Saving Susannah

by Beverly Bird

  Before she could begin racing through rooms, looking for someone, anyone, who knew the answers, they found Jake on the living room sofa. He was staring at the wall, at nothing.

  “Hello,” Joe said tentatively.

  Jake’s eyes came around to them almost vacantly.

  “Where is everyone?” Joe asked.

  “Where’s Susannah?” Kim demanded.

  Jake spoke as though reciting. “Adam went home for supper. I made Katya lie down for a little while. She won’t be cooking tonight. I’ll go get takeout somewhere. The kids are...I don’t know: All over. Outside, I guess.”

  Kim’s mouth watered involuntarily at the thought of real food, of anything that wasn’t wholesome and Amish. “And Susannah?” she asked again. “Where’s Susannah?”

  “Upstairs. Asleep. Oh, Katie says to tell you her fever broke.”

  Kim stared at him. “She hasn’t had any medicine yet.”

  “Katie’s stuff worked.”

  “On her feet?”

  Jake shrugged. “It worked,” he said again.

  “He’s still in shock about the baby,” Joe told her in an undertone.

  “Yes, I think so. Can his Katie do anything for him?”

  “She’s doing it. She’s resting. I reckon that will last until they get back to Texas. If he’s lucky.”

  “We’re not going back to Texas,” Jake said sharply. He finally stood. “I need your car keys if I’m going to get food.”

  “Oh, sure.” Kim handed them over and went upstairs.

  Susannah was asleep in Joe’s big bed. Kim sat gingerly beside her, trying not to jostle the mattress too much. She put a hand to her daughter’s forehead. Cool as a cucumber. Her head spun. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured. She decided then and there that Katya could smear goop all over Suze’s body if she was so inclined. This bug, at least, had never had a chance to dig in and take hold. She got to her feet and went out into the hall, closing the door quietly behind her. She heard voices downstairs. Katya’s was one of them. Kim managed a tired smile. Apparently, as soon as Jake had gone, his wife had popped right out of bed.

  Jake, bless his befuddled soul, came back with Mexican food. Kim figured he was pretty much like a homing pigeon. He’d always had a huge appetite, and no doubt his stomach and his instincts had led him directly to the only Mexican takeout place within a hundred miles. Then they had guided him safely home again.

  It wasn’t great, she thought, biting into a burrito, but at least it was real food. She finished the burrito and reached for a chimichanga. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was two days of Amish food and good all-American cereal. She was famished.

  “What?” she asked, realizing Joe was watching her.

  “You enjoy this... variety?”

  “Well, sure. I was raised on it.” Then her throat closed over the food. The comment had come out so easily. Just as two weeks ago it had been effortless not to speak of her past at all.

  “It’s fine,” Katya agreed. She was doing just as she had last night—sitting back from the table a bit. She had her own separate little bag of spicy goodies. “Then again, I could eat a horse right now if you just knocked the hooves off it,” she added on a sigh.

  Jake paled and swallowed carefully.

  The kids—all the many kids except Susannah—were down at the other end of the table, reserving judgment but eating heartily. Susannah was still feeling washed out and had settled for a bowl of rice in bed. Katya had recommended it after the pumpkin tea purge.

  Jake roused a little. “By the way, I filled your tank up, Kimmie. Your gas gauge was on empty.”

  That put her up to about four hundred twenty dollars she owed all of them, Kim thought, but she was too hungry to care at the moment.

  “Thanks,” she said stiffly, chewing.

  “For the record, I also located a Chinese place, a pizza place and a fried chicken joint down in Strasberg,” Jake continued.

  “Good to know,” Kim said fervently, eyeing the woodstove again.

  “Perhaps I ought to develop a taste for this stuff,” Joe said.

  “Perhaps you should.” Kim realized she was smiling at him and wasn’t sure how it had happened, when her emotions had felt so depleted just a short time ago.

  The back door banged open. Adam, Mariah and Bo streamed into the kitchen. Adam took one look at the food and said, “Wow.”

  Jake slid his chair to the side to make room for him. “Dig in. I bought plenty.”

  “But you’ve already had supper!” Mariah protested.

  Adam sent her an apologetic look. “But this is Mexican,” he said, as though that explained it all.

  “You can take the boy out of Texas,” Jake observed, swallowing a bite of taco, “but you can’t take Texas out of the boy.”

  “Speaking of Texas,” Adam said, helping himself to a chimi, “I called ChildSearch back. I figured you were incapacitated, Jake. They found Grete Guenther. She’s in a place called Peace Valley. She’s reasonably senile, but she’s clear on one thing. She’s sure she doesn’t have a granddaughter. After that she got confused, cried, lamented poor Bobby.”

  Kim lowered her fork carefully. Though she thought she was calm, resigned, the sound she made was like a soft wail of pure despair. She felt Joe’s hand close over hers. This time, unconsciously, she twined her fingers with his and held on. “No,” she said. “Mrs. Guenther didn’t...not even Bobby...I never had a chance to tell any of them I was pregnant.”

  “Well, I figured that,” Adam said quietly. “But even in her current state, Texas law says we can’t draw blood against her will. If she had a guardian, if someone had power of attorney for her, that person could give permission. But she has no one.”

  Jake threw down his fork and swore. It skittered across the table and landed on the floor. Katya jumped and Kim gasped. Joe watched him evenly.

  “So go do something about it,” Joe said.

  Jake’s eyes swerved to him. “Like what?” he demanded. “Bludgeon her until she agrees?”

  Joe stated the obvious with such patience that Kim was impressed with him all over again. “Go home, Jacob. Go see her. Talk to her. Try to reach her. Convince her she has a granddaughter, and that granddaughter has cancer.”

  “Please, Jacob,” Katya said. “We can come back. There’s no reason we can’t go home for a few weeks, then return.”

  “You shouldn’t be traveling. Period,” he snapped.

  Something amazing happened to Katya’s face. Color came high to her cheeks. Her eyes blazed. Normally she was so demure that Kim stared at the transformation.

  “Jacob, would you kindly look down the other end of the table?” Katya asked in clipped tones.

  “Huh?” But Jake looked at the kids.

  “I gave birth to four of those babies, Jacob. Without a doctor. With just a midwife on three of them. Delilah—well, Delilah just burst right out and took us all off guard.”

  Jake went white.

  “I’m not an invalid,” she continued. “God help me, there are few enough things in this world I’ve had the chance to gain experience at, but having babies is certainly one of them.” She shot an apologetic glance at Joe. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I would have saved this until we were alone again, but he’s being so stubborn.” Katya looked back at her husband. “Jacob, the vast amount of time, nothing goes wrong. I’m young, I’m healthy. And forgive me, but you’re being absolutely silly about this. The only special consideration I want right now is my own bed. I’m tired a lot, but that, too, will pass.”

  He frowned at her.

  “As I said, I know these things,” she added.

  Mariah had taken a seat with the children. She rested her hands on the immense swell of her own pregnancy. “She’s right, you know,” she agreed.

  “All right,” Jake said wretchedly. “I don’t like it, but we’ll go home for a while. After the wedding.”

  “That’s fine,” Katya said. “That’s the
day after tomorrow, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Chapter 10

  If anyone had told Kim three weeks ago that she would be attending her brother’s wedding before the month was out, she would have laughed in his face. If he had told her that on the morning of Thursday, November 27, she’d be chopping a chicken into pieces for Amish roast instead of shoving a turkey into her perfectly normal electric oven, she would have had that person committed. But here she was.

  Adam had delivered the birds to Joe’s house at dawn. As near as Kim could tell, it was some sort of Amish wedding tradition that the groom should bring a bunch of flapping, clucking fowl to the bride’s family, or whatever the bride had that passed for one. Joe had kindly decapitated them before he’d carried them inside in a big tub.

  Then even the children had been pressed into service, Susannah included. She was feeling much better. She had gone with all the other kids to Adam’s property, where they were pulling up weeds, scooping up the inevitable horse piles, even painting fences that didn’t particularly need to be painted.

  Kim finished the chicken she was working on and put a sloppy hand to the small of her back, groaning. She felt Joe’s presence before he spoke.

  “Tired already?” he asked. “You anner Satt Leits have no stamina.”

  She looked at him incredulously. “Us anner Satt Leits have the good sense to plan weddings months—even years—in advance.” She couldn’t even comprehend an American bride leaving everything go until the last day.

  “Can’t do that here,” Joe responded. He turned his back to the counter and leaned comfortably against it, crossing his arms over his chest to watch her.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because probably 150 weddings will take place in the Lancaster settlement alone between...oh, say, the end of harvest in October and the early part of December.”

  Kim grabbed the next chicken and felt her stomach heave just a little. “Well, there’s your first mistake,” she said. “Smart people spread them out all year.” She paused, thinking. “Although a lot of us seem partial to June for some sentimental reason I could never really fathom.”

  “Because you’re not sentimental.” Or, he thought, she tried hard not to be.

  “Probably,” she agreed, then she looked down at the bird in front of her and screamed. As she’d gotten ready to hack in to this one, it had...moved. Not a lot. Not emphatically. But it had put up a small protest. Its legs were kicking.

  “Sorry,” Joe said, laughing. “They do that sometimes. I should have warned you.”

  “Is this a wedding or Halloween?” she cried.

  He moved quickly to take the bird away, though it had stopped twitching. “We’ll save this one for later.”

  “Real later.” Kim pulled back sharply as he passed her, holding the chicken high. Then she realized she still had a handful of feathers. She shook her hand wildly until most of them fell off into the sink.

  “Haven’t you guys ever heard of Frank Purdue?” she demanded.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  His mouth quirked. “I take it he sells chickens.”

  “Smart man,” she muttered, and shot a look at him.

  “Do you know the cost of buying chickens in stores as opposed to raising our own?”

  “I don’t want to know, Joe. I really don’t.”

  He’d tossed the more tenacious bird out the back door somewhere, she realized. She wished it good riddance, though she suspected it would find its way back to the tub eventually. Joe fished out a new one for her. Kim swallowed, closed her eyes and hacked at it.

  “Better watch what you’re doing there,” Joe said. “That knife is sharp.”

  “I don’t want to see what I’m doing.”

  He chuckled, a warm, deep sound.

  “Anyway,” he said, “we can’t spread weddings out here. It’s written—”

  “In the mighty ordnung,” she interrupted.

  “Yes. It’s written that weddings can only take place between the harvest and Christmas. There’s too much work on the farms any other time. Weddings would interfere with that.”

  “By all means, let’s keep our priorities straight.” But actually, she thought, it made sense.

  “Given enough time here, you, too, will start thinking in terms of the seasons,” he said mildly. He wished he hadn’t said it as soon as he heard the complacency in his words. As soon as her eyes widened in that trapped-animal way again.

  “Joe,” she said carefully. “I’m only going to be here a short while.”

  He forced himself to meet her eyes. “Yes. We certainly hope so. For Susannah’s sake.”

  “Right,” she said unevenly, and attacked the chicken again.

  “Anyway.” He pushed on past the awkward moment. Because he didn’t want to think about how much he enjoyed having her here, or how quiet and, well, dull his house would be when she had gone. “And weddings can only be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  She looked at him. She worked very hard to make her own voice mild again, too. “And what’s the reason for that?”

  “So we can all collapse in exhaustion the day after.”

  “That’s the first thing I’ve heard all day that makes sense.”

  A smile got away from him. “We certainly wouldn’t want to have to face weddings two days in a row. Or the day before a Church Sunday. Or the day after. So you see, with so many people getting married on limited Tuesdays and Thursdays during a couple of months in the autumn, and many of the same people involved in each wedding, it would be very difficult to start all this months in advance. People would be running around like—”

  “Chickens with their heads cut off,” she interjected grimly. “You know, I never truly appreciated that saying before.”

  “Exactly,” he said, his grin lingering. “It’s far easier to concentrate on one at a time, at the time it’s to take place.”

  “Actually, I can live with that. It’s these birds that get to me.” She was grateful that the rest of them weren’t moving.

  “Let me help.”

  “No, I—”

  But he did. No matter, she thought, that by his own admission the kitchen had always been alien territory to him until his Sarah had died. No matter that she was reasonably sure he had never butchered a chicken before in his life. It would be women’s work in his world. He took one and began cutting at it with more determination than finesse.

  “You guys don’t do Thanksgiving around here, huh?” As soon as the words were out, she realized that that really bothered her. She wouldn’t have considered herself so much of a traditionalist.

  “Of course. If no wedding falls on that Thursday. It’s a moot point anyway. What we do for weddings and what we do for Thanksgiving are virtually identical.”

  “Ah. So...uh, how many people are coming to this shindig?” This was a whole lot of chicken, she thought. “Something tells me it’s more than the average Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Well, yes,” he acknowledged. “There should be somewhere around 350.”

  She stopped cutting to stare at him. “People?”

  “The cows and horses don’t count. They’re vegetarians.”

  She swatted him with the dish towel she had slung over her shoulder.

  “We’ll feed them dinner and supper,” he said. “There’ll be singing and snacks and festivities. And a three-hour service.”

  Her hands went still. “You people really get into this wedding stuff.”

  He glanced at her. “The bride’s family—Mariah’s family—stayed with the old gemeide when I helped break this one off. Her father’s the bishop over there. The holiest of holies, so to speak. Very devout. Very rigid. Since she was shunned, they don’t see her anymore. Normally, they would do all this work, so we’re all stepping in for her.”

  Kim’s heart hurt for Mariah. “They don’t even see her on the day she’s to be married?”

  “The meidung is absolute. Be
sides, according to them, she’s been living in sin ever since she and Adam had that civil wedding and moved in together. Worse, she didn’t marry the man they more or less chose for her ten years ago.”

  Kim’s skin got a crawly feeling at that notion. “You know, there’s a lot about this place I don’t like, Joe.”

  “There’s a lot about it that I don’t, either,” he said.

  She was startled to hear him actually admit it. “So why stay?”

  “If you mean the Amish faith, the good far outweighs the bad. And if you mean in this particular county, this settlement, then, well, I came here for Sarah.”

  She knew he didn’t talk about her easily and this time her heart rolled over. “But...she’s gone now,” she ventured.

  “Yes. She’s gone,” he said flatly.

  He had no chance to say anything more. They heard the front door burst open. More women poured into the house. This time, Kim noticed, Sarah’s sisters weren’t among them.

  “I still say Adam’s beard is too short,” one of them complained. They were carrying sacks and bags brimming with more food.

  “He’ll have a full stand by springtime communion,” another answered complacently. “Give the man a chance. He only just took his baptism.”

  The throng stopped talking and eyed Joe. He rubbed a hand over his own short beard and grinned. One of them elbowed him affectionately in the ribs.

  They love him, she realized. She got the strong feeling that Joe Lapp could have run naked down the road and they would have found a way to forgive him. He had saved them from something terrible. That feeling was palpable in the air. She looked at him again curiously. He’d gone back to finishing his chicken. Calm, as always. A little troubled, as always. A complicated man with many layers. She dragged her eyes off him.

  “Uh, now what?” she asked of no one in particular, dropping the last of her chicken pieces into another huge tub on the counter.

  One of the women came to inspect the chicken. “It needs bread and butter, celery and onion.”

  “Point me at ’em.”

  “The bread is outside in Marthe’s wagon. That has to be torn into little pieces, too.”