“Kinder have a way of doing that,” he said softly. Having the twins and their mother around had been as disruptive as he’d feared, but he was growing used to them.
“I wonder what frightens her so much,” his mother said softly.
He frowned. “I thought she was afraid her husband’s parents will take her children away.”
“There is that, but she is safe with us and she knows it. I feel something else has her deeply worried. I wish she would confide in us.”
His mother enjoyed gossip, as much if not more than the next person did, but she wasn’t given to imagining things. If she believed Willa was afraid of something else, she probably was.
Turning to face him, his mother laid a hand on his chest. “John, will you drive Willa to Hope Springs when the weather clears? I don’t want her traveling there by herself. I hate to think of her out on the roads alone in the winter. Her horse could slip and fall. Anything could happen.”
He had been thinking the same thing. “I have a sleigh to finish. I can’t take four days away from my work to drive to Hope Springs and back.”
It was a poor excuse and he knew it.
“Please, son, for my peace of mind.”
He didn’t want to endure a lingering goodbye. A quick break was the best. “I’ll arrange for a driver to take her there in a comfortable car. Will that make you feel better?”
His mother frowned. “I thought we couldn’t afford to hire a driver.”
He couldn’t afford it, but with the money he had been promised for his work on the vis-à-vis, he could pay part of it and perhaps barter for the rest with one of the local drivers. “I’ll work something out. Willa will be much more comfortable and can make the trip in a few hours.”
“If you think that is best, I agree. We’re going to be late for church if I don’t hurry up and get ready. The food hamper is packed. Will you take it out for me?” She started down the hallway to her room, but she didn’t look or sound pleased.
“I will as soon as I finish mopping the floor,” he called after her.
She stopped and turned back. “What did you say?”
“Never mind. Don’t forget to bring the bricks.”
She gave a slight shake of her head and walked into her room. John mopped his way backward from the door to the counter where the hamper sat and then out the kitchen door. He left the mop leaning against the porch railing.
After placing the hamper on the back seat, he walked up to stand beside Clover and scratched the mare under her chin. “This should be an interesting church service. I am guessing that Lucy and Megan will have a hard time sitting still on our wooden benches. Let’s pray the bishop and the preachers give short sermons today.”
* * *
Vera was already in the back seat of the buggy when Willa finally made it out the door with both the girls dressed in their new Sunday clothing. It had been a fight to keep Megan’s bonnet on her head and Lucy’s shoes on her feet, but they looked sweet and very Amish in their deep purple, ankle-length dresses and eahmal shatzli, the long white aprons worn by little girls. Willa was especially pleased with their forest green woolen coats. She and Vera had worked hard to get them finished in time. Both girls wore black traveling bonnets over their kapps to keep their heads warm on the ride. She and Vera wore bonnets, too.
John stood patiently beside the horse. He looked quite handsome in his black Sunday suit and his flat-topped, wide-brimmed black hat.
Willa mentally corrected herself. He looked very plain. His eyes brightened as he met her gaze. If only she could find a way to still the flutter in her midsection when he smiled at her. His kindnesses the previous evening made her respect and admire him even more. It was a good thing that she was leaving tomorrow, because she was becoming very fond of him. Too fond.
“I’m sorry if I have made us late.” She hoped he attributed her breathless tone to battling with her daughters.
“I know who to blame for your tardiness.” He leveled a stern look at her girls. “The next time you disobey your mamm, you will have extra chores to do.”
“We’ll be good,” Lucy said, her eyes round as saucers.
“And you, Megan? Will you do what your mother tells you?”
She nodded. “Hat’s on. See?” She smoothed the sides of her bonnet.
He crouched down to their level and smiled at them. “Goot. When you honor your mother, you please God and that pleases me.”
“Okeydokey.” Lucy patted his cheek.
He lifted the girls into the back seat with his mother. She already had the hot bricks on the floor to warm their feet and spread a quilt over their legs. Willa looked in and frowned slightly. “Don’t you want to ride up front, Vera?”
“I’m fine here with the girls to keep me warm. It’s best that you sit up front. Sitting in the back when I was pregnant always made me queasy. I don’t want you feeling sick during the service.”
In that instant Willa realized John’s mother was trying to foster a romance between the two of them. The elderly woman was going to be sadly disappointed if she hoped to sway Willa from leaving. She might have gotten away with loosening the wheels of Willa’s buggy, but she wasn’t going to be able to pull the same stunt again. The very idea of his mother’s meddling would have been funny if not for the fact that Willa already liked John far too much. She liked Vera, too, and the girls adored her, but a relationship with John wasn’t possible.
Willa had to leave. She had to have her family around her when her baby was born.
John took hold of Willa’s elbow to steady her as she climbed in the buggy. Willa smiled her thanks, but she wasn’t smiling inside. Love and marriage were out of the question for her no matter how much she might wish it could be otherwise.
He tucked the thick lap robe around her. “Are you warm enough?”
“I’m fine.” She looked away from the concern in his eyes. He climbed into the front seat and slapped the reins to get the horse moving.
They arrived at the home of Hank Hochstetler and his family about forty minutes later. They weren’t late. The service hadn’t started, but they were the last to arrive. Vera got out with Willa and the girls as John parked his buggy among the two dozen other vehicles that lined the lane and unhitched his horse.
Vera took Willa’s arm. “Be careful on this ice. Hank runs a small engine repair business. The service will be held in his shop. His home is too small to accommodate all of us.”
Willa entered the metal building and almost backed out when she saw the number of people inside. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. As nervous as she was, she knew she couldn’t let it show. The twins clutched her coat and looked at her in concern.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to them.
Vera took them both by the hand. “There are only friends here, so there is nothing to be scared of.”
“Let’s sit near the back in case I need to take the girls out,” Willa said, knowing it was unlikely her girls could remain quiet for three or more hours of preaching in Dietsh with Bible readings in High German. Amish children were expected to mirror their parents and elders with a somber devout demeanor during the service, but exceptions were made for children as young as the twins.
Willa followed Vera into the building and felt the weight of all the eyes watching her. A new person at church was always a cause for curiosity.
The inside of the workshop was spotlessly clean. She knew the family and friends of the owner would have spent days making sure every surface was cleaned inside and out. The workload for hosting a service was such that each family in the congregation was expected to host only once a year.
The backless wooden benches were lined up either side of the center aisle. Men and boys sat on one side while women and girls sat on the other side. Around the perimeter, a few padded chairs had been carried out from
the house for some of the more elderly members. The room was a sea of black on the men’s side. Black coats and pants were the standard Sunday dress code. Identical black hats hung from a long row of pegs on the back wall.
The women were more colorful. Their long dresses and matching aprons were an assortment of solid colors, blue, green and mauve. Vera took her place on one of the benches and patted the seat beside her, indicating the girls should sit next to her.
From the men’s side, the volsinger, the hymn leader, began the first song. He had a fine, steady voice. After the first line, the rest of the congregation joined in. The slow and mournful chanting reverberated inside the steel building as members blended their voices together without musical accompaniment. The opening song, like all Amish hymns, had been passed down through the generations for more than seven hundred years. Willa picked up the heavy black songbook, the Ausbund. It contained the words of the song but no musical notations. Every song in the book has been learned and remembered by members of the faith down through the ages.
The second song of an Amish church service was always the same hymn. “Das Loblied,” a song of love and praise. Willa was astonished at how easily the words and melody came back to her. It was as if she had last sung it yesterday instead of ten years ago.
She had kept God in her heart, but there was something special about worshipping with others. The bishop was an eloquent speaker who filled his sermon with praise for God, his great works and his unending mercy. His heartfelt words sparked a ray of new hope in Willa. Vera had been right. Willa drew deep comfort from the preaching and the songs. She didn’t have to be alone. She could become part of a larger community bound together by faith and a commitment to each other.
This prayer meeting was the first step in her journey back to that faith. Not to hide among the Amish, but to become one of them again if God so willed it.
She prayed fervently that it was His will. That her family would welcome her and that the sheriff would never discover her real identity.
Chapter Nine
Twice during the service Willa took the girls out when they became restless. Once when Lucy needed to use the bathroom and again a half an hour later when Megan decided she needed to go.
Willa walked the girls up to the house and saw she wasn’t the only mother missing part of the preaching. A tall woman with unusual violet-blue eyes and blond hair was changing a fussy baby in the bedroom across from the bathroom.
“Mama, baby cry,” Megan whispered. A worried look filled her eyes.
“He will be fine in a minute,” the mother said as she finished wrapping her son in a blanket before lifting him to her shoulder. As promised, he quieted immediately.
Willa sent Megan into the bathroom and waited outside with Lucy.
The woman walked toward Willa, her eyes sparkling as she smiled at Lucy. “I have two, but they are a year apart. I’m not sure I could manage twins. How old are your girls?”
“They turned three last month. How old is your son?”
“Two months. I’m Rebecca Bowman, and this is Henry.”
“I’m Willa Lapp, and this is Lucy. Her sister is Megan.”
“I was surprised to hear such a little one speaking English. You aren’t from this area, are you? Do you have family here?”
Willa had known this would happen. With so many people around, someone was bound to overhear the girls speaking English. She gave a carefully edited version of her circumstances. “My husband wasn’t Amish. He only wanted the girls to speak English, so I never taught them Deitsh. He passed away a few months ago, and I returned to my Amish family. The girls and I were on our way to visit my great-aunt, but my buggy broke down near John Miller’s place. He and his mother took us in during the storm.”
“Vera and John are goot people. I know them well. I was married to Vera’s oldest son. Like you, I became a widow at a young age, but God smiled on me and now I have a new wunderbar husband and two busy boys.” She kissed the head of her infant. “When is your baby due?”
“The second week in January.” Willa pulled her coat closed. She had hoped to keep her pregnancy a secret, but Rebecca had sharp eyes.
“That makes you about thirty-three weeks along?”
“Almost.”
“I remember how much I wanted those last weeks of pregnancy to fly by. I felt like a fat waddling goose by the end.”
The fear of a relapse left Willa wishing she could stay pregnant forever. “I’m not in a hurry. I have so much to do first.”
“If only they would listen to our wishes, but babies often show up at the most inconvenient times. If your family is in the area, Janice Willard is an excellent nurse-midwife. She isn’t Amish, but she could be. I can give you her phone number.”
“My family lives several days from here and I will be leaving tomorrow, but thank you.”
“I washed my hands,” Megan said, coming out of the bathroom and holding her palms up for Willa to inspect.
“That’s very good.”
“Goot,” Megan said. She gazed up at Rebecca. “Can I see baby?”
“They will pick up our language quick enough.” Rebecca smiled and dropped to one knee. She opened the blanket so Megan could gaze at the baby’s face.
“I like baby,” Megan said softly.
Rebecca looked up at Willa. “That bodes well for your new addition.”
“It does. I hope it is a boy.”
Rebecca rose and spoke to Megan. “Henry has a brother named Benjamin. You can meet him after church is over.”
Willa took both her daughters by the hand. “We should get back to the service.”
“No, me tired.” Lucy pulled away and stuck out her lip.
Rebecca chuckled. “I feel the same way. It won’t last much longer, and then you can get something goot to eat. Do you know what church spread is?”
Lucy brightened instantly. “Yes, yummy.”
“I think it’s yummy, too.” Rebecca winked as Willa held her hand out to Lucy. “Let’s go see if the bishop is done talking.”
“Okeydokey.” Lucy smiled brightly at her new friend.
The bishop was finished, but another of the preachers was just getting started when they returned to their seats. All in all, Willa was pleased with how well her daughters behaved. They conducted themselves much better than the young boy of about three who roamed back and forth between his parents, going the long way around the room each time at a run. From the looks cast his way by several of the elders, Willa suspected the boy’s father would hear from them after the meeting.
Following the church service, Vera walked beside Willa to the house, where the meal would be held. “I didn’t see Mary, Joshua or Ana Bowman in church. They must be visiting somewhere. I wanted you to meet Mary and find out if she knows your family in Hope Springs.”
“I met Rebecca Bowman a little while ago.”
“Did she tell you she was once my daughter-in-law?”
“She did.”
“She is a fine woman. I had hoped that she and John would make a match of it, but Gott had different plans for them. Come, I want you to meet some friends of mine.”
Inside, the house was a beehive of activity as women unpacked hampers and arranged food on the counters. Vera introduced Willa to many of the married women and a few of the single women in the congregation. It surprised Willa how friendly the women all seemed.
The benches were quickly carried in and restacked to form tables and seating for the meal. Since there wasn’t enough room to feed everyone at once, the ordained and eldest church members ate first. The youngest among the congregation would have to wait until last. Few of the youngsters seemed to mind, for they were all busy playing with their friends.
Rebecca won Megan’s heart when she had the girl sit in a chair and hold Henry for a
little while. Lucy wasn’t interested in the baby, but she did watch some of the other children closely. Willa could tell she wanted to play with them, but she wasn’t willing to leave her sister. When Rebecca took Henry back, the twins were drawn away by a pair of school-aged girls who had been charged with looking after the younger children while the women prepared and served the noon meal.
Willa began unpacking the hamper of food the Millers had provided. There was bread, cold cuts, pickles and homemade pretzels along with the traditional church spread of peanut butter and marshmallow cream. Other women unpacked cheeses, pies, cookies and assorted baked goods. It was far different Sunday fare than had been served in the Swartzentruber group where Willa grew up. She recalled everyone eating bean soup from a common bowl along with bread, beets and pickles.
She heard her girls laughing and looked up to see them enjoying a game of tag with the other children. A pang of regret hit her hard. She pressed a hand to her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Vera asked.
Willa didn’t realize she was being watched so closely. “Glen and I never stayed in one place long enough for the girls to make friends. It’s nice to see them having fun with children their own age. I wish he were here to see it.”
“Your kinder will have many chances to make friends when you settle into a new community. Is your heart set on going to Hope Springs? You could always remain here. You would be most welcome.”
The idea would be tempting if she weren’t afraid of her illness returning. “My heart is set on getting to know my family again.”
“Of course. Still, it is something to consider after your reunion with your relatives. You might not like them.”
Willa laughed out loud. “If they are anything like you, I will love them. I can always return to visit you.”
“You must promise to do so. I’ve grown fond of you. John has, too, although he doesn’t like to show it.”
Willa’s grin faded and she looked away. “John is a kind man.”
“Is he the kind of man you might consider as a husband?” she asked hopefully.
Amish Christmas Twins Page 10