A Stranger's Gift (Women of Pinecraft)

by Anna Schmidt

  “Nothing, a sketch…idea.”

  “May I see it?” She handed him the rough sketch, and he saw at once that it was the packinghouse. “And may I ask why?”

  “Remember that magazine you picked up at the hospital and asked me to return for you?”

  John nodded.

  “Well, there was this article about people around the country—ordinary people—who have put together programs to help others. A woman in California who had gotten the idea to have teenagers collect unwanted fruit from private yards was featured.”

  “And you thought why not here in Sarasota?”

  “Well, yeah. Since then we’ve discovered that there’s a similar program in Tampa and they’ve been very helpful.” She took the sketch from him and put it in her apron pocket. “It just helps to see the layout of a building that was once used for similar work.” She motioned around the large, cavernous building, then shrugged. “Ready to dig those ferns?”

  “You sure you’ve got time to get them back in the ground?” he teased.

  “Guilty. How did you know I hadn’t gotten around to that yet?”

  “I found a wild orchid growing along my lane that I thought you might be able to save. So this morning, before I figured out that everyone would be at services, I stopped by your house and saw the ferns still sitting in the bucket.” He held up the empty bucket he was carrying. “At this rate I’m going to run out of buckets pretty soon.”

  Her smile was both beautiful and sad. “I never seem to get around to the things that really matter.”

  “Right. Like saving an entire homeless population or making sure the survivors of the hurricane get the clothing and household goods they need to start over, like—”

  “Honoring my mother’s memory,” she said quietly. She had not moved from her perch on the sorting table, and her gaze met his directly. “How do you honor the memory of your parents, John?”

  So here it is, he thought. She had given him the opening he’d been looking for earlier, but it had come so unexpectedly that he suddenly found that he did not have the words. “I know I owe you an explanation,” he said as he put down the garden tools and pushed himself up onto the table beside her.

  “You don’t owe me anything, but if you’re inclined to finish the conversation you started that morning at breakfast, I’m listening.”

  He glanced at her, expecting to see judgment or at the very least skepticism in her eyes, but instead he lost himself in their sapphire depths. “It’s hard to know …”

  “Start with how she died.”

  He stared down for a minute, gathering his thoughts, or maybe he was just fighting the memories, reluctant to go back to that horrible time.

  “It was winter. There was snow, a lot of it, and it was bitterly cold. Worst winter in a decade, the weather people kept saying. But she insisted on going out.”

  “Why?”

  “It was my fault.” He felt tears well and willed himself to contain them. “I had started on this Walden thing that fall, and at first everyone seemed to think the idea might have merit. It’s not unheard of even for an Amish community to find itself caught up in more worldly ways.”

  “So when you read Thoreau’s book, you thought that here was a guide for getting back to the old ways?”

  John nodded and cleared his throat. “But the more I talked about how the community might apply certain elements of Thoreau’s experiment to our lifestyle, the more people seemed to be alarmed by it, and by me.”

  “Your mother was concerned?”

  “Not with me, for me. She had heard from a friend that things were getting out of hand. What had begun as trivial was quickly escalating into something much more serious, but I was too stubborn to see that. Mom insisted that we needed to make sure the leadership of the congregation had my side of the story. She hated gossip in any form.” He paused and shut his eyes to block out the memory. “She had learned that the bishop would be meeting with the elders that night, and she was determined that I be there.”

  “So you and she…?”

  “No. I refused to go. We had had this really terrible argument, and I had stormed off to take care of the evening milking. Mom and I could knock heads now and then. I come by my stubbornness honestly.” He stared up at the light filtering in around the roof vents. “Next thing I know she’s got our horse hitched up to the buggy and is climbing into the driver’s seat. She hadn’t driven that buggy once since my father had died. Either I drove or we didn’t go anywhere.”

  He sucked in a breath and let it out with a shudder. Hester placed the flat of her palm against his back and remained perfectly still, waiting for him to continue.

  “But that was Mom. In some ways she had always felt like the outsider in the community, especially after Dad died. She was determined to make my case to the powers that be, even if I wasn’t. I started after her, yelling at her to stop, but she was so strong-willed, nothing was going to stop her from going.”

  A bird flew through the open door and settled on a crossbeam in the ceiling.

  “What happened, John?”

  “The driveway was covered in ice. I could see that the horse was nervous. I kept yelling for her to stop, but then a passing car backfired and …”

  “The horse bolted?”

  John nodded and tried to swallow around the lump that filled his throat. “He slipped and the buggy turned over, and Mom …” He swiped at the tears he could no longer hold back.

  “But you weren’t in the buggy with her,” Hester said softly. “There was nothing you could have done to prevent this, so why did you say that you killed her?”

  “Because afterward I knew what others were saying. I knew full well that I was on the brink of being called before the congregation. I mean, any fool understands that once the bishop gets involved, things have gone to a whole new level. And I should have known that when I stubbornly refused to back down, she would take matters into her own hands. She was fierce that way.”

  “The old saying applies—hindsight is twenty-twenty. But John, if this is the whole story—”

  “It is …”

  “Then the fact remains that you had nothing to do with her death. It was her choice to go out that night, John. You did everything you could to stop her.”

  He continued the story as if she hadn’t spoken. “A passing car saw the overturned buggy and stopped. The woman had a cell phone and called for help, then stayed with us until the ambulance arrived. But it was already too late.”

  “She died in your arms?”

  John nodded. “She put her hand on my cheek and said three words: ‘Find the balance.’ “

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was an old joke that we shared. Whenever things got overwhelming and she had trouble adapting to the Amish life, Dad would always tell her to find the balance. After he died, and I would come home after getting into some argument with another kid or in a bad mood, she would remind me that if Dad were there, he would tell me to ‘find the balance.’ And as she got older and became frustrated with knees that hurt and eyes that needed glasses for fine needlework, I would throw it back to her: ‘Find the balance, Ma.’ ” He savored this sweeter memory for a long moment, and then looked around. “Haven’t exactly done that, have I?”

  “I suppose that depends on how you define balance,” Hester said. “But I do know that for you to go around saying you killed your mother is just one more tactic you’ve developed to keep people at arm’s length.”

  “It’s not something I go around saying to folks,” he protested.

  “You said it to me,” she challenged. “And you don’t even like me.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Could be the way we’re always on guard around each other. Could be—”

  Without taking time to consider what the possible consequences might be, John pulled her against him and kissed her. “I like you, okay?” he whispered, and when she did not fight him, he kissed
her again. Then he released her and hopped down from the table. “Are you going to help me dig these ferns or not?”

  Hester could not move, much less find the energy to dig ferns. Her body felt like water, and her mind was racing like a speedboat. And she wasn’t sure she could handle thinking about the somersaults her heart seemed to be attempting.

  John Steiner had kissed her. Twice. Without any warning at all. Without for one second stopping to consider what her feelings might be. Typical. The man was so…She realized she was running her forefinger over her lips. “Oh, get over yourself,” she muttered and picked up the shovel he’d left for her.

  Outside, John was stabbing the pitchfork into the hard soil. For all the rain they had had earlier in the season, it had been dry for weeks now.

  “Be careful,” she said. “You’ll break them off without getting the roots.”

  “We do grow ferns up north,” he said, and she could hear frustration in his voice. It didn’t help that he refused to look at her.

  They dug in silence for several minutes, nothing passing between them other than the sound of metal hitting hard-packed earth. “Maybe if we soak the soil,” John said, but it was evident that he wasn’t asking for her opinion.

  Hester leaned on her shovel. “Look, we cannot just ignore what you did back there.”

  “You don’t have to make it sound like—”

  “I’m not trying to make it sound like anything. I just think we need to talk about it.”

  “Look, it was a kiss, all right? Okay, two kisses.”

  “Yes, I know. The question is, why?”

  “Why? You want me to analyze something that was completely—”

  She straightened to her full height, which was still several inches shorter than he was. “I am going to assume that it was a spontaneous reaction.”

  “Do you always have to make more of a situation than it really is?” Without giving her a chance to respond, he jammed his pitchfork into the suddenly yielding soil and headed back to the house. “I’ll tell Arlen you’re ready to go,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll be in the car.”

  Chapter 24

  It took the MDS team only ten days to complete the work on John’s house, and by the first week in October, the property was ready to be listed on the market. Hester couldn’t help but marvel at the crew her father had put together—a small army of experienced carpenters along with an electrician and a plumber. At her father’s subtle insistence and with his promise that he would make sure that John was busy elsewhere, she had asked Emma and Jeannie and their daughters as well as Rosalyn to help her paint the restored rooms and clean the entire house after the workers were finished. Margery had shown up to help as well.

  “It’s a beautiful house,” Jeannie exclaimed. “Wouldn’t it make a perfect Rainbow House?”

  “Not really,” Emma said. “It’s too far from town. How are the homeless men and women supposed to get here? Besides, there’s only one bathroom.”

  As usual, Jeannie was undaunted by her sister’s practical streak. “Well, it would make a great something. I hate seeing it torn down and yet another multistoried monstrosity going up in its place.”

  “The packinghouse would be a good place to sort the donated fruit once we start collecting it, and we could even make the marmalade there if we got the right equipment.” Hester had been thinking about how perfect the space was for their project practically nonstop since she’d gotten the idea, but she only grasped that she’d spoken aloud when Jeannie squealed.

  “It is perfect, and we have to find a place soon. I’m already getting calls from people wanting to schedule a date to have the volunteers come get their fruit.”

  “Same problem,” Emma said as she stood back to check her daughter, Sadie’s, work on the trim. “I thought we decided that because of people’s discomfort with having homeless people in their homes, we were going to have them do the sorting and distribution and we were going to recruit young people to do the collecting. Again, how will people without any means of transportation get here?”

  “I know, but …” Jeannie got no further.

  “Emma’s right,” Hester admitted. “Even if the place were available—and it isn’t—how are we going to transport the volunteers out here to sort and pack?”

  Margery snorted. “Well, now, it’s going to be a while before John can sell this place. I don’t care what that fast-talking realtor says. In the meantime, how about I run a little ferry service? Collect folks down at the marina in town and bring them here by boat on the days you need them to work?”

  “Samuel could bring people in his camper,” Rosalyn volunteered.

  Hester felt a prickle of excitement, but then she looked out the window and saw the realtor’s FOR SALE sign prominently posted near the water. There was a mate to the sign posted by the road and another pointing the way from Highway 41. Besides, John would never agree to let them use the packinghouse even on a short-term basis now that the property was on the market. Would he?

  “Hester could ask him,” Rosalyn suggested.

  “Ask who what?”

  “Ask John if we can use the packinghouse until he sells. It would buy us some time before we had to put the whole project on hold for lack of a proper space to handle the sorting and such,” Jeannie explained.

  “He might just agree,” Margery mused. “He’s changed some these last weeks, actually shown some indication that he’s begun to realize this going-it-alone thing may not be his best move.”

  “Do you want me to ask him?” Emma said softly. Emma was the only person who knew that John had kissed her. Her reaction had not been the shock that Hester had been expecting. Instead, she had asked, “Did you kiss him back?” And Hester had nodded.

  “Thought so,” Emma had said with a smug little smile. But when there had been no further contact with John, Emma had adopted the pitying look that was now on her face whenever his name came up.

  “I can ask him,” Hester said as she put the finishing touches on the wall she’d been painting. “But be prepared for him to say no.”

  “Where is he, anyway?” Margery asked. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

  “I asked Dad to—”

  “He went off with that realtor,” Jeannie said. “I don’t like that guy. He’s so…slick.”

  “He’s just doing his job,” Emma said. “And speaking of jobs, it looks like we have finished here.” She wet her finger with spit and scrubbed a speck of paint off Sadie’s cheek.

  “Ah, Mom,” Sadie protested, and all the women laughed. Then they heard male voices downstairs.

  “Looks like here’s your chance, Hester,” Emma said. “John’s back.”

  “Hey, John, come see what a woman’s touch can do for this place,” Jeannie called.

  John looked up the restored stairway, its carved wooden banister now gleaming with fresh polish, and saw the women gathered at the top. All but her, he thought. And then Hester stepped out of the large bedroom and joined the others. She was not smiling, but she met his eyes for the first time since the day he’d kissed her. On the other hand, she was wearing that expression that he’d come to know so well, the one she seemed to reserve just for him. The one that shouted, Let’s get one thing straight, mister.

  He forced a smile and climbed the stairs. “Looks great,” he said, glancing around. “Thank you. I—”

  “Oh, you can’t see anything from there,” Jeannie said, taking his arm and leading him into the bedroom that had been his sleeping quarters before the hurricane. “Check this out.”

  The walls had been painted a pale blue, a softer version of the color of Hester’s eyes, he thought, and he glanced at her. The woodwork and ceiling were white, and the wood floor that Samuel and Zeke had sanded and restored was a soft blond. The whole effect was one of “Come on in and rest for a while.”

  “This room alone would sell the place,” Margery said. “Some young couple looking to start life t
ogether.” She nudged his arm with hers. “Wait ‘til you see the nursery down the hall.” Subtlety had never been Margery’s strong point.

  “We should find you one of those old-fashioned white iron beds,” Jeannie said. “And a wicker rocking chair over there to look out over the garden and—”

  “He’s selling the place,” Emma reminded her. “He doesn’t need to spend extra money on furnishings.”

  “Well, I’ve always heard that a house shows better when it’s staged properly with furniture and all.”