The Keeper

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “No smoking in the house, Uncle Hank,” Julia said. “You know the doctors outlawed it for Dad’s sake.” She put her hand out, palm up, until Uncle Hank forfeited the stub. Julia opened the kitchen door to throw it out. She turned and frowned at him, but he didn’t seem at all offended.

  “Still settin’ to your breakfast!” he bellowed. “I had mine at 4:30!”

  The entire town of Stoney Ridge was awake now. Julia filled a coffee mug and handed it to him.

  “Say, Mary Kate, if I’d a knowed I’d see you, I’d a put my choppers in.” Uncle Hank fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a full set of fake dentures. They grinned out of his fist. Menno whooped out a big laugh. M.K. and Sadie started to giggle.

  Julia shaded her eyes with her hand. It really was too early for this.

  “Well, Uncle Hank, how are you today?” Amos asked, standing at the bottom of the stairwell. He was still in his pajamas, Julia noted. More and more often, there were days when he never changed out of them.

  “Better’n you, Amos. You’re gettin’ to look more and more like a plucked chicken ever’ time I lay eyes on you.” He spied Julia and pointed at her. “That Fisher boy come to his senses yet?”

  Julia thought, Move on. New topic. “Uncle Hank, was there some reason you came over so especially early this morning?”

  His bushy eyebrows lifted on Julia in surprise. “Why, so I did!” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and unfolded it. He hooked his spectacles over his ears and gave the envelope a close look.

  “I’ve got news. I found somebody to help out while Amos is ailing.” He glanced at the return address. “A lady named Fern Graber from Millersburg, Ohio.”

  “Is she Amish?” asked M.K.

  Uncle Hank turned his spectacles on M.K. “Of course she’s Amish!” he roared.

  “What’s this Fern lady like?” Menno asked in his slow way. “Can she cook five meals like Sadie?”

  “No one can cook like Sadie Lapp!” Uncle Hank pounded his fist on the table for added emphasis and Sadie blushed.

  M.K. had a sudden coughing fit and Julia elbowed her to hush up. Sadie was just starting to learn to cook when their mother passed. She had learned how to make five recipes and that’s as far as she got. She didn’t waver off those same five recipes: A big ham on Saturday night which gave them leftovers for Sunday, Ham ’n’ Noodle casserole on Monday to finish off the ham, Haystacks on Tuesday, Tater Tot Casserole on Wednesday, Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole on Thursday, pizza delivered from a local shop on Friday if the budget allowed. If not, grilled cheese sandwiches. The family knew what day it was by what was being served for dinner. Julia, who never had much interest in learning to cook, wouldn’t let M.K. or Menno complain about the lack of variety in their meals. She knew how much mastering those five recipes meant to Sadie. They were a link to their mother, just like quilting was for Julia. A reminder of life like it had been.

  “How did you happen to find this woman?” Julia asked. She knew from experience that if she didn’t immediately steer Uncle Hank back on course, she would be obligated to ride the path he started down, filled with infinite, unrelated details.

  Uncle Hank drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “She must be reading my letters in the Budget. So she wrote and asked if we needed help.” Uncle Hank was a Budget scribe and took his weekly letter writing seriously, filling it with all kinds of news—much of which Julia considered to be the family’s private business. And then there was plenty of community news, adding his unique “Uncle Hank” spin on events, often irking many of the ladies in the church.

  Amos walked over to the kitchen to fill a mug with coffee. He gave Uncle Hank a suspicious glance. “Just what did her letter say?”

  “That it sounded like we needed help and she would be just the ticket!” He scowled at Amos. “The right price too, considering you ain’t exactly rolling in greenbacks lately.”

  Amos ignored that observation and took a long sip of coffee.

  “What’s she like?” Menno asked, buttering his toast to the very edges.

  Uncle Hank rattled the letter. His glasses slipped down his nose. “Says here she isn’t fond of rules she hasn’t made herself. She brooks no nonsense. She has strong opinions and she’s not the kind who enjoys surprises. She expects brown-caked shoes to be left at the back door and for the family to don clean socks in the house. And she’ll tolerate no muddy-bellied dogs in the house.”

  M.K. dropped her head on the table with a loud clunk.

  Uncle Hank turned one eye in her direction. His eyes had a tendency to wander. “And she has a mustache, fangs, and eats ten-year-olds for lunch.”

  “Thank goodness I’m eleven,” M.K. mumbled glumly.

  “Out of the goodness of her heart, she is dropping everything and coming to this family’s aid.” He leaned over toward Amos. “I’d be a watchin’ yourself.” His face broke into a big toothy grin. “I smell a trap brewing!”

  “We don’t need help,” Julia said crisply.

  Peering over his spectacles, Uncle Hank looked around the room. Clutter was everywhere. The kitchen was the worst. Countertops were buried underneath a motley assortment of newspapers and mail. Last night’s food-encrusted dinner dishes were still piled in the sink. Even the pattern on the linoleum floor was hard to make out, littered with grass clippings that Menno had tracked into the kitchen and somehow managed to spread through the house. Furniture was shrouded under a white film of dust. They had worked so hard to get it all cleaned up before they hosted church, barely a month ago—that infamous morning when the bottles exploded. But since then, they had been working fourteen hours a day to get the fields ready to plant.

  “We’ve been pruning the orchards and planting the crops and taking care of the animals and trying to get the roadside stand up and going . . . ,” Julia started, but even she couldn’t deny any longer that they were in over their heads. Her time passed in a blur of trying to get the farm ready for another growing season, caring for her sisters and brother, and tending to her father. It didn’t help that Amos was an awful patient, ornery at being so confined, short-tempered and demanding. She fell into bed exhausted each night, woke in the morning, and started all over again.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have a little help, Julia,” Sadie said quietly. “Just until Dad is better.”

  “That’s right, Sadie girl!” Uncle Hank boomed, right into Sadie’s ear, and she cringed. “I’m sure Fern Graber is a fine housekeeper and a real good cook. And I’ll do alls I can to help out in them fields too, when I get a little more caught up out in the buggy shop.”

  Julia had to bite her lower lip not to spit out the words that wanted to roll off her tongue: Uncle Hank could be counted on for one thing—he couldn’t be counted on.

  Uncle Hank circled behind Menno’s chair and put a large hand on his shoulder. “But as for this beautiful spring morning, Menno and I have work cut out for us. We’re gonna head to town and meet this Fern Graber at the iron horse!”

  Menno looked at his father. “What’s an iron horse?”

  “It’s an old-fashioned word for a train,” Amos said.

  Menno thought that over for a long moment, then threw back his head and barked out that single, joyous “Haw!” that distinguished his laugh from everyone else’s.

  “Let’s be off, Menno!” Uncle Hank shouted. “But first things first. We’ll swing by Blue Lake Pond to see if the croppy is bitin’. After all, spring is upon us!”

  Menno jumped out of his chair and grabbed his straw hat off the bench. Uncle Hank tipped his hat to everyone as he held the kitchen door open for Menno. Amos looked longingly after them, watching the two men—one old, one young—head down the path with their fishing poles in their hands and a bucket of bait.

  3

  As M.K. drew close to the house on her way home from school that afternoon, the smell of something savory drifted her way from the open kitchen window. It was Tuesday, Haystack Day, but the smell com
ing out of the kitchen wasn’t anything like Sadie’s Haystacks. She eased into the kitchen, as quiet as a person could possibly be. A pot of beef stew simmered on the stovetop, filling the room with a savory aroma.

  Her eyes landed on the most glorious sight in the world: On the counter next to the oven were thick chocolate chip cookies, cooling on a rack. M.K. grabbed a cookie and took a bite. Bliss! Which could only be improved upon with a glass of cold milk. M.K. reached into the refrigerator to get the milk pitcher.

  “Get your hands out of that refrigerator!” a no-nonsense voice called out without so much as a how are you today. M.K. nearly jumped out of her skin. She spun around and came face-to-face with a tall, thin woman, with wiry hair the color of nickels and dimes, staring down at M.K.

  “I’m Mary Kate,” M.K. said timidly. “But you could call me M.K. If you like. That’s what my family calls me . . .” Her voice drizzled to a stop. “You must be . . . Fern.”

  “I am,” the woman said. She stood surveying the room. She was all business. Her eyes were a pair of pale-blue flints striking cold sparks, and she had a look on her face like she was sizing M.K. up and filing her under Trouble—a look M.K. was rather accustomed to from her schoolteacher. “New rule. No one is allowed in the refrigerator.”

  “But—”

  “I spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing it. It was a disaster.” Fern frowned. “And now the milk isn’t in the right place. And the eggs. Why would anybody move the eggs?” She straightened everything and wiped the shelf with a dish towel. “They don’t belong on that shelf!” A storm cloud seemed to form over Fern’s head, threatening to shed cold sleet all over the room.

  Talking around a mouthful of cookie, M.K. mumbled, “The eggs were in front of the milk.”

  Fern eyed the second cookie beside M.K.’s glass of milk. “One snack after school. Then nothing until dinner.”

  M.K. slid the extra cookie back on the cooling rack.

  “And there’s a smudge on the door handle!” Fern rubbed the handle of the refrigerator with her dish towel as if polishing fine silver.

  The large kitchen suddenly began to feel small and confining as Fern’s opinions began to take up residence. M.K. quietly backed toward the door while Fern’s attention was focused on the smudge. She sat on the kitchen porch steps and finished up her cookie and milk. She dipped the cookie into the milk and took the last bite, savoring it because she knew she wouldn’t be able to help herself to another. Fern was guarding them like a raccoon with her kits.

  M.K. pondered Fern’s no-one-in-the-refrigerator rule and wondered if there would be more rules to follow. No one in the refrigerator? She would starve! She would grow weaker and weaker, languishing away, until she died from malnutrition. Tragic possibilities always lurked near the front of M.K.’s mind, just behind her common sense. “This is outrageous!” she hissed to nobody in particular.

  M.K. didn’t like change. In her eleven years, she had already discovered that when things changed, they always changed for the worst. Life as she knew it was over.

  Sadie finished filling the water bucket for the buggy horse, turned off the hose spigot, and went to find Menno. She followed the tuneless humming that led to him, sitting in an empty horse stall that doubled as a maternity ward for his dog, Lulu. Menno’s back was against the wall, and two yellow puppies were nestled in his arms.

  Sadie leaned against the bars of the stall. “I’m amazed Lulu will let you hold them. M.K. said she won’t let her near them.”

  “That’s because M.K. moves too fast, Sadie,” Menno said in his slow, deliberate way. “She’s always in a hurry. She makes Lulu nervous. Lulu likes things calm.”

  “Are you going to put up a ‘puppies for sale’ sign down by Julia’s stand?”

  “No.”

  “Dad said you can’t keep them, Menno.”

  “I know. But I need to find the right home for each one. And then I need to make sure the puppies are happy. Dogs pick their master, you know.” He shifted a little against the wall. “Come, look at this, Sadie.” He pointed his jaw at the puppy tucked in his elbow. “Does that eye look . . . ,” he searched for the word, “. . . gummy?”

  Sadie examined the puppy’s eye. “Might just be a little sleep in its eye. I’ll check it again later today.” She didn’t see anything wrong with the puppy’s eyes, but there wasn’t anything she would deny Menno. She adored him.

  Sadie looked at her brother. Menno resembled Julia far more than Sadie—he was tall and slender, with thick, shiny, curly hair. He had Julia’s hazel eyes rimmed with lashes so thick they looked like a brush. Not fair! Not fair that Julia and Menno took after their mother, while Sadie took after her father’s side of the family. Short, round, bordering on plump, large-chested, and her honey-colored hair frizzed up on humid days like a Brillo pad. M.K. seemed to have features from both parents—small like her mother, snapping brown eyes like her father, hair that was colored lighter than Sadie’s, but thick and satin-smooth, like Julia’s. So not fair. And then she felt a pin jab of conscience.

  The barn door slid open and M.K. flew in, feathers ruffled like an offended parakeet. True M.K. style. “Family meeting!” she shouted. “We need to have a family meeting! Right now! It’s a dire emergency! Where is everybody?”

  Sadie popped up so M.K. could see where she was. She held a finger in silence against her lips. “The puppies just fell asleep.”

  Menno was watching M.K. with an alarmed look on his face. “Is it Dad? Is he okay?”

  “Menno, you know that M.K.’s dire emergencies are never real emergencies,” Sadie said quietly, in a voice of one long accustomed to her little sister’s fire alarms.

  M.K. overheard her. “But it is! We are facing a terrible problem!”

  “Calm down, M.K.,” Sadie said. “Sit next to Menno and look at the puppies.”

  M.K. came into the stall and crouched down. As she reached out to touch a puppy, Lulu growled at her, so she drew back. She gave Sadie a pleading look. “Even the dog won’t listen to me!”

  Sadie’s heart went out to her little sister. Her daily emergencies were casually dismissed by the family. Crying wolf, they said. Yet Sadie indulged her—she knew that M.K.’s enthusiasms were always genuine and passionate but seldom long-lasting.

  Sadie put an arm around her. “You’ve got my full attention now, M.K. What’s the emergency? Why do we need a family meeting?”

  “Fern! Haven’t you met her?”

  Sadie and Menno nodded. “She made me a big lunch,” Menno said. “It was amazing!” He cast a sheepish glance in Sadie’s direction. “No offense, Sadie.”

  “None taken,” Sadie said. “Why are you upset, M.K.?”

  “She said no one is allowed in the refrigerator. Pretty soon, we won’t even be allowed into the kitchen.”

  Menno scrunched up his face. “But how would we eat?”

  “My point exactly, Menno!” M.K. folded her arms against her chest, satisfied that she had conveyed the critical urgency of her message. She pointed to the puppies sleeping in Menno’s lap. “Dibs on the big one.”

  Menno shook his head. “You can’t just say dibs, M.K. These puppies belong to me.”

  M.K. waved him off. “Menno, come with me. There’s a pot of beef stew simmering on the stove and it is tempting me something fierce. Let’s go see if we can sample a bowlful. Maybe Fern won’t yell at you. Nobody ever yells at you.”

  Menno nodded solemnly at Sadie. “It’s true. Everybody likes me.” He gently placed the sleeping puppies next to Lulu and scrambled to his feet to follow M.K. to the house.

  Julia was having an awful day. Awful! She already felt fragile from yesterday’s conversation with Paul, and now, Uncle Hank had invited a stranger to become their housekeeper. They didn’t need a housekeeper. Well, maybe they did, but Julia should have been the one to choose her. Not Uncle Hank!

  The woman who had arrived at their doorstep earlier in the day couldn’t be any more of a mismatch for the Lapps. When Jul
ia first met her, Fern Graber had a look on her face as if she had a kernel of popcorn stuck in a back molar. That was before Fern walked into the kitchen and actually gasped in horror. Within one minute of arriving, she was sweeping the floor and clucking her tongue.

  And not only that—Fern Graber had ears on her like a librarian. She was already listening in to their conversations and offering up her opinion on serious matters. Unsolicited. Unwanted.

  Just moments ago, as Sadie and Julia hung wet laundry on the clothesline, Sadie asked, “If you had three wishes, Julia, what would you wish for?”

  Without thinking, Julia said at once, “I want Paul Fisher to marry me.”

  “If wishes were fishes,” Fern said as she walked up to them with another basket of wet laundry, “we’d all have a fry.”

  What really irked Julia was that Fern was right. She had hoped for so much and ended up with so little. It seemed to Julia as if her future had been floating above her like a brightly colored kite, waiting to lift her away . . . and Paul had just ripped the kite string from her hand. She could only watch helplessly as her hopes and dreams to be Paul’s wife slipped out of her hands, drifting up and out of sight as if carried off by the wind.

  Julia sat down on the picnic bench near the clothesline. As she buried her head in her hands, she felt despair grip her. Her chest felt as if it were being squeezed by a giant fist, but she wouldn’t let herself cry. If she did, she would never be able to stop.

  “Juuu-Leee-Aaaa!!!!”

  Julia swiveled around on the bench to see M.K. running toward her, her face in a panic.

  “Fern says she’s not making our dinner! She says she’s here to help Dad and we’re old enough to be on our own!” M.K. stopped as she reached Julia, planted her fists on her thin hips and stared at her, defying her to act. Sadie and Menno walked up to join them.

  M.K.’s timing was impeccable. Julia needed something to think about other than her own miserable love life. And Fern nettled her. It wasn’t unusual to have friends and relatives help out, even to move in, but no one knew Fern. And what was Uncle Hank getting at . . . that Fern was setting a trap for Amos? Was Fern after Julia’s father?