Sarasota Dreams (30 page)

As Shelley placed a slice of pie on the plate and poured Jeremiah a glass of milk, she mentally lectured herself to act normal. She squared her shoulders and headed out with Jeremiah’s order in both hands.

He was still grinning as she approached his table. Mary, Abe, and the Penners stood on the other side of the restaurant chatting with one of the customers.

“Here you go, Jeremiah. Will there be anything else?”

Jeremiah shook his head and gestured toward the other side of the booth.

“Join me?”

Shelley blinked. “I can’t do that. I’m working.”

“You don’t look too busy to me.”

She was about to argue with him, but Mr. Penner’s voice stopped her. “Go ahead and sit down, Shelley. You’ve worked hard all day. You’ve earned it.”

Not one to argue with the boss, Shelley sat down across from Jeremiah, awkwardly fidgeting with the edges of her apron. She glanced at him but quickly looked down at the table.

“I wanted to share the good news with you,” Jeremiah said.

Shelley braced herself. Often other people’s good news was her bad news, like when Peter had told her he was engaged to another woman, so it could have been anything, including courting someone else. The notion of that bothered her more than she wanted it to.

“Do you want to hear it or not?” he asked, his smile fading as a look of concern covered his face.

She looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, of course I’d like to hear your good news, Jeremiah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know. You acted sort of strange there for a moment.” He put down his fork, rubbed his hands together, cast a brief glance over toward the Penners, and then faced her again. “I am about to be a landowner.”

“A landowner?”

He nodded. “Abe and I have worked out a deal for me to purchase some of the land he isn’t farming. I’ll continue to work for him until we get everything in place.”

“That’s nice. I mean, you’ll be able to grow crops, right?”

“Yes, and I’ll continue to work closely with Abe.”

“I’m very happy for you.”

Shelley started to stand, but Jeremiah placed his hand on her wrist and tilted his head toward the table. “Please stay. I’m happy, and I want to tell you all about it.”

Since Mr. Penner had ordered her to sit down, she decided to remain and listen to Jeremiah’s chatter about what he wanted to do with the farmland. She couldn’t help but get caught up in his excitement.

“I’ll start out with more citrus, and since Abe has oranges and grapefruit, I’m planting lemon and lime trees. It’ll take a few years before they produce enough, so I’ll add tomatoes, peppers, and whatever else I can get to grow.”

“Do you know how to do all that?” Shelley asked. “After all, you haven’t been working on the farm all that long.”

“I know the basics, and I’m still learning. But like I said, I’ll work closely with Abe. He told me about a county extension course that I can take to learn some of the science of farming.”

Jeremiah had come a long way in a very short time. Shelley hoped he was as sincere as he sounded.

“And as soon as I can, I plan to start building a house on the land.”

She was uncomfortable as she felt his gaze lingering on her. “A house is nice.”

“I want a house big enough for a family.”

Shelley’s heart twitched. “Yes, of course.”

“Shelley? Look at me.”

She slowly widened her eyes to look directly at Jeremiah, but she didn’t know what to say. He didn’t speak either. Their gazes locked for several seconds before Mr. Penner joined them.

“So, Shelley,” the older man said. “What do you think about Jeremiah having his own farm?”

She welcomed the diversion. “I think it’s wonderful. He’ll be a very good farmer—I’m sure.”

Mr. Penner chuckled. “I obviously interrupted at the wrong time. I’ll leave now.”

Shelley jumped up from the table. “Oh no. I need to go help prepare the dining room for tomorrow.”

Mr. Penner glanced over his shoulder. “Ya, that’s a good idea.” He leaned toward Shelley and lowered his voice. “Jocelyn is still a bit slow, but she seems to be working out just fine. Now that you’ve worked with her for a while, how do you like her?”

Shelley considered how friendly Jocelyn had been with her and how much the customers seemed to like her. “I like her.”

“Good. She’s not much past twenty, and she still has a lot to learn.” Mr. Penner straightened up and tugged at his suspenders. “My decision to hire her wasn’t a bad one like some people thought it might be.”

As Shelley took off toward the kitchen to get a couple of rags and cleaner for the tables, she heard Mr. Penner and Jeremiah exchange a few more comments. When she heard the jingle at the front door, she thought they’d all left. However, she came back out and spotted Jeremiah still sitting at the booth.

“I thought you left,” she said as she wiped his table clean.

“No, I’m sticking around to take you home after you close the restaurant.”

“You don’t need to do that,” she argued. “I can walk home.”

“I know I don’t need to do that, but I want to. It’s important to me.”

Shelley accepted the fact that Jeremiah wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she finished cleaning up as quickly as she could. Jocelyn had gotten better about knowing what to do, so Shelley didn’t have to give her as much instruction.

She removed her apron, placed all the rags and towels in the laundry bin, and walked out to the dining room. Jeremiah wasn’t there.

“Looks like you got ditched,” Jocelyn said.

“That’s fine. I like walking home. It gives me time to think.”

Jocelyn leaned back, narrowed her eyes, and shook her head. “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you were lying through your teeth.”

“Lying through my teeth?”

“Yeah, that’s like lying, only worse.”

Shelley couldn’t imagine a lie worse than a regular lie, and she didn’t see how doing it through her teeth would change it. “I am not lying.”

“I know you’re not. You’re the real deal.” Jocelyn winked and playfully laughed. “I need to get outside since my car is in the shop. My ride will be here any minute.”

“Would you like me to wait with you?” Shelley asked.

“No, you go on ahead. I’ll be just fine.”

The second they stepped outside, Shelley spotted Jeremiah standing over by his car talking to one of his old friends. She felt awkward and shy, and she wasn’t about to go up to him while he was with that stranger.

She hesitated for a split second and then stepped down off the curb, being careful not to turn around and look at Jeremiah. She’d gone about ten feet when she heard Jeremiah call out to her. She stopped and turned around.

“Hey, Shelley, hold on a sec. Remember? I’m taking you home.”

“I can walk.”

“No, I’m taking you home.” He said something to his friend that she couldn’t hear and then jogged over to her. “That’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. In fact, he’s the one who advised me to return to my roots.”

“I thought you did that of your own accord.”

“I did.” Jeremiah waved to the man. “But Kyle was the first person I told I wasn’t happy in that lifestyle.”

“Did he take offense?”

“No, I don’t think so. He said he thought people would accept me if they were sure I was sincere.”

He opened the passenger door, and she got in. Shelley stared after Jeremiah’s friend until he took off in his truck.

After Jeremiah got into the driver’s seat, Shelley asked, “What was your friend Kyle doing over here in Pinecraft?”

“He was making a delivery to one of the businesses.”

As they waited at a traffic light, Shelley decided to get Jeremiah talking about the farm, since that seemed to make him so happy. “When will you actually have your own land?”

“Abe is working something up, so we can eventually move the property to my name. Even before that, I’ll work it like it belongs to me. Once I have it paid off from the money I get from the crops, it will be all mine.” He cleared his throat. “Well, mine and my family’s.”

“How will you do that while still working for Abe?”

Jeremiah rubbed the back of his neck. “It’ll be a lot of hard work, but like Abe said, I can do it this way, wait until I have enough money saved, or never have my own land.”

“What made Abe think you’d even want to do this?”

“We used to talk about it when we were kids. Even though he’s a year younger, I always looked up to him because he was the smartest and most focused kid I ever knew.”

“I guess I never really paid that much attention to Abe,” Shelley said. “I was too busy at home.”

Jeremiah squinted as he pointed toward Shelley’s house. “Isn’t that your brother out on the front lawn?”

Shelley turned and looked. “Yes, it’s William. What is he doing?”

“I can’t tell. He has his face on his knees. Looks like he might be sick or something.”

As soon as Jeremiah pulled up in front of Shelley’s house and stopped the car, Shelley hopped out and ran over to her brother. Jeremiah remained in the car for a couple of minutes, but William wasn’t budging. He turned off the engine, got out of the car, and walked over toward Shelley and William.

“Need any help?”

Shelley was confused. “He’s sobbing, but he won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Let me see what I can do.” Jeremiah drew closer and squatted down beside William. “Hey, buddy, what’s the matter?”

William’s sobbing grew softer, but he still didn’t look up. Shelley felt helpless and had no idea what she should do.

Jeremiah pointed toward the house. “Maybe you can go inside and see if something is going on in there.”

“I don’t want to leave William alone.”

“You’re not,” Jeremiah reminded her. “I’m right here. I won’t leave until I know everything is okay.”

Shelley went through the motions of walking into the house, calling out her mother’s name, and getting no answer. This had happened before, but in the past William had been either in his room or out in the backyard.

Her parents’ bedroom door was closed, so she knocked. There was no answer. She slowly opened the door and saw the outline of her mother under the blanket on the bed.

“Mother, are you not feeling well?”

Her mother made a muffled sound and moved a leg. Shelley walked a little closer until she could touch her mother.

“What’s going on, Mother?”

Her mother moaned and then threw the blanket away from her face. “Go away. I’m not feeling well.”

“Have you spoken to William?”

“Neh. He opened the door, but I told him I needed to rest.”

“Where’s Father?”

“He hasn’t come home from work yet.” Her mother pulled the blanket back over her head. “Why don’t you cook something for you and William?”

“All right.” Shelley tiptoed out of the bedroom and went back out to the front yard. Her mother had seemed sad for years, but lately she’d gotten worse, and nothing Shelley did helped.

When she joined Jeremiah and William outside, they were sitting on the grass talking. Jeremiah glanced up and motioned her over. “William was just telling me that your mother is very sick. He’s afraid she’s going to die like your grandmother did when she wasn’t able to get out of bed.”

Shelley looked at Jeremiah but couldn’t think of anything to say. She just stood there, silently making eye contact with him for what seemed like eternity until Jeremiah got up, brushed off the back of his trousers, and pulled William to his feet.

“Come on, buddy,” Jeremiah said. “Let’s go inside and help Shelley cook you some supper.”

J
eremiah saw that Shelley was just going through the motions of cooking, so he did everything he could think of to engage William in the process. William’s sweet nature and innate desire to please others made the task not so difficult.

Once they had everything in the oven and cooking on the stovetop, Shelley went back to check on her mother. That left Jeremiah in the kitchen alone with William.

“Is Mother going to die?” William asked.

Not sure what was wrong with Mrs. Burkholder, Jeremiah hesitated before answering. He finally spoke some carefully chosen words. “Only the Lord knows the answer to that, William, but I don’t think so. I just think something is making your mother very sad.”

“But she can’t get out of bed. When my grandmother was like that, she died.”

“Do you ever feel sad?” Jeremiah asked.

William scrunched his face as he thought about it and then nodded. “Ya, sometimes.”

“When you feel sad, do you ever feel like being alone?”

“One time I did.” William paused before continuing. “I remember when my big brother, Paul, moved out and stopped coming to see me. That made me very sad, and I wanted to sleep all the time.”

“I think that’s how your mother feels right now—like sleeping all the time because she’s sad.”

“Oh.” William folded his arms, leaned against the cabinet, and frowned. “Is she still sad about Paul?”

“I don’t know, but that could be part of it. As people get older and their children grow up, things change. Some parents don’t know how to react to those changes.”

William puffed out his chest. “I’m growing up.”

Jeremiah smiled at him. “Yes you are, and although your parents are proud of you, I’m sure they’re sad they don’t have a little boy anymore.”

A look of understanding replaced William’s worried expression. “Now I get it. Mother feels like she doesn’t have a child to take care of.”

Before Jeremiah could say anything, Shelley reappeared. “I think Mother is doing better. She asked me to bring something to eat when it’s ready.”

Jeremiah pulled her to the side as William stirred the contents of one of the pots. “Where is your father?”

“He’s been working evenings lately. The store is having to stay open later, and they rotate who works the late shift every six weeks.”

“I think that might be part of the problem,” Jeremiah said. “Not only is her youngest child about to be an adult who still needs help, but also her evening routine has been drastically changed.” He glanced up at the stove. “Look at how well your brother is doing. He’s such a kind person, and he doesn’t mind pitching in when he knows what is needed.”