A Season for Tending (7 page)

Rhoda walked to the firepit. She stirred the embers under the large black pot and added more wood. An oversized round hood was attached to the ceiling and hung over the firepit. The smoke went up it, through the hidden flues in the walls of the rooms above them, and out the roof of the two-story home.

Landon grabbed the pot off its crane. “How much water do you need in this thing?” He took the pot to the second mud sink. “A little less than half full?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You, my sorting and crating specialist, volunteering for something outside your job description? I don’t like the sound of that. The last time you did that, you had bad news you didn’t want to share.”

He shrugged, and she knew he was hiding something.

She pointed at the galvanized bucket she used for measuring liquids. “Fill that with water three times and dump it into the pot.”

He followed her orders. “This setup is positively medieval.”

“One day when we’ve made enough profit, I’ll invest in building a separate kitchen, maybe where the shed stands now, only we’ll take up some of the driveway too. It’d be a dream to work in a spacious room above ground.” She dumped mounds of sugar into the pot and stirred it with a specially designed, oversized wooden spoon that her eldest brother had made for her as a graduation present nine years ago. Life seemed simpler then. Straightforward. Uncomplicated. Life now was anything but simple.

Landon hurried to the storage room at the top of the steps and quickly returned with white packing paper. He wrapped pieces of paper around the jars of jelly and jam they’d canned last night. “I saw Mrs. Walker scurrying toward her house.”

“It’s too sad to talk about, so let’s don’t.” Rhoda crushed raspberries with the back of a flat wooden spoon, preparing to make fresh jam. “To think Rueben had the pleasure of destroying my herbs for no good reason already makes it difficult to sleep at night.”

“You know what I think the solution is?” Landon popped a raspberry into his mouth. “Maine.”

He’d expressed this opinion several times since her troubles began. His granny lived there, and she kept him informed of all the best land deals.

“I’m not moving, Landon. My Daed needs me here. For reasons that defy all logic, my presence brings him comfort, and I’m not running from the likes of Rueben Glick and his tiny band of merry nitwits.”

Fear was the real enemy. Without it, no one would believe the lies about her. Much of her reputation was her own fault. She’d been naive, thinking she
could respond to her gut feelings without fueling others’ misconceptions. She prayed she’d never have another urging, but if she did, she was determined not to respond to it.

Landon filled the box with jars of jelly. “It’s getting worse. Everyone’s gardens should be producing by now, and only yours is. More than half of the vines in the area have shriveled to nothing in the last few years. Even those that are producing don’t do near what yours do.”

“It’s called husbandry. Nothing more.”

“It’s a gift, a good one, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that.”

She put the clean raspberries into a colander and rinsed them one last time.

Landon folded the top of the box and set it next to the door. “How about you let me get the voice mail messages from the phone shanty for the next few days?”

She knew now what was going on. Landon had heard new rumors about her, and he wanted to shield her from a fresh round of prank calls. “Denki, but I can deal with the phone calls, same as I always do.” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt.

A small group of Amish and Englisch youth, maybe four or five kids, had been harassing her for years. They had pulled stunts and damaged her plants, but she hated the phone calls the most. Eerie voices begging for help, declaring that she knew who they were and only she could save them.

She never returned those calls to give them a piece of her mind. She could have reported the numbers that showed up on her caller ID, but she wasn’t interested in revenge, and she did
not
want to involve the police. She wanted peace. And a friend.

The phone outside rang. Landon reached to open the screen door.

“You stay here with me,” Rhoda ordered. He stopped cold. “Good boy,” she teased and swung the crane holding the kettle away from the heat. “We have work to do.” She dried her hands on a clean towel. “I’ll deal with the phone calls myself. Later.”

Jacob saw no one as he went through the barn and into the small office at the back. He closed the door behind him. Old file cabinets, several ladder-backs, and a large desk that was too small to hold all the paperwork sat inside a room with a wooden ceiling and floor. Rustic was one thing. Messy was another, and this space stayed piled with files and paperwork.

Numbers, tons of them, danced through his head as he glanced at stacks of information: how many crops this plot of ground had yielded since 1840, how many land managers had tended this land, and how long each had lasted. Catching a glimpse of a year written on a folder made numbers buzz inside his head like yellow jackets on the attack: the number of days in a decade, the number of minutes in a year, the number of trees that produced fruit each harvest, the number of bushels from each tree—

“Okay.” He sang the word as he closed a folder. “That’s enough of that.”

He took a seat in the captain’s chair behind the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed the number etched deeper in his brain than any other. Should he leave well enough alone? He’d asked himself that question a hundred times since leaving her to return home eighteen months ago.

The ringing stopped. “Hi, you’ve reached Sandra and Casey. If this is a sales call or a creditor, please hang up and don’t dial us again. All others, you know what to do.”

Jacob could hear little Casey in the background, saying, “Mommy, look,” over and over again.

After the beep he said, “Hey, it’s me. Just checking in. Anyone home?” He waited, wondering if Sandra was there but unwilling to answer the phone. Was she at the beach, enjoying the rolling waves with Casey? Or was she curled up in a ball, trying to muster enough strength to face another day? “I hope everybody’s okay.” That was probably wanting too much, but what else could he say? He held on until he heard a long beep that ended his time.

Creditors? Was she being harassed by bill collectors? Or was that message meant to sting those who owed her?

Should he have stayed? He still didn’t know.

He opened a drawer, pulled out an envelope and a piece of paper, and wrote “Call me” and his phone number, even though she already had it. Before he’d left, he’d stuck it on her refrigerator, taped it to the mirror in the bathroom, and pinned it on her pillow.

He licked a stamp and pressed it in place before pulling his billfold from his pocket. He counted out hundred dollar bills, allowing figures to run through his head: the difference between what Sandra earned and what she’d need to make ends meet.

He put the last of the money from his billfold onto the stack on the desk, shoved it into the envelope, and sealed it. When he heard his Daed whistling, he slid it into his pocket.

The office door swung open. “Jacob, I didn’t realize you were here. Glad you are, though. I’ve been needing to talk to you.”

Jacob pointed at the calculator as if he actually used one when working with figures. “I’ve run the numbers on the dairy side, like you asked.” He picked up a beige folder. All the papers for the dairy side of the business were kept in beige folders. The apple-side documents were kept in red folders. “It’s all in here.”

“Good.” Daed took the folder. “But what’s on my mind is this year’s Amish Benefit Mission.” He opened it and glanced at the figures.

Daed had been head of the Amish mission outreach for years, and it consumed every bit as much of his time as running the dairy. He closed the folder. “Unless we do something drastic about contributions for the mission, we’re not going to meet our goal. I’ve been talking with some of the men about a solution. I need volunteers, strong men who can build a house that we can sell. And I need a team leader.”

“You asked me the same thing last spring and the one before. It’s not happening, Daed. Sorry.”

“But construction is your area of expertise.”

“Not anymore.”

Daed’s eyes held concern. “What happened out there, Jacob? When you were away?”

Jacob got up and went around his Daed, offering him the chair behind the desk. “If you decide on a moneymaking venture for the mission that doesn’t include my doing construction work, I’ll do it. You name it, it’s yours. But not this.” He made a conscious effort to speak softly. “And I’m not answering any questions about it.” He headed for the door. “See you later.”

He left the office and stepped onto the hay-strewn dirt walkway of the barn. It agitated him how many people thought they had to know the
why
behind every
no
. He grabbed a blanket and saddle and put them on his chestnut Morgan before bridling her.

He mounted his horse, ready to make his routine Friday night ride into town to mail the envelope. He wanted to help people: his Daed, Sandra, Casey, his family, and even strangers. But his days—past and present—were not open to anyone. And he didn’t do construction work anymore. Period. End of discussion.

SIX

Leah glanced up at the night sky, wondering what time it was. It’d been dark for five or six hours now, so maybe it was two, possibly three, in the morning? One thing for sure, all the butterflies that had fluttered in her stomach when she’d arrived at this party had vanished. But the ache in her heart hadn’t yet dulled, not even a little.

Her head spun as she walked across Brad’s backyard, winding her way around dozens of other young people. About half of the crowd was Amish, but not one was dressed in the traditional manner. The guys wore jeans and T-shirts instead of trousers and buttoned cotton shirts, and the girls wore short skirts and knit tops.

Leah’s clothes hugged her curves just like the other girls’ outfits, but with her larger figure, she didn’t look nearly as good as they did. Still, on the way to the party, she’d stopped at a convenience store to change out of her brown dress and apron, take off her prayer
Kapp
, comb out her hair, and put on makeup. Her parents would be hurt if they could see her now. Why did they have to take the way people dressed so seriously, as if anything other than a long polyester dress was a sin against God?

As she walked toward one of the blankets on the ground, her inner voice reminded her that, unlike all the other girls here, she was neither pretty nor cool. But at least the constant chant wasn’t as loud now that she’d had a few drinks. Holding a beer bottle that was no longer cold, she sat in the middle of the blanket, hoping she didn’t look as out of place as she felt.

The party had been inside Brad’s house until something caught fire and the rooms filled with smoke. The musicians had packed up and gone home about an hour ago. Arlan could’ve outplayed any of those guys.

These gatherings exposed her to live music. People brought various instruments and gathered around whoever was playing guitar or piano. They laughed at silly songs she was unfamiliar with, but she’d fallen in love with music and instruments. Until then her only love had been novels, which her parents frowned on but hadn’t forbidden.

A few circles of people shifted, and Michael came into view. He stood some twenty feet away, talking to an unfamiliar girl—an Englisch one. Surely he’d walk away from that girl and look for her soon. She’d started coming to the parties about six months ago because Michael invited her. He’d given Leah her first beer, but being around Michael felt totally intoxicating even without the drink.

Earlier today she’d paid good money to have her hair styled in long layers so she would look as Englisch as possible. But Michael had barely noticed her tonight. Or last night. Or—

“Leah?” The deep male voice came from beside her.

She saw his boots first and tilted her head back until his face came into view, but the move made her dizzy. She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. The stars sparkled. The silvery moon glowed. She wished it were Michael calling her.