When she discovered that the offender was Rolf, she tattled to her pa. With vehemence Rolf denied it. “She’s crazy, Pa, you know that! I done nothin’, she’s crazy!” Later he yelled louder under the razor strap. Rolf didn’t bother her in the night again but took to tormenting her in other ways. It was contagious. Soon Joann, an oddly withdrawn child, became the object of the other siblings’ ridicule.
“You’re crazy, Joann. Just plain crazy.”
In the wake of these and other unwanted memories, Joann relived her hurt and loneliness for the rest of the day. Under the table she had been a child without love. To be a child without love is a transgression. She must find a way to cover the table—this symbol of transgression against a child.
Last night the thought came to her that if April wants to play under the table, it must be made into a pleasant place. She would make a playhouse cover.
She rose early and sewed the sheets together, making them fit perfectly. Now, with crayons, she finishes the tulip border.
Throughout the weeks ahead, until the carpenters arrive to turn the house upside down, the playhouse cover is usually in place. Underneath, April tends her dolls and Saffee colors in her Jane Powell coloring book.
“A little camouflage goes a long way,” Joann is heard to say.
The table would be hidden every day if Nels didn’t insist that the cover come off for their Sunday after-church pot roast.
“It’s not right to eat in the kitchen on Sunday,” he says. Joann glumly obliges, tossing a green percale tablecloth over the relic from her childhood.
No matter what or where the Kvaales eat, chewing takes precedence over conversation—especially on Sundays when the stringy, inexpensive roast presents a challenge for all. Joann reminds her daughters that God gave them their father’s big strong teeth and they should use them without whining. Neither parent is qualified to teach the girls the art of table talk. Joann’s studied vocabulary and love of poetic phrases is for impressing herself and doesn’t usually fit into mealtime conversation.
Joann’s creative accomplishments are inconsistent with someone born in a poor prairie sod house and who has only a high school education. But she has a natural talent for design and renders precise drawings for the main-floor efficiency apartment. There will be compact built-ins, including an eating table, hinged to raise and fold up into a wall. She makes a movable, paper model. “Look at this, Saffee. It’ll disappear just like the Murphy bed we had in California.”
“I liked that bed,” Saffee says, glancing at April.
It appears that all the necessities of a one-room apartment will fit into the allotted space—except a refrigerator. Joann is stumped. Reluctantly, she makes an unsatisfactory decision. Since there will be a door between the apartment and the Kvaales’ new kitchen, the tenant will have to come into their place to share the refrigerator.
When the downstairs plans are complete, Joann turns to the upstairs. Nels gives her full rein. The only matter they take care of together is hiring the workmen.
“A person can’t be too careful nowadays,” says Joann. “Can’t trust just anyone coming into the house, you know.”
The sawing and pounding begin and Joann keeps a critical eye on the crew, following them from room to room, peering over their sweat-soaked shoulders.
“They better not steal any materials when my back is turned!” she declares to Nels. If it seems that wallboard or trim is wasted, or too many good nails are left on the floor at night, she gathers them up and doesn’t hesitate to mention it. If framing doesn’t look square to Joann’s eye, it’s done over. As the project proceeds, the workers try to sidestep the lady of the house, but sometimes tempers flare.
“Don’t those men realize that I have it hard too?” she frets. “I carry the responsibilities of management, to say nothing of noise from power tools, and how about all this dust!” Her frustrations alternate with exhilaration, however, as she watches her well-thought-out plans take shape.
Joann’s preoccupation with the renovations allows Saffee and April, now eight and four, more freedom than they had in St. Paul. April makes friends with neighborhood children and Saffee explores the shallows of the Blue River down the bank across the street. She steps timidly into the dark, cavernous spaces under the bridge that spans the river and, from a distance, peers warily as water crashes over the dam. When a truck rumbles overhead, her heart pounds and she scrambles up the side of the bank. More to her liking are the safe treasures found in the public library.
The cloth playhouse cover has done nothing to change Joann’s subconscious perception of her unwillingly inherited table. It continues to feature prominently in her disturbing dreams. Perhaps if she would alter . . . In a moment of clarity, she knows what she must do.