With Winter's First Frost

by Kelly Irvin

  “But will you? I heard my suhs talking and it sounds like your suhs want you to stay with Michael.”

  His bemused expression disappeared. “Don’t people have better things to do than gossip?”

  “I hope you know Raymond and Aaron have no malicious intent.” Even so Laura had scolded them with the same words. “I think they were wondering what they would do if I were sick.”

  “I’m not sick. I have Parkinson’s.”

  “You won’t concede you need help?”

  “Would you?” His grin nowhere in sight, he shuffled to the window and gazed out. “I try to reconcile myself to this new me, but I don’t recognize it.”

  “I understand that. Mary Kay and I talk about how we don’t recognize the women we see reflected in the store windows in town. It must be someone else with the gray hair and wrinkles.”

  “You look pretty gut to me.”

  Laura opened her mouth. She closed it.

  He didn’t fill the space either.

  The room seemed warm. Even a frigid north wind wouldn’t cool it.

  Stop being a twit. You’re no schoolgirl.

  The silence grew.

  She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the casserole. “I need to get vegetables from the basement.”

  “I could do it.”

  “Nee—”

  “Right. The stairs.”

  She opened the basement door.

  “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.” His hand caught the door and held it. “I don’t know what I was thinking. The words just came out.”

  “I’m not so old I can’t recognize a compliment.” In her case the words seemed to scatter and she had to chase them down willy-nilly. “I was surprised.”

  “I’m not so old I can’t give a woman a compliment.”

  Laura couldn’t speak for Zechariah, but one thing seemed certain. They were both so old they were surprised they had the capacity to be embarrassed by someone of the opposite persuasion.

  Compliments were nice. At any age. “Pretty is as pretty does. Which is not much.” Her grandmother’s words rang clear as a cold morning in her head.

  Not that she had much to worry about in that department.

  She slipped past him and trotted down the stairs. The dank basement air cooled her burning cheeks. “You’re too old for shenanigans, woman.”

  So old she sometimes talked to herself.

  SEVENTEEN

  WITH PRESSING ISSUES TO BE DECIDED, NO ONE WANTED to wait until after Christmas to ordain a new bishop. Zechariah slid onto a bench in the front near Cyrus’s fireplace where the oldest men sat. A unanimous vote at the Gmay meeting after church the previous week had set the ordination for one week with the understanding that everyone would spend the intervening time in prayerful consideration of whom they should nominate to fill the position and for God’s intervention in the casting of the lots.

  He rubbed his hands together, thankful for the fire’s warmth and its scent that reminded a person life went on, no matter what. Icy snow pinged on the windows. Wind whistled in the eaves. The young whippersnappers got the back seats with only their body heat to keep them warm. The ordination would not take long. God would give them His answer.

  Which was good because figuring out who to nominate had been a bee in his hive for an entire week. Zechariah swiveled and cast a surreptitious glance at the row behind him. His sons and grandsons began to fill the bench. David and his sons. Ivan and Elijah and their sons. His married grandsons, also eligible to be in the lot, included Micah, Dillon, Carl, Ben, Mark, Seamus, and George. They were quiet. No chitchat today. No ribbing one another about falling asleep during a sermon. Serious faces. Any one of them could walk from Cyrus’s house as the Gmay’s new bishop.

  That didn’t mean they were equally good candidates. Each man had his good points and bad, as did all men. Not one was a slug—a lazy man—and all of them were able to make a decent decision. Still, that didn’t make him a good bishop. A bishop would officiate at weddings, funerals, Communion, and the foot-washing ceremonies. He would work with the deacon and minister to deal with offenders who violated the Ordnung or failed to keep biblical law. The nominees would have no special training or desire to hold the position. The chosen one submitted to the will of God and figured it out as he went along. It took a certain kind of man to do that.

  A man God already had picked out. Gott, who is it? Who would You have nominated so You can do Your work?

  Another good thing about the Parkinson’s—it meant Zechariah was not a candidate.

  Abel Danner plopped onto the bench with a grunt. “Long time no see. What’s the matter? You look constipated. You know prune juice is gut for that.”

  As Zechariah’s oldest friend, Abel felt obligated to give Zechariah his honest opinion. Even when it felt like salt in an open wound coming from a man who stood tall and broad shouldered. He walked with an easy stride at seventy-three. Except for the snowy white of his beard and full head of hair, he never seemed to age.

  Which wasn’t his fault. “I feel fine. Where have you been?”

  “My fraa insisted I use the bad weather to paint the whole house.” A pained expression on his face, he craned his head from side to side and rolled his shoulders. “You don’t know how many muscles and joints you have until all of them ache. Simple jobs seem to take longer than they used to.”

  At two years younger than Zechariah, Abel still had two things Zechariah didn’t—his health and his wife. Zechariah would never hold it against the man. God’s plan for him was different. “You should’ve let me know. I could’ve helped.”

  “You’d be as much help as a jackrabbit at a coyote hunt.” Abel never danced around Zechariah’s disease. “Jessica wants the paint on the walls, not the floor and the windows and the ceiling.”

  “I can slap paint on a wall. It doesn’t matter if the lines are straight as long as you get all the spots covered.” The less work Zechariah did, the less use his muscles received and the more they turned to gelatin. “You just think you do a better job than me.”

  “My suhs came over and their fraas. My dochders and their manns. It was a regular family reunion.” Abel shook his grizzled head and laughed. More of a bark than a laugh, really. “It took twice as long than it would have if they’d left me on my own. I think they think I’m too decrepit to paint a wall by myself. I might fall over dead. My heart might stop.”

  His eyes rolled back in his head and his arms flung out, Abel pretended to keel over on the bench.

  Not only did Abel have all his faculties, all six of his children were alive and well. Jealousy was a sin. A terrible sin when the man next to him had stood with him by the grave of his sweet special child when she passed of pneumonia. He’d helped build the casket for Robert’s burial. He’d been silent but ever present, ready to help with every need at Marian’s passing. The most stalwart of friends, he deserved his good fortune. “Sit up, you old coot. You’re embarrassing me.”

  “How are the new boplin?”

  “They cry, they poop, they eat, they sleep.”

  “Gut for them. Sounds like a fine life.”

  “Do you know who you’ll nominate?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Abel settled back on the bench and scratched at his voluminous beard as if he had lice. “Why are you looking so grim?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I know you, old man. What’s up? Is it that Laura Kauffman? I heard she’s staying at the house—”

  “It has nothing to do with Laura. Keep your voice down.” He glanced back. Ivan glared. He glared back. He scooted closer to Abel and lowered his own voice. “They want to move me again.”

  “I know they’re your suhs, but they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed sometimes.” Abel swiveled and added his glare to Zechariah’s. Turning back around, he leaned toward Zechariah. “I’m telling you. Come stay with me and my fraa. We’d have a dandy time. Card games, checkers, chess, popcorn, and apple cider
every night. We’ll drive the buggy, chop the wood, hunt, bird-watch whenever we please. I’ll be your cover. You can tell them I’m doing the driving.”

  It sounded beautiful, enticing, a perfect way to spend his last years on earth if he couldn’t spend them with Marian. A perfect plan with one singular flaw. Abel’s wife didn’t deserve a third wheel hanging around her buggy this late in life. She had one man to whip into shape every day. She didn’t need two. Especially one who had trouble walking down the hall to the bathroom and would only get worse. “What makes you think I want to squander my last breaths on this earth talking to an old geezer like you?”

  “Fine. You want to be a secondhand piece of furniture on the back of your grandson’s buggy, you old booger.” Abel’s grin remained amiable, which meant the discussion wasn’t over. The man knew how to worry a bone until it was crushed like the best barnyard hound. “I think your son David would make a gut bishop.”

  “Hush.” Zechariah stifled a groan. David was a good man. A little too open to change, but thoughtful about it. He was getting ready to settle into the dawdy haus and let his sons Seamus and George take over the farm. He’d always gone his own way, much like Zechariah. They were too much alike to be close, butting heads over every little thing for years. “I don’t know if he has the right frame of mind for it.”

  “His mind is sharp and he’s faithful.”

  “We can hear you.” Ivan leaned forward and muttered in Zechariah’s ear. “It’s best to keep your opinions on this to yourselves.”

  Zechariah glared at Abel. He grinned back. “Sorry.” He was about as sorry as a coyote who chowed down on the first ripe cantaloupe in the garden.

  Freeman plopped onto the bench and laid a wooden cane between them.

  Another reason to zip it up. His hours as bishop winding down, Freeman didn’t look any different. In fact, he looked as contrary as he always did.

  “I reckon I better sit between you two old farts or you’ll be arguing in the middle of the lot.”

  A man didn’t argue with the bishop, even if he was about to retire. And go blind.

  Zechariah nodded. Could Freeman see his nod or had this strange disease already progressed to a place where people were strangers until he heard their voices?

  “I can see you both fine.”

  Freeman’s years as bishop had taught him much about the way people thought and acted.

  “That’s gut. Although I suppose not seeing our ugly mugs would probably have its upside too.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Abel didn’t understand the concept of keeping his voice down. The women on the other side of the aisle probably heard every word he spoke. “You may be an old fart, but my fraa says I’m as handsome as the day she married me.”

  Freeman guffawed. “Maybe I’m not the only one whose sight is going bad.”

  He hadn’t lost his sense of humor, an important attribute for a man who’d been bishop for almost thirty years. Many of the folks in the room didn’t remember any other bishop. Of course, he didn’t have to be worried. His name would not be in the lot. He could laugh. Zechariah managed a chuckle as well.

  He let a few seconds pass, then leaned closer. “I’d like to bend your ear about something.”

  “No point in it now.”

  No pity emanated from the words. Freeman might be free of his bishop duties, but he was embarking on a new season in his life. One that would be difficult and dark. Zechariah recognized a fellow sojourner. “Your advice is always gut, whether or not it carries the weight of a bishop.”

  “I can give you advice.” Abel leaned in too, his big ears flapping. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “Hush up, old man, and let Freeman talk. Mind your own business while you’re at it.”

  “I’m not in the advice-giving business anymore.” His Coke-bottle glasses and long, gray beard made it hard to read Freeman’s thoughts. “It will be for the new bishop to decide if your grandsons are doing the right thing. Truth be told, it’s gut to know someone else will wrestle with understanding Gott’s will in such situations.”

  His sonorous voice carried. Zechariah glanced back. Ivan scowled and shook his head. Zechariah shrugged.

  That Freeman recognized God’s role in the future of the Gmay was a comforting thought. What were God’s thoughts on Zechariah’s future? Despite himself, Zechariah’s gaze swung to the other side of the room. Laura sat with her daughters and their families as well as Ben’s womenfolk. Laura held one of the twins, asleep from the looks of her. Laura’s head bowed as if in prayerful thought. With fussy newborns in the house, along with a whiny Delia who didn’t seem to think the babies were as much fun as she had first thought, Laura had managed to avoid being alone with him again. She bustled about doing laundry and cooking as if it took every minute of her time.

  It had been a simple compliment. Why turn it into a big deal?

  Tamara cared for the babies and the children like the best of mothers, all smiles as she tried to teach Delia and Samuel to botch. Their attempts at the clapping games had tears of laughter running down her face. If he didn’t know better, Zechariah would think she was happy in her Plain way of life.

  The checkers he’d reassembled to the best of his memory remained untouched. Dark came early and everyone went to bed early.

  “Then let me ask you about something else.” He kept his voice low and close to Freeman’s ear, low enough that it couldn’t be heard in the next row back. No doubt Abel’s ears worked just fine. Everything about him did. Which shouldn’t bother Zechariah. But it did. In the deepest, darkest place in his heart, it did. Another reason he couldn’t stay with Abel and Jessica. He didn’t need his face rubbed in their healthy, happy marriage. It might—despite his best efforts—sour a lifelong friendship. “Is it truly necessary for widows and widowers to remarry?”

  Abel sputtered. Zechariah gritted his teeth and glared in his most menacing manner. Abel stuck his hand over his mouth, but his shoulders shook like a man having a fit.

  “That also is Gott’s will. If His plan is for a man or woman to remarry, then so be it. Men are meant to have fraas. A woman needs a mann. Kinner need parents.” Despite the measured answer, Freeman’s nose wrinkled. He shoved his glasses up his nose with his stubby index finger. “Such dilemmas are worthy of prayer, to be sure.”

  “Even if the man is old and diseased?” Zechariah lifted his arm and his hand shook. “Like me. What use would I be as a mann now?”

  “Gott’s plan will reveal itself.”

  A handy answer.

  Zechariah subsided. Freeman obviously had moved past his role as bishop to this new place in his life where he wasn’t required to offer advice at the drop of a hat.

  Better to spend this time wrestling with his nomination. Ignoring Abel’s attempts to get more information about the widows in his life, Zechariah bowed his head and closed his eyes. David looked like neither Marian nor Zechariah. Marian claimed he was more like his father, quick to anger and quick to apologize. He had the most heart, according to his mother. He cared deeply and let it show. His rumspringa had proved the most difficult to navigate for parents who could only watch and wait. He waited until twenty-three to marry, then chose LeeAnn Luther, a young girl of eighteen whose rumspringa had been equally eventful.

  Thirty-plus years later, they were the content parents of half a dozen children and several grandchildren.

  No bad reports, but nothing that led Zechariah to believe David would make a good bishop.

  Ivan had years of wisdom and experience, but he tended toward stubbornness that sometimes resulted in a situation being allowed to progress when compromise would be better. Compromise didn’t enter into his vocabulary. He was more like Zechariah than Marian.

  What would Marian do in this situation? She would pray and keep her counsel to herself. Zechariah sighed.

  Elijah was steady and a hard worker. He had a quiet sweetness about him that made him most like Marian. He also looked more like her with his blon
d hair and hazel eyes. His rumspringa had been short with no doubt that he would choose baptism. He married June soon after. They had seven kinner. His had been a quiet, uneventful existence—one that honored their way of life. But did it prepare him to be bishop?

  Zechariah sighed again.

  “Don’t make it harder than it is.” Freeman spoke as if the conversation had never ceased. “Examine your heart of hearts.”

  A strange thing for a man like Freeman to say. Zechariah nodded and stared at his boots. His heart of hearts said Laura’s son Abraham would be well suited to the position. Calm, smart, well versed in Scripture, a good husband and father. Never a sharp word. Helpful to those in need. Kind. Heedful of the Ordnung.

  No one would know who Zechariah nominated. It wasn’t a matter of familial relationship. Or not wanting to put new burdens on a son. Or a matter of pride in having a son chosen.

  He would not sigh again. Every adult in the room had the same dilemma.

  “It’s time.” Cyrus clomped to the front of the room. “I’ll be at the kitchen door to record your nominations. Come by one by one. Keep your voice down. Solomon will record the nominations. As soon as you’re done, we’ll do the arithmetic and begin the drawing of the lots.”

  It took about ten minutes to file by the door. Zechariah went third behind Abel and Freeman. Cyrus’s expression did not change. He simply nodded.

  Minutes later they were done. If a man received two or more votes, his name would be entered in the lot.

  The minutes ticked by. Abel wiggled like a five-year-old. Freeman stared at him. He rolled his eyes. A child whimpered. Someone coughed. Another person sneezed. Heads were bowed in silent prayer. The scent of seasoned walnut burning filled the air, mingled with a sense of awe and God’s presence.

  Solomon and Cyrus entered the front room and went to tables set up near the fireplace. There, they placed a series of Ausbands held shut with thick rubber bands.

  Zechariah counted as the worn hymnals were laid side by side on the table. Seven. A good number for the lot.

  Inside the front cover of one of those books would be a slip of paper containing Proverbs 16:33: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”