The Painted Table(2)

As each day wears on, Joann keeps an eye on the clock and goes to the front windows a dozen or so times. She misses him when he’s gone, worries about him, craves his affection.

It’s almost four o’clock. Joann tucks the ironing board into its alcove in the kitchen and lowers the burner under a simmering chicken. Cooking is a skill Joann is teaching herself. When her family moved to northern Minnesota, her older sisters cooked for the resort guests; Joann and the younger girls cleaned cottages. Knute maintained this arrangement until each girl was eighteen. Only then could they begin high school.

Those resort years, like the prairie years before, took a toll on everyone in Joann’s family. And they took Knute’s life—he drowned in a boating accident a month after Joann left home.

Humming along with a Sousa march, compliments of WCCO, Joann carries Nels’s freshly pressed white uniform toward the bedroom.

“It’s almost time for Daddy to come home!” she calls to Saffee, who is sprawled on the living room carpet, chewing and drooling on a rubber teething ring.

“Da-ddy!” the toddler says brightly through a flow of saliva.

Joann hangs the uniform in the closet and pauses at the bureau mirror to run a brush through her dark curls. She turns her face this way and that, at once vain and highly self-critical, then returns to her post at the living room window. From it she can watch mothers push babies in buggies, and men with hats and business suits hurry to what must be very important appointments. She’s noted that some pass by about the same time each day. If they would look up, they might see her.

Someone is coming in the main entrance. She moves nearer the door, head tilted to one side. It’s the two old gossips from the first floor. Who are they chewing up and spitting out today? Their voices fade.

With Nels due any minute, military music is not the mood Joann desires. She sits down at the desk and turns the radio dial.

“. . . moments in the moonlight, moments of love . . . lost in the thrill . . .”

Ahh, much better—the velvety voice of that new crooner, Frank somebody.

She draws their wedding photograph toward her across the desktop, leaning forward to give it close inspection. How many times has she wished she could readjust the veil of her white satin hat? Why hadn’t the photographer told her it fell crookedly across her forehead? The gardenia corsage against the navy blue suit looks lovely. She still recalls its fragrance.

She studies the groom’s solemn face and, as always, sighs. If she would have only known why her usually jovial Nels had been so out of character that day, she could have set matters straight. His mood remained alarmingly dark for two weeks after the wedding. Only a few days earlier he had been ecstatic, flushed with anticipation. But when he showed up at the church, he was irritable, said he was sick. After the ceremony he didn’t want their picture taken. But the photographer was waiting.

Looking at the photo, Joann lets her mind range over the disappointing first days of marriage when she wondered why he spoke to her so harshly, wondered what had happened to his ardor . . .

“Hold me, Nels. Hold me. I thought you loved me.”

Her quandary continued until the day he came home from work and found her napping on the couch. She propped herself up on an elbow, brushed away damp stray locks of hair from her face, and said apologetically, “I’m always more tired during . . . well”—she wasn’t sure how to say it—“during . . . my time of the month.”

Nels’s jaw dropped. He fell to his knees beside her, pulled her to him, embracing her so tightly she thought he might hurt her. “I thought . . . I thought maybe . . . I’m so sorry! I’ve treated you so bad.” A sob escaped him. He reddened and quickly wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

Joann, stunned by the disclosure, freed herself from his arms and sat upright. He took her face in his hands. “Joann, tell me you’re mine, all mine, and never . . . never been with another man.”

“Nels! Of course I haven’t! Why did you even think it?”

He told her that when they had moved up the wedding date from September to May, the boys at the dairy called him a “rube” and, in so many words, said she was in “a family way.” They teased that her father might show up at the wedding with a shotgun. At first Nels was mad, then he began to believe them. He recalled how popular she was at the dances. There was a flirty way about her. He had seen the guys looking at her, whistling when she passed by.

Now, almost three years later, Joann is oddly conflicted. Although the memory is embarrassing, she can’t resist a grin. She has to admit she enjoyed all the attention she got at the Friendship Club dances. She’d never had anyone’s notice until she left home and came to St. Paul. Her bent “chicken legs” had filled out. They are not shapely, but they love to dance. When she realized her curves brought attention, she naively became a flirt, making sure it was all flash and no fire. She had never wanted to cause Nels any hurt.