by Jan Drexler
“I know. But the headmaster made up his mind, and we had to obey.”
Something in Guy’s tone drew Judith’s gaze. He still jiggled Eli on his knee, giving the boy a pony ride, but his eyes were shadowed, as if he was looking into the past.
“What was it like, growing up in the Orphan’s Home?”
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
“In one way, I suppose it could be fun to have so many brothers and sisters. A big family.”
“It wasn’t like that.” His voice was quiet, but with a hard edge. “We weren’t children. Not like Eli or the other children you know. We were property.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing down and up. “The headmaster hired us out to whoever was looking for a boy or girl to work for them.”
“But the families who hired you, like the Masts. They were good to you, weren’t they?”
Guy shook his head. “Not all of them. The summers that I was seven and eight, I was hired out to a farmer who treated me worse than the headmaster.” He held Eli tightly and stopped the pony ride. “I remember one time when the rooster fell in the well. The farmer had to get it out before its carcass poisoned the water, so he sent me down there. He tied a rope to my foot and lowered me headfirst.”
Judith scooted closer to him as he passed a hand over his eyes, as if he was trying to erase the memory.
“He didn’t hear me yell when he had lowered me to the surface of the water, and I nearly drowned before he hauled me up again.”
Guy shuddered, then gave Judith a weak smile. “I’ve been deathly afraid of water ever since. When I came here, I thought the headmaster had made a mistake. This place was too nice.”
“The Lord God led you here to a family who loves you.” The shadows in Guy’s eyes faded as she spoke. “How old were you?”
“I was nine that first summer. David and Verna gave me a room in the house. My own room with a real bed instead of a cot in the lean-to or a pile of straw in the barn. Verna made new clothes for me and fed me the best food I had ever eaten. The best part was that David never whipped me.”
Judith’s stomach turned. “Were you whipped at the other place?”
“And at the Home.” He chuckled, but the sound was more of a sob than laughter. “The headmaster believes that boys need to have evil beaten out of them.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if he’s right or not. But I do know that I was always happiest during the summers when I was here.” He looked at the barn and outbuildings. “David and Verna hired me every summer after that, and I’m grateful.”
Judith could see that little boy in her mind. A young Guy, about the same age as her nephew Johnny. What would a life like that drive a boy to when he grew up?
“You must be glad that David asked you to work here, then, and be part of their family.”
Guy frowned as he flicked at a spot of mud on his knee. Eli leaned against his shoulder, sucking his thumb, his eyes heavy.
“I’m glad they made room for me, but I don’t know how long it will last.”
“Why wouldn’t it last? Why would you go anywhere else?”
He shrugged. “One thing I’ve learned is that nothing lasts forever. People come and go out of our lives for one reason or another, so I’ve learned to take life as it comes. Someday David will quit farming and sell out, or he’ll hire someone else with more experience than I have, and I’ll have to find a new job. That’s just the way it is.”
Judith stared at him. His words put a cold space between them as if he had reached out and pushed her away with his hand. “You can’t think David and Verna would do that to you. I heard Verna talking about you at the quilting a couple weeks ago. They love you and are so grateful you are living with them and helping them. And with David’s accident, they need you now, more than ever.”
“Yeah. Sure. That’s what they all say. That’s what Pa said, too, but where is he? Forgotten all about me, I expect.” He drew Eli closer in a casual hug. “I’m on my own and always will be.”
“You aren’t alone.”
“Not now. I appreciate the church, Matthew and all them, and their willingness to help on the farm while David recovers. But it won’t last. There will come a time when they don’t need me, and then I’ll move on.”
Judith laid her hand on his forearm, trying to close the gap between them, but his muscles were tense beneath his sleeve. Hard and unyielding.
“Don’t you want to stay? To become part of the community? To have a home?”
His arm jerked away and his jaw bulged, but his eyes grew moist. She scooted closer to him.
“Why do you fight against it if you want it so much?”
Guy shifted Eli to her lap and stood. “Who said I wanted anything?” His eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I’m just looking out for myself, that’s all. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, and I don’t need anyone’s help. You got that?”
He stalked toward the barn, not looking back, even when Eli began to cry. Judith felt like joining her nephew. Guy could have slapped her in the face and it would have hurt less. She jiggled Eli to stop his crying and bent close to his ear.
“Should we go in the house and find a nice, quiet place to lie down? Would you like that?”
Eli nodded and wrapped his arms around her neck, his innocent love a healing balm for her sore heart.
* * *
Guy took three steps into the barn before he remembered the work he needed to do was inside the house instead of out here. But his only thought had been to get away from Judith. He heard Eli’s crying end and turned to watch Judith comforting the boy. Her head bent over his brown curls as she talked to him, then she wrapped him in her arms as he clung to her, safe and secure.
Judith rose and went into the house, but the scene clouded over as tears filled Guy’s eyes. He let them fall, leaning his head against the solid wood of the doorframe. He had shut her out and pushed her away just as much as he had shoved Eli off his lap and onto hers. But why?
Because the feelings she brought out stopped his very breath. He dug his fingernails into the oak beam as the pain of those feelings overwhelmed him. If he could be little again...if he could see Mama again...if he could feel safe again...
He tore his thoughts away. He was a grown man, not a child. His life was laid out in front of him. A stark and lonely track with no end.
What was it about Judith that upset his well-ordered life? Before she’d come along, he had been happy.
Well, maybe not happy. But he could work, laugh and enjoy David’s company and Verna’s cooking. But now that he knew her, it was as if her steady blue eyes looked right into him and saw the scared little boy who needed a friend.
She made him long for things that would never happen. Things like a home. His own family. A...a wife. A partner in life. Someone to love and to love him. Someone who wouldn’t leave him behind.
How could something he wanted so badly hurt so much?
So he had pushed her away when she awakened those longings in him again. But the hurt only grew worse until it felt like someone had sucker-punched him and left him gasping for breath.
“Please, God.” The words came out as a whisper, barely passing over his lips as he breathed out. “Please, God, show me how to make the pain go away.”
The pain eased, and in its place came the need to see Judith. To be with her. To patch things up.
But what if she was mad at him? What if she had gone home already?
He stuck his head out the door with that panicked thought, but there she was. She had left Eli in the house and was gathering the discarded dandelion blossoms into one of Verna’s mixing bowls. Relief washed over him.
Walking across the barnyard to the porch, he waited for her to lift her head. To notice him. But she had turned away as she retrieved the blossoms that had fallen off the porch. He stopped a few paces beh
ind her and cleared his throat.
Judith turned to him, looking worn out. “Eli was so tired, I put him down to sleep in the bedroom.” She took a step closer to him, peering at his face. “Are you all right? You look like you might be ill.”
He rubbed at his eyes, wiping away the last remnants of the tears, but he was sure tell-tale redness would remain.
“I’m fine.” He took the bowl of dandelions from her. “I was out of line, back there.”
“What does that mean, ‘out of line’?”
“It means that I acted poorly. I treated you badly.”
She didn’t speak. If Guy had any doubts that his attitude had hurt her, they were silenced now. He had wounded her sorely.
“I was a real jerk.”
She smiled then. “You were a nah. A fool.”
“Ja. Ich voah der nah.” He had been a fool, all right. A fool to think he could ever survive without seeing her smile.
Judith led the way into the kitchen as he followed.
“Why did you act that way, then?” she asked. “We were only talking.”
Guy gazed out the kitchen window. Could he open his heart to her? She needed to know what she did to him. She put the bowl of dandelions in the sink under the spout. Guy pumped water for her as she thrust the blossoms below the surface, letting the excess drain off.
“I’ve haven’t had a home for years.”
She started to speak, but he stopped her.
“I haven’t had a home since my mother died, when I was five.” Her eyes fixed on his, and he could feel them boring deep into his soul. “I want...no, I need what you have. A family, friends. A future. But every time I think it’s within my grasp, something happens to take it away.” Pa’s face flashed for an instant, then it was gone. “So I’m afraid that if I join the church, or if I reach out to accept the home David and Verna want me to have, it will melt like a snowflake in my hand.”
Judith leaned closer and he stopped pumping, letting the last of the water run into the basin.
“So you want it, but you’re afraid to want it.”
His eyes grew damp again. “I want it so badly that it hurts.” He turned toward her. “And you. You make me want it even more.”
She swirled the blossoms in the water, watching the spiral of yellow.
Guy bent down, catching her gaze. “I like you a lot, Judith.”
He didn’t just like her. He needed her like a thirsty plant needed rain. He needed her to fill that empty place.
She smiled, not looking at him. “I like you, too.”
“Would you...would you be my girl?”
“You mean that I’d only talk to you at the Singings? And only ride home with you?”
When she put it that way, Guy felt her softness sliding away from him. The empty place ached.
“But you want to spend time with other fellows.” He backed away. He had spoken too soon.
“Guy, I don’t want to see other boys. Not really. I just want...” She bit her lip as her voice trailed off.
“What do you want? I’ll do anything.”
“I just want to be sure that my future will be secure. That I’ll always have a place in the community with my family.” She looked at him, her expression serious. “Anyone who courts me has to want the same thing.”
The aching feeling flared until his joints burned. Didn’t he want that, too?
Or did he? If Pa came by right now and offered Guy a chance at a life together with him, wouldn’t he jump at it?
His breath whooshed out. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been holding it.
“I don’t even know what I want.” He swept his hand in the air, taking in the table where he had eaten so many meals, the front room beyond the door where he had spent so many evenings with David and Verna, the staircase leading to his room upstairs. “This and the Home are all I know, but I feel like there’s something else out there...”
“Life with your father.” Judith’s voice was flat as she supplied the answer for him. “The father who may never return.”
Guy nodded his head. Even though Pa’s promises might be made of straw, they’d been strong enough to hold him captive in the past. Trapped until he knew for sure if Pa would ever come back or not.
* * *
Judith woke up early on Saturday, the big work day at the Masts’ farm, after what seemed like a sleepless night. So many chores pressed in on her mind that it felt like she’d been making lists in her head all night. Finally, long before dawn, but while the waning moon was still high in the sky, she got up. Lighting the candle she kept on the table by her bed, she found an old envelope and the stub of a pencil and wrote out every item she needed to do before going to David and Verna’s in the morning. Finally, she blew out the candle and settled under the covers to get a bit of sleep.
But it didn’t work. Even in her sleep, she dreamed of peeling potatoes until the peelings overflowed the dishpan and spilled out through the kitchen door.
Finally, she opened her eyes. The sun was nearly up and there was light enough to see. Now she could start on that list and get plenty done before Eli woke up. Judith sat at the table in the quiet kitchen and started peeling the potatoes she had washed and sorted the previous night.
Matthew had helped to bring David home on Thursday, and the older man was comfortably settled in the front room. David had asked to be there, rather than the bedroom, so he could be in the center of things. Guy had moved the spare bed into the room, and then had gone to town to purchase the special mattress the doctor had recommended. And Guy had altered the bed so that the top half could be raised or lowered and David could recline or lie flat.
Thinking of Guy brought a smile and her peeling slowed. She liked Guy. He was strong and clever and...and he was a friend she could talk to about anything.
But that was all. A special friend. He said he wanted her to be his girl, but she didn’t want to go any farther than friendship until he was ready to commit to being part of the community.
Sighing, she reached for another potato. Some days, she felt like he was already part of the church, but then other times it was like he stood on the opposite side of a fence, looking in, but ready to flee like a skittish horse.
Judith put the third peeled potato into the big pot of clean water and eyed the waiting pile. Nearly thirty pounds waited to be peeled, washed, cut and boiled. Then mashed, buttered and seasoned. Then kept warm in the big pans until dinnertime. Meanwhile, she still needed to make the noodles. She tackled the next potato. At least she wouldn’t have to make all this food by herself. Perhaps the other ladies would get to Verna’s in time to make the noodles. Several had told Verna they were bringing chickens to stew. They would make a half-dozen pans of chicken and noodles, her favorite dish.
As Judith started on the next potato, someone knocked on the door and walked into the kitchen before Judith could dry her hands.
“Judith? Annie? Am I too early?”
Waneta carried a laundry basket covered with a towel.
“Ach, ne. I’m the only one up, but I’ve started on the work already.” Judith took the basket and set it on the counter. “Is Ruthy with you?”
Waneta shook her head. “I came along early while the others finish the chores at home. I thought you could use some help with all the folks you’re expecting to feed today.”
Judith gestured toward the pile of potatoes. “I can, for sure and for certain. All I can think about is how much there is to do, and how little time before noon.”
Waneta hung her shawl on an empty hook. “When you see what I brought, you’ll stop worrying.” She uncovered the basket to reveal a mound of fresh noodles. “Mamm and I made them yesterday. She said we might as well make them early and get the chore out of the way.”
“She’s right.” Judith got a dishpan for Waneta’s potato peelings. “And I’m
so glad you came. We have at least an hour before Eli wakes up, so we can visit while we peel these potatoes.”
“I know what we need to talk about first. We haven’t had a chance to talk in private since Luke took you home from the Singing.” Waneta found a knife in the drawer and sat down at the table. “You need to tell me about you and Luke and Guy.” She paused, a narrow peel already hanging from her knife. “Have you chosen one of them?”
“I don’t have anything to say about Luke.” Judith tackled her own potato, trying to make her peelings as narrow and thin as Waneta’s. Her earlier peelings had been thick with the flesh of the potato, which was wasteful, and she worked quickly to hide them under the new batch.
“Why not? I thought he was sweet on you.”
“He thought he was, too. But I set him straight.”
Waneta leaned forward. “What do you mean? You have to tell me everything.”
“I’m not going to gossip.” Judith concentrated on the end of her potato and the peeling dropped into the pan in her lap, almost as neat as Waneta’s. “But Luke and I found that we don’t have a lot in common.”
“I thought he would be perfect for you.” Waneta sounded disappointed as she resumed her peeling. “He has always said he wanted to marry the prettiest girl around, and when you showed up at church that first Sunday, I saw the way he looked at you.”
Judith shook her head. Her? Pretty? “You’ve got it wrong. Luke was only interested because I was new. Besides, he isn’t the type of man I’m looking for.”
“What type is that?”
“Someone kind, and willing to work hard, and cute. A good Amishman.”
“It sounds like you’re describing Reuben, but you can’t have him.” Waneta sent her a mock frown and Judith laughed.
“I’m not describing Reuben.”
“Then it must be Benjamin, Reuben’s brother.”
Judith shook her head and kept peeling.
“My brother Elias?”
“I’ve never even met him.”
Waneta started in on another potato. “That’s right.” She sighed. “I suppose you want to keep it a secret for now. But when you’re ready to tell someone, you’ll tell me first, won’t you?”
