Chapter 7
You can do this.
Sei so gut, Gott.
Help me do this.
The rain a fine cooling mist on his face, Elijah clomped up the steps to the auction platform.
Like a man facing his executioners, he turned in seemingly slow motion to face the sea of people clothed in raincoats and muddy boots, some hidden behind umbrellas.
It wouldn’t be a mud sale without mud.
Holding fundraising auctions in April invited people to spend the day in the rain.
Meaningless details captured his mind and wouldn’t let go. An English woman’s bright pink boots. A polka-dotted rain poncho. Baby strollers with attached umbrellas. A man sipping a tall coffee shop drink. Plain twins seated on the bleachers eating plates of grilled chicken, potatoes and gravy, noodles, bread, and strawberry shortcake.
His stomach turned at the thought of food.
His breakfast of sausage and biscuits threatened to reappear.
No, not in front of this crowd.
The crush of folks grew with every passing moment.
The chatter rose and surrounded Elijah.
The household goods and furniture portion of this mud-sale auction was about to begin.
You can do this.
If Grandpa, Dad, Toby, Jason, and Declan could do it, so could Elijah.
Three generations of Miller men were auctioneers.
The auctioneering school instructor, who always appeared as cool as a snow cone, like he’d never had an iota of stage fright in his life, had briskly suggested picking a focal point in the back of the room or crowd and “flinging your fear at it.”
At the moment, Elijah’s fear weighed more than a team of Percheron horses.
There was no flinging it anywhere.
All Elijah had to do was pick up the microphone.
He’d rather take Jason’s place in the hospital, recovering from surgery to remove a burst appendix, in pain, and being pumped full of antibiotics to treat something called peritonitis that could kill him if not treated.
No such luck.
Elijah glanced up at the dour sky.
Gray clouds hung low.
A cold wind whipped rain droplets across his cheeks.
Just enough to get him wet.
Not enough to cancel the auction. Gott, now would be a gut time to send a deluge, sei so gut.
“Are you ready?”
Dillon Lapp clapped Elijah on the shoulder as he walked by, headed toward the platform corner where he’d be spotting bids.
He seemed thrilled to have accepted Toby’s offer to serve as a spotter while the Millers were shorthanded.
Toby being his brother-in-law probably helped.
“The crowd sure is.
They’re chomping at the bit.”
“Jah.”
The single syllable likely didn’t reach Dillon’s ears.
Elijah’s mouth was too dry to repeat it.
Yet his hands were slick with sweat despite being icy cold.
His heart clanged in a rib-bruising beat.
Any minute it would break through bone, muscle, and skin, and flee. Any second his knees would give out and he’d sink to the floor. Elijah closed his eyes and tried to summon his instructor’s words.
“The more you focus on not making a mistake or embarrassing yourself, the more likely you are to crack under pressure and do just that.
Focus on your intention.”
His intention was to call the auction to the best of his ability.
“Loosen up.
Do a dance.
Shake out your muscles.
Breathe mindfully.”
Not helping.
Elijah tried to summon the cadence he’d learned more than five years ago.
A cadence he’d heard thousands of times growing up.
Most of the other students only had the benefit of eight days of class, eighty-three hours of instruction.
Not Elijah.
He had a lifetime of on-the-job training.
Who’ll give me $10? Bid 10.
10.
10.
Bid.
Now 15. 15. Got 15. Bid. Now 20. Bid 20.
That was it.
Elijah reached for the microphone.
His jaw muscles ached.
How would he unlock them enough to open his mouth? The microphone was in his hand.
It slipped from his fingers.
“I’ve got it.”
His expression puzzled, Dillon materialized next to Elijah.
He scooped up the mic and held it out.
“You’re a Miller.
You’ve got this.
Remember, it’s for a gut cause. Do it for the volunteer firefighters. They need new equipment.”
If only it were that simple.
Knowing that the fire department received a percentage of the proceeds from the consignment auction, however worthy, didn’t help in the least.
“You’re a Miller.”
That didn’t help either.
Maybe Elijah was adopted.
Maybe Mom and Dad didn’t want to tell him.
This time he tightened his grip.
He stared out over the vast crowd, so vast it seemed never-ending.
Thousands upon thousands of people.
It couldn’t be that many, could it?
His stomach cramped.
Sei so gut, Gott, don’t let me vomit in front of all these people.
The murmuring died away.
Faces stared up at him.
Waiting.
Expectant.
Start.
Just start.
Just open your mouth.
Elijah pried his mouth open.
No sound came out.
He stared down at the mic in his hand.
How had it gotten there? His entire body was encased in ice.
An iron belt tightened around his chest. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“Elijah.”
Bony, age-spotted hands took the microphone from his.
He looked into his grandfather’s eyes, still sharp and steely blue behind thick, dark-rimmed glasses. “Daadi.”
“I’ve got this.
You go on, now.”
The ice melted.
His heart beat again.
“Es dutt mer,”
he whispered.
“No need, and, Enkel, head up, shoulders back.”
In other words, this wasn’t shameful.
If only he were right.
Grandpa turned and faced the crowd.
“My grandson has a touch of the stage fright.
Let’s give him a hand, show him he’s got no worries.”
And they did.
A big round of applause echoed around Elijah as he forced himself to walk slowly down the steps.
Fiery heat singed his face and neck.
He didn’t deserve applause.
He’d failed. He’d let down Grandpa, Dad, and his brothers.
The crowd parted for Elijah.
A hulking man in gray overalls, a red bandanna around his neck, clapped Elijah on the back with a heavy hand.
“You’ll get it next time.”
“No worries,”
his companion hollered.
“Your gramps needed a workout.”
Elijah managed a jerky nod.
Grandpa was retired.
The last thing he needed was a workout.
He gritted his teeth and plowed forward.
His boots threatened to stick in the mud.
Muck, muck, a sucking sound loud in his ears.
The crowd faded into a sea of blurry faces, mostly strangers.
For that he was thankful. Finally he made it to the enormous canopy where the auction items were inventoried and prepared for sale. He stumbled to the far end, behind a curio cabinet. There he vomited the breakfast Grandpa had insisted he eat at daybreak into wispy spring grass.
Danki, Gott, for answering my prayer not to hurl in front of a bunch of people.
He didn’t dare blame God for his shortcomings.
Or question why God chose to answer one prayer but not others—at least not the way Elijah had wanted.
If it was part of a bigger plan, why not let Elijah in on it?
He must seem so prideful, so full of himself.
Es dutt mer, Gott.
Why am I like this? Why can’t I do it?
“Feel better?”
The gravelly whisper was unmistakable. Declan.
Elijah straightened.
He wiped his mouth and turned. “Nee.”
Declan held out an oversize travel bottle.
“Danki.”
Elijah took it, drank, swished the water around in his mouth, and spit.
“What are you doing here?”
“Took the day off from the nursery.”
Declan rubbed his throat.
He did that sometimes, as if it still hurt even though it had been more than a year since he finished treatment for the cancer that had partially destroyed his voice box.
“In case you needed more hands.”
Hands, not voices.
Cancer had taken Declan’s beloved occupation as an auctioneer, but he never complained—at least not to Elijah.
Did he think about how unfair it was that Elijah had the ability to call an auction but didn’t do it? Couldn’t do it? “Es dutt mer.”
“Sorry for what?”
“You wanted nothing more than to be an auctioneer.
Now you can’t, and I’m too much of a coward.”
Declan’s expression darkened.
He shook his head.
“Don’t ever let me hear you say that again.”
“It’s true.”
“Nee.
There’s a difference between being shy and being a coward.
Not everyone is cut out for the spotlight.
In fact, the bishop would remind you we’re not to seek the limelight.
We’re to avoid it.”
“The Gmay has made an exception for auctioneers for gut reasons.
And that’s not the issue.
The issue here is that my family needs my help.
I should step up and help, whether I like it or not.”
Declan eased onto a glider rocker covered with plastic that crinkled under his weight.
“So you’re going to throw up your hands and have a pity party?”
“Nee.
I tried.
I really tried.”
“I saw you trying.
Daadi and Toby and Emmett, we all saw you trying.
That’s all a person can ask, that you try.
If it’s not in your wheelhouse, so be it.”
Elijah heaved a breath.
Bile burned his throat.
He sucked down more water.
“That’s not the way Dat sees it.”
“Dat seems to forget he’s the one who refused to admit he couldn’t read until Toby finally pulled it out of him.”
Declan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“We all have our stuff we need to work on.”
“You don’t think it’s unfair that I have the voice to call auction but not the personality?”
Elijah pulled up a three-legged pine stool and sat across from Declan.
“While you have everything an auctioneer needs except the voice?”
“You know what they say about fair.”
“I do.
It’s stupid.
I just don’t know how else to say it.”
Elijah contemplated his younger brother.
He’d never looked healthier with his light spring tan, his solid build, and his face devoid of the dark circles and haggard lines brought on by the cancer treatment.
He still had to have CT scans and blood work every three months, but no one who didn’t know him would guess at his health challenges—until he started to talk.
“You should be calling auctions.
You loved being on the platform. You loved an audience. You loved telling jokes and teasing customers.”
That was an understatement.
Declan was a born comedian.
His smile held a trace of sadness.
“I also love Bethel and my bopli and running the nursery.
Not everyone gets to live to do these things. I’m blessed to still be here. I have no complaints.”
“Really? None?”
“Do I miss the microphone and my smooth-as-a-bopli’s-behind vocals? I do.”
He cleared his throat and rubbed it some more.
“But cancer teaches a person to focus on the good in the here and now, instead of stewing over the past and what might have been.
I’m alive.
I get to love my fraa and my suh.
That’s a blessing. Gott willing, there will be more boplin to love, more memories to make.”
The Millers’ world wouldn’t be the same without Declan’s bad jokes and sunny view of life.
Elijah stood and paced.
He pulled open the curio cabinet’s top drawer.
Nothing but a few specks of dust on a red felt interior.
He closed it. His family needed him. He’d let them down.
“Didn’t you ever question Gott’s will for you, even a little?”
Elijah lowered his voice as if whispering the words made them less heretical.
“Didn’t you ask Him why you had to give up calling auctions, why you had to go through the treatments and the not knowing and the fear of dying before you could marry Bethel and have a family?”
“I did.”
Declan’s gaze shifted over Elijah’s shoulder to some faraway place.
“But I learned Gott was the one I could depend on through it all.
Only Gott.
Whatever happened, whatever happens now.
It’s not over. With cancer it’s never over. It could come back. It could already be back. I have a CT scan in three weeks. I could be fine—until the next scan.”
“And you’d be okay with that?”
“Nee.
I’m not that stalwart a believer, much as I’d like to be.
But whatever happens, Gott will be there.”
Declan the clown had disappeared.
In his place sat a man who’d been honed by life’s experiences.
“Scripture says He holds my right hand.
I can rest in Him.”
It was the most serious conversation Elijah had ever had with Declan—or any of his brothers.
Any of his family.
Ever.
Why hadn’t he asked Declan how he felt when he was in the throes of the cancer treatment? Why hadn’t he offered Declan words of comfort?
Because it wasn’t their way.
Not the Plain way.
Not the way of men.
A multitude of excuses.
Or because Elijah didn’t have the words. Or the guts to say them. Such a shallow faith.
“It’s okay, Bruder.”
Declan laid his hand in the vicinity of his heart.
“I can see you beating yourself up from here.”
“I want to believe the way you do.
But I don’t.
When I prayed for Gott to help me just now on the platform, He didn’t answer.”
“Maybe He did, you just didn’t like the answer.”
“I don’t like that one either.”
“You’re honest.
Gott loves an honest man.”
Declan’s chuckle was rueful.
“All I know is, I can’t do it on my own.
I learned that from the cancer.
So what do you want to do now?”
A dull throb pulsed at Elijah’s temples.
His mouth tasted like sour milk.
He wanted to drive back to the farm, go to his workshop, and lose himself in making toys that gave children happiness.
“I want to call an auction.
Nee, that’s not right. I need to call an auction. I need to pull my own weight. I need your help.”
Declan’s mouth fell open and hung there.
“You’ll have flies in your innards if you don’t watch it.”
His brother closed his mouth.
“You want my help to call an auction?”
“If I don’t do this, I’ll always feel like a failure.”
Elijah knew how to call an auction.
What he didn’t know was how to overcome the fear that ensnared him every time he stood in front of more than two people.
“I know people see me as the other Miller brother, the one who’s afraid of his own shadow—”
“No one said anything about being afraid—”
“They may not say it, but they’re thinking it.
I’m the one who can’t make the grade.”
“Who cares what other people think?”
“I know, but I want to be the brother you can rely on when you need help—whatever the need is.”
Like now with Jason in the hospital fighting a life-threatening infection, Mom and Dad at his side.
“Will you help me?”
“I can try.”
Declan fingered his sandy-blond beard.
“We’ll need some mock audiences.”
“With our big family that shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Not our family.
That wouldn’t count.
But Bethel’s would, I reckon.”
Declan rubbed his hands together.
He stood.
“I guess I still have some pointers on how to get rid of the jitters.”
“It doesn’t involve imagining them with no clothes on, does it?”
One of the instructor’s suggestions—offered in jest.
“No way.
Daadi and Dat are in the audience—”
“And Toby’s fraa and yours.”
“And kinner.”
The laughter felt good.
But Elijah still had to face Dad.
And tell Bonnie he would have to postpone filling her order.
Bonnie.
Another person Elijah would have to face after the fiasco in the store the previous week.
The Lee’s Gulch grapevine’s efficiency also would make sure she heard about his performance on the platform today.
His heartbeat hitched at the thought.
Maybe Declan could teach him a thing or two about talking to women.
Especially pretty, smart, kind women who could take care of themselves.
“When do we start?”
“First things first.”
Declan picked up an inventory rundown on a clipboard and held it out.
“It’s all hands on deck.
We might not be calling, but we can still help.”
Elijah accepted the board and the challenge.
He squared his shoulders and led the way back into the fray.