this morning. So much to consider. Yet it would wander back, where it never should: Bert’s fist . . . last winter. Afterward, snow and blood. Then, the outhouse.
She flung the damp sheet away with a suppressed cry, hurling herself from the bed. Trembling, she leaned heavily against the bureau.
What now, Bert? I’ve got sixty-five cents in a jar in the kitchen.
Dressed, she roamed the four sparsely furnished rooms.
What furnishings they had, apart from the wicker rocker, Bert had haggled off a foreclosed couple moving back east. Would she soon be carrying this small collection down to the street to sell?
A finger absently dragged across the top of a bureau and the back of a chair came away soiled. Though Nell cleaned daily with a damp cloth, in the warm months dust collected on every surface, drifting up from passing wagons and buggies on the unpaved street below.
She had fed and bathed the baby and set him on the floor with wooden blocks and a battered pie tin when she heard steps on the outside stairs. Crossing to the open door, she was perplexed to see the Lundeens, Laurence and Juliet.
Nell knew the two only by sight; they were Methodist, not Catholic. Laurence owned a dry-goods store, a bank, and a brand-new lumberyard. He sat on the school board and his son, George, had graduated from Harvard this past spring. Did Herbert owe them money?
“May we come in?” Juliet Lundeen asked as Nell opened the screen door. “We won’t stay but a minute, but we wanted to pay a call.”
“Please. The apartment is very warm, but there’s cool tea.” Ignoring the offer, Mr. Lundeen removed his Panama hat and followed his wife into the stifling living room. He had the rosy, healthy complexion common to Scandinavian faces, and his eyes were the unclouded blue of bachelor’s buttons.
“We’ll only be a minute,” Mrs. Lundeen repeated.
“Please have a seat, at least. It’s kind of you to call.”
Diminutive Juliet Lundeen, with her prematurely graying auburn hair and small, eloquent hands, sat on a straight chair, the soles of her black calfskin boots barely brushing the floor. Though her frame was delicate, Nell suspected that the woman was not in the least fragile. Bent a little forward, as if by urgency, Juliet said, “We were saddened to hear of Herbert’s death. And shocked. My goodness, he was so young. And the two of you with a darling baby.”
As though he understood, Hilly proffered Mrs. Lundeen a wooden block. She bent and kissed his hand. Laurence, now settled into the rocker, cleared his throat. “We want to be useful, Mrs. Stillman,” he said, his tone both avuncular and businesslike. “May I call you Nell?”
Nell was amazed that these people knew her name. And Bert’s. And that here they were, wanting “to be useful.”
“Laurence is president of the school board,” Mrs. Lundeen pointed out. “And we’ve been told that you have a teaching certificate. That was farsighted of you. Many women would not be prepared to provide for a child.”
My God, it’s true! thought Nell. I’m no longer a married woman!
Looking up from the pale Panama held in his hands, Laurence Lundeen again cleared his throat. “We’re losing our third-grade teacher this fall.”
“And the board was wondering if you might consider the post,” Juliet Lundeen pursued. “They’d rather not go afield if someone local is available. Someone qualified, of course.”
Nell reached for the arm of the daybed, lowering herself onto it. “To substitute, you mean? Until you find someone?”
“No, no. We’re offering you a year’s contract,” Laurence Lundeen said.
Nell’s eyes filled.
“Of course you’ll need time to think about it,” Mrs. Lundeen added.
Nell willed back her tears. “I don’t need time. I need work.” She withdrew a handkerchief from the pocket of her apron and dabbed at her nose. “I’m overcome,” she said.
“Don’t be,” Lundeen told her, rising. “We need a teacher, and you are one.”
His hand went to an inside pocket. “You may need a bit of cash to tide you over until September,” he said, handing her an envelope. “With an infant, there’s always something, isn’t there?” He smiled and donned the Panama. “Good day, then.”
Weak from the Lundeens’ improbable kindness, Nell clasped the envelope to her middle and slumped against the doorjamb. As the Lundeens rounded the corner of the street, she wandered back toward the kitchen. Had she owned whiskey, she’d have enjoyed a tot; as it was, she poured cool tea and sat down at the kitchen table, staring at the unopened envelope.
In the living room, Hilly crawled to the wooden chair and pulled himself to his feet. Toddling into the kitchen, he grabbed his mother’s apron and looked up at her in the demanding way that infants do. Still moving in a daze, Nell took him on her lap. At length she ran a fingernail under the envelope flap and extracted five twenty-dollar bills and a slip of fine vellum on which Juliet Lundeen had written, Nell—A small recognition of your loss. Use as needed. J. L.
One hundred dollars. As much as Bert had made in three months at the Dray and Livery. Then she wept loudly, and the child bawled to see her tears.
“AUNT MARTHA!” NELL CALLED THE NEXT DAY, as Bernard helped his wife down from their new buggy. “Glad I caught you.”
What fresh incommodity was this, Martha appeared to wonder, fanning herself with a handkerchief. “I’m in an awful hurry,” she said.
“I won’t keep you. I know the heat is bothering you.” Nell shifted Hilly on her hip. “I’m going to be teaching this fall, and I’ll need someone to look after Hillyard. I hoped you might know of a girl.”
“Teaching? Where?”
“The school board has offered me a contract for third grade.” Nell brushed Hilly’s hair off his damp brow. “It’s a godsend. I didn’t know which way to turn.”
“But you’ve only just begun your mourning. What will people think if you rush out to work?”
“I can’t care. Do you know of a girl?”
“Well . . .” Martha began, “Herbert’s cousin Roland has a daughter—Elvira. Left school after eighth grade to help at home. But her younger sister’s twelve now and old enough to take hold, so Elvira will be looking for a place. I’ll talk to the mother.”
“You’re so kind,” Nell said, holding Hilly close. “So kind.”
When the baby was down for the night, Nell stood in the semidark at the west-facing window of his bedroom. Below, voices rang out, mostly farm families starting late for home, wagons creaking, horses nickering, the dusk of nine o’clock lighting their way to country roads. One by one, they emptied Main Street.
On this, her third night of widowhood, Nell listened to men going in and out through the propped-open door of Reagan’s Saloon and Billiards, a strident piano accompanying them. And from a two-block distance came the hushed tinkling of the piano at the Harvester Arms Hotel, these reaching her like memories of country dances.
She had let down her hair and braided it into a single plait. Now she thrust it over her shoulder. Inside her cotton nightdress, perspiration trickled down the flume of her spine, and she reached back to wick it with the gown.
Soundlessly she fetched two kitchen