The Letters (11 page)

Galen frowned. “Doesn’t that boy realize how dangerous it is to set off firecrackers at this time of day? Livestock is feeding. Why, your mother was practically trampled by the sheep.”

Trampled? There were only five sheep. But Rose thought it was kind of Galen to remind the boys to show concern. Those two little boys needed constant reminding.

Galen looked at Sammy. “Where is Jimmy Fisher now?”

“He’s on his way home with Bethany,” Sammy said.

“With two geese!” Luke added. “Mom, he’s bringing them to you to cook for dinner.”

Rose’s spirits lifted. “A goose delivery? It’s too late to start for tonight, but maybe I’ll cook it for Sunday supper.”

“Jimmy said he’d dress them for you,” Sammy said. “And guess what else? We saw the eagles carrying branches in their talons. We think they’re building a nest in the big tree up there.” He pointed to the very tree, high on the hillside, that Rose liked to sit under some mornings to greet the dawn.

Rose shielded her eyes and looked up. There, in the dead branches of the oak tree, was the start of a big mess of sticks. “Well, I’ll be.” She turned to Galen. “An aerie. Right here. Wouldn’t that be something? To have a bald eagle pair choose this very farm for their home?”

Galen’s gaze turned to one of the eagles, bringing in sticks to the tree. “It’d be a pity for us all.”

“You may call it a pity, but I’ll call it a blessing,” Rose said. “Think of all the publicity the inn might get. Why, this could be very good for business.”

Galen frowned. “You might be changing your mind when folks set up telescopes to gawk at the eagles after the game commissioner tapes off your property.”

“I would still feel blessed that an eagle couple had sensed that this farm would be a good place to raise their young.”

Galen lifted his eyebrows, as if he didn’t know what to make of that. “Tell Jimmy Fisher I want to talk to him before he heads home,” he said before he slipped back through the hole in the privet.

Luke and Sammy exchanged a look. “Jimmy’s in trouble,” Luke whispered.

For three days, Delia had stayed in her nightgown, mostly in bed. Rose’s daughters, with anxious faces, brought meals on a tray down the stairs. Delia tried to appear calm and reassuring to them, but inside she felt that she had lost the will to live.

Last evening Rose asked her if she needed a doctor, because there was a very nice doctor in town who made house calls, but Delia assured her that she just needed some rest. So Rose refilled her mug of tea and promised to do a better job of keeping the boys shouting distance away from the basement.

Rose must be a restful person to live with, Delia thought. The farm was a restful place. She had been lucky to meet red-haired Lois at the gas station and find this place.

It felt so strange, so troubling, that she could not sleep well. She lay down, slept and woke, slept and woke, disturbed each time by foolish dreams. She dozed for a few minutes now and then, because when she opened her eyes, she remembered shreds and pieces of disjointed, implausible dreams. Then she would be wide awake. These senseless dreams came from being overtired. She had heard on
Oprah
once that dreams are never really senseless, that if you take the disjointed sections
apart and rearrange them properly, they will make sense. She decided that was foolish fodder.

This afternoon, Delia stood at the window and watched ordinary people do ordinary things. Rose’s eldest daughter had come back from work, a handsome fellow had stopped by in a buggy to pay a call on her, those two little boys with small black hats ran back and forth from barn to house and back to barn. Those two looked like they were always up to something. Every once in a while, Rose would call to the boys from the house, but it seemed to Delia like trying to herd cats.

She watched Amish men and women drive past the lane in buggies or zoom on the road in those odd-looking scooters. These were people with families—men, women, and children who lived normal lives. Their hearts were not heavy with anxiety as hers was. They knew what each new day was going to bring, while she had no idea what was going to happen. She envied them, their sense of security. She didn’t think she would ever feel secure again. How could life change so quickly?

One morning, you woke up on a sunny winter day, happy, your mind filled with nothing weightier than the thought of where to have lunch with your friend or what to cook for dinner. And then a conversation began, or the telephone rang, or the lab report arrived, and everything you thought you knew for certain was suddenly called into question.

Tomorrow would be Sunday. Rose had brought her a handwritten list of churches in the area, gently suggesting that Delia might want to consider going. She looked over the list and saw one for the denomination she belonged to in Philadelphia.

After Will was born, Delia and Charles used to go to church each week. Delia had insisted that they provide Will with some
kind of spiritual foundation. Charles didn’t object, nor did he ever get involved. Over the years, Charles accompanied them less and less. At first, there was always a reason—an emergency at the hospital, an out-of-town conference. Then the excuses stopped and he just admitted he was tired and needed a morning to relax. Delia kept going until Will became a teen and started to object too. He said the youth group kids were weird. Charles insisted that Delia not force Will to attend church if he didn’t want to. So she didn’t. Naturally, Will slept in on Sunday mornings. And then Delia stopped going too.

She heard the faint buzz of a saw from a neighboring farm and remembered when she and Charles were first married, how the two of them would work together, fixing up their first house. They had loved each other back then, passionately and thoroughly. They enjoyed each other’s company. She wondered what had happened to make it end. Life, she supposed. A child, busyness, schedules. And there was Charles’s success. She knew she was the envy of her friends, of everyone in town. She wanted for nothing. But success had a price too. Loneliness. Charles was hardly home, and when he was, he was very distracted and distant.

A few months ago, just as they had sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, Charles was called away on an emergency. That wasn’t unusual, but Delia felt so let down, more than she typically did. Will had told her not to be disappointed—it was easier without Charles. He was right. She and Will had a wonderful evening together—watching old movies and eating so much until they couldn’t move from the couch.

Still, it saddened her that Charles missed so much. Will wasn’t home very often and who knew where he would land after he graduated from vet school? His concentration on ornithology
was very rare. He had offers from the states of Florida and Alaska. An organization in Europe had showed interest too. Who knew where he might land? All she knew for certain was that their days together as a family were coming to an end.

When Will decided to go to Cornell for vet school after college, Delia’s loneliness became more acute. She’d been hoping he’d attend graduate school closer to home, someplace where he could come home for holidays or drop by on weekends. Now she was almost relieved that he lived so far away, too far to get caught in the complications of dismantling a marriage.

She wondered what would happen to her friendships if Charles divorced her. She remembered a woman named Carla whose husband had left her for a younger woman. Everyone dropped Carla like a hot potato, as if she suddenly carried a contagion that threatened to infect their own marriages. Delia, included. How stupid of her. How uncaring.

She also felt betrayed, bereft, heartbroken, abandoned, all those emotions she’d imagined women must feel when their husbands walked out on them. She was so sure she would never, ever be one of those women—but here she was, in Carla’s shoes. And just like Carla, she had never seen it coming.

A wave of exhaustion hit Delia. As she eased back onto the bed, she considered calling Charles, but she was afraid if she phoned, he would be angry that she hadn’t come to the lawyer’s meeting and then she would cry. She refused to cry one more tear over this failed marriage.

Soon, she should call the doctor’s office for a follow-up visit, to see if her pathology report was in. But what if it was bad news? What if the cancer had spread? That news could wait. She didn’t think she could handle anything more right now.

She told herself she didn’t care, anyway.

7

B
ethany was horrified when Rose invited Jimmy Fisher to come over for a big goose dinner on Sunday. Never mind that he had provided the geese, dressed them too. Yesterday afternoon, after Jimmy had returned from his talk with Galen, he was cheerful as ever and set to work butchering the geese. Bethany couldn’t get her head around that—everyone was sure Galen would chew him out for setting off those firecrackers, but Jimmy came back acting like he was having the best day a man could have. When the boys asked what Galen wanted with him, Jimmy only said that Galen preferred to volunteer what he wanted you to know.

As Jimmy butchered the geese, he found the stomachs full of wheat, even their throats, almost to their beaks. The boys couldn’t stop talking about it. The whole topic turned Bethany’s stomach, which only amused Jimmy Fisher.

She did
not
trust that boy with the blue, blue eyes. She was just waiting for Jimmy to spill the beans that she worked at the Stoney Ridge Bar & Grill and wore English clothes. She knew he was holding it over her head, acting smug, like he’d got the best of her.

Rose had invited Naomi and Galen for the goose dinner. The strange lady in the basement too. Somehow Rose had convinced that lady to try going to church in the morning—which she did—and to come for the goose dinner when she returned. Bethany figured Rose wanted to try to get that lady out of bed.

Around one in the afternoon, the guests arrived at the house, acting quiet and uncomfortable. Except for Jimmy, who didn’t have enough sense to know how awkward the situation was; Galen, who didn’t speak much and kept to himself; a depressed English lady; a grandmother who got the hiccups if she had a fit; a little sister who spouted off facts; and two brothers who couldn’t sit still. At least Bethany had sweet Naomi to talk to.

Rose didn’t seem to realize it was an awkward collection of people, either. She welcomed everyone in as if they were family. She gave them jobs to do to help get dinner on the table—Jimmy and Galen brought chairs in from the other room, Delia cut carrots for the salad, Mim set the table, Bethany and Naomi made biscuits while Rose made gravy.

All this bustle made Mammi Vera, seated at the kitchen table, frown with disapproval. She complained that Rose was always telling people what to do, but the truth was, everyone relaxed when they had tasks. Soon, there was cheerful conversation and banter going on. Rose was able to do that—to create that kind of atmosphere. Why couldn’t Mammi Vera see that?

When Rose pulled the roasting geese out of the oven, Naomi breathed in the scent and thanked Jimmy Fisher for providing such a good dinner. It hadn’t occurred to Bethany to thank him. Sometimes, she wished the Lord would just knock her over with sweetness and goodness, because she didn’t seem to be getting the knack of it on her own.

“You wash up good, boys,” Rose said to Luke and Sammy as they burst through the door. “I’m going to civilize you if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Civilize them?” Mammi Vera said. “They need so much more than civilizing.”

Rose ignored that remark and steered Delia to a chair at the table. As everyone found their seats, Galen moved to the head of the table.

“That’s Dean’s place!” Mammi Vera said, her voice as shrill as a penny whistle. Galen froze, midair. He was the last to sit down; there were no other available chairs.

“Galen, you just sit right down and don’t give it another thought,” Rose said, frowning at Mammi Vera.

“She’s getting more and more like a dictator,” Mammi Vera muttered to no one in particular.

“Yes, but a benevolent dictator,” Rose answered, tying napkins around the boys’ necks, for all the good it would do. After the silent prayer ended, a flurry of activity began. Rose began to carve the geese.