The Search (24 page)

“I’ll give you some privacy,” she said quietly, and went to wait in the buggy.

Jonah knelt in front of his daughter’s grave. And for the second time that day, he wept.

As Jonah drove away from her cottage, Lainey stood by the road and watched until his buggy had dipped over the rise and was out of sight. They had stayed at the cemetery and talked for hours. It was as if they were filling each other in on the last fifteen years of their lives. They talked until the shadows got longer and still had more to say to each other. It wasn’t until long after the dusk turned to darkness and the stars came out in the clear sky that Jonah said he should be getting back to Rose Hill Farm. But he didn’t look at all as if he wanted to leave.

______

The next morning was a church Sunday. Bess dressed quickly and offered to go down the road to pick up Lainey and come back for her father and grandmother, but Jonah said he wouldn’t mind going. He said old Frieda needed a little warming up, but Bess wasn’t so sure. Her dad came back late last night, whistling. Even Mammi noticed how happy he seemed. You had to know Mammi pretty well to decipher a difference in expression, but Bess thought she hadn’t stopped looking pleased ever since she and Jonah had arrived.

Bess wished her father would hurry old Frieda along. She hadn’t seen Billy at Rose Hill Farm yesterday. She knew he would be at church this morning, and so she took extra care with her hair. She even pulled a few strands loose behind her cap and tried to curl them into tight ringlets. She didn’t think anyone would see since they sat in the back bench, but she hoped maybe Billy might notice. Betsy Mast often had corkscrew curls slipping under her cap and down her neck. But then, Betsy had thick, curly hair, and Bess’s hair was thin and straight.

She spotted Billy by the barn the minute they arrived at the Smuckers’. He was surrounded by a group of friends; they were laughing over some joke. Mammi took her time getting out of the buggy from the backseat, which gave Bess a chance to furtively glance at the boys while pretending to help her down. She saw Andy Yoder spot her with a delighted look on his face. Billy hadn’t noticed her yet. He had turned around to talk to someone else. As soon as Bess climbed out of the buggy, Andy was at her elbow.

“Bess! You’re back! Hallelujah! You look . . . wonderful.” Andy’s admiration was unqualified. “I was just this minute trying to talk Billy into making a trip to Ohio to see you! But he made it sound like we were going to the far side of the moon.”

Bess stifled a smile. Andy was the kind of person that sometimes told you unexpected things.

“Don’t listen to a word this fellow tells you,” Billy said, approaching them from behind.

Bess whirled around to face Billy. “Which words?” Her heart was pounding like an Indian war drum. She was sure Billy could hear it.

Billy looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. For a few seconds, he was literally unable to find words. “The second part,” he said simply.

Then it was as if the mist had cleared and they went back to their old ways.

“Missed picking rose petals, did you?” he asked.

She grinned and held out her palms. “Especially the thorns. When the last cut healed, I told Dad we needed to return. My hands looked too good.”

Billy and Andy peered at her hands as if they were made of fine china.

Jonah handed the reins of the horse to one of the Smucker sons and interrupted them. “Well, boys—”

Bess cringed at the undue emphasis her father placed on the word “boys.” Couldn’t he see that Billy was a man?

“—it’s time we went in to the service.” Jonah put a hand protectively on Bess’s shoulder to steer her to the house for meeting.

Around three o’clock, they left the Smuckers’ to return to Rose Hill Farm. Bess invited Lainey to join them for supper, and Jonah couldn’t hold back a smile. As he turned the buggy into the drive, he felt a jolt. Bess let out a gasp.

There, on the front porch, patiently waiting, was planted Sallie Stutzman, her twin sons, and Mose Weaver.

Jonah swallowed hard. In his haste, he had completely forgotten to tell Sallie and Mose that he and Bess were leaving.

Over breakfast on Monday, Bess asked her grandmother if she would take her to see Simon in Lebanon as soon as it was convenient. Mammi said it was convenient right now and grabbed her bonnet to head out the door. Sallie and her boys and Mose were staying at Rose Hill Farm, and Sallie’s “cheerfulness,” Mammi said, was making her dizzy.

They didn’t talk much on the bus ride. Something was building inside of Bess, something she had discovered last night as she watched everyone at dinner. She was so sure she was right that she felt as if she might explode. Finally, she blurted out, “Oh Mammi! Whatever are we going to do?!”

Mammi had been looking out the window. She turned to Bess as if she had forgotten she was there. “About what?”

About
what
? Wasn’t it obvious? “Dad loves Lainey and Sallie loves Dad and Mose loves Sallie and Lainey loves Dad! If we don’t do something quick, the wedding is going to happen because Dad is too honorable to tell Sallie no. That’s what!” Sallie hadn’t stopped talking about the wedding last night. That dinner was one of the most painful moments of Bess’s life. Her father looked stricken, Mose kept looking at Sallie with this terrible longing—Bess knew Mose well enough to know that his mild look held
terrible
longing—and Lainey! Poor Lainey! She hardly said a word. When Jonah offered to drive her home, she refused him, flat out.

Mammi turned back to the window and exhaled. “We let nature take its course.
That’s
what.” She patted Bess’s leg. “That’s what we do. Never forget that.”

Bess turned that thought over and over in her mind, not at all convinced it was the best plan. Didn’t Mammi care? Didn’t she want her dad to be happy?

Just before they reached Lebanon, Mammi asked, “Does that little round gal ever stop talking?”

“No,” Bess said glumly. “She never does.”

“Them two boys ever stop wiggling?”

Bess shook her head. “Not even in church.”

“Does that tall fellow ever say a word?”

Bess scratched her prayer cap. “None that I recall.”

“Hoo-boy,” Mammi said. “Nature has her work cut out for her.”

After they arrived at the hospital, Mammi went in search of a bathroom and Bess knew
that
could be a long wait, so she decided to go ahead to Simon’s ward. She tiptoed up to his bed. She could see he had grown much weaker than the other time she had visited. Sweat gleamed on his face, like he was feverish.

“If you’re another vampire, go away,” Simon muttered without opening an eye. “I don’t have any more blood to give.”

“But I’m not . . . I’m not a vampire,” Bess said. “It’s me. It’s Bess. Bertha’s granddaughter. Jonah’s daughter.”

“Well, well. It’s the holy howler.” He groaned. “If Bertha sent you here to get me to confess my sins before I kick the bucket . . . tell her no thanks.”

“She didn’t,” Bess said quietly.

Simon didn’t respond.

“Would it be such a bad thing, though, to confess your sins?”

Now he looked at her. “It wouldn’t be if I didn’t enjoy sinning so much.”

Bess had never heard of anyone who enjoyed sinning. She gave him a look of great sadness. “I’ll pray for you, for your soul.”

“Have at it,” Simon said mockingly. “I’m afraid all those childhood lessons in holiness slid off me like hot butter off the griddle.” He pointed to the door. “Now go look for where the carpenter made a hole.”

She supposed that was his rather impolite way of telling her he wanted her to leave him alone. For a brief moment, she thought about not going through with the bone marrow operation. Simon would never appreciate the gift.

And yet, she wasn’t doing it for him. She was doing it for God. And for Mammi. She bit her lip. “I came here today to tell you some good news. It turns out we’re a match, you and I. I can give you my bone marrow.”

Simon lay very silent, but he was listening, she could tell that.

“So instead of going home with Lainey to d—,” Bess gulped back the word, “um, you’re going to be getting some medicine to help your body get ready for the transplant. In another week or so, I’ll have the procedure. Harvesting the marrow, they call it. Then they’ll give it to you and, hopefully, it will cure you right up.”

He still didn’t look at her. He didn’t say a word.

“I guess it won’t be that fast,” Bess said, rambling now. “Sounds like it will take a while to graft. They called it grafting, which is interesting, because that’s what we do with the roses at Rose Hill Farm. We graft them onto better rootstock. Then they’re stronger and healthier. I guess that’s just what it will be like for you. You’ll get stronger and healthier. That’s the plan, anyway.” She ran out of things to say. “I just wanted to tell you the news myself.”

Simon lifted his chin. “I’ll have to think on it.”

“Well, think a little faster,” Mammi said. She had come into the ward and eased into a chair beside Bess.

Simon frowned at his sister. She frowned back at him.

“Well, Bess,” he said, “don’t expect me to thank you.”

Bess lifted her chin a notch. “I don’t. I don’t expect a thing.”

“Good. As long as we’re clear on that.” But he did look at her, right in the eyes.

Bess held his gaze. “We’re clear on that.”

“Simon, anybody ever tell you it’s hard to put a foot in a shut mouth?” Mammi said, standing to leave.

Everything was happening so fast that Jonah didn’t know what to do. Sallie had settled into Rose Hill Farm like she wasn’t going to budge. The dining room table was covered with wedding invitations that she was busy addressing. Mose, too, seemed to be in no hurry to leave, and even though the fate of their business troubled Jonah, he was thankful for Mose’s presence. Mose acted like a self-appointed shepherd to those boys, and it was a good thing. They
were
little monsters, just as Bess had said. How had he never noticed? The first day, they ran their scooters into his mother’s most cherished rugosa and broke the bush at the stem.

His mother went so still it scared him, like the quiet right before an Ohio tornado hit. When she finally spoke, it was in a chilling voice. “Bess, go get Billy Lapp. Tell him we got us an emergency.”

The second day, those boys knocked over a shelf of freshly canned rose petal jam in the barn when they were horsing around. The third day, they forgot to latch Frieda’s stall and she wandered into the vegetable garden, trampling a row of tomato plants.

And he would never forget the look on Lainey’s face when she was introduced to Sallie on Sunday. He had never mentioned Sallie to Lainey . . . it never occurred to him to mention her. But Sallie started right off with wedding talk, and Lainey responded with forced cheer, like daffodils in January. When he offered to give her a ride home—hoping for a chance to explain—she gave him a firm “No.”