“Jojo.” Rhoda held out her trembling hand. She wanted to hug her, but instead she stood there with her hand out.
Jojo stared at her. “You’re just weird.”
Rhoda laughed and lowered her arm. Perhaps hoping Jojo would take her hand was a bit too much. “The alarm going off inside you, urging you to run, is stuck. You need someone to help you dismantle it or tune it out or something. Fleeing into the unknown isn’t the only way to cope with it. I’ll help you … if you’ll let me.”
“You can’t, because I want as far from Camilla as possible.”
“Why?”
“You know why. She’s a horrible person.”
Rhoda wanted to correct her about that, but she remembered something Samuel had said the night they sat in lawn chairs in an open field and talked. “Is she?”
“Absolutely! I’d never let her get near Sophia. She stood there and let the beatings happen!”
Confused, Rhoda did as Samuel had suggested—if a question came to her, ask it. He thought that if the person didn’t answer, her intuition might. “She did?” And then she knew … “Or your mother did?”
Jojo got into her car and pulled the gearshift down several notches.
“She’s not your mother, Jojo.” Rhoda spoke loud enough to be heard through the closed window.
Rather than pulling off, Jojo clutched the top of the steering wheel and lowered her forehead onto the back of her hands.
Rhoda opened the car door. “She never stood by and watched Zachary be beaten.” She kept her voice soft so she wouldn’t wake Sophia. “Camilla took the blows. She should’ve gotten out. But the past can’t be changed. Your future can be.” But then Rhoda realized that Jojo didn’t care about her future. She felt used up, like discarded junk no one had wanted in the first place.
“Jojo, think what it could mean for Sophia’s future if you didn’t keep responding to that false alarm. In ten years when your daughter is a teenager, she’s going to look at you on her way out the door, bags packed with bitterness and disappointment because of your addiction to fleeing and your inability to dare to trust the right people, and she’ll say you should’ve stayed.”
Jojo lifted her head. “Are you sure? Is it the same cosmic voice that said ‘tell them’?”
Temptation to lie tugged at Rhoda. If she said yes, Jojo would probably stay, but she shook her head. “No. It’s just what I think could happen. But if you stayed here for a few days or weeks, we could think and pray until we knew for sure what you should do. Doesn’t Sophia’s future deserve at least a pause to ponder your next move?”
Jojo leaned against the headrest. “If I do this, I don’t want Camilla to know.”
Rhoda wanted to dance and holler for joy, but she simply nodded. “Just pull in front of the barn.”
Rhoda looked again at Sophia, and that’s when she noticed a violin case in the car. How many times had Rhoda heard violin music riding on the wind, coming from nowhere, when she first moved to Maine? “Sophia plays that, doesn’t she?”
Jojo nodded. “She seems gifted. At least that’s what a music teacher said one time, but I can rarely afford lessons for her. Getting lessons was part of why I made my last move.” She shrugged. “But it didn’t work out … at all.”
Camilla could give Sophia all the lessons she needed, at least for a really long time before Sophia outgrew Camilla’s abilities. But Rhoda wouldn’t mention that until the time was right. Jojo closed the door and backed up the car before pulling onto the driveway.
As Rhoda followed them, her heart sang a song of victory while she prayed desperately about Jojo’s next decision.
But for now Rhoda was above all else simply grateful.
THIRTY-TWO
Sunlight as clear and seamless as Jacob had ever seen caused the temperature to climb a little past comfortable. Teams—Iva with Crist, Samuel with Rhoda, Leah with him—worked the orchard like bees during pollination. Even Jojo and Sophia, who’d joined them only four days ago, were helping. Well, mostly Jojo. Sophia helped a little before she played with the dogs or dolls or practiced her violin.
Orchard Bend Farms was thriving, perhaps almost as much as his relationship with Esther. Even though he didn’t get to Virginia as often as he’d like, when he did, he spent a lot of time with Esther. She helped work on the kitchen project at Bailey’s, which was his whole purpose in building it. He’d discovered that Saturday was her freest day, and if he was there Friday night, she spent the whole day Saturday and into the evening at Bailey’s home. Bailey and his wife, Althea, welcomed him, inviting him to eat with them or just sit and chat.
Several apples fell from the surrounding trees.
“June drop.” Jacob knew it well and hated it. “If we had a dollar for every fruitlet dropping to the ground or being pruned, we wouldn’t need to harvest a crop of eating and canning apples.” He moved the ladder to a different spot on the tree and climbed it, searching for signs of fire blight or wormy or unpollinated fruitlets to prune.
Leah sprayed a rag with rubbing alcohol and scrubbed the blades of the long-handled shears. “Now where would be the fun in not needing a harvest?”
“Where would I be without your sarcasm?”
She shook his ladder. “Up a tree without one of these?”
He chuckled. There wasn’t much sense in thinking where he might be if they didn’t need a good harvest. He had to be here, dealing with the June drop. Every tree was doing its fair share of getting rid of unwanted fruit on its own, but, as always, for the best yield they needed to help mother nature.
“The shears clean?” He looked at his sister below. She hardly reminded him of the girl he’d grown up with. If she was still brokenhearted, and he believed she was, she didn’t show it. When had such maturity set in?
“Ya.” Leah held the very end of them, reaching the five-foot pruning shears as high as she could. “Do you really think they need this much cleaning between every cutting of fire blight?”
He grabbed them. “Yep. If we didn’t clean them well, rather than bringing the disease under control, we’d actually help spread it.”
For some reason he glanced a few trees down. Samuel was animated as he and Rhoda talked. His brother flirted with her, and then they burst into laughter for some reason. Jacob chuckled … and then blinked, staring at them.
Could it be? Had he finally found complete peace with Rhoda marrying Samuel? He focused on his feelings and thoughts … and smiled. Not only that, but he’d gone beyond it. He was grateful to be free to explore a relationship with Esther.
His phone buzzed, and he tried to free his hands, hoping it’d be Esther. Whether together or talking on the phone, he and Esther enjoyed each other. There was something about having a guy-girl relationship with neither one being interested in courting or marriage that was totally refreshing. But if things kept going as they were, he could see where the relationship might lead to something more … if she was interested.
Ach, his hands were full. He tossed the weak or damaged fruitlets he’d been collecting onto the sheet below. “Leah, take these, please.” He waited until she grabbed the pruning shears.
With his hands finally free, he dug for his phone. But the call had ended. He pressed icons, trying to see who’d called. Lancaster Medical. Jacob’s heart jolted.
“You gonna keep playing with that thing or what?” Leah asked.
“I got a call from the hospital.” He climbed down the ladder.
Leah froze. “Steven calls the barn office with routine updates. He’s never called your cell, has he?”
“No. But if he’s trying to reach us while we’re in the field, this is how he’d do it.” Jacob hit redial, but before anyone picked up, he had an incoming call. The hospital. He pressed accept. “Hello.”
“Jacob. Steven here. We finally have a bit of good news! Phoebe’s lungs are clear! Her heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels started improving yesterday. She’s doing well enough that they’re no longer looking at
taking the baby this week. She’s thirty-two weeks, and they’re hoping to get her as close to thirty-four weeks as possible, which is really important for lung maturity and improves the baby’s chances of thriving.”
“That’s great!” Jacob raised the phone, waving his arms. “Guys, kumm. Good news!” Joy danced through him, and he saw it in the steps and faces of everyone hurrying toward him. He returned the phone to his ear. “I’m putting you on speaker. Say it again, Steven.”
As Steven repeated the good news, they whooped and hollered and hugged one another—though Jacob avoided an awkward hug with Rhoda. But his brother grabbed him by the shoulders, and Jacob embraced him. Their joy for the Bylers seemed beyond what could be expressed.
They said their good-byes to Steven, and Jacob disconnected the call. While the others discussed the good news, he walked off, touching the number to Esther’s phone shanty. On the seventh ring someone out of breath picked up. “Hallo?”
“This is Jacob King. Is Esther around?”
“It’s me.” The whispered pant didn’t sound like her. “Give me a sec.” He heard muffled sounds, as if she’d placed her hand over the receiver. A few seconds later there was a change in the background noise. “Okay, I can breathe again. I thought you would be Bailey.” She drew a long breath, her voice returning to normal. “He’s checking on an old house that I’ve been trying to buy the rights to strip before it’s demolished. It’s a wreck, but it’s part of an estate, and the lawyers have been sticklers. Bailey came up with a plan a few days ago. He’s offering to save the estate money by demolishing it himself and hauling off the debris free of charge if I can have a week to gut it. The lawyers are balking, but the beneficiaries of the estate like the plan. So what’s up with you?”
“I have good news about Phoebe.”
“Jacob, that’s wonderful and about time. Let’s hear it!”
He briefed her and enjoyed her excited response. Soon they were talking about the progress in the orchard and how he was coping with being here. “So how are things there?”
“Two of the pregnant girls—Fanny and Malinda—have moved back home with their parents, one to Ohio and one to Indiana.”
“Esther, that’s great news.”
“Isn’t it? Watching the reunion between the parents and their daughters, stilted and awkward as it is each time, chokes me up. It’s really just a matter of giving room for cooling off. Once parents are given a little time, their warmer, loving hearts always prevail over the anger and disappointment.”
“Always?”
“Parents love their children even when the offspring have disappointed and embarrassed them beyond what they think they can tolerate. Some families need only a couple of weeks. Some need until the baby is a few months old. But they come around, and when they do, it melts my heart and makes it worth housing the girls.”
A beep interrupted them.
“Jacob, hang on. Maybe this is Bailey.”
“Sure.” He sat on a hill and waited. The others had spread out a blanket and were eating sandwiches. His stomach growled, but he’d talk as long as Esther had time. Then he’d eat.
“You there?”
“I am. Do you get to gut the house?”
“I do!”
“How long do you have to strip what you can?”
“Until Monday.”
It was Thursday afternoon, and she wouldn’t work on Sunday. “Are you free to start on it tomorrow?”
“I wish.” Esther detailed the constraints on her time and the lack of assistance she’d have for the weekend, but it didn’t dampen her enthusiasm. Would she have time to harvest even an eighth of it? Not only would he like to help her, but he’d like to witness her pleasure. He imagined she would radiate joy like a woman fulfilled with good fortune.
“Jacob, hold on.”
It sounded as if she’d covered the phone again, but he could hear a woman in the background talking to her. An idea came to him, and he headed for the blanket where everyone sat. Before he got there, Esther called his name.
“Ya. I’m here.”
“Sorry, but I need to go. If I can borrow Bailey’s cell on Saturday, I’ll snap a few pictures and send them.”
She wasn’t too much of a stickler for rules. Abiding by the spirit of the Ordnung was important to her, but not the letter of it, and like other young Amish women, she saw nothing wrong with taking images of old houses and such. “I’d like that, Esther.” They said their good-byes as he reached the group. Iva passed him a plate with two sandwiches and some chips.
“I know there’s a ton of work to be done, but if I can find a driver to get me to the station in Boston, I’m leaving for Virginia tonight.” If he took the Northeast Regional, he could board around nine o’clock, sleep until daylight, transfer to a bus in DC, and arrive at his destination in Virginia around lunchtime. He wasn’t as familiar with bus routes, so maybe he could locate one closer to where Esther lived. “I’ll aim to be home late Sunday or by midmorning on Monday.”
Samuel nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.”
If his brother felt the sting of losing Jacob’s help for the next two days, Jacob didn’t hear it in Samuel’s voice or see a hint of it on his face. All he saw was a brother who wanted him to be happy. And Jacob was very happy.
Jojo got up. “I could drive you to the train station.” She set down the trash bag. “I have one problem, though. Sophia won’t travel well for that long to simply turn around and return here.”
“I’d be happy to watch her,” Iva offered, grinning.
He took a bite of his sandwich. “Wipe that look off your face, Iva. I’ve told you before …”
“We know.” She held up her hands, her palms facing him. “We got it. She’s not a girlfriend.” She grinned again. “So, Jacob, where’d you meet this girl?”
“If you must know, I ran into her … with my horse as she was trying to cross the street. I knocked her flat on her back.”
“Oh, honey,” Leah mocked, shaking her head. “That’s not what women mean when we say we want a man to sweep us off our feet.”
“Not so fast, Leah,” Iva said. “Just because we haven’t heard of this technique before doesn’t mean it didn’t work.” She held her hand over her eyes, peering at Jacob. “Did it do the job?”
“Women.” Jacob sighed. “You imagine romance out of thin air.”
Still, even as he discounted their teasing, he knew there was something magical about Esther and him. Wasn’t there?
THIRTY-THREE
It was the first day of summer, and Leah had a job to do, but focusing on cleaning and preparing codling moth traps seemed impossible. She set the container on the back of the wagon she was using as a workbench and took in the view around her. The rich green leaves of the trees swayed in the warm wind, the branches teeming with fruit.
Was teeming the right word to use on something like this? Landon would know. But she hadn’t seen or talked to him in six weeks and four days. That was entirely too long to go without having any communication with him.
What would a decade be like? Would it always hurt like this? Maybe it would even grow worse before it started getting better, but she knew from watching Rhoda, Samuel, and Jacob that healing did come.
“Leah.” A man’s voice echoed around her, and she searched for the source. Crist was riding bareback across the field, waving. She waved in return. He’d recently increased his hours on this farm while keeping long hours on his folks’ farm.
With a clean, old rag in hand, she wiped the sticky goo from the sides of a trap. The conversation she’d had with Landon at the hospital had made the situation really clear to her. He wanted and deserved a whole girl, one who was his peer and came with a family who would love and respect him. He needed in-laws who would not only welcome his future children into their lives but would gratefully shift their schedules for the privilege of spending time with him and his children.
Even if Leah could give him the best possible scenario of
her leaving the Amish, it would never include those things. So she had set her will to getting used to missing him.
Crist slowed his horse. “I was heading to the barn to get a fresh horse and wagon when I caught a glimpse of you. Need a hand?”
Her horse shook its head and shifted forward, causing the wagon in front of her to move. “I’m gut, denki.” She took a few steps, catching up to the back of the wagon.
Crist dismounted. “You’re short some traps, aren’t you?” He towered over her, more than Landon did by a good three inches, and Landon was six feet tall.
Holding a codling moth trap in one arm, she quickly counted the number of unbroken containers in the wagon and then the number of trees that still needed traps. How’d he figure that out so fast? She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m almost out of molasses too. I’ll do what I can. Maybe Jojo can take me to the supply store later today.”
Several traps had broken as she’d removed them from the trees, and there weren’t enough new ones to replace all of them. Her chore today was to scrape out the dead bugs along with the molasses, water, and yeast mixture; add the fresh mixture; and rehang the traps in at least two dozen more trees before sunset, which would be in less than two hours.
Crist grabbed an empty container and poured in water, molasses, and yeast. He stuck a large wooden spoon into it and stirred. “Where is everyone?”
“Jojo is probably still doing laundry and washing dishes after that huge lunch she fixed. Rhoda and Samuel are on the east side, doing the same thing as me. Jacob’s starting another spraying in the southern section. Iva should be back soon. She went to the house to get fresh rags.” Leah slung a gooey, insect-covered rag into the laundry barrel in the back of the wagon. “Clearly I didn’t prepare well for today.”
Seasons of Tomorrow Page 28
