Eunice was surprised to hear the clatter of buggy wheels after her dat had left for the market. No one was bringing her a gadget to work on. She might as well nail an Off to Kentucky sign on the barn door for all the business she had. And she couldn’t blame them. She was leaving for her aenti’s the next day.
The next day.
She wanted to put her head in her hands and weep. She wanted to storm into her father’s office and argue that he couldn’t make decisions about her life. She wanted to remind him that she was a grown woman. She didn’t do any of those things mainly because this was a solution she’d agreed to. So instead, she walked out into an overcast October day to see who had come to visit.
“Zeb. Is everything okay?”
Zeb didn’t do social visits. And she’d seen him the night before. She hurried toward his buggy thinking maybe he’d forgotten to leave an employment form with her dat.
“He isn’t here right now, but if you have something for Dat, I can see that he gets it.”
Zeb set the brake and hopped out of the buggy. He started to speak, stopped, stuck his hands in his pockets, then looked left and right.
“I can see the proverbial cat has your tongue. Want to sit on the porch?”
“Sure. That would be gut.”
But once they were seated, he still seemed ill at ease. He’d plucked his straw hat off his head and held it in his hands. His gaze couldn’t settle on any one thing. And his left leg was jiggling, which reminded Eunice of when they’d had tests in school. Zeb had always been a nervous tester.
“I’m here...” He cleared his throat.
She waited.
He tried again. “I’m here to ask you something. It made sense to me last night, and then this morning less so. By the time I pulled into your driveway, I was sure I’d made a mistake.”
“Now I’m curious.”
“The thing is that we both have a problem.”
“We do?”
“Your dat wants you...well, I’m not sure what he wants.”
Eunice wanted to melt into the porch floor from embarrassment. If it had been anyone other than Zeb, she would have changed the subject. But Zeb wasn’t bringing this up due to mild curiosity or to feed the Amish grapevine. So, instead of being offended, she pulled in a deep breath and told him the truth.
“They think I’m hiding in the barn.”
“They?”
“My dat, Sarah, Becca, Bethany, even Ada.”
“Oh.”
“They think that’s why I haven’t dated and why I don’t have a job. Because I’m more comfortable hiding in the barn.”
“Oh,” he said again.
“They gave me thirty days, which ends tomorrow.” She tried to smile brightly. It felt fake. It was fake. She gave up on that. “I’m twenty-five years old, and my family is shipping me off to Kentucky like some parcel they don’t know what to do with.”
He opened his mouth and Eunice said, “Do not say oh again.”
“Right.” Zeb cleared his throat. “So, as I was saying, I wanted to ask you something. Here goes.”
Eunice had a queasy feeling in her stomach.
What was he so nervous about?
He was making her nervous.
“I want to ask if you’d consider watching Josh.”
Eunice looked around. Was Josh with him? Had she somehow overlooked the child?
“On the days I work at the market, on the tours.”
“Well. The first problem with that is that I’m going to Kentucky.” She emphasized the last four words and drew them out slowly.
“But what if you didn’t?”
“Not following.”
“You said you needed a full-time job.”
“Which I cannot find, and trust me I’ve looked.”
“But what if you had two part-time jobs? Would that satisfy your dat’s requirement?”
“Hmm.”
“So it might?”
“It might.” Eunice set her chair to rocking. What he was suggesting was crazy. She knew next to nothing about taking care of five-year-old boys, but how hard could it be? If she could take a solar pump apart and put it back together, certainly she could handle one small boy. “I’m a little puzzled. Why me?”
Zeb looked as if he’d been caught, and she knew she’d hit the nail on the head with that question.
“Plenty of youngies, even women, would be willing to earn a little extra money. Why me, Zeb?”
He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, then seemed to accept that he might as well tell her. As usual, he began ticking items off on his fingers. “I don’t want to leave Josh with a woman who has a house full of kids. He’d just be one more child. She might lose him.”
“Doubtful, but go on.”
“And I don’t like the idea of a teenager watching him. I know that people say they’re quite responsible, and I suppose some are. But it’s not what I want for my son.”
Eunice waited. There was at least one more reason. Zeb was still staring at his hand, ready to tick off point number three.
When he continued to hesitate, she leaned forward and said, “Just tell me.”
“Okay. Some women—not you, but some women—would see this as an overture to a relationship. They would think that I was interested in dating. They’d think I was using Joshua as an excuse to check them out first.”
“Trying them out for the mommy job?”
“Exactly. I knew you’d understand.”
Eunice was pretty sure she did not understand.
“Trust me, I made that mistake in Lancaster. It did not end well. The young woman was crying, and I was trying to explain myself, and Josh had no idea what was happening.” He shook his head, dropped his hands and clutched the rocker as if he was afraid he was about to be thrown out of it.
“Should I be offended?”
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
“Because I’m not like them, not like some women, that I would never misinterpret your motive.” She was half kidding and half serious. She was, after all, a flesh and blood woman who wouldn’t mind thinking that a man was interested in her. The look on Zeb’s face though, it was enough to push her away from the offended side of things. When she grinned at him, he let out a relieved sigh.
“See? That’s what I mean. We’ve been friends forever. I knew you wouldn’t take this the wrong way.”
So, he still thought of her as his childhood friend. Well, wasn’t that how she thought of him? Maybe, some days. Other days, when he was sitting on her porch, cleaned up and looking nice, she did wonder...
“It wouldn’t be full-time, of course. Surely you could find another part-time job to go with it.”
“Mrs. Lancaster did offer me a job at the yarn shop. I know next to nothing about yarn, but she offered to teach me. The position was for twenty hours a week.”
“Do you think she’d be flexible regarding your schedule?”
“Probably not. She needs someone on Monday, Tuesday and Saturday.”
“Okay.” Zeb hopped up and began to pace. “That could work. We could schedule future tours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Those are pretty busy days anyway. Lots of tourists about because they’re taking off midweek, adding in a weekend, and ending up with five days of vacation. So, yeah. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday could work. As long as Amos agrees.”
“I’m sure he would. Do you really think you’ll have enough tourists on those days?”
“Samuel said as much about the RV park. Lots of folks come in on Wednesday, leave Sunday or Monday.”
“When do your tours start?”
“Tomorrow, but my mamm is still here for a few days. I’d need you to start next week.”
“Okay. I say we give it a try.” Eunice smiled at him, even though she was feeling a little uncertain about this change in plans. It wasn’t like she had wanted to move to Kentucky, but this... Was she really going to keep Zeb’s kid? Did he trust her to do that? “I’ve taken care of my nieces and nephews before. How hard can one boy be?”
“Suzanne’s schweschder used to say that one was harder than four.”
Eunice didn’t know how to respond to that. Zeb rarely if ever brought up his wife or her family. It was like a part of his life that he didn’t want to talk about, so she’d never pushed him on it. Instead of responding, she simply shrugged.
“You could always ask Becca for help, seeing as she lives so close and all.”
“Sure, but I doubt I’ll need to do that.” Eunice was picturing the inside of a barn. It had been her domain for so long. Now she’d be away every day. “So I’d be working six days a week.”
“Well. Yes. You would. But it would only be half days, right? So it isn’t as if you’d be working eight hours a day for six days.”
“True.”
“Do you think your dat will go for this plan?”
“He might.”
Zeb had walked to the porch steps and was staring out over their fields. Eunice joined him there, wondering what he was seeing. Wondering what he was thinking about. Zeb was quiet a lot of the time. He seemed...lost in his thoughts.
Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “Don’t worry about Josh. I’m sure he and I will get along just fine.”
“I can make you a list.”
“A list?”
“A cheat sheet of sorts.”
Eunice tried to hold in the laughter, because Zeb seemed serious—very serious. He was always serious. But she couldn’t keep her laughter from bubbling out.
He looked at her in surprise. “What?”
“Last time we tried a cheat sheet...”
Understanding dawned on his face. “Fifth grade. Math exam.”
“We were caught and had to clean the board for two weeks solid.”
“Plus I was grounded by my parents.”
“My dat did the same.”
Eunice thought that it was funny, remembering the children they’d been. How had they ended up here?
“Let’s give it a try,” Eunice said. “I’ll speak to my dat this evening and let you know.”
He nodded once, tightly. “Danki.”
“Gem Gschehne.” She said the words softly, and for a moment his expression became something kinder, something not filled with worry. The moment passed and his usual, troubled expression returned.
Slapping his hat on his head, he attempted a smile.
As he drove away, Eunice stood there watching his buggy until it was a spot at the far end of the lane. Zeb needed help with his child. She was glad he’d come to her. But there was more than that on his mind. Zeb Mast was not a happy guy. She couldn’t blame him. Losing a wife had to be hard. But that had been over two years ago. Shouldn’t he have moved on by now?
But then who was she to judge? She was still working in the barn. She had been tinkering on small machines since she was fourteen years old and let loose from the schoolhouse. Eleven years had passed. How? How had her life, her future, her dreams become so small?
Perhaps her dat was right. Maybe the barn, this farm, her family—maybe they had all provided a safe place to hide.
She wouldn’t be hiding anymore.
A small part of her was actually looking forward to the change, but she most certainly did not think she’d need a cheat sheet to take care of one small boy. Another part of her understood that she wasn’t exactly facing her problems. Caring for a friend’s child and working for a yarn shop wasn’t embracing her future or planning for the rest of her life.
It was a small step in the right direction though.
She had no idea if it would be enough—for her father or for herself.
But she planned to find out.
Zeb got word the next day from his bruder, who’d heard it from Gideon, who’d been told by Eunice that her dat had agreed to their plan. He supposed an Englischer would have simply texted “We’re good to go,” but they weren’t Englisch, and no one that he knew owned a cell phone.
Correction. He’d seen some of the youngies in town with cell phones. Personally, he couldn’t imagine setting aside money for such a thing. The message from Eunice to Gideon to Samuel to Zeb worked just fine.
Things in his life were changing quickly. He now had a babysitter for his son, a new job guiding Englischers on tours and his parents’ relocation date had been moved up. Wow. When they decided something, they moved quickly. As his mamm had said the night before, “What’s the point in dragging our feet?” Deborah Mast was no one’s fool.
Zeb suspected she knew the longer they took to leave, the harder it would be.
He walked into the house to find even more chaos than when he’d walked out of the house at lunch. His mamm had pulled out everything from the kitchen cabinets and was putting a good portion of it in boxes. She was tackling the moving project like a woman twenty years younger. His mamm had kept in gut shape. She was fifty-seven, but she still seemed young to him. Except for her hands.
She smiled when he walked in. “Want some coffee?”
“I’ll get it.” Zeb turned in a circle. “Where’s the coffeepot?”
“Oh. Guess I packed it. What was I thinking? We’ll need coffee the rest of the week.” She began pawing through one box and then another.
“Don’t worry about it, Mamm. Water’s fine.” He fetched a glass, filled it from the tap and sat down at the table next to Josh. “Whatcha drawing, son?”
“A horse.” The horse in question had an enormous head and was taller than the house it stood beside. “I don’t think I have his ears right though.”
“Ears are hard,” Zeb agreed. He drank half the glass, then turned to his mamm. “I just talked to Samuel.”
“Your bruder’s home?”
“Ya, he’s in the barn.”
Josh popped out of his chair. “I need to show him my picture.” He dashed out of the room, made it to the front door, looked down at his empty hands, dashed back into the kitchen, grabbed the drawing and took off.
“A lot of energy in that one,” Deborah said.
“Indeed.” Zeb cleared his throat, ready to get this portion of the evening over with. It wasn’t that he thought his mamm wouldn’t approve, but she had strong feelings regarding his personal life and Josh’s. He guessed that was normal. “So, I think I have childcare worked out for Josh.”
“Oh, honey. That’s wunderbaar.” Deborah stared down into a box, found and retrieved the percolator coffeepot and put it back on the stove. With a sigh, she walked to the table and sat down beside him. “Tell me all about it.”
“Well, it was Samuel’s idea, actually, that I ask Eunice Yoder.”
Deborah clapped her hands. “Eunice. I’ve always liked her.”
He explained about the arrangement Eunice had with her dat, the impending move to Kentucky and the plan they’d come up with to help one another out of a tight spot.
“That’s what friends do,” Deborah chirped. “I remember you and Eunice hanging out together when you were both in school. At one point I even thought you might be sweet on her.”
Zeb laughed, though to him it sounded more like nervous laughter than anything genuine. His mind didn’t want to go there. He supposed that he believed that the mere thought of being interested in someone else, even in the years before he’d met Suzanne, felt like a betrayal.
So instead of talking about who he might or might not have been sweet on, he clarified, “This isn’t like that though. It’s purely business.”
“Business among friends.”
“Exactly.”
“Unless Gotte has something else in mind.”
“Uh-uh. Nope. Don’t start thinking that way, Mamm.”
“Okay. I understand.” She patted his hand, then winked. She most certainly did not understand, and they both knew it. Fortunately, she changed the subject. “I want you to know that I am aware how inconvenient this move is for you. I’m sorry that it’s happening now. I’m sorry we can’t be here for you and Josh and Samuel.”
She stared down at her hands, and Zeb saw—maybe for the first time—just how misshapen her knuckles were. Of course, he’d known that his mamm suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for some time, but he hadn’t really paid attention. He’d been too distracted by his own troubles.
Now he covered her hands with his, squeezing them very lightly. “It’ll be gut for you to be near your schweschder. And the doctor said that Virginia would be a smart move. Mild winters, at least compared to what we have, and less humidity than the southern states.”
“I suppose so. No clouds are so dark that God cannot see through them.”
“Bible verse?”
“Amish proverb.”
He thought that their conversation was over. He’d even pushed away from the table, but Deborah cocked her head and started to say something, then stopped, then started again. “Sometimes love looks different the second time around.”
Not this again. He really didn’t need this. He had enough on his mind without the you should be dating again lecture. And maybe if she’d met his gaze and wagged a finger his direction he would have just smiled and walked away.
But Deborah didn’t do that.
She stared at her hands, rubbing the fingers of one over the swollen knuckles of the other.
“First love is exciting. It’s nervous anticipation and long looks and nights tossing in bed wondering if you’re imagining what you’re feeling. I’m not saying it isn’t real.” She glanced up and smiled softly. “It’s as real as this table or my swollen hands.”
Zeb waited. He knew there was more. Best to hear her out now. She would have her say, and apparently the impending move was giving her motherly angst. As if she couldn’t put her advice in a letter or speak it into a phone. As if she needed to say this face-to-face. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did. He’d learned to read people better since being married to Suzanne. He’d learned to give someone time to say what was in their heart.
“Second love though...well, of course we pray that it never comes to that. We hope and pray that the one we love in our youth will be by our side when we’re old. It didn’t happen that way for me. I was engaged to a very nice young man when I was only eighteen.”
Zeb nearly fell out of his chair. Had she said she’d been engaged to another man? He hadn’t heard this before. He knew that she was twenty-five when she’d married his father.
“He left the faith, or at least the Amish way. I couldn’t say whether he still follows the teachings of Christ. I hope he does. We lost contact after he moved—to New York City if you can believe that.”
“You’ve never mentioned this before.”
“You didn’t need to know then, but maybe...” She let her gaze drift around the kitchen and then finally land, softly land, on him. “Maybe you do now. I was hurt after that experience. Didn’t believe I’d ever fall in love again. Certainly never thought I’d marry.”
“And then you met Dat.”
Her worried expression morphed into the tenderest of smiles. “Not right away. And even when I did meet him, it took time before I would even consider the idea of love. You see, Zeb, I’d been hurt by the man who left.”
“He didn’t leave you.”
“Well. He left our Amish lifestyle—something I couldn’t imagine doing. When he left our community, our way of life, he also left me, and that was painful.”
“Wasn’t your fault though.”
“Of course it wasn’t, just as Suzanne’s leaving wasn’t your fault.”
He shook his head. “Different situation.”
“It is. It most certainly is.” She stood then, walked behind his chair and kissed him on the top of the head. It made him feel like a child. It made him feel loved and valued. “Just remember, son. Second love is different, but it’s every bit as precious.”
She kept talking, even as she once again pawed through a box of things she’d packed. “I wouldn’t change a moment of the life I’ve shared with your dat. I’m grateful for him, and for you and your bruder and Joshua. To think I might have missed out on all of that, because I thought love was supposed to be butterflies and puppy dog stares.”
Butterflies and puppy dog stares.
Those five words followed Zeb as he walked back out to the barn to tend to the horses. Is that what he’d had with Suzanne? Maybe it had started that way, but it had turned into a real love, a mature love.
And then that love had been yanked away.
His mamm might be right about second love, but personally, he didn’t think it was something that he would ever find out about in his own life.
He’d found childcare for Josh. He’d found a part-time job. One way or another, he would get a loan on this farm so that he could raise his son as he’d been raised, in the same place he’d been raised. But second love? Nope. He didn’t think so. He was pretty sure he was meant to be alone forever.