“Erich, I think the sheriff is ready to leave,” she said. “You might want to see him out.”

“Mommy.” Beth looked anxious.

Oh, Mouse, Jenny thought, that antenna of yours. She tried to smile. “Say, you two looked terrific on the ponies today.” Going to the refrigerator, she poured a glass of milk.

“Don’t you know better, Mommy?” Beth asked.

“Know what better?” Jenny picked up Tina, sat at the table with the little girl on her lap.

“Daddy told Joe when we were on our ponies that even if you don’t know better than to have Joe call you Mrs. Krueger, Joe should know better.”

“Daddy said that?”

“Yes.” Beth was positive. “You know what else he said?”

Jenny sipped her milk. “No, what?”

“He said that when Joe got home for lunch today, he’d find a brand-new puppy Daddy bought for him because Randy runned away. Can we see the puppy, Mommy?”

“Sure. Let’s walk over there after your nap.”

So Randy “runned away,” she thought. That’s the official version of what happened to that poor little puppy.

21

The new puppy was a golden retriever. Even to Jenny’s unpracticed eye, the long nose, thin face and slender body indicated good breeding.

The thick old quilt on the kitchen floor was the same one Randy had curled up on. The bowl with water still had his name in the jaunty red letters Joe had painted on it.

Even Joe’s mother seemed mollified by the gift. “Erich Krueger is a fair man,” she conceded to Jenny. “Feel as though I was wrong accusing him of maybe doing away with Joe’s dog last year. Seems as though if he got rid of that dog he’d a come out and said so.”

Except that this time I saw him, Jenny thought, and then felt unfair to Erich.

Beth patted the sleek head. “You must be very careful because he’s so little,” she instructed Tina. “You must not hurt him.”

“They sure are pretty little girls,” Maude Ekers said. “They favor you except for the hair.”

To Jenny there was something different about the woman’s attitude today. Her welcome had been restrained. She had hesitated before inviting them in. Jenny would not have accepted a cup of coffee from the ever-present percolator but was surprised when it wasn’t offered.

“What’s the puppy’s name?” Beth asked.

“Randy,” Maude said. “Joe’s decided he’s another Randy.”

“Naturally,” Jenny commented. “Somehow I knew Joe wouldn’t just forget that other little dog so quickly. He’s much too good-hearted.”

They were sitting at the kitchen table. She smiled at the other woman.

But to her astonishment Maude’s face showed worried hostility. “You leave my boy alone, Mrs. Krueger,” she burst out. “He’s a simple farm boy and I already got enough worries with the way that brother of mine is bringing Joey to the bars with him at night. Joe moons about you too much as it is. Maybe it’s not for me to say but you’re married to the most important man in this community and you should realize your position.”

Jenny pushed the chair back and stood up. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. With a woman like you there’s bound to be trouble. My brother’s life was spoiled because of that accident in the dairy barn. You got to have heard that John Krueger felt my brother was careless with the work light ’cause he got so flustered around Caroline. Joe’s all I got. He means the world to me. I don’t want accidents or problems.”

Now that she had started, the words tumbled from her mouth. Beth and Tina stopped playing with the puppy. Uncertainly they clasped hands. “And something else, it may not be my place but you’re awful foolish to have your ex-husband sneaking around here when everyone knows Erich is in his cabin painting.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m no gossip and this ain’t passed my lips but one night last month that actor ex-husband of yours came here looking for directions. He’s a talky one. Introduced himself. Boasted you invited him down. Said he’d just been hired by the Guthrie. I pointed the road to your place myself but let me tell you I wasn’t happy about doing it.”

“You must immediately phone Sheriff Gunderson and tell him what you know,” Jenny said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “Kevin never arrived at our house that night. The sheriff is inquiring for him. He’s officially listed as a missing person.”

“He never got to your house?” Maude’s normally strong voice became louder.

“No, he did not. Please call Sheriff Gunderson immediately. And thank you for letting us visit the puppy.”

Kevin had been in Maude’s house!

He had specifically told Maude that she, Jenny, had called him.

Maude had pointed the way to the Krueger farmhouse, a three-minute drive away.

And Kevin had not arrived.

If Sheriff Gunderson had been insolent with his insinuations today, what would he be like now?”

“Mommy, you’re hurting my hand,” Beth protested.

“Oh, sorry, love. I didn’t mean to squeeze it.”

She had to get out of here. No, that was impossible. She couldn’t leave until she knew what had happened to Kevin.

And beyond that. She was carrying in her womb the microcosm of a human being who was a fifth-generation Krueger, who belonged to this place, whose birthright was this land.

Afterward Jenny thought of that evening of April 7 as the final calm hours. Erich was not in the house when she and the girls got home.

I’m glad, she thought. At least she would not have to keep up some sort of pretense. The next time she saw him she would tell him what Maude had told her.

Maude had probably called the sheriff already. Would he come back here tonight? Somehow she didn’t think so, but why would Kevin tell people she’d called him? What had happened to him?

“What do you want for dinner, ladies,” she asked.

“Frankfurters,” Beth said positively.

“Ice cream,” was Tina’s hopeful contribution.

“Sounds terrific,” Jenny said. Somehow she’d felt the girls slipping away from her. That wouldn’t happen tonight.

Recklessly she let the girls bring their plates to the couch. The Wizard of Oz was on. Companionably nibbling frankfurters and sipping Cokes they huddled together as they watched it.

By the time it was over Tina was asleep in Jenny’s lap and Beth’s head was drooping on her shoulder. She carried them both upstairs.

Just over three months had passed since that wintry evening when she’d been carrying them home from the day-care center and Erich had caught up with them. There was no use thinking about that. He probably would stay in the cabin again. Even so she didn’t want to sleep in the master bedroom.

She undressed the children, buttoned them into pajamas, patted their faces and hands with a warm washcloth and tucked them into bed. Her back hurt. She should not carry them anymore. Too much weight, too much of a strain. It didn’t take long to stack the dishwasher. Carefully she examined the couch for signs of crumbs.

She remembered the nights in the apartment when if she was very tired she left the dishes stacked and rinsed in the sink and got into bed with a cup of tea and a good book. I didn’t know when I was well off, she thought. And then she remembered the leaky ceiling, rushing the girls to the day-care center, the constant worry about money, the relentless loneliness.

When she was finished straightening up it was not quite nine o’clock. She went through the downstairs rooms, checking that no lights had been left on. In the dining room she stopped under Caroline’s quilt. Caroline had wanted to paint and had been shamed and ridiculed away from her art. She’d “done something useful.”

It had taken Caroline eleven years before she’d been driven away. Had she too experienced the sensation of being the outsider who did not belong?