Free Novel Read

The Waiting Page 13


  It took leaving that community for Matthew to realize all it meant to him. He remembered a time when a photographer came to the farmhouse to try to sell his father an aerial shot taken of the entire neighborhood. His father called all of his sons to come see as the photographer spread out the photograph on the hood of his car. His dad pointed to Beacon Hollow’s fields and the dark section of the Deep Woods that bordered it. Matthew remembered looking at the map and marveling at the landscape from the air: the view the turkey vulture had when it soared high over the fields. The creek, meandering through the pasture fields, where he and his brothers fished and swam on hot summer afternoons. He saw things in that photograph he had never noticed before, just by seeing it from a different vantage point.

  Living here in Lebanon, he felt like that man in a quote by Emerson: “A man standing in his own field is unable to see it.” His nose was too close to the picture. He didn’t realize what he had until it was gone.

  Late one evening, Jorie King was working in the schoolhouse. She heard a knock at the door, went to answer, and peeked her head out, then opened it wide. “Cal, what are you doing here?”

  He came inside and stamped the snow from his feet. “I could see the light on from the barn and thought maybe you’d forgotten to turn it off,” he said. “What are you doing here so late?”

  She closed the door behind him. “Getting some work done,” she answered.

  Cal walked up and down the center aisle of the classroom, looking at the walls. “Is Maggie behaving for you?”

  “Of course. She’s a bright girl.”

  “She prefers out of doors to being inside, in the kitchen.”

  “I was like that. Still am. My biscuits could break a man’s tooth.”

  She saw a smile crease over Cal’s face, then it faded. He seemed to have something on his mind. He looked up at the artwork hanging on the walls, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Is Lizzie working out?” she asked, hoping he would relax. He seemed nervous, jumpy, almost. She had never seen him like that.

  “Yes. She’s a big help, just like you said she’d be. But Maggie needs a mother.”

  “I know how she misses Mary Ann. She’ll never forget her, Cal, if that’s what you’re worrying about.” She noticed that he winced slightly when she said her name.

  Cal put his hands to his temples and rubbed. “I’m asking if you would consider becoming her mother.”

  Jorie stopped in her tracks. She had not expected that. Her mouth dropped open, then she closed it tight, nearly laughing. “This is about the aunties’ list.”

  His cheeks colored up just like the boys in her classroom did when she caught them. It touched her heart – she was discovering that Cal couldn’t mask his feelings. He looked down on the ground, avoiding her eyes, as the awkwardness between them widened into a large gulf.

  “It’s only been a few months,” Jorie said softly. She put the books on the desk. “I’m sorry, Cal. I can’t be a substitute for Mary Ann. No one can.” She walked up to him. “There’s not a girl in the county who wouldn’t jump at the chance to marry Caleb Zook. But I think you should wait. Mary Ann is still in your heart. You just need some time. Sometimes the heart takes longer than the body to mend.”

  She wanted to smooth the dark hair off of his pale forehead like she did with one of her scholars when he had fallen down and hurt his knee or elbow. To let him know he would be all right. But, of course, she didn’t dare touch him and Cal turned to leave.

  He was almost at the door when he turned around to say, “I can’t remember the color of her eyes. I lived with her for eight years and I can’t remember what she looked like.”

  He started to open the door but stopped when Jorie called out, “Brown. They were dark brown.” She walked up to him. “I loved her too, Cal.”

  He lifted his head to look at her. “How much time? How long until life feels normal again? Until the house doesn’t seem cold and empty? Losing Mary Ann was like losing . . . light and warmth and joy. Have you ever loved someone enough to feel as if a limb has been torn from you?” As the impact of what he just said dawned on him, he covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, Jorie. Forgive me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I shouldn’t have come. Please . . . forget what I said, what I asked.”

  She leaned against the doorjamb, watching him walk down the lane. “Yes, Cal. I loved someone like that.”

  She said it so softly that he couldn’t have heard. Yet he stopped and turned, locked eyes with her briefly, before turning around and picking up his stride.

  7

  Cal didn’t see Jorie again until Sunday meeting, which happened to be Christmas morning. After services, he gave her a crisp hello, trying not to remember how soundly she had turned down his foolish, bumbling, impulsive marriage proposal. He still couldn’t believe he had proposed marriage to her. What had he been thinking?! He supposed it had to do with walking home on a cold night and seeing that warm buttery glow in the schoolhouse windows. He had suddenly felt a desperate longing, as if the blaze of the lanterns was a beacon, a sign of hope, to him. The next thing he knew he was knocking on the schoolhouse door and proposing marriage! Every time he was reminded of it, like now, he felt his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.

  But Jorie seemed, or at least acted, as if she didn’t even remember it had happened. She caught up to him as he walked to his buggy. “Did you hear that Dr. Robinson’s wife had her baby last night? A little boy. A Christmas baby!”

  He started to say something, then changed his mind. He couldn’t help but smile as she told him the news. “No, I hadn’t heard. Maggie and Ephraim will want to know.” She was wearing a bright blue dress that made her eyes look bluish-green. How would he describe that shade? Turquoise? Jewel blue? He wondered if that’s what the color of a sea surrounding a tropical island might look like – mesmerizing and endlessly deep. They were incredible eyes.

  Were her eyes as blue as the sky? He looked past her to study the sky.

  “And I’ve been meaning to tell you that Ray Smucker is starting to speak English in the classroom. He’s still far behind where he should be, but he’s making quick progress. Thank you again, Cal, for talking to Gideon that day. I couldn’t persuade him, but you seemed to know just the right thing to say to make him change his mind. It’s a miracle.”

  “It was God who worked the miracle,” he said, reminding himself as well as Jorie, so that he would not be tempted to the sin of pride.

  She smiled slightly, before turning to go speak to someone else.

  Those eyes, Cal realized. They were definitely bluer than the sky.

  During the first week of January, the weather was so cold that an icy crust formed on top of the snow. Jorie told the scholars they could bring sleds to school. Some had real sleds, Lightning Guiders with shiny runners and handles to steer by. Others had homemade wooden sleds with cast iron runners. Those sleds couldn’t be guided and the children always landed in a ditch. A few brought whatever they could find that would do the job: an old dishpan or a scoop shovel. Ray Smucker had a twenty-inch square board that he sat on to slide down the hill. It worked a few times and Ray was feeling pretty pleased with himself. He started down the hill a fourth time and – about halfway down – the edge of the board dug into the crust. The board stopped, but Ray went on for quite some distance. When he stood up, the seat of his pants had been worn to a thread, showing off a sizeable portion of his long underwear. He backed down the hill away from the laughing children, jumped over the fence, and ran home. He didn’t return for the rest of that day.

  On a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon, Matthew sat at the kitchen table while Lizzie ironed Maggie’s prayer caps. The iron hissed as it glided over the damp cap and the smell of hot starch filled the kitchen. Matthew told her stories about the kinds of people he met working in the hospital.

  After he finished, Lizzie gave him a look of mild interest as she carefully placed the cap over a roll of toilet paper
to keep it stiff as it cooled. “After working in that hardware store for the last two years, I came to realize that – English or Amish – people are people. There are plenty of good English out there and plenty of bad ones. We Amish, we’re not so different. Good ones and bad ones.”

  Matthew took a long sip of coffee, mulling over Lizzie’s remark. She wasn’t much for book learning, but he thought she had plenty of common sense and a knack for sizing up people.

  Carefully, she set another freshly ironed prayer cap on the counter next to the two she had finished. “So, how do you like city living?”

  “I like everything about it but the sounds,” Matthew said. “Sounds in the country are soft and gentle. City sounds are harsh: tires squealing, shouts in the night, constant wailing of sirens. Fires, police, ambulances. Even when I’m working, the patients in the ward make weird sounds. Almost like they’re moaning.”

  He wasn’t really sure if she was interested in his thoughts or just being polite – as she ironed she hardly threw a glance his way – but he kept talking. “And the people – they’re different. City folks constantly complain about the weather. It’s either too hot or too cold or too wet. Even if it’s dry and the crops and garden desperately needed moisture, the weatherman would say that the weekend would be miserable because of the threat of rain. For me, coming from a farm that’s tied to the weather, that way of thinking is crazy talk. Whoever heard of an Amish man complaining about the weather?”

  “That’s because we know that God controls everything,” Lizzie said quietly. “The sun, the clouds, the wind, and the rain. We know that complaining is finding fault with God.”

  Matthew tried to hold back a grin. Lizzie Glick was finally talking to him.

  The next morning, Matthew poured hot coffee from a chipped white enamel pot into two mugs. He handed one mug to Cal. A pot of oatmeal sputtered on the stove. It was a cold, snowy morning and the wind was blowing hard enough to take the bark off the trees. So cold that Cal let Ephraim and Maggie sleep in while he and Matthew milked the cows and fed the animals.

  “I’m starving. Shouldn’t Lizzie be here by now?”

  Cal gave him a questioning look over the ridge of the mug. “It’s Sunday.”

  Matthew frowned. That meant breakfast was going to be pretty slim pickings. He took a bowl from the cupboard and spooned oatmeal into it. “Want some?”

  Cal shook his head.

  “Suit yourself.” He sprinkled brown sugar on top of his oatmeal and sat down at the kitchen table to eat.

  Cal sat with his hands wrapped around the mug of coffee, watching the steam rise. “Matthew, I think you are the only person in this town who isn’t trying to tell me who to marry and when.”

  In between spoonfuls of oatmeal, Matthew asked, “Want me to?” He grinned, knowing what was on Cal’s mind this morning.

  Last night’s Supper List prospect, Katie Miller, had been particularly disappointing. Not only was Katie a poor cook, which dismissed her immediately in Ephraim’s mind, but she started to cry when everyone refused second helpings of her overcooked moon pie. She didn’t stop crying until they finally ate more, just to appease her. Matthew wasn’t sure he could ever stomach another piece of moon pie again, as long as he lived.

  One of Cal’s dark eyebrows arched at him. “No, I don’t.”

  “Want to hear how the odds are running?”

  Cal gave him a look of disbelief.

  “Half the town thinks you’re going to marry Laura Mae Yoder because you ate two pieces of her chocolate cream pie.”

  Cal rolled his eyes.

  “And the other half thinks you’re going to marry Susan Stoltzfus because she signed up for two Saturday nights in a row.”

  Cal sighed. “Where are you getting this information?”

  “Lizzie told me.”

  Cal eyed him. “Thought you didn’t care much for Fat Lizzie.”

  “Oh, she’s not so bad,” he said with a careless shrug. “Not so fat anymore, either. Then there are a few stragglers who are rooting for Jorie King.” Matthew glanced at Cal to see his reaction but there was nothing. “Folks are saying that since you’re a minister and all, you’ve probably been told to hurry up and get hitched.”

  Cal clenched his jaw. “I will not marry just because I’ve been told to.”

  “That’s what I told Lizzie,” Matthew said, eyes twinkling. “And besides, even if you were to consider Jorie, you’d have to get in line behind me.” He picked up a banana and started to peel it. “I’ve given some thought to marrying her myself.”

  “You’ve given some thought to marrying most every girl in town,” Cal said. He glanced at Matthew. “What, you’re serious? You? You’re nearly six years younger than her.”

  “Quit looking at me as if you think I’m addle-brained.” Matthew broke off a piece of banana and popped it in his mouth. “Dad was ten years older than Mom. And Mary Ann was older than you, big brother.” He grinned. “It could work.”

  “And what makes you think a woman like Jorie King would be interested in an eighteen-year-old boy?”

  “Well, brother Caleb, I never thought I’d see the day.” Matthew laughed. “And here I thought you were immune to women.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You’re a little sweet on Jorie King.”

  Cal stood up abruptly, walked to the sink, and poured his coffee down the drain. “I never said such a thing.”

  “No? Well, then, you’re blushing like a ripe summer tomato for no good reason.”

  Later that afternoon, Cal had just finished milking the cows when he saw Jorie walk up the long incline to Beacon Hollow. A smile crept over his face, then he remembered Matthew’s teasing and quickly sobered up. His mind wandered to Katie Miller weeping over the moon pie; that pie still sat like concrete in his stomach. He just didn’t think he could stand one more evening of the aunties’ Saturday Night Supper List.

  Jorie waved to Ephraim, who was cleaning out the metal milk cans. “Where’s Maggie?” she asked as she slid the barn door shut.

  “In the house with Fa – ” Cal caught himself. “With Lizzie. I have got to stop calling her Fat Lizzie.”

  Ephraim snorted and Cal tossed a rag at him.

  “Lizzie dropped by this afternoon to play a game with Maggie,” Cal added.

  “With M-Matthew, you m-mean,” Ephraim added, grinning.

  Jorie smiled. “I stopped by to ask if you heard that cougar scream last night. Sounded close by.”

  Ephraim’s grin faded. He tucked his chin to his chest.

  “I did,” Cal said. “No stock was hurt last night. Same for you?”

  “No, none hurt. But I worry about it scaring my pregnant mares into early labor. Not to mention what a cougar could do to a foal.”

  “If you’re worried, I’ll get a few neighbors together to hunt for it.”

  With that, Ephraim dropped the metal can and ran out of the barn. Jorie and Cal watched him go, a puzzled look on their faces.

  “What’s troubling him?” she asked.

  “It’s that cougar. Any time someone brings it up, he jumps like a jackrabbit.” Cal closed the door behind him. “Not really sure why he’s so frightened by it.”

  “He bolted when you said you would hunt it.”

  “You’re right. He did.” Cal cocked his head. “But you’ve always understood him better than the rest of us.”

  “Ephraim has a tender heart. And a soft spot for animals. He’s like you that way.” An awkward silence spun out between them. “I’ll go say hello to Maggie before I leave for home.” She turned and reached for the handle of the barn door.

  Cal put his hand over hers to stop her from sliding open the door. “Jorie, I was hoping someday, maybe before too long, you’d be thinking of Beacon Hollow as home.” Lieber Gott, did I really just say that? He felt his face grow warm, but he kept his hand on hers.

  Jorie seemed to be studying his hand. She was quiet for a long moment, as if gathering her thoughts.
Finally, she lifted her head. Their eyes locked, hers as dark as the sea. “Men seem to ask women to marry them for all the wrong reasons. Daniel Riehl asked me to marry him to combine our land, which basically meant he wanted Stoney Creek because his land is a sodden marsh. Jacob Schwartz wanted me for my fine features. Said it would be nice to look at me each day. Never mind that he’s thirty years older than me and I might not be as interested in looking at him. And never mind that he talks so much and in such a loud voice that he can burst a person’s eardrums.” She released a sigh. “Ben wanted someone waiting for him back at home, whenever he was ready to come home.” She pulled her hand out from under his. “And you want me to raise Ephraim and Maggie.”

  Cal turned her shoulders so she would face him. “So what is it you want, Jorie?”

  She looked at him. “I don’t want to be just a convenience to someone. There’s got to be more to a marriage than that. I want a marriage . . . ,” she gently rapped her fist against her chest, “. . . from the heart.” She stepped back from him and slid the door open, avoiding his eyes as she closed it behind her.

  “She said no. Flat out, no doubts about it. No.” Cal walked over to Bud’s house on the pretext of borrowing a tool, but it was really to talk. He still couldn’t believe he had asked Jorie to marry him, again. And again, she said no.

  “How did you ask?” Bud asked, sitting in his favorite easy chair by the fire. The Sunday newspaper was spread around him on the floor, as if he hadn’t moved all day. He had been working on a crossword puzzle when Cal interrupted him.

  Cal moved some newspapers off the sofa and sat down across from Bud. “I said I was hoping she’d start to think of Beacon Hollow as her home.”

  “Hoo-boy! And that didn’t sweep her off her feet? Imagine that. It’s right up there with your first winner, when you told her Maggie needed a mother.” Bud shrugged his shoulders. “Well, maybe this aunties’ list will get your mind on some other gal.”