by Kelly Irvin
“That chip on your shoulder must get mighty heavy.” His nose wrinkled, Blake perused the plastic-covered menu. He tapped the page. “Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn. Comfort food.”
“There’s no chip.”
“Seriously?”
“Why are you here?”
The waitress reappeared. Blake gave his order and looked at Nathan, eyebrows raised. “It’s on me.”
“I can pay my own way.”
“Seriously, get over yourself and order already.”
“I’ll have the wiener schnitzel.”
“Save room for the walnut brownies.” Blake smacked his lips like a small boy. “Or would you rather have cherry pie? With soft-serve vanilla ice cream.”
“We’ll see.”
The waitress scribbled on her little pad, took the menus, and returned Blake’s smile. His widened. “What time do you get off?”
“Not for a long time.” A furious blush scurried across her round cheeks and hid in the blonde hair not covered by her kapp. “My boyfriend is picking me up.”
“Figures.” Blake watched her walk away, her long skirt rustling. “I strike out again.”
That his brother had never married—just like Nathan—had to mean something. Their brother Aaron married someone he met on a mission trip in Africa. Lottie and Maura married brethren who worked in the same home for the elderly in Pennsylvania. Keeping it all in the family. Only Nathan and Blake remained single with the forties approaching like a train car careening off the rails.
“You were going to tell me why you’re here.”
Blake lined up the metal paper napkin dispenser, sugar, catsup, mustard, and salt and pepper shakers in two neat rows of three. “I came to fetch you.”
“Fetch me?”
“Mom and Dad are coming home. To Pennsylvania.”
“That’s not home.”
“Home to me and Aaron and Lottie and Maura. You’re the only renegade.”
The only one who refused to fall in line with the family business of saving souls. “I have a life here.”
“Book salesman.” His tone held no censure. Blake—all his brothers and sisters—had been brought up to revere books. “You can likely do that anywhere.”
“I quit. I’m working as a farmhand.”
“That’s what the suspenders are all about?” Blake’s eyebrows rose and fell. Disbelief crept into his voice. “Looking the part?”
“No.”
“What do you know about farming?”
“I’m learning.”
Blake leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table, his gaze bordering on urgent. “Mom and Dad aren’t getting any younger.”
Life was like that. If a person was blessed, fifties led to sixties and so on. “Neither am I. I’ve decided to settle down. Here.”
“Come home and see them.” Blake’s voice took on a pleading tone that surprised Nathan. Since when did his brother care that much? “At the very least.”
“They never came to see me.”
Blake slapped his napkin on the table. “You’re still carrying around that grievance like a monkey on your back?”
“It’s not a grievance. It’s a fact.”
“Dad has pancreatic cancer.”
The world slowed. A bottomless, black void opened in front of Nathan and engulfed the room. The aroma of brownies disappeared, replaced with the smell of dirt shoveled in the rain. Unexpected tears forced him to swallow and swipe at his face with a napkin. He wanted the menu back so he could hide behind it. He cleared his throat. “He’s coming back for treatment?”
“Yep. They have to do a laparotomy—exploratory surgery—first to figure out how bad it is. Then they’ll decide on a course of treatment. You know Dad. All sunshine and lollipops. God’s will be done.”
“You don’t believe that?”
Blake switched the catsup and mustard to new spots. He stacked the pepper on top of the napkin dispenser. Nathan reached over and stilled his brother’s hand. “Don’t you believe that?”
Blake grabbed Nathan’s hand and held on to for a second, then let go. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I think he’s seventy years old. I think he’s lived a good life. I think I’m more afraid than he is. I can’t imagine this world without him in it.”
“Seventy is the new sixty.”
“Pancreatic cancer is usually advanced by the time it’s diagnosed. The stats are ugly.” Blake raked his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “And you know Dad. He never bothers to go to the doctor until he absolutely has to do it.”
Nathan didn’t really know his dad. “Don’t borrow trouble before it gets here.”
“Will you come home—to Pennsylvania?”
“Has he asked for me?”
“He won’t and you know it.”
“What about Mom?”
The waitress settled his plate in front of him. The schnitzel—breaded veal cutlet deep fried in butter—came with mashed potatoes, corn, and a roll. He swallowed against sudden bile in the back of his throat. His stomach roiled. “Thank you.”
She nodded and slid Blake’s plate onto the table. “Anything else I can get you?”
A new pancreas for his dad. A cure for cancer. A miracle. “No thanks.”
She trotted to the next table and smiled at an elderly couple intent on arguing the merits of the buffet versus ordering off the menu.
“Did Mom ask for me?”
Blake picked at the mashed potatoes and gravy. “I haven’t actually talked to either one of them. Mom called Aaron.”
She would. Aaron was the oldest brother. The one on whom she depended. Who had traveled the world with her. “When do they arrive?”
“Middle of July.”
“They’re waiting a month and a half to start treatment?”
“You know Dad. He’s a stubborn old coot.” Blake’s voice broke. He gulped tea and set the glass down so hard liquid splashed over the side and ran down his hand. He dabbed at it with his napkin. His eyes reddened. “He says he has to stay for the revivals they have scheduled, finish a Bible study. Finish his work.”
“It’s a sign of overwhelming pride when a man thinks he’s the only one who can do God’s work.”
“It’s a sign of his commitment to God’s work.”
Their father had answered God’s call at a later age than most. He’d uprooted his family and gone where he was needed. Nathan had no wife and children. Yet he found himself too selfish to follow his own father’s example. “He always put that work ahead of everything—family, country, now his health.”
“Jesus said, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple,’ Luke 14:26.” Blake picked up the chicken leg, then laid it back on his plate. “‘Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,’ Matthew 10:37.”
The exact Scripture Nathan had referenced with Freeman earlier. Great minds think alike? Only Nathan never had the verses when he needed them. “He’s done his part.”
“He won’t rest as long as there is one more soul to save.”
A worthy mission, but one that would never be finished. “I imagine him standing before the Lord and hearing, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
Blake wiped his mouth with his napkin and threw it on his plate, covering food he’d barely touched. “Me too. I just don’t want it to be anytime soon.”
Nathan continued to eat, although he tasted nothing, even after a liberal squeeze of the lemon juice over his schnitzel. The food lodged in his throat and he had to wash it down with tea. His father had been the ultimate fisher of men. It wasn’t fair. He would suffer a painful death with this disease.
Life wasn’t fair.
“‘In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,’ John 16:33.”
Blake always had a way of reading people.
“You’re right. It’s a fallen world.” Nathan laid aside his napkin. “Is he in pain?”
“If he is, Mom’s not saying.”
“She’s a good soldier.”
“She is and she wants all her children together for this next season of their lives.”
“She left me when I had leukemia.” The image of her tucking him into his bed with the basketball sheets and comforter, her nose and eyes red, floated across his mind’s eye. She wore a green turtleneck sweater, corduroy pants, and red socks with different-colored toes. She’d snuggled up against him, her curly red head propped on the pillow, and told him the plan. Her voice never wavered, but her lips trembled. She told him not to worry, that Jesus would be with him always. She kissed his hair and hugged him until he couldn’t breathe. “I was just a kid.”
“It wasn’t an easy thing for a mother to do. She did what she thought was best. As a mother, as a wife, and as a Christian.”
“I try hard to see it that way.” He glanced around, seeking the waitress. He’d drained his tea glass and yet he needed more to swallow the lump in his throat. “Aunt Millie and Uncle Rex were good to me. They raised me like their own.”
The mustard and catsup moved to the front of the line. Blake had returned to rearranging condiments. “They also are good Christians. You need to forgive and forget.”
Nathan knew that. The monkey on his back had a stranglehold around his neck and he had no one to blame but himself. He stared at his plate. “I will.”
“Good. You’ll come back with me?”
Go now and give up his chance to be part of this community? He would lose his chance to belong and to be a part of Jennie’s life. The story he’d been writing when Blake showed up at Freeman’s door. “There’s a woman.”
Blake let out a whoop that made the elderly man look up, tea glass suspended in air, and held out his hand for a fist-bump. Nathan ignored it and his brother let it drop. “Get out of here.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“You’ve never stayed in one place long enough to put down those kinds of roots.” Blake leaned back and crossed his arms, a smile stretched across his face. “Who is she? Tell me everything. Are you engaged? Is there a date?”
Nathan couldn’t. Not until he had the right to talk aloud about Jennie. “I don’t see a ring on your finger.”
“There was a girl once. She passed before I could get the ring on her finger.”
“I’m sorry.”
Blake shrugged. “It was a long time ago, but I’ve never found anyone quite like her. Someone who makes me want to be her one-and-only.”
“I know someone like that.”
“Ask her to come with you.”
The image of Jennie Troyer, seven children in tow, transplanting herself to Pennsylvania, caught Nathan’s imagination for a second. He could read to Elizabeth and Francis before bed. He could give them piggyback rides. They could ice skate in the winter and play baseball in summer. He could get a job that brought him home to Jennie every night. The image shattered like an icicle crashing to the ground. What would they do on Sunday morning? “That’s not possible.”
“With Jesus Christ, anything is possible.”
“She’s Amish.”
“Ah. Explains the suspenders. You finally decide to go for the gusto and you choose someone who’s out of reach?” Blake gave him a thumbs-up. “That’s my little brother.”
“She’s not totally out of reach. That’s what I was doing at Freeman’s. He’s the bishop.”
“You’re converting?”
“I’m thinking about it.” Thinking hard. “It’s not such a huge leap for a Beachy Amish Mennonite.”
“And you could stop feeling guilty about being the odd man out in the family.”
“I don’t feel guilty.” A lie. He did feel guilty. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his own brother of his nightly battles with an insistent God. If he said the words aloud, he would be forced to admit he had no choice but to follow God’s command just as his father and mother had. “I’m conflicted.”
The understatement of the year.
“And resentful.”
“I don’t feel resentful.” Nathan paused, searching for a word that encompassed his lingering dissatisfaction over his strange childhood. “I feel disappointed.”
“Disappointed in God or in Dad and Mom?”
“Yes.” There, he’d admitted it. “My disappointment is only outweighed by God’s disappointment in me for not asking Him to take this journey with me.”
“Have you prayed about it?”
“Until I’m blue in the face.”
“Maybe you need to talk to Dad. Tell him how you feel.”
“Now that he has a life-threatening disease?”
“Now that you might not get another chance.”
TWENTY-ONE
Jennie sat upright in the bed. She gasped for air. Sweat burned her eyes. It soaked her nightgown. She threw off tangled, damp sheets. A nightmare. A nightmare relived again. A memory from long ago, yet every detail had been painted in stark contrast against a background of disbelief. Atlee’s anger had not been directed at her only. Matthew had suffered too. He carried scars no one could see so they couldn’t possibly understand why he acted the way he did.
She did understand. Somehow she needed to tell him that. She needed him to understand he could come to her with his pain.
She wrapped her arms around her thin pillow and inhaled its scent of outdoors. It comforted her. The dream revolved around a simple, innocent conversation after church. Leo had broken his long-standing silence to congratulate her on Francis’s birth. A short conversation as all were with Leo.
His supreme effort to make small talk with her that day had meant a lot. She hadn’t thought of what it might look like to Atlee. It had been a simple conversation after church. Leo had been kind, his voice soft, a little gruff, the effort apparent in the way he ducked his head and his jaw worked.
Atlee took it the wrong way. She paid the price. Matthew saw it and tried to stop his father, earning a trip to the woodshed.
Suddenly cold, she shivered and pulled the sheets back over her body.
Their time spent in the basement during the tornadoes had reminded her of that day. As did the conversation during the roof frolic. Seeing him at church. At the store these past few weeks. His attentive stare that made her think he was waiting for something. For her to do something or say something. Which probably brought on the nightmare. The thought rankled. He was a kind man and he did so well with the kinner.
As did Nathan with his sweet storytelling and playing games and leaving books for her. His looks over the supper table after a day working in the fields.
Two kind, gentle men were paying attention to her. Both seemed intent on protecting her. A second chance. Did she deserve a second chance? Did she dare try again? How could she be sure it wouldn’t happen again? The same old doubts tormented her. Nathan was Mennonite. Not so different from the Amish, but not the same. She couldn’t do that to the children, could she? Not with their eternal salvation at stake. She’d only begun the journey with them. Matthew’s rumspringa would begin in less than two years. Then it would be time for him to seek a wife and decide about baptism. The children had to come first. Leo had his own problems, his own void to fill. She couldn’t take care of another person. She had enough on her plate.
Jennie struggled from the bed and lit the kerosene lamp. Still shaking, she padded on bare feet from the room and down the hall. She had to make sure Matthew was all right. He had intervened on her behalf, to save her, and he had paid the price. No wonder he felt such fury now. He didn’t know how to deal with his feelings. He had his father as an example of how a husband treated a wife.
She peered into the bedroom shared by her boys. Francis was curled into a ball, his hands under his cheeks. Micah sprawled, one arm thrown over Mark, who lay on his belly, snoring.
/> The narrow bunk bed that belonged to Matthew held only rumpled sheets and a pillow tossed at the foot.
The sound of a door squeaking broke the silence. She whirled and sped down the hall to the banister. Matthew stood at the front door below.
“Where are you going?”
He jumped and turned, but his hand remained on the knob. “Out.”
“Nee. It’s late.”
“Why are you up?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither. That’s why I’m going out.”
“Stay.”
“Nee.”
“You’re my suh. I’m your mudder.” She hated the shrill pitch of her own voice. Trying to soften it, she climbed down the stairs and went to him. “Go upstairs and get some sleep. We have church tomorrow.”
“Nee.”
He sounded like a small child whose first word was no.
“Do as you’re told.”
His hand dropped from the knob and fisted. He shook his head, his face contorted in a familiar sneer. She took a step back, her dream raging around her. He took a step forward, his boots loud on the wood floor. “What will you do? Drag me off to the woodshed for a whipping?” He stepped yet closer. “Would you leave me in the basement all night in the dark?”
“Nee. I wouldn’t do that.”
“No, that was Daed’s job.” The bitterness in his voice made bile rise in her throat. “I can take care of myself. I’ll be back in time for morning chores.”
“You didn’t deserve the punishments you received.”
“Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
“With love. Punishment should fit the crime. It should be offered in love.”
“Are you saying Daed didn’t love me?”
“Nee, nee.” She scrambled for words that wouldn’t come. She couldn’t explain Atlee’s behavior. It made no sense then and it made none now. “I’m only saying that I hope you can forgive him for being unjust and know that you don’t have to follow in his footsteps.”
“Have you forgiven him?”
Nee. She’d tried. Gott knew how hard she’d tried. “I’m working on it.”
