Fran caught on. “Erich, how are you? So sorry to hear Jenny hasn’t been well.

After they hung up, Erich’s question: “What plans, Jenny?”

32

She went home on the last day in January. Beth and Tina seemed like strangers, curiously quiet, curiously petulant. “You’re always gone, Mommy.”

She’d spent more time with them in the evenings and weekends in New York than she had here this past year.

How much did Erich suspect about Fran’s calls? She’d been evasive. “I just realized I hadn’t spoken to Fran in ages and picked up the phone. Wasn’t it dear of her to call me back?”

She’d called Fran after Erich left the hospital that night. Fran had exulted: “I have a friend who runs a nursery school near Red Bank, New Jersey. It’s marvelous and goes right through kindergarten. I told her you can teach music and art and she has a job for you if you want it. She’s looking for an apartment for you.”

Jenny bided her time.

Erich was preparing for the Houston exhibition. He began bringing in paintings from the cabin.

“I call this one The Provider,” he said, holding up an oil on canvas in tones of blue and green. High on the branches of an elm, a nest could be seen. The mother bird was flying toward the tree, a worm in its beak. The leaves sheltered the nest so it was impossible to see the baby birds. But somehow the viewer sensed their presence.

“The idea for that painting came to me that first night on Second Avenue, when I came on you carrying the girls,” Erich said. “You had a purposeful look on your face and you could just tell you were anxious to get the kids home and fed.”

His tone was affectionate. He put his arm around her. “How do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

The one time she was not nervous with Erich was when she studied his work. This was the man with whom she had fallen in love, the artist whose wondrous talent at once could capture the simplicity of daily life and the complicated emotions that attended that simplicity.

The trees in the background. She recognized the line of Norwegian pines that grew near the graveyard. “Erich, you just finished this painting?”

“Yes, darling.”

She pointed. “But that tree is gone. You had most of the elms near the cemetery taken down because of the Dutch elm disease last spring.”

“I started a painting using that tree in the background but couldn’t make it express what I wanted to say. Then one day I saw a bird flying with food for its young and thought of you. You inspire everything I do, Jenny.”

In the beginning, a statement like that would have melted her heart. Now it only caused her fear. Invariably it was followed by a remark that would reduce her to trembling nerves for the rest of the day.

The remark wasn’t long in coming. Erich covered the painting. “I’m sending thirty canvases. The shippers will pick them up in the morning. Will you be here to make sure they take them all?”

“Of course I’ll be here. Where else would I be?”

“Don’t be edgy, Jenny. I thought Mark might try to see you before he goes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Luke had a heart attack just after he got back to Florida. But that doesn’t give him the right to try to break up our marriage.”

“Erich, what are you talking about?”

“Luke called me last Thursday. He’s out of the hospital. He suggested that you and the girls visit him in Florida. Mark is leaving today to spend a week with him. Luke had the nerve to think I’d let you travel down there with Mark.”

“How kind of him.” Jenny knew the offer had been refused.

“It wasn’t kind of him. Luke just wanted to get you down there away from me. I told him so.”

“Erich!”

“Don’t be surprised, Jenny. Why do you think Mark and Emily have stopped seeing each other?”

“Have they stopped?”

“Jenny, why are you always so blind? Mark told Emily he realized he wasn’t interested in getting married and that it wasn’t fair to take her time.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“A man doesn’t do that unless he has some other woman in mind.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Mark’s crazy about you, Jenny. If it weren’t for him the sheriff would have ordered an inquest into the baby’s death. You know that, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” All the hard-won calm of the hospital was deserting her. Her mouth was dry; her hands were sweaty. She felt herself trembling. “Erich, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that there was a bruise near the baby’s right nostril. The coroner said that it probably preceded death. Mark insisted that he was rough when he was trying to resuscitate the baby.”

The memory of Mark holding the tiny form flashed through her mind.

Erich was standing next to her now, his lips against her ear. “Mark knows. You know. I know. The baby was bruised, Jenny.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Nothing, darling. I’m just warning you. We both know how delicate the baby’s skin was. That last night the way he was flailing his fists. He probably bruised himself. But Mark lied. He’s just like his father. Everyone knew the way Luke felt about Caroline. Even now whenever he’s here he sits in the wing chair so he can see her portrait. He was driving Caroline to the airport that last day. All she had to do was snap her fingers and he was there.

“And now Mark thinks he can pull the same thing. Well he can’t. I called Lars Ivanson, the veterinarian from Hennepin Grove. He’ll start caring for my animals. Mark Garrett will never set foot on this farm again.”

“Erich, you can’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I can. I know you didn’t mean it but you encouraged him, Jenny. I saw it. How many times did he come to the hospital?”

“He came twice. Once to tell me that the baby was back in his grave. Once to bring fruit Luke had ordered for me from Florida. Erich, don’t you see? You read so much into the simplest, most innocent situation. Where does it end?”

She did not wait for a reply. She walked out of the room and opened the door onto the west porch. The last of the sun was slipping behind the woods. The evening wind was making Caroline’s swing rock. No wonder Caroline had sat out here. She had been driven from the house too.

That night Erich came into the bedroom shortly after her. She held herself rigid, not wanting to be close to him. But he simply turned on his side and went to sleep. She felt her body go limp with relief.

She would not see Mark again. By the time he returned from Florida she would be in New Jersey. Was Erich right? Had she been sending out some kind of signal to Mark? Or was it simply that he and Emily had decided they weren’t right for each other and Erich, always suspicious, was reading more into it?

For once, she thought, Erich may be right.

The next morning she prepared a list of odds and ends she needed for the trip. She expected Erich to argue about her requesting the car but he was unexpectedly indifferent. “But leave the girls with Elsa,” he told her.

After he left for the cabin she circled a jewelry store listed in the classified ad section that advertised HIGHEST PRICES PAID FOR YOUR GOLD. It was in a shopping center two towns away. She called and described Nana’s locket. Yes, they’d be interested in buying it. Immediately she phoned Fran. Fran wasn’t home but her recorder was on. She left a message. “We’ll be in New York on the seventh or eighth. Don’t phone here.”

While the children napped she rushed to the jewelry store.

She was offered eight hundred dollars for the locket. It wasn’t enough but she had no choice.

She bought makeup and underwear and panty hose with the credit card Erich had given her. She made a point of showing the things to him.