The Calling (34 page)

The horses had done this many times and knew what to do. They walked evenly without stepping on the corn. The rain last week had loosened the soil so the chisel teeth of the cultivator turned the spaces easily: new upturned earth, thick and black against the green stalks of corn. Jimmy kept at it steadily all afternoon, up and down the field, as his mind spun in circles.

For the umpteenth time, he reviewed everything Bethany had said to him as she crushed his heart. Then how, to his shock, she had walked over and put her head against his chest. She put her arms around him and held him tightly. It was so surprising that he almost lost his balance. He put his arms around her to steady himself. She didn’t raise her head for what seemed like minutes. He could feel her body trembling and could smell her hair—a scent of vanilla. Then she stepped back from him as abruptly as she had come to him, though she caught one of his hands and held it a moment. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

Bethany’s expression had been so full of pain. Why was that? A flare of hope burned through his mind. Maybe it wasn’t that she had stopped caring about him. Maybe there was something else that was causing her to be so hot and cold with him.

Naomi. She would know.

He looked at the sun and the corn in the field and decided he had done a good day’s work. Fair, anyway. If he hurried, he might be able to talk to Naomi while she was making dinner.

He found Naomi in the kitchen, just like he thought he would, a warm smile on her face. The scent of supper enveloped him, onions and pork and something sweet. She had become, he realized, the sister he never had. “I need some advice.”

He sat at the kitchen table as Naomi brought him a cup of coffee, and spilled the sad tale of the breakup. He looked for answers in Naomi’s patient gaze.

Letting his head droop, he heaved a melodramatic sigh and pretended to beat his head against the table. “This is pathetic.” With his head still on the table, he mumbled, “I hate this.”

Naomi rose and set three places of silverware at the table, working around Jimmy. “I’m sorry.”

He jerked his head up. “You should be. This is all your fault. You’re the one who thought we were meant for each other. You’re the one who encouraged me to pursue her. I should never have listened to you. Now I can’t get her off my mind.” He peered glumly into the bottom of his coffee cup, annoyed that she wasn’t giving him anything but sympathy. He was sure she knew more. He was putting her in a hard position, he knew that, but he was desperate.

She set a platter of steaming pork tenderloin, smothered in onions, in the middle of the table. “Bethany has so much on her mind right now. Be patient with her. She just needs some time.”

Jimmy kept his eyes on the platter of food. He loved pork
and onions more than a cat loved sweet milk. “Or maybe she’s just not that interested in me. Not like I thought she was.” He forced himself to stop looking at that steaming pork. “Can’t you do something? Talk to her or something?”

“No, I can’t. You’re twenty-three years old. You’re acting like a moonsick fifteen-year-old.” She rolled her eyes.

“I am moonsick. And that girl makes me feel like I’m fifteen.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Pathetic. I’m just a pathetic case.”

She caught sight of something out the window and said, “Galen’s on his way in. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Jimmy lifted his head and smiled. “That, I could do.”

Bethany felt as if she were living underwater. People said things to her but the words were muffled in her mind. She was going through the motions, doing what she must, stupidly and slowly, as if trying to wake from a deep sleep, to shake off a bad dream that refused to end.

She hadn’t called Rose to tell her about Jake’s attack or about Chase’s death. Or that Lodestar had gone missing. She thought about it, quite a lot, but Naomi’s vision of two shadows stopped her short. She hoped Rusty was right—that Jake was gone for now.

She didn’t want to give any credence to Jake’s “warnings.” If Tobe knew of them, she was pretty sure he would stop talking to Allen Turner. That was the way it was with Tobe—if he could avoid difficulty, swerve from facing bad things, he’d find a way. And then Jake would win again.

Whatever Tobe was telling Allen Turner, whatever was taking so long, needed to be said. She had a strange feeling that
Tobe’s time in Philadelphia was pivotal, though she didn’t know why or how.

Late Tuesday evening, she couldn’t sleep. The wind was blowing hard through the treetops, rattling the leaves and branches against the windows. Bethany shivered. It was a warm night, but the wind made it sound cold. She went downstairs to make some chamomile tea and found Geena at the kitchen table, scribbling away at her yellow pad.

Geena looked up when she saw Bethany. “Do you know anything about résumés?”

“Not a thing,” Bethany said. She filled the teapot with water and set it on the stovetop. “Would you like some tea?”

“No thanks.” Geena took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “I’m trying to update my résumé and jazz it up. Give it a little punch. It’s hard, though, to figure out how to word the fact that I’ve been fired from my last job. I have to make it sound like a positive thing.”

Bethany was half listening, but her gaze fell to her hands. As she waited for the teapot to boil, she was gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing, small handfuls of her nightgown. She made herself stop. “Getting any idea about what to do next?”

Geena shook her head. “I’ve asked God, but haven’t gotten any word back yet. Not a single word.” She grinned. “But I’ll keep asking till I get my marching orders. ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’” She stretched her arms over her head and rolled her neck from side to side to get out the kinks. “Does your neighbor Galen ever talk much?”

“He’s not particularly chatty. Why?”

“He brought the boys over, pointed to the hose, shook his head, and walked away.”

“By any chance were Sammy and Luke covered in mud?”

“They were! Head to toe.”

“That explains the trail of mud up to the bathroom.” The teapot whistled, so Bethany turned off the burner. “I’m sure they’re sorely trying Galen’s patience while Rose is away. Luke, especially. He’s the ringleader for mischief.”

Geena rose and walked over to the stove. “How are you doing?”

“Fine.” Bethany got a tea bag out of the cupboard and put it in her mug, then filled it with hot water. She put her hands around the mug.

“How are you doing, really and truly? You hardly said a word at dinner tonight.”

Bethany paused for a moment, lifting her eyes to the ceiling and blinking. Her throat had been getting tighter and tighter, as if a hand had wrapped around her neck. She was desperate to talk—she felt she might explode if she didn’t get this out—and Geena might just be the right person. Everyone else was too connected to the problem. She needed someone neutral. Geena had an objectivity that no one else did—not Rose, not Jimmy, not Naomi. But she wanted to get through this without losing her composure. She hated tears, they made her feel weak and frightened, and she wanted to be strong. She always wanted to be strong.

Bethany took a deep breath. “I think . . . I’m going crazy . . . just like my mother.” Out spilled yesterday’s revelation by the sisters, all she knew about her mother as a young woman. The coming of the sickness, her father’s refusal to accept the illness, the near drowning, the Sisters’ Bee intervention. “I’m about the same age—maybe even a little older. I found out my grandmother had the sickness too. I’ve been
waking up in the night frightened, scared to death . . . and I don’t know why.”

She swirled the teabag in the water, watching the dark color seep out of the bag and infuse the water. She would not, would not, would not look at Geena’s eyes. If she saw eyes filled with pity, she thought she might scream. She needed help, not pity.

“Do these episodes only happen in the night?”

Bethany’s head snapped up, surprised at the matter-of-fact tone in Geena’s voice after hearing such a sordid tale. “No. Sometimes it happens when I’m just walking down the road. It must be the beginning of schizophrenia.”

“Any other symptoms?”

“My heart races so fast it feels like it’s going to explode. I have trouble getting a full breath. My palms get sweaty.”

“How long has this been going on?”

Bethany kept slanting looks at Geena, expecting to see more than mild concern on her face. Didn’t she realize all she was confiding in her? Didn’t she care? But Geena was only considering her with a detached professionalism. This, Bethany realized, must be the ministerly side of Geena. Up until this moment, Bethany had viewed her as first a guest in the inn, then as an interesting woman, then as a friend. “Two weeks. At first it happened every few days. Then last week, every day. I had the worst one of all this afternoon.”

“Are you having bad dreams?”

“Terrible.”

“So when it happens in the daytime, have you ever noticed what you were thinking about?”

Bethany tilted her head. “Today, it happened right after I’d been at the Sisters’ Bee and heard what they had to say about
my mother. I was thinking about how my mother might have walked down that same road when she was my age. That’s when I started to feel dizzy. Confused.”

Geena nodded. “There could be all kinds of reasons you’re having those episodes. It would be a good idea to have a physical exam—just to rule out anything like—”

“You think I’m going crazy, don’t you?”

Geena smiled. “I was going to say, like low thyroid. Anemia. There could be a lot of physical reasons you’re having those episodes.”

“But you think I’m getting schizophrenia, don’t you?”

“I’m not a doctor. I’ve had a few counseling classes in seminary, but I really can’t make a diagnosis—”

Bethany squeezed her eyes shut. “You do. You think I have the sickness.” She thought she might start to cry and she swallowed hard a few times. Only a few tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes, and she surreptitiously wiped those away with her sleeve.

Geena sighed. “I don’t think you’re describing mental illness. I think you’re describing panic attacks. Frankly, that makes a lot of sense, given all that’s been going on in your life lately.”

Bethany’s eyes popped open. “Panic attacks?”

“Yes. Just like it sounds. They’re very real. And very frightening. But they can be managed too. Panic attacks typically begin suddenly, without warning. They can strike at almost any time—just the way you’ve described. Waking up in the night or walking down the road. Symptoms usually peak within about ten minutes, and you can be left feeling worn out. Exhausted.” She put her hands on Bethany’s shoulders. “Look, I shouldn’t be diagnosing you. But I will help you find
a good counselor, if that’s what you need. A counselor can give you coping tools. First, we need to get you to a doctor. That’s the best place to start. You may just be run-down or needing vitamins or something simple like that.”

“What if it’s not simple? What if I’m going to get the sickness?”

“Then we’ll deal with that. There’s lots of treatments now, Bethany, much better ones than when your mother was diagnosed. If you were showing signs of schizophrenia, and I truly don’t believe you are, but if you were, you would be at the earliest stages of the illness and at the most treatable point.”

A breath eased out of Bethany in an odd sigh.

“Can I give you one piece of advice?”

She nodded, but she couldn’t quite meet Geena’s eyes.

“I know it’s been a hard week, a hard summer . . . well, just a hard year for your family. But you need to hold on to what is in front of you, not spend your life looking for what’s been lost or what might never come.”

She gripped Bethany’s shoulders firmly to make her look at her. “You do not have to live the life your mother lived. Or your grandmother.” She softened her grip, then dropped her hands. “Don’t start going down that worst-case path. Just put it out of your mind for now.”

If only it were that easy to put things aside. To send it to the back of Bethany’s mind like she sent Sammy to bed when he was tired. If only life were that simple. “So . . . what should I do?”

“Pray,” Geena said, then immediately closed her eyes and lowered her head.

Geena was going to pray here? Now? Out loud? Prayers were said in private silence, as was the Plain way, unless it
was the Lord’s Prayer. Feeling awkward, she followed Geena’s lead, closed her eyes, and ducked her head down.

Quietly, in everyday language, as if Geena were speaking to someone she knew well and respected enormously, she thanked God for Bethany, for bringing things to light so that Bethany could deal with them and not be frightened by them. She asked for guidance and direction to help her get answers for why she was having these episodes and the support she needed so that she could keep doing the good work she was doing—helping her family, the community garden, and the soup kitchen.

“Amen,” Geena said, and then looked up at her and smiled. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Bethany shook her head. “No. Not hard. But a little casual, considering you’re addressing the Holy Maker of the Universe.”