Northern Lights Trilogy (83 page)

Kaatje studied her, relaxed enough to finally observe her pale, clammy skin and quick breathing. “Elsa? Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Elsa gasped, placing a hand on her abdomen. “Just preparing to bring yet another babe into this world.”

Kaatje mumbled her profuse apologies all the way up the stairs, calling for Mrs. Hodge as they went. The children came running, their eyes wide as they saw their mothers’ tear-stained cheeks. “Elsa is about to have her baby,” Kaatje said, curbing their countless questions. “Be good children and stay with Mrs. Hodge. Do what she tells you.”

Elsa concentrated on reaching the master bedroom and on the contractions that grasped her body every few minutes. “The doctor,” she reminded Kaatje.

“Oh yes!” She turned toward the stairs again. “Mrs. Hodge! Send for the doctor!” Then she turned back and continued to support Elsa as they moved toward the bedroom. “I am so sorry, Elsa. I don’t know what got into me.”

“Stop apologizing,” Elsa said. “You obviously had to get it out of your system.”

“But heavens! I even broke a teacup!”

“Probably what you feel like doing to Soren,” Elsa said. “Just remind me to keep the crystal away from you if it ever happens again.”

“I don’t think it will,” Kaatje said, sighing as they sat down together on the massive four-poster’s mattress. She rose immediately to help Elsa change into a loose nightshift, then lifted her legs onto the bed. “I suppose you’re right—I just needed to work it through. All that worry. All that anger. I feel worlds better.”

“Terrific. I wish I did,” Elsa quipped.

Kaatje laughed and bustled about, gathering linens and a basin for some extra water. She paused by Elsa’s side. “I’m truly very sorry. You’ve never given me reason to doubt you.”

“Enough. You’re forgiven. As long as you track down the doctor for me.”

“Even if I have to go searching for him myself,” Kaatje promised. She left the room then, and Elsa was left to her own thoughts. She rolled on her side as another contraction gripped her center, from the small of her back all the way around her belly, and clutched at what had once been Peder’s pillow. All at once, the longing for him overwhelmed
her. She pulled the pillow toward her, wishing she could remember exactly how it felt to be in Peder’s arms. How could she do this? How could she bear another of Peder’s children without him waiting in the next room? The melancholy quickly brought tears to her eyes and dampened the pillow beneath her face.

Elsa missed him for more reasons than the birth. She knew he would know what to do with Tora and Trent. What to do for Kaatje, to appease her fears. He did not always know just what to say, she mused with a mirthless chuckle, remembering how he used to nettle her by blurting out something captainesque rather than feeling her fears. But he had gotten better at it all … The tears came faster as she thought about his deep green eyes and the sunlight in his hair.

After a moment, she rose and padded over to her desk, lighting a lamp beside it. Outside, an uncommon late-winter storm sent fat flakes floating down past her window. She opened a portfolio and dug down to the bottom, where she had hidden illustrations she had been unwilling to see for months. Peder on deck, at the wheel, staring out to sea, in the ratlines, up in the crow’s nest. They were pictures that had been printed in the newspapers, pictures that made “Captain Ramstad” as famous as his wife. She supposed a nation of women fell in love with him along with her, she mused silently.

“Oh, Peder,” she mumbled. The tears ran off her cheeks and dripped onto the canvas, making a smeared spot on his shoulder. How she ached for that shoulder, those arms!

A contraction ripped through her body, making her gasp. It was stronger this time and closely followed by another. Mrs. Hodge came in and scolded her for being out of bed. Nearing Elsa, and seeing her drawings, her tone softened. “Ah, child. He is here,” she said, taking her by the shoulders and leading her to the bed. “He’s here in spirit, waiting to welcome your child to the world.”

The baby was born four hours later. She didn’t cry, which concerned Elsa at first, but she took to the breast without hesitation and the doctor confirmed that all seemed to be in working order.

Later, everyone gathered around the bed to admire the child. “Maybe she just knows you needed some peace in the household,” Kaatje said gently.

“Or maybe she’ll blow all at once,” Kristian said, gazing at his sister in awe. “Like a steam engine.”

The adults laughed.

“What will you call her?” Mrs. Hodge asked.

Elsa considered her daughter, so tiny, so perfect. She had Peder’s wavy brown hair, and lots of it.

“Eve,” she said. “Since she was born on the eve of a new day for me. A new life for us all. Next month, we sail.”

A
s March wore on, Kaatje grew more and more restless. When Elsa’s precious tulip bulbs began to emerge in their bright spring green foliage, Kaatje longed to see for herself how the land looked in the Skagit Valley. She was kneeling one day by the tulips, her hands in the dirt, checking to see how thawed the ground was, when Elsa opened the front door. Kaatje picked up a handful, held it, then released it in a clump. “Perfect for planting,” she said.

“You’ll need to go soon,” Elsa said, Eve on her shoulder.

“If your soil here is any indication, I need to get back shortly to break up sod and plant.”

Elsa nodded somberly. “I will miss you.”

“And I you,” Kaatje said, rubbing the dirt from her palms as she stood. “I feel better though, since Eve seems to be doing so well. You’ll leave yourself in what? Two weeks?”

“Yes. If I can get our affairs in order.”

Kaatje climbed the steps and shivered a bit. “Still nippy for spring, don’t you think?”

“Yes. But I am so glad for the sun you will not hear a complaint upon my lips.”

Kaatje laughed. It had been a particularly damp and gloomy
winter. Today the skies were a deep blue with white, fluffy clouds. The children were out playing at the park under the watchful eye of Mrs. Hodge. The woman had been such a blessing to Elsa in this difficult time. Kaatje was glad for her presence. After much cajoling, Mrs. Hodge had agreed to accompany Elsa on her first voyage without Peder. If it went well, she said she would consider others. Without her help, Kaatje doubted that Elsa would have actually moved forward with her plans to captain the
Grace
, newly christened from Ramstad Yard and brought to Seattle by Riley. Part of her wished Elsa’s plans had been hobbled—that she hadn’t convinced Mrs. Hodge to join her; for the risk she was taking frightened Kaatje. Yet what could she say? She herself was considering Alaska!

The two friends went in the house and settled in the parlor. “I’m a bit afraid of going home, you know,” Kaatje confessed, returning to her earlier thoughts.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’ve gotten used to your soft life. I can already feel the aching muscles I’ll have after a few days’ work.”

“I can understand that. Life aboard ship isn’t exactly the same as that of a Seattle socialite, either.”

“You can’t mean you’ll do manual labor.”

“Anything I can. It’s important for the men to see me doing tasks alongside them. If I didn’t, it would be difficult to garner their respect.”

Kaatje shook her head. “I don’t know how you’ll do it. Even with Mrs. Hodge’s help. How can you mother two children and captain a ship?”

Elsa smiled. “The same way you’ve mothered two children—without assistance—and managed a farm.”

Kaatje returned her smile ruefully. “It’ll be easier now. The girls are getting older and becoming more of a help.” For the thousandth time, her fears resurfaced and she wondered what her life would be like without Jessie. How Christina and she would miss her! A part of her,
when she was honest with herself, longed to leave Seattle and place more distance between Jessie and Tora. Not that Tora would be unable to find her. It was just something Kaatje could not explain, an urgency to
escape
. Somehow, once she was out of the city streets, the blocks of two-story homes and storefronts, and into the broad, open skies of the Skagit Valley, she felt she would breathe easier. As if Tora would be less likely to seek them there than at her sister’s home.

Eve fussed on Elsa’s shoulder, and Elsa moved to turn her around so the baby could see the light from the window. “She could sit still for hours, watching the trees and sunlight through that window,” Elsa said.

“She’ll like the sails and sounds of the ocean.”

“As will I,” Elsa said. She paused, obviously thinking. “When Peder died, I couldn’t get off that ship fast enough. Now, stepping aboard the
Grace
, it’s as if it’s another world for me.”

“Perhaps you only needed some time ashore. Time to grieve for Peder before you could see what he loved about sailing again.”

Elsa nodded. “My heart still is heavy each time I think of him. But it is getting better, I must admit. I only think of him a couple of times a day, rather than every hour.”

“Time is a welcome balm,” Kaatje said, remembering how gradually her thoughts of Soren lessened to only once or twice a week. Now, it was only once or twice a month. It seemed crazy, really. How could someone so dear, so important to her, slip from her mind like that? “It is God’s way of healing us. Unless we are allowed to think of other things, other people, it is difficult not to ache for our loved one.”

Elsa closed her eyes. “I am not ready to give up on Peder’s memory. I’m not ready to stop missing him.”

Kaatje nodded. “I understand. Eventually, your heart will want room for other memories. Not that you shouldn’t always honor and cherish Peder and who he was … It’s only that we have to move forward. If we’re stuck in the mud of yesterday, it’s hard to enjoy the cleansing baths of today.”

“Eloquently put.” She stared at Kaatje. “I will miss you so much.”

“And I, you. We knew it was coming.”

“Yes. But I didn’t want to think about how hard it would be.”

“We’ll have our letters.”

“Ah yes. Our letters. I suppose I’ll have to get back into the habit again.”

“Speaking of letters, have you heard from the Bergensers in Norway of late? Or those in Camden?”

“Just that letter from Mother last month I read to you. I have half a mind to take the
Grace
to Bergen and bring her here.”

“Carina would never forgive you.”

“Still. She could see America. Where two of her daughters have made a new life. Meet her other grandchildren.”

Kaatje felt she included Jessie, making her feel ill at ease again.

“How about the Skagit Valley Bergensers?” Elsa asked.

“Not much in the last few weeks. It is part of why I want to return home and see for myself. I miss all of them.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “And Tora? What have you heard from her? Or Trent?”

Elsa met her glance. “Nothing. I have not heard a word from either of them since I left Seaport a month ago.”

Kaatje nodded, trying to look nonchalant. But she knew Elsa knew her better than that.

It was an uncommonly warm, dry eve for late March, and Tora was glad for it. After finishing the supper dishes, she washed her face and then patted it with a flour-sack towel, looking out her tiny cabin window for Trent. As usual, he awaited her beneath a giant fir to the left of the cabin, staring out at the Sound. In the golden light of the spring sunset, he looked magnificent. She gazed down at her sad, secondhand dress, wondering that she and Trent were more in love than ever, yet she had nothing that she once thought would draw him to her. There was that sense of humor from God again, she mused, smiling.