Love in Unlikely Places

by Linda Byler

  The totes deposited into the washhouse, the sisters slid off shoes and entered the kitchen, talking and laughing, the room bright and airy with spring sunshine, the chatter of little people, babies fussing on highchairs, her mother’s face flushed and happy as she hurried to heat the sausage gravy and break a few eggs into a pan on the stove.

  “Hey, Titus!”

  Emma bent to pick up her oldest nephew. Sam and Esther’s three-year-old, Titus, was a robust, curly-haired boy with a ruddy complexion. He worshipped his Aunt Emma.

  “Hey . . . hey . . . look. Watch!”

  He wriggled, slammed his feet into her sides till she released him and stood back to watch him execute a cartwheel of sorts, albeit a wobbly, dangerous-looking one.

  “Wow!” Emma clapped her hands. “Good job, T.”

  He closed his eyes slightly, then rushed over and hugged her legs. She bent to pick him up, kissed his round cheek, which he immediately swabbed with the back of his hand, his eyes laughing into hers.

  “Hey! No wiping off kisses. I’ll have to give you another one.”

  She bent to greet Emily, Ruth and Emanuel’s two-year-old, who stood patiently waiting her turn for her Aunt Emma’s attention. A shy, thin child with blond hair pulled into a ponytail on each side of her head, she held up two fingers before Emma grabbed her.

  “Look, Aunt Emma. I’m two. Two fingers.”

  “Yes, you are two. Big girl. Soon you’ll be washing dishes, right?”

  Emily nodded and placed two small hands on either side of Emma’s face, a serious concentrated look in her eyes. Then she placed a kiss on the tip of Emma’s nose, giggling with a tinkling sound.

  “Aw, Emily you little sweetie. I love you so much.”

  Emma crushed Emily to her chest until the little girl grunted.

  “You must be doing something right, raising these lovable little ones. You wouldn’t believe how they brighten my day.”

  “Here are your eggs.”

  Her mother placed a Corelle plate with two perfectly fried eggs in the middle, followed by the pan of heated sausage gravy. She brought the reheated toast and a glass of juice, her rounded figure moving with ease from stove to table, the same route she had taken hundreds of thousands of times through the years. Then she returned to the stove to flip the sizzling pancakes.

  “Thanks, Mam. I am starved.”

  Emma spread softened butter on homemade toasted bread, followed by a heaping spoonful of raspberry jam. There was no delicate partaking of food at that point, so she lowered her head and enjoyed large bites for the first few moments before sitting back with a wide grin.

  “Mm-mm. Nothing better, Mam. Your sausage gravy should be nationally famous. Better than Bob Evans.”

  “Oh, now come on.”

  Her mother’s pleasantly wide face was shining with the praise, her green eyes snapping behind her rimless eyeglasses. A compliment was not easily received, but brushed off lest one become grosfeelich.

  Emma liberally buttered two pancakes, upended the maple syrup and drenched them before cutting a portion with the side of her fork.

  “Where’s Abram and Steven?” Esther asked, lifting her coffee cup to her lips.

  “They’re both working for Henry Zook on the construction crew,” her mother answered.

  “What? When did that happen? I never thought Dat would allow it. Who’s going to help with the produce? Emma?”

  Oh boy. Here it comes, Emma thought.

  She ate bite after bite of her pancake, her eyes downcast, suddenly deciding the business of keeping her eyes at pancake level was best.

  “Are you, Emma?” Esther asked.

  “Am I what?”

  “Going to help with the produce?”

  “Probably not.”

  Her mother’s face turned toward her, a shocked expression emerging as Emma’s words assaulted her.

  “But . . . Emma. Dat is counting on you and Dena.”

  “I know.”

  The words were forced from compressed lips.

  “Emma, whatever. You’re acting strangely. Look at us.” Ruth was moving a spoonful of sausage gravy toward fussy little Owen’s mouth.

  Emma lifted her eyes, sat back against the chair, crossed her arms around her waist and nodded. She took a steadying breath and then launched in to the explanation she knew she’d have to give eventually.

  “Okay. This is hard. Mam, I know this will not be easy for you or Dat, but I have come to a decision. I need to expand my horizons, get off the farm, away from the teaching. I know I am no longer the teacher I used to be, mostly on account of being sick and tired of it. I need to go out into the big scary world and get a real job.”

  “But teaching is a real job, Emma!” Esther burst out.

  “Do you know how much I was paid, Esther?”

  “Well, yeah. Of course. You’re single. It doesn’t take much. You of all people should know that.”

  “You know, Esther, this may sound harsh, but you don’t know how boring it gets doing the same thing endlessly. Teaching school. Helping Mam. Laundry, cleaning, the produce fields for Dat. Has it ever occurred to anyone that I might want a life of my own?”

  “A life?” Ruth shrieked. “What in the world is wrong with you? You go on trips with Anna Mae and Carla, you buy whatever you want, you own a hundred dresses and thirty pairs of shoes and as many coats. You don’t have to answer to one other person and you want a life?”

  Esther gave supporting testimony with a resounding, “Whatever.”

  As usual, her mother’s wisdom kicked in, and she said nothing. But she gave away her agitation by rising to her feet and gathering dishes to carry to the sink.

  Fifteen-year-old Dena made an appearance, carrying an empty laundry basket and a telltale comic book with a finger inserted between pages.

  “It took you long enough to put away that basket of laundry.” Ruth quipped.

  Dena ignored her before flopping on the recliner and opening the comic book.

  “Mam, why do you let her read those Archie books?” Esther asked, querulous now that her world was off its axis with Emma making a choice she would neither accept nor try to understand.

  “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with a lighthearted book every once in a while,” her mother answered quietly.

  “See, that’s what happens to big families. The youngest children are spoiled. The parents become soft in the heart. And the head.”

  A giggle from the sink turned into a full-blown burst of laughing, till her mother turned around, drying her hands on a dish towel.

  “That’s not the only thing that turns soft. Feel this.”

  Ruth pinched a sizable portion of her mother’s hip, her mouth opened in disbelief, and she howled with glee.

  “Mam! Is that all schpeck?

  “What else would it be? Bacon? Whale blubber?”

  The judgment lifted, a lighthearted camaraderie returned, and they shifted to discussing Emma’s options away from teaching and the produce fields. Her mother said if she truly was not planning on staying, they could hire someone, even if it meant extra work to train them.

  “Emma is an adult. She’s well past the age of twenty-one, so no matter what we think she should do, this is her choice.”

  Grudgingly, the sisters agreed in subdued tones.

  “So what do you have in mind, Emma?” her mother inquired, more kindly now.

  “I have absolutely no clue.”

  “Well . . . but . . .” Ruth sputtered.

  “I definitely won’t apply for a job building skyscrapers in New York City, so you can relax. Perhaps I’ll get a market job, or a job as a cook in a restaurant, or start studying to be a midwife.”

  She was gratified to see the expressions of horror on both her sisters’ faces.

  CHAPTER 2

  HER FATHER RECEIVED THE NEWS OF HER IMPENDING DEPARTURE WITH stoic reserve, stroking his beard methodically as he contemplated her words.

  “I can’t say I blame you,” he said
quietly.

  Quick tears filled her eyes, her heart softened by his kind understanding.

  “It’s just that I’m on the wrong side of twenty-five, which is, you know, sort of the tipping point between a young girl and a . . . what do they call old maids?”

  Her father’s slow smile moved across his face.

  “Leftover blessings.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is what you would be if you chose to remain single. A blessing at Hickory Hollow and a blessing to my produce fields. You’re a hard worker.”

  “I’m sorry to do this to you.”

  “It’s perfectly fine, Emma. Don’t worry about it. There are always fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys who would love to be away from their own farm.”

  “And they will definitely keep Dena in the field.”

  Her father chuckled softly.

  The porch swing creaked with the sound of the chain moving on sturdy cast iron hooks as twilight spread across the farm, turning the ridge into an uneven silhouette, darker than the sloping pasture. To the west, the thin line of clouds dispersed, allowing one last sliver of orange to escape, the grand finale of a perfect spring day. Down by the pond the old bullfrogs gave their deep baritone voices to the hysterical chirping of the many tree frogs.

  A cow began a soft lowing, which was followed by the anxious bawling of her calf.

  “Hear that?” her father asked, raising a finger.

  “What?”

  “It’s not a fox. Coyote.”

  “Did I tell you Benuel’s Elmer saw five of them in his uncle’s back fields on the last day of archery season?”

  “I heard about that.”

  A contented silence ensued, until Emma rubbed her hands up and down her forearms, shivered, and said she was going to bed.

  “Goodnight, Emma.”

  “Goodnight, Dat.”

  Inside, she found her brothers at the kitchen table, dunking chocolate chip cookies in milk and telling stories from their day setting trusses. Both of them attempted passing it off as nothing, but she could tell by their cheesy grins that the day had been hard for both of them, learning to straddle creaky walls and walk on narrow boards at least twenty feet off the ground.

  “Makes produce fields and the cow stable look pretty cozy, huh?” Emma asked.

  Abram grinned, ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair the color of a russet autumn leaf.

  “Yeah. I mean, try to keep your balance and watch for an incoming truss hanging from the end of a crane. It takes acquired skill and practice, man.”

  “We’re starting, Abe. Just getting started. We’ll be authentic truss monkeys in a year or so.” Steven puffed out his thin chest with false bravado.

  “If we’re not flattened by a swinging truss,” Abram answered.

  “Well, brothers, I myself am about to embark on an unknown quest, seeking my life’s calling.”

  Without so much as a glance in her direction, Abram told her to speak in a language ordinary guys could understand.

  “What high-minded thing is that?” Steven snorted.

  “Just kidding. I quit school and the produce fields.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Just don’t set trusses.”

  Dena joined them, lifted the lid of the Tupperware cookie container to find only crumbs, straightened, and said quietly, “Hogs.”

  “We are hogs,” Abram agreed. “I ate at least six.”

  “We could bake a double batch of these every week and there wouldn’t be enough to go around,” Emma said.

  “I’ll buy some at Sheetz tomorrow, okay?”

  By now Dena had gone to the pantry and returned with the corn flakes box, got down a bowl and spoon and poured a rounded pile into it.

  “What? Corn flakes at this time of night?” Steven said, examining the back of his hand before picking at a blackened scab.

  “I happen to like corn flakes. If someone wouldn’t inhale cookies like there was no tomorrow, I might have been able to have a couple.”

  Benjamin and Lloyd, at twelve and nine years old, miniature replicas of their older brothers, padded through the kitchen in stocking feet before solemnly retrieving the corn flakes and disappearing into the living room.

  “Hey. No eating in there!” Emma shouted after them.

  She heard a murmured assent from the recliner, where her mother was resting her aching foot, an old childhood injury that flared up occasionally.

  The box was dutifully returned to the pantry, immediately replaced by a large square box of Tom Sturgis pretzels, followed by a plastic container of schmear kase from the refrigerator. Everyone crowded around, dipping the small, salty pretzels into the soft cheese, coming away with globs of it attached.

  “Somebody should make a pitcher of tea,” Abram said directly to Emma.

  “Make your own. You know how.”

  “Hey, look at this. President Trump isn’t getting his wall.”

  Steven hung over the Daily Gazette, his thin shoulders hunched in a way that wrung Emma’s heart. He’d had Lyme disease when he was a child, and seemed to be easily tired out, especially on stressful days such as this.

  “How do you know?”

  Abram joined his brother, reading out loud, snorting after every sentence.

  “I don’t know what it is about that man qualifying as a conservative Republican, let alone president of the United States.”

  “He’s just trying to protect the country.”

  A rapid fire political discussion followed, with Emma’s strident voice heard above her brothers’, opinions flapping like crow’s wings across the table. Eventually an argument commenced, till their father put a stop to it, the kitchen was cleaned up and they all headed upstairs except Emma, who flipped through the paper, read a few comics and the weather forecast before sleepily scanning the help wanted section.

  Certified Public Accountant needed.

  Dr. Dean Sissler seeks a dental hygienist.

  Roofing workers needed for a local construction company.

  Equine specialist, Bachelor of Science or equivalent experience required.

  She was about to fold the paper when an ad in the next column caught her eye.

  Live-in nanny needed for two children, aged two and four. Serious inquiries only. Please call. 879-6240.

  Were nannies trained and certified, she wondered? What would her parents say? They would surely object to the live-in part. What would they say about her living with an English family?

  She closed the paper, folded it, and dropped it into the magazine basket, called out a goodnight, and went to her room.

  The night was chilly, so she closed the open window to a few inches above the sill, just enough to catch the scent of fresh new leaves, the dew-laden mown grass. Everything was so beautiful in the world dressed in spring, as if all the growth was flaunting new clothes.

  Emma drew in a long, slow breath, savored the beauty of the night, before heading across the hallway to the shower.

  She was up early, helping her mother with breakfast, packing huge lunch containers for Abram and Steven. She caught sight of the newspaper with the ad and quickly put it on the top shelf of the bookcase. It wouldn’t hurt to call for more information, right? Would it be that different from being a maud for an Amish family? No one would think twice about that. Single Amish women were often hired by Amish couples who had just had a baby and needed some extra help around the house until the family settled into life with one more child.

  Emma waited till breakfast was over, and then took a few minutes to savor her coffee, to appreciate the fact that she did not need to rush off to school. Sallie and Amanda, the little girls, were on the bench along the wall, their hair loose, tousled in dark waves, wearing flannel pajamas that said “Cuddle Me” in dark letters.

  “You know, Mam, you wouldn’t have allowed me to wear those cute pajamas when I was growing up,” Emm
a remarked.

  “Oh, are you sure?” her mother asked, reaching for someone’s uneaten toast, taking a bite, then another.

  Sallie made a funny face at Emma, giggled when Emma wagged a warning finger in her direction. Amanda smiled at Emma, then tried to imitate Sallie.

  Emma got to her feet, scooped Amanda up in her arms and rained kisses all over her face, with Sallie hopping beside her, squealing for attention.

  Her mother shook her head.

  “You are so good with the little ones, Emma. You really should continue teaching, if you can’t have any of your own.”

  The perfect opportunity had just presented itself.

  In one swift swoop she retrieved yesterday’s paper, placed it front of her mam, and jabbed a forefinger to the words she wanted her to read.

  “What?”

  Squinting, her mother lifted the paper till her bifocals aligned with the print, then said, “Hmm. A nanny. Sounds pretty high up there.”

  High up there. Her mother’s words oozed disapproval.

  “Seriously, though. What do you think?” Emma asked eagerly.

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  Emma could sense her cautious attitude, the old traditional suspicion of anything new. The world was fraught with danger—cell phones and televisions, strangers, fashion, fast-moving cars. All of it was a long claw reaching her children, an invisible talon that would curl itself around the minds and hearts of her ten offspring.

  “Live-in?”

  “Nanny’s don’t always do that, I don’t believe. Perhaps they’d allow me to be there for twelve or fourteen hours and spend the night at home.”

  “Who would transport you? Besides, you know the danger of men having affairs with the help. Some English men don’t think twice about being unfaithful.”

  “Mother.”

  When Emma said “Mother” and not “Mam,” her mother knew she had overstepped.

  “Well,” she defended herself.

  “Not all of them. We haven’t met them yet and already you’re predicting the worst.”

  “Well.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “It’s your decision.”

  “What will Dat say?”

  “Oh, you know how he is. Anything you want to take on, he’ll support.”