Huckleberry Hearts

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  He didn’t know, but it was a sure bet they didn’t date mere mortals like Zach Reynolds.

  With bowl and fork in one hand, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to her name. Cassie Coblenz. Pretty, smart, determined. Very good to her grandparents.

  And completely uninterested in Zach Reynolds.

  Dr. Zach Reynolds.

  It took him about ten seconds to memorize her number. He wanted to commit it to memory just in case he lost his phone or accidentally deleted it.

  He’d never accidentally delete it. Someday she might change her mind about him. He’d be ready.

  He laid his phone on the sofa and stuffed another bite of ramen noodle with hot dog into his mouth. He wouldn’t hold his breath for Cassie. His face would turn fluorescent blue before she would ever agree to go out with him.

  He had almost secretly snapped a picture of her with his phone after Anna’s surgery this morning, but he had thought better of it. He might have felt a twinge of desperation when he thought about not going out with her, but taking a secret picture was kind of creepy, and he wasn’t the stalker type.

  Maybe he could look her up on Facebook.

  Lots of people did that.

  Maybe not.

  He picked up his phone again and resisted the impulse to scroll to her name. Instead, he checked his messages. Only one, from Blair saying she’d be in Stevens Point at the first of March. Did he want to get together?

  Not really. He’d broken things off when he’d graduated from medical school. He hadn’t invested enough in the relationship to make it work long distance when he’d never seen it working out long term anyway. Blair was a career woman through and through. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, except Zach wanted kids, lots of kids, and Blair practically broke out in hives at the mere mention of children. But the real problem was that Blair didn’t seem real, as if she put on a mask every morning when she got out of bed and never showed her true self to people. She acted out a part, and Zach was just another cast member in the movie of her life.

  He didn’t want to be a cast member.

  His phone vibrated and lit up with a picture of Mom. His mom seldom called him. When he left for college, she had told him that she didn’t want to be one of those annoying mothers who called three times a day to check up on her son. But she had gone overboard and hardly called him at all. She had told him that she didn’t want to hover. The only times they talked were when he called her, two or three times a week. He liked to think that she needed him, but it was definitely a lopsided relationship. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he still needed to hear his mom’s voice every once in a while, and he wanted her advice and encouragement now more than ever.

  “Hey, Mom. Is everything okay?”

  “Relatively,” she said, which wasn’t an answer at all. “How did your surgery on that Amish lady go today?”

  “It went good. Dr. Mann says I have steady hands.”

  “It’s all those years of piano.”

  “Or maybe all those years of picking cherries.”

  A pause on the other end of the line. “You’re never going to thank me for those piano lessons, are you?”

  Zach smiled. Mom had forced him and his two older brothers to take piano lessons until they were in high school, predicting that they would thank her later. At about age twelve when Zach had started to eat and breathe soccer, he had promised his mom that he would never, ever thank her for making him play the piano. It was a running joke, especially since he and his buddies had formed a band in high school with Zach on the keyboard. Mom wouldn’t let him live it down.

  Zach took a bite of ramen. “I will thank you for signing me up for soccer.”

  “Am I interrupting your dinner? I can call back.”

  “I can eat and talk,” Zach said.

  “Mac and cheese again?”

  “Ramen with hot dogs.”

  “Have you found any good restaurants in Shawano yet?”

  “Nope. I don’t get out much.”

  “Well,” Mom said, “You need to find a surrogate mother to feed you a home-cooked meal.”

  Other moms might have told their sons that they needed to find a girlfriend, but not his mom. He liked that she never once asked him if he was dating some nice girl. She never mentioned grandchildren or tried to make him feel guilty for not going to church. She was just his mom, who loved him no matter how much she thought he was screwing up his life.

  She and Dad had taken him to church faithfully for seventeen years. He’d memorized fifty scriptures at Bible study camp. He’d even taken a purity pledge before high school. But he just hadn’t had the heart for all that fluff after Dad died, and Mom had witnessed his fall.

  Of course she thought he was screwing up his life.

  “So,” Mom said, “what I’ve called to tell you is I’ve broken my arm.”

  Zach nearly spilled his noodles all over his thirty-year-old sofa. “What? Mom, what happened?”

  “I tried to clean out those stupid gutters and fell off the ladder.”

  “Mom, I told you not to do that yourself. A woman your age shouldn’t be on a ladder.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Zach, I’m only fifty-five.”

  “Too old to be on a ladder,” Zach said.

  “Just wait until you’re fifty-five. You’ll be embarrassed that you thought I was old.”

  Zach gave up on his noodles and set them on the filing cabinet. “Mom, I’m coming home in June. Save all that stuff for me to do.”

  “You won’t want to come home if all I do is make you work.”

  For the thousandth time since he’d left California for college, the guilt and anger slammed into him. He should have gone to school closer to home. He should be there for his mom. If God hadn’t taken his dad, Mom would have someone there to take care of her.

  His brother Drew lived in Japan with his wife and baby boy, and his brother Jeff was in Saudi Arabia with the State Department. Zach was the closest one to home. “Maybe I can get a little time off next month. I could spend a few days.”

  “You’ll do no such thing. Stay there and finish your residency.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. She was right, but it didn’t make him feel any better. “What did the doctor say? How bad a break is it?”

  “I don’t know. Eight weeks in a cast. It’s not a very convenient time. I have to finish the decorations for the auxiliary bazaar.”

  “Maybe you could turn it over to someone else.”

  “I’m not too bad with one hand. I don’t want you to worry. I debated about telling you at all, but I figured someone would post it on Facebook eventually, and you’d be mad that I kept it a secret.”

  “I wish I could help from two thousand miles away.”

  “I know, but I can’t imagine you’d be very good at tissue paper roses,” Mom said. “Paper roses made by me with one hand will probably still look better than paper roses made by you.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I could use a few prayers,” Mom said, almost as an afterthought. She didn’t often bring up religion with Zach, but this was an emergency. She thought prayers helped.

  “If it will make you feel better, Mom, I’ll send a prayer up tonight.”

  “It will.” She paused, as if letting the idea of prayer soak in a little. “You can do something else.”

  “What?”

  “Find someone in Shawano who needs you. If you do something nice for someone else, the good karma is bound to get back to me.”

  Zach chuckled. “One minute you’re a Christian, the next you’re a Buddhist.”

  “Christians believe in karma. ‘Cast your bread upon the waters and you shall find it after many days.’”

  “Okay, Mom. I know better than to get into a Bible discussion with you.”

  “Get some sleep, Zach, and find a restaurant that will serve you a few vegetables.”

  “This ramen contains parsley flakes.”


  “Good night, son.”

  “Love you, Mom.” When he finished his residency, he’d find a practice close to home so he could look out for his mom. He’d see to it that she never had to climb a ladder again.

  He’d lost his appetite. He slowly picked the hot dogs out of the noodles and popped them into his mouth. The grocery store was still open. Maybe he should go buy a head of lettuce or something. He imagined himself eating a whole head of lettuce like an apple. That had to be three or four servings of vegetables right there.

  His phone vibrated again.

  “Hello, Dr. Reynolds? This is Patti Gordon from the answering service. You know that Amish woman you did surgery on today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I think she called me. She told me her name was Anna and that she really needed to talk to you. I told her I’d have you call her, but she said she really needed you to come to her house.”

  Zach thought of Anna’s granddaughter and smoothed his hair with his fingers. “Did she say what was wrong?”

  “No. I told her if she had an emergency to go to the hospital, but she hung up the phone. I tried calling back, but no one answered.”

  “Thanks, Patti. I’ll see if I can reach her.”

  Even though he had it memorized, Zach opened the address book on his phone and scrolled to the forbidden number. He stared at it, picturing the blonde angel with the red scarf. Would she be mad if he called?

  Blonde angel or no blonde angel, Anna wouldn’t have tried to contact him unless something was wrong, and his first concern had to be for his patient. Anna had come through surgery well, but she was eighty-four years old. Age was always a risk factor, no matter how routine the surgery.

  His fingers shook, actually shook, as he highlighted Cassie’s number and pressed the screen to connect. He cleared his throat. It wouldn’t do anything for Cassie’s confidence in him as a doctor if he sounded like a lovesick teenager.

  The phone rang and rang. And rang. What? Cassie didn’t even have voice mail? He hung up and tried again. Three times. Had a burglar come and tied them all up? Or had there been a fire, and they were all out on the front lawn watching their house go up in flames?

  Anna was supposed to be at home, and someone responsible with a phone was supposed to be with her at all times. Where were they? Had they gone to the emergency room and left Cassie’s phone sitting on the kitchen counter?

  Zach stood and paced the room a couple of times before trying the number again. No answer. If Anna were a normal patient, he would have given up by now, figuring she’d call back if she really needed to talk to him. But Anna was not a normal patient. Zach didn’t know enough about the Amish to decide if he should be concerned or not.

  It only took him about ten seconds to make the decision. He’d feel much better if he knew for sure that Anna was all right. Besides, Anna had her heart set on a visit from the doctor. Mom would say it was good karma.

  He shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out the ripped corner of the magazine that Anna had written her address on.

  Huckleberry Hill, Park Road, Bonduel, Wisconsin.

  What kind of an address was that? Maybe Huckleberry Hill was an Amish old-folks home. He looked it up on his phone. No listing for an old-folks home in Bonduel under Huckleberry Hill. He hoped this wasn’t a wild goose chase.

  Or a wild huckleberry chase.

  He couldn’t be sure which.

  Chapter Six

  “Dawdi, have you seen my phone?”

  Cassie glanced around the great room. She didn’t really want to spend a lot of time looking for her missing phone. It would turn up. It couldn’t have gone far. She remembered having it when she came into the house. For all she knew, Mammi could be sitting on it.

  Cassie swept the floor as Dawdi washed up the dinner dishes. Her cousin Moses and his wife Lia had been kind enough to bring dinner for them tonight after they came home from the hospital. They had brought fried chicken, green beans with bacon, Jell-O salad, and the flakiest, most buttery rolls Cassie had ever tasted. Lia was a very good cook. She’d made enough for an entire houseful of Amish folks. They’d be eating leftovers for days.

  Mammi relaxed in Dawdi’s recliner with her feet propped up, dozing on and off while Dawdi and Cassie finished cleaning up. A tube dangled from Mammi’s tightly wrapped foot and connected to a small appliance about the size of a toaster. Dr. Reynolds had called it a wound vacuum. It sucked moisture from Mammi’s surgical site to help it heal for a skin graft in three weeks.

  Dr. Reynolds had been so kind at the hospital today that Cassie had almost started to like him. He hadn’t pressed the issue of wanting to go out with her, and he hadn’t tried to make her feel guilty for saying no. However he felt about her, he had treated her with uncommon courtesy and had been more than attentive to Mammi. He hadn’t talked down to her grandparents like some doctors did with old people. Mammi and Dawdi were both still sharp as tacks. Sometimes Cassie felt like they were the only family she had left. She had a soft spot for anybody who treated her grandparents kindly.

  Even Dr. Zach Reynolds.

  Cassie’s lips curled involuntarily when she remembered the look on his face when he requested her phone number that last time. He had been sincerely reluctant to ask. She found his unexpected hesitation kind of cute.

  And what was it about his nose that made his face so attractive? Being a little crooked meant it had probably been broken sometime in the past, but judging by that devil-may-care grin he usually wore, Cassie could just imagine that he’d been doing something wildly reckless and incredibly fun when he had broken it.

  “Is everything all right, yet?” Dawdi asked.

  “Oh, jah, everything is fine. Don’t I look fine?”

  “Well,” he said, with a spark of amusement in his eyes, “you’re sweeping the dog.”

  Cassie looked down. She was indeed brushing the broom back and forth across Sparky’s back. The unconventional fur cleaning hadn’t disturbed Mammi’s little white dog in the least. She remained fast asleep in the corner next to the stove.

  Cassie pulled the broom away and gazed at it as if it were a foreign object. What had she been thinking? How could the thought of a crooked nose distract her so thoroughly?

  The recliner squeaked as Mammi shifted in it.

  “Are you okay, Mammi?”

  Mammi opened her eyes. “The pain medicine helps my foot, but it makes me feel like I’m floating away on a cloud. And I can’t steer a cloud. I think I’d rather have control of all my faculties. There’s still so much to be arranged. Who’s going to do the arranging?”

  “You just need to concentrate on feeling better, Mammi. Everything will still be here when you’re on your feet again.”

  “The doctor won’t. How am I supposed to work things out with the doctor if I can’t even steer my cloud?”

  Dawdi dried his hands before sitting on the sofa next to the recliner. “You’ve arranged things just fine yet, Annie.”

  She smiled and patted Dawdi’s hand. “I suppose I have. But I’d rather not sleep through all the fun.”

  “I’ll wake you if anything exciting happens.” He turned and looked at Cassie. “But right now, she’s just sweeping.”

  Cassie made her expression as earnest as possible. “I promise if I do anything exciting, you’ll be the first to know. But studying for the GRE is about as boring as watching paint dry.”

  Someone knocked softly on the door as if they didn’t want to be heard. Sparky, who hadn’t woken up when Cassie swept her, immediately lifted her head and barked.

  Mammi seemed to perk up as well. “No need to wake me, Felty. I’m ready for the excitement.”

  Cassie propped the broom against the wall and answered the door. The sight of Dr. Reynolds standing there with a crooked nose and a bright red scarf tied around his neck almost took her breath away. It was a good thing she wholeheartedly disliked him or she’d be in some danger of being pulled in by his good looks.

&nbs
p; He eyed her doubtfully. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I had to make sure everything was okay. Your mammi—”

  “Tell him to come in,” Mammi called from across the room.

  “Oh,” Cassie said, stepping back and holding on to the doorknob as if it were a trusted friend. “Please come in, Doctor. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  Pulling the beanie off his head, he stepped tentatively into the room. “I apologize.”

  “No apology necessary,” Dawdi said, jumping to his feet. He strode across the room and shook the doctor’s hand vigorously. “Anna will feel much better now that you’re here.”

  “I know this is unconventional,” the doctor said, “but Anna called and the answering service said it sounded urgent, but no one answered when I tried calling back. I got worried. If she were my mom, I would want the doctor to come and check on her.”

  “Mammi called you?”

  He glanced at Cassie as if asking forgiveness for every bad thing he’d ever done. She was nearly inclined to give it to him. Darn that crooked nose!

  “Come and let me have a look at you,” Mammi said.

  Dr. Reynolds gave Sparky a pat before walking past Cassie to the recliner. “Is everything okay? They said you sounded very upset over the phone. How is the pain?”

  “She’s on a cloud,” Dawdi said. “I think she’s feeling fine.”

  Zach nodded and got on one knee next to the recliner. “Can I do anything for you? Are you drinking plenty of liquids?”

  “I’m feeling much better now,” Mammi said. “There’s nothing quite like a doctor to make everything better.”

  Cassie sidled near Mammi’s recliner. “When did you call the doctor?”

  Mammi pulled Cassie’s phone from her apron pocket. “About an hour ago. I hope you don’t mind that I used your phone.”

  “Of . . . course not,” Cassie stammered. Mammi had stolen her phone to make an unnecessary call to the doctor? “I’m sorry, Dr. Reynolds. We really were trying to make sure that she rested comfortably.”

  His smile made her feel warm all the way to her toes. “It’s okay. I was concerned when I couldn’t get hold of you. I’m not sure what the Amish protocol is. But I was happy to come over. It’s my first time in an Amish home.”