The Revealing (19 page)

She wanted to finish this conversation with Galen, but what could she do? She went to greet David. With a big grin, he deposited the rope in her arms. “Your boys told me your cow didn’t give much milk. Growing boys need milk.”

“That’s true. But that’s because they forgot to milk her for a few days and she started to dry up. So now milking the cow is Mim’s job. Thank you, David.” Though to be truthful, Rose didn’t want another cow. Milk cows were a heap of trouble. She would have been just as happy to have a bit of extra buttermilk now and then.

But she took the rope from David and watched dumbly as Galen shook his hand, turned to her, and said, “I’d better
get back.” Left, without another word, without a backward glance.

“Do I smell coffee?” David said, looking up at the kitchen.

“Of course. Go on inside. I just started a fresh pot. My mother-in-law Vera is in the kitchen. There’s some cherry cobbler from last night’s dinner.”

David grinned. “I’ll cross many a hill for a good cobbler.”

She smiled. David Stoltzfus was a fine man, even if Mim couldn’t abide his son Jesse. Luke, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of Jesse. He was even starting to talk like him. “I’ll take the cow in the barn and be right in to join you.”

“My youngest named her Fireball.”

“What?!”

He laughed. “She just liked the name.” He patted the cow on her big head. “She’s gentle. Most times.”

The cow seemed as docile as could be, but Rose had been fooled before. “Um, well. Fireball it is. Thank you again, David.”

Before she went down to the barn, she turned back and saw Galen at the privet hole, his eyes resting on David with a slightly puzzled look.

Paisley asked more questions than Rose had answers for. She was certainly interested in anything that had to do with making money, particularly how much Eagle Hill was worth. Finally, it got so that whenever Paisley would open her mouth to start to ask another question, Rose would cut her off and talk about something completely mundane, like exactly what was her baby’s due date and when had she last seen a doctor? Any mention of the impending delivery of Paisley’s baby
would cause her to frown and soon she would disappear from the room. It seemed as if Paisley was ignoring the fact that she was about to become a mother.

Vera did not like the way Rose interacted with Paisley and told her so, more than once. “Don’t you understand why she is asking so many questions about the farm? She is planning for her future with Tobe. And you’re making her feel as if it’s wrong to ask.”

Rose frowned. “Doesn’t it seem that a soon-to-be mother should be asking questions about baby care and getting a layette put together? She hasn’t given the baby’s arrival a second thought.”

“She’s anxious about it, that’s all.”

There could be some truth in that. Rose could remember how unsettled she felt before each of her own babies’ births. She should keep trying to withhold her opinion about Paisley until she heard something from Tobe—which should be any day now. At least, she hoped so. She couldn’t silence Galen’s remark that Tobe wasn’t responding because he didn’t want them to know the truth. She still felt annoyed with Galen, but she couldn’t dismiss the notion that he might be right. She loved Tobe, but she knew his tendency to avoid difficulties.

And yet, she told herself, wasn’t Tobe serving a prison sentence because he was willing to face a consequence for withholding evidence? Wasn’t that a sign of maturity? It was. Why couldn’t Galen see that? Why couldn’t he be more of . . . a partner, helping her raise children to reach their fullest potential?

It occurred to her that she’d never had a helpmate, a partner. She thought of Fern and Amos Lapp, who worked together on their farm. Or Bishop Elmo and his wife, Dee, who
ran a quilt shop together. Two become one. She’d heard it said dozens of times in marriage ceremonies. She and Dean had promised it, but it had never happened.

What if Galen were more like Dean than she had thought? A man who couldn’t change his mind or listen to a woman’s good sense . . . why, that behavior
was
just like Dean’s. Maybe that’s what all men were like, deep down. Stubborn and prideful.

One thing she had discovered about Dean, early on—he refused to change. After thirteen years of marriage, they were struggling with the same tangled issues: Dean’s pie-in-the-sky dreams, his big promises, and his appallingly poor judgment. He felt she didn’t support him, didn’t respect him, didn’t cheerlead for him. But how could you show support to someone who made terrible decisions, one after the other?

She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Dean’s death brought some relief. Sorrow for what might have been, lost hope that things might have improved in time, pressure for all that fell alone on her shoulders now. But a measure of relief. She cringed. Wasn’t that a terrible way to think about your dead husband?

She remembered the Christmas when Dean told her that he was going to start his own investment business. No more working for others who took all the profit.

“Why do we need it?” Rose had asked.

“What’s need?” He put his arms on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.

“Haven’t we enough?” she asked, trying to rephrase the same question.

“It’ll be a gold mine. It’s made for us.” He looked so eager. He said he would love the challenge.

He convinced her that he was right, that the opportunity was made for him and the time was now. But she couldn’t ignore the feeling that he was taking on that kind of a career risk just to be a significant man. Just for show. To show some anonymous people who didn’t even care.

When Schrock Investments started to flounder, Rose wasn’t at all surprised. In fact, she was expecting it. In that way, she had to admit, she wasn’t much of a partner to Dean either.

Maybe she was too independent for her own good. Dean had often said so. Maybe she was better off alone.

Certainly, Galen needed someone who could give him babies, not grandbabies. Earlier today, her heart missed a beat when Paisley called her a grandmother-to-be. It hadn’t occurred to her that this baby could be her grandchild. Why, she was barely thirty-seven years old!

Rose couldn’t get past the disquieting notion that she was missing something important about Paisley. It dangled in front of her, a ripe apple on a tree that she couldn’t quite reach.

So many unanswered questions.

She didn’t know what to do. She just had no idea what to do.

“Rose, doesn’t something seem odd about that Paisley girl?”

Rose looked up from watering the garden to find Bethany, standing with hands on her hips in that defiant way she had. Rose smiled. She didn’t know where to begin with all the red flags that had been waving at her since she had met Paisley, but she didn’t want to share those worries with Bethany. “What do you mean?”

“She’s supposed to be head over heels in love with Tobe,
but anytime she’s anywhere near Jimmy Fisher, she finds a way to be right next to him, like she’s a cat and he’s a scratching post.”

Rose bit on her lip to hold back a laugh. She turned off the hose. “Tobe will be able to shed light on this topic. Until then, your grandmother is right. We need to be hospitable.”

Later that night, as Rose got ready for bed, she took off her apron and stored the pins in the apron belt. She untied the stiff strings of her prayer cap and twisted her head from side to side, stretching the ache of a long day out of her neck. She put the cap on the top of her dresser and her eye caught Allen Turner’s SEC business card that she had tucked into the mirror frame. Should she ask him to contact Tobe and find out who Paisley was? But she couldn’t even imagine how to frame the request: A girlfriend from Tobe’s past has shown up, out of the blue, about to deliver his baby. Would you ask him if he remembers her? She could just imagine the long pause as solemn Allen Turner took in that news, wondering how he got so involved with an Amish family and their trivial woes.

She changed into her nightgown and climbed into bed, its springs squeaking softly as she slipped under the covers. She reached over and opened her Bible, silently reading the words of Psalm 139, lips moving to each word. She needed to be reminded to dwell in the knowledge that God knew all there was to know. Everything.

“O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from afar . . .”

She read it through twice before turning off the flashlight.

“Dear Lord,” she prayed, “please give me answers. Soon. Now. Amen.”

Slowly, slowly, she let herself relax into the darkness, closing her eyes, letting the words of Scripture move through her.

The barn was redolent with the familiar musty smell of hay and horses. Mim set her stool at Molly’s flank and the pail beneath her speckled udder. Her mother had warned everyone to stay clear of the new cow, to let Galen do the first few milkings. There must be a reason she was named Fireball, she warned Mim. As she started to milk Molly, the plink of the milk in the pail drummed a steady beat. Outside, strutting along the roof of the hen house, Harold the rooster was crowing. She heard horses nickering to each other in the pastures as her brother wheeled hay out to them in the old blue wheelbarrow. How could it be an ordinary day?

Mim pressed her forehead against Molly’s warm belly. She wondered idly if cows were ever scared—really scared. She had seen Molly jitter away from Micky the dog, but that was different. A yapping pup at your heels was an immediate threat, but the difference between her and Molly was that when there was no dog in sight, Molly was perfectly content, rhythmically chewing her cud. She wasn’t wondering and worrying, while anxiety ate holes through all her stomachs.

Mim closed her eyes and her hands stilled as she wondered how this week had gone so terribly awry. The insufferable Jesse Stoltzfus had stolen her envelope full of Mrs. Miracle letters, and for some reason and without saying so much as a word to her, he had delivered them to the newspaper. They were in yesterday’s edition.

Molly shifted her big back hip and Mim snapped to
attention. Maybe everything would turn out all right. Maybe Jesse had the decency to deliver them to the
Stoney Ridge Times
newspaper office without opening the envelope. The address was on the front of the envelope and it was sealed. Mim made sure of that because she didn’t want Bethany poking through them. Yes. It was entirely possible that she was worrying for naught.

Her father used to say that the perfect state of mind was halfway between Luke and Mim; Luke never saw worries or responsibilities even if he was surrounded by them. But Mim, he would add, always faced a thousand worries long before one appeared on the horizon.

She smiled at her silly fears, at the woolgathering she’d been doing, and lifted her forehead from Molly’s warm hide to set to work, making the milk pail ring.

Brooke Snyder hurried to the Sweet Tooth Bakery and was disappointed to see that the store was crowded and that Jon Hoeffner wasn’t sitting at their usual table. In fact, he wasn’t even in the bakery. Brooke asked the woman who sat at their special table if she was going to be there very long. The woman glanced at the wall clock. “Maybe just a few more minutes and then it’s all yours.” She motioned to Brooke to go ahead and sit down. “I’m Penny Williams. I work as the receptionist over at the
Stoney Ridge Times
.”