Seasons in Paradise. Barbara Cameron
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was hard work. He didn’t mind hard work, but it was difficult to be here doing what he loved when he now had to work in town. And working on a Saturday wasn’t his idea of fun. A guy liked to have a weekend off once in a while. During the week he worked construction building new homes, so he was tired and ready to relax by Saturday.
David hadn’t asked for his help. But Sam knew he needed the help and what were bruders for? He hadn’t looked forward to seeing his dat again even after David had said he’d changed a lot. He’d seen that he seemed different Christmas night but couldn’t help being cynical. Could any man change that much? And could it last?
He and his dat were wary of each other. They’d barely spoken since he started helping David when spring planting began. It helped that Amos still tired easily after he’d been told he was in remission. He often had to go into the house to rest so they didn’t have to spend too much time in the fields together. The two of them hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to talk.
Today, Amos hadn’t been out in the fields long and had done little more than supervise. And share his opinion about how things were being done.
Over and over.
David was taking it very well. He had a lot more patience with the old man than Sam did that was for schur.
Rain began falling an hour later. Resigned, they led the horses back to the barn, unhitched the plow, and fed and watered the stock.
The workday was shorter than usual, but Sam and his bruders had worked hard and the three of them headed in to supper, running when it began to pour. They pounded up the steps to the porch. John was the first.
“You old men can’t keep up!” he teased and laughed and elbowed them as they tried to enter the house at the same time.
“Here come the rowdy Stoltzfus bruders,” Lavina remarked dryly.
David grinned and advanced on her, shaking raindrops on her. She swatted at him with a kitchen towel, her cheeks reddening as she warned him to behave.
“Boys will be boys,” Waneta said, watching her sohns with a fond eye. “Go wash up.”
They jostled each other a bit more just for form, but after they washed up, they settled into their chairs at the table and were on their best behavior. It might be David’s haus now, but Amos had walked into the room and sat there at the table, watching Sam with what he felt was a critical eye. If he looked at John that way Sam didn’t notice, but John looked unconcerned.
As soon as the meal was blessed John busied himself filling his plate. He handed Sam the bowl of potato salad. Sam served himself several big spoons of it. As he passed the bowl to David he saw the pies sitting on the counter. Well, well . . . he was tired and sweaty and his muscles ached.
But there was pie for dessert.
Since there was a big bowl of ripe peaches sitting near them, he had a suspicion what kind his sister-in-law had made. And she had a fine hand with baking pies.
There was little conversation as the men of the family ate hungrily.
Sam polished off two helpings of the potato salad, a couple of rolls, and a piece of pie. Not to forget several glasses of iced tea that finally cooled him off.
Once or twice, he caught Mary Elizabeth watching him, her expression unreadable. But as much as she guarded her expression he’d guessed from the way she’d told him she wanted to speak to him that it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
So he had to admit to himself that he lingered over a second piece of pie and yet another glass of iced tea. He wasn’t in a hurry to talk to her.
“Gut pie,” Amos said, and Lavina beamed at him.
“Not as gut as Waneta’s, but I hope I’m getting better,” she told him modestly.
“I don’t want to say how many years I’ve been baking pie.” Waneta smiled at her.
“Didn’t take you long,” Amos said, giving his fraa a fond look.
Sam couldn’t believe his eyes and ears.
Supper done, he thanked the women and joined the men outside as they talked about what they’d do the following Saturday. A short time later, Mary Elizabeth came out of the haus and gave him a questioning look. He excused himself and pulled keys out of his pocket.
The rain had stopped but storm clouds hung over the area.
They walked without speaking to the pickup truck. He opened the passenger-side door and she slid inside.
As he started the truck, he gave her a cautious look. Seemed to him that when a woman said she wanted to talk, it usually wasn’t a good thing.
* * *
Mary Elizabeth glanced around the interior of the truck. “Looks familiar,” she said simply as she snapped her seatbelt into place.
“Bought it from David,” he told her. “He’s letting me make payments.”
He put the truck in gear and backed out onto the road. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
Tension fairly radiated from her, as palpable as the storm clouds overhead. Her body was stiff in the seat, her chin thrust out. She cut her eyes at him, and the hurt and anger in them blazed at him.
“Are you ever coming back?”
“Well, that was blunt.”
And cold. The rain had chilled the air, and now her tone seemed to make the interior of the truck even chillier. He switched on the heater.
She folded her arms across her chest. “That’s me. Blunt Mary Elizabeth.”
True, he wanted to say. But he didn’t. She wasn’t beating around the bush, so he knew he needed to hear her out.
“I told you at Christmas I was just back for that night,” he said carefully. The roads were wet and slick, and he didn’t relish a confrontation driving her home.
“You’ve been back since then. So I thought maybe . . .”
“I’d want to come back to stay?” he finished for her. The meal he’d enjoyed felt like it was turning to lead in his stomach. Why couldn’t she let this be?
“Ya.”
He tried to think what to say. As the silence stretched between them she fidgeted.
“Never mind. I guess I have my answer.”
He looked for a place to pull over and after he found it, turned to face her.
“Where would I go, Mary Elizabeth?” he asked, feeling pinned between a rock and a hard place. “If I moved back to the community, where would I live?”
He heard the bitterness in his voice but he couldn’t hold it back.
She stared at him, speechless.
“Don’t say I could move in with David and Lavina. That wouldn’t be fair. And I don’t have the relationship with my dat that David does.”
“But you could.”
He shrugged and turned his gaze to look forward. “We talked about this months ago when you got David to drive you to talk to me. We didn’t get anywhere then and we’re not going to now.”
“Because you’re too stubborn.”
“Me? Not my dat?”
“He’s changed.”
“With David. Not with me.”
“It’s not that you don’t want to come back,” she said quietly. “You don’t want me.”
She opened the door and slipped from the truck before he could stop her.
“Mary Elizabeth! Where are you going?”
“What do you care?” she shot