Abby Finds Her Calling (30 page)

“Lemme guess,” Jonny interrupted in a tight voice. “Dat wouldn’t leave the place. Would rather hole up with those blasted cows, wallowing in his mucky moods and blaming everybody else for his troubles.”

“Far as I know, he’s still out there, jah.” James smiled, waiting for whatever other axes this troublemaker might grind… whatever he might reveal about his feelings toward Zanna, too. Jonny had filled out some; he had more of a man’s body now. But he still didn’t seem inclined to take on adult responsibility.

“So what started the fire?”

Jonny’s tone told him Rudy was the first suspect who’d come to this kid’s mind. James saw no good reason to let this disgruntled son mistakenly believe that, however. “The fire marshal said too much creosote had built up in the chimney. When the wind whistled through the cracks, sparks flew right on up into the attic and caught fire.”

An odd look crossed Jonny’s face. He looked James over, as though deciding how much to say. “You probably heard all sorts of stories about my running off a few years back,” he began in a defensive tone, “but I was putting distance between me and Dat after I told him I wasn’t gonna spend my life being a slave to his dairy. Where’s the future in that—for him and two sons, no less? The county extension agents gave him suggestions about how to get more milk from his herd and make a better living at it—and he told
them
where to go, too.”

James had no trouble believing this about Rudy, but he merely nodded.

“And then he’d sit in church—or wherever anybody else was watching,” Jonny went on in a rising voice, “and make like he was living right with God while, in reality, he was treating our mother worse than the dirt he walked on. Talking to her like nobody
deserves to be talked to. And at all hours of the night, when we kids were trying to sleep.

“And Mamm kept
her
secret, too,” Jonny added angrily. He dug his boot heel into the snow, shaking his head in disgust. “She went along with his bad-mouthing because wives are supposed to submit to their men. She acted like she was fine and dandy so her friends wouldn’t know how Dat slapped her around when he was in one of his moods.”

James regretted hearing this. Rudy’s ways with Adah didn’t completely surprise him, but such violence went against the faith in the most fundamental way. Still, he had just been offered another avenue of discussion, and he meant to take it.

“So why didn’t you stay to look after her?” he asked pointedly. “Why’d you run off and break her heart? It was bad enough that Gideon left, but you were always your mamm’s favorite.”

Jonny leveled his gaze at James the same way Matt Lambright’s dogs stared down a contrary ewe. “I’m
back
. Ain’t so?”

“Are you?” Jonny was still pretty good at dodging questions and tricky situations that put restrictions on him.

“I’ve done right well, driving for Amish and making trips back East with them.” Jonny pressed on proudly. “Sounds like it might be a gut time to load Mamm and my sisters into the van and take them away with me.”

Jonny crossed his arms again, leaning against his van as though he might be mapping out such a plan… or might have other subjects to catch up on yet. Even though James was getting cold, he sensed it might be worth his wait to stand there a few more moments.

“So… were my eyes fooling me,” Jonny ventured in a quieter voice, “or is Zanna in the family way? She must have gotten hitched a while back without telling me.”

Oh, James could think of answers for that question! But he knew better than to air his own grievances—especially to
this
fellow. “You’d
better ask her that yourself. Girls get touchy when you talk about their personal business.”

Jonny’s pale brows rose. He smiled slyly. “So… Abby Lambright hasn’t caught you yet, Graber?” He glanced pointedly at James’s clean-shaven chin, a sure sign that he wasn’t married. “I remember the way she used to gawk at you during church and the common meals.”

The question caught James by surprise, though he kept it from showing on his face. Was this kid smarting off, trying to rile him up? Or had Jonny seen something in Abby’s expression that he’d missed? Had other folks noticed her watching him, too? James shifted, uncertain. Why hadn’t he picked up on any feelings Abby might have for him? Then again, why would he discuss it with Jonny Ropp, of all people?

“Abby’s a maidel—by her own choice,” James replied. This was common knowledge, after all, made more apparent when her dat had built her a home and she’d opened her sewing business in Sam’s store. But two could play this game. “So how about you, Jonny? Have you joined up with the Mennonites by now? Got yourself a wife?”

“Hah! That noose won’t go around
my
neck! Saw enough of what marriage is about while I lived at home. Well—” Jonny glanced at his fancy wristwatch. “Guess I’ll run out past the farm. Gut talking to you, Graber.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” James replied. “Your Mamm would be awful glad to see you. And the girls are in the mercantile—”

“Jah, I’ll catch up to them. Later, dude!”

James shook his head at that one. “Dude” had never set well with him, maybe because it went against the grain of everything Amish… which described Jonny Ropp pretty well, too, didn’t it? He stepped back as Cedar Creek’s most notorious fence jumper opened the door of his shiny red van and swung back into the driver’s seat. It didn’t sound as though things had changed much with Adah’s
younger son, nor did James hold out a speck of hope that Zanna might receive any help from the kid who’d always seemed to be moving on to bigger and better things.
Just passing through
.

With a grin, Jonny revved his engine, as though to race down the curving county road with no regard for the slick spots. Behind James, a door slammed and footsteps clattered on the mercantile’s porch.

“Jonny! Jonny—wait for me! I’ll go out there with you!”

James turned. Zanna was picking her way between the cars and carriages in the snow-packed parking lot. In her black coat and matching Plain bonnet she didn’t look like the type to be hurrying toward a fellow like Jonny Ropp, but James set aside his conflicted thoughts. When she nearly slipped, he caught her by the arm.

“Denki, James.” Zanna looked nervous and scared… flustered that he was here while she was riding off with the father of her baby. Truth be told, James felt some concern for her safety, but he had no say over whom she rode with or how she behaved, did he?

“Be careful,” he warned Jonny sternly. “The road home’s more slippery than it looks.”

Z
anna settled into the front passenger seat of Jonny Ropp’s van, aware that riding with him went against the Ordnung… aware that the safety belt made her pregnancy very visible. She couldn’t let such concerns stand in her way, however; she’d called Jonny to convince him he should come to Cedar Creek, and here he was. It might not be the best time to discuss the baby, now that his house had burned and his family had been displaced, but when would the perfect opportunity ever arrive?

As the van turned down the county highway toward the Ropp farm, every nerve in her body jangled and she felt even more nervous than she had the morning she’d confessed her sins at the Members’ Meeting two months ago. What if Jonny didn’t believe the baby was his? What if he told her it was all her problem—that she was on her own raising his child?

“So what made you change your mind and come along?” he asked in that carefree tone she remembered so well. “From the look on your face when I pulled up to where you and Graber were talking, I thought you were scared to get in the van with me or something.”

“Your sisters and I—well, we didn’t think you should go out to
your farm alone,” Zanna blurted out. There was no sense in disputing how startled she must have looked when she saw his face.

“But Becky and Maggie didn’t come. Only you, Zanna.”

Oh, but that smooth, musical tone of his voice made her tingle all over. Zanna forced herself to focus on the topic at hand. “Maggie and Becky don’t want to go, Jonny. Your family barely got out of the house alive. They were barefoot in the snow, shivering in their nightgowns when the walls of their home—your home—collapsed into the flames. I—I felt so helpless. I’ve never seen anything so scary.”

She made herself take a deep breath. Recalling last night’s disaster made her feel the heat and the terror and the devastation all over again. Zanna clasped her hands in her lap and looked at the familiar snow-laced trees along the shoulder of the road. “I was helping your sisters sew some clothes in Abby’s shop today because they lost
everything
, Jonny. That… that’s why I went back inside the mercantile when you rolled down your window. I had to tell them I wouldn’t be helping them for a while.”

Well, that was partly the truth, anyway. Zanna inhaled again, wishing this conversation didn’t feel so strained.

“So what did you want to tell me, those two times you called but didn’t leave a message?” Jonny asked.

Zanna closed her eyes. Why couldn’t she just tell him the baby was his and get it over with? Her pulse throbbed all over her body and her throat tightened until talking felt impossible. As Jonny drove slowly around the last curve before they reached the Ropp farmstead, where the plows had piled the snow into a high bank that blocked their view of the house, she took hold of his wrist. His leather jacket under her fingers felt soft and supple. His muscles tensed as he started to turn in at the Ropps’ lane.

“Jonny, the only home you’ve ever known burned to the ground last night,” she whispered. “Three fire trucks and all the fellas from around Cedar Creek were fighting it, and it was the most awful thing I’ve ever—” Zanna turned her head suddenly as the bleak,
black remains of the house came into view. “It’s even worse in the daylight. Jonny, I—I’m so sorry.”

Jonny made a choking sound and then exhaled loudly. He pulled the van off the road, stopping short of the cattle guard.

Zanna found the nerve to look toward the house site again. Jonny gripped the wheel, staring at the frozen lake of ice where blackened timbers and the tumbled remains of the chimney jutted out at odd angles. The concrete stoop looked totally out of place: three steps and a short, square landing that led nowhere. Adah’s bushes and shrubs were gone, except for ice-covered stubs sticking up from the ground.

Jonny appeared more stunned, more dismayed, than she’d ever seen him. “Graber said the wind blew through the chimney cracks. Told me too much creosote had built up—” He smacked the dashboard with his palm. “You could have cleaned it after I left, Dat,” he muttered, his voice high and adolescent.

Jonny turned to Zanna, his expression vacillating between anguish and anger. “Clearing the chimney with the long wire brush used to be my job,” he said, his voice raspy, “because I thought it was great fun to climb to the roof, like a monkey, even while Mamm was hollerin’ that I’d fall to my death if the shingles had frost on them.”

Zanna nodded miserably. Nobody would be cleaning that chimney again. It was charred rubble, along with all the other nooks and crannies of the white house that had been added on to over three generations, same as Sam’s house had been. The Ropps had never been as prosperous as the Lambrights, and their house had always seemed sort of dingy and sad when she visited with Becky and Maggie. They more often came to her house, maybe because they enjoyed her cheerful home.

With a heavy sigh, Jonny eased the van over the noisy metal pipes of the cattle guard and up the rise in the lane. “You know, Holsteins have been grazing that pasture since way before I was born,” he said, pointing at the vast fenced area to their left. “All day they just chew their cud, watchin’ the traffic go past with those
brainless expressions on their faces. Look at them,” he said, gesturing toward the door to the milking barn. “Bumping against each other, waiting to get inside out of habit, because it never occurs to them to do anything different.”

Zanna watched his face: his mouth had tightened into a harsh line and he was blinking a lot to keep from crying. It wasn’t easy to see him so upset, criticizing the cows to keep his shock from swallowing him up, but it was better than looking at the blackened foundations where the house and shed had stood. Only the metal skeletons of a carriage and a buggy remained. The two beagles and Shep, the German shepherd, raced around the side of the barn, barking wildly, as they did whenever anyone entered the yard. Jonny paid them no mind.

“I didn’t take to animals the way most Amish kids do,” he continued in a low voice as he slowly followed the driveway around the milking barn. “Gideon used to remind me how once when I was four I wandered into this barn and yanked on a cow’s tail while Dat was milking it by hand. Got kicked nearly to Kingdom Come,” he said with a sad laugh, “and when I came to, I was smeared with manure. Mamm was cryin’ over me, the cows were in an uproar—and Dat was madder about that lost pail of milk than I’d ever seen anybody get.”

Jonny looked at Zanna and sighed. “That’s when I knew I’d never be a dairy farmer.”

“Jah, that would make an impression on anybody,” she replied.