Love’s Journey Home (39 page)

“I’m ready to go. I just wanted one last look.”

“You’re not ready to go. I can tell.” Annie fought to get the words out over the lump
in her throat. “You’re still giving orders.”

“That’s because they’re afraid. John and Bertha and the rest. You’d think they’d have
learned by now. You go when it’s your time. No worrying. No fretting. We’ve always
known we’re just passing through. I’m relieved. I’m ready to taste the dirt on the
tip of my tongue and feel the warm earth all around me.”

“Aenti.”

“You of all people should understand.” Louise nudged Annie with a bony shoulder. “Your
parents left you. David left you. And look at you, you’re still putting one foot in
front of the other.”

“Jah.” If only Aenti Louise knew how many days Annie contemplated whether she would
be able to get out of bed. How many days she smothered sobs with her pillow so Leah
and Luke and Mark wouldn’t hear. “I have no choice.”

“But you do.” Breathlessly, Louise pointed at two stumps on the edge of a line of
trees that stretched beyond their sight. “Let’s sit a minute.”

Relieved, Annie moved in that direction, careful to keep a hand on Louise’s arm. “I
don’t have a choice. I have a bakery to run. I have a son to raise. People depend
on me.”

“You have a life to live. Best get started. And the only way to do that is stop being
so mad about it.”

“Mad? I’m not mad.”

Aenti Louise cackled, then coughed. Alarmed, Annie patted her back. “Maybe we should
turn around.”

“Stop fussing and listen to what I say. You’re mad? Admit it. You’re mad at David.”

“I’m not mad!” Annie stopped, trying to corral the emotions that built like an angry
river straining against its banks, threatening to spill over and flood everything
in its path. “David’s dead. How could I be mad at him?”

“He left you. He made you love him and then he left you.”

“Jah. He did. He did!”

Tears soaked Annie’s face. She couldn’t breathe with the pain of it. How could he?
He’d never promised to stay, but he’d told her to take it on faith. She had. And now
she couldn’t rely on her faith. It had let her down.

“David had the right idea, Annie.”

“Nee. How could this be right? How could feeling like this be right?”

“Love is right. The love you and David had was right. For that moment and for that
season of your life. But your life isn’t over. David has gone on ahead. Your turn
will come, but it’s not now.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“It’s not good enough.” Louise plopped down on the stump. She sucked in air and wiped
her face with her sleeve. “God expects more. He expects us to step out in faith. To
believe He has a plan.”

“God expects more? God’s plan was for me to raise my son without his father?”

“Don’t dare to believe you know God’s plan, child.” Her tone cut Annie like a butcher
knife. “Don’t presume. None of us is that smart.”

“I’m only going by what I see and what I feel.”

“Do you not see Isaac Gless standing in front of you? Do you not feel what he feels
for you?”

“Aenti! How did you…”

“It’s written all over his face. Who could miss it? I didn’t come out here for my
health, child. I came out here to talk some sense into you.” She stopped, panting
a little. The ashen cast of her skin scared Annie. She shouldn’t have let her aunt
talk her into this walk. “Others would say it’s private business between you and him.
I say I’ve earned a say. I’ve watched you grow up your whole life. I know what’s best
and your mudder’s not here to tell you what’s what, so I’m standing in for her. I
won’t be here much longer. This is my last chance so I’m talking plain as I can. I
don’t have the breath left to dress the words up nice. You’re a smart girl, but sometimes
you’re dense as a stone.”

The river of words rolled over Annie and finally, blessedly, stopped. Annie tried
to marshal her thoughts. As if Louise had ever bothered to dress up her words. “I’m
not dense. I’m…I’m…I don’t know what I am. I’m married, that’s what I am. I put all
my faith into that marriage and now I feel…I feel so…”

“Like God let you down? That’s mighty prideful, isn’t it? God gave you a good man.
He gave you a good marriage. He gave you a fine, healthy son. He’s asking you to have
faith that there’s more. More blessings. More than you will ever deserve. David is
dead. You are alive. The vows say until death do us part. You parted. It hurts, but
there it is. Don’t make the mistake I made.”

She paused again, leaned forward, her hands on her hips. Her breaths were raspy now.
Annie wanted to make her stop, but the torrent of words kept coming. “I could’ve loved
again and I was too bullheaded and too stubborn and too blind. I didn’t have faith.
You remind me too much of myself. I won’t have it. I won’t have you throwing away
a perfectly good love. You have a life in front of you. Your son can have a father.
Have a little faith, child. Have a little faith!”

She stopped. Smiling, she began to rock. Her breathing seemed to ease. She stared
at something Annie couldn’t see. “That’s it. That’s all. I can go now.”

Annie wished she’d brought her bag. She needed a hankie. She sniffed and wiped at
her cheeks with her fingers. She had no response so she remained silent. Blessedly,
so did Aenti Louise. Annie unwrapped the cookies and handed two to her aunt. They
ate without speaking.

The cookies were the best Annie had ever eaten, better than any she’d ever made. The
sweet crumbs melted in her mouth, butter and brown sugar and peanut butter baked together
in a mixture that had never tasted better. It was as if the emotion of the moment
sharpened her taste buds and made her want to hang on to the last crumb, not let it
go, because when it was gone there would be no more. There would never be a better
cookie or better company. The finality of that made Annie’s heart turn over and twist
in tight knots that hurt her chest.

Even after the cookies were long gone they sat in silence, letting a tepid breeze
blow across their warm faces. The leaves rustled. A cow mooed in the distance. Another
answered. The scent of fresh cut hay and manure wafted through the air like the perfume
of summer. Annie didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to
know what came next. Her muscles relaxed and her eyes closed.

“Sweet girl, you’re so tired.”

She jumped at the sound of Aenti’s low, soft voice. She didn’t sound mad now. She
sounded content.

“It’s all right, Aenti. I’m fine.”

“We’re both fine. Isn’t it a lovely day God has made?”

Annie opened her eyes and gazed at the cloudless, blue sky, so blue and bright it
hurt her eyes. “Jah, a lovely day.”

“One more thing.”

One more thing. Annie straightened and took a breath, not certain she could handle
one more thing.

“The move. Stop railing about it. Whatever happens, happens. God has a plan. I don’t
know how to say it more plain. His plan. Not yours.”

“To uproot some of us. To take our families and break them apart?” Annie tried to
control her trembling voice. She wanted to be as strong and sure as her Aenti Louise.
The woman who had been almost a mother to her when Mudder had gone on ahead. “I don’t
understand how that can be His plan.”

“You don’t have to understand. I can tell you this. A family is a family. It doesn’t
have anything to do with place. A home is where family is. It’s not a building. A
family isn’t always about blood, neither. Figure it out.”

Figure it out.

Louise rose. “Take me back now before Bertha comes looking for me and throws a big
fit.”

Annie stood. Her legs shook more than her aunt’s. Someone watching them would’ve wondered
which of them was sick. She sucked in air and straightened her spine. If Aenti Louise
could be so sure and strong, so could she.

The walk back to the house took a long time. Louise shuffled along, barely raising
her feet. Annie wrapped an arm around her shoulders to keep her upright. Louise hummed
a song, a hymn. Annie couldn’t remember the words, but the familiar tune calmed her
aching heart. Onkel John met them at the door, his gaze lingering disapprovingly on
Annie. He jerked his head toward the porch. Catherine sat in the rocking chair, her
hands folded in her lap.

“She says she isn’t leaving until she talks to her aenti.”

Annie didn’t respond. She nodded at Catherine as they passed by. Her sister started
to rise, then sank back into the chair. “I’ll be out in a minute,” Annie told her.
“Wait here.”

Together she and Onkel helped Louise back into her bedroom. Annie once again knelt,
this time to remove the shoes.

Louise slipped under the quilt and pulled it up to her chin. She closed her eyes and
began to snore, a light, rhythmic sound that comforted Annie. Her aunt still breathed
in and out.

“I’m staying. You can go on to work,” she whispered to John. “Leah has Noah. Helen
is covering the bakery. I can spend the day.”

“No more gallivanting around the countryside,” he growled. “Doctor says she needs
rest.”

“She needs what she needs.”

He tugged his hat down on his forehead. Annie followed him out to the porch.

“She doesn’t have much time, does she?” Catherine began to rock. “I want to see her.”

“Where’s Dean?”

“He went back to Wichita.”

“You should’ve gone with him.” Annie sank onto the porch step.

“I’m stuck. I can’t seem to go forward.”

“You have Dean. He seems like a good man.”

“He is, but I can’t have a life with him until I figure out what to do with all this.”
She waved her hand about as if to encompass everything around her. “The nice thing
about it is he’ll wait for me. He promised me he would wait. He said he would live
here if I wanted. Or anywhere in the world—it’s up to me.”

“He is a good man.” Annie struggled to make sense of her sister’s problem. “Would
you…would you want to live in Bliss Creek? Not as a member of the community.”

“You mean like an Englischer?” Catherine’s laugh held no mirth. “So everyone could
continue to rub my nose in my meidung? I don’t think so. That part of my life—the
Bliss Creek part—is over. It’s finding my way to the next thing that seems to be the
problem.”

Annie didn’t answer. She didn’t have the words. Her sister, with all the education
and experience in the real world, didn’t have any more answers than Annie the baker
did.

“I spoke to Luke.”

“You did?” Now that surprised her. “Did he speak back?”

“No.”

They both chuckled a little, the sound strange and out of place in the darkness brought
on not by the lack of sun, but by the cloud of impending grief that hung over them.

“No, he didn’t talk back, but he listened. I could tell by the way he kept clearing
his throat like the words were trying to fight their way out. He kept right on working,
feeding the horses, checking on the pigs, doing this and that so he didn’t have to
face me.”

“So you made your peace with him. That’s good. Aenti would tell you to make peace
with the past. It’s the only way.”

“Is that what you’ve done?” The barely controlled sarcasm stung. “Sorry, that was
mean of me. It’s not my intent to be mean. Sometimes it just seeps out of me. Luke’s
stubborn, hardheaded, Plain man’s way of doing things just makes me mean.”

“You’re not mean. You’re right—about me making peace, I mean, not about Luke’s head.
He’s trying to do what he believes he’s called to do. And I’m trying to make peace.”
Annie bit her lower lip until it hurt. Not hard enough. She saw that now. She’d paid
lip service to the promises she’d made to David. She’d pretended to accept her lot,
but inside her anger raged. Anger that had to be allowed to burn itself out before
she could go on and live the life God called her to live without her David, without
her rock.

“Aenti is right. I’ve been trying so hard to fulfill my promise to David I haven’t
allowed myself to have my own feelings. I have a right to be angry and mad and upset
and to grieve. My David died. He died. He wasn’t supposed to die. He told me to have
faith. To take it on faith. I did. And look what happened. He died!”

The tears burst forth in a torrent that surprised her. “God, forgive me,” she cried.
“I find it so hard to accept. But I will. I promise I will.”

Catherine darted from the chair and scurried to Annie’s side. She slung an arm around
her. “That’s the first step.”

“The first step?”

“Letting it all out.”

Annie blew her nose on her handkerchief, then wadded it into a ball. “Do you want
to talk to her?”

“I don’t need anything from her, Annie. You’re wrong about that.” Catherine sounded
so sad that Annie fought another wave of tears. “I only want to say goodbye.”

Together they rose and Annie led the way. Louise hadn’t moved. Her breathing seemed
even more labored. She didn’t stir when Catherine kissed her cheek and smoothed a
hand across her forehead.

Annie pulled up another chair. They sat, side by side, sharing the glass of lemonade
Bertha had left on the bedside table. Together they waited, without speaking. One
or the other shed tears, but quietly so as not to disturb Aenti’s rest. Sometime later,
the snoring ceased and the room filled with quiet. Annie couldn’t find it in herself
to weep anymore, as much as she wanted to dissolve the lump where her heart had been.