Ghosts in a Hatbox

This creative non-fiction is a dramatization of real people and real events, is the intro to a larger piece (work in progress), as well as being the inspiration for my handle.

May 10, 1896

My Dearest Gusta,

My heart breaks at the news my dear brother Edward sent by telegram today. Our darling boy drowned? How can this be? We just enjoyed such a wonderful Easter all together! Papa hunted eggs for hours with Franklin, and the bonfire was so magnificent!

We of course will come at once. Mama is beside herself, but she is preparing for the journey to lay her Liebling Enkel to rest. Papa’s own mother drowned on the crossing from Germany trying to save his baby sister who fell overboard, and he keeps asking God why he take the precious ones.

I hesitate to tell you, my dear, as it must surely add to your grief, but Papa’s newspaper reports that it is you that died trying to save poor Franklin, not your housekeeper. To think, that brave woman threw herself into the Minnesota River without a thought for her own daughter. What will become of the poor orphan?

All my Love,
Lydia

Her sister-in-law’s neat handwriting blurred as the tears welled up in her eyes. She folded the letter along the well-worn creases and tucked it back into the hat box, along with the newspaper clipping announcing her death.

“I had died that day,” Gusta thought. “Near enough, anyway.”

Her mind traveled back to that warm spring day eight years previous, picturing her son happily playing a chasing game with Mrs. Walby’s daughter. The housekeeper, a quiet and reserved widow, had only just started working for them a few months earlier. Franklin adored having a child his own age to play with but resented the housekeeper’s attempts to make him mind her. The children ran off to play by a large oak tree near the river’s bank.

“I’ll go and keep an eye on them,” Mrs. Walby said. “Goodness knows what they will get up to.”

Gusta lost track of time as she peeled the last of the apples from the cellar to make sauce. How long had passed? Hours? Minutes? Then she heard the girl shouting.

“Mama!”

“MAMA!”

The terror in the little girl’s screams sent a bolt down Gusta’s spine. She sprinted toward the river. She tried to reassure herself. The three of them would be standing there on the riverbank, racing floating sticks. That was one of Franklin’s favorite games. She just mistook the girl’s tone. It will be okay.

“She was shouting in delight” she told herself. “I am about to come upon them. There is the tree. They should be just about here…” she stopped dead in her tracks. There was the girl, all alone, silently sobbing.

Gusta scanned the riverbank looking for her son. He was nowhere to be seen. Gone. He was just gone, and that is all the girl would say when Gusta questioned her.

“Gone.”

Men came and found the lifeless Mrs. Walby not far from where the girl had stood. They searched for Franklin in the water. Gusta told them to look in the fields just in case Franklin made it out of the water and was hiding there, afraid to get a scolding for not minding Mrs. Walby. She fixated on that hope, that tiny glimmer, until two men in a boat found Franklin snagged on a tree just under the surface. His little body limp, and he was so pale.

Gusta pushed that memory from her mind, “No,” she thought. “I must clear this away and get myself busy.” Experience had taught her not to allow herself to think of poor, darling Franklin too long. She may slip back into the agonizing grip of her grief. She feared she wouldn’t survive that anguish again. No, she had the trip to Germany with Lydia to look forward to. That is what Gusta would focus on, the future, and traveling with her lifelong friend and sister-in-law.

She rearranged the contents of the hatbox to close the lid. There, sticking out of the memorial card from Edward’s funeral, was a picture of Edward just before their wedding day.

“Sweetheart,” she said speaking to the photograph, “how I wish we stayed in the city.”

She put the hatbox full of ghosts back into her steamer trunk and closed the lid.