All in good time, p.11
All in Good Time, page 11
“Weren’t you afraid?” she asked, suddenly close to tears.
“Of course. There’s snow on the ground. But I didn’t want to stay in the house with her.”
Sally. Well, her plans had gone awry, for sure. But perhaps she had served another purpose altogether, sending him into a long walk by himself, the beginning of his freedom. Clara looked at him, her feelings a confusing mix of concern, frustration, and victory. He looked back at her and shook his head ruefully.
“So how soon will you introduce me to someone else?”
“Stop it, Oba.”
He laughed outright, but it was not a mean laugh, or a mocking one. He reached out a hand and asked her to help him to his feet.
“Can’t you do it by yourself?”
“I think so. But I want you to help me.”
She watched him warily. He was not making fun of her at all, but had a serious look in his eye, a soft look, almost sincere. Mistrust rose in her, a fear of . . . she didn’t know what. It seemed such a short time ago, the times he would leave the room when she arrived, refusing to answer her questions, being rude, obstinate. Was he merely setting a trap, trying to drag her into his pit of unhappiness?
“You can do it yourself.”
He did not answer but simply leaned forward, got his good leg beneath him, and slowly drew himself to a standing position. The light was not strong in the dim interior of the barn, so she couldn’t tell if he was in pain or if days of practice had helped to toughen the part of his leg where the skin was pulled and fastened across the end.
His steps were halting, his posture poor, but he kept going until he reached her, then stopped. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes, a sudden fear of the unknown making her uncomfortable. She stepped back.
“Clara.”
She swallowed nervously. “What?”
“Don’t move away. I need you.”
His eyes bore down into hers, his face far too close to her own.
“No. No, you don’t.”
She felt as if she was in a strange land, a weird, unexpected place she could not figure out. What was he thinking? The atmosphere in the barn had changed and she felt completely disoriented.
She took flight. With a strangled cry, she moved away to the door and up the snowy path to the washhouse, where she banged the door shut behind her. She became so agitated she whipped her red scarf off her head, shucked her coat in one swift move, and stabbed it against the coat hook, missed, and tried again, blindly. When it fell to the floor, she began to cry. She bent over to retrieve the stupid coat, sniffed and sobbed, and blew her nose, which was where Sally found her when she came to ask a question about the closets.
Clara waved a hand and told her to let the cleaning go, just go. Get your horse and go. She thrust some cash into her hand, trying to hide her own tears.
Sally decided Clara was mentally unstable, and then met Oba in the barn, which gave her the creeps even more. She hitched up her horse and drove out the lane, bringing the reins down hard. She swung to the right with the back wheels sliding on the packed snow, glad to be rid of that place.
CLARA COMBED HER hair, fixed her white covering, smoothed her skirts, and gathered her knotted emotions. Then she went upstairs, brought down the broom and bucket of soapy water, restored the kitchen to its former cleanliness, and watched the barn. She took two deep inhalations, exhaled slowly, and told herself she was Clara Yoder, an old maid, undesirable as always. She would never allow herself to be drawn into a risky situation, and Oba spelled out danger if she ever saw it. He was untrustworthy, unstable. All he wanted was her money, a place to stay.
When the barn door finally opened, she could not step away from the window, but found herself gripping the edge of the sink as he stopped and looked toward the house, as if measuring the distance before starting out. Her first instinct was to go to him, but she made herself stay.
Who could explain the emotion which seemed to grip her? She thought everything was under control, but a fresh wave overtook her, as if a storm driving the helpless waters of her existence broke over her, took away her resolve, her resistance, and threw her into strange and untested territory. The figure of Oba blurred as hot tears coursed down her cheeks, her chest heaving as childlike sobs and hiccoughs tore through her throat. She realized she was completely undone and there was no way of hiding her distress. Desperately, she swiped at her face, blew her nose, then broke into fresh sobs. She ran to the bathroom to wash her face, then looked in the mirror with despair.
Well, good. If Oba even thought for one second he was going to get all amorous with her, this face would change all that. And she cringed with an inner self-hatred.
But she watched him make his way slowly and carefully to the porch, then stop, eyeing the steps before he grasped the railing. For the longest time, he tried working the leg with hip maneuvers, before finally grasping the knee with his hands, struggling to set it on the first step.
Clara moved to the front door, then changed her mind halfway. She stood beside the door and peered out, carefully remaining out of sight. It was heartbreaking to watch, the exertion and disappointment playing across his face, but she had to admire his determination. When he finally reached the top step, she moved away. She heard the front door open before her heartbeat began to race.
He called out her name. Her first instinct was to cover her ears, run in the opposite direction, find the cool, calm waters of her former life.
“Yes?” she said, her voice strangled with the amount of turmoil she had experienced in the past few minutes.
“I made it back. Where are you?”
“I’m here.” She made an appearance stepping around the door frame. “You did. You made it back!” Clara put an earnest effort into her words, but her face was ravaged by the onslaught of bewildering agitation.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked, his eyes never leaving her face.
“Nothing. Why?”
“You have been crying.”
“No. No, absolutely not. Why would I cry?”
“Clara.”
She turned away. She loved the way he said her name, with a short a sound instead of the usual long a, the name shot through with . . . whatever it was. She was a mess, an old ugly redhead who dared, yes, dared to think an atrocious thought that had no business entering her head. What business did she have even imagining that he suddenly had romantic intentions? And yet how else was she to interpret that look in his eyes in the barn? Oh, her thoughts were a tangled mess.
“Look at me.”
She made the mistake of doing just that and was swept away again into the choppy waters of strange new territories.
“Can I ask you a question?”
She nodded, her lower lip caught in her teeth as she tried to keep from losing her composure yet again.
“What does it take for someone like me to come back to the church? Would there be a problem with my age and having been in the world for so long?”
A great surge of relief caught her up in its soft velvety arms, followed immediately by a sense of crippling loss. “Uh . . . well, I suppose you would speak to a minister, perhaps a deacon, but they will most certainly give you a chance to return.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, then, I suppose I’ll see what I can do about that.”
CHAPTER 9
CLARA FOUND HERSELF SUSPENDED ABOVE A DEEP, DANGEROUS chasm, dangling like a moth caught in a spider’s web. She stayed home and tried to return to normal as the days went by and Oba did not return. She got nothing accomplished and moved through her days without focus, without the needed calm and large amount of self-confidence that were her trademark. She wanted May, then did not want anything to do with her. She wandered from room to room, casting a baleful eye at the snow and pine trees bent over by the force of the strong winter wind. She thought of spring, the earth loosening and warming graciously, giving forth sprouted seeds, and felt a wave of beautiful sadness at the thought of all the dormant growth beneath the hard cold snow.
She considered seeing a doctor, wondering if there was a malfunction in her brain, a lack of oxygen perhaps. She couldn’t eat—the breakfast she made for herself was suddenly repulsive. Finally, she couldn’t take one more day of this strange malady. She went to the barn to harness the black Standardbred named Ralph and found Lucky, the gentle mare, with a brand new, long-legged foal, a skinny, spindly little thing with the exact same coloring as her mother.
Clara was delighted to find Lucky to be a good mother, birthing the foal all by herself, evidently proud and happy with her offspring. She did the necessary bookwork, praised and petted Lucky, pet the foal and allowed her to become used to human touch before spreading fresh straw. This was why she loved raising horses—the rewards far outweighed the sleepless nights and hard work.
MAY WAS EFFUSIVE with genuine gladness, reaching out to hold her tightly, then grasped her shoulders to look into her face.
“How are you, Clara?”
“I’m well. Doing great.”
“Good. I’m so glad. You know I worry about you if you stay away too long. Winter months are hard on sunny dispositions, and you’re so very alone.”
“Oh, I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me, ever.”
“But I do. You know I do.”
“Where is Oba?”
“Oh Clara, I can hardly wait to tell you. He’s out with Andy almost all day now. And guess what? He went to see Danny Weaver about becoming a member of the church. Can you begin to imagine my happiness? It’s almost as if a light went on inside him and he is shucking that hard, bitter layer that kept him closed off from the rest of us. I don’t know what to think. Half of me is afraid it’s too good to be true. You should see him walk, Clara. He’s come a long way.”
Through all this, Clara kept her eyes averted, divesting herself of coat and scarf, bringing a paper bag of food to the kitchen table, putting the kettle on as May followed.
“I know we have you to thank. You are the one who had the nerve to get him started. You were the one, Clara.”
“It was God, not me,” Clara said gruffly.
May looked at her sharply, realizing this was not typical Clara. “Aren’t you happy about Oba? To have him come back to the fold this way?”
“Of course I am.”
May watched Clara lay out sliced cheese, a tin of crackers, a ring of smoked bologna.
“You are? You don’t seem like it.”
Clara gave her a cool glance. “May, we know each other too well. Alright, sit down, dear friend. Let me get the coffee. I have a lot to tell you.”
What? “Dear friend?” A phrase such as this coming from Clara? She sat down, lifted Fronie to her lap, and waited.
Most of the story was unfolded, bit by bit, though she left out their strange encounter in the barn and her reaction to it. But she did include the whole mistake of having Sally Troyer do her cleaning.
“I mean, girls nowadays are so uncaring. She could not have given one hoot about that leg of Oba’s. Not ever. She looked like the thought of his missing leg was going to make her throw up. And Oba feels like an oddity anyway. I mean it, May, I wanted to smack her.”
“But you invited her to introduce them?”
“Yes. Of course. I thought it would be a good thing. Get him interested in a girl, give him a plan for the future.”
“And he wasn’t interested.”
“No.”
May was quiet for a moment, then said it was very good to see Oba wanting to give his life to God without the benefit of a girlfriend, which made it seem doubly sincere.
“I agree, May. But now where do I start?”
“You mean . . . ?”
“Who do I introduce him to now? Clearly, it will have to be someone special, a bit plain, left out of the popular crowd. I mean, Oba is very handsome, to my way of thinking. But it’s that leg. And of course, he can be a complicated person.”
When Oba and Andy arrived for lunch, they were cold and starving, clattering into the washhouse, talking all the while. May smiled, stirred the pot of chicken corn noodle soup, put bread in a pan to fry. Clara set the table, her face pinched and drawn, repeatedly straightening her covering, smoothing the brilliant blue pleats of her skirt. May noticed all this as the forenoon drew into noon hour, but kept her thoughts and opinions to herself.
Andy was delighted to see Clara and made quite a fuss about not having seen her in a coon’s age. Clara told him lots of coons lived longer lives than these few weeks, which sent him into loud laughter, Oba smiling quietly.
“Hello, Clara,” he said.
She had her back turned, but said something in reply. May could not be sure what it was. When she turned, he watched her, but she kept her eyes averted, downcast. She fiddled around with her water glass and then the knife by her plate.
The soup was served in deep bowls, a plate of saltines passed. Andy kept a lively conversation going, telling the women about Oba’s deft accomplishments, able to fork manure with the best of them.
“I don’t like it any better than I ever did, though. I helped Dat as a child. Pure misery then. Pure misery now.”
But as Oba said it, he grinned at Andy, and Clara’s heart flopped painfully. She couldn’t be in his presence without coming too close to this frightening, unplanned, and helpless wasteland. She might easily lose all her self-confidence, her bold and orderly, well-managed way of life. She took sips of water, toyed with her soup, her throat choked with the threat of the returning lunacy. She was obviously losing her mind.
“So how’s everything at the horse farm?” Oba asked Clara, looking directly at her, trying to draw her into the conversation. He’d noticed her strange withdrawal, a certain shyness, and wondered.
“Lucky had her foal.”
“Good. Girl or boy?”
“Girl. What I was hoping for.”
And then she blushed, a painful spread of color over her face, something none of them had ever seen. There was an awkward silence, till Andy remedied the situation by deftly changing the subject.
BY THE TIME the snowdrifts turned soggy, rivulets of dirty water ran everywhere, and the wind blew gently from the south, Clara’s condition had worsened. She cried at the sight of the first dandelion poking its sturdy leaves through a crust of packed gravel and thought, the poor, brave thing. There was mud everywhere, mud and rivers of brown water carrying bits of straw and hay, and the robins and sparrows were chirping madly as they darted frantically through the air, searching for a good place to raise their young. The bluebirds returned, sitting on top of the bluebird house on the fence post, posting sentry for all marauders, feral cats, starlings, and aggressive house wrens.
Lucky’s foal was taken to pasture, her mother’s hooves pounding the wet turf, sending bits of slush flying. Clara leaned on the fence, her arms crossed on the top rail, and watched the long-legged creature flying effortlessly, as if invisible wings propelled the perfect hooves. She was poetry, a song in motion.
And she cried about that.
She drove her horse to town on a rainy day, her black bonnet and shoulders of her light black coat becoming quite wet. She thought of other women whose husbands hitched the horse to the buggy for them, and considered how nice that would be, then caught herself thinking these strange thoughts. Driving through the cold spring rain, she changed hands on the leather reins and shook the opposite one to restore circulation. This black horse named Ralph would never change. He wasn’t happy unless he was running flat out, tugging on the reins as if he drew the buggy with his mouth. She loved the rhythm of his pounding hooves, the light whir of the buggy wheels, but with the water running along the reins into the buggy, he was hard to control.
An oncoming surrey hitched to a plodding fat horse moved past, the white-bearded driver waving a hand. There were two cars behind hers, so she drew off to the side of the road to allow them to pass.
The livestock auction was quiet today, but the combination hardware and grocery store had a line of buggies along the hitching rack and a row of colorful, gleaming cars parked along the front. People scurried through the rain, some of them wearing rubber boots and carrying umbrellas.
Clara loved the little village of Oakley, the houses crowded by the side of the road as if there were safety in numbers. Later in the year, colorful window boxes would appear on many of the houses, sporting red geraniums and brilliant cascades of petunias. The town folks liked to keep their village clean and picturesque, proud of their Swiss heritage and the rich, rolling farmlands spreading out around them.
She stopped at the end of the hitching rack, loosened the rein, and tied her horse securely. He was blowing hard, his sides heaving, which was perfectly normal, so she gave him a pat and walked into the store. On any given day, you were bound to run into folks you knew, and today was no different, various acquaintances stopping to say hello.
Clara was friendly enough, but never given to chatty, senseless conversation, so after brief hellos, she moved on, throwing grocery items into her cart.
She stood by the baking supply shelf, looking for pastry flour, when she heard the distinct giggling only a young girl was capable of.
“Oh, I know, Verna. Isn’t he cute? But too old. They say he has a wooden leg. I don’t know if I could deal with that.”
“Really? I guarantee if that man would ask me, I’d be gone.”
“Mom said he was English too long. He’ll never make a good husband.”
“That’s mean. I hope he starts coming to the singens, cause if he does, I plan on flirting just a teeny bit.”
More giggles as the girls moved off.
A hot rage crowded into Clara’s chest, taking her breath away. She thought she might choke for one wild moment but was distracted by old Aaron Mast’s wife, Drusilla, who accidentally pushed her cart into Clara’s.
“Whoops! Ach my. I’m so clumsy.”
“No, it’s fine. These aisles are a bit narrow.”
She barely remembered checking out or carrying paper bags to her buggy. She made her purchases at the feed store and got out of there as swiftly as possible, glancing sideways at all the men lounging around like bright-eyed lizards. She did not like men. Never had.
