10

Will Stoltz had never worked so hard in all his life. On Monday morning, Amos set him behind two harnessed-up chestnut Belgians with white manes. They carried the odd names of Rosemary and Lavender, the gentlest, biggest beasts known to mankind. When he asked how the horses got their names, Amos said that he always allowed his children the privilege of naming the animals. Julia named the cats, Menno named the dogs, M.K. named the chickens, and Sadie named the horses. All of the horses had names of herbs or spices, he explained, because that was Sadie’s main interest. The newest buggy horse was named Cayenne. Now, that was a name that needed no explanation. Will had already noticed Cayenne, pawing away in her stall like she was trying to break free.

Amos promised him that plowing the field would be as easy as dragging a spoon through pudding with the help of these two mighty Belgians. “You’ll have it done in no time!” he said, patting Will on the back as he turned to leave him. Rosemary and Lavender dragged the plow back and forth, turning the ground over, exposing rich, dark soil. Thick as it was, only the horses’ combined strength made the task bearable. After turning the plow in the opposite direction, Will’s arms felt shaky. Like they might rattle right off. He was pretty sure his arms would go completely numb before he finished this field. If, that is, he ever finished. He might expire right here, in the middle of a field, and not be found until the buzzards circled over him.

But there were worse things than having to deal with two gigantic horses and a plow all day—like having to deal with his own problems. He couldn’t believe it when he heard his cell phone ring in his pocket. He groaned, recognizing the ringtone he had set for Mr. Petosky—a startling alarm. How was it possible to get extremely sketchy service on this farm, but whenever Mr. Petosky happened to call, he seemed to be in just the right spot for it to come through? He stopped the horses and sat down on the plow to answer the phone. “I thought we had an agreement that you would wait until I called with updates.”

“So sue me,” Mr. Petosky said. “Any activity with those birds? Are you scouting them out?”

“Yep, morning, noon, and night,” Will said. He looked up and saw Adam fly over the cherry orchard, off in the distance. Or was it Eve? It was hard to spot the difference in size without his binoculars. “Look, you’re going to have to be patient. You can’t rush nature.”

“Think it’s going to work?” Mr. Petosky asked. “Are they sticking around?”

“I think so. The falcons like this farm. The female is staying close to the scape. Wouldn’t surprise me if she lays her clutch this week.”

“Good. Good. Keep an eye on those birds.”

Will had sensed from the beginning that Mr. Petosky had a lot more interest in these rare birds than he let on. “That’s what I’ve been doing, Mr. Petosky,” he said, his voice thin on patience.

“Well, I’m just trying to give you some tips, that’s all,” Mr. Petosky said. “How do you like living out there in the boonies?”

“It’s not the boonies.” Will looked around, praying no one would come by.

Mr. Petosky snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to enjoy living with those kooks.”

“They’re not kooks, Mr. Petosky. They’re a very nice family.” Probably the kindest people Will had ever met. “They’re not like you think.”

That only got Mr. Petosky laughing out loud. “Imagine that! Will Stoltz, trust fund kid, bound for medical school until he gets himself kicked out of college—”

“Suspended. There’s a difference.”

“—trying to pay off his lawyer to get rid of his DUI before his old man hears about it—imagine a kid like you wanting to be Amish.”

“I never said I wished I were Amish. I only said these are nice people.” Will was irritated now. “Look, Mr. Petosky, if there’s nothing else you need from me right now, I really need to get back to work.”

“That’s fine, kid. Just remember that June 16 is right around the corner.”

Will heard the click of a hang up.

Rosemary and Lavender looked at him with their big brown eyes and long eyelashes, wondering what he wanted. What do I want? he thought as he shook the reins to get the gentle giants moving. What in the world do I really want? Life here was nothing like Philadelphia, but he felt just as lost.

When Gid returned to the house after school let out on Monday, he wasn’t surprised to find the deacon, Abraham, sitting on the back porch with his father, sipping iced tea. That sight was nothing new. The ministers and bishop and deacon often had church problems that needed discussing. Long conversations, looking at the problem from every angle, trying to find solutions that were fair and just and pleasing to God. So as to not interrupt them, Gid went through the side door and washed up at the kitchen sink. The back door was left open and he heard Abraham say, “This is on shaky ground, Ira. There’s no real cut-and-dry answer.”

“But you wouldn’t ask him to quit, would you? If he married her in six weeks’ time?” He heard his father let out an exasperated sigh. “He loves teaching, you see.”

Gid grabbed a dishrag and took a step closer to the door.

Abraham took awhile to respond. “I heard of one community that let the fellow continue teaching because the pupils wouldn’t have to shun him, seeing as how they aren’t baptized.” Gid heard Abraham settle back in his chair. “But most would make him stop until he was a member again in good standing.”

Gid leaned against the door. He thought something like this might be stirring after receiving a few chilly receptions in church yesterday. Before lunch was served, he had walked up to his friends, deep in conversation, and they suddenly stopped talking, looked uncomfortable, and the circle broke up. If this was how he had been treated, how must Sadie be feeling? His heart went out to her. He wasn’t going to let her face this alone. He threw down the dishrag and went out to the porch.

Abraham looked up when he saw Gid and smiled, standing up to welcome him. The deacon was shorter than Gid by several inches. He reached out and gripped his hand firmly. “Have a seat, please,” Abraham said, and he waited until Gid had sat down before he took the chair facing him. Gid was reminded of how he felt when he met with the ministers about becoming baptized, and in a sense he supposed that was what this was all about.

Abraham steepled his fingers together, as if praying before he began to speak. “I take it you heard what we’re talking about?”

Gid nodded.

“A child is always a good thing. We thank God for bringing this little boy into our lives. But we need to make things right for this child.” He glanced at Gid. “Just because a marriage starts off on the wrong foot doesn’t mean it can’t find its right path.” The deacon crossed one leg over the other and set his Bible on top of his thigh, both hands resting on it. “So, your father tells me you are willing to make a confession that you have sinned. Is that true?”

Gid nodded. He could make a confession like that. He definitely could. He knew he was a sinner. Didn’t his thoughts often wander down slippery paths?

Abraham clapped his palms together, pleased. “So then, I will ask the bishop if we could let you keep on teaching.”

Ira asked Abraham a question and the two went back and forth for a while. Gid was beginning to breathe more easily now that he realized that he probably wouldn’t be called on to do much talking.

Abraham turned to Gid. “And after six weeks’ proving time, then the bann will be lifted, and you can marry.” He clapped his hands together. “And then . . . a fresh start!”

Ira gazed at Gid, waiting for him to respond to Abraham. But what could he say? If he objected to getting put back or marrying Sadie so quickly, he would be betraying her. “What I mean,” Gid started, “is that . . .” but then he couldn’t think of what to say or how to say it. This was what he hated so much about conversations in which he was forced to participate. He could never end his part right. He was always trailing off lamely and leaving thoughts unfinished. Maybe he should suggest using pencil and paper for a conversation sometime. He was sure he could come across better if he could write his responses. Or better still, if he could find the words in the works of Shakespeare or Wordsworth, and they could speak for him. But that wouldn’t really be addressing the heart of this dilemma. He didn’t need Shakespearean language for that.

There were a few things Gid knew for certain about himself: He wasn’t the life of the party. He didn’t enjoy casual conversations, like striking up conversations with people standing next to him in a grocery line or at the hardware store. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever doing such a thing. He didn’t make friends easily or quickly. He knew those things about himself. But he was loyal to a fault. When he loved someone, he would stick by to the bitter end.

Abraham was waiting for his answer. Fumbling to speak, he blurted out, “I want to make things right for Sadie.”

Abraham stood. “Well, then. I guess that’s that.” As he passed Gid, he placed a hand on his head like he was giving him a blessing.

Gid looked at his father. “That’s it?”

Ira leaned back in his chair and sighed, relieved. “That’s it.”

Will Stoltz felt muscles he never knew he had. After putting the plow upright in the barn with the other tools, Amos told him that now he should spread manure from the compost pile over the field he had just plowed. Shoveling manure atop the field took the rest of the afternoon. Oh, how his father would relish that sight! The way Will’s luck was going lately, he was surprised the game warden hadn’t dropped by to check on the falcons while Will was knee-deep in manure.

Thinking of the game warden reminded him that he had better hurry to go observe the falcons at dusk. He hadn’t spotted any eggs in the scape, but any day now, he was sure one would appear. Hopefully, more than one. A niggling doubt poked at him, but he pushed it away. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Not technically.

As he left the barn, he saw a horse and buggy pull up the drive. He shielded his eyes from the western sun and thought he saw Sadie in the driver’s side. He smiled. His luck was turning.

Will met Sadie as she pulled the buggy to a stop. He opened the door to help her down. “Where have you been?”

“To the store. I left a few things there.” She reached into the backseat to get a couple of packages of cloth diapers. “And Fern says it’s time to switch this baby from paper diapers to cloth.” She wrinkled her nose. “I was a little disappointed to hear that.” Then she got a whiff of Will. “Why, you’re as dirty as a peasant in a mud puddle. What have you been doing today?”

“Your dad got me plowing.” Will pointed over to the field. He was proud of his work. Palm on his forehead, he heaved a mighty sigh. He opened his palm and looked at it. His hand was filled with blisters. So was the other hand.

“Oh no! Will, didn’t you use gloves?”

“Believe it or not, I did.”

“You’ve got some serious blisters there, and more coming.”

“They’re not all that bad. I was just pouring some water over them when you arrived. They actually feel much better now.” More likely, his hands had lost all feeling. His arms hadn’t lost that shaky feeling, as if he were still plowing.

She looked at him as if she didn’t believe him. “You’d better come up to the house. I’ll fix something up for those poor red hands of yours. I have just the thing to speed up their healing.” When he hesitated, she added, “You’ll be sorry tomorrow if you don’t let me help you now.”

“I’ve got to get out to the falcons before the sun sets.” He looked down at her. Strands of hair fluttered across her cheek. Automatically, he reached over and used the back of his fingers to tuck them behind her ear. A slight blush stained her cheeks, which charmed him. She was so unlike the girls he had known. “I’ll stop by later, after you all have supper, if that’s okay.”

Side by side, they strolled toward the house. Mouthwatering aromas wafted from the house and Will’s stomach rumbled. Sadie glanced up at the house, then back to Will. “Join us for supper.”

Will winced. “I’m not so sure your housekeeper would want that. She isn’t too fond of me.”

“Don’t mind Fern. At first, she can be as prickly as a jar of toothpicks. It takes awhile for her to warm up to folks. But she does love to feed people. We eat at six.”

His stomach rumbled again, louder this time. Sadie’s lips parted and laughter spilled out of her.

Will smiled. “Then I’ll be back in an hour.”

Amos barely had one leg out the door of the Mennonite taxi as Fern peppered him with questions about his appointment with the cardiologist. This was exactly why he refused to let her accompany him to the doctor, even though it was clear he had ruffled her feathers. She promised she would stay in the waiting room, but he knew she would somehow worm her way into the doctor’s office with a laundry list of questions. He was a grown man, for goodness’ sake!

“So what did he say? Is there trouble brewing?”

She had such a worried look on her face that he felt himself softening. It was nice, really, to have someone fuss over him. He closed the car door and waved goodbye to the driver. “Everything’s fine, Fern. Just fine.”

“Fine, as in Fern Graber’s version of fine, or in Amos Lapp’s version?”

The sweet moment between them fizzled. What was that supposed to mean? “Fine as in everybody’s version of fine.” He started to walk toward the house.

She caught up with him. “Did he give you every test for rejection? Stress tests, biopsies?”

“He gave me every test known to man. I have no blood left. I’ve been completely drained by those sharp needles. And it took all day long!” That’s what annoyed him about being sick, most of all. Losing time for his farm. He glanced over at the field he had put in Will Stoltz’s care. He cocked his head and squinted his eyes. The furrows should be straight, like a ruler; Will’s furrows wove like a ribbon of rickrack.

“If everything is so fine, then why are you feeling so tired and wrung out?”

Amos glanced at her. Should he tell her? She was peering into his face, concern written in her eyes. She was waiting for him to explain. He looked past her to the setting sun, dropping low behind the pines that framed the house to the west. “The doctor thinks my problem is I haven’t grieved for Menno.”

She tilted her head.

“He thinks so much happened, so fast, that I just put off my grieving for my boy. And now, it’s catching up with me.” He missed his son in a way there wasn’t words for. He clung to the past so hard it was like leaving an arrow embedded instead of pulling it out and letting the wound bleed clean, then heal.

“I’ve wondered the very same thing.” She nodded solemnly. “He’s a good doctor.”

He turned his head sharply toward her. “Then why didn’t you say something? You could have saved me a doctor’s visit.”

“You were due in, anyway. Besides, you’re not exactly the easiest man to try to tell what to do, you know.” She folded her arms against her chest and held her elbows. “So what did the doctor recommend?”

Amos felt a surge of stung pride, recalling the doctor’s advice. He had told Amos there were some interesting facts about heart recipients that weren’t true for other organ recipients: 75 percent were male, 25 percent were female. In addition, he said, most of the transplant cardiologists and surgeons were men. And yet, the doctor explained, men have a harder time coping with the surgery than women do. More depression, for example.

“Why would that be?” Amos asked him.

“My theory is that men are uncomfortable with the idea of accepting someone else—heart, spirit, or piece of meat, whatever way you want to view your donor heart—into their bodies and their being. Simply put: receptivity is not easy for men.”

Amos would never tell Fern that particular piece of information. He could hear her response now: “Amen to that. Amen!”

Amos waved a pamphlet in the air. “He wants me to go to a grief support group.” He set his jaw. “But I’m not going.”

“Now I see where M.K. gets her famous stubborn streak.” Fern took the pamphlet from him and skimmed it. “Wouldn’t really hurt to talk to somebody about your grieving.”

“I’m not talking to a bunch of strangers.”

She closed the pamphlet. “Maybe not. But you could talk to somebody. Somebody caring and understanding. Somebody you trust.”

“Like who?”

She paused, tilted her head, and Amos watched her expression go from hopeful to saddened to resolute. Then it passed and her brow wrinkled as her eyes traveled over the field with the cockeyed furrows. “Maybe like Deacon Abraham.” She pointed to a horse and buggy driving along the road. “He’s coming up here, now. Probably to talk about Sadie.” She took a few steps toward the house, then stopped and swiveled around. “Ask him to stay for dinner.”

“Fern, hold up. Why would Abraham want to talk to Sadie?”

She took a few steps back to him, with a look on her face as if she thought he might be slightly addle brained. That look made him crazy, especially because he often felt addle brained around the females in his household.

She tilted her head to the side and plunked a small fist on her hip. “Have you noticed how quickly rumor becomes fact in this community?”

Her frown grew fierce—a ridiculous expression for someone who could be pretty when she smiled.

“Here they come. Looks like Esther’s with him.” She took a few steps toward the house, then stopped and swiveled around again. “Send Esther up to the house. You be sure to tell Abraham about what the doctor said. About grieving for Menno.”

Did that woman ever stop handing out unasked-for advice? What irked him all the more was that she was usually right. Under his breath he muttered, “Yeder Ros hot ihr Dann.” Every rose has its thorn.

She spun around. She had heard him. She heard everything. “Ken Rose unne Danne.” There is no rose without a thorn.

Impossibly weary, Amos sighed and went to meet his friends.

“Abraham,” Amos said, shaking the man’s hand after he’d tied up his horse to the hitching post.

Esther went up to the house to visit with Fern. The two men walked together, away from the house.

Abraham couldn’t keep a grin off his face when he heard Amos tell the story of the visiting bird boy and surveyed the cockeyed furrows. “Well, wheat seeds can grow and flourish and reach for the sky whether the rows are straight or crooked. Maybe there’s a lesson in that for us, eh, Amos?” He gripped his hands behind his back. “But I can tell there’s something you want to tell me.”

Why, Abraham was as prescient as Fern! It baffled Amos that some people seemed to be able to see what wasn’t visible. He was a man who relied heavily on his sight and hearing. He looked into his dear friend’s kind brown eyes. “I just came from the doctor. I thought that I was having heart trouble again. But the doctor said my heart was fine, that the problem was I hadn’t grieved for Menno. I buried it, he said, amidst all the busyness of the heart transplant and trying to get well. Grieving has caught up with me.”

A flicker of surprise passed through Abraham’s eyes. He stroked his wiry gray beard, deep in thought, and gave a sad half smile. “So, in a way, you are still having heart trouble. The kind that can’t be fixed by doctoring.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Amos peered up at the male falcon, soaring over the fields, hunting for an evening meal to bring to his mate. He was the size of a crow, with a three-foot wingspan, a dark head with a pale breast cross-barred with dark brown. “What do I do with that information, Abraham? I can’t switch feelings on and off like a diesel generator.”

“You’re not new to grieving, Amos. I remember how it was when you lost your Maggie. You didn’t heal from that loss overnight. Grieving takes time. It can’t be rushed.”

How well Amos remembered what it felt like when Maggie had passed. It was like a limb had been torn from him, with no anesthetic. The pain was so deep then, he wondered if it would ever lessen. Just yesterday, his thoughts had drifted back to a lazy Sunday afternoon, long ago, when the children were playing in a tree fort in the backyard while Maggie and he sat on a wooden swing nearby beneath the canopy of a maple. He thought those days would last forever.

“God’s ways are not ours, Amos. As much as we rejoice that our loved ones are in God’s holy heaven, we miss them.” Abraham looked into the sky to see the falcon swoop down on an unlucky bobolink flying low in the field. “Memory is a strange thing. At times, so sweet. At times, so painful. But it’s what separates us from fish and fowl and beast. God wants us to remember his gifts and blessings.” He put a hand on Amos’s shoulder. “There’s a difference between keeping memories alive and using them as an excuse not to start living again.” He pulled his hand away and crossed his arms against his chest. “My advice for you is to talk about Menno. Remember his life. Celebrate the gift of a son God gave you, even if it was for a brief time. I think, by remembering, it will allow your grief to surface. And, in time, to heal.” He patted Amos’s back. “Talk, Amos Lapp. Talk and remember.”

Abraham made it sound so simple, but Amos knew it wasn’t. Grief was a hard, lonely thing to bear.

Suddenly, he realized that Abraham had something else on his mind.

Abraham’s eyes were fixed on the farmhouse. “And now I’d like to talk to Sadie. Alone.”