by Senft, Adina
Emma turned away, as if Amelia weren’t even there. “He looks at me like I’m one of Mamm’s friends—like I’m from another generation, when he can’t be any older than I am. How do you think that makes me feel?” She didn’t wait for an answer—not that Amelia had one. “All through our Rumspringe, I listened to the two of you talk about this boy here and that boy there, and heard all about your dates, and stood up with you and witnessed your vows when you were married. But I am done listening to you talk about Eli Fischer.” She slid sideways, out from under Amelia’s hands, and went into the bathroom across the hall. Water sloshed into the sink, and they heard her splashing her face.
Carrie and Amelia exchanged a look, and one of Carrie’s delicate brows went up. She tilted her head in the direction of the door.
Emma kept her back to her, though she must have heard her feet on the polished planks. Without a word Amelia slipped both arms around her waist and laid her head on Emma’s shoulder.
“Forgive me. I was selfish. I know how much it hurts you.” Emma sniffled. Amelia pulled a hand towel off the rack next to the sink and passed it to her. “I get so tangled up in my own problems I forget that you and Carrie have them, too.”
“I’m thirty years old and I’ve never even been kissed,” Emma whispered into the towel. “What is wrong with me?”
Amelia squeezed her. “Nothing. God has something else in mind for you. Don’t give up hope. He’s keeping you separated for someone truly wonderful, that’s all.”
“I hoped that Eli might be the one.” Emma blew her nose as Carrie came in and leaned companionably against the doorjamb. “But when you dumped those beet pickles all over him at Mandy Lapp’s wedding and he wore that shirt like Joseph’s coat of many colors, I knew there was no chance.”
“There will be a chance for you with someone,” Carrie said softly. “God is faithful to those who love Him.”
“Just as He’s faithful to someone out there who will love you,” Amelia said. “Keep your heart open.”
Emma was still, and Amelia heard herself, as though the words had echoed back from the bathroom walls.
She never had been very good at taking her own advice.
Chapter 15
Amelia had no sooner opened the shop and taken off her coat than Brian Steiner from the cabinet shop next door came in. “Guder Mariye, Amelia. Wie geht’s? ”
If she told him the truth, they’d be here all morning. “Fine, Brian. Is everyone well? How is your mother?”
“She’s good. That tea Ruth sent over settled her stomach, and she’s been her usual self ever since.”
“Mamm will be glad to hear that. So are you in need of pallets on this chilly morning?”
He laughed, his open, guileless face still reddened from the wind. “If I did, it would be to build a fire in the shop. Guess we all have to work a little faster and get the blood moving.”
“At least until the heaters can do their jobs.”
Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, he rocked forward. “So…I hear you might be interested in selling the shop.”
Had the rumor from a couple of weeks ago finally made it back around to where it had started, or was the one from last week just getting off the ground? She hadn’t a doubt that the men would have chewed it over yesterday at church. “I might be. Why?”
“Well, we’ve been thinking of expanding a little. If we bought the shop, we could keep the pallet business going and use your extra space to store the lumber we use in the cabinets.”
She nodded. It was a sensible plan. Small-industry space didn’t come up so often in Whinburg—at least not at the prices an everyday person could afford. “Have you talked about an offer with your dad and the other boys?”
“We have. We could give you a down payment of fifty thousand by Christmas and then pay you monthly for the rest, for a total of eighty thousand. Contingent, of course, on seeing the books. Then it might go higher or lower. This is just a starting figure.”
“It’s a fair figure to start,” she acknowledged. It was also in line with what Eli had told her—which made a decision even more impossible. “But I have to tell you that one of my Englisch customers has offered a hundred.”
Some of the high color left his face, but that could be because he was out of the wind and warming up. “You wouldn’t sell out to an Englischer, would you?”
“Yours is the third offer I’ve had, both inside and outside the church. I might have to hold an auction.” She tried to lighten both her discomfort and his with a smile.
“Whose is the other? Eli Fischer?” When she nodded, he went on, “And I heard that one of Old Joe Yoder’s nephews is thinking of getting married, so he’s looking for solid work close by. There’s a lot of money in that family. You might get some inquiries from that direction, too.”
“Really,” Amelia said faintly. The rumors really had feet, then.
“I was talking to Melvin Miller on Friday, while you were out. He said he was going to talk to the bank about selling the farm and getting a smaller place. If he does that, he might have enough for a down payment on the shop—and we were also kicking around an idea or two about buying in together.”
Amelia wished she were sitting safely behind her desk instead of standing helplessly over here by the coat tree. At least then she’d feel a little bit in control. She’d have her invoices and bills to remind her that she had responsibility here. Like it or not, she was more than a housewife who would fade into the kitchen when the men gathered to talk business.
Now they were talking her business. She’d been brought up all her life to submit, to obey, to defer. But she couldn’t do that now. She had her health to think of—and the boys. If she wasn’t going to let Eli court her, she still had to keep working at some kind of salable trade so she could put clothes on their backs and good food on the table. She couldn’t afford to be crowded by men from all corners of the community—even if they were anxious to do the right thing for her and keep what Enoch had built in Amish hands and out of Mr. Bernard Burke’s.
Poor man. He had no idea what he was up against.
Brian was looking at her as if he expected an answer. What had they been talking about? Ah. Melvin Miller, buying in with them.
That was a new one. Carrie had not said a word about it yesterday. But maybe she hadn’t known, if Brian and Melvin had put their heads together once Amelia was out of the shop and on her way home to her boys.
“Melvin has been with me just a couple of weeks,” she said, treading carefully. “Do you feel confident in his ability as a partner? It’s a big investment, giving up the farm and moving. He wouldn’t want to do it on a whim—if he wasn’t completely committed to doing this for his trade, I mean.”
“Well, you’d have to talk that over with him. But it would lessen our investment and give him a stake. And now would be the time, before planting starts in the spring and he gets caught up in another year on the farm.”
Oh, how Carrie’s eyes would glow at the prospect of getting away from that farm. She would be so happy with a nice little house on five acres, where she could plant a big garden and worry about nothing more than potato bugs that might spoil one row, instead of some virulent corn infection that could destroy an entire season’s worth of income. Carrie would give anything to feel safe and cared for—and if that was off her mind, she might be able to conceive.
And then there was Eli, who wanted to create a life in a new community. And now Brian, wanting to expand a little—not enough to get too big for his britches but enough to serve the customers the Steiners had.
All her friends, people she cared about, all with good and worthy goals. How on earth was she to make a choice when taking one man’s offer meant dashing the dreams and hopes of the others?
Did men think this way when they made their business decisions? Or did they simply total up the columns and may the best number win? How could she live with herself if the farm went under and Carrie and Melvin were left with nothin
g? How had she once thought life was complicated when her only concern was getting the washing done before she went off to work?
When Brian had gone back to his own shop, Amelia tried to concentrate on the bills. The business was like a child—you had to feed it and keep it healthy, no matter what was going on in the rest of your life. So she got out the checkbook and worked her way through accounts payable. At least with the fifteenth coming up this week, she’d be able to bill a few of the big customers’ orders to fill the monetary well again.
The twelfth already. The Sunday after next would be Christmas. Where had the month of November gone? At least she’d been able to sew a pair of pants for both boys, and Emma usually put together a basket of candy and cookies for them to share, since she made one every year for Karen’s kids. If Amelia planned to give anything to her parents on Second Christmas, to her two best friends and her nieces and nephews, she’d better get busy. Hmm. They were all busy making quilt blocks. Maybe she’d make potholders out of some of her other fabric. She could whip one of those together in an hour or so, and goodness knew they were useful. She should check her fabric cupboard when she got home and—
The phone rang, and she realized she’d been staring into space instead of opening envelopes.
“Whinburg Pallet and Crate, this is Amelia.”
“Hi, Amelia, it’s Darcy from Dr. Brucker’s office. You were going to call me and schedule your extraction?”
Oh, dear. As if in answer, the broken tooth throbbed, though she hadn’t done anything to bother it. Well, maybe it didn’t like the way her jaw had suddenly clenched. Amelia did her best to relax her muscles. “Yes, I was,” she said weakly.
“We just had an opening for Monday the nineteenth—a week from today—at nine. I know Dr. Brucker was trying to get you in sooner. How is the tooth?”
“It’s been better. It’s sore when I chew on that side, and I have to try to remember to keep food out of it.”
“Maybe I could shuffle some things around. I have a feeling I’m going to get a cancellation this afternoon. How do you feel about being on standby for four o’clock?”
This afternoon? Get a tooth pulled? Oh, no. “It’s not that sore, really. I’ll be fine until Monday.”
“Are you sure? Because if today doesn’t work, I could squeeze you in on Wednesday at lunch.”
“No, no. Thank you. Monday will work just fine.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m not so keen on getting them yanked either. You might consider getting a porcelain crown, you know. It wouldn’t be gold, and no one would know it was there.” When Amelia didn’t answer, she went on, “All right. But if you experience any more pain or swelling, call us, okay? Because we have contingency plans for emergencies, and you’ll have been waiting a little longer than we like.”
“Thank you. I will.”
She hung up, feeling breathless—as if she’d narrowly missed being hit by a car or stepped on a rotten board in the barn loft and jumped aside just before it collapsed.
You’re such a baby.
Even Elam was braver when she took him to the dentist. His little hands would grip the arms of the chair, his gaze resolutely glued to the silly cartoon animals pasted on the ceiling, while the dentist probed and scraped and drilled. Matthew, too. So she had no excuse to put it off when she wouldn’t allow that in her own children.
Besides, better to get it done now. Then it would be all healed up by the time she went to Mexico in January.
Maybe she’d better take that Wednesday appointment. Ruth would undoubtedly have some mixture to put on the gap to take the pain away, or a tea that would help her sleep.
Amelia reached out to pick up the phone, and it rang under her fingers. She jumped, then, when it rang a second time, took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Whinburg Pallet and Crate, th—”
“Amelia.” The smile in his voice stopped her.
“Eli.” The syllables lay as smooth as cream on her tongue. “Wie geht’s?”
“I’m well. And you?”
“I just hung up from the dentist. Think of me next Monday at nine when I’m having a tooth pulled.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“I hope not. But with a broken tooth, you never know if there’s going to be enough for them to get a hold of or if they’ll have to dig around a bit.”
“I meant it shouldn’t be difficult to think of you.”
Her throat closed up. Don’t say things like that to me. Not when it’s impossible. “Did you have a good journey home?”
“I did. I think I surprised my sister-in-law, though. I found her in the kitchen, measuring for new curtains. Another example of the efficiency of the Amish Internet.”
“Oh, dear. What did you do?”
“Well, I was sorry to disappoint her, but the old ones will have to do for a while yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I spoke to my bank manager today, as I told you I would. We had a long talk.”
“And what does he say?”
“He has to do the paperwork, but he gave me to understand there would be no problem with a loan, if I wanted one.”
A wave of happiness rose up out of nowhere and washed over her. Eli would move to Whinburg. She would get to see him in church every other week. She could still have his friendship, if nothing else. But what did he mean about the old curtains?
“Your poor sister-in-law. It’s hardly fair to make her live with old curtains if you’re planning to move.” She hoped the smile in her voice transmitted itself down this pesky, crackly phone line. Where was he calling from? A phone shanty near his home?
“Well, that’s just the thing. I went in to have that talk because I’d told you I would, but I think it would be best if I accepted the fact that my future is here in Lebanon County.”
She heard his words—or rather the sound they made crashing up against what she’d expected him to say. She sat silently, trying to make sense of the rubble.
“I’m sorry, Amelia. Truly. But I had a lot of time to think on the bus back here, and it came to me that God is closing doors that I thought might once be open, and I should pay attention to Him before fingers get pinched.”
She thought she understood. “I would not want you to have that pain,” she said quietly, gripping the receiver with both hands. “But I want you to know your friendship is precious to me.”
“And yours is to me,” he said gently. “But we must leave it at that, ja?”
He was right. She must not say the words fluttering helplessly on her tongue. To speak would be to drag him into her eventual misery, and she would not do that to a friend. She could only say his name, like a plea, or a prayer. “Eli…”
“I will say good-bye for now, Amelia. I will pray that you get your health and happiness back again. And I wish you every good thing.”
Still she could not force another word out. And he must have taken her silence for dismissal, because a second later the dial tone rang in her ear.
She dropped the receiver into its cradle.
Every good thing.
Right at the moment, she couldn’t see a single good thing, anywhere.
On Tuesday afternoon Amelia pasted a smile on her face as the Stolzfus buggy rolled up the lane, and she hugged Emma and Carrie at the door. But as she hung up their coats and black away bonnets, she realized that some hurts went so deep it would be impossible to share them while they were so fresh. So she pretended that everything was all right, even as they caught up on their news and laid out their stitched blocks.
Slowly, the pattern that Carrie had envisioned took shape on the sitting-room floor. It really did look like a sunrise over green fields—using the green instead of black had been the right decision.
What message would the latter have given? Sunrise over scorched fields? Amelia squelched a bitter smile. If the quilt had been for her, it might have been appropriate. Because that was what her life felt like. Scorched, burned. U
sed up. Good for nothing but being plowed under until she could find the strength to start over again. Then maybe there would be hope for a few green shoots to show their fragile heads.
On Wednesday, after dinner at her parents’, she and Elam walked slowly down their snowy lane so that Matthew could get the mail out of the mailbox and catch up to them. The boys made a game out of walking in her footsteps so that it looked as if only one person had come home. She didn’t know whom they hoped to fool, but the laughter of both boys as they tried to match her longer stride comforted her.
She needed to follow their innocent example and find joy in the little things. It was clear that joy in the big things was not part of God’s plan for her at this season in her life.
When the boys were settled at the table putting together a puzzle, she finally had a moment to look at the mail. Oh, good, another packet of circle letters from Katie Yoder. She had almost a week, then, to read through them and write her own before she passed it on to Emma on Tuesday. A new issue of Family Life, that was gut. Several circulars from shops in town. A letter from Lebanon.
Eli.
Her stomach sank while her heart sped up its rhythm. Had their conversation on Monday been as hard for him as it was for her—so hard that he’d changed his mind and was now writing to take everything back?
She ripped open the envelope and pulled out the sheet of foolscap inside.
Dear Amelia,
I hope this finds you as well as can be expected and that you are having a good week. Here in Lebanon we have had snow, which makes it interesting to get to church. There is something to be said for meeting in the barn or the equipment shed. I’m sure the ladies who have to clean up after sixty pairs of muddy feet in their homes think so, too.
But I did not begin this letter to talk about the weather or housework. I don’t know why I began it, unless it’s to try to explain myself. You probably aren’t interested in hearing, because you have made it clear that you don’t think a future is possible for us. But I should not have brought it up over the telephone, with cars going past on the highway and the neighbor boy hanging around outside in the cold, waiting to call his girl.