Fervent Charity Read Free Page B

dished up a slice of apple pie for Alvinia, home-made bread covered with clotted soured cream and sugar for herself, and a black coffee for them both. “Now, what can I get for you, Precious?” Lena bent down and touched Kirstin’s nose with her finger.
    “She can have some of my pie.” Alvinia settled in comfortably with Gracia in one arm and Kirstin leaning into her knee. She gave Kirstin the first bite of pie off her fork. “I saw Oscar and Nyla at the shop this morning,” Alvinia said. “They were picking up a couple packages of meat. Nyla sure looks tough.” She enjoyed the next forkful of pie herself. “What do you put in your pies, Lena? They are always better than mine.”
    “They are no better than yours. You always like something better when you didn’t have to make it yourself. I know I do. Except for Ma’s cooking.”
    “Is Nyla sick?”
    “I think Ma is just working her to death. And she doesn’t have the gumption to say no.”
    “I see them going in and out over at Gertrude’s. They’re not still living there, are they?”
    “You bet they are! Ma whines whenever Nyla says she wants to go home, and Oscar doesn’t mind because he’s got two women waiting on him now instead of just one. He’s something, that one! He doesn’t care how much extra work it is for Nyla in that big house or that she might not want to live with her mother-in-law.”
    “Well, Gertrude is what? In her seventies? She needs somebody to look after her.”
    “Fiddlesticks!” Lena spat out in disgust. “There’s nothing wrong with that old battleax that a good swift kick in the bloomers couldn’t fix.”
    Alvinia stifled a laugh behind her hand. Anybody who knew Lena knew that she was not fond of her mother-in-law, Gertrude Kaiser.
    “Will looks in on her and so do Mary and Walter. I go over once in a while, not so often now since Gracia was born, and she sure doesn’t hurt herself getting over here to see her only grandchild. I’d go over there more often if I knew she gave a snap about Gracia, but she doesn’t. Walter told me that she said to him and Mary once that she wasn’t taking care of any more babies. That she’d brought up four and that was enough. The idea! That I would want her to take care of my baby! I’ve never asked her and I never would.
    “I felt sorry for her after Pa was killed, but she’s so kind of hard like. She’s not easy to be nice to. But she’s Will’s mother…” Lena shrugged and took a big bite of her cream-soaked bread. “I feel bad for Nyla, but she’s going to be stuck as long as she doesn’t put her foot down. That’s what I had to do with Will. Oh, he’s good to his mother and there’s nothing wrong in that. But we’re not going to run over there every time she has a pain. Especially since I know she’s strong as an ox.” Lena did a good job of eating and talking at the same time. She finished her bread and cream, cut a slice of pie for herself, and continued.
    “She can just sit over there being a sour puss with that sour-puss Oscar. I don’t know how Mary stands to be around them but she goes over every day.” Lena remembered finding her mother-in-law, alone, swathed in black taffeta, sitting like a fat spider in the web of her cluttered house the day that Pa’s body had been found in the barn. For a while, Lena even suspected her, like a spider, of killing her mate. It turned out that she hadn’t, but the nasty old thing had sat there, rocking back and forth, mewling about Will having done it. Lena had never forgotten how quick she had been to throw Will to the dogs. She had not forgotten and she had not forgiven. Ma Kaiser had remained in her widow’s weeds and tried to draw her children in and had succeeded in entrapping Oscar and Nyla. Lena didn’t care about Oscar one way or the other, and when she thought of Nyla, she just shuddered. Better Nyla than herself.
    Alvinia had heard Lena go on about her in-laws before, especially her mother-in-law,