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 turned to face him. For an instant, he thought she’d burst out with it, but then he saw that her lips were folded tightly together.
His jaw tightened in response as he took in that refusal. “Remember what I was saying about friendship never changing? It looks as if I was wrong, yah?”
For an instant, she glared at him, and he thought she was going to walk out. Then she sucked in a deep breath. “I...I’m sorry if it seemed that way. This affects you, so I guess you’ll have to know anyway.”
He wanted to reach out and touch her, but instinct told him it wouldn’t be welcome. Instead, he waited, sure now that she’d tell him, whatever it was.
Rebecca gave a sidelong look at the letter, almost as if she needed to avoid it. “The note is from my brother-in-law, John. The one who is buying the farm in Ohio from me.”
She seemed to have difficulty getting the words out, and he tried to help her along. “Yah, I know. You mentioned that you’d used his down payment to buy this house.”
“I did. And his monthly payments were intended to cover the costs of remodeling and getting my business started. The first one should have come by today.” The hand holding the letter trembled again before she saw and seemed to force it to steady. “But he says he can’t make the payment this month. He’ll send it later.”
Daniel frowned, trying to make sense of it. “But...does he say why?”
“No. No explanation. But then, John’s not one to explain himself.” She rubbed her arms, almost as if she was cold.
He was beginning to form a picture in his mind of the brother-in-law, and it wasn’t a very complimentary one. What was the man about, to fail in his duty to his dead brother’s widow and child?
“Did you have a written contract with him?” It wasn’t his business, but he hoped now that she was talking, she’d keep going.
“Yah. I maybe wouldn’t have thought of it, but Daad was there at the time, and he insisted a written contract was proper. I think James’s family was a little offended by his attitude, but Daadi wouldn’t let it go.” She might have seen his surprise that she’d even let her father handle the negotiations, because she made a small movement with her hands, as if pushing something away. “Daad and Mammi gave us money to help buy the farm to begin with, so it only seemed right for him to have a say in what happened.”
Thank the good Lord that Josiah had such a businesslike attitude toward it. Folks didn’t usually get the better of a hardheaded Pennsylvania Dutchman easily.
“Seems like it was smart you listened to him. At least you have it in writing.” He hesitated and then said what was in his mind. “Maybe you should remind John of that contract he signed.” He was probably going too far, but Rebecca seemed to need bolstering up where her in-laws were concerned.
He wasn’t sure she took in what he said, but finally she shook her head. “No. There’s nothing I can do. I don’t want to start a hassle with James’s family.”
“Seems to me John is the one who started it.”
She just looked at him, and he knew what she was thinking. Finally he shrugged, his palms up. “Yah, all right, I know. It’s not my business. I just don’t like to see him take advantage of you.”
“I’ll handle it.” Rebecca retreated into herself. Clearly, she had nothing else to say.
He had a few more arguments he’d like to express, but he restrained himself. Turning back to his work, he had to start again with the measurements, having totally forgotten what he’d come up with. It didn’t help that he watched Rebecca covertly all the time he was doing it.
She might not be talking, but her body language was clear enough, with that stiff back and tight face. Why was she so determined to handle everything on her own? It wasn’t natural in an Amish family, where helping each other was considered God’s plan, and that sort of independence drew very near to pride, about the worst thing for an Amish person. But if he said that to her, she’d probably never speak to him again.
Finally Rebecca seemed to pull herself out of her worried thoughts. She moved toward him, so he looked up from his work, and his heart twisted. Rebecca looked as if she were picking up a burden that was too heavy for her.
“You’ll have to stop work.” She blurted the words out and then sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry. This isn’t fair to you, but...”
“We talked about this.” His voice might be calm, but his thoughts were spinning rapidly, trying to come up with a way to change her mind. “You have already paid for the materials, and you don’t owe me anything until the job is finished. Surely by then your brother-in-law will have paid what he owes you.”
Rebecca’s hands clung to each other until the knuckles were white. “That would not be fair. I can’t accept your work when I don’t know when or if I’ll have the money to pay you.”
“Ach, Rebecca, I would do the work for nothing for an old friend. The money doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” she snapped. “I won’t accept charity.”
“Charity?” He straightened, his own temper finally flaring, although he wasn’t sure whom he was angrier at, Rebecca or that brother-in-law of hers. “Who’s talking about charity? The Fishers and the Kings have been doing things for each other for a hundred years. Seems to me your time away from here has made you forget a lot of things. It’s made you prideful.”
He shouldn’t have said that, but he could be just as determined as she could. Rebecca might have been able to push him into a mud puddle once and not have him shove back, but she wasn’t going to push him around now.
Rebecca’s face had tightened into a mask that bore little resemblance to the girl she’d been. “Prideful or not, this is my decision. And my house. Please put down your tools and stop. Now.”
“And when Lige comes back ready to help me? How are you going to explain that to him?”
“Lige is my son. I’ll tell him what he needs to hear.”
Daniel stared at her for a long minute, trying to make sense of her attitude. He couldn’t.
“If
