Carrie Lighte - Anna's Forgotten Fiancé

Anna stared at her cousin, trying to make sense of the scenario. Then she began to giggle. “Oh, I understand! I’m dreaming!”

“Neh, neh,” Melinda contradicted, giving Anna’s skin a small pinch. “Feel that?”

Completely befuddled, Anna bent her arm across her face. First, she’d lost her boyfriend, then she’d lost her father, and now she feared she was losing her mind. It was simply too much to take in and she began to weep fully.

“You mustn’t cry,” Melinda cautioned. “The doctor said it wasn’t gut for you to become upset. We don’t want to have to take you back to the hospital.”

Melinda’s warning was enough to silence Anna’s weeping. “I don’t understand how two seasons could have passed without my knowing.” She sniffed.

“The doctors said it’s the nature of a head injury like yours. You may remember things from long ago, but not more recently. You’ve also been on strong medications for your headache and for hurting your backside when you fell, so even your hospital stay might be fuzzy.”

“It is,” Anna acknowledged. “And I don’t recall injuring myself. How did it happen?”

“You appear to have slipped on the bank by the creek, hitting your head on a rock,” Melinda replied. “Do you know what you may have been doing there? Or where you were going? It was early Tuesday morning.”

Anna tried to remember but her mind was as blank as the ceiling above. She shook her head and then grimaced from the motion.

“That’s okay,” Melinda said cheerfully. “How about telling me some of the more important events that you do remember?”

“My daed’s funeral,” Anna responded. “It was raining—a deluge of water—and then the rain turned to sleet and then to ice.”

She remembered because at the time she felt as if the unseasonably cold weather mirrored her emotions; a torrent of tears followed by a stark, frozen numbness that even the brightest sunshine couldn’t thaw.

“Jah, your daed died a year ago. Last March. What do you remember after that?”

Anna thought hard. The days, weeks and months after her dad’s sudden death from a heart attack were a blur to her even before her head injury. “I remember...your birthday party,” she said brightly.

“My eighteenth. Gut. That was in late August. Do you remember when I got baptized last fall?”

It felt wrong to admit she couldn’t recall Melinda making such an important commitment, but Anna said, “Neh. I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright. The doctor said your memory loss probably wouldn’t last long, especially if you’re at home, surrounded by familiar faces.”

“Well then, if that’s what it takes to cure me, I should get dressed and join the boys for breakfast,” Anna stated, although she would have preferred a few more moments of rest before joining her four stepbrothers downstairs. She slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

“They’ll be glad to know you’re well enough to rise,” Melinda remarked. “But it’s nearly time for supper, not breakfast. And the one who is most anxious to see you is your fiancé. He’ll stop in after work again, no doubt.”

“My fiancé?” Anna snorted. “But I broke up with Aaron after I caught you and him—I mean, Aaron is walking out with you now, isn’t he?”

“Jah, jah,” Melinda confirmed. Her cheeks were so red it appeared she was the one who had a fever. “You and Aaron broke up over a year ago. Last February, in fact.” She hung her head as if ashamed, before looking Anna in the eye again and clarifying, “I was referring to your new suitor. That is, to your fiancé, Fletcher. Fletcher Chupp, Aaron’s cousin from Ohio.”

“Fletcher?” Anna sputtered incredulously. “I’m quite certain I’m not acquainted with—much less engaged to—anyone by that name.”

* * *

Fletcher stooped to pick up a cordless drywall screw gun and a handful of screws that had fallen to the floor.

“Don’t forget to gather all of your tools before leaving the work site for the evening,” he reminded Roy and Raymond Keim, Anna’s stepbrothers.

“We won’t,” Roy responded. “But those aren’t ours—they’re Aaron’s. We didn’t know if he was coming back or not, so we didn’t dare to put them away.”

“Where has he gone?” Fletcher inquired.

“Probably buying a soft drink at the fast-food place down the street,” answered Raymond as he folded a ladder and leaned it carefully on its side along the wall.

Fletcher wished Aaron would set a better example of work habits for Raymond and Roy. He worried what their Englisch clients would think if they saw him taking numerous breaks or leaving early. Aaron’s habits reflected on all of them. Although their projects had been plentiful over the winter due to an October tornado damaging many of the office buildings in their little town of Willow Creek, there was no guarantee that future contracts would be awarded to them, especially if their reputation suffered. Fletcher would need all the work he could get when he became a married man with a family to support. That’s if I become a married man, he mentally corrected himself.

Nothing about his future with Anna was as certain as it had seemed when their wedding intentions were “published,” or announced, in church on Sunday. Only two days later, on Tuesday morning, Raymond delivered a sealed note to him from Anna. Fletcher, it read, I have a serious concern regarding A. that I must discuss privately with you before the wedding preparations go any further. Please visit me tonight after work. —Anna.

The message was so unexpected and disturbing that if he hadn’t been responsible for supervising Raymond and Roy, Fletcher would have left work immediately to speak with Anna. By the time he finally reached her home that evening, he was shocked to be greeted by a neighbor bearing additional alarming news: that morning Anna suffered a fall and was in the hospital. Although he loathed knowing she’d been hurt, he was simultaneously informed the doctors said she was going to be just fine. But it tormented him that he had no such assurance about the future of his relationship with her.

Each time he visited Anna, she was resting or couldn’t be disturbed. Now, it was Friday and he still hadn’t spoken to her. Ever since receiving her note, he’d felt as if he’d swallowed a handful of nails, and he’d barely eaten or slept all week. Please, Lord, give me patience and peace, even as You provide Anna rest and recovery, he prayed for the umpteenth time that day.

“I suppose Aaron’s allowed to take breaks whenever he wants since he’s the business owner’s son,” Roy commented, interrupting Fletcher’s thoughts.

Although Fletcher agreed with the boy’s observation, he chided, “Enough of that talk. My onkel Isaiah showed you special favor yourself in allowing me to apprentice you here, because your mamm was married to Anna’s daed and he was such a skilled carpenter. Isaiah has been a gut employer to me, too. Regardless of how anyone else performs their work, Gott requires each of us to work heartily in whatever we do.”

The boys finished tidying the site before stepping out into the nippy early-evening air. They wove through the rows of Englisch vehicles to the makeshift hitching post at the far end of the parking lot. Aaron’s sleek courting buggy was nowhere to be seen as Fletcher, Raymond and Roy climbed into Fletcher’s boxy carriage, given to him by his groossdaadi, or grandfather.

“Go ahead and take the reins,” Fletcher said to Roy, the younger of the two teens. “It’s important for you to learn to handle the horse during what the Englisch call ‘rush hour’ traffic.”

As Roy cautiously navigated his way through the western, commercialized section of Willow Creek, Fletcher gave him instructive hints. He knew what it was like to lose your dad at a young age—and these boys had essentially lost two fathers; first, their own dad and then Anna’s. He figured they needed all the guidance and support they could get.