The Keeper (32 page)

They sat in companionable silence until Fern said, “You’re not sorry about Paul.”

Julia looked at her sharply. How had she known?

“I saw the happy look on his face when he came to the house last night. And I saw how dejected he looked when he left.”

So it looked like Fern knew everything anyway, without any need to tell her. Julia gave a nod. “I’m not sorry.”

“Because of Rome?” Fern peered at her, sniffing out the truth.

She read Julia’s heart situation right. It was one of her talents. “Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about Rome,” Julia said. “One minute, he acts as if he’s in charge of Dad’s future. The next minute, he’s as skittish as a sheep if you even ask if he’s planning to be home for dinner.”

Fern’s gaze followed Rome as he walked across the lawn. “That’s because he doesn’t know what he wants out of life.”

“He wants what he wants when he wants it. That’s what I think about Roman Troyer.”

Fern shook her head. “He’s struggling. He doesn’t know if he should stay or leave.”

Julia turned to face Fern. “How do you know so much about Rome?”

Fern’s gaze shifted out to Rome as he joined Menno and M.K. and helped lift some bushels of corn to the front of the wagon. Her forehead knitted. “Six years ago, Rome’s family was headed to a wedding. Rome’s uncle, Tom Troyer, was getting married. They hired a van to take them since the bride lived quite a distance away. Rome stayed home to take care of the farm. Along the way, there was a collision and the entire family was killed.”

Julia closed her eyes.

Fern kept talking. “Rome packed up the house, locked it, sold off the livestock—only thing he kept was his mother’s bees—and never looked back. No one knew where he went.”

Julia looked over at Rome. No wonder he didn’t talk about his family, his past. “I’m surprised he told you all that, Fern. He’s never said a word about that to me. Not to Dad, either.”

Fern closed up the bag that held the apple slices. Then after one of her long silent spells, she said, “He didn’t have to tell me. It was my wedding that Rome’s family was headed to. I was going to be Tom Troyer’s bride.”

Fern? A bride? A brokenhearted bride. “So that’s why you’re here? You came to Windmill Farm to get Rome back to Ohio?”

She shook her head. “That’s not up to me or anybody else but Rome. I take care of people. That’s what I do.” She put the apple slices into her apron pocket. “But Rome does have a decision to make. Last year, the Troyers’ neighbor contacted me. Someone wants to buy the Troyer farm since it’s just sitting there abandoned, getting run down. They wondered if I knew how to find him. A few months later, I happened to read your Uncle Hank’s
Budget
letters where he talked about the Bee Man, a fellow who wandered from place to place. When he mentioned that they were brown bees, I knew those bees belonged to a Troyer. Nobody has that strain of bees anymore. It was Rome’s mother who kept that strain going, and it wasn’t hard to figure the Bee Man was Rome. I wrote to your uncle and he wrote back. He added something about he was running himself ragged, holding Windmill Farm together because his poor nephew had a bum heart.”

Julia rolled her eyes at that.

“So I asked if he’d be in need of a caretaker for his nephew. Seemed like the right time. Thought I’d come and check up on Rome.”

M.K. gave a shout out to her, waving her arm like a windmill to come over to the corn wagon, and Fern released a martyred sigh.

“And I ended up with a batch of troublesome children to keep on the straight and narrow way.” She didn’t seem too bothered.

Julia grew pensive. How strange and interwoven lives could be.

Fern rose to leave. “You know, Julia, boys get their hearts broken too.”

At the Sweet Tooth bakery, Sadie stood in front of the counter trying to decide what to get. It all looked so good! Cinnamon rolls drizzled with thick white icing, cupcakes of every flavor topped with a swirl of frosting, gigantic crackled gingersnap cookies (her favorite), small fruit pies. Nora Stroot stood behind the counter, arms crossed tightly against her chest, losing patience with Sadie’s indecisiveness. She let out a long-suffering sigh.

Sadie looked up at Nora. “Everything looks so delicious, it’s hard to choose just one!” She bit her lip. “So maybe I’ll try one cinnamon roll, one red velvet cupcake, and one gingersnap. Oh, and a gooseberry tart.”

“Cancel that order,” Fern said as she swept into the bakery. “We’ll have two cups of tea.”

Another grievous sigh escaped from Nora Stroot before she turned to get their tea.

Fern pointed to a table with two chairs. “Sit,” she told Sadie.

Sadie looked longingly at the bakery goods as she sipped on her tea.

“So what’s got you looking as sad as a gopher hitting hard ground?”

“Nothing. I’m just starving. I wanted a snack, that’s all.”

Fern snorted. “You had ordered enough for a week’s worth.” She added a dollop of cream to her tea and stirred it. “So? What’s making you so down in the mouth?”

Sadie’s eyes filled up with tears. “Rome loves Julia. And I think she loves him too.”

“Keeping Rome Troyer in one place is like . . . well, you may as well chase smoke rising from a fire.” She sipped her tea. “So you’re disappointed that he doesn’t love you?”

Sadie nodded. “Why couldn’t Rome have chosen me? What’s so wrong with me?”

“You mean, except for the fact that you’re eleven years younger than him?”

“Age shouldn’t matter!” In many important ways she was practically twenty. Maybe thirty.

“Age matters plenty when a girl is barely fifteen and the fellow is on the sunny side of thirty.” She frowned and set down her tea. “Sadie, did you ever wonder why you’re filling your mind with thoughts of Rome and ignoring all the boys your own age?”

Sadie was confused. “Because . . . he’s Rome!”

Fern shook her head. “Because he’s safe. He’s a dream. A hope. The real thing is much harder work, but at least it’s real. As long as you keep feeding that fantasy about Rome, you hold all these fellows at arm’s length.” She pointed out the window. Gideon Smucker was talking to Menno at the wagon and kept casting sidelong glances in Sadie’s direction. “Fellows like that boy. He hangs around like a summer cold.”

With her chin propped on her fist, Sadie pondered that remark. Was Fern right? Was she hiding behind her fears? She looked over at the bakery counter. Was spending most of her time in the kitchen just another way to hide?

Fern reached out and covered Sadie’s hand with hers, a rare display of affection. “Sadie girl, don’t waste these years. Time is like the Mississippi River. It only flows in one direction. You can never go back.” She glanced at the wall clock, swallowed the last sip of tea, and set the cup down. “Let’s go. Julia’s quilt will be getting auctioned off soon.”

The formal auction had started at two and began with the auctioneer selling off farm tools, some livestock, a handful of quarter horses, flowers and plants, other quilts and wall hangings. The crowd was small at first, but the gathering grew as the time came for Julia’s quilt to be auctioned off at 4:00 p.m. The last item of the day. Julia wasn’t sure if she should stay for it. What if it didn’t bring in the money she had hoped? What if no one bid on it? She should leave.

As she spun around, she caught sight of Paul, standing on the fringe. He had been waiting for her to notice him. She walked over to him. For a moment they simply stared at each other, saying nothing. He looked utterly dejected. She wanted to reach out and take his hand, but she could not do that. She wanted to cry for him, but she could not do that either. So she simply said, “I am very sorry, Paul. Truly sorry.”

He tried to smile at her, but he couldn’t quite manage it. “I hope your quilt brings in more than last year.”

“Thank you.” She heard the auctioneer sing out something about her quilt, and she thought she should slip through the crowd, fast, make a quick exit. But suddenly Fern, Sadie, Menno, M.K., and Uncle Hank surrounded her. Sadie clasped her hands around Julia’s and squeezed.

“NERVOUS?” Uncle Hank bellowed.

She gave a shaky laugh as she watched the auctioneer. “Extremely.”

“DON’T BE,” he said, with typical Uncle Hank–like assurance.

She glanced in Paul’s direction, but he was gone.

The auctioneer motioned to two men to bring the quilt out. It was hung on a rack, but folded up so no one could see the pattern. The auctioneer started talking in that rushed, frenetic way of his: “And here we have an original Julia Lapp quilt!”

Why did he have to say that?!
Edith Fisher turned slightly and caught Julia with the corner of her eye, and Julia cringed.

A hush fell over the crowd as the auctioneer unclipped Julia’s quilt so that it draped to the floor. It was so quiet you could have heard a barn owl hoot in the next county.
Everybody hates it,
Julia thought.
It’s a disaster. The worst quilt ever created.
Her cheeks felt flushed and she thought about bolting. No, she couldn’t do that. She was a grown-up. But she felt like an embarrassed five-year-old.

“Let’s start the bidding at one thousand dollars. Do I hear one thousand?” A hand bounced up. “I hear one thousand. Do I have one thousand five hundred?” Another hand. “One thousand five hundred. Do I hear two thousand?” Another hand in the crowd popped up. The auctioneer looked pleased. “Do I hear three thousand?” Another hand. “Do I hear four thousand?”

This went on for another moment—an eternity—until the bidding slowed at ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars! Julia was stunned. The auctioneer picked up his gavel. “Ten thousand dollars going once. Going twice!” He held his gavel suspended in the air. The crowd caught its breath.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars!” shouted a voice.

After a moment of stunned silence the crowd started clapping like summer thunder.

“Sold!” the auctioneer said, slamming the gavel with enthusiasm. “Sold to the man in the panama hat!”

On orders from Julia, M.K. darted through the crowd to find the man in the panama hat at the checkout table and escort him to the family. Julia wanted to thank him, but she also wanted to find out why in the world he had bid so much for her quilt. M.K. wove her way through clumps of people who were buzzing in wonder over the amount of the bid. She was having fun! On a mission of top importance. She stopped now and then to jump up and see if she could still locate the top of his hat. And stopped another time to take note of a woman’s teetery red high-heeled shoes. How could anyone walk in those? They were practically stilts. Her eyes caught sight of the man, bending over the checkout table as he wrote a check, so she ducked down one more time and zigzagged through the crowd to reach him. When she made it to the table, she looked around triumphantly.

NO! She was too late! The man in the panama hat had paid for the quilt and left.