Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  “I’m sure he does.”

  She made the popcorn and carried the bowl into the front room. A stack of books on the table caught her gaze. She set the bowl down next to Mark, who was too busy arguing with Elizabeth over whether she had moved her pawn three spaces or four to notice.

  The books were a series of historicals for children set in pioneer America. Smooth-covered hardbacks. Expensive books. He’d scrawled a note. “An early Christmas present. One for each. Nathan.”

  Seven books. She touched the covers, one by one. One for each child even though Matthew would sooner eat cockroaches than read a book now that he was done with school. Celia and Cynthia would love them. Elizabeth would grow into them. Francis would sit still a few minutes at a time for a story. Even Mark liked a good story if someone read it to him. It was too much. Nathan shouldn’t have done it.

  She picked up the last book. Underneath it lay another one. With another sticky note. For you, Jennie. To give you comfort in the dark hours before dawn. Your friend, Nathan.

  As if he saw through her to the place where everything hurt. The sleeplessness that came in the middle of the night when her mind wouldn’t stop going around and around, remembering, worrying, thinking, trying to pray, straining into the silence to hear God’s answer. That smothering feeling of being deaf and mute, unable to have the most important conversation imaginable with a God who seemed to have disappeared into the darkness.

  The book was a devotional Bible study on the topic of grief and loss. A popular one she’d seen in the bookstores in town. She ducked her head and sighed. Nathan might somehow have an inkling of her inner turmoil, but he still, after all this time, didn’t understand her people’s faith. They didn’t do Bible studies. They believed God’s Word was God’s Word, not open to a gaggle of interpretations by well-meaning laypeople. They didn’t try to interpret the meaning by picking out individual threads from a beautifully, wonderfully woven blanket of God-breathed Scripture.

  She hugged it to her chest for a brief second, then laid it on the table out of reach. No book was worth censure. To her surprise, she believed what her faith taught her. God’s Word needed no interpretation. It simply was.

  Her gaze dropped to the book. Still, she wandered in the wilderness a good part of the time. Nee. Don’t go there. Return the book. Explain. He’ll understand.

  He’d left his book bag on the chair.

  She could send the boys into town to return it and the Bible study.

  Or he would come for it when he realized what he’d done.

  Which would be better?

  She picked up a book, held it close, and breathed its scent of paper and ink. The scent of a traveling book salesman.

  Better for whom?

  THIRTEEN

  Leo dumped his saddlebags full of small pieces of wood and tools on a workbench outside the stall in Aidan’s barn. He’d used the drive in his English friend’s pickup to his cousin’s farm to work on his carved animals. No time to waste these days. Finishing a dresser in the week since his visit to the store had kept him occupied. With a desk also half done, he needed to start thinking about how he would move them to the store.

  He cleared his throat. Aidan looked up and grinned from ear to ear as if he were the new father of a dozen or so pinkish-white piglets that squealed, wiggled, and tumbled over each other trying to feed. He squatted in the straw and muck of the afterbirth, muttering in soothing tones to the enormous white sow as if she understood every word.

  The humidity-laden mid-May breeze that wafted lackadaisically through the open barn doors held the stench of hay and manure, a curiously homey odor. Sweat drenched Aidan’s shirt from front to back. It trickled down Leo’s temples and tickled his cheeks. The sporadic rain that fell on the drive had done nothing to cool the air. A good, hard rain would be a relief.

  So would asking the favor and getting it over with. He needed to borrow a horse. If he intended to work at the store, he needed transportation. He settled his straw hat more firmly on his head. “Does she ever answer you?”

  That wasn’t the question.

  Chuckling, Aidan smoothed the sparse white hair between momma pig’s erect ears. “Sure she does.”

  He grunted and hauled himself to his feet. He was a tall man with sandy-brown hair peeking from under his straw hat and gray eyes that never missed a thing. He might be a lot younger than Leo, but he had a wisdom that came from hard knocks much like the ones Leo had experienced. “But I reckon you didn’t come here to talk bacon and pork chops. What’s up, Cousin?”

  “I like bacon.” Leo took a long breath. Even if Aidan, Timothy, and the other Graber men were like brothers, he hated asking favors. Aidan would give Leo the shirt off his back if he thought it would help. The thought settled Leo’s ornery stomach. “I need a favor.”

  “Anything. You know that. I heard about your horse. A bad piece of news, for sure.” Aidan stalked across the stall, the soles of his dirty boots making a sucking sound in the sow’s mess. “How’s he doing? Can you salvage him?”

  “It’s laminitis.”

  Aidan gave him a look of sympathy. “You’re welcome to Star. I’ve got the Percherons.”

  Leo nodded in thanks. “It may be a while before I get him back to you.”

  “Take all the time you need.” Aidan slipped through the stall door and shut it behind him. He looked tired but in good spirits. His hog operation was doing as well as the chicken-raising operation that had been in peril from bird flu not so long ago. “Gut thing Jennie came along when she did after the picnic. That’s a long walk home.”

  Nothing remained a secret in this Gmay.

  “Could have done without the Mennischt.” The words sounded surlier than Leo intended. Nathan stopped to help. Because of Jennie, but still. He wrestled with his tone. “Nathan almost ran us down.”

  “Nathan has gut intentions.”

  Why would Aidan defend the man? Leo studied his hands. He had dirt under his nails from weeding his small plot of vegetables in the cool of dawn. A scar along his thumb and another across his index finger reflected the early days of learning his trade. He had no reason to dislike Nathan. He was not the source of Leo’s problems. If Jennie had an interest in him, that was something for Freeman to manage. Leo had lost any claim on Jennie the day he’d decided not to ask her to ride home with him again.

  Water long gone under a distant bridge.

  “What are you looking so glum about?” Aidan strode to a huge bucket where he thrust his hands and arms into the water and then lifted handfuls that streamed over his face and neck. “Seems like this is about more than needing a horse.”

  Aidan saw too much. He always had. They’d grown up hunting, fishing, and farming together. When Leo’s father passed, his uncle Dale took over the role. When Uncle Dale passed, they knit themselves together in a tight gang that made their grief more bearable for all of them. Now, with his sisters married and moved to Wyoming with husbands in search of cheaper land and more wide-open spaces, Leo counted the Graber brothers as the only family he had in Jamesport. “How did you do it?”

  “Do what?” Aidan dried his face with his sleeve. He sniffed and sneezed, a sound so loud his German shepherd, Ram, looked up and woofed. “No worries, hund. Just a little water in the nose.”

  “Move on. You keep moving on.”

  “You make it sound like it was easy for me. It wasn’t. It isn’t.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Glass of tea? Bess gave me some cinnamon rolls to bring home last night.”

  “Jah.”

  Leo slung his saddlebags over his shoulder, and they fell in step easily as they always did, traipsing several dozen yards through newly cut grass to Aidan’s two-story white frame house with its crisp, fresh coat of paint and long wraparound porch. Someone—surely not Aidan—had planted sunflowers along the banister. They angled toward the sky as if seeking their namesake. Aidan dodged a streaking tabby kitten chased by a gray one. The breeze died. The heavy air weighed on Leo’s
shoulders. “Ugly weather.”

  “The weather is the weather.” Aidan refused to be diverted from his train of thought. “Sooner or later, you have to make peace. Gott knows what He’s doing.”

  “Will Gott strike me dead if I say I’m not so sure?”

  “Nee, but Freeman might take issue with it.”

  “I want to believe.” He should’ve borrowed the horse and kept his mouth shut. Fat drops of rain smacked his hat and shoulders. He lifted his face to them, hoping for coolness. None came. “It’s not like a man can turn it on and off like a spigot.”

  “It takes work.” Aidan eased onto the porch step and tugged off his dirty boots. “Sometimes I just said the words even if my heart wasn’t in it. I kept saying them until I started to believe them. Your daed, my daed, they lived gut lives. They were gut men. I believe Gott saw that. They rest in peace. We’re still alive. Gott has plans for us.”

  Leo let his gaze wander over the buildings where Aidan raised chickens. Bird flu had decimated his cousin’s flock the previous year. He’d been forced to start over from scratch. Yet he managed to cling to his faith and have the guts to court a woman who’d been married to his best friend. His strength and faith served as an example that Leo couldn’t ignore.

  “Do you think that plan includes a fraa?” The moment he asked the question, Leo wanted to snatch it back. He tromped up the steps and tugged open the door, glad Aidan couldn’t see his face.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, wanting a fraa.” Aidan’s voice followed him in. “I’m working on it myself.”

  Leo escaped through a sparsely furnished front room to the kitchen where he helped himself to two clean glasses in the midst of Aidan’s leftovers from breakfast. A dirty coffee cup, a plate sticky with egg yolks and bacon grease, and a half-eaten, burnt piece of toast littered the counter. A salt shaker lay on its side on the pine table. Two chairs set askew. The man might be a good farmer, but he wasn’t much of a housekeeper. “Like that’s a big secret.”

  Aidan snorted and grabbed a pitcher of tea from his propane-driven refrigerator. He proceeded to fill their glasses, slopping some over the edge of the second glass in his haste. “Nothing’s a secret around here. You should ask Jennie to take a ride with you.”

  “Is that you talking or Bess?”

  “Bess thinks it’s a good idea.”

  Bess wanted her widow friends to be happy. That was understandable, but what made her think he would make Jennie happy? Something twisted in his midsection. A woman like Jennie, who’d suffered the loss of a husband already, should get a second chance at happiness.

  Not that God promised happiness in this life. That was apparent.

  “You’ve never shown an interest in any other girl in your whole life. When Jennie married Atlee, you hunkered down and stopped trying. There’s a reason for that. She must be the one. Just like Bess is the one for me. I tried to make it work with someone else, but I couldn’t. You haven’t. Jennie is the only one for you.”

  “But not for her. She chose Atlee.”

  “I reckon he didn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t know him all that well, but that’s my impression.”

  “The girls liked him.” Leo drew a square in the condensation on his glass. Then turned it into a circle. “I never could figure out why. But he asked Jennie and she said jah.”

  “He’s been gone a long time. She’s been alone a long time. Besides, it’s a buggy ride. That’s all.” Aidan flopped into a chair and gulped his tea. He set the glass on the table and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You’re worrying about what’s ahead instead of living today. We have no promise of tomorrow. No need of tomorrow. Gott gives us today. That’s it. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that. Trust and obey.”

  Trust and obey. How could he trust? The image of his father’s face flitted across his mind.

  “You’re thinking about your daed.” Aidan leaned forward, his face animated. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “What?”

  “You think it was your fault. It’s written across your face every time someone mentions him.” Aidan pressed his hands together in front of him in a gesture that was almost prayer-like. “I’m not old enough to remember much about him. But I know how Henry and Timothy liked him. I’ve heard so many stories about him. Everyone says you’re just like him. Henry says he liked the same things you did. Hunting, tromping around in the snow, with his kinner. I reckon he died doing something he loved with someone he loved.”

  Breathless, Aidan stopped so abruptly he appeared to have run out of words or spoken his limit for the day. His face had turned red under his tan. He didn’t like talking about this stuff either, but he cared enough to do it.

  Leo could accept that, even if he didn’t like it himself. The most unmanly of sobs burbled deep inside him. For that reason, he chose to let the memories and the pain lie buried below a ton of rock and the debris of his life. He shook his head, unable to speak, fearful of opening his mouth.

  “Let him go. Let him rest in peace.” Aidan threw his hands up as if despairing of making his point. “Trust Gott. Don’t waste another moment.”

  The fervor in his voice enveloped Leo. He swallowed against the boulder in his throat. It didn’t help. He sucked down half a glass of tea. At twenty-three, Aidan had watched his best friend, Caleb, die in his arms after a truck hit his buggy the previous year. He truly understood Leo’s reluctance, his dilemma, like few could.

  He inhaled once, twice, wrangling the emotion into the corral. “For a whippersnapper, you’re a wise old man.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I do know I’m no coward.”

  “Are you saying I am?” The words stung like a whip. The warm, brotherly feelings fizzled. “With everything I’ve endured?”

  “You’ve endured? Life is rough for many. It’s no excuse.”

  He might as well have said, “Get over it.”

  “She’s taken with Nathan.”

  “She’s not a fool.”

  “He’s taken with her.”

  “That’s a bird of a different color. He’s a nice man, but Freeman will take care of him. Stop making excuses.”

  Leo used to like Aidan’s penchant for being plain spoken. Not today. “It’s not an excuse, it’s—”

  “Fear.”

  Back to calling him a coward. “I’m not afraid.” He stood. “I’ll saddle Star.”

  “Bawk, bawk, bawk.”

  “You’re a chicken farmer. You know they sound nothing like that.”

  Still, the bawk, bawk, bawk followed him through the house and out the front door.

  Gott, I am afraid. Of hurting her. And me. Help me.

  He stopped in the middle of the dirt road that led to the barn. A prayer. The first he’d offered on his own in a long time. Eons, it seemed. Would God still hear him? He’d lived his life a walking shell of a Plain man. Never feeling his faith. Going through the motions. Attending services. Kneeling in prayer. Singing the long, slow songs. His mouth moving, his brain disengaged.

  Gott, please.

  The wind picked up, hurling dust into his face. What kind of answer was that? The tree branches whipped. An empty milk can flew over and rolled. Leo picked up his pace. He’d be riding home in the rain, but he didn’t really mind. A summer rain felt good. It washed away old dirt and sin.

  He reintroduced himself to Star, who had a pretty face and a docile personality to go with it. She whinnied and tossed her long neck. “I know. I know. It’s not your favorite thing, hauling folks around in the rain, but I’ve got work to do at home.”

  He saddled Star with practiced hands that moved quicker and quicker as he thought about what Aidan had said. Time was a gift from God that should never be wasted.

  If he intended to court Jennie, he needed to get busy and earn a keep—enough for her and seven kinner.

  Instead of getting heavier, the load on his shoulder eased until it dissipated as if melted away by the rain that pelted his back as he guided Star toward
the road and home.

  FOURTEEN

  The instructions had been clear. Hitch the horses to the mower. Nathan glared at the massive, butterscotch-colored Belgians. Neither looked perturbed by his hesitance. In fact, they looked bored. How hard could it be? Flies buzzed. The horses stamped and took turns shaking their heads. Nathan shook his head too. He’d received his wish to spend the day working with Darren and the boys on Jennie’s farm. She’d been digging potatoes when he rode up on the horse loaned to him by her brother-in-law. He wasn’t offended by the look of surprise on her face. Two weeks had passed since he started his new job. He’d had two long sessions with Freeman. Having a working knowledge of the articles of faith gave him a head start. He knew all about obedience and humbleness and faithfulness. It was finding his way off the electrical grid that Freeman seemed to have concerns about.

  Nathan would get there. Sooner rather than later.

  Today, he would eat lunch with Jennie at her table in her house. All he had to do was survive until then. And not muck it up by not doing his fair share from simple ignorance.

  “Start with the collar,” Matthew whispered as he walked past. “Make sure the padding is on their shoulders.”

  Surprise blew through Nathan at Matthew’s willingness to help. Jennie’s oldest was a silent, morose teenager. Not one for talking.

  The collar didn’t want to fit over the horse’s head.

  “Put on the wide part over his head first.” Matthew walked by again, some unidentifiable piece of equipment gripped in his arms. “Then turn it around. They have fat heads. Then the bridle. Then the harness.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The sooner you finish, the sooner we eat.” The boy shifted his burden. He had broad shoulders and thick muscles for a kid. “We’ll take the hitch cart and the tedder to the other side and fluff the hay that’s already been cut so it’ll dry faster. We should be able to bale it tomorrow.”

  Eating meant seeing Jennie. Sitting across the table from her. Maybe Nathan would have the opportunity to find out why she’d sent the boys to return the books he left for her and the kids. Why return a gift given with no strings attached?