man’? What’s that supposed to mean?” milkman Casey Birnbaum wondered.
Out in Elysian Fields, Nell agreed; composing her own obituary was perhaps eccentric and egotistical.
But as for the ‘Elysian Fields’?—look it up.
6:45 A.M., JULY 17TH, 1900.
Wiping egg from his plate with a scrap of toast, Bert cast Nell a dubious smile. “I’m not sure a good Catholic woman oughta enjoy the bedroom.” He reached to pinch her breast. “Like you did last night.”
Nell winced and pulled away. In bed he often treated her like a whore, but if she responded like one, he’d press, “Who taught you that,” though she’d never been with a man before their marriage.
Pushing back from the table, Bert rose to fetch his cap from a hook by the door. Turning, he grabbed Nell’s waist, squeezing it in a sinewy arm even as she stiffened.
“Now, girl,” he said, affecting a brogue, “no wild carryin’-on because y’ miss me. A man’s got t’ put food on the table and clothes on his lad.” He saluted the eighteen-month-old peeking out from behind his mother, clutching her skirt in his two plump hands.
Bert was a physical man, one who had to work off his impulses, and he looked forward to the lifting and hauling and driving of horses that made up his days at Kolchak’s Dray and Livery. Kolchak was a fair and canny boss, and he had plans for Bert. Horseless vehicles, that was where the future was, Kolchak had told him, and Bert knew that the man was right.
Back in the Wisconsin logging camps, Bert had yearned for a job like this, something with a future—a town life, a pretty wife if he was lucky. Well, he’d been lucky. But, by God, she’d been lucky, too. And she’d better be careful they didn’t get another kid.
“I’ll try to behave,” Nell told her husband, pulling back and laughing rather too lightly.
“And next time I’d appreciate meat with my eggs and potatoes. A working man needs meat.” Bert released her and swung away, out the screen door and down the outside stairs, admonishing, “Meat, Helen old girl!”
She frowned. He would insist upon calling her “Helen,” though no one else did.
“‘Nell’ sounds like a barkeep’s daughter,” he’d assured her often enough.
And “Meat, Helen old girl!”—where was she supposed to find the money for that?
Nell lifted the baby into her arms, watching her husband cross Second Avenue, whistling, headed for work. The heat of the day was already cruel. From beneath Bert’s heavy boots, a close-woven cloud of dust rose up, enshrouding him.
Summer heat pays no mind to death. The temperature was ninety the morning following Bert’s death.
Dressed, Nell sat in the wicker rocker, nursing the baby. It was important to feign calm, not to upset the child. Even so, she must make her way through a tangle of questions. The first being, where could she turn?
Panic swept through her with a chill, and she shuddered despite herself. Beneath her arms her dress was wet with cold sweat.
At the screen door, a hard, familiar knock.
“Come in.” Nell plucked a piece of flannel from her lap, placing it over her breast and the baby’s head.
Trailed by her husband, Bernard, Bert’s Aunt Martha let herself in, wheezing, “Poor Herbert. Only thirty-five years old. Just thirty-five.” Dabbing at her wet hairline with a handkerchief and laying a tapestry reticule on the table by the daybed, she turned. “The heat . . . and the dust. I’m not well. The drive to town has done me in.”
Nell noticed Martha’s gaze falling upon the wicker rocker, which the older couple had given Bert and Nell as a wedding gift. Martha’s eyes narrowed acquisitively. Then her finer nature appeared to prevail and she sank down onto a straight chair, the dry wood crepitating beneath her.
“What will you do now?”
Nell could only shake her head.
Tucking the handkerchief inside the cuff of her dress, Martha considered her husband, perched with hat in hand at the edge of the daybed—as if all of life were, for him, quite tentative, including this visit. “Bernard, where’s the ground-cherry jam and the preserved chicken? Left them in the buggy, did you?”
Shoulders sloped in perpetual resignation, Bernard rose, shambling down to the street to fetch the jam and chicken.
“Thought you’d be able to use them,” Martha told Nell. “I don’t imagine you and Herbert had much put aside for . . . something like this.”
For something like death? No. Bert’s salary at Kolchak’s had barely covered their modest expenses. There was nothing put by. Though Nell had a teaching certificate, the Harvester school board did not hire married women, especially not of childbearing age.
Another cold panic washed through her.
No money. No work. She couldn’t return to Wisconsin. Her father was dead, her mother living with Nell’s sister, Nora—who already had enough on her plate thanks to her shandy husband, Paddy; two young sons; and an acreage of no consequence.
“I’m not clear about something,” Martha pressed, adjusting her glasses. “Why was Herbert lifting a heavy trunk by himself on a blistering day?” Her tone implied that a fine Italian hand, possibly Nell’s, must be somewhere involved.
“No one else was at the livery. Ted Shuetty had gone home for lunch, and the trunk needed delivering. Eudora Barnstable had already sent a boy to see about the delay.”
Martha suspired audibly, pursed her lips, and threw her head back. “That one,” she said, referring to Mrs. Barnstable. “Imagine forcing a lone man to load a heavy trunk on a ninety-degree day.”
“She didn’t know he was alone.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s her way.” Martha whipped the handkerchief from her cuff, mopping her throat.
Nell was sorry she’d mentioned Eudora Barnstable. “May I get you a glass of cold tea? There’s a pitcher in the icebox. Or I can fetch water from the pump out back.” Hoping Martha would refuse, Nell didn’t rise.
“Here’s the jam and canned chicken,” Bernard said, appearing in the doorway.
“For crying out loud,” Martha told him, “shut the screen before you let in every fly in town.”
No refusal coming from Martha, Nell rose, the baby still in her arms. “I was about to pour cold tea for Martha,” Nell told Bernard. “You’ll have a glass, won’t you? And cookies. Only store-bought I’m afraid. Too hot to fire up the cookstove.”
Moments later, one handed, Nell set the tray on the table
