Julia had joined Mamm in watching Miriam with suspicion almost from the minute she climbed from the buggy before helping Abby down. Miriam was forced to conclude that she wasn’t very good at pretending.
The moment the meal finished, Julia suggested they go outside. She claimed she had heartburn because of her pregnancy and thought a walk would help. Luke’s eyebrows had risen, but he said nothing.
So now the two women reached the garden, at its height. They’d eaten fresh green beans with dinner. Mamm’s tomatoes, peppers, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, and cabbage would help feed the family throughout the winter. Pumpkins were small and green, unripe apples had begun to weigh down the branches, and the first raspberries were red. In the heat of the afternoon, the air smelled sweet.
Julia drew in a deep breath and looked around. “I love my garden, but it’s so small compared to yours.”
“Mamm’s. I help when I can, but not enough.”
“I plan to expand a whole lot next year. Abby might be getting old enough to really help, and I’ll be able to bend over better than I can now.”
“I didn’t realize.”
Julia wrinkled her nose. “I am four and a half months along, you know.” She laid a hand over her belly. “Halfway, exactly. He’s getting big enough to be in the way.”
“He?”
“Or she.”
“You’ll have a November boppli.”
“Ja. One year after our marriage.”
“I’m so excited.”
Julia grinned. “You’re excited? Luke likes to talk to my stomach. He wants his boppli to know his voice from the beginning. You’d think my pregnancy was an astonishing miracle.”
Miriam laughed, buoyed by this friendship.
Julia’s expression softened. “I know he wishes he’d had Abby to raise from birth.” She shook her head. “I’m wandering from the point. Out with it.”
“Do you want to sit down?”
“After I made a big deal out of needing to walk?” She made another face. “Ja. Please.”
Instead of retracing their steps to the circular bench Daad had built around the tree, where they could be seen from the house, they continued to a much cruder bench—a rough board laid across two crosscut logs—by the side of the barn.
After a moment of silence, Julia said gently, “Is it because of what happened Tuesday?”
That would make a good excuse, but . . . no, Miriam didn’t want to lie.
She shook her head. “It’s David. He was—I thought he was—” With sudden urgency, she said, “You can’t tell anyone. Not even Luke. Please.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but finally she nodded. “Unless I don’t think you’re safe.”
“It’s nothing like that.” She sighed. “He was courting me, I thought. Last Sunday, when he drove me home, he kissed me. But then he pulled away and looked as if he’d done something wrong . . . or I had.”
Julia’s hand found hers in a comforting clasp. “There’s nothing you could have done. You know that.”
“No. Yes.” Did she have to tell her friend about Levi’s accusations? Maybe not, after David said he’d pulled away out of guilt. So she described her talk with David—and his confession. “I know I must forgive him, but—”
“But what?”
“How can I ever feel the same about him?” Miriam knew that she was pleading, but for what, she didn’t know. “I think I love him, but I loved Levi, too.”
“You think?”
She let out a shaky breath. “I do, but this—!”
“He hadn’t confessed this to the bishop, I suppose,” Julia said thoughtfully.
“No. He said he’d never told anyone.”
“Can you plan that precisely where a tree will fall?”
Miriam looked at her in surprise. It must be coming from a big city that Julia could even ask that question.
“Ja. That’s how loggers work. David was especially good at it, Levi always said. A few times, Levi teased him by saying he couldn’t make a tree fall exactly on that spot. He pounded a stick in the ground. He told me they always found the stick, driven deep, right under the center of the trunk of the tree they’d cut down.”
“Oh.” Julia frowned. “But . . . if that’s true, it means David must have planned it from the beginning. And wasn’t Levi experienced enough to see where the tree was supposed to fall?”
“He didn’t plan it. It was . . .” She tried to remember how David had described what he’d seen when he cut the equivalent of a generous slice of a pie out of the trunk. “He saw that the tree was rotten inside, and maybe twisted, too, so he should have known it could fall wrong.”
Julia’s steady brown eyes held hers, as her hand still clasped Miriam’s. “‘Should have known’ isn’t planning.”
“No,” Miriam said hesitantly. “But . . . if he was mad and didn’t say anything . . .”
“The tree could just as well have crashed down on him. Even if he really knew the tree wouldn’t come down the way he’d planned, how could he have guessed which way it would go?”
Miriam found herself blinking in befuddlement. Ferhoodled, for certain sure. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
Throat tight, she whispered, “Ja.”
“I guess you can tell I don’t know anything about logging. But with the tree rotten deep inside, how could he possibly have used it as a . . . a weapon? I think his worst sin might have been carelessness, not paying attention to something he believes he should have noticed. That’s not murder. An accident is only manslaughter when the person committing the act absolutely should have known that whatever he was doing had a high chance of injuring or killing another person, like driving drunk.”
She had to explain the crime of manslaughter until Miriam nodded.
“I think he’s torturing himself because he loved you and Levi both,” Julia continued. “Levi’s death made it possible for you to eventually come to love David. We get awfully tangled up about something like that.”
“Twisted like the tree.”
“Ja.”
Dazed, Miriam gazed at the garden, watching the path of a chickadee without really taking it in. What Julia had said made sense. David couldn’t possibly have known the tree would fall right at Levi.
The relief flooding her had to explain her dazed state. Of course he felt terrible! His best friend died, and he’d been the one in charge, the one saying, We’re safe on this side, when it turned out not to be true at all. She remembered how upset he’d been the day she caught Copper out on the road and led the young horse home. David must have been imagining how she could have been killed—her skull crushed by a hoof, maybe, instead of the massive trunk of a tree. He’d have believed that, too, was his fault, for not checking the condition of the fence adequately.
She knew already that he fell short even as he tried to trust God.
He was the good man she’d believed him to be. Look how determined he’d been to keep her safe. Even his confession to her, made because he couldn’t hide such a thing from her.
Ach, the relief made her feel so funny! Shaky, as if her knees wouldn’t support her if she stood up. She suddenly found herself crying, too, ja, and also laughing.
Julia gaped at her in alarm.
Miriam swiped at tears but couldn’t prevent them from falling. Her choice of those words, in her head, made her laugh and cry even harder.
Finally, she gasped, “Denke. What did I ever do without you?”
Hugging her, Julia laughed, too. “Maybe the Lord brought me here to Tompkin’s Mill for more reasons than I imagined.”
“I think that must be.”
But as she sat mopping up her tears and composing herself, she knew the path to believing David could love her was still overgrown with
thistles and thorny vines. He hadn’t wanted back then to believe whatever it was Levi had said about her . . . but it was in his head. How could he not look at her now, and wonder?
Those things Levi said to her . . . Miriam had painfully taken them as truth. What if they had all come from his mamm, as David suggested? Miriam had thought before that she needed to speak with Esther, press her for truth instead of recoiling instantly from the first nastiness.
Strengthened by relief and by her love for David, Miriam resolved to try to pull her own guilt and shame up by the roots. Esther had asked her to stay away from her house, but she had tried to push David away, too. If he could risk the swat of her broom, Miriam decided she could risk angry words to heal herself.
* * *
* * *
David nearly made an excuse when Luke, Julia, and Eli stopped by to invite him to dinner Thursday, but he needed to see Miriam. Talk to her, if possible, but at least know she was all right. The weekend had seemed interminable, with his remembering the expression on her face, the sight of her running away from him. Worry had dug its claws into him.
It seemed so natural to follow Eli and Julia to the back door of the Bowmans’ house. Abby, barefoot and strubly, raced out to meet them, crying, “Mammi!” Julia swung her daughter up into her arms.
When Eli and David stepped into the kitchen, Miriam was setting the table.
She glanced up, not as much surprise as he’d expected on her face. “David. Here to join us, are you? Ach, let me grab one more plate.”
Expression reserved, he said, “Ja, I hope you don’t mind.”
Deborah turned from the stove, spatula in hand, and exclaimed, “Of course we don’t mind!”
He smiled a faint apology Miriam’s way, hung his hat on a peg near the back door, and then disappeared with Eli to wash up.
Just as David came back to the kitchen, Luke appeared. Abby flung herself at her daadi before rushing back to Julia, who had already washed her own hands and was checking whether the green beans were done.
“Sit, sit!” Mamm told everyone once they were ready, before handing a basket of sourdough biscuits to Abby, who didn’t even have to be asked to take it to the table. Abby had become a good helper.
Such a good helper, Julia had told David during the short buggy ride, that getting any meal on the table took twice as long now. He smiled at the memory.
Within minutes, Miriam set down a bowl of hot potato salad. She and Mamm were the last to sit, and David and Luke had left a spot between them for her. The place she always sat when David was here.
She smiled vaguely his way as she scooted in her chair. Eli cleared his throat loudly enough to draw attention, then bent his head. They all did the same, praying silently until Eli raised his hands from his thighs to signify that it was time to eat.
“Amen,” Miriam murmured, and offered the platter of sliced roast beef to David.
He forked a slice onto her plate before dishing up some for himself.
Initially there was little conversation; for many Amish families, mealtime wasn’t meant for chatter. His own often ate everyday meals in near silence. The Bowmans were different.
Eli said, “David, I hear you took that young horse all the way to your parents’ house on Sunday.”
David looked up from his plate. “Ja, he did fine. I left before it started to get dark. That’s something we still need to work on.”
“Was this Copper, or Samuel Ropp’s horse?” Miriam asked.
He flicked a glance at her. “Copper. Samuel’s horse has different problems. I think he’s been whipped or punished in another way that has left him frightened of people, and especially of sudden movements. He’ll respond to kindness, but it will take time.”
“Not Samuel!” Deborah exclaimed.
David shook his head. “His last owner. That idea of discipline is a good way to ruin a horse.”
“I’m so glad Samuel brought him to you,” Miriam said.
“Thanks to you.”
Looking shy, she said, “All I did was pass on a message.” After the smallest pause, she asked, “Copper really did all right? He wasn’t afraid of passing cars?”
David chuckled. “He really did. Abram has been a good helper, and this past couple of weeks I’ve taken Copper a short ways down the road pulling the cart or, more recently, the buggy. Sometimes we sit at the foot of the driveway so he can get used to seeing cars and trucks go by. I’m surprised you haven’t seen us.”
She gave her head a tiny shake.
Reading disbelief in that, he added, “He’s willing, just needed more training.”
Miriam retreated after that, keeping her head down. Conversation became general. Julia was happy because of a big sale, an order that was made online from the photos she put on the website.
“Still gloating?” Luke teased her.
“Are you accusing me of hochmut?”
Of course, Deborah and Eli jumped in to tell him there was nothing wrong with Julia’s being glad that her work helped.
Luke grinned openly. David suppressed a smile, too. It felt right, being here. Her family treated him as if he belonged.
The deep ache in his chest came from fear that he never really would belong the way he wanted to.
Would she walk with him if he asked?
She’d pushed her food around more than eaten, he saw, and jumped up to help her mamm serve a blackberry cobbler as if she was glad of the excuse to scrape what she hadn’t eaten into the garbage. She dished up barely a sliver for herself.
“Plenty left over!” Mamm declared, and bustled to package food to go home with David, Luke, and Julia.
Luke tried to protest, only to be firmly shushed. David did the same, saying that his mother had sent food home with him only the day before yesterday, but he was wasting his breath.
Miriam offered him another serving of the blackberry cobbler, but he shook his head. He was too nervous.
When she reached for his plate, he touched her arm. “Will you walk with me?”
She froze momentarily, probably in astonishment, before giving a small nod.
His denke was gruff.
He hadn’t realized anyone else had heard them, but when Deborah finished packing the basket for David, she told her daughter, “You go ahead. You cooked most of the meal.”
It was hard to evade a mother’s eye. Miriam grabbed the basket, but surrendered it when David rose to his feet and took it out of her hands.
“That’s too heavy for you.”
She gave a small sniff, reminding him wordlessly that treating her as if she were delicate would be foolish. He knew full well how hard his own mother worked to keep her family fed, their clothes clean and mended, the house tidy, her vegetable garden productive, the pantry shelves packed with enough food to last them through the winter.
Probably feeling a need to fill the silence, once they’d started away from the house, she asked about Esther.
“This last time, she seemed more accepting.” He hadn’t understood the change, but was glad to see it. “She actually had a list of jobs she wanted me to do.” He’d carried multiple boxes of full canning jars down the steep steps into the cellar, for example, after she admitted to having arthritis in her knees.
“Really?” Her surprise echoed his.
He smiled slightly. “Ja. She seemed . . . chastened. I wondered if Amos might have talked to her.”
“You didn’t ask him to, did you?”
“I promised.”
She seemed to accept that. David glanced over his shoulder. Only the corner of the house remained in sight. He cleared his throat. “I hope you didn’t mind me coming to eat with your family.”
Clearly startled, Miriam said, “Of course not. I, um, I wanted to say something.”
He could only brace himself. “Ja?”
She
hurried into her speech. “I’m sorry for the way I ran away last time we talked. I’ve been thinking about what you told me, and—”
“I have, too,” he interrupted.
She shook her head firmly at him. “If you need my forgiveness, of course it’s yours. But mostly, you need to forgive yourself. I know you loved Levi. You’ve tormented yourself for years because you were angry with him. Has it occurred to you that, even if you did notice the tree was rotting, you couldn’t have made it fall on Levi? It might just as well have fallen on you. Killed you.”
So stunned that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t fallen and hit his head, he stared at her.
“God chose to take Levi that day, not you. It was never your fault that the damage to the tree didn’t show on the outside.”
“It’s my fault I was blinded by anger,” he said in a low voice.
“No. I’ve allowed myself to be angry at Esther, and to be afraid when that man held a gun on you, instead of putting my trust in the Lord, the way I should have. We’re human, striving to be worthy but never perfect.”
He let his head fall back for a minute. “Ja.” His throat moved. “I know you’re right. I . . . get in my own way.”
“Well.” She backed away, her cheeks bright. “I believe you’re a good man. I know Levi waits to hold out a hand in friendship when you join him. I . . . I’m glad you came tonight. Don’t . . . don’t stay away because of me.”
“Miriam.”
She smiled shakily. “Good night.” And she fled.
Chapter Twenty-Five
David stared after Miriam, who had taken off for the house. Walking fast, then faster, finally breaking into a run. Maybe he should pursue her . . . but he wasn’t sure he could take a step.
His heart sang, She forgives me! But that was the least of it. If you need my forgiveness. If. She’d said that, as if she truly didn’t believe he did. And It was never your fault. She said that, too.
Mending Hearts Page 27
