* * *
Tessa was concerned when she looked out Katie’s window and didn’t see a lamp on at Turner’s house. Was he napping because he felt ill again? Tessa’s guests would be there within the hour and her dessert was still baking, but she darted up the hill and rapped on Turner’s door. There was no answer so she knocked again, loud enough to wake Mercy from the soundest slumber, but there was still no stirring within the house. She sped to the stable. Pulling the door open, she saw the horse and buggy weren’t there. Where could Turner and Mercy have gone?
Making a mental list of Mercy’s supplies, Tessa tried to determine if Turner urgently needed to purchase something for the baby. But even if he did, Turner wouldn’t have gone into a store alone with Mercy. Tessa wondered if he took the baby for a ride in the buggy to calm her, since it had had a tranquilizing effect on her on Thursday. But it was unlikely he’d have gone out with Mercy on a snowy evening—unless something was wrong with the baby and he needed help. A dozen scenarios flitted through Tessa’s mind, each one more disturbing than the first.
As concerned as she was, Tessa realized even if something upsetting had befallen Turner or Mercy, there was nothing she could do about it now except pray. Once she was home, she bowed her head and beseeched the Lord, “Heavenly Father, please keep Turner and Mercy healthy and safe, wherever they are, and bring them home soon.”
By the time she’d pulled the lemon squares out of the oven and slid the corn bread muffins onto the rack in their place, her guests had arrived. To Tessa’s dismay, in addition to the married couples, there were two single men, but no other single female guests present. Hunter and Faith brought David, the widower, who was short and portly and wore glasses. Anna and Fletcher brought a tall, muscular young man with sandy-blond hair named Jonah, who just moved to Willow Creek from Ohio to work on Fletcher’s carpentry crew. After introductions were made and the men stamped off their boots and were settled in the parlor, the women retreated to the kitchen to tend to a few last-minute food preparations.
“I’m sorry, Tessa,” Anna whispered. “I invited the daughter of my stepmother’s childhood friend who is visiting her from out of state, but the entire household, including their guests, came down with that nasty stomach bug that’s been going around.”
Recalling how sick Turner had been, Tessa sympathized, “That’s too bad she’s ill, but I understand. Kumme, let’s go play a round of charades while the corn bread bakes and Katie’s chili simmers.”
The group broke into two teams: David, Tessa, Jonah and Faith against the others. Every player jotted the name of a person from the Bible on slips of paper, and then the two teams exchanged the slips. The teams took turns and each person had two minutes to act out the character they’d chosen; if their team guessed it before the timer went off, they scored a point.
When it was Tessa’s turn, she chose a slip that said Queen Esther. As she pretended to don a crown, Jonah and Faith called out the names of every king and ruler they could imagine. King David. Saul. Caesar. Nebuchadnezzar. Each time Tessa vigorously shook her head no, Faith’s and Jonah’s subsequent answers grew louder and more urgent as they attempted to guess the correct person. Tessa continued to mime Esther praying, fasting and preparing a banquet for the king. By this time, Jonah and Faith were both standing as well as shouting, whereas David was silent and immobile, a blank look on his face.
“It’s Cain, preparing stew!” Jonah yelled.
“Cain wasn’t a king,” Faith said with animated disgust.
Tessa was so exasperated they assumed she was a male that she threw her hands in the air and grimaced exaggeratedly at them to indicate they were on the wrong track.
“You’re Moses and you’re frustrated with the Israelites’ idol worship!” Faith said loudly, interpreting her gesture to be part of the game. The other team realized Tessa hadn’t been acting out a role, and they all cracked up at Faith for continuing to guess who Tessa was imitating. Tessa laughed so hard she bent over, clutching her stomach.
As the timer sounded, Jonah hollered triumphantly, “You’re King Solomon falling on his sword! Am I right? Did I guess it? I’m right, aren’t I?”
Tessa was too breathless to reply and the others howled with amusement. When the rumpus subsided, Tessa good-naturedly groaned. “Neither of you really had any idea who I was?” she asked Faith and Jonah.
“Neh, but at least we were guessing,” Faith said, zestfully chastising David. “One of our team members didn’t say a word.”
“I thought perhaps she was being Queen Esther,” David replied, eliciting a cheer from Tessa.
“I was! Why didn’t you call it out?”
David’s shrug caused Tessa to wonder whether he was incredibly self-conscious or just bored with their game. Either way, his reservation didn’t bode well for them being a match; humor was important to Tessa. Until she played charades with her friends, she hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d had a good, hard belly laugh herself. She’d missed that.
“Do I smell something burning?” Hunter interrupted her thoughts.
“Ach, my corn bread!” Tessa yelped. Acrid smoke filled the air after she darted into the kitchen and removed the charred muffins from the oven. But when everyone gathered around the table, they politely ignored the thin blue haze hanging overhead.
“Sorry about that,” Tessa said, utterly chagrined. “My mamm says I’d forget my own head sometimes and I’m afraid it’s true.”
“That’s okay,” David consoled her. “My Charity frequently does the same thing herself.”
“Who’s Charity, your wife?” Jonah asked.
“Neh, my daughter. She’s eleven,” David replied.
Tessa cringed to hear her skills being compared to those of a girl eleven years of age, but David continued obliviously. “Most of the time she’s done a wunderbaar job preparing our meals ever since my wife passed on, although there have been a few mishaps. I’m sure with a little more female guidance Charity will grow to be a fine cook.”
Could it be any more obvious he’s looking for a wife? Tessa wondered. David might have expressed such a sentiment subtly to Tessa in private if he wanted to court her, in order to gauge her interest in him by how she responded. Making such a bold remark in front of her close friends was downright embarrassing.
Fortunately, Katie quickly changed the subject, asking, “Jonah, how do you like Willow Creek so far?”
“It’s all right,” he said, reaching for the butter. “But the Ordnung is different from my home district’s. For instance, it seems there are more restrictions here on buggy modifications.”
“Anything you need to know about that, you can ask Turner King, my landlord,” Tessa suggested. “He and his brothers run a buggy shop, so obviously he’s an expert. He’s always been very generous to Katie and me as renters, so if you need modifications to your buggy, I’m sure his prices would be reasonable.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Tessa realized she’d been praising Turner effusively and she wondered if anyone noticed her breathlessness.
To her relief, Jonah asked a question about the use of leaf springs compared with air suspension on the buggies, and all of the men joined the discussion until Katie gave a tiny cough. Tessa knew her sister was politely signaling Mason that they needed to change the conversation to a subject the women could participate in talking about, too.
After supper was over and the dishes put away, everyone said they were too full to eat dessert yet.
“Are you just saying that because you’re afraid I burned the lemon squares, too?” Tessa joked.
“I’m sure dessert will be delectable,” David said. His flattery felt awkward to Tessa in light of the blatant remarks he’d made about his daughter needing a female influence to help her cook.
“I know!” Faith exclaimed. “Instead of the usual board games, why don’t we go outside and play cut the pie
?”
“Isn’t it still snowing?” David questioned.
“If it is, we won’t melt,” Faith ribbed, already lacing up her boots.
The group tramped to the flat area at the base of the hill behind the daadi haus. The clouds had cleared and the moon lit their path. As they shuffled through the snow, etching a big circle crossed with lines forming eight sections of “pie,” Tessa realized it was a good thing there was a fresh layer of snow atop the scant amount beneath it; otherwise someone might have noticed her footprints leading up the hill to Turner’s porch. Glancing toward his house, she saw a lamp on. She’d been having so much fun she’d momentarily forgotten how worried she’d been because Turner and Mercy hadn’t been home earlier that evening. I guess everything must be fine, she thought. Denki, Lord.
“Not it!” Hunter suddenly shouted and the rest copied him.
“Looks like you’re it, David,” Fletcher said when David was silent.
“Neh, I’m going to sit this game out,” he said, patting his stomach. “I’m too full to move.”
Tessa thought if Katie held any hope of her sister and David being a match, she should let it go entirely: Tessa couldn’t see herself with a spoilsport.
“I’ll keep him company,” Anna offered and her husband gave her a knowing nod.
“I’ll be it,” Jonah gamely volunteered, moving to the middle of the circle as the other players scattered along the lines.
Tessa grinned beneath her scarf. Jonah’s personality matched hers more closely than David’s did. And although he appeared a year or two younger than she was, he was still closer to her age than David was. Not that that matters, she thought. Turner’s nine years older than I am and we get along just fine. But while she intuitively liked Jonah’s character and good humor, for whatever reason she couldn’t quite picture him as a suitor.
“No fair!” Katie yelled when Jonah jumped a pie “slice” to tag her. “You can’t jump from one piece of pie to another. You have to run within the lines.”
“That’s not how we play in Ohio,” Jonah objected.
“You’re not in Ohio any longer,” Mason jested, molding a snowball and lobbing it in Jonah’s direction. But Jonah dodged it and it hit Katie instead, disintegrating into a chalky cloud upon impact with her forehead.
“Hey!” Katie indignantly scolded Mason.
“Sorry, I was defending your honor,” Mason laughed, just as Faith pitched a snowball at him from behind.
An all-out snowball fight broke out after that, with everyone taking aim at whomever they could hit. The snow was too powdery for anyone to get hurt and, although David stayed on the sidelines, even Anna joined in. When their shouts and squeals became especially loud, Tessa reflexively warned, “We ought to quiet down. We’re going to wake the—” but she stopped short of completing her thought.
“The what?” Katie asked. “The only other person nearby is Turner and his lamp is on, so he’s not sleeping.”
Tessa was at a loss for what to say, but David took advantage of the pause in the snowball fight to interject, “Speaking of people being asleep, I’m almost ready to hit the hay. Are we going to have dessert soon?”
Although the others seemed reluctant to go indoors, Tessa was secretly glad David made the suggestion, and she rewarded him with an especially large lemon square. Not only had he rescued her from Katie’s question, but he’d moved the party toward its end. Now that Tessa knew Turner and Mercy were home again, she was eager to find out how they were and where they’d been.
* * *
Turner stayed in the shadows on his porch long after he’d watched Tessa and her guests return to the daadi haus. He had come out there after putting Mercy to bed because his head ached so severely he felt nauseated and he hoped the fresh air would calm his stomach. But upon realizing Tessa was holding a party, his queasiness worsened.
Rationally, Turner knew he shouldn’t be disappointed in her for having fun with her friends. Apparently, that’s what people her age did. They nonchalantly accepted rides from Englischers and played in the snow with their Amish friends as if they were children. For the second time that day, he felt foolish for ever thinking Tessa might have been interested in his company as a man. He was too old and he had too many responsibilities. Why would she want to spend time with him when she could frolic with her friends?
Their voices traveled clearly across the yard and Turner had tried to discern whether Jeremy was among them, but he couldn’t. From what he could distinguish from their shouting, there was one man in the group who was either visiting or had moved from Ohio. Turner wouldn’t be surprised if Katie was trying to match him with Tessa.
Turner felt like a fool for mistaking Tessa’s effervescence at the restaurant for genuine happiness to be with him. She’d told him how much she disliked cooking—her conviviality on Thursday was probably mere relief she didn’t have to prepare supper that night. Or else she was glad to be with Mercy; the bond between the pair was undeniable. Perhaps she felt she had to humor Turner’s suggestions, since technically he was her employer as well as her landlord. As far as Turner knew, maybe she’d accompanied him only out of a sense of duty.
His disenchantment might not have felt so severe if Louisa hadn’t just told him the rumor about Jacqueline possibly leaving Willow Creek. The entire evening’s events seemed to emphasize Turner’s life and responsibilities were in stark contrast to Tessa’s. Once again, he reminded himself of the urgent need to concentrate solely on finding his sister. He never should have been distracted by his passing feelings for Tessa in the first place.
Heading back inside, he checked on Mercy and slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. He hadn’t eaten, but he wasn’t hungry. He bowed his head and prayed for a long while, asking the Lord to move Jacqueline to come home. He lifted his head and then rose to stoke the fire in the wood stove. Upon hearing a knock at the door, he felt his heart gallop with hope: Was God answering his prayers already? But no. It was Tessa, not Jacqueline, who appeared on his doorstep. She was holding a plate wrapped in tinfoil.
“It’s gut to see you,” she said cheerfully. “You weren’t here when I stopped by earlier. I was worried.”
Turner wasn’t about to humiliate himself by telling her about how he’d gone to pick her up, and he couldn’t tell her about stopping at the phone shanty, either. “Well, I’m here now,” he stated. He didn’t intend his words to sound so acerbic, but he offered no further explanation.
Tessa took a step backward, cocking her head. “Jah, I can see that. How about Mercy? Is she all right?”
“She’s asleep, which is a wonder, considering how much racket you and your guests were making outside.”
Tessa’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry about that. I tried to keep everyone fairly quiet.”
“Jah, well, judging from the noise, I’d have guessed you invited kinner instead of adults.”
“Why is that? Because adults shouldn’t have schpass?”
Tessa tipped her chin up, as if challenging him to argue, but Turner’s head was pounding and he was too tired to quarrel.
“Why have you kumme here at this late hour?” he asked directly.
“I thought you might like these lemon squares,” she said, “but I see your disposition is sour enough already. Gut nacht, Turner.”
She whirled around and stormed down the hill. When she slammed the door to the daadi haus, he winced at the sound as if he’d been clocked upside his head with a wrench.
Chapter Six
Tessa felt completely humiliated and she couldn’t get back inside the daadi haus quickly enough. She slapped the plate of lemon squares onto the table. Recalling her mother’s adage about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach, she ranted to herself, That assumes the man actually has a heart!
Not that she wanted to get to Turner King’s heart—not anymore, anyway. He was acting like a
completely different person than he had on Thursday night, simply because her guests had been a little rowdy. It was as if he was enforcing an ordinance against adults having fun! Tessa doubted they’d made enough noise to wake the baby, but even if they had, she’d apologized for it. If Turner held a grudge for such a small offense, she couldn’t imagine how unforgiving he’d be for a substantial one.
His attitude is no different than David’s, the old stick-in-the-mud, she thought. How could she have ever entertained romantic notions about Turner? She must have gotten swept up in the drama of his secret about the baby. Or maybe it was that she was so enamored of Mercy she imagined she had developed feelings of affection for Turner, too.
She thought she’d come to understand him a little better over the past couple of weeks and she’d hoped he’d come to understand her better, too. But he obviously didn’t, otherwise he wouldn’t have acted as if she was prying about where he and Mercy had gone. It wasn’t necessarily that Tessa thought she had the right to know, but couldn’t Turner at least have given her the courtesy of an explanation? He should have understood her well enough by then to recognize she was worried about what may have happened to Mercy, instead of shutting her out as if she were a snooping pest.
In a way, Tessa was glad Turner had reminded her what he was really like and how he apparently viewed her. It underscored just how much she didn’t need a suitor because she didn’t want to get married, especially not to such a fuddy-duddy. But he was also a fuddy-duddy who was her employer and landlord as well as a member of her church, and as Tessa prepared for bed she knew she’d have to apologize to him for her flippant remark. But first, she needed to confess her resentment to the Lord. She knelt by the bedside and admitted her transgression, ending her prayer by asking, Please let my words be acceptable to You and loving toward others.
Minding the Amish Baby Page 9