The Calling (33 page)

Bethany felt a chill run down her spine. Hadn’t she heard Rose say the same thing to her father as Schrock Investments imploded?

“I know this is hard for you to understand,” Fannie said, “but your mother was desperate. She had moments of clarity that horrified her and she knew the sickness was getting worse. Your mother needed help and your father wouldn’t get it for her. He could never accept what her sickness was doing to her. He refused to believe that she was as sick as she was. We felt desperate too, Bethany. That was when the Sisters’ Bee had a talk and we agreed to do what Mary asked us to do. We didn’t know how else to help her. I suppose we thought this was her only chance to keep herself safe—for her own sake, for others, to give her some peace of mind.”

Edith rose. “We never abandoned Mary. We still take care of her. We rotate a schedule and visit her every month.”

Sylvia gave Bethany a sad smile. “This is why we keep quilting. We raffle off our quilts at local auctions and pay Mary’s monthly bills.”

Bethany tried to steady herself, tried to breathe, as she absorbed this news. “I need to think about it all. I want—I just—” She stood, hoping her knees wouldn’t buckle. “I can’t take it in.” She headed for the door, then stopped and turned around. “How did you know she would never get well? How could anybody predict that?”

The question hung in the air as they all grew quiet again, eyes on Edith. There was something more, a final part of the secret.

“I knew your mother as a girl,” Edith said. “We were childhood friends. I introduced her to your father.” There was a tremor of sadness in her voice. She looked down at her hands, then lifted her head and looked straight at Bethany. “Mary’s mother had the sickness too. She knew what her future looked like.”

Bethany grasped the top of a chair. She felt a blow, as real as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. And that was when it hit her. It was genetic. Her mother’s sickness was hereditary.

“So
that’s
why you don’t want Jimmy to court Bethany,” Naomi said in a quiet voice.

Edith spoke right to Bethany. “Die Dochder aart der Mudder noh.”
The daughter takes after
the mother.

“Edith! That’s an awful, awful thing to say,” Sylvia scolded.

“It’s the truth,” Edith huffed.

Sylvia crossed the room and reached for Bethany’s hands, covering them with her own hands, wrinkled and speckled with brown spots. “We kept this secret because we didn’t want you to grow up with such a burden hanging over your head. Not you or your brother Tobe.” She squeezed Bethany’s hands and held them close to her heart. “Just remember one thing, Bethany. Your mother loved you. Don’t you see? She loved you and your brother and your daddy enough to give you up.”

Bethany had to get out of that house, that stuffy room, away from the looks of pity on the sisters’ faces, relieved Naomi didn’t follow her. She spotted Jimmy in the cornfield and skirted quickly around the chicken hatchery to reach the road, hoping he hadn’t seen her. She desperately needed to be alone.

As soon as she reached the shady tree-lined road, she slowed. She gulped in air and tried to find words to pray, but she couldn’t find them. Her thoughts were on her mother as a young woman—about how she must have walked down this very road when she was Bethany’s age—when she felt her
heart start to race and she had trouble taking a full breath of air. Her stomach cramped. A tingling sensation ran down her arms to the ends of her fingers. She stopped on the side of the road and sat on the grass under a tree, hoping it would pass. What was happening to her?

After a few long moments, her heart stopped racing, she could breathe again, and she was left with a wave of exhaustion. A sort of oppression settled over her—weighing her down, stealing her energy. This wasn’t the first time she felt like something might be wrong with her. Each time, it felt different. A few days ago, her hands couldn’t stop trembling. Another time she woke in the night in a cold sweat, convinced she was suffocating. She hadn’t slept more than two hours at a stretch in the last week. Was she too young to have a heart attack? Her father had heart trouble.

Or . . . was she going crazy? Like her mother? It wasn’t the first time she had thought such a thing. After meeting her mother last week, the worry had been lurking at the back of her mind. All summer long, she had been turning into all moodiness and distraction. She tried not to think she was losing her mind, but that was like trying not to think about a cricket that was chirping. The more you don’t think about it, the louder it gets.

Schizophrenia could be inherited. Hadn’t Edith Fisher just admitted as much?

She had to go talk to Jimmy Fisher.

“You’re breaking up with me?” Jimmy’s mouth opened wide and his eyes quit twinkling. “And we haven’t even started courting yet?”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought since we talked, Jimmy,” Bethany said, trying to sound clear and strong and brave. No wavering. “It’s for the best. It’s good that nothing’s gotten started yet. It’ll be easier. We were friends before and this way we’ll remain friends.” It hurt too much to look in his eyes so she didn’t.

He grabbed her shoulders and made her face him. “What have I done wrong?”

Tell him. Don’t tell him.
“Nothing. It’s nothing like that. It’s just . . . I’m just not right for you.” To her horror, tears sprang to her eyes and she bit her lip, trying to make them stop. It had been such a long afternoon and she was dangerously emotional, teetering on a breakdown.

“Whatever I did, I’m sorry. If you’ll just tell me, I promise I won’t do it again.”

That pulled her up short. Sympathy was the last thing she expected, or deserved.
Tell him.
Don’t tell him.
She turned her head away and looked at the chicken hatchery in the distance. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He gave her shoulders a gentle shake. “Then help me to understand. Why are you suddenly going cold on me? Usually, you’re only mad if I’ve done something stupid.”

His face looked so sad, she wanted to hug him, but of course she didn’t dare. “I’m not mad at you. I’m not.”

His shoulders slumped. Just as he was about to say something, she stopped him. “Please. I just need to be left alone. Can’t you understand that?”

He shrugged, but not in a good way, as if he accepted what was coming and was bracing himself for it. “Yeah, sure. Absolutely.” He let her go and took a step back, then his eyes turned to a snapping fire for a second and his mouth broke
into one of those reckless smiles that made her feel as if her heartbeat missed a hitch. “Don’t you worry none about me, Bethany,” he said, the words clipped, hard. “I’ll get along just fine.”

But then she never doubted that and it was hardly to be wondered. Him with his mighty faith, so strong and solid. It was herself she doubted. “I know. I know you will.”

He gave her a probing look, one she couldn’t read. “Just answer me this . . . what are you so afraid of?”

She turned her head from his hard gaze and felt burning tears flood into her eyes, causing her to sniff like a baby. He just wouldn’t leave well enough alone and made her look at him square in the face. “Tell me.”

She hesitated for a moment before giving him the only possible answer. “Of making a terrible mistake.”

20

E
arly Tuesday morning, Mim found some sheets of used, slightly wrinkled wrapping paper and tape in her mom’s desk and sat at the kitchen table to wrap the present. She had never been so excited to give someone a gift before.

“What have you got there?” Bethany asked as she came into the kitchen with an apronful of gathered eggs.

Mim spread out the wrapping paper and ran her hand along it, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. “I found a thimble for Ella. She’s always looking for her thimble so I thought I’d get her one.”

One by one, Bethany put the eggs into a bowl and set them in the refrigerator. She came over to the table and picked up the thimble. “Mim, it’s sterling silver.”

“I know,” Mim said, pleased. “Look at the band of wild roses around the base. Just like the one Ella keeps looking for. The one her mother gave to her.”

Bethany held it up to the light. “It’s dated from the 1890s.”

“I know.”

“Where did you find it?”

“At Pearl’s Gift Shop on Main Street. I saw it in the shop
window and knew I had to get it for Ella. That’s what I was looking at the day . . . when Chase got . . . hurt.”

“But Mim . . . this must have been expensive.”

Mim smoothed out a few pieces of tissue paper and tried to figure out how to wrap up such a tiny thimble. If she wrapped it too tightly, Ella’s arthritic, knobby fingers couldn’t open it. “That’s why I wanted you to get my paycheck from the newspaper. I wanted to use my Mrs. Miracle money.”

Bethany handed her the thimble and sat down in a chair. “You realize that Ella will probably lose this thimble.”

Carefully, Mim cut out a piece of wrapping paper. “No she won’t.”

“Oh Mim, don’t you see? Haven’t you noticed how forgetful Ella is? She’s always losing things.”

“Everybody loses things. Luke can’t keep track of a hat for longer than a week.”

Bethany blew a puff of air out of her cheeks. “This is a different kind of forgetfulness, Mim.”

“No, it’s not.” She set the thimble in the center of the square and folded the paper up around it. “Ella lost her thimble and she needs a new one. That’s all. Stop being mean about her.”

“I’m not being mean. I’m just trying to help prepare you—” She stopped and gave Mim a look that she couldn’t understand—sweetness and sadness, all mixed together. “Hold on. I might have a box you could fit the thimble in. That would make the wrapping go easier.” Before she left the room, she gave Mim a kiss on the top of her prayer covering.

No girl had ever broken up with Jimmy Fisher before—he’d always been the one to cut ties. Was this how it felt? Was this
the pain he had inflicted on so many girls? Most recently, Katie Zook? It felt like he had been sucker punched. Left for buzzard pickings under a hot sun. Like someone tore his heart out of his chest with a dull kitchen knife.

Jimmy had hooked the team of horses to a cultivator and was working the soil between the rows of corn, taking out most of the weeds, but not all. Some of them were particularly stubborn and had to be hand pulled.