Anna's Forgotten Fiancé

by Carrie Lighte

  “How are you feeling, Anna?” Dr. Donovan asked when he entered the exam room.

  “Wunderbaar,” Anna answered in Pennsylvania Dutch. She quickly clarified, for the doctor’s benefit, “I mean, wonderful.”

  Dr. Donovan’s round cheeks grew even rounder when he chuckled. “Even if I hadn’t known what you meant by the word wunderbaar, I could have guessed by the color in your cheeks and the glint in your eye. Wunderbaar is a big improvement from fine, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Anna agreed.

  After questioning her about any ongoing nausea or headaches, he told her to hop onto the examining table, where he looked into her eyes and quickly tested her reflexes before telling her to take a seat in the chair next to Fletcher again.

  “Physically, you’re in great shape,” the doctor reported. “I’m glad to hear the nausea has subsided. The dull headaches you mentioned are probably a sign you’re doing a bit more focused concentrating than you ought to be doing. Have you been heeding my advice not to do too much sewing or reading?”

  “Oh, I haven’t been reading at all,” Anna stated with a wide-eyed innocent look.

  “Aha!” Dr. Donovan pointed his finger in mock accusation, grinning. “You’ll need to cut back on sewing, then. I’d advise that you don’t return to your job at the shop yet, either. Now, how about your memories, have they returned yet?”

  Anna shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “Hmm,” the doctor murmured thoughtfully. “Well, they still might. Although, as I said before, there’s no guarantee. But something tells me the two of you may have gotten reacquainted, perhaps rediscovered some of the qualities in each other that made you fall in love in the first place. Am I right?”

  Anna modestly dipped her head so Fletcher answered for them both, saying, “We’ve enjoyed spending time together recently, jah.”

  “Wunderbaar!” Dr. Donovan exclaimed, smacking his desktop, and Anna and Fletcher both laughed. “Have faith and keep heading forward and things will turn out alright, one way or the other.”

  While Anna was scheduling an appointment to return in four weeks, Fletcher went to retrieve the buggy from the lot. After picking her up, he skillfully maneuvered the horse through the heavy traffic along the main road. Oddly feeling as skittish as he did the first time he formally asked to court her, he didn’t speak until they turned down a side street.

  “If you’re hungry, I’d like to take you to supper,” he said.

  “Denki, that’s a very nice invitation,” Anna replied slowly, as if considering the offer, “but Naomi will grow concerned if we’re not back by six or six thirty.”

  “It’s okay, I cleared it with her first,” Fletcher confessed.

  “Really? You’re so thoughtful!” Anna said, clasping her hands and shuffling her feet. “Is there a special place we’ve frequented?”

  “Neh. We’ve never actually eaten out together, but I think it’s time to do something new to both of us, not just new to you. Don’t you agree?”

  “I’d like that,” Anna said and Fletcher stared into her eyes so long a driver from behind tapped on his horn to indicate the signal light had turned green.

  They chose to dine at a pizza place Anna had heard some Englisch customers rave about in Schrock’s Shop, and the food lived up to the recommendation. Together Anna and Fletcher polished off a medium Hawaiian pizza as well as a pitcher of root beer, which gave Anna hiccups that lasted all the way home.

  “Gut nacht, Fletcher,” she said when he walked her to her door. “I hic—had an absolutely scrumptious time. Hic.”

  By the time he turned in for the night, Fletcher’s jaw ached from grinning but he still couldn’t stop smiling. Their evening out seemed to underscore what Dr. Donovan suggested: Anna and Fletcher needed to move forward, not backward. They needed to have faith and to focus on the future, not on the past. As the doctor said, there was no guarantee Anna’s memory would ever return. If not, she wouldn’t ever be able to tell him what she’d meant when she sent her note the day of her accident. But since nothing about her actions or attitude indicated any special affinity for Aaron, Fletcher decided it was time to put the note behind him for good. He turned off the lamp and floated into sleep.

  * * *

  On Wednesday, Anna woke to the thrumming of rain on the rooftop and the low rumble of distant thunder, which struck her as odd. It seemed early in the season for thunder. The last storm they had was in October, on Fletcher’s birthday. She lay there thinking about how upset she’d been when the cloudburst ruined her carefully planned picnic beneath the willow at the creek. Making a dash for Fletcher’s buggy, she’d tripped on a tree root, stumbling face-first toward the ground. When Fletcher lunged to catch her, he’d dropped the basket he’d been carrying, upending its contents beside her. They both ended up splattered with cake and mud. She wondered how she ever explained her appearance to her family that day.

  Then she sat bolt upright in bed: she had remembered something from the last six months!

  She tucked her hair into her prayer kapp and knelt by her bed. “Dear Lord, denki for restoring my memory. Denki, denki, denki!”

  “Shh,” Melinda groaned. “I can’t take a nap in the middle of the day like you can and I still need to sleep.”

  “But I remembered! I remembered!” Anna said, shaking her cousin’s shoulders. When she elicited no further response, she dressed and hopped down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “I remembered something!” she announced, hugging Naomi, who was standing at the stove scrambling eggs.

  “Gott is gut,” Naomi proclaimed, dropping her wooden spoon to take Anna’s face in her hands. “See? It just took time.”

  “Why are you two crying?” Raymond asked when he entered the room.

  Anna leaped to hug him. “Because Gott is gut!”

  “What’s all the noise? Is there a party going on in here?” Roy asked a few seconds later.

  “Not yet, but there will be tonight, if your mamm allows it,” Anna said. “We’ll invite Fletcher, Aaron, Katie and Tessa for supper and a cake. I’ll buy the ingredients and do all of the work myself, I promise.”

  “Anna, you know what the doctor said about overexertion—”

  “He only warned me about up close activities. Besides, it won’t be any different than preparing a meal for our family—it will just be a bigger meal. If I truly need help, Katie and Tessa will pitch in,” Anna countered. “I had a great sleep last night and I’m obviously getting better or else I wouldn’t have experienced one of my memories returning.”

  Eli rubbed his eyes as he took his seat. “Your memory came back?”

  “Now maybe you’ll remember what happened to Timothy!” Evan added, picking up a fork.

  “It was only a single memory and it wasn’t about your turtle, Evan, but it’s still a cause for celebration.”

  “Jah, okay,” Naomi agreed. “As long as you don’t overdo it.”

  “Denki,” Anna said. “I’ll drop Melinda off, so I can go to the market. She can invite Tessa and Katie when she sees Tessa at work. They’ll probably give her a ride home, too. Raymond, I’ll give you a note to give to Fletcher. But whatever anyone does, you mustn’t let him know I started to remember again—even after he arrives here. I have an idea for how I want to surprise him with the news. So, mum’s the word, right, Eli and Evan?”

  “Right,” said Evan, pretending to seal his lips shut. Then out of one corner of his mouth, he squeaked, “I won’t say a word.”

  “You’d better not,” Eli warned. “Terrible things happen when you spy or share other people’s secrets.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” Anna commented as she searched a drawer for a piece of paper. She and Naomi were concerned about Melinda’s influence on the younger boys, so they’d been trying to teach Eli and Evan the value of discretion, but Anna wondered if they�
�d been too strict on the subject. “I would just appreciate it if we kept this a secret. This way, we’ll all have the pleasure of seeing the surprised look on Fletcher’s face!”

  Dearest Fletcher, she wrote on a piece of paper. Please come to supper tonight at six. You will like what I am making. —Your Anna. Sealing the note with a piece of tape, she instructed Raymond to give it to Fletcher as soon as he got to the work site.

  “And please tell Aaron he’s invited, too,” she added, knowing that when Melinda finally dragged herself from bed, she’d be as pleased about her fiancé joining them for supper as Anna was about hers.

  * * *

  Fletcher began whistling the moment after reading Anna’s message. It wasn’t just that he was happy he’d get to see her again this evening; it was that she used not one but two terms of endearment in her note. Even before her accident, she was careful about what she expressed to him in writing. She said she trusted Raymond not to read her messages, but she wasn’t as certain she always trusted him to remember to deliver the notes and she didn’t want her “sweet nothings” ending up in someone else’s hands by accident.

  He was still whistling when he, Raymond and Roy packed up their tools for the day. Despite the fact that Aaron had left early to go to the lumber store again, they were managing to keep on schedule with their new project. Anna’s daed had trained the boys well. They were hard workers and applied whatever techniques he taught them. Raymond was already nearly as handy of a carpenter as Aaron was, and what he lacked in skill, he made up for in perseverance.

  “It’s rainy, getting dark and there’s a lot of traffic. Roy, you need more practice,” Fletcher instructed, handing the boy the reins.

  Roy gladly accepted the responsibility and soon they were situating Fletcher’s buggy next to Tessa and Katie’s at the Weavers’ house. As Fletcher was hitching the horse to the post, Aaron arrived.

  “Looks like quite a gathering,” Fletcher remarked, pulling a carrot from a sack he kept for the animal. “It should be a pleasant evening.”

  “Jah, provided Anna doesn’t sicken anyone with her cooking tonight.” Aaron laughed. “Although Katie Fisher probably eats the most, so she’s in the greatest danger.”

  Fletcher didn’t know whether Aaron’s remarks were intended to be as derisive as they sounded or if they were only another misguided attempt at humor. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about Anna or her friends like that. Or anyone else, for that matter,” he said. “Some of your remarks aren’t funny. They’re unkind.”

  “If I’m so unkind and unfunny, why did Anna date me for almost three years?” Aaron asked as water dripped off the brim of his hat. Then he answered his own question. “She dated me because she liked me.”

  Surprised but undaunted by his cousin’s bluster, Fletcher lifted his chin and straightened his posture. “And yet, she’s marrying me,” he said defiantly.

  “Only because I chose to walk out with Melinda instead,” Aaron challenged. He patted his horse on the flank before adding, “And whether or not Anna marries you is yet to be seen.” Then he strode toward the house.

  Fletcher removed his hat and looked toward the sky, allowing the rain to cool both his skin and his temper before he joined the others inside. Please, Lord, forgive me my anger. Give me patience and bless our fellowship tonight.

  “Denki, Naomi, for having me over again,” he said after he’d removed his muddy boots and was standing in the kitchen.

  “This is all Anna’s doing,” Naomi explained, “but you’re always wilkom, Fletcher.”

  As Anna glided into the room, he noticed her eyes were luminous and her creamy complexion was tinged with pink. He sensed something about her had changed. Rather, something was very much the same as it used to be. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but the width of her smile was accentuated by the sincerity of her tone when she said, “Hello, Fletcher. I’m very glad to see you again.”

  After they were seated, said grace and filled their plates with creamed chicken, noodles and chow chow, Katie complimented Anna. “This chicken is so yummy. You’ve done something different with the recipe, haven’t you?”

  To Fletcher’s consternation, Aaron butted in, spouting, “Jah, she left all of the poisonous ingredients out this time.”

  Before Fletcher could defend Anna, she was gripped with paroxysms of laughter and then Eli and Evan were, too. Their laughter was so infectious it wasn’t long before Katie and Tessa were clutching their sides, although they had no idea why, so Anna recounted the incident, with the younger boys performing an exaggerated reenactment that included Fletcher’s eyes bulging before he fainted to the floor, gasping for air.

  Whether Anna realized it or not, her ability to turn something that was intended as a barb into a source of amusement was one of her former qualities he deeply appreciated, and Fletcher chuckled in spite of himself. The rest of the meal was also accentuated by spirited conversation and peals of laughter. Afterward, Katie and Tessa cleared the dishes from the table while Anna prepared the dessert.

  “Okay, now, Evan,” she said to her youngest brother, who dimmed the lamp.

  Fletcher didn’t understand why until Anna turned from the counter balancing a large cake aglow with candles. She looks so pretty, he thought. But I wonder whose birthday it is.

  “Happy birthday to you,” Katie started to sing.

  Although he didn’t know who they were singing to, Fletcher joined the others. He was surprised when Anna hovered near his shoulder and everyone sang, “Happy birthday, dear Fletcher, happy birthday to you.”

  “Denki,” he said hesitantly when she placed the cake in front of him. He didn’t want to embarrass her in front of everyone by telling her it wasn’t his birthday.

  “Make a wish and then blow them out,” she instructed merrily.

  As soon as he extinguished the candles, everyone burst into applause. When Naomi turned up the lamp again, he noticed the cake Anna had prepared was his favorite: turtle cake, a gooey, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake that included pecans, chocolate chips and caramel.

  “This is a wunderbaar celebration!” he said, “I haven’t had turtle cake since—”

  “Since I made one for your actual birthday in October and you were carrying it and you tripped. We both ended up wearing it instead of eating it,” Anna said, her eyes gleaming.

  “That’s right. You were so—” Fletcher began to speak but his mouth dropped open midsentence. “Anna! You remembered?”

  She nodded and his heart palpitated. He was torn between feelings of absolute jubilance that Anna might begin to remember their courtship and utter despondency that she might also recall her hesitance to marry him.

  “Stop catching flies,” Aaron ribbed him. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “You remembered?” he asked again, quieter this time, staring into Anna’s eyes.

  “I remembered,” she confirmed. “I still can’t recall anything else from the past six months, but I definitely remember your last birthday.”

  “Are we going to get a piece of cake before his next birthday?” Roy interrupted and the others all laughed.

  While they were devouring their cake, Fletcher’s mind reeled. He could hardly concentrate on the anecdote Anna was sharing about his birthday picnic mishap, which kept everyone in stitches, especially when she got to the part about trying to salvage the cake from the puddle it landed in.

  “I guess that’s why they call it turtle cake,” Evan punned.

  “They’re going to call you a turtle at school tomorrow if you stay up much later,” Naomi said. “Kumme, it’s time for you and Eli to get ready for bed.”

  Since Anna refused Tessa’s and Katie’s help with the remaining dishes, they bid their goodbyes. To Fletcher’s surprise, Aaron gamely offered to walk them to their buggy.

  “I’ll kumme, too, since I have a flashlight,” Melinda chim
ed in and followed them out the door.

  As Fletcher was lacing his boots in the mudroom, Anna brought him the remainder of the turtle cake, which she had secured in waxed paper for him to take home.

  “Denki, I will savor this,” he said, although eating was the last thing on his mind.

  “There’s something else.” She handed him a small package wrapped in bright green cellophane. “What’s a birthday party without a present?”

  He untied the silver bow and pulled out a round jar with a black top. “Honey and oatmeal salve,” he read. “This is something I definitely need.”

  “It’s the kind my daed always used. I noticed your hands are a bit dry, too. Daed often said if the floors he installed cracked as badly as his skin, he’d be out of work,” she quoted. “Here, try it.”

  She unscrewed the lid and dipped her finger into the salve. After applying it to the back of his hand, she began caressing it into his skin in gentle circles. “Doesn’t that feel better?” she asked, reaching for the jar again.

  Agitated by her news and fearful she’d notice his hand shaking, Fletcher pulled away, saying, “Denki, but it’s getting late. I should go.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said, quickly wiping her fingers on her apron.

  The pained, perplexed look that crossed Anna’s face rivaled Fletcher’s aching inner turmoil. In bed that night, he shifted his body from side to side as his mind leaped from one thought to another. How long before Anna recalled what she meant by her note? Should he tell her about it before she remembered, or would that only upset her? And what about him? Could he really bear to know the truth, now that the past was no longer past?

  Chapter Seven

  On Thursday morning, Anna lay in bed, thinking about the previous evening. As euphoric as she was that her memories were starting to return, she simultaneously felt let down by Fletcher’s subdued reaction. In response to her news, she had imagined a scenario in which he would have picked her up, twirled her around and declared there was no better “birthday” gift he could have received than having her memory come back. Instead, he hardly uttered a word about it and he noticeably flinched when she later took his hand in hers to soften it with salve.