Two
The October sun was sinking low in the afternoon sky when someone knocked at the door at Rising Star Farm. Sylvie sent Joey to open it, then heard the door slam shut. He ran back to the kitchen, eyes wide. “Mem, it’s the cowboy.”
Sylvie wiped her hands on her apron and went to open the door. Standing a few feet in front of her was the poor pathetic homeless man from the Bent N’ Dent.
“We met a few hours ago.”
The tramp had a gentle voice, polite, and his eyes were hopeful, though sort of sad. “I remember,” she said, nodding. “What can I do for you?” Her voice, even to her own ears, sounded flat, wary.
“I was wondering about that job you mentioned. Before Hank got you riled up.” He scratched his temple, pushing the cowboy hat askew. He took it off and raked a hand through his bushy sun-streaked brown hair. “Hank has that effect on folks.”
“Oh my stars, don’t I know it. You should try living next door to him and his cold-natured wife. Why, that woman couldn’t melt ice cream on a hot summer day.”
The homeless man’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’ve had a dose of that once or twice”—his grin spread from ear to ear—“seeing as how I’m the second son of Edith Fisher Lapp. Jimmy Fisher’s my name.”
Sylvie gasped. “Oh dear. I shouldn’t have said that out loud.”
He chuckled, lifting a hand to wave off her worry. “Why do you think I spent the last couple of years in Colorado? Trying to find my own footing in life.”
She knew all about that. She softened and crossed her arms behind her back. “So, did you do it? Find your footing?”
He took his time answering. He swallowed once and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Seems it’s a bit harder than I’d thought.”
When their eyes met, Sylvie thought she saw a shine in his eyes. In that one poignant line, the cowboy had given her a glimpse of himself. “Life can be funny that way. The things we keep trying to get away from keep finding us.” Well, she had a child to tend to and animals to feed. “So you’re not a pathetic homeless fellow, after all.”
He glanced over at Edith Lapp’s house. It was a small but tidy home, nestled against a hillside. “My mother turned my bedroom into her scrapbook room. My only option is a sagging couch in the basement. But I’m not homeless.” He looked down at his clothes. “Do I look so awfully pathetic?”
His clothes were certainly pathetic looking. Patches on his knees, scuffed boots, threadbare cuffs on his sleeves, and a worn collar. Plus he smelled a little ripe. But his face—it was not such a pathetic face. Now that she thought about it, it was a rather nice face, scruffy whiskers and all. And those blue eyes—they were kind eyes, as blue as a summer sky. She noticed he was shivering in the brisk wind and she felt a little sorry for him.
“Why don’t you come inside and have a cup of coffee to warm up?” Sylvie said. “It’s too cold to stand around out here.”
He didn’t move. “Thank you, no. I’d better get home. It’s my mother’s birthday. I just wanted to see if the job’s still open.”
She pondered that momentarily, studying him in silence. It seemed ludicrous to have the second son of Edith Lapp working for her. On the other hand, it might be just what was needed to take the frostbite off that woman. Didn’t the Good Book say to extend the olive leaf to your enemies? Something like that. “Job’s still open.”
“Are you really trying to introduce a new buggy horse?”
She pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and shrugged. “I haven’t quite figured out all the plans yet, but I do believe Arabians are the best horse in the world.”
“They’re fast. I’ll grant you that.”
“Not just fast. They’re hardworking, sturdy, tough as nails.” Her eyes followed Prince as he shook his head in the paddock, tail and mane lifted by the breeze. He’d picked up some scent in the wind that made his nostrils flare. The sight of him, standing at full attention, took her breath away. “I’ll be honest with you. What I’m doing here, well, at times it does seem a little crazy. Like I’m swimming upstream, fighting the current.” She wasn’t sure why she felt she needed to tell him so much, but it always seemed best to get things out in the open. She glanced at him. “Doesn’t it to you?”
He stared at her hard with a frown between his eyes, as if she were a puzzle he was trying to piece together. “Well . . . maybe a little.” He fingered the brim of his hat, giving Sylvie the impression that he might be anxious to put it back on and run for the hills. She didn’t blame him. It was crazy! She sensed that he was too kind to give her a flat-out yes.
Then Jimmy Fisher grinned—a full-blown smile that revealed endearing deep-set dimples in both cheeks. “Seems I’ve always been a little partial to crazy.”
Sylvie’s eyes burned suddenly, as if smoke had gotten into them, and she blinked fast to clear them.
Something must have surprised him, because his eyebrows shot up to the top of his forehead.
Luke Schrock set the newspaper down with a sigh. The front page had a story of a newborn baby found dead in a gas station restroom. It was the second time such a horrific event had happened in Pennsylvania in the last two months. The article stated abandoning newborn infants was not uncommon, linked to a rise of teen pregnancies.
His eyes lifted to see his wife, Izzy, stirring a bowl of cookie batter with one hand. Their little one-year-old daughter, Katy Ann, rested on her hip. Izzy was talking to Katy Ann in a soft voice, explaining the intricacies of cookie batter to her. Katy Ann was more interested in trying to grab the dangling strings of her mother’s prayer cap.
Luke felt a swirl of emotions. Little Katy Ann could have been one of those horrible stories. Her birth mother was only fifteen, in the foster care system, and had successfully hidden her pregnancy from everyone. And that meant everyone. She’d been living at Windmill Farm for a few months during her third trimester. Even Fern, savvy to the ways of teens, even she had missed signs. Who knows what Cassidy, Katy Ann’s birth mother, might have done, had she not been placed with them? God’s providence intervened, and Cassidy wanted Luke and Izzy to adopt her baby. They jumped at the chance, as they had yet to be blessed with a child of their own.
And now Katy Ann belonged to them. She’d made them a family. Luke didn’t think it was possible for the two of them to love their daughter any more.
His eyes dropped to the newspaper article. He picked it up and folded it, tucking it under his arm to toss before Izzy or Fern saw it.
“Too late.”
Luke practically jumped out of his seat at the sound of Fern’s voice coming from behind him. She was always doing that, appearing out of nowhere, silent as a cat.
“We already saw it,” she said.
Izzy looked up. “We’ve already talked it over.”
That was another thing that happened a lot. Fern and Izzy were usually a step or two ahead of him, and they were always in cahoots. He felt a little outnumbered by females.
“Luke,” Fern said, “we think you need to do something about it. Not let it happen again.”
“Me?” His voice rose an octave.
Izzy hitched the baby up on her hip. “After all, you are the deacon.”
He cleared his throat. “These aren’t Amish babies that are getting abandoned.” No chance of that ever happening.
“It seems to me,” Fern said, sliding into the chair next to him, “that the promise you made to Amos about emptying out the foster care system in Lancaster County—”
“And I’m doing my best with that. Slow and steady, we all agreed, Fern. You said it yourself. Don’t let your branches grow past your roots—”
“You’re doing fine, Luke. Two more families this year have gotten licensed to be foster care families. I’m talking about going a step farther. Let’s make sure those babies aren’t abandoned in the first place.”
“How in the world do I do that?”
Fern and Izzy looked at each other.
“That’s the part we can’t figure out,” Izzy said. “But you’ll find a way. You always do.” She set a plate of warm-from-the-oven cookies in front of him and smiled, and Katy Ann smiled, and life felt full of possibilities.
The door to the kitchen opened to a blast of cold air. “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHO’S BACK IN TOWN.”
Hank Lapp. Making the rounds.
“Who?” Fern said, as she rose to fill a mug with coffee for Hank.
“JIMMY FISHER. DOWN ON HIS LUCK.”
Fern stopped midpour. “Jimmy’s back? You don’t say.” A fond look filled her eyes, relaxed her face. “So, he’s finally come home.”
“Who’s Jimmy Fisher?” Izzy said.
“Edith’s youngest,” Luke said. “He courted my sister Bethany for a long time.”
“BETHANY GOT FED UP WAITING FOR HIM.”
“There’s some truth to that. Jimmy went off somewhere—”
“COLORADO.”
“Colorado. That’s right. He was doing something with horses.”
“HE WAS A COWBOY.”
“Huh,” Izzy said thoughtfully, as she fed bits of cookie to baby Katy. “An Amish cowboy.”
“LUKE, YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING.”
That was the second time in the last fifteen minutes that Luke had been told he had to do something. “Why?”
“JIMMY SAYS HE IS GONNA WORK FOR SYLVIE. YOUR COUSIN.” He circled his ear with his finger and raised his sparse eyebrows.
“Hank Lapp”—Fern pointed a finger at him—“there’s nothing wrong with Sylvie and you’d better stop that nonsense. I’ve heard you say something mean each time her name is brought up.”
“I’M ONLY SAYING WHAT EDITH THINKS.”
Luke scowled at him. “What’s wrong with him working for Sylvie? She could use help. And Jimmy knows horses.”
“TWO REASONS. HE’S ONLY DOING IT TO RILE HIS MOTHER. AS SOON AS HE HEARD THERE WAS A FEUD BETWEEN EDITH AND SYLVIE, HE HIGHTAILED IT OVER THERE.”
Fern frowned at him. “What’s the second reason?”
“SYLVIE’S GOT HER CAP SET FOR POOR UNSUSPECTING JIMMY.”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Why in the world would you say such a thing?”
Hank started winking one eye, then the other. Luke thought he looked like he was having a seizure. “Oh, Hank. Come on. She has an eye twitch, that’s all. Dok told her it was due to stress. It started when Jake died.”
“WHAT?” Hank sank into a chair. “So she wasn’t making come-hither eyes at him?”
“No, Hank.”
“OH boy.” He took a long, noisy sip of coffee, then another and another. When the cup was empty, he jumped out of his chair. “I BETTER GO TELL JIMMY. Just in case he’s misinterpreting those WINKS. You KNOW that boy.” He tapped his high forehead. “Not a lot of SENSE up here.” He started to the door, pivoted, and turned. “Mind if I TAKE SOME COOKIES to EDITH? It’s her birthday and I FORGOT A CAKE.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed the cookies on Luke’s plate and off he went, leaving the door wide open.
Luke closed the door behind him.
Izzy looked at him with puzzlement. “So Edith was married before Hank?”
“Yup. She had two sons, Paul and Jimmy. Edith and Hank married a while ago.”
“Interesting,” she said, feeding a bite of cookie to Katy Ann. “Sounds like this Jimmy is more like Hank than his own mother.”
Luke and Fern exchanged a surprised look, then they shared a slow, wide grin.
Near dusk, Izzy wandered through the garden rows, looking for any chili peppers that might have dried on the plant this fall so she could save the seeds. Next summer, she wanted to try even more varieties—Fresno, habanero, serrano, and of course the ubiquitous jalapeños. Edith Lapp told her about a ghost pepper that sent a chill down her spine. It was reported to be the hottest known chili pepper on earth. A little went a long way with all chili peppers—imagine how minuscule an amount she would need with a ghost pepper.
It figured that Edith would enjoy ghost peppers, Izzy thought, as she yanked her skirt free from a hacked-off dried cornstalk. A little bit of Edith went a long way too. Izzy admired Edith and had learned much from her, but she was still frightened to death of her. For some reason, Edith had been kind to her. For most everyone else, especially Luke, she had an effect on them like an unexpected cold snap in the month of May. Just when you thought spring was finally here, winter would blow back in.
Her thoughts traveled to the conversation Luke and Fern had this morning, about the return of Jimmy Fisher to Stoney Ridge. She hadn’t heard his name mentioned very often, only in context of being one of Fern’s wayward teens. He sounded like he’d been a character as a teenager, a con artist. Not like Luke, who had sounded more like a criminal-in-the-making. She wondered how old Jimmy had been when his father died, and if that had affected his upbringing. Made him a little off-kilter. Luke thought his own father’s death when he was a boy had a lot to do with why he wanted to lash out at others, to make them hurt like he hurt. He told Izzy once that he missed his father every single day of his life.
Fathers were important. She knew that because she’d grown up without one.
The kitchen door squeaked open and out came Luke on the porch, carrying their baby, Katy Ann, close against his chest. “She wanted to see you,” he called out.
Izzy stayed where she was in the garden, watching the two of them. Luke held Katy Ann up in the air and tickled her tummy, and she giggled, waving her chubby arms. She adored her daddy, and he was thoroughly smitten by her. Luke’s devotion to their baby constantly surprised Izzy. It’s not that she had doubted he’d be a good father, but she hadn’t expected him to be the doting type.
Early in their marriage, he hadn’t even seemed all that eager to be a father, not in the urgent, almost desperate, way she had felt about becoming a mother. But the minute Luke had laid eyes on Katy Ann in the hospital, he was enchanted. Those first few months, he got up in the night to feed her a bottle and still stopped in the farmhouse or the yarn shop throughout the day to check on her. Those two had a special bond, and Izzy found she didn’t mind one little bit. She was so grateful that their little girl had such a tender, loving father, that she had chosen a fine man as a husband. Luke was the best of men, and he was an excellent father to Katy Ann.
But right on its heels was a bone-deep ache that Izzy had missed out on something she never had. Watching them, she felt a catch in her heart for the father she’d never known, the arms that had never held her, the stories she’d never been told. Every child should have a father like Luke.
She’d had the strangest sense of loss lately, almost overwhelming at times. When she shared it with Luke, he reacted with hurt. “Aren’t we enough for you, Izzy? Katy Ann, me? Can’t we be enough? Will happiness always be around the corner?”
Yes, of course they were enough. And no. The emptiness she felt from her upbringing might not ever be filled. She decided she would never mention her sense of loss to Luke again; he didn’t understand.
Folks around here always said that you don’t miss what you never had. But she didn’t think that maxim rang true, at least not when it came to missing out on a father.
Oftentimes Sylvie would go into Joey’s room at night and watch him sleep, marveling at the fact that this child was hers, yet he wasn’t. Not really. She felt overwhelmed by the measureless love she felt for this little boy, by her desire to protect him.
Tonight she checked on Joey, closed the door to his room, and sat down at the kitchen table to make a list of everything that needed doing or fixing on the farm this spring. She’d lived at Rising Star Farm nearly a year now and had a general idea of where she wanted the farm to go, what she hoped it could look like with time and proper attention, but getting there was a whole different story. She had a vision of a thriving, tidy, and well-kept horse farm, using Prince as the stud. She believed in that horse, knew that he had the genes to make a positive impact on other breeds. That horse could make a difference.
She set down her pencil and walked over to the kitchen window, admiring the long expanse of grass that gently curved downward to the creek. This place—it was the most beautiful spot on earth to her. Outside, night peepers started their chirping. Their sound had grown quieter this spring since the creek had moved. The light from the full moon lent a velvet richness to the yard, disguising its rusted junk and chicken dung and tall weeds.
She remembered the day she’d first seen Rising Star Farm, really seen it. Her cousin Luke had urged her to come visit, to consider making a move to Stoney Ridge. Luke and Sylvie were the same age. Their fathers were brothers, oldest and youngest in a large family, and were much the same men. The same kind of father. Despite the fact that Luke always had a wayward bent, Sylvie had felt an inexplicable concern for him, an unbending affection. Once her cousin had been her worry; now she was his.
“You need a fresh start,” he urged. “Trust me. This town is good for that.”
“Luke, it’s not just me anymore,” she had reminded him. “There’s also Joey.”
“Bring him,” Luke insisted. “Stoney Ridge is different, Syl. Come and see. Come and find out for yourself.”
The church Sylvie was raised in was far more conservative than the church of Stoney Ridge. Hillbilly Amish, Luke called them. No indoor plumbing, no kitchen sink, no paint on their houses or barns. There were times, after Sylvie had left and come back again with fresh eyes, when she wondered if the people in her church, including her father—especially her father—were downright proud of a lifestyle committed to voluntary poverty. Still, it was the world she knew, and she was willing to return to it, had she and Joey been welcomed back. But they weren’t. Not with Joey there to remind everyone why she had once left.
Luke kept on asking, and finally Sylvie agreed to come visit Stoney Ridge. On the very first Sunday church, after hearing David’s sermon on Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well, how he knew all about what a terrible person she was and offered her that good living water anyway, she discovered that Luke was right. This church, these people, for the most part, they were different. Not Edith Lapp, but most everyone else.
Sylvie had been staying at Windmill Farm for a week or so when she thought she might take a walk around the area. Joey was napping, Fern was reading the Budget in the kitchen, and the autumn day beckoned.
“Go,” Fern said. “Explore. I’m here if Joey wakes up.”
She remembered it had been a warm September afternoon, a day of brightly colored leaves and endless blue sky. Around the bend she noticed a white horse running in a pasture, kicking up its heels for the pure joy of living, and she stopped to gaze at him for a while. “My stars,” she said aloud as the horse galloped past her. Her heart raced. “Oh my stars. An Arabian stallion!” On an Amish farm, of all places.
She had walked farther down the lane until she found the farmhouse. She realized she’d seen the house from a distance on buggy rides, but approaching it then, on foot, cast in the golden afternoon sunlight filtered through a canopy of trees, gave it charm.
It was a large structure, three stories, clapboard covered, the roof bookended with two huge brick chimneys. On the porch hung a cracked pot filled with a bright red geranium. Hanging between two trees in the yard was a sagging rope, full of laundry. Men’s clothing only, she noted. Behind the house was a large old barn, with wide pastures all around it, and far in front of the house was a running creek.
Charming, yes, but the closer she got, the more she saw. This place was a mess: shingles curled off the roof, the porch looked like it was ready to drop right off the house, there were two broken windows, and one of the green shutters was hanging precariously, like it wouldn’t last through the next winter. In the yard between the house and the barn was a weedy remnant of a garden. There were piles of trash and rusting tools, a stump with an axe in it, and firewood stacked helter-skelter all around the stump. And then there were chickens. Everywhere there were chickens! Picking and strutting their way around the yard. She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. Their sour scent was in the breeze. The barn looked like a big gust of wind might tumble it right over. The whole place was sorry looking, shabby, but that didn’t scare her. Maybe that was a gift from a Hillbilly Amish upbringing.
There was something about this place that spoke to her, deep in her heart. Even the geranium touched her. If she had to compare herself to some kind of object, it might just be that cracked pot with the red geranium. Still blooming, despite everything.
The white horse whinnied to her from the pasture, as if he had something to tell her. The closer she got, the more excited he got. She walked over to him slowly, thinking he’d bolt away from her, but he didn’t. He stuck his nose over the fence rail, a horse’s way to exchange hellos, and let her stroke his velvet muzzle. When she dropped her hand, he nudged her with his nose. Sounded crazy, she knew, but it seemed the horse wanted her as much as she wanted him. It felt like the sign she needed, the one she’d been looking for. This was where she belonged. She and Joey. Somehow, she knew that she’d found the home she’d longed for all her life. She fit right in.
On the walk back to Windmill Farm, Sylvie’s longings had transformed into desperation. She’d always been a terrible one for bargaining with God. It might be wrong, she wasn’t really sure, but she did it anyway. Lord God, I want that house. I want that horse. I need them, both. For me, for Joey. For both of us. She begged God to let her find some way to have those two things . . . but what could she offer God in return? She’d work on being a better person and try to live a straight and narrow life. Lord God, if you could just get me those two things, I’ll never ask for another thing.
Later that night, she quizzed Izzy about the horse’s owner. Izzy filled in the details: a bachelor named Jake King, who was considered as odd as a cat with feathers.
“Odd, in a mean, spiteful way?” Sylvie asked. Like her father?
“No, not mean. Real nice, in fact. Just . . . peculiar.”
The next morning, Izzy pointed Jake out in church. He was quite a bit older than Sylvie had expected, and not much to look at—flabby compared to the well-muscled farmers, eyes that drooped like a cocker spaniel’s, and a head full of frizzy hair.
During the fellowship meal, Sylvie finagled things to make sure she was serving the table where Jake was seated and gave him an extra coffee refill.
Edith Lapp noticed and gave her a tut-tut scolding. “One cup of coffee per person,” she said gruffly.
Sylvie paid her no mind and gave Jake a third refill, just as soon as Edith’s back was turned. She smiled at him, twice, and he blinked at her as if he was a bear woken too early from hibernation.
When had a man ever looked at her like that? As if she was the answer to his prayers. Never. And suddenly she knew that this odd old bachelor who owned that magnificent horse and beautiful farm was the answer to her prayers.
They married a few months later, and Sylvie moved into that big white farmhouse. Jake was kind to Joey, and he was gentle and caring to her. Throughout their brief year of marriage, he remained a little dazed that she had ever wanted to marry him. She had to do the asking, because the timid man wasn’t able to muster enough courage to even hold her hand on a moonlit night. One evening, scooting her rocker close to his on the porch of Windmill Farm, she asked if he might like to marry her. For one full minute, Jake looked like he’d been hit by a lightning bolt, and then he let out an expletive, apologized, thumped his hat on his head, and stammered, “I sure do!”
It might not have been the kind of marriage that Sylvie had hoped for as a girl, but it was enough for her now. More than enough. Romantic love, she had decided long ago, was a lot like swirls of meringue on the top of a lemon custard pie. It looked pretty and appealing, but there wasn’t much substance to it. With Jake, Sylvie had found the life she wanted. He let her do whatever she wanted and didn’t object to her idea of starting a horse-breeding farm with his Arabian stallion. He might not have helped her with it, but he didn’t stop her from trying, and for that she was grateful.
Then Jake up and died on her, and she was left on her own again.
Outside, a screech owl hooted, jolting Sylvie back to the present. A bobbing light caught her eye. Across the creek, someone was walking across the yard at Edith Lapp’s house. Her thoughts turned to the pathetic homeless man who offered to work for her. So, he wasn’t pathetic, nor was he homeless. He was the second son of Edith Lapp, Sylvie’s cantankerous, unpleasant, cranky neighbor who was making such a fuss over the creek. So what if it was shifting and moving onto Edith’s property? That wasn’t Sylvie’s fault. That creek had a mind of its own. Nor was it her fault that the property deed clearly indicated the creek was Rising Star Farm’s boundary line.
She wasn’t at all sure it was wise to hire Edith’s second son, but the man did know his horses, and he wasn’t averse to her notion of creating a Partbred. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she might’ve just made a terrible mistake. Well, tomorrow, she’d find out.