Joe woke at dawn with his leg twisted awkwardly in the rope attached to his bed. He was lying on his wooden bedroom floor and his head ached. His solution of binding himself to the bed was working. He hadn’t destroyed the house or hurt Daisy. But the problem was that even when he wore a sock, the rope gave him a bruise around his ankle and had started cutting into his skin. With Daisy sleeping in the house, however, he refused to take any chances. He didn’t trust himself. Not with the faces of the lost in his sleeping mind. It didn’t matter that he could’ve gotten another hour of sleep. He was awake, and the last thing he wanted was to have more time living in his nightmares.
The weather was already hot and sticky by the time Joe and Daisy got into the truck. Daisy’s smile and presence pulled Joe from the mood he woke with. Reliving the same battle scene in the form of a recurring dream every night ratcheted his nerves. Esther was pale when she opened the door at his knock. But her eyes landed on him with a friendship that brought him peace.
“We hadn’t talked about how this would work, so I just brought her over,” he stuttered. He was suddenly nervous. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and squished it under his work boot, leaving a small circle of soot on the wood porch. “It won’t be much different from before.”
When he looked back up at Esther, her face grew pinker as a smile spread across it.
“Good morning, Daisy-girl,” she signed and spoke. A sparkle returned to her eyes. Daisy rushed over to Esther and threw her arms around her. They instantly started signing so fast Joe couldn’t keep up. What he could sense was that they were happy signs by the look on Daisy’s face. Esther turned back to Joe. “Come on in. My dad is almost ready.”
“Your dad?” Joe’s first surprise was hearing Esther call Chet dad. The second was that Chet had been able to move back so quickly and that Esther had allowed it.
Esther looked away and didn’t answer Joe’s question. Chet came from his first-floor bedroom and nodded at him.
“I have some hard-boiled eggs for you and some bread. I’m sorry I don’t have more,” she said to Chet.
“That’s a right fine lunch, Esther,” Chet said and smiled at her. She smiled back. He turned toward Joe and offered a hand. When Joe shook it, he had the sense that Chet had gone through as much of a change with Esther as he had with Daisy.
As the men began walking out of the house Esther spoke again.
“Joe?” Esther walked up to him and touched his arm. A surge of heat ran through his veins. “Thank you.”
Her words energized him all day as he worked and every morning as he dropped off Daisy. Other than Daisy sleeping at Joe’s home, everything else was generally the same. They ate many suppers together and worked like a family. More than ever before, he looked forward to any time he had with Esther and he knew that he needed her. It wasn’t just her communication with Daisy. She had become an anchor to him, keeping him tethered to reality.
After Daisy had lived with him a week, their routine became fluid and comfortable. He sensed that Esther struggled with it, but she did everything she could to keep Daisy happy. Esther smiled genuinely, and he could see she was pleased with Daisy’s progress, but in the in-between moments that she thought went unnoticed, her somber gaze landed on blank spaces and bare walls. Joe could see the empty heart she tried to hide. Having Chet in the home with her had helped, he suspected, but it couldn’t compare to losing the constant presence of Daisy.
“Do you really think I should go to Alvin and Dorothy’s barn raising?” Joe asked as he sat at the kitchen table, waiting to have a lesson in sign language. “I have to admit, I wouldn’t have been more surprised if President Truman had come for a visit than to see Alvin Bender standing on my front porch. But I’m nervous about Roy. He and I never got along.”
Esther smiled and poured coffee into his mug. “Don’t be afraid of Roy.”
Joe rolled his eyes considering the heavy brow of his father-in-law. Joe was always respectful, but Roy had made it very clear that he would not forgive him or Irene for their marriage or her death.
“I think it would be a good way to show that you still care about the family.” Esther poured her own mug and then walked back into the kitchen.
“And I know Daisy loves Lucy and her cousins,” Joe called louder toward the kitchen. “And you’ll be there?”
“I will.” Esther finally sat down at the table with him and pulled open the sign language book.
“Then it’s settled. I’ll go.” He tilted his head toward the book in front of Esther. “And how did you learn out of this book?” Joe flipped through the thick yellow-pages.
The heavy black cover looked old and the text inside was small and difficult to read. It was after supper and Chet had already gone home and Daisy was in bed, but Esther stayed to help Joe learn some more signs.
“You taught many students out of textbooks. How is this any different?”
He supposed she was right, only this felt foreign to him. He turned toward her where she sat next to him at the table and nudged his chair a little closer to hers.
“Let’s do the alphabet again,” she said. She took the book from him and closed it and said, “Let’s see if you can do the signs without looking at the pictures.”
“I don’t think I can. All I can seem to remember is the letter L because it looks like an L. But how in the world does that look like a G?” He did his best to form the letter, but when Esther laughed, he looked at her and feigned hurt. “What?”
“Here, like this.” She was still smiling when she adjusted his hand to fit the correct sign for the letter G. Then she did the sign as well. “See?”
The sensation of her touch lingered over his skin. He liked it and hoped she would touch his hand again. Perhaps if he continued to do the signs incorrectly, she would continue to fix his mistakes. He watched her as she explained each letter again. He didn’t hear her voice as much as he watched the way her mouth moved. She had full pink lips, and her large dark eyes wildly expressed everything she signed. Her face was far more expressive than the common sober-faced Amish church member. He’d grown used to her usual appearance: a covering on her head, a dark dress, and shoes. There was no nuance with her clothing, but there had been on the morning he’d seen her with her hair down. Something in her countenance had shifted from the morning he’d found her unprepared. The memory of her standing there with the housecoat on and her hair down her back was imprinted on his mind. An expression of shame had crossed her eyes and he longed to tell her not to be ashamed of herself. She had no awareness of her beauty.
Looking past her Amish exterior had not been a problem for him. It had been no different from Irene in that way. It had been easy to see past the uniform-like dress Irene wore because she’d flirted with him with her sparkling eyes and gleaming smile. Esther, of course, didn’t have any reason to intentionally entice him, but she did it without trying.
“Joe, have you been listening to anything I’ve said?” Esther took her eyes from the book and turned to him.
She was so close. He could see the flecks of blue in her dark eyes and the waves of her hair through her covering.
“You really have done an exceptional job with her.” His arm was draped around the back of her chair as he leaned toward her. Her dark eyes connected with his and her lips pursed. Her chest rose and fell and he shifted to be closer again.
“You don’t have to say that,” Esther returned. “I love Daisy. I’d do anything to help her. You know that.”
“Well, you’re a great teacher.”
“You’re the teacher, Joe, not me.” Esther sat straighter and waved off his compliment.
“Not anymore,” he said. He pulled the book back over to his side using both hands and opened it up, hoping it would deflect the conversation. He didn’t like talking about the life he’d left behind.
“Don’t you miss teaching?”
He offered a subtle shrug. Yes. He missed it greatly. But he didn’t respond. Instead his fingers deftly perused through the pages as he skimmed the descriptions of the signs.
“Will you return to teaching someday?”
Joe turned toward Esther. He decided he didn’t want to answer and waved a hand in a circle around his face. Esther tilted her head at him as he signed and said, “Beautiful.”
“Joe,” she whispered and looked down. Her black eyelashes fluttered on her cheeks, and the delicate expression stilled Joe’s heart for several moments.
When Joe gently lifted her chin with a finger, she didn’t resist. His hand went around to the back of her neck, and her lips parted instinctively. He drew closer to her. The kiss was gentle, but kindled a spark through his center and then straight to his head. His hands roamed to her covering, and he deftly pulled the straight pins that held it in place and let them fall on the table. He took her covering off and wrapped a hand around the back of her neck with impatience and pulled her closer. Her hands gently rested against his chest. When the pulse of their kiss became more eager than their last she pulled away.
Esther’s breathing was rapid and she didn’t let go of Joe’s gaze. Her eyes roamed from him to over his shoulder and toward the staircase. After several long moments, she squeezed her eyes together and shook her head. Joe stood and took her arms gently. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Esther?” He brushed a finger over her cheek, then pulled her back into an embrace and their bodies heated the room.
“Can I ask you a question?” Her voice was shaky like she was nervous.
Joe tilted his head. His curiosity was piqued.
“Why is there a rope attached to your bed?” Her voice was a whisper.
What? She’d found the rope? What could he say? He couldn’t explain that the memories of war and of his failures plagued his sleep. He couldn’t tell her that when he closed his eyes, he saw his men’s faces—dead—and that he could hear them fighting for their very lives.
“Joe?” Esther’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind. His ears picked up her words but couldn’t register what she was saying. Her hand touched his face, and he returned.
“It’s nothing,” he lied.
“It’s not nothing. Just tell me.”
“I think you should leave,” he said slowly and slid the book toward her.
He didn’t have to look at her to know the hurt that cascaded from her eyes. The next thing he heard was the door closing behind her.