He took over with the horse, leading it toward the hitching post nearest the barn as Rachel turned back to me and spoke in a softer voice.
“How’s Anna?” she asked, her eyes sparkling. “Excited, I bet.”
I glanced toward the house and admitted I didn’t know, that we hadn’t really taken the time to speak—other than a quick hello—since I’d arrived.
“Ach, well, she’s probably busy in the kitchen. Guess I’d better get in there too.”
“Guess you’d better,” I said, but then neither of us made a move to go. Instead, we just stood there, our eyes locked. Rachel really did look especially beautiful today, her cheekbones a rosy pink, her skin perfect cream, her lips soft and full.
“What?” she whispered, giving me a sexy smile, as if she could read my mind.
“Nothing,” I said, a twinkle in my own eye. She and I both knew that what I wanted more than anything in that moment was to give her a kiss.
“All right you two, enough with the googly-eyes,” Jake said, returning to the woodpile. “Tyler, get over here. We’re not done yet.”
I tipped my hat again and Rachel gave me a wink before she turned and headed for the house.
Jake was right: Rachel really was the perfect woman for me. So why did I keep putting things off?
I returned to my work—lift, place, thwack, split—my mind racing despite the calming scent of fresh-cut wood that wafted up from every chop. Rachel had been so patient with me thus far, but how much longer would she wait before giving up on me—on us—for good?
Reaching for another log, I thought again of that time long ago, back when we were children in school. After the “twins” incident and our teacher told her that Jake was my uncle, not my brother, I had expected Rachel to be mad and to keep her distance.
Instead, it seemed our deception had only fueled her curiosity. That night she must have put two and two together and begun to wonder that if I was being raised by my grandparents, then where were my real parents?
She came to me in the schoolyard after lunch the very next day, concern etched into her face. “Do you not have a mother and father?” She was practically crying.
“Everybody has a mother and father,” I said, pretending I was not moved by her concern for me. “You can’t be born without parents.”
She was unfazed. “Are they…are you an orphan?”
I frowned. “No, I’m not an orphan.”
“So where are they?” Her eyes glistened.
Even then, I hadn’t known how to explain. What could I say? My mother had died. She was gone for good, living now in a place very far away, as she had since the moment she’d passed. But what of my dad? I had seen him just twice in the past three years. At the time Rachel asked me that question, he was in Japan, by choice, on an extended tour that would keep him gone until I turned eleven. And even though I knew he was very much alive, most days he seemed just as far from me as my mother was.
“They’re not here,” was all I said. Then I’d walked off in search of someone to play with who already knew my story and didn’t need to ask stupid questions.
But Rachel wasn’t giving up that easily. The next day, she tried again, this time taking a seat on the swing beside mine and saying, “Tell me about your mother. What was she like?” Obviously, someone had filled her in, at least a little bit. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have put it quite that way.
I wanted to rebuff her, but again, her question left me silent and confused. What had my mother been like? Did I even know anymore? I still had some memories of her, of course, but Rachel had asked me not for memories but for a description.
Sitting on the swing, my toes digging a rut into the dry, dusty ground at my feet, I tried to picture my mom. I could barely recall her face by that point, though I could still hear the faintest echoes of her voice, sometimes in English, sometimes in the Pennsylvania Dutch she’d grown up speaking.
What else?
I remembered her smile, from when we lived in Germany and I found three pfennigs in the street as she and I walked to the backerei to buy bread.
I remembered her eyes, from when she watched me blow out the candles on a cake she’d baked for my birthday—white frosting with sprinkles on top, just like I’d asked for.
I remembered her long brown hair, flowing out behind her as we pedaled down the street together on our bicycles.