Lewistown, Montana
Three years packed with missed picnics, Christmas programs, weddings, the births of nieces and nephews, and the simple moments spent drinking iced tea on the front porch—those were the missed memories that comprised the threads woven together to make family. A family to which Andy no longer felt close.
He arose from the chair in his mother’s kitchen and faced Stephen. His brother was responsible for those precious lost days. While Winona offered apologies on more than one occasion, Stephen never had. Not that it would matter. “What do you mean? I came as soon as I could, given what’s going on in Kootenai.”
Stephen removed his straw hat and hung it on a hook near the door. His movements were slow and deliberate, belying his cool expression. He swiveled and tromped to the table where he took his son from Winona’s lap. He planted a kiss on Will’s cheek. Crowing with delight, the boy patted his father’s beard with chubby fingers. “After three years away. That’s what I meant. You didn’t move to China. All you had to do was hire a driver and come for a visit. Do you know what that would’ve meant to Mudder? To Daed?”
The highway traveled in both directions. Not long after his move, Mother and Father had visited—more to make sure Andy lacked for nothing than for their enjoyment. As had Frederick and Cherise, Wallace, and his sisters. The only one who hadn’t visited stood across the room from Andy. But the visits tapered off over time. They all worked hard and had little time or money to spare. While 385 miles—or six and a half hours—was nothing to Englishers, it could be an enormous chasm for Plain folks.
Andy fixed his gaze on the window over the kitchen sink to his brother’s left and slowly, carefully, breathed in and out. Tree branches swayed and dipped in an autumn breeze that spoke of the changing seasons. Forgiveness served as a fundamental building block of their Christian faith. Everyone in the room—minus an innocent babe—knew that. Did Stephen count on forgiveness when he did the unforgivable and stole Andy’s beloved?
Over the years they’d had their share of spats, like all brothers only two years apart did. Baseball games won and lost. Who got the last piece of fried chicken. Whose turn it was to clean the chicken coop. Or slaughter the old hens. But they always came back together. They worked at the sawmill, farmed, fished, hunted, and played as brothers. Until the night Andy had come upon Stephen inexplicably driving away from Winona’s parents’ home late one spring night three years ago.
“You’ve no answer then.” Stephen shifted Will to his hip. His son laid his head on his father’s chest and stared at Andy with big owlish eyes. Stephen’s eyes. His brother, on the other hand, had trouble meeting his gaze. “You said you were fine. We thought you were gut with . . . everything.”
For the first time Stephen faltered. His gruff voice deepened. “We know it’s not an easy situation—”
“I did my best to be fine.” Andy tore his gaze from the window and studied the canned goods instead. Cherries, peaches, beets, green beans, pickles, tomatoes, to name a few. His mother and sister-in-law had outdone themselves this past summer. “That doesn’t mean I wanted to stay around and watch. I told Daed and Mudder I needed a fresh start. They didn’t like it, but they understood.”
They didn’t like it, but they at least attempted to see it through Andy’s eyes. Father’s words had rung in Andy’s ears as he packed, said his goodbyes, and jumped into the van that would take him to his new life. “Forgiving small acts of transgression is easy. The true testing of faith is when the transgressions are enormous and painful. That’s when a person must set aside his smallness, his humanness.”
And then Mother’s contribution. “It’s better to know now than to be yoked for life to someone who realizes you’re not the one for her. That you’re not right for each other. It’s a blessing, really.”
Not right for each other. Winona had him fooled. Her ardent kisses. Her sweet hugs. The way she laughed at his jokes. At what point had she stopped feeling those sparks that threatened to burst into flames? Why had he not noticed? Why didn’t she say something sooner?
So many whys. Not a single one answered.
Andy had tried, but the words I forgive you stuck in his craw. They choked him. They tasted more sour than grapefruit peel on his tongue. They weighed heavier on his shoulders than the logs they turned into planks at the sawmill. He’d carried this load for so long he couldn’t remember how it felt to be free of it.
“They need their suhs and dochders all together now.” Stephen’s tone was half challenge, half plea. “What they don’t need is the digging up of old hurts and dissension among their kinner.”
“There will be none of that on my part.” Finally, Andy found neutral words, if not those of reconciliation so needed. “I came to see my daed, and then I’ll be on my way.”
He forced himself to stand. Donut did the same. Taking his time, his dog at his side, Andy stalked from the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hallway. His lungs sucked air greedily. His hands shook. He managed to unclench his aching jaw.
Humming greeted him at the first door. His mother’s soft, sweet tones beckoned memories of her cool hand on his feverish forehead when he had the flu. She always hummed while she took his temperature and fed him her homemade chicken noodle soup. Tension dissipated around him as if the sun had cleared away an ugly fog.
“Mudder?”
She glanced up from darning a sock and smiled. With her finger to her lips, she laid the sock aside and rose from the rocking chair that sat next to a huge oak bed. Father slept on his back, mouth open, arms flung out. A gentle snore ruffled his gray beard. Even asleep, he looked the same as always. Sturdy, indestructible. At peace.
Mother scampered from the room and tugged the door closed behind her. “Suh, you’re here.” Her delight burst forth in the form of a squeal and a hug that squeezed the air from his lungs. “I can’t believe it. You’re here.”
“Believe it. How is he?”
“The same. Who knows what ails him? The doctors surely don’t.” She held Andy at arm’s length and scrutinized him from head to toe. “You are skinny as a rail. That’s what happens when a man lives on his own.”
She stopped. Her lined face turned tomato red. She sighed. “Will this falling out with your bruder always be the wild boar in the room?” She stomped her sneaker-clad foot. “It will not. Time to let bygones be bygones. You’re here. You came. That’s your version of a peace offering.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know you are. Stephen will, too, if you give him a chance. I know he feels horrible about what happened, even if he doesn’t say the words. He’s like your daed. He doesn’t talk much, but he feels it.”
The same thing she’d said three years ago. Shouldn’t Stephen have to say the words? “So as the oldest son, he’s the head of the family now?”
“Your daed is retired. Frederick is running the farm, but Stephen handles the sawmill.” She bustled past Andy. He followed her into the living room where she settled onto the couch and patted the seat next to her. “Sit, sit. Tell me everything. The fire? Is it past? How did Kootenai fare?”
“My cabin burned. So did the other cabins. About thirty buildings altogether but only one Plain house.” He eased onto the couch next to her and leaned back. His body ached with exhaustion. “It’s not done yet. No one is allowed to return. About twenty thousand acres have burned. It’s a sight I won’t soon forget.”
He poured out the story, leaving out no small detail. Tut-tutting now and then, his mother soaked it up. She was like that, full of concern for others. What could she do? How soon could they go to help rebuild? The women would feed the workers. The men would provide the elbow grease. The three-hundred-plus miles meant nothing to her when other Plain families were hurting.
“Everyone from districts across the state will help, Mudder.” He smiled at her expression. “I’m sure a load of men will go from here, but I reckon you have your hands full with Daed.”
“I go with him to his appointments. I cook for him. He eats. He sleeps.” She smoothed her wrinkled apron. “But truth be told, there’s little more I can do for him except watch and wait.”
“He hasn’t had any more fainting spells?”
“Nee, just the two on back-to-back days. He was on a ladder, replacing siding, the first time. He hit his head, knocked himself out, and got a concussion. The second time he was helping Frederick with a break in the fence.” Mother recounted these events even though she knew Andy had been told about them. She seemed to need to talk about them, to relive them until she could understand them. “Your bruder was right there, thanks be to Gott. Mostly, he’s tired and weak. They’ve tested him for every disease known to man, it seems.”
“Nothing?”
“Not all the test results have come back yet. His white blood cell count is low and his platelets too.” That she knew about such things spoke to how much time she now spent with doctors. “We’ll know more when the remaining results come in.”
“Could it be old age?”
“Your daed is fifty-five. Not so old.” She shoved her bronze-rimmed glasses up her nose and frowned, but her green eyes were suddenly bright with laughter. “I worry that it’s my cooking. I’ve never been a good cook. Maybe it’s too much fried food clogging his arteries. Or maybe he has the diabetes from too many of my pies and cakes.”
“The doctors would test for that right away.” She never cooked anything fancy, but what Plain wife did? Her cooking satisfied her husband and her eight children. Andy had no complaints in that department. “He always worked hard. He’s never been fat.”
“I think what he really wants is for his kinner to be close to home. He wants you all to work together. With him.”
There it was. The true reason for Frederick’s call. The message behind the message. “Come home where you belong.”
“I’m here now, but I can’t stay.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Mother’s thin eyebrows rose and leaned toward each other in distaste for what her ears had heard. “Maybe you should speak with the bishop. Gideon might be able to help you work through your refusal to not only forgive but forget.”
The words were made so much harsher by Andy’s surprise at her attitude. “And Stephen? Has he spoken with Gideon about his sin of coveting what belonged to his bruder?”
“Has he not asked for forgiveness?”
“Nee, he hasn’t, actually.”
“Maybe you didn’t give him a chance. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Your job is to forgive.”
“All of this is my fault, then.” Andy heaved himself to his feet. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“But you did. That is gut.”
His father shuffled into the room and dropped into the closest rocking chair. “My family is back together. The way it should be.”
The jut of his jaw suggested that now wasn’t the time to argue. Upsetting him would be wrong. Despite the nap, his father had dark circles under his eyes. His frame was gaunt, and knobby wrists stuck out from the rolled-up sleeves of his faded cotton shirt. He looked like an old man. But he was still the head of the house and Andy’s father.
“I’ve made a life for myself in West Kootenai. They’re gut folks. I like being in the mountains.”
“The mountains are close here as well.”
“True. They are. But in Kootenai, they’re on my doorstep.”
“Which is why the cabin burned to the ground.”
Father didn’t mince words. Mother tugged at Andy’s arm, forcing him to sit. “Nothing has to be decided now. Let’s enjoy this time, all of us together.”
“I’ve been courting.”
Mother’s look of worry disappeared. She clapped as if applauding a great performance. “I’m so glad. Your heart has healed. You’ve no reason to hang on to the past.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“No one said it was easy.” Father still hadn’t smiled. “Only expected and what’s right. You’ve found your way to another. Let the past go.”
“This special friend lives in Kootenai. That’s where I intend to make our home.”
“She could live in Lewistown just as easily.” Father stroked his unruly beard. “Unless you haven’t told her of the troubles you’ve had here.”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
Mother and Father exchanged troubled glances.
Father fixed Andy with that fiery stare that made him quake in his boots as a child. “To enter into a union with secrets doesn’t bode well for the future of that union.”
“That’s between Christine and me.”
“You need to talk to the deacon or the bishop. You need advice.”
The rest of the thought hung in the air. And you won’t take it from me.
How could he when his own parents had refused to counsel Stephen for his transgressions? They’d played favorites in the interest of keeping the peace. And let Stephen take over their business.
They couldn’t turn around now and expect Andy to live here. He rose again, stretched, and edged toward the door. “It’s getting late. We’ll talk about this later. I’ll go help with the chores.”
“Andy.”
He stopped at the door and turned. His father held his gaze. “One way or the other, you do need to tell her. Our past affects who we are in the future. There’s no getting around that. Even if we want to. Even if we try our hardest. We are shaped by our past. Stop fighting it and come home.”
The hard knot in his throat kept Andy from answering. He managed a curt nod and escaped before he did something unmanly like cry.
Only one day here and he missed Christine.
He missed her and he needed her.