A Love Undone (32 page)

Hope ambled into the kitchen and put her books on the counter. “What’s all this?” She got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with tap water.

“Information on the properties I told you about. You know, the ones James is considering as start-up places for a nursery.”

“I remember.” She moved to the table and stared down at the mess. “But I’m surprised you’re seriously looking already.”

“We’re daydreaming mostly.” James fidgeted with the edge of a stack of papers.

Hope lowered the glass and wiped the back of her wrist across her lips. “That’s cool.”

James barely looked up from the papers and toward Hope. “Is it?”

“Sure it is.” She shifted some of the papers, glancing at the images. “So which ones are in the lead?”

“No idea,” James mumbled. “Hopefully, I’m better at running a nursery than I am at choosing a location.”

“You’ll find that out soon enough, won’t you?” She went to the head of the table and sat.

When did his little sister start sounding so much like Jolene?

“But first you gotta get the business started.” She sipped on her water as she glanced through several portfolios of properties. “What’s the budget?”

Ray dropped a folder on the table. “More than zero but not by much.”

James rolled his eyes. “I have fifteen thousand saved, and I can get a loan for thirty more, but that’s not much when you’re talking about a business.”

Hope set one portfolio on the table and slapped it. “You should toss that one out of the running.”

“Really?” James picked it up. “Why?”

She waved another one under his face. “Because it’s no better than this one, and it costs twice as much.”

“Gut. One decision made.” James pulled out a chair and laid the portfolio in it that Hope said to discard.

Hope passed him another one. “This one should go too. Look at it. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Finding something in Winter Valley would be better than that.”

“True.” James put it on top of the other discarded one. In less than an hour, Hope had the number of properties to consider down to five. “Okay, men,”—she stood—“I’ve done my part. Maybe it’s time to call the Realtor who gave you all those.”

“Denki, Hope.” James patted the stack. “We were feeling
overwhelmed. Next thing on our list should be to talk to Amish businesspeople who live in those towns. They’ll be able to tell us things the Realtor can’t.”

Hope put her glass in the sink. “For a man bumfuzzled by a stack of folders, you’re pretty smart.”

“Even a blind squirrel is right twice a day.”

Hope broke into laughter. “Uh, I think you mixed two different sayings. It’s ‘even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while,’ and ‘a stopped clock is right twice a day.’ ”

James never looked up from the folder in his hand. “So you’re saying a squirrel is never right?”

When Hope said nothing, he peered over the top of the folder. Ray knew James had on his poker face and was teasing Hope, but would she realize it?

Hope shook her head. “The squirrel is right twice a day if it squirreled away a broken clock.”

“I reckon so.” James lowered his eyes to the folder, never cracking a smile. But Ray could tell he was doing his best to keep a straight face.

James nodded toward her stack of books. “Read much?”

Hope grabbed her books. “Never read at all.” She went up the stairs.

“You like my sister.”

James’s cheeks turned pink. “Does it show that much?”

“She’s six years younger than you. That’s too young for you.”

“Uh, ya, I know that. But she’ll grow out of being young. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll have become a real grownup about that same time and will be running a successful business. I have nothing right now.
I live in my brother’s carriage house with a job that’s been handed to me. I probably need six years to get my act together enough to be worthy of her.” He shuffled the folders.

“Speaking of girls, I’ve hired a driver to take me to see Teena next weekend.”

“It’s about time you visited her by yourself.”

“That’s what she said.”

Andy walked beside his son on the path through the woods. The mid-October leaves were almost at peak color, and the air smelled of fall as they returned from the creek. Tobias held the lead to his horse, patting her while walking beside Andy. He had no doubt he’d done the right thing to give Tobias a horse. It was the very one he’d wanted before they went to Lester’s, the solid black one with an irregular, T-shaped blaze on her face. As Jolene and Hope had read him the novel
Black Beauty
, Tobias’s heart had broken for the mistreated creature, and Andy knew his son was ready.

“Daed, you gonna answer me?”

Since Tobias had been a toddler, Andy had known the time would come when he’d have to tell Tobias nearly everything concerning his mother. But Andy had hoped to have better words than the ones he could currently find.

His sudden questions about his Mamm were sticky ones. Why had she left? Would she return? Didn’t she love him or Andy? What was wrong with them that she ran off? “Sure, I’ll answer. I just need a minute to think how best to word it.” He rubbed his neck. Sleeping on the couch every night was rough on a body, but his bed seemed entirely too large for one lonely man.

Before going to Winter Valley, he had been content and at peace with his life. What had Jolene done to him?

“Your Mamm is sick. She—”

“Then we need to go to her, right? Sick people need someone to help them.”

“Well, they do, but this is a different kind of sickness. Her brain has an illness, and she doesn’t want my help.”

“Doesn’t want it?”

God, please don’t let learning these things endanger Tobias’s sense of well-being
.

“You like walking to the creek, don’t you, Daed?”

The quick change of subject seemed to be how Tobias’s mind was working today. “Ya.” Seeing the currents and hearing the rushing sound made him feel closer to Jolene, and it brought him some peace, as if assuring him she was fine. Was she?

He wasn’t. It’d only been a few weeks, and he was miserable.

“The horse in the book
Black Beauty
couldn’t have been any prettier than my horse, huh? Miss T is a beaut.”

Andy patted her. “That she is.”

“I told
Grossmammi
about me and Hope sitting on that log feeding fish.”

It would be safer for everyone involved if Tobias didn’t mention the Keims at all, but how could Andy ask that of his son? “That was a fun day, wasn’t it?”

“Ya.” Tobias pointed. “Daed, look.”

Bishop Omar and Levi were waiting at the end of the path where the woods met open pastures.

“Hallo.” Omar sounded like his usual friendly self. “It’s beautiful out, ya?”

“It is.” Tobias waved. “Me and Daed have been all the way to the creek!”

Levi strode toward Andy and Tobias, leaving Omar at the end of the path. “Hey, little buddy, let’s put Miss T in the pasture and hop in the rig. Sadie’s waiting.”

Andy’s heart kicked up a notch. He and Sadie were getting Tobias off the farm as quickly as possible. “What’s going on?”

Levi put the horse between Andy and Tobias. “Omar got a call from Jolene’s bishop. There’s to be a meeting.”

Andy’s head throbbed. “The subject matter?”

“Inappropriate behavior,” Levi whispered. “Maybe adultery.”

Adultery?
The word made his heart race. How was it possible anyone thought that? He willed his pounding heart to slow. “Has anyone talked to Jolene to find out how she’s holding up?”

“No, and the bishop said there’s to be no contact from any Fishers. There’s a gag order until it’s settled.”

“When’s the meeting?”

Levi started to say, but Tobias came around the front of the horse. “Where we going?”

Levi smiled. “To get ice cream and visit Mammi and Daadi. Sound good?”

Tobias nodded, but he looked from Levi to his Daed, confused by what was going on. Andy winked. “You get an extra scoop for me and bring it home in your pocket.”

Tobias laughed, and Levi and Tobias led the horse to the pasture.

Andy came face to face with Omar. The man shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Andy. I tried to stop this … for Tobias’s sake more than anything.”

Sunlight streamed in through the windows of the spare bedroom. Jolene’s mouth was dry and her heart pounded as she aerated the soil around the containerized dogwood and put some fresh, fertilized dirt around the tree. Today she would face her bishop and Andy’s.

What an awful spot to be in—for all of them. Guilt hounded her, but as odd as it seemed, so did a strong sense of faith. But both of those things aside, Jolene would return home with it imprinted on her brain that there could be no more contact between her and Andy. Ever.

She had to put him out of her mind and heart, but just as this dogwood tree would continue to grow, so would her respect for Andy Fisher. After dusting the dirt off her gloves, she removed them. This room was where she’d grown her dogwoods for the last ten years. Long ago, in another lifetime, it used to be the nursery. She remembered every sibling’s birth, including Josiah’s, even though she was only three at the time.

“Hey.” Josiah’s familiar voice pulled her from her thoughts.

“Hi.”

In his eyes she saw worry, and yesterday he’d voiced that he wanted to go with her today. But the instructions regarding who could attend were very precise. Only those who’d witnessed Andy and Jolene together during regular work-hours, when they were the most likely to have their guard down from onlookers, were allowed. Thankfully, both bishops felt Hope should not come, due to her age.
“Why am I not surprised you’re here?” She ran her fingers over the leaves of the dogwood, and her faith in this gift steadied her beating heart.

Four months ago when Sadie had mentioned wanting a tree like Lester’s, Jolene began praying specifically for Andy and Tobias while tending to this tree. She would have to give it to Levi and Sadie, but since the night she’d kept Andy from returning to Apple Ridge, she’d cared for this tree with the same depth of love and care she did each one she gave away. Well, this one might have received a few more fervent pleas to God to take care of Andy for her. She blinked, willing the tears away. “The driver will be here soon, so would you carry this outside for me?”

“Sure.” Josiah picked up the heavy container as if it weighed no more than his son. “I want to say something encouraging. I can’t believe you of all people are facing this kind of meeting with church ministers, from two different districts no less. It’s just so wrong.”

She had yet to be told what the exact charges were. Obviously they were related to her becoming too friendly with a married man, and she had mixed feelings about that—some guilt and some defensiveness. “I hate it for Andy and Tobias. It’s my fault Andy didn’t go home when he wanted to. He could’ve used those few days at home to try to find someone who could replace him for the summer while Levi and Sadie stayed here.”

“I feel really guilty. Maybe if I’d been here for you, but I’ve been so busy with my own life—”

She held up her hand, shushing him, but before she said anything, someone knocked on the front door.

“Hallo? Jolene?” Glen called.

The plan had been that a driver would bring Glen here, and then Ray, Glen, and she would go to Apple Ridge. Her bishop and deacon had left earlier. She wasn’t sure why. “Take the tree out, and make sure Ray’s finished tending the horse.”

As soon as Josiah disappeared, Jolene reached into her pocket and felt the key to the attic. She’d fallen asleep with it in her hand last night, holding it tight. When she woke, her first thought was to give it to Andy. Maybe because the attic was a connection between them, or maybe because it represented a secret room, much like the undisclosed feelings that ran between them. Would anything be a secret after today?

The floor squeaked, and when she turned, she saw Glen in his Sunday best with a Bible in hand. He walked to the much-smaller dogwood, the one she would now give Ray when he married. “I didn’t say anything sooner because I was afraid it’d keep you from sleeping, but I don’t want you caught off guard. I don’t know what Andy’s bishop has said to him, but our bishop says I’m not to tell you the specifics. I do know, however, that it’s going to be a really tough day with a lot of hard questions.”