As the graveside service ended, folks walked toward their parked buggies for the short trip to the Detweiler farm for lunch. Sadie, however, took her brother’s arm to pull him out of the crowd. “Have you thought about what I said?” she asked in a low voice. “You know full well you should move east to be with us, Glenn. There’s nothing here for you anymore, and you can’t possibly manage Dat, as well as the boys—”
“I’ve already told you no,” Glenn snapped, hugging baby Levi closer to the shoulder of his black coat. “I’m not pulling Billy Jay out of the school here—”
“We have a school right down the road. He could go with his cousins!” Sadie insisted. “You can move your woodworking business into a new shop on our property, and I can tend to Dat while—”
“You and Dat have never seen eye to eye, so why will that be any different—especially now that you have two new babies to feed in addition to your other kids?” her brother shot back.
“But as Dat’s mind slips further away from reality—”
“Why should he live someplace else? It’ll only confuse him more.” Glenn’s sharp glare could’ve carved the letters into their mother’s tombstone. “You have your life, and we have ours, Sadie. Just forget it, all right?”
As he stalked off to catch up to his father and Billy Jay, Lydianne was sorry she’d witnessed such a rift in his family. Sadie and Glenn were the only two Detweiler siblings who’d survived to adulthood, so it was sad that Sadie had moved so far away, and that they couldn’t agree about Reuben’s future home and care.
Was Glenn’s dat really losing touch with reality? Lydianne had observed a few forgetful moments Reuben had experienced since Dorcas’s death—but who didn’t occasionally lose track of details, especially when they were stressed or grieving? As she walked toward the Fussners’ double buggy with Jo, Drusilla, and the Helfing twins, she wondered how Reuben would fare in the coming days without his daughter-in-law or his wife.
“Sounds like Sadie’s determined that everybody at Reuben’s house should uproot themselves, just because she says so,” Drusilla remarked as Jo drove the buggy down the road.
“Too bad she had to call Glenn on the carpet with everyone else looking on, too,” Marietta said. “Poor man’s got enough on his mind without her telling him he should change his entire life.”
“Sadie was always better at dishing up instructions than she was at taking them,” Molly put in with a shake of her head. “Glenn and his dat will probably be relieved when she heads back to Indiana—although that’s a horrible thing to say. It’s a shame Sadie and Glenn were never close, and now the strain of losing their mamm is driving them further apart.”
At the Detweiler farm, neighbors had cleared the central area of the largest barn so long tables, benches, and chairs could accommodate folks for the funeral lunch. Many of the women from church had provided large pans of baked chicken, baked potatoes, and side dishes, which were arranged on a serving table with plates, napkins, and eating utensils. Martha Maude and Anne Hartzler had finished setting up the meal while the rest of the congregation had attended the graveside service. They were removing the foil from the steaming containers of food as the crowd emerged from the many buggies parked along both sides of the Detweilers’ lane.
As members of the family filled their plates first, Lydianne and her friends took up the pitchers on a side table and began filling water glasses. Esther and Naomi Slabaugh were cutting pies at a table near the back of the eating area. Conversations soon filled the barn while the first shift of people ate their meal. When Glenn went over to choose a slice of pie, the Helfing twins spoke with him.
Lydianne sensed the usual exchange of condolences as Molly and Marietta squeezed Glenn’s arm and he nodded in all the right places. When Jo approached him, Lydianne decided it might be a good time to express her own sorrow, while Glenn wasn’t seated at a crowded table with Sadie and her family.
“Mamm and I will be over tomorrow with your supper and to redd up the house,” Jo was saying. “If there’s anything else you need, please let us know, all right?”
Glenn seemed preoccupied, probably overwhelmed by so many offers of help. It was clear that although Jo and the Helfing twins were his friends, he had no inclination to socialize with them—much less consider them as potential mates.
As Lydianne stepped up to him, however, Glenn’s expression became wary. Maybe he was ready to return to the table with his pie, so she didn’t want to detain him for long. “Glenn, I’m sorry you’ve lost your mamm—”
“Sorry,” he muttered, as though the word tasted particularly foul. “I’m sick and tired of feeling sorry, and of hearing about it, and—and you could still change that, Lydianne, if you’d give me another chance!”
Glenn’s sudden turnaround stunned her, as did the raw anguish in his expressive dark eyes.
“We could start again and take it at your speed,” he pleaded, leaning closer to emphasize his words. “If I knew you’d be my wife, even if I had to wait awhile, I could make it from one day to the next. I’d have a life again—”
Lydianne shook her head, stepping away when he grabbed her upper arm—but he kept his hold on her. This escalating exchange was not what she’d had in mind when she’d told Jeremiah she would ease the pressure between him and Glenn, but there was no escaping him. “Glenn, I can’t lie about my feelings—can’t promise I’ll ever love you enough to—”
“But Billy Jay adores you! I can give you a gut home and—and we can take our time about—”
“No, Glenn. It would never work.” Lydianne regretted being so abrupt, so cruel to a grieving man who believed she was the answer to all his prayers, yet there seemed no other way to get through to him.
Glenn blinked, still gripping her arm. “Fine, then,” he whispered starkly. “I had to give it one last try.”
When he suddenly slipped his arm around her shoulders, his kiss tasted like angst and anguish, bruising her lips with his desperation. Lydianne was too stunned to respond, until she freed herself with a gasp.
Glenn tossed his plate of pie back onto the table and stalked out of the barn. Aware that everyone had been watching them—especially the Slabaugh sisters, who stood wide-eyed at the pie table—Lydianne left, too, heading in a different direction from the way Glenn had gone.
How could her well-intentioned chat have gone so wrong? Why was Glenn so fixated on her, when her single girlfriends might’ve welcomed his attention? Lydianne felt so flustered and embarrassed, she wished the ground would open up and swallow her. Since that wasn’t going to happen—and walking home wasn’t an option—it seemed best to duck behind the nearest outbuilding to pull herself together.
What with Glenn’s impassioned plea and kiss, as well as the embrace she’d shared with Jeremiah Sunday after church, folks surely had to be buzzing about the schoolteacher who seemed to be enticing various men beyond the bounds of appropriate public behavior. She’d given the Slabaugh sisters enough feed to keep them clucking for months about her moral state and her standing with the Lord. Deacon Saul and the other men on the school board might soon be calling for her to confess more than one secret sin of the flesh, after witnessing her behavior—
“Lydianne. Wait up, honey.”
Jeremiah’s low voice cut through her frantic thoughts as she reached the far side of the chicken house. “You have every reason to be upset by Glenn’s behavior—”
“People will think I led him on!” she protested, turning to face him. “Saul and Clarence already suspect me of wayward behavior, and the Slabaugh sisters will surely—and after everyone saw you hug me on Sunday, they’re all thinking I’m some sort of loose woman, leading the two of you on—”
“Whoa.” When he gently framed her face between his large, warm hands, Lydianne was struck by the deep affection in his eyes.
“Everyone saw the way Glenn grabbed you, and how you backed away,” Jeremiah pointed out. “And there was no mistaking your tone of voice when you told him his
wishes were never going to come true.”
Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “So, every person in the barn heard every word we said. Oh, my.”
“It’s embarrassing, but this, too, shall pass, Sunshine,” Jeremiah assured her. “We’ll chalk up Glenn’s last-ditch attempt to his grief and his staggering personal losses over the past few months. Take a deep breath, Lydianne.”
She blinked. When she inhaled and let the air out, however, her body began to relax.
“I have no trouble understanding why he gave it one last try, because I wouldn’t let you go without a struggle, either,” Jeremiah murmured as a smile lit up his face. “You’d be the solution to Glenn’s biggest problems, but I’m so glad you don’t want to be. Besides that, it’s too soon for him to hitch up with anyone—but he’s hurting too bad to realize it.”
Jeremiah’s soothing voice settled Lydianne’s nerves. He was talking her down from an emotional ledge simply by stating the way things were.
“And if you were trying to reconcile Glenn’s bitter feelings toward me, denki—but we should probably leave that be for now,” he suggested gently. “Glenn has a lot of healing to do, and a lot of immediate challenges. I suspect our best gifts to him will be our prayers, some meals and housekeeping, some help with his boys and Reuben, and our willingness to listen when he wants to talk.”
Lydianne nodded. She couldn’t deny the gentle wisdom behind the bishop’s words.
“I’d kiss you, but sure as I did, somebody would come around the chicken house looking for us,” he said with a chuckle. “Why don’t we mosey on back to the barn and see if it’s our turn to eat? I’d be delighted if you’d sit with me, Lydianne. We have nothing to hide, and I want everyone to know that our feelings for each other are honorable and appropriate and probably permanent—even though that pertinent question still hasn’t been asked or answered,” he added lightly.
When he waggled his dark eyebrows at her, Lydianne couldn’t help laughing and swatting at him. “What question might that be, Bishop Jeremiah?” she shot back.
He took her hand as they started back to the barn. “One of these days you might just find out,” he murmured. “God love me if you give me the same answer you gave Glenn today.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Saturday morning felt crisp, and the wind whispered that winter was only weeks away. Jeremiah simmered with new ideas and a single-minded purpose as he rode Mitch up the Helfings’ unpaved lane. He was glad to see Pete’s old pickup parked behind one of the twins’ dawdi hauses—and he laughed out loud when Riley bounded around the house, barking raucously.
“Nobody sneaks up on you, do they, fella?” he teased as the golden retriever ran around his horse in wide circles, still barking. By the time he’d dismounted to tie his Percheron to the hitching rail at the side of the house, however, he’d had enough of the dog’s racket.
He pointed his finger at the ground. “Riley, sit,” he instructed. “Be quiet.”
Riley immediately plunked his butt down, gazing up at Jeremiah with his tongue lolling out in a lopsided, adoring grin.
“Gut boy,” he said as he vigorously rubbed the dog’s golden head. “Where’s Pete?”
The dog took off around the house, so Jeremiah followed him. As he walked, he noticed that the Helfings’ white farmhouse and red outbuildings had been painted in recent weeks, and that the roofs and fences seemed to be in better repair than when he’d last seen them. Behind the house and the two dawdi hauses stood the small white building the twins called their noodle factory. Jeremiah chuckled when he caught sight of his nephew kneeling beside the shop’s exterior mechanical works with his rear end sticking up in the air.
“I’m finally seeing your better side, Pete!” he called out. “What’s going on?”
Pete remained on his knees but straightened to look at Jeremiah. He wrapped a playful arm around Riley’s neck—and then quickly moved his other arm when his dog tried to grab hold of the large, rubber belt he was holding.
“I’m getting us out of the doghouse—again,” he added as he shook the golden’s shoulders. “Riley took a notion to play with the belt that runs the girls’ mixer yesterday—snapped it like a rubber band. Luckily, they’d finished with the big batch of dough they’d been making, so they didn’t lose any production time.”
Jeremiah nodded. He could understand why a playful dog would be fascinated by a stretchy rubber belt—and he could picture Marietta and Molly’s expressions when they realized that Riley had broken it. The breezy way Pete had referred to them as “the girls” hadn’t escaped him, either, but he let it pass for the moment.
“So, they’ve still got their mixer and roller rigged up with small gas engines out here, which operate shaft-and-belt systems to run the noodle-making equipment inside,” Jeremiah observed. “Looks the same as I recall it when their mamm started up the business several years ago.”
“The look of things is about to change,” Pete remarked as he released his dog. He deftly fitted the new black belt onto the higher wheel of the shaft—which went through a small hole into the building—before stretching it over the lower wheel, which was powered by the gas engine. “My next carpentry project will be to expand this shed to allow more space for a second dough roller, another workable, and another section of shelves where the noodles dry on screens.”
“Because thanks to The Marketplace sales on Saturdays, Molly and Marietta’s business has increased enough that they need more production area,” Jeremiah said. He wasn’t surprised to learn of the expansion, but it made him curious. “In your opinion, Pete, are they still driving the noodle business, or is the noodle business driving them?”
His nephew smiled, framing a diplomatic answer. “With the second roller they’re buying, they’ll both be able to flatten dough at the same time, and the new table will allow them to cut and dry twice as many noodles at once,” he replied. “When I quizzed them about the same thing you just asked, Molly informed me that it was only logical to double up on equipment because their workforce is twice what it was when Mrs. Helfing was the sole proprietor.”
Jeremiah laughed out loud. In his mind, he could hear Molly giving Pete this answer in that no-nonsense way she had of expressing herself. “Maybe your renovation work should include a wire cage around the outside mechanical system, so Riley can’t break any more belts,” he suggested. “Now that he knows how much fun it is, it might become a habit when nobody’s paying attention to him.”
Pete’s eyebrows shot up. “Not a bad idea. I could rig up a chicken-wire cage this morning, and it could be a surprise when the girls get home.”
He rose to his feet with a fluid strength that Jeremiah was beginning to envy as he got older. “So, what brings you here this morning, Uncle? Are you on one of your bishop’s missions? Or,” he added in a teasing tone, “have you come to me because you want to feather your nest, lovebird that you’ve become lately?”
Jeremiah’s jaw dropped—yet why should Pete’s question surprise him? His nephew had been at the Detweiler funeral and had surely seen that he and Lydianne were spending time together. “If you’re going to smart off, I could offer the job to Glenn or—”
“Not a gut idea, and you know it. Glenn’s in no condition to concentrate on such a project—especially not at your place,” Pete pointed out. “Ain’t so?”
Jeremiah shook his head, chuckling. “I was teasing you. And jah, you’re right on both counts, concerning Glenn.”
“So what’ve you got in mind? With Mammi already living in your dawdi haus, you and your new bride will have the rest of that big white house to yourselves.”
When had his nephew become so astute about living conditions and peoples’ changing needs? Was Pete paying more attention to such details because he, too, was considering marriage someday?
Rather than asking questions Pete probably wasn’t ready to answer, Jeremiah gave him a straightforward reply. “Truth be told, the dawdi haus could use some fresh paint—a
nd whatever else Mamm might want. Then I’d like you to give the main kitchen a total renovation—”
“As in new cabinets and flooring and appliances?” Pete let out a whistle. “When you want to impress a woman, you go all out, man!”
Jeremiah looked his nephew straight in the eye. “Like marriage, home renovation is an all-or-nothing commitment you don’t make more than once or twice in your life. Might as well do it up right, considering the place is just like it was when Priscilla and I first moved into it.”
Pete grinned, reminding Jeremiah of the mischievous kid he used to be. “That means you’ll also want new flooring and fixtures in the bathroom—”
“Right.”
“—and your hardwood floors need refinishing—”
“Jah.”
“—and you’ll want an all-over paint job, inside and out,” Pete finished. “Anything else?”
Jeremiah knew the dollar signs were adding up in his nephew’s mind—and that was quite all right. “Think you could do the exterior painting and replace the windows before the snow flies? Maybe I’m getting older and notice it more, but the place seems draftier now that the nights are cooling down.”
Pete looked away to hide a knowing smile. “The sooner you marry Lydianne, the sooner your nights will heat up—”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about that—a lot,” Jeremiah admitted, punching him playfully on the shoulder. “But Lydianne wants to honor her teaching commitment for the rest of the year, and as the bishop—and a school board member—I agree with her. And besides, it’s not a done deal yet.”
“She hasn’t said jah?” Pete blurted. “Are you nuts, spending all that money on remodeling before—? Or is she nuts, that she needs convincing?”
First Light in Morning Star Page 25