The Imposter (12 page)

She handed him the hot mug. “There's not a lot of room in here.”

He grinned and she noticed that his teeth were not quite perfect but they were very white, and his tanned skin glistened with the rainwater. “You mean you want to be alone to mope.”

She frowned. “More like think things over.”

“And is all that thinking making you feel better?”

She sucked her top lip into her mouth, let it go. “Not exactly.”

He picked up the knife she had left on the counter and started to slice the onion into two halves, then diced each half, making sure each piece was the same size as the next.

“There really isn't room for two,” she repeated.

“I'm pretty accustomed to small spaces.” He scraped the diced onion into a bowl and picked up a celery stalk. “How much celery?”

“Two stalks. Thinly sliced.” She poured olive oil into the
pot with the diced onion and stirred. The heat was not high. She added the minced garlic, stirred again, sprinkled in a little bit of salt, then took a carrot and began to peel it.

“Next?”

Next?
He needed to go, to leave her be. “The rain has stopped.”

“But I want to help.”

“You're in the way.” She turned the heat up on the poaching chicken.

“I'll make myself useful.” He grabbed the carrots she had peeled. “These need slicing, right?”

She tried to ignore him as she adjusted the heat under the sautéing onions. “Fine,” she snapped. “Slice the carrots.”

“Wow, that's a pretty intense scowl,” he said. “Any chance you've been avoiding me lately?”

Yes! Of course she'd been avoiding him. She had already been down that particular road and she did not want to travel that way again.
So yes, I'm avoiding you,
she thought,
and you just don't seem to get the hint.
He was like Keeper that way. She glanced back at him, trying to look stern, but a corner of her mouth quirked. “You know—” her grin spread—“you are not exactly what I expected.” She turned back to the stove to stir the onions.

“Hmm . . .” His voice rumbled up through his chest. “Such as?”

“Such as, I had you figured as the silent type,” she said. “You're very talkative, actually.”

“Not with everybody.”

“It's just that, I usually have a sense about people.” Maybe that—along with her confidence, her sense of well-being, her happiness—had abandoned her.

After a long moment he asked, “So what do you sense about me? Something bad?”

“No,” she said, trying to capture the feeling she got when she was around him. “More like . . . sad . . . I guess. Like you have to get something off your chest.”

“Funny . . . ,” he said.

She heard him move, felt him take a step toward her.

And then he was behind her, standing closer than he had any business being. “That's the same feeling I get around you.”

She let the spoon rest on the skillet's edge, then turned and looked up at him, and he reached down to curl one of her prayer cap strings around his finger and give it a little tug. She knew she ought to pull away, that she ought not to encourage him, that she needed to keep their interaction businesslike. A soft glow filled the air as they stood there, inches apart from each other. A stillness came over them. Andy's gaze took in her face, then slowly dropped to her mouth, and for a minute she thought he might kiss her. She thought she might want him to . . . and that awareness shocked her.

For the first time in a long time, she thought about what it might be like to be kissed by someone other than John. She could feel the color building up in her cheeks. The silence in the room took on a prickly tension.

Suddenly a wet black nose came between them, Keeper's nose, and they both startled, jerking away from each other.

Grateful for the timely interruption, Katrina turned back to the onions and gave them a stir, added the carrots, and picked up a potato to dice.

A new relationship wasn't the answer. She wasn't over the old one.

Andy was a bit too close again and she had to scoot around
him to get to the cutting board. He gave her a slow sideways glance. “So, how are you at giving haircuts?”

A laugh burst out of her. “Have you seen my brother Jesse's hair?”

“I don't think I've met him yet.”

“You'd know it if you'd met him. He's one of a kind. Wait until you meet him, then you can decide if you still want me to cut your hair.”

“His haircut is that bad?”

“No, no, it's that good. For a girl, anyway. He's got gorgeous, thick, wavy red hair. The best hair in the family. We five sisters are very envious of that hair of his, but he insists it's nothing but a bother to him.”

Andy's gaze searched her face, resting on her prayer covering. “I can't imagine anyone having prettier hair than yours.”

She did have nice hair, though she knew it was vain to think so. Not as nice as Jesse's, not as red, but it was thick and long, curling down to her hips, strawberry blonde in color. She gave him her best schoolmarm look, the one she used on her little sisters to get them to behave in church. “Andy Miller, are you flirting with me?”

He grinned. “Would I do a thing like that?”

“You might be trying to cheer me up.”

“Maybe.” He brushed her elbow with his own. “Is it working?”

Again, he made her laugh. “Yes.”

Jesse was passing the schoolhouse one afternoon as the door opened and children poured out, happy to be set free. His attention was caught by a curious sight: that same skinny
boy running for his life as three big boys—Luke Schrock in the lead—were hot on his trail after him. Jesse had never seen anyone run so fast. One by one, the big boys gave up and dropped to their knees, puffing and panting and gasping for air.

But Jesse, fortunately, had a scooter. He pumped the scooter with one leg and started to gain on the boy. “Wait! Hold on. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you.” The boy only sped up and dashed away on his storky legs, one arm flailing and the other holding down his hat, running for his life as if he were being chased by a swarm of yellow jackets.

When the boy made a fast turn off into the woods, Jesse gave up and turned his scooter around to ride back and talk to Luke Schrock. He and Luke had a cautious friendship—Luke was a few years younger than Jesse and had a reputation for meanness, all points against him, and Jesse didn't like bullies. Yet Luke had a swagger that was admirable. And, there was always the fact that he was Miriam's younger brother. Jesse hadn't seen Luke since last spring and was surprised at the change in his appearance. He must've grown six inches this summer, with the beginning of fuzz on his upper lip. Luke would be, according to Jesse's sisters' assessment of manhood, quite a looker. A heartbreaker. “Luke, who was that boy you were chasing?”

Luke and his two friends were throwing pocketknives into the ground. When he saw Jesse, he straightened to his full height, pleased to be culled from his posse. “He's new this year. Just a punk.”

“What's his name?”

“Stick. Er is nix wie Haut und Gnoche.”
He's
nothing but skin and bones.

“Actually, it's short for Yardstick,” piped Ethan Troyer. “'Cuz he beat Luke in a race on the first day of school by yards and yards.” Luke stared at him in consternation, but it went unnoticed. “That's why Luke picked him as his project this year.”

Luke jabbed Ethan with his elbow.

Jesse looked from Ethan to Luke, back to Ethan. “Project?”

“For a daily beating,” Ethan said. “But Luke hasn't been able to catch him.”

Luke shoved him. “Schtill sei,” he ordered, “un schwetz net so viel!”
Be quiet and don'
t talk so much!

A year ago, Jesse might have been interested in this school yard squabble. No longer. He returned to the issue at hand. “He sure looks fast.”

“Fastest boy in school,” Ethan said.

Luke lifted a fist to threaten Ethan just as Jesse's sister Ruthie approached. As soon as Luke saw Ruthie, he dropped his fist and straightened to his full height, ramrod stiff. His eyes were riveted on her. “Hey Ruthie,” he said, but she didn't so much as
blink
in his direction as she passed.

Ruthie?
Jesse's head swam. His sister, Ruthie?

Clearly, Luke wasn't accustomed to being ignored. His face turned red enough to ignite. For a few brief seconds, he looked completely humiliated.

Jesse saw it all.

David set out a Grocery Shower box on the front counter to collect food for Ephraim's family. This afternoon, he planned to stop by the hospital. Ephraim's condition had stabilized, but the doctors had said that he couldn't live without the ventilator. With great effort, Ephraim was able to communi
cate short words at a time. There was no doubt that his mind was clear. He had told his wife, Sadie, that he wanted to be taken off the ventilator and she refused. She didn't want to let him go. He told her he couldn't live like this.

One of the burdens on David's heart as a minister was to prepare God's people for a good death. Much of the world was suffused with a great fear of death, it seemed, if not actual denial of it. But there was another way to face death—by resting in the sovereignty of God. By trusting that one's life, though it may be short, would be complete.

Easier to say than to do—
that
, he knew.

The door opened and Gertie Zook and Lizzie King came into the store on a gust of cold air. They didn't notice David in the back of the store and continued their conversation. When he heard the word “tractor,” he stilled to listen, his spirits sinking rapidly.

“I've lived through a church split before,” Gertie said. “It's the same thing. A battle to hold on to the old ways or accept new ways. It never ends well.”

Was that the battle of their church? David hoped people understood the issues were not so simple as the age-old fundamentalist vs. liberal battle. He wasn't trying to hold on to old ways for the sake of tradition but because he felt that the very foundations of the faith were getting eroded. Freeman was running the kingdom of God on his own terms. Every single decision he had made since he became bishop had been motivated by money.

Lizzie King noticed David was at the far end of the aisle and nudged Gertie to stop talking. David said good morning to them and asked how they were, but the conversation felt uncomfortable and forced.

After they left, he leaned his forehead against the doorjamb. Anna would know what he should have said to those two women to reassure them that the church was not in danger of splitting into two factions. She always knew the path to draw people together. These were the moments when missing Anna went from its usual dull ache in his chest to a sharp pain. It seemed impossible that more than a year had passed since her death. At times it felt like she'd been gone for years, other moments he forgot she wasn't there. Last night, his dream about her was so vivid that it startled him awake. In the dream, he had asked her a simple question—what were they having for dinner?—and waited for her reply, eager to hear her voice, but she never answered him back.

Anna, he knew, had had a good death. Her life was complete. It was those left behind who struggled to hold firmly to that truth.