“Where are you from, Annabelle?” Christine asked. “We’ve got distant cousins in Pennsylvania who wear heart-shaped kapps like yours.”
“You’ve pegged me right,” she replied. “I hail from Bird-in-Hand. I suppose there are plenty of places closer to home I could’ve gone, but your scribe’s letters in The Budget made this place sound . . . well, so refreshing. So welcoming.”
“I’m glad you found us,” Rosetta murmured, placing her hand over Annabelle’s wrist. “And I’m glad my column conveyed the spirit of open invitation we hope to extend to folks.”
A sense of warm contentment settled around the table as everyone savored their cookies and coffee. Frances noted the weary lines on Annabelle’s face, and the way her hand trembled as she closed her eyes gratefully over a big bite of her chocolate-chip cookie. She sensed Annabelle hadn’t had an easy life with her husband—and perhaps had come to Missouri so he had less chance of tracking her down. She was awfully young to consider living out her life alone, ineligible for remarriage—but Phineas hadn’t given her a choice.
Maybe she’s better off without him—and Lord, I’m so blessed that I never once thought about my Floyd that way.
Frances decided that her new mission would be to become a good friend to Annabelle, to help her settle in and make a new life at Promise Lodge. After Rosetta and Gloria took their new guest upstairs to choose an apartment, the men went on about their day and Frances helped Ruby, Beulah, and Christine clear the table.
“What a story that poor woman has,” Ruby said quietly.
“Jah, that underhanded husband of hers—rifling through her pantry for her stash before he abandoned her!” Beulah muttered as she ran hot water into the sink. “After more than twenty years, it seems Annabelle suddenly wasn’t worth his time.”
“Not to mention that Phineas committed the unforgiveable sin—leaving the Amish faith,” Christine put in as she took a tea towel from the drawer. “It was different when Rosetta married Truman, because they consulted with Monroe and she stayed faithful after marrying a Mennonite. It’s another thing altogether when a longtime church member jumps the fence.”
Because she’d been a bishop’s wife, Frances was acquainted with this situation. A family that belonged to their church in Sugarcreek, Ohio, had abandoned the Old Order to take over a profitable restaurant that attracted a lot of English tourists—and they’d embraced electricity, cars, and the English lifestyle. Floyd and the preachers had preached for weeks about the dangers of turning away from God and becoming motivated by money. The way the Amish saw it, that family had sacrificed their souls and lost all chance at salvation.
“You have to wonder why Phineas left,” Frances said softly. “Now he’s alienated his friends and family—the folks most likely to help him deal with whatever crisis he must’ve been going through. I can’t think he’ll get much help amongst the English, and it’ll be tough for him to get a job without a driver’s license.”
“He’d probably been making his escape plans for a while and Annabelle didn’t realize it,” Beulah muttered. “Nobody with a lick of sense would take off before he had a plan in place.”
“Puh!” Ruby exclaimed. “If he was scrounging around for Annabelle’s egg money, he must’ve been desperately short of cash.”
“Or else he was just mean, hitting up her little fund as a final way to humiliate her,” Christine said with a scowl. “If that’s the case, I hope he’s truly out of her life. Nobody needs a man like that.”
After the kitchen was cleaned up, Frances slipped upstairs to her new apartment. She did her hand and arm exercises while gazing out her windows at the trees and bushes that were her new scenery. When she caught sight of a lone figure on the distant hill, however, a lump formed in her throat. Marlin was standing outside his barrel factory, staring off into space as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. And when she turned to look in a different direction, she saw the house she and Gloria had left . . . the home Floyd had provided for their family.
At the thought of returning to give the house a final redding up, a sob escaped her. If she worked slowly, Frances was able to handle a broom now—but did she have the strength to face those empty rooms? The memories that lingered there?
Frances burst into tears, muffling her sobs with the green afghan Marlin’s Fannie had crocheted for her. What have I done? Why did I think leaving that house—our home—was such a fine idea? she fretted.
She’d done it so she’d have money to live on. And she’d done it partly for Gloria. But Gloria had a new job managing the lodge, a colorful apartment, and the weekly responsibility to write Promise Lodge’s column for The Budget.
And what do you have now? Frances’s inner voice demanded. You’ve sent all the treasures and trappings of your adult life down the road in a stranger’s truck. You’re left with nothing—and nobody. You’re no better off than Annabelle—except you brought this on yourself, and she didn’t.
Frances wiped her face on her sleeve and turned away from the windows. She wasn’t ordinarily one to throw pity parties, and her laments weren’t entirely true: she had turned Marlin away, but she still had Gloria, Mary Kate, Roman, and little David—not to mention Lester. The Kuhn sisters, along with Rosetta and her sisters, were wonderful friends who truly cared about what happened to her—they wanted her to be healthy and happy again. And Frances sensed that Irene and Annabelle would soon become her good friends, as well.
Even if she composed herself and ate supper downstairs with her new neighbors, however, it was going to be a lonely afternoon—and one of the longest nights of her life.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As she and Gloria sat at the breakfast table Saturday morning enjoying crisp waffles and juicy sausages, Frances tried hard to raise her spirits to the other ladies’ level of cheerfulness. Annabelle had recovered from her long trip and seemed to be healing from the pain that had brought her to Promise Lodge. She was listening attentively to the Kuhn sisters and Irene as they recounted their arrivals, as well as to stories about the romances that had moved Mattie, Christine, and Rosetta into homes with their new husbands.
“It’s nice to hear about women who’ve had second chances at happiness,” Annabelle said as she drizzled syrup over her second waffle. “I can’t hope for such a fairy-tale ending to my situation, but I can already tell that living amongst the friendly folks here will be a big improvement over staying where I was.”
A curious glance from Beulah made Frances focus on her food. She hoped the well-intentioned maidel wouldn’t ask why she, too, was no longer anticipating a happily-ever-after—why the flame she and Marlin had kindled had gone out. The squeak of the back screen door and quick footsteps crossing the kitchen floor made everyone look up from her breakfast.
Minerva stopped in the dining room doorway to catch her breath. Her face was pale and her eyes were rimmed in red. “We—we have some awful news,” she said as she approached the table. “When Bernice went to get Caleb from his crib this morning, she—she couldn’t wake him. Looks like he died sometime in the wee hours, for no reason that I was able to figure out.”
All the ladies gasped, their smiles vanishing. “Oh no! Bernice must be heartbroken,” Ruby murmured.
Irene shook her head in disbelief. “But he was just born on—”
“Tuesday,” Minerva put in sadly. “Barely four days old, he was.”
“How are Barbara and Sam?” Frances asked. “They’re probably worried that their little girls will come down with whatever Caleb succumbed to.”
“The whole Helmuth household is in a state of shock. Mattie and Amos are headed over there right now to help,” the midwife replied. “I suspect it’s sudden infant death syndrome, rather than a contagious illness, because when I checked on the babies yesterday afternoon, they were all three well—nursing and napping, as they’re supposed to do. For reasons we can’t explain, some babies just stop breathing.”
“It’s a mystery, why God calls such t
iny angels home,” Beulah said with a sigh. “Our brother and his wife lost one that way years ago. Our best efforts and urgent prayers couldn’t heal the emotional wound or take away the pain of that empty crib.”
“The best thing we can do is help them prepare for the funeral—clean their house before the visitation and burial,” Ruby said gently. “Count on Beulah and me to prepare the meal for after the service, here in the dining room.”
“Phoebe and I aren’t doing our regular baking today, so we’ll make the pies and freeze them until we know the funeral date,” said Irene as she rose from the table. “I’ve heard Barbara say the Helmuths have quite a large family out in Ohio, and it’ll take them a while to get here.”
“I’ll go to the Helmuth place now and see what they’d like me to do,” Gloria put in. “They have a big house to clean, and what with tending three new babies, they haven’t had much inclination to scrub floors or wipe down kitchen cabinets and such.”
“I’ll go with you, dear,” Frances said, recognizing a welcome chance to be useful.
“If somebody’s got a sewing machine and knows a place to buy some nice white fabric, I’d be happy to make the baby’s burial clothes,” Annabelle put in. “I’ve done a lot of sewing for the Mennonite Relief Mission near our place in Pennsylvania, so I can practically make little clothes in my sleep.”
Frances smiled at the way their newest resident had jumped in to help folks she hadn’t even met yet. “Before I moved out of my house, I brought a bin of fabric over—including the large pieces left over from making my Floyd’s burial clothes,” she said softly.
“I’ll fetch that bin from the storeroom for you, Annabelle, and you can use our sewing machine,” Beulah offered. “It’ll be a real comfort to Bernice and her family that you’ve offered to make the baby’s clothes.”
“You know, we also have some young single fellows—and a widower—who could use some new shirts and work pants,” Frances told Annabelle as she began stacking the dirty dishes. “Lester and the Helmuth cousins don’t have wives to sew for them, so we’ll introduce you to them soon.”
“And they’re all earning gut money, so don’t sell yourself short when you set your prices with them,” Ruby teased.
Despite the sad news they’d just heard, Annabelle smiled brightly. “Seems the clouds might have a silver lining for me after all,” she said. “I appreciate the way you’re all looking out for me!”
After Minerva left, they washed the dishes and went off in their various directions. Irene was going to speak to Phoebe about baking pies, while the Kuhns were headed into Forest Grove to stock up on groceries—and Annabelle decided to go with them. As Frances and Gloria started across the grassy lawn toward the Helmuths’ double-sized house, they waved at Alma Peterscheim and her daughter, Deborah Schwartz, who were walking toward them.
“Such sad news that we’ve lost one of our wee ones,” Alma murmured when they’d caught up. She slipped an arm around her daughter, whose eyes were wide with disbelief. “I’ve told Deborah not to let this dampen her excitement over having her own baby, come September.”
“Jah, we can only focus forward and do our best to have healthy babies—just as Barbara and Bernice did,” Frances remarked. “Worrying about what might go wrong only causes stress that doesn’t help the mamm or her child, either one.”
When they arrived at the big Helmuth house that sat across the parking lot from the nursery’s greenhouses, a gray hearse was pulling out onto the county highway. Frances sighed at the sad sight, aware that the baby inside it represented Bernice’s entire world. The funeral home near Cloverdale would prepare the tiny body for burial and then return it to be dressed and placed in a plain, handmade casket.
When Frances and her companions stepped inside, Bishop Monroe and Marlin were already in the big front room with Mattie and Preacher Amos, as well as Sam and Barbara and Simon and Bernice. The red-eyed grandparents sat on a love seat near the long couch, where Amos’s daughters and their husbands sat bunched together as though they couldn’t bear to have even air come between them. Mattie and Barbara were holding Carol and Corene to their shoulders, which made Bernice appear all the more bereft without a baby to cradle. The two church leaders spoke in low voices, offering comfort and assistance.
“Have you called your parents yet, Simon?” Bishop Monroe asked gently. “We’ll plan the funeral for a date that allows them time to arrive—”
“We haven’t been able to face that phone call yet,” Barbara blurted with a shake of her head. “Just a few days ago we were calling family members in Ohio to tell them our gut news, and now . . .”
“It’s a painful day, and it’s not our intent to rush you,” Marlin said somberly. “At your age, you’ve not had much practice at making such a tough phone call—”
“If you’d like, Sam and Simon, I can call your folks,” Mattie offered as she stood up to walk with her gurgling grandbaby. “Grandparents have a lot in common, and over the years we’ve figured out how to share sad news.”
Barbara grasped her sister’s hand and turned toward Simon. “Maybe that would be best, don’t you think? If we didn’t have to make all those calls, this ordeal would be a bit easier to bear.”
Bernice stared at the hardwood floor as though she hadn’t heard her twin’s suggestion, but Simon brightened a bit. “I’m for that,” he said. “I’ve been trying to find words all day before I go out to the phone shanty, but I’m afraid I’ll leave a totally irrational message or I’ll not be able to talk at all.”
“Consider it done,” Amos put in. He let out a long sigh. “It’s a blessing that the undertaker can have Caleb back to us by this evening, considering that tomorrow’s Sunday and Monday’s the Memorial Day holiday.”
“That would be a long time for our wee boy to be in a strange place,” Mattie murmured. She lovingly stroked the cheek of the little girl she held.
Amos cleared his throat, more emotional than Frances had ever seen him.
“I’ll get to work on the little . . . casket,” he said in a halting voice. “Not exactly the sort of gift I’d figured on giving a grandchild, but God had other plans.”
Mattie hung her head and the four Helmuths began to cry quietly, clinging to one another. Frances and Gloria stepped behind the couch to place their hands on the young parents’ shoulders while Alma slipped her arm around Mattie’s waist, smiling at the baby on her shoulder.
“We have a new resident, Annabelle Beachey, and she’s offered to make the burial gown,” Frances put in softly. “The Kuhns are planning food for after the funeral, and Irene and Phoebe will make the pies. We’re all so sorry for your loss, and we’re here to help with whatever you need.”
Bishop Monroe nodded. “Gut friends are a blessing at times like these—especially because a lot of us left our families to come here.”
“At Promise Lodge, our friends are family now,” Alma put in staunchly. “As Minerva spreads the word today, more folks will come to help get your house ready—and Eli will be glad to preach so you won’t have to even think about that, Amos.”
“Many hands make light work—and they help us bear our burdens, as well,” Marlin said with a nod.
When Bishop Monroe and Marlin stood up, signaling the end of the meeting, Amos rose, as well. “I’ll get going on my construction project—and I’ll ask Roman to dig the grave,” he said with a sigh. “Do you have any preference about where it should be? So far, Floyd’s the only one buried in our cemetery.”
All four of the Helmuths’ faces went blank. “Maybe we should walk to the cemetery and look it over,” Sam suggested. “The fresh air will do us all gut.”
Frances took this as her cue to head for the kitchen and assess the cleaning jobs the women would tackle. When she saw no dirty dishes, she guessed that in the shock of baby Caleb’s death, nobody had eaten breakfast. As she peered into the refrigerator, she heard someone behind her—surely not Gloria, who hated to cook. “Let’s fix them a meal first thing, Al
ma,” she said.
“I’d be happy to help you with that, Frances. I’m pretty gut at scrambled eggs and toast, if that sounds reasonable.”
Frances blinked, backing away from the open refrigerator to gaze at Marlin. “I—we women can cook, if you—you probably have other things to do,” she stammered.
Marlin shrugged, his expression subdued. “It would be a way to spend some time with you, even if other folks are around,” he murmured. When Alma bustled into the kitchen, however, he cleared his throat. “So—how’s your new apartment? And Annabelle has offered to sew the burial gown? That’s very kind of her.”
Nodding, Frances noted how sad and tired Marlin appeared—but it was probably due to Caleb’s death rather than because of any feelings he had for her.
“I can’t wait to meet our new resident!” Alma put in as she assessed the condition of the room. “We’ll have to throw her a welcome party after the funeral’s behind us. Are you thinking some breakfast is a gut idea, Frances?” she asked. “It doesn’t smell as though these poor folks have even made coffee yet this morning.”
“Jah, I think they’ll be better able to face this difficult day if they’ve had a bite to eat,” Frances replied as Alma began filling the percolator with water. She was grateful that her friend was making conversation so she and Marlin didn’t have to—even as she realized her attitude could use an adjustment. Marlin had been nothing but kind to her, after all.
“I’m settling in,” she said to him, hoping her smile looked more convincing than it felt. “Gloria has gotten her first lesson on apartment management, helping Rosetta with Annabelle’s arrival—and she’s delighted to be waking up in heaven, surrounded by the blue sky and clouds you fellows painted in her bedroom.”
The lines on Marlin’s face lifted. “Glad to hear it. I suspect you ladies will do better at breakfast prep without me in your way,” he added with a nod at Alma, “so I’ll head back to my barrel factory. I’ve got some wood Amos can use for Caleb’s casket.”
New Beginnings at Promise Lodge Page 23