The Letters (36 page)

Whenever a chore around the farm needed tending to, Luke and Sammy quietly slipped out of sight. Today, Saturday morning, Bethany had enough of their disappearances. She was tired of feeding chickens and sheep and a goat. She
marched down to the roadside where they were trying to sell their junk. “You two get up to that barn and take care of your animals.”

“Can’t!” Luke said. “Saturday morning is our peak selling time.”

“Who would buy your junk?” Bethany said, annoyed with their flimsy excuses.

“Tons of folks. We’ve been making a boatload of money.”

Sammy nodded solemnly. “A boatload.”

“What do you two have that anybody would ever want?”

“It’s all in the selling,” Luke said. “Mim was right. If we call something an antique, it sells.”

Bethany’s eyes grazed over the cardboard table with disgust: old amber bottles, rabbit feet, rusty lanterns, blue jay feathers, a baseball cap the boys had found on the roadside that cars had run over a few times, jigsaw puzzles with missing pieces, some black books, galvanized milk pails, . . . wait a minute. Black books? Two black books with red bindings. Heart racing, she grabbed them and leafed through them. Pages and pages of names, dates, numbers. Tobe’s books! “Where’d you find these?”

“In the bottom of a box in the hayloft,” Sammy said. “Why?”

She hugged the books to her body. “Hallelujah and never you mind!”

The next day was bright and sunny, already warm by midmorning. Mim was watering the strawberry patch with a makeshift watering can that Luke had rigged up: a plastic jug of Tide laundry detergent with holes poked in the cap.
Nearby, two bluejays were having an argument. Mim wished Luke would come along with his handcarved slingshot to silence them, but he and Sammy were down by the road, trying to sell their junk. Her mother came out of the kitchen and stood at the edge of the garden. She watched quietly for a long time as Mim watered the rows of green little plants with delicate white flowers.

“Won’t be long until we can make strawberry jam.”

“I don’t think it will be much of a crop,” Mim said. “Not unless we get more rain.”

“How does Mammi Vera seem to you?”

Mim gave that some thought as she refilled the Tide water bucket. When Mammi Vera had come into the house last night, she looked like she’d wrestled with a black bear and lost—her head was bandaged and she had dark circles under her eyes. But then she started complaining about how dirty the house was—it wasn’t—and how noisy the boys were—they were—and Mim knew she would be fine. Her face got all soft and sweet when she saw Bethany. Her eyes shimmered with tears of joy—and then came the best part. No hiccups!

“She seems the same. A little better. But it might be too early to tell if she’s fixed.”

“How did the game of checkers go this morning?” The nurses at the hospital had told Vera to play a lot of board games and do puzzles. It was good exercise for the brain, they said. Luke, Sammy, and Mim set up a schedule to take turns playing games with her.

Mim straightened up. “Well, she cheated. But she always did cheat at checkers.”

Her mother grinned. She walked over a few rows and cupped Mim’s cheeks with her hands. “Mim, I do see you. I
do hear you. I know this last year has been overwhelming at times, but I never want you to feel as if you’re not important to me. You are.”

Mim gave her mother a look that in half a minute went from anger to worry to sadness to resignation. “The letter. You read the letter.” Bethany had kept everyone so busy getting ready for Mammi Vera’s homecoming that Mim had completely forgotten to pick up yesterday’s mail.

Her mother nodded. “I went through the mail last night before I went to bed.”

Mim squinted her face. “How did you know it was from me?”

“How many typewriters have a letter
A
that is slightly crooked?”

Mim hung her head. She hadn’t thought of letter
A
.

“I wondered if you might like to take some early walks with me this summer after school lets out? I’d like your company.”

Her mother had never invited anyone on a morning walk, not even her father. Mim took off her glasses, polished them, and replaced them. “I suppose. I suppose I could do that.”

Her mother smiled. “Let’s plan on it, then.”

Bethany felt bewildered, disoriented. She slammed the rolling pin down onto the ball of biscuit dough. She pushed hard and the dough flattened. She pulled and pushed the heavy wooden pin, pulled and pushed, rolling out the dough with such vigor that flour floated in a white cloud around her.

She stopped pushing the biscuit dough and stood in stillness a moment, bent over the table, her hands gripping the rolling pin. She straightened, dusted her hands off on her
apron, and laughed at her silly nervousness. Wedding jitters. Every bride felt them.
A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue
said to expect them.

Bethany had called Jake to leave a message and tell him about the books and was surprised when he answered his phone. When she told him about the books, the phone went silent. Then he let out a huge sigh of relief. “Just in the nick of time. I’ll be there tonight.”

“What time? I have to be at a birthday party for a neighbor.”

“Where’s the party?”

“At Windmill Farm—just a few miles up the road from Eagle Hill.”

“I’ll be down at the end of Windmill Farm’s driveway at 8 p.m. tonight. Be there with the books.”

Now she was silent.

“Bethie?”

“What does that mean . . . just in the nick of time?”

“I’ve got a job opportunity in Somerset County. A good job. I’ve held off as long as I can. Because of you, because you found those books, I’ll be able to help Tobe and get to that job.”

“So will Tobe be coming home soon?”

“No doubt, honey. All because of you.”

“What
about
me, Jake? You’re just going to disappear again, aren’t you?”

In the silence that followed, Bethany felt the air about her crackle and tremble, like the pause between lightning and thunder—something had to happen. She couldn’t live this way any longer—waiting, waiting, waiting for Jake. If she was going to lose him in the end, better to face it now. “I’m no good at waiting.”

In a raspy voice, almost choked up, Jake said, “Then come with me.”

What?! She lurched to grab the counter so she didn’t lose her balance. Weren’t those the words she’d been longing to hear from him for over a year now? But now, faced with the reality of them . . . she wasn’t sure if she was ready for them. “I don’t know . . . I’m not sure I can leave my family . . .”

“Bethany, your family is doing fine. You told me so yourself. Everyone has adjusted. They don’t need you now like they did. It’s your time, honey.” He paused again. “So . . . come with me.”

She drew in a deep breath and then another. “You mean, as your wife?” she had asked. “Because that’s the only way you’ll ever have me, Jake Hertzler.”

He had laughed then and asked her what kind of a low-down excuse of a man did she consider him to be? Then he said he needed to go, but he would be at the foot of Windmill Farm tonight at eight o’clock. And he told her he loved her.

He had never spoken of love to her before. As she hung up the phone on the cradle, she hugged herself with happiness. Jake loved her! He was coming to get her. They were going to be married and live happily ever after. She had dreamed of this day.

So why was her stomach twisting and turning?

If only Jake had asked her to marry him a year ago, before everything bad happened, then it all would have been so much easier. They could have had a proper church wedding, and her family would’ve embraced Jake as a son. Her father had already thought of him as a son.

She squeezed her eyes shut. That was then and this was now. Her father wasn’t here any longer.

After moving to Stoney Ridge, Bethany had known that if she married Jake, it would come down to this: eloping. There were too many complications surrounding them—the messy problems of Schrock Investments, their different churches, her family. Her grandmother’s heart was set on the grandchildren becoming Old Order Amish. Set like stone. She wasn’t sure how many times her grandmother’s heart could break and mend.

She took a deep cleansing breath, in and out. It would be fine, she reassured herself. Everything would be fine. Mammi Vera was well again. Tobe would be home soon. Like Jake said, it was her time now.

She laughed again, feeling light-headed all of a sudden. Everything would be fine.

Delia woke up feeling better than she had in a long time. She actually hummed as she went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet to get the hot water going, which, she had learned, could take several minutes, and started brushing her teeth.

As she rolled up the tube, trying to coax the last bit of toothpaste out, she thought about the conversations she’d been having with Charles. They had spent more time talking the past few days—about truly important things—than they had in years.

Just a few weeks ago Delia was so downhearted and depressed that she couldn’t face the idea of even getting out of bed, and now, here she was humming to herself, cancer free, and ready to return home.

Home. Yes! She wanted to go home, she decided as she
spat a white stream into the sink and filled the cup with water to rinse her mouth. She reached behind the curtain to test the water. Almost hot enough. Another minute should do it.

Best of all, she thought, as she noticed the steam coming over the top of the plastic curtain, she was going home as a different person. Stronger, yet weaker. No—not weak. Humble. That’s how she felt. She was a humble person learning to rely on a strong God. Somehow, that awareness made all the difference.

After she had dressed and started to pack, she spotted Rose on her way to the barn and hurried out to talk to her. “I hope this doesn’t seem too sudden to you, but I’m ready to head back home.”

Rose smiled. She understood. “Do you think your husband will be joining you?”

Delia looked thoughtful. “We’re a ways from that. But I think we’re heading in the right direction.” She laughed. “I have Eagle Hill to thank for that.”

“We can give the glory to God for bringing you here, right when we needed you. Imagine if your husband hadn’t seen Vera that evening.”

Delia nodded. “Did I ever tell you that Charles was raised Old Order Amish?”

Rose’s head snapped to face Delia and her eyes went wide. “No, you never did. I think I would have remembered that particular piece of information.”

“I’m ashamed to say that I have rarely asked him much about his upbringing. He never volunteered much about it and I wasn’t all that interested. But now I am. And he’s finally willing to talk about it.”

Rose smiled. “Sounds like you’re off to a fresh start.”

“A fresh start. I like that. I hope you’re right. Not just with my marriage. Also with my faith. Thank you for encouraging me, Rose. I hope to come back to Eagle Hill. Often.”

Rose smiled. “You were our first guest. Our first blessed guest.”

So true! Later, as Delia zipped up her suitcase and gave the guest flat one more lookover to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she rolled Rose’s words around in her mind: a blessed guest.