Huckleberry Harvest (12 page)

His dat yanked his arm from Noah’s grasp and staggered toward Mandy. “Take me home, Little Rosie. Please come home.”

Noah immediately stepped between Mandy and his dat, enveloping him in another bear hug. “Mandy, go away,” he pled, his voice cracking in a rare moment of vulnerability.

“Come home, Rosie,” his dat repeated, reaching for Mandy even as Noah pushed him away.

Even though she’d seen him strike Noah, Mandy instinctively knew that Noah’s dat wouldn’t hurt her. He seemed so despondent, so damaged, that the only emotion she felt for him was profound compassion.

“Can I help you get him home?” she whispered, afraid her voice might give out on her if she spoke with more boldness.

Noah still would not look her in the eye as he took his dat’s arm and draped it over his shoulders. “Nae. I can manage.”

His dat stopped struggling. “Let her come home, Noah.”

Noah pressed his lips into a rigid line as a storm raged behind his eyes.

At that moment, Mandy would have done anything to ease the hurt she saw there. She pointed to the other buggy parked to the side of the building. “Your dat’s?”

Noah nodded.

“I can drive one to your house if you drive the other.”

His dat bent the arm that was slung over Noah’s shoulder, pulling Noah closer to him as if he were giving him an affectionate hug. He furrowed his brow and seemed almost lucid. “Noah, don’t you want your mama to come home?”

Noah bowed his head. “Come on, Dat,” he mumbled. “If you let Rosie come too.”

Noah hesitated with one arm around his dat’s back and his other hand gripped firmly around his dat’s wrist. “Okay,” he whispered.

“I’ll tell my driver to go home,” she said, hoping Noah wouldn’t catch sight of who else was in the car.

She walked to the other side of the black buggy, where Peggy drummed on the steering wheel and Kristina sat with her arms clamped like a vise around her chest. The rear windows were tinted. Lord willing, Noah would be none the wiser. She opened the door and slipped into the front seat. “Peggy, I am going to help Noah. Will you take Kristina home?”

“What did he say?” Kristina asked. “He hates it when you tease him about his dat.”

“Tease him?” Mandy said. “What do you mean
tease
? Kristina, did you say something to Noah you shouldn’t have?”

She turned her face and stared at the stoplight. “He can’t take a joke.”

Mandy wanted to grab Kristina by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. She’d only been acquainted with Noah for a week but already knew that Noah’s dat was a topic that should never be mentioned.

“I’ll take her home,” Peggy said. “Will you be okay?”

“Jah, I’ll get home.”

Peggy nodded and put the car into reverse. “If you run into trouble, call me. I always stay up late to watch
Night-line
.”

“Please just . . .” She leaned toward Kristina. “Please, let’s keep this between ourselves. It’s pure gossip to spread someone else’s misfortunes.”

Kristina pinched her lips together and nodded. “Everybody already knows about Noah’s dat.”

Mandy glared at her best friend. “Promise me you won’t say a word.”

Kristina looked as if she might bite Mandy’s head off. “Okay. Don’t get huffy. I promise.”

Mandy relaxed when Peggy pulled out of the parking lot and her car disappeared around the corner. Noah wouldn’t have to know about Kristina.

Noah helped his dat into the black buggy. His dat lay down across the backseat and seemed to fall asleep immediately. Mandy grabbed a wool blanket sitting on the front seat and laid it over him. Noah risked a glance at her. “Denki,” he said.

“I’ll drive the courting buggy back,” she said.

“It’s cold.”

“You need to be with your dat. I’ll be warm enough.”

Keeping his eyes down, he shrugged off his black coat and handed it to her. “Wear this.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

His tone, almost resentful, shut down any argument Mandy might have tried to make. It was plain that he didn’t want to be contradicted, didn’t want to talk her into anything, and most certainly didn’t want to spend any more time standing outside a bar where the whole world could see him.

She nudged her hands into the sleeves, and Noah’s warmth immediately enveloped her. His coat smelled like him, clean and wintery, with just a touch of the deep forest lingering in the fabric. She rolled the sleeves twice and still the coat felt as if it would tumble from her shoulders if she breathed too hard. She buttoned it around her and climbed into Noah’s open-air buggy.

“I’ll follow you,” he said.

She loosened the reins and with a flick of her wrist, got the horse moving. How far was it to Noah’s house? Half an hour? Forty minutes? Her breath hung in the air. A little chilly for September.

She tucked her hand into one of Noah’s coat pockets and found a pair of gloves. Sure to be too big for her, but better than hands made stiff with the cold. Keeping hold of the reins with one hand, she slipped each glove on in turn. Oversized, but they’d keep her hands warm. She had all of Noah’s gear. Lord willing he’d be warm without it.

The horse’s hooves clapping against the pavement lulled her into a sense of calm as they always did on a crisp, quiet night like tonight. She could hear the faint, comforting clip-clop of Noah’s horse a few paces behind her. What was he thinking? Was he embarrassed about his dat? Grateful for her help? Mandy felt bad for Noah’s dat, but was glad she had been there. She had always been able to make things better for people. Mamm said it was one of her gifts.

The darkness seemed to envelop her as she got closer to Noah’s place and farther away from the lights of town. After half an hour of quiet solitude, she turned down the road to Noah’s house. There was a little shed that looked as if it might be what Noah used as a stable a few hundred paces behind the house, but Mandy couldn’t see how to get there from the dirt road. She parked the buggy in front of his house, and he pulled behind her.

She slid from her seat, eager for the warmth of the indoors. Noah didn’t acknowledge her as he coaxed his dat to sit up and then climb out of the buggy.

“I’m sorry,” Noah’s dat mumbled. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Cum, Dat. I’ll take you to bed.”

His dat seemed to be walking and talking in his sleep as Noah put an arm around him and led him to the cement porch. Mandy went before him and held the door open as Noah led his dat up the step.

A floor lamp stood in the entryway, one of the kinds with a battery underneath the cabinet and a regular lightbulb on top. Mandy pulled the chain and turned on the light. The hound dog she had encountered here last week seemed to appear from out of nowhere. His collar jangled and his paws clicked against the wood floor as he bounced and fussed like a puppy, sniffing at Mandy and Noah and then Noah’s dat.

“Down, Chester,” Noah said as he struggled to coax his dat into the house.

The dog immediately backed away, rested his rump on the floor, and tilted his head to study the three people who had barged into the house.

Noah’s dat paused in the entryway to take a blurry-eyed look at Mandy. “You remind me of my Rosie,” he said. “She’s a pretty gal.”

Noah coaxed him down the hall to the left.

“Can I help?” Mandy said.

“Nae,” Noah said. “You can’t.”

Feeling more than a little awkward, Mandy laced her fingers together and waited in the hallway with the dog as Noah took his father into what must have been a bedroom. The dog stayed put, quietly standing sentinel, waiting for Noah to return.

Mandy cautiously reached out a hand to pet him. He’d let her do it before, and he seemed gentle enough. “Chester,” she said. “You are a very pretty dog.” She scratched behind his floppy caramel-brown ears, and he nudged her fingers with his nose. “I have a cousin named Chester. He looks nothing like you.”

After a few minutes of conversing with Noah’s dog, Mandy took a peek around the house. It looked even smaller on the inside than it did from the outside. In the shadows cast by the lamp, she could see three doors down the hall to her left that she guessed were bedrooms and a bathroom. The entry hall, which was about three feet square, opened into a small kitchen with a fridge and oven on one wall and a sink and window on the wall opposite her. A long gray counter came out from the wall behind the sink and divided the room in half. A square kitchen table, surrounded by three chairs, sat in the other half of the room next to a woodstove against the far wall. There was no sitting room to speak of, no sofa, no comfy chairs. Where did they wash their clothes? How could they hold
gmay
in such a small space?

Mandy took another step into the house. Chester twitched his nose, but otherwise didn’t show any sign of objecting. It wasn’t too hard to guess that this was one house where church was never held. Not only was it too small to fit a whole district, but Noah’s dat had been allured by the evils of alcohol. A man like that wouldn’t be in gute standing with the church.

Even though it was small, Noah’s house was tidy. His mamm must be a gute housekeeper. Unless . . . What had Noah’s dat said about his mamm? Mandy couldn’t remember, but she’d gotten the impression that his mamm wasn’t around anymore.

Was she dead?
Oh, please no, dear Lord.
Noah had already lost his sister to death and his fater to alcohol. Had Noah’s mamm been taken too? Mandy couldn’t bear the thought of more tragedy plaguing Noah’s life.

She gazed down the hall. Certainly no more than two people and a good-sized dog could live in such a cramped space. Still, she didn’t see how Noah and his dat would have been able to keep the house so clean all by themselves.

Finally feeling somewhat warm, Mandy began to unbutton Noah’s oversized coat.

“Leave it on,” she heard Noah say. She turned to look down the hall as he slipped out of his dat’s room and shut the door behind him. He persistently refused to look her in the eye as he ambled down the hall and opened the front door. “Cum. I’ll take you home.” Chester’s ears twitched, and he let out a soft whine. “Stay here, Chester.”

The dog immediately came to attention as if he wouldn’t dream of moving from his designated spot.

Mandy had the feeling that she was being dismissed. Didn’t Noah want to talk about what had just happened with his dat? Didn’t he want some comfort?

“What about your lip? We should put some ointment on it.”

He rubbed his hand down the side of his face as if the weight of his dat’s problems had fallen on his shoulders.

She rested her hand on his arm. He flinched. “It’s going to be okay, Noah.”

For the thousandth time tonight, he turned his face away from her. “What do you know about it?” His tone was mild but tinged with a bitterness that made her take a step back. “I asked you to go away. Why didn’t you leave?”

“I wanted to help.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “Help? You can’t help.”

“He . . . he was so angry. I thought you might not be able to get him home by yourself.”

He grunted his displeasure. “For five years I’ve managed to get my dat home all by myself. I’ve never needed your help, and I didn’t need it tonight.”

She swallowed the lump clogging her throat before she suffocated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No doubt Kristina’s told you all about my dat, the drunk,” he said, spitting the words out of his mouth. “You wanted to see for yourself, didn’t you?”

Mandy tucked the collar of Noah’s coat around her neck. His accusations chilled her to the bone. “I . . . I didn’t.”

“Kristina will love hearing about this latest incident, then, won’t she?”

“I would never do that.”

Noah took a ragged breath. “My mamm’s gone, my dat’s sick. Haven’t you people made me suffer enough? Go. Please just go.”

Mandy squared her shoulders and shook her head. “I’m not going. I’m still wearing your coat and I don’t have a way home.”

Leaving the front door wide open, he strode to the table and plopped into a chair with his back to her. He buried his face in his hands and acted as if he couldn’t care less if she walked through that door and disappeared forever. Chester padded softly into the kitchen and stood next to Noah’s chair, watching him expectantly as if to be ready if Noah needed him to fetch some slippers.

Mandy had never felt more miserable in her life. Somewhere along the line, her best intentions had gone awry, and there sat Noah, without a friend in the world, bearing a trainload of burdens on his shoulders. They were wide shoulders, jah, but a man could only take so much before he collapsed under the weight of it all.

Quietly, she shut the front door and tiptoed into the kitchen. She hesitated for only a moment before laying a hand on his shoulder. Chester sat on his haunches and licked the back of her other hand as a show of support.

Noah sighed, lowered his head even farther, and shoved his fingers through his hair. “You want me to say it? I’ll say it. Seeing you there tonight, knowing what you know about my dat, I’m completely humiliated. I hope you’re happy. You and Kristina will have a wonderful-gute time gloating.”

Standing in Noah’s quiet, dim kitchen, Mandy’s heart broke for this wounded soul who thought that Mandy and Kristina and maybe his entire community wanted to hurt him. Trying to keep some sort of connection between them, she left her hand on his shoulder and sat in the chair next to him. “Noah. I would never deliberately hurt you.”

He lifted his eyes and studied her face. “I’m the boy who broke your best friend’s heart.”

“We’ve had our differences.”

“We argue whenever we lay eyes on each other.”

She shook her head. “I’m not afraid to tell you what I think, and I have certainly made some hasty accusations, but do you really think I would use your misfortunes for petty revenge?”