The Calling

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Geena had never seen an Amish man before; she had imagined them to be portly, flush-cheeked, ragged old hippies. But the man who came striding across the yard from the neighbor’s farm was tall and fit, young and very deeply tanned, weathered in the way of an outdoorsman. And the look on his face as he saw Rose come out of the kitchen door with an overflowing laundry basket in her arms, well, it was a sight to behold.

  Geena leaned against the henhouse. She knew she should turn around and leave—good heavens, she was a grown woman—but she found herself mesmerized by what was going on between them. The man’s eyes met with Rose’s, a quiet greeting that lasted a good long minute.

  Rose’s face was bright, as if with happiness. She set the laundry basket on the ground and waved. “Good morning, Galen.”

  A big golden retriever spotted Geena and bounded toward her. She was sure he’d bark and give her away, but when he reached her, he sat in front of her, shifting from paw to paw, considering her. It was as if he was asking, “Well, now, who are you?” and regarded her with the gentle expectation of a wise old teacher waiting for a student to come up with the answer. Geena bent down and stroked his thick fur through her fingers, eyes again glued to the Amish couple.

  The man—Galen—walked over to the clothesline. As Rose’s gaze settled fully on him, her eyebrows drew together in a slight frown. “What’s the matter?”

  Galen hesitated for a moment, as if he was gathering his thoughts. “Rose, I want to tell you something,” he said, “only I don’t really know how to say it properly. Words can’t—” and he made a small, helpless gesture.

  “Well, try.”

  “I love you, Rose. I love you. That’s all. That’s all I have to say.”

  From where Geena squatted, against the side of the henhouse, absently stroking the big dog, she could see Rose’s face go blank, utterly expressionless. She wondered why the man had felt the need to express his feelings like that, right now, on a summer morning. The silence became painful—he was getting nothing back from her. Nothing. Poor guy.

  Then a smile began, starting in Rose’s eyes, until it covered her entire face. “I’m taking the boys for a swim later today, at Blue Lake Pond. Would you like to join us?”

  Suddenly, the mood lifted, as real as if sun had broken through gray skies, and the two grinned foolishly at each other. “I’d like that.” He touched the edge of his hat and strode back to the hole in the privet, slipping through and disappearing. The golden retriever bolted after him, tail feathers wagging like a flag.

  Hiding like a schoolgirl, eavesdropping on an Amish couple, Geena knew she should be ashamed of herself. And yet, it was such a charming moment! So unexpected. She felt a delight at such a surprise—who would have thought she’d stumble upon a tender moment of expressed love on an Amish farm? She grinned. Such surprises were good. A tiny glimmer of well-being wisped through Geena, the first she’d felt since arriving at the church office yesterday morning. Coming here had been a good idea.

  Everything would be all right.

  After Mim had taken a breakfast tray down to the new guest in the guest flat, she looked everywhere for Bethany and finally found her outside, beside the henhouse, tossing cornmeal from a tin pie plate to a flock of hens pecking the ground. “For a tiny little lady, that preacher sure does like to eat. I asked her how many pancakes she wanted and she said six. Even Luke can only down five.”

  Bethany flung her arm out wide, and the wind caught the cornmeal and sent it swirling in a yellow cloud. “I like a girl who’s not afraid to admit she’s hungry.”

  A good sign. Bethany seemed to be in a good mood. Mim tiptoed across the chicken yard, carefully as she was barefooted, and stood closer to her sister. “I need your help with something.”

  Bethany tossed another handful of meal at the hens. “If the goat has wandered off again, I’m not going after it. If he doesn’t have enough sense to get himself home, I say good riddance.”

  “No. It’s not the goat. It’s something personal. But first I need your promise that you’ll keep it to yourself, even if you decide not to help me.”

  She scattered the last of the cornmeal for the hens. “All right.”

  “You promise?”

  “I told you all right, didn’t I?”

  “Do you remember the letters that came to the house after I had put that Latin phrase on the bottom of the Inn at Eagle Hill sign?”

  Bethany squinted her eyes, trying to remember.

  “The newspaper reporter translated it to mean ‘Miracles occur here.’ Then he wrote a newspaper story saying that our inn handed out miracles.”

  Bethany shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  Was she serious? How could Bethany not remember that? Because she was mooning over Jake Hertzler, that’s why. Just like she was now. Mim tried not to look as disappointed as she felt. “Well, it was a news story that other newspapers picked up, then it was on the internet . . . then Bishop Elmo came by and asked us to paint over the Latin phrase.”

  Bethany let out a laugh. “That doesn’t surprise me.” She turned completely around. “That’s the problem with being—”

  “Funny you should mention that, because it underlines my need for secrecy.” Mim had to cut Bethany off, straightaway, and reroute her back to the topic at hand. She knew just where her sister was going with this. Ever since Jake Hertzler had come and gone, she’d been complaining about being Amish. Everything started with “That’s the problem with being Amish . . .” as if there was just one thing. Bethany had a long list of complaints: she thought she should be able to have print fabric for her dresses, shorter church services, telephones in the house, a computer might be nice. On and on and on. Blah blah blah.

  Mostly, Bethany was just “in a mood.” The moods changed—sad, teary, angry, snappish—but rarely happy, like she used to be. It seemed to Mim that Jake Hertzler stole something from everybody: he stole a horse from Jimmy Fisher and he stole happiness from Bethany. She wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling that her brother Tobe’s running away had to do with Jake Hertzler. So, in a way, Jake stole her brother away from them too. How could one person hold so much power over others?

  “I haven’t got all day,” Bethany said.

  “Letters started coming to the inn. Addressed to Mrs. Miracle. Asking for help with their problems. Lots of them.”

  Bethany tilted her head, mildly intrigued.

  “Mom didn’t have time to answer them. It happened around the time when Mammi Vera was ailing, then she ended up having brain surgery. So Mom let me answer the letters. She told me to say that only God makes miracles and that we couldn’t solve their problems . . . but . . .” She hesitated.

  “So . . .” Bethany urged, surprisingly interested.

  Mim tried to sound nonchalant. “I didn’t exactly do what she said to do. I wrote the people back and solved their problems.”

  “You what?”

  “I pretended I was Mrs. Miracle and solved their problems. Most of their problems were pretty easy to solve. And the ones that weren’t—I think those were people who just wanted to be listened to.” She bit her lip. “You won’t say anything to anyone, will you?”

  “Verzaehl net alles as du weescht?” Tell not all you know?

  “Something like that.”

  “And Rose doesn’t know about this?”

  Mim shook her head. “The letters kept coming. More and more and more. It hasn’t stopped. I hurry to the mailbox every day so I get the letters first. So . . .”

  “So . . .”

  “The features editor from the Stoney Ridge Times wrote and asked if Mrs. Miracle would write a weekly column for the newspaper. But he thinks Mrs. Miracle is an old lady.”

  Bethany’s eyes went wide with astonishment, then she burst into laughter. That tears-rolling-down-her-face kind of laughter.

  Mim was horrified. She hadn’t confided in Bethany to be laughed at. She took her role as Mrs. Miracle very, very seriously.

  “Oh Mim!”
Bethany finally said, gasping for air, “this is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

  Mim was crushed. She had made a serious mistake and now Mrs. Miracle’s future was in jeopardy. What if Bethany told her mom?

  Bethany wiped tears from her face. “Well, it’s a humdinger of a chance for Mrs. Miracle, and it sure beats feeding chickens. Just tell me what you want me to do.” She grinned. “But remember this, Mim: Loss dich net verwische, is es elft Gebot.” Don’t get caught is the eleventh commandment.

  The afternoon sun’s piercing glare gave Naomi King a headache, making her feel as if a red-hot poker had been stuck through her head. She had woken with a mild headache and tried to ignore it, hoping it would ease up as the day went on. She even went to her quilting, since she was good for little else. It soothed her head a little, and the soul, as well, freeing her of self-pity. She loved quilting more than just about anything, and the twice-a-month quilting bee was an event she looked forward to.

  She wouldn’t have missed the Sisters’ Bee for all the tea in China, and she loved tea. She’d rather quilt than eat, any day of the week. The Sisters’ Bee was named because it was originally the quilting group of the five sisters from the Sisters’ House. They added Edith Fisher, Jimmy’s mother, and years later, they invited Naomi to join. Naomi wasn’t really sure why she was included in the Sisters’ Bee but on the day she turned fifteen, she was swept into the circle. It happened to be the year the group had volunteered a quilt to be auctioned off to help the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg and Edith Fisher had chosen a pattern that was beyond anyone’s piecing skills. Suddenly, Naomi found herself to be a highly valued member of the group.

  Last night, she had stayed up late to finish a quilt top for today’s bee: it was a Sunshine and Shadow pattern—bright reds and yellows and shiny gold.

  As the women nibbled on Naomi’s lemon cookies, they oohed and aahed over the quilt top. “This is the best you’ve done yet, Naomi!” and she agreed.

  Which wasn’t vanity. She had made her first quilt, a doll blanket, when she was seven, and she’d been making them ever since. She was a devoted gardener, a cheerful cook, but only a true expert at this one thing. When it came to fine, intricate stitches, she couldn’t be beat. She took twelve stitches to the inch whereas most of the women took eight. She had a talent for working out complicated patterns, and an eye for piecing colorful swatches together in surprising ways.

  Naomi thought her gift at piecing might be because of her headaches—they gave her plenty of time to quilt and think and dream. And sometimes, those strange bright lights that flashed in her head, those disturbing auras, gave her ideas for color and pattern variations. Sometimes, she saw strange things. Or rather . . . she felt them. Warnings, hunches, presentiments. The old sisters called it a gift. Naomi didn’t consider it a gift. To her, it felt more like a burden. And she was of a mind that everyone had such intuition, but few paid attention to it.

  Today, the quilting bee was held at Naomi’s house. They were welcoming back Edith Fisher, who had just returned to Stoney Ridge after the untimely and unfortunate passing of her brand-new husband. It was true that no one was overly fond of Edith Fisher, but Naomi always felt her bark was worse than her bite. Edith had never said a mean word to Naomi, though she had never said anything kind, either. She was a big sturdy woman without much softness.

  Earlier this morning, Naomi had dropped off a loaf of banana bread to Eagle Hill and mentioned that Edith Fisher had returned to Stoney Ridge. As Vera Schrock took a slice of banana bread, she said, between bites, “Edith can be as sour as bad cider when she wants to be, that one. Words out of that woman’s mouth fade like snow in a fry pan.”

  Those observations struck Naomi as ironic, seeing as they came from a woman who was more than a little cold and sour herself.

  “Say what you will about Edith,” Rose Schrock said, “but her son Jimmy Fisher is a credit to her.”

  Even Vera didn’t dispute that, and she disputed nearly everything her daughter-in-law Rose had to say.

  Jimmy had been working for Naomi’s older brother, Galen, for a few months now and considered himself a partner in the horse-training business. Galen rolled his eyes at that, but Naomi thought he was quietly pleased by Jimmy’s dedication. His hard work too. If Galen wasn’t pleased, Naomi supposed, he would have sent Jimmy packing. He could be like that—once he made up his mind about a person, that was that.

  Most girls in her church were green with envy that Naomi got to see Jimmy Fisher nearly every day. For breakfast and lunch and often dinner, which he showed up for on a regular basis. Naomi liked Jimmy. She liked him quite a bit. But she wasn’t in love with him and knew she never would be. Jimmy was a fine-looking man, of a good build and height—not tall, but he held himself very straight as if to make the most of what he had—with hair like the stubble left in the fields after haying, and eyes as luminously blue as agates. When he smiled, the right side of his mouth curved up more than the left. He was fun-loving and lighthearted and charming and downright adorable. But she wasn’t in love with him, nor he with her. They weren’t at all right for each other.

  Naomi had a sense about these kinds of things. She had predicted her brother Galen’s romance with Rose Schrock long before it was obvious to others. She saw how her brother stilled whenever Rose was nearby, or the way his eyes lingered after her. She was hoping Jimmy might have those same sweet feelings for Bethany, though it was true that Jimmy Fisher liked most girls and even more girls liked Jimmy Fisher. But maybe it was finally time for Jimmy to settle on someone. At least, his mother thought it was high time.

  Since Edith Fisher had returned to Stoney Ridge, her first objective, she made clear, was to get Jimmy married. Paul, her older son, had tied the knot during Edith’s brief marriage and then surprised everyone by moving off to Canada with his bride right after Edith, unexpectedly widowed, returned to Stoney Ridge.

  Edith was indignant! She was counting on localized grandchildren, she said, and now it was all up to Jimmy. And she made it no secret that she had selected Naomi King for him. No thank you! Jimmy Fisher might be adorable in every way that mattered, but he was not right for Naomi. Besides, her heart belonged to another, but that was a secret she guarded carefully.

  Naomi had a hope that once her friend Bethany was done with her melancholia for Jake Hertzler, she might wake up to the fact that Jimmy Fisher was perfectly suited to her.

  Naomi adored Bethany. She was fond of Mim, the younger sister, but being with her was like looking into a mirror. Naomi and Mim did things exactly alike, and sometimes Naomi knew what Mim was going to say before she said it. Bethany was a real live wire, and it was exciting to be around her. She made life interesting.

  Naomi knew Bethany was hurting after the Jake Hertzler disaster, and she had a plan to help. She was sure that if she could bring Bethany into the quilting group, gently nudging her toward Jimmy Fisher while wooing over his mother, those wounds would heal.

  Naomi stopped to examine the seam she was stitching. She picked up a pair of scissors and trimmed a loose thread. She was waiting for just the right moment to bring up Bethany’s name, to test the waters and see how Edith Fisher would react. Anyone wanting to marry Jimmy Fisher was going to have to win over Edith Fisher. Wasn’t there a saying for that very thing? Wann’d der Sohn hawwe witt, muscht dich mit der Mudder halde. She that would the son win must with the mother first begin.

  Not that Bethany was interested in Jimmy. Not yet. But Naomi was going to do her best to light that spark between them she was sure was there. Almost sure.

  When there was a lull in the conversation, Naomi casually said that she thought it would be nice to include her friend Bethany in the quilting bee. Naomi finished her stitch at the instant she looked up at Edith and caught the look of disapproval on her face, which made her run the needle into her finger. When she glanced down, she saw a little drop of blood on the place she was stitching around and put her finger into her mouth.<
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  The five elderly sisters stopped their sewing but kept their heads bowed, the edges of their capstrings dancing on the quilt top. They didn’t say a word. Not a peep. Naomi glanced nervously around the circle.

  Unfortunately, whenever Naomi felt nervous, she babbled. Her brother Galen grew quieter and she grew more talkative. Their mother used to say they evened each other out. As she realized the women were staring at her, she started a long tale about how she had known Bethany for years and years, and what a fine cook she was, and how she was sure they’d all enjoy having her in the circle. She spoke faster and faster, jumping from topic to topic, making very little sense, all the while wishing her mouth would just snap shut. She sped right on: “And Bethany said she doesn’t like to sew.” She cringed and clamped her mouth shut.

  What possessed her to say that when she was trying to snag an invitation for Bethany to a sewing group? It was true, but why did she have to say so? Just yesterday, Naomi had mentioned to Bethany that she quilted because it was the most comforting thing to do. Bethany said the reason she quilted was because it kept her from biting her fingernails.

  Edith Fisher squinted at Naomi through her thick spectacles until Naomi blushed and looked down at her piecing. “I’ve never met a woman who didn’t like to sew.”

  Sylvia, the youngest of the elderly sisters, finally spoke. “Bethany’s a more modern girl, Edith. She has other things to do besides sew with old ladies.”

  Sylvia forgot that Naomi wasn’t an old lady. All the women forgot. There were times when Naomi wanted to point out that she wasn’t a spinster quite yet, not at eighteen. They’d never thought to wonder if Naomi King had feelings, dreams, desires of her own. She knew they considered her to be a frail thing, someone to be pitied and fussed over. That might be how she seemed on the outside, but on the inside, Naomi felt strong and brave. At least, that was how she thought of herself when she wasn’t plagued with one of those dreadful headaches.