Free Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger Page A

final show had been taken the talk of the town was prideful, not only because the young people had displayed such extraordinary talent but also because they were evidence that New Bremen was fostering in its youth the kinds of values that would serve both the community and the country well. In the summer when they were seventeen, Ariel and Karl had been chosen by my mother as the leads in a musical called The Boy Friend. By the end of the production the pair of stars were inseparable. For a while my mother looked on the relationship as a natural extension of the time and energy the two teenagers had invested in the production and she predicted it would not last beyond the turning of the leaves in autumn. But another summer had come to the valley of the Minnesota River and Karl and Ariel’s relationship seemed as consuming as ever. Its intensity alarmed not only my mother but also Julia Brandt who, whenever the two women happened to meet, was— my mother said in words that would have made the New York famous writers’ school proud—cold as an Arctic winter.
    Despite her disapproval of the intensity of his relationship with her daughter, my mother liked Karl and often invited him for dinner. Ariel had never once dined with the Brandts, a fact not at all lost on my mother. Karl was polite and funny and an athlete who’d lettered in football and basketball and baseball. He’d been accepted to St. Olaf ’s which was a college in Northfield, Minnesota, where he intended to play football and get a degree and then return to New Bremen to help his father run the brewery. When I looked up the hill from town and saw the walls of the mansion white among the greenery I thought Karl Brandt’s future sounded pretty swell.
    That Sunday evening Karl and Ariel were going boating. Karl’s family owned a sailboat and a motor launch both docked at a marina on Lake Singleton. Ariel enjoyed boating. She said she loved the feel of the wind off the water and the clear blue circle of the sky overhead and the egrets and herons that walked stilt-like in the reedy shallows. She said she loved being freed from the stultifying solidness of dirt.
    After supper she sat on the porch steps waiting for Karl. I came out and sat with her. Ariel always seemed happy to have my company. For that alone I would have loved her. My father hadn’t yet returned from his search for Travis Klement and as we sat I watched Tyler Street for any sign of our Packard.
    Ariel was dressed in white shorts and a top with horizontal red and white stripes and she wore white canvas slip-ons. Her hair was tied with a red ribbon.
You look pretty, I said.
    Thanks, Frankie. With me a compliment’ll get you anywhere. She lightly bumped my hip with her own.
What’s it like? I asked.
What?
Being in love. Is it all kind of gooey?
She laughed. At first it’s lovely. Then it’s scary. Then . . . She looked toward the hills of town, toward the Heights. It’s complicated, she said.
Will you marry him?
Karl? She shook her head.
Mom’s afraid you will.
Mom doesn’t know everything.
She says she worries because she loves you.
She worries, Frankie, because she’s afraid I’ll end up like her.
I didn’t know what that meant exactly though I knew as well as any of us that Mother was less than delighted with her life as a minister’s wife. She’d said as much on a number of occasions. Her words usually went something like When I married you, Nathan, I thought I was marrying a lawyer. I didn’t sign on for this. More often than not it was said after she’d had a drink which was not something a minister’s wife was supposed to do but my mother did anyway. She had a fondness for martinis and sometimes would make a couple for herself in the evening and sip them alone in the living room while dinner bubbled over on the stove.
She made Dad go look for Mr. Klement, I said. Mr. Klement hit Mrs. Klement and Peter.
I heard, Ariel said.
I do a lot of stuff I figure I should get hit for but I