Chapter 24
D espite how the day began, Lilly was having more fun than she could remember in years. She and Jacob were at the Wyse home for Christmas Eve supper. Mr. and Mrs. Stolis had been some of the many guests she’d received at her own home during the day, but they’d also offered to stay with her mother a bit, who actually seemed like she was up to having visitors. Lilly didn’t ponder this shift in her mamm’s moods; she’d grown used to their unpredictability. But she considered every moment of the time at her new in-laws’ a blessing and smiled with determined warmth at Jacob when he glanced up from a chattering Kate Zook. He returned the look and she chose to interpret the intensity in his gaze as goodwill. Then she found herself in the cheerful embrace of her brother-in-law.
“Having a gut time?” Seth asked, dropping his arms about her waist.
“Ach, jah.” She smiled up into his handsome face, thinking to herself once more how different the two brothers were—like light and darkness.
She leaned close to Seth and whispered low. “I loved the painting. Danki.”
“Ah, my secret’s out.”
She shook her head. “I’d never tell anyone, but I would love to see more of your work.”
“Would you?” he asked with a smile.
She nodded with sincerity and he caught her hand. “Then come with me, sweet schweschder, and I’ll be glad to indulge you— away from this crowd.”
She followed happily as Seth led her upstairs.
“I’ve been working on something a bit different. It’s for Jacob’s birthday. The motion is difficult to get right.” He flung open a door and she entered the room, clearly seeing that it was more of an art studio than a bedroom, with paints, brushes, canvases, and tools in great abundance. He turned up a lamp, then held it before an easel. She gasped with pleasure at the half-formed image of a herd of horses running free across a vast plain.
“Ach, Seth! It’s beautiful. It’s like they’re running toward me. I can hear their hoofbeats. You’ve been blessed with such talent.”
He smiled with obvious pleasure. “Danki. I haven’t been sure of this one.”
“Jacob will love it. But, tell me please, when is his birthday?”
Seth set the lamp on a table. “Not until February—Valentine’s Day, in fact.”
I should have remembered, she thought. she’d once sketched him a valentine when they were in school but had never had the courage to give it to him. It had ended up in the waste bin. She glanced back at the painting.
“Seth, I know you don’t want anyone to know about your talent, but it would be so wonderful if you’d teach a class on art, maybe to the schoolchildren?”
He held up paint-stained hands. “Whoa, little schweschder. That is not my kind of doings. Kinner scare me. I never know what they’re going to do.”
She laughed. It was so easy to be with him, so simple and comforting. With Jacob, she always felt like she was walking blindfolded, always taking a misstep with him.
“What are you thinking?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Just how different you and Jacob are.”
“Are we?”
“Surely.”
She watched him run an absent finger around the rim of a paint container.
“How?”
“What?” she asked.
“How are we different?”
“Well, you’re fun and cheerful, but you’ve got this whole other serious side to you in your art. And Jacob—Jacob’s like a storm, unpredictable, moving. I guess you’d know even better than me.”
“I know my brother; he’s part of my heart. But he can be distant as the munn. Sometimes too far away to touch.”
“Jah,” she agreed, her smile tight.
“But touch matters.”
His tone was level but she felt drawn by his words. It was as if he understood the struggles she had—her insecurities and her fears about whether she’d ever truly be able to be close to her husband.
But there was something else—a flash of intensity in his blue eyes—as he half turned from her.
She stepped closer to him, laying a hand on his white sleeve. “Seth?”
He drew a deep breath. “Don’t listen to me, Lilly. I think I’m half crazy. I love my brother.”
“Of course you do,” she soothed, watching him swallow, the strong line of his throat tan against his white collar.
“Of course I do. But he can be hurtful sometimes. Even if he doesn’t mean it.”
She sighed. “Well, jah, I guess you’re right about that.”
“Has he hurt you, Lilly?”
She had to turn away from him and blink at the sudden tears that filled her eyes, but she shook her head. “Nee.”
She felt him touch her shoulders gently. “Lilly?”
She wanted to turn at the tenderness in his voice, to press herself against him and cry for what she was—insecure, wounded, and second-best. But to allow herself even that comfort would be disloyal to Jacob, so she stood, frozen.
His hand stroked the length of her back, tangible warmth she could feel and trust.
“Ach, Seth,” she whispered in misery.
He moved, quick and fluid, to encircle her with his long arms and to press her against his chest. She heard his heartbeat and smelled the fresh cotton of his shirt as he reached his hand to find and soothe the tenseness at the back of her neck.
“I thought I could do it,” she sobbed after a moment.
“Do what?”
She felt him begin to rock her in his arms, his dark clad legs steady and sure.
“To accept it … you know? That Sarah was … is … his first love. But I can’t. He warned me the night of the engagement that it would be hard, but I didn’t listen and now—” She lifted her tearstained face to look at him and he bent his head to brush his mouth against her cheek.
“Shhh … Lilly, don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.”
She swallowed, feeling foolish that she’d been so happy one minute and had now turned into a watering pot. “I’m sorry, Seth.” She sniffed and would have drawn back when Jacob’s voice arrested her from the doorway.
“Hiya. Do I interrupt?”