by Marta Perry
“But you—they couldn’t accuse you on the basis of an anonymous tip.”
“They didn’t accuse me, exactly. I was suspended, pending investigation. It never occurred to me that anyone I knew could think I’d do something like that. I found out I was wrong. Everyone believed it. Even my partner.” He paused. “Especially my partner.” Bitterness laced the words.
“He was the one?” She barely breathed the words, her heart hurting for the pain and betrayal he’d suffered.
He nodded. “The truth came out, eventually. He was arrested. I was cleared. But it was never the same after that.”
“The others must have tried to make things right with you.”
“They did.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t blame them, I guess. But they hadn’t trusted me, and I’d found out that I couldn’t trust them.”
“So you came home.”
“I learned that trust was the one thing I couldn’t live without. So I came home.”
“As hard as it was,” Fiona said softly. “It brought you back here, where you belong.”
He didn’t react for a moment, long enough for her to wish she’d said something else. Then he actually chuckled, putting his arm around her shoulders and drawing her closer against him. She could feel the laugh moving in his midsection.
“I never thought I’d say this, but you remind me of my brother Jacob.”
She pictured the Amish carpenter. “I do?”
“The one and only time we talked about what happened to me in Chicago, he said pretty much the same thing. He said it reminded him of the story of Joseph.”
She blinked. “You mean Joseph in the Old Testament? I guess he did have some grief over not being trusted.”
“True, but that’s not what my brother was thinking about. He reminded me that even when he was betrayed by those he’d loved, Joseph could still forgive. And he could say that even though they’d meant what they did for evil, God meant it for good.” He snuggled her closer to his side. “I didn’t see it that way at first, but I’ve come to think Jacob was right.”
She nodded, thinking of her own favorite verse. “I try to believe that ‘in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him.’ Sometimes it’s not easy.”
“I know. But once I accepted that, I realized I was exactly where I was meant to be.” He smiled. “Even if God did have to hit me upside the head with a two by four to get me here.”
She thought about the implication of his words, warmed both by the strength of his body next to her and by his confiding in her. Their bodies swayed together with the movement of the buggy, and she wished the ride could go on forever.
It couldn’t, of course. They were almost to the farmhouse, and she had to find a way through the difficult times ahead. Maybe, thanks to Ted, she was a little more ready to face them.
Chapter Ten
Ted drew into a spot in the lineup of buggies near the barn and slid down. It looked as if the whole Stolzfus extended family had already arrived and was waiting for them.
Maybe it would have been better if he’d brought the car. Somehow the buggy had a way of encouraging intimate conversation. That was the only explanation he could think of for having told Fiona all of that. He didn’t normally talk about what had happened to him—hadn’t, in fact, since he’d unburdened himself to his brother when he’d first come back to Crossroads.
He took his time fastening the horse to the hitching rail and walking around the buggy, trying to get a handle on this need to confide in someone he’d only known a month. After all, he’d known he could trust Jacob to tell people only what they needed to hear. Did he really trust Fiona that way?
Trust was a precious thing. He’d grown up taking it for granted, not knowing how valuable it was until he’d lost it. He’d have to guess that confiding in her said something about the feelings he was starting to have for Fiona.
He reached up to help her down from the high buggy seat. Her face was tight with apprehension, so he squeezed her hand. She had enough on her plate right now without adding him and his concerns to the mix.
Besides, the habit of caution was strong within him. He wouldn’t do or say anything he might have cause to regret.
He held her hand a moment longer than he had to. “Are you ready to do this?”
She nodded, trying to smile and not quite succeeding. “You will give me a kick under the table if I make any bloopers, won’t you?”
“You’ve got it.” The impulse to continue holding her hand was strong, but he beat it back. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. And you already know Emma and Rachel. They’ll help.”
They walked together toward the kitchen door. Did she realize that in the country, family and friends always came and went by the back door? He’d given it some thought, but he wasn’t going to lead Fiona to the front door, as if she were a stranger. She belonged, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not.
They’d barely reached the steps when the door was thrown open and Rachel was smiling at them. “You’re here at last. And you came by buggy.”
“I thought Fiona would enjoy it.” He stood back to let Fiona enter first.
She hesitated for an instant before moving, but Rachel grabbed her hands and drew her inside.
“Ach, your hands are cold.” Rachel frowned at him. “Ted, you should have warned her she might need mittens.”
“Yes, ma’am, I should have. You’d make a good boss, Rachel, you know that?”
“Better than some I know.” She put her arm around Fiona’s waist. “Now you must meet the family. Don’t worry about remembering everyone’s name.”
Ted ducked his head slightly, coming into the kitchen. The doorway hadn’t been made for someone his height. Since he was behind Fiona, he got the full effect of all those pairs of eyes focused on her. It was intimidating enough, and that was just the few who were in the kitchen. Goodness knew how many Stolzfus kin would eventually gather around for the meal.
To her credit, Fiona didn’t freeze. She moved forward, greeting Emma with what might have been relief in her voice at the sight of a familiar face. He stood back, letting Emma take over introducing Fiona to the other women.
Her grandmother, he noticed, wasn’t yet present. Was she still over in the daadi haus, the cottage the older couple had retired to when eldest son Daniel had taken over the farm? Was she perhaps regretting this visit?
If Fiona wondered about her grandmother’s absence, it didn’t show, as she politely greeted one woman after another. The elder Stolzfus couple had had five children—Hannah the eldest, Emma the youngest, and the three boys sandwiched in between, but the family had grown with marriages and children and those children’s marriages until they’d probably sit down close to thirty around the long tables.
He’d known them all his life, and he had a tad of difficulty keeping all the young ones straight, but Fiona seemed to be doing a fine job of it. Because it meant so much to her, or because she was determined not to appear rude in front of all these unfamiliar family members? He wasn’t sure.
The men, hearing all the fuss, began filing in to be introduced. He was just exchanging a few words about the winter wheat with Daniel when a silence fell over the crowded kitchen. John Stolzfus stood in the doorway, his tall frame bent a little with age, his beard snowy white below his weathered face.
For a moment he and Fiona stared at each other. Then he nodded gravely. “You are welcome in our house, Fiona.”
“I’m pleased to be here,” she answered, just as formally. “It was kind of you to invite me.”
He turned toward Mary, Daniel’s wife, with a question about supper. That seemed to break the tension, and a hum of conversation began again. Ted edged forward as unobtrusively as possible until he stood beside Fiona.
“So far, so good,” he murmured.
She glanced at him. “Is it good?” He heard the fear in her voice.
“Plain folks are always a little formal with newcomers.” That wasn’t really an explanati
on, and he knew it. “Just give this a little time. It’ll work out.”
“I wish—”
Whatever she wished, he apparently wasn’t going to hear it, as Mary directed everyone to the table except for her appointed helpers.
“In other words, she wants all non-essential personnel out of the kitchen.” He touched Fiona’s arm, nudging her toward the two long tables that had been set up to accommodate the crowd. “I hope you brought your appetite, because someone’s sure to be disappointed if you don’t try everything.”
“Ach, don’t listen to him,” Emma said, whisking past them to deposit a steaming bowl of potatoes on the table. “Just be sure you have my cucumbers in sour cream. And don’t forget to eat yourself full.” Smiling, she scurried back toward the kitchen for another load.
He was holding out a chair for Fiona when he felt her fingers tighten on his arm. He looked up.
Her grandmother came toward the table, moving slowly. It wasn’t until she reached the chair next to her husband that she glanced toward those gathering around the table. It felt to him as if each person held his or her breath.
Louise placed one hand on the table, leaning on it as she seemed to force herself to look at Fiona. The silence stretched. Even the children were still. Louise’s lips trembled, her eyes filling with tears. Then she nodded and sat down heavily.
Fiona’s fingers dug into his arm, and the tension zigzagged from her to him and back again. He sensed the battle going on inside her. Gently, he nudged her toward the chair.
She sat down, and he settled into the seat next to her. If all he could do to help her was be beside her, that was what he’d do.
* * *
The meal had begun with a long prayer in German and continued through a bewildering assortment of dishes to an array of pies and cakes for dessert. When Emma had said she should eat herself full, she hadn’t been kidding. Fiona felt as if she’d split a seam in her jacket if she ate another bite.
Chicken, ham, chicken pot pie, pickled beets, hot potato salad, molded salads…the food seemed endless. Some of the dishes she’d never tasted before, like the dried corn casserole, with its nutty flavor, and the relish her aunt called chow-chow, made, she said, with everything that was left in the garden at the end of the season. Obviously the Amish didn’t like to let anything go to waste.
Fiona glanced at Ted, who had three different kinds of pie on his plate and was eating through them happily. The slice of dried apple pie she’d taken was delicious, but she couldn’t possibly finish it.
Emma leaned over her chair and took the plate. “I will make you a basket to take home for tomorrow,” she said.
Ted looked up at her. “What about me? Don’t I get a basket?”
“You already had more than your share, you did.” She cuffed him on the shoulder, gave him a sisterly smile and carried plates toward the kitchen.
Her grandfather’s chair scraped as he stood, and he said something in the low German that was the home language for the Amish. Ted leaned closer to translate, his warm breath stirring her hair.
“The kids are scattering to do their chores, and the men will wander out of range of any dishwashing. It might be a good move if you offered to help in the kitchen.” He looked at her rather tentatively, as if afraid she’d consider that comment a putdown.
“Of course I’ll help.” She slid her chair back. “You go smoke a pipe, or whatever the guy thing is.”
He nodded and followed Fiona’s uncles toward the front porch. She picked up a couple of serving bowls. In spite of her confident words, she still felt unsure of her welcome.
Ted paused at the door, glancing back, and gave her a smile and a thumbs-up sign. When she turned, her answering smile lingering on her lips, she found Emma watching the doorway where Ted had disappeared, her face unreadable.
Did Emma resent what she saw when she looked at the two of them? If Rachel was aware of their attraction, surely Emma would be, too. She might be remembering her first love, and how it had ended because of Fiona’s mother.
Emma turned, saw Fiona watching her and smiled, eyes twinkling. “That Ted, he is a good boy, ja?”
“Not a boy any longer.”
“No, I forget.” Emma put her arm companionably around Fiona’s waist as they walked to the kitchen. “To me he is always the boy he was.”
“The boy you loved?” She couldn’t believe she’d actually said the words.
“We were sweethearts, ja, once upon a time. But our paths went different ways, and I have never regretted my choice.” She handed Fiona a dish towel, seeming to take it for granted that she would help. “I would be very happy if you and he found yourselves on the same path.”
“We’re—we’re just friends,” she said quickly, taking the hot bowl Mary had just set in the dish drainer. “That’s all.” She rubbed the bowl vigorously, hoping her expression didn’t give anything away.
Emma scraped plates into a bucket that sat next to the sink. “That’s too bad, that is. It’s time for Ted to settle down, don’t you think?”
The question seemed to be addressed to the whole room, and a chorus of agreement answered her question. Cheeks burning, Fiona picked up another bowl.
“We won’t tease you anymore,” Sarah said. Daniel and Mary’s eldest daughter was a slightly more mature version of Rachel, with her rosy cheeks and blond hair, but with round glasses that gave her a more serious air. “You and your coming-to-call friend want to take your time, ja?”
It was probably useless to say that Ted wasn’t her coming-to-call friend, and she’d welcome anything that would get them off the subject. “Yes, that’s right,” she said, mentally apologizing to Ted for the evasion.
Sarah’s intervention seemed to work, because the conversation steered away from her, bouncing around the kitchen from woman to woman in time with the clink of dishes. She sorted them out, finally, in the little breathing space it gave her.
Mary, Daniel’s wife, was clearly in charge, a cheerful, buxom woman who seemed to relish her role as farmer’s wife and who directed the household in a calm, firm manner. Was she what Hannah would have been, if she’d stayed?
There was Sarah, her eldest daughter, who taught in the Amish school, followed by a couple of boys, then Rachel, then young Levi, the baby of the family. The boys had headed for the barn to do evening chores, but the girls hung around, helping in the kitchen, joining in the cheerful conversation.
The wives of her mother’s other two brothers were there, too—shy, quiet Anna and hearty Margaret, whose laugh bubbled like a flowing brook. Their daughters, hair in braids, were younger than Rachel, who seemed to enjoy bossing them around as they helped.
Would this have been her life if her father had sent her back to Hannah’s family instead of putting her in foster care? Would she have been sweet and sassy, like Rachel, or would she have rebelled, like her mother?
She couldn’t change the past, but she couldn’t help wondering. She’d never want to give up her career, but still, she envied them this family warmth and the secure place they had in their world.
“Your practice, it goes well, does it?” Anna reached across her to put silverware in a drawer.
“It has been picking up. I’ve had a few long drives this week to some outlying farms.”
“Ach, yes, you had best hope Margaret Beachey does not go into labor on a rainy night. Your automobile could get lost in the mud puddles in their lane.”
“If she took the old road over the ridge—” Sarah began.
“She would never find it in the dark,” Margaret said. “Better she tells Amos Beachey to fix his lane if he wants the midwife to make it to his wife in time.”
Apparently Amos Beachey was known for being the only Amishman in the valley who didn’t keep his farm in good order, so that led to one silly suggestion after another about how to solve the problem.
The only one who didn’t join in the lively talk was her grandmother. Fiona glanced at her quickly, not wanting to be caugh
t staring. Her grandmother seemed to be taking a very long time putting leftovers in the gas-powered refrigerator. Maybe she welcomed that as an excuse not to talk.
And maybe all the lively conversation the others provided was a screen to mask her grandmother’s silence. Or a way of protecting her from the pain caused by Fiona’s presence.
I don’t want to hurt her. I just don’t know what to do. Please—
The kitchen fell silent as abruptly as if someone had turned a switch. Her grandmother walked toward her. Fiona held her breath, not sure what was happening. Her grandmother reached out, almost tentatively, and touched her cheek.
“At first I thought there was nothing in you of my Hannah,” she said slowly. “But I look into your eyes, and I see her there.”
Fiona’s throat went tight. “I never knew where my gray eyes came from, until I came here.”
“It was right that you came.” Her grandmother’s cheeks glistened with tears, but she smiled. “When I first saw the quilt, I was afraid, but that was wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “About bringing the quilt pieces to Ruth’s that day. I didn’t realize anyone would recognize them.”
“It makes no matter.” Her grandmother patted her cheek. “The quilt is a good thing. Emma will finish piecing it soon.”
That brought a gasp from Emma. “You know about it?”
“Ja, I know. And when the quilt top is ready, we will have a quilting party. Fiona will come, and we will all finish her mother’s quilt together. That is what is right.”
She could only stand there like an idiot, trying to keep the tears from spilling over, her heart ready to burst.
* * *
The clop-clop of the horse’s hooves echoed on the dark ribbon of road as Ted turned the buggy back toward Crossroads. Fiona hugged her jacket closer around her against the evening chill, but the cold air didn’t really bother her. She was still warmed by her grandmother’s hug when she’d said goodbye to everyone at the farm.
“Cold?” Ted reached behind the seat with his free hand and pulled out a plaid blanket, spreading it over her lap. “Is that better?”