But I had to know, I did.
Which was why I went to La Porte, with a shivering heart and a tormented soul, bringing along my reluctant son, who would rather stay at home.
“Has this to do with Jennie?” he asked as we sat opposite each other on the train, the newspaper resting on his knee. “I know that Nora worries about her.”
I shook my head but did not reply.
“I hope Aunt Bella keeps a blanket in the carriage—it’s terribly cold.” He looked out at the bleak landscape. “Your back does not much like it when the temperature drops.”
“She won’t be there with the carriage.” My voice was very hoarse. “She doesn’t know that we’re coming.” I ignored his puzzled look. “We’ll rent a buggy when we get there—and Rudolph, you will wait outside in the farmyard while I speak to her. I don’t want you inside while I do.”
“Mama?” The puzzlement on his handsome face increased. “What is this about? Did you have a falling-out?”
I just shook my head again—I could not tell him what it was.
* * *
—
I found Bella alone in the kitchen; she was at the table, cutting up a side of pork, deftly swinging the cleaver. The blood on her hands did nothing to lessen my unease as I stepped inside through the door to the dining room, without even bothering to knock.
The cleaver sang in the air, cut through the meat, and met the sturdy table with a bang.
“Bella,” I said as I paused inside the door, and looked at her broad back before me, the curve of her neck and the mass of hair haphazardly pinned to her head. The cleaver sang and hit the table once more, and then she turned to me with a smile on her lips.
“Nellie!” She wiped her hands on her apron, leaving thick, red smears on the worn cotton. “What are you doing here? Are you alone?” She arched her head to look behind me, through the half-open door. Her face fell a little. “Did something happen?”
I shook my head. I had not found my words yet.
She cocked her head and lifted her chin, just a little. Something cold stirred in her eyes. “What is it, then? Why are you here?” Her lips were no longer smiling.
“Where is Jennie?” My voice was like something out of a cave—a vast, dark place built of dread.
She turned and set to bustle with the kettle on the range. “What do you mean? You know where she is! She went to the sem—”
“No! She did not!” I would not have any lies. Her back tensed up before me, whether from anger or fear I did not know. “What did you do, Little Brynhild?”
She turned to me then, her eyes black with anger. She held the kettle in her hand as if she were about to swing it. Her lips were pressed tightly together in a pale, hard line. “I have done nothing but to send her off to one of the best schools there is! She will study law—become something!” But her rage did not support her claim.
“Well, she’s not there, so that didn’t happen!” I found some spark in myself at last. “Your husbands I can look away from, as I think you may have been burned—but not this, Little Brynhild! I cannot look away from the destruction of a child!” I stomped my foot and closed my fists; the tears burned in my eyes.
“I have done no such thing,” she hissed, but the kettle swung back and forth in her arm. “I would be very careful of throwing accusations of which you have no proof!”
“The proof is right here!” I screamed at her. “The girl is not to be found! How long do you think it will take before her family starts to worry? Mine already does—you cannot walk away from this!”
“The last time I saw Jennie, she was fit as a fiddle, and on her way to Los Angeles,” she hissed. “And I have heard from her many times since.”
“Show me the letters.” My voice was shrill. “Show me Jennie’s letters, and I will believe you!”
She shook her head, and something like a spasm twisted her features for a moment. “I did not keep them—the children took them and lost them in the barn.”
“Oh, you’re a liar,” I accused her through gritted teeth. “You did away with her! What happened, Little Brynhild? Did she find out what you do in the cellar?” She came at me then, just a step, but it was enough that I stepped back as well. “She wondered about that, and the locked room filled with trunks upstairs. She worried that those men never left!” I could no longer keep silent—the words came rushing like a landslide. I no longer cared what happened to me next; the words wanted out, and I let them.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was disturbingly calm. “Coming in here, setting my children up against me! Encouraging them to disobey! Marzipan cake! What right do you have, Nellie? What right?” She swung her arm with the kettle out in a wide arc so that it hit the counter with a loud bang; the sound of splintering wood forced its way through the haze of my rage. On the table, the bloody cleaver was smiling, sharp and shiny, like a mirror.
“Rudolph is outside in the buggy.” I had no tools to intimidate her but hoped that the words would be enough. “He’ll go for help if you hurt me. I only need to call out!”
“That was a foolish thing to come here with your accusations—what do you think will happen next?” But my words had made an impact, I could tell; her gaze kept darting to the door, and the power with which she swung the kettle was not quite as forceful as before.
“You would not hurt me, Little Brynhild—not me!” I clung to that conviction with all my might. “I cared for you as a child, I held you when you were sick, and washed every scrape and bloody wound—”
“And then you left!” Her voice bellowed with such force that I staggered another step back. “Left me with that good-for-nothing man and his foolish, foolish wife! What sort of a good deed was that? Leaving me with that lot!”
“You know I had no choice?” The accusation had hit me as well as that kettle would have; it left a bruise just as black. “I did what I could, Little Brynhild—you know that.”
“As do I.” Her chin was tilted almost all the way up; her nostrils flared when she breathed. “I do what I must to get by—nothing more!”
“You know that isn’t right.” I shook my head and wiped my tears with hands that shivered and shook. “People are not cattle for you to slaughter for gain! Children are not for you to bury!”
“And yet I do.” Her shoulders slumped as she lowered her head. The kettle fell quiet by her side.
“It has to stop.” I was speaking from that cave again. “It has to stop, or they’ll hang you, Little Brynhild! I’ll see to it myself, if only for that beautiful child—” My voice cracked as another bout of tears came bursting out of me. “You will not harm another human being as long as you live, or I’ll make sure that your neck ends up in the noose!” I lifted a hand and pointed to her chest.
“You would not,” she said but sounded uncertain. There was no more fire to her words.