As she unfurled a quilt across the bed, David came into the room. “I dreamed I heard people talking and they were staying mean things. Then Groossmammi scolded them.”
Was he woken by my tense conversation with Levi? Sometimes Sadie forgot about all of the upsetting changes the children had already been through during their young lives. “If they were saying mean things, then your groossmammi was right to scold them.”
“And after she scolded them she said I could have a piece of pie.”
“Did she really?”
David shrugged. “If I was hungerich she would be right to tell me that.”
Sadie held on to her sides and sat on the bed laughing until Elizabeth came into the room and asked what was so funny. “We were talking about your groossmammi, that’s all.”
“I miss Groossmammi,” Elizabeth said. “But you’re kind of like her.”
“Except her hair isn’t white and she doesn’t have a cane,” David told Elizabeth.
“And she lets us do things Groossmammi didn’t let us do. Like play Freeze Tag.”
“Or like eating pie when we wake up from a nap.”
“Actually, I’m not going to let you do that, either.” Sadie tapped the tip of his nose. “You may have pie after supper. Guess what? There’s also a surprise.”
“How big is it?” David wondered. They played Twenty Questions the way Sadie taught them to until they finally figured out Otto had arrived a day early.
“Daed says we can’t go out with Onkel Otto unless you or Daed is with us.”
“Onkel Otto never taked care of kinner.”
“Maybe now that he’s here, he’ll get some practice,” Sadie said. Was she the only person Levi trusted? Including members of his own family? On one hand, she was complimented she’d earned his confidence. On the other hand, she felt the burdensome weight of his expectations. As careful as Sadie was to mind David and Elizabeth, most children were accident-prone. Sooner or later, something would happen and she didn’t want to fall from Levi’s good graces when it did.
* * *
The tree lot might have closed at eight o’clock, but a few stragglers lingered fifteen minutes more. After the last car drove away, the crew put the equipment in the barn and helped Maria close the workshop and secure the day’s earnings. By the time Levi and Otto returned to the house, it was twenty minutes before nine and Elizabeth and David were sound asleep. Otto slurped down three bowls of turkey soup—three!—and he and Sadie were out the door before Levi even finished his first helping.
Afterward, he crept upstairs to check on the children. His shoulders and back were tight from hauling and hoisting trees all day and he was exhausted, but Levi knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until Sadie and Otto returned. Even after he’d soaked in a hot tub, his muscles felt like they were in knots—and so did his stomach.
Why am I so uneasy? The day’s tree and wreath sales far exceeded his expectations. Levi should have felt satisfaction, but he couldn’t shake the feeling something was amiss. Yes, he wished Leora had been there to experience opening day, but that wasn’t the only reason he felt discontent. Otto’s arrival had also unsettled him. I’ll probably never get to be with just Sadie and the kinner again. Otto will always be with us, he complained to himself. Just because he’d resolved to limit the amount of time he spent with Sadie didn’t mean he wanted the entire dynamic of the household to change.
Once again, Levi realized too late he should have appreciated a good thing when he had it, just as the customer had said earlier that day.
* * *
Levi was right; there were a lot of crazy drivers on the road, zipping past the buggy at full speed or coming so close Sadie could have seen the whites of their eyes if it had been daytime. From what she’d overheard from Englischers back home, Sadie assumed Black Friday sales didn’t apply to food, but there were so many shoppers in the supermarket no one would have ever known it was after nine o’clock in the evening.
Since they had a lot to purchase, she gave Otto a third of the list and shopped for the rest of the items herself. They agreed to meet at the checkout line when they finished gathering their groceries, but when Sadie arrived near the cash registers Otto was nowhere to be found. She waited for what must have been half an hour and then she finally decided to go search for him.
Up and down the aisles she roamed, growing increasingly impatient. As she rounded the dairy section, she passed two Englisch girls.
“Look, there’s another one!” she heard the taller girl exclaim. “Get her picture.”
Another one? Sadie wondered if that meant they’d seen Otto or a different Amish person in the store. She wasn’t about to ask, so she averted her eyes from their camera phones and hustled back to the checkout area, where Otto was leaning against his cart.
“Did you get lost?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting here fifteen minutes.”
“You’ve been waiting? I was waiting here forever. I finally had to go looking for you. My list was twice as long as yours. What held you up?”
“I couldn’t find the black bears.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“This.” Otto pointed to the slip of paper. “It says one extra large black bear.”
“It says beans. One extra large can of black beans. Who would write black bears on a shopping list?” She couldn’t keep the exasperation from her voice.
“I thought it might have meant beans, but I’d never heard of extra large black beans. You didn’t write that you’d wanted a can of them. So I figured black bears was a funny name for some kind of special Maine dessert. Like shoofly pie or chocolate moose.”
Sadie huffed, “The animal name moose and the dessert name mousse are spelled differently in Englisch. You couldn’t possibly have thought—”
The Englisch girls who had been trailing Sadie earlier reappeared. One of them pretended to examine a bag of mints hanging on the rack while the other one fiddled with her cell phone and whispered audibly, “Shh, listen. She’s having a fight with her husband.”
Sadie was aware cell phones could be used to take videos, and no matter how frustrated she was with Otto, she didn’t want the girls to make a recording of them arguing. It wouldn’t reflect well on their community. She took him by the crook of his arm and guided him toward another register. The girls must have already clicked a photo or else they lost interest, because they sauntered away.
He chuckled. “Did you hear that? They thought we’re married.”
“You should be so fortunate,” Sadie muttered under her breath.
“That’s true. I would be,” Otto said and wiggled his eyebrows.
Oh bruder! Is he flirting with me? Usually the possibility made Sadie’s heart flutter, but not in this instance. Pretending she hadn’t heard him, Sadie began placing the contents of her cart on the conveyer belt. Next time, either Levi comes with me or we can go hungerich for all I care, she thought.
* * *
It was after eleven o’clock when the door creaked open and Sadie and Otto tiptoed into the kitchen, their arms loaded with paper bags. By then Levi had nearly paced a rut into the floor.
“What took you so long?”
“Oh, hi, Levi,” Sadie softly greeted him. “I didn’t think you’d still be up.”
“I shouldn’t be. I should be sound asleep and so should you, Otto. We’ve got another big day ahead of us tomorrow,” he growled. “I asked what took you so long.”
“I heard you the first time,” Sadie snapped back at him. “Obviously, the store was crowded.”
“And I couldn’t find any extra large black bears,” Otto remarked, laughing. Sadie looked at him and rolled her eyes.
Levi was in no mood for games. He’d been worried sick and now the two of them were mocking his concern? If this was how it was going to be with his brother-in-law here, he’d rather be s
hort-staffed. “Next time, I’ll go myself,” he uttered.
Sadie set a can onto the counter with a clunk. “You go right ahead and do that, then. Gut nacht, Otto,” she said before flouncing out the door.
Astonished that Sadie acted as if he were the one who’d done something wrong, Levi indignantly stormed off in the opposite direction, leaving Otto standing in the kitchen alone. The least he can do is put the groceries away, Levi thought begrudgingly. Since he’s probably going to eat most of the food himself.
Chapter Seven
When Sadie opened the shades and saw it must have snowed six to eight inches overnight, she was delighted, despite her ugly interaction with Levi the previous evening. The mere anticipation of Elizabeth and David’s jubilance made her speed through her morning routine. She layered herself with so much clothing she could hardly fasten her coat. Levi had commented the temperatures usually weren’t this low this soon in the season, so Sadie hoped the cold snap wouldn’t continue, otherwise she’d have to purchase a new coat.
Not only would the expenditure be unnecessary, since she’d only be staying in Maine for a short time, but in order to purchase a new coat she’d have to ask Levi to take her shopping. And right now she didn’t even want to ask him the time of day. Recalling his attitude when she and Otto had returned home late, she thought, It’s not as if I wanted to go shopping in a crowded store at that time of night with a virtual stranger while being hounded by Englischers trying to photograph us! You’d think Levi would have been grateful we’d gone at all, not resentful it took us so long.
Sadie wound her scarf around her neck and opened the door. The blast of air made her eyes sting and her skin smart. By the time she arrived at Levi’s house, even her teeth were cold.
“Guess what, Sadie. Onkel Otto is here! And it snowed last night!” David announced even though Sadie was already aware on both counts. “We’re going to make a snowman.”
“Not in your pajamas, you aren’t. Go get dressed, please. And put on clean socks, not the ones you left on the floor last night,” Levi admonished from the doorway. After David scurried from the room, Levi said to Sadie, “I made kaffi. I’ll get you a cup.”
“I don’t want any, denki,” Sadie replied crisply. She did, but not if Levi thought pouring a cup of coffee would make up for how thankless he’d been the night before. She put a pot on the stove for oatmeal and a pan for bacon and eggs; Levi and Otto were probably hungry after last night’s light meal and they’d need energy today. She could sense Levi shifting from foot to foot near his place at the table. Why was he watching her? She had nothing more to say to him.
“Guder mariye, Sadie,” Otto said, sniffing as he entered the kitchen. “That smells wunderbaar. I’m so hungerich I could eat a moose.”
“As it happens, that’s what I’m making,” Sadie jested, shooting Otto a big smile to show she wasn’t upset with him. Then she deliberately edged around Levi to set the table, landing his plate with a plunk in front of him.
Otto chortled at her joke, oblivious to the tension between Sadie and Levi. With a glance toward the window he said, “It must be really cold out there this morning.”
“Not nearly as cold as it is in here,” Levi uttered so quietly Sadie thought she might have imagined it. She didn’t know whether his comment made her want to laugh or stick him with a fork.
Suddenly David and Elizabeth were upon them, their exuberance thawing the mood. “We’re going to play a game outside called Cut the Pie,” Elizabeth told Otto and Levi.
“It’s not a real pie. It’s a pie you draw in the snow and you chase each other around it.”
“Sadie teaches you so many gut games, doesn’t she?” Levi asked. “She’s brought a lot of schpass into our lives.”
Sadie deftly flipped the eggs in rapid succession. A compliment still wasn’t an apology. She suggested Levi say grace but afterward she popped out of her chair again and remained on her feet, as if she were too busy serving to join the others.
“Do you know what snowshoes are?” Otto asked the children as he filled their bowls with oatmeal from the pot Sadie put on the table.
“Jah,” Elizabeth said knowingly, pursing her lips to blow on her oatmeal. “They’re boots a snowman wears.”
To his credit, Otto didn’t laugh. “Well, you’re right that they’re a special kind of footwear, but they’re not for snowmen. People wear them so they can walk on top of really deep snow without sinking into it.”
“Do you have snowshoes?” David questioned.
“Neh, but last night when Sadie and I were out I saw an Englisch shop where people can rent them. If the snow gets deeper, I might get some for all of us. What do you think of that?”
Levi was shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s a gut idea for the kinner.”
“I’ll cover the costs,” Otto said. “We can go right here in the yard.”
“I said neh.” Levi sounded as if he were refusing the children’s request, not a grown man’s.
Irritated by his tone, as well as by his suffocating safety concerns, Sadie addressed Otto. “I’d like to go.” Then, knowing the suggestion would rattle Levi, she taunted, “Maybe if we get enough practice, we can go on one of the trails at the college. Or nearby in Stetson or Canaan. Maria told me people here sometimes rent a van and go with a group from the Unity district.”
“That sounds great. I’ll check into it,” Otto replied.
Sadie’s momentary triumph was followed by a wave of regret; she didn’t really want to travel by van to a snowshoeing trail, especially not with Otto. Just because Levi had been a dolt didn’t mean she had to be one, too. But there was no taking it back now.
* * *
Levi squeezed his hands into fists beneath the table. He had wanted to start today off better than yesterday ended, but he was annoyed Otto had suggested an activity like snowshoeing with the children without checking with Levi first. And it was one thing if Sadie was going to be a sourpuss to Levi, but why was she sidling up to Otto? He should have known this arrangement was a bad idea. Three adults in the house was one adult too many. Just as Levi feared would happen, Otto was upsetting the tentatively happy atmosphere he and Sadie had created.
“You’ll have to go on a Sunday since the farm is open six days a week,” he said.
“Obviously.” Sadie glanced his way for the first time since she arrived and her eyes were as fiery as her voice.
Levi pushed his chair back. “The two of you can make your recreation plans later. Right now it’s time for work. We’ve got to clear the walkways before the farm opens.”
Otto was still spooning oatmeal into his mouth, like the bottomless pit he was. Levi bade the children goodbye in his usual way and said to Sadie, “I don’t mind if they run around in the snow but—”
“But you don’t want them playing anywhere near the cars. You told me—and them—already. Repeatedly,” Sadie retorted. “There’s nothing wrong with my ears.”
Neh, but there’s something wrong with your attitude, Levi thought as he yanked his coat on. Fueled by anger, he’d already carved out a path from the parking lot to the workshop by the time Otto came out to retrieve a second shovel for himself from the barn. It wouldn’t be long until Scott arrived with a plow on the front of his truck to clear out the parking area, which he agreed to do whenever there was snowfall. As Levi and Otto stopped to catch their breath and watch Scott’s truck push snow into high banks, Otto leaned on the handle of his shovel. He surveyed the snow, which glittered in the sunlight.
“The first year you moved to Maine, Leora wrote to Mamm telling her how much she loved winter here,” Otto said.
Levi remembered. That season they’d had a record-breaking amount of snowfall, beginning in October and running until April, yet Leora had rarely skipped the opportunity to hang the laundry on the clothesline outside, instead of in the basement. The clothes would inev
itably freeze so thoroughly Levi’s pants could practically stand up on their own, so Leora would have to defrost them in front of the woodstove. But she claimed she loved wearing the smell of winter on her clothes, that it invigorated her.
“She said you two were considering learning to cross-country ski,” Otto continued. “She loved trying new activities.”
If he thinks he can twist my arm into letting the kinner go snowshoeing by talking about Leora, he’s wrong. “That was before she had the boblin.”
“Oh. She became more cautious after Elizabeth and David were born?”
Otto started shoveling again, not waiting for Levi’s reply. Likely he knew the answer: Leora hadn’t become more cautious. If anything, she became more audacious. Not that she was ever reckless—she guarded the children’s safety with her life. But she was constantly talking about all the wonderful things they’d teach the children to do outdoors, for both work and play—things she’d wanted to try as a child but couldn’t because their property was too small and her parents were too strict. Even so, Levi was sure that if she knew then how easily an injury could claim a life, she would have been more restrictive, too.
He walked over to set the shovel next to the workshop door in case he needed to use it again, and waved to Walker, who emerged from the barn. Just then the first customer raced up the driveway in a black SUV. Levi realized many of the Englischers had four-wheel drive but that didn’t mean everyone did.
“Did you see him barreling up the driveway?” he asked when Walker reached him. “I’m going to go tell that guy he better not leave as quickly as he came in.”
“If you do, he’ll leave quicker than he came in,” Walker frankly replied. “He wasn’t going that fast and there was no one anywhere near his truck. If you go talk to him now with that attitude, you’re going lose a customer and reflect poorly on our community.”
Courting the Amish Nanny Page 10