Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  Jennie sucked in air. To move on, to have a life to lay aside her fear and anxiety, she had to tear the bandage from the wound and let it heal in the light of day. “What happened to Atlee?”

  “Nothing.” Olive ripped the husk from the corn cob. Corn silk flew. “That’s what makes it so hard to understand. We raised him exactly as we did our other boys. But he turned out different.”

  “Something must’ve happened to him to become so hard, so bitter, so—”

  “Mean?” Olive dumped the husks in a paper sack on the floor. She seemed oblivious to the tears that ran down her wrinkled cheeks. “I’ve gone over it a million times in my mind. I can’t find anything that made him mad or hurt or angry. Believe me, I’ve searched my soul over and over again, longing to find a reason, if only to ease my own sense of guilt at having brought such a mean man into this world.”

  “He wasn’t always mean.” Jennie no longer pretended to work on the corn. Her hands sank into her lap. “He took me for buggy rides. We went to the singings. We took walks and talked. I never saw a glimpse of that ugliness before we married.”

  “Because he wanted something from you that he couldn’t get any other way.” Olive raised her head. Her gaze locked with Jennie’s. Her nose began to run. She wiped at it with her sleeve. “He knew how to manipulate. He knew how to hide the darkness that lurked in his heart. I saw him with the other kinner. Cajoling them into doing things they knew they shouldn’t and then laughing when they earned a trip to the woodshed.”

  “I thought he loved me.”

  “I don’t think he was capable of loving.” Olive’s voice cracked. “A man who loves wouldn’t intentionally hurt the person he loves.”

  “He loved the kinner. He saw disciplining them as a way of showing it.”

  “As something he made, he owned, maybe.” Shame radiated in the way Olive hunched her shoulders. “It breaks my heart to speak of my own suh this way, but you have to know it was nothing you did. He was the bad apple in the barrel, not you. They are scarce—thanks be to Gott—in a Plain community. You can try again. It wasn’t your fault.”

  No, it wasn’t. The burden on Jennie’s shoulders rolled away, but not the sadness. She would always carry it with her. She was sad for herself, but sadder for this mother who had raised a son so hard to love. She was sad for a man who had such ugliness inside him and not the strength to fight it or overcome it. Not even the desire to try.

  “It wasn’t your fault, either.”

  “I know.” Olive rubbed the last remaining corn silk from the ear and laid it, its kernels, shiny and tender, on the table. “It’s taken a lot of time to accept it. I’m sorry we didn’t help you more. We want to help you now. You and the kinner. Any way we can.”

  “Danki for telling me.” Jennie stood and gathered her mother-in-law in one quick squeeze. “I know it pained you something awful. You did the best you could for him.”

  Olive managed a tremulous smile as she looked up at Jennie. “Is it true about Leo?”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The urgent beep-beep of a horn wafted through the workshop’s open door. Leo straightened. The sandpaper in his hand dropped to the floor, landing in a cushion of sawdust and wood scraps. He stooped and scooped it up again. With a soft growl deep in his throat, Beau uncurled from his spot in the shop’s doorway and disappeared into the yard. Customers usually got out of their cars and came inside. It didn’t seem very neighborly to honk and expect him to come running. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  What he had thought was a new beginning in the store, a new way to market his pieces, would soon dry up. He would have to figure this out on his own. Make his own way. Something he knew how to do. Mind over matter. “Sounds like we have company.”

  “Hallelujah.” Matthew backed away from the dresser drawer he’d been sanding for the last two hours. “I’ll go see who it is.”

  “You just keep working. I’ll go.” Leo had no intention of letting the boy off the hook. He’d rousted him from bed at dawn, watched him make sausage and eggs for breakfast, and set him to work as soon as the last dish had been washed. This had become their routine since the night he ran off to visit the tavern. “When you’re done with that drawer, start on the bottom one.”

  Rubbing red-rimmed eyes, Matthew went back to work without replying. At least he’d learned not to argue. That was progress. Leo dusted his hands on his pants and strode out into the summer heat. The midday sun beat on his face. He put his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes. Beau stood, tail wagging furiously, in front Todd’s black SUV.

  The window rolled down and the vet stuck his head out. “Hey, I was out driving around and thought I’d come by to see how Red is doing.”

  “He’s much better.” Leo wiped sweat from his eyes with his sleeve. “Want to come in and say hi to him? He likes a visitor now and then.”

  “Sure, but first I have something to show you.” Todd rolled down the back windows with the touch of a button, shoved open his door, and hopped out. “Take a look.”

  His grin stretching so wide it must’ve hurt his face, he opened the back door. Leo peeked inside.

  Matching car seats faced the back of the SUV. They held tiny mounds of sleeping baby. Two bite-size humans dressed in pink Onesies and little pink knitted booties. Bits of fluffy blonde down kept them from being completely bald. One stretched, and her tiny fists batted air, then subsided.

  “They’re here.” Leo didn’t know what else to say. Babies baffled him. They might even scare him. They were so tiny and defenseless. So needy. They made his heart contract and then swell with the need to do something, anything, to make sure they were never hurt. Even when they weren’t his own. “I mean they’re born.”

  The English likely did a lot of back slapping and congratulating. It wasn’t the Plain way, certainly wasn’t Leo’s way, but the blissful look on his friend’s face deserved a response. “You’re blessed.”

  “I am. They came ten days ago. Three weeks early, but healthy as can be. Five pounds, more or less, apiece.” Todd rubbed the stubble on his chin. Dark bags hung under his red eyes. “Now we’re both sleep deprived, exhausted, and out of our minds with happiness.” He pointed at the far car seat. “That’s Kaitlin. This little wiggle worm is Katherine.”

  The wiggle worm chose that moment to open her eyes, open her mouth wide, and wail.

  “No, no, you’ll wake sissy.” Panic in his eyes, Todd unstrapped the baby with nimble fingers and lifted her from the car seat. “I just got them to sleep.”

  “Why did you bring them here?”

  “Actually I was just out driving them around.” Todd’s confession came with a rueful laugh. “I couldn’t get them to sleep, and Samantha is so worn out from getting up every two hours at night to feed them, I wanted to give her a break. They fall asleep in the car. Both at the same time. It feels like a miracle. I remembered that you hadn’t seen them yet so I came this way. Your rocking chair is getting a lot of use these days.”

  “It’s your rocking chair.”

  Todd rocked the baby in his arms for a second, then held her out. “Want to hold her?”

  “Nee.” Both hands up, Leo stumbled back a step. “I’ll break her.”

  “Don’t drop her and you’ll be fine.” He sounded a little desperate. “Babies don’t break that easy.”

  Leo couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a baby that small and helpless, but Todd seemed to need his help. “You sure I won’t scare her?”

  “She’ll love you.”

  Todd settled the baby in Leo’s arms. She looked even tinier against his enormous biceps. “Hello, bopli.”

  She stared up at him, her expression startled. She might look a bit like Todd, but more like Samantha. She smelled like spit-up, baby soap, and wet diaper.

  “Look at you. You’re a natural.” Todd backed up and sank onto his SUV’s front seat. He sighed. “Feel free to walk around with her. Sometimes that puts her to sleep too.”

  N
ee, Leo wouldn’t go too far in case she changed her mind about him. She gurgled. “I think she has the hiccups.”

  “That happens.”

  Her skinny, wrinkled legs and arms flailed. More hiccups. She was sweet and lighter than a splinter of wood in his arms. She stared up at him. He stared back. With her birth and that of her sister, everything in Todd and Samantha’s life had changed. They were parents. They were a family. Nothing would ever be the same again. Leo tried to imagine a smidgeon of how that must feel.

  Like the best feeling in the world and the worst, most horrible fearful feeling all wrapped up together. He’d like to find out.

  Katherine began to fuss. The fuss grew in volume to a wail. “Hush, hush, you’re all right, hush.” He tried rocking her the way Todd had. More fussing. “Shhh, shhhhh.”

  The wailing reached a crescendo. Kaitlin opened her eyes and joined her sister in a crying chorus.

  “Welcome to my world.” Todd trotted around to the other side of the car and extracted the baby from her seat. Her sobs subsided to a low roar.

  “Well, look at you.” Matthew stood in the doorway. He crossed his arms and leaned against the frame. “Boplin look fine on you.”

  Leo was tempted to send him back to his sanding. Instead, he smiled. “I think so. You want to hold her?”

  “I have six younger bruders and schweschders. I’ve done my share.”

  “So how do you get them to stop crying?” Todd put twin number two on his shoulder and patted her back. He didn’t seem to see any irony in asking a young boy the question. “What’s the secret?”

  Matthew shrugged. “There’s no secret. My mudder always checked the diaper first, then fed the bopli, then burped him, then put him to bed.”

  “What if he—or she—still cries?”

  “Sometimes they need a little rocking. Sometimes they just need to get over it.”

  Fourteen and an expert. Matthew knew more about babies than Todd and Leo put together. “You’ll make a good daed someday.”

  Matthew’s face reddened. He ducked his head. “I better get back to work.”

  “Sure you don’t want to hold her?” Leo held out his crying baby. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  “I reckon you need the practice.” The boy chuckled as he turned toward the shop. “Mudder’s not too old for boplin, but you better hurry. She isn’t getting any younger.”

  After a minute, Leo remembered to close his mouth. He shifted Katherine to his shoulder and began to pat. From the mouth of a boy who didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground. Matthew knew better than Leo did what Leo wanted and needed. He knew what it would take for Leo to go after it. “I think she needs a diaper change.”

  Todd sighed. “So does this one. All the time. Like I said, welcome to my world.”

  It was a world Leo wanted. Plain men didn’t change a lot of diapers, but Leo was willing to do what it took to have what Todd had. “You think they might like to say hey to Red too?”

  Todd’s look of comic despair blossomed to a smile. “They’re my kids. They’re gonna love animals, especially horses.”

  “Change the diapers and we’ll go introduce them. Might as well get them started on the right foot.” Leo handed the baby back to her father. Todd shifted baby number one and took number two like he was already a pro at juggling twins. “It couldn’t hurt for me to pick up a tip or two on how to do it.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Todd nestled Kaitlin in her car seat and went to work on Katherine’s diaper in the front seat. “Spill the beans, buddy!”

  Leo refused to say a word—not yet.

  He needed get himself in order before he could expect someone else to rely on him. Trust him. Love him. If he could do it, so could Jennie. With time. He would give her the gift of time and pray that God sent a certain Mennonite man far, far away. Soon.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Sometimes God used a frying pan upside the head to get a man’s attention. Sometimes He used a butterfly fluttering in the distance. Leo stared at the invoice in his hand, aware of an unfamiliar feeling of optimism that made his muscles hum with anticipation of work to be done. The early morning sun beating down on his shoulders, he stood in the dirt and gravel drive that separated his shop from the house and watched the new customer’s dusty red pickup truck drive away.

  Todd had something to do with this, Leo could be sure of that. The vet might be up to his ears in dirty diapers, but he somehow found the time to send work Leo’s way after his visit with the twins earlier in the week. A job for an English family from Trenton included a dining room set with a table, six chairs, and an elaborate hutch. The deposit alone was enough to buy a new serviceable horse. Sweet Red would enjoy the leisurely pace of early retirement. And the proceeds from the finished furniture set would allow Leo to pay off the buggy he and Mary Katherine had given Jennie.

  He could do this. He could have his own business, run his own shop, and deal with the customers. One step at a time. For himself. And for Jennie.

  I get it, Gott. Through bad and gut, You are here.

  Leo straightened his hat and strode to the open shop door. He stuck his head inside. “Let’s go.”

  Matthew looked up from the dresser drawer he’d been sanding for the last hour. A look of relief on his sweaty face, he dropped the sandpaper on the workbench. “Where’re we going?”

  “To see a man about a horse.”

  Forty-five minutes later they parked the buggy next to dozens more lined up in a field next to Jonas Miller’s barn. It was the second day of a two-day consignment auction with the big items such as carriages, buggies, and more than seventy-five horses on the auction block, according to the sales bill he’d picked up at the hardware store the previous day. Trucks, cars, and horse trailers of all makes, models, and colors packed the field on the other side. Bidding would be competitive, as usual.

  Matthew at his heels, Leo threaded his way through trailers loaded with tack and saddles. Long before they arrived at the corral, he could hear the auctioneer at work, his raspy voice vibrating with obvious glee as the bids for what he described as a beautiful chestnut American Saddlebred grew. Together they squeezed into a space between a farmer in gray overalls and a John Deere hat and a cluster of Plain men from Seymour. Raymond Stultz’s son, Josiah, put the horse through his paces in the center of the corral with a steady hand and quick feet.

  “He looks gut.” The animation in Matthew’s voice surprised Leo. Finally, something that excited the boy. “Gut proportion. Strong.”

  “Jah, he’ll go high.” Leo craned his head and scanned the crowd. It would be unlike his cousins to miss an auction involving horses. Both Aidan and Timothy were good judges of horseflesh, and horse auctions served as social events for the men. “Too high for me.”

  Aidan stood at the far corner of the fence, but his brother Henry, not Timothy, stood next to him, an older, shorter version of the other two men. Aidan turned just as Leo spotted him and waved. He grinned and headed their direction.

  “I wondered if you would be here.” Aidan slapped Matthew on the back. “Are you helping my cousin find a decent horse?”

  His face red, Matthew nodded. “Are you buying too?”

  “Nee, but Henry is.”

  “We’ll see.” Henry shrugged. “One of my Percherons is getting too old to pull a plow, but the nags they’re selling today don’t look much better.”

  “Really?” Straining to see over a sea of straw hats with black bands, Leo pulled his own hat down to shade his eyes from the sun and tried to tame his natural-born affinity for almost all animals on four legs. “You didn’t see anything you liked for pulling buggies?”

  They discussed the pros and cons of half a dozen possibilities before Aidan suggested they head inside to the barn and get a closer look at the best of the lot before it was too late.

  As they zigzagged around farmers mixed with cowboys in blue jeans and boots and then two-stepped to avoid large piles of stea
ming horse droppings at every turn, Leo studied Matthew. His color was high, his smile as wide as Leo had ever seen. “You really like horses, don’t you?”

  “Lot more than I like furniture. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Leo winked at Aidan, who grinned back. “Ever consider getting into the horseshoeing business?”

  Matthew halted. “Hey, that’s an idea.”

  “You’re blocking traffic.” Leo gave him a gentle shove. They started walking again. “I’ll talk to Zeke to see if he’s in the market for a helper.”

  Zeke Hostetler had been one of the gang when Leo and Aidan were kids. Then he grew up, met an English girl, fell in love, and left the faith. Many of the Plain community used his blacksmithing services, even if his family wasn’t allowed to visit with him. Finding Matthew a vocation that would suit his temperament and be to his liking would make Jennie happy. Which would make Leo happy.

  Thinking of Zeke naturally made Leo think of the other members of their once tight-knit group, Aidan’s youngest brother. “Have you heard from Paul lately?”

  “Got a letter last week.” Aidan sidestepped a plastic water bottle someone had thrown on the ground. He stooped, picked it up, and tossed it into a rusted trash can. “He says he’s doing okay in Sugar Creek working with Onkel Luke. He also says you’re welcome.”

  Leo chuckled. Paul was a quiet man, but he did have a sense of humor. “We could’ve worked together. The two of us could’ve had a shop.”

  “Paul is about as inclined to work with others as you are.” Aidan slapped at a huge fly that buzzed his head. “And he talks about as much as you do. Who would take orders from the customers?”

  Paul’s carpenter skills were strong. Leo would’ve been happy to work with him. Instead, his cousin had struck out for Ohio the previous year for a fresh start. Aidan had a point about the talking, though.