She’d long since stopped trying to call the man Daet. They’d agreed together that she could simply call him by his first name after she got married. It was more comfortable for both of them.
Joseph reined in the horse, and for a moment he just sat unmoving, his shoulders slumped. Then he seemed to rouse himself, and he slowly descended from the buggy. He had a little paper bag in one hand that he carried almost gingerly. Her stepfather had never, in all her adult years, come to visit her. Not alone. He’d come with her mother and would sit quietly with a cup of coffee while her mother would do the visiting for both of them.
But Joseph never came alone. Delia’s heartbeat sped up. Was it bad news?
Her mother, Linda, had come to visit just the week before and had told her that she thought Joseph was getting more difficult as he got older. He was pickier and being critical. Linda didn’t like to complain, and she hadn’t given any details, but Delia couldn’t help but wonder what would bring her stepfather over.
She headed for the door and opened it, waiting while Joseph put a bucket of water and some feed within the horse’s reach. He paused with a hand on the animal’s neck, then he turned toward the house and gave Delia a somber look.
“Joseph?” she said. “Is everything all right?”
He didn’t answer, but he did cock his head to one side. “For the moment, I suppose it is. But I think we should talk.”
Joseph stopped at the steps, and he looked at her uncertainly. Joseph had never seemed terribly comfortable around Delia. He’d become her stepfather when she was fourteen, and that might have something to do with it. Fourteen-year-old girls could be terrifying in their own right. But Delia was well past the age of teenage angst.
“Is Mamm all right?” she asked.
“Can I come in, Delia?” he asked gently. That wasn’t an answer.
“Of course.” She stood back, and Joseph plodded up the steps, the little paper bag held in front of him as if it contained a snake. He stepped out of his boots, then handed the bag over to her.
“For me?” she asked.
“Sort of. Your mother made those cookies.”
She looked inside the bag to see two big chocolate chip cookies. Her mother was an excellent baker, and she smiled. It was just like Mamm to send along a little gift, although she still wondered why her mother hadn’t come along for this visit.
“Danke, Joseph.”
Joseph just eyed her.
“Take a bite,” he said.
“Now? I thought I’d save them for—” But there was something in his expression that made her stop. “What’s going on?”
“Just...taste it,” he said.
Delia reached in for a cookie and took one small bite, and the overwhelming taste of salt touched her tongue. She immediately spit the bite of cookie back into the bag.
“Oh!” she gasped.
“It’s not the first time. Or the second, either,” Joseph said. “This is about the fifth time she’s mixed up the salt and sugar.”
Her mother had said that her husband was getting critical...but this did seem odd.
“Is it the containers?”
“No, the salt is in a box of table salt. The sugar is in a bag of sugar.” He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “I’m not here to complain about your mamm’s cooking, Delia. I’m here to tell you that I think something’s very wrong.”
And Joseph began to talk about his life with Linda. He told Delia about how she’d started to forget to start supper, and how she’d been stumped when it came to tallying up a row of numbers—something she’d always been very good at. She’d claimed she was tired, and she had every right to be! Some days were better and she was the same old Linda, and her mind was sharp, but other days she’d started mixing up ingredients when she cooked—badly mixing up ingredients. She’d made bread without yeast and rhubarb pie without sugar. She’d bought five large bags of flour—one after another—because she forgot she had flour at home. She’d taken money out of the bank account and forgotten why. He’d found a stash of bills inside the cutlery drawer after a check bounced.
“But I saw her last week,” Delia said. “And she seemed...fine! She came by for tea.”
Linda had seemed like her normal self, but she’d been openly irritated with Joseph, and it wasn’t like an Amish woman to complain about her husband. It wasn’t done.
“I know,” Joseph said. “That was a good day. Like I said, not all of her days are bad ones. But the bad ones are getting more plentiful.”
“What could be happening?” Delia asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk to anyone else, because it would hurt her feelings to know I talked about her private weaknesses behind her back. So I came to you. She can’t be angry if I only talked to you, can she?”
And he honestly seemed to be asking if she could indeed be mad at him. Her heart went out to the older man.
“She should see a doctor,” Delia said. That was the only answer.
“I agree. But she won’t go.”
“Won’t?” Delia shook her head. “Why?”
“She says she’s fine. She doesn’t think she’s all that forgetful, and she gets angry at me when I suggest it. It’s become a point of contention between us, and I’ve prided myself on never causing your mamm a day of grief, but she’s been angry with me a lot lately.”
“Yah...” She knew that to be true.
“I think you should know that I’m not being difficult with her. I don’t know what she’s told you. I’m taking care of the chores, and I’m not complaining when the food is wrong. But once last week she left the chicken out overnight and she was furious with me for not eating it. We had to throw it out...we’d have gotten food poisoning otherwise, but she didn’t remember leaving it out, you see. And I can’t always just keep her happy.”
“No, of course not, Joseph. I didn’t know this was happening! If I’d known...”
But if Delia had known, then what? She was running a flower farm, raising four boys on her own and keeping everything running. The thought of one more problem on her plate made her want to sit down and just cry. Joseph seemed to see the look on her face, because he cleared his throat uncomfortably and shifted in his seat.
