The Keeper

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Julia shook that thought off. Uncle Hank said all kinds of ridiculous things, all the time. More likely, he had misled Fern into what she was getting herself into. Well, Julia would clear things up. She hopped off the bench and headed to the kitchen to find Fern peeling potatoes at the sink. Sadie and M.K. trotted behind her. Menno sat down at the kitchen table, wide-eyed.

  “Fern,” Julia said in her most authoritative voice. “While our father is recovering from his heart trouble, the rest of us are working long hours to get the farm ready for planting and harvesting. I’m very grateful you offered to help us, but Uncle Hank led us to believe that you would be helping all of us—not just Amos.”

  Fern’s lips formed a thin, unhappy line, but she kept peeling potatoes. “I can’t cook for the entire tribe of you. There’s limits on what a person can do.” She turned her head and looked at Julia, a long look. “How much is one woman supposed to do?”

  Amen! Julia thought. Amen to that.

  “If you don’t want me to quit, you’ll have to take care of yourself,” Fern said.

  Quit? She might quit? Maybe this was the exit door they were looking for. Julia grabbed a dishcloth and rubbed a spot on the counter. “If you need to quit and return to your home, we certainly understand.” She turned to M.K. “Go get your piggy bank, M.K., and we’ll pay Fern her wages.”

  M.K. lifted her hands, palms to the sky. “Why is everybody always asking me for money?”

  “Because you’re the only who has any,” Menno whispered.

  Fern’s face flushed. Julia had called her bluff. Julia felt a tiny twinge of pity as she pulled six spoons, knives, and forks from the drawer. Just a twinge. “Of course, Sadie could always cook for the four of us while you tend to Dad. You don’t mind sharing the kitchen, do you?”

  Fern’s thin eyebrows rose in alarm.

  Julia gave the silverware to M.K. to set the table. “You have three choices, Fern. One . . . you certainly aren’t obligated to stay. Two . . . you can let Sadie back into the kitchen.” She took the napkins out of the drawer and started to fold them. “Or, three, cook for all of us.” She handed the folded napkins to M.K. “Just let me know what you decide.”

  A pregnant silence filled the room. Fern blew out a stream of air. “All righty, then. But you all will have to eat what I serve.” She pointed to Sadie. “Even the overfed one.”

  Throughout the discussion, Sadie had been feeding steadily from a pan of brownies. She had taken a paring knife from the drawer and cut out a small piece, then evened out the cut by slicing another bite, then another and another. When she realized Fern was referring to her, she froze, midbite, and looked up, horrified.

  “Fine. We’ll eat whatever you make for us,” Julia said. “No complaining allowed.” She gave M.K. a look of warning.

  M.K. raised her small shoulders as if to ask, “What?”

  Fern scowled, but Julia’s amiability took the fight out of her. “I don’t want people messing up my kitchen.”

  Julia motioned to everyone to leave the kitchen. Sadie dropped the paring knife in the brownie pan in a huff.

  Outside, Menno and M.K. ran to the barn to check on Lulu and the puppies. Sadie and Julia lingered behind, watching the sun slip behind the row of pine trees that framed Windmill Farm in the west, making for early sunsets.

  Sadie turned to Julia. “Do I look fat?”

  Julia put an arm around Sadie. “No. Not at all. Not in the least bit. Absolutely not.” She pinched her thumb and index finger together. “Well, maybe just a little.”

  “I am! I’m fat!”

  “It’s just baby fat, Sadie. You’ll grow soon and it will disappear.”

  “I stopped growing a year ago and I kept eating.” She let out a soft sough. “I am. I am a fat girl. Fat, fat, fat.”

  “Sadie, don’t let Fern Graber get to you. Fern is just . . . Fern.”

  Sadie took a few steps down the porch and turned back. “You’re sure I don’t look fat?”

  “I wouldn’t want you any other way than how you are right now, Sadie,” Julia said truthfully.

  Sadie smiled and crossed to the barn.

  Julia walked over to the garden and examined the flowers along the front row. She loved her flower garden, small though it was. It had been her mother’s garden, her special joy. And now the garden gave Julia constant pleasure. Julia had always felt a special kind of peace whenever she gazed around the garden. The crocuses, narcissus, daffodils, each blooming briefly, sometimes only for a day, then withering. She snapped off the dead blossoms every morning, though she hadn’t that morning, so she did it now. When she finished, her hands were stained with yellow and orange from the crocus stamen. As the peaceful scents of the garden stole over her, she felt a peculiar excitement.

  It felt good, being so direct and assertive with Fern. Really, really good. And yet to Julia’s surprise, she felt relieved when Fern decided not to quit. Her father’s heart trouble was taking a terrible toll on Windmill Farm. On all of them. Julia kept expecting her father to make a full recovery. Surely, any day now, his heart would regain its strength. The Lord knew they needed him.

  And how Menno needed guidance. He was a strong boy and could work hard at times, but he needed to be told what to do and how to do it. He needed someone working alongside of him. Instead of providing daily instruction, Amos had been retreating from life. He stayed in his robe and slippers, staring out the window of his bedroom. The neighbors pitched in as often as they could, but they had farms to run too. Even with Sadie and Menno’s help, Julia couldn’t keep up with both the house and the fields. As March had turned to April—spring planting time—Julia often found herself fighting waves of panic. She was drowning in responsibilities.

  But now, at the end of this day, Julia didn’t feel quite as sad as she had a little earlier. Her spirits had lightened. She reached up to smooth out the furrows of a frown forming between her eyes. She didn’t want to mar her complexion with needless worry lines. It was bad enough that she had a too-generous sprinkling of freckles across her nose that even a bucket of lemon juice couldn’t fade.

  Maybe . . . if she could handle Fern, she could manage anything. Maybe things weren’t as bleak as they appeared. Maybe when life became difficult, it only meant one was facing a challenge, an obstacle to be overcome. She was only twenty-one years old, young enough to make changes. She was going to become the kind of person who took no nonsense from anyone. She could do it. After all, even Fern backed down!

  She straightened her back and lifted her chin, a matter decided. How could she overcome Paul’s reluctance to marry? How could she point him in the proper direction? Sometimes, a man like Paul only needed to be convinced of what he truly wanted. She was going to marry him, as planned. This very November. She would simply have to be more forthright.

  Fern opened the one-hinged kitchen door and peered at the rusty hinge, as if wondering how it still remained. She shook her head and called to Julia. “Your Uncle Hank told me to tell you that the Bee Man is due in. Tomorrow or the next day.”

  Julia’s new confidence popped like a balloon. She dropped her chin to her chest, defeated, wondering how an awful stretch of days could turn even worse. It seemed like at some point you’d just run out of awful.

  On her way to school the following day M.K. had much on her mind, as she often did. She made a mental list of Fern’s new house rules. This morning, as she was lightly hopping down the stairs, Fern told her it sounded like a herd of mustangs were galloping on a concrete floor and that there would be no more running in the house. That, M.K. counted, would be Rule Number 436, right behind Rule Number 435: Do not sneeze indoors. She sighed, deeply aggrieved.

  Every school morning, M.K. waited at the crossroads to meet up with her friends, Ethan and Ruthie. Ethan was only nine, but he was brilliant—nearly as smart as M.K. but not quite—so she was willing to overlook his youth. Ruthie was already twelve, kind and loyal, though she had a squeamish digestion that didn’t tolerate anything too
far out of the ordinary. Still, Ruthie was willing to hold a grudge against Jimmy Fisher for throwing a black racer snake into the girls’ outhouse while M.K. was attending to business. Acts of such devotion had earned her a spot in M.K.’s heart.

  Jimmy Fisher was a thirteen-year-old blight on humanity, a boy born with his nose in the air. Unfortunately, Jimmy wasn’t bad looking. He was a tall blond, the tallest in seventh grade. Every girl kept one eye peeled on him. They looked at him all day long. It made M.K. disgusted and was added to her growing list: Why Jimmy Fisher Should Be Stuffed into a Rocket Ship and Sent to the Moon.

  That particular list was started when M.K. was only five. Jimmy Fisher, then seven, played a trick on her. He tucked a walkie-talkie under his dog’s collar and told M.K. that he had a talking dog. M.K. believed him and carried on long conversations with the dog during lunch until Sadie found out and blew the whistle on Jimmy. Too late! Jimmy and his friends called M.K. Little Gullie—short for little gullible—from that point on. M.K. wasn’t a girl prone to letting go of her grudges. And Jimmy Fisher topped the list of permanent grudges.

  M.K. sat on the split rail of the fence, swinging her legs, when she spotted a horse and buggy coming toward her. She shaded her eyes from the morning sun and recognized the horse as belonging to the Smuckers. With any luck, Gideon Smucker would be driving the buggy to town. M.K. jumped off the fence and smoothed her skirts, then waved at Gideon. He pulled over to the side of the road.

  “Hey there, M.K.! Need a ride to school?”

  Drat! There was nothing she would rather do than arrive at school in Gideon’s buggy. She’d love to see the look on Jimmy’s face then! But she couldn’t disappoint Ethan and Ruthie. “Thanks, but I’m waiting for some friends.”

  “How’s everyone at Windmill Farm?” Gideon asked.

  M.K. looked up into his face. He was sixteen or seventeen, tops, with freckled cheeks and a shock of red hair that flopped down on his forehead. Propped on his nose were spectacles that gave him, M.K. thought, a very learned look. Julia said he looked like he was peering at life through the bottom of two Coke bottles. Sadie, more kindly, thought he wore the look of an owlish scholar.

  Sadie was the one he was really asking after, in Gideon’s roundabout, acutely girl-shy way. He was frightened to death of girls his own age. M.K. thought it was a serious flaw in an otherwise perfect young man. Gideon adjusted his spectacles, acting nonchalant as he waited for M.K.’s answers.

  “Everyone’s fine. Just fine.” She was being mean, but she enjoyed watching his ears turn bright red.

  Gideon looked up at a crow cawing in a tree. “How’s your father’s heart? Improving?”

  “Oh . . . about the same.”

  “And Menno? How’s he doing?”

  “You know Menno. He’s always fine.”

  Gideon scratched his forehead. “And Julia?”

  “She’s . . . well . . .” What could she say? She was worried about her sister. Julia didn’t complain or speak ill of Paul; she seemed distracted, preoccupied, sad. How could Paul treat her sister like that? Julia might be a little pushy and demanding, a tad overbearing, maybe a little vain . . . but she was also loving and kind and beautiful. She’d practically raised M.K. “Fair to middlin’.”

  “Edith Fisher paid us a visit yesterday. She told my mother that Paul canceled the wedding. Any idea why?”

  “Paul’s a dummy. That’s why.” All of those Fishers were dummies. With all that went on this morning, it nearly slipped her mind that she had a score to settle with Jimmy Fisher. The usual slimy slugs in the lunch pail never fazed him. She cast about for something that would.

  Gideon grinned. His smile was dazzling. How could Sadie resist it? “Seems like Julia needs to shake Paul up a little. He doesn’t know a good thing once he’s got it.”

  M.K. rolled that remark around in her mind for a moment. Interesting!

  “Mary Kate? I asked how Sadie is doing.” Gideon was staring at her.

  Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t caught what he was saying. She couldn’t help but notice his ears had turned fire-engine red. “Oh! Sorry, Gideon. My mind got to wandering. Sadie’s fine. Just fine.”

  “Well, if you don’t need a ride, I’ll be off then.” Gideon made a clucking sound and his horse started off down the road.

  M.K. hardly noticed he had left. Without meaning to, he had given her a whopper of an idea. She just might be able to fix two problems at once.

  Yesterday, Jimmy had whispered to her that Paul finally came to his senses once he realized that M.K. would be his sister-in-law. When Paul made that discovery, Jimmy said, the wedding to Julia was off. “It would take wild horses to drag a vow out of Paul now.”

  M.K. thought that feeble remark deserved a response. She didn’t know why Julia ever wanted to marry into that Fisher family. And to have Fisher babies! M.K. shuddered.

  But Julia loved Paul, and love was a mysterious thing, sickening though it was. M.K. felt any Fisher would make a sorrowful choice for a husband, but she was willing to cook up a plan to help make that happen for her sister. She had a talent for involving herself in other people’s business.

  An idea took form in M.K.’s mind and a mischievous grin lit her face. At last she had a plan of attack pretty well worked out. Off she darted with wings on her heels to meet Ethan and Ruthie as they rounded the bend on the road. The whole day had brightened.

  One thing Julia couldn’t deny about Fern—quietly dubbed Stern Fern by M.K.—she was a get-it-done machine. Since her arrival, every closet, cupboard, and corner of Windmill Farm had been scrubbed and polished. Julia wasn’t complaining. It was rather pleasant to have a well-run home, even if it did require effort to stay out of Fern’s cleaning frenzies. And her cooking! It was amazing. This morning, she woke early to find Fern in the kitchen, flipping a tower of blueberry buttermilk pancakes for Menno and M.K.

  Late in the morning, Julia came in from the garden to get something to drink. As she poured herself a glass from a container of iced tea, Fern walked into the kitchen and dropped a pile of mail on the counter. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of the refrigerator. Everything’s organized the way I like it.”

  Julia resisted rolling her eyes. “I won’t move anything I don’t eat.” Fern was a monumental pain, but Julia was going to try to be more understanding. Sadie had scolded them all last night after she caught M.K. trying to slip a bullfrog into the refrigerator when Fern was upstairs. “Maybe if we weren’t so snippy to her all the time,” Sadie had said, “she wouldn’t be so snippy herself.”

  Sadie had a point. They were snippy to Fern. Not Menno, but the rest of them were definitely snippy to her, even Uncle Hank. Yesterday, Uncle Hank wandered into the kitchen and Fern told him he smelled a little ripe. And when had he last bathed? Uncle Hank stomped away to his Grossdaadi Haus. Later, though, Julia noticed he had showered and shaved. Fern had moved in and had taken over, with plans to improve them all.

  Julia wasn’t sure why Fern had come to help them, but she was confident there was some tragic story behind it. For a woman her age—was she fifty? Sixty?—she was quite handsome in a plain way. But she never mentioned a family of her own, no children or husband. Most likely, Julia pondered, her heart had been broken. Remembering the pain of that particular ailment, Julia felt a small wave of empathy for Fern. She took a fresh tack. “Did you grow up in Ohio?”

  “Yes.” Fern pulled a mixing bowl from the cupboard.

  Julia tried again. “Have you always worked as a housekeeper?”

  Fern slapped the cupboard door closed. “I don’t have time for idle chitchat. So much to do. Meals to prepare, beds to make, towels to wash. Then I need to get a head start on dinner.”

  “Someone took my bell,” Amos said crossly.

  Julia and Fern spun around to face Amos standing by the stairwell. “I took it,” Fern said. “Got tired of hearing it ring every five minutes.”

  “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a patient having a bell?
” He pouted like a child.

  Fern put her hands on her hips. “What do you want?”

  “I’m hungry. I came down to make myself some lunch.”

  “I told you I’d make lunch.”

  “I’m not falling for that again. Yesterday I got a bowl of thin broth.”

  “And crackers and an apple. Stop being such a baby.”

  Amos scowled at Fern and turned to go upstairs, muttering halfway up the stairs until his breathing became labored and his coughing started up. Fern followed him.

  As Fern’s footsteps faded, Julia pondered the changes since she had arrived, just a few days ago. Fern had made herself thoroughly at home in Windmill Farm, rearranging furniture, dusting and sweeping and scrubbing the house as if it was as dirty as a pigsty. But as irritating as Fern was, she was exactly what her father needed. He had been so discouraged by his slow progress that he had stopped doing exercises. Fern would tolerate none of that self-pity. She had made him do his exercises every day since she arrived and ignored his steady complaining. And she was just as bossy with the rest of them—especially so with Uncle Hank and M.K. All but Menno. Him . . . she spoiled. Julia smiled as she heard Fern order Amos to get dressed and take a walk to the road and back.

  Fern was a tyrant, a dictator, but not quite the bully she liked to think she was.

  4

  At the age of fifty, Amos Lapp felt as if he had just acquired a middle-aged mother in the size and shape of Fern Graber and he didn’t like it. But then he didn’t like much of anything or anyone these days, especially himself. He wanted all of this heart nonsense to go away.

  Fern had just brought him a cup of coffee and it was decaf! He wanted real coffee. He waited until he heard the door shut to Fern’s bedroom, then tiptoed downstairs. By the time Amos made it to the bottom step, he was wheezing. A year ago at this time, he was plowing fields and planting corn, sunup to sundown. Virtually overnight, because of his weak heart, he had turned into an old man.