When Strawberries Bloom (17 page)

The door to the back porch opened as usual as Dat and Jason came in to hang their hats on the hooks against the wall.

Suddenly there was a loud banging sound, and Dat’s frustrated voice saying, “Whoa! What is going on here?”

“Are you all right?” Jason asked.

Quickly, Mam moved toward the back porch. She met Dat halfway, her eyes full of concern.

“What? What happened, Melvin?”

Dat came through the door, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I stumbled across the doorstep,” he said. “My legs both feel tingly, almost as if they are numb.”

“Have you felt like that for very long?” Mam asked, hurrying toward him.

He sat heavily in a chair at the table, lifting one foot gingerly and flexing it.

“My feet felt that way for a few weeks, but I didn’t think it was necessary to become anxious or concerned. I thought it would disappear after awhile as it had before.”

Lizzie stood against the counter, her arms crossed tightly in front of her. The joy of her morning was fading away, replaced by heartbreaking pity as she saw bewilderment on Dat’s face as he shook his head. She was sure now that there was something seriously wrong with him. There just had to be.

He had gone to the optometrist several weeks ago to have his eyes thoroughly examined and then the prescription of his lenses changed. But still he complained about days of foggy vision and a complete blind spot in his left eye. Mam said he would just have to learn to live with his failing eyesight because the doctor had said he seemed healthy otherwise. But now this.

Lizzie turned toward the kitchen window, staring blindly out to the horse barn. Dat had to stay healthy. He had to. Everything depended on his health and well-being to keep the farm running smoothly, the shiny, stainless steel tank filled with milk, the milk check coming in the mail to pay the mortgage payment and the accumulated bills. How in the world would they ever go on farming if he was unable to work?

She caught her lower lip and bit down hard, physically trying to keep back the panic she felt creeping up on her. We’ll just be horribly poor with Dat not being able to work. There will be nothing in the house to eat. Mandy’s paycheck and mine will have to go toward the mortgage payment. Mam will have to get a job. Did the church help people if their father couldn’t work? What about her first date with Stephen? He probably wouldn’t want to be married to someone as poor as she would be.

She could not let the wolves come any closer, tightening the panicky feeling in her chest. Turning, she shook her head as if to clear away the fear and faced Dat squarely.

“Dat, what … what do you really think is going on here?” she asked.

Mam and Mandy shared a knowing look, realizing how hard it was for Lizzie to calmly accept a situation like this.

Dat looked into Lizzie’s eyes, and she read the fear in his. No, Dat, not you. You can’t be afraid. You’re Dat. You are the one who makes everything right for us so that we don’t have to be afraid. She felt almost angry at Dat for being frightened.

“You have to do something, Dat!” she burst out.

“Lizzie,” Mam said calmly.

They all looked at Mam.

“I think there really is something wrong other than a passing ailment,” she said. “Chiropractic treatments have done nothing to correct the numbness in Dat’s feet or help his feelings of exhaustion.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Lizzie asked.

“We kept a lot of his symptoms quiet because we didn’t want to frighten everyone,” Mam said. “We’ll go see the family doctor as soon as I can make an appointment, and he’ll very likely refer us to someone who can do further examinations. We really need to find out what is going on,” she concluded.

Dat hung his head and sighed wearily. Mam put a hand on his shoulder as if to reassure him that everything was going to be fine. Mam seemed so solid, so courageous, so in control of this helpless, frustrating situation, that Lizzie took a deep breath, calming herself in the wake of Mam’s bravery.

When Mam and Dat got home from their appointment in town, Lizzie was preparing name charts for the upcoming school year. Quickly, she got to her feet, nervously running to the window as she heard a vehicle’s tires crunching on the gravel drive.

Dat was smiling as he paid the driver, and Mam carried a few bags of groceries into the kitchen, looking quite unperturbed. As Mam had predicted, the family doctor referred them to a large hospital in Maryland, but their appointment wasn’t till the following month.

Dat pulled out a box of chocolate marshmallow ice cream and went to the cupboard to get out a small stack of plastic dishes.

“Who wants a dish of my favorite ice cream?” he said.

Lizzie watched Mam and Dat suspiciously, sure they were just trying to put on a cheerful front. But they both looked and acted so genuinely like her normal parents that Lizzie finally smiled, relaxing. She was so glad to see Dat didn’t have a horrible, fearsome, life-threatening disease.

What Lizzie did not know about was Mam and Dat’s talk late into that night after all the children were asleep. They had been told by the kind, knowledgeable family doctor that there was a possibility that Dat had MS or multiple sclerosis. They had never heard of the disease and didn’t know very much about it.

They discussed the farm. Jason was old enough to work side by side with Dat on the farm. But what about a dependable income? If Dat actually had some disease that would render him helpless in years to come, they needed to discuss the possibility of giving up farming.

Lizzie did not see the tears in Dat’s eyes that night or hear Mam’s fervent prayer to God to help them all, to have mercy on her poor husband and to realize the struggles in both their hearts as they wrestled with fear of the unknown.

And so, with the impending knowledge weighing heavily on her shoulders, Lizzie felt a bit subdued when Stephen came to pick her up after church services on Sunday. The day was perfect, absolutely gorgeous, one of those days when the blue of the sky was so rich, the leaves on the trees so brilliant, it almost hurt Lizzie’s eyes to absorb it all. Little white clouds floated lazily in the azure sky, for all the world like little cotton balls stuck on a brilliantly hued, first-grade art project.

Stephen had curried and brushed his horse to perfection, the horse’s reddish brown coat rippling in the sunlight. He had combed his black mane and tail until they flowed together perfectly and cleaned and oiled the harness. Lizzie smiled to herself when she saw the light playing on the freshly washed spokes of the black buggy wheels. Stephen disliked washing his own buggy. Probably Rebecca had done it.

Stephen stopped his horse at the sidewalk and Lizzie hurried out, waving to her parents who stood smiling on the front porch. She knew Jason was peeping out somewhere, and she hoped fervently he would be quiet. Stephen and Jason had learned to know each other during a hunting trip they had taken a few years earlier. Jason was happy to hear that Stephen had asked Lizzie on a date. Now she just hoped Jason would be discreet, at least until she was safely on the buggy.

She sighed with relief when Stephen’s horse responded to his “C’mon” and tug on the reins. Soon they were well out the drive and away from the house, safely out of earshot. Just as Stephen turned to look at her, asking how her week was, an earsplitting whistle sliced through the air. Stephen pulled back on the reins, grinning as Jason charged through the milk-house door, his grin spreading widely across his face.

“Hey!”

“Hey, Jase.”

“What are you doing with Lizzie in your buggy? Do you have enough room for her?” Jason asked.

Lizzie could feel her face heating up, but Stephen laughed easily, reaching out and knocking Jason’s hat sideways.

“You can come along with us!” he said.

“There’s no room!”

Lizzie tried to laugh, which ended in a small giggle, and she turned toward Jason, glaring at him, her eyes telling him in no uncertain terms to go away and behave himself.

As they turned onto the road, the horse picked up speed, and Stephen pushed open the door on his side of the buggy to let in a burst of warm air.

“You want your window open?” he asked.

“It is warm enough. I’ll get it,” Lizzie said, reaching out to pull in the window before hooking it to the clasp on the ceiling.

They rode in silence for awhile until Stephen looked over at her. He cleared his throat.

“You’re so quiet today,” he said.

“I guess I am, Stephen,” Lizzie said. She added quickly, “It’s not you or anything. It’s just my Dat.”

Stephen lifted his eyebrows, looking at her with so much care and concern in his eyes she thought for one wild moment she would burst into tears, sobbing and hiccupping and snorting the way she used to when she was a small child.

She didn’t. Calmly, her breath catching in her throat, she told him how Dat fell through the doorway, about his doctor’s visit and the upcoming appointment at the huge hospital in Maryland.

Stephen listened without comment until she had finished, then he shook his head and said, “Wow.” Lizzie watched him as he shook his head again, as if he was trying to comprehend what she had said. He turned his head and watched the scenery on the other side, saying nothing. He said nothing at all for a very long time, but for some reason, Lizzie wasn’t uncomfortable. The silence wasn’t awkward because she knew this was just how Stephen was. Lizzie smiled to herself, thinking about all the times he disappeared and reappeared without making any sound at all.

When they came to Elam Zook’s home and Stephen turned in the drive, Lizzie’s heart began pounding with excitement. She tried to appear calm and composed, but deep down she knew this was quite an event, her very first date.

She felt a bit important, knowing it always caused a commotion when a couple started dating. She arranged her black apron carefully, adjusting her cape and straightening her new navy dress. Of course, she had to have a new dress. Mam always told her she looked best in dark colors like dark blue. Lizzie had chosen the rich, blue fabric because of the way the soft, thick material hung in graceful folds.

Her Uncle Marvin was unhitching his own horse as they approached, and he turned to greet them with a wide smile and raised eyebrows. Lizzie grinned back at him, casting a sidelong glance at Stephen who was trying to keep a straight face.

The whole day was special for Lizzie, and when Stephen came to ask her, a bit timidly, if she was ready to go with him to the hymn-singing, her heart swelled with pure happiness. What a feeling! It was just the greatest thing! She felt like Stephen was hers and she was his, an overwhelming feeling of belonging, of security and togetherness.

She took a deep breath, looking around at her group of friends to see who was watching, and answered a bit louder and slower than was absolutely necessary. “Yes, I am, Stephen. I’ll be right out,” she said, trying to bat her eyelashes and look a bit humble at the same time.

It didn’t work. As soon as Stephen was out of earshot, Mandy threw back her head and laughed an unladylike guffaw of pure, unrestrained mirth.

“Oh, my! You laid that on thick enough!”

Mandy batted her eyelashes while the other girls laughed, a bit hesitantly at first, but seeing Lizzie laugh with Mandy and get up to slap her arm affectionately, they burst into laughter.

“Hey, Mandy, give her a break. It’s her first date with him,” Mary Ann said, coming to Lizzie’s defense.

“See?” Lizzie said.

“That wasn’t so bad!” Mary Ann said.

Lizzie smiled at her, a smile of knowing and acceptance. Friends were just the best thing in the world—other than Stephen, anyway.

On the way home that evening, Lizzie and Stephen talked easily about all kinds of different subjects, or rather, Lizzie did most of the talking while Stephen listened, occasionally adding his flat “Wow.”

She became a bit nervous and ill at ease as they turned in the drive, wondering what would happen next. What if he didn’t like the food she had prepared for a snack? She hadn’t actually baked the chocolate whoopie pies herself or the cream cheese cupcakes either. Mam had taken care of all that since Lizzie hated to bake.

But there was nothing to worry about. John and Mandy had arrived home first and had already arranged an array of snacks on the kitchen table.

John and Stephen knew each other well, so they had a good time discussing numerous things until it was time for them to leave.

Lizzie walked with Stephen to the barn to help him with his horse, while John and Mandy remained on the porch swing.

She could sense Stephen’s nervousness as he was hitching up his horse and buggy. He didn’t say anything at all, but his movements were hurried.

Suddenly he went very still standing beside his horse, one arm crooked against the side of the harness. Lizzie stood quietly, waiting to see what he would say. Would he ask her for another date? Did he even want to continue seeing her? She lowered her head, kicking self-consciously at the graveled driveway.

“Lizzie.”

Her head snapped up. “Hmmm?”

“I don’t want you to continue dating if you’re not sure. Okay?”

“Wh … what do you mean?”

“I mean, this is very serious for me. You know how I’ve always felt since the first day we met. Don’t go on dating me if you don’t feel the same.”

Lizzie was bewildered. “But Stephen! You haven’t asked me yet!”

“I’m not going to.”

Her heart sank way down, miserably, horribly. This is it, then.

“Well, then …”

“Let’s think about it this week. I’ll probably see you Saturday evening then, all right? G’night, Lizzie.”

She stepped back, bewildered, surprised, humiliated even. “G’night.”

The gravel crunched under the buggy wheels as he drove out the lane at a good clip, leaving her standing on the darkened slope before she turned to make her way slowly into the house.

“Wow,” she breathed.