Love in Unlikely Places

by Linda Byler

  She remembered the night spent with him. Was it really only night before last?

  How could Kathy have made a decision so swiftly, sending her away like some criminal? She lamented her lack of a backbone, her willingness to comply, but knew it was for the best. Emma did not believe Kathy actually wanted Ben as a husband, but she was attracted to him, so she didn’t want Emma to have him, either. She had seen it the first day, but didn’t want to think ill of her new employer. Well, it was all unfortunate, horribly unfortunate, a good thing gone irretrievably wrong, and she powerless to set it right.

  The sting of humiliation still smarted. Little Brent had heard them talking in the master suite, that was true, and there had been a bit of romance. And it was Kathy and Roger’s house, and she shouldn’t have let a guest spend the night—even use their bed—without permission. She had let herself get swept up in the pleasure of having him there in the same house, and in the process she had lost her good sense. But nothing more than a kiss had happened between them! Oh, but that kiss . . . it had meant something, she was sure of that. But what exactly?

  She’d need her sisters to help decipher it all. The thought of her sisters, those deliciously irreverent, outspoken individuals she simply adored, was the one highlight of her ever-deepening gloom at the thought of her return. What would she tell her parents? How would she explain everything?

  She breathed a small sigh and her eyelids drooped with weariness.

  She watched with bated breath for the familiar rectangular glow of yellow light that meant her parents had not gone to bed. They came down the incline from Pebble Ridge, the lights in the valley welcoming her home. There were traces of twilight in the dark sky, where a graying pink color lingered in the west, the sun showing its reluctance to fade away until morning. The woods were dark and deep and a few stars already twinkled overhead.

  “Here. Right, please. This is my home,” she instructed, leaning forward to make sure the driver would not miss the entrance to the farm.

  She felt a sob already forming in her throat.

  They drove up to the sidewalk and Ryan pulled her luggage out of the trunk.

  “Hey, girl, it’s been decent. Hang in there.”

  They shook hands. She thanked him for a safe ride home, assured him she would hang in just fine. They laughed together and he held up a hand for a high five.

  “Thank you again,” Emma said. “You were great.”

  “Everything’s paid. You’re good to go,” he said.

  With that, Emma started toward the house, turning back briefly to watch the car move away.

  She opened the door on the front porch, called, “Anybody home?”

  Her parents had both been dozing on recliners, and now were snapped awake by Emma opening the screen door and struggling to draw the luggage in after herself.

  “What? Who is it? Emma!”

  Her mother was the first one to reach her, followed by her father in his white T-shirt, patched everyday trousers, and bare feet.

  “You know, someone could rob this place, or set the house on fire and you would snore through it,” Emma said.

  “Why are you home? What happened?”

  Her mother reached out for a warm hug, and Emma was drawn into the softness of her old cotton housecoat with the snaps down the front, the gentle, billowy arms like roll pillows, the scent of Bond’s talcum powder and Dove soap. Her father stood, his hand shoved in his pockets, a genuine gladness etched in his face.

  “I’m here,” Emma said. “If you have something cold to drink, we can sit at the table and I’ll tell you my sad tale.”

  “Emma, really. You didn’t get fired, did you? How did you get here? Where is your driver?”

  Mam poured Emma a tall glass of mint tea. “Here. Sit down.”

  Gratefully, Emma sat, lifted the glass to her lips, and took a long sip of the good visa tay. There was no drink in the world to compare with it.

  She summarized the story, breaking down partway through, hiding her face in her hands and crying. Her mother’s hand rested on Emma’s forearm, her mouth turned down in a clucking motherly way.

  “Ach my, hesslich. Well, it was not your fault. You couldn’t help it that Ben helped you make that bed. Who . . . What kind of guy would do that, though?”

  “Ben is so . . . well, he doesn’t even know the word self-conscious. He has no shame. He’s really funny and talkative, and doesn’t waste time before he’ll tell you exactly what he thinks.”

  “Is he . . . I mean . . .”

  Her mother did not dare ask the question of whether he would qualify as a potential husband.

  “He’s very nice, Mam. We walked on the beach one . . .”

  “I hope you didn’t go swimming together,” she broke in.

  Emma laughed. “No, Mam, we did not.”

  But she did not tell her about the long and gentle kiss. Well, to start with it had been gentle, then . . . oh my, guilt flooded her.

  “You look guilty.”

  “I am speaking the truth, Mam.”

  Her father caught her eye, winked and hid a mischievous grin.

  “Where’s Dena? Everyone asleep?”

  “Dena is spending the night with her cousin Mary. She’s been a grouch around here without you, and there was a spaghetti supper at the fire hall so we told her she could go.”

  “Mam, you know they’re probably hanging out with boys this minute. You know how it goes with these fifteen-year-olds.”

  Her father nodded, smiled. “Perhaps we should have let you go to more spaghetti suppers.”

  Emma grinned, but her mouth trembled, went all lopsided and weird.

  She shook her head, said wryly, “It’s going to take more than a spaghetti supper, believe me.”

  “Ach, it will all turn out the way God intended. Every little twist and turn in the trial of life has a purpose. This too shall pass.”

  Emma climbed the familiar stairway and showered with cool water, then sank gratefully into the unbelievable comfort of her own bed. Long afterward, her parents sat together talking through Emma’s situation, genuinely sad that she’d fallen hard this time. “The poor girl, and him being quite the chap the way it sounded.”

  She slept deeply, without dreams.

  She awoke with the sound of the chugging diesel. For a moment she was back in the beach house, waking to the steady rising and falling of the waves. But as soon as she cracked her eyes open, she remembered everything.

  Well, she was here now. This was her life, where she belonged. Almost, it seemed as if that time had never been. Only the remnants of a receding dream that left her with an unnamed regret, a remorse that stung worse than a hornet.

  She rolled over, groaned. She had known him for such a short time, yet she could feel his sleeve against hers, his arm sliding gently around her waist. It had fit exactly, his long, slender fingers placed at her ribs. She touched the spot he had touched, grimaced with the pain of remembering.

  Only now, with all these miles between them, could she fathom the depth of her feelings for Ben.

  The sun was already illuminating her room, a fly buzzing, determined, at the window screen, the chug of the diesel, the clanking of milk buckets. A screen door slammed below her. Likely her mother, already in the garden, cutting spearmint for tea, checking the red beets for size, surveying the string beans and cucumbers.

  She drew on her courage and strength to stumble across the hallway and into the bathroom where she gripped the edge of the sink and glowered at the reflection in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes, a pink peeling nose, chapped lips that had dried in the sun like cranberries, hideous freckles and hair that resembled a bottle brush.

  Wow.

  Back to the real world. That cliché was worn out like an old shoe rag, but it was certainly the truth. This was real. The familiar upstairs, way too hot for so early in the morning, produce fields that lay endlessly in long flat rows of vegetables to be pulled, picked, pulled into baskets or wooden crates, and left in the
wagon tracks for her father. Backbreaking work that she didn’t feel prepared for.

  She yearned for the rumbling of the central air unit that would generate cold air through vents in the floor. CBS News on the television. K-Cups. The lazy days on the beach with Brent and Annalise.

  She reached over to press the button on the battery lamp.

  Oh great. The dumb thing was dead. Leave it to Dena to go flying off with her cousin Mary, and the only available bathroom light with a dead battery.

  Well, she’d see by the dawn’s early light, no doubt. She yanked a brush through her wild and unruly hair, then wet it with the palms of her hands and raked it into submission with her schtrale, the fine-toothed comb that every Amish girl used.

  She heard the whisper of small bare feet. The bathroom door was pulled open slightly, and two large eyes peeped in.

  “It’s her!”

  “What?”

  “It’s Emma!”

  “Hey, you two. Hi! It’s me. I’m back.”

  She caught Sallie and Amanda in a soft, sweet hug. They smelled of bath soap, their hair was allus schtruvvlich, sticking out every which way, and they were full of eager questions.

  “It was great. I loved it. And look what I have for you.”

  They were impressed with the container of shells, impressed with Emma’s knowledge of this faraway place that had been so fun for her.

  These little girls need not know of the drama, the “mishap,” as she labeled it. They wouldn’t understand, and it wasn’t worth upsetting them with a sad tale.

  Breakfast was lively, the food good and hot and homemade. When Dena arrived, everything turned into bedlam, with Dena roaring her disbelief, followed by hugs and shrieks of pure happiness.

  She sat down, heaped her plate with scrambled eggs and sausage gravy, drank copious amounts of orange juice, and then finally asked Emma why she was back so soon.

  “We can talk while we work,” Emma answered quietly.

  “It’s string beans and candy onions today,” her father said.

  “I hate picking beans,” Dena groaned.

  “Doesn’t matter, you still have to do it.”

  Dena glowered and pouted, but that was the way of it. No matter if you disliked a job, it was there to be done and was not going away, so you may as well give up and do it. It was called work.

  By ten o’clock, Emma felt as if her back would literally break in two. She sat on an upside-down crate, pushed back a lock of her hair, left a smudge of brown across her forehead, and sighed. She looked down the row of beans to find Dena sitting cross-legged between the rows, watching the antics of a group of swallows that followed an unseen whirlwind path in the sky.

  The sun was already blazing hot and was not yet overhead, the afternoon promising even more heat. By the end of July, she would be used to the heat and the backbreaking work, but in the beginning, it was always like this.

  Emma reached out, tried to pick the long, dangling beans from her perch on the crate, but then gave up and stood, bent her back, and kept going. She counted five bushel crates, filled to the top. By lunchtime, they should be finished, the candy onions a much easier job, for sure.

  “Dena,” she called, straightening her back.

  “What?”

  “If you’d get to work, we’d be done by lunchtime.”

  “Some things never change,” she called back.

  “Come on. My back is not used to this.”

  “Tut tut. Too bad. I can’t help that you spent the month lying around on the beach.”

  Emma grinned, then squatted in the row, picking beans in earnest. It was true, some things never changed. Yet she felt different. She felt as if someone had taken the humdrum of her life and turned it upside down, shook out the contents, and replaced them with the splendor of the wide open ocean . . . and a tall, blond man with a sense of humor that filled up all her empty spaces.

  If she was left with only the memory of him, it would be enough.

  She had loved before, but not quite like this. Before, her love hadn’t been returned. She hadn’t realized how different it would be when the attraction was mutual, when two people felt destined for each other. She thought of his face, his touch, his wonderful laugh, the expressions that came and went in his eyes, everything. She grasped every moment greedily and stockpiled it against future loneliness.

  Dena knew nothing about Ben, or she’d be right up here picking beans as fast as she could go.

  When they finally entered the cooler interior of the house, there were bacon sandwiches and tall glasses of fresh-squeezed lemonade. Emma relished the food after a long morning of hard work, the satisfaction of having done a job well. Her father’s praise rang in her ears. He’d said she was still one of his best pickers, but more than the words, it was his fond smile, his eyes twinkling with approval.

  Then there was the announcement from her mother. The sisters were coming. They couldn’t stay home and do their work with Emma here. Of course not. They wanted to be here, to hear her story firsthand.

  Dishes were washed in record time. Emma went to wash up, rearrange her hair, and put on a clean covering and a clean dress, a new mint-green summer dress that would show off her tan. She smiled to herself, accepting this need to impress her sisters. They were a daunting force, a united front, with advice and opinions carried out freely, delightful in their constant attempt at shaping Emma’s life.

  They arrived together, the buggy stuffed with babies and small children hanging out the back window, waving and calling out. The second the horse stopped, two boys flung themselves out of the back window, stepped on the spring, and jumped off, narrowly escaping the sharp edges of the orange slow-moving vehicle emblem. They ran to Emma, who gathered them both in a tight hug.

  Noah and Melvin, the twins, so dear and brown and skinny. She loved the little boys as if they were her own. At their birth, they’d struggled to survive, weighing in at three and four pounds. They’d had to stay in the hospital for about a month, and then Emma spent most of her summer helping out at their home, holding the two babies, washing and cooking and cleaning. Ruth had not been well, thin and struggling with postpartum depression, a horrible affliction for a young first-time mother. It had taken away her zest for life, her love for her husband or her babies, until she finally admitted she couldn’t handle motherhood, weaving in and out of the dark place that bordered on being dangerous. The nutrition experts plied her with pills and powders and oils, took away gluten and dairy and white refined sugar, until their father stepped in and made her an appointment with a renowned gynecologist. She stopped trying to breastfeed the crying babies and was put on an antidepressant. The cost of the formula for the two of them was high, but every month there was cash in an envelope from an unknown source. Emma knew it was from her parents, but no one else needed to know.

  And so Ruth struggled, but survived and finally blossomed. Her life righted itself and her husband accepted the fact that he needed to step up to the plate and do more to help out. And he did. He spent every night sharing bottle and diaper duties with his wife and nurtured and loved the twins alongside her.

  And here they were, four years old, brown-eyed and towheaded, talkative and filled with energy.

  Praise God, Emma thought. Truly she felt as if she could shout the Lord’s name in thanksgiving.

  “There you are, Emma!” Ruth called out, rushing to meet her, a baby in one arm, a diaper bag slung over the opposite shoulder.

  “Hey, don’t leave me alone with the horse,” Esther shouted, her anxious face peering across the sweating animal as she loosened the traces. “Emily, get back in. I’ll help you out as soon as I put the horse away.”

  Emma untangled herself from arms and diaper bags and babies, hurried out to help unhitch.

  “Hi, Esther,” she said.

  “Hello! My, it is so good to see you. You’re brown as an autumn leaf.”

  They took the horse into the barn, slipped off the bridle and put on the halter, gave
him a long drink before leading him to an empty stall. Emma gave him a few blocks of hay and brushed off the front of her skirt before linking an arm in Esther’s.

  “It’s good to be home, Esther.”

  “But why? What in the world, Emma? I thought you were staying till September. Mam told us you were back but wouldn’t say one word more.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Good. I can’t wait to hear it.”

  Children and babies were deposited into the grandmother’s waiting arms, duly fussed over, the candy jar brought out with packets of Skittles and Starbursts grabbed by the fistful, the mothers’ intervention putting most of them back.

  “It’s too hot for coffee,” Ruth moaned. “I just can’t take this heat.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to,” her mother laughed. “July and August.”

  “I know. I’ll get used to it. I told Emanuel we need to purchase one of those DeWalt fans for our bedroom.”

  “They’re expensive,” Esther broke in.

  “If it’s too hot for coffee, what will it be? Mint tea or lemonade?”

  They all settled around the table, asking Emma to begin her story. It was harder than she’d imagined, the way she kept choking up, failing to conceal the depth of her emotion. She described the shores of North Carolina in detail, the house that was being remodeled, then finally got to the part about Ben.

  “What?” Ruth asked, sitting up straight, the palms of her hands slapping the tabletop.

  “You mean there’s romance?” Esther squeaked, turning to pick up her fussy ten-month-old, Elijah.

  “There is,” her mother nodded solemnly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Dena interjected, suddenly interested in the conversation.

  So Emma went on to describe the walk on the beach, the determination to remain aloof. She went on to the night of the storm and its consequences.

  For once in their lives, the sisters were speechless. Both of them opened their mouths for their opinion to be thrown out, but simply shook their heads.

  “Wow,” Esther said finally.

  Ruth didn’t manage a word.