Julia made a silent vow to finish her current quilt and donate it on top of the others she’d already offered.
Once they were satisfied that the plans were well in hand, they talked about Sol’s progress—slow—and that of his boy.
“Noah is set to go home by the weekend,” Sarah told them. “More work for Lydia, but many of us plan to take turns sitting with him and taking the girls.” She flashed a smile at Julia. “You’ve given so much time to drive her. Such a help that has been!”
“It’s a small thing to do. Since I don’t have a family, my evenings aren’t as busy as most of you must have.”
The barest flicker of some raw emotion on Miriam’s face made Julia regret her words. Although they’d become good friends, Miriam had yet to tell her about the come-calling friend who’d died in the logging accident. But Miriam’s expression wiped clean so fast, Julia wondered if she’d imagined seeing the pain.
Or had she seen a reflection of her own, as if she’d looked in a mirror?
When the meeting broke up and the women separated, chattering, to go to their buggies parked in the alley out back, Julia found herself beside Miriam. She couldn’t resist asking.
“You must see Abby. Is she still talking?”
Miriam chuckled. “She’s no blabbermaul, but talk, she does. Still quiet, except when she wants a cookie.”
A burn in her chest, but Julia chuckled. “Then she yells, does she?”
“Ja, because Julia told her that’s what she should do.” Mischievously, the other woman added, “When she makes trouble in school yelling, we’ll know whom to blame.”
“I’ll happily accept that blame.”
Miriam saw her expression and gave her a quick hug. “Go, I must, with Aenti Barbara and Susanna waiting.”
The cadence of Amish speech, the reversal of subjects and objects, all had come to sound natural to Julia. A few times she’d caught herself echoing the patterns, even in her own language.
“Nick and I are meeting at Salvatore’s for pizza.” See? she knew herself to be saying. I have someone waiting for me, too. Ashamed, she said, “See you.”
Her Amish friend apparently bought her act, because she grinned and echoed, “See you.”
Julia walked down the alley to her car, still behind Bowman’s, and got in. Alone, doors locked, she felt her energy drain away. She tried to convince herself it would be good to see Nick. She’d made excuses the last time he’d suggested dinner. After all, she’d just seen him Sunday.
Unfortunately, she knew what her problem was. She was changing until she hardly recognized herself. She had lost her hard-achieved resignation, and the acceptance of what her life could be. Around Nick, she was increasingly having to bite her tongue. The qualities that made him a good cop had always been a sharp contrast to her personality, but there’d been a time she understood him as no one else did, not even their parents. She was the reason he’d done a one-eighty and changed his major in college from premed to criminology.
She couldn’t help wondering whether he regretted the drastic turn his life had taken after her rape. She especially wondered after he had abruptly resigned from the Cleveland PD, even though he’d risen to lieutenant in major crimes, and taken this job in what his friends back there no doubt considered a Podunk town. Something had happened, but he wouldn’t tell her what. Julia was supposed to lean on him, but not the other way around.
Abby was the closest she’d come to having somebody need her, and look how that had turned out.
Julia made herself take a deep breath, then another and another. Straighten her shoulders and reach for the key in the ignition. She’d vowed many years ago not to give in to self-pity, and she wouldn’t let herself stumble now. Maybe God had known Abby would need her, and that Julia was strong enough to let her go, as if this precious child had been an injured wild creature that couldn’t stay with her.
With resolve, she told herself that a little hurt was nothing if she’d made a difference to that sad little girl. The fact that she’d foolishly begun to love her . . . well, maybe her own vulnerability was why Abby was able to trust her enough to finally speak again.
Tonight before sleep, she’d ask God to allow Abby to wholeheartedly join a family who could give her so much more than a single woman could. Right now, though, she had to brace herself for Nick’s reaction to her too-deep involvement in helping the wife of an injured Amishman and his son—and now participating in the fundraiser to pay their hospital bills, too.
The first thing he’d do was shrug and say, They should carry insurance.
The second? You’re not Amish, Julia, and don’t forget it.
As if she could.
* * *
* * *
THAT EVENING, LUKE and Abby stayed for dinner at his parents’ house. Mamm’s fried chicken and hot potato salad were not to be missed. If he were lucky, she’d send leftovers home with him.
As they settled around the table, there was the usual flurry of talk.
“Oh, ach! I almost forgot the sauerbraten. Miriam, will you—”
“Certain sure, Mamm.”
“No need to hurry, Deborah,” his father said.
“No need?” That was Elam, teasing. Always teasing. “I’m hungry.”
Mamm leveled a reproving stare at him.
“Shut your trap,” Daad said mildly.
Luke glanced down to see that Abby’s forehead had crinkled.
“Was ist letz?” he asked her quietly. He’d seen that she had absorbed the beginnings of Deitsh, and encouraged it whenever possible.
“You said she’s grossmammi, but he says she’s Deborah,” Abby said indignantly. “You don’t say either word.”
“Grossmammi means ‘grandmother,’ and grossdaadi is ‘grandfather.’ I don’t call them that because they aren’t my grandparents. They’re my mamm and daad.”
“What’s a grandparent?”
His mouth fell open at her perplexity. It had never occurred to him that the entire concept was a mystery to this child.
At the same time, he saw that the rest of his family had been struck silent and unmoving. His mother was bent with a bowl in her hand, held only inches from the tabletop, as she stared at Abby. Miriam, midturn from the counter, had frozen with another dish in her hand. Daad and Elam only gaped as Luke did.
He thanked his God that Abby apparently hadn’t noticed.
“I’m your daadi, ja?”
Face turned up to his, she nodded.
Did she really understand what that was? he suddenly wondered. After all, she might have called other men Daddy.
Shaking that off, he said, “This—Eli—is my daadi. Deborah is my mammi. Because they are my parents, they love you, too. You are related.” Familiar guilt needled him. What if she—or his parents—ever learned they weren’t in fact related at all? “Did your mommy ever talk about her mamm and daad?”
Forehead furrowed, she shook her head. “Mommy didn’t have a mamm and daad.”
Movement in the kitchen had resumed, but not conversation. All were listening.
“She did have parents.” He smoothed a hand over Abby’s downy blond hair. “We all do. She just didn’t talk about them.” He hesitated. “They may have died.” Or she didn’t want them ever to know about this grandchild.
He assumed she understood death, at least in the confused way of a young child.
“Can I have other grandparents?”
The answer, of course, was yes. Somewhere out there, she had a biological father, if he hadn’t killed himself with a drug overdose. That father must have parents—who, in fairness, might have loved Abby, too.
His lies had led to a lot of complications, as lies were wont to do.
Still, he smiled at her. “No, just your mammi’s parents and your daadi’s parents.”
She stud
ied Mamm and Daad with the thoughtful, unnervingly direct look of a child.
“And this”—he decided he’d better clarify all the relationships while he was at it—“is my sister, mein schweschder, and my brother, mein bruder. All of us have the same mamm and daad. That makes them your onkel Elam and your aenti Miriam.”
“Oh.”
Although she appeared satisfied, he wondered how much of that she had really taken in. It sickened him to think of a three-year-old who had no idea what grandparents, aunts, or uncles were—because she’d never had anyone but an increasingly unreliable mother, and likely abusive men whom he hoped and prayed she had not been required to call Daddy.
His mother’s eyes were damp, and his father had clamped his mouth shut to suppress what he wanted to say. Luke nodded at him, after which Eli took and released a deep breath, then relaxed.
The two women sat at last, and Luke scooped his daughter onto his lap. His father glanced around then bent his head, the signal for them all to pray.
Although the prayer that preceded every meal wasn’t typically spoken aloud, Luke had been making an exception for Abby. How else could she learn their prayers? He held her hands clasped in prayer between his, his head bent over hers, and murmured the words to her. First in English, then German.
O Lord God, heavenly Father, bless us and these Thy gifts, which we accept from Thy tender goodness. Give us food and drink also for our souls until life eternal, that we may share at Thy heavenly table, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Chapter Sixteen
NICK GLOWERED AT her over the table. So far, his responses had been much as she predicted. She’d had only one slice of pizza, her brother two. She shouldn’t have told him about the fundraiser until they were done eating. Now her stomach was in knots.
“Do you even know this man?” he demanded.
Trying to stay calm, she said, “No, but I had met his wife. Lydia is a quilter.”
“You’ve met her. Once? Twice?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t have to mock me. Say what you think.”
“All right. This might make sense if the family belonged to our church. But the Amish stay separate by choice. They neither expect nor want your help.”
He had to stomp on a tender place, as if he’d found a hidden bruise. Nobody on the auction committee had said, Why are you getting involved? but they must have wondered. Nobody had asked why she’d jumped to give so much time to a woman she’d met only once, however sympathetic she felt.
In fact, she hadn’t examined herself for an answer to those questions. She’d just . . . offered.
“I want to feel part of the quilting community.” That was true.
“All right, I get that,” her brother admitted, “but you’re going overboard. Donating a quilt or two, why not? But organizing the event?” He shook his head.
On a spurt of anger, she retorted, “Why would I get involved if the family were members of our church, anyway? I hardly know a soul. Everyone rushes out the minute the service is over. Nobody has asked me to join a committee. I don’t feel part of them. I do feel—” She skidded to a stop. Uh-oh.
The muscles in Nick’s jaw tightened, and his hand fisted on the table knife he held. “I knew this would happen. That’s why you wanted a job with Amish employers, isn’t it? Because you’d read about the Amish, and you were convinced they can give you something no one else has. You’d be safe, because they’re so peaceful.”
“If so,” she said with all the dignity she could summon, “it wasn’t conscious. I just . . . liked it here. I wanted to stay.”
The pity in his eyes seared her. “This is a strange, splinter religion. You know that, right?”
“No!” She half rose to her feet but made herself sink back to the padded seat. “I didn’t expect you to be biased. What’s strange about them? They’ve held true to their religious beliefs for hundreds of years. They’re not a cult that’s broken from contemporary churches. To the contrary. They’ve refused to let themselves be corrupted by modern ways. They’re sincere, Nick. They care about each other, give without a second thought when someone’s in need. You tell me why that’s a bad thing!”
He blinked a few times. “I’m not saying they’re bad.”
“Just weird.”
“Look at their clothes. They travel by horse and buggy even though, witness this latest accident, they know how unsafe it is.”
“Of course, they’re the ones who are wrong, because we should have the right to drive as fast as we want? If we smash into a buggy and kill a few kids . . . hey, has to be their fault, with their backward ways.”
He was all but grinding his teeth. “You know I didn’t mean that.”
“It sure sounded like it.” This time, she did slide out of the booth and grab her purse. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
His expression altered. “Don’t go, Jul. Can’t we talk about this?”
“We just did. You’re so afraid I’ll join them, you can’t see them clearly.”
“That’s . . . not it.” This gentler tone got to her. “I’m afraid you’re drawn to them for the wrong reasons.”
Clutching her purse in white-knuckled hands, she tipped her head to one side. “And what are those?”
“You know. You imagine that their women are nestled in a cocoon. You’d never have to face the things that frighten you now.”
Quaking inside, she took a step back. “Because bad things never happen to them? Like Lydia Graber? She just lost a son, Nick. Even if her husband fully recovers—and he might not—it won’t be for months. She’s not safe.”
“That’s why you’re doing all this,” he said slowly. “Because—” Even he didn’t have the nerve to finish. He didn’t have to.
Because when she most needed help, she hadn’t been taken into the warm embrace of a community of people who genuinely cared.
No, what happened to her scared her friends. As young as herself, they had sidled away, not wanting to confront the horror that could as easily have happened to them. She’d have been alone if not for her parents and Nick. Nobody among the Amish, however cranky and difficult, would ever be alone in that way.
So, yes, that was part of what she admired. The rest . . . she wasn’t ready to talk about.
She especially couldn’t tell her brother that Luke Bowman was the only man who had ever attracted her. She still didn’t believe she was capable of a physical relationship, but at least she’d felt a glimmer of something other women took for granted.
Continuing to back away, she said, “I need to go.”
He pushed himself out of the booth. “You haven’t eaten—”
“I’m not hungry. I’m sorry. Good night, Nick.” Then, yep, she fled again, ashamed to realize she was making a habit of it.
* * *
* * *
“JULIA ASKS ABOUT Abby,” Miriam said, out of the blue. It was almost a week later, a week during which Luke had made excuses when he picked Abby up after work about staying for dinner. Sunday, of course, they’d joined his family, which had included Rose, her husband, and their children. Still shy, Abby had been absorbed by the crowd, but Luke had been able to avoid any really personal conversations with anyone in his family. Arriving this evening, he’d seen that he was hurting his mother’s feelings. She’d beamed when he’d asked if they could stay.
Now, after dinner, he and his sister had gone out to sit on the front porch, her in the glider Daad had built, Luke on the steps a few feet away. There was no breeze. With this almost the middle of August, the heat was oppressive. Under Mamm’s watchful eye, Abby had been engaged by a wooden puzzle. Elam had slipped by a few minutes ago, on the way to meet up with friends at the Kings’ barn across a cornfield and a horse pasture from their home. He had yet to be baptized, and therefore could still be excused for drinking alcohol and running a little wild. That�
��s what rumspringa was for—to allow Amish youths to have a taste of the outside world before they made the decision about their futures.
Elam, however, hadn’t been a teenager in a long time. Most Amishmen were both baptized and married by their midtwenties. He had to be feeling pressure from Mamm and Daad and Bishop Amos. Luke prayed he didn’t see himself following in his big brother’s footsteps. Would talking to him do any good?
And there he went, trying to avoid thinking about Julia, but of course Miriam had made doing so unavoidable. “I’m not surprised,” Luke said after a minute. “What do you tell her?”
His sister shrugged, giving another push on the porch boards to keep the glider moving. “That she’s talking more. I didn’t say she still fights the idea of wearing a dress or kapp.”
He grimaced. This was one subject his daughter would not discuss. He had no idea what lay at the root of her deep resistance. Without his consent, his mother had tried again to stuff Abby into one of the two dresses she’d made, but Mamm said Abby had turned feral, all sharp elbows and teeth, kicking and fighting until she’d made her point. Like taking one of the half-wild barn cats and trying to persuade it to wear a dress and bonnet.
The attempt had set back Abby’s relationship with her grossmammi, he knew, but hadn’t had to say after seeing his mother’s crimson cheeks. What a child her age wore was a small thing, in his opinion; given her background, building trust was far more important. Once again, perhaps he was responsible for his mamm’s fear that Abby would refuse to become one of the Leit, the people.
If Julia wore a kapp, he had a suspicion Abby would happily do so as well.
What if he asked her—but of course he couldn’t do that.
He looked forward even more than usual to the end of the workweek, having two days to spend with Abby, although most of Sunday would be spent at worship. Monday, though, after thoroughly mucking out Charlie’s stall, he might take shears and shovel to a patch of blackberries. He’d rather keep working on the inside of the house, but it would be good for Abby to spend time outside. Had she ever rolled down a grassy slope? Climbed a gnarled old apple tree? Looked for four-leaf clovers? If not, it was past time.
Turning Home Page 17