Becoming Bea

by Leslie Gould

  “That depends,” he said.

  “On?”

  He turned his head toward me. “Well, lots of things. What Levi and Betsy decide to do for one. If Levi moves on to something other than farming with my Dat, then that would open up a place for me—although I doubt that would happen. Levi doesn’t like change much.” He shrugged. “So I’ll stay at Bob’s until something else turns up.”

  “Do you enjoy it?” I asked.

  “Jah, very much. But someday I’d like to have my own business.”

  “Farming?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Cabinetmaking?”

  He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Oh,” he said. “I’ve had this Drohm of owning some sort of a shop—a bookstore, for example. . . . ”

  I sat up straighter. I’d had that dream too.

  He turned his head toward me. “Silly, huh?”

  “Not at all,” I answered. “Well, practically speaking, maybe so, but as far as Drohms, it’s brilliant.”

  He smiled at me and then turned the buggy onto the lane. We were silent the rest of the way. When we arrived, I told him a quick good-bye as Love barked out a welcome to us.

  “I’ll wait,” he said. “To see how things are.”

  “Denki. Come on in, then.”

  He continued on to the hitching post. We both jumped down, and Ben tied his horse and followed me through the back door.

  No one was in the kitchen, and the house was quiet. We headed down the hall. “Wait in the living room,” I said. “I’ll go check upstairs.”

  The nursery was empty, and so was Nan and Bob’s room. I headed up the flight of stairs to the attic, where Pete and Cate had their quarters. I’d never been up there and knocked tentatively on the door. No one answered.

  Mystified, I hurried back down to Ben, who stood at the window. “No one’s here,” I said.

  “They just pulled up in the van.”

  Realizing it didn’t look good for us to be alone in the Millers’ house, I hurried down the hall to the kitchen, with Ben trailing behind.

  But when we met them at the van, Ben and I seemed the last thing on Bob’s mind.

  “Denki,” Bob said, “for coming right back.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “The doctor admitted Cate to the hospital. We hope she’ll be able to come home tomorrow—on bed rest. We’ll need to get the sunroom set up for her.”

  “Goodness,” I said.

  Ben stepped forward. “Do you need help moving anything? I have some time.”

  “That would be gut.” Bob undid Leah’s baby carrier, handed the car seat to me, and then grabbed Asher’s carrier, handing it to Ben. Next he grabbed Kurt’s. The baby began to scrunch his face up, getting ready to scream.

  Nan crawled out next, looking completely exhausted. She wrapped her hand around Bob’s free arm.

  “Let’s get Nan and the babies upstairs,” he said. “Then Ben and I will haul Cate and Pete’s bed down to the sunroom.”

  I led the way, with Ben right behind me. Asher started to holler. Then Kurt began to cry. “Hey, hey, hey,” Ben said.

  Leah began to fuss too.

  I opened the back door and started to hold it, but Ben took it from me. “Go ahead,” he said. Nan and Bob followed me. I headed straight for the stairs, doing my best not to bump the baby seat against the wall.

  By the time we reached the nursery, all three Bopplis were screaming. I took Leah from her car seat and began changing her while Bob and Ben worked on releasing the boys. When I was done with Leah, I took Asher from Ben.

  “Give me Leah,” Nan said. “I’ll feed her in our room.”

  “I’ll make bottles for the other two, once I finish changing them,” I said.

  “Make three,” she said. “Just in case. I’m feeling wrung out.”

  Ach, that’s what we didn’t want to happen, for Nan to get so tired she couldn’t nurse the babies. When I finished changing Asher, I handed him back to Ben, and then I took Kurt from Bob. The little one sneezed, and his breathing seemed a little rattled. “Is he coming down with something?” I asked Bob.

  “The doctor said he’s picked up a virus. Hopefully, the others won’t.” By others, I knew he included Nan and Cate with the babies. “Make sure you wash your hands,” Bob said.

  I nodded. I was certainly doing that. All the time.

  Ben made faces at Asher, and the baby tried to focus but then turned away and began screaming again.

  When I finished changing Kurt, I said to Ben, “Take Asher downstairs. I’ll be right there.”

  After I’d finished sterilizing the diaper pad and washing my hands, I found Ben at the living-room window again, talking to Asher. I felt as if one of Mamm’s favored hummingbirds had been let loose inside my chest. Ben grew more attractive with each passing minute. “Come on into the kitchen,” I said.

  Ben held Asher with ease.

  “I can tell you have experience,” I said.

  “A little.” He grinned. “Onkel Ben has been well trained.”

  I put Kurt in the playpen, turned on the burner to warm the water, and poured formula from the pitcher in the fridge into three bottles. Then I placed them in the water. “They just need to heat up,” I said.

  Ben nodded. He knew the drill.

  Once the bottles were done, I ran one bottle up to Nan while Ben fed Asher. Bob said he’d be ready to move the bed in a little bit. “If Ben can stay that long,” he added.

  “I think he can,” I answered, grabbing a clean spit rag from the stack on the dresser.

  When I reached the kitchen, I handed Ben the spit rag. “Look at you.” I’d never seen such a handsome man in all my life.

  I picked up Kurt and sat down on one of the straight-back chairs to give him his bottle, but he fussed and turned his head back and forth, spitting out the nipple. I wondered if it was hard for him to suck because he was having a hard time breathing. I knew nothing about babies and colds or any other kind of illness either.

  I put the bottle on the table, put Kurt to my shoulder, and patted his back.

  “You need one of those bulbs,” Ben said.

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “You put it in the baby’s nose and squeeze it—to clear out the nose.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I bet Nan has one. Upstairs.”

  Kurt had settled down, but his breathing remained raspy. I’d ask Nan about the bulb when I took a supper tray up to her.

  While Bob and Ben moved the bed, I put some leftover ham-and-potato soup on the stove to heat, and I put apples in the oven to bake for dessert, after sprinkling them with sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and pecans. Then I quickly made biscuits and popped them in the oven alongside the apples. When everything was done, I put together the tray for Nan and Bob, placing one cup of fennel tea on it.

  That left Ben and me to eat alone, at the big table in the kitchen, with the baby boys asleep in the playpen.

  As he led us in a silent prayer, I felt as if my heart might fly right out of my chest. When he said amen our eyes met.

  “Who would’ve thought?” he said.

  “My family will never believe it.” Molly would have a cow. I was sure none of them ever expected that Ben and I would court again. But the animosity that was once between us now seemed a distant memory.

  “When will Hope be back?” Ben asked.

  “I think she planned to have supper with the Mosiers and then come back—so soon.”

  Ben helped me clean up after our meal. I figured Bob would bring the tray down when they were done.

  After Ben dried the last plate, he said he should be getting home and then added, “Denki, for everything.”

  “You’re the one who helped so much.” I dried my hands on the dish towel that he still held. “I really appreciate it.”

  He brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Going to the bookstore and out for coffee was fun—but I enjoyed t
aking care of the Tropplis the most.” He grinned, most likely at using the word he’d made up.

  He handed me the towel. “Now I know how hard your work is,” he said. “Not that I didn’t have an idea, from watching Betsy with her kids. But I’ll think of you in here when I’m out in the shop, concentrating on one thing at a time.”

  I liked this new Ben. A lot.

  As I walked him out to the buggy, I remembered I’d forgotten my book. I stepped up to retrieve it as Ben untied his horse. “Any chance I can see you tomorrow?” he asked.

  “My family’s coming home,” I answered. The plan was for me to spend Saturday night back at our farm, but with Cate on bed rest I wasn’t sure how that would work.

  “That’s right.” His face fell a little, but then he said, “The singing on Sunday is at the Cramers’ farm.” The districts had recently been redrawn when new ones were formed to accommodate our growing numbers, and the Cramers had been added to our district. “Do you think you’ll be able to go?” Ben asked.

  “I’ll have to see how things are here.”

  “It’s so close,” he said. “Maybe you can come for a little while at least.”

  “Will you be there at the beginning?” I teased, thinking of the corn maze. “Or arriving late?”

  “Definitely at the beginning.” He stepped closer to me. “I hope I’ll see you then.”

  “I hope so too.” I looked up into his eyes just as a buggy came up the driveway.

  Martin and Hope waved as they approached, big smiles on their faces.

  Ben seemed a little put out to be interrupted. I patted his arm. Hope jumped down as Ben climbed into his buggy.

  “See you Sunday,” I said as he pulled away.

  “You two looked pretty intent,” Hope said. “Are things going well?”

  “Well enough,” I answered and then smiled. “How about you two?”

  “Great. We stopped by the bishop’s on the way home.”

  I could feel my eyes grow large. “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “You talked to him about getting married?” I swallowed hard. “Already?”

  “Jah,” she answered. “He’s going to contact my bishop. We could be published—in no time.”

  I couldn’t quite fathom what she was saying. Sure, I’d expected they’d marry, but this all seemed so soon to already be announcing their upcoming wedding to the district during a Sunday service. And then to be getting married after barely courting. “So you and Martin might marry before Mervin and Hannah?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “We’ll see.”

  “Hope,” I said, “what’s going on?”

  “It’s not for me to say.” She gave me a knowing smile.

  For once I wanted the latest gossip. No matter. Molly would be home soon enough.

  I couldn’t imagine how Hope’s family would react to all of this. I swallowed hard again. “What about your Dat?”

  Her smile turned into a frown. “That’s a problem. I need to write him tonight—before he finds out from our bishop.”

  I changed the subject, telling her about Cate and then adding, “And it seems Kurt is coming down with a cold. Hopefully, no one else will get sick.”

  Kurt was worse at bedtime, but Nan took over while I changed Asher and fed him a bottle. When I put him in his bassinet in the nursery, Nan came in with Kurt, who was still fussy. Holding him with one hand, she began to wheel his bed out of the room. “I don’t want him to expose Asher and Leah, if we can help it,” she said.

  I doubted we could—especially since I’d had both boys in the playpen earlier that evening. I tried to shake off my sinking feeling, but it stayed with me. What if Leah caught it too?

  Later that night, after Hope wrote her letter and then fell asleep, but before I extinguished the lamp, I pulled the copy of the sonnet Ben had given me out of my journal, unfolded it, and wrote in pencil at the top: I’ve never felt such harmony. Such jubilation. Such anticipation . . . Bea+Ben=Love.

  It was a schoolgirlish thing to write, but I didn’t care. My heart contracted as I refolded the paper and then slipped it back inside my journal.

  Then I opened the book by William Butler Yeats and flipped through it, reading poems along the way. I read one in particular, “When You Are Old,” several times, my heart sinking a little more each time I read it.

  It was beautiful, but haunting.

  When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

  And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

  And slowly read, and dream of the soft look . . .

  But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,

  And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

  And bending down beside the glowing bars,

  Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled.

  And paced upon the mountains overhead

  And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

  “That’s so sad,” I whispered out loud the final time I skimmed it. I couldn’t imagine love fleeing like that. I couldn’t imagine that ever happening to Ben and me, not now, not after we’d finally worked things out.

  The poem left me feeling unsettled. I’d just had the best day of my entire life, and I was worried over a poem, a baby . . . and something else. What else was nagging at me?

  Jah . . . Don. I needed to be clear with him—and soon—that Ben and I were courting. I turned out the lamp and pulled the quilt to my chin, knowing it wouldn’t be long until one of the babies awoke.

  The next morning I left a message on our machine at home that I wouldn’t be over that evening, explaining that Cate was in the hospital, adding that Love was at the Millers’ with me and I’d take her home soon.

  I decided to cook the deer liver from Ben for the noon meal that day. I sliced it thin, coated it with flour, salt, and pepper, and fried it with onions and bacon. The iron would be good for both Nan and Cate. Just before it was time to eat, as I took the apple dumplings from the oven, Doris dropped Cate and Pete off at the house. They entered the kitchen, slowly.

  “Your bed is all ready in the sunroom,” I said. I’d changed the sheets that morning and fluffed the pillows.

  “Denki.” Cate sat down at the table, and Pete headed up the stairs. “He’s getting my nightgown,” Cate explained.

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  She scooted her chair out and then put her feet up on the next one. In that position, her pregnancy was much more noticeable.

  “Do you need anything else?” I asked her.

  She sighed. “For this baby to stay put for a couple of more weeks.” Her blue eyes swam a little with tears, but then she blinked and they were gone.

  “Jah,” I said. “That’s what we’re all praying for.”

  She nodded and then said, “Your dumplings smell delicious. There’s nothing like the scent of apples and cinnamon. They truly smell like home.”

  “Not to mention the butter and sugar,” I joked.

  She laughed. “Well, I’m not worried about calories—at least not right now.”

  I promised I’d bring a dinner tray to her, with an extra serving of dessert, as Pete returned with her nightgown and an armload of other garments. Cate followed him down the hall to the sunroom.

  No one commented about the liver, but they all ate it. After dinner Nan asked when I’d be heading home.

  “I’m not going,” I said. “I already left a message.”

  “Why?”

  I explained that I wanted to stick around to help.

  “Nonsense. You need to see your family,” she said. “Hope can take more of a turn tonight. Go leave another message. Spend the night—come back in the afternoon.” She took Kurt from me and headed to the rocking chair.

  A few minutes later I was back in Cate’s office, following Nan’s instructions but not feeling very good about it. It would be nice to see my family, though, and hear about the trip. Hope could handle things for an evening and a night. Kurt didn’t seem any worse, and the other two ba
bies had been calmer today. Maybe they were about ready to turn a corner with the colic.

  As I dialed the number, I began to feel excited about going home—but just for the night. I couldn’t imagine going back for good, not now. I’d found meaningful work at the Millers, not to mention a community, and most importantly I’d found Ben. For the first time in my life, I saw a husband in my future.

  I left my message, retracting the previous one and saying I’d be at our place by five. If their train was on time, they were scheduled to arrive around three. Edna planned to be at the farm and would cook supper. All I had to do was show up.

  Bob offered me the use of their buggy, and Cate insisted I take Thunder again. It was another bright day but nippy, so I wore my cape and gloves. I called Love to the buggy as I climbed in. She jumped up and stood beside me. The breeze blew leaves down from the trees as Thunder clopped along. The boughs of the willow trees blew back and forth, the tiny yellow leaves falling like rain. Red and yellow maple leaves floated up and then swirled back down. Every once in a while, a seedpod flew against the buggy, hitting it with a ping.

  Love barked a couple of times at the wind but then settled down by my feet. Perhaps she was content to go home.

  When I turned up our drive, Love stood and began wagging her tail. When I reached the barn, she jumped down and ran toward the house, barking loudly. By the time I had Thunder unhitched, Molly hurried toward me, her arms outstretched and Love beside her.

  “Bea!” she called out. “You’re here!” She was typically tanned from all the time she spent outside, but now she practically glowed. She wrapped me in her arms, hugging me tightly until I pulled away a little, willing her to let me go.

  “I missed you so much,” she said. “Every day I wished you had come with us.”

  Finally she let go.

  “Did you miss me?” she asked.

  “Jah . . .” I answered. “But I’ve been really busy, so I didn’t have much time to think about it.”

  “You would have loved Montana,” she said. “We went hiking and fishing. Horseback riding.”

  I didn’t enjoy any of those things.

  She continued. “Leon’s family is wonderful. They all wished you’d come too.”

  “That’s nice,” I said as Mamm hurried toward me.