by Beth Wiseman
Mary Ann fell silent as Emma struggled with a particularly well-rooted dandelion. The weed pulled free and dirt splayed from its roots. They both started laughing when two fat worms dropped from the ball of dirt and crawled back toward the warm, moist hole.
“I guess we know what Harold and Henry would do with those.”
“My boys always did prefer fishing to gardening.” Emma brushed at the sweat that was beading on her brow and resumed weeding. The temperature was warm for mid-May, nearly eighty. With the sun making its way west and a slight northern breeze, the late afternoon was a bit more pleasant. Perhaps the heat was why everything in the garden was growing with such enthusiasm.
Summer had barely begun, and already their vegetable plot had become a place of riotous chaos. The flowers tangled into one another in an unruly blend of scents and colors—reds, blues, yellows, oranges, and pinks. Shipshewana had experienced an early spring, bountiful rains, and mild temperatures. Emma struggled to keep up, and the garden became more a place of labor than of healing.
Still, she continued to work on the row of snap beans.
Mary Ann sat on her bench and watched.
“Gardens are a reflection of God’s love for us,” Mary Ann said.
“Ya, indeed they are.”
“You missed a weed, dear. Back near the bean plant.” Mary Ann pointed at the bunch of quack grass with her cane.
Emma smiled and reached for the grass. She no longer thought of Mary Ann as Ben’s mother. After living on the same property for over thirty years, she was just Mamm. Sweet, dear, and at times, more work than an infant.
Emma prayed nightly that she would live forever, that she wouldn’t leave her alone.
“The weeds aren’t easy to find because the plants have grown so large.” She used her apron to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “Everything is running together.”
“Evil can overtake good—”
“I’d hardly call a weed evil.”
“Especially when you don’t spend a little time each day tending to what is important.” Mary Ann’s eyes twinkled in the afternoon sunlight. She might have been referring to Emma’s recent absence.
“I’m glad I went to Middlebury and spent the week with Edna. All three of her children suffering with the flu at the same time? Ach! We had our hands full with laundry and cooking and nursing.”
Mary Ann moved her cane left and then right. She gazed off past the barn, and her voice softened. “Do you remember the year Harold came down with a bad case of the influenza?”
“He was nine.”
“While you were tending him, I spent many an hour out here, praying for that child’s soul and body—that the Lord would see fit to leave him with us a bit longer.”
“Harold would call out, and his blue eyes, they’d stare up at me and nearly break my heart. The fever was dangerously high. I can still recall how hot his skin was to my touch.”
“Difficult times.”
Emma had reached the end of the row. She turned to the next and stifled a sigh. Most afternoons she enjoyed her time in the garden, with Mary Ann sitting on the bench and sometimes dozing in the sun. But today weariness was winning, that and a restlessness that resembled an itch she couldn’t reach. Perhaps her impatience came from comparing her own life to her daughter’s.
The trip to Middlebury should have been a nice reprieve from the work of the farm, but she came back nearly as tired as when she left.
Certainly it had been a delight to spend time with Edna, her husband, and the grandchildren while a neighbor had stayed with Mary Ann. But looking around her daughter’s tidy farm and newer house, she found herself wondering if they should sell the old place. Perhaps it was too much for two old women to maintain. Something smaller would be good. Her daughter’s place was half the size and much more manageable.
“Mamm, this garden is too big.”
“No garden is too big, dear.”
“We can’t possibly eat all of this food.”
“Which is why we share with those in need.”
They’d joined a co-op several years ago. In exchange for the vegetables, they received fresh milk, eggs, and occasionally cheese. Both Emma and Mary Ann were relieved that they didn’t have to look after a cow—Emma had never been good at milking, though she’d done it enough times as a child. And chickens required constant tending. She also didn’t favor the idea of purchasing their dairy products from the local grocer. Fresh was best. Still, what they put into the co-op far exceeded what they received.
“Maybe it’s grown past what we can manage. Instead of adding a little every year, maybe we should hack something back.” Emma stood and scanned right, then left. The garden, which had once been a small vegetable patch, now took up one entire side of the yard. “We could plow up that row of flowers over there, maybe plant some grass instead. And we do not need ten tomato plants.”
“Help arrives when you call.”
“Yes, but—”
“Hello, Danny.”
Emma had turned her attention back to the row of blooming plants and was reaching up to trim back the joe-pye weed, which threatened to take over the Virginia bluebells that were already in bloom. Her hand froze at Danny’s name. Slowly, she brushed the dirt from her fingertips by running her hands across her apron, inadvertently leaving a stain of brown slanting from right to left against the light gray material. She swiped at the hair that had escaped from her kapp, tugged her apron into place, and turned to face the man who had first courted her.
CHAPTER TWO
Danny enjoyed the sound of Emma’s voice, even when it was only two words. There was something about seeing her in the garden that set his day on a solid foundation.
Emma.
He’d loved her so many years ago, when he was only a boy. Then he’d gone away, and she had married. Her life with Ben had been a good one, by the looks of things, and he understood fully how much she must miss her recently deceased husband. Danny’s own life was solitary, though he was grateful to be surrounded by a good community.
On various occasions, he’d heard Mary Ann insist that he was one of God’s many blessings, that the Lord Himself had sent Danny home to Shipshewana to be their help and neighbor.
Emma didn’t seem as sure.
They’d had a hard year. Emma’s father-in-law, Eldon, and husband, Ben, had both passed within a few weeks of each other as winter turned to spring the year before. Danny was glad he’d returned when he had, in the middle of the winter, when the snow was still falling and the land lay fallow. He’d thanked the Lord more than once that he’d had a few months to spend with Ben before he’d died. Long enough to know there were no ill feelings between them.
“Gardening, I see.”
Emma glanced up after she’d pushed some stray hairs back into her kapp. He’d only glimpsed the brunette curls that were now mostly gray. But Emma’s caramel-colored eyes looked the same as when she was sixteen.
She must have stopped growing about that age, because she still only reached his shoulder. And though she’d put on a little weight over the years—what woman didn’t after five children—she carried it well. Emma looked healthy, and in brief moments, she looked happy.
When she glanced his way, the dismay in her eyes amused Danny, and it also kicked his pulse up a notch. He wasn’t a young man and wasn’t sure why he reacted this way when he was around Emma.
“Indeed.” She smiled tightly. “Every afternoon, as the sun creeps toward the horizon, you’re bound to find us here.”
“We love our time in the garden,” Mary Ann said.
Danny raised an eyebrow, but Emma only shook her head and threw an endearing look at Mary Ann. The garden was her passion, not Emma’s. Mary Ann obviously did enjoy her time in the garden. Then again, she was sitting on a bench, not sweating over a vegetable patch.
Emma had confessed one night that she was grateful she could still work in the garden. And she was grateful Mary Ann was still sitting on the bench.
/> Since Danny didn’t know how to respond to either of them, he placed his walking stick next to Mary Ann’s bench and turned back to the task at hand. Without asking what she needed, Danny moved to the other side of the row Emma was working on and held back the plants she was trimming.
They worked in silence for another ten minutes. When they’d reached the end of the row, he wiggled both eyebrows and asked, “Where to next? Carrots and onions, or another floweredy row?”
Danny knew the name of every bloom in their garden, but sometimes he felt self-conscious about the years and years of knowledge stored in his mind. Like the stack of notebooks in his office, he didn’t think what he’d learned and seen should be displayed in every conversation. Sometimes it was good to be the clueless old guy who lived next door.
Emma wasn’t buying it. She snorted and said, “Don’t play ignorant, Danny. I saw your piece in The Budget on using indigenous plants throughout your yard.”
“Ya?”
“I’m pretty sure you have an encyclopedic knowledge of gardening, among other things.”
When Danny only blinked, Emma dusted her hands on her apron and turned in a circle. “I need to work the ground around the carrots and add a bit of fertilizer.”
“Want me to bring some from the barn?”
“Nein. I have some in the bucket at the end of the row, but there’s no need for you to—”
“I’ll fetch the bucket and meet you at the carrot patch.”
Emma glanced at Mary Ann, but she appeared to be ignoring them. Her cane was raised, and she’d plunged it into a boisterous stand of flowering mint. She was attempting to coax a butterfly into settling on the polished oak walking stick.
So they turned to the vegetable section, and that was when Emma froze. She pressed her fingers to her lips. Danny followed her gaze and saw a young lad, probably fifteen. He was sneaking out from the back of Emma’s barn. As his scrawny frame came around the corner, he looked right at them.
For a moment, their eyes connected, and then he sprinted away, like a young buck in flight.
Emma dropped the gardening tools and rushed after him.
Danny caught up with her when she was halfway to the road. “We’ll never catch him.”
“Probably not.”
“Amish?”
“Ya.”
“Any idea what he was doing there?”
“Nein, and I don’t need this right now.”
“Best go see if he took anything.”
They reversed direction and headed to the barn.
“The door isn’t latched, and I always make sure to fasten it.”
“He probably doesn’t know you bring in the horses every evening. In some counties, they’re left in the pasture.”
“This early in the year? Ach! It’s still too cold in the evenings.”
As he walked into the darkness of the barn, Danny’s mind was flooded with memories of Ben, Eldon, and his own father. For so many years, their families had been intertwined like the mint mixed with the tomatoes in Emma’s garden. The barn smelled like the memories of those he’d loved—wood chips, hay, oats, and leather.
“Do you keep any money in here?”
“Nein.”
“What’s in the office?”
“Old files. Ben’s things. Nothing anyone would want to steal.”
“He was here for something.”
“Maybe he was hiding out.”
“Maybe.” Danny crouched down near a bit of stray hay.
Emma shrugged, but Danny pointed toward the farthest stall. The door was cracked open a hair’s width. Danny held up his hand for her to stay put.
Instead, she strode in front of him, across the barn, and to the stall. When Emma saw the bedroll, camp stove, and extra set of clothes, she backed up until she’d reached the opposite wall and stood against it, as if for support.
“Do we have an Amish runaway living in our barn?”
“Or he could be a hobo.”
“Whatever he is, what are Mamm and I going to do about it?”
CHAPTER THREE
The boy had upended one of the pails she used to carry horse feed. Apparently he was using it as a table. Her stomach tumbling, Emma walked back into the stall, sat down on the pail, and looked around in disbelief.
“What are you going to do?”
“Do? I suppose I’ll call Bishop Simon, and he’ll decide whether to call the police.”
Danny leaned against the stall wall, crossed his arms, and rubbed at his clean-shaven jaw with his right hand. “Or . . .”
“Or? We have an or here?”
“Just saying.” He spread his hands out in front of him. Big hands.
Danny brushed at straw that clung to his dark pants. Suspenders draped over his pale-green shirt. He pushed back the straw hat covering his mahogany brown hair sprinkled with gray. When he did so, Emma noticed his bangs flopped close to his chocolate-colored eyes. The gesture made Emma think of the boy he had been. Perhaps that was the problem. She suffered from memory misplacement.
He was a big guy—over six feet and trim. It was one of the reasons folks were surprised when he decided to be a writer. Danny would have made a great farmer, or a farrier, or even a cabinetmaker. All of those occupations would have made sense. But a writer? An Amish writer?
She sighed and returned her attention to the horse stall. “You haven’t said anything.”
“I wouldn’t want to put my opinion where it has no place.”
“Out with it.” The words escaped as a growl. She sounded moody, even to her own ears. It occurred to her that she never used to snarl at folks, unless they were tracking mud through the kitchen.
“What if you left him some food instead?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he’s obviously living here, and he must be hungry.”
“But I don’t want him to live here. I want him to leave. My barn is for my horses.”
“You’re right.”
“People don’t live in barns.”
“Most don’t.”
“And he must have a home. His parents are probably worried sick.”
“Maybe.”
Emma closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. When she’d spoken to her daughter Edna about her moodiness, Edna had smiled and reminded her of the change. She had thought she was through with that. Maybe not.
“I don’t want him to stay. I want him out of my barn and off my property.”
Danny pulled down on his hat. He looked Amish, but there were times Emma wondered. All that traveling must have affected his way of thinking.
She stood and swiped some hay off the back of her dress.
“Seems as if he was careful with the cookstove,” she admitted. The boy had placed it inside one of the midsized tin troughs.
“Indeed.”
“Don’t know what he could have been cooking.”
“He probably caught a rabbit.”
She brushed past him into the main portion of the barn. A young boy, a boy her own grandkinner’s age, eating rabbit he’d caught from the field? And nothing else?
“I’ll bring him some leftover ham and bread from last night’s dinner, leave it in his stall, but only this once.”
“It would be a kind thing to do.”
“And he can reciprocate by moving on.”
“Maybe he’ll see the food and trust you, tell you what’s happening and why he’s here.”
She humphed as they stepped out into the late-afternoon sunlight. Old people made that sound, and she was not that old.
Danny touched a hand to her shoulder, and Emma froze. Her feet became like cattails in an iced-over pond. Her heart thudded in her chest. She refused to look at him as he leaned close and whispered, “Perhaps Gotte has sent him to you, Emma. Perhaps Gotte has sent this child to us.”
Against her better judgment, she turned and looked up into Danny’s eyes. His expression was a curious mixture of intensity, hope, and amusement.
How was she supposed to respond?
Emma had no idea, so she turned and trudged off toward the garden.
Later that evening she told Mary Ann about their guest in the barn.
“I think Danny was right.” Mamm squinted her eyes as she glanced across the room and out the window. “We should try to help this one who is lost.”
“We don’t know that he’s lost. Maybe he’s lazy.”
“Few children are actually lazy, though they are often confused. Sometimes one looks like the other.”
Emma stood to gather their dinner dishes. With only the two of them, cleaning up had become much easier. She checked the large kitchen table to be sure she had all the dishes, and the memories almost overwhelmed her. She could see their brood of five, plus Ben’s parents, crowding around the table. The children often jostled one another as they made room on the long bench or in the chairs. As if they were still there, she could see—actually see—them settle for prayer. The boys bareheaded, the girls with their kapp strings pushed back and stray locks peeking out. The deep baritone of her husband’s voice when he’d ask who was hungry.
Mary Ann reached out and covered Emma’s hand with her own.
It startled her from the past.
“It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling, dochder.”
About the past?
About the vagrant in her barn?
About Danny?
“I don’t know what you mean, Mamm. Unless you’re referring to my feeling tired. I’m not as young as—”
“Gotte isn’t done with you yet.”
“I suppose not, since I’m still here.”
“He has plans, Emma.”
“Ya? Has He let you in on any of them?” She couldn’t help smiling as she added dish soap to the warm water and plunged the first plate into the suds.
“You’re laughing, but He has. I believe He has.” Mary Ann stood and carried her glass to the sink. At a time in life when most folks slowed down, she was still quite spry. Too thin. Emma remarked occasionally that she’d like to give some of her extra girth to Mary Ann, if that were possible. It seemed no matter how she changed their meals, Mary Ann became a little smaller each year, and she became a pound or two heavier.