Love’s Journey Home (7 page)

“I know it must grieve you so.” The gentleness of her mother’s tone caused tears to
well in Helen’s eyes. For one split second, she welcomed the fact that Mudder couldn’t
see her weakness. “You’ve done everything you can to raise the children right. Your
daed helped as best he could. The boys and your sisters, they helped. Whatever Edmond
does now, he has to own. He chooses his path. You can’t do it for him.”

“I feel I failed.” Helen wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. No tears. She’d
come this far on her own. “I think if George had been here…”

“You feel? You think? Edmond will not be able to use his fatherlessness as an excuse
for wrong behavior. He is approaching manhood. It is time he act like it. He has to
step into the shoes left empty by his father and his grandfather. That’s his job now.”

“He’s so young.” Helen set the tea on the table a bit to the left of where her mother
sat, hoping she’d be able to see it. “I’ve added the honey already. It’s there to
your right.”

“He’s your son, but you do him no favors by babying him. You only allow him to become
weaker.” Without hesitation, Mudder wrapped her fingers around the mug as if to warm
them. “Your actions will show him what he can get away with in the future. Can you
see that?”

Helen dropped into the chair across from her mother and sipped her tea. Scalding hot
but still a little weak. She hadn’t given it time to properly steep before adding
the milk and honey. Like always, she tried to do things too quickly. “He must be punished.”

“He must.”

“The bishop will guide us.”

“He will.”

They sat in silence and sipped their tea, not speaking for long moments. Finally her
mudder rose and, with a grace Helen longed to possess, glided to the large tub where
they washed the dishes and set the cup in it. “We’ll wash these with the breakfast
dishes. It’s late. Dawn will be here soon.”

Swallowing against the ache in her throat, Helen straightened and took a last sip
of the tea before repeating her mother’s actions.

She followed Mudder through the doorway and slipped past her. “Let me help you up
the stairs.”

A roaring, screaming sound drowned out her mother’s response. A second later, the
living room wall ripped apart. Windows shattered. The enormous oak tree that had shaded
Helen’s childhood home since before her birth crashed through. The sheer surprise
of it made Helen scream.

“What? What is it?” Mudder cried. “Helen? Helen! Where are you?”

“Right here! I’m right here,” Helen gasped when she had enough air in her lungs to
shout. She threw an arm across her face and looked up. All she could see were massive
tree branches crashing down. “Hang on to me.”

Branches smashed into furniture and sent glass, wood, leaves, and debris hurtling
in all directions. Heart pounding so hard it might punch through her rib cage and
free itself, Helen whirled, grabbed her mother, and thrust her to the floor. Her mother
let out an
oomph
sound and tried to wiggle away. “Stop, Mudder, stay down!” Helen screamed over the
continuous thunder. “Stay down!”

Ach, God, not her too. Please God, not her too. I already lost Daed
.

Cowering from the flailing branches, she covered her mother with her body. Rain soaked
her. Tree branches slapped to the floor all around them in a
bam, bam, bam
that made her jump each time.

Finally, the terrible crashing, tearing sounds abated, leaving behind the steady pounding
of the rain and an occasional rumble of thunder. The noise was all the more ominous.
Nothing separated Helen and her mother from the elements. The jagged hole in the roof
and the wall stood open like a gaping wound.

“What was it? What happened?” Mudder struggled to rise. “Are you all right?”

“The oak tree.” Helen sucked in air, but she couldn’t get relief. No oxygen seemed
to fill her lungs. She panted.
Please God, don’t let me have a heart attack. Mudder and the children need me
. She tried again. “The storm felled the oak tree.”

Another pillar in her life knocked down.

G
abriel paused at the foot of the stairs, doing a mental recount. Mary Elizabeth and
Abigail washed breakfast dishes with Rebecca, Thomas’s oldest girl, while Mary and
Lillie played with the little girls and kept them out from underfoot. Seth, Samuel,
and Isaac had tromped out immediately after breakfast to survey the storm damage with
Thomas. That left Daniel. The boy—hardly a boy at nineteen—spoke little but his unrelenting
morose stare said it all. Gabriel sucked in a breath and prepared to do his fatherly
duty despite a weariness born of a sleepless night and guilt and despair that lingered
like cobwebs hanging low in a dark, dusty, unused room. They’d come to this place
for a new start, only to find the same problems staring them in the face.

“Daniel? Daniel! Get down here. Time’s wasting.”

No answer. “Daniel!”

Nothing.

Gritting his teeth, Gabriel stomped up the stairs and down the hallway to the bedroom
his four boys shared with Thomas’s sons Eli and little Caleb. The narrow, stacked
bunk beds lined the room, blocking his view. He ducked and peered under the top row
of bunks. Daniel sat on the last one, facing the crib and squeezed up against the
tall east windows, his back to the door.

“Son.”

Still, Daniel didn’t turn. Anger ripped through Gabriel like a grassfire fueled by
kerosene. “Answer me when I speak to you.” He forced himself to tap down the flames.
“Turn around and look at me.”

Daniel turned, then stood with the deliberate air of appeasement. He gripped a pencil
in one hand, his long fingers white at the knuckles, and a sheaf of paper in the other.

“We’ve chores to do and repairs to make.” Gabriel managed to keep his tone even. “We
need to earn our keep around here. Help out in exchange for such generous hospitality.”

“I know.” Daniel ducked his head, his dark, shaggy hair falling into his walnut-colored
eyes. He needed a haircut. Laura would’ve cut it for him. “I’m on my way.”

“Doesn’t look like it. What are you doing?”

Daniel stuffed the papers under his pillow and tugged in a jerky motion at the green
and blue quilt until it covered the white pillowcase. “Writing a letter.”

“To Phoebe. You’ve heard from her, then?”

“Jah. A letter came yesterday.”

Gabriel shifted his feet. He lifted his hat and settled it back on his head. They’d
talked about this back in Dahlburg. They’d talked some more on the long drive to Kansas
and Bliss Creek. The family needed to stay together. Phoebe’s parents didn’t wish
her to leave home. Not at such a young age. If they were meant to be together, two
more years wouldn’t hurt. Separation would make their relationship stronger. It would
make Daniel stronger. He had a softer, more sensitive nature than his brothers. At
least that’s what Laura had always said. Give him room to be himself, she’d said.
He wasn’t Isaac and Samuel. No, because Isaac and Samuel were like Gabriel, and Daniel
more like his mother. “She’ll be happy to hear how well things are going here.”

“She misses me. She stays home all the time.”

“I know this is hard, son, but you will see Phoebe again.”

Daniel’s head came up. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Jah.”

“We best get out to the corral. The storm knocked down some of the fence and damaged
the barn roof. It looks like some shingles are missing from the house’s roof too.
There’s work to be done.”

His face still glum, Daniel nodded. He grabbed his hat from the hook on the wall and
strode past Gabriel without looking at him. He’d grown two or three inches in the
last few months, such that he was taller than Gabriel now, but he had the scrawny
arms and legs of a boy whose body couldn’t keep up with the growth spurt. He kept
his gaze glued to the floor. Gabriel started to pat his shoulder, but thought better
of it. His son was a man now, not one needing comfort from his father. His hand hung
in the air for a second, then he let it drop to his side. Daniel wouldn’t appreciate
being treated like a child. Even though Gabriel could still see him rolling around
on the back of the hay wagon, so short the hay bales towered over him. A little helper,
he’d been. The first to whistle, the last to whine.

Daniel studied the staircase banister. “You coming?”

“Coming.”

Outside, without speaking, Daniel veered toward the barn, and Gabriel trudged to the
corral where Isaac replaced a frayed harness so he could hitch the wagon. Gabriel
inhaled the cool, slightly damp morning air, reminding himself to count this blessing.
Once the sun came up, the heat would blister his skin and lungs. The rain of the previous
evening had increased in fury throughout the night, bringing with it high winds and
hail. It had cleared the air of the stifling humidity, but left behind downed branches,
debris, and muck. Shingles scattered on the gravel road in front of Thomas’s house
suggested his roof had not fared well in the onslaught of rain and hail. Even if they
couldn’t get into the fields to harvest the wheat—if there was anything left to harvest—they
would still have plenty of work to do.

“Daed, I want to go into town later this morning. I need to take a look at the shop.
I imagine it will need work before we can open. Remodeling and such.” Isaac took a
step back from the gray Percheron that whined and snorted as if anxious to get started.
Isaac stretched his arms over his head and then bent at the waist in a deep stretch.
“I also heard Emma’s brother might need help at the blacksmith shop. I was thinking
the extra money might be needed until we get the shop open.”

“You’re needed here. There will be storm cleanup on every farm in the area. Levi Stubbs
passed by and said some of the farm roads are blocked by fallen trees and debris.”

“Every farm comes with a family and men who will do the work.” Isaac crossed his arms,
a frown marring his expression. Gabriel couldn’t see any of Laura in his oldest son’s
face; he saw a reflection of himself. Unlike Daniel, Isaac had his personality, which
made for frequent head butting. “If we’re to make it here, we need to find work quickly
or get the shop open.”

“In God’s time, son, not yours.”

“Doesn’t God expect us to make an effort?”

“Only God knows what His plan is.”

Isaac blew out air in an exaggerated sigh. “I should’ve stayed in Dahlburg. Nothing
will be different here.”

“You had your chance.”

His son didn’t answer and Gabriel regretted his words. Isaac had intended to stay
in Indiana, until the girl he’d courted for more than two years had decided to choose
another man—his closest friend from childhood. Unlike Daniel he and the girl had been
old enough to start their own life. The girl’s father had been agreeable. The girl
had been the one to change her mind. Isaac hadn’t said a word about it, but tongues
wagged in the small community, and a father could read much into a son’s furious,
insistent refusal to mention it. Instead, he chose to be the joker in the family.
Acting silly. Acting lighthearted. As if that would make it so.

“I’ll help with the cleanup, but at least let me take Mary Elizabeth to the bakery
this morning.” Isaac squatted and picked up a rake that had fallen to the ground.
He stuck it on the back of the wagon with shovels, saws, and brooms. “That would be
a fine job for her. She’s a good cook and she’ll be among Plain folks.”

“And who will watch the girls, cook, sew, and clean?”

“Abigail is capable. You know she is. She’s been doing it since—”

“Jah.” Gabriel couldn’t help himself. He cut his son off. He didn’t need to be reminded
of what the girls had done every day for the past three years. At first his sisters
and cousins had taken turns helping with the baby and the household chores. They’d
taught Abigail and Mary Elizabeth what they still needed to know to care for the two
younger girls. It wasn’t that much, considering what a good job Laura had done with
them. Gradually they had taken over, growing up quickly in the absence of their mother.
“There’s Thomas. Where are Seth and Samuel?”

“Seth and Samuel are slopping the pigs for Thomas and helping Eli with the other chores.
I haven’t seen Daniel since breakfast, though. I suppose he’s still mooning over Phoebe.”

“Be kind to your brother. He’s not like you.”

Isaac whipped around so he faced Gabriel. “Not hard-hearted, you mean?”

“Nee. Just that you are different. You get through life in different ways.”

“He moons around, I move on.”

“Phoebe was too young to come with us.”

“And you refused to stay in Dahlburg, on our farm, in our home.”

“Jah.” These recriminations weren’t new. “I did what was best for all of us.”

Gabriel held his son’s gaze until Isaac’s dropped.

The horse whinnied and stamped, eyes rolling. Using the interruption as an excuse,
Gabriel turned to examine the horse. His sons would understand someday. Until then,
they would have to trust his judgment.

“Easy, there, easy.” He peered at the horse’s hindquarters. One leg seemed swollen.
A bite of some kind? Gabriel wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his shirtsleeve
and took a closer look. “Are you always so skittish?”