Davey's Daughter

by Linda Byler

  The classroom was infused with a golden, late afternoon radiance, turning an ordinary room into a warm haven of light.

  She stood up from the chair, stretched, and turned to get her sweater, when she heard a grating noise, a clicking.

  The door.

  Okay. Some was trying to…

  She stepped back, both hands going to her mouth to stifle a scream, when the handle turned. The door was yanked open unceremoniously, a head was pushed through wearing a beanie. The intruder’s face was dirty, his coat torn in places, soiled, but the eyes as blue as always.

  Lee Glick was completely taken aback, his hand going to his filthy beanie, before shaking his head, laughing ruefully, and saying, “What are YOU doing here?”

  “Oh, you scared me!”

  That was all they said for quite some time, Sarah standing in the middle of the aisle in the gold light, Lee standing just inside the door, his face streaked with dirt, his clothes obviously having seen better days.

  He repeated the question, and she answered with one of her own.

  “I came to get Marlin’s arithmetic book. He’s crying up a storm, because he had a stomach ache in school and couldn’t get his work done, he told Anna.”

  “Your sister Anna?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They come to this school?”

  “Evidently. This is where I was told to go.”

  “I’ll be teaching here, starting Monday morning.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Sarah nodded. “They’re having a lot of problems.”

  “Tell me about it. That’s all Ben’s children talk about at the supper table. You know you’re in for it, right?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What I said. Sarah, it’s awful the way these kids act. I’m afraid for you. I really am.”

  “I can’t do more than fail, can I?”

  “No, you’re right.”

  “I think the biggest problem, from what the guys on the school board said, is two or three families. Probably the first day I can pretty much tell who they are. Then I guess I’ll go from there.”

  Lee grinned, his teeth very white in his darkened face. “So that’s your game plan?”

  “Yup.”

  “Good luck. You know you’ll need it.”

  Sarah laughed. “By the way, I didn’t know you mined coal for a living.”

  Lee looked perplexed, then a hand went to his face, and he laughed sheepishly.

  “No, not coal mining. Just removing a very old slate roof and replacing it. I’ve looked like this all week.”

  “Anna’s probably having a fit.”

  “She is.”

  Sarah laughed again, thinking of the overweight little Anna, huffing around her house, cleaning, washing, clucking. She missed her and told Lee to tell her hello.

  “I will.”

  There was an awkward silence, which surprised Sarah, their conversation having flowed so freely in the time he was there.

  “Guess I should go,” he said very quietly.

  “Yes. My driver should be coming any minute.”

  He looked out the south windows, his gaze unfocused, and she looked through the north ones. It was much easier and safer that way.

  Sarah took a step backward and saw her driver pull into the school yard.

  “My driver’s here,” she said loudly, nervous now.

  His reluctance to leave was apparent when he said, “Sarah, tell me. Tell me something.” His voice faded away as his eyes were lifted to hers, held steady.

  “Just…How are you doing? Are you okay? How did you feel when you found out about Matthew? I can’t explain to you, the agony I experienced at…over the time you…he….”

  The questions seemed to release a torrent of emotions as his breath accelerated, his voice rasped and cracked before he stopped, bent his head, and kicked the toe of his work boot self-consciously against a desk.

  “I have to go,” he said and turned.

  “I didn’t answer your questions,” Sarah said coolly. “I am doing okay. Not fine, just okay. I will be fine.” She laughed, a soft sound bordering on hysteria.

  “I don’t know how I felt when he left without me. Something inside of me died. I was angry, hurt beyond words, but, of course, part of me protected him, and I didn’t believe any of it, but only for a short time. Hannah, his mother, is a big help. When I think of being actually married to Matthew, I can’t imagine.” Her voice faded away, and she shook her head from side to side.

  “So, I’ll teach school. I’ll become a tall, skinny old maid who puts her life into the classroom, and people will call me a leftover blessing for the community. My hair will turn gray, and I’ll make coffee at weddings and wait for some old bachelor or widower to ask me.”

  Lee laughed, tilting back his head. Then he looked closely at Sarah, the smile fading from his mouth as he held her eyes with his.

  An uncertainty spread across his face, then determination as he made up his mind and closed the gap between them with two long strides, his hands came up to encircle her forearms. He tugged gently, “Sarah.”

  The tenderness in his voice was so real, so alive, it brought a lump to Sarah’s throat. She could not have uttered a word if she had tried.

  “Do you think you’ll ever be able to love again? I mean, before you become an old maid?”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders and his hands fell away. He clasped them behind his back, but his face was so close to hers, she could feel his breathing.

  She raised her face, found his eyes, and was lost in the blueness of them. He watched the color in hers change with emotion turning them dark with remembered pain, gray and anxious with mistrust, then vibrantly green with longing, flecked with lights of new hope.

  “Sarah, I have Rose. I must honor that.”

  Numbly, her eyelids heavy, covering the display of feelings, she nodded.

  “Yes, Lee. You do. And I wish you the best. You two are so perfectly matched. Everyone says.”

  “She’s a nice girl. I am in awe of her in so many ways.”

  Leaning sideways, Sarah retrieved her new book bag, grabbed her sweater, and said, “Good. That’s good. I have to go now. My driver is here. She’s been waiting.”

  They moved as one through the door, suddenly so far apart that any words would have to be shouted in order to be understood.

  They didn’t look back, neither did they wave, as each one moved in opposite directions in separate vehicles.

  Sarah’s driver, a neighbor who was close friends with Mam, took one long look at Sarah and asked what happened back there. Sarah laughed and told her not to worry about it.

  Lee’s work driver reminded him of the arithmetic book and had to pull into someone’s driveway to turn around and take him back to the schoolhouse to get it.

  Good thing Ben was one of the caretakers and had given him a key.

  One last weekend at market, Sarah thought, as the van sped along the interstate, rain hissing beneath the tires, the windshield wipers clicking rhythmically, the fast-moving monstrous trucks spraying the van as they roared past.

  The girls in the van were sitting or lying in various positions, half-awake or asleep, oblivious to the rain or the traffic, trying to grab a few minutes of rest before the churning pace of a busy market day.

  Rain meant an increase in customers. It was always that way. Sarah didn’t know why. Perhaps people didn’t want to work in their yards or do any outdoor activities on a rainy day. They thought of a place that was cheerful and bright, filled with comfort food, especially good, hot soups and stews, warm doughnuts and cinnamon rolls and whoopie pies and cupcakes. So they’d be frantically busy today.

  She’d try her best to imprint in her mind the many precious memories of the short time she’d been at market, the sights and sounds and smells of this wonderful place, filled with friends and acquaintances, people she had grown to love and respect.

  The driver turned up the volume on the
radio, and the van was filled with predictions of snow or ice by evening, warning motorists to use caution, especially on interstates leading to higher elevations.

  That’s us, Sarah thought, but she dismissed the threatening weather as they pulled up to the vast brick wall of the farmer’s market.

  Sarah measured flour, yeast, sugar, eggs, and salt. The great paddles of the mixer turned, thoroughly mixing the cinnamon roll dough, bread dough, and all the different yeast breads that were placed on the shelves in tempting rows.

  Sarah’s hands flew. She focused on her work as she rolled pound after pound of soft, delicious smelling dough into long rectangles. She quickly sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon along the length and rolled the dough to form long pinwheels, before grasping the smooth cutter and severing one cinnamon roll after another from the long lengths of dough. She placed the rolls in foil pains and dotted them with walnuts and chunks of butter.

  As she had predicted, the crowds appeared at about ten o’clock in the morning and never let up.

  Sarah didn’t get her first break until after lunch, her harried boss apologizing profusely. Sarah understood and said she’d be fine, but she was so hungry she bought a soft pretzel and dipped it in cheese sauce to eat on her way to the restaurant to order her lunch.

  She ordered the special there, roast beef and gravy, with French fries and coleslaw. She sat down across from Rose Zook, who was slowly spooning the perfect combination of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce into her mouth.

  “You know you eat an awful lot,” Rose observed after Sarah had scraped her plate clean.

  “You ate a bunch of my French fries—probably half,” Sarah answered her friend. “But you know I had a soft pretzel on the way here,” Sarah added, laughing.

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did.”

  “Well, that’s okay. You can eat. You work hard.”

  Suddenly, Rose’s eyes darkened, and she toyed with her paper napkin, her head bent slightly. She sat back as both hands went to her stomach, then she spoke quietly. “I am eating everything in sight right now. It’s stress.”

  Rose put an elbow on the table, cupped her chin in her hand, her gorgeous, heavily-lashed eyes blue but clouded with worry.

  “I hardly know how to tell you, but Sarah, something isn’t right with Lee. I just can’t describe it. Really it’s just…well, weird. He’s nice to me, very attentive, actually, but it’s like all of him isn’t there or something. He seems kind of distracted.”

  Sarah’s own hot fudge sundae now became the focus of her attention. Guilt, coupled with self-loathing and shame so all encompassing it felt like burning fire, washed over her.

  “I mean, I know Lee loves me. There was never a doubt in my mind. He just doesn’t seem as if he’s quite like he was when we began dating. You don’t think…I mean, Sarah, do you think he’s thinking of someone else?”

  Blinking rapidly, her face flaming, she shook her head, avoiding Rose’s gaze.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Rose demanded, suddenly.

  “Nothing, Rose. Why?”

  “There is, too.”

  “I’m just too full. My stomach hurts terribly.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Sarah nodded miserably.

  Rose laughed, a high-pitched giggle of understanding and friendship and relief all rolled into one burst of joyous sound.

  “So, what do you think about Lee?”

  “Oh, guys are hard to figure out, Rose. Don’t ask me. I have no faith in my ability to understand guys. Look what happened to me. Fine one minute and oh so miserable the next. Who knows what they’re thinking? I’m going to be an old maid schoolteacher, living in my own small house, thin and pinched and mean.”

  Rose whooped with laughter, then smacked the table top with the palm of her hand, turning heads as she did so.

  “Sarah, that is exactly why you are my closest friend. I just love the way you express yourself. Well, good. Then I have nothing to worry about you, right? I mean, Lee sometimes, well, he mentions you. How different you are from most other girls. And…Well, you know, Sarah.”

  Rose broke off, biting her lower lip.

  Sarah couldn’t get away fast enough, scuttling down the aisles wanting the floor to open and swallow her.

  Shamed, her face flaming now, she knew she was every bit as bad as a traitor, an adulterer.

  Oh, she’d wanted Lee to take her in her arms, kiss her, and tell her he loved her, the way men did in all the novels she read, in all the hopes and dreams of her heart. Every girl yearned to be loved, it was simply the way it was.

  Solomon devoted an entire book in the Bible to the love between a man and a woman, and God was pleased, Sarah felt sure.

  But why? Why was she always the odd person caught in a love triangle with Rose as the prominent character?

  She thought of the heart-stopping depth of Lee’s blue eyes, the powerful, magnetic attraction she had experienced. His blond hair, the soiled stocking cap, the black dust on his face, the work-roughened hands clenching her arms.

  Oh, Lee. It’s too late, now. I ruined you with my undying love for Matthew, my stubborn refusal to see what he was. A man in love with Rose, my oldest friend. And here I go again.

  And yet. He’d talked of her, to Rose.

  It was hard to suppress the pinwheels of joy that cavorted freely and colorfully through her entire being, her heart soaring and swelling with a newfound awe. And yet she wondered if it would ever be possible, and now, so soon, she knew.

  Too soon. It was much too soon. Her broken heart had left her vulnerable, and she’d be hurt. Again.

  “Hey!”

  Sarah stopped and turned, searching for the person who had called her, perplexed.

  Harold from the leather goods stand stood at his entrance, his arm waving, motioning her over. He was tall, with wisps of sandy hair combed thinly across the top of his scalp, which showed though easily. His mouth was surrounded by a splattering of sand-colored stubble, a short goatee that was never quite there and never quite gone. His eyes were gray, so much like Ashley’s.

  Sarah stood before him, lifting her eyes to his.

  “Where’s Ashley?” he demanded brusquely.

  “I have no idea,” Sarah answered.

  “Well, maybe you’re telling the truth.”

  Sarah decided to offer no information. Perhaps he never knew Ashley had asked to go home with her. She stood quietly.

  “You know she disappeared.”

  “You mean, completely?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sarah bit her lip, said nothing.

  “How much do you know about her?”

  “Not much. We talked a few times. She’s nice.”

  “Well, I’m going to warn you now. Stay away from her. She’s bad news. She’s addicted to alcohol. Does drugs. You wouldn’t think it, but she’s a mess. Can’t handle life.”

  Sarah lifted her chin. “You could help her. She said you hate her.”

  Harold became a changed man. His face whitened, he stammered, and became extremely uncomfortable. Then he did his best to hide his discomfort by laughing, a rocky snort lacking any kind of true mirth.

  “Ah, you know how teenagers are. They all think their dads hate them. She’s just a kid.”

  Sarah faced him squarely. “She’s troubled about a lot of things. Her boyfriend, Mike, for one. And for some strange reason, these barn fires that have been cropping up really bother her. She’s obsessed with them.”

  Instantly, Harold began rambling, his words falling over one another in his haste to assure Sarah that his daughter was mentally off with all the substance abuse, and she knew nothing of these barn fires, not one single thing. He finished with another warning.

  “You stay away from her. Don’t mess with her. She’s…”

  “Well, if she disappeared, I won’t be able to,” Sarah said stiffly.

  Having spoken himself into a corner, Harold rambled on again, saying she’d come b
ack, she always did, that’s what he’d meant in the first place.

  Sarah nodded, then moved on without saying good-bye, her head held high, her gaze trained straight ahead.

  She’d just brush that Walters family off, forget she even knew they existed. Like a spot on a wall, they would be easy enough to wipe out of her memory, and she would be glad to be rid of them, someone else’s concern, none of her own.

  What Harold and Ashley Walters did or said was absolutely none of her business, and she’d take his advice and keep it that way.

  From the produce stand, a husky, black-haired youth stopped hammering the board he was putting into place as he turned and watched the tall, lithe girl in the startling blue dress swing by, her movements swift and easy, reminding him of a deer, so soft, so graceful, and as lovely.

  He turned, slowly, and went back to work.

  Who could ever have predicted that the arsonist would choose an evening when the roads were slick with freezing rain and snow to bend over his lighter and newspaper and bits of wood and start the diabolical little fire that consumed yet another poor farmer’s livelihood?

  Enos Miller was young, his mortgage payments on the old Hess place high. But with his wife’s frugal spending habits, good management, and careful planning, they’d made it through the first five years.

  Annie had born him three children. Blessings from above, he called them. His quiver was well stocked with the three little souls God had be-shaed (given) them. His days were filled with hard work, and he enjoyed the fruits of his labor, anticipating the time the children would work side by side with him, building a secure foundation of tradition and trust.

  They’d put the baby, Ben, to bed and covered him with an extra blanket, the sound of pinging hail on the north bedroom window calling for warmer covers. Then they knelt side by side by the foot of the high, queen-sized bed and bowed their heads as Enos prayed the German evening prayer and Annie kept her mind on his words, repeating them silently.

  Annie had extinguished the kerosene lamp with a quick puff, and together they cuddled beneath the comforter brought from the cedar chest she’d received from her parents, lined with the sweet smelling wood, the flannel patchwork retaining the scent of cleanliness and home.