With Winter's First Frost

by Kelly Irvin

  “Becoming a doctor. Keep up.”

  “I can’t just leave.”

  “Why not? You’re a grown man.”

  That lopsided smile appeared. “That I am.” The smile faded. “Abel’s here.”

  “Bring him too. Make it snappy. Dineen’s waiting.”

  “You’re bossy for an old woman.”

  “Because I’m an old woman. I don’t have time to waste. Who knows how many days we have before we keel over. Get a move on.”

  “No need to get snippy. Moving.”

  The door closed. Laura scurried down the sidewalk and squeezed into the front seat with Dineen, who didn’t look up. Chuckling, her head nodding, she licked her index finger and swiped from one page to the next. “Lord have mercy. These hot flashes will be the death of me.” She fanned herself with her bookmark—a coupon for cottage cheese at the Hy-Vee grocery store in Chillicothe. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Two more passengers. Zechariah Stutzman and Abel Danner.”

  Dineen slapped her dog-eared paperback shut, tossed it on the dash, and whistled. “Now you’re talking. Are you sure you don’t want to sit in the back seat? One of them could sit up front. Which one you got your eye on?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Laura wiggled in her seat and fixed her gaze on the windshield, but the heat on her neck and cheeks told her they had gone red. Dineen might not be the best chaperone. “I’m perfectly fine sitting in the front seat. I need their help to convince Tamara she should come home.”

  “Why not get Mary Katherine and Jennie or Bess? Women?”

  Because they didn’t need reminding that they were still useful. Zechariah did. Abel always had something good to say. He could help.

  Two minutes later, Abel hustled down the walk. Birch cane in hand, Zechariah tottered behind him. Talking—or bickering—they stuffed themselves in the back seat.

  “Hurry up. Shut the door.” Zechariah slammed his harder than necessary. “We’re in. Let’s go.”

  “Easy, easy.” Dineen put the van in drive and turned the wheel. “Be good to poor Kittie. She’s all I got and she ain’t getting any younger.”

  “He’s in a tizzy because his lady friend came calling.” Abel snapped on his seat belt and chortled. “I haven’t seen him move that fast in ten years.”

  “She said she needed help. Time’s wasting.”

  “Keep your pants on.” Dineen accelerated. The landscape zoomed by. “You two settle down back there and let Miss Laura explain the mission. You’re here for support, so try to keep the bickering to a minimum.”

  Something brushed against Laura’s shoulder. She glanced back. The bird guide. “Danki.”

  “Keep it safe. Now what about Tamara? When did she take off?”

  Laura told the story. “Dr. Reeves is convinced Tamara is doing the right thing and she’s helping her stay gone. She has no right to meddle in our affairs.”

  “I reckon you told her that.” Zechariah’s chuckle was dry, humorless. “She’s lived around here long enough to know better.”

  “I managed to keep my mouth buttoned up.”

  This time both Abel and Zechariah laughed aloud. Dineen joined in.

  “I doubt that.” Abel hooted. “You and my fraa are just alike when it comes to speaking your mind.”

  “It doesn’t seem to bother you.” Laura twisted and gave him a snoot full of sass. “And she puts up with you, so I figure you’re even.”

  “It does bother me.” Frowning, Abel rubbed his forehead. “It gives me a headache. Try to keep the noise down in here.”

  “You’re always complaining of a headache. Maybe you need glasses.”

  “I don’t need glasses—”

  “Enough, kids, enough.” Dineen eased around a buggy. She leaned past Laura and waved at the owner—Aidan Graber.

  Laura caught herself ducking her head and managed to wave without so much as a hiccup of guilt. Aidan waved back, but his startled expression followed her down the road thirteen miles to Trenton. Now everyone to whom Aidan talked would know about the road trip with Abel and Zechariah. And word would spread like head colds in winter. Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the boardinghouse at the address on the yellow stickie.

  White picket fence and white snowy grounds decorated bright-yellow faux-wood siding on an old three-story frame house converted to rooms for rent. The empty flower boxes that lined the front porch likely gave the place bright splashes of cheery color in the spring. The English tourists unable to get rooms in Jamesport would like it. No matter, Tamara wouldn’t be here in the spring. Leaving Dineen to her novel, Laura tromped through the muddied slush to the front door and rang the doorbell.

  “Why are you ringing the bell? They rent rooms. People come and go. Go on.” Abel reached past her and grabbed the screen door. “Go in.”

  Zechariah touched his friend’s arm. “Nee. We don’t walk in. We’re not students.”

  “So what—?”

  “Okay, you two—”

  “What’s going on out here?” Tamara shoved the screen door open and stared down at them. “I can hear you three jabbering in German all the way in the kitchen. What are you doing here? No, don’t answer that. I know what you’re doing here. Go on home, all three of you.”

  “Not until we see that you’re all right.” Laura’s breath hitched in her throat. She swallowed a lump the size of her pillow at the sight of her granddaughter. She wore pants. Black pants and a blue polo shirt with the name of the boardinghouse embroidered on the pocket. A kapp still covered her hair.

  Danki, Gott. She hadn’t gone so far as to display her hair in public. Hope sallied forth and did a masterful handspring. Laura eased past Tamara. “We came all this way. The least you could do is invite us in.”

  “I’m working. I can’t have visitors right now.” Tamara’s lower lip protruded, but her eyes were luminous. Wet. Could she be glad to see her old granny? “Why would you bring Abel and Zechariah? Seriously, Groossmammi, you are too much.”

  “They’re here to talk some sense into you.”

  “I don’t need more talking. I got plenty of that from Emmett. I need space.”

  “Space? Jamesport is smaller than Trenton. It’s in rural Missouri. It’s all wide-open spaces.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

  Tamara’s shrill tone, only slightly dampened by her attempt to whisper, set Laura’s teeth on edge. “What I know is you left without saying good-bye. You didn’t have the decency or kindness to let your parents know you were leaving. That is a cowardly act in my book.”

  “Mine too,” added Abel.

  “It’s understandable, but your family expected more from you.” Zechariah squeezed past Tamara and limped toward the closest of several overstuffed chairs arranged around a big-screen TV and fireplace in the living room. Puffing, he plopped into the chair. Despite the cool air that had followed them through the open door, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “They deserve more. If you don’t plan to be a member of the family anymore, the least you could do is say so to their faces.”

  “Understandable.” Laura sputtered. She glared at Zechariah. He pursed his lips, frowned, and nodded. What was he trying to do? “Understandable? Nothing about this is—”

  “They knew of my intent,” Tamara intervened. “Not exactly when, but my decision to leave couldn’t have surprised them. Unless they stuffed their heads in the sand like a bunch of stubborn ostriches.”

  Stubborn ostriches? Stubborn ostriches! “You don’t get to be disrespectful to people who raised you and loved you—”

  “What do you do here?” With a quick scowl directed at Laura, Zechariah put both hands on his cane and leaned forward. “It looks like you’re settled in.”

  “I clean the common areas. We provide sheets and towels, too, stuff like that. Students can purchase the service.”

  “You like cleaning for strangers?”

  “They’re not strangers anymore. I’
ve met everyone.” Tamara grabbed Laura’s arm and propelled her down the hallway and into an airy kitchen painted yellow and filled with an enormous pine table with a dozen chairs. It smelled of coffee and cinnamon rolls. “I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work. I’m not coming home.”

  Two young men seated at a table cluttered with coffee cups, books, and laptops looked up. Laura frowned at them. They went back to their computers.

  “Wearing pants is more important to you.” Laura managed to keep her voice low. “Dressing like a man and living with men.”

  “I don’t live with men.” Tamara’s voice rose. The man in black sweats and a green Jason Aldean T-shirt looked up again. He grinned. Tamara smote him with a scowl. He went back to his laptop. She sighed. “I have my own room and now, I have my own life.”

  “This is your last chance. You know when we walk out the door, we can’t come back.”

  “I know that. I have made my peace with it.”

  “Well, I haven’t.”

  “I know.” Tamara’s voice dropped to a whisper. She wrapped her arms around Laura. She smelled of cleanser and minty toothpaste. “I’m so sorry. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss everyone. But I have to do this. I can’t be baptized. You know I can’t. Not with these feelings in me.”

  Laura drew back. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she snatched a paper napkin from the table and wiped at her face. The showdown was over. If Freeman—or Ben—were here he would pronounce the situation at an impasse. No more begging. The choice had been made.

  “We’ll go home then.”

  A home that would be bereft of this child’s presence.

  Not a child, a woman who’d made her choice.

  “I am sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “Tell Mudder and Daed I’m sorry.”

  “You can always change your mind. Any time. If God softens your heart and you decide you want to be baptized, you can come home. You’ll be forgiven.”

  “I know that.”

  “Never forget it.”

  Tears trickled down her face. “I won’t.”

  “We should go.” Zechariah stood in the doorway. He put one hand on Laura’s shoulder. “We can do nothing more here.”

  Laura allowed him to lead her to the front door and out to the van. He didn’t let go. Abel said nothing. At the van door Laura allowed herself one glance back. No one peered through the screen door. It was closed, like the door to Tamara’s life with her family and friends in Jamesport.

  “Gott’s will be done,” Zechariah muttered. “Gott’s will be done.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  He held the van door open for her. “I don’t understand much, but this I know. We’re not smart enough to figure these things out.”

  “I let Ruby and Martin down.”

  “You are not bigger than Gott.”

  “I know that. I only wanted to save them from feeling this pain.”

  “Gott surely has His reasons.”

  “Do you believe that, or are you just saying it because that’s what we say at times like this?”

  Zechariah swished his cane back and forth in the slush around the van tires. He looked tired and cold and ancient. “Sometimes faith is all we have. I never want to find out what it’s like to try to survive without it. Do you?”

  “Nee.” She slid in and he closed the door with a gentle nudge.

  Dineen turned the key. The van’s engine stuttered and then caught. “No luck, eh?”

  Luck had nothing to do with it.

  TWENTY-NINE

  LAURA STARED UP AT THE GOLDEN ARCHES AND MANAGED a smile. Fast food wasn’t quite comfort food, but it would do. Her shoes crunched in the icy slush as she followed Dineen and the men into the Trenton McDonald’s. Abel and Zechariah’s bickering over whether a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder was better made her chuckle. She didn’t expect to do that only an hour after her encounter with Tamara at the bed-and-breakfast.

  “You see, life isn’t so bad.” Abel tossed that comment over his shoulder as he pushed through the door and held it for Dineen. “They even have a senior discount here. I might get a milkshake.”

  “In the winter?” Laura wanted a cup of coffee, chicken tenders, and fries. Fries dipped in extra catsup qualified as comfort food in her book. “You’ll freeze your lips together.”

  “Maybe he’ll stop talking so much.” Zechariah seemed tickled at the idea. “Don’t try to discourage him. Order him two of them.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.”

  They made their orders and picked up their condiments, straws, and napkins. Apparently, Dineen thought she was herding children—what with the large stack of paper napkins she grabbed. She slapped them on the table. “I’m headed to use the facilities. Get my order for me if it comes up.”

  Considering the crowd in the restaurant, it didn’t seem likely, but Laura nodded as she stirred sugar into her steaming cup of coffee.

  “Me too.” Abel swaggered after her. “Don’t let Zechariah touch my Quarter Pounder.”

  “I’ll guard it with my life.”

  In the silence that followed, Zechariah dumped another packet of nondairy creamer in his coffee and gazed out at the packed playscape, filled with greasy-handed children with catsup and mustard stains on their faces. Their shouts were carefree and full of that livein-the-moment joy children always seemed to have.

  “Have some more sugar.” She pushed another packet across the table. “It’ll sweeten you up.”

  “You’re a fixer.” He pushed the packet back. “You can’t fix this and you can’t fix me.”

  “When it comes to Tamara, I’ll keep trying as long as there is breath in me.” She tore open the packet and dumped it in his coffee. “I’m not trying to fix you.”

  “Lying is a sin.”

  “Fine. The truth is, I don’t like to see people I . . . care about unhappy.”

  “I’m not unhappy.”

  “Lying is a sin. You’re wrinkled and disheveled and smell like you slept in your clothes.”

  “Dressing and undressing, along with other things, has gotten harder. Sometimes I don’t have the strength to mess with it—any of it.”

  “Ask for help.”

  “Why do you care so much about an old man you didn’t give the time of day back in school?”

  “I don’t remember that far back.” Not true. Early memories were shiny, like baubles hanging in the trees with sunlight bouncing off them. The newer memories, those were the ones fading into old clothes washed and worn too many times. “Things change. People change. They grow. You can’t figure out why I care, Zechariah Stutzman, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

  Out of breath and surprised at her own outburst, Laura huffed. Had he forgotten their kiss already? Would he blame old age for that too?

  Zechariah stared at his knotted fingers, covered with fine black hair, splayed across the plastic table. His cheeks turned scarlet. His eyes were hooded.

  Laura tore her gaze from his face and turned to watch the children play through a greasy-fingerprinted wall of thick-plated glass. A cluster of children obviously related dashed to and from their tables by the door, eating french fries dipped in catsup as they ran to climb through the tubes and slide into a sea of red and blue balls. They looked so happy. To be that carefree again.

  “Look at me.”

  His gritty voice tugged her back to the table and reality. Tears pricked her eyes. She was too old for this rigmarole. She had great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild on the way. “I’m not hungry anymore. I want to get back. I’ll wait in the van.”

  “Look at me.”

  With reluctance that felt like a load of cinder blocks on her shoulders, Laura forced herself to face him.

  “If I made you uncomfortable in some way, I’m sorry.”

  “Uncomfortable? You thickheaded old man.”

  “If you’re going to keep calling me names, I’m going to wait in the van.”


  “You do that. Was my kiss that odious to you?”

  “Nee. I enjoyed it. Thoroughly. More than a thickheaded old man should.”

  “Gut. Because I don’t want to paint you a picture. I’m not very gut at painting.”

  His grin appeared. “Laura Kauffman, I do believe you have a crush on me.”

  Dineen strolled from the hallway that led to the bathrooms and made her way across the sticky floor. “We should’ve waited until we got to Jamesport. We could’ve eaten at the Purple Martin.” Her raspy voice carried over the children’s laughter and the parents’ chitchat.

  “I’m not a teenager who gets crushes. I’m a full-grown woman who has experienced true love between a man and a woman.” Laura rushed to get the words out before Dineen arrived at her destination. The last place she expected to have this conversation was in a fast-food restaurant filled with English folks enjoying burgers and play. “I recognize it when I see it.”

  “You surely kiss like a full-grown woman.”

  Dineen stopped to pick up their orders.

  Her cheeks hot all the way to her neck and beyond, Laura leaned closer. “That’s not a proper thing to say to a woman.”

  “Did you say love?” A perplexed look teetered on Zechariah’s face, then fell away, replaced by what could only be abject fear.

  Fear of what, Laura couldn’t say.

  Dineen slapped a crowded tray of burgers, fries, and shakes on the table. “Don’t mind me, I’ll get the rest of it.”

  Zechariah stared at the large orders of salty, hot fries. “My doctor wouldn’t be happy with this meal.”

  “Which means you’ll love it.” Dineen returned and squeezed her generous backside into a swivel chair too small for her. She began dousing her fries in catsup. “You look hot and bothered. Still arguing about Tamara?”

  “Nee,” they responded in unison.

  “She called me an idiot,” Zechariah offered.

  “Weee, doggie, this is getting good. What did you call her back?”

  “I didn’t. Because she said she loved me.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  “Calm down, kids, before I make you sit in the hallway and eat all your french fries myself.”