Cheryl Reavis (13 page)

Even more uncomfortable in the ensuing silence, Caroline began gathering up the remnants of the picnic and putting them into the basket. She could feel Frederich staring at her, and she abruptly moved to rouse the girls to take them home.

“Leave them for now,” he said. “It is better to let Beata get over having her pantry raided before you go back.”

She had no argument with that. She had no desire to encounter an incensed Beata. But Frederich seemed to be in no hurry to return to the field, regardless of his earlier remark. She sat awkwardly, feeling his eyes on her again and not quite knowing what to do with her hands. She stopped just short of resting them on her belly.

She glanced at him. She had always thought herself unattractive, and she felt her ugliness even more acutely under his gaze. He’d had no hesitation about bluntly
saying
that he didn’t want her. She supposed that Beata must have told everyone by now that Frederich and his new bride slept apart—hence Kader’s certainty that she would still be under his influence.

“Your shirt is too thin,” she said abruptly. “You are going to get sunburned out here.”

“I have no better shirt,” he said. “My wife doesn’t sew.”

For the briefest of moments she thought he meant Ann, and she nearly challenged the remark. Ann is a fine seam-stress, she almost said.

But Ann was dead, and
she
was his wife now. She’d had no idea he needed shirts, and how could she possibly defend herself without precipitating a major listing of all her
other
wifely shortcomings?

She forced herself to look at him, finding his eyes waiting.

“Mary Louise doesn’t wander around in the dark anymore,” she offered quietly. “And Lise—”

“Lise has remembered how to laugh,” he finished for her.

He continued to stare at her, leaving her flustered and even more unsure. She had intended to counter his criticism by pointing out at least two positive results his marriage to her had brought; she certainly hadn’t expected him to agree with her.

But his agreement was short-lived. “Why aren’t you doing your part?” he asked.

Her chin came up slightly. “My part? I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Johann says the church women have committed themselves to knitting a supply of socks for the soldiers from the German community. I want to know why you aren’t helping.”

“How could I help? I didn’t know anything about it.”

“Where do you think Beata goes every Thursday afternoon?”

“I haven’t cared where she goes—I’ve been far too busy rejoicing at her absence.”

“I can’t put you in the wrong, can I, Caroline Holt?” he said.

“I didn’t think I was ever out of it.”

“If you aren’t, it is your own fault.”

“My fault—!” She abruptly broke off, forcing herself to stay calm. The children were sleeping. She was not going to
get into an argument with Frederich over socks. “Are you telling me you expect me to go knit?” she asked with a calmness she didn’t feel.

“I’m telling you that Johann remarked on your absence.”

“And my absence reflects on you,” she suggested, “regardless of whether or not I’m welcome.”

He didn’t answer, a maddening habit he had, she realized. The silence lengthened, and she shifted her position on the feed sack, and shooed a fly away from Mary Louise’s face.

“You’re going to have to tell me precisely what it is you require of me,” she said finally, forcing herself to make some effort to maintain the Graeber standards, obscure though they may be.

“I thought I had already done that. I thought I said plainly enough that I wanted you to stay away from Kader Gerhardt. I have just seen how much attention you paid to that…”

She got up from the feed sack, and he with her, but she couldn’t get out of the wagon without his help. He jumped down first, holding out his hands to her. She didn’t step forward. She had done nothing wrong and she absolutely was not going to be put in the position of having to explain!

He said something to her quietly in German, still holding out his hands. She looked into his eyes, trying to decipher his meaning.

But she couldn’t. Whatever he’d said had sounded almost…kind, and she’d learned too well that any kindness from Frederich was always followed by some cruel remark. “I don’t understand,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. I never understand you, regardless of what language you use.”

She let him lift her down, trying to ignore the feel of his warm hands through her dress, trying to ignore a sudden and ridiculous neediness that washed over her.

If I could just—oh God!

She wanted to lean against him. She wanted to explain to him about Kader. She wanted to tell him how afraid she was to have a baby, and she wanted him to put his arms around her and tell her everything would be all right, the way she’d seen him do a hundred times with Lise and Mary Louise. She wanted to feel his strength and his protection just for a moment so she wouldn’t be so alone. Who did she have in this world to rely on but him—and who despised her more?

She bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling, forcing herself to step away from him the moment her feet touched the ground.

“Is he waiting?” Frederich asked, and she whirled around. She would have struck him with her fist if he hadn’t caught her hand.

He restrained her easily, but she still struggled in spite of the fact that she was appalled by her own behavior. In a fit of blind anger she would have actually hit him. She was no better than Avery.

She abruptly stopped trying to get loose. “Please,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Frederich let go of her then. He stared at her for a moment, as if he had something he wanted to say, the look of disappointment she had come to expect all too apparent. Then he picked up the leather strips he wore to protect the palms of his hands when he worked in the fields and he walked away, leaving her standing.

I’m not going to cry,
she thought, watching him go. I
am not going to let you or Avery or Kader Gerhardt make me cry!

But she was going to cry, and if she didn’t get out of here, Frederich would hear her wailing like a child. She managed to get Lise awake, and together they half led, half carried
Mary Louise back to the house, wishing all the way that she could just disappear from this place the way Eli had.

What is going to become of us?

He hadn’t had the nerve to say the words to her in English, because there was no
us,
and he knew it. They were not friends and they most certainly were not man and wife. They were simply strangers who tolerated each other for the sake of propriety. It had startled him that Caroline was still afraid of him, afraid enough to physically try to fight off his accusations if she had to. He had no idea how to go about trying to make things better. He was a proud man. He had been held up to public ridicule because of her. If she would just—

Just what? She was civil enough, he supposed, helpful enough, dependable enough when it came to his children. But what an exasperating woman she was! She wouldn’t be ashamed of her pregnancy. She never seemed to care if he was disgruntled. She said whatever she had to say—or made light of him, which was worse. She looked nothing like Ann. She behaved nothing like Ann. Ann had cowered under Beata’s tyranny, and he was fully aware that he, perhaps wrongly, had aggravated the situation by refusing to involve himself in their arguments. He could have been a better husband. He could have been kinder, given Ann more allegiance, so that Eli wouldn’t have been able—

He didn’t know what to do, and he hated the not knowing. In spite of Caroline’s sad eyes, there was music and laughter in his house these days. Many an evening he had been able to continue working because he could hear her playing the piano and Mary Louise and Lise singing, hear them laughing together in a way that made him smile and not mind so much the overwhelming fatigue that had beset him since Eli had gone.

He gave a sharp sigh. Why had she been talking to the schoolmaster? As far as he knew, no one but he had realized
that Kader Gerhardt had fathered her child. But he didn’t know why Caroline had kept him from suffering any of the consequences. Did she love him that much? If she did, then Gerhardt’s indifference must have been nearly more than a proud woman like her could bear. God, how he detested the man! He had always disliked him, even before he knew about Caroline. Gerhardt was the epitome of everything he’d come to this country to escape, that terrible system of a man being judged by his father’s social status instead of by his own worth. And if that was the crux of what this new war was about—a man having freedom to accomplish whatever he could, then perhaps it was just—if one could only tell which side had the truer cause.

But he was not going to concern himself about the war, and he was not going to feel sorry for Caroline Holt. He had enough to do to keep his family fed. And, he had enough sense to know that breaching her locked door was not the solution to the problem, regardless of Johann’s unsolicited advice. He simply must not allow her to become a necessary part of his life. He must not spend the day hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He must not remember the way she looked by firelight. He would keep his mind on other things. Like where to hide the grain and the livestock before the army came foraging again. Like how to do the work of three men alone.

Easy enough, except that whenever Caroline came near, he forgot all those things, forgot his need for revenge on an unfaithful wife, forgot everything except the fact that he wanted to touch her. Her soft woman smell overwhelmed him, the essence of it so subtle as to be missed if one were not careful.

And he would have been far better off if he had missed it. Whether real or imagined, it filled his mind, tortured his body.

He wanted to lie with her.

He wanted her to come willingly to his bed. He wanted to make her forget the schoolmaster. He wanted to take the contempt she had for Frederich Graeber and turn it into desire. He wanted her to roll in his arms and whisper his name.

My wife,
he thought bitterly.

He moved too abruptly, causing the Belgian to shy.

“Easy, old man,” he said to the gelding, catching him by the bridle. “You be glad you don’t have to worry about such things.”

H
e could hear Mary Louise crying long before he reached the house. The back door stood ajar, and she sat on the porch near the edge, her legs straight out in front of her and her head bowed, wailing loudly.

“Mary Louise!” he called, trying to manage the horses and see about her as well.

She got up immediately, bounding out into the rain and wrapping her arms around his knees.

“No—Mary Louise, you’ll get wet,” he said, reaching down with one hand to try to lift her.

But she was already wet, soaked to the skin. “What is it? What is wrong with you?” he asked.

She wouldn’t let go of his legs, and the unlame Belgian began to prance nervously. “Caroline!” he yelled toward the house. “Come get this child!”

No one answered him.

“Caroline! Beata!” He tried to bend down. “Come here, Mary Louise. Tell Papa what—”

She immediately grabbed him around the neck, still crying.

“What is it? Are you hurt?” he asked, standing up with her. He tied the Belgians to the porch post with one hand and stepped under the shelter of the eaves out of the rain. He stood for a moment, letting Mary Louise cling to him before
he made her look at him.

“What is the matter?”

“I’m-lost—Papa,” she managed to say between sobs, hiding her face in his shoulder again.

“Lost? No, you’re not lost, Mary Louise. Stop crying now. Stop.”

She lifted her head and looked at him doubtfully, her face threatening to crumple again.

“Where is your Aunt Caroline?” he asked, his annoyance at finding Mary Louise unattended rising—and his anxiety. The mental picture of Caroline and Kader Gerhardt talking today rose unbidden in his mind.

“Asleep,” Mary Louise said, sticking her fingers into her mouth.

He pulled them out again. “Asleep where?” he asked more sharply than he intended.

Mary Louise began to cry again. “I’m lost, Papa!”

“Mary Louise—”

He swung himself and her onto the porch and carried her inside the house. Caroline’s apron hung on the peg by the washstand. No one was in the kitchen. The kitchen clock ticked quietly on the mantel—twenty minutes until five. “Caroline!” he called. “Lise!”

There was no answer.

“Mary Louise, where is everyone?”

Still carrying her, he started up the stairs.

“Making—socks,” she said.

“Making socks?”

He reached the landing and walked down the hallway to Caroline’s door. It wasn’t locked—for a change—but the room was empty, the bed neatly made. He tried to set Mary Louise down, but she clung to him harder.

“Caroline?” someone called from downstairs.

He went back toward the landing, still trying to soothe his fretting, rain-soaked daughter. Leah Steigermann stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh, Frederich,” she called. “I came to see if Caroline is all right.”

“I don’t know where she is,” he said bluntly, because it was the truth.

Leah stared up at him, a slightly perplexed frown on her brow. The frown deepened.

“I don’t understand,” she said as he came down the stairs. “She came to help with the knitting—I saw her walking across the yard with the children, but she never came inside. Lise did—she’s still there with Beata. But Caroline and Mary Louise—well, Mary Louise is here so Caroline must be here. I just wanted to make sure she was all right. I thought she might not be feeling well if she came all that way and didn’t stay.” She kept looking at him as if she expected him to explain it.

“Mary Louise,” he said firmly, making the child look at him. “Where is your Aunt Caroline?”

“Asleep,” she said again, only one finger in her mouth this time.

“Asleep where?”

“I think I might cry, Papa—”

“I think we have had enough crying. You must tell me— now—where is your Aunt Caroline?”

“All lost, too,” she said. “All lost, too, Papa.”

“Take her, Leah,” Frederich said, handing Mary Louise over. He took a deep breath. More discord, more disharmony in his house and in his family. He hated it. “You said Caroline came to Johann’s for the knitting?”

“Yes—but she never came inside. Johann had me cutting one of those awful ‘war’ cakes—a pitiful thing it was, too—not nearly enough sugar at all. It was a while before I went in with the rest of the women. Caroline wasn’t there— no one had seen her.”

“The schoolmaster was there?” he forced himself to ask.

“Kader? No, of course not.”

“Well, where would she go?” he asked sharply.

“I don’t know, Frederich.”

He walked to the back door and looked outside, torn between his anxiety at her absence and his need to think that nothing was wrong. Perhaps she’d gone into the church to be alone, or she’d seen something that needed tending in the barn or—

Or she’d simply abandoned Mary Louise and gone to Gerhardt.

The Belgians still stood in the rain—and Leah Steigermann’s horse and buggy.

“I’m going to look around out here,” he said, stepping off the porch into the mud. He untethered old Koenig and led him into the barn, leaving the other Belgian standing and calling Caroline’s name once as he went. He put the lame horse into his stall.

“I tend to you later, old man,” he said to him, then walked to the back barn door, his eyes scanning the yard, the orchard, the privy beyond. The rain was coming harder, wind-driven against his face. The door to the privy had blown open. There was no sign of Caroline there or any place else.

He walked back through the barn.

“Leah!” he called as he made his way to the other Belgian. “I’m going to ride back to Johann’s.”

“But I just came that way,” Leah said from the doorway. She had Mary Louise by the hand.

“Did you look for her along the path?”

“Well—no. It was raining so hard. I thought she’d be here- ”

“I’m going. Stay with Mary Louise—find her some dry clothes. If you would be so kind,” he added when he remembered he should not be giving her orders.

“Yes, of course. Frederich!” she called as he swung up on the Belgian’s back. “What do you think has—”

“I don’t know,” he interrupted. But he had his suspicions. Gerhardt had had a change of heart, a sudden recognition
of his obligation to his unborn child and to the woman who must love him, and today, in plain view of Caroline’s so-called husband, he had convinced her to come away with him.

He turned the big-hoofed Belgian sharply and prodded him around Leah’s carriage, heading toward the path and the church. And he pressed the lumbering beast hard, slowing down from time to time to let his eyes scan the line of trees or the field beyond.

He abruptly decided to take a short cut across Avery’s acreage of clover, unmindful of the damage the Belgian’s great hooves would do. He saw Caroline near the middle of the field and only seconds before the horse would have stepped on her. She was lying facedown, one hand outstretched as if she’d been reaching for something. He reined the horse in hard and slid to the ground.

“No,” he heard himself say as he rushed forward. “No!”

The rain pelted down on her. Her hair, her clothes were soaking wet. He grasped her shoulders and turned her over. The ground under her was still somewhat dry—she must have been lying here when the rain first started. He tried lifting her upward. Her head dropped backward, her bonnet slid off and dangled over his arm.

“Caroline—Caroline!”

She was so still. He stroked her face, pressed his cheek against hers.

“Caroline—” he whispered.
“Mein Gott.
Caroline, can you hear me!”

He ran his hands over her, searching for some injury, some wound. Perhaps she’d been shot by a hunter or by the foragers, those bored, careless young soldiers who had nothing better to do than to steal livestock and grain and fire off their guns as a lark.

“Bitte,”
he said, the only prayer he could manage. He found nothing to account for her present state.

“Caroline!” he said again, desperate now and giving her a shake. This time her eyes fluttered and she attempted to lift her hand. He caught it and held it against his chest as her eyes closed again.

The rain came harder; he had to get her home. He managed to lift her off the ground, but when he approached the Belgian with his burden, the animal shied violently, whirling away and galloping off across the field.

He swore out loud. He should have brought Leah’s buggy, and even as the thought came to him, he knew why he hadn’t. He hadn’t expected to find Caroline—except with Kader Gerhardt.

He shifted her in his arms so he could carry her more easily. Her head lolled. against his shoulder. He began walking back the way he’d come, as fast as he could walk, his body hunched to try to protect her from the pouring rain. By the time he reached the trees and the path, she was beginning to rouse again. She gave a soft moan, then made a sharp mewing sound, and she stiffened so that he nearly dropped her.

“Caroline,” he said, kneeling down with her.

“Hurts—so—” he thought she said. She suddenly clutched the front of his shirt. “Mary Louise—where—”

“It’s all right,” Frederich said, trying to see her face. “Leah has her.”

“Leah?” she murmured, dazed. She made the mewing sound again and doubled up, her head nearly touching her knees. “Frederich—” she managed. “I’m—it’s the baby—”

“Caroline, we have to get you home. I’m going to lift you up. See if you can put your arms around my neck. Try, Caroline. That’s it—we get you home quick now—so your baby can be born.”

“No. No!” she protested as he stood up with her. “It’s too soon—Frederich—oh!”

Too soon?

He had no idea if that was truly the case or not. He’d never bothered to find out how far along she was in her pregnancy. He had simply resigned himself to watching her grow bigger every day with another man’s child.

Too soon.

Too soon.

He carried her along, overwhelmed suddenly by the realization that this had happened before.

Not like Ann. Please, God, not like Ann.

He called out loudly as he approached the house, and Leah met him on the porch. He was completely winded and had to let her help get Caroline inside.

“Where’s—Mary Louise?” he said, looking frantically around the kitchen.

“She’s asleep—what’s happened?” Leah asked as they made their way up the stairs. “Is Caroline all right? Frederich, what’s wrong with her!”

“The baby comes now,” he said, and Leah immediately faltered. If he hadn’t been in her way, she would have bolted.

“Leah, you have to help me,” he said.

“No, I can’t—I don’t know what to do! I’ll go get somebody—”

“And who do you think will come here—for her? Would your mother come?”

“Yes—no, she can’t. She’s sick again. She’s been in bed all week—Frederich!” she said in exasperation because he wouldn’t step aside.

“I need you to help me!”

She stopped trying to get by him.

“I need you to help me,” he said more quietly. “The second door there.”

But she still hesitated, and Caroline gave a ragged moan.

“Bitte!”
he said for the second time that afternoon, he, who never said “please” to anyone.

Leah nodded and hurried ahead of him to open the door and to turn down the bed. She began to help him get Caroline out of her wet clothes.

“Where are her night things?” she asked, moving away and leaving the removal of garments to him.

He said nothing, his pride keeping him from stating the obvious. He had no intimacy with his wife whatsoever. He knew nothing of this room or her. Leah began to search without his direction, finding them in a lower bureau drawer. She brought a nightgown quickly and helped him bring it over Caroline’s head, neither of them looking at her nakedness.

Caroline began to shiver, the shivering abruptly overtaken by another hard contraction. Frederich covered her with the quilt, then hurriedly left the room long enough to bring another one from his own bed.

Caroline moaned loudly as the contraction intensified.

“She’s so cold—shall I heat some bricks?” Leah said anxiously.

“Yes,” Frederich said. “Do that. And heat some water—make her something hot to drink. There may be some coffee—if you can find it. I don’t know. Something—anything—”

“I’ll see about Mary Louise on the way down,” she said, and he nodded. When he looked back at Caroline, she was trying to get out of bed.

“I need them—” she said, reaching toward the small armoire.

“What?” he asked, making her lie back. “What do you need?” He searched her face, trying to decide if she was lucid.

“I put—the things—in there.”

He moved to open the armoire door. “What things?”

“Behind—the dresses—oh!” she said as another contraction overtook her. She was pale and shivering again
when the pain eased. “Please,” she told him. “I need them—”

He looked inside the armoire, seeing nothing but a bundle lying in the bottom. “This?” he asked her.

She was watching him intently, and she held out her hand for it.

“Yes,” she said, clutching the bundle to her. “Frederich, you have to—go. You can’t be—here—please!”

He understood that he was the last person she would want now, but he also knew that he had no intention of leaving.

“You can’t do this alone, Caroline. No one else is here but Leah. The Other women—I don’t think there is time for any of them to get here.” He had to force himself to look in her eyes. The reason he gave was the truth—but not the first truth. The first truth was that she was still an outcast, regardless of her marriage to him.

She closed her eyes. The tears squeezed out of the corners and ran down the side of her face into her hair.

I am your husband,
he almost said. But he had been Ann’s husband as well, and in his anger and humiliation he’d stayed away when she was dying.

He took the bundle out of her hands and untied it, recognizing the purpose of the sewn-together newspapers and rags immediately. The herb book he had not seen in a long while, and he didn’t want to remember when it had last been in his hands.

But the memory surfaced anyway, the driving need he’d had to pack away every reminder of the faithless Ann Holt. Lise had had to plead with him not to take away the rocking chair and the sewing basket with the sunburst design, or every trace of her would have been gone from his sight.