Bygones (7 page)

“Sunday is a day of rest,” Troy Yoder had scolded his daughter. Then he’d given Henry a stern look, as if he should know better.

Henry squirmed, remembering the embarrassment of the moment. Yes, Sunday was a day of rest—and he rarely abused the fourth commandment—but what else could he do? Marie hadn’t let him know until yesterday noon that she and Beth would be leaving the next morning. That had only given him Saturday evening to prepare for her arrival. It wasn’t enough time.

Besides, he assured himself as he headed down the short hallway to Lisbeth’s sewing room, he had waited until after church service to come finish the tasks. Certainly the Lord understood he was performing a mission of mercy. Two women, tired from a long drive, wouldn’t have the energy to do the cleaning necessary to make the house livable.

Running the rag across the top of the waterfall bureau, he scowled. Turning a slow circle, he looked for the photograph album and basket that used to rest on the bureau. They were nowhere to be seen. He opened drawers and peeked into the closet, but the items weren’t there. His brow puckered as he contemplated where they might be.

A knock at the back door interrupted his thoughts. His heart skipped a beat as he trotted to the kitchen. Was Marie here now? He began forming words of greeting, but when he peeked through the curtain, he recognized Deborah.

Surprised, he swung the door wide. “What are you doing here?”

She held up a casserole dish covered by an embroidered tea towel. “I brought you our leftover supper.” Charging past him, she
plunked the dish on the counter. Hands on hips, she glared at him. “I’m sure you haven’t taken the time to eat.”

He pushed the door closed. “Not yet. I planned to eat when I finished here.”

“Men.” Deborah shook her head. “What were you doing?”

Henry waved the dust rag, creating a cloud. He sneezed. “Dusting.”

Deborah’s eyebrows raised. “With that?”

Henry looked at the rag, then back at his sister. He shrugged.

Heaving a sigh, Deborah held out her hand. “Give me that. All you do with a dry rag is push dust around.” When he handed the rag over, she pointed at the casserole and said, “You eat while I dust.”

After slamming a few cupboard doors, she located a can of furniture polish. Turning, she spotted him still standing beside the counter. “I said eat!”

Henry laughed. “Does Troy know you’re here?”

“Of course. As if I would take off without telling him where I was going.”

“Does he know you’re working?”

With a sour look, Deborah marched through the door that led to the dining room. He heard her muttering, and he couldn’t help smiling. Deborah had always been like a toasted marshmallow—crusty on the outside but soft underneath. Although he felt a twinge of guilt, he appreciated her taking over the dusting task. He retrieved one of Lisbeth’s forks from a drawer, pulled a stool to the edge of the counter, and helped himself to the creamy chicken-and-rice casserole.

While he ate, he let his gaze rove around the homey kitchen. Lisbeth’s penchant for bright colors was showcased in the embroidered muslin curtains bearing red strawberries and green vines. A matching stamped pattern of berries and vines decorated the
white-painted cupboards and walls. He frowned when his gaze encountered the little table crunched in the corner of the kitchen. It had always worn a red-and-white-checked cloth. Where might that have been tucked away?

And where were those photographs? Raising his voice, he called, “Deborah, do you remember the picture album and the little basket Lisbeth kept on the bureau in her sewing room?”

A grunt came in response. Henry interpreted it as a yes.

“They aren’t there now. Do you know where they went?”

Deborah stuck her head through the doorway. “How should I know? Ask her family—they’re the ones who arranged the service.”

Henry nodded, thinking back to the day of Lisbeth’s funeral. Had the album and letters been there that day? He couldn’t remember.

“Where’s Lisbeth’s broom and dustpan?”

Deborah’s brusque question brought him back to the present. He swallowed and stood. “On the inside of the door leading to the basement. I’ll get it.”

“No. Stay there and finish. I just want to sweep the front room.”

“I did that last night,” Henry said.

She raised her brows but didn’t speak. Obviously he hadn’t done it well enough. She disappeared again.

Henry ate as quickly as he could, rinsed the casserole dish and fork, then headed to the front room in time to catch Deborah shoving the couch against the wall. He moved her out of the way and repositioned the couch himself. “You even swept under this thing?”

“Well, certainly. Those dust bunnies always manage to come out of hiding when you least want them to.”

Henry brushed his palms together and glanced around the room. In the minimal sunlight remaining, the room looked as neat as it had when Lisbeth Koeppler lived. How many evenings had he spent in this room, visiting with her? She’d been like a second mother to
him. His heart twisted as a pang of loneliness struck.

Deborah headed toward the back of the house, broom in hand. She called over her shoulder, “Do the sheets on the bed need to be changed?”

Remaining in the front room, Henry replied, “No. I took care of that yesterday.”

“Where did you find clean ones?” The sounds of running water and a cupboard door opening and closing accompanied her words.

“In a chest in Lisbeth’s bedroom.”

There was an odd clatter, and then Deborah’s voice came again. “If they were shut up in a chest, they probably smell musty.”

“I took them outside and threw them over the line to air them first.”

Deborah didn’t respond. He plodded through the house to the kitchen, where he found her washing the casserole dish. She glanced up when he stopped beside the counter. “Light a lamp. I can’t see in here anymore.”

“Will you need it? There’s only that one dish and fork.”

Wordlessly, she reached into the soapy water and held up a handful of silverware. “I dumped the drawer full in here. Hated to waste the water.”

Henry lit the lamp he had set on the small kitchen table and carried it to the counter.

Deborah released a little snort. “How do you think our city dwellers will survive without electricity?”

Henry opened a drawer, seeking a tea towel. On top of the neat stack of towels, he found the checked tablecloth. He draped it over the table while answering his sister. “Marie’s family didn’t have electricity when she was growing up, so it won’t be new to her.” Returning to the drawer, he grabbed a towel and began drying the silverware Deborah placed in the dish drainer.

“Maybe, but it’s been awhile. And that girl of hers. . .she won’t know how to act.”

Henry remembered Beth’s reaction when she found him standing in her living room. He smiled. “Oh, I suspect she’ll find a way to adapt.”

“Where will she sleep? Lisbeth only had one bed.”

“I put a cot in the sewing room.” The cot had come from his own basement—he kept it on hand for when he hosted summer sleepovers with his nephews. “It doesn’t look too bad with one of Lisbeth’s quilts over it.” He had chosen the red-and-white patchwork quilt with calico hearts embroidered in the centers of selected white squares. It had always been Marie’s favorite of the stack in Lisbeth’s linen closet.

Deborah shot him a pointed look. “You look forward to their arrival, don’t you?” Her voice held a note of accusation.

Henry shrugged, dropping dry forks and spoons into the plastic tray in the silverware drawer. “I don’t know what I feel. I just know it’s what Lisbeth wanted.”

Deborah slammed another handful of silverware into the drainer. “What Lisbeth wanted. . . It would have been better if she’d just given everything to J.D. and Cornelia rather than stirring up this trouble.”

Henry paused, leaning against the counter to stare at his sister. “What trouble?”

Deborah didn’t look at him. “You know what I mean.” She swished her hand through the water and grabbed another spoon. “That girl of Marie’s coming here to sell the house and café. I think it’s shameful.”

“J.D. and Cornelia would have sold it, too,” Henry pointed out. “How is that different?”

“It just is!” Deborah snapped out the words. “J.D. and Cornelia
had a right to it. This girl. . . Beth. . .she’s never even been here!”

Henry could have reminded his sister that it wasn’t Beth’s fault she hadn’t been here, but he knew it would only cause an argument. Instead, he repeated softly, “It’s what Lisbeth wanted.”

Deborah jerked up the sink plug and watched the water swirl down the drain.

Henry dropped the last fork into the drawer, hung the damp towel on a rack above the sink, and gave Deborah a one-armed hug. “Thank you. Marie and Beth will appreciate this.”

She stepped away from him, her expression grim. “I didn’t do it for Marie and Beth. I did it for you.” She pointed at him. “And you remember something, Henry. Marie has been in the world for a long time. She’s not the girl we once knew. I know what Lisbeth was trying to do here, but I have every confidence that three months in Sommerfeld will do little more than make her all the more determined to get away again. Don’t—” Her voice cracked, her expression softening. She dropped her hand and sighed. “Don’t let yourself get hurt a second time, Henry. Please?”

“Deborah—”

She snatched up her casserole dish and headed for the door. Over her shoulder, she ordered, “Things look fine in here now. Go home.”

“Mom, stop at the next gas station, huh? I need a break.”

Marie stifled a sigh. “Honey, it’s less than an hour to Sommerfeld. Can’t you last that long?”

Beth huffed. “I need to go to the bathroom, okay?”

“Well, if you’d lay off the sodas, maybe you wouldn’t need a bathroom every half hour.” Marie tried to inject humor into her tone, but she was aware of a biting undercurrent.

Apparently Beth heard it, too, because she snapped, “I also need to stretch my legs. I’m tired of sitting.”

Marie was tired of sitting, too. She and Beth had traded off driving during the day, but most of the time she’d been behind the wheel. The tug of the small trailer of belongings attached to the back of their car made Beth nervous. Marie’s nerves had been frayed, as well—mostly from the early-hour last-minute packing and from having to listen to Beth’s lengthy cell-phone conversations with her boyfriend. Marie was just about ready to snap.

She held her tongue, however, recognizing that a large part of her unease was due to what waited at the end of their journey. The closer they got to her childhood home, the more the knot in her belly twisted. Despite Sally’s warning, she recognized a small glimmer of hope that someone—Mom or Dad, or one of her brothers or sisters—would be waiting at Lisbeth’s to welcome her back. She knew it was unlikely, maybe even ridiculous, and she did her best to squelch the niggling thought. But it hovered on the fringes of her mind, increasing her stomachache with every click of the odometer.

“There’s a station.” Beth pointed ahead.

Marie allowed the sigh to escape, but she slapped the turn signal and pulled off the highway into the station. Beth hopped out the moment the car stopped and dashed inside. Marie got out more slowly and walked to the hood of the car. She stretched, glancing across the landscape.

An unwilling smile formed on her lips. In the west, the sun had slipped over the horizon, but the broad Kansas sky gave her the final evidence of its bright presence. Deep purple clouds, undergirded with fuchsia, hung high on the backdrop of cerulean blue, and airy wisps with brilliant orange rims hung close to the horizon.

Beth stopped beside her mom’s shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

Marie pointed. “The sunset. I’d forgotten how beautiful they could be. Aunt Lisbeth always said there was nothing like a Kansas sunset. She was right.”

Beth smirked. “You’re not going to get all sentimental on me now, are you?”

Marie shot her daughter a sharp look. “There are worse things than being sentimental. Being insensitive is one of them.”

Beth rolled her eyes, and Marie’s gaze dropped to her daughter’s hand, where she held a super-sized fountain drink. “You said it’s just another hour. This won’t kick in until well after we get there.” Beth’s teasing grin eased a bit of Marie’s tension.

She gave her daughter a playful tweak in the ribs. “Let’s go. We’re almost there.”