I know I should be grateful they can smile, God, but a kind without a laugh seems wrong. You know what’s in their hearts. Help me find a way into them, too, so their laughter can be freed.
He understood why the youngsters might not trust Clara to release them from their promise not to laugh. They hardly knew her, though they seemed to like her.
And why wouldn’t they like her? She was gentle and showed an interest in what mattered to them, acting as if each toy they showed her was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. They wolfed down the food she put in front of them as if they hadn’t eaten since birth.
But that didn’t explain why the twins didn’t heed him. He’d loved them before they were born. They called him onkel, and they were as close to his heart as his true nieces and nephews. Why didn’t they trust him when he told them it was okay to laugh?
“I’ll give the girls a bath,” Clara said, “and checking behind ears sounds like a gut idea.” She took a single step toward him, then paused. “Are there two bathrooms in the house?”
“We’ll use the bathroom in the dawdi haus.” He took the boys’ hands. “Don’t worry. My sisters-in-law cleaned it yesterday, and I moved my stuff over there.”
“You’re staying in the dawdi haus?”
“Is that a problem?”
For a moment, he thought she was going to say ja, but she replied, “I assumed you would stay at your house.”
He let go of the boys’ hands and crossed the room so he could lower his voice to keep the kinder from overhearing. “Clara, you’ve got to understand. Melvin and Esta expected me to take care of their family, and I won’t let them down. When Daniel told me you’d agreed to come and help, I decided I’d use the dawdi haus. With the door between us and four very nosy chaperones—” He made a silly face at the twins who’d tiptoed over to listen.
Again they didn’t giggle, though they smiled. It seemed bizarre to have young kinder acting restrained.
“You think,” Clara finished for him, “that will keep tongues from wagging.”
“These are extraordinary circumstances as well as temporary ones. Everyone knows that. However, if you’re uncomfortable, I won’t ask you to stay.”
“Stay, Clara!” shouted Andrew, bouncing from one foot to the other. “You said we can make cookies tomorrow.”
“I can ask Mamm to come while we look for someone else,” Isaiah continued as if the little boy hadn’t spoken. “She planned to help, but she had a bout with pneumonia last month. She’s not completely recovered. That’s why my brothers and I thought it was better to hire someone.”
“You need my help, and I’m here.” She held out her hands to the girls. “Let’s get you fresh and clean.”
As she started to walk past him, Isaiah said, “Danki, Clara.” He pointed toward a door between the refrigerator and the stove. “Just so you know, the dawdi haus is through there. You’re welcome to use the downstairs bedroom by the bathroom.”
“I’m sorry to take it from you.”
“I didn’t use it.”
Her earth-brown eyes grew round. “Because it was where...” She glanced at the girls who were listening to every word. “It was where your friends slept?” She gave him a sad smile. “Aren’t there more bedrooms upstairs?”
“Ja, two, but they’re used for storage.”
“Is there a bed in one?”
“Ja, in both.”
“Then I’ll use the one close to the kinder’s bedroom door. I think it’d be better for me to be on the same floor with them.”
He glanced at the boys, who had gotten bored and were pulling blocks out of the toy box. “That’s a gut idea. I slept on the sofa, and I was up there most nights several times.”
“Nightmares?”
“Either that, or they couldn’t sleep.” He grimaced. “I hate that you’ll be taking care of them while I’m sleeping in the dawdi haus.”
“It’s what you’re paying me for.” She spoke the words without any emotion and walked with the girls toward the bathroom.
He wasn’t sure what he would have said if she hadn’t left him standing in the middle of the front room.
* * *
After he’d finished cleaning the puddles in the dawdi haus bathroom left by two little boys, Isaiah returned to the main house. He went upstairs and waited by the twins’ bedroom door. He said nothing as Clara finished reading a story. The kinder listened, rapt, to the tale of a naughty bunny who learned a lesson through misadventures. He held his breath each time a little one raised a hand to an eye. Each time, the kind was trying to rub away any sleep catching up with him or her before the charming story was over.
He forced his shoulders to relax. He needed to stop overreacting to everything the twins did, assuming their tears had to do with grief instead of a bumped knee and being sleepy. He needed to be more like Clara, who kept them entertained but allowed for quiet moments, as well. He could see he’d been winding them up tight in an effort to prevent them from thinking about their parents. He shouldn’t have been surprised they’d acted badly at his blacksmith’s shop.
Being too busy to think hadn’t worked for him either. No matter how many tasks he tried to concentrate on, he couldn’t forget the gigantic hole in his life. How many times in the past couple of weeks had he thought of something he wanted to tell Melvin? Each time, renewed anguish threatened to suffocate him.
“Do you want to komm in and say a prayer with us?” Clara called as she knelt with the kinder by one of the small beds.
Joining them, Isaiah listened to their young voices saying the prayer they spoke every night. Clara asked if they wanted to ask for God’s blessing on anyone special.
Andrew, always the leader, said, “Onkel Isaiah.”
“Clara,” added Nettie Mae, smiling at her.
But the smiles vanished when her twin said, “Mamm and Daed in heaven with You.”
The pressure of tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away as he lifted Ammon and set him on his bed before doing the same with Andrew. He tucked them in after they kissed him gut nacht. He turned to check on the girls. They were already beneath their covers, but he leaned over to collect kisses from them. All four insisted on giving Clara a kiss, too.
“Sleep well and have pretty dreams,” she said as she turned down the propane lamp so a faint glow came from it.
He walked out with her, and she left the door open a finger’s breadth. “That was a cute story,” he said. “The twins were enthralled, though they’ve probably heard it a dozen times.”
“No, they haven’t. I brought the book with me.” She glanced at the door, then followed him down the stairs. “I brought several along. Reading them a story that their mamm or daed read could be too painful for them.”
He relaxed his shoulders, letting some of his worry slide away. Maybe this would work out. Clara was tender with the kinder, thinking of their needs and trying to keep them from more pain.
He urged her to contact him if she needed anything, then said, “Gut nacht, Clara.”
“Gut nacht,” she replied before she went into the bathroom. She didn’t close the door, and he guessed she was gathering the wet towels left from the girls’ bath.
Going into the dawdi haus, he shut the door to the kitchen behind him. He faltered, then threw the sliding lock closed. Anyone seeing it would realize he and Clara intended on maintaining propriety.
Isaiah