“Hallo, Mary Anne?” he said, loud enough so she could hear him but soft enough that he wouldn’t startle her. When she got to sewing, she was oblivious to anything else.
The sewing machine stopped, and he heard the crackle of the tent fabric as she made her way to the front opening. She unzipped it, poked her head out, and hesitated for a second before stepping out of the tent. Jethro got a brief glimpse inside. A mobile of pink and green Ritz Crackers hung on the ceiling like a bough of cherry blossoms in the spring. Because she only had one tent now instead of two, the sewing machine and the little chair from the spare bedroom were crammed against one side of the tent, and her cot and sleeping bag sat against the other side. If Jethro hadn’t taken down her campsite, she’d still have both tents and plenty of room for sewing. He’d made things harder for her, and a pair of trout weren’t going to make up for all his mistakes.
She wore her black shawl and gloves with no fingers. It was only May 11, and the days and nights were still wonderful chilly. He wished she’d move into the house. She’d be so much warmer. For a moment, Jethro was distracted by a strand of golden hair that had escaped the confines of her kapp and was hovering a breath away from her cheek. He ached to reach out and wrap that silky strand around his finger. She stared at him, and he tried to stuff the urge to touch her hair deep into his chest. He didn’t want her to see the longing in his eyes.
Suddenly his tongue felt as if it weighed ten pounds. “You look so pretty tonight.”
“Okay?” She gave him a pleasant look, as if she was having a conversation with a checker at Walmart. It was gute she didn’t scowl at him, but he was her husband, for goodness sake. Was politeness the best she could do?
Maybe not, but he’d be greedy to wish for more.
“I always thought you were the prettiest girl in the gmayna.”
She acted like she didn’t even hear what he’d said. “Your parents are here. And my cousin Norman. They brought their own bathroom.”
Jethro kicked the dirt at his feet. “They . . . uh . . . they want to support me.”
“Your mater hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s just concerned, and maybe a little protective of her son.”
Mary Anne huffed out a breath, as if surrendering the argument. She looked very unhappy. Jethro resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. “I don’t blame her for hating me, and they’re your woods just as much as they’re mine, but your mamm is here to scold me, and I don’t want to talk to her. Will you tell her?”
He forced a painful smile onto his face. Mary Anne didn’t like his parents being here, but they were going to help Jethro win Mary Anne back. “Of course I’ll tell her. She’s not here to argue. She loves you as much as she loves me.”
Mary Anne nodded, but it was plain she didn’t believe him. “Okay. Denki.”
He wanted to reassure her that Mamm really did love her, but Mary Anne hadn’t said anything he could argue with, so he let it go. Besides, he didn’t want anything to overshadow his gift. He showed her the paper bag and couldn’t help the wide grin that stretched across his face. “I brought you some fish. I thought you might like it for dinner tomorrow night.”
She expelled a long breath. “That’s very kind of you, but I don’t like fish. Save it, and make dinner for yourself.”
He drew his brows together in confusion. “You don’t like fish?”
“Nae. I’ve never liked fish.”
“But . . . but I used to bring fish home at least once a week. You cooked it and ate it with me. I thought you liked it.”
“I did that to make you happy, but I don’t have to pretend to like it anymore.”
Jethro couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But you made up all those new ways to cook it. You cleaned and fileted every fish I ever brought home.”
“I was afraid one of the bones was going to get stuck in my tonsils. And you like to catch fish, but you don’t like to clean them.”
She made their marriage, her life, sound like such a chore. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She hesitated, as if weighing whether she should trust him or not. “It would have been one more reason for you to be disappointed in me.”
Her words sliced him to the bone. Was that what she truly thought of him? “How can you blame this on me? I wouldn’t have brought fish home if I’d known.”
She didn’t even seem upset. “I’m not blaming you. It’s my fault. Everything is my fault. Does that make you feel better?”
Of course it didn’t make him feel better.
Lord, is it I?
What did it matter if he was right and she was wrong? Did he love her or didn’t he? Did he want her to come home or not? How could he fall back into the same pattern of arguing with her when three days ago he’d promised himself he’d never again do anything to hurt her?
Jethro shut his mouth so fast, she probably heard his lips smack together. He was beginning to realize that everything he thought was Mary Anne’s fault was turning out to be his. Maybe she should have told him about the fish, but it disgusted him that he hadn’t known something so important about his own wife. He had started fishing after they lost the baby because fishing took his mind off the pain, and it got him out of the gloomy house where Mary Anne had done nothing but cry.
He’d been a coward.
“I was never disappointed in you, Mary Anne,” he whispered, even though she wouldn’t believe him. He hadn’t given her a reason to believe in him for four long years.
“Okay,” she said, looking past him as if he weren’t even there.
“I talked myself into believing you liked to clean the fish, mostly because I didn’t like to do it, and I really hoped you did. You were willing to do it, but I never even asked if you liked to.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He picked up the edge of her shawl and fingered the tassel at one of the corners. She stiffened like a prairie dog at the sound of a fox. “I was disappointed about the baby but never about you. I loved you, Mary Anne. I still do, more than ever.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Jethro. I saw it in your eyes.”
“I don’t know what you saw, but I’m not lying.”
A stifled and short moan came from Mary Anne’s throat.
“Please don’t cry,” he said. “I hate to see you cry.”
Mary Anne wiped a hint of moisture from her eyes. “I don’t have to do what you say anymore, Jethro Neuenschwander. I’ll cry if I want to . . . and I’m not crying.”
His heart hurt for her, for the pain of lost dreams and the longing of empty arms. “Of course you don’t have to do what I say. You never did.”
“I did if I wanted to keep from disappointing you.”
How could she say that? How could she not know how he cherished her? Even though a thousand protests were on the tip of his tongue, he wasn’t about to argue with her. He’d done enough arguing to last him until Christmas three decades from now, and his words only hurt Mary Anne. He didn’t want to be right anymore. He just wanted his fraa back, and he didn’t know the words to say to make it so. “I love you so much, Mary Anne,” he finally said, because anything else he could think of to say might have further hurt her feelings.
But what did he know? Maybe telling her he loved her brought her pain too.
She sniffed back her tears. “What’s done is done.”
He dared to reach out his hand and wrap his fingers lightly around hers. “It would mean very much to me if you would talk. Would you tell me all the ways I’ve hurt you so I can have a chance to say I’m sorry?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head, but she didn’t pull her hand away.
That was enough encouragement for him. “This first thing I need to apologize for is the fish. I’m sorry you ate fish for four years, and your husband kept bringing it home. You probably hated the sight of my fishing pole.”
She expelled a puff of air from between her lips. “I still do.”
She pulled her hand from his grasp and laced her fingers together. “I don’t care what you do. We don’t live together anymore.”
She kept slapping him across the face with that one. He paused until he could breathe again. “Randall will buy it. He’d probably even be willing to give me what I paid for it.”
She pressed her lips together and blinked twice. “I don’t want you to sell your fishing pole.”
He caught a hint of something in her eyes, a deep emotion that gave him hope, even though he couldn’t name it. “You don’t?”
The emotion disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Don’t sell your fishing pole on my account. You’d resent me for the rest of your life.”
“You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. How could I resent you?”
She snorted her disapproval. “You do nothing but resent me. I see how you look at Mattie Byler at gmay. She already has three children and one on the way.”
Mary Anne had surprised Jethro before, but now he was truly speechless. Mattie Byler? What did he care for Mattie Byler? His mouth fell so far open, he could have caught every mosquito in the woods.
Mary Anne lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice.”
“But you wanted to say it.” He made sure she heard the gentleness in his voice. She had surprised him, but he felt only curiosity and pain for what she had said.
She looked up and took a deep breath. “Jah. I wanted to say it. You don’t have to tell me. I already know what a wicked person I am.”
“Mary Anne, you babysit your cousins’ kinner. You make those striped Jell-O treats for new mothers and shut-ins. You’re always at someone’s sickbed, and you used to do my laundry every week.” He gave her a self-deprecating smile. “Until you told me I was boring, I’d never heard you say a bad word about anyone, even your cousin Norman. If you’re wicked, then most of the fraaen and all of the men in the gmay are wicked too, and there’s no hope for any of us. Hell is going to be very crowded.”
That coaxed a reluctant smile out of her.
“Cum,” he said, tugging playfully on her shawl. “Let’s sit down by the fire pit, and we can talk about Mattie Byler.”
She resisted his pull. “I have to finish my quilt top.”
“Mary Anne, you just accused me of something terrible. I want to understand why.” He tilted his head to the side to study her face at a different angle. “Don’t you think I deserve that much?”
“I shouldn’t have said it. We can leave it at that.”
“You know me well enough to know I could never leave it at that.” He motioned to one of the camp chairs, and she took it, obviously reluctant to say another word about Mattie Byler and how Jethro did or didn’t look at her at gmay. Jethro pulled a chair close to Mary Anne’s and sat. “Will you tell me why you said that about Mattie?”
“You dated Mattie for almost a year. If you’d married her, you would have all the children you could dream of.”
The urge to contradict her felt like bile in his throat, but he clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. Felty would have been proud of him. “But how do I look at her?”
Mary Anne was altogether too serious, as if she’d just revealed her deepest, darkest secret and she feared Jethro was going to rebuke her for it.
He narrowed his eyes to slits and puckered his lips into a pout. “Like this? Do I look at her like this?”
Mary Anne turned her face away to hide a hesitant grin.
“What about this?” Jethro formed his mouth into the shape of an O and widened his eyes until they could have popped out of his head. “Do I look at her like this?”
Mary Anne’s smile escaped, and she cuffed him on the shoulder. “It’s not something to laugh at, Jethro. Every time she gets up to tend to one of her kinner at gmay, your eyes follow her until she leaves the room.”
Jethro let out the breath he’d been holding. Had he made Mary Anne insecure about her worth, about her place in his heart? He had to fix it. He leaned a little closer to Mary Anne, but not close enough to annoy her. “I’m going to tell you a secret that Mattie and I have never told anyone.” He stroked his hand down his short beard. “That might not be true anymore. I don’t wonder but Mattie has told Vernon, but I never told you, out of consideration for Mattie. I hope she won’t be cross that I’m telling you.”
Mary Anne hardened like cement. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“I want you to understand.” Jethro draped his hand over Mary Anne’s armrest. He couldn’t resist trying to get as close to Mary Anne as she’d let him. It helped ease the ache in his chest. “One night, Mattie and I sneaked out to a bar in Shawano. We were both in rumschpringe, but we knew neither of our parents would approve. Mattie had more of an adventurous streak than I did, so she was the one who talked me into going—not that I blame her. I could have stayed home.” Maybe Mary Anne wouldn’t think he was so boring once she heard his story. Unfortunately, she’d also know he wasn’t so righteous either.
“As I remember, Mattie was wonderful mad at her dat for something, and she brought fifty dollars to spend on alcohol. I wasn’t brave enough to have even one drink, but she had seven or eight. I didn’t keep track.”
Tiny lines gathered around Mary Anne’s eyes, and she didn’t seem quite so far away from him anymore. “She got drunk?”
“I finally dragged her out of the bar, but she could barely walk. She took a hard step and rolled her ankle off the curb. She threw up three times in my buggy before I got her home. I’ve never been able to completely get rid of the smell.”
“I guess she was okay.”
“I sneaked into my house before I took her home and got a Diet Coke from my mamm’s hidden stash. We sat in my buggy while she drank the whole thing. I didn’t know how to make kaffee, but I thought she should have something with caffeine. Buck Poulter died from drinking too much alcohol. I didn’t want that to happen to Mattie.”
One side of Mary Anne’s mouth curled upward. “I guess a Diet Coke is better than nothing.”
Jethro chuckled. “Gotte was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t listen. I still don’t know how to make kaffee.” He pulled his hand off her armrest and sat back in his camp chair, just in case she felt he was smothering her. “The next day, Mattie’s ankle swelled up like a waterlogged hen. She could barely walk on it, but she was somehow able to hide it from her parents for a week. She finally asked them to take her to the hospital, but she didn’t tell them how she hurt her ankle. She’d broken it in two places, and her family didn’t want to pay for surgery, so the doctor put her in a cast.”
Mary Anne raised an eyebrow. “What does this have to do with the way you look at her at gmay?”
She smiled when she said it, and Jethro smiled back. He’d been honest with her. She was ready to believe him. “That ankle never healed right. Every time I see her, I feel sort of guilty, like if I had supported her better with my arm, she never would have rolled her ankle. I watch her at gmay to see if the limp is getting better. Keep an eye on her on Sunday, and you’ll see.”
“Sunday is Mother’s Day. I’m not going to church.”
“Ach.” Jethro’s gut clenched. Mary Anne always skipped church on Mother’s Day. “Don’t tell anyone that Mattie got drunk. Even though we were in rumschpringe, I think she’d be embarrassed.”
Maybe the crinkles around her eyes softened just a bit. “Denki for telling me.”
“I dated Mattie for nearly a year, sat with her faithfully every other Sunday, and tried to talk myself into loving her, but then Gotte saw fit to send me to Charm, Ohio, for a funeral. The moment I saw you, I promised myself I’d marry you.”
Her face turned a pretty shade of pink, and she twisted her mouth into a wry grin. “I’ll bet you wish you would have gotten to kn
ow me first.”
“It just got better and better once I knew you, but it was a big scandal here in Bonduel. Mattie’s parents were wonderful mad, and I don’t think they’ve forgiven me yet. Mattie wasn’t nearly as upset as her parents. She sort of had her eye on Vernon Byler anyway. I think she was relieved she didn’t have to break up with me.”
“Mattie is wonderful nice.”
Jethro grinned. “Not as nice as you. I always felt so clumsy when I was around you. You could cook and sew and draw like a real artist. You knew the names of five-dozen cheeses. I knew orange and white.”
“I still can’t believe you moved to Charm so we could date.” She eyed him doubtfully, as if wondering if he regretted that decision.
He rested his elbows on his knees. “I couldn’t stand the thought of being without you. I would have moved to Florida if you’d lived there. Do you remember when we hiked to the waterfall and you kept finding interesting rocks that you wanted to take home and paint?”
“I used them to line my mamm’s flower bed.”
“Jah, but I had to carry them home in my backpack. It was thirty pounds of rocks.”
Mary Anne grinned. “I knew you didn’t mind because you wanted to impress me with your muscles. The rocks were beautiful in my mamm’s garden.”
“You should paint some for our garden,” he said, before changing the subject in hopes she wouldn’t notice what he’d said. “You were always doing something creative. You made beautiful quilts, and there were leaves and bird’s nests all over the house.”
He used to think all that was junk, but now he would have done anything for a pile of painted pinecones spread out on his kitchen table.
Or painted rocks lining his garden path.
After the buplie, Mary Anne had bought some round, smooth stones from a local Englisch farmer. She’d told Jethro she was going to paint rocks and lay them into a path to the barn. Jethro had told her it was silly to buy rocks. What fool paid gute money for something you could dig up on your own property? Besides, painting only reminded her of the baby. Who needed a daily reminder every time she went to milk the cow? She’d taken the rocks back to the farmer and gotten her money back.
Home on Huckleberry Hill Page 16
