6
When Adam stepped forward, he knew it was a bad idea.
Samuel’s hand on his arm told him it was a bad idea. Then there was that tingling sensation on his scalp. His mother used to call that his good angel. Adam wasn’t so sure he had a good angel anymore, not the way things had been going.
But he was certain about one thing.
“There’s no need to insult Leah,” he said.
“Did I insult her?” Rachel looked at him in surprise.
“You did. You were rude to her a moment ago when you referred to her knitting as horrid. She works very hard on those booties you make a profit on, and if you don’t want them you should say so—”
“Oh my goodness.” Rachel threw up her hands in exasperation. “I believe I asked her for more.”
“You owe her an apology,” Adam insisted.
“For what?”
“For what you said to my fraa.”
Rachel clamped her mouth shut, but she did have the good grace to blush.
“Adam, perhaps you could allow me to have a word with my schweschder.”
Interesting that Samuel used that term. It had the desired effect, causing Adam to pull in a deep breath and step back.
He understood Rachel was Mary’s sister—she was Samuel’s sister-in-law, but that didn’t give her the right to come into the midst of their family and act rudely. It didn’t give her the right to disregard his wife’s feelings.
“Adam, let’s you and I step outside for a moment.” Jacob’s tone indicated it was an order, not a request, so Adam snatched his coat off the hook by the door, along with his hat, and stormed out ahead of his father. The last two things he saw before stepping out into the cold were Samuel leading Rachel into the front guest room and Leah standing in the kitchen.
Leah, with a smile playing on her face.
Now what was she looking so pleased about? And how long had it been since he’d done anything to make her happy? She’d been stewing over their fight in the buggy since they’d arrived.
Adam made it to Samuel’s barn before he realized his dad was having trouble keeping up with his long, angry strides. Correction—Jacob wasn’t even attempting to keep up with him. As usual, Jacob went at his own pace.
He even paused to gaze up into the limbs of a forty-foot red maple to the east of Samuel’s barn.
“You’re going to freeze out here, dat. The weather’s turning. Come into the barn.”
Jacob appeared not to hear. He pointed up at the brilliant red and orange leaves with his cane. “Never ceases to amaze me, these colors.”
“It’s only a tree. Leaves turn every year.” Adam realized he sounded like a stubborn child, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d worked on the handsaw until late into the night. It had not gone back together as easily as he’d predicted, especially after he’d broken one of the parts in the small engine. Fortunately, the part he’d picked up in town at the hardware store—the part he’d left at eight-thirty to purchase—had worked, once he’d finally put the machine back together correctly.
“True. You’re right, but the fact it happens every year doesn’t make it less of a miracle.” Jacob turned and looked at him then, raised an eyebrow, and joined him at the door to the barn. “Same is true with Leah’s bopplin, Son. Kinner are born every year, every day of every year, but it’s still a miracle they are—a true miracle of Gotte.”
“I know, Dat. Miracle—got it.” Adam walked over to an upended milking pail and sat on it. “I suspect that isn’t what you wanted to talk to me about.”
Jacob sat on the wooden crate next to him, so they were both staring down the length of Samuel’s barn. It wasn’t an overly large barn, and Samuel used a portion of it for seeing patients, so barely half of it contained animals. Adam could see everything was well tended though. The familiar smells and sounds eased some of the tension in his shoulders. How long had it taken Samuel to set things just so? How long had Samuel owned this place? And how had he survived the years alone, the years after Mary and his child had died?
A shiver passed through Adam’s heart, but he pushed it away. He focused instead on what had happened back in the house. “Rachel was in the wrong, and you know it.”
“Ya, maybe you’re right.”
“She shouldn’t have been rude. Leah is having a difficult enough time.”
“Why is that?”
Adam’s train of thought slammed to a stop. He’d been making a list of Rachel’s wrongs, ready to rattle them off to his father, ready to tick them off on the fingers of his left hand. “Why is what?”
“Why is Leah having a difficult time?”
“Let’s not make this about Leah.”
Jacob squinted at him and waited, resting his hand against the top of his cane and stretching his leg, his right leg that had never healed as well as the other, out in front of him.
“It’s not about Leah,” Adam repeated. “It’s about Rachel and her behavior.”
Silence settled around them, until Adam became aware of the horses in the stalls, the wind against the side of the barn, and the grumbling in his stomach.
Finally, he took off his hat and scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what you want to talk to me about. I don’t even know why we’re out here when we could be inside eating Sunday dinner.”
Jacob nodded, as if that made sense. Slowly he moved his fingers down the length of his cane and studied the grain of the wood. When he began speaking, there was no condemnation in his voice, and perhaps that’s why Adam was able to listen to what he had to say.
“Everyone in your schweschder’s house knows that Rachel acted inappropriately, but maybe we don’t know why. Sometimes, Adam, a thing is broken in a person, much as the bone was broken in my leg. The doctors were able to fix my leg.” He tapped his shin with the cane, and something inside of Adam flinched.
He remembered too well the fear his father might not have survived the buggy accident and the deathly whiteness of Jacob’s face when they had found him in the snow that evening. Samuel had been the first to spy the twisted buggy, but Adam had joined them there as they’d waited for the ambulance. It had been a frightening time and perhaps when he’d first stepped into manhood.
“When a thing is broken inside a person, way down deep inside, it can become infected. It can affect everything else—like the infection in my leg affected my entire body. Like the dirt in the engines you fix affect the entire machine. Until the person allows the Lord to see their deepest needs, their deepest fears, they’re likely to limp along.” This time Jacob reached down and rubbed at his leg, and Adam wondered if it hurt. His father wasn’t one to complain, so he’d probably never know. “Fears and needs cause folks to limp along emotionally, much like my leg forces me to hobble.”
Adam stood and began pacing. “So you’re saying I should allow her to talk to Leah that way, that I shouldn’t have defended my fraa.”
“
Did he treat Leah with respect
Mamm
bruder
Annie waited as long as she could, but when her mother sent Reba to the barn to fetch Adam and her father, she knew it was time.
“I’ll go and check on Samuel and Rachel.”
Rebekah patted her arm. “Gut, dear. You tell them the food is ready.”
She would have knocked on the guest room door, but Samuel had left it ajar, so she pushed it open, clearing her throat to signal she was walking in. She didn’t want to interrupt a private moment between brother and sister-in-law. This was all so awkward. Before they were married, Samuel had shared with her that Rachel had suggested he move back to Ohio. Move there, marry her, and help to raise his nephews.
He might have done it too, out of a sense of obligation, but he’d fallen in love with the community nurse.
“Rachel, I want you to listen to me—”
But she wasn’t listening. She was standing with her back to him, looking out the window at the clouds pressing down over their pasture. He reached for her arm and turned her around, and that was when she noticed Annie had entered the room.
“Annie. Have you been listening for long?”
“Nein, Rachel. I haven’t. Mamm asked me to come and tell you the food is ready.”
“And so you decided to sneak in here and eavesdrop?”
Samuel let out a sigh of exasperation. His gaze met Annie’s and somehow she knew what he wanted. She crossed the room, and instead of joining him, she went to Rachel.
She stood close, but not too close. In the years since Rachel had moved to Mifflin County, Annie had attempted to befriend her. She had failed. Now it seemed to her that Rachel was acting like one of Reba’s animals—cornered and frightened. At the same time, the memory of the scene in the next room was fresh. She didn’t want anything to hurt or upset Leah or the babies she was carrying.
“Rachel, is there something you need? Something that Samuel and I can do for you? If the store isn’t making enough money, we’d be happy to—”
“To do what, Annie? Hold an auction for me? Make me your next charity case?” Rachel stiffened her spine. “That won’t be necessary, danki.”
“You are important to me, Rachel. I think you know that.” Samuel scrubbed his hand over his face, and it dawned on Annie how much weight he carried on his shoulders. They’d spoken of this as they lingered over their Bible study earlier. Samuel had confessed some days he did a better job than others of handing his burdens over to their Lord. They’d laughed at the time, admitting their failures. Now she understood that the failing, for both of them, could be a costly one.
“I will, we both will, gladly do what we can to help you—” Samuel paused and glanced toward the door. “As well as Zeke and Matthew.”
Annie noticed that Rachel closed her eyes at the mention of her boys.
“But there are others I care for as well. Annie, of course.” Their eyes met again, and Annie thought she felt the baby inside of her move. “As well as Annie’s family. Leah is young and at a vulnerable time in her pregnancy right now. I consider her to be my family as well as one of my patients.”
Samuel stepped closer and lowered his voice. “You will not speak rudely to her again. You will not devalue her in any way. If you have a difference of opinion with Eli, or any business matter that needs settling, you will save it—”
“But he—”
“You will save it for the proper time and place, which is not my home or any home on Sunday.”
Rachel’s face blushed red.
“Am I clear?”
Rachel drew herself up to her full height, and Annie was struck again by how tall she was, tall and exceptionally beautiful.
“Tell me you understand, Rachel.”
She pressed her lips together until they formed a white line. “Oh, I understand.”
He motioned, a ladies-first gesture. Rachel left the room, heading straight for the bathroom.
“Do you think she’ll be all right?”
“Today? Yes. But something is wrong she’s not speaking of. I’ll ask the bishop to meet with her, but I doubt she’ll be any more open with him. I’ll also write her mother.” His last words were added softly as he touched her arm gently and they returned to the sitting room.
Jacob and Reba were back from the barn. As they began a time of silent prayer, Adam slipped in through the mudroom. Within a few moments they all began eating and soon they put the rough start to their meal behind them. It wasn’t too hard, at least on the surface. Reba entertained them with tales from the veterinary practice. Charity updated them on how David was doing, and Rachel’s boys chimed in with stories from the schoolhouse. Soon the snow began to fall outside—not a heavy snowfall, but enough to cast a special glow on the day.
A fire crackled in the big cast-iron stove, and its coziness dispelled any earlier gloom. Eli challenged Matthew to a game of checkers and Jacob sat by the fire, showing Zeke how to whittle a piece of wood into a whistle.
Adam was pretending to read The Budget, but it was soon obvious from the sounds behind the paper that he was asleep.
Though Rachel didn’t actually participate, she did sit near the window and read.
Leah waddled out of the bathroom and up to the counter as Annie was setting out the desserts. “Little guys must be taking up a lot of room inside me. I can’t believe I had to go again.”
She glanced from Annie to Rachel, who stood and walked to the other side of the room, to watch Matthew’s checkers game.
Annie and Leah were carrying the leftover lunch food to the refrigerator in the mudroom when Leah started giggling.
“Are you going to share with me what you’re laughing about?”
“I wish you could have seen the look on your face, and on Samuel’s face, when Rachel said my knitted booties were horrid.” Leah’s giggles turned into full laughs and she had to put her dish down so she could hold her stomach. “Oh my, that was priceless.”
“Leah Weaver.” Annie lowered her voice to a whisper. “Here I was worried that Rachel Zook had hurt your feelings.”
“Didn’t hurt my feelings. Doesn’t keep her from selling the things I make, and I can use the money. Maybe we can fashion a sign saying horrid little booties.” Leah giggled again, then wiped her eyes and grew serious as they moved to the window, propped their elbows on the ledge, and studied the falling snow. “And did you see the way Adam jumped to my defense? It was nice.”
The silence stretched between them for a few moments.
“My life isn’t perfect by any measure,” Leah added. “But hers must be awful lonesome.”
“Lonesome?”
“Sure. You can be surrounded by people and still be lonesome. No one to speak to once the boys are in bed. No one to watch the snow fall with if you wake early in the morning.”
Annie reached forward and touched the windowpane. The temperature outside was dropping, and she was glad she’d be spending the evening beside Samuel. “You’re a pretty smart girl, you know that?”
“Doesn’t take smartness to understand why someone snaps or to see that Samuel’s sister-in-law is afraid of something.”
Annie was so surprised at Leah’s words that she jerked her head up, bumping it on the window shade that was half pulled down.
Smiling, Leah reached out and straightened Annie’s prayer kapp.
As they stood there, the sounds of their family in the room behind them, Annie thought about Leah’s observation. The idea gained merit the longer she considered it.
“What would Rachel have to be afraid of though?”
“I don’t know. Some days I’m afraid of what people will think about me being as big as a house. Other days I’m afraid that my marriage might be broken, and I’m certainly afraid I’m doing things wrong.”
Leah’s words stayed with Annie as they walked back into the sitting room and helped themselves to a small piece of dessert.
It didn’t occur to her until later in the evening that the fight had actually begun with Rachel and Eli. Why would Rachel be picking a fight with Eli?
She’d been so worried about Leah the last few weeks, but now she wondered if maybe Rachel was the one who needed rescuing.
But how did you rescue someone who was afraid, especially when they wouldn’t give you even a clue as to what had given them such a fright?