Return to Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Reuben flashed a weak smile. “It would have come in handy with Esther’s dogs.”

  He must have said the wrong thing, because Fern gave up even trying to smile. “Jah, Esther’s dogs,” she said, looking down at her spoon as she prodded it into the rice. “I will see you at gmay then.”

  Gmay? Gmay was over a week away. What was she thinking? He planned on seeing her plenty of times before then, including when he took her home tonight. Sadie need never know how he spent his time when he wasn’t at her house painting something. He rested his hands on the table and leaned across the large pan of rice. “I’m coming back to take you home.”

  She waved her spoon casually in front of her, as if she couldn’t care less what he did. A single grain of rice flew off her spoon and landed on Dorothy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind walking.”

  Dorothy looked horrified at the very thought. “You’re not walking. It’s almost three miles.” The skin on her forehead aligned itself into nice rows as she raised her eyebrows. “I’ll ask Melvin to take you home.”

  “No need,” Reuben said, annoyed that Dorothy was trying to take over when he’d already solved the problem. “I will be back in one hour.”

  Dorothy gave him a significant look. “Maybe you should stay away on purpose. It will give me another chance to talk to Melvin.”

  “I told Fern I would take her home, and I’m taking her home.”

  Fern’s eyes flashed with something akin to anger. “I’ll walk. I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.”

  Reuben scowled. Sadie had put him in an awkward position, which in turn had put him in a bad mood. Couldn’t these girls understand the sacrifices he was making for them? “You’re not a burden, Fern.”

  She shoved her spoon into the rice and folded her arms across her chest. “It’s plain to see I am.”

  “Well, I’m taking you home anyway.”

  Fern seemed to wilt like a poppy in the heat. She sighed and pressed three fingers to her forehead. “Cum, Reuben,” she said. She motioned for him to step to the side, and she came around the table to meet him. “I know,” she said, swallowing hard and studying the ragged shoes on her feet, “I know you feel like you have to watch out for me, but you are getting along so well with Sadie and the others. I’m in the way. I don’t want you to sacrifice what you have here because you feel guilty about me.”

  He wanted to adamantly disagree with her, but considering that was why he wasn’t inviting her to the buggy races, he couldn’t say much at all. Could he have felt any lower? Fern didn’t want him to feel guilty, but he couldn’t feel anything but. Was he doing the right thing? Maybe he should tell Sadie to go without him and stay here and help Fern do dishes. But if he did that, he might never be accepted by Matthew and Sadie and their group. Then he’d be no better off than if he moved back to Sugarcreek. Or Montana.

  The lump in his throat nearly choked him. “I don’t feel guilty. I’ll be back to drive you home.”

  The light in her eyes was completely extinguished. “Lord willing,” she said, as if she didn’t really care whether he’d be back or not, as if she just wanted to shut him up and make him go away.

  Oh, sis yuscht. Girls were so irritating.

  * * *

  It was late. Too late for much hope. The Bonduel roads were deserted. All Reuben could hear was the clip-clopping of Rhubarb’s hooves on the asphalt and his own labored breathing as his frustration increased with every passing second. He jiggled the reins and tried to relax enough to keep a blood vessel from popping in his neck. No matter how big of a hurry he was in, he couldn’t feel good about making Rhubarb go faster. She was plenty tired after running her heart out in two races.

  For the tenth time, he pulled his watch out of his pocket and tried to read the face by the sliver of moon overhead. He shouldn’t have let Sadie talk him into staying for the bonfire, but many of die youngie from the district had been there and Sadie had wanted him to get to know everyone better. It had become obvious as the evening wore on that Sadie had wanted to get to know him better as well. She hadn’t left his side as they’d roasted marshmallows and played volleyball on the cold beach.

  It didn’t matter that Reuben loved volleyball or that Sadie had paid so much attention to him. He hadn’t enjoyed himself one little bit. All he did was watch the sky grow darker and darker and hope that Fern had thousands of dishes to wash.

  Taking Sadie home had given him a chance to spend some private time with her, but it had also taken him half an hour farther away from the Rabers’ house, and the private time had only made him feel worse about everything. Sadie was smart and cheerful and pretty, but she was immature and demanding and had a bit of a mean streak, especially to die youngie she thought were below her—the underlings, like Fern. Plain and simple, Sadie Yoder was a snob. Reuben didn’t find it a very attractive quality. He needed her to get him into her circle of friends, but he squirmed every time Sadie said something disparaging about someone in the district, as if she were the judge of all things good and acceptable.

  How could Fern accuse him of being a snob when he didn’t behave anything like Sadie Yoder? He sucked in a hard breath. He’d let Sadie talk him into excluding Fern because she wasn’t “gute enough” and had gone off with his new friends, leaving Fern to do up the dishes. He hadn’t even bothered to be back like he said he would.

  Now who was the snob?

  Self-reproach clamped around his chest like a vise as he squinted harder to read his watch. Surely Fern was still there, washing dishes and visiting with Dorothy. Surely Johnny Raber had given up hovering over her and gone into the house. Surely Fern would wait for him after he’d assured her that he would return to take her home.

  Rhubarb pulled the two-seater buggy beneath a street lamp, and Reuben took a look at his watch. 10:17. His heart thudded so hard he could feel his pulse clear to his teeth. Lord willing, Fern would still be there. She just had to be there.

  The warehouses loomed like shadowy square mountains up ahead. There wasn’t a flicker of light to be seen anywhere on the property, not around the outbuildings or inside the house. Like as not, they’d all gone to bed. With a low growl, Reuben jumped out of the buggy and tested the warehouse doors just to be sure. They were closed tight.

  Somebody might as well have kicked a hole through his chest.

  He was going to be sick.

  Fern never asked for help, even when she needed it. When she was a young teenager, she had once walked to his house in the snow with bare feet because her sister had needed to borrow her shoes. She had always been so eager to tag along with Reuben and John that she often hid scraped knees or cuts so they wouldn’t make her go home for a Band-Aid. Once when they were climbing trees, she scraped her leg on a branch and Reuben only noticed it when he saw blood dripping down her ankle an hour later. And of course there was the time when she nearly drowned because she didn’t want the boys to know she had gone out too far.

  Reuben felt so ashamed of himself, he almost couldn’t breathe. He’d always watched out for Fern, and he’d abandoned her for Sadie Yoder and the chance at popularity.

  He pressed his palm against the warehouse door and tried to catch his breath.

  But he couldn’t just neglect Sadie Yoder either. They had been getting along so well. Because of Sadie, the others, like Matthew and Aaron, had accepted him. The bishop even seemed to approve of him. He couldn’t just give that all up, could he?

  Besides, it was almost as if Fern hadn’t expected him to be back in time to take her home. She had told him he didn’t need to worry about her. Maybe she didn’t really care.

  That made him feel momentarily better. Fern didn’t really care that he hadn’t been here, and Dorothy would have seen to it that she got home okay. He frowned. Dorothy or Johnny Raber. Fern said she didn’t want to get Johnny’s hopes up, but she might have accepted a ride home from him if she didn’t have another way.

  Panic wrapped itself around Reuben’s throat as
an even worse thought hit him. What if Fern hadn’t let Johnny take her home? What if she had decided to walk?

  She was just deerich and headstrong enough to set out by herself in the dark.

  With racing pulse, he jumped into his buggy and snapped the reins. What if she’d fallen into a ditch or gotten herself tangled in a barbed-wire fence? What if she’d been hit by a car?

  Peering into the darkness ahead of him, he guided Rhubarb along the route Fern would have most likely taken if she had walked back to the Schmuckers. He squinted into every depression along the side of the road and studied every Fern-sized shadow along the way.

  He didn’t see her, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t missed her.

  With his nerves pulled tight as a wire, he pulled up to the Schmuckers’ house. With the exception of a street lamp standing guard a few dozen feet down the road, it was as dark as the Rabers’ place had been. If Fern had made it back safely, she had long since gone to bed. He sat in horrible suspense. Should he assume that Fern had made it home and come back tomorrow?

  He shook his head. He couldn’t assume anything. If Fern was in trouble, he had to help her, even if it meant waking up the whole neighborhood. Why was she so prone to put herself at risk? If she were any other girl, he could have felt sure that she would have found a ride home.

  Reuben secured the reins and stepped down from the buggy. Fern had said something about noise giving Barbara Schmucker a headache. He’d have to risk it. He wouldn’t get a wink of sleep until he knew Fern was safe, and it would go a long way toward assuaging his guilty conscience.

  He’d gone about halfway across their weedy yard when he encountered a clothesline that nearly took his head off. He ducked just in time, and his arm brushed against a damp piece of clothing hanging there.

  Thank the gute Lord for that street lamp. It gave him barely enough light to see by. Crumpling the fabric in his fist, he held it close to his face. If the dark wasn’t playing games with his vision, it was a light blue apron. It was damp, which meant someone had worn it recently. This had to be the one Fern had been wearing at the haystack supper, which meant that she’d made it home safely.

  Reuben was relieved enough to think about maybe thanking Johnny Raber for taking Fern home—if he had taken her home. It was better than imagining she’d walked all the way by herself in the dark—but just barely. Fern was too smart to accidentally fall in love with Johnny Raber out of gratitude, wasn’t she?

  Reuben let out a breath he’d been holding for what seemed like an hour. Fern was okay, and tonight, that was all that mattered—Johnny Raber or no Johnny Raber.

  With a smile playing at his lips, he fished around in his pocket and pulled out a four-inch strand of pink yarn he’d stuffed in there during knitting lessons. He tied it around one of the apron strings. Lord willing, Fern would notice it and know he’d been here. He had meant to drive her home. That had to count for something.

  Everything would be right as rain soon enough. He still felt bad for leaving her to fend for herself, but he’d make it up to her, and he didn’t even need to wonder if Fern would forgive him. She always did.

  Thank the gute Lord for that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  If Fern didn’t have to be so careful with her shoes, she would have given her bike a swift kick and thrown it into the ditch. She’d gotten off the bus after a long Saturday at work and hadn’t ridden her bike ten feet down the road when one of the pedals had fallen off and the tire had exploded and flattened like a pancake. She threw back her head and growled to the sky. Gotte must be trying to tell her something, though what He wanted to communicate was a mystery.

  She tried to set the kickstand, and the bike tumbled to the ground. She didn’t even care anymore. There wasn’t much more damage she could do to the thing. Having last seen her pedal bouncing toward the underbrush along the side of the road, she tiptoed gingerly into the weeds to avoid puncturing her shoe with a sticker or a sharp rock. The escaped pedal sat innocently among a flock of purple wildflowers. She picked it up and tossed it into the basket on the front of the bicycle. Maybe she could convince Reuben to put it back on for her.

  A shard of glass stabbed into her heart. She wasn’t going to ask Reuben to do anything for her ever again. He had his life, and she had hers.

  It was a mistake to think of Reuben at a time like this. She’d been forcing him from her thoughts all day. Tonight, she needed all her energy to walk this rusty old bike home. It was nearing sunset already, and if she didn’t hurry, she’d be forced to walk home in the dark for a second night in a row. She truly regretted buying that three-dollar lock for her bike. Someone would be doing her a favor if they stole it.

  And three dollars bought a lot of French fries at McDonald’s.

  She reached down, grabbed the handlebars, and pulled her bike to standing. The handlebar caught on her dress and ripped a small hole in the hem. She gasped at the sheer injustice of it all. Three dollars wasted on a bike lock when she could have bought a spool of thread and maybe even a needle.

  Her eyes stung with tears. Oy, anyhow, she felt sorry for herself.

  At home, Mamm would never have let Fern wallow in self-pity. Wallowing was for the hogs, she always said. But Mamm wasn’t here, and Fern had two miles to walk before she got home, where nothing waited to greet her but an empty lunch box and two bottles of water. She had two miles to wallow all she wanted to, and no one would be the wiser.

  She quit fighting it and indulged all the tears she’d been saving up.

  The bike squeaked in about seven different places as she pushed it along the side of the deserted road. It sounded as if it were crying with her. The noise was oddly comforting, as if the bike, at least, had an idea of what she must be going through. It had started squeaking again about a week ago, and Reuben hadn’t noticed that it needed oiling. Reuben hadn’t noticed much of anything lately, except for Sadie Yoder and her lovely yellow hair.

  A quiet sob escaped Fern’s lips. She’d never been a loud crier, and she didn’t intend to start now, no matter how violently her heart was breaking.

  Okay then. Reuben would never pry the truth out of her, but she was honest enough to admit it to herself. She loved Reuben Helmuth. She had loved him deep down even when she had pretended not to. Since she had been six years old, she had never stopped loving him, even when he and Linda Sue had practically been engaged.

  To a six-year-old girl who had never gotten much attention from anybody, Reuben was her protector, her guardian angel, and even at that young age, she had loved him for it. She had loved him the first time he took her hand and escorted her around the ice, even though he surely had better things to do than babysit John’s pesky little sister. Part of the reason Fern had tagged after John and his friends so persistently was because she loved nobody better in the whole world than Reuben Helmuth, even though he was four years older and even though she knew she wasn’t good enough for him.

  Reuben had always possessed that rare combination of kindness and confidence that endeared him to everybody. He’d cheerfully put Band-Aids on her skinned knees, taught her how to skate and throw a softball. He’d saved her from drowning and paid for fabric so she could have a new dress for her sister’s wedding. Before they’d come to Bonduel, he had never treated Fern as a bother or a nuisance. Unfortunately, he’d been so considerate and patient that he’d made himself downright irresistible.

  When Reuben had started rumschpringe at age sixteen, Fern had cried herself to sleep, knowing it was only a matter of time before he forgot all about her and fell madly in love with someone—someone who was not a pig farmer’s daughter. Someone who didn’t have red hair and splatters of freckles all over her nose.

  When he had started dating Linda Sue, Fern very nearly talked herself out of loving him. Her friend Katie had told her it wasn’t sensible to pine over an impossible dream, and Fern had made up her mind to quit being foolish. It was a gute thing that Reuben was stuck-up and rich. She found it easier to pret
end to be indifferent when she focused on his flaws.

  She’d done an admirable job of remaining indifferent until he had yelled at the knitting group. How could she not love someone who needed her so desperately?

  She shouldn’t have come to Bonduel. She shouldn’t have let herself have even a glimmer of hope. She shouldn’t have let her emotions overrule her common sense. She had a very full basket of “shouldn’t haves,” but it didn’t change the truth that she loved Reuben Helmuth like crazy, even crazier than Barbara Schmucker was.

  She loved him even though he had never loved her. Even though he hadn’t wanted her to come to Bonduel. Even though he was proud and self-centered and more concerned about pleasing Sadie Yoder than about telling the truth.

  She had a whole plate of “even thoughs.” If only she could eat “should haves” and “even thoughs,” her stomach wouldn’t feel as empty as a dry well.

  So what if Reuben had made his way to the Schmuckers’ house eventually last night? The pink yarn tied to her apron was proof that he’d at least cared enough to stop by, but that didn’t make up for lying about taking her home or saying he’d be back in an hour. She’d been so upset that she’d refused rides from Dorothy, Johnny Raber, and even Anna and Felty. Anna had been beside herself that Reuben wasn’t there to take Fern home, but Fern had pretended that she didn’t care. Anna might have even been convinced.

  But now her shoe had a hole in it and her bike was broken, and she didn’t even have enough money for a candy bar. Her stomach growled just thinking about it. She’d trade her shoes and the bike for a Big Mac right now. She let go of one handlebar and pressed her palm against her belly button. Soon she’d be able to touch her backbone.

  She made the mistake of smoothing her hand down the front of her apron and heard the stiff paper envelope crackle in her pocket. In the midst of her bike and boy troubles, she had almost forgotten about the letter, even though it weighed her down like a bag of stones. She gazed down at her pocket, and a tear dripped off her nose. Gute. She needed to wallow good and hard.