing my shoes, I could hear my sister speaking:
“You are very good at this, Myrtle. Look how pretty your potato peel spirals are, all long and even.”
“I can make spirals too,” peeped Lucy.
“You are a little too young, I think, to be handling such sharp knives. Next year, maybe.”
“Mama lets me use the knife.”
“She does not,” Jennie said. “She does not, Aunt Nellie. It’s just Lucy who wants to.”
“Look,” said Nellie. “You can fill this pot with carrot cubes . . .”
“Mr. Davidson cut them into shapes, like flowers.”
“Who is Mr. Davidson, Lucy?” Nellie’s voice sounded curious.
“He visited Mama.”
“Did he now?”
“Lucy, I don’t think you should—” Jennie started to say, but Nellie cut her off.
“Does he still come to see her?”
“No,” said Lucy. “It’s been a long time. He was only here once, like all the others.”
“The others who?” Nora spoke, while I fought and struggled with the laces of my shoes, stiff with manure as they were. I had to get them off and get in there, or my children would right give me away.
“The other men who visit Mama.”
“She has many visitors out here, has she?”
“Yes, and then they leave before breakfast.”
“Lucy!” Jennie’s voice cracked in the air. “I’m sorry, Aunt Nellie, she doesn’t know any better.” I could hear Nora chuckle in the background, finding it all so very amusing.
“But is it true, though?” said Nellie. “Myrtle, is it true that your mama has male visitors who stay only for one night, and then are gone in the morning?”
“Sometimes they stay a little longer,” Myrtle said softly.
“But then they disappear?”
“It’s no one’s business but Mama’s,” said Jennie. She sounded afraid. I could hardly burst in there filthy and reeking without making Nellie even more suspicious, so I forced myself to stand still and listen while the horror unfolded in the kitchen. “She is just looking for a husband,” Jennie told my sister. “I don’t think she wants you to know.”
“But why do they leave in the night?” Nellie asked.
“They remembered they had to be in Chicago,” said Lucy.
“Oh, Lucy,” said Jennie, “they have all kinds of reasons.”
“Usually they remembered they had to be in Chicago.” The girl stood her ground. I should perhaps have been a little more inventive with my excuses.
“Isn’t it strange, though, that they all seem to figure this out during the night,” Nellie noted.
“I don’t know,” said Lucy.
“We’re not supposed to talk with them much,” said Myrtle. “But if they stay on for a while, we have to. Sometimes they play with us, or do funny things, like with the carrot flowers.”
“One of the men shook me,” said Lucy, “but then Mama sent him away.”
“And rightly she did,” said Nellie. “No man should ever punish a child not his own.” On that, at least, we agreed. My mind was swirling with what I had just heard, and I was thinking up ways to explain it to my sister. I could say I had become a moneylender, perhaps, or that I had opened my home to gentlemen traveling alone but had been too embarrassed to say so. Surely she would understand that, both the need for an extra income and the embarrassment. It was hardly proper for a widow to have strange men coming and coming.
Then, just as I thought the horror had mounted, a fresh wave hit in the kitchen:
“How are we with peas?” Nellie asked.
“We are almost all done,” said Jennie. Clearly, the two eldest had been tasked with shelling.
“We could use some cabbage too with this,” said Nellie. She was cooking up a soup with salt beef and greens. “You keep them in the cellar, yes?”
“Yes,” said Jennie, “but—”
“We are not allowed to go down there,” said Lucy.
“Oh, why is that?” Nellie asked.
“The stairs are rotten,” Jennie answered. “Mama is afraid we’ll hit our heads.”
“She should have those stairs fixed, then,” Nellie said. “How does she get down there herself?”
“There is a door out back,” said Jennie.
“But sometimes she takes the stairs as well, if she is in a hurry because something is cooking on the stove,” Lucy added.
“They can’t be too rotten, then,” Nellie said.
“I suppose not.” Jennie sounded doubtful.
“Maybe she keeps something down there—like a secret,” Nellie said.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.