A Season for Tending (14 page)

He stood in line, about the thirtieth man back, waiting to enter the room of tables and benches. Samuel was ahead of him by six or seven people, but
when they sat, they’d be at the same table—the one for single men in their age group.

Someone poked him on the shoulder, and he turned.

Mark grinned while stepping back into his spot with the four young men behind Jacob. “You comin’ tonight?”

Jacob had missed the conversation that prompted this question, but he needed no lead-in. Every Sunday night youth singings were held for all the singles from their district and others nearby.

Jacob shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the tug of his suspenders against his shoulders. “Sure. Where will it be this time?”

“Don’t know yet.” Mark’s ruddy skin turned a darker shade of red as he answered. Being the same age, Jacob and Mark had begun and finished school together, but despite their proximity, Mark didn’t know him, not even close. It seemed odd how little anyone—even those who’d grown up in the same home—knew about him, from his talents to the horrors he’d survived.

A sound of glass breaking caused everyone to turn in that direction. Leah stood in the kitchen, eyes wide. Shattered glass and water from a pitcher surrounded her feet, and the lower half of her dress was wet.

She scanned the onlookers, and her eyes met Jacob’s. She hadn’t been herself last night or today—pale, shaky, and quiet. And recently, incidents like these, where she felt insecure and clumsy, really rattled her.

He gave her a subtle nod, hoping she’d remember a conversation they’d had awhile back about handling public mishaps. The taut lines of embarrassment on her face eased. She held out her hands, palms up. “Well, let’s hear it.”

Immediate applause rose, along with a few
hoorays
, and like magic the tense, awkward moment began to fade.

“That’s more like it,” Leah quipped before grabbing a kitchen towel. Several of the women scurried to pick up the broken glass and ice cubes while others mopped the water from what had to have been a full container.

Leah had plenty of guts, but in the last year or so, that quality often hid under a massive boulder of insecurities, especially when she was in the same
room as Michael Yoder. Jacob glanced down the line behind him and saw Michael studying her and then whispering something to the guy beside him. Jacob didn’t care for Michael, never had, and he certainly didn’t like that his impressionable teenage sister was under the spell of an insincere twenty-year-old.

Whose spell were you under at seventeen?
That thought hit Jacob, and he didn’t like the answer. Turning his head, his attention zeroed in on a newspaper tucked inside the wooden mail center that hung on the wall some three feet ahead of him. Even folded, he could see enough to know it was the
Washington Post
. But how old was it? The half he could read revealed partial sentences, and he could make out a few jarring words:
conviction, cover-up, construction
. His heart beat faster.

If it weren’t Sunday, he’d amble that way, start a conversation with whoever was nearby, and ease it out of its holder, hoping the onlooker never became suspicious of such a move. But reading a paper was frowned on until church was officially over, and in the eyes of the people in this room, church wouldn’t be over for hours yet.

The lines shifted, and Jacob moved past the paper without getting much of a look, then headed with his group to their table.

He took a seat on the bench and was quickly flanked by other single men. Did newspaper headlines ever worry any of them? He doubted it unless it contained news of an accident in the Plain community.

Jacob absently put food on his plate as bowls and platters were passed. A kick to his shin startled him, and he saw Mark grinning at him.

“You got that far-off look in your eyes again. What’s up?”

Jacob pulled his attention back to those around him. But Samuel glanced behind him to see what Jacob had been looking at.

Jacob stuck a dull knife into a bowl of peanut butter spread and put it on a piece of homemade bread. “Just wondering why we still bother going to singings.”

Mark took a bite of the sandwich he’d made. “Didn’t you hear me? I said
there’s a group of girls from Ohio visiting in the next district, and they’re coming tonight.”

Jacob hadn’t heard him, but he wasn’t interested in admitting it. “At least those girls don’t know us.”

The young men laughed, one of them slapping Mark on the back. “That fact still won’t help you any.”

Mark’s cheeks flushed red as he chuckled. “Ya, but with Jacob going, that’ll help.”

“The Englisch call it being a wingman.” Jacob took a drink of water.

Mark made a face. “As long as you don’t let me crash, I don’t care what it’s called.” He wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “The key at these things is breaking the ice, and Jacob can melt an arctic glacier with just a few words. I’ve seen him do it.”

That wasn’t true, but Jacob wouldn’t argue. He usually ran girls off, tending to come on a little strong, but that let him know what a girl was made of. Why waste time? What was the point?

He glanced around the table. Most of the single men were seeing someone, not anyone who would interest Jacob, but at least his friends weren’t alone. It’d be nice to have someone with him on weekend nights. Someone to think of when they weren’t together. He actually longed for that. Sometimes, when isolation pressed in hard, Jacob wondered if he too easily wrote off the women he met because of his need to hide a part of himself. If one ever got close to his heart, she’d have questions that couldn’t be brushed aside with witty remarks.

He glanced at the newspaper. He had so very much to hide.

TWELVE

A crying toddler woke Rhoda from her nap. She stretched, grateful for between-Sunday afternoons. Nonchurch days were the most restful, even if naps were often cut short due to the bustle of her nieces and nephews. A warm breeze flowed in through the open windows, making the sheet over her flutter.

Muffled voices of adults murmured from various places inside the old house, and the chatter of children bounced off the walls. But the cries had stopped.

Rhoda slid out from under the sheet and pulled her dress over her head. With temperatures outside nearing a hundred, she’d peeled out of everything except her undergarments hours ago.

She’d searched the attic again that morning, looking for her grandmother’s recipes, but she hadn’t found them. A new idea of where her brothers might have put them came to her, and she went to her closet, unlatched a small door to the attic, and peered inside. Normally she’d crawl into the small, dark space to look around, but it had a new box jammed in the entryway. She tugged on the box, dragging it out of her closet. She opened it and went through the books one by one, flipping the pages, but she didn’t find what she was looking for. A stash of newspapers covered the bottom.

Someone tapped on her door.

“Kumm.” Rhoda picked up a newspaper from a decade earlier and began looking through it.

“Rhoda?” Lydia sat on the edge of the bed.

She lowered the newspaper. “Sorry. I almost forgot someone had knocked.”

Lydia put her hand on her protruding stomach. “I was hesitant to interrupt since it appeared you were praying about something in that old paper.”

Rhoda caught a glimpse of herself through Lydia’s eyes. She was on her
knees with her mouth moving as she read the newspaper. “Ten years ago a drought destroyed nearly all the crops here in Morgansville.”

“Oh.” Lydia stretched her back. “Did your search turn up Mammi Byler’s recipes?”

“Not yet.” She’d begun to wonder if her brothers had thrown out the tattered cookbook that Mammi Byler had created. The last time Rhoda saw it, the yellow pages were slipping from the faded blue cover. It could’ve looked like trash to them, but her grandmother had handstitched the binding to hold the treasured pages together. The thought of never finding the recipes again weighed on Rhoda, but she wouldn’t voice that to her sister-in-law.

Rhoda got up and sat beside Lydia. “Did you get a chance to rest?”

Her sister-in-law shook her head, her dark eyes holding a hint of worry. “I wanted to tell you something I found out a few days ago. I didn’t say anything sooner because I needed some time to adjust to the news.”

“Tell me what?” A nugget of anxiety formed in Rhoda’s chest.

“The midwife says I’m having twins.”

“Oh.” Rhoda reached for her hand. “It’s one of those good-news, scary-news things, isn’t it?”

Lydia’s smile quivered like a candle flame threatening to go out. “It’s exciting, and it’s overwhelming. We’ll have five children under six, and we don’t even have a good prospect for buying a home yet.”

“Either you’ll find a house, or you’re meant to stay here a while longer.”

Lydia played with the strings to her prayer Kapp. “Banks are being so strict. We found a place we could afford, but the underwriters turned us down for the loan—even after we were preapproved. The agent said the banks are fearful and the housing market is crazy right now.”

Rhoda held her sister-in-law’s hand and squeezed it. She had no words. Living in a home with three men and their families was trying on everyone, and with each new child who came along, the stress went up. She couldn’t imagine how little sleep everyone would get with two newborns added to the mix. But they’d pull together. They always did.

“Two more Bylers in the family will be a blessing. And Mamm and Daed will embrace every blessing that comes their way. You know they will.” Rhoda got up. “That chocolate cake Mamm made yesterday is calling my name. Care to join me?”

Lydia reached for her hand and held it gently. “Karl and Bertha never get any rest as it is. They’ve worked hard all their lives and don’t even have their own house to themselves.”

Rhoda made a
tsk
noise with her tongue. “Mamm and Daed welcomed you into their home seven years ago, and that won’t change because you’re expecting two babies at once.”

“But they’ve been really interested in helping us find a place, even when they thought we were having only one.”

“Don’t take it personally, Lydia. It’s a tight squeeze for everyone right now. But you and John and the children could not be more loved, regardless of where you live, ya?”

Lydia released Rhoda’s hand. “You’re right. I’m letting myself get too sensitive. It’s just that I want us to get a home of our own so badly I can hardly sleep at night.”

“If I knew something helpful to say, I would.” Rhoda put her head covering over her messy hair, planning to comb her hair and repin it into place later. She took Lydia by the hand. “Kumm. Chocolate cake will make it better. I know it will.”

The sound of a little one pounding on her door vibrated the room. “Mamm!” Linda Lou wailed.
“Du rei do?”

Rhoda opened her door, and her two-year-old niece ran to her mother.

“Kumm!” Linda Lou grasped her mother’s finger and pulled.

John stopped at Rhoda’s doorway, carrying his four-year-old son, Enos, who looked as if he’d just gotten up. John smiled at his wife. “How about a lazy Sunday afternoon wading in the creek behind the Stoltzfus home? Steven, Phoebe, their children, and Mamm are already walking that way.”

Lydia wiped sweat from her face. “Ya. Sounds gut.”

“Rhoda?”

“
Nee
, denki,” she declined, wanting a little time to talk to her Daed when no one else was around.

John held out his arm for Lydia. She took it and waddled slowly down the stairs, Rhoda close behind. They headed out the front door, and Rhoda waved.

Going through the living room on her way to the kitchen, she saw Daed dozing in his recliner. He opened one eye. “There she is.” He sat more upright, smiling. “Have a good nap?”

“Ya.”

He picked up the folded newspaper lying on an end table next to him. “And now you’re on your way to get a piece of that chocolate cake, I’m sure.”

“You know me too well. Care to join me?”

He got up. “Sure.”

They went into the kitchen, and she pulled two dessert plates out of the cabinet.

Her Daed set his newspaper on the island and got the cake down from the top of the fridge. She removed the lid from the three-layer cake and cut them each a slice.

After he poured both of them a glass of cold milk, they sat at the island. “I walked through your berry patch earlier. Looks like you’ll have a great crop of blackberries this year.”

“I think so too.”

“Strawberries appear picked clean.”

“They are. They’re usually gone by the end of June, but I was still gathering enough to make jam until a few days ago. Mid-July—can you believe it?”

“I’ll believe almost anything when it comes to your berry patch.”

He said little about most things, and it wasn’t easy to know what he thought. It left her wondering how he felt after insisting she let Rueben and Naomi uproot her herb garden. Before Emma passed, she’d always known when her Daed was feeling stress, because whenever she got up during the night to get a glass of water or to go to the bathroom, he’d be up. But insomnia
was a way of life for him now. He meandered through the house at night like a man who’d lost his way.