The Four Winds

Children who, like Elsa, would be shaped by heartache.

* * *

BY THE TIME ELSA got back to the farm, she felt as if she were a machine slowly breaking down. Her family was in the house, bustling about. Rose and Loreda were in the kitchen, making pasta, and Ant and Tony were in the sitting room, rubbing oil into the straps of a leather harness.

The children’s lives would never be the same after today. Their opinions of everything would change, but especially their opinions of themselves, of the durability of love and the truth of their family. They would know forever that their father hadn’t loved their mother—or them—enough to stay with them through hard times.

What did a good mother do in this circumstance? Did she tell the harsh, ugly truth?

Or was a lie better?

If Elsa lied to protect her children from Rafe’s selfishness and to protect Rafe from their resentment, it might be a long while before the truth came out, if it ever did.

Elsa walked past Tony and Ant in the sitting room and went into the kitchen, where her daughter was working the pasta dough on the flour-dusted table. Elsa squeezed her daughter’s thin shoulder. It was all she could do not to pull her into her arms for a fierce hug, but frankly, Elsa couldn’t handle another rejection right now.

Loreda pulled away. “Where’s Daddy?”

“Yeah,” Ant said from the sitting room, “where is he? I wanna show him the arrowhead Grandpa and I found.”

Rose was at the stove, adding salt to a pot filled with water. She looked at Elsa and turned off the burner.

“Have you been crying?” Loreda asked.

“It’s just watery eyes from all the dust,” Elsa said, forcing a tight smile. “Can you kids go look for potatoes? I need to talk to Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Now?” Loreda whined. “I hate doing that.”

“Now,” Elsa said. “Take your brother.”

“Come on, Ant,” Loreda said, pushing the dough away from her, “let’s go root through the dirt like pigs.”

Ant giggled. “I like bein’ a pig.”

“You would.”

The kids shuffled out of the house and banged the door shut behind them.

Rose stared at Elsa. ?

?You’re scaring me.”

Elsa headed into the sitting room, went straight to Tony’s bottle of rye, and poured herself a drink.

It tasted awful enough that she poured a second one and drank that, too.

“Madonna mia,” Rose said quietly. “I have never seen you take one drink in all these years, and now you take two.”

Rose came up behind Elsa, put a hand on her shoulder.

“Elsa,” Tony said, putting the harness aside and standing up. “What is it?”

“It’s Rafe.”

“Rafe?” Rose frowned.

“He left,” Elsa said.

“Rafe left?” Tony said. “To go where?”