by Trish Mercer
Mahrree checked her plants early the next morning, looking for signs of new green, and . . . yes, yes there it was! Less than two weeks since they planted the seeds, tiny green shoots were flicking up small clumps of dirt as they greeted their first sunshine. Mahrree, on her knees to inspect the spurts of life, grinned that she was now a gardener, and that she was happy about it.
Until a shadow moved over her. Thinking it was a cloud she needed to shoo away, she looked up.
Shem stood there, as hulking and heavy as his demeanor. “I don’t have much time, Mahrree. I’m due at Guide Gleace’s. I’m letting you know what I’m telling everyone else. Before I left her in Norden I asked her, and . . . she said no.”
“Oh Shem—” Mahrree reached for his hand.
But he shoved it into his trousers’ pocket. “I don’t need your sympathy, I just need some time to myself.” His tone was uncharacteristically cold. “Can you do that? Just leave me alone for a while?”
Mahrree pouted but said, “Well, sure, Shem.”
He nodded once. “Thanks. And thanks for all you tried to do for me. I’ll come by later some time,” and he strode off.
Disappointed, Mahrree got up and went into the house. Well, what were they expecting? That he comes home and finds the woman in one week? Not even Salem is that perfect.
She looked at the breakfast dishes waiting in the sink. “Maybe Calla’s just not ready,” she told them. “If she said she needed more time, certainly anyone could understand that. I should write her a letter, ask her what she thinks about him—”
“About who?” Peto asked as he came into the kitchen.
“Shem. He asked Calla to marry him, and she turned him down.”
“What an awful woman!”
“No, Peto. She’s perfectly lovely. I think Shem may have just scared her. It was very quick to propose marriage. She might not have been ready.”
“She’s thirty,” he reminded her. “She’s probably been ready for half her life. He’s one of the best men Salem’s produced, and she turned him down? What more could she possibly want? Women are so unpredictable. Don’t look at me like that, Mother. You know I’m right. Poor Shem. I think the two of us should build a house together and spend every night eating steak and complaining about women.”
Mahrree scoffed. “And what women do you have to complain about? Who’s broken your heart?”
“No one, yet. And it’s going to stay that way. Shem’s nephews and I watched him mooing after her when they were at Mr. Zenos’s place. It was pitiful. Puppy eyes. Giggling. They were nauseating.”
“But you kept watching? To see who would get sick first?”
“Yeah, something like that. But then they started throwing rocks at us. I guess they didn’t like us following them.”
Mahrree groaned. “How are they supposed to get to know each other when you’re interfering?”
“What about you inviting them both to dinner?”
“We left them alone for three hours!”
“But at the Zenos dinner no one left them alone,” Peto said. “They spent most the evening telling Calla all the stories Shem didn’t record, and apparently there were some good ones.”
Mahrree plopped into a chair. “Perhaps all of us messed it up for him. In our eagerness, we chased away his first chance at marriage.”
When Mahrree trudged up to Perrin’s office to tell him the news, her husband just shook his head at her and went back to his work.
Mahrree saw another one of Shem’s sisters at the storehouse that morning. She rushed up to Mahrree. “Did he tell you? What can we do? Yudit wants to go to Norden to talk to Calla, but I think she just needs some time.”
“I agree,” Mahrree said. “Give them both a few weeks. Perhaps we need to leave them alone.”
But that was easier said than done. When Shem came over the next night for dinner, Mahrree kept giving him weepy eyes, despite Perrin’s glares.
Shem finally said, “It wasn’t the response I expected either, but it’s what it is. Just move on, please!”
He left after dinner to prepare for a trip in the morning. Guide Gleace had agreed to Perrin’s tower idea, and was sending Shem all over Salem to scout out locations. At least he’d have something to do, Mahrree thought, to keep him occupied and to forget about Calla.
But that wasn’t what Mahrree wanted him to do. In consultations with the Zenos sisters that they kept private, since the husbands had unanimously told the women to leave Shem’s love life alone, they came to the conclusion that Shem should try to call on Calla again. Nan’s husband Honri would be traveling past Norden for trade in the dissenter colonies in a few weeks, and Nan would go to pay a visit to Calla along the way. Yudit volunteered to accompany them, but Nan feared Yudit would tie Calla up and drag her back to Salem.
Somehow, Perrin heard about it. A few days later he cornered Mahrree in the kitchen and glowered at her. “Honri is not going to take Nan along with him, just so you know.”
“What ever are you talking about?” she said sweetly.
Since she never talked that sweetly, she knew Perrin was on to her. “Because believe it or not, we men talk too. Not as long and ridiculously as you women, but we’re not going to help you meddle.”
“But the Shem Situation is getting worse—”
“The Shem Situation? You’ve named this?”
Mahrree fidgeted. “Well, it just kind of happened—”
“What about your dinner plans? That big gathering you and Jaytsy are planning for all of the Zenoses? Focus on that.”
Mahrree’s chin jutted out in a full-fledged pout. “We are. But I can focus on a few things at the same time, you know. And since that baby of Jaytsy’s refuses to budge . . .”
“Hmm,” Perrin said, his face softening. “I don’t know how much larger she can get. She’s quite—” He gesture in a manner that Mahrree hoped her daughter would never see. “At least Peto realized that bouncing pebbles off her belly isn’t a good idea anymore.”
“I really thought she’d bounce that last one up his nose,” Mahrree sighed. “Poor Deck. At least he’s keeping busy with his herd, but even he doesn’t know what to say to her anymore. And Mrs. Braxhicks also agreed that Jaytsy’s enormous,” she whispered that last word, in case Jaytsy was anywhere near the house.
“Their new crib is nice,” Perrin had to admit. “But it doesn’t look sturdy enough to me.”
“It was made by an old grandfather who worked under your father for a year,” Mahrree reminded him. “He knows a little about the world, and how to make a sturdy crib. Jaytsy lays out the blankets on it every day. She really needs a distraction, and while the dinner we’re hosting tomorrow is helping, so is talking about the Shem Situation. Don’t you want both your daughter and your brother to be happy?”
He wasn’t falling for it. “Just let the man work out his own love life, all right?”
“But he’s not! He needs help!”
“You need help—”
“Mother?” came Jaytsy’s voice from the front door.
Perrin and Mahrree exchanged hopeful looks and headed to the gathering room.
Seeing their expressions, Jaytsy shook her head. “No, no pains, no sudden gush of waters, absolutely nothing,” she said miserably. “I think the Creator forgot I’m expecting, although I remind Him every hour that I’m ready to be done. I’m just here to tell you that Deck’s happy to donate that bad-tempered bull for Father’s new fire pit in the backyard. It should feed all the Zenoses.”
“Thanks, Jayts,” Perrin said with excessive cheeriness, the only way he knew to deal with her persistent bad mood. “Have you . . . have you tried—” and he bounced several times in place.
Jaytsy blinked at him. “Seriously? Jumping up and down?”
“Maybe to . . . I don’t know, dislodge the baby?”
Jaytsy shifted her gaze to her mother. “Did he make you do that?”
“He wouldn’t have dared.”
Their daughter exhaled and
dropped her bulging body on a sofa. “I’ve been trying all kinds of things, trust me. One woman in the congregation suggested eating hot peppers, and another told me to sleep with my head lower than my feet. And yes, Father, I did think about your option. I tried jumping off a fence rail.”
“And?” Perrin said.
“Do you see a baby in my arms?” she snapped. “No, all I have is a burned tongue from the peppers, a bloody nose from sleeping weirdly, and a turned ankle from my jump last night. Mrs. Braxhicks just checked on me again and said that the baby comes when the Creator says the time is right. You’d think by now He’d be tired of hearing me complain.” She slowly rubbed her belly.
“I’m sorry, Jaytsy,” Mahrree said, trying not to cringe. She seemed even larger today than yesterday. “We’ve got lots of cooking tomorrow,” she said merrily. “Won’t that be fun? Maybe that’ll be just what you need.”
She shrugged. “I suppose bending over and putting things in an oven—”
“Oh, no you won’t!” Mahrree exclaimed. “You’re just timing things for me. I’ll do all the moving. You just rest.”
“Right,” she said dully.
But she did more than that the next day as she and Mahrree spent from morning until afternoon working on “The Dinner, Salem Style,” as Perrin called it. Jaytsy not only watched the creations her mother put together and shoved into her oven, but she also pulled them out, otherwise everything would have been burned as Mahrree tried to cook in two separate kitchens.
It was to be a Hycymum Peto meal, with the Zenoses exposed to her unique combinations. By the time evening and the Zenoses came, Jaytsy and Mahrree were exhausted but excited.
Perrin and Peto had brought their table out to the back garden, and filled it with Hycymum’s creations: leengweeny, terry-ocki, crawsants, la-zhan-ya , and stroodall.
Mahrree scanned the joyful crowd gathering for their picnic dinner, looking for Shem, but . . . he wasn’t there.
Yudit caught her eye and shrugged.
Nan, standing nearby, whispered, “No one’s seen him today.”
“But he sent me a message,” Mahrree told her. “He was out on another tower finding trip, but he said he’d be back for The Dinner.”
“Yudit thinks he’s avoiding us, again,” Nan sighed.
Seeing their conversation, Yudit started over to them, but Noch caught her arm. Mahrree could just make out him saying, “Enough with the Shem Situation.”
Mahrree checked with the other four Zenos sisters, but none of them had seen him either, and they’d been watching. Her further investigations would have to wait, because Perrin stood on the back porch and held up his arms to get everyone’s attention.
“Thank you so much for coming this evening. It’s hard to believe that it’s been four weeks since we first arrived in Salem. So much has happened, and I feel as if we’ve been here our whole lives. A great deal of that is because of all of you. On our first evening here, you welcomed us as family, even though none of us knew we were actually distantly related. You built us a house, showed us around Salem, came to our baptisms, and couldn’t have made us feel more welcome. So we wanted to thank you by bringing you a bit of the world. While normally that would sound alarming, it’s all in the form of food, using recipes of Hycymum Peto that Mahrree and Jaytsy brought with them. So thank you all, for making us feel so at home, and I promise that no one will spoil the evening by mentioning anything about a certain situation, correct?” He glared directly at Mahrree, and the Zenos husbands followed suit, nudging their wives.
All of their children and grandchildren laughed.
But that wasn’t the end of it, no not by any means. Because Mahrree saw a look of worry on Jaytsy’s face as she talked to two of Shem’s married nieces about his absence. It was unusual for Shem to miss a family event when he was home, especially when it involved a meal where neither he nor his father had to cook.
When it was starting to grow dark and time for dessert, Mahrree reluctantly brought out one of Hycymum’s favorites: sorbay. It was Shem’s favorite as well, and Mahrree had made it especially for him to bring him out of his distracted disposition. But now he was even missing sorbay.
He would be missing everything, she worried, if they couldn’t pull him back.
Mahrree saw his sisters frequently scanning the darkening horizon looking for their brother, which made her smile. She was no longer solely responsible for watching out for him. She never had been.
As everyone was finishing dessert, Mahrree finally saw a dark figure come around the house to the back porch. She knew that shadow anywhere, and so did his sisters.
Nan was the first one to him. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried about you! You really shouldn’t be alone at times like this.”
“At times like what?” he asked innocently.
“You know what I mean, Shem! Mahrree’s set a plate for you in the house. You need to eat.”
“I’m fine, really,” he said to his sisters, Mahrree, Jaytsy, and several nieces who now surrounded and trapped him against the house. In a loud voice he called, “I could use some help here. Would you all call off your wives?”
“If we had that kind of power we’d be using it all the time,” Honri called back to the agreeing laughter of the men.
Shem raised his hands in surrender. “All right, this is enough! I’m going to talk, so you all better listen. Sit down. All of you. Yudit, I mean you too. Go.” Shem stood in the lantern light of the back porch with his arms folded until everyone was settled.
“You’ve been concerned about me,” he announced. “I appreciate that. But you’re also smothering me. I think that was part of the problem. It’s hard to get to know someone when everyone else is watching and hovering.”
The women collectively looked down in guilt.
Several of the husbands nudged their wives.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking the past few weeks, and everything’s turning out for the best,” Shem continued. “I wasn’t sure of that at the beginning, but now I see how the Creator has had a hand in everything. I am happy with the way things are and I want each of you to be happy for me as well. This is how it must be.”
“No, Shem! It doesn’t!” Yudit insisted.
“This is my speech. Hold all comments until later.”
Noch covered Yudit’s mouth with his hand, to scattered chuckles of the family.
“As I was saying, this is how it must be. Now, when I asked Calla my question, she answered in a way that I didn’t expect. But, again, it’s all right.” He paused and looked down at his feet, shaking his head. When he finally looked up, it was with a somber and pained demeanor. “I have now accepted her answer of ‘No’ to my question of, would she be opposed to being my wife.” His face remained wooden as he surveyed his family.
There was a great deal of lip pursing, eyebrow furrowing, odd look exchanging, squinting, and finally grinning as what Shem said sank in.
Perrin was the first verbalize his congratulations.
“You DOG!” he shouted with an exasperated smile. “Do you know what you put us through?” He jabbed an irritated thumb toward Mahrree.
She was frowning, still running Shem’s words over in her mind.
“Why, yes. Yes, I do!” Shem grinned back. “Pretty good, huh? I learned from the master about surprise engagement announcements,” and he gave Perrin a sloppy salute.
“Wait a minute!” Yudit was on her feet. “Calla DOES want to marry you?”
“Of course she does.”
Now Mahrree stood up. “But you said, you said . . .”
“I asked her a question, and she said no,” Shem repeated. “I didn’t specify what question I asked her, now did I? And hardly any of you asked me what that question was. Honestly, I thought she would want to think about it for a while, but she said she already knew she wanted to marry me the first time I stared at her and said, ‘Uhh.’”
All the men were laughing now, but none of the women we
re. Their mouths were still hanging open far too wide.
“So,” Noch started, pointing to Perrin, “this is all his fault? All of us have been suffering from when Perrin teased you about Jaytsy’s engagement?”
Perrin fidgeted.
Jaytsy giggled and Deck looked apologetic.
“Not entirely,” Shem said. “I didn’t need all of you hounding me about Calla, so I came up with a better way.”
Boskos Zenos, laughing, made his way up to his son and gave him a great big hug.
“And this man here,” Shem said, wiping a tear off his father’s cheek, “was the only one of two people who asked me what the question was that I asked Calla.”
“You knew?” Perrin nearly wailed.
Boskos nodded. “Why do you think I’ve been so teary?”
“You’re always teary, Grandpa,” one of his teenage grandsons answered him to a chorus of chuckles. “What was different?”
“Who else?” Perrin demanded, frustrated he wasn’t one who asked the right question.
“Guide Gleace,” Shem told him. “Why do you think he’s sent me to Norden nine times in two weeks?”
“But . . . but you said you were . . .” Perrin spluttered.
“Finding your tower positions? Yes, I was, on different routes to Norden. Come on, Perrin. It only took five minutes in each area to find a spot and get the rectors to agree. This isn’t Edge, you know. Then I was free for the rest of the day to spend with my future bride. You never asked about my final destinations, did you?”
Perrin’s shoulders sagged in dismay. “You did it to me again, didn’t you? I thought I could finally trust you, and now?”
Noch reached over and patted Perrin on the back. “Now I understand a little of what you’ve been going through, Perrin.”
“Master of secrets,” Peto grinned at Shem.
Shem beamed with pride. “Old habits die hard, I guess. But I should keep my skills sharp. You never know when I’ll need them again. Besides, this was the only way Calla and I could have some privacy from all of you. So we’re here to announce that in eight weeks, on the 31st Day of Weeding Season, we’ll be moving in down the road here as husband and wife. We start on Papa’s addition tomorrow morning.”
“‘We’re announcing’?” asked Nan looking around.
A second shadow emerged from the back of the house. Everyone turned to watch as Calla joined Shem in the lantern light.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” she said bashfully under the stares of several dozen Zenoses and a handful of Shins. “We stopped to share our good news with some of my family along the way.”
Shem put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulders happily. The two of them glowed brighter than the lanterns.
Mahrree pointed at the trees. “How long have you been there?”
Shem beamed at Calla. “Isn’t she great? A regular Guarder! All of you walked past us a few times without noticing. Now, Mahrree, I saw the sorbay—let me at it!”
---
“I just don’t believe it,” Mahrree murmured as she looked through the kitchen windows and across the dark garden to the Briters’. Shem and Calla were over there to meet Jaytsy and Deck after the dinner was over and the Zenoses had dispersed. “I mean, all this time . . . I never saw it in his eyes, the few times I saw him.”
Perrin chuckled as he put away the last of the dishes several Zenos men had washed and dried before they left. “He’s had years of practice hiding things from us, Mahrree. I should have known. He seemed far too anxious to get traveling again. He usually doesn’t like to stray far from home. Or, at least that’s what I used to think.” He sighed. “I wonder if I’ll ever know him completely.”
“Now with Calla living on the other side of us at her cousins’ house, at least we’ll see Shem when he goes by to visit her. Then they’ll be living down the road from us. I just don’t believe it!” she repeated. “Maybe Salem really is that perfect.”
She moved closer to the window when she saw the Briters’ door open, spilling light and two dark shadows onto their garden. “I think they’re coming over to say good night,” she said to Perrin.
“Mahrree, would you stop spying on them? I believe it was you who gave me a lecture on that back when Jaytsy and Deck were courting.” Perrin gently pushed her away from the window and turned down the lamp. “Honestly, I’m surprised he told us so soon knowing the way all of you would watch him.”
And then, as if he hadn’t heard a word he had said, Perrin peered out of the darkened window.
“And what are you doing?” Mahrree demanded.
“Seeing if Shem needs any advice. He’s not exactly practiced in the art of . . . well, you know. Just seeing if I could offer him some help,” he said lamely as he watched the dark garden.
Mahrree joined him in time to see Shem and Calla stop between the two houses to stand in the moonlight. Perrin and Mahrree held their breath as Shem tenderly took Calla’s face in his hands and their dark figures slowly came together.
“Ah,” Perrin said. “Nicely done, Shem.”
Mahrree sighed happily. “After all these years of being forced to watch us, he picked up a few things. That’s definitely a Perrin move.”
Perrin smiled. “I hope he said something about the moons’ light in her hair.”
“Mmm,” Mahrree agreed as they watched the two of them kissing in the dark. She leaned against her husband’s shoulder—
Until a thought struck her.
“You never say anything about the moons’ light in my hair.”
Perrin’s mouth scrunched up. “Well . . . you don’t exactly have ‘moons’ light hair.’ Not like Calla.” There was in his tone a hint of appreciation for Calla’s raven-like hair.
Until he felt his wife glaring at him.
“But I like your hair!” he added, but not quickly enough. “The light definitely plays off of it, especially on those shimmering gray hairs you’re starting.”
“It’s not gray! It’s very, very, very light brown. So light it looks almost gray. But it’s not.”
“Of course not, Mahrree,” he said, kissing a section of hair with very light strands of brown. “One thing we’ll have to watch out for in the future is very sneaky Zenos children. Especially if they’re friends with our grandchildren.”
Mahrree giggled. “Shem and Calla will have a hard time finding their teenagers if they ever plant trees around their house.”
Perrin chuckled. “Shem Zenos is getting married. Salem truly is a place of miracles.”
---
Upstairs in his bedroom, another Shin family member watched Shem and Calla from his window. Peto shook his head as the kiss continued longer than he expected.
“All right, Shem. Enough already. You’re an assistant to the guide after all,” he muttered. “I realize you’re making up for lost time, but do you have to do it in our garden? There’s a perfectly good barn just a few paces away from you. Take her there.”
He sighed as he continued to watch them kiss.
“Calla said her youngest sister is my age, right?” he whispered.
Then, thoroughly mortified with himself, he knocked his head against the wall.
Chapter 25--“No, Grandpy.”