Paradise Valley (38 page)
Emma’s pain came and went throughout the day, but each time was a little easier than the last. By late afternoon the pain had disappeared and she was feeling a lot better.
“Perhaps tomorrow I can get up from this bed and get some things done,” Emma said. Her mother and sisters were there when she said it, a bedroom full. They all berated her at once, creating such an uproar that none of them could be understood. In the end, she held her palms up in surrender, laughing.
“All right. I get the message,” she said. “But you’ll be sorry. I’m going to lay here like a queen and order all of you about until you’re sick of it. Rachel!” she commanded, pointing, “Bring my child to me! But clean him up first – I’ll not have a dirty diaper in my presence. Mary! A glass of water, please, and be quick about it!”
Both of them did as they were told, laughing hysterically. They would have done the same even if Emma’s feigned pomposity had been genuine, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.
The others took the surrey back to Mamm’s house shortly after that because they were expecting Caleb to arrive anytime now with the caravan from Arteaga, and they wanted to be there to greet them. Rachel alone stayed behind to cook dinner for Levi and Emma and take care of Mose.
After dinner, when all the dishes were washed and dried and put away, and Mose was fed and cleaned and put down for the night, Rachel lay down behind Emma. She moved her sister’s luxurious honey-colored hair out of the way so she could rub her shoulders and massage her back.
Emma moaned with pleasure, and then laughed. “I could get used to this,” she said, “lying in bed with my little sister pampering me like this. This is a memory we’ll share for the rest of our lives, Rachel. Someday, when we’re just two old biddies rocking in the shade with a hundred grandchildren doting on us and bringing us cookies, we’ll look back on this and say, Remember the night the Hershbergers came to Mexico, and we were piled up in bed like queens?”
“We’ll sit under one of your shade trees out in front of this very house. Oh, they’ll be tall then.”
“That’s right, the
trees
! With all this fuss I forgot I asked Lovina to bring trees. She hasn’t said another word about it in any of her letters, so I know she’s going to surprise me. You know how Lovina loves to put on a show. Oh, I hope she brings maples! Rachel, I’ll plant lots of maples, and at the end of winter the syrup will flow.” Emma closed her eyes to savor a moment of bliss in her own bright future.
The light from the window had faded to dusky purple and the lantern had taken over when Levi burst into the room breathless with excitement.
“They’re here!” he cried, pointing in the general direction of Dat’s house. “I seen wagons coming up the road! They’ll be at your dat’s in a minute.”
Emma raised herself onto her elbows, staring at the window.
Rising from the bed Rachel pointed sharply at her sister and barked, “You don’t move! I’ll watch for you.”
Emma rolled her eyes and fell back against the pillow. “It’s all right, Levi. I’ll be fine with my jailer here. You go! Greet our new neighbors.”
Levi nodded once and took off. They heard his footsteps running around the house, and Rachel watched from the window as he ran across the fields. He didn’t even take time to hitch a buggy.
“I can see them,” Rachel said. “They’ve lit their lanterns so we can see them coming.”
She watched them the whole way, giving Emma a running commentary as the line of flickering lights turned in and strung out half the length of Dat’s drive.
Ten minutes later her father’s farm was as busy as a kicked anthill, lanterns swinging to and fro as people took horses to the corral, unloaded wagons, and some of the young ones erected tents in the field beside the Bender house. Someone started a campfire and the sparks flew upward on a slant, dancing on the ever-present breeze. Even from a distance, in the darkness, the air of jubilation was palpable. Their neighbors had arrived!
“A buggy is coming,” Rachel announced. She could see it silhouetted against the lights, drawing near.
“I bet that’s Lovina,” Emma said. Lovina was a good friend to both Emma and Rachel; they knew she would come as soon as she could get away.
Moments later they heard the surrey pull up to the front of the house, accompanied by the laughter of girls.
Lovina Hershberger bustled into the room alone, grinning from ear to ear and carrying a sapling in her arms, the burlap-wrapped root ball nestled in the crook of an elbow as if it were a baby. Squealing with delight she ran straight to Rachel and gave her a big hug, then turned to Emma with a hand on her hip.
“What’s this about you being sick?” she said, then plunked her sapling by the side of the bed and leaned down to give Emma a gentle hug. Then, pinning Emma’s shoulders with her palms, she looked her in the eye and said, “You can’t be sick, Emma. I won’t have it.”
“Oh, it’s just this new baby,” Emma said. “He’s giving me a bit of trouble, but I’ll be fine in a day or two, you’ll see.”
Lovina’s hands flew to her cheeks, her mouth opened and she squealed. “Your baby! I have to meet Mose! Where is he?” Scanning the room, her eyes landed on the apple crate in the corner and she jumped up and ran over to it.
Rachel pulled the little quilt back to show Lovina the infant’s sleeping face.
“Oh, he’s beautiful!” Lovina cried. “And such hair!”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “I’m afraid the poor thing has my hair, only a little darker.”
“Oh, he’s handsome,” Lovina said. “Listen, I almost forgot. There are others here and they want to meet Mose, too. Is it all right for them to come in?”
“Bring them all,” Emma said, beaming. “We’ll have a party. Where’s Miriam? I thought she would come as soon as she got back.”
“Oh no! I forgot to tell you. Your dat broke an axle early this morning, and Micah stayed behind to help fix it. Miriam stayed with them. If all goes well, they’ll be home tomorrow night.”
Lovina rushed to the door to signal the others, her mother and sisters and the women of the Shrock family. Each and every one of them brought a sapling with her and placed it on the floor beside Emma’s bed. A hack pulled up outside. Mary joined the crowd, with more trees. The little room was filled with women and trees.
“You see?” Lovina said. “I told you, you can’t be sick. You’ve got trees to plant.”
It was a great reunion, full of joy and laughter, old friends reminiscing about old times. But after half an hour most of them left and those who stayed grew quiet, reluctant to leave, though they sensed that Emma and her baby needed privacy and rest. Lovina Hershberger and Emma’s sisters remained to the last, standing among an impromptu forest of leafless young trees.
“You’ve outdone yourself, Lovina,” Rachel said, shaking her head at the grove of saplings.
“Oh, it was fun! And this isn’t all of them. We’ve been planning this for weeks, digging up saplings and wrapping the roots. Everyone was in on it – except for Jake, of course. He only joined us at the last minute. When we were on the train I told him about the trees and he laughed for two – ”
“Jacob
Coblentz
?” Rachel asked, interrupting. “Eli’s Jake?”
Emma glanced up at Rachel then, and there was a curiously sly smile in her eyes.
“Oh no,” Lovina said, with the same sly smile. “Jonas’s Jake. Weaver. His dat farmed him out to my dat and he came down with us on the – ”
Rachel didn’t hear the rest. She had already slipped out the door.
She hurried around the front of the house, her pace quickening until she found herself gripping her skirts in her fists and running breathless through the dark fields toward the lights and commotion of her father’s house.
Halfway there, she saw someone walking toward her, silhouetted against the lights. A wide-brimmed hat, broad shoulders. A man. She slowed as he approached, and then stopped, not sure who it was. There was no such backdrop of lights behind her, and she knew by the tilt of his hat that whoever it was had not seen her in the dark.
She waited, trying to slow her breathing.
He stopped, ten feet away. Perhaps he had heard her, or spotted the white of her kapp in the darkness. He stood still, a black figure against the light. And then she recognized his shape, for she had seen it often enough at the singings on Sunday nights, standing as he was now, with his back to the lights of home.
“Jake?” It was little more than a whisper, a frail hope.
“Rachel?”
His hand went to his hat and flung it carelessly away as he closed the last ten feet of a gap that only a minute ago had been a thousand miles. Neither of them said anything else for a long time – not with words, anyway.
The world suddenly and miraculously righted itself in Jake’s warm embrace, and for the first time in a very long while, enfolded in his strong arms, Rachel felt warm and safe – and free. A weight of years left her shoulders, and a tightness vanished from her chest, a tightness that she had borne so long she had forgotten it was there. Unable to hold back tears of pure joy, she buried her face in his chest and prayed that this moment would never end.
After some minutes had passed she noticed that her face did not reach to the crook of his neck where it had fit so comfortably before. She leaned back to look at him, but it was too dark here in the middle distance between the houses.
“You’ve grown taller,” she said.
“Jah. Two whole inches just this year.” Then, squeezing her in his arms and running his hands up her back, he added, “And you’ve grown into a woman yet, lean and strong. Different from the girl I remember. Even better.”
She blushed, glad for the covering darkness. “It was the bricks. We have worked very hard, but now that more men are here maybe Miriam and I can go back to women’s work again.”
For the first time she noticed she was cold and remembered that in her flight she had left her coat behind at Emma’s. She snuggled deep in his warm arms, clinging tightly around his waist, fearful of ever letting go. As long as she felt his arms about her, this could not be a dream.
“Oh, Jake, I really thought I had lost you,” she said. “There wasn’t even a letter for the last two months.”
“I gave up the hope of ever seeing you again,” he said, and then, hesitating, “I didn’t see the wisdom in keeping you from finding another.”
“What about now? Now that you’re here and we’re together again, do you feel the same for me as you did before?”
“No, I don’t.” And then his arms tightened around her. “I feel more. Much more. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, Rachel. I have left my home and family behind for you.”
“I would do a great many things for you.”
His chin rested atop her prayer kapp, and his words made her scalp tingle. “At first I was heartbroken when you weren’t there to meet me at your dat’s house,” he said quietly. “I had seen that moment in my head a thousand times, and longed for it to be so. But then Mary told me Emma was having trouble and you were up here with her. Mary is so proud of you, Rachel. She tells me you are a natural-born midwife.” He chuckled. “And all this time I thought you were just a brickmaker.”
“It’s a gift from Gott,” she said. “I never knew until it happened.” It took a moment for her to put two and two together, but then, without moving an inch, she asked, “Jake, why would I be there to meet you when I didn’t know you were coming? The last I heard from you, you said there was just no way.”
He paused for a moment, confused, and then his chin moved against the top of her head. “Your dat didn’t tell you I was coming?”
“No. I only heard five minutes ago from Lovina Hershberger that you were farmed out to her dat. After you were already here.” She pulled back and looked up at him. “Wait . . . you mean my dat
knew
you were coming?”
“Well, jah. Your dat arranged the whole thing. He worked it out with John Hershberger, and then he wrote my dat a letter and talked him into letting me come down with John.”
Weeks. Such an exchange of letters meant that her father had known for
weeks
, yet he had said nothing.
“But this can’t be. My dat doesn’t even
know
about you and me. Why on earth would he arrange for you to come?”
“Oh, Rachel, you really didn’t know any of this?” He laughed out loud. “
Emma
talked him into it! She said she couldn’t stand seeing you so gloomy.”
“Emma talked my dat into fixing it so you could come down, just for me? Then he
knows
about us?”
“Jah, I’m afraid he does. As a matter of fact, he knew all along – it was in his letter. Ask Emma.”
“Oh, trust me, I will have a word with Emma. I can’t believe she knew you were coming and kept it secret from me this whole time!”
“You’ll thank her is what you’ll do. She’s the reason we’re together right now. Your sister loves you, Rachel. She loves you so very much.” He paused for a second, then added quietly, “And so do I.”
It was she who kissed him, this time.
They stood holding each other for a long time, until Jake finally stirred and said, “We better get back. I should be helping with the work. Anyway, sooner or later people will start to miss us, and then there will be talk.”