Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  “It’s okay, Mudder.” Elizabeth sounded much older than her years. “Celia and Cynthia will sew more.”

  “And we’ll pick more strawberries so you can make more jam.” Mark squatted next to his mother and patted her back with a small, dirty hand in what must be the spitting image of something he’d seen grown-ups do. “It’s okay, we’ll make more in a jiffy.”

  They were so loving and so concerned for their mother. It said something about the kind of mother she was. A beloved one.

  Pretty and a good mother. A good wife, no doubt. She’d been a good scholar. Good at reading. Not like him. Numbers were easier for him than words. Graduation couldn’t come fast enough. Then he didn’t see her anymore. His father died. He stopped going places. Never got the hang of singings. Then he heard she was marrying Atlee Troyer.

  He had no one to blame but himself. He squatted. “Let me help.”

  “Nee, it’s fine.”

  “I promise not to eat any more jelly on my biscuits.” Elizabeth knelt next to Mark. “Francis won’t either, right, Francis?”

  Without a word, Francis scooted around to Leo’s side. He squatted as if mimicking Leo’s action. His dirty hand rested on Leo’s thigh. His hand was so small and tender. Something about it made a lump swell in Leo’s throat. He cleared it. “With all the rain we had this spring, the fruit has been plentiful.”

  More jelly could be made. The children wouldn’t have to give it up, would they? “I’m good at picking berries if you need any help.”

  Francis leaned closer and burrowed his head in Leo’s arm. His cheek was warm and sticky.

  “Don’t worry yourself. I’m sure you have plenty of work to do.” Jennie looked alarmed. “Francis, stop it. You’ll get Leo dirty. You’re a mess.”

  “He’s fine.” Leo extricated himself from the boy and patted his small back. “Does he like to fish?”

  “He loves to fish.” Mark piped up. “We all do.”

  “Sometime we’ll fish.”

  Why had he offered this? Something about Francis’s chubby face and the way the boys looked at him as if he were a strange, foreign species they rarely saw and longed to examine more closely. They were starved for attention from a man. What would it cost him to give it to them? A little bit of time and he had an excuse to fish, something he loved to do.

  “You promise?” Mark whooped. “I can’t wait to go home and tell Micah.”

  “We clean now.” Elizabeth, a practical little girl it seemed, frowned, a picture-perfect image of her mudder. “We help Mudder clean.”

  They were all so intent on making her feel better. Why did a broken jar of jelly and a stained dresser scarf make her feel so bad?

  “Jah, jah, we clean. There’s still five jars of jelly.” Mark imbued the words with great enthusiasm. “And the set of dish towels with the days of the week on them and two more dresser scarves. They’ll fetch a nice price. We’ll be able to buy material and groceries as soon as they sell.”

  So that was it. Money. They needed the money. Why didn’t Atlee’s family help or hers? Maybe she was like him, not wanting to ask, wanting to make it on her own. He understood that.

  Four little figures in descending order bent next to Jennie who sniffed and wiped at her face. Her eyes were red, but her lips curled up in a determined smile. “I am so sorry to make a mess right in your doorway.” She kept her gaze on Mary Katherine, as if he wasn’t there. “You have a washrag? I’ll get it cleaned up.”

  “No problem, no problem.” Mary Katherine sped behind a counter that held a huge old-fashioned calculator and an antique cash register. She produced a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of cleanser. “Accidents happen. That’s why they’re called accidents.”

  She handed over the goods to Jennie. The paper towels dropped to the floor and rolled. Mark retrieved it and handed it back to his mother. The children tried so hard to help. They were good children. Not like Atlee Troyer. Leo could never understand what Jennie saw in him, but then, he shouldn’t criticize her choices. He’d never stepped forward, never offered himself as a choice. In all likelihood Jennie had been better off with Atlee.

  “I was just explaining to Leo about the demonstrations we’ll do in the store.” Mary Katherine seemed oblivious to Jennie’s discomfort. And Leo’s. “You two will be big draws for the tourists.”

  “Nee, nee.” Jennie popped up from the floor. Jelly stained her apron. She handed Mary Katherine a wad of dirty paper towels. “I can’t.”

  She gestured at the box. “It’s obvious I can’t.”

  Mary Katherine dropped the dirty paper towels into a nearby wastebasket. She hugged her friend. “You can, you really can.”

  She needed the money just as Leo did. “If I can do it, you can do it.”

  The smile Mary Katherine bestowed on him felt like a special gift. Jennie, on the other hand, turned and fled toward the door.

  He’d made it worse somehow. She not only didn’t want to do the demo, she didn’t want to do it with him.

  “I guess that was the wrong thing to say.”

  Mary Katherine shook her head, a delighted look on her face. “Nee, it was the right thing to say. The absolutely perfect thing to say.”

  Jennie didn’t get far, however. Her escape was blocked by a parade of English folks entering the store led by a man Leo could have gone a month of Sundays without seeing. One Lazarus Dudley, antique dealer and self-proclaimed wheeler-dealer.

  From the expression on his face, he’d come to do some wheeling and some dealing.

  TEN

  Jennie inched toward Amish Treasures’ door. She’d made a mess of everything. She didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong anywhere near Leo, either. At best, he felt sorry for her. At worst, he thought she was a clumsy cow. Like Atlee had. Lazarus’s contingent of four men, a local contractor named Bill Weatherford, an electrician whose name she didn’t recall, and two others she didn’t recognize, blocked her escape path.

  She gathered up her scraps of dignity and sought to make her way out, her children behind her in a tight hand-holding row. “Excuse me.”

  They dodged the man in a suit made of a shiny material. It looked like it belonged to a much larger owner. He had a skinny notebook in one hand, pen in the other. He barely glanced up from his scribbles. The man behind him, on the other hand, loomed large, his navy polo shirt with its golf course emblem on the pocket stretched tight above a well-fed belly that hung over his khaki pants. His shoes made clacking noises on the wood floor. He wore cleats of some kind. Why, she couldn’t fathom. Despite a distinct look of discomfort on his face, he summoned a smile in her direction. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. Do you need something to wipe off with?”

  He pulled a wrinkled mess of a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out.

  “It wasn’t your fault, but thank you.”

  “Wait, Jennie.” Mary Katherine’s voice was much higher than normal. It held a note of trepidation, something Jennie had never heard there before. “If you don’t mind.”

  Her friend needed her. Taking a deep breath, she stopped. “Cynthia, take your bruders and schweschder outside. Sit on the bench. Don’t move until I come out.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.”

  Cynthia did as she was told. Francis’s delighted grin told Jennie she didn’t have much time before her daughter would be chasing her youngest son down the street. Still, Mary Katherine needed her. She straightened her shoulders, pivoted, and slogged back through the men to her friend. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think Lazarus is here to buy a quilt. This involves all of us.”

  “You are an intelligent woman, Ms. Roper.” The obvious surprise in Lazarus’s tone turned a compliment inside out. So did the faint disdain on his thin face with its oversize nose and thin lips. His head was bald except for a fringe above his neck that flipped up in the same curl as his thick gray mustache. He wore a black suit, white dress shirt, black bow tie, black-and-white dress shoes, and leaned
on a matching black-lacquered cane. He pointed the cane at the other men. “This is my team. You know Bill. He renovates space.”

  Renovates space?

  They had fixed up the store. It needed no renovations. At least the parts that showed. The back room and storage area hadn’t been touched, except to squeeze in all the stuff that didn’t fit or was no longer needed up front. For now. To get the store open as quickly as possible. Jennie had done her share of ripping out the old linoleum and refurbishing the wood floor under it. And painting the walls until her shoulders ached and she could barely lift her arms. She had blood, sweat, and tears represented in this “space.” All of them did.

  “This space has already been renovated.” Leo spoke up, his tone noncommittal, but his stance, legs apart, hands on hips, was firm. “It is suited to its purpose.”

  “As I told Ms. Roper—”

  “It’s Mary Katherine Ropp.”

  “As I told Mary Katherine, this was to be my space. Seamus promised it to me.”

  “Promised it?” Leo’s eyebrows lifted and settled. “In writing?”

  “We were closing in on an agreement.” Lazarus brushed the words away with his tone and his hands. “He promised me he would wait to close until I returned from my vacation. My wife insists we take one every winter. She hates winter. She loves the beach. But I digress.” He pulled a folded sheaf of paper from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “My attorney had even drawn up the paperwork.”

  He held it out to Mary Katherine.

  Her hand came up. Leo shook his head. Her hand dropped.

  “If it isn’t a signed document it has no legal standing.”

  “I understand that, but I’m relying on your people’s reputation for goodwill and for getting along, thinking you’ll want to do the right thing here.”

  “Give up the lease to you?”

  “Yes, out of the goodness of your hearts.” His voice had taken on a pleading note. “You see, I need this space.”

  He didn’t say it, but his words implied it. More than you do.

  “There’s a difference between need and want.” Jennie ventured into the fray. Maybe a woman should keep quiet in these circumstances, but she was Mary Katherine’s friend. If anybody knew the difference between need and want, the mother of seven children did. “You already have the lion’s share of the space in this building.”

  “I need all of the space.” He pointed to the silky suit man. “Kenneth knows about opening coffee shops. Not like the mass-market franchise shops. A real coffee bar with a barista and espresso, cappuccino, and so forth. People who love old things, they love coffee.”

  He waved the cane around in the general direction of the quilt racks. “I’m envisioning round tables, nice, lacy golden-yellow tablecloths. Adirondack chairs. A few love seats. Bookshelves with old books for sale. Wi-Fi. They can do their research on my antiques while they sip.”

  “We don’t have to do this right now.” Kenneth snapped his pen’s lid on and off in a steady, nervous racket. “There’s plenty of time once the ownership issues have been resolved.”

  “I need cost estimates for my investors.” Lazarus tapped his two-tone black-and-white shoe on the floor. “Bill, what do you think?”

  Bill tugged a measuring tape from his pocket and held it up. “If y’all don’t mind, I can get the measurements real quick and get out of your way.”

  “We’re open. We have customers.” Mary Katherine’s tone was polite but cool. She looked far cooler than Jennie felt. “It might be best if you came back if and when Lazarus owns the place.”

  Seemingly oblivious to the consensus of the group around him, Lazarus turned to the electrician. Kyle. Kyle Barlow. That was his name. “What about you, Kyle? How much work do you think it needs?”

  Kyle, a beanpole man in a spotless white T-shirt and green work pants, shrugged. “The wiring has to be as outdated as what you have in the antique shop.” He had a lazy accent that said he wasn’t originally from these parts. “Those big coffee makers pull a lot of juice.”

  “But you can do it?”

  “With time and money, everything is possible.” He tipped his Kansas City Chiefs ball cap at Mary Katherine. “And with permission. I don’t touch wiring without permission. Too much liability.”

  “It’ll be resolved shortly.” Lazarus grimaced and gave a half bow toward Mary Katherine. “I had right of first refusal. I turned my back for a second and that old goat bailed out and skipped town. My attorney will be in touch with him. And eventually, with you.”

  He turned and limped out, leaning on his cane, his entourage behind him. “We’ll be back.”

  Jennie didn’t like him much and she didn’t like that feeling. They were expected to like folks. Even if they made it difficult.

  That didn’t mean they had to turn their shop over to them. She headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Mary Katherine called.

  Jennie shoved the door open and looked back. “To get busy making more jam to sell. And more dresser scarves and tablecloths. We need to stock up. People can go to Kramer’s or the Stop N Go for coffee.”

  Mary Katherine grinned. “Perfect. And I can put you down to work a shift?”

  “Jah, you can. But let me work on inventory first.”

  With a whoop Mary Katherine darted forward and held up her hand in a high five. Jennie reciprocated and did the fist bump she’d seen the children doing. It was silly, but it felt good.

  Mary Katherine turned to Leo. He ducked his head and stared at his boots. Mary Katherine patted his shoulder. “We’ll get you next time.”

  Next time.

  Realizing just what she’d agreed to do, Jennie fled.

  ELEVEN

  Food staples or material? The question gave Jennie a headache. She bent over the treadle sewing machine, her feet pumping as her hands guided the material under the needle. Or maybe it was the time she had spent sewing after making cookies all morning, to sell at the store, that caused the ache. They all had to pitch in and earn the money to pay the bills and still earn a profit. They could not give in to Lazarus. That wasn’t an option. Stewing about the store kept her mind off the scene she’d made the previous week. Not thinking about that look on Leo’s face. A mixture of puzzlement and pity. Pity for what? Because she was the clumsiest woman on earth? Because she spent all that time embroidering dresser scarves and canning jam only to drop the whole kit and caboodle on the floor?

  Still, the look on Leo’s face when Francis put his hand on his leg had touched Jennie. A strange mixture of tender sadness and lost hope. A look that made her heart constrict in painful recognition. His heart hurt the way hers did for dreams lost or broken.

  Just because he had an interest in children didn’t mean he had an interest in her. He was simply being kind.

  Nee, she could never be sure.

  He felt sorry for her. That was all.

  “If I can do it, you can do it.”

  Had he really said that? Had he meant it?

  The image of the two of them working side by side in the store, her showing women daisy stitches and French knots, him sanding wood and staining it, filled her mind to the brim. Both were such peaceful pastimes. Creating something pretty and yet useful. She found peace when she sewed. It took her to another place, a quiet, restful place. Likely, Leo found that place when he created a piece of furniture that would last for decades or longer. It would become part of a family and a storehouse of memories for the owner.

  A nice image, but it wouldn’t be like that. She would drop something. Stain something. Stutter and jab herself with a needle. Atlee said she was a clumsy cow. The clumsiest woman he knew. He said she had given birth to equally clumsy children.

  She had no time for feeling sorry for herself. First she would sew clothes for the kinner. Then she would pick up the embroidery again. She had enough pale-blue poly/cotton to make another dress for Elizabeth. Enough black tri-blend denim for one more pair of pants. She liked this
material because it didn’t require ironing and the tri-blend didn’t fade the way regular denim did. Mark needed them worse than Micah, but they both had sprouted up so much in the last month, their pants had become high waters. She chewed her lip. The cookie jar in the kitchen contained enough cash to buy flour, sugar, coffee, and a few other staples she needed or more material. Not both. Enough to do, but not enough money to do.

  Which took her right back to the store. Bills outweighed the money in her pocketbook every day. She had to do whatever was necessary to take care of her children, but they also needed her at home. They needed a mother who was present in their lives, not going into work in town three or four days a week. Women with husbands did not have this dilemma. Plain wives and mothers didn’t work away from home. It was frowned upon. Widows were different.

  In every way.

  The screen door opened and Cynthia barreled in. Her hands occupied by a large wicker basket of clothes fresh off the line, she let the door slam behind her. “Can we get a trampoline?” She settled the basket on the floor with a thud next to the table and picked up the first pair of pants. “Sarah and Rachel have one in their backyard. It would be fun for all of us, something we can do together when the chores are done.”

  Sarah and Rachel’s father, Isaac Plank, could afford the extras, it seemed. Not that a trampoline was an exorbitant thing to want. Jennie had already looked through the ads in The Budget and the asking price even for used trampolines didn’t fit in their meager budget. “I’ll ask Matthew to put the tire swing back up.” It fell when the children decided to try a family ride—six of them at once. Only Matthew refused to participate, saying he was too old for such silliness. The sight of them sprawled all over the ground, hooting, hollering, and tickling each other, had made even Mister Sourpuss smile. “You can push Elizabeth and Francis. Celia can push you. You like the swing, don’t you?”

  Her sweet face somber, Cynthia nodded and plopped another pair of pants in the pile. “It’s okay. Is it because there’s no money?” This daughter, at ten, was the wise owl in the bunch, with her black-rimmed glasses sliding down her nose. She was also the one who looked the most like Jennie. Sandy-blonde hair, pale-blue eyes, a solid frame made for childbearing. She even had the same slightly crooked lower front teeth and a dusting of freckles that reminded Jennie of her childhood spent picking peaches, blueberries, and apples at her parents’ farm. “Matthew can take me and Celia to the store tomorrow to give Mary Katherine your Log Cabin quilt and some more of the embroidered pillowcases. They’ll sell fast. The tourists are starting to flood in by the busload what with the nice weather.”