She didn’t have a chance to reply, because their friends had stopped on a corner, and stood waiting for them. “I’ve invited all these boys over for dinner tomorrow after church,” Betty announced as they approached. “My folks always invite some of the boys who come to church, anyway, so I’ll just tell them that you four are coming.”

Nick and Elissa exchanged happy smiles: tomorrow!

“You can come to church, too,” Betty said, with a challenging smile for Nick.

He smiled back. “What time? Which church?”

“Ten-thirty. Faith Lutheran.”

“I reckon I can be Lutheran for a day,” he said.

It wasn’t so bad saying good-bye knowing that she would see him again in less than nine hours. He lifted her gloved hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said.

The girls ran the block to Betty’s house, the cold burning their lungs, while the boys headed off in the other direction, lighting up cigarettes, jabbing each other with their elbows, their laughter filling the night air.

Chapter 15

HOME OF MRS. CECILIA FRYT
412 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
Tuesday, July 18, 1950

“Yes, if Elissa hadn’t met that boy, things would likely have been different,” Mrs. Fryt said. “But I still say it all goes back to Wilma.”

“To Wilma!” Corinne said. “When it was John—”

Mrs. Fryt held up her hand. “Ladies,” she said. “If you want to understand about the Mickelsons, let me tell you this one thing. Chase was Wilma’s most treasured child, and she never did make a secret of it. Don’t you remember? Of course, I think it’s a terrible sin, favoring one child over the others the way she did; if I’d been blessed with more than one living child, you can bet your bottom dollar I’d have favored them all just the same.”

“Cecilia,” Thelma said.

“No one who saw them could deny it, Thelma. Wilma loved Chase more than the others. Well, a mother had to let Jack go—he was too much his own, from the time he was knee-high. But the two youngest, Harry and Jinny, she treated them like afterthoughts. Sometimes you’d swear she forgot she even had them.”

“Oh, Cecilia,” Thelma said. “How could a mother forget her own children?”

“I’ll put it this way,” Mrs. Fryt said. “In all the years of going to church when those children were growing up, Wilma would spend the whole service sitting with her hand touching Chase’s hair, the first ten years of his life, at least. The only time she’d even notice Jinny or Harry is if they started to act up, and then she’d just give them one of her looks.