The Calling (37 page)

S
chool started on a gray mid-August morning with a rainstorm due at any moment. The wind had picked up, the sky had darkened. As a few drops started to fall, then more and more, Teacher M.K. rang the bell to call everyone into the schoolhouse a little early. For a moment, everything felt normal to Mim. She had been worried Teacher M.K. wouldn’t be here this term, but there she was!

Teacher M.K. had an odd look on her face as she welcomed the class back for another term. Happy and sad, all mixed up together. “I have some news,” she said at last, and Mim’s hands started to feel cold and clammy, even though the air in the schoolhouse was heavy and humid from the warm summer rain. Mim never did like change and she sensed change was coming.

“Since I’m going to be getting married and moving to Ohio, I won’t be able to teach this term.”

Mim hung her head. She had been holding out a tiny glimmer of hope that maybe Teacher M.K. would keep teaching or postpone her wedding. Just one more term—then Mim
would graduate and it wouldn’t be a problem if the new teacher were awful.

“The school board has been looking for a replacement for the last few weeks and, so far, hasn’t found anyone. In the meantime, they have decided on a substitute teacher. This is someone I recommended to the school board. This person is the smartest student I ever taught. And even though he’s a little bit younger than most teachers, he was born to teach. I am counting on each one of you to support him.” She was staring right at Luke when she said that.

The door opened and all heads turned to see who was coming in. First, all they could see was a big black umbrella, dripping with rain. Then it dropped to the floor and there stood Danny Riehl.

Mim’s heart soared.

Danny shadowed Teacher M.K. all day. Mim stuck around after school let out, hoping they might walk home together. Hoping he might ask her to meet him on the hill behind the schoolhouse and stargaze. After the rainstorm that swept through Stoney Ridge this morning, the skies were clear, the moon just a sliver of a thumbnail, and it would be a perfect night to observe Orion. But Danny didn’t look at her, not once, and he stayed close to Teacher M.K.’s desk, peppering her with questions about teaching.

It was getting late so Mim quietly slipped out the door to head to Eagle Hill. As she reached the road, she heard Danny call to her. Her heart soared again as she waited for him to catch up with her.

“I need to go back in and work with Teacher M.K.”

She nodded. She understood.

He pushed his glasses up against the bridge of his nose. “I just found out about substituting a few weeks ago. The school board has been looking for teachers all summer and couldn’t find anyone. No one wanted it. That’s why they finally came to me. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”

“That’s all right.”

He looked down at the tops of his shoes. “The thing is, Mim, I want to do well in this job.”

“Of course,” she said. She twirled her apron corner around one finger. “Of course you do.”

“So . . . I . . . won’t be asking you to go stargazing anymore. In that . . . I’m your teacher now.”

Oh.
Oh!

“And I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?”

He kept his eyes on the waving cornstalks that rustled in a gentle breeze. “You should call me Teacher Danny.” For a brief moment he met her gaze. “You called me Danny a couple of times today. I think it would set a good example to the younger students.”

She tried to look casual and nonchalant, but she knew it probably looked weird and tight and forced. Her disappointment was massive and she had never been good at hiding her feelings. If she didn’t leave soon, she would start to cry and that would be mortifying. She had to swallow twice before she could speak. “I understand perfectly. I’d better get home. Mom will be wondering where I am.” She turned and hurried down the road.

“Mim,” Danny called.

She stopped but didn’t turn back.

He walked up to her. “I’m sorry.”

Mim started for home, feeling halfway sad and blue, halfway stupid. As tears slipped down her cheeks, she thought now she could finally answer questions for Mrs. Miracle about love and broken hearts.

Summer was slipping away. The air had gone quiet, falling into the purple hush of dusk as the sun slipped suddenly behind the ridge that framed Eagle Hill.

A hummingbird buzzed through the air, paused to stare at Bethany as she turned on the garden hose, and then settled on the edge of the watering can. It dipped its little bill into the water three or four times and watched her again. A glistening drop of water perched on the tip of its beak. She stopped moving to see what the tiny bird would do, but it flew away. When she turned around, there was Jimmy Fisher.

She walked up to him. “Hello, Jimmy. I haven’t seen you around.” Now that he wasn’t working at Galen’s any longer, she hadn’t seen him in quite some time.

“You said you needed some space. I’ve been trying to give it to you.”

The expression on his face was so full of pain. She couldn’t bear him being hurt. She simply could not bear it. She had to look away. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

He stilled.

She raised her head. He was looking down at her with those spectacular blue eyes of his. A muscle ticked in his cheek and she could see the pulse beating in his neck, fast and hard. “My mother has a mental illness. That’s why she left Stoney Ridge the way she did—she disappeared when Tobe and I
were little and we grew up thinking she had abandoned us. I didn’t know the truth until just recently. I tracked her down and visited her, and I met her.” She had a hard time talking around the knot in her throat and her voice cracked a little. “But she didn’t seem to know me at all. She’s . . . in bad shape. Though she’s in a good place. I mean, she’s well cared for.”

A sadness welled up inside Bethany, choking off the words. She shut her eyes and pressed her fingers to her lips. She hadn’t wanted to cry and didn’t think she would, but in the next instant scalding tears pushed against her eyes. She buried her face in her hands, but just for a moment. Then she let them fall to her side, curled into balls.

She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. “Turns out, my grandmother had the same sickness. I thought . . . well, lately, I’ve felt so confused and upset and moody—I might be getting the sickness too. That’s why I ended things with you, before they got started.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance.” He said the words simply, his voice low and flat.

His comment surprised her. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but not that. “I know.” She looked down at her hands, which were now twisted up into a knot with her apron. With a deliberate effort she unclenched her fingers, smoothing out the bunched material. She lifted her head. “I’m not sure you can understand this, but I felt so scared, Jimmy. I was sure I was getting the sickness. I broke things off with you because I couldn’t bear the thought of tangling you in this sickness. I even went to a doctor, and now I’m seeing a counselor. I’ve been having panic attacks and she’s helping me.” She bowed her head.

“You didn’t think you could tell me any of this?”

“I’m sorry. My mother’s situation . . . well, it’s complicated. And messy.” She shook her head, splattering tears. “Shootfire! If I told you, it would scare you to kingdom come.”

His expression grew quite sober. “Think you’re the only one with skeletons in your closet? We Fishers have plenty of our own. Let’s see, there’s old Rufus, who had six toes on each foot. My father passed on at an early age because of high blood pressure . . .”

“Jimmy, those are physical things. Mental illness . . . that’s another beast.”

“Okay, then. Okay.” He bit his lip, as if he was weighing whether or not to say something. “My mother’s father lost his mind. I don’t know what kind of sickness he had—he died before I was born—but I know it was pretty bad.”

“Your mother’s father? He was mentally ill?”

“She won’t talk about it. Not with anyone.”

Edith Fisher, she was discovering, was very good at keeping secrets.

“Bethany, life comes at you like a hurricane, and you do what you can with whatever it blows into your hands, good and bad. I don’t think we have any idea about what we’re going to be faced with in life.”

“Do you really believe that? You think that fate is lying there like a snake and it’ll take you no matter what you do to try to stop it?”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant at all. What I’m trying to say is that we don’t know what the future holds, only God does, and there’s no point in trying to avoid trouble. Like . . . genes. They’re a mystery. Who knows what makes us the way we are? Or what triggers an illness? Nobody knows, Bethany. It’s amazing how fast life can turn its course—”

“On a nickel and give you some change.”

He nodded. He bent over and took her face in his hands, his thumbs lightly tracing the bones in her cheeks. “The only thing I’m sure of,” he said, in a voice so loving that it brought fresh tears to Bethany’s eyes, “is that I’d rather have you, just the way you are, than never have you at all.”

Then, just as suddenly, he turned away abruptly to head down the driveway.

If she’d been holding on to any illusions about how much she cared about Jimmy Fisher, that last speech would have clinched it. And suddenly she was completely aware of this exact moment—the sweet smell of fresh-cut grass, the sound of horses neighing to each other in the pasture, the bleating of the four little sheep, the clatter through the open kitchen window of Rose putting dishes away—because as she watched Jimmy head through the privet hole, she realized that she loved him. Whatever happened, as much as she had tried, she couldn’t un-fall in love with him.

On the way home from school one afternoon, Mim stopped to pick up the mail in the mailbox before she walked to the house. There was a thick envelope addressed to her in Ella’s spidery handwriting. She dropped her lunch box and sat down under a tree to read it.

Dear Mim,

The silver thimble you gave me is very special. I will treasure it. Sylvia is holding on to it and only letting me use it during our bee time, so it doesn’t get lost.

You might have noticed that I have days when things are right as rain, and days when life seems very foggy. Today is a very good day. Clear as glass. But I am becoming more forgetful, and it is possible that one day I might not know where I am or who I am or, even more important, who you are. So I wanted to say a nice, clearheaded thank you while I still do have my wits about me, or at least some of them.

You are simply the best young woman in the whole world. Never forget that. The real me, inside here, remembers you well . . . as my little Mrs. Miracle.

Fondly,
Ella

One tear, then two, leaked from the corner of Mim’s eyes and splattered on the envelope. She brushed them off and felt something else in the envelope. She pulled out four newspaper cuttings of Mrs. Miracle columns, from the last month, ever since Mim stopped nicking the columns from the Sisters’ House.