Her Brother's Keeper (7 page)

“Do you ride horses there? Do the
Englisch
ranches have oil wells? Cowboys in big hats?” Isaac tapped a finger to his straw hat.

Charlotte smiled. Why was it that every time a Texan left the state, these questions popped up? “No. I . . .” She stopped herself before she said she lived in a high-rise apartment near downtown. “I don't ride horses. Some ranches have oil wells, but you don't see too many cowboy hats unless you're in a rural area.”

He nodded and smiled. Initially, she'd only approached Isaac to see if he was just as handsome up close, which proved to be the case, but now she was thinking that Hannah wasn't the only one here who had known Ethan. Maybe Isaac and Ethan had been friends.

“So, um . . . Hannah told me that your family owns a furniture store. I'd love to see it while I'm here.” Charlotte could think of worse ways to spend her time. At least Isaac was easy on the eyes.

“Ya
, it's on the main road. I can give you directions. An
Englisch
couple runs it for us. Just ask for Phyllis or Tom.” Isaac shrugged. “Or anyone working that day can help you.”

Charlotte nodded, smiling a little, as she tried to think of a reason she needed Isaac to be the one to show her, but nothing came to mind.

“Nice to meet you, Mary,” he said before he turned to walk away.

He'd only taken a few steps toward the barn when Mary sprinted to catch up with him. “Maybe you can show me your furniture store, and . . . we . . . uh, could have lunch . . . or something.”

Isaac stopped, faced her, and scratched his cheek. “I have much work to do, but . . .”

“We can make it a quick trip.” She was seizing the moment, hoping to get him to commit. “What about Saturday?”

Isaac's eyes rounded as he grinned. “
Ya.
Okay.”

“How does noon sound?”

He nodded, narrowing his eyebrows, almost appearing confused. Then he pointed to the barn. “I better go join the others.”

“What's going on in the barn?” she asked, getting in step with him.

He didn't say anything, but opened the barn door for her. A cloud of cigar smoke rushed at her face and into her lungs. She backed up a few steps. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. “I'll just see you back at the house.” Charlotte backed up a few steps until she was clear of the smoke.

“They are all smoking in the barn. Is that normal?” she said to Hannah when she returned to the tables.

Hannah plucked an olive from the pickle tray but just held it as she answered. “
Ya.
They smoke cigars before the meal while we are getting things ready, and usually after the meal too. They tell jokes out there.” She popped the olive in her mouth.

Really?
“People in my Amish town don't smoke.”
And what about all that hay? Aren't they worried about fire?

Hannah didn't look up as she put spoons in the jams and relishes. “I only know a few men who smoke cigarettes. It's mostly cigars.” She finally glanced up. “But we were in Ohio once for a cousin's wedding. They don't smoke at all, and they were very offended when some of the wedding guests did.” She shrugged. “I guess it's different everywhere.”

Charlotte's mouth watered as she noticed all the loaves of homemade bread. “I guess.” She scanned the table until she spotted the butter. The men would be served first, and she hoped they weren't greedy with the bread. It was tempting to snatch a piece now.

“I saw you talking to Isaac.” Hannah didn't look up as she placed another spoon in a bowl of chowchow.

“Yeah. Um . . .
ya
,” she said as she and Hannah walked back to the house. “We're going to have lunch on Saturday, and he's going to show me his family's furniture store.”

Hannah stopped walking and turned to Charlotte, blinking her eyes. “What? Like a date?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

Hannah folded her arms across her chest, her eyebrows raised. “Hmm . . .”

Charlotte's skin prickled. Did her beautiful cousin think Charlotte wasn't good enough for Isaac? Just because others had tried to win Isaac didn't mean that Charlotte would fail, even though that wasn't the purpose of the so-called date. “Are you surprised?”

Hannah dropped her arms to her sides, then reached up and twirled the string of her prayer covering with one hand. “He just hasn't dated anyone that I know of since his
daed
got cancer a few years ago.”

“Oh.” Charlotte fell back in step with Hannah.

Her pretend cousin didn't have much to say the rest of the day. It didn't take a genius to recognize jealousy.
Charlotte kept quiet, then excused herself after supper, even though Hannah scowled. The family probably prayed together at night and wondered why Charlotte hadn't joined them.

After showering, she sat on her bed and ran a comb through her wet hair, then pulled out her journal, which was just a yellow legal pad. She'd tried recording her thoughts on her computer and her phone, but there was something about writing them out longhand that she liked. Sometimes, she wrote letters to Ethan. Other times, she didn't think Ethan would like what she had to say, so she just logged her thoughts in a journal.

August 21

Well, I managed to snag a date with an Amish fellow . . .

Isaac rushed down the stairs when he heard the commotion. At first, it was muffled rumblings, but as he got closer, he heard his mother yelling.

“Gideon, you have to try to help yourself!”

Isaac hurried through the living room and stopped at his parents' closed bedroom door. “Is everything okay?” he said in a loud voice.

Both his parents began yelling at once, but it was his father's voice that drowned out his mother's. “
Nee!
Everything is not all right.”

Isaac reached for the doorknob, but the door swung open before he could grab it, and his mother came out of her bedroom wiping her cheeks. “I give up. Your father won't try to do anything to help himself.” She raised her palms as her shoulders rose. “I love him with all my heart, but I won't always be able to lift him when he falls, help him to get dressed, or all the other things he depends on me for.”

Isaac sympathized with his mother, but he eased past her into the bedroom as she headed to the kitchen. His father was sitting on the floor in his underwear, reaching for his prosthetic leg. When he saw Isaac, he pulled his arm back and motioned to the leg.

“Danki, sohn
. I guess your
mamm
was just going to leave me on the floor.” Scowling, his father attached the device at his knee, then stretched out his arm toward Isaac. As Isaac helped his father to his feet, he glanced at the wooden handle on the wall nearby. Isaac had installed the makeshift support so that his father could pull himself up if he fell. “I'm half a man. What does that woman expect from me?”

Isaac felt an overwhelming urge to stand up for his mother, especially since Isaac agreed that his father was too dependent on others and didn't make any effort to learn new ways to care for himself—or anything else.
But he'd never confronted his father, and now didn't seem like the best time. He could hear his mother crying from the other room.

All this time, he'd been worried about how his parents would take care of the house and the land if Isaac ever left.

Now he was wondering who would take care of them.

Charlotte reread what she'd written this evening. Even though her journal was for her eyes only, the editor in her demanded perfection. She'd recently left the publishing house she'd worked at for two years, and now she edited manuscripts from home. The biggest perk was that she could structure her jobs and free time however she chose. If there was a downside, it was her inability to turn off her editor brain and simply enjoy a book. Same with her journal, which was supposed to be a record of her feelings. She went back and revised three sentences just the same, then read it a final time, starting from the beginning.

August 21

Well, I managed to snag a date with an Amish fellow. His name is Isaac, and I'm hoping that he knew Ethan. It's a quest for information, but the guy is incredibly handsome, so even if Isaac can't shed any light on what happened to my brother, I'll just soak in his attractiveness.

Charlotte smiled, considered changing “attractiveness,” but jumped when someone knocked on the door. “Hang on. Just a minute.” She stood up and stuffed the legal pad between the mattresses. “Come in.”

Hannah peeked her head in. “Sorry to bother you, but I need to get something from underneath the bed. I had stored some quilting odds and ends in a box, and I'd like to piece them together for a friend's baby blanket.”

“Come on in.” Charlotte sat down on the bed and crossed her legs beneath her, fighting the urge to play with her phone, which was supposed to be for emergencies.

She jumped again when Hannah yelled, “Ow!” followed by a thud against the bed frame. Hannah slid herself out from under the bed, but she wasn't toting any quilting supplies. Instead she was pulling out Charlotte's emergency fire rope, and before Charlotte could explain, Hannah held it up and shook it. Her face was fire-engine red, and her bottom lip trembled. “What is this? Tell me now! Why do you have this?” She threw it on the bed. “Tell me, Mary!”

Charlotte stood up and faced off with her. “Good grief. Quit yelling, and I'll tell you. It's because—”

The bedroom door flew open. “Hannah!” Lena sailed into the room. “What is going on in here? I was coming down the hall to speak with Jacob, and I heard you yelling.”

Charlotte lifted her shoulders, held them there, and shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Hannah was shaking all over as she pointed to the bed. “Look what she has,
Mamm
.” Then Charlotte's pretend cousin grabbed both of Charlotte's arms and squeezed. “Please tell me that you are not planning to take your own life. Please tell me that you have brought this rope into our home for some other reason. Why would you hide it under the bed in this way?” She swiped at the stream of tears going down her face, and Charlotte realized the cause of Hannah's outbreak.

“No, no, no . . .” Charlotte maneuvered out of Hannah's hold. “That's not what it's for. Of course not.” She stared at the floor as her own eyes filled with tears, and when she looked back at Hannah, it was impossible not to cry. “When I was a child I was trapped in my bedroom by a fire.” Charlotte could still smell the smoke when she recalled the event. “I couldn't get out of the two-story house without landing on concrete. A fireman saved me at the very last minute. I take that rope everywhere I go so that I won't ever be trapped again.”

Hannah buried her face in her hands and sobbed before she ran out of the room, repeatedly saying how sorry she was.

Lena put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder. “I'm so sorry that happened to you when you were a child, Mary. So very sorry.” She wrapped her arms around Charlotte and squeezed for a few moments before she eased away.
“And I am very sorry, also, about Hannah's outburst.” She hung her head and sighed before she looked back up at Charlotte. “We all lost someone special to us, someone we loved very much. It was about a year ago, and it was the hardest on Hannah. She was going to marry this man.” She paused, and Charlotte couldn't breathe as she waited for her to go on. “He hanged himself. Not far from here. In his own backyard.”

Four