by Jo Ann Brown
Now...
She pushed aside thoughts of being a trespasser. Upon marrying Joshua, this had become her home. She had to stop considering it another woman’s.
“I thought you might appreciate a bit of rest,” Joshua said as he leaned against the railing so he could face her. “I never expected you to toil so hard in the kitchen.”
“You know how it is. You do one thing and that leads to another and then to another, and before you know it, the whole task is done.”
He smiled and something spun with joy within her. He was a handsome man, even more so when he grinned because his dark brown eyes glistened. He was past due for a haircut, and strands fell forward into his eyes. She folded her hands on her lap to keep from reaching up to discover if it was as silken as it looked.
“And I had lots of help,” she added so silence didn’t fall between them. “Deborah is like a sponge, soaking up everything I tell her.”
“Especially about making pie.” He patted his stomach. “I may have to take up jogging like the Englischers if you keep feeding us such amazing food.”
“If you do, I will sew an under-the-chin strap for your hat like I do for Sammy’s so it won’t bounce off.”
He roared a laugh, slapping his hand against the roof pole beside him. She smiled, glad she’d been able to ease the strain on his face...if only for a short time.
When he waved at a buggy driving past, he said, “Daniel is late returning home tonight. I wonder if he is courting someone again.”
“Sometimes it takes time to find the right person to marry.”
“Oh, that doesn’t seem to be his problem.” He stared after the buggy until it vanished over a hill. “I hope this time he doesn’t get cold feet and put an end to it. He’s courted two different girls we thought he might wed. The girls joined the church in anticipation of a proposal, but he hasn’t been baptized. They married other men.”
“Maybe he isn’t ready.”
“I was baptized, married and had a kind by the time I was his age.”
She slowed her rocking to stop. “Each of us is different, Joshua. Daniel will make the right decision when it’s God’s will for him to do so.”
“Ja. Daniel is a gut man.” With a sigh he looked back at her. “I meant to ask you. Daniel was glad to have Levi help him this afternoon. He’d like Levi to come back a day or two each week if you can spare him.”
“It would be gut for Levi to learn more about what his onkel does.” She smiled as she began rocking again slowly and watched the lights from a car ripple through the trees along the road. “With only a few years of school left for him, he can learn about a craft he might want to pursue.”
“My thoughts exactly, but I don’t want him neglecting his chores here. The garden needs—”
“Deborah, Sammy and I will take care of the garden. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“I wasn’t.” He paused and looked everywhere but at her. “How did Sammy do today?”
“He spent the day exploring the house. Fortunately I was able to block the cellar door with a chair before he took it into his head to investigate down there.”
Again he drew in a deep breath. “I know it may take time, but I wish he felt more comfortable around me.”
“It will take time.”
“I know that, but I wish he wouldn’t cringe away in fear. Every time that happens, I feel like a horrible beast.”
Was he still talking about Sammy, or was he referring to her reaction by the door? She must not ask.
“Sammy has had a lot of changes in his life over the past couple of days. He was too wound up today to take a nap, so he’s overly tired, too.”
“At least he’s happy to spend time with Deborah.”
“And she with him.” She started to add more, but put her hand to the side of her belly when the boppli kicked. “Ouch!”
“A strong one?” he asked.
She smiled. “It kicks like a horse. Maybe it’s warning me that I won’t get much chance to sit once it’s born. When I’m busy, it’s quiet. As soon as I take a moment’s rest, it begins its footrace.”
“Do you have names chosen?”
She shook her head, not wanting to hear his next words. The ones everyone said. If it was a boy, surely she would name it for its late daed. How could she explain Lloyd was the last name she would select? Without being honest about the man he’d been, she would sound petty and coldhearted.
“Don’t let the kinder know,” he said, startling her with his smile. “You’ll be bombarded with more name suggestions than you could use for a dozen litters of kittens. I doubt the names Mittens and Spot would be of much use to you.”
She laughed honestly and freely. The sound burst out of a place within her she’d kept silent for so long she’d almost forgotten it existed. Tears teased the corners of her eyes. Not tears of pain or fear but tears of joy.
“That’s a nice sound,” he said, his smile growing wider. “It gives me hope that we’re going to make this marriage work better than either of us can guess right now.”
“I hope so.”
“And to that end...” He moved to the other rocking chair. When he began to ask about her daily schedule and if she wanted him to pick up the few groceries they’d need from his brother’s store or if she preferred to do the shopping herself, his questions showed he had many of the same anxieties she did, along with the determination to overcome them.
She answered each question the best she could. She had some of her own, which he replied to with a smile. More than once he mentioned he was glad she had thought of some matter he hadn’t. His words made her feel part of the family, not an outsider who’d come to cook and clean and watch over the youngsters.
By the time they rose to go inside and spend time with the kinder, her shoulders felt lighter. She brought Sammy to sit beside her on a bench not far from the stove that would warm the room next winter. With her arm around him, she watched Joshua don a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. She’d had no idea he needed glasses.
Joshua read from Psalm 146, and she was comforted by the words of praise. “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God... The Lord preserveth the strangers, He relieveth the fatherless and widow...”
She stroked her son’s hair while he fell asleep. Holding him, she listened as Joshua continued. His warm voice rose and fell with the joyous words, and she found her own eyes growing heavy as she let the sound soothe her.
This was the future she’d imagined when she had accepted Lloyd’s proposal. Evenings with the family gathered together, savoring the words inspired by God’s love. The perfect end to the day as the gas lamp hissed and the last light of the day faded into night. An affirmation of faith and love with the people who were in her heart.
It wasn’t perfect. Her marriage to Joshua wasn’t a true one. However, there was no reason they couldn’t work together to make a gut and happy home. He had treated her with kindness, and she prayed she’d seen the real man and that he had no secret life as Lloyd had.
After Joshua finished reading and the family prayed together, Rebekah took Sammy into the downstairs bedroom while Joshua and his kinder went upstairs. Their footfalls sounded along with the occasional creaking board while she settled her son into bed. He roused enough to ask for Spot, the stuffed dog he slept with each night. Telling him to stay where he was, she went into the dark kitchen. She used the flashlight she’d found in a drawer earlier, but had no luck finding Spot.
Sammy had had the stuffed toy with him when they’d gone upstairs that afternoon. Maybe he’d left it up there somewhere. If she hurried she could retrieve it before the other kinder were asleep.
After pausing to tell Sammy she would bring Spot to him in a few minutes, she went up the stairs far more slowly than Deborah and
Levi had a few minutes ago. Gas lamps were on in the two bedrooms on the right side of the hallway. From beyond the first door to the left, she heard water splashing and guessed someone was brushing his or her teeth.
She glanced into Deborah’s room. It was empty, and a quick scan told her Sammy’s precious toy wasn’t there. Maybe in the room the boys shared...
As she went to look there, a voice came from the half open door on the other side of the hall. Low, deep and fraught with pain. She froze when she realized it belonged to Joshua.
She should back away, but she couldn’t move. She saw Joshua sitting on the bed with his back to her. His head was bowed, and, at first, she thought he was praying. Then she realized he held something in his hands.
A rag rug that was frayed with wear around the edges.
He held it as if the worn fabric was a treasured lifeline. His gaze was so focused on the rug he was oblivious to everything else, even the fact his door had come ajar.
Go! she told herself, but her legs refused to work.
“Tildie, I hope you understand why I’ve done what I have,” Joshua said. “I know you’d want our kinder to have the best care, and Rebekah is already giving them that. You told Lloyd often that he was blessed to have her as his wife. He was, and I am blessed to have her help and to be able to help her. But I miss having you here, Tildie. Nobody will ever take your place. Even if I can’t show it any longer in public now that I’m married again, I’ll never stop loving you.”
The pain in his words matched what twisted through her heart. Her hope Joshua would be open and honest with her was dashed. So easily he spoke of keeping his love for his late wife a secret.
Secrets! They had dominated her first marriage. Now they dashed her hopes for her second one.
She edged away and pressed back against the wall so not even her shadow would betray her presence. Eavesdropping was wrong, especially during such a private conversation.
She walked away as quietly as she had come up the stairs. She knew it would be silly to run away as she longed to. She could fall and hurt herself on the stairs.
When she looked in the bedroom to check on Sammy, she saw him curled up in bed, his toy in his arms. He must have remembered where he’d left it and gotten it on his own. She blinked back abrupt tears. The way Sammy cuddled with his precious Spot reminded her of how Joshua had held the torn rag rug with such love and sadness. A peculiar sensation surged through her.
Envy.
Envy that Joshua’s love for his wife had survived even after her death, while Lloyd’s had vanished as soon as he had had that first drink after their wedding. She wondered what it would be like to be loved like Joshua loved his Tildie and if she’d ever find out for herself.
Chapter Six
“Gute mariye!”
Joshua’s mamm called out the greeting. Deborah rushed to hug her grossmammi. Wiping her hand on a towel, Rebekah smiled at Wanda Stoltzfus. The older woman’s casted arm was wrapped in a black sling, but her eyes twinkled as she handed a basket topped with a blue cloth to her granddaughter.
During the two weeks since the wedding, the kinder had often visited the house down the road where Wanda lived with her six unmarried sons and younger daughter. Rebekah and Joshua and Sammy had been invited along with the rest of the family to dinner one night last week, but a bad storm had kept them at home. At church services on Sunday, Rebekah had appreciated her mother-in-law introducing her again to people she’d met at the wedding. She hoped she’d match names and faces better when the next church Sunday came around.
The past fourteen days had been a whirlwind. The lives of Joshua’s family and her own had fallen into a pattern with meals and work and family time in the evening, but Rebekah avoided spending time on the porch—or anywhere else—alone with her husband. If he’d noticed, he hadn’t said anything. Perhaps he was relieved she expected no more from him.
“Wanda, why are you waiting for an invitation?” Rebekah asked, glad a visitor gave her the excuse to think of something other than her peculiar marriage. “Come in, come in.”
Putting her arm around her granddaughter, Wanda walked in. Her expression softened when her gaze alighted on Sammy.
“How is our big boy?” she asked.
Sammy clutched Rebekah’s skirt. She scooped him up and settled him on her hip. He pressed his face against her shoulder.
Wanda winked at Rebekah before she said, “I hope you don’t hide too long, my boy. Chocolate chip cookies are best when they’re warm.”
He didn’t look up, but shifted so he could watch what the others did. The cookies smelled wunderbaar, and she guessed he was wavering between his shyness and his yearning for a treat.
“Deborah, will you unpack the basket?” Rebekah asked, earning a wide grin from the little girl. “Wanda, would you like to sit down?”
“Ja. This cast feels like it weighs more every day.” She sat at the table and grimaced as she readjusted her arm. “I thank God I broke my left arm, though I had no idea how much I did with that hand until I couldn’t use it.”
“I discovered that when I broke my finger.” She fought to keep her smile from wavering as the brutality of her past poked out to darken the day. “I appreciate you coming for a visit.”
“I wanted to give you time to become accustomed to your new home.” She looked around. “I’d say you are settling in well and making this a home again.”
Deborah piped up, “She’s teaching me to make lots of yummy things, Grossmammi.”
“So I hear from your brothers.” She winked at Rebekah. “Maybe I’ll even share the recipe for my chocolate chip cookies with her.”
“And me?” asked the little girl.
“Of course.” She wagged a finger at the kind. “As long as you listen to me and don’t try to make up your own recipes as you used to.”
“Daed always did that.”
“And how did it turn out?”
When Deborah burst into giggles, Rebekah laughed, too. “Let me heat some water, and we’ll have tea. Deborah, would you mind getting the tea down?”
The little girl pulled a chair beside the cupboard and climbed up to take out a box of teabags.
As she turned to put on the kettle, Rebekah almost stumbled. She tightened her hold on Sammy.
“Give him to me,” Wanda urged.
She doubted he would go to Wanda. “I don’t want him to bump your injured arm.”
“He won’t.”
“He’s shy.”
“So I see, but, Sammy, I know you want one of my chocolate chip cookies.”
Her son astonished her when, after a quick glance at Wanda, he stretched out his arms to her. Hoping her face didn’t reveal her surprise, Rebekah placed him on the older woman’s lap. Wanda pointed to the plate on the table beside her.
“I’ve never met a boy who didn’t like chocolate chip cookies.” Wanda smiled when Sammy reached past her to take a cookie. “What a gut boy you are! Only taking one.”
“More?” he asked.
“Why don’t you try this one?” the older woman asked. “Tell me if you like Grossmammi Wanda’s cookies.”
“Grossmammi Wanda,” he repeated as he stared at the cast. “Boo-boo?”
“Ja, but it is getting better.”
“Give kiss to make better?”
“Aren’t you a sweet little boy?” She nodded and tapped her cheek. “Why don’t you kiss me right here?”
Rebekah was surprised when Sammy did. After serving tea to her mother-in-law, Rebekah gave the kinder glasses of milk. She sat and joined the easy conversation about the end of the school year, two new babies in the district and Deborah’s friend Mandy, who seemed to be a favorite of Wanda’s, too, because the little girl was often at the house. Nothing strayed too close to the unusual circumstances o
f Rebekah’s marriage. Like her son, Rebekah grew comfortable with the kind older woman.
As soon as he’d finished his first cookie, Sammy had another and downed his milk with a gulp. He nodded when Rebekah asked him if he wanted more, then he looked across the table.
“Debbie!” He pointed with his cookie. “Milk, too?”
“Ja.” Deborah grinned. “Danki, Sammy.”
Rebekah refilled both glasses. “It sounds as if you’ve got a new name.”
“He has trouble saying my whole name. So now we’re Sammy and Debbie.”
Wanda nodded. “That sounds perfect for a sister and brother.”
“I have lots of brothers now.” The little girl leaned on the table. “Rebekah, please have a girl.”
Though she secretly harbored the same hope, Rebekah replied, “We shall be blessed with the boppli God has chosen for us.” Even at her darkest times while she had been pregnant with Sammy, she hadn’t doubted God was sending her a boppli to help ease her heart.
Before anyone could reply, the back door opened, and Joshua walked in. He smiled as he hung his straw hat on the peg by the door.
Her heart quivered, missing a beat when his gaze met hers. A warmth she’d never felt before swirled within her like a welcome breeze on a hot day. His light blue shirt bore the stains from his work at the buggy shop, and more grease was ingrained across his hands, emphasizing his roughened skin. She had always considered him a gut-looking man, but as his eyes crinkled with his broadening smile, she could not keep from thinking that he was now her gut-looking husband.
But he wasn’t. Theirs wasn’t a true marriage. It was an arrangement to ensure Sammy and his kinder were taken care of. Her head knew that, but not her heart that continued to pound against her breastbone.
“I didn’t realize you were here, Mamm,” Joshua said after greeting them.
“Your sister is cleaning the house, and she made it clear I was in the way.” She smiled to take any sting from her words. “She’s so worried I’ll slip and break something else.”