Andrew

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Mamm’s head seemed to retreat deeper and deeper into the oven until her forehead must surely have been touching the back wall. Mamm was wonderful particular about a clean oven.

  By the time Mammi was finished with him, Alfie looked like a drowned rat, sagging with water and humiliation. Mammi reached out her hand to pat him on the head but must have thought better of it. “Go upstairs and dry off,” she said, as if it was Alfie’s own fault for being wet.

  Alfie slumped his shoulders and dragged his feet in the direction of the stairs.

  “Don’t use the gute towels,” Mammi added as she watched Alfie go.

  Benji tripped up the cellar stairs with the special cleaning rags in his hand. Mammi barely noticed him. She grabbed her bag from the hook by the door. “Where’s Benaiah?”

  “He’s in the barn,” Austin said.

  Mammi opened the front door. “He’s taking me to Glick’s to get Alfie a new shirt. And then to the library so I can order a few things off the internet. I just discovered that Amazon will deliver right to our door.”

  Andrew was pretty sure he was the only one who heard the stifled groan coming from inside the oven. Mammi closed the door behind her, and Mamm pulled her head out of the oven. “Alfie Petersheim,” she called, “enough toweling off. Get down here and finish your job.”

  Alfie called back from upstairs, but no one understood what he said.

  Mamm pushed herself away from the oven and stood up. She smiled as if she couldn’t have been more delighted or more annoyed. “Benji, take the special rags back to the cellar. And make sure you put them away neatly. I won’t have your bedroom looking like a junkyard.” She rinsed her hands at the sink. “Austin, as soon as you finish that floor, I want you to wipe out cupboards.” Andrew admired how Mamm always seemed to be moving forward. It was almost as if Mammi had never come into the kitchen this morning.

  Alfie and Benji came back into the kitchen at the same time, and without another word, picked up their butter knives and continued scraping gunk. Alfie had obviously taken a towel to his head with zeal. Tufts of hair stuck out in every direction.

  Mamm rinsed out her rag and knelt down in front of the oven again. “After the kitchen is clean, the rest of the day we’re doing peanut butter. Austin ordered extra peanuts for the Labor Day rush.”

  Andrew’s heart sank. He’d never heard of such a thing as the Labor Day rush. How would he finish Mary’s crib if he had to do peanut butter all day? He had to finish that crib. It might be the thing that made Mary decide to stay forever. This wasn’t just a baby crib, it was a matter of life and death. He had to skip the peanut butter, just for today. He cleared his throat. “Mamm, I need to finish something in my woodshop. Can . . . can Austin and Abraham do the peanut butter?”

  Austin made a face. “We can’t do it by ourselves. There’s like a hundred pounds of peanuts out there.”

  Abraham glanced at Andrew but didn’t say anything. Like Benji, he always knew more than he let on.

  Mamm swiped her rag across the bottom of the oven. “You’ve been in that woodshop the better part of two weeks, Andrew Petersheim. Abraham did your milking yesterday. I need you to help with the peanut butter today. We can’t do it without you.”

  And there it was. They couldn’t do it without him. Mamm depended on him. Mamm needed him. He couldn’t disappoint his mamm. She’d be heartbroken if he quit the peanut butter business. She’d never forgive him for letting her down.

  But what about his heartbreak if he lost Mary?

  The weight pressing into his chest got heavier and heavier until Andrew thought he was going to suffocate. You can’t make everyone happy, Mary had said. You can’t make anyone happy. You can’t ruin your mamm’s happiness, Andrew. You don’t have that much power. The only life you can ruin is your own.

  Mary knew it better than anyone. Instead of staying miserable, she’d made a choice to seek her own happiness and didn’t blame anyone else for the consequences. She was the bravest person he knew. She always told the truth, even when it hurt.

  It’s the hardest thing anyone does—making choices and then owning the consequences, but I think your mater would want you to be happy.

  Andrew set his rag on the counter, squared his shoulders, and let Mary’s courage give him strength. He hated the thought of hurting Mamm, but he had to find his own happiness or wallow in resentment and regret for the rest of his life. “Mamm, I’m sick of peanut butter.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Mamm said, scrubbing at a stubborn spot on the oven as if she hadn’t really understood the significance of what he was saying.

  Ach, vell. He hadn’t really said it.

  “Mamm, I’m quitting the peanut butter business.”

  Abraham turned to stone and stared at Andrew as if he had grown an extra arm. Austin cocked an eyebrow. Benji and Alfie froze like popsicles.

  Mamm finally quit scrubbing and pinned him with the stink eye. “Nae, you’re not. We need your help today.”

  Andrew’s heart knocked against his chest like a galloping horse. “It doesn’t matter if you need my help or not. I want to be a carpenter. I’m quitting peanut butter today. Right now.”

  Mamm narrowed her eyes and got to her feet, clutching the rag in her hand as if trying to squeeze every drop of oven cleaner out of it. “Is that so?”

  Andrew couldn’t catch his breath, as if he’d run five miles in a minute. Mamm was definitely not happy, but he wouldn’t turn back now. “Jah. I don’t want to make one more batch of peanut butter. Ever. And there’s another thing. I love Mary Coblenz and I want to marry her, no matter what you say. No matter that she jumped the fence or had a baby, and there’s nothing you can do to talk me out of it. Even if you kick me out of the house, even if you never speak to me again, I love Mary and I hate peanut butter.”

  Alfie’s face lit up, and he turned eagerly to Mamm. “Would you really kick Andrew out of the house?”

  The lines on Mamm’s forehead piled on top of themselves as she folded her arms and stared Andrew down like a cat on a mouse. They all held their breath, waiting for her to erupt. And she did. “Well, it’s about time.”

  “It’s-it’s about time?” Andrew stuttered.

  “You’ve been sneaking around this farm like a ferret, no doubt hoping I wouldn’t catch on to you, like I don’t have a brain in my head or eyes to see past my own nose.” She crossed her arms and leaned in. “What you boys don’t realize is that I see everything. I’m smarter than you think, and you couldn’t put one past me if you had the fastest horse in the state.”

  Benji nudged Alfie with his elbow. “She’s kind of like the bishop.”

  It was clear that Mamm was just getting started, and Andrew wasn’t sure how she’d react if he dared to speak, but he had to know. “So . . . so you know I want to be a carpenter?”

  She threw up her hands. “Of course I know. You spend every spare minute in the barn trying to build things with a hammer and that tiny saw. Your tools are disgraceful. I would have given up months ago, but you just keep plugging away at it. It’s like building a bridge out of toothpicks for all the good it does you. You have some money in the bank. You should have bought better tools months ago.”

  “I thought you wouldn’t like it.”

  She frowned at him. “Well, maybe you never asked.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  Mamm erupted again. “Of course I’m mad. To think you’d choose wood over peanut butter just about gives me a seizure, but I can’t make you like peanut butter, and if you cut your finger off, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

  Benji had been nibbling on his fingernail, and Andrew could tell he was thinking deep thoughts. “Mamm,” Benji said, dropping his knife on the floor and standing up, “I have something to tell you.”

  Alfie pinched his lips together. “You don’t have anything to tell Mamm.”

  Benji lifted his chin. “I want to be brave and honest like Andrew.” He took a deep breath and promptly bu
rst into tears. “Mamm, I broke my piggy bank and borrowed Dawdi’s binoculars.”

  Mamm tilted her head to one side as if to get a better look at her son. “And are you sorry, young man?”

  “Nae,” Benji sobbed. “I’m not sorry at all, even if I get in trouble.”

  The hint of a smile sprouted on Mamm’s face, but she forced it back and replaced it with the stern look of an indignant mater. “Does anyone else have anything to confess?” She looked straight at Alfie. “You know I’ll find out. I always find out.”

  Nobody made a sound, except for Benji, who was whimpering softly into his hand. Alfie diligently scraped his chair foot as if he wasn’t even part of the conversation.

  “Mamm,” Abraham said, “last week I spilled a whole tub of salt on the floor. I swept it up and threw it away without telling you.”

  “I know,” Mamm said. “I heard it when I emptied the garbage.”

  Austin cleared his throat. “I accidentally ordered too many peanuts, and that’s why we have to spend the rest of the day doing peanut butter. But I don’t mind. I mean, I love making peanut butter. I’ll never quit our business.”

  Mamm patted him on the cheek. “You’ll be a comfort in my old age, for sure and certain. But if Andrew agrees to build my coffin, I’ll probably forgive him before I die.”

  “Thanks a lot, Mamm,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t hard to see that Mamm had already forgiven him. She was a little frustrated, but she was also happy for him. He’d seen it in her eyes right before she’d yelled at him. He felt lighter than he had for three days. If he had known what her reaction was going to be, he would have left the peanut butter business three years ago. He wanted to smack his palm against his forehead. That’s what he got for making assumptions.

  She hadn’t said anything about the other thing, the Mary thing. Maybe in all the excitement, she’d forgotten. Maybe she’d wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly remember.

  Mamm scrunched her lips to one side of her face, folded her arms, and looked nowhere in particular, especially not at Alfie, who was scraping chair feet as if there was a fire behind him, his shirt damp with rose water and sweat. “You boys have shown a lot of courage today. It makes me proud to know I didn’t raise any scrubs. I raised you boys to be men, and that’s exactly what you’ve become. Real men own up to their mistakes, even when they know their mamm might be mad. Gute men don’t hide from the truth. They fight for it.”

  She was laying it on a little thick, but maybe it was because Alfie could be a tough nut to crack. Growling, Alfie slammed his knife on the floor. “I climbed Bitsy Weaver’s tree and got stuck, and they had to call the fire department, okay? Are you satisfied?”

  Mamm calmly raised her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

  “I scraped my arms on the tree, but I didn’t want you to find out so I wore this shirt to cover the scabs.” He tried to unbutton the shirt, but the fabric was too stiff.

  “So you’ve been wearing a long-sleeved shirt all summer because you didn’t want me to find out about the tree.”

  “Willie Glick won’t play with me because he says I stink.” Alfie’s anger turned to distress midsentence. Big tears escaped his eyes and rolled down his cheek.

  Benji took Alfie’s hand. “I helped, Mamm.”

  Alfie wiped his face with his filthy sleeve. “We bought walkie-talkies and spied on Andrew and Mary, and then we set an orange smoke bomb in the Zimmermans’ shed and I almost died.”

  Benji nodded. “He turned orange.”

  Alfie seemed determined to confess everything. “I climbed lots of trees, even though Jerry Zimmerman gave me a sucker and told me not to. And we climbed the bookshelf and sneaked out the window.”

  “And we gave Mary ten dollars because she needs money for her baby,” Benji added.

  Andrew melted like warm chocolate on top of a cake. The twins had given Mary money?

  Mamm knelt down and put one arm around Benji and one around Alfie. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I worry myself sick about you all day long.” She pulled the boys to her and squeezed tight. Both Benji and Alfie cried into her neck, and she rubbed their backs and whispered comforting words into their ears.

  After a few minutes, Mamm released them, and each boy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. Mamm had trained them well. Never be without clean underwear and a pressed handkerchief.

  Alfie sniffled into his handkerchief, wiped away the last of his tears, and got a little cocky. “I guess you don’t know everything, Mamm. We showed you.”

  It was never a gute idea to tell Mamm you thought you were smarter than she was. Mamm stood up so fast, she could have taken flight. “You showed me? You showed me?” She shook her finger in Alfie’s direction. “You didn’t show me anything, Alfie Petersheim. How many times does a fire truck come to the neighborhood? I heard about the whole thing not ten minutes after it happened.”

  Benji’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “You knew?”

  Alfie frowned at Andrew. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

  Mamm gave Alfie the smelliest of stink eyes. “Ach, young man, Andrew didn’t tell me a thing.” She turned and glared at Andrew. “And you have some very serious explaining to do.”

  Andrew grimaced. “I . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Mamm said, leaving no room for debate or explanation. “Annie Weaver got the whole story from Aunt Beth, and she came over before you boys even got home.” She bent over and met Alfie’s eye. “You wore that long-sleeve shirt all summer just to hide the scabs. I bet it was hot and uncomfortable.”

  Alfie could be as stubborn as Mamm. “Not too hot.”

  “Oh, not too hot? You smell like the sewer and your friends won’t play with you. I’d say you’ve been well punished for your sins.”

  “I didn’t mean to get stuck in that tree, Mamm.”

  “I’m talking about your sins of omission, like not telling your own mater that you almost died.”

  “I thought you’d be mad.”

  “Of course I was mad. Who wouldn’t be mad? And let me tell you something, bub. If you so much as think about buying a smoke bomb ever again, I’ll turn family reading time into family reading day.”

  Alfie and Benji looked positively horrified.

  “And if you ever steal one of Bitsy’s cats again, I’ll make you clean toilets for a year.”

  Benji bit his bottom lip. “We didn’t steal. We just borrowed it.”

  Andrew was stunned. Mamm truly did know everything. He had no idea about any stolen cat, unless Mamm was talking about that ugly thing that Benji and Alfie brought home several weeks ago. Andrew had gone with them to Bitsy’s to take it back and met Mary. One of the best days of his life.

  Mamm was adamant. “No more climbing bookshelves, no more hiding in trees, no more smoke bombs, and no more stolen cats. Is that clear?”

  “Aw, Mamm. We can’t do anything,” Alfie said.

  Mamm nodded curtly. “You can take that shirt off and burn it.”

  Alfie brightened. “Can I use the firepit?”

  Mamm pinched her lips together. “Bury it. Out by the compost.”

  Benji took in a quick breath. “Alfie, we could dig a cave.”

  “Never mind,” Mamm said. “We’re throwing it in the trash.” She knelt down and helped Alfie unbutton his shirt. “What lessons have you learned from this rigmarole, Alfie?”

  “What’s a rigmarole?”

  “Just tell me what you’ve learned.”

  Alfie shifted his weight, no doubt trying to come up with something that would save him from another scolding. “I’ve learned that I need more long-sleeved shirts.”

  Mamm sighed. “That’s not it. You’ve learned that when you try to keep secrets from your mamm, you end up wearing long sleeves all summer and being shunned by your friends. And you’ve learned that you can’t hide a fire truck or an orange smoke bomb.”

  “I suppose so.”

 
“And you’ve learned that your mamm loves you, even when you do something bad, and you can tell her all your problems and sins because she already knows and will understand.”

  “And yell at us,” Benji said, trying to be helpful.

  She peeled Alfie’s sleeves away from his arms and examined the barely noticeable marks where Alfie’s scabs used to be. “It was a wonderful nice thing to do, giving Mary money like that.”

  Alfie pressed his lips together. “It’s so she can buy food for her baby. Andrew’s making her a crib.”

  “I know.” Mamm always knew. Andrew would never doubt again. She patted Alfie’s arms. “Go put some aloe on this. And get those arms out in the sun. You look like a sheet.”

  Alfie’s wide smile made his freckles seem darker. “You mean I don’t have to finish the chairs?”

  “Of course you have to finish the chairs. But then go outside. I don’t need you underfoot.” Mamm wadded Alfie’s shirt up and tossed it in the trash can. “Austin and Abraham, you’ll need to finish Andrew’s cabinets. He’s going to show me this crib that everybody is talking about.”

  “Everybody?” Andrew said.

  “Well, Alfie and Benji. I understand they paid for it.”

  Mamm hooked her elbow around Andrew’s and tugged him out the back door, but she headed in the opposite direction of the barn.

  “Mamm, the crib is in the barn.”

  “I know. I’ve seen it. It’s a fine piece of work, Andrew. Mary will love it.”

  He expelled a despondent breath. “I hope so.”

  She led him to the corner of the house next to Alfie and Benji’s cellar window. “I think Benaiah will have to put a lock on the outside.”

  “For sure and certain.”

  Mamm sat down on the ground and leaned her back against the house. “Cum, sit.”

  Andrew sat next to her and crossed his legs.

  “Now, Andrew, I know you think I was distracted, but I want to talk to you about that other thing you said in the kitchen.”