Serendipity (29 page)

She’s sensitive. And possessive. Already that girl pushed me away
from my place at the table. What’s to keep her from pushing me right out
the door?
Todd wouldn’t let her . . . or would he? At first, he didn’t have feelings for the girl. Only with each passing hour, he seemed to become more enamored.

What will I do if she decides I must leave?
That’s what Arletta had done. Her own daughter kicked her out. Helga couldn’t return – they weren’t even there. And even if they were, she couldn’t travel alone. She couldn’t do anything alone. And she didn’t have a penny to her name.

Every second brought another terrifying thought.
Should that
hillbilly girl stop taking care of me and tell Todd to make me leave, I
have nowhere. No one.

Helga needed to become indispensable. Important. Training Todd’s bride about what foods to cook, tutoring her on housekeeping, explaining etiquette . . . The list went on and on. If she did all of those things, they’d rely on her wisdom and appreciate how she still had a place in the family. On the train, Todd invited her to teach his bride whatever she lacked. Ja. Helga would simply remind him she was following his wishes.

They left her alone in the house again – Todd out to the fields, but Maggie quickly returned with Helga’s sheets she’d had to launder. “Next time, if you do not let the sheets entirely dry, they’re easier to iron,” she informed Maggie.

“I’ve got to get out there and stir the beans, and your ticking’s aired, so I’ll stuff it. The sheets’ll just have to go without ironing this once.” Draping the halfway-folded sheets over the footboard, her daughter-in-law didn’t seem in the least bit ashamed of such shoddy housekeeping. It wasn’t all that long before Maggie coaxed the freshly stuffed mattress through the door and dumped it on the bed. She started making the bed with the wrinkled sheets.

“Wait! Use the sheets that were on it earlier.”

“No, ma’am, I won’t. Both of these sets here are yours, clean and sunshine fresh. You didn’t sleep in the other sheets, so I’ll fold them and put them away. Their corners are embroidered to match my newlywed quilt, and I aim to keep them special.”

So I am not special.
A wagon rattled outside, kicking up a gigantic dust cloud. “Take off your apron. It is rude to wear one when company comes calling.”

Opening the door, Magpie called out, “Mr. Walker, don’t trouble yourself to climb down from that there wagon.” She promptly closed the door and shot a grin at Helga. “Ma, he’s going to be slicker ’n snot on a glass doorknob. But he tried cheating us, and if he still wants the chair, I’m a-gonna teach him a lesson.”

Sure enough, someone knocked. Maggie let out a beleaguered sigh as she opened the door. But for pete’s sake! She still had on her apron.

“Mr. Walker, I don’t have time to waste with someone who lies to me. I told you not to come down off that wagon.”

“Now, Mrs. Valmer . . .”

Magpie being called Mrs. Valmer was a pitiful truth. But there she stood, dickering in the open doorway.

“Let him come inside, Magpie.”

Maggie half turned. “I’d be crazier than a rabid raccoon if I let a liar into my house. A home is for kith and kin. This feller here’s neither.” She pivoted back, heaved another sigh, pulled her apron over her head, and instead agreed to go out and look in his wagon.

From the window, Helga saw Todd striding to the front. Good.

He needed to handle this.

“Todd,” Magpie singsonged, “Mr. Walker’s come back. If you go take the door off the outhouse, it’ll save you a trip to town.” What did she think she was doing? Todd’s appearance should have sent her scurrying back inside. Not fifteen minutes later, she sashayed into the house carrying a kerosene lamp and set it in the middle of the table. Instead of a clear hurricane glass, blowsy cabbage roses covered this porcelain one, and a big white globe that bore matching roses topped it.

Here was a simple problem Helga could correct without much fuss. “Do not use that. It will burn up far too much fuel. And that is a parlor fixture. Diners cannot see through it. Simple and plain is best on the table.”

“I love my lamp.” Running a fingertip over the piece like a child about to be deprived of a favorite toy, she pouted, “Old Mee-Maw Jehosheba painted it for me herself. Nothing in the world beats a rose for beauty.”

“Other than you.” Todd stood in the open doorway. “You started as a Rose and are now the gorgeous Mrs. Valmer.”

“Todd! You scared the daylights out of me!” Maggie laughed instead of thanking him for the compliment. Did she have any manners whatsoever?

He tilted her face to his and gave her a lingering kiss. “My rose by her new name still smells as sweet. Sweeter.” Todd’s grin proved that the woman had bewitched him. He lifted the lid on a pot and sniffed. “Did you settle with Mr. Walker?”

“Sure and enough, we came to an understanding. He was very motivated because there’s to be a poker tournament tonight. With the train strike, the lumberyard isn’t due for a shipment until sometime next week, but he reckoned I wouldn’t take an IOU for Ma’s porch, so he brought eight bags of gravel, eight of sand – ”

“Sand will blow away, and it is too hard to push my chair through gravel! I know I told you anything was better than dirt, son, but – ”

“Hold your horses.” Magpie grinned. “And I got us ten bags of Portland cement. We can have a nice, smooth porch and do the space in here by the window and under the table!”

Todd’s jaw hardened. Helga waited for him to tell Magpie how much work it was to mix and pour cement. Or that he could provide for them. He said nothing, so she did. “There’s nothing wrong with a dirt floor. My son built a fine house.”

“Yes, Todd, the house is expertly fitted and chinked.” Maggie stroked his arm. “But you didn’t anticipate a wheelchair. How could you? It leaves ruts, and when Ma begins to walk, those ruts will be dangerous.”

He looked at the floor. “So.”

“On the morrow, I’ll do the last section of the vegetable garden so you’re free – ”

Ma snapped, “It is the man who assigns the work. A wife listens and obeys.”

“Tomorrow . . .” Todd paused. “Tomorrow is Sunday.”

“Glory be! I lost track of the days. We’ll actually be going to a real church! When the one back home burned down, it seemed silly to build one for so few of us.” She turned and gave Todd a smack on the back of his hand for trying to pilfer food. “We’ve got just about an hour until we eat – or at least, that’s what I planned on since we know John’s a-coming over.”

John?
“It is proper that you call him Mr. Toomel,” Ma advised. “A married woman must be above reproach.”

“My man’s invited his best friend to join us at the table whenever he has a hankering. When someone’s that familiar, why, they’re practically family.”

Fresh-mouthed. The girl had no respect whatsoever. “Remember, though. Your uncles – you called them by their surnames.” There. That would help her understand.

“On account of me being of a younger generation. The aged deserve respect. Just like Linette – she calls you Mrs. Crewel, but she calls me Maggie. Were I to start calling John ‘Mr. Toomel,’ he might figure I’d gotten fed up with him. We can’t have that – especially since I already started calling the Van der Vort brothers Piet and Karl. We all just got the handles set that first night.”

Todd left without weighing in on the matter, probably reluctant to correct his bride in front of her
.
So Helga held her silence. Soon her brash daughter-in-law would discover that she’d been given sage advice.

At the supper table, Maggie mused, “The porch – pouring it isn’t really work, is it? To my way of thinking, it’s an act of love.”

Mr. Toomel wiped his face. “The little lady’s got a point. Toss in Sunday supper, and I’ll come help.”

To Helga’s mortification, news of Maggie’s bartering had attracted a pair of men. Bad enough, she’d haggled like a penny peddler in the Ozarks. Helga thought the trade to rid them of that gambling chair wasn’t ideal, but she’d agreed out of necessity. Folks were gossiping already if these men came to examine Maggie’s goods. Not only did Magpie wrangle deals with the men, she’d invited them to supper. Now with the temptation of Sunday supper, they didn’t wait a heartbeat to volunteer to help with the porch. Ma couldn’t see Todd’s face. Maggie’s ridiculous lamp blocked her view. Her daughter-in-law was enticing all four men to break one of the Ten Commandments.

The tallest cleared his throat. “With you gone for such a spell, seems to me, the ox is in the ditch. May as well do the inside, too.”

“Are you calling me an ox?” Helga blurted out the question, then prayed he wouldn’t answer. If she didn’t weigh so much, the wheelchair wouldn’t be causing ruts to form.

“Now, Ma, it’s nothing more than an old saying.” Maggie plopped more beans on the men’s plates as she continued, “What we’re discussing brings to mind when all those brawny men cut a hole in the roof and lowered their crippled friend to Jesus.”

“This thought gives me peace.” Todd pounded the table, and everything on it jumped. “Tomorrow it will be done!”

“Just like in the Bible, Ma.” Maggie couldn’t silence her chatter even after she got her way. “Only Todd’s friends aren’t taking the house apart, they’re fixin’ to make it better.”

But I’m the cripple, and I’m not going to be healed.

Dumping brown sugar on his oatmeal, Todd mused, “You wear that cameo more than the others.”

Maggie’s hand went to her throat, and her fingertips grazed it. “It’s my favorite because of the story behind it.”

“All your nonsense about stories.” Ma Crewel made a face.

“See the woman here?” Maggie asked. “She’s supposed to be Rachel, watering her sheep. In Bible lands, a well is out-of-doors and ringed by stones. Often, a large stone covers it to hold in the water. When Jacob came close to remove the stone for Rachel, it was love at first sight, and this cameo is to commemorate the event. But the carver didn’t understand how his well differed from those in the Holy Land. That’s why there’s a cabin and a tree here. It’s a well house. The man who created this worked according to his understanding, yet it was wrong.”

“Why keep something made in stupidity?” Ma muttered under her breath.

Maggie gazed at Todd, willing him to understand. Did he? And if he did, would he stand up for her and preserve the special meaning of her cameo, or would it be ruined by an old woman’s bitterness?

“The man was not simply carving a beautiful woman to appeal to a sense of worldly vanity, Ma. He was honoring God’s union of marriage.”

“He got it wrong.” Ma shot a meaningful look at Maggie.

“Ah, but that’s why it means so much to me.” Tracing the shell’s delicate relief with her fingertip, Maggie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Like that carver, I work to be pleasing to the Lord, and still I fall short. I make mistakes.”

“But that’s what grace is about.” Beneath the table, Todd slid his hand atop hers and squeezed. “If we could live a blameless life, Christ’s sacrifice wouldn’t have been necessary. I, too, fall short.”

If only she could take this feeling and bottle it up! She’d fill every container she owned and relish every last whiff that hovered in the air. Todd just confessed what most strong men would not – at least, not in front of his bride and mother – that he made mistakes.
If I
were to name this scent . . . Bliss? Contentment? Unity?

Ma heaved a stretched-to-the-limits sigh. “If the cameo is so special, you should keep it for Sunday best, like today. But you wear it other days, too.”

“Because it serves as a reminder that God looks past my flaws and at the intent of my heart. He takes me just as I am. I want to be like that to other people. Whenever I wear this cameo, that sentiment sings in my soul.”

Todd tightened his grip on her hand. “When we married you took me as I was.”

The mention of their wedding touched her. “Aye, I did. Even though you’ll forever be ‘stuck in pants,’ as Jerlund said.” A smile slid across her face. “The shawl I wore is Clan Rose’s ancient hunting plaid. I still have a man’s full-length plaid. You’d look very handsome in it, too.”

“Too?” Ma inhaled sharply. “Who else wore it?”

“I meant that my husband looks handsome in trousers, but he’d also cut a fine figure in a kilt. I traded for it as a gift, but God took Daddy ere I gave it to him.”