She’d filled more than half of her pail when she heard voices. Company was the last thing she wanted, but there wasn’t a quick exit. Maybe if she held perfectly still, whoever it was wouldn’t see her.
Who would be on their property anyway? The cabins were closed today. This should be her time alone.
Then Wess stepped into the clearing, and Sharon felt her pulse trip. Following close behind him were Victoria, Zoey, and Bandit. The dog was sniffing everything in his path. Both girls were consumed by a fit of giggles.
“Stop!” Zoey screamed as she danced away from her big brother. “No tickling!”
“I’m not tickling. That was a zche-zche bird.”
“Uh-uh.” Victoria declared. “There’s no such thing.”
“What?”
“Mom showed us how to look it up.”
“You’re believing a computer over—” Wess stopped midsentence. He froze in place as he stared into the bushes. “Look at what I found.”
“A zche-zche bird?” Victoria grabbed his hand and attempted to pull him farther along the trail. “Come on. You make that up all the time so you can tickle us.”
“I’m not making this up.” Wess’s grin spread. “Look in those bushes, girls.”
Sharon wanted to disappear. She wanted to sit on the ground underneath the elderberries and hide, but then Bandit noticed her and began to bark. Zoey turned around to see why Bandit was excited, spotted her, and began to hop from foot to foot.
“Sharon! How did you get in there?”
Before she could offer an explanation, they were all crawling under the bushes to join her. She ducked down to speak to the girls and give Bandit a pat on his head, which earned her a sloppy lick on the back of her hand. Sun danced in through the branches, marking a quilted pattern of light and dark on the smooth dirt.
“This is so cool!” Zoey was holding her doll, and she danced it around on the ground.
It was easier for Sharon to sit on the ground than bend over, not that she welcomed the interruption, but she wanted to speak with the girls. They were quite excited with the hidden area and with finding her, throwing their arms around her neck before bounding off.
“We could play here. It’s like a perfect little hidden house.” Victoria’s voice took on a reverent tone. “It’s like the secret garden in the book Mom was reading to us.”
“Probably your mom wouldn’t want you to be so dirty,” Sharon reminded them. Bandit lay on the ground beside her, his head resting on his paws.
Wess was standing straight up, looking out over the top of the elderberry bushes. All she could see of him was his legs. She could, however, hear his voice loud and clear.
“Hey, girls. Want to try some of these berries?”
“Nein. Wess—” Sharon scrambled to her feet, but she was too late. She heard him coughing and sputtering, and then he crumpled to the ground, holding his throat as if he were choking. Bandit jumped on him and began licking his hands, ears, and face.
“Did the zche-zche bird get you?” Victoria asked.
“Maybe you need to hold this.” Zoey tried tucking her doll into his hands, which were still clutching his throat. He smiled at his little sister as he took it from her.
Both girls began a game of running in and out of the branches—from sunlight to shadow, flitting between the two like fall butterflies.
“Don’t eat the berries,” Sharon called after them.
“We won’t,” Victoria promised.
“We ated lunch already,” Zoey assured her with a smile before darting back out onto the path.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Wess stared up at her with accusation and maybe amusement in his eyes.
“What?”
“Not to eat the berries.”
“You didn’t ask.” Sharon sat down beside him, and Bandit crawled into her lap.
Wess was trying to wipe his tongue on his shirtsleeve—a pretty funny sight. She would have offered him water if she had any. As it was, all she could do was watch and try not to laugh.
“Why are you even picking them? They’re terrible. Really awful. You could bottle that stuff and punish kids with it.”
“Elderberries are wunderbaar when you bake them with sugar.”
“I doubt it. My taste buds are permanently scarred.” Wess shook his head, causing his ponytail to jump back and forth across his back.
“Try some of Julia’s pie tomorrow. You’ll feel differently.”
Wess gave her a look that said “I’m willing to wait and see, but I don’t think so.” She recognized it from working with him for an entire week. It seemed as though she’d known him a lot longer. His grin, his eyes, and even his teasing were familiar now.
“Why are the girls out of school early?”
“Parent-teacher conferences. Both of theirs were right after lunch, so here we are, giving my mom some time to focus on her work.”
“Speaking of work, I need to finish what Julia sent me here to do.” Sharon removed the dog from her lap and popped up to resume pulling at the berries and dropping them in the pail.
Wess stood and stretched his arm past her to the darkest berries out of her reach. “I’ll help as long as I don’t have to eat them.”
They had filled the pail to full within five minutes. By the time they both crawled out from under the branches of the bush, the girls were drawing hopscotch squares into the dirt path with a stick.
“We need Bandit with us. He loves hopscotch.” Zoey picked up the dog’s leash and then she took the doll from Wess and shoved it into Sharon’s hands before racing off again.
“Ha!” Wess said. “You have doll duty.”
Sharon rolled her eyes. As if it was a problem to hold the small toy. Jeanette had knitted a blue sweater for the doll that matched Zoey’s, and Zoey had smeared pink, glittery lipstick on the doll’s mouth.
“They never used to do that.” Wess had sat down on a fallen tree and was studying his sisters.
Sharon glanced down the path to her right. She could excuse herself and head back to the house, but something in his voice caused her to turn, walk to the fallen tree, and sit beside him. “Do what?”
“Play and laugh. Before we moved here, I don’t remember them laughing much, and playing was something they did in front of the TV or in their bedroom.”
“You lived in the city?”
“Yeah. Chicago.”
Sharon didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say. She’d never been to anywhere bigger than the outskirts of Indianapolis, but she’d heard about Chicago. She knew it was large with tall buildings, traffic jams, and a subway system.
“My parents took a chance when they moved here, but I’m glad they did.”
“Why was it a chance?”
Wess shrugged. “Jobs, for one thing. Look at my dad. He’s trying to be a farmer, but he doesn’t know how to do that.”
“He was an engineer before, right?”
“Yeah. That was part of the problem.”
Zoey and Victoria threw their place markers, then hopped and skipped—one, two, three, four. Zoey’s marker, a small rock, landed in the dirt with a tiny thud in front of Victoria’s plastic bracelet. She held her arms out to her side and hopped on her right foot. Bandit ran along beside her.
“Does your father enjoy farming?”
“I suppose. Some days, when he hitches things up right. You should hear him holler when he does it wrong.” Wess hung his head between his knees, and Sharon knew he was smiling. “He might not be a good farmer, but he’s better now. He laughs sometimes, and he’s there for my mom and me and the girls. He’s trying.”
Wess looked at her then, right at her, his green eyes searching. “That counts for something. You know?”
“You said he’s better. Was he sick before?”
“Kind of.”
“Country air sometimes helps people. That might sound like a folk remedy, but often we see people whose health improves when they move away from the city. The air is c
leaner and—”
Wess laughed out loud then. “I don’t know if it’s the country air. It might be the country work. In the city he couldn’t sleep. He’d pace the house like a caged tiger. Now, some nights, he’s snoring in his chair before Victoria and Zoey are in bed.”
The girls tired of their hopscotch game and ran back to their brother’s side.
“You promised to take us to the bridge, Wess.” Victoria jiggled the plastic bracelet back onto her arm, shaking her head and causing her red ponytail to swing back and forth. Sharon could read the bracelet now. It said “Race 4 a Cure.”
“What about your game?” he asked.
“We’re done, and we want to walk across the bridge. You promised.” Victoria grabbed his hand and pulled with all her might.
“And my baby wants to see it.” Zoey claimed the doll from Sharon’s lap. “I already told her we would. Victoria, you hold Bandit’s leash. I’m tired.”
“Uh-uh. Wess, you hold it.”
Wess stood, took the leash, and reached for Sharon’s hand. “Go with us?”
When she hesitated, he added, “It’s on your way. Besides, it’ll make the girls happy.”
He’d figured her out already. Victoria and Zoey were a weakness. She liked their laughter. They were easy to please, and Zoey reminded her of Ruthie.
“All right.” She accepted his hand and allowed him to pull her from where she’d sat on the fallen tree.
With a squeal of delight, the girls took off running down the path in the direction of the bridge.
“Don’t run too far ahead,” Wess called out. He released her hand and picked up the pail of berries.
They walked a minute before she returned to the conversation about his parents. “Does your dad miss being an engineer?”
“I don’t think so. It…well, it was kind of the problem. Or maybe he was the problem. I’m not really sure. All I know is he was never home, and when he was he was on the phone. He worked for a big firm that was never satisfied, no matter how many hours he put in.”
Sharon thought of her parents and of how badly she had treated them. Though they might not understand her, there was no question they had been there for her every single day. Her dad had been at the supper table every night.
“I think maybe he started taking something to deal with the pressure. I don’t know what for sure. I tried googling it—maybe oxycotin or hydrocodone. They’re the most common stuff adults abuse.”
Sharon remained silent. She had no idea what she should say.
“I had a kid at school try to sell me both of those once.”
“Drugs? Here?” Her voice squeaked, and both girls turned around to look at them before facing forward again, putting their heads together and whispering.
“No, that was back in Chicago. Here the kids only seem to have beer and pot. Or maybe I’ve just made it clear I’m not interested, so they don’t offer.”
Sharon thought about that as their feet crunched leaves and the fall sunshine fell on her shoulders. Englisch schools were different than Amish schools, but some things were the same everywhere. She thought of James buying beer illegally and how all her friends had been angry at her for telling the clerk and her parents, who told his parents.
Some pressures were the same no matter where you were. No matter who you were.
“How has your mom liked the move?”
“I think…” Wess switched the bucket of berries to the hand that held Bandit’s leash and ran his free hand over the top of his head and down his ponytail. “I think she was afraid it wouldn’t last. Afraid to believe things were better. But now she seems good with it. She can do her work anywhere.”
“So Chicago was a bad place to live?”
“Well, there were more pizza places there.” Wess whistled sharply as the girls reached the bridge. They both stopped and then sat down on the bottom step to wait for him. “I don’t know if I’d say Chicago was bad, but this is a whole lot better. At least it is for our family.”
Zoey and Victoria were picking some pebbles up from the ground. As Sharon and Wess came closer, both girls stood up and stuffed the pebbles into their pockets.
“What about for you?” she asked. “Is it better for you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you stay after you graduate?”
Wess shrugged, and then he tilted his head and smiled at her. “We’re kind of too young to know where we want to be or what we want to do, don’t you think? I sure haven’t figured it out.”
He handed the pail back to her, wound Bandit’s leash up on his wrist, and then took both of his sisters’ hands as they walked up onto the bridge. Sharon wanted to walk away, to walk to the house, which she could now see from where she stood.
But she heard Zoey and Victoria talking about the fish and the water and the view.
She thought of Wess admitting he didn’t know yet.
There were a lot of things she didn’t know. It was nice to be with someone who could admit to not having all the answers. Someone who was okay with that.
Wess made her feel almost normal.
So instead of turning toward the house, she walked up on the bridge and joined the Elliott kids, who were throwing tiny rocks down into Pebble Creek.
Chapter 26
Julia was pleased. By the end of the café’s third week, they had found a nice rhythm. Sharon handled the morning guests easily. Wess arrived in time to help with the lunch rush. Two days a week, he took off at three to help with his sisters. One day a week, Julia insisted that Sharon take off at three and find something else to do besides work.
Ada continued to improve—at least cognitively. She no longer stared blankly ahead as if lost in another time. The Psalms she chose to quote were more appropriate, and she even laughed occasionally. The added stimulus of so many people perked her up, like Julia’s garden after a nice soaking spring rain. Her mother still walked slowly, with her hand holding the cane, and those hands were often still curled in discomfort from the arthritis. Overall, though, Julia worried less that her mother would immediately follow her father and leave her alone.
Though there was no danger of her being by herself anymore. Not since her mother’s decree. Not since she had married Caleb and her life had expanded in more ways than she could have ever imagined. As she placed two loaves of bread into the oven, she glanced over at Ada, sitting in her rocker and watching the birds outside the window on the feeder.
The café was quiet. Two in the afternoon was their slowest time. Sharon was dusting windowsills, and Wess was assembling take-out boxes in the mudroom. Caleb was in the barn, patching worn spots in the roof before the winter snows began. His boss had asked him to work one Saturday a month. They had agreed that on those weeks he would take Friday off instead. This was the week he switched days.
Julia walked across the room and squatted down in front of her mother’s chair. “Mamm?”
“Ya?” Ada shifted her gaze from the birds to Julia.
“Danki.”
Ada reached forward to cup her daughter’s face in a trembling hand. “For what, dear?”
“Everything. For making all this possible. For seeing what I couldn’t see.”
She expected one of the Psalms, perhaps the hundred and eighteenth. Instead, her mother leaned forward, kissed her on the forehead, and said, “Gem gschehne.” Then she patted her hand and went back to watching the scene outside the window.
Julia stood, straightened her apron, and returned to the kitchen. After checking on her bread, she decided she had enough time to walk down the lane to pick up their mail. The errand usually took her ten minutes, there and back, and it helped to clear her head when she’d been in the kitchen cooking all day.
She passed one car of customers, which she knew Sharon could handle. As a young girl, she would run down to the mailbox, open it, and pop her hand inside, but one day that had earned her a sting from a wasp’s nest that had set up shop in the back of the box.
Now s
he always looked first, though she knew there would be no wasps or bees this time of year.
She found two letters. Both letters bore postmarks from Monroe, Indiana. One was to Sharon from her mother, and the other was to Julia from Caleb’s mother. She had replied to Betsy’s first letter the day after their wedding and had received a reply the next Friday. Apparently Betsy wrote her letters on Wednesdays.
Julia had never received much mail before, and she found she liked it. As she read Betsy’s letters, she felt as though she were visiting Indiana and sitting in the home Caleb had grown up in. Maybe one day they could visit, but until then the letters were a nice substitute.
There was still only the one car of customers, and Sharon had already served them.
Julia probably had another ten minutes or so before the late afternoon group started trickling in. She walked through the house and handed Sharon’s letter to her. The girl simply stuffed it into her apron pocket.
“Would you like to read it?”
“Nein. Tonight is soon enough.”
“I think I’ll step out on the back porch, then. Call me if you need me.” Julia took a glass of water and a gingersnap cookie with her. She sat in the old rocker, the rocker she could remember sitting in with her father, and slit the letter open.
Dearest Julia,
I am happy to hear the café is doing so well. I can picture the bridge crossing your small creek. It’s a lovely thing to think of your place connected to Aaron’s. I wish you could have known Caleb and Aaron when they were growing up. They were always finding something to do outside with birds or snakes or fish. Caleb was much older, of course. Aaron was like a baby bruder and often tagged along. Ask Caleb to tell you about the scar on his right hand, and what Aaron had to do with it.
Julia glanced out toward the barn where Caleb was working. She knew the scar Betsy was talking about. It was between Caleb’s forefinger and thumb and looked like a puncture wound.
I know it might seem too early to speak of such things, but we are praying that if it’s Gotte’s wille, you and Caleb will have a full and complete family. There is no joy like that of carrying an infant, of holding it in your arms, and of one day knowing he or she has married the person Gotte intended them to wed. We also pray that Sharon is doing well. It’s gut to hear she likes working in the café.
A Wedding for Julia Page 19
