Keys of Heaven (22 page)

“Wow,” Henry said. “Your dad and uncle must be smart men.”

“They been tinkering long enough to invent the washing machine all over again,” Leon said. “Batteries ain't nothing to them.”

By this time, Crist Peachey had detached himself from their first
Englisch
guest and come over to see what the second one was there for. The boys quickly introduced him and brought him up to speed on what they'd told Henry, and when Henry reached out to shake hands, the other man did so with a smile. “You didn't tell him the second part of the story, boys.”

“To try it out, we get our very own cell tower!” Benny burst out. “Mamm's not so sure she wants to grow metal poles instead of corn—”

“But for the money they're offering, it won't take long before she's convinced.” Crist laughed. “We won't be the first—I was talking with our brother Silas Lapp, who's staying with Joshua Yoder, and he's got one in his field. We never did much with these fields anyhow,” he said, turning to look past the barn to the closest one, where a crop of corn was about half the size of everyone else's. “The cell tower will be the most profitable crop they ever seen.”

“Congratulations,” Henry said. “Say, Benny, I just remembered what I came over for. Can you come to Sarah's for supper tomorrow night? Eric is leaving the next morning with his dad, and he wants to say good-bye to all his friends here. I figure that includes you, since you pretty much picked him up off the street and saved him from sleeping under someone's porch.”

“That'd be real nice. But you know, Pris helped. Is she coming?”

Henry took the plunge. “Maybe you might collect her on the way over.”

Benny's grin was even wider than it had been over the astonishing family news. “I'll do that. That sounds just fine.”

Leon gave him a punch in the shoulder and their father called them over. Henry figured he'd been forgotten in the general merriment, and nodded at Crist in farewell. The man nodded back, unable to keep the grin off his face, and went to see how his wife was surviving the good news.

At least, that was what it looked like to Henry. The willowy woman with the brown hair under the organdy
Kapp
turned to Crist as he loped up the porch steps, and her hand went to her belly in a gesture as old as time. Henry had seen that protective bend of the wrist a couple of times in his youth, before his mother had told the family but after she'd told his dad.

Well. A baby might grow up in a ramshackle environment, but at least there was love enough to go around—and it seemed there would be no shortage of food on the table, either.

E
ric and Caleb were running races up and down the lane, but Sarah had a feeling it was a thinly disguised way to keep an eye on the road for Trent Parker's SUV. She'd seen the boy take out his phone twice now and look anxiously at the screen, as though he almost expected his father to cancel at the last minute, or change the plan. They'd let Trent know that he was invited to supper and to stay the night—Eric had already put fresh sheets on Simon's bed and made it up to perfection, so that his father could sleep there and he could camp on the air mattress in Caleb's room.

But whether Trent Parker would go along with this was another question. He hadn't replied to the last message.

The windows were open and the scent of baking macaroni and cheese filled the kitchen. The boys had requested Eric's favorite dish, and since Jacob was going to barbecue outside when they got here, and Priscilla was bringing two kinds of vegetable dishes, all Sarah had left to do other than slice a loaf of bread and put out some pickles was to make a salad.

She collected her basket from the compiling room and took it out to the garden. Her crazy-quilt mix of vegetables, flowers, and herbs was at its best now, and as she brushed by the dill and mint, the sweet and spicy scents mingled in the air as if to greet her.

Up on the hillside, the “keys of heaven” was blooming, its tiny red flowers forming a mist of beauty and concealing all the hard work the roots were doing among the rocks. Where the soil was deep enough, banks of golden and orange daylilies nodded in the breeze, and the hum of bees was like a bass note under the shouts of the boys and the whisper of the leaves above her head.

Lettuce first, both butter and romaine. She knelt beside the plants and got to work. Some spinach and carrots, of course. She would grate the latter and slice in pickled beets, too, for color. Green onions,
ja
, and how about some fresh calendula petals, now that the nasturtiums were finished?

It was a good thing that
Englisch
John Casey, her vegetable-hating patient, wasn't going to be at her table tonight!

She heard a whoop of greeting, and the crunch of wheels in the lane. Buggy wheels, not rubber, which meant it was probably Jacob, Corinne, and Amanda. Sure enough, Corinne waved through the open buggy door, a big square tub of marinating meat on her lap.

“I'll start the barbecue,” Sarah called, and picked up her basket. Her barbecue was fairly small, but it was propane and not the kind that used charcoal. Michael, who had learned how to cook outdoors on many a hunting trip with his father, had loved to use it in the summer.

While Jacob got the meat going, Benny and Priscilla arrived—and the latter wasted no time in getting down and hustling her two dishes into the kitchen, where the other women were washing the vegetables.

“Hi, Corinne, Sarah, Amanda…I trimmed all these beans earlier and all they need is to go in a pot. I've never seen such a crop as we've got—Mamm was so glad some of them were coming over here. And this one is fresh pea salad. I know you'll have some mint to put in it. That always makes it so nice, doesn't it? Did you hear the Peacheys' news?”

“No,” Sarah said with a laugh when Priscilla paused for breath. “The way you hightailed it out of Benny's buggy, there couldn't have been that much time for conversation.”

“Oh, believe me, there was time for this. Arlon and Crist have sold some kind of invention to the phone company, and they're going to get a cell phone tower in their field.”

“Are they now?” Corinne's busy hands fell still—which didn't happen very often. “Have they talked it over with Bishop Dan?”

“They must have, if the tower is going in.” Amanda fetched two serving bowls from Sarah's good set on display in
der Eckschank
, the china cabinet built into the corner of the sitting room next to the kitchen. “Here, Pris, put the pea salad in one of these.”

“I'm glad they live on the other side of the settlement and we don't have to look at the ugly thing,” Sarah said. “But think of the money. Didn't Silas say that with the rent the phone company pays, he doesn't have to farm?”

“He did,” Corinne answered when it was clear that Amanda wasn't going to. “That will suit Arlon and Crist just fine. I'm glad their money worries will be over.”

Would Linda and Crist move off that place now? Sarah wondered. Having some money coming in would make a huge difference to the family—but would it improve their lot, or make them more eccentric and the boys even less inclined to take up a sensible trade?

She hoped not. Surely
der Herr
had sent them this blessing for good reasons of His own. It was their place to be good stewards of it, and she could only hope that they would be.

By now, Eric and Caleb had joined Jacob at the barbecue, and Sarah could hear their voices just outside the back door. Corinne smiled at the sound, too.

“I'm glad to see that Eric is no longer quite so terrified of Jacob,” she said to Sarah. “He's been a real good little helper in the barn, even though he had never even seen a cow up close before he came.”

“He was a good helper because he wasn't sure what Dat would do to him if he wasn't,” Amanda said with a laugh. “I'm glad he realized that his help was appreciated. Listen to them now.”

It was a
gut
sound, the two boys' chatter, punctuated by Jacob's belly laugh and the thump of the barbecue lid going down. And then a car approached down the lane. Trent Parker? Or Henry?

Drying her hands on a dish towel, Sarah checked out the big front window. “Eric!” she called. “Your father is here.”

Hurrying outside to meet the SUV, she saw Eric catapult around the corner of the house.

Trent slammed the car door just in time to catch him in a hug. “
Oof !
Dude, you've grown!” He looked him over, then pulled him in for another hug. “I'm glad to see you safe and sound.”

Here was the unhappy man who would leave his child with strangers in order to go and work. Well, at least he didn't seem shy about showing affection after a long absence. He wore suit pants and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but he'd clearly been driving with the windows down, because his hair was mussed. He looked like the driven executive she'd seen two weeks ago…and yet something had changed.

Absence made the heart grow fonder, and there was a lot about Eric to love. Maybe he'd been doing some serious thinking after Eric had run away.

“Dad, you remember Caleb, right? My friend? And his mom, Sarah?”

Sarah extended a hand. “Welcome back.”

“I hope my kid wasn't too much trouble.”

“Not at all. We were just saying in the kitchen what a good helper he's been.”

“I got up at four o'clock every day and milked cows, Dad. And weeded the garden and made the beds and one day we went fishing and I caught two brookies and Caleb got skunked and we cooked them for supper!”

Trent's mouth dropped open. Then he turned to Sarah. “Is that so?”

“
Ja
,” she said. “Like I told you. A real good helper and provider. We were happy to have him.”

“Wow.” It took the man a moment to gather words together. “
Wow.
So where's Henry, the potter? And how about this lantern? When do I get to see that?”

“It's in your room, in a crate. Henry's not here yet, but I can show you.” And Eric dragged him into the house just seconds before Sarah heard another car arrive.

Henry and Ginny.

They were clearly a couple now. He came around the hood of the car to open the door for her, and when she got out, she took his hand.

Sarah's stomach plunged and righted itself, settling into a kind of hollowness that she had no business feeling. She was concerned for his soul, that was all—if he and Ginny kept on this path and decided to get married, he would be lost to fellowship. Even if he didn't go through with it, a man who loved a dead woman for ten years would love a living one for a lot longer, so how could he tie a whole sacrifice to the altar when his heart would be torn in two?

But she had said her say and it was not her place to say it again.

Sarah arranged a smile on her face and shook hands. “I'm glad to see you both. What have you got there, Henry? Is that a computer?”

“It's Ginny's tablet.” He indicated the shiny sliver of metal under his arm. “We've brought something to show you, since you're in it.”

Sarah didn't know the difference between a computer and a tablet, but this wasn't making sense in any case. “In it? In the com—the tablet?”

Ginny laughed. “In a manner of speaking. The video that the crew took of Henry the other week is up on the D.W. Frith website. We brought it along so we could all see it. And I can't tell you how hard it's been not to watch it before everybody else— Henry tells me he's going to make us all wait until after dinner. Why would he do that unless fame has gone to his head?”

Oh, my. The teenagers would have no problem watching this video. But Jacob and Corinne were here, too—what would they have to say about such a thing coming into the house?

“You don't want to watch me on an empty stomach, is why,” Henry joked. “Say, Sarah, did I see Trent Parker as we drove in? This is his vehicle, right?”

“It is,” she replied. “Eric took him inside to see the lantern he made. I think you might be needed in Eric's room.”

They all trooped into the house, and while Henry and Ginny went upstairs, Sarah got herself into the kitchen to find that Amanda had finished making the salad. Jacob carried the meat in on a big platter, and in the general commotion of collecting everyone from house and yard and making introductions and getting the food onto the table, Sarah pushed away all the thoughts that were disturbing and simply concentrated on making sure her strange collection of guests was comfortable.

Trent hitched his chair closer to the table and reached for the macaroni. “Say, this looks good. I haven't had macaroni and cheese that wasn't out of a box since I was a kid.”

“Dad—” Eric clutched his arm. “Not yet.”

“What?” Trent looked down at the boy next to him.

“Grace, Dad.”

Jacob came to his rescue as Trent slowly lowered his arm. “We say a silent grace before and after our meal, to thank God for the blessings he has given us.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

In the ensuing silence, Sarah did her best to focus on
der Herr
and her gratitude for His blessings, chief among them being that Jacob was here to preside at the table in Michael's place. His humility was his greatest strength. No one could be offended—not even Trent Parker—when Jacob explained their customs in such a gentle but firm way.

Henry had a little of that humble strength, which probably helped when Eric was in his studio, learning. All in all, the menfolk around her were good examples to young boys.

When some of them weren't dating worldly women.

Jacob lifted his head and cleared his throat, and Sarah snatched her wandering thoughts from where they'd gone and stuffed them back in the corner of her mind where they belonged.

She passed the macaroni and cheese to Trent herself. “So, what did you think of young Eric's lantern? He showed it to me last night, when I went in to say good night. I thought it was beautiful—and practical, too. We're quite fond of candles around here, aren't we, Caleb?”

Caleb grinned back as Trent dished up his plate and one for his son. “It is a nice piece of work,” Trent conceded. “I'm not sure it was worth putting his mother through what he did, or of inconveniencing you folks for two weeks, though.”

“He did not inconvenience us.” Jacob passed the platter loaded with pork chops, and followed it with applesauce. “I admit I was disturbed that he had disobeyed his parents in such a dangerous and foolish manner, but in my mind he has paid for his sin.” His lips twitched as though he had thought of something that amused him. “Haven't you, Eric?”

“
Ja
, have I ever,” Eric muttered. “A week of shoveling manure paid for that and every bad thing I ever did in my life.”

Sarah smiled at his unconscious use of
Deitsch
. “You must still make it up with your parents,” she said gently. “Remember what we spoke of.”

“Yeah? I like the sound of this,” Trent said.

“Eric?” she prompted.

“Help when it's not asked for, look for a way to make someone happy when I'm bored, and make the beds,” he said.

“You'll make the beds?” his father asked. “For real?”

“And very well, too,” Priscilla said. “I taught him how at the Inn.”

“And he can make a pie as well,” Sarah told Trent. “He is better at filling than crust, but he has lots of time to practice.”

“I'd buy a ticket to see that,” Trent said. “I don't think anyone has ever made a pie in our kitchen at home. I don't even think we own a pie pan.”

“Then I'll be the first,” Eric told him. “What's your favorite?”

“Blackberry.”

“As soon as we get home, we can buy the ingredients. And a pie pan. You'll see.”

“Done.”

Henry reached for a helping of salad. “You can be pr—glad that Eric is learning these kinds of skills, Trent. He has a natural talent with his hands, and a creative mind. I know it's none of my business, but I hope you'll reconsider your decision about the arts high school. Eric has worked hard and I believe that work ethic will carry over into his education.”

Trent cut his chop and chewed for a moment. After he swallowed, he said, “If everything was as great as you say, that work ethic should carry over to his education no matter where it is.”