by Jo Ann Brown
Caleb scowled. “I’m trying to tell you that Becky Sue already has a family. She and her boppli are a family.”
The young man swayed on his feet as he grew ashen.
Putting out a hand, because he feared Elson was about to faint, Caleb guided the younger man toward the tables he’d brought to the bakery. He took down a stacked chair and helped Elson sit.
“Do you want something to drink?” Caleb asked.
“No. I...” Elson’s voice drifted away.
“Are you okay?”
“Did you say Becky Sue—Becky Sue Hartz—has a boppli? That I’m a daed?”
It was Caleb’s turn to be shocked. He wasn’t sure what plain community Elson was from, but he did know that the young man wasn’t an Englischer. Even if one had decided to put on plain clothes and give himself a plain name, he couldn’t speak Deitsch with the ease of someone who’d always used it.
But Becky Sue had told Annie that Joey’s daed was Englisch. Hadn’t she? Or had she just implied that? Was it all another lie? Caleb was determined to find out.
After convincing the young man to have a cup of kaffi to warm him, though Caleb suspected shock more than the outside temperatures had more to do with Elson’s shivering, Caleb got another chair and sat facing him.
“Start from the beginning,” Caleb said as he stirred cream into his kaffi and watched Elson add several spoonfuls of sugar to his own cup.
“Becky Sue and I walked out together, and we discovered we loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. She wasn’t happy at home because her stepfather made her life miserable.”
“Stepfather? I didn’t know she had one.”
“Her own daed’s brother, which is why they have the same last name, but he made it clear soon after his first son was born that he wished she didn’t exist. He favored his own kinder over her. If money was tight, she was the last one to get new shoes or a coat that fitted. She and I agreed it would be for the best if we got married as soon as possible. I didn’t have enough money to provide for us, so I took a job in Iowa. Out there, they need workers and don’t ask a lot of questions.” He flushed, his face becoming tomato red. “The night before I left, we... That is...”
Caleb took pity on the young man. “You don’t have to go into detail. You and Becky Sue aren’t the first to make that bad decision, and you won’t be the last. Have you been in Iowa all this time?” He thought of the phone number with an Iowan area code that had been made before Annie and he had found Becky Sue at the bakery.
Had she been trying to get in touch with Elson so he’d know where she and his son were?
A rush of anger swept through him as he wondered how any man, even one as wet behind the ears as Elson, could abandon his family. Then he paused. Elson seemed genuinely shocked. Was it possible the young man hadn’t known about his son?
“Caleb,” the teenager said as if Caleb had asked that question aloud, “you’ve got to believe me. I wanted to earn enough money so I could provide for us. I love Becky Sue, but I had no idea when I left for Iowa that Becky Sue was pregnant. I wouldn’t have left her by herself, if I’d known. There could have been other ways to earn enough to provide for her and me and the boppli right there in Lancaster County.”
“Did you let her know where you were?”
“I wrote to her every other day right from the beginning, but she seldom wrote back. I’d get a letter from her about once a month. They were short.”
“But you talked on the phone.”
Again Elson shook his head. “Never, though as soon as I got a cell phone in Iowa, I sent her my number and urged her to call me collect. I missed hearing her voice and her laughter. I fell in love with her because of her laugh. Silly, ain’t so?”
Caleb sighed. “No, it’s not.” Annie’s laugh created special music in his soul.
Elson hung his head as he clenched his hands by his sides. “She never called, and she never wrote to me about being pregnant or having a boppli.”
Though Caleb wanted to say that was hard to believe, he thought of how habit-forming secrets could be. He hadn’t revealed to Annie anything about how Verba had shamed him...how he’d allowed her to make him question everything he held dear. And Annie hid something from him, something he could sense when he kissed her, but he couldn’t guess what it was.
“Are she and the boppli okay?”
“They are. They’re staying with friends of mine.” At least, he hoped he could still say Annie was his friend. “Becky Sue is doing well, and so is Joey, though he has trouble seeing.”
“Joey? I have a son?” Joy brought color to Elson’s cheeks.
Looking at him, Caleb knew there was no doubt that the young man was being truthful. Becky Sue had kept him in the dark, never telling him that she had his kind.
“Komm with me,” he said, getting up. He couldn’t let his and Annie’s problems get in the way of Elson meeting his son. He wasn’t sure what reception he’d get at the Waglers, but he’d wait outside if he had to. Nothing must prevent a reunion between Becky Sue, Elson and their son.
* * *
“What is wrong with you today?” chided Becky Sue as she bent to pick up the pieces of the second cup Annie had dropped while they did the breakfast dishes together. “Is something wrong with you and Caleb?”
Annie shook her head. “No, there isn’t any Caleb and me.”
“But I thought...” Becky Sue looked to Leanna as she added, “I thought by now you two were walking out together.”
“I worked for him. Nothing more.”
“No! Don’t be false to us!” Leanna snapped.
“I told you last night—”
“You didn’t tell me anything. You changed the subject to how I felt about Gabriel marrying someone else. You said Caleb wasn’t the man you thought he was. That could mean anything. Anything at all!” Leanna stamped her foot, shocking Annie, who couldn’t remember the last time her twin had been so assertive. “You can lie to yourself, but you’ve got to be honest to me, Annie. It’s no more than you asked of me when you tried to make a match for me with Caleb.”
Embarrassment heated her face. She had insisted that Leanna speak from the heart with her after attending the mud sale with Caleb.
“I worked so hard,” Becky Sue groaned. “I knew you liked him and he liked you. When you were dumm enough to fix up Leanna with him, I decided you must be shown how wrong you are. Both of you.”
Comprehension burst into Annie’s mind. “When you locked us in the closet?”
“Ja. I hid in your horrible cellar beneath the trap door until you both went into the closet to get the dishwasher detergent I’d moved. When that didn’t seem to convince you that you’re right for each other, I disappeared.” She made air quotes. “It seemed to work, but then you’d get busy and I wasn’t sure you were making time for each other. I came up with an idea to get you to spend time together.” She glanced at the sleeping boppli. “Joey helped me that time.”
“With all the paint mess?” Annie had had no idea that the teenager was so ingenious.
Becky Sue had taken advantage of the few tools she had to throw Annie and Caleb together, and she’d succeeded each time. At least for a while, until one of them stepped away, unsure about what their relationship might have become.
“And you kissed him last night,” Becky Sue cried. “How could you do that if you don’t like him?”
“You were spying on us?”
The girl didn’t deny the accusation. “If you two can’t see the truth, someone has to help you.”
Annie threw the dish towel on the counter and turned to leave the kitchen. She paused when the door opened.
Her eyes widened, but her heart beat out a joyous song when Caleb stepped in. Her tears distorted his image, but his handsome face had been etched into her memory so she could recreate each angl
e as if he stood in the brightest sunshine. She looked away, startled when Becky Sue gasped before she said words almost identical to the ones Caleb had used the day they found her and Joey at the bakery.
“Elson, what are you doing here?”
A lanky young man she didn’t know rushed into the kitchen and tugged Becky Sue into his arms. He buried his face in the side of her kapp as he kept repeating her name over and over. She pointed to the boppli, who was rousing with the uproar.
“Elson,” she whispered, “there’s your son. Our son.”
Unabashed tears ran down the young man’s face, and Annie’s heart pushed aside the last of the wall she’d built around it. Here was true joy, the reunion of two hearts that belonged together. No matter what she did, she couldn’t have found this for her sister. Only Leanna, with God’s help, could find it for herself.
Grossmammi Inez tiptoed into the kitchen, putting a finger to her lips because she didn’t want her arrival to disrupt what was happening.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you, Caleb and the rest of you.” Becky Sue looked toward Elson as she picked up Joey and cuddled him close. “I couldn’t be honest with anyone else when I wasn’t honest with myself. I thought you’d be better off without me...without us.”
“How could you believe that?” Elson took a step toward her, then halted. “Or was it that you thought you were better off without me? I know your parents never liked me.”
“Leo Hartz is not my parent, so I don’t care what he thought. He’s just the man my mamm married after my real daed died, and he always has let me know that he wished she hadn’t had a daughter before they wedded. I was told I should call him by his given name while his kinder called him daed.”
Annie drew in a sharp breath, trying to imagine her own mamm’s second husband treating her and Leanna and Lyndon cruelly. Bert Wagler had treated the three of them as he had his own son and daughter. He was the person she thought of when talking about her daed because her own had sickened when she was so young.
Becky Sue turned to Caleb. “I should have told you why Joey was scared of you. It’s because you have similar coloring to Leo. From the day he was born, Joey has known that Leo wished he didn’t exist. I tried to keep Joey away from him, but Leo yelled at Joey about the slightest thing. I know he hit Joey, too, though I never caught him doing it.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear that, Becky Sue. And I’m sorry that I believed there was no gut reason for you to run away. I was wrong.”
Tears glistened in the girl’s eyes, and this time she didn’t try to hold them in. “Danki, Caleb. I’ve wanted you to understand, but I wasn’t sure if you’d listen when nobody else had.”
“Though you came here for sanctuary.”
“I’d heard from so many people what a gut guy you were.”
“But you still couldn’t trust me.”
“No, because while I hoped you’d help me—and you did—I’ve been afraid that, if I told you the truth, you’d tell me the same thing others did.” She blinked on more tears. “When I sought help from our ministers, they told me that while Joey and I lived with Leo, I had to heed his rules. They thought I was a disgruntled stepdaughter who was looking to cause trouble.” Thick teardrops fell onto her apron. “I had been that girl when I was Kenny’s age because I didn’t know how to put in the proper words what was happening at our house.” She looked up at him again. “I got the punishments I deserved, but Joey didn’t do anything wrong other than being born.”
“And even that wasn’t his choice,” Elson said as he put his arm around her.
“But you’re happy about it, ain’t so?” the girl asked, sounding younger.
“Happier than you can know. As soon as we can become baptized, I want us to marry and have a real family. The three of us to begin with and whoever God sends to us after that.”
She handed him his son, telling him to hold Joey close to his face. When the boppli ran inquisitive hands along Elson’s features, Becky Sue whispered, “This is Daed, Joey. Daed.”
“Daed?” the little boy asked.
“Ja,” Elson whispered. “And you are my dear, dear son.”
Annie’s eyes overflowed as she watched the family that had been separated for so long come together. She doubted anything on earth would pull them apart again, because Becky Sue stared at Elson as if she could never get enough of looking at him. And the young man did the same to her.
When a hand took hers, tugging her toward the door, she knew it belonged to Caleb. There was a sense, a sense with no name, that connected them in a way she’d never imagined. She was sure a storm raged along her skin that prickled as if she’d stood too close to a lightning bolt.
“Will you talk to me?” he whispered as he opened the door to the mud room.
She steeled herself against the cold, but how could that bother her when his touch was so warm?
“Ja,” she whispered, unable to speak more loudly.
He turned her so they stood face-to-face as they had on the hill overlooking the pond. “I don’t know what I did wrong, Annie, but I’m sorry. I don’t ever want to do anything to hurt you.”
“You have to understand what happened in the past.” As she told him how Rolan had betrayed her, she saw anger spark in his eyes. Not at her, but at the man who’d used her so. “Last night, I heard...that is, I thought I heard while you were talking to Lyndon and your firefighter friends...”
“That I took credit for your ideas? That I let them think they were my ideas?” He framed her face with his work-worn hands. “If I did, it was by mistake.”
“I know you’re not like Rolan because you’ve been eager to make use of my ideas and include me, not steal them for yourself.”
He thought for a few seconds, then asked, “Are you sure I let the others think the ideas were mine? I remember saying ‘we’ because we’ve worked together on the bakery.”
Annie stepped away so she could think. She replayed the conversation she’d overheard—or as much as she could remember, examining every word. In amazement, she realized he was right. He hadn’t let the others assume the ideas were his. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to avoid that. Her perceptions had led her to believe otherwise.
“How did you know I cared so much about my ideas?” she asked.
“Because I care that much about my dreams, and when someone tried to stand in my way, telling me those dreams were useless, I ended what I thought we shared.”
“You did?”
“Ja.” He took her hands and laced his fingers through hers. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Annie, but there’s one I’ll never make again.”
“What’s that?”
“Not knowing if I was talking to you or Leanna.” He lifted her right hand and pressed it to the center of his chest. “My heart will always be sure. It wants to belong to you, if you’ll have it.”
“Only if you take mine,” she laughed. “Not that you have any choice. It refuses not to belong to you. Ich liebe dich, Caleb.”
“And I love you, too. I want us to be partners in life as well as working at the bakery. Will you marry me?”
She flung her arms around his shoulders and answered him with a kiss. When she heard excited shouts behind her, she looked over her shoulder to see her family and his clustered in the doorway.
“I guess you’ve heard,” Caleb said with a chuckle.
“We haven’t heard her say ja,” Grossmammi Inez replied.
“Ja!” Annie repeated about a half-dozen times until she and everyone else dissolved into laughter.
Caleb held up one finger. “However, I want you to witness that there’s one more promise I need to hear Annie make.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“That you’ll like milking cows.”
She laughed, “That’s never going to happen.�
��
“Never is a long time, Annie.”
“How about this? I’ll let you try to convince me for the rest of our lives.”
“That sounds like a wunderbaar plan.”
Epilogue
“Ready?” Caleb asked as he held out his left hand. In his right, he held a tray of apple pie squares. It would claim the last empty spot in the display cases.
“Ready.” Annie smiled at him as she clasped his hand.
They walked together out of the kitchen and into the front room of the bakery. Everything glistened in the warm morning sunshine pouring through the pristine windows. The light danced on the quartet of black tables topped with containers of creamers and sugar, waiting for customers to sit and enjoy a cup of kaffi. It sparkled on the glass in the display cases and across the small refrigerator Caleb had installed the day before when they realized they wanted to have a place to store fresh milk, cream and whipped cream for the drinks and baked goods.
Yesterday, she’d joined him out front when he installed the sign that announced Hartz Bakery would soon be open for business. She treasured the memory of his smile when he finished patting down the dirt around the posts holding the sign in place. His dream was coming true, and so was hers.
She looked at the multicolored floorboards. A smile tilted her lips as it did each time she thought of the little boy and his mamm and daed, who had decided to remain in Harmony Creek Hollow. They were renting a small tenant house from the Bowmans, whose farm was about halfway between Caleb’s house and Miriam’s. Joey had been seen by a doktor who had several ideas for helping him see better. Elson had already begun work with her friend Sarah’s brothers at their sawmill, and he and Becky Sue were attending baptism classes. A happy ending to a difficult story...
And Annie was relieved that her grossmammi was going to see a cardiac specialist next week. She prayed the doktor would be able to diagnosis what was causing Grossmammi Inez to be so short of breath.