16
Nearly an hour passed before Dane returned. As he walked in the door, he was already apologizing. “This new horse of mine kicked a hole in the stall and cut herself. I had to clean and bandage her cut, then fix the hole in the—” Barely through the threshold, he stilled and looked around his cabin. “What in the world happened?”
Abigail was standing on a chair in the kitchen. She looked around the little room. Dane had been in the barn for a very long time. After she had finished tidying up his desk, she noticed the chaotic condition of the bookshelves—and she was pleased to see that he liked to read substantive books, unlike her cousin Ruthie, who preferred vacuous romance novels—so she alphabetized them by author, then she finished the rest of the room. When he still hadn’t returned, she rearranged the few pieces of furniture in the room, so that they wouldn’t block the pathway to the kitchen. Then she started to clean up the kitchen, to wash and dry the stacks of dirty dishes. As she put away the dishes, she found the cupboards were not efficiently organized, so she had pulled the chair from his desk into the kitchen and had just begun pulling things out of the cupboard and onto the counter. As Dane walked around the room, stunned, Abigail felt a spike of concern that she might have gone too far. He stood in front of the bookshelves in a daze. She climbed down from the chair to stand beside him, which took only three steps. Dane was silent for a while, taking in all of the changes she had made.
“If you’d prefer, the books could be categorized by topic rather than by author. It’s not the official way to categorize, but it is possible.”
“No, no,” Dane said, his voice distant and far off.
“I didn’t touch your bedroom.” Her voice, she knew, held a tinge of panic.
Then he turned toward her. “Abigail . . . I don’t know what to say . . .”
She nodded. He didn’t need to explain. She knew what the problem was. It was something very basic within her, something that made her different from anyone else. She was an excellent problem solver, a clear and logical thinker, but when it came to people, she always made incorrect assumptions about what was appropriate and what was not. Like now, for example.
Dane was still staring at her, a look of complete amazement on his face. It reminded her of Ben Miller after the Black Raspberry Incident. She had gone too far, once again.
“You, Abigail Stoltzfus, have been sent to me on angel’s wings.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
She fought against it, but the pressure started building in her face. Her inappropriate reaction to overwhelming emotion was about to begin. She sneezed once—a painful explosion that came from within her cheekbones instead of her nose—then she sneezed again. From out of his pocket, Dane handed over a handkerchief as white as new paper. Within minutes, she had sneezed several more times into it. The pressure in her cheekbones made tears well into her eyes. She covered her nose with Dane’s handkerchief and waited for the attack to pass.
Looking down, she crumpled the cloth inside her fist. “I’ll wash this and return it to you.”
“It’s no bother.”
She found his eyes. “Why are you so nice?”
“How could I not be nice when you’ve done me such a great kindness?”
Out blasted another sneeze, window-rattling loud, fully expressed before she could muffle it.
It was Thanksgiving. Before the sun of that Thursday morning was up, the Stoltzfus house was a heady heaven of mouthwatering scents. No easy thing to endure on a morning set aside for fasting. David wasn’t sure if he felt sorry for the family who happened to host church on Thanksgiving morning, or pleased for them. It was a morning when no one lingered to visit. Everyone, including all the Stoltzfuses, made a beeline for their homes the moment the church service ended, led by their gnawing, growling stomachs. Katrina and Thelma came straight over from church, as did Jesse and Andy Miller. Waiting for them at home was a feast.
For the last few days, David’s mother had set aside her massive reorganization of the store—left it in utter dishevelment—so that she could set her mind to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. Last night, the girls helped Mammi prepare the cooked turkey into a delicious roarscht, turkey mixed with broth, bread, herbs. Potatoes to mash were boiling on the stovetop. Pumpkin bread, rolls, and four kinds of pies sat on the top shelf of the pantry. The refrigerator was filled with vegetable casseroles and a green Jell-O salad. And the pudding! His mother’s specialty. He felt as if he were a boy again.
“Dad,” Jesse said, eyeing the sour cream cut-out cookies on a platter on the kitchen counter, a specialty of his mother’s, “I wonder if you are aware that the rest of the Stoney Ridge Amish aren’t fasting on this day.”
“Son, I do know. Every settlement observes Thanksgiving in a different way, but this is how we do it.” But my oh my, those cookies did look good.
“And why do we fast?”
“To focus our minds on giving thanks for the bounty the Creator has given us.”
“Now, Dad, aren’t we supposed to do that every day?”
David sighed. He was too hungry to walk right into a semantics trap set by his silver-tongued son. “Jesse, just wait a little longer. Mammi’s almost ready for us.” He went to his desk in the living room to remove himself from visual temptation. Gabby and Laura had set places for everyone at a long table in the room and were engrossed in creating place cards. They didn’t even notice David as he sat at his desk, but he couldn’t help overhearing the girls.
“Laura, do you remember the names of the other children in your class in school?”
“So do I. Dane Glick said he couldn’t remember them, apart from one or two very close friends. But horses were different, he said. He remembered virtually every horse he had ever handled, from the first buggy horse his family had, to each of the field horses. The way he described them, full of quirks and character, they were like old friends to him, comfortable and reassuring.” She turned to Laura. “Does that seem odd to you?”
“No. It sounds like someone who loves horses. You know, Gabby, not everyone has your memory for detail.”
“True.”
“You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Dane Glick.”
“We’re trying to determine the identity of his missing ancestor.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.” Gabby looked out the window. “Though it seems that he has an assumption that there is more between us than ancestor sleuthing.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
Gabby leaned toward Laura to whisper to her. “Er lacht iwwer’s ganz Gsicht.” He is all smiles.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Don’t you think he smiles too much?”
“How could anyone be accused of smiling too much?”
“What if he’s . . . too happy?”
Laura burst out with a laugh. “Gabby, listen to yourself. How could anyone ever be too happy?”
“No one can be happy all the time. What if someone were to make him . . . unhappy?”
Laura stilled. “So that’s what you’re worried about. Hurting his feelings?”
“Possibly.”
“That’s excellent, Gabby.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean that you’re concerned about his feelings. And you’re enjoying your time together?”
“Immensely,” Gabby said. As David watched her, she had a look on her face as if she might have just realized it for the first time.
“And is Dane enjoying himself?”
“Apparently. But he—”
“Then stop fretting and fussing about it,” Laura said, cutting her off. “Stop overanalyzing everything. For once, just have a little fun.”
The girls finished the name cards, set them at each place, and went into the kitchen. David watched them walk away, pondering the mystery of love. How remarkable, to think that Gabby might have found love, right here in Stoney Ridge, with a Glick.
A Glick! Birdy. He’d forgotten all about her today.
David jumped from his desk and went into the kitchen. Through the window, he saw Andy Miller and Katrina, laughing at Jesse’s puppy as it chased its own tail in a tight circle. He glanced at his mother, who was at the kitchen sink with her eyes fixed on Katrina and Andy. As David grabbed a coat to hurry outside, his mother caught him. “Who is this Andy boy?”
David put an arm through a coat sleeve. “He’s hardly a boy. He works at Moss Hill as a farmhand for Thelma.”
“But what do you know about him? Is he the one who’s behind all this oil well nonsense?”
David put his hands on his mother’s shoulders. “I know that he is our guest on this fine day.” He left her at the window and strode across the yard to reach Katrina. “Did you happen to invite Birdy for Thanksgiving dinner?”
Katrina’s eyes went wide in surprise. “No. She left right after church. She said she had someplace she had to go, and I just assumed she was going to her relatives.” She tilted her head. “Dad, I’m sorry. I guess I thought you would have asked her if you wanted her to . . .” She tipped her head toward the house. Toward his mother.
David shook his head. “You’re right . . .” His voice drizzled off. He knew, he knew! Freeman and Levi’s family would not have included her in today’s gathering.
But then, he didn’t include her, either. She would be spending Thanksgiving dinner, at Moss Hill, alone. Andy spoke up. “I’ll go over to Moss Hill and bring her back.”
Katrina nodded. “We’ll both go.”
“No,” David said. “You stay here. I’ll go.”
Mammi called to them from the front porch. “Dinner’s ready.” She pointed toward them with a long, accusing finger. “You, Andy Miller, are to sit next to me.”
Andy paled. “Why do I just feel as if I’ve been targeted by the Grand Inquisitor?”
David leaned toward Katrina. “Tell Mammi to start the meal without me. Not to wait. Tell her that something has come up. She’ll understand.” She wouldn’t, of course, but he would have to deal with that later.
He harnessed Thistle to the buggy in record time and drove the horse over to Moss Hill, but as the buggy crested the hill, he could tell the little house was empty. No buttery glow from the kitchen, no smoke from the chimney. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He went to the greenhouse—the mossery, as Katrina renamed it—and into the barn, peered into the henhouse, and retreated quickly as the hens squawked at the interruption. He walked up to the construction site of the oil wells and called out for Birdy, but there was no answer. She was nowhere in sight on Moss Hill. Where could she be? On a walk? Or . . . he knew.
David drove down the road toward the schoolhouse and slapped the reins to hurry the horse when he saw a wisp of smoke curling from the chimney’s pipe. He stopped the horse and moved toward the door of the schoolhouse in long, unhurried strides, feeling the awesome gnaw in his stomach, wondering what to say when he reached her.
He opened the door and let it thud quietly behind him. She was in the front of the classroom, writing on the chalkboard, and she went on writing, her attention riveted to the board.
“Birdy,” he said, as he took a few steps up the center aisle. “Birdy, I’m so sorry.”
She turned to him in surprise. “For what?”
For being so neglectful. For being such a coward, such an avoider. “Please come. Come to our house for Thanksgiving dinner.”
Birdy dropped her chin and looked down at the piece of chalk in her hands.
He stood a few yards away from her, watching, wondering, waiting. “Birdy”—spoken softer this time.
Her head snapped up, revealing dark brown eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Thank you for the invitation, David, but, you see, I’ve already eaten.” She spread her hand, palm up, toward her desk. “And I have so much work to catch up on here. Please give everyone my regards.” Then she spun back to the chalkboard to continue with her task. She was hurt, so hurt.
David scraped a hand down his face and continued staring at Birdy as she wrote on the board, coming to grips with the hard fact that he was the cause of this pain. She had showed immense kindness to him, to his daughters, and in return, he had hurt her. And for what reason? Because he was concerned about the flak he would get over his growing relationship with her—from the church, from Freeman, from his mother.
She deserved so much more.
He turned slowly, walked down the aisle, and left the schoolhouse. On the way home, David felt an ache in his gut that had nothing to do with an empty stomach.
Late on Thanksgiving afternoon, just as the sun had slipped down behind the ridge, taking its light with it, Abigail searched around the house for Ruthie and found her out in the barn, getting ready to milk the cow. Moomoo. What an odd choice to name a cow. Imagine if everything was named for the sound it made: Trumpet for an elephant, Wheeze for a hippo, Screech for a peacock. But then, it occurred to her that none of those animals would be candidates as farm pets, and she dismissed the mental conversation as trivial.
Ruthie sat on a three-legged milking stool, the pail between her legs, and leaned forward. The cow’s udder was heavy with milk and swayed as she swabbed it with disinfectant.
“Are you still filled with dubiousness about genealogy?”
Ruthie looked up, surprised by the question, perhaps because it had been a few days since they had previously discussed it. “Dubiousness? What exactly does that mean?”
“That you’re still filled with doubt about the merits of genealogy.”
“Oh, not that again,” she mumbled, sulky. She turned back to milk the cow, pulling and squeezing, as milk hit the bottom of the empty metal bucket with a ping! ping!
“Perhaps you’ve never thought of yourself as being particularly brainy, but I’ve heard you ask your father quite challenging questions after family devotions. And I’ve also seen the way you help Molly and the twins with their schoolwork. I believe you underestimate your intelligence.”
Ruthie gave her a sideways glance, eyes narrowed.
In the palm of Abigail’s hands was a handkerchief, filled with dirt she had collected from the well site at Moss Hill. “Do you understand how oil is created?”
Ruthie sighed. “Well, sort of. I read a little about it after Katrina told me about the oil trap on Moss Hill.” She looked up at Abigail and hurried to add, “But I can’t explain it in the detail that you can.” The cow slapped Abigail’s legs with a manure-caked tail, and Ruthie giggled, a rare occurrence, then went back to her milking.
Abigail moved around Ruthie to avoid the cow’s tail and unfolded the handkerchief. “Each geological layer tells a story—biological material has been trapped underground, embedded in dirt and water and millions of microorganisms. Given enough time, and enough heat, and enough pressure, that matter turns into oil. Nobody ever sees that depth, that dimension of the earth, but neither does anyone doubt that it’s there. What connects the earth that you can’t see to the air above is the soil’s crust. The evidence of all of those years is what you’re looking at now in that pile of dirt and rocks and water and oil.”
Ruthie pushed away a lock of hair that had fallen in her eyes. “So?”
“It’s the same with a person. When you dig into the past, it’s like you’re finding genealogical layers that tell a story.” Abigail wrapped up the handkerchief. “Now do you understand?”
“Understand what?”
“The story of this little patch of earth is right here, under our feet.” She tossed the handkerchief to the ground. “It might seem invisible to the untrained eye, but it’s all there. You just have to look for it.”
Ruthie kicked the handkerchief with her toe. “Personally, I think that dirt is just dirt. What’s in the past should stay in the past.”
And Abigail was told that she was the literal one! But, on a brighter note, it appeared that Ruthie was speaking to her again.