Amish Circle Letters (15 page)

“Hullo?” she called out as she opened the door to Rachel’s kitchen. They had agreed to make the applesauce at Rachel’s house since Leah’s tended to be a bit in disarray. Besides, having just hosted the church service on the previous Sunday, Leah didn’t want to have another major cleanup to go through. They would make the applesauce in the morning and enjoy a lovely sisterly dinner at noon.

Sylvia set her two boxes of empty glass jars on the counter of the laundry room. Tucked inside that box was a large Tupperware container filled with her favorite lima bean and corn salad that everyone always begged her to bring. Her hand lingered on the edge of the boxes as she looked around. The house was quiet. No children running around. No voices. No laughter. A bit unusual, she reckoned. She frowned and called out again. “Rachel, you home?”

Someone coughed upstairs and she thought she heard footsteps. Sylvia walked through the doorway into the kitchen and stood at the bottom of the staircase and called out one last time. “Rachel? You upstairs?”

“Just a minute,” her sister finally answered. Her voice was muffled, clearly from behind a closed door. A little unusual, Sylvia thought.

Frowning, Sylvia turned back toward the kitchen. No reason that she could not get a head start peeling some apples. She glanced around until her eyes fell upon several large boxes full of apples behind the kitchen door. Without hesitation, she hurried in that direction, bent over to pick up a box, and carried it to the sink.

Rachel’s house was so orderly, just like Mamm’s, so it was easy for Sylvia to find a good knife to start the peeling and coring of the apples. She was already on her third apple when she heard her sister walking down the wood steps. Sylvia glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Rachel. “Guder Mariye, sister!”

But Rachel didn’t smile back. There was no joy in her expression or greeting. Indeed, her face appeared drawn and pale; there were dark circles under her eyes. Clearly something was wrong. Very wrong!

“Rachel?” Sylvia asked, the smile fading from her own lips as she realized that, whatever was wrong was a deep wrong. She set the half-peeled apple on the counter next to the knife and hurried over to her sister. “What is it? Are you feeling poorly?”

“
Nee
,” Rachel whispered. She let her younger sister lead her toward the table and sat on a chair.

“What is it, then? Are you expecting?”

Shaking her head, Rachel frowned at the question. If only that was the issue, she thought wryly. “Nee, nee,” she said sharply, waving her hand at her sister. “You ask too many questions, Sylvia.”

Silence befell them. Sylvia didn’t know what to say or do. She was afraid to speak, recognizing that her older sister was obviously not in the mindset to share what was wrong. Yet, she felt that it would be construed as heartless to just turn back to peeling the apples. She decided to continue asking.

“Rachel,” she offered gently, reaching out to touch her older sister’s arm. “Talk to me.”

The soft tone of Sylvia’s voice caused Rachel to look up. She stared at Sylvia’s face for a long, quiet moment. Sweet Sylvia. She had always been the caring and tender one in the family. Unlike Lizzie and herself who were so strong headed and quick to take charge, Sylvia was the quiet one that always cared for the sick kittens or injured calves.
How will Sylvia try to heal this situation,
Rachel thought wryly. Immediately, she felt guilty for having thought something so less than kind about Sylvia.

Rachel cleared her throat. “It’s Elijah,” she confessed, her voice all but a whisper. “The doctor wants him to see a specialist for his cough.”

This time, it was Sylvia who frowned. She couldn’t understand why this would be such a serious matter to cause her sister to look as if the bottom of her world had just fallen away. “His…cough?”

Rachel nodded. “He’s had that cough for several weeks, maybe even longer, now. We thought it was summer flu but it hasn’t gone away. On Monday, he went to a doctor in town. They ran some tests.” She paused, licking her lips, which felt dry and cracked. “I just got the message from the answering machine. The doctor gave us the name of an oncologist.”

Sylvia gasped. “An oncologist? Isn’t that a…?” But she stopped short in the middle of her sentence, unable to say the word.

“Ja, a cancer doctor,” Rachel said the word for her. “He wants Elijah to see a
cancer
doctor!”

“That can’t be! Elijah has always been so healthy!”

Rachel took a deep breath. “We’ll be going next Wednesday. That was the earliest appointment we could get and I think our regular doctor had to ask for some special favors to get us in so soon.”

Sylvia was stunned, speechless at what Rachel had just told her. Cancer! “Well,” she started slowly. “They might just be sending him there as a precaution; to run some more tests and to rule it out, you know?”

To Sylvia’s surprise, Rachel reached out and grabbed her younger sister’s hand. That was quite unusual for her to reach out in that way. Her eyes seemed wild as she searched Sylvia’s face. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “I have a real bad feeling about this, Sylvia.”

“Stop that,” Sylvia replied, more because she was scared herself rather than offended by her sister’s statement. “Don’t say such things.” She lowered her voice and held Rachel’s hand, clutching it tightly in hers, then continued: “We must pray to God for help in dealing with this situation, not second guess His will, Rachel. That is the best way. Our way”

For a long moment, the two sisters, Rachel and Sylvia, sat alone in the kitchen, heads bent together as they held each other’s hands and prayed: prayed that the doctors were wrong, prayed that Elijah would get better, and prayed that God would give them the strength to deal with the alternative.

Leah had been in rare form that morning. Rachel’s children had crossed the road shortly after breakfast so that the older boys could watch Leah’s children. Leah had fussed and carried on about leaving baby Jacob in the care of young boys. But Rachel had been quite clear about it: Leah must come alone for the applesauce canning. It was a time for the sisters to visit while working.

Mary Ruth had watched the scene with a combination of pity and amusement. It was too obvious that Leah was a nervous Nellie about anyone watching baby Jacob, fearing that his condition made him more fragile than other babies. Still, it was time for Leah to realize that more than one person could watch her infant son. For Leah to spend the morning with her sisters would do her some good, Mary Ruth was sure of that.

She was standing in Menno Yoder’s kitchen, thinking about these things when Menno walked through the door. The children had already eaten breakfast and were upstairs tidying up their rooms and getting ready before it was time to help with chores around the house and farm. The clock on the wall ticked loudly and struck the half-hour chime. It broke the silence in the kitchen and she paused for just the quickest of moments to look out the kitchen window, her hand holding a plate that she had just dried as she studied the green leaves on a large tree by the barn. Soon the leaves would change and fall. Winter would be upon them and that was a depressing thought to Mary Ruth.

Unbeknownst to her, Menno stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching Mary Ruth. As she was contemplating the tree and its giant limbs with fluttering leaves, he was studying her. It wasn’t until she put away the last of the breakfast dishes that he shook his head, too aware that the woman in the kitchen was not his Martha, his deceased wife. A pang of loneliness swept through him. But he realized that loneliness was better than anger. Perhaps he was beginning to heal, he thought.

When he cleared his throat, she jumped, startled at the noise. “Menno!” she exclaimed, her hand pressed against her chest. “I hadn’t heard you come in!”

The widower smiled, but it was a small smile, one that was not full of happiness or joy. “I reckon not, the way you just jumped out of your skin!”

His smile struck her as odd. She didn’t remember ever seeing him smile before. Or attempt to, she told herself.
A right gut sign
.

She shut the cabinet door and wiped her hands on her apron. “Did you eat breakfast, then?” she asked nonchalantly. “I fed the
kinner
already but I can make some more eggs and toasts right quick if you’re hungry.” She knew that he would most likely refuse so she didn’t mind making the offer. He had yet to share a single meal that she had prepared in the five weeks that she had been helping out at the house, after Martha Yoder’s accidental passing.

Menno didn’t answer right away as his eyes trailed around the room. She wondered what he was looking at and, for the briefest of moments, she followed his gaze.

Everything was neat and tidy. The floors were clean and the windows free from dust and fingerprints. The sun shone through the glass panes creating a natural light in the room. Mary Ruth had made certain to not change anything in the house from the way that Martha Yoder had kept it. Even the blanket that was tossed over the back of the sofa in the back sitting room was folded exactly as Martha used to do.

“Ja,” he said softly.

His response surprised her and she wondered if she had heard him correctly. “Ja what?” she asked, not wanting to take the chance that she understood him properly.

But she had. He turned and looked at her. There was a gentle peace about his gaze that startled her. “I’ll have some breakfast. That would be right gut, Mary Ruth.”

Surprised, she quickly hurried about the kitchen, too aware that he had already taken a seat at the table. She wasn’t used to him being a presence in the house. Especially around her. In fact, for the past five weeks, he had done everything to avoid her unless he was yelling at her about getting out of his house, when dealing with his initial anger following his wife’s death. Now, he was seated at the table, waiting for a breakfast plate and a cup of coffee.

She felt nervous, wondering if he was going to criticize her method of cooking or making the coffee. She had never cooked before a man, at least not one that wasn’t her daed or
bruders
. Trying to quell the pit in her stomach, Mary Ruth tried to focus as she pulled out the very pans that she had just cleaned and put away. Within minutes, she had bacon frying in one pan and scrambled eggs cooking in the other. She even had the toast crisping on a back burner. When everything was cooking nicely, she poured him a fresh cup of coffee and carried it to the table.

“I don’t know how you like it,” she admitted, feeling like she was talking to a complete stranger. Indeed, this new Menno was not the same man she had been dealing with for the last five weeks. Was he finally healing?

“Black is fine,
danke
,” he replied.

Black
, she thought. Just like her own daed.

“The children?” he asked as he raised the cup to his lips. He blew on it twice before tasting it. “Um, gut,” he commented.

“Upstairs,” she answered, turning back to the stove to push the eggs around before they’d stuck to the pan. “I thought to have the girls weed the garden this morning. Not certain about Melvin,” she said. Something tugged at her memory as she said Melvin’s name. What was it that she had forgotten?

“Sure could use some help from Melvin in the fields this afternoon,” Menno said.

This afternoon? And then she remembered. “Ja, he wanted to go pony riding with my niece at the Miller farm this afternoon,” she said casually. “But if you need him in the fields…”

“Nee, nee,” Menno said quickly. “It would be right
gut
for him to spend time with your niece, ain’t so?
Gut
to have a friend and some laughter in his life. Been enough sadness to go around for a lifetime.” His voice trailed off at the last sentence and Mary Ruth swallowed, realizing that Menno had come a long way since that first day she had met him. Indeed, he was healing and that was a surely right
gut
thing for everyone.

It was later in the afternoon when Steve asked to borrow Isaac’s buggy again. No one seemed to raise an eyebrow over the fact that Steve was borrowing it again and during the middle of the afternoon, at that. For the past few weeks, he had been borrowing the buggy quite frequently. While the family speculated as to what that could mean, no one seemed to question it.

It took but less than ten minutes for Steve to harness the horse to the buggy. While bridling the horse, he made a mental note that the overcheck connecting the bridle’s crown piece to the harness saddle’s hook was wearing thin and decided to replace it while visiting Samuel’s carriage shop, the purpose of today’s outing.

The carriage store was only five miles from the family farm. Steve had known Samuel Esh for his entire life and knew him to be a hardworking and honest man with a very good reputation within the community and beyond. Many of the youth purchased their courting buggies from him and Samuel had never let slip when they did. Steve knew that he could trust Samuel.

“Hullo there,” Samuel greeted when Steve walked into the door of the shop.

Steve glanced around. The shop was open and full of light from the walls of windows. He could see that Samuel was busy working on several buggies, all with grey tops and large black wheels. “Looking for a buggy to buy,” Steve said, his hands tossed in his pockets as he stared at the one closest to him. He tried to ignore the pounding of his heart inside of his chest. Was he really going to buy a buggy?
After all of these years
, he thought.

“Dat’s gut! I sell buggies!” Samuel teased, wiping his hands on his pants. He paused and studied Steve for a moment as if trying to place his face. It only took a moment for the light of recognition to hit him. “You the Fisher boy, not?”

Steve flushed at being called a boy.

“Ain’t seen you in here before,” Samuel said, pulling at his beard as if that helped him remember. “You look a bit old for a courting buggy but don’t have no beard, do you, now?”

“Not married,” Steve admitted, suddenly hating the way that sounded.