Rebecca's Choice (9 page)

“He’s in a hurry too.”

“For a different reason, of course.”

“Of course,” she said and playfully leaned against his shoulder.

He wished it was cold outside, so he could offer her the buggy blanket and prolong the moment.

“I thought maybe you’d come over last night.”

He nodded. “I thought of it but figured I’d wait.”

“There was no news anyway,” she said and glanced at him. “Just a sad time. A big funeral, though. Lots of people I didn’t know. I guess your parents told you all of that.”

John shrugged. “I heard them talking about cousins and such. Didn’t tell me much.”

“I guess there wasn’t much to tell. Nice trip, though. I always like going back there. Leona’s children were glad to see me.”

“How’s baby Jonathon?”

“You remembered his name.” Rebecca’s pleasure showed plainly in her face.

“I’m just that sort of fellow. A
gut mann.
” He lifted his chin high and pulled air into his chest.

“A right proud one too.” She made a face but broke into laughter a moment later, her shoulder against his.

John savored the moment, the feel of her presence beside him.

“It was sad, though,” she said, her hands clasped in front of her, “to see Emma gone. I couldn’t believe it. Leona and I just stood there, in front of the coffin, for a long time. If Leona hadn’t been with me, I don’t know how I would have looked. Dumb probably. Just standing there staring.”

“She meant a lot to you.” John’s tone said he understood.

“Yes…she did. Emma and school. Those will always be the same thing in my mind.”

“As smart as you are, she must have been a really good teacher.” John tried for a lighthearted note.

“She tried,” Rebecca said. “Tried hard to get things through my thick skull.”

“It wasn’t that bad, surely.”

“Some things were—like math. Emma was good, though.”

“Did I hear she was rich?” John said, as calmly as he could, and watched her face out of the corner of his eye, his attention only half on where he drove the horse.

“Don’t know.” Rebecca shrugged but didn’t look at him, apparently lost in her memories. “Her place is nice enough.”

“She apparently has a lot of property—a couple of farms. I wonder who it will go to.”

“Relatives. The usual I suppose. You shouldn’t be thinking about such things. Money isn’t everything. Do men always think about money? Even after the funeral of former schoolteachers?”

“Not always,” John said and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Now Rebecca thought he was money hungry, saw dollar bills on Emma’s coffin.

“Seeing her laying there seemed so wrong,” Rebecca whispered. John glanced at her and saw the tears in her eyes. “Emma doesn’t belong gone. She belongs with children, loving them as she loved us. She was like that. Like she couldn’t help herself. Emma just brought out the best in all of us. It was that way till the last year she taught. I heard several people talking about it. Said their children loved Emma. Even the smaller ones. Emma had so much to give. It just isn’t right.”

“God’s ways are always right,” John said but felt her sorrow, “even when they hurt. He must have something better ahead.”

“Maybe she teaches in heaven,” Rebecca said and laughed softly. “She needs to be doing something—some work where she can take care of children. That’s what Emma was good at.”

“It’s probably better than that,” John told her. “Something we can’t imagine. That’s how God is.”

“Just hard to see it sometimes.”

“It is. We just have to trust Him.” John pulled the reins in and slowed his horse down, preparing to turn into his parents’ driveway. Today they would spend the afternoon here. Then he would drive Rebecca home after the singing.

Rebecca helped unhitch the horse from her side and then waited for him, as he took the horse to its stall. They walked together across the lawn, taking a shortcut because the grass was dry and no rain had softened the ground recently.

He held the door open for her. Miriam and Isaac wouldn’t be home for a while yet, he knew, and now would be the time to show her the letter. Yet John’s heart wasn’t in the action. His gentle probe on the way home was all the answer he needed. Rebecca’s look expressed her obvious lack of knowledge. His parents would just have to be satisfied with his conclusion and with his trust of Rebecca.

“I’ve got something to show you,” he said and shut the door behind her. “Just give me a minute. It’s upstairs.”

“Okay,” Rebecca said. She took her bonnet and shawl off and lay them on the couch.

John went upstairs to his room and found what he wanted. His shoes made an even beat on the hardwood stairs on the way down.

“Over here,” he said, teasing her by hiding the roll of papers behind his back. “The sewing room.” That Rebecca already suspected what he had in his hands was evident to him, as he grinned sheepishly.

“It’s a Sunday,” she said.

“We’re not working. Not really.”

He unfolded the papers and spread them out on the sewing room table.

“Your house,” she said.

“Ours,” he said making her blush. “I thought a drawing of the place would make it easier to visualize because the renters are still in it. The sketches are kind of rough, I know—just hand drawn.”

“They look fine to me.”

“You’re just saying that.” John made a face, but Rebecca didn’t see him because her eyes were focused on the papers.

“It’s hard to tell from the outside just how things look.”

“That’s why I made these,” he said. “The tenants leave late this summer.”

“You’re not remodeling anything?” She glanced at him, her cheeks still red. “Nothing major hopefully?”

“Not to the house structure,” he said. “Maybe a wall or two, if you want.” The moment caught him up in a joyous emotion. Rebecca was the one who would make the house beautiful, he thought, not the makeover they planned.

“I don’t know,” she said and seemed uncertain. “I’d almost have to see the house. Sometimes you have to live in houses before you know what needs to be done. That’s what Mom would say.”

Rebecca’s matter of fact reference to their life in the house made John glad he hadn’t brought down the letter that lay on his dresser upstairs. There simply was no way this girl had plans to marry him for money. Even the thought seemed profane and unseemly. If he had brought it up, he would certainly have spoiled this beautiful afternoon.

“So I can’t draw too well,” he said, partly to hide his thoughts. “That’s probably why you can’t envision things.”

“It’s not that. It’s just a woman thing. I can start planning, though, with this,” she said smiling.

“We can repaint everything,” he said, his mood now expansive. “And the kitchen is a little small. Perhaps enlarge that…new cabinets maybe.”

“That costs money,” she said, her face showing alarm. “Maybe we’d better just use it as it is for now. I’d be happy.”

“I want the house to be nice,” he said and meant the words.

“It’ll be nice with you,” she said and took his arm. “That’s enough for me.”

“I’d still like to do the work.” He felt happiness swell up in him and hoped it didn’t show too much on his face. “At least this gives us some ideas, so we don’t have to start from scratch. That is once the renters are out.”

“I’ll think about it.” She smiled again and released his arm as Isaac and Miriam’s buggy came up the driveway.

John rolled up the house plans. “I’ll take these upstairs. Be right back.”

When he came back down, he found her seated on the couch in conversation with Isaac and Miriam. A few minutes later, he suggested they take a walk outside, an idea Rebecca agreed to easily. They stood to leave, and in the moment when Rebecca’s back was turned, John shook his head and mouthed the words,
There’s nothing to it,
in Isaac and Miriam’s direction. Their relieved smiles were a comfort to him.

The warmth of the day was just enough to make the walk enjoyable. They walked across the pasture, as far as Isaac’s land went. The few beef cattle his father kept were in the other end of the field.

At the barbed wire fence, John was tempted to cross it and try to get close enough to where they could see his place but decided against it. He had Rebecca with him.

“You can see the place from the other hill,” he said. “Don’t think we’d better try crossing fences in our Sunday clothing.” John paused by the fence, his eyes gazing across the fields to a place where his house sat. He took her hand. A meadowlark lighted on a post two links down, and burst into song.

“It’s special for us,” Rebecca said, and her eyes shone. “To the spring. To our future.”

His fingers tightened on hers. He simply nodded, too full of emotion to dare say anything.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

R
achel’s answer arrived on Monday with the mailman. It was justice done, she figured, since no one listened to her. Her pleas on Friday night at Ezra’s place had fallen on deaf ears. She might as well have talked to a fence post, she thought, as to her three brothers.

Ezra had shown some interest, but Abe and Jonas laughed at her suggestions. Emma probably didn’t even have a will, they said, and if she did they really didn’t care. That Abe and Jonas were serious was enough of a shock to Rachel, but their refusal to even think of further research was the final insult.

“Money,” Abe had said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “it got no one any good. No day. Anyway.” Abe said that he really didn’t want to know what Emma had done. Now that she was gone, it was none of his concern.

Rachel could see Reuben, seated beside her, nod his head in agreement. Such a reaction was what she expected out of him. It was Abe and Jonas who should have known better. They had been raised differently.

She had told them they needed to find out what was in Emma’s will before they left for Missouri. There certainly had to be one, she assured them. They didn’t ask, and she omitted any reference as to how she might know this.

Jonas joined in, making the point that their last expectations hadn’t turned out the best. Their father had left them with little of the inheritance they had waited for. It seemed to him, Jonas said, as if
Da Hah
just wanted them to forget the whole thing.

“We got our hopes up so high last time,” he said. “We waited around for that money. I’m almost embarrassed to think of it now. It was a shame how money hungry we were. How we forgot much of our faith and all the church has taught us.”

Reuben nodded steadily beside her, and Rachel’s temper flared. “It was our right,” she declared. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves—all of you—that you forgot that. It’s high time you acted like your father’s sons instead of a bunch of little whipped puppies, hiding away in dirt-poor Missouri. You know you could all use the money.”

“She’s telling you good,” Ezra roared in laughter, but Rachel knew it was at her expense.

“It’s time someone did,” Rachel retorted, but beside her Reuben didn’t nod anymore.

“What’s your deacon of a husband think?” Abe asked. He rolled his eyes at Reuben.

It was obvious to Rachel that Abe as well as the rest of them knew good and well what Reuben thought and just made fun of her.

“I’m the Miller—not him,” she said, as if that was answer enough.

“Oh my,” Ezra said and laughed heartedly. “Glad this isn’t a church matter. She’d fry us at pre-communion church for sure.”

Abe and Jonas joined in Ezra’s brand of humor, their voices filling the room.

“I think you’d better listen to them,” Reuben ventured. “They are your brothers.”

“Mighty worthless ones,” Rachel muttered, which provoked another round of laughter.

“Emma can do what she wants with the money,” Jonas said, once things had quieted down. “She’s been a faithful church member all these years. She lived a godly and humble life. Even with what Dad left her.
Da Hah
will reward Emma for it. As He even may be now.” Jonas glanced reverently skyward. “Who is to say the same would be true for us? For me? It might corrupt my soul and lead me away from the faith. Who knows what temptations await me. What if I had a farm paid off and money in the bank? I might start thinking about an automobile or perhaps joining a liberal church.”

Jonas gave an involuntary shudder. Reuben nodded vigorously again.

“It would do me only good,” Rachel pronounced. “Much more than someone else. The money has to go somewhere, you know.”

“May that be in God’s hands,” Reuben said, using his deacon tone, which so irritated Rachel. “We had best leave it alone.”

The others had nodded and wouldn’t change their minds even when she protested vehemently. Abe and Jonas had left on Sunday, right after church dinner, their van drivers in a hurry to make the trip back.

Rachel thought a talk with Luke might help. Perhaps he had some ideas about what to do, but Luke had left for the youth singing and supper around five. He wouldn’t be back till after midnight. She assumed he was on a date with that Susie of his. No amount of talk might persuade Luke anyway.