Initially, Fern thought she’d return to Maine in time for wedding season, but when it was clear she’d be delayed indefinitely, they both pledged to wait however long they had to in order to become husband and wife. Yet Fern had barely been away for two months when she learned Walker had wed Gloria instead. Jane was born the following summer.
Fern wasn’t merely hurt, angry and disappointed; she was in shock. Barely able to eat, sleep, pray or speak for weeks on end, it was as if she were in mourning for someone who’d died a sudden and unexpected death. She was just beginning to recover physically and emotionally when the aunt she’d been caring for passed away and her aunt’s house was repossessed by the bank, leaving Fern homeless. It was desperation, not love, that had caused Fern to marry Marshall, a widower twelve years her senior. More accurately, it was resignation; Fern had given up believing there was such a thing as true love.
But in Marshall she’d found a man who, although not outwardly affectionate or expressive, was kind and considerate and until he fell ill, he’d given her a house and stability. In turn, she did her best to offer him companionship and care. The unspoken truth between them was that he’d married her out of loneliness and she’d married him out of poverty. Over time, their fondness for each other deepened and although Fern never felt toward Marshall the way she once felt toward Walker, she didn’t regret marrying him. How could she, when he’d fathered their two beloved children? Besides, Marshall never hurt me the way Walker did...
“Ouch!” Fern yelped as the water scalded her fingers, snapping her back to the present.
“Are you all right, dear?” Jaala asked.
“I’m fine. I’d better get going—it’s almost nine o’clock.”
Fern bundled into her coat and covered her prayer kapp with her best winter church bonnet, then stepped outside. It was only the fifteenth of December, but Jaala mentioned that two days before, a heavy rain had frozen over, coating everything with ice. It had since melted, but this morning the air smelled of impending snow. Fern glanced across the dirt driveway toward the barn, where the children were straddling the fence, pretending they were riding horses.
As Phillip bounced up and down, Fern visually assessed the railing and determined it wouldn’t give way beneath his weight. He was such a sturdy child, built like his father. He had his father’s dark hair and eyes, too. But Marshall’s demeanor was so understated he seemed detached, whereas Phillip couldn’t contain his exuberance for life and his affection for people.
Patience, on the other hand, was a diminutive replica of her mother—fair-haired, fair-skinned, freckled and petite—but Fern hoped that’s where the similarities ended. Waifish was the word someone once used to describe Fern as a girl and she didn’t want her daughter to grow up feeling like a ragamuffin, too.
Gott willing, maybe I can get a full-time job at Weaver’s Fabric Shop and I’ll be allowed to bring the kinner to work until they’re old enough to start schul. Then I might be able to afford to rent a place of our own, Fern schemed.
Shortly after Fern’s husband died two years earlier, she’d had to sell their house—at a loss—because she couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments. Fern and the children moved in with Fern’s cousin on her mother’s side, Adam, and his wife, Linda, and their children. Fern contributed what she could to the family’s expenses and she helped mind their brood, too. She’d even given up her part-time job so she could manage the household while Linda was on bed rest during her fifth pregnancy. However, in spite of Fern’s helpfulness, the couple had been strongly hinting it was time for her and the children to find another place to live.
Having lost both of her parents when she was still a baby, Fern was accustomed to being shifted from one relative’s home to another. Whenever someone in her extended family needed an extra person to work on a farm, mind children or tend to an infirmed elder, Fern would pack up her suitcase and go stay with them until her help was needed elsewhere. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be of service to her extended family members, nor was it that anyone was unkind to her. But Fern had grown up longing for a permanent place to call home.
I’m twenty-nine and not much has changed, she reflected. I still want a permanent place to call home...but now I want it more for my kinner than for myself.
Patience’s waving from across the driveway snapped Fern out of her daze. She giggled; the child had misbuttoned her coat, but at least it was fastened to the top. Fern lifted her gloved hand to wave back and then started down the lane.
* * *
Walker climbed into his buggy, hoping the meeting with the attorney wouldn’t take long; this was a busy week at work. During the warmer months, he was employed full-time by an Englisch tree service, but in winter, he took odd jobs here and there. From Thanksgiving until Christmas, Walker helped out at Levi Swarey’s Christmas tree farm in the mornings, cutting and baling trees and loading them onto Englischers’ vehicles. The nearer Christmas drew, the more frantic the customers became, and Walker especially regretted leaving Levi short staffed on a Friday, their second busiest day of the week.
I imagine Roman bequeathed the haus to Jane, he thought as he guided his horse toward Main Street. He figured he ought to feel grateful, but instead the prospect overwhelmed him. Walker wasn’t adept at negotiating legal matters and completing paperwork. Besides, the Lord had already provided him with a good living, and the house he shared with his daughter and mother had room to spare. Either I’ll have to sell the haus and put the money in a trust fund or rent it out until Jane becomes an adult and can decide for herself what to do with it.
Walker didn’t like picturing his daughter as an adult; she was growing too fast already. He smiled as he thought of her practicing for the annual Christmas program at school; she was so excited it was all she could talk about. Jane had been assigned three Bible verses to recite and although she’d memorized them thoroughly, she kept practicing, worried she might stutter or forget a word. She probably developed that anxiety from being around her groossdaadi. Gloria’s daed was so particular; everything had to be just right and even then, he was rarely satisfied.
Walker immediately felt guilty for thinking ill of Roman. There was no doubt in his mind the man had loved Jane dearly and wanted the best for her. The problem was, Roman’s sense of what was best often bordered on perfectionism. His standards were almost impossibly high and he had virtually no tolerance for mistakes, big or small. If only he’d exhibited more mercy... Walker shook the thought from his head, remembering one of his mother’s oft-quoted sayings, “If only is a complaint dressed up as a wish.”
As he journeyed through town, Walker spied a tree toppled in an Englischer’s front yard. It wasn’t a large tree, but its weight was enough to splinter the nearby fence when it landed on it. At least it’s only wood that was fractured. A fence can be replaced.
Just like that, the memory of the tree-trimming accident came rushing back, as instantaneously as the accident itself. One moment Walker had been strolling across a customer’s lawn toward his employer’s bucket truck. The next moment it felt as if he’d been knocked between the shoulder blades with an anvil. Then there was a black, blank void.
When he came to, Walker was in the hospital. His foreman explained one of the ropes the crew used to bring limbs down had snapped, causing a twelve-foot branch to swing in the wrong direction. Walker assumed the limb had knocked him flat, but he was told the force he’d felt against his back was his Englisch friend and coworker, Jordan, shoving him out of harm’s way. Although his helmet was cracked, Walker survived the accident with nothing more than a minor concussion. Jordan, unfortunately, suffered a broken neck and skull fracture and perished at the scene.
It had been eight years, but Walker still shuddered at the memory. Or maybe that was partly from the weather; it was definitely cold enough to snow. He pushed his hat down over his ears and worked the horse into a quicker trot.
Once he reached Main Street, he stopped to get out and hitch the horse to a post behind the library and then he jogged across the street to the attorney’s office. The receptionist was on the phone, so he hung up his coat and hat and waited until she was free to usher him to the attorney’s office.
“I’m Anthony Marino,” the attorney said, extending his hand. “Have a seat. The other party should be here soon. Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Water?”
“No, thank you,” Walker replied in Englisch. He sat down before repeating, “The other party?”
“Your father-in-law named two heirs for the majority of his estate,” Anthony explained just as the receptionist tapped on the door. He crossed the room to open it, saying, “Looks like she’s here now.”
Because the woman was wearing a bonnet, Walker couldn’t immediately see her face from where he was sitting. But after Anthony introduced himself, she replied, “And I’m Fern Glick. It’s nice to meet you.”
Walker gasped audibly and both Fern and Anthony swiveled their heads in his direction. Anthony chuckled, saying, “Obviously, there’s no need for me to introduce the two of you.”
Fern’s eyes, which were as gray as the snow clouds outside the window, opened wide with apparent disorientation as she looked at Walker. He hardly had a chance to register that she still had a faint smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks before she glanced away. “Neh,” she answered the attorney. “We’re already acquainted.”
Acquainted? The word was like a snowball right between Walker’s eyes. Acquainted? They’d once pledged their undying love for each other! Of course, that was over eight years ago and they’d both married other people since then, but did Fern have to reduce their past relationship to nothing more than acquaintances? Walker tugged at his shirt collar, as if that would help him breathe better.
“Please, make yourself comfortable, Fern,” the attorney said, gesturing to the chair next to Walker’s.
As Anthony turned and emptied a decanter of ice water into two glasses, Fern perched on the far edge of her seat, her elbows pressed to her sides and her hands folded on her lap. She’d always had a way of drawing into herself, as if to take up as little space as possible, but today her posture seemed like a rebuff of Walker’s presence. He tried to think of a greeting that wouldn’t sound trite, but his tongue felt thick and his mind was woolly. He hadn’t felt this unnerved since the first time he’d ever sat so close to Fern.
Anthony handed them each a glass and Walker gratefully took a gulp of water. The attorney sat down behind his desk and explained Roman had required both Walker and Fern to be present for the reading of his will. “I can go through the document with you word-by-word, but the long and short of it is that Roman named you two as beneficiaries of his estate.”
“You mean he named Fern and my dochder, Jane, as beneficiaries, right?” Walker clarified.
“No, he actually bequeathed his possessions and estate to Fern and you, not to your daughter. Roman indicated he trusted you implicitly to do right by Jane.”
That’s surprising—he never said a complimentary word about my relationship with my dochder when he was alive.
Anthony added, “He also understood it would simplify things if he named you as a beneficiary because there are very precise stipulations to the inheritance.”
Now that sounds more like Roman. “What are those stipulations?”
“First, Roman bequeathed the house solely to Fern for as long as she chooses to reside in it.”
The brim of Fern’s bonnet obscured her profile but Walker heard her inhale sharply. She leaned forward and placed her water glass on a coaster on Anthony’s desk. “What if I don’t choose to reside in it?”
“Then you may sell it. But in that case you and Walker will split the profit, fifty-fifty.”
Fern’s response was immediate and decisive. “That’s what I’d like to do, then. Can you help me arrange the sale?”
Anthony balked. “I’d be glad to, but wouldn’t you like to give it more thought? The last time I spoke with Roman, he led me to believe you didn’t have your own—”
“I don’t need to think it over,” Fern interrupted. “I have absolutely no intention of living in Maine ever again.”
What she means is she has no intention of living around me ever again, Walker thought.
“I care less about getting market value than I do about selling the house as soon as possible,” Fern asserted. “I understand there are real estate investing franchises that can expedite a cash sale. I’d like to contact one of them.”
Anthony picked up a pen and rolled it between his fingers. “That’s fine, as long as Walker agrees. According to the conditions of the will, he has the first option of buying you out—”
“I’m not interested in acquiring another house,” Walker objected. Eventually he’d just resell it, so it wasn’t worth the added hassle of buying out Fern’s share first.
“Okay, in that case the house becomes joint property for you to sell. You’ll have to agree on how you want to go about that.”
Walker cleared his throat. “I’m not sure we should rush into working with an investing franchise instead of a local realtor. For one thing, it’s a very big decision to make on the spot. For anoth—”
“You’ve made big decisions on the spot before,” Fern broke in, staring directly at him. Her face, always thin, had become more angular with age. Or maybe it was her cutting remark—an obvious reference to his decision to marry Gloria—that made Fern’s features appear sharper.
Clenching the water glass, he averted his eyes and addressed Anthony instead. “The other reason I think we should wait is that the recent ice storm brought down two trees in Roman’s yard. One blocks the lane and the other clipped the edge of the haus and damaged the roof. We’ll get a much better price for the property if we at least make that repair and clear the yard before we show it to prospective buyers, whoever they are. I could fix everything up myself within a couple of weeks.”
The attorney leaned forward and spoke to Fern. “Walker’s right. Even a real estate investing franchise is going to appraise the house before making an offer. A little yard work and a minor repair might make the difference between thousands of dollars.” When Fern was silent, Anthony pressed, “May I ask why you’re in such a hurry to sell?”
“I—I—I’m only going to be in Serenity Ridge until the twenty-third,” Fern stammered. “I want to get the process started in person now and I can’t always get to the phone shanty.”
“That’s no problem. I can mail you the necessary documents for signing when the time comes, and I’ll give you my personal cell phone number so if you have questions, you can call me whenever it’s convenient for you.” Anthony smiled convincingly.
“Denki,” Fern said. Walker noticed they both kept slipping in and out of Deitsch.
“Just a couple more things concerning Roman’s estate,” Anthony said, shuffling through his papers. “It looks like he left his livestock and buggy to the Fry family.”
Sarah Fry had been widowed two years ago and she was struggling to feed her seven children, all under the age of twelve. After Roman’s death in early November, the deacon tasked the two eldest Fry boys with caring for Roman’s horse, milk cow and chickens at their home until the will was read. Walker was touched to learn Roman wanted them to have the animals and buggy permanently, as he knew how much it would benefit them. I guess there was a side to him I didn’t always see, he admitted to himself.
“As for Roman’s possessions in the house, stable and workshop, similar rules apply—Fern would have inherited them in full if she’d taken up residence. Since she’s chosen not to, the two of you need to decide together what you’ll do with the furnishings and tools, et cetera.”
“I don’t want anything from the haus, but if Walker does, he can take whatever he’d like. Otherwise, I think we shou
ld give the material goods to someone in need or include them in the sale of the house,” Fern said.
Anthony rubbed his temples, clearly bewildered by her snap decision to forfeit any material goods. “You’re already in town, so I’d urge you to take a look through the house and workshop first.”
After a brief silence, Fern unexpectedly agreed. Walker was further taken aback when she questioned, “Since the haus is unoccupied, may my kinner and I stay in it for the week? The woman I’m visiting, Jaala, received unexpected company, so the extra room would be wilkom.”
“That’s fine, as long as Walker has no objections.”
“No, no objections.” Although the roof was damaged superficially, from what Walker could see in passing, the house was structurally sound. “However, I’m starting a full-time contractor position after the first of the year, so if I’m going to work on Roman’s haus and yard, I’ll have to get started on it next week.”
Wrinkling his forehead, Anthony shrugged. “I can’t see that presenting a problem, will it, Fern?”
Fern’s discernible pause indicated she thought otherwise, but she answered, “Neh. I’m sure we won’t disturb one another.”
Too late for that, Walker thought ruefully.
* * *
After Anthony handed her the house key and a folder of paperwork, Fern said goodbye and hurried into the restroom. She ran warm water over her hands, trying to gather her composure.
The attorney never mentioned anyone else would be attending the meeting, so Fern assumed Walker had already been informed of the terms of the will during a separate appointment. And while she expected she might have seen him from afar at church on Sunday, she’d planned to avoid coming within speaking distance of him. Or at least, she’d planned to stay far enough away so that she wouldn’t have been able to smell the lemongrass soap he still used or to hear the rustle of his pant legs when he shifted in his chair the way she could in Anthony’s office.
The Amish Christmas Secret Page 19