Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  Todd sniffed and wiped at his nose with his shirtsleeve. “Thanks, man, thanks.”

  “It’s just a rocking chair.” Matthew spoke for the first time. His expression perplexed, he shifted from one foot to the other. He crossed his arms as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. “He’s made about fifty of them.”

  “Not for us, he hasn’t.” Samantha snuggled closer to Todd. They began to rock, their feet pushing off the floor in unison. “We’ve waited a long time for this. I started to wonder.” She gulped and hid her face in her husband’s shoulder.

  “No more wondering.” Todd smiled. “We’ve seen our girls. They’re real and soon they’ll be here.”

  “Why only one crib?” Leo liked the furniture they’d chosen. It was manufactured, not handcrafted, but a solid walnut all the same. It matched the rocking chair, if that were important to them. “For twins.”

  “At first they’ll be so small they can sleep together.” Todd’s hand rested on Samantha’s belly again. Leo let his gaze wander to the windows, covered with curtains that surely Samantha had made, with their giraffes, lions, and tigers parading across the material. A husband and wife were never closer than when creating another human life. Todd’s happiness grew in proportion to his wife’s. “They’re used to being close to each other. They’ll comfort each other.”

  “We have the second crib—my parents bought them both,” Samantha added. “We’ll put it up when they’re bigger. Both of them turn into toddler beds so we’re set.”

  “All we need are the babies.”

  “Fifty-six days.” She grinned at Todd. “But who’s counting?”

  “We should go.” Leo squeezed past Matthew, headed for the door. “Todd needs to get back to work. We have orders to complete too.”

  “No, no, let me feed you first.” Samantha hoisted herself from the chair, one hand on her hip. Todd propelled her from behind. “Meatloaf sandwiches.”

  “We have to get back.” Leo begrudged Todd none of his happiness. He wished them only the best. Somehow, though, he couldn’t be in the same room with it. Not now. He gritted his teeth against a feeling of unbearable loneliness that left his heart cavernous in its emptiness. “I have an order for a dresser that has to be done by next week.”

  “I’ll pack the sandwiches, and you can take them with you.” Samantha plodded past him. “No arguments. Matthew is too skinny, and your pants look like they might fall down any minute.”

  She sounded like his mother.

  Before she died. He breathed. Matthew had hunger written all over his face in big block letters. “Meatloaf sounds good.”

  So did life in a white frame house with green shutters and a nursery filled with a double rocking chair, lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, and the love between a husband and wife.

  Leo was hungry too, but not for meatloaf.

  Todd followed them to the door. He pulled a checkbook from his hip pocket. “Let me pay you for this. It’s beautiful and it’s obvious how much work you put into it.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  Todd smacked the checkbook against his leg. “You’re something else. But I was telling my sister about it and she wants one and so does my brother-in-law’s wife. You need to get cracking because I know half a dozen people who are waiting in line for high quality stuff like this.” He chucked Matthew on the shoulder. “It’s a good thing you’ve got help. You’re gonna need it.”

  Samantha loaded Matthew down with a brown paper sack full of sandwiches, chips, and cookies. Leo shoved his hat down on his head and strode to the buggy. Physical nourishment was good, but he needed something else, something far more filling. He would do what he needed to do to help Jennie. And at the same time, he would learn to help himself.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The house smelled of roasted chicken, chocolate cake, and childhood memories. Jennie shut the front door behind her and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of happy days gone by. They’d opted to have her mother’s seventieth birthday dinner in the big house where Peter now lived with his wife, Kate, and five children. The dawdy haus was too small for all the children and grandchildren. Jennie paused, letting her ears adjust to the noise made by dozens of children chattering and running through the house. They were not only cousins, but friends who played together every chance they could. Jennie loved the sound.

  She loved the sight of her mother seated in a recliner, her skinny frame dwarfed by its navy-blue padding. Daed sat ramrod straight in the hickory chair across from her, his gnarled fingers wrapped around his cane. His silver beard reached almost to his thin waist. Mudder had laid a lap quilt over her knees as if she were cold on this broiling-hot July day. Daed peered at her as if waiting for the answer to a question asked minutes earlier.

  They looked smaller and more fragile than they had even on Sunday. How was that possible? An errant memory scampered through her mind. Mudder at the stove, stirring a pot of beans, steam rising in the cold December air. Daed sat at the table, reading spectacles on top of his head, a perplexed look on his grizzled face. He asked Mudder where his glasses were. She pretended not to know. Then she skipped by, snatched them from his head, and perched the thick, black frames on her own nose. How they’d laughed.

  Jennie had believed all parents laughed like that. All parents played practical jokes on each other. All parents kissed by the fireplace after dark when they thought the children were asleep. She loved their give and take. She thought all couples had that. Until Atlee. She wanted it. Now, after all these years, she still wanted it.

  Her throat tight, she placed the brown paper-wrapped box that held a new shawl she’d knitted and a lavender-scented candle Celia had made on the table next to a stack of presents left by her sisters-in-law. “We’re here. How are you two?”

  “Peachy, Dochder.” Mudder’s face lit up with a smile, but her unseeing gaze landed somewhere near Elizabeth, who scooted across the room with a crow of delight and threw herself into her grandmother’s lap. Mudder patted the girl’s back, her smile broadening. “This would be Francis, right?”

  “Nee, nee, it’s me, Groossmammi. It’s Elizabeth.” The girl shook her finger at Mudder and climbed onto her lap. “Don’t you know me?”

  “Of course, I do.” Mudder giggled, sounding just like Elizabeth. “I’m only teasing. You smell like little girl, not little boy. What did you bring me for my birthday? A kitten? A puppy? No, I know, two chickens and a partridge in a pear tree.”

  “Nee, Celia says I can’t put animals in boxes and wrap them. I don’t know why. I would poke holes in the box. I’m smart.” Elizabeth giggled so hard her kapp flopped back over her shoulders. Francis tried to climb onto Mudder’s lap, but his big sister cordoned off the open space with her chubby arm, obviously not wanting to share. “Besides, it’s a surprise. You open after supper. With cake.”

  “Anyhow, it’s not too exciting.” Micah leaned against his grandfather’s chair, his tone disdainful. “Mudder made it and it’s too hot to wear it.”

  “Micah! Presents are surprises.” Celia chased over him, pretending to try to cover his mouth with her hand. “Besides, mine smells good and Groossmammi will like it.”

  “The worse my eyes get, the better my honker smells.” Mudder tickled Elizabeth, who writhed and shrieked. She gathered up Francis and pulled him onto her lap despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to keep him out. She hugged both of them with an abandon that made Jennie feel stingy with her own displays of affection. Mudder leaned back and chortled. “I love smelly things. And cake.”

  “A little sliver for you, Mudder.” Jennie hated to be the spoilsport on her mother’s birthday. “Did you take your insulin?”

  “I did. I’m set. And I’ll have a chunk of birthday cake if I want.” Mudder flapped both hands as if sweeping away any objections. The doctors diagnosed the diabetes when Jennie was sixteen. Mudder did a good job of controlling it. Yet it had taken her sight and given her pain in her feet and hands. She wasn’t one to complain, th
ough. “I might even have ice cream this once.”

  “Nee, no ice cream.”

  Daed dealt with the episodes when she had too much insulin. Or not enough. He would have the final word.

  “Go on, girls, go help Kate put supper on the table. The sooner we eat, the sooner your groossmammi can open the presents and the sooner we eat cake.” Jennie shooed them from the room. Knowing Peter, there would be homemade ice cream as well. She could use the sugar. She sank onto a fabric-covered stool next to her mother’s chair. It felt good to sit down. It felt good to inhale her mother’s scent of vanilla and soap. “Boys, make yourselves useful. See if Peter needs any help finishing chores before we eat.”

  Elizabeth, who would insist on being in the center of the preparations, skipped after Celia and Cynthia. Francis, to Jennie’s surprise, slid from her mother’s lap and trotted after his brothers, leaving her with a few unusual moments alone with her parents. She should help in the kitchen. Her legs protested. So did her arms. She wanted to simply sit and enjoy this moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she was alone with Mudder and Daed. With six older brothers, it was a tiny miracle.

  “The little one still doesn’t talk?” Daed broke the silence. “He’s four now, going on five, isn’t he?”

  “He can talk. He just doesn’t want to.” The image of Leo and Francis huddled together, Leo comforting the little boy, leaped into the forefront of her mind. “It’s too much effort to get a word in edgewise.”

  “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

  “It won’t be around the big bunch here today.” Mudder chuckled. “Do you think all sixty of us will fit around the table?”

  “Peter brought in the picnic tables.” Daed’s voice held approval at his son’s resourcefulness. “The kinner can sit outside. The rest of us will scoot together. It’s a good thing we like each other.”

  They did. Most of the time. Jennie liked her big brothers. But they were brothers. Growing up, she’d longed for a sister to whom she could unburden her heart, seek advice, and share secrets. Boys weren’t good for that. They were good for teasing their little sister, for tickling her until she nearly wet her pants laughing. They were good for hiding her dolls and putting salt in her tea. They were good for carrying her over their shoulders like a ten-pound sack of potatoes.

  Then they’d grown up, married, and got on with their lives. They’d offered their help over the years in practical ways—fixing a fence, rebuilding the chicken coop, sharing their harvest of sweet potatoes or rhubarb when they could. They were a practical lot, who like most men, would rather die than tell her how they felt. Instead, they showed it when they could. But they weren’t friends, and neither were their wives. Now that she was older Jennie had Mary Katherine, Laura, and Bess. She was blessed. “I should help Kate with supper.”

  “Your sisters-in-law are in there. The kitchen is full to the rafters. Stay. Talk to us.” His expression somber, Daed let his cane rest against his leg while he rubbed his knotted fingers together. “You’ve not had an easy row to hoe. We know that.”

  The words were more than he had expressed to her on this subject in all the years since she married Atlee. Something told her more would come. They’d heard something. Someone had said something. Mudder took Jennie’s hand. Her skin felt like crepe paper, thin and wrinkled. “We should have said more, did more, before.”

  “It wasn’t our place to interfere.” Daed shook his head. His beard bobbed. “The business between a mann and his fraa is private.”

  “It was fine. Everything was fine.” She smoothed her hand over Mother’s. Her bones were tiny, like a newborn kitten’s. “I did the best I could and so did you.”

  “Where’s Matthew?” Daed’s tone reminded her of when he had to punish one of the boys. He didn’t relish the idea, but he did what he felt a father should do. “I didn’t see him in that mess of kinner that rolled through the door.”

  “He didn’t come.”

  “Where is he?”

  How could Jennie explain the inexplicable? She no longer had control over her oldest son. Another who went against the grain just as his father had. Plain men were quiet, peaceful, fair. They could be stern but not mean. Plain boys Matthew’s age did what they were told. They saved their running around for rumspringa. But not her son. She’d failed in her marriage, and now with Matthew. She lifted her chin, despite the urge to hide her shame. “He left the house without telling me.”

  Freeman would say apples with bad spots grew on every tree. Then he would say they had to be made into pie or thrown out.

  “You don’t know where he is?” Surprise married with dismay in her father’s voice. “How does that happen?”

  Jennie’s rumspringa had been tame. But six older brothers surely meant a time or two—or more—when her parents had wondered where they were and what mischief they were getting into, even before rumspringa began. “It’s not as if I can drag him to the woodshed for disobeying. He’s a good four inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier than me.”

  Excuses. It sounded like excuses offered in a whiny voice.

  “Freeman stopped by.” Daed’s voice deepened the way it always did when a topic pained him. “He had some concerns.”

  Someone had carried tales about Matthew to the bishop. Surely not Leo. He had his own issues with the Gmay. “About Matthew?”

  “About him and about you.”

  Not only Matthew. “Why didn’t he talk to me?”

  “You’re our dochder, our only dochder. And you have no mann.” Daed cleared his throat. His face turned red. He plucked at his beard. “He felt it would be more suitable, I reckon. It wasn’t a conversation he would have with a woman, it seems.”

  “Which is the problem.” Mudder sighed. “It’s not your fault, but you must take great care.”

  Jennie had been on her own for over four years. In her community none of that would matter. She understood that. She’d tried to be careful, to follow all the rules. She’d done her best. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “They’re watching.” Daed’s eyes narrowed behind his thick black-rimmed glasses. “You’re old enough and wise enough to know that.”

  “Freeman is watching?”

  “Everyone is watching. Your bruders. Peter came to your father the other day, so did Luke.” Mudder’s tone was softer. “You know how it is. They mean well. They want what is best for you and for Matthew.”

  “What am I supposed to have done?”

  Daed wiped at his face with a white handkerchief as big as his head. “A conversation was had at the lake, it seems.”

  The talk with Nathan. She had been careful, but not careful enough. That was the problem. People watched and made assumptions. “I tried to discourage him. Peter and the others couldn’t hear the conversation so they don’t know that. He made assumptions.”

  “I would never be ashamed of you, child. You can’t imagine how blessed I felt the day you were born. I loved my boys, but a mudder likes to have a dochder too.”

  “You liked having someone to help with the cooking, cleaning, and gardening.” Jennie made her voice playful to hide the tears that welled at her mother’s words. “Having six boys was a lot of work, for sure.”

  “Now you’re all grown up, but I still pray for you daily in this widowed state of yours.” Mudder’s voice trembled. “It can’t be easy and I’ve been blessed to not know. My mann is still here.”

  “Fraa, don’t get all weepy on us.” Daed’s harrumph was halfhearted. He wiped his face again. “The point is this man, Nathan, is a good fellow. Everyone says so. But he’s Mennischt. Take care that you don’t stumble in his direction.”

  “I haven’t stumbled in any direction.”

  If Daed’s face turned any redder, his voice any gruffer, he’d faint. “We want happiness for you, don’t we, fraa?”

  “We do.” Mudder’s voice broke.

  Daed raised his head. His gaze met Jennie’s. She saw there the depth of his concern. As mu
ch as this conversation pained him, he was willing to have it for her sake. It made her heart hurt. Her parents wanted for her what they had. She couldn’t aspire to fifty years of wedded happiness. That had not been her lot. But to ask for a few years—just a few—surely, that wasn’t too much. A second chance for however many years God allotted. She saw a wisp of something with Nathan, a chance at something. She stood on a precipice, Nathan below. He had his arms lifted halfway. The promise in his eyes said he would catch her if she chose to jump.

  But first he had to jump off his own precipice. He had to choose her way of life. She would never leave it. Never. Did she feel something for Nathan when he looked at her with those blue eyes that held a hint of lilac? The feelings that swirled hinted at something. At the possibility. Not the torrent of emotion that had engulfed her when Atlee hugged her to his broad chest and kissed her so hard her legs gave way beneath her. She couldn’t trust those powerful emotions. They had served as camouflage that allowed pain and shame into her life. They had caused her to make mistakes. Someone like Nathan with the gentle foray into simpler, softer emotion that he represented. He would be a safe choice.

  She didn’t want breathless love that carried her away in its undertow. She couldn’t afford that mistake again. “How did you know Mudder was the one?”

  They both laughed, a sound that took her right back to the supper table, every night. He delighted in making Mudder laugh with silly jokes. She made him laugh with stories of what the babies had done in his absence. They bickered some, but they laughed more.

  “I thought your daed was silly.”

  “I thought your mudder was snooty.”

  Daed stared at Mudder as if back at a singing. She could no longer see him at even the short distance between the recliner and the chair, but her expression revealed that she too meandered down that path where he had been a strapping twenty-year-old with an open-seater and a penchant for driving too fast on backcountry roads. Neither seemed to breathe or move for several seconds.