Sunday morning dawned with a hint of warmth, a promise winter wouldn’t last forever. Caleb drove his buggy into the busy yard in front of James Streicher’s house. The blacksmith had moved to the community late last summer, and he’d already become an integral part of the district.
Handing his buggy over to Eli Troyer’s nephew, Kyle, who would put Dusty with the rest of the horses in a nearby meadow, Caleb walked to where the other members of the Leit were gathered by the house’s front door.
The women and the men began to divide into two groups as he walked toward them along a narrow path cut into the deep snowbanks. He turned to his left to join the other men, but froze as if the temperature had dropped fifty degrees.
Only his eyes moved as he stared in painful astonishment when Joey, who was in Lyndon’s arms, held up chubby arms to Jeremiah, babbling in excitement. The boppli had never seen Jeremiah before, but was eager for the man to take him. He batted Jeremiah’s face, as he did the Waglers’, and gave a deep chortle that rumbled beneath the conversations around them.
So Joey wasn’t going through a stage where he didn’t like men. He’d been content with Lyndon holding him and gone eagerly to Jeremiah. Yet he screamed in terror when Caleb came near. Had something changed? Caleb wasn’t going to test that before services, so he avoided getting too close to the men and the kind.
Through the service, as he joined others in singing the long hymns and listened to Eli’s sermon and prayed, he couldn’t keep the questions quiet. Why had the little boy had such an instantaneous hatred of him? What could Caleb do to ease the little boy’s fears?
Lord, give me some idea.
Church Sundays were always among Annie’s favorite days of the month. She could spend time with her friends and catch up on their lives. Before Miriam and Sarah had married, they had joined her and Leanna for outings, like going grocery shopping or attending a charity dinner at the firehouse or special events in the village. Their Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club hadn’t done anything together since before their weddings last fall. Or, as they’d decided when they started the group, the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ and Newlyweds’ Club, agreeing to change the name when one of them married. At the time, none of them had plans to marry, but Miriam and Sarah had in the past year.
Annie hoped it would soon be Leanna’s turn to take marriage vows. But how would it be possible when Caleb hadn’t asked her sister to the mud sale as he’d promised to do a week ago?
“Do you see what I see?” asked Miriam as she came to stand by the door. Its window offered a view of the snowy driveway and the yard marked with footprints where the kinder had been chasing each other.
“What?” Annie asked.
“Your sister and my brother.” Miriam chuckled. She pointed to the twosome, who were standing a few feet from the house. “I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen the two of them talking to each other.”
“They’ve been very busy with their work.” Did her voice sound as strained to Miriam as it did to her?
Caleb and Leanna’s conversation ended, and her sister rushed toward the house at the same time Caleb walked toward his buggy.
Miriam didn’t wait until Leanna had taken off her bonnet before she asked, “So did he finally ask you to the mud sale?”
Annie was pierced by surprise. Why? Caleb talking to his sister and getting her advice on how to ask Leanna wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Her own brother had sought out her insight and Leanna’s when he started walking out with Rhoda. They’d been no older than Becky Sue then, but he kept saying he wanted a female point of view.
“He did.” Leanna kept her gaze on the floor as she lifted off her bonnet and put it on the table with the others. “He’s being very kind because he knows how long it can take to get our family going in the morning.”
“I’m glad you’ll be there to see when your quilt comes up for bid,” Annie said. And she was.
Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t help the feeling she was sliding into a deep pit where not a hint of sunlight would ever reach. No, she wasn’t going to let sorrow overwhelm her as it had Leanna. Rather, she was going to be grateful her sister might escape the darkness left in the wake of her heartbreak.
Half listening while her sister and Miriam talked about the mud sale, Annie was startled when she heard a hiss close to her left ear. She turned and saw Becky Sue crooking a finger toward her.
Annie excused herself, though Miriam and Leanna were so immersed in their conversation she wasn’t sure they noticed her leaving, and walked to where Becky Sue stood near a closed door.
“Is it true?” the teen said.
“Is what true?” Annie wished—just once—Becky Sue would clarify what she was saying.
“Caleb is walking out with Leanna?”
“You know we don’t talk about such things.” Annie didn’t like her stern tone any more than the girl did. Softening it, she said, “Caleb is giving Leanna a ride to the mud sale.”
“And home?”
Annie shrugged. Would Caleb offer her twin a ride home, too? If none of the other Waglers got there, he would. However, at least Lyndon, who was also a volunteer firefighter, would be going and could bring her home.
“Are you okay with this?” Becky Sue persisted.
“It’s nice of your cousin to be so thoughtful.” She wasn’t going to admit she’d set up the whole thing because she wasn’t sure if Becky Sue would keep that to herself.
“I thought you liked him.”
“I do. He’s a nice man and a gut boss.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean, but I also know Caleb asked Leanna and I’m glad she’s going to be there for the quilt auction.”
The teen folded her arms over her chest and frowned. “He asked you to join him in doing chores in the barn.”
“How do you know that?”
“I hear things.” Becky Sue shrugged insolently. “Like everyone else does. Why haven’t you accepted his invitation? Don’t you like my cousin?”
“I like him. I don’t like working in the barn.”
Becky Sue glowered at her, then spun on her heel and stamped away.
Annie went in the opposite direction, avoiding where Miriam and Leanna were giggling together as if they were no older than Becky Sue. She paused to grab her coat, bonnet and mittens. Fresh air might help because the house suddenly felt as small as a kind’s shoebox.
The wind had risen again, and Annie ducked her head into it as she strode out into the cloud-darkened afternoon. Was another storm coming? She was beginning to doubt winter would ever end.
Snow clung to her boots, trying to halt her on every step, but she pushed forward until she bumped into someone. Raising her eyes, she nodded to her brother who was talking to some other men who were getting their buggies ready to leave. He started to ask a question, but she turned away before he could.
He didn’t call after her but she heard assertive footsteps give chase. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Caleb behind her. She wanted to groan. He was the last person she wanted to talk to. What would she say to him when he let her know he’d done her the favor she’d asked for?
“Can I have a minute?” Caleb asked as he caught up with her.
“Ja.” She’d be glad to give him more than a single minute, but he should focus on Leanna. “Danki for asking Leanna to go with you to the mud sale.”
He waved that aside as if it didn’t matter. She realized his face was drawn. What was wrong? It couldn’t be because Leanna had agreed. If he hadn’t wanted to ask her, he would have said as much to Annie. They were honest with each other...about most things.
“Joey let Jeremiah Stoltzfus hold him today before the service. He didn’t make a peep.” Caleb’s words fell over one another in his hurry to speak them. “But he screams anytime I’m near him.”
Her self-pity became sympathy for him. She didn’t have any right to feel sorry for herself when events were unfolding as she’d arranged, but Caleb had been hurt over and over by the boppli’s response.
“It’s impossible to know what’s going on in a boppli’s head,” she said, putting a solacing hand on his sleeve and trying to ignore the strong muscles beneath the layers of wool and cotton. “It may not have anything to do with what you’ve been doing. Think about how Becky Sue is so tense around you. Maybe Joey thinks she’s frightened of you, so he is, too. A one-year-old isn’t going to understand why his mamm feels as she does.”
“I’d like to believe you’re right, but it’s clear Joey hates me.”
“A boppli doesn’t hate anyone or anything. He’s scared for some reason.”
“Danki for trying to make me feel better, but you’re using different words to say the same thing.”
“Stop it!”
Annie’s sharp words jerked Caleb out of his morass of shame. He stared at her, wondering why he was startled she wasn’t reacting as he’d expected. She seldom did.
Her voice softened. “I know it bothers you, Caleb, that Joey cries, but he’s a boppli. Like I said, none of us can guess what goes on in his head. He’s a loving kind, wanting to touch us whenever we hold him. He’ll warm up to you when he sees you want to take care of him, too.”
“I’d like to think—”
A sharp ring cut through the gray afternoon as his pocket vibrated against his leg. The sound and the sensation repeated before he could move. Maybe everyone didn’t whirl to stare at him, but it sure felt that way. Fishing the cell phone out of his pocket, he strode away from Annie and the men gathered closer to the house. He tapped the phone screen the way he’d been shown and held it to his ear.
Nothing.
He’d missed the call.
Maybe it hadn’t been important.
He looked at the screen, and his gut tightened as he recognized the number. It belonged to the phone shack that Becky Sue’s family used!
He pushed another button to call back. He grimaced when he heard a busy signal. Giving himself to the count of twenty, he tried again with the same result. He waited another full minute—which felt like an eternity—and made another attempt. This time, he got the same answering machine he had before. Leaving a message to call him as soon as possible, he ended the call.
Walking to where Annie stood, he glowered at the phone. Why hadn’t Becky Sue’s family waited long enough for him to call back? It didn’t make sense. He tightened his hold around the slender phone. It was almost as if they’d done their duty by calling and felt it wasn’t necessary to do anything else.
But didn’t they want to know where their daughter and kins-kind were? Weren’t they worried about whether they were safe and had a place to sleep and food to eat?
He tried to remember what message he’d left. It had been bare-bones facts that the two had been found and Caleb would make sure they were okay until Becky Sue’s family sent instructions about whether they wanted him to bring her home or they wanted to come to Harmony Creek Hollow for a reunion with the runaway teen and her boppli. But if they’d taken time to make arrangements, why hadn’t they waited for him to call and find out what they were?
“Was that Becky Sue’s parents?” Annie asked.
“Ja.”
“Are they coming here?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted response. “I don’t know. I didn’t answer the call in time, and when I called back, I didn’t get an answer.”
She put consoling fingers on his arm as she had before, and he felt his frustration melt away beneath her warm touch. How did Annie manage to do that with a simple brush of her fingertips on his sleeve?
“The important thing is they called,” she said.
“Ja.” He looked at the phone as he added, “When I tried calling them back, the line was busy.”
“A gut sign someone is in the phone shack.”
How did she always see the best side of every circumstance? While he looked for problems so he could avoid them, she seemed to believe everything would be fine if she moved ahead.
“But then the answering machine picked up.”
Her eyes widened, and he looked away before he lost himself in their enticing depths.
“That’s strange,” she said. “I would have guessed that they’d hang around long enough to wait for you to call.”
“I thought so, too. But—”
Again he was interrupted by a sound from the phone. This time it was a chirping noise.
Caleb looked at the screen to see an announcement that there was a voice mail. Hoping he was remembering the correct way to retrieve it, because it’d been a few weeks since his friend had showed him how to use the various utilities on the cell phone, he tapped the screen before holding the device to his ear. He listened, then lowered it, shocked at what he’d heard. Pushing the buttons again, he held it to his other ear, hoping that what he thought he’d heard was a mistake.
It wasn’t.
“Was that a message from Becky Sue’s mamm or daed?” Annie asked.
Without a word, he handed her the phone. He motioned for her to activate the voice mail, and she followed his silent instructions.
He knew the moment she heard the words that had sent disgust rocketing through him. Her face flushed and tears filled her eyes as she looked at where Becky Sue was emerging from the house surrounded by the Waglers.
The words spoken in a man’s clipped tones were seared into Caleb’s brain. “You’ve got Becky Sue. Keep her. We don’t want her or her boppli here.”