Winnie reached for Ben again, but Esther bounced the baby on her hip and kissed her three times on her forehead. “Hush now, heartzley. Onkel Ben has to go. He’ll be back soon to play with you.” She pointed to a duffle bag sitting on the sofa next to the quilt. “I’ve packed your coat and Levi’s snow pants, boots, and gloves. Take them with you. I’d rather not have your frozen self show up on my doorstep again. Your ears were so cold, I could have snapped them off your head like pea pods.”
Ben shook his head and turned his face away from Esther, stifling an affectionate smile that stole Linda’s breath. Ben Kiem truly was a puzzle. One minute he was pleasant and funny, affectionate with his family, the next he was pouty and irritated, guarding his emotions behind a wall of resentment. What kind of person was hiding behind all those layers of flesh and stone? And why did she suddenly feel sorry for him?
Linda squared her shoulders and stopped staring. She didn’t really want to know.
Ben moved reluctantly to the sofa and hooked his fingers around the handle of the duffle bag. Then he kissed Winnie again and took a step toward the front door. Sighing, Esther grabbed his sleeve, pulled him back, and planted a swift kiss on his cheek. Linda pretended not to notice. The Amish in her community in Wisconsin and even here in Colorado tended to be more reserved with their affection.
Ben made a face and swiped his hand down his cheek as if trying to wipe off any hint of Esther’s kiss, like a schoolboy might do after being kissed by a girl at recess. Esther laughed, and he grinned in spite of himself, his eyes dancing with amusement. For some reason, Ben, in all his prickliness, seemed to blossom with even a small measure of Esther’s approval. Even though Linda was known to be insensitive and unsympathetic, she could see that Ben needed Esther’s acceptance, needed her kindness, no matter how much he pushed her away. How nice that Esther saw it too. Linda liked Esther more and more all the time.
* * *
Ben Kiem was the most annoying, childish boy in Colorado, or at least the most annoying boy on the trail. “Haven’t we gone far enough? This is dumm,” he said, huffing and puffing as if gasping his final, dying breaths.
Was there anyone in the world besides Esther and Winnie Kiem who even liked Ben? Who cared if he had a nice smile? Nobody ever saw it.
Ashley glanced back at Linda who in turn glanced back at Ben. Ben was so slow, Dylan, Sissy, and Ashley had passed him, and he was lagging a good twenty feet behind Linda. They weren’t even really going uphill. And it had nothing to do with the fact that this was his first time snowshoeing. Snowshoeing was easy enough for anyone with even an average amount of balance and fitness. Ben was dragging his feet, literally, and being completely lazy about where he put his snowshoes and how fast he moved. Linda didn’t know whether to be annoyed at Ben or embarrassed for him.
Ashley paused to glance at Ben and curled one side of her mouth. “Why did you want to bring him?”
Linda laughed, not even caring if Ben heard her. He was being deliberately difficult and didn’t deserve her consideration.
Linda had met her Englisch friend Ashley one day last summer when she and Elmer Lee had been canoeing at Home Lake. Ashley had given them some pointers on paddling, and they’d become friends because of their shared love of outdoor activities. Ashley invited Linda whenever she went skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, or canoeing. Linda owned her own pair of cross-country skis, but she never went downhill skiing. It was too expensive and time consuming, and Linda didn’t want anyone paying her way, even though Ashley had offered several times.
It was nice to have a friend who owned a car and could drive them all over the valley or out to the sand dunes. Ashley’s brother Dylan usually joined them in their adventures. Dylan’s girlfriend, Sissy, was a new addition to the group. Even though she was a beginner, Sissy seemed to be doing just fine on her snowshoes. Ben simply had an attitude problem.
The sharp, cold air did nothing to mar the beautiful sunny day. There wouldn’t be many more days like this for months. In another three weeks or so, the snow would start to melt, and ski season would be over. Linda had hiked or snowshoed the Rock Creek Trail many times over the last year, and the view of the valley at the end of the trail was spectacular. If Ben could just hold on for another mile or so, he’d get the view of a lifetime. Or maybe he wouldn’t. He didn’t seem like someone who would appreciate the aspens and lodgepole pines and the breathtaking scenery as much as he would a spray-painted wall or a free pack of cigarettes. There was no accounting for taste.
“Linda,” Ben called, now thirty feet behind the rest of them. “I’m going to head back. I’ll meet you by the car.”
Linda made a full stop and turned around. “Don’t go back. It’s the first rule of the wilderness. Never hike alone. You’ll get lost.”
“I won’t get lost. I just have to follow the trail.”
“Don’t, Ben.”
He stabbed one of his poles into the ground as if to protest all the injustice he’d ever suffered in his entire life. With his pole firmly in the snow, he tried to turn around. Because he was favoring his injured left leg, he didn’t lift it quite as high as he should have, and he ended up stepping on the back of his right snowshoe with his left foot. When he tried to disentangle his snowshoes, he tripped over one of his poles, teetered off the trail, and disappeared into a bank of powdery snow.
“Ben!” Linda called, more annoyed than alarmed. The snow wasn’t extremely deep, and his landing would have been sufficiently soft. One pole and one snowshoe stuck out from the snow, the only sign that Ben was there. He was going to panic, and panic would only make it harder to get out of the deep snow. She glanced at Ashley. “We’ll catch up.”
Ashley smirked. “I guess it wouldn’t be very nice to leave him there.”
“Probably not.” As fast as was physically possible, Linda shuffled to the spot where Ben had fallen off the trail.
Ben’s head popped out of the snow, followed by his arms. He coughed and flailed about as if he were drowning. Standing up was hard with a pair of snowshoes on your feet, especially in deep, powdery snow. It was much like being an upside-down turtle. You just couldn’t gain enough traction to help yourself out.
The thought of turtles, flailing arms and legs, and Ben’s wounded pride struck Linda’s funny bone, and she couldn’t stop herself from bursting into laughter. He looked ridiculous, and he’d brought it on himself.
His scowl could have melted all the snow on the trail. “Don’t laugh at me,” he said, trying to push himself up with his poles.
“Don’t,” Linda said, swallowing her laughter. “You’ll break your poles and hurt your back.”
“Like you care.”
Ach, dumm boy. He was so pigheaded. “Stop fighting the snow. You’ll just sink deeper.” Linda stepped to the very edge of the trail where the snow was soft and powdery. She reached out to him. “Give me your hand.”
“Nae, denki.”
Linda propped her hand on her hip. How did he think he was going to get out of there without her help?
He clutched both his poles in one hand, rolled onto his stomach, and pushed himself to a kneeling position. On his hands and knees with the tips of his snowshoes dragging on the ground, he crawled out of the deep depression in the snow and onto the snow-packed trail where he scooted his feet under him and stood up.
Linda’s smile grew as she watched his progress. “That was smart.”
His dark eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not as much of an idiot as you think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot. You got out of that hole.”
He narrowed his eyes. “No thanks to you.”
“I offered my hand.”
“You couldn’t have pulled me up. I weigh at least forty pounds more than you do.”
That was probably true. Ben looked like he was made entirely of muscle. She slapped the snow off Ben’s coat sleeve. He pulled away from her. “We need to get the snow off so you don’t get wet,” she said. “The cold is wo
rse when you’re wet.” He must have given her credit for knowing something because he bent over and brushed off his snow pants while Linda worked on his sleeves and the back of his coat. “You wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t gone off the trail. The snow on the sides can be deep and soft. Sometimes you can’t even walk on it with snowshoes.”
“If you’d told me that instead of making fun of me, I wouldn’t have fallen. But maybe you’d rather help me off a cliff than help me up the mountain.”
“Ach, for goodness sake, all you’ve done is whine since we got here.”
“And all you and Ashley have done is laugh at me. I knew you’d make fun of me. That’s why I didn’t want to come.”
Guilt niggled at her, like a mosquito buzzing on the ceiling of her conscience. “I’m not making fun of you.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. She definitely thought he’d gotten his just desserts. “I’m laughing with you, not at you.”
“I’m not laughing,” he said, his gaze accusing her with its intensity.
“You don’t have to be so . . .”
“So what? Embarrassed? Irritated? You brought me here just so you could humiliate me in front of your friends. Is this punishment for the broken taillight or that picture I painted in the snow? Or maybe just because you hate me?”
“What a dumm thing to say. I laughed because it was funny the way you sort of teetered on your tippy toes before you fell, like a three-year-old dancing.”
“This is my first time snowshoeing. How am I supposed to know what I’m doing?”
“Sissy’s doing fine.”
“Because her boyfriend cares enough to help her.” He pointed up the trail. Dylan was stuck like glue behind Sissy, calling encouraging things to her and pointing out places where the trail might be tricky.
Linda’s stomach sank past her knees. Okay, maybe Ben had a point.
And maybe he didn’t. She cleared her throat and clenched her jaw. Linda wasn’t trying to humiliate him. She simply refused to coddle someone who didn’t need any special treatment. “Dylan is nicer than I am.”
“That’s for sure and certain. All you’ve shown me is contempt, like you think you’re so much better than me. Well, I have news for you. You’re not better than anybody. So quit laughing, and let me alone.”
Linda found Ben’s stupidity kind of funny, but she clamped her lips together to keep from laughing. Laughing only irritated him. And maybe he wasn’t exceptionally stupid. He used words like “contempt.” “It seems you don’t want to think on your own sins, so you accuse me of something that isn’t even true. Believe me. I don’t think I’m better than anybody.”
“You think you’re better than me. You brought me up here to put me in my place.”
Ben Kiem was determined to see it his way. “Oh, sis yuscht! I didn’t bring you up here to humiliate you. You’ve humiliated yourself by acting like a baby. You’re perfectly able to pull your own weight, but all you’ve done is complain.”
He crossed his arms. “Why did you bring me up here?”
“Why did you say yes?”
“I said yes because I promised Esther. But you could have said no and that would have been the end of it.”
“I wish I’d said no.”
“Me too,” he said. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“I agreed to come up here with you because of Esther. But why did you invite me?”
“Ach. I’m not sure.”
“That’s a dumm answer.”
He was the most difficult boy. “It’s a dumm question.”
“You only say that because you don’t want to answer, because you really did bring me out here to embarrass me in front of your friends.”
“That’s not true, and I’ve already told you it’s not true. Ach, Ben, you’re so thick sometimes.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Well, not just sometimes.”
“Not too thick to know there’s a reason you invited me today.”
Linda sighed as if it took great effort to explain everything to him. Mostly it took great effort to understand her own reasons. “Well, I wanted you to know what it really feels like to ski, but then Ashley thought snowshoeing would be easier for a beginner.”
His gaze was a little too piercing for her comfort. “You wanted me to learn how to ski?”
“I suppose. And actually, I was kind of impressed that you had the courage to ask if you could drive me home.”
He smirked. “It wasn’t courage. I’m afraid of Esther.”
Nae. Linda didn’t believe it was fear. It was affection for his sister-in-law. “I invited you because a boy should get out and do other things besides smoke behind the barn and listen to that ridiculous boom box and paint useless pictures on people’s property.”
“So you don’t approve of my life?”
“It doesn’t matter if I approve.”
“I enjoy my life,” he said.
“Do you?” She didn’t believe him for a second. Ben Kiem was a lot of things, but happy wasn’t one of them. He walked around with his shoulders slumped as if he carried the weight of the world. He couldn’t muster a smile to save his life, and he kept his head down at gmay and never sang the hymns. He sneaked around with his friends playing pranks on his neighbors, maybe finding fleeting pleasure, but little happiness and no meaning. “There is no happiness in bad choices.”
“So you brought me up here to make me change my ways?”
“I don’t believe I could make you do anything,” Linda said.
“I don’t want to change, and you can’t change me.”
“Gute, because it’s an impossible project.” She flashed him an I-couldn’t-care-less look and peered up the trail. Her friends were far ahead. “Cum. Let’s catch up.”
“You go on. I’m going back.”
“I was telling the truth, Ben. You can’t go back by yourself. It’s the first rule of the outdoors.”
He frowned. “I’ve been humiliated enough for one day.”
Linda bit the inside of her cheek. She’d brought this on herself, first by inviting Ben to come and second by laughing at, er . . . with him when he fell. Of course someone as self-conscious and touchy as Ben would take her laughter the wrong way. Maybe she should swallow her exasperation and try coaxing him, even though coaxing was right next door to coddling, and coddling was a step away from babying. “I’m sorry I laughed. I truly wasn’t laughing at you.”
“You could have fooled me.”
She pressed her lips together and remembered to be patient. “Elmer Lee says I laugh too much, and Mamm says I think everything is a joke, but I’d rather laugh than cry. Crying gives me a headache.”
He studied her face as if he might be thinking about believing her. Either that or deciding whether he should shove her head in the snow. “I’ve never seen you without a smile,” he muttered.
He probably didn’t know she considered that a compliment. “And I’ve only seen you smile like twice in my whole life.”
“What have I got to smile about? Nobody likes me.”
“Well, of course nobody likes you. You never smile.”
He swiped his glove across his mouth, rubbing away the hint of a pleasant expression. “Now we’re talking in circles.”
She took a couple of steps up the trail in hopes he’d follow. “I’m sorry I haven’t been more help. I’ll stick by you to the end of the trail. It’s wide enough for us to walk side by side so you don’t feel left behind.”
He slowly shuffled up the trail. “I’ll look like a child if you walk next to me.”
Was he purposefully being difficult? Of course he was. Did he want her help or not? “Nae, you won’t. We’ll look like two friends who’d rather visit with each other than get to the top first.”
“Ach, vell. At least we’ll look like that, even if we’re not friends.”
Linda shrugged. “Maybe we’re not friends, but I don’t consider you my enemy, even if you did paint
that hesslich picture of me in the snow.”
A deep shade of red traveled up his face. He expelled a deep breath and avoided her gaze. “That was mean.”
“It sure was.”
“I had to be sure you’d say no when I asked to drive you home. That didn’t work out so well, and I wasted all that paint.”
She gave him a sideways grin. At least he regretted the paint. “Well, I didn’t cry for three days or anything like that. I stomped on it with my boots and forgot about it.”
“Okay. I guess I’m glad.”
She pointed up the trail with her pole. “So will you come? The view from the meadow is wunderbarr.”
She sensed the moment he chose to move ahead instead of turn back. Maybe he’d decided to trust her. Maybe he didn’t want to look stupid in front of her friends. Maybe he wanted to finish what he’d started. “Okay, but don’t laugh at me again, or I’ll go sit in the car.” He took off his straw hat and tapped it against his thigh to knock off the snow.
Linda clapped her hand over her mouth before a giggle could escape.
He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“Your hat,” she squeaked.
He examined his hat. At the back, the brim had come away from the cap, just like his black church hat after skiing. His features darkened momentarily, as if he was going to scold her for laughing, then his face relaxed and his lips twitched as if wanting to smile but not knowing how. “Ach,” he grunted. “Two hats in one month. Mamm will think I did it on purpose.”
Linda let the laughter spill from her mouth. “Maybe you should wear a plastic hat. It wouldn’t rip.”
“That would be worse. Plastic snaps when it gets cold.”
They started up the trail, but Linda held no hope of catching her friends until they stopped at the meadow. As they walked and Ben got more out of breath, Linda did most of the talking. She told him about cross-country skiing at the golf course and on Old Monarch Pass Road where the snowmobiles zoomed past like birds of prey. She told him about the time Elmer Lee lost his shoe in the river and about when they had gone to the sand dunes and tried sand skiing.
The Amish Quiltmaker's Unruly In-Law Page 5