A Time to Love (21 page)

Jenny used the time recuperating to study to join the church, to write in her journal, and to read. She was impatient as always but now felt content.

So much in her had healed in the last months—her spirit as well as her body. Even though a surgeon had had to hurt her again to help her, Jenny felt so different emotionally that it wasn't long before she was taking her first steps with a cane instead of the walker, then walking more and more.

Matthew came to visit one afternoon and found her writing in her journal. She made room for him to sit on the sofa beside her.

"Mary loves writing in the journal you gave her."

"I started writing in one when I was about her age." Jenny looked sternly at Matthew. "I hope that you don't read her journal or let Joshua tease her about it. She'd be devastated if she thought anyone read it."

China crashed to the floor.

Matthew jumped up. "Phoebe? Are you all right? Did you burn yourself?"

Phoebe stared down at the spreading stain on her long apron. "I'm fine. I'll get the broom."

"You go change. I'll sweep it up."

Is it my imagination or did Grandmother look strange as she left the room?
Jenny wondered.

Then Matthew returned with a broom and dustpan and swept up the shards of the teapot and cups Phoebe had been carrying. "I'll go put more water on to boil," he told her.

When he returned, he saw that Jenny was staring pensively at the fire.

"What is it?"

"Is it my imagination or was my grandmother upset when she heard us talking about journals?"

"It was just an accident."

Jenny thought about it, then nodded. "Maybe you're right."Matthew gestured at the laptop that sat on the table beside her. "What are you writing on your machine?"

"Oh, just some notes about my time overseas. Doodling, really."

"You said once I could see the television interview David did with you. Without my
kinner,
since they're too young. But then you left for the surgery and we didn't do it. Can we look at it now?"

Surprised, she nodded. "If you want to. The DVD is on my desk in my room."

He rose. "I'll see if Phoebe will get it for me."

When he returned with it, Jenny put it in the computer."Have you ever watched a DVD?"

He shook his head. "I saw a movie once, with friends. During my rumspringe."

"Sometime I'd like to hear all about that time," she teased him.

"There isn't much to tell," he assured her. "I didn't have much interest in exploring outside my community and got baptized soon after."

Jenny started the DVD. Even after the interview ended, Matthew wore a troubled expression as he stared at the blank screen.

"Now you know why I didn't want the children to see it," she said.

Turning to her, he lifted her hand, kissed it, and held it to his cheek.

"It hurts to see what happened to you. I don't know how you survived it." He sighed. "God didn't want you to join Him yet."

He lapsed into thought for a long moment. "I'm glad you went to do the interview with David," he said finally. "He was right to get you to do it. There's been a peace about you since you came back from that trip, even though you had bad news about needing more surgery."

"I know."

She closed the lid on the laptop. "I thought I had to go back overseas and I knew I couldn't, not with my problems recovering from my injuries. But when David showed the organizations that help children and asked viewers to contribute, I realized that I didn't have to feel like I was the only one who could try to make people care."

Matthew linked his fingers with hers. "Jenny, sometimes when a person gets a second chance at life I wonder if it isn't because they're supposed to do something more with their life. It occurs to me that you could make people care in a different way."

He gestured at the laptop. "Write about the children, Jenny," he told her. "Write so that people will care. Maybe it's time for you to do a book about the children, about what you saw, about what you wish people would do for them. Write from your heart, Jenny, and the people will hear."

How have I been so lucky—no,
blessed—
to meet someone who so truly understands me?
she wondered.

"You have the time now," he continued. "You should use it."

She looked at him doubtfully. "I don't know if I can do that. I wrote for a newspaper before I joined the network, and of course, I wrote what I was going to say on the air.
But a book?
I don't know." Laughing, she shook her head. "Every journalist I know says they have a book in them, that they'll write it when they get time. But few ever do."

"You can do it, Jenny," he said. "You can do anything."

Jenny brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. "Thank you for saying that."

She thought about it after he left. Maybe she
should
try writing a book. If nothing else, she certainly did have the time and something she wanted to say so much.

Flipping through her big yellow legal pad, she read what she'd written that morning:
He was a little boy. Maybe six years old. He didn't know how old he was. No one had ever told him. He was lucky. He had a big sister who tried to take care of him after their parents were killed when a mortar fell on their home.

Phoebe brought her tea and set it on the table near the sofa. Jenny murmured a thank you, but kept writing. When she looked up a little while later, Phoebe was sitting quietly in the chair near the fire, staring into the flames.

"Grandmother?"

Phoebe turned. "Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I told you that I didn't burn myself."

"You seem quiet." Jenny set the laptop aside and reached for her cup.

"It would be rude to talk when you're writing."

Jenny smiled. "It's okay. I'm just fooling around a little with an idea. Matthew seems to think I should write it."

"What is the idea?"

"There was this little boy I met overseas. He lost his parents when a bomb hit their house."

"When you make someone care about one, you make them care about many."

Jenny stared at her, surprised. "I heard that once. Someone said it about Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who wrote in a journal during World War II. The journal was found after she died, and it was published."

Phoebe looked again at the fire. "No one thought it was wrong to publish it without her permission?"

Jenny shook her head. "It made people care about those who were put to death by the Nazis just because they were Jewish. Someone had hidden Anne and her family, but the Nazis found them and sent them to a concentration camp—a prison camp. Yet even when bad things were happening to people around her, Anne wrote that she still believed that people were good."

"What happened to Anne?"

"She died in the camp."

Phoebe sighed and shook her head. "I think Matthew has a good idea. Perhaps what you write about the children will make people care."

"Maybe."

"Well, I've sat long enough. I think I will go start supper."

"But we just ate— " Jenny began.

Phoebe had already hurried from the room.

Shrugging, Jenny put down her cup and picked up her laptop.

Matthew looked grim when he stopped by several days later.

"Josiah has been complaining again," he told Jenny and Phoebe. "Seems he objects to Jenny being baptized."

"But he can't stop it, can he?"

Phoebe shook her head. "No. Benjamin and Isaac made a point of talking to me last Sunday. They said good things about you and the articles that you gave them to read. I'm sure they'll speak to the bishop if it's necessary."

"I didn't tell you to worry you," Matthew told Jenny. "If we don't get approval, we'll be married anyway."

Jenny frowned. "How would you—" she stopped and stared at him. "No, Matthew! I won't have you go outside your church to marry me."

"And I won't let anything or anyone stand in the way of marrying you," he said simply but firmly.

He left to go do some chores, promising to return to take Jenny to her first physical therapy appointment since the surgery.

"Well," said Phoebe. "Matthew has spoken."

Jenny laughed. "He is a very determined man, isn't he?"

Phoebe's smiled and she nodded. "Now, I was thinking that we could do two different things this afternoon. We could discuss the
Ordnung
some more together, or we could do something about the wedding."

"Hmm," Jenny mused. "Studying the rules or planning my wedding? Guess which one I'll choose?"

Weddings were simple in the community, as Jenny expected. She would be married here, in her grandmother's home. Her dress wouldn't be white, and it wouldn't be fancy. Instead, the usual color was a shade of blue. The dress, unlike those in
Englisch
weddings, would be one she'd wear when she was buried.

"How well do you sew?" Phoebe asked.

"As well as I cook." She looked at her grandmother. "Don't say it."

"Say what?"

But Phoebe was trying hard not to smile. "I'll help you make your dress."

It wasn't the dress Jenny had thought she would wear in her wedding. When she was a little girl she'd fantasized about a long white dress that glistened with crystals and pearls and a flowing white veil on her hair.

But when she thought about the man who would stand beside her and make vows with her, when she thought about the precious children who would be her family afterward, what she wore held little importance to her.

The meal after the wedding would be a feast, enough to make the tables groan with abundance: roast chicken and its filling, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetables, and dessert upon dessert. All of it was to be prepared by the bride's family, so Hannah had offered to help her.

"I can help," Jenny told her. "Maybe I should make apple crisp. It was the one thing that turned out well when I cooked."

"When you're better you'll be cooking more. It just takes practice."

"I hope so. I sincerely hope so. Otherwise we'll all starve unless you invite us over to dinner every night."

She frowned as she stretched her leg to ease a slight cramp."I need to talk to Hannah. Matthew says she is insisting that she will move out after he and I marry."

"That's as it should be."

"But that's been her home since Amelia died. I don't want her to feel like she's being pushed out."

"I know Hannah. She won't feel pushed out. She'll want you to be the woman of the house."

Jenny sighed. "So much to think about. And the book keeps pulling at me. I think I'll go work on it for a while until Matthew comes for me."

"Look, there's a crocus pushing out of the snow," Jenny cried as they drove to her appointment. "Spring is truly here. Some trees even have buds." She sighed. "I feel like I've had to hibernate in the house for so long."

"When you're feeling better we'll do something."

Jenny seized on his words. "What? What?"

He chuckled. "It'll be a surprise. And a reward to you for getting better."

"I'm not looking forward to therapy again. But Mac, my surgeon, thinks it should be easier this time. He better be right, or he'll hear about it."

The ride in the buggy was the first time they'd been alone since she'd come home. She held hands with him and cherished spending this time alone. They talked about the coming months, what Matthew would plant in the fields, about the children and about the wedding planning she and her grandmother had been doing.

"And the book?"

"The book is going well."

He nodded, as if that was to be understood.

"I wrote David what I was doing and he sent me the name of an agent to represent the book to a publisher when I'm ready."She fell silent.

"You miss him and his wife and son."

She nodded. "They're such good friends. They did so much for me both times I was in the hospital. Joy said they're looking forward to coming to the wedding."

"It'll be good to have them here as friends who have become family for you."

He was silent for so long, she touched his hand so he'd look at her.