All in Good Time, page 3
Oba flinched, visibly.
He was incredulous. No one spoke to him in this manner. No one. For once, he had nothing to say. He felt the anger rise but also felt it sputter before it raged into a full-blown tantrum. He floundered, tried to regain firm footing, opened his mouth for a well-placed retort that would redeem him from this onslaught of unkindness.
“Think about it, Oba. You’re young, your whole life is ahead of you. You sit here, your muscles weakening, your mind cluttered with bitterness. I know your life was hard—May told me everything. But right now, you have choices to make. Serious life-altering choices. Just trust me a little bit and I’ll do everything to get you on the road to better health.”
“I can do it by myself when I’m ready. You don’t have to be involved.”
May held her breath.
Clara gathered more steam. “If left to yourself, things will only worsen.”
She was cut off by an angry outburst from Oba, who told her in clear terms that he had no plans of allowing anyone to become involved in his life, so she might as well go back to her horse farm.
Much to his surprise, Clara sighed, then turned to May and the children, thanked her for the tea, and said it was time to go back to work. Ignoring Oba entirely, she walked away with quick, long strides.
He didn’t want to watch but could barely keep from turning, curious to see how she managed to loosen that crazy horse and get in the buggy before he took off. He turned sideways, turned his eyes to see her loosen the neck rope, rub her hands up and down the horse’s face, then slide one hand down the sides of his neck before clipping the rein to the hook, the signal to all horses telling them the driver was ready to go. The horse pawed the ground as Clara held the reins, ready to climb into the buggy. The horse shook his head from side to side, took one flying leap before she was ready, leaving her dragging back on the reins, calling out the necessary whoa before leaping onto the seat as fast as lightning.
But the horse was angry now, confused, undecided whether he should go or stay. So he stood, shaking his head from side to side, snorting, pawing. Oba could see his flanks trembling. He became aware of May’s quiet presence, her hand on the handle of his chair.
Clara leaned forward, called out, “Yup. Come on, Star. Time to go.” All the coaxing did no good. So Clara leaned back in the seat and waited. He’d go when it was time.
May called out. “You want me to lead him?”
“No. He’s being cranky. He’s not used to being tied.”
Oba watched. The woman was incredible. How could she sit back against the seat, the reins held loosely, without being afraid?
The horse was a genuine balker. They could rear up on their hind legs, throw themselves, and bring down a thousand pounds of solid horseflesh, breaking a good pair of shafts and overturning the light buggy in the process. He didn’t appear to be older than two or three. Yet Clara sat there in the hot morning sun as if she were taking a rest on a chair beneath a tree. From time to time, she made a funny noise with her mouth, which only brought another shake of the horse’s head.
Eli started to laugh, said Clara would have to sit there all day. He wanted to go sit with her.
“No, Eli, you cannot sit on that buggy. The horse is not safe.” May gasped as the horse reared up on his hind legs.
Up and up, his front hooves pawing empty air, before coming down in one running leap, the light buggy lurching haphazardly behind him. Clara waved one hand above her head, her white covering and a slice of brilliant red color from her shoulders visible through the cloud of dust raised by the pounding hooves.
May exhaled sharply without realizing she had been holding her breath. She gave a low laugh and shook her head before scooping up Fronie.
Oba continued to watch. He wanted to ask her to stay, wanted to know more about this horse farm, but his pride would not allow it. Really now. He couldn’t stand having her around, so why this curiosity about her farm?
He remembered his father being gentle with the Belgian work horses. He would let them rest in the shade of the huge oak trees that grew along the fencerows, their sides heaving as sweat ran in rivulets down their great flanks. He could smell the salty odor of the sweat mingling with the scent of freshly mown grass as he sat with his father in the hot June breeze.
Then there were the battered mules in Arkansas. The homely creatures with gigantic ears and heads much too big for their skinny necks, their slatted ribs and sharp hip bones a testimony to his uncle’s stingy feedings. He’d laugh his mocking snort, say the mules could survive on brush and weeds, like a goat. If Oba had ever felt raw pity, a feeling so sharp he had felt a physical lurch in his stomach, it was the first few years in Arkansas.
The mules plodded along endlessly, took the crack of heavy leather reins and the hissing sting of the whip, trotted whenever they were asked, stopped when Melvin hauled back on the reins, opening their mouths and raising their enormous heads to ease the harsh yank of the steel bit on the soft flesh of their mouth. All day, they went without a drink, standing sleepily at the hitching post in the brutal southern sun while Melvin sat at the kitchen table with his family, drinking glass after glass of cold water, slurping up his bean soup, and stuffing half slices of bread and butter into his gaping mouth.
Oba swallowed. His eyes turned into narrow slits of remembered scorn. He wondered vaguely what had become of him. Him and those three boys. Not that it mattered. For the rest of his life, he would carry the years in Arkansas on his back, a visible history of rampant abuse by a violent man who lived with a dangerous nature and who covered it well in everyday life.
Melvin was the reason he had no respect for the Amish church, although May had warned him repeatedly about judging the whole community by the misdeeds of one man. Forgiveness and acceptance was a long way off, of this one thing he was sure.
ANDY HEARD ABOUT Clara’s balker from a gleeful Eli as they sat around the supper table enjoying bowls of cold fruit soup, an Amish staple in hot weather. Fresh peaches were sliced in a bowl, covered liberally with sugar, then slices of bread torn in strips, and cold, creamy milk poured over everything. There was a side of cured beef bologna and a chunk of cheese, the good waxy Swiss kind with the slightly rancid odor, the perfectly rounded holes created by the aging process. There were cold glasses of mint tea, the ice box with the large square of ice on top keeping the food from going bad. In winter, when the lakes froze to a good twelve inches or more, the men were kept busy cutting wagonloads of chunked ice and storing it away in icehouses, packed and insulated with sawdust. Without electricity, it was a solution to spoiled food in summertime.
Eli lifted his arms to show how high the horse had gone, his large dark eyes sparkling.
Andy laughed, and May shook her head.
“She knows what she’s doing. I haven’t heard of one dissatisfied customer after buying a horse from her.”
Caught off guard, Oba blurted out, “You mean, she sells horses? She actually raises them? Surely she doesn’t . . .” He stopped, looked at Eli, who was all eyes and ears. His mind was quick and sharp, absorbing most conversations and remembering every word.
“She sure does,” Andy said hurriedly. “She has one of the best bloodlines in Ohio, if not the surrounding states. If the Amish believed in registering horses, keeping up the paperwork and fancy names the way the English do, she’d be a famous horse breeder.”
May clucked and rolled her eyes in Eli’s direction, who was engrossed in fishing out the last of his peach slices, leaving the soaked bread till last.
“Sorry, May,” Andy said, regretting his slip of the tongue. Children were kept strictly from any language pertaining to reproduction, so it was never spoken of in their presence.
Oba absorbed Andy’s information in silence, but his interest was definitely aroused. No wonder the woman was so brash, so outspoken. She was more like a man. Especially the way she tried bossing him around about going to Cleveland.
He wasn’t going. Bad enough to be here among the Amish without sponging off their charity while they all sat around with hopeful eyes and clucking tongues, waiting for his prodigal return. Sorry, folks, but a straw hat and a bowl haircut, a horse and buggy, and a fat wife were not for him. Besides, how could he hope to enter any society on a wheelchair? He looked at his crutches, knew he should use them more, but felt more like an invalid using them than he did in his wheelchair. For the thousandth time, he hated his stump, that half leg as worthless as six fingers on one hand. He was an oddity, someone young children watched with frightened eyes, someone to pity.
THE MONTH OF August waned and the stifling heat of the long wearisome nights abated, leaving Oba in a better frame of mind. He’d eyed the crutches for weeks before finally deciding to give them another try. He stuck them beneath his arms and swung around the yard. At first, his weakened arms ached within the first minute, and he collapsed into a lawn chair, his chest heaving as drops of perspiration dripped from his brow.
Eli ran alongside, shouting encouragement, his black curls bobbing in the hot wind. Later, Oba found him by the sandbox, trying to fit a small piece of wood onto a broomstick to make himself a pair of crutches. After that, Andy did design and build Eli a simple pair, which proved to be invaluable for Oba. Eli kept up a barrage of questions, pleading with him to go here, go there, come on, Uncle Oba, we can go to the farm, to the shop, to the henhouse.
Sometimes he did. His shoulders strengthened, his back no longer ached. May caught them racing across the yard, taking unbelievable strides with the crutches, Eli fully capable of keeping up. May often marveled at the child’s athletic abilities, the way he seemed to be a natural runner and could throw a ball with surprising skill for one so young. And her heart would feel the old familiar pang, the remembered lost love of his father, Clinton Brown, also a young man of athletic prowess.
Oh, bless his heart, she would think, as he moved so well, swinging the crutches with his well-formed arms, the thin, white shortsleeved shirt already becoming snug across his chest. Her eyes stung with tears, but only for a moment. Then she remembered the gentle kindness of the big, burly husband that God had given her, a gift so precious she would never forget to appreciate him. She lived in undeserved love and safekeeping, a haven of trust and kindness. But she never regretted her years with Clinton or the gift of Eli. So amazing, the community’s support and acceptance. Her love for Lizzie and Fronie was no less, only an expansion of her heart. And she wanted more children, of course. She dreamed of giving Andy a son, their world complete.
All in God’s time, she thought. We’ll appreciate one day at a time. She had never imagined this a month ago. Oba racing—yes, racing—across the yard on his crutches, his face tanned, his blond hair bleached by the sun. And he was actually laughing, if only for a short time.
Every two weeks they all piled in the buggy and made their way to church, leaving Oba alone at home. They had promised him they would accept any decision he made, so they stayed true to this, allowing him to sleep late before getting his own breakfast. Once, he had seen them leave and thought how unusual it was that the child was being accepted by the community, his dark face and springy black hair so obviously different from Lizzie and Fronie’s porcelain faces.
Andy and May had something special, he thought. Andy was a real nice guy, one who never irritated him, never rippled the waters of his underlying bitterness. In spite of himself, he found he looked forward to suppertime, the time when Andy would walk across the fields, carrying his sweat-soaked straw hat, relishing the breeze through his wet hair. Even with his shirt soaked with the escalating temperatures, he was smiling, calling out to the children who would drop everything and run to him.
And Andy’s first sight of May upon coming home was almost a sacrilege, the light in his eyes reflected in hers. They were the only couple he had ever known who always hugged each other upon either one’s arrival or departure. His own parents had never fought, yet he couldn’t remember seeing his father put his arm along the back of the couch where his mother was seated.
And he still yearned to find a love like May’s, though he hated to admit it even to himself. He could not imagine meeting anyone or allowing himself to become attracted to a girl, so he did not venture out, it being far easier to let all of that go, with his battered and broken body.
He found he was never jealous of May. He knew she deserved so much goodness in her life, unlike him, who questioned the existence of God and ran away from any mention of Jesus Christ dying for him.
Maybe for good people He did, but not for him.
And yet he had seen angels. He had. He had felt the presence of his parents. He rolled over and turned his face to the wall.
CHAPTER 3
WHEN THE COOLING WINDS OF AUTUMN BEGAN TO WHISPER through the pine trees and the leaves on the sugar maples turned a dull shade of green before the edges showed signs of red, Clara finally arrived on a Saturday afternoon, after chores were finished. May had looked for a visit for a month but heard nothing from her at all, and she had sensed a cold shoulder from her at church. Knowing Clara, she figured it was very likely due to Oba’s refusal to see a doctor.
Eli was overjoyed and ran out before she climbed down from the buggy, with Lizzie and Fronie on his heels. Oba looked up from the puzzle he was working on, frowned, looked at May, and said he was going to his room.
She laid aside the garment she was mending, smiled at him, and said he might not want to. Clara had probably brought her ice-cream freezer and the mix she was known for. She’d talked about it all summer and hadn’t done it yet.
Sure enough, when he looked out the window, the children were bouncing up and down, clapping their hands as Clara hoisted a wooden ice cream freezer from the buggy. Andy strolled toward her, a broad smile on his pleasant face, untied the horse while he talked, then led him off to the barn. Looked as if she was staying awhile.
He couldn’t help noticing the brilliance of her dress. A shocking shade of green. How many outlandish dresses did she have? She banged through the door, the children hovering at her heels.
“Hi May!”
“Why hello, Clara! What a surprise!”
“Yeah. I had three yearlings to work with through the month of September. Horse sale in Oakley, and then council meeting and communion, you know. Hi, Oba. How are you?”
He lifted his face, glanced across her shoulder, and nodded, then went back to his puzzle.
“Does that mean you’re doing well?” Clara asked, pulling up a chair to join him at his card table.
Really? Oba thought. He shrank away from her, feeling accosted by red hair and alarming colors.
“So, Oba, have you given any thought to the doctor in Cleveland?”
“No.”
“Ah, come on. I don’t believe that. Surely you’ve had time to think about it. I would love to see you enjoying life like a normal man. You know it’s possible, don’t you?”
She was separating pieces of the puzzle with long, slender fingers, fingers tanned by the sun but without any freckles. He noticed the freckles on the backs of her hands and found himself wondering if they appeared only on skin exposed to the sun or if they covered her entire body.
“Hey, here’s a piece.”
He looked at what she’d done without comment.
“They say these prostheses are heavy and sort of clunky, but you’d get used to it. You could work at my horse farm after you learned to walk.”
He glared at her, his eyes boring into hers with what he hoped was enough anger to stop this foolish prattle. But she was undeterred and barged ahead with as much finesse as a bulldozer. She met his eyes with bold determination, never flinched, sat up even straighter and more formidable.
“Can’t you talk? What is this rude manner? Where in the world did you learn to ignore people when they talk to you?”
May listened to this from her place at the stove, putting the kettle on for coffee. She held her breath.
“Sure I can talk. But not to you, coming in here and telling me what to do. If I choose to spend my days doing nothing, it’s none of your business. I’m not your ‘project.’”
Clara leaned forward, her eyes flashing yellow light. “I’m not going to leave you alone. You’re a grown man. You need to work, make your own way. I don’t care if you’re handicapped or not. You can’t live here sponging off Andy and May. You can’t be gainfully employed without an artificial leg. It’s time you get off your duff and get to work.”
A hot wave of anger coursed through his veins. He lifted the card table with one hand and threw it across the living room, puzzle pieces flying like shrapnel. May covered her mouth with her hands. Eli’s eyes opened wide as he looked from one to the other, and Lizzie ran to May and buried her face in her apron.
Clara remained seated, exposed to Oba without the card table. Oba remained where he was, breathing hard, staring at her, she staring at him. The room was as still as a tomb.
“You feel better?” Clara asked.
“Yes.”
“Really? You’re a spoiled baby. Now go pick up those puzzle pieces. Go on.”
“I can’t get down on my hands and knees.”
“Why not?”
“Why don’t you try getting down there with one leg?”
And Clara did. She slid off her chair on one knee, balanced herself, and began to pick up the pieces. He looked at her narrow waist and thought she was so skinny he could likely span it with both hands. She looked up and told him to get down here and help.
“Don’t, Oba. Don’t. You won’t be able to get up,” May said breathlessly, unseating Fronie and rushing over to help. She would much rather remove adversity, make his life easier, than put him through shame or discomfort. She gasped when Oba slid clumsily out of his chair and rocked unsteadily on his one knee before placing both hands firmly on the floor. He began to pick up pieces of the puzzle.
This scene is what Andy found when he walked into the house. He stopped.
“What?” he asked quietly.
