Love Still Stands (30 page)

The length of the speech told Bethel just how pleased Mudder was to have her flock
home. “Give me that suitcase. You shouldn’t be lifting that.” Bethel tugged it from
her mother’s grasp. The driver had dropped her here after unloading Luke and his brood
at the Shirack house. Leah hadn’t mentioned coming to see Mudder and Daed, but surely
she would. “I think it would be good if we could get Leah to spend some time here.
You’ll want to see your grandbabies.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t stop by before going to Annie’s. I thought they would.”

Bethel contemplated a response that wouldn’t be a lie. “They’re tired and the children
are cranky. They wanted to wash up and unpack. I imagine they’ll stop by for a visit
after supper.”

“I’m hoping we’ll all be together for Thanksgiving too.” Mudder’s knees cracked as
she trudged up the stairs in front of Bethel. She put a hand on the banister and pulled
herself along. “With the wedding, time will go so fast. You’ll be gone again before
we know it.”

Bethel hoped not. She wanted these days to stretch and stretch. Here, she could forget
about therapy and Shawn and Elijah. Both of them. Equally. Just for a few days.

“You’re sure moving much better. Your letters said the therapy was helping, but it’s
good to see it in person.” Mudder opened the door to the room that had been Bethel,
Mattie, and Leah’s for their entire childhood. It held the same beds, the same wooden
straight-back chair, and the same long line of clothes hooks as always. It looked
like home. “Before you know it, you’ll be throwing those crutches away.”

Tears loomed. Bethel fought them back. “I hope you’re right.”

“What’s the matter?” Mudder smoothed the white pillowcases and rearranged the pillows
on the quilt. They were perfectly fine, but that was her way. Always making things
neater. “You should be happy. God is good.”

“I’m tired. Glad to be here, but tired.”

“Unpack and come down.” Mudder paused in the doorway, her wrinkled hand on the frame.
“I have potatoes boiling on the stove for mashing and chicken to fry before I make
the gravy, so I need to get back to the kitchen.”

“I’ll be right there to help.”

“You can peel some carrots.” Mudder uttered the words as if this were a great honor
bestowed on her youngest daughter. “When Mattie gets here, we can send her girls down
to the basement to bring up some canned corn and bread and butter pickles.”

“And chow-chow. I have a hankering for relish.” Bethel knew the recitation of this
plan was Mudder’s delicate way of acknowledging that her daughter could not handle
the steep wooden steps that descended into the basement. With her achy hips and knees,
neither could Mudder. Despite the difference in their ages they had common challenges.
“It’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

Bethel waited until Mudder left the room and then pulled her dresses from the suitcase
and hung them on the hooks by the window. She stood for a moment in front of the long
window that faced the west and the lukewarm autumn sun. Kansas didn’t look all that
different from Missouri on the eve of winter. Trees a little shorter and wirier, land
a little flatter. Most of the trees had dropped their leaves and the grass had turned
a sullen brown in the bright afternoon sun.

She’d missed this. She’d missed nice suppers with her family. Not that Leah and Luke
weren’t family. She sighed and shoved the thought away. Their tension spoiled the
peace that should be mealtime at the Shirack house.

Shaking off the mood, she hobbled down the stairs and set her mind to the tasks at
hand. She peeled dozens of carrots and cut them up and then set the table while Mudder
dipped mounds of chicken pieces in flour and spices. She dropped the pieces into sizzling
grease in two skillets on the gas burners and picked up tongs. “So what’s the matter
between you and Leah?”

“What makes you think there’s something wrong?”

“You have a face like a chalkboard. You write everything there in big, fat print.”

“I do not.” Bethel laughed at the image so appropriate for a teacher—former teacher.
“It’s been rough in New Hope. The folks weren’t so eager to have us move there.”

“So you said in your letters. I’ve enjoyed every one of those letters. Keep them coming
when you go home.”

“I will.”

“I haven’t received but one from Leah.” Her mother held up a piece of chicken and
inspected it, frowned, then dropped it into the hot grease. It popped and crackled.
The aroma made Bethel’s mouth water. “She didn’t say much, just mentioned the vandalism.
Said something about Elijah driving you to and from your sessions.”

“She’s very busy with the children and the new house and trying to run the household
with no help.” Bethel ignored the mention of Elijah. “She has her hands full. Jebediah
hasn’t been sleeping through the night since we moved and the twins have ear infections
every other week, it seems. She doesn’t get enough sleep.”

“She has you to help her.”

“Mudder, look at me. How much help do you think I am, really?”

“Knowing your helpful nature, a lot.”

Mudder began to lay pieces of crisp fried chicken on paper towels arranged on a large
platter. “Leah grew up fast—even for a Plain child. She had more responsibility than
most girls do at her age. I blame myself for that.”

“There’s no blame to be handed out. You had cancer. Daed needed her to step in. She
doesn’t regret it.”

“She might, more than you know.”

“She’s never mentioned it.”

Mudder started to say something and then stopped. She wiped her hands on a towel and
cocked her head. “I think somebody is here. They’re early, whoever they are.”

She went to the door and pulled it open. Leah stood on the back steps, a suitcase
in each hand. Jebediah and the twins toddled behind her. She stomped past Mudder into
the kitchen where she dropped the suitcases with a
whap-whap
sound on the faded black-and-white checkerboard of the linoleum floor.

“Someone needs to return Josiah’s horse and buggy.” Despite the bravado of her words,
her face crumpled. “I’ve come home.”

Chapter 29

B
ethel squeezed into a chair between Mattie and Leah, trying not to make eye contact
with her daed, who didn’t seem to be unduly concerned with the presence of his six
adult children, five of their spouses, and a mere seventeen grandchildren. As always,
Uriah Graber ate with a bare minimum of conversation. It didn’t matter that they’d
been away. It didn’t matter that it was the first time all his children had been under
his roof at the same time in a good amount of time. People ate at supper time, pure
and simple. He did, however, hazard a puzzled look at Leah over black-rimmed, rectangular
glasses that had slid down his long, sun-beaten nose. The glasses were a new addition
that didn’t seem to fit him quite right. He pushed them up with a greasy finger and
went back to sopping up gravy with a chunk of sourdough bread.

“Where’re Joseph and William?” Diana, Mattie’s youngest girl, asked, a drumstick halfway
to her mouth. “Didn’t they come for the wedding too?”

“Hush and eat your food.” Mattie held a napkin out to her oldest daughter, Rosie,
seated at the far end of the children’s table so the girl could hand it down the row.
“And wipe your mouth. You have gravy on your lip.”

“I want to play with them. You said I could play with them.” Diana wiped at her face,
smearing the gravy onto her plump cheek. “If I help Groossmammi clean up.”

“Children should be seen and not heard at the supper table.” Daed pushed his plate—clean
except for the chicken bones—away from him and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied
burp. “And everywhere else, for that matter. I wouldn’t mind knowing, all the same,
where the rest of your kinner are, Leah. Not to mention your husband.”

Leah’s knuckles went white on the fork she used to push food around on her plate.
The amount of food hadn’t decreased noticeably. “Luke is visiting with his brothers
and sisters at Annie’s. Josiah and Miriam are there, along with Emma and Thomas and
Mark and the twins. They have a full house.”

“And Luke didn’t want his fraa and his little ones with him?” Daed shook a toothpick
from a small jar on the table and applied it diligently to his front teeth, then dropped
it on his plate. “You don’t do your visiting together?”

“There’s blueberry, peach, and cherry fry pies. Or, if you’re in the mood, gingersnaps
or brownies.” Mudder hopped up from her chair and picked up Daed’s plate. “There’s
still strawberry-rhubarb pie from last night, if you’d rather.”

Daed shook his head. “I have chores to do. Join me, boys?”

Mattie’s husband Abe, who never spoke unless spoken to, nodded and stood. The brothers—Seth,
Enos, and Robert—followed. Seconds later they were out the door.

“Well, that was quite a visit.”

The look of pain on her mudder’s face made Bethel regret the sour remark the second
the words left her mouth. Her lined face marred by a frown, Mudder picked up the empty
gravy bowl. After a second she set it down again. “They’ll be back for dessert and
visiting after they do the chores. Work first.”

“Jah.” Leah stabbed a pickle with her fork and lifted it to her mouth. She chewed,
a strange look of satisfaction on her face. She pulled the jar toward her and added
more to her plate, ignoring the potatoes, corn, and chicken, now cold. “Work first.
Work second. Work third. That’s our life here at the Graber farm.”

“As it should be.” Mudder handed Bethel a plate of brownies. “Eat. You look too thin.”

Bethel took the plate but passed on the brownie. “Did you ever feel tired…or sad after
you had a baby?”

A shoe smacked her ankle hard. Bethel suppressed a yelp. Mattie looked from Leah to
Bethel. She nodded to Rosie. “Start washing the dishes. We’ll be in to help in a minute.
Girls, help Rosie.”

The other girls followed while the boys ran for the door. They’d find plenty to do
in the barn. Enos’s wife grabbed the chicken platter and the empty bowl that had held
potatoes. Robert and Seth’s fraas began to pick up the plates. “Y’all visit. We’ll
oversee the girls in the kitchen.”

Finally, only Leah, Bethel, and Mattie remained with Mudder.

“You certainly know how to clear a room,” Mudder crossed her arms and shot Bethel
a stern look. “What are you trying to say?”

“She’s trying to say I’m having a baby and I don’t want it.” Leah stabbed another
pickle. “Are there more pickles?”

The brisket tasted like straw in Luke’s mouth. He chewed and chewed, yet the lump
still hurt his throat when he finally forced himself to swallow. He dropped his fork
on his plate and eyed the door. He needed air like a man who’d worked in the fields
all day needed a long, cool draught of water.

“Don’t you like the brisket?” Annie fussed over the fresh basket of sweet rolls she’d
carried from the kitchen. His sister baked better than any Plain woman he knew and
that was saying a lot, considering Plain women baked from the time they were toddlers.
Leah was a close second. Anger surged through him. He tried to focus on his sister
and this visit. This longed-for visit. She looked at him, perplexed. “I baked it all
day, just like you like it, then I finished it off on the grill so it would have that
nice crispy outside.”

“It’s real good, real good.”

Luke couldn’t meet her eyes. She knew something was wrong. Everyone in the room did.
A fraa didn’t simply take off like that without saying a word. What ailed the woman?
Why did he feel like he’d done something to cause this? He hadn’t done anything except
be a husband and a father and a provider and a spiritual leader. Everything a man
was called to do, he had done.

“I made your favorite for dessert—pineapple upside-down cake.” Her face crinkled with
concern, Annie looked toward Isaac, the man Luke suspected she would marry someday
soon. “Isaac sampled it right out of the oven. He said it smelled so good, he couldn’t
wait until supper.”

Isaac grinned and patted his flat stomach. “I sample all her cooking. Just to make
sure it’s done right.”

Miriam and Josiah smiled. Everyone smiled. Luke forced his mouth to follow suit. “Sounds
good.”