style="font-size:15px;"> Nodding, Zeb stepped up to the porch and swung the door open. “I was hoping Rebecca would be here when we got back. I haven’t seen her yet. How is she looking?”
Daniel moved past him to start a stack of the lumber inside while he considered how to answer that question. “All right, I guess,” he muttered.
His uncle propped the door open before turning to give him a probing look. “Seems to me you’re not so sure about that, ain’t so?”
He should have known there was no getting away with evasions where Onkel Zeb was concerned. He’d been like a father to all three boys, especially after their mother left and their own daad just seemed to fall apart at the loss.
Don’t go down that road, he told himself. This is about Rebecca, not you.
“Truth to tell, I’m not sure.” He pulled another couple of posts out and hesitated. “She’s so thin and pale I almost didn’t know her. It’s not so long since her husband died, so I guess that’s natural, but...”
“But what?” Onkel Zeb leaned against the buggy, ready to listen as always.
Daniel frowned absently at the boards. “Seemed like her whole personality has changed from what she was. She was all tense and keyed up, and the boy... He seemed almost scared.”
“Of you?”
Daniel shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe of everything. Just didn’t seem right.” He eyed his uncle thoughtfully. “You and Josiah Fisher are pretty close. He say anything to you about Rebecca?”
Onkel Zeb hesitated so long Daniel thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he spoke. “Josiah and Ida have been worried about Rebecca for a while now, her being so far away that they couldn’t help as much as they wanted when she had all this trouble.”
That wasn’t really an answer, and they both knew it. “So why did they start worrying to begin with?”
“What do you remember about when Rebecca got married?” Onkel Zeb answered the question with a question.
Daniel cast his mind back. “I remember she went away that summer—out to Ohio to help a cousin of hers who was moving. She stayed quite a time, and then we heard she’d met someone and was going to marry him.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Funny. We’d always been such gut friends, but she didn’t write to me about him at all.”
“That was the summer you were chasing after Betty Ann Stoltzfus,” Onkel Zeb put in. “Maybe you were too busy to pay much attention to what Rebecca was up to.”
Daniel had a moment’s gratitude for the fact that he’d broken it off with Betty Ann when he did. They wouldn’t have suited anyway, and it was not long afterward that his little brother, Aaron, took off for the Englisch world, tearing up his heart.
Onkel Zeb made a sound that expressed his general disapproval of Betty Ann. “Anyway, Josiah and Ida didn’t want her to get married so quick, especially to someone they hardly knew, who lived so far away. But she was determined, so they accepted the best they could.”
“Rebecca being the only daughter, I guess it’s natural they’d want her to stay close.” He picked up another armload of planks. It had begun to sound as if Onkel Zeb was doing a good bit of talking around the subject, maybe not wanting to repeat anything Josiah said about his daughter in confidence.
“Yah.” Zeb slid out some of the smaller pieces and a box of nails and followed him to the house. “Natural, like you say. They always thought maybe you and Rebecca would make a match of it, as close as you were.”
That startled him. He’d never imagined anyone could be thinking that. “We were friends, that’s all,” he said quickly. “Neither of us ever thought of anything else.”
There was a skeptical expression on Onkel Zeb’s lean, lined face, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he turned back toward the door. “I’ll bring the rest of the small stuff in.”
He’d need the sawhorses and his tools, but for a moment, Daniel stood where he was, processing that idea. All he could think now was that it had been fortunate he and Rebecca hadn’t been more than friends. He wouldn’t have wanted to let her down.
It wouldn’t have to be that way. The small voice of hope spoke in his head, but he squashed it. Maybe it didn’t have to be, but it was. After all, it had happened before. When Mamm left...
He’d been the closest to their mother of the three boys. So close he’d always thought he even knew what she was thinking. But he hadn’t. She must have been unhappy for a long time to run away to the Englisch world and leave them behind. And he’d never seen it. If he had, he might have made a difference.
Logic might say that a ten-year-old couldn’t influence what a grown woman did, but somehow Daniel didn’t believe in logic when he thought about running upstairs to Mammi’s bedroom to tell her about the good grade he’d got on his spelling test, only to discover that the room was empty of everything that belonged to her. Everything except the letter that lay on the pillow, addressed to Daad. Nothing for him, her favorite.
There had been times when he’d nearly run off to try to find her. And worse times when he didn’t know whether it was worth it to go on living. Daad, shattered himself, hadn’t been any help. They’d never have got through it without Onkel Zeb.
And then, just when Daniel had begun thinking that losing Mamm that way hadn’t tainted him forever, Aaron had left. Little Aaron, the baby brother he’d always looked after, taken care of, defended. He’d told himself taking care of Aaron was his job—maybe he’d even taken pride in how close they were.
But he’d failed Aaron, too. He hadn’t known that the forces of rebellion were growing so fiercely in Aaron that he’d pack up and leave. Like Mammi, except that Aaron hadn’t even left a note.
Daniel had understood then. He couldn’t be trusted not to fail the people he loved. So he certain sure couldn’t take the risk of letting a wife and children depend on him.
Onkel Zeb clattered back in with another armload. “You want to help me with the sawhorses?”
“Yah, sorry. I’ll get them.” Daniel shook off his mood. No sense reliving the past. This was now, and there was work to be done.
But when they pulled the last few things off the wagon, it was Onkel Zeb who paused, his thoughts clearly far away.
“You know something more about Rebecca,” Daniel said, knowing it was so. He waited. Was he going to hear what it was?
“I can’t tell you all of it,” his uncle said, continuing the conversation that was on both their minds. “Parts I don’t know, and parts Josiah most likely wouldn’t want repeated.” His solemn gaze met Daniel’s. “But I do know that Rebecca has seen more trouble than most folks twice her age. And right now, what she needs most is a friend.” He paused, and Daniel thought for a moment that he was praying. “You can be that friend she needs, Daniel. If you will.”
“Yah, for sure.” He didn’t need to know any details to promise that, but his heart was chilled, nonetheless. “I’ve always been Rebecca’s friend, and I always will be.”
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