by Ruth Reid
Patty nudged his arm. “Go freshen the washcloth, Thomas.”
He stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. Inside the bathroom, he tossed the washcloth in the basin and let the cold water run over it as he dropped to his knees and bowed his head. “Lord,” was all he could say for several seconds as he fought back the tears. “Please, have mercy. I beg of You, Lord. Watch over Noreen and the boppli. Keep them safe.”
“I have to push. Help me!”
Noreen’s shrill cry pulled Thomas up from the bathroom floor. He whispered, “Amen” as he rushed down the hall. Opening the door, he was caught off guard by seeing Noreen lying on her left side and Patty attempting to shove a pillow under his wife’s hip.
“Grab the other pillow,” Patty said, motioning to him. “We need to get her hips elevated higher than her head.”
He snatched two more pillows and handed them to Patty, then, at his sister-in-law’s instruction, gently lifted Noreen’s legs so Patty could place the pillows. Noreen gasped sharply. The new angle was awkward and looked horribly uncomfortable. But after seeing that more of the cord was now exposed, he realized that the shift in gravity would hopefully help keep the baby inside.
Noreen wept.
“Sadie will be here soon,” Thomas said, dabbing her forehead with the cool cloth. It seemed like hours since Jonathan had dropped them off. He hoped the midwife was home.
“I want this”—Noreen grappled for his hand, tightening her hold as the contraction strengthened—“over.”
“I know you do.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “It won’t be long before you’re holding our boppli. You’re going to make a great mamm. Focus on that.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
October, present day
THOMAS BLINKED A FEW TIMES, HIS EYES SLOW TO ADJUST to the morning light. It took a half second for his mind to register the surroundings even though he and Noreen had been staying at the bishop’s daadihaus over a week. Thomas glanced at Noreen sleeping peacefully beside him. Her cheeks were a pretty pink shade, soft if he were to touch them, and the tiny lines on her forehead from years of working in the garden had vanished in the morning light.
Noreen stirred. Opening her eyes, she smiled. “Guder mariye.”
“Morning.” He rolled up on his elbow. “You look the same as the day we married.”
She yawned. “You’re still sleep deprived.”
“Nay,” he said, pulling her into his embrace. “You’re beautiful.”
Noreen held his gaze, studying him silently.
“I’m serious.” He kissed her forehead. “And I’m truly sorry for nett telling you more often. I’m glad God gave me you.” As he spoke, her eyes glistened. Tilting her face, he leaned in and kissed her. She was his bride. A gift from God to love and to cherish.
They were still in bed when a knock sounded at the door. Thomas pulled on his pants, grabbed the shirt he’d worn the day before, and shoved his arms into the sleeves as he made his way to the door located in the mudroom. He moved aside for Jonathan to enter.
His brother smirked. “Were you still in bed?”
“I haven’t gotten much sleep since the fire.” Poor excuse. The fire had been over a week ago. Thomas combed his hair with his fingers.
“Your plow team was out. I discovered them in mei field this morning.”
“How in the world . . . ?” He was sure he’d stalled the horses and locked the barn after finishing the chores last night. Thomas grabbed his boots, then realized he wasn’t wearing socks.
“The boys put the horses in the pasture with ours. You may have a break in your fence.”
“The fence isn’t the problem,” he mumbled. “I’ll be back in a second. I need to get socks.” He tossed the boots on the floor and returned to the bedroom.
“Who was at the door?” Noreen said, adjusting the pins in her prayer kapp.
“Jonathan.” He swiped his socks off the floor and sat on the bed.
“Everything okay?”
“Jah, the team got out last nacht.” He pushed his foot into the sock. “I have to go.”
“What about breakfast?”
“Maybe later.” He scooted out the door before she could ask more questions. It wasn’t uncommon for livestock to get loose. Once he had to help round up his brother’s cattle that busted the fence and ended up roaming a half mile away. Thomas donned his straw hat and coat at the door.
The air was crisp, the sky cloud-covered and gloomy.
Jonathan motioned to his buggy. “I’ll give you a ride. Jump in.”
“Nay danki. I’m going to be there most of the day cleaning the debris.” Thomas headed to the barn.
The farm was two miles east of the bishop’s place so it didn’t take long to get home. The wagon was still parked next to the pile of ashes, loaded and ready to be taken to the dump. But as Thomas neared the barn, he noticed the lock had been broken. Looters.
Within minutes evidence of intruders marked the building. The walls to the horse stalls were spray-painted red with despicable words he’d never repeat aloud. A pit formed in his stomach. Relax. What’s done is done. Self-talk wasn’t doing much to reduce the tension, especially when the inside of the stalls were smeared with more of the same vandalism. At least the horses were safe at Jonathan’s. Who knows, maybe the intruders had tried to steal them. Thomas took comfort knowing his young team was stubborn and responded to Pennsylvania Dutch.
Thomas closed the stall door and continued his investigation, making his way to the back of the barn where the four newly weened piglets were sharing a stall. The hair on Thomas’s arms stood as a chill spread over him. The usual squealing sounds were absent. He pushed the top portion of the stall door open and gasped. All four piglets were gone. The horses had made their way to Jonathan’s farm, perhaps the piglets were somewhere nearby. Anger infused his veins. The piglets were too young to fend for themselves.
He stormed to the equipment room to get an empty crate. He would need something sturdy to carry the piglets back to the barn. He pushed the door open to the equipment room and froze. Everything was gone. The harness, tools, even the pitchfork. Thomas growled under his breath. He’d paid over three hundred dollars for the harness alone. But those losses paled to what he noticed next. Lying on the floor next to the grain bin sat the tin box—empty. Every dime he’d saved had been stored in the box. Money to rebuild their home—for next year’s crops. He should have remembered to take the box when they moved into the bishop’s daadihaus. Stupid! He should have expected something like this to happen.
Thomas kicked the wall, letting out a grunt. He repeated the action only harder, then kicked the wall again. Several minutes later, he was worn out, shrouded in hopelessness. His foot throbbed. How was he going to tell Noreen that he couldn’t rebuild their house? It’d take years to save that much again.
Noreen peeked out the kitchen window of the daadihaus, but couldn’t see beyond the dim lantern light on the porch. It wasn’t like Thomas to be this late. “Lord, I pray he hasn’t been hurt.” She paced the kitchen. Perhaps in the process of cleaning up the debris, he dropped something on himself. He could have stumbled and fallen on broken glass. She opened the oven and peered in at the pan of golden cornbread muffins. Another minute or two and they’d be done. She paced from the window in the kitchen to the one in the sitting room, which overlooked the bishop’s house. Noreen went back to the stove and removed the muffins. Probably sticky but good enough.
After jotting a quick note should she and Thomas cross paths, Noreen donned her cloak. She grabbed the lantern on the porch and trekked across the yard toward the bishop’s house. Perhaps if they weren’t eating, she could borrow their buggy.
In the distance buggy wheels rumbled over the road in front of Bishop Zook’s house. She waited for the buggy to get closer, holding her breath. “Pull in,” she muttered.
A few moments later, horse hooves clapped the gravel driveway. Noreen blew out a breath.
“Who
a.” Thomas stopped the horse. “Noreen?”
She lifted the lantern higher. “Jah, it’s me. I was getting ready to kumm look for you.”
“Sorry I worried you.”
His voice sounded strained. Maybe he was just tired. It’d been a long day. “I’ll reheat the chili while you’re tending the horse.”
“I hope you made cornbread too?”
“I just took the muffins out a few minutes ago.” Noreen headed to the house, stopping once she was on the porch to glance over her shoulder. Thomas wasn’t talking to Biscuit as he usually did when he removed the harness. Something was wrong.
Inside the house, Noreen fed the stove another slab of wood. Although the embers were still hot, the house was a little drafty and she wanted the chill out of the air. She placed the pot of chili on the stove, then filled the coffee kettle with water. Soon, the chili was sputtering.
Thomas entered the kitchen through the mudroom, soot embedded in his frown lines. He dropped something heavy on the table and plopped down on the chair.
“This will be ready once you wash your hands.” She stirred the pot with a wooden spoon to make sure the chili was heated all the way through.
Thomas pushed off the chair and lumbered to the sink where he sudsed his hands quietly. He’d always been a deep thinker, sometimes he sat for hours without talking, but he hadn’t been this quiet since they moved into the daadihaus.
She didn’t like the silence. In losing their house, their relationship had rekindled and she wasn’t about to let it go back to how it was before. It was lonely living with a man who kept to himself. She opened her mouth to ask how his day went, then decided to wait. Don’t smother him. Give him space.
The kettle whistled.
“I’ll get it.” He came up beside her and grabbed the potholder off the counter.
“Danki.” She dipped the ladle in the pot and filled the bowls as he poured two cups of percolated coffee. It wasn’t until she placed the bowls on the table that she noticed the hammerhead, dark with soot, lying in the center. “Can I move this?” She motioned to the tool.
“You can throw it away for all I care.”
Noreen picked up the weighty piece. Instantly she understood his moodiness. This was his father’s hammer. The one he’d used to build their original house. “Did you find it in the rubble?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“We lost everything, Noreen.”
A sadness she couldn’t quite explain washed over his dirt-smudged face. She cleared her throat. “Nett each other.”
He bowed his head. If he prayed, it was briefly. Before she took her place at the table, he was eating.
She broke the silence. “Were you able to get a lot done?”
“Three loads to the dump.” He took a sip of coffee.
Noreen lifted the spoon to her mouth and blew gently on the chili. “I thought I’d help tomorrow.” She took a bite.
“Nay, I can manage.”
“But there’s no sense doing it by yourself. The men won’t be available to help until the harvest—”
“I said I can manage.”
Noreen placed her spoon in the bowl and scooted her chair back. “I forgot the muffins.” She brought the plate of cornbread muffins over to the table, but her appetite was gone. The few bites of chili that she’d eaten hadn’t set well in her stomach.
After a few minutes of silence, he motioned with his spoon to her bowl. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
She shook her head. “I’m nett feeling so well.”
“Been sick all day?”
“Nay, it just kumm on me.” Noreen appreciated his attempt to start a conversation, even stilted as it was. Even though Thomas rarely talked about his deceased father, he treasured his father’s hammer. Finding it in the ruins would have triggered memories of his childhood.
Noreen took a sip of water, but even that didn’t alleviate her queasy stomach. Had the room not started to spin, or her forehead not moistened, she would have blamed the sudden flu-like symptoms on the chili.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Present Day
JONATHAN’S FACE PALED, STARING AT THE GRAFFITI. “DID you report this to the police?”
“They were here earlier taking pictures and dusting for prints.” Thomas tightened his jaw to the point of it hurting. “Apparently, the police responded to another call earlier where pigs’ blood was used to vandalize a building.”
“Do they think the crimes are connected?”
“After I told them about the missing piglets, they do.” Thomas had searched the area thoroughly for the pigs but to no avail. Once the police shared about the other vandalism case, it made sense why he wasn’t able to find his livestock.
Jonathan shook his head. “Disgusting, isn’t it?”
“Jah.” Thomas moved a piece of straw with the toe of his boot.
“I have a gallon of white paint. It probably won’t be enough to cover it, but you’re welcome to it.”
“Danki.” Unable to look at the hideous crime scene any longer, Thomas turned away. Now that the police had completed their inspection, he could scrub the walls. At least when the robberies had taken place in the past, no one had lost any livestock. For a while it seemed their community was being targeted. Every other Sunday, while they were all gathered for the church meeting, the burglars were helping themselves to whatever they could find. Mostly cash tucked away in sock drawers. Thomas left a few dollars in the sock drawer, but had placed the bulk of the cash in the tin box, thinking the money was safely tucked within the pages of the letters inside the envelopes.
Thomas grabbed a bucket and headed out to the pump.
Jonathan followed. “We’ll load your equipment and tools and take it and the livestock to mei place.”
“I doubt they’ll be back. They’ve taken everything of value. The plow team’s harness, tools; they dumped the grain barrel over.”
“Still, you should move the livestock to mei place just to be safe.”
“Jah, I agree.” Thomas placed the bucket under the pump spigot.
“At least they didn’t steal your team or your horse and buggy,” his brother said. “And they didn’t take your water bucket.”
“Oh, that’s a blessing for sure.” His brother was doing his best to lighten the situation, and maybe if the thieves hadn’t found the tin box, Thomas would have appreciated Jonathan’s attempt more. But his savings was gone. He didn’t feel much like celebrating a bucket being left or singing God’s praises for that matter.
“What else is troubling you?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Thomas hesitated a half second, then cranked the pump. Admitting he’d been stupid enough to leave the tin box in the barn wasn’t easy.
“Stuff can be replaced,” Jonathan said.
“Nett soon enough,” he muttered under his breath. He released the pump handle and picked up the bucket of water. Once the walls were washed, he’d work on cleaning up the ash pile. That is, if his brother kept an extra shovel in his buggy. The bandits had taken even that.
“Are you worried about the harness for the team? I have an extra one. I have all the tools needed for building too.”
“Danki.” Thomas opened the barn door. He added detergent to the bucket, mixing it with his hand to make it sudsy. He was silent several minutes, then, unable to hold it in any longer, he said, “They took mei savings. Money I had planned to build the haus with.”
“You had it in the barn?”
“Nett smart, I know.” He had moved it from the washhouse to the tack room. Thomas carried the bucket into the first stall. “I haven’t told Noreen about any of this. The vandalism, the missing pigs . . . the money for the haus. She doesn’t know.”
Jonathan sighed. “You have to tell her.”
Thomas sloshed the wall with soapy water and began to scrub. He and Noreen had just started to reconnect. What if not being able to build the house put another wedge between them?
“Where did all this stuff kumm from?” Thomas could hardly see over the stacked boxes in the sitting room of the bishop’s daadihaus.
Noreen poked her head around the kitchen wall, her hands sudsy with dishwater. “They’re donations.”
Thomas flipped open one box, scanned the various kitchenware contents, then closed the flap. He made his way to the kitchen where more boxes cluttered every surface of counter space as well as the table. “Wow, more stuff.”
“Isn’t it amazing? We’ve been so blessed.”
“Indeed.” He pushed a wooden crate of pots and pans to the end of the table and sat down.
“We won’t need anything for our new home,” she said, her voice ringing with excitement. “Maybe a few things like linens and towels.”
She rattled on though his focus drifted. A week had passed since the barn was vandalized and every day a little more of his stomach lining had eaten away having not shared the news with his wife.
“I take that back,” she said, rinsing a washed plate. “I remember seeing towels in one of the crates in the sitting room.” She pivoted to face him, her eyes big. “Did you want kaffi? I’ve been so busy telling you about everything we received that I forgot to ask.”
He smiled, enjoying the vibrancy in her eyes. Her cheeks held a rosy glow he hadn’t seen in a long time. He wasn’t about to hamper her mood with bad news. Not today.
Noreen’s nose scrunched. “What are you looking at?”
“You.” He stood.
“Should I put the kettle on?”
“Nay.” He took her into his arms. “I have to tell you something.”
Noreen pulled back, her forehead creased. “You look serious.”
“And you look beautiful.” He smiled, which seem to put her at ease again.
She leaned her head against his chest. “Is it bad to say that I’m happy here?”
“Why would you ask that? I want you to be happy.”
