Paradise Springs
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
The rainy summer afternoon was as dismal as the hearts of those who had gathered at the cemetery. Most of the mourners were walking back to their buggies, umbrellas over their heads like a parade of black mushrooms. The cemetery with its identical stones set in almost straight lines on the neatly trimmed grass was edged by a worn wooden rail fence. The branches on a single ancient tree on the far side of the cemetery rocked with the wind that lashed rain on the few people remaining by the newly covered grave.
Rebekah Burkholder knew she should leave the Stoltzfus family in private to mourn their loss, but she remained to say a silent prayer over the fresh earth. Rose Mast Stoltzfus had been her first cousin, and as kinder they’d spent hours together every week doing their chores and exploring the fields, hills and creeks near their families’ farms. Now Rose, two years younger than Rebekah, was dead from a horrific asthma attack at twenty-four.
The whole Stoltzfus family encircled the grave where a stone would be placed in a few weeks. Taking a step back, Rebekah tightened her hold on both her son’s hand and her umbrella that danced in the fickle wind. Sammy, who would be three in a few months, watched everything with two fingers stuck in his mouth. She knew that over the next few days she would be bombarded with questions—as she had been when his daed died. She hoped she’d be better prepared to answer this time. At least she could tell him the truth rather than skirt it because she didn’t want him ever to know what sort of man his daed had been.
“It’s time to go, Sammy,” she said in little more than a whisper when he didn’t move.
“Say bye-bye?” He looked up at her with his large blue eyes that were his sole legacy from her. He had Lloyd’s black hair and apple-round cheeks instead of the red curls she kept restrained beneath her kapp and the freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks.
“Ja.” She bent to hug him, shifting so her expanding belly didn’t bump her son. Lloyd hadn’t known about his second kind because he’d died before she was certain she was pregnant again. “We have said bye-bye.”
“Go bye-bye?”
Her indulgent smile felt out of place at the graveside. Yet, as he had throughout his young life, her son gave her courage and a reason to go on.
“Ja.”
Standing slowly because her center of balance changed every day, she held out her hand to him again. He put his fingers back in his mouth, glanced once more at the grave, then stepped away from it along with her.
Suddenly the wind yanked on Rebekah’s umbrella, turning it inside out. As the rain struck them, Sammy pressed his face against her skirt. She fought to hold on to the umbrella. Even the smallest things scared him; no wonder after what he had seen and witnessed in those horrible final months of his daed’s life.
No! She would not think of that time again. She didn’t want to remember any of it. Lloyd had died last December, almost five months ago, and he couldn’t hurt her or their kinder again.
“Mamm,” Sammy groaned as he clung to her.
“It’s all right,” she cooed as she tried to fix her umbrella.
She didn’t look at any of the other mourners as she forced her umbrella down to her side where the wind couldn’t grab it again. Too many people had told her that she mollycoddled her son, and he needed to leave his babyish ways behind now that he was almost three. They thought she was spoiling him because he had lost his daed, but none of those people knew Sammy had experienced more fear and despair in his short life than they had in their far longer ones.
“Here. Let me help,” said a deep voice from her left.
She tilted her head to look past the brim of her black bonnet. Her gaze rose and rose until it met Joshua Stoltzfus’s earth-brown eyes through the pouring rain. He was almost six feet tall, almost ten inches taller than she was. His dark brown hair was damp beneath his black hat that dripped water off its edge. His beard was plastered to the front of the coat he wore to church Sundays, and soaked patches were even more ebony on the wide shoulders of his coat. He’d gotten drenched while helping to fill in the grave.
“Take this,” he said, holding his umbrella over her head. “I’ll see if I can repair yours.”
“Danki.” She held the umbrella higher so it was over his head, as well. She hoped Joshua hadn’t seen how she flinched away when he moved his hand toward her. Recoiling away from a man’s hand was a habit she couldn’t break.
“Mamm!” Sammy cried. “I wet now!”
Before she could pull her son back under the umbrella’s protection, Joshua looked to a young girl beside him, “Deborah, can you take Samuel under your umbrella while I fix Rebekah’s?”
Deborah, who must have been around nine or ten, had the same dark eyes and hair as Joshua. Her face was red from where she’d rubbed away tears, but she smiled as she took Sammy’s hand. “Komm. It’s dry with me.”
He didn’t hesitate, surprising Rebekah. He usually waited for permission before he accepted any invitation. Perhaps, at last, he realized he didn’t have to ask now that Lloyd was dead.
Joshua turned her umbrella right side out, but half of it hung limply. The ribs must have been broken by the gust.
“Danki,” she said. “It’s gut enough to get me to our buggy.”
“Don’t be silly.” He tucked the ruined umbrella under his left arm and put his hand above hers on the handle of his umbrella.
Again she flinched, and he gave her a puzzled look. Before she could let go, his fingers slid down to cover hers, holding them to the handle.
“We’ll go with you back to your buggy,” he said.
She didn’t look at him because she didn’t want to see his confusion. How could she explain to Lloyd’s best friend about her reaction that had become instinctive? “I don’t want to intrude on...” She gulped, unable to go on as she glanced at the other members of the Stoltzfus family by the grave.
“It’s no intrusion. I told Mamm we’d go back to the house to make sure everything was ready for those gathering there.”
She suspected he wasn’t being completely honest. The Leit, the members of their church district, would oversee everything so the family need not worry about any detail of the day. However, she was grateful for his kindness. She’d always admired that about him, especially when she saw him with one of his three kinder.
Glancing at the grave, she realized neither of his boys remained. Timothy, who must have been around sixteen, had already left with his younger brother, Levi, who was a year older than Deborah.
“Ready to go?” Joshua asked as he tugged gently on the umbrella handle and her hand.
“Ja.”
