The Calling

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  The question hung in the air as they all grew quiet again, eyes on Edith. There was something more, a final part of the secret.

  “I knew your mother as a girl,” Edith said. “We were childhood friends. I introduced her to your father.” There was a tremor of sadness in her voice. She looked down at her hands, then lifted her head and looked straight at Bethany. “Mary’s mother had the sickness too. She knew what her future looked like.”

  Bethany grasped the top of a chair. She felt a blow, as real as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. And that was when it hit her. It was genetic. Her mother’s sickness was hereditary.

  “So that’s why you don’t want Jimmy to court Bethany,” Naomi said in a quiet voice.

  Edith spoke right to Bethany. “Die Dochder aart der Mudder noh.” The daughter takes after the mother.

  “Edith! That’s an awful, awful thing to say,” Sylvia scolded.

  “It’s the truth,” Edith huffed.

  Sylvia crossed the room and reached for Bethany’s hands, covering them with her own hands, wrinkled and speckled with brown spots. “We kept this secret because we didn’t want you to grow up with such a burden hanging over your head. Not you or your brother Tobe.” She squeezed Bethany’s hands and held them close to her heart. “Just remember one thing, Bethany. Your mother loved you. Don’t you see? She loved you and your brother and your daddy enough to give you up.”

  Bethany had to get out of that house, that stuffy room, away from the looks of pity on the sisters’ faces, relieved Naomi didn’t follow her. She spotted Jimmy in the cornfield and skirted quickly around the chicken hatchery to reach the road, hoping he hadn’t seen her. She desperately needed to be alone.

  As soon as she reached the shady tree-lined road, she slowed. She gulped in air and tried to find words to pray, but she couldn’t find them. Her thoughts were on her mother as a young woman—about how she must have walked down this very road when she was Bethany’s age—when she felt her heart start to race and she had trouble taking a full breath of air. Her stomach cramped. A tingling sensation ran down her arms to the ends of her fingers. She stopped on the side of the road and sat on the grass under a tree, hoping it would pass. What was happening to her?

  After a few long moments, her heart stopped racing, she could breathe again, and she was left with a wave of exhaustion. A sort of oppression settled over her—weighing her down, stealing her energy. This wasn’t the first time she felt like something might be wrong with her. Each time, it felt different. A few days ago, her hands couldn’t stop trembling. Another time she woke in the night in a cold sweat, convinced she was suffocating. She hadn’t slept more than two hours at a stretch in the last week. Was she too young to have a heart attack? Her father had heart trouble.

  Or . . . was she going crazy? Like her mother? It wasn’t the first time she had thought such a thing. After meeting her mother last week, the worry had been lurking at the back of her mind. All summer long, she had been turning into all moodiness and distraction. She tried not to think she was losing her mind, but that was like trying not to think about a cricket that was chirping. The more you don’t think about it, the louder it gets.

  Schizophrenia could be inherited. Hadn’t Edith Fisher just admitted as much?

  She had to go talk to Jimmy Fisher.

  “You’re breaking up with me?” Jimmy’s mouth opened wide and his eyes quit twinkling. “And we haven’t even started courting yet?”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought since we talked, Jimmy,” Bethany said, trying to sound clear and strong and brave. No wavering. “It’s for the best. It’s good that nothing’s gotten started yet. It’ll be easier. We were friends before and this way we’ll remain friends.” It hurt too much to look in his eyes so she didn’t.

  He grabbed her shoulders and made her face him. “What have I done wrong?”

  Tell him. Don’t tell him. “Nothing. It’s nothing like that. It’s just . . . I’m just not right for you.” To her horror, tears sprang to her eyes and she bit her lip, trying to make them stop. It had been such a long afternoon and she was dangerously emotional, teetering on a breakdown.

  “Whatever I did, I’m sorry. If you’ll just tell me, I promise I won’t do it again.”

  That pulled her up short. Sympathy was the last thing she expected, or deserved. Tell him. Don’t tell him. She turned her head away and looked at the chicken hatchery in the distance. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  He gave her shoulders a gentle shake. “Then help me to understand. Why are you suddenly going cold on me? Usually, you’re only mad if I’ve done something stupid.”

  His face looked so sad, she wanted to hug him, but of course she didn’t dare. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not.”

  His shoulders slumped. Just as he was about to say something, she stopped him. “Please. I just need to be left alone. Can’t you understand that?”

  He shrugged, but not in a good way, as if he accepted what was coming and was bracing himself for it. “Yeah, sure. Absolutely.” He let her go and took a step back, then his eyes turned to a snapping fire for a second and his mouth broke into one of those reckless smiles that made her feel as if her heartbeat missed a hitch. “Don’t you worry none about me, Bethany,” he said, the words clipped, hard. “I’ll get along just fine.”

  But then she never doubted that and it was hardly to be wondered. Him with his mighty faith, so strong and solid. It was herself she doubted. “I know. I know you will.”

  He gave her a probing look, one she couldn’t read. “Just answer me this . . . what are you so afraid of?”

  She turned her head from his hard gaze and felt burning tears flood into her eyes, causing her to sniff like a baby. He just wouldn’t leave well enough alone and made her look at him square in the face. “Tell me.”

  She hesitated for a moment before giving him the only possible answer. “Of making a terrible mistake.”

  20

  Early Tuesday morning, Mim found some sheets of used, slightly wrinkled wrapping paper and tape in her mom’s desk and sat at the kitchen table to wrap the present. She had never been so excited to give someone a gift before.

  “What have you got there?” Bethany asked as she came into the kitchen with an apronful of gathered eggs.

  Mim spread out the wrapping paper and ran her hand along it, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. “I found a thimble for Ella. She’s always looking for her thimble so I thought I’d get her one.”

  One by one, Bethany put the eggs into a bowl and set them in the refrigerator. She came over to the table and picked up the thimble. “Mim, it’s sterling silver.”

  “I know,” Mim said, pleased. “Look at the band of wild roses around the base. Just like the one Ella keeps looking for. The one her mother gave to her.”

  Bethany held it up to the light. “It’s dated from the 1890s.”

  “I know.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “At Pearl’s Gift Shop on Main Street. I saw it in the shop window and knew I had to get it for Ella. That’s what I was looking at the day . . . when Chase got . . . hurt.”

  “But Mim . . . this must have been expensive.”

  Mim smoothed out a few pieces of tissue paper and tried to figure out how to wrap up such a tiny thimble. If she wrapped it too tightly, Ella’s arthritic, knobby fingers couldn’t open it. “That’s why I wanted you to get my paycheck from the newspaper. I wanted to use my Mrs. Miracle money.”

  Bethany handed her the thimble and sat down in a chair. “You realize that Ella will probably lose this thimble.”

  Carefully, Mim cut out a piece of wrapping paper. “No she won’t.”

  “Oh Mim, don’t you see? Haven’t you noticed how forgetful Ella is? She’s always losing things.”

  “Everybody loses things. Luke can’t keep track of a hat for longer than a week.”

  Bethany blew a puff of air out of her cheeks. “This is a different kind of forgetfulness, Mim.”


  “No, it’s not.” She set the thimble in the center of the square and folded the paper up around it. “Ella lost her thimble and she needs a new one. That’s all. Stop being mean about her.”

  “I’m not being mean. I’m just trying to help prepare you—” She stopped and gave Mim a look that she couldn’t understand—sweetness and sadness, all mixed together. “Hold on. I might have a box you could fit the thimble in. That would make the wrapping go easier.” Before she left the room, she gave Mim a kiss on the top of her prayer covering.

  No girl had ever broken up with Jimmy Fisher before—he’d always been the one to cut ties. Was this how it felt? Was this the pain he had inflicted on so many girls? Most recently, Katie Zook? It felt like he had been sucker punched. Left for buzzard pickings under a hot sun. Like someone tore his heart out of his chest with a dull kitchen knife.

  Jimmy had hooked the team of horses to a cultivator and was working the soil between the rows of corn, taking out most of the weeds, but not all. Some of them were particularly stubborn and had to be hand pulled.

  The horses had done this many times and knew what to do. They walked evenly without stepping on the corn. The rain last week had loosened the soil so the chisel teeth of the cultivator turned the spaces easily: new upturned earth, thick and black against the green stalks of corn. Jimmy kept at it steadily all afternoon, up and down the field, as his mind spun in circles.

  For the umpteenth time, he reviewed everything Bethany had said to him as she crushed his heart. Then how, to his shock, she had walked over and put her head against his chest. She put her arms around him and held him tightly. It was so surprising that he almost lost his balance. He put his arms around her to steady himself. She didn’t raise her head for what seemed like minutes. He could feel her body trembling and could smell her hair—a scent of vanilla. Then she stepped back from him as abruptly as she had come to him, though she caught one of his hands and held it a moment. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

  Bethany’s expression had been so full of pain. Why was that? A flare of hope burned through his mind. Maybe it wasn’t that she had stopped caring about him. Maybe there was something else that was causing her to be so hot and cold with him.

  Naomi. She would know.

  He looked at the sun and the corn in the field and decided he had done a good day’s work. Fair, anyway. If he hurried, he might be able to talk to Naomi while she was making dinner.

  He found Naomi in the kitchen, just like he thought he would, a warm smile on her face. The scent of supper enveloped him, onions and pork and something sweet. She had become, he realized, the sister he never had. “I need some advice.”

  He sat at the kitchen table as Naomi brought him a cup of coffee, and spilled the sad tale of the breakup. He looked for answers in Naomi’s patient gaze.

  Letting his head droop, he heaved a melodramatic sigh and pretended to beat his head against the table. “This is pathetic.” With his head still on the table, he mumbled, “I hate this.”

  Naomi rose and set three places of silverware at the table, working around Jimmy. “I’m sorry.”

  He jerked his head up. “You should be. This is all your fault. You’re the one who thought we were meant for each other. You’re the one who encouraged me to pursue her. I should never have listened to you. Now I can’t get her off my mind.” He peered glumly into the bottom of his coffee cup, annoyed that she wasn’t giving him anything but sympathy. He was sure she knew more. He was putting her in a hard position, he knew that, but he was desperate.

  She set a platter of steaming pork tenderloin, smothered in onions, in the middle of the table. “Bethany has so much on her mind right now. Be patient with her. She just needs some time.”

  Jimmy kept his eyes on the platter of food. He loved pork and onions more than a cat loved sweet milk. “Or maybe she’s just not that interested in me. Not like I thought she was.” He forced himself to stop looking at that steaming pork. “Can’t you do something? Talk to her or something?”

  “No, I can’t. You’re twenty-three years old. You’re acting like a moonsick fifteen-year-old.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I am moonsick. And that girl makes me feel like I’m fifteen.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Pathetic. I’m just a pathetic case.”

  She caught sight of something out the window and said, “Galen’s on his way in. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  Jimmy lifted his head and smiled. “That, I could do.”

  Bethany felt as if she were living underwater. People said things to her but the words were muffled in her mind. She was going through the motions, doing what she must, stupidly and slowly, as if trying to wake from a deep sleep, to shake off a bad dream that refused to end.

  She hadn’t called Rose to tell her about Jake’s attack or about Chase’s death. Or that Lodestar had gone missing. She thought about it, quite a lot, but Naomi’s vision of two shadows stopped her short. She hoped Rusty was right—that Jake was gone for now.

  She didn’t want to give any credence to Jake’s “warnings.” If Tobe knew of them, she was pretty sure he would stop talking to Allen Turner. That was the way it was with Tobe—if he could avoid difficulty, swerve from facing bad things, he’d find a way. And then Jake would win again.

  Whatever Tobe was telling Allen Turner, whatever was taking so long, needed to be said. She had a strange feeling that Tobe’s time in Philadelphia was pivotal, though she didn’t know why or how.

  Late Tuesday evening, she couldn’t sleep. The wind was blowing hard through the treetops, rattling the leaves and branches against the windows. Bethany shivered. It was a warm night, but the wind made it sound cold. She went downstairs to make some chamomile tea and found Geena at the kitchen table, scribbling away at her yellow pad.

  Geena looked up when she saw Bethany. “Do you know anything about résumés?”

  “Not a thing,” Bethany said. She filled the teapot with water and set it on the stovetop. “Would you like some tea?”

  “No thanks.” Geena took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “I’m trying to update my résumé and jazz it up. Give it a little punch. It’s hard, though, to figure out how to word the fact that I’ve been fired from my last job. I have to make it sound like a positive thing.”

  Bethany was half listening, but her gaze fell to her hands. As she waited for the teapot to boil, she was gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing, small handfuls of her nightgown. She made herself stop. “Getting any idea about what to do next?”

  Geena shook her head. “I’ve asked God, but haven’t gotten any word back yet. Not a single word.” She grinned. “But I’ll keep asking till I get my marching orders. ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’” She stretched her arms over her head and rolled her neck from side to side to get out the kinks. “Does your neighbor Galen ever talk much?”

  “He’s not particularly chatty. Why?”

  “He brought the boys over, pointed to the hose, shook his head, and walked away.”

  “By any chance were Sammy and Luke covered in mud?”

  “They were! Head to toe.”

  “That explains the trail of mud up to the bathroom.” The teapot whistled, so Bethany turned off the burner. “I’m sure they’re sorely trying Galen’s patience while Rose is away. Luke, especially. He’s the ringleader for mischief.”

  Geena rose and walked over to the stove. “How are you doing?”

  “Fine.” Bethany got a tea bag out of the cupboard and put it in her mug, then filled it with hot water. She put her hands around the mug.

  “How are you doing, really and truly? You hardly said a word at dinner tonight.”

  Bethany paused for a moment, lifting her eyes to the ceiling and blinking. Her throat had been getting tighter and tighter, as if a hand had wrapped around her neck. She was desperate to talk—she felt she might explode if she didn’t get this out—and Geena might just be the right person. Everyone else was too connected to the problem. She needed someone ne
utral. Geena had an objectivity that no one else did—not Rose, not Jimmy, not Naomi. But she wanted to get through this without losing her composure. She hated tears, they made her feel weak and frightened, and she wanted to be strong. She always wanted to be strong.

  Bethany took a deep breath. “I think . . . I’m going crazy . . . just like my mother.” Out spilled yesterday’s revelation by the sisters, all she knew about her mother as a young woman. The coming of the sickness, her father’s refusal to accept the illness, the near drowning, the Sisters’ Bee intervention. “I’m about the same age—maybe even a little older. I found out my grandmother had the sickness too. I’ve been waking up in the night frightened, scared to death . . . and I don’t know why.”

  She swirled the teabag in the water, watching the dark color seep out of the bag and infuse the water. She would not, would not, would not look at Geena’s eyes. If she saw eyes filled with pity, she thought she might scream. She needed help, not pity.

  “Do these episodes only happen in the night?”

  Bethany’s head snapped up, surprised at the matter-of-fact tone in Geena’s voice after hearing such a sordid tale. “No. Sometimes it happens when I’m just walking down the road. It must be the beginning of schizophrenia.”

  “Any other symptoms?”

  “My heart races so fast it feels like it’s going to explode. I have trouble getting a full breath. My palms get sweaty.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Bethany kept slanting looks at Geena, expecting to see more than mild concern on her face. Didn’t she realize all she was confiding in her? Didn’t she care? But Geena was only considering her with a detached professionalism. This, Bethany realized, must be the ministerly side of Geena. Up until this moment, Bethany had viewed her as first a guest in the inn, then as an interesting woman, then as a friend. “Two weeks. At first it happened every few days. Then last week, every day. I had the worst one of all this afternoon.”