by Kelly Irvin
“Instead of your suh and his fraa.”
“Strange turn of events, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is.”
Wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, she walked to the door without tripping over her own feet. He moved aside to let her pass. He wasn’t much taller than her. Solid. Thick through the middle. Frayed around the edges. He didn’t smell like farm the way Moses had. His scent reminded her of the barbecue pit behind the Purple Martin.
Ach, Moses, what am I doing?
No answer. Apparently, Moses drew the line at eavesdropping on her courting.
Her stomach flopped. “Do you want to sit on the porch? I can get us some cold tea.”
“Let’s take a ride.” He cocked his head toward the buggy. “I’m feeling restless tonight.”
She knew that feeling. “Shall we run away from home?”
He grinned, suddenly looking more carefree. “If we do, we need to pack a knapsack with sandwiches and whoopie pies. A person gets mighty hungry if he runs too far.”
“How do you know? Did you run away?”
“Nee. I threatened to once and my mudder packed a bag for me. She put in an apple and two oranges and some homemade cookies. For the road, she said.”
“She sounds nice. I don’t remember her.”
“She was. She’s been gone for twenty years. My daed went a few months after her. He never got over it.”
“Like you never got over Lucy?”
She shouldn’t have said that.
“The Miller men are a faithful lot.”
“Gut to know.” She marched to the buggy and hauled herself into it.
He settled in next to her and picked up the reins. “How is it going, living with Thomas and Joanna?”
“It’s an adjustment.”
“That is a tactful way of putting it, I reckon.”
“You reckon right.” She plucked at her dress. “I miss my house. This is Joanna’s house.”
“And she lets you know it. It’s like you’re a visitor all the time.”
“Exactly. She doesn’t hide her feelings. She doesn’t know how. At least you’re with your daughter. She surely wants you around.”
“I’m in the dawdy haus, but I eat most of my meals with Leah and William. I love my kinner, but I miss . . . the way it used to be.”
“Not ready to let go of the memories yet.”
He shook the reins and clucked softly. “I’m working on it.”
“I guess it’s hard for others to understand what it’s like to lose someone. Some would say it’s like losing an arm or a leg. To me, it’s more like having your heart ripped out of your chest, cut in ragged pieces with a dull knife, and the smaller pieces stuffed back inside you. It still beats, but every second is painful.”
“That’s a gut description. I’m sorry it’s an experience we have in common. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
They pulled onto the road that meandered across Thomas’s property and linked it to the Beachys next door. The pause stretched and stretched. It sure didn’t sound like either one of them was getting on with their life. It didn’t sound as if either one of them had yielded to God’s will and God’s plan.
How could they be ready for each other? Love was more than the physical pleasure of warm kisses. They were both old enough to know that.
“What were you doing when I pulled up?”
“Writing.”
He tugged on the reins and slowed the buggy. They turned onto a road that was little more than a wide path that led to a pond that had served as a swimming hole when she was a child. “Tell me about it. What’s your story about?”
“You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
“Most people get a nervous laugh when I tell them I write stories. They think it’s silliness for a woman my age.”
“Everyone should use their imagination at least once a day. Whoa, whoa.” He slowed and brought the buggy to the edge of the pond. A full moon and a blanket of stars lent a glow to an otherwise dark night. “My daed was a big storyteller. He kept us tied up in knots with his stories every night in the winter when it was too cold to do anything but sit by the fireplace and play checkers. Far-fetched tall tales.”
“Moses loved my stories.”
“And you loved him for it.”
“I did.”
Everything came back to that first love she thought would be eternal. She breathed in the humid night air and listened to the frogs croak.
Ezekiel tied up the reins and leaned back in the seat. “It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. I’m glad you had a gut lieb, a gut marriage. It means you understand when I say I stand at the kitchen sink and look out the window and see her hanging clothes on the line or weeding the garden.”
“I see him working on the thresher or the tedder or playing volleyball with the kinner.”
“What is the story about?”
She told him, slowly at first, then picking up steam as the story took shape and filled up her mind’s eye. “She finally makes it to Abilene. She gets cleaned up. One of the cowboys sees her in town. He falls for her, not realizing she was the cook on his cattle drive. It makes for all sorts of lovely intrigue and romantic pratfalls.”
“You do have a way with words.”
“Comes from reading so much. Another thing most grown-ups around here can’t understand.”
“I find books are good company and a great way to escape on a long night.” He sighed a sigh that was almost comical in length and depth. “A lot of cookbooks, though. Which makes me hungry so I eat a snack or two or three.” He patted his belly. “I’ve been told by a lady doctor who studied all about such things that I should stop doing that now.”
Since the diabetes. “It’s a sad state of affairs when doctors tell us what and when we can eat.”
“Exactly.”
This time the silence was more companionable. An owl hooted. Crickets chirped. A fish splashed in the pond. Mary Katherine inhaled the scent of wet dirt, rotted plants, and fish. “It’s peaceful, isn’t it?”
“This is the most peaceful I’ve felt in a long time.” Ezekiel’s voice held the faintest of quivers. “I’ve been wrestling with my feelings for so long I don’t know how to sit quietly and just be.”
“I like sitting quietly and just being with you.”
“Me too. You’re different from most women I know. You find your way on your own. You think on things and figure them out with no help. You read.” His rueful tone matched Mary Katherine’s feelings. “You decided to fix Burke’s life and you took action without leaning on anyone for help. You want to open a bookstore. You write stories.”
Most folks didn’t understand her predilection for fiction. Especially men. Except for Moses. Ach, Moses, just because I’m in this buggy doesn’t mean I don’t miss you still. Where are you?
No answer. Anxiety clutched at her chest like a child afraid of falling from her mother’s arms. What was she doing on a buggy ride with this man who wasn’t Moses?
Waiting for God to open a new door. Trusting in God to show her how to walk through it.
I’m sorry, Moses.
No answer. “How did you know about the bookstore?”
“Bob Sampson was talking about it to his wife while they were eating supper at the restaurant. Jim Tompkins and Jerry Rivers mentioned it over a piece of pie and coffee. Word gets around at the Purple Martin.”
She had made herself stand out with her love of books, her writing, and her big plan to open a bookstore. That’s what he was saying. No Plain person strove to stand out from the others. She swallowed a lump in her throat. Moses didn’t see her writing that way and he wouldn’t have seen the store that way, either. “Books give people joy. The store would be a way of spreading the joy. My dreams never got in the way of being Moses’ fraa.”
“They don’t get in the way of working in the Combination Store now.” He shoved his hat back and stared at the sky. “
Telling stories that make people think is a gut thing. No matter what people say. They don’t have enough work to do if they’re talking about you.”
He did know. He did understand. She breathed. The possibilities crowded her. Could he imagine a future with a woman who spent her days working in a bookstore and her nights writing stories? An odd future, for sure, for a Plain man.
He cleared his throat. “You don’t think you could be happy cooking?”
Ezekiel’s tone told her it wasn’t an idle question. Mary Katherine’s picture of the future crumbled and blew away, like dust being swept from an old house.
He was imagining a future with her that involved his restaurant. She fingered her kapp’s strings and tried to see it with him. She could spend her days in the Purple Martin’s kitchen, concocting dishes that folks enjoyed with their families. It would be hot work, but good because the days would be spent with Ezekiel. Books or kneading bread dough. Books or frying chicken. Books or baking pecan pie.
Dottie was leaving, taking with her any chance of a shared bookstore. The district’s elders had directed her to work in the Combination Store. Now Ezekiel wanted to draw her into his dream, his restaurant.
Her own dream faded into the dark night.
“Your silence speaks for you.”
“Nee, I was just . . . imagining.”
“Me too.”
“We were put on this earth to work. I know that.” She hopped from the buggy and stood at the edge of the water. The sound of it lapping against the banks calmed her. The reflection of the moon rippled in the crisp breeze. She inhaled the night scents. Her shoulders relaxed. “I work as hard as the next woman.”
“Harder.” His footsteps sounded behind her. Goose bumps popped up on her arms as he drew closer. “No one would dispute that.”
“I like hard work.” She called herself a writer, yet she couldn’t ferret out the words to explain the compulsion, the obsession, the neediness of her writing. “Writing is hard too. Not like physical work.”
“I know in school it made my head hurt.” She could feel his smile and hear it in his voice. “Not my favorite thing.”
“That’s just the physical act of shaping words. I’m talking about creating something out of nothing.”
“Don’t let Freeman hear you say that. He might take it like you’re comparing yourself to Gott creating something from nothing. Do you think your stories come from Gott?”
“I don’t presume to know. I hope and pray He is pleased with my meager efforts to make stories using a gift that surely came from Him.”
Ezekiel’s hand enveloped hers. He moved closer. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that night at the restaurant.”
“So have I.”
“It’s hard to know what it means. We’ve both been alone for a long time.” He sighed, a mournful sound full of emotions she recognized, the same ones that battered her in the dark of most nights. “I feel like a blind man wandering around on a road I’ve never been on before. I’m not sure which way to go and I’m afraid of falling on my face.”
“Maybe those feelings come from loneliness?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
She shook her head. “I had this talk recently with Laura. She has this theory about The One.”
“The one.”
“With capital letters. With emphasis. The One.”
He chuckled, but his hand tightened on hers. “That sounds like Laura. She always has a theory.”
“She’s one who uses her imagination plenty. It’s what makes her such a fun person to be around.” Not many seventy-year-olds could be called fun. “My point being that I don’t believe I would have those feelings if you weren’t The One.”
“I like this theory.” He took a step closer still. “I think we need to test it to see if the feelings still hold.”
He leaned into her. She met him halfway. More than halfway. His hand slid around the back of her neck and held her close when their lips met. Warm hands. Warm lips. Heat ran through her.
Not a hot flash. She giggled.
Ezekiel leaned back. His eyebrows tented. “I know I’m out of practice. Are my kisses that funny?”
“Nee, I’m light-headed.” Downright woozy.
Ezekiel snorted. “I make you light-headed?”
“Lack of oxygen.”
He laughed and pulled her back to him. His lips covered hers. They trailed across her cheeks to her neck, touched her nose and her forehead. Soft, glancing kisses. He leaned his forehead against hers and they breathed together. His warm breath touched her face. He smelled of soap and spearmint toothpaste. The same light breathlessness filled the air.
His beard tickled her cheek when he talked. “Did you ever think you’d feel this way again?”
“Never.”
“We’re not teenagers.”
“Nee, but we know what we’ve been missing.”
“I thought it was companionship.”
“Is that not what this is?” His lips on hers muffled her response. His arms cradled her close. The kiss ended and she laid her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. Strong and healthy.
For now.
For how long?
He surely thought the same thing. His chest expanded against her cheek as he inhaled and then exhaled. “I know what you mean, though. This. . . . what we’re doing here clouds our thoughts.”
“You want a fraa to work with you in the restaurant.”
“I do. The Purple Martin Café is more than a restaurant to me.”
“You named it for Lucy’s favorite bird.”
“It kept me going. It kept my whole family going.”
“I had kinner to raise and a farm and then Amish Treasures. Imaginary characters kept me company most nights.”
“We had a season in our lives.” Ezekiel put his arm around her shoulders. “Now the seasons are changing.”
“I don’t know if I can change that fast.”
“It was a thought, that’s all.”
“It is it a onetime offer?”
“It’s a standing offer.”
Mary Katherine closed her eyes and listened to the night sounds. Autumn felt good after the heavy heat of summer. Change was good. Her throat ached with sudden tears. She swallowed against them. “Poor Dottie. She still has so far to go.”
“She has you to help her.” He didn’t question her train of thought. “You’re a gut friend.”
“She says she’s going to Dallas.”
“Did you tell her you wanted her to stay?”
“That would be selfish of me. If she wants to be with her kinner, she should.”
“It’s hard to know what you want in the aftermath of a loss so sudden.” The voice of experience. “You’ve had time to figure out what you want. If you’d rather work at the Combination Store or open a bookstore or just write stories, you should.”
The church elders and her children thought otherwise. “Speaking of the Combination Store, I have to open tomorrow. Jennie’s taking a hot lunch to the school and Laura is helping Iris teach a midwifery class. She can’t get there until ten.”
Without a word Ezekiel helped her into the buggy and hauled himself up on the driver’s side. His horse nickered and headed toward the road with no encouragement. Likely he, too, was tired.
Old people weren’t used to staying up late.
Or being in love.
At the door Ezekiel planted a chaste kiss on her cheek and backed away. He clomped down the steps and across the yard as if a pack of wild boars chased him.
“Ezekiel.”
He raised his hand and waved. Then he left.
“Be that way.” He had his dream. She had hers. One of them would have to budge. Gott, does it have to be me?
Was she so selfish as to ask Ezekiel to do what she wouldn’t?
She sighed, then closed the door and went to bed.
But not to sleep.
TWENTY-FIVE
Ezekiel’s b
ack, hips, and legs ached. Otherwise, he was as giddy as a teenager on his rumspringa and ready to go another round. The old man part of him tutted and shook his head. Mary Katherine wanted change, but not too much change. She liked his kisses, but not his plan for the future. He wanted change, but not too much change. He liked her kisses, but not her plan for the future. Stalemate.
He stifled a frustrated groan and tugged the door open. Exaggerated silence greeted him. The silliness distinctly like raging teenage-boy hormones disappeared, replaced by sudden uneasiness. He paused. No doggie snuffles and barks greeted him. No clickety-clack of doggie nails on the wood floor. No Sunny. It had only been three weeks and he already expected to be greeted at the door by a wandering mutt. And Burke, the wandering man, had a presence too. A kind of sharing of space that left the scent of restaurant and sweat. He inhaled. No stinky dog smells and no man smells.
Ezekiel sighed and started into the living room. He immediately stumbled over something. Arms flailing, he teetered, then fell. Rubbing his elbow and then his knee, he sat up and took stock. Nothing broken. He stuck his hand out and encountered solid wood, rungs. He followed the outlines. An overturned chair. He hadn’t left it that way. Had Burke? “Burke, are you here?”
His voice petered out in the darkness.
When his eyes had adjusted and he could see shapes, he crawled over to the table and stood. He lit the lantern and held it up. The smell of kerosene and phosphorus, normally so homey, made his stomach pitch. That and the destruction that surrounded him. The other chairs around the table were overturned. His cookbooks were strewn across the living room floor.
Broken pieces of cups, plates, and glasses decorated the cabinets and the kitchen linoleum.
An intruder had soiled his small space. Anger skewered him. He sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. Material possessions weren’t worthy of rage. The anger drained away.
Burke couldn’t have done this. He wouldn’t.
Where was he? He should be home by now. “Burke, are you here?”
Silence.
Ezekiel set a chair upright and used it to pull himself up. He tottered down the hall to the second bedroom. The bed was neatly made. Clothes hung on the hooks. But no Burke and no dog.