Fifteen
First came Luke’s birthday in mid-December, then Christmas. All that, Izzy had prepared for. But this?! Never.
Izzy couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing. For the last couple of weeks, off and on during the day, she’d felt a little funny, as if she might be coming down with something.
She was over at Jenny’s yesterday, helping to bake Christmas cookies. When she passed up drinking coffee, and then declined her favorite dessert, Jenny looked at her curiously. “I think you might be pregnant.”
“No no,” Izzy said, sure she was wrong.
Jenny went into her bedroom and came out with an unused pregnancy kit. “Mama bought these for me. She said we Amish don’t go to the doctor soon enough, so she wanted me to know I was pregnant right away, for vitamins. You know Mama and her vitamins. Take the test home. Try it. If you’re not pregnant, then you’re not. But if you are . . . ,” she gave Izzy’s arms a squeeze, “then why waste a minute of not knowing?”
The next morning, after she knew that Fern was outside hanging laundry with Katy Ann and Luke was down at the Fix-It Shop, she took the test. And waited. And waited.
Then, to her shock, a little pink plus mark emerged. She read the directions again, and there it was, the plus mark. It had happened. It had really happened. Hank Lapp, who was wrong about everything, might have been right about the effect of the full moon on a woman’s cycle.
Izzy was going to have a baby! She sat down on the edge of the tub and wept.
Jimmy slathered a piece of bread with butter, sensing something strange in the air, the way it changed right before lightning struck. As his mother poured herself a cup of tea, he could tell she was plotting something.
She sat down in a chair across from him and fixed her glare on him. “Son, it’s time you took a bride.”
Ah, there it was. The lightning strike. The bee sting. He should have known, should’ve seen it coming. Things had been too quiet lately, too peaceful. There’d been a shocking lack of henpecking. No long, dull dinners with Rosemary. He’d noticed but thought his mother had been preoccupied with the holidays. Now he realized she’d been preparing for the final assault. Calmly, without acknowledging his mother’s high-handed order, he continued to butter the bread.
“You’re thirty years old.”
“GETTING A FEW GRAY HAIRS, I NOTICED.”
Oh joy. Hank had come in the room, eager to chime in.
Jimmy took a bite of bread, chewed slowly, swallowed. “And I suppose you’ve already picked the girl out for me.”
When he looked up, his mother gave him a cool nod. “Rosemary Blank. She’s got a real fine character. She’s a lovely girl.”
“REAL PRETTY TO LOOK AT.”
Rosemary was a fine-looking woman, Jimmy couldn’t deny that. But there was a heap of things about her he didn’t like. Didn’t like at all.
“DID YOU KNOW SHE’S AN ONLY CHILD?” Hank sat down at the table and reached over to take one slice of Jimmy’s bread.
“Why should that matter?”
“She’ll inherit EVERYTHING. You won’t have to WORK another day in your life. You can spend your DAYS with me, PLAYING CHECKERS at the Bent N’ Dent.”
Jimmy practically choked on a bite of bread. “Thanks, both of you. But I’ll choose my own bride in my own time.”
His mother slapped her palms on the table. “Son, it’s time.”
“PAST TIME, IF YOU ASK ME.”
Forgotten memories floated through Jimmy’s mind. The reason he’d left for Colorado in the first place was because his mother had badgered him, night after night. She thought he could do better than Bethany Schrock.
Jimmy had accommodated his mother for as long as he could remember, intervening in the past when she’d had problems with others, smoothing things out, averting quarrels on her behalf. He just couldn’t do it any longer.
He eyed the kitchen window, looked across the creek to the house at Rising Star Farm. To the buttery glow emanating from the kitchen window. Sylvie’s warm kitchen. Her warm heart. She even forgave him for the bold kiss he’d given her, told him not to give it another thought. But he had. Plenty of thoughts.
Jimmy sprang to his feet, eager to toss off the weight he felt whenever his mother started in on him. He walked to the door and spun around. “You know, you’re right. I think it is time I marry.”
Thunder shook the sky, or maybe it just seemed that way to Jimmy as he marched over to Rising Star Farm and rapped on the front door. The three-legged dog began to howl and yip.
When Sylvie opened the door, clutching a bowl of new peas, he stood stone still, willing the flutter in his belly to settle. Only it didn’t.
“Jimmy, are you all right? You look a little . . . pale. Can I get you something? A glass of water? Or maybe a piece of pie? I just made an apple snitz pie. Shall I get you a piece?”
He looked down into her eyes—eyes as violet blue as a pansy—and it struck him that she was one of the kindest, finest persons he’d ever met. Courage mustered in his heart. Suddenly the words blurted out, “Sylvie, how’d you like to marry me?”
That’s what he said. What he thought was: And help me get my mother off my back for good.
Sylvie looked shocked by his proposal. Truth be told, he was surprised by his own words. He rushed on before she could refuse, before he could think twice about what he was suggesting. “We’d be a good team, a great team. You love horses, I love horses. We both feel a responsibility to preserve Rising Star Farm. To make something of Prince. To build something for the future. For Joey’s sake as well as ours.”
She met his eyes and gave him a nervous half smile. “You ought not to tease so much, Jimmy Fisher. I’m liable to say yes.”
“Not teasing. I mean it. Let’s get married.”
“I . . . I . . . ,” she stammered. “I don’t know what to say. This is all . . . out of the blue.”
“Sometimes it’s good not to overthink things.” He glanced at his mother’s house, and the sight of it emboldened him. He turned back to her, a determined man. “Sylvie, I know it seems sudden, but I’d make sure that you and Joey would never want for anything again. Not shelter. Not food. Not clothing.” He grinned. “And I’d see to always having plenty of sugar for those hummingbirds.”
She appeared stunned. And then she winked.
Sylvie had to sit down before her knees gave way like jelly. She went into the kitchen and sat at the table, head swimming with confusion. What in the world had prompted such an unexpected proposal? But Jimmy was a man who was constantly surprising her.
He entered the kitchen and slipped into a chair across from her. “I’m serious, Sylvie. I want us to get married.”
She met his eyes. Trouble was, that only added to her confusion. The vivid blue of those eyes, the dark eyebrows that knit together and framed his eyes. The wide set of his shoulders, the cleft in his chin, his thick, brown, wavy hair. All together, his good looks wove quite a spell on her.
“Look, you wouldn’t have to pay me if we got married.”
Well, she wasn’t paying him to begin with. Whatever money he was able to get from the junk he sold, she’d insisted he keep as wages. Totally worth it, to both of them. He was making a significant dent in the packrat clutter of Rising Star Farm, and she didn’t care what he pocketed from all that junk.
“Joey needs a father. He and I, we have an understanding.”
That was true. He’d won Joey over, and that boy was no pushover. Joey adored Jimmy, followed him everywhere. Walked like him, talked like him. He’d even asked for cowboy boots for Christmas.
Jimmy’s smile had completely vanished from his face, and he’d turned solemn as a Sunday minister. “We’ve worked together every day for months now. You’ve talked with me every day, you’ve seen how I treat you and your boy. Your horse too. What more do you need to know?”
Jimmy made an appealing case.
He reached out and covered her hands with his. “It boils down to this, Sylvie. You need me and I . . . I need you.” He kept his gaze locked on her face. “This could work, for both of us.”
So he was in need of something. But what? He already had a legal right to Rising Star Farm. What else did he need her for? Why had he come to her door, blurting out a marriage proposal that sounded more like a business proposition?
He was waiting for her answer, shifting uneasily in his chair, but her throat felt too tight to speak. Something about him seemed markedly different and he looked touchingly unsure of her. He released the hold he had on her hands and dropped his arms to the side of his chair, though he continued to study her, every angle of his face taut and tense. “I’ll understand if you tell me to leave and not come back.”
She didn’t want that. No, no, she definitely did not want that. Jimmy had been a wonderful help to her these last two months, in more ways than she could have imagined. She felt afraid to accept him—and afraid not to.
A bit more time passed and her thoughts took a dangerous turn. What if . . . ?
She had never been an impulsive person. Never. She’d always been sensible, levelheaded. And yet, here she sat, pondering marriage to this man. A man she hardly knew, though in a strange way, felt she knew him well. Even more than that, she trusted him. He’d been truthful about his right to inherit Rising Star Farm. Such honesty spoke volumes to her.
But did she love him? She felt a powerful attraction to him, but was that love? Could it be felt so early? She didn’t know. How could she? She’d had no real experience with love, only with practicality.
What if . . . ?
There was something between her and Jimmy, she couldn’t deny that. Moments that felt like something was blooming between them. Maybe that’s how true love began, like a spark that started with friendship and mutual respect. But he’d never mentioned a word of love in this proposal. She’d already had one loveless marriage. Did she want another?
And then there was his mother. Sylvie couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have Edith Lapp as a mother-in-law.
Yes, she could. It would be awful.
Was Sylvie about to jump from the frying pan into the fire, like the Good Book warned?
Edith wanted this land, no matter what it cost her. Marrying Jimmy might be Sylvie’s best chance to protect it for Joey. After all, that was the reason she’d married Jake. If Edith wanted this land so badly for her son, then she could have it, but Sylvie came along with it. Was that so wrong?
Maybe she was a terrible person, just like her father always told her.
Something indefinable filled her, a strange yearning she hadn’t experienced for a very, very long time. It felt good to be wanted again. To be needed.
She kept her eyes lowered, knowing that her tic was acting up. She kept her voice light, as confident sounding as she could feel when the truth was her stomach was pitching and rolling. “I think getting married might be a real good idea.” She glanced up to see his reaction.
“Yeah?” His face brightened, and he gave her his best beaming smile, both dimples deepening, eyes twinkling. “Really?”
“But I think we should do it soon, rather than wait until next fall.”
“Soon?” Slowly, the smile disappeared. He swallowed, shifted self-consciously in the chair. “How soon . . . is soon?”
“Just as soon as possible.” She felt a flicker of triumph. She grabbed her bonnet off the peg and opened the door. “Joey is over at Windmill Farm. Now’s the perfect time to tell your mother our news.”
By the time they crossed the creek, Jimmy’s confidence began to wane.
Once in the house, he was shaking in his boots. Thankfully, Hank had left for the Bent N’ Dent, so they only had his mother to tell.
Lord-a-mercy. What had Jimmy just gotten himself into? If ever there was a moment when he wished he could turn back the clock, it was now. Why had he agreed so readily that now was the time to tell his mother they were getting married? What was the hurry? It was one thing to get engaged, another thing entirely to let others know about it. He should have suggested Sylvie take some time to think this all over before giving an answer, to pray about it. Yes, definitely, to pray about it.
He had no one to blame but himself. He had pressured Sylvie into an answer. That was his first mistake. But this was the second one.
“What’s wrong?” Edith asked, looking from Jimmy to Sylvie and back to Jimmy.
Jimmy coughed. He didn’t feel well. “It’s stuffy in here.”
Edith looked around the room, as if she could see the stuffy air. “You think so?”
He nodded, tugging at the collar of his shirt. His pulse leaped over the lump in his throat.
“Maybe you’re coming down with something.” She reached out to touch his forehead and he stepped back.
“No, no. I’m not sick.”
“Well, then, what’s on your mind?”
“Um, there’s some news . . . um . . . we are . . . um . . .” He had half a mind to call the whole thing off, to pause, step back from the cliff . . . but then he looked at Sylvie’s beautiful violet eyes, shining up at him with encouragement, and he felt a spurt of renewed courage. “Sylvie and I . . . we’re getting married.”
A thick silence descended. Then . . . kaboom!
“You’re getting married? To that . . . ?” Edith’s gaze swept Sylvie up and down, and right out the room.
To that what? Jimmy could only guess what word she had in mind. Her look said it all. “Yes. You heard me.”
“Oh no you’re not.”
“You’ll change your mind when you hear the truth about that boy. That’s not Jake’s son. And she wasn’t married before Jake, far as anybody knows.”
“Sylvie told me all about Joey.”
“Oh, I heard that tale about her sister. I don’t believe it. You shouldn’t either.”
Jimmy wrapped his arm around Sylvie’s shoulder and pulled her close in a defiant move, shielding her from his mother’s verbal arrows.
Edith glared at Sylvie and waved a finger in her face. “I suppose this was your idea.”
“Jimmy asked me to marry him.” Sylvie didn’t volunteer anything more.
“You knew he was courting Rosemary. You used your”—she winked and winked dramatically to make her point—“feminine wiles to turn my boy’s head.”
Jimmy saw Sylvie drop her chin, as if shamed. He couldn’t let her down. He just couldn’t. “Hardly a boy, Mom. And I never was courting Rosemary. You were doing the courting, not me.” He and his mother stared at each other for a long, long time.
Bravely, Sylvie broke the silence. “Edith, I hope, in time, you’ll come to accept me as your daughter-in-law, and Joey as your grandson.”
His mother looked like she was about to choke. “We’ll see what the bishop has to say about this.”
In a calm voice, Sylvie said, “Jimmy can go talk to him now.”
He gasped, tried to smile, to breathe normally, tried to will his heart to slow down its pounding. He wondered what a heart attack felt like, and if he was on the verge of one.
Sweating profusely, Jimmy drove over to the Bent N’ Dent to talk to David. He went as slow as a horse could possibly go, to the point where the horse kept trying to stop and eat grass along the side of the road. Jimmy let him. When he finally arrived at the store, he was so distracted that he’d forgotten Hank had gone to the store to play checkers. He tried to slip out unnoticed, but luck wasn’t with him today.
“JIMMY! COME ON IN. David’s gone out of town. SOMEBODY’S FUNERAL.”
Oh, that was a huge relief. That meant he wouldn’t be back for a few more days, which suited Jimmy just fine. He needed time to think this marriage idea through. He needed a lot of time. After all, he and Sylvie, they were practically strangers.
“SO, I hear you’re the FASTEST PROPOSER IN TOWN.” He lifted his hands in the air, like they were guns, pretended to shoot them, blew on his fingers, then returned them to the holster.
Jimmy stopped. “How do you know that?”
“YOUR MOTHER JUST CALLED THE STORE.”
His mother had tried to call David, ahead of him? Lord-a-mercy.
“SON, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
Hank was so seldom right about anything, but Jimmy had to acknowledge that he was right about this. He’d proposed too quickly.
After Luke picked up the mail, he stopped in the phone shanty to see if there were any messages. There was one from Edith Lapp, insisting that he drop everything and come to her house. Right away. David was out of town and she needed help—that’s the only reason she was calling Luke. She left all that in the message.
Luke found Izzy out by the clothesline, taking down the day’s dry laundry. More frozen than dry, in this cold weather. When he told Izzy about Edith’s message, her first response was, “I wonder if something’s finally happening between Jimmy and Sylvie.”
“Like, she fires him?”
“Fires him? No.” She looked at him as if he might be slow-witted. “More like . . . he wants to marry her.”
“Marry her? Not a chance.” Too fast, too soon. He knew Jimmy.
“Why else would Edith call in the ministers? Jimmy is crazy about Sylvie. Haven’t you seen how he can’t take his eyes off her?”
Yes, Luke had noticed. “But surely Sylvie doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Surely she does.”
“Why Jimmy Fisher? Of all men, why does it have to be him?”
Izzy grinned. “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”
“But what if he does to Sylvie what he did to Bethany? She’s had enough trouble.”
Izzy folded a towel and dropped it in the basket. “Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black. What if I’d said the same thing about you?”
That was a hard point to argue with. “I’m glad you didn’t, Isabella.”
She smiled at him from behind a white sheet, and he was struck again by her beauty. It was happening a lot to him lately—being struck by his wife’s stunning looks. Her dark eyes contrasted strikingly with her creamy skin, almost glowing.
“What?” she asked coyly.
“Just thinking how glad I am you married me.”
“Your birthday is coming up. Want anything special?”
He leaned over the clothesline to give her a kiss. First one, then another. “Just time spent with you. That’s all any man could ask for.”
Fifteen minutes later, Luke stood in front of Edith Lapp’s door. He could feel his heart pounding, as if he was guilty of something. That was ridiculous, he knew, but Edith had a way of making him feel like he was still thirteen and had just done something wrong.
“Luke!”
He turned to see Sylvie wave to him as she and Joey jumped across the creek. When she was closer, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Edith asked me to come over. Right away, she said. David’s out of town, so I’m her only option.”
Sylvie frowned. “She asked me to come too.”
Joey tugged on her hand. “Can I stay outside? I want to make a pile of snowballs to throw at Jimmy.”
Sylvie nodded, and Luke wished he could join Joey.
At that moment, Edith opened the door with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smile. It looked all wrong on her.
Jimmy slowed the horse as the buggy climbed the slight incline to his mother’s house. He needed to get over to Rising Star Farm to feed the animals soon, but he was in no hurry to jump the creek. First time he’d ever felt a reluctance to see Sylvie.
What had he done? What had he done!? He was an expert at avoiding responsibility. How could he possibly be expected to be someone’s husband? Be a father to a little boy? What on earth had made him think he was ready to make the giant leap from where he was to—
“Jimmy!” His mother opened the door and shouted out to him. “Son, company’s here.”
He climbed out of the buggy and rubbed his face, tucked in his shirt. Something went whizzing by him, but he was too preoccupied to notice what it was. When he opened the door to the kitchen, he was shocked to see Luke . . . and Sylvie. Both. Staring at him with a curious look on their faces. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me,” Luke said. “Your mother said you had something you wanted to say.”
He glanced at his mother, who looked at him with wide, innocent eyes.
“Are you all right?” Sylvie asked.
“Yes,” he grunted. “Fine. I’m fine.” But he wasn’t. He took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, heaved a deep breath.
Sylvie’s eyes were full of concern. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look kind of . . . sweaty.”
He took off his coat. His clammy palms moistened his hair slightly as he pushed it back from his face with both hands. “Doesn’t it seem hot in here to you?”
“No, not really,” Luke said, annoyed. “Now, why am I here?”
“Jimmy has something to tell you,” Edith said, a smugness to her voice. “Only because David is out of town. Go ahead, son.”
Oh man. He kept his eyes glued to the linoleum floor. He wasn’t ready to talk, not yet. Once the engagement was announced to Luke—the deacon, Sylvie’s cousin—there was no turning back. “It just seems stiflingly hot in here.” Or maybe he was coming down with something.
“You just need a glass of water.” Sylvie’s soft voice had a tremble in it.
His mother cooed, “Mm-hmm.”
What he needed was fresh air. He bolted to the front door, opened it wide, held on to the jamb with both hands as he forced the cold air into his constricted lungs. Maybe his lungs were bursting. He’d read of such a thing happening to a man . . . though now that he thought about it, the man was scuba diving, eighty feet under the surface of the sea. But Jimmy had a sense of how that man might have felt, just before he combusted.
While his mother got him a glass of water, Jimmy wondered if he might throw up. He dropped his head, tried to breathe like a normal person. In with the good air, out with the bad. Sylvie’s gentle voice startled him. He straightened and turned to find her standing close.
“Do you want to sit down for a few minutes?”
“Uh, no. I need the fresh air.”
Sylvie handed him the glass of water and he drank it straight down. “Thanks.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes.
She leaned close to whisper in his ear. “Jimmy, I thought you said you were sure about getting married.”
His stomach clenched slightly. “Of course . . . I’m sure.” Mostly sure.
“You don’t look very sure.”
How could he tell her he had doubts? That he was riddled with them? Paralyzed by them.
“Look,” Luke said, walking toward them, “maybe I should come back another time. Or maybe I’ll just send David when he gets back.”
Before Jimmy could answer, Luke pushed past him through the open door.
“What? No, we—” Jimmy’s eyes darted to Sylvie’s and she fell immediately silent.
“Another day,” Luke called over his shoulder without looking back.
Jimmy’s face turned a deeper red and then went to no color at all. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, Sylvie.”
And with that, a snowball came out of nowhere and hit him in the face.