by Beth Wiseman
“What’s going on in here?” The stranger’s voice was gruff. He held up his first finger, then poked Abe in the chest. “I don’t know what you’re doing down here, but I’m sure I heard that girl say no.” He glanced at Mary Carol. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but her feet were rooted to the floor. The man took a step back as he eyed them both. His left eye blinked randomly. “Sit down. Both of you.” The man pointed to the couch as he backed into the recliner by the TV tray.
Abe cleared his throat. “We’re sorry, sir. We didn’t know anyone lived here. We’ll go.”
Before Abe even had time to take a step, the man pointed to the couch. “Sit.”
Mary Carol glanced toward the door, and she hoped Abe would grab her hand so they could make a run for it. But instead, he walked to the couch and sat down, and once Mary Carol found her feet, she followed. Abe didn’t even realize he’d sat down on his straw hat.
The man rubbed his chin, squinting again. “Did you know that in sixteenth-century Naples, people were hung for kissing? I’m going to guess you probably didn’t.”
Mary Carol looked to Abe, whose eyes were wide as he shook his head. “No, sir. I didn’t know that.” His voice trembled when he went on. “Please don’t kill us.”
“Wait here.” The man abruptly rose from the chair and limped toward the kitchen. Mary Carol pictured him returning with a gun. But before he’d even gotten out of the living room, he turned around to face them. “I have a soda every four hours. I do this because I enjoy it. And because I can.” He paused and studied them for a few seconds. “Wait right there.”
“Let’s go,” Mary Carol said the moment he was out of sight. She tugged on the sleeve of Abe’s black coat.
“What if he comes after us? What if he has a gun or something?” Abe looked at Mary Carol, then toward the kitchen as the man walked back into the living room carrying three cans of Coke.
“I have over a hundred guns, but I’m not planning to shoot anyone.” His teeth were crooked when he smiled. “Not today anyway.” He handed a soda to each of them. “Who are you people?”
Mary Carol swallowed the lump in her throat. “That’s Abe Fisher. I’m Mary Carol Zook.” She turned to Abe, but she wasn’t sure he was breathing.
The man popped the top on his soda and took a long swig.
Mary Carol opened her cola too. Despite the circumstances, the Coke was a treat. Her mother never bought sodas. She took a sip and swallowed, enjoying the tingle from all the bubbles.
“Are you any relation to Katherine Zook?” The man shivered as he talked, but every few seconds he took another gulp of Coke.
Mary Carol nodded. “Ya. I’m her daughter.”
“Ah, yes.” He pointed a finger at her. “I thought you looked familiar, but sometimes you all look the same in those clothes.”
Mary Carol reached for the string on her kapp and twirled it in her fingers. Then she glanced at Abe before looking back at the man. “Do we know each other?”
“No.” He finished the soda, crushed the can, and put it next to the others on the tray. He pointed a finger at Abe. “The next time this girl tells you no, what will you do?”
Abe sat taller. “I-I will listen to-to her.”
Mary Carol hung her head as she felt her cheeks heat up. When she looked up, she saw the man’s teeth chattering. She picked up the brown blanket from where it had fallen on the floor and offered it to him.
“Danki.” He quickly covered himself with it, and she returned to the couch.
“Do you speak Pennsylvania Deitsch?” She took a sip of her cola. Abe hadn’t opened his.
“A little. My name is Paul, by the way.” He slapped himself upside the head and rolled his eyes. “I mean James. My name is James. And I don’t live here. I’m just borrowing the place, if you know what I mean. Kinda like the two of you, I guess.” His left eye started to twitter again. “So tell me about your life.”
Mary Carol glanced at Abe and waited for him to go first. “I-I am the son of John and Elizabeth Fisher. We are—”
James grunted loudly. “Not you. Her.” He pointed to Mary Carol. “I want to know about you.”
“Uh . . .” She wasn’t sure what he wanted to know. The man couldn’t even keep his own name straight. “I have a sister named Linda who is twelve. I have two brothers named Stephen and Gideon, and they are sixteen and five.”
James raised his eyebrows. “And?”
“And you know that my mother is Katherine.” She paused. “How do you know my mother?”
“I don’t really know her. Go on. What else?”
“Um . . . my father was Elias. He passed on six months ago.” She locked eyes with James. “I miss him very much.” She glanced at Abe again, but he was tapping one foot and turning the full can of Coke over in his hands. She hoped he didn’t plan to open it anytime soon.
“ ‘A time to weep, and a time to laugh,’ ” James said, pausing to sigh. “ ‘A time to mourn, and a time to dance.’ ”
“Ecclesiastes,” she said softly.
James nodded. “Yes. And the Beatles.” He scratched his chin. “Or was it the Byrds?”
Mary Carol had no idea what beetles and birds had to do with the Scripture verse.
“Can we go now?” Abe put his unopened can of Coke on the couch next to him. “Are you going to tell our parents you found us here?”
James shook his head. “Kid, you aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? Why would I tell your parents when I’m not supposed to be here either?”
Abe scowled as he stood up. “Come on, Mary Carol. Let’s go.”
She slowly lifted herself from the couch as she studied James. There was something about him that seemed familiar. She was thankful he’d come down the stairs before she and Abe did something they would have regretted.
“I’m the most interesting person you’ll probably ever meet, but go ahead and leave if you want.”
Abe picked up his squashed hat from the couch and motioned to Mary Carol for them to move toward the door, but she sat back down. “I’d like to hear about you,” she said as she set her soda can on the floor near her feet.
Abe glared at her. “Come on, Mary Carol. Let’s go.”
James folded his arms across his chest and glared at Abe. “Well, you can’t leave her here with me. I’m a stranger. So you might as well sit back down.”
Mary Carol looked up at Abe, then said in Pennsylvania Deitsch, “Let’s just stay a little bit longer.”
Abe huffed, but he sat down beside her.
James pulled the blanket snug, then smiled. “Before I begin, let’s pray together.”
Mary Carol chewed on her bottom lip but finally nodded. Abe lowered his head when she did.
“Dear heavenly Father, please bless these children.” James paused, and when Mary Carol glanced up at him, she caught him eyeing Abe before he shook his head and continued. “And help young Abraham to behave like a gentleman.”
Mary Carol bit her lip again and stifled a grin. Abe didn’t look up, but she could see his face turning red.
“I pray that Mary Carol and what’s-his-name will walk the right path and stay on track toward a life that pleases You. I pray for Bonnie. You and I know why. And I pray for a chocolate cake, that someone will bring me one. Loving Father, I will see You soon. Amen.”
Mary Carol opened her eyes, not sure what to make of this man. But for the next two hours, she and Abe listened to him talk about his life. And James had spoken the truth earlier.
He really was the most interesting person she had ev
er met.
Chapter Five
MARY CAROL SHIVERED AS ABE GUIDED THE BUGGY toward her house. A light snow was falling.
“Well, you can call him interesting all you want,” Abe said as he picked up speed. “But he’s ab im kopp.”
“Ya, he might be a little off in the head.” Mary Carol recalled the stories James told. “But I still find him interesting, and I like him.”
“He told me to shut up twice.” Abe shook his head.
Mary Carol laughed. “That’s because you interrupted him twice. My favorite story was when he told us about staying at the White House.”
Abe turned onto Mary Carol’s road. “Ya, but I don’t believe any of it. I don’t think the president’s wife had a sister that no one knew about named Bonnie, or that she made him chocolate cakes every week.” He turned to her, eyes wide. “And I’m sure I don’t believe that he saved eighty-six lives while he worked for the FBI. Tall tales. He’s an old man who likes to tell stories.”
Mary Carol smiled. “I like him.” She’d laughed more than she had in a long time.
“We are going to have to find somewhere else to go on Saturdays so we can be alone.”
“Didn’t you hear me tell him that I would see him next Saturday? He seemed happy about that. And I’m going to surprise him with a chocolate cake.”
Abe pulled back on the reins until the horse slowed to barely a trot. “You meant that? What about us? Don’t you want to spend time by ourselves?”
“Abe, we need to be smarter about the time we spend alone. The last couple of times have been close.” Mary Carol didn’t want to hurt Abe’s feelings. She knew he loved her, and she loved him too. But they’d been treading in dangerous waters the past few weeks. “There will be plenty of time for us to be alone after the holidays. Christmas is in a couple of weeks, and James was excited that we were going to visit him again.” She shrugged as she looked out the window of the buggy. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
Abe grunted. “Ya, I do. I’d never let you go there by yourself.”
He pulled into Mary Carol’s driveway. “He doesn’t like me though.” She smiled, tempted to agree with him. But James had been very nice to her. When Abe stopped the buggy near the gate in the front yard, she looked around to make sure her mother or siblings weren’t outside, then she leaned over and quickly kissed Abe good-bye.
“See you Saturday?” she asked, still smiling. Abe frowned as he nodded. “Ya, I guess.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mary Carol.” He hung his head, sighing before he looked back up at her. She’d known Abe for so long, sometimes she felt like she could think his thoughts. He was about to apologize. “I’m real sorry if I did anything to upset you. I never want to hurt you. Not ever.”
“I know. I just think maybe things were moving a little too fast.” She was thankful for their new friend. Today, for a couple of hours, she hadn’t thought about her father, about how much she missed him. But as she got out of the buggy and hurried through the snow to the house, she knew any sense of joy she’d felt would turn to guilt when she saw her mother. When Mary Carol was around her family, it seemed wrong to be anything other than sad.
Katherine stayed quiet while her oldest son voiced his opinion about Gideon drawing on their bedroom walls. “It’s bad enough that I have to share a room with him, but now you are letting him draw on the walls?” He waved a hand toward Gideon’s stick people and coffins. Just that morning, Gideon had added more people . . . and another coffin. When Katherine had questioned her youngest son about the extra coffin, he’d just shrugged.
“Your bruder is having a hard time coping with your daed’s death, and he is just expressing himself.” Katherine wanted to ask her older son how he was coping. He’d closed himself off from everyone. He hadn’t gone to any of the singings on Sunday afternoons since his father died. And sometimes he refused to go to worship service.
“Ya, well, I wish he’d find some other way to do it.” Stephen shook his head, then began to walk out of the bedroom.
“Stephen, can you wait a minute?” Katherine didn’t want to bring this up right now, but the boy was out of the house so much, she needed to catch him while she could. “I’m sorry to have to ask this, but would you please find some time in the next few days to winterize the pipes in the basement?” She considered it a small miracle that a pipe hadn’t burst, given that December had been colder than usual. If Stephen handled the pipes, it would give her time to give Gideon a trim.
Stephen turned, and before he was out of earshot, she heard a faint, “Fine.”
Katherine was tempted to follow him, but maybe this wasn’t the best time to get him to open up about his dad’s death and the added responsibilities.
She went to her own bedroom where she’d laid out all the items she planned to take to her father-in-law. She still wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing by befriending the man who’d hurt his own son so deeply, but it was the holidays, and she was going to do what she could for him. She picked up the brown coat she’d bought Elias only two Christmases ago, and she buried her face in it, breathing in his scent. Fighting the urge to cry, she gathered up some of Elias’s shirts, two pairs of shoes, and some other toiletries she thought James could use. She packed them in an old red suitcase that Elias had used when traveling to out-of-town auctions.
She wondered if James was homeless, and it worried her where he might be living since he wouldn’t tell her. But how does he have a car and how does he afford to put gas in it?
An hour later, she walked into the coffee shop. James sat at the same booth they’d sat at a week ago. He wore the same clothes. Katherine put the suitcase on the floor next to him.
“I put together a few things for you. They were Elias’s. I thought you might like to have them.”
“Why?” James stared at her, a blank expression on his face.
“Because I . . . well, I thought you might want them.” She looked down at two cups of coffee already on the table. “There’s a coat in there too.” She touched the white plastic lid on top of the Styrofoam cup. “Is this for me?”
“Yeah.” He picked up the cup in front of him and took a large swallow.
Katherine tried to recall if she’d told James she drank her coffee black. She didn’t think so, but as she took her first sip, she was glad he’d guessed right. “I thought you didn’t like coffee.”
James laughed. “Are you kidding me? I love coffee.”
Katherine tapped a finger to her chin. “Um, what about your time as a federal agent? I thought you said you got burned out on coffee.”
His expression went flat. “Oh dear.” He pushed the cup as far as he could to one side of the table. “You’re right.”
Did he even remember their last conversation? “If you want the coffee, you should drink it.” She wondered how he’d paid for it.
“I hope there is coffee in heaven.” He shook his head. “I’ve asked the Lord about that a dozen times, but He doesn’t ever tell me.”
Katherine wondered if establishing a relationship with James was going to be worth it, but she pulled the cup back in front of him. “Drink the coffee. It will warm you up.”
He stared at her for a while, but eventually he took another sip. “I had another dream about Elias this past week. On Thursday, I think. No . . . wait. It was Friday.” He shook his head. “No. It was last night.” He pointed a finger at her. “He said you aren’t handling his death very well with your youngest son. You need to do something different. He told me what you need to do.” He picked up his cup of coffee, put it back down again, then pushed it to the side.
Kather
ine was startled that James was bringing up something he’d have no way of knowing—or maybe it was simply a coincidence. She had cherished the few dreams she’d had about Elias over the past six months, but was her husband really trying to communicate through James? She doubted it. I’ll humor him. “And what am I supposed to do differently?”
He scratched the top of his head. “For the life of me, I can’t remember what he said.”
That figures.
“So, how are you handling Gideon’s grief?”
Katherine was surprised that James remembered his youngest grandson’s name. “I’m letting him express his feelings by drawing on the wall. It seems to help him.”
James burst out laughing. “Boy howdy. He’s pulled the wool over your eyes. He probably just likes to draw on the wall. What does he draw?”
Katherine stiffened, clenched her jaw, and reminded herself whom she was dealing with. “He draws stick people standing around a coffin, and he doesn’t understand how his father’s body is under the earth, but his soul is in heaven.” She sat quietly for a few moments, but when James didn’t say anything, she said, “He added an extra coffin to the drawing this morning.”
James rolled his eyes, the left one fluttering for a couple of seconds, and pulled his coffee back in front of him. “Well, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out, about the extra coffin.”
“Well, I’m no brain surgeon, so maybe you can explain it to me.” Raw curiosity brought on the question that she was sure he couldn’t answer.
James took several gulps from his cup. She could see the steam rising from the opening of the lid, and she wondered how he wasn’t scorching his mouth. “The extra coffin is Gideon’s.”