by Amy Clipston
“I don’t think so.”
That was Abigail. “You’ll be there to oversee their work.”
“True.” She sounded less snappy.
He slipped the stretchy beige bandage around her wrist and began to wrap toward her elbow. “It could’ve been so much worse. When I rode up on that buggy tumbled by the side of the road, I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think.”
“You were afraid it was Frannie and relieved it was only me. That’s human.”
“That’s harsh. And not true.” He picked up the washcloth and dabbed at her forehead. She jerked back. “Try to relax, I need to clean it. Yes, I was relieved it wasn’t Frannie, but I wasn’t relieved to see it was you.”
“Sorry. Clean it.” A pulse throbbed in her jaw. “Don’t fib. It would only be human, especially considering I haven’t been very nice to you.”
“I’m not fibbing.” He picked through the bandages in the basket until he found one that would cover the gash on her forehead. Better dab on some antiseptic ointment first. “I understand your concerns, but you have to believe me when I say I never want to do anything to hurt Frannie or take her away from her family. If I’m not accepted into your community, I will leave here without her. That’s a promise.”
Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, whether from pain or emotion, he couldn’t say. “I only want to do what’s right for her. I promised her parents that. After what happened with my Leila, I know what pain the wrong choice will cause them. Not seeing my daughter is a hard cross to bear, but it’s worse knowing she might not have eternal salvation, which is even more important.”
“I understand.” Rocky smoothed the bandage over her cut and leaned back to survey his work. Leila still worshipped, she still had her deep faith, from what Frannie had told him, but he wouldn’t argue with a mother’s fear. “I don’t want Frannie to spend her life apart from her family or from God. But being with me doesn’t have to mean either of those things . . . if everything goes as planned. Nothing is more important to me than Frannie’s eternal salvation, as you put it.”
She ran her fingers across the bandage. From her high cheekbones to her neck, her skin was stained red. Rocky figured his was the same color, what with having such a personal conversation with a woman so important to his future. “Staying with her family, being baptized, living her faith, marrying a Plain man, and being a mother, that’s what is best for her.”
“Agreed, but love’s also important. You married for love, didn’t you?” He held up his hand. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be so personal. It’s none of my business.”
The red deepened to scarlet. “She told you . . . about me?”
“It’s obvious whenever you and Mordecai are in the same room.” They had a look about them, like newlyweds, that he tried hard not to covet. “You still get that glow I imagine you had on your face the day you married the man.”
“In this case, there’s more to be considered. Even if you stay, if you are accepted into the faith, how do we know it will work out?” Her voice quivered, but her gaze stayed on his. “It almost never does. It’s too hard for your kind to give up all the things that make your life easier.”
“Easier or more cluttered and difficult to navigate?”
“If anyone can do it, Richard can.” Mrs. Cotter carried a tray filled with three huge mugs of hot chocolate topped with dollops of whipped cream. “I’ve never seen anyone more determined. He never turns on the TV or the DVD player or even the radio in the bunkhouse. He’s showered us with gifts of his cell phone, his laptop, an iPad. He’s turned the place into a workout room instead, with barbells and such. Of course, we don’t know what to do with most of that electronic stuff. We just turn it over to the grandkids, being fairly simple folks ourselves.”
She couldn’t have done better if she were writing him a job recommendation. Rocky shot her a quick look of thanks. “Besides keeping in shape, I’ve been reading books in the evenings instead of watching TV.” He pointed at the Cotters’ extensive library on the nearby shelves. “Being a jock through high school and college, I missed out on a lot of good books while I was on the road playing whatever sport was in season.”
Abigail looked at him as if he spoke Greek. To her, he probably did. She nodded slowly. “Mordecai reads.”
Which was how he knew so much about so many things. “We have that in common then.”
Among other things. Like concern for Frannie’s well-being.
The silence held for a full thirty seconds.
Mrs. Cotter placed the tray on the other end table with a soft thud. “Now, let’s get some hot chocolate in you and get you warmed up. There’s nothing that chocolate doesn’t help, is there?”
“Will it fix the buggy?” Abigail’s tone was tart, but she smiled at the older lady as she accepted the mug. “Your kindness is appreciated.”
Her gaze moved to Rocky. “Yours too.”
CHAPTER 10
Nothing like a good game of softball to get the blood circulating. Frannie hoped it would give her brain a jump start. Susan managed a blooper into center field over second baseman Hazel’s head. The six-year-old was so short it wouldn’t take much. Frannie hitched up her dress and raced for third. The kinner screamed for her to head for home. Why not? Her legs were strong and her lungs stronger. Sally Glick hurled the ball with a much better arm than most boys. It smacked into catcher Jacob King’s mitt seconds after Frannie crossed the plate, letting her momentum carry her toward the school porch.
“Woo-hoo! We win, we win!” she shouted in glee, even though she knew no one was keeping score. A fact that would’ve made Rocky crazy. She shooed the thought away. She hadn’t seen him since the auction. Aunt Abigail’s story of his rescue after the buggy accident had warmed Frannie’s heart, but she saw nothing in her aunt’s face to indicate she’d changed her mind about the man. Her aunt continued to try to invite Joseph to supper, even though he’d found a variety of excuses to turn her down. “Good hit, Teacher, good hit.”
Susan laughed and two-stepped away from the old rug that served as first base. “Too bad it’s time for recess to be over.”
“Nee, nee.”
The chorus of scholars’ voices couldn’t have been more in unison.
“One more batter, Teacher, one more,” Caleb called from his shortstop position. “Let Frannie hit again. She hits good.”
“She hits well or she’s a good hitter.” Ever the teacher, Susan corrected with firmness. She made the kinner practice their English at recess when she played games with them. They seemed to find it a good trade-off. Everyone wanted her on their team. “One more hitter, then it’s time for Englisch. We need to practice our grammar.”
“Let Sally hit. I’m old and tired.” Not old, but tired. Frannie hadn’t been sleeping much, and when she did, her dreams were filled with an aching sadness over unborn babies and people who were invariably lost to her. Her parents roamed the fields looking for her. Her little sister Hannah cried at the supper table, her hand patting the empty chair next to her. “Go on, it’s not fair. You know I’ll get a hit.”
Sally picked up the scarred wooden bat, leaving Frannie to slip down the makeshift first-base line to where Susan hopped on and off the base as spry as a kindergartner. Uncle Mordecai’s sister was a shorter, rounder version of her brother with the same dark-brown eyes and unruly black hair trying its best to escape from her kapp. Give her a beard and they’d be twins. The thought made Frannie giggle. She hadn’t giggled much lately.
“So what are you doing here?”
“Huh?” Frannie kept her gaze on pitcher Luke Hostetler, who kept peeking over his shoulder as if he expected thirty-something Susan to steal second base. “Aenti Abigail made an extra big batch of fry pies. She thought it would be a nice treat for the kinner so I offered to bring them over. I thought it would be fun to visit, and it gets me out of Aenti Abigail’s hair for a while.”
Her aunt had been unusually quiet since the buggy accident. She didn’t
wear the bandage on her wrist anymore, but the wound on her head seemed to be taking its time healing. She had bruises up and down her right side from shoulder to ankle. Most were now an ugly yellow and green color. Frannie had been on her way for a cup of kaffi this morning when the sight of Onkel Mordecai kissing his fraa’s forehead in the kitchen had caused her to slip back to the front room. Her uncle’s love for her aunt was written on his face every day. Theirs was a second chance at love, yet it seemed as strong and as sweet as any Frannie had ever seen. She longed for a tenth of what they had.
Which brought her back to the school yard and her reason for wanting to escape such a lovely scene.
“I know better. You couldn’t wait to get out of the schoolhouse a few years ago.” Susan edged from the base, her skirt hitched up around her shins. “The only time you come around is for the Christmas pageant. And then it’s for the cookies.”
“Not true. I love the hymns and the scholars’ performances.” She studied her sneakers. “I was thinking maybe you’d need a helper now that Esther is married.”
“Get a hit, get a hit, Sally! I have essays to read!” Susan clapped her hands. Her high voice carried over the batter-batter-swing chant of the infield. “I can always use help, but I’m having a hard time imagining you here, inside, every day. At recess, jah, but doing reading with the little ones, nee.”
“I have to do something.” Frannie fought the urge to stamp her feet. “I can’t stay at Aenti Abigail’s all day long, doing laundry and washing dishes.”
“That’s what she does. That’s what fraas do.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. She does it for her mann and her kinner.”
“You don’t think you’ll have your own mann and boplin one day?”
“It’s not looking that way.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
“Susan!”
Susan stomped on the base with both sneakers. “You don’t know what Gott’s plan for you is. You don’t. So right now, the best thing to do is wait upon the Lord. Wait and be patient.”
“Is that what you did?”
“What do you mean?”
“You never married. You never had your own boplin.”
“Nee.” Susan clapped and shouted encouragement to Sally, who took a big swing and missed. Strike two. “Things might not have turned out exactly as I planned, but they turned out as Gott planned. In that I am certain and I’m content. When Mordecai’s first fraa was killed in the van wreck and Phineas nearly died, Mordecai needed me. They needed me. I was there and ready and able to step in when I was needed. I thank Gott for that. I know Mordecai does too.”
Feeling thoroughly small and chastised, Frannie crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re right.”
“Jah, I’m right. And Gott’s plan for me is not at an end yet. Who knows what the future will bring? Only Gott. The same is true for you. Be patient. Wait to see what He has in store for you. It’ll be greater than anything you can imagine for yourself.” Susan grinned at her, unaware that Frannie had heard all this before from Aunt Abigail. It bore repeating, no doubt. “Besides, as a teacher, I get to play games every day at recess. Who could ask for more?”
The crack of bat against ball filled the air. Susan took off, arms and legs pumping. “See you at home plate.”
Stop being so self-centered. That’s what Susan meant to say, only she was too kind to use those words. Stop thinking of only herself.
Frannie climbed into the wagon and picked up the reins, still picturing Susan’s cheerful face. Sorry, Gott. Thy will be done. If that means Leroy sends Rocky home and I end up an unmarried aunt to a boatload of nieces and nephews like Susan, so be it.
“Hey, Frannie.”
She looked back. Susan scampered across the yard, her hand on her side as if running had given her a stitch. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll talk with Leroy.”
“You mean it?”
“If nothing else, you can be my recess monitor.”
“I’ll do more than that.”
“No eating their lunches.”
“Just their cookies.”
“It’s not forever, Frannie.”
Maybe not. “Danki.”
Susan laughed. “You’ll be sorry when I make you practice their times tables with them.”
“Two times four is nine, right?”
Susan’s laugh followed her as she drove the buggy from the yard and out onto the dirt road that led to Mordecai’s. It wasn’t forever. Nee, maybe not. But this was her show of faith. She had a job. She would move on with her life if that was what Gott required.
Thy will be done.
She repeated the words over and over on the ride home until they sounded like a hymn sung to the clickety-clack of the wagon wheels on the dirt road and the clippity clop-clop of the horse’s hooves.
Finally, she began to say them aloud, sure she could learn to mean them.
CHAPTER 11
Some folks might think hunting was about camaraderie among men more than the sport itself. It might be, but Rocky could see that Mordecai and Caleb were serious about bagging a wild turkey or two. Otherwise, most likely they’d be eating chicken for Thanksgiving. Not that anything was wrong with chicken when a person had an empty belly, but Thanksgiving by all rights should include turkey. Being asked to come along on this hunting trip was an honor. He had to remind himself of that. In the dusk before dawn, the air was soupy with rain that misted on their faces and dampened their coats. His boots made a squelching sound in thick mud that made it difficult to pick up his feet. If only he could help them put a big bird on the table. Today was their last chance. So far they’d seen not a feather nor heard the kerr-kerr of a hen.
“This land has been picked clean.” Caleb shoved his hat down on his head with one hand and nestled his shotgun against his chest with the other. He sounded like a grown man, not an eleven-year-old. He’d likely been hunting for years. “We might as well head home.”
Mordecai put a finger to his lips and smiled. “It’s early. They’re still roosting. You know turkeys don’t like getting wet in the rain any more than we do. When it’s raining they can’t hear predators approaching. They’ll head out to the fields to look for insects for breakfast any minute now.”
As always, Mordecai was a fountain of information delivered in a soft, gruff voice. “Until then, I could use a spot of hot kaffi.” He tugged a thermos from a knapsack on his shoulder. “How about you, Englisch man?”
Something about the way he said “Englisch man” made it a term of endearment, which surprised Rocky to no end. He accepted the offering, popped the cup from the top of the thermos, and unscrewed the lid. “I was surprised when you asked me to come along.”
Mordecai eased onto a fallen tree trunk, seemingly unaware or uncaring that it was damp from end to end. “Would you be surprised if I invited you to Thanksgiving tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Might as well be honest. If a man couldn’t be honest on a hunting trip, then there wasn’t much left to do on this earth. “Why would you put me in close proximity to—”
“To my family.” Mordecai shook his finger at him, his gaze on Caleb, who squatted nearby drinking hot chocolate from his own small thermos. “First, it’s a way of thanking you again for the kindness you showed my fraa. When I think of her alone there on the side of the road, hurt, well, I . . .
His voice had grown hoarse, as it had the first time he thanked Rocky for stopping to help Abigail when the buggy overturned. Who wouldn’t have stopped? Anyone with a heart surely would help a woman on the side of the road. “No need to thank me for being a decent human being—”
“I also have been following your progress with Leroy and in general,” Mordecai interrupted, also surprising as it wasn’t something Plain folks generally did. The man had something to say, it seemed. “You’ve worked hard and walked quietly among us, following the lead of the other men. You seem earnest in your endeavor.”
“I am earnest.”
“It
’s a hard row.”
“It is.”
“Are you prepared to learn German?”
“I am.”
“Not just Deutsch, but High German as you’ve heard in the services?”
“I am.”
“Is your heart prepared?”
Rocky contemplated the question, trying to follow Mordecai’s thinking. “If you mean do I understand the calling to faith and how it’s practiced in this community, yes, my heart is prepared. More than prepared. I feel as if I’ve waited my whole life for this.”
“No more competitive sports. No more boxing matches.”
“I wouldn’t be here now if those were more important to me than my walk in faith.”
Rocky paused, the images from his past life painting a montage in his mind. Parent-pitch and T-ball with his dad, Pony league with his uncle, flag football, tackle football, YMCA basketball, competitive basketball, tryouts, making the teams in multiple sports in junior high, high school, college. Championships and trophies. Cheerleaders, bonfires, and pep rallies. His life had revolved around something Mordecai would never understand. But if Rocky knew anything, it was that sports were simply games. Games that taught children leadership, teamwork, loyalty, and social skills, but still games. They didn’t make a life, but they helped hone character. Sports crafted leaders, but they did nothing to fill the void in his chest where his faith should reside.
“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t apologize for my previous life choices,” he said finally. “I believe in sports. As a teaching tool for good values, but also for health and physical fitness. For helping kids blow off steam at recess so they can sit still and learn in class. I’m sure you’ve seen this at your school and with your kinner, so you know what I’m saying is true.”