While finding Daisy had lifted a heavy burden from Joe, a new one joined him as he assumed his role as a father. She was sleeping in her bedroom and not at Esther’s house. Daisy had hugged him and said she loved him. He was finally ready to look past his grief and the horrors of war and be a real father. But what about his nightmares? What about Daisy’s?
“Joe?” Angelica came out onto the porch as he walked up. “I heard your truck pull up.”
“I’m sorry I’m just showing up like this,” he said and kissed her offered cheek. “Can I stay for the night?”
“Come on inside out of the rain. Blasted rainy summer,” his sister said, and pulled his arm as she looked at the clouds overhead. They were darker than the navy sky. Once inside, he noticed how thin she continued to get. She wore a housecoat, and her hair, parted in the middle, covered her face to the edges of her eyes. Her skin was ashen and her eyes drawn.
“Are you feeling well?” he asked her and looked around at the disheveled home. There was a smell he couldn’t place.
“We’ve all been sick for weeks. Started with Jonna and Paulina, and it ran through just about all of us. We were miserable.”
The sudden recollection that he hadn’t done so much as stop by in that same time frame brought on a wave of guilt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m not sure how I could’ve helped, but—”
“I thought Esther would’ve mentioned it.” Angelica pulled a kitchen chair out for him and gestured for him to sit. She grabbed her corn pipe from the small bowl on the tabletop and puffed on it.
“Esther?” Joe questioned. “Why would she have?”
“She came over and cleaned the house and fed us one Friday afternoon.” Angelica’s voice cracked, and she stuffed the pipe back between her lips and kept her eyes from Joe’s.
Joe wasn’t sure how to respond. Esther hadn’t said anything about it, but that was like her. Heat moved from his gut to his face at the thought of Esther. He could almost feel her lips on his in that moment, and he pulled at the collar of his shirt.
Angelica tilted her head, then pointed her pipe in his direction. “Don’t tell me you’re falling for that woman.”
Joe had never been a good liar, so saying nothing was all he could do.
“Joseph Garrison, what do you think you’re doing?” She leaned forward in her chair. “What is it with you and Amish women?”
“Don’t say that, sis.” Joe ran a hand through his hair and couldn’t meet her eyes.
“But it is true. You and Esther?” Angelica slapped the table.
Joe thought about her question. Yes, they’d kissed, but at this point it didn’t give him any ideas of what the future held for them—or if there was a future at all. Adrenaline rushed to his heart and he cleared his throat.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully.
Angelica took a pull from her pipe and nodded her head.
“So, why ain’t you sleeping at your own place?”
Joe debated on how much he should tell her. She already thought that his daughter was a wild animal. Telling her that Daisy had run away would only heighten her opinion. His thought moved to Esther. Where would she choose to sleep? Surely she would sleep on the floor near Daisy or on the couch.
“Joe? Why are you here?” The pipe bobbed up and down in her mouth.
“Daisy’s sleeping at my house tonight, and I thought it would be best if Esther stayed with her for the first night. I can’t do sign language. Well, I know a few signs.”
“So you’re buying her claim that the girl is a deaf-mute? She’s just like our brother Jason. She’s simpleminded. When Mama sent Jason to that home, remember how much better everything was at home?”
Joe wished he’d not brought it up at all. Making up some sort of lie would’ve been better than this. His brother had been simple, but looking back, he wondered now if he’d been deaf. Without a real way of communicating or learning, had he become more simpleminded every year? Their mother had given up. Jason gave up too after that, and he was sent away. He was dead a few years later.
“It wasn’t a home. It was an institution. I’m not sending Daisy anywhere.” Joe dismissed his sister. “Besides, Jason couldn’t manage to do anything for himself, and he was ten when he was sent away. Daisy is rather self-sufficient, and it’s all because of Esther teaching her sign language.”
The uncomfortable pause in the conversation brought a heavy silence between the two.
“Go to bed, Angelica. You’re exhausted.”
Angelica nodded and set her pipe on the table. Black ash painted the laminate, and she didn’t seem to mind or care.
“You’re welcome to the couch.” She gestured toward the living room, where several makeshift clotheslines bowed under the weight of damp laundry.
Angelica hugged him goodnight, and when his hands touched her back, his heart sunk at her boniness. She went up the stairs slowly only for him to hear one of the little girls calling Mama urgently and a series of coughs came next. Nothing came easily for Angelica.
He sat on the edge of the couch, unlaced his shoes, and pushed them aside. He wiped a hand down his face and rubbed his eyes until he saw stars. His tired body ached, and after a deep sigh, he fluffed a dingy pillow and lay his head down, only to smell the odor of sickness even more fully. He pulled off his shirt, leaving on his undershirt, and wrapped it around the pillow, hoping he wouldn’t get sick himself. He fell asleep with a prayer, pleading with God for a night’s reprieve from his terrors, since he didn’t have the rope tethering him to the bed. His eyelids were so heavy. He exhaled and let them fall.
“Uncle Joe. Wake up, Uncle Joe.”
The happy girl’s voice prodded him awake. The sun was gleaming through the window nearby. It hadn’t seemed as if he’d slept at all, but he had remained on the couch and his night had been free from his demons. Paulina was the youngest of Angelica and Donald’s six daughters and close in age to Daisy. How different she was from his daughter. Her hoarse cough resounded against the dull painted walls in the living room as she bounded around in a circle and pretended to be galloping with a broom horse.
Angelica had already left for work, having to be at her job by five o’clock. Donella, his eldest niece, came down the stairs shortly after Paulina had woken him. She was a miniature version of Angelica, with drawn eyes and ashen skin. The fifteen-year-old meekly asked Joe to stay for breakfast, but he said he needed to get home. When he knew that they had so little, he didn’t want to worry her with feeding him.
All he could think about was getting home to Daisy and Esther. He was equally excited to see them both, but he was more nervous to see Esther. How would she respond to him in the light of day? When he’d pulled away from her, it wasn’t in rejection. It was for himself. His intense feelings and desires frightened him. And why did the possibility of love have to be with his deceased wife’s cousin? The reality had pinched his heart and pulled him from her lips.
He left Angelica’s house, but before he went back to his own, he drove a little further down, past Esther’s house and across the road to the dairy farm. Within a few minutes, he was knocking on a roughhewn wooden door to the farm’s boardinghouse.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m awake,” Chet’s voice called from indoors.
“It’s Joe—Joe Garrison.”
“It’s Sunday, ain’t it? We don’t work today,” Chet called out to Joe.
“Yeah, it’s Sunday. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Joe could hear the man inside grunting as if getting dressed. The door opened, and a disheveled Chet stood on the other end. His hair was mussed, and sleep lined his features. He cleared his throat and waved Joe inside.
“Well, come on in. I guess I should get up anyway. Helping out with the milking today.” He smiled over Joe’s shoulder and turned to see who was there. Mrs. White was only several feet away. When Joe turned back around, Chet was tipping an imaginary hat toward the woman. “G’morning, Norma. Be out there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Mrs. White nodded. “Of course. And good morning, Joe.”
“Good morning,” Joe said with distraction. He was glad when she walked on.
“Walk with me toward the barn.” Chet grabbed his hat from inside the door and stuffed it on his head. He closed the small boardinghouse door behind him and gestured for Joe to follow.
“Daisy has returned home to live—with me—probably from here on out.”
“Is that right?” Chet paused for a few moments as if considering. “Well, I’m happy for you.”
“I came to tell you because I thought that maybe you would move in with Esther. I think she is going to need you.”
Chet’s laugh turned into a deep cough.
“I kind of doubt that, son. You saw those letters. I don’t see Esther forgetting about those soon. Even you told me to get outta town. Now you’re changing your tune.” He shook his head at Joe.
“I know. But things have changed, and I don’t like the idea of Esther being alone.”
A flash of memory pushed through the fog in his mind. Him, walking into his house after Irene died. He was alone—Daisy was with Irene’s mother, Lucy. The silence built walls around him, trapping him. The aloneness had driven him to enlisting. When he’d come home from war and walked into the house, it was more like a coffin. He didn’t want Esther to feel that pain.
“Will you at least think about it? After everything she’s done, she shouldn’t be alone.”
Chet pursed his lips. The damp morning breeze picked up, and the scent from the barn filled his senses.
“Please?”
“Okay, okay,” Chester nodded. “If she’ll have me.”