A Wedding for Julia (8 page)

She hadn’t been able to leave her bed for two days. Julia was worried enough to go to the phone shack and call Doc Hanson. He’d come to the house, assessed her mother’s condition, and spoken with her about it in the hall outside her mother’s room.

“It’s her heart, Julia. Same as before. The muscle is old and tired. Perhaps with a pacemaker—”

“My hearing is still
gut
, Grady Hanson, and I believe I’ve given you my decision on that topic.”

Doc Hanson had shrugged, and Julia had gone back to her mother’s side. Suddenly she was worried and ashamed she’d spent hours upset at Ada for their conversation about her future. What if the time she’d spent angry were some of her mother’s final hours?

By Saturday Ada had taken one of her miraculous turns, and on Sunday morning she woke insisting she was well enough for church.

The episode had done more than shame Julia about her resentment toward her mother. It had convinced her that she might not have long to make her decision. If she wanted to stay in Pebble Creek, she would need to find a way to do so.

But short of marrying, how?

As the hymn singing stopped and the preaching began, they turned in their Bibles to the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians. Julia’s attention didn’t stay on Paul’s description of the spiritual gifts, though. Instead, her eyes drifted across the page to the apostle’s words on love.

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way.”

How many times had she read those words? But always with an eye to how she treated others in her congregation or her parents. Never with a mind toward marrying someone she barely knew. Would she actually consider such a thing? And who was to say—here was the real rub, which caused her eyes to fill with tears again—who was to say that someone would be willing to marry her?

It was worse than humiliating.

As they rose to sing the next hymn, she glanced across the room and was startled to see Caleb watching her. Her heart flipped like pancakes on a griddle.

Had he noticed her reaching for her handkerchief? Did he guess what emotions she was struggling with?

And what exactly had he meant when he left her house on Tuesday? He’d said she could stay in Pebble Creek and have her café if she found someone to marry. What would prompt him to say such a thing?

Even if someone from their congregation offered to marry her and she accepted, there was no guarantee he would agree with her plans to turn their home into a café. She would be subject to his decisions. He might not even want to live in the old house along Pebble Creek. What would be the chances that her dreams would be his dreams?

More importantly, what would be the chances that their marriage would be a union of love, one like that described in Paul’s letter she had been reading? She was old enough to realize that not all marriages were held together with love. A marriage was a private thing, and what one saw on the outside was not always what existed within—even for those around her, even for Amish marriages.

There was no such thing as a perfect community with perfect families and perfect relationships. She would have no guarantees.

As they were dismissed for lunch, she turned to help her mother stand. Ada smiled up at her. What could she possibly have to smile about? Her hands were nearly clawlike today, her heart unreliable, and she was shrinking before their eyes. Ada never failed to amaze Julia, but then she was learning—daily—that there were many things she didn’t understand, many things she had yet to learn from her mother. The question was whether God would grant them enough time.

Caleb was not happy.

Sitting at the picnic table next to Aaron, he hunched over his plate of food and pretended to eat.

It seemed as though a protective barrier was around Julia Beechy, and he was having trouble finding a way through it. Before the church service it had been women—lots of women. Aaron’s wife, David’s wife, Julia’s own mother. When he had arrived at Aaron’s house for the morning service, Caleb had tried to catch Julia’s attention, but he couldn’t make his way through the women who were talking with her.

At one point they actually linked up arms and walked off in a different direction, leaving Caleb holding his hat and wondering what he was supposed to do. To make matters worse, Aaron had laughed and slapped him on the back.

Had the entire district gone crazy?

During church he’d made a concerted effort not to stare at her, but she’d looked so forlorn, not to mention beautiful, that he’d had trouble tearing his eyes away.

When had she started looking beautiful? Last week she’d merely looked like Julia.

Caleb knew what he needed. He needed to spend a day fishing. Things made more sense when he had a line in the water, when he was standing on the bank of Pebble Creek and his thoughts were following an orderly fashion. Since Tuesday, his thoughts had jumped in every direction, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He needed to make it through Sunday, and then Monday was his regular day off.

Except he’d agreed to work the next day. He’d start early, finish early, and make time to go fishing. Once he put his life back on a normal track, everything would be fine.

First, though, he needed to talk to Julia. So he’d tried again after the service.

This time the table she was watching over was crowded with old people, children, and men, and she was at the vegetable table. No one was ever interested in the vegetable table! Suddenly, Andrew Miller couldn’t have enough of the squash casserole. Andrew, who Caleb had seen swallow more sweets in a month than he personally could consume all year. He ought to take the young man aside and have a talk with him. Andrew was making a fool of himself. But Andrew wasn’t the only one.

Apparently every single man in their district, and there were a few, had heard of Julia’s predicament.

“Better go and speak with her, Caleb, before someone sweeps her off her feet.” Aaron laughed as he stuffed a piece of ham into his mouth.

“Speak with who?” Seth, David’s oldest son, glanced around as if he’d missed something.

The boy was growing faster than hay in summertime. He was practically swallowing his food whole, and everyone knew why. As soon as Clara finished working in the serving line, the two would be off walking near the river. Rumor had it that they would publish their marriage intentions soon, which was one more thing to irritate Caleb on this beautiful Sunday afternoon.

“Never mind who.” Caleb stood and gathered up his dishes. The crowd around the vegetable table was thinning out. Most had taken their plates to their tables. Andrew remained, but Caleb was certain he could find a way to move him away from Julia.

“Aren’t you going to eat that cobbler?” Seth asked.

“Take it.” Caleb handed it to him and walked off, the thought of cobbler turning his stomach slightly. It had looked good enough when he’d accepted it from Clara, Lydia’s sister. He’d never be able to eat it now.

His hands began to sweat as he covered the distance to where she stood. What was he doing? What was he going to say? Was he actually going to say what he thought he was going to say? Had he fallen down and hit his head sometime in the last week?

Veering away from the food line, he walked to the edge of the gathering and braced his hand on a tall northern red oak. Looking up into its dark red leaves, he calmed somewhat, and that was when he remembered the conversation with his father. After several days of driving past his delivery drops, burning his own dinner, and waking in the middle of the night with a certain woman’s face dancing through his mind, he’d finally gone to the office at the cabins and put in a call to Indiana.

His
dat
, in typical fashion, had summed it all up with a few questions.

“Is she a gut woman?”

“Sure, she is—”

“Do you care for her?”

“I care, but—”

“Is she in need?”

“Yes, that’s why—”

“Do you feel
Gotte
has placed you there at this time to provide for her need?”

“Maybe.”

There’d been silence on the line, and then his
dat
had said the words that had calmed Caleb then and settled him now as he turned and walked back toward Julia.
“Sounds as if you know what you need to do, know what
Gotte
intends you to do, and know what your heart is wanting you to do. All that’s left is to see if you’re willing to do it.”

Good ol’
dat
. He never wasted minutes on a telephone walking around the hayfield. No, he preferred to get straight to the point.

“Hi, Caleb.” Julia smiled at him and rearranged two of the dishes.

“Caleb.” Andrew grinned in a way that seemed suspicious. Had he already said something to her?

Caleb greeted them both and waited, but Andrew made no move to step away from the table. Sighing, Caleb pushed forward. He hadn’t thought of what he was going to say, but he knew he wasn’t going to say it in front of a man who was barely over thirty and hadn’t even committed to staying in the area.

“I was hoping to talk to Julia alone for a minute.”

“Oh. Sure thing.” Andrew nodded, his smile still firmly in place. It served to irritate Caleb even more. What was he so pleased about? “Well, remember the offer stands, Julia. David can contact Gabe anytime.”

“Thank you, Andrew.” Julia appeared flustered and shuffled the two casserole dishes back to their original position.

What offer? Why was Julia uncomfortable? And why was Andrew grinning as though he were holding a prize brook trout instead of a plate filled with green beans, corn, and squash? Finally, he smiled back at her again and turned to go.

Caleb didn’t realize he was scowling after him until Julia cleared her throat and said, “You wanted to talk with me?”

“Oh,
ya
.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “But would you like a break? You’ve been standing here since lunch began.”

“I’m not very hungry,” she admitted. “I am glad the line’s thinned out, though. I’ve never seen folks so hungry for vegetables.”

Caleb was tempted to clue her into the fact that it wasn’t vegetables the men were after, but he let it slide. “How about we go for a walk, then? Aaron has made a nice path down to the river.”

“I don’t know. My
mamm
—”

“We’ll watch after her, Julia.” Elizabeth Troyer was standing at the next table—the dessert table. She was Aaron’s kin and the former owner of the cabins. When her husband had died, Aaron had moved to town to help with the management. Eventually, he and Lydia had purchased the cabins from her.

“Oh. All right.” Rearranging the nearly empty vegetable dishes one last time, she stepped away from the table.

They walked in silence for the first moment or so.

Caleb tried to remember what he was going to say, but his mind had gone blank. Looking around at the house, the fields, and the barn, it occurred to him it was always safe to talk about everyday things. “Aaron’s made a lot of improvements here since buying the place.”

“You have no idea,” Julia said.

Caleb glanced at her and then back at the path they were walking down. “What do you mean?”

“You came after much of the work was done. When Aaron first arrived, this property was a mess and where Lydia lived with her parents…” she pointed to the property next door. “It wasn’t much better, though Menno and Ella did their best.”

“Menno’s illness was bad, even then?”

“
Ya
. Many feel it’s a miracle he’s still alive. The farmer’s lung, it prevents him from doing very much.” Julia shook her head. “But he’s still able to pray. You should hear Lydia talk about her father…or maybe you have.”

“A little. Aaron’s very fond of him too.”

“He’s a special man.”

When she grew quiet, Caleb figured she must be thinking about her own father. He missed his family as well, but he could hop on a bus and visit them anytime he wanted. He also received letters regularly. What would it feel like to know you’d soon be left alone?

“Your parents had no other children?” he asked.