A Perfect Square

Chapter 23




DEBORAH ARRIVED HOME in plenty of time to make dinner — at least she would have, if it hadn’t been for her children.

She left the buggy parked near the front of the barn.

“Martha, would you run in and tell your dat we’re home? I need him to unhitch Cinnamon for me, as I believe Joshua’s had a bit of an accident.”

“It smells terrible, Mamm.”

“Yes, well, I think he has a bit of diarrhea.” Lifting him off the backseat of the buggy there was a big sucking sound, followed by Martha and Mary clambering over each other to see who could exit the buggy the fastest.

Martha stepped away as Joshua began to cry and rub at his eyes. “I knew it smelled bad, but when you picked him up you released something awful.”

Deborah held him at arm’s length, trying not to soil her dress.

“Martha, go and tell your dat the mare needs unhitching. Mary, I want you to go and find a rag and a pail and clean up the mess on the backseat.”

“Why do I have to do it? I’m only a little kid, barely old enough to — “

“Would you rather clean up your bruder?” Deborah thrust Joshua toward her.

“No, Mamm. I’ll fetch the bucket.” Mary disappeared faster than a fresh-baked pie on a Sunday.

Martha was giggling as she walked away.

“Hurry, Martha. I’m going to need your help with dinner. I believe he’s only teething, but let’s take him in and take his temperature to be sure. Either way, we’re in for a night.”

“I’ll run.”

Deborah thought of stripping her youngest one’s clothing off outside, but the weather had turned colder with the clouds, and soon it would be dark. As she hurried inside and set Joshua in the tub, tugging off his soiled clothes, then filling the sink with warm water and wetting a cloth, she thought of Esther’s words earlier. God’s plan did seem to include a bit more refining and learning than any of them would have chosen. Often she wondered why life took turns through rough weather.

Why couldn’t things be easier?

Tonight certainly wasn’t the best time for a sick boppli.

But when was a good time?

Then again, her problems were nothing compared to Esther’s. The thought was a sobering one. She finished cleaning Joshua, then lifted him out of the tub, his cries now little whimpers. Pressing her lips to his forehead she was relieved to feel its coolness.

Perhaps he was merely teething, but she would insist everyone drink orange juice tonight nonetheless. A good dose of vitamin C to chase away the germs of winter.

If only every ill could be cured as easily.

Thirty minutes later, Martha had heated the stew left over from two days ago. Deborah took the fresh bread out of the oven — bread her mother had been kind enough to send along.

“Grossmammi makes the best bread,” Mary said.

“That she does,” Deborah agreed. She’d just placed it on the table along with a plate of fresh-cut fruit for dessert — it was as good as orange juice — when there was a loud commotion at the backdoor.

“What now?”

“It’s not Joshua. I checked on him. He’s been asleep since you rocked him.” Martha followed her to the back porch, where the last of the day’s light fell on her two sons.

“Jacob and Joseph. Dinner’s ready. Whatever you’re doing there, finish with it and come in.”

“Sure thing, Mamm. We’re just about done.”

“Just about isn’t what I asked.”

She was turning away when she caught sight of something large and close to the ground, something with a snout.

Reversing directions, she pushed open the screen door and walked out onto the back porch.

“Can you tell me why there are two pigs here?”

“They’re not just any pigs,” Jacob explained.

“They’re our new pigs.” Joseph continued hammering a board onto the front of the crate — a crate that was beginning to look suspiciously like a doghouse.

“Why — “ Deborah stopped, closed her eyes and counted to three. When she opened them, the pigs were still there, this time staring right up at her. “Why are they not in the barn?”

“Funny thing.” Jacob rubbed at a bit of mud that was smeared across his right cheek. “These two don’t take to the mud very well. Maybe that’s why we got them so cheap.”

“Ya. The man Dat bought the pigs from allowed as they were a bit peculiar.”

“Boys. These pigs cannot live outside my backdoor.”

Joseph stopped hammering, and Jacob stopped scratching. At the exact same moment in the exact same tone, they said: “Huh.”

Then Joseph picked up another nail and went back to whacking it with the hammer, this time on top of the crate, and Jacob reached a hand up to scratch underneath his wool cap, where there was more mud, no doubt.

“No. No, no, no. Stop what you’re doing this very minute.” Deborah felt a meltdown coming. She didn’t have them often, and she wasn’t proud when she did. But one was headed toward her boys now. “I want this crate and these — these pigs off my back step and in the barn this very minute. Do you understand me?”

“But — “

“No buts. I want no argument. I want it done, and I want you back in this house in less time than it takes for me to fill the dinner glasses with water. I want you to be so fast that those pigs will think they’re flying. Am I being perfectly clear? Doesn’t matter to me if they’re in the mud or beside the mud or across the creek from the mud. You can make them mud pies and serve it to them for breakfast, but I will not have them sleeping outside my backdoor.”

Her voice had risen and she’d gained speed as she’d lectured them until she’d felt like the train that sometimes traveled past the market in Shipshewana.

The boys were staring at her now like she’d sprouted wings herself. Their eyes were wide, and they didn’t seem to know whether they should continue listening or start moving the two pigs.

Fortunately for them, Jonas showed up. “Sounds as if your mamm wants the pigs moved.”

“Yes, Dat.”

Jacob opened the crate’s door, and Joseph led the two pigs out. Deborah was able to see, now by the light of the kitchen’s gas lamp since it was beginning to grow dark, that they’d used two of the lead ropes for the horses and tied them around the pigs like they were dogs.

While Joseph walked toward the barn leading the pigs, Jacob struggled with the crate, alternately pulling and pushing it.

Deborah watched, her pulse slowly returning to normal, the heat of her anger cooling.

Jonas didn’t mention her temper. He smiled, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and said, “At least the bacon would have been close to the kitchen.” Then he walked inside to clean up for dinner.

It wasn’t until well after midnight, when she’d been up with Joshua twice and had finally tumbled back into bed only to toss and turn, that Jonas pulled her into his arms and asked her what was wrong.

“Probably just that I’m tired.” She fought to keep the tears out of her voice.

“I’ll get up with him next time. I can hear his cries as well as you can.” He brushed the tears from her face with his thumbs and kissed her on the forehead. “You don’t have to talk about it if you’d rather not, Deb, but I don’t think it’s the babe’s teething or the boys’ pigs that’s causing you to cry.”

She blubbered then, soaking his nightshirt. He didn’t tell her to stop, didn’t rush her through it. He also didn’t ask any more questions. When she’d finally rung herself dry, he rolled over onto his back, and she cuddled up beside him.

“I always found a good cry to be beneficial myself.”

Slapping him across the stomach, she tried to smile in the darkness, but she felt too raw for that.

“Jonas Yoder, I’m betting you’ve never cried a day in your life.”

“Not true. I cried when I was eight, when the doc had to cut a fish hook out of my hand. I cried when my grossdaddi died, and I cried when Martha was born. Those are only the times that come to mind.”

“We were so young then.”

“That we were. You’re not worried about Joshua are you?”

“No. I can feel the swollen places on his gums. Poor guy is miserable, but the Tylenol is helping. He’ll be fine once they break through.”

“That’s gut. Soon he’ll be plowing the fields with me. He’s going to be a strapping young man, just like his older bruders.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at Jacob and Joseph so.”

“Maybe you were a bit harsh with them, but who wants to hear pigs squeal while they’re eating?”

Though the room was pitch dark, not even a sliver of a moon peeking in through the windows, Deborah could feel Jonas smiling. She could also feel the sadness descending over her like a blanket as she wondered whether she should share the reasons for her previous tears.

Jonas must have sensed her hesitation, because he turned toward her in the darkness.

“I love them so much, Jonas. The idea that anything might happen to them or anything might happen to you … I don’t know how I would handle it.”

“Is that what this is about?”

“Esther didn’t expect to lose Seth, but she did. Melinda didn’t expect to have a sick child, but look at Aaron.” Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. “And Reuben most certainly did not kill that girl. Still, he sits in a prison, maybe for the rest of his life. When I think of all the things that could happen to us — “

“Whoa there. You’re losing me, love. What do all of these things have to do with us?”

“Don’t you see? That’s what each of those people thought, until it happened to them. That’s what Reuben was probably saying two weeks ago.” She began to shake, and Jonas once again put his arms around her, this time rubbing her back and pulling the blankets around them.

When she quit shaking, he spoke slowly, quietly. “Deborah, I know your faith is strong.”

“Yeah, but so is theirs.”

“So it’s not a question of faith that you have.”

“No. It’s a question of why.”

“Let me ask you a question instead. How much do you love Jacob and Joseph?”

“Jonas — “

“Answer the question.”

“You know I love them more than myself. I would do anything for them.”

“And yet you still forced them to move the pigs this afternoon, which actually crushed a little bit of their six-year-old hearts.”

“Yes, to teach them.”

“As God does with us.”

Deborah shook her head in the darkness, but didn’t speak.

“Esther’s troubles and the boys’ are nowhere near the same. But your love for the boys and God’s love for Esther is similar.”

“Ya, I suppose.”

“Only similar, Deb. We must remember that, because we can’t begin to imagine how much he loves us.”

She drew in a shaky breath, considered for a moment what he said. “I know what you’re saying is true, but Tuesday Esther said it seemed as if God’s hand came down and wiped away her happiness. When I told her God wasn’t like that, she asked me how I would know. Which started me to thinking, how would I know? And what, what …” The tears started streaming down her face again, but she pushed her words through them, “What would my faith be like if I did know. If I had lost one of the children or you.”

“Ah, finally.” Jonas combed his fingers through her hair, kissing her temples as he did.

“Finally?”

“Finally we’re to what is truly weighing on your heart.”

“You never think of it?”

“Of course. I suppose everyone does. At every funeral and every birth.” Deborah waited for him to say more, becoming aware of the winds picking up outside their window.

When she thought he wouldn’t add anything else, he bent over her in the darkness, found her mouth with his, and kissed her more gently than a sunrise spreading its light across the field on a fall morning.

“Always when I think of it, my answer is the same. If I only had one day with you, Deborah. If I only had one day with any one of our children, I would still count myself the most blessed of men. Would I hurt? Yes. Would I feel loss? Yes. But I’d rather have that one day, or one year, or a dozen, than to spend my life without any of you.”