Love Still Stands (32 page)

“Uriah is a man.” Mudder said the words with such soft deference it took Bethel a
moment to realize she was disagreeing with her husband. She never openly disagreed.
Never in all the years Bethel had watched them as man and wife. “He doesn’t understand.”

“Understand what?” It was apparent Luke didn’t understand anymore than Daed. “She’s
my fraa.”

“When Leah was fourteen she took over running this house. She thought I would die
and she would be left mother to all her brothers and sisters.”

“But you didn’t die.”

Mudder smiled, the same luminous smile Bethel saw on her face every time she talked
about those dark days when she’d had cancer, been declared cancer-free, and then had
it return for a second vicious attack. “Nee, I lived. But some people are marked early
with the hard facts of this life. Leah took care of Mattie and Bethel as if they were
her own. A little mother bird she was. She stopped laughing after the first bout.
She stopped smiling after the second.”

The smile had disappeared, replaced with a painful regret that Bethel didn’t want
to see on her mother’s face. She didn’t know why God had allowed these trials for
her family, but she did know they’d come through to the other side stronger than ever.

Mudder trudged closer to Luke, close enough to touch him, but she didn’t. Bethel couldn’t
see her face any longer, but the set of her shoulders reflected an earnest desire
to speak her piece. “She stopped smiling until you came into her life. You made her
smile again.”

Luke’s face crumpled. His breath sounded loud and ragged. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Tomorrow then. Tomorrow, she comes back to Annie’s after the wedding.” Reluctance
etched his face with new lines. The words were law. And he had the right. Leah was
his fraa. “We’ll come for a visit on Thanksgiving.”

He slapped his hat back on his head and stalked out the back door, his work boots
making a disapproving
smack-smack
on the linoleum.

Bethel exhaled and leaned into her crutches. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding
her breath. She lowered her head and closed her eyes for a second. Purple dots danced
inside her eyelids. Lightheaded, she opened them and tightened her grip on the crutches.

“It’s all right, schweschder.” Mattie slipped closer, a bowl in her hand. “If need
be, I’ll take her home with me.”

“What about Abe?”

“He never has much to say about anything.” Her smile said she didn’t mind. “He’s a
good man. As long as I put food on the table, keep his pants washed, and clean his
house, he will let me take care of Leah until she’s better and then send her on home.”

“Luke is right.” Mudder sank into a chair. “She’s his fraa.”

“She needs to get better or she’ll be no help to him.” Bethel wanted to tell her mother
more, but again, fear held her hostage. Mudder had borne six children. She wouldn’t
understand. “Mattie’s right. She just needs time.”

Mudder nodded, but her eyes were filled with concern. “Uriah will expect her to go
home.”

“Daed will stay out of it once it’s out of his house.” Mattie shrugged. “All he wants
is peace and quiet.”

Mattie was right. Her daed wanted nothing of these conflicts. He wanted an orderly
home. A quiet home. Children should do their chores and mind their elders. Fraas should
do their chores and mind their husbands. People should mind their own business and
follow God. All the rules laid out nice and neat. Bethel swung around on her crutches
and headed back to her chores. Sometimes life didn’t follow a lovely, orderly path.
That she’d learned the hard way. She suspected God wasn’t through with this lesson
yet.

Chapter 30

L
uke shifted on the hard wood of the bench in the last row in the Daugherty living
room. Despite his best intentions, he’d been one of the last to arrive for the wedding
ceremony. Too many folks in his house—Annie’s house now. His back ached, as did his
behind. A chilly breeze wafted through the open windows, mingling the scent of wet
earth with the aromas of roast duck, chicken, and cake. He leaned into the breeze.
Despite the cool, winterish day outside, the air in Helen’s living room had turned
warm and moist with the people who had gathered to witness her marriage to Gabriel
Gless.

His long sermon ended, Micah Kelp opened the German Bible and began reading from the
first chapters of Genesis. The words were bees buzzing Luke’s ears, reminding him
of his own marriage ceremony. Had it really been ten years ago? Leah, dressed in beautiful
blue, had answered the questions with a voice so soft he could hardly hear her, but
her gaze had been firmly fastened on him and she’d never once hesitated.

Afterward she’d sat on his left side at their table, their witnesses and the wedding
party spread out in the Shirack house, eating in shifts, the young, single men vying
for the attention of the young, single women across the table from them. She’d laughed
and eaten and enjoyed the singing of the hymns and watching the younger folks play
the singing games. Later, she’d come willingly to the room they shared in her parents’
home for the first few weeks of their married life.

Micah’s voice calling Gabriel and Helen to the front of the room forced Luke from
the bittersweet memories. They came, Thomas, Tobias, Annie, and Emma trailing behind
them as their witnesses. Helen was smiling up at Gabriel, her round face and short,
stout figure so different from his tall, angular one. They looked as if they were
in a hurry. In a hurry to start their new lives together. Luke remembered that feeling.
He wanted it back. He hazarded a look across the room. Leah sat squeezed between Bethel
to her left and Mattie to her right. Her sisters each had a twin on their lap while
Leah held Jebediah, who squirmed and giggled now and then. She seemed engrossed in
providing him with bits of cookie to keep him quiet. Her gaze lifted at that second
and met his. Her expression broke his heart. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Jebediah squealed. Her gaze dropped, she shushed the child, and the moment fled.

The questions began. Gabriel’s deep bass mingled with Helen’s high, excited voice
that reminded Luke of a bird twittering over a nest full of chicks.

“Do you also promise your wedded wife, before the Lord and His church, that you will
nevermore depart from her, but will care for her and cherish her, if bodily sickness
comes to her, or in any circumstance which a Christian husband is responsible to care
for, until the dear God will again separate you from each other?”

The words swept over Luke. He hadn’t hesitated to say yes to that question ten years
ago. Never had he imagined a sickness, whether of mind or body, as Bethel had argued
the night before, that would make his fraa not want to have children with him. Was
he, as a Christian husband, responsible to care for Leah under these circumstances?

Yes. The child she carried belonged to him. Her sickness, whatever it was called,
involved him as her husband and father of her children.
Gott, how can this be? Deliver her from this ailment. Deliver me
.

He ripped his gaze from his clasped hands and watched as Micah guided Helen’s plump
fingers to Gabriel’s mammoth, callused hand. They clasped and Micah laid his own hand
over those of the newly wedded couple. “So then I may say with Raguel the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you and help you together and fulfill
His blessing abundantly upon you, through Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Luke whispered amen, feeling that he himself had spoken those vows again. He was blanketed
with peace and the knowledge that he had signed up for this when he chose Leah as
his fraa. Leah would be his fraa until the day he died. Together, they would weather
this storm.

He loved Leah. Nothing would change that.

Luke shot from his seat and squeezed through the crowd, angling for his fraa. She’d
already allowed herself to be swept away in the crowd of women who would help serve
the food and wash the dishes and set the tables for the shifts of people waiting to
eat.

She didn’t wait for him. Why? Why did she flee? He couldn’t fathom it. Even with all
Bethel’s babbling about baby depression and medicine and Englisch doctors, he couldn’t
see it. His fraa had always been a good mother. She wanted children as much as he
did. They had been of one mind in this for ten years. The more the merrier, as his
own daed had said many times. He dodged Josiah and Mark, shaking his head when they
spoke to him and plowing forward through the mass of women scattering to the kitchen
and men who’d moved outside for a breath of fresh air before the serious visiting
began.

He would catch Leah in the kitchen and insist she go outside with him to have a discussion
in private. Anywhere out of earshot of the massive Gless and Daugherty clans and all
the friends who had joined them from as far away as Gabriel’s home state of Indiana.
Anxious to have the conversation, he lengthened his stride.

“Luke, wait!”

The deep voice of Micah Kelp stopped him in his tracks. Burying a sigh, he spun around
to face the bishop. “All went smoothly.”

“It did.” Micah lumbered toward Luke, his wife Susannah immediately behind him. “I
just got word from my cousin that Elijah left a message on the phone. Silas needs
to go home. I imagine you’ll want to go with him.”

“We planned to stay through Thanksgiving.” Luke tried to digest Micah’s words. They’d
only just arrived. “Is someone hurt? Is Elijah sick?”

“Nee, nee, but Silas’s barn and chicken house burned to the ground last night. They
saved the horses and one of the buggies. Everything else is gone.”

Luke rubbed the spot that throbbed on his forehead. “Vandals? Was anyone hurt?”

“Not vandals. No people hurt. Martin was burning some stumps out by the corral and
the fire got away from him. They tried to put it out, but by the time the volunteer
fire department arrived, it had spread.”

“We had better get back then.”

“I’ll find Silas. You round up your kinfolk.”

His heart hammering, Luke strode into the kitchen. Leah would not be happy to return
to New Hope early, but she would understand the emergency. They had to go home. Even
if she didn’t understand, she would go. No more of this silliness. Silas and his fraa
needed their help. A barn raising. Replacement of the lost livestock. Starting over.

Again.

Jebediah on her hip, Leah stood arranging cookies on a platter that shared the table
with three kinds of cake. As if sensing his presence, she looked up. Her eyes filled
with tears and her gaze dropped. Her mouth quivered. For a split second he wanted
to cover her lips with his own mouth. Somehow connect with her. Make her understand
how hard he wanted to make whatever ailed her right.

“Come outside.”

Silent, she jerked her head toward the other women, busy preparing food, chattering,
and laughing.

“Now.” He leaned toward her, keeping his voice low. “We must talk.”

His chubby hands waving, Jebediah gurgled and chirped, “Daed, Daed, Daed.”

“I need to help here.” Her tone defensive, Leah shifted the boy to her other hip.
“It’s expected.”

“Silas’s barn burned down last night. The chicken house too. His livestock is gone.”

Leah’s hands stopped moving. She stared up at him. Comprehension stole over her features
and her face crumpled. Jebediah began to fuss as if her grip hurt. He waved chubby
arms, his fingers wet with slobber. “Daed, Daed.”

“Come here, son.” Leah gave him up without argument. Luke took his son into his arms.
The boy’s warm weight against his chest steadied him. “Come outside, Leah.”

She shook her head. With hands that trembled, she lifted the platter. “I have to help.”

“We have to talk.”

“We came for Thanksgiving. I’m staying for Thanksgiving.”

“We talk outside, not here.”

“I’m not going back to Missouri!” she shouted. “I’m not going.”

The chatter in the room ceased. The women froze. The drone of men talking outside
filtered through open windows. Jebediah opened his mouth and wailed.

It was all Luke could do to keep from joining him. Shamed to his very core, he stalked
out the back door and stomped down the steps. He paused in the brilliant sunlight.
Squinting, he tried to see his way. He needed to get the children together. Get Bethel.
They had to pack up. The van driver—he needed the van driver. He tried to catch his
breath, but it stuck in his throat.

Jebediah patted his face with wet, plump fingers. “Daed, Daed, Daed.”

“Son.” A sob, unbidden, lodged in his chest. He’d forgotten for a second that he held
his son in his arms. “Jebediah.”

“Nee, not Jebediah.” Leah scuttled down the steps, her momentum hurling her toward
Luke, arms outstretched. Luke put out a hand to catch her. She stopped just beyond
his reach. “He stays with me. The twins must stay as well. The boys go with you.”

“You’d tear our family apart?” His world spun at a dizzying speed that made nausea
rise in his throat. “You’d keep the babies from their father?”

“Our family is torn. It’s broken.” A sob made the words almost intelligible. “It’s
my fault, not yours. There’s something wrong with me.”