13

Barn swallows darted in and out of the ceiling rafters. Galen had a mare’s left rear hoof up on his thigh and was scraping caked dirt out of it with a hoof pick. Last evening, he noticed the mare looked a little lame and he wanted to check on her first thing this morning.

“Hello, neighbor.”

Galen straightened up at the sound of Rose’s voice. It was Monday, it was early, and he was in need of a shave. He wished he’d had a little warning that she was coming by.

Then he checked himself. Since when had he started worrying about what he looked like? Rose had seen him plenty of times looking pretty bad. Why did it suddenly matter? It shouldn’t.

But it did.

He looked over the mare’s neck at Rose and wondered how she was able to look fresh and pretty at this hour. He had a bunch of sisters—they sure didn’t look like that at the crack of dawn. “Morning, Rose.”

He could feel her eyes on him as he exchanged the hoof pick for a brush and began to run it over the mare’s neck and withers. “Something on your mind on this rainy morning?”

“That coyote took down one of my sheep last night. An eagle was working on the carcass.” She was trying to sound matter of fact, but Galen saw her shudder. It was a gruesome thing, what a coyote could do to a sheep. “I was hoping Jimmy wouldn’t mind helping me move it before Sammy wakes up. It was his pet sheep.”

Galen put down the hoof pick. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Isn’t Jimmy here?”

“No. He’s too busy chasing a horse he’ll never catch.”

“What do you mean?”

Galen straightened. “Two Saturdays ago, Jimmy decided he was going to be a horse breeder. He bought a colt off a trader that he thought would be his foundation stallion. Just like that.” He clicked his fingers together. “No vet check. No paperwork about the colt’s bloodlines. Not even a bill of sale.” He shook his head. “My grandmother Jorie used to keep charts and graphs of her Percherons’ traits, trying to find just the right match.”

“Jimmy’s learning a lot from you. Maybe it’ll all turn out just fine.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. The horse is gone.”

Her eyes went wide. “Gone? What happened?”

“Jumped the paddock and took off. That was the first time. The second time—he slipped out of his stall.”

“Twice? The horse has gotten loose twice?”

“Twice.” He lifted his chin. “Doesn’t that sound a little fishy to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an old scam called ‘The Runner.’ The trader sells the horse to a naïve buyer, but he’s trained the horse to return to him with some kind of signal—a whistle or a clicker. Then he scoops the horse up in his trailer and sells him to the next easy target.”

She looked at him, eyes wide. “Poor Jimmy.”

Galen rolled his eyes. “Save your pity. That boy needs to learn everything the hard way. This is a lesson he’ll never forget.”

Disappointment showed raw in her face. “Galen.”

“What?”

“He needs you. You could help him.”

“What?” The word came out as a tiny squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What? He hasn’t been asking for my advice.”

“Still, he’s just a boy.”

“He’s twenty-two. Maybe twenty-three. Plenty of Amish boys have married by that age.”

Her head snapped up. “You weren’t.”

Galen set his jaw at a stubborn tilt. “No. But I was entirely different—”

“Boys need time to grow up and become men.” She ran a hand down the mare’s long neck. “Jimmy reminds me of Tobe.”

Galen gave a hard, short laugh, which caused Rose to give him a sharp look. Tobe Schrock? Jimmy Fisher reminded her of her stepson? If that were true, they might be waiting a very long time. Tobe Schrock had never impressed Galen. The last time he had seen him was a few days before he vanished into thin air. Dean Schrock had brought a goat home for the little boys but hadn’t thought to buy feed for it, so he sent Luke over to borrow a bale of hay. When Galen reached the barn, he struggled to get the door open with the hay bale on his shoulder. Inside the barn was young Tobe Schrock, idle as usual, though there was plenty of work to be done. He sat on a wooden barrel playing a game of solitaire, using an upturned nail keg for a table. He glanced up at Galen, not even bothering to get off his duff to open the barn door. It evidently didn’t bother Tobe to play while others worked, a fact that annoyed Galen. He was tempted to kick the barrel and send him sprawling. He hadn’t, of course, but he had sorely wanted to.

“You of all people should be able to understand Jimmy. He lost his father when he was young, and his mother, well, you know what Edith Fisher is like. He’s trying to become a man and he needs you in his life. You should be helping him find his way in the world, not feeling smug like he deserved what he got.”

How was it suddenly Galen’s fault that Jimmy did something stupid?

“Promise me you’ll talk to him.”

Galen wasn’t about to make any such promise. Since when did the future of Jimmy Fisher become his responsibility? He was minding his own business when Deacon Abraham interfered—he hadn’t even wanted an apprentice in the first place. And now Rose made it sound like it was his job to be a father figure to the boy.

“Sense gets wasted on people until they learn to ask for help. Jimmy has to learn. It’s part of life,” he said, knowing how callous his words sounded to her.

“I just don’t understand you men. You won’t listen to anyone’s good advice, especially if it comes from a woman. You’re all alike. Stubborn and proud and independent and unbending. Just like . . .” She seemed about to say more, but thought better of it and clamped her lips shut. “Sometimes,” she added, “you have to keep talking until a person listens.”

Her gaze met his over the horse’s head. The silence between them took on a prickly tension, like a strand of wire pulled tightly between two fence posts.

As she turned to leave, Galen reached out and grabbed her sleeve. Her eyes were fixed on the hand that held her. In as gentle a voice as he could manage, he said, “I’ll make sure that coyote doesn’t trouble you again.”

“It’s part of life,” Galen had told her.

What part? Rose wanted to ask. The part where a sweet little sheep had its belly ripped open by a vicious coyote, where a mother-in-law turned into a child, and a boy lost his dream of finding the perfect horse? How difficult did life have to get before someone stepped in? To come alongside and make it better. So much for living the Plain life, where one never needed to face life alone, never needed to be afraid.

Being Plain never meant being perfect, she could hear Bishop Elmo’s voice say. Just yesterday in church, he had said it again. Only God is perfect.

She didn’t expect perfection, but this hardness Galen had for Jimmy, for Tobe—it nettled her. How could Galen possibly understand? Rose thought. He wasn’t married. He wasn’t a parent. He hadn’t raised a boy to become a man, only to discover that he had turned into somebody else entirely.

In many ways, Galen went out of his way to help her, as a neighbor, as a friend. But there was a part of him that remained aloof, separate, a little cold. It seemed nearly impossible for him to share his thoughts, his feelings. Sometimes, he seemed to her like a walnut that couldn’t be cracked open with a sledgehammer. When she tried, like she just had, she saw the expression in his face change in a flash—surprised, confused, then annoyed—before he stiffened up like wet leather left in the sun.

It dawned on her that she didn’t know how old Galen actually was, that he might be closer to Jimmy Fisher’s age than to hers. Imagine that. Not all that much older than Jimmy Fisher. And yet, they were worlds apart.

On Monday morning, a day full of problems stretched in front of Bethany. First, she was going with Naomi to the fabric store to get some material for a new dress. Naomi went straightaway to the solid colors, but Bethany stopped by a lightweight fabric of bright blue waves. She stroked the printed fabric and was amazed at how soft it felt, as soft as the velvet nose on Rose’s new colt. She felt a pang of longing.

Normally, Bethany didn’t spend much time thinking about all the things she had given up after moving in to her grandmother’s home: cell phones, cars, and lights that flipped on and off with a switch. There was usually a way to get the same thing done, even if it took a little longer. But it was another story entirely when it came to printed fabric.

Naomi came up behind her and said, “I can’t imagine why any woman would wear a fabric like that. Men would stop seeing the real beauty of a woman if she were dressed in that.”

Of course. Of course it would seem like that. Naomi would never understand why Bethany loved those prints. She was too good and pure and innocent. And she was right too. The Lord looked on a person’s inside, but people—men, especially—looked on the outside.

Bethany wouldn’t stay Old Order Amish forever. When Jake was ready to marry, she would return to the Mennonite church, become baptized, and be with him.

Just a little longer. Then she could wear all the prints she wanted to.

Bethany took a deep breath and walked over to the plain solid colors. She asked the shopkeeper to cut seven yards of a serviceable plum-colored fabric. As Naomi was getting her fabric measured and cut, Bethany walked by the wavy blue cloth one more time. What was it about that blue color that made her smile? The sight of it made her happy. Where had she seen it before? Then an image popped into her mind. It was the color of Jimmy Fisher’s eyes.

Naomi dropped Bethany and her scooter off at the farmers’ market and went home. Bethany waited until Naomi’s buggy was out of sight, stashed her scooter behind the dumpster, and hurried to the Stoney Ridge Bar & Grill. Her friend Ivy met her at the door, eyes wide. “What on earth happened here on Saturday night?”

“Nothing!” Bethany said. “Well, other than a drunk fellow pinched me and I left early, but I had finished my shift.” Almost finished.

Ivy seemed skeptical. “The manager wants to talk to you.”

Bethany walked into the main room. Her jaw dropped when she saw the condition of the dining room. Chairs were overturned, tables were knocked on their sides. Ted, the manager, was bent over, sweeping up broken glass.

“It looks like a tornado swept through this room!” Bethany said, righting a chair.

Ted straightened to look at her. His voice turned to smoke. “An Amish tornado.”

She swallowed. “Um, did this happen after I left on Saturday night?”

Ted gave her a look as if she might be one brick short of a full load. “Bethany, this job . . . it isn’t right for you. Your paycheck is waiting for you up by the cash register.”

Bethany could see the decision was made. She crossed the room to the cash register, stepping gingerly around broken bottles and stale puddles of beer, to find the envelope with her name on it. Ivy handed her a brown paper bag filled with clothing from her locker, then hugged her goodbye.

Bethany walked back to Ted. “What about my tip money from Saturday night?”

“Ah yes.” He dug into his own pocket, pressed a tip into her palm, then closed her fingers around it. “Here it is.” He turned around and went back to sweeping.

A one-dollar bill looked back at her.

Delia unpacked a few groceries in the little kitchen of the guest flat after she returned to Eagle Hill from a trip to the Bent N’ Dent. She didn’t want Rose to feel she needed to provide meals for her. Breakfast was enough.

As she tucked some apples in the fridge, she thought of the scene she had observed at the farmhouse last night. She had taken a walk up the hill behind the house to watch the sunset. As she came down the hill in the deepening dusk, her eyes were drawn to the only brightly lit room in the farmhouse—the rest of the house was dark. It was the living room, where Rose and the children were gathered around a board game at a table. Vera sat in a rocking chair nearby. Delia paused for a moment, touched by their pleasure over such a simple activity—laughing together, sharing a bowl of popcorn, eating sliced apples, having a wonderful time. Even Vera. A buttery glow from the kerosene lampshine in the room made the scene reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell or Thomas Kinkaid painting. It was so beautiful it hurt to look at it.

She couldn’t help but compare what this farmhouse might look like if it were filled with a typical American family: every light in the house would be on and each adult or child would be in a different room, probably facing the cold glow of a television or computer. Maybe that wasn’t a fair assessment of most Americans, but it would have been true of Delia’s home.

Delia heard a knock at the door and went to open it, assuming it was Rose.

There stood Charles. His gray-green eyes looked icy cold. “May I come in?”

She took a deep breath and tried to keep her hands from shaking, told herself she could do this. She stepped away from the door.

Charles walked in and looked around the small room, then spun around to face her. “Did you realize the police hauled me off to the station for questioning? They accused me of doing away with you. Accused me of being a wife killer. Me!” He thumped his chest with his fist. “Did you think of that when you decided to vanish?”

She closed the door, then lifted her chin. “Of course I didn’t. I should have told someone I was heading out of town. I never dreamed there would be such a fuss.”

“And why here, of all places?”

“Why should that matter? Why should it matter where I’ve been?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe it’s a passive-aggressive way to try to get to me. Make a dig at my upbringing? Try to help me remember my humble roots?”

Charles’s childhood was something he never discussed. He was raised Old Order Amish and left as a teenager to pursue college and a career in medicine. When she met him, he was a surgical resident. He told her he was estranged from his family—that they didn’t believe in higher education and were ashamed of him for wanting more out of life than farming. Charles always said the word “farming” like it was a terrible disease—something to be avoided. Contact with his family over the years was minimal, despite Delia’s encouragement. He even attended his parents’ funerals alone, insisting Delia and Will would be bored. She didn’t push Charles on the subject. It wasn’t worth it. Besides, it didn’t make any difference.

“Do you realize that this was the town where Will interned for the game commissioner when he was kicked out of college? What were you thinking?”

She knew.

Maybe, subconsciously, that was the reason she had jumped so impulsively at Lois’s suggestion. After Will had spent that spring on an Amish farm in Stoney Ridge, there was a change in Charles, a softening. He had even contacted his siblings to catch up on their news. That softening lasted until Will decided on vet school. Charles didn’t think being a veterinarian would be enough of a challenge to his son. But Will’s mind was made up, and Charles hardened again.

This time, Delia wasn’t going to budge. She was going to hold her ground. “Sit down. I will explain, but I’m only going to say this once.” Charles was a large man and tall, his stance a little threatening. She motioned to a chair but he didn’t move to it, which didn’t surprise her. “Not everything is about you, Charles.” She sat in the chair by the window and folded her hands. Surprisingly, she felt remarkably calm. “I have breast cancer.”

Charles sank slowly down in the chair.

“The day you told me that you were leaving me was the day I found out about the cancer. I was coming home to tell you, but your news trumped mine. Since then, I’ve had a lumpectomy. And I also found out that the . . . object of your . . . affections . . . is Robyn Dixon. I saw you in the car together, at the lawyer’s office when we were scheduled to meet. That’s the reason I left. I’m sorry it caused you a little inconvenience and bad publicity.”

He seemed to be fighting to make sense of what she was saying. “Are the . . . were the margins clear?”

“I don’t know. Dr. Zimmerman thought it was caught early, so I’m hoping so. I’ll call in tomorrow and see if the results are in. I can’t get reception out here, so I’ll have to go into town.”

She stood on wobbly legs and started for the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe we are finished with this conversation.”

Charles didn’t move. “Does Will know?”

She nodded. “We spoke on the phone.”

He leaned forward in the chair and steepled his fingers together. “I’ll call Zimmerman’s office tomorrow. I want to see all the op notes and get the test results. There’s a specialist in Boston I’m going to send you to.”

“No. No, you won’t. Dr. Zimmerman is an excellent doctor. You’re no longer making decisions for me. I can take care of myself.”

A muscle tightened in his jaw. “Don’t be foolish, Delia. You have every reason to be upset with me, but—”

“I don’t want you making any decisions for me. Not anymore.”

He rose to walk toward her. She held up her hand as he opened his mouth to protest. “You must know why. I don’t trust you, Charles. You have lied, you have cheated. You have destroyed our family. All that’s left is mistrust. And sadness.”

His throat moved up and down. For a moment, he looked away. On a shaky breath, he turned back to her. “I do have regrets, Delia.”

“Regret.” She gave a short laugh. “Like the regret you feel over the patient who had the stroke after the aneurysm surgery?”

Charles stared at her, his face settling into deep lines, and Delia stared back, her head held high, erect. “What does that have to do with us?”

She gave a short laugh. “Everything! You can’t admit you make mistakes.”

“I did not make a mistake in that surgery. But I do have regret for the patient.”

“That’s not the same thing as being sorry. Truly sorry.” A flash of fury rose inside of her. “Has it ever occurred to you to apologize to that patient? Just to admit that you’re sorry?”

“I said I had regret over that outcome!”

“No, your ego is bruised, but that patient’s life is forever changed. So is her husband’s life. You need to tell them how sorry you are. Sincerely sorry.” She paused. “No, no. It’s more than that. Not just a professional apology, without accepting any blame. You need to ask her to forgive you for not preparing her for the risks of surgery.”

He looked at her as if a cat had spoken. “Do you realize what that would mean? What it could do to me, professionally? Legally? And it wouldn’t change a thing.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I think that patient and her husband need something from you before they can move on with their life. I know you didn’t intend to cause her any harm, but the fact is that she trusted you. She trusted you with her life. You need to ask for her forgiveness. You owe the woman that much.”

For a moment Charles said nothing, and his mouth kept that tight, stern look. Then he sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. “You’re not being rational. I realize you’re under a great deal of stress—”

“I believe we’ve both said enough,” she said in a curt tone. She reached for the door handle and opened the door. “Please go.”

She surprised him so, a stain of red flushed on his cheekbones. He looked at her now as if he’d never seen her before, as if she wasn’t the Delia he had known for half his life.

Charles stopped at the threshold, reaching out a hand to Delia, but she flinched and he pulled it away. He headed out to his car. Before he climbed in, he gazed all around the farm. Then he gave his head a shake, as if he were dusting something off, and drove away.

As she saw the car disappear down the road, tears welled in her eyes. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but this was Charles and she had loved him so much. Her heart felt so bruised it was hard to breathe. What happened to us, Charles? Our love was supposed to last forever.

Maybe she shouldn’t have said what she said. She shouldn’t have blurted out that she had cancer, but the stunned look on his face was gratifying. She wanted to make him pay for the suffering he had caused. She wanted him to hurt.

She wished she could turn back time, to try to find the moment when they had started to lose each other, and to fix it.

More than anything, seeing him again, she realized she just wanted him back.