Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  Jennie looked from one to the other, then back. Feelings smoldered there. After fifty years? At seventy and seventy-one? She shook her head, trying to shed the thought. Her parents had been in love like she loved Atlee once. And still were. “What happened?”

  Mudder answered first. “He told me a joke one night after a singing.”

  “And it was funny?”

  “Nee. But he tried so hard that it made me giggle.” Mudder smiled. “After fifty years he still makes me laugh. If you have that in a marriage, you’re halfway there.”

  “I was funny,” Daed protested. “I told you she was snooty.”

  They both laughed as if they were the only ones in the room.

  Jennie tried to remember if Atlee made her laugh. Surely at the beginning. No memory popped up. Not a single one. She sometimes smiled when he sang as he worked. He sounded like an unhappy dog that had his paw stuck in a barbed-wire fence.

  “Supper’s ready!” Kate called from the kitchen. “Call the menfolk.”

  Daed rose. He wielded his cane with the ease of a man who’d come to terms with his infirmities. He stopped by the chair and held out his hand. Mudder laid her lap quilt over the chair arm, took his hand, and he tugged her to her feet. They paused as if steadying themselves for a long trek. With care, her hand went to his forearm and he started forward, leading her.

  “Come along, child. It’s time to eat.” Mudder held out her free hand. “I’ll help you up.”

  Jennie took her hand. The blind leading the blind.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Thunder. Hammering. Pounding. Nee. Jennie swam up through a lake of heavy, dark dreams of a baby crying and a man’s deep, angry voice. Pounding. Someone pounded. A voice shouted. She sat up, pillow wrapped in her arms like a buoy. The door. Someone was at the door downstairs. Shivering despite the dank July night air, she listened to her own heart pound and breathed. Only darkness seeped through the window across the room. Nighttime. No good came of a nighttime visit. She slipped from the bed on weak legs. More pounding.

  A man’s voice. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone demanded immediate attention.

  “Stop, stop.” Silly to think the visitor could hear her. Whoever it was would wake the children. Not a problem with the older ones, but Francis had a penchant for waking and staying awake, playing with his wooden animals until light. She fought with her dress, first her head stuck, then her elbow. She wound her hair into a ragged knot and stuck it in her kapp as she raced down the stairs on bare feet. “Coming. I’m coming.”

  At the door she stopped and drew a long breath. Bracing herself, she opened the door. A Daviess County sheriff’s deputy stood on the porch, Matthew next to him. She closed her eyes and opened them. The image did not disappear. It wasn’t a dream. “Why didn’t you come on in?”

  “He wouldn’t let me.” Matthew’s hangdog look matched his tone. “He said people have been shot for less than entering a farmer’s house in the middle of the night.”

  “You’re Matthew’s mother?” The deputy had a deep voice that matched his solemn air.

  She nodded, her throat tight with dread.

  “We need to talk.” The man removed his hat and introduced himself as Deputy Seth McKenzie as he entered the living room. He smelled of spicy men’s cologne. He was a beanpole with a deep sunburn, crow’s feet around his blue eyes, thinning white-blond hair, and a beak nose that reminded her of a rooster. “I’m sorry for intruding in the middle of the night, but we have a situation that needs to be addressed.”

  Matthew was now a situation that needed to be addressed in the English world. The Gmay would not be happy. Freeman would not be happy. No one would be happy. Jennie nodded toward the chairs by the empty fireplace. “Have a seat then.”

  He was so tall his knees seemed to touch his chin in a chair too small for him. “Is your husband here?”

  “My husband passed.”

  A look of concern mixed with outright pity flittered across the deputy’s face before he shuttered it behind a neutral gaze. “Fine, then we’ll get down to business. Dispatch got a call from Delbert Wilkins about a bunch of kids overrunning one of his pastures.” Deputy McKenzie tugged a tiny notebook from his front pocket, flipped it open, and stared at squiggles that might pass for cursive writing in some corner of the world. “He heard a motor backfire and loud music playing at eleven o’clock at night. He got his shotgun, saddled up a horse, and went to take a look. Called dispatch when he saw a kegger happening right under his nose. Smart man, he didn’t let them know he’d seen them. ’Course they all scattered when they saw us coming. Your guy didn’t move fast enough. I grabbed him.”

  Jennie stared at her son. He studied his boots as if he’d never seen them before. His broad shoulders hunched. His mouth, so like his father’s, turned down in a half sneer, half frown. A scarlet blush spread across his face under his tan. She waited, hoping he would offer some explanation that would help her make sense of this strange behavior.

  Nothing.

  “Suh, what do you have to say for yourself? Were you out there drinking?”

  His head sank some more.

  “Most of the kids out there know to drop the cup and run like crazy.” The deputy turned his stern glance to Matthew. “Yours just stood there like a moron, a red cup full of beer in his hand.”

  “I’m not a moron.” Matthew’s head snapped up. His scowl deepened. “And I wasn’t drinking. I just had the cup in my hand.”

  “I put him through a field-sobriety test and he passed.” Deputy McKenzie’s voice was stern. “I’m inclined to believe him. Which is why he’s here and not in jail with half a dozen of his buddies.”

  “They’re not my—”

  “Matthew, hush. The deputy is giving you a break.” If he went to jail for drinking, he might never recover in the eyes of the Gmay. He would be forgiven for his mistake, but folks would remember. Freeman would always be watching, even more than he did now. “Why were you there?”

  “I was just having fun, you know, talking, listening to music.” His gaze sideswiped the deputy, freewheeled past Jennie, and landed on the empty rocking chair beyond her. “There was no harm in it.”

  “You were on private property.” Deputy McKenzie shook his head. “You were with a bunch of minors who were drinking. You were in possession of alcohol.”

  The scarlet blush spread down Matthew’s neck in ugly blotches. “I like them. I like . . . the girls.”

  “You’re fourteen years old—”

  “Almost fifteen.”

  “Too young for girls. For alcohol. To be running around with Englischers. That’s for your rumspringa. You’re way ahead of yourself.”

  Silence reigned for a few seconds. Jennie didn’t know where to begin. She didn’t understand. Plain boys didn’t do this. Not Mary Katherine’s children. Not Laura’s children or grandchildren. Not her own brothers growing up. They waited until they were sixteen and the time was right to explore life outside the rigid rules of the Gmay. Parents expected it. They accepted it, because they believed God would guide their children back to their families and to faith.

  Freeman would say no community was without its troublemakers. Her oldest son had meandered—no raced—off the path. Where had she gone wrong? What had she done? Or not done?

  Gott, save him. Please save him.

  For the first time in four years, supplication came easy. Her own trials forgotten, she cried out in silence. Gott, forgive my absence. Forgive my stiff neck. Save him. Show me what to do to help him.

  “Say it.” Matthew shot from his chair, hands clenched in fists, his voice raised. “Say it, go on, you know you want to.”

  “Say what?” She worked to keep her voice soft, gentle, a mother’s voice. “What ails you?”

  “I’m like him, aren’t I? You look at me and you think I’m like him.”

  “Sit down.” Deputy McKenzie stood. He towered over Matthew, who was by no means short. He had six inches and fifty pounds on the
boy. “Show some respect to your mother, or I will cart you right down to the jail and throw you in with your buddies.”

  Matthew subsided.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Jennie struggled for words to assuage a hurt that so obviously existed but was beyond her feeble means of comprehension. She tried never to show her concern over the way Matthew sometimes acted like his father. “I think you’re a confused boy who needs to talk to a man about some things. I’m sorry your daed’s not here to help you with these things that I’m not capable of understanding.”

  “No, you’re not.” He spat out the words. “You’re glad he’s gone. So am I.”

  She couldn’t, shouldn’t lie. “It wasn’t easy with your daed. I’m sorry.”

  “You did what a fraa does.” He said the words grudgingly. He was old enough to know his words were true. She couldn’t intervene, as much as she’d wanted to protect him. Even if Atlee hadn’t been bigger, stronger, and angrier. Always angrier. “That’s why you were glad when he was gone.”

  How could a boy so young see so much? Did all her kinner see and know? “I wanted . . . peace, but not like that. Not that way.”

  “Obviously there are family matters that need to be worked out here.” Deputy McKenzie sank back into the chair. He slapped his notebook closed. “Here’s the deal. Delbert said he wouldn’t press trespassing charges if it didn’t happen again.”

  “We weren’t doing nothing wrong.”

  Matthew knew it was wrong. He felt guilty and ashamed. In his heart, he knew it was wrong. Everything about the set of his shoulders and the fisting of his hands said so.

  Deputy McKenzie stood and turned to Jennie. “I’m counting on you, ma’am, to talk some sense into this boy and to keep an eye on him. He’s getting a second chance here. He won’t get another one.”

  “I understand.” She swallowed a bitter lump of anxiety and rose to follow him to the door. “I’ll deal with it.”

  His hand on the knob, Deputy McKenzie looked back at Matthew, who sat, elbows on his knees, head down, staring at the floor. “Your son has some anger-management issues, ma’am. It’s better to address them now rather than later when they get out of hand.”

  She thought she had with Leo and the carpentry apprenticeship. “I’m trying. We’re trying.”

  “The fact that you recognize the problem is half the battle. I know you folks keep to yourself, but you might consider taking him to a specialist. Someone he can talk to.”

  “Mostly, we talk among ourselves and that works for us.”

  “Sorry for your troubles, ma’am.” He tipped his hat, his mournful smile reflecting his sincerity. “If there’s anything I can do to help, you know where to find me.”

  The smile also said he knew she would never take him up on the offer. Plain folks solved their own problems—especially when it came to their children. She watched him drive away, took a long breath of night air, and went back inside. Matthew was halfway up the stairs. She called out to him. He looked back and kept climbing.

  “I have to talk to Freeman about this. You know I do.”

  He stopped, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t care.”

  “You do care. You don’t like acting this way. You’re a good boy with a good heart.”

  He whirled and sat on the steps.

  “How do you know? Most of the time I act like a snot.”

  “You do.” She had to concede the truth. “But you work hard for your onkels. You do your chores. You pick up Francis when he falls down. You found Indigo for Elizabeth when the kitten was lost. You wouldn’t do those things if you were a mean boy.”

  “I feel mean.”

  “Maybe it’s because you don’t understand some of things you saw, the things that were done to you.” She went to the bottom of the stairs and put her hand on the banister. “I don’t understand either and I’m a lot older than you are.”

  “A while back me and Leo took a rocking chair to the vet’s house.” He stuck his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his hands. He chewed on his lower lip for a second, his brow furrowed. He looked so like his father. “It was a present because she’s expecting.”

  “Jah?” He was telling her something important to him. Jennie tried to understand the significance. “Leo is generous.”

  “They looked really happy about it.”

  “That’s gut.”

  He raised his head. He fiddled with his hair. “They are happy.”

  “Most married couples are. They have bumps in the road and they bicker, but mostly they are happy.”

  “Not you and Daed.”

  “Nee.” She couldn’t lie to him. He was old enough to remember. What he remembered hurt him. He had invisible scars just as she did. Those scars made him act up. He couldn’t be faulted for that. Nor could he be allowed to stray down this path. “I’m sorry you had to see the things you saw. I’m sorry he treated you the way he did. You can be better than him. You can do better.”

  “You couldn’t stop him.”

  “Nee.”

  “I should’ve done something.”

  “You couldn’t.” The image of his small face, streaked with tears, hiding behind his bed all those years ago, flashed in front of her. “You were too small. You were only ten years old.”

  “Too weak.”

  “Nee. You were only a boy and he was your daed.”

  He stared down at her, his face full of pain that flowed from him into her. “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  “It’s not our way.” The words sounded weak in her own ears. A mother should protect her children from this kind of hurt. She should have done more. “I took vows.”

  “Do you think you’ll do it again?”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine, hard for me to trust, but I want to.”

  “It doesn’t bother you when Nathan comes around, sniffing at your heels, or Leo?”

  The sarcasm made Jennie count to ten, slowly. “It’s scary, to be truthful.”

  “How can you trust anyone?”

  “I’m trying to trust Gott.”

  “I’m never getting married.” He whirled and ran up the rest of the stairs, pounding out his frustration and his anger in the thud of his boots against the wood. “Never.”

  “You’ll get over it in time,” she called after him, more hopeful than certain.

  Like she had?

  TWENTY-NINE

  Celia’s bellow wafted through the open windows. Jennie ignored it as she tied her bonnet strings. She’d sent her oldest daughter to bring the buggy they’d borrowed from Peter around to the house so they could load up the kinner and head to the school fund-raiser auction. She wasn’t in a hurry and there was no need to yell. She straightened the bonnet and picked up her canvas bag from the kitchen table. They couldn’t afford to buy anything at the fund-raiser, but it was the social event of the summer. People, especially women, went to visit with friends, to see who bought what, and to eat homemade ice cream and funnel cakes. The kinner loved to attend.

  The thought lifted her spirits despite the gloom that descended every time she thought of the scene with Deputy McKenzie and Matthew the previous night. Matthew’s angry, belligerent face. The deputy’s urgent warning: “I don’t want to come out to tell you he’s in jail or worse.”

  Matthew would not go to the auction. He would stay here and do chores. They had agreed to that. He would not leave. He had given her his word.

  Could his word be trusted?

  She had to talk to Leo. So far, his apprenticeship had not borne the fruit for which she had hoped. Matthew sought something she couldn’t help him find. Her own experience with love had caused her eldest son to have a troubled spirit in need of healing as much as her own. Regret ached in her throat. Tears burned eyes red from lack of sleep. Gott, help me.

  Maybe Leo could help her talk to Freeman. He had experience with this. She didn’t. Freeman would be just. Gott, please let him understand.

  She paused, surprised at her ow
n prayers. She had lost her way after Atlee’s death. Perhaps the fog over the road ahead had begun to clear.

  Gott?

  “Mudder, Mudder!” Her face flushed, Celia skidded to a stop in the doorway, Elizabeth and Francis behind her like little shadows. “Didn’t you hear me yelling? Come on, come look, come look!”

  “Lookie, lookie,” Elizabeth added in a singsong voice. “Come, come.”

  Francis grinned and said nothing.

  “There’s no need to yell.” Weary to the marrow in her bones, Jennie trudged toward the door. “I’m not in a big hurry. The auction will go on until dark.”

  And they wouldn’t be buying anything so there was no rush to wade through the crowd to get close enough to bid or be jostled by the would-be buyers. It would be a slow, simple day of fun. She was determined to enjoy it. No matter what. Tomorrow, she would talk to Leo about Matthew and then she would go to the store and work until it closed. Freeman and the other men were discussing the fate of the store. So far, no answer had been forthcoming. She needed to make money while she could.

  She would solve her money problems and she would be the mother Matthew needed.

  “Melvin is here. He’s brought—you have to see. Come on.”

  Celia dashed out again, Elizabeth and Francis trotting after her. Her curiosity piqued, Jennie hurried through the living room. Melvin had been in Jennie’s class in school. He was a nice man, hard worker, married with half a dozen children about the same age as hers. They hadn’t exchanged more than ten words in ten years. Now he was here and he had something to show her.

  She pushed the front door open and stepped onto the porch. Celia danced around like chopped spuds thrown into a skillet full of grease. The two little ones tried to mimic her excitement, but Francis ended up taking a tumble onto the wooden floor. He sat on his behind and clapped while Celia tugged on Jennie’s arm. “Look at it, Mudder. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”