by Marta Perry
Susanna shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she had not only sisters, but also an aunt who had known something about Mamm that she hadn’t.
“I asked her once why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. She said that God had sent them only one child, but that I made them as happy as if they’d had a dozen.” She flushed a little, wondering if that sounded like bragging. “I didn’t mean—”
“Ach, I know what you mean.” Lydia’s smile broke through. “Mothers are like that, that’s certain-sure. Anyone else might think my two boys very ordinary, but to me they’re the most special kinder in the world.”
“They are special,” Chloe declared. “Daniel is so smart and serious, and David makes me laugh every time I talk to him.” She grinned. “I guess I’m a prejudiced aunt.”
An aunt. That was another new role for Susanna, but at least it was one that appealed to her. To have some claim to the kinder, to have a special relationship with them . . . that would be worth a great deal, maybe even taking on a lot of new relatives with them.
“They sound like dear kinder,” she said.
“We would like you to come to supper and meet them,” Lydia said, sounding as if she were feeling her way. “They’re excited at the idea of having another aunt.”
“So they know?” Again Susanna had the sense that things were moving too fast.
“Ja, well, once Chloe and I found each other, it was hard to keep the news from going around Pleasant Valley.” Lydia’s tone was apologetic. “It would be different in a bigger town like Oyersburg, I suppose, but everyone knows everyone in Pleasant Valley. Some of the older people knew our birth parents well, you see.”
That must have made the situation difficult for Lydia, living there and feeling as if everyone was aware of her business. At least in Oyersburg no one knew except Dora and Nate.
Susanna realized she’d been polishing the locomotive so hard it was a wonder she hadn’t rubbed the paint off. She set it down, trying to frame the words that would show Lydia and Chloe how she felt.
“Bishop Mose pointed out that none of the secrecy was your fault.” She looked up to find both Lydia and Chloe watching her so intently that they seemed to be touching her. “I know that’s true, but . . .” Susanna’s breath caught in her throat. “I can’t suddenly start feeling like a sister, even if I am. It’s just . . . not possible.”
“I understand,” Lydia said, but regret filled her voice. “Once I’d learned the truth, I realized that if we’d known about each other all along, you and I would have been friends, or maybe like cousins, all this time. We’d have written to each other and shared things about our lives. Maybe . . . maybe we could start there and see how it goes, ja?”
Susanna hesitated. It was reasonable, she supposed, but somehow it still felt disloyal to Mamm. She glanced at Chloe, noting that her normally lively face was serious.
“Was that how you and Chloe started getting acquainted?” she asked, trying to imagine how that would work with an Englisch person.
Chloe’s smile returned. “I was pretty tough, actually. I threw Seth Miller out of my office when he came to tell me the truth about my parents and sisters. And when Lydia finally got me to come to Pleasant Valley, I got into a fight with Adam and went storming home again.”
“Really?” Susanna tried to imagine herself quarreling with Lydia’s husband, the man who made the lovely clocks she sold. She couldn’t. That would never be her way.
“Yes, well . . .” Chloe paused, and Susanna had a sense she was struggling. “I was raised very differently, you know. My grandmother . . . our grandmother . . . always felt that the Amish had lured our mother away. She couldn’t accept any other explanation.”
Susanna considered this unknown grandmother. “That must make her very unhappy, ain’t so?”
Chloe’s green eyes seemed to darken. “Probably so, although I don’t think she’d admit it.”
The hurt in her voice touched Susanna’s heart. “It’s hard for you, too, ja?”
Chloe nodded. “For a time I thought I could just go back home and forget about Lydia, but I couldn’t. As difficult as it is to change the way I think about my family, I wouldn’t go back to not knowing for anything.”
I’m not you. That was what Susanna wanted to say, but those words would be unkind. “I know you meant it for the best when you told me.”
Chloe looked rueful. “I shouldn’t have blurted it out the way I did. I realize that now. Obviously I’m not very good at keeping secrets.”
Lydia and Chloe were both looking at her as if they expected something—more than she could give, she suspected.
When she didn’t respond, they exchanged glances. “We would like to be friends,” Lydia said, as carefully as if her words were breakable. “Is that all right with you?”
Susanna was swept with a longing to refuse—to try to pretend none of this had happened. Chloe had said she’d tried that, and it hadn’t worked. It probably wouldn’t for her, either. Once a secret was out of the box, it could never be stuffed back in again.
She felt as if she were taking a giant step into the dark. “Ja,” she said. “Friends.”
* * *
Seth
set the clean supper dishes back in his mamm’s kitchen cabinets, well aware of the protest in Mamm’s gaze. Never mind that her son had been Englisch for the better part of ten years; to her mind washing up after supper was women’s work.
He grinned at her. “I know what you’re thinking, but I like sharing the chores with you and Jessie. It gives us a chance to visit.”
Mamm’s expression lightened. “Ja, well, as long as you enjoy it. You know we love having you here.”
“I know.” Guilt flickered. He hadn’t yet told her that his boss wanted him in San Francisco next week for an extended stay as he worked with a new client.
Mamm would insist they’d be fine without him. But with his mother’s slow recovery from her hip surgery and his sister’s recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder, he couldn’t shrug off his responsibilities as easily as he used to.
Jessie, busy sweeping the wide wooden boards of the kitchen floor, paused when she reached the door, and looked out. “I see Chloe’s over at Lydia and Adam’s again. It seems like she’s there all the time.”
There was a discontented note in Jessie’s voice that had Seth exchanging worried glances with his mother. Despite the hope that Jessie was doing better on her new medication, he sometimes felt as if they were walking on eggshells around her, always afraid she’d lash out over some imagined slight.
“Chloe is Lydia’s sister, for all she was raised Englisch,” Mamm said mildly.
“I heard she was driving Lydia over to Oyersburg today so they could visit with Susanna,” he added, hoping to send the conversation in a different direction. “She probably brought Lydia home and stayed for supper.” He held the screen door so that Jessie could sweep a few crumbs outside. “Your Englisch bruder is always coming to supper, too, ja?”
Jessie usually smiled when he reverted to the Pennsylvania Dutch he hadn’t spoken in years, and she did now.
“Ach, we can never get rid of you when Mamm is cooking, ain’t so?”
“If you’d eaten as many restaurant meals as I have, you’d know why.” He stood at the screen door, looking across Adam and Lydia’s orchard, the trees heavy with fruit, toward their house.
Chloe’s blue compact car was parked in her usual spot by the oak tree. It had rained earlier, but now the setting sun slanted across the valley, giving it a haze of gold.
He was still uneasy about the way he and Chloe had parted on Saturday. What was going on with her? He knew she was worried about the situation with Susanna, but that didn’t explain her coolness to him.
Trying to understand women was a futile act, he sometimes thought. Why couldn’t Chloe just come out with whatever
was bugging her? Was he supposed to guess?
“Seth.” Mamm said his name with a tone that suggested she’d tried more than once to get his attention. “I said, if you’re going to walk over to Lydia’s, you can take a loaf of the nut bread I made this afternoon.”
Why not? Why not go over there, corner Chloe, and get some answers?
“Sure, Mamm. I’d be glad to. You want me to pick up some apples from them, too?”
“If they have any to spare, you might bring a bag back with you.” Mamm started to reach for her change purse, and he shook his head.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Ja, Mamm, he’ll probably eat most of the pie anyway,” Jessie said, surprising him. It was a sign of progress, he thought, that she could tease him. Maybe the little sister he’d left behind when he bolted for the Englisch world was finally seeing him as her brother.
Mamm handed him the wrapped loaf of nut bread. “Give them my love, ja?”
He nodded. “Will do.” He’d taken a step toward the door when he glanced toward Jessie and saw the disappointment in her face. He hadn’t asked her to go along, and he knew how much it meant to her to be included.
“You coming, Jessie?” he asked, as if it was a matter of course that she would.
“Ja, sure.” Her face lightened, the sparkle back in her blue eyes.
They headed toward the orchard together, and he matched his long stride to his sister’s shorter one. Not that Jessie was all that little any longer. She was in her early twenties now, and most of her friends were married. How much did her still being unmarried have to do with the depression that sometimes seized her in such a grip? He’d been struggling to understand the medical implications of her problems, but the personal were even more important.
Jessie was pert, smart, and pretty, with those big blue eyes and her lively expression. But her problems seemed to have separated her from the other young people her age, and that had to be painful.
They had reached the orchard, and the grass was wet underfoot.
Jessie took a deep breath. “Smells wonderful gut, ain’t so?”
After the rain, the air seemed perfumed by the fruit all around them. “Smells like autumn, I think. All that time I was away, if I passed a fruit stand and smelled that aroma, I remembered this place in the fall.”
“You’ve missed it.” Jessie darted a sidelong look at him.
“I have,” he admitted. “But I don’t need to anymore, do I? I’m here now.”
Daniel and David, who’d been lingering near the wagon filled with baskets of apples, came dashing to meet them. “We sold three baskets of apples all by ourselves today,” Daniel burst out.
“I helped put them in the lady’s car,” David added, eager not to be left out. “She said we were gut helpers and gave each of us a quarter.”
“That was sehr kind of her,” Jessie said, smiling at them.
“What did you do with the quarters?” Seth tapped the top of David’s straw hat that was exactly like the one his daad wore.
“Gave them to Mammi,” Daniel said promptly.
Of course. Everyone, even the little ones, learned to work for their families. Lydia would have showed the boys that she valued their quarters just as much as she did the checks Adam received for his handcrafted clocks. It was a good way of teaching children Amish values.
The boys, happy with Jessie’s show of interest, were tugging her by the hands, wanting to show her something about the way they’d arranged the baskets of apples. Laughing, she let herself be led away, and the sound of the laugh warmed Seth’s heart. If only Jessie could always be that way—open and happy.
Adam was sorting apples on the long picnic table in the backyard. Seth walked over to join him. Better not make it too obvious that he’d come because he wanted to see Chloe.
“Looks like you’ve got a couple of eager salesmen manning the apple stand.” He nodded to the boys.
Adam’s wary look vanished in a smile. “The boys like to sell the apples, that’s certain-sure. They’re not so gut at sorting, but at least David has stopped taking a bite out of every one he fancies.”
Seth laughed. David was definitely what the Amish would call a schnicklefritz, a mischievous child. “You must be having a job getting the picking done with all the rain we’ve been having.”
“You’re right about that.” Adam’s hands moved quickly through the apples as he talked. “The ground’s pretty well saturated, and I heard talk in town that a storm is moving up the coast, all set to bring us even more.”
“Guess I did hear something about that on the weather.” Seth glanced around at a sound on the porch, hoping he wasn’t being too obvious. Sure enough, Chloe appeared, but Lydia was with her.
It looked as if he’d miscalculated. It was all very well to come over here intending to have it out with Chloe, but there were just too many people around.
He handed the wrapped loaf to Lydia. “From my mamm, with her love.”
“How kind of her.” Lydia cradled the package against her. “You must take some apples back for her.”
“She did say she’d like to buy a basket if you have enough to spare.” Seth tried to catch Chloe’s eye, but she seemed to be looking everywhere except at him.
“Ach, we’re not taking money from our neighbor for a few apples,” Adam said. “I’ll make up a basket. I know what she likes.”
“Did I hear you two talking about all the rain when we came out?” Lydia asked, her forehead wrinkling.
“Ja, I was telling Seth what I told you, about how there might be a storm coming up the coast with heavy rain.”
“I thought rain was good for the orchard,” Chloe said, apparently responding to the concern on Lydia’s face.
“Not if it keeps us from doing the picking when we need to,” Lydia said.
“And a storm could break branches, as heavy as they are with the fruit,” Adam added. He glanced at Chloe. “You’d best keep an eye on that creek behind your place. It floods awful easy.”
“The cottage sits well above the water,” Chloe said. “I can’t imagine it would get that high.”
For a moment Adam looked as if he’d dispute the point, but then he turned away and began filling another basket. Adam was reluctant to argue with his Englisch sister-in-law, Seth suspected. He was only too aware of how much it hurt Lydia to see those she loved disagreeing.
“I’m going to need a few more baskets.” Adam glanced toward Lydia.
“I’ll get them—” she began, but Seth, seeing his opportunity, cut her off.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “In the barn, are they? Chloe can help me.”
Before she could come up with an excuse, he seized Chloe’s hand and propelled her toward the barn.
Fortunately she was either too smart or too polite to make a scene. Once they disappeared from view of the others behind the barn doors, she yanked her arm free and faced him, obviously seething.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “You practically shanghaied me to get me out here.”
“That’s just what I want to ask you. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” With her hands on her hips and her green eyes shooting sparks, Chloe looked ready for battle.
“You. Me.” He flung out his hands, frustrated. “You care to explain what happened on Saturday? One minute we’re having a good time together, and the next you’re looking at me like I’m something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe.”
Her color heightened, but her gaze slid away from his. “I didn’t do any such thing.”
“Come on, Chloe. At least be honest with me. The temperature in the room dropped from mild and sunny to frigid in a matter of minutes, and you know it.”
Chloe shook her head, but not as if she disagreed with him. It was more as if she was argui
ng with herself. “I didn’t mean to come across that way. I just thought . . .” She let that trail off, and she turned slightly away from him. “We agreed to move slowly, didn’t we? Because of family and . . .” Her gesture seemed to take in the world. Or maybe just the Amish portion of it.
“We did,” he said, feeling his way, trying to understand what she seemed unwilling to clarify. “But I didn’t think that meant coming to a complete halt. Come on, Chloe. Something happened to make you act that way, and I don’t know what. Tell me. You owe me that much, at least.”
“I owe you a lot,” she said, a spark of the anger back in her face. “My relationship with my sister, for instance. Do you think you need to remind me?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She seemed to be deliberately misunderstanding him. “I’m talking about us. You and me, totally separate from families.”
“That’s the whole point.” The words burst out of her. “Don’t you see that? Our relationship, whatever it is, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And just lately I’ve been getting the impression that you’re reconsidering where you belong. Which are you, Amish or Englisch?”
He felt as if she’d thrown a bucket of cold water in his face. He was still groping for an answer when she spoke again.
“You aren’t sure, are you? Every time you talk about what you owe your family and how much you love being here, I get the feeling that you’re thinking about becoming Amish again.”
He hadn’t been, not consciously, but the moment he heard the words he knew that possibility had been in the back of his mind all along. He studied her face.
“I don’t know, and that’s as honest as I can be about it. But is that so bad? I thought you’d gotten over your prejudice toward the Amish.”
“It’s not a question of prejudice.” The pain was evident in her voice. “You ought to know that by now. But I’m not remotely willing to commit to that way of life for myself. And until you decide if you are, it’s better if we call a halt.”
With that she was gone, leaving him to collect the baskets and wonder what it was he really wanted.