Lynne Marshall - A Doctor for Keeps

Gerda was already on the porch and halfway toward her car in the driveway. “See you there!”

“We’ll be by your booth for some aebleskiver later,” Kent said.

Gerda’s smile widened, setting off a network of wrinkles. “I’ll make some fresh just for you,” she said, looking at Steven.

She’d be manning the Daughters of Denmark bakery booth all afternoon after playing grand marshal. Somehow the old woman had become a figurehead for Heartlandia, and it was another duty she’d hesitantly accepted.

Pride broke into Desi’s chest and she waved to her grandmother. “I’ll be cheering for you!”

The car door closed and Gerda continued to smile as she backed out. It always caught Desi off guard how much of her mother she saw in her grandmother’s face. So far they hadn’t talked nearly enough about her mother, maybe because it was still too painful, but little by little they’d begun to forge their own cautious relationship.

After Gerda had gone, Desi looked at Kent. “Do I need an umbrella?”

“I’ve got it covered,” Kent said, obviously enjoying his first glance at Desi, shaking her up with his sharp blue eyes. “You look like a Scandinavian flag.”

Stopped in her tracks, Desi did a mental inventory of her choice of colors. A bright blue knit cap and red sweatshirt. “Gee, thanks. Just what every girl longs to hear.”

“You look cool, Ms. Desi,” Steven said, beaming at her.

Maybe she’d ignore the father and hang out with the son all morning. “Thanks, Steven.” She stopped herself from messing his shaggy, nearly white-blond hair, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate it—especially if he was planning to spend his allowance on her. And she had every intention of paying him back with the money she earned from her part-time calligraphy jobs.

“We better get going.” Kent nudged Steven along with a hand to his neck. Steven halfheartedly tried to kick his dad’s leg. Kent played along, kicking back, missing by a mile. The boy giggled.

Feeling a bit like a third wheel, Desi followed them off the porch toward the curb.

They rode over in a white—why was she not surprised—pickup truck, sitting three across with Steven between them. After a brief silence, Steven spoke up.

“The sons and daughters of Heartlandia first came together to start this festival fifty years ago,” Steven recited like a tour guide for the city. “The early summer festival celebrates our Norwegian, Icelandic, Finnish, Swedish and Danish heritage—” he stumbled over some of the words, but managed to spit them out pretty well for an eight-year-old “—from the early fishermen settlers first stranded on our coast.” He stopped long enough to swallow. “Our first peoples, the Chinook, saved and nursed our shipwrecked forefathers to health and taught them the secrets of hunting and fishing the waters of the great Columbia River.” A quick picture of Linus explaining the meaning of Christmas to Charlie Brown came to mind with the quiet yet capable way Steven told his city’s history.

“Okay, Steven, you don’t need to repeat your entire class presentation for Ms. Desi.”

“I liked it. Thank you, Steven.”

“As you can tell,” Kent interjected, “Hjartalanda is proud of both the Scandinavian and Chinook heritage.”

“We have a special celebration for the Chinook peoples in—” Steven screwed up his face, eyes up and to the right. “What’s that month, Dad?”

“October.”

“Yeah, October. Then we have a beer barn, too, so that gets the old farts to come.”

Desi sputtered a laugh before she could stop herself.

“Watch the language,” Kent warned benevolently. “And, Steven, that’s not exactly why we have the beer barn. It’s—”

“That’s what you said to Officer Gunnar that time.”

Kent flashed a sparkling look at Desi over Steven’s head. He enjoyed his son as much as she did. She lifted her brows. You get yourself out of this one.

“That was just an observation between him and me, and for your information, I said ‘geezers,’ not ‘farts.’”

Steven giggled. “Fart is a funny word. I like it better. Fart, fart, fart.” He dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“That’s enough of that.” Kent tried to sound stern, but the twitch at the corner of his mouth told a different tale.

Desi grinned at the father and son’s candid conversation during the drive over. Maybe, if she kept quiet, she’d learn a heck of a lot more about Heartlandia—or Hjartalanda, as Kent had called it—than she’d found out from her grandmother so far.

Steven taught her a hand game for the rest of the short drive over, where one person would place their palms on top of the other, and the bottom person had to try to slap the upper person’s hands. Something about his earnest approach to everything he did made her warm inside. He was easy to giggle, too, and she joined right in, even as she nearly got slapped silly from his quick reflexes.

They parked outside the central section of town and hiked up toward the main street called Heritage. Desi glanced far off at one end to see what looked like an official building, maybe city hall, with a totem-pole-type monument in front. She turned and gazed down to the other end, noticing storefronts, restaurants and other businesses in what seemed like a time warp to the 1950s architecture and style with evidence of 1970s expansion. One large building, six stories high, sat apart from the other mostly single-or two-story frames. It smacked of the Art Deco era of the twenties and thirties with geometric domes and lavish ornamental copper accents, which had turned green. Desi wondered if there was an ordinance about not building tall after The Heritage Hotel and Performance Center went up.

She’d slowed her pace to take it all in, and Steven grabbed her hand, pulling her along. Clusters of people grouped around the street corners and more lined the curbs with chairs and blankets to sit on. It seemed as if every person in the city had shown up for the parade.

“Move back, folks. Make way for the parade.” A sturdy, broad-shouldered police officer spoke to the thickening group on one particular corner. The guy was built as if he could make a living on the side as a cage fighter.

“Quit harassing the locals. Cut us some slack, Sergeant, would you?” Kent’s outburst made Desi tense. This wasn’t the kind of guy anyone in their right mind should want to challenge.

The intense-eyed, equally handsome and obviously Scandinavian male turned to Kent. The grim expression on his face broke apart into a wide grin. “You give me a hard time and I’ll haul your—” he glanced at Steven then back to Kent “—backside in.”

The men shook hands, and Desi knew immediately they were friends. Respect shone through Kent’s and the officer’s eyes, and something else, too—something that looked a lot like brotherly love.

The policeman with light brown hair and flashing green eyes bent to greet Steven. “How’d you talk your old man into bringing you to the parade this year?”

“I asked my piano teacher along,” Steven said, pointing to Desi.

Feeling suddenly on display, she made a closed-lip smile, stuffing her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. The officer looked her way and tipped his head, obvious interest in his gaze. She gave a single nod back.

“This is Mayor Rask’s granddaughter, Desdemona,” Kent said, reaching for her arm and encouraging her forward. “And this is Gunnar Norling, my best friend since grammar school.”

“Hey. Nice to meet you,” he said, casting a quick sideways glance at Kent, ensuring he’d get the lowdown later, before smiling at her.

“Call me Desi.”

“Okay.” He reached for her hand.

A drum-and-bugle corps rent the air, alerting the crowd the parade was about to begin, and Gunnar’s attention immediately went elsewhere.