Promise Lodge

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “Ohhh,” Deborah said wistfully. “Denki so much for taking care of us—all of us.”

  “I wasn’t expecting this when I came here,” Noah murmured as he gazed at Mamm and Amos. “That’s very generous, and—well, you’ve helped my future come together a whole lot faster.”

  “Take all the time you need to court this young lady,” Amos insisted. “When more families arrive, we’ll have carpenters and preachers—and maybe more than one bishop joining us, who knows?—so we can start building homes and performing weddings. So you see, son,” he added happily, “everyone’s dreams are coming true.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Noah murmured as he gazed at Deborah. “I like it a lot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Deborah spent the next few days floating in a euphoric cloud. While Noah was at work, she painted inside two more cabins. As she helped Rosetta prepare the evening meal, she began a list of baking staples to buy at the mercantile in Forest Grove.

  “I’ve been thinking I could sell breads and goodies at the produce stand,” she explained. “I can put the money toward things for the house—and that way, I could also work at the stand when Laura and Phoebe need to be in the gardens. Is that a gut idea?”

  “I’ve never known you to have a bad idea, Deborah,” Rosetta replied. “When word of your goodies gets around, folks will come to the produce stand as much to buy those as to latch on to home-grown veggies and fresh eggs.”

  “I sure hope Ruby and Beulah come back. Their honey and cheese would be a big draw to the stand, too.”

  Rosetta’s smile dimmed. “I’m waiting for the phone to ring, and for Beulah to say Delbert will let them live here,” she admitted. “Something tells me he’ll have the last word about that even though his sisters have paid ahead on their rent.”

  Soon Mattie, Christine, and the girls came in from the garden to help put the meal on the table and the kitchen filled with their chatter about opening the produce stand. When Amos returned from the Promise post office, he brought Noah in from where Truman had dropped him off at the camp entrance.

  “Letters!” he said as he waved a handful of them. “Plain folks are seeing our ads, wanting to join us here. And this one’s for you, missy.”

  Deborah’s eyes widened. The neat handwriting on the envelope could only belong to one person. “It’s from Mamma,” she breathed as she tore it open. “Maybe she’s written more details about Isaac and the goings-on with that Presley fellow.”

  When she unfolded the pieces of lined writing paper, three twenty-dollar bills slid out. Why would Mamma be sending her money? Although the food was on the table and the men were gathering around it, everyone wanted to hear whatever news was in her letter. Deborah slipped the money into her apron pocket and began to read silently.

  My dearest Deborah,

  I was mighty put out when your dat didn’t ask about you during his chat with Amos, but maybe it’s just as well. What he needs to say is something you should hear in person, dear daughter, so please, please come home.

  Your dat has forgiven you. Now that the sheriff and the new English owner on the Bender place have proven Isaac and Kerry were to blame for the fire, he realizes that you were telling the truth. He’s sorry he sent you away without listening more closely to your side of the story.

  Deborah swallowed hard, blinking. Here were the words she’d been longing to hear, even if her mother was relating them secondhand. Your dat has forgiven you. Please, please come home.

  With a sigh, she wished she’d waited until she could be alone to read Mamma’s letter, but there was no stopping. Her mother’s neat, purposeful penmanship drew her through paragraphs that became progressively harder to bear as she reached the bottom of the first page.

  While we’re grateful to Mattie and her sisters for taking you in, your dat and I believe you belong in Coldstream. Your sister misses you something awful and the boys keep asking questions we have no answers for, about when you’re returning to our family. If our settlement is to survive, we need responsible young people to marry and raise their families here—especially considering that Mattie’s and Christine’s kids have already left. If we can’t balance out troublemakers like Isaac with honest, God-fearing young adults like you, what’s to become of our church district?

  Please, please come home, Deborah. My days have been so long and lonely without you.

  Deborah felt as though one of Amos’s vises had clamped her heart. Why had this letter arrived now, when she and Noah had made such wonderful plans for their future in Promise? She’d kept herself very busy these past two weeks, purposely thinking about the tasks at hand rather than her family, to keep from missing them so badly. In her mind she pictured Lily and Lavern, Menno and Johnny . . . her mother’s careworn face. How she had missed them all—even Dat, despite his stern, indisputable way of handling their family’s challenges.

  Mamma had sent her money to pay a driver. It had taken a long time to earn sixty dollars selling eggs because her mother wouldn’t have asked her father for money. Maybe she hadn’t even told Dat she was begging Deborah to come home.

  What if Mamma had written of Dat’s forgiveness in the hope that if she came home, he would forgive her? What if Mamma was wishing for a miracle, praying God’s will would go the way she wanted it to, for once? Deborah couldn’t imagine her father carrying on to Mamma about forgiveness, after the way he’d taken one look at her and assumed her soul was as tattered as her clothing.

  But Deborah had received Noah’s forgiveness. He wanted her for his wife again. He had a good job and would soon build a home—to share with her. After the joy they’d known these past couple of days, how could she even suggest that she wouldn’t become Mrs. Noah Schwartz and live in Promise?

  Deborah’s dilemma became painfully clear: if she said yes to Noah, she would crush her mother’s spirit. Deborah suspected the bitter words and strained silences that often filled the Peterscheim household had felt as jagged as shattered glass in her absence. But if she told Noah she wouldn’t be living in Promise anymore, where would that leave him and his dreams? She didn’t have it in her to break his heart again.

  A sob escaped her. Deborah began to cry so hard her whole body shook.

  “Oh, honey-bunch, is somebody sick? Is your mamm not doing well?” Rosetta asked as she hurried into the kitchen.

  “I miss them so much,” Deborah rasped. “I—I want to go home! But—but . . .”

  When Rosetta embraced her, Deborah lost herself in the warmth of her understanding. “Of course you want to go home,” Rosetta murmured. “You’ve been a brave girl, Deborah, but family is family. I’m sure your mamm feels lost without you.”

  “She wants me to come back.” Deborah hiccupped, trying to regain control of her emotions. “She—she says Dat has forgiven me.”

  “And that’s a fine thing,” Preacher Amos assured her as he, too, came over to comfort her. “I’ve decided to go to Coldstream next Monday to help them with the barn raising. If you can wait until then, we can ride together. I’d feel better if you didn’t make the trip by yourself.”

  Deborah wiped her eyes and gave him a grateful smile. “That would be a gut idea. Denki so much.”

  She folded Mamma’s letter and slipped it into her apron pocket. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves so she wouldn’t ruin everyone’s supper with her crying. Then Deborah prayed that God’s will would be done, that somehow this situation would work out.

  But how could she face Noah when she sat down across from him?

  * * *

  Noah’s heart sank like a rock. Deborah took her seat, but she wouldn’t look at him. Her eyes were pink around the rims, her mood shadowed by the same desperation that had plagued her the day she’d arrived at Promise Lodge. She wouldn’t lie to him, but she didn’t have to—in the kitchen she’d blurted I want to go home, but he had clearly heard good-bye.

  He’d spent his day sketching full-scale models for the gates, trellises, and door i
nsets for the care center. While his drafting pencil and ruler had occupied his hands, his thoughts had wandered to the house he would soon help Amos design. When Truman had called in the order for the iron—all the posts, hinges, and hardware, including materials for Deborah’s trellis—Noah had felt as though he were floating. The pieces he’d been hired to create were a challenge he looked forward to, signposts on the road to his financial security.

  But he was earning the money to support Deborah, to build the home he intended to share with her for the rest of his life. If she left, what was the point of any of this? What profits a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?

  And Deborah was his soul. He knew that now.

  After supper, Noah waited out on the porch until she’d finished helping with the dishes. Then he grasped her hand. “Let’s go for a stroll,” he suggested. “You have to tell me about your mamm’s letter. That expression on your face when you were reading—well, it scared me bad, Deborah.”

  She clutched his hand as desperation overtook her pale features once again. “Mamma says my dat has forgiven me,” she whispered. “She begged me to come home.”

  Noah hoped he didn’t sound unbearably impatient or impertinent. “And why wouldn’t you go back to visit your family?” he asked nervously. “Anyone would—”

  “Mamma wants me back to stay, Noah. She wants me to—to marry and settle in Coldstream so there will be young families to keep the colony going,” Deborah explained with a sigh. “Especially because you Schwartz boys and the Hershberger girls have already left.”

  Noah’s heart clutched at the hopes and dreams he sensed were swirling down the drain. “How can she expect you to—girls marry guys from other towns all the time!” he protested. “Why doesn’t she realize that the husband-to-be has a say about—”

  “I’m sorry, Noah,” she said in a pinched voice. “I didn’t see this coming. But here it is. And I don’t know what to do.”

  Deborah stopped walking. She hung her head. Then she looked away from him, across Rainbow Lake, as though hoping an answer would appear in large letters across the western sky. “Whichever place I choose, I’ll hurt someone I need and love dearly. It’s been so hard for Mamma with me gone because, well—she and Dat aren’t always happy.”

  Noah already knew that about Eli and Alma. He had vowed long ago that when he married Deborah, their relationship would not sink to the level of disparagement and discouragement that shadowed the Peterscheim home—and many other households where the husband ruled with an iron hand and the wife had become little more than a servant. A doormat.

  “Please don’t leave me, Deborah,” Noah whispered. “I love you, girl.”

  “And I love you, Noah,” she rasped. “But Mamma needs me, too.”

  With a sigh, Noah left her standing by the lake. He could think of nothing else to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Queenie, what should I do?” Deborah murmured as she stroked the dog’s silky ears. “These next few days will be impossibly long before I either go to Coldstream with Amos . . . or I don’t.”

  The Border Collie gazed up at her with soulful brown eyes, wagging her tail and whimpering sympathetically. It was early Thursday morning, not yet dawn, but Deborah had given up all hope of sleeping.

  “I could send Mamma a letter, explaining that Noah and I are planning to marry soon,” she mused aloud. “But Mamma deserves to hear that news firsthand. If I go with Amos, though—even just for a visit—Noah will worry that I won’t come back after the barn’s built. He knows how needy Mamma is.”

  Queenie nuzzled Deborah’s hand, demanding more attention.

  Deborah chuckled ruefully. “Jah, it’s all about staying in touch,” she remarked as she rubbed the dog’s head. “I want to live with Noah, yet I want my family nearby. But with a three-hour car trip separating us . . . I just don’t know.”

  Sitting on the side of the bed wouldn’t solve anything, so Deborah got dressed. She planned to bake some breads and desserts for the opening of the Promise Produce Stand on Saturday, so it seemed like a good time to start her project. Often when she baked, ideas came to her—and perhaps while the women, Laura, and Phoebe made breakfast together they could help her, as well.

  The last person Deborah expected to see in the kitchen was Noah. He looked as miserable as she felt, breaking off pieces of a cinnamon roll left over from yesterday’s breakfast and jamming them into his mouth. His hair stood out in clumps and he hadn’t shaved.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  Deborah stopped a few feet away from him. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

  “I—I feel bad about walking away from you last night, and about making it sound like I don’t want you to see your family,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  Deborah let out the breath she’d been holding. “I know I upset you when I started crying. Do you want to see Mamma’s letter?” she asked as she reached into her apron pocket. “Maybe you’ll get a better feel for what’s going on. You know how folks sometimes write things one way but their true thoughts might be something different. And my interpretation might be all wrong, too.”

  Noah took the folded pages. “Maybe I should go to Coldstream with you on Monday,” he murmured. “I could talk with your parents, and help Amos with the barn raising—maybe spend some time with your dat then.”

  “But what about your work with Truman? Won’t your iron and welding supplies be delivered by then?” It touched Deborah that Noah had changed his attitude toward her dilemma. But she didn’t want him to jeopardize his job.

  “Truman would understand that your family situation is important enough to be ironed out sooner rather than later,” Noah replied.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you,” she murmured.

  “I love you, Deborah.”

  There it was, the phrase that made this situation so difficult. It would be easier to decide in Mamma’s favor if Noah continued to act angry instead of sympathizing with her emotional tug-of-war. He had come so far from the young man who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—express his innermost thoughts.

  “I love you, too, Noah,” she murmured. “I came over to make some things to sell at the produce stand, because baking can be like praying for me. When my hands are busy making dough or stirring batter, my mind opens to higher thoughts. New ideas God whispers to me.”

  “Jah, the same happens for me when I’m immersed in my work,” he replied. He kissed her cheek. “When I was drawing up those sketches for the gates and door insets, I was imagining the house Amos has offered to build us. But I suppose I should put those ideas on hold until . . .”

  Sighing, Deborah eased away from him so he could start his chores. It was heartening that she and Noah both found strength and solace in their work, yet his observations only made it more difficult to talk to Mamma. Her mother tended to see the glass as half empty—or nonexistent—rather than half full, and Deborah had usually gone along with her wishes rather than disappoint her. The two of them had often consoled and encouraged each other when Dat had gotten impatient.

  Mamma knows, of course, that when I marry I won’t be there to run interference with Dat. . . .

  Deborah began to combine the ingredients for cinnamon rolls, losing herself in the familiar acts of measuring and stirring. By the time her large bowl of sweet-smelling dough was rising, Rosetta and the others had come into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

  After the meal, Noah caught his ride with Truman. Roman was taking Laura and Phoebe into Forest Grove to post notices on the local bulletin boards about the Promise Produce Stand’s opening, but Deborah chose not to go with them. “I’ll finish baking and then get back to my painting,” she said. “I’ve only got two cabins left.”

  It suited Deborah that Amos was replacing a couple of leaky faucets in the lodge that day. Christine and Rosetta were helping Mattie in the garden, picking green beans, peas, and small zucchini, cutting lettuce and spinach, and pulling radishes and green on
ions to sell at the produce stand. Painting was another job that allowed Deborah to think while her hands were busy with the roller, even though she wasn’t finding any solutions to her dilemma.

  When she returned to the kitchen to help serve the pot roast they’d put in the oven for their noon dinner, Christine nodded toward the phone.

  “I was just ready to come get you, Deborah. You’d better check the message your sister left,” she said. “Seems your mamm’s had an accident.”

  Deborah hurried over to punch the button on the message machine. Her heart raced as fast as her worried thoughts. If Lily made the call—if Mamma was unable to use the phone—

  “Deborah, it’s me, Lily,” her sister’s shrill voice came through the speaker. “Mamma was carrying a box of canning jars down the basement steps and she tripped. She fell the rest of the way down, so I’m home with the boys while Dat’s taking her to the emergency room, and—oh, Deborah, how am I supposed to do all the cooking? And there’s a pile of laundry we haven’t gotten to, because we just picked a couple bushels of green beans that need snapping, so we can put them up in jars and—”

  Lily’s voice broke off in a sob. “Deborah, please, you’ve got to come home. I don’t care that Dat sent you away. He’s not going to be taking care of all the things Mamma can’t do now!”

  Deborah’s breath escaped her as she gripped the edge of the countertop. “Oh, no. Oh, no,” she rasped. Lily was only thirteen. If their mother was going to be incapacitated for a long time, the poor girl couldn’t possibly keep the household running by herself.

  She turned toward Christine and her sisters, who wore concerned expressions. “Do you suppose Mamma’s got a bunch of broken bones? What if those jars broke and she fell on them? What if she hit her head on the basement floor?”