Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to drag it out of you?”

  “He said he was looking for me. He wanted to help me.”

  “Good for him, he’s a nice person.” Laura’s needle paused, poised in midair. Her bushy, gray eyebrows arched. “Oh. Oh!”

  “Exactly.” Jennie plunged her needle into the cotton fabric with more force than necessary. “He said he was looking for me to help me.”

  “The man is nice, but he’s lost his mind.” Laura wrinkled her nose. “He’s Mennischt.”

  Laura didn’t have to elaborate. They both knew what that meant. He drove a car, used electricity, and his family traveled around the world planting new churches. He’d told her all about them at supper one night. The Mennonites came from the same roots, but their leader, Menno Simons, and others who disagreed about the severity of Meidung, had broken off from the Anabaptists to start their own church. Now there were all sorts of Mennonites with different rules and ways of living, just as there were Amish. The more modern ones were like Nathan. They wore more English-like clothes, met in church buildings, had Bible studies, and evangelized around the world. A person could hardly tell they once came from the same stock as the Amish. “I’ve never heard him talk about his faith, but he certainly blends in with our crowd. Everyone likes him.”

  Laura went back to her sewing, but her forehead remained creased with wrinkles. “Do you . . . like Nathan?”

  “What kind of question is that? I’m mad at Gott, but I would never leave my faith—”

  “I knew it.” Laura stabbed her swollen index finger at Jennie, her needle dangling by its thread. “Finally, after all this time, you admit it. You’re mad at Gott.”

  Let her think Jennie was mad at God for taking Atlee. Not the other thing. For giving her such a husband to start with. At least they weren’t talking about Nathan anymore. “Aren’t you?”

  “After Eli died, all I wanted was for Gott to take me too. Freeman said it was his time, and I know that to be true.” Laura paused, her eyes bright with sudden tears. Even after four years the memory of finding her husband dead in bed on Christmas Eve still caused her pain. A happy marriage did that to a person. “My days continue, but there were many nights when I lay down and I prayed I wouldn’t get up in the morning. It’s not up to me. Gott’s plan is His plan. His will is His will. We have no business questioning it.”

  Laura swiped at her face with her sleeve. “I’m a silly old woman.”

  “Nee, you’re not. You were blessed with a good mann for forty-five years. I’m so . . .” Jennie stopped. I’m so jealous. “Sorry for your loss. And on Christmas Eve. It’s easy for others to say it’s Gott’s will. But to live it, that’s another cup of tea.”

  Laura inclined her head as if acknowledging the truth of the words. “You only had fifteen years with Atlee. You must miss him something fierce.”

  A not-so-direct question. Jennie squirmed in her chair. The answer had been dammed behind a mountain of guilt and remorse for four years now.

  “You never want to talk about it. Not even after all this time.” Laura bent her head over her sewing as if she knew it would be easier for Jennie to talk if she didn’t look at her. “I reckon there was more going on than meets the eye.”

  “Atlee wasn’t an easy man to live with.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “You did?”

  “Child, he was a sourpuss at best. I can’t imagine living with that attitude all the time.” Laura leaned over the frame, her gaze fixed on her fine stitches. “Not to speak ill of the dead.”

  “I believe in ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ as much as the next person.”

  “But he overdid it?” A fierce frown enveloped Laura’s face. As one of the most sought after and experienced midwives in the area, she’d delivered all seven of Jennie’s babies. She had a heart for children. “We are meant to discipline with love, not meanness. It’s our way.”

  “It wasn’t Atlee’s way. Any little thing. Matthew dropped a serving bowl full of potatoes on the floor during supper and broke it. Atlee took him out to the woodshed.” She took a shuddering breath at the memory of Matthew’s bewildered face as Atlee dragged him by the arm out the back door. “He left welts on his backside.”

  “The boy didn’t mean to do it, that’s obvious.”

  “Atlee said accidents only happen when a person isn’t paying attention. Matthew had to learn to pay attention. He wasted food. We couldn’t afford to waste food or buy new dishes.”

  “All good points.”

  “The kinner were afraid of him. They were always tiptoeing around him. They never knew what might set him off. A rip in their clothes, a kapp not properly starched, a chore not done to his satisfaction.” Jennie’s stomach lurched just as it used to do when the thunderclouds gathered, dark and fierce, in Atlee’s face. She put her hand to her mouth, willing her stomach to settle. She breathed and let it drop. “Too much noise at the supper table. The clicking of the fork on the plate when they cut the skin on the sliced tomatoes bothered him. I started peeling them before I served them. Chewing too loud bothered him. Cold food and food too hot or meat too tough set him off. Crumbs on the floor that didn’t get swept up.”

  “And you?”

  He often demanded from her what she didn’t feel up to giving. Not to a man who filled her with such dread. Not to a man who saw nothing wrong with using his powerful arms and his brutal words to cow a child into submission. He said it was her duty. After the first time, she never denied him again. “I enjoyed the times when I was expecting. As I got farther along . . . less was . . . demanded.”

  He didn’t touch her when she was carrying a baby. At first the months of peace had lulled her into thinking things were better. Until the baby came. She learned her lesson after Matthew and Celia.

  “Certainly a double-edged sword, I should say.” The kindness in Laura’s face made Jennie want to cry. The older woman patted her hand. “A hard row to hoe and you never said a word all those years.”

  “I took the same vows you and the other fraas took.” She let her hands drop to her lap. The quilt would have to wait until another day. “I didn’t want to make it worse for the kinner. They didn’t know better. They never knew anything different. I reckon they thought all daeds were like that.”

  “But they’re not. Not all manns are like that either.”

  “I know that. I knew it then. But there was nothing I could do but pray that Gott would soften Atlee’s heart.”

  He didn’t. Instead, Atlee fell. His own team of horses trampled him. He’d been alone at the time. No one knew exactly what happened. No one knew she feared it an answer to prayer.

  “Get inside. The laundry won’t do itself.”

  The last words he would ever say to her. She shivered.

  Cold air blasted her. The doctor left her alone with him in the tiny cubicle surrounded by curtains. The raspy sound, in and out, of the ventilator breathing for Atlee filled the air. Somewhere behind another curtain in the intensive care unit the disembodied voice of a man, hoarse and insistent, cried out, “Help me, help me.”

  Jennie needed help too. She put her hand to her mouth to keep from joining that poor soul in his lament. Instead she steadied herself on legs that didn’t want to hold her. She forced herself to touch the place on Atlee’s arm not covered with tubes and tape where an IV ran. Machines beeped, recording his heartbeat, his blood pressure, his respiration. His skin was cool to the touch and clammy. Black-and-blue bruises covered his face. Coupled with the swelling of his head, they made it almost impossible to recognize him as her mann. “Atlee? Can you hear me? Breathe. Just breathe. They say you can’t breathe on your own. The ventilator is breathing for you. They can’t take it out unless you breathe on your own. Can you do that?”

  Nothing. Gott help her, nothing.

  The doctor said Atlee wouldn’t wake up. Ever.

  She had to make the decision. What next. What would Atlee want?


  Not this. Gott, not this. Please Gott, I didn’t mean this.

  “But he didn’t, so now you’re wondering if you’d be better off with someone who’s not of our faith.”

  Laura’s words, delivered in that tart tone she so often employed when observing something that didn’t sit quite right with her, plunged Jennie back into the world she lived in now. A widow with seven children and a pile of medical bills that she labored to pay off even after five years. Several church districts had assisted with general donations. Cards filled with donations had arrived after pleas for assistance in The Budget. But monumental medical bills never seemed to dwindle. “Set up a payment plan,” the hospital financial counselor had said with a kind smile and eyes that seemed to say, I’ve seen this before. I’ll see it again. And again. And again. She didn’t know Plain folks. Their bills were always paid.

  “It’s not that.” Jennie stumbled back to the present with its cold, empty bed and endlessly silent nights. “I’m not better off with anyone. Ever. Alone is better.”

  “You don’t know what Gott’s plan is. You can’t.”

  “So bow in submission and take the chance.” The chance it would happen again. How could she know? Atlee before marriage had been a different man from the one who died fifteen years later. How could she ever trust her own judgment? “I’m doing fine on my own.”

  Squinting, Laura slipped the needle into the blue square. “What about Leo?”

  That ship set sail a long time ago. But Laura didn’t know that. Black curly hair like Atlee’s. Now streaked with gray. At least his eyes were a different color. What went on behind those amber eyes? “You’ve been talking to Bess and Aidan, haven’t you?” She studied the material in front of her, not really seeing it. Seeing instead Leo’s anguished expression at his father’s funeral. “I know Aidan wants his cousin to find a fraa and Bess thinks I need a mann. Just because we’re both in need, doesn’t mean we go together.”

  “He’s like another brother to Aidan. They just want him to be happy.” Laura sighed. “But you have a right to be a little scared when it comes to men.”

  “I’m not scared.” The thought rankled her. She would not let Atlee steal her courage, from the grave. Leo had the same look about him, with his dark hair, fierce eyes, and broad shoulders, but he talked to kinner the same way he talked to his horse—soft, sweet, kind. “And there’s surely no reason to be scared of Leo. He’s a gentle man. It’s just that he’s not shown an interest.”

  Not since their rumspringa. Now she was thirty-seven and he was a year older. Too old for romance.

  “He’s a quiet man.” Laura tied off a thread and cut it with a definitive snip. “Sometimes they’re the ones with the most to say, if you’re willing to be patient and listen.”

  “I can’t afford to make the wrong choice and have the kinner suffer again. I’m better off to raise them myself.”

  “That’s up to Gott. The kinner need a daed. Freeman would tell you that. Cyrus too.” Laura shook her head. “It’s not easy. I’m old so they don’t think much of it, one way or the other. But you’re young, young enough to try again. Pray about it. Accept that you have been refined by the experience. You’ve walked through the fire and survived.”

  She didn’t feel young or like praying much. “I prayed for Atlee and look what that got me.”

  “In this world there will be light and momentary troubles.”

  “Momentary?” Jennie’s voice squeaked with disbelief. She breathed and softened it. “Fifteen years is momentary?”

  “To Gott, it’s a tiny blip. He has all of eternity on His hands.”

  Mary Katherine tromped into the room, a tray in her hands and her cadre of shadows skipping behind her. They’d been joined by Celia and Cynthia. All four had chocolate smeared on their faces. Rufus brought up the end. He had what looked suspiciously like crumbs on his graying snout. Mary Katherine’s smiling gaze skipped from Jennie to Laura and back. “What’d I miss?”

  “It’s time to turn in, girls.” Jennie stood. “I’m more tired than I thought, I guess.”

  Laura stuck her needle in a half-finished square. “A decent night’s sleep will do us all good.”

  “But I brought tea.” Mary Katherine stuck the tray on the table. “And we still need to talk about the store.”

  “I can’t work at the store.” Jennie waved her hands at the children, who were already engrossed in their play again. “They need me at home. Home is where a mudder should be.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me there.” Conflict warred in Mary Katherine’s normally serene face. “I understand it’s not easy.”

  No doubt she did, even though her youngest daughter was almost eighteen and likely courting some special boy by now. Still, Mary Katherine carried the biggest burden in making the store solvent. Her savings, her elbow grease, her time. She had jumped into this business to give folks like Jennie another way to earn money. “I will work hard this week and bring you new goods to sell as soon as they’re ready. We should have strawberry jam shortly.”

  “It’s just that Lazarus Dudley is back from his Florida vacation.”

  Lazarus Dudley, the Jamesport businessman who owned the antique store next to Amish Treasures, always wintered in Pinecraft, Florida.

  “Did he come into the store?”

  “Not yet. But I know he will. Dylan, who manages Antiques and Beyond, told me yesterday, he’s getting settled in and then he’s coming after us.” She rubbed her hands together. “He says Seamus O’Rourke should’ve given him first option. He says Seamus knew he wanted the space next to his shop and should never have leased it to us it without talking to him first. He’s convinced there was some big conspiracy between us and Seamus.”

  Seamus O’Rourke, the butcher who decided to close shop and toddle out west in a used RV with a lady from St. Louis, likely would beg to differ.

  “I told Dylan we have a signed lease. There’s nothing dirty or underhanded about it.” Mary Katherine picked up a glass of tea and sipped it as if to hide her expression. “We need to have lots of traffic, lots of customers, to offset our initial expenses and to show we’re making a success of it. Dylan says the town doesn’t need another Amish tourist shop.”

  “Yet Lazarus wants to expand his antique store—as if we don’t have a lot of those already. From the crowds we had in town last summer, I’d say the more the merrier.” Laura’s chair creaked as she stood, her knees cracking at the same time. “What does all that have to do with working shifts at the store?”

  “Annabelle has morning sickness something fierce. Joanna’s schweschder is going back to Indiana to take care of their mother so she can’t watch Joanna’s kinner. We don’t have enough workers. We need to keep the store open a full complement of regular hours.”

  “If you want me to work a few shifts, I’d be happy to do it.” Laura picked up her canvas bag and hugged it to her ample bosom. “I used to work at my parents’ vegetable stand on the road many years ago.”

  The woman had passed seventy with no slowing down in sight. She’d delivered nearly every Plain child in a ten-mile radius in the last forty years. Shame ran through Jennie. “Standing all day will give you pain in your knees and your back.”

  “Feeling useful is good medicine for what ails a person.” Laura winked at her. “It’s been a long day and nothing has to be decided tonight. It’s getting dark and I don’t like to be on the road too late. Early to bed, early to rise.”

  None of them cared about wealthy, but wisdom seemed to elude Jennie at every turn.

  EIGHT

  Did parents feel this bad when their children were in pain? Leo suspected they did. He forced himself to shake loose his fists. He shifted his feet, inhaling the comforting scent of hay and manure that wafted through the barn on a dank breeze and brought with it the first day of May. Red whinnied, his head whipping up and down as he tried to pull away from Todd’s touch.

  The vet muttered soothing, sweet nothings as he ran an experie
nced hand down the horse’s legs. He shook his head and looked back at Leo, his smooth-shaven face somber. “Come here. Feel this.”

  Todd was like that. Every visit was a teaching opportunity. Leo eased closer to Red. The horse was as skittish as a cat beset by a pack of wolves. Leo touched the horse’s leg. “Right here, that’s the digital pulse. It’s pounding.”

  “I felt it yesterday.” Leo slid his hand down the groove between Red’s tendons and ligaments. The pounding had accelerated in the twenty-four hours since he’d used the phone in the shack up by the road to call Todd. It was one of the rare occasions when Leo had been glad for the shack on his property. Unfortunately, Todd had been caught up in delivering a breech foal out at an English man’s farm near Trenton the day before.

  “You shouldn’t be able to feel that. A horse’s pulse should be rather hard to find. When it pounds like that, it indicates inflammation and pain.”

  “It’s obvious he’s in pain.” Leo patted Red’s back and then ran his hand through the horse’s tangled mane. Red’s head dipped and his neck stretched as he turned as if to get closer to Leo. “Is it laminitis?”

  Red sank to his belly with a whinny that could only be his version of a groan of pain.

  “Yep. He’s doing anything he can to get off his hooves. That’s some severe pain. Poor baby.” Todd pulled a white handkerchief from the back pocket of faded, baggy blue jeans. He wiped sweat from his face and neck. “Easy, buddy, easy. We’re going to help you out. I promise.”

  “How fast can you get him relief?”

  “We’ll start with bute. It’s an anti-inflammatory.” Todd tucked the handkerchief away and turned to a huge black backpack that served as his medical bag. He produced a syringe filled with a pasty-looking substance. “When you described his symptoms, I figured that’s what it was so I came prepared. It tastes terrible, but he’ll be glad he swallows it after a bit.”