With Winter's First Frost

by Kelly Irvin

  She settled into a chair at the kitchen table and glanced at the clock on the far wall. Ten o’clock. She should be sleeping, not wandering the house in the dark, her thoughts a mixed-up bundle of hurt and hope that confronted her every time she closed her eyes. How could this man kiss her one minute and disown the feelings between them the next? Only a man could do that.

  No, that was uncharitable. Not all men were like that. Only most of them.

  As if she had so much experience. Eli had been The One for her and he’d never faltered in his pursuit of a life with her. She sipped the scalding hot tea and breathed in its warmth, trying to recall his features. They were fading with time. The flame that flared in his eyes when he beckoned her to come to bed at the end of a day in the fields. The feel of his thick, curly hair in her fingers. Bits and pieces that still haunted her in the middle of the night. He was so alive. So full of vigor. So full of laughter. In all fairness, Eli had been young and healthy with no traumatic experiences of loss to deter him in his quest for love. Their life had been an uneventful, ordinary, exceedingly happy life.

  They had been blessed beyond belief and beyond anything they deserved.

  Zechariah, on the other hand, had climbed some mountains and crossed some dark valleys in his life. His resistance to more of the same was understandable. Yet frustrating.

  She sighed and stirred more honey into her tea. She needed sweetness to deter the bitterness that threatened to worm its way into her heart. She’d been content with her evenings on the porch, watching the purple martins making their homes high in the birdhouses Eli had built.

  Now her contentment lay in ruins and her heart raced every time she thought of this cantankerous man with his crooked smile, fierce independent streak, and love of the earth.

  Gott, I’m too old for this.

  A person’s never too old for love. Never.

  The words were as clear as the blue sky on a breathlessly hot summer afternoon. As clear as if they’d been spoken aloud.

  Old or not, she needed love and so did Zechariah.

  The question was whether they were meant for each other. Zechariah didn’t seem to think so.

  An insistent wail broke the silence. Cup of tea halfway to her lips, Laura paused. A spate of coughing followed. One of the babies had a nasty cough. Poor Rosalie. If that cough were any indication, the woman wasn’t getting much sleep. She’d recovered nicely from the C-section, but like most mothers of twins, she was constantly sleep deprived. With Tamara gone, Laura would step in more to help at night. She should make herself useful instead of spinning woolly thoughts.

  Starting now. She rose and took her cup to the sink. When she turned, Rosalie stood in the doorway, a fussy baby in her arms.

  “Ach, Laura, you scared me.” She had dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t expect anyone to be out here.”

  “Which one is it?” Laura trotted over to her and took a peek. “Mia, poor baby.”

  A fist stuck in her mouth, Mia stared up at Laura. Her cheeks, which had grown pudgy over the past six weeks, were rosy. Her eyes looked glassy in the lantern light. She needed her nose wiped.

  “It’s both. They’re taking turns. Poor Ben hasn’t got a wink of sleep and he doesn’t feel all that great either.”

  Leave it to Rosalie to worry about her husband. She looked half dead on her feet. “Let me take the bopli. If she’s congested, she’s probably having trouble sleeping because she can’t breathe.”

  “It’s the cough that worries me and the fever. They’re both getting worse.” Rosalie sank into a chair. “This has been going on since Christmas. Let me see if feeding her first will help.”

  “It’s probably hard for her to eat if she can’t breathe.”

  “Which means she might be hungry.”

  “I’ll stoke the fire.”

  Having done that, Laura made two fresh cups of peppermint tea with a liberal dose of honey and a splash of lemon juice. The cold night air seeped through the cracks and crevices of the old house. Ben needed to do some caulking. “Drink this. You need to keep plenty of fluids in you too. You look peaked.”

  “It’s the lack of sleep.” Rosalie leaned her head against the back of the chair as the baby suckled between aggravated snuffles. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken them to the Christmas program. They haven’t been right since. Everyone wanted to hold them. There are so many colds and ear infections going around this time of year.”

  “Kinner cooped up together all day long keep the sickness going.”

  “She feels warm. Does she feel warm to you?”

  Laura laid her palm on Mia’s tiny forehead. “A little. A slight fever, I’d say.”

  “Me too.”

  Eyes squinted against the light, Ben shuffled into the room, Mary in his arms. “The other one is squawking too.”

  Laura held out her arms and he deposited the baby in them. “I’ll bring the other rocking chair.”

  After pushing the chair close to the fireplace, he shuffled out.

  “Not a night person?”

  Rosalie managed a smile. “He’s a gut mann. He’s never cross, even when they keep waking him up.” She shook her head. “That one seems to know when I pick up Mia from the crib. She wants to be held too.”

  “Two halves of the same apple.” Laura settled into the rocking chair. Her diminutive arms flailing, Mary fussed until her face turned red. “Ach, the poor apple of my eye. You’ll get your turn with Mudder. Be patient.”

  “You should go to bed. You need your sleep. Don’t feel like you have to keep me company.”

  “I couldn’t sleep anyway. I’m here to help, remember?”

  “Then tell me how your birthday celebration went. Did Zechariah like it?”

  Rosalie had been the one person in whom Laura had confided her plans. The other woman couldn’t hide her surprise that Laura would go to the trouble for Zechariah, but she didn’t try to deter her.

  “It was fine.”

  “Your words say one thing, but your face says another.” A smile tickled the edges of Rosalie’s lips despite the exhaustion etched on her face. “Tell me something to keep me awake, or I might doze off and drop the bopli.”

  “We counted birds.”

  “And what else? There’s something else, I know it.”

  Nothing she could share. Those kisses were private. So was the conversation that followed.

  “Zechariah is taken with you, that’s for sure.”

  “You’re delusional from lack of sleep.”

  “I may be, but I know what I saw—and everyone else—on his face at the Christmas program.”

  “He probably had a stomachache.”

  “Or was lovesick.”

  “Men his age don’t get lovesick.”

  “Men his age get lonely and sometimes it amounts to the same thing.”

  “That’s not a reason to get close to a man—because he’s lonely.”

  “It is when you’re lonely too.”

  “Who can get lonely with a hundred kinner running around?”

  “You are as crotchety as he is. You’re like a matched pair of salt and pepper shakers. A little different looking, but meant to be together all the same.”

  “You need sleep.”

  Mary coughed with such force it wracked her entire tiny body. Her face turned red, then blue. Finally, she inhaled, a high whoop sound that made Laura’s own breath stall in her throat. “Ach, the poor apple of my eye. That doesn’t sound gut.”

  Her forehead wrinkled with concern, Rosalie moved Mia to her shoulder and began to pat her back. “Whooping cough? What do we do?”

  “For now, we need to boil water.” She laid Mary in the crib by the woodstove. The baby fussed and then coughed some more. With each cough she struggled to breathe. The more she struggled, the more she cried, the more congested she became. Simply watching the battle made Laura tired—and worried. “We’ll fill the tub in the washroom and close the door. The steam will help them breathe. In th
e morning we go to the doctor.”

  A long day turned into a long night. Laura and Rosalie took turns carrying fresh, hot water to the washroom and holding the babies, who were as tired as their caretakers. No one slept. The coughs grew worse.

  Laura sank onto a straight-back chair on the other side of the wringer wash machine. Her back ached, her neck hurt, and her shoulders screamed for rest. Sweat and water soaked her dress and hair. “It’ll be light soon.”

  “I’m praying for it.” Rosalie had dragged the cradles into the washroom. She laid a sobbing Mia in the first one and hunched over, hands on her knees. Hair that had escaped her kapp straggled down her back. A few wisps hung in her bloodshot eyes. “My throat hurts and my nose keeps running. Can grown-ups get whooping cough?”

  “It’s highly contagious.” Laura dug through the files of medical information stored in the back of her exhausted brain. “Antibiotics are needed to stop it. That’s why we have to go to the doctor. The kinner have had their vaccinations, but they can still get it. We need to do booster shots.”

  “It’s so cold out there. I hate to take them out.”

  “We’ll bundle them up gut. And take some hot water bottles to help keep them warm.”

  Laura didn’t share the rest of the information that pricked her tired brain. Babies under six months who contracted whooping cough were susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia. Some died from the disease.

  Rosalie didn’t need to know that.

  “Mudder.”

  They turned to find Delia at the door still dressed in her nightgown, her feet covered with wool socks. “My throat hurts.” She coughed. A high whoop, whoop. Then she started to cry.

  Rosalie looked as if she might join her.

  “You better get Ben up.” Laura cleared her throat. “He needs to go to the phone shack to call Dineen to take you into the clinic as soon as they open.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  PHYSICAL THERAPY WASN’T SO BAD. ZECHARIAH STIFLED a small grin. Especially when it was Abel’s turn. Zechariah had done his share of PT in recent years. He often thought of it as a form of senior citizen torture, but he hadn’t told his best friend that. He and Jessica timed their visit to coincide with this foray into the rehab center’s PT room as a form of support. Stationary bicycles, treadmills, a set of parallel bars, rubber balls in various sizes, rubber mats, a rack of hand weights, and half a dozen other contraptions Zechariah couldn’t identify filled the room.

  Patients grunted, groaned, and scowled as they received their cup of torture. True, some smiled, but they probably had a heaping helping of painkillers. Windows from ceiling to floor filled three of the four walls and gave patients a second-floor view of undeveloped property behind the medical building. Bare trees and snow to the horizon provided a calming view of Missouri winter in the second week of January. Abel’s thoughts on his new home away from home had taken some time because of his speech, but Jessica had filled in many of the blanks—something Dr. Hassan chided her for. Abel needed to do his own talking.

  Speech therapy, like physical therapy and occupational therapy, had begun his first day in the hospital and continued here at the rehab center. With hard work and a good attitude, according to Dr. Hassan, Abel could go home in as little as two weeks.

  The carrot dangling in front of the horse. Abel wanted more than anything to go home.

  Jessica only wanted to help. Zechariah smiled at her. She sat in the chair next to him in the small waiting area that allowed them to see most of the room, but most importantly, to see Abel. She chewed her lip. Her foot tapped. Her fingers rolled and unrolled the edge of her apron.

  “He’s fine.”

  “I know.” She unrolled the apron. “They have him walking with those bars. Without the walker. He’ll fall.”

  “The PT assistant is right there with him. Thalia is her name.”

  “I know her name.”

  Jessica seemed to think she could’ve staved off the stroke, if only she’d been with them at the McDonald’s that day. Her expression said she had no intention of ever leaving her husband in Zechariah’s hands again.

  “Maybe we should’ve come later in the day.”

  “He needs me.”

  “If Abel is anything like me—and you know he is—he doesn’t want help.” Zechariah chose his words with care. Jessica didn’t need a lecture. She had suffered a traumatic event only slightly less daunting than her husband’s. Abel had been her rock for more than fifty years. “He wants to get strong again. He wants to be able to take care of himself.”

  And in doing so, he would be able to take care of his wife, as he’d always done.

  “I know.” Jessica wiggled in her chair. “He will. He’s a strong man. They caught the stroke early. The effects aren’t as bad as some folks get them.”

  “He’ll work hard.”

  “He will.”

  Abel shuffled from the bars to a table and the aide helped him lie down. She tucked a huge blue ball under his legs and he began to push the ball forward and backward, using both legs. An easy task for a person with full use of his legs. Not so for Abel. Still, his chuckle was audible across the room. Followed by a mishmash of words something to the effect that he was playing ball on his first day of PT.

  “He has a gut attitude.” Suddenly warm, Zechariah shrugged off his jacket and folded it on his lap. These places with their central air and heat were always too cold in summer and too hot in winter. Abel’s can-do attitude convicted Zechariah. He acted like a big baby. No wonder his children passed him around so much. He could do better. He would do better.

  Starting with Laura. He let his gaze sideswipe Jessica. He’d known her for more than sixty years. Even before she deigned to marry his closest friend. Plain men and women who weren’t related didn’t have many conversations beyond “supper was good” and “it looks like rain.” She surely qualified as family by now, didn’t she? “You’re a woman.”

  She giggled. “Last time I checked.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Surely. But I won’t promise to answer.”

  He studied the tree branches bending and swaying in a north wind outside the windows. “Do you think I’m too old to get married again?”

  Her smile widened. “It’s Laura, isn’t it? That’s wunderbarr. I’m so happy for you both.”

  “Don’t be getting ahead of yourself. Can an old hund learn new tricks?”

  The aide removed the ball and began to guide and stretch Abel’s legs in a variety of positions. More chuckles from Abel. He would be more flexible after his stroke than he had been before.

  “An old hund probably has a better chance of learning new tricks than a stubborn man.” Jessica rolled her eyes. For a second Zechariah saw the grinning teenager who hopped into Abel’s two-seater after a singing and waved. No tiptoeing around, trying to keep their love a secret. She would’ve used a megaphone to announce their courting, if it had been available. “If anyone can whip you into shape, it’s Laura.”

  “I don’t need to be whipped—”

  “This is Abel’s fraa you’re talking to. Who do you think kept him moving all these years?”

  “Understood.” Zechariah contemplated the ceiling. “Don’t you think it’s unfair to dump a disease on a fraa who is as old as I am? She’ll end up being a caregiver in her final years.”

  “In sickness and in health.” Jessica shook her finger at him. Her expression reminded him of the many times he’d seen her scold one of their children. “How do you know you won’t be caring for her too? You will. You’ll care for each other. That’s the nature of the vows. The beauty of the vows. She’ll do it because she cares for you.”

  “What if I can’t take care of her?”

  “That’s what’s really bothering you.” Jessica’s eyes were getting almost as good a workout as Abel’s arms and legs. “Whatever happened to Gelassenheit? Your shoulders aren’t so broad that you can’t accept help. She has dozens of grandchildren and great-gran
dchildren. She has family, as do you. You have the Gmay. It’s never up to you alone.”

  She punctuated the diatribe with a snort, then sighed. “Not to speak out of turn. I’m only a fraa and a mudder.”

  “Don’t give me that humble fraa speech.” He laughed. A man on a stationary bike in front of a TV screen with the low sounds of a news program floating from overhead smiled as if sharing in Zechariah’s good humor. “You know what you think and you’re not afraid to speak.”

  “When it’s my place to speak. In this case, you did ask.”

  “I did indeed.”

  Jessica had confirmed his suspicions. The only one standing in his way when it came to a second chance at happiness was him.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  LAURA FED SAMUEL AND CHRISTOPHER SUPPER. IT WAS a quiet meal punctuated only by the creaking of the house in a northerly January wind. Both boys asked repeatedly about their sisters all day, but Laura could tell them little. The girls were at the doctor. They were getting medicine to make them feel better. That was good.

  The kitchen door opened. Ben strode in. Delia, wrapped in a blanket over her coat, clung to his hip. He settled her on a chair next to her brothers.

  “Where’s Mudder?” Samuel hopped from the chair and ran to his father. “And the twins? Are they out there?”

  He started to dodge Ben and head for the door. Ben scooped him up in a hug. “Suh, they’re not out there.” He caught Laura’s gaze. His was full of carefully contained worry. “They’re spending the night in the hospital. The doctor wants to make sure their cough doesn’t get worse, so it’s for the best. Mudder is staying with them. They’ll be home soon.”

  Delia coughed and began to sniffle. Ben patted her head. “It’s okay, Dochder. We have medicine for you too.”

  He held up a white paper bag. “We have medicine for everyone.” He nodded at Laura. “Even you. The doctor says our immunizations lose their potency, and since we’ve never had boosters, we’re susceptible to pertussis—that’s another name for whooping cough—too. She says there’s quite the epidemic of it across the country for reasons that aren’t important right now.”