by Beverly Bird
“They all live in far corners of the gemeide. We just split from the old one a few weeks ago, so the homes of the two factions are sort of intermingled, like clasped fingers. There’s no real delineation.” Adam paused. “Besides, you’re not even dressed,” he noted reasonably.
Jake looked down at himself. Actually, he wore his jeans and the T-shirt he’d arrived in. He’d slept in his clothes for the sake of propriety... and to avoid a repeat of what had happened yesterday afternoon. But he was barefoot.
He looked at Katya. Her eyes were still shining. Her chin trembled. But it was up, thrust forward, bravely. It touched him more than he cared to admit. He wondered if he could be so strong, to accept as she did. And he hated her for accepting, though that made no sense at all.
He caught a whiff of something clean and springlike from her direction when she finally moved, stirring the air. How the hell could this woman get to him by just being there? And why was he so enraged by the fact that she was young and beautiful and trapped by a God who didn’t care?
He slammed the door shut. Katya jumped, then deliberately caught and steadied herself. She gripped the edge of the counter. An odd quiet fell over the room.
When Jake finally spoke again, it had nothing to do with his clothes. His eyes stayed on Adam, and his voice seemed strangled. “It’s just like Mom. That’s all. That’s why it gets to me.” It was as good an excuse as any.
Adam could count on one hand the number of times his brother had specifically mentioned their mother.
“The Catholic church says divorce is a sin,” he went on, “so she stayed and let him whale her and she drank and drank and drank until her liver gave out and she died. And I, for one, can’t salute any religion that would demand that of a woman. How the hell can you condone it? Don’t you even see it?”
Adam hesitated. He didn’t believe—had never believed—that his mother should have stayed. He didn’t believe Katya should ever go back to her husband. And that was at least one reason he was very cautious about joining Mariah’s faith, no matter how much peace its ways had given him. Their union had so far only been blessed by a justice of the peace, and Mariah deserved—needed—more than that.
“I can’t,” he admitted finally, slowly. “I can’t condone it.”
Jake stared at him a moment longer, then he gave a quick, hard nod, satisfied by his brother’s honesty. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said at last. “And I need to borrow some clothes.”
He cast one look back at Katya, still standing near the sink, her hands clasped together now. He opened his mouth as though to say something more, then he shut it again. He looked deliberately away from her and went upstairs.
The kids weren’t done in the bathroom. He had the choice of waiting or showering with three boys and two girls underfoot. The boys wouldn’t have bothered him, but the oldest girl looked to be about ten years old, so he waited in the boys’ bedroom. And he stewed.
Family, he thought. Happy, cozy—no matter that they weren’t even all related. Maybe that was the catch. Maybe familiarity bred contempt. He watched Bo in particular as the boys finally spilled into the room, his own blood.
The boy had recently broken his arm. “So what did you do this time?” Jake asked him.
“Tree,” Bo explained, snatching trousers and a shirt off the hooks on the wall with his good hand. “I fell out. Pa says I did it before. It was a long time ago and I don’t remember.”
“Yeah. You did. Looking for a bird’s nest.”
“That’s what he said. I thought I saw one this time, too.”
“In February?”
Bo’s face reddened. “Well, there was something up there. Something neat.”
“I’ll bet. What was it?”
His face reddened even more. “Never did find out.”
“Maybe you were just trying to hide for a while,” Jake guessed.
Bo turned blue Wallace eyes on him. Jake waited for him to trust again. He could be patient enough when he needed to be.
“Yeah,” the boy said finally. “Maybe.”
“So how’s it going?” Jake asked. “Since you’ve been back here, I mean. Is it getting any easier?”
Bo hesitated. “I remember a little.”
“That’s good, huh?”
Bo didn’t answer.
So the situation was still confusing to the kid, Jake thought. Small wonder. “He loves you.”
“Guess he must, to stay here,” Bo blurted. “‘Course, he did that ’cause of Miz Fisher, too. I mean, uh...”
“I don’t imagine anyone’s going to expect you to call her Mom yet.”
Bo shrugged uncomfortably. “Miz Wallace sounds funny to my ears, too.”
No kidding. “Give it time, dude. Things have a way of working out when everybody’s heart is in the right place.”
“Yeah,” Bo said just as two other boys came into the room.
Levi, Jake remembered, was Katya’s oldest boy. He’d been introduced to them by name last night at dinner. Or supper, they called it. His hair was more yellow blond than his mother’s —Katya’s had that whitened, sun-bleached look, even in February. Levi was a stocky kid, with none of his mother’s delicacy. Jake put him at maybe a year older than Bo’s seven.
The baby, Sam, was dark-eyed and thin. He still had that blundering, sometimes stumbling way of walking. And he had the biggest, most serious eyes Jake had ever seen.
When Katya had walloped him with that rolling pin yesterday, Levi had been wide-eyed and amazed, and the littlest girl—Delilah, he remembered—had sobbed. Bo had seemed to think it was all pretty funny, and the oldest girl, Rachel, had looked terrified that Jake would pick himself up off the floor and charge all of them. But Sam had just watched everything with those wide, arresting dark eyes, sucking on his thumb to beat the band.
Levi nudged Bo in the shoulder as they dressed. “Guess you can’t play hockey today, huh?”
“I gotta ask your mom,” Bo said.
“Katya? Why?” Jake heard himself ask. He was startled. What could Katya have to do with Bo’s broken arm?
Bo glanced at him. “Well, she fixed it. Guess she would know when it’s healed enough so’s I can’t hurt it again, right?”
“Uh...right,” Jake managed.
Mariah stuck her head in the door. “Bathroom’s free, Jacob,” she said quietly.
Everyone seemed so content, so cozy. Jake thought again. He stood from the bed, moving for the door. And he wondered, in spite of himself, if this was what life would have been like all those years ago if his own family had been normal.
Jake swore under his breath and pushed the thought out of his mind.
He showered and changed into Adam’s clothing; the jeans were a little too short, but they would do. Then he went downstairs again. Everyone was gone. Everyone but Katya.
“What are you up to today?” he asked neutrally, still towel drying his hair as he stepped down off the stairs into the living room.
She moved past him into the kitchen, skirting around him carefully, not really looking at him. He thought again that she smelled of springtime. He stepped back quickly to allow her more room. And to clear the scent from his head.
“I’ve got to go see about Miz Miller’s diabetes,” she said softly. “It’s under control—she saw a doctor—but she needs to maintain. Mariah took Sam. She’ll drop him off to play at the Eitners’ today so I’ll be free.”
The mention of diabetes reminded him of Bo’s arm. Jake followed her into the kitchen without meaning to, dropping the towel over the newel post behind him as he went.
“You’re a nurse?” he asked, even knowing it couldn’t be. But maybe she had left the settlement and come back, the way Mariah had.
No, he realized immediately. That simply wasn’t possible. Mariah had a serenity about her that came from experience, good and bad. Katya wore her heart on her sleeve and seemed to give that heart to everything she did. And always, right there at the surface, was her hesitatio
n, her fear.
Now she looked back at him quickly. “Oh, no. We’re not allowed to educate ourselves past the eighth grade.”
He pulled his mind off it before their rules could anger him again. “So how do you know so much about medicine?” he asked instead.
“Medicine?” She gave him another quick, surprised glance. “I know nothing of medicine. But my grandmother was a folk healer. I know what she taught me, and that’s good enough. It’s enough for the little ailments. For more serious problems, people go into the clinic in the city. As I said, Miz Miller’s diabetes is under control. We just need to keep it that way.”
Jake nodded. Bemusedly.
She was busy snipping leaves off a plant on the windowsill. He watched her for a moment, looked at the plant more closely, then found his voice. “Arrowbruce?”
Katya stopped what she was doing to stare at him this time. She nodded slowly. “How did you know?” she asked finally, amazed.
He was vaguely embarrassed, though he had never been ashamed of his odd bits and pieces of knowledge before. “I read somewhere that it stimulates pancreatic health. That would work, right?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I make a tea with it. Blueberry leaf works well, too, but I only have access to that in the summer. And it’s difficult to grow indoors.” She put her attention deliberately back to the plant. “Adam left the wagon for us.”
Honey, there isn’t an us. Let’s not get too cozy here. It jumped into his mind out of nowhere. He bit back on the words just in time. But the urgency was still there—growing even. He realized that the longer he knew her, the more he liked her. The more he hurt for her. And that scared the hell out of him.
“If you left here, you could go back to school,” he said suddenly. “You could be a nurse. I’ve even read that there are those practicing holistic medicine now....” His voice trailed off at her expression. “What?”
“School?” she repeated.
His jaw tensed. “You said if Frank came back, you’d run. I was just pointing out an option in that eventuality.”
“School?” she said again, focused and fascinated by that idea. Then she gave a little shake of her head, and her color heightened. “With no money and four children? Jacob, that’s foolish. It’s just...a dream.”
And she wasn’t allowed to have them, he thought bitterly.
“I’m finished here,” she said quickly. “Let me just grab my coat and shawl. Oh, and Adam said you should use his same coat, the one you borrowed yesterday.”
Jake looked around as she slipped from the room. He saw the coat on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Perversely, he went upstairs to get his own sports jacket. He wasn’t walking today. And...and he really didn’t want to get too comfy here, borrowing a bunch of clothes, sharing wagons, settling in. There was still that obstinate feeling riding him.
They met back in the kitchen. This time he spotted a note on the table. He picked it up. Adam had left him directions to the farms of the four families who had lost babies. He stuck it in his pocket.
“Ready?” he asked and opened the door. And stopped again.
The horse was already hitched up to the wagon. Which was all fine and good, but he’d never played giddy-up before in his life. At least not this way, not in a buggy. He’d ridden before, long ago on that ranch, but as he had told Adam yesterday, that was on not behind.
Hell, how difficult could it be to drive a horse from a buggy? he reasoned. He was pretty sure the same rules applied. Pull this rein, the horse turned. Pull that one, he went the other way. “Okay,” he muttered aloud.
Katya was already in the buggy, gathering up the reins. Jake went after her. He shut the door carefully behind him—there were actually no locks on it at all, he realized, amazed—and climbed up onto the seat beside her.
“Don’t know why Adam couldn’t have gotten one of those enclosed kinds,” he muttered, already cold, pulling his jacket tighter. Wishing for Adam’s coat after all. Stubbornness was another Wallace trait that he’d never considered particularly admirable, but that he succumbed to from time to time.
“They’ve ordered one from Abe, the buggy maker in the village,” Katya answered. “It should be ready in another week or so.”
The horse trotted out onto the street at a steady pace. CLOP-clop-CLOP-clop . Jake shook his head as though to clear it. His heart chugged. Oh, yeah, you’re worrying me, bro. Now Adam was buying a buggy? He was really settling in as though he planned to stay and keep up with this marriage.
Then again, he had said as much. Jake just preferred not to believe him. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I don’t imagine your...uh, Mrs. Miller is any relation to the Miller family who lost Michael?” he asked finally.
She took her eyes off the road a moment. “No. Well, yes, but distantly. I believe they’re second cousins. We’re all descended from the same group of immigrants, you see, so in all the settlement there are only perhaps ten surnames. And most of our given names are either German or biblical. We’re all related somehow, although fairly far removed in most cases.”
“So there are a lot of Millers and Fishers and Lapps and Bylers,” Jake said. But only one Wallace, he thought. That ought to have told Adam something.
“That’s right. That’s why we have so many nicknames. Like Sugar Joe, for instance. Because there are easily a dozen Joe Lapps, and we must differentiate between them.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “So what’s your nickname?” He could have sworn he didn’t want to know, but the words were there.
She flushed a little. “I don’t have one anymore.”
“Then what did it used to be?”
She flushed deeper. “They used to call me Little Katie when I was a Yoder.”
“Little Katie Yoder,” he said with a smile in his voice. Then it faded. “But you’re not Little Katie Essler.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Once I married Frank, I turned out to be the only Katya Essler. So there was no need for a nickname.” Except, she thought, those that Frank had hung on her. She cringed inside, hearing them again. Stupid. Mouse. And, on those occasions when he had really been drunk, there were names she couldn’t repeat, not even in her own mind.
Jake was watching her too closely. She forced a weak smile.
“This is it,” she said a few moments later. She stopped the buggy in front of the Millers’ farm. “This is where I need to go.”
“How will you get home?”
“Seth will give me a ride when he breaks for dinner. Or one of his boys will. Miz Miller is Seth’s mama. She lives in that grossdawdy house right there out back. She’s a widow now.”
Jake remembered that their “dinner” was the rest of the world’s lunch, so she wouldn’t be stuck here all day. No need to come back for her then, he thought. His relief was complicated, not quite as strong as he would have liked it to be.
She was out of the buggy now. He slid over and took the reins she’d left on the seat. Clumsily. He decided he’d wait until she got into that grossdawdy place before he actually tried to drive off.
“Jacob?”
At least she wasn’t calling him sir anymore, though he vastly preferred just plain Jake. He looked down at her.
“If you like, I’ll be finished here in just a few moments,” she went on, nervously, he thought. “I don’t have to stay and visit. I could go with you to see those families.”
“Not necessary,” he said too sharply.
“I could drive,” she ventured.
“Hey, I’m cool.”
“Oh! There’s a blanket there under the bench. Jacob, you really should have worn Adam’s coat,” she chided. He stared at her. “Here,” she added, reaching for it.
“Uh, no. Katya, no. I just meant...never mind.”
She pulled her hand back but continued looking up at him earnestly. “Wait for me, Jacob. Just bundle up in the blanket, and I’ll be right back.”
/> She started to hurry away. His head was spinning.
“Katya.” He clenched his teeth. “You don’t need to drive me. I can handle it. I’ve done it before.” A small stretch of truth there, he thought, but his conscience could live with it. Come on, Little Katie, go inside so I can breathe something besides innocence and springtime.
She stepped back. “Well, then. Have a good day.”
“Yeah, same to you.”
She finally turned her back on him to go up the walk. He breathed and looked down at the reins in his hand. He’d watched her very carefully, had committed to memory every single move she’d made to make the horse go. He jiggled the reins as she had done. The gelding began stepping along. Good enough.
He was a quarter mile down the road before he looked back. She was still watching him. Just standing there outside the grossdawdy door, her shawl gathered tightly against the cold, watching him.
Something in his stomach rolled over again. What really scared him was that he was getting used to the sensation.
Chapter 7
Katya was home, mending some of the children’s clothing, when she heard the approach of a horse and buggy. She was curled on the sofa, stitching and thinking, that burning, helpless feeling lingering in her chest again as she remembered her conversation with Adam and Jacob that morning. A restraining order! she thought wildly. Not even God’s rules. had kept Frank in line. And school...
It all sounded so wonderful, she thought wistfully. A piece of paper, a written rule that said Frank could not hurt her. And learning things. What an amazing world it was out there. A world she was too dumb and frightened to fit into.
Still, she’d dreamed about it until she heard the clatter of hoofbeats—too fast—and wagon wheels—too loud and too close. Then her thoughts shattered. She threw Sam’s little trousers aside and leaped to her feet before rushing to the front window. She saw nothing there, but the commotion grew even louder. The wagon was passing too close to the side of the house.
She ran to the kitchen, looking out the door there, then she gasped. It was Adam and Mariah’s wagon, and Goliath, their horse. The reins trailed loosely, cutting snaking swaths through the snow.