The Letters (39 page)

“Is something wrong, Rose? Is Vera all right?”

“Vera’s fine. It’s me—I’d like to ask you something.”

“Sammy,” he said. “Go take that hay out to the horses in the far pasture. Scatter it around this time. Don’t just leave it in a clump.”

Sammy threw the ball back to Galen, but it went sailing over his head. He hollered out an apology as he ran to the wheelbarrow filled with hay and started to push it down the dirt path to the pasture. Galen picked up the ball and walked to Rose. “If he could just remember to plant his feet when he aims at something, he might stand a chance as an outfielder.”

“Could I see this horse that Jimmy paid for a few times over?”

“Of course. He’s in the barn in a double stall.”

She followed behind Galen. The barn held a mixture of sweet and pungent smells, summer hay and the sour tang of manure, the ripening sunlight pouring through the open door. She took in a deep breath, feeling almost dizzy.

Galen continued down the aisle and stopped at a stall. He turned and gave a puzzled look at Rose, still by the door.

She walked to the stall and peered in at the stallion. She gasped when she saw its flaxen mane. “That might be the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen.”

“That he is. He’s a fine stud. Jimmy actually knew what he was talking about.”

“Jimmy said you’re going to stable him here.”

“For now. We have to break his Houdini habit. Keeping him in such a big stall will help.”

She chanced a glance at him. “Did you really call Jimmy Fisher your partner?”

Galen groaned. He moved a pitchfork out of the way and opened the top half of the Dutch door of the stall. “He’s crowing about it all over town, I suppose.”

“He is. Seems pretty pleased about it.”

Lodestar stuck his head over the stall door. Galen reached out to stroke the horse’s nose.

Rose looked at Galen’s hands—beautiful, capable hands. Scarred, strong, deft. Hands that had the power to control a hot-blooded horse but the gentleness to caress its velvet nose. Hands she trusted.

“Would it be such an impossible thing for an independent fellow like you? Having a partner?”

His gaze met hers over the horse’s head.

“Makes a lot of sense, you know. The Bible teaches us that ‘two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break.’”

He had yet to take his eyes off her. He didn’t seem to be breathing. “Are we still talking about horses?”

She stroked the horse’s blond forelock. “Why haven’t you ever married?”

“I’ve never met anyone I wanted to marry. Not until you came along.”

Her throat was hot and tight, full of the things she wanted to say. “Galen, I’m carrying a very big burden. I feel such deep shame over all that happened with Dean and his company. I need to pay people back for the money he lost. I can’t ask you to share that burden. That’s why I’ve kept you at a distance. That’s why I keep pushing you away. Maybe you’re
right. Maybe it’s pride. Stubbornness. I need to learn to ask for help. Help is a gift.”

There was quiet—complete quiet.

And on and on the silence went, not a word out of Galen, not a sound. He stared at her for what seemed like an endless amount of time. A stain of color spread across his sharp cheekbones. “I would move heaven and earth for you.”

“I know. I know you would.” She laid the back of her hand against his cheek. “The problem, you see, is I’ve also been too stubborn to realize how much I care for you.”

Galen’s gaze traveled gently over her face, in that loving way he had of looking at her, and stopped at her lips. And then he dropped the pitchfork and it clattered to the concrete floor in the quiet of the barn. He reached around Lodestar’s big head and grabbed Rose up in his arms. He swirled her around and around in a big circle and set her down again, then bent over and cupped her face in his hands. He leaned closer and brushed his mouth across hers, almost reverently. He started to pull away, but she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him until he reached down to kiss her.

The next day, Mim found a note tucked inside of her desk when she arrived at school. “Super Moon. Tonight. 8 PM. Same place. DR”

She bit on her lip to keep from smiling. She would not look at Danny Riehl. She would not, would not, would not.

She looked.

She saw his eyes flit her way for a second and her stomach did a little flip-flop. After finding such a note, how could a girl ever concentrate on her schoolwork?

That evening, she met Danny on the hill behind the schoolhouse right at eight o’clock sharp. Danny wasn’t even peering through the telescope. “You really don’t need a telescope to see the night sky—just a dark night and your eyes.” His head was tilted back, looking with awe at the full moon, the color of rich cream, so beautiful and round and low on the horizon. “It’s called a perigee moon. Perigee means that it’s at its closest point to the earth. An apogee moon is when it is farthest away.”

Perigee. Apogee. Two new words for Mim to collect.

“The perigee moon occurs once a year. The orbit of the moon brings it about sixteen thousand miles closer to the earth. NASA said this super moon appears 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than other full moons.” He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “I read those facts in a magazine for future astronauts.”

Mim had always been fond of the moon. To her it was a more interesting thing to observe than the sun, which did the same thing every day. The moon changed, it moved around the sky; it waxed and waned. She had read that the moon moved the seas, but she hadn’t been able to get her head around that. How could a moon move an ocean?

On a night when the moon rose, shining so brightly, like tonight, it seemed so close that she could almost climb a tree and step right on it. Even on nights when the moon was just a little white thumbnail, she tended to lose her worries when she gazed at it. Sometimes, she would sit by her window and imagine sitting on that hook, peering around the universe, untroubled about all that was happening on the little blue and green earth. She wondered how Danny would react if she shared those thoughts with him. Would he laugh at her?
He might be shocked. He might expect her to stick to facts. So she said, “Is this what they call a blue moon?”

“No. That happens when a full moon appears twice in one month. A blue moon only occurs about once every three years.” He stepped toward the telescope, peered into it, and twisted some dials. “The size of the moon is about the same size as the continent of Africa. Some people think it’s flat, but it has valleys and craters and basins and mountains on it.”

She would have to remember to tell Sammy these moon facts.

They took turns looking at the moon through the telescope, then stood side by side, heads craned back, to study the moon without any device. It was . . . glorious. Resplendent. Majestic.

“We’re not moving away after all,” Danny said quietly. “My mother said no.”

Mim froze. Her heart sang with happiness. Goose bumps danced all over her arms. Her toes wanted to tap.

She cut a sideways glance at Danny at the same moment that he looked at her. They smiled, then they both looked away.

Later tonight, she thought she might have to write again to Lonesome and tell her that “Yes, true love can definitely make everything better.”

Rose’s plan this morning was to walk to her favorite spot and watch the sun rise. Her plans changed when she saw how hard the rain was coming down. She steeped a cup of tea, à la Delia Stoltz’s style, and took the mug outside to sit in the new porch swing. Chase followed along and curled up
by her feet. The scent of summer was in the air, a whisper of promise. She loved this time of year, when the earth seemed to be warming up from within. She took a deep breath. A handful of memories were tied to the scent of the rain, damp grass, and mist. Good memories. The kind that filled you with peace and happiness and satisfaction.

She could think of Dean now without the crushing burden of grief. Remember the good times and smile, grateful for the life they’d shared. She was thankful for the incredible gift of her children. She’d loved her husband, faults and all, and his death had badly shaken her world and her sense of self.

Lately, the only thing she’d been able to count on was that things change. But they had made it through the worst. Vera was under a doctor’s care and her condition was stable. Bethany had turned an important corner into adulthood. Mim and the boys had their ups and downs, but they were adjusting. And she always had a hope that Tobe would return.

And then there was yesterday’s news: at Galen’s urging, she had gone to the bishop to let him know she was trying to pay back investors. She surprised the bishop so, his face flushed red above his gray beard. “Rose, Rose,” he said in his kind voice. “Why would you think you were all alone in this? That was a burden God never meant for you.”

He told her a group of Amish and Mennonites had formed a committee to handle the settlement of claims outside the court process. They would use donations from Amish and Mennonite communities nationwide to reimburse those investors, the Plain people, who wouldn’t be using the court process.

Those people—all those sad, sad letters—they would be paid back. She still couldn’t believe it! She simply couldn’t believe it.

She told the bishop about Tobe’s involvement, about the elusive Jake Hertzler. At first, she wondered if knowing about Tobe might change the committee’s mind about reimbursing people. But no, Bishop Elmo said that revelation had no bearing on their decision.

“The Lord doesn’t ask us to judge how or why needs occur,” Bishop Elmo told her, his spiky gray eyebrows drawing together. “He only asks us to take care of those in need. We all have need, Rose. Each one of us.”

On the way home from the bishop’s house, she was a little sorry that he had wanted that phrase removed—“
Miracula fieri hic
”—from the bottom of the Inn at Eagle Hill sign. Miracles did occur, every day. Maybe they weren’t the kinds of miracles that could be scrutinized for scientific proof, but how could you ever test for a change of a heart? Or a healing of an emotional wound? Or the power of forgiveness? Miracles meant that God was at work.

Her thoughts drifted to the letter she had from Delia yesterday. She said that her son, Will, might be moving to Lancaster County in the fall to head up a new Wild Bird Rescue Center. “He has had some wonderful offers from veterinary clinics but thinks he will be turning them down,” she wrote. “I think it might have something to do with that lady vet he met at your farm.” Then she added that Charles had agreed to go to marriage counseling with her. “Things can get good again,” she had written and underlined it twice.

Yes, they can,
Rose thought to herself. Corners could be turned. The pendulum would swing. Everything could change. As it would again, and again, and again.

She smiled, running a hand along the smooth arm of the white porch swing that Galen had made for her as a surprise.
He called it their courting swing. Dear, kind, faithful Galen. She knew that he hadn’t been good to her because he expected anything in return but because he was who he was—a man with a genuine desire to help fix what was broken. He was good at that.

She felt a hard band let loose around her ribs and took in a long breath. This place, Eagle Hill, was her home. Soon, the cares of the day would creep in. She would need to rouse the boys and get the day started. There were new guests in the basement and she liked to bake her blueberry cornbread for first-time guests. Blessed guests.

But first, she’d just sit here, listen to the rain, and be thankful. Be thankful for the new day.

Rose’s Blueberry Cornbread