Hidden Life (9781455510863)

by Senft, Adina

  Lawn lunches never used to be this complicated.

  Eli dragged his gaze from Amelia’s face. “Grant Weaver. We are very sorry to hear of your family’s loss.” Grant nodded, and the two men shook hands. “I was hoping to get a moment to speak with you.”

  “Here I am.”

  “The township has approved our drawings and it seems we might have a permit soon. What is your schedule like?”

  “It’s pretty busy, but I knew this project was coming, so I saved some space for you.”

  “Maybe you could come for supper and talk it over, if you feel up to it?”

  “There’s always room for one more.” Amelia smiled, her gray eyes warm with pleasure at the prospect. “Eli has to go back to Lebanon first thing tomorrow, so you won’t get a chance to talk unless it’s tonight.”

  Eli smiled at Emma. “What about you, Emma? Would you like to join our little party?”

  Amelia’s eyes widened and she bit her lip to keep from speaking. Emma felt as though the ground had fallen out from under her feet.

  “I—I think Grant might not prefer a social visit,” she said, and risked a glance at him. “It wouldn’t be seemly to—I mean—”

  “We have had a few hard weeks, but knowing that it was God’s will has helped the healing to begin,” Grant said slowly, saving her from more stammering foolishness. “I think the girls and Zachary would like an evening making puzzles with your boys, Amelia. It would make this more a normal Sunday. So Emma, if you wish to come and visit, too, you should do just that.”

  Where was a sign from God when she needed it? He had allowed Calvin to ask her for a date instead, and she couldn’t get out of it without hurting a good man’s feelings and looking heartless and inconsiderate on top of it.

  “I would have loved to,” she said slowly, “but we already have company coming and Mamm isn’t able to manage on her own.”

  Grant nodded, his hat tilted down as he studied the ground. Eli looked from her to Amelia as if he knew he’d missed something, but didn’t have the first idea what. And before she knew it, Grant had melted away, leading little Sarah by the hand back to her Yoder cousins.

  “He seems at peace,” Amelia breathed. “I’m so glad.”

  He had nothing to reproach himself with, Emma thought. “Mamm will be getting tired,” she said. “I’m going to tell her I’m ready to leave, and get the horse.”

  “Let me do that,” Eli said. “He’s the black gelding with the star and three socks, ja?”

  Emma nodded, thanked him, and headed for the house.

  Between man’s will and the will of God, it seemed, there was a great gulf fixed. All she wanted in the world right now was to go to that little supper party. But it would be pointless. In his heart, Grant would be married to Lavina forever, so the presence of a single woman in the kitchen would mean as much as her presence in church or any other place.

  Besides, only a blind woman could miss the precision of God’s timing, which had caused her to accept one invitation just in time to make it impossible to accept the other.

  Chapter 13

  When Calvin’s buggy rolled up the lane promptly at five o’clock, Emma knew that every eye in the big house would be on it once it made the right turn through the trees over to the Daadi Haus. She and Lena hardly ever had company; Lena just wasn’t able for it. Instead, Karen and John entertained a couple of times a week, and they would walk over to join in, sometimes both, and sometimes just Emma.

  She had changed out of her Sunday black into a newer everyday dress in a shade of green that Amelia had once told her matched her eyes. Not that she was trying to impress Calvin King. Far from it. But company deserved more than a kitchen dress, and if it happened to be a nice color, that was a bonus.

  At the sound of boots on the porch steps, she opened the door. “Guder Owed, Calvin. Willkumm. Where are the girls?” She’d expected him to bring them, at least, even if the older boys had other plans with the Youngie. But here he was, all by himself, his face shining as if he’d scrubbed it before he left.

  “Die Maedscher are over at Martin and Anna’s for supper and an evening of games with their cousins, and the boys will probably sneak over to Grohls’ for the singing, even though I’ve told them they’re too young and the older ones will just shoo them away. In case you get the wrong idea, I was invited to Martin’s, too. But I told them I was booked.” He handed her a plastic tub. “Better get this into the freezer.”

  She took the ice cream, already sweating from its ride over, and hustled it into the freezer unit in the top part of their propane fridge. At least she could cool her scarlet face for a few moments, and try to regain her composure.

  He had come alone. Not with his children, as a good friend might do, but alone, as a courting man did. Goodness, for fifty cents she’d pack them both into the buggy and drive over to Martin King’s herself, so that Calvin would have no doubt which she preferred.

  Calvin sat across the kitchen table from Lena, who was shredding lettuce for the salad. “And how are you, Lena? Keeping well?”

  “Ja, denki, Calvin. It’s good to see you. I would have liked to have seen those girls of yours. We made supper for six at least.”

  “Sorry about that. We spent the afternoon there and they were having such a good time they begged me to let them stay. I’m hungry enough to eat their share, though.”

  “Not much for them to do here, with me and Emma, I suppose,” Lena said. “But Karen’s Kinner would have been glad to see them. Little Maryann and your Barbara are good chums, I think.”

  “Two peas in a pod, those two, studious and good helpers in the house. They’ll likely be in the same buddy bunch eventually,” he allowed. “But that’s a ways off yet.”

  “And Mollie?” Emma asked as she took the kale off the stove, simmering in chicken broth and onions, and dished it up along with the mashed potatoes. “Is she not so studious and helpful?”

  “Mollie is different,” he said on a sigh. “Always staring off into space and doodling on pieces of paper. Her teachers say she’s smart enough, but she doesn’t pay attention.”

  “I remember someone very much like that,” Lena said with a smile. She pushed the salad bowl, now decorated with carrot curls and enticing circles of tomato, into the middle of the table.

  “I can’t think who.” Emma put the roast beef in front of Calvin. “Would you do the honors?”

  He carved the meat while she turned buttermilk biscuits into a bowl and folded a clean tea towel over them. After they said their silent grace, dishes clattered and cutlery got busy while Emma did her best to keep the conversation off herself and on his family, on how high the corn was getting after such a wet spring, and whether Karen was hoping for a boy or a girl. That carried them all the way through dinner, and during dessert it was easy enough to keep him talking about the fun the girls had had making the ice cream.

  And then it was time for the buggy ride. Even if their laughter and conversation had lasted twice as long, it still would not have given her enough time to prepare for this.

  The buggy dipped under her weight as she climbed in on the left side. Since it was the family buggy and not an open courting buggy, he had slid the doors open and rolled the back flap up to let in the evening air and make it seem as though they were not seeking privacy.

  It didn’t help, though. As he made the turn into the lane, Emma glimpsed Karen and Maryann rocking lazily together on the front porch swing, and rolled her eyes toward heaven. It would be as plain as daybreak that only the two of them were inside the buggy, and Karen would know exactly what was going on. It would be all over the settlement by lunchtime tomorrow that she and Calvin were more than merely friends.

  But there was no help for it. No matter what her intentions were, appearances would fuel gossip, and there was nothing she could do about it now.

  Calvin shook the reins over his horse’s back as though there was nothing more to the evening than soft air and an empty road. “I thought
we might take a look at the river and see if it’s dropped any.”

  She nodded and did her best to smile. “I haven’t been over there in a long time. Did you hear the story about the time Joshua Steiner and I floated down it? We were nearly ten miles away by the time Daed got wind of it and came after us.”

  “I didn’t hear that one, but I have heard a thing or two about Joshua Steiner.”

  Silence fell, punctuated by the clip-clop of hooves and the rattling thrum of the wheels on asphalt. Since when had the bench seat of a buggy become so small? She was no fragile flower, and Calvin was a good-sized man. She had to keep her legs pulled all the way to the left to keep their thighs from bumping against each other in a very immodest way.

  Was this the romantic buggy ride that all the girls had been so anxious to be asked for, back when they were teenagers? Or did the romance bleed out of it as you got older, until all you were left with was discomfort and awkwardness while you tried to calculate how much further you had to go?

  Stop thinking about yourself. He has been very kind. The least you can do is make this ride a good use of his time—something worth giving up an evening with his Kinner for.

  A swallow dipped and swooped right in front of them as they turned into the river road. “Look,” she said. “He’s catching bugs. It’s nesting time again. I love the swallows. They’re so companionable once they get used to you.”

  “They make a mess on my barn floor, but the ceilings are too high for me to sweep them out. The girls just have to scrub a little harder when our Sunday rolls around.”

  “Daed didn’t used to like them, either, but John doesn’t seem to mind. I think he’s so used to having nesting females around that whether they have wings or not doesn’t really matter.”

  “What about you, Emma? Did you ever have the urge to nest?”

  Did he have to phrase that in past tense? “Sure. Most women do, I think.” Except Lavina Weaver, after she had her children.

  “There’s still time.”

  “What, to nest? I suppose, but since I’m leddich yet, it’s not likely.”

  “It might be more likely if you were to let me court you.” The horse felt the slackness in the reins and slowed. “I’m not sure I want to merely be good friends with you, Emma. I thought as much before, but this evening made me sure.”

  Emma wondered wildly if she would hurt herself leaping out of a moving buggy, even at this slow a pace.

  “I didn’t bring the girls along for a good reason. I wanted to spend some time with you, just the two of us. I had a fine time at supper, and I think you did, too.”

  “Calvin, I—I told you already that I…that my heart was…”

  “That you had feelings for someone else. Ja, I remember. But Emma, I’ve given it a lot of thought, and what I said before is true. If he has shown no interest in all this time, he’s not likely to. And here I am, ready to court you, with a family who would love you if you gave them a chance. Don’t you think I might be the better bargain?”

  But you are not a pair of shoes in the half-off bin. She reined in her galloping thoughts. “It’s very soon, Calvin,” she said in a low tone, then spoke more firmly when she realized he was leaning in even closer in order to hear her. “We’ve only really spoken, um, in a personal way twice. That’s not enough to base a—a marriage on.”

  “I’m not rushing you to marriage, though I’ll tell you, it’s in the back of my mind. Every time Mollie comes home from school with a note from Hannah Holstetler, I wish her mother were here to help her. Rose Ann always understood my little dreamer much better than I seem to be able to.”

  Emma could understand her, too, having been a little dreamer herself, thinking up stories and imagining wonderful things in a mind that was miles away from a one-room schoolhouse in Whinburg, Pennsylvania. But that was neither here nor there. Understanding a child was a much different thing than beginning a relationship with her father. And Emma had seen it happen often enough to know that even though he said he wouldn’t rush her, second marriages often happened much quicker than they had the first time around—as if the parties realized that life was short and happiness not so thick on the ground that you could waste it.

  Emma, listen to yourself. Is that what you’re doing? Letting the chance of happiness slip through your fingers while you moon after what you can’t have? If the swallows did that, there would be no nests and no young swallows, either.

  “I feel as if I’m standing in the door of the hayloft,” she said at last. “It’s only one step, but if I take it, I won’t be able to stop or change my mind.”

  “At least I’ll be there to catch you at the bottom,” Calvin offered. He flapped the reins, and the horse picked up its pace. Emma couldn’t hear the river over the sound of the wheels, but she could smell it from here—a rich, damp smell that held green weeds and mud and wet stones.

  But did she want someone to catch her at the bottom of the drop? Or did she want someone to hold her hand and jump with her, knowing that, come what may, he would never let go and they would take the journey together?

  As Calvin tied up the horse at the rail in the little parking area, then handed her out of the buggy, she was no closer to answering his question than she had been the first time he’d asked it.

  If only she could go back in time to that lunch at Karen’s. If she had known what would happen afterward, she would have stayed in her own room and locked the door.

  The county kept a walking path maintained beside the river, wide enough for two people. In the spring it was too muddy to stroll on, but the good weather lately had dried out all but the lowest spots close to the water. Tree branches nodded over their heads, and to the left, a pair of ducks chivvied their little ones, as fluffy as kittens, into a clump of grasses for the night.

  Everything, it seemed, was pairing off and having children. Spring must be a terrible time for Carrie, who would see babies everywhere except in her own home.

  “Did…did you enjoy your ride on the train when you went to New York?” Calvin asked at last, when the silence could no longer be filled by the rush of the river and the sound of birds settling in the trees. “I went to Florida on the train a couple of times to see family, and once to upstate New York to see my cousins, who moved out there a couple of years ago.”

  “I did enjoy it. It was very comfortable, and the trip was faster than I thought it would be.”

  “Anytime you ride in an Englisch vehicle, that’s the case.” He chuckled, as if he’d made a joke. “What about boats? Do you like those?”

  “I’ve never been in anything but a rowboat on this very river. And the inner tubes, that day with Joshua.”

  “Ah. Joshua.” He fell silent again. Then, “I don’t want to impose, Emma, but if it were to get about that you and I were seeing each other—” If? I think you mean when. “—it would look bad, what with the rumors that he is courting you as well.”

  “But the truth is that I’m courting neither of you.” Oh, dear. She hadn’t meant that to sound quite so abrupt. “The grapevine will say what it wants,” she said more gently. “I know the truth, and so do you.”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t want it to get back to Mollie and Barbara that their father was seeing a woman who was—who wasn’t—I mean—”

  Emma stepped away from him out onto a big rock that jutted into the water. It was clear from the way the grass and undergrowth had been trodden down that this was a popular diving place in the summer. “You mean you wouldn’t want your girls to hear you were courting a loose woman, nix?”

  He frowned, as if her bluntness pained him. Best he get used to that. “I just meant that if you made it plain to Joshua that you wouldn’t be seeing him anymore, it would be better for all of us.”

  “He is my friend, as you are,” she said slowly. “How would you feel if I said such a thing to you?”

  “It’s not the same, Emma. A friend is someone you shake hands with after church. A man who brings in the dish you made to
a potluck is something different.”

  So was a man who bought you ice cream in public. “People make too much of that. He is trying to establish himself here. I think a misstep or two is forgivable.”

  “I don’t think it was a misstep. I think he was using you. Using your good reputation to—as you say—establish himself.”

  This very fear had been lurking in the shadows in the back of her mind, and it made her angry that he would reach in, turn up the lamp, and force her to look at it. If Lena had done so, or Amelia or Carrie, she would have humbled herself and let them help her face it. But not Calvin, who had shouldered his way into her life and was now telling her what she should do as if they were already married.

  “How can you say such a thing of ein Bruder?” was all she could manage without lashing out and giving him the rough side of her tongue.

  “If you are honest with yourself, you’ll see that I’m only trying to give you good counsel, even leaving myself and my girls out of it. He has always been a problem, has Joshua. You said yourself he led you to ride those inner tubes away down the river, putting both of you in danger and putting your Daed to a whole lot of trouble.”

  “We were ten!”

  “But it was a sign of things to come. A character that was set even at ten has not changed much. You were lucky he didn’t lead you astray in other ways. I’ve heard some very bad things since he’s come back to town.”

  “Those things happened before he joined church. He told me about them himself.” She clutched at a straw of fact. “Besides, if Bishop Daniel has forgiven him and welcomed him back into the Gmee, then you shouldn’t put yourself above him and keep bringing up the past.”

  “Are you defending your childhood friend, Emma?” He gazed at her, but the twilight had deepened to the point that she couldn’t see his eyes clearly, and once again she’d left her glasses at home. At this rate she would need to wear them on the top of her head, to keep them handy while talking to men. “Or the man he became?”