With Winter's First Frost

by Kelly Irvin

  After a few minutes, the door opened and Cathy appeared. Her eyebrows raised, she shoved the screen door ajar. “Hey, Laura, it’s good to see you. I wasn’t expecting company, but I’ve got strudels in the oven and kaffi on the stove. Come on in.”

  “Actually, I’m here for Zechariah. The bird count is today.” The words sounded tinny and awkward. More than she expected. Here for Zechariah. What woman said that about a man? “I told him I’d get us a ride out to the refuge in celebration of his birthday.”

  “What a wunderbarr idea.” Cathy pushed the screen door wider. “Come in while I roust him from his room. He’ll need to dress warm. Men. You’d think they’d use the brains Gott gave them.”

  Her double chin quivering with laughter, Cathy trotted into the living room ahead of Laura. “Have a seat, have a seat. Help yourself to kaffi in the kitchen, if you want.”

  Too stunned at first to reply, Laura sank onto the crocheted-blanket-covered sofa. “Wait, Cathy, so you think birding is a gut idea for Zechariah?”

  “Jah, I told my mann as much. Not that he listens to me.” Cathy puffed as her short, round body plowed toward the hallway. “I told him there’s no sense in coddling a man that age. Someone who’s lived that long doesn’t need coddling. It’ll drive him nuts.”

  She might be only twenty-four, but the mother of three had garnered more than her share of wisdom.

  “Whew, I’m glad we agree on that.” Laura settled back and waited for Zechariah. A mere ten minutes later they were on their way with Cathy’s promise to head off Michael’s objections as much as possible.

  “Are you dressed warm enough?” For the first time since Laura rushed him to the van, Zechariah spoke. “Did you put on an extra pair of socks and bring two pairs of mittens?”

  “I’m gut. And you?”

  “Gut.”

  His gaze returned to the snow-blanketed, windswept landscape that whizzed by in a blur. He looked and sounded morose.

  Maybe he didn’t like surprises.

  Maybe he’d given those stolen moments, those stolen kisses, a second or third thought.

  “I thought we’d agreed to do this, but if you’d rather stay home—”

  “We hadn’t talked about it with everything that happened with Abel. I wasn’t sure we were still going.”

  “When I make a plan, I stick to the plan. Why are you so quiet? Thinking about Abel? He’s much better. They’re sending him to the rehab center tomorrow.”

  Dineen’s curious gaze connected with Laura’s in the rearview mirror. The other woman had insisted Laura sit in the second row with Zechariah. Dineen being the chauffeur and all. Laura frowned and shook her head. Dineen’s gaze returned to the road.

  “It’s for the best, but I wish he were coming home. But I’m not quiet. I’m conserving energy.”

  “When did you ever conserve energy?”

  “I don’t want to prove Michael right. I want this trip to be uneventful.”

  Miffed for a reason she couldn’t identify, Laura focused on the view from her window. She wanted the trip to be uneventful too. In the sense that she didn’t want an accident or a fall or getting lost in a sudden blizzard.

  “Ivan has decided to uproot his fraa and go to Nappanee with his boys.”

  No wonder Zechariah looked morose. “Is he out of his mind?”

  “He says they asked him to go and he decided they need him more than the kinner here. They’re younger. The boys here are settled. They have their farms.”

  “You couldn’t talk him out of it?”

  “He’s retired. He can go wherever he wants.”

  “That doesn’t make it a gut idea.”

  “Agreed.”

  They lapsed into silence.

  Cold fingers curled around hers. She jumped. Zechariah’s woodsy scent enveloped her. She looked up at his dark, sharp eyes.

  “What are you so nervous about?” He’d unbuckled his seat belt and slid halfway across the chocolate-brown leather seat.

  “That we’ll have an accident and you won’t be buckled in.”

  The grin that made a spot beneath her rib cage warm and buttery appeared. “Are you saying Dineen is a bad driver?”

  “Hey.” Dineen scowled into the rearview mirror. “Put that seat belt on, mister.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  But instead he leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Danki for coming for me. Getting out of the house is gut medicine.” He slid back across the seat and did as he was told, but the grin stayed.

  Heat rushed headlong up Laura’s spine, spread over her neck, and toasted her cheeks. The overzealous heater surely caused it, but it might also be the memory of his fingers around hers.

  “Here we go.” Dineen pulled off the gravel road and into the parking lot at the refuge’s visitor center, a tan metal building with a mishmash of square and rectangular pieces and a high roof that sat near the entrance to the ten thousand-plus acre refuge. Volunteers dressed in bulky thermal jackets in bright blues, greens, and reds spilled from cars and streamed into the building with little delay, no doubt due to the subfreezing temperatures. “I’m headed into Sumner. I’ll get myself some coffee and read my book. I’ll be back before dark. If you finish before that, ask one of those park rangers to call me on my cell.”

  Twenty minutes later Laura and Zechariah padded through brown stubble and naked bushes to their appointed sector on the west side of the lake near viewing scopes that squatted along the nature trail. In the short walk they’d seen a white-tailed doe, a raccoon, and three cottontail rabbits. It might be winter, but the refuge was alive with wildlife. Laura had been to the lake many times in the summer, but never in winter. It had its own quality. Despite the frigid wind out of the north and the cold of the snow under her rubber boots, she liked it.

  The hardwood trees on the other side of the lake looked like sentinels standing guard, dressed in dark browns, grays, and rust. Some might find it desolate, but winter had its own majesty and much life hid under that blanket of snow. Sun peeked through the silver-matted clouds and sent a spray of light across stretches of ice on the lake, sparkling like spun sugar. This was a perfect location for two elderly folks, one of whom used a cane.

  Visitor Center staffer Neil Davenport hadn’t blinked an eye when they reached the front of the line at the sign-in table. He simply pushed back his dark-brown cap, grinned, and ribbed Zechariah about having a girlfriend. He gave them their assignment with no argument.

  As it should be.

  “I like this spot.” Pulling a pair of black-rimmed sunglasses from his pack, Zechariah squinted against an on-again, off-again sun. “It’s perfect.”

  “Me too. It’s close to the center. Not too far to walk back.”

  Zechariah hid his dark eyes behind the sunglasses. “I like it because we get to count the trumpeter swans. Cygnus buccinator. Look, there’s a few strolling around on the ice.” He pointed and then tugged the bird guide from his backpack. “Did you know they are the largest living flying birds in the world?”

  They were gorgeous birds, regal in their bearing, with long, graceful necks. Their black beaks stood out against the snow and ice. “I did not.” Zechariah no doubt could recite the facts of the trumpeter swan from memory, but the book gave him even more credibility. Laura feigned interest while she memorized his face and the way his breath, white and puffy, came quicker over his beloved bird facts. “They look too big to fly, but I know they’re migratory, so they must.”

  “Some of the males weigh as much as thirty pounds and have the biggest wingspan of any extant species of waterfowl. Some exceed ten feet.”

  Extant? She would not tell him the word was unfamiliar. “How do they fly?”

  “Very well. They just have to get a running start. Give them at least one hundred feet of runway and they’re off.”

  What would it feel like to fly? A bird of great proportion, the swan could soar through space, wings outstretched, and escape whatever earthly turmoil pursued it. Laura
had never flown. It was against the Ordnung, which never made much sense to her. If God let birds fly, why not humans? She had learned long ago to keep such thoughts to herself.

  At that moment one of the snowy-white birds flapped its wings and squawked at the bird in front of it—a sound reminiscent of a brass instrument. A bugle. They were arguing or mating. Laura certainly wouldn’t ask Zechariah which one.

  The black bills would make them easier to count. The one part of their body that didn’t blend with their surroundings.

  “They eat aquatic plants. If that’s not available they will eat the planted crops. That’s why the US Fish and Wildlife Department lets farmers plant some of the land on the refuge.” Somehow Zechariah’s spouting of information made him seem nervous. As if he had a need to fill the space between them with facts and not feelings. “They get a percentage of the crops, but the rest is left for the birds.”

  “If it helps restore the bird numbers, that is gut, I reckon.” Laura found his mouth much more interesting. She couldn’t take her gaze from it. Stop it.

  Until recently, it had been eight years since she’d kissed a man. She hadn’t thought about it for years. Now, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. “Do you want some kaffi? I brought a thermos.”

  “Something else I find interesting.” Zechariah cleared his throat and pointed his finger at the birds. “They mate for life. And both parents raise their young.”

  “Smart birds.”

  “’Course, mating for life means less than twenty-five years. It’s not like us humans where marriage can mean fifty or sixty years stuck with the same person.”

  “You just like to get me all riled up, don’t you?”

  “I like to see you smile.”

  Despite temperatures in the low thirties, hovering near freezing, Laura felt inordinately warm yet comfortable. They were alone. The only place in the world they could be alone, it seemed, was here at Swan Lake with the trumpeter swans that mated for life and raised their babies together.

  Worse places existed.

  “Look, here come four more.” Zechariah pointed toward the south. They flew with grace, their wingspan enormous, flight seemingly effortless. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

  Beyond the swans were flocks of geese and ducks and other birds Laura couldn’t identify. She’d leave that to Zechariah. This was his specialty and she wanted to share it with him. She slipped her arm through his and grasped his hand. Somehow it just happened. No thinking, simply doing. Taking one step at a time along a road she hadn’t known existed a few weeks ago. Together, they watched as the birds swooped down and settled on the lake as if coming home. “Gott’s creatures. Like us, only pretty. What else do we count? How do we count them?”

  “Counters will be at different vantage points throughout the park watching the many varieties of birds as they take off to go feed. Northern harriers, American tree sparrows, we could even see bald eagles. Last year they counted 126 of them. There’s mallards and snow geese and hawks. It’s a bird lover’s paradise.”

  “But it’s not an exact science.”

  “Nee. But it gives the US Fish and Wildlife Service a gut idea of how many birds are making their homes here in the winter, and they can track the trends from year to year—see how the bird populations are faring. It’s important work.”

  “And you like it.”

  Zechariah leaned into her space. His cheeks and nose were red, his eyes as bright as Laura had ever seen them. “I do. Danki for the birthday present.”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “There’s something else I want.”

  “Cake and ice cream? I thought we would stop at the Purple Martin for supper. The desserts are the best even if Ezekiel doesn’t have a hand in making them anymore.”

  “That sounds good. But it’s not what I meant.” He leaned still closer. His cold lips met hers. She put both hands on his chest and let herself go.

  No hurry. No rush. No embarrassment. An exploration under the winter sky with only the birds to see. His gloved hands moved to her cheeks, brushed against her skin, squeezed her shoulders, then trailed down her arms. Winter turned to spring. He kissed the tip of her nose and moved to her eyelids, then her forehead. His forehead leaned against her shoulder for a second.

  Spring turned to summer heat. August heat.

  Laura didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want his tender touch to end. He moved her in a way no one ever had. Not even Eli. She could admit that. Eli’s love had been different. Wild like an unbroken colt. And all over the place. Excited, breathless, fearless.

  Zechariah’s touch, his kisses, were so much more tender, almost tentative, as if testing the waters. A little, a little more, even more, until she could hardly breathe, let alone stand. She wanted his touch like she’d never wanted anything before. She felt like a young woman all over again. Such an unexpected gift in her old age.

  Danki, Gott, danki.

  “You’d never know it’s January.” His whisper tickled her ear. She shivered. “It feels like August.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing. Or Fourth of July, complete with fireworks.”

  His gaze caressed her face. “Do you think this is what it feels like to fly?”

  She slipped closer so she could lean her head on his chest and gaze at the sky. “I think so. It’s like floating on your back on the lake in the summer. But instead of the clouds being above you, they’re below you. They’re soft and warm.”

  His gaze moved from her face to the sky. “I think it must feel like hope.”

  The longing in his voice filled her with the desire to fulfill all his needs. “You have every reason to be hopeful.” She imbued the words with her own hopes and dreams. “We both do.”

  “Flights of fancy, indeed.” His lips twisted in a sardonic grin. “A person would think we’re teenagers.”

  “We don’t have to be young to be hopeful, only faithful. Gott is gut.”

  “Until your first kiss, I would’ve said I was too old for this.”

  “We’re never too old, just too scared or too stupid.”

  “Speak for yourself.” He raised his head and kissed her ear.

  She considered fainting, knowing the snow would soften the fall, but decided it would scare Zechariah too much.

  He stepped back. His boots slipped on the icy path. His arms flew out, cane in one hand. He wavered, floundered two steps forward. Laura threw her hands out to catch him. Her fingers snatched air. The cane flew and landed a few feet away. He fell to his knees, then on all fours.

  “Ach, Zechariah, are you all right?”

  “Fine.” He kept his head down as he attempted to scramble to his feet to no avail.

  “Let me help you.”

  “Nee. I don’t need your help.” He crawled to a nearby pine tree and clambered to his feet. For a few seconds he stood with his back to her. Then he turned. His face was scarlet. Snow caked his knees and gloves.

  He sighed deep, almost guttural. Regretful.

  “The trail is icy. It could happen to anyone.”

  “But mostly to a foolish old man.”

  “Then I’m a foolish old woman.”

  “Nee. A strong, healthy woman who has done her time taking care of a mann and her kinner.” His gaze settled on her mouth. He sighed again.

  “Enough with the sighs. What are you trying to say?” Without moving he retreated further and further away, beyond her reach. “I know what kissing you means to me. I need to know what kissing me means to you. We need to talk about it.”

  “Women and their talking. Talk, talk, talk.”

  “Zechariah Stutzman, if you don’t tell me how you feel, I’m walking back to the visitor center and have them call Dineen. I’m leaving, and you’ll be stuck getting home on your own.”

  “No need to get huffy. How do I feel? I feel like maybe there might be something I’m still gut at.” He brushed at the snow on his clothes. “But we can’t do it anymore.”

  A completely di
fferent kind of heat blew through Laura. The heat of anger and the fear of rejection. “Why? Am I not gut at it too?”

  “I have a disease that makes it so I can’t take care of myself.”

  “In my old age I want someone I can share in the caring with.” She wanted to stomp her feet like a belligerent child. How could he do this? Two steps forward, ten steps backward. “What makes you think I won’t have a need too? Isn’t that what people who . . . care for each other do?”

  “I won’t do that to you.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather spend your last years with someone, rather than alone, with joy rather than loneliness? With company at night by the fire, with checkers and hot cocoa and kisses and hugs and warm feet under the quilts?”

  “You paint a nice picture, but it’s only words.” He pulled his binoculars from his knapsack. “A whole bunch of other things have to be done. Washing and shaving and picking me up when I fall down and helping me eat and trips to the doctor and medicine, lots of medicine. Day-to-day living with a man who has Parkinson’s looks very different than the picture you’re painting. Did you know I could hallucinate and have dementia?”

  He was afraid of her seeing him in his humanity. “As if you won’t have to take care of me. My arthritis makes my whole body hurt. I can’t sew anymore. I can’t stand on my feet for hours anymore. I can’t do half the things I used to do. I have to make lists or I forget what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t mind you seeing my frailties. You’re a coward.”

  “Nee, I’m a realist.” A man with enough strength of character not to rise to her bait. Instead, he sounded resigned.

  She pulled her pink binoculars from her canvas bag. “Our path remains to be seen. We don’t know how things will turn out, but we can trust that Gott does.”

  Gott, don’t make a liar out of me. Please.

  She raised the binoculars and did her best to count the milling mass of birds, a task as confusing as trying to understand her own feelings—and those of the man at her side.

  THIRTY-TWO

  NOT EVEN THE SCENT OF CHAMOMILE AND LEMON could relax the iron grip of the headache that throbbed at Laura’s temples. A day spent outdoors in the cold and wind combined with the whirly-bird up-and-down exchange with Zechariah had left her exhausted but unable to sleep.