Becoming Bea

by Leslie Gould

  “Let’s go under that tree,” he said, starting toward the silver maple with the towering evergreens just behind.

  Confused at the odd way he was acting, I stayed put.

  “Come on,” he bellowed.

  Frightened, I followed.

  Enough of a canopy from the maple remained, combined with the wind block behind it, that we had some cover. I leaned against the tree, wishing Don’s girlfriend would show up soon.

  He stepped closer to me. “Are you cold?”

  I shook my head.

  He yawned and stretched his arms. I flinched as his right arm came down around my shoulders. I ducked out from under him. “Don’t,” I said, quietly but firmly.

  He laughed. “You know, Bea, I—”

  “Beatrice.”

  This time he chuckled. “We really could have something special if you’d just relax a little.” He inched closer to me again.

  I stepped away. “I need to go to the house,” I said, walking away from him, into the pouring rain. “I told Nan I’d be back right after the singing to help with the babies.”

  I thought I was going to make a clean escape but he hurried after me and grabbed my arm under my cape.

  “What about your girlfriend?” I yanked away.

  He held on tightly, spinning me around toward him and then backing both of us under the tree.

  “Let go of me,” I said. But he didn’t. I jerked my arm away again, but he didn’t release me. “I don’t want to be with you like this.”

  He pushed me up against the tree trunk until I could feel the bark through my dress.

  “Why did you lead me on?” he asked.

  I gasped. “I didn’t. Not at all. I—”

  “You did,” he said.

  “No.”

  “What about on the hayride? And that night outside the shop? And when you bandaged my finger.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t, honestly.”

  “Oh. So that’s the way it is. You treat every man—or boy, in Ben’s case—as if you’re interested in him?”

  “No.” I winced, aware that Hope had told me to consider him “a backup plan.” Had I implied I was interested in him?

  He waited for a long awkward moment, and finally said, “I’m the better match for you. I’m much more the husband type than Ben.”

  I shook my head and tried to wrench away, but he tightened his grip and stepped closer until his body was against mine. I flattened myself against the tree trunk and sputtered, “Stop it.”

  He didn’t. He pressed against me, his breath heavy on my neck. I pushed, managing to get my one arm between us.

  “That’s one of the things I like about you,” he said, taking a half step back, “you’re a fighter.”

  Fear gripped me as he reached up, still holding the flashlight, and stroked the point of my chin with his little finger.

  I’d never been kissed. But at the moment, from the look on his face, that was the least of my worries. I tried to yell, but it was as if my voice had frozen. With my free hand I managed to knock the flashlight, sending the light helter-skelter as it illuminated the rain for just a moment, before it fell to the ground.

  He cursed, pulling me along as he stepped to retrieve it. As he did, he yanked me down hard toward the ground. I stumbled and fell to my bony knees as the sound of a buggy started up the drive.

  Relief rushed through me. “Ben!” I called out.

  Don shoved the flashlight into his pocket and then clamped his hand over my mouth. I tried to bite it, but he shoved his hand against me harder and then yanked me up. I began to shake as he pulled me back under the silver maple.

  The buggy stopped in the parking lot. “Don?” It was Phillip. “Come on,” he yelled. “Don’t make me have to get out and find you in this downpour.”

  Don hesitated for a moment and then muttered, “He’s early.” Then, his eyes beady, he said to me, “Guess my girlfriend got delayed.” He dropped his hand from my mouth, let go of my arm, and pushed me.

  I stumbled backward against the tree, grabbing it to keep from falling.

  Without looking back he started toward the buggy. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  “Not likely.” I choked on the words as a sob welled inside of me. As I let go of the tree, my hand fell against the book in my pocket. “Wait!”

  Don turned as I dug the book of verses out from under my wet cape and then hurled it through the darkness. It missed his head by a couple of inches and fell with a thud to the ground a few feet beyond him. He hesitated for a moment, an angry look fixed on his face.

  “Come on!” Phillip yelled.

  Don picked up the book and then jogged toward his brother, the beam of the flashlight bouncing up and down, illuminating circles of rain.

  After he climbed into the buggy, and as Phillip turned it around, the beam found me for a long moment and then flickered off as they started up the drive.

  I touched my Kapp. It was soaked. I was tempted to head back through the sycamore grove and over the creek to the Cramers’ to find Ben and tell him what happened. But what would I tell him?

  And what had happened? A sob, full of pain, lodged in my throat. And then another. I’d never, in all my life, been treated so badly. I’d never felt such Shohm.

  He’d acted as if I’d deserved it—for leading him on. Had I? My vision blurred.

  The wind began to blow, and a branch overhead creaked. A wet leaf plastered against my cheek. I peeled it away and clasped it in one hand, wiping my wet face where it had landed with the other. Tears, mixed with rain, flowed down my face.

  I took a deep breath, wiped my eyes with the edge of my cape, and started toward the house, making my way in the pitch-black as best I could.

  Although I couldn’t see it until I’d nearly reached the back door, someone had left the lamp in the kitchen on low. I hung my cape and turned the lamp to high, feeling comforted by the light. I examined my arm, expecting a bruise. It was only red and fading quickly. I took the lamp down the hall with me to the bathroom, tiptoeing so as not to wake Cate and Pete, and looked in the mirror. My mouth was a little red but not bruised. Perhaps Don hadn’t gripped me as tightly as I’d thought.

  My eyes were red rimmed and a wet rope of hair had come loose from my bun. I took off my Kapp and released the rest of my hair, running my fingers through it.

  I left the bathroom, still shaking as I did.

  What had been Don’s intent? Surely more than for me to meet his girlfriend, if in fact, there was a girlfriend. Perhaps he’d made all that up. I slumped down into a chair at the table, remembering he’d pointed his finger at me and said, “Look. She’s here.”

  He’d tricked me.

  I buried my head in my hands. Did he think treating me that way would make me change my mind about him? I shuddered.

  I placed my hand on the oak table, leaning against it, replaying Don grabbing me and then pressing himself against me. I couldn’t think about what might have happened if Phillip hadn’t arrived.

  Maybe Don didn’t have any idea how badly he’d scared me.

  I lifted my head. I was trying to fool myself. How could he not know?

  I stepped to the sink and poured myself a glass of water, remaining there as I drank it, watching the rain splatter against the window. That was as far into the night as I could see. And all I could hear was the rain coming sideways against the glass and house.

  My stomach roiled. Had I led him on?

  I heard the faint sound of wheels over the rain and rushed to the back door, finding Hope hurrying toward the house as Martin’s buggy turned down the drive. “Oh, there you are.” She brushed past me, leaving her cape on.

  I followed her into the kitchen.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here already,” she said as she headed straight for the hall.

  “Why ever not?” I asked.

  I put my glass in the sink, turned off the lamp, and followed her up the stairs. When she reached the landing, she headed s
traight to our room. I stopped at the closed nursery door to listen but couldn’t hear anything. Nan and Bob’s door was shut too.

  When I reached our room, Hope breezed back past me with her nightgown in her hands, on her way to the bathroom, I guessed.

  I got ready for bed in the dark, not wanting to bother with lighting the lamp, and when Hope returned I headed to the bathroom. When I was done, I assumed Hope was in bed.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, as I crawled under my quilt.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Hope. What happened?”

  It sounded as if she flopped toward the wall. “All I know,” she said, “is that Ben is really upset.”

  “Why?” I asked. I was the one whom he’d abandoned to Don. What right did Ben have to be upset?

  “He wouldn’t say, exactly.” Hope’s voice was muffled. “I had to guess.”

  I sat up in bed. “What are you saying?” Had something happened at the singing after I left?

  “Ask him yourself,” she said and then flopped again, probably onto her stomach, her face in her pillow. “But keep in mind the way you looked when I came in. Hair down. Lips red. Soaking wet. . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing.” She sighed.

  How could I sleep after that? The rain seemed to be a lullaby to everyone in the house, including the triplets, except for me. It drummed against the windowpanes of the bedroom, matching the turmoil inside my head.

  Chapter

  17

  I did get up twice during the night with the babies. Kurt had totally recovered from his cold, but Asher was worse. In the morning I awoke to the steady beat of raindrops. I wished the incident with Don had been a dream—but it hadn’t been. An unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach weighed me down as I crawled out of bed.

  I’d only been in the kitchen a few minutes when Mervin and Martin’s buggy drove up the drive toward the barn. A few minutes later, I watched them hurry down the path to the shop. When Phillip and Don came around the corner of the building toward the door, I stepped away from the window.

  Ben was usually first to arrive, but not today. I was adding oats to the boiling water when another buggy came up the drive. I stepped to the window. Sure enough it was Ben. For a second I considered running out to him, but the water began to boil and rise to the top of the pot. I turned off the burner, but not before it boiled over. I grabbed the potholders and yanked the pan to the back burner. I’d wait a minute and catch Ben on his way to the shop.

  But then Pete came into the kitchen and said he needed to make a cup of peppermint tea for Cate. “She has indigestion,” he said.

  “I’ll make it.” I didn’t want him to have to work around the mess on the stove. I grabbed a mug and then a tea bag, pouring the water and handing it to Pete.

  “Denki,” he said, as Hope came into the room. “Nan’s nursing Asher, but I need bottles for the other two.”

  “Guder Mariye,” I said, smiling at her.

  “Jah, right,” she responded, taking the pitcher of formula out of the fridge.

  My stomach lurched. I needed to talk with Hope, but how could I possibly tell her what had happened? It was too embarrassing. And what if she didn’t believe me?

  By the time I cleaned up the oatmeal and glanced out the window again, Ben was at the entrance to the shop building, opening the door. I considered asking Pete to tell Ben I needed to talk with him, but that felt awkward. I’d have to do my best to catch Ben during his break. After breakfast, I scrubbed potatoes for dinner and prepared the round steak I’d put in the refrigerator to thaw the day before, following the menu list I’d made. After I put everything in the oven, I headed upstairs to help with the babies.

  Cate had asked if I’d join her in the sunroom, which I was happy to do, because Hope was only speaking to me in monosyllables. I didn’t want to expose Cate to Kurt or Asher’s germs, so I took Leah down. But after she cried for a half hour straight, Cate asked me to leave. “I’ll read,” she said.

  For the first time since I started working for the Millers I wished I could spend the morning reading too, not that I envied Cate her reason for the opportunity.

  Back upstairs I went. At break time I looked out the nursery window, but rain was coming down in torrents. The boys had stayed in their break room. If the rain continued, they’d eat their noon meal there as well.

  We finally got the babies settled down for their morning nap, just in time to get dinner on the table. Pete and Bob dashed through the kitchen door, nearly soaked to the bone. Jah, the boys would be eating in the break room for sure.

  It continued to rain buckets. Not even Hannah braved the weather to see Mervin that day, but Hope did take a platter of cookies down at the afternoon break time, hunched under an umbrella. She was gone for nearly half an hour. I imagined her and Martin going over the evening before, talking about me no doubt.

  When she returned I asked if she’d seen Ben.

  “He didn’t take a break,” she answered. “He worked straight through.”

  At quitting time, as I washed bottles at the sink, I heard footsteps on the stoop. I expected Bob or Pete but instead someone knocked. Hope, who was just coming down the hall with two empty bottles, hurried to the door. “Come on in,” she said, her voice serious.

  I dried my hands on a towel as I turned toward the mud porch. Martin, followed by Ben, came through the door into the kitchen.

  “Ben needs to talk to Beatrice,” Martin said, as if I weren’t there. “Does she have a minute?”

  “Jah,” I said, facing Ben. “I’ve wanted to talk with you all day too.”

  He exhaled, slowly, his face pale and his eyes narrow. I’d never seen him appear so—pinched.

  “Do you want coffee?” I asked, motioning toward the table.

  He shook his head.

  Hope stepped to Martin’s side.

  Ben took a deep breath and then said, “I saw you last night. With Don.”

  I shivered at the thought of what he might have seen.

  “I was hoping you’d catch up with us,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “I thought you were right behind us.”

  Ben stepped backward, into the frame of the door. “Are you sorry for it?”

  For Don forcing himself on me? Jah, I was sorry for all of it. But I had no idea what he meant. “Sorry for what?”

  “For cheating on me!”

  It was my turn to step backward. “Cheating on you? That’s not what—” What had he seen? Don’s arm around me under the tree? Don pressing up against me? Or Don pulling me to the ground? My face warmed and then grew hot in a split second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s apparent you do.” Ben exhaled again, shaking as he did.

  “It’s all a misunderstanding.” My voice cracked as I spoke. “He . . . I . . . ” The harmony I’d felt in the coffee shop with Ben shattered like a crystal vase thrown against a brick wall.

  Ben started toward the back door.

  “Wait!” I called out.

  He kept going, slamming the door behind him.

  “Martin,” I said. “Stop him.”

  “There’s nothing to stop.” He started toward the back door too. “You simply confirmed what Don already told him.”

  I followed. “What did Don say?”

  Martin kept on going. “You already know what Don said.”

  “He’s lying,” I called out to Martin as the back door slammed shut again.

  That night I did my best to reach our bedroom ahead of Hope, determined to explain things to her, but I ended up walking a fussy Asher back and forth in the nursery while Nan fed Leah and then Kurt.

  By the time I reached our room, the lamp was off and Hope was in bed, but by the way she breathed I could tell she wasn’t asleep.

  “Hope,” I said after I’d changed into my nightgown.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I know you’re awake. I
have some things to say—whether you want to listen or not.” I sat down on my bed. The rain had stopped but the wind blew, scraping a branch against the corner of the house. I took a deep breath. “I did not cheat on Ben.” Just the thought of it made me nauseous. I swallowed, hard. “I would never do that.”

  I went on to explain that Don had wanted me to meet his girlfriend. “He told Ben to follow us,” I said. “I wanted to wait for Ben but Don insisted we go on ahead. He said it was fine with Ben. I just wanted to meet Don’s girlfriend and get it over with.”

  She rolled toward me. “So you claim Don has a girlfriend?”

  “Jah,” I said. “At least that’s what he told me. She was supposedly coming for a visit.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to voice my doubts that she existed or not. I’d have to tell Hope the whole story. . . . Instead, I described what I believed at the time. “I was so relieved that he had a girlfriend, thinking he’d stop acting strangely with me, that I agreed to meet her.” My face warmed, and I paused for a moment, thinking that my story sounded both arrogant and fishy at the same time.

  “But why would his girlfriend be coming here?”

  “Well, to visit him . . . and see Lancaster County.”

  “In November? There’s not much to see,” Hope said. “A bunch of cornstalks is about it. Oh, and rain.”

  That was true. “So on our way back from the Cramers’, all along I expected Ben to be right behind us, because Don told me he would be. We waited in the parking lot for the girlfriend’s driver to drop her off, but then it started raining.” I debated whether to tell her about Don being physical with me—and then rough—and decided not to. I wasn’t sure I could tell her without crying. And I was afraid she might think I led him on too, that I was somehow responsible. “So we moved under the trees. Then Phillip came in his buggy and Don left with him. I came into the house—and then you arrived. That’s all that happened.”

  She lifted her head to her elbow. “But no girlfriend showed up?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “And nothing happened between you and Don.”

  My voice shook. “No.”

  “Then why were you all out of sorts when I came into the kitchen? All jumpy. And your face was all red . . . And your hair down.”