A Wedding for Julia (32 page)

Sharon thought of her parents and of how badly she had treated them. Though they might not understand her, there was no question they had been there for her every single day. Her dad had been at the supper table every night.

“I think maybe he started taking something to deal with the pressure. I don’t know what for sure. I tried googling it—maybe oxycotin or hydrocodone. They’re the most common stuff adults abuse.”

Sharon remained silent. She had no idea what she should say.

“I had a kid at school try to sell me both of those once.”

“Drugs? Here?” Her voice squeaked, and both girls turned around to look at them before facing forward again, putting their heads together and whispering.

“No, that was back in Chicago. Here the kids only seem to have beer and pot. Or maybe I’ve just made it clear I’m not interested, so they don’t offer.”

Sharon thought about that as their feet crunched leaves and the fall sunshine fell on her shoulders.
Englisch
schools were different than Amish schools, but some things were the same everywhere. She thought of James buying beer illegally and how all her friends had been angry at her for telling the clerk and her parents, who told his parents.

Some pressures were the same no matter where you were. No matter who you were.

“How has your mom liked the move?”

“I think…” Wess switched the bucket of berries to the hand that held Bandit’s leash and ran his free hand over the top of his head and down his ponytail. “I think she was afraid it wouldn’t last. Afraid to believe things were better. But now she seems good with it. She can do her work anywhere.”

“So Chicago was a bad place to live?”

“Well, there were more pizza places there.” Wess whistled sharply as the girls reached the bridge. They both stopped and then sat down on the bottom step to wait for him. “I don’t know if I’d say Chicago was bad, but this is a whole lot better. At least it is for our family.”

Zoey and Victoria were picking some pebbles up from the ground. As Sharon and Wess came closer, both girls stood up and stuffed the pebbles into their pockets.

“What about for you?” she asked. “Is it better for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you stay after you graduate?”

Wess shrugged, and then he tilted his head and smiled at her. “We’re kind of too young to know where we want to be or what we want to do, don’t you think? I sure haven’t figured it out.”

He handed the pail back to her, wound Bandit’s leash up on his wrist, and then took both of his sisters’ hands as they walked up onto the bridge. Sharon wanted to walk away, to walk to the house, which she could now see from where she stood.

But she heard Zoey and Victoria talking about the fish and the water and the view.

She thought of Wess admitting he didn’t know yet.

There were a lot of things she didn’t know. It was nice to be with someone who could admit to not having all the answers. Someone who was okay with that.

Wess made her feel almost normal.

So instead of turning toward the house, she walked up on the bridge and joined the Elliott kids, who were throwing tiny rocks down into Pebble Creek.

Chapter 26

J
ulia was pleased. By the end of the café’s third week, they had found a nice rhythm. Sharon handled the morning guests easily. Wess arrived in time to help with the lunch rush. Two days a week, he took off at three to help with his sisters. One day a week, Julia insisted that Sharon take off at three and find something else to do besides work.

Ada continued to improve—at least cognitively. She no longer stared blankly ahead as if lost in another time. The Psalms she chose to quote were more appropriate, and she even laughed occasionally. The added stimulus of so many people perked her up, like Julia’s garden after a nice soaking spring rain. Her mother still walked slowly, with her hand holding the cane, and those hands were often still curled in discomfort from the arthritis. Overall, though, Julia worried less that her mother would immediately follow her father and leave her alone.

Though there was no danger of her being by herself anymore. Not since her mother’s decree. Not since she had married Caleb and her life had expanded in more ways than she could have ever imagined. As she placed two loaves of bread into the oven, she glanced over at Ada, sitting in her rocker and watching the birds outside the window on the feeder.

The café was quiet. Two in the afternoon was their slowest time. Sharon was dusting windowsills, and Wess was assembling take-out boxes in the mudroom. Caleb was in the barn, patching worn spots in the roof before the winter snows began. His boss had asked him to work one Saturday a month. They had agreed that on those weeks he would take Friday off instead. This was the week he switched days.

Julia walked across the room and squatted down in front of her mother’s chair. “
Mamm?
”

“
Ya?
” Ada shifted her gaze from the birds to Julia.

“
Danki
.”

Ada reached forward to cup her daughter’s face in a trembling hand. “For what, dear?”

“Everything. For making all this possible. For seeing what I couldn’t see.”

She expected one of the Psalms, perhaps the hundred and eighteenth. Instead, her mother leaned forward, kissed her on the forehead, and said, “
Gem gschehne
.” Then she patted her hand and went back to watching the scene outside the window.

Julia stood, straightened her apron, and returned to the kitchen. After checking on her bread, she decided she had enough time to walk down the lane to pick up their mail. The errand usually took her ten minutes, there and back, and it helped to clear her head when she’d been in the kitchen cooking all day.

She passed one car of customers, which she knew Sharon could handle. As a young girl, she would run down to the mailbox, open it, and pop her hand inside, but one day that had earned her a sting from a wasp’s nest that had set up shop in the back of the box.

Now she always looked first, though she knew there would be no wasps or bees this time of year.

She found two letters. Both letters bore postmarks from Monroe, Indiana. One was to Sharon from her mother, and the other was to Julia from Caleb’s mother. She had replied to Betsy’s first letter the day after their wedding and had received a reply the next Friday. Apparently Betsy wrote her letters on Wednesdays.

Julia had never received much mail before, and she found she liked it. As she read Betsy’s letters, she felt as though she were visiting Indiana and sitting in the home Caleb had grown up in. Maybe one day they could visit, but until then the letters were a nice substitute.

There was still only the one car of customers, and Sharon had already served them.

Julia probably had another ten minutes or so before the late afternoon group started trickling in. She walked through the house and handed Sharon’s letter to her. The girl simply stuffed it into her apron pocket.

“Would you like to read it?”

“
Nein
. Tonight is soon enough.”

“I think I’ll step out on the back porch, then. Call me if you need me.” Julia took a glass of water and a gingersnap cookie with her. She sat in the old rocker, the rocker she could remember sitting in with her father, and slit the letter open.

Dearest Julia
,

I am happy to hear the café is doing so well. I can picture the bridge crossing your small creek. It’s a lovely thing to think of your place connected to Aaron’s. I wish you could have known Caleb and Aaron when they were growing up. They were always finding something to do outside with birds or snakes or fish. Caleb was much older, of course. Aaron was like a baby bruder and often tagged along. Ask Caleb to tell you about the scar on his right hand, and what Aaron had to do with it
.

Julia glanced out toward the barn where Caleb was working. She knew the scar Betsy was talking about. It was between Caleb’s forefinger and thumb and looked like a puncture wound.

I know it might seem too early to speak of such things, but we are praying that if it’s Gotte’s wille, you and Caleb will have a full and complete family. There is no joy like that of carrying an infant, of holding it in your arms, and of one day knowing he or she has married the person Gotte intended them to wed. We also pray that Sharon is doing well. It’s gut to hear she likes working in the café
.

All my love to you both
,

Betsy

Julia stared toward the barn before rereading the last paragraph again. Hadn’t Caleb told them her age? Hadn’t he warned them that children probably wouldn’t be in their future? Or had he left it for her to do so?

There is no joy like that of carrying an infant, of holding it in your arms…

Julia understood what Betsy was saying. She had never thought such a future was for her. It had been years since she had dared to hope. Images from the last few weeks flipped through her mind. Lydia placing her hands on her stomach. Ella holding Anna’s baby. Miriam handing Rachel to Gabe.

She knew. She understood what she had missed. Did Caleb? How important was it to him that they have children?

Slowly she folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. She placed the letter into her pocket, stood, and went back to work.

Caleb looked down at his dinner and tried not to grimace—chicken casserole again. Julia was a wonderful cook, and she was also careful with their money. She threw everything that was left from the week into Friday’s chicken casserole, and it was tasty. Probably he was only tired, and that was why he was wishing for a piece of fish. He’d actually caught sight of a few fish swimming downstream while he’d worked on the roof of the barn.

As he reached for fresh bread and slathered it with butter, he reminded himself that less than a month ago he’d been living in a barn, mostly eating things out of a can or whatever Lydia brought him from her family meals.

There were those afternoons, though, when he’d finished early at the grocery and headed straight to the creek. One or two fish had been plenty, and often he’d cooked them outside over the little pit fire Aaron had set up near the picnic tables.

“Something wrong with the casserole?” Julia asked.

“
Nein
. It’s
gut
.” Caleb shoveled a big forkful into his mouth and followed it with a large bite of bread. She had worked all day too. He was being ungrateful to wish for the old days—to wish for something different than what everyone else who had walked into their house—correction, their café—had been served.