A Plain Love Song (45 page)

She stood. This time her legs held. “Is someone waiting for you?”

“Molly and Daniel are in the car with RaeAnne.”

“RaeAnne.” For the first time she saw a glimmer of humor in the situation. “How did she get here?”

Matthew must’ve seen the same glimmer. His expression eased. “She drove us. In a very old, very beat-up station wagon. Apparently without a driver’s license.”

“Will they wait while we take a walk?”

“They’ll wait.”

She threaded her way between an elderly couple pulling suitcases on wheels and a family with crying, rosy-cheeked twins in a double stroller. “It’s not much for pretty scenery like we have back home, but at least the air is fresher.”

Not speaking, he held the door for her. The bright sunlight blinded her at first. She stumbled on the sidewalk. Matthew’s hand steadied her, his grip almost bruising.

“Danki.”

His hand dropped. They walked half a block before he spoke. “Did you find what you’re looking for here?”

“Nee.”

Tires screeched and horns dueled. Matthew’s pace picked up. Adah tried to match his stride. After a half a block, she gave up, slowed, and
waited for him to notice. He glanced back and stopped. “Did you learn anything?”

She covered the ground between them, searching for and gathering up the words she needed like flower petals that had been flung about by the wind. “I found out that a strong and steady flame is better than a flash fire that can’t be controlled.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I know, but I do.”

“I can’t write you songs.”

The hollowness of his voice told her how much he regretted not being able to give her what he thought she most wanted. “I don’t need songs from you.”

“I came here to say my piece.”

“Sorry.”

“I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Forgive him? “For what?”

“For not fighting harder for you. Groossdaadi says a man has to pick a fraa who has a voice he can listen to for fifty years. I could listen to yours for a hundred years and not get tired of it.”

“Matthew—”

“You can always sing for me. I hope that will be enough for you.” He cleared his throat. “God’s song is the only one that counts. He writes a song for each one of us. If we don’t choose His song, our lives are empty of His music.”

“I know.”

He stopped walking. “You know?”

“That’s what I was coming home to tell you. I was coming home to tell you that you were right. I was wrong. I didn’t expect you to take me back, but I wanted to tell you that.”

“You were wrong?”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the music Jackson and I make—made.” Adah faced Matthew in the middle of a sidewalk steaming with heat, the rumble of car engines threatening to drown out their words. “Music is fine unless you set it up on a pedestal and
worship it instead of God. That’s what I’ve done. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t sing in front of all those folks.”

She paused, hoping he would see and understand and believe her. His expression said he was trying. “Then I realized God had taken my joy. He took it because I no longer deserved it. I made an idol of my music. I wanted it more than I wanted God. I was willing to give up everything for it. My family. My faith. You.”

“And now?”

“Now, I see. It’s as if the blinders have been ripped off. It’s all wrong. This is wrong.” She swept her hand through the air in a wide flourish toward the crowded Branson street. “For me, it’s wrong. I’m not judging anyone else. I love to hear this music. But I won’t let it stand in the way of God’s plan for me.”

“I’m glad.”

“You don’t seem to be.” Maybe he came because they made him. Not because he wanted to bring her back to his side. “You look disappointed.”

“More discombobulated. I came here to convince you to come back. And I find I don’t have to do that.” His dark eyes glowed in the sunlight. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’m happy about that.”

“Happy for me or happy for you?”

He took a step closer. “Both.”

Adah edged closer yet. “You’ll still have me?” She whispered, afraid her words would break the connection that held them together like a thin, fragile thread. “After all this?”

“I don’t know how to be without you.”

“You don’t?”

He shook his head. “Nee.”

“Me neither.”

“What about Jackson Hart?”

She held perfectly still, waiting for the words to come that would make Matthew understand. “We’re too much alike. We both run ahead of ourselves. There’s no balance. We’ll topple each other over. There’s a woman out there somewhere who’s right for him. One who can help him with his dreams. It can’t be me.”

“What about songwriting?”

“I think I’ll always write songs. That’s how I figure out how I feel and what I want to say to God.”

“To me songs and music are mostly noise.”

“I know.”

“I reckon there’s music in the silence too.”

“I know, but in my head, I put words to the silence.”

“So you can’t stop?”

She listened in her heart and in her head. The words that always milled about inside her were still there. But they no longer pushed and shoved, all sharp edges and pinpricks. “I told Jackson I could, but now I realize I don’t want to quit singing or writing songs. I look forward to singing to my kinner someday. I want to sing praises to my Lord and Savior. Only music that pleases Him.”

Matthew heaved a sigh so great he sounded as if he’d just run a race. He grabbed her hand, his grip so tight it hurt. “Matthew!”

The grip loosened, but he didn’t let go. “I’ve already been baptized.”

“I figured.”

“New classes start in January.”

“I hope to be there, Gott willing.”

He ducked his head.

“Is there something else?”

“Jackson gave me something to give to you.” He held out a wrinkled, folded piece of paper. “I considered throwing it away, but that seemed cowardly.”

She plucked the paper from the palm of his hand, held it against her chest for a second, and stuck it in her bag.

“Aren’t you going to read it?”

“No. I know what it is.”

“How can you know?”

“Jackson is Jackson. It’s a song. That’s how we talk to each other best. Sometimes the only way we can tell each other what we mean.”

“You don’t want to know what he’s saying?”

“I expect someday I’ll walk into the Five and Dime and hear him singing it on the radio. I’ll remember back to this summer and the songs we wrote and we sang and it’ll make me smile. I hope.”

“That’s all, smile? You won’t regret it?”

“Maybe some.”

Matthew was silent for several long seconds. Her words must have cut him to the bone. Adah rushed to assure him. “That doesn’t mean—”

“Are you sure you want to give it up?”

“I’m sure. The songs aren’t enough. They’re not what makes a bond between a woman and a man. It takes more—like family and faith and wanting the same things in life.”

“You won’t miss it—him?”

“Nee. Not like I miss home. Not like I miss Mudder and Daed—jah, even him—and the kinner. Not like I miss you.”

Matthew stared down at her. His emotions flitted across his face, one by one, until something like hope remained. She waited, letting him make the decision.
Please, Gott.

He bent his head and leaned into her. She stretched on her tiptoes, reaching for him. His lips touched hers. His long, thin fingers brushed her cheeks and trailed down her neck in a touch so soft she shivered. The kiss lasted only a few seconds, but the emotions it sparked were like stars that flung themselves across the sky, burning away the memory of another day and another kiss that came too soon and left only regret as a memory.

This was their dream. Hers and Matthews. Their Plain love song. A song they would sing together for the rest of their lives.

Epilogue

U
nable to gather much forward momentum, such was her girth, Adah waddled across the sidewalk to the restaurant door. She slowed, giggled, and rubbed her swollen belly with both hands. “She’s kicking.”

“You keep saying
she
.” Matthew opened the door to Tom’s Steakhouse and held it for Adah to pass through first. “How do you know it’s not a boy? It’s a fifty-fifty chance.”

“Feels like a girl to me.” Inhaling the mouthwatering scent of frying chicken and hamburgers, Adah waved to Eve, the restaurant hostess, who strolled toward them, a stack of oversized menus covered in plastic nestled in the crook of her arm. “We’ll know soon enough, I expect.”

“The sooner the better.” Matthew’s hand came up toward Adah’s elbow, but he didn’t touch her. Not in a crowded restaurant. “I mean, Gott willing.”

Adah hoped so too. On God’s time, but her aching back couldn’t take much more of this. Nor her longing to hold this baby in her arms. To see if she had Matthew’s eyes or her chin. To count her fingers and toes and hold her close so she could get a whiff of her baby smell. She might tease Matthew about it being a girl, but she really didn’t care. Girl or boy, all she wanted was a healthy baby.

“Hey, you two, follow me.” Eve pivoted and pointed to an empty table near the front windows. “No way you’re fitting into a booth.
Better have a table. You can push the chair out. That baby looks like it was due yesterday.”

Adah felt heat creep up her neck and spread to her cheeks. Plain folks didn’t discuss such things outside the family, but Eve was right. No way could she squeeze into a booth. Any day now this baby would make an appearance. She couldn’t wait. Their little house would be perfect with the addition of a baby’s squalls and smells. She followed Eve to the table and plopped down across from Matthew, who opened a menu, even though he would order what he always did on these rare occasions when they splurged on supper out. He’d surprised her with the suggestion, saying it would be the last time in a long time. Once the baby came, they wouldn’t be coming to town together—not for a long while.

“A T-bone sounds good.” He closed the menu. “I could eat a whole cow.”

Adah smiled to herself behind her menu. “I suppose you’ll have a salad with green goddess dressing and extra croutons and a baked potato with all the trimmings.”

“What’s so funny? So what if I will?”

“What do you need a menu for?”

They both laughed and then lapsed into a silence Adah found comfortable. She never had to rummage for conversation with Matthew. She loved that about him. He was comfortable with silence. They sat together in the evenings, she with her sewing, he with his crossword puzzles or his newspaper. Sometimes she’d look up to see him looking at her. He’d smile and go back to his newspaper without uttering a word, but looking so content it made her heart flutter with the unexpected enormity of her love for him.

At that moment, he smiled as if he knew what she was thinking. She smiled back and hid her face behind her menu again. Not that she wouldn’t have her usual. Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy and a side of corn and peach cobbler for dessert. Maybe a scoop of vanilla ice cream with it.

Music wafted through a speaker perched on a shelf over Adah’s
head. A familiar yet almost forgotten voice filled the air over the murmur of the other customers and the clink of silverware against thick white china plates. She paused, caught by the timbre that gave her goose bumps.

The other shoe dropped tonight

And I didn’t even hear it hit the floor.

I was too busy writing a song

You couldn’t hear,

Making up lyrics as I went along,

Thinking you’d be singing the same song.

The other shoe dropped tonight

And I didn’t even hear it hit the floor.

It was lost in the sound of the slamming door

And the riot of two hearts that don’t beat together anymore.

Adah’s hand gripped the menu so hard it seemed the bones in her fingers might break. She inhaled a hiccup of air, thinking her lungs might stop working. She couldn’t make herself look up.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Matthew’s voice rasped as if he’d suddenly come down with a cold. “That’s Jackson singing the song he wrote for you, isn’t it?”

She forced her gaze from the menu to his face. He didn’t look mad. He cocked his head, his eyebrows raised, his expression bemused.

“It is.”

As if in silent acquiescence, Matthew’s mouth closed and he leaned back in his chair, hands resting in his lap. Adah breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to hear it. God forgive her, she needed to hear it. She knew the words, but had sometimes wondered, as she worked in the garden, weeding, how it would sound. She had made up the tune in her head in those quiet times when she hung laundry on the line or kneaded bread for supper. Jackson had chosen riffs of a steel guitar, bass, fiddle, and drums, giving the song a dark, somber feel. She could almost see him sitting there in the banks of the lake, guitar in hand, head bent, fingers strumming as he wrote the song in his head.