A Fireproof Home for the Bride Read Online Free

one eye. “You’re a great study, Ambrose. You should consider taking the cloth yourself, you know. We could use more men like you.”
    “So you always say.” Ambrose bowed his head. “But I serve the Lord through faith alone.”
    “His Grace be with you,” Pastor Erickson replied, turning back to Emmy and casting a rheumy glance down the length of her frame.
    “And with you,” Ambrose said, moving Emmy along toward the basement stairs. The smell of percolating coffee and the clattering of the church women setting out cups pointed up the silence that rested between the young couple. In the few moments it took them to descend, Emmy sought a topic of conversation to begin, but nothing came to mind. She certainly hadn’t listened closely enough to the sermon to engage him on the topic of divine retribution—or whatever it was the pastor had spent so much time talking about. If it wasn’t damnation, it was likely wrath or some other brimstone subject. The gamut Pastor Erickson ran was as small as that of a penned-up rooster, and nearly as nonsensical, but she knew better than to speak her mind on to Ambrose. It seemed to her at times that she was the only person who noticed the paucity of words and ideas coming from the pulpit, so eager were the parishioners to have Pastor Erickson’s holy approval.
    “School’s going well,” Emmy said, feeling the awkwardness in Ambrose’s lack of response. She wanted to tell him all about her new life in Moorhead, and what an adjustment it had been for her, going from the immigrant shack her father had improved as much as he could, to the slightly larger, faintly more comfortable two-bedroom house situated in what Emmy had quickly learned was the poor side of the big town, on the lesser bank of the Red River. To the west across that river lay Fargo, which, in the early days of both settlements, had claimed a much bigger stake with the railroads than its little twin sister, Moorhead. Emmy was only beginning to understand the myriad effects of this dynamic, though, and worried that if she tried to express her impressions of it Ambrose would wave away her insights like slow-moving attic flies.
    When they reached the wide, warm basement the young couple wordlessly parted ways, Ambrose to join the men gathered around the coffee table, and Emmy to the kitchen and a sink of soapy water. Her mother passed with a plate of her homemade doughnuts, which were always hard and dry but somehow the most popular Sunday-morning hospitality item. Emmy slipped into the bustling kitchen, quietly past the women swarming there, and out the back cellar door.
    Once outside in the cement-lined structure at the foot of the stairs, Emmy let out a long sigh and climbed to the top, where she sat hugging her knees for warmth. She found an instant comfort in the solitude of the moment. Behind the church a number of young boys ran around in the snow, impervious to their reddening hands and dripping noses. Emmy smiled at their predictability—boys had been like this when she was young, and they would be like this when she was old. One of them stole another’s cap, and the shock of white-blond hair made Emmy wonder if her son would look like so many of the children who had passed through this yard. Her own hair still held its childhood brilliance—a gift from her grandfather, along with the blushing skin—while Birdie’s had darkened to a tawny brown.
    The basement door opened and out popped Svenja Sorenson, her russet-colored looped braids catching the morning sunshine and her pale blue eyes slicing up to meet Emmy’s in a squinted, freckle-splattered smile.
    “Oh, Emmy! Here you are!” Svenja dashed up the steps and squeezed into the smaller space to Emmy’s left, rather than take the two feet of empty stair to her right. Emmy scooted over.
    Emmy turned one palm up. “Here I am.”
    “Tell me everything —what’s happening in the real world?” Svenja asked, smelling of strawberry jam. “Oh, how I