by Jo Ann Brown
After finishing his third glass, Michael stood. “I’ll get the rest of those boards in the wagon, Gabriel, while you have some family time.”
Gabriel nodded, and she wondered how much he’d told his brother about what had happened upstairs. Another question she must not ask.
Topping off his glass and her own, Gabriel looked at the crumb-covered twins, who were jabbering as they chewed on their biscuits. “They seem to understand each other.”
“My grossmammi said Annie and I were talking to each other long before we invited others into our conversations.” She lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug though she was too aware of each motion either she or Gabriel made, as well as any sound and aroma in the room. It was as if every sense was filled with as much anticipation as the bopplin had while waiting for their bottles. “Grossmammi Inez also said she believed, as twins, Annie and I used our own special language before we were born and just never stopped. We switched to Deitsch before we went to school.”
“Do you know what your sister is thinking or feeling when she isn’t nearby?”
“Sometimes.” She wiped her hand on the dish towel, then hung it up to dry. “I can do that with any of my siblings. It must come from living together and sharing so many experiences. Do you and Michael have more than a normal ability to do that?”
“I don’t know what normal is, because he’s my only sibling, though sometimes at work each of us knows what the other needs. People have asked if, as twins, we can read each other’s thoughts. They seem to believe that’s something all twins can do. I’m grateful it’s not true for us.”
He looked away, and she knew he’d come close to saying something he hadn’t intended. About Freda or something else?
“How’s the job going?” she asked, latching on to an innocuous subject.
“All right. Michael loves carpentry work. His plan is to focus on that while I get the farm up and running. He’s never liked milking or working in the fields.”
“So why did he come here?”
“Because we’re his family,” he replied as if that should explain it.
It did. Her younger siblings had been shocked at the abrupt announcement from their older brother, Lyndon, that they were moving to northern New York, but they hadn’t quibbled. As for Leanna, she’d been excited to leave. She’d hoped being away from the past would help her forget what had happened since she’d heard Gabriel was marrying someone else.
Her gaze went to where Gabriel was lifting Heidi out of her chair and onto his lap. How could she have guessed her past would follow her? God must have planned for her to discover something by planting her past right on her doorstep, but what? To forgive? She should do that, but offering forgiveness without her heart being behind it was hypocrisy. God couldn’t want her to do that, could He?
Do You? She aimed the prayer heavenward along with the hope she’d get an answer before she made the wrong decision.
* * *
Finally, with Leanna’s help, Gabriel learned to balance one twin on each knee. Part of it was the twins were able to sit without help, though Harley kept a cautious handful of Gabriel’s shirt gripped in his fingers. The rest was because he’d grown more confident in handling the bopplin each day.
As he watched Leanna warm bottles for the twins, her final task before she left for the day, he admired her easy efficiency. She had asserted several times she wasn’t a gut cook, but she appeared to know her way around a kitchen. No motion was wasted, and her shoes didn’t stick to the floor as his boots had that morning.
Looking down, he was surprised to see the wood gleaming in the sunlight. She must have mopped the floor. Not only the kitchen one, but the living room floor, too, he realized. His eyes widened. The stacks of boxes were gone. Only two remained.
“I hope you don’t mind I unpacked some things while the bopplin were napping,” Leanna said.
His eyes cut to where she stood by the sink wringing her apron.
“You didn’t need to do that.” He wasn’t sure what else he should say, then added, “I appreciate what you did. Michael will, too. Danki.”
“I wasn’t sure where some things go, so I left them in those two boxes. I knocked down the other boxes and put them in the laundry room. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine, but I don’t expect you to clean the house on top of watching the twins.”
Turning to the stove to lift out one bottle and testing the heat of the formula on her wrist, she said, “I’m glad to do it. I’m not used to sitting and doing nothing in the middle of the day.” She lifted the pan and switched off the burner. She took out the bottles. Handing him one, she said, “Give Harley to me.” Taking the little boy, she added, “It’s your turn to be fed first, ain’t it?” She looked at Gabriel, smiling. “There’s no reason they can’t be fed at the same time when we’re both here.”
“How did you convince Heidi to wait?” he asked as he tilted the little girl back in his arms and offered the bottle. She clamped her mouth on the nipple and put both hands on the bottle as if afraid he was going to snatch it away. “If I don’t feed her first, she starts crying at a low level, but it quickly becomes a shriek.”
“I give them their bottles lying on the quilt.”
“I never thought of doing that.”
“They’re big enough to hold their own bottles, but if I end up giving Harley his first and I don’t want Heidi to be upset, I talk to her.”
“Talk?”
She smiled as she sat on the bench facing him. “Ja, talk. I’m finding Heidi can be distracted from what she believes is her due if she’s diverted by talk or a toy.”
“That has never worked for me.”
“So far it has for me, but it may be because I’m someone new and different. Once she gets accustomed to me, she may not be so willing to be diverted.”
“They seem to be doing well with the goats’ milch.” He watched Heidi drinking the formula almost as fast as he had his first glass of Leanna’s delicious lemonade.
“They can be weaned onto soy milch or almond milch, but they may never be able to drink cows’ milch.”
“Imagine that. A dairy farm whose kinder can’t drink his milch.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. Or the last.”
“True.” He shifted the little girl in his arms, which were beginning to ache from his long hours of nailing over his head. “Your grossmammi mentioned you sell your soap at the farmers market in Salem.”
“I did last year, and I’ve been planning to this year. Each day when I milk my goats, I set aside a small portion of the milch to make soap. I have almost enough for another batch, which I’ll sell later in the summer. The soap I’ll be selling when the farmers market opens is already made up. I need to wrap the bars, so they won’t stick together when the sun’s heat is on them.”
“I’m surprised.”
“That I make soap?”
“Ja, a bit. I thought you’d sell your quilts. You used to talk about quilting a lot.”
She shrugged, and he wondered if he’d upset her with his comments about the past. No hint of that tainted her voice as she replied, “People coming to a farmers market are looking for small things because most of them have walked there. They don’t want to tote a big quilt home. Besides, I can sell any quilted articles I make at Caleb’s bakery.”
“That’s the one out of the main road?”
“Ja. He’s taken some of my items on consignment. Even there, small table runners and wall hangings sell better than a full-size quilt.”
“You’ve stopped making big quilts?”
She shook her head. “No, I recently finished one that a lady at the fire department’s mud sale asked me to make for her. She’d bid on the one I donated, but didn’t win it, so I agreed to make her a similar one for the cost of the materials if she’d donate the difference to the fire departm
ent.”
Gabriel nodded, knowing he shouldn’t be surprised. Leanna wouldn’t think twice about making such an offer when it would help someone else.
He was sorry when Heidi finished her bottle, followed by Harley. Leanna rinsed them out and put them in her cloth bag to take home so she could refill them with formula.
Setting the bag on the table, she said, “I left a casserole in the oven for your supper.” She paused as she reached for her bonnet. “Don’t worry. I didn’t cook it. Annie made two for us last night, and she asked me to bring it over here for you.”
“Danki. I don’t know what we would have done without—”
“Neighbors help neighbors,” she replied primly.
Had he insulted her? Everything he said, no matter how well-intentioned, came out wrong. But it also seemed wrong not to acknowledge how the Waglers had gone beyond neighborly and had taken on the burden of looking after the Miller family. He understood no thanks were expected, but he also didn’t like the idea of being indebted to them when he’d brought so much pain to Leanna and, through her, to her whole family.
There were many things he wanted to say to her, but he had to content himself with, “I wanted you to know Michael and I really appreciate your help.”
“I’ll pass your thanks on to Annie and Grossmammi Inez.”
“Danki,” he said again, though he wanted to ask why she wasn’t accepting some of his gratitude for herself.
The answer blared into his head when the door closed behind her, leaving him alone with the twins. To acknowledge his appreciation would risk re-creating an emotional connection between them, one he’d thought would last a lifetime. She wasn’t ready to take that chance again, and he shouldn’t be, either.
So why had images of them walking together or riding in his courting buggy never stopped filling his mind during the day and his dreams every night?
Chapter Six
The village of West Rupert was so small it barely deserved the name. A dozen houses spread along the narrow road, a white church set next to a cemetery, a fire station and a general store with antlers mounted over the door comprised the whole village. Small farms edged the roads leading in and out of town. The fields were sloped on one side and flat along a meandering stream on the other. The road continuing to the east led over Rupert Mountain and to the ski resorts along the spine of the Green Mountains.
Gabriel balanced on the top of a ladder leaning against what he guessed had originally been a storage barn for milch cans. Looking past the rafters he and Michael would finish rebuilding this morning, he stared at the meandering creek. It either was the same one or connected with the creek that ran through Harmony Creek Hollow and on down into the center of Salem.
His mind went with the water toward the fields he’d be planting next year. The mountains that rose around him were so different from the rolling hills where he’d grown up in Pennsylvania. The background to his days had changed in as spectacular way as his life had. He and Michael now owned a farm, and he had a family to raise there.
And Leanna was in his home, watching over his kinder as if she were their mamm. A double pulse of regret surged through him. Freda should have been the one tending to her twins. Leanna should never have been hurt by the promise he’d made to Aden. He wasn’t sure which situation he rued more.
He was grateful Leanna had gone along with his intention of ignoring what had happened when he’d panicked at the bopplin crying so hard and nobody answering when he called out. If she’d asked questions about the day he’d come home to learn Freda was dead, he wasn’t sure if he could have withheld the whole truth.
About how Freda had given in to her depression and committed suicide. About how he had failed to notice she was suffering from more than what she’d assured him were “boppli blues.”
How, God, did I miss the signs right in front of me? Why did You let her suffer when I could have helped if You’d opened my eyes and my heart to what she needed?
Those questions had raged through him from the moment he realized Freda wasn’t asleep, that the empty pill bottles had taken her away from the kinder he’d believed she loved too much to abandon. He wished they could have found the love a man and wife should have, but she’d been inconsolable from the moment her Englischer turned from her. The Englischer whose photo was beside her on the bed the day she died. She’d accepted Gabriel’s offer of marriage and never asked for more, because she had given her heart to another.
As you did.
He closed his eyes, wishing he could reach out to God in something other than frustration and anger.
“Hey, are you asleep up there?” called Michael from the base of the ladder.
“Waiting on you to stop wandering around and get to work.” He was grateful to be able to tease his brother, letting Michael’s laughter sweep away his dreary thoughts.
“I’m here. Let’s get going.” He hefted a board up along the side of the garage, where any hint of paint had vanished years ago.
Gabriel grabbed the top and guided it to where he could put it in place. He aimed his hammer at the nail at the end of the board. With a pair of quick swings, he drove that nail and another in to hold the two sides of a rafter together. He appraised how the final rafter aligned with the others.
“Looking straight,” Michael shouted.
“It should.” Gabriel descended the ladder, glad Michael kept one hand on it. “You measured it over and over before cutting the angle.”
“I wanted to make sure it was right when there will be two skylights in the roof.”
“Making those calculations are something we can do in our sleep.”
“Maybe I can, but when’s the last time you slept through the night? I heard you pacing last night. What’s going on?” He gave a terse laugh and answered before Gabriel could. “It’s her, ain’t so? Having Leanna at the house every day has you agog.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he hedged.
“Then what would you say?”
Gabriel was spared from answering when the homeowner, an Englischer named Don Fenton who planned to turn the building into an art studio for his wife, walked toward them. Talking to Don wasn’t easy because the Englischer knew less about carpentry than Gabriel knew about sending a man to the moon. While Gabriel explained what they were doing—and why—his brother went to the stack of lumber.
Mrs. Fenton wandered out and began asking about flower boxes on the three windows the gray-haired lady wanted on each side. Gabriel listened and made a few suggestions, though it was the first time he’d heard about flower boxes. Maybe she’d mentioned them to Michael, and his brother had forgotten to say anything. No, that wasn’t likely. Michael wrote down every detail of a project in the notebook he shared each night with Gabriel. Nothing had been in there about flower boxes.
It wasn’t a problem. They could use a few pieces of leftover wood to make what she was looking for.
“Are you going to bring your twins here one of these days?” Mrs. Fenton asked, startling him out of his thoughts.
“Not while work is going on.” He tried to keep his voice upbeat, but the beginnings of a headache was building between his eyebrows. “Too many things here are too dangerous for little ones.”
She laughed. “I understand. When my children were small, they could find trouble where there shouldn’t have been any. I do hope you and your brother will bring the babies and join us when we inaugurate my new studio.”
“Of course.” What else could he say? A party for a storage barn getting a new roof, windows and paint? Sometimes he found Englischers incomprehensible.
Gabriel talked for a few minutes more with the Fentons, then returned to work. His brother had estimated it would take them a month to complete the repairs and paint the building inside and out, but they might be finished sooner than that, so he and Michael needed to look for more jobs. Whether they wo
rked together on the project or took two separate ones, he knew the money they’d make on this job wouldn’t last long.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, Gabriel was ready to eat. He washed his hands with a hose attached to the main house before joining his brother, who sat at a nearby picnic table. They bowed their heads in silent thanks before reaching for the tuna sandwiches Michael had made that morning while Gabriel was giving the twins their morning bottles.
Gabriel’s first bite warned him his brother had added too much mayonnaise. He tried not to grimace, but Michael did and put the sandwich down.
“That’s disgusting,” his twin said. “You shouldn’t let me make lunch.”
“I told you I’d do it.” Gabriel took a huge bite of his own sandwich, swallowing it almost whole so he didn’t have to taste it.
“And when would you have had the time?”
“I could get up earlier.”
Michael’s frown deepened. “You’re half-asleep on your feet most of the time. Maybe you need to rethink Leanna’s grossmammi’s offer to send over food for us.”
“They’re doing enough for us already.”
Standing, Michael grabbed a handful of pretzels and his thermos of iced tea. “We need help. You might thrive on stress and drama—”
“I despise it.”
“For someone who despises drama, you sure seem to surround yourself with it.”
Gabriel’s fingers clenched on his sandwich. Forcing them to ease off their death grip, he scowled at the mayo oozing around his fingers. He reached for a cloth to wipe his hands before saying, “Because lots of things have happened doesn’t mean I wanted any of them to happen.”
His brother’s face fell, and he looked stricken. “I didn’t mean... I wasn’t talking about Freda dying.”
“I know.” He kneaded his forehead where the small headache was becoming the thunder of stampeding horses.
“I was talking about Leanna Wagler.”
“I know,” he said, wondering why his brother was stating the obvious.
