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“She does, huh?”
“Depends on which horse is most important, I guess—Leah or your wheat field. ‘Wheat cannot love you back’ is the way Jeanne put it.”
“Ah, hell, Wash. I’ve wanted to try wheat for years. Trouble is, it got so important that I—well, I guess I paid more attention to my field than my wife.”
Wash snorted. “Maybe you are loco! Now you’ve gotta decide whether to cut and run…or stay and fight.” He slapped the fence rail. “What’s it gonna be?”
Thad bit his lower lip. “Wish I knew.”
“Kinda chancey, ridin’ two horses in the same race, isn’t it?”
Thad glanced away from his friend’s piercing gaze. “Yeah. Seems like I’m doin’ it all wrong. Maybe Jeanne’s right. I put my money on the wrong—”
“Hold on a minute, Thad. It happens I don’t agree with Jeanne. I think both the wheat and your wife are important, so I say a man has to put his money on both of them. And then pray like hell.”
Thad said nothing, just looked out across the fenced pasture land.
“That’s why you want the plow horse, isn’t it? You’re giving up.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to see things clearer now. I’d—I’d rather lose the wheat than lose Leah. And…”
Wash pivoted and put his spine against the fence. “And?”
“And…” Thad groaned. “And I hope like hell it’s not too late.”
Wash nodded. “Want to know what else Jeanne thinks?”
No, he didn’t really want to know. But Wash was already speaking.
“Jeanne thinks a lot of your wife, Thad. And knowing Jeanne, that’s saying something. She says Leah is not made of fluff. Leah has a lot more courage and toughness inside than shows on the outside.”
“That she does,” Thad muttered.
“I think you both have guts to do what you’ve done, and that includes getting married.”
“It didn’t take guts for me, Wash. I liked her from the start.”
Wash blew out his breath in a sigh. “Maybe. But it takes even more guts to make things work out in a marriage.” He clapped Thad on the shoulder. “I’ll bring the plow horse over tomorrow.”
Thad mounted and rode on down the lane. The last thing he wanted to do was give up on anything; it went against everything he lived by. But right now his back was against the wall. He hated the thought of plowing his wheat under. But when he thought about losing Leah…
He took the long way home to give himself time to think things through. On his way through town he stopped in to check on Uncle Charlie.
“How Niece Leah?” Charlie took one look at Thad’s face and propped his hands at his ample waist. “Better question, how Niece Leah’s husband? Look like fighting dragons.”
Worse than dragons, Thad acknowledged. He was fighting himself.
Leah pumped the last dribble of water from the sink spout into the teakettle and set it on the stove. It was too hot to stay indoors, waiting for her tea, so she stepped through the back door screen and picked up the two buckets of water she’d saved from the washing.
Lugging one in each hand, she walked out to her kitchen garden and plunked them down without sloshing at one end of a row of withered carrot tops. The bush beans climbing on the lath structure she and Teddy had built looked droopy, and the small yellow squash sheltered under the spreading green leaves hadn’t grown an inch since she last looked. She had planted potatoes, as well, but the aboveground foliage had not yet sprouted.
The beets and radishes, even the turnip tops, were wilting, but if she waited to water until evening, when it was cooler, she’d lose them all. It would be an uphill battle to save them, but she had to try. Once she decided something was worth saving, she never gave up.
A voice nagged in her brain. Did that apply to Thad, as well? her feelings of happiness with him and hope for their future together were withering, just like her vegetables.
A single question rang over and over in her head: What should I do?
She dribbled another scant cup of wash water onto the row of radishes, then sat back to assess the entire plot.
Everything was dying. Even her heartbeat, inside her tightening chest, was sluggish.
Again she dipped the tin cup into the pail and portioned out the life-giving water, until her temples began to pound under the violent sun overhead. What should I do? What should I do?
What did she want for herself in this life? Long ago in China, Father and Mother had decided they wanted each other. For the rest of their lives the two of them had struggled, shunned by her mother’s family but unable to desert Father’s Christian mission. Still, they had found joy in being together and in raising Leah. But how difficult it must have been.
