The Keeper (24 page)

Fern continued to beat the egg whites.

Uncle Hank gave that some serious thought. Then he slammed his palms on the tabletop. “Fine! We’ll leave at dawn.” He jumped up from the table and grabbed his hat. He pointed a finger at Fern. “AND DON’T BE LATE!”

Fern examined the egg whites, now stiff and in peaks, and set down the bowl. “Well, then, Mary Kate, I hope you don’t mind getting up extra early to fix breakfast, seeing as how I’ll be out chasing turkeys in the morning.” She arched an eyebrow in M.K.’s direction. “And I’ll expect this kitchen to be spotless when I return.”

M.K. exchanged a look with her father.

He shrugged his shoulders in a “Don’t-look-at-me. You-started-it” way. “Maybe next time you have a brainstorm, you could run it by me first,” he said.

Amos was paying bills at his desk when he heard a commotion on the back porch, then the kitchen door squeak open and shut with a bang. He really should oil that hinge. He leaned back in his chair and saw Fern scolding Uncle Hank.

“Hank Lapp, you’re mucking up my perfectly good clean floors with those rubber boots of yours! Look at the tracks you’re leaving! Now I’ll have to get down on my hands and knees with a Brillo pad to get them off the linoleum.”

Something seemed odd to Amos. Getting chewed out by Fern was nothing new to any of them, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in the scolding today.

Uncle Hank saw Amos and stomped straight into the living room, hands perched on his hips, rubber boots still on. “You and your big ideas! I will never take that woman shooting with me ever again!”

“That bad, eh?” Amos said, smiling.

“Fern did everything wrong, got nothing right! She chattered too much, disturbed the undergrowth, loaded the wrong gauge shot in the gun, used the wrong luring whistles.”

Fern came into the room with a glass of water and a handful of pills for Amos. “Tell him,” she said primly. “Tell him what happened.”

Uncle Hank glared at her. “Worst of all,” he bellowed, “SHE SHOT MORE TURKEYS THAN ME!”

A broad grin spread over Fern’s face. “The truth is too much for some people and too little for others.” Though she didn’t gloat, she did look satisfied as she swiveled on her heels and returned to the kitchen.

Friday began as a mild, sunny day. Julia was pleased to see her father downstairs at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. She knew this was Fern’s doing. Every day, Fern insisted that Amos get out of bed, get dressed, join his family, and do something physical to stay active. No excuses.

This morning, she needed to talk to her father privately and waited until the house was empty. As Julia sat in the chair across from him, he patted her hand with his. He had such big hands. Now they looked frail. When had his skin taken on such a grayish tint? Had she grown accustomed to his frailty? “Menno thinks he’s fallen in love with Annie. He wants to marry her.”

Last evening, as Julia was turning off the lamp in the kitchen, Menno had come downstairs and announced to her, “Me and Annie are getting married.”

“Oh, Menno, for heaven’s sake,” Julia had said, pushed to the limit of her patience. “How can you get married? You don’t know the first thing about marriage, either one of you.”

“We know,” Menno had said. “We know about marriage.”

Julia had hardly slept last night, she was so bothered by Menno’s news.

Amos studied the coffee mug in his hand as if it could portend the future. “I always had a feeling,” he said, thoughtful and far-off. “Like this was bound to happen, one day or another. And now it has.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say about the matter?”

He leaned back in the chair. “They’re young, Julia. It’ll fizzle out.”

Julia was not sure, though. She had a funny feeling from the start about Menno’s relationship with Annie. “What if it doesn’t?” Julia said. “What if it’s a huge mistake?”

Amos lifted one bushy eyebrow. “Folks make mistakes all of the time, Julia. And God has a way of bringing good out of those mistakes.” He dropped his chin to his chest. “We need to leave our Menno in God’s hands.”

Julia rubbed her face with her hands. “I know you’re right. I wish I could talk to Rome about this. He might have an idea.”

“You can.”

“I can’t. He hasn’t come around in weeks.”

Amos pointed a thumb toward the window. “He’s right outside.”

“Paul?” She hurried to the window, peered out, and turned back to her father. “That’s Rome.”

“That’s who you said. You wanted to talk to Rome about Menno.”

“No. I said Paul.”

“My heart may be giving me trouble, but my hearing is just fine. You said Rome.”

“I
meant
Paul.”

“You said Rome and I think you
meant
Rome.”

Julia shook her head and left the room, exasperated.

On Sunday evening, Paul went to a singing at Rose Hill Farm, Lizzie’s home. He had been looking forward to it all week, until the moment when Rome Troyer pulled up in a buggy with Julia. When Paul saw Rome help Julia down from the buggy, he set his jaw and looked away. But a moment later his gaze had gone back to studying Rome and Julia. He felt something like fear roil up sour in his belly. Why? Paul was the one who kept holding Julia at arm’s length. He should be relieved that someone else was courting Julia. And in a way, he was. But what bothered him was that person happened to be Roman Troyer.

It was the way Rome had looked at Julia. Not that snagging a look at Julia—at most of the girls—was unusual for the young men. It was part of every singing. As the girls arrived, the boys gathered in small clumps and watched them. Tonight, as Julia walked from the buggy to the stone farmhouse, every fellow present had stopped talking, stopped moving. Why, even the buggy horses stilled. Paul had heard the fellow next to him, Isaac Yoder, ease his breath out in a slow, slow whistle.

“She’s mine,” Paul shot back, surprising even himself with the force of his protest, so that of course he flushed.

Isaac turned his head slowly away from watching Julia gracefully climb the steps of the farmhouse. “Oh? Does Rome Troyer know she’s yours?”

Paul looked at Isaac sharply, and Isaac nudged him in the ribs to make him smile. Then, as if of one accord, their gazes had been pulled back to Julia, standing on the porch, laughing at something Rome had said.

Paul felt a surge of jealousy. Julia was his.

This evening wasn’t going at all the way Julia had planned. She agreed to go to the singing with Rome with hopes that Paul might notice. She had lingered a little extra long out on the porch, laughed a little extra loud at something funny Rome had said. She hoped to be heading home tonight in Paul’s courting buggy, but her plans went awry. Paul seemed to have vanished, and just as Julia started to look for him, suddenly she was being ushered to the buggy by Rome.

“Paul Fisher is a fool,” Rome whispered to her as he helped her into the buggy. A lump rose in Julia’s throat and emotion welled behind her eyes. He couldn’t have imagined how much she needed to hear that right now.

“Thanks.” She swallowed hard, trying to get herself under control. An emotional moment with Roman Troyer wasn’t anywhere in her plans for this evening.

As the horse jerked forward, Julia decided to steer the conversation away from anything too personal and on to something safer. She spilled out her worries about Menno and Annie to Rome. “Menno simply cannot live by himself, not even for a day. If a fire broke out, he would be frightened and wouldn’t know what to do.”

Rome was quiet for a moment. “He wouldn’t be alone. He would be with Annie.”

“He could never be responsible for another human being.”

“Who are you to say?”

Embarrassment warmed Julia’s neck and cheeks. She was the one who usually had the answers, not the one needing advice. Maybe Rome and her father were right. Maybe Menno and Annie would be okay, more or less, together. Menno seemed not to worry very much about things, but rather to accept the world as a fascinating place where anything might happen. Why did she have to spoil his dream, his life, with troubles about the future?

Julia wasn’t entirely persuaded, but she felt calmer now. Talking to Rome had that effect, she noticed; his presence felt so normal, so reassuring and right. Such kind thoughts about Rome surprised her. An image in her mind shifted, like a reflection in a pond turning wavy after she tossed in a stone. As the ripples slowed and stilled, a new picture emerged: Rome Troyer—sincere, steady, even wise. Not at all the arrogant oaf she had made him out to be. He turned to her suddenly, as if he could read her thoughts. His gaze met hers and held it. A soft breeze tickled loose hairs on the back of Julia’s neck. For just a moment, she imagined herself as Rome’s Julia.

Rome leaned closer to her, surprisingly close, and she thought he might be thinking about kissing her. But at the last moment, he nudged her softly with his shoulder, the way a friend might after a joke. “Listen, Julia,” he said, his voice kind and empathetic. “You need to take your mind off all these ‘what-ifs.’ Things like this have a way of working out for the best.” Then he turned his attention to the horse, prodding him to hurry along.

The moon slid behind a cloud. In a passing field, a screeching barn owl swooped in and pounced on a squealing mouse. As the buggy turned into Windmill Farm, Julia wished Rome had taken the longer way home, past Blue Lake Pond. The conversation between them felt unfinished, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt a little disappointed that the ride was over. She suddenly realized it had completely slipped her mind to notice whether Paul’s buggy was still at Rose Hill Farm.

14

S
adie was luxuriating in an hour of uninterrupted time, a rarity at Windmill Farm on any given day. She was sitting on the porch steps, reading through a book about home remedies that Fern had checked out of the library for her. Fern and Julia had taken Amos into town for a doctor’s appointment, Uncle Hank was delivering a long overdue and finally repaired buggy, and Menno had slipped off with Lulu and her pup to visit Annie. M.K. had gone to the orchard to observe the beehives. Rome was . . . who knew where? It was one of those perfect July days when temperatures dipped into the low eighties and an occasional puffy cloud sailed across a flawless sky. The air was filled with birdsong and the subtle scents of dianthus and wild violets. How easy it was to lose herself in the beauty of the day.