Fire in the Night (30 page)

She had a calming quality about her, an aloofness actually, that seemed attractive to some, like Matthew, Sarah admitted in spite of herself.

Watching Amos now, she could see the admiration, the way his eyes lingered on her face. And Sarah was glad—for a short time, anyway, until Matthew stepped over to Priscilla, reached down, and tweaked her ear.

“Yeah, Amy. Sarah’s little sister, huh? She’s not even fifteen yet. Not quite.”

He lowered himself beside her, as close as possible, turning his head to watch her face. Amos smiled and watched Matthew, wondering what Sarah would say.

She said nothing, just stared straight ahead, her features inscrutable, as the November sun took on a dim quality and the gray bank of clouds moved in from the east.

The men were moving in double quick time now. Some pulled out cell phones and checked the weather. Yes sir, ice coming. Ice and rain and about anything you could expect, they said. Well, they’d have this barn under roof by tonight.

There was quite a buzz about the weather. With renewed effort, friendly banter, bets called on and off, the men quickened the work pace.

Sarah watched and saw Dat, proud of his ability to straddle a beam with the best of them. Then she saw Uncle Elam and Paul Stoltzfus, the roofer, pulling steadily on a sheet of metal.

A gray truck pulled up to the barn, dispatching two young men who hurried to the side of the truck, extracted leather tool belts, buckled them on, and adjusted them, looking steadily up at the barn the whole time. Sarah guessed that men buckled tool belts the same way women put on aprons—easily, without really looking, having done it so many times.

One young man threw his cap into the truck, his blond hair gleaming in the cold sunshine. She wasn’t aware she’d drawn a breath sharply. It was Lee.

He had no time to look around, intent on getting up on a beam and helping. Together, the two young men sprinted to the back of the barn, ran up the ladder, and were lost among the dozens, the hundred other men. Sarah sighed.

Matthew was still busy showing off his knowledge of Priscilla to his friend, Amos, with absolutely no help from her. Suddenly, a bolt of anger shot through Sarah, and just as suddenly, she concealed it.

What was Matthew doing, sitting right there like a spoiled school boy, flirting shamelessly with poor Priscilla, who by now looked as if she didn’t really know what to do with him? Why didn’t he get up on that roof and help? Or why didn’t he go over and offer help to the men on the ground? There was so much he could be doing.

But, of course, when he was attentive and charming on the way home, Sarah’s heart melted within her all over again. Her love for him was real and steadfast. Priscilla stayed in the background, quiet, watching their faces, wondering if Sarah would ever attain the love of her life. Only time would tell. But with the wisdom of her fourteen years, almost fifteen, Priscilla decided she wouldn’t waste a week’s worth of Fridays on that loser. He was a charmer, and she’d almost been under his spell that day, but no longer.

How could she help Sarah best? She couldn’t believe her ears when she heard Matthew ask Sarah if she wanted to go along to Ervin Lapp’s on Saturday evening.

Sarah’s face turned from its normal color to a pasty white before a spot of color reappeared on each cheekbone. She stammered a bit but said, “Why, yes, I’d be glad to go with you,” and he said, “Good, good.”

When they walked into the warm kitchen, Levi was coughing, and Mam’s eyebrows were arched at a 45-degree angle, the tension heavy enough to cut with a knife.

Priscilla was dismayed to hear Sarah tell Mam about going with Matthew on Saturday evening, cringing as Mam gave her a tight smile and said, “Oh, did he?” Mam then turned away and began folding clothes with a vengeance. Sarah ran upstairs as fast as she could and flung herself on her bed and breathed a deep sigh of complete happiness that could only come from a dream fulfilled, at long last.

Yes, it was not a real date. And yes, he was just offering her a ride. But it proved to Sarah that he enjoyed her company, wanted to spend time with her, and would just maybe show Rose, who was bound to be there, that this was what he’d wanted all along.

The heights she rode on wings of joy! Over and over, she thanked God for His deliverance from the river of misery. He set her feet firmly on higher ground, where the view was infused with stardust and the birds sang in harmony with the praise that poured from her soul.

She read her Bible in English, the words of comfort and praise in the Psalms more meaningful than ever. God was so good, so kind, to help her rise above the doubts that had been her constant companions for far too long.

Her elevated reverie was broken by her mother’s voice, calling her rather urgently, saying there was someone on the phone for her.

Instantly, Sarah slammed her Bible onto the nightstand, slid off the bed, and raced downstairs. Shoving her feet into a pair of boots, she grabbed a sweater off the hook, and kicked open the screen door as she pushed her arms into the sleeves before racing across the lawn to the phone shanty.

The black receiver lay on its side beside the telephone, and she picked it up swiftly and breathed, “Hello?”

“Hey, watcha doin’?”

Melvin.

“Oh, not much. I just got home from the barn raising at Reuby’s.”

“Oh, you were there? How’d that go?”

“Really amazing this time. It’s like the women were saying—it’s sad to have to admit it, but practice is in good supply. I mean, think about it, Melvin. Three barns since April.”

Melvin’s voice was serious, intense.

“Well, since no one seems to care about the arsonist, he’ll just keep it up, thinking he’s doing something right. We need to do something, get organized, get moving.”

“How Melvin? Do you have a legitimate plan?”

“Sure. If you have a barn full of expensive milk cows, then sleep out there. Every night. Equip the barn with some first class smoke detectors. Call the police every time anything out of the ordinary happens. Anything at all. Whatever happened to Levi seeing that white car the night your barn burned. Did anyone ever see another one? Did anyone think to ask?”

Sarah sat down on the cracked vinyl seat of the old steel desk chair, tipped it back, and gazed at the ceiling as Melvin rambled on.

She had to admit, he was a mover and a shaker, and he got things done. He was smart and ambitious—too much so, Dat said.

When she could finally get a word in edgewise, she said she’d ask Dat to invite him to the meeting that would be held the following Monday evening. Instantly, Melvin drew back, saying he was the youngest in the bunch, unmarried, and his theory would mean nothing.

But Sarah would hear nothing of his attempt at being modest. He wasn’t humble, and she knew it. Any effort of modesty was completely invalid, where Sarah was concerned. She knew Melvin well, and humility was not one of his attributes. He knew he wanted to be at that meeting, and he also knew the thought of speaking out there was extremely challenging.

So she let him talk, adding an mm-hm, okay, or yes, whenever she felt they were needed. She got down a lined tablet from the shelf, crossed her legs, and wrote “Matthew Ray Stoltzfus” over and over, with hearts and daisies and other doodles portraying her happiness.

Finally Melvin’s subject of the barn fires ran dry, and he quickly asked what she was doing Saturday night.

“Matthew is taking me to Ervin’s.”

The line went silent with his inability to respond appropriately, so Sarah waited, her lips curved prettily with the victory that was so securely in her possession.

Finally, “Matthew?” It was an awkward sound, a squeak, a balloon releasing the air.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing.”

“Well, then?”

“But, they just broke up.”

“It’s not a date.”

“I know.”

Strangely, then, silence returned, the line quietly humming in their ears but sizzling with the unspoken instruments of hurt wedged between them—truth unable to be spoken on Melvin’s side, defense rearing its shield on Sarah’s.

His voice drained of any bravado, Melvin finally said, “Well.”

“What?”

“Well, I guess that makes you happy.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Good for you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“But I do, Sarah.”

She laughed, a short expulsion of disbelief. “No, you don’t.”

Melvin hunkered down on the hay bale he was sitting on and decided the fat was in the fire now. If she was going to act like that, then he’d just tell her, swimming along in her total blindness, swept away by that current named Matthew.

“Alright, Sarah. I’m only telling you this because I care about you. I worry about what will happen to you. You’re my favorite girl in the whole world. You know that.”

He stopped, allowing the dramatic statement to claim her.

She wiped her mouth with a thumb and forefinger and grimaced. Thinking what a complete professional Melvin was, she felt the first twinge of unease.

“Matthew is a nice guy, but he’s likely using you to make Rose jealous.”

The truth in his words came down on her like a whip, slicing through the inner most region of her conscience, that place that vibrated with tiny blue, pulsing lights, so irrelevant they were once easily covered up by her own beautiful words of love and longing, the yearning piled safely on the entire mass of her own security. Now a hot anger shot through her, alarming in its resonance. She almost hung up on him, but the training in good manners she had received from her parents restrained her.

“I’m sorry you have to feel that way, Melvin.”

Melvin shook his head. Her words were as artificial, as slyly sweetened, as deplorable, as any he had ever heard. Enough was enough. Touché, Sarah.

“Well, I’ll see you there, okay? I’m looking forward to it. You know the oldies team is going to win, don’t you? We’re going to whip everyone!”

This was pure Melvin, enthused, back on track in his unbridled zest for life, the competition of the upcoming ping-pong games erasing all the bad feelings between them.

Sarah smiled, then laughed, shoving back the ill will, and they chatted happily about ordinary, mundane things, the darker subjects of Matthew and the barn fires behind them now. As always, friendship prevailed, and theirs was a rare and precious thing, too valuable to shatter with the resounding click of a receiver slammed down in anger.

Sarah shivered, drew the sweater tightly across her chest, and leaned forward to warm herself. She glanced at the lowering sky, the world turning from a white gray to a darker gray as the sun set behind the heavy layer of restrained ice and rain or whatever would be released on the cold, brown earth lying dormant now, awaiting its cold winter cover.

Melvin was still talking, but her mind was on the solidness, the new stronghold of Reuby’s barn, just put “under roof” today. How grateful he must be! The ice and snow could assail it now, pound it, and bounce around on it, and the men would have a protected place to complete the job.

She thought of Bena’s reaction to the La-Z-Boy recliners and smiled, remembering her short, round form, her purple
kopp-duch
(head scarf), her misshapen everyday sneakers of questionable origin, her sagging black socks, the way she dipped her head in true humility after acknowledging that the recliners really were given to them, delivered by this English man.

“You’re not listening.” Melvin whined.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“What was I saying?”

“You were talking about this new schoolteacher at the school across the road from your house.”

“But what did I say?”

“That she’s from Perry County.”

“No, she’s not. That’s not what I said. See, you weren’t listening at all.”

“Oh, you said Dauphin.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Don’t act like I’m two years old, Melvin. You know I hate that, when you sound so condescending.”

“I didn’t know you knew what that word meant.”

“Smart, aren’t I?”

“Not so much.”

Sarah laughed and told Melvin she was freezing. There’s nothing colder than sitting in an unheated phone shanty.

“I’m in the barn. I’m not cold.”

“Well, lucky you. See you Saturday night, Melvin.”

“Bye.”

She could hardly open the door fast enough or race back to the house with enough speed, hurling through the kitchen door and moving swiftly to the coal stove in the corner. She shook her hands above it, as chills raced up and down her spine.

Levi observed all this from his chair, where he was patiently waiting on the casserole to come out of the oven.

“You were out there over an hour,” he said dryly.

Mercifully, Mam had her back turned, putting carrots in a dishpan to peel and cut. She pinched her lips into a grim line, her eyes dark pools of worry and hard-earned restraint.

“Yeah well, Levi, you know how Melvin talks.”

Levi nodded, smiled.

So, it was Melvin. Mam relaxed visibly and turned to ask Sarah to peel the carrots. Sarah moved obediently to the kitchen sink. She told Levi about Melvin wanting to be at the meeting and that he should be questioned more thoroughly about the white car.

Levi lifted his shoulders, shifted in his chair, and cleared his throat with great importance. “I’d be glad to go to the meeting. I can answer questions if they put them to me.”

Sarah smiled, noting the
gros-feelich
(proud) cadence of his words.

“I’m sure Dat will want you to go, Levi.”

“I think Monday night would suit me alright,” he answered, looking across the kitchen at the calendar, his eyes glistening.

Chapter 22