Fire in the Night (22 page)

“You put your kettles through?”

Anna laughed, her stomach shaking. She moved with surprising speed, her round form fairly bouncing with energy as she poured two mugs of coffee, lifted the creamer bottle, and raised her eyebrows. Sarah nodded.

She set a glass dish between them, steam rising from a deep, delicious looking casserole that was covered in buttered corn-flake crumbs. Taking up a spatula, she cut a huge square, slid it expertly on a small plate, and handed it to Sarah.

“Oh, I had breakfast, but it’s been an hour. I can always eat some more.”

She laughed, helped herself to a generous serving, and took a hefty bite. She rolled her eyes and said this recipe could not be beat, now could it?

Little Mary climbed on her mother’s lap and promptly became the recipient of a nice sized mouthful of breakfast casserole.

“
Gute, gel?
” Anna chortled happily.

The door banged shut, and in walked Anna’s brother, Lee, who was taken completely by surprise, his reaction to Sarah’s presence a complete giveaway. He was holding his forearm firmly as he nodded in her direction.

“What’s wrong with you? You look terrible!”

Anna rose to her feet, dumping Mary unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Cut myself. It’s pretty deep.”

“Let me see.”

As he slowly lifted the clamped hand, blood spurted from a wide cut on the underside of his arm. Immediately, Anna’s face blanched. She made small mewling sounds and sagged back into her chair, then slid to the floor below.

“She’s fainting!”

Sarah stood, helpless. Lee said she’d be alright, she always did that. He seemed completely at ease with his sister crumpled to the floor.

Sarah looked from him to his sister, then moved quickly to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She found all kinds of salves, gauze, and adhesive tape. She grabbed them all and hurried back to the kitchen.

“I think the most important thing would be to get the bleeding stopped. You sure you didn’t cut a vein?”

“No. Just wrap it tightly.”

“With what?”

“A small towel would work.”

Sarah grabbed a towel and pulled it as tight as possible, watching his face for any sign of discomfort.

“Still okay?”

“Yeah.”

But he sat down, his face contorting.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

Mary began crying, so Sarah scooped her up and sat facing Lee, who lifted the towel and peered underneath.

“Shouldn’t you go have that stitched?” Sarah asked.

“I doubt it. We’ll stop the bleeding, put butterfly bandages on it. That should fix it right up.”

Sarah was relieved when Anna muttered and coughed, and raised herself to a sitting position, still mumbling to herself.

“She’s coming around.”

“You sure don’t worry about it,” Sarah said.

“It’s normal. I told you.”

Fully awake now, Anna said, “Shoot, I passed out. Boy, I hate that. It happens so easy.
Ach
, my. Now I’m sick to my stomach. Shoot.”

She lifted herself from the floor and wobbled dizzily to the bathroom. Lee shook his head.

Sarah bent and removed the towel, astounded by the size of the cut.

“You’d better go have that taken care of,” she said.

“You think?”

“I do.”

“Ah, just stick a few of these on. It’ll heal.” He grabbed several butterfly bandages.

“It’s going to leave a scar.”

“That’s alright. It’s just my arm. No problem.”

So as he held the cut together, Sarah concentrated on applying the bandages just right, holding the edges of the cut uniformly. She held her breath and bit her tongue as she did the best she could, then straightened.

She looked at him fully for the first time ever, the blue of his eyes taking her completely off guard. His eyebrows were perfect, like wings. His nose was stubby and wide but somehow also just right.

He looked back and saw clear eyes of green flecked with gold and gray and bits of brown. At the lowering of her eyebrows, her eyes clouded over with a hint of bewilderment. Her breath came in soft puffs as her heart beat a notch faster.

Over and over, she relived that moment and chided herself. What was God trying to show her? That she was simply swayed by close proximity to any available man? Or was it the beginning of the end of her whole world being wrapped up in Matthew Stoltzfus? Would Lee provide the freedom she so desperately needed?

Ten bushels of apples later, she still had no clue.

Chapter 16

T
HE COOLING OCTOBER WINDS
must have been host to a serious virus. Levi came down hard with a temperature of 102 degrees, his large body lying as still as death, his breath coming in great gasps.

The rasping sound from his bed in the enclosed porch aggravated Sarah’s nerves as she did the Saturday morning breakfast dishes. Her arms covered in suds, she scrubbed the black cast iron pan that was caked with bits of cornmeal mush and grease.

The wind had died down, but scattered puffs still blew leaves half-heartedly across the driveway. The strong winds left a residue of straw, bits of hay, a Ziploc bag, bits of paper, plastic, and cardboard strewn around the yard. The day would be busy with the weekly cleaning, Mam hanging out two days’ laundry, and cleaning up the messy yard.

Already Priscilla was upstairs, wielding the broom and dust mop. By the sounds from above, Sarah hoped she was cleaning underneath the beds. Priscilla was only fourteen years old, so her cleaning was done only well enough to get away with. This usually meant that Sarah had to spray the bathtub again or remove every object on a hastily swiped dresser and dust it again.

Today, with Levi breathing like that, Sarah became impatient. She whirled away from the dishwater, took up her apron, and dried her hands. Going to the stairs, she told Priscilla to clean the bathtub right this time and let the cleaner on the tub walls while she did the rest of the bathroom.

Priscilla mumbled a reply, the banging resumed, and Sarah could picture the few jabs of the dust mop, leaving disorderly trails underneath the beds.

Turning, she approached Levi’s bed and bent to crank his head a bit higher to ease his breathing. He started, his swollen brown eyes opened to a slit. He coughed painfully then asked for a drink. Sarah checked the pitcher on his nightstand and found it empty. She took it to the kitchen to refill it, adding mostly ice cubes.

She lifted the blue straw to his mouth, watched as he swallowed a small amount, and then set the tumbler back on the nightstand. She arranged his pillows to keep his head from sliding to the side, put a hand on his feverish head, and asked if he was alright. Wearily, Levi shook his head.

“Do you want Swedish Bitters?” Sarah asked.

Again, he shook his head and fell asleep.

Sarah brought the broom, a bowl of hot vinegar water, the window cloth, and a bucket of sudsy Lysol water to begin cleaning his room. She set the geraniums aside and washed the shelves, windowsills, and windows, rubbing the glass panes until they shone.

She picked off the yellowing leaves from the geraniums, the dead blossoms following them to the floor, then set the plants back. She stepped away to view the result of her work and decided anew that she would never, ever, have one painted coffee can in her house and certainly not one that was covered in floral contact paper.

Mam was frugal. She viewed every empty tin can as a new flower pot. She bought all her Maxwell House coffee in tins, not the new fangled plastic containers, just so she would have another flower pot to keep her beloved geraniums through the winter.

Mam couldn’t imagine paying five dollars for a geranium. Anna Mae and Ruthie were of the younger generation, and they refused to keep a single geranium in any tin can. They kept theirs in the cool part of their basements, in the same pots that had contained them in the summer. They brought the geraniums back up in the spring, clipped them back, and had beautiful new plants.

It had escalated to an all-out geranium competition, albeit an unspoken one. Ruthie had a large new deck built onto her house with pretty pots distributed across it, many of them containing geraniums bursting with healthy pink or red blossoms.

When Mam spied them she said, “My, oh,” but that was all. She didn’t question the method of keeping them “over winter” or ask which greenhouse Ruthie had gone to. She just said, “My, oh.” Ruthie and Anna Mae laughed heartily about it but never approached Mam or asked her to change her geranium habits.

Sarah now questioned herself. When will I ever have the chance to clean my very own house? I’ll be twenty years old next month and don’t even have a boyfriend (or a special friend, as her mother would say).

She’d had chances. Boys had asked her on dates, but accepting was unthinkable. Even though it was one sure way of allowing Matthew to fade from her life, she couldn’t do it.

She often wondered why he’d asked Rose instead of her. Obviously, if he was attracted to her beauty, that was the whole thing right there. Sarah couldn’t even come close to that blonde perfection.

She took all the things off Levi’s nightstand and wiped it well with the Lysol water and then replaced the items.

Well, Rose was so good-natured and amiable—as sweet as she was pretty. So Sarah guessed that it all made sense. But she had immediately picked up on the way his mother sniffed and disapproved. If he listened to his mother, he wouldn’t date Rose; he would date Sarah.

But what could Hannah really do? She couldn’t go around telling her children who to marry like they did in some cultures.

Sarah swept the dust and dirt and bits of geranium residue out of Levi’s room, then dropped to her hands and knees to scrub the floor. Levi’s breathing rose and fell above her.

Perhaps Matthew had no idea how she felt. Was that it? Or maybe, and this was very likely the truth, he had never felt the same thing for her—not when they went to school and most certainly not when they had each turned sixteen, joined the group of youth, and began their
rumspringa
(running around) years. She was just Sarah, his buddy. The thing was…

Miserably, she sat back thinking of her burnt hand. That incident had only cemented her longing firmly into place. Likely he’d just been nervous, wanting to get out of the kitchen, afraid Rose might find him alone with her.

Viciously, Sarah wrung the soapy water from the cloth and resumed her cleaning. Reasoning, wondering, she remained caught up in the subject that occupied her thoughts most of the time: Matthew Stoltzfus.

But now there was the disturbing intrusion of that Lee. Uh-huh. She had resolved on the weekend of Matthew’s first date with Rose that she would never marry until he did. That was the one and only thing she had never told anyone, not even Mam or Priscilla.

So Lee, who she had now decided was most definitely attractive, may as well not even try. Not that he had. He was always at Ben’s when she went to help Anna, who was fast becoming a close friend and confidante. They could easily talk a whole day about any subject, bushels of apples and peaches disappearing beneath their conversation.

She didn’t know Lee at all, but she smiled to herself remembering how unconcerned he’d been about his sister sliding to the floor in a faint, looking for all the world like a soft teddy bear thrown against a kitchen chair.

Sarah got up and surveyed Levi’s room with satisfaction. Turning to get the brush and dustpan, she saw a dust mop come bouncing down the stairs in a shower of loosened dust followed by three knotted Wal-Mart bags filled with a week’s worth of trash can waste.

“Priscilla!” Sarah yelled at the top of her lungs, indignation coursing through her veins. She knew better. Nobody threw that mop down the stairs.

In response, Priscilla called, “Bring me a bunch of plastic bags!”

“No!”

“Come on. You old grouch.”

“No. I would if you hadn’t thrown that dust mop down the stairs.”

“You know I didn’t clean the stairs yet. What’s shouldn’t I throw it?”

“The dust flies all over the house, not just the stairs.”

“Girls! Come,” Mam called. “Do you want a few cookies? I’m so hungry from the washing.”

The girls put aside their differences and joined Mam at the kitchen table. She heated the coffee and got out a container of cream-filled molasses whoopie pies and one of chocolate chip cookies.

Sarah unwrapped a whoopie pie, took a large bite, and said nobody had ever come up with a better recipe.

“You’re getting fat,” Priscilla said dryly.

“What?” Sarah shrieked.

Mam chuckled as she poured the coffee. Then she laughed outright as Sarah made a mad dash for the bathroom scales.

“135!” she wailed a few seconds later.

“I told you!” Priscilla said jubilantly.

“It’s that job at Ben Zook’s. Anna eats all day long. Mam, you know how much she weighs? 208. She said so herself.”

“Well,” Mam laughed. “She has always been that way. I remember her as a little girl, her round little body covered with that wide, black apron. She’s never been different, but she had no problem catching a good husband.”