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He gazed into her adoring upturned face. Ach, the overwhelming temptation to kiss her rosy lips. But they weren’t officially betrothed. The kiss, too, must wait. He forced himself to shift forward on the seat and take up the reins. “Your folks are probably wondering what kept us. We should go.”
She cupped her hand over his arm. “You will ask me to marry you, won’t you, Gil?”
Did he glimpse uncertainty in her light brown eyes? “I will. I promise.”
Her hand slipped away, and she settled into the seat, facing ahead. “Please hurry.”
Please hurry home, or please hurry and ask for her hand? Most likely, she meant the latter. As he urged the horse back onto the road, he sent a glance to the crystal blue sky beyond the clouds where he’d always envisioned God residing. He hoped God had heard Ava’s sweet entreaty and would respond by bringing healing to his wrist. He longed to ask her as much as she longed to be asked.
Hurry, Father. Please hurry.
Joseph
Joseph sanded theedges of the pine box, ascertaining no slivers would pierce the hands of those assigned to carry it. Of all the things he and Pa built in the woodshop, coffins were his least favorite. On a practical level, they could probably sustain a good living making them. After all, death was a certainty for everyone. But such a depressing task, preparing a person’s final resting place. He wished Miss Dirks had family who would buy a coffin from the undertaker in McPherson so he and Pa could focus on tables and chairs and cradles, the furnishings of living.
Pa lined up staves on the work surface, his brow puckered in concentration. He must have found them pleasing, because when he finished his examination, he placed them in a crate next to the work bench. If one hadn’t matched or had showed a slight split, it would go in the kindling box. Then, at least, the wood wasn’t wasted. But Joseph hated throwing a finished product into the cookstove.
His father strode across the floor and ran his finger along the opposite side of the long narrow lid. “This is looking good,Joseph,” he said in his solemn voice. Pa always used a solemn voice when they built a coffin.
When Joseph was a boy, he’d found a bit of humor in Pa’s serious countenance over a box. But now, he understood. It seemed disrespectful to be playful or even apathetic when preparing a burial box. “Dank. It should be done in time for tomorrow’s service.” When the casket would be placed in the ground and covered with dirt. “You know, Pa, I used to think it foolish to spend so much time on something that would be buried. Now I think…this is the last gift we can give a person. It should be the nicest it can be.”
Pa sent Joseph a smile of approval. “That is a good thought. It’s a man’s thought. I’m proud of you.”
So seldom had he heard those kinds of words from his father. They washed over him like one of Ma’s healing balms, and his nose burned—a sign of tears gathering. He sniffed and leaned over the lid, applying the sanding block to the wood. “I’m glad you let Herman take the goat cart into town and spend the day with Timmy. Since Gil canceled practices today and tomorrow, Timmy needs distraction.”
“Timmy needs more than distraction. He needs a family to take him in.” Pa’s solemn tone returned. “Every night when I say my bedtime prayers, I ask God to let me live long enough to see all my children grown and on their own. To think of Menno and Simon, Louisa, Herman, and Earl left without your mother and me is a frightening thing.”
Joseph glanced up. “What about Adelheid and me? Don’t you worry about leaving us?”
Pa selected a sanding block from the tool table and set to work on the opposite side of the casket. “You and Adelheid are old enough to take care of yourselves. I wouldn’t willingly leave you, even now, but I wouldn’t worry the way I would over theyounger ones.” He aimed a speculative look at Joseph. “If something happened to your ma and me, would you stay here, take care of your youngest sister and your brothers, make sure they were raised right?”
Joseph stopped and stared at his father. “Why are you asking me this? Are you sick? Is Ma sick?”
Pa shook his head. “Nä, we’re fine. Older, but fine.” He paused and fixed Joseph with a serious frown. “Miss Dirks’s unexpected death and Timmy being left without someone to take care of him make me think of my own mortality. My own children’s fates. I had the same thoughts when my brother and his wife died. We’d agreed to be responsible for each other’s families should death come. I didn’t expect to need to, though.”
“But you didn’t hesitate to take in Gil.”
Furrows formed across Pa’s brow. “He is my brother’s son. Of course I didn’t hesitate. But…” He went back to work. “It wasn’t easy. Not for any of us. Taking in someone else’s child, even when you know it’s right, makes changes. As Reverend Ediger said, it isn’t a decision to take lightly.”
He fell silent, focused on swishing the sanding block against the wood. Joseph waited, but when Pa didn’t speak again, Joseph also turned his attention to work. But something in his father’s face, in his voice, made him wonder if Pa had wanted to ask him more than he’d said aloud.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ava
Ava took Mama’s arm andled her away from the graveside, relieved to leave the mound of fresh-turned, fragrant soil and the gaping hole where men had lowered Miss Dirks’s pine coffin. They wove between the many rock headstones scattered through the plot of grass behind the church. As they passed the two bearing the names of Ava’s brothers, Mama stumbled.
Ava gripped tighter, keeping her mother upright, then she slipped her arm around Mama’s waist. She whispered, “Almost to church.”
“Nä,” Mama rasped, “take me to the carriage.”
“You don’t want to go to the dinner inside?”
“Nä. I am too…”
“Weary?” Ava provided.
Mama nodded, but Ava suspected thatemotionally wroughtwould have been a better description.
