by Peg Cochran
Amelia raised her head a couple of inches. “What happened?”
“Nothing, really. Your father told her to get lost, and we were no longer friends.”
Amelia pushed away from Shelby and jumped up from the couch. “That’s because Dad loved you. Nobody loves me!”
5
Dear Reader,
It’s September, which means winter is around the corner—it tends to come early to our part of the world. More than a few times, the children have gone trick-or-treating in the snow! On a farm, fall is the time to prepare for winter. We try to live off of what we grow as much as possible, sometimes trading with other farmers for things we don’t produce ourselves. And to get us through the long winter months, we can fruits and vegetables from our summer crops.
Home canning is not as hard as a lot of people think, and it’s such a pleasure to open a jar of beets or peppers that you put up yourself. I’ve always admired pioneer women, and this makes me feel a teeny bit like one of them, although I know their life was much harder than mine is.
“Billy, stop dawdling or you’re going to be late.”
Shelby looked at her son with exasperation. He claimed to have brushed his hair but it hadn’t done much to tame the cowlick that sprang from his crown like the bright red comb on their rooster Jack Sparrow’s head.
Billy was slumped over a bowl of cereal, picking out the raisins—which he claimed he didn’t like although Shelby could have sworn he’d liked them last week—and lining them up on the table alongside his place mat.
“You’re going to miss the bus if you don’t hurry,” Shelby said.
Billy looked up. “I’m not taking the bus. Jake said he’d drive me to school. He has to go into town anyway, he said.”
“What? You didn’t tell me.”
Billy shrugged and fished out another raisin that was floating in the milk in his cereal bowl.
Shelby cringed with embarrassment. “I hope you didn’t ask him for a ride.”
Jake was always ready to lend a hand when needed, but she certainly didn’t want the children begging for favors from him.
A brisk knock at the back door made her jump. She saw Jake’s outline through the lace curtain on the window and ran a hand through her hair, wishing she’d taken the time to brush out the tangled curls.
Jake didn’t wait for an answer but cracked open the door and stuck his head around the edge. “Okay if I come in?”
Dear Reader, I really wanted to say, “No, wait! Let me go brush my hair, dab on some lipstick, and change out of my baggy old jeans and this sweatshirt with the stretched-out neck.”
“Please.” Shelby grabbed the knob and pulled the door open the rest of the way.
Shelby’s kitchen wasn’t huge, but Jake made it seem even smaller than usual with his height and his broad shoulders.
“Almost ready, bud?” He ruffled Billy’s hair, making his cowlick even more pronounced.
Billy pushed his cereal bowl away and jumped up. “Let’s go,” he said breathlessly.
“Halloo,” a voice called from the front hall. “Anybody home?”
“In the kitchen, Bert.”
Bert Parker bustled into the room, her stick-thin figure bristling with energy. Her given name was Roberta but no one ever called her by her full name. Her husband had been named Ernie and she had taken a never-ending delight in introducing the two of them as Bert and Ernie.
Bert had been a fixture at Love Blossom Farm ever since Shelby could remember. She helped out wherever it was necessary, whether it was weeding the herb garden or minding the kids.
Bert stopped short when she saw Jake leaning against the counter.
“Hello, Jake.” She gave him a slow smile and looked from him to Shelby and back again. She glanced at the clock over the sink. “Billy, I passed the school bus about a quarter of a mile down the road. You’d better hurry or you’ll miss it.”
“Come on, partner.” Jake put an arm around Billy’s shoulders. “The truck is out back.”
Billy grabbed his backpack from a hook by the back door and was about to follow Jake when Amelia flew into the room.
Jake stopped and turned to Amelia. “I’m taking Billy to school. Do you want to ride with us?”
“Sure.”
Billy looked momentarily disappointed, then shrugged. “Bye, Mom,” he called over his shoulder just before the door shut behind him.
As soon as the door had fully closed, Bert turned to Shelby and raised her eyebrows.
“What?” Shelby said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Bert said, grabbing an apron from the hook next to the stove and tying it around her waist. “If you don’t want to tell me about it, that’s fine.”
“It’s not what you think,” Shelby insisted.
Bert turned to her with her hands on her hips. “Now, missy. First off, you have no idea what I’m thinking, and second, so what? So what if Jake spent the night?”
“He didn’t,” Shelby protested.
“Would it be so terrible if he had?”
“I’m . . . I’m not ready for that yet. It’s only been a couple of—”
“Years. It’s been years now, Shelby. You have to start living again.”
“I am,” Shelby said. She felt her cheeks flush. “But it wouldn’t be right . . . not with the children here. What would they think?”
“They can stay at my place anytime you want. It would be fun. We can order a pizza, and I’ve promised to teach them how to play poker.”
Shelby opened her mouth and then closed it again. The less said, the sooner she could get Bert off this topic.
Bert opened a cupboard door, pulled out a large pot, and clanged it down on the stove.
“It’s time we made that apple butter you’ve been wanting to try. Those apples aren’t going to keep forever, you know.”
Shelby breathed a sigh of relief at the change of subject.
“The apples are out on the front porch. I’ll go get them.”
When she returned with the bushel basket, Bert was lining up a dozen Mason jars on the counter.
Shelby put the basket on the kitchen table, and Bert stuck a hand in and pulled out an apple. She squeezed it and sniffed it.
“Good stuff,” she said finally. “The Tedfords grow some fine Cortlands.” She grabbed several and put them on the counter. “We’d better get to peeling these,” she said to Shelby, “or we’ll be here all day.”
Shelby hid a smile. Bert’s bark was always worse than her bite and hid a heart as soft as melting ice cream.
Shelby retrieved two paring knives from her knife block and handed one to Bert.
“I imagine you and the kids went to the fair yesterday,” Bert said, tossing some peeled and cut-up apple chunks into the pot on the stove. “I was going to go but I had a touch of lumbago and thought I’d better not. Even though Doc Fitzgibbons insists there’s no such thing as lumbago.” Bert snorted. “Little does he know. I told him, ‘Just wait till you get it.’ Young whippersnapper,” Bert said under her breath.
“Do you want to sit down?” Shelby asked in concern. “If your back is hurting—”
“Good heavens, don’t you start, too. It was only a bit of a pain, nothing to get all worked up over. I’m perfectly fine today, so no need to treat me like I have one foot in the grave.”
Bert grabbed another apple and began examining it for bad spots. “So, tell me about the fair. How did Billy make out in the riding competition?”
“He won a red ribbon.” Shelby couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice.
Bert put her hands on her hips. “No kidding!” She shook her head. “Too bad his father wasn’t there to see it. He’d be as proud as punch.”
Shelby looked down. “I know.”
“I didn’t mean to go upsetting you,” Bert said. “Tell me a
bout your jams and jellies.”
Shelby felt her face flush. “I took the blue ribbon.”
“I knew it,” Bert said, slapping her knee. “Good for you.” Bert picked up the apple and began peeling it. “I heard there was quite a to-do at the fair yesterday. Something about Zeke Barnstable turning up dead.”
Shelby paused with the paring knife in her hand. “It was awful. His body ended up in that old car the fire department was using for the Jaws of Life demonstration.”
Bert gestured to the apple in Shelby’s hand. “You want to get these peeled and in the pot before they turn brown.”
Shelby took the hint and finished peeling the apple.
“Why Zeke Barnstable? I wonder.” Bert scooped up her apple chunks and tossed them into the pot. “He never did anyone any harm so far as I can tell. Kept to himself, too. Not one to gossip or stick his nose in other people’s business. He used to be good friends with Jim Harris, Billy’s riding instructor—they spent every Thursday night at the Dixie Bar and Grill over on the highway just outside of town, having a couple of beers and playing pool. My neighbor waits tables there a couple of days a week and said she hasn’t seen the two of them together in ages.”
“Maybe they had a falling-out?” Shelby picked up the last apple and began to peel it.
“Could be.” Bert reached for the canister of sugar on the counter. She popped a piece of apple into her mouth and chewed. “Two cups of sugar ought to do it. These apples are plenty sweet already. We all have our little rituals, I suppose,” Bert said, spitting out an apple seed. “Jim and Zeke going to the Dixie every Thursday. Zeke’s wife, Brenda, and her gal friends spending every Friday night there catching up with one another. Same day Jim and his brother, Sid, would go for a couple of drinks and a round of pool.”
Bert scooped sugar from the canister and added it to the pot on the stove.
“What else do you need?” Shelby asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I usually add cinnamon, cloves, and allspice to mine.”
“Sounds good.” Shelby opened a cupboard and retrieved the spices. “What else?”
“A cup of apple cider and a splash of lemon juice.”
Shelby opened the fridge, pulled out the bottle of apple cider, and plucked a lemon from the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table.
Bert put the lemon on the cutting board and cut it in half. “He sure was a creature of habit, was Zeke, even more than the rest of us,” she said as she worked a wooden reamer into one of the lemon halves. “Sundays it was church at St. Andrews—third pew from the front, over to the left of the altar. Mondays you knew you would see him at the Lovett General Store getting his provisions for the week. Same things in his basket every time. Then Thursdays with his buddy Jim, but, like I said, he and Jim haven’t been out together in ages.”
“Does Zeke have any family?” Shelby thought it sounded like a terribly lonely existence and she felt sorry for him.
“He has a sister by the name of Rebecca. She left Lovett a long time ago—I think it might have even been before she graduated high school. Then she suddenly appeared again. Gave no explanation for her absence as far as I’ve ever heard. She works at the Lovett Feed Store, and they rent her the apartment above it.” Bert wiped her hands on a paper towel. “Then there was the wife, of course.”
Bert handed Shelby the jars of spices, and Shelby put them away in the cupboard.
“You’d better fill a big pan with some water and get it boiling,” Bert said, frowning. “We need to sterilize the jars if you plan on keeping the apple butter through the winter.”
“Okay.” Shelby squatted down and pulled the large pot she used for canning from the cupboard. “Tell me about Zeke’s wife,” Shelby said as she turned on the hot water tap and held the pot under it. “I had no idea he was married.”
“He’s not,” Bert said, running a hand through her short gray hair. “At least, not anymore. The missus disappeared three years ago. There was quite the to-do about it.”
Shelby turned the tap off and swiveled around to face Bert. “I’m surprised I don’t remember that.”
“I’m not.” Bert gave the pot on the stove a stir. “You had your hands full at the time.”
Shelby realized with a shock that that was when she’d been recently widowed. No wonder she didn’t remember hearing about Zeke’s wife disappearing. She didn’t remember much from those days—only that they seemed endless and she didn’t think she would ever get through them.
“Did his wife ever turn up?”
“Nope. There were some who thought she’d run away—got tired of the predictability of her life: church on Sundays, dinner at the diner on the occasional Saturday, and pizza and beer with her gal friends every Friday night at the Dixie. Plus working part-time at the Laundromat and spending the rest of her day working on the farm. Some people might want more out of life than that.”
Bert peered into the simmering pot of apples again. Fragrant steam was beginning to fill the kitchen. “These are coming along nicely. Is that water boiling yet?”
“Yes.”
“Better put the jars in, then. The apple butter won’t take much longer.”
Shelby carefully inserted the Mason jars into the boiling water.
“So, people thought she ran away? We got corn from Zeke every summer but I never had a real conversation with him. He was always in a hurry.” Shelby levered the last jar into the pot. “She doesn’t sound like the type to run off like that—a farmer’s wife.”
“Appearances can be deceiving, but the police agreed with you and suspected foul play. Naturally Zeke was suspect number one. It sure took a toll on the poor man. He’s not been the same since.”
“Was anything ever proven?”
“Nope. And that’s what makes it worse.” Bert turned off the gas under the apples. “The stink of suspicion lingered around the man like the smell of a skunk lingers in the air long after it’s sprayed.”
“What do you think? Do you think Zeke had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance?”
Bert pursed her lips and paused, a hand on her chin. “Let’s just say that still waters run deep, as the saying goes.”
6
Dear Reader,
My kitchen is now redolent of the scent of apple butter, and it’s heavenly. Bert and I canned most of it for the winter, but I did keep a small jar in the fridge to have on toast for breakfast.
When I finish writing this, I’ve got to get out to the garden. I want to pick some green peppers. Did you know that green and red peppers are from the same plant? The difference is that the red ones have been left on the vine to fully ripen, which is when they turn red.
And our potato plants are blooming. Flowers on top mean potatoes underneath! I’m going to pick some for our suppers now but I won’t harvest the rest until I’m ready to store them for the winter. You need to keep your potatoes in a cool, dark place—light will turn them green. I absolutely love potatoes no matter how they’re prepared. Don’t you? Fried, boiled, mashed—it doesn’t matter!
Bert is certainly a fountain of information. She’s lived in Lovett all her life and knows almost everybody. That was interesting news about Zeke’s wife—it must have been hard on the poor man not knowing where his wife disappeared to and then being suspected of doing her harm on top of it.
Shelby knelt on the ground and dug her spading fork into the rich earth alongside one of the potato plants. She gently lifted the plant and carefully removed the potatoes she wanted. She brushed off the dirt and tossed them into her basket. She was only picking what she needed for the next couple of days.
She carefully replaced the plant and tamped down the earth. There wouldn’t be a hard frost for a couple more weeks, so she could leave the rest of the potatoes and harvest them right before she planned to store them for the winter.
The dogs had foll
owed Shelby outside. Jenkins was busy digging a hole with more efficiency than a Bobcat, his paws moving so fast, they were a blur. Clods of earth flew out behind him. Bitsy was lumbering about attempting to catch a large fly that was making lazy circles around her head.
Farming was dirty work, but Shelby hardly ever noticed the dirt under her fingernails or the mud caked on the knees of her jeans until it was time to leave Love Blossom Farm for church or to go to the store. Today she’d offered to help out at St. Andrews stuffing envelopes for the annual appeal. Mrs. Willoughby, the church secretary, had strong-armed several women into volunteering for the project.
Dear Reader, I guess this means I need to take a shower and change my clothes?
Once in the shower, Shelby relished the feel of the hot water on her overworked muscles, and she was tempted to linger, but the water quickly turned tepid, reminding her that her water heater only put out a finite amount of hot water.
Shelby toweled off and went into the bedroom to stare at the meager contents of her closet. She might not have been able to do fashionable but she could at least achieve clean. She grabbed her denim skirt and hesitated, her hand hovering over the hanger with her white blouse—it needed ironing after it was washed and Shelby was very nearly allergic to ironing.
In the end she decided on a white no-iron T-shirt that she could easily wash, snatch out of the dryer, smooth out, and put back in her drawer.
• • •
Shelby heard the rise and fall of feminine voices as soon as she neared the church hall. The chatter reached a crescendo when she pushed open the door to the large room that functioned as an auditorium, a place to hold the annual pancake supper, a venue for coffee and doughnuts after the Sunday service, and an exercise room where Miss Dalyrimple held weekly yoga classes for seniors.
The sexton had set up a long table in the center of the room with a row of folding chairs on either side. Boxes of envelopes and stacks of letters were neatly lined up down the center.