“That we can agree on.” Ben cleared his throat. “Her…everything is riding on this.”
“I’ll bring her home.”
“Branson is a crowded place.” Daniel scratched at his chin as if he still hadn’t gotten used to the beard he’d started growing after his marriage the previous year. “When I went to fetch Michael, I had a hard time finding him in Jefferson City. How will you find her in a place like Branson?”
“Daniel’s right. I talked with Mrs. Hart on Friday. She said to leave them alone. She called Adah and Jackson both lost causes.” Ben’s voice broke and his face reddened. “She wouldn’t give me the address.”
The fact that Ben had gone to the Harts nearly knocked Matthew to the ground in surprise. Ben had put aside his hurt pride and gone to the Englischers. He tried to cover his broken heart with a thorny exterior, but he must miss his daughter something fierce to go talk to Mrs. Hart.
“I’ll find a way.” Matthew had to bring her home, not just for himself but for Ben and Irene. “There’s always a way. If I have to visit every house in the town, I’ll find her.” He locked gazes with Ben. “That’s the plan.”
“Gut.”
Matthew nodded at the other men and left them sitting there, already moving on to the topic of the weather in the coming week. He strode to the table where his own father sat a few feet from the boys, his expression morose as he devoured a plate of what looked like taco casserole. Matthew sat on the bench across from him and waited. Finally, Daed looked up. He finished chewing and wiped his beard with a napkin. “You’re going after her, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
Daed tossed the napkin on his plate. “You’re a man now. You make your own decisions.”
“Luke, Silas, and Thomas agree that we have to at least try.”
“Why you?”
“Because she might listen to me.”
“Even if she does come back, there’s no guarantee she won’t run off again.”
“I know.”
“You have a girl right under your nose who would make a fine fraa.”
“Did you marry Mudder for her cooking?”
Daed’s jaw worked. “You may be a member of the church now, but that doesn’t give you the right to disrespect me.”
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful.” Matthew put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. He sought to keep his voice low. “A man doesn’t choose a wife with his head.”
“You’ve been talking to your groossdaadi.”
“He’s been talking to me. He told me not everyone thought you should marry Mudder.”
Daed’s face went a dark purple. “Your mudder is a fine woman.”
“I know. She’s my mudder.”
“We married young. We had a lot to learn, but we learned. Me as much as your mudder.”
“Which is what I’m trying to get at.”
“I know what you’re getting at.” Daed cleared his throat. He glanced at the twins, who were demolishing plates heaped with ham, potato salad, coleslaw, and three rolls apiece. He pushed his plate aside and leaned closer. “Today you made the most important decision you’ll ever make. Taking a fraa is the second. You done good today. I just want you to stay on the right road.”
A veritable speech for a man like Daed. “Trust my judgment. You raised me right.” Matthew rose. “The decision, in the end is mine.”
Daed rose as well. “Remember, Gott’s will, not yours.”
Matthew never forgot that fact. “They say God helps those who help themselves.”
“Then go, help yourself. But guard your heart.”
Guarding his heart had gotten him to this place. Time to let go and trust. Time to bring Adah home.
A
dah plucked a few long pieces of grass and began to braid them together. The sun hung low over the lake, giving it a glassy sheen. No wind rustled the leaves in the branches of the sycamore tree that gave her small spot of shade. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steamy air. It smelled like dirt and lake and peace. The sound of the lapping water soothed her to the core. So did Captain’s snoring, silly as that sounded. The dog could sleep anywhere. Another minute or two and she might lay her head on his back and snore right along with him. The dog had taken to meeting her at the door when she arrived home from work and following her about the house like her faithful companion. Another fact among many that irritated Jackson.
Since their discussion in the rain on the street, he’d been polite and distant. The easy give and take had disappeared, leaving behind awkward silences and sudden exits from rooms. She wanted to fix it, but that wasn’t possible. More and more, she knew that. She had to find a way to tell him. What he was waiting for would never come.
She let the thought drift off on the lapping water. The anxiety of the songs she couldn’t write in that house—or anywhere close to Jackson these days—dissipated in the light airiness of a Sunday summer evening. Her inability to sing in front of an audience no longer seemed a monumental failure. At least as long as she could smell peace and hear the blue jays bickering on their perch overhead.
Thank You Gott, for this.
“Adah! Adah, where are you?”
She sighed and opened her eyes. The sun dipped beyond the horizon, its absence resulting in a drab, gray-black dusk somewhere between night and day.
“Adah, come on. I’ve got news. Mac called.”
She tossed the miniature grass braid into the water and stood. Captain stirred, yawned until his jaw should’ve cracked, and rose next to her, his smiling face quizzical. The cool grass tickled her bare feet. She forced a smile and stepped out from behind the tree. “Here I am. What is it?”
Clad in a swim suit and wrinkled T-shirt stained with pizza sauce, Jackson stomped down the path toward her looking like an Englisch teenager on a camping trip. “I just got the wildest phone call from Mac. You won’t believe it. Or maybe you will.”
Something in his voice told Adah Jackson didn’t quite believe it. This might be good news for someone, but not for him. “What did he say?”
“They want you. Country Notes want you.”
Earlier in the summer, Jackson had taken her to see their show with its patriotic theme and gospel songs and three generations of singers from one family. She’d been awestruck by the music, but not as excited about the strange comedy acts and the volume. Everything boomed. The bright lights made their clothes glitter and sparkle. She didn’t know where to look first. A confetti canon in the first act had sent her diving under her seat. By the end, she didn’t know whether to clap her hands over her ears or her eyes.
Jackson assured her over and over on the ride home that she’d get used to it. At the time she’d kept the thought to herself that she hoped she would never have to do that.
“How do they know about me?”
Jackson stopped a few feet away. His gaze, filled with something she couldn’t decipher, lifted to the lake beyond her shoulder. “You know the answer to that question better than I do.”
“I have no idea what you’re talk about.”
“You suddenly have amnesia?”
“Amnesia?”
His gaze dropped like a stone into the water. “You recorded a song at the studio the day we met Mac there and you don’t remember doing it? Were you sleepwalking at the time? Or drunk? Oh, no, I forgot, you don’t drink. You’re too perfect for that.”
“I’m not perfect.” Her throat tight with unshed tears, she choked on the words. God and her parents knew how far from perfect their daughter was. She was so filled with shame, she could barely lift her voice to pray or sing. “I’m not.”
“No, you’re sure not. Not when it comes to being a partner…or a friend.”
“What song are you talking about?”
“You really don’t remember recording a song at the studio the day we went over there back in July, the day you freaked out and couldn’t sing a decent note?” He smoothed the black whiskers on his chin that had been allowed to grow beyond the five o’clock shadow he usually sported. “After I left, suddenly you got it together, apparently, and sang like a pro for the sound tech.”
The truth of his words flooded her. Singing alone, without the band, and without Jackson. “I didn’t know he was recording.”
“It’s a recording studio. What did you think he was doing?”
“He said to practice so I practiced, that’s all. Trying to get over my stage fright.”
“Apparently you practiced real good. Ralph Dillon wants to meet you tomorrow morning. He wants you to sing with his daughters.”
“I can’t.” And she shouldn’t. “This isn’t for me.”
“This is your big break. You gave up everything for this—at least that’s what you keep telling me.”
Harping on that surely hurt Jackson more than he let on. “You’ve seen what happens to me in public.”
“Get over it.” He whirled and trudged up the path. “I’ll drive you. Ain’t got nothing better to do.”
Maybe she could still make it up to him. If he sang, they would see how good he was and she could leave him to his dream. “Will you sing with me?”
He turned back to face her. “Don’t work that way. They ain’t asking for me.”
“I won’t do it without you.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
The force of his words hit her like the switch Daed used to whack on her backside. She flinched but stood her ground. “I’m not singing unless you sing too. That was the deal.”
“Look.” He blew out air and began to trace a pattern in the dirt with his bare toe, his gaze averted. “I appreciate that. Really I do. But that’s not the way things work in this town. You get a chance, you take it. It won’t come around again.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do. You get your foot in the door. Maybe you get a chance to throw some of that luck my way.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“I’m sure.” He smiled at her for the first time, not that blinding smile that nearly knocked her from her sneakers that first day at the corral on the farm, but an older, sadder smile that made him look like his father. “You should be practicing instead of standing around talking to me. You’re singing with the Dillon sisters tomorrow.”
She wanted to stay here by the lake in the fading sun with Jackson, playing guitars and singing for the frogs and crickets the way they used to do at the pond on his parents’ farm, but she would try to do this for him. Once he had a foot in the door, she would go home. And face the music of another kind. “I’ll try. I’ll do my best, but you know I’m not cut out for this.”
“Come on, Amish girl, pony up.” Still smiling, he cocked his head toward the house. “Don’t chicken out. I’ll help you.”
She wasn’t a chicken. “I’m sorry about the recording.”
“I’m sorry I called you an idiot.”
“Apology accepted.”
He stomped up the path, not looking back to see if she and Captain followed.
Adah gazed at the lake one last time. It had lost its shimmer in the
prevailing dark of night. Captain whimpered. “It’s okay, boy, he’s just hurt. We all are.”
The words of a hymn she’d grown up singing at prayer service washed over her. She began to sing the familiar words, softly at first, barely a whisper. Then louder as the last wisp of light faded away.
With joy I sing.
The first line reverberated around her again and again.
With joy I sing.
How long had it been since she sang with joy?
M
atthew sat in the buggy, waiting. The sun beat down on its black roof, sucking in the heat. No breeze wafted through the small, square windows. He felt as if he were baking in an oven. If he got out, he’d endure the stares of every child and every teenager who had spent the last several hours cooling off at New Hope’s only public swimming pool. He was used to the stares, but today he wasn’t in the mood. The clean smell of the chlorine wafted through the metal fence that surrounded the swimming pool. It mixed with the aroma of hotdogs steaming at the concession stand. The sound of whoops and hollers built to a crescendo as some child he couldn’t see got up the nerve to hop from the top diving board or do a belly flop from the side.
It would be worth the wait as soon as RaeAnne Hart strolled from the stone building that had served as the bath house for the pool since it opened in the seventies. Or so said the plaque on the front next to the open doors. He’d read it forty times while waiting for her. Maybe she’d taken the day off from her lifeguarding job. Her first job, according to Molly, who heard everything while shelving books at the library. According to some girl who chattered with a friend in the magazine section, RaeAnne’s parents made her do it to keep her out of trouble until her senior year at New Hope High. They didn’t want her to end up like her big brother Jackson, down in Branson on some wild goose
chase. Too much information as far as Matthew was concerned. Englisch kids working to pass the time.
He didn’t have time for this. He had actual work to do. He had soybeans and milo to harvest and fryers to butcher. And a fence that needed mending. And a horse with a lame leg. He picked up the reins. Then put them down again. He’d promised Ben he would bring Adah home and that was what he intended to do. Even if his own father didn’t approve.
If Daed remembered at all how he felt about Mudder when they courted, he would understand. A man might be able to change his mind about a woman, but not his heart. A heart did what it wanted to do.