Huckleberry Harvest (11 page)

“Not a thing,” Mammi said, dumping a dead beetle from one of the quart jars. They’d obviously been sitting in the basement a long time. “Denki for your help.”

Noah turned his piercing gaze to Mandy. She held her breath. “If you need anything else,” he said, “come get me. I’m happy to help.”

“We will,” Kristina said. “Canning is hard work. We will definitely need more of your muscles.”

Mandy merely nodded.

Noah took his hat from the table and walked out the door. Kristina skipped to the window and watched as he tromped down the porch steps and disappeared around the side of the house. She pressed her cheek against the window. “He is wonderful. I want to marry him so bad.”

Mandy bit her tongue. Kristina hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

Kristina frowned. “But from now on, I’m not going to speak to him, not one word, until he apologizes for how terrible he was to me.” She pivoted from the window and ran down the hall.

“Where are you going?”

Kristina turned back and put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. “There is a window that looks straight out where Noah is working. I’m going to spy.”

“That’s in my room,” Mammi said, seemingly unconcerned that Kristina was planning to spy on Noah from her bedroom window. “Try not to wrinkle the curtains, dear.”

Mandy gazed after Kristina with great concern. “Mammi, I don’t think Kristina should spy on Noah. It’s silly.”

“Oh, it’s all right. Noah is a gute boy, good-natured enough to bear a little bit of teasing from Kristina. It’s just too bad Melvin Lambright isn’t here. He could have carried tomatoes for us and then taken you for a drive. It would have been the perfect way to get you two together.”

Mandy already had a date lined up with Melvin. She had agreed to meet him at a benefit haystack supper next week. Mammi need never know. She wouldn’t be able to bear the disappointment when the date didn’t work out. Mandy sidestepped the issue like she always did. “I’m not really interested in Melvin. He’s almost thirty.”

Mammi finished rinsing her bottles, dried her hands, and tapped her lips with her index finger. “Hmm. I see what you mean. It wonders me if you and Ephraim Glick would fit. He’s your same age, and that skin condition is completely cleared up.”

“I’ll consider him,” Mandy said, wishing her mammi wasn’t so persistent. “There’s nothing more attractive than a boy without a skin condition.”

In truth, there was nothing more attractive than Noah Mischler, but seeing that look on Mammi’s face, Mandy knew that now would not be the time to mention it.

“It wonders me what Noah is doing right now,” Kristina said as she jumped into the car.

Mandy felt no need to respond as she slid into the backseat next to Kristina.

Their driver, Peggy Lofthouse, glanced at them from her rearview mirror. “How’s your mom, Kristina? Surgery went a lot later than you thought.”

“I hope it’s not too late,” Mandy said.

Peggy shook her head. “I always stay up to watch
Night-line
.”

“My mamm’s gallbladder came out just fine,” Kristina said, “but she had a reaction to the medicine. It made her heart go all funny so they have to keep her overnight yet.”

“That sounds scary,” Peggy said.

“It was for a little while,” Kristina said. “But she seems fine now, and she’s none too happy about having to stay in the hospital for an extra night.”

Peggy pulled onto the main road. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.”

Kristina tucked her sweater around her neck. “Dat is staying at the hospital with her. Can you go get them in the morning?”

“Sure,” Peggy said. “I’ll plan on it. He has my number.”

Kristina grabbed Mandy’s knee and almost sent her to the moon. She had ticklish knees. “Where do you think Noah is? Do you think he’s in bed?”

“It’s none of our business,” Mandy said, suddenly cross with her best friend. No wonder Noah didn’t want anything to do with Kristina.

Kristina pulled out her phone. Seriously, that girl wouldn’t know what to do with her hands once she got baptized and had to give up her phone. “I’m going to text him right now and find out.”

Mandy didn’t even protest. Didn’t even remind Kristina that Noah never answered her texts, that he had most likely blocked her number and would never even have an inkling that Kristina was thinking about him. Instead, she surrendered silently and fixed her eyes on the dark road. Home was only twenty minutes away.

Kristina had wasted over an hour on Wednesday peeking out of Mammi’s bedroom window, spying on Noah and punching the keys of her phone. Mandy and Mammi had been able to hear Kristina’s giggling from the kitchen as they blanched and skinned tomatoes and chopped peppers and onions. Jah, Kristina had been a big help.

She had only joined them in the kitchen when her feet got tired and her cell battery died. She dutifully helped measure spices and stir the sauce, although Mandy had sensed that her heart wasn’t in it. Her hopes had been dashed when Mammi informed her that they wouldn’t need to summon Noah to lift the stockpot off the stove or to help them pull steaming jars from the water bath.

Noah hadn’t come inside the rest of the day, and basically, Kristina’s afternoon had been ruined. But they had managed to can thirty quarts of spaghetti sauce using Kristina’s recipe. It hadn’t turned out half bad.

“After Wednesday, I don’t wonder if he’ll want to get back together,” Kristina said, studying her phone as if it held the secret to her happiness. “He hauled the tomatoes up from the cellar for us. Boys like it when they have to rescue the helpless girls. If you hadn’t insisted on carrying one of the bushels, we’d probably be back together right now.”

Mandy stretched a smile across her face. She’d rather not argue tonight, rather not feel the niggling guilt that she should be less sympathetic to Noah and more sympathetic to Kristina. Kristina acted like a silly schoolgirl, but she was Mandy’s best friend. Still, she was going to be bitterly disappointed when it came to Noah.

Mandy sighed and determined to make things right for Kristina. Maybe she could introduce her to some of the suitors Mammi had lined up for Mandy. After all, she couldn’t marry all of them. She didn’t want to marry any of them.

Freeman Kiem might be persuaded to give Kristina a chance. He had taken Mandy for ice cream on Wednesday night. A twenty-minute date. He was real nice, with a deep cleft in his chin that made his face look as if it had been molded out of clay. Freeman wasn’t all that interesting to Mandy, and he hadn’t seemed inclined to ask for another date.

On Thursday, her ride with Adam had been quite unpleasant. Adam had picked her up in his courting buggy, and Mandy hadn’t been able to hide it from Mammi. As expected, Mammi had been rapturous that Mandy was going riding with Adam and was equally despondent after the date when Mandy had informed her that Adam wasn’t the one.

Adam Wengerd was as handsome as the day is long, but he was also fully aware of his good looks. His arrogance was enough to give Mandy a headache. If there was anything she couldn’t abide, it was a peacock. She much preferred someone like humble Noah Mischler, who had no idea how nice to look at he was, and wouldn’t have cared if he did know.

“Ach, du lieva,” Kristina said, so forcefully that Peggy slammed on the brakes.

All three of them jerked forward and back with the car. “What! What is it,” Peggy said.

Mandy laid her hand over her racing heart. “What’s the matter?”

“There he is,” Kristina said, pointing out the window.

“Who?”

“Noah.”

Mandy peered out the window. “I don’t see him.”

“Well, it’s not him,” Kristina said as if Mandy were dumber than a brick. “It’s his courting buggy. See? At that bar across the street.”

Peggy shoved her mouth to one side of her face. “I thought there was a deer.”

“Sorry,” Mandy said. “No deer.”

Peggy let her foot off the brake and rolled forward a few feet to the stoplight, which had turned red during all the commotion. “Please try to keep boy sightings to yourself. I want my shocks to last for a few years yet.”

Mandy knew it was none of her business, but she let her eyes stray across the street to the open-air buggy parked beneath the streetlight in front of the bar on the road near the airport. A second buggy, enclosed and black, sat to the side of the bar, partially obscured by the dark shadows of the night.

Was one of those Noah’s buggy?

She folded her arms and sat back. She didn’t really want to know. Her chest felt empty and her skin was cold. Even though they’d only known each other for a week, she had thought she knew him better than that. Noah wasn’t a drinker, was he? Mandy wasn’t so sure. He had a phone. What other rules of the church was he breaking?

Again her eyes drifted to the bar. Could Noah really be in there?

Jah, he could.

While they waited for the light to change, Noah emerged from inside, dragging someone with him.

“There he is,” Kristina said. “I told you.”

The other man’s arm was draped over Noah’s shoulder, and Noah had one arm wrapped around the other man’s back. Noah’s companion, significantly older than Noah, swayed unsteadily, as if standing on his own would be impossible. It was a gute thing Noah could lift a truck all by himself.

Suddenly, the staggering man shoved Noah away from him, swung his fist wildly, and caught Noah in the mouth. Mandy gasped as Noah stumbled backward. He met with the wall of the bar, and his legs crumpled beneath him. He slid to the ground and sat as if that was where he had intended to end up. The older man staggered back into the bar and slammed the door behind him.

“Peggy, wait,” Mandy said as the light turned green. “We need to help him.”

Kristina’s eagerness over Noah vanished, and she folded her arms. “I’m not going over there.”

“But Noah is hurt.”

Kristina turned her face away. “Mamm wouldn’t like it if I went to a bar, and Noah gets really mad if anybody knows anything.”

Peggy hesitated for a minute before drifting into the left lane and pulling into the parking lot. She drove to the side of the bar next to the black buggy. Noah wouldn’t even be able to see Peggy’s car from where he sat. Mandy jumped out of the car and raced around the buggy. With his eyes downcast, Noah sat on the ground fingering his lip, which looked to be bleeding pretty good.

She squatted beside him. “Are you okay?”

He slowly lifted his head and focused his eyes on her. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw that man hit you. Are you okay?”

He covered his face and pressed his fingers to his temples. “Go away. I don’t want you here.” There was real anguish in his voice.

She didn’t even flinch. He’d told her to go away before, yelled at her even. She wasn’t about to believe that he didn’t need her. “If you think all that bluster scares me, you can just think again. I’m not leaving.”

His expression softened. “Please, Mandy. Leave me alone. I just want people to leave me alone.”

She took a tissue from her coat pocket, congratulating herself that she always carried a few with her. “Here,” she said. “Let me see.”

“Mandy, you don’t understand. You shouldn’t be here. I don’t want your help.” He hissed as she dabbed at his lip with her tissue. “I’m not going to ask nice again.”

“You wouldn’t dare yell at me.”

“Jah, if it would scare you into leaving.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

He took hold of her wrist and pulled her hand away from his mouth. “You should be.”

His grip was strong, but not meant to hurt her. She tugged her hand out of his grasp. She told the truth. She wasn’t afraid of him in the least. It was obvious that except for the blow to the face, he had his wits about him. He hadn’t been drinking. But he was injured, and she was going to fix it. “You’re harmless, Noah.”

Surprise mingled with a bare hint of amusement glinted in his eyes. “Harmless?” He held up his hands. “I can lift four bushels of tomatoes at once.” He winced as she tried to wipe the rest of the blood from his lip. “You, on the other hand, are going to kill me. Leave off. You’ll make it worse.”

This time he folded her hand in his. Their gazes met, and his brown eyes flashed as if he were trying to read her mind. His look sent the thoughts in her head tumbling like pebbles in a rockslide. At that moment, she didn’t even know what she was thinking. He wouldn’t have been able to read much.

He frowned as they heard a sound from inside the bar. Rubbing his jaw, he shot to his feet and pulled her with him. “Denki for checking on me.” He nudged her in the direction opposite the bar. “You should go now.”

“Do you need my help getting home?”

“
You
want to see that I get home safe? Forget it. I’ll be fine.” She heard something buzzing and realized that it was his cell phone. He shoved his hand into his pocket and silenced it without looking. He gazed around as if trying to find her buggy. “What about you? How did you happen to be at a bar in Shawano?”

“Oh, I . . . uh . . . was visiting someone in the hospital.” She probably shouldn’t mention that Kristina was with her. The mere thought of Kristina agitated him, and right now it was a good guess that he didn’t need the added aggravation. “My driver is over there,” she said, waving her hand in no direction in particular.

“Okay then,” he said, acting as if he were about to jump into his buggy any second now. “We should both be going.”

Mandy bit her tongue, resisting the urge to ask him what he had been doing in a bar and why that man had hit him and maybe why his brown eyes made her heart do somersaults inside her chest. But by the way he looked at her, she could practically hear the lecture that it was none of her business.

The door to the bar swung open, and a painfully skinny man with arms covered in tattoos stuck his head out. “Noah, you gotta come get him, or I’m going to have to throw him out.”

Noah went completely rigid as if someone had rammed a steel rod down his back. Clenching his jaw, he glanced at Mandy before turning away and staring into the distance. “I’m coming.”

The tattooed guy nodded and disappeared into the bar.

Mandy’s heart sank to her toes. She should have listened when Noah had told her to go away. Now she had made him uncomfortable when she had just wanted to help.

“I’ll go now,” she said.

He nodded without meeting her eyes. “Okay.”

The door swung open again, this time so forcefully that it crashed against the wall behind it. The man who had hit Noah staggered out of the bar.

Noah wrapped his arms around him in what looked like a bear hug, but it was meant to prop the older man up so he wouldn’t fall over. It wasn’t an easy task. The man was almost as big and as solid as Noah.

“Come on,” Noah said. “Let’s go home.” He shifted, securing one arm around the older man so they could walk forward. Stunned and unsure of herself, Mandy stepped out of the way as they walked past. Noah barely gave her a second look.

The man reached out a hand to Mandy. “I’m sorry,” he said, a look of utter despair on his face. “I’m so sorry.”

Unsure of what to do, but feeling an overwhelming need to comfort him, she took his offered hand. “Everything is going to be okay.”

The man stopped his halting shuffle and studied Mandy as if he were trying to bring her face into focus.

There was no mistaking the shame and grief warring on Noah’s face. “Come on, Dat,” he said, gently nudging him away from Mandy. “We need to go home.”

Dat?

An invisible hand clamped around Mandy’s throat. This broken shadow of a man was Noah’s dat? Mandy almost cried out. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the depth of Noah’s pain. No wonder he hated the very mention of his family.

Noah’s fater was an older version of Noah, with the same solid arms and broad chest, except his dat had gone a little soft in the middle. There wasn’t anything soft about Noah.

With surprising strength, Noah’s dat shoved Noah away from him. “Leave me be,” he groaned.

Noah stumbled backward but immediately returned to his father’s side, taking his arm and pulling him more forcefully toward the buggy. His dat resisted and turned his eyes to Mandy. “I’m sorry, Little Rosie. Forgive me. Please, forgive me.”

“Of course I forgive you,” Mandy said, unsure who he was apologizing to but recognizing his need for reassurance. “Everything is okay. You’re going to be okay.”