conductor, with his clipboard, stopped gathering accident data for the railroad company and stood in silent respect as he watched the party of three arrive.

Eddie Olczak would never again fear hell, for on that day, during those broken minutes while he knelt beside Krystyna's body, he experienced a hell so unfair, so unmerciful that nothing in this life or the next could pain him more.

'Oh, Krystyna, K-Krystyna, why…'

Falling to his knees beside her, he wept as the souls in purgatory surely wept: to be set free from the pain and the loss. With his face contorted, he looked up at those standing above him and asked, repeatedly, 'Why? Why?' But they could only touch his shoulder and stand by mutely. 'How am I g… going to tell my little girls? What will they d… do without her? What will any of us d… do without her?' They didn't know what to say, but stood there, feeling the shock of mortality come to stun them, too, as Eddie looked down at his dead wife. He took the collar of her dress between his fingers. 'Sh… she made th… this dress.' He looked up at them again, fixing on the pitiful fact. 'D… did you know th… that? She in… made this dress hers… self.' He touched it, bloody as it was, while Father Kuzdek kissed and donned his stole and dropped to one knee to pray.

'In nomine patris…'

Eddie listened to the murmuring of Father's voice as he administered Extreme Unction with the same voice that had said their wedding mass and baptized their children. He watched Father's oversized thumb anoint his wife's forehead with oils and make the sign of the cross on her ravaged skin.

Krystyna's parents came, and her sister Irene. They clung to Eddie in a forlorn, weeping band, and fell to their knees on the cinders, keening and rocking while Eddie repeated the same thing over and over. 'Sh… she was on her way out to your house to c… can pickles with you… that's all she was g… going to do, Mary. That's where sh… she should be right… now. She should b… be at your h… house.' And they stared through their tears at the wreckage of the fruit jars strewn along the railroad tracks, reflecting the noon sun like waves on a lake, imagining her loading them in the car a couple hours ago thinking she'd be returning home that night with all of the jars filled.

When they'd had time for weeping, Father gave a blessing to Mary, Richard and Irene, and the stretcher was borne through the ditch to the hearse, trailed by the bereaved. When the doors of the hearse closed, Mary asked her son-in-law, 'Have you told Anne and Lucy yet?'

'Not yet.' The thought started Eddie crying again, dully, and Krystyna's father clamped an arm around his shoulders.

'Do you want us with you when you do?' Mary asked, since Richard found himself still unable to speak.

'I… I don't know.'

'We'll come with you, Eddie,' Irene put in. 'You know we'll come with you if you want.'

'I don't know,' he repeated with an exhausted sigh, looking around as if the holsteins in the field could provide an answer. 'I think…' His gaze went back to Krystyna's family. 'I think it's's… something I got to do alone. But you'll come over to the school with me, won't you?, I mean, I don't know wh… what's going to happen after. What do we…?' He stopped, unversed in the mechanics of death's aftermath, his mind refusing to function for the moment.

Father Kuzdek stepped in and said, 'Come, Eddie. We'll tell the children together, you and I, and then you and Mary and Richard and Irene can all take them home.'

'Yes,' Eddie agreed, grateful to have someone tell him what to do next. 'Yes, thank you, Father.'

The little group dispersed to the various cars, a new dread spreading through them. For they all knew that as difficult as the last hour had been, the next one would be even worse: telling the children.

***

July 2, 1997

Dear Reader,

Greetings from Minnesota where I'm looking down from my second-floor office at our glorious new swimming pool and a totally relandscaped backyard. Much of last summer was devoted to planning and planting the terraced gardens and the serpentine perennial border around our new picket fence. It truly looks Victorian with the gazebo circled by blooming delphiniums and twin white swings hanging from our new pergola. Besides hundreds of perennials, I planted 1300 bulbs last autumn. This spring when they bloomed it looked like a little piece of heaven.

Most of the past year we had workmen in our faces everyday. We added a basement beneath the garage, an art gallery above it, and had our entire house re-sided. Whew! We didn't think our lives would ever get back to normal.

Last July I left the mess behind for five days and flew to Regina, Saskatchewan where Family Blessings was being filmed, starring Lynda Carter and Steven Eckholdt. Since it was directed by my dear friend, Deborah Raffin, it was a chance to spend time with her as well. Though the film has been completed for months, CBS-TV has not seen fit to air it. I've heard a rumor that it'll air sometime during the winter holidays of '97, but your guess is as good as mine.

Dan and I usually go somewhere in August each year. Last year we went to the Old Sheepherder's Inn in East Chatham, New York. We stayed in a lovely old converted barn with sheep grazing right beside our deck, and flowers at our door. Lots of my friends from the publishing world have country homes in that area, so we had a fabulous time meeting them for dinners and catching up. We also toured the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts for the second time (We love it!) and drove up to Dorset, Vermont to overnight in a B &B.

Last summer was filled with other fun events-taking our red and white '57 Chev convertible to a couple of car shows, beginning a tradition of attending our little local county fair with our grandchildren; surprise birthday parties for nieces and nephews; having friends and rellies to our cabin. Sometimes I haul some pieces of my linen collection and champagne flutes to the cabin and set up a romantic table for four someplace out in the woods or meadow, and we have a champagne lunch accompanied by birdsong. This year we did it in April and after lunch all four of us stretched out in the sun and napped beside a beaver pond. Talk about peaceful.

Oh, almost forgot to tell you that last August, on my birthday, I accidentally bought two Jet Skis: purple and yellow and fast! Sometimes peaceful picnics beside beaver ponds just won't do it. That's when we get out the Jet Skis.

In November I flew out to L.A. to read the condensed version of Small Town Girl on audio tape for Dove. I had written a theme song for the book which I also sang on the tape. That was lots of fun, though my pipes have definitely become rusty from lack of use.

Also in November, Dan and I flew to New York to attend the Literary Guild party, and while we were there we and my editors saw Victor/Victoria on Broadway.

December brought a new delight: taking our grandkids to the Holidazzle Parade in Minneapolis. There was also a nostalgic sleigh ride in Wisconsin, with real draft horses; seasonal dinners for four in our cozy library; the fanciest Christmas party we've ever given, with seventy guests. Then came Santa on Christmas Eve with the house full of relatives, and Christmas morning here with our own precious four: daughter, Amy; son- in-law, Shannon; and our grandsons, Spencer and Logan, who are now ages one and two. I tell you, Christmases just get better and better as the boys get older.

New Year's Eve found me cooking a crown roast of pork for the first time in my life (What a relief, it turned out great!), as we and our neighbors rang in the New Year with a progressive dinner party. They're a fun bunch and we do lots of things as a group. This is only one of our annual events.

In January, Dan and I took Amy and Shannon to Grand Cayman and left the boys behind. We snorkeled, relaxed, and ate verrrry well.

Shortly after that trip my very favorite (and last surviving) aunt died. With her went my link to childhood vacations with my cousins and learning to dance and eating her good Polish cooking and lots of very special memories of my hometown and the time of my life when my mother and father were still married. I'm the oldest generation now, and I don't think I'm ready to be.

On February tenth, Dan and I celebrated our thirty-fifth anniversary with a trip to Palm Springs, California-our first there. And did we love it! Rendezvoused with some cousins and friends who showed us the town. We think we'll go back often.

The winter ended with nearly a month in Hawaii. We had three different sets of guests at our condo on Maui,

Вы читаете Small Town Girl
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату