The Keeper (19 page)

Then she picked up a big stick and eyed Jimmy and Arthur, tapping it in her hands a few times. They started backing up and took off running. M.K. ran to the fence, bent over to slip through, when a big arm scooped her up. The arm belonged to Rome, and her legs were dangling in the air like riding a bicycle. “Let me at ’em!”

“They’re halfway home by now, M.K.” He set her down and took the stick out of her hands. “Using a stick is no way to get even with those two.”

She stomped her foot. “They’re the scum of the earth! The worst of the worst!” She started to take off after them, but Rome grabbed her shoulders.

“Now you just calm down.” He waited until she stopped struggling, then released her. “You stay put while I go get that billy.” He pointed his finger at her in a warning way as he jumped over the fence. She saw that he had a rope with him. He looped it around the billy goat’s neck and carefully pulled the bucket off the goat’s head.

He led the yellow billy out through a makeshift gate into an empty pasture, then returned for her. As they walked back to the house, Rome said, “Jimmy is hoping he’ll get you upset, M.K. You’d have the upper hand if you didn’t always overreact to him.”

M.K. scowled at him.

“Have you thought about just trying to let it go?”

“Let it go? Let it go?” Her voice rose an octave.

“This will just keep getting worse. Jimmy does something mean to you. You do something mean right back to him. Why not try something different? Don’t work out a plan to get even with him. Maybe . . . turn the other cheek.”

M.K. knew where this was heading. Hadn’t she been in church for her whole entire life? Before Rome could start in on a lecture about loving your enemies, she cut him off at the quick. “That might work with some folks. But the problem with Jimmy Fisher is that by the time you’ve turned the other cheek a couple of times,” she patted her face, “you start running out of cheeks.”

11

S
adie had borrowed Julia’s hand mirror while she was in town. Lately, Sadie studied herself in mirrors as she hadn’t before. She wasn’t overly encouraged by what she saw.

“You look better today than you did a week ago,” Fern said.

Sadie whipped around. Fern was leaning against the doorjamb with some freshly ironed prayer caps in her hands. How long had she been there? Sadie was mortified! Fern came into Sadie’s room and opened a bureau drawer to tuck away the prayer caps. While Fern’s head was down, preoccupied with the messy condition of the drawer, Sadie held the mirror out to get a better look at herself. Maybe Fern was right. Even though it had only been a week, Sadie’s tummy didn’t seem to stick out so far, maybe because she didn’t have so much time to eat. Fern was forever sending her on errands, and she made Sadie walk, not take the buggy. And every time she wandered into the kitchen for a snack, Fern found something important for her to do right away—take notes from some books about healing herbs, help Menno harvest fruit in the orchard, dig out a new section of Julia’s garden to add another section to the herb garden. And this was all on top of her daily chores! There was hardly a moment to rest. To eat.

Fern refolded everything in the drawer and closed it with a satisfied sound. She turned to Sadie and frowned. “Grab that book over there, put it on your head, and walk.”

Sadie didn’t want to, but she crossed the room toward the table and put the book she found there on top of her head. It slid off right away. She picked it up and tried again with a little more success. Three steps, before it fell and crashed to the floor.

Fern folded her arms across her front. “That was better. I want you to walk like this from now on, got it? Back straight, shoulders straight. The way I do.” Fern carried herself as if she had a fire poker strapped to her spine, but there was a poise about her that Sadie longed to emulate. All starch.

Sadie walked across the room with the book carefully perched on her head. She felt taller, more grown-up. And less like a person who was scared of her own shadow.

Rome finished packing up a few things he would need for a trip to the other side of the county. Jacob Glick had made him promise to bring a beehive over right as his pecans started to blossom. Last year, even with the drought, Jacob’s pecan crop doubled in production. “The time is now!” Jacob’s phone message had said. Rome would move the hive onto the wagon tonight, after sunset, so the bees wouldn’t be stressed by the move.

He glanced around the cottage. Had he forgotten anything? His eyes locked on the hand-sewn quilt lying on his bed. His mother called it a memory quilt and that it was. It was one of the few things he brought with him from the farm. His mother wasn’t a fine quilter; she used old scraps of fabric to make quilts. A piece of the quilt held his baby clothes. His sisters’ dresses. Every time he looked at it, the warm times he and his family had shared before their deaths came flooding back.

Once or twice, he had even thought about giving the quilt away, but he couldn’t do it. Instead, he would flip it over to the backside, banishing those images. Usually, it worked, but lately he had trouble keeping memories from popping back up again.

He traced the outline of a lavender patch. His mother’s best dress. It reminded him of the day he had deceived his mother for the first and last time. It was a hot August day and Rome was twelve years old. His mother had changed into her lavender dress to go to a quilting frolic. She put Rome in charge of his sisters, but a few friends dropped by with a more interesting plan: swimming in Black Bottom Pond. He paid the next-in-line sister two dollars to take over his babysitting duties, another dollar to each sister to keep quiet, and took off with his friends. One boy brought a rope to loop on a sturdy tree branch that hung over Black Bottom Pond—it was a vine and they were jungle boys. Rome was having the time of his life.

Two things Rome forgot to factor in: the end time for the quilting frolic, and that his mother had to pass right by Black Bottom Pond. He was swinging out over the pond, naked as a jaybird, hollering out ape calls, when he caught sight of his mother standing on the shore, arms akimbo. One thing about his mother: you could always count on her to give you her opinion. And she wasn’t shy about implementing that opinion with a willow switch. What he would give to have that August afternoon back again, switch and all.

Rome rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. His mind had traveled so far back in the past, he didn’t even realize where he’d gone. He had to stop letting himself wander down those paths. He wanted to leave the past a few hundred miles down the road, shake it off like dust. But that was the problem with the past. It kept finding him.

Sadie went out to the garden to pick strawberries for breakfast. Lulu and her puppy tagged along, doubling the work for Sadie because the puppy kept beating her to the ripe berries. Annie had taken home the one puppy, but Menno still hadn’t found the right owner for the remaining pup. When Sadie’s bowl was finally full, she walked back to the house and practically bumped into Rome as he came around the corner.

“Mornin’, Sadie! I was coming by to let someone at the house know I’m heading out tonight.”

Hearing Rome’s voice, Lulu and her puppy abandoned Sadie and bounded over to him. Rome reached down to stroke Lulu’s fur.

Rome was leaving? Just like that?
He wouldn’t be here for her fifteenth birthday? When she realized she was staring, she stumbled over nothing and practically spilled the bowl of berries. “Don’t leave. I mean, won’t you at least come in for breakfast? I’m paking mancakes. Pancakes. I’ll make pancakes!” Mortified, she rushed past him and into the kitchen, straight into the pantry, and closed the door behind her.

Sadie heard Julia open the squeaky door for Rome. “What in heaven’s name did you say to her?”

“Nothing!” Sadie heard Rome say. “I said good morning. And that I wanted someone to know I’ll be gone for a few days.”

Just a few days? Hallelujah!
Sadie breathed a deep sigh of relief and grabbed the flour bag. She sneaked another glance at him as she came out of the pantry with the flour bag. “Found it! I’ll just get to work on those mancakes. Pancakes!” She flushed bright red and whirled around. She hoped Fern wouldn’t shoo her out of the kitchen like she usually did.

M.K. burst into the kitchen from the upstairs, Menno trailing behind her.

“Sadie! M.K. wants to throw us a surprise party for our birthday!” Menno called out.

M.K. stopped and looked at him. “Well,
now
it can’t be a surprise.” She shrugged. “But we’ll still have a party!”

“Julia, can Annie come to the party?” Menno asked.

Sadie saw Julia frown. Lately, all Menno talked about was Annie, Annie, Annie.

Rome accepted a mug of coffee from Fern and poured cream into it. “Why, Sadie and Menno, is this your birthday week? So you’re both going to be fifteen?” He took a sip, hiding his smile.

“No, Rome,” Menno answered seriously. “Sadie and I happen to be born on the same day, but we’re not twins. I know it’s confusing, but I’m two years older than Sadie. I’m going to be seventeen. We’re birthday twins, but we’re not really twins.”

“You aren’t supposed to tease Menno,” M.K. whispered loudly. “He doesn’t understand teasing. We have to mean what we say when we say it.”

“An example to us all,” Rome said good-naturedly.

Sadie was grateful that all of the noise in the kitchen diverted attention away from her acute self-consciousness whenever she was within shooting distance of Roman Troyer.

“Well, I can’t miss your birthday, Menno. Or Sadie’s. I’ll just have to be sure I’ll be back in time.”

M.K. slipped onto a chair next to him. “Friday, Rome. Suppertime. This is one party you don’t want to miss.”

Fern sighed. “That girl takes everything to extremes.”

Sadie poured the batter onto four circles on the hot griddle, waited until they bubbled up, flipped them, and put them on a plate. Then she added pats of butter and ladled them with sticky syrup. She was going to deliver Rome’s pancakes without a glitch. Cool as a cucumber. She carefully avoided looking at him so she wouldn’t blush, and in doing so, somehow managed to slide the pancakes into his lap. She dropped the plate on the table and ran into the downstairs bathroom.

Sadie stalled as long as she could in the bathroom, brushing her teeth and washing her face, feeling thoroughly foolish. Her feelings for Rome felt like a herd of wild horses, galloping out of control. This had to stop. Finally she managed to creep outside without being detected. When Rome returned from his trip, this idiocy was coming to an end, and she’d behave like a mature woman.

As Fern mopped up Sadie’s pancakes from the floor, Julia noticed someone walking up the drive to the farmhouse. She went outside to see who it was.

Rome followed her out. “Julia, I actually stopped by to talk to you for a moment. Privately.”

She saw M.K. tip her head in their direction, eavesdropping, so she closed the kitchen door.

“Don’t you get nervous wearing those during hunting season?” Rome’s dark eyes were dancing as he pointed to Julia’s feet.

She had forgotten that she had on a pair of bunny slippers that Menno had given her for Christmas. She knew they were a little fanciful, but she loved them because they were from Menno. She drew herself to her full height, trying to look dignified while wearing bunny slippers. Ignoring him, she waved at the approaching figure. “It’s Annie.”