Mud Creek (18 page)

Helen frowned. “Of course, we’ll keep her here. This is her home.”

“You’d have to be with her every second,” Walt said. “I can’t be; I have too many chores. Are you willing to watch her constantly? How will you complete your own work? And if that’s to be your lot in life—where you simply act as nanny to an insane person—how long will it be before you’re crazy, too?”

At the notion of being saddled with the task of supervising Florence, Helen was filled with dismay. Yet what other option was there?

Florence had turned destructive and reckless. From this point on, there would always be a chance that she might grab a razor again or that she’d try something even more dangerous.

She’d survived this episode, but in the future, she might not be so lucky.

Still, Helen persisted. “If that’s what’s required for her to be safe, then I’ll just have to stay with her. I’ll learn to cope.”

Walt went to the front window and peered out at the buttes that shimmered on the horizon. Was he wondering what Helen wondered when she gazed at them? Was he wondering if he should jump on a horse and ride toward them? Was he yearning to escape?

Finally, he spun around.

“I’m sending her away, where there are people who are trained to care for someone in her condition.”

Helen gasped. “Sending her…
away
?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” Violet muttered.

“Shut up, Violet,” Albert snarled.

Walt ignored them, his attention still focused on Helen.

“There’s a women’s insane asylum in Minneapolis.”

“An insane asylum?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked into it a year or two ago—when she first started in with her nonsense.”

“I don’t think it’s
nonsense
, Walt. I believe she’s genuinely ill.”

“She’s ill in the head,” he declared, “and she needs to buck up and shake it off, but she gets in these moods. I’ve told her and told her to stop it—I’ve talked until I’m blue in the face—but she won’t listen, and she refuses to change.”

His comment made Helen consider Violet and her erratic behavior. When Violet grew wild and unpredictable, or the opposite where she was weary and morose, she couldn’t halt what was occurring. It was as though she was possessed by an evil spirit.

“Maybe Florence can’t change,” Helen said.

“Or maybe she doesn’t want to.” He sighed a long-suffering sigh, full of fury and regret. “I
can’t
deal with her anymore.”

Albert spoke up. “But an asylum, Pa. Are you sure that’s best? She’d be locked away with lunatics.”

“What choice do I have?” Walt responded. “Are you willing to watch her day and night?” Albert’s silence was his answer, and Walt shifted to Violet. “How about you? Will you play nursemaid to a sickly old woman?”

“Gad no,” Violet said.

“Besides, you’re lazy and unreliable, so Helen’s extra busy with her chores and yours, too.” It was a tepid compliment, but the only one Walt had ever paid Helen. Her brows rose in surprise as he continued, “Which means Helen can’t mind Florence, and the boys are in school, so they can’t help out. They shouldn’t be around her anyways; they’re too young to see all that misery. So if you geniuses have a better idea, let me hear it.”

They were an unhappy bunch, taciturn, ponderous, exhausted by Florence’s ordeal, by the aftermath. They had no suggestions, so it seemed Florence would be leaving. Then what?

Although she could be crazy, she knew how to run a household. Helen’s limited domestic skills had been taught to her by Florence. Helen could cook. She could do laundry. She could clean the house. But two houses now? Hers and Walt’s?

What about the other chores? There was canning and sewing and mending and milking and the other myriad of tasks that she and Florence could barely manage together. Was Helen to juggle it all on her own? How?

The garden wasn’t harvested, the canning scarcely begun. She and Florence were far behind schedule. How would Helen put aside all the food that had to be preserved for winter?

What about Carl and Robert? Was she to mother them?

The burdens loomed, heavy and taxing and onerous, and Helen couldn’t imagine how she’d muddle through. She nearly dropped to her knees and begged Walt to let Florence stay.

“It’s settled then,” Walt announced. “She’ll be leaving shortly.”

“When?” Helen asked.

“I’ll give her a few days, so the worst of the cuts can heal. Then we’ll head down to Prairie City.”

Violet chimed in with, “How will she get to Minneapolis?”

“On the train.”

Violet huffed, appearing aggrieved. “You have enough money for two train tickets to Minneapolis and for you to come back?”

“No. I just have to deliver her to Prairie City and sign some papers. The sheriff will handle it from there.”

So…he’s had it planned for awhile,
Helen realized. He’s been preparing.
Poor Florence.

“Will you take the wagon?” Albert inquired.

“No. We’ll travel on horseback. I’d like to ride down as fast as I can. It’s autumn, and I can’t risk hitting bad weather while I’m out in the open.”

“When will you tell Carl and Robert?” Albert asked.

“Tonight. After supper. But
you
can tell them.”

“Me?” Albert blanched. “Why?”

“With your mother going away, you’ll have more responsibility around here. You might as well start with this mess.” Albert might have protested, but Walt had turned to Helen again. “Here’s what I’m thinking.”

Helen braced. He’d already dumped several new loads on her, and she wasn’t in the mood for more. She almost clapped her hands over her ears to block out his words.

“You and Albert,” he said, “should live here in the main house.”

Helen was aghast at the prospect, but she kept her expression blank. “You want us to live with you? Are you sure?”

“No. I’ll move out to the cottage.”

There was no use arguing, so she said, “All right.”

“You’re about to have more jobs than ever,” Walt explained, “so it only makes sense for you to be near where most of them are accomplished. You’ll be caring for Robert and Carl, too, feeding them, washing their clothes, helping them with homework and stuff like that.”

“All right,” she said again.

Of all the chores, her having to care for the boys would be easiest. She wouldn’t mind, but as he went off on a tirade, divvying up more duties, she was overwhelmed with what it would all mean for her.

She yearned to say,
What if I don’t want to do all that? What if I
can’t
do it all?
Yet she didn’t raise the issue. He’d decided—and that was that.

And if she didn’t assume the increased burdens, who would? Violet?

“Once I leave for Prairie City,” he told them, “you three will haul my things over to the cottage and bring your things over here.”

“Violet, too?” Albert asked.

“Yes, Violet, too. I’m about to be a bachelor again. She can hardly stay out there with me, can she?”

As he uttered the snide remark, he flashed a look at Violet that had Helen squirming in her seat. She didn’t know this Walt, had never seen this side of him.

He was no longer the gruff husband and father with whom she’d been acquainted for twenty years. He spent his evenings out in the dark, with her much younger, pretty sister. He was about to be rid of his sick wife. He was shipping her to an asylum.

He was about to be a
bachelor!

There was no good end on the horizon.

“Now then”—he turned toward the kitchen—“I have chores and so do all of you. I suggest you get to ‘em.”

He grabbed his coat and walked out. Helen sat in a stunned silence. Albert and Violet were rendered mute, too.

It didn’t seem right, sending Florence away as if she was garbage they could discard out on the road. Yes, she was ill, and yes, she’d had a bad spell, but she was
Florence
. She was Walt’s wife, the boys’ mother, Helen’s mother-in-law.

Helen pushed herself to her feet and hurried to the rear door. Walt was crossing the yard, headed out to saddle his horse.

“Walt!” she called.

He whipped around. “What?”

“Will Florence ever come back?”

“No, I don’t believe she ever will.”

As he sauntered away, he was smiling.

*    *    *    *

“I wanted to lie beside my dead sons.”

“I realize that.”

“I wanted it!”

Walt glared at Florence.

They were at the small jail in Prairie City, and she was seated on the bunk in the only cell. Though it wasn’t the best situation, there was nowhere else to put her until she left for Minneapolis.

She was a forlorn sight, looking old and shrunken with madness and defeat. The cell door was closed, the bars separating them.

All the way from the ranch, she’d had spurts of temper, where she’d command him to turn around. Yet as quickly as she’d show a bit of spunk, her bravado would fade. She’d once again become the meek mouse he’d grown to loathe.

He’d like to shout at her, but what was the point? She was beyond sanity, beyond reason.

He sighed with exasperation. “What would you have me say, Florence?”

“You could say you were sorry.”

“For what?”

“You know what.”

She tried to stare him down, but her eyes were vacant and haunted. He glanced away, unable to hold her disturbed gaze.

She was asking him to be sorry, but for which offense?

For his selling the family store in Maywood? His forcing her west when she hadn’t wanted to come? His failure as a rancher? His pining away for a better, happier life that didn’t include her?

Marrying the
right
woman was assumed to benefit a man, but it hadn’t helped Walt.

When he’d been scarcely more than a boy, Walt’s father had picked Florence for Walt, had offered her up as the perfect girl. She’d been shy and submissive, the traits to prize in a bride, but the passive attributes were exactly wrong for the type of partner Walt required.

He’d needed a strong ally and confidante who would stand by him through thick and thin, who could pull her share of the load. Instead, he’d been fettered to a frail, quivering complainer who was always miserable, who was too weak to carry out her duties.

He was only forty-eight, and he was ready to live for a change. Violet encouraged him constantly, and her opinion had him eager to try a different way. He refused to spend one more minute shackled to Florence.

He’d spoken vows to her, vows before God that couldn’t be broken, and he’d begun to think he’d never be shed of her. But she’d given him the chance to be free, to start over. A husband had to endure many faults in a wife, but no man had to endure a wife who was a lunatic.

There were laws. There were hospitals. There was an end to the torment, and Walt intended to seize it.

“You shouldn’t have cut yourself, Florence.”

“The wind was blowing. What was I supposed to do?”

He pressed himself to the bars and whispered so the sheriff couldn’t overhear. “Your behavior made it possible for me to get rid of you. Are you aware of what’s happening? I’m so delighted by this conclusion.”

“Where’s Arthur?”

“He’s dead and buried, you crazy old coot.”

“I don’t like it here. I want him to take me home. Will you tell him?”

“He can’t take you home.”

“Is Helen fixing supper? Who is fixing supper?”

“Helen’s probably cooking supper—but not for you.”

“Helen’s a good girl.”

It seemed as if they were having separate conversations. “If you hadn’t sliced yourself to pieces, you wouldn’t have landed yourself in an asylum. This is all your fault. You’re going away because you’re insane.”

“I’m not insane. I’m tired.”

“When you’re in Minneapolis, you have to remember that you did this to yourself. Can you say that back to me, Florence?”

“What?”

“Say: I did this to myself. It’s my own fault.”

She shook her head. “It’s nobody’s fault.”

Walt snorted and walked away. The sheriff was in the outer room, completing the paperwork that would lock her away until some nebulous time in the future when Walt decided she should be released. But that day would never come.

He doubted he’d ever see her again, and considering all the years they’d been together, he should have felt something: regret, guilt, sadness. Even a spurt of relief would have been welcome, but he felt nothing, at all.

“Goodbye,” he said to her.

“Where are you going? Home?”

“Yes, home.”

“Finally. I didn’t think you’d ever be ready.” She peered around, as if searching for her bag and coat. “Where are my things? Out with the horses?”

“You’re staying here, Florence.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You made me travel all this way—against my will—and I’m
not
staying. Now open the door.”

He tiptoed over and whispered again. “I don’t want you at the ranch anymore, Florence. Not when Violet is there.”

“Violet,” she spat. “Who cares about Violet?”

“Me. I care—because she’s not you.”

Florence frowned. “She’s a wicked, wicked girl.”

He chuckled. “She definitely is.”

“I don’t like her.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

They stared and stared, and for a moment, she actually seemed lucid.

“I never wanted to marry you,” she quietly said.

He should have been insulted, but the feeling was mutual. “I never wanted to marry you, either.”

“And I hated that ranch. I hated it every day.”

“You certainly did.”

“I’m glad I’m out of there.”

“So am I.”

He left, and she shouted, “Walt!” She paused, waiting for him to turn to her, and when he didn’t, she screamed, “Walt! You get back here! Right now!”

There was a door separating the cell from the main room. Walt pulled it closed, but she continued to bellow, her words becoming more frantic, more enraged.

The sheriff motioned for Walt to approach his desk. He shoved over some documents.

“Sign here, Walt,” the man instructed, “and here and here.”

There was a loud bang in the cell, as if Florence was throwing herself at the bars, but they ignored her as Walt authorized her detention, effectively severing their marriage with no difficulty or fuss.