Through the Autumn Air

by Kelly Irvin

  A smirk on her face, Beulah swiped a dollop of frosting from Mary Katherine’s cake and stuck it in her mouth. She smacked her lips. “If you think marriage consists only of silliness, you’ve been a widow far too long!”

  This from her own daughter. Another round of giggles rippled through the kitchen.

  “I reckon I’m better off out there than I am in here.” Mary Katherine headed for the door, dodging Beulah’s outstretched fingers. “I’ll deliver the cake myself. I’ll be back. In one minute. In one piece.”

  God willing.

  She strode through the doorway and into the fray. The front room was filled wall to wall with tables covered with white tablecloths and chairs occupied by friends and family—some she hadn’t seen in years. No time to visit now. She edged through, cake platter held high.

  “Mary Kay! Mary Kay!” Dottie’s high voice carried over the dozens of conversations that created a low-pitched, continuous roar. She squeezed through the narrow aisle between tables, her husband, Walt, right behind her. His portly figure struggled with the tight fit much more than Dottie’s skinny frame. “Congratulations, my friend. You did it! You married off number ten. You’re done.”

  “Yep, thanks for inviting us. It’s a joy to watch all your kids get married. You must be relieved to marry off the last one.” Walt laughed and his belly—which reflected his love for his wife’s pecan pie—shook. “And you know they’ll stay married. Not like us Englisch folks with a 50 percent divorce rate.”

  They were the only Englischers invited to those weddings. Their friendship stretched back years to the first time Mary Katherine ventured into the library to do research on covered wagons on the Oregon Trail. Dottie had helped her find sources and quickly. A mother with ten children waiting at home didn’t have time to dally. Dottie approached research like she did everything else—full steam ahead. A friendship had blossomed.

  “Danki. Right now, I’m up to my kapp in food.”

  “Joseph and Barbara look so happy. I always cry at weddings.” Dottie dabbed at her smooth pink cheeks with an embroidered hankie. “They’re a perfect couple.”

  At times Mary Katherine had despaired that any man in his right mind would consider Barbara a good catch. It would take another man like Moses, and those were few and far between. Finally, Joseph had accepted the challenge. Love truly was blind. An occasion to be celebrated to be sure. A strange void bloomed in Mary Katherine’s midsection, like a hole that seemed to grow deeper and darker as the day progressed. Forcing a smile, she shifted the platter to one hand and waved. “I don’t know about perfect, but they’ll do.”

  Dottie wore a flowing, dark-purple broomstick skirt and a white, long-sleeved, Western-style blouse with pearl snap buttons. It matched Walt’s purple Western shirt with its white piping. He wore blue jeans pressed with a seam down the middle and black cowboy boots. Why a librarian and an accountant chose to dress like cowboys remained a mystery to Mary Katherine.

  “I need to talk to you. Bob Sampson put his building on Grant Street up for sale yesterday.” Dottie’s voice rose with uncontained excitement. Her turquoise chandelier earrings shook. “It would be perfect for our bookstore. He’s including the furniture—a bunch of wooden shelves and tables and that wooden counter he had by the front door.”

  Our bookstore. The words had a sweet ring to them—sweet and bitter like life itself. “I told you, I’m not able to commit to another store yet.”

  It had only been a year since Amish Treasures caught fire right before local businessman Lazarus Dudley took over its lease. Jennie and Leo Graber wanted her to help with their newly opened Combination Store. Everyone wanted something from her. Cake held high, she dodged a gaggle of toddlers and zigzagged around two teenagers who stopped to talk in the middle of the aisle.

  Dottie and Walt stuck to her like bubble gum on the sole of her favorite sneaker. “I love the idea of a bookstore, don’t get me wrong, and working with you would be wonderful. It’s just not possible right now.”

  Maybe ever. It had taken years to save the money to join three other families in opening Amish Treasures. Their investment went up in smoke and flame six months later. She didn’t have the funds to share in ownership of the Combination Store, but she could contribute goods for sale there as a start. It was finding the time to sew that was the problem.

  “It would be more than wonderful.” One hand patting the jewel-encrusted comb that held back her shoulder-length silver hair, Dottie took Walt’s hand as if to anchor her to the floor in her euphoria. The two wore matching plain silver wedding bands. “I mean, me with you. I have savings. Tourists and local folks alike will flock to a store with Amish fiction, romances, mysteries, and travel books and cookbooks and cards and such. We’ll earn back our investment in no time. I have a business plan. A good one.”

  They’d said the same thing about Amish Treasures.

  “It’s a good investment.” Walt removed his black cowboy hat, revealing his shiny, perfectly round, bald pate. “I’ve run the numbers several times. The square footage is perfect for a bookstore, and Bill’s asking price is decent. Not a steal, by any means, but fair.”

  A bookstore was more problematic than a craft store. Tourists loved Amish quilts and toys and jams and jellies. They came to Jamesport seeking Amish-made products. People didn’t read as much as they used to. Plain folks didn’t often read the fiction written by Englisch authors about them. It was hard to believe readers found their simple lives that interesting. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Meet us there Saturday afternoon to see the space.” Dottie stopped short of saying “pretty please with sugar on top,” but her thrust-out lower lip and puppy-dog eyes said it for her. “Just look at it, okay? For me?”

  “I have a quilting frolic Saturday. When does Bill need an answer?”

  “He says he has a couple of other offers. He’ll wait one week for us, but then he’ll have to consider them.”

  “It can’t hurt to look at the space, but not Saturday morning.” It couldn’t hurt, could it?

  “You’ll come with us, won’t you, Walt, after your appointments?”

  “Anything for you, sweets.”

  “We’re set, then.” Dottie stretched on tiptoe and gave her husband a big smooch on the cheek, leaving pink lipstick behind. “You can skip out of your quilting frolic by two. We’ll see you at three.”

  “I want some more chicken and stuffing.” Walt swiped at his cheek with an abashed look on his face. “I think the wife needs another plate—she’s gotten so skinny she might blow away. She worries too much about her girlish figure. The more of her I see, the better I like it, personally.”

  “Oh, you.” Dottie blushed as she turned back to Mary Katherine. “We’ll talk to you later. If you need any help cleaning up, let me know. I’ll drag Walt over here.”

  “We have it covered. I’ll talk to you later, though.”

  “Jah, you will, because right now you need to talk to me.” Thomas, who looked so like his mountain of a father, Moses, blocked the doorway. He kept his voice low as he glanced around, but his scowl said he meant business. At thirty-six and the father of six himself, he took his role as head of the house seriously. “Have you started packing yet?”

  “Let’s get another plate.” Still hand in hand, Dottie and Walt melted into the crowd. Dottie knew all about this skirmish, and she also would surmise that Mary Katherine wouldn’t want an audience. She would be right.

  Mary Katherine stepped closer to her son. “Nee.”

  “Mudder,” he grumbled, but at least he didn’t raise his voice. “We’ve talked about this.”

  He talked about it. “Suh.”

  “Don’t get your dander up with me.” Shaking his head so hard his blond beard swayed, Thomas sighed. “You cannot live alone in this house. It’s not right. It’s time you moved into the dawdy haus at my place. The kinner love having their groossmammi around, and you know Joanna likes your company.”

  It would also o
pen up her house for son number two, Dylan, and his wife, Samantha, and their four children, and Samantha’s parents, who lived with them. They needed a bigger place. Besides, Dylan worked the farm. It would save him time and effort to live on the homestead. It all made sense, but her heart simply refused to acquiesce. The empty nest loomed in front of Mary Katherine yet again. Besides, Thomas’s wife, Joanna—she’d never told a soul this—rubbed her the wrong way more often than not. Mary Katherine didn’t want to live with her. She had ten children. Did it have to be Thomas? Not something a mother said aloud.

  She tightened her grip on the cake platter and lowered her head, preparing to bulldoze her way past her son. “I’ve lived in our house my entire adult life.”

  “You lived here with Daed.” Thomas had his father’s deep voice, his blond hair and blue eyes, but his personality was all Mary Katherine’s. Stubborn as the flu. “But that time has passed. You can tell your stories to the kinner like you did us when we were little.”

  His smile said he remembered story time sitting on his daed’s lap in the rocking chair next to the fireplace with the same tenderness she did. It seemed eons ago, but at the same time, only yesterday.

  “We’ll talk about this later.” She edged forward. Thomas’s expression turned stony. His feet were planted, his arms crossed. Mary Katherine stared back at him, refusing to waver. “This isn’t the time or the place. You don’t want to spoil your schweschder’s wedding, do you?”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.” His scowl deepened. Mary Katherine tugged at his arm and tried to squeeze past him. They did a two-step dance through the door and onto the porch. Thomas leaned into her. “Mudder, this conversation isn’t over.”

  She kept moving. Thomas took her arm. She tried to shrug him off. At that moment he must’ve realized how this looked to their guests because his stance shifted and he let go of her. She stumbled forward, gaining momentum fast. The cake flew from her hands.

  “Nee, nee!” She flailed, trying to regain her grip, then fell into the open space. In that split second she caught the look of surprise on Ezekiel Miller’s face. He had one boot on the top porch step, the other in midair.

  His eyes, the color of caramel candy, widened behind black-rimmed glasses. His mouth dropped open. His arms came up. The cake hit him square in the face and slopped down his long, brown beard spun through with silver threads.

  Mary Katherine toppled into his open arms. They teetered on the steps for a split second. White frosting glopped onto the front of his pale-green shirt. The dark chocolate of the cake clung to the frosting. Its silky texture slid across her cheeks. She tasted the sweetness of powdered sugar and butter, then chocolate—until that moment her favorite.

  Together, they tumbled down the steps and landed in the grass. Stunned, Mary Katherine gasped for breath and coughed. Cake spewed from her mouth. Into Ezekiel’s face. His good black hat tumbled back, revealing a bald pate fringed by dark, curly hair with those same silver highlights.

  She lay on top of his sprawling body.

  TWO

  God had a sense of humor, no doubt about it. Ezekiel Miller stared into wide eyes only inches from his face. They held horror and a smidgeon of something else. Laughter. Mary Katherine had a sense of humor. How did a person get through this life without one? Her white kapp tilted to one side, revealing hair more silver than the sandy brown he remembered from childhood. A breeze ruffled it. She smelled of roasted chicken and dill pickles. And chocolate cake. The sun created a halo around her head. That did not make her an angel. Never mind that this was the closest he’d been to a woman in ten years.

  Chuckling, Ezekiel wiped cake mixed with slobber from his cheek. “I usually just get my own piece of cake.”

  Mary Katherine’s thin eyebrows popped up. “Maybe you’d rather have strawberry. Or we have a nice vanilla cake in the kitchen.”

  “I like them all. I have a bit of a sweet tooth.”

  Their gazes held for a second.

  Mary Katherine smiled. Her bottom teeth were slightly crooked, but the smile transformed her face, taking Ezekiel back to when they were mere children, sitting in the classroom. Mary Katherine always smiled when she wrote her English essays. He could never understand that. Who smiled while laboring over a writing assignment in a difficult language? She did have a nice way about her, even if it disappeared when she opened her mouth on the playground and bossed everyone around. Including his future wife, Lucy, whose sweet self never seemed to mind.

  In those days he hadn’t liked being bossed around by a girl. Now, truth be told, he wouldn’t mind a little sass to brighten his evenings.

  Ignoring the pain in his bony behind, he rolled and gently set her to one side in the grass. He picked up her glasses, handed them to her, and then scrambled to his feet. Light-headed, he swayed for a second. That happened a lot lately—a fact he chose to ignore. Simply the product of turning sixty in August. Gritting his teeth, he shook it off.

  Hands reached out to help him. Murmured concerns mixed with snickers from the teenagers in the crush of people who’d raced to help them after their fall. Let them have their fun. Ezekiel held out his hand to Mary Katherine. With great dignity she took it and he pulled her to her feet.

  She stood almost a foot shorter than he did. Her body was round and curvy under her rumpled, frosting-and-leaves-decorated dress. Despite her age—late fifties he reckoned—her fair skin looked soft and smooth with only a few sun lines around those expressive blue eyes that seemed bigger behind her brown-rimmed glasses and laugh lines around full lips. At the moment her cheeks were radish red and decorated with sticky frosting. She stared up at him, those lips pressed together as if suppressing a laugh.

  He swallowed his own laughter. The bishop wouldn’t find their antics funny, unplanned or not. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. I’m not usually so doplisch.” She raised her hands as if to wipe away the cake that clung to him. Her fingers came within inches of his beard, then retreated to her own stained apron. “I was talking with my suh instead of watching where I was going.”

  Arguing with him, if Ezekiel’s ears had heard correctly. As the father of four and grandfather of nine, he recognized the tone even if he didn’t catch the content.

  Ezekiel had had plenty of chances to observe Mary Katherine since those schoolyard days. A person couldn’t help but know everyone’s business in the Gmay, what with the frolics and church services. Every time he saw her, she was on a mission to get something done. It was her nature. She had a penchant for charging about as if the seas would part for her. The church elders didn’t always look kindly on that in a woman. She hadn’t remarried after Moses died. They didn’t like that either.

  Ezekiel understood, if they didn’t. It had been ten years since his Lucy passed, and he hadn’t hankered to remarry. She had been his partner in life. It was that simple and that complete. No other could fill her shoes. Some days, his heart still ached for her in the quiet of dawn and the dusk right before sunset.

  Mary Katherine looked nothing like his petite, dark-haired Lucy. She said little, letting her work speak for her. If he asked for her opinion, she was quick to offer it, but she always deferred to his wishes in the end. God had given this woman in front of him an extra dollop of gumption.

  “Are you all right?” Mary Katherine stared at him, her expression quizzical. “Did you hit your head?”

  “The shirt will wash.” He sucked in air, willing the rushing sound in his ears to subside, and hitched up pants that seemed to hang from his suspenders more than they used to. “The pants too. No harm done.”

  “Mudder, you’re a mess.” Thomas Ropp hastened toward them. He loomed over his mother and glowered at Ezekiel as if he’d been at fault in the mishap. He put his hand on his mother’s arm. “Go to the kitchen. Beulah will clean you up.”

  “I’m not a child,” Mary Katherine whispered, but she ducked her head, looking for a brief second like a penitent little girl. “No harm done.”
>
  “No harm done?” Thomas leaned closer to her, but his hissed whisper carried. “You landed on top of a man on the ground in broad daylight.”

  Mary Katherine lifted her chin. She had a look in her eyes that didn’t bode well for her eldest son. “Aren’t you helping grill the meat? I’m sure you’re needed in the back.”

  She turned to Ezekiel and smiled. “If you want to come to the kitchen, you can wash up there.”

  Cool as ice cream in winter. Her gaze met his head-on. Despite being disheveled, sticky, and covered with frosting, she didn’t hesitate. He’d known Mary Katherine since she was knee high to her daddy’s britches, but he’d never seen her look quite so pretty, all rumpled and covered with cake. He shooed away the thought. You must’ve hit your head, old man. “I think I’d better.” He held up his hands. “Although I’m tempted to make a meal of this cake. It really is tasty.”

  “We can do better than that.” She turned and made a path through the crowd. Bishop Freeman’s wife, Dorothy; Ezekiel’s oldest daughter, Leah; Deacon Cyrus; Solomon, who served as minister to their burgeoning Gmay; and a dozen others lingered, talking among themselves. News of the incident would spread through the entire wedding in a matter of minutes. Mary Katherine surely knew that, but she held her head high. “We have half a dozen cakes in the kitchen, five kinds of cookies, and several pies. They won’t be mixed with grass and dirt.”

  Or beard. “My favorite dinner—dessert.”

  “Me too.”

  Smiling, he followed her through the living room. She really could part the seas.

  In the kitchen she pointed to a tub of soapy water on the counter. “You first.”

  “Mudder, Thomas told me what happened. Are you hurt?” Mary Katherine’s newlywed daughter, Barbara, roared into the kitchen and skidded to a stop, her question delivered in a screech. Behind her, full tilt, came her entourage of sisters, Beulah, Ellen, Mary, and Dinah. “You’re a mess.”