Brides of Ohio

by Jennifer A. Davids

  “Jonah, talk to me. Tonight, in the parlor. I will make sure Jacob is in bed.”

  In an instant, the brick was replaced, and he was impenetrable once again. “You’d best get going. Make sure you speak to Mr. Decker about that plow.” He retreated toward the barn, and Adele felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

  “Tell Jonah that plow head should be here in the next couple of days.” Fred Decker was helping Adele pack the items she bought into the buggy. She’d bought some calico for a new dress and notions for the quilt she was making for Katherine’s baby. He handed her mail to her, and Adele glanced at the envelopes. One was from Ruth Decker. “Ah, Ruth has written to me.”

  “She’s probably asking how your sister-in-law is doing,” he said. Ruth Decker was Fred Decker’s cousin by marriage and a good friend of Katherine’s and Adele’s.

  She smiled. “Yes, I imagine she is.”

  “How is Mrs. Kirby? I’ve never met her, but Ruth thinks the world of her.”

  “It is kind of you to ask,” Adele replied. “I guess Ruth told you she is …”

  “Yes, an October baby, I understand.”

  She nodded. “I saw Katherine a week ago, and she looks wonderful.” Her most recent visit to her friend had gone well, in spite of Daniel’s probing questions about his brother. But Mary had not been there, and Adele smiled at the reason. “I will have to tell Ruth how Mary O’Neal is doing. Dr. Harris has been taking her out driving.”

  “Oh, I see,” Fred said with a wink. “He’s that old family friend of theirs, a professor like Daniel at the university, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. I am very happy for her.”

  “Well, she deserves it, after losing her husband and son in the war.” He snapped his fingers. “I just remembered.” Adele watched as he went into the mercantile and came back out with a wooden packing crate. “This came on the early train yesterday addressed to you.”

  Adele looked at it for a moment. Her eyes softened as she realized what it was. “It is Erich’s things.”

  Mr. Decker nodded and set it in the buggy’s small bed behind the driver’s seat. “I know I’ve already said as much, but I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Kirby.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The memorial service was very nice. Too bad Jonah couldn’t come.”

  “Yes,” she said, looking down. He had gotten out of the memorial the church held by claiming one of their cows was getting ready to calf. When she and Jacob had returned and asked about the animal, he had mumbled something about a false alarm.

  Fred offered her his hand so she could climb into the buggy when a voice stopped them.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Kirby.”

  Adele turned to see Dr. Kelly standing on the boardwalk. She nodded to him. “Good morning, Doctor.” It was the first time they had spoken since that disastrous day at church. Adele avoided him at services, and he never approached her when she and Jonah were in town together. He had been at Erich’s memorial, but she had been careful to keep Minnie nearby to discourage him. Hoping he would see she was leaving and move on, she turned away and allowed Mr. Decker to help her into the buggy. Once she had settled herself in the seat, she smiled down at him. “Thank you very much, Mr. Decker. I will tell Jonah about the plow head.”

  Fred Decker smiled and made his way back into his store.

  Dr. Kelly still stood on the boardwalk, and she gave him another nod as she gathered the reins. But before she could snap them, he had bridged the distance between them and covered her hands with one of his.

  She looked at him in shock. “Noah!” she said, then immediately corrected herself. “Dr. Kelly.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “Please excuse me for my boldness, but I must know how you are.”

  Adele saw the lost look in his eyes and glanced around. Thankfully, a train was at the station, and their side of the tracks was empty of people. “We are fine.” She tried to pull her hands away, but he held on tight. “Dr. Kelly, I must get home.”

  “You’re sure you are fine? You looked wretched at the memorial.”

  “I was saying good-bye to my brother,” she said. “Now, please, I must—”

  “There is something I have to tell you first.”

  “If you will release me, I will let you.” She sighed with relief as his hands slid away.

  “I’ve had a letter from my friend, Dr. Peck.”

  Adele’s brow furrowed. Why would he write again?

  Noah noticed her frown. “Please hear me out. This is important. I wrote to him about Jonah’s walks. He’s very concerned and wants to know if he’s sleepwalking.”

  Fury made Adele shake. “Sie hatte kein recht …” she began and took a deep breath. “You had no right to speak to anyone about my husband!”

  “Adele, please! If he is sleepwalking, he could hurt someone with that gun. Think of Jacob.”

  Her heart flipped, and fear must have crept its way across her face.

  Noah laid his hand lightly on top of hers. “You are concerned about Jacob. You don’t like him being around it.”

  “No, but I trust Jonah will not harm him.”

  “Adele, please.”

  “My husband is not sleepwalking,” she said, brushing his hand away. “I always wake when he does this.” His face fell, but she took no heed of it and continued on. “He woke this morning, and I heard him leave his room. I watched him from my window, and he was wide awake.”

  Dr. Kelly’s brow knit together in consternation. “He left his room?”

  “Yes,” she said and, snapping the reins, drove off. She was several minutes down the road before she realized just how much her angry answer had revealed.

  Jonah walked in from the fields. They had gotten the hay cut in the northeast field and were moving on to the next. It was hot work, and he was coming to the house for some switchel, hoping Adele had made some of the flavorful mix of cider, molasses, and ginger before she left for town.

  He had to admit, Jacob was more than pulling his weight today. Perhaps he had been too hard on him this morning. But seeing him with that book had reminded him of the kinds of things Daniel used to pull, and he’d instantly seen red. His brother had forever been doing just enough work to get by and then taking off to the creek to read.

  Jonah stopped for a moment and looked to the west. He could just make out the scrub that marked the edge of Daniel’s portion of the farm. What did he think was going to happen? That his brother was suddenly going to come to his senses and show up and farm it one day? He shook his head and continued walking.

  Adele was pulling up the drive as Jonah approached. He was glad the mourning period for her brother was almost over. Black made her look pale and washed out. As he drew closer to the buggy, he frowned. Adele looked tense, almost angry. Had something happened in town? He walked up to the buggy. Her brows knit together when she saw him. The tense look was gone a moment later, and he saw she mustered a smile.

  “How is the mowing?” she asked—a little too lightly, he thought.

  “Good.” He grasped her hand and helped her down. She wobbled slightly, and he grasped her waist to steady her. Lowering her to the ground, she was partially in his arms, and for the briefest of moments, he caught a glimpse of her brilliant eyes. Shaking, he moved away and noticed the wooden box in the bed. “What’s this?”

  “Erich’s things,” she replied softly. “Will you take it into the dining room? I can manage the rest.”

  He took the box inside and then went to the toolshed to fetch a claw hammer. She had finished putting things away by the time he got back and was looking at the crate, which he had set on the table. He handed her the hammer, knowing his wife liked to do such things herself. “Did you make any switchel? I need to get back.”

  “Jacob has not been disrespectful to you again?” she asked as she pried open the crate.

  “No. He’s been working hard.”

  “I am sorry he spoke to you in that way,” she said.
“It will not happen again.” The lid popped open, and Adele quickly pulled it off and laid it aside.

  As she started to take things out, Jonah glanced at the door, eager to leave. If he stayed, she would want to reminisce with him. “Never mind about the switchel,” he said and started for the door.

  Her gasp stopped him. “It is a letter to me,” Adele breathed. She opened it, and a bittersweet look slipped over her lovely face as she began to read. Her eyes started to shimmer, and she looked up at Jonah. “He was saving up to come home so he could help me. The last letter he got from me told him how we thought you had died. With Nathaniel gone, too, he thought he should come home and take care of me. That is why he was working for a mining company instead of wandering. The money was better.”

  Anger shook Jonah from head to toe. “How much longer is He going to torture you?”

  Adele looked up in surprise. “Who do you mean? Erich?”

  “God.” Erich’s Bible lay inside the crate. Jonah snatched it up and stared at it. The touch and feel of the leather-bound book made his rage keener, and he threw it down on the table. “All these promises, and for what? How can you trust Him anymore?”

  “God knows what is best,” Adele said quietly.

  “What is best? To take your husband, your farm, and now your brother? Who will He take next, Adele? Are you ready for it to be Jacob?”

  “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord,’” she quoted.

  Jonah grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “Stop it! Don’t you know what He is? How can you defend a monster that has taken everything from you?”

  “God is not a monster.” Adele shoved him away, so hard he stumbled. “You have no idea what I have been through. You, who are so wrapped up in your own pain, can’t even take a little boy under your wing or let go of the past. You can’t even walk the length of a room without that terrible gun. You let your anger fester and wound you more and more every day. You have no idea the mercy God has shown me. When I found out Nathaniel was dead, I wanted to die. I almost did die. My pride almost killed me and Jacob. And deep in my heart, I hoped it would. But God was merciful. When Jacob and I lay dying, Daniel came for us. Through him and Katherine, God saved my life and my soul.”

  Jonah stared at her, half angry, half thunderstruck. He opened his mouth to lash back at her, but the tears in her eyes … Had she really said she had wanted to die? Adele? The woman he had always seen as so strong, so steadfast? He turned and walked out of the house. He didn’t have a moment’s hesitation on where he needed to go, and in a little over an hour, he was walking up to the door of his brother’s house in Delaware.

  Chapter 6

  Jonah!” Daniel stood in the doorway of his house, glasses in hand, in shirt and waistcoat.

  Jonah should have expected him to be surprised. This was the first time Jonah had ever been to his brother’s house. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Last fall, not long after Daniel and Katherine had married, he had taken some wheat into Delaware to sell. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he had made his way to the west side of town to see what kind of fancy house his brother had bought.

  The sight of a large frame house, complete with bay windows, columns, and a turret rising from one corner, sitting at the top of the hill on Liberty Street hadn’t surprised him in the least. But just then, a passing Ohio Wesleyan student had told him that house belonged to Professor Merrick, the president of the university.

  When Jonah asked where Professor Kirby lived, he was directed across the street to a modest, two-story brick house with dormer windows surrounded by a black, wrought-iron fence. This was the house his sister-in-law had fussed about being so large? He’d driven away, positive the place was small so his brother could afford marble floors and a gold staircase.

  Now, looking past Daniel through the vestibule, he saw a wood-paneled hallway with a red carpet running up stairs edged by a walnut banister. The floors were freshly polished hardwood.

  Daniel stood watching him, his eyes flicking from Jonah’s gun to his face. “Is everything all right?” he asked. “Nothing’s happened to Adele or Jacob?”

  Jonah scowled. “They’re both fine. At least they are now.”

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me,” Jonah replied, stepping inside.

  Daniel looked at him for a moment before closing the door. “Let’s go into the library. There’s coffee if you want some.”

  Jonah left his rifle in the vestibule and followed his brother through a palm-lined parlor into the adjoining library.

  A large walnut desk sat in one corner, littered with papers. Quite close was a stuffed armchair with a settee in front of it, an Irish Chain quilt neatly folded on the seat.

  Daniel pulled up a more practical-looking, hard-backed chair and offered it to Jonah before pulling his own leather chair from behind the desk and sitting down. “The other chair is Katherine’s,” he explained. “She usually sits with me every evening and helps me plan my lessons or listens to me gripe about grading papers.”

  “Being a professor is not so exciting after all, huh?” Jonah asked.

  Daniel gave him a slight frown. “I love being a professor as much as you love being a farmer. That doesn’t mean there aren’t parts of it I don’t enjoy.”

  Jonah looked down, hating having to admit the truth of his brother’s statement. He’d be very happy if he never had to shear another sheep for as long as he lived. “Where is Katherine?” he asked.

  “She’s upstairs asleep,” he replied. “To be honest, I’m worried about her. The baby is so big already.”

  “I remember Ma being big with Toby.”

  “I do, too. It’s just—” He looked toward the upstairs, then rose from his chair and walked to a side table just inside the parlor door. “I’m sorry. Let me get you some coffee.”

  “No maid?” Jonah asked as he took the cup his brother offered.

  “Her afternoon off,” Daniel said as he settled back into his chair with his own cup. “Now what did you mean when you walked in?”

  “What happened to Adele and Jake before I came home?”

  “What did she tell you?” Daniel asked.

  “That you saved her life.” He watched his brother stare into his cup for a moment before setting it aside on his desk.

  “Adele wasn’t herself when I came home,” he said.

  Jonah thought back. Just after their mother died, Daniel had been released from the Army and come home. “Can’t say that I blame her. You were Nate’s commanding officer. His safety was your responsibility.”

  “I was trying to rescue him.” Daniel’s eyes blazed with pain and anger. “There were so many Confederates, and the gunfire was so thick I could have been killed. The men I had already freed would have been recaptured. Adele understood.”

  Jonah frowned then sighed. “What happened to her and Jake?”

  “Jacob got a bad cut on his hand and it got infected.” Daniel looked away. A few moments later, he continued. “When Nate died and she lost the farm, she wasn’t very well off at all. Ma helped her, but then she died and … Jake and Adele weren’t eating. If I hadn’t gone looking for them, they may have died.”

  “You mean they were starving?” Jonah rose with blazing eyes. “How could you let that happen?”

  “I didn’t know.” Daniel stood and returned his brother’s glare. “You know how stubborn she is. She wouldn’t ask for help from Aunt Mary because Katherine was with her. She hated her because she’s Southern.” Aunt Mary had lived in South Carolina during the war, and when she returned to Ostrander, Katherine came with her. “And her blasted pride kept her from going to anyone else.”

  “Even the church?”

  “Especially the church.”

  Jonah stared at his brother. “Why?”

  “She was angry, Jonah. Her faith was in shreds. She’d lost her husband, her home, you, a
s far as she knew.” Daniel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “If it wasn’t for Katherine, she said she would have drowned in hate and anger.”

  “I thought you said she hated her.”

  “She did, at first. Everyone did.” Daniel’s eyes grew soft. “But as hard as it was, Katherine was beautiful about it. She never hated anyone in return. Seeing her love her enemies convicted Adele. God used Kat to bring Adele back to Him.” Jonah stared at him, and Daniel laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry we never told you. But you were already going through so much, and Adele didn’t want to worry you with it.”

  Jonah walked over to the window. God could have let her die. He had taken so many others that He should have. But He had saved her, both body and … soul. In spite of his feelings toward God, Jonah found he was glad for that. Adele’s faith was so much a part of her. He could hardly imagine she had ever been angry at God. Like him. The thought shook him so much he reached out and grasped the window frame. He heard his brother walk up behind him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Jonah slowly nodded. To keep him from asking anything further, he changed the subject. “We got Erich’s things today. Adele found a letter he never got to send. He was working for that mining company to earn enough money to come home and help her.”

  “At the memorial, Adele said she was going to leave his body there in Nevada,” Daniel said. “Is she sure about that?”

  Jonah nodded. “She told me Erich wouldn’t have wanted her to trouble herself.”

  “It’ll be kind of odd knowing he and Toby aren’t buried here.”

  Jonah nodded as he thought about their youngest brother. He’d died at the battle of Cold Harbor. Daniel had intended on going down to Virginia to bring his body back, but in the end, he and Jonah had decided to leave him where he was.

  “I still can’t believe he ran off and left Ma to tend the farm by herself,” Jonah said.