by Naomi King
Chapter Fourteen
Wyman watched the train chug away from the grain elevator on Thursday afternoon with an enormous sense of satisfaction. “Thanks to Tyler’s savvy with the computer and the markets, we made our neighbors a nice profit on their corn today. My bishop’s peeved that I’m in business with you worldly Mennonites,” he teased his partner, “but he can’t argue with the way we help the locals support their families—and the church.”
Ray squinted into the late-afternoon sun. “Our partnership is one of the biggest blessings in my life, Wyman,” he replied. “Don’t see any more grain trucks on the road, so what say we close up a little early?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. See you fellows tomorrow, Ray.”
“Jah, you betcha. Hug that new wife of yours. It’s gut to see you happy again, my friend.”
As Wyman started home, it seemed this October day had been created solely for his pleasure. He paused before crossing the county blacktop, taking in the glorious blaze of the red-orange sweet gum trees against the brilliant blue sky—his favorite backdrop for the sprawling two-story white house that had been a haven for three generations of Brubakers.
Perhaps his grandparents and parents could have planned the added-on wings so they appeared more symmetrical and proportionate to the original structure, but Wyman believed the true measure of a home was reflected in how well it served its family. His house remained a sturdy structure, well maintained and surrounded by the stalwart red barns and sheds that bespoke the prosperity God had blessed him with.
And a week ago today, his marriage to Amanda had restored order to his life . . . had brought him new energy for the years of parenting that lay ahead. Wyman smiled. If he had his way about it, Alice Ann wouldn’t be his youngest child for much longer. And with new life would come new growth, new purpose. New love. More laughter.
Wasn’t that what a man lived for?
He crossed the road, pleased to see that Eddie was nearly finished cutting the grass with the reel mower while Pete was raking the multicolored leaves. The home place appeared neat and tidy—except for the screened porch. Even from the road, the china hutch, sewing machine, and chairs they had stashed there looked tacky and out of place. Until Amanda decided where those pieces would go, it seemed best to store them with the rest of her furniture.
“Dat! Dat, watch this!” Simon called to him. His son tossed a stick with amazing skill for a five-year-old. When Wags caught it and ran in a gleeful circle around the boy, Wyman laughed.
“You’ll be pitching for the ball games at recess on your first day of school next fall!” Wyman grabbed his son and hefted him into the air. “And what did you do today, Simon?”
The boy let out a joyous shriek as he went airborne. When Simon landed against Wyman’s shoulder, his smile brought back a delight Wyman recalled from his own boyhood, right here in this yard.
“Me and the twins—”
“The twins and I,” Wyman corrected.
“Jah, the three of us kids, we played hide-and-seek and I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner!”
As Wyman considered this, his stomach rumbled. The sandwiches, fruit, and goodies Amanda had packed in his lunch pail had left him hours ago. He looked forward to the end of harvest season when he could eat his noon meal at home again. “And what about Alice Ann?”
Simon looked away, camouflaging his guilt with a mischievous grin. “When it was her turn to hide, we, um, didn’t find her right off. Jemima called us in to eat, and then sent us back out to fetch her. She had cow poop all over her legs from falling in it.”
“But she was all right?” Wyman quizzed. “You know better than to let your little sister wander amongst the animals, Simon.”
“Jah, that’s what Amanda said, too,” he said with a sigh. “And then dinner was late because they had to clean her up, and then Alice Ann was too busy poutin’ to eat. That’s why I got her grilled cheese sandwich.”
Wyman set his squirming son back on the ground. “You’re Alice Ann’s keeper, Simon. I expect you to do better than that.”
“Jah, I know it.” The boy raced across the yard full tilt to throw himself into the leaves Pete had raked into a deep pile.
“Hey there, Dat. Lawn look all right?” Eddie stopped pushing the mower to wipe his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his green shirt.
“Jah, and I appreciate the way you and Pete took on the yard work without me having to ask you to.” As Wyman waved his other son over, Pete dropped the blue tarp heaped with leaves.
“Truth be told, working out here seemed like the better option,” Eddie confessed with a glance toward the house. “We fellows are outnumbered now, you know. And the hens have been squawking all day—”
“So we’ve stayed out of their way,” Pete finished. He looked up at the sky, shrugging in his exasperation. “There’s just no figuring out women, you know? Say or do one wrong thing and the drama starts up. Sheesh.”
Wyman suspected there was more to this drama than his boys were saying, but they made a valid point. Tempers and tensions were bubbling a lot closer to the surface now that five new females had moved in. But that was bound to happen, wasn’t it?
“Let’s clean up the clutter in the screened porch real quick,” Wyman remarked, nodding toward the enclosed room on the side of the house. “Won’t take us but a minute to carry that furniture out where the rest of Amanda’s pieces are. She can take her time deciding where it’ll go.”
The boys exchanged a glance but then propped open the porch door. Eddie and Pete hefted the treadle sewing machine between them while Wyman grabbed a cane-seated rocking chair in each hand. The china hutch was easy to separate into two sections, and when they had carried out an old dry sink in need of refinishing, they found tarps to drape over Amanda’s pieces.
“Hmm, smells like supper might be turning into a burnt offering,” Eddie murmured as they approached the porch again.
Wyman gripped his eldest son’s shoulder. “Don’t say a word,” he warned. “The quickest way to ruin a meal is to upset the cooks.”
As they entered the kitchen Vera was dashing out the back door with a pan of black, smoking biscuits. Alice Ann, already in her high chair, was coughing and waving her little arms. Jemima swished the air with a tea towel as Amanda opened the windows. It was not the picture of domestic bliss Wyman had imagined before the wedding, but baking disasters happened, didn’t they?
When Simon came in, however, his exaggerated coughing did nothing to help the situation. “Fire! Fire!” he cried. “We’ve gotta get buckets of water and—”
“Son, stop.” Wyman grabbed the boy before he scrambled between the women. “We’re going to be sure everyone’s all right, and then we’ll get out of the way. Amanda?”
His wife sent him a harried look from the haze surrounding the oven.
“Is there anything we can do?”
She shook her head, slamming the oven door. “Give us a minute. You’re early today, jah? Supper will be on shortly.”
“That gives these fellows time to wash up out at the pump. Let’s go, boys.” Wyman, clutching a wiggling Simon against his hip, steered Eddie and Pete ahead of him. On the way outside he whipped open a drawer and grabbed a handful of towels.
While his boys splashed water on their faces and cleaned their hands, the voices coming from the kitchen window provided a few clues to the havoc he had walked in on.
“Now we’ve got nothing to spread the creamed chicken on,” Vera fretted.
“It’s too late to peel potatoes. Got a bag or two of store-bought noodles?” Amanda asked. There was a pause before she said, “Do you need to sit down, Jemima? You look pale— Ach! Don’t run into that drawer, sweet pea!”
A loud wail, like a siren, announced that one of the twins had banged her head. . . .
Wyman winced. He hadn’t considered the consequ
ences of leaving that drawer open. Alice Ann joined in the lament, and the two little girls made more racket than seemed humanly possible for their tiny size.
“Just another day in paradise, jah, Dat?” Pete remarked as he toweled his hair.
Wyman bit back a retort. What they needed was order restored, not smart remarks. “It’s best to solve a problem rather than becoming a part of it,” he reminded his sons. It was wisdom passed to him from his father, which he had often shared with his kids—and he grabbed Simon when the wailing drew the boy toward the kitchen door like a magnet.
“That means,” he insisted in a low voice, “we don’t keep stirring up trouble by running and yelling in the house. Your sisters are upset, Simon. What can you do to make them feel better?”
Simon’s eyes lit up. “Can I tell Vera that Wags likes her biscuits? Except he’s tossing them around like balls, because he can’t bite into them.”
“Burned his tongue, most likely,” Eddie said as he refilled the dog’s water bowl. “Not the sharpest pencil in the pack, that mutt.”
When it seemed the commotion had died down, Wyman waved the boys inside. “Let’s sit at the table, out of the way. And not a word, if the food’s not quite as you like it. Understand?” Eddie, Pete, and Simon filed in ahead of him and slipped into their seats. The smoke had cleared, a large pot was bubbling on the stove, and Alice Ann, still in her high chair, was stuffing a piece of buttered bread into her mouth. Cora sat beside Dora, who held a damp cloth against her forehead—or perhaps it was Cora who had run into the drawer. He couldn’t yet tell the twins apart.
Wyman knelt beside the two girls in their matching blue dresses. “I’m really sorry I left that drawer open,” he murmured. “Can I kiss your boo-boo and make it better?”
The injured girl’s eyes, so much like her mother’s, widened as though she might start crying again. She quickly shook her head.
Disappointment stabbed him, but Wyman contented himself with stroking her shoulder. By the time he took his seat at the head of the table, Amanda and Vera were setting on bowls of creamed chicken, noodles, peas and carrots, and sliced peaches. When Jemima shuffled to the table from the bench where she’d been resting, he noticed that the skin around one of her eyes had turned purple.
It seemed like a good time for prayer. As they bowed their heads in silence, Wyman asked God for guidance and words of wisdom. Without clearing his throat—his usual signal to start the meal—he opened his eyes. While it was a satisfying sight, to see his newly expanded family praying around his grandparents’ table, he couldn’t miss the tight line of Jemima’s lips . . . the way Vera’s chin quivered . . . the dark circles on Amanda’s pale face.
Wyman cleared his throat and reached for the bowl of noodles. He noticed an empty seat near the end of the table. “Where’s Lizzie?”
Vera let out a testy sigh. “She locked herself in the bedroom after school. Won’t let me in.”
Amanda sprang from her seat. “I had no idea. We can’t have that sort of thing—”
“She had a rough first day with Teacher Elsie and I was trying to give her some advice,” Vera went on in a strained voice. “But she’s not of a mind to listen, it seems.”
Wyman decided not to delve into the sisters’ squabble—at least until Lizzie was present. He spooned up a clump of sticky noodles and passed the bowl to Eddie. Wyman was almost afraid to mention it, but he couldn’t ignore Jemima’s distress. “And what happened to you?” he asked gently.
“Jah, how’d you get that shiner?” Simon piped up.
Wyman gripped his boy’s shoulder and glared him into silence.
The elderly woman looked up from the bread she was buttering. She seemed to weigh her words very carefully. “I was reaching up into the cupboard for the flour and the can of baking powder fell in my face—and then the flour bag, too,” she replied. “I’m used to working at a pie safe, you see. Everything’s right there in reach, not way above my head.”
Wyman sighed ruefully, thinking about the dilapidated old piece out in the shed. A glance around the crowded kitchen made him wonder where they could possibly put it. “You cooks are going to have to work that out amongst yourselves,” he said. “If you want some major changes made, you’ll have to let me know so we can consider them.” He suspected from the way Vera was blinking rapidly that rearranging the kitchen was a sore subject. And what could he do about so many topics that were making every female in the house cranky? As Lizzie entered the kitchen ahead of her mother, her red-rimmed eyes and downcast face told of yet another troublesome situation.
Amanda sat down, her forehead furrowed. “It seems Lizzie’s having trouble at her new school,” she murmured. “She says Pete has been pestering her to the point that she doesn’t want to go back. Teacher Elsie assigned him sentences to write on the blackboard, but still he teased her all during recess.”
Wyman scowled at his thirteen-year-old son. Bookwork came easily enough to Pete that he was often bored by school, as Wyman had been at his age. But that didn’t give him license to cause problems in the classroom. “It seems my warnings and extra chores haven’t convinced you to behave properly.”
“So that’s why you were late coming home?” Eddie challenged. “Writing sentences on the board for flirting with Lizzie?”
Pete’s nostrils flared. “I wasn’t flirting—”
“Enough, both of you!” Wyman’s temples were beginning to pound, and the devastated expression on Lizzie’s face . . . the way everyone at the table was looking to him to solve these problems—well, it was wearing him thin. He longed for the days when his kids had caused him no such trouble—
Before Viola died.
But that time would never return. His active children had given their mother some headaches, but back then they were all of an age when she could discipline them before he got home. Wyman wondered how much time Viola had spent keeping the three older ones in line and the two wee ones out of harm’s way . . . but such mental meanderings accomplished nothing.
“Apologize to your sister, Peter,” he insisted. “And assure me, in front of your family, that you will never again cause Lizzie such embarrassment.”
Pete’s fork clattered to his plate. Lizzie’s face turned red and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Your pranks make you look like a love-struck puppy, Pete,” Wyman went on. “And now that she’s your sister, it doesn’t look so gut for you to be interested in her, even if she’s not a blood relation.”
“I’m sorry,” Pete blurted to no one in particular. “Can we please move on?”
Eddie smirked as he piled peas and carrots on his plate. “Might want to do that yourself, little brother. After your trick with the fishing rod, didn’t I tell you to give it up?”
Wyman gazed purposefully at his second son. Pete was beyond the age of being escorted to the shed, where the paddle used by generations of Brubaker dats still hung. But what would make the boy leave Lizzie alone? “I need your assurance that your behavior at school—and around your sister, in general—will not require my attention, or Teacher Elsie’s, ever again.”
“All right, I’ll leave her alone,” Pete muttered. He scooted back his chair, but Wyman grabbed his arm.
“You’re not excused. Running from situations that bother you solves nothing, Peter Calvin.”
“Jah, Peter Rabbit,” Simon said under his breath. “You’ve been a bad, bad bunny.”
Wyman closed his eyes, exasperated. Why was it that everything he said inspired such a reaction tonight? How had his kids turned into such hellions right under his nose? He’d never dreamed of testing his parents this way . . . nor did he recall such discord in this kitchen when Viola had begun preparing the meals with his mother and his grandmother.
“We’re going to eat our supper now,” he announced in a low voice. “And we’re going to say nothing further unless it’s positive a
nd uplifting.”
Silence. Lowered eyes. Only the subdued clattering of forks against plates.
Wyman gazed down at the rubbery noodles swimming in chicken gravy that had congealed on his plate. He’d lost his appetite, but if he was to be an example to his sons, he had to eat every bite of it, didn’t he?
Chapter Fifteen
As Wyman settled into bed Thursday evening, he prayed once again that a night’s rest would restore his family’s imbalance. Jemima had gotten irritated about the younger kids being underfoot in the kitchen, to the point that Alice Ann and the twins had been in tears at supper—so now Amanda was exhausted and frustrated, too. While he longed to talk quietly with her or to console her by cuddling, she lay facing away from him . . . throwing up a wall he sensed he shouldn’t climb. The clock on the dresser played its delicate tune at nine thirty . . . nine forty-five.
“Amanda,” he murmured. “How can I help you through this transition, my love? What can I do differently to—”
A little cry came from the room across the hall, followed by another cry and then a wail. As he heard the pitter-patter of little feet, he sighed. Once again the twins crawled into their mother’s side of the bed while Alice Ann whimpered for him to help her up, to protect her from whatever had frightened them in the night.
“Now what?” Amanda demanded in a tremulous whisper. “You girls should sleep in your own bed—”
“We heard those scary noises again,” one twin wailed.
“Jah, that wolf was scratchin’ on our wall, howlin’ out in the yard,” her sister joined in.
Alice Ann burrowed against him, wiping her wet face against the sheet. This could not continue. “I’m going to go see about that wolf,” Wyman muttered. “And then you girls can return to your own room.” Cradling Alice Ann in the crook of his arm, he rolled out of bed and padded into the shadowy hall. The three girls shared a corner bedroom, so two of their walls were inaccessible to any scratching, even if that “wolf” could reach the second story. Because Simon’s room adjoined the girls’, he had a pretty good idea where those noises were coming from.