standing on her own feet and taking care of herself and her son seemed useless against Daniel’s perceptive comment. She glanced at him. He was right, and his smile said he knew it.
Maybe she should argue, but she was too happy just now to care.
Rebecca walked into the shop the next morning to hear the sound of a saw. Obviously, Daniel was already at work, and that gave a boost to her already-optimistic frame of mind. She hadn’t realized how much it would mean to have her own belongings here with her and Lige.
Maybe every mother had these strong instincts to create a nest for her family. With their own things surrounding them, she and Lige could feel at home. And how much better it would be when this place was finished. She looked around the kitchen, seeing it not as it was, but as it would be, with the gas appliances, the pie cabinet she’d inherited from her grandmother, her dishes on the shelves and pots of herbs growing on the windowsills.
But there was work to be done, and dreaming wouldn’t get it accomplished. Rebecca headed into the front room.
Daniel looked up from the sawhorses with a warm smile. “You’re here, but where is my helper?”
“He’ll be along in a minute. He’s been begging to be allowed to bring the mail from the box, so I said he could today.” She could see him now through the front window, skirting along the edge of the road toward the box.
“Lige will be fine,” Daniel said, apparently reading her thoughts. “He’s growing a little every day. Like you did at that age.” He grinned. “That was when you started wearing your braids pinned up under your kapp, remember?”
“I remember thinking it was a gut idea, because then you and the other boys couldn’t pull my braids,” she said with mock tartness. “You were a bunch of little monsters at that age.”
“Were not,” he said quickly, just as he would have all those years ago. Then he turned back to his work, measuring a board he’d laid out. “Funny thing,” he said.
“What’s funny?” She bent to pick up the pencil he’d dropped just as he reached for it.
“I’m just thinking that with gut friends, you can pick up just where you left off, no matter how many years it’s been in between.”
Rebecca was speechless for a moment. Sometimes it seemed she was looking at Daniel with new eyes, seeing things she hadn’t noticed before. “Yah, that’s true, I think. When did you get so wise? You didn’t show any signs of that when you were little.”
“What kid does?” he asked. “It takes a bit of living to find some qualities in yourself. And maybe some folks never find them.”
Could he be right? If so, then she might have had the seeds within her the whole time to bear the burden of James’s injury and the effect it had had on their marriage. It wasn’t anything she’d ever expected.
She shook herself out of her momentary absorption, not wanting Daniel to think he’d made her sorrowful. “I certain sure never showed much sign of wisdom myself. Like the time I tried to prove that I could climb higher in the willow tree than Sam, and got stuck there. And all Sam could do was stand there and say he’d told me not to do it.”
“Sam was the one who wasn’t smart,” he said, grinning. “We knew how strong-willed you were. Telling you not to was the surest way to get you to do it.”
“I can still remember how small he was when I looked down at him from above. It would have been a triumph if I hadn’t outsmarted myself by going too far to get down.”
“You did get back to the ground, though. And you managed it without falling on your head.” He marked the board with care.
“Only because you talked me through it, climbing up to me and showing me exactly where to put my hands and feet so I could get safely down.”
“That was my strength,” he said, his grin smug. “I could talk you into things. Did I ever tell you I was scared stiff you were going to fall and Onkel Zeb would blame me? I had a lot to lose if I didn’t get you down.”
“I should have known there was something in it for you. Just like the day you talked me into sneaking one of Mammi’s cherry pies. I’ll never forget how you looked when Mammi caught us with cherry all over our faces.”
They were both laughing at the image when Lige came in, the mail clutched against his chest with both hands. He looked from one to the other, his eyes wide. Most likely, he didn’t expect grown-ups to behave that way.
Rebecca swallowed her laughter. “Ach, Lige must think we’re crazy.” She smiled at her son. “It’s a funny story about something we did when we were little. I’ll tell you about it later,” she said. “You can go ahead and run the mail to Aunt Leah, and then come back and help.”
“There is one for you, Mammi.” Lige extracted it carefully from the bunch. “I’m delivering it first. Now I’ll take the rest, and then I’ll come back and help Daniel, yah?”
She had to smile at his solemn attitude toward his new responsibilities. “Sehr gut. Denke, Lige.”
With a quick smile for Daniel, he hurried off with the mail, his shoulders squared with responsibility.
When he’d gone, Rebecca turned her attention to the envelope in her hand. It was from John, James’s brother, so it must mean that he’d sent the amount of his first monthly payment. Relief washed through her. Thank the good Lord it was here. She’d been running low on cash, and she wouldn’t feel right asking her parents for help. They’d done enough for her already.
Ripping it open, she looked for the pale blue check that was sure to be enclosed. But it wasn’t. There was just a letter from John, brief and to the point. He couldn’t pay her now. No excuses, no reason. Just a short statement.
She stared at the page, her body rigid while her mind raced. What was she going to do? How could John do this to them?
* * *
Daniel, watching her, saw the color drain from Rebecca’s face as she stared at the letter she’d received. His stomach clenched into a knot. She looked worse now than she had on the first day after she’d come back.
He dropped the tape measure. “Rebecca, was ist letz? Is it bad news you got?”
As if suddenly aware of his presence, Rebecca spun away from him, turning her back. Shutting him out. He had a brief flare of totally inappropriate anger.
Her hand, still holding the paper, was trembling, and sympathy washed away the anger in an instant.
“I can see it’s bad news.” He kept his voice gentle. “Won’t you tell me what it is?”
“It’s...it’s nothing,” she said, but her voice and her body gave the lie to the words.
“It’s something,” he said, propelled by the need to help close the distance between them, but not quite daring to touch her. “Trouble shared is trouble halved, ain’t so?”
Rebecca
