“Oh good,” Lois said, looking pleased. “I remembered right. I saw that blueberry pie back there and told Darcy we just had to give it to you on the house.”
“I can pay for it,” I protested.
“No, no, consider it a gift from an old friend.”
All the time that Lois and I had been talking, Ruth Yoder stared at Lois openmouthed. She then opened and closed her mouth, but no words came out.
“Oh, Ruth, you are going to want to close your mouth or a fly might get in there,” Lois said with mock sweetness. “Not that there are any flies in my granddaughter’s café, mind you.”
“What are you doing here, Lois? I thought you moved away to Cleveland years ago,” Ruth said.
“I did, and now I’m back. I’ll leave you ladies to it.” My childhood Englisch friend winked at me before she walked away.
I, for one, was glad that Lois was back. I glanced at Ruth; my guess was the bishop’s wife was less thrilled.
“Well, this has been an exciting meeting so far,” Leah said. “What other surprises are in store?”
Immediately, my thoughts turned to Edith.
As the ladies set in to their quilting, I took the liberty of taking a piece of blueberry pie, already planning to have a second if there was any left. I crossed my fingers that there would be.
I asked the other ladies if they would like a slice. All of them passed except for Raellen. “I want one the same size as yours,” she said.
I did as she asked and handed her a plate with the large slice of pie, a napkin, and a fork. She tucked her quilting beside her on her seat before she took the items from my hands.
I was just about to put a forkful of blueberry pie in my mouth when Ruth said, “You really must do something about them, Millie. I thought they were temporary.”
I blinked and lowered my fork, unsure what she was talking about. As part of my mind was always on Edith that day, I wondered if she was referring to my niece’s predicament. But I knew better than to mention Edith first. “Who?”
She let out a sigh of exasperation. “The goats!”
“Oh,” I said and then took my bite unconcernedly. Ruth had been demanding that I get rid of the goats from the moment they’d arrived on my little farm.
“I have half a mind to talk to my husband about your goats. They are a nuisance to the community.”
I laughed. “There is nothing in the Ordnung that preaches against goats, and the only person who finds them a great nuisance is you.”
“Millie Fisher! This is not just my opinion. Those goats of yours just about bit through the sleeve of my coat.”
“My husband doesn’t like it when the goats get the sheep worked up either,” Raellen said.
“I just gave you a piece of pie,” I reminded her.
She laughed. “That’s right. I take it back.”
Ruth grunted in annoyance at our banter. She had very little time in her life for banter. “The bishop will not be pleased that you aren’t taking my concerns seriously.”
“I hear you, Ruth, and you are right,” I acquiesced. “The goats are rambunctious. I’m sorry if they frightened you.”
I wasn’t very concerned that she would speak to her husband, the bishop, about my goats or, if she did, that Bishop Yoder would take her seriously. He was nearly twenty years her senior and had seen every trial that the district could possibly face in his time. A couple of exuberant goats weren’t much of a concern. I wasn’t worried about him enforcing his wife’s demands.
Besides, Ruth’s bark was far worse that her bite. I had known her since we were school girls in pigtails, and she always thought she should be the boss of everything. That didn’t come from being married to the bishop, although her marriage to Bishop Yoder did put a feather in her cap.
Even so, Ruth and her husband were a good match. He needed her with his quiet ways, and she needed him with her loud ways. In some marriages balance is the key; in others it is commonality that keeps the bonds strong. Every marriage is different. It was my gift to notice what was needed most to make the match successful.
“I’ll remind Edith to keep them corralled while they are at the greenhouse,” I said. “We can’t have them chasing customers away.”
She sniffed. “What customers? I was the only person there.”
I felt a pang in my chest. “You must be exaggerating. The greenhouse is very popular on a Saturday in May. It’s where everyone in the county goes for their plants.”
“It was very popular, and it was where people went for their plants. It’s not that anymore on either count.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The greenhouse isn’t doing well. Anyone can see that. Haven’t you noticed that they don’t have a booth at the farmers’ market any longer?”
My mouth fell open. “Nee, I don’t usually come down for the market. If they lost their booth, Edith would have told me.”
“Well, they don’t have it, and it’s clear that she didn’t tell you that.”
Ruth shook her head. “When are you getting rid of the goats?” she asked, returning to the issue she was most concerned with. “You never said that you were going to keep them after you cleared the land.”
I cocked my head at her. Even with my mind reeling over what she’d said about the greenhouse, I had to defend my boys. For that was how I thought of Phillip and Peter. I knew that it went against my upbringing to regard animals as pets rather than livestock, but my boys were gut company for me despite their tendency to get into trouble. “Why shouldn’t I keep them? I’m quite fond of those goats, even if they are ornery rascals. They keep me on my toes. It is something I need at my age, living here all alone.”
Ruth folded her arms. “That’s the first problem. You shouldn’t be living way out there alone. Any one of your nieces or nephews would have taken you in when you moved back to Ohio. Why would you choose to live by yourself? It’s not natural for a woman to live alone. It’s not what the Good Lord intended. Women were created to be companions to men.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Now, Ruth,” Raellen said. “Don’t you forget that the Apostle Paul said being single and serving the Lord was a righteous life.”
“Lots of women live alone,” I said. “Some by their choice and some because that is the life they are living. There is nothing wrong with it.” This was an argument that I’d had with Ruth many times. I let her say her piece because I had known Ruth all my life. It was better to let her get her opinions out and be done with them.
“Englisch women. Not Amish women.”
“Oh, Ruth,” Iris said. “Don’t you be so hard on Millie, and this close to Edith’s wedding too.” She opened her quilting basket and pulled out a stack of fat quarters and a pair of fabric scissors. “Is Edith ready for the wedding?”
“She’s ready for her future,” I said vaguely. I didn’t want to tell the women that Edith planned to break her engagement with Zeke that very day. She could even be doing it this very moment, while we were speaking.
Just then, another member of our district, Joelle Beachy, came through the door, her face as pale as paper. “I saw all of you in here, and I simply had to share the news.”
Ruth jerked back. “What news, Joelle? Spit it out.”
Joelle started at Ruth’s tone. In her forties, Joelle Beachy was a mother of two and, like me, widowed years ago. She had graceful hands with long tapered fingers. With those graceful hands, she was a far more talented quilter than anyone in our group. Her quilts, many of her own original design, usually placed at the Holmes County fair, where the quilting competition was the toughest in the country, counting both the Amish and Englisch communities. In fact, she’d won the grand prize twice. In addition to being a quilter, she could embroider and knit as well. Being able to do one did not mean that you could do them all. I had never been able to embroider.
I didn’t have the patience for the painstaking work, especially not for cross-stitch, which was the most dif
ficult of them all, in my opinion. Life was too short to spend that much time in a chair sewing. I knew if I’d said that aloud, Ruth would say it was my overexposure to Englisch life in Michigan that made me think such things. According to Ruth, anything wrong in this world was Englisch related.
“Joelle, you look like you might faint dead away,” Raellen said. “Whatever has gotten into you?” Raellen started to get up from her seat.
“You have a seat, Joelle,” I said and pushed an untouched glass of water her way. “Then you can tell us what happened.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay!”
“What news, Joelle?” Ruth’s patience was paper thin.
“Edith isn’t marrying Zeke Miller. The wedding is off!”
Behind us there was a crash and a young Englisch woman with the curliest blond hair I had ever seen dropped an entire tray of pie. Broken plates, pie crust, and bright raspberry filling covered the floor. The filling looked like blood smeared on the wide-plank floor.
“Darcy, what happened?” Lois asked, running in from the kitchen.
“I—I—” She fled into the back.
Lois watched her go, but instead of following her, started to clean up the mess. Iris and Leah jumped out of their seats and helped her. I wanted to get up too and help, but it seemed that I was frozen in place by Joelle’s announcement.
Raellen’s hand flew to her mouth. “Poor Edith. Did he break it off? I always thought Zeke Miller was a fickle man.”
“No,” Joelle said. “She was the one who ended it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“What?” Ruth asked. “How do you know that?” Ruth sounded offended. She always wanted to be the very first to know anything that was happening in the district. She wasn’t happy that big news like this was coming to her secondhand.
Joelle wrung her hands. “I saw Zeke’s mother at the market, and I asked her if she was looking forward to the wedding. She said that there wasn’t going to be a wedding. I asked what happened, and Zeke’s mother said it was Edith’s fault. She said her son returned from work this afternoon and wasn’t home ten minutes before Edith told him that she wasn’t going to marry him.”
“Did Edith give a reason why?” Raellen asked, leaning in.
Joelle shook her head. “Not one that Carolina Miller knows. Carolina wasn’t too happy about it.” She winced. “She believes Zeke was set aside for another man. She said some very unkind things about Edith.”
“Like what?” Ruth asked.
I pressed my lips together. “I would rather not hear them. I don’t want to dislike Carolina, and I know whatever she said was spoken out of pain and hurt.”
“Of course, it was,” Ruth said. “If Edith just carelessly cast aside Carolina’s son for another man, of course she felt hurt.”
I felt my face grow hot. “Joelle said that Carolina didn’t know the reason, and there was no mention of another man. I know for certain that’s not what happened. There is no other man in my niece’s life.” I couldn’t keep the sharpness out of my voice. The last thing I would want for Edith at a time like this were rumors like that flying around the district. The possibility that she had been unfaithful to Zeke would certainly ruin her reputation and possibly her business.
“But Carolina said another man would be the only reason Edith could have to leave her son. Everyone knows that the woman needs a father for her children. It would be easier for her if she had a man’s help.” Joelle shook her head as if this predicament was unbearably sad. I couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t thinking of her own situation and raising her two children alone.
“I am telling you Carolina is wrong, and she should not say such things,” I said. “Even though her son is grown, she is going to defend him. I know Edith better than any of you, much better than Carolina, and she wouldn’t do anything so deceitful as to take up with another man. She just wouldn’t.”
Ruth narrowed her eyes at me. “You don’t look too surprised about this news. You don’t look shocked, worried, or upset. You knew!” She pointed her finger at me. “How could you know this and not say anything to us about it? We asked you about Edith’s upcoming wedding.”
I arched my brow at her. “And I said nothing about the wedding. I only said she was ready for her future. I did not lie.”
“A lie of omission,” Ruth muttered under her breath.
I pretended that I didn’t hear her say that.
“What will Edith do now if she doesn’t marry?” Iris asked, wiping raspberry filling from her hands with a paper napkin. While Ruth and I had been arguing, the other women had cleaned up the mess. “She has three children. They need a father.”
Joelle shifted from foot to foot and her face turned red.
Realizing that she might have offended Joelle, Iris began to blush too. “I know that you have children with no father too, Joelle, but your situation is different. Your father and brother are living with you. The children have the influence of a man in the house. Edith’s father has passed on, and Enoch . . .” She trailed off and glanced at me. No one liked to talk about Enoch in my presence.
I shifted in my seat. “There are many men in Edith’s family too, even though they might not live in her home.”
Iris pressed her lips as if to hold back words, and wrung her hands. She sat back in her seat. I glanced over my shoulder. The mess was gone and so was Lois.
I shook my head. “Just like Joelle, it’s better if Edith raises the children alone with the support of her community than with the wrong person. She has the greenhouse to support her financially, and she has done an amazing job managing it these last three years since her first husband died.”
“I just told you the greenhouse is not doing well. I think your niece has pulled the wool over your eyes, Millie Fisher.”
“Not the wool from my farm,” Raellen joked, but no one at the table laughed.
“Besides, the death of her first husband was no great loss to the community,” Ruth said.
“Ruth!” Raellen and Iris cried in unison.
“How can you say such a thing, Ruth?” Iris asked.
“It’s true. Moses Hochstetler was involved with some very dark dealings. I will let you know that my husband prayed for him and his soul but gave a sigh of relief that we wouldn’t have to deal with the likes of him in our district any longer. He would have likely caused a rift in the entire community. That’s the very last thing we want. We need our community to grow together and stay committed to each other. It’s church members like Moses Hochstetler that make that difficult.”
I bit my tongue. No one knew how Moses came to his end. They only said that it was an accident. However there were rumors that the Englischer he had been working for was a criminal who killed Moses because Moses tried to cheat him. I wouldn’t have put that past Moses. He was the sort of man to cheat. Even so, every loss of life is terrible. I had prayed every night that Moses would turn his life around. I had prayed for Edith too. I still prayed for my sweet girl. It broke my heart that she was connected with something so sordid and had to live with the pain of her first husband’s mistakes. One day she would have to explain those mistakes to her children. She would also have to tell them how their father died or how the police thought he died.
Now, I prayed for Zeke. I was relieved that Edith wouldn’t marry him, but I knew he would need comfort in this season of disappointment.
Joelle looked around the table. “I have to go, but I was glad I saw you so that I could tell you the news. Please keep Carolina and Zeke in your prayers.”
“And Edith too,” I said quietly.
She blinked. “Ya, Edith too. I must be off.” She hurried out the door.
“She’s off, so she can tell more people what she heard,” Leah said with a frown. “She is almost as big a talker as you are, Raellen. Everyone in the district will know by tomorrow’s Sunday morning services.”
“That’s not fair,” Raellen said.
“But true,” Leah argued.
“It’s not my place and it’s not my news.” I raised my eyebrows at her, hopeful my words would work as a reminder to her that we as Amish are committed to keeping the confidences of another person in the faith.
“What will Edith do now if she doesn’t marry?” Iris asked.
“She will go on as she has been for these last three years. It’s better that she raises the children alone with the support of her community than with the wrong person,” I repeated.
Iris arched her brow as if she wasn’t so sure of that.
“Were they a good match?” Leah asked. “Edith and Zeke?”
I pressed my lips together and would say no more about it. It wasn’t my place to tell others about a couple’s future. It’s not that I can see the future; I just know when a marriage will be solid and when it will be rocky going.
“Gott has a way of sorting these things out,” I said and glanced at Raellen, who had been very quiet much of the time. I couldn’t help but feel suspicious. “Was this the news that you had wanted to tell me when you first arrived, Raellen?”
She jumped in her seat, knocking into the table next to her. She caught her plate before it fell to the wooden floor. “Nee.”
“You have news too, Raellen?” Ruth asked.
As she said this, I immediately regretted bringing up the fact that Raellen had something to tell me. I had a deep-seated feeling that whatever news Raellen wanted to share, it would not be welcome to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lois come back out of the kitchen, but the blond girl, who I could only assume was Darcy, didn’t reappear. Lois’s mouth was pressed into a tight line.
Raellen licked her lips. “It’s not about Zeke Miller.”
I frowned. “Edith?” I asked.
She let out a breath. “In a way.” She glanced at me. “Millie, your nephew Enoch Lapp is back in the village, and I heard tell that he’s here to stay.”
There was an audible gasp in the room, and I felt my heartbeat race.
Matchmaking Can Be Murder Page 3