Frozen Read online

  “She’s tried to . . . extinguish her life. Once, overdosing on pills. Another time she kept swimming out into the lake in the middle of the night. I don’t understand. We love her, she has all the opportunities a young woman could hope for . . . and much of the time, she’s brimming with energy and life and new ideas. But when she sinks low . . .”

  “I saw a girl at the boardinghouse once. She slit her wrists,” I said. “When I was little.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, nodding. “For those girls and women . . . trying to take their own lives . . . they must not see a way out. The high tower in International Falls. Several have jumped to their deaths rather than live. Such desperation, I can almost understand, but our daughter.”

  Mrs. Baird reached across the floral bedspread of pinks and greens to Trinity’s hand. “So many times, I’ve thought of her life as a rich tapestry. You know her. She’s talented, has everything anyone could want, and yet there’s this dark red thread that zigzags through it all.”

  “Mmhmm.” I understood about a red thread.

  Trinity moaned and tried to roll over, but her arms were strapped to her sides. A homemade rigging of socks tied around her arms joined with belts that stretched under the bed. I hated to see her restrained, yet knew it was best—until she settled back into her own mind. She mumbled incoherently, then lay still again.

  Beneath her blankets, Trinity’s legs and torso looked so small and frail. Without her lovely waves of hair falling toward her eyes, her forehead appeared sharp, her eyes sunken, like a stray wandering too long in the streets. When I’d first met her, I’d been awestruck by her experiences and grace. I’d thought Trinity was invincible, so free and unconstrained by society, never guessing she could ever be brought low.

  Yet Trinity’s mind took her down some frightening, invisible waters.

  Early the next morning, I woke with my head leaning across Trinity’s covers. I was disoriented, but then the events of last night tumbled back in sequence.

  Mrs. Baird was tapping my shoulder. “Sadie Rose, wake up,” she whispered.

  I pushed hair off my face and rubbed my eyes. The whole of last night seemed a dream, but here was Trinity, bandaged and resting beneath bedcovers, and here was Mrs. Baird, talking. Her wig was on, full and dark, but beneath her eyes half-moons appeared, ink-stained with fatigue. “We sent notice to the Worthingtons about you. They’re sending Hans to collect you. He should be here sometime soon.”

  Things were set in motion. I would have to face the Worthingtons. I couldn’t run anymore.

  Trinity stirred and then woke with a groan. “Sadie Rose?” For a moment, she fixed her dull gaze on me. “What are you doing here?” Then lifting her head off the pillow, she tried to sit up. “What’s going on?” She struggled against the makeshift straps holding her wrists to the bed. “For God’s sake! Will someone undo me and tell me what’s going on here!” Her eyes spiked with fear.

  “Darling,” Mrs. Baird said, placing her hand on Trinity’s forehead. “You had another spell.”

  “Trinity, you’re not well yet,” I said, rising from my chair.

  “Untie me, will you?!”

  I looked to Mrs. Baird. “No,” she said, “for your own safety, you need to be right where you are.”

  “Trinity,” I added, “last night you tried to harm yourself. Try and rest. I’ll be back to see you as soon as I can.” I patted her ankle through the blanket. “I promise.”

  “Sadie!” Trinity screamed, high-pitched and angry.

  Staying longer to try to reason with her seemed futile. I had to be ready for Hans when he arrived.

  I pulled myself away from her and Mrs. Baird and then stepped into the lodge’s long hallway, scented with comforting smells of coffee and toast, wafting from the kitchen. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to stop to eat. Instead, I hurried around the island’s winding paths to Trinity’s studio, changed out of my nightdress, gathered my few belongings, and carried my traveling satchel and coat to the dock.

  I glanced at Trinity’s boat, its canopy roof beading with droplets of dew. In the clean scent of morning, last night’s events now seemed more like a nightmare. I wished for Trinity’s sake that it had just been a bad dream. Sometimes life seemed more about starting again, no matter how hard, no matter how deep the wounds.

  A morning haze gathered above the lake, a thousand ghostly wisps of regret, hovering, waiting to be chased off by the day’s determined rays. The water was glass, the air so still and fresh that it seemed all of nature was pausing, except for shimmery black beetles dancing on the surface beside the dock, and a small bass rising up, mouth opening and closing, sending the beetles swirling. I listened, watched, and waited.

  I tried to sit on my traveling bag, my hands over my knees, but I hopped up and paced the length of the dock.

  “Thank you.”

  I turned toward the voice. Mr. Baird walked out in cotton trousers and a pressed shirt. “I wanted to thank you before you leave. If you hadn’t alerted us—” He steadied his emotions. “I need to relieve my wife so she can rest now, but if there’s any way we can repay you, please. Just let us know. We’re indebted to you.”

  “There’s no need to repay me,” I said. “Trinity’s my friend.”

  He nodded. “Yes. A friend. I’m glad of that. Well, then . . .” He extended his hand and we shook before he moved off toward the lodge, where Trinity was bound to a bed frame to protect her from herself. I wondered if she would be shipped off again soon to the hospital she’d mentioned, the one with the gardens of roses.

  When a familiar boat motor buzzed around the island’s peninsula, I felt a wave break over me. Maybe it was from lack of sleep, from witnessing Trinity’s mind snap, like a twig in winter. My emotions and thoughts jumbled together and spilled over me, and tears fell down my cheeks.

  Han’s fishing boat carved toward the dock. He waved from its stern, where he straddled the seat, his hand on the motor’s handle. In the bow, to my surprise, sitting tall and straight, Aasta fixed her gaze on me. She appeared to clench the gunwales with her hands. She never rode in boats. She was too afraid she’d drown. She’d never learned to swim. Yet here she was, joining Hans to collect me.

  As the boat slowed and floated in closer, she called out, “Oh, Sadie Rose! We were so worried to death! And here you are!” With a red life jacket strapped around her neck and chest, she grabbed the dock’s edge as the boat slowed. Hans reached for the dock cleat near the stern. “A sight for sore eyes,” he said.

  My nose ran, my chest heaved and shuddered. Hans offered me a hand as I climbed down onto the middle seat. I hugged him and the fishing boat tottered.

  “Sadie?” he said. “What happened?”

  So much had happened since that day I’d found the photos in his shed, since Victor had arrived on the doorstep, since I’d run off from the Worthingtons . . . I let go and turned to Aasta. Even though she wasn’t one to hug and carry on, I threw my arms around her, too, ignoring the rule about standing in boats.

  The boat began to sway, and in an instant, I let go of Aasta, worried that I’d cause her to tumble overboard. Instead, I clanked my ankle sharply against the wooden seat, lost my balance, and all in an instant, toppled backward over the edge of the boat and into the lake. The water was well over my head. In my boots and skirt, I sank, but when my feet struck bottom, I kicked off and pushed upward toward the dim light.

  When I broke through, I hacked up water, and then half-choking, half-crying, I started to laugh.

  “Of all the things,” Hans said as he fished me out with his sturdy arms and pulled me back into the boat, “you are the trophy muskie!”

  I was dripping wet, but somehow a cold dunking helped clear my mind from all that had happened last night—and from the uncertainties that awaited me when I returned home.

  Aasta asked, “You n
eed dry clothes, ya?”

  I settled, dripping, onto the middle seat. “No. I’ll change when we get back.”

  Hans yanked on the motor’s rope handle until the Evinrude glugged back to life, leaving a thin iridescent layer of gasoline on the water as we left the dock. Without another word between us, we headed back toward Ranier, our boat a diamond etching its path through glass.

  Though I kept my gaze on the water, the film began again.

  “What’s going on here?” One man rushed over, his face crumpled with concern.

  “Mayor, think the kid belongs to the red skirt?”

  I hovered above, watching, unfeeling, unable to leave as the men debated.

  “Bigby, hand the girl here. Send Dr. Stedman to my house the moment he gets here!”

  And then the mayor, Mr. Walter Worthington, gathered my body in his arms. He left the town hall and strode straight-backed down the snowpacked street and toward the cedar-shingled house on the bay. Somewhere along his path, I slipped from above and back into the body I knew was my own.

  Chapter 29

  Skimming along the lake, we traveled west as the sun burned off the early morning haze. A light breeze carried a perfume forest and the sweet moisture of endless intertwining northern lakes.

  Halfway back, Hans cut the motor and the boat slowed to a lilting stop. I turned toward Hans. Waves piled up behind the stern, then swept past us.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  Hans nodded. “Very, very wrong. We should have told you so much longer ago.”

  “Told me what?”

  Hans chewed on his lower lip.

  What was he getting at?

  Aasta said, “Our shame was too great. We didn’t know how . . . and the time was never good . . .”

  I spun toward Aasta, her hands clasped together between her skirted knees.

  “Sadie Rose,” Hans said to my back, “I said we lost our daughter long ago. That was true. But I didn’t tell you all the rest.”

  I remembered Hans saying something about a daughter when we’d stopped to fish after he’d retrieved me from Falcon Island. So that was what this was about. They wanted to share their lives with me, their story. They probably hoped it would somehow help me. “She was your mother,” Hans said.

  A ripple of electricity went through my body. “What did you say?”

  He worked his lips, but nothing came out for a few moments. Emotion tugged at the edges of his crisp, blue eyes. “Our daughter was your mother.”

  “We stay quiet for so many years,” Aasta said. “But when you disappear, we died a little every day. Not know if we ever see you again. You left and you didn’t know truth. We feel so terrible.”

  I felt as if my head would tumble from my shoulders. I’d spent so many years not knowing, sheltered as a canary in a gilded cage. “But that makes . . .”

  He nodded. “That makes us grandparents to you.”

  “Grandparents?” I repeated the word in disbelief. I couldn’t draw a straight line between things. They were the cook and housekeeper, not my grandparents.

  “Do the Worthingtons know?” I tried to wring some clarity from all of this, but my mind was murky as dishwater.

  Hans smoothed his palms on his trousers. “Nei.”

  “Honest?” My voice broke. “You’re telling me the truth?”

  Water lapped against the boat’s ribs.

  They each nodded.

  Anger flashed through me. “But then why hold this back from me? Why allow me to think I had no family—all these years—when you were both right there?”

  Aasta leaned toward me, her elbows on the knees of her skirt. Then she grabbed my hand in hers and squeezed tight. “Oh, Sadie Rose.” Her voice was a whisper. “Ya, it is true. And we want so much to tell you.”

  Hans nodded. “We should have long ago told you.”

  So much needed to be said, to be explained, and yet I felt enveloped, aware they were far more now in my life. Though the morning sun warmed my shoulders, I shivered, my garments still wet. “But why—why didn’t you tell me?”

  I looked to Aasta, who held back tears. “At first we didn’t know anything about you. We came north to find our daughter, Sigrid—”

  Sigrid. Of course. That explained the inscription on the quilt. Mama had changed her name. “You mean, Bella Rose,” I countered.

  “Nei!” Aasta said. “That was her working name. Sigrid, she left home when was your same age. We did not go for Catholic boyfriend—Frank Ladovitch. We were so angry with her. She ran off. We thought, sure she will come back. Nearly six years went by, we hear nothing. Then she sends the posted letters. So. We board the train from St. Paul to find her in Ranier. She wrote in letters that she was schoolteacher, but that turned out not true.”

  “Then,” Hans added, “we saw a posting for a cook and caretaker. Vel, you can guess what happened. We took the work. But we have no idea the little girl was you. And how could we? We didn’t know a baby was born to our Sigrid. We took the job—” He nodded. “And for that, we were grateful.”

  A flock of cormorants winged past, low to the water, black and angular.

  Hans sniffed but continued. “We didn’t know you were ours for long time. You were getting over sickness, and it did Aasta good to cook for you and help you get stronger. But months passed and passed before we found out about Sigrid. We keep looking and learn about Frank and that he died. And then we learn his wife—our Sigrid—worked for Darla. Finally, we search old newspapers and find . . . the death notice for Sigrid Ladovitch. Her married name.”

  Aasta added, “Poor Sigrid. She never got proper Lutheran burial.”

  “So—” Hans went on. “From there, we start to put things together. You were her daughter. Found in the snow. Our granddaughter. Living right with the Worthingtons. It seemed strange miracle for us.”

  My tongue lodged in my mouth. I forced myself to speak. “But I still don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “We wanted to, but we worried. What if the Worthingtons not believe us? We are immigrants to this country. And Elizabeth . . . by then, she had her mind fixed to adopt you. We thought they can give you a better home and a good life, and we are getting only older. And we worried, too, that if we said you were our granddaughter, with Sigrid falling into such a life, we worry they send us away. Say we . . . were . . . not fit to raise you since we failed our own daughter. We could not take this risk.”

  His shoulders rose and fell, and he hung his head.

  “We not stand to lose you, too,” Aasta continued, lightly pressing her fingers across her lips. “We keep to ourselves, but treating you always as our own.”

  I was angry with them for withholding the truth of who they were in my life. Hadn’t they heard me crying for Mama in those early years? If they had told me that they were my grandparents, I wouldn’t have felt so alone. Things would have been different. I felt the urge to be cruel, to treat them as servants. If they could play years of charade with me, didn’t they deserve to feel pain, too?

  “But I didn’t know,” I said. “I never knew I had any family at all!”

  Hans said something in Norwegian I couldn’t understand. Then he leaned closer. “Vel, now you’re old enough. If we get fired, at least now you’re old enough to choose your family. No one can send us away forever from you now.”

  But just as quickly as the morning haze burned off, my anger lifted. Too much time had already been lost.

  It was Aasta and Hans, whom I already loved.

  My grandparents.

  A half-dozen pelicans, white wings tipped black, flapped low and hit the water with their golden webbed feet, then floated side by side, fishing in formation, heads cocked toward us.

  We drifted along in silence on the vast and endless lake, in
a world I’d never imagined before.

  The train groaned and clattered above us as our little boat scooted through the swift-flowing passage between Canada and the States. I felt like the lift bridge, rooted to my past on one clear shore, my future cloaked in thick fog on the other. I wondered what awaited me at the Worthingtons. For the first time in my life, I didn’t care. They didn’t own me. I wasn’t bound to them a moment longer.

  Their summer cottage rose above the harbor, tall and proud. It made perfect sense that Walter Worthington had built his lake cottage directly across from the steel bridge he’d designed. It was a monument to his engineering skills, his vision, his determination to take Ranier from a rough frontier town to something more. I smiled to myself. Ironic, then, that the many brothels he’d worked at shutting down had given way to a new industry: bootlegging. There was money in it, not just in the area but in trading over the border and shipping across the country.

  I pictured Owen’s face, his bruises likely lightening by now, and hoped he could truly quit and find another path for his future. I didn’t want to see him hurt again.

  And I couldn’t wait to see him again. There was so much to tell.

  As the boat slowed, the sun was at the house’s back, casting shadows from its roof to the lawn and dock below.

  We floated toward the dock. “Vel, here we are,” Hans said.

  I jumped out and tied the bow off, then offered a hand to Aasta.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” she said, waving me off. “I must do what I can while I can.”

  I studied her long limbs, so much like Mama’s . . . so much like my own.

  Chapter 30

  From the cottage, Elizabeth Worthington gathered her skirt and petticoat, hurrying down the steps to meet us. “Walter! She’s back! Sadie Rose is back! As long as you’re safe, that’s all I care about. You’re safe. You’re back home. I haven’t slept well since you left!”

  I had been gone three weeks. And yet a whole lifetime had shifted on its axis, tilted off center, and begun a new and uncertain orbit.