“Her suitcases are in our living room.” Anna wiped her eyes. “She brought a lot of them.”
“Then maybe she plans to stay for a while. To get to know Sawyer and where he comes from. Maybe she knew this wouldn’t be easy and prepared for that.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” She looked at Lukas. “I think she just has a lot of stuff. You heard her. She can’t wait to leave.”
“Maybe she should stay with us.”
Anna looked away. “I don’t want her to,” she whispered.
“I know. But this will give us a chance to get to know her better. And hopefully Sawyer will be open to learning about her too.” He leaned close to her. “Be anxious for nothing.”
She nodded.
“Danki, lieb.” He ran his hand over the back of hers before letting it go. “You should geh. Don’t keep her waiting. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“With Sawyer?”
He nodded. “With our sohn.”
CHAPTER 15
Cora placed her foot on the narrow, muddy step of the buggy and heaved herself upward. The slick sole of her shoe gave no traction; she slipped, lost her footing, and had to grab onto the front wheel to keep from falling. That was all she needed to complete this day—make an utter fool of herself by landing face-first in a pile of manure.
What did these people have against cars? Against decent clothing?
On the second try she had more success. She hoisted herself into the buggy and carefully checked the bench. Satisfied that it was relatively clean, she sat down and pulled a linen handkerchief from her bag. She flinched as she wiped the mud off her palm, then laid the handkerchief on the seat, as far away as she could. She wasn’t about to put that nasty thing back in a four-thousand-dollar Hermes.
Cora leaned against the seat and looked out at Anna and Lukas, their heads close together. No doubt plotting how they would circumvent her attempt to convince Sawyer to come home.
It shouldn’t even be an issue. He was her grandson. But Sawyer hadn’t just inherited his mother’s eyes. He also had her stubborn streak.
Cora’s determination, however, ran deeper. Stronger. She would not be denied her only grandson. Not by anyone.
The sound of running water arrested her attention, and Cora realized with a lurch of disgust that the horse attached to the buggy was relieving himself. Again.
Cora cringed. She detested animals, had never had a pet, nor allowed Kerry to have one. The one time her daughter had brought home a puppy, Cora had promptly taken it to the pound. Animals were dirty. They made messes. And in the case of this horse, a huge, steamy puddle in the driveway.
Anna returned to the buggy wearing a strained, forced smile. Cora was used to seeing those. She didn’t return it.
“It won’t take long to get back to the haus,” Anna said. She picked up the reins, snapped them smartly across the horse’s rump, and started out of the driveway.
By now Cora knew that “not long” in Amish meant “whenever we get there.” Horse and buggy, indeed. At least in New York the carriages were open. Decorative. And depending on your companion, romantic.
There was nothing romantic about the Amish.
“Do you like chicken and dumplings?”
Cora looked at Anna. “Pardon me?”
“Chicken and dumplings. That’s what we’re having for supper tonight. Along with cabbage casserole and butter beans. With Ho Ho cake for dessert.” She smiled again, although her face looked like it might crack at any minute from the strain.
“That’s Lukas’s favorite.”
Ho Ho cake? Cora looked out the window of the buggy. “As soon as we get back, I plan to call a taxi. As I said, I’ll be returning to Cleveland tonight.”
“You don’t have to. You’re welcome to stay.” She paused.
“With us.”
Anna sounded anything but welcoming. “I would prefer to go.” Cora crossed her legs. Arranged her scarf and fiddled with her collar for the sixth time since she’d arrived. Pushed the dirty handkerchief onto the floor of the buggy.
Her suit smelled like horse, and her shoes . . . well, better not to think about what her shoes smelled like. She ought to burn the whole lot. But first she had to find a hotel. With a spa. After the day she had, she needed the pampering.
“Sawyer will be home this evening.”
She angled her head toward Anna, all thoughts of spa treatments fleeing her mind. “Are you sure?”
“Lukas will make certain of it.”
That changed everything. If she had access to Sawyer again, she could apply more pressure. Hopefully gain the upper hand. She’d learned that skill not only in her business dealings but in her personal life. Always stay one step ahead of everyone else. The one time she hadn’t, she’d lost Kerry forever.
She wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Sawyer.
Anna didn’t say a word the rest of the drive home. Cora preferred it that way.
Emma gazed out the window of her bedroom, blinking back tears. She couldn’t believe Adam had told her about that Ashley girl and what happened between them in Michigan. She paced across the room and back again. And paced some more. With each step she prayed for clarity, for the pain of yet another betrayal to cease.
But had Adam really betrayed her? They hadn’t been a couple when he was with Ashley. They hadn’t even been friends at the time. He had turned his back on everyone and everything in Middlefield for those two years. So why did she feel so hurt?
She flopped down on the bed. The strings of her kapp bounced against the front of her dress. She knew why she was hurt, if she was just honest enough to admit it.
She wasn’t his first. His one and only. Like he would be for her. That special, intimate moment, that first time, he had already experienced. With another woman.
Adam knew so much, and she knew nothing.
What if she disappointed him? What if she didn’t measure up?
What if he wishes he’d married someone else?
Emma tried to push the anxious thoughts away. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t one of the pretty girls. Her hips were too wide and her face too plain. But since Adam’s return, he had helped destroy the self-doubt that had always plagued her. When she was with Adam, he made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
Now all those old insecurities came rushing back, smashing her confidence to smithereens. She didn’t know if she could regain it again.
“Emma?”
She heard her grandmother’s muffled voice outside the door. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stood. “Ya?”
“Are you okay? It’s nearly suppertime.”
Emma opened the door. “I’m fine. I’m sorry, I just . . . lost track of time. I’ll be right there.”
Her grandmother peered at Emma’s face and frowned. “You aren’t all right.”
Emma started to deny it, but she couldn’t fool her grandmother. She never could. “Nee, I’m not. But I will be.”
“Lieb, talk to me. You’ve been so happy the past few weeks.” She smiled. “It’s been so nice to see. What happened to change that?”
The old woman leaned heavily on her cane. Emma opened the door wider. “Please, come sit down.”
Grossmammi shuffled to the bed and sat. She put the cane in front of her and placed both hands on the handle. She didn’t say anything, just waited.
And suddenly Emma didn’t know what to say. She walked to the window again. Dried raindrops smeared the window pane. She’d always confided in her grandmother. But how could she tell her grandmother about Adam and Ashley?
“Adam has something to do with this, doesn’t he?” Grossmammi asked.
Emma nodded but didn’t turn. She traced a line on the window ledge. Dust. She’d have to clean it later.
“Emma?”
Emma leaned her head against the window. “Adam . . . he told me something.” Her cheeks heated. “Something I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know.”
&nbs
p; “All right.” Her grandmother spoke the words in a measured tone.
She turned around. “The odd thing is, he told me because he thought he was doing the right thing.”
“And was he?”
“I don’t know.” Emma crossed the room and sat next to her grandmother. She leaned her head on Grossmammi’s shoulder. “Part of me believes he was right in telling me his . . . secret.”
“But you don’t believe that completely.”
She lifted her head and looked at her grandmother, thankful the woman didn’t press her for the details of her and Adam’s conversation. “Nee, I don’t. I’m so confused.”
“Love is confusing, especially in the beginning.” Her grandmother patted her knee. “Emma, you and Adam have been through a lot together. And not just in the past few weeks. You’ve been together almost your entire lives. As friends. Now as something more.”
Emma nodded, close to tears again. “I wanted him to notice me for so long, Grossmammi. Then he left and I thought I’d never see him again.” She looked at her hands, her fingers trembling.
“But he came back. He fell in love with you.”
“And I love him.”
“You always have.” Grossmammi smiled.
“I didn’t do a gut job hiding it, did I?”
Her grandmother shook her head. “Nee. But it doesn’t matter now. You’re together. You’re getting married. This is what you prayed for, ya?”
“Ya.” She looked away. “And then he had to tell me about Ashley.”
Grossmammi paused. She nodded in her wise, knowing way. “I see. But, Emma, surely you aren’t letting his past direct your future together?”
“I thought I came to terms with everything. I thought I was finally happy. And then he had to ruin it.”
“So this is his fault.”
“Ya, it is!” Emma jumped up from the bed. She put her hand against her chest. “I didn’t leave Middlefield. I didn’t date a Yankee bu. I didn’t—” She turned away, unable to bring herself to say out loud what Adam had done.
“Goodness.” Grossmammi tapped her cane against the floor.
“If only we could all be as perfekt as you.”
Emma spun around. “That’s not fair. You know I don’t think that.”
“I do. But you would judge the man you love as if you have no blemishes of your own. That, lieb, isn’t fair.”
She drew in a long breath. “So I’m supposed to forgive and forget what he’s done.”
“Ya, Emma.” Grossmammi stood. “You know that as much as I do. You know it here.” She tapped Emma’s temple. “And here.” She touched Emma’s heart.
“That’s supposed to make it easier?”
Grossmammi shook her head. “It often makes it harder. The easy way is to hang on to the pain. Because it makes us feel better.”
“Ya. I feel so wonderful right now.”
“It makes us feel better because it lifts us above another. It protects us from further hurt.” She moved closer to Emma.
“And it drives a wedge between us and the people we love.”
Emma thought about Adam’s parents. How separate they’d been from each other. There was something unsettled between them. She didn’t know what it was, but it made both of them miserable. Now she could see Adam was trying to avoid that in their relationship.
And she would hold his honesty against him.
“I have to see Adam.” She headed for the door but stopped short and looked over her shoulder at Grossmammi.
Geh on,” her grandmother said. “I’ll make a sandwich. I “wasn’t that hungry to begin with.”
Emma smiled. Then she turned and went to her grandmother, wrapping her arms around Grossmammi’s frail shoulders. “Danki,” she whispered in her ear.
Her grandmother stepped back. “Geh see your yung mann, lieb. He’s waited long enough. You both have.”
Sawyer paced the length of the bedroom at his grandparents’ house. He’d gone into the first one at the top of the stairs, which happened to be Lukas’s old room. As a teenager he’d spent the night here several times, when the family would get together for church, picnics, singings, and other gatherings. It had taken him a couple of years, but he eventually became a real part of this family.
Then here came Cora Easley. How could she, a stranger to him, expect him to just leave everything behind and follow her to New York? He knew nothing about her, other than he would bet his pickup truck that she was hiding something. Maybe a lot of things.
A knock sounded on the door. “Sawyer?”
Get it together, Sawyer. He’d acted like a child since Cora Easley showed up. Time to man up. He opened the door and looked at his father. “I’m sorry about all this, Dad. Don’t worry, I’ll be right down and back to work. There’s so much we have to get done. We didn’t need this interruption.”
Lukas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I closed the shop for the day.”
“What?” His father never closed the shop, except for Sundays, holidays, and weddings.
“After what happened today, we can’t geh back to work and pretend everything is normal. We need to settle some things, ya?”
Sawyer turned around and went to the bedroom window. He looked at the backyard, now cloaked in darkness. Memories poured over him, and he sank down on the bed. How many times had he played baseball and volleyball here at the Bylers’ with his friends? Watched over his young nieces and nephews as they learned to walk and toddle around in the thick green grass?
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. Then, with a sudden desire to prove he belonged here, he added, “Nix.”
“Sawyer.”
He felt his father’s strong hand on his shoulder. The strength of his touch broke something inside of Sawyer. “Why?” He swallowed, nearly choking on tears. “Why did they lie to me?”
“I don’t know.” Lukas squeezed Sawyer’s shoulder. He let go. “But from everything you told me about your parents, they were gut people. I’m sure they had a sound reason for not telling you about Mrs. Easley.”
“Is there really any reason for lying? For letting me think I didn’t have any other family?” He gritted his teeth, then rolled up his shirtsleeve and pointed to the burn on his forearm. “I wouldn’t have this if—” He covered his face. “I just don’t understand.”
The bed creaked as Lukas sat down. “You’ll get your answers, sohn. Although you have to prepare yourself. They may not be what you want to hear.”
“Then maybe I don’t want to know.” He looked at Lukas.
“Things were perfectly fine here before she showed up.”
“Were they?”
Sawyer blinked. “What does that mean?”
“You’re comfortable here, that’s true. But can you say you’re content?”
“What’s the difference?”
Lukas expelled a long breath. “The difference is that if you were content with our way of life, you would have made your decision about the church by now. But there is a part of you that is still pulled by the Yankee world.”
Sawyer opened his mouth to speak, but his father continued.
“That’s not a wrong thing for someone in your situation, Sawyer. You spent more years in that world than in ours. There are Amish who have lived in this community all their lives and still question whether they belong here. Some decide they don’t. Your mother and I were prepared for you to tell us that you didn’t either.”
“But what if I am?” He shot up from the bed. “What if I’m ready to join the Amish?”
Lukas looked at him intently. “Can you say that with honesty? With a clear heart and conscience?”
Sawyer sucked in a breath. He couldn’t lie. Wouldn’t be dishonest with the man who had saved him from living in foster care. “No. I can’t.”
“Then maybe this is God’s way of helping you decide. What if you had joined the church and your grandmother had shown up?”
“She’s not . . .” Sawyer sighed. “Your
mamm is mei grossmudder.”
Lukas nodded. “All right. But that doesn’t change the question. What if Mrs. Easley had shown up after you were baptized?
You would be faced with an even more difficult choice.”
“There’s no choice. She can do whatever she wants. I’m staying here.”
“You don’t want to find out why your parents never told you about her?”
“No.”
But it was a half-truth, and Sawyer knew it. Part of him wanted to understand the reason for his parents’ deep secret. Yet a larger part wanted things to return to the way they were before Cora Easley entered their lives. But that would never happen.
Lukas rose. “We should geh home. Your mamm offered Mrs. Easley a place to stay tonight.”
“In our house?”
“Ya. I know you’re upset about this. We all are. But that doesn’t mean we change who we are and how we behave. If she were anyone else, we’d offer the same hospitality.”
Sawyer huffed. “All right.” He thought about Anna at home. Alone with Cora. “We should leave now. I’ll meet you downstairs.” Then he remembered Laura. He couldn’t leave her to walk alone in the cold darkness. “Laura—”
“I’ll meet you at the haus after you take her home.”
After Lukas left, Sawyer leaned against the door frame. What was he going to do now? He dreaded going home but didn’t want Anna to be alone. Maybe if Cora saw how happy the three of them were, she’d get her fancy self on the next plane out of Cleveland and back to whatever high society she belonged to. That was her world. This one was his.
Somehow he had to convince her of that.
CHAPTER 16
Laura straightened up the paperwork on her desk in the office. Once Lukas had told her he was closing down the shop, she made sure everything was put away, not just in her workspace, but in the shop as well. She returned the tools to their places on the pegboards, closed the cans of paint and varnish and set them on their respective shelves, and took a broom to the floor. By the time she finished sweeping the sawdust and depositing it in the storage bin, it was already dark.
The Middlefield Family Collection Page 33