Amos looked at him, looked at the beehives, and said, “Are you and your bees looking for work?”
Rome didn’t even think about it. “Yes, we are. I mean, I am.”
Amos wrinkled his forehead. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to play chess, would you?”
“I do. My father taught me.”
Amos nodded. “None of my children have any interest in the game. It’s a sore trial to me.” He yanked his hat off and ran a hand through his dark hair. “When was your last home-cooked meal?”
Rome looked away. “Awhile back.”
And those were the only personal questions Amos had ever asked of Rome. He fit his black felt hat snugly on his head. “Well, come on then.” He seemed to trust Rome, intuitively.
Rome followed Amos to Windmill Farm and met his family: fifteen-year-old Julia, eleven-year-old Menno, nine-year-old Sadie, and five-year-old Mary Kate. It was the first time he’d had a chance to look at a mirror too. During those winter months of wandering, his nearly black hair was now peppered with white. It shocked him at first, and then, it suited him. He had been marked. A sign of grieving.
Amos gave Rome his first job in the orchards and quietly spread the word to others about his fine bees. Rome soon found himself booked out for months, traveling from county to county with his bees. Whenever he moved the hives, he had to travel more than five miles away or the bees would get confused and swarm, not returning to the hives. He worked from early March until November, taking his bees from orchards to fields, selling honey from his wagon. In the winter months, for the first few years, he would do construction work or find a temporary job. But the last two years, he asked himself why he was saving so much money when he really had few needs. Instead, he found an Amish farmer who would let him leave his hives on a remote corner of his farm—sheltered from wind—in exchange for honey. A fair exchange!
Rome would wrap the hives with tarpaper to keep them dry. The bees stayed in their hives in the winter months, forming clusters to keep the hives at a steady 99 degrees. As long as they had enough honey and pollen to eat, the bees could overwinter by themselves. Even heavy snowfalls weren’t a concern—the snow acted as insulation. As soon as Rome sold off the mule each year, he was free to travel during those coldest months, via Greyhound bus. Once to Florida, to see the ocean. Another time to Washington D.C. to walk through the Smithsonian museums—each day a different one. Another time to Kentucky to the Creation Museum. It was a good life and he was content. He owed much of it to Amos Lapp.
May could be a changeable month in southeastern Pennsylvania. Though it was warm and sunny today, two days ago the temperature flirted in the low forties. Julia crossed from the greenhouse to her garden, carrying a flat of lettuce seedlings. The Farmer’s Almanac called for rain—even though the sky was bright blue—and she hoped to get these seedlings in the ground, just in case. After two years of drought, she treasured the rain as God’s good gift from above and didn’t want to waste a single drop.
Suddenly, Roman Troyer was at her side. “Just how sick is your father?”
She stopped abruptly. “Where did you come from?”
Rome pointed vaguely in the direction of the orchards. “What exactly is going on with his heart? I’ve noticed everyone just talks around it, like a coupla bears dancing ’round a beehive. Last night, Amos moved as slow as I’d ever seen him. He limped out of the kitchen and up the hall. That’s not like your father. I’m asking you straight, Julia. How bad is it?”
As she considered how much to tell him, she gazed at the cheery May sunshine and thought what a contrast it provided to this sad topic. “It’s not good.” She set the flat on the ground, picked up her trowel, bent down on her knees, and started to make holes in the dirt for the seedlings. “He has a condition called idiopathic cardiomyopathy. His heart is damaged. The doctors have tried to see if the condition might reverse itself with some treatments. Sometimes, that can happen.”
“Is he getting any better?”
She shook her head and stabbed at the ground. “As the problem gets worse, his heart is growing weaker. His heart has to keep working harder to pump blood through the body, so it tries to make up for this extra work by becoming enlarged. In time, the heart works so hard to pump blood that it simply wears out.”
“What then?”
She paused, holding the trowel in midair. “I don’t know.”
“There’s got to be something they can do. He’s only fifty!”
“The only cure would be a heart transplant. But Dad won’t even consider that.”
“Well, what about a transplant list? He should be on it, at least. Maybe he would change his mind.”
She shook her head. “Dad won’t even consider it.”
“Julia, you can do something about this. You need to persuade him to consider a heart transplant.”
What Rome didn’t know was that she had tried to persuade Amos to at least get his name on the National Transplant List. The doctors had tried. The bishop, ministers, and deacon had tried. He refused. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“A number of reasons. First of all, he believes his ailing heart means it’s his time to die.”
Rome blew out a puff of air. “What else is stopping him?”
She shrugged. “The money.”
“You can’t be serious. He’d let money stand in the way? The church would help. I know they would.”
“They already have. His hospital bills have been astronomical. But it’s more than that. He just can’t accept the idea that someone would have to die for him to live. He thinks the cost—the sacrifice—is too high.”
Rome shook his head. “That isn’t right. He must know that person’s time was up, anyway. He had nothing to do with that—that’s in God’s hands.”
“That’s how he feels about his own illness. It must be his time. He said that it’s not such a bad thing, to know and recognize what you’re up against.”
Rome was quiet for a long moment. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do? You’ll be left alone to run this farm, raising your sisters and brother. To manage your Uncle Hank. You can forget about marrying someone like Paul Fisher and starting a life of your own.”
Julia sat back on her knees and looked around the farm, at the weeds that were overtaking the orchards, at the cockeyed rows of corn that Menno had planted. Before her father became ill, she had thought she knew just what her life would look like: she would marry Paul and they would buy a farm of their own. She would be known as Paul’s Julia, rather than crazy Hank’s grandniece—and she couldn’t deny there was a part of her that longed to be a Fisher, no longer a Lapp. She would move on and start a life of her own.
With her father’s illness, that scenario seemed unlikely, if not impossible. It was going to be just like Rome said. She had pondered the notion of talking Paul into moving to Windmill Farm to finish raising M.K. and Sadie. As for Menno, she had no idea what the future would hold. Maybe working with Uncle Hank at the buggy shop? No, that would be a disaster. They would spend all day, every day, fishing or hunting. She would have to find someone else he could work side by side with, someone who could keep him directed on a task. She knew he would never be able to live by himself.
Rome cleared his throat and she realized her thoughts had drifted away from the topic of the heart transplant. He looked at her, expecting an answer to his questions. Had she thought about what she was going to do? Had she realized she would be left alone? Her dad worried her mind the whole day. Did Rome really think she hadn’t thought all these things through?
She stood and walked a ways out into the side yard. The house and fields were set on a clearing at a high point; below it were other farms. She pointed to a white farmhouse, tucked against a hill, with a willow-lined stream that wove in front of it like a ribbon. “There’s Beacon Hollow. My mother grew up there. Now her brother lives there.” She pointed to another house, far in the distance. “That’s Rose Hill Farm. M
y friend Lizzie lives there with her parents. Last winter, we had a work frolic and finished off the Grossdaadi Haus for Lizzie’s grandparents, Jonah and Lainey, to move into because Jonah needed to live in a one-story house—he has a bad back.” She pointed in the other direction. “If you look hard, you can see the glare of the sun off of a big pond. My cousin Mattie and her husband Sol live on that farm. You couldn’t get better neighbors than Mattie and Sol.” She turned back to him. “That’s the difference between you and me, Rome. I’m not alone. My future may not be what I thought it was going to be, but I’m not alone.” She tucked a loose strand of hair inside of her bandanna. “Besides, maybe Dad will get better. Maybe this new treatment will work.” She looked at Rome and read his mind. She knew he didn’t think that was very likely. Her father was weaker each week.
“The children don’t know how serious this is, do they?”
“No. There’s no need. Not now.” She looked at him. “And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything.”
“I won’t. You can count on it. But I hope you won’t mind if I try to talk Amos into considering a transplant. I’ve known a few folks—Plain folks—who have had kidney transplants. One with a heart transplant.”
“Feel free. But I thought you were moving on soon.”
He lifted his dark eyebrows. “Oh—didn’t you hear? Fern set me up in the cottage.”
Julia had returned home to an empty house last night and went straight to bed. “Here? That spooky old cottage near that stand of pine? But it’s . . . so run down.”
“Fern and Menno and Sadie and M.K.—they spiffed it up after dinner.”
“So you aren’t . . . moving on?”
“I’ll be sticking around,” he said, smiling broadly. “Just for the summer. In exchange for some work around the farm.”
Julia felt as if she’d swallowed a chicken bone.
On an overcast Saturday morning, M.K. tagged along with Fern on an errand in town. Fern took her time at the hardware store, looking for a list of supplies Amos had given her. M.K. wandered off with a promise to return in thirty minutes. She walked down to the farmer’s market that set up in front of the Sweet Tooth bakery for a few hours every Saturday morning. She heard someone yell her name loudly, and turned to see Paul Fisher waving to her. He was selling fresh eggs at his family’s booth and motioned to her to come over.
“Want to earn some spending money, Mary Kate?”
“I’m always open to making money,” she said.
“I need someone to man the booth for a spell while I run home and get more eggs. It’s busier this morning than I thought it would be.”
Mary Kate was just about to say “Sure!” when Jimmy returned to the booth, chomping on a green apple. He glared at her as he chewed and she squinted her eyes back at him.
“I’ll go back to the house for the eggs, Paul,” Jimmy said between bites. “We wouldn’t want Little Gullie to miss her afternoon nap.”
Jimmy! So obnoxious! M.K. fought the urge to throw an egg right at his belly. Instead, she spun around and stalked off. She made her way through the stalls, looking at the fruits and vegetables that sat on the vendor’s tables. Carrots, spinach, lettuce, peas, cherries, a few peaches. None looked as good as what came out of Julia’s garden.
She stopped to watch a small dog performing tricks for dog biscuits. A man wearing a panama hat stood next to her for a while, laughing along with her at the dog’s somersaults. M.K. noticed the hat because Ruthie’s older brother was old enough to run around, and he wore a panama hat every Saturday night when he went into town. It made his mother crazy. After the performance, the owner picked up the dog’s leash and walked around the crowd with him. “Shake hands with the puppy for a dollar.” In his hand was a jar to hold the money. The owner brought the dog to M.K. The dog sat in front of her and held out his paw for a shake.
M.K.’s felt her cheeks flush. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money.”
The man in the panama hat handed her a dollar. “Go ahead. That pup wants to shake your hand.”
She looked up at the man. He had a kind face and warm brown eyes that reminded her of her father. She stuffed the dollar in the jar and bent down to shake the dog’s paw.
When she stood up to thank him, the man in the panama hat was gone.
While Fern was in town with M.K., Sadie was at work in the kitchen, hot and airless as it was on that May afternoon. She missed cooking. No, that wasn’t true. She liked Fern’s food and was happy not to have to clean up the kitchen afterward. But she did miss feeling needed. And she missed the feeling of being connected to her mother that she felt whenever she was working with her mother’s recipes. If Sadie closed her eyes, she could still see her mother cooking in the kitchen, bustling around, humming slightly off-key. Maggie Lapp was always humming.
Fern Graber didn’t hum.
A few days ago, Sadie had watched Fern make snickerdoodles to take over to a comfort knotting and she decided to try to make a batch. She found the recipe in Fern’s recipe box and set to work, mixing butter and sugar, eggs and flour. She dusted the mounds of dough with cinnamon, just the way Fern had done, and put them in the oven. As she waited for the cookies to bake, she planned to clean the dishes and dry them, putting them away so Fern wouldn’t suspect anything. But then she got distracted with the contents of Fern’s recipe box.
Just as she pulled the last cookie sheet out of the oven, Menno came into the kitchen. He hopped up to sit on the counter, just like he used to, before Fern had arrived, to keep company with Sadie as she cooked. And to sample the offerings.
“These are good, Sadie,” he said after his third cookie.
“Menno, do you think about Mom very much?”
He grabbed another cookie. “I think about her every day.” He swallowed a bite. “Before I get out of bed in the morning, I ask God to tell Mom hello for me if he happens to see her walking by in heaven that day.”
Sadie smiled at her brother. His simple faith was so pure, so complete. Sometimes, she thought he lived with one foot on Earth and the other in heaven.
But thoughts of eternity were forgotten in the next moment. A buggy came to a stop by the kitchen door, and Sadie saw Fern hop out, sniff the air, and clutch her purchases to her chest. “Someone’s been cooking in my kitchen!”
Sadie gasped. She hadn’t expected Fern back for a while longer. Every workspace in the kitchen lay covered with cookie sheets and cooking utensils. Egg yolk ran down the front of a cabinet door. The sink was stacked with a motley assortment of bowls and dirty dishes. Fern’s recipes were spread out all over the kitchen table. Two hours ago, this room was spotless. How had it become such a mess? She had tried to be so careful!
“Uh-oh,” Menno said. He pocketed three more cookies and dashed upstairs.
Whenever M.K. could slip away from Fern’s watchful eyes, she would find Rome and pester him to let her help him with the bees. Beekeeping fascinated her. She wanted to learn everything she could about bees. Rome wouldn’t let her out near the stacked supers—the portion of the hives where the honey was stored—in the orchards, despite her begging. She promised to bundle up in protective clothing, like he did, but he refused. “I know my bees,” he told her. “I know when they’re angry or feeling threatened. I know when they smell a predator in the orchard. I know when they’re calm and getting ready to swarm. I don’t want you getting stung.”
“Have you ever been stung?”
Rome laughed. “More times than I can count. The truth is, beekeepers want to get stung a few times each year. We build up antibodies so the stinging isn’t serious.”
“Well, then, I think you should let me go out to the supers with you and bring back the frames. I can handle a few stings.”
But he was adamant. She was to stay away from those hives—at least twenty feet away. He did finally relent to teach her how to extract honey from the frames back in the cottage kitchen. He showed her how to warm up the uncapping knife in a dish of steaming hot wa
ter, then slice the caps open by running the knife down along the honeycombs. Then the frame would be put into the extractor, hand cranked, to spin out the honey. First one direction, then the other, to empty each side of the comb. M.K. loved watching the honey sling out at the sides of the extractor and drip down to the bottom, ooze out the honey gate, into a waiting bucket. Then Rome would filter the honey with cheesecloth before pouring it into clean jars.
“What makes bees want to swarm?” she asked Rome.
“Lots of reasons,” Rome said. “In springtime, beekeepers keep a close eye on their colonies. They watch for the appearance of queen cells. That’s usually the sign that the colony is determined to swarm. It’s not a bad thing to swarm. It can be healthy for the colony to split the hives. And before leaving the old hive, the worker bees fill their stomachs with honey in preparation for the creation of new honeycombs in a new home. That’s one of the ways I can tell that they’re ready to swarm. They’re so gentle that I don’t even need gloves or a veil. All that’s on their mind is a new shelter.”
She opened her mouth to say that maybe she should help him get the frames out of the hives while the bees are ready to swarm, when they were gentle and quiet, but he read her mind and gave her a warning. “You are not to go near those hives. Understand?”
She sighed. “But how do the bees know it’s time to swarm?”
“Nature’s pretty smart. The bees might be feeling like the hive is getting too crowded. Time for a change. Time to move on.”
M.K.’s head bolted up so fast that her capstrings danced. “That’s like you, Rome. Maybe you’re a beekeeper because you think like a bee.”
He grinned. “You might have something there. Though there is such a thing as a solitary bee. It lives on its own, not in a colony.”
“So you’re a solitary bee.” She rolled that over for a moment. “Fern says you can’t just go taking your bees from place to place forever.”
The Keeper Page 8
