A Surprise from Dorcas

Phoebe was deadheading zinnias in the front flower bed the next afternoon when Andrew’s convertible glided into the driveway. He leapt from the driver’s side and crossed in front of the vehicle to come talk to her, then returned to his car to retrieve a paperback from the passenger seat.

“I need another one,” he said, handing it to her. “This one really picked up once I got into it. By the time Renee finally went to the hairstylist, I was hooked. Now I kind of want to go back and read some of the philosophy she and Paloma were into, but I think I’ll stick with fiction for now.”

“Well, Renee and Ozu connected over Anna Karenina, but I don’t want to let go of my new translation of that one just yet,” Phoebe said. Then she grinned, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, I have something perfect for you! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. It’s slow at first, too, but then it blooms. And,” she said, looking pleased with herself, “it’s about a barber.”

“Really?” he exclaimed. “Will you be here when I get back with Beatriz and the kids?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, “but I’ll leave it on the kitchen counter before I go see Dorcas. If I’m not back, just help yourself.”

“Thanks!” he said. “Shall I set this one inside now?”

“Just leave it on the stoop. I’ll be going inside in a minute,” she said, turning back to the flowers. “Have fun. It’s a beautiful day for a drive.”

“’Sure is!” he called, heading back toward the driveway and around the side of the house. Phoebe soon heard Rafael, chattering in excitement, and then Andrew’s and Beatriz’ more measured tones as they came up from the apartment. Beatriz was holding Irene’s hand.

“My car’s unlocked,” Phoebe told them, but Andrew had already reached inside the back to grab one of the children’s boosters.

“Phoebe, we’re going to see some farms,” Rafael informed her. “And then we’re going to Andrew’s house to wash his car.”

“Cows!” Irene said, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh, what fun!” Phoebe said. “Will you moo at them for me?”

Irene giggled.

“Let me hear you practice,” Phoebe coaxed, but Irene just beamed at her, silent.

“How’s your mouth, Rafael?” Phoebe asked, turning back to the boy. Using his right forefinger, he tugged at his lower lip, which had healed nicely. While she listened to him tell about the mouse who had come for his baby tooth, Phoebe was conscious of Andrew’s struggle to secure both boosters in his car’s backseat.

“Finally!” he said, straightening up and rubbing his lower back. “Let’s hit the road!”

The children left Phoebe’s side to scramble into the car, and Beatriz checked their boosters before sliding into the front passenger seat. Phoebe thought she looked pale, but she nevertheless seemed almost as ebullient as her children. All three Ramirezes waved wildly at Phoebe as Andrew backed the car out of the driveway and headed toward the edge of campus. Phoebe could see Beatriz laughing at something Andrew said. Her own heart swelled to see her friends savoring each other’s company. What was it, she mused, C.S. Lewis had observed about a third friend’s capacity to make a pair of friends even more for each other?

She had wondered when Andrew started working at the SSLC whether he would find many friends in such a setting. He’d always been restless, Cora had informed Phoebe. “I can’t figure him out!” she’d fretted soon after Andrew’s arrival. “I’m glad he’s come home, but how on earth will he ever be satisfied cutting hair in a retirement community? And a town this size offers no night life. He’ll have to drive to D.C. to have anything close to the L.A. scene.” Cora had said she’d always expected Andrew to end up on the West Coast. He’d left the Valley right after high school, first for San Francisco and then down to Los Angeles, where he’d risen to a level of professional success that dazzled even his most disapproving Virginia relations. Cora, however, had always approved of Andrew. She often told Phoebe so.

“Maybe he’s ready to settle down here,” Phoebe had speculated.

Cora looked at her over the top of turquoise-framed spectacles. “I don’t think so. He’s been in a relationship out there for quite a while. Maybe they need some time apart, but I’m hoping for a reconciliation.”

No reconciliation came, and, aside from a few brief trips back, Andrew had made do without anything approaching the L.A. scene, at least as far as Phoebe knew. He’d gone several times to D.C., but his most recent visits had been to museum exhibit openings to which he had invited Phoebe, and he never complained about the limited local social or employment opportunities. Still, Phoebe agreed that he seemed restless, even if not exactly in the way Cora had hinted.

As she watched him getting to know the Ramirezes, however, Phoebe began to wonder whether his restlessness might be loneliness. He had a pack of nieces and nephews, and he had returned to the Eberly family fold at least for holiday gatherings, but he had nevertheless told Phoebe that he still didn’t quite feel as if he fit in. As they’d sat late one night at the table in dining area at the front of her house, assembling an outrageously difficult jigsaw puzzle, he’d lifted a piece and mused, “It’s as if my spot closed up, somehow. Cora keeps trying to cram me back in, but I guess I was just gone too long.”

Phoebe guessed that more than time was involved, but she had just listened, nodding. Now, though, she relished watching him build friendships with her downstairs neighbors, who needed some kind of extended family even more than he did.

Rafael was doing pretty well, Phoebe thought: playing hard, smiling often, receiving approving reports from his teacher. She used to worry that he wasn’t getting enough intellectual stimulation at the babysitter’s house, but since kindergarten and now in first grade, he was making steady strides. Irene, too, appeared cheerful, but she was barely talking. The speech delay concerned Phoebe, but she didn’t know how to broach the subject with Beatriz. She sensed that Beatriz regretted having to spend so much away time from her children, but what were her options? The poultry industry was the area’s best source of employment for immigrants—Beatriz’ reason for coming to the Valley in the first place. Of course, her English was good enough now to give her more options, but Phoebe suspected that she lacked the confidence—and the time—to explore other job possibilities. The plant where she worked did provide a predictable schedule and medical insurance. And someone in human resources there had urged Beatriz to inquire about Watson-Wentworth’s early-intervention preschool program. Irene had enrolled just a few weeks ago; maybe she would out-chatter Rafael before long.

Having finished the gardening tasks she’d set for herself, Phoebe picked the paperback up from the stoop and headed indoors. Her day had been full: she’d cycled to the farmers’ market first thing, then taken Professor Marceau the library books and him and Dorcas each one of Miriam’s freshly baked cinnamon buns. Afterward, she’d worked for a couple of hours in the Schleitheim library on a Sunday school lesson series she was writing for the denominational publishing house. Stephanie had accompanied her home from the library, where she’d been laboring over a project of her own, and they’d eaten tuna fish salad sandwiches before cycling to the college tennis courts. Now, remembering her victory, Phoebe smiled a little in satisfaction—despite some soreness in her right arm. Both she and Stephanie had been breathless by the game’s end, but the older woman had won, if only by a point. A minor flare-up of her tennis elbow was a small price to pay for the triumph.

“What’s your secret?” Stephanie had asked, openly admiring.

“How does an old lady clean a young lady’s clock?” Phoebe teased, zipping her racquet into its cover.

“You didn’t clean my clock!” Stephanie protested.

“I know,” Phoebe acknowledged. “I was lucky.”

“No, you are good,” Stephanie insisted. “You just didn’t quite clean my clock.”

“You’ll pass me soon enough,” Phoebe said. “But for now, I’m just glad to be able to keep playing. If I have a secret, it’s that: keep moving.”

“I intend to,” Stephanie assured her. “I wish my grandma had stayed active over the years. I love her dearly, but you’re my role model for senior fitness.”

Phoebe nodded appreciatively. “I try to do what you’re doing, Stephanie—watch different women and glean from each. I realized pretty early that my mom, as admirable as she was, couldn’t exemplify everything I needed. I started looking to other mature women for examples, and now I look to younger women, too.” She smiled. “Including you.”

Stephanie, pushing her sweaty spectacles up on her nose, looked both shocked and delighted. “Really? For what?”

“Confidence, for starters,” Phoebe told her. “You don’t appear to be afraid to try anything.”

Stephanie looked at her in disbelief. “Well, neither do you!”

Phoebe chuckled. “See? You don’t deny it.” She lowered her voice to a melodramatic whisper, “As for me, I’m faking it.”

Stephanie laughed back at her. “You’re doing a fine job, Phoebe. I never would have guessed.” Then, turning serious, she asked sympathetically, “What are you afraid of?”

Phoebe shrugged. “I don’t know. Fewer things, as time goes by, but still of what some people think. Some journeys are life-long.”

Stephanie nodded emphatically. “Oh, yeah. I may only be twenty, but I’ve walked in this world long enough to witness that.” She opened the tennis court gate, holding it for Phoebe. “I’m just glad I get to travel alongside you for a while.”

“Me, too,” Phoebe said.

Now, entering her shadowy living room, she marveled at the blessing of living alongside college students. Whatever the newspapers reported about Generation Y or Z or whoever they were, Stephanie and Brittainy and Rachel and—now maybe Noura—were excellent friend material. If she caved in to Don Rutt’s pressure and moved from her house at the heart of Schleitheim’s campus, would she ever have the kind of relationships she now enjoyed?

As if on cue, Brittainy called through the open front door. “Hi, Phoebe!” She and Brian were coming down the sidewalk, looking tired but happy. Phoebe glimpsed their bicycles lying in the grass at the edge of her yard.

“Hi, you two,” Phoebe replied, opening the door for them. “Come in!”

“I’m here for my laundry,” Brittainy explained, her face flushed. “I definitely need those clean clothes after the day we’ve had.”

“She gave me a run for my money,” Brian told Phoebe. Damp-looking dark curls edged out from under the red bandana knotted around his head. “We went all the way to Shank’s Knob.”

Phoebe was impressed. “That’s out in my neck of the woods,” she observed. “Did you see many other cyclists?”

“A few,” Brian acknowledged. “Some buggies, too,” he said with a grin. “I can’t get over that!” Having come to Schleitheim from northern Virginia, Brian—like so many other non-Mennonite students—marveled at the Valley’s peculiarities. He liked them, though, he’d told Phoebe when Brittainy had brought him to meet her a month earlier.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Phoebe offered. “Or some ice water?”

“No, thanks,” Brittainy said. “We’ve been chugging water all day. Now I’d better get home and do a little homework if we’re going to watch a movie later.” She spotted her laundry basket by the door where Phoebe had placed it earlier in the day. “Thanks so much, Phoebe.”

“Are you going to take it home on your bike?” Phoebe marveled.

“Sure,” Brittainy said airily. “Bungee cords!” Brian held the door for her. “I’ll see you at church tomorrow.”

“Great!” Phoebe said, following them out onto the front step.

“I’ll be there, too,” Brian announced.

“Greater!” Phoebe repeated. Then, mischievously, “It’s about time!”
He laughed good-naturedly, waiting while Brittainy secured the basket onto a little shelf on the back of her bike. Phoebe waved as they pedaled down the street toward the residence halls.

After their departure, Phoebe shelved the book Andrew had borrowed and then cleaned the kitchen and downstairs bathroom as Ravel blared from the stereo. Thomas and Ruth had left her quite an L.P. collection, and she had worked and re-worked her way through it alphabetically. She still regretted having bypassed Schleitheim’s music appreciation course but told herself she might yet audit it. Or astronomy. Anyone over sixty could audit classes at no charge; Phoebe had just never had time.

She forced herself to dust upstairs and down and then irritated Eutychus by vacuuming. “I’m not chasing you on purpose,” she informed him over the machine’s roar as he shot out from under her bed. He escaped her pursuit by racing to the living room windowsill, where she spied him when she returned the vacuum cleaner to its closet. She was perspiring a little and decided to skip vacuuming upstairs for her elbow’s sake.

“Okay,” she called as she headed to the kitchen. “The house is yours again, and supper will be ready in a minute.” After filling his dish, changing his water, and washing her hands, she opened one of the cartons of Miriam’s soup she’d bought that morning. Even cold from the fridge, its fragrance compelled her to taste. Butternut squash. “Delicious!” she thought, licking a dab from her forefinger. While a mugful warmed in the microwave, she sliced and buttered a crunchy heel from a fresh loaf of bread. After praying, she ate quickly, leafing through the latest issue of The Mennonite World Review, and then washed her mug and plate. She started outdoors but remembered her offer of the book for Andrew, so she retrieved it from a tall bookshelf in the dining room and left it on the kitchen counter. Not bothering to lock the door, she descended and retrieved her bike from under the outdoor stairs. Putting the MWR in the bike basket, she pedaled across campus in the cooling evening.

Dorcas was dozing when she arrived, looking more peaceful than Phoebe expected. Her older sister had been all angles for as long as Phoebe could remember, but suddenly, or so it seemed, her cheeks had rounded. Even her chin looked less sharp, cradled by a fold of soft flesh as it drooped toward her chest. Phoebe felt a surprising tenderness as she watched her sister sleep—and then embarrassment when her eyelids flew open.

“I feel… you looking…at me,” Dorcas said. Her speech was halting but easy enough to understand.

“Yes,” Phoebe replied, cautious. She wanted to exclaim, “You’re talking, Dorcas!”—but her astonishment was akin to that she experienced when hummingbirds hovered at her front-yard feeder. She held her breath, hoping her sister would speak again.

“You always watched me,” Dorcas continued.

“You’re my big sister,” Phoebe said lightly.

“Yes,” Dorcas acknowledged. “What do you see now?”

Phoebe tried to look objectively and then chose her words carefully. “I think you’re looking stronger than you have in a long time.” She paused. “Maybe ever.”

Dorcas closed her eyes again, smiling slightly.

“Have you eaten yet?” Phoebe asked.

Dorcas nodded.

“Shall I brush your hair now?”

She nodded again. Phoebe moved behind her, taking the pins from her hair.

“I’ve had quite a busy day,” Phoebe said, and then recounted her activities. Dorcas just listened, as usual, but their ritual somehow felt more companionable than before. Phoebe tried to ignore the twinge in her arm as she brushed. “I brought you the MWR,” she said, fastening an elastic band around her sister’s thin braid. “There’s a nice article about plans to expand the relief sale. Would you like me to read it to you?”

Again, Dorcas nodded, so Phoebe sat to read the piece and a few other items from the denominational publication. She suspected some of the Mennonite World Review articles she wasn’t sharing would stir Dorcas’ ire.

Phoebe stood to leave when the night aide arrived with a wheelchair, ready to help Dorcas prepare for bed.

“Mary Ann!” she exclaimed. “How are you?” The sturdy, freckled young woman had come with Rachel to Bible study the previous year, but Phoebe hadn’t seen her at all this fall.

“I’m fine, Phoebe,” she replied, “but I ran out of tuition money. I decided to work full-time this semester.”

Phoebe nodded in sympathy. “That sounds wise,” she said. “School debt can be a terrible burden. Take your time. Meanwhile, folks like my sister benefit from your attention.”

“I sure hope so,” Mary Ann said, turning to Dorcas. “Miss Lied, would you like to go to the bathroom?”

Phoebe quickly moved to her sister’s side and bent to kiss her cheek. “I’ll get out of the way,” she said, “but I’ll see you tomorrow. You take care, Mary Ann.”

“You, too,” Mary Ann responded.

As she headed for the door, she heard Mary Ann say, “I brought the wheelchair, but I’d be glad to go get a walker if you’re feeling strong enough to try walking again.”

“Oh, my,” Phoebe thought. What other surprises might Dorcas have in store for her?