The Keeper

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  “So what’s got you looking as sad as a gopher hitting hard ground?”

  “Nothing. I’m just starving. I wanted a snack, that’s all.”

  Fern snorted. “You had ordered enough for a week’s worth.” She added a dollop of cream to her tea and stirred it. “So? What’s making you so down in the mouth?”

  Sadie’s eyes filled up with tears. “Rome loves Julia. And I think she loves him too.”

  “Keeping Rome Troyer in one place is like . . . well, you may as well chase smoke rising from a fire.” She sipped her tea. “So you’re disappointed that he doesn’t love you?”

  Sadie nodded. “Why couldn’t Rome have chosen me? What’s so wrong with me?”

  “You mean, except for the fact that you’re eleven years younger than him?”

  “Age shouldn’t matter!” In many important ways she was practically twenty. Maybe thirty.

  “Age matters plenty when a girl is barely fifteen and the fellow is on the sunny side of thirty.” She frowned and set down her tea. “Sadie, did you ever wonder why you’re filling your mind with thoughts of Rome and ignoring all the boys your own age?”

  Sadie was confused. “Because . . . he’s Rome!”

  Fern shook her head. “Because he’s safe. He’s a dream. A hope. The real thing is much harder work, but at least it’s real. As long as you keep feeding that fantasy about Rome, you hold all these fellows at arm’s length.” She pointed out the window. Gideon Smucker was talking to Menno at the wagon and kept casting sidelong glances in Sadie’s direction. “Fellows like that boy. He hangs around like a summer cold.”

  With her chin propped on her fist, Sadie pondered that remark. Was Fern right? Was she hiding behind her fears? She looked over at the bakery counter. Was spending most of her time in the kitchen just another way to hide?

  Fern reached out and covered Sadie’s hand with hers, a rare display of affection. “Sadie girl, don’t waste these years. Time is like the Mississippi River. It only flows in one direction. You can never go back.” She glanced at the wall clock, swallowed the last sip of tea, and set the cup down. “Let’s go. Julia’s quilt will be getting auctioned off soon.”

  The formal auction had started at two and began with the auctioneer selling off farm tools, some livestock, a handful of quarter horses, flowers and plants, other quilts and wall hangings. The crowd was small at first, but the gathering grew as the time came for Julia’s quilt to be auctioned off at 4:00 p.m. The last item of the day. Julia wasn’t sure if she should stay for it. What if it didn’t bring in the money she had hoped? What if no one bid on it? She should leave.

  As she spun around, she caught sight of Paul, standing on the fringe. He had been waiting for her to notice him. She walked over to him. For a moment they simply stared at each other, saying nothing. He looked utterly dejected. She wanted to reach out and take his hand, but she could not do that. She wanted to cry for him, but she could not do that either. So she simply said, “I am very sorry, Paul. Truly sorry.”

  He tried to smile at her, but he couldn’t quite manage it. “I hope your quilt brings in more than last year.”

  “Thank you.” She heard the auctioneer sing out something about her quilt, and she thought she should slip through the crowd, fast, make a quick exit. But suddenly Fern, Sadie, Menno, M.K., and Uncle Hank surrounded her. Sadie clasped her hands around Julia’s and squeezed.

  “NERVOUS?” Uncle Hank bellowed.

  She gave a shaky laugh as she watched the auctioneer. “Extremely.”

  “DON’T BE,” he said, with typical Uncle Hank–like assurance.

  She glanced in Paul’s direction, but he was gone.

  The auctioneer motioned to two men to bring the quilt out. It was hung on a rack, but folded up so no one could see the pattern. The auctioneer started talking in that rushed, frenetic way of his: “And here we have an original Julia Lapp quilt!”

  Why did he have to say that?! Edith Fisher turned slightly and caught Julia with the corner of her eye, and Julia cringed.

  A hush fell over the crowd as the auctioneer unclipped Julia’s quilt so that it draped to the floor. It was so quiet you could have heard a barn owl hoot in the next county. Everybody hates it, Julia thought. It’s a disaster. The worst quilt ever created. Her cheeks felt flushed and she thought about bolting. No, she couldn’t do that. She was a grown-up. But she felt like an embarrassed five-year-old.

  “Let’s start the bidding at one thousand dollars. Do I hear one thousand?” A hand bounced up. “I hear one thousand. Do I have one thousand five hundred?” Another hand. “One thousand five hundred. Do I hear two thousand?” Another hand in the crowd popped up. The auctioneer looked pleased. “Do I hear three thousand?” Another hand. “Do I hear four thousand?”

  This went on for another moment—an eternity—until the bidding slowed at ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars! Julia was stunned. The auctioneer picked up his gavel. “Ten thousand dollars going once. Going twice!” He held his gavel suspended in the air. The crowd caught its breath.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars!” shouted a voice.

  After a moment of stunned silence the crowd started clapping like summer thunder.

  “Sold!” the auctioneer said, slamming the gavel with enthusiasm. “Sold to the man in the panama hat!”

  On orders from Julia, M.K. darted through the crowd to find the man in the panama hat at the checkout table and escort him to the family. Julia wanted to thank him, but she also wanted to find out why in the world he had bid so much for her quilt. M.K. wove her way through clumps of people who were buzzing in wonder over the amount of the bid. She was having fun! On a mission of top importance. She stopped now and then to jump up and see if she could still locate the top of his hat. And stopped another time to take note of a woman’s teetery red high-heeled shoes. How could anyone walk in those? They were practically stilts. Her eyes caught sight of the man, bending over the checkout table as he wrote a check, so she ducked down one more time and zigzagged through the crowd to reach him. When she made it to the table, she looked around triumphantly.

  NO! She was too late! The man in the panama hat had paid for the quilt and left.

  A week after the auction, Rome was out among the pippin apples in the orchards, the last variety to be harvested, checking on a row of trees that were twisted and bent, heavy with fruit. When these apples made it safely into the baskets and to the farmer’s market to sell, he wouldn’t be needed at Windmill Farm any longer. Autumn had come.

  He climbed a ladder to reach the crown of one tree, and nearly fell off when he was startled by a voice. He moved a branch out of the way to find Julia peering up at him.

  “You’re planning to leave, aren’t you?”

  “These are the last of the crops to harvest. Menno and I finished up three cuttings of hay. It’s stacked and in the barn. The corn is in the silo. Your father is on the waiting list for a new heart. And with the money from the fundraiser, you’re in good shape to pay for the transplant, at least enough to persuade Amos to go through with it.” He gentled the branch back into place. “Seems like the right time to move on.”

  “Paul wants to marry me.”

  Rome stilled. “Well, congratulations.”

  When she didn’t answer, he moved the branch again. “Isn’t it?”

  “What do you think I should tell him?”

  He looked through the branches at her, then climbed slowly down the ladder, protecting the apples he had stored in the canvas pouch secured about his neck and lying against his chest. “You should tell him yes. That’s always what you’ve wanted. For as long as I’ve known you, that’s what you’ve wanted.”

  When he had both feet on solid ground, she asked him, “Why are you leaving?”

  Rome removed the white cotton gloves he wore while harvesting. “This was our deal. You asked me to stay through harvest.”

  “Fern told me about your family and the car accident.”

  Rome felt his chest tig
hten. There it was again—that feeling that his shirt collar was too tight. Like he couldn’t breathe. He took a step back. The memories surfaced, one by one, until he shoved them to the back of his mind again.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, meeting his gaze when he finally looked at her. “I had no idea how difficult the last six years must have been for you.”

  He wanted to shout out that he didn’t need anybody’s sympathy. He brushed past her to empty the bag of apples into the basket. “Fern had no business telling you.”

  “I wish you could have told me yourself.” She took a step closer to him. “I thought we were friends. I thought we had something . . . special. Was I wrong?”

  He kept his head down, gently letting the apples pour into the basket. “You’re mistaken. I’ve told you over and over that I’m not that kind of man.”

  “What kind? Are you trying to tell me you’re not a good man? Or a caring man?”

  He tossed the empty canvas bag on top of the apples in the basket. He faced her, hands on his hips. “I meant . . . the settling-down kind. The marrying kind. The kind of man a girl can count on, for keeps. I’m a drifter. No ties, not to anyone or anything.” He was sure that hearing this hurt worse than anything else he could have said, but what could he do? It was the truth.

  “Maybe you’re the one who’s got it wrong, Rome. I think you’re the kind of man a girl can count on. You just can’t let go of losing your family. You can’t let yourself love because you think your heart can’t handle it . . . that something bad will happen. But you’re wrong. It’s true . . . grief is the price for love. But hearts are made to mend. Christ can do wonders with a broken heart, if given all the pieces.”

  She didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t get one. She squared her shoulders, tilted up her chin, but held silent. He thought he saw tears welling in her eyes, but she blinked them away before he could be sure. “So go. Take your bees and head off down the country roads.” She took a few steps away, then turned back. “You know what’s so sad? Your heart is every bit as damaged as my father’s. The difference is that yours is a choice. You think you can avoid pain if you don’t let yourself care about anybody. Maybe that’s true. But you’ll also never feel any love, or any joy.”

  She walked away, down the dirt path of apple trees. He couldn’t let her leave like this. She didn’t understand.

  “Julia—wait!” He caught up with her. “This summer—it was just a game between us. A game to get Paul back. That’s what you said you wanted. That’s what you’ve got.” He looked down into her hazel eyes.

  For a moment their eyes met with all the hurt and pride and pretense stripped away.

  “You, Roman Troyer, are a coward.” She turned and left the apple orchard.

  Rome stared at Julia’s retreating back. How dare she! No one had ever had the audacity to talk to him like this. No other woman had ever challenged him the way she had over the past few months. No other woman had ever been as confident of herself, either.

  Was it true? Was he a coward? Things were backward. Things should have been the other way around: he should be wanting to go, she should be begging him to stay. Maybe he had a warped sense of what love should be, but he thought that in love everything would be clear—instead of the muddy, confused, back-and-forths he’d had with Julia.

  He threw the gloves on the ground. It didn’t matter! He was leaving soon.

  19

  The door of the cottage squeaked open one afternoon as Rome was packing up his equipment.

  Fern.

  “I’ll be sure to scrub the floor,” he told her. “I don’t want ants taking over the place.” He went back to dismantling the extractor. “Just so you know, I sold the family property. Sent off a letter accepting the offer a few weeks ago. I should be getting the paperwork any day. As soon as the cashier’s check arrives, I’m going to give it to you. I want the money from the property to be available for Amos’s heart transplant. I’m hoping you’ll use it when Amos gets his new heart. But no one, and I mean no one, should know where the money came from.”

  She walked around the kitchen with her arms folded against her. “So, I guess that means you’re not planning to return to Ohio.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not.” He took the extractor out to the wagon and placed it carefully in a wooden box. She followed him out. “Fern, if there’s something you want to say to me, why don’t you just come right out and say it?”

  She lifted her chin a notch. “God doesn’t make mistakes.”

  He recoiled at the words. In a way, he’d been expecting a conversation like this with Fern since the day he arrived and found her at Windmill Farm. Well, fine, let’s get this out in the open. He glanced up at her. “I assume you’re talking about the car accident.”

  “That accident passed through the hand of God.”

  If Fern had blamed the devil or the fallen world, Rome would agree. He could accept an explanation that involved imperfection, mankind’s fallen state, or even his own lack of faith. What he couldn’t accept was that God might have allowed the death of Rome’s family when he could have prevented it. “Fern, I’m sorry you lost my uncle Tom that day. You lost a man who was going to be your husband. But you didn’t lose your entire family in one fell swoop. You lost a new life, I suppose. I lost my old life. My whole life.”

  “The problem isn’t in God—” she glanced toward the sky—“but in us. We can’t see things from an eternal perspective.”

  “I know that.” He threw the words like stones. “But why them? Four little girls, each one as precious to me as Sadie and M.K. Two parents—fine, loving people. My uncle, who was like another father to me. Why every single one? And why did I survive it?” He frowned. “It’s hard to accept the idea that God didn’t make a mistake on that day.”

  Fern stopped him with an uplifted finger. “None of us know the mind of God. The minute we think God needs to answer to us, we are teetering toward pride. God’s ways are perfect and ours are not.” Her voice softened. “Rome, you’re going to have to let go, so your life can move on. Over time, new memories, new people, fill up that emptiness and your life will be complete again. If you don’t let go of your grieving, you’ll just stay in one spot, suspended in time.”

  Rome kept his head down and focused entirely on packing empty honey jars into a cardboard box. He didn’t know how to respond to Fern. What could he say? That she didn’t understand? But she did.

  Fern turned to leave but stopped after a few steps. “I’ll be sure the money goes to Amos’s new heart. And I won’t tell anyone where it came from.”

  “Fern.”

  She turned back to face him.

  “Thank you, for everything. You uprooted your life for me this summer.”

  She tilted her head. “You were the reason I came. But you’re not the reason I’m staying. God never takes without giving. He gave me a new family to look after. I needed them as much as they needed me. Maybe more.”

  Floating down on the wind from the house came a loud whooping sound. Fern and Rome looked up and saw M.K. running down the path toward the cottage with an empty pail in her hand. Menno was closing in on her, an outraged look on his face. His clothes and his hair were drenched with water.

  Fern sighed. “And heaven only knows this family needs some serious looking after.”

  That night, after the sunset, the Lapp family gathered outside to say goodbye to Rome. The mules were harnessed to the bee wagon, the bees were safely settled into their hives, Rome had packed his few belongings.

  He went first to M.K. “You keep studying bees, M.K. Next lesson is to observe how bees wind their way back to their hive. Beekeepers call it a beeline.”

  “Easy,” she said.

  “It’s not a straight line.”

  Her little face squinted in confusion. She was about to object, then she burst into tears.

  Rome wrapped M.K. in his arms.

  “We’re all going to miss you, Rome,” Sadie said.<
br />
  That nearly undid him. Somewhere in the passing week, Sadie had lost her shyness in Rome’s presence. He pulled her into the hug.

  He released the two girls and moved down the line to Menno. With a lightning-quick motion, Rome hit the tip of the hat and flipped it off the boy’s head. Menno flinched and stepped back; his hair was matted as though he hadn’t even run a comb through it that morning. “Keep your eye on Uncle Hank, Menno. Since he won’t act his age, you’ll have to be grown-up enough for two.”

  Menno thought that over for a long moment, then let out a honk of laughter. He shook Rome’s hand solemnly.

  “Slander!” Uncle Hank roared as he walked over to them from the Grossdaadi Haus. “If I leave for a second, my good name gets slandered!” He grabbed Rome for a handshake, pumping his hand up and down.

  Rome moved to Amos, who held out a fistful of long fire matches to him. “Hold these sticks together,” Amos said. “See if you can break them.” Rome looked puzzled but did as Amos asked. The sticks wouldn’t snap. Amos reached out and took one long match. He snapped it in half like it was a dried leaf. “By itself, one can be broken. Each one of us can be broken. But together, we’re strong.” He put his hand on Rome’s head, a prayer, a blessing. “Never forget you have a place in our family circle, Bee Man.”

  And now Rome felt a well of emotion. He should be the one offering the blessing to Amos, but he found that words failed him. Would he see Amos again on this side of eternity? All he could do was to grip Amos’s hand with both of his and hope that it conveyed all the gratitude he felt toward this kind man. He moved to Fern and found the emotional relief he needed.

  “Would you at least send a card now and then?” she said. “Just let us know you’re still among the living?”

  He smiled and gave her a stiff hug.

  Then he reached Julia. She looked at him and he looked at her and he felt himself waffling. What could he say? He had dreaded this moment, even more than saying goodbye to Amos. “Take care of yourself,” he told her awkwardly.