Iver’s Winter

by Jane Beauchamp

Inside the small house, two little girls wearing worn gray woolen jumpers played with a black cat. When they looked out the front window, they shrieked with excitement, their long blonde hair flowing around them as they danced in anticipa­tion.

   “Careful, girls, remember, this is a surprise. We want Iver to see the skates in his own time,” their mother said.  She stood near them, also watching. She hummed a little waltz, and then leaning down, wrapped her arms around the littlest girl, hum­ming even a little louder. The skates sat on the table, the shiny black leather and blades a contrast to the chipped and scarred oak.

   The girls, ages five and seven, watched their brother as he approached the tar paper structure that served as their home. His slender build was hidden by the layers of woolen jackets, sweaters and scarves he wore to fend off the bitter cold. It was a two mile walk into town, and he was coming home from his job as a livery boy at the hotel. He was fourteen that winter.

   Iver came into the small house and was quick to shut the door behind him. Even so, the frigid air followed him in, hang­ing on his clothes as much as the scent of the livery stable and the wood smoke coming from their only source of heat. The tip of his man-sized nose was red, and black curls were some­what plastered down by his stocking cap.

   “Iver, how many horses did you take care of today? ” said Inga, the older sister. “Do you want some coffee? Come along, sit down at the table and warm up,” she commanded with a twinkle in her eye.

   Iver listened to her while he hung his collection of coats on a peg behind the door. His eyes adjusted to the dim light in the house.

   “Yeah, Inga, a little coffee is good.”

Inga delighted in finding something for her brother when­ever he came home. She loved to sit with him while he ate or drank whatever she had. It allowed some time for her to draw out the details of his day.

“Girls, I saw seven horses today. Six that were big and strong.” He turned to Ella and picked her up with a slight swing in the small room. “And then I saw a perfect pony for you. It was a tiny, small thing, not much bigger than your kitty. Can you believe that, Ella?”

   Ella giggled and pointed at the table. Iver turned and began to pull up a chair, but then stopped.

   “Iver, those are for you,” his mother said. His sisters watched him. He slid his body onto the chair, still staring at the skates, his face somber. He did not reach for them.

   “Iver, what? What’s wrong? They’re yours,” his mother said.

   “Oh Ma, why? Where did you get the money?”

   “Det gjor ikke noe—never mind that,” she said. “Just because you work so much doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have a little fun with the boys at the lake.”

   “Did Dad send money?”

   Iver had picked up the letter at the post office earlier in the week, addressed to his mother. He instantly recognized the fanciful embellishments in his father’s handwriting. The letter had been mailed from somewhere in Tennessee. His mother got these letters on occasion but never discussed them with her children.

   The girls and Iver were quiet, all waiting to hear what their mother would say. The skates still sat on the table, untouched. They hadn’t seen their father in months.

   “No, he did not send money this time, Iver, but you don’t have to worry about the skates. Remember a few weeks ago when I helped Mrs. Kittleson with her little boy? They were so relieved their baby got over that terrible croup. That night, Mr. Kittleson asked me about you, Iver,” she said. “He wanted to know if you still skated, and when he heard you’d outgrown your old skates, he wanted me to have these, just for you. He dropped them by this morning. ” She laughed.  “Iver, it’s good.”

   Iver reached out and touched a blade. He took a swig of coffee, strong from sitting in a pot on the back of the wood­stove since morning. Inga and Ella went back to the cat. Their mother turned to the sink, where a pile of potatoes sat, waiting to be peeled for supper.

   The next few days brought eight inches of new snow. The skates hung with Iver’s coats on the peg, but went unused. Iver was spending more time at the livery with the extra shoveling, and he was grateful for the additional income for his family.

   Most of the chores at the livery were mundane and rou­tine, and so Iver had figured out a way to do his job while let­ting his mind wander into more interesting things.  One particular afternoon, as he was mucking the stalls, he remem­bered how he learned to skate. He was nine when his father brought a pair home from one of his trips. He and Iver walked to the big lake, and then followed along the shore to Peter­sons’. The Petersons ran a tavern and shop frequented by the loggers and fishermen who worked the lake. In winter, it became a gathering spot for skaters and ice fishermen. Certain areas near Petersons’ were prime fishing, due to the nearby springs deep underground that kept the water fresh.

   When they got there, Iver’s father helped him lace up the new, stiff, skates.

“What you have to do, is, don’t look down.  That’s how you lose your balance,” was the only thing he told him.

Being fourteen now, Iver realized something he felt back then but didn’t know how to say. At nine years old, that after­noon was the first time he could remember his father physi­cally helping him with anything.  He noticed his father’s hands were not the chapped, calloused, red hands of the lumberjacks he knew. He wasn’t sure what his father did, but it wasn’t any­thing with his hands.  Back on that afternoon, on stiff skates with double ties, he walked to the rink on the lake, his father’s arm around his shoulders to keep him upright.  Once there, Iver paused to watch the other boys, zipping around in an oval on the lake.

   “Well, what are you waiting for? Do you need a goddamn invitation, then?” his father said.

   And that was the end of any skating instructions from his father. Iver stepped onto the ice.

   “I’m going into Petersons. Come and get me when you’re done.” His father turned and did not look back to see Iver tum­ble into a snow bank.

   A few boys who did see grabbed Iver’s jacket from the back and pulled him onto the ice. From then, he didn’t leave until it was getting dark. His legs and feet were sore and he felt wonderful. He took off the skates, put on his boots, and headed into Petersons.

   As usual, Petersons Tavern was packed with men, shoul­der to shoulder at the bar with their beers and plaid woolen coats and fur hats. The walls were black from wood smoke;  the air heavy with cigars and cigarettes.  At first he didn’t see his father.

   “Hello, Iver,” Mr. Peterson said to him, tipping his head to the corner. Iver noticed the ham on the buns some of the men were eating and all of a sudden felt his stomach rumble with hunger.

   He walked to the corner where his father sat. “Dad, it’s getting dark. Time to go,” Iver said.

   “I ain’t going nowhere right now. I’m busy, I just got here,” he said.

   Iver  stood looking at his father, sitting solidly in a chair with his back against the wall, his legs stretched out to fit under the table. He really didn’t appear to be doing much of anything, Iver thought. The mug on the table in front of him was almost empty. Despite the crowd, he was sitting alone, ignored by the other men.

   “Dad, it’s time for supper. Ma will worry.”

   His father grabbed the end of Iver’s scarf tied around his neck and pulled Iver’s face down in front of his own. “I’m tell­ing you, I just got here. Tell your Ma that, why don’t you, god­dammit.” His eyes were directed at Iver, but he felt that his dad did not see him. He pulled his face away from his father’s, and in turning, caught the glance of Mr. Kittleson, the hard­ware man, who was standing nearby. Mr. Kittleson and the other men he was with immediately looked away from Iver, all of them embarrassed to be caught watching the exchange.

   Iver made his way to the door.

   “Iver! Wait a minute,” Mr. Peterson said when he saw him leaving. He came to the door. “You can tell your ma that your pa’s not getting any more beer here tonight. Plus he needs to pay off his tab if he thinks he’s getting any more from me, ever.”

   Iver nodded and headed home. In the cold, he was thank­ful for the moon that lit his path along the shoreline, through the woods, and back to his house.  His mother was watching for them. He saw her body stiffen and her jaw set when he told her what Mr. Peterson said. She placed a bowl of soup in front of him, and gave a little kiss to the top of his nine-year-old head.

   His father never did come home that night. It was another two before his father he sent a post to let his family know what he was doing.

In the livery, Iver‘s shoulders did a big shake, as if his entire body was reacting to that memory of Petersons with his father. Besides, he was on his last chore for the day: putting out the evening hay. He finally headed home, his mind filled with images of himself on his new skates, joining the other boys, racing in the oval, never falling or tripping and always being lightning fast.

   A few weeks later, Iver heard some men waiting at the liv­ery talking about Petersons’.

   “Yeah, the ice fishing was pretty good yesterday. Got more than I could handle so I gave some to the neighbors,” the first one said.

   “Say, Peterson said he’s making room in his smokehouse for the fish. You drink or eat or shop there, then you can get some space in his smokehouse and he’ll watch it for you,” his friend responded.

   Iver hadn’t been to Petersons’ in the winter for a very long time.  Years. “Excuse me sirs,” Iver said, as he handed one the reins to his horse.  The two stopped talking and looked at him, surprised the quiet livery boy even had a voice.

   “How does the ice rink at Petersons’ look?”

   They laughed.

   “If I was twenty years younger, I’d find some skates and head over there myself, that’s how it looks,” the first one replied.  “And if you don’t want to skate with the boys, there’s plenty of pretty girls drinking coffee in Mrs Peterson’s kitchen, watching out the window, waiting to see who is going to get off the ice and come talk to them.”  

   Iver mumbled thank you and made himself scarce. He had no idea what to say to a girl, much less in front of a whole raft of them, and he definitely wasn’t going to let these men know that.  No, he’d get over to the rink and practice by himself first, get his skating legs back before he joined the other boys.

   When Iver came home from work that night, his sisters were home alone. “Where’s Ma?” he said.

   “Mr. O’Malley came to get her this morning. Mrs. O’Mal­ley’s having her baby,” Ella said. Their mother supported her family by being a midwife, and in addition, would stay for days with families who needed extra help with their newborns or sick babies. Sometimes she would be paid with money, but more often was given chickens, preserves, fabric, or any other number of other things. Most of the families she helped didn’t have much more than she did.

   Whenever their mother went to help a baby, her children never knew how long she would be gone. Inga and Ella had gotten very good at creating their own meals. Sometimes a neighbor traveling along their road would stop in with a mes­sage from their mother about how long she would be, but usu­ally not. Tonight Inga had fried some potatoes and tore a small slice of ham into it for flavor.

   Iver ate with his sisters. “When are you going skating, Iver?”  Ella asked him, too young to recognize that the livery work was heavy, hard work.  Also, their home, the livery, and Petersons’ made one big triangle-shaped route. He could go back and forth from the house to the livery, or the house to Petersons’, but Iver knew from experience that doing it on foot in even nice weather was  already a lot.

   “When Ma gets back,” he replied.

   Later that night, their mother came home. The girls shared a bed in one corner of the single-roomed house. They woke briefly to see her place a burlap sack of potatoes, a large jar of honey, what looked like a smoked sausage and a few other bags on the table.

   She stepped over to their bed. “We’ll have a wonderful dinner tomorrow, girls. Go back to sleep.”

   She looked at the other corner, where Iver was on his cot. In his sleep, his face softened and reminded her of the round-cheeked little boy he used to be.  She found her quilt and pulled it around her as she settled on the horsehair sofa, already asleep for the night before she finished her prayers.

   The next morning, the sun came up cold and bright.

   “Now, Iver, listen, you’ve had these skates a month. They’re to use, not just look at,” his mother said to him as he ate his oatmeal. “Why don’t you take your skates with you to the livery today, and on your way home, catch a ride with someone heading to Petersons’ place? I’m sure someone would give you a ride if you just ask. Just have to speak up a little. It’s time to try out the skates, and have some fun with the boys.”

   He looked at his mother. “Don’t worry about me if I’m not home by dark, then,” he said.

   “Oh, you—really, Iver, go. Don’t worry about us tonight,” she said. “Here, get something at Petersons if you get hungry.”  She pressed a dime in his hand.

   “Thanks, Ma.” In moments, Iver was wrapped in his coats and out the door with his skates, headed for a day’s work at the livery.

   Later, Iver was surprised to see how easy it was to get a ride to Petersons’ from the livery. He wasn’t used to asking for help, and as a rule, the hotel owner frowned on his workers asking customers for anything.  But that afternoon, everyone was in a good mood and he was happy to be on the back of a cart, riding out to Petersons’.  Some men who were living at the hotel had decided they wanted a change of scenery from the taverns in town, and told him to hop on when they saw him standing with his skates.  Iver could hear the rink before he saw it; it was packed. He watched the boys skate as if they were testing some made-up law of physics where the faster they went, the longer the daylight might last. Iver knew a few of them from school, but since quitting last year, he was out of touch with most.

   He sat on a bench to put on his skates. The pressure of the laces on his legs felt good. He stood up, his body instantly remembering what he’d learned when he was nine. Don’t look down.

   Standing there, he forgot about all the hard things that left him exhausted and worried for his mother. Boys were laugh­ing, tossing the occasional snowball and being very loud. Some made sure the girls in Mrs. Peterson’s kitchen window would notice them, by skating nearer the shore and making spins and faces as if they were stars of their own frozen vaudeville show.  A few others raced.

   He hobbled and lurched his way to the rink. Then he spot­ted a smaller clearing on the ice, twenty or thirty yards out from the rink where the boys played. He was unused to their exuberance, although he realized he envied it. He began walk­ing with his skates through the snow on the ice. The clearing looked like it was made just for him, a fellow who wanted a lit­tle private practice before joining the fast-moving mob nearer the shore. He carefully made his way to the clearing, stepping through the packed snow.

   At first he didn’t hear the pop. Or maybe he did; thinking about it later, he wasn’t sure. Like everyone, he was used to hearing the ice on the enormous lake shift and crack through the winter. But this pop, this time, was meant for him.  In that moment he stopped and the noise around him went quiet, although, when looking over his shoulder, the same crowd was carrying on just the as they were.  He just couldn’t seem to hear them. He watched water ooze out of the snow where he was standing and start to go over the tops of his new skates.

   He shifted slightly to try to back up. He thought to him­self, alright, Iver, easy there, lift one skate and take a big step back. Really fast.  Nothing to it if you do it right. And as he did just that, he heard a few more cracks and then pops and then a deep gulping sound that water makes upon hitting ice when several large chunks shift and allow the lake to rush through. He called for help, but the boys’ voices on the rink were too loud for anyone to hear right away.

   The water began soaking into the hems and layers of Iver’s coat. He stood still, both from shock and from the notion that maybe if he didn’t move, the water soaking his layers of clothes would just stop. Iver’s mind was blank. This isn’t supposed to happen, was all he thought. I’m just skating. No one heard his call until it was too late to do anything.

   Later, there would be an article in the local paper provid­ing a reminder that constant vigilance is required to find and avoid those portions of a frozen lake where there are under­ground springs which can form underwater whirlpools which can cause weakness or cracks in parts previously frozen.  But that day, no one cared about how it happened.

   The boys screamed for help when they finally heard Iver’s calls and saw his head bobbing between chunks of ice. Then he quit calling, and his head slowly slipped from view, and the background of the constant cricks and cracks and pops of win­ter lake ice became amplified for everyone.

   Mrs. Peterson sent the girls in the kitchen back to town, with orders to not turn around and watch. She took off to find Iver’s mother, and found her at home, preparing supper with her daughters. The screams and wails in the tiny house dis­placed all the air in the room, and then gave way to gasping, relentless sobs. Somehow, Mrs. Peterson helped them find coats and hats and the cat. She took them back with her to stay with them at their home above the tavern for a few weeks. By the time they got there, the men’s work on the broken ice was done. It had taken them several hours to locate Iver and pull him out with ropes and hooks and nets and winches and boards and prayers.

   All the families who Iver’s mother had tended helped her now. Petersons cleared a part of the tavern and pushed a few tables together, so his family could sit next to Iver, whose body was laid out on the table. Iver’s mother had no room for a wake in their house.  O’Malleys made a casket.  Someone set out a few candles. Somehow, the preacher was contacted and Iver’s body was washed and dressed. Iver’s casket would be stored at the cemetery until the ground warmed up in the spring. No one thought to even try to find his father.

Iver’s mother could not speak and barely moved for days. Mrs. Peterson would bring her broth, steaming in a cup, which went untasted. Instead, Inga became the one to step in and make the decisions, recite the prayers and say the thank yous.   Ella did not cry but clung to her cat, shrieking with panic when told she must leave it behind for a bit to attend her brother’s funeral.

On the day of Iver’s service, the small church across the road from Petersons’ was packed, winter coats adding extra bulk to people already squeezed into the tight quarters of the pews. After, everyone went back to Petersons Tavern. Mrs. Peterson sat by Iver’s mother, while directing her shop help to pass out coffee.

“There’s nothing else to do,” Mrs. Peterson said to no one in particular as she sat with her, a small tone of sad wonder­ment in her voice. “Nothing else to say.”  And it was true. What else could anyone say or do at this point that could possibly make anything better for Iver’s mother and sisters?  

An hour later, Iver’s mother turned to Mrs. Peterson and took her hand. “Were Kittlesons at church?” She stared at the floor.  These were the first words to come out of her mouth in several days.

“No, I didn’t see them,” Mrs. Peterson said. “I thought they’d be there; I know he closed the store for the funeral, but I also heard the baby’s been sick. Why?”

Iver’s mother fell silent again and the hum of chatter grew in the tavern,  as people began to relax with each other.

“I need to tell Mr. Kittleson something,” she finally said, not looking up. “He should keep selling skates.”

She continued to sit by Mrs. Peterson and hold hands with her for the rest of the day, until Mrs. Peterson gently peeled hers away to go help lock up the tavern for the night.  Mrs. Peterson’s hand ached for days after. She didn’t mind at all.

Long after that sad winter, Iver found himself skating again. Or still skating, he wasn’t sure which. His skates felt like extensions of his feet.  The slightest motion of force propelled him into the next day, or maybe the next year. He really didn’t notice. It was simply a glorious feeling to move like that, and he could not get enough of it.

   Something was happening that was different, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. No matter. He skated while the wild and fantastic scenery went flying past him, always new, never repeated.

   One afternoon as he moved over the endless and spectacu­lar ice, he came upon his little sisters, Inga and Ella. In fact, he heard their laughing before he saw them.  But he never noticed their gray hair before; how could that be, he wondered.  They were sitting next to each other on a bench facing a frozen lake. The evergreens and sunshine framed their bodies as Ella leaned into Inga to whisper something that turned out to be very, very funny.  It always delighted him to hear them laugh together.

   He skated on, making spins and jumps because he could, each movement as effortless and productive as the next. Funny how I’m never cold, Iver realized, landing from a long leap over some snow on the ice. Or hungry. All he wanted to do was skate, forever.