Summer Promise (11 page)

“Leah, I have a proposal for you,” Eli said.

“What?”

“I'd like to propose a truce,” he went on. “I think that we got off on the wrong foot, you and I. Do you think we could start over?”

“No,” Leah said. She shot a glance in Eli's direction just in time to see a dark blush suffuse his face. “But I think that we could start fresh, from right now. My
onkel
John says you can never start over, but it is never too late to start walking with God.”

“I should have known you'd have something like that to say,” Eli remarked, but there was no sting in his tone. He held out a hand. “Truce?”

Leah relinquished her grip on the reins long enough to put one hand in Eli's. “Truce.”

They shook hands, then drove in silence for several moments.

“Do you like living with Victor?” Leah finally inquired.

“
Ja
,” Eli answered shortly, and Leah thought he sounded surprised by his own reply. “I wasn't certain I would, at first. He is very strict, but now that I have been with him a while . . . he's fair, too. That's more important, I think.”

“I think so, too.”

“Watch out,” Eli said with a sudden grin. “We don't want to start agreeing about
too
much.”

“Do you know,” Leah said, “somehow, I don't think that's going to be a problem.”

Honk. Honk!

A big black car swept by, pulling out around the buggy with just inches to spare, blaring the horn. The Millers' normally even-tempered horse snorted and shied, jerking the buggy, hard, toward the side of the road.

Instantly Eli leaned over and placed his hands over Leah's where she held the reins, adding his strength to hers as she struggled to control the frightened horse.

“Easy, easy, now, girl,” he said. “Steady. Stay steady.”

The horse gave one last toss of her head and then stopped, blowing hard through her nostrils.

“Are you all right?” Eli asked.

Leah nodded. Eli relinquished his hold on the reins and got out of the buggy. “What's her name?” he asked Leah as he moved to the horse's head, speaking quietly to the animal the whole time.

“Blossom,” Leah told him. She watched as he ran his hand down the horse's neck, soothing her. Leah could see that the horse was still trembling, but she was also watching Eli with interest. He let the mare sniff his hand, then he ran it down the side of her neck. Blossom nudged him with her head. A moment later, she leaned against Eli's chest.

“I think Blossom trusts you,” Leah observed.

“I like horses,” he said simply. He kept stroking the mare. “That's it, Blossom. There we go, girl.” His voice was low and reassuring, and Leah could see the horse calming. He glanced up and met Leah's eyes. He gave a nod, as if to reassure her that everything was under control. After a few minutes, he climbed back into the buggy. The horse stood quietly.

“
Danki
,” Leah said the moment Eli was back beside her. “She usually doesn't startle like that. I'm not sure what happened, I—”

“I know what happened,” Eli said, his tone grim. “That
Englischer
honked at us on purpose.”

“Well,” Leah said, “thank God no harm was done.” She went to lift the reins and realized that her hands were trembling. “I feel so silly!” she exclaimed. “Maybe I should just have you drive us home.”

Eli's head whipped toward her as if pulled by a string. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it again.

“I can't do that, Leah. I'm sorry.”

“I don't understand.”

Eli let out a long, slow breath. “You really don't know, do you?”

“No,” Leah answered steadily. “Whatever it is, I do not know.”

“It's because of how I hurt my leg, the reason I came to live with Victor in the first place,” Eli began. “Would you just—
can
you drive? I think this would be easier if we were moving.”

By way of answer, Leah checked the road behind her, and then chirruped to the horse. Her easygoing temper restored, the mare pulled the buggy back onto the road once more.

“I was in an accident, back home in Ohio,” Eli continued in a quiet voice. “My best friend, Reuben, and I were buggy racing, late at night.”

“Buggy racing!” Leah exclaimed, then caught herself. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to interrupt you.”

“That's all right,” Eli said. “Your reaction is the sensible one. But Reuben and I didn't think of the danger, or if we did, we thought it only added to the excitement.”

“What happened?”

“We took a curve too fast. The road was wet, and the buggy overturned. Both Reuben and I were thrown out. I hurt my leg, but Reuben ended up with a concussion and a broken collarbone, and his father's buggy was destroyed.”

“And the horse?”

Eli's lips curved in the faintest of smiles. “The horse was fine. But after I got out of the hospital, Mamm decided I should come to live with Victor for a while. I was too wild for her to handle, she said, and I would set a bad example for the little ones.”

He sent Leah a sidelong look. “You're sure you've never heard any of this before?”

“
Quite
sure,” Leah answered firmly. “Nor have I heard anybody else speak of it, Eli.”

“Not even your
onkel
?”

“My
onkel
John is not a gossip,” Leah said.

“No,” Eli acknowledged. “But Reuben's father is the bishop of our district.”

“Oh,” Leah said.

“So you see my point. Somebody here besides Victor must know. I thought you all did. I thought—”

“You thought we were talking about you behind your back,” Leah suddenly interrupted.

“
Ja
,” Eli answered shortly.

“Eli,” Leah said, “no one is talking about you. Not that I know of.” All of a sudden, she grinned. “Not in that way, anyhow. I
have
heard a couple of the other girls say they thought you were handsome. I didn't pay much attention, myself.”

“Did you not?” Eli asked after a moment.

“No,” Leah said. “I am not that kind of girl.”

“No, you're not, are you?”

Leah guided Blossom up one last hill. In just a few moments, the farm stand would come into view.

“Leah,” Eli suddenly said, “you should stop and let me out.”

“What?”

“Stop the buggy and let me get down,” Eli insisted. “I can walk the rest of the way.”

Leah opened her mouth to make a smart comeback about just whose reputation Eli wanted to protect, then closed it again with a snap. She thought she knew the answer now. Without another word, she guided the buggy to the shoulder and brought it to a halt. Eli climbed down.

“Thank you again for stopping,” he said. “I'll see you at the farm stand.”

Before Leah could so much as utter a word, Eli strode off. Leah pulled back onto the road and completed the journey to her aunt and uncle's home. It was only as she was carrying the precious new lamp into the house that she realized she had forgotten to ask Eli what he'd been doing in town.

Ten

M
iriam stood in the center of the kitchen, hands on hips, arms akimbo. Midday dinner was over, and the dishes were done. Daniel had gone back to the fields, and Sarah had walked to the farm stand to take some dinner to Leah and Eli. Miriam knew that she could follow her sister there, knew that maybe even she should. The farm stand was her responsibility now, after all. Or, if she stayed up at the house, the list of things she could be doing was at least as long as her arm.

But for the first time in as long as she could remember, the first time ever, in fact, Miriam didn't want to do anything on her usual to-do list. She didn't want to walk back and forth to the farm stand one more time. She didn't want to do a load of laundry so she could get some washing out on the line while the weather was still fine. She didn't want to do any of the things she usually did. So what was she doing?

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, doing nothing.

And it had to stop. It had to stop right now.

It seemed just a short while ago that she'd welcomed the day-to-day repetition. Now she turned in a slow circle, surveying the kitchen she so loved. How had her determination to carry on as if everything was normal become so strained?

You know the answer to that well enough, Miriam Brennemann,
she thought. Everything was not normal. It wasn't normal at all.

There had been days, this past week, when Miriam could have sworn the old farmhouse, spacious as it was, had been strained to the breaking point. Because there were four of them living in the old Lapp farmhouse. Daniel, Sarah, Miriam, and Silence. A silence that grew with every passing day. A silence so enormous and profound, it all but had its own shape and form. It sat beside Miriam and Daniel at the breakfast table each morning. Put its feet up on the footstool in the living room after supper each evening. It covered Miriam and Daniel like a winter quilt when they crawled into bed each night. The weight of the silence seemed to push Miriam down into the mattress so that she could hardly summon the strength to roll over. She awoke, bleary-eyed, to muscle her way through another day until finally she had no choice but to face the truth:

The work of your hands was just work and no more if it wasn't also the work of your heart.

All of a sudden, Miriam knew exactly what she wanted to do. She left the kitchen and headed upstairs to her bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time just like she had as a child. She drew the drapes for privacy, then opened her closet and pulled out her oldest dress, the faded blue one she wore for her most hardworking chores. She changed clothes quickly then headed back downstairs.

Hurry, hurry,
she thought.

She left the house, stopping in the barn to grab two buckets. Then, finally, Miriam was walking swiftly away from the house. Away from the fields where the men were working. The buckets swinging at her sides, Miriam felt her spirits lift with every step she took.

Blackberry picking. She really should have thought of this before.

* * *

An hour later Miriam stopped to stretch, raising her arms above her head and lifting her face to the afternoon sun. The day was warm. Sweat trickled down Miriam's back as she worked among the arching canes. It dampened her face and her hairline as it disappeared beneath her
kapp
, but she didn't mind. Miriam loved picking berries. She had loved it ever since she was small. When she was a girl, she'd been particularly adept at wriggling her way into the very center of the blackberry patch to find the berries the birds had left behind. She always came out scratched within an inch of her life by the canes' sharp thorns.

I am too big to do that now,
she thought, though she was still grateful for her long sleeves. Even without trying to get to the center of the mass of canes, Miriam's arms would have been scratched to pieces without something to protect them. She still loved to pick, though, and this wild patch of blackberries, tucked against the flank of one of the small hills on the farm's far edge, had always been her favorite spot. She and Sarah used to come here every summer for days on end, picking until their fingers were stained purple with berry juice.

And our mouths, too,
Miriam remembered with a smile. She sighed. She picked up the first bucket, nearly full now, and walked to another part of the blackberry patch, angling her body so that she could reach up high. As often as she had thought of Daniel in these last few weeks, Miriam had thought of Sarah just as often. She had so many memories of Sarah, and the truth was that most of them were happy ones. Why did those seem to want to slip away so quickly, Miriam wondered, while the memories that brought her pain held on? She pulled a handful of berries toward her, her sleeve snagging on a particularly large thorn.

“Miriam! I'm caught!”

Sarah's childish voice suddenly sounded in Miriam's mind. She froze as the memory swept over her. How old had they been that day? She could not have been more than ten, she realized, which would have made Sarah about eight. It was one of their first berry-picking expeditions on their own. Determined to reach a particularly fine specimen and so impress Daed with her skill, Sarah had ducked her head beneath a high, arching cane. But when she tried to pull her head back, she moved too quickly and the thorns caught on her
kapp
and held it fast. She could not turn around. The normally adventuresome Sarah was frightened and called out for Miriam, who quickly came running. She saw in a flash what must be done.

“Untie your
kapp
,” Miriam told her sister.

“I can't! I can't move!”
Sarah cried, her voice panicked.

“Don't be silly, of course you can.”

“I'm not silly!” Sarah protested. “I'm smart for my age. The teacher said so.”

“Then untie your
kapp
,” Miriam said. “You can do it.”

Sarah's fingers trembled as she fumbled with the
kapp
strings. But at last she got them undone. She wriggled out of her head covering, crouching down so that the
kapp
dangled from the cane above her head.

“Now back out slowly,” Miriam instructed. “Don't hurry, Sarah, you'll just make things worse. I'm right here. I'm right behind you.”

Slowly, Sarah inched her way backward out of the canes. When she was finally free of them, she spun around and threw her arms around Miriam.

“I was so scared,” she said. “I didn't know where you were.”

“I'm right here. I'll always be right here,” Miriam had promised.

It was as if she could still feel the press of her sister's small body against hers. Feel the strength of her own arms as she and Sarah clung to each other, as if they would never let go.

Not just sisters but best friends
. That was what she and Sarah had been. Of course they had both spent time with other girls, taken part in communal activities, like quilt frolics, but neither of them had ever formed a close friendship with any of the other girls around them.

We didn't have to, Miriam thought. We had each other.

For years and years, it had been Miriam and Sarah, and that had been all they needed. They played together, did chores together, walked together in the chilly mornings to the one-room schoolhouse, and sat side by side for services every Sunday. They told each other their deepest secrets. Right up until the moment that Sarah had announced that she had decided not to live the Plain life. That moment had changed the course of both their lives, and Miriam had never even had a hint that it was coming.

We had each other
. That seemed to be one of the great truths of her life.
But who do we have now?

The question popped, full-blown, into Miriam's mind. And hard on its heels, so did the answer.

God.

God was always present. He never abandoned anyone. God never changed His mind. His love was what earthly love strived to be: true, steadfast, and strong. But, also like earthly love, Miriam thought, God's love offered both shelter and a challenge. A challenge to accept that even hard times were a part of His plan. A challenge to submit to them with an open, willing heart. A heart dedicated to patient acceptance, which strived to believe that everything happened for a reason. That everything that happened under the sun, even the things that brought pain and suffering, was the work and the will of God.

Which meant that there was a reason for everything that was going on in her own life, Miriam thought. Her own current turmoil, even her unhappiness, was a part of God's plan. But why? What did God want from her? What did He want her to see that still remained hidden?

Help me,
Miriam prayed.
Give me strength. Guide me, Lord.

She reached for a cluster of berries with fingers that trembled ever so slightly.

“Miriam!” a voice behind her suddenly said. “There you are!”

Miriam jerked back, surprised. But her sleeve snagged, caught fast by the sharp blackberry thorns.

“Hold still,” the voice commanded. “This will just take a second.”

Sarah's long arms reached over Miriam's shoulder. With quick but careful fingers, Sarah freed the sleeve of Miriam's dress.

“Danki,”
Miriam said. She turned to face her sister. Sarah, too, wore old clothes, Miriam noted. Well-worn jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. On her feet, sensible tennis shoes with no socks.

“I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you,” Sarah said, her voice slightly breathless, as if she had hurried all the way to the blackberry patch. All of a sudden, she smiled. “But at least it wasn't your
kapp
! Do you remember—”

“I do.” Miriam nodded before Sarah could finish. “It's funny you should mention that day. I was just thinking about it.”

“I can't believe you came out here without me,” Sarah went on. “Why didn't you come down to the stand to get me? Why didn't you tell me you were going?”

“I didn't know I was going until I actually did it,” Miriam confessed. “I was just standing in the kitchen and suddenly none of my usual chores seemed right. Then I remembered it was blackberry season, and the next thing I knew, here I was.”

“And you've been busy, too,” Sarah said. She leaned over to peer into Miriam's bucket, nearly full now. “Never mind. I'll just have to work twice as hard to catch up.” She straightened up, her face alight with mischief. “Wanna bet I can do it?”

“Sarah,” Miriam protested, surprised to hear the thread of laughter in her own voice. “You know I never bet.”

“That doesn't mean I can't do it,” Sarah answered with a smile. She hoisted her bucket and moved a short distance away, near enough so that she and Miriam could still speak to each other, but not so close that they would be working side by side.

“And I'll tell you something else, Miriam Brennemann,” she called, her own voice filled with laughter now. “Sometimes I think you seriously need to lighten up.”

* * *

“Sarah, slow down!” Miriam protested some time later. The sun was climbing high now, and sweat trickled down her back. She continued to pick at a leisurely, steady pace, but Sarah had done her best to work twice as fast. “It's not a race.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Of course it is,” Sarah replied. “Sometimes I think I've been trying to catch up to you my whole life.”

Partway through the act of hefting her bucket to move to a different spot, Miriam stopped abruptly.

“
What?
” she asked. She straightened and turned toward the sound of Sarah's voice. When her sister didn't answer, she walked around the blackberry patch until Sarah came into view. “What did you just say?”

“I only meant that you were older, that's all,” Sarah said. But she did not stop picking, and she did not meet Miriam's eyes. “Younger siblings always try to catch up. It's just the way things are.”

“No,” Miriam said. “I don't think that's what you meant at all. Why would you even say a thing like that?”

“I said it because it's true! Why else?” Sarah snapped. She stopped picking berries and ran a hand across her forehead, as if it ached. Her fingers left a faint blue streak. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't come out here to quarrel.”

“Why did you come?” Miriam asked.

“Because I wanted to see you!” Sarah exclaimed. “Is that so odd? I wanted to talk to you. You're always so busy these days, but, except for down at the farm stand, you never let me help.” She sighed and ran a hand through her blond hair, pushing it back from her face. “I thought it would be like old times, coming back to stay for a while. But it's not like that. It hasn't been like that at all. Some of it is because Daed died, of course, but for the rest . . . sometimes I think you wish I'd never come at all.”

“I never said that,” Miriam insisted, but even she barely believed her own words. True, she had never said it, but how many times had she thought it?