Rosettes on the Church Steps

Marit

Marit called me on Tuesday. She had heard from somebody at the grocery store that Mom and I were frying rosettes again.

It is a small town. Nothing about rosettes stays quiet in Decorah in October.

“What are you two doing?” she asked. She did not sound angry. She sounded tired.

“Mom’s going to sell on the church steps during the fall walk,” I said. “Saturday morning. Pastor said it’s fine.”

There was a long quiet on the line. I could hear her kitchen radio playing behind her, the farm market report out of Waterloo.

“Does Gordy know?” she asked.

“I don’t know what Gordy knows,” I said, and I meant it more ways than one.

“Solveig.” She stopped. I heard her take a breath. “He’s been so worried about money. He’s not sleeping. I just want you to know that. Whatever you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking anything about you, Marit,” I said. “I love you. I’m helping Mom sell rosettes. That’s all I’m doing.”

She was quiet again. Then she said, “Tell her I’ll come by,” and she hung up.

I sat at my desk at the bus garage and looked at the route board for a long time.

Saturday morning

The fall walk starts at nine, but people come early for the farmers market by the river.

Mom wanted to be set up by a quarter to eight. She said early customers are serious customers.

Arne carried the card table down from our garage and set it up at the foot of the steps, on the wide pavement where the sun comes over the roof of the bank across the street.

I brought a folding chair with a cushion for Mom, and a thermos of coffee, and a stack of white bakery bags I bought at the restaurant supply store in Waukon.

Arne brought the trays of rosettes up from the car two stacks at a time.

Mom wore her cranberry red wool coat, the good one she wears to Christmas Eve service.

She had her white hair braided and pinned up in a crown, the way she wore it on her wedding day, the way she has worn it every Sunday of my life.

She sat down in the folding chair beside the card table and set Dad’s blue cash box on the corner of it, under her hand.

She opened it. Inside was forty dollars in small bills for change, and a pencil, and a little spiral notebook.

“What’s the notebook for?” I asked.

“For my count,” she said. “I keep my own count today.”