Forever Amish (3 page)

An Amish brawl? I wanted to turn around and run for cover.

 

CHAPTER 4

I inched away from the voices blasting through the door.

“Wait, Sally.” Lizzie reached out to grab my arm, but I retreated toward the back stoop. She tailed me through the utility room. “You've traveled so far,” she said. “Please don't go.”

I was relieved I'd left my overnight bag in the trunk. I'd find a diner and a cheap motel room along the highway. Or just grit my teeth and drive straight home.

My iPhone rang, shattering the air, causing both Lizzie and me to start. The racket in the kitchen fell silent, as if someone had flicked off a TV set, which I figured they didn't own, since I'd seen no electric wires running to the house.

Clutching my purse, I trotted down the stairs, dug out my phone, and saw our home number on the screen. “What's up, Pops?” I tried to sound nonchalant while my thoughts ricocheted with worries about my father's health.

Lizzie hovered nearby. I turned away from her.

“I wanted to see how my favorite girl is doing.” Pops had the hiccups again.

Could I answer Honest Ed without lying? “I was about to check in.” A half-truth. “How about you?”

“I'd feel better if I knew you were safe.”

“I am. Need me to come home?” I zeroed in on my car, several yards away. “I don't mind, not in the least.”

I glanced up at the sky to see clouds drifting across the moon, darkening the landscape. My thoughts twirled back to my childhood. I recalled Pops sitting on the end of my quilt-covered bed reading my favorite book,
Goodnight Moon
. Then he tucked me in as if I were the most precious child in the world. But I hadn't felt cherished by my mother. Had Mom ever read to me at bedtime? Not that I could remember. If we bumped into each other on the street, would she and I recognize each other? I liked to think she kept my photo in a frame on her bureau. As a child I'd toyed with this crazy notion: I'd locate my mom, she and Pops would reunite, and we'd live happily ever after. But fairy-tale endings never happen.

“You know I didn't want you traveling alone,” he said. “But I have good news. I sold the red minivan and the Ford Explorer, and there's a couple interested in the yellow Cadi.”

I heard the wind stirring the bare branches of the hickory tree growing at the side of the Zooks' house and felt the breeze playing across my cheeks. “That's good, but you sound tired. I could kick myself for leaving.” What had gotten into me? Should I admit to Pops that I'd called his doctor's office a few days ago to pry privileged information from an office assistant, an older woman I'd known since childhood who was about to retire? No, I'd get her in trouble, put a blemish on her record.

“If I could redo this day, I'd be lounging in the living room with you and Ginger,” I said.

“Everything okay?” Tension strained his voice. “Is the Mustang still purring like a pussy cat?”

“With that exhaust system? Rumbling like a lioness is more like it.”

He laughed. I enjoyed the sound of it.

As I said good-bye and slipped the phone into my handbag, I heard an owl's raspy screech in a distant stand of trees, giving me the shivers. I noticed movement out of my peripheral vision. Lizzie tugged at my jacket sleeve, startling me. My purse flew out of my hand.

“Won't ya please come inside?” She scooped up the purse and dusted it with her apron. Inhaling the earthy smell of manure, I dreaded to think where my bag had landed.

“Here ya go. Good as new.” She gave it to me, then her arms hung at her sides. “I'll bet Mamm and Dat were discussing chores, is what they were doing. We have two-dozen Holsteins …” Her eyes had lost their luster and her voice its vivacity.

Was their argument a dispute about Jeremy's not doing his share of the milking? Or had I piloted the Mustang too quickly on their dirt driveway? Perhaps they'd heard my tires and beefy exhaust. Or had I walked into an episode of
Family Feud
?

“I heard a woman's voice in the fray, and what sounded like an elderly man's,” I said.

“My
Mudder
's parents join us for dinner every evening. They live in the
Daadi Haus
.” Lizzie pointed to what appeared to be a smaller house attached to the corner of her parents' spacious home. “They'll be sorely disappointed if you don't come in.”

“How would they know anything about me?”

“Jeremy will have told them.”

“But he's still in the barn.”

A pretty woman in her early fifties stepped outside, bringing with her a cloud of tantalizing scents: warm biscuits, stewing beef, and steaming vegetables.

“Good evening.” The woman, clad in a mid-calf–length navy- blue dress and black apron, descended the steps. “
Kumm rei
—come in,” she said. A white, heart-shaped cap like Lizzie's covered her sable-brown hair. “We were just talking—well, we were discussing something a little too loudly, I regret to say.”

“Don't let her leave, Mamm.” Lizzie's eyes pleaded with the woman. “She's been on the road all afternoon.”

The woman nodded at Lizzie, then turned her attention to me. “I'm Rhoda Zook, Lizzie's mamm.” Her voice was kind and gentle, the way a mother's should sound. “Since you're here, please won't ya join us?”

“How much does dinner cost?” I asked, stalling. I couldn't take any more surprises.

“No charge, after our
rilpsich
—foolish—behavior.” Rhoda examined me with what seemed to be curiosity. Her gaze settled on my face, my blue eyes that played chameleon depending what color I was wearing. Today, a khaki-colored safari jacket and a long-sleeved powder-pink T-shirt.

“Please, the supper's getting cold,” she said, moving closer. “My husband, he's been workin' hard since sunup.”

Voracious hunger edged out what Pops would call good sense. “Okay, thank you,” I said. “Since I'm here—”

“Yah, you're here, aren't ya?” Lizzie lightly clapped her hands.

With Lizzie mincing at my heels, I followed Rhoda up the back stairs, through the utility room into the large kitchen. Lizzie opened the door, and I was embraced by the warm air, the temperature inside spiking twenty degrees. A myriad of delectable aromas, including cooking blackberries, filled my nostrils. The heat urged me to discard my jacket.

A group of half a dozen Amish people—all gawking at me and spanning several generations—hemmed the perimeter of a rectangular table, plates and napkins set before them. At the head hunched a brown-haired man tugging on his bushy beard. Next to him stood an empty seat; Jeremy plunked onto it.

“Sorry, Dat.”

No answer from the man, whose hair was flattened on top and fashioned like Jeremy's. I guessed he was Pops's age, but this husky guy owned wide shoulders and muscled forearms. His hands were large, like a boxer's, and his nails chipped.

I dropped the Mustang's key in my jacket pocket and Rhoda hung it on a peg by the back door alongside several wide-brimmed straw hats. As Lizzie settled onto a bench, Rhoda directed me to a chair on the other side of the table, then sat at my side. Next to Lizzie perched an ancient-looking lady wearing wire-rimmed spectacles and the same white cap as the other women.

Farther down the table sat two clean-shaven men—one younger than Jeremy, one maybe ten years older than I was, and a grizzly bearded gent. The men wore collared shirts and suspenders and had the same funky bowl-on-the-head haircuts.

The man dominating the end of the table, who still hadn't acknowledged me, let out a guttural sound and all heads bowed, as if choreographed, for an extended minute. While they prayed in silence, I scanned the sparsely decorated room and saw a calendar, a woodland scene gracing its top, but no other decorative touches. Drab linoleum covered the floor. A refrigerator—powered by what, I couldn't imagine—stood against the wall next to a stove. A sink and wide counter with a window overlooking a field. No dishwasher, toaster, or Cuisinart. A cloth-lined wicker basket of corn muffins—the perfect vehicle for butter—and several jams and jellies sat in the center of the table, causing my mouth to salivate.

The head honcho grunted and all said, “Amen,” then raised their heads.

I echoed, “Amen.” I'd sat at many dinner tables and said grace, but never in silence. There was nothing normal about this family. Or my afternoon.

For a moment, we sat like statues; the kitchen teemed with a peculiar energy.

“Our main meal is usually at noon, but we've got a hearty supper for ya tonight,” Rhoda told me. “Leftover beef stew from yesterday.” She served the man, then ladled stew and noodles onto my plate. “Sally, eat yourself full,” she said.

Hey, wait a minute, Lizzie hadn't mentioned my name. Maybe Jeremy had. No, I hadn't given it to him. Perhaps he'd been eavesdropping on Lizzie and my conversation back in town.

“Sally was such a gut help for me lockin' up the store,” Lizzie said, paying no heed to the splendid meal. “I don't know what I would have done without her.”

Rhoda tipped her head toward the sourpuss at the end of the table. “Sally, this is my husband, Reuben Zook.”

The big guy sneered at me as if I were a nuisance—a flea on a dog—then dug into his stew with gusto. Was he this rude to all their lodgers? No wonder they had a vacant room.

My mouth watered so much I could barely say, “Hello.” Then I plunged a fork into a cube of beef. The meat, laced with glazed onions, melted in my mouth.

“Dat,” Lizzie said. “Please won'tcha greet our guest?” Even when raising her eyebrows, her smooth forehead didn't crease. No crow's-feet around her eyes or a blemish on her creamy skin.

He swallowed a mouthful. “
Himmel
, yous made me wait twenty minutes for dinner.”

“I'm sorry, Dat. It couldn't be helped. Mrs. Martin hurt her leg.”

Jeremy belted out a hoot. “When I'm late, you're all over me, Liz. Like it's the end of the world.”

“We've had enough bickering for one evening, ” Rhoda said. She turned to me. “I hope you'll like your room. 'Tis all fixed up.”

Which I took to mean a bed was made with fresh sheets.

“I'm sorry to bring this up at the dinner table, but how much do you charge?” Having played the car trade-in game, I suspected I was being set up for a backroom closing, when a car salesman pretends to negotiate with the manager on behalf of the buyer. A “kitchen closing” instead. I'd joke about it with Pops when I got home.

“There'll be no fee,” Rhoda said, passing me the muffins.

“For tonight,” Reuben said, and shoveled in another mouthful. I noticed his upper lip was cleanly shaven, as was the old gentleman's across from me. But Jeremy and the two other younger men's chins were clean, save a day's worth of stubble. They stared at me as they chewed their food. If the family took in lodgers, what was so odd about me, other than I wasn't paying? My citified clothes, compared to their antiquated apparel? My glitzy engagement ring? I noticed neither Rhoda, Reuben, nor the older couple—whom I guessed to be around eighty—wore wedding bands.

“Sally can stay for the whole weekend, if she likes,” Rhoda said, her fist on the plastic checked tablecloth as if signaling her husband. “I hope she does.”

“
Ich bedank mich
, Mamm—thank you.” Lizzie's face came to life, and she clapped her hands. “It will be wonderful to have her staying right here with us, yah?”

Reuben let out a belch, but Rhoda didn't seem insulted. I wondered if bad manners were commonplace. If anything, she looked pleased, her lips spreading into a smile.

I split a muffin, browned to perfection. A puff of steam escaped, filling my nose with ambrosia. I lathered it with butter, took a bite, and savored the taste while my gaze drifted around the table. I wasn't usually shy, but I'd never felt so out of my element. Why had I been invited to be their guest? Maybe they really did want a corgi and expected me to give them one in return for their hospitality.

“Then it's all settled.” Lizzie took the freckled hand of the elderly woman, whose face was crinkled and hair almost as white as her cap. “These are Mamm's parents,” Lizzie said. The old, bearded fellow smiled, revealing crooked teeth.

“And that hooligan over there is my baby Bruder, Peter. He's sixteen.”

“Hullo,” said the young man, then looked away. His hair and complexion were darker than Jeremy's, and he seemed to favor his father in looks—I hoped not in temperament.

“No need ta be
naerfich
,” Lizzie said. “She ain't gonna bite ya.”

“I'm not nervous.” His round cheeks blushing, Peter scowled at her. “Some of us have been up since four thirty, not lounging in a fancy shop all day chatting with Englischers.”

“I hear tell you've got an Englisch girl you're mighty fond of.” Lizzie tossed him a wry smile.

“Mind your own business. You should talk.” He wiggled in his chair.

“Ow!” Lizzie yelped. “Dat, he kicked me under the table.”

She and Peter glanced toward Reuben, who seemed to be concentrating on consuming his meal.

Reuben swallowed a forkful of beef. “Too much running around,” he said. “You young folk think this farm's going to take care of itself?” Then he lapsed into Pennsylvania Dutch for a sentence or two, for what sounded like a reprimand.

Rhoda inclined her head toward the broad-shouldered man in his late thirties near the far end of the table. “Sally, this here is Armin King, who's staying with us.” Clean-shaven and—if not for his haircut and suspenders—what I'd call a hunk. He appeared to have broken his nose in the past, which only added to his ruggedly handsome features. His gaze was unabashed and penetrating; I couldn't help staring back as he gave my face a thorough looking over in a way Donald hadn't for months—if ever. I sensed Armin appreciated what he saw. And so did I.