A Fireproof Home for the Bride by Amy Scheibe

Author:Amy Scheibe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466869707
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Thirteen

All Progress Is Precarious

June bloomed and greened its way into the hottest July on record, and as the days snapped back from the long stretch of the solstice, Emmy eased into the trappings of her new life, distrusting the comfort even as she welcomed the routines. In particular, she looked forward to the long, looping afternoon drive from the estate to the Fargo Forum building, and the freedom she felt behind the wheel of her own car, going to earn her own paycheck. Even more than her growing relationship with Bobby, the work gave her a sense of security and place she hadn’t before known. A bird would only have to fly about a mile or two from point to point, but Emmy had to make her way over the Red River, a meandering coiled creature with its closest two bridges in opposite directions from Oakport Township. She could turn left out of the driveway and head up old Highway 3, ford the river just north of Hector Field, and then take Thirteenth Street along the edge of the college campus and down to First Avenue. Or she would go down Eleventh Avenue to the Second Avenue crossing and up Broadway. Either way it took about fifteen minutes, and she greatly preferred the country route with its wind-slanted fields of mellowing grain, the occasional sight of an airplane landing, and cruising her car along the edge of the place where she hoped to eventually study. Taking this route also meant avoiding the Crystal Sugar factory and thoughts of her father. She missed his silences more than their talks—his ability to calm her with his steady presence—but she wasn’t quite ready to seek him out and explain why she had left his house. In fact, the more she learned about the family rift, the less she understood her father’s ability to let it happen again in his own.

Meanwhile, the slow waltz into courtship with Bobby had guided Emmy through a thicket of new people and experiences. She hadn’t been able to imagine what it would be like to have seven siblings, all younger, and not until she had set foot in the Doyle house had she considered the amount of noise that many children were capable of making. She was used to the quiet of the small house, and the stillness of the people it held—it was almost as though the Nelsons had needed to maintain quiet and a safe distance from each other in order to stay upright. Not so at the Doyles’, where the television was always on in the living room, the radio always chirping and chatting away in the kitchen, and a constant flow of inquisitive curly heads would pass by Emmy, asking her questions as the children touched her—on the arm to get her attention, on her skirt to admire a new pattern, on her cheek to feel if it got as hot as the blushing made it look. All this touching would only increase Emmy’s flush, making the assembled clan attempt new approaches and excuses for embarrassing her.

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