“She’s not coming.”
Mark flinched and looked over his shoulder as he heard his brother’s matter-of-fact voice from the other side of the dining room, but recovered enough to ask, “Who are you talking about?”
“Kirsten. You’re watching for her, ain’t so?”
“Not really.”
Daryn chuckled as he leaned on the half wall in the kitchen. The plaster had been stripped from it, leaving broken strips of lath and dust. “I can’t imagine why else you’d spend the past five minutes staring out the window. She’s at Sea Gull Holiday Cottages today.”
He nodded. When Kirsten had asked Daryn to work with her at the resort last week, Mark had been as surprised as his brother. More astonished when Daryn had agreed to help a couple of days each week. He wasn’t sure whether his brother was more eager to make money or to spend time away from Mark. Either way, the boy was getting his wish. He didn’t have time to be bored.
“If you’re not looking for Kirsten,” asked his brother, “then who?”
“I was just thinking.”
“About her?”
He wondered when his brother had become so perceptive. He had been thinking about Kirsten, thinking about whether he should ask her to go with him to the benefit supper on Saturday night. If he didn’t, he might be able to sit with her and her family. But he didn’t want to sit with her family. He wanted time alone with her, and the best way to do that would be to have her ride to the benefit at the Shushan fire station with him. Each time he’d seen her in the past week and a half since they’d gone to the thrift stores, he’d considered asking her. Each time, he’d let the opportunity pass him by. He couldn’t wait much longer. The benefit was only two nights away.
“How’s it going getting those old wires out of the wall?” he asked his brother to change the subject.
This morning, he’d given Daryn the job of removing the electrical wiring from the kitchen walls. After they’d moved in, Mark had removed the fuse box in the cellar. As each room was redone, Mark wanted to get the wires out.
“Got most of them.” He pointed to an outlet box in the wall. Not that one.”
“Why not?”
“It’s hot.”
“Impossible.” Mark frowned. “I pulled out the fuse box in the spring. There shouldn’t be live power anywhere in the house.”
“See for yourself.” He handed Mark the small gauge which plugged into an outlet. “Glad you insisted on this. If not, I’d have fried fingers.”
Plugging it in, Mark stared in disbelief when he saw two of the three lights were green. “There shouldn’t be any lights on.”
“That’s what I thought. How’s it getting electricity?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
An hour later after tracing the wires in a convoluted path through the house, Mark and Daryn had checked every inch on both floors, looking in closets and cupboards. Getting two flashlights, Mark had sent Daryn to explore the cellar’s corners while he had thrown the light across the joists to see if something was hidden between them. They’d found dust and cobwebs that had been spun since Mark had done a gut clean-out before he moved in at the beginning of the year.
By the time they returned to the first floor, they hadn’t discovered where the wires connected to live power. The only other possibility was the attic. Mark remembered there had been old knob and tube wiring up there, but had thought it was disconnected.
He reached for the pull-down door to the attic and straightened out the ladder that dropped from it. Climbing up, he shivered. The old windows might be drafty but the attic had been well-insulated to keep the heat downstairs. It was as cold standing on the single piece of plywood by the ladder as if he’d been outdoors.
“Wow!” Daryn stepped up beside him, then edging over to balance on one of the ceiling joists. “It’s freezing up here.”
“Go and get your gloves and coat.” He watched his brother, waiting for any reaction when he mentioned gloves.
“I’ll be right back.” He stepped down a couple of rungs, then called, “Do you want yours, too?”
“Ja.”
His brother disappeared down the ladder, and Mark listened to his heavy footfalls as he ran to the stairs to the ground floor. In less than a minute, Daryn returned. He’d put on his coat and gloves downstairs and held out Mark’s to him.
Mark took his coat and pulled it on, glancing at his brother’s hands. “Those are nice gloves.”
“Mamm made them for me last winter.” He held up his right hand and rolled down the glove’s wrist. “See? She put my initials in here like I was a toddler.”
“Be glad she didn’t hook them to your coat sleeve with mitten clips.” Mark didn’t try to hide his relief at seeing the gloves. There had been nothing on the gloves he’d found to identify who owned or made them.
“You’re right.” Daryn grinned.
“Are those your only gloves?”
“Ja.” His brows lowered. “Why are you asking?”
“I found some down on the beach. Black knit ones like you’re wearing. They had red paint on them.” When his brother didn’t answer, Mark added, “Like the red graffiti on Greeley’s boat.”
Daryn’s brows shot upward. “You thought those gloves were mine? That I’d vandalize a neighbor’s boat?”
“I didn’t want to think you’d done it.”
He must not have sounded too convincing because Daryn snapped, “You always think the worst of me! What more do I have to do to show you that while I’m not a mini-Mark Yutzy, I’m not someone who’d vandalize a boat?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to think when I found the gloves.”
Daryn’s jaw was so taut he had to grind out each word. “You could have asked me, Mark. Showed me the gloves and asked if they were mine.”
“I knew one wasn’t yours, because the paint on it suggested the person wearing it was using his left hand to spray the paint.”
“I’m not left-handed.”
“I know.”
“So why didn’t you ask me instead of stewing?”
Mark shook his head. “I was afraid you’d tell me one of the gloves was yours. Daed and Mamm asked me to keep you out of trouble, and—”
“You didn’t want to let them down.” Daryn’s hands unfolded from tight fists. “I get it, but next time you think I’m part of a crime, give me a chance to defend myself before you convict me.”
“I will.” He felt as if he were the younger brother being admonished by a wiser, older brother. “I’m sorry, Daryn.”
Daryn rubbed his hands together. “Enough talking. Let’s get this done. Even bundled up, my hands and toes are freezing.”
“This way.” He moved toward the right where a collection of wires hooked to white ceramic knobs snaked up the wall. “Let’s start over the kitchen.”
Mark stumbled when Daryn grabbed his sleeve and gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked.
“Look! Look over there!” He pointed to the far end of the attic. “A rafter over there is bowed.”
“What? Let me see!” He clambered across the attic, taking care not to hit his head. “Where?”
“At the far end. See it?”
Mark knelt next to the third rafter from the gable. Scanning with his flashlight along it, he whistled a single, long note.
“You’re right, Daryn. It’s not straight. Let me chase down the wire and disconnect it while you get some sturdy boards and nail them to the rafter to support it.”
“Can’t.”
Turning in the small space between the gable and the first rafter, he frowned at his brother. “Why not?”
“I have to go.”
“Where?”
“I told Kirsten I’d help her this afternoon.”
Ignoring the pinch of envy that his brother was going to spend time with Kirsten while Mark was stuck tracing wires, he said, “Don’t forget to repair it tomorrow.”
“I won’t.” He scrambled down the ladder.
Mark sighed, then focused on tracing the wire. It took him more than an hour, but he found a small fuse box hidden in the shadows amidst dusty spiderwebs at the peak of the roof. Why it had been put there where it was so difficult to access was a question he doubted would ever be answered. He worked with care to remove it and unhook the wires. Before he returned downstairs, he aimed his flashlight at the rest of the attic. He found two more fuse boxes, but only one was live. He disconnected that one as well, praying there would be no more surprises.
It was growing dark when Mark returned to the second floor. He was gratified as he closed the attic hatch. Though Daryn would be going up there tomorrow, he didn’t want to leave it open overnight to let cold air flood into the house.
A hot shower got the insulation and dirt and clinging webs off and warmed him up. Dressing in clean clothes, he went to the kitchen and tested the outlet again. This time, no lights came on the tester. He straightened and yawned. Crawling around in the cellar and the attic was tiring work.
He had just entered the living room when he heard a knock. Someone had come into the yard and he hadn’t seen them? He must have been more exhausted than he’d guessed. A big yawn emphasized that thought.
Pushing his damp hair out of his eyes and reminding himself to have Daryn cut his hair, Mark threw open the door. His heart came to life, thudding against his chest, when he saw Kirsten standing there. He noticed she wasn’t alone before his gaze was captured by her eyes, the only part of her face visible above her red scarf. Exploring those dark depths would be foolhardy, he guessed. A man could get lost within them and never find his way out.
Or never want to find his way out.
“If you’re not going to ask us in, big brother,” Daryn said, tearing apart the silken thread, as strong as spider’s but sweet, tying Mark’s gaze to Kirsten’s, “at least step out of the way before we freeze.”
Mark’s feet were unwieldy as he moved aside. Daryn and Janelle were with Kirsten. He greeted them, hoping he sounded somewhat normal.
“Daryn told us you were chasing wires through the walls,” Kirsten said as she unwrapped her scarf and left it hanging around her shoulders. “That sounds like thirsty work.”
“You’ve got no idea.”
His brother chuckled. “Trust me. We do. We may not be crawling around in the attic, but we’re taking out furniture and cleaning behind and under it. I suspect some of the furniture hasn’t been moved in a hundred years. Dusty work.”
“Thirsty work,” Janelle said as she untied her bonnet and put it on the kitchen table.
“Did you find the fuse box?” Daryn asked.
“Found three.” He outlined what he’d done upstairs. “It’s done, so you can get up there tomorrow and fix that rafter.”
Daryn grinned. “That’s for tomorrow. Today we brought something delicious to drink.”
“Helga’s root beer?” Mark asked.
Kirsten smiled. “I’ve been told it’s addictive.”
“For Daryn it is. I barely got a taste before he drank what Janelle brought over before.”
“We’ll make sure you get some more this time.”
Glasses were on a shelf in the living room to keep them away from the dust. Janelle hurried in and collected four. She turned and collided with Daryn who was opening the two quarts of root beer.
The glasses wobbled in Janelle’s hands. Mark grabbed them as he helped Daryn keep his grip on the bottles.
“I’m so sorry,” Janelle said, her eyes brimming with tears. “Danki, Mark. You saved the day.”
He heard his brother mutter something that sounded like, “Again.” Mark decided not to react to Daryn’s petulant comment.
Instead he took the glasses from Janelle and put them on a low table by the sofa, trying to pay no attention to the plaster dust covering the top. It was impossible. He reached for a cloth.
Kirsten halted him by putting her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t! It’ll spread through the air, and we’ll end up with a coating on our root beer.”
“True.” He was amazed he could speak that single word when her touch sent fireworks erupting through his mind until his thoughts were cluttered with “oohs” and “aahs.”
When she began to pour out the root beer, he watched her graceful motions and wondered how it was possible for her to dance without a single note of music. Each thing she did reminded him of the pictures in a book his sister, Hope, had brought home from the library and hidden under a mattress. The illustrations had been of a ballet dancer who acted as if gravity had no hold on her.
Odd, he hadn’t thought about that book since Hope had returned it to the library and brought home a title she didn’t need to hide from their parents. Yet, as he watched Kirsten, those photographs played through his mind. She might not be twirling about on her tiptoes, but he could imagine her dancing across an empty stage.
What are you thinking? Such thoughts about a plain woman were ridiculous. If she gleaned his thoughts, she might be insulted.
Daryn went to show Janelle the outlet box that had given them so much trouble. This was the time to ask Kirsten to go with him to the benefit, but the words stuck in his mouth.
“Aren’t you thirsty?” she asked.
“Ja.” He took a gulp of the root beer as he dropped to sit on the sofa. A puff of dust rose up around him, and he waved it aside.
Or tried to. He’d had no idea his palms could sweat so much on a cold afternoon. He rubbed them against his dark trousers until he realized he didn’t want a line of dampness down the sides.
“Daryn is doing a gut job at the cottages,” Kirsten said.
“I’m glad to hear he’s working better for you than he did for me.”
She smiled. “I’m not his sibling. It’s easier to take orders from me.”
“Something I’ll keep in mind.” He took another drink, a sip this time. “I’m still learning.”
“That’s gut. I am, too, with my business. I’m trying to make sure when I make an assumption and it turns out to be the wrong one, I don’t make it again. Life is trial and error and try again, ain’t so?”
“True. I learned that at my daed’s knee when he taught me about woodworking, and I went through that when I was developing the desk that changed my family’s lives.” He gave her a wry grin. “I never looked at life as being the same type of trial and error.”
“It’s something I realized a long time ago. We all make mistakes, Mark.”
“I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s not irking when I do.”
“I’ll pass along what my grossmammi told me when I was about Theo’s age. Be yourself and trust in God. She told me if I followed those two rules, I’d find my way through this world was much simpler.”
“That’s great advice, but haven’t you noticed? It’s not working for me.”
When she put her hand on his sleeve, he was astonished before he was suffused with a warmth that somehow slipped from her fingers through several layers of fabric to burnish his skin. He wanted to savor the sensation, but her soft voice drew his attention to what she was saying.
“It hasn’t worked for you, Mark, because you’ve been anything but yourself,” she said with a gentle smile. “At least you haven’t been since we met.”
“I am just as you see me.”
“Ja, you are what you’ve allowed me and the others to see, but that’s not the real Mark Yutzy. Your cousins have told me about what you were like before that desk changed your life. You weren’t focused on failure or success. Mattie told me how you got in trouble for putting the goats in the cow barn and leaving the cows out in the field. Who does that sound like?”
He chuckled. “Point well taken. Thanks for the help, Kirsten.”
“Could you help me, too?” He thought he had his opening to ask her to the supper, but she hurried on to ask, “Will you check with Daryn about what he and Theo and the other boys do when they’re out in the evening? It’s too dark for them to play ball. I can’t imagine they’d walk to Shushan after dark.”
“Boys in groups aren’t known for having the best judgment.”
“That’s why I’d like to know.”
“I can ask, but I’m not sure he’ll tell me.”
She nodded and glanced toward the other room. “I appreciate you trying. Sometimes, life is one step forward and two back. Sometimes it’s just two steps back.”
“That’s pretty pessimistic.”
“It’s an observation. Not pessimistic. Not optimistic.” She hesitated, then said, “Daryn told me about your conversation about the gloves you found. I’m glad you cleared the air. I don’t want you to give up on him.”
“I haven’t. I wouldn’t be worrying about him if I’d given up on him.”
“Does he know that?”
“That I haven’t given up on him?” He shrugged.
“Don’t you think it’s time to let him know how concerned you are about him?”
“I’ve been trying. He seems to be more open.”
She glanced toward the entry and the kitchen on the other side. “I wonder where the kids have gone.” Pushing herself to her feet, she said, “Let me see what they’re up to.”
He stood, too. If he didn’t say something, he might not get another chance. “There’s a benefit supper on Saturday night.”
“I know.” She smiled again. “Aenti Helga has been helping with the planning, and she’s going to be overseeing the setup. It’s so wunderbaar how many volunteers have stepped forward. I’m one, and so are Janelle and Theo.”
“So you’re going?”
“Of course. Helping to pay for a premature newborn’s grandparents to come to visit and assist is such a blessing for us all.” She smiled. “Aenti Helga is bringing her hot and spicy brownies along with the last of the root beer.”
“Hot and spicy brownies?” he asked, knowing he was letting himself get distracted, and he was okay with it. Too okay, he warned himself. If he hesitated too long...
“They have cinnamon and chili powder in them. Delicious.”
“People must be shocked when they take a bite.” Why was he talking about brownies instead of asking her to go to the benefit with him? He never would have described himself as someone who couldn’t resolve a problem head-on.
Until now.
Kirsten’s soft laugh caressed his ears. “We try to put out a sign to let people know, but often the sign disappears. Usually on purpose when someone wants to see someone else’s reaction. The brownies are so yummy nobody has been too upset once they get over their surprise. Are you going to the benefit? If you are, I’ll make sure I save a couple for you and Daryn so you can sample them.”
“We are going.”
“Gut. I’ll see you there, I’m sure.”
As she started to toward the kitchen turn, he called her name sharply.
Too sharply, because astonishment widened her eyes. “What’s wrong, Mark?”
“Nothing. Can I ask you something?”
She shifted to face him. “Go ahead.”
“How about you coming with me—” He hoped she didn’t hear his gulp before he hurried to amend the invitation. “With me and Daryn. Come with us.” He was making an utter mess of this. How did his cousins make asking a woman to join them for an evening look so simple?
They’ve had a lot more practice than you have, honesty reminded him.
A lot more practice?
He’d had pretty much zero. When his friends and the cousins his age had been flirting with girls at singings and frolics, he’d been closeted in the family’s shop overseeing the expansion of the business. He’d worried more about the quality control of his desks than his ability to engage a girl in conversation. Instead of picking out a pretty girl and asking her to let him take her home, he’d been concentrating on getting gut cuts of wood to build those desks. At the time, it had seemed like the right choice.
Now he regretted not practicing when everyone would have expected him to be awkward. He would have learned how not to stumble over his words as he was and how to look a woman in the eyes when he asked her out.
He cleared his throat, and the question burst out of him as if it were a single word. “Would-you-go-to-the-benefit-supper-with-me-and-Daryn?”
For what seemed like an eternity, she remained silent. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.
Then she said, “Danki, but no.”
He felt his mouth drop open. He should close it, but he seemed to have forgotten how.
No?
Of all the scenarios he’d played out in his mind to prepare for this moment, he’d hadn’t imagined she’d say no. Did she want to be asked in a nicer way? His invitation had been sincere, though clumsy.
Somehow, he puffed out, “No?”
She gave him what he thought was a pitying smile. Why not? He was a pitiful mess.
“I told Aenti Helga I’d go with her early to help with setup. I’ll see you there.”
Then she was gone, leaving him alone to face the truth. He hadn’t expected the first thing he might fail at in his life was convincing Kirsten to spend an evening with him.
By 3:00 a.m. the next morning, Kirsten gave up trying to sleep. No matter how she arranged her pillow or the sheets beneath the quilt, she couldn’t fall asleep. The wind, for once, wasn’t blowing off the bay to buffet the house, and the ice beginning to form on the water silenced the hushed motions of the water. Her thoughts had drifted off a couple of times, but then something jerked her awake as if someone had shouted in her ear. She stared up at the slanted ceiling and tried to catch her breath.
It wasn’t a nebulous something that woke her. It was the memory of how her conversation with Mark had ended the previous afternoon. She’d fled from his house, dragging a protesting Janelle with her. No matter how many times Janelle asked what was wrong, Kirsten hadn’t replied.
How could she admit she didn’t trust herself? Going with Mark to the benefit—and, oh, how she wanted to go with him—might be the first step toward a deeper relationship. She didn’t want to fall in love with him and have him walk away as others had. No matter how often her heart pleaded with her to believe he wasn’t like Nolan, Loyal and Hans, her brain whispered that her heart had told her the same thing about each of them.
And had been so wrong.
Saying no to Mark’s invitation had been the right thing to do. She’d set a policy of not getting involved with their clients on a personal basis.
You meant getting involved with Englisch clients.
She couldn’t ignore her conscience, even when it was vexing.
“What’s fair for the Englisch is fair for the plain folks,” she whispered to the night.
Sadly, the night didn’t offer any gut advice.