Huckleberry Hearts (31 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cassie had the most unnerving feeling that someone was watching her. She lifted her head and let her eyes travel down the aisle. Nobody there, just shelves full of bulk candy and dried fruit. Elmer Lee stood next to her, staring at a small container of mints. Was he curious about the calories?

Norman and Linda had come with Cassie and Mamm to the Lark Country Store. The store had just about everything an Amish customer could want, from all sorts of groceries to hats to books to clocks that played church music on the hour.

In the store parking lot, Elmer Lee “happened” to pull up in his buggy at the same time Cassie's family had pulled up in Norman's buggy. What a surprise. It wasn't as if she didn't see Elmer Lee three or four times a week already. Mamm was pulling out all the stops to make sure there'd be a wedding come September.

Cassie tried to happily oblige. After all, she wanted to marry a godly, kind man, and as Mamm reminded her daily, she was nearly an old maid. Older, single boys like Elmer Lee were as scarce as hen's teeth. She should be grateful that Elmer Lee hadn't been taken yet.

Still, in moments of weakness, Cassie daydreamed about holding hands and stealing kisses beneath the maple trees with Zach Reynolds, not Elmer Lee. She put down the package of dried apples she held and raised her fingers to her lips. Her heart raced at the memory.

She was glad she would never kiss him again. Zach didn't believe in God. She couldn't make a home or a life with anyone who didn't love God. And she certainly couldn't love someone who professed his undying love and slept with an old girlfriend a few hours later.

Several times a day, she replayed that horrible memory over and over in her head. The recollection of Blair barely wearing Zach's pink shirt made her ill.

She felt a single tear slip down her cheek and immediately slapped it away. It would do no good to let Mamm or Elmer Lee see her self-pity. She'd already cried enough tears to fill a bathtub.

“Did you find what you want?” Elmer Lee asked.

“Not yet. I need milk chocolate chips.”

“My mamm wants birdseed,” he said. “I'll meet you at the front.”

Cassie nodded. Why did she have to meet him anywhere? They had arrived at the store at the same time. That didn't mean they were together.

She ambled down the aisle until she spotted the chocolate chips. The store had a wide variety to choose from. Milk chocolate, semi-sweet, mint, and peanut butter. She stared at the packages without really seeing them. How would she ever finish her shopping when she felt so distracted? How would she ever get on with her life?

She snapped her head up as that feeling of being watched returned. The aisle was empty except for her. She must be going bonkers.

She jumped as someone laid a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Zach Reynolds in all his beautiful glory standing there with a crooked nose and sad blue eyes. She almost had a stroke.

“Cassie,” he whispered. “Can I talk to you?”

She furrowed her brows in confusion. “What do you want?”

He glanced around and put his finger to his lips. “I've been to your house four times. They won't let me see you.”

Cassie pressed her mouth into a rigid line. Was Mamm trying to protect her or control her?

Zach looked positively desperate as he glanced behind him once again. “I've left ten messages on your cell phone.”

“I'm taking baptism classes, Dr. Reynolds. I don't use a cell phone anymore.”

He seemed to disintegrate before her very eyes. “Don't call me that. Please don't call me that.” She flinched when he curled his fingers around her upper arms. “Cassie, I've got to talk to you.”

“There isn't anything to say,” she said, extricating her arms from his grasp and taking a step backward.

He acted like a wounded animal, frantic and wary. “There is everything to say, and they won't let me talk to you. Anna told me you might be here this afternoon. I've been waiting for an hour in hopes of catching a glimpse of you.”

Mammi told Zach she'd be here? That traitor.

He leaned closer. He smelled of some irresistible cologne that made her heart clatter around in her chest. “I'm crazy in love with you and if you don't forgive me, I don't think I'll ever smile again. You see, I didn't—”

Cassie glanced behind her. She was not eager for the scene that was sure to follow if Mamm and Norman discovered her and Zach Reynolds whispering in aisle four. She sighed and ordered her heart to be still. She wouldn't let the doctor rob her of reason. “I've already forgiven you. Now go, before Mamm sees you.”

“We couldn't have your mamm getting angry.” Did she sense a touch of bitterness in his voice? He closed his eyes momentarily, and she saw the muscles of his jaw twitch with tension. “Cassie, what can I do to make you love me again?”

The question conked her on the head. “Love you? Why . . . why would you want that?”

He grabbed her hand. She pulled it away. “Cassie, please, come with me. Just for an hour and let me explain.”

He'd hurt her deeply, but she couldn't be insensible to the ache she saw in his eyes. Maybe he truly felt sorry for what he'd done.

She shook her head. Sorry or not, she wouldn't ever trust him again, wouldn't ever believe in his promises, wouldn't open her heart. Offering Zach second and third chances had only gotten her into trouble.

“I . . . I can't, Doctor. I came in for chocolate chips, not a therapy session.”

His face grew as ominous as an impending storm. “Cassie, this isn't you.” He fingered one of the dangling ties of her kapp. “I can't bear the thought that my stupidity compelled you to rejoin the Amish.”

Cassie lowered her eyes. “The Amish are good, decent people.”

“Of course they are. But this life isn't what you want, and I feel horrible that I let you believe something that sent you running back here.”

“You simply reminded me of the way the world really is. And it's a world I don't want to live in anymore.”

She heard Norman behind her and whipped her head around. “What are you doing here?” Norman came barreling toward them as if Dr. Reynolds were a thieving fox out to steal the chickens.

Without hesitation, Norman got toe-to-toe with the doctor. The doctor didn't look like he had a lot of fight in him, but he stood his ground. “I told you to stay away from Cassie.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“She doesn't want to talk to you.”

“You won't let her talk to me. What are you afraid of?”

“Afraid? I'm afraid of losing her. We lost her once to the world. We refuse to lose her again because of some handsome Englischer who fills her head with nonsense but only wants to drag her to hell.”

Cassie held her breath. Norman's face turned bright red, and the sweat beaded on his forehead. With his loud voice, he would soon draw the attention of everyone in the store.

“Norman,” Cassie said. “Keep your voice down and let the doctor leave. He doesn't mean any harm.”

Norman pointed a finger in her face. She leaned away in surprise. “Keep quiet, Cassie. You don't know of what you speak. He is an evil man.”

Cassie glanced at Zach. With his eyes blazing with indignation and his powerful fists clenched at his side, he was poised to answer back, that was for sure and certain. But she saw something else too. She saw a man who made house calls to an old Amish lady because he knew that his presence gave her comfort. She saw someone who chopped wood and milked cows in an effort to be helpful and tried to learn how to knit just to make an old lady happy. She saw a man who played FIFA with a sick little boy and wept bitterly when he had died.

She didn't see an evil man.

She turned to face Norman and shot daggers at him with her glare. “Norman, you are my brother, but I am ashamed of you today. You have forgotten that we must treat all men with charity and forgiveness.”

“Not him,” Norman said.

Cassie dug in her heels. “All men.”

“And women too,” Zach murmured.

Cassie turned and eyed Zach. He looked so handsome, so formidable standing there as if the world would stop spinning if he didn't hold it up. “Denki for always defending me. You don't need to do it anymore. I've got my family.”

As if on cue, Elmer Lee, Mamm, and Linda seemed to converge on them from three different directions. Elmer Lee regarded Zach with alarm written all over his face.

Linda came from behind the doctor and smiled. “It's always nice to see you, Dr. Reynolds.”

Mamm hurried down the aisle and wasted no time on small talk or dirty looks. “Time for us to go,” she said, hooking her elbow around Cassie's and fussing like a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wing. “You must make those cookies for the gathering tonight yet. So much to do.”

Cassie let her mamm pull her down the aisle and away from Zach. She turned back and managed a weak, unconvincing smile. “Doctor, I've made my choice. We don't need to talk. You don't need to explain yourself. We are from very different worlds. I've come to terms with that fact. I hope you can too.”

She turned her back on him and hurried down the aisle with her family flanking her on all four sides. Norman led the way. Mamm held tight at her right. Elmer Lee walked beside her on the left, and Linda brought up the rear. It made her think of the Secret Service guarding the president.

Too late, she realized she'd left without the chocolate chips. She certainly wasn't going back for them. She'd settle for snickerdoodles. Snickerdoodles and Elmer Lee.

“Call me Zach,” she heard him say behind her. She'd never heard greater despair.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Cassie ladled the last of the syrup into the pint jar. Titus, her faithful helper, wiped the rim with a damp towel and screwed the lid into place.

“All done for another year, Mammi,” Cassie said. A hundred and twenty pints of maple syrup lined the shelves in the cellar, and five more cooled on the kitchen counter. A good year for syrup. The sap had run for nearly five weeks.

Mammi stood on the opposite side of the counter so as not to be in the way of the syrup canning. She was making sandwiches of some kind, though Cassie had no idea what substance sat between the two slices of bread. Since the doctor had given her the go-ahead to move about, Mammi had abandoned her knitting altogether and had started cooking. Pies, cakes, meatballs, fish patties, Jell-O with hot dogs, and a Mediterranean dish called couscous had all been on the menu in the last week. Cassie was sort of glad she didn't live here anymore. Another meal of fried chicken livers might just put her in the hospital.

“I'm glad you could come this morning to finish the syrup,” Mammi said, cutting five sandwiches in half and arranging them on plates garnished with wilted parsley. She picked up her frosting piping bag with the ruffle tip and squeezed out a mushy purple substance onto each plate. “Mashed red beets,” Mammi said. “Don't they look like lilacs? Just in time for spring.”

Cassie studied Mammi's flower creations. They looked more like shapeless globs of lumpy purple paint, but who was Cassie to discourage Mammi's creative side? “They look very pretty, Mammi.”

“I love red beets,” Titus said, but the toothpick quivered between his lips as he eyed those sandwiches.

“What kind of sandwiches are we having for supper?” Cassie asked, almost not wanting to know. Sometimes it was better to eat Mammi's food and ask questions later.

Mammi seemed pleased with herself. “Spam,” she said. “I chopped it up very fine and added pickles and mayonnaise and olives.”

It didn't sound too bad. Dr. Reynolds would have called it a recipe for hypertension, but at least it wasn't chicken intestines or something even less edible.

She shouldn't have let Zach cross her mind like that. It took a few breathless seconds to calm her racing heart.

“It's too bad Dr. Reynolds can't be here to eat with us,” Mammi said.

So much for banishing Zach from her mind. Cassie gave in and let her heart gallop wildly around the meadow.

“Why can't he come over?” Titus asked. “Cassie doesn't mind.”

As a matter of fact she did mind, but she gave Titus a pleasant smile anyway, as if she were completely indifferent to Dr. Reynolds.

“The doctor tries to stay away when Cassie comes over. Doesn't like to make her uncomfortable or stir up trouble with Norman and Esther.” Mammi glanced at Cassie. “He knows how the arguing upsets you.”

Yes. It was better that he stayed away. Keep the peace at all costs. Besides, she would be baptized soon. Better not to associate with Englischers.

She held her breath as the familiar heaviness pressed into her chest like a carpenter's clamp. The feeling got worse every time she thought of being baptized. Wasn't this what she wanted? She would find peace and virtue in the community. She would finally belong.

So why did she feel so out of place?

“Titus,” Mammi said, without taking her eyes from Cassie, “go tell your dawdi and Norman that supper will be ready in thirty minutes.”

Titus looked at Mammi's sandwiches and drew his brows together. “Isn't it ready now?”

“Oh, Titus. Don't think about it too hard. Just go out and don't come back for half an hour. There's plenty of redding up to do at the sugar shack. Polish the kettles or something.”

Titus shrugged and put on his coat. “Norman doesn't like the way I do copper.”

“Tell Norman that if he gives you a lick of trouble, he'll get no supper yet.”

Cassie glanced at the squishy Spam spread in Mammi's sandwiches. Unfortunately for Titus, Norman would probably consider going without supper a blessing.

“Okay, Mammi. I'll go get them.”

“But not for thirty minutes.”

Titus narrowed his eyes. “I need a stopwatch.” He strolled out the door and closed it behind him.

Mammi wiped her hands on her apron. “Now, dear, we need to talk.” She came around the counter, grabbed Cassie's hand, and led her to the table to sit.

“But, Mammi, I need to wash the pan.”

“Dirty dishes will keep.” Mammi sat next to Cassie and cupped her hand over Cassie's cheek. “Now. How to get you smiling again.”

Cassie tried for an amused, carefree laugh. “I smile, Mammi.”

Mammi winced. “It's almost painful to watch.” She laced her fingers together on the table. “It wonders me why you want to be baptized.”

Her answer felt too rushed. “I belong here. This is the community I'm comfortable in. Here, people will never disappoint me.”

Mammi raised her eyebrows and grunted. “If you believe that, you haven't met David Eicher. Or Rachel Shetler, with her superior little
hinnerdale
.”

Cassie traced a pattern on the table with her finger. “The Englisch men can't be trusted.”

“So you're running away?”

“Not running. Choosing.”

“Choosing a way of life that you rejected once before?” Mammi tapped her finger to her lips. “Why did you leave in the first place?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Look at your mammi's face, and tell me it doesn't matter.”

Cassie breathed a deep sigh. “There are so many things I love about the Amish way of life. The close circle of family, the mothers caring for their children and neighbors caring for each other. I love the quilts and canning and auctions.”

“You forgot to mention knitting.”

Cassie surrendered a half smile. “And knitting. I like the unencumbered life of devotion to God. People actually try to live what they believe.”

“That is why you wanted to come back. Why did you leave?”

Cassie propped her chin in her elbow. “I knew that no matter what I did, I'd never be able to please Mamm or Norman or the church. When I stood up for myself, Mamm called me proud. When Norman criticized me, Mamm said it was because I needed correction.”

“Your mamm always meant well.”

“I know, but I didn't want to live like that, always being told that I was wicked or vain or stiff-necked.”

“You are the least stiff-necked person I know.”

“I'll humble myself to the ground to avoid an argument, to be sure. And there was my education. I couldn't see how being myself and using the talents that God gave me could be a sin. The rules are strict and unbending. I never understood how wearing pins instead of buttons would get me closer to God. I'm sorry, Mammi, does that offend you?”

Mammi fanned the air with her hand. “Three teams of horses and a roomful of bishops couldn't offend me. Living the Ordnung is not for everyone. What I want to know is, have any of your reasons for leaving changed?”

Cassie knew the answer. It was the one she'd been wrestling with for weeks. “Nothing has changed really. Mamm is happy to have me back, but her happiness seems more like gloating. Her gute pleasure will evaporate the minute I do something to displease her.”

“There is an Amish boy who wants to marry you. That's a reason to be baptized.”

Cassie massaged the spot just above her right eye. The thought of being bound to Elmer Lee for life gave her an excruciating headache. She didn't love him. She could always be sure of his goodness and fidelity, but she couldn't spend the next sixty years wishing she'd chosen something different. She had tried so hard to pretend, but she just couldn't do it.

She groaned and plunked her forehead lightly on the table. “Mammi, I don't want to be Amish.”

“I know, dear.”

“Are you disappointed in me?”

“Of course not,” Mammi scolded. “It takes a brave girl to walk the path God wants you to walk instead of sitting down in the middle of the road and giving up.”

“I don't know if I can go back. I feel as if I'm trapped between two places. I don't belong in either.”

“Stuff and nonsense. There are good people everywhere if you just give them a chance. You're too quick to judge. Like with the doctor. You were getting along so fine, and then you dropped him like a hot potato.”

Mention of the doctor tightened the clamp around her chest. How could she go back to the real world? Zach Reynolds was there.

“Maybe the doctor will surprise you yet,” Mammi said.

Cassie pressed her lips together. She didn't want any more of the doctor's brand of devastating surprises.

Mammi got up from the table. “So when will you tell your mamm of your decision to leave?”

Cassie groaned again. “Never.”

“You could take out an advertisement in
The Budget
.”

She huffed the air out of her lungs. “I will tell her tonight, but I might be moving back in with you in the morning.”

Mammi's eyes twinkled. “We would be thrilled.” She opened the jar of green olives on the counter and skewered one with a long toothpick. Then she stabbed the olive-topped toothpick into one of the sandwiches. “Titus has fifteen minutes left. I hope he remembers.”

“He's a wonderful-gute cousin,” Cassie said, going to the sink to wash the ladle and pan.

“Such a good boy. He's been here every day helping with the syrup.” Mammi skewered another olive. “And Dr. Reynolds has been here all the days that you haven't.”

“I know,” Cassie said, lowering her head. “He wants to learn how to make syrup.”

“When he doesn't have to work, he comes in the evening to study the Bible with Felty. Such a good boy.”

Cassie hadn't heard that. “How can that be right, Mammi? He told me he doesn't believe in God anymore.”

Mammi's eyes twinkled like a strand of Christmas lights. “For three weeks.”

“What?”

“He was an atheist for three weeks. But he recovered.”

Cassie gripped her sticky ladle as if it were a lifeline as her heart knocked behind her rib cage. Zach had found his faith again?

Mammi stabbed another sandwich, probably to make sure it was dead. “Yesterday they were reading that story in Judges where the woman drives a tent stake through Sisera's head. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We get so little excitement around here.”

“I don't understand,” Cassie murmured. “He was so mad at God when Austin died. He . . . he did something terrible. How can he just come back from that?”

Mammi popped an olive into her mouth. “He may have lost his faith in God, but you've lost your faith in God's ability to change people's hearts.”

Mammi always said the most profound things at the most unlikely moments.

“He found a way to make peace with the little boy's death,” Mammi said. “And now he's hungry for the word of God. He comes to our house, eats three plates of food, and devours the scriptures with Felty. I'm hoping to put some meat on those bones yet.”

Cassie turned to stone, stunned by what Mammi had just told her. Zach studied the Bible
and
ate Mammi's food? Wonders never ceased.

Mammi stabbed her last sandwich with a toothpick and studied Cassie's face. “And now I think you're ready for this.” She came around the other side of the counter and reached for a blue porcelain canister that said “Sugar” on it. She lifted the lid and pulled out an envelope. “Zach asked me to give this to you.”

Cassie set her sticky ladle down and took the envelope from Mammi. Her name was written on the front in Zach's quick, short strokes. Her heart marched double-time.

With slightly sticky, trembling fingers, she opened the envelope and pulled out a letter. Zach's writing filled two pages front and back.

Dearest Cassie?

He didn't hate her. He didn't hate her! Her knees went weak.

“Sit down, dear,” Mammi said. “I'll make you a cup of
kaffe
.”

“No, thanks, Mammi.” Mammi's kaffe tasted like paint thinner.

Cassie almost protested out loud. How could he say that about her when she couldn't even offer him forgiveness?

The air stuck in Cassie's lungs. Could this be true? It didn't matter. She knew instantly that she would have forgiven him with all her heart.