Within These Bonds

By Loreena M. Lee

In the 1930’s, men carved out their realm on parcels of land on the Alberta frontier. With their wives and families, they coped with poverty, hard work and loneliness.
After her mother’s death, Evelyn is left on a remote Alberta homestead to care for her sisters and the household.
Soon her father bargains to marry her to a man she has never met, and she sees a chance to leave her meagre existence behind. Her dreams for a life shared with love begin to fade as she is left alone once again to care for the home, but this time, completely alone in the middle of the vast prairie.
At last she finds work as a housekeeper for a bachelor, who makes her a bargain. Will Evelyn be able to find her way to a better life? Or will her hopes be shattered once again when all is not what it seems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Libros Libertad Publishing
• Release date: Dec 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311381507

Loreena M. Lee

Loreena M. Lee, afca has exhibited her work since 1973, and her paintings hang in corporations and private collections in Canada, as well as Hungary, Germany, Denmark and the United States. She has instructed beginning artists in all media for over 45 years.

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SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY: Loreena M. Lee on Smashwords

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Within These Bonds

Loreena M. Lee

Libros Libertad

Other Books by Loreena M. Lee

Dragons I Know, illustrated children's book, written by Eleanor Ryan,

illustrations by Loreena M. Lee, Ryan Publications, 2009 Satin Shoes, novel for young readers, Libros Libertad, 2009 Kitchen Tales, Cordillera North Publications, 2010

Copyright

Copyright Loreena M. Lee 2010. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

First published by:

Libros Libertad Publishing Ltd.

PO Box 45089

12851 16th Avenue, Surrey BC V4A 9L1 Ph. 604-838-8796 Fax [phone] www.libroslibertad.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Lee, Loreena M., 1940-

Within these bonds / Loreena Lee.

ISBN 978-1-926763-08-8

I. Title.

PS8623.E4425W57 2010 C813'.6 C2010-903399-X

Libros Libertad is a member of the Literary Press Group

Design and layout by Ekstasis Editions Canada Limited

eBook conversion www.spicabookdesign.com

Table of Contents

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For my mother and her sisters Thanks for all the stories

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1

The bloated moon shone like a spotlight through the open window, casting a rectangle of silver light on the wooden floorboards of the loft. Evelyn sat on her cot, back to the wall, arms around her bare legs. If she put her head down on her knees, the rectangle looked longer; squinting made it look brighter. She focused on the light patch, telling herself that as long as she watched it she could hold back its progress as it traveled the path of night. Her eyes burned with concentration and her jaw ached from tension as she tried to blot out the stench of fresh blood that permeated the house.

Inside the moonbeam she counted the joints in the floorboards. The past twelve hours had taken their toll and most of her strength. She didn't know if she had enough left to bear what was still to come. Against all hope, she prayed that the rest of the night would pass without incident, but in her heart she didn't believe that was possible. On a cot alongside the opposite wall, her two younger sisters Danelda and Augustine, breathed deeply in sleep, heads at each end, feet tangled in the middle. Exhausted, they had retreated into the uncertain sanctuary of dreams. A thin quilt, barely needed in the warm summer night, covered their small bodies. Evelyn traced the line of Dani's thin arm lying on top, then concentrated on the geometric shapes of the quilt, each colorful square cut and sewn with care by her mother's hand.

Her mother... try as she might, she couldn't get the echoes of her mother's agony out of her head. The rancid smell of fever-hot blood clogged her nostrils until she thought she might lose what little supper she had been able to swallow. She tried breathing through her mouth, but the stench settled iron-bitter on her tongue; the very air felt saturated with gore. Panic squirmed in her belly. She swallowed bile and tried to concentrate on the moon's progress across the floor, locking her arms tightly around her legs so she wouldn't leap up and let madness carry her away.

From outside the house, the sound of hoof beats through the heavy dust of the yard made her heart race. The rhythmic cadence changed. Stopped. In the subsequent silence, Evelyn frantically replayed the last hour, trying to remember if there was anything she had missed. The midwives had cleaned everything well before they left. There was no sign of the bloody cloths. The sheets had been changed and bundled; one of the women had taken them away with her. Even the blue, breathless newborn, barely glimpsed, had been spirited away, leaving the exhausted woman lying in a laudanum-laced sleep, her life's blood seeping into a makeshift pad. After the midwives departed, Evelyn straightened the bed, tidied the bedside table and swept the floor before retreating to the loft where she awaited the next terror that she knew would come.

Heavy boots stumped across the porch. Even though Evelyn was prepared, she jumped as the door opened with a crash. Still as stone, she listened with held breath. The sound of footsteps moved across the floor beneath her. She waited for her father's reaction as he looked at his wife. Evelyn pictured her mother's bloodless face, stark against the tangled hair spread like demon's wings on the pillow, mute testimony to her failure to produce a son.

The anger came: violent, predictable, mindless. Bitch, he screamed. Damn you! A loud crash heralded the destruction of the ceramic water pitcher from the nightstand. Silence. Another thump and bang as if a chair was flung across the room, rebounding from wall to floor. Silence. Evelyn willed herself invisible, sitting as still as stone, as if by becoming immobile she would not in fact be in the house. She waited, terror stopping her breath, for the sound of boots on the stairs. At last she heard furious footsteps drumming out the door and across the porch. A muffled nicker told her that her father had mounted his horse and she heard the swish of the whip urging it to a gallop. Pounding hoofbeats became an echo in the hollow silence.

Evelyn began to breathe again and looked over at the patch of moonlight. Had it moved? Perhaps time had stopped and she'd just imagined what she had heard downstairs... except that the drumming hooves still echoed in her head, where the sounds of her mother's anguish lingered. For a wonder, her sisters slept on.

She sat unmoving, watching but not seeing the bright oblong of light. She'd had a brother—once. He'd caught a fever and died when he was almost five years old, when Evelyn was eight. The girls were too young to remember him. It was seven years ago but Evelyn still missed him terribly. Even now she could see his face in her mind: his tousled straw-colored hair, his sturdy little body, and the goofy grin which didn't change even when he grew all his teeth.

There would likely be no more little brothers, Evelyn thought. Or sisters, for that matter. Please, she prayed silently to whichever God or saint was listening. We can't go through this again. This was the fourth time they'd suffered through this, and with each loss her mother became more sad and withdrawn, her father more impatient and cruel. Perhaps it was just as well that this one was stillborn. If it was a girl, Evelyn would have had another little one to protect from the venom of their father. If it had been a boy— but what would it matter? There was too much hate and fear for things to change to the way life was before they had come to this barren land.

Evelyn was worn out from just trying to survive from day to day. Her mother had little time to recover between miscarriages, and had become weaker with each one. Evelyn stayed home from school and took over as much of the housekeeping as she was able, doing the heavy chores her mother could no longer manage. Her sister Agatha had been little more than useless, always managing to stay out of father's reach when he had one of his rages, always able to get out of chores that would have eased the burden Evelyn carried. Primping in the cracked mirror she kept in her pocket, or daydreaming in a thicket of blossoming berry bushes when she should have been bringing in their one scrawny cow for milking, Agatha was a constant source of irritation to her younger sister. When Agatha turned sixteen last year, father found her a husband, and she had left the house willingly with a man fifteen years her senior. Evelyn was glad to have their cot all to herself. Other than that, she hardly noticed her older sister was gone and except for their mother, no one else seemed to miss her.

She had to put away all that for the time being; it didn't help to dwell on what she couldn't change. Finally, she got up, her muscles stiff with tension and immobility. She looked over at her sisters, deeply asleep in the nest of covers. It was amazing that they had slept through the noise and she didn't want to wake them now. She slid past them and tiptoed down the steep staircase to the main floor. Silent as a shadow, she crept into her parents' room and stood beside the bed looking down at the ghostly figure in the pale light of the moon. She watched the slight rise and fall of her mother's chest in her drugged sleep and tried not to think about how fragile and aged she appeared. At last, she turned away and crossed the kitchen floor. She needed to get away from the stench of blood and misery, out where the night air was cool and clean.

The entrance door had been left open, and she closed it softly behind her before walking across the porch and around to the back of the house. The fields were bleached of color by the full moon's light. The land stretched to the distant horizon in all directions, broken only by copses of trees that huddled beside the summer-slim stream as if for comfort. She felt achingly alone, small and helpless in a large and empty world. She suppressed the urge to start walking across the vacant expanse. It would be so simple—just begin and don't look back, over the rolling fields until she stepped into the night and then keep going until the stars surrounded her. She could walk forever and never reach a destination. She was sure that whatever was out there couldn't be any worse than the life she knew — always hungry, always afraid. She shook her head and took a deep breath. Someday soon, she promised, not sure what the bargain was, but confident it would be better than what her life was now.

A few steps across the moonlight-flooded yard took her to what remained of the stream, tinkling over slippery stones, dancing away into the distant darkness of the trees. Evelyn knelt on a patch of dry grass on the bank and scooped a handful of the water, splashing it on her face and running her wet hand along the back of her neck. She dipped her hand in again and drank the cool, sweet water, delicious and soothing on her burning tongue. For just a moment she felt relief, then the torment began again making her eyes burn with tears she refused to shed. She reached into the stream and took up a handful of clay, shaping it into a ball and inhaling the earthy aroma which hinted at woodsy gloom and wild things and freedom. Many stolen minutes had been spent here, enjoying the tactile feel of the moist clay as she fashioned small simple figures of people and animals and set them to dry in the sun. Now, as she worked, she gathered all the agony and frustrations from every corner of her being and lumped them all together into the clay.

Small rustling noises in the underbrush broke the silence of the night. A soft wind drifted through the branches, making sounds of whispered laughter from different directions, then hushing to silence. Evelyn ignored all of it as she concentrated on the malleable earth.

Slowly, deliberately, she began shaping—squeezing here, pinching there, until a crude, doll-like semblance of a baby emerged nestled in the palm of her hand. She looked at the clay, seeing her dead brother, imagining him drifting among the spirits of their stillborn and miscarried siblings. All the while, the seething fury in her gut began to take form, and she locked it into a dark and hollow space beneath her heart. Acrid bile stung the back of her throat, and she forced the anger down until she was in control again. She breathed deeply, willing herself to calm. Turning back to the task at hand, she carefully placed the tiny clay figure on a piece of bark and set it on the water, watching it dip and bob downstream until it was out of sight.

2

Sunrise cracked open a slit of light on the horizon, paling the purple night sky. First one bird, then another, announced the approaching dawn until a chorus of enthusiastic joy to the morning rang from every branch. Birdsong usually woke Evelyn, but this morning it was a beam of newborn sunrise touching her cheek that awoke her at last. Groggy, she couldn't remember lying down beside the creek and for a minute wondered how she came to be outside. Then the memories came back in such a rush it made her gasp.

She rolled over and sipped a few handfuls of water to rinse the sour taste from her mouth. Damp from dew, her body felt stiff as she rose and staggered toward the outhouse. When she came out, she hurried toward the house, her concern for her mother and sisters foremost in her mind. The door opened with a soft squeak as she entered the house. Silence—everyone still slept. She tiptoed over to her mother's bedside and gazed down at the ashen figure. Her mother slept peacefully, the slight rise and fall of the blanket across her chest faintly discernible. With care not to wake her, she righted the chair and picked up the pieces of broken pitcher and the cracked bowl.

Momma? Tina stood at the top of the stairs, rubbing her eyes.

Evelyn put a finger to her lips and hurried to intercept her. Be quiet so you don't wake her up. She needs to sleep so she can get better, said Evelyn. She turned Tina around and gently nudged her toward the stairs. Get dressed and wake your sister. I'll go and get breakfast.

Soon Evelyn had the fire going in the wood stove and water boiling for oatmeal. Tina and Dani came down and Dani set the table with bowls and spoons. They went about their chores quietly, not willing to break the fragile silence. Breakfast prepared, they sat around the bare table, eating their cereal with a bit of brown sugar. No one said anything. It had all been said before.

The sun rose higher. Evelyn boiled water for tea. They were never sure when their father would bring anything to eat and not for the first time she wondered if she'd have to go into the trading store for supplies. She hoped not. The midwives said they'd be back today, but they didn't say when. She didn't want to leave her mother alone if she took the little ones with her, but if she left them here, they'd be too frightened. They wouldn't know what to do if anything went wrong. She rubbed her temples. At fifteen, Evelyn felt as if she were fifty. She reached down and in and felt for the cold anger that lay quiescent inside her. It gave her strength. She straightened her back and lifted her chin. She'd do what she had to do. She didn't have a choice.

As she gathered the dishes up and put them in the basin on the cupboard, she tried to think what to do next. Her sisters were looking to her for direction. They should be kept busy. In another few weeks school would start, then they would have someplace to go, something to occupy their time. As things stood they'd have to be given chores; fortunately there were always enough of those to go around.

Hoofbeats and the jangle of harness outside interrupted her thoughts. She opened the door just in time to see her sister Agatha jump from the carriage and rush towards her. Numbly, she felt Agatha put her arms around her. She smelled of soap and lavender.

How's Momma? Agatha asked. Is she alright? How's the baby?

Without waiting for an answer, she brushed by Evelyn and entered the house, past her younger sisters as if they weren't there as she headed for her mother's bedroom. Evelyn saw Agatha's back go rigid as she stopped at the entry. Reality shifted, suspending even the dust-motes dancing in the early sunlight from the kitchen window.

As if from a vantage point near the ceiling, Evelyn saw herself standing in the front entrance about to enter the room, her sister poised in the other doorway, about to back away, the space between them a vast landscape. Beyond the bedroom door yawned a black maw of airless space. The scene embedded itself in a corner of her mind, a place that waited like a hidden attic full of dusty echoes and dreams.

In slow motion, Agatha turned, white-faced and wide-eyed, to look at her sister. Evelyn shook her head, a faint movement. They didn't need words to communicate what had happened here. They'd been at this place before, but it didn't make things any easier.

The moment abruptly shattered as the clatter and creak of a wagon turned in past the gate and stopped behind Agatha's carriage. Evelyn staggered as if whatever had been holding her suddenly let go. She reached for the support of the door frame and turned to see two women climb from the wagon. Evelyn recognized them as the midwives who had been here the previous evening: Mrs. Halder and her daughter, Anna.

Without a word, the women stepped onto the porch. Evelyn moved aside and let them pass. With a brief nod, they marched past Agatha into her mother's room and closed the door.

Agatha sat down stiffly on a chair by the kitchen table, looking at Evelyn, questions lurking in her eyes. The silence stretched to include anything that could be heard from the other room. Even the little ones were still, listening. With a heavy sigh, Evelyn sat down in the remaining chair at the table.

You look like you've spent the night in a tree, said Agatha. Is that supposed to be funny? said Evelyn, the words tasting sour as she spoke.

Well, there are dead leaves in your hair, which looks like a bird's nest, by the way, and you've got dark circles under your eyes. Evelyn could feel her sister's eyes seeking every flaw and blemish. Finally, she turned away and looked out the window. Did Papa come home last night?

Evelyn nodded.

How did he act? Mad, I suppose.

He broke mother's water pitcher, Evelyn said. He didn't stay long. He needn't come back at all, as far as I'm concerned.

Slim chance of that. What did they say about Momma? Agatha asked, pointing her chin in the direction the midwives had gone.

Nothing. They haven't said much of anything. Momma doesn't look good, though. I'm worried about her. Evelyn looked at her two younger sisters. Tina came over and climbed into her lap. Dani looked small and miserable, her eyes large as she listened to her older sisters.

Momma's going to be fine, Evelyn assured the two little ones. She included Agatha and herself in that pledge as well. She had to believe everything would be all right. Momma had always come around; she would this time, too. It might take her a little longer this time, is all.

Is there anything to eat around here? asked Agatha.

Not much, said Evelyn. They were almost out of the basic supplies. All the cupboards held were some flour, a little salt, oatmeal and brown sugar. A small piece of bacon hung from the rafters. We had oatmeal for breakfast. I guess I can fry a little bacon up for supper. I'll go out later and dig around in the garden—there may still be a few potatoes or something.

Agatha stood and walked to the window. She looked out over the yard to the little patch where their mother had tried so hard to coax