Nancy pulled the cart to a stop, secured the reins, and climbed down. “Hello, Mamm.”
“I’m feeding the chickens. It won’t take but a minute.”
Nancy followed her mother to the coop, where Esther flung out the feed she had in her apron. The chickens flocked around Esther, clucking and pecking and tumbling over one another. Nancy couldn’t help but smile at their eagerness.
Esther flapped her apron when it was empty, and the hens seemed to know that meant there was no more food coming. Esther left the pen and latched the door.
“All right. Let’s have a cup of tea.” Esther gave her a sharp look. “I can see you have something on your mind.”
“Tea sounds gut,” Nancy said.
Nancy followed her mother into the house. With every step she took, her dread grew. By the time the tea was ready, and they were sitting at the kitchen table, Nancy felt downright ill.
“You look awful,” Esther observed. “What ails you?”
“Nothing is ailing me,” Nancy muttered, steeling herself.
Esther sighed and slapped her hand on the table. “Ach. Please don’t tell me you’ve gone to weeping all day again.” Her voice was sharp.
“Nee, Mamm, I haven’t gone to weeping—”
“Then spit it out, girl.”
Nancy took a deep breath. “We have someone staying with us—”
“What?” Esther interrupted. “Staying with you? Have you taken in a boarder?” She shook her head. “Are you having financial difficulties?”
“Mamm!” Nancy cried. “Could you let me get a word in?”
Esther reared back and pursed her lips. Nancy stared at her. “I’m sorry, Mamm. This is hard enough for me to say.”
Esther’s lips tightened even further, and she didn’t say a word.
Nancy looked at her hands as she fidgeted with her tea cup. “She’s not a boarder. She’s family.” Her voice was so soft, she could hardly hear herself.
There was a heavy silence.
“Can I talk now?” Esther asked.
“Jah, Mamm, you can talk.” Nancy hated it when her mother turned sarcastic.
“Well, who is this person? You seem to be taking your sweet time getting the words out. Some relative of Abel’s?”
“Nee.” Nancy looked at her mother. “Your granddaughter.”
Esther frowned as if confused. And then, with an awful twisting of her mouth, realization dawned. Esther jerked back, and her tea sloshed on the table. “What?” she cried, her eyes wide and stunned. “What?”
Before Nancy could utter another word, Esther lurched from the table, nearly toppling her chair. Nancy jumped up, too, and grabbed Esther’s arm, just as Esther’s knees buckled beneath her.
With a cry, Nancy got her mother back in the chair, holding her in place.
“Mamm!” she cried. “Mamm!”
Esther’s head rolled back, and she appeared to be gawking at the ceiling. And then she squeezed her eyes closed and dropped her head as if she’d fainted dead away.
“Mamm!” Fear jolted through Nancy. She leaned over Esther, gripping her mother’s shoulders. She should have prepared her for the news. She should have eased into it. What was she thinking of to blurt it out like that? She’d never seen her mother lose control like this.
“Mamm!”
“Shut up, child,” Esther snapped. “I can hear you.”
Nancy backed away and stood stiffly, watching her.
Esther opened her eyes and took a thin breath. Nancy could almost hear the air whistling through her tight lips. She sank back down to her chair.
Esther clasped her shaking hands tightly in her lap. “So, the past comes back to haunt us.”
Nancy tensed, fighting the sudden anger that raced through her. “Faith is hardly haunting me.”
“So. It’s Faith, is it?” Esther’s face had never looked so old and wrinkled. Strange, Nancy thought, how her mother looked like a shriveled high-hanging apple that was too far up to pluck off the tree.
“Jah,” she said. “Her name is Faith.”
“How in the world did she find you?”
Nancy shrugged. “She just did. She found Mae.”
“Mae? Mae?” Esther looked at her blankly.
“The midwife in Hollybrook,” Nancy said. “You don’t remember her?”
Esther blanched. “Old Mae? That woman who was already ancient when we were there?”
“Jah. She’s still very much alive.”
Esther put her hand to her forehead. “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”
Nancy gripped her mother’s forearm. “He did have mercy. That’s why Faith is at my house right now.”
Esther gaped at her as if she’d morphed into some strange creature from another world. “Mercy? You call this mercy?” She slapped away Nancy’s grip on her arm. “We took care of this. Twenty years ago. We took care of it.”
“Nineteen years ago, Mamm. And what do you mean, we took care of it. From what I remember, I had nothing to do with it.”
Esther’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh, you had plenty to do with it.” She shook her head. “Have you lost your mind? If not for you and your stupidity, we wouldn’t have had anything to take care of in the first place.”
Nancy leaned back in her chair and observed her mother. She felt every muscle in her face go stiff, and her heart went cold. Neither of them had spoken again of what had happened that horrible traumatic day years ago. After Nancy’s child was taken from her, it was as if it had never occurred. As if the child had never existed at all.
Odd. Nancy didn’t remember such bitterness or hate from her mother back then. She didn’t remember her mother being so harsh. So ugly.
But there Esther sat. Spitting words at Nancy with no care how venomous they were. How had Nancy missed such hostility when she was going through it all?
Nancy stood, with her muscles so tight, she could hardly move. She gazed down at Esther.
“Good-bye, Mamm.” And with that, she turned on her heel and left the room. Left the house. And as far as she was concerned at that moment, left her mother’s life forever.
She climbed into the cart like a wooden doll. She gave a quiet snort. A wooden, faceless doll. Wasn’t that how so many Amish dolls were? Faceless?
Well, no more. Nancy had a face. And she had feelings.
And she had a daughter.
A daughter who’d come home and was even now sitting in her house, laughing and talking with her half-brothers and half-sisters.
Nancy inhaled sharply, letting the cool morning air settle deeply into her lungs. She smiled. It pulled at her heart, but she kept it there. She slapped the reins on Blackie’s back, and the pony started for home. Nancy had the strangest impression that her mother was watching her. But she didn’t turn around. She didn’t look back.
She was done.
Faith pinned the diaper securely on Miriam. She’d cared for infants plenty of times. In fact, most of the money she’d earned in middle school and early high school had been from babysitting jobs. But this was the first time she’d used cloth diapers. She was nervous about catching the baby’s skin in the safety pin, but Debbie had shown her how to put her hand beneath the diaper while pinning it. That way she’d pin herself if she went too deep.
“Are there some chores I can help you with?” she asked Debbie.
Debbie’s brows rose. “You can help Gracie peel carrots,” she said. “I need to finish up the potatoes.”
Faith followed Debbie into the kitchen, where Gracie stood on a stool pushed up to the counter, peeling carrots.
“Gracie, you’re doing a great job,” Faith said, shifting Miriam to her other hip.
Gracie gave her a big grin. “Thank you.”
Faith bent close to Gracie’s face. “Wait a minute… Do you have a window in your mouth?”
Gracie looked startled. “A window?” She giggled. “I ain’t got no window.”
“Why, sure you do. Right there. I see a definite wi
ndow in your mouth.”
Debbie laughed. “She means your lost tooth.”
“Ach!” Gracie cried. “I do have a window!”
Faith settled Miriam in her high chair. The baby immediately began to fuss. Debbie reached into a jar on the counter and pulled out a handful of dry cereal. She spread it on Miriam’s tray, and the baby began to play with it and stuff it into her mouth.
“That’s what Mamm always does,” Debbie said. “It works, too.”
Faith smiled. “Do you have another peeler for me to use?” she asked Gracie.
“You can’t help,” Gracie said. “The big dinner is for you.”
“Oh yeah,” Debbie chimed in. “I forgot.”
“But what if I want to help. Then, can I?” Faith gazed at her two new sisters and felt a surge of love for them. She wanted to grab them up in her arms and hug them, but she knew they’d balk. She needed to bide her time.
Time.
Faith had already decided that she wouldn’t return to college, so she had all the time in the world. She dreaded telling her parents, but she simply couldn’t imagine leaving Landover Creek anytime soon. She couldn’t imagine ever leaving. She bit her lip as the thought crossed her mind. Was she planning to become Amish?
Would she need to if she decided to stay indefinitely?
And would it be hard on Nancy if she did stay? Abel had said to stay as long as she wanted, but had he meant it? Surely, he was thinking about a week or two at the most.
But she loved it there. She knew it was quick, probably too quick to make such a sweeping assessment, but she couldn’t help how she felt. And she felt as if she’d come home.
“Faith?” Debbie asked.
Faith blinked and brought herself back to the room. “What?”
“Maybe you should just wait out on the porch for Mamm. You can ask her if she wants you to help.”
Faith nodded. “All right. But I’ll take Miriam out with me, okay?”
“Okay.”
Faith scooped up the baby, gathering the last bit of cereal in her hand to take with her outside. The day was bright, and the cool air was warming with the sun. Faith put the baby down on the floor of the porch and sat cross-legged with her. She doled out the pieces of cereal, one at a time, and Miriam stuffed each piece into her mouth with glee.
“Well, little one,” Faith said. “Maybe we should take a walk around the yard. You can show me around. How about that?”
Miriam gurgled, and Faith laughed. She gathered the child in her arms and walked down into the yard. The grass was still heavy with dew, and Faith felt it seep through her canvas shoes. She noticed that the family mostly went barefoot. She wondered if they kept shoes on during the winter. Well, outside, surely. But inside? She wondered.
“My boyfriend—his name is Seth—loves to go barefoot,” Faith told Miriam. With that thought, Faith knew she should call him. Tell Seth how it was going. Her folks, too. And Cassie, her dear friend.
It was selfish of her not to. But something inside her didn’t want to call them. It was as if she wanted to hold this experience close, fill herself with it, and not step outside of it long enough to make contact with her former world. Which was not very nice, she had to admit.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Let’s go get my phone. The battery should still have some charge left in it since I turned it off.”
She went inside the house and upstairs to the room where she was staying. She slipped inside and shut the door. She put Miriam down on the rag rug and dug in her suitcase for her phone, turning it back on. When it beeped and dinged, indicating it was on, Miriam stared at it.
“It’s a phone, Miriam.” Faith held it up for her to see. “I’m going to talk to someone through it.” She laughed at herself for explaining a cell phone to a baby. Her mind darted to her cousin’s baby, who at Miriam’s age was already pressing buttons and playing on the screen of her mother’s phone.
Faith pressed Seth’s number.
“Faith! I tried to call you, but it went to voice mail. I’ve been dying to know how you are.” His words tumbled out, rushing over themselves.
“I had my phone off,” Faith explained. “It seemed more respectful somehow. And, I’m fine. Really.”
“How is it? How is she? Your mother? What’s she like? Do you look like her?”
“I do look like her. Especially in the eyes. She’s shorter than me. And our coloring is a bit different. But our eyes and our mouths are the same.”
“I wish I could see her.”
“Maybe someday you can.”
“How long are you going to stay?”
Faith bit her lower lip and stayed quiet.
“Faith? You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m still here.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know how long I’ll stay. Abel says I’m welcome for as long as I want.”
“And your professors? They’re all right with you being gone?”
“I told them a week. But I think it’s going to be longer.”
“Oh?”
Faith could hear the hesitation in his voice. “Yes. A week won’t be enough.”
“So, two weeks?”
She might as well tell him. “Probably more.”
“But your classes?”
“I’ve decided to quit school.”
There was a long tense pause. And then, “I see.”
“I wasn’t happy with my classes anyway.”
“But you barely started!”
“Seth. I know you love it there. But I don’t. I want to be here.”
“What do your parents say?”
“I’m calling them after I talk to you.”
“So, they don’t know.” There was a rustling sound, and then he coughed. “You are coming back, aren’t you? Eventually?”
Was she? She had no idea. All she knew was that a week, or two weeks, wasn’t long enough.
“I don’t know what my plans are. Why do I have to have final plans anyway? At this point? It’s all so new. I just don’t know.”
Another long pause. And more rustling. “All right. But you’ll keep me posted?”
Faith’s grip on the phone tightened. She was getting tired of reporting everything to Seth. She was tired of having to keep him appraised of everything she thought and everything she planned to do. But she loved him, didn’t she?
They had both assumed that they would be together forever. But that was before.
Before all of this.
“Faith?”
“Yes, Seth. I’ll keep you posted.” She worked to keep any irritation out of her voice. If she considered his request fairly, it was perfectly reasonable for a girlfriend to keep her boyfriend in the loop.
“Thanks. I’m praying for you.” Seth exhaled. “I hope everything continues to go well.”
“It will,” Faith answered. “And I love my new brothers and sisters. Everything is going great. I’ll talk to you later. Bye, Seth.”
And she hung up.
Miriam had fallen over and was rolling happily around on the floor. She left a trail of drool on the rug. Faith laughed and sat her back up again. With resolve, she called her mother. The call went much the same as Seth’s. Only her mother kept her reaction to the quitting school news subdued. All she said was, “I’ll tell your father.”
Faith groaned. She knew what that meant. A major lecture was on its way. Her father wasn’t a bad-tempered man. Not at all. But he was passionate about schooling, and he’d never sit by quietly at such an announcement. She smiled ruefully. If she turned her phone back off, she wouldn’t have to hear his lecture.
But she still had one more call to make.
Cassie, as Faith expected, screamed with excitement for a whole minute. And then she battered Faith with questions, most of which Faith couldn’t even answer. But she was the most fun of all three to talk to. She didn’t judge. Didn’t demand. Nor did she question Faith’s decisions. Faith hung up feeling better.
She turned her phone off and stuck it
back in her suitcase. She hadn’t missed having it by her side at every minute of the day. Besides, if she was going to be Amish, she couldn’t possibly be carrying around a cell phone.
Chapter Three
Nancy drove Blackie up her drive and right to the barn door. Jeremy was there, and he grabbed the reins, telling her that he’d unhitch the cart and see to the horse.
“Thank you, son,” Nancy said with gratitude. For all her relief at leaving her mother’s presence, she now felt spent. Worn out. Done in.
She trudged up to the house, working with herself to get in a better mood. After all, Faith was inside, and any feelings toward her mother shouldn’t take precedence. Nancy simply couldn’t let her mother spoil the miracle of Faith’s presence there.
“Mamm!” Debbie called from the porch. “Faith asked to help, but I didn’t know if you wanted her to.”
Nancy climbed the porch steps. “Nee. We can’t have her helping on her own celebration now, can we?”
“I thought that’s what you’d say. Me and Gracie are working really hard.”
Nancy patted the girl’s head. “I’m sure you are. I’m back now, and I’ll help you.”
“Is Maami coming for the celebration? Or Daadi?”
Nancy swallowed hard. “Nee. They’re too busy.” She quickly went to the kitchen and grabbed a large metal pot, hoping to stem the girl’s questions. But Debbie wasn’t so easily deterred.
“But why not? If Faith’s our sister, ain’t Maami and Daadi her groosseldre, too?”
Nancy sighed. “Jah, they are. But they’re too busy, like I said.”
“But—”
“Debbie!” Nancy cried. “Less talking and more working.”
Debbie clamped her mouth shut with a surprised look on her face. She turned back to the potatoes.
“I’m sorry,” Nancy muttered. “But we have a lot to do.”
Faith came into the kitchen, carrying the baby. “Can I at least set the table?” she offered.
Nancy gazed at her. She looked so natural with the baby on her hip. Her lovely gray eyes shone with interest and eagerness. Her slender frame would look right nice in Amish garb. Nancy shivered. What was she thinking?
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