A Long Bridge Home

by Kelly Irvin

  Mercy was the first in their tight-knit group to marry. One minute they learned to make peanut butter cookies together, the next they helped set up for a wedding feast. With a quick look to make sure no one noticed, Christine dried her face on her sleeve and threaded her way through the crowd that threatened to burst the seams of Noah Miller’s home, to offer her congratulations. The bishop’s willingness to host the service in his house had allowed the couple to marry despite having lost their homes to the fire.

  “I can’t believe it.” She wrapped her arms around Mercy’s tall figure. “You’re a fraa.”

  “Me neither.” Mercy’s tremulous, dimpled smile grew. She dabbed at her hazel eyes with a crumpled handkerchief. Her chestnut hair carefully tucked under her ironed kapp, she looked beautiful in the dark-blue wedding dress she’d sewn herself. “Danki for all your help getting the food and tables ready. Not having our own home made it seem almost impossible to make this happen.”

  “This is what we do.” Christine tugged her friend back to allow their fathers and the other men to pass. They needed to remove benches and add more tables to the living room where the simple service had occurred. Thanks to cooperative autumn weather, more tables were ready in Noah’s front yard. “We wouldn’t let a small thing like a wildfire keep us from having a wedding.”

  “Brace yourself—here comes Juliette.”

  Dressed in a beautiful antique-white lace dress with demure long sleeves and collar, their English friend had her hair pinned up in a bun, with long curling blonde tendrils resting on her neck. Of course, she wore her signature purple cowboy boots. Engaged to her deputy and newly committed to her Savior, Juliette would always be a unique, beautiful friend.

  “Hey, Mrs. Hostetler, how’s married life treating you?” Juliette swooped in with hugs for both of them. “Where’s Nora? We need an ASAP to discuss exactly when Christine and Nora will join us in the ranks of one-man women.”

  “She rushed from the house the second the ceremony ended.” No reason to tell her friends that the tears on Nora’s face didn’t look like happy ones. Christine sought an excuse that wouldn’t be a lie. Something was going on with their friend, and it didn’t look good. “She probably had to finish laying out the plates on the tables outside.”

  Arms entwined, they two-stepped toward the kitchen where an industrious cluster of women would be busy plating venison sausage, elk steaks, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn bread, green beans, and cherry fruit salad.

  At the kitchen door Christine glanced back one last time in hopes of finding Nora. Life changed from one breath to the next. Mercy and Juliette looked so happy. Moreover, they looked as if they knew exactly what they wanted in life. They’d found their contentment.

  Andy bent over and slid chairs into the tables near the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. He straightened. Their gazes collided. His eyebrows rose and fell. A tiny shrug followed. He cocked his head toward the door, edged that direction, and a second later disappeared through it.

  “I’m right behind you, girls.” Christine disengaged from the other women. “I need to . . . do something.”

  Several women looked up at Juliette’s knowing snort. “Sorry—had a tickle in my nose.” She giggled and squeezed Christine’s arm. “It’s a wedding. Love is in the air. Go hunt down your man and tell him you’re ready.”

  “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

  “Sure, sure. Don’t hurry back.” Juliette grabbed an enormous peanut butter–chocolate chip cookie and handed it to Mercy. “Eat, Mrs. Hostetler. It’ll hold you over until the feast. I know you were too nervous to eat beforehand, and you have to keep your strength up.”

  Christine left them bickering over whether Mercy should eat a cookie when a multitude of food dishes awaited her during the wedding meal. With all the stealth she could muster, Christine sidestepped her father talking to Henry in the living room. Her mother and Delilah were busy in the kitchen. The kids played outside in the brilliant autumn sun.

  No sign of Andy in the front yard. Or near the corral. She found him in the barn admiring a beautiful saddle Noah had made. The bishop’s trade as a leather worker brought cowboys from around the state to his doorstep seeking his creations. Andy turned when she shut the door. She halted in the shaft of light radiating from a narrow window in the loft. “It is a gut day. Mercy and Caleb will be happy in the home he’s building for them.”

  “Gott willing.” Andy brushed hay from his jacket sleeve. He seemed to look everywhere but directly at her.

  “I like the smell of a barn.” She edged closer. “Don’t you?”

  “I do.” He seemed determined not to help this conversation along.

  “Have you decided when you’ll set up the sawmill? Or where?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Andy Lambright. You wanted me to follow you out here, didn’t you? Why?”

  He cleared his throat. “Now that you’re here, I find the words have flown out the window.” Smiling, he met her gaze. “How’s that for a fanciful turn of phrase?”

  “Gut. Almost poetic.” She smiled back. “But I don’t need fanciful words. Plain words do fine. A Plain man even better.”

  “That’s gut. Because that is all I have to offer.”

  “And all I need.” Her voice shook despite the assurance that wrapped itself around her shoulders, its multicolored threads woven together by the experiences of the last several weeks. Loss, uncertainty, gain, new people who came and went, growth—each bright color shimmering in the present-day sun. “I don’t know why we had to go through these things, but we did. We made it and here we are.”

  “I don’t know either.” Andy eased to within arm’s reach. His gaze traced her face. His smile widened. “The only thing I know for sure is that there will be more travails in the future. Gott will be there to walk me and you through them. That’s how it works.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” Christine took two more steps. Andy did the same. They met in the middle, like two people who’d crossed a long bridge from opposite sides. His hands slid up her arms, across her shoulders, to her cheeks. His fingers were warm and calloused. She shivered and lifted her head to stare into those beautiful green eyes. “I’m so glad it works that way.”

  “Me too.”

  He nuzzled his chin in her hair. Then he did what she’d hoped for all along. He lowered his head, and his lips met hers. A gentle, sweet kiss that grew and grew. Palms of her hands flat against his chest, Christine closed her eyes and leaned into a future filled with such touches. A tiny fire nestled in the center of her heart crackled and grew. The flames leaped higher and higher. Heat warmed her head to toe. Breath left her body.

  Christine stumbled back a step. She opened her eyes. Her hands went to her cheeks. “Ach, you know you have my heart. All of it. Always.”

  “Danki for giving it to me. I promise to never drop it or lose it.” Andy grabbed her hands and drew her back into the tight circle of his embrace. “Marry me, Christine. Promise to never leave me. To always love me and only me.”

  “Jah. I will marry you.” Christine laid her head on his chest and counted the thrum of his heart. “I’ll love only you. I will never leave you.”

  Andy cupped her face in his hands and dropped kisses on her cheeks. “I love you. I can’t wait to marry you.”

  “I love you.” She whispered the words, but her heart shouted them for all the world to hear. “I can’t wait to be your fraa.”

  His lips found hers again. The nicker of a horse, the smell of hay and manure, and bits of dust swirling in the rays of sun flickering through the narrow cracks between the wooden slats created the stage from which this memory would forever play.

  It might seem like the first day, but it was, in fact, one of many leading up to that moment when life finally came into focus. Forests, rivers, medicine trees, bridges, waterfalls, traveling far from home—these had simply been a prelude. What seemed like adventure before had simply been rehearsal. The real adve
nture began this day with this man.

  “Let’s not say anything to the deacon today.” Andy’s fingers touched her kapp and lingered on the silky strands on her neck. Every stroke made it harder to breathe. “Today is Mercy and Caleb’s day.”

  “Agreed. Tomorrow, then.”

  “Tomorrow, then.” He grinned. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have another kiss, does it?”

  “Just one?”

  “Or two or three.”

  The squeak of the barn door gave them just enough notice to allow a few inches to grow between them. “You guys! There’s plenty of time for that later.” Juliette stuck her head through the door. “Mercy and Caleb are seated at the thingamajig—the eck.” She correctly pronounced the word for corner table. “It’s time to start celebrating.”

  The kisses would have to wait. But not for long. Their celebration and their lives together were just beginning.

  39

  Three Months Later

  Missoula, Montana

  Setting changed the way a person looked. Or maybe it changed his perspective. Raymond eased his way between tables where students applied themselves to laptop keyboards, iPads, smartphones, and occasionally the old-fashioned smell of ink-and-paper books that brought them to the University of Montana library.

  Tonya sat alone at a table near the window. She could be any MU student, not a Native fresh off the rez. A pen stuck behind one ear, she chewed on her lower lip and wound her finger through a lock of her loose hair. She wore blue-rimmed glasses. Raymond had never seen her adorned with glasses. She became a beautiful woman all the more alluring, because her cocoa-colored eyes were sheathed by lenses. The rust-colored cable-knit sweater dipped in the front. A little chilly for January weather, but it made for a nice view. Again, perspective.

  She didn’t look up until he sat in the chair closest to her—all the better to see her.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  She removed the glasses. “You came. Welcome to the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library.”

  Ignoring her foray into the dulcet tones of a tour guide, Raymond took the glasses from her slim fingers and returned them to her nose gently. “I told you I would.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “Don’t give me that.” Raymond rolled his eyes. “You said you would have to come for me.”

  With a lazy smile she leaned in and kissed him, a long, lingering kiss. Her scent of sandalwood enveloped him. She straightened and went back to her laptop. “I told you I would come for you.”

  After a few seconds the fog cleared and Raymond was able to think—albeit not clearly. “I enrolled in the College of Humanities and Science archaeology program.”

  “Good.”

  “Don’t you want to know how I found you?”

  “You talked to my mom.”

  The woman had superpowers.

  “She texted me as soon as you hung up with her. Then my roommate texted me to say you stopped by the apartment. Why didn’t you just call me?”

  “I wanted to show up. I wanted to show you I could.”

  “You’re so cute when you’re earnest.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” Astounded, actually. “I’m sharing an apartment with Jeff Bear Don’t Walk.”

  “That should be fun. He’s more of a computer nerd than you are.”

  “He’s studious, which is what I need.” And the two-bedroom apartment was within Raymond’s price range—cheap to cheaper. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this—academically.”

  “Baby, you’ve been ready for this for years. Even Gramma knew it. She just wanted you to herself a little longer.”

  Did she just call him baby? Raymond fanned himself with his financial report. “You think so?”

  “I know so.” Tonya smiled. Raymond fanned harder. Her finely etched eyebrows rose and fell. “I also know Gramma would be happy for you. She held on too long. She knew it. She wanted you to spread your wings. She knew if she’d let go sooner, you would’ve learned what you needed to know and come back to the rez bigger and stronger and bolder.”

  The lump that always filled his throat when he thought of Gramma didn’t appear. “My dad and I went fishing in the fall.”

  “I know.”

  “You did not.”

  “Believe what you want to. I find out things. You know the grapevine at the rez is infallible.” She tossed her sleek mane of hair over her shoulder for punctuation. “Is he still a white supremacist?”

  “Do you think I would go fishing with the Aryan Brotherhood?”

  “He’s your dad and you needed to know him.”

  “He’s kind of a sad guy. He drinks and smokes and sits staring at the lake a lot. But when he gets out on the water, he’s different. He loves the outdoors. He loves nature. He’s connected.”

  “Which is how he and your mom connected. It makes sense.” Her phone squawked. She stuck it in her backpack without looking at it. “That and fast cars, fast horses, and fast lives.”

  “It’s like he never figured out how to get on with his life.”

  “You won’t make that mistake.” She touched his cheek with one finger and then traced his jawline. “You know when to slow down and stare at the stars.”

  “Will you stare at them with me?”

  The question slipped out and stood between them, naked and vulnerable.

  Her smile blew through him like a gusty spring wind bringing rebirth, renewal, and possibilities too numerous to comprehend. “Count on it.”

  He pulled his chair closer to the table and laid his class schedule on it. “I can’t decide whether my subspecialty should be straight archaeology or cultural anthropology.”

  “Really?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You spent several weeks last year studying the Amish culture up close and personal. It’s a slam dunk.” She swiveled the laptop toward him. The archaeological program’s website appeared. “Read the first paragraph for me.”

  “Sociocultural anthropologists explore how people in different places live and understand the world around them. They want to know what people think is important and the rules they make about how they would interact with one another. Even within one country or society, people may disagree about how they speak, dress, eat, or treat each other. Anthropologists want to listen to all voices and viewpoints—”

  “You get the gist of it. Describes you to a T, Mr. Sociocultural Anthropologist.”

  “Did you know this university is located in the aboriginal territories of Salish and Kalispell people? I thought I wanted to dig around in the ground and find artifacts that revealed new information about our indigenous cultures.” The memory of Christine’s eager face as she walked through The People’s Center bubbled to the surface. “I’m not sure who was being studied—me or her.”

  “You had a mutually beneficial exchange of information.”

  “I thought I might take some religion classes. You can’t get a degree in religion right now, but they offer a bunch of courses. Did you know you can take classes in Hinduism and Buddhism here?”

  Again with the eyebrows. This time they stayed up. After a few seconds of deliberation, Tonya nodded. Apparently a decision had been reached. “The point of higher education is to learn all you can about everything, even if it’s learning for learning’s sake. College is the only time we might get to do that. We figure out what we can use and what we can’t.”

  This gorgeous fount of wisdom had kissed him. What made her more exciting—her brains or her looks? Hard to say. Tonya was a package deal. What would it take to get her to kiss him again? “What about us? Are we having a beneficial exchange of information?”

  Tonya swooped in for another kiss, this one harder and deeper. She broke away far too soon. “More like an exchange of spit.”

  He shook his head, trying to clear it. His ears rang and his heart did jumping jacks. “You’re a romantic gal, aren’t you?”

  “Gal?” She giggled.
/>   “Shhh!”

  Her eyes widened. Raymond craned his neck and swiveled. The librarian, a tall redhead with come-hither blue eyes, not much older than Raymond, kept the words to a whisper despite her glare. “Go outside if you can’t keep the noise and the PDA to a minimum. Please.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they chorused in unison.

  Tonya shrugged on her down jacket, scarf, and cap. Taking her time, she gathered up her books and stuck them in a faded denim backpack. Raymond followed her to the elevator. With equal deliberation she sauntered into it, pushed the button for the first floor, leaned against the wall, and studied her shiny blunt-cut nails. Raymond studied her. Together they strolled from the five-story building. Finally, to break the silence and not because it really mattered as long as she allowed him to go with her, he asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace where you’re not ogling the librarian.” Tonya adjusted the backpack, which looked like it weighed thirty or forty pounds, on her shoulders and then slid her hand through the crook of Raymond’s arm. Snowflakes floated through the frigid air. They landed on her nose and eyelashes, sparkling like frosted jewels. “Or is that an existential question? Do any of us really know where we’re going?”

  “No ogling. Got it.” He would never deny that the love of all women added joy to his life, but for this woman he would rein in his obvious enjoyment of the opposite sex. Raymond eyed the wide sidewalk, slick with rain that had frozen and turned to ice. He squeezed between two workers who spread salt and scraped the cement with shovels. The journey could be fraught with obstacles and falls. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I hope it’s with you.”

  “Honey, the fun is in the journey, not the destination.”

  Had she called him honey?

  Contentment, awash in the possibility of adventures he couldn’t begin to imagine, filled him.

  Together, the white puffs of their breaths mingling, they set out to find their future.