“We didn’t see a rainbow yet.” Inga grinned up at Deborah.
“We brought two schoolbooks to read from,” Emma said, waving them. “One is about raccoons.”
“And checkers. Do you think he knows how to play checkers?” Inga and Emmy finished each other’s sentences as if they shared one mind.
“I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Sergei. We just finished dinner. He and his ma ate in the dining room for the first time. You could probably read and play in there.”
“Okay.” The two shared a smile and headed for the dining room.
Ingeborg wagged her head. “I should have thought to bring them before. Ah well. We’ll make amends now.”
“He was just released from the traction today, so this is perfect. I was hoping you and Astrid could go take a walk but . . .” She glanced out the window, where raindrops were running down the glass pane.
Ingeborg asked, “Does she have any more appointments this afternoon?”
“No, so perhaps you could talk her into going home and possibly taking a bit of a rest.” Deborah rolled her eyes, making Ingeborg’s face warm in a smile.
“I will try.” She hurried off to Astrid’s office.
Moments later, the two of them came out. Astrid crossed to Deborah’s counter. “Call me if you need me. I should stay here and work on that horrid self-breeding paper stack, but”—she motioned to her mother—“she is dragging me away.”
“Good!” Deborah grinned at Ingeborg, and the mother and daughter walked out the doors.
Deborah stood at the counter for a few minutes, rather mindlessly catching up charts from the morning rounds. Some patients were sleeping, and several were visiting with a family member. She enjoyed the job most when it was quiet and orderly like this.
Over by the window, sweet Mrs. Ohnstetter sat rocking slowly and knitting away, her hands flittering. She was too frail to live alone any longer, so since she had no family, she lived at the hospital. She spent her days sitting in the rocker they had brought in for her, knitting. Ingeborg kept her in yarn to create hats and mittens, which Penny sold at her store. Mrs. Ohnstetter claimed that she much preferred living in the ward, where she could watch people, rather than in a separate room.
She wondered where Toby was working today. Out on the new house going up for Dr. Deming? The young dentist said he was tired of living at the apartment building, where he’d been since not long after he and Vera were married. Or perhaps Toby was running that barn building for the farmer southwest of town. She knew the men were excited about starting the addition to the deaf school, and if they were going to have it roughed in before winter, they needed to get at it.
There Toby was in her thoughts again! This intruding-thoughts disease seemed to be getting worse. She was just sitting around, huh? The thought irritated her all over again, and it wasn’t just Toby, it seemed, but all of them. Even on a quiet day like today, she had so many chores and jobs.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if Toby came at the shift change to walk her home? In her fantasy, Toby would smile at her and take off his hat when he walked through the door and—
And suddenly a vivid, wild thought grabbed her head. She had been urging Astrid to trust God, and she had been trusting God herself—to do what she had wanted her whole life. But most of all, to know His plan for her. What if God’s plan was not hers? What if God did not intend that Toby be her husband? What if God had someone else in mind altogether, and Deborah was, as it were, barking up the wrong tree? And here she was sitting at the base of that tree, barking and barking and barking, when really, God’s will was some other tree?
No, that couldn’t be! Look how Deborah had carried a torch for Toby all these years. Surely that was from God, right? But what if . . . ?
She was so confused. God, if Toby is not intended for me, please show me the man you want for me. Please send the man, whether it is Toby or someone else.
“Nurse Deborah?” The voice came again, jerking her back to the here and now. She felt her face flame. How long had Mrs. Chikachev been trying to get her attention? Wishing for a fan, she smiled. “I’m sorry, guess my mind. . . .”
“I go home now. Class with Mrs. Amelia, then I come later?”
“Of course. Sergei will be fine. When the girls leave, we’ll find something for him to do.” Now Mrs. Chikachev could start taking some time off. Good. Sergei was no longer trapped in the traction splint, and their lives could return to normal—well, soon anyway.
Deborah shook her head. To think she’d let Toby dreams take over her mind like that.
Sharing the umbrella, Astrid and Ingeborg mounted the steps to the front porch of the Jeffers’ house. “Amelia is over at the school, teaching her English-speaking class, and I’m sure Daniel is at one of the offices or the other. Since it will be chilly out on the porch, how about tea in the kitchen or the parlor?”
Ingeborg waved a hand. “The kitchen is always cozier. I’ll stir up the fire while you set out the cups. I brought cookies.”
“You and Amelia. You must think it’s a sin to have an empty cookie jar. Have you had her new lemon drops?”
“Her what?”
“She rolled out the cookie dough and sprinkled crushed lemon drops on top. Better than raisins any day.” Astrid hooked her straw hat on the hall tree and waited for her mother to unpin hers.
“I guess you assume we will be here a while?”
Astrid caught a yawn. “I just hope I can stay awake. I seem to drop off to sleep any time my body finds a chair.”
Since her mother-in-law had supper cooking in the oven, the coals in the stove flared immediately with some kindling. Ingeborg added more wood, then pulled the still-warm tea kettle over the hottest part of the stove. Taking the tea tin from the cupboard, she measured several teaspoons of tea into the china pot and set it up on the warming shelf. “Isn’t it interesting that the day barely has a chance to turn chilly, and I go for hot tea instead of coffee or the cold drinks in the icebox?”
“I’ll drink tea or coffee anytime.” Astrid settled at the counter.
Lifting a plate from the basket always on her arm, Ingeborg set the molasses cookies on the table. Astrid grew quieter as they finished up the preparations and sat at the table, where a low bowl of roses perfumed the room.
Ingeborg pulled the bowl closer and inhaled. “Oh, how I love the smell of roses.”
Astrid poured the tea, and the clinking of teaspoons on china was the only sound in the room.
O Lord, please help this daughter of mine. She is carrying such a heavy load. Waiting could only be tolerated by praying at the same time. “So what happened?”
All the while studying the table, Astrid described the scene at the hospital when Thorliff’s screaming son turned away from his pa, seeking Thelma and calling her Ma.
Finally, with tear-filled eyes, Astrid looked to her mother. “I yelled at Thorliff after I left the hospital later yesterday, screamed at him. Mor, that was not the way to handle this and I know it. I knew it at the time too, but the words just spewed out like a runaway prairie fire. I was so furious that he’s neglecting his children so. Before I could apologize, he ordered me out of his office. I think he would have thrown me out bodily had I not left. By the time I got home, I was sobbing so I could scarcely walk. I thought Daniel was going to go over there and . . . Oh, Mor, it was awful. We’ve never had a fight like this.” She laid her head on her crossed arms on the table, the sobs rocking her body and even the chair.
Ingeborg left her chair to wrap her arms around her daughter, letting her cry it out. Her prayers were woven amongst her own tears. She was beginning to wonder if Astrid’s well of tears would ever run dry, but finally they slowed to hiccups and shoulder-wracking sobs. Ingeborg handed her a dish towel and continued to smooth the soaked tendrils of golden hair back from her wet face. All her mother murmurings slowed as needed.
From the sink she brought a cloth and wiped Astrid’s swollen face. “All will be well, my dear daughter, all
will be well. I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but somehow, our Father will work this out. We have to trust Him for that.”
O Lord, break through Thorliff’s sorrow and anger. How do we help him? Please, work your miracles. Protect his children. Bring him home from that far land where he is suffering so. What can I say? What can I do?
Chapter 11
Do I ever think of anything besides the job?
Toby leaned himself and his hoe against the garden fence. The garden Anji and her brood had so lovingly planted and kept weeded no longer wore the look of diligent care. So far this evening, he had liberated the carrots and lettuce. Whoever decreed that weeds would grow faster than cultivated plants had a sadistic nature. He well knew who was behind weed growth.
Here it was late June, the garden had gotten ahead of him, and he wasn’t even really working full summer hours yet. Once they started the deaf school addition, everyone would be working from dawn to dusk. A robin heralding the sinking sun caught his attention. When did he take time to appreciate the birds and the bursting forth of summer?
Face it, he missed Anji and the kids. With Benny still out at the farm, and Rebecca’s other kids busy with various activities, it was too quiet around here. And he rattled around that big house since they had left.
He grabbed his hoe again and bent to the destruction of weeds. Pigweed and grass. Maybe he should hire Manny or one of the other boys to come work in his garden. Benny could pull weeds. That was who he’d talk to. But then, Benny had been helping Rebecca at the soda fountain whenever Ingeborg didn’t need him for something.
“Hey there, looks like you could use a hand.”
His brother! “I could, especially one with a hoe attached.” Tipping his flat-brimmed hat back, Toby dried his forehead with an arm partially encased in a rolled-up sleeve. “Good to see you, Gerald. When is Benny coming home?”
“You’ll have to ask Rebecca. Do you have another hoe, or do I need to go get one?”
“You’re really going to help me?”
“I am. The hoe?”
“In the shed, right where Ma always kept everything, sharpened, cleaned, and hung on the wall.”
Gerald fetched the hoe. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Wherever. I’m thinking to ask Benny to come weed.”
“He’ll be a couple of days catching up in our garden.” They both chopped weeds out of the dirt and threw them in a pile.
Toby paused. “Then why are you here?”
“I figured since the only time we get to talk is at church . . .”
“I know.” Toby threw some more weeds on the pile. He knew his brother well enough to know there was a reason they needed to talk today.
“Have you given any thought to sharing your house?”
“Our house, you mean?”
“No, yours. I have one, and one is enough. But I was thinking, if we hire a male teacher, you could possibly rent a room to him.”
“Not a woman, eh?” Toby loved to tweak his brother’s not-so-evident sense of humor.
“Well, of course, if you married one.” Gerald grinned.
“Whew, I thought there for a moment you were serious.” Toby slammed the hoe into the soil.
Gerald stopped and leaned on the handle of the hoe. “I always thought you’d be married before I was. You’ve always been the ladies’ man, after all.”
“Life just doesn’t go the way we think it might, does it?” One of the bean plants met its demise. He muttered a gentle expletive. “Keep hoeing, might keep you from thinking.” Although it didn’t seem to help him. “It was great having Anji and the kids here. Every once in a while, I find something they left behind. I’ve been putting them in a box to ship.” He stopped hoeing at the end of the row and surveyed his efforts. “That sure looks better.”
Gerald hacked away. “Benny really misses Gilbert and Melissa. And Rebecca mentions Anji at least once a day. Their leaving again left a hole in Blessing. She was a good schoolteacher too.”
“The Fourth of July won’t be the same without Thomas and his Irish brogue and humor.”
Gerald finished his row. “An hour with a hoe can make a big difference. What are you going to do with all that you reap here later this summer?”
Toby shrugged. “Find someone to give it to. Probably some of the folks in the apartment house. That garden they have isn’t enough for all of them and canning too.” The thought made him smile inside. He’d wondered the same thing. “Ma sure put up a lot. There are still plenty of full jars down in the cellar. Tell Rebecca to come help herself.”
“You tell her. She told me to ask you to come to supper on Friday and to bring a friend.”
“A friend? Just my company isn’t enough?” He attacked the next row, being more careful with where he slammed the hoe. “Does she have someone specific in mind?” As in female?
“Who would you like to bring?”
“How about me, myself, and I?”
“You going to put a dress on one of them?”
Toby gaped at his brother. “Gerald Valders, you made a joke.”
“That’s what living with prankster children can bring out. As Mor used to say, ‘If you don’t laugh, you might cry.’”
“Did our mor actually say that?”
“More than once. I sure wish we would hear from her, from them. One letter since they took off. I have a hard time forgiving Pa for dragging her away like that.” Gerald mopped his forehead.
“He sure messed up their lives. He was insufferable that last year or so.” Toby wagged his head.
“Two years. She’s a tough old bird with a heart afraid to show itself.”
Toby stared at Gerald. “Really? You think so?”
“Well, they took us in, didn’t they? And she was busy in everything, including running the post office.”
“I know. She always needed to be in charge. Bossy fits.” Toby leaned his hoe against the fence and started tossing the piles of weeds into the wooden wheelbarrow he had made under Lars’ tutelage while in high school. Mr. Sam had taught them how to make the iron wheels.
With the weeds dumped onto the compost pile, the brothers put the hoes away.
“Come on, I have some iced tea in the icebox and cookies from Ingeborg.”
Gerald frowned. “Did you have supper?”
“Ja, I can cook, you know.” They took their drinks out to the back porch and sat at the table he’d made another year.
“So you’re going to ask Deborah to come for supper with you on Friday?”
Toby studied his brother. He was beginning to smell a plot. “Why?”
“Actually, that’s who Rebecca suggested.”
“Figures.” Toby ran his tongue over his back teeth. “I could ask Mercy. You know, Miriam’s sister.”
“You could. I thought you might be getting serious about Deborah. You gave up gallivanting with that girl from Grafton.”
“Too far away. Besides, Deborah is fun to tease.”
Gerald snorted. “You’ve been teasing her since grade school.”
“I have, haven’t I? All right, I’ll ask her. And if she says no, I’ll ask Mercy.”
“She’s kind of young for you.” Gerald set his empty glass on the table and stood. “You can come help me hoe next week.”
“I’m not done here.” They both looked out at the garden. A swallow dipped and dove after some bugs. Toby slapped a mosquito on his arm. “Nasty things.” A cottontail rabbit slid under the fence. “Maybe I’ll ask Manny to set some traps. Fried rabbit would be good.”
Gerald lifted a hand in a casual wave as he ambled back over to his house. Toby watched him go. Deborah, huh? So that was why Gerald had come by.
Actually, asking Deborah to dinner wasn’t such a bad idea. Better than asking her to write invitations. Come to think of it, she never did say she’d do it or she wouldn’t do it, but he remembered how he could feel her turn from warm to icy cold the minute he’d suggested it. Obviously, the answer wa
s no. He would have to be more careful now. They were both grown up, after all, and the teasing days were over—or should be.
Should he telephone Deborah or stop and see her after work tomorrow? But then, she might not be on the day shift. He shrugged. All he could do was ask.
Back in the kitchen, he washed the glasses and put them back in the cupboard. One thing his ma had done well—not that she ever did anything not well—was teach her sons to be neat, to put things away. He draped the dish towel over the wall rack and took the kerosene lamp into the parlor. He’d rather stay outside, but if he took the lamp outside to read, the mosquitoes would have a feast.
Taking a seat in his pa’s leather chair with its well-worn footstool, he picked up his book. Anji had started him reading Ben Hur. He was enjoying it, which was surprising even to him.
He glanced around the room. Maybe he should get a cat or a dog. Something to bring some life to this house now.
He’d invite Deborah tomorrow at the early shift change. Maybe he’d ask if she wanted a soda too.
The phone rang while he was eating breakfast the next morning. Toby grabbed the receiver off the hook as he was finishing his oatmeal.
“Thorliff for you.” Gerald clicked the call through.
“Yes?”
“Jonathan got back yesterday afternoon, so we’re meeting here at the office at seven. How far did you get on that barn?”
“The crew can continue without me. I’ll let Trygve know to get started and I’ll be late.”
“How far are you?”
“We should be ready to roof tomorrow. They delivered most of the shingles yesterday. We need to get it done in time for haying, you know.” Toby sipped his coffee.
“Ja. We’ll get more labor out there for the roofing as soon as you say the word.”
“We’ll know by the end of the day.”
“Good, see you in a bit.”
Toby finished his oatmeal, put the pot for the next day in the icebox, and rinsed out his dishes. Anytime he thought to leave some dishes in the sink, he heard Hildegunn’s chiding voice.
As he shut the door behind him, he thought, Ma and Pa could simply telephone, or how long does it take to send a note? If only he had an address, he’d write to them.
From This Day Forward Page 10