In This Together Read online

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  In This Together

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Al laughed out loud.

  A few minutes farther on, he motioned to the right. “Turn in here.”

  “Here” turned out to be Almira’s Café. Dottie pushed back her dripping hair. “I must look a sight.”

  Al grinned, a raindrop balanced on the tip of his nose. “Me too, but who cares? How about I treat you to a California hamburger? Otherwise, it’s dumplings for the third night in a row.”

  “You’re going to go broke, Al Jensen.”

  “Nope. Del owes me for a lot of hours at the store. Even though I’ve only been working mornings the past couple of weeks, I rack up the hours. Besides, we’ve got something to celebrate.”

  “Del pays you?” She could have sworn Al told her he volunteered at the hardware.

  He made a Stan Laurel face. “No, but it sounded good. Del’s still making monthly payments on the store, though, and will be for a good long time.”

  He helped her with her coat. “What a sudden storm. Hope it lets up by the time we’re ready to go.” He handed her a menu from behind the chrome napkin holder.

  “Dottie?”

  “What?”

  “I meant it. I’m indebted to you. What’s something you would really, really like? Somewhere you’d like to go, maybe?”

  The falling star and her wish to see Cora and the children flashed through Dottie’s mind. That scene out in the starry back yard replayed, her hands raised to the heavens and her heart open to surprises. But she tore her eyes away from Al’s to stare at the menu.

  In This Together

  by

  Gail Kittleson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  In This Together

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Gail Kittleson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Vintage Rose Edition, 2015

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0410-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0411-3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my supportive husband Lance,

  who will totally understand this story’s hero.

  Chapter One

  On a good Sunday, Dottie could step through the door of First Methodist Church and not remember her husband Owen’s casket sitting near the altar rail. But this was not a good Sunday—memories of two funerals assailed her, though there hadn’t even been a casket when her son Bill died.

  The friendly hum of children and teachers spurred her to the basement. Through the serving window, she counted heads and cut sixteen pieces of chocolate cake.

  A chair scraped on the cement floor, and the primary teacher caught Dottie’s eye—time to serve the cake. She placed forks on the plates and handed them across the countertop.

  “Watch your step, children. Take your time. And what do you tell Mrs. Kyle?”

  Fifteen versions of “Thank you, Mrs. Kyle” rang out, and Ina Findlay, the teacher, added another before she left.

  When everyone went home, Dottie filled the dishpan with water she boiled on the stove and went for the broom. In the corner near the cleaning closet, little Sammy Jorgensen clung to the kitchen cupboards. Chocolate cake spewed from his two front pockets.

  Dottie stooped almost to Sammy’s height, though the movement sent a twinge through her bum knee. She let it pass and lowered even more, until her face was level with his.

  “Sammy, did you want some more cake?” She reached for the wastebasket. “Let’s get you cleaned up as best we can. Now, pull the insides of your pockets out.”

  Four or five hands full of dark chocolate goo later, she rubbed the once-white insides of Sammy’s Sunday trouser pockets with a damp rag.

  “You gonna tell my mommy?”

  She wiped crumbs from his mouth and patted his shoulder. “She’ll see it, honey—we can’t get the stains out. But your mommy loves you, you know that.”

  Absorbed in her ministrations, Sammy failed to notice Mrs. Jorgensen slip into the kitchen, a sleeping baby in one arm, Sammy’s coat draped over the other.

  “Sammy? I’ve been looking for you.”

  He covered his mouth with cake-speckled fingers.

  “What have you done?”

  “Mommy, I…Missus Kyle bringed us treats and…”

  “From the looks of your shirt, you decided to take some home?”

  Sammy’s bottom lip curled toward his chin.

  “He was trying to help, while I was busy gathering up the dishes.” Dottie’s words did little to ease the lines on Myra Jorgensen’s forehead.

  “Look at this floor—cake tracks everywhere. You made more work for Mrs. Kyle, after all the nice things she does for our Sunday school. Tell her you’re sorry.”

  Sammy’s whisper penetrated Dottie’s heart, and she pulled him close. Warm chocolaty breath tickled her nose.

  “It’s all right. I once had a little boy who looked a lot like you—I found plenty of bugs and baby toads in his pockets.” Dottie caught Myra’s eyes. “Seems like only yesterday Bill was that size.”

  The beginning of a smile worked its way across the weary mother’s lips. Dottie helped Sammy into his coat and patted his warm head.

  “You have a nice afternoon, now.” Sammy whisked toward the door, his stiff pant legs swishing with every step.

  “That boy never stops, I swanny. Dottie, some days…”

  Dottie patted Myra’s arm. “Let me get the door for you. I’d be glad to have Sammy over for a few hours this afternoon so you can take a nap.”

  “That’s so thoughtful, but we’re going to the family reunion out at the farm. Gotta hurry home to check on my chicken, frost a cake, and get everything loaded up.”

  “Ma…maa.” Myra’s petite bundle let out a wail, but Myra took time to squeeze Dottie’s hand.

  “I hope you know how much we appreciate your work around here.”
Her forehead creased. “I don’t know how you made it through losing Bill, and then Owen, too—you’re such a strong woman.”

  “We do what we have to do, Myra—the war was hard on everybody.”

  Elbows spread wide, the young woman called to Sammy. Dottie watched until she had him safely in the car, thinking of Cora in California. That would be her profile right now, too, arms bulging with a baby and a two-year-old—such precious cargo.

  From the very back of the shelf below the sink, she retrieved a two-inch, wiry square that had been cut from a scouring pad. Smelled like it still had a little soap left, so she ran it around the faucet edge and rinsed off the residue before she swept up the crumbs and wet mopped well-worn linoleum.

  The Sunday school room smelled of recently opened crayon boxes, dusty hymnals, and the mothball tinge of Sunday best clothes. She straightened the shelves, pushed child-sized red chairs under the low table, and took one last look around the kitchen before turning off the lights.

  “That cake’ll attract ants.” Her voice bounced back to her.

  The uneven floor, slanted toward a central drain, tripped her up, but she caught herself on the countertop. Something about the sight of a few more red-brown crumbs and the little-boy breath still hovering in the air buckled her knees. She dropped to the cool floor.

  A cry rose from some unearthly place inside her. “My son and my husband—did you have to take them both?”

  Her fists pummeled the cracked linoleum’s surface. “If only I could see Cora’s little ones—oh, why does she have to live so far away?” Her complaint echoed in the dank, eerie quiet. She felt more alone than she had since Owen passed.

  “Such a strong woman.” Myra’s description mocked her. Through it all, she’d set her mind and ploughed on, but what choice did she have? Today, though, she might not even have the strength to get up off the floor.

  ****

  An old aluminum pail banged against Dottie’s thigh en route to the third bedroom on the right. She glanced at the clock. Well, George Hanson would have to jiggle his foot on the front porch of the boarding house for a few more minutes.

  At least he could go outside in this warm weather instead of tapping his foot in the dining room. Her feather duster in hand, Dottie opened his window to let in the breeze and worked around George’s few belongings. A bright circus flyer decorated his desk.

  Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey

  Combined shows coming to the Hippodrome

  Waterloo, Iowa—August 30, 1946

  Over a week ago. If George took the train down to Waterloo that day, she hadn’t even noticed. But then, like the other three boarders, he stayed to himself, and most days she hardly stuck her head out of the kitchen except to do the washing in the basement.

  Something metal back on his closet shelf glinted. She slid his desk chair and climbed atop it, groaning at the impact on her sore knee. But Helene wanted everything dusted thoroughly. Dottie swept her duster around the engraved tin box, most likely George’s money stash.

  He hired out for farmers some days—that was all she knew about him. She wielded her duster as far back as she could, but without warning, the closet door slammed shut.

  She grabbed at a suffocating sensation threatening her throat, but calmed herself enough to fumble for the knob and push open the door. For a moment, she held her forehead, moist with sweat.

  The desk sat close enough to the closet that its solid edge helped her ease to the floor. She took a deep breath, finished her cleaning, and went out into the hallway. No sound came from the kitchen, where she had left her boss checking the cupboards for supper ingredients. Good—that meant Helene had driven down to the butcher shop.

  A kick sent the dirty clothes pile closer to the steps, where Dottie shoved it over the edge with her toe, a method Helene frowned upon. But it saved a trip up the stairs for the cleaning supplies with her recalcitrant knee.

  The entire bundle splatted on the landing—a perfect pitch. Halfway down, another well-placed kick produced equally successful results. Maybe she’d learned something from all those years of watching Bill kick the football.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Dottie bent to pick up the laundry, but instead of splotched green and white linoleum swirls, a woman’s black patent leather shoes greeted her. Shapely legs led to a pair of dimpled knees and a bright flowered dress. Standing tall, Dottie couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Why, Bonnie Mae Ingersoll, is that you?”

  The redhead chawed her gum. Her bemused half-smile rang a bell way back in Dottie’s memory.

  “Well, I’ll be—someone remembered my name.” She scratched the back of her head with long fingernails painted as red as her lips, and looked Dottie up and down. “Fancy meeting you, too. Don’t recall your name, though I do remember that amazing coal black hair.”

  “Dottie. Dottie Kyle—but the coal black has turned to charcoal, I’m afraid.”

  Bonnie Mae’s squint could have meant anything. “Where’s Helene? She told me to come at ten.”

  “Probably buying meat for supper. Would you like to leave her a message?” Dottie’s neck spewed heat like the building’s ancient coal stoker.

  Bonnie Mae twirled a strand of flaming hair around her forefinger and cracked her gum. Near her mouth and eyes, telltale age lines marked time’s passage—probably twenty years.

  “Nope. This is my first day of work. I’ll just look around.” She flounced her skirt like Maureen O’Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and headed into the parlor.

  Helene hired Bonnie Mae to work here? A niggling sensation just below Dottie’s collarbone warned her to put up her guard, but she couldn’t for the life of her place the reason.

  Whatever it was, she’d have to set the past aside, that’s all. Like her mother used to say, “Today’s what matters. The past is past—it wasn’t meant to last.” Funny how she remembered Mama’s advice, even though she died so long ago.

  The dining room door still swung from Bonnie Mae’s passage. Dottie drew back her good leg, launched the laundry down the basement stairs, and flung up a prayer. “You’ve seen me through lots worse than this—here we go again.”

  ****

  The screen door fought Dottie. Tired and cold, she rattled the handle and wrenched it free from its moorings.

  “Time to get out the storm windows and doors—can’t put that off any longer.”

  Her stomach growled, though she’d eaten at the boarding house earlier. A piece of apple cake and some hot cocoa wouldn’t hurt on such a cold night. She kicked off her shoes and hung up her coat, crossed the dining room to a kitchen chair, and rubbed her feet in the shadowy room. Fourteen hours of work was too much, but what could she do? Helene wasn’t about to clean up the dining room herself.

  Bright yellow walls cheered her like an old friend when she switched on the light. The spiffy aluminum cover glided over her cake pan, last year’s Christmas gift from her daughter Millie. Sliding cake pan covers—what would they invent next? A moist cinnamon-apple aroma wafted from the pan. The furnace kicked in, belching warm air through the wide iron grate under the table.

  Over a strong flame, Dottie melded a scoop of chocolate powder into a cup of milk with a wooden spoon. When she glanced up, Owen’s dark eyes observed her from his WWI army discharge photo hanging above the fern stand between the kitchen and dining room.

  At least he saw the latest war end, although he was never the same after the news about Bill. The chocolate bubbled up, and she turned off the burner just as someone banged on the front door.

  “At eight thirty? Who could that be?”

  When she flipped the switch, the porch light formed a rectangle on the dining room floor. Al Jensen stood there, about as tall and thin as a human being could get. His lips curved into a lopsided grin.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just me.” The tightness in Dottie’s neck muscles let go. “Al, what’re you doing out this late?”

  One toe of his bedroom slippers perched on t
he threshold. Two distinct worry lines divided his thick, sandy eyebrows. “It’s a full moon, so I noticed your chimney sputtering when I closed the drapes.” He held his palms up and shrugged. “Maybe I ought to take a peek.”

  Dottie stepped back. “All right, but shut the door quick. Terrible cold for October, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. You sure got home late tonight.” He stumbled on her rubber boot, but caught himself on the doorframe. “Trying to kill me?” His chuckle matched the upswing of his low voice, and she relaxed even more.

  “Guess so.”

  He left his slippers and headed for the basement door just off the kitchen. Dottie set her boots in the closet and followed him to the top of the stairs.

  “Gotta clean these steps—talk about trying to kill someone…” Her comment traced a gallon paint can, stray brushes, and a few empty canning jars down the side of the stairs. A couple of rags brightened the conglomeration, thrown there the other day when her knee bothered her too much to walk them to the soak pail down by the washer.

  Al turned into the furnace room and pulled the light chain. Dottie leaned her forehead on the door. Just like him to notice her chimney.

  “Got any new furnace filters?” The long planes of his face jutted around the doorframe in the dim light.

  “Look on the top shelf down there.”

  A few seconds later, he shuffled into view and glanced up at her, batting at a cobweb.

  “Nothing? Look on top of Owen’s old Army trunk, then, behind you.” Al bent and touched the trunk, and his left shoulder jerked back as though someone attacked him from the darkness.

  “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer, and it took him a few seconds to meet her eyes again.

  “I’ve got one over home, I think. Brought it from the hardware for Mrs. Grundy but haven’t taken it over to her yet.”

  “Can’t this wait ’til morning?”

  He reached the top of the stairway, and Dottie stepped back. The set of his jaw and his somber assessment declared it couldn’t wait. “You can’t be too careful around fire.”

  Dottie closed the front door behind him. A speck of white beckoned her from her coat pocket in the open closet—Cora’s letter. How could she have forgotten? She hurried to the kitchen with it and scanned her younger daughter’s distinct lines for news. Good. Everything was going well for her and Dennis, and she’d sent a picture of the children.