Christmas in Apple Ridge (14 page)

Mourning Henry had so little to do with missing him and so much to do with guilt. When he was found dead, the police had asked her questions, and she’d answered honestly. But they didn’t ask the right ones. The coroner declared his death an accident, and in a court of law it was. But no judge or jury had asked her to testify to her part in his fatal injury.

An odd sadness enveloped her, as if the reality of who she’d become was sinking in afresh. Fear and blame owned her now, and there was no way to buy herself free.

The man moved to the porch and sat, placing his cane beside him and his forearms on his knees. When he looked up at her, it felt like a part of her flew through the window and met a part of him, dancing on the wind for a brief moment.

Refusing to keep staring at him, she turned from the window. She grabbed a wet cloth and wiped a few stray shards of glass from her kitchen table, but thoughts of the man pulled on her.

She eased to the window again, hoping he wouldn’t see her. A car pulled into Lizzy’s driveway, and he walked toward it.

Her father stepped up behind her. “If he’s that interesting, perhaps you should go talk to him.”

The man looked up at her again.

Move away from the window, Beth
.

He waved and then got into the car before she decided whether to wave back or not.

“Who is he, Daed?” She cringed, wishing she hadn’t asked.

“I met him. He seems nice enough, but I don’t remember his name or that of any of the other half-dozen young men I met today. Maybe John or Jacob? Lizzy will know.”

“Don’t you dare tell her I asked.” She turned from the window and took the broom in hand. “I was just curious, and she’ll pester me until I’m as wrung out as a desert.”

Daed struck a match and lit another kerosene lantern. “Not a word from me.” He shook the match and tossed it into the sink. “Has she gotten that bad?”

“Since spring. She’s sure all sting in my life will disappear if I find someone new. The community’s always pushed the singles, but she wasn’t like that before Henry.”

“We only want our young people to find someone.”

“I know, but it’s a little silly to say you trust God to find us a mate and then to pressure
us
to find one. Why is that?”

He shrugged. “We’re a few bales shy of a wagonload, I guess.”

She elbowed him. “Daed, what an awful thing to say about the rest of the community.”

“Just about them? Watch it, Bethie girl. I’ll leave here without boarding up that window.” His smile reminded her of the steadiness of a good man, and loneliness swept through her.

While her Daed moved in and out of her apartment, going up and down the steps with materials to board up the window, she swept
the floor several times, trying to make sense of her emotions. Her mind zipped with a hundred thoughts and her heart with too many feelings. How odd to see that man again.

But she had to stop thinking about him. Taking Jonah’s letter in hand, she unfolded it again. At least she had a fascinating old man she could share her thoughts with.

She closed the letter, hoping he was wrong about her true self growing weaker. She feared he wasn’t. But he didn’t understand. If he did, he’d not suggest telling anyone. With her pen in hand, she began a letter to him.

While waiting on the right words to come to her, she studied the handcrafted gift he’d given her. As she ran her fingers over the beautifully etched scenery, an idea energized her. She’d been thinking too narrowly about how to sell his work. If her bishop wouldn’t let her sell the items but his bishop would, she needed to find another store owner who Jonah could go through. She could find the right buyer and negotiate the agreement, and then Jonah could work with the buyer directly after that.

It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was a beginning point. After a while maybe Omar would change his mind.

“Bethie, I’m all done for now.” Her Daed wiped his hands off on
a dishtowel. “I’ll order glass on Monday and should have you a new window by next weekend.”

“Denki, Daed.”

The flame of the lamp in her hand wavered, causing the shadows to dance as she followed her Daed down the steps. After telling him good night, she went to her office. She turned the knob on the lamp, giving the fire more wick, then pulled a file of sellers from a drawer and looked for the address and phone number of Gabe Price, a Plain Mennonite who owned a store. He not only bought a lot of Amish-made items from her, but he had great connections to other possible buyers and not just other stores. He also furnished items to a couple of resort owners. Since Gabe only lived an hour from Jonah, her plan for them to work together should be doable.

Surely it was time she pushed a little harder to get her way. She’d given Omar time to work through his reservations. He hadn’t. If she made no profit in this plan, he had nothing to hold against her, did he? Jonah’s work deserved to be made available to more people. She would call Gloria and go see Gabe Price as soon as she could. After all, if she hoped to talk Gabe into carrying Jonah’s work, he needed to see the depth of the old man’s skill. She couldn’t show him that through a phone conversation.

The hour grew late, and she felt ready to crawl into bed. Although slipping into her nightgown and snuggling under the covers sounded appealing, she wasn’t sleepy. She took the kerosene lantern with her and went upstairs.

She really wanted to write a long letter to Jonah. If he didn’t want
to read all she wrote, he could use the letter to start a fire. Or maybe she should buy a diary and leave the poor man alone.

“He’s old, Beth, not bored silly,” she mumbled to herself.

In the dimness of the barn, rays of daylight sifted through the cracks in the walls as Jonah studied the sleigh. The broken rig sat in this dreary place year in and year out. How could something as simple as a sleigh conjure dreams of happiness for one and nightmares of defeat for another?

He slid a hand into his pocket, feeling the letter he’d received yesterday. Through her words Beth had carried him to places he didn’t want to go, and he wished she hadn’t been so deep and personal. At the same time, her transparency made him long for more. She’d been so open, but now a paraphrase of a silly nursery rhyme circled around inside him, squawking like chimney swifts—All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men couldn’t put Beth together again.

A shaft of light rested lifeless against the filthy sleigh. That awful night when Jonah was but fifteen replayed in his mind as it had a thousand times before. The midwinter weather had warmed a bit, but by the next morning the half-melted snow had turned to ice. Three of his sisters and two of his brothers sat packed inside the sleigh, the fastest horse they owned hitched to it. Amos drove, flying across the fields and passing Jonah as he chopped a fallen tree into firewood. Mamm and Daed wouldn’t let Amos get on the road, so he drove up
and down the long hill, causing the surrounding fields to ring with delight from their siblings.

After several trips Amos brought the rig to a stop, teasing Jonah because he hadn’t wanted to ride. Even then Jonah hated the gliding feel of a sleigh. It lacked control, and he wanted no part of it. While Amos teased him, Jonah moved away from the patch of wood to the center of the open field, packed a tight snowball, and threw it at Amos, smacking him hard. Amos slapped the reins against the horse’s back and yelled.

The horse headed straight for Jonah, but he laughed as he sidestepped and doubled back. Amos went up the long hill, turned the sleigh around, and charged after Jonah again. He brought the horse around too quickly, and the sleigh hit a patch of ice and swung out wide. The rigging snapped, breaking the connection between horse and sleigh. The horse bolted, jerking the reins from Amos’s hands, and the sleigh hurtled down the slope, straight toward a twenty-foot ravine.

Everything became blurry after that, but Jonah remembered it’d been a long, bloody fight to make the sleigh change course and veer into a nearby snowy embankment. And when the struggle was over, only Jonah had sustained more than bumps and bruises.

He ran his hand over the leather seat of the sleigh. The memory had dulled over the years, yet the injury he’d sustained remained. When Beth learned the truth about his identity, would her sense of embarrassment be like a wound that never fully healed?

He’d finished his letter of explanation to her even before hers arrived, but it’d been impossible to place it in the mailbox. How did one
hurl a heavy object, even a truthful one, at someone on purpose? In certain ways she radiated aloofness, but if he had any ability to read her, that wasn’t who she was. She used her indifference to keep people—suitors, he believed—at bay. She had the breadth, height, and depth within her to connect.

He should have mailed his letter already. A jumble of confused reasons kept him from doing so, but mostly he wasn’t ready for the letters to end.

He ran his hand over the sleigh. If it were in working order, it would have the power to bring joy—not to him, but to someone.

The sound of someone entering his wood shop drew his attention. His grandmother’s soft voice called to him. “Jonah.”

“Back here.”

She walked toward him, a beam of light shining from the hand-crank flashlight she held. “Hi.”

Since this shop was his haven from a family that stayed too close sometimes, she was one of the few who entered, and she didn’t come often. She said nothing, and the sounds of the wind chimes filled the empty space between them.

“Did you need something, Mammi?”

“I just wanted to ask you to supper.”

He didn’t believe that was all she wanted, but he wouldn’t call her on it. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.”

She shifted, and after a long pause she finally spoke again. “You’ve been too quiet for more than a week. I just wondered if you left your voice in Pennsylvania and if we could go back and get it.”

He chuckled. “I’ve just been thinking. That’s all.”

“About the accident?”

“Not so much.”

“I can’t know how to pray if you stay hidden.”

His grandmother’s faith was different from anyone else’s he knew. She paced the floors praying Scripture over her family. Before sunrise she whispered specific verses over each member. He’d been little when he first heard her pray for each grandchild’s future spouse.

He reached into his pocket and felt the letter. Emotions swirled from deep within, like a whirlpool that led to unknown worlds. “I … I saw a young woman in August. Just for a minute but she stole every thought. I had no idea who she was. Then I saw her again in Pennsylvania.”

His grandmother waited, studying him like she always had when something weighed on him.

He shrugged. “She wears black.”

Her soft wrinkles bunched in the center of her forehead. “She’s in mourning.”

“Ya. But she’s been mourning far longer than is traditional. Since the man wasn’t her husband, it should have been over nearly a year ago.”

“That’s unusual.”

“Beth is unusual. And I can’t understand what it is about her that draws me. I’m tired of thinking about her, worrying about her, and yet if she slips my mind for a minute, I intentionally recall memories of her and her letters.” He released his hold on the letter inside his pocket. “It’s ridiculous. I don’t know her well enough for all this nonsense. And what I do know makes the relationship impossible.”

His grandmother climbed into the sleigh and sat. “I think it sounds like you found that treasured piece, the one you said you’d know when you saw it.”