by Amy Lillard
“Why him?” she asked.
“Le-ah!” Hannah exclaimed.
“You know what I mean.”
Gracie wished she didn’t.
“Tell me,” Hannah coaxed.
“He’s . . .” Leah searched her brain for the best word.
Intimidating? Gracie thought. Daunting?
“Frightening,” Leah finally said. “That man is scary.”
“Le-ah!” Hannah again.
“Tell me it’s not true, and I’ll take it back.”
Hannah opened her mouth to respond, but Leah jumped in first. “And no lying.”
Hannah exhaled without a word.
Leah sat back, self-satisfied.
“It’s still not a nice thing to say,” Hannah admonished.
“But true.” Leah grinned. “I mean look at the man.” She went on to describe Matthew in great and horrible detail. Maybe it wasn’t just Gracie who found him to be a big, hulking mass with a scowling beard and cold eyes.
“When did you become such an expert?” Hannah asked. “You don’t even go to church with us. How do you know all this?”
Leah shrugged. “He comes into the shop from time to time.”
“Really? And you just now decided to share this information?”
“Why not?”
“He comes into the secondhand store?” When Leah moved back to Pontotoc, she opened a secondhand store on Main Street. She catered to Plain people with housewares and modest clothes. She also carried a line of goat-milk products that the three of them made. They got together every Tuesday to fill special orders and restock the basics. So far it was a lucrative endeavor.
“He came in a couple of months ago with a bunch of dresses and aprons.”
“Those must have been his wife’s clothes. That was right about the time she died,” Gracie murmured.
Leah nodded. “He also took some baby clothes. I tried not to watch him, but it’s next to impossible.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a true busybody.”
But Gracie knew the truth. It was hard not to watch Matthew. Something about him commanded attention. She wasn’t sure if it was his sheer size, that black-as-ink beard, or an energy around him that pulled the attention to him. Whatever it was, Leah was right. And yet you couldn’t look too long. He emanated a power that was hard to look at for very long. Gracie preferred to think this was the essence of God coming through him, but she didn’t know. Honestly, there wasn’t much she knew about the man. His name, his wife’s name, the fact that she drowned in a creek near their house when the baby was only a couple of weeks old. And . . . nothing. Oh, and that they had moved down from Ohio. Other than that, he was a complete mystery.
* * *
Matthew straightened and looked across the newly turned field. In the next day or so he would be planting. He was ready to get his crops in the ground. This year he was planting half and half, peanuts and soybeans. He preferred to grow peanuts, but the rash of peanut allergies that had risen in the last couple of years had hurt the industry. He couldn’t solely rely on peanuts as his only crop. Not that he ever had. He’d moved down to Mississippi not knowing that the industry was hurting, and saw a need for peanuts since hardly anyone was planting them. But when his crop came in, he got so much less than he had imagined. Beth had worried herself nearly sick. That next year he had planted only soybeans, but his heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t sure why peanuts held such charm for him. They just did. Since then he had been experimenting with different percentages in order to have a crop that he wanted to grow with a crop that he needed to grow. He wasn’t sure fifty-fifty was going to be the answer, but for now it would suffice.
He glanced over to the shade tree at the edge of the field. A pram sat there under the branches, the little hood pulled up to further protect the baby inside. He couldn’t hear her crying, which meant she had probably tuckered herself out and drifted off. He didn’t know what he was going to do with the child. She seemed to hate him, as if she knew that he had somehow been responsible for her mother’s death. That maybe he could have saved her.
And maybe he could have. If he hadn’t gone to the feed store that morning. But he had. And she had decided to take the baby for a walk after breakfast. She couldn’t have planned on being gone long. She left the kettle on the stove, and the twins and Henry playing with the puppies in the barn. Thank heavens Stephen was at school.
But she had fallen into the cold water, possibly even hit her head on a rock, and drowned, leaving Matthew to take care of their five children. Five children he had no idea how to take care of.
He cocked an ear toward the pram, listening for signs that she was awake and crying once more, but nothing. Thank the Lord above. He had no idea what he was going to do come planting time. He had seen an ad in a magazine at the doctor’s office for some contraption the Englisch used to tote their babies around. It was about the craziest thing he had ever seen with straps and buckles and quilted pads to hold the baby in place while the mamm—or maybe even the dat—went about their day with their hands free to do other work. He had stared at it when he saw it, hardly able to believe his eyes. What would the Englisch think of next? And now he was wondering where he could get such a device. Walmart? Maybe. They seemed to have everything else.
The next question was, would the baby allow him to stuff her into it and cart her around all day while he planted? He configured the image in his head and realized it would never work. How was he supposed to keep the sun off her? He might not know a lot about raising children, but of that much he was certain. No sun on the baby. He came in red from the sun on every exposed inch this time of year. But his skin was tough and old. He couldn’t imagine her pale, tender skin in the sun for twelve hours straight.
He supposed he could use the pram again. Though he knew she hated it. Or maybe she just hated everything now that her mother was gone.
And there’s nothing you can do to bring her back.
The boys could keep to themselves in the house or play at the edge of the field. But they couldn’t be trusted to look after their little sister. It wasn’t the best idea, but it was the only one he had at the moment.
Then, just like that, Gracie Glick’s face appeared before his eyes.
He blinked it away. It had been three days since her proposal. Three days of him pushing the thought from his mind, only to have it rise again a little while later. Her idea was crazy, completely out of the question. He didn’t think he would ever get married again. Marriage was hard. It required two people giving their all to make it work. Well, if a couple wanted a happy marriage. He supposed unhappy marriages were as easy as they were miserable. And he couldn’t imagine marrying a woman he didn’t even know just to have a babysitter and a cook. The thought itself sounded callous. No matter how badly he needed a babysitter and a cook. If the boys were older, they would be in school and he could take the baby . . . well, around. Surely there were plenty of people who would be willing to take care of a sweet baby for a day. All he would have to do would be to find six or seven of them and he would be set. But the boys weren’t older and in school. The baby was miserable, not sweet and happy the way babies should be.
Again he saw Gracie, but this time she was holding his baby, rocking her to sleep in her arms. The baby wasn’t crying. She didn’t seem unhappy, and Gracie seemed pleased to do it.
Even after you thrust the child toward her and told her to get the baby back to sleep.
Even then.
At least he didn’t have to worry about the boys. They had been keeping to themselves during the day, playing and working on their chores, helping him out around the house. They were young, but they were good kids. He was blessed that way.
He looked back over the field, a sense of satisfaction surging through him. He could do this. Without a wife. He could take care of his farm and his children. God would show him the way. And all was right in the world.
“Dat! Dat! Dat!”
Adrenaline surge
d through him. His stomach sank, his fingers tingled, and his mouth turned to ash. Something was wrong.
He turned to see Thomas running across the field. His hat had long since flown from his head as he galloped along, his bare feet pressing into the newly turned earth.
Matthew started toward him, dropping the hoe there at the far edge of the field. He would get it later. Right now he had other matters to attend. “What happened?”
They met somewhere in the middle of the field. Thomas was out of breath from running, Matthew from worry.
“Dat,” Thomas wheezed. “Come now. Henry’s hurt.”
* * *
Matthew tapped his foot instead of prowling around the tiny exam room where he and Henry waited.
“I’m sorry, Dat,” Henry said for the umpteenth time. His voice was slightly slurred from the pain medication the doctor had given him when they arrived at the urgent care facility.
“I know,” Matthew replied. He couldn’t say much else. He couldn’t grant Henry forgiveness for actions that weren’t entirely his fault.
Jah, he had told them to stop jumping from the hayloft into the wagon below. And naturally he had expected them to obey. But they were only boys. And Matthew hadn’t bothered to remove the temptation by moving the wagon. He was going to move it soon anyway, up closer to the road to sell to any passersby. But he hadn’t. And now this. Now they waited for the doctor to come in and confirm what they already knew: Henry had broken his arm. The question was in how many places. They were blessed that he hadn’t broken his neck as well.
Trying something new and showing out for his brothers, Henry had tried a belly-flop dive off the hayloft floor and onto the wagon filled with hay below. Matthew couldn’t fathom why Henry thought this would be more fun than landing on his backside, but this was the story he had managed to get out of Thomas. Henry was crying in pain while Benjamin wailed because his brother was crying. It had been hard to hear over all that noise, but the best he had pieced together between Thomas’s own sobs was that Henry had tried his belly flop, bounced off the hard-packed hay, and landed on the ground, his arm bent beneath him and taking the brunt of the fall.
This wouldn’t have happened if Beth were still alive.
You don’t know that.
He didn’t. But it seemed like the only thought his brain could form. If Beth had been there none of this would have happened. He wouldn’t have left the boys alone at the house and taken the baby to the fields. Beth would have been there to watch the baby and the boys. Matthew would have been finished with the field in half the time. He lost so many precious minutes stopping so often to check on the baby. She had been fine. It was the boys who needed constant monitoring. And Beth knew things like that. He didn’t have a clue. How had he gotten so clueless about his own life?
He shook his head at himself. He’d hitched up his horse, bundled all the kids into the buggy, then carted them over to the Gingeriches’. Eunice must have heard Henry’s and the baby’s cries, for she met them on the porch. Bless her heart, she hadn’t even asked Matthew what had happened, just took the kids and nodded at his promise to be back as soon as possible. Then he raced as quickly as he could, doing his best not to cause Henry any more pain than necessary, to the closest Englisch neighbor’s house and begged a ride into town. The neighbor, accustomed to such requests, grabbed his car keys immediately and rushed Henry and him to the medical center.
And now they waited.
Matthew whirled around as a knock sounded on the door only a second before it opened and a petite woman wearing a lab coat came in. She wore her long, dark hair in a braid that swung from side to side as she walked. All that hair reached nearly to her waist. He nodded at her but didn’t speak. His throat was too dry. He cleared it to no avail. Why was he so nervous?
“I’m Dr. Gilbert. I’m guessing you’re Mr. Byler, and you”—she turned toward the bed—“must be Henry.”
“Jah,” the boy said, his voice clearing a bit at the sight of the woman doctor. Henry was nothing if not a boy, and he didn’t want any female to think that he was less than a man.
She smiled. “I’ve got good news and bad news,” she said. “Which would you like to hear first?”
“The good news,” Matthew croaked. He needed something positive and fast.
“Okay, then. The good news is you don’t have to have surgery to repair the breaks.”
“It’s broken?” Henry looked at his arm in wonder.
“Yep. Which brings me to the bad news. It’s broken in three places.” She held up the large X-ray film that Matthew hadn’t noticed when she came in. With efficient movements, she slid it under the metal clamp on the wall and turned on a light behind it. Then she took a pen out of her lab coat pocket. “Here. Here. And here.” She used one end of the pen to point out the breaks, but to Matthew it all looked the same. He squinted but still couldn’t tell any difference.
“They’re small breaks,” she explained as he leaned closer.
He shook his head, and she turned off the light behind the X-ray.
“I guess that’s some good news.” She smiled.
“Does that mean there’s more bad news?” Henry asked.
She nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”
He waited for her to answer.
“Your cast will have to be from above your elbow to the second joints of your fingers.”
Matthew hadn’t thought about a cast. For Henry, that would be worse than a time-out. He could only hope that this would teach him the lesson that the time-outs hadn’t.
A man in a pair of blue scrubs came by with a wheelchair and took Henry away to the casting room. Matthew wanted to go with him, but the doctor with her sweet smile told him that it was better for the parents to stay in the room and wait.
He reluctantly nodded and once again started tapping his foot to keep from pacing.
“They tell me that he fell out of the barn loft,” the doctor said.
Close enough. Matthew nodded.
The doctor made notes on a clipboard that he hadn’t seen either. Henry’s chart, he supposed.
“And he was unsupervised at the time?”
“He was supposed to have been watching his brothers.”
She made another note. “And how old are they?”
“Three,” Matthew choked out. “And a half,” he hurriedly added as she started to write once more.
“Why was he left alone to watch two boys just a little younger than he is himself?”
Matthew shifted. He had heard about this from a couple of his friends before he and Beth had married. The Englisch didn’t understand the Amish way of life. Some called it a hard life, but it was all he knew. He had been hoeing and planting since he was five years old. He had learned how to handle a team a year or two after that and was working a field all his own by the time he turned Stephen’s age. It was just part of their lives.
And yet he had heard of Amish parents accused of child abuse and neglect for allowing their children to be “unsupervised,” to use her word, or to work jobs that grown men did as well. A ten-year-old who could drive a front loader. A twelve-year-old with a full team of Belgians. No one said a thing until someone got hurt.
“Their mother died a couple of months ago,” he heard himself say. “We’re still adjusting.”
She smiled in that understanding way she had. “Thank you, Mr. Byler. Henry will be back in shortly. The intern will give you a complete list of care instructions for his cast. He’ll need to come back in three weeks so we can check his progress.” She started writing again, this time on a small note pad. “This is a prescription for pain medication. It’s a low dose, but it still might make him sleepy.”
Matthew nodded and accepted the paper from her.
“And one last bit of advice?” she said. “Hire a nanny. Boys like Henry are prone to trouble. I see it all day long. They need someone watching over them. I know that you have work to do, but when you’re not around, he needs someone there to keep an eye
on him and help him make better decisions.”
Chapter Three
“Are those Matthew Byler’s twins out playing with Jim and Anna’s twins?” Gracie shook her head at her own words. Two sets of twins, one identical and the other not. But that wasn’t even the strange thing.
“Jah.” Eunice nodded but didn’t stop stirring whatever was in the large mixing bowl on the counter in front of her.
Gracie allowed her gaze to roam around the kitchen. Dough in the mixing bowl, big pot boiling on the stove, the smell of celery and onion floating in the air. “Chicken and dumplings?” she asked.
“I figure this is about the last week we’ll have for them before it gets too hot to eat them.”
“I love chicken and dumplings.” It was one of her favorites.
“Me too.” Eunice grinned. “I think Brandon is coming out to eat. He’s supposed to bring his friend.” She raised one eyebrow into a skeptical arch.
“Shelly?” Gracie snatched a piece of carrot off the chopping block and munched it as she waited for Eunice to reply.
Brandon was Hannah’s son, born after she had moved into the Englisch world but conceived before she had left. Aaron Zook, Hannah’s fiancé, was the boy’s father, though he had known nothing about his son until Hannah returned the year before. Now the two were trying to find their footing in a relationship that could suit them both. It was rough going. Gracie could see it on both their faces whenever the two of them were together, but they were trying, and that was a lot.
Brandon had met Shelly at the library in town where they both went to check in with their online schools. Shelly’s family wasn’t Amish, but they were very conservative. Brandon swore that there was nothing between them, that they were just study partners and met in the library to discuss school issues, but everyone in the Gingerich family suspected that there were more feelings between them than either of them was letting on.
Eunice chuckled. “Of course, Shelly. Who else?”
Gracie pilfered another piece of carrot. “Anyone else coming? There is an awful lot of food scattered around for just the six of us.” Four was their standard number. Gracie, David, Abner, and Eunice. Hannah was out at Aaron’s house each night and Jim’s wife, Anna, cooked for her own family. But this looked to be chicken and dumplings for an army.