A Plain Love Song (33 page)

“Ben—”

“Hush, fraa.” Ben’s hands become unknotted and he flipped one up, thick fingers splayed in the air. He stood. “I have chores to do.”

“Your daughter’s eternal salvation is at stake here.” Luke also rose as he spoke, the words clipped and sharp. “Think on that, Ben, before you let your pride get in the way of doing everything you possibly can to bring her back into the fold.”

“Pride?” Ben’s voice fell to a raspy whisper. “Pride? All I feel is shame.”

“And love.” Irene slapped her hand to her mouth and swallowed as if she could force back the sob that had escaped. “And fear. You won’t admit it, but I know you feel it. We’re afraid for her and we want her back.”

“You’re angry at her as I would be.” Luke directed his words to Ben as if he hadn’t heard Irene’s outburst. “You’re thinking about what your family and friends will think. No one thinks less of you or Irene. We’ve all had sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, who’ve strayed. Gott knows I have. Remember Josiah? Remember Catherine? It’s not a matter for shame, but for prayer.”

“I have prayed. Long and hard. She’s still out there doing who knows what with that Englisch boy.” Ben stomped toward the door, his boots thudding on the floor. “The chores won’t do themselves. Are you here to visit with the women, Daniel, or do you have a hankering to help?”

Daniel hustled after his father. He threw an entreating glance at Matthew as he reached the door.

“Daniel and I could go.” Matthew’s voice sounded lame in his ears. He shifted from one foot to the other, aware of six pairs of eyes staring at him, waiting. “Daniel’s her brother and I’m…I’m…I’m concerned for her well-being. This Jackson Hart may think he means well but he’s leading her down a path—”

“She’s chosen to go down that path. By now, who knows what she’s done with that Englischer?” Ben’s voice thundered now, no longer sad or bewildered. Anger broke free. “She’ll not come back here and bring her Englisch ways, her fanciful ways with her songwriting and her Englisch music and poison the rest of my children.”

“Mrs. Hart said her sister-in-law is there, at the house, and she’ll not let anything untoward happen.” Matthew refused to be cowed by the older man. Ben deserved respect and his anger and hurt were understandable. Matthew felt them himself. But Luke was right. They couldn’t give up on Adah. “What if she’s gotten herself into something she can’t get out of? What if she regrets it? What if she needs us to come get her?”

“Then she’ll write to her parents, I reckon.” Thomas spoke for the first time. “We need to give her time to realize she’s made a mistake. Let her feel the consequences of that mistake.”

“What if she doesn’t? What if she only gets mired deeper into the pit she’s digging for herself?” Matthew tried to corral his emotions. Luke and the other men had treated him as an equal when he came to them with the proposition that he and Daniel go to Branson. He wanted their continued respect. “Shouldn’t we at least try to set her straight? Daniel has experience. He brought back Michael last year. This is his sister. She’ll listen to him.”

“We’re all brothers and sisters in Christ,” Luke said, his dark eyes thoughtful. “This is different, though. Michael didn’t run away with an Englisch girl.”

“She’s my sister.” Daniel seemed to take strength from Matthew’s willingness to speak up. “She’ll listen to me.”

“That might be true.” Thomas looked to Luke. The other man
nodded. “But let’s wait a bit. I’ve spent enough time talking with Adah during the course of the baptism classes to know she grasps the seriousness of her actions. She’s torn. She has to choose. She has to make the choice herself. That’s what rumspringa is about.”

Matthew clamped his mouth shut to keep from arguing. This wasn’t the answer he wanted.

Ben shoved through the screen door and let it slam behind him. Daniel stalked after his father, letting the door close more softly.

“I’m sorry for your troubles, Irene.” Luke headed toward the door. Thomas and Silas followed suit. “I’ve had a few myself so I know how it feels. Pray. We all will pray for Gott’s will to be done in this.”

“I know.” Irene’s struggle to hold on to her composure played out in her face. Adah’s face. They looked so much alike, except Irene had weathered tragedy and the lines around her mouth and eyes reflected it. Her sculpted features had been honed by pain. What was Adah thinking, adding to those lines? “I will pray.”

They moved toward the door. Irene followed, her fingers working the material of her apron, bunching and unbunching it. Matthew waited for the older men to pass through first. To his surprise, Irene touched his shoulder with one fingertip. He paused. Her gaze beseeched him. He glanced at the other men. They’d already started down the steps to their buggies. “What is it?”

“Don’t wait too long,” she whispered. “Adah needs you. I can feel it.”

“But Luke and Thomas said…I can’t just…”

“I know.” She held open the screen door and Matthew passed through. On the other side, he stopped and glanced back at her. Tears streamed down her face as if the men’s departure had opened the floodgates. “We need to bring my dochder back. For her sake. Don’t wait too long. Bring her back.”

The screen door closed and she disappeared into the recesses of the house.

How long was too long?

Chapter 30

A
dah polished off the last bite of scalloped potatoes and speared a small piece of ham she’d missed on the pretty flowered plate. On their second night in Branson, Charlene had been convinced to let her set the table while she cooked up a storm in the kitchen. Charlene wanted to treat her as a guest, but Adah wasn’t having it. They ate at the smaller round table in the alcove adjacent to the kitchen rather than the massive pine table that seated twelve in the dining room. Adah couldn’t get over how lovely and delicate the place settings were alongside ornate silverware that weighed heavy in her hands.

It all looked so pretty on the lacy white tablecloth, now marred by Jackson’s sloppy eating habits. If stuffing his mouth with gusto was any indication, he enjoyed the food. Charlene cooked a good meal. Sure, the bread was store-bought and the green beans came out of a can, but a hungry person didn’t nitpick the details. Adah needed to speak with Charlene after dinner about their arrangements—how much would she pay for room and board. She wanted to pay a fair price. She wasn’t a guest here. In the meantime, she could help earn her keep by cleaning up.

Spurred by the thought, she stood, barely avoiding Captain’s tail as it whopped on the floor, his face expectant as he waited patiently and hopefully for a piece of ham to fall from the table. As if the dog didn’t have a full bowl of food in the kitchen. Adah stacked her silverware on
her plate and picked it up. Jackson burped, excused himself, and then shoved his plate away from him. Adah reached for it.

“What are you doing, girl?” Charlene shook a thin finger dressed in a silver ring of entwined hearts at Adah. “Don’t you be picking up his plate.”

“What do you mean?” She held a plate in each hand, surprised by Charlene’s sharp tone. “I’m clearing the table. You cooked, I wash the dishes. It’s only fair.”

“Yeah, it’s only fair. She’s clearing the table.” Jackson leaned back and shook a round jar until a toothpick slid from the holes in the lid. He applied it to his side teeth, his lips bared like a dog worrying a bone. “You got a problem with that?”

“Yeah, I got a problem.” Charlene dropped her fork on her plate with a sharp
plink
. “She set the table. You clear the table. She’s not your maid, anymore.”

His smile gone, Jackson tossed the toothpick on the table. “I never said she was.”

“Don’t let him treat you like hired help.” Charlene shook her head so hard her huge silver earrings banged against her neck. “You’re not his maid, you’re not his girlfriend, as far as I can tell, and you’re sure not his wife.”

“No, but I
am
a woman.”

“You’re telling me this is women’s work?” Charlene waved a hand toward the dirty plates and the bowls of food. “Honey, this is a new day for you and it’ll take some getting used to. You need to lay down some ground rules. If you two are friends, he won’t want to take advantage of that friendship.”

Adah studied Jackson. He shifted in his seat. She waited. He crossed his arms. She waited some more. He cleared his throat and stood. “Let me help you with these dishes.” He took the plates from her hands. “Wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”

“You like to wash or dry?” She couldn’t believe those words came from her mouth. “I kind of prefer washing, especially since I don’t know where your aunt keeps things in the cabinets.”

“We have a dishwasher, so there’s no need for washing or drying.”

“Where I come from, I am the dish washer.”

Jackson stacked Charlene’s plate on top of the other two and swiped her dirty silverware from the table. “Here we just scrape them off, run a little water on them, and stack them in the dishwasher.”

She trailed after him into the kitchen. “If you’re going to all that trouble, why not finish the job and wash them?”

“Good question. I don’t know.” He stacked the plates in the sink and turned on the water. “Just the way we do things, I guess.”

So she was learning.

“Hey guys, my friend Brenda is picking me up. It’s movie night.” Charlene stuck her head through the door. “I assume I can trust you two to clean up and behave yourselves while I’m gone.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jackson’s respectful tone didn’t match the small grin spreading across his face. “I’m planning to watch a baseball game. The Cardinals are playing.”

“And I have some letters to write.” Adah could stay in her room and stay out of any trouble that silly grin might imply. As much as she dreaded the thought, she needed to try to explain her actions to her parents and to Matthew. “Don’t worry, we’ll get everything spotless first.”

Charlene blew a kiss at Jackson as she headed for the back door. “I won’t be late. Unless Brenda wants to get a bite to eat after. She always wants coffee and pie even though we get popcorn and root beer at the movie. The woman has a hollow leg.”

With that, the door slammed behind her and Adah stood alone in the kitchen with Jackson. He began to whistle as he rinsed the plates and stuck them in the dishwasher. The notes were familiar. An old Alan Jackson song. She hummed along.

After a few moments of companionable work side by side, Jackson shut the dishwasher and began drying his hands. “You go on. I’ll wipe down the table and finish up in here.”

“You sure?” It seemed so strange to have a man cleaning in the kitchen. She’d never seen such a thing in all her life. Like everything else right now, it seemed like a dream she couldn’t shake. “I can do it.”

“Nope, Charlene’s right. Go write those letters. The game doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes. I’ve got this.”

Would wonders never cease? Feeling guilty for something—she wasn’t exactly sure what—she trudged up the stairs to the large bedroom at the end of the hallway. It had surely been RaeAnne’s room at one time. The décor was Western but with a girly touch. A four-poster bed with a pink-checked canopy. Pictures of horses, mostly Palominos, and posters of country music singers, young, handsome men with cowboy hats and guitars. Definitely RaeAnne’s taste. A bookshelf along one wall showed the girl’s progression in reading skill and life—Dr. Seuss picture books, June B. Jones, Nancy Drew, classics she’d read for school, even some adult novels. Running her fingers over the spines, Adah considered pulling one from the shelf. No, she would not procrastinate another night. Letters first, then a novel.

She climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged, her notebook in her lap. Time to get this over with. At first she doodled. Then she made lists of rhyming words. Then words became sentences. Not letters to her parents. A song.

Always a song.

Stop it. Stop it, Adah
. She could hear her mudder’s voice. How often had she said those words in the first eighteen years of Adah’s life? More than she could possibly count. The thought forced Adah back to her original task. Write the letter. Mudder deserved that. She’d suffered the loss of one daughter to fire; now another to something even Adah couldn’t define. Wanderlust? Discontent? Seeking. Seeking what?

Stop it.

So she wrote. And wrote. And wrote some more. She told Mudder all about Jackson and the songs and the concert at the rodeo and the time down by the creek. She told her everything. How else could Mudder understand? Or Matthew. How could he understand?

Daed would never understand so it didn’t matter what she said. He’d stop reading after the second or third paragraph. Still, she wrote on, hoping at the end she’d understand too.

Finally, she stopped. Her wrist and fingers ached from gripping the pencil. Her neck and shoulders throbbed and her legs were numb. She sighed. Time for a break. She still needed to write to Daniel and Molly. But first she needed a drink of water and a long stretch.

For the first time, she became aware of the noise emanating from
beyond her door. What was that? The TV? Jackson had spent most of the day watching television. He didn’t seem in any hurry to make the big entrance into the Branson music scene while she practiced the guitar for endless hours, her wrists and fingers burning. When she asked, he told her to be patient, that he’d been making calls and doing something he called “networking.” He assured her this “networking” took time. He tried to interest Adah in TV, but she didn’t see the point. If she wanted make believe she’d read a good book. She opened her door and strode to the top of the stairs.