Gerda was too stunned to say anything; she’d never heard of a brother. She’d never seen any sign of longing or sadness for him in either of her parents. She had no idea why her mother was so worried about the lack of him, or another son, all of a sudden. Did Mama have these thoughts all the time? And did she have to hide them, storing them up somewhere inside until they gushed out like now? Gerda understood that this was not part of the conversation that went on at night between her parents. Gerda knew that this was the kind of conversation that women had, and she remembered how sad Mama had been when her friend Lydia Gunderson, on the homestead next to theirs, had died giving birth. To a son, Gerda remembered. But both mother and child had died, and Mama, Gerda realized, must have been so lonely ever since. Even though they didn’t see their neighbors all that often, especially during winter, still, Mama and Mrs. Gunderson must have been the kind of friends who talked about these things. And now, Mama only had her and Raina.
Mama suddenly rose and continued shaking out the mattress tick; she bent down and kissed Gerda on the head and gently told her to go back to the dishes, and the moment was over. Mama was Mama again, singing hymns as she went about her tasks, that odd, feverish gleam in her eyes gone. She welcomed Papa home from the fields that night as usual, with a table full of hearty food and a scolding for him to leave his work boots outside, as if he’d ever dared to wear them inside!
That night, as she and Raina lay next to each other, Raina already softly snoring, Gerda heard the familiar, low murmuring between her parents, felt the reflexive relaxing of her own limbs, her eyelids growing heavy. But for the first time, she understood that conversation didn’t always bring about resolution. That people—all people—carried around inside them notions and thoughts and sadness that could not be alleviated simply by talking about them.
But that people—women, perhaps, especially—had to try. Or else…Gerda didn’t really know. Maybe, when you carried those sad thoughts around forever, you could die from them?
Gerda’s lips felt chapped and raw; she wanted to lick them but didn’t dare for fear her tongue would freeze to them. She realized she’d been talking to herself. Just like Mama had on that strange day—and others like it. But as Raina got older it was upon her that Mama would shower these urgent, pent-up torrents of words, thoughts, feelings, memories. Gerda, by then, was spending too much time out in the fields or barn with Papa, doing her very best to keep up with him, although she couldn’t. They both knew it, and in little glances and sighs from her father, Gerda did see what her mother meant; she did understand how much her father missed not having a son.
There she was again! Talking to herself, her thoughts strange and far away, while her body kept moving. Although she realized she was shuffling now, as was Ingrid, and she hadn’t felt Minna stir at all for a while. Suddenly her heart seized, then it tried to race but it couldn’t, her blood was too cold. But still panic flooded her, propelled her legs, her feet that could just as well have been cement blocks for all that Gerda could feel them, forward, forward. Now she was stumbling, shuffling instead of dragging. Her head still bent against the onslaught of this terrible, clogging snow; it filled her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her lungs, and she wondered if she could suffocate in it. She wondered if Minna already had.
“Come, come,” she yelled, crazily, to poor Ingrid, who looked up at her once, and through the whirling snow Gerda saw horror—a face rubbed raw, eyes crusted over with ice. Ingrid’s lips were blue and trembling. She emitted a faint, pitiful cry.
“Come!” Gerda had only one hand with which to drag the little girl, as her other arm was wrapped around one of Minna’s limp legs. “Come, Ingrid, come!”
And with her head bent back down again, Gerda plunged forward into the nightmare. It was growing darker by the minute. It must be nearly dusk. They’d never see a light in a window, not shrouded in this curtain of misery.
She staggered on this way, one girl on her back, the other barely upright, crying constantly now, until suddenly Gerda smelled something. Something faintly sweet. She stopped, walked ahead, then turned blindly to her left; she dropped Ingrid’s hand so that she could feel her way through the wind and snow, she inched ahead, arm outstretched, and it was a miracle that jolted through her body when she touched something—something hard, cold, little smooth ridges, an occasional sharp edge.