by Jo Ann Brown
Mamm stared down into her cup. “While we’re waiting, we’ll pray.”
Reuben smiled and patted Mamm’s arm. “Putting Titus in God’s hands is the best place for him.”
“And Jacob, too,” Esther said softly around the tears welling in her throat.
“And Jacob, too,” repeated the bishop. “We’ll need God’s guidance in helping him as he faces the days to come.”
Chapter Seven
Nathaniel ignored the chilly rain coursing down the kitchen windows as he tapped his pencil against the table. In front of him were columns of numbers he’d written. No matter how he added them, his expenses almost matched his income. The money from the rents on the fields was supposed to tide him over until he could bring in his own harvest next fall.
He wasn’t going to have enough. He didn’t want to start selling fields to keep from losing everything. If he sold more than one or two, he wouldn’t have enough land to keep the farm going.
He could look for someone to loan him enough to get through the winter, spring and summer. Someone in Paradise Springs. He wouldn’t ask his parents. They had money put away, but he knew they’d pinched pennies for years hoping his daed could retire from the factory in a few years.
There was another reason he couldn’t ask his family for help. An unopened envelope sat on the table beside his account book. He didn’t need to read it, because he knew his mamm was pleading with him again to return to Indiana where doktors would be able to help him if “the scourge” returned. He’d told her so many times that he hadn’t needed to see an oncologist in six years. She refused to listen to the facts, still too shaken by what he’d gone through to believe the battle against his cancer had been won.
He pushed back his chair, something he was able to do now that he and Jacob had moved more of them into the barn. Leaning on the chair’s two rear legs, he raked his fingers through his hair. There must be some way to keep the farm going until the fields produced enough that he didn’t have to keep buying feed for the animals.
His grossmammi had bought the alpacas. Her mind had not been as muddled at the end of her life as his grossdawdi’s apparently had been. She’d intended the herd to be more than pets.
Hadn’t she?
Looking across the kitchen, he stood. He paused when he heard footsteps upstairs. He was still getting accustomed to having someone else in the house, but he was glad Jacob was settling in well. Today would be the last school day he was skipping. On Monday, Nathaniel would have him there before Esther rang the bell.
Esther...everything led to her. When he’d held her close as the stair splintered, any thought of Esther the Pester disappeared as he savored the warmth of the woman she’d become. If she hadn’t pulled away then—and again at her house—he wasn’t sure if he could have resisted the temptation to kiss her. Just once. To see what it would be like. He should be grateful she’d stepped away, because when he was honest with himself, he doubted a single kiss would have been enough.
He couldn’t kiss her when he couldn’t offer to marry her. Assuming she’d be willing to be his wife, he couldn’t ask her. He’d first have to tell her the truth about his inability to give her kinder, and he didn’t want to see pity in her expressive eyes.
Hochmut. Pride was what it was, and he wasn’t ready to admit he wasn’t the man he’d hoped to be: a man with dreams—no, expectations—of a home filled with kinder.
You could tell her the truth. His conscience spoke with his grossmammi’s voice. When he was young, she’d been the one to sit and talk to him about why things were right or wrong. Everyone else laid down the rules and expected him to obey them. Because of that, he shouldn’t be surprised her voice was in his head, telling him that he was trying to fool himself.
Nathaniel grumbled under his breath. God had given him this path to walk. Forgive me, Lord. You have blessed me with life, and I’m grateful.
He went into the living room and to the bookcase next to his grossmammi’s quilting frame. Scanning the lower of the two shelves, he smiled as he drew out a thin black book. It was the accounts book his grossmammi had kept until she became ill. When he’d first arrived, he’d scanned its pages and seen something about income from the alpacas in it.
Returning to the kitchen table, he began to flip through it. His eyes narrowed when he noticed a listing for income from the alpacas’ wool. He’d assumed they were sheared in the spring, and the dates of the entries in the account book confirmed that.
How did someone shear an alpaca? He’d seen demonstrations of sheepshearing at fairs, but had never seen anyone shear an alpaca. The beasts were bigger and stronger—and more intelligent—than sheep. Three factors that warned it’d be more difficult to shear them.
Jacob came into the kitchen and went to the refrigerator. He pulled out the jar of church spread and reached for the loaf of bread.
“Hungry already?” Nathaniel asked.
“It’s noon.”
“Really?” Nathaniel glanced at the clock, startled to see the morning had ended while he was poring over his accounts...and thinking of Esther.
Closing the account book, he stuck his mother’s letter in Grossmammi’s book to mark the page with the entry about the alpacas’ wool. He’d deal with writing back to Mamm later, and he’d ask Esther about shearing the alpacas when he and Jacob attended services in her district on Sunday.
“Do you want a sandwich?” asked Jacob as he slathered a generous portion of the sticky, sweet spread on two slices of bread.
Before Nathaniel could reply, a knock came at the kitchen door. Who was out on such a nasty day? Dread sank through him like a boulder in a pool. Was it Reuben or Isaiah with news about Jacob’s onkel?
Please, God, hold Jacob close to You.
His feet felt as if they had drying concrete clinging to them as he went to the door. He couldn’t keep from glancing at the boy. Jacob was moving his knife back and forth on the bread, making patterns in the church spread. The boy tried to look nonchalant, but Nathaniel knew Jacob’s thoughts were identical to his own.
Be with him, Lord. He needs You more than ever right now.
Hoping no sign of his thoughts was visible, Nathaniel opened the door. So sure was he that a messenger with bad news would be there that he could only stare at Esther. Her blue eyes sparkled with amusement, and it was as if the clouds had been swept from the sky. A warmth like bright summer sunshine draped over him, easing the bands around his heart, a tautness that had become so familiar he’d forgotten it was there until it loosened. Suddenly he felt as if he could draw a deep breath for the first time in more years than he wanted to count.
“Hi.” Esther smiled. “We’re here for a sister day.”
“You want to have a sister day here?” Nathaniel’s voice came out in a startled squeak as he looked past Esther, noticing for the first time that she wasn’t alone. Behind her were two other women.
They crowded under the small overhang as they tried to get out of the rain. Each carried cleaning supplies, and he heard rain falling into at least one of the plastic buckets. Looking more closely, he realized one of the other women was Esther’s older sister Ruth. She hadn’t changed much because she’d been pretty much grown when he left Paradise Springs. She was more than a decade older than Esther and very pregnant.
He didn’t recognize the younger blonde who was also several years older than Esther. When the woman smiled and introduced herself as Leah Beiler, he wondered why she was involved in a sister day with Esther and Ruth. He didn’t want to embarrass her by asking.
“It’s a school day,” he managed to blurt out.
“Neva is teaching today. I decided I was needed here more than there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“May we come in?” Esther asked, her smile never wavering. “I’ll explain once we’re out of t
he rain.”
“Of course.” He stepped aside so she and the other two women could enter. Hearing footsteps rushing into the front room, he knew Jacob was making himself and his sandwich scarce. Did the boy think his teacher was there to bring the schoolwork he’d missed?
“Do you remember Ruth?” Esther motioned for her sister to come forward. “She offered to help when she heard what I planned to do.”
“Danki,” he said, not sure why. It seemed the right thing to say.
Ruth, who resembled their mamm more than any of the other Stoltzfus kinder, nodded as she walked through the kitchen into the even more cluttered living room.
“Leah’s already told you her name.” Esther put her arm around the blonde’s shoulders. “I don’t know if you two ever met. The Beilers live on the farm next to ours.” Without a pause, she went on, “We thought you could use a little help getting settled in here, Nathaniel.”
Her sister grumbled, “It’ll take more than a little help.”
Esther ignored her and lowered her voice. “Jacob mentioned when we were at Titus’s house that yours didn’t look much better. I’m glad to see he was exaggerating.”
“Not much.” He put his hands on the backs of two chairs he’d pushed to one side. “My grandparents accumulated lots of things. I don’t remember so many chairs when I came to visit.”
“That, as Jacob reminded me the last time we talked, was a very long time ago. How were you to know what was going on while you were far away?”
Was she accusing him of staying away on purpose? When he saw her gentle smile, he knew he was allowing his own guilt at not returning to Paradise Springs while his grandparents were alive trick him into hearing a rebuke where there wasn’t one. Except from within himself. For so long his parents had insisted he do nothing to jeopardize his health. He’d begun to feel as if he lived in a cage. The chance to try to make his dream come true had thrown a door open for him, and he’d left for Pennsylvania as soon as he could purchase a ticket.
“Where would you like us to start?” Esther’s question yanked him out of his uncomfortable thoughts.
“You really don’t need to do this. The boy and I are doing okay.”
“I know we don’t need to, but we’d like to.”
“Really—”
He was halted when Leah smiled and said, “I’ve known Esther most of her life, and I can tell you that you’re not going to change her mind.”
“True.” He laughed, wondering why he was making such a big deal out of a kindness. “I’ve noticed that about her, too.”
“I’m sure you have.” Leah chuckled before taking off her black bonnet and putting it on a chair. Instead of a kapp, she wore a dark kerchief over her pale hair.
Esther and her sister had work kerchiefs on, as well. He wasn’t surprised when Esther toed off her shoes and stuffed her socks into them. She left them by the door when she picked up her bucket and a mop.
“You need a wife, Nathaniel Zook!” announced Ruth from the living room in her no-nonsense voice. “If you cook as poorly as you keep house, you and the boy will starve.”
“I’m an adequate cook. Jacob is fond of church spread sandwiches.”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “You can’t feed a boy only peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.”
“I know. Sometimes we have apple butter sandwiches, instead.”
When her sister drew in a deep breath to retort, Esther interjected, “He’s teasing you.” She and Leah laughed, but Ruth frowned at them before she began pushing chairs toward the walls so she could sweep the floor.
Esther went to the sink. Sticking the bucket under the faucet, she started to fill it.
“You’ll have to let it run a bit to get hot,” he called over the splash of water in the bucket.
She tilted the bucket to let the water flow out. Holding her fingers under the faucet to gauge the temperature, she gave him a cheeky grin. “You need to have Micah come over and put a solar panel or two on your roof. You’ll have hot water whenever you want it.”
“Are you trying to drum up business for your brother?”
“You know how we Stoltzfuses stick together.” She laughed lightly.
He did know that. It had been one of the things he’d first noticed about the family when he was young. Esther and her brothers might spat with each other, but they were a united front if anyone else confronted them. That they’d included him in their bond had been a precious part of his childhood in Paradise Springs.
Esther shooed him out of the kitchen so she and the others could get to work. He paused long enough to collect the sandwich Jacob must have made for him. Not wanting to leave the boy alone in the house with women determined to chase every speck of dirt from it, he called up the stairs. Jacob came running, and they made a hasty retreat to the barn.
“I hope they leave my things alone,” the boy said when they walked into the barn and out of the rain.
“Don’t worry.” Nathaniel winked. “Your bedroom and mine should pass their inspection without them doing any work.”
Jacob looked dubious, and Nathaniel swallowed his laugh. After he set the boy to work breaking a bale of hay to feed the horses and the mules, he went to get water for the animals. He stood under the barn’s overhang and used the hand pump to fill a pair of buckets.
Hearing feminine laughter through a window opened enough to let air in but not the rain, he easily picked out Esther’s lyrical laugh. He couldn’t help imagining how it would be to hear such a sound coming from the house day after day. Listening to it would certainly make any work in the barn a lighter task.
“Hey, stop pumping!” cried Jacob from the doorway.
Nathaniel looked down to see water running from the bucket under the spout and washing over his work boots. He quickly released the pump’s handle. Pulling the bucket aside, he sloshed more water out.
“Are you okay?” Jacob asked.
“Fine. Just daydreaming.”
“About what?”
“Nothing important,” he replied, knowing it wasn’t a lie because what he’d been imagining wasn’t ever going to come true. He needed to work on the dream he could make a reality—saving the farm from being sold. Otherwise, he’d have no choice but to return to Indiana and a life of working at the RV plant. He couldn’t envision a much worse fate. He’d be stuck inside and never have the chance to bring plants out of nourishing soil.
And he wouldn’t see Esther again.
He tried to pay no attention to the pulse of pain throbbing through him. Picking up the bucket, he walked into the barn. The boy followed, chattering about the alpacas, but Nathaniel didn’t hear a single word other than the ones playing through his head. You’ve got to make this farm a success.
* * *
Esther wasn’t surprised that the attic with its sharply slanting roof was filled with more chairs. What about them had fascinated Nathaniel’s grandparents so much?
She wasn’t sitting on one. Instead, she perched on a small stool so she could go through the boxes stacked beside her. Ruth and Leah had gone home an hour ago after leaving the house’s two main floors sparkling and clean. Esther had remained behind, because she’d suspected the attic would be overflowing with forgotten things.
She’d found two baseball bats and a well-used glove that needed to be oiled because the leather was cracking. Jacob might put the items to gut use. In addition, she’d set a nice propane light to one side for Nathaniel to take downstairs, because it was too heavy for her to carry. If he put it by the small table in the living room, Jacob would have light to do one of the puzzles she’d stacked by the top of the attic stairs. As the weather grew colder and the days shorter, the boy would be confined more and more to the house.
Opening the next box, she peered into it with the help of a small flashlight. She wanted
to make sure, before she plunged her hands into it that no spiders had taken up residence inside.
“Finding anything interesting?”
Esther glanced over her shoulder and smiled when she saw Nathaniel on the stairs. His hair was drying unevenly, strands springing out in every direction. He looked as rumpled and dusty as she felt, but she had to admit that looked gut on him. And she liked looking.
The thought startled her. Nathaniel was a handsome man, as he’d been a gut-looking boy. But she wanted his friendship now. Nothing more. She didn’t want to make another mistake with her heart. It hadn’t seemed wrong at the time when she discovered that Alvin Lee had loved racing. She’d been seeking an adventure. Exactly as Nathaniel was with his all-or-nothing attitude toward the farm.
She never again wanted the insecurity of wondering if the next dare to race a buggy or have a drink would lead to more trouble than she could get out of. Or of suspecting Alvin Lee might not be honest about being in love with her, despite his glib comments about how she was the one and only girl for him. Or of realizing, almost too late, how much her sense of her self-worth was in jeopardy.
No, she must not be foolish and risk her heart again.
She and Nathaniel must remain just friends.
Right?
She tightened her clasped fingers until she heard her knuckles creak. Why did she have to keep convincing herself?
Making sure she had an innocuous smile in place, she raised her eyes to meet Nathaniel’s. “I’ve found a couple of useful things. I’m not sure I’d describe them as interesting.”
“Useful is gut.” He stepped into the attic but had to bend so he didn’t bump his head on the low ceiling. Glancing around, he said, “I’ve been meaning to come up here to sort things out since I moved back, but somehow the day flies past and I haven’t gotten around to it.”
“Where’s Jacob?”
“In the barn. He’s hoping to coax an alpaca to come to him. He’s determined. I’ll give him that.”
“He’s patient. One of these days, he’ll succeed.”
