That, Bethany thought, was a wonder right there. Usually, Mammi Vera squawked at the boys to hush up during dinner.
During dinner, Bethany saw the look on Galen’s face go from puzzled to amused to wary when he noticed Tobe sit next to Naomi and strike up a conversation. Usually, Naomi was shy as a hummingbird, but she was all lit up as she talked to Tobe, giggly and sparkly. Galen looked at Rose, and lifted his eyebrows, and she did the same back.
Later, after Galen and Naomi had gone home and the boys had been sent to bed, Bethany and Rose put away the last of the dinner dishes and hung the wet dishrag over the faucet to dry. Rose turned and saw Tobe standing by the door, a newspaper tucked under his arm. “I didn’t realize you and Naomi had known each other so well.”
So, Rose had noticed sparks flying too.
“The three of us—me and Beth and Naomi—we played together when we were younger.” Tobe’s mouth lifted in a grin. “Ain’t she turned into something sweet and fine?”
“Naomi?” Bethany had never thought of her friend like that. She’d always been frail, gentle Naomi. But Tobe was right—her gentleness gave her a certain appeal. And tonight, she was positively beaming.
“This inn you’ve started sure has gotten a lot of attention.” Tobe looked up. “Since when have you started calling the farm Eagle Hill?”
“Just a few months ago,” Rose said, “after we started the inn. It got its name because an eagle pair has a nest on the property. I’m sure Sammy and Luke will want to show it to you tomorrow.”
“First thing, they said.” He grinned. “I like the name. And I like the idea of turning the farm into a moneymaker.” He wandered over to the refrigerator, swung open the door, stood staring into it for a moment, then grabbed the milk, opened the container, and took a few swigs while holding the door open. “I read in the papers some news about miracles on the farm. That a lady’s cancer was cured. And someone else’s marriage was saved from divorce court. Is any of it true?”
Bethany saw her stepmother stiffen. Rose discouraged the inn’s reputation as a miracle maker.
“No, not really,” Rose said primly. “It was the same guest, Delia Stoltz. She had surgery for cancer before she arrived, so that was already cured. As for her marriage, well, I do think a miracle saved it. But it wasn’t because of the inn. It was God.” She turned to Bethany. “I think it’s starting to stop—all that nonsense about miracles at the inn. Don’t you, Bethany?”
At the sink, Bethany stilled. How could she answer that without lying about Mrs. Miracle? Fortunately, Tobe didn’t wait for an answer.
“Rose, you’re looking at it all wrong. You can’t buy that kind of publicity for any money. You don’t want it to stop. That publicity will put the Inn at Eagle Hill on the map. People from all over the country will be coming to Stoney Ridge. Eating, shopping. Why, every business in downtown Stoney Ridge should be thanking you.”
Bethany looked at Rose and wondered what she was thinking, why she had such a serious look on her face. His measure of delight in the inn’s reputation seemed to push Rose in the other direction. Bethany had nearly forgotten how Tobe had always added some slight, raw element of strain to the family.
“Seems like this is a golden opportunity,” Tobe continued. “I think we could be taking better advantage of it.”
Rose had been spooning ground coffee into the coffeepot’s filter to ready it for tomorrow’s breakfast, but stopped abruptly at that comment and made an about-face. “You sounded like your father right then. It’s something he might have said.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
She turned back to finish spooning the coffee into the filter. “Tobe, he was always chasing rainbows.” Her voice was gentle, sad, but firm.
Bethany could see Tobe was just about to object when Rose closed the lid of the coffee can and held up a hand. “Son, it’s late, and I need to get up early and start breakfast for the guest in the guest flat. We can talk tomorrow.” At the doorway, she turned. “It’s good you’re home.”
“Wait. Rose, before you go, I want to ask you one more question.”
She leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb.
“From what I’ve read, it seems like everything is going to work out. With Schrock Investments, I mean. I read in the newspaper that donations from the Amish and Mennonites will reimburse the Plain investors. As for the English investors—they’ve filed claims with the SEC, so they’ll be reimbursed from the liquidated assets.”
“That’s all true.”
“So . . . everything is working out. We’ve got a fresh start.”
Was that why Tobe had returned? He assumed that the slate had been wiped clean? Even Bethany, who didn’t know every detail about Schrock Investments’ collapse and sure didn’t want to, even she was stunned at his naïveté, absolutely stunned.
Rose took a few steps toward him and spoke in a clear voice, gentle but firm. “A lot of people have lost money, Tobe. Families are losing their homes. Parents who scrimped and saved to provide for their children’s future are realizing they’re going to have to keep working for years to come—”
“I understand that! I do. And I feel terrible about it, but it’s not my fault.”
Rose shook her head sorrowfully and continued, ignoring his interruption. “It’s not over, Tobe. Not even close.”
Bethany was afraid Tobe might disappear if Rose told him more. This was his home, where he belonged. She forced herself to smile, hoping it looked natural. “Late at night isn’t the time to discuss anything more.”
“Bethany’s right,” Rose said. “There will be time for talk.”
But Tobe wasn’t ready to drop it. “Rose, you always said that God is in the business of fresh starts.”
She hesitated. “And I do believe that. But sometimes the best thing to get off your chest is your chin.”
Naomi glanced at the kitchen clock. Galen was out feeding the horses and would come in from the barn soon, hungry for breakfast. She started a pot of coffee brewing and put away some dishes that were drying in the rack. She set a pan of water on the stove to boil, and as soon as the bubbles formed, she stirred in the oats. You couldn’t rush oatmeal, just like you couldn’t rush a quilt.
Quilting was always on Naomi’s mind. She was either working on a quilt pattern or thinking about one. It took a long time to sew a quilt block, to make tiny stitches that would stay tight and secure for years to come, a lifetime even. When she was faced with a pile of scraps, it could be hard to see how it was all going to come together, how each patch would fit with the others and how the colors and patterns would play against one another. She always started with a pattern in mind, but she never really knew how the block would turn out until it was finished. Now and then she had to go back and swap out a color or rip out a seam. More often than not, everything turned out better than she could have imagined.
When she finished a quilt top and held it up, everything looked so right together, the connections so obvious, the points so precise, that she wondered why she hadn’t been able to see it from the beginning. But when she started on the next quilt she found that she was just as confounded as she was the time before.
Maybe that’s the way it went with life too. Circumstances came into a person’s life that were hard to make sense of, like a bag of quilt scraps, but often things ended up turning into something better than anyone could imagine.
When the oatmeal was the perfect consistency, she took it off the stove to cover it and keep it warm for Galen. The brown sugar jar was empty, so she went into the large pantry to refill it. As she scooped, she heard her brother’s voice in the kitchen and realized someone was with him. Rose Schrock.
“Galen,” she heard Rose say, “I need some advice about Tobe. I’m wrestling with something.”
“Hold on,” Galen said. “I need to fortify myself with a swig of coffee first.”
Naomi froze. Had something happened? She knew quite a bit about the problems of Schrock Investments—she
’d followed news reports with great interest. Anything that involved Tobe Schrock was of great interest to her. She was torn between wanting to know more and thinking the right thing to do was to make her presence known. Still . . . Tobe wasn’t just a neighbor’s son to her, like he was to Galen. This was Tobe. She set down the sugar scoop and carefully closed the door to a crack.
Galen crossed the kitchen and took two coffee cups out of the cupboard. Naomi held her breath. He was just a few feet away from the pantry. She heard him pour the coffee, then add a scoop of sugar to one, just the way Rose liked it. She heard the scrape of two kitchen chairs being pulled out from under the table, then the sound of Rose and Galen sitting at the table, and she let out her breath. Eavesdropping was a terrible thing to do . . . truly terrible . . . and surely revealed an immature character. Now would be the time to come out of the pantry with the sugar jar and no one would think twice about it. Now!
But the moment passed. She couldn’t help herself.
“Okay,” Galen said to Rose. “Now I’m ready.”
Rose sounded pensive. “There’s a fellow named Allen Turner from the Securities Exchange Commission who has been looking for Tobe for months now. He wanted me to let him know if I heard from Tobe.” She was quiet for a long moment. “I can’t stop that inner tussle—should I call him? Or not call him?”
“Why does this SEC lawyer want to talk to Tobe?” he asked.
“He said Tobe adjusted figures at Schrock Investments so that the accounting numbers looked more positive than they really were.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I don’t want to. I want to believe Tobe would never do such a thing. But what if it’s true? What if Dean had known? He didn’t tell me everything. When the bank got involved in Schrock Investments—after checks started bouncing and it was apparent there was no money—Dean was under tremendous pressure. There’s a part of me that wonders if they both had been tempted to do something dishonest.”
“Even a saint is tempted by an open door,” Galen said.
Zing! Naomi cringed. She should definitely reveal her presence and let them know she was eavesdropping.
But then Rose’s voice dropped to a whisper and Naomi strained to hear. Ever so carefully, she leaned closer to the open crack of the door.
“Do you think that I should call Allen Turner and let him know that Tobe has returned? How can a mother do such a thing? Even though I’m not his mother, I am his mother.”
“Rose, if Tobe has nothing to hide, then wouldn’t it be better to be up-front about the fact that he’s returned?”
Good thinking, Galen! Because Naomi was absolutely, positively sure that Tobe had nothing to hide.
“Yes. No.” Rose sighed. “Is everything always so clear to you, so black and white? It seems to me that there are shades of gray worth considering.”
“Whenever I’m struggling with a decision, I find it’s best to whittle it down to the basic principle. In this instance, the principle is: Do you want the truth?”
“Maybe that’s the heart of what I’m struggling with. I still feel such a sense of shame over Schrock Investments. Such a deep shame.” The room was quiet for a long moment before Rose added, “I want to find out if or how those records, the ones the SEC confiscated, were falsified. I want to find out if Tobe has done something illegal. I suppose I want to know if Dean had discovered that Tobe had done something, if that knowledge might have driven him to take his own life and drown himself in the pond that day. But even more important than getting answers to those questions, I want Tobe to straighten out and get back on track. By coming home, he’s made a step in that direction. It’s a start. At least, I hope it is.”
Oh, it is, Rose! Naomi thought. Believe in Tobe! Believe in the best of him.
“So far,” Rose said, “nothing in Tobe’s words makes it seem like he’s moving forward. So, Galen, what should I do?”
“You’re not going to like what I have to say,” Galen said.
“Go ahead.”
“What you really need to do is to tell Tobe about Allen Turner. Then let him make that phone call.”
“Maybe I should just talk to Allen Turner, first.”
“Rose, it doesn’t do to sacrifice for people unless they want you to. It’s just a waste. As painful as it can be, you have to leave people to their own life.”
“I just don’t know if Tobe could do it. It would make sense for him to call Allen Turner, but he’s . . . never been overly blessed with good sense.”
That isn’t right! Tobe just has his own way of thinking.
“Sense is wasted on some people,” Galen said.
Naomi couldn’t argue with that, but she was aware that Galen was hard on people. Maybe too hard. She knew that Galen had never thought highly of Tobe. He had known Tobe since he was a young boy and was convinced he had a lazy streak. Compared to Galen, everybody had a lazy streak. People could change. Tobe could change, if he wanted to. Take Jimmy Fisher. At first, Galen didn’t think much of Jimmy Fisher. He only took him on as an apprentice horse trainer because the deacon asked him to. But after a few months, Jimmy had earned Galen’s respect and now he hardly flinched much when Jimmy called himself a partner.
“It’s time for Tobe to start making his own decisions,” Galen said. “The decisions he makes now will determine the person he’s going to be. He needs to set his own course.”
Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to Naomi that this time—returning home, settling up with his past—was a crossroad for Tobe.
“Rose, you would be robbing that opportunity from him if you overstep now.”
She hesitated. “Well, I thought I should give him a little time to get settled.”
“Time for what?”
“Meanwhile,” Rose said, ignoring Galen’s pointed implication, “I was hoping . . . you might ask Tobe to work for you. You don’t have to pay him. Just let him help you around the farm.”
Naomi practically dropped the lid to the sugar jar. Oh, what a wonderful idea!
“No.” Then, more softly, Galen added, “He doesn’t have the temperament for horses.”
“You said similar things about Jimmy Fisher and look how well he has developed into a horseman.”
“But Jimmy had the love of horses to begin with. Tobe doesn’t love anything.”
“You’re judging him from how he was as a young teenager.”
“There’s another reason. I don’t want him around my sister.”
Naomi straightened like a rod. What did that mean?
“Just because he was flirting with her last night? Is that so bad? Maybe Tobe’s good for her. I’m sure she’d be a wonderful influence on Tobe.”
“What makes you think he’d be any good for Naomi? He’s a fence jumper—”
“Galen, that’s not fair. If you’d only give him some time . . .”
It was a good thing that Naomi was hiding in the pantry because she was thoroughly flustered.
It took a lot to get Galen riled up, but she could tell by the tenor of her brother’s voice that he was annoyed. “And what happens when Tobe finally gets around to calling the SEC lawyer and finds out he’s in a little more trouble than he had expected? Have you even told him about the SEC lawyer?”
Silence.
There was a rattle of a cup and saucer, which seemed like Galen’s version of ending the conversation. “Rose, you’re interfering with that boy’s path to adulthood. Like it or not, he has to face consequences. He runs away from too many responsibilities. Once you start running, you can’t stop.”
A chair clattered. Galen was on his feet, then Rose. Naomi heard their muffled voices as they walked to the door but couldn’t make out what they were saying. She waited until she knew they had left the house before she peeked her head out of the pantry. The coast was clear. She took the brown sugar jar and went to the stove to stir the now stiff and pasty oatmeal, pondering all she learned from overhearing that conversation. No wonder eavesdropping was conside
red to be a sin—it was dangerously delicious. And so very helpful.
9
Tobe fed hay to Silver Queen and her colt as Bethany filled their buckets with water. Caring for the animals had always been his job when he was growing up. She and Tobe had many good conversations while they worked, side by side. She smiled to herself, thinking how wonderful it was to have him here and how easily they settled into their old routines.
“Tobe, I want to know more about Mom. No, I don’t. Yes. I do.”
He straightened up, startled by her question.
“You couldn’t have taken me with you to see her?”
“It never crossed my mind.” He pitched some hay into the stall. “One thing I will tell you, Bethany, she’s not what you’d think.”
“I don’t think anything. I have no idea what she’s like. I hardly remember her.” She gave him a sideways look. “Do you? Remember her, that is.”
Tobe leaned against the stall door. “Probably more than you do. I remember once or twice when she and Mammi Vera had words. Mom seemed to feel poorly, and slept a lot.”
“Tobe, why did she leave?”
He turned and held his hand out to the colt to sniff. “I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Why won’t you tell me the truth?”
He didn’t look at her. “Some things are best left alone. This is one of them.”
“Did you even ask her why she left?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t talk much.”
“Did she ask about me?”
He shook his head.
“I want to see her. I want to meet her for myself.”
He tilted his head, shaking it. “Bethany, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Shootfire! Why not? You got to be with her. How’d you find her, anyway?”
“Jake Hertzler. He knew where she was.”
“But . . . how?”
The Calling Page 11
