Huckleberry Spring

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  “Because there’s enough blood running down your arm to donate to a hospital.”

  She gave him a sheepish twitch of her lips and pulled her hand from her face. A deep cut gaped half an inch above her eyebrow. She’d definitely have a scar.

  “You’ll probably need a tetanus shot when we take you to get stitches.”

  She held out her left finger for his examination. “Already got one, remember? When I sewed through my finger?”

  “Well, that’s good news. No need for a tetanus shot.” He leaned close and touched her forehead just above the nasty-looking cut.

  She stiffened as soon as his skin brushed against hers. “I don’t need stitches. I’ll be right as rain with a gauze pad and some antibiotic ointment.”

  “Nope. I know what a tough girl you are, but trust me. You need stitches.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “I wouldn’t look in the mirror if I were you. You might freak out.”

  “Thanks for the words of comfort,” she groaned.

  “Just trying to be helpful.”

  “You’ve seen me in enough scrapes to know when I need medical attention, I guess.” She grimaced and lowered her eyes as if she were suddenly seized by a gripping headache.

  Ben stood up, ignoring the tightening in his chest. “Stay here, and I’ll get something for your head.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. I can go.”

  “We’re trying to avoid fainting, remember? I’ll be right back.”

  He jogged to the house where Dawdi sat in his usual place reading the paper and Mammi busily prepared dinner. Ben didn’t even want to guess what kind of smell wafted from her bubbling pot.

  “Ben,” Mammi said, without looking up, “will you make sure Emma knows she is invited for dinner? I’ve decided that I need to learn how to cook pumpkin if we’re going to have a giant pumpkin come autumn time. I’m trying out my first recipe today.”

  “What is it, Mammi? It smells delicious.” He knew it was a sin to lie, but Mammi always got so enthusiastic about her cooking. He couldn’t hurt her feelings.

  “I call it Chunky Pumpkin Soup. It was supposed to be just pumpkin soup, but I can’t make the lumps disappear, so I’ve renamed it.”

  “Sounds gute.” He marked off another lie on his sin chart.

  “Also,” Mammi continued in her bossy voice, “I want you to help Emma tie up the tomato plants. It’s too big a job for one little girl to do all by herself.”

  “I’ll see they get done today,” Ben said, rifling through Mammi’s cupboards for a first aid kit.

  “What are you looking for, dear? The twine for the tomatoes is on the top shelf above the potting soil in the barn.”

  “Emma already found it. A watering can fell and clunked her on the forehead.”

  Mammi put her hand to her mouth. “Is she all right?”

  Dawdi’s recliner groaned as he lowered the footrest. “She can take my place on the recliner. I don’t want to sit in it ever again.”

  “Now, Felty,” Mammi said with a wink at Ben. “We know how brave you want to be, but you are nowhere near well enough to rise from your bed and walk around.”

  Dawdi stood and harrumphed dismissively. “Nonsense. I’m fit as a fiddle.” He wildly swung his arms back and forth and marched smartly around the great room. Then he got down on the floor and did two push-ups. He couldn’t manage a third, but for a man of almost eighty-five, Ben found it quite impressive.

  “Now, Felty,” Mammi scolded. “See what happens when you overdo it? You end up flat on the floor, worse off than you would have been if you had stayed put in your chair.”

  Dawdi stifled a grunt and got slowly to his feet. “Banannie, how much longer do you think I can sit in that chair without going crazy?”

  Mammi and Dawdi continued discussing Dawdi’s health while Ben found the supplies he needed to tend to Emma’s cut. Even with his doctoring, she would need a trip to the hospital. As soon as he saw to Emma, he would go to the nearest phone shack and find a driver.

  Mammi was trying to get Dawdi back into his chair. “The doctor said you shouldn’t blow your nose for three months. The minute you go outside, you’ll catch a late-spring cold and your nose will swell up like a one of Emma’s pumpkins.”

  He really couldn’t help it. Ben curled one corner of his mouth and bit his tongue. Neither Mammi nor Dawdi would take it well if he burst into laughter while they were discussing very important matters—like if Dawdi should be admitted to a hospital.

  He ran back outside, and to his relief, Emma sat right where he had left her, with her head cradled gently in her hands. He rejoiced she hadn’t tried to stand and ended up facedown with a mouthful of dirt or something even more disgusting from the floor of Dawdi’s barn.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Throbbing.”

  He placed his supplies on the milk stool and knelt on one knee in front of her. “Let me clean it off, and we’ll see how bad it is.”

  “Or how good it is.”

  “I’m glad you’re thinking positive thoughts.”

  Being grateful he’d brought an extra rag, he handed her one of the wet ones, and she cleaned the blood from her hands. While she concentrated on her hands, he carefully wiped the blood from around the cut, working his way from the outside to the center. She hissed when he got too close to the actual wound. “Just a little more?” he asked. “I want to make sure it’s clean.”

  “Of course. I’d rather not come down with an eyebrow infection.”

  “I hear those are terrible.” He fell silent as he tried hard to concentrate on the ugly cut on Emma’s forehead instead of her perfectly shaped lips, which were almost irresistible. Unfortunately, his imagination hijacked his discipline, and he pictured himself brushing his lips softly against hers. Longing overpowered him as fire seemed to travel through his veins.

  He jerked his hand away from her forehead, jumped to his feet, and put three strides between them. As soon as he got his wits about him, he turned his back on her and pretended to look for something on Dawdi’s work table so Emma wouldn’t wonder if he’d completely lost his mind—which he had. But she certainly didn’t need to know that.

  “Are you looking for something?” she said, gazing at him doubtfully, as if his sudden retreat had somehow been her fault.

  He motioned with the rag. “I think I’ll go squeeze a little soap on this.”

  He ran back to the house, faster this time, concern for Emma warring with anger at himself. He had to be stronger than this. He had to give up this ridiculous fascination with Emma’s mouth.

  “How about Lasik?” Mammi was saying as Ben entered and made a beeline for the kitchen sink.

  She sat at the sofa reading a stack of colorful pamphlets, though Ben didn’t take the time to see what they were about.

  Dawdi stretched out on the floor near his recliner doing sit-ups. Sparky barked her encouragement every time Dawdi came up. “I can do dozens of these,” he said, grinning at Ben.

  Ben furrowed his brow. Lord willing, Dawdi would not break his back.

  No time to find out. Ben was already in the process of treating one injured person in the barn. Dawdi’s future injuries would have to wait.

  With a clean rag and a dab of soap, Ben went back to the barn determined to ignore his rapid pulse and Emma Nelson’s rose-petal lips.

  Emma sat patiently on her stool with a cloudy expression on her face, dabbing the blood off her hands. He didn’t dwell on what he suspected she was probably thinking. Instead, he knelt down and sponged the cut with his soapy washrag. She flinched. “Sorry,” he said.

  She managed a half smile. “It’s not bad. The soap stings a little. I’ve had worse.”

  He returned her smile with a weak one of his own. “Jah, I know you have.” He dabbed his rag once more at her cut before taking her hand and pointing to her scarred thumb. The skin there was jagged and white.

  She blushed and slowly pulled her hand away. “For as clum
sy as I am, it’s a wonder I don’t have more scars to show for it.”

  “That wasn’t your fault. The knife was dangerously sharp. They use it to gut fish.”

  She wouldn’t meet his eye. “I thought it might work well on carrots.”

  “I’m glad they were able to save your thumb.” He nudged her chin up with his finger. Her brilliant eyes almost took his breath away. “Although I felt bad I never got a chance to call you by the nickname I made up.”

  A grin played at her reluctant lips. “What was that?”

  “I wanted to call you ‘Stumpy.’”

  She giggled cautiously. It was the most delightful sound he’d heard for several days. “I only sliced the tip of my thumb. Not the whole thing.”

  “Then I would have called you ‘Half-a-Stumpy.’”

  “It takes too long to yell, ‘Hey, Half-a-Stumpy, watch out for that ditch!’ I would already have fallen in by the time you finished saying my name.”

  Ben fingered the stubble on his chin. “True. It’s very good those doctors were able to sew you back together.”

  “It’s funny when you really think about it. I’m all thumbs, yet I almost lost one of them.”

  Chuckling, he took her hand in both of his and ran his finger lightly across the back of her thumb. He held on for longer than he meant to. Her skin was just so soft.

  Emma coughed as if she had a large boulder stuck in her throat, and Ben feared that she might bolt for the house and the safety of the bathroom at any moment.

  Instead, she cleared her throat and stood her ground. “Lizzie and I are making a quilt together,” she said.

  Relieved at the change of subject, Ben found a gauze pad in Mammi’s first aid kit and began to dab the blood from Emma’s cleaned forehead. It didn’t want to stop bleeding yet. “For the orphans’ fund.”

  “Jah. We are almost done piecing the top together. It is very pretty.”

  Ben furrowed his brow, hoping that Lizzie’s quilt project hadn’t been perilous for Emma’s fingers. She didn’t always do so well with pins. “She says she’s been to your house every day this week.”

  “I told her we could go to her house, but she says she doesn’t mind coming over to mine. Maybe she likes getting on Mahlon’s nerves.”

  “I haven’t seen Mahlon since . . . I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

  She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “He always seems to have a chip on his shoulder about one thing or another.”

  “Did he get baptized yet?”

  “No, he’s still in rumschpringe, though I don’t know why. I’ve been baptized, but most of his friends haven’t yet. They like Davy Burkholder’s cell phone.”

  “But he’ll stay in the community, won’t he?” Ben said.

  “I don’t wonder that he will. Maybe he thinks he’ll have to stop being grouchy once he’s in the church. Or maybe he’s waiting to find the right girl before he decides to be baptized. Lizzie lectures him frequently about the evils of waiting too long to join the church. When she talks like that, he just grins and winks at her. That’s usually enough to get her good and riled up.”

  Ben nodded. It wasn’t hard to get Lizzie riled up. He sobered when he thought of Mahlon. At least Mahlon talked to Lizzie. He would probably never speak to Ben again. He couldn’t forgive Ben for leaving his twin sister.

  If Ben had been in Mahlon’s shoes, he might have felt the same way.

  He reached out and tucked an errant lock of hair behind Emma’s ear. She never could quite manage to keep her unruly hair underneath her kapp. He’d tucked her hair behind her ears dozens of times when they were engaged.

  She lost her smile and clasped her fingers together in her lap. He withdrew his hand and pretended that he hadn’t just done something incredibly stupid—something that dredged up all sorts of pleasant and painful memories.

  He squeezed a dollop of ointment onto her cut, spread it around, and covered it with a gauze pad.

  He wasn’t surprised to see tears pooling in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “My hands aren’t very gentle. It can’t be comfortable to have me poking you like that.”

  She valiantly blinked back the tears and nodded. “You’ve been very kind. It’s starting to hurt a little bit, now that the shock has worn off.”

  He cleared his throat. “Let me look at your eyes.”

  She turned her trusting gaze to him, and he tried not to melt like a snowman in July. “It doesn’t look like you have a concussion. That’s good news.”

  She smiled weakly. “Jah. That last concussion was painful. I don’t remember much about driving your dat’s buggy into the ditch, but I remember how kind you were to me when it happened. You carried me for more than a mile until you could flag down a car to help us.”

  Ben folded his arms across his chest to keep the emotions safely bound and gagged. He remembered that day vividly—his anguish at seeing Emma in pain, the comfort of holding her safely in his arms, and the overwhelming need to protect and care for her. That memory haunted him every night.

  He reached out and, with his thumb, caressed the side of her forehead not covered by the gauze pad. Emma was a special, wonderful girl who tried so hard to do everything right that sometimes she went overboard in her eagerness. He loved her for that.

  The longing to shelter her clobbered him upside the head and left him breathless.

  He jumped to his feet and turned his back on her once again so she wouldn’t see the despair that must surely be written all over his face. “I will ride to the Millers’ and use the phone they have in their shop. We should get you to a doctor.”

  He didn’t wait to hear what she had to say. With long, purposeful strides, he walked back to the house. He had to get out of Bonduel. If he had his way, he’d already be on a bus.

  Dawdi reclined in his chair, looking like he’d worked up quite a sweat while Ben was out. Mammi sat next to him on the sofa knitting furiously. A faint whiff of what was in the pot hung in the air, but Mammi didn’t seem to be in any hurry to remove it from the stove. Perhaps it would boil itself down to mush.

  Ben wiped any hint of distress off his face and sat on the sofa next to Mammi. “Dawdi,” he began, “you know I would do anything to help you on the farm.”

  Mammi took her hand from her knitting long enough to pat Ben’s knee. “I know you would, dear.”

  “But now that you’ve recovered from surgery, it’s time for me to go back to Florida. I’m helping Marvin Shrock mind his store. He needs me back there as soon as I can.”

  And I must get away from Emma and the memories.

  Mammi went so far as to drop her knitting needles in her lap and stare at Ben in shock.

  Dawdi rocked his recliner and let it catapult him to his feet. “Two weeks is long enough to sit in one place. I’ll go feed the chickens.”

  Mammi could have set fire to the sofa with the glare she sent in Dawdi’s direction. “Now, Felty. Don’t you care about what happens to your grandson?”

  Dawdi was halfway out the door. “We’ll miss you, Ben. Send us a postcard so we know you got home okay.”

  “Felty, stop right there. You know Ben can’t leave.” She looked at Ben and the wrinkles bunched around her lips. “Felty is trying to put on a brave face, as he always does, but he hasn’t told you about the other surgery he must have.”

  Ben’s gut clenched. “Other surgery?”

  “Other surgery?” Dawdi said.

  Mammi glanced at Ben like they were in cahoots with each other. Then she turned to Dawdi with a patient expression on her face, as if he had misplaced his own head and she was eager to help him find it. “Felty can’t hardly walk with those plantar warts on his feet. The doctor’s been urging him for months to get them removed. Two weeks from now is the day.”

  Dawdi stepped back into the house and shut the door. He didn’t exactly slam it, but he didn’t go gentle on it either. He stroked his beard as his gaze darted between Ben and Mammi.

  “Pumpkins ta
ke a long time to grow,” he said.

  The sit-ups must have been taking their toll on his faculties.

  Mammi picked up her knitting needles and took up as if she’d never stopped. “Yes, they do. We can’t rush these things.”

  Dawdi slumped his shoulders and groaned in surrender. “These plantar warts have been bothering me for months.”

  “That’s what I want to hear,” Mammi said. She nudged Ben with her elbow, a movement she could execute without dropping a stitch in her knitting. “Are you sure you can’t stay? Felty won’t be able to walk.”

  Shrugging off the distinct feeling he’d been hoodwinked, Ben nodded. “I will stay. I’ll do everything I can to help Dawdi.” He stretched his spine and rubbed the back of his neck. But he’d stay away from Emma. No good could come of it. For either of them.

  As he rode to the Millers’ so he could use their phone to call a driver to take Emma to the hospital, an idea struck him. It wondered him if he might not be going about this in the wrong way.

  Why couldn’t he help Emma at the same time he helped Dawdi?

  But what did Emma need besides a few stitches and a first aid kit strapped to her wrist?

  Chapter 7

  Ben climbed out of his buggy and took a deep breath. He hadn’t been to a gathering for months. Would everybody stare at him, like a leper?

  He shook off that immature teenage anxiety. He wasn’t looking to be accepted into a group of friends or even trying to check out the cute girls. He had come for one purpose. Once he did what he came here to do, he’d retreat to Huckleberry Hill and never have to dodge giggling girls again.

  Lizzie jumped out of the buggy and grinned at him. “Feeling a little awkward?”

  “I’m too old for this.”

  “You’ll be fine. Try not to break a hip during volleyball.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  She sidled next to him as if she had a wonderful secret to tell. “Emma will be here.”

  “I’m not here to see Emma.”

  “Maybe not,” Lizzie said, “but you’ll see her. And she’ll see you. Maybe sparks will ignite.”

  He clenched his jaw. He’d rather not have Lizzie working against him. “The only sparks I might see are if you and Mahlon Nelson stray too near each other. Just don’t get into a fistfight.”