Six
On a gray Monday afternoon in early November, Izzy closed the Stitches in Time Yarn Shop and took Katy Ann out to the Mountain Vista Rehab Facility to see her mother, Grace Miller, who worked at the clinic. Grace had been through the program, twice, and just as she was ready to be released, she applied for a job. She worked in the kitchen, washing dishes and cleaning up. It wasn’t much of a job, but it provided room and board, and it kept her clean and sober. That was all that mattered to Izzy and to Jenny, her half-sister.
Izzy found her mother in the facility’s dining room, sweeping up after lunch.
Her mother smiled when she saw her. “Well, look who’s come to see her grandma.”
She set the broom down and reached for Katy Ann. Izzy watched the two of them for a while, feeling pleased that her mother was affectionate with the baby. Katy Ann was adopted and looked nothing like Izzy or Luke. She had creamed-coffee skin, and a headful of soft dark ringlets, and eyes as big and brown as a dairy cow. Izzy often wondered about Katy Ann’s biological father, about his race, his background, his features, his personality. She guessed he was probably a high school student, like Cassidy, Katy Ann’s biological mother. Cassidy had ended up at Windmill Farm for a few months while the group home she lived in was under renovations. Izzy and Cassidy had become friendly, though not so much that she confided in Izzy that she was pregnant. That news came later, after she’d left Windmill Farm and sent the social worker to ask Luke and Izzy to adopt her newborn. Shocked, thrilled, overwhelmed . . . they said Yes! and never looked back.
“You came at the perfect time,” Grace said. “I’m due for a break.” She pulled out a chair and sat down, motioning to Izzy to join her. She bounced Katy Ann on her lap, making her giggle. “She’s grown since I saw her last.”
“She’s got two more teeth too.”
Her mother gently pulled one of Katy Ann’s ringlets, released it and smiled as it bounced back. “This head of hair. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Cassidy’s hair was straight. Or maybe she straightened it. I’ve wondered if her biological father had curly hair.”
Grace played peekaboo with Katy Ann as Izzy gathered her courage. “Speaking of biological fathers, one of the reasons I came to see you today was to ask you a few questions. About my father.”
Her mother either didn’t hear her or didn’t want to hear. She focused on trying to get Katy Ann to open her mouth so she could see her teeth.
“I’d like to know more about my father. Other than his name was Frank Miller and he was in the military.” Izzy had only vague memories of him, and they weren’t good ones.
“No, not Frank.” Grace took in a deep breath. “One drum they’re always beating around here is to tell the truth.”
“What do you mean?” Izzy sat up straight. Oh my gosh. “Are you saying that . . . Frank Miller isn’t my father?”
“No.” Grace glanced at her, then looked away nervously. “Frank was deployed overseas when I met your father. When Frank found out I was pregnant with another man’s child, he up and divorced me. He let you keep his name, though, so I could get military benefits. He was a real gentleman, that way. Not much else, though.”
Izzy squeezed her eyes closed. Her mother’s life was littered with broken relationships. It shouldn’t surprise her, and she knew she shouldn’t get pulled backward. They’d come so far, she and her mother. To think they could actually sit and have a conversation and share a love for Katy Ann. “Okay. Then what can you tell me about my father?”
Her mother kept playing with Katy Ann, as if they were talking about the weather. “Why do you want to know?”
“Is it so wrong to want to know? I watch Luke with Katy Ann, and it’s gotten me to think about him. I’d like to know more about him. That’s all.”
“There’s just not much to tell.” She shrugged. “And I don’t remember much from back then. Those were my drug days.”
“There must be something you can tell me about him.”
Grace straightened the prayer cap on Katy Ann’s head. “He was married and he had good teeth.”
Married. Good teeth. Izzy’s stomach clenched. “So let me get this straight. You had an affair with a married man.”
Her mother frowned. “It takes two, you know.”
“Where did you meet him?”
Her mother squirmed. “Around here somewhere.”
“So, not in Ohio?”
Grace looked at the clock. “I’d better get back to work.”
“Mama, did you ever tell him about me?”
She handed Katy Ann to Izzy. “Things were complicated.”
“You didn’t, did you?”
She glared at her. “Don’t sit there judging me. You couldn’t possibly understand what it was like back then. I was having a real hard time.”
Argh. They’d slipped right down the slope to where they used to be, all the time. At an impasse. Unable to move forward. Lord, help. “Mama, you’re right. I don’t know what it was like for you. I just wanted to know more about my father.”
Grace’s face relaxed. “He was real nice looking, if that helps. You look a lot like him, if I remember correctly.”
“Did he have a name?”
Her mother pushed the toe of her shoe at her broom. “Johnny. That’s what I called him.”
“What did this Johnny fellow do for a living?”
“Hmm.” She squinted, concentrating. “He wore a uniform. I remember that.” Her face grew softer, sweeter, as if thinking about this Johnny evoked a happy memory. “I’ve always been a sucker for a guy in a uniform.” She bent down and kissed Katy Ann. “Let me give you some advice, Izzy. Leave the past in the past. Otherwise you might stir up a hornet’s nest.” She picked up her broom and got back to work, leaving Izzy with more questions than answers.
And the biggest question of all: her biological father, Johnny-in-a-uniform, might still be here, somewhere in Lancaster County.
If there was a leaf left on a tree in Stoney Ridge, the storm that blew through last night would’ve swept it away. The sky cleared midmorning on Tuesday, and despite the bright blue sky, the air turned bitter cold. Izzy set chairs up in the yarn shop for a class of advanced knitters, hoping the room wasn’t too cold for the women. Most were older, skilled in their craft. As she surveyed the circle of chairs, her thoughts kept returning to the sparse facts that her mother had told her yesterday about her biological father, wondering how she could ever track him down with such a feeble list.
Johnny. He was married and had good teeth. And he wore a uniform.
Appalling. Not much to go on, other than one big clue: Grace had met him in Lancaster County, not in Ohio as Izzy had assumed. As much as her mother’s life was a tangled web of marriages and deceit, it did lift Izzy’s spirits considerably to know she was not the offspring of a man like Frank Miller.
On the backs of two chairs, she spread out the baby blanket that this class would be working on, a combination of knitting and crocheting. It was complicated, yet oh-so-beautiful: a scene of a stockinette-stitch blue sky filled with puffy white clouds and a yellow pompom sun, a green and brown field below in a purl stitch, with crocheted pieces of sheep grazing on grass, a rocky fence crossing over it made of gray and brown bobble, and a tree filled with cherry blossoms. Attaching the appliqued crochet pieces would be today’s assignment—to sew them into the knit stitches in a way that there was no sign of stitches on the back of the blanket. It was a good thing Edith Lapp would be here today. She was a master at such handcrafts.
Izzy’s thoughts swung to Edith. She set a skein of yarn to mark Edith’s spot, and far across the circle of chairs, she placed a skein for Sylvie. Those two needed to be separated. Or rather, Sylvie needed some protection from Edith. Izzy didn’t know why Edith was so hard on Sylvie, but she’d been snippy to her since the day she married Jake and had gotten progressively sharp-tongued. Sylvie could do nothing right in Edith’s eyes. Last time this class met, Edith sat next to Sylvie and nitpicked at her for the solid hour, under her breath but loud enough for all to hear.
For some reason, Izzy had a pleasant relationship with Edith, and she was grateful for her help with the yarn shop, but she took utmost care to avoid getting on the wrong side of her. Poor Sylvie.
She ran a hand over the sheep that was appliqued on the baby blanket. That’s how it seemed to her, as if Edith was like one of her bossy ewes, bullying a smaller ewe for no good reason. It happened all the time among her woollies.
She had chosen a soft cotton yarn for this baby blanket project, lightweight and washable, because babies did terrible things to blankets. Terrible! Katy Ann had been a spitter from the start, and the woolen blanket she’d knitted for her still had a sour formula odor embedded in it, no matter what she tried to get rid of it. Baking soda, detergent, vinegar. Nothing. It just stank.
Out the window, Izzy spotted a dash of indigo blue fly past. The mailman was heading up to the house with a package.
A mailman! Mailmen wore uniforms. So did UPS drivers, pilots, security guards, gasoline attendants . . . and garbagemen. The possibilities were endless. Izzy sighed. Her mother had said she was a sucker for a man in a uniform.
No concern for a man’s character, or his faithfulness, or what kind of father he would make. Just the clothes on his back.
She reined in her thoughts as she heard a horse and buggy turn into the drive of Windmill Farm. If this Johnny fellow was in the military, he could have been Navy, Air Force, Army.
She stopped, straightened. Police. Her father might have been a policeman. Heaven only knew, her mother had plenty of interactions with policemen. She’d been arrested lots of times, and she had a way with men. There would have been multiple opportunities to get to know a police officer with an eye for a pretty woman. She rolled her eyes, thinking of her mother’s taste in men. A married man with good teeth. Appalling.
Other than Edith Lapp’s sharp glances at Sylvie, the class went much better than last month’s, when Sylvie had ended up sitting next to Edith and heard nothing but complaints about the appearance of her grandfather’s farm. Not Jake’s farm, not Sylvie’s farm, but Edith’s grandfather’s farm. She’d thought Edith was inexplicably unkind to her after she’d married Jake, but something changed after he passed, almost the moment his body was lowered in the ground. It was as if a bitterly cold wind blew in from across the creek, and never left.
Since Joey was up in Luke’s Fix-It Shop, Sylvie stayed afterward to help Izzy clean up.
Izzy collected scissors while Sylvie put chairs back. “I would think Edith would have her knickers in a twist about her son working for you.”
“Oh, I’m sure she does. She has a say-so about everything I do.” All wrong.
“Is Jimmy earning his keep?”
“There’s no denying he’s a hard worker, and . . .”
Sylvie brushed bits of yarn off her skirt. “And . . . I suppose it’s nice to have someone cheerful around the farm.” How different Jimmy was from Jake, with whom she shared a home but little else. And so very, very different from her father.
“Especially someone with bright blue eyes and dimples in his cheeks.”
Startled, Sylvie froze, blushed at the thought, felt her cheeks grow warm with color.
“Why, Sylvie King, I do believe Jimmy Fisher has turned your head.”
She felt her eyes start to twitch. “Don’t be silly. This is Edith Lapp’s second son, remember?” But she kept her chin tucked low as she said it and busied herself with straightening a chair.
Once or twice a day, Sylvie and Joey would take time to lean on the fence posts of Prince’s paddock, just to watch him. He seemed to know he was being admired and often put on a show for them—breaking into a run around the paddock, kicking up his heels.
Sylvie heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Jimmy Fisher pushing a wheelbarrow past them, full of old pieces of lumber. He dumped it on the driveway. On the way back to the barn, he stopped, tilted the wheelbarrow upright, mopped his forehead with a blue handkerchief, and walked over to them.
“Any idea why Jake had that lumber? I found it piled in a horse stall.”
She looked at the pile. “Someone was knocking down their barn and gave him the free wood.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe two years. Why do you ask?”
“A couple of those timbers are full of termites.”
Her eyes went wide. “Think they’ve spread to the barn?”
“I’ll be looking for them.”
Joey pushed in between them. “If you’re ever starving in a jungle, you can eat termites.”
Jimmy looked at him. “What? Eat termites?”
“It’s true. I read it in a book. They taste like . . .” Joey pulled a carrot out of his pants pocket and held it up. “Like a minty carrot.” He looked up at Sylvie. “Can I go eat a termite?”
She smiled down at him, rubbing his small chin in her fingers. “No, honey. Let’s save termite eating for the jungle.”
Prince had spotted the carrot and nickered to Joey. He slipped through the rail to take a carrot to the big horse.
“Jake must have had a Thoroughbred for buggy riding.”
“He did. A sweet mare. I sold her after he died. A fellow offered me those two broodmares if he could have her and I said yes. I was a little sorry to say goodbye to her, but I couldn’t afford to keep Prince and a buggy horse. That’s when I started using Prince as a buggy horse. And when I got the idea of trying to create a Partbred.”
“You’re pushing a rock uphill. The Amish are devoted to their Thoroughbreds.”
“I like Thoroughbreds. They’re mighty fine animals.” Sylvie took in a big draught of air. “But for me, nothing beats an Arabian. They’re eager to please. A perfect partner. They’re built to run, with their big nostrils. They have an incredible presence.” Prince was running around the pasture, tail flowing, as Joey stood in the center and watched him. “The sight of that horse . . . it just catches you in the heart.”
“Do you happen to know how a Thoroughbred got its name?” Jimmy asked.
“Can’t say that I do.”
“Two hundred years ago, there were people who bred for a certain kind of horse. When they got everything they wanted in the horse, all the characteristics they were looking for, they decided they were done. The breed was thorough. Nothing more could be added. Hence the name Thoroughbred. In fact, all Thoroughbreds can be traced down to just three horses.” He turned to look her straight in the eye. “It’s hard to beat a Thoroughbred as a buggy horse, Sylvie. Why fix what ain’t broke?”
“I never said it was broke. I said it could be improved.”
“I’ve never seen any Amish with Arabians.”
“No, not yet. That doesn’t mean not ever.”
“Just what are you trying to improve?”
“Endurance, mostly. They can handle the heat better than other breeds. And there’s lots of other characteristics too. They’re easy to handle, so athletic.”
“Where’d you learn so much about Arabians?”
She hesitated, a few seconds too long. “I had a friend who had an Arabian horse.”
“A friend?”
“A friend,” she repeated, in a tone that ended the conversation.
He took the hint.
They stood together in silence for a while, Jimmy’s gaze fixed on Prince. “Sylvie, would you let me ride him?”
“Drive him?”
“No. On saddle. Or bareback.”
“Why?”
“I just want to see what kind of horse he is. I can’t really tell until I’m on a horse’s back.”
Sylvie’s eye started twitching. She looked over at Prince, conflicted, worried this was a bad idea. But it did please her that Jimmy Fisher had such a high opinion of Prince. Jake had never been overly partial to Prince or any other animal, felt nothing for them like Sylvie did. If she hadn’t come into this horse’s life when she did, he would’ve spent the rest of his days standing in a paddock. That would’ve been a crime. Still, what did she know about Jimmy Fisher and his judgment? Not much. “I don’t know when he’s last been ridden, if at all,” she said, turning slightly to Jimmy, trying to hide her twitching eye. “He might toss you right off.”
“I’m a skilled rider. I can handle him.” He gave her his most dazzling smile. The double-dimple smile.
Still not convinced it was a good idea, she gave him a cautious nod. As he bolted into the barn to look for tack before she changed her mind, her thoughts spun with objections. Prince had only been harnessed to a heavy buggy. She had no idea what he’d do with a rider on his back.
Jimmy Fisher talked big, that much she knew about him. She would have to remember that he had a way of making her say yes to things she might not agree to in the cold light of day, had she not allowed herself to be swayed by those bright blue twinkling eyes and deep-set dimples in his cheeks.
A few minutes later, Jimmy came out holding a bridle in one hand. “I couldn’t find a saddle.”
Both eyes were twitching now. No saddle meant he would go bareback. “I’ve never seen one in the tack room.”
Jimmy hopped into the paddock and whistled for Prince, holding the bridle up in the air. Curious, Prince trotted over, sniffed the bridle, and dipped his head so Jimmy could slip the bit into his mouth and the bridle over his head. So far, so good.
Sylvie and Joey stayed outside the paddock, watching. “Mem, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“How come?”
“Prince don’t like Jimmy.”
“Prince just hasn’t learned to trust him yet. Maybe they just need a little time together.”
Jimmy swung a leg over Prince’s back like he’d done it a thousand times. Sylvie wondered about his life in Colorado, if this was what he did all day. Prince trotted around the paddock, Jimmy sitting on his back like he was glued there. Watching the two of them, Sylvie was impressed. Prince enjoyed working, and Jimmy knew how to ride. She heard him click his tongue to the horse and he went from a trot to a canter. Joey stayed by her side, watching the two go around and around.
Just as Sylvie was starting to relax, to even think about going to the pile of lumber to see if they could find the one with termites, Jimmy either did something or said something that made Prince stretch out. Not thirty seconds later, Prince vaulted over the side railing as if it were nothing more than a fallen-down tree log, and off they went, galloping down toward the road.
Sylvie and Joey watched them, wide-eyed. Stunned.
“Think Jimmy Fisher meant to jump the fence with Prince, Mem?”
“I don’t know. That horse does have a mind of his own.”
“Think they’re coming back?”
“I don’t know, son. I just don’t know.”