The Promise of an Angel (A Heaven On Earth 1)

by Ruth Reid

  Mamm stood upright and eyed her dough. “That should be enough for four pies, don’t you think?”

  Judith nodded, then pinched off the corner nearest her and passed it to Rebecca.

  Mamm waved the wooden roller again. “I think you should stir the stew and forget about sampling my crust.”

  Judith winked at Rebecca as she went to the stove. She lifted the cover and breathed in the aroma of stewed tomatoes and beef, then stirred the ingredients with the wooden spoon and replaced the lid.

  “I spoke with your daed about your hosting a Sunday evening singing at our house.” Mamm dusted the table with more flour. “I thought after the harvest supper would be perfect. If we wait any longer, the wedder will turn bad.”

  Judith forced a smile. Her parents didn’t know how her dream of marrying Levi had been shattered. Attending a singing without him would be dreadful—but watching him flirt the whole time with Martha would be worse.

  Mamm’s head tilted sideways. “I know you’ve waited longer to court than the other girls your age.” She smiled. “Did you think we forgot that you turned nineteen?”

  Judith wished they had. How could she explain to her parents that she had started to question everything? Marriage . . . baptism . . . church . . . Things had changed. She didn’t dare think about the future now; it would only lead to more disappointment.

  The knock on the front door offered an easy escape. “I’ll answer it.”

  Judith rushed out of the kitchen. She didn’t want to discuss hosting Sunday’s singing even if it was a few days away. She couldn’t stomach the thought that Levi would come to spend time with Martha. No doubt her own role would be reduced to serving snacks and hot cider while her sister secretly courted. Angry at the thought of it, she swung the door open wide.

  Andrew stepped back and eyed her. “Ach . . .” He lifted his toolbox, which directed her attention to the boards teetering under his arm.

  “I’m sorry.” Judith chuckled at how unwelcoming her grimacing face must have appeared.

  Andrew smiled. He looked down at himself, then up at her. “Do I look that bad?”

  “Nay, you don’t.” Judith reached for the boards under his arm to ease his load.

  Andrew placed the toolbox on the floor. “You had me worried.” He leaned toward her and whispered, “I do like hearing you laugh, though, even if it’s directed at me.”

  A vibration trickled down to her toes when he removed his hat and the tips of his earlobes poked out from under his chestnut hair. When he placed his hat on the wall hook, his suspenders became taut over his broad shoulders.

  She’d known Andrew Lapp all her life and never thought of him as having a muscular frame. Her eyes were still taking in the tightness of his shirt when he turned. His lopsided grin appeared at the same time that a rash of warmth settled over her cheeks.

  Andrew reached for the boards. “I’ll take those.” His hand brushed against hers, and their eyes locked.

  Judith wondered if he felt the jolt between them, or if her mind was tricking her. The current had only been on her side, she decided, when his expression didn’t change.

  “Who’s at the door?” Mamm came around the corner, dusting her floured hands on her apron. “Guder mariye, Andrew.”

  He picked up the toolbox from the floor. “I told Samuel I would build with him today.”

  Mamm motioned to the bedroom. “I’ll go wake him.” She turned toward the hallway but paused when she neared the kitchen entrance. “Rebecca, time for shul.”

  Judith eyed the pieces of lumber Andrew held. “What do you plan to build with those?”

  He glanced at the boards but shifted them to the side when Rebecca darted into the room and ducked under his load. “I was thinking Samuel would need a lap table.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you.” Judith looked at Rebecca, who was squatting next to the shoes that were lined against the wall. “Where are your manners, child?” Without taking her eyes off her sister, she continued speaking to Andrew. “A lap table would be handy.”

  “Jah, I thought—”

  “Rebecca, about your manners,” Judith reminded.

  Rebecca glanced up. “I’m sorry, Andrew.” She put a shoe on and squealed in pain.

  Judith squatted beside her. “No wonder your toes are pinched. You put this one on the wrong foot.” She removed the shoe and motioned for Rebecca to lift her other foot.

  “Will you kumm mitt mich to shul?”

  Judith enjoyed the mile-long walk to the schoolhouse she had attended until eighth grade. Except for the days it sleeted or rained—then the distance seemed more like ten miles. Walking Rebecca to shul would give her an opportunity to talk with Samuel’s teacher about the studies he would miss staying at home. If he could hammer a nail, he could hold a pencil.

  She helped guide Rebecca’s foot inside the black stiff-toed shoe. “Jah, I’ll walk you. Put on your other shoe and we will go.”

  Mamm returned from Samuel’s bedroom. “He’s excited you’re here,” she said to Andrew.

  Rebecca’s lip puckered. “I want to stay home too. Nay shul.”

  Judith couldn’t hold back a chuckle at her little sister’s exaggerated face. “You need to learn.” Judith held out her hand. “Kumm, let’s go walking.”

  Samuel sat in bed with his back propped by several pillows. Andrew took a seat at the foot of the bed. “Are you feeling up to working with me?”

  Samuel’s eyes brightened. “Jah! What will we build?”

  Andrew tapped the boards in his hand. “I’ve already cut the lumber.” He motioned to the bed. “I don’t think your mamm would be pleased if we got sawdust in your bed.”

  Samuel laughed.

  “It would be like sleeping in the barn, but instead of itching from hay you would be itching from wood shavings.” Andrew gestured to his back. “You’d be rubbing against the bed frame like a cat.”

  He liked hearing Samuel laugh.

  “Have you done that?” the boy asked.

  “Jah. Sometimes in my shop I get sawdust everywhere and my back will start itching so that I have to remove my shirt and give it a gut shake.” Andrew stretched his hand to Samuel’s head and ruffled his mop of hair. “Are you ready to get started?”

  Samuel nodded, and Andrew laid out the pieces over the bed. Although he had made all the cuts and rechecked the measurements, he showed Samuel how to read the measuring tape. He also spread out the sketch he’d made of the lap table and explained each piece and where the wood needed to be nailed.

  When the door creaked open awhile later and Andrew looked up, Judith poked her head into the bedroom. “Are the two carpenters hungry?”

  “See what I’m making, Judith.” Samuel tapped the hammer but missed the nail and hit Andrew’s finger. “I missed.”

  “Jah.” Judith entered the room. She looked at Andrew sucking his finger. “Has he been ‘missing’ all morning?”

  Andrew withdrew his fingers from his mouth and smiled at Samuel. “Nothing I haven’t done to myself many a time.”

  She reached for his hand. “Let me look.”

  Her touch fueled his heart like a horse with its belly full of oats. But any minute he expected his hand to turn clammy, so he quickly jerked it away. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  She twisted her lips at his sudden reflex. “If you would carry Samuel to the kitchen, everyone is at the table ready to eat.” She hurried away.

  He hadn’t intended to be rude, but he didn’t want her to know the effect her touch had on him. He looked at Samuel and shrugged.

  “I don’t blame you for not wanting to hold a girl’s hand,” Samuel said.

  Andrew moved the project from the boy’s bed and placed it out of the way in the corner of the room. “I’ll tell you a secret. I wish I hadn’t pulled my hand away.”

  Samuel’s eyes grew large. “Do you want me to hit your finger with a hammer again?”

  “I hope that won’t be necessary.” He winked at the boy. “Bu
t maybe meiya.” He slid Samuel into his arms. “Hopefully the wedder will be gut meiya, and your mamm will allow you to sit on the porch to do the sanding.”

  “Will you ask her?”

  “Jah.” Andrew chuckled as he carried his new buddy down the hallway and into the kitchen.

  Mr. Fischer came in from the barn and joined the family at the table. He gave Andrew a warm smile but kept to the business of eating. When he finished his meal a few minutes later, he returned to the barn.

  Mrs. Fischer talked enough for everyone. She asked how the building project was going and how Andrew liked the stew. She talked about the weather turning colder and the possibility of an early snow. After she’d exhausted every topic, she aimlessly shuffled the eating utensils.

  “Judith, why don’t you pour Andrew another glass of milk?” Mrs. Fischer watched him as though she could see into his soul. “Since Judith is nineteen nau, I thought she should host the next Sunday evening singing.”

  Judith refilled his glass without making eye contact with Andrew and returned to her chair.

  Andrew looked across the table at her. She stirred her bowl of stew with a spoon, as if she were not giving attention to her mother’s comment.

  “I get to participate, don’t I?” Martha bit into her biscuit.

  “And me too,” Samuel added.

  Mrs. Fischer chuckled. “Absolutely not, Samuel. This is time for the youth to become acquainted.” She looked at Martha. “And you will watch Samuel in his bedroom for the evening.”

  Martha crinkled her mouth into a pout.

  Judith looked up, and her blue eyes brightened.

  Andrew scraped the last spoonful of stew from the bowl. If he was going to spend time with Samuel tomorrow, he needed to get home and finish his work. Besides, he had a special project of his own he wanted to surprise Judith with.

  Once Judith knew Martha wouldn’t be allowed to attend the Sunday evening singing, she fluttered around the house completing the list of chores. She even dusted the baseboards and refilled the oil in the lamps. Mamm sent Martha to shul to walk Rebecca home, while Judith worked with her mother on the food they would need for the singing.

  Judith reached across the table and touched her mother’s hand. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?”

  Mamm looked up from the writing tablet. “You shouldn’t worry. I feel strong.”

  Judith shifted in the chair. Ever since the day of Samuel’s accident, she had wanted to ask her mother if she believed in angels. David had insisted that she not bring it up. But now Samuel was home, and Mamm said she felt strong. She looked strong too, now that the dark circles under her eyes had faded.

  “What is it? Do you not want to have the get-together? I thought you were looking forward—”

  “I spoke with an angel.” Her stomach flipped, and it felt like a hundred pins pricked her at the same time.

  Mamm drew a deep breath.

  “And I saw a vision . . . or maybe I was in a trance.” Judith’s eyes never left her mother’s. “Have you ever”—she swallowed and lowered her voice—“heard of a visitation like that?”

  “No . . . but sometimes when we want something real bad . . .” Her mother sniffled and reached for a rag on the counter.

  “I know what I saw, Mamm.” Judith kept her voice steady. “I even heard chanting. I followed him into the apple grove.”

  Mamm took another calming breath. “I heard what you’ve told everyone.” She bowed her head. “What you said about Samuel walking too.”

  “I believe he will.”

  Tears spilled down Mamm’s face. “I don’t want to lose you, Judith. I just can’t lose you.”

  Judith’s throat tightened. “Please, Mamm, don’t cry. You won’t lose me.”

  Her mother blew her nose. “You muscht nett speak of this again.”

  “But—”

  “It’s for the best. Why do you think I want to have the singing at our haus? I want you to find a mate. I want you to marry and have boppli and . . .” She reached across the table for Judith’s hand. “And have the life God purposed for you.”

  Judith mustered a smile. Her mother probably assumed that Levi Plank fit into her daughter’s future. She couldn’t tell her there wasn’t anyone interested in marrying her now. Besides, maybe marriage wasn’t God’s purpose for her life after all.

  The church deemed marriage a duty to fulfill, but did God? Judith had accepted and anticipated her womanly role . . . anticipated being married more than she anticipated falling in love. And she couldn’t deny that Levi had broken her heart. But was it losing the dream of marriage that left her feeling brokenhearted? The thought startled her.

  “Judith, I know you’ve been worried over Samuel, but his accident isn’t your burden to bear.”

  “I shouldn’t have yelled for him to come off the roof.”

  “What is done is done.” Mamm squeezed her hand. “There will be no more talk of angels in this haus.”

  “There were angels in the Bible,” Judith said softly.

  “Jah, and they fought battles and delivered very important messages. Don’t you see? We are only a small group of plain people. Why would God send an angel to our district? We already share His gospel within our community, and we already follow His word.” She thumped her chest with her thumb. “We have His law deep in our hearts.”

  Her mother’s drawn-out gaze pulled at Judith’s heart. She believed everything Mamm said, but it didn’t explain why she’d seen Tobias multiple times.

  She needed to see him again. She needed to know more about the message God sent him to deliver. Mamm’s question was one she had been asking herself for days. Of all the plain people in their community, why had God chosen her?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Andrew veered his buggy into the Fischers’ drive and sighed when he saw Levi’s buggy already parked next to the barn. He had convinced himself to be bold around Judith, and now it seemed his efforts would once again be compared to Levi’s. He might as well have been chaff on the threshing floor.

  Well, perhaps it was for the best if he never found courage to talk with Judith about courtship. After all, his father rarely changed his mind.

  Mrs. Fischer answered the door. It would be another hour before Samuel finished his physical therapy exercises. Not wishing to see Levi, Andrew declined the invitation to wait in the sitting room. He decided to leave his tools on the porch and go for a walk.

  He took the shortcut through the woods and sat at the river until he thought Samuel’s therapy would be over. Then he walked the path leading to the house. At the sight of Judith picking apples, he stopped and leaned against a tree. She tossed an apron full of fruit into the basket, then bent and selected an apple. As he watched her bite into it, Andrew’s mouth watered for a cup of warm apple cider.

  He was about to step toward her when he heard someone whistling. Levi.

  As Levi neared Judith, his tune turned into a long flirtatious whistle directed at her. Judith turned her back to him, but Levi latched onto her elbows. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  She tried to pivot away, but his nose followed her neckline to her ear like a hound on a fox trail.

  Andrew’s chest deflated as he turned to walk away. Levi had won again. It shouldn’t have come as a shock that Levi realized he wanted Judith—or she him.

  Judith’s voice carried. “I told you before. I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

  Hearing her in distress was enough to ignite Andrew. He spun around, blazing with fury as he saw her trying to push herself off Levi’s chest.

  “I just want to talk with you, that’s all. Give me five minutes.”

  Andrew stormed toward them. “Let her go, Levi.”

  Greeya fatt, Andrew.” Levi looked at Judith. “Tell him we “were just talking.”

  “Our talk is over. I was hoping to meet Andrew here, not you.”

  The moment Levi’s arms dropped from around her, Judith rushed to Andre
w’s side. She slipped her hand into his and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Will you take me for a walk nau?” Her voice quivered, but her gaze bored a hole into his heart.

  Andrew felt his insides stammering to reply. Vaguely aware that Levi was walking away, he held his focus solely on Judith, yet couldn’t utter a sound.

  She bounced up to her toes. “Please,” she whispered next to his ear.

  The warmth of her words sent a prickle along his spine. He turned his face toward her, and her lips brushed against his cheek. An accident or a kiss, he wasn’t sure, but the touch of her lips against his cheek quickened his pulse.

  “Were you really hoping I’d be out here?” he asked, his lips only inches from her face.

  She tried to look over her shoulder to where Levi had been, but Andrew cupped her face in his hands. As he glided his thumb over her cheekbone, she tried to explain.

  He leaned closer, her lips his focus. She was saying something, but he didn’t hear her words. Unable to think of anything but kissing her, he stopped her speaking with his mouth.

  Judith tensed and brought her hands up to his chest. Had she pushed against him, he would have stopped. She didn’t. She eased into his embrace, responding to his kiss, and he lingered as long as he dared.

  Andrew broke from the kiss first. They stared at each other a long minute, then, seeing her glance in the direction where Levi had been, his mind spun to find some way to explain his rash action. “Next time you want to fool Levi, make it believable.”

  Her attention snapped back to him. “Ach, that was pretend?” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “You and I both know it wasn’t all pretend.” He walked to the apple basket, picked it up, then turned to look back at her. “Kumm on. Levi will know it was staged if we don’t walk back together.”

  Judith hesitated.

  Andrew’s stomach was in knots. He had prayed for boldness, but now he despised himself for behaving brashly like Levi.