Mary Clark - A Cry In The Night

“Mommy said you’re the only daddy,” Beth informed him.

“Mommy said that?” Erich put the girls down and smiled at Jenny. “Thank you, Mommy.”

Elsa came into the kitchen. Her face was flushed and set in angry, defensive lines. “Mr. Krueger, I finish upstairs. You want me to do something special now?”

“Upstairs?” Jenny asked quickly. “I meant to tell you. I hope you didn’t bother to separate the beds in the children’s room. They’re on their way up for a nap.”

“I told Elsa to straighten the room,” Erich said.

“But, Erich, they can’t sleep on those high beds the way they are,” Jenny protested. “I’m afraid we’ll really have to get them youth beds.” A thought occurred to her. It was a gamble but it would be a natural request. “Erich, couldn’t the girls nap in your old room? That bed is quite low.”

She studied his face, waiting for his reaction. Even so she did not miss the sly look Elsa threw at him. She’s enjoying this, Jenny thought. She knows he wants to refuse.

Erich’s expression became closed. “As a matter of fact, Jenny,” he said, his tone suddenly formal, “I intended to speak to you about allowing the children to use that room. I thought I made myself plain about the fact that that room is not to be occupied. Elsa tells me she found the bed unmade this morning.”

Jenny gasped. Of course it had never occurred to her that Tina and Beth might have gotten into that bed when they were wandering around before she woke up.

“I’m sorry.”

His face softened. “It’s all right, darling. Let the girls nap in the beds they used last night. We’ll order youth beds for them immediately.”

Jenny prepared soup for the children, then took them upstairs. As she pulled down the shades, she said, “Now, look, you two, when you wake up, I don’t want you getting into any other beds. Understand?”

“But we always get into your bed at home,” Beth said, her tone injured.

“That’s different. I mean any other beds in this house.” She kissed them gently. “Promise. I don’t want Daddy to get upset.”

“Daddy yelled loud,” Tina murmured, her eyes closing. “Where’s my present?”

The cakes of soap were on the night table. Tina slipped hers under her pillow. “Thank you for giving that to me, Mommy. We didn’t get into your bed, Mommy.”

Erich had begun slicing turkey for sandwiches. Deliberately Jenny closed the door that shut the kitchen off from the rest of the house.

“Hi,” she said. Putting her arms around him, she whispered, “Look, we had our wedding dinner with the children. At least let me fix our first by-ourselves meal on Krueger Farm and you pour us some of that champagne we never got around to finishing last night.”

His lips were on her hair. “Last night was beautiful for me, Jenny. Was it for you?”

“It was beautiful.”

“I didn’t get much done this morning. All I could think of is how you look when you’re asleep.”

He made a fire in the cast-iron stove and they sipped the champagne and ate the sandwiches, curled up together on the couch in front of it. “You know,” Jenny said, “walking around today made me realize the sense of continuity this farm has. I don’t know my roots. I don’t know if my people lived in the city or country. I don’t know if my birth mother liked to sew or paint or if she could carry a tune. It’s so wonderful that you know everything about your people. Just looking at the burial plot made me appreciate that.”

“You went to the burial plot?” Erich asked quietly.

“Yes, do you mind?”

“Then you saw Caroline’s grave?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you probably wondered why she and my father aren’t together the way the others are?”

“I was surprised.”

“It isn’t any mystery. Caroline had those Norwegian pines planted. At that time she told my father she wanted to be buried at the south end of the graveyard where the pines would shelter her. He never really approved, but he respected her wishes. Before he died he told me he’d always expected to be placed in the grave next to his parents. Somehow I felt that was the right thing to do for both of them. Caroline always wanted more freedom than my father would give her anyway. I think that afterward he regretted the way he ridiculed her art until she threw out her sketch pad. What difference would it have made if she’d painted instead of making quilts? He was wrong. Wrong!”

He paused, staring into the fire. Jenny felt that Erich seemed to be unaware of her presence. “But so was she,” he whispered.

With a tremor of anxiety Jenny realized that for the first time Erich was hinting that the relationship between his mother and father had been troubled.

Jenny settled into a daily routine that she found immensely satisfying. Each day she realized how much she had missed by being away from the children so much. She learned that Beth, the practical, quiet child, had a definite musical talent and could pick out simple tunes on the spinet in the small parlor after hearing them played only a few times. Tina’s whiny streak vanished as she blossomed in the new atmosphere. She who had always cried so easily became positively sunny-dispositioned and showed signs of a natural sense of humor.

Erich usually left for the studio by dawn and never returned until noon. Jenny and the girls had breakfast around eight and at ten o’clock, when the sun was becoming stronger, bundled up in snowsuits and went for a walk.

The walks soon assumed a pattern. First the chicken house, where Joe taught the girls to collect the fresh-laid eggs. Joe had decided that Jenny’s presence had saved his job after Baron’s accident. “I bet if Mr. Krueger wasn’t so happy about your being here, he’d have fired me. My maw says he’s not a forgiving man, Mrs. Krueger.”

“I really didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Jenny protested.

“Dr. Garrett says I’m taking real good care of Baron’s leg. When the weather gets warmer and he can exercise a little it will be fine. And, Mrs. Krueger, I tell you, now I check that stable door ten times every day.”

Jenny knew what he meant. Unconsciously she had begun to check so many little things a second time, things she never would have dreamed of noticing before. Erich was more than tidy, he was a perfectionist. She quickly learned to tell by a certain tenseness in his face and body if something had upset him-a closet door left open, a glass standing in the sink.

The mornings Erich didn’t go to the cabin, he worked in the farm office next to the stable with Clyde Toomis, the farm manager. Clyde, a stocky man of about sixty with a leathery, wrinkled face, and thick, yellow-white hair, had a matter-of-fact manner that approached brusqueness.

When he introduced Jenny to him, Erich said, “Clyde really runs the farm. Sometimes I think I’m just window dressing around here.”

“Well, you’re certainly not window dressing in front of an easel,” she laughed, but was surprised that Clyde did not make even a perfunctory effort to contradict Erich.

“Think you’ll like it here?” Clyde asked her.

“I do like it here,” she smiled.

“It’s quite a change for a city person,” Clyde said abruptly. “Hope it isn’t too much for you.”

“It isn’t.”

“Funny business,” Clyde said. “The country girls hanker after the city. The city girls claim they love the country.” She thought she heard a note of bitterness in his voice and wondered if he was thinking about his own daughter. She decided he was when he added, “My wife’s all excited about having you and the children here. If she starts dropping in on you, just let me know. Rooney don’t mean to bother people but sometimes she kind of forgets herself.”