Love Still Stands (38 page)

I miss you
.

Luke

The words in his head would not be forced into obedience on the page. He folded the
piece of paper in thirds just as Joseph raced into the room, William behind him. “Walk,
don’t run in the house.” The words came automatically. They sounded like Leah. The
boys slammed to a halt, running into each other, all arms and legs like colts frolicking
in the corral. “And be quiet. Aenti Bethel has gone to bed early. It’ll be time for
all of us to turn in soon, so write the letters quickly.”

“But we have to color our pictures first.” William looked up at him with those solemn,
owlish brown eyes. It was as if Leah looked up at him. “Aren’t you going to color
a picture too? Joseph said you were going to color.”

“I will.” He settled back into his chair. “What shall I draw?”

“Mudder will like anything you draw.” Joseph held out a fat green crayon. “She likes
everything you do.”

The ache in Luke’s throat spread to his chest. Was this what a heart attack felt like?
Like a propane tank sitting on his chest, ready to explode in a fireball? Joseph looked
up at him, his face expectant. “Draw grass. Then you can have the blue for the sky.
Mudder likes the grass and the sky. She told me so when she was hanging the pants
on the clothesline and I was mowing. She said they’re the same everywhere, no matter
where you go. God made them that way so we’d know He’s always with us no matter where
we are.”

Luke accepted his son’s offering. His small face content, Joseph wiggled up onto his
knees so he could reach across the table and rummage through the box of crayons, lining
them up in blues and greens, yellows and oranges and reds. Nice and neat, the way
Leah would’ve wanted them. Luke swallowed his pain. Leah could be looking at the sun
hanging on the horizon in a blue Kansas sky right now. The same sun, the same sky.
The ache in his throat eased. The pain in his chest subsided.

He began to draw, outlining the frame of the two-story house and then adding the windows
and the porch on one side and a chimney on the top. It had been years since he’d drawn
anything, let alone colored with crayons. He felt like a little boy again. Peace stole
over him as he listened to Joseph and William discuss what color the kittens were
in the litter they’d found in the back of the barn.

“That’s our house, isn’t it, Daed?” William propped himself up with both hands on
the table and craned his head to examine Luke’s drawing. “You’ve drawn our family
and our new house. You did a nice picture.”

“Mudder will like that a lot,” Joseph added. He held up his drawing. “Look, I’ve drawn
the same thing.”

Indeed, he had. Not as neatly, but still discernibly a house. Crowing, William held
up his drawing. Another picture of their home.

“But you need to color the grass and the sky, remember?” Joseph tilted his head and
touched the paper with one finger. “And you forgot the sun. It’s the same everywhere
too.”

With a sudden rush of hope, warm and sweet as hot cocoa on an icy winter day, Luke
added the sun in broad yellow, orange, and red strokes that filled the sky over his
family—all of them, wherever they were.

Taking a long, shuddering breath, Bethel turned up the flame in the kerosene lamp
with shaking fingers. Shadows danced across the wall in her bedroom. Ashamed of the
tears that threatened, she straightened and ran the back of her hand over her cheek.
Elijah had spoken with Luke. Obviously. Shame weighed her down. Nothing could be done
about it. Done was done. Elijah hadn’t been to the house since Thanksgiving and she
couldn’t go gallivanting across the pastures to hunt him down. It wasn’t done. And
he didn’t deserve it. He’d taken a harmless gesture and turned it into a grievous
violation of an unwritten rule—she wasn’t even sure which one. He’d taken a lovely
sleigh ride and tossed it aside over what had followed. An accident. A man by the
side of the road who needed their help. She’d offered her help from the heart. Her
heart said she was called to help. Just as he’d gone to the phone shack, she’d stayed
behind and offered Shawn McCormack her company and her comfort.

Gott, did I go too far?

She stood in the center of the room and waited. No answer. She squeezed her eyes shut
and listened. The chill in the air greeted her with the certain sense that she was
expected to come up with these answers on her own. Hadn’t her parents brought her
up right?

Stewing over it wouldn’t help. She needed to think of someone other than herself.
Like William and Joseph. They needed their mother.

Ignoring the painful ache that radiated from her heart to her head, she rummaged through
the top drawer of the small dresser in the corner. It held her scant personal possessions.
A nub of a pencil, the eraser completely gone, and a piece of plain stationery in
hand, she curled up on the bed, using an old copy of a Burpee seed catalogue as a
sort of portable desk.

Dear Leah
,

Luke and the boys are out in the front room writing letters to you. I think they’re
planning to color some pictures too. I know you’ll like them. They’re such good boys—all
three of them! I wanted to tell you again how sorry I am if I spoke out of turn. I
want you to know that I only meant to help. I care for you and Luke and the kinner.
That’s why I did it. I wanted you to feel better. I wanted you to be happy about the
baby. As happy as Luke is. You might not like this, but I had to do it. I spoke with
the doctor again. She says if you come back and come to see her, she will help you.
She will help you have the baby and get some medicine to help your mood. She says
that with the medicine, along with the right amount of sleep, good foods, and a bit
of walking alone—no children hanging on your apron—you’ll be right as rain. You’ll
be able to smile again. I know you want that. I know Luke wants it. He misses you
so much. We all do. Please consider it. If this is too much, then talk to Emma. She
knows about these things
.

I never told you this, but I love you for taking care of me when I was little and
Mudder was sick. Thank you for being there when Daed was cranky and yelled at us.
You always took the brunt of everything and you never once complained. Thank you for
helping me get through that awful time when I was little and I thought Mudder would
die and leave us all alone with Daed. Now let me help you
.

Love,

Bethel

Chapter 35

D
espite the sunshine beaming down on her, Bethel shivered in the cold winter air. The
crowd squeezed in closer to the auctioneer’s parked wagon in front of the schoolhouse.
The horses, still harnessed to the wagon, stamped their feet and whinnied. She understood
Luke’s desire to have the auction right now, but winter weather didn’t lend itself
to a big crowd. Despite her boots and thick wool socks, her feet were frozen and she
couldn’t feel her fingers. She tried not to think about it, instead listening to the
cadence of Nathan Bontrager’s booming voice as he coaxed the price for the old tractor
up another fifty dollars. Luke had been so pleased Nathan had been willing to make
the trek from La Plata to serve as the auctioneer after Diana Doolittle’s husband
declined. Nathan had the voice and he kept things moving like a cowboy herding cattle.
An Englischer from Bolivar wanted the tractor badly. The price shot up another hundred
dollars. Bethel wanted to clap, but she kept her glee to herself. The proceeds from
the auction would pay for Deborah’s salary, additional desks, chairs, a new set of
encyclopedias, textbooks, and supplies for the school.

“The quilts sure are pretty.” Viola Byler slipped in next to Bethel. She had a package
under one arm and a soft pretzel slathered in mustard in her gloved hand. “Did you
help make any of them?”

“I worked on two of them. The Broken Starburst and the Turkey Tracks.” Bethel kept
her tone friendly. Viola had done nothing to her. She seemed nice enough and it wasn’t
her fault Bethel suffered jealousy pangs. It was an ugly—if human—thing to see that
in herself.
Gott, forgive me for the sin of jealousy
. “But Katie Christner is the real quilter in our community. She shows the rest of
us how to do it. What did you buy?”

“A set of embroidered hankies for my Englisch friend in Seymour. She’s a teacher at
the Englisch school. It’s her birthday.” Viola took a dainty bit of the pretzel, chewed,
and swallowed. She had a dab of mustard on her upper lip. “They have the days of the
week on them and each one has a different flower in one corner. Too fancy for us,
but perfect for her.”

“Edna Daugherty made those. She has a lovely stitch, doesn’t she?” Bethel offered
Viola a paper napkin she’d picked up with her own snack of sugar-dipped doughnut holes.

Viola took the napkin, but she didn’t seem to know she needed to use it. “I’m more
of a knitter myself.”

“My sister knits.” Bethel’s gaze caught Elijah’s approach. Of course, anytime Viola
appeared in the vicinity he came out of the woodwork. A perfectly unfair thought.
Bethel brushed it away. “Baby blankets mostly.”

Elijah dodged two Englisch ladies weighing the pros and cons of a handcrafted oak
dresser and matching armoire. Silas’s handiwork. A big smile on his face, Elijah waved
as he threaded his way toward them. “You made it.”

Bethel started to respond and then realized he was talking to Viola, whose smile turned
all dimples at his approach. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. My daed let me tag
along.”

“Did you see the maple cradle I told you about?”

They’d been discussing cradles? Bethel’s skin prickled at the thought. She forced
her mouth shut and waited for him to acknowledge her presence.

“I saw it. It’s perfect.” Viola popped the remainder of her pretzel in her mouth and
chewed. She still had that spot of mustard on her lip. “My sister will need a second
cradle before the end of the year.”

“Did you bid on it…?” Elijah’s voice trailed away. “You have a dab of mustard…”

To Bethel’s surprise, he dabbed away the mustard with a napkin gripped between gloved
fingers. His face turned beet red. “Sorry, you had some mustard—”

“Don’t be sorry.” Viola grinned up at him. “Thanks to you I won’t go around all day
with mustard all over my face.”

Her knowing look encompassed Bethel, who felt her own face color. She should have
said something. It was small of her not to do so. And it put Elijah in the position
of feeling obligated to do something. And embarrassed them all. Even tiny decisions
had repercussions. Small acts and smaller omissions.

“Bethel! There you are. We knew you’d be here.”

The gravelly voice was a momentary interruption that Bethel welcomed, although she
knew it belonged to someone Elijah wouldn’t want to see. Far from it. More kerosene
on the flames.

Wrapped in a black down jacket and black ski cap, Shawn rolled across the bumpy ground
in front of the schoolhouse, his chair tilting and bucking on the rutted earth. Mark
and Crystal followed in a small procession of wheelchairs. Following them was Doctor
Jasmine, whose hair had been freed from its customary braids and her work clothes
exchanged for jeans and a corduroy jacket over a thick turtleneck sweater. She looked
more like a teenager on a field trip than a therapist.

Bethel couldn’t have been more surprised if the town of Bliss Creek had come to Missouri
for the sale. “What are all of you doing here?”

“Yes, what are they doing here?” Elijah directed the question to Bethel, the first
time he’d spoken directly to her since Thanksgiving.

“We came to support the sale.” Shawn didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by the pitiful
welcome. His bruises had faded some and he no longer wore a bandage over the cut on
his forehead. “We heard it was a fund-raiser for the school, and we wanted to buy
Christmas presents or something.”

“I heard I might be able to get a nice quilt for my grandmother.” Doctor Jasmine’s
smile widened. “She used to make quilts herself, but her fingers aren’t nimble enough
anymore.”

“Yeah, I heard my mom and dad talking about the sale,” Mark added. “They said there’d
probably be some good bargains. You make good quilts and furniture, they were saying.
Too bad you’re so…”

“So what?” Elijah’s tone turned cool. He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure what you
mean.”