Huckleberry Hearts

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Mammi’s eyes twinkled like stars in the Big Dipper. “You know what I mean. This is your vacation, isn’t it? You’ll get to relax?”

  “I’m supposed to be studying for the GRE, but I’ll have plenty of leisure time. I don’t really want to relax, though. I want to spend plenty of time with you and Dawdi, and I want to bake bread and fill the coal box and milk the cow. All the things I’ve missed since I’ve been away.”

  Mammi’s whole face wrinkled when she smiled. “You want to do chores?”

  “I want to do Amish things. There’s something so calming about working with my hands and disconnecting from all the electronics.”

  Mammi winked. “Don’t let your mamm hear you talk like that. Her hopes will soar to the moon.”

  “I won’t,” Cassie said in an exaggerated whisper. Mamm was not all that pleasant when she got her hopes up. She wasn’t all that pleasant to begin with. “I’ll be here to drive you to the hospital and help you recover from surgery and everything. Leave it all to me.”

  “I will,” Mammi said. “I’ll leave everything to you and the doctor.”

  “Is he a good doctor? Do you feel comfortable with him?”

  A furrow appeared between Mammi’s eyebrows. “There was some confusion about that at first, but Felty thinks we should give him a chance. I’ve already given him the gifts, and I don’t think it would be right to back out now.”

  “I’m sure everything will turn out just fine.”

  Mammi bloomed into a grin. “If you’re sure, then I have complete confidence. You always did have a sense about these things.”

  “I got it from you.”

  Mammi balanced on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Cassie’s cheek. “Cum reu. Let’s get you out of the cold. Felty paid special attention to the fire this morning so the house would be toasty warm when you got here.”

  “Do you care if I walk around outside first? I kind of want to breathe in the whole place before I come in.”

  “Would you like some company? I wore my galoshes.”

  “Of course.”

  Arm in arm, Cassie and her mammi trudged toward the barn. Their breath hung in the air as their boots crunched through the snow. Mammi pointed to the house. “We got a new roof in September. Your cousin Mandy’s husband Noah did it for us. I think he and Mandy fell in love on that roof. Or maybe they fell in love in the barn. He’d go in there and lift heavy things, and she’d go in there and watch him.”

  Cassie opened the barn door, and the familiar, homey scent of hay and livestock and damp air filled her nose. She loved the pungent smell of a barn. It made her feel as if she were home.

  She was as close to home as she would ever get.

  Mammi pointed out the pulley system that Mandy’s husband Noah had rigged up to lift hay into the loft. “He got tired of hefting it up there by hand.” She talked about the horse and the chickens and cow. “If you milk the cow,” she said, “be careful. Iris likes to stick her tail in the milk pail. She’s ruined more than one perfectly good bucket of milk that way.”

  Cassie laughed. Cows could be ornery. She and Norman used to sing to them to coax them to cooperate during milking. Norman didn’t have much success with the singing—his voice was too loud—but the heifers seemed to like it when Cassie sang lullabies.

  A pit grew in Cassie’s stomach when she thought of her brother Norman. No one in her family had been happy about her leaving the community, but Norman and Mamm had been the most vocal about it. Being two years older than she, he felt it his duty to keep her on the straight and narrow path. He took it personally when she decided to stray.

  They left the barn and walked under the beautifully pruned peach trees, then the empty trellises that would be laden with grapevines in the summer.

  Mammi laid her hand on a plastic barrel that sat against one wall of the barn. “Your cousin Aden built us this composter. You put kitchen scraps in and nice black soil comes out in a few weeks. He says we’re helping to save the Earth, which seems like a good project. It feels like a bigger job than just Felty and I can do, but we’re doing our best. We wouldn’t want the Earth to die because we didn’t do our part. And we wouldn’t ever hurt Aden’s feelings.”

  “Aden is passionate about the environment.”

  “But I don’t think everybody is doing their part,” Anna said. “Aden’s own father-in-law refuses to get a composter. And if you mention ‘recycling’ to him, he holds his breath and turns blue. He’s not going to save the Earth with that attitude.”

  As they walked back to the house, Cassie’s gaze turned down the little path that led to the other side of the hill where the huckleberries grew. Some of her fondest memories were of huckleberry-picking frolics. “Did you get a lot of huckleberries this year?”

  “Jah. Every year.”

  “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “February is maple sugaring time. You can help with that if you like.”

  “I’d love to. That’s almost as fun as huckleberry season.”

  Cassie walked to her car and pulled her purse and large blue suitcase from the backseat. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

  “Nae, thank you. We are looking forward to a very entertaining winter.”

  “I don’t know how entertaining I’m going to be, but I’ll do my best to be a good houseguest.”

  Mammi stopped in her progress up the porch steps. “Nae. You’re not a guest. Guests are acquaintances that you put out the good towels for. You are our granddaughter and closer to our hearts than any guest could ever be. But I’ll still put out the good towels for you.” She patted Cassie on the cheek. “You are family. Never forget that.”

  Cassie’s eyes stung with tears. It had been so long since she felt at home anywhere. It was a sure sign she desperately needed a break from the real world when one kind word from Mammi nearly made her melt into a puddle of water right here on the porch.

  Mammi hadn’t been kidding about the warm house. They were hit by a wall of heat as soon as they walked into the kitchen. Dawdi had probably been feeding the stove in the cellar all morning.

  The kitchen table to her right was crowded with platters of cookies. “What’s all this?” she asked.

  Mammi, always genuinely happy, seemed to turn on a sort of fake cheerfulness in her voice. “We can’t celebrate your homecoming without eats.”

  Cassie set her suitcase on the floor and took a deep breath. The great room was just as she remembered. Even Sparky, Mammi’s curly white dog, didn’t seem to have moved in the last four years. She lay asleep on the rag rug in front of the sofa. Dawdi’s recliner sat in the place it had been for twenty years, except it wasn’t the same recliner. He’d probably rocked the old one down to dust.

  A new LP gas stove sat where the trusty cookstove used to be. More than once over the years, Cassie had heard Mammi swear by that cookstove. She had always put a stop to any talk of getting a new one because she felt more comfortable cooking on the old one. Not that anything was cooked well on the old cookstove—Mammi was famous for being the worst cook in Wisconsin—but Mammi liked it better, so Dawdi hadn’t been inclined to get her a new one. Cassie smiled to herself. Dared she hope that the new stove had improved Mammi’s cooking? She might volunteer to do all the meals while she stayed here. She could only gag down so much bad food before she was sure to develop some sort of digestive condition.

  Mammi saw where Cassie’s gaze fell. “The new stove was Felty’s idea. He used it to lure Noah Mischler into the house so he would fall in love with Mandy. I’m willing to make any sacrifice if it will help one of my grandchildren find love.”

  Cassie smiled and wondered how someone could be lured into the house with a stove. Dear Mammi. She was legendary for her cooking, her knitting, and her matchmaking. Thankfully, there was no risk of Cassie becoming Mammi’s next victim. Mammi only matched her Amish grandchildren with good Amish mates, and Cassie wasn’t Amish anymore. She was safe.

  Dawdi came bounding into the great room w
ith the energy of a sixty-year-old. He never seemed to tire. “Well, bless my soul, it’s my long-lost granddaughter.” He drew Cassie in for an embrace, and the unruly hairs of his beard tickled her chin.

  “Hi, Dawdi.”

  He nudged her to arm’s length. “Let me have a look at you. You cut your hair. I like it.”

  “Mamm won’t,” Cassie said, taking a deep breath in anticipation of Mamm’s reaction to the chin-length hairstyle she’d been sporting for over a year.

  “Now, who says she won’t like it? She’ll love it.”

  Cassie kissed Dawdi on the cheek. “It’s wonderful gute to be here. Thank you for letting me come.”

  “The Lord’s timing is perfect,” Mammi said. “How often do I get melanoma on my feet?”

  “I’m glad I could be here.” Cassie took off her coat. “Can I help make dinner?”

  Mammi looked at Dawdi, and Dawdi eyed Mammi. “You didn’t tell her?” Dawdi said.

  Mammi shrugged. “I didn’t want to spoil our lovely stroll.”

  Dawdi smoothed his beard, a sure sign he mulled over something serious. “Cassie, I have some good news and some bad news. Your mamm caught wind that you would be arriving today, and she’s invited herself to dinner.”

  Cassie’s smile suddenly felt as if it were plastered onto her face. “Is that the good news or the bad news?”

  Dawdi thumbed his suspenders. “Jah.”

  She sank into one of the chairs at the table. “I had hoped to have a little more preparation before I saw Mamm.”

  Mammi plopped next to her and patted her hand reassuringly. “I tried to think of a good fib, but your mamm caught me off guard. She even insisted on bringing the food. I couldn’t think of a good way to say no. Sometimes it’s tricky being the mammi. I’m always getting myself into trouble.”

  “It’s all right, Mammi. I knew I’d have to face them sometime. I was just hoping for a good night’s sleep first.”

  “Your mamm loves you very much,” Dawdi said in an attempt to make her feel better.

  Cassie slumped her shoulders. “I know. She can’t help herself. When we get together, she feels a certain responsibility to lecture me on the evils of the outside world. I just wish she weren’t so ornery about it.”

  “She thinks you’re going to hell,” Mammi said. “That makes her a little testy.”

  Even though her lungs felt as if The Beast were parked on her chest, Cassie couldn’t help but giggle at Mammi’s nonchalant attitude about where Cassie would or would not end up in the afterlife. “Everybody in the community thinks I’m going to hell. It kind of puts a damper on things.”

  “I guess it does,” Dawdi said, pulling out a chair and joining them at the table.

  Mammi shook her head. “I don’t think you’re going to hell, dear.”

  “I know,” Cassie said. “But I don’t understand why. You are two of the most dyed-in-the-wool Amish I know.”

  Dawdi snatched a cookie off one of the plates and took a bite. “There are eight billion people on this planet yet, and I have a pretty hard time thinking that God created all those children just to send them to hell because they’re not Amish. My job is to live my life the best way I know how and leave the judgment to Him.” He leaned back in his chair and pushed his lips to one side of his face.

  Cassie laughed. “Be careful, Dawdi. That’s pretty radical talk.”

  “I usually keep it to myself.”

  “Felty, you are so smart,” Mammi said. “I had no idea there were that many people in the world.”

  “No smarter than you are, Annie. You know how to make gingersnaps without a recipe. And they’re so tasty.”

  Cassie eyed the gingersnaps on the plate. They looked like maple-brown golf balls. How bad could they be? Mammi would be pleased as punch if she ate one. It made Mammi so happy to see people enjoying her food, or rather pretending to enjoy it. No one but Dawdi actually enjoyed Mammi’s cooking.

  The second Cassie picked up a cookie, she knew it was a mistake. Not only was it the size of a golf ball, it was as hard as one too. She’d break her teeth if she tried to bite into it.

  Dawdi’s teeth scraped against his cookie like fingernails against a chalkboard.

  “Have you got milk, Mammi? I like to soak my cookies in milk to make them soft.” Would Mammi get suspicious if Cassie’s cookie was still soaking at midnight? That thing would never, ever get soft.

  “Of course I’ve got milk,” Mammi said, going to the fridge and pouring Cassie a generous glass. “Iris is a good milker.”

  Cassie took a sip of creamy milk before dropping her cookie into her glass. The milk made her feel somewhat better. She could handle Mamm okay. Better today than dreading a meeting later. “I’m glad Mamm is coming. I’ve missed her. It will be nice to have a chat, just the four us.”

  Dawdi leaned forward and took another bite of his cookie. “I have some good news and some bad news.”

  Cassie’s heart sank.

  “Norman is coming and so is Luke.”

  Cassie made an attempt to sound more enthusiastic than she felt. “Well. That will be nice. I haven’t seen the baby for a year.”

  Cassie had seven siblings, all but one older than she. Her oldest sister Sarah married before Cassie had even been born. Sarah’s daughter Beth, Cassie’s niece, was older than Cassie.

  Norman and Luke were the siblings closest in age to Cassie. Norman was two years older and Luke just a year younger than Cassie. Luke tended to keep his opinions to himself, but Norman was more than happy to call Cassie to repentance on a regular basis. He was one of the reasons she came home so infrequently.

  Mammi tilted her head as if she were listening to something that no one else could hear. “They’re coming.” She leaped to her feet and went straight to the door. “We should probably move all those goodies so the table can be set.”

  Heedless of the cold, Mammi opened the door and charged outside to greet the new group of visitors. Cassie self-consciously smoothed her hair before helping Dawdi move the seven plates of rock-hard cookies to the kitchen counter. Luke would probably eat them. Luke ate everything.

  Cassie’s mother came in the door first, even ahead of Mammi, who was busy hugging one of her great-grandchildren. Mamm’s measured gaze immediately pierced through Cassie’s skull, as if taking stock of Cassie’s deepest desires and the condition of her soul. Her assessment must not have been favorable. She narrowed her eyes and shook her finger at Cassie before she even took off her coat.

  “What have you done to your hair? You look ridiculous, like a peacock with all those curls flying around your head.”

  Nothing like, “Cassie, it’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you so much.” Cassie sighed inwardly. She really hadn’t expected a warm greeting, but a little kindness would have been a pleasant surprise.

  “I’m sorry, Mamm,” was all Cassie could think to say. She certainly didn’t want to argue or make a scene in front of her grandparents or her siblings. It always went this way. She’d say anything, make any concession, apologize for things that weren’t her fault, just to keep the peace. She’d been apologizing to her mamm for two decades.

  Mamm was a wiry yet sturdy woman of sixty-five years with salt-and-pepper gray hair and deep worry lines around her mouth and eyes. As the oldest of Mammi and Dawdi’s thirteen children, she’d learned how to be bossy at a very young age, and she’d never grown out of it. Cassie’s dat had passed away when Cassie was ten years old, and Mamm’s bossiness had only gotten worse. As a widow, she hadn’t waited for the community to help her out. She’d rolled up her sleeves and taken charge of her life, finding ways to support her large family without burdening the community. Cassie had always admired her strength, the way she charged through obstacles and made a good life for her children without relying on anybody but herself and God.

  But being such a fighter, Mamm was also vocal and opinionated, which meant she usually got what she wanted because no one dared cross her.

  Excep
t for Cassie.

  Cassie had done the unthinkable when she had decided not to be baptized. Of all Mamm’s children growing up, Cassie had been the most compliant, never mustering the courage to poke a toe out of line in Mamm’s well-ordered household. Her decision to leave the community had thrown Mamm completely out of her predictable routine and had made Cassie the target of all her wrath and frustration.

  She thought her youngest daughter was going to hell. Such fear might make any mother frantically desperate. Especially an Amish mother.

  Her brother Norman strolled into the house with his youngest son Paul propped on his hip. Norman and his wife Linda had three children. Priscilla, their oldest, was barely four years old. Jacob was three, and Paul had turned one on Christmas Day.

  The last time Cassie had seen any of them was at Christmastime a year ago when she had come home for a short visit, made shorter by the fact that Mamm had ordered her out of the house until she humbled herself and chose to be baptized.

  Without a word of hello, Norman planted himself next to Mamm as they studied Cassie’s unacceptable hairstyle. They looked like two stone pillars tasked with holding up the Ordnung all by themselves.

  “Are you wearing makeup?” Norman said.

  It’s good to see you too, Norman. I sure have missed your constant disapproval. “Hello, Norman. Paul is getting so big.” Unable to resist a baby, she reached out and took Paul from Norman’s arms. Neither Paul nor Norman opposed her. Cassie might be a heathen, but they all knew how good she was with babies.

  Norman’s wife Linda came next, with Priscilla and Jacob each holding one of her hands. “Cassie, how nice to see you.”

  Linda was a petite woman with chestnut brown hair and a constant smile on her face. It didn’t seem to matter how her husband felt about Cassie, Linda had always treated her with kindness. Whether she thought Cassie was going to hell remained a mystery.

  Cassie kissed Paul on his velvety soft cheek. “Oh, Linda. He’s beautiful.”