A Season for Tending (15 page)

“So how’s my girl holding up in this heat?”

“As long as there are Sunday afternoons when I can sleep and cake to eat when I wake, I’m fine.”

She longed for a real conversation with him, the type they used to have, which was as soothing as herbal ointment on a painful wound.

After Emma died, Rhoda had wanted to tell him the whole truth, to unload all her selfish, ugly guilt, but she’d gotten out only a few words when he held up his hand, telling her to hush. Then he’d bolted from the house. Long after midnight he’d returned and come to her, looking broken and not at all like the father she’d always known. He’d moved to the side of her bed and sat. When he finally spoke, he apologized for cutting her off and leaving the way he had. “Rhodes …” She still remembered the warmth of his callused hand on hers. “There are subjects people can’t talk about, and for me this will always be one of them.” His eyes had brimmed with tears as he tried to speak, and it broke something in her to see him that way. “We’ll ask God to forgive us.” He fell silent, and it was quite a while before he spoke again. “And He will … has already. Let that be it. Okay?”

She’d have agreed to anything right then. “Ya, Daed.”

He’d given her hand a squeeze and left the room. They’d not spoken of that day since. In the two years that had passed, no one had made a cake on his birthday or dared wish him a happy birthday. They simply got through the day as best they could.

Time had moved unbearably slowly the year after Emma’s death, each day lasting a week, each month feeling like six. And in that period she had walked in the midst of a dark cloud of grief as she continued building her business.

While she’d muddled through and tended her crops, people in the community and the church had nurtured seeds of fear and condemnation. She’d sown them herself.

After Emma had left for the store that day, Rhoda had continued working
her garden until she sensed a warning of what was about to happen. She fought with herself for a couple of minutes, trying to discount the thoughts as nonsense, but she felt submerged in the foreboding, so she took off running for the store. She stumbled and fell in front of Mrs. Walker’s house, smacking into the pavement and hitting her head. The elderly woman was working in her front lawn. When she came to see if Rhoda was okay, Rhoda stood, but then she stumbled and sank to the ground, too dizzy and addled to stay upright.

She told Mrs. Walker what she
knew
was about to happen and where. The woman thought Rhoda had knocked herself incoherent, and Rhoda began screaming for someone to save her sister, to get to the grocery store, to stop the man with the gun. People gathered. Everyone heard her cries. But no one listened. She finally got up and began hobbling there, her sprained ankle slowing her down.

And then a gun went off.

Again.

And again.

Rhoda never denied that she caused people to feel the way they did about her. But she wasn’t a witch. She never sought to know
anything
. It just happened. And despite her Daed’s warnings to keep that side of her hidden, everyone found out that day—and neither Rhoda’s knowing nor her revealing the long-held secret had saved Emma.

Rueben and Naomi represented far more people than just themselves when they came against her. They acted as voices for those who were too respectful of her family’s mourning, or were too polite or too cowardly, to speak up.

Landon had been on his way to her place when he saw the commotion at Mrs. Walker’s. He’d stopped, carried her to his truck, and taken her to the store, to the scene of the crime. To his credit, through all the grief and turmoil, Landon had remained a steadfast friend and employee.

Her Daed’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Rhoda.” He got up and put his empty plate and glass in the sink. “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“When we got home yesterday, there was a towel on the floor. I picked it up, and clothes fell out—non-Amish clothes. Do you know anything about them?”

She’d forgotten all about that. “They belong to a girl I met on Saturday—an Amish girl. She needed something clean to wear, so I gave her one of Mamm’s dresses, and she must’ve left hers here.”

He studied her, frowning and raising his eyebrows at the same time. Over the years she’d noticed that look—perhaps best described as surprised displeasure or maybe bewilderment—was most often reserved for her. Her unconventional ways confused him, but he always adjusted as much as he could without asking her to change.

One thing was sure, despite all they’d been through, she knew he loved her. At times she would have given up on herself, on life, if she hadn’t been able to see herself through his eyes—a man who knew how to love unconditionally.

“You simply gave one of your mother’s dresses away?”

“Ya.”

“An older one?”

“That wouldn’t be very nice of me for the girl’s sake. Mamm will never miss it. If she does, I’ll make her one when my canning season is over.” She pushed her empty plate away. “That’s really all I want to say on the matter if it’s okay with you.”

He took her plate to the sink and rinsed it. “You let a stranger stay here while all of us were gone?”

“No. Well, actually I guess I did. I let her take a shower, and I fed her. Then we worked the berry patch together before she took a nap.”

“That’s odd.”

“A little.” Her thoughts turned to Leah’s brother. Her Daed’s reservations about Leah being here didn’t begin to compare with Samuel’s. But she gave Samuel credit for speaking his mind—whether he was impressed with her garden or annoyed at her viewpoint. As crazy as it sounded, something about Samuel drew her. He was wound tight, at least he was the day she’d met him,
but she’d bet two of her best-producing raspberry bushes that he was a man worthy of a girl’s heart.

Daed grabbed a kitchen towel and dried his hands. “How old a girl?”

“Seventeen.”

“You say she’s Amish?”

“You know, you’re not good at letting me drop a subject.”

He sighed. “As often as you’re in trouble with neighbors or with someone in our church, one would think you wouldn’t get involved in someone else’s scrapes.”

“Then one would be wrong. There are many things I can’t stop—like Mrs. Walker letting her fears rule her or the Rueben Glicks of the world making me their target. I can’t even stop people in our church from being afraid of me and believing lies. But I can keep negativity from molding who I am and how I respond to others.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re an interesting child. Confusing, but you’re definitely worthy of note.”

“Denki … I think.” She got up from the island, eager to change the subject. “Daed, Lydia’s concerned that she and John aren’t going to find a place they can afford.”

“It’s becoming a problem, ya.”

“But what about building a house? He and Lydia talked about that for a while, saying it’d be affordable because our Amish friends could get the foundation in and put up the walls and a roof so they could live there.”

Daed chuckled. “You mean dry it in.”

“Ya. Then they could live in it and finish it as money allowed. But the next thing I knew, the subject was dropped, and nobody’s mentioned it since.”

“Buying land costs money too.” Her Daed shrugged, but his manner and the look in his eyes indicated he was holding something back.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Let it go, Rhodes.”

“Daed?”

He stared at the newspaper as if he were interested in an article. When she said nothing else, he glanced at her. She’d seen that look in his eyes before—two months ago when he’d asked her to rip out her herbs.

“You need to do something with my berry patch.”

“Don’t
read
into this, young woman.”

“Then talk to me.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to admit the idea to myself, let alone to you.”

“But?”

“But nothing. I’ve said all I care to on the matter. It’s a topic I banned your brothers from talking about years ago, and I’m not changing my mind today.”

Why would he ban anyone from talking about building a home? It wasn’t like him to dictate what could or couldn’t be spoken of, at least not inside the boundaries of their home—as long as the topic wasn’t Emma’s death.

He peered over the newspaper. “We’re managing fine the way things are, and we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing until God opens a door.”

In an instant she knew what she should have realized years ago: land was expensive because it was in short supply. And she had a little over an acre of Byler property. One of her brothers, maybe both, could build a house there. It’d cost them nothing for the land, and with the help of the Amish community, they could build affordable homes.

She quaked at the prospect of giving up her berry patch, wanting to slam her palms onto the island and reject all possibility of it. But she didn’t need to get upset. Her Daed, the man who loved her in spite of all her oddities, had done everything in his power to keep the berry patch for her. It had hurt both of them too much when her herb garden was taken from her. Building a home wasn’t worth giving up her fruit garden. Not for any of them.

THIRTEEN

Leah’s stomach cramped as she helped her mother and younger sisters take laundry off the line. She’d spent all night throwing up, but chores still had to be done. Hope danced around them, barking. Katie grabbed an old washcloth and began playing tug of war with the puppy. Soon the younger girls were chasing the dog.

Mamm grabbed a sheet and nodded for Leah to take the other end. As she helped shake it out, another round of pains ran through her stomach.

“Are you not feeling any better yet?” Mamm asked as they brought the two ends together.

“No, and you’re free at any time to say you don’t need my help.”

“Maybe you were out in the heat too much while working for that woman in Morgansville.”

Or maybe Leah was just sick of herself, literally. Every moment, both awake and asleep, she saw the strangers from Brad’s party watching her, and she remembered the awful way Michael had looked at her that night. If she’d been uncool before, she was minus a thousand points now. The whole mess had her stomach in knots. Even so, she continued to hope that Michael would keep the promises he’d whispered to her weeks ago, that he would realize he’d made a terrible mistake Friday night.

Mamm made the last fold in the sheet and took the bundle from Leah. “I’m proud of you for helping that woman. But if you’d been here Saturday to help with the canning, we wouldn’t be doing laundry on a Tuesday.”

“Ya, but we’d be doing some other exhausting chore right now.” Another twinge ran through her upper stomach.

She picked up a basket of her brothers’ clothes and headed toward the house, her body dripping with sweat in the humid midsummer air.

Before she reached the back door, she saw a rig turning onto the driveway. She’d forgotten that Catherine was coming for dinner. Leah’s sisters raced past her and ran into the house, calling the puppy to follow them.

Catherine stopped the carriage near the hitching post and got out. “Leah, could you give me a hand?” She looped the reins of the horse around the post.

Leah didn’t want to, but she would. Of all the people who didn’t like her, Catherine was the most transparent. Leah put the basket of clean clothes inside the door. Her stomach gurgled, and she felt nauseated.

“Go help her, but don’t dawdle.” Mamm went into the house. “We need to get dinner on the table.”

Leah nodded. When she arrived at the rig, Catherine passed her a baking dish of bread pudding.

“Denki.” Catherine turned and grabbed a picnic basket out of the rig. “I’ll be so glad when cool weather arrives.” She closed the door to the carriage and peered at Leah with concern. “You look awful.”

Leah rubbed her stomach. “I’m not feeling all that well.”

Catherine studied her, looking suspicious. “As in too much to drink?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“A virus then? Are you running a fever?”

“I wish I were. Then I could get out of chores and go read a book.” Leah went toward the house.

“Leah.”

She stopped.

“Are you … Have you been with someone?” Catherine clutched the handles of the picnic basket and stared at Leah with horror as she waited for an answer.

She couldn’t be pregnant, although at the moment she didn’t remember when she’d had her last period. She wasn’t the type to be regular. She shook her head. “What? Just being at a party or two gives you no reason to jump to conclusions
about me.” Even as the lie left her mouth, Leah’s worst fears crawled into the pit of her stomach. Surely she wasn’t expecting. Michael had taken precautions. Each time they’d been together, he’d promised they’d have no chance of conceiving.

Like he promised to always love me and be true to me?

Had she played the fool for him?

“Gut.” Catherine nodded. “I’m relieved to hear you say that. Kumm. Let’s help get dinner on the table.”

Leah went inside and set the dish on the island. Aiming to look calm, she leaned against the counter, ignoring those around her as they set the table and chatted. If she was pregnant, she’d have to tell Michael right away. Surely he would agree to marry her as soon as possible, wedding season or not. And everyone in the community would know her shame, even on her wedding day.