The Waiting Page 24

  For four long years, that big table held only two people: Esther and her. Thank God for her daughter, her Esther.

  But it wasn’t too late to give Esther a sister or brother. Sylvia was still a young woman, only thirty-four, still beautiful. She was aware of the approving looks of men, Plain or English, though she knew it was vain to derive pleasure from those looks.

  She had finally decided that she was ready to marry again, but he had to be somebody worthy, a man she could look up to. Someone who would hold the Word of God high in their home.

  Someone like Caleb Zook.

  Of course, she had never thought of Caleb in that way before her sister passed. The day that she saw Maggie dressed as . . . a boy! It still galled her. In that instant, she knew what had to happen. It was her God-given duty: her role in life was to take care of people. She was born to it. She was at her best in that role.

  If she and Cal married, Maggie would have a mother, Esther would have a father. It just made perfect sense. Why, she could probably put an end to Ephraim’s annoying habit of stammering too.

  She knew she suited Caleb better than any one of those spinsters who signed up for the aunties’ Saturday Night Supper List. Even though she disapproved of that ridiculous form of matchmaking, she had recently decided that she would add her name to the list in the next available opening. It would be a way to let Caleb know she would be willing to consider him as a husband.

  But first . . . she needed to make sure that Jorie King would keep her attention on Benjamin Zook where it belonged.

  Earlier today, Sylvia drove past Beacon Hollow and happened to see Benjamin out by the barn. Impulsively, she turned her horse into the drive. She thought it to be high time that someone let Benjamin know what had been going on while he was serving his country in Vietnam: Jorie had been working her wiles on his eldest brother.

  She told Benjamin all about the way Jorie was trying to tempt Caleb – sending him special smiles in church, taking him on picnics. Oh, Jorie thought no one knew she was trying to snare Caleb, but Sylvia was wise to it. She had seen the two of them, more than a few times, walking together. Talking together. Laughing together.

  Benjamin didn’t even look at her as she spoke, didn’t ask a single question. But she knew he was listening, because she could see he was shifting his weight restlessly and his facial expression set like concrete. Those were signs of a man trying to hold his temper, she remembered that from her Noah.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her if she let her hair down for him too.”

  At least, that was what she meant to say. What came out was more like, “She let her hair down for him too.” She felt just the tiniest pang of guilt over stretching the truth like that – she had never lied before in her entire life – but every time that guilty twinge poked her conscience, she dismissed it. After all, she wouldn’t put it past Jorie to flaunt that flaming red hair. And besides, that tiny piece of information set Benjamin off. His eyes glowed edgy and wild and his big hands clenched and unclenched.

  Oh, it was definitely the right thing to do.

  Sylvia went outside to wait for Esther’s arrival from school. As she sat on the porch chair, she closed her eyes, sorely aware of the emptiness, the loneliness in her heart.

  Jorie couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this day felt different. She sensed a strange restlessness, as if something was about to happen that would change things forever. She was glad when four o’clock finally came and all of the scholars ran home, even Maggie, who usually stayed to help her clean up. She had just finished wiping down the blackboard when she heard the door click shut. She turned to see who was there. It was Cal, standing in the middle of the aisle, looking so big and tall next to the small desks.

  And sad.

  Cal looked so sad. She couldn’t bear to see him looking like that. They stared at one another in silence for a moment. Then she took a step toward him, and then another. She reached out her hand to him, and he met it halfway with his own, entwining their fingers. They stayed that way awhile, touching in silence. Then he gave a little tug, pulling her closer, and she came toward him.

  He brushed his knuckles along her jaw, so lightly it was as if he’d only thought about touching her. “Jorie,” he said again, so softly it was as if he’d only imagined saying it.

  She heard in his whisper, she saw on his face, the same longings that cried from her heart.

  But she knew why Cal was here. She could read it on his face. He had come to tell her goodbye.

  She shook her head and the tears splattered. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to hold them back. He still had her face cupped in his hands. He leaned closer now and brushed his mouth across hers, almost with reverence. He started to pull away, but she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him, holding him as tight as she could until his arms folded around her. She laid her head on his shoulder, and he rested his chin on her head. She didn’t know how long they stayed that way.

  It was the sound of a shout that pulled them apart. “Ich mache dich dod!” I’ll kill you! Ben had come into the schoolhouse and witnessed their embrace. He lunged toward Cal, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around to hit him in the jaw.

  Cal fell backward against a desk.

  “Get up! Get up and fight like a man!”

  Cal struggled to his feet as Ben kicked him down again.

  “Halt! Halt jetzt!” Stop it! Stop it this instant! Jorie tried to put herself between Ben and Cal, but Ben pushed her off. “Was is loss mit dir?” What is wrong with you?

  Ben’s eyes were as black as thunder. “Me? Me?! My brother and my girl, kissing behind my back! Du settscht dich scheme!” You ought to be ashamed!

  “We were doing nothing of the sort!” Jorie said. “We were . . . we were saying goodbye.”

  “Why should I believe that?” Ben yelled, his voice tinged with the deepest betrayal. “You always wanted him. You wanted me to be him. You’re probably thrilled that Mary Ann made this easy for you and died.”

  “Don’t you say those terrible things!” Jorie shouted.

  “I thought I knew you.” His voice whipped around Jorie like an arctic blast. “I thought I understood us. Sylvia told me! She said you let down your hair for him!”

  “That’s enough, Ben!” Cal said, wiping blood from his mouth. “You’re talking crazy.”

  He whirled around to face his brother. “And you! You don’t care about Jorie! You’re just trying to take her because Mary Ann told you to. I know that, for a fact! I read her letter! It was in that box of Mary Ann’s things. The one you gave to Maggie.”

  Cal’s fists clenched at his side, as if he was barely holding himself back from throttling Ben.

  Ben whirled back toward Jorie. “He was only courting you because Mary Ann told him to. And because Sylvia threatened to take Maggie.” He pointed a finger at Cal, as if he were a child that needed scolding. “I heard! I heard it all! Right after the big storm, when the bishop came to tell you to fire Jorie from her teaching job.” He spun around to Jorie. “Did Cal tell you that yet? That you’re fired? The bishop is willing to let you finish the term but then” – he drew an imaginary line across his throat – “you’re axed.” He spun around to Cal. “Tell her, Cal. Tell her the truth.”

  Cal’s face went still. Tension prickled the air.

  Jorie’s eyes darted between Cal’s and Ben’s. The fact that Cal didn’t deny it told her that Ben was speaking the truth. She shook her head, not understanding, not knowing them. She backed up a few steps, nearly tripping over something, then made herself walk out slowly with her head up. At the doorway she looked back at them as though she were about to add one last thing, then she thought better of it and turned and walked down the road.

  She walked all the way to Stoney Creek, into the barn, all the way into the middle of it, and just stood, gripping her elbows as if she was trying to hold herself in one piece. Dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight that shot through th
e open doorway. She swallowed and drew in a deep breath, taking in the comforting smell of animals and hay. She told herself not to cry, but in the next instant, scalding tears pushed against her eyes. Soon, she was sobbing.

  When she was done, a huge sigh from her heart escaped her body, a sigh so deep and long she felt it as a breath she had been holding for years.

  Ever since she first loved Ben.

  “For such a peaceable man, you sure get the bejesus walloped out of you on a regular basis,” Matthew said as he prepared an ice pack for Cal’s swollen eye.

  “Matthew,” Cal said wearily, “don’t blaspheme.” Cal was sitting at the kitchen table at Beacon Hollow, staring at the salt and pepper shakers on the center of the table.

  “You might need some stitches for that cut on your eyebrow,” Matthew said as he handed Cal the ice pack. “You gonna let me know why your face came to look like a side of butchered beef?”

  Cal sighed. “Ben and I had a . . . misunderstanding.”

  “Ben did this to you?” Matthew whistled. “Guess the Army taught him a few things.” He leaned back in the chair. “I suppose Ben isn’t looking any worse for the wear.”

  “I didn’t hit him back, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “It is,” Matthew said. “Any idea where Ben went off to?”

  “No,” Cal said. “I don’t even know if he’s coming back.” But surely he would. They were bound, he and his brothers, with ties strengthened by life and love and God, too strong to break. Surely, surely, they were bound too tightly to be broken apart.

  Matthew leaned forward on his elbows. “I’m guessing that this had something to do with our Jorie.”

  “It’s a long story,” Cal said, shifting the ice pack to the cut on his eyebrow.

  “I’ve got time, at least until the cows start bawling like they’re fit to be tied and need me to ease their misery.”

  Cal didn’t tell Matthew everything, but he did tell him about the big storm and that he was told to fire Jorie. “The look on Jorie’s face when Ben told her she had been fired . . . I’ll never forget it.” He shuddered. “Wouldn’t surprise me if she never wants anything to do with a Zook – any of us Zooks – ever again.” Cal saw Matthew wince. It felt so wrong, hurting people like this. Every morning, Cal prayed to God that he would be a blessing to others. Instead, he was causing pain.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to do the right thing.”

  “Well, sure. But what is that?”

  Cal sighed. “That’s what I don’t know yet.”

  Matthew dropped his chin to his chest. “Must be hard, caring about them both.”

  Cal was surprised by his younger brother’s sensitivity – a characteristic with which Matthew wasn’t overly endowed. The thought pleased Cal. Maybe his brother was turning into a man. “You’re in the same spot, though, aren’t you? Wanting the best for both Ben and me.”

  “I guess I am.” Matthew looked up. “The thing is, I want you and Jorie to end up together because she’s so right for you. She’s smart enough and she speaks her mind and, well, she’d be a good wife to you. And Maggie and Ephraim are crazy about her. But there’s a part of me that wants Ben to have her too, because . . .”

  “Because he needs her,” Cal said with a heavy heart.

  “Yeah. I guess there’s the rub. He needs her more.”

  18

  That night, Ben still hadn’t returned. After everyone had gone to bed, Cal opened his Bible at the kitchen table, hoping God’s Word could provide some guidance through this mess. Communion would be coming in a few weeks. This was a season of making amends, of setting things right between people. He had always loved Communion for that very reason. But this spring, he would need to set things right with a long list of people: Sylvia, Ben, smooth over that nettlesome tension with Jonas, and now Jorie. He wondered if things would ever be right again with Ben or with Jorie. Two people he cared about deeply and yet he didn’t know what to do. Loving Ben meant not loving Jorie. And loving Jorie meant not loving Ben.

  He heard a scuffling noise and turned around to see Ephraim and Maggie standing at the bottom of the steps in their nightclothes. Ephraim was holding Maggie’s hand, but she was hidden behind him.

  “Cal,” Ephraim said. “We got something to t-tell you.”

  Cal turned his chair to face them. “Something that’s troubling you?”

  Ephraim pulled Maggie forward to stand side by side. “Matthew t-told us. He said Jorie was g-going to be f-fired. Cuz of the b-big storm.”

  Cal rolled his eyes. “Is nothing private in this household?”

  Ephraim looked at Maggie, who kept her gaze on her bare feet. “Jorie t-told her not to go.”

  “Who?”

  Ephraim waited.

  Maggie pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Me,” she answered, as her eyes welled up with tears. “Jorie told me not to go. To wait until the storm was over. But I couldn’t wait. I slipped out when she wasn’t looking.”

  Cal raked a hand through his hair.

  “I didn’t mean to get Jorie fired,” Maggie said. “I just had to go to the outhouse, real bad.”

  Cal grimaced and rubbed his forehead. “Maggie, in the morning you’re going to tell this story to the bishop. He needs to hear this. We have to put things right.”

  She cringed, scrunching her small shoulders, then gave a nod.

  “I’ll c-come too,” Ephraim whispered to her.

  Cal had just finished mixing feed in the barn when he heard the familiar clip-clop of a horse driving a buggy. He wiped his hands on a rag and went out the side door to see Isaac’s mare slow her gait as she reached the steep incline of Beacon Hollow’s long drive. Seated next to Isaac in the buggy was the superintendent of public schools, Mr. Whitehall. Cal wrapped the mare’s reins around the hitching post and helped Isaac climb down from the buggy.

  Isaac’s sparse eyebrows shot up when he saw Cal’s black eye. “Looks like you met up with a grizzly bear, Caleb,” he said in his quiet, slow way.

  “Something like that,” Cal said.

  The superintendent didn’t even notice Cal’s eye. He had a big smile on his face. “I thought that buggy ride would rattle my bones, but it was smooth as molasses.” He shook Cal’s hand. “I’m learning that it’s high time I unlearned some assumptions.”

  Cal gave Isaac a questioning glance. The superintendent looked the same but acted like a different man entirely than the one who gave the eighth graders their exam just a few weeks ago.

  Isaac’s face was unreadable. “Caleb, Mr. Whitehall has some news to tell you.”

  Mr. Whitehall lifted a knee to prop open his briefcase and pulled out some papers. “We just received the scoring from the state exam.”

  Cal straightened his back, bracing himself for bad news.

  Mr. Whitehall practically burst forth with the news. “The eighth grade at the one-room schoolhouse at Stoney Ridge earned the top marks in the state!”

  Cal thought he hadn’t heard correctly. He looked to Isaac for confirmation and noticed his pleased look.

  “You don’t say,” Cal said, working to keep a grin off of his face.

  Mr. Whitehall thrust the report at him. “Not only top marks, but a full five percentage points higher than any other public school. In the entire state of Pennsylvania!” He laughed gleefully, as if he had been a proponent of one-room schoolhouses all along. “In fact, you’ve got one pupil who beat out everyone, in every subject! A perfect score! Reading comprehension, mathematics, science!” He slapped his knee. “Imagine, nearly 100 percent on the science exam from a boy in an Amish schoolhouse!”

  Isaac leaned over toward Cal. “Ephraim,” he said quietly. “It was our Ephraim who earned those high marks.”

  Cal didn’t know what to say. He let the news soak over him. He felt so pleased for Ephraim, and for Jorie too, who had brought the best out of Ephraim. Even his stuttering had improved lately. It was just what Mary Ann had s
aid would happen: Jorie would be the best choice. For Ephraim, for Maggie. For him too, though that prospect seemed markedly dim.

  “The bishop and I are stopping by to see that schoolteacher of yours next. I want her to speak at a conference in Harrisburg and give suggestions to the public school teachers about making improvements.”

  Cal exchanged a look with Isaac, sharing a thought. They wouldn’t stop Mr. Whitehall from asking, but they knew Jorie would never agree to such a prideful thing.

  Isaac took off his hat and scratched his head. “Uh, Caleb, have you already spoken to Jorie about the teaching job for next year?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes, she knows,” Cal said.

  “Oh dear,” Isaac said, looking worried. “I suppose I have a little smoothing over to do.”

  “Speaking of that, Isaac,” Cal said, “if you have a minute to spare, Maggie would like to speak to you. She’s in the kitchen, waiting.” Peering out the kitchen window with wide, worried eyes were Maggie and Ephraim.

  Cal knew Jorie well enough to know that she would be in the barn after sunset, checking on each horse one last time before locking things up for the night. He found her in the stall of a mother and new foal. He couldn’t help but smile when he saw her standing by her feather-footed Percherons. She looked tiny next to the giant horses. Even the foal – only a few days old – was nearly as tall as she was.

  “So school is over for another year.”

  She glanced up when she heard his voice. It was getting dark, too dark now to see her face, and he was glad for it. Maybe, without realizing it, he had even planned it that way.

  “Maggie and Ephraim were both down in the mouth the day after school let out. Ephraim, in particular. He’s done with his formal schooling.”

  It was more than the last day of school that had Maggie and Ephraim upset. Esther had told everyone that Jorie had been fired. Some – even Ray Smucker, Maggie said – had tears rolling down their cheeks as they helped clean out the schoolhouse on the last day and pack up Jorie’s belongings.