Love Still Stands (6 page)

Something about curtains fluttering in the open window, the pecan pie cooling on the
sill, and the heady aroma of stew meat browning in the skillet made her feel content.
Despite the heat of the ovens and the stove, she felt more comfortable than she had
since the storm. Even her pain seemed less intense today. Leah had had no choice but
to let her cook again. She had too much to do to get the household up and running
and she didn’t trust Bethel alone with the children yet. What if she dropped Jebediah
or the twins ran off and she couldn’t go after them? That half-empty glass again.

Bethel refused to let the thought spoil her mood. She’d made pecan pie. The sweet
fragrance still lingered in the air, mingling with the stew. The scent of being blessed
with abundance.

Careful to drop the potatoes in the hot beef stock without a splash, she turned to
make her way back to the table to work on the carrots and celery. At this rate they’d
have a nice vegetable beef stew for supper.

“Smells good in here.” Luke stood in the doorway, his thumbs hooked on his suspenders.
“What’s for supper?”

Something about the tense set of his shoulders and his wary expression told Bethel
he hadn’t come to the kitchen to talk about beef stew. “Stew. I’ve only begun to brown
the meat. It’ll be a while before supper’s on the table.”

“I know. I came to tell you something.”

Her good mood draining away, she dried her hands on a dish towel and folded it neatly,
waiting.

He pushed into the kitchen and went to the refrigerator where they kept a pitcher
of water. He took his time pouring a glass. After a long swallow, he wiped at his
mouth with the back of his sleeve. His gaze met hers. “One of my duties as bishop
is to oversee the building of the new school.”

“Are you…glad to be the bishop?”

He looked surprised at the question, as well he should be, she supposed. Glad was
beside the point. One was called to serve so that was what he did.

“Honored.”

She nodded. He would be. Luke would never turn his back on service. He’d moved his
growing family back home after his parents died in a buggy accident. He’d given up
his blacksmith shop to go back to farming, which was how he’d ended up moving to Missouri
when their farms began to fail in Kansas and oil was discovered on Thomas’s farm.
He simply forged ahead, confident in his faith.

She busied herself punching down the dough she had rising on the counter and began
shaping it into rolls.

“We’ll meet with the parents in a few days to set a date for building the school.”
He cleared his throat. “We’ll hire a new teacher then.”

“A new teacher.” She kept her back to him, deftly shaping the rolls and plopping them
into a greased pan. “Not me, you mean.”

“Not you.”

“Not yet.”

“Not now.”

She propped herself carefully against the counter. She had no intention of falling
in front of him. “Or ever?”

“Not as you are now.”

“Then I must go to the physical therapy in town so I can get better.” She admired
the satiny elasticity of the dough as she broke it apart. Physical therapy would be
her only chance to teach again. She would never get better on her own—Doctor Burns
had made that much clear. He’d even made phone calls for her to pave the way in New
Hope.

They’d spent almost a week repairing the house and making it livable. She hadn’t dare
ask about therapy before, when every hand was needed. Surely now she could do this.
“I have the paperwork Doctor Burns gave me. He called it a referral. He gave me all
the medical records they’ll need.”

Luke now had the authority to make decisions about things like this. About her future.
He leaned his back against the counter and stroked his beard. His hand trembled. This
new responsibility shook him up. Words of encouragement welled in her. She stifled
them. Luke didn’t need her support. Leah’s, perhaps, but not hers. It would sound
condescending coming from a woman such as herself.

“Luke?”

“We’ll see about the therapy.”

“I have to go. It’s my only chance of—”

“I know, and it is in all of our best interests if you go. We need you to be able
to help with the chores and the babies and take care of the vegetable garden this
spring. But how will you get there? I can’t take time away from the farm, and the
building of the phone shack and school and the prayer services—”

“All your new responsibilities.” She swallowed disappointment that tasted bitter deep
in her throat. “I understand.”

“Leah needs you to get better. She needs your help. But she can’t be taking you to
town either, what with all these kinner, the cooking and cleaning and such.”

“I can do it.”

Both of them jumped at the sound of Elijah’s soft baritone. So anxious to convince
Luke, Bethel hadn’t even noticed him at the back door she’d left standing open to
create a draft from the open windows. He knocked as if he realized he’d been remiss
in not doing so earlier. “I’m working here now anyway. Why don’t I take you?”

“Nee.”

“Jah.”

Luke spoke at the same time as Bethel. She opened her mouth, then shut it. Beggars
couldn’t be choosers, her mother always said. She didn’t want Elijah’s help. It was
enough that she kept running into him all over the farm and seeing him across the
table at mealtime. Reminding her of his hands on her waist and the effortless way
he picked her up and swung her from the van. She didn’t want to spend that long hour
in the buggy with him. She especially didn’t want him lifting her in and out of it.
Especially after what Emma had said. Heat singed her neck and cheeks. She hoped the
men would think it was the heat of the cookstove and oven.

“How often are you supposed to go?” Luke asked. “Every day?”

“Three times a week.”

“I can take you, then run errands for Luke and Leah, then come back around and pick
you up.” Elijah looked pleased with the idea. “I want to learn my way around town
anyway.”

“As if that will take more than a few minutes in that little bit of a town.” She spoke
more sharply than she intended. “I mean, it’s only a little bigger than Bliss Creek.”

“But it’s not Bliss Creek.” His grin widened. “There’s an interesting looking used
bookstore and a store that carries all kinds of sewing stuff and material—you might
like that one—and a farm implement store and a bakery. It won’t be as good as Annie’s,
but…”

“I’m not going to shop—”

“Then it’s settled.” A look of irritation on his face, Luke broke in. “Elijah will
drive you to town tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“The sooner the better.” Luke headed for the door to the living room. “I need to talk
to my fraa. You could offer Elijah some lemonade. He’s been working in the fields
all morning. I imagine he’s got a powerful thirst.”

“Luke, wait.” Bethel glanced at Elijah. He leaned against the doorjamb as if he had
all the time in the world. “I think…there’s…”

“What?” The look of irritation on her brother-in-law’s face deepened. “I have a propane
tank enclosure and a phone shack to build and plans for the school to consider and
fields to plant.”

“Deborah Daugherty would make a good teacher. She’s good at arithmetic and her English
is good.”

“Deborah Daugherty.” His tone less brusque, he paused in the doorway. “She has no
plans to…”

“Marry? Her beau is still in Bliss Creek. Looks like he’ll be there a while.”

“A recommendation from her former teacher will go a long way.”

“Jah.”

“I’ll tell the others. I could use some lemonade later.”

And he was gone, leaving Bethel not knowing where to look. Elijah seemed to fill up
the kitchen with his height and his broad shoulders and his long arms and his eyes
the color of summer sky.

“You heard the man.” Elijah smiled. He had a cleft in his chin and a dimple on the
left side. Bethel had never noticed that before. “I wouldn’t say no to a glass of
lemonade, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Too much trouble. Bethel saw plenty of trouble in his pleased smile.

Chapter 7

L
uke entered the bedroom with even more trepidation than he’d felt upon entering the
kitchen to talk to Bethel earlier. The thought irritated him further. A man shouldn’t
have to tiptoe around in his own home. When had he become so soft? Leah would understand.
She would support him. That’s what fraas did. He straightened his shoulders and clomped
into the room. Jebediah moved restlessly on a baby quilt in the playpen near the window.
His cheeks were rosy with sleep and his thick, dark curls formed ringlets around his
face. He had Leah’s upturned nose and high cheekbones. Luke forced his gaze from the
sleeping baby to his wife. “Leah.”

She didn’t look up from her sewing, her legs pumping the treadle with a steady
thump, thump
. The tight white lines around her mouth and the red of her eyes said she’d been crying.
No one ever saw the soft side of her—the side that cried. Just Luke. Once he’d considered
it a place of honor, a place of trust. She trusted him like she trusted no other.
She told him her feelings about being the oldest of three girls and three boys, of
being the one who’d born the brunt of the strictest of upbringings—far stricter than
his own had been. The Grabers weren’t ones for laughing or lighthearted foolishness,
as they called it. She’d been the one to take care of the others when her mudder was
sick. She’d shouldered all the responsibility. She told him many things about her
childhood when they were younger and had no children’s cries to wake them after they’d
fallen into bed at dusk.

Lately, she’d become more and more withdrawn from him. He understood the way she kept
her distance from others. It was her way, but not with him. Never with him. Her husband.
The more years they shared, surely the more closely they should be bound together.
He crossed the room and stood in front of the sewing machine. The
thump, thump
continued.

“Leah.”

She deftly removed a straight pin from the folded material, stuck it between her lips,
and fed the material in a straight line under the metal feet and into the needle that
pumped up and down, faster and faster, as her feet drove the treadle underneath.

“Leah, stop. I want to talk to you.”

The
thump, thump
ceased abruptly, but she didn’t look up. Instead, she stuck the straight pin in a
red pin cushion shaped like a fat tomato. She lifted the lever with a snap and pulled
the material out, stopping to cut the thread against the sharp edge. Her hands shook.
Luke wanted to grasp them and still their shaking. He knew better.

“Look at me, fraa.”

She raised her head. Their gazes met. Luke saw no anger or defiance, only a bewildered
confusion bordering on resignation. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “Jeb finally
succumbed to sleep. That child takes fewer naps than Annie’s Noah.”

“We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You make the decisions. I live with them.”

“We live with them. What would you have me do?” He eased onto the edge of bed they
shared and patted the spot next to him. “Sit here.”

Leah frowned. Her jaw worked. Only because he knew her better than anyone else on
earth could he see how hard she worked to hide her tears. “What is it? Why are you
so unhappy?”

“I’m not unhappy.” She stood and laid the curtain on a pile of others exactly like
it. She picked up another swath of material. “I know my place.”

“Sit with me.” He let command creep into his voice. “I want to talk with you. I want
this new start to work. For it to work, we have to be of one mind.”

“Of your mind, you mean.”

Despite the steel in her voice, she dropped the material and trudged to the bed. She
sat far enough away that Joseph and William could’ve sat between them. Her clean,
familiar smell of soap and vanilla engulfed him and he found himself leaning in to
it, gulping it in like a drowning man. When was the last time they’d been close enough
to touch? Only when she slept and her guard relaxed.

She clasped her hands in her lap and looked straight ahead. “Tell me what you want
me to do and I’ll do it, husband. I always have.”

“But with such obvious dislike.” He wanted her to
want
to do it. Like she had in the old days when they first married. She’d been so happy
setting up their little house and counting the weeks until Joseph would come along.
“Why can’t you be happy here?”

“You want me to pretend to be joyous when all I feel is sad and lonely and homesick.”
Her voice broke. “I’m trying.”

“You sound like a child.” He gripped his hands together in his lap and forced himself
to breathe. “I know it’s a change, but you’ll get used to it here. These are good
families. People you know. You’ll draw closer here. At least try to be cheerful.”

“Whether it makes sense or not, I feel alone.”

“You have Bethel and Emma and all the other womenfolk, not to mention five children.”
He cast about for words to erase the stricken expression on her face and replace it
with the sense of excitement he felt at this new season in their lives. “I’ll tell
Emma the twins need to come home. They’re older now. They can help more.”