“Just think about it.”
She nodded, but she stood in that same spot until he picked up the guitar, gave her a tiny salute, and turned away. At the door, he pivoted on the crutch. “Bring your lyrics. I can start putting them to music if you want.”
Did she want? She did. God help her. “I don’t know. They’re not ready yet.”
“They’re ready. See you.”
With Captain hobbling behind, he slipped out, a self-satisfied grin on his face that said he knew he was right.
His absence seemed to suck all the air and light from the room.
She held the iPod against her heart, wishing she had time to listen to it now. To hear what he heard. “Jackson, what are you doing to me?”
Her words echoed in the big room. No answer came. “What am I doing to myself?”
T
he pungent aroma of frying catfish, dipped in flour and spices and dropped into oil heated on the open grill, wafted over Adah. Even after consuming a full plate of freshly caught and fried fish, coleslaw, potato salad, and more than her share of deviled eggs, she found her mouth watering. Mudder’s idea of a fish fry had been a good one. After the prayer service they’d had a whole afternoon for visiting with family and friends. Tired, she sighed, stretched, and began to pick up the dirty dishes from one of the picnic tables placed along the banks of the creek that meandered through the Troyers’ property. This spot, with its thick fringe of huge sycamores, elms, and poplars, fully loaded with shade-giving leaves, served as everyone’s favorite gathering place.
She should’ve been rested and ready for her baptism class this morning. Instead, she’d almost nodded off after spending half the night listening to the songs on the iPod Jackson had given her. Memorizing the words without meaning to do so. Humming the melodies and imagining how she would play them on Jackson’s guitar. Finally sleeping and dreaming of songs mingled with music filling the air over the pond on the Harts’ property. Thomas had called on her twice in class and she hadn’t added anything to the discussion, hadn’t even known where to begin. At first Matthew had looked happy to see her there, but as the lesson progressed, he’d looked perplexed and confused and then stony. He hadn’t spoken to her.
Not once.
She was too tired to figure it out. What she wanted. What she should do. They were two different things. She wanted to stretch out on the blankets with the napping babies. She wanted to cast a line in the river and stick her pole in the mud the way the older kinner were doing even though the men had caught more than enough catfish to feed most of the families in the district. She wanted to stick her feet in the mud and feel it ooze between her toes and think of nothing else.
She wanted to listen to the rumble of the men, deep in conversation at their tables, discussing crops and weather and who knows what else, the patter of their deep voices enough to allow her to grab on to a sense of security and comfort that seemed to be lost as she grew up.
She would slip away in a few minutes and snooze by the babies. A little bit of sleep and she’d be better. No one would notice.
“Leave those dirty dishes and come visit with us,” Mudder called from the picnic table she shared with half a dozen other women. She patted a seat on the bench next to her. “Emma and Katie are telling us about the building they found for the store. Thomas and Silas already put the money down to buy it. They just have to clean it up and we can start carrying in the items we want to sell.”
Elizabeth sat on the other side. Adah tried to bat away the feelings that washed over her every time she saw the woman. It wasn’t her fault she lived in the same house as Matthew. Adah had no right to blame her for any of the problems between her and Matthew. They’d begun before her arrival. Still, she looked so calm and sure of herself. So content. What man wouldn’t want such a woman as his fraa? “I was just going to stack the dishes—”
“They’ll still be there in five minutes. Come on, Adah, sit a spell. Take a load off.” Bethel Christner dunked a chunk of fish in the red sauce and held it up to her mouth, pausing as if admiring her work. “I have three quilts ready to sell the minute you open. And a dozen baby blankets.”
Adah ignored the spot between her mudder and Elizabeth and slid instead into the corner seat across from Bethel. The older woman popped the fish in her mouth and chewed with an air of great
satisfaction, swallowed, and then wiped at her mouth with a red checkered paper napkin. “I figure we can save the money toward medical expenses in the future.”
Almost simultaneously the women at the table glanced toward the padded tops of Bethel’s crutches leaning against the far end of the table. Getting Bethel down to the edge of the river on those crutches had been a chore. She refused to let Elijah carry her, calling the idea silly. The look on his face as he watched her slow, torturous descent had etched itself on Adah’s memory. She wanted someone to look at her like that. So caring, so committed to making sure she didn’t fall, didn’t hurt herself. Would Jackson do that? Matthew would, no doubt, none at all.
At least he would’ve if she’d said yes that night at the pond. All she had to do was say four words.
I love you too.
What about Jackson?
“We’d like to add on to the house—not just the dawdi haus, but more bedrooms.” Mary Troyer shredded a piece of sourdough bread between her fingers, her expression absent. Dark circles around her eyes said she hadn’t been sleeping well or had been working extra hard with all her company. “Aaron has a few pieces of furniture to sell. He’ll make more once we get the harvest in.”
“It’s fun. Opening a new store is fun. It’ll be good for us. We’ll sell much more than we did at the roadside stand or at our farms. Being in town is good.” Bethel selected another piece of fish from the platter sitting in the middle of the table, this time dousing it in tartar sauce. “My physical therapist used to tell me attitude is everything. I believed her. I still do, even though I didn’t get the answer to my prayers that I wanted.”
“You do just fine.” Mudder patted the other woman’s shoulder. “A fine family you’re making with Elijah.”
Bethel smiled, her free hand going to her big belly in a self-conscious gesture. “I’d hoped for a breather, really. John is a handful now that he’s walking. Yesterday he pulled a sack of flour over and dumped it all over the floor. Then he decided it would be fun to play in
it. By the time I cleaned it up and cleaned him up, the ham and cheese casserole had burned.”
As if on cue, a high-pitched wail broke the peace of a Sunday afternoon in the great outdoors. “That would be my boy.” Bethel reached for her crutches. “His is the loudest ruckus of any baby I’ve ever heard. It’s as if he hears his name and has to get in on the conversation. He never sleeps more than an hour at naptime and wakes up at least once or twice during the night with a caterwauling that would wake the dead.”
“Have you tried giving him a snack of bread and butter before bed?” Phoebe asked, as if she, mudder of a tiny one-month-old girl named Loralee, had a store of wisdom to draw on. “Maybe he wakes up hungry because he’s such a big boy for his age.”
“He eats like a horse,” Bethel conceded. She winced and rubbed her belly again. “And this little one kicks like a horse.”
“You sit, I’ll get him.” Adah popped up, waving Bethel back into her seat. “Rest. I’m young and I don’t have a baby waking me in the middle of the night.”
“I’m still young.” Bethel pretended to be offended, but she grinned and sank back onto the bench. “But I’m no fool. I’ll let you. I don’t recall the last night I had a good night’s sleep. Between carrying John and then having him and now carrying another…”
Adah didn’t remember the last time she’d had a good night sleep either, but for completely different reasons.
“You love it,” Katie Christner shook a finger at Bethel. “Don’t tell us you don’t.”
“Every minute of every day.” Bethel’s smile grew wider. “I never forget how close I came to not having this. Who could want more than this? Gott is good!”
He was indeed. So why couldn’t Adah be as content as all these women, her family and friends, seemed to be? She had no answer for that question, one she could never ask aloud. “I’d better get him before he wakes the others.”
She strode toward the blankets they’d spread under the shade of the
live oaks for the sleeping babies. Dry grass crackled under her bare feet, tickling her toes. A burr bit into her sole. She stopped, hopped on one foot, and picked it out, head bent, the hot sun beating on her back. She didn’t want Mudder to see her face. Mudder had grandchildren now, with Hiram and Daniel’s growing broods. And she still had a baby at home with little Jonathan. She never seemed tired. She always seemed thankful. She saw only the blessings, never the burden. Why couldn’t Adah be content like Mudder and Bethel?
John’s cries intensified and Adah hastened to the blanket. They didn’t need all the babies awake. He’d rolled over on his tummy and scooted toward the edge of the blanket, his small face scrunched up in determination as he tried to plant himself on his short, fat feet. He looked so like Elijah with his blue eyes and tufts of blond hair sticking up all over his small head. Adah grinned and scooped him up. “What’s the problem, little John? You’re supposed to be sleeping and letting your mudder rest for a bit, don’t you know that?” She held his warm body to her chest, inhaling the scent of baby. And something else. She held him away from her, shaking her head at his red, tear-stained face. “Phew. No wonder you’re fussing. I’d fuss too if I smelled like that.”
His wailing increased in intensity. “Hush, hush, you silly goose. You’re fine. It’s just a dirty diaper.” She plunked him on the blanket on his back and reached for the bag of diapers and supplies left to one side for everyone’s use. Emma’s little one slept blithely on, as did Rachel’s and Phoebe’s and baby Jonathan, who looked like a miniature Daniel. Everyone with their babies. Something caught at Adah’s throat. She swallowed against it and focused on the smelly bundle of joy in front of her. “You hush now before you wake your cousin Loralee. Your Aenti Phoebe wouldn’t appreciate that.”
John didn’t seem to care. He flailed about, arms and legs flying in all directions, making it hard for her to remove the offending diaper. “Will you stop, you little floppy fish?” She grabbed his legs by the ankles and hung on. “What you need is a song.”
The words came to her with little or no thought. A lullaby floating about, waiting to be released from her innermost thoughts and dreams.
Little one, if only you could see
What I see when you’re sitting on my knee
Blue eyes so wide, staring back at me.
Baby, you are an empty slate yet to be filled
With the life God has willed.
John’s thrashing body stilled. His crying stilled at the soft voice singing a song just for him, not the adults close by. He stared up at her with those big, wondering, bright eyes. Still singing, she removed the stinky diaper, wiped his bottom clean, and patted him dry.
Little one, if only you could see
What I see when you are sitting upon my knee
Blue eyes so wide staring back at me.
Humming, she paused to contemplate the rhyme. “Field, kneeled, reeled, wield…”
Summers of sun and work in the field
A back made strong by the tools you’ll wield.
Winters of snow and venison stew
Days filled with all the work you must do
.
The new diaper firmly in place, she pulled the baby’s long shirt down and hoisted him to her lap. He’d ceased to cry, but she continued to sing. He seemed to like it and she did too. She let her voice meander about, quietly, not waking the other babies, but still exploring the song.
Only a few things are sure in this life.
There will be laughter and tears.
A mudder to quiet your fears.
A daed to teach you wrong and right.
To teach you about sin,
To learn from where you’ve been,
To look ahead at where you’ll go,
To look always to God and you’ll know
He’ll be wherever you go.
He’ll be wherever you go.
He’ll be wherever you go.
Little one, if only you could see
What I see when you’re sitting on my knee
Blue eyes so wide looking back at me.
God’s love painted on your face.
God’s love shining back at me.
He’ll be wherever you go.
He’ll be wherever you go.
He’ll be wherever we go.
Wherever we go.
Wherever we go.
“I’ve often pictured you doing that.”
The words dying on her lips, Adah looked up. Matthew towered over her, his broad shoulders blocking the sun behind him. He lugged an ice cream maker in his arms, a towel wrapped around the top to keep the rock salt in place.