Fervent Charity by Paulette Callen Read Free Book Online Page B

closets up here you’ll find things.” Alvinia lowered her voice, though they were the only people on the second floor. “Some things, Nyla and Mary just got rid of. They say by the time Gertrude looks for it she won’t remember what all she had. What she doesn’t find, she won’t miss. Walter pitched in and helped a little, but Oscar didn’t do much. Just sat around and watched. He can’t do much I guess with only one arm.”
    “Ho! That man can do plenty with one arm if he wants to! He has a good well business going, though he needs a hired hand to help him.”
    They enjoyed their conversation in the quiet bedroom, away for the moment from the rest of the people milling around downstairs. Lena sat propped up on pillows against the bedstead, one leg folded under her and the other dangling over the side, Gracia lying in the crook of her left arm, which was supported by a pillow. This was the most comfortable way, she had found, to nurse Gracia, who was a slow feeder. Lena didn’t mind.
    Alvinia sat a little distance from her on the bed, taking up a good space, her blue and white striped skirts puffing out all about her. Her face, with its pale eyebrows, blond lashes and pug nose was given definition by wide-set eyes and a wide, well shaped mouth that smiled often, revealing large white teeth. Good teeth seemed to be a Torgerson family trait. Today, her daughters had plaited her thick yellow hair, starting the braids forward in the French way and pinning them at the back of her head in a neat coil. Lena had always thought her such a pretty woman. As comfortable as Lena was with her friend, she knew she was not to be trifled with. Lena had heard about Alvinia’s rage on the day Gracia had been born. Mary said that for a month, the only men in Stone County who weren’t afraid to talk to her were Doc Moody, and, maybe, Carl. She was still cool with Will and absolutely had no time and never would for Harlan Gudierian.
    Alvinia had saved her life, all right, and there was nothing Lena could ever do to repay her. “You’d have done the same for me,” Alvinia had said once, off-handedly, when Lena had tried to at least properly thank her.
    “I couldn’t have carried you into the bedroom.”
    They had both laughed out loud.
    They were laughing now, about Axel Kranhold, the head of the town council, and his wife—both of whom put on airs as though they didn’t live in the same prairie town and step in the same horse manure on the streets as everyone else did; about Mathilda Langager who bragged and bragged about a son who was worthless, dumb as a post, and would likely never amount to a hill of beans. But it was gentle laughter, the kind you reserve for family eccentricities, because these very people were downstairs, had contributed their food for the occasion, and fashioned their squares for the quilt that Lena would cherish and would teach Gracia to cherish her whole life long.
    It felt good to laugh. It felt good to feel good, to be in her best dress, to be surrounded by her neighbors and her friends, to be holding her own baby at her breast. It felt good to be completely happy.
    The second time Lena went up to attend to Gracia, she found herself alone in the same bedroom. She had just changed Gracia’s diaper when she heard two sets of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. They stopped at the bedroom door next to the one she was in. That was Oscar and Nyla’s room. Through the open door of the spare room, she heard Nyla’s voice, petulant and cutting. “Did she turn you down again?” Lena peeked out through the space left between the door and the frame, where the door swung open on its hinges. She saw Oscar with his hand on Nyla’s arm. He squeezed it and made her grimace with pain, and then he pushed her ahead of him through the door. As it closed behind them she heard Nyla again, this time plaintively. “No, Oscar...” If she pressed her ear to their door, Lena knew what she would hear, but she didn’t