Until We Reach Home (27 page)

“Can we have some time to think about this?” Kirsten asked. She knew it would take time for her letters to reach Tor and for him to make arrangements to come to America. She had to stall until she heard from him.

“We can’t afford to feed the three of you,” Hilma said. “We have five children of our own.”

“But we don’t even know what these men are like,” Elin said. “Suppose we don’t like them—or they don’t like us?”

“Oh, you’ll have a choice,” Lars explained. “There are five young men, you see, and only three of you. Once you arrive, you will have time to get to know each other and then everyone can decide who is compatible and so forth. The three fortunate bachelors have agreed to pay back the two who are left out.”

Kirsten felt numb. Her sisters looked shocked, as well. No one seemed capable of voicing her outrage. Besides, there didn’t seem to be any way out of this arrangement.

“The day begins before sunrise,” Hilma announced, “so we all need to get to bed.” She must have timed this discussion so that she wouldn’t have to deal with all of their questions.

“Yes, let’s sleep on it,” Lars said, “and we can talk some more tomorrow.”

Kirsten wondered how in the world she was supposed to fall asleep. They said good-night and went upstairs to their room, but after the lights were turned out, Kirsten and her sisters all gathered on the same bed, tenting the covers over their heads and whispering so their cousins wouldn’t hear them.

“I’m so sorry,” Elin said. She hadn’t cried in front of Uncle Lars, but now the tears poured down her cheeks. “Writing to him was a huge mistake. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I wouldn’t blame either of you if you hate me. I just wanted to leave home so badly because—”

She stopped. Kirsten didn’t ask her to finish. She understood Elin’s secret and reached for her hand.

“It’s not your fault, Elin. Uncle Lars wasn’t honest with us. He should have told us the truth right from the start. I don’t blame you for this.”

“And neither do I,” Sofia added. “He should have told us the truth and given us a choice.”

Elin wiped her cheeks with the hem of her nightgown. “I don’t know what to do. It’s obvious that we can’t stay here—Aunt Hilma doesn’t want us and there’s no room.”

“It’s true. We aren’t really welcome here,” Sofia said. “I wouldn’t want to stay very long.”

“I promised you that we would stay together and that we’d have a home again, and I’ve let both of you down.”

Kirsten pulled Elin into her arms. “Listen, we don’t blame you. It’s not your fault. We’ll figure a way out of this mess together.”

“But I don’t know what to do,” Elin said again. “We can’t live here. Do you think we should go up there and see what those men are like? What the village is like? Maybe it is the home we’re looking for. . . . Oh, I just don’t know! And it isn’t up to me to decide, anyway. I’m willing to do whatever the two of you want to do.”

Kirsten knew her pregnancy was another complication to this decision that Elin wasn’t aware of, but she couldn’t bring herself to confess. What she’d done with Tor was disgraceful.

But what if Tor wouldn’t marry her, even after he learned about the baby? If she knew for certain that he wasn’t coming, then the best thing to do would be to go to Wisconsin and marry one of the men right away so he would think the baby was his. But Kirsten didn’t know how she could bear to make a vow before God to live with a strange man for the rest of her life when she still loved Tor.

Tor deserved to know that he had fathered a child. She had to give him a chance to do the right thing and marry her. If only she would hear from him. If only it was safe to send him a telegram. Kirsten was trying to think of how to reply to Elin when Sofia spoke first.

“I don’t want to get married right now. I’m not even seventeen yet. And when I do get married, I want to choose the man myself. I want to marry someone I love. Please don’t make me live in the middle of nowhere and marry a stranger.”

“This has turned out to be a disaster,” Elin said. “I was so hopeful when we left home. We were going to have a new life in a big new land where the streets were paved with gold.”

“And I thought we would be ladies of leisure with servants of our own,” Kirsten said, trying to lighten the mood. Neither sister saw any humor in the situation.

“Uncle Lars didn’t tell me the truth,” Elin said. “If he had . . . I’m so sorry. I’ll let the two of you decide. If you don’t want to go—”

“I don’t,” Sofia said.

Kirsten had to stay in Chicago until she heard from Tor. How would his letters ever reach her if she moved that far away? But how long could she stall before everyone noticed that she was pregnant?

“I don’t want to go, either,” she finally said. “But now what should we do? There isn’t enough room for us here. And we owe money to those men for our tickets to America.”

“Maybe we could try to find jobs here in the city,” Sofia said, “and pay them their money back. Aunt Hilma pays Inge to help her; maybe we can get a job like hers.”

“Inge sleeps on a bed behind the stove,” Kirsten said, “like a dog. And Aunt Hilma treats her like one, too.”

“How can we get jobs?” Elin asked. “We don’t even speak English. Besides, I don’t like living in the city. I would prefer to work on a farm that was like home.”

“I think Sofia is right,” Kirsten said. “If we could just get jobs here in Chicago and earn some money, maybe by the time we paid the money back we would be more familiar with America. We’d have a better idea what to do next.”

“I know one thing we need to do,” Sofia said. “We need to pray and ask God to help us.” Kirsten and Elin both stared at her. “Remember how Mama used to pray whenever she needed help with something?” Sofia continued. “When I was alone on Ellis Island, I was so scared that all I could do was pray and pray. I asked God to help me—and He did. He sent a friend to keep me company and show me God’s promises in the Bible. I also prayed that both of you would get better, and you did.”

“You’re right,” Elin said. “We should pray.”

“How?” Kirsten asked. “Out loud . . . or what? I’m not very good at praying.”

“It doesn’t have to be out loud,” Sofia said. “We can pray on our own, by ourselves. But we need to ask God what to do. He can help us find jobs.”

Kirsten climbed back into her own bed and lay down beneath the covers. She closed her eyes and tried to pray. The minister had done all of the praying in church, so the only prayer she knew was the Lord’s Prayer. She decided to try it.

She got as far as
Give us this day our daily bread
. . . and realized that it was a genuine plea. They needed God to take care of them and provide for them. Aunt Hilma resented every morsel of food they ate.

But when she got to
Lead us not into temptation,
Kirsten’s eyes filled with tears. She had fallen into temptation and had sinned. Having Tor’s baby was a huge sin in God’s eyes.

She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. She couldn’t pray. She had no right to ask God for anything. Instead, she cried herself to sleep.

In the morning they helped Aunt Hilma with the cooking and washing. Once the boarders left for work, Hilma allowed the three of them to go into the front of the house to clean and sweep. Kirsten was dusting the stair balusters when a man in a uniform brought the mail right to the front door and pushed it through a narrow slot. Aunt Hilma swooped up the letters before Kirsten could descend the stairs.

“I’m expecting a letter from Sweden,” she told her aunt once again. “I gave everybody back home this address.”

“Well, there is nothing here for you,” she replied as she sifted through the letters.

At lunchtime Kirsten took her plate outside and sat down on the back steps to eat. The tiny yard was barren except for a chicken coop, a few scraggly bushes, and clotheslines full of bed linens and dishtowels.

“I can’t believe we gave up our home and forests full of trees for this,” she said when Sofia sat down beside her.

“We’re all disappointed, but we’re here now, and we have to make the best of it. Did you get any answers when you prayed?”

Kirsten shook her head.

Elin joined them a moment later. “What are we going to tell Uncle Lars?” she asked. “I’ll do whatever the two of you decide.”

“I still don’t want to marry one of those men,” Sofia said. “I think we should ask God to help us find jobs here and pay the money back.”

“What do you think, Kirsten?” Elin asked.

“Um . . . I . . .” Maybe a letter would come tomorrow. Maybe Tor would ask her to marry him. “I . . . I don’t want to go to Wisconsin, either,” she finally said. She hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

They had to wait until after supper to tell Uncle Lars their decision. Kirsten wished they could talk to him without Aunt Hilma hovering in the background. He seemed much more sympathetic to their plight than she did. But Hilma obviously knew all about his soft heart, and she listened to their every word.

“We’re really sorry,” Elin began, “but we’ve talked it over and decided that we don’t want to go to this Wisconsin place and marry strangers.”

“But Lars gave those young men his word,” Hilma said. “They trusted us with all that money. It’s our reputation that’s on the line.”

“We’ll explain everything to them,” Elin said, “and we’ll tell them that it isn’t your fault.”

“And then we will work very hard,” Sofia added, “and pay back all of the money that the men gave you for our tickets. Maybe they can use it to send for new brides.”

“I don’t want to be sold that way,” Elin said, “and I don’t want my sisters to be sold, either. I don’t think Mama would approve. Thank you for all your help. I’m sorry if we let you down, but you should have told me the truth.”

“Would you have come if I had?” Lars asked quietly.

“I . . . I think I would have tried to find another way.”

Kirsten remembered why Elin had run away and knew that if Lars had told her the truth, Elin would have faced an impossible choice.

“You look around,” Uncle Lars said, “and you’ll see some terrible living conditions here in the city and very few opportunities for young, unmarried women, especially if they don’t speak the language. It’s easy for people to take advantage of you.”

“People like us have to work very hard for a living,” Hilma added.

“I might be able to find you a job in a factory,” Lars continued, “or scrubbing laundry at a hotel. But I would be letting your mother down for certain. Factories and sweatshops are terrible places to work, with long days and very little money.”

“And there are very few decent places where young, unmarried women can live,” Hilma said.

Her husband nodded in agreement. “These boys in Wisconsin are honorable, God-fearing young men. Your mother would approve of them, I’m sure. And the countryside is like home. Your life on their farms would be just like home. Believe me, what they’re offering you is much better than working ten hours a day, six days a week, for a few measly dollars pay.”

“But we don’t want to go,” Sofia said.

Uncle Lars exhaled in frustration. “I don’t understand why you won’t at least go up there and meet these men. See what the place is like before you decide. You might like it.”

“If we went there, we would have even more expectations placed on us,” Elin said.

“And we would owe them even more money for our train tickets,” Kirsten added.

They had reached a dead end. In the strained interval that followed, it was clear that none of them was happy with the situation. Surprisingly, Aunt Hilma broke the impasse, coming to their defense.

“They do know how to work hard,” she said. “I suppose they could find jobs as domestics. We could ask Pastor Johnson if he knows of a family from church who needs servants.”

“You would rather work hard all day long for some rich lady instead of your own husband and family?” Lars asked. “You’d rather clean someone else’s home when you could be tending your own?”

“If we have to,” Elin said, “then that’s what we’ll do.”

Kirsten wondered how Elin really felt. She had never told them her opinion, but had let Kirsten and Sofia decide. Would Elin choose to go to Wisconsin?

“I want you to know,” Elin continued, “that I feel very bad for the young men who paid our way. I would like to write to them and tell them that we’re sorry.”

“Apologies won’t replace their money,” Hilma said. “They had to work hard for those dollars. You’ll see just how hard when you try to earn enough to pay them back.”

“Even so, I would like to have their addresses, if you don’t mind. I would like to explain our decision and tell them that it isn’t your fault.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” Lars said.

“And we want to pay you back, too, Aunt Hilma,” Elin continued. “Once we find jobs, we’ll pay back what we owe you for our room and board.”

Hilma waved her hand as if the money didn’t matter, but Kirsten suspected that she wouldn’t turn away any money if it was offered. As soon as Lars gave Elin the address in Wisconsin, she herded Kirsten and Sofia upstairs to their room.

“Why are you banishing us to our room?” Kirsten asked as she sank down on the bed. “It’s too early to go to sleep.”

“I know. But I think Uncle Lars is disappointed in us, so we probably should stay out of his way. I’m going to try to write a letter of apology to our would-be husbands.” She got out several sheets of writing paper, while Sofia opened their mother’s Bible and began reading silently.

Kirsten decided to write another letter to Tor. He needed to come over and marry her immediately. He had to rescue her. But where would he get the money? His father had been against their marriage, so she doubted if he would pay for Tor’s ticket. That stingy old grouch used to have a fit if someone stole a penny candy from his store. Kirsten should have remembered that. And she should have remembered that Tor already chose his father’s store over her.

Maybe she had made a mistake. Maybe she should have let the doctors deport her back to Sweden. But after reading Elin’s diary, the thought of returning to Uncle Sven had terrified her. And now she might have made a second mistake in not going to Wisconsin. If Tor didn’t come, she would need to get married very soon to give her baby a name. Who else would take care of them?