The Letters (14 page)

How irresponsible!
she thought.
He did it to impress the minister. To deflect the unhappy fact of his first marriage.

Then, softening, because there was something about Dean that always made her excuse him, she decided that he did it because he couldn’t help it. He was a generous man and enjoyed making others happy.

She did not think at the time, though she did think it now:
He wanted the entire congregation to admire him. He wanted to be a hero.

Through the kitchen window, she saw Bethany walking slowly, head tucked, engrossed in reading a letter. Was it from Jake? Oh, she hoped not.

“Our neighbor Galen King is sweet on Bethany,” Vera said.

“What?”

“I’ve suspected for some time now that his feelings for Bethany went beyond neighborly interest.” Vera smiled her crooked smile, delighted to upstage Rose with news. “The
signs are all there—think how often he’s been coming by. He shows up looking Sunday-scrubbed with a lilt in his step. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

Rose finished ironing Sammy’s shirt for Sunday church and hung it over the back of a chair. “I think you’re confusing him with Jimmy Fisher.”

“Who?”

“Jimmy. He was here for dinner the other night.”
And if you’d been paying attention,
Rose thought,
you would have noticed a change in Bethany.
She was glowing, awash in some internal light, wonderstruck, glancing in Jimmy’s direction whenever she thought he wasn’t looking—which was seldom.

“Oh! The one who kept waggling his brows. Well, handsome is as handsome does.” As Vera mulled that over for a while, her eyes grew droopy and soon she nodded off.

Rose spread Mim’s Sunday dress, a deep blue, over the ironing board to spray starch all over it. She didn’t know what to make of the crazy notions that flitted through Vera’s mind. The thought of Bethany and Galen was ridiculous. Bethany was a beautiful young woman, but in so many ways, she was still a child. Galen was a man who had never been young.

Vera might be talking about other people, but at its heart was always a concern for herself.

9

S
pring had appeared violently, rain and sun and rain again. The earth was muddy and Bethany’s feet sank into the front lawn as she walked back from the mailbox with Jake’s brief letter in her hands. Her last letter to Jake had been returned with a red stamp on the envelope: O
CCUPANT
M
OVED
. N
O
F
ORWARDING
A
DDRESS
. It upset her to no end because he didn’t have a telephone or cell phone. Letters were their only means of staying connected—what would happen to them? To their future? So when she saw his handwriting on an envelope in today’s mail, she was thrilled and relieved, delighted to discover that he had to move to another apartment and had forgotten to tell her. That was all. Perfectly understandable! Then her smile faded. There was no return address on the envelope.

“Is that true?” A voice spoke close to her ear. Startled, Bethany slid the letter into her dress pocket and turned around to see Jimmy Fisher.

“What? Is what true?” she asked.

“That,” he whispered, pointing to the porch. “What your
sister there said. Is it a fact? Pinching your nose makes you intelligent?”

Bethany looked at Mim sitting on the porch in the sunshine. She sat, holding her nose, reading. Beside her sat the little brothers, both holding their noses.

“My little sister knows nearly everything,” Bethany told Jimmy. “And what she doesn’t know she makes up.”

For a moment they looked at each other in silence. Then each began to laugh. When she stopped, Jimmy kept smiling. He took a step closer to her and didn’t disguise his frank examination of her face. “Where’ve you been all day? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you can be thinking, Jimmy Fisher.”

“Are you going to quit your double life soon?”

Her smile faded. “Why do you always want to talk about that?”

“Normally, I have many other thoughts running through my fine brain. But when I get around you, I can’t stop thinking about the first time I saw you working at the Stoney Ridge Bar & Grill in your fancy clothes. It’s all I’ve got left in my head to work with.”

Her mouth dropped open. It was just like Jimmy Fisher to say something she didn’t expect to hear. “Why can’t you just act like a normal fellow?”

“Normal is relative.”

“So you consider yourself normal, do you?”

“Certainly,” Jimmy said. “I never met a soul in this world as normal as me.” He leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. “Maybe if you agreed to go on a picnic with me to Blue Lake Pond some fine spring day, I’d have more to talk about.”

“I’ll have you know that I have a boyfriend. Jake Hertzler.”

Jimmy grinned. “Your imaginary boyfriend, you mean.”

By the time she got her wits about her and tried to come up with a snappy retort, Rose was clanging the dinner bell and Jimmy had disappeared through the privet to Galen’s. As she made her way into the house, she could hardly keep the grin off her face.
But no,
she thought as she opened the door,
why should I feel happier? There’s no reason for it. It’s ridiculous. What is Jimmy Fisher to me? He comes and he goes.
You already have a fine young man waiting for you, Bethany Schrock.
She frowned.
Someplace.

Jimmy Fisher had worked farms all his life and knew how hard the labor was, but it was different here at Galen King’s. He had never worked like this before. He quickly established the habit of arriving in time so that he could start the day with a good breakfast, cooked by Naomi. Both for his sake and for hers.

He felt a little sorry for Naomi—her brother wasn’t known for being much of a talker and all her siblings had married and moved away. Jimmy wasn’t sure what the future held for a girl as shy and delicate as Naomi King, though she was a first-rate cook. He supposed she might be able to attract another shy fellow, but who would ever start the conversation? Jimmy decided he would give the subject of Naomi’s empty love life some consideration. He liked to help people. He was just that kind of a fellow.

Jimmy Fisher put three heaping teaspoons of sugar from the bowl on the Kings’ kitchen table into the cup and stirred it and drank carefully. It was very hot and very sweet—the
way he liked it. “Why did you put eggshells into the coffee?” he asked Naomi.

“It takes the bitterness away,” Naomi said. “Doesn’t it seem like the bite is gone?”

“With that much sugar in it, there wouldn’t ever be a bite.” Galen sat at the table and drank his coffee so quickly that Jimmy thought he must have a throat made of iron. He seemed to be swallowing steam. He gulped it down and bowed his head, signaling a silent prayer. Then he bolted out of his chair, nodded to Naomi, and headed down to the barn to take hay out to the horses. Jimmy swallowed the last of his sweet coffee, smiled at Naomi, and followed Galen.

The sun was just showing light in the east over a long green flat of pasture that led down to a small creek a hundred yards from the barn. Mist came up from the creek and layered the grass. The horses were making their way to the edge of the pasture. They already knew the routine—the morning hay would soon arrive.

Galen stood by the back door of the barn, one hand on the hay cart, watching the horses move through the mist as if walking on air.

“Well, look at that,” Jimmy whispered as he walked up to him. “Never seen anything so pretty before, have you?”

“You talk too much,” Galen said softly. “Just watch—you don’t have to talk.”

And so they stood and watched the horses head to their breakfast. Stood and wasted five or six minutes, and it was the first time working on Galen’s horse farm that Jimmy had ever seen such a thing. His sullen boss, just standing when there was work to be done.

Imagine that. Galen King had a romantic streak.

Sammy was a continual worry, Mim thought. This morning at breakfast he asked if he could bring a friend for supper and of course her mother said yes. Maybe two friends, Sammy asked. And her mother seemed even more pleased. She was always encouraging Sammy to make friends. She worried he was too dependent on Luke. He asked Bethany, in his sweetest voice, if she wouldn’t mind making her very excellent peach crumble for dessert. That was how he said it too. Her very excellent peach crumble. How could she say no to that? Then he went and got ready for school without being told. All during the school day, Mim kept an eye on him, wondering if he might be coming down with something. Cholera or the plague or dropsy.

Right at suppertime, Sammy came through the privet dragging Galen King by the elbow sleeve. Naomi followed behind. Galen looked all cleaned up, hair combed, face and hands scrubbed. He wasn’t the smiley type, but his eyes seemed to twinkle when he said hello to her mother. When they were all in the kitchen, Sammy cleared his throat real loud, as loud as Bishop Elmo did at church, and said, “Bethany, Galen King has come to court you.”

All heads swiveled to Galen. His mouth opened wide and his eyes quit sparkling.

Bethany dropped the excellent peach crumble right into the sink.

“What?” Naomi said. “Why, Galen, you never told me! You never even hinted!”

“How could he?” Luke yelped. “He never knew!” He started laughing so hard that he doubled over, holding his sides.

Mim’s mother bent down and put her hands on Sammy’s shoulders. “Son, sometimes we can get things confused.”

Sammy looked up, eyes filled with hurt. “But . . . but . . . ,” he sputtered, “Mammi Vera said the exact selfsame thing, and nobody yelled at her for it!”

“I never said any such thing,” Mammi Vera said, waving those accusations away. “Nothing good comes of matchmaking. I’d just as soon poke a sleeping bear.”

“You did! You said so!” He looked at Rose. “I heard her say it! In the kitchen the other night—she was talking to you about it. She said Galen was happier than he’d ever been.” His head swiveled toward Bethany. “And she said that Bethany should stop pining for Jake. Cuz he’s Car Amish. And you agreed. You said you didn’t think Jake was sweet on Bethany the way she mooned over him.”

Mim saw Bethany flash a dark look at her mother and she felt a tight knot in her stomach. Sammy kept on blathering! On and on and on.

“Sammy,” her mother said, “it’s kind of you to think about others, but it’s best to let folks do their own matchmaking.”

Mim thought Luke was going to die of laughter. He was rolling on the ground, literally rolling, gasping for breath. Head held high, glaring at her mother, Bethany swept around him and bolted up the stairs. Luke just kept laughing, like a wild hyena. Sometimes, he was just appalling.

“Luke, if you don’t get yourself up off that floor and stop acting like a silly fool,” her mother said, “I’ll get the switch and you won’t be sitting down for a week of Sundays. And don’t think I won’t do it.”

Luke stopped rolling back and forth, but he didn’t get himself up, despite that threat. Finally, Galen picked him up
under his arms and sat him on a chair. Luke quieted down straightaway, brought up short by Galen’s firmness.