A Plain Love Song (29 page)
Except Groossdaadi’s clothes hung on a wasted frame that held nary a pinch of fat. His legs and arms were sticks compared to Daed’s, thick as stumps from hard work.
“Let me give you a lift.” Matthew tried again. “It’s on my way.”
“What’s on your way?” His mind might be cloudy, but his tone was crisp and sharp, as always. “Boy, you don’t know where I’m going.”
“Aren’t you looking for Frannie?”
The confusion cleared and his frown lifted. “Frannie. You know where I can find Frannie? It’s her birthday and I got her a surprise.”
“Groossmammi went with Mudder—Mary—to the quilting frolic. They’re finishing some pieces for the store in town. Remember? They’ll be back any minute, I reckon. Molly and Elizabeth and the girls are getting supper. They’re fixing her favorite—ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn on the cob. Molly’s making her a carrot cake with spicy
cream cheese frosting. You know Frannie, she can’t abide by sitting around, so she’ll jump into the thick of it when she gets back.”
Groossdaadi stared at some distant point on the far horizon. He seemed to be studying Matthew’s words. After a bit he nodded, his beard bobbing. “Nee, she can’t. Makes her downright skittish.”
“You too, huh, Groossdaadi? You can’t abide by sitting around either, can you?”
Groossdaadi eyed Matthew. His gaze narrowed as he lifted one hand to his straw hat and tugged it down to shade his eyes from the sun. “Who did you say you were?”
“Matthew. It’s me, Matthew.”
“You’re the spitting image of my son, Aaron.”
“That’s what they tell me. Can’t rightly see it myself.”
“I reckon I could use a ride, Matthew.”
Matthew jerked his head toward the buggy. “Climb in.”
Groossdaadi grabbed the edge of the buggy and attempted to heave himself up and in. He couldn’t quite muster enough strength. Matthew offered the older man his hand. His groossdaadi looked up at him, uncertain, offended, and then sheepish.
“Matthew. Give your groossdaadi a hand up, will you?”
Matthew obliged.
Groossdaadi grunted and hoisted himself into the seat. “Where have you been? I’ve worked out a powerful thirst out here, walking around.”
“Been to town…I intended to go into the harness shop, but something came up.”
“Didn’t Aaron want you to check on a halter he left for repair?”
Groossdaadi was back. A hard knot in Matthew’s chest dissolved. “He did, but it’ll wait until tomorrow.”
“What came up?”
“What?”
“You said something came up.”
“I saw something…I remembered something I needed to do back here.”
“Could it have something to do with Enoch’s girl? What’s her name…the oldest?”
“Elizabeth?” Matthew shifted in his seat. “What about her?”
“She’s been mooning around all day, grinding on my nerves.” Groossdaadi sniffed. “She’s got her eye on you, no doubt about it. In my day, we didn’t go around wearing our feelings on our sleeves for everyone to see.”
“Nee, she’s homesick, that’s all, I reckon. And tired of being squeezed into someone else’s house with all her brothers and sisters like a litter of puppies in a cardboard box.”
“I know the feeling.” Groossdaadi sniffed again, a disdainful sound. “I don’t know what your aunt was thinking, sending Frannie and me out here like we were wayward teenagers who needed a good talking-to by your daed. I’m their daed, not the other way around.”
“We wanted a visit with you. It was our turn. Why should Aenti get you all to herself?”
“You do talk a good line of hooey, son.”
Matthew peeked sideways, wanting to make sure Groossdaadi hadn’t disappeared again. His grandfather settled back in the seat, one hand gripping the edge of the buggy as if he feared falling out. The hand was covered with ropy veins that bulged against his wrinkled, age-spotted skin. He stared ahead, an almost vacant expression on his weathered face. Old age sat hard on Groossdaadi and that fact rubbed raw spots on Matthew’s heart. “It’s not hooey. It’s good to have you here.”
“So tell me about the girl.”
“What?”
“One of the strange blessings of this old age is that I remember the things that happened when I was young better than today. I remember when I met Frannie and I took her for rides in the two-seater and sat on the rocks by the creek and gabbed half the night.”
The image sounded so familiar. How many nights had Matthew done that exact same thing with Adah? Too many or not enough, he didn’t know which. He’d done everything he could to make her see
how he felt. He’d told her flat out, and still she rode around New Hope in a truck with an Englisch man. He cleared his throat. “I imagine Groossmammi was quite the talker.”
“Still is. I liked listening to the sound of her voice, even if I didn’t always listen to what she said. That’s our little secret.” He chuckled and sniffed again, then wiped his nose on his sleeve like a little boy. “She wouldn’t cotton to the idea that I don’t hang on her every word. When every word usually has something to do with how dirty I get my pants and how I don’t like new shirts. Too stiff. Anyways, I may not listen to what she says, but I never get tired of listening to her talk. That’s what it feels like.”
The memory of Adah’s voice singing a lullaby to baby John wafted through Matthew’s mind. She had such a voice. It whispered in his ear late at night and early in the morning, soft and high, singing a song only he could hear. “It what?”
“What you’re looking for.” His grandfather slapped gnarled fingers with swollen joints on Matthew’s knee and squeezed, real quick, then let go. “Don’t let anyone tell you different. If you’re planning to spend the next fifty years with a woman, it best be someone whose voice you could listen to every day for the rest of your life. Think on that, son.”
“I have been.” A woman whose voice lifted in song sounded like no other he’d ever heard. “Sometimes I can’t think about anything else.”
“It’s that girl, Adah, the one everyone’s talking about.”
“Everyone?”
“Leastways, your folks, Luke, Thomas. Everyone who counts.”
“It’s no one’s business.”
Groossdaadi snorted. “That’s what everyone likes to say, but you know better. In a district this size? Everyone’s looking. Everyone’s watching. Not out of malice. They want you to make the right choices. To be right with God. They care about your eternal salvation. That kind of caring keeps the district strong.”
“And they’re nosey too.”
“Yep. That too.”
“She’s…wayward.”
“I figured as much.”
“Daed thinks I’m wasting my time.”
“Your daed has a short memory.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wasn’t so long ago that people were whispering and talking about him and your mudder.”
They seemed made for each other. They rarely exchanged a cross word and Mudder still looked at Daed like he hung the moon. “You didn’t think he should marry Mudder?”
“Frannie had her doubts. So did I, truth be told.”
“Why?”
“She was all hands and feet and the clumsiest girl I’d ever met. Terrible cook. Can’t say that about too many Plain girls, but your mudder managed to burn bread.”
Irene Troyer a bad cook. It couldn’t be. Maybe Groossdaadi was confused. “Mudder is a good cook. She makes great bread.”
“Now. I reckon the problem was just nerves. She wanted to be a good fraa so bad she got the jitters. Especially around Frannie.”
“Daed thinks I’m daft for picking Adah.”
“Your heart, your next fifty years. He done got his girl.”
“I think Adah may have chosen another.”
“You think? You’re not sure?”
“Nee.”
“You best find out, son.”
Matthew tugged on the reins and halted the buggy near the front steps. “Danki.”
Groossdaadi hopped from the buggy, looking spry all of a sudden. He turned and stared up at Matthew. “This ain’t my house.”
“Groossdaadi—”
A smile spread across his face. “Just joshing you!” He turned and sped up the steps. “I hope there’s carrot cake with that cream cheese frosting. That’s Frannie’s favorite. I got me a hankering for cake.”
Matthew watched him disappear through the screen door. If only a piece of carrot cake could make things right in his world. Groossdaadi was right. He had to find out. He had to make Adah see. He wanted his next fifty years to be with her.
Even if it meant winning her away from a man who drove a silver beast and lured her away with a guitar. He couldn’t leave the house tonight, not with the frolic planned for Groossmammi’s seventieth birthday. Half the district would be there. Maybe Adah would come with her folks.
Maybe Jackson Hart had dropped her off by now.
It seemed like an awful lot of maybes.
J
ackson’s voice burrowed its way into Adah’s dreams. He was singing. A beautiful song. A hymn. She dragged herself from a dream-ravaged sleep that involved Matthew, a buggy, and a raging river. She drove the buggy on one side. Matthew ran along the river on the other. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear what he said. Every time she drifted off, lulled by the rumble of the truck’s engine and the tires on Highway 65, the dream came back. She wanted to wake up. She didn’t like this dream. She forced open gritty eyes, squinting against the fading sun. Jackson glanced down at her. “There you are, sleeping beauty. You’re missing the scenery.”
Still groggy, she struggled to pull herself from the depths of her dream. Her head lolled against Jackson’s shoulder. The realization hit her like cold water sprayed from a hose. She jolted upright. “Where are we?”
“Still on Highway 65.”
The sound of those tires humming against the pavement sang to her, drowning Jackson’s voice. The road sang an unfamiliar song with a new melody and words that hadn’t been written yet. A song that took her away from home. She’d never been away from home before. She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hands and inhaled. The smell of greasy burgers, onions, and cold fries made her stomach contract.
Her disorientation had nothing to do with geography. “Are we almost there?”
“Getting close.” He lifted one index finger from the steering wheel and pointed. “See the billboards?”
How could she miss them? All along the highway enormous billboards blocked her view of the rock jutting from the earth, protruding as if trying to reclaim its territory. She saw a billboard with the words W
ANT
F
UNNY
? Then another: W
E
G
OT
F
UNNY
. Followed by a third. P
IERCE
A
RROW
. What did that mean?
P
RESLEY
C
OUNTRY
J
UBILEE
. S
ILVER
D
OLLAR
C
ITY
. T
HE
O
AK
R
IDGE
B
OYS
. D
OLLY
P
ARTON
. Y
AKOV
S
MIRNOFF
. Other billboards sang the praises of a museum, zip lines, hotels, golf courses, and a steamboat. It seemed one could do just about anything in Branson, Missouri.
“Pretty impressive, huh?”
Adah glanced at Jackson. He didn’t look tired. He looked pumped up. She waited for some of his energy to wash over her. “What will we do first?”
“Sing. Are you nervous?”
She glanced at the next billboard. B
ALDKNOBBERS.
Whatever that was. “A little.”
“A little. You’re cute when you try to be brave.”
“Jackson. You promised.”
He gave her his usual hangdog grin. “That doesn’t mean I can’t admire the scenery.”
Englischers had such a strange way of talking sometimes. “No calling me cute or baby or honey.”
“Just Amish girl, huh?”
No. Definitely not. By getting in this truck she’d set aside the right to be called Amish girl. “My name would be fine.”
He was silent for a few seconds, the squeak of the Styrofoam chest in the backseat half-drowned by the rumble of the engine. Captain whined in his sleep. A song floated from the radio.
“
Adah
, first we get settled at the lake house. Then I call Mac and tell him we’re in town. Then we get you some clothes. And we practice. We
practice a lot.” He turned up the radio. “Come on, sing along with me. Get your voice warmed up and then we’ll sing our song.”
“What do you mean, get me some clothes?”
“You can’t perform dressed like that. You need to get your bling on, girl.”
Her bling. A sick feeling churned in the pit of her stomach, Adah scooted closer to her door. “I don’t do
bling
.”
“Don’t worry about it right now. Right now, let’s just sing.”
That was Jackson, barging ahead, sure she would follow.
So far, she had. Why, she couldn’t say.
Gott, what am I doing?
Jackson’s baritone filled the cabin, sweet and sure, calling to her. She shook her head, determined not to get drawn in by his charm.
