With morning in full bloom, the sun kissed the treetops and the roosters had fallen silent. In the clearing where future log homes would be built, men who had hurried from the service spoke animatedly with one another.
Callie loved being outside, where blue jays darted back and forth, the rush of the river could be heard in the near distance, and where the world seemed as right as in the Garden of Eden. She undid the ties that held her bonnet under her chin. After removing it, she let the long, thin ties trail on the ground as she walked the remainder of the way to Suzannah’s.
❧
Joshua sipped from his cup, swirling the remains at the bottom. After checking on Suzannah and shaking hands with those in the meeting house who welcomed him, he had returned to the elder’s for the morning meal.
Though he had been in the home earlier, he had missed noticing the front of the house actually had two small rooms: one for eating and one for sleeping. An archway opened onto a back room, where a door led outside to a covered walkway connected to the meeting house.
Joshua glanced at the man who was like a father to him. He wanted—no, he needed—the elder’s support as Joshua attempted to free himself from the demons that had chased him for what seemed like decades. Their previous conversation had only given him a place to stay and a job to do.
“You do not think I have made a wise decision by coming here, do you?” Joshua tried to keep his voice respectful.
David opened his arms in a questioning gesture. “I think I know what you are trying to do,” he began. “And I will admit that I am uncomfortable with it.”
Joshua struggled past the knot forming in his throat. “I asked Calliope this morning if she had remembered me yet. Do you know what she did?”
Despite the loyalty he had for the man who had shown him Jesus, Joshua’s gaze sought the security of his coffee mug. For a moment he glimpsed the Calliope he remembered lying on the ground, a piece of a quilt tucked under her chin and blond curls plastered against a deathly pale face.
The dark liquid in the cup reminded him of her eyes so long ago—empty, blank, containing nothing of what the two of them had shared. Just like last night in the Solomon home, he thought. She does not recognize me. The realization scared him. His mouth grew dry. What if she never did?
“She is Callie now,” David gently reminded. “What did she say?” He leaned forward, his brow pulling his gray eyes tighter together.
Joshua pushed away the last image he carried of a younger Calliope. David was right. She was Callie. She had survived. That should be enough, but it wasn’t.
“She looked at me without any emotion on her face whatsoever.” Joshua swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple rising then falling. “How could she not remember?”
A silent, masculine tear brushed the edge of his eye. He ignored it.
David pushed an unruly tuft of hair behind one ear. “How long do you think it will be before you tell her the truth?”
“I do not plan to come right out and tell her,” Joshua insisted. “I came to see if she had survived.”
So many times he had thought about that night. The screaming, the crashing, the loss. He was committed now. Until he put it behind him, one way or another, there would be no sense of closure, no loosening of the bonds that tied him to this woman everyone here called Callie.
David’s expression lightened. “I believe you. And if it is of any help, you are not in this alone. But how long do you plan to stay? When will enough time have elapsed?”
He knew David had spent years planning, shaping, and forging new dreams, but time meant nothing to him anymore.
“When she remembers me, then I will deal with the rest.” Did the words have to drag his heart out with them?
David leaned back, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “She will not be easy to convince.”
Joshua’s voice thickened. “I know.” He felt drained, his entire being saturated with exhaustion. “But I will do it. It is the only thing I can give her that means anything anymore.”
David’s fingers tapped reverently on his Bible. “It is a good thing you are a praying man, for you will need to walk with God now as never before.”
“You once told me faith made all things possible, David. Does it not apply to this situation also?” Joshua covered his brow with one hand.
“Hebrews eleven,” David said. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” He stopped talking for a minute. “Faith makes things possible, Joshua. It does not make them easy.”
Joshua snapped his head up. “If love was easy, it would not be worth having.”
four
Sarah looked across the room as Callie entered the cabin and deposited some logs by the door. While the days warmed quickly, the nights held a chill that could only be chased away by a fire.
“Well? What did you find out?”
“He is from Pennsylvania,” Callie muttered as she dropped onto the edge of a chair. She had just come from a meeting with Brother David and Joshua. “In fact, he lived at the same orphanage we did.”
Why did it sound so unbelievable, even though she’d repeated it at least a hundred times to herself?
“The same orphanage!” Sarah slipped into a seat across from her sister, settling the folds of her long skirt neatly on her lap. “That is exciting, Callie!”
Callie struggled to remain calm while recalling the visit. She had been summoned to Brother David’s and had gone thinking he wanted to discuss the illnesses sweeping through the mission. Joshua had been waiting when she arrived.
Despite every bit of common sense that told her she should pay no attention to him, Callie thought Joshua looked quite noble. The fire drew out auburn highlights in the thick dark locks that hung splendidly over his ears. He sat casually in a chair, his legs stretched out to their tremendous length in front of him.
As she listened to Brother David tell her he expected her to give Joshua her full support, Callie remembered Levi’s reaction when he returned from the hunt and found Joshua would be working alongside her. Levi had certainly been displeased but wouldn’t explain why. Sometimes she didn’t understand Levi, more so lately than ever before. Why had he warned her to stay away from Joshua?
Callie sighed. The way things were, she would never know. Levi would think it disgusting if she challenged him to explain.
“I would not call it exciting, Sarah. I would call it. . .” What would she call it? Confusing? Worrisome? Why had Brother David asked Joshua to assist her? It was quickly becoming a muddle, and she saw no way to solve it.
“I cannot wait to tell MaryBeth!” Sarah pulled a bonnet out of an apron pocket and smoothed it into place over her curls.
“No, Sarah.” Callie’s voice turned brittle. “This is not something you are to talk about.” Why was she warning her sister? What was there about Joshua that made her so skittish?
“But I have got to share this with her,” Sarah whined. “I would think you would be delighted that someone has shown up who knew you before the flood. I have never been much help, since they kept me on a separate floor, but this,” Sarah clapped her hands excitedly, “is what you have always wanted. Is it not?”
“I used to think so.” Callie drew a deep breath. “Now I am not so sure. That is why I do not want you to speak of it to anyone just yet.” She looked pleadingly into her sister’s eyes, whose color reminded her of tanned buckskin. “Do as I ask. Please?”
A look of disappointment flitted across Sarah’s round face. “I will not tell MaryBeth. Or anyone else.”
Callie eyed Sarah closely. “Promise?”
Sarah nodded, her long braid bobbing as she did. “God’s promise. That is better than just a plain promise.”
So it was, Callie thought. People might fail, but God’s covenants stood fast. At least that she could depend on.
“I have one question, though.” Sarah’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“What?”
“Do you reme
mber him at all? This Mr. Johnston, I mean.”
Callie shook her head, trying to dispel the image of Joshua in Suzannah’s cabin that had just erupted there.
“I am not sure I want to. It is all rather confusing just now.”
Sarah looked away. “It will all work out for the best. Isn’t that what you always tell me?”
“Yes,” Callie agreed. “I just wish I knew his real reason for coming here.”
Why was she questioning his motives? Since arriving, he had taken part in both morning and evening services. Brother David had announced this morning that Joshua would preach the Sunday sermon. He was her brother-in-Christ, but something about him stirred uneasy feelings deep inside.
“Why do you not simply ask him?”
Sarah’s question intruded in her thoughts. “That would hardly be proper. Do you not remember a woman’s place in the world? We are to be seen, not heard. Whatever his reason, he will choose when he can reveal it. It is not my place to pry.” She threw Sarah a warning glance. “Nor is it yours.”
Sarah raised her hands, palms out. “I am going to see MaryBeth. I will not talk about him. Do not worry about lunch. I will eat with her.”
“Fine,” Callie replied. She would use the time to rearrange the herbs and roots in her bag before she went to sit with Suzannah.
With Sarah gone, Callie laid out her meager herb collection. Fragrant aromas drifted up as she arranged and checked the contents of each of the small deerskin pouches. Concentrating on the array of cures Helping Hands had insisted Callie memorize before the Delaware woman left the mission, she didn’t hear the knock at the door. As the door swung open, it scraped against the frame, and Callie snapped her head toward it.
It was Levi. His work shirt was stained, his normally curly red hair thick with sweat and bits of tree bark. He bluntly canvassed the inside of the cabin, which took about four seconds since it was only two small rooms.
“Are you going to ask me in?”
Callie brushed her hands together to remove traces of the herbs. “You can see Sarah is gone. It is more proper that we sit under the tree.”
In the time it took to walk outside, she took stock of him. No one could say Levi Lyons didn’t do his share to help Schoenbrunn survive. Not only did he help clear land, he went along on hunts for game that would provide them with food and furs. Since the last hunt, something had changed him. Levi no longer seemed the courteous man he had been before.
He motioned toward a gnarled root that grew aboveground. Callie lowered slowly into place and smoothed out her skirt. Levi squatted next to her, rubbing his neck.
“Has your workload lightened since the healer came to stay?” He sounded perturbed.
“He has only been here a few days. That is hardly enough to make a large difference.” She brushed at a faint sheen of perspiration that dotted her forehead.
“You need to relax, Callie. Take some time and go on a picnic with me.” Levi leaned over and trailed his fingers lightly along her forearm.
His touch was familiar, and it was widely accepted that they would be wed. But Callie had never been comfortable with outward displays of affection and shifted out of his reach.
“I do not know,” she argued. “There is so much to do and it never seems to end. I should stay close in case something happens to Suzannah again.”
What would she do if her friend, Levi’s sister, threatened to miscarry again?
Levi sneered. “I am sure the mysterious Joshua can handle any crisis that crops up.”
He leaned toward her. He had been burning brush, and the acrid smell of wood smoke clung to his shirt. She wrinkled her nose.
“I am sure he could,” she answered hastily. “But that does not mean I can forget my responsibilities.”
Levi’s glare sent a chill up her backbone. “Do not do it, Callie,” he said sharply. “Do not push me away. We have always been able to talk before. Why have you changed?”
Callie had no choice but to look at him. His green eyes seemed to bore into hers. “I am not the one who has changed and I am not avoiding you, Levi,” she insisted. “Running back and forth between houses takes a lot out of me.”
Levi pressed his lips together. At the base of his neck, his pulse jumped. “I do not like it. I want to see you, spend time with you.”
“That is almost impossible as long as there are people who get sick. You know that.”
Levi’s shadow shielded her from the sun peeking through a tangle of tree branches. He said she had changed. Didn’t he realize it was he who was acting so strangely?
“Then we will have to find a way to make it possible, will we not?” His tone matched the tight set to his jaw.
Callie curled her fingers around the root by her side. “I will try to make some time tomorrow,” she bargained. “Perhaps Sarah can sit with the Killbuck boy.”
“His mother can do it. Is that not what mothers are for?” He walked a few steps away, his hands balled into tight fists at his sides.
Callie was annoyed at the way he suddenly thought she should drop everything and rush away with him.
“Besides the fact that she has been up with him almost constantly, helping out around here is my duty.” She paused. She had known Levi ever since she came to live with the Moravians, and he had never acted like this. What was bothering him?
She kept her gaze locked with his. “What happened on your last hunt, Levi?”
Levi drew back. The sun sculpted the tight muscles of his neck and illuminated the shallow circles around his eyes. “What happens on a hunt is not a woman’s concern.” He glanced toward the clearing, where a man was shouting and waving at him. “There will be a picnic, Callie. Just you and me.”
The danger she heard in his tone shocked her. But Levi was stamping away, long, angry steps putting a distance between them that she did not understand or want to explore at that moment.
❧
Behind the meeting house a tangle of brambles began where a small clearing ended. Squirrels and other chattering animals frolicked among the branches overhead. Brother David and Joshua sat on an old piece of buckskin that had been laid out in the late April sun.
David stretched his legs out in front of him. His coat was open, revealing a brown vest over a white shirt. “You were surprised by Callie’s question this morning, were you not?”
“Stunned is more like it,” Joshua confided. “It is so painful to look at her and remember. . .” He swallowed the rest of his comment. David knew the depth of his pain. There was no need to elaborate.
“Not only God works in mysterious ways.” David twirled a blade of grass around his finger. “Sometimes the mind does also.”
The brim of Joshua’s slouch hat slipped toward his eyebrows. He pushed it back. “Are you saying she may never remember everything about us? That cannot be true! Why would God do that to me?”
“God has His reasons, Joshua. I do not have to remind you of that. It has been hard on her not remembering her life before the flood.”
“And you think it was easy for me to let her go? To not know what was happening to her for five years!”
David placed a hand on Joshua’s arm. “If you want what is best for her, you may have to do more than face that fact. You may have to let her go.”
Joshua watched a hawk sail overhead. He had never thought about the possibility his Calliope might be lost to him forever. “I will not leave here until it is clear there is no hope she will ever remember what we had.”
Bittersweet words, but he would never hold a woman to a promise she could not recall. Fear wrapped a hand around his heart. Why had he left her in the first place? If he had stayed with her and foregone the medical training his father had insisted he receive, this might not be happening now.
He had never been one to stand up to his parents, and he wondered if the relationship he had with them would have been ruined had he done so then.
David rubbed his forehead as if he were searching for the correct words
. “Even if it means you live out the rest of your life here?”
“If that is what it takes, then I am willing to wait.” Joshua rose. Thinking about how long it might take to win Calliope back frightened him. Surely, he thought, if he were patient and made daily contact with her, she would eventually remember. Wouldn’t she?
Patience had never characterized Joshua. Sure he had waited five years to search for Calliope, but most of that time was spent helping his parents and then attending medical school in Philadelphia. How long would it be before he said something to her he would regret?
❧
Callie watched Sarah put a loaf of fresh-baked bread on the table to cool. A pot of thin corn soup bubbled in a kettle over the fireplace. The yeasty smell, mixed with the seasonings in the kettle, started a small rumble in her stomach. With so much happening to Suzannah and those who were ill, she realized she had not eaten much in recent days.
“Did you take a nap?” Sarah asked. She had come home from MaryBeth’s to find Callie lying on her bed and had left her sister alone while she prepared the evening meal, for once without being prodded to do so.
“No. Levi came by and we talked for a while.” Callie said the words quietly, not mentioning his appearance.
“He wants to marry you! I knew it!” Sarah squeezed her hands together in front of her.
“Do not start planning a wedding,” Callie warned. The words stuck in her throat like musty bread.
Sarah absently pushed a clump of straw on the floor with the toe of her shoe. “Why do you not love him?” she asked. “He seems very nice to me.”
“Love does not come just because someone is nice.” Callie smiled apologetically at her sister. “I am sorry, I should not have barked at you. I just meant that love takes time to grow, to develop into something that will last forever.”
She felt strange defining love. As an orphan, love came in the simple servings of soup and sometimes potatoes she had gotten for meals. Being a relatively new Christian, love meant trusting in God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice. But love between two people? She knew next to nothing about that aspect of life, despite Sarah’s insistence that Levi was destined to be her mate.
A Different Kind of Heaven Page 4
