Free Dakota Dream by Lauraine Snelling

parents could care for them again. Ah, me. Maybe I was the one who brought the sickness home.” Silence again. “We’ll never know.”
    Clara could hear the tears begin to drown out the woman’s voice.
    “But he was so sick. I was right here beside him. He’d been tossing and turning and finally settled down. I . . . I thought he was finally resting, so I dozed off myself. When I woke up . . .”
    Clara squeezed her eyes closed, but the tears refused to be swallowed.
    “When I woke . . . he was gone.” Deep sobs, the kind that come after being forced back too long, shuddered through her frame, shaking the bed.
    Clara gathered the straining body into her arms and held her. What could she say, even if she could talk around the tears that rained down her own cheeks?
    Mrs. Norgaard reached for the edge of the sheet to wipe her eyes. “I never—” she choked on the words, “I never said good-bye. He was gone and I never said good-bye. Did he know how much I loved him?”
    Sobs interrupted her words, making them difficult to understand, but Clara murmured soothing noises, whispering the litany of love she’d learned at her mother’s knee.
    Eventually, hiccups punctuated the silence, and Clara placed a handkerchief in Mrs. Norgaard’s hand. After blowing her nose, the now-spent woman lay back on her pillows. She put her hand back in Clara’s. “I’m sorry to get you so wet.”
    “I’ll dry.”
    “Do you think God will forgive me?”
    “For what?”
    “For being so angry at Him for taking my Einer.” She paused. “For wanting to die.”
    “All you have to do is ask. Mor says He forgives even before we ask, that’s what sending His Son to die for us meant. Forgiveness and love that never dies.”
    “Your mother is a wise woman.” Mrs. Norgaard blew her nose again. Her sigh snagged on a leftover sob.
    Clara could feel the yawn that caught Mrs. Norgaard and then sneaked up on Clara. She covered her mouth with her hand but still felt the hinges in her jaw creak with the strain.
    “Thank you, my dear.” Mrs. Norgaard breathed deeply and patted Clara’s hand. “You go on to bed now; I’ll be just fine.” She yawned again. “In fact, I’m almost asleep already.”
    “I can sit here for a while. There’s no hurry.”
    Clara was about to rise from the bed, thinking her charge almost asleep, when Mrs. Norgaard said with a catch in her voice, “Would you . . . do you know the Twenty-third Psalm?”
    “Ja, I do. We memorized that in Sunday school when we were small.”
    “Would you say it for me?”
    Clara closed her eyes and thought of the shepherd with his flock.
    “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters . . .” Her voice caught in the part about the valley but grew stronger again as she came to, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
    “Amen.”
    “Ja, Amen.” Clara nodded. When she rose a few minutes later, Mrs. Norgaard was breathing the soft and even rhythm of healing sleep.
    “Thank You, thank You, thank You.” Gratitude poured forth as Clara blew out the lamps and undressed for bed. Even while her mind sang the praises, her body felt like a garment with all the starch washed out. She was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow.
    When Clara walked into Mrs. Norgaard’s room with the coffee tray in the morning, Mrs. Norgaard was sitting up against her pillows.
    “I want you to go over to Reverend Moen’s this morning and ask him to come here.” Even her voice was stronger. “Tell him I’m ready now.”
    Whatever for? Clara wondered, but she only nodded, a smile tickling the corners of her mouth.

Chapter 6
    She had a feeling this was more like the real Mrs. Norgaard. The doorbell rang before Clara could finish her duties and get out the door. She answered the chimes, still wiping her hands on her apron.
    “Good morning, Clara.” Doc Harmon tipped his hat with one