Huckleberry Spring

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  As far as Mamm knew, Emma’s heart had moved way down the road from Ben. She couldn’t abide Mamm’s irritation any more than she could bear Mahlon’s fretting.

  Anna waited for an answer. Was she holding her breath?

  “Are you sure you want me?” Emma said. The girl who’d accidentally burned down Zimmerman’s chicken coop last year? The girl their grandson found so unworthy?

  “I won’t settle for anyone else.”

  Anna’s adamant response took Emma aback. What could Anna possibly see of value in Emma’s help? Anna certainly didn’t act as if she felt any ill will toward her grandson’s ex-fiancée. Had she forgotten about the chicken coop?

  Emma pursed her lips. If Anna didn’t object to Emma’s tending pumpkins on Huckleberry Hill, then Emma would do her best to help. Perhaps Ben’s family would not think so badly of her if Ben’s mammi accepted her with open arms. “Okay,” Emma said. “I’ll do my best.”

  Anna all but burst with laughter. “That is wonderful gute. Felty will feel so much better knowing you are watching out for our pumpkin.”

  As long as the chickens didn’t protest. Every hen in the county was probably terrified of Emma Nelson, even if Anna wasn’t. No doubt Emma had a dangerous reputation among the chickens.

  She took a deep breath. “I can come three days a week to tend the pumpkin, and maybe I should plant some other vegetables for you too, so you’ll have plenty for canning come autumn.”

  Anna’s eyes strayed to the clock once again. “I love peas and beans.”

  “Okay. And some cucumbers?”

  “I love dill pickles,” Anna said, gushing like a newly drilled well.

  Emma couldn’t help but crack a smile. Anna’s enthusiasm rubbed off on everybody who came within ten feet. “I will go to the market and buy special pumpkin seeds and bring them back tomorrow so you can plant one in your pot.”

  Anna’s face lit up. “Tomorrow? That would be better than my wildest dreams.”

  Emma giggled. Sometimes the enthusiasm went a little overboard.

  A firm knock at the door caught their attention. Anna glided across the room and opened it.

  Emma’s throat constricted, rendering her unable to breathe while her heart hammered against her chest, making it all the more likely that she would suffocate.

  Ben Helmuth, looking as handsome and formidable as ever, stood on Anna’s doorstep with a suitcase in one hand and his straw hat in the other. His tousled golden hair framed his face like a halo, and the cleft of his chin made his jaw look as if it were chiseled out of stone.

  Their eyes locked, and Emma found it impossible to look away. A mixture of utter astonishment and undiluted pain flashed across his face. He was as shocked to see her as she was to see him. What was he doing here?

  “Emma,” he said, so softly it felt like a caress. She wanted to melt at the sound of that low, beautiful voice, even though he spoke as if it were torture to say her name.

  How she managed to talk, she would never know. “I . . . Anna . . . I’ve got to go look at your dirt.” Her sentence made little sense, but Emma wasn’t about to hang around to explain herself. Keeping her head down, she snatched her sweater from the hook and practically ran out the door, trying to ignore Ben completely even as she stumbled over his foot when she rushed past him. She couldn’t have helped it, even though he tried to step out of her way. He was so tall and broad that he left little room for her to pass.

  Halfway to Anna’s vegetable patch, she heard Anna call out cheerfully, “After you look at my dirt, you must stay for supper.”

  Stay for supper? If Anna thought for one minute that Emma would set foot in that house while Ben was there, she truly didn’t understand anything.

  Why, oh why had she ever agreed to come today? Horrible, horrible mistake.

  A groan tore from her lips as she tromped to the garden, scattering Felty’s chickens in her wake. Ben Helmuth was back. She might never feel happy again.

  Ben stood frozen in Mammi’s doorway while the great room spun around and around him as if he sat on a merry-go-round. At the barn raising seven years ago, he’d cracked his thumb so hard with the hammer that he’d actually seen stars. Seeing Emma felt much worse.

  What was she doing on Huckleberry Hill? And how would his heart go on beating now that he’d seen her?

  His gut clenched violently. All that time in Florida and nothing had changed. After a glimpse of Emma, he felt less in control of his emotions than ever, as if a tidal wave had swept him off his feet and sucked him into the depths of the sea.

  With her yellow hair and eyes the color of the ocean at sunrise, she had haunted his dreams every night since he’d left Wisconsin. If anything, she was more beautiful than he remembered. With that ten-second look at her, he realized that his absence had made him long for her even more.

  “Oh, dear,” he heard Mammi say, as if from a great distance.

  With his suitcase clutched tightly in his fist, Ben found that his legs would not support him. He stumbled to one of the kitchen chairs, dropped his suitcase with a thud, and buried his face in his hands.

  “Did you have a taxing journey?” Mammi asked, seemingly oblivious to what had passed between him and Emma.

  Emma had blanched white as a sheet when she’d seen him, and she tended to stumble over things when she was embarrassed. Well, not really. She tended to stumble over things no matter what state she was in. Surely she had gotten over him by now. At least that’s what his sister Lizzie had written in her letters. But maybe Lizzie had been mistaken. Ben kneaded his forehead to clear his thoughts. “Is she okay?”

  Mammi patted him on the shoulder and took his hat. “She didn’t come specifically to see you, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re growing pumpkins together.”

  Dear Mammi. She never saw anything amiss with the entire world. “But the way she ran out of here, do you think she was upset?”

  Mammi hung his hat on the hook where Emma’s sweater had been. “She was quite eager to take a look at my dirt.”

  Ben couldn’t be satisfied with that answer. Of course he’d upset Emma. They hadn’t seen or heard from each other since they’d broken their engagement. He had to go out there. No matter how hard it would be to talk to her again, he had to make sure she was okay.

  Ben stood up, put his arms around Mammi, and kissed the top of her head, glad he’d gotten his height from Dawdi. Mammi was a puny little thing. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Mammi hugged him back with the affection of a hundred mammis. “For a year I’ve prayed that you’d come back to us.”

  In spite of his heavy heart, Ben smiled. According to Mammi, she’d been praying for his return before he’d even left. He’d been gone exactly seven months and twenty-seven days. It wasn’t hard keeping track when every hour seemed like a year away from Bonduel. “I need to make sure Emma’s okay,” he said. He took Mammi’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “And then I want to hear all about Dawdi’s surgery. I don’t want you to worry. I will take care of the farm, and we’re going to do everything we can to get Dawdi better.”

  Mammi’s eyes twinkled. At the moment, she didn’t seem all that concerned about Dawdi’s condition, even though her letter had brimmed with anxiety. “You’ll never know what a blessing you are to us.”

  Setting aside his own serious misgivings about coming home, Ben had hopped on a bus the minute he’d received Mammi’s letter. Dawdi needed him. That’s all that mattered. Not even his feelings for Emma or his pain at seeing her again mattered. “I’m going to go check on Emma,” he said, patting Mammi on the arm. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Tell her I made something special for supper.”

  Ben closed the door behind him. If he wanted Emma to stay for supper, he’d better not tell her that Mammi had done the cooking.

  Emma tripped out to the garden as fast as her trembling legs would take her. Ben looked as straight and sturdy as a maple, and so handsome. The emotions rushed at her like a
runaway horse, stronger and more devastating than ever. Her voice cracked as the hitch in her throat turned into a gut-wrenching sob.

  She loved Ben Helmuth. She loved him so much. And it hurt so bad.

  A torrent of tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks as she marched past the bare garden plot, dodged Felty’s peach trees, and ran into the safety of the woods.

  Just get over it, Emma. He doesn’t love you.

  He had been so repulsed by her that he had moved all the way to Florida so he wouldn’t be forced to lay eyes on her again.

  When she ran far enough to be assured that no one would hear her crying, she stopped to catch her breath, pulled a tissue from her pocket, and blew her nose loudly. Ben would probably find that repulsive too.

  She growled in self-condemnation. She’d worked so hard to bury her emotions and stifle the insistent tears. She usually cried over Ben in private, and now she’d done it out in the open twice in one day.

  The look of anxiety and concern she had seen on his face was the same one he had worn the day he broke off their engagement. Ben was so kind and so sensitive to other people’s feelings that she was sure it pained him to hurt her, even if he didn’t love her. The bitter truth was that she didn’t deserve him, and he pitied her for it.

  Her heart sped to a trot when she heard shuffling through the underbrush behind her. She turned to see Anna’s little dog, Sparky, waddling toward her. She must have followed Emma out of the house. Emma bent over and scooped Sparky into her arms. She rested her cheek against Sparky’s fur and scratched behind her floppy ears. Even if Ben didn’t like Emma, Sparky would always be her friend.

  She cried her last tears and wiped her eyes. Taking a deep, hiccupping breath, she played Mamm’s voice in her head.

  Buck up, Emma. It’s not the end of the world.

  Sparky had settled comfortably into her arms. “Sorry, Sparky,” Emma said as she placed Anna’s dog on the ground. With her handkerchief, Emma dabbed at her nose in a way that not even Ben would have found repulsive. She would go back into the house and show Ben how happy she was and how hard she was trying to be a girl worthy of a gute Amish man. And she would not trip over her feet, no matter what.

  “Emma?”

  Her heart all but somersaulted in her chest, and she thought she might be sick. She couldn’t face him, not looking like this. Ducking behind a tree, she did her best to gather up the pieces of her heart she’d strewn about the forest floor. She could just make out Ben’s tall frame through the budding trees as he stood in the garden plot and called her name. He didn’t know where she was. It gave her a few seconds to talk herself into being brave. Ben would admire someone with courage. She smoothed her dress, did up the buttons of her black sweater, and despite everything, pinched her cheeks.

  Mustn’t look pasty and pale for her reunion with Ben Helmuth.

  She snapped her fingers to bid Sparky to follow her and decided on a leisurely stroll out of the woods. Ben would assume she had taken a walk and never guess she’d been crying.

  Whom was she fooling? He’d know exactly what she’d been doing. Her eyes and nose were probably bright red and as puffy as Mamm’s special dinner rolls. Maybe she should rub a little mud on her face just in case.

  Ben didn’t love her. What did it matter how homely or disheveled she looked?

  “Emma?” he called again, the apprehension growing in his voice. He was always more concerned about other people than the other people were about themselves.

  Her foot caught on a lumpy tree root, and she stumbled noisily but managed to maintain her balance. “Oomph,” she grunted as leaves and pine needles crackled thunderously beneath her feet.

  “Emma?”

  Righting herself, she pasted a smile on her face. “Coming,” she sang, as if she were an irritating little bird chirping her way through the forest.

  He turned around and started walking in her direction, no doubt bent on helping her navigate through the thicket. She quickened her pace and met him at the edge of the woods.

  The moment she looked into those eyes, she recalled a thousand lovely memories, and her best intentions nearly crumbled. How could she pretend to be happy when Ben stood before her in all his wonderfulness?

  Hoping Ben wouldn’t see her hands shaking, Emma bent down and picked up Sparky, the only ally she had at the moment. She wished Mahlon were here, or better yet, twenty of her friends. No boy could break through the defenses of a gaggle of giggly, silly girls. A boy usually gave up on any girl if she was surrounded by a wall of friends.

  They stared at each other briefly, Emma reliving every moment of the last time she had seen him. The memories were overpowering.

  “I . . . I wanted to check on you and make sure you were okay,” he said, breathing heavier than he needed to for only having walked to the garden. His expression brimmed with sympathy. Of course it did. He felt sorry for her. “I know it must have been a shock to see me after so long. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  She used to love it when he looked at her like that, as if he understood everything about her—her fears, her sorrows, her lack of balance—and cared about her more than he cared for himself. Today she couldn’t bear to see that look of pity, as if she were beneath his notice but he was giving it to her anyway. His expression made her whole body ache.

  Averting her eyes, she smoothed Sparky’s fur and checked the dog collar to make sure it was securely fastened. She squared her shoulders and smiled until she thought she might grind her teeth into powder. “Anna wants me to help her grow a giant pumpkin, like the one I did last summer.” Her voice cracked, but Sparky yipped at exactly the same time and covered Emma’s blunder. Sparky was proving to be a valuable friend after all.

  By the look on his face, she could tell he was thinking about last summer’s giant pumpkin too. Was it a good memory or just one more reason he had left her?

  “I am glad to see you’re out doing things you enjoy and helping my mammi in the process. You were always so thoughtful.”

  “Anna didn’t tell me you were planning a visit.”

  “I wasn’t, until she wrote about Dawdi’s surgery.”

  “His deviated section? For his nose?” Emma couldn’t remember the word. Was that what Anna had told her?

  “I’m not even sure what kind of surgery. All I know is that Dawdi is very sick and needs my help.”

  That was Ben to a fault. He would drop everything to help someone else.

  She clamped her lips together so nothing remotely close to a sob would escape. Why did her thoughts attack her like that, making her remember all the things she loved about him? If she ever wanted to feel normal again, she would have to shove those memories aside. But, oh, it was so hard to do.

  Emma expelled a deep breath and walked among the peach trees to the garden plot. She finally gained control of her voice. “Will you be here long?”

  “Only as long as Dawdi needs me. Maybe a month. No longer.”

  Of course he wouldn’t care to stay any longer than he had to. Eight months ago, he had wanted nothing more than to be as far away from her as possible. She cleared her throat. “I told Anna I’d help with the garden, but if you would be more comfortable, I don’t have to come back.”

  His expression darkened, and for a brief moment he looked truly stricken. Then he masked whatever emotion had been there and replaced it with concern. “Emma, I’m truly sorry for hurting you the way I did.”

  The compassion in his voice brought her a hair’s breadth away from tears. She couldn’t reply for fear the dam would break. She managed a slight twist of her lips and a dismissive wave of her hand, as if she were swatting mosquitoes.

  He raised his eyebrows and nodded encouragingly. “Lizzie kept me up to date.”

  Lizzie Helmuth. Ben’s sister. Another precious relationship Emma had lost in the aftermath of Ben’s rejection. When Ben left his family and moved to Florida, Lizzie had blamed Emma. They hadn’t spoken since August.

  “Lizzie wrote a
nd told me you were doing well.” He studied her face for confirmation. She forced the corners of her lips upward and nodded.

  Ben seemed relieved, as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

  His reaction stung like a thousand yellow jackets.

  She wanted to lash out at him, to tell him how devastated she had been when he left her, how she still cried into her pillow several times a week. How the very mention of his name made her want to double over in pain.

  If she wanted to hurt him as badly as she was hurting, all she had to do was tell Ben how terribly she suffered. He had always been attuned to other people’s feelings. During rumschpringe, he couldn’t see a sad movie without being depressed for days. He’d quit going to movies even before he was baptized.

  Since she couldn’t speak, she tried to make her expression as serene and reassuring as possible.

  “Since it looks like you’re going to be spending a lot of time here,” he said, “I hope we can put the past aside and be friends again, even if it’s just for a few weeks.” He suddenly looked uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t really sure he wanted what he said he wanted. He gave lip service to an amicable relationship, but Emma could tell friendship was out of the question.

  She couldn’t look him in the eye. Kneeling down, she let Sparky slip from her arms and then picked up a handful of dirt and sifted it through her fingers. “Gute soil for pumpkins.”

  Unfortunately, he squatted beside her so his icy green eyes were level with hers. “I don’t think we should avoid each other, but I don’t want you to think . . .” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I’m going back to Florida, no matter what.”

  Emma swallowed his words and tried not to choke on them. He thought that poor, desperate Emma would get her hopes up if he was nice to her, which wasn’t altogether unlikely since Ben Helmuth was the most desirable boy in the world. Who wouldn’t hope for him every minute of every day?

  Still on her knees, she coughed and sputtered as if she’d eaten a bug. “Oh, no need to worry about that. I’m just here to grow vegetables.” She couldn’t help herself. “I’m sure there’s lots of suitable Amish girls in Florida.”