Mending Hearts

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  “Denke,” he said, a little stiffly. Maybe that was a flush on his cheeks?

  “I see Daad.” Better than having to tell her mother, who wouldn’t be able to hide her delight that David had singled her out. Miriam would have to deal with Mamm’s speculation later, but not where others among their community would note it. Particularly Esther, if she still lingered in the group around Mamm. “I’ll let him know I’m going with you.”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  She started toward the barn, then turned around, walking backward to tease, “I should have asked how safe this is. Copper isn’t pulling your buggy today, is he?”

  His grin pleased her. “Copper isn’t ready for such an exciting day. You can trust yourself to Dexter.”

  Miriam laughed and hurried toward her father. Ridiculous to feel so stirred up, so . . . giddy, when she didn’t know whether David was being anything but friendly. After all, he did live right next door from her family. He wouldn’t be going out of his way to deliver her home.

  The voice of common sense didn’t squelch this lighter-than-air feeling that made her want to twirl like she had as a little girl until her head spun like a yo-yo.

  * * *

  * * *

  David couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  They’d turned onto the road, and he flicked the reins. His onkel’s obedient horse speeded up willingly to a trot.

  He tried not to lie to himself, so he knew why he’d asked Miriam to ride with him. Seeing her with Gideon, the two talking like best friends, so close their arms might have brushed against each other, had hit him hard, almost as if he’d really taken a blow. He’d grown comfortable with the idea of he and Miriam as friends. Her status as a spinster seemed set in people’s minds; he hadn’t thought about what he’d feel if that changed.

  Now he knew.

  He’d gone ab im kopf, as wildly off in his head as his horse.

  Everyone would assume he was announcing his intention of becoming a come-calling friend, a man interested in marriage. She would think that. If he didn’t want her to, he needed to say something. Now.

  I wanted to talk to you about Esther. That would work, except he had nothing new to say. So far as he knew, Levi’s mamm had endured the work frolic with reasonable grace.

  He could throw out the idea of Miriam coming over when she had time to help with Copper, but he knew better than to make such a suggestion. She was already so busy, he wondered how she managed. Working, if not full-time, close to it, helping her mother, jumping in whenever anyone else needed her. Quilting, too. Anyway, inviting her again to spend time at his place, alone with him, would be as bad as asking if he could drive her home in his buggy.

  He stole a glance at her, to see her sitting with a very straight back, staring straight ahead. Given that her face was shielded by the black bonnet, she certainly wasn’t looking at him. He wasn’t the only uncomfortable one, then—although she might be now because he’d been mute so far, acting like a doppick.

  “I heard about Ira Hilty’s wife,” he heard himself say. Good, a topic. “That you’ve been helping out. I know him, but not her.”

  “They met when she was here visiting from Iowa. Rudy and Hannah Brenneman are Tamara’s aenti and onkel. She’s . . . having to stay resting as much as possible.”

  The subject of pregnancy was a delicate one. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. Amishmen pretended they hadn’t noticed a woman was pregnant until they could express congratulations after the birth. For certain sure, Miriam had been careful not to say that Tamara was having health problems related to her pregnancy.

  “It’s good of you to help so Ira can keep working.”

  “I’m only one of many. I know Judith spent a morning with Tamara this week.”

  It was actually his mother who’d mentioned the difficulties Ira’s wife was having.

  “They have three children,” Miriam continued. “Only the oldest is in school. That’s mostly why Tamara can’t be left alone.”

  “Two preschoolers would be a handful,” he agreed.

  Her face relaxed into a reminiscent smile. “I’ve had fun with them. Ann, the oldest, is learning to be a good cook. Usually I don’t have a chance to spend much time with children, except for Abby, of course.”

  Did she sound . . . wistful?

  Of course she did. With her warmth and sense of humor and endless energy, she’d be a wonderful mother. If she and Levi had married, she’d probably have three kinder by now, like Tamara.

  If that had happened, would Levi have been able to continue as David’s partner in their logging business? The thought hadn’t occurred to him before, but he saw now that it would have been challenging. Even with Levi single, he’d been able to work at the second job only because David, in turn, had spent so much time helping on the Schwartz farm instead of his own family’s.

  Daad had never once said, I need you, too. He had to have guessed early on that his oldest wasn’t meant to be a farmer—ach, maybe he hadn’t wanted him to be, as useless as David had been, wound up like a top—but he could have used a second strong back in the years before Jake was old enough to step in.

  I must have worn blinders, David couldn’t help thinking. He’d been smart in one way to find work he could do, and do well, but now many of his choices just seemed selfish. He’d certainly gone astray from his faith long before he realized it.

  “What are you thinking?” Miriam asked softly. For the first time since he’d helped her into the buggy, she was looking at him.

  He didn’t respond for a minute. Then: “I keep stumbling over memories. Today Jake said that Levi was more my brother than he’d ever been. Not as if he was jealous,” he said hastily. “Still, it made me see that I hurt his feelings. Just now, I thought about Daad, who needed me working beside him. Instead, I was determined to start the business with Levi.”

  “Did your father ever complain?”

  “No. I think he’d given up on me farming with him. He knew how restless I was.”

  “He’s a good daad.”

  “Ja.” David’s mouth twisted. “More patient than I deserved. What I just thought, when you asked, is that I must have worn blinders night and day. For a horse sharing the road with cars and motorcycles and bicycles, wearing them is a good idea. For a man, it means you’re so busy looking ahead, you’re blind to too many other people and their needs.”

  Almost expecting her to rush to assure him he was being too hard on himself, David was surprised by her silence. He glanced over to see her expression troubled.

  “I did the same.” Her tone had a weight to it. “Levi meant so much to me, I didn’t really see other people. Julia says I was fixed on him.” She frowned. “No, not that—fixated. It’s not a word I know, but it sounds right. You and I should have been friends, but we weren’t.”

  “No.” He prayed that she never knew why that was, as far as he was concerned. What would she feel, thinking a man she’d never even looked at twice had been obsessed with her?

  Ja, fixated. Narrisch—mad—for a girl five and a half years younger than him, one who looked at him, on the rare occasions when she actually did, as if she wasn’t quite sure who he was. He’d spent time with other girls before she caught his eye at her first singing after reaching rumspringa, but from then on he’d watched her. She was pretty and he would have liked to smooch with her, sure, but what amazed him was her generosity and unfailing kindness. Ja, and her smile, bright as the sun at its height.

  Most often aimed at Levi.

  “I’m sorry, David,” Miriam said suddenly. “I don’t know what was wrong with me. Please forgive me.”

  “Forgive you?” Startled, he might have put more emphasis on that than he should have. “You didn’t owe me anything. You were never rude.”

  “Wasn’t I?”

  And speaking of not seeing . . . they were
nearly home. Ahead, Copper had heard the hoofbeats or smelled his pasture mate, because he danced in the corner formed by the fence, neighing a welcome.

  Dexter trotted faster.

  “Oh, no.” Miriam again. “This hasn’t been a happy conversation, has it? I didn’t mean to get stuck in the past. I had mostly put it all behind me, you know.”

  “Until I came home?” he asked harshly.

  “Ja, I think so,” she admitted, barely above a whisper. “That’s no excuse.”

  “You’re not the only one stuck. I thought when I came home—” Throat clogging, he broke off.

  They had swept past Copper, who turned to canter along the fence line, keeping even with them, tossing his head.

  David had to shake the reins to let Dexter know that he couldn’t turn in to his own driveway but must go on. Stopped by the fence, the two-year-old let out a ringing protest behind them that had Dexter’s ears swiveling.

  The Bowmans’ mailbox and driveway lay just ahead. Mollified, Dexter turned there instead.

  Panic squeezed David’s chest. Whatever he’d intended, this conversation during the drive wasn’t it. In fact, it qualified as a disaster, he thought.

  Except . . . both of them were willing to speak openly to each other. That meant something, didn’t it?

  Compressed gravel crunched beneath the wheels. Within seconds, the narrow lane opened into a wider space from the house to the barn, allowing for buggies to turn around easily.

  They had left before Eli and Deborah, and Miriam was the only one of their kinder left at home. The silence made him wonder why they had no dogs.

  When he stopped the buggy as close to the house as possible, David doubted it had crossed her mind that he might kiss her. Not that the idea had crossed his mind—except a few thousand times when he lay awake at night, wondering whether he could ever move past this futile attraction to a woman who would never be his.

  This afternoon, she had agreed to let him bring her home . . . and, under the circumstances, that held only one meaning among the Amish.

  Had he imagined . . . ? Had his invitation come out of nowhere but a refusal to see Miriam Bowman turn to some other man . . . ? Ja. He still dreamed.

  But she had already opened her door and sprang out with her usual grace. “Denke, David. I’m glad we talked.” She offered him a smile that was almost impish. “Maybe where we set our feet from now on won’t be so sticky, ain’t so?”

  So sticky? Ah. He got it.

  “Maybe not.”

  “And if you really need it . . .” She looked shy. “You will always have my forgiveness.”

  It was a knife blade sliding between his ribs straight into his heart. If she ever did know, how could she forgive him?

  “Denke,” he said hoarsely, the best he could come up with.

  From the shadow beneath the bonnet brim, her eyes searched his gravely for a moment before she nodded and rushed toward her house.

  At least he didn’t have to worry about her thinking he wanted to court her, he thought bleakly. He’d apparently taken care of that.

  He should be glad.

  Chapter Fourteen

  What had happened, at the end?

  Not allowing herself to watch David drive away, Miriam let herself into the quiet house. She wondered if Mamm and Daad would have lingered after the fellowship meal talking to friends, to give her and David privacy. She hoped they did. She wasn’t ready to explain anything about that ride home or her talk with him.

  Now that David had confessed and been brought fully back into the membership, Mamm would likely turn to scheming to bring him and her daughter together. They’d played right into her hands, leaving together. Did he have any idea that’s what her mother would assume, if not his as well?

  Hadn’t she hoped, when he asked to drive her home?

  Why did they keep circling back to the past?

  Restless, she removed her bonnet and hung it on a peg, peeked into the kitchen but didn’t see a single thing demanding her attention, and finally walked out the back door. Several years ago, Daad had built a bench that circled an old apple tree, hoping Mamm would slow down sometimes and sit here in the shade. Watch the pattern of sunlight as it fell through the branches, listen to the birdcalls, maybe take her shoes off and wriggle her toes in the grass.

  Miriam had never seen her mother sit on the bench since she’d admired it after Daad first brought her out to see it. The only time she sat at all was to string and snap green beans or shell peas, or in the evening to mend or knit while Daad read Bible passages. The rare times she’d taken a nap, the whole family worried.

  Not that Daad was much better. Eli liked his work. She’d seen him fidget after dinner, and the next time she’d look, he would have slipped out to his workshop in the barn. Kerosene light wasn’t adequate for him to do much, but he could sand whatever piece he was working on; touch was more important for that than sight, he would tell anyone.

  Well, Miriam thought defiantly, right now, I’m going to sit. Why not? She had plenty to think about, especially that last expression on David’s face. If she weren’t imagining things, she’d believe she had hurt him. She couldn’t be certain; he’d hidden what he felt so fast, she’d have missed it if she’d blinked at the wrong moment.

  And maybe imagination was the right word, as in she was letting hers run wild. What could she possibly have said? And what made her think it was in her power to hurt him?

  Ach, it was the whole conversation, it had to be. And that was her fault, encouraging him to talk about old mistakes. Talking about her own mistakes. Why had she told him she hadn’t even noticed him back then? Was that where the whole conversation went wrong? Him thinking he still wasn’t anyone important to her?

  When that was the last thing in the world she wanted him to think?

  Had she been stumbling half-asleep through her life but was suddenly awake?

  Half-asleep—no, half-dead—as she’d been for six years, these feelings kept taking her by surprise. With Levi . . . it was different. She’d been determined to marry him, but not in a hurry. They’d smooched, but without real urgency. Other young couples had gone too far, had to repent before the congregation and marry fast before a boppli was born, but nothing between her and Levi had been that heated.

  A part of her rebelled. I loved him. I did.

  Shaken, she thought, ja, of course she had, but maybe as a girl focused on a hazy future, not a woman on the man with whom she longed to spend the rest of her life.

  And why, of all men, was it Levi’s best friend who’d awakened these unexpected feelings in her?

  But she knew, in one way. Both had struggled with belonging, maybe with loneliness. Most people she knew were contented with their lives, not complicating them by asking questions instead of simply accepting, maybe making mistakes that would trip them up in the future.

  When her parents came home, Miriam hadn’t moved. She thought the chances were good neither would see her here near the garden—except, of course, once they didn’t find her in the house, they’d come looking.

  It was her mother who crossed the distance from the house. “Miriam?”

  Hoping her eyes weren’t damp, Miriam raised her gaze. “Mammi.”

  “You’re disturbed.” Her mother astonished her by settling on the bench beside her, as if they often came out here to talk.

  She’d hidden so much from her family. Luke, she thought, saw the deepest, because he’d had his own conflicts. And Julia was the one person Miriam had come the closest to completely confiding in.

  Now, even aware she was betraying the subject of her thoughts, she asked, “When you first met Daad, did you know right away that he was the man you’d marry?” He’d been in his twenties, she knew, when he and his brother moved to Tompkin’s Mill.

  Usually a brisk, practical woman, Deborah Bowman let h
er face soften as she looked at her daughter. “The very minute. He claims he felt the same, but I’m not so sure. Me, I made sure he noticed me.”

  Miriam smiled despite the lump in her throat. “Like what I felt for Levi.”

  Her mother turned her head to gaze toward the house. “I was older when I met Eli. Ready for a family, not a girl deciding she’d never consider anyone else but the boy who’d been kind to her.”

  “Daad said something like that to me recently. That he and you worried.”

  “We did, but not because Levi wasn’t a good man. Hardworking, taking care of his mother as he should. Sometimes wild, but he’d have outgrown that. Just . . . you were so young. So determined.”

  I was that, Miriam admitted silently. Mind made up, unwilling to deviate from her goal.

  “He saved your life once,” Mamm said suddenly. “Or, at least, you thought he had. I was never sure how much danger you were really in.”

  Miriam gaped at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You might have drowned. You were, ach, six or seven then?”

  Her eyes widened. “Wait. I do remember,” she whispered. “It was the pond at the Bontrager farm, wasn’t it?” There’d been a long board extending out over the water, floating on inner tubes. For fishing, maybe. Entranced, she had danced the full length . . . until she tripped, bounced off the board, and went into the water. After that, it was a blur. “A boy pulled me out.”

  “Ja, Levi. You didn’t know that?”

  A boy’s face, taut with fear. She saw that. He had been pressing hard on her back to expel water. “It was so frightening, I tried not to remember.”

  “Your daad wanted to teach you to swim,” Mamm continued. “When he took you to Hiram’s pond, you screamed until he gave up.”

  That boy was her hero. Stayed her hero, even if she didn’t remember why. The explanation was so simple.

  It was unnerving to see herself, not only David and Levi, with new clarity.

  “Have I been so stubborn,” she asked, “that I couldn’t accept life surprising me? Levi died, and I refused to imagine that my life might take another path?”