SPIDER IN THE ATTIC

by Joelle Steele

Scatter Creek had again overrun its banks and crossed the road just east of Michigan Hill on the way to Independence. Karl Mattsson stopped as soon as all four wheels were on the only paved portion of the road – a landmark for the locals who referred to it simply as “the pavement.” He allowed his brand new 1926 Paige-Detroit Jewett automobile to idle as he turned in his seat, placing both feet square onto the running board. He looked down, dangled one of his overly long legs towards the road, and gingerly toed the water. Unlike previous floods, this one was minor, covering the road with less than an inch of water.

“Can we get through here?” asked Irene, Karl’s young wife of less than a day.

“Think so,” he replied, pulling his feet back inside and closing the door against a light sprinkling of rain that was so typical for the time of year.

They sat in silence as Karl shifted the car into first and slowly crossed the wet pavement. The vehicle then dropped sharply onto the dirt and gravel road that was also covered with a layer of water just slightly deeper than that of the paved area. Karl silently prayed that the tires would hold. They had made it all the way from Tacoma without a flat, and so far the six cylinder engine had done everything the dealer claimed it would as far as managing the hills and rough terrain along the way. Any doubts he’d had about spending $995 on his shiny black auto were gone. It was fully one-half of the money he had inherited from his Uncle Ludwig, but to get around in Independence Valley – and to get out of the area – he would need reliable transportation.

“Do you think she’ll like me?” queried Irene, as she rearranged the multi-colored afghan that was wrapped around her legs. Her heavy wool coat and hand-knitted muffler hid the beautiful dusty rose suit she had worn in place of a wedding dress earlier that morning.

“I don’t know. But she keeps to herself most of the time. If you leave her alone I’m pretty sure she’ll do the same.” He almost added that’s what Lillian used to do but thought better of it. No need to make a comparison of his late wife to his new bride on their wedding day.

“I just thought that since we’ll be living in the same house and all …” she trailed off as the car slowed. They had reached Helsing Junction and a train was crossing the road ahead of them. She glanced at it for a second, then turned her attention to the last few faded leaves that clung to the maples and other trees that covered the landscape. She loved the crisp and colorful fall season in western Washington.

Karl kept his eyes on the train through the rain-covered windshield, not speaking. He had never been much of a talker. Neither was Irene. It was one of the things he found most attractive about her. She was nice enough to look at, but what he liked best was how she didn’t chatter away like so many girls did, always running on about things that seemed so silly and senseless to him. He had met her when he first went to Mt. Vernon for his Uncle Ludwig’s funeral. He had stayed with his cousin, Ludwig’s oldest son, Ed, and his wife Verna, who lived above the small grocery store they owned in town. Irene worked in her father’s pharmacy next door. She and her father came to the funeral and the reception afterwards. Karl had talked to her briefly, and wanted to see her again, but romance and a funeral didn’t go hand-in-hand in his mind. Two months later, however, he had to again take the train to Mt. Vernon to go over the details of the estate with Ludwig’s attorney. He stayed for three weeks, and before he knew it, he and Irene were talking marriage.

He had been widowed four years earlier when Lillian died giving birth to their only child, a daughter who died three days later. He never thought he would remarry. He had missed Lillian so much, and he couldn’t imagine anyone ever taking her place in his heart. Irene was nothing at all like Lillian, but he truly loved her and she was perfect for him. She was eight years his junior, she was intelligent, she wanted children, and she was willing to move to start a new life in the remote farming community where he was born.

The train passed, Karl threw the car into gear, and they proceeded down the road into Independence Valley. It was an area cut off from the rest of the world but, like so much of what Irene had seen of Washington in her 24 years, its rolling green hills, bordered by stands of giant Douglas firs, were beautiful, despite the many almost-bare trees and sodden fields below them. Under the light drizzle from the dove grey sky, handfuls of brown and white Herefords grazed in their muddy 10-acre pastures. Small, well-kept Victorian-era farmhouses popped up along the roadside every two miles or so, an occasional house and barn appearing further away from the road. A small, round woman wearing a long dress and a straw hat was leading a cow across the road, and Karl stopped to let her pass. She smiled and tipped her hat to him.

Irene wondered if she was the wife of a logger. So many women worked the farms while their husbands were away during week cutting trees in the woods. Karl’s father had been a logger and he was killed in a logging accident when Karl was eight. He had been balancing on a spring board when the tree gave way, throwing him to the ground. He died on impact.

Irene knew logging was a brutal business, and not just because of the many accidents, but also the psychological hardships of living in the camps for long periods of time. She’d often heard her parents talk about men they knew who drank themselves to death or committed suicide with the help of a carefully positioned shotgun. And then there were the families they left behind. She wondered how Karl’s mother had managed all those years after she was widowed, with six surviving children – just half of the children she had brought into the world – 80 acres to farm, and 20 dairy cows. Irene had never milked a cow, but she had spent a good deal of her life in farm country, and she knew it took at least ten minutes per cow. And planting and harvesting? How did she do it?

“Here we are,” announced Karl, as he turned south on a narrow road through a forest of tall firs sheltering a heavy and healthy undergrowth of Oregon grape and blackberry vines, and the woody skeletons of hazelnuts and other deciduous shrubs and trees.

“Where exactly is ‘here’?” asked Irene, holding onto the seat with one hand and bracing herself with the other against the dash, as the Jewett bounced and jerked about even more than it had on the main road.

“This is the road to the farm. It’s not marked, but you’ll learn to spot it soon enough by the mail box and the milk stand.”

The forest seemed to go on forever in every direction, darkening the winding road that went continuously uphill at a gradual incline. Irene felt a sudden chill that exceeded the cold air inside the car. She was going to be living somewhere more remote than any place she had ever been before in her life. Even more remote than when she was a young child living on the outskirts of Minot, North Dakota, the place where she was born. At least the family farm there was only a mile from its nearest neighbor and less than five miles from Minot, where her father worked as a pharmacist.

After a few minutes, the trees ended abruptly and the road veered west and downhill, over a small wooden bridge that spanned a rocky creek that was rushing hard and fast, almost to the top of the bridge.

The road was now lined with fences bordering large expanses of growing fields and pasture lands with more grazing cows. In the distance, Irene could just make out a clump of trees, some firs and others bare fruits and, in the center of them, a large two-story house, painted brick red with white trim, just like the large barn and outbuildings nearby. Everything was in the style and colors of the typical Scandinavian farm of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. She recognized it from every community she had lived in. There were many Scandinavian settlements in North Dakota and Washington. Karl’s family was of Swedish ancestry, but his ancestors had crossed the Gulf of Bothnia in the 15th century and settled on the Finnish frontier following a time of upheavals in the Swedish monarchy. Then, almost 500 years later in 1892, now carrying some Finnish blood in their veins, Karl’s parents came to America, when Finland was still a Russian duchy prior to its independence in 1918.

Irene’s English ancestors had been in America for over a century. They had settled in Massachusetts where some fought in the Revolutionary War. Later, one was a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War. Her little branch of the family came to North Dakota when her grandfather, a young soldier, was stationed there up near the Canadian border. When he left the army, he bought land near Minot, married an Irish woman, and had fourteen children, her father being the oldest.

“What do you think?” asked Karl, as he brought the automobile to a stop in front of the house. “It’s big enough, don’t you think?” They had both talked of having a large family.

Irene bent forward and craned her neck to look out the windshield of the car up at the old house. Water was dripping from the trees, it was twilight, and all she could see was a reddish blur.

“Yes, it’s big,” she replied. She unwrapped her legs from the afghan and folded it carelessly, leaving it on the seat as she stepped onto the wet mix of gravel and dirt.

Karl ran around to the passenger side and took his wife’s arm, gently leading her around the front of the car, through a low gate, and up a wood plank walkway that led to the front door. To the side of the house, she could see at least four long clothes lines running parallel to each other from the side porch to a small outbuilding with a sagging roof and uneven foundation, which Irene presumed was probably the wash room. In the same side yard was what appeared to be a vegetable garden, complete with a makeshift cold frame composed of an old window and some barn siding with straw piled around the edges.

The front entrance to the house was on the east side of the building. Three steps led to a partially enclosed porch that served as little more than a place to conveniently pile some wood. The door was all window panes from top to bottom, with a lace curtain hanging on it. Karl reached to open the door and then stopped.

“I guess I should carry you over the threshold, shouldn’t I?” he smiled.

“It wouldn’t be unheard of,” she smiled back.

Karl turned the knob until the door opened slightly, then swept his pretty bride into his arms and kicked the bottom edge of the door until it opened wide. They were immediately in a large, sparsely-furnished room with a fireplace. The windows were covered with more lace curtains, most in dire need of laundering and repair. A quick glance around the room spelled years of neglect and bachelor-like living.

“I know it needs work,” Karl apologized. He knew how most women saw these things. The place was a falling-down wreck, but he knew that Irene would know just how to make the worn-out house into a warm and inviting home, something it hadn’t been since Lillian left this world.

Irene ignored the topic, not wanting to even think about such things after the long drive from Tacoma. All she wanted to do was get out of her clothes and take a long, hot bath, if such a thing was possible in the old house.

“Kalle, is dat you?” came a voice from somewhere in the house, calling Karl by his Swedish nickname in a heavy Swedish accent.

“Ja, it’s me, Mama,” answered Karl. He carefully put Irene down and went to the hearth. “I’ll build us a fire, try to warm up the place a little.”

Irene could hear footsteps slowly descending a narrow set of stairs that was visible through an open door to the right of the fireplace. Finally, a very small, thin, grey-haired woman appeared at the base of the stairs and stepped into the living room. She was wearing a long charcoal wool dress that had not been in style for at least 15 years. Over her shoulders was a black heavy-knit shawl. She wore black shoes that laced up her ankles, tiny rimless eyeglasses sat on her prominent nose, and she appeared to have no teeth. This was proven as soon as she spoke.

“Kalle,” she said again, reaching up to hug her much taller son. She glanced at Irene and offered, “Ah, ja, and dis must be the new missus.” She nodded at her daughter-in-law, and then walked right past her and sat down in a bright yellow wooden rocker, its paint  badly chipped and worn.

As the old woman passed close to Irene, it was obvious that she had not bathed recently, perhaps not since Woodrow Wilson was in office by the smell of her. Irene sat on a visibly dusty, upholstered, dark blue foot stool opposite her mother-in-law and next to the hearth, from which the fire was beginning to take the chill off of the room.

“I’ll go make us some coffee,” announced Karl, and walked off to the kitchen, leaving Irene with his mother.

“What shall I call you?” asked Irene.

“You call me ‘mama,’” she replied, rocking in her chair, and not looking up from the fire.

“I hope we will be good friends, Mama,” added Irene.

“Ja.”

Irene was not much of a conversationalist, but she struggled to find a topic on which to build a rapport.

“Karl tells me that you are a great cook. Perhaps you can teach me some of your recipes.”

“I don’t cook no more,” she said, sending a quick glance in Irene’s direction and then returning her gaze to the fire.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I will try my best to cook things you both enjoy.”

No response from the rocker.

Irene looked around the room and her eyes fell upon a magnificent wall-hanging between the two windows opposite the fireplace. She immediately rose and walked towards it for a closer look.

“This is beautiful,” she remarked. “I have never seen anything like it. Has it been in your family long?”

“I make it.”

Irene’s eye widened. “You wove this yourself?”

“Ja.”

Karl had once mentioned that his mother could weave. “Do you still weave? Do you have a loom?”

“Ja. I have loom. Upstairs.” She nodded in the direction of the stairs without looking away from the fire.

Karl entered the room to break another bout of silence.

“Here you go, Reenie,” he said, calling her by a nickname only he used. He placed a tray on a small table and handed his wife and his mother cups and saucers delicately painted with violets.

Irene could see that her new mother-in-law’s hands were rather large and rough. Her fingernails were cracked and torn, as well as dirty. Her fingers were gnarled and the joints looked swollen. Irene wondered how she was able to weave, and guessed that it must be painful.

“So, are you two getting to know each other?” asked Karl. He took a seat beside Irene in a Victorian-style upholstered armchair.

Karl’s mother did not respond to her son, and Irene merely looked at him and then back at his mother. The old woman took a sugar cube and placed it in her mouth. Then she poured her cup of coffee into the saucer and sipped it from the saucer. When she was finished, she placed the saucer on the tray, rose from the rocker, and headed in the direction of the stairs without saying a word.

“Did you tell Irene about your weaving?” asked Karl.

“Ja.” She stopped and turned to Irene. “You yust tink of me as spider in de attic. I weaving my wooly webs there.” She turned to Karl. “God natt, Kalle.”

The spider left the room, swishing her long skirt on the stairs as she returned to her web. Irene suddenly felt like she had made the biggest mistake in the world by coming to Independence. Karl sat quietly, looking at her in the glow of the firelight.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I really am. She can be very difficult. She’s led a hard life and, well, she … she is going to need some time getting used to you. You’re a foreigner to her. You’re … ‘English.’”

“English?” said Irene, always thinking she was an American, born and bred.

“That’s what her generation calls anyone who wasn’t Scandinavian-born.”

He sighed, and Irene sighed as well. It was going to be a hard life for her too. She would have to find a way to get along with this woman. She just had to figure out how.

As the weeks turned into months, spring came, and Irene began to feel more at home in her new surroundings. Karl taught her to drive, and she drove to neighboring towns and visited some of the women she met at church and during the holiday season. Karl also taught her to milk a cow, and every morning as the sun came up, she milked Rosa, Elsie, Tindra, Greta, Jessica, and Daisy, put the milk in a large container, and drove it down to the milk stand at the main road next to their mailbox. When she or Karl went to get the mail later in the day, they would bring back an empty container.

By the time that summer arrived, Irene had explored the farm and all its buildings from top to bottom. She was surprised to find that she enjoyed being a farmer’s wife. She had tilled the vegetable garden and replanted it all by herself, and some of her seeds had sprouted. She fixed up an old martin box and hung it nearby to try and drive the crows away from her garden. She even laid out bait to get rid of the rats that were nesting in the barn. She was proud of her home, and she felt like the house was her domain, at least most of the time. She knew every stick of furniture, every dish, doily, tool, and knick-knack.

But all those things really belonged to “Mama,” and always would, as long as Mama was alive and weaving in the attic – the only place that Irene had yet to glimpse. From morning to night, the old woman was at her weaving. Irene could hear the knocking of the loom throughout the timbers of the thinly-built wood-frame house.

When fall arrived, Irene was canning fruit. She stopped to look at her late mother’s handwritten instructions as she placed the jars in the container on the stove, added some wood to the fire, and waited for the water to boil. She sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window to see Karl in the distance, walking behind the plow pulled by his two favorite horses, Max and Flora. She knew he was working hard and was probably bone tired, but there was something so rewarding about doing an honest day’s work, and he always seemed to be happy when evening came and they sat at the table eating dinner together.

“Vat are you doing?”

Irene jerked to attention. The spider had come down from her attic web and was now hanging in the doorway.

“I’m canning fruit,” she replied, trying to appear unphased.

Mama looked around the room, examining the various jars, bands, and labels, the tall glass filled with lemon juice, a bowl of sugar, measuring spoons, all the accoutrements of the canning process. Her eyes fell on the pages of Irene’s mother’s instructions.

“Vat this?” asked Mama, picking up the pages.

“My mother’s canning recipes.”

The spider threw them back onto the table with disdain. Irene’s sweet and tender thoughts of what showed all the promise of being an idyllic existence with the man of her dreams, went out the window yet again. She had tried to be kind of Mama. Every night she made dinner for her, which Mama ate in her attic room. She made lunch for her, which Mama ate in front of the fireplace. She left coffee for Mama on the table outside the door to the attic after announcing that she had brought it. She washed her clothes, ironed them, even mended them. She gave her scented soap for her birthday. Never once had Mama even thanked her.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked, the irritation clear and sharp in her voice.

“You don’t belong here,” Mama replied, looking Irene straight in the eyes. “You never take her place.”

Irene turned away, looked into the container, pumped some water at the sink, and added it to the pot.

“I am not trying to take anyone’s place,” she replied, trying to sound off-handed and unaffected by the spider’s venom.

“A year and no son.” It was a remark, not a question. Another black mark against her.

“No, and I’m still English,” she replied. “Are you sure you want an outsider like me to sully your family tree?”

Mama snorted, then turned and walked away, heading back to her attic web.

When Karl returned from the field at sunset, Irene had all the canning completed, had brought the mail and the milk can back to the house, had led the cows from the field back to the barn, and had supper waiting on the table.

“How did your day go?” he asked, as he washed his hands under the sink pump.

Irene shrugged. “It was a day like any other day,” she replied.

Karl could tell something was wrong, and it was usually something to do with Mama.

“You shouldn’t let her get on your nerves.”

“You shouldn’t let her get on my nerves!” she snapped.

Karl pulled out a chair and sat down in front of his dinner of reheated leftover roast from the previous day. He served himself a couple slices of meat and took several servings of boiled potatoes onto his plate.

“I’m sorry,” offered Irene, sitting down and serving herself.

“No, I’m sorry. I will talk to her again.”

“She says I don’t belong here. She says I can’t take Lillian’s place. She doesn’t like me because of where my people came from over a century ago.” She paused and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “And she’s concerned because I haven’t given you a child.”

Karl ate in silence, listening to Irene. She was approaching tears, and he couldn’t handle tears. If she cried, he knew he would cry too. He couldn’t bear to see her unhappy, and every attempt he had made so far to bring peace between her and his mother had failed. He would talk to her again, but he didn’t know what he could possibly say that would make things any different, and he couldn’t stay in the house all day monitoring Mama’s behavior. She was old, perhaps that was part of it. She was 78 and wouldn’t be around much longer. On the other hand, she could live to be 100. It could happen. He finished chewing and put down his fork.

“You belong here, with me, with or without children, and I don’t care where you came from or where your parents or grandparents came from. I only care about you and me.”

He pushed his chair away from the table, rose silently, and kissed her on the cheek. He was going to solve this conflict no matter what. He headed for the stairs, and within minutes, Irene could hear them, mother and son, voices raised to fever pitch. Then the attic door slammed and she heard Karl coming down the stairs. She had finished eating and was clearing the table when he walked past her and grabbed his jacket off the hook by the back door.

“I’m going to the barn to check on Flora’s colt. I’ll be right back.” Karl had no intention of going to the barn. He hated to lie to Irene, had never lied to her before, and hoped he never would again. It was pitch black out and no moon. He reached for the wash house door and took a glance behind him to the kitchen window, where he saw Irene’s back as she stood at the sink. He opened the door and entered the unlit room.

Irene pumped water into a pan and began to wash the dishes when she heard Mama come down the stairs and stop in the kitchen doorway.

“Go home English. I make you leave, you know I will.”

Irene ignored the words. It was obvious that nothing Karl had said made any impression on the nasty old spider. Irene knew she had to do something, but she still didn’t know what. She had to solve the problem once and for all. She would never have any peace if she didn’t.

As winter approached, the house grew bitterly cold, just as it had been the previous winter. Mama had suddenly become sick with the flu, and Karl became sick just a few days later. Irene had lost a younger sister to the Spanish flu epidemic years earlier, and she was not about to lose Karl to any kind of ailment. She hovered over him morning, noon, and night, whenever she wasn’t out taking care of the animals. Or tending to Mama. It was while Mama was sick that Irene first visited the only place on the 80-acre farm in which she had never been allowed: the attic.

The spider lived in a filthy and disorganized nest dominated by her giant loom. It was so large that Irene knew it must have been brought to the attic in pieces and assembled there. The room was dusty with the linty debris that comes from weaving. There was a spinning wheel, piles and bags of carded and uncarded wool, and at least 100 spools of yarns and threads. Also in piles, and mostly folded, were the spider’s creations, everything from decorative pieces to functional cloth. Irene had always wondered how her mother-in-law could live in a cold, drafty attic, but the room was clearly insulated by the plethora of fabric and, as a result, it was overly warm in comparison to the rest of the house.

The overwhelming smell of the unbathed woman assaulted Irene when she first entered the attic. She felt nauseated. Mama was bedridden with complaints of headaches, vomiting, and diarrhea, and someone had to empty her filled chamber pot. Irene took that disgusting duty. She had always abhorred a disorganized mess, and despite some very loud protests from the aged black widow, Irene also managed to clean the room from top to bottom, and bathed the angry little Swede-Finn as well.

Karl recovered from the flu within a week and resumed his full routine of winter projects which included, among other things, sharpening tools, mending fences, and repairing and rebuilding some stalls in the barn.

Mama continued to deteriorate, and Irene brought her small meals throughout the day, even though the old woman couldn’t keep anything down. Karl brought her a cup of coffee every morning. The doctor made several house calls, and on one such visit Irene overheard him talking to Karl.

"She’s old, Karl,” he explained. “Her resistance to disease isn’t as good as it once was.”  He patted Karl on the shoulder as he left. “I’m sorry.”

Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, Mama lapsed into a coma and died early the following morning. Irene found her when she brought some toast and tea to the attic. The old spider was pale now, no longer so menacing and vicious. No longer a threat. Irene walked down to the barn to tell Karl.

“Ja, I knew she wouldn’t live forever,” said Karl, as he continued to pry a rotted plank from one of the stalls. “I’ll be up the house in a minute.”

Irene was surprised at her husband’s seeming indifference to his mother’s passing. She had expected him to take it much harder since the mother and son had lived together in that house since he was born. But he was a man. He had responsibilities and no time to wallow in his grief. When he returned to the house, he immediately set about notifying all the relatives, and within only a few short days, family members came from everywhere for the funeral, then gathered afterwards at the house.

Irene wondered if perhaps this funeral, like the one at which she and Karl first met, might mark a new beginning for them, one in which they could find the peace they both wanted. The peace that she wanted, that came with having a house she could call her own.

“We need more coffee, Reenie,” said Karl, popping his head in the kitchen door.

“I’ll make another pot.” She pumped water at the sink and put coffee into the pot, which she set on the stove. The sun was going down and she had one last thing to take care of before she returned to the guests.

She bent down and reached underneath the sink, almost to the wall, and pulled out the small box she had found there just a few weeks earlier. She grabbed Karl’s jacket from the hook by the back door and put it on. She walked out to the ramshackle wash house and entered the dark cluttered room. She didn’t want to turn on the light, but she knew where everything was anyway, and she moved about under the fading light of day. She dragged an empty old trunk up to the shelves on the far wall and stood on top of it. On the top shelf, she placed the small box with the skull and crossbones clearly visible next to the words “rat poison.” She stepped down and returned the trunk to its original position, then stopped to take a quick look around the room before closing the door.

Irene walked slowly back to the house, enjoying the sight of the warm light that shone through all the windows of the first floor. She could hear the voices of people and it reminded her of a party. Or perhaps it was just that she felt like throwing a party rather than hosting a funeral reception. She heaved a sigh of relief as she approached the back door. For a brief instant she thought about the giant loom. Perhaps she could learn to weave so it would not go to waste.

She hung the jacket on the hook, smoothed her hair, and adjusted her dress. The coffee was done and she grabbed a potholder and lifted the pot from the stove. Then she walked into the living room to pour coffee and offer comfort to her husband and his family while they mourned the unfortunate loss of their loved one, the spider in the attic.