Rebecca's Return (The Adams County Trilogy 2)

by Jerry S. Eicher

  “She’s Amish?”

  John nodded, smiling and thinking of Clara sitting in the back row in church on Sundays. She often held a grandchild in her lap when one of her daughters needed help. Clara was as faithful and upbuilding a member as they came.

  “Oh. That’s perfect!” she exclaimed, delighted with the news. “What an excellent role model for Candice. Hardworking woman, no doubt. Suffering her share in life. She must have a heart of gold—working with her hands.” She stroked the quilt lovingly, as if to reach out and touch the woman who had stitched the delicate threads in each design.

  “Clara is a godly woman,” John agreed because Clara was just that, and he felt it was appropriate to mention it. Pride was a great pitfall, he knew, and praise could knock a person down quicker than anything. But Clara wasn’t there to hear him, and so he said it.

  Lifting the box, with the quilt bulging out of the top, John walked to the back counter. “They’re ready for checkout,” he told Sharon. “A chest and one of Clara’s quilts. It’s the last one I think. You might want to tell your mother we need more.”

  She reached for the invoice. “I’ll see that mother gets told. I think Clara’s working as hard as she can already.”

  “Maybe one of her daughters can help,” John suggested, although he doubted whether they had time. As his memory told him, all three of them had large families.

  “They’re all busy.” Sharon confirmed his thoughts. “I heard her tell mother that the other Sunday.”

  John filed a note in his mind to tell Aden later that the price of Clara’s quilts needed to be raised, then went back to where the husband was ready to begin loading the cherry chest.

  At the counter the wife waited while Sharon copied the numbers on the ticket and added them up with their solar-powered calculator. “You have a hope chest?” she asked as Sharon was writing the total on the bottom.

  Sharon chuckled. “Do I have a hope chest? Don’t know if it’s a hope chest or not. It’s a cedar chest.”

  “Why cedar?” she wondered more than asked, “John mentioned that back there too.”

  “Keeps things nice,” Sharon volunteered. “Something about the cedar wood—I think. Mom says it preserves clothing—almost makes them better. It might even keep the bugs out too. I’m not sure.”

  The thought crossed her mind in horror. “But the one I just bought was cherry. I’m sure of that. John just said—”

  “Oh,” Sharon replied, quick to assure her, “all our chests are cedar-lined, even when they have different wood on the outside. You get a different look that way, but still the full benefits of the cedar.”

  “Oh,” she said, sighing deeply, “that’s so good to hear. Here I thought I had just made a drastic mistake. Me and my haste. I do so want Candice to have a proper chest. She’s my daughter.”

  “They’re all wonderful chests,” Sharon said, speaking from personal experience. “The different wood can make it more expensive, so we have simple cedar.” Sharon wrinkled up her face.

  “Well,” the wife ventured, “I guess I don’t own a furniture store. I get to buy the nice wood instead of sell it.”

  “Cedar is nice,” Sharon assured her, handing the bill across the counter.

  She wrote out the check, gave it to Sharon, and laid the pen on the counter, finishing just in time to see John and her husband come through the front door.

  “All set,” John announced. “Hope you like everything.”

  She assured him that they would, and with thanks all around, they left.

  It was then that thoughts of Rebecca returned.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  You’re going to have to take care,” Mattie said mildly when Rebecca showed up in the kitchen. “Rushing down those stairs like that. One of these days you’re going to trip, fall right down, and break something.”

  “I’ll try—to slow down, I mean. I’m just in a hurry to get busy I guess.”

  “I could use the help.” Mattie motioned toward the dough on the kitchen table. “Roll that out. The pans are still in the cabinet. You can probably get them in before chore time. I need to start supper. With your help, I guess I won’t be late. Just took on a little too much this morning.”

  Rebecca chuckled at the familiar sight of her busy mother.

  “I know. I’m always busy,” Mattie said, looking for the correct cooking pot for heating the canned corn. “You don’t have to laugh.”

  “It’s just good to be home,” Rebecca said, letting the feeling of it all flow through her, the rhythm and pattern of its work was comforting at the moment. Opening the drawer, she found the rolling pin and set to work on the dough.

  Glancing up when the clatter of buggy wheels sounded outside, Mattie said, “The children are home.” Moments later the door burst open, and a rush of small feet filled the living room.

  “Rebecca’s home,” ten-year-old Katie said, sticking her head into the kitchen. “Yummy—cinnamon rolls!” Tall for her age, she had black hair like Rebecca. Her sisters were right behind her.

  “Hi, girls,” Rebecca told them and glanced their way.

  “Why are you home?” nine-year-old Viola asked.

  “Now be nice,” Mattie told her. “You ought to be glad. She’s finishing the cinnamon rolls.”

  “I don’t know how to do that anyway,” Viola said dryly. “She’ll just boss us around now that’s she’s home.”

  “That’s because you need bossing. I can’t be everywhere at once,” Mattie said.

  “You can help by putting these in the oven,” Rebecca said. “Practice is what you need. The sooner you start the better.”

  “See,” Viola declared, “that’s what she does.”

  “It’s good for you,” Mattie stated simply. “Now listen to what she says.”

  “I’m still in my school clothes,” Viola protested.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Mattie said. “You’ll hardly get those dirty. You’re just putting pans in the oven.”

  Viola made a face and joined her sister in front of the kitchen table, arms stretched out to keep the proper distance between the pans and her school dress.

  “You’re just afraid James will see your dirty dress tomorrow,” Viola taunted Katie as they stood there.

  “I am not,” Katie retorted.

  “Yes, you are. I saw you smile at him today.” Viola wrinkled her face into a fake smile, her features contorted, her head tilted sideways.

  “I was not. I was smiling to myself.”

  “He’s in your grade. He sits right across from you,” Viola stated, as if that proved it all.

  “Be quiet, girls,” Rebecca said. “The oven is ready. I’ll open the door.”

  “She’s so bossy.” Viola made another face.

  “And you are the pest number one,” Katie informed her. “Like a little insect. Buzz, buzz.”

  “I am not!” Viola retorted. “You are. You little worm—wiggle, wiggle.”

  “That does it,” Mattie said. “I think one little girl needs something.”

  Without further ado, Mattie took Viola by the hand and disappeared into the bedroom. Sounds of solid whacks soon came, followed by muffled cries.

  Rebecca and Katie said nothing, solemnly transferring the pans of cinnamon rolls to the oven and taking no pleasure in the event in the bedroom. They accepted it for what it was, the necessary ebb and flow of growing up into something resembling civilized human life.

  Letting the oven door shut gently, Rebecca made sure the temperature was right. “There. That’s done.”

  Behind them, Mattie appeared with a tear-streaked Viola in tow. “Both you girls go change. And no more arguing. Is that understood?”

  Katie nodded, heading for the stair door, careful not to look at Viola lest she mistake the gesture as hostile. Viola only sniffled, going over to wet her hands in the kitchen sink and running them over her face. She pulled a piece of paper towel off the roll on the countertop to dry herself, dropping the crumpled result in the wa
stebasket in the corner.

  The younger sisters, Martha and Ada, were already coming down the stairs, having changed into work clothing. With her back turned to the kitchen, Viola must have thought her actions were hidden. She made a face—just a quick, deep contortion—without turning around.

  Maybe it was that Mattie was watching, expecting that sort of thing, or the brief dark looks on Martha and Ada’s faces. Mattie turned around, exclaiming in an exasperated tone, “I told you to stop that. I guess you haven’t had enough yet. Let’s go see about this again.”

  “I’ll behave—I will,” Viola protested. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “If you don’t watch it, you’ll get spanked for lying yet,” Mattie pronounced, unpersuaded. “That was not a nice face.”

  “I was teasing,” Viola insisted. “They were laughing at me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mattie told her. “I could see them.”

  Second-grader Martha and first-grader Ada adamantly shook their heads when Mattie glanced at them for confirmation.

  “They were going to,” Viola proclaimed.

  “Okay—this is enough.” Mattie was tired of the conversation. “Your attitude is bad. When you get spanked, you don’t make faces at other people. It’s not their fault. It’s your own fault. And don’t be changing your story.”

  “I didn’t,” Viola insisted. “They just want to see me spanked again.”

  “No, we don’t,” Martha and Ada said together.

  “Yes, they do,” Viola quickly added. “They don’t like me.”

  Mattie was already moving, taking Viola along by the arm, ignoring her remark.

  Preparing warm water in the sink, Rebecca squeezed a few drops of Ivory liquid soap in and shut off the faucet. “Use this water,” she told her sisters. They already knew how it was done, but conversation was needed at the moment. Normal conversation on normal things to give one the hope that things would again be normal.

  The front door opened as Martha and Ada were wiping the table down. Rebecca was doing a quick check on the cinnamon rolls in the oven, when Matthew walked in. “Awful quiet in here,” he commented, standing in the kitchen door opening.

  “Viola’s getting spanked,” Martha said soberly.

  “Two times,” Ada echoed.

  “A tough cookie,” Matthew said.

  “Maybe this one will be enough,” Rebecca told them comfortingly, sincerely hoping that it was.

  “Two times.” Matthew whistled under his breath. “Who likes whoopings that much?”

  “We learn different,” Rebecca said, venturing a guess.

  “But that’s a hard way,” Matthew replied, a bit puzzled. Still thinking about it, he glanced toward the bedroom door where the sounds of discipline were subsiding.

  “You learn hard in some things too,” Rebecca reminded him.

  Lost in his own world, Matthew’s face brightened. “It’s because she’s a girl,” he pronounced. “Girls learn hard.”

  Rebecca glared at him. “You have your hard spots too.”

  He ignored her.

  “He turned red today,” Martha whispered quietly in Rebecca’s direction, just loud enough for Matthew to hear, though he pretended not to.

  “As she walked by him, his ears turned pink,” Martha added, chuckling at the memory.

  Matthew still was pretending not to hear, his ears still red.

  “He’s just growing up,” Rebecca whispered back to Martha, making sure it was loud enough to carry to Matthew.

  “It’s not my fault. Like a whooping,” he finally protested, anger flashing in his face.

  “Maybe it’s not totally Viola’s fault either,” Rebecca said, raising her eyebrows in his direction.

  He was still pondering that when Mattie returned with Viola, the tears dried this time.

  “Tell them,” Mattie said simply, her words at a minimum. The afternoon was slipping away and supper was still not done.

  “Sorry for the face,” Viola said, her eyes on the floor.

  “Okay—that’s better,” Mattie sighed. “Now let’s get busy with supper. Rebecca, you and Matthew need to start chores, don’t you?”

  Rebecca glanced at the clock and nodded.

  “I’ll get changed,” Matthew said, leaving for the upstairs and carefully shutting the door behind him. Viola took a seat at the kitchen table, catching her breath as the others went about their work. Slowly she came back into their world, and the minutes went by without further comment on the incident.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Through the kitchen window, Rachel could see Luke open and shut the barn door and begin the chores for the evening. There was no sign of Reuben yet, but she had no doubt he would be returning soon from town, hopefully with the correct part for his broken water main.

  God, she prayed, don’t let Emma destroy our lives. Luke deserves better than this. Remember my child. Please. Even if You don’t remember me.

  Rachel’s salad bowl was on the table. The teakettle whistled loudly, its steam pushing out of the nozzle in a solid funnel and disappearing into nothing inches from its exit. She no longer knew why it was turned on, and so she walked over to flip the gas burner off.

  Glancing at the letter still on the counter, she opened it again, willing the words to not be there. Surely there must be some mistake. But without reading, Rachel felt the searing fear accompanying the words. Emma was giving the farms away to someone else.

  Not only someone else, but someone not even in the family. Surely it was not true…but it was.

  Rachel’s eyes caught sight of the salad bowl, distracting her. The salad was still not completed. Although she had prepared the lettuce and put it into the bowl, the peppers, tomatoes, and cauliflower sat on the table, yet to be added. Pulled toward it by her ingrained discipline, she began chopping the items into suitable sizes, her mind hazy and stumbling over a thousand chaotic scenarios.

  Why would Emma choose Rebecca Keim as the heir? It made absolutely no sense from any angle. There was no family connection, no distant cousins either. How did one go dropping money on people without a reason?

  What was the part about not marrying Amish? Rebecca was already dating someone. Was he Amish?

  M-Jay’s will had said nothing about Emma marrying Amish. Rachel knew that because she had been there when the will was read. Every word from the lips of that fancy lawyer had sounded in her ears. She clearly remembered him telling them all what was and what was not to be.

  Had the lawyer lied? But how could that be? Lawyers from the English surely did not lie. They have judges who oversee such matters.

  She searched her mind, hoping to find some tidbit of information that would shed light on the subject, some dropped reference from her English neighbors, or some article she had read in school.

  Nothing Rachel thought of made any sense.

  Her knife easily sliced through the tomatoes, its cutting edge kept to a fine sharpness. Caught up in her vigor, the pieces fell to the side in all shapes and sizes, their red juice spreading into a little pool on her chopping block.

  While slicing the next tomato, the knife found her finger, making a long cut and laying open the skin. The pain never registered, blocked by her already overtaxed senses. It was the blood that caught her attention.

  She jerked her hand away, dropped the knife, and pressed the wound together with her fingers. More concerned with the contamination of her tomatoes than with the injury, she carefully separated the blood-splattered ones.

  Still holding her wound, she washed the finger under the kitchen sink, only then going to the bathroom for a bandage. God is smiting us. The thought stung stronger than the pain under the freshly applied bandage. It’s as plain as day. I can’t even cut tomatoes anymore. Something I’ve been doing since I was a girl. We must have sinned greatly. That’s what He’s trying to tell us. He wants the sin atoned for. There can be no other reason for this terrible trouble.

  Cleaning the table of the contaminated tomatoes, Rache
l placed them in an extra bowl. Moving through the kitchen, she caught a glimpse through the kitchen window of the returning Reuben. She shook the bowl to hide any red stains, making sure the color blended well with its surroundings. The thoughts continued. The water pipe. It was God’s judgment too.

  There was no doubt in her mind that God, reaching all the way down from the lofty heights of glory, had used His mighty finger to pop that pipe wide open. How else to explain what Reuben had found today—the very day, he claimed, it had occurred. It would normally take days before Reuben found such a thing. The whole lower pasture could well be under water before he noticed it, yet today he had walked back and discovered what God wanted him to see.

  A ruptured pipe, so innocent and yet done to send them a message of displeasure from the One who knew everything. Rachel shuddered. The sting of her thoughts reached deep into her soul, much deeper than the pain of her finger. She searched desperately for answers. How was this then to be atoned for? Yet it must be for much was at stake. The sin or sins must be found and cut out.

  Rachel hurried through her supper preparations, already behind schedule, pondering the situation. It came to her rather quickly. Her mind sized up the offered thought. It was perfect. She moved even faster now that she knew the solution. Endued as if with holy zeal, she believed the letter’s contents were no longer about lowly concerns of money. She was laying her hands on information regarding the lofty laws of the church. She knew the money itself was as dirt in the eyes of her husband, not worthy of mention in the hallowed halls of his sanctified mind. But the law of the church—well, that was something Reuben wouldn’t be able to ignore.

  Was Reuben, as deacon, not charged with their enforcement and held accountable for holding their place? Did not the wheels of his buggy travel miles on many a Saturday afternoon and evening, all while there were duties to be done on the farm? Didn’t Reuben take his duty seriously to seek out those who strayed—rebuking, calling, exhorting them back to the fold? For once, what had been a chafing in her life turned into pleasantness.