Until We Reach Home (52 page)

Kirsten let Tomte jump up on the sofa and gradually coaxed the two of them to make friends. Knute watched them warily. Torkel was still afraid to pet the cat, but Tomte began purring when Kirsten scratched his chin.

“Why is he making that noise?” Torkel asked.

“That’s the sound he makes when he’s happy.”

“Why is he happy?”

“Because you made friends with him. And you know what? From now on, whenever you and Tomte need someone to hold and I’m busy making dinner, you can hold each other.”

Even though he’d made friends with the cat, Torkel was still a weepy, fearful child, clinging to Kirsten wherever she went. When she set up the laundry tubs in the backyard to do the washing, he never ventured from her side as she scrubbed clothes and hung them on the line to dry. He was afraid to sit down on the grass and get his clothes dirty and didn’t seem to know how to play.

“Your grandmother obviously coddled you,” she said, sighing in exasperation. “She must have treated you like you were made of glass.”

Late that afternoon, when all of her work was finished, Kirsten grabbed the largest kitchen spoon she could find and dug a hole in the weedy garden patch, then dumped out the tub of laundry water. “Come on, let’s make mud pies.” She stuck her hands into the gooey clay, oozing it between her fingers. “Try it, Torkel. The mud feels nice and squishy.”

“No,” he said, backing away. “I’ll get dirty.”

“You’re a little boy. You’re supposed to get dirty.” She reached for him, but he squirmed out of her reach. “Come here!” She stood and chased him, catching him in her muddy hands and carrying him, kicking and crying, back to the mudhole.

“Hey, I’m the one who should be crying, not you. I’m the one who has to wash your muddy clothes.” She plunged his hands into the muck against his will, holding him tightly until he calmed down. Eventually, he stopped crying and began carefully trailing his fingers through the mud.

“There. Isn’t that fun? And look what I found.” Kirsten pulled out a fat, wiggling earthworm and held it up. Torkel took one look and let out a piercing scream.

“A snake!”

He scrambled to his feet and ran all the way to the house and through the back door before she could stand up. She ran after him with the worm in her palm, laughing and calling to him. “Torkel come back. It’s not a snake; it’s only a worm.”

Kirsten came through the back door at the same moment that Knute came through the front door. Torkel barreled into Knute and clung to his father’s leg with his muddy hands, screaming.

“W-what in the world . . . ?” Knute sputtered.

Kirsten looked at the mud-smeared father and son and couldn’t help laughing.

“Kirsten, he’s getting me filthy! You’re both filthy, and . . . Why are you laughing?”

“It’s only mud. It will all wash away.” When she finally could control her laughter, she pried Torkel off of Knute’s leg and held him tightly. “Listen, Torkel. Do you think I would do anything to harm you? Do you?”

He sniffed and finally shook his head.

“All right, then. I’m going to open my hand and show you something. It isn’t a snake. It’s a harmless little earthworm. Worms live in the dirt and they help the plants grow.”

“Do they bite?”

“No, they don’t bite. They don’t even have teeth.” He clung to her in fear while she slowly opened her palm.

“How do they eat their dinner if they don’t got teeth?”

“Well . . . I don’t know. Maybe your papa knows.” She looked up at Knute. He still didn’t seem to know what to make of her. Torkel looked up at him, too.

“I suppose they must eat things that don’t require teeth,” Knute finally said. “Unlike humans, who do need teeth to eat their dinner. Speaking of which, might I expect to see mine anytime soon? Or will we be eating mud pies tonight?”

Kirsten thought she saw a glint of humor in his colorless eyes. He was almost smiling. “No mud pies,” she said, laughing. “Torkel and I are going to put the worm back where it belongs and wash our hands, and I’ll have your dinner ready in no time.”

She hummed a tune as she and Torkel carried the worm back to the mudhole. It had been a very good day.

“Now that Torkel is less fearful,” she told Knute a few days later, “I would like to take him to the zoological garden in Lincoln Park. Maybe my sister Sofia will come with us.”

“Do you think he’s ready?”

“Of course he’s ready. It will be fun. For both of us.”

“Then you don’t need my permission to go.”

“The thing is, Knute . . . I feel so stupid for asking, but . . . I don’t know how to get to the zoo. I mean, I know where it is and that we’ll need to take a streetcar, but I don’t know how to ride on one. We didn’t have streetcars in our village back home. And I haven’t learned enough English yet to know how to ask questions.”

“It’s simple, really.”

He explained everything she needed to know and even drew a map for her with the street names on it. He gave her enough money for Sofia’s fare, too.

Torkel was wary at first, clinging to Kirsten as if they were glued together. “Does it have teeth?” he asked as they approached each animal’s cage.

“Yes, some of these animals have teeth. But all of them are locked in cages so they can’t get out. And look—that bear is sound asleep.”

“Why is he sleeping?”

“Because it’s very hot outside and he has nothing else to do.”

When Torkel finally ventured a few feet away from Kirsten, Sofia whispered in her ear. “Do you think he’ll ever stop being so fearful?”

“Of course he will. He’s already much better than he was at first. But do you know what, Sofia? You used to act just like him.”

“I did not!”

“Yes you did,” she said, laughing. “Our cottage could have caught on fire and you still wouldn’t have gone outside if Aunt Karin’s gander was on the loose. And now look at you—singing on a stage in front of hundreds of people.”

“I was scared stiff when I first started singing, but it gets a tiny bit easier every time. I’m going to get tickets to one of the shows when Elin comes back in September. I want both of you to come and hear me sing.”

“I would love to.” A pigeon swooped down to land in front of Torkel and he ran back to the safety of Kirsten’s arms. “You’d better get a ticket for Torkel, too,” she said, laughing.

Sofia smiled. “You could join the circus as a two-headed person.”

Torkel met Knute at the door that evening and told him how much fun they had at the zoo. “Next time you should come with us, Papa. The animals have teeth, but they didn’t bite us.”

“I can’t come, son. I have to go to work.”

“The zoological garden is open on the weekends, too,” Kirsten said.

Knute didn’t reply. He pried Torkel’s hands off his leg and went upstairs to change his clothes. Kirsten wondered how long he would continue to hold his son at arm’s length.

That night, she sat on the sofa with Torkel and Tomte, telling the story she had made up that had quickly become Torkel’s favorite. It was about a fairy queen who lived in a huge castle with a little gnome to do her cooking, two sprites to take care of her, and one to sing for her. She had an enchanted cat named Tomte who could talk.

“Tell me more about the fairy queen,” Torkel begged when she finished. “Please?”

“Well, let’s see . . . did I tell you that the fairy queen loved to dance?”

“She did?”

“Yes. She had a magical box with a tiny little orchestra inside it, and she would take it up to her enchanted ballroom and dance to the music every night. The ceiling of the ballroom was made of glass, and the fairy queen loved to look up at the moon and stars while she danced.”

“Who did she dance with?”

“She used her fairy magic to turn a little brown mouse into a handsome prince, and she danced with him until the sun came up and he turned into a mouse again. There. Are you happy now?”

“
Ja
. But why can’t I make that noise like Tomte makes when he’s happy?”

“Because you’re a little boy, not a cat. You make a different noise when you’re happy.”

“What noise do little boys make?”

“This noise!” Kirsten lifted his pajama top and tickled him until he giggled helplessly. The sound brought tears to her eyes.

When she came downstairs again after Torkel was in bed, Knute looked up from his book. “Thank you, Kirsten. You’re good for him. You give him the love that I’m not able to.”

“He needs your love, too, Knute.”

And so do I
, she wanted to tell him. But he returned to his book without replying.

Kirsten watched her husband from across the room and longed for him to hold her and talk to her. She didn’t think she could bear to be unloved for the rest of her life. He had told her before they married that it would be this way. But if little Torkel was finally beginning to heal, surely God could heal Knute’s heart, too—couldn’t He?

Now that Torkel was growing accustomed to playing in the mud, Kirsten wished they had a forest nearby that they could explore, too, like the one back home. She stood on her back porch one afternoon, surveying her dwarf-sized yard in frustration. She didn’t have a forest, but there was one oak tree.

“Come on, Torkel,” she said. “Let’s climb that tree.”

“I might fall down!”

“You might, but that’s part of the fun.” She carried him, kicking and protesting, to the scrawny tree. “Now watch. I can climb it, and I’m a girl. Little boys like you should be able to scamper up in no time.”

She pushed back her sleeves and began to climb, skirt and all, showing him how it was done. Fat old Tomte clawed his way up behind her, howling as if begging her to get down. When she got as high as she dared to go without breaking the spindly branches, Kirsten called to Torkel again.

“See? Look at me! This is fun! Tomte isn’t afraid. Come on up, Torkel!” He turned and ran toward the house. Kirsten shinnied down and ran after him.

Little by little, she convinced him to climb. “Pretend you’re an explorer,” she coaxed. “This is the mast of your sailing ship and you can look out for miles and miles and watch for pirates.” Every day he became a little braver and climbed a little higher. Eventually he conquered his fear and was able to scramble up almost as quickly as Kirsten could.

“Let’s surprise your father when he gets home and show him how high you can climb,” she told him when he was ready. She left him in the top of the tree and went to the front door to wait for Knute.

“Come out back with me,” she told him when he arrived. “Torkel has something he wants to show you.”

Knute took one look at his son, swaying in the top branches of the tree, and his face turned pale. He ran to the tree, horrified. “Torkel! Come down from there this minute!” Knute grabbed him in his arms as soon as he was within reach. “Kirsten, how could you? He could have fallen!”

“But he didn’t,” Kirsten replied. “Maybe you want to live your entire life in fear, but it’s wrong to make Torkel live that way, too!” She turned and stalked into the house.

Later, when Torkel was asleep and Kirsten’s temper had cooled, she went into the living room to talk to Knute. “Could you please put your book down for a minute?” she asked. He closed it and laid it on his desk. “I’m sorry if Torkel and I frightened you today, but I’m not sorry that I taught him how to climb a tree.”

“He could have fallen. He could have been hurt.”

“But he didn’t fall, and he wasn’t hurt. He had fun.”

Knute rose from his chair and Kirsten thought he was going to walk away from her. Instead, he began to pace in front of the window.

“Whenever we love someone,” Kirsten said, “we always take a risk. There’s always the chance that we’ll be hurt or that we’ll lose them. But would you have refused to fall in love with Flora if you’d known the loss you would suffer?”

“Of course not,” he said, never taking his focus from the window. “Those were precious years.”

“So how do you know that you aren’t missing out on a great deal of joy with Torkel? Or with me?” When he didn’t reply, she moved a few steps closer to him. “Knute . . . are you ever going to hold me in your arms?”

“I can’t,” he murmured.

“You aren’t being disloyal to Flora if you do. Don’t you think she would want you to be happy again, the way Torkel is happy? The vow you made to her was only until death parted you.”

He finally turned around to face her. “That’s what scares me, Kirsten. You’re expecting a baby. What if you die in childbirth the way Flora did? I can’t risk loving you if the same thing is going to happen and I end up losing you.”

“Life has losses. I’ve lost people I’ve loved, too. But God will give love back to us if we open our hearts to Him. I love Torkel as if he were my own child. And I want to love you, too. I can’t live without love, Knute.”

“I’m not sure I even know what love is anymore. Do you?” He turned his back again.

“Well, I know it isn’t a bunch of beautiful words people say to each other. And it’s not always a feeling, either. I listened to Tor’s words and had very strong feelings for him, but it turned out not to be love. I think love is an action. It’s what we do for other people. You reached out to me when you saw my distress, and you saved me from the streetcar. You did the loving thing again when you married me. I think that kind of love is a much stronger foundation to build upon than empty words and misleading feelings. You did the loving thing. And I can’t help loving you for that.”

He sighed and stared down at the floor.

“I’m not expecting you to feel the same love for me that you had for Flora. But you already have shown me love, and I want to return that gift by being a wife to you, in every sense. I want to comfort you with my arms and with my heart the way I comforted Torkel. It’s all right to let yourself heal, Knute. It doesn’t mean you loved Flora any less.”

Kirsten went to him and made him face her, then gently took him in her arms. At first he just stood there with his arms by his sides as if he were made of stone. But when she laid her face against his chest, he finally responded. His arms encircled her. He held her loosely, but he was holding her. It was a beginning.

She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.