in her letters. Maybe she’d been impatient with her young cousin, thinking it was time Alice grew up. If she’d been more comforting...
But it was too late for those thoughts. Jessie bent over the sink to help Timothy brush his teeth, but Becky wedged her little body between them to help him instead. Fair enough, Jessie told herself. A big sister was expected to look after the younger ones. Maybe if she ignored Becky’s animosity, it would fade.
A line from Alice’s last letter slid into her mind. “You were right. I never should have come back here to die. Please, if you love me, try to repair the harm I’ve done to these precious little ones.”
Jessie’s throat tightened. She had begged Alice to stay with her for those final months instead of returning to Caleb. But Alice had been determined, and Jessie hadn’t been able to stop questioning her own motives. Whose interests had she had at heart?
Pushing the thought away, she reached over their heads to turn off the water. “All ready? Let’s go down and say good-night.”
Bare feet slapping on the plank floor, the kinder rushed down the stairs. Following more sedately, she saw them throw themselves at Caleb, and she winced at the kicks his cast took. But he didn’t seem to notice.
Caleb cuddled each of them, apparently as reluctant to send them to bed as they were to go. It must have seemed like forever to him since his life had been normal, but she knew him well enough to understand he’d never regret risking injury to help a neighbor. That’s who he was, and she admired him even when she was resenting the cool stare he turned on her.
“Go on up to bed now.” Caleb helped Timothy slide down from his lap. “Sleep tight.”
Smiling, Jessie held out her hands. Once again, Timothy took hers easily, rubbing his eyes with his other hand. But Becky pushed past her to grab Daniel’s hand.
“I want Onkel Daniel to tuck me in,” she announced.
“Sounds gut,” he said, getting up and stretching. “Cousin Jessie and I will see you’re all tucked in nice and snug. Ain’t so, Cousin Jessie?”
She smiled, grateful that he’d included her. “That we will.”
“Let’s see how fast we can get upstairs.” Daniel snatched up Becky and galloped toward the steps.
“Me, me,” Timothy squealed, holding his arms up to Jessie.
Lifting him and hugging him close, she raced up the stairs, and they collapsed on Timothy’s bed in a giggling heap. Timothy snuggled against her, seeming eager for a hug, and her heart swelled. If circumstances had been different, he might have been her child.
The unruly thought stuck to her mind like a burr. She remembered so clearly the day she’d met Caleb. He’d come from Pennsylvania for the wedding of a distant cousin, and she’d been asked to show him around. They’d hit it off at once in a way she’d given up expecting to happen to her.
And he’d felt the same. She was sure of it. That afternoon was surrounded by a golden haze in her memory—the beginning of something lovely. A perfect time—right up to the moment when they’d gone in to supper and Caleb had his first look at Alice. She’d turned from the stove, her cheeks rosy from the heat, strands of cornsilk-yellow hair escaping her kapp to curl around her face, her blue eyes sparkling and full of fun.
Jessie wrenched her thoughts away from that long-ago time. No sense at all in thinking about what might have been. They could only live today, trusting in God’s grace, and do their best to make up for past mistakes.
* * *
Caleb expected Onkel Zeb to chide him again about Becky’s behavior once the others had gone upstairs. His defenses went up at the thought. Becky was his child. It was his responsibility how she behaved.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t a very comforting thought. He’d let his own reactions to Jessie’s presence influence his daughter’s behavior. Besides, Onkel Zeb was as close as a father to him...closer, in some ways, than his own daad had been. It had seemed, after Mamm left, that all the heart had gone out of his father. Onkel Zeb had been the one to step up and fill the role of both parents for him and his brothers.
The unfortunate King men, folks said. Mamm had left Daad, and then Alice had left him. Onkel Zeb’s young bride had died within a year of their marriage. Daniel was definitely not looking for a wife, and as for Aaron—well, who knew what he was doing out in the Englisch world?
He darted a look at his uncle. Onkel Zeb was studying him...patient, just waiting for him to realize himself what should be done.
“Yah, you’re right. I’ll try to do better with Becky.”
“And with Cousin Jessie,” Onkel Zeb pointed out. “She is not to blame for Alice’s wrongs.”
“And Cousin Jessie.” He repeated the words dutifully. “At least she’s nothing at all like Alice was. She’s plain, not pretty and flirty.”
“To the Leit, plain is gut, remember?” Zeb’s lips twitched. “I’d say Jessie has a face that shows who she is...calm, kind, peaceable. Funny that she’s never married. It wonders me what the men out in Ohio were thinking to let her get away.”
Truth to tell, Caleb wondered, too. If anyone seemed meant to marry and have a flock of kinder to care for, it had been Jessie. His mind flickered briefly to the day they’d met and winced away again. He had no desire to remember that day.
But Onkel Zeb’s thoughts had clearly moved on, and he was talking about how things had gone while Caleb was in the hospital.
“...working out fine, that’s certain sure. Sam just can’t do enough for us, though I keep telling him we’re all right. Guess he feels like he wants to repay you, seeing it was his barn where you got hurt.”
“That’s foolishness, and I’ll tell him so myself. As if any of us wouldn’t do the same for a neighbor. Sam’s got plenty with his own farm to run. They’d best be getting his new barn up soon, ain’t so?”
“Barn raising is set for Saturday.” Onkel Zeb grinned. “The buggies have been in and out of Sam and Leah’s lane all week with the women helping to clean and get the food ready. Nothing like a barn raising to stir folks up.”
Caleb was glad Sam’s barn would soon be replaced, but Zeb’s words had reminded him of something else. “Maybe Leah would know of someone I can hire to help out with the kinder. What do you think?”
Onkel Zeb shrugged. “Not sure why you want to go looking for someone else when you have family right here eager to do it.”
Frustration with his uncle had him clenching his hands on the chair. Before he could frame a response, he heard Daniel and Jessie coming back down the stairs. They seemed to be chuckling together over something, and Caleb felt himself tensing. Irrational or not, he wanted his uncle and brother to share his own feelings about Jessie’s arrival.
They came in smiling, which just added to his annoyance. Onkel Zeb glanced at them.
“What funny thing did young Timothy say now?” he asked.
“Ach, it wasn’t Timmy at all.” Daniel grinned. “Cousin Jessie just didn’t agree with my version of the story of the three
