by Amy Lillard
“Thank you.” Mariana gripped the ring lid of the Mason jar and turned it to no avail. She tried a second time as Reuben watched. She held it out toward him. “Can you open this for me?”
Something strange flickered across his expression. He eased into the room and loosened the ring before scampering back to the doorway.
Mariana eyed him quietly as she used the spoon to pop the sealed lid from the jar. She pulled out a pickle, then set the rest on the nightstand next to the book about Oklahoma history. She turned back to Reuben. “Are you embarrassed to be in the same room with me since I’m . . .” She sputtered. “I mean, I know it’s strange. But I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.” Not that he was going to come by that often, but still. When he did, she wanted him to come in and visit with her a little.
Reuben shook his head. “No. Of course not.” But he turned red as he said the words. She supposed it was odd, but this was the situation they found themselves in, and she was going to make the best of it.
“There’s no need, you know. You were my husband’s best friend. And a good friend of mine as well. I want you to feel that you can come by and visit anytime you want.”
He nodded, and his color returned to normal. “Good. Because I’m coming by every day.”
Mariana shook her head. “You can’t come by every day. You have a business to run.”
“Jah, and I need to watch out for you as well.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
Mariana shook her head again. “The women from the quilting circle are taking turns, coming by to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. The horses have gone to stay at Obie and Clara Rose’s house. There’s nothing else to do here.”
“There’s plenty to do here.”
Mariana finished her pickle and reached for another. It was perhaps the first craving she’d had since she had gotten pregnant. Or maybe all the stress and trauma just before Leroy had died had hidden those things from view. “Like what?”
“The gutters need to be cleaned, the barn could use some paint, and I noticed the front porch railing was a little loose when I came in.”
“The porch railing is fine. You don’t need to be doing those things here. You need to get jobs that pay.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully to one side. “It’s really twins?” His gaze flickered to her belly, then back to her face.
Mariana smoothed a hand over the growing mound and smiled. “That’s what they tell me.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this is supposed to feel like.”
Reuben took two more steps into the room, easing closer and closer until he could perch on the foot of the bed. “Leroy would be . . . He would be beside himself with joy.”
Mariana blinked back her tears. Leroy would have been so very happy. But all things happened for a reason. At least, that’s what she’d been told her entire life. And she had to believe that there was some reason why all this was happening now, after he was gone.
“What are you going to do?” Reuben asked, his voice solemn and soft.
“I guess I’m going to have two babies.”
He shook his head. “What are you going to do for money?”
She knew what he’d meant. Between the two of them, Leroy and Reuben had brought in just enough to take care of the three of them. But now there was only one person to do that work. It wasn’t like she had land she could lease or cows she could allow somebody to milk. And she couldn’t do any of the work herself. All of her ideas from a couple of weeks ago had been completely scrapped. She couldn’t very well sell jelly—however mediocre—if she had to lie on her back in her bed day after day.
“God will provide.” She kept telling herself that, but every time the thought crept into her mind, her mouth went dry and her stomach fluttered with nerves. God would provide. He always did. But something maternal in her kept rising up and reinforcing her need to ensure that everything was going to be okay.
Reuben nodded. “Have you had many visitors?” he asked.
Mariana smiled. “I’ve only been here one day.”
“Right.” He looked out the window, then turned his attention back to her. “I guess what I want to know is how are you eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”
“Whoever feeds the chickens is helping me with breakfast. Then they’re packing me a sack lunch that I can have right here. Somebody will stop by in the evening and get my supper. I know they’ve got a schedule worked out.” She hated to be such a bother. She wasn’t worthy of such intense care and beautiful friendship, but it was there all the same, and she was so incredibly grateful for it.
“I could bring you lunch.”
Mariana shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”
“It is. Besides, I have to eat too.”
She couldn’t very well protest. It wasn’t like it was out of his way. He never knew where he would be, in Wells Landing or Taylor Creek, when the next call came out and someone needed something repaired. He could be next door to her house or all the way across town. And if he wanted to waste his gas and drive his tractor all the way over here just to have lunch with her, then who was she to tell him no? Plus, it would be nice to have some company between seven o’clock in the morning and five o’clock at night. “Thank you, Reuben Weisel. That’s mighty good of you.”
He smiled as if he’d just won the greatest prize on earth. “No problem, Mariana Miller. That’s what friends are for.”
* * *
After six days of doing absolutely nothing, Mariana was sure she was going to go completely out of her mind at any time. Someone from the quilt circle came in every morning just as they’d promised and fed the chickens, fixed her breakfast, and left her with a sack lunch.
In those six days, Reuben had managed to be there every day at lunch just as he promised. At least she had something to look forward to, but the stretches in between those visits seemed to get longer and longer. She had taken to reading her Bible after Reuben left, to fill in the space until someone came by to prepare her supper. In the morning she read the Oklahoma history book, finding it fascinating and nearly unbelievable at the same time.
Day in, day out, every day the same. Come tomorrow she would have been in this bed a solid week, and she had so many more to go she was unsure how she was going to keep her sanity until these babies were ready to be born.
Reuben stood and started to clean up the scraps from their meal. He had brought a chair from the dining room into her bedroom early last week, and now when he came in he didn’t seem quite as bashful. Maybe because he had some place to rest as he talked to her. Or maybe he was just getting used to the idea. The idea of being in her room alone. Not that anything would ever happen between her and Reuben. Aside from the fact that she was newly widowed and pregnant, the idea just seemed absurd. Sure, Reuben was a great man. He was honest and forthright, and giving to a fault. Despite all those wonderful traits, he had been her husband’s best friend.
“You’re leaving?” Mariana said as he continued to gather up wrappers and scraps.
“I’ve got an appointment at one fifteen.”
Mariana nodded and bit back her questions about who the appointment was with. Why was he going there? Was he fixing something, painting something? She wanted to know anything and everything about what was going on outside her four walls, but she knew it was just boredom talking. Reuben didn’t deserve a grilling just because she was on bed rest.
“You be careful.”
He stopped gathering trash and gave her a solemn nod. “Of course.” He seemed about to say more, but pressed his lips together as he finished his task. “Can I get you anything else before I leave?”
“No,” Mariana said. There was nothing she needed except for company. Somebody had stopped by nearly every day sometime during that week, but once they left, the house grew heavy and silent. Being confined to her bed in such a quiet place made her realize all the more that Leroy was sure and truly gone. “I’v
e got my Bible. I’ll just read.” She gave him her best smile and hoped it was convincing. As much as she wanted people to visit and stay and come by and see her, she knew that everyone had chores to do, errands to run, jobs of one kind or another. Her job right now was taking care of these babies. It was a wonderful job. She just wished it wasn’t so . . . solitary.
She pulled her Bible into her lap as if to prove her enthusiasm.
Reuben nodded and seemed convinced. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” she said, not even bothering to pretend that she didn’t want him to stop by.
He left the room and she sat there with her heart heavy as she listened to his footfalls on the linoleum floor, the slam of the screen door, the growl of his tractor engine as he started it, and its steady chug as it made its way down the driveway.
That sound was joined with others. More tractors, or perhaps a bigger-engined vehicle on the roadway. They seemed so close. Then she heard engines cut off, doors shut, and female voices.
Her heart lifted in her chest. She had company!
“Mariana?” The inquiry was followed by the slam of her screen door.
“In here,” she called.
The voice sounded very much like Eileen, but it was Tuesday just before one o’clock. Eileen would be at the quilting circle meeting at her own house. But it was Eileen’s face that appeared in the doorway.
“Surprise.” She carried what looked to be a pineapple upside-down cake in her hands.
Mariana loved pineapple upside-down cake and attributed to it any extra weight she carried around her middle. It was the last thing she needed and the best thing she could ask for.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Eileen smiled. “It’s time for the quilting circle. You can quilt, right?” She deposited the cake in Reuben’s recently vacated chair. “But we will need some more chairs in here.”
“Eileen?”
“In here,” she called in return.
“Is that Tess?”
Eileen turned back to Mariana. “Of course. How can we have the quilting circle without Tess?” She whirled around toward the door once more. “Grab a dining room chair on your way in. There’s no place to sit in here.”
“Got it,” Tess called back.
“But—” Mariana sputtered to a stop. She really had no protest. Her friends had come calling on this special day. They didn’t want to leave her out. God was truly good and had given her the best friends anyone could possibly have. She sat there, smiling like a fool as her quilting circle group filed in one by one, each only carrying one dish of food that they then carried back into the kitchen for later. Verna arrived with a large plastic container on wheels that Mariana soon discovered contained all the pieces of the quilt. Clara Rose had a similar container that held all the other materials, the batting, and extra fabrics.
Eileen surveyed the room and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I wasn’t sure about bringing the quilting frame. It’s just so bulky, but I’ve got an idea.” Her eyes sparkled. “We drape the quilt over the bed and sit around it.”
“That’s a great idea,” Verna said. And that was exactly what they did.
Mariana felt somewhat akin to a princess with the quilt draped over her legs as her friends sat around her and stitched.
“Where are the girls?” Mariana asked.
A shadow crossed Eileen’s face. But it was quickly gone. “I left them at home. I wasn’t sure how well-behaved they would be. And how much we could get done with them underfoot.”
“I’m sure it would have been fine,” Mariana said. But she had a feeling that Eileen’s decision not to bring the girls was buried in something deeper. She hoped that things worked out for her friend. Mariana was getting her chance at being a mother, and she wished for Eileen to have the same. Unlike Eileen, Mariana and Leroy hadn’t done any fertility tests with special doctors. They had just figured it was God’s will. And as much as Mariana would’ve loved to know exactly what the problem was and why they hadn’t gotten pregnant all those years, she didn’t press the issue with Leroy. Unfortunately, Eileen knew the exact reasons why she couldn’t have children, though she had never shared them outright. And for years Eileen had accepted it, only lately deciding that if she couldn’t have a baby of her own, she would find a child in need. Mariana considered it most noble.
“Did you hear that Reuben was seen at Shelley Glick’s house two days ago?” Clara Rose asked.
The words made Mariana’s heart thump a little harder in her chest. He hadn’t told her that he had gone to Shelley Glick’s house. And every day he explained where he was going and where he had been, sharing his day with her since she was trapped inside. But that was one of the tales he’d left out. Because there was something going on between the two of them?
“Oh, posh,” Verna said. “Don’t act like they’re courting. Everybody knows that older couples are extremely secretive when they start courting.”
“But this is Reuben’s first relationship,” Tess pointed out. She made her tiny little stitches, looking up only so often to join in the conversation. Of the younger girls in the quilting circle, Tess was perhaps the shyest. Though today, to Mariana, she seemed almost withdrawn and a little pale. Or maybe Mariana just needed to get out a little more. She might be reading things into situations that weren’t there. Like what Reuben was doing at Shelley Glick’s house two days ago.
Like it mattered to her. It didn’t matter what Reuben did. He was her husband’s best friend and his business partner. Right now, he was perhaps her best friend as well, but that was all. Nothing more.
“I have a feeling y’all wouldn’t be gossiping so much if Helen and Emily were here.”
Clara Rose giggled. “Ouch.” She stuck her finger in her mouth. “I poked myself.”
“Maybe we wouldn’t,” Eileen said. “Or maybe we would.”
The women laughed, and Mariana chuckled along, though she still couldn’t help but wonder if Reuben had decided to finally get married.
Chapter Four
“Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?” Reuben asked the following afternoon.
“I’m good,” Mariana said.
He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “You just seem sort of . . . Well, not yourself.”
They had started a game of Uno just after they ate, intending to play just one hand. But since Reuben didn’t have a job until later, one hand had turned into four.
“Everything’s great,” Mariana repeated.
Reuben threw a green seven on top of her red five. “That sounded convincing.”
“You can’t play that.”
He picked up the card and studied the pile before tossing a red Draw Two down. “Quit avoiding my question and get two cards.”
Mariana picked two and frowned. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Reuben what was on her mind.
“Discard,” he nudged.
She tossed down a card and studied her hand. “This game is no fun with two people.”
He studied the top card, then pulled one from his hand. “Skip you,” he said, placing a red Skip card on the pile. Then he pulled four more in succession. “Reverse, skip you again, skip you again, and draw four.” He looked up and grinned. “It’s fun for me.”
“You can’t play a green Draw Four on top of all those red cards. What’s wrong with you?”
He grinned. “You promise you won’t tell?”
“Tell what?”
“I’m color-blind.”
Mariana stopped. “Really? I didn’t know that about you.” They had been friends so long and she didn’t know something so basic about him?
He shrugged. “It doesn’t come up much.”
Mariana pulled a card from her hand and tossed it onto the discard pile. “I guess.”
“See? Why did you do that?”
“What are you talking about?” Though her heart pumped hard in her chest as if he had discovered some big secret she held. A s
ecret she didn’t even know herself.
“For a little while you seemed like yourself, now you’re back to being all . . . grumpy.”
“I am most certainly not grumpy.”
“Again, convincing.”
“Are you seeing Shelley Glick?” Nothing like blurting out personal questions without a second thought.
Reuben stopped. She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. Then he burst out laughing. “Quilting circle, right?”
“What?” she asked.
“The quilting circle. That’s where you heard such a thing.”
“Maybe.” Though Mariana couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead she picked at a loose thread on the quilt covering her bed.
“Those girls will talk about anything.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.”
He turned back toward her, his eyes sparkling yet somehow serious. “Neither did you answer mine.”
“It’s hard. Being in bed here all day. Everything’s going on out there, and I’m stuck in here.”
His face softened and his expression took on an almost dreamy look. “But you’re growing babies.” Even as he said the words, his color deepened to a dark rose. She found the involuntary reaction charming.
“It’s not real to me yet.”
He frowned. “Not at all?” His hand twitched as if he wanted to reach out and touch her belly, but thought differently of it. Amish couples were reserved when showing affection. Such a move would surely be odd coming from him, her husband’s best friend.
“It’s strange. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s almost like I’ve wanted this for so long that I’m afraid to let it be real because—” She couldn’t finish that thought.
“Because you’re afraid it will end?”
“Jah,” she whispered.
He dragged his gaze from hers and stared out the window. Outside the wind blew, rustling the leaves in the trees. The only sound between them was the click of the clock as the seconds ticked by. “I’m not courting Shelley Glick. I went over to repair a spot in her flooring. It turned out to be a bigger job than I anticipated. I ended up having to be there for a day or so. Funny how people jump to conclusions.”