Love Still Stands (37 page)

“I gave up smoking.” His face the color of radishes, Sheriff McCormack gripped the
door frame. “Where does it hurt, son?”

“Don’t call me
son
. It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine. Just get me out of here.” Shawn coughed, a hacking, dry
sound. “You quit smoking. Your timing always did stink. I guess you’re a better man
than I am in every way.”

“Shut up.” The sheriff looked around as if he wanted to yell at someone. Seeing only
Elijah and Bethel, he slapped his mouth shut, his jaw bulging.

The EMTs arrived then, chugging down the embankment with a stretcher between them.

“Hurry up,” McCormack yelled. “Before hypothermia sets in.”

“It hasn’t been that long—”

“Stop jabbering, Gill, and get to work on him.”

His expression annoyed, the first EMT brushed past them, carrying a black duffel bag.
“Hold your horses, Sheriff. We’re coming as fast as we can.”

“It’s my boy. He’s hurt.”

“Let’s go.” This time Elijah grabbed Bethel’s arm and propelled her up the slope.
“We’re only in the way here.”

“I just want to make sure he’s—”

“You can check on him when you go in for your session.” He stared straight ahead,
his grip like a vise around her arm. “I think it’s time for Ida to start taking you.
I have too much work to keep driving into town all the time.”

“You’re being silly.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be the last time I act anything but polite around you.”

Chapter 34

L
uke turned on the pole lantern, adjusted the light, and sat down at the table where
Leah’s letter lay, facedown where he’d left it that morning. He’d found it in the
mailbox along with a stack of letters from Annie, Miriam, his Aenti Lottie, the boy’s
Young Companion
magazine, and the latest edition of the
Budget
. The women’s letters had been full of chatty news about the goings-on in Bliss Creek,
all about the Englisch farmers being offered more than a thousand dollars an acre
for mineral rights on their farms. And now some company wanted to pay them to put
giant wind turbines on their land for wind power. Some of their Englisch neighbors
were getting rich and set for their retirements. It all seemed like something very
far removed from him. Another life. Except that life now included his fraa.

Leah’s letter was filled with tidbits about Mattie’s girls playing with the twins
and teaching them new words. Jebediah took two steps on Wednesday and then sat down
and clapped for himself. A tooth coming in on his front lower gum caused him to be
cranky and wake up during the night. Mattie’s girls made all the pies and bread for
Thanksgiving. Everyone had gathered together for a good visit. Everyone but Luke,
Bethel, and the boys. They had been missed. The family had missed them, she said.

The letter didn’t say anything about coming home. It didn’t say anything about regretting
the decision to stay. It didn’t apologize for embarrassing him in front of their family
and friends. It didn’t apologize for hurting him. It didn’t even acknowledge that
she might have.

He stared at the flames flickering in the fireplace. He should put more wood on it.
The chill in the air invaded his limbs despite the crackling fire. At the end of the
letter, Leah had written one line that gave him hope. Three words. Not the words he
would’ve chosen. But still words that imbued him with the hope that he still had a
chance at the life he thought they had together.

I miss you
.

With slow deliberation, he reached for the clean piece of paper lying next to Leah’s
letter. He picked up the pencil already sharpened to a fine point with his knife.

Dear Leah
,

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the words spilling out onto the page, just
as he’d been doing all day long as he helped Silas and his boys clear the debris that
had been the Christner barn. Tomorrow they would buy the wood and supplies needed
for the raising. A load of folks from Webster County would come up next week. The
foundation needed to be ready and the supplies laid in. If the weather held. All day
he’d worked, his shirt soaked with sweat despite the icy northern wind, his face grimy
with soot, his hands blackened, the muscles in his back and legs screaming with fatigue,
and still, he’d written this letter in his head. He would tell her he prayed without
ceasing that she would feel better, be better, be well.

“What are you doing, Daed?”

Luke jumped at the sound of Joseph’s voice. The pencil made a jagged line on the paper
and the point snapped. He loosened his grip and breathed. “I’m writing a letter to
your mudder.”

Joseph climbed into the chair across from Luke. He grabbed a piece of paper and selected
a colored pencil from the cup of pens and pencils in the middle of the table. “I want
to write to Mudder too.” He crinkled his upturned nose, making his freckles wiggle.
“I want to tell her about the wolf I saw on the hill yesterday. Teacher was scared,
but I wasn’t.”

Biting his lower lip, he began to print in large block letters with no hesitation.
“I’m gonna tell her I helped you and Silas take the stuff from the barn to the dump.
And I drove the wagon from our house to Silas’s.” He grinned. “She’ll be glad I’m
making myself useful. That’s what she always says, to make myself useful.”

“That she does.” Luke could hear Leah’s voice, firm but laced with affection when
she talked to her boys. He watched Joseph’s face as he concentrated on making the
m
and the
u
and
d
in
Mudder
. He scrunched up his whole face with the effort to make each letter legible.
Dear Mudder
. Leah had written of everyday things because she couldn’t put on paper the things
that needed to be said. Still, she’d written. She wanted to communicate with him.
For now, that had to be enough. It was all she could give him, so he would accept
it for the gift it was.

He selected another pencil and stared down at his blank paper. He’d never been good
with writing words. He could still hear his teacher’s words ringing in his ears when
he didn’t turn in his English essays on time.
It’s not that hard. Just write down what’s in your mind
. She was wrong. The words in his head did not come out at the ends of his fingers.
They milled around, all jumbled together like a bunch of cattle spooked by a bobcat.

Dear Leah
,

“I’m gonna get William.” Joseph dropped his pencil and slid from the chair. “He should
write Mudder too, don’t you think?”

“He should.”

“We can draw pictures too, to go with our letters.” His toothy grin widened. “We can
send her a package. That way she won’t miss anything. You can draw something too,
Daed, if you want to.”

“Okay, son. You go get William.” He cleared his throat and studied his blank piece
of paper. “I’ll be right here, working on my letter.”

Joseph trotted away, a boy on a mission.

Dear Leah
,

We’re doing all right. The boys miss you. They don’t understand why you’re there and
we’re here, but they’re doing all right. They’re hard workers, as you know. They’re
doing real well at school. Teacher says they’re doing good with learning English and
their sums. Joseph drove the wagon today. William ate too much of Bethel’s spaghetti
last night and threw it all up before bedtime. Serves him right for being such a piglet
.

He dropped the pencil. It rolled across the table and fell to the floor with a tiny
pinging sound.
Come home. This is home, Leah. Home is with me
. Her face danced in his head. He remembered the way she’d looked the day they moved
into their first house together. Her smile so wide, it reached the corners of her
face. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen that smile. Years. Maybe Bethel
was right. Maybe this baby depression thing was real. How could that be? His fraa
didn’t want babies? Babies made her sad?
Gott, how could that be?

Gritting his teeth, he slapped his hands to his face. His breath came in short, hard
rasps. He tried to breathe through it, but his chest hurt as if he’d taken a terrible
blow to his ribcage.
Gott, help me. Help me. Please help me. I don’t understand
.

“Luke?”

Bethel.

He dropped his hands from his face, swiped his cheek on his sleeve, and leaned over
to retrieve the pencil. “I thought you were going to bed early tonight. If you’re
going to help Deborah at school tomorrow, you’ll need a good night’s sleep.”

She swung into the room, her crutches clacking against the wooden floor. “I am. The
kitchen is clean. I just wanted to say goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

“Is there something I can do?”

“You’re cooking the meals, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, making sure my boys
are clean and neat for school. I’d say you’re doing enough.”

“I meant for you.” Her cheeks reddened and she turned toward the fireplace. “I meant
if you needed to talk, I could make some hot chocolate.”

“Nee.” It would be wrong to confide in his sister-in-law. To talk of personal things
to his wife’s sister. He hesitated. There was something he needed to tell her. She
wouldn’t like it, but Elijah’s report about their encounter with Shawn McCormack made
it necessary. “Where’s Ida?”

“She went upstairs to her room.” Bethel’s expression darkened. She must’ve seen something
in his face. “She’ll make sure William and Joseph get to bed before she turns in.”

“She’ll take you to the therapy session on Thursday.”

She stiffened. “I know.”

“I considered not letting you return.”

“I see.” Her voice was barely a whisper now, but he saw the consternation in her eyes.
“Elijah told you.”

“He did.” Luke laid the pencil down. His first talk with a member of his community
and it had to be his sister-in-law. “I’m talking to you as your bishop as well as
your brother-in-law. Your father has entrusted your keeping to me. Your Lord has appointed
me as your spiritual leader. I take both responsibilities to heart.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes an action can seem very small, minor, without consequences.” Like letting
a mother hold her child, not realizing the father wouldn’t see the child again for
months. “I don’t want to forbid you to go to the sessions. Your improvement is slow,
but sure, and I know what it means to you.”

“Jah.”

“Tread carefully. Your eternal life in Jesus Christ is more important than whether
you walk freely again.”

“Jah.” Again the barest of whispers. “I know.”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

“Keep to the Ordnung and you never have to worry.”

“I only wanted to give him comfort.”

“That comfort could be misconstrued, especially by a young man so in need of comfort
that goes beyond physical pain.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have eyes and ears. I listen.” Even if he had been blind and deaf to his own wife’s
misery. “At least I try.”

She turned to go, then hesitated. “You’re a good father and a good husband.”

“I’m not so sure that’s true.”

“It is. Don’t let what’s happened take that certainty from you.”

His throat closed. He swallowed, but didn’t dare speak again. He nodded.

“I’m sorry, Luke.”

“I know.” He picked up the pencil and turned it over and over between his fingers.
“But you’re doing better and you’ll keep getting better.”

“I mean about Leah. I should’ve tried harder to get her to come home.”

“You tried. I tried. Everyone tried.” He shook his head and forced a smile. “She’ll
come home. The boys are writing her letters. Joseph went to get William. They’re coloring
pictures. When you go into town, you can mail them.”

“She’ll like that.” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

When the sound of her crutches on the floor had receded down the hallway to her bedroom,
he reread the words he’d written. They said everything but what he meant to say. He
wanted his fraa back. Not so she could cook and clean and raise their kinner. He wanted
her, warm and solid, next to him in his bed. He wanted her sitting across the table
from him at breakfast. He wanted her scolding him for tracking mud into the kitchen
and shooing him away from the pie cooling on the windowsill. He wanted to sneak up
behind her and plant a kiss on her long, white neck while she stirred batter for a
cake with a wooden spoon, which she would proceed to wave at him, threatening to spatter
him with the bowl’s contents. He wanted her standing in the doorway on Saturday night
with a clean towel in her hand, telling him in no uncertain terms to get in there
and take his bath. Like he was a little boy who hadn’t learned to clean behind his
ears.

He wanted her to fill up all the cracks in his life where she’d always been for him.
Like no other person. His fraa.

Come home. The boys miss you
.