The Waiting Read online

“If you get time after choring, go out looking for tracks to see which way it was heading. I need to know if I should sleep in the barn tonight in case it comes back.”

  “Did it t-take Delilah?”

  Cal looked away. “Most of her. So we know it wasn’t a coyote.”

  Ephraim knew that coyotes go for the neck of their prey and usually come back later for the kill. A coyote wouldn’t drag it away, like this one did. “C-Cal, have you ever heard a s-sound like that?”

  “Once,” Cal said. “When I was a boy. It was the scream of a mountain lion. There are still a few of them around.”

  From the barn, Cal could hear a horse and buggy turn into the lane of Beacon Hollow. He hurried outside and was surprised to see Jorie King in the driver’s seat, out of breath.

  “What’s making you look as pleased with yourself as a pig in pokeweed?” He couldn’t help but smile when he saw the shining intensity in her eyes.

  She was so pleased she beamed a smile back at him. “I have an idea! I was driving to town and saw it and I just knew! I knew it could be fixed up and it could be just the place. I turned the horse right around to tell you!”

  “Slow down and catch your breath. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “For the new vet! A place to live! It’s that old cottage that my grandparents lived in when they first bought Stoney Creek, before they built the farmhouse. It’s not in good shape, but we could fix it up. And maybe he could even use that room off the back for his patients. It’s got a separate entrance.”

  Cal turned around to look at Stoney Creek’s large barn, the rooftop visible from Beacon Hollow. “That’s on your land,” he said in a flat tone.

  “Practically on the main road, though. That’s why my grandparents wanted to live on this side of the farm. But for a vet, he’ll be close to the major roads during winter. And it’s wired for electricity. We just need to get someone from the electric company to come out and turn everything back on.”

  He gave her a wary look. “I don’t think you should be getting involved in this.”

  She cocked her head. “I already am involved. Stoney Creek needs that vet as much as anybody else.”

  “What does Atlee say?”

  “I haven’t told him yet, but I’m sure he’ll agree with me.”

  “Jorie,” Cal said in a warning tone.

  “He’s a good vet, Cal. You know that. We need to help him.” She picked up the horse’s reins, preparing to leave. “If you have time soon, would you mind going through the cottage and making a list of repairs? I’ll talk to some of the neighbors and see about getting some curtains made and furniture donated. Maybe we could have a work frolic. Then Dr. Robinson and his wife could move out of that motel well before the baby arrives.”

  He nodded, trying to follow everything she said, as a small needle of worry began to plague him.

  All morning, Cal and Ephraim worked in the barn, side by side. After Ephraim finished his chores, he went out to see if he could find any animal tracks. As he passed by the sheep grazing under the willow tree, he was glad to see that Cal had already taken care of what was left of Delilah. All that remained were some tufts of wool. Ephraim knew Cal had probably put her in the manure pile to return to the earth. It was hard, loving animals like he did. They were always getting themselves into some kind of trouble.

  Along the fence was a low spot where puddles had formed from melting snow. He looked carefully and spotted tracks in the mud where an animal had jumped over the fence. The paws were large, nearly four inches. He wished Matthew were here this weekend. He would have liked to show Matthew those paw prints before they were washed out with rain or snow. With paws that big, it could be a bear. But then he dismissed that notion. The sound of that scream, that was no bear. He hopped over the fence and picked up the trail again as it led into the Deep Woods. He knew that wild animals were most active at dawn and at dusk, so he wasn’t too worried about meeting it face-to-face in the broad daylight. He hoped he would, though, but as he went farther along the creek, the paw prints vanished.

  The persistent rumble in his belly reminded him it was past lunchtime, so Ephraim gave up the hunt and returned home.

  Cal was in town later that week and saw Marge, Jorie’s grandmother, in the hardware store. He had been planning on stopping by the Kings’ on the way home, so this was a pleasant coincidence. He wanted to talk to Marge about Maggie.

  Marge King might fancy herself as a healer, but Cal had always thought of her as being more of a fixer. She liked to fix people, mostly. She had a keen insight that he respected and rarely gave him poor advice, with the exception of her medicinal know-how.

  Some people thought Marge was far too outspoken and a little quirky. Maybe so, but he had always liked quirky. In fact, now that he thought about it, Jorie was quirky. He’d assumed she was more like Atlee with her devotion to those horses, but there was a side of Jorie that lived up in the clouds. Maybe she got some of that cloud living from Marge.

  “Just the person I’ve been wanting to see,” he told her and she looked so pleased. “Marge, you’ve raised five daughters of your own.”

  “Indeed I did. Twenty-seven grandchildren at last count! But they’re scattered all over the countryside now – Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, even Canada.” She clucked, deeply distressed. “My own parents could never have imagined the changes we’re facing.”

  “Every generation faces a set of unique challenges,” Cal said. “But we can handle those challenges with the Lord’s help.” The clerk rang up his batteries on the cash register. Cal paid for his purchase and walked outside with Marge. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Maggie.”

  Marge looked at him, interested. “Something ailing her? The flu is going around.”

  “No, no, nothing like that.” He wanted to veer away from talk about home remedies. “She doesn’t like anything to do with being inside, kitchen work, or any woman’s work, for that matter. Just the other day, Sylvia offered to take her to a quilting bee and we couldn’t find Maggie anywhere. She hid herself in the hayloft to avoid going.” He winced. “Sylvia wasn’t too understanding.”

  Marge covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes widening with near laughter. Jorie had the same habit, he realized, when she was amused by something but knew she shouldn’t show it. Maybe Marge and Jorie were more alike than he had realized. Mercifully, Jorie had no interest in doctoring.

  “Maggie just wants to be outside, choring with Ephraim and me,” he continued. “I’m worried she won’t learn the . . . feminine skills . . . she’ll be needing.”

  Marge nodded.

  “What would you advise, Marge?”

  “Well, since you’ve asked my advice,” Marge said amiably – she dearly loved to be asked for advice – “I would just let her be.”

  Cal just looked at her, nonplussed. “Really?”

  “Maggie’s grieving for her mother, Caleb. Doing women’s work probably just reminds her of Mary Ann. It’s easier to be outside. She just wants to be near you.”

  Cal took that thought in for a long moment.

  Marge patted his arm, as she would a small child. “If you’re worried that Maggie won’t learn the things she needs to know about being an Amish woman, you can quit your worrying. When she’s ready, she’ll learn. Just give her time.” She tilted her head. “But you sure look a little careworn. How about if I bring you a new tonic I whipped up? I call it ‘Phoenix Wings.’ It’ll boost your energy. You’ll rise like the phoenix!” She lifted her arms as if to take flight.

  Cal’s dark eyebrows shot up. The last time he tried Marge’s remedy – a cough syrup – just to be polite, he couldn’t hold anything down in his stomach for the rest of the day. And his stomach hadn’t been the problem. “Thank you, Marge. I think I’m fine, though.”

  Marge shrugged, disappointed. “Suit yourself.” She peered out into the street, searching left and right, and for a split second Cal could see how lovely she must have been as a young woma
n. “Now where did I put that horse and buggy?”

  As a habit, Jorie went to the schoolhouse early to start the stove and get the room warmed up. On Monday morning, the door swung open as if it hadn’t been latched. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t shut it tight. She walked in slowly and carefully, sensing something wasn’t quite right.

  She saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing looked out of place, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been inside.

  Cal couldn’t postpone cleaning out the barn any longer. Under normal circumstances, he kept it in pristine condition, but these times weren’t normal. However, Bud – a man unconcerned about pristine conditions of any barn – looked around Beacon Hollow’s barn with disgust just yesterday and wondered aloud when the milk inspector would be coming through. That was the moment when Cal knew it was time to get the barn back into shape.

  At breakfast on Saturday morning, he told Ephraim and Maggie the plans for the day. They responded by folding their arms on the table, clunking their heads, and groaning.

  But Matthew saved the day. He walked into the barn, unannounced, as Cal was doling out pitchforks. Matthew told Cal that it was a good thing he had come, because he could smell that barn as he stepped off the bus. By late afternoon, they had milked the cows, mucked out all of the stalls, replaced the straw bedding, swept the aisles, and knocked down cobwebs . . . and the barn was back to the Zooks’ previously high standards of tidiness. A small thing it was, really, just an ordinary thing, but for the first time in months, Cal felt as if he wasn’t draining the sea with a pail. That tidy barn made some broken part of him begin to feel whole again.

  Cal had just come into the kitchen and started to open cupboards, wondering if Ephraim and Matthew would object to scrambled eggs and cold cereal for dinner. He knew Maggie wouldn’t care one way or the other; she was fussy about food and turned up her nose at most things. He found it just one of many mysteries attached to raising a girl.

  “Uh-oh, the aunties is coming,” Maggie said, looking out the window.

  “Are coming. The aunties are coming,” Cal corrected, trying to hide his disappointment. Ada and Florence were Cal’s two elderly maiden great-aunts, his grandfather Zook’s sisters. They lived in a small house on the far south end of Beacon Hollow’s property. “What do you think they want?” Cal wondered as he peered out the window over Maggie’s shoulder. What he really wondered was, how long would they stay? Once they settled in, those aunties could talk the air full. “Matthew! Come downstairs and visit with the aunties.”

  Cal heard an exaggerated moan float down the stairs. He went to the kitchen door and opened it wide. “Ada! Florence!” he said, in as delighted a voice as he could muster. “Come in and sit down.”

  The aunties walked in and glanced around the cluttered kitchen, hands on their bellies, frowning. Cal moved books and papers off of the kitchen table. He cringed when he saw drops of raspberry jam from today’s lunch on a chair seat. He hoped the aunties might not notice, but of course, they did and exchanged a disapproving glance. Before sitting down, Ada wiped the sticky seat with her handkerchief.

  “Caleb,” Ada began, after easing into a chair, “you need a wife.”

  His dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. He hadn’t expected this: an ambush from the aunties. “It’s only been a few months.”

  “Yes, we know,” Ada said. “But these are special circumstances.”

  “How so?” Cal asked, distracted by Matthew who had come to the bottom of the stairs and was trying to quietly slip out of the room, unnoticed. Cal shook his head and pointed to an empty kitchen chair. Matthew remained where he was, poised, ready to escape.

  “You’re a minister,” Ada said. “You need to be an example to others, even in your grieving. It’s time you think about remarrying. We know this is what Mary Ann would’ve wanted.”

  “Absolutely would have wanted you to marry again,” Florence echoed. Some folks thought Florence never had an original thought in her head; she only finished whatever Ada was thinking.

  Wide-eyed, Cal looked at them as if they had just told him they were flying to the moon. He turned to Matthew for help. To his chagrin, Matthew looked back at him with laughing eyes, enjoying every moment of Cal’s discomfort.

  “So, Caleb, we have an idea,” Ada continued, milky eyes flashing. “We’re quite excited.”

  Cal’s heart sank. Once Ada had an idea in her head, nothing on earth could shake it from her. A Zook trait, his mother had dubbed it.

  Ada slipped on her reading glasses. “We have made a list of suitable wives for you.”

  As Ada searched through her apron pockets for the list, Cal’s gaze wandered to the window. He hoped to spot a cow straying out of its stall, or a loose horse, or something that could give him an excuse to bolt.

  “This won’t be at all difficult,” Ada said. “You are a rarity. An eligible bachelor among a sea of women whose lonely hearts ache for a husband.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely, Ada,” Florence oozed.

  Positively dripping with self-satisfaction, Ada unfolded the list with a flourish. “Every other Saturday night, we have invited one of the women on this list to come and make supper for the family.” She held up a cautionary hand. “Hold your horses. We know that Saturday-before-meeting is your busiest day, so we’ve only invited the ladies to come on off-meeting Saturdays.”

  Now intrigued, Matthew pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning his chin on his elbow. Cal shot him a look to intervene, but Matthew only shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of surrender.

  “First Saturday,” Ada said with a birdlike smile, “will be tonight. Laura Mae Yoder. She’s a lovely girl.”

  “A charming girl,” Florence echoed. “She’s a good cook too.”

  “W-who’s a g-good cook?” Ephraim asked, bursting through the kitchen door with a swoop of cold wind following behind him.

  Cal got up and closed the door tight.

  “Laura Mae Yoder,” Matthew said. Cal noted that his tone was entirely too jovial. “So who else is on your list, Ada?”

  “In two weeks, Emma Bontrager will come.”

  “Who else?” Matthew asked. “How long is the list?”

  Florence pulled the list out of her sister’s hands. “So far we have eight on the list.”

  “What’s she t-talking about?” Ephraim whispered to Cal.

  Cal crossed his arms and leaned his back against the doorjamb. “Ada and Florence think I need to be married off, Ephraim. So they’ve made a list of single women and have invited each of those ladies to come over and cook for us.” At any other time he would have laughed, for it was such a preposterous thing. To tell him, a grown man with a child of his own, whom he must marry and when. But he shouldn’t laugh. Doing so would hurt the aunties’ feelings and he knew their hearts were in the right place. They were just trying to help.

  “A g-good dinner once in a w-while?” Ephraim asked, as if that were the most wondrous thought in the world.

  Cal doffed the tip of Ephraim’s black hat, sending it spinning. “You got a complaint against my cooking?”

  Matthew snorted and went back to reading the list. “Where Ephraim is concerned, a good meal is nothing to joke about.”

  Cal pressed his lips together, trying not to smile. Even Mary Ann, who had far more patience with the aunties than he did, was known to hide once or twice when she saw them coming up the road. The aunties kept up a constant stream of dialogue, finishing each others’ sentences, and a person ended up feeling exhausted after listening to their chatter.

  “We came up with this idea because the way to a man’s heart – ” started Ada.

  “ – is through his stomach,” finished Florence.

  Interesting logic from two maiden ladies, Cal thought.

  Maggie sidled up to Florence’s side. “Jorie King isn’t on there,” she said, running a finger down the list.

  Ada and Florence exchanged a look. “No.”

  “Why n-not?” Ephraim a
sked.

  Ada’s lips drew in a tight line as Florence blurted out, “She didn’t add her name to it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cal asked. “I thought you came up with this list yourself.”

  Florence looked as if she might start to cry. Ada scowled at her and explained, “We were at a quilting frolic the other day and passed around the sign-up list to the unmarried gals.”

  Cal groaned.

  “Jorie King didn’t sign up?” Matthew asked.

  “Not only that, she said it was a terrible idea and that you were a grown man who could think for yourself.” Ada looked indignant. “But all of the other women thought it was a fine idea.”

  Cal sat down at the table. “Ada and Florence, I know you mean well, but I’m perfectly capable of deciding if, when – and whom – I will marry.”

  Ada covered his hand with hers. “We think so too, Caleb, but you don’t seem to be doing it.”

  Cal cringed. Whenever the aunties got a certain look on their faces, they weren’t going to budge. He was going to have to be tough, really tough. “No, Ada. Absolutely, positively no.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Laura Mae Yoder walking up the drive that led to the farmhouse, carrying a large basket.

  A few hours later, after the kitchen had been cleaned up and Laura Mae Yoder went home with her emptied basket, Matthew held his stomach and moaned. “I ate so much I’m nearly wobbling on the chair.” He opened one eye at Cal, seated across from him at the kitchen table. “So, what did you think?”

  Cal patted his stomach. “Laura Mae is a wonderful cook.”

  “Sure. She’s a fine cook. But what did you think about her as a wife?”

  Cal glanced at him. “She’s a sweet girl,” he answered without much conviction. “A real sweet girl. But she isn’t the one for me.”

  Matthew grinned. “I’ll say!”

  Cal tried not to laugh but couldn’t help it.

  Matthew grabbed another cookie Laura Mae had left for them on a big plate. “I’ll go make sure the barn is locked up tight.” He put on his coat and hat, reached for the door, then stopped and turned around, eyes twinkling. “Don’t you worry, big brother. You know our aunties. They are going to keep at it until they find you Mrs. Right.”