Jacob's Return

by Annette Blair

  “I meant no disrespect, Rache. Gorilla’s are God’s creatures too.”

  “Priscilla’s a lovely woman.”

  “And looking for a husband,” Simon said, almost agreeably. “All of them are. It appears your need for a wife, and a mother for these two, are bringing out the best of them.”

  “These are the best? I mean, there are more?”

  Simon frowned at Jacob’s banter. “Come.” Simon shoved him inside. “It might not be so bad having you home after all, little brother.” Her husband gave a bark of something that might be termed laughter, Rachel thought, if it hadn’t the devil’s own edge to it. “Smells wonderful good,” he said.

  Jacob recognized Rachel’s sister, Esther, right away, but in her condition, he knew she wasn’t a Zook any longer. “Looks like you finally got Daniel to the corner table, Esther,” he said “How is old Daniel?”

  Esther’s smile vanished, and Jacob realized she must be among the women seeking husbands. “Oh, Es. Not Daniel.” Her eyes filled and Jacob pulled her into his arms, placing his cheek against her kapp, holding her like that, until she stepped away.

  No one moved, until a woman with morning-sky eyes stepped forward. “Hello, Chacob.”

  “Fannie Funeral Pie,” Jacob said to lighten the mood and Fannie swatted him.

  “Chacob Sauder! Don’t you go calling me that, already. Years it takes to make everyone forget that name you giff me with. I make raisin pie good and you know it.”

  “The best I ever ate. Can I have some?”

  “Oh, no,” Rachel said. “Dessert after dinner.”

  As Jacob remembered often happened, Rachel got her way.

  “Did your wife make you a quilt, Chacob?” Priscilla asked as they ate.

  Jacob shook his head. “No, Pris.”

  “We’ll have a quilting bee, then,” she said. “To make quilts for you and the twins. A ‘Tumbling Block’ for Aaron. He looks like he tumbles a lot. And a ‘Rose of Sharon’ for Emma.”

  Jacob nodded. “A ‘Lone Star’ for me.”

  “If we’re lucky, you won’t be alone long,” Simon muttered.

  Jacob couldn’t stop himself from regarding Esther. Her child would need a father and his children needed a mother. Except that—

  “Hannah made your recipe for Kartoffel Kloesse, Rachel,” Fannie said. “She got it from the newspaper chust last week. She remembered Chacob liking your potato croquettes.”

  “They printed one of your recipes in the newspaper, Rachel?” Jacob said, not a little impressed.

  Esther laughed. “Printed her recipe? It’s her newspaper. Rachel publishes the Amish Chalkboard. It’s the only German newspaper around. We love it.”

  “Good Lord,” Jacob said.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Simon muttered.

  “That’s wonderful,” Jacob added.

  Simon slammed his fork on the table. “I might have known.”

  * * * *

  Emma and Aaron ran ahead of Jacob through a field carpeted with quaker ladies; the four-petaled bluets making the meadow appear frost-covered in places. “Kum,” Jacob said when they started chasing a chipmunk. “We go to the schulhaus.”

  “Pie!” Emma said tugging his hand. “Kum, Kinder!”

  Rachel was teaching them Pennsylvania Dutch. “Ya,” he said. “Mudpie teaches lots of kinder.”

  But it was not to see the schoolchildren that made Jacob eager.

  For the past two weeks, he had tried to stay as much apart from Rachel as one could when living in the same house. Some conversations, however, could not be avoided, like, “Pass the slaw,” or, “Why does Aaron have a pea stuck up his nose?”

  But they were not strangers, he and Rache. She had always been his best friend. That relationship, he could claim. That she owned half his heart, he could not claim. This he accepted.

  He’d kept himself apart because of the turmoil he thought his presence caused between her and Simon. But Datt said they acted no differently since his return than before.

  Jacob had known at service that first morning that Rachel would be perfect to care for his children, but he had pushed the idea aside, especially after Simon’s words about her rearing his English brats.

  Jacob had gone so far as to speak with several possible choices. The best of them, Jenny Moyer, had come yesterday. But when she tried to speak with Emma, his daughter had opened the corner jelly cupboard’s lower door and stood behind it, kapp showing above, shoes below, and refused to answer.

  Aaron, his pout fierce, had slapped Jenny’s hand aside when she pinched his cheek.

  Jacob planned to punish them later, until he realized they were upset, because they understood what was happening. When they heard him and Jenny talking about her caring for them, Emma said, “No,” and Aaron militantly added, “Want Pie!”

  Fortunately, Jenny Moyer thought he was hungry.

  It was to Rache his children went as if a mother’s cord stretched between them, as if she had given them life. And in a way she had. Most fathers would not be pleased, however, when his angels became devils, playing tricks to get a laugh, running, screaming like hoodlums to get Rachel running behind. And Lord how they laughed.

  They were driving him crazy.

  He couldn’t thank Rachel enough.

  Jacob’s heart accelerated when he saw the Riverbend School, the same one-room schoolhouse all of them had attended.

  Bright red geraniums decorated each open window while drawings of butterflies and bees on the higher panes hovered above the blooms.

  A funny screeching sound came from inside, then children laughing. Jacob took his children’s hands to hurry them along. When they entered, all heads turned toward them at the back of the room, half hatless, the others in white heart-shaped kapps, all faces sweet and dear. But the surprised face in the front of the room looked the sweetest and dearest.

  Rachel wore great paper ears, bigger than her head, and a paper tube covering her nose reached nearly to the floor. A smile transformed her features. “I am an elephant,” she said, and screeched again.

  The children laughed and threw peanuts at her.

  Jacob smiled. “When do they know to throw the nuts?”

  She hunched and screeched. The peanuts came. “When the elephant calls for them,” she said.

  “Ah, I see. Will you eat them all?” He stood in the back, she in the front. Her students craned their necks back to front, and back again, as they conversed.

  Rachel laughed and removed her ears and trunk. Emma and Aaron ran to her. She bent and caught them, kissed each presented rosebud mouth, and lifted them together, a knack she’d mastered quickly. “Children. This is Emma and Aaron Sauder, and there is Jacob, their father.”

  “Hello, Jacob,” they chorused.

  “Pick up the peanuts,” Rachel said. “You may have them for recess. Hannah and Sarah Troyer, you will sweep. Then outside.”

  Everyone rose talking. Unshelled peanuts got retrieved from the floor, unthrown ones collected from desks. When the girls finished sweeping, they came to Rachel. “May we take the little ones outside with us? We’ll watch them good.”

  “You’ll watch them well. You may take them, if they want to go.”

  No worry there. Emma and Aaron skipped happily along, soon surrounded by enough kinder to keep them content for some time.

  “We can talk outside while I mind them,” Rachel said.

  She sat on a bench near the door and he sat on the edge of the step to face her. “You like teaching, Mudpie?”

  “Yes, Jacob. I do.”

  “You’re a good teacher. I can see that. Do you think you will always teach?”

  “Since a girl usually teaches until she is married or begins her family, I always expected to quit.” Rachel hesitated and stood. “Come, show the boys how to play good corner ball.”

  Jacob complied and went to play ball.

  After a short game, he returned, hat in hand, wiping the perspiration from his brow with his sleeve, his
blue shirt wet under his suspenders. “You look sad,” he said.

  “No one has ever visited me here before.”

  “Our visit saddens you?”

  Rachel smiled. “When I first married Simon, I thought....” She shrugged. “Enos got you out. He will be pleased.”

  “I know.” Jacob respected her need to speak of other things.

  “You used to be quicker at dodging the ball,” she said.

  At this, his smile came easily. “Still am.”

  Rachel laughed and lifted the bell to ring it.

  Jacob stayed her hand. “May we walk you home?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But first, German lessons and the children will copy the rest of my newspaper from the chalkboard.”

  “They’re hand-printed, your papers?”

  “Yes, but my students have to read and understand what’s written on the board, before they can copy it.”

  “They must be smart.”

  Rachel’s care for her pupils showed in her smile. “I’d like them to be smarter, and they could be, if they worked harder.”

  That made her sound like a very good teacher, and it made him worry she would not want to leave to care for his monkeys.

  “From the money I make selling my papers, I’m saving for a printing press, so I can print them weekly and get them to more people. For now, I pay a penny for each copied, and sell each for three. A few students stay late and copy extras to sell to neighbors.”

  Jacob chuckled. “Some of them will be rich some day.”

  Rachel nodded. “Rich in the knowledge that responsibility and hard work are of value. Rich enough to make sufficient profit on their crops to feed their families, and to read their Bibles and Martyrs Mirrors in the language of their ancestors.”

  Jacob resisted an overwhelming urge to lean over and kiss her. “Limitless wealth,” he said, the catch in his voice reflecting his need.

  As if sensing danger, Rachel rang the bell.

  She was a good teacher; Jacob saw how good that afternoon.

  They ended the school day with an old German folk song, and before long, not a child could be found save Aaron and Emma still singing their version of the song.

  “Erasing my chalkboard, Jacob?” Rachel said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Does it make me teacher’s pet?”

  “No, I reserve that honor for my pets in the back of the room who are emptying the trash bin all over the floor.”

  “Ach, you two.” Jacob hastened to stop the disaster. Rachel laughed at the exasperation on his face, and the innocent surprise on his children’s, as he stood over them explaining his scold. Then he made them return every scrap to the trash bin. How lucky they were to have such a good and gentle father, Rachel thought.

  Not long after, spring thrummed about them as they crossed Coffman’s meadow. The early June weather was middle-of-the-summer hot. Even the insects slowed their pace, and a lazy, crickety drone filled the air.

  “A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,” Jacob recited, swinging Emma’s hand. “A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.” He lifted her in the air. “A swarm of bees in July is not worth a fly.” He set her down fast and her giggles made Rachel laugh too.

  “Me too,” Aaron said, and his father sang the rhyme again.

  Jacob was no longer the young boy who’d walked her home from school so many years ago, Rachel thought, the boy who’d given her orphaned mouse babies to tend. He was a man now, with a man’s wide shoulders and a man’s beard.

  He was a father. He’d had a wife.

  Grief rushed in catching Rachel unaware. She always thought she would be his wife. How tender and loving a husband he must have been.

  Emma stopped Rachel mid-step with a tug on her skirt. “Shoes?” she asked, raising her foot.

  “Of course, sweetheart,” Rachel said, grateful for the distraction. She sat in the grass to remove hers and the children’s shoes, then she put them in her teacher’s bag and stood to take their hands. “There, now, doesn’t that feel better?” She wiggled her toes in the warm, sweet earth and looked at Jacob. “Why don’t you take yours off?”

  He tried to look stern. “You’re as bad as they are.”

  “Bet I can change your mind,” she called, running with the children into the creek. “Bet you can’t catch us.”

  At the dare, his children began to scream and run faster. Jacob chuckled as he sat to remove his shoes and roll up his pants. The more they ran, the more he wanted to catch them. All of them. He stepped into the creek and howled. “Ach, this is cold!”

  Rachel’s laughter trailed back, its song bringing such sweet memories, he could fall to his knees in gratitude for the simple moment. When he set off after them, he laughed louder than all of them.

  He caught up quickly and lifted Emma, twirling her in the air, “Gotcha!” He kissed her cheek before putting her down, then he did the same with Aaron. Then the children insisted he catch Rachel. So he twirled her faster and longer, her laughter speeding his heart. And at his children’s urging, he was not allowed not to kiss her.

  Had the sun ever seemed so bright, the air so heavy?

  As Jacob brought his face toward Rachel’s, the honey scent of her called him closer. Her breathing slowed. His heart quickened.

  For sanity’s sake, he could not touch his lips to hers … neither could he resist a nip of a kiss against the shell of her ear peeking from her kapp.

  Silk. Flowers.

  Rachel’s breath caught and she grasped his shoulders as if to keep herself from falling.

  He wanted to touch her with his lips again so badly, his insides clenched with need.

  His hands stayed at her waist.

  They stood forever like that, just looking into each other’s eyes. Hers were big, and round, and dark … like warm maple syrup. And Jacob wondered if he looked as shocked as she.

  Such a tiny kiss, such a large feeling — in his heart, in his mind … in his body.

  He dropped his hands from her waist, as if the warmth of her seared him. And he clenched his fists, whether to hold onto her warmth or to keep himself from touching her again, he wasn’t certain.

  She moved her hands from his shoulders, but could not seem to release his gaze. A need so deep, it was solemn, engulfed him.

  Tiny hands tugged on his trousers, patted his knee.

  Jacob stepped back and swung both children into his arms, closed his eyes, and let out his breath.

  When he looked at Rachel again, the tension between them had eased and he was grateful. “Let’s dry them off.”

  Wet to the skin, the babies got stripped and wrapped, Aaron in Jacob’s shirt, Emma in Rachel’s apron.

  Each with a warm, sleepy child, Jacob and Rachel rested against the trunk of a blossoming cherry tree, letting the insects’ song lull them.

  Jacob cleared his throat. He needed to say this, needed to say it right. He closed his eyes, took a breath. “I talked to Jenny Moyer yesterday, about caring for the twins. She’d be fine, I guess.”

  He beseeched her with his look. “But I want you, Mudpie. My babies want you.” He shook his head. “Maybe I’m not saying this right. We, the three of us, want you to leave your job at the school to care for them.” He shrugged. “Whatever you get paid, I’ll pay you double, ‘cause they’re double trouble, you know.”

  Having Emma and Aaron to raise had been her dream since Jacob returned, and Rachel was almost afraid to believe. She cupped Emma’s head against her shoulder, and closed her eyes. “Lord, but, I want to. I love them so much.”

  Jacob seemed confused by her hesitation. “Simon has wanted me to quit since our marriage,” she explained, “but I couldn’t, because my life would have been so empty without … children in it. If I agree to leave for you—”

  “It wouldn’t be for me. It would be for Aaron and Emma. Simon will understand, and he’ll be glad to have you earning more.”

  Simon should understand, she thought, but with Simon
, who knew?

  “Look at them. When they’re sleeping like this, how can you deny them?”

  “I couldn’t deny them if they ran around the best room covered in mud with piglets at their heels.” Imagining the scene made her giggle.

  “Give them a chance,” Jacob said. “They’ll try it. What do you say, Mudpie. Will you care for my babies?”

  Oh God. Oh God. She’d never wanted anything more … except maybe early in her marriage when she wanted very badly for her husband to like her even a little. She couldn’t say no. She couldn’t bear the thought of Aaron and Emma running to another woman for kisses like they had with her at the schoolhouse. “Of course I’ll give up teaching, Jacob. For these two, I’d give up just about anything.” She reached over and squeezed his hand, and despite herself, tears came to her eyes. “Thank you. Nobody could love them more, besides you.”

  “I know that.” Jacob pressed her knuckles to his cheek for a minute before he released her hand. With the gesture, her tears threatened, but she blinked them back. The night he’d returned, when he’d shown her the first tenderness she’d known in years, she’d lain awake long after, letting her tears fall silently. Tears of joy at his return. Tears of regret for her life.

  But her life was her life and she must make the best of it. She would have his babies. And she had her newspaper. “My newspaper, Jacob! Without the schoolchildren to copy it, how will I print it? I don’t have enough money to buy Atlee’s press yet — oh, that’s a secret, Jacob. Don’t tell. Please.”

  Jacob grimaced. “Simon doesn’t like the newspaper much, does he?”

  Mild words. “Not at all.” She thought for a minute. “Maybe some of my students will still want to earn a few cents. Or, I could make copies when these two nap—”

  “Hah! I hope you don’t expect them to nap at the same time, or for long.” He kissed the top of Aaron’s head. “Or at all, some days.”

  “Last Sunday, I tried to keep them awake so I could play with them,” Rachel confessed sheepishly. “But they fell asleep anyway.”

  “Ya, well, if you want them to stay awake, then that’s different. Better find another way. Just in case. Are you talking about buying that old Gutenberg that Atlee’s great-grandfather brought to America about a hundred years ago? Ruben and I were fascinated by it when we were boys. It needs parts for certain, but it might work. It’s a simple enough machine, and it served our ancestors well.”