When his sister returned to check on Birdy’s condition, David went to the waiting room. He put a few coins in the vending machine to get a cup of coffee. He shouldn’t be having coffee, knew that he might pay for it with a churning stomach, but he had been up all night and was exhausted. Just a few sips, he thought, just to stay awake.
“How is she?”
David spun around to face Freeman. “She’ll be fine, the doctor said. In time, she’ll be fine.”
Freeman sat down in a chair. David bought another cup of coffee and handed it to Freeman, then sat down beside him. “She’s worried about you. That you’re feeling guilty for the accident.”
“I do. The hinge I started to make was compromised by rotting wood.”
David took a sip of coffee. It was terrible, like sipping mud.
“I put everyone in jeopardy.”
“Yes, Freeman. Yes, you did.” They weren’t talking about the Hanging Tree.
Freeman lifted his eyes. “I wish I could reverse time. I would do things . . . differently.”
“How so?” David asked. “I guess what I’m really asking is how could this all have happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said faintly. Words seemed to elude Freeman. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
Freeman leaned back in his chair, taking time to gather his words. “When I was thirty years old, I became a minister. I was full of anticipation, energized by the challenge of working. I was learning on the job, but I felt honored to be entrusted with the task.”
David well understood those feelings, though he would add an unholy anxiety. Becoming a minister was wonderful and terrifying and he wasn’t always sure which was which. He took another sip of the bitter-tasting coffee and watched nurses walking up and down the hallway, continuing past them as if nothing unusual was happening. And yet, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Something wonderful was occurring.
“At first,” Freeman continued, “I found the work deeply satisfying, despite the grueling hours. I was good at it. People came to me with intensely painful conditions, and I fixed them. With my skill and experience, I knew better than most what needed to be done. I never said no. Middle of the night, during dinner, anytime someone needed me. I was far busier than Elmo, than the other minister, and that fact became, in my mind, a key measure of my worth. Even though my family didn’t see much of me, they gave me a nickname: The Fixer.” He gave a half smile. “Those were the best years of my life. I reveled in the job.
“I used to enjoy this work, fixing people. Then, things changed. I felt as if I had dived into the deep end of the pool and was just splashing around, not getting anywhere. Everything seemed wrong these last few years. No matter what I did to keep up, unforeseen difficulties arose. Young people left for greener pastures. Money was part of the problem. I anesthetized the anxiety with work, long hours of it. I worked out of fear of failing. I worked when there was no work to do, worked even harder when there was no work to do. Spinning my wheels. Grinding my gears. I wondered how I had gotten off on the wrong foot so badly. Various people warned me, with increasing sharpness, that I could be getting myself into serious trouble. But I ignored them all.” He took a sip of the coffee. “You. I ignored you, David.” He tossed the coffee in the garbage pail. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”
“No,” David said. “I think you’re a man with a problem.” He saw the door open and Birdy being wheeled out, a big grin on her face. “And problems can be solved.”
In their surfeit of spare time, Hank Lapp liked to take Jesse out to hunt. They rarely shot any game, as they had no rifle and relied on borrowing Amos Lapp’s for that, but Hank was adept at following animal spoor and had taught Jesse how to do it too. He had shown him the prints made by the different animals—deer and rabbits, mostly—and ways to tell how long ago an animal had passed by. “It’s like reading a book,” Hank often said as he pointed out the bending of the grass made by a buck, or signs of scat. After fresh snow, it was particularly easy to track game.
Buggies too.
Jesse looked down at the ground and began his examination. He saw several boot prints, three different sizes, ones that had walked round and round in a circle, as if contemplating the abandoned buggy. He bent down and looked at the confusion of spoor: boots, one sled blade mark from the buggy itself, one larger flat track, and then, quite unmistakably, the hoofprints of a large workhorse. Hooves as big as a dinner plate. Yes! thought Jesse. And then, yes! again.
He stood and stretched. It was uncomfortable bending down like that, but it was the only thing to do when one was tracking. He followed the hoofprints and tire tracks up the road a short way, and then turned off to the right, in the same direction as the path down which the pair of boots had walked. The horse had pulled its burden across undisturbed snow and the tracks were telltale. It was easy from there. Jesse followed the tracks across the snow for about half a mile before he came to a small turnoff to the back of the barn that belonged to the Inn at Eagle Hill. He paused and looked up, and as he did so, he saw the tracks roll right into an old shed, hidden in the shadows. He followed the tracks and pulled open the doors to the shed. Inside, mostly covered with a tarpaulin, was Eli Smucker’s buggy.
The sight filled him with indignation. Luke Schrock was behind this. He had never been able to understand Luke. That boy was capable of kindness and cruelty, both. Jesse pulled the tarpaulin off the buggy. He saw how the buggy had been transported—one side was supported by a wooden toboggan.
The door opened and a word was uttered that Jesse couldn’t repeat. “What are you doing here?”
Jesse whirled around to face Luke Schrock. Hiding behind him was his younger brother Sammy, his shadow and sidekick. “I’ve come to get my buggy.”
Now Luke was in his face. “It’s your buggy?”
Jesse was startled to realize Luke had grown taller than him in the last year, taller and bigger. He straightened to his full height, which wasn’t much. But he wasn’t about to let this hooligan set the tone. “No. It belongs to Eli Smucker. He’ll be curious to learn that I found it at Eagle Hill.”
Luke glanced away. Jesse watched him, and realized what he was thinking. It would be difficult for him to explain its presence, half hidden, in an old shed.
Jesse decided to be direct. “You’ve stolen the buggy. You had no right to take it.”
“We didn’t steal anything. We found it.”
Up on the wall was a pegboard, with a Stanley hammer and a cat’s claw nail puller, neatly hung. In exactly the same way that Jesse hung his tools. In fact . . . most were his tools. His screwdrivers. Wrenches. Tape measure. Pliers, even his favorite needle-nose pliers. All there. “Like you found those? You’ve made a big mistake, Luke.” As had he. He’d been confident that Yardstick Yoder was the culprit.
“I told you. We found it. We brought it here for safekeeping.”
“Do tell.” Jesse listened, narrow-eyed. The sheer effrontery of this boy’s explanation astonished him. Did Luke think that he was quite that gullible? That easily snowed? It was insulting. “And that’s why it’s hidden inside an old shed? Covered with a tarp?”
“Are you calling us liars?” But some of Luke’s bluster was slipping away.
Yes, he was. “Liars and thieves.” He looked through the open shed door toward the house. “Your mother might have something else to call you.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Luke whined, losing steam. “We were just trying to look after that buggy, to get it off the road so it wouldn’t get hit by a truck.”
Jesse pointed to the pegboard. “And why are you stealing my tools?” Other people’s tools too. There were all kinds of stolen items in this shed.
“I wasn’t stealing them. I was just borrowing them. I like . . . fixing things.”
That sounded fishy. Luke was known around town for un-fixing things. Like, blowing up mailboxes. Jesse narrowed his eyes. “Why didn’t you just ask Galen to borrow his tools?”
“He won’t let me. He thinks I’m irresponsible.”
Jesse didn’t doubt it.
“Believe us, Jesse,” Luke said. “We aren’t thieves.”
Jesse knew that was not in the slightest bit true, but now he changed tack. “I’m prepared to forget all about this if you return the buggy to Windmill Farm.” He found a gunnysack and started to collect his tools too.
Luke’s face was the image of astonishment. “All the way to Windmill Farm? That will take all day!”
“I’m sure the two of you have a surfeit of spare time,” Jesse said. “That is, unless you want to spend some of that time on the sinner’s bench.”
A pause fell over them. Now he was talking a language that Luke understood. He glanced a few times at Jesse to make sure he was serious. He turned round and called out to Sammy, who’d been watching from afar with wide eyes. “Get the horse,” he shouted. “The rickety old buggy has to go.”
Jesse smiled, for the first time. “Hold on. I have a few more conditions. You’ve got some mailboxes to replace around town.”
There was fear in Luke’s eyes, naked fear. He gave a short nod, and his voice came out in a raspy whisper. “Fine.”
“And there’s one more thing. Keep away from my sister Ruthie. Don’t talk to her. Don’t walk with her. Don’t come by in the night to visit her.” He took a step toward Luke and stared him down. “And never forget that I know everything that goes on in this town.” He pressed a finger against Luke’s chest, which had shrunk before Jesse’s eyes. “I have interactions with everyone. Every. One.” He smiled smugly. “That’s what it means to be a buggy man. Eyes and ears everywhere.”
The buggy was harnessed to Galen King’s favorite Belgian workhorse, supported on one side with a long wooden toboggan, and the journey began. Jesse began to walk alongside, but thought better of it and decided to make the rest of the journey in the buggy. It tilted rather severely, but if Jesse stayed on the lower side, it was comfortable there, resting behind the wheel, watching the blue sky through the windshield and thinking with some satisfaction of the pleasure Eli Smucker would experience when he told him that his favorite buggy was safe at the buggy shop and would soon be in working condition—after Jesse located some square bolts, of course.
It was still dark but for the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp hanging in the middle of the ceiling and another one sitting on the table. David watched his mother move across the kitchen. It was such a familiar sight to him; she was always in motion, rarely at rest. His eyes were drawn to those hands, such nimble hands, always absorbed in a task.
She glanced up and smiled when she saw him. “I haven’t seen much of you lately,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you too.” He pulled a chair out and sat down. “You go first.”
“Ora Nisley has an unmarried sister, about your age. She has digestive troubles, just like you do. So I’ve taken the liberty to invite her to dinner on Sunday. I thought I’d make a sweet potato hash. You’re not supposed to have uncooked vegetables. They can irritate your stomach lining.”
For a long moment he made no move, no sound. He could feel his own pulse hammering. “No.”
His mother stopped wiping the counter. “No?” She put the rag down that she’d been using on the counter. “Well, then, I’ll look for another recipe for delicate constitutions.”
“The sweet potato hash sounds fine. I’m saying no to Ora Nisley’s sister who has digestive ailments.”
Ten seconds of silence. “You can say no after you meet her. Not before.”
“Sit down, Mom.” He pushed out a chair next to him and patted it. She sat down, eyeing him carefully. He studied her, finding it hard to know how to start. These things, they’d got to be said. “I thought—” He stopped.
She seemed impatient with him. “Go on then, say it.”
He started again. “I know you’ve come to Stoney Ridge to help—”
“And have I not been helpful?” She sat with a stiff back, as if she was eager to return to her spot at the counter.
“In many ways, yes. But in many ways no.”
Her shoulders stiffened and a wary look filled her eyes.
“Your intentions are good, Mom. I know that. But problems seem to occur when you decide what is helpful without taking into consideration whether I think it might be helpful.”
“This is about Birdy Glick, isn’t it?”
“Partly.” He nodded. “Birdy is the woman I’ve chosen.”
His mother shook a finger beneath his nose, as if he were a child. “You can do so much better! You mustn’t settle for just anyone. I’ll help you find someone ideally suited to you.”
David lifted a hand to cut her off. How could he make her understand? Birdy treated his children like every child deserved to be treated. Always, she made his children feel important. And David too. She treated him better than he deserved. “What matters is that I love her.” And he did. He loved her. “Next thing. The store. You’ve done enough.”
“But I’ve hardly begun!”
“You’ve given us a good start. We will follow through on your suggestions. But where I need your help is here, at home. Not at the store.”
“You don’t want me at the store.” She clapped her hands on her kneecaps, and David felt that familiar knot of meekness lodge in his throat. “All the years I’ve spent running a store, and you don’t want me in the store,” she repeated flatly. “And why not?”
He braced both hands on his knees, trying to steel himself. “You have a way of frightening off the customers.” He leaned in. “I do need your help, but in another way. With Molly. Mom, she’s so eager to learn how to cook and bake, but you’ve kept her out of the kitchen. If you want to help, you’ve got to slow down and teach her.” He grabbed her hands. “You’ve got so much to give, Mom. But it’s got to be where we need the help. Not where you think we need the help.”
Her voice became sharper. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not that easy to tell you . . . no.”
She yanked her hands out of his. “A grown man should have more of a backbone!” she retorted.
He nodded silently. True. So true. But then again, his mother had never allowed her children to speak their mind. It felt strange, saying the things he wanted to say to his mother. His glance lifted. “Another thing.”
She wrapped her hands together in a tight knot.
“I’ve left messages at the hospital to try to reach Ruth. I’m going to do my best to convince her to spend Christmas with us.”
His mother lifted her eyes to the window beyond David. He could tell that the sun would rise soon. “She won’t come. She’s still got her stubborn streak. It’s bone-deep.” She dropped her head, and David thought he saw a glistening of tears in her eyes. “She won’t come.”
Pictures of his sister as a girl danced across his mind, smiling, laughing, teasing . . . then later, when she reached her teen years, moody, sullen, argumentative.
His mother rose and walked to the window. A deep compassion came over David. He joined her at the window and stood behind her. “Maybe not. But I’m going to keep trying.”
His mother kept her eyes on the horizon. “Those two. Your sister Ruth, your brother Simon. They’re the stories I don’t want to remember. A daughter who left the Amish, a son who won’t get out of bed.”
It was a rare moment of complete transparency for his mother, but he knew what fueled her coldness toward Ruth and Simon. They were a daughter and a son whom, for different reasons, she couldn’t control.
He gently squeezed his mother’s shoulders. “If you had never tasted the bitter, you would never know what is sweet.” Softly he added, “Mom, it’s just like Dane told Freeman on Sunday, a person can’t pick and choose their stories. If you try to erase those hard stories, you might miss out on a miracle or two.”
Abigail entered the kitchen to find Mammi sitting at the kitchen table, polishing her eyeglasses, staring up at the ceiling as she did so. This was always a sign that she was thinking, and Abigail wondered what she was thinking about. She glanced over at Ruthie, who was stirring some kind of batter in a big bowl on the kitchen counter.
Perhaps Mammi was considering the People magazine she had found under Ruthie’s bed. Or perhaps it was concern over Lydie and Emily, who had amused themselves by crossing their eyes at each other during the sermon at church. Or perhaps she was worried about Jesse, who seemed to be in a funk over the girl next door, the Inn at Eagle Hill, who had jilted him for the tall and quiet bespectacled teacher.
Mostly, she hoped Mammi wasn’t thinking about her.
Mammi slipped her glasses on and knotted her hands together on the tabletop. “Gabby.”
“Abigail.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ears. “I’ve always preferred to be called Abigail.” Always, always, always. Few people ever bothered to respect her wishes. Dane did, she just now realized, but very few others.
Mammi took a long look at her. “I just want to take this opportunity to say I’ve been heartened by the changes I’ve seen in you lately.” An actual, honest-to-goodness smile curved her lips. “You struck a blow for truth-telling and accuracy by what you said in church on Sunday.”
Struck a blow for truth-telling? And accuracy? Such goals might have appealed to Abigail a few days ago, but now she felt quite confused. She had hurt Dane by what she had said in church. She had struck a blow at Dane, that’s what she had done. And it didn’t feel good. It felt terrible. That’s because, Laura told her, she was caught in a moral dilemma.
Laura said that Abigail felt such remorse because she was finally starting to see the gray in life, that everything wasn’t sharply defined black and white. “Very few moral dilemmas come in black and white,” she said. Abigail had pondered that troubling thought all night long.
“I don’t get the chance to say this very often, Gabby, but I truly feel you’ve started to turn a corner. Keep it up. That’s all I wanted to say.” Mammi took a sip of tea, then quickly put the cup down and lifted a finger in the air. “One more thing. Ora Nisley is coming by this afternoon. I want you to be here.”
“About that, Mammi. I should tell you that I am not at all interested in Ora Nisley.”
“Nonsense. You haven’t even given him a chance! And he certainly seems smitten with you. He drops by nearly every day for a cup of tea.”
Every day? Abigail had no idea. This was a very uncomfortable piece of news.
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Ruthie slammed the spoon back into the bowl so hard the batter splattered. She marched over to the table, her hands on her hips, resembling Mammi in an eerie way. “Is it completely impossible for the two of you to see what’s right under your nose?” She stared at both Abigail and Mammi, who stared back at her, then she lifted her hands in the air. “Mammi—Ora Nisley doesn’t care a whit about Gabby. He’s coming by to see you. You!”
Mammi’s brows flew up into her forehead. “Goodness.” One hand stole up to pat the hair on her neck.
“And Gabby . . . if you let Dane Glick go, then you’re a fool. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“I know.” Abigail knew he was. She knew. “It’s just that . . . I should get back to Ohio to help my father—”
“No, Gabby,” Mammi interrupted. “Your father is the one who sent you here. He’s the one who asked me to come to Stoney Ridge and help you find someone.”
“No, no,” Abigail said faintly. She drew her sweater tight at her throat. “It was my mother. And you.”
Mammi shook her head. “Mind you, your father may or may not get well, but he does not want you to miss your chance at living. He sent you here. He asked me to come too. It was all his doing. Not your mother’s. In fact, it took some persuading to get her to let you come.”
Abigail swallowed past the lump in her throat. “My father, he needs me.”
Mammi sighed and rubbed her temples as if a headache were coming on. “I’m not sure what your father needs to get well, Gabby, but it’s not as simple as finishing a family tree. You’re going to have to leave him in God’s hands.”
It baffled Abigail to hear those words of relinquishment out of her grandmother’s mouth. Mammi, of all people, believed she was on a one-woman mission to fix everyone and everything. Most troubling of all was the notion that her father might not get well. No, that wasn’t the most troubling thing. The worst thought was that Abigail couldn’t do anything more to help him. She’d done all she could. Maybe her grandmother was right. Maybe all she could do was to leave him in God’s hands. A strange swirling of peace started in Abigail’s center and extended from head to toe. It was a new feeling for her, a new way of seeing. Maybe, this was the answer she’d been looking for all along. To give up. Not just to give up, but to give over.
Ruthie had been watching her. She plucked Abigail’s bonnet off the wall peg and wrapped her black cape around her shoulders. “Go,” she ordered. “Go now. Go tell Dane.”
“But what do I tell him?”
Ruthie opened the door and gave her a gentle push through the threshold. “Tell him that you don’t want to miss another opportunity.”