An Amish Gift (2 page)

The heat of the afternoon was oppressive. Jennie gazed at
the large damaged patches on the roof of the house, wishing she could feel the same gratitude toward this mysterious relative that she had felt earlier. At the moment, what she felt was dread as she contemplated the work ahead of them. Thank goodness she and Shep could do most of the physical labor themselves; he was a magician at fixing things, and she would help. Still, they couldn’t afford to buy the materials they would need. More important, he had a new business to run, and she had to presume that it would demand most of his time and energy.

Well, she thought, they would simply find a way through. Somehow it would work out.

Scout bounded out of the car, thrilled to be released from his confinement. He gave a few joyful barks, then raced over to follow Shep, tail wagging, as Willa came to join Jennie.

“Let’s see what it’s like inside,” Jennie said. She bent over to peer at Tim, who was still in the backseat, his arms folded, his expression enraged. “You going to stay in there all day? I’d have thought you spent enough hours in the car.”

“I’d rather live here than there.”

She sighed. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Now come on out.”

Making no effort to hide his annoyance, he threw open the door and emerged. Tall and broad-shouldered, he looked remarkably like his father, with the same sandy-colored hair and hazel eyes. The only thing missing was the dimple on Shep’s left cheek, which, to Jennie, only made her husband more handsome when he smiled. Willa resembled Jennie, both of
them with brown eyes and long brown hair usually tied back in a low ponytail.

Tim leaned back against the car, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, refusing to look anywhere but at the ground.

“Fine, be that way,” Jennie said in resignation, turning away and gesturing to her daughter to follow.

Her husband was already at the side of the house, frowning as he knelt to inspect the foundation. Jennie reached for the screen door, pleasantly surprised to find that it appeared relatively new. That was one less thing they had to worry about, she thought. She would be grateful for small favors.

Inside the narrow front hall, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a covering of dust practically everywhere. At best, no one would have been here to clean since Bert Howland had died, although, judging from the entryway’s appearance, it had been a lot longer than six weeks. She took a quick tour of the cramped downstairs. Kitchen, half-bathroom, living room, dining room—all small, all apparently unchanged in decades. Dark, heavy wooden furniture did nothing to make the tiny rooms seem any larger. The living room had a rug with areas almost completely worn through in spots. She guessed that the old rocking chair next to a small table and black gooseneck lamp was where the house’s inhabitant had spent much of his time; it held a flattened, faded seat cushion, and a thin pillow with a grimy gray pillowcase offered minimal back support. A coffee cup rested on the table. She leaned forward just far enough to look in, relieved to see it had a dried coffee stain on the bottom but was otherwise empty. In the kitchen, she found
outdated appliances, rust on the stove and sink faucets, the refrigerator’s door handle broken. Everything looked grimy.

Scout came bounding into the room, wagging his tail at the sight of her.

“So, what do you think?” she asked the dog, kneeling down to scratch behind his ears. “Could have been worse, you know. Way worse.” Hearing Willa’s footsteps coming down the narrow staircase, she called out, “In here, honey.”

Her daughter appeared in the doorway, looking pale. “I checked out the bedrooms.”

Jennie stood. “And?”

“They’re, like, the size of shoe boxes. I mean, I’m not even kidding. There are two that are a joke, and I don’t think anybody’s been in them for about a hundred years. There’s a third one, the big one, if you want to call it that, but don’t bother. That’s where he must have slept.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “The bed has this nasty brown bedspread. I’m not touching it.”

Her words reminded Jennie of what was missing here. She walked around a dividing wall that stuck partway out into the kitchen. Hidden behind the wall was a small mudroom leading to the back door, crammed with old boots and work shoes, shovels, rakes, tools, and a large garbage can. With relief, she noted the washer and dryer beneath precarious piles of newspapers. She prayed they worked.

They recognized the sound of Tim’s footsteps and listened as he paused to peer into the rooms clustered close to the staircase. When he joined them in the kitchen, Jennie saw the familiar
look in his eyes that said he was about to let his temper get the better of him. It was the expression that typically set his father off, which always resulted in the two of them fighting long and loud. She chose to ignore it whenever possible. She held up a hand as if to stop him.

“Don’t, Tim, just don’t. There’s nothing you can say that we don’t know.”

“Can we go back home, please?” He made no effort to hide the fury behind his words. “Like, right now.”

“You know there’s no ‘back home’ to go to. This is home.”

“No way. This is nobody’s home. It should be torn down.”

“Lucky for us it wasn’t. This is about the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. So we’re going to be grateful and make the best of it.”

“I shouldn’t have come.” Tim gave his mother a defiant look. “Maybe I won’t stay.”

“And leave me here alone?” Willa was indignant. “Don’t you dare.”

Jennie was suddenly developing a headache. “Look, kids, it will be okay, really. We have a lot of work to do, but come on, it’s not so bad. If we clean it up, paint, all that stuff, it’ll be fine.”

“But it’s here,” Willa moaned. “In this place. This weird, awful place.”

“You don’t know that it’s weird or awful.” Jennie massaged the bridge of her nose. “It could turn out to be great.”

“This is not going to be a great place.” Tim’s voice rose. “Not now, not ever. And it’s full of those creepy Amish people.
Come on, you saw the crazy buggies on the road. Those ugly black clothes—what’s that about? And no electricity?”

Jennie had come to regret telling the children about the Amish people who populated the area. She’d thought it would be interesting to them, something they would enjoy learning about. Big mistake on her part, she realized; it had made them dread the move even more.

“That’s part of their religion.” Shep entered the room. Jennie noted that it only took the four of them standing there to make the kitchen feel crowded. “When you learn more about them, you might be a bit more tolerant. Your ignorance isn’t their problem.”

“Thanks for the lecture, Dad. You are so right. I’m the ignorant moron, not those people who think they’re living in their own little world while everyone around them is in a different one.”

“That’s right. But don’t worry, because they probably have no desire to spend any time with you.”

Jennie could see it would take only a few more words to bring on a full-blown argument. When exactly had this started, she wondered, the two of them being unable to exchange more than three sentences without fighting, usually over nothing. What was happening now was stressful for the entire family. Stressful and constant. They could be talking about the weather, and the result would be the same.

It was hard to believe that Tim had once worshipped his father and that the two had spent every moment together when Shep came home from work at night. Just the sight of his little
boy could always cheer him up, no matter how tough a day he’d had. He loved Willa, too, Jennie had never doubted that, but he’d always had a special connection with Tim.

Then rambunctious little Tim turned into a teenager with the bad combination of a nasty temper and a short fuse. It was toward his father that much of his anger was directed. Though none of them ever discussed it, Jennie knew the reason. She was hoping that the change in their circumstances would somehow bring about other changes, not just for Tim and Shep but for all of them. When things got difficult, Willa tended to retreat to her room, unreachable behind the walls she erected with her headphones or computer. She said and showed little about what she saw going on around her or how she felt about any of it. Tim acted up, and more often as time went on. His grades slipped, and his old friends started coming around less. Last November, he had been suspended from school for getting into a brawl in the hallway. Jennie wasn’t sure how much more the threads holding the four of them together could take.

She turned to her husband. “Should we start unloading the car?”

He nodded. “I’ll just go take a look at the upstairs first.”

He left, and Jennie started to follow him out.

“Where are you going?” Willa asked.

“To help Dad unpack. I’d like your help, too. There’s a lot to do.” She looked over at her son. “Help from both of you.”

He gave a loud sigh of irritation but moved to follow her. Smiling, she stretched out a hand to his shoulder, but he quickly and deliberately moved out of her reach. She tried not
to show how much his reaction hurt her. Instead, she gave him a broad smile. “What do you say we bring in the cooler first, and I can set out some cold drinks and snacks for everyone. It’ll help get our energy up!”

She hoped the note of hysteria creeping into her voice was only in her imagination. Her family was not going to fall apart. She would not allow it.

Scrubbing the last remaining empty drawer in the kitchen, Jennie thought for the hundredth time that it had been a very long while since anyone had cleaned the insides of any drawer, closet, or cabinet in this house.

“I mean,
really
, people,” she muttered, imitating Willa’s teenage intonations. “So gross.”

Finally deciding this was as good as it was going to get, she stood up and saw the sky growing light outside. After rinsing the rag she had used, she opened the back door far enough to hang it on the outside doorknob to dry, pausing to appreciate the quiet, mysterious moment as night transitioned into day. It had always been one of her favorite times when the children were small and she was the only one awake in the house, the family together, everything peaceful.

It’s peaceful now, she couldn’t help adding to herself, because they were all in tiny separate rooms, so they couldn’t
argue. She came back inside and knelt to pat Scout on the head. He had joined her in the kitchen when she had gotten out of bed an hour ago, only too glad to keep her company. She had been unable to sleep, consumed by all the things to wash and fix. Ever since they’d arrived eight days before, she had felt almost frantic, unable to decide what needed doing most. It was important to get the children’s bedrooms set up so they would be settled in before school started. At the same time, she and Shep needed to get all the boxes unpacked and cleared out, and the kitchen had to be dealt with so the kids could have a welcoming place to eat or hang out. The entire house, it seemed, needed an overhaul. Yet her daily plans were always upended by some new problem, some roadblock that demanded her immediate attention. Not to mention such time-consuming necessities as registering the kids for school, filling out an ocean of forms, and scheduling appointments for everything from the cable company to the new pediatrician for school physicals. On mornings like these, she would attack a random small task that she knew she could complete, simply to have the satisfaction of seeing a task through to the end.

“Okay, Scout,” she said, “that’s one more thing cleaned and one more box about to be unpacked.”

He yawned.

“You have very high expectations, you know that?”

In a corner, she found the carton marked
Kitchen—Odds and Ends
, and removed the items inside, everything from an old-fashioned eggbeater, chopsticks, and extra wooden spoons to an apple corer. As she was breaking down the box, she glanced
at the old wall clock. Six-thirty already. How had that happened? She hastened upstairs to Tim, trying not to think about how tiny and dark his room was. It was an improvement over his prior sleeping arrangement back in Lawrence, the foldout couch in their living room. They’d had only two bedrooms in that house, so it was the best arrangement they could come up with. She had to believe that a dank little bedroom of his own was better than none. If only they could afford to paint, it would make such a difference. But that would have to wait.

“Honey, time to get up.” She directed her words to the long lump beneath the sheet. No part of him was visible, his head hidden beneath the pillow.

She repeated herself more loudly.

“Nnnuuhhh …” The lump moved closer to the wall, trying to get away from the sound of her voice.

This had long been the usual morning procedure on a school day. She had to spend a good five minutes coaxing him awake. Even when he finally got out of the bed, he refused to look at her or speak, just stumbled past. She had given up on what he clearly considered outrageous demands, such as the idea that he should say good morning. From his room, she went next door to Willa’s; her school bus came later, but she needed more time to get dressed than her brother. Waking up Willa was usually easier; she might even smile as she was coming to consciousness before recalling that she was no longer displaying affection to her parents if she could help it. Today, though, she remembered, as she gave her mother only a brief glare.