He turned back to the bill he was writing.
“We’re staying in the church. We’re not leaving. It’s decided.”
Galen’s hand stilled. Slowly, he turned to stare at her in wonder. She nearly smiled at his stunned look. Nearly.
“It’s true. We just discussed it. Tomorrow we’ll go to the bishop and set the date. Tobe has to be baptized first.” She walked over to him. “I’m so sorry to have kept this from you. Truly, truly sorry.”
Relief and disbelief flooded his face. “I only want what’s best for you.” His eyes softened and his voice grew shaky. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
As he said that, as soon as she heard his voice wobble, tears lodged in her throat. Galen dipped his head. “Rose said . . . she thought I was partly to blame. She said I caused you to feel you had to keep it secret.”
“Maybe a little.” Naomi smiled, wiping away a tear that was rolling down her cheek. “Maybe a lot. But I don’t regret my choice. Getting married the way Tobe and I did—it wasn’t meant to hurt you, Galen. It’s just that . . . it’s just . . .”
When Galen looked up, his eyes were shiny with moisture. “You fell in love.”
He said it so softly she wondered if it was more his thought than his voice she’d heard. Maybe she’d only hoped he would say it. “I fell in love. And love does extraordinary things to people.”
The next morning, Rose stood by the kitchen window and watched Tobe and Naomi walk together from the buggy after returning from the bishop’s home, where they had gone to set a date for a wedding. What a mystery love was: the small figure of this strange strong girl, the tall figure of her own stepson, who seemed even taller since he had fallen in love with Naomi.
They stopped and turned when they saw David Stoltzfus striding up the driveway of Eagle Hill. David dropped by Eagle Hill every other day to check on Molly, he said, though he always accepted the invitation of a cup of coffee in the kitchen with Rose and Vera. On this day, Rose saw Naomi hurry back through the privet and Tobe remain outside with David for a long while.
The two walked together to the porch, then sat on the steps, deep in conversation. Bethany had left the window open to air out the kitchen after burning a pan of granola in the oven. Rose crossed the room to close it and stopped abruptly as she heard Tobe mention the name of Jake Hertzler.
“Why does God allow innocent people to get hurt? My father wasn’t a bad man. He was a good man who was trying to help people with their money. God let him die for it. It’s like God has no sense of fair play.”
Rose held her breath. She wondered how David Stoltzfus might respond to a comment like that. If anyone but Tobe said it, Vera would have called it blasphemous. But David Stoltzfus didn’t seem at all shocked or put off. In fact, he asked a few questions to encourage Tobe to keep talking.
Tobe wondered why a loving God could be so unjust to allow Jake Hertzler to have the freedom he seemed to experience. David Stoltzfus had an answer for that. He said it was God’s plan to test men’s love and goodness for each other. “It’s easy to love God,” David said. “Nobody has any problem in loving our heavenly Father. The problem is to love people who have sinned against us.”
Tobe didn’t respond and Rose backed away from the window. Would this ever go away? she wondered. Jake Hertzler’s hold on her family went on and on. No one seemed to be able to move forward—not Bethany, not Tobe. Maybe . . . herself too. She had tried so hard to not allow vengeance to take hold of her heart.
A little later, when David came into the kitchen and sat at the table for a cup of coffee, Rose couldn’t help but notice how easy it was to talk to him. They had so much in common: their spouses had passed, they were trying to fill the roles of both mother and father to their children. He liked to talk and he was never in a hurry, unlike Galen, who wasn’t much of a talker and was always on to the next thing. At first, she felt a little nervous to see David stroll up the driveway of Eagle Hill; she knew he must be busy with the Bent N’ Dent and settling his family into the farm. But soon she realized he liked people, he liked visiting, talking. It was nice to be around someone who thought the way she thought, felt the way she felt, understood what she was experiencing. She shouldn’t compare David to Galen, but she wondered if she and Galen would ever be able to see eye to eye about children. About Tobe.
During recess one morning, a crowd of children surrounded Jesse Stoltzfus as he sat on the ground and began to unravel one of his socks. Mim sidled a little closer, trying to figure out what he was up to. Whistling through the gap in his front teeth, Jesse wrapped the yarn from his sock around a dried-up old apple. He kept winding and winding, and after a few minutes, he had made a ball.
What was it about boys and balls? If there was snow or a stone or an apple and a sock, there was a ball. And if there was a ball, there was a game. She knew this because of her brothers, Sammy and Luke, who turned any and every thing into a ball. Eggs from the henhouse, pillows from their beds, socks from their sock drawer.
When Jesse had tied a knot to finish off the ball, the children ran to the bases. He looked over at her, standing near the tree where the children carved their initials at the end of each school term, and he waved to her. “Come on and play with us, Mim. Put away your notebook.”
She shook her head. She had absolutely no talent for hitting or catching a ball and had given up, humiliated long ago.
He tossed the ball to Luke so the game could get underway, slipped his bare foot into his shoe, and walked toward her.
She ignored him when he stood in front of her. “I have work to do, and you distract me.”
“The Mrs. Miracle column?”
“Yes.” Mim squinted at Jesse. “And don’t you dare say a word.”
“Not me.” He plopped himself on the ground next to her. “Your secrets are safe with me. Half the time, I don’t even listen.”
That she believed.
“I don’t mean that. Actually, I do. I always mean what I say. I just don’t always mean to say it out loud.”
“Jesse, why don’t you just go play softball with your sock apple ball?”
He didn’t budge. “Why don’t you ever play softball?”
“I can’t hit.”
“You’re going to have to play in the end-of-year game. Eighth graders versus the sixth and seventh graders. Teacher Danny is playing for them to even out the teams. ’Cuz of me, due to my athletic prowess.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t. I really can’t hit.”
“We need every player. We have to win.” He frowned. “Can you catch?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “But sometimes, I can throw a ball and get it pretty close to where it’s supposed to be.”
“You mean, pitch?”
She nodded.
“Risky,” he said. “I like that in a girl.” He looked up at the budding leaves on the tree for a moment. “Miriam, my lovely lass. Have you ever heard of a knuckleball?”
She sensed a trap.
16
Brooke Snyder was naturally nosy and Eagle Hill was turning out to be a place of high drama—always a compelling curiosity to her. Something big had happened the other day but she couldn’t tell what and not knowing was driving her crazy. Midday, a buggy had arrived with two very serious and grim-looking Amish men. An hour or so later, Brooke watched from the guest flat window as the two climbed back into their buggy, laughing and smiling and joshing each other.
But all afternoon, she noticed that the Schrock family looked serious and grim. Even those two little boys seemed to sense something was awry when they came home from school. Normally hooting and howling, they went about their chores on the farm subdued, unnaturally quiet.
Brooke would have liked to question Mim Schrock about what earthshaking news those two Amish men might have delivered, but the girl was studiously avoiding her after she had uncovered Mrs. Miracle’s true identity and revealed it to her. Perhaps . . . she should have waited for the big reveal. She hadn’t
meant to alienate Mim and cut off her information source. She was just so pleased with herself for figuring it out!
And she couldn’t stop dwelling on the unfolding drama in that farmhouse. She figured it must have something to do with the boy who returned from jail and the baby. How fascinating! Better than a reality TV show.
This morning, before a cup of coffee—which should have been a waving red flag to Brooke, but she was never good at noticing red flags—she blurted out a question to Vera Schrock as the older woman delivered a breakfast tray to the guest flat. “So, Mrs. Schrock, what do you think the chances are that the missing mother will show up and reclaim the baby?”
Vera froze, set the tray on the kitchen table with a decided bang, and turned to Brooke with an icy stare. “What I think is . . . ,” she lifted a hand and pointed a finger directly at her, “. . . that you are a girl who needs more on her mind.”
Weather permitting, Jesse organized the eighth graders to stay after school to practice their softball game. On the pitcher’s mound, Jesse worked with Mim to show her how to throw a knuckleball.
“It doesn’t look very hard to hit,” she said. “It looks slow and easy.”
“If it works, batters can’t hit it.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“If it doesn’t, even the pitcher doesn’t know where it’s going.”
That made it sound easier to her. “How does it work?”
“It’s a mystery. A small flip of the fingers and wrist, and the ball is thrown with zero spin.”
He threw the ball. It seemed to go slowly, and Mose Blank, who was in a younger grade but liked to hang around Jesse, cocked the bat and swung. And missed.
The children, especially the boys, howled with laughter.
Then Mim threw the knuckleball, just the way Jesse had taught her. It went slowly, like his did, and it even got close to the batter, but it didn’t have zero spin on it. Mose Blank, who normally struck out, hit the ball over the school fence and into the cornfield next door.
Again, the boys laughed long, unrestrained. From the schoolhouse window, she saw Danny watching. Mim was mortified.
“Well,” Jesse said philosophically, “this might require a little more practice than I had anticipated.”
On the way home from school, Mim leaned over a horse trough at the farm with the huge falling-down barn and examined her face in the still water. Curly hair surrounding a thin little face with a pointed chin. Gray eyes that were hidden by big, clunky glasses.
Out of nowhere, Jesse Stoltzfus was leaning over her shoulder, peering at her face. His lean face was ruddy from the wind. “Pretty terrific looking, I’d say.”
She snapped up and scowled at him. That boy really thought he was somebody. She could only imagine what her grandmother would have to say to a boy who complimented his own image.
“I was talking about you.”
Mim stood perfectly still. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“But you must know that.” Jesse said this as if it was as obvious as the day is from night.
“How would I know? No one ever told me.”
“I’m telling you.”
“Well,” she said, at a loss for words. She felt her face and neck redden at the praise. Mim Schrock hadn’t known a compliment from a boy before. She put her hand up to her face so Jesse wouldn’t see her flush, but his attention had already moved on to the eagles, circling above the creek that ran along the border of Eagle Hill. They weren’t far from the eagles’ aerie.
“Luke says there are three eggs this year.”
“He would know,” Mim said, her voice still shaky from the unexpected compliment.
Jesse’s eyes were glued on the eagles as they walked down the road. “I think one of them just caught a fish. Look what’s in its talons.”
Whenever Mim was nervous, she started to spout off facts. “Did you know that bald eagles can lift about four pounds? And that’s one-third of their weight. They have hollow bones and about eight thousand feathers. And they can swim too, unless the water is extremely cold and they get overcome by hypothermia.” She knew she should stop, but her mouth just kept going and going. “They have excellent eyesight too. They’re at the top of the food chain. The very top.” She paused, exhausted of eagle facts.
Jesse was grinning at her.
She eyed him suspiciously. “You already knew those facts about eagles, didn’t you?”
“Pretty much, but it gave me a chance for a quick nap.” He stroked his chin. “But I think you’re slightly off on the eight thousand feathers. There are only seven thousand . . . give or take a few during molting season.”
So much for showing off her knowledge.
As they reached their driveways, he turned to her. “About the knuckleball, I have no doubt that you’ll come through with waving colors.”
“Flying colors.”
“I only made a mistake to make you feel superior.” He swept his hat off his head and bent over at the waist in an exaggerated bow. “I bid you adieu, my lovely lass.” Then he turned and ran up the driveway.
Lovely lass? She felt a smile pull at her mouth but fought it back. She barely made it home and up the stairs on shaking legs as she hurried to her bedroom. There she found Luke and Sammy staring up guiltily from the bed where they had been reading her diary.
“I thought you stayed after school,” Luke said, flying immediately to the attack.
“We hadn’t gotten to anything really private,” Sammy said, far more frightened. “Not yet.” He handed her the diary like it was a hot potato.
Miriam Schrock, who was considered a lovely lass, a terrific-looking girl, by one of the most intriguing boys in Stoney Ridge (and there were only two), drew herself up to her full height.
“You can explain all that later,” she said. “To Mom and Mammi Vera.”
“Don’t tell Mammi Vera!” Sammy pleaded. “She’ll give us a lecture that will last for a month of Sundays.”
“Mom won’t like what you’ve been up to,” Luke threatened.
Mim’s stomach clenched. In that diary were all the thoughts and questions she had about Mrs. Miracle and Danny Riehl and Jesse Stoltzfus. How far had he read?
When she told her mother what the boys had done, they were grounded for a week. “A person must be allowed to have her private life,” her mother told the two sulking boys. “It’s a terrible thing to invade someone’s privacy.”
“But there was nothing in it!” Sammy said.
Mim’s mother frowned at him. “To say that is making it worse still.”
Mim felt as if she was having trouble breathing. She had no idea how much the boys had read by the time she found them. She wasn’t worried about Sammy. He was very young and didn’t really understand anything at all.
But Luke . . . he was a continual worry to Mim. Luke was nearly thirteen and thought he knew everything.
If he read the part about Mrs. Miracle and figured it out, that meant that two more people now knew her secret identity. Two more people!
It felt like she was falling down a hill. She couldn’t stop and she couldn’t change direction and she was bound to get hurt.
Bethany looked at Tobe thoughtfully across her coffee. She had made the mistake of politely asking him how the new henhouse was going and he assumed she was actually interested in the answer. He explained in meticulous detail the concerns he had about the timing of the new henhouse coinciding with the annual moulting of the chickens. They might get stressed, he said, and that wasn’t good for their health. She was just about to tell him that boring a person to death about chicken feathers could create stress too . . . when suddenly she saw a solution to everything.
Tobe would be the perfect answer.
Later that morning, Bethany gathered Jimmy and Tobe and Naomi to share her idea. A brilliant idea, she thought. “Tobe, you need a job and Jimmy needs a manager for his mother’s egg farm.”
Tobe tilted his head. “I thought Jimmy was the manager.”
“I am,” Jimmy said. “But I hate chickens. Despise them. I want to get back to my horse breeding business now that Lodestar has come home.” He gave Bethany a wink and a nudge. “Thanks to your sister.”
“I don’t mind chickens,” Tobe said, looking a little embarrassed. “In fact, I sorta like them.”
Naomi was almost glowing. “Jimmy, what would your mother think of that arrangement?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Jimmy said, “but it’s worth asking.”
“Naomi should be the one to ask her,” Bethany said. “She adores Naomi.”
Jimmy nodded. “That she does. Still, I can’t imagine she’d be agreeable. You know my mother.”
“What do you mean?” Tobe said. “I don’t know your mother.”
“Well,” Bethany started, “let’s just say that Edith Fisher is considered by all to be a woman whom it might be easy to annoy.”
Tobe’s eyebrows lifted.
The following day, Edith hammered Tobe with questions about poultry when they stopped by her house. He answered every one correctly, then turned the tables and asked her a few questions. “Have you considered speckled Sussex hens? They’re less aggressive than the Old English games you’ve got. The ones you’ve got might be good layers, but they’re mean birds.”
Edith glared at Jimmy.
Jimmy glared back. “How was I supposed to know that? I thought all chickens were mean and evil spirited.”
“Sussex are friendly, curious birds. Fine layers too.” Tobe folded his arms against his chest. “Though if I were going into the market, I’d go for heirloom hens.”
Edith gave him a suspicious look. “What are those?”
“They’re heirloom breeds of hens—Ameraucana and Marans. They lay brown and white eggs. Their yolks have a bright color, a rich flavor. Taste better than commercial eggs.”
“Do tell.” Edith stroked her big cheek. “Like heirloom tomatoes?”
Tobe’s dark eyes took on a hint of amusement. “Yeah, I guess. Except that these hens are bred to produce more eggs and eat less chicken feed.”
Revealing, The (The Inn at Eagle Hill Book #3): A Novel Page 18
