by Amy Clipston
CHAPTER 6
Frannie inhaled the sweet, fresh smell of fall weather. October had brought with it cooler temperatures and the promise of rain soon. She wiggled, trying to get comfortable on the bench between Rebekah and Hazel. Her gaze wandered to the windows beyond the men’s side. Leroy’s house had more windows than Onkel Mordecai’s. More opportunity for a breeze. She liked that. Everything in the front room looked scrubbed and freshly cleaned. The Glicks knew how to prepare for service. The last sermon was drawing to a close. She could tell by the way Leroy had ceased to pace and his thunderous voice had lost volume. As if he’d worn himself out. Soon they would sing, pray, and then eat.
A bang resonated through the room, causing more than one young girl to gasp as if jolted awake. Clutching her Ausbund hymnal to her chest, Frannie pivoted and craned her neck. The screen door stood open. And there, like the proverbial prodigal son, stood Rocky. Once again towering in the doorway.
“Sorry, sorry!” Off came the ball cap once again, revealing damp ringlets of hair. “I still don’t have the hang of how long it takes to get around in a buggy.” He laughed, a low, embarrassed laugh, not like the ones she remembered from their drives. “I’ll just grab a seat.”
He plopped down in an empty space on the last bench, right next to the young boys, who, by age, sat in the back.
Grab a seat? Buggy? She turned to Deborah, who shrugged, her eyebrows popped up so high they might touch her hairline. “Did he say ‘buggy’?”
Deborah put a finger to her lips. “Hush!” She tugged Frannie’s arm and they both sank to their knees for prayer. Frannie couldn’t help herself. She looked back. Even on his knees Rocky towered over the boys. He looked as if he needed his handy-dandy playbook from his basketball-playing days to know what was going on.
How could she possibly concentrate knowing his eyes gazed on her back? She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in the two weeks since he’d helped Onkel Mordecai and the other men build the honey storage shack and put up the milk house. They’d planted the winter vegetables and then he’d left without staying for supper or saying a proper good-bye.
Nothing. It was as if he’d picked up and gone home. That thought had made it nearly impossible for her to sleep most nights since.
Now he sat in her church in his Sunday-best black pants and white long-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar, the most agreeable-looking man she’d ever seen. Her throat went dry at the thought. Heat crept up her neck and scurried across her cheeks. You’re in church, Frannie Mast, in church. Gott, help me.
They stood for the benediction. She breathed a sigh of relief. Almost done. Almost. The closing hymn, slow and steady, calmed her. At the tail end of the last endless note, she skirted Deborah and the others on her row, intent on getting to the kitchen. A safe haven. Much as every fiber of her being ached to rush back and ask Rocky what all this meant, she would do the right thing. She would serve the fellowship meal, keep her mind and her hands busy. She would not give the women who stared at her, expressions ranging from curious to disapproving, more to talk about. No one could fault her for this.
“Frannie.”
Rocky blocked her path. He smiled from ear to ear as if he had no clue as to the predicament he represented for her. He knew. He was no fool. He had a college education and a good head on his shoulders. “Rocky.”
“We need to talk.”
Talking would only lead to other things. She inhaled his scent. If only she could bottle it and hold it close. “I have to help with the meal.”
“After, then.”
“It’s not done.”
“Only for a minute. I want to show you something.”
“I have to go home after.”
“I have something for the kinner. I’ll bring it by then.”
He did not just use a Deutsch word in a sentence as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“That’s between you and Onkel Mordecai, then.”
He grinned like a boy who’d just caught his first fish. “See you in a bit.”
Frannie couldn’t help it. Her smile escaped like a kitten from a cardboard box. She would see him again, even if only for a few minutes. She would inhale his scent and memorize his smile. “See you.”
It sounded like a promise. She scurried into the kitchen, not at all sure it was one she could or should keep.
Rocky tied the reins to the hitching post near the Kings’ barn. The spot above the long sliding doors would be perfect. He sauntered to the back of the buggy, at peace for the moment. For once, he was doing something he knew how to do. After pushing back the basketballs rolling around, he slid out the basketball hoop. He hoisted it to his shoulder, grabbed his tool bag with his other hand, and headed to the barn. Caleb, Mordecai’s youngest stepchild, who looked to be about eleven or twelve, sped across the yard toward him, gangly legs flailing. “Hey, Rocky, what’s that you got?”
The boy knew his name and who he was. That made Rocky feel good. Acceptance came easier to the younger folks. Now if he could get Frannie to understand his intentions. “It’s a basketball hoop.”
Caleb double-stepped to keep up. “Whatcha gonna do with it?”
“You got a ladder?”
“Sure we do.”
“Haul it out here.”
Caleb grinned and disappeared into the barn. He reemerged a few minutes later with the ladder on his back, dragging the end behind him. Together they positioned it against the barn. Rocky started up, Caleb holding on at the bottom, just for good measure. Seconds later, Rocky stood on the top rung, his tool belt slung over his shoulder. He’d hung plenty of hoops in his day. Pickup basketball games kept boys—and girls—out of trouble. Even if it was a freestanding hoop in a paved cul-de-sac, it was an invitation to play, to work off excess energy, to stay out of trouble, to get away from computers and video games and TV programming that turned young brains to mush.
Not that these kiddos—a half dozen had gathered around since he started screwing in the bolts—had access to any of those things. The curiosity and wide grins on their faces told him they were like other kids in more ways than one. They liked to play games and have fun.
“You know, you might have asked Onkel Mordecai before you started hanging things on his barn.” Frannie’s voice wafted over the chatter of the kinner, as he had learned from Leroy to call them in the two meetings he’d had with the bishop and Mordecai in his role as deacon. Leroy was concerned about the influence Rocky’s presence might have, especially on the boys. He would show the bishop the good he could do, for all of them. “You’re banging on someone else’s property, you know.”
Funny thing was, she didn’t sound all that upset.
He clopped down the ladder and gathered up his tools. “You can put it away.” He nodded to Caleb and a boy about the same size who stood next to him. “I’ll be right back.”
He strode past Frannie, with her tantalizing scent of vanilla and soap, without giving her a look. He knew what he’d see. Hands on her hips, her cheeks pink, her mouth open to scold him some more. She would look so pretty he’d forget what he planned to do next. “Help me get the balls from my buggy.”
“Your buggy?”
He’d set the trap and she’d fallen right in. “Yep.”
She strode after him. “What are you doing here?”
“Seems like you ask me that every time I come around.” He opened the back door on the buggy and tossed her a clean, fresh orange ball. He loved new basketballs. The smell of rubber. “By the way, I did talk to Mordecai. He graciously accepted my gift. Surely, you can do the same. Or hush up. One or the other.”
Her mouth closed, but he could see her brain turning, clickity-clack, a hundred miles an hour. That was his Frannie.
His Frannie. Gott, please.
Gott. Another word he’d picked up in his visits with Leroy and Mordecai. Not just God the Father, as he had once thought. But God of all. He spent most of his daily morning runs contemplating this concept. One of t
he Hostetler boys nearly hit him with a buggy when, deep in thought, he meandered into the road. This God with a plan so big, no man or woman could understand it with their little pea brains. He certainly couldn’t. Neither man approved of his intentions with Frannie, and neither would give an inch, but their tradition gave them no choice but to hear him out. If he truly had an interest in their faith, they had to see it through. Bless both of them for being so honorable.
For giving him a chance when disapproval oozed from their pores.
Frannie sauntered to the front of the buggy and began to stroke the Morgan’s thick mane. “He’s a beaut. Where’d you get him?”
How did he afford the horse? That’s what she really meant.
“Belongs to Seth Cotter. I took a job with him. He has that big farm right there where you turn off the highway. He’s getting up there in years, and there’s a lot of work he can’t do himself anymore, even in fall and winter. I’m staying in his bunkhouse now.”
Contemplating how she’d react to this news, Rocky motioned with the first basketball. She held out her hands. He tossed it to her. Grinning like he’d just given her the keys to his old truck, she caught it. The ball smacked against her long, thin fingers. Giggling, she tossed it up and down. Another thing among the multitude of attributes he liked about Frannie. She had a natural-born aptitude for sports. Not only that, she liked them. Under different circumstances, she would’ve been an athlete.
She shook her head so hard her kapp slid a little more cockeyed than usual. “You’re thinking of buying a horse to go with the buggy. When you have the money. I don’t understand. I truly don’t.”
“When I said it wasn’t just about you, I meant it.” He snagged two more balls. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking. I visited with Leroy and Mordecai a couple of times.”
Her full lips were shaped in an O, but no sound came out.
“I got rid of my cell phone and iPad. I never turn on the radio or the TV in the bunkhouse. I heat my ramen noodles on the woodstove.”
“How will you stay in touch with your mother?”
That’s what she chose to latch onto? “I write her letters.” He gave her his best grin. “Isn’t that how you stay in touch? And if there’s an emergency, she has Seth’s number.”
Frannie nodded, but she didn’t meet his gaze, instead studying the lines on the basketball as if memorizing them.
“I sold my truck. That’s where I got the money for the buggy.”
“You sold your truck?” The words came out in a squeak. She stared up at him. “You loved that truck. It’s a classic.”
“I’ll love this buggy too.” He started toward the barn. She trailed after him, still tossing the ball from one hand to the other. “Leastways I will once I get used to driving it on the highway with all those eighteen-wheelers whizzing past me.”
“It’s five to eight miles an hour.”
Rocky glanced back at her. “What?”
“Horse-drawn buggies travel about five to eight miles an hour. That’s what Onkel Mordecai says and he knows everything.” She smiled. His heart catapulted to a spot by his collarbone in a spectacular jump shot, then plummeted back to its normal resting spot. “Keep that in mind. Leroy doesn’t like folks to be late to church.”
She was warming up to the idea. Leastways, Rocky could hope. He tossed a ball to Caleb and another to a boy half his size. “Hold these, while I mark the out-of-bounds lines.”
“Out-of-bounds?”
Frannie let her ball sail. It smacked against the backboard and slid around the hoop’s rim before falling through the net for a neat two points. The kids dived for the ball and tussled over it, laughing and cheering.
All was right in the world when a pickup basketball game took off.
“Beginner’s luck.” Rocky took the ball from Caleb, raced toward the basket, jumped, and jammed the ball through it. “Wahoo, nothing but net!”
Frannie wrestled Caleb for the rebound, but her cousin had more strength. In a flash, he made another basket. “That’s two points, right? Are we having teams?”
“Teams. It’s more fun if you keep score. I’ll be on one team, Frannie on the other, since we’re the grown-ups.” Grown-ups, of a sort. Rocky grabbed a stick and began marking the out-of-bounds lines and the free-throw line in the hard-packed dirt that passed for a yard. “We’ll do a half-court game. I reckon you don’t know what that means.”
Frannie snorted, a very unladylike sound that only served to endear her more to Rocky. “Sure I do. They had games on the TV in the restaurant.”
“And you watched? Shame on you.”
“Nee, I heard. Who could help, the way they yell and scream over a game?” Frannie snatched the ball from Caleb. She scampered past Rocky, her long dress flapping behind her. “Hurry up. We’re playing basketball.”
Indeed, they were.
“What is wrong with you?”
Frannie whirled. She hadn’t heard Aenti Abigail enter the room she shared with Rebekah and Hazel. She smoothed her straggling hair with both hands. Her kapp hung by a hairpin. Dirt and sweat marred her apron from top to bottom. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t act all innocent with me.” Her aunt crossed her arms over her chest. “Everyone saw you out there playing games with him.”
“Him” had a name. Rocky. “Having fun. There’s no rule in the Ordnung that says we can’t have fun.”
“Don’t make me the bad person here. There’s fun and then there’s fun and you know it.”
Frannie did know it. She’d had more fun playing basketball with Rocky and the kinner than she’d had in all the days since she returned to Bee County. Running and shooting and scuffling over the ball. Rocky towered over her and the other players, making it easy for him to block shots. Sometimes he took pity and let her make a shot here and there. Two-pointers, as he called them. She’d learned to defend the basket and what a foul was. Her specialty seemed to be free throws. With no one defending the basket, she couldn’t miss. Her arms ached and her legs shuffled like wet noodles, but she felt . . . happy.
“It’s just a game.”
“A game everyone saw you playing with a full-grown man.”
“There were a bunch of us.”
“You were the only woman.”
Frannie sank onto the bed. Aenti Abigail joined her. She patted Frannie’s dirty hands. “I don’t want you to think I don’t understand what you’re going through, but you told me you would never marry outside the church. I took you at your word.”
“I meant it.”
“That’s not what it looked like today.”
“We had fun, that’s all.”
“Joseph is coming for supper tonight.”
“Joseph isn’t interested in me. He just likes your casserole.” Frannie went to the window. Dark clouds hung close to the earth, heavy and damp. Rain had finally begun to fall, heralding the end of a long, hot summer. For everyone. She breathed in the scent of moist dirt, fighting the urge to bawl. Plain women didn’t bawl. Inhaling, she faced her aunt. “You didn’t marry Stephen because you knew you didn’t love him.”
“I gave him a chance before I made that decision.” Aunt Abigail plucked at a thread on her apron, her expression distant, remembering. “I told your mudder I would watch out for you and I am.”
“My mudder would like a good game of basketball.”
“She wouldn’t like it if her child left the district and she couldn’t see her anymore, ever. That’s what’s at stake here.” Her aunt’s voice trembled. Surely she thought of her own daughter, Leila. “You know that. Do you want to give up everything and everyone you love for a man?”
“I’m not Leila. I will never do that. I’m Plain through and through.”
“So was Leila. Or so I thought.”
“If you believe in Gott’s will, wasn’t leaving here Gott’s plan for Leila and Jesse?”
“I’m not smart enough or prideful enough to think I know what Gott’s plan is. It wi
ll unfold on Gott’s time, not ours.” Aunt Abigail sounded so sure of herself. Even the loss of her daughter didn’t shake her faith. “Gott is good. What we see today or tomorrow is not the end. We have to have patience and wait on the Lord.”
Patience had never been one of Frannie’s strong suits. “I’m sorry. I have trouble seeing my life without Rocky in it.”
There, she’d said it. Her aunt’s arms came out and Frannie found herself embraced in a warm, sure hug. Surprise overcame her. Tears formed. She sniffed. Aenti Abigail did the same and sat back.
“Did you know I have a new granddaughter whom I haven’t seen? Deborah received a letter from Leila.” She wiped at her face with her sleeve. “Her name is Grace. You’d be surprised at what you can get through. I know I am.”
“There have been times when people have joined our faith and become members of the district, haven’t there?”
Aenti Abigail sighed. “Wishful thinking, child.”
“Why? He bought a buggy.”
“He’s thinking with his heart too. A buggy doesn’t a Plain man make.”
“Doesn’t it count for something?”
“It’s true that it’s happened in other districts. I’ve heard.” Aunt Abigail smoothed her apron, leaving the loose thread to its own devices. “Different districts do it differently, but usually the person who joins spends at least a year getting used to the idea of giving up all those luxuries like electricity and cars and such. The bishop interviews the person to see if his heart is really in it. Sometimes the whole church votes. I don’t know how Leroy would do it.”
“So it is possible?”
“But not likely.” Her aunt stood. “Get cleaned up. I need to warm up the enchilada casserole. You can set the table. Put out the pickled jalapeños. You know how Mordecai likes those with his enchiladas. And don’t forget to set a place for Joseph.”
Her aunt disappeared through the door.
A pain pierced Frannie’s chest so sharp she doubled over. The happiness of only a few minutes earlier dissipated like dew in the rising sun on an August morning. She closed her eyes and rocked, willing the pain to subside. Gott? Gott!