“Goodness, that Jack,” Thelma said.

“Yes, he always was that way,” Mrs. Fryt declared. “There was just no stopping him. Like I was saying about him taking Chase off to the war. Once Jack made up his mind, that was it.”

Corinne sighed. “When I think of Wilma now, and how awful that time must have been for her. Remember how we were talking about her garden last time? I don’t think any of us really understood, then. Of course, now some of us have experienced that, our boys going off to war. But then, Wilma was different from the rest of us, wasn’t she?”

“I still can’t understand the way she let her irises go, there on the side of the house,” said Mrs. Fryt. “Planted them all in a fit one day, and then forgot about them. It used to make me want to cry, the way those irises begged to be divided.”

“She was doing the best she could, wasn’t she, Mother?” Jeannette said. “You always say, some people aren’t made as strong as others.”

“Yes, but most people don’t bring their families crashing down around them, either.”

“Wilma sure made good sweet pickles, though,” Corinne said, laughing, doing her best to lighten the mood. “She brought them to the Thanksgiving potluck that year. I remember because we all commented on it. We were afraid they were going to be just awful!”

“Well, consider the source,” Mrs. Fryt sniffed.

At the other end of the quilt, Judy was pursing her bright pink lips and shaking her head. “You’re wrong about Wilma Mickelson, Grandma,” she said, almost under her breath, not looking up from her quilting. “In the end, everything was Elissa’s fault. The way she chased after that soldier—”

Chapter 22

THE MICKELSON HOUSE
502 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
August 1917

Early in the summer, Wilma had subscribed to Good Housekeeping, thinking it would assist her with advice on preserving the food from her war garden. She was hung up on the idea of making pickles, and the magazine afforded her what John viewed as a perilous amount of information. “For sweet gherkins, the cucumbers must be between one-and-a-half and three inches,” she told the family one night at dinner, as though she was quoting from an article. “Can you imagine? Just one-and-a-half inches! Imagine something that small being of any use at all.” John shared skeptical looks with Harry and Jinny; they all doubted she would go through with it.

But they had forgotten: This was a new Wilma, and there was no stopping her.