I glanced around the café. Bryan was hunched over his laptop computer as if his very life depended on whatever he was doing. Seeing his dependence on electronics, I was happy that wasn’t a concern in my own life. There were many perks to being Amish, and no computers, in my opinion, was one of them.
“This will fix you right up,” Lois said as she came through the door from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a huge bowl of soup and two of the largest coffee mugs I’d ever seen. They were dripping whipped cream from the sides.
I squinted at the concoction. “That looks more like a dessert than a beverage.”
“That’s the idea!’ ” Lois said with a smile and set the tray in the middle of the table. “Also, Darcy was back there and made the mocha for you.” She wagged her finger at me again. “I saw the look on your face when I said I was going to make it. You panicked. Truth be told, my cooking hasn’t improved a whit. I help Darcy out in the café, but mostly stick to taking the orders and cleaning. I leave the culinary arts to her. Who knew I would have a granddaughter who was a good enough cook to open up her own café? It boggles the mind.”
“Do you have other grandchildren?” I asked.
“Darcy is the only one I have. After my disastrous marriage to Rocksino-man, I decided to come back to my roots and help Darcy open this café.” She moved the items from the tray onto the table. “Not that she needed much help. My Darcy has a good head on her shoulders when it comes to business.”
“I am so happy to see you,” I said. “It’s been twenty years. I’m surprised you recognized me after all this time.”
She laughed. “Oh, Millie, you are funny. We might be wee bit older, but I would recognize you anywhere. It’s not like your style of dress has changed.” She laughed at her own joke.
I felt myself relax. “It hasn’t. Neither has yours.”
She patted the top of her aggressively lacquered hair, and it barely moved. “When you find something that works for you, why change? That’s what I always say.” She settled back in her seat. “I am happy to see you too, my friend. I have thought of you often over the years. Mostly wondered what you would think I made of my life. When I came back to the village, I asked after you but heard you’d moved away.”
I nodded. “I moved back to Harvest this winter. I was in Michigan caring for a dear sister. She passed on,” I said sadly.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Which sister?”
“Harriet.”
“How sad. She was my favorite of your sisters.”
“Mine too.” I shook my head, not wanting to dwell on sad things.
Lois removed the glasses from the top of her head and perched them on her nose. “Now you tuck into the food. The chocolate in the mocha is from the candy shop on the other side of the square, so you know it’s good.”
“Swissmen Sweets?”
“You know it?” she asked.
“Everyone in Holmes County knows it.”
“It’s just delightful, and it’s a quick walk from the café. I can walk around the square, burn calories and earn them back with a bit of fudge. As long as I break even, I’m doing just fine.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think one quick walk around the square is going to cancel out a piece of fudge from Swissmen Sweets.”
She sniffed, but she was still smiling. “Don’t you mess with my delusion, Millie Fisher.”
I grinned. “That’s not the first time you’ve said that to me.” When we were girls, I always was the one who brought Lois’s fantasies back to reality. She dreamed about being a movie star or traveling to faraway places like Egypt. I always asked her how she would do those things. In return, she always said, “Don’t you mess with my delusions, Millie Lapp.” It had been a running joke between us ever since.
Oh, how good it felt to share jokes with an old friend again.
“I have no doubt that you will succeed in all you want, Lois, by sheer force of will.”
She blew on her mocha, and a light spray of whipped cream dusted the top of the table. She grabbed a napkin and cleaned it up. “I need to keep everything as neat as a pin around here. Darcy is a ball of nerves. Margot Rawlings from the town council is supposed to drop by the café any day to take a look at things. You know how nitpicky that woman can be. She hasn’t changed in forty years. She’s much like Ruth Yoder in that way.”
Ruth complained about Margot’s vision for the village often. Margot wanted to make it more of a tourist destination, and Ruth didn’t want to lose the true Amish essence that Harvest had. They were constantly at odds.
“Go on, go on and try the mocha before it gets cold. The soup too. You shouldn’t be sitting there waiting for an invitation.” She picked up her own mug.
I took a sip of the mocha. It tasted just as I imagined it would. Chocolate and sugar to the nth degree. It was delicious, but I felt I would need a nap right after drinking it.
The vegetable soup was soothing and warm, and Lois was right—it was just what I needed with the state I was in. The beef and vegetables plus the crusty bread warmed me all the way through. I had come to the café to find Zeke’s Englisch girlfriend and instead I was having a delicious meal while chatting with my childhood friend and possibly getting a sugar overdose from her killer mocha.
“I’m sorry we lost touch all those years ago,” I said between bites.
“Me too. I thought about you often, but life has a way of getting away from us. And it’s not like you can watch my updates on Facebook.”
“Facebook?” I wrinkled my nose.
“It’s on the Internet.”
I knew that there was such a thing as the Internet, but I had no interest in it.
“I’m so glad that Raellen suggested our café for your quilting circle. I guess we were destined to see each other again,” Lois said.
The soup and mocha mingled in my stomach and I felt ill. It pained me that Lois was so excited to see me and catch up when I was there to confront Darcy about her relationship with Zeke. I felt I was betraying her in some way. I didn’t know how to start the conversation either. How did I ask my dear friend such a thing about her only grandchild?
I took a deep breath. “Lois,” I began just as Darcy stepped into the main room from the kitchen. She was tall with wide-set green eyes. She had a wide mouth that I guessed would turn into a beautiful smile, though she wasn’t smiling at that moment. The feature I noticed most, though, was her hair. It was shoulder length, blond, and incredibly curly, just as Tucker had described and just as I remembered it.
“Grandma,” Darcy said, “I hate to ask this, but can you run to the store for cheese? The grilled cheese sandwiches have been our most popular item, and I’m not sure I can wait until morning to restock. What if Margot Rawlings wants a grilled cheese sandwich? That could just be the thing that ruins me.” Darcy of the beautiful blond curls smiled at me. “I’m sorry to interrupt. My grandmother said that an old friend was here. I never expected for her friend to be Amish.”
I turned to face her head on, and she grew pale. “You!” She pointed at me and then burst into tears.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lois stared at me. “What have you done to my granddaughter.?”
“Nothing, I just saw her for the first time at Saturday’s Double Stitch meeting.”
Through her tears, Darcy said, “I’ve seen you with her! I thought I recognized you the other day, but I wasn’t sure. Then when you all started talking about Zeke, I had to leave, but now that I see you today, I’m sure. I know who you are!”
“What on earth are you talking about, Darcy?” Lois jumped out of her seat, and then before Darcy could answer, she added, “Millie Fisher was my neighbor growing up. We were friends as children. How can you know her?”
“She—She—” Darcy couldn’t get the words out.
“I’m sure this is some kind of mistake.” Lois smiled at me. “You know how the Amish can all look the same to Englischers like us. I remember us joking about that when we were kids, don
’t you?”
I didn’t think it was a mistake at all. I thought Darcy knew exactly who I was even though I had never met her before, and it had something to do with Edith.
“Darcy!” Lois yelled. “Snap out of it!”
Darcy’s mouth shaped an O.
Lois smiled at me. “It was the same tactic I had to use with husband number two, who was Darcy’s grandfather and also a crier. Tough love comes in handy from time to time.”
Darcy sniffled.
“Now,” Lois said in a much more soothing voice, “please tell us why you think you know Millie.”
Darcy looked as if she might start crying again, but Lois was having none of it. “I promise you can cry all you want when we are done with the conversation, but first you have to let us know what is going on.”
Darcy took a ragged breath. “I saw her with that woman who Zeke promised he wouldn’t marry because he loved me more. I was such a fool. How could I believe that a man would leave his whole world, his whole life behind for me? I have never been worth so much to any man before. I was kidding myself to think it was like that for Zeke.”
There was a scraping sound over the hardwood floor. I glanced behind me and saw Bryan adjusting his seat but still staring at his laptop.
Lois shook her finger at her granddaughter. “Don’t you go and speak like that about yourself. You’re an amazing woman and are worth all the love in the world. Just because some man doesn’t see that, you shouldn’t think less of yourself. He probably has all sorts of issues. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if his—”
“Can you tell us who you saw me with, Darcy?” I asked her, cutting off Lois. I had a feeling that she wanted to say something about Zeke that an Amish woman in good standing shouldn’t hear. Lois, even when we were younger, had been prone to be very descriptive when she didn’t like a person, and of course, she wouldn’t like the man who’d broken her only grandchild’s heart.
“I—I saw you,” Darcy managed to say. “Outside of the greenhouse. You were with her, the woman he was going to marry. Edith.”
Lois gasped and then covered her mouth as if stifling her reaction in loyalty to her granddaughter. I could understand her feelings, but my face fell as I wondered whether Darcy had known all along that Zeke was engaged to another woman. What could he have said to make her believe that being with him was the right thing to do, or had she known it wasn’t, but had done it anyway? Either scenario made me impossibly sad for Edith and for Darcy. My sympathy for Zeke was far less, at least in this regard.
When I’d entered the café I had wondered how I was going to bring up Zeke to Lois. It seemed that I had worried for nothing.
“When was this?” I asked.
“Last Wednesday or Thursday.” She sat at the table. “I can’t remember when. I have been in a fog ever since and thrown myself into my work and into the café. To make matters worse, Margot Rawlings said that she is going to come to the café any day to try the food, and yet she never comes. The suspense is killing me.” She looked at her grandmother. “That’s why I need the cheese, Grandma. What if Margot orders a grilled cheese because she has heard how great they are and I don’t have any cheese? I will be ruined. I can’t come back from that. If Margot likes the café, I stand to do a lot of business here on the village square because she handpicks the vendors for all the events. If she doesn’t like what I have to offer, she will never hire Sunbeam Café. My business will go down the drain before it even starts, and after losing Zeke, I will have nothing left!”
“You’re starting to spiral, girl. Keep it together,” Lois said.
Darcy sniffled.
Lois held up her finger. “Fight it. Fight it. No crying until we are able to get the whole story, and I will get your cheese, dear. Don’t you worry about that.”
“What did you mean when you said that you lost Zeke?” I asked. My fingers had grown very cold. Did she already know he was dead? Was this pretty yet high-strung young Englisch woman sitting across from me actually a killer? I prayed it wasn’t true, for Lois’s sake. I might not have seen my friend in years, but I didn’t want her granddaughter to be guilty of such a terrible crime even if it saved my niece from the heartache of going through the police investigation into her relationship with Zeke Miller.
“Well, when I saw you on that day—” she began.
“If I was there, it must have been Wednesday. That was the only day during the week that I was at the greenhouse.”
Typically, if I didn’t have anything else to do, I would help my niece out on Wednesdays at the greenhouse because the middle of the week was the busiest day for Edith. Lots of bus tours arrived in Holmes County on Wednesdays and many of those buses carried avid gardeners who wanted to know all the Amish secrets for gardening. The truth was, we didn’t have any gardening secrets that Englischers didn’t also know, like using coffee grounds in the soil or pruning in the early fall for better spring growth. The only difference was patience. The Amish were experts on patience. We had to be. We moved through life at a purposely slower pace than the Englischers.
I tried to think back to last Wednesday to see if I could remember seeing a curly-haired blond woman. I couldn’t, but I wasn’t that surprised I didn’t remember her. It made sense that Darcy might have seen us without our noticing. Thinking back to the day, I realized how quiet the greenhouse had been. I knew now it was because the business wasn’t doing well, and most of the staff was gone. When I’d asked about it, Edith just said it was a lull in the day. At the time, I took her word for it, but it did strike me as odd.
“Who is this Zeke Miller character?” Lois wanted to know.
“He’s a member of my district. He and my niece, Edith Hochstetler, were engaged.” I didn’t say a word about the broken engagement, but it wouldn’t be long before Darcy heard about that too. The Amish grapevine was fast, and the biggest news—like the death of a district member—would eventually spill over into gossip in the Englisch community. Nee, I thought, it wouldn’t be long before Darcy knew Zeke was dead.
Darcy gripped my hand. “Were engaged? They aren’t anymore?”
I winced. By using the past tense in my sentence, I had made a mistake. I wasn’t sure how to answer her question. It was true that Edith had called off the engagement before Zeke died, but should I tell her that? Luckily, I didn’t have to think of an answer because Lois refused to be ignored.
Lois wrinkled her brow. “If Zeke is Amish, how did you even meet him?”
“I don’t know where to begin,” Darcy said. “It was before you moved back to the village, Grandma. I was driving my pickup truck loaded with supplies for the café. I had boards and paint, and the truck was full to the gills. I had spent all my money on the café, every last cent, so I didn’t have any money for a good truck. I bought a clunker, but I thought I would be able to get by with it until I had enough money earned back from the café. Then I’d buy something better. I was two miles from the village on an abandoned county road when the truck broke down. To make matters worse, I’d forgotten to charge my phone. I was stranded. Just when I was about to leave the truck and start walking, an Amish buggy pulled up alongside me.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “It was Zeke. He offered his help. I told him that I could use a ride to the nearest auto shop, but he said that he could fix my truck.”
Lois wrinkled her nose. “An Amish man could fix your truck?”
“A lot of young Amish know things about cars and how to fix them. It doesn’t surprise me so much,” I said. “It wouldn’t be unheard of even if Zeke owned his own car while he was in rumspringa. Once he was baptized into the church, he would have needed to give the car up.”
“Yes.” Darcy nodded. “That’s what he said. He offered to try to fix the car himself, and, since I was so low on cash, I didn’t think I could argue with a Good Samaritan. So I let him try, but I told him if he couldn’t fix the vehicle, then all I needed was a ride into town. He agreed. As he worked on the truck, he asked me about all the supplies in
the back. I told him about the café, and he said that he was impressed a woman like me wanted to start her own business. That wasn’t very common in his culture. I’ve lived in Holmes County my whole life, but he was so different from the other Amish I knew. Also, I couldn’t help noticing how handsome he was even in plain dress.”
“Even in plain dress,” Lois snorted. “My girl, you are acting like the Amish are from another planet when they are some of our closest neighbors.”
“I know that,” she said. “But I’m just trying to show you that Zeke was different. He was different from any man, Amish or English, I’d ever known.” She swallowed. “After he fixed the truck, he offered to lend a hand at the café while everything was under construction. He said he worked in construction and could be a great help. I turned down his offer and told him that I couldn’t pay him. I had spent my last dime on supplies to do the work. He said he wasn’t looking for money and was offering to work for free when he was between construction jobs. Again, I turned him down, saying I couldn’t take his charity.” She shook her head as if remembering the conversation with Zeke as it happened. “I left not long after that.”
Lois frowned. “But I am guessing you met up again.”
Darcy nodded. “About a week later, I was trying to hang new shelves in the kitchen of the café. I was doing a terrible job of it. Every time I hung up the shelves, they were lopsided, something that would not do when I set a bunch of breakable dishes on them. To make matters worse, I had drilled so many holes into the wall trying to hang the shelves, it looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.”
Lois squeezed her hand. “Darcy, why didn’t you call me? You could have asked me for the money to help. I know how to use a power drill with the best of them.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t do that, Grandma. I knew you were in the middle of divorcing the Rocksino guy. I didn’t want to cause you any extra stress.”
“Pish,” Lois said. “That? That divorce wasn’t anything to get stressed about. I have had much more intense divorces. Rocksino-man and I broke up very quickly. I can barely remember why I married him in the first place.”
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