Threads of Grace (19 page)

“Yes,” Grace said. “I suppose I should become the one who is sharing with Seth, at least a little—it’s not an easy process, though.”

“I know firsthand that you cannot become best friends
overnight when you marry someone you barely know. I had spent a lifetime fantasizing about Jacob, but I didn’t really know him, or how deep his heart was, or how much fun he was, or how considerate.”

“You really are in love, aren’t you?”

“Jah.”
Lilly’s blue eyes grew bright. “And what about you, Grace?” The question hung in the air between the two women, and when Grace did not reply, she heard Lilly draw a deep breath. “Will you tell me please about your first husband? What was he like—Abel’s father?”

Grace bowed her head. “I wish I could explain it. I wish I could say anything good, in fact. I guess the best thing I can say is that he was Abel’s father and, without him, I wouldn’t have my son. But as for being in love, I don’t even know what that means. I don’t even know what it feels like.”

“Give Seth a chance,” Lilly said. “Ever since he laid eyes on you, his artist’s eyes, there has been no one else.”

“There are other younger women about,” Grace said. “I am, after all, so much older than him.”

Lilly laughed. “You are not. You’re beautiful, and honestly, when I first met you, I couldn’t tell how old you were. I thought maybe you were as young as nineteen, but your eyes—your eyes are wise and sad. Won’t you please share some of that sadness with me so that I can help you?”

“You’ve helped me already, simply by talking, by accepting me,” Grace said. “But yes, someday I’ll tell you my story. I think I owe it to Seth to tell him first. I owe it to him to let him know exactly what kind of person I am.”

Grace paused and looked up as the men came in the door.
Soon they all sat together, laughing and talking, and then it was time to go home. Abel did not want to go, and he started to fuss. Grace was embarrassed, but fortunately Lilly diverted him by allowing him to take the coloring book with him and a few of the crayons.

“Since school is out for the summer,” Lilly said in her sternest teacher voice, “you should be doing something productive with your time.”

Abel agreed.

On the ride home, the mountain road was inky dark. The trees were giant shadows; the grassy roadsides filled with the fragrance of flowers. The mountains enclosed them like an embrace as they drove along.

“Did you have a good time?” Seth asked.

Grace nodded as she held a drowsing Abel against her side. He was near asleep in a matter of minutes.

It was a characteristic of his autism: social situations, which to others seemed fun, could be stressful for him, and afterward he would simply shut down. Sometimes Grace wished she had that ability as well—to turn off, to shut down. Mostly she wished she could understand the inner workings of her son’s mind better; what went on inside his brain, how much he remembered of his father. She hoped it wasn’t a great deal.

Seth reached over and covered her hand with his. She felt the strong bones, warm palm, and calm confidence of him, and she sensed an answering response from deep in her heart. Maybe tonight he might kiss her again. The thought went through her—unbidden, uncalled for, but still present.

Yet he didn’t seem prepared to make such a move. Alice took
a drowsy Abel and Pretty off to bed, and then Grace and Seth went through the act of climbing into bed in the darkness. Seth removed his shirt and lay down with his trousers still on. Grace waited until the light was doused to change into her nightgown.

Grace slipped into bed and took a few deep breaths before she spoke. “Lilly and Jacob seem to be very much in love.”

She heard him move beneath the sheets and then he sighed faintly. “They are, but it was a long road to get there.”

“I’m sorry about earlier today—pressing you about the past when you’ve been so gentle with asking about my own,” she said.

“I’m sorry for telling. I should have had the sense to keep my mouth shut, I guess.”

“No,” she protested quietly. “You are—were—you are what you are. I just think that I won’t ever be able to match up to those girls. All those girls.”

He let out a little bark of a laugh and reached out to clasp her shoulder. “Grace, I can’t explain it, but I feel like I’ve been waiting for you all my life. Those girls don’t matter—any more than Silas Beiler matters.”

She shivered at his touch, but her words were mournful. “It seems that Silas will always matter.”

She felt his hand slip away, and soon his even breathing told her that he was deeply asleep. She slid out from beneath the light quilt in the darkness and came around the bed. With sure fingers, she felt on the dresser, found the matches, and lit a candle.

Carrying its mellow light before her in the surrounding darkness, she slid the candleholder onto Seth’s bedside table. She smiled down at him. He was deeply asleep, his golden hair tousled against the pillow. It was like coming close to some strong, wild
animal, lazing in the sun, yet having the instinctive knowledge that there was safety there too.

She trailed one finger lightly down his cheek.

He stirred, but he did not wake.

H
e
was dreaming, the deep, involved kind of dream that teases the senses and blurs the boundary between reality and imagination. He was lying in an apple orchard in spring; the fragrant white blossoms contrasted with the deep blue sky above. He lay on his back, one arm behind his head, his knees bent as he looked up into Grace’s smiling face. He had a sketch pad in his lap, balanced against his knees. He wanted her to bend closer so that he could steal a kiss and make the picture complete in his mind. But she’d gotten hold of a small brush and was touching his face with it. He was afraid if he moved, she’d stop, so he held himself purposefully still.

She trailed the brush down one
shoulder, then traced the length of one arm and up the other, swirling the delicate bristles across his wrist and hand and then across the breadth of his chest.

Seth sat up in the darkness and tried to slow his breathing. The faint smell of candle smoke tickled his nose, and he peered over in the bed, trying to make out the outline of Grace’s form beneath the sheets. He touched her once, a grazing brush of his knuckles along her hip, but she didn’t move.

He flung an arm over his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

But the dream was much too vivid, and the scent of the candle too strong.

CHAPTER 32

T
obias was growing used to the hard work of being a hired man. He’d managed to balance his time shrewdly with enough work to allow him time to slip off through the fields and spy on the Wyse place. After last night’s visit, he decided that the kid’s dog was a hindrance and he had to do something about her. But the thought gave him no satisfaction; he had an affection for animals and couldn’t see himself lifting a hand to an innocent creature.

He entered the kitchen for breakfast and sat down at the table among the various-aged children. “A fair morning to you,” he said to
Fraa
Zook.

Deacon Zook already had his seat and asked his wife as to the whereabouts of Kate, their eldest daughter.

Tobias said nothing, though he might have predicted that the chit was still in bed. Seventeen-year-old Kate Zook was too
intent and too aware of her own beauty. Compared to Grace, who reminded him of a dewy violet, she was an ostentatious iris.

The girl finally arrived and gave Tobias a haughty, condescending glance. He looked down at his plate and waited until silent grace was finished before helping himself to the bacon.

“So, Abraham, my husband tells me that you come from Ohio originally,” Esther Zook began in a conversational tone. From listening to her at mealtimes, Tobias already knew her to be a venomous gossip. It might not hurt to let slip a few tidbits about Grace—just enough for the community to begin to question her integrity.

“Jah . . . Middle Hollow or thereabouts,” he murmured.

“Middle Hollow?” Esther Zook straightened in her chair like a spring gobbler. “Why, our neighbor, the newly married Grace Wyse, comes from there. Did you know her? Her last name was Beiler.”

Tobias shrugged. “I’ve heard the name Beiler. There were several Amish communities thereabout, but the one Beiler fella was said to be a rich man.” He reached for another biscuit.

Esther leaned in over her plate. “I heard her husband met an unfortunate end.”

He nodded. “Did hear something like that.”

“Well, Grace Beiler was awful high-handed when she came here, sticking to herself and her son. The boy’s got some sort of mental problem. Anyway, she up and married one of our neighbor boys—someone I’d hoped that our Kate here might—”

“Esther.” Deacon Zook raised a hand. “I want to enjoy my breakfast. Let’s speak of other things.”

Tobias watched Esther Zook bristle and then fall silent. She
might obey her husband in the moment, but she couldn’t change her nature. Once a gossip, always a gossip.

S
eth was glad when the first light of dawn stretched across the expanse of the window. He swung out of bed and was pulling on a blue shirt when his wife slowly awoke and sat up. She rubbed at her eyes like a little girl and he turned away as he tucked in his shirt.

He needed a diversion—a safe diversion—after his fruitless night’s sleep. “Hey,” he said, turning back to her. “Why don’t we do something fun today? Let’s take Alice to town. She can see all the Amish stuff, the souvenir things, and then we can go to lunch, and you and Violet can do some shopping. You haven’t gone shopping in weeks. I know you must need things for the house.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know, Seth. I . . . well, I haven’t yet been paid in full for the wedding quilt.”

Seth had never spoken with Grace about finances. She had no true idea how much property the Wyse family had been blessed with, or how well off they were.

He supposed there was no time like the present.

G
race watched as Seth sat down on the edge of the bed and turned to her. She sensed a serious conversation coming on. “I know it’s not always something that’s comfortable to talk about, but we might as well discuss finances as long as the subject has
come up.” He reached out to stroke her hand where it lay against the quilt.

Money, in Grace’s experience, had always produced stress. She desperately wanted to avoid an argument if possible, and she wished she’d never said anything about it. “Uh, we really don’t have to discuss it. Just tell me how much I have to spend and how you want it spent, and I’ll make it work.”

“Grace,” he said softly. “You told me that you married Silas Beiler to save your family. Did it have something to do with money?”

She slid her hand from his and curled up with her arms around her knees. “
Jah
. My family was bad off in debt. If . . . if I married Silas, he would take care of all of that and buy my mother’s medicines. It seemed I had no choice at the time.”

“Didn’t the community step in to help?”

“One too many times, as far as the bishop was concerned, I guess. And then—well, Silas was wealthy, but I couldn’t buy so much as a piece of fabric without his approval. So I’d really rather you handled all of this and we not talk about it,” she finished in a rush.

“Sweetheart, we have to talk about it. First of all, the Wyse family holdings and the horse-breeding farm are extensive in their earnings and worth.” He named a sum that made her eyebrows shoot up; it was nearly triple of what she knew to be Silas’s assets.

“I—I don’t know what to say. I certainly didn’t marry you for your money.”

He laughed out loud and slid closer to her on the bed. “Of course you didn’t, but what I have is yours. And there’s also what
Daed
calls the old money—wealth dating back hundreds of
years, which has more or less accrued as time has gone on.” Again he shocked her with the amount.

“So . . . you’re rich?”

“
Jah
, but so are you. And I’d be exactly as rich with not so much as a penny to my name, so long as I had you and Abel.”

She looked into his eyes and knew what he said to be true.

“Grace, the Lord has chosen to bless us. You need never worry about money or my approval for something that you buy. Buy anything you need for you, Abel, the house. I’ll tend to the outdoor purchases, and we can talk together about investments. How does that sound?”

“Fine,” she said, still cautious.

“Gut!”
He brushed a quick kiss against her temple, then bounced off the bed and went to the bureau they shared. He withdrew an envelope from one of the top drawers and handed it to her. “Here, use this until I get your checkbook set up, okay? And tell me if you need more.”

Grace peered inside the envelope. Without counting, she knew it was more than Silas had given her to spend in all the years of their marriage combined. She looked up at Seth.

“Danki,”
she said with seriousness.