There Might I Go
By Laura Schiller
Based on Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
At first glance, Pennyroyal Hill was completely empty: a sunny, windswept place smelling of warm earth and clover, with piles of rocks scattered among the grass and white clouds rushing overhead. Jo glanced down at her nephew Demi with an expectant smile; he beamed back, assuring her that there was some surprise prepared. Nat, Daisy and Bess were about to look disappointed, when Demi gestured and two boys popped up from behind the rocks.
The girls squealed in surprise and delight: it was Nat and Tommy, carrying kites, one for each of them. And the crowning moment of all was when Demi handed his aunt an enormous yellow kite inscribed with the words: For Mother Bhaer.
"Now, boys, this is regularly splended!" she exclaimed, holding it carefully and feeling just like a little girl again. "Who did think of it?"
"Uncle Fritz proposed it," said Demi.
"Uncle Fritz knows what I like." Jo grinned mischievously, thinking up ways to thank her husband later on for such a beautiful surprise. It turned out she did not have to wait very long; she was just waving away Demi's polite offer to teach her how to fly a kite (as if she hadn't been doing it since before he was born) when a fourth face appeared from behind the rocks. It was Fritz himself, smiling, the silver streaks in his dark hair catching the sunlight.
With a satisfied glance at Demi with Daisy, Tommy with Nan, and Nat with Bess, each pair letting their kites slowly take to the air, Jo walked up to her husband and kissed him on the cheek.
"Here's a boy to toss it up for me."
"At your service, my dear," he said, before tossing up the kite and watching her run away with it, whooping out loud just like the children.
He wondered when he had last seen something so beautiful: the kites soaring through the air with their streamers fluttering behind them, the boys and girls playing together (burying the hatchet at last, after three days of not speaking to each other) and his wife, whirling about like a kite herself, with her thick chestnut curls escaping from their bun and her grey eyes full of laughter.
In a quieter moment, sitting next to Fritz on a blanket with the kite at her feet, she smoothed down the colorful paper and shook her head in admiration. It was a bit battered from crashing into trees and falling to the ground, but the construction held.
"How did you do it?" she asked Fritz.
"I didn't do it, the boys did," he said, with such an innocent face that she poked him with her elbow.
"Oh, you know what I mean. How did you get the idea into their heads?"
"It was simple. The girls' feelings were hurt from being left out of the boys' games; we needed to find something they could play together. For you know, my wife, that men and women should not live separate lives. Even little ones."
"I quite agree," she said, taking his hand and weaving her fingers through his. "I want my boys to be comfortable with the women in their lives, as I am with you. Thank you ever so much, Fritz, for today. It's been wonderful."
Fritz looked down thoughtfully at the enormous kite.
"I have always loved that about you," he said softly, and just a little sadly. "You remind me of this kite, Jo. A free spirit soaring above the clouds."
"Why, Professor, you are getting quite poetic," she teased – but at the sight of his grave expression, the smile on her face faded away.
"What's the matter, Fritz?"
He turned towards her, and the lines around his mouth were tight. "Are you happy here?" he asked, as if hurt to get the words out. "At this school, year in and year out, wearing yourself out with fifteen children and an old husband? Your hair is turning gray here," gently tracing a line along her scalp, "And here. I remember you wanted to go to Europe, but with the state of our finances, it looks like we never will. I am worried, Jo," turning away. "About us."
For a few moments, Jo was stunned into speechlessness. All this time, he had been worrying about this without ever saying a word. So this was what that strange, wistful look in his eyes lately was about; she had been secretly worried that perhaps he looked that way because she was aging, because she wasn't the fresh young girl of Mrs. Kirke's boardinghouse anymore.
"And you didn't tell me," she said, with an exasperated sigh. "Trust you to keep your troubles bottled up, and then spring them on me at some unlikely moment."
He shot her a look of dismay and was about to stand up, when she caught hold of the edge of his jacket and said, "Sit down. We need to talk."
He sat.
"Now, listen. First, I'm sorry. I never meant to make you worry about me. Second … I have never, not for single moment, regretted marrying you. Never."
She cupped his face between her hands and, ignoring the children (who were quite absorbed in their kite flying anyway), kissed him fiercely on the lips.
"I love you, Friedrich," she continued. "And I love the childen. Nothing could make me happier than living with all of you. And as for going to Europe, I haven't given up. That dream is still there. Someday, when we retire and someone else takes over the school, we'll go to Europe. You can show me around Berlin, darling, think of it!"
He could see it. He could see the two of them, an old gray couple with linked arms, walking down Unter den Linden and exploring the Kurfürstendamm. It wouldn't be his Berlin anymore, not after more than twenty years in America, but they could still discover it together.
Fritz was notoriously bad at managing money. It was one of his flaws. But if he couldn't conquer his own flaws, how could he expect his sons and students to do it? For his Jo, he was resolved to try.
"I promise , heart's dearest," he said suddenly, taking both her hands in his, with all the loving solemnity of a wedding vow. "I will take you there."
She began to hum a song deep in her throat, an old familiar song which had once made a young woman's heart thrill with its tender invitation. He sang the words into her ear in his rich dark baritone, and she found that the thrill was still the same.
"Kennst du es wohl? Dahin, dahin
möcht' ich mit dir, meine Geliebte, ziehn."
A/N: The quote is from "Mignon's Song" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.