Huckleberry Spring (18 page)

“He acted as if I’d slammed his thumb in the door, as if he was thinking, ‘Emma, you’ve disappointed me.’”

Lizzie drew back, as if she finally decided to at least consider what Emma told her. “I can’t imagine . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t understand him anymore.”

They embraced. Even though neither of them understood Ben, they understood each other. For the moment, that was good enough.

“Will you promise me something?” Emma asked.

“What do you want?”

“That we never talk about Ben again.”

“I don’t know if I can promise you that. He’s my brother,” Lizzie said.

“I mean, never talk about me and Ben getting back together. Never say another word about our past relationship or hope for a future one.”

The corners of Lizzie’s mouth sagged, and she slowly bobbed her head up and down. “Seeing how it hurt you, I should have put a stop to such talk weeks ago. I can see how it affects you. I just didn’t want to believe that it was over.”

“You’re a gute friend, even if you are annoyingly persistent.”

A sad grin pried her lips apart. “I know I’m annoying.” She cleared her throat and spoke as if with great effort. “So let’s talk about Adam.”

Emma stifled a sigh. She didn’t want to talk about Adam. “We played games with his parents last night. I think they like me okay.”

Lizzie pasted on a fake smile. “He’s so good-looking. About ten girls had a crush on him in primary school.”

“Mahlon always reminds me what a catch Adam is.”

Lizzie’s eyes flashed with anger before the light seemed to go out inside her. “Will you promise me something?”

“Never talk about Mahlon?”

“Yep.”

“We can’t talk about Mahlon, and we can’t talk about Ben, and I do not want to talk about Adam. Where does that leave us?”

“We could talk about quilting,” Lizzie said.

“Or horses. Or we could talk about cows and milk.”

“Or we could talk about growing peas and pumpkins.”

Emma took a deep, cleansing breath. “No pumpkins.”

“Jah,” Lizzie said. “We can’t say a word about pumpkins or chicken coops.”

Emma managed a half smile. “Or apple pies. Mahlon loves your apple pies.”

Lizzie’s voice cracked. “I’d rather not talk about milking stools or the lake or ice cream either.”

“We really can’t talk about anything, can we?” Emma said.

Tears glistened in Lizzie’s eyes as she shook her head.

Emma felt the stinging in her eyes too. She and Lizzie were quite a pair, both pining over young men who didn’t care one whit about them. She draped her arm around Lizzie’s shoulder, and neither of them said another word as they sat on the floor of the woodshed making the sawdust soggy with their tears.

Chapter 14

Ben stumbled to the toolshed. His legs reluctantly obeyed his commands. He rejoiced that he had even been able to stand this morning. All things considered, he did very well. The fear of a wheelchair had been the only thing that had motivated him to get out of bed. How close was he to losing his ability to walk? According to the doctor he’d seen last summer, it should have happened by now. Ben would be grateful for every extra day he got.

He reached out to steady himself against the wall of the toolshed. His arms worked. If he could pull himself around to the door, he’d be able to get into the shed without much problem.

Mammi’s pumpkin needed fertilizer, and they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Emma for two weeks. Just thinking about her made Ben double over in pain. It was so much better that she stay away so he wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Regret and guilt would plague him for the rest of his life.

How could he have lost control like that? He’d spent months steeling himself against Emma, and in one horrible moment he’d ruined everything. He thought his heart was already broken, but it had shattered into a thousand more pieces when he watched her flee down the hill.

Despair crawled down his throat and seeped into his lungs. He wanted to die. Why couldn’t the good Lord take him now and be done with it? It would be so much easier on everyone.

His knees buckled, and he slumped to the ground with his back resting against the toolshed. He panted with exertion even though his exertion consisted of getting out of bed and walking outside. What to do now? He couldn’t very well call for Mammi to pull him off the ground. Even if he wanted her to know about his illness, which he didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to lift him even if he weighed half of what he did.

He shifted to his hands and knees. Crawling was not a bad way to go, and if he lost his balance, he wouldn’t have far to fall. With more effort than it should have taken, he wormed his way to the door of the toolshed, lifted the latch, and crawled into the small space. Hopefully Emma had placed the fertilizer on the floor the last time she had used it.

Straining with all his willpower, Ben pulled his entire body into the shed and let the door swing shut behind him. Lord willing, he would be able to work his way to his feet and emerge from the shed in a standing position. Mammi and Dawdi need never know his woes.

He raised his head to see if he could locate the fertilizer and groaned as he met eyes with Dawdi, who sat on a three-legged stool sharpening a hoe.

“Hello, Ben!”

Ben sat back and tried to pretend that he crawled around on his hands and knees on a regular basis. “Dawdi, what are you doing out here? You had a root canal yesterday. You’re supposed to be resting.”

Dawdi grinned. “Your mammi insists that I rest for your sake, but I figured what you don’t know won’t hurt you. I won’t ever be able to enjoy that recliner again.”

“But Mammi said the root canal would plow you under for at least a week.”

“Not even for a few hours.”

Ben cocked an eyebrow. “Were you the one who oiled the buggy and repaired the harness strap?”

“It’s much easier to oil a buggy without a deviated septum.”

Ben chuckled. “Did you pick the peas too?”

Dawdi took off his glasses and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. “I guess you caught me,” he said, shrugging as if he didn’t care. He wiped his spectacles, put them back on his nose, and peered at Ben as if he were in on some secret joke. “And I guess I caught you.”

“Caught me?”

Dawdi motioned in the direction of Ben’s legs. “How long has this been going on?”

Ben’s heart sank. “Dawdi, please, you can’t tell anybody. I don’t want anybody to know.”

“I’ve suspected for ages. You can’t keep that kind of secret from your dawdi. I’m sharp as a tack. When my young, sturdy grandson can’t even get out of bed in the morning, I know something’s wrong. The question is, how long has something been wrong?”

Ben turned his face away and measured his answer. He didn’t want to lie to his dawdi, but he didn’t want anyone derailing his carefully laid plans. “I’m going through a bad spell, that’s all.”

A bad spell that would kill him soon enough.

Dawdi laid his file on the small work table, slid off his stool, and sat next to Ben on the floor. “I’ve been stewing about it for weeks. You’ve got some dread disease, don’t you? That’s why you called it off with Emma. That’s why you left your family without hardly a word.”

“Please don’t ask me to explain.”

“I don’t expect you’d tell me if you didn’t even tell your mamm or Emma. I’m far down on your list of people to tell, if you ever do.” He scooted closer and put a thin but strong arm around Ben. “If you need someone to hear you out, I’m a gute listener and I keep things to myself.”

Ben felt his body suddenly, inexplicably relax, as if a taut wire inside him had snapped. He managed to pull his knees to his chin and wrap his arms around them. Sighing, he leaned his forehead on his knees. The sigh turned into a moan, which splintered into a deluge of tears. He’d been captive to this burden for so long. How relieved would he feel to share it with someone else?

He choked on the brutal truth. “I’m dying, Dawdi.”

Dawdi’s arm tightened around him. “Slowly or soon?”

“I don’t know. Soon, the doctor said. I won’t be able to walk much longer.”

Dawdi ruffled Ben’s hair in a surprisingly comforting gesture. “I’m guessing you’ve known since last August.”

“Last spring, everything seemed to get harder. Simple leather work at the harness shop took twice as long. I felt like I was struggling to get my hands to do what I wanted them to. Then one day I walked up the stairs, and my legs just gave out. I fell flat on my face. That’s when I went to the doctor.” He wiped away his pathetic tears. He hated wallowing in self-pity. “He told me I have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

“Who is Lou Gehrig?”

“The doctor said he was a baseball player. After he got the disease, he was forced into a wheelchair in a matter of months and was dead in two years.”

“But what about a cure? Your mammi and I will sell everything if you need money to pay for it. All your onkels would do the same. I don’t need Lasik that bad.”

“There is no cure. When I found out, I spent a whole day praying, begging God to heal me. I promised Him I’d do anything He wanted if He would just take this thorn from my side.”

“And He said no.” Dawdi said it more as a statement than a question.

Ben sniffed back the tears. “He said all things are possible to him who believes. My faith is so weak.”

“Nae,” Dawdi said, shaking his head vigorously. “If it’s not God’s will, it’s not God’s will. If He didn’t see fit to deliver you, it’s not because your faith is lacking. It’s because there is a higher purpose in your trial yet.”

“If there is a higher purpose, I don’t understand what it is.”

“Neither do I. But I know even the blessed Lord Jesus asked God to remove the bitter cup, and God said no. That ‘no’ meant the salvation of all mankind.”

“I definitely don’t have anywhere near that high a purpose.”

“There is always purpose in suffering,” Dawdi said, “some of which we won’t understand until we get to heaven. The uncertainty can feel confusing and dismal. Our only hope for peace is through Jesus.”

“I know,” said Ben. “But sometimes I can’t find any comfort in knowing it.”

Dawdi nodded. “That’s okay. So long as you know it’s there for you, you can reach out and take Jesus’s comfort when you’re ready.”

“I do. Sometimes I’m strong. But some days the thought of being an invalid frightens me.”

“Are you afraid of a wheelchair?”

“If only that were the worst thing. Soon I won’t be able to feed myself, then swallow, then breathe.”

Dawdi looked more afflicted than Ben had ever seen him. “Oh. My boy. My heart is shattered.” He gave Ben a stiff hug. “Did Emma reject you when she found out?”

“I couldn’t tell her. She would have insisted on caring for me, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it.” Ben blinked back the tears. The hardest, most gut-wrenching thing he’d ever done was telling Emma that he wanted to break off the engagement. He’d found the thought of facing her so unbearable, he’d considered going to Florida without telling her and letting Lizzie break the news. The expression on Emma’s face that day was seared into his memory. Even though he was still upright, his heart had stopped beating the moment he’d left Emma standing there trembling with emotion, trying to make sense of what he had told her.

Ben shook his head to clear it of the memory. “I wanted to be the one to take care of Emma, not make her feel obligated to take care of me.”

“So you
do
love her.”

“More than my own life.”

Dawdi widened his eyes in astonishment. “How does your mammi do it? She knew all along.”

Mammi? How had Mammi known? The realization stunned him. He had truly been blind. “She invited me to Huckleberry Hill to get me back with Emma, didn’t she?”

“That was the plan.”

Ben lowered his head as the tears overcame him. “I wish she hadn’t. Everything is worse now.”

“Because you realize you don’t want to live without her.”

“No,” Ben said. “My life, my happiness doesn’t matter. I’ll be dead in a couple years anyway. But Emma . . . She’s got to move on. She’s got to find someone who can love her and care for her. She doesn’t deserve to be stuck caring for an invalid who’ll make her a widow before she’s twenty-five. I won’t do that to her.”

“Have you asked her how she feels about that?”

Ben grimaced. “Don’t you see, Dawdi? I’m not strong enough to protect her, and I don’t want her to be shackled to a cripple. How long would it take before she resented my illness? How long before she hated the very sight of me?”

“That doesn’t sound like the Emma I know,” Dawdi said quietly. “Do you think so little of her? Don’t you believe she would willingly suffer the hardship to be with you?”

Ben bowed his head. “Certainly at first she would. I doubt she’s ever had a selfish thought in her life. If I told her about my condition, she would insist on staying with me, but even someone as good as Emma isn’t immune to the resentment that’s bound to grow. And even if resentment doesn’t overtake her, think of the pain it would put her through to watch me die. In the end, whether she can see it or not, caring for me would take a heavy toll on her—a price I am not willing to let her pay. I went away to Florida for Emma’s sake. I won’t watch her suffer while she watches me die, and I won’t allow her to sacrifice her life for mine. It’s not right. She must live a full and happy life without the burden of a dying husband.”

“And yet she suffers now.”

Ben tried to ignore the pain that tore through him. Emma suffered greatly. “Let her remember me as I am now, young and healthy, not this shell of a man who can’t even stand on his own two feet.”

“You don’t want Emma to see what you’re going to become.”

Ben trembled with emotion as pain stabbed him in the gut. “Someone will have to feed me and bathe me, Dawdi. If Emma married me, she would be the one to do it, to tend to my most personal needs.”

“Emma is strong enough to bear it.”

“But I’m not,” Ben declared, before remembering himself and lowering his voice. Dawdi didn’t need to see his descent into despair. He only let his composure disintegrate when he was by himself. “How can I bear for the woman I love to watch my body deteriorate, to watch me grow as weak and as helpless as a baby? Even just thinking about it terrifies me.”

Dawdi wrapped his firm arms all the way around Ben and held on for dear life. Ben could feel the heaving of Dawdi’s chest as he pressed his cheek against Ben’s and their tears mingled together.

After several minutes of weeping, Dawdi pulled away and patted Ben on the shoulder. “That didn’t make me feel any better,” he said. “How about you?”

“I haven’t felt better for months.”

“Now,” said Dawdi, stroking his beard. “What to do.”

“There’s nothing to do except send me back to Florida. I want to die with my dignity intact.”

“Have you talked to God about this?”

“He won’t heal me.” Although for months he had tried not to be mad at God, bitterness crept into his voice. “It’s wicked to ask God for things that are clearly against His will.”

“Oh, no,” Dawdi said firmly. “The Lord Jesus asked God to take the cup of gall from Him. We must accept what God ordains for each of us, but there is no sin in pleading. His own Son did the same.”

Ben turned his face away. “I plead all the time.”

“But did you get God’s permission to move to Florida and separate yourself from everyone who loves you? Where have you put God in all this?”

“What else could I do? I don’t want Emma or Mamm or Lizzie to waste one day caring for me.”

“And who will care for you in Florida?” Dawdi said.

“The government. I’ve already looked into a home run by Medicare.”

Dawdi shook his head. “You’d rather rely on strangers?”

“They get paid.”

Dawdi grunted, rocked back and forth, and stood up. “I can only sit on the floor for so long before I go stiff as a board.” Hunching over like a ninety-year-old man, he returned to his stool. “When your dat needed a barn built, he didn’t rely on the government. And he couldn’t have done it himself. The whole community helped, and we had that barn up in a day. There are times when we need the help of our neighbors and families, and in return, we lend them aid when they need our help. The good Lord put people in your path so they can help you. Take His gift cheerfully.”

“But I can’t help anyone in return.”

“What does that matter? You bless other people’s lives when you let them help you. How can anybody receive blessings if nobody lets them serve?”