by Jo Ann Brown
But he couldn’t leave her alone. He wasn’t going to be like her ex, who’d left her with the tough task and gone merrily on his way.
“How is Olivia?” she asked before he could figure out what to do.
“She’s a sick little girl.” He sat on the arm of the overstuffed chair. He didn’t trust himself to sit closer to her. The yearning to hold her echoed through him with every beat of his heart. “As Sean told me earlier, they’re pretty sure it’s pneumonia, but they want to make certain there isn’t something else wrong because she went downhill so fast. Even for someone with asthma.”
“Poor, sweet kind.” Pushing her hair behind her ears, she asked, “Will you pray with me, Micah?”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had in a long time.”
She slid off the couch and turned to fold her hands on the cushion as if it were a church bench. Kneeling beside her, he bowed his head and continued the prayer he’d been repeating over and over on the way home from the hospital. Heavenly Father, please bring Your healing to Olivia and let all of us who love her know the comfort of Your presence. Until Katie Kay put her hand over his, he didn’t realize he’d spoken his request aloud.
“I’m sorry if I intruded on your prayers.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she whispered. “What you said was perfect. Danki.”
She got to her feet as the boys argued over which one of them got to use the red crayon next. Settling that debate, she opened the fridge. “How about I heat up some cider?”
“It’s late,” Micah replied.
She glanced at the clock on the wall beyond the television set. “It’s only 5:30.”
Micah wondered how the day could have gone so slowly. “I feel like I’ve lived a full week today.”
“I know. Waiting slows a clock’s hands to a standstill. The day my mamm died was one I thought would never end.” She shook herself and forced a smile. “Would you like some warm cider?”
“Ja. Sounds like a gut idea.”
Minutes later, she handed him a steaming cup. She put an ice cube in each plastic glass of cider before she gave them to the boys. When she picked up her own cup, he gestured toward the living room. She went in with him and sat on the rocker beside the sofa.
Neither of them spoke as the steam from the cups rose in front of their faces. He didn’t need to see her expression to sense her melancholy. He understood too well, because he loved his partner’s kinder as if they were his own and he’d seen Katie Kay grow close to the whole family.
“I’ll call in the order for pizza,” she said. “It’ll probably be ready in about a half hour.”
“I’ll get it. The Pizza Palace isn’t far from here.”
“As long as you can be quick. I don’t want the boys staying up late. Jayden’s already been asking when his parents will be coming home. I’m not sure either boy believes me when I say Gemma and Sean will be here as soon as they can.”
“It’s the truth.”
“But not the truth they want to hear.” She took a sip and then sighed. “I hope they will go to bed for me. They’ve done it before when Gemma’s been tired, but they knew she was here.”
“I can stay and help.”
“Isn’t Sean planning on you doing his work as well as yours tomorrow? You need to get your rest.”
He laughed tersely. “I’m not going to sleep while I’m waiting to hear the news about Olivia. I might as well walk the floor here as at home, where I’ll keep Mamm and the rest of the family awake.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Looking into her cup, she said, “This isn’t the time, but I don’t know when we’ll have any quiet again. I wanted to talk to you about what you said the day we went to the hardware store. You mentioned I always say the boppli, not my boppli. Remember?”
“Ja.” He waited for her to continue because he wasn’t sure why she’d brought up the uncomfortable subject now.
“The answer is simple. I’m afraid to love the boppli.”
He hadn’t expected her to say that. “Why?”
“Because if I love the boppli, what will I do if I have to give him or her up?”
“You’ve decided to surrender your boppli for adoption?” He almost choked on each word. Why hadn’t she told him that she’d made the tough decision? He’d thought she trusted him enough again to discuss the future of her kind with him.
“No, but I’ve got to face the facts. Austin is the daed. If he wants custody of the little one, an Englisch judge could decide in his favor.”
“But I didn’t think he had a job to provide for a kind.”
“He does. Off and on.” Her mouth hardened. “Now that he can’t depend on my tips and paycheck, he’ll have to get a steadier job. His roommates won’t let him sponge off them for very long.” She blinked, and he realized she was struggling to hold back tears. “Even if it’s not great, if he has any job at all, it’s more than I have.”
“But you’re the boppli’s mamm. And Austin abandoned you on the side of a road in the dark on a rainy night.”
“I don’t know if a judge would take that into consideration.”
“Why not? You and the boppli could have died if someone hadn’t seen you or if you had caught a cold as Olivia has and become sick.” He put his cup on the end table with such a thump the boys stopped talking in the kitchen. “I wish I could tell your Austin—”
“Not mine. Not anymore.”
As if she hadn’t interrupted, he kept going. “I’d like to tell him what I think of him.” He shoved himself to his feet. “Face-to-face, man-to-man.” He snorted a taut laugh. “Man-to-lizard, because no decent man would abandon his boppli as he has.”
She jumped to her feet. “Don’t joke about that, Micah.”
He was taken aback. Was she defending the cur who’d treated her and her kind with such cruelty?
He realized how wrong he was when she added, “He isn’t a man you can talk sense to, so please don’t joke about it.”
“I’m not joking. I would like to tell him what a mistake he’s made.”
“No, Micah! Promise me you won’t do that.” She grasped his arm. “Austin likes nothing better than to beat someone up. He bragged about the fights he got into.” Stepping closer, she gazed with entreaty at him. “Promise me, Micah.”
“Plain folk don’t take pledges.”
She copied his derisive snort. “Really? I’ve heard you tell Sean’s kids you’ll do something for them the next time you come over, and you do.”
“Don’t worry, Katie Kay. The chances of Austin and I meeting are pretty slim.” Not giving her time to answer, he said, “As for tonight, Sean has an air mattress in the attic. I’ll use that. I won’t sleep much anyhow. Sean said I could check in on Olivia every few hours by calling his cell phone, and I’m going to do that.”
“That sounds gut. If—”
The doorbell rang, and Micah glanced out the window. Who could it be? As far as he knew, The Pizza Palace, the village’s sole pizza restaurant, didn’t offer delivery. And they hadn’t ordered yet.
His eyes widened when he saw a gray-topped buggy parked in front of the house. Not his. It was in the driveway. Who...?
Another vehicle was pulling into the driveway and stopping by his. When a woman stepped out of the first buggy, she was carrying a large basket and a padded container. Both were filled with food, he knew. It was the Amish answer to any crisis. Komm to offer assistance and prayer and bring food. No birth or funeral or wedding or church Sunday passed without women delivering food to share.
But that was among the plain folk. Why were these two women—no, make that three women because two women emerged from the second buggy—coming to the Donnellys’ house with food? The Amish helped their Englisch neighbors in the midst of a disaster like a fire or a flood, but he hadn’t
expected to see his neighbors coming to his partner’s door tonight.
They must have heard about Olivia being taken to the emergency room at the hospital. He was amazed at how fast news spread among the Amish, even without phones or internet or social media, but that didn’t explain why they were at the Donnellys’ house.
“Katie Kay—”
“No!” She rushed into the kitchen and toward the laundry room. “I can’t answer the door. If one of them sees me, they’ll recognize me.”
“You’ve been hiding long enough. You need to make up your mind one way or the other.”
“I can’t.” Her voice broke. “Not yet. Not when these kinder need me.”
He started to retort that she was using the boys as an excuse, but then, as he looked at her strained expression, he knew she was speaking the truth. She hadn’t always since she returned from Lancaster; yet she was being honest now. Another change. Was she being changed by her time with the Donnellys and him? He’d like to think that, but he didn’t want to fool himself about her again. Sean’s favorite Englisch saying raced through his head over and over.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
The doorbell rang again, and Micah knew he couldn’t stand there until she saw sense. Grumbling at her stubborn inability to decide, he walked to the door. He heard the laundry room door closing as he opened the front one.
He’d recognized the caramel-colored horse pulling the buggy parked in front of the house. And he knew the woman standing on the steps, offering him a covered dish wrapped in pale blue towels.
“Do you want to come in, Cinda?” he asked.
Cinda’s husband, Atlee Bender, was a minister in the district where Micah lived. “I must get home to my family,” she said, “but I heard about the sick kind and how you’re helping. I hope your friend’s boys will enjoy these noodles as much as mine do.”
“Danki,” he said as he took the warm casserole from her and the basket redolent with the aroma of freshly baked bread. “It’s kind of you to deliver this.”
“You’re welcome, Micah. We will be praying for the little girl.” Not giving him a chance to say more, she raised her black shawl over her bonnet of the same color and walked away into the windy evening. As she climbed into her buggy, another was pulling into the driveway.
For the next hour, Micah was kept busy answering the door as, one after another, the members of the Leit arrived at the house with food. Some brought one dish; others delivered food from themselves and from their extended families. DJ helped him carry the gifts into the kitchen. Even Jayden lent a hand when Micah could entrust him with something that couldn’t break if dropped. The fridge was soon full, and bowls were stacked high on the kitchen table and counter. As he thanked each person for their time and the food, as well as for their prayers for Olivia’s health, he didn’t keep track of who had brought what. He would see the dishes were returned on a church Sunday, and each family would collect their own. No one expected praise for their generosity or the food he was certain would be delicious.
Darkness fell, and the last buggy was rolling toward Paradise Springs as Micah closed the door with his shoulder. He balanced a pie in one hand. Snitz, by the aroma of apples and cinnamon. In the other he held a basket covered by a miniature quilt. He guessed, though the food had been delivered by his neighbor Fannie Beiler, the pie had been made by Mamm and the little quilt sewn by his sister-in-law, Leah.
His eyes widened when he saw Katie Kay behind him. She held out her hands, and he handed her the food. When DJ stood on tiptoe to see into the basket, she tilted it enough so he could see the blueberry and cranberry muffins beneath the tiny quilt.
“Can I have one?” he asked.
“Me, too!” Jayden wasn’t able to peek into the basket, but he wanted whatever his brother was getting.
“Supper is soon,” Micah began.
“You might as well start,” Katie Kay said with a warning glance at him, “by choosing one muffin each. Just one. Okay?”
The kinder cheered, and he knew she’d made the right decision. The little boys needed to have something to help take their minds off why their sister and their parents weren’t there.
She gave him the pie as she knelt so each kind could select a treat from the basket. The boys pondered the decision as if the rest of their lives depended on it.
Micah remembered times when he and his twin had been presented with a similar choice. They could spend five minutes or more trying to decide between a chocolate cupcake with white frosting and a white cupcake with chocolate frosting. Mamm never rushed them, letting them choose on their own.
Exactly as Katie Kay was doing with Sean’s boys.
When DJ and his little brother were perched on their chairs, eating their before-supper treat, Katie Kay began to sort out the food. She put dishes in the fridge, rearranging what was already in there to make room. Others she stored in the freezer. Another few she set on the counter, but she didn’t have enough space, so she had to stack others on top of dishes that could support them.
Micah looked around in astonishment. “I didn’t expect them to bring this.”
“You didn’t?” She faced him, her face bright with a smile. “You have been spending too much time among the Englischers. You know the Leit never fails to appear with food or whatever else is needed when a family has troubles.”
“But they came here. To an Englisch house.”
She laughed. “Maybe you don’t get it because you weren’t raised in a bishop’s house, but reaching out to those in need isn’t based on whether the recipient is plain or not.” She took his hands in hers and looked at him. In her eyes for the first time since she’d returned from Lancaster, he saw joy and contentment. “Don’t you understand? Though the Donnellys are Englisch, Sean is your partner. It makes him a part of your community, and the Leit consider them part of their community, too, because you are one of them.”
“Not a part of your community?”
She dropped his hands. “Let’s enjoy this moment for what it is, Micah. Can’t you, just this once, think about now and stop worrying about the future?”
“I don’t worry about the future much.”
“You talk about it all the time! When we were walking out, you spoke constantly about the life you had planned for yourself. You only stopped talking about that when you began outlining the life you’d planned for us.”
He stared at her, shocked. “I didn’t realize. I was excited at the idea of what the future could hold.”
“But if you look solely to the future, you’re going to miss what’s right in front of you. The life you have with your friends and your family now. You don’t want to look back at this time and wish you’d treasured it more, ain’t so?” She sighed. “Let me get supper for you and the boys. Why don’t you go and bring down the air mattress? The boys will like watching you inflate it. Then we’ll have our meal and see what the rest of the day brings, one minute at a time. Does that work for you?”
“Ja.”
“Gut.”
As she turned away, he didn’t move. Again he was astonished at the realization that he was beginning to trust her enough to listen to what she had to say. Had he lost his mind? He’d asked himself that over and over, but this time he didn’t have an answer.
* * *
Micah went to get the air mattress out of the attic and then checked that his horse was set for the night, while Katie Kay let the boys pick out which food they would have for supper, though she insisted they select a casserole, as well as dessert. Her own mouth watered while she watched them try to choose between the spice cake and one of the half-dozen pies arranged in a double row on the counter between the stove and the fridge.
At last the boys settled on a cold spaghetti salad made with pepperoni and green peppers. She selected rolls and wa
rmed them in the oven. DJ helped her set the table while Jayden went to watch for Micah.
The little boys chattered about the food they were going to have. She wondered if they’d be able to sit still long enough to eat. Most of the afternoon, the boys had been like balls bouncing in every direction and never coming to a complete stop. She’d been surprised they’d colored as long as they had.
When Micah entered the kitchen, bringing cold air with him, DJ and Jayden scrambled to get in their chairs and booster seats. She waited until Micah had taken off his coat and hat and scarf and hung them up. Once he was seated, she put a basket with the rolls in the center of the table and took her chair. The empty ones were a blatant reminder of the missing members of the family.
“Micah, why don’t you say grace so we can get started?” she asked.
“Say grace?” He frowned, clearly questioning if she’d forgotten the Amish tradition of thanking God in silence.
“Ja. I think saying grace aloud tonight would be nice.” She glanced at the two boys before looking at Micah again.
He nodded. “Very nice. DJ, Jayden, will you bow your heads while we thank the Lord for this gut food?”
Both boys complied. When Jayden reached out to take Katie Kay’s hand and his brother’s, hot tears filled her eyes. His short fingers trembled, and she wondered why they were trying to pretend nothing was wrong.
Micah took her other hand, and she raised her eyes to meet the worry in his. She wanted to remind him that God was with the Donnellys at the hospital, as well as with the four of them at the house, but saying that when the boys were listening might upset them more.
“Danki, Lord,” Micah said, “for bringing us here tonight to enjoy the generosity of our neighbors. Let them know in their hearts how welcome and blessed their gifts are to this family. Watch over each of us tonight and bring us together again as soon as possible. Amen.”