The promise of easter, p.2
The Promise of Easter, page 2
“Aunt Ella says there’s a new family that bought the farm where we used to live,” Matthew said, acting as if he had no plans except to stand here talking. “I guess you have their young ones, ain’t so?”
She hadn’t thought about the fact that the Burkhardt family lived next door to Ella. “Yah, two of them.” Grudging the words, she added, “The boy is in eighth grade, and the little girl is our Micah’s age.” She hesitated. They were such recent arrivals that she hadn’t gotten to know them yet. “They’re just settling down,” she said at last.
She turned toward the house. “I’d best help Mammi with supper. Goodbye, Matt.” Go away and stay away.
Daadi spoke before she’d gotten more than three steps away. “Komm along in, Matthew. Miriam will be eager to see you, and supper will be ready in a few minutes.”
Anna’s throat tightened. So Matthew was going to be welcomed right into the house, despite the fact that just knowing he was breathing the same air made her feel sick. She bit her lip to keep from speaking and hurried inside.
The kitchen was as busy as always at this time of day. The Dutch oven on the back of the stove must contain pot roast, judging by the aroma. Mammi seemed to have one eye on it and the other on something she was stirring in the large saucepan.
As Anna came in, she turned toward her. “It’s wonderful gut you’re home.” She gave Anna a quick hug that calmed Anna’s stress. “You can finish the gravy for me in a minute.”
Nodding, Anna tied a work apron over the dress she kept for teaching. “Did the kinder get home all right?” she asked, looking around for the three youngest of the family. Often they rode home with her in the buggy, but today had been such a warm afternoon that she’d sent them off with their classmates to walk home.
“Yah, they’re here.” Mammi wrinkled her nose and exchanged looks with Grossmammi, who was cutting fruit into a bowl.
“Betsy is unhappy with you,” Grossmammi said, her keen blue eyes showing amusement. “Was ist letz?”
“She’s fourteen, that’s what’s wrong.” Anna resisted the temptation to say that her sister Betsy was unhappy with the world and everything in it. Today she’d started off irritating and progressed to obnoxious. “She didn’t want to settle down when her grade was reading its assignment.”
“Talking?” Mammi’s eyebrows lifted. They all knew that Betsy had trouble keeping her opinions to herself, but by her age, a scholar should know how to behave.
“Don’t say anything to her about it,” Anna said quickly. “You only know because I’m her teacher, so . . .” She hesitated, sure there was something about the connection between sister and teacher that caused at least part of the problem.
Mammi, frowning, was opening her mouth as if to speak when the door opened, and there was Matt, coming in right behind Daadi, with Grossdaadi bringing up the rear.
“Matthew!” Mammi dropped the pot lid she was holding. It hit the floor with an echoing clang. Mammi nearly tripped on it rushing to grab Matthew in a strong embrace, hugging him close. “Thank the gut Lord. You’re here.”
“Let the lad breathe,” Grossmammi said, but as Mammi drew back, Grossmammi clutched him just as hard.
Mammi wiped her eyes on a snowy dish towel. “Ach, you’ve surprised me so much I’m all befuddled.”
“I’m sorry.” Matt seemed to have trouble getting the words out. “James . . .”
Mammi was shaking her head already. “Foolish to cry, but I’m used to seeing the two of you together. I felt he should be here with you.”
“He should be.” His face was white. “I should have stopped him.”
Anna had no space in her heart to be sorry for Matt. He should have stopped James.
“Now, stop that kind of talk.” Grossdaadi looked as severe as Anna had ever seen him. “You aren’t to blame for what happened. It was an accident.”
If he said it was God’s will, Anna thought she might scream.
But it was Grossmammi who had the final word. “James was in the Lord’s hands, then and now.” She reached up with a trembling hand to pat Matt’s cheek. “And so are you.”
Tears stung Anna’s eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. Everything Grossmammi said was true, but her heart refused to be comforted. Whatever anyone said, James was gone. And Matthew, who should have helped him, was here in his place. It was too much to bear.
* * *
* * *
It wasn’t long before Matt realized that the angry feelings Anna had toward him were obvious to everyone. He understood. While her elders were maybe too quick to forgive, Anna wasn’t even trying. He didn’t judge her. She was putting the blame on him, and she was right.
She’d been jealous of his close relationship with James—the realization hit him like a blow to the chest. Why hadn’t he seen it before this?
Anna and James had been only ten months or so apart in age, very alike with their thick blond hair and blue eyes. They’d been more like twins than ordinary siblings. But once there was another boy his age to play with, James had changed. She’d been left behind.
Not always, he told himself, struggling with looking at his past from this angle. But definitely when it was something James considered too dangerous for a girl.
As far as Anna had been concerned, nothing James could do had been too dangerous for her. She had been as daring as anyone, all the more surprising because she looked so sweet.
Did she feel differently about it now that she was a teacher? Having charge of a roomful of kids sounded scary to him, and Anna was responsible not just for teaching them but for keeping them safe. Safe. The very word made his heart wince.
He brushed those thoughts away. If he wanted to succeed in what he’d come here for, it would be better if Anna didn’t vent her anger . . . at least not in front of her parents.
Fortunately supper seemed nearly ready, and the younger children began to troop into the kitchen, distracting everyone. They were accompanied by a stream of noise and laughter, which died away as they took in the fact that he was there. All those pairs of blue eyes focusing on him made him nervous, but at least they didn’t look openly hostile, like Anna.
“Komm along to the table.” Miriam clapped her hands. “Grace, set a place for Matthew between you and Betsy. Hurry up now.”
Grace, who must be about ten now, managed to take her eyes off him long enough to fetch another plate and more silverware, obediently setting a place on the far side of the table. Then she resumed her careful study, as if weighing him in some balance of her own before making a decision about him. That almost made him more uncomfortable than Anna’s reaction.
Betsy, a couple of years older than Grace, pulled a chair into place in front of the plate and silverware. She nodded to him, jerked out the chair to the right of his, and plopped down. Betsy must be nearing rumspringa age, but he didn’t see any signs of it. She moved more like a boy than a girl, and her plain dress was the standard blue one mothers turned out almost automatically unless met by a demand for something pink or yellow or any color more feminine. Not that he knew a lot about it, but he remembered the array of colors on the girls in the classroom as they moved into seventh and eighth grades.
Just as they were about to sit down, the kitchen door opened again. This time it was a quiet entrance. Sally, who was the next daughter after Anna, drifted in. Drifted, he decided, really was the right word. She looked around vaguely, as if not seeing anyone, and floated to the table.
Betsy, next to him, muttered something he didn’t hear and then looked past him to Grace, on his left. “Look at her. What do you want to bet she’s in love again?”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Who?” she whispered.
Betsy shrugged, looking disgusted. “Who knows?”
“Sally, you were nearly late for supper.” Anna reached between him and Betsy to put a bowl of gravy on the table. “Did you need me to pick you up from work?”
“What? No, I had a ride.” Sally pulled out her chair and glanced around the table, not seeming to notice that there was an extra person there. “Joseph Miller brought me home.” She said his name reverently and then sighed.
“Why him?” Betsy muttered toward Matt, almost as if she were asking him. “Last week it was Adam Holst.”
He shrugged, in case she was looking for a response, and cast his memory back a few years. That would be the Miller family that had a dairy operation, he supposed. He could barely picture a skinny, pimply kid, all arms and legs. Not someone you’d expect a girl like Sally to fall for.
Sally was pretty, with her rosy cheeks and the eyes that seemed to smile at people. Prettier than Anna? He didn’t doubt that most folks would say so. But Anna had something special, some quality that made a person look twice to notice the maturity in her eyes and the amazing sweetness of her smile.
Pushing away his impressions of a grown-up Anna, he reflected that Sally’s boyfriend might have improved since Matthew had left. But judging by Anna’s expression as she slid into a chair across from him, she didn’t think much of her sister’s choice.
Anna sat next to Micah, the baby of the family, and looking at him was the hardest thing yet. Micah looked exactly like James had at seven or eight. He had only to blink to see James sitting there, staring at him with those solemn blue eyes and that thick thatch of yellow hair.
Miriam put a basket of biscuits, warm from the oven, in front of him and took her seat. He started to reach for one, when he realized that everyone else around the table had closed eyes and bowed heads . . . everyone but Anna, that is. Her head was bowed, but she was watching him, and she gave him a disdainful stare as he snatched his hand back.
He’d been away too long. Imagine forgetting the silent prayer before meals. Matt shut his eyes and tried to wipe everything from his mind. It wasn’t easy.
Finally he heard the rustle of movement that said Simon had finished. Platters and bowls began to sail around the table, and chatter broke out, relieving Matt of the need to say anything.
Too bad it was Anna who’d seen his error. She certainly had changed from the shy, sweet girl she’d once been. That girl would never have looked at him as if she challenged his right to breathe.
Well, he’d changed, too. What happened to James stood between them like an uncrossable chasm. It had changed Anna, and it had shattered everything he’d believed about himself.
“What have you been doing out there among the Englisch, Matthew?” Anna’s grossdaadi looked as if he really wanted to know.
“Working construction, most of the time,” Matt said, trying to make it sound normal. “I’ve been with a small family-owned operation near Baltimore for the past year.”
“Why did you leave them?” Anna’s voice had an edge that was just short of being an insult, as if implying he’d been fired.
Grossdaadi gave her a look that seemed to push her back in her chair. Isaac Stoltzfus was a kindly man, and everyone knew that, just like Simon, he expected the same standards from his family.
Matt spoke quickly, hoping to stave off any chiding the old man planned to give her. “I haven’t left them, exactly. I took some time off after . . . after an accident.”
It hadn’t been his accident, but they didn’t need to know that.
The image was never far from his mind, and it slid back now. Himself, high above the ground, seeing the panic in Kevin’s face as Kevin clung desperately to the edge of a beam, fingers sliding . . .
It had been like James all over again until Matt had touched his hand, grabbing it.
“Whatever the reason, we’re glad you came home.” Miriam’s voice was as gentle as her smile. “We hope you stay for a long time. At least you’ll be here for Easter.”
Anna clearly didn’t wish any such thing, and the younger kinder looked either undecided, like Grace, or just uncaring, like Sally.
“What are your plans while you’re here?” Simon asked, giving him the opening he’d been looking for.
“I was hoping to talk to you about that. I could use some advice.” He waited, hoping that was the right approach to get the opportunity he needed.
“For sure. Once supper’s over, we can have a talk.”
Matt let go of the breath he was holding. That was one step forward. The next thing was to figure out what exactly he was going to say in that talk.
The meal ended with slabs of pumpkin pie topped with cream. He had to refuse more than once before he’d convinced Grossmammi that he didn’t have room for more than the one huge slab she’d given him. She’d always been the one who’d pressed packets of brownies or cookies into his hands when he went home. Maybe his mother hadn’t been much of a baker, but he hadn’t been starving. Still, those brownies had a taste of love about them that had warmed his heart.
Another silent prayer announced that supper was over. This time he remembered to bow his head. Anna wasn’t going to catch him again.
Chairs skidded against the wide oak floorboards, and plates rattled as everyone scraped and stacked. Grace had grabbed his plate, so he stood still and let them whirl around him. It had always been this way at James’s house—noise and laughter and chattering. It carried him back to the days when he’d been a small boy, trying to figure out why this place was so different from his own home. He could recite the differences, but he could never figure out why.
Not then. Now he realized that his parents had been as disappointed with each other as they’d been with him. Not that they’d realized it. They’d had only one child, and he hadn’t been able to fill what was missing in their lives. He hadn’t even known what it was.
Matt made an effort to stay out of the way. Simon was giving some instructions to the younger ones, but he glanced across at Matt and pointed toward the door. “I’ll meet you at the barn in a few minutes, yah?”
Matt nodded. He’d slip out now and have a moment to himself in the clear air. That should let him arrange his thoughts. He’d just . . .
He’d reached the mudroom between the kitchen and the back porch when someone grabbed his arm. Anna.
Frowning, he pulled his arm free. Or tried, but she didn’t want to let go.
“What do you want to talk to Daadi about? Haven’t you upset everyone enough already?”
He looked at her, knowing he couldn’t find any way to express his agony of soul-searching, of trying to understand what had happened to him and finally to see what he had to do before he could go on.
He didn’t even try. And she wouldn’t understand or forgive no matter what he said. She’d already judged him and found him guilty. There was no way back with her.
CHAPTER TWO
Daad had called Matt away before Anna had a chance to push him into answering her question. She might not have succeeded anyway, she realized. Matt didn’t look like he’d give in to pushing.
He had grown into a man while he’d been away from Promise Glen. Pushing him, with his broad shoulders and sturdy frame, would be like pushing a boulder, and she might not have gotten any better results.
Later. She’d watch for her chance to see him alone. He had to understand. It wasn’t right for him to come back and reopen a wound that had barely begun to heal.
She kept an eye on the barn door from the kitchen window, but a half hour passed with no sign of him. Could she have missed seeing him leave?
Anna pulled on her thick black sweater against the evening chill and set off to find out for herself. If they were still talking, Daadi wouldn’t welcome her butting in on a private conversation. Still, maybe there’d be a chance to catch Matt.
She spotted Betsy walking toward her from the chicken coop, striding along with a purposeful step. Betsy always looked full of energy when it was a question of the outside chores. She wasn’t so enthusiastic about the chores Mammi planned for her inside.
For the past year, as Betsy neared the end of her school years and her own rumspringa began to loom ahead of her, she’d been trying to convince her family that when it came to farm work, she could do everything a boy could do.
Why? That was just one of the things Anna hadn’t figured out about this sister of hers. Was it just that leaving the familiar world of school and childhood behind frightened her? She remembered that difficult period when a girl was bouncing between childhood and being a young adult.
At least Betsy didn’t imagine she was in love with someone every other week, like Sally.
Betsy caught her eye. “If you’re looking for Matt, he’s gone,” she announced as soon as they came within earshot of each other.
“Why would you think I was looking for him?” She plunged on, knowing she wasn’t doing a very good job of covering up her feelings. “Gone? Gone home, you mean? Or doing something with Daad?”
Betsy shrugged. “Home, I guess. Anyway, I saw him walking away toward the road.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Anna shrugged, trying to look as if she were totally unconcerned about what Matthew did or didn’t do. “I need to talk to Daad, that’s all.”
“I wouldn’t,” Betsy said. “Not now. I tried to tell him something, and he about bit my head off.” She grimaced. “Not like Daad at all. So don’t go making it worse, whatever it is.”
If Daad was cross after his conversation with Matt, she wanted to know why. What right had Matt to come here and stir up people’s feelings?
“I’ll see what’s wrong.”
She headed for the open doors of the barn, trying to ignore the fact that Betsy was shaking her head behind her. Just because Daad wouldn’t talk to Betsy, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t open up to her.
