The Waiting Read online

  Marge handed Ben back his coat, scowling at him. “So I was a little early for the day’s business.”

  “I’ll say!” Ben laughed. “About two months early.”

  Marge put her hands on her hips and glared at him, annoyed. Then her face softened. “Oh, you still look positively wrung out, Ben.” She brightened. “I have just the thing for you. A spring tonic that thins the blood and will have you fit as a fiddle in no time. It’s made of sassafras tea, from the inner bark of the root that makes the finest tea. The very best flavor is stored in the root when the tree is dormant. And . . .” Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t remember what she was talking about. She was silent uncomfortably long, almost as though she had forgotten Ben and Jorie were there. Then she remembered herself with a start. She lifted a finger in the air. “And I’ve got some new remedies too. I’ll go get them.” She went to the stairwell and slowly walked up the steps.

  Jorie turned to Ben, feeling thoroughly bewildered by her grandmother’s odd behavior.

  Ben, though, was amused. “She told me about a pinworm cure she named Devil’s Bait.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I pray I’ll never need it.”

  Jorie plopped down on a kitchen chair. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her lately.”

  Ben sat down next to her. “Aw, Jorie. She’s always been a bit of a . . . character.”

  Jorie winced. “This is different. She’s never been like this.”

  “Haven’t you taken her to a doctor?”

  “My grandfather doesn’t think it’s necessary.”

  Ben’s eyes went up the stairwell. “Well, sure. He slept through her night sojourn.”

  The wind pushed the door open, blowing in a gust of cold air before Jorie jumped up to shut it. “The hinges on this door are practically falling off.”

  Ben stared at the door for a long moment, mesmerized.

  The strange look on his face puzzled her. “What is it, Ben?”

  Still staring at the door, he said, “I’m starting to remember things, more and more. It’s like a fog, lifting slowly.”

  Softly, she asked, “What are you remembering right now?”

  It was awhile before he answered her. “When I was in the looney bin, the first one, the one in Bangkok, there was a row of doors right by my bed. The doors barely hung on these old rusty hinges. All day long, I stared at those doors, all hanging on those fragile hinges. That’s what my mind was like. Hanging on a fragile hinge. Still clinging, still holding on, but with a big gust of wind . . . whoosh! Anything could happen.” He turned his gaze from the door back to her, looking directly into Jorie’s eyes with a hint of pity.

  He held her gaze until the truth of what he said hit her. Her grandmother’s mind was coming unhinged.

  Ben reached over and covered her hand with his.

  A spring storm came through in the middle of the night. Lightning flashed through the sky and thunder rattled the glass in the windows. In the morning, the storm had lapsed into slow, even sheets of rain that paused for a minute or an hour, but soon returned. Cal took out his list of chores and divided them up among Ephraim and Ben. The two went out to the barn to muck out the horse stalls and the stanchions of the dairy cows.

  Ben took the nine-tine pitchfork off the wall and handed the four-tine pitchfork to Ephraim. “Some things just never change.”

  Ephraim looked around for the wheelbarrow.

  “Seems like I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Ben said, sliding open the door to a horse stall.

  Ephraim snorted. “L-long as we k-keep f-feeding them, we’ll k-keep c-cleaning up after ’em.”

  “And just what is Cal doing while we’re doing this work?”

  Ephraim gave him a sharp look. Ben’s hostile tone caught him off-guard. “He’s p-paying bills. S-So?”

  “Just seems like he gives us a laundry list of hard things to do while he does the easy stuff.”

  Ephraim never thought about chores like that, like they had a value assigned to them. There were just things that had to get done and they all had to do them. He’d seen Cal muck out the stalls plenty of times.

  Bud walked in as they were just about to get started. “Hello, boys. Ben, you’re looking more like yourself every time I see you.” He walked over to the workbench. “I wonder if I could borrow Cal’s split maul?”

  Ben opened up a drawer at the workbench and pulled out the maul. “Here it is. Let me sharpen the edge for you.” He went to the grind wheel and poured some water on it. “Bud, why would you call it Cal’s split maul?”

  Bud watched as Ben started the wheel rolling and ran the maul’s edge along it. “What should I call it?”

  “Why not Beacon Hollow’s split maul? Why does it have to be Cal’s?”

  Bud gave Ben a strange look. “What does it matter?”

  Ben finished sharpening the edge, wiped it with a rag, and handed it to Bud. “Just wondered, that’s all.”

  “I suppose I call it Cal’s because he’s the one who’s been taking care of this place since your dad passed.”

  “Now, that’s my point,” Ben said. “If Dad hadn’t passed when he did, Beacon Hollow wouldn’t be Cal’s.” He turned to Ephraim. “Rightly so, it should be Ephraim’s one day. The Amish pass the farm to the youngest son.”

  Ephraim looked at Ben. “Cal always s-says we’ll d-divide it or f-figure it out when the t-time comes.”

  Ben shrugged. “Maybe so. Maybe not.”

  Bud raised an eyebrow. “Like I said, Ben, you’re more like your old self every time I see you.”

  A perfect fingernail moon shone down from the midnight sky onto the Kings’ dark farmhouse. Jorie woke with a start, knowing that something was stirring in the barn. She dressed quickly, grabbed a flashlight and a blanket, and hurried to the barn. As soon as she slid open the barn door, she knew what sound had woken her: a horse was set to foal. All of the horses were shuffling nervously in their stalls. She walked down the corridor to the foaling stalls, past each pregnant mare – with their enormously swollen bellies – and stopped when she came to Fancy. The horse was pawing almost frantically in the straw with her forefeet to make a nest. Fancy was a maiden mare and Jorie knew it could be a long night ahead, but she didn’t mind. She loved the barn at night. She loved the barn during the day too, but at night, it felt like a different world. The sweet scent of hay and oats, the sour tang of manure, the richness of leather harnesses, the gentle sounds of the horses, shuffling and snorting.

  She lit a lantern and hung it on a hook, then checked and rechecked the foaling basket stuffed with all sorts of useful birthing objects – towels, scissors, iodine, rubbing alcohol, garbage bags, thermometer, twine, clamps. Her concentration was interrupted by the rumble of the barn door sliding open. She slipped the lantern off its hook and walked to the center of the barn.

  “Daadi?” she called out, sure that Atlee had come.

  “It’s me, Jorie. It’s Ben.”

  At the sound of Ben’s deep voice, her heart missed a beat. She waved the lantern in front of her, casting a light over him. “Why, Ben! What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I was out walking and saw the light in your barn. Thought maybe something was wrong.”

  She pointed toward Fancy’s stall. “A mare is set to foal.”

  “Want me to go get the vet?” he asked.

  “I don’t see any signs of trouble so far.” Jorie walked back to Fancy’s stall and put the lantern on the hook. Ben followed her. “As long as things seem to be progressing, I’d rather let nature be her midwife.”

  She leaned her arms against the top of the stall railing as she watched Fancy lay down on her side, her hind legs stiffen and start to quiver. Signs that hard labor had begun. Standing behind Jorie, Ben raised his arm and leaned against the post. As focused on Fancy as Jorie was, she was aware of how close Ben was to her. He smelled of laurel soap and the crisp night air.

  A thin white bubble – the amniotic sac – appeared in the opening under Fa
ncy’s tail, then disappeared. She lifted her head as a contraction hit. Her neck stretched out, her upper lip peeled back, her whole body strained, her eyes bulged. When the contraction ended, Fancy groaned and dropped her head into the straw. Yet for all of her laboring, the mare was silent, except for a grunt deep in her throat.

  “Why doesn’t she just let loose a whinny?” Ben asked quietly.

  Jorie lifted her head to look at him and was surprised to see he appeared to be suffering right alongside the mare. “Probably just an instinct, so that wild animals won’t know she’s given birth.”

  Fancy’s opening widened, and more of the white membrane appeared. Jorie could see the emerging foal’s front hooves, then a small nose. Relief flooded through her. This foal knew how to make a proper appearance. A loud whoosh broke the quiet, and the black mass slid out of the womb like a chute, landing in the nest of hay that Fancy had prepared. Jorie grabbed a towel, slipped quietly into the stall, and rubbed the foal’s head and body roughly, trying to wipe the amnion away from its nostrils. She laughed as the foal came to life, lifting its head and gasping for air.

  Fancy turned her long neck, stretched her nose out toward her baby, sniffed, snorted, and rumbled in recognition. Then she came to life, heaving and shuddering and scrambling to her feet, eager to nuzzle and lick her baby.

  “A filly,” Ben said quietly. “Solid black. You should name her Indigo.” His eyes were riveted to the sight. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Jorie glanced at Ben, who was watching Fancy try to nudge her foal to its feet by pushing up on its little rump. A gentleness came over his face, softening his features. This was how she loved him best, with tenderness in his eyes. He could be kind, so kind.

  As soon as the filly was on her feet, nursing, Jorie went to get a bucket of fresh water and some oats for Fancy while Ben cleaned up the stall. Afterward, they watched the mother and foal for a long time. The barn had quieted down and the animals had gone back to sleep.

  She let her gaze roam lovingly over the interior of the barn. “I love this quiet.”

  Ben blanched, as if she had said something profane. “I can’t stand it,” he said, surprising her with its sharp, bitter tone. “The quiet makes me crazy. And I can’t stand how time goes so slowly. Everything is always the same. Every day like the one before. Every year looks just like the one before.”

  That was exactly what Jorie loved about her life. The days, how they could flow one into the other the way a river flowed into an ocean. The slow, steady passing of time was a sweet comfort to her.

  A barn owl, high in the rafters, hooted. Another hooted back. Jorie lifted her eyes to try and see where they were perched. “Give yourself time, Ben.”

  “For what?” he asked with a sharp bite of a laugh. “For wanting to be a farmer so I can spend the rest of my days looking at the wrong end of a horse?”

  A sickening jolt rocked through Jorie. After all Ben had been through these last two years, all he had seen of the outside world, he hadn’t changed. Not really. These were the same endless loops of conversations that she had with him before he left. She would try to convince him of all that was right and good about their life, and he would dismiss her thoughts with a careless shrug.

  She remembered one time, after Communion, when he was as cranky as a bear with a toothache. “Ritual! That’s all it is,” he had complained. “Year in, year out, wash somebody’s stinking feet and you’re good to go for another year.”

  “But that’s not it at all,” she tried to explain. “The foot washing is meant to show our humility toward each other. We stoop – we don’t even kneel for it. It’s to remind us of when the Lord washed his disciples’ feet – even Judas Iscariot’s feet. Think about it, Ben. Our God is a foot washing God.”

  But Ben wouldn’t listen to her and eventually she gave up trying to convince him. Besides, it wouldn’t do any good. It never did. Ben’s mind, once made up, was hard to change. He was like Cal in that way. But Cal’s way of thinking was solid and reliable, like a straightly plowed furrow. Ben’s thoughts zigged and zagged, first one direction, then another, as if he couldn’t quite make up his mind which direction he was heading but he was definitely in motion.

  There were so many things she could say to Ben in this moment. She chose what seemed the easiest, the safest. “Well, morning will be here soon. Wouldn’t be right to have the teacher nodding off during a spelling bee.” She took the lantern down off of its hook and blew it out. “Do you need my flashlight to find your way home?” She held it out to him.

  He leaned toward her, taking care not to touch her. She stared up into his face, a face that was so dear to her.

  Then he looked down at the flashlight in her hand. “Jorie, I feel like I’m suffocating.”

  She took a step closer to him. “Ben, what’s troubling you?”

  He cupped her face with his hands and his gaze wandered all over her face – eyes, cheeks, mouth – as if he was memorizing every feature. She thought he was going to kiss her, but he released her, passed around her, and slid open the door, waiting for her to follow him before he closed it behind her.

  Then, without a word, he simply walked away under a sliver of a new moon.

  “Uh-oh, looks like trouble just arrived,” Lizzie said as she peered out the kitchen window of Beacon Hollow.

  When Cal saw who climbed out of the buggy, he braced himself. Sylvia and Jonas, Samuel, and Isaac were heading to the door, somber looks on their faces. He asked Lizzie if she could get some coffee brewing and went out to welcome his company.

  A few moments later, seated around the kitchen table with steaming cups of coffee, Samuel and Isaac launched into a long discussion about the weather and what the Farmer’s Almanac predicted for the next few months. Cal knew they hadn’t come to discuss the weather, but he also knew that Isaac needed time to get to his point. It concerned him that Sylvia was a part of this. It occurred to him that Isaac, in his own polite way, was waiting until Lizzie left the room.

  Cal went over to the sink, where Lizzie was washing breakfast dishes, to quietly ask if she’d mind getting the laundry in before it rained. “There’s not a cloud in the sky!” she objected. Then, her eyes went wide as silver dollars as she grasped what he meant. “But you never can tell about Pennsylvania springtimes, can you?”

  After Lizzie went outside, Isaac sat back in his chair and spoke. “Sylvia told me about what happened in the schoolhouse. During the big storm.”

  “Oh?” Cal asked, lifting his eyebrows. “Because I’m pretty sure Sylvia wasn’t there. I was, though.”

  Sylvia’s face tightened. “Esther told me all about it, about how Jorie let Maggie go to the outhouse in the middle of a raging storm.”

  “That’s not the way it went, Sylvia,” Cal said. “Maggie went out before the big storm hit.”

  “Esther said she completely forgot about Maggie,” Sylvia continued as if such a detail was minor. “According to Esther, you said so yourself. She said you called Jorie careless.”

  And what could Cal say to that? He wanted to defend Jorie, but the truth was, it bothered him greatly that she had been so neglectful with his daughter.

  “This is just another reason why Maggie should be living with me,” Sylvia said. “I owe it to my sister to see that her daughter is growing up well cared for.”

  For a moment Cal looked as if he was about to say something unpleasant – he was clearly fairly angry himself – but finally his face relaxed and he said, “Maggie is growing up just fine, Sylvia.”

  Isaac raised his hand. “Sylvia, you agreed to not say a word if you came this morning.”

  “Then why are you here, Isaac?” Cal asked frankly. “Why are you all here this morning?”

  Jonas spoke up first. “We have decided that, come the end of May, Jorie King will not be asked to return to teach next year.”

  Cal leaned back in his chair. “All because of a big storm.”

  “Not at all,” Jonas
said. “That was just the last straw. We have had complaints all year long.”

  “From Esther?” Cal said with more sarcasm than he should have allowed himself.

  Sylvia’s eyebrows lifted.

  Jonas leaned forward in his chair and pointed a finger at the table. “Let’s start with renting a cottage to Dr. Robinson without consulting Isaac first.”

  “She spoke to me about it,” Cal said. “And what she did was the right thing. We’ve all benefited from the doctor. You have, in particular, Jonas, when your prize cow had a nasty case of mastitis recently.” He turned to Samuel, hoping he could count on him to reason with Jonas, but Samuel avoided his eyes. “So what else?”

  “They haven’t gotten through a single textbook yet!” Sylvia said. “Last week she sent the entire eighth grade outside on the porch with books and told them to read, read, read!”

  “Thank you, Sylvia,” Isaac said in a longsuffering voice. He turned to Cal. “Now Caleb, you have admitted yourself that she spends more time out of the classroom than in it.”

  “I might do the same thing if I had a classroom made up of seventeen boys.” He folded his arms against his chest. “So, Isaac, do you agree with this?”

  Isaac placed his hands on the table. “I have a doubt or two about whether those scholars are being well prepared to pass the state exam.”

  “There’s still a month to go,” Jonas said. “There’s time for a new teacher to bring them up to speed.”

  Isaac lifted his hands. “We will allow Jorie King to finish what she started this year. But then, Caleb, after the exam, you need to tell her that she won’t be coming back next year.”

  “Me? Why me?” Cal asked.

  “You’re on the school board. And you were the one so doggoned determined to hire her,” Jonas said, eyes narrowed. “So you need to finish what you started.”

  “That’s enough,” Isaac said in a dismissive tone. “We’ve said what we came to say.” He stood. “It’s time we went on our way.”

  16

  Matthew couldn’t believe the improvement in Ben in the last week. He could hardly wait to tell Lottie and Dr. Doyle when he went back to work on Monday. Especially Dr. Doyle. He had the gall to call Cal “selfish and irresponsible” for taking Ben away like he did, but that just showed how little the doctor knew. Cal was the most responsible, most unselfish person on this earth.