by Amy Lillard
“Will she give me the recipe?”
“Cora Ann!” Sadie cried.
“What? It’s a compliment.”
Sadie shook her head. “Not everyone feels that way. And not everyone wants to share the recipes.”
“You never know until you ask.”
Ezra watched the exchange between sisters, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. He kept quiet, though. He didn’t want to interrupt and he surely didn’t want to laugh and have them think he was making fun of them. They were so cute together. “I don’t think Logan’s mom will mind. But let’s go in the house and taste them first before you decide.”
The three of them walked to the house. Ezra’s stomach sank. He hoped his mother was more understanding of him bringing Sadie out today. His mom had seemed so . . . bitter lately. It had started when his father left. And for that he couldn’t blame his mother, but that had been seven years ago. Now it was time to move on, time to live, even if she couldn’t start over. But he couldn’t tell his mother that. He just couldn’t. And he didn’t think she would listen to him if he did.
He let them into the kitchen. “Hot chocolate or coffee?” he asked.
“Coffee,” both girls said.
In no time at all, he had coffee brewed and the plate of cookies in the center of the table.
“Is that you, Ezra?”
“Yes, Mom.” He could hear the swoosh of her wheelchair as she came closer to the kitchen. The small warning gave him just enough time to compose his expression before she came into the room.
“Oh,” she said, coming to a swift halt. “You have guests.”
She knew full well that he was going over to Wells Landing to get Sadie and Cora Ann. Why had she picked now to pretend like she didn’t know?
“Mom, you remember Sadie. And this is her sister Cora Ann.”
Cora Ann nodded politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”
His mother didn’t respond. Well, at least not with words. Her mouth turned down a little more at the corners, and her cheeks took on that pinched expression that he knew all too well.
It was hard to overlook her sour attitude every day, yet somehow he managed. The grace of God had no boundaries.
Unable to get a rise out of anyone, his mother tried again. “You’ll ruin your supper eating cookies at this hour.”
Cora Ann and Sadie seemed not to know what to say. Sadie ran a fingernail over a mar in the kitchen table and Cora Ann studied her sugar cookie as if the recipe for the lemon icing was right there on the top.
“It’ll be fine.” He managed to keep the exasperation and frustration out of his voice, but just barely. If only he could take her back a few years, maybe he could stop all this from happening. Maybe he could do something different so his father wouldn’t leave. Not that he wanted him back on the ranch. He was fine without him, but his mother wasn’t. And that broke his heart most of all.
Mom didn’t speak, just gave a hard stare to the room in general, then whirled her chair around and left in a flash. She could turn that chair on a dime when she had a mind to.
“Why don’t you have dinner with us?” Cora Ann asked. Her voice held that zing of excitement he had heard all day from her. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was this excited about everything or if today was special. Whatever the case, her enthusiasm made him smile.
“Cora Ann,” Sadie cried. She turned to Ezra, the smile of apology pulling at her lips. “I’m sorry. She gets so excited sometimes and . . .” She trailed off.
“It’s okay,” Ezra said. “In fact, I’d love to.”
* * *
He was coming to supper with them. Tonight. At the restaurant. Mamm was not going to like this. But Sadie wasn’t willing to do anything about it. Ezra had been nothing but nice to them—sweet, caring, a perfect gentleman, as the Englisch would say. And there was no reason not to have him over for supper. He had done so much for them in the past few days, they practically owed him. Maybe if she put it to her mamm that way....
Sadie shook her head.
“Everything okay over there?” Ezra asked, nodding in her direction as she sat opposite him at the oval table.
“Jah, sure,” Sadie said.
“So why are you frowning?”
“You don’t have to eat with us.”
“Yes, he does!” Cora Ann exclaimed. “I invited him, and I want him. What’s wrong with that?”
Nothing, really. How could she tell Cora Ann that it wasn’t a good idea to sit down with Ezra and eat? Tonight. Where Mamm could see.
That was truly the problem. It wasn’t eating with Ezra, or what they would talk about over supper or the hundred other things that had popped into her head since Cora Ann had issued her invitation. Mamm would have a fit. She was mad enough at them for coming here today, but to bring him back and blatantly sit and eat with him in front of her might possibly be her undoing.
“It’s okay,” he said.
But it wasn’t. Sadie shook her head. “No, I’m wrong, come to dinner tonight with me. Uh, with us. At the restaurant. It’ll be fun.”
“If you’re sure?” Ezra said.
“Yes, of course.”
“Perfect.” Cora Ann clapped her hands together with joy.
She wouldn’t say that, Sadie thought as they all piled back into Ezra’s dusty pickup truck and headed back toward Wells Landing. It might end up being suspenseful at best. But how could she expect everyone around her to understand her growing friendship with Ezra if she allowed them to separate the two of them without good reason? To say he couldn’t come eat with them because he was Mennonite was about the dumbest thing she had ever heard. Why couldn’t they be friends? Not too long from now, Chris was going to head off on his trip, and she might never see him again. Over the years all of her girlfriends had gotten married, and she was continually the odd person out. Now she had this great friendship with Ezra, and she wasn’t willing to let it go like it was nothing. So she would sit down with Ezra, eat a meal with him, and Mamm could just get used to it.
As she had on the trip to Taylor Creek, Cora Ann chatted all the way back to Wells Landing. Not that Sadie minded. She was more than willing to sit and listen to Cora Ann talk away while she herself could remain quiet, not knowing what to say.
Ezra pulled his truck to a stop in front of the restaurant, and they all piled out. Cora Ann skipped to the door, apparently more excited than she had been when she left.
Ezra took hold of Sadie’s arm. “Are you sure about this?”
Sadie tossed back her head like she had seen Englisch girls do, hoping that she appeared as confident and collected as they always seemed. “Of course. We’re only going to eat.”
“Then why do I have a feeling this is some kind of challenge?”
She pressed her lips together and tried to think of a proper answer. Was she that transparent? Could he see her thoughts? “I just don’t like how people—my friends—have acted since we met. They go around like we are doing something wrong.”
Ezra nodded. “Regardless, I don’t want to cause problems between you and your family. Or your friends.”
Cora Ann stopped at the door, realizing that the two of them weren’t right behind her. “Will you two come on?” She danced in place a moment or two, her impatience growing.
“Go on in,” Sadie said. “We’ll be right there.”
Cora Ann seemed to think it over, then nodded, pulled open the door, and skipped her way inside.
“That only gives us a few minutes,” Sadie said.
“Before what?”
“Before Mamm comes to find me.”
“Is that what this is all about? Are you trying to get back at your mother or something?”
Sadie shook her head. “It has nothing to do with that. She’s overprotective. My sister, Lorie, left the Amish late last year. She turned Englisch.”
“No joke?”
Sadie closed her eyes a moment, trying to find the words to explain in the shortest way possible. �
�It’s sort of complicated, but she never was Amish to begin with.”
“That’s a story I want to hear some day.”
“You’ve got it. But for now . . .”
“Right. So what do I do? What do I say to her?”
“Just be yourself. And she’ll have to love you.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Sadie smiled. “She will. I’m sure of it.”
Without another word, she turned on her heel and started toward the restaurant. She could hear his boots against the pavement as he walked behind her, so she knew he followed. They were just friends. And the sooner everybody got used to that idea, the better off they would all be. Hiding would not help the situation at all.
There were a few late diners in the restaurant, but most of the dinner crowd had long since cleared out. Melanie was wiping down tables while Andre, the young high school student Mamm had hired to help out on Saturday nights, was busing tables with a speed that made Sadie’s head spin.
“Come on,” she said, looping her arm through Ezra’s.
He jumped, and she knew that touching him was unusual. She had no idea what got into her, touching him like that, but it felt so natural, so much a part of the two of them, that she had caved to the impulse. She was glad that she had, regardless of the look that Melanie shot her.
Sadie led Ezra to one of the newly cleaned booths on the other side of where Melanie worked.
“Are you wanting to eat dinner?” Melanie’s tone held a “please say no” note that almost made Sadie smile. Maybe it would have if it hadn’t been so ridiculous. Honestly, what did they expect the two of them to do in the middle of the restaurant, surrounded by her family?
“That’s right. Is there any of the special left?”
“I think I can rustle up a plate or two.” Melanie finished wiping down the vinyl booths and grabbed her spray bottle and extra bag before heading for the kitchen.
“You don’t think she’ll spit on my dinner or anything, do you?”
Sadie laughed. “Of course not. She might not understand our relationship, but she’s got a great heart. Give her some time. She’ll come to realize that we’re just friends.”
“That’s what we are, right? Friends?”
Sadie’s heart gave a weird thump, and she was glad that Cora Ann had skipped on ahead. Now the thirteen-year-old was nowhere in sight, most likely in the back overseeing whatever food was left at the restaurant.
Sadie dropped her tone so only the two of them could hear. “If that’s what you want.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Sadie sighed. How could she explain? She really didn’t know what she wanted, other than she wanted to spend time with Ezra. She’d never said anything so bold to a guy before, but somehow she knew that she needed to say it now. “I don’t know how to say this.”
“Just say it.”
“Chris, the guy I was at the market with, we’re just friends. Everybody thinks that we’re going to get married, but we’re not. In fact, he’s going away in the summer, and I’ll probably never see him again. But you can’t say anything. No one here knows anything about that.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“All my friends are married. My sister left to be Englisch. My sister Melanie just got married too. And it feels like . . .”
“That you’re all alone?”
“Jah, but more than that.” She bit her lip, trying to find better words to explain her feelings. She had never been much good at this. “You’re the first person I’ve met in a long time that I wanted to spend time with. I’m not sure why.”
“Thanks a lot.” Ezra chuckled.
“That’s not what I meant,” Sadie said, lightly smacking the top of his hand. “I don’t know what it is about you, but there’s something, and I guess I want to find out what it is. I enjoy your company.” Wow, had she just said that?
Her words must not have been too forward, for Ezra didn’t blink an eye. “I enjoy your company too.”
“Is that all there is to this relationship stuff?”
“Have you never dated anyone before? Or been more than friends with a boy?”
“Just Chris.”
“I’m not sure that counts.”
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Sadie said, “but . . . well, Chris and I have been friends for a long time. For a while I thought we would get married, and I think everyone else did as well. None of the boys considered me for anything more than a friend, even less than since everyone thought Chris had already tagged me. But then he decided to take this trip and I realized that I want to get married like everybody else. I suppose that’s not going to happen now, but I really want to spend time with somebody I enjoy spending time with.”
“It is hard to spend time with your newly married friends because they’re always more interested in—”
“Each other more than me,” they finished together.
They laughed for a moment, then the sound faded into a weird sort of silence Sadie didn’t know what to think of. Ezra reached across the table where her hand lay and held it in his own.
“What if . . .” He sighed, shook his head. Then started again. “What if we were dating? What then?”
She wanted to snatch her hand away, yet at the same time she wanted to curl her fingers around his. Was he asking what she thought he was asking? “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what you think or you don’t know how your family would feel?”
“Either one.” A small laugh escaped her, followed by a hiccup. This whole ordeal was more than she had bargained for. What would she do if they were dating? Simply thinking about it sent a tingle through her.
“I know how your friends feel about us.”
Us? There’s an us?
“My family . . . my mother . . .” He shook his head. “Your family doesn’t seem to approve. But do you think they ever will?”
This had to be the strangest conversation she’d ever had with a boy. Even stranger than the one in the truck after they went bowling. “I don’t know.”
“I’m willing to try if you are.”
Sadie jerked her gaze to his. She searched his face for any signs that he was joking. But as sweet as Ezra was, he wasn’t one to play around with people’s emotions, or say things he didn’t mean, or make too many jokes. No, he was serious.
“You want to date me?” The words were barely a whisper from her lips.
“I’d like to get to know you better. And I suppose that means dating. What do you think?”
It would go against friends and family. Yet before her stretched a life of spinsterhood. She could see it. Chris was the one who could keep her from that, not that he would marry her even if he stayed. Oh, he’d said he would. But she had a feeling they would remain friends until the day they died. And that would be all. He would be the eccentric bachelor, and she would be the spinster. Wrinkled as a raisin, the one no one wanted, no children. Alone.
She shook her head to release those thoughts. No, thinking about Ezra, going out on dates with him, getting to know him better, somehow the future didn’t look so bleak. And she was willing to go against what her friends wanted from her, what her family thought she should do, what Ezra’s mother wanted from him, if it meant the two of them being together. Was that too much to ask? To have a companion? Did it matter that he was a Mennonite? Should it matter if he was a Mennonite? No. No, it shouldn’t. The Bible said they were all God’s creatures. And just because their ancestors had split up over shunning and tore apart the Anabaptist church didn’t mean that they had to spend their lives apart.
What was she even saying? Just because they started to see each other and maybe went on a few dates did not mean they were going to get married. But even if they did, it was nobody’s business but theirs.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I want to get to know you better too.”
He released her hand in a hurry as her sister came up bearing a tray with two iced teas and tw
o plates of roast beef with gravy. It wasn’t Sadie’s favorite item from the menu, but it was good comfort food on the January day when you might’ve just decided to go against the wishes of everybody in your life and date a boy from a different church.
“Danki,” she said. Her sister only nodded in return. How much of the conversation had Melanie heard? And what of it was she willing to tell their Mamm?
She didn’t care. She and Ezra had made the decision, and she was sticking to it. It was easy for everyone else to tell her to stay within the Amish faith and not to worry, to marry Chris, and all the other things that they continually said to try to make her feel better when they themselves had no idea what she was going through. They weren’t twenty-two, all alone, with no boyfriend and no prospects. Until they walked in her shoes, they would never know how she truly felt.
But Ezra grabbed the pepper and liberally sprinkled it on his food.
Sadie watched with a smile on her face. One more thing she could chalk up that she knew about Ezra Hein. He liked black pepper. Not a bad trait in a guy.
Ezra picked up his fork and started to dig in, then stopped and looked back up at her before actually scooping up a bite. “Is this the bison?”
“No, that’s beef. We’ll have the bison another time.”
“How about Monday?”
Sadie shook her head. “Monday’s no good; bison’s on the menu for Tuesday. That’s when Cora Ann gets to experiment. New Food Tuesday, she calls it.”
Ezra chuckled. “She’s something else.”
Sadie smiled in agreement. “That she is.”
“So Tuesday?”
Sadie swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. “Tuesday,” she agreed. “It’s a date.”
Chapter Nine
He almost felt guilty being this excited over having dinner with someone. Almost.
Tuesday afternoon he made sure his mother had something to eat at the ready, then went to clean up.
He was standing in the bathroom, towel around his neck as he shaved, thoughts of Sadie Kauffman pinging around inside his brain. Maybe that was why he didn’t hear his mother before she spoke.