73. Viola
Viola
My visit to Harmony Lake passed quickly. I spent most days at the building site, answered minor questions, and marveled as my house grew into a home. A few rainy, blustery days kept me indoors, and even Beth admitted I showed improvement when I helped out with the household chores.
One day, as I returned from the building site, I heard hammering inside the hay shed and went to investigate.
When I opened the door, Jacob called, “Out with you. No snooping.”
My eyes hadn’t adjusted enough to see what he was doing before he popped his handsome face through the gap in the door and blocked my view.
“What’re you up to?”
“Patience. I’m working on a surprise.”
I went up on tiptoe and brushed his lips with mine.
He kissed me thoroughly, but he wouldn’t let me peek in the shed.
When he wasn’t hammering away at his mysterious project, Jacob spent hours at the kitchen table working on his column.
I spent hours watching him while writing a few letters of my own.
When his pen paused, he stared out the window until he found what he was searching for, then his pen would spring back into motion, scratching lightly across the page.
After repeated urging and a little pouting, he let me read the columns he would send home with me.
In the warmth of the kitchen, I placed the final paper on the stack. “I keep worrying that I’ll read one and not love it as much as the others. But no—all amazing. How do you do it?”
“It pulls together things I’ve always enjoyed and wanted in a way I never imagined,” he said. “I’m trying not to get all puffed up and insufferable, but I’m proud of it.”
“As your number one fan, trust me when I say you have much to be proud of.”
He leaned his elbows onto the table and said, “As your number one fan, don’t take this the wrong way, but your falling off that train was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
My breath caught. We sat where we had shared so many meals—so many important moments in my life…
“Because of your column?”
He lowered his voice. “Maybe one percent because of my column.”
Warmth started in my chest and grew until it filled me to bursting. I leaned onto the smooth table and held his gaze. “And the other ninety-nine percent?”
He reached over to hold my hand and winked.
I laughed, and it contained such a burst of joy that Mrs. Jensen paused in her vegetable chopping to peek over at us with a warm smile.
I thought of all Mrs. Newman had said about falling in love. Compared to those first inklings of my love for Jacob, this, here, now, was so much more. Even though I had fought against it.
The times Jacob and I spent on the couch before bed, talking, planning, snuggling, and of course kissing, were the best of my life. No regrets. I was convinced. Father would be thrilled.
I didn’t say the words out loud, but I’d stopped fighting the idea and started planning for a time when I would say what was in my heart.
Soon after I departed for Chicago, Jacob would head out on another trip, a new adventure during which he hoped to gather enough material to fill his columns for many months to come. Knowing this made it easier for me to face leaving Harmony Lake.
It would be goodbye, but not forever.