A Heart Made New (37 page)

Willow carried Kinsey from the station wagon to the fence. The fact that she didn’t walk anymore sent a sharp pain careening through David’s chest. He anchored a smile on his face and started forward. “Hello, cowgirl. Are you ready to ride?”

She raised her head from her mother’s chest, then let it fall back.
“I want to ride by the creek.” Her voice was soft, but clear. “Have you seen any wild animals lately?”

“Only the two-legged kind.” He made his tone light. “We could stop and fish at the creek, though. We might see a coyote or a raccoon drinking on the bank. You never know.”

“Let’s ride a while.”

“You have to help me bridle Blackie first.” David took her from Willow, whose smile of greeting didn’t meet her eyes, and sat the little girl on the top railing of the fence. “Do you remember how I taught you to remove the halter and place the bridle?”

“Sure I do. I’m smart that way. You can go, Mommy. We’re gonna ride.”

Willow didn’t move. Her gaze telegraphed a myriad of emotions, but she didn’t say a word. David glanced at Kinsey, who was busy patting Blackie, her face soft and dreamy. She seemed far away. David turned to Willow. “I’ll have her back here before dark.”

Willow gripped her hands together in a balled fist that made her knuckles turn white. “Behave yourself, Kinsey. No taking the reins and riding into the sunset.”

“Mommy, you’re so silly.” Kinsey looked up at David. “First you hold the bridle over his nose with your right hand, then use your left hand fingers to hold the bit against his mouth and put your thumb in the space so he has to open his mouth.”

She spouted David’s directions almost word for word. He hid a smile. “You want to do it or should I?”

Kinsey contemplated Blackie’s mouth. He whinnied, revealing a set of nice teeth. “You do it. I don’t want to get horse slobber on my hand. Grammy says no germs today.”

Sure that germs weren’t the problem, David grinned and proceeded to make quick work of the bridle. Blackie was a perfect gentleman the entire time, making it easy for David to lift Kinsey onto the horse’s back. He waited until she had a firm grip on the mane before letting go. Then he climbed up behind her. “You ready?”

He caught the soft sigh, like the wings of a hummingbird hovering near his ears. “Yeah,” she whispered.

They took off at a gentle canter toward the pasture that led to a stand of trees along the creek. The early evening sun hung on the horizon making the shadows long and narrow, but David’s hat shielded his eyes. A nice breeze kept it from being uncomfortably hot. The sound of sheets flapping on the Shiracks’ clothesline across the way kept time with the clip-clop of Blackie’s hooves. The scent of fresh cut grass mingled with Blackie’s musky horse smell. After a while, Kinsey relaxed against David. “Are we going to go faster?”

“If you want.” He picked up the pace. “Hang on tight.”

“There’s a cardinal!” She pointed at a red spot high in an elm tree. “And there’s his wife. She’s not as pretty.”

He laughed. “Kind of the reverse of people, right?”

She giggled. “Do you mean I’m better looking than you?”

“I reckon that is what I mean.”

“I want to gallop.”

David tugged the reins to the left. Blackie followed, taking them away from the path to the creek and toward the open fields that separated the Shirack property from the Plank fields. He waited until the ground was smooth and even before he popped his stirrups and called
giddyup!
to the horse. Their pace increased steadily until they seemed to sail through the grassy plain. Kinsey’s laugh, high and breathless, rang in his ears, a sweet little melody. “More! Faster!”

After a few minutes David slowed the horse a little, and then a little more, until eventually they came to a simple walk. “That was fun.” Kinsey patted Blackie’s mane. “Good job, Blackie. Thank you. You’re the best horse ever.”

David had no idea how Blackie took the compliment. The horse’s sides were lathered in sweat. “I imagine this is a lot easier for him than pulling a plow or a buggy.”

“I suppose. You’re pretty skinny and I don’t weigh much at all,” she conceded.

“I’m not skinny.” David stopped. Why argue with the child? “Well, I reckon you’re right.”

They didn’t talk for a while. He waited, hoping she would give him a clue as to what was going on inside her head. Minutes passed. Mosquitoes buzzed his face. A bullfrog croaked in the distance. “It’s quiet.” The strength in her voice faded. “I like that.”

“Me too.”

“Do you think when you die it’s quiet all the time?”

“I don’t know.”

She craned her head back to look at him. Her lips looked purple against her pale, almost transparent skin. “Is it bad that I wish you could die at the same time I do so I’ll have someone to talk to?”

David’s fingers tightened on the reins. “It’s not bad.”

“Would you mind?”

If it gave a little girl something to hang on to in a universe where she would never grow up, never be courted by a beau, never get married, where she had to walk through the dark into an unknown so enormous he found it unfathomable, he could be the brave one. “I wouldn’t mind because I’d have you to talk to.”

She curled her fingers in Blackie’s thick mane. “Do you believe in heaven?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going there?”

“God decides that. But I know His Son, Jesus, wants me to be there with Him. I think Jesus will be looking for you too. You can talk to Him anytime you want to.”

“That’s what Grammy says.”

“Grammy is a wise woman.” The meadow narrowed. They moved so slowly Blackie stopped. His long neck dropped, and he nibbled at the high grass next to the fence. “Let’s ride along the creek, see if we see any of the coyotes that have been coming in to drink water and steal the chickens and piglets.”

“Cool. I wanna see coyotes.”

He clucked and snapped the reins. Blackie seemed a little reluctant,
but he picked up the pace into a nice canter. It was a relief to let the conversation drift away. God had sent him a little girl to teach him courage in the face of the unknown and the uncertain. It shamed David beyond measure that Kinsey knew how to reach out and find comfort. She knew which questions to ask and who to ask. She needed solace and she found it. Why couldn’t he do the same? Why couldn’t he reach out to Annie and accept the comfort she so desperately wanted to give him? The answer didn’t reflect well on him. Pride. Arrogance. Selfishness. He shook his head, trying to clear the thought. A skunk trundled across the clearing in front of him. Skunks qualified as wildlife, he supposed. “Kinsey, look, a skunk.”

Her head bobbed, but she didn’t respond. “Kinsey, that skunk will make a terrible stink if Blackie scares him.”

She still didn’t answer. Her head lolled against his chest. She’d fallen asleep. He tightened his grip. “Kinsey, you’ll fall off.”

Her eyes fluttered, but remained closed. Her tiny body had no more stuffing to it than one of his sisters’ old homemade dolls.

“I guess that’s enough for today.” He turned Blackie toward home. “You look pretty tuckered out.”

Enough for one more good day.

D
avid dumped the last bag of sugar on the shelf next to a dozen more. He slapped his hands together to shake off the stray granules that coated them. The shelves were full again. He plucked the shipping invoice from the spot on the top shelf where he’d laid it before unloading. Studying the numbers, he wove his way through the crowded storage room. Physical labor felt good. It occupied his body. Stocking the storeroom kept his mind off the conversations he’d had with Kinsey the previous day.

The memory of her still, peaceful face as he laid her in the backseat of Willow’s lime-mobile played in his mind’s eye over and over again. Kinsey had found her peace, and he was determined to do the same.

The crowded storeroom felt like prosperity. It was a false sense of security. The cost for flour, sugar, yeast, eggs, milk, and all the spices and chocolates and such needed to make the fancy cakes and pies the Englischers wanted just kept rising. The invoice in his hand proved that.

Intent on delivering the offending piece of paper to his mother, who kept the bakery books, David pushed through the swinging door and into the bakery. His first thought, as always, was to look for Annie. She stood at the counter, engrossed in a discussion with a customer.
Gut
, she didn’t see him. Didn’t give him that sad, accusing look. Apparently she and the customer disagreed over which was better—chocolate
pudding upside-down cake or pineapple upside-down cake. A flat-out tie as far as David was concerned. Mudder looked up. Her wrinkled face dissolved into a smile, the way it did every time their paths crossed. No matter what he’d done or said the last time they met.

“All done in the back?”

“Jah. Here’s the bill.” David slapped it on the enormous roll-top desk that his father had made for his mother as a Christmas present the year she opened the bakery. “The cost of flour and sugar have gone up again.”

Together they reviewed the figures. Sadie opened a ledger and ran her forefinger down a row of numbers. “We’re fine. We’re fine,” she muttered. “I’ll pay this later today.”

The bell over the door dinged and David looked up to see the customer disappear through the door. Annie had already started toward them. She had a small envelope in her hand. Before she could say anything, David headed toward the storeroom. “I have to stop by Caleb’s shop. Josiah wants me to look at a horse the Glicks are selling. He’s shoeing him this afternoon.”

“David, wait.” Annie waved the envelope at him. If she knew he was avoiding her, her tone didn’t reflect it. “Doctor Corbin’s assistant dropped this note by this morning. She said it was important.”

The ticking of the seconds whistled in David’s ears as if time suddenly galloped into a future where he had received the news. Hodgkin’s or remission. He stalled, hand on the door. Slower than molasses on a cold winter day, he turned to face her. She held out the note. To his surprise his hand came up and took it. “Danki.”

He did an about-face.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Mudder bustled toward him. “What does it say?”

“I don’t know.” Silly thing to say.

“Open it, son. I’d like to know what it says.” Her voice quivered only the tiniest bit. “Best get it over with.”

The envelope in his hand weighed barely an ounce, yet it felt like an enormous boulder threatening to knock him off his feet. Mudder was right. Get it over with. Now. He ripped the flap open like a bandage
from the skin around a wound. Best do it all at once, so it didn’t hurt so much.

Mudder put a hand on his shirt sleeve and peeked over his arm. “What does it say?”

The letters swam in front of him.

“Not much.” He handed it to her. His hand didn’t shake. “I have to go see Doctor Corbin about the results.”

“You’ll go now?” Mudder’s hand closed over the note. She brought it to her chest. “Before you go to Caleb’s?”

“This afternoon. I’ll go this afternoon.” Fighting nausea, he pushed past her. “I have to stop at Caleb’s first.”

“David, see the doctor first, please.” His mother’s pleading voice followed him through the storage room. “And come right back here.”

She was right. He should go to Doctor Corbin’s office immediately. Instead, he pointed the buggy toward the blacksmith shop. Just a little more time. He needed a little more time to prepare.

Annie pushed the broom across the bakery floor in a listless back-and-forth motion. She was glad to be doing something. Anything was better than sitting around thinking about David’s test results or Emma’s loss or Charisma at the courthouse at that very moment, learning Logan McKee’s fate. She searched for a bright spot. Sadie’s daughter Deborah had agreed to watch the babies during the trial. That was
gut
. She didn’t have to ask Leah for help. That was
gut
. Slim pickings for bright spots.

“What do you think is taking him so long?” She picked up the dustpan, then laid it down again. “You’d think he’d want to rush back to tell you what Doctor Corbin said.”