by Leslie Gould
By the time I finished, including grabbing the canopy I used on market days from the greenhouse, I was fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I went back in the house, to the sewing room, and retrieved the box of Dat’s shirts, along with a diamond pattern, a pencil, and the scissors. I’d have plenty of time to get started on the quilt for Bea while we were camping.
Chapter
11
I knew Mamm wouldn’t want any displays of emotion in front of the others when we said good-bye, and Beatrice must have sensed it too. Love, however, expected a hug, which I gave her. But then she tried to follow Beatrice and me into the van. Mamm called her back and held her collar. The dog whined as we waved from our seats, but then Pete slammed the door shut and both Mamm and Love stood looking forlorn as the driver pulled around the driveway. Edna and Ivan would arrive any time to spend the next few days.
Mervin and Martin sat in the very back, Pete sat in the front passenger seat, and Cate sat on the first bench, leaving the middle one for us. “Where’s Ben?” I asked.
“We’re going to pick him up,” Mervin said. “At his folks’ place.”
“Oh.” That hadn’t been part of the plan.
“Along with Robbie,” Cate added.
I couldn’t help the surprise in my voice. “What?”
Mervin began to laugh.
“Jah,” Cate said. “I’m afraid it’s true. Betsy hasn’t been feeling well. Nan is going to watch the baby, but with everything she still needs to do for the wedding, I said we’d take Robbie for the week.”
“What about Betsy’s mother-in-law?”
“She’s off taking care of her aunt.”
“Oh dear,” I said, forming a long mental list of other people I thought could take care of Robbie, including Addie or her Mamm, but I knew it wasn’t my business.
Pete directed the driver to the crossroads where we were to wait for Hannah and Leon. And we did wait . . . and wait. I called Owen’s business phone and left a message.
Fifteen minutes later Owen returned the call, saying Hannah and Leon would be on their way soon. “They’ve had some problems getting the horses loaded,” he explained.
I stifled a groan. Children and horses. What else could go wrong?
“Let’s go pick up Robbie and Ben and then come back to meet them,” Cate suggested. Betsy and Levi lived with his parents, along with Ben.
By the time we reached the Rupp place, we were all eager to get out. “Come inside,” Cate said to Beatrice and me, while the boys greeted Ben. He’d grown taller since I’d seen him last and much more handsome. His hair, always a golden brown, had lightened in the sun and had more of a curl to it than I remembered. He carried a backpack in one hand and a Frisbee in the other that he lobbed off toward the field. Martin went tearing after it, while Ben turned his head toward Beatrice. She, however, hurried away from him, following Cate to the kitchen door.
As Cate pushed it open, she called out, “We’re here.”
No one answered.
Beatrice and I followed Cate into an enclosed porch.
“Betsy,” Cate said.
We walked into a small kitchen with just one counter. Dishes filled the sink, and a greasy frying pan sat on the back burner.
Cate repeated her sister’s name, but this time with more urgency. “Betsy!”
“Back here,” came her reply.
Robbie came running through the dining room, wearing only a cloth diaper. “Aenti!” he squealed. His chubby arms twirled around his head of curly dark hair, and his brown eyes shone with mischief.
“Come back here!” Betsy shouted, appearing with a pair of rubber pants in one hand and the little boy’s clothes in the other. Poor Betsy. She’d been so thin before becoming a mother. She definitely hadn’t lost her weight since the last baby had been born.
Cate scooped her nephew up and headed toward her sister, taking the rubber pants and clothes. “I’ll do it,” she said.
“Denki,” Betsy muttered. “The little trickster got away from me again.” She placed a hand on the small of her back. The motion made her midsection appear bigger . . . Or maybe it was that big. My face grew warm. If Betsy was expecting again, enough to show so much, that meant she’d soon have three children. . . . Oh, goodness. Robbie wasn’t quite two. The baby wasn’t a year.
“Did Nan already pick up Tamara?” Cate had Robbie standing on the floor, stepping into the rubber pants.
“Jah,” Betsy said. “She and Dat came over earlier.”
“So you’ll rest the whole time we’re gone?” Cate slipped the shirt onto Robbie, fastening it quickly, and then the pants.
Betsy nodded. “The doctor said that will help get my blood pressure down. Otherwise he’s going to put me on bed rest. Can you imagine? For the next few weeks?”
I couldn’t imagine any of it. Especially not three babies in two years.
Cate let go of Robbie, and he darted toward the back door. “Not yet,” she said. “Go get your bag.”
He grinned, spun around, and headed for the back bedroom.
“It’s not packed,” Betsy said. “I’ll go do it.”
“I’ll do your dishes,” Cate said.
“Denki.” Betsy turned to follow her son.
“We’ll help tidy up,” I said, glancing around. It looked as if a twister had touched down in the living room. A stack of folded diapers had fallen off the couch. A basket of laundry sat in the middle of the room, a toy wagon, probably made by Joseph Koller, was perched on its side next to it, a stack of newspapers lay scattered around a chair, and a baby doll was wedged underneath the end table.
It wasn’t like the Betsy I had known to be so sloppy.
After I’d folded the clothes and straightened the diapers, I headed down the hall with both in the basket, the doll tucked under one arm, and the wagon under the other.
“Betsy?”
“In here,” she said.
I stepped into a room with a double bed, a crib, and a bassinette. Stacks of diapers lined the bureau. The bed was made, a beautiful double ring quilt over the top, but that seemed to be all that was in order in the room.
Betsy was filling a bag with diapers, while Robbie sat on the bed, watching her. “Bye-bye,” he said. “With Aenti Cate.”
“Jah,” I said. “And lots of others.”
“Oh?” Then he smiled. “Onkel Ben too!”
I nodded as I put the basket on the bed and then the diapers on the dresser.
“You’ll need to obey everyone,” Betsy said to him. “Including Molly.”
He nodded, peeking out from under the curls on his forehead. I had to admit he was cute, more so than most little kids anyway.
He lunged at me as if he wanted me to pick him up. I put out my arms, but then he drew back, laughing, and scooted to the other end of the bed.
I’d never admitted it to anyone, but I was uncomfortable around kids. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have children someday—I did.
And it wasn’t that I was afraid of them, the way I was with horses. It was just that I didn’t know what to do with them.
I kept it a secret, which wasn’t hard considering I was hardly ever around them, and hoped for the best once I had children of my own. I’d heard women say “it was different” when they were your own. I could only hope it was true. I was so capable at everything else—other than horses—no one seemed to notice I avoided children. But I did.
As Robbie sat giggling at me, I waved at him. Again he came toward me as if he wanted me to pick him up and then darted away a second time, laughing.
Betsy turned her head. “Stop that, Robbie.”
He did stop giggling, but then he grinned at me, his impish eyes lighting up. I waved again and then retreated to the living room to finish cleaning, something I felt competent to do.
By the time we finally left, after Betsy and Levi had both hugged Robbie, seeming sad to see him go, I wished we’d told Hannah and Leon to meet us at the Rupp place. They’d probably been waiting
at the crossroads for nearly an hour.
But when we returned they still weren’t there.
We waited and waited until my phone rang. It was Hannah. They’d gone to our farm when we hadn’t been at the crossroads, thinking they’d misunderstood the plan. “Come back here,” I said. “We’ll wait.”
Ten minutes later, they finally arrived. But by then everyone was hungry for lunch, so we pulled out the sandwiches and ate, sitting on the bumpers of the van, pickup, and trailer.
Leon, who wore his cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and jeans, sat on one side of me, and Hannah sat on the other, on the front of the pickup. They laughed about the mix-up. I wished I could share their humor. Cate faced us, sitting on the back bumper of the van. She kept Robbie with her as they ate, on the side closest to the field. Hannah and Leon chatted with the little boy, asking about what he wanted to do while we were camping.
“Fishing!” he said.
“Did anyone bring poles?” I asked.
“We did,” Martin answered.
Hannah asked Robbie about his baby sister.
“I wuv her,” the little boy said.
Robbie jumped toward me, grinning again, but then he veered off toward Hannah. She scooped him up in her arms.
Leon got up and tousled Robbie’s hair. “You’re adorable.”
I wished I felt the way toward him that Hannah and Leon obviously did. But I didn’t. I couldn’t even fake it.
Beatrice’s shrill voice interrupted my thoughts. “Ben Rupp, you’ll be sorry.”
Ben flashed her an impish grin and jogged backward, away from her, toward Mervin and Martin. Beatrice stepped forward, but then she stopped and stared at Leon as he made over the baby.
“We should get on the road,” I said, hoping to stop my sister from any further theatrics. “We don’t want to be setting up camp in the dark.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Hannah said. “Isn’t the campsite only three hours from here?”
“Jah,” I said. “But we left two hours ago and have only made it five miles. At this rate, we’ll get there about the time we have to leave.”
As it turned out, I did exaggerate—but just a little.
Traveling with twelve people meant lots of restroom stops. And traveling with a horse trailer added two flat-tire stops. There was a spare in the trailer, so the first flat worked out just fine, except that the horses had to be taken out of the trailer. But the spare going flat meant there was no spare available. Leon said he would stay with the horses while the rest of us went to the next town to get the tire fixed. The men took the spare tire off too—it only made sense to get both tires fixed.
At the last minute I slipped out of the van, saying I would stay with Leon.
I didn’t dare look back to see how Mervin responded, but Beatrice said, “Oh, brother. How about if I stay too?”
“There’s no need,” I said sweetly, as I walked away from the van.
Not surprisingly, Cate sent Pete to chaperone us. That was fine. Actually, out of anyone I preferred him, or Cate.
Soon after the van left, a car stopped and a middle-aged man rolled down his window, asking if we needed help. Pete stepped forward, thanked him, and sent him on his way.
Leon said he was going to take the horses for a walk and asked if I wanted to help.
I didn’t—but of course I didn’t say that, because regardless of the horses, I wanted to be with him. Lightning snickered and stomped her foot. Storm stepped forward.
“We can walk them up that side road a ways,” he said.
“They seem unsettled.”
He grinned, handing me Lightning’s lead. “They’ll behave, I promise.”
The horse nudged me with her head. “Don’t,” I said.
She did it again.
I stepped back.
“Be firm with her,” Leon said.
She butted up against me.
I skittered away. The only thing I liked about her, I was embarrassed to admit, was that she was the same color as Love.
“Don’t let Lightning think you’re afraid,” Leon said.
Pete came around the side of the trailer. “Going for a walk?”
Leon nodded. “Want to come along?”
“I’ll wait with the truck,” Pete said. “Just in case anyone else stops to help.”
Lightning butted me again. Pete smiled. I shot him a pleading look.
“Don’t look at me,” he said, tugging on his beard. “If it was a mule or a workhorse, I’d know what to do. But I don’t know much about these fancy horses.”
Leon chuckled. “These two aren’t very fancy—more like unrefined.”
“Well, have fun,” Pete said, stepping onto the trailer ramp and sprawling out on it, his hands under his neck. “I’ll just sunbathe for a while.”
“Don’t fry yourself,” Leon said.
“Don’t be long,” Pete said. “The others should be back soon.”
I doubted it, the way the day was going. At least I was with Leon. If only two horses weren’t along with us.
I tried with Lightning, but she got the best of me, over and over, dragging me down to the ditch, then trying to run me into a tree. We finally made it to the side road, only to have Lightning take off ahead of me, dragging me along.
It was only Leon’s yelling that stopped her. Even though the day was relatively mild, I began to sweat. Lightning waited for Leon to step ahead with Storm, and then she began nipping at my backside again. I swatted at her. She nipped again.
I ran ahead, nearly dropping the lead.
Leon turned around as Lightning went down on her front hooves.
“How about if we trade?” Leon asked.
I sized up Storm, who turned his head back toward me and bobbed it up and down. Surely he wasn’t indicating his consent.
I handed Leon the lead for Lightning and then took Storm’s. He immediately nudged me, hard.
“What’s with these horses?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound as stressed as I felt.
Leon pursed his lips together. “Just keep going. He’ll get the hang of it.”
I started walking. The horse nudged me again.
Leon smiled.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to.” He grinned. Even in my exasperation, my knees weakened.
But then the horse whopped my shoulder with his head. Startled, I dropped the lead. Storm hesitated for a split second and then took off at a gallop.
Without a word, Leon swung onto Lightning, bareback, his hands digging into the horse’s mane, and took off after the gelding.
Pete whooped from the horse trailer ramp, standing up and waving his hat. I frowned, not wanting him to encourage Storm.
A cloud of dust blew up behind Lightning. Leon seemed to be bouncing around quite a bit on the back of the horse, but they were definitely gaining on Storm. Not knowing what else to do, I began jogging after them, feeling horrible for what I’d done.
A half hour later, with Leon leading both horses, we returned to the trailer just as the van stopped behind it. The pickup driver jumped out and opened the side door, grabbing both tires.
Cate held up an ice cream cone. “Sorry, we didn’t get you guys any. We knew they’d melt.” She turned to Robbie and gave him another bite.
“Ahh,” Pete said, jumping down off the ramp and running over to the van, his mouth wide open. Cate smirked and held the cone up for him.
I shuddered at the thought of eating off the same cone as a two-year-old.
Pete swallowed the ice cream and said, “Yum, yum,” making Robbie laugh, before hurrying to the truck driver’s side, taking one of the tires from him.
Leon handed the leads to me. “I need to help with the tires.”
I held up both hands. “Not a good idea.”
“Come on, Molly,” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want us to waste more time because a horse got away from me again.”
He turned back toward the v
an. “Hannah,” he called out, “come give me a hand, would you?”
Robbie squealed—Hannah must have tickled him on the way out—and then she appeared with an ice cream cone in her hand. “What do you need?”
“Take the horses, please. Lead them away from the trailer.”
She sashayed on over, her hips swaying a little bit. Mervin and Martin followed her out of the van and over to the trailer, as she took Storm’s lead from Leon. He extended Lightning’s lead to her too. She held up her strawberry ice cream cone and nodded at me. Leon shook his head.
An amused look crossed Hannah’s face as she handed me her cone. She took the second lead and walked along the ditch side of the trailer and pickup. I followed, her ice cream dripping on my hand. I licked it, enjoying the taste of fresh berries.
She kept going, stopping about fifty feet up the road. When I reached her, Storm nuzzled her neck.
“Stop it,” she said. And the horse did.
She transferred Lightning’s lead to the same hand that was holding Storm’s and reached for her ice cream cone. I handed it to her.
“How are things going with Leon?” She licked the melting ice cream.
“Good.” Determined to change the subject, I asked, “How are things going with Mervin?”
She rolled her eyes. “At least Robbie likes me.” She took another lick.
“We’re really running late,” I said.
She shrugged. “We’ll get there when we get there.”
I stepped closer to the road so I could get a view of the trailer. Leon positioned the tire while Pete held the iron. Mervin and Martin stood behind them while the two drivers leaned against the van.
I took a deep breath. If the drivers, who would be late getting back to Lancaster, weren’t upset, I decided I shouldn’t be either. All we had to do was set up camp.
In no time the tire was on, the spare stored, and the vehicles loaded and on their way again. In the van, Cate wiped Robbie’s hands with a wet washcloth she pulled out of a plastic bag, and then he fell asleep. Pretty soon Cate’s head rested against the seat and I assumed she’d fallen asleep too. Beatrice wiggled around as if trying to eke out more space for herself, at my expense. I sat straight, mentally going through my plans for when we got to camp.