by Leslie Gould
© 2014 by Leslie Gould
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6360-5
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Jennifer Parker
Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC
Author represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc.
For Taylor
Youngest son of mine,
a man of creativity,
strength, and humor
“Love one another.”
John 13:34
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1.1.134
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Leslie Gould
Back Ads
Back Cover
Chapter
1
My Dat had been a small man. And thin. No one would have guessed he’d have a heart attack. But he did.
I buried my face in his forest-green shirt, pressing the soft fabric against my eyes. It had been my favorite of all his shirts. My morning task was to go through his clothes and decide what to give away, but I couldn’t bear to part with his shirts—not a single one.
I’d use all of them to make a quilt for my sister Beatrice.
Not now—but during the winter months, when the work on our flower farm slowed.
I placed the shirt on top of the others and closed the box.
My parents’ room looked the same as it had before Dat died—a double bed, one bureau, a straight-back chair—but now it felt so empty. My gaze moved to the small table against the window. Dat’s Bible was on it, just like always, but there was a small sky-blue notebook there too, one I hadn’t seen before. I stepped closer, reaching for it, but a knock on the door startled me.
“Molly? Do you need some help?” It was my half sister, Edna.
“No,” I answered, stepping away from the table. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
She and Ivan, the oldest in my Dat’s first family, had come to help us today. I was plenty able to handle what needed to be done, but it was a comfort to have them with us.
I should have boxed things up right after Dat’s passing, but we’d been in such a state of shock I couldn’t bear to tackle it then. None of us could—especially not my sweet Mamm. But now enough time had passed since that fateful day.
It was the first week of June. The sun shone again. The days had turned warm, for good.
Dat would want us to move on. He’d want us to keep living.
Besides, tomorrow was the first day of the Youngie farmers’ market I’d started a few years back. At the time it was all young people, but last summer I’d opened it to older vendors too. It had brought in extra income for our family, and we needed it now more than ever. It was time for me to buckle down and put business first again.
I glanced around the room one more time. I didn’t know how Mamm stood sleeping in it alone. Beatrice had moved into my room the night Dat died, and the truth was, if she hadn’t come into mine, I would have moved into hers. We were grown, me more so at twenty-two than she was at nineteen, but we’d both adored our Dat. Even though he was seventy-two, we’d expected him to live at least another decade. Hopefully two.
My eyes fell on the notebook again. It was none of my business.
I picked up the box of shirts from the bed and headed to the door.
As I started down the hallway, the light from the window fell across the worn wood floors. Our home was old and shabby, but it was ours. I was very thankful for it.
I stopped at the end of the landing and pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window. Our fields were far from shabby. They brimmed with shrubs and trees, annuals and perennials, ground covers and decorative grasses. Nearly every shade of green leaves imaginable, with hints of gold from the late-morning sun, shimmered in the breeze. Splashes of color—including purple irises, pink peonies, and yellow roses—complemented the green.
We lived a few miles from the village of Paradise, but our land was truly paradise to me. There was nowhere on earth I’d rather be.
I hurried down the stairs and into the living room, where Mamm and Ivan sat side by side at the desk with a pile of bills. Ivan hid Mamm from my view as I hurried through. Dat had been thin and short, but Ivan was big and tall. My half siblings took after their mother, not the father we shared.
Even though Ivan had never married, he wore a beard and had for as long as I could remember. He’d been in his midtwenties by the time I was born and seemed much more like an uncle than a brother to me.
He had his own accounting business. The fact that Mamm had asked him to take a look at our finances meant things were worse than I’d feared. She’d always been involved in the day-to-day operation of the farm, but Dat had always seen to the books.
Dat hadn’t shared our financial situation with me either, but I didn’t remember him spending hours at his desk, looking worried, until a few years ago, after the economy had soured.
Seven years ago we’d had a thriving business, providing trees, shrubs, and plants to landscapers throughout the area, including those affiliated with commercial builders. As the business grew, so did our overhead, and Dat took out a mortgage to pay for the new greenhouse, office, and irrigation system. It had been a wise business decision—at the time. But then the financial downturn meant less development, which meant less landscaping, which meant fewer sales, which meant we had to scrape to meet each payment.
It had been my idea to add crops of Blumms and Rauda-shtokk. But the flowers and herbs didn’t bring in the income that the nursery stock did.
I needed to figure out more ways, besides the farmers’ market, to ease Mamm’s worries.
I’d reached the hallway when she called out my name.
“Jah.”
“Come here,” she said.
“Just a minute.” I continued to the sewing room and put the box—not wanting Mamm to see it—on the floo
r and returned to the living room.
She sat with her reading glasses on top of a closed manila file, her small hands folded in her lap. A few stray hairs had escaped her gray bun and trailed down her neck alongside the ties of her Kapp. “I forgot to tell Mervin to water the dogwood trees,” she said.
“I’ll tell him,” I answered.
Ivan pushed his chair away from the desk. “Anna,” he said, addressing my mother by her first name, the way he always had, “I don’t see how you can keep the Mosier boy on. Not with the way your finances are.”
I didn’t see how we could afford not to, but I didn’t say it out loud.
It seemed Mamm didn’t hear, or didn’t register, what Ivan had said. She continued talking to me, “And tell Mervin to repot the geraniums. It’s getting late in the season for those, but it would be good to sell as many as we can.”
I nodded my head. “Jah.” We’d talked about it the day before. I planned to try to sell some tomorrow at the market. It had been a cool spring—I imagined not everyone had all their potted plants out yet. “Anything else?” I asked.
She shook her head and smiled, slightly. More wrinkles lined her face than had a few months before.
Ivan cleared his throat, as if he was readying himself to say something, but Mamm put her hand on his, and my half brother remained silent.
“I’ll go give Mervin the instructions,” I said.
“Denki.” Mamm picked up her glasses and opened the file.
She’d clearly communicated that I should leave, but I stayed for a long moment, staring at her as she bowed her head over the papers.
She’d worked as a teacher in Ohio before marrying Dat. Although she didn’t know much about business, she was organized and efficient, two skills that she’d passed down to me. And she had liked working alongside Dat. They’d complemented each other well in both their personal relationship and their work together. Plus after teaching for so many years, she was used to doing more than just housework and said she found the family business a satisfying endeavor.
Thankfully Beatrice enjoyed running the house, at least more than doing outside chores, and once she was out of school she’d taken on more and more of those responsibilities.
Although I could handle managing the house just fine, I too enjoyed working outside. Where I most differed from both my parents was in personality. They were quiet and didn’t socialize much, except with people in our district, but I was outgoing and had friends from across Pennsylvania, and in neighboring states too.
Beatrice, however, took after my parents when it came to social needs—except she didn’t seem to have any at all.
Edna already had a chicken roasting in the oven, potatoes boiling on the stove, and sticky buns cooling on the counter, but she wasn’t in the kitchen. I headed out the back door to find her. My half sister was eighteen years older than I and left home to marry soon after I was born, but she’d always doted on Beatrice and me. She hadn’t been blessed with children, and then four years ago her husband, Frank, had been gravely injured in a buggy accident and died months later.
She’d taken Dat’s death hard too—more so, I guessed, than if Frank had been alive.
Our house sat on a hill. An arbor Dat had built, covered with clematis leaves, stood at the top of the path. I couldn’t remember the baby pink clematis flowers blooming last month, although I’m sure they had. Nor could I remember the flowers of the dogwood trees or the lilac bushes. I’d lost all of that to my grief.
I exhaled. I wasn’t going to lose any more.
The weatherman had predicted a high of eighty-five. The hottest day of the year so far.
I took another step toward the path that led to the pasture below.
The highway bordered the pasture where we held the farmers’ market, and our driveway curved up the hill and along our property line. To the west our flower fields would soon bloom with lilies, lisianthus, and dahlias. To the south, behind the house, our huge white barn towered above everything else, including our greenhouse next to it. To the east was our garden, surrounded by a fence.
Edna stood at the garden gate, her back to me, while Beatrice stooped over in the first row, her bare feet half covered by the dark soil.
I couldn’t tell what my older sister said, but Beatrice answered, “Denki,” as she straightened up. Beatrice was beautiful—far more than I—with an untamed look and dark, intense eyes. She seemed oblivious to her good looks though. She tucked a strand of her chestnut hair under her Kapp. “I could use a break,” she added. When she caught sight of me, she waved. “Come into the house,” she called out. “Edna has a snack ready.”
“I’ll be in shortly,” I answered.
I hurried on toward the greenhouse, along the stone pathway Dat had put in a couple of years before. Our land had served him the same way a canvas did an artist. I had often expected one of the bishops to accuse Dat of being too fancy. He’d added whimsical touches all over our farm. Besides the arbor covered with clematis, he’d built trellises and archways and placed slate pathways and rock gardens all over the property.
I stepped into the greenhouse, expecting to find Mervin. He wasn’t there, but the geraniums were—all repotted. Perhaps he’d read Mamm’s mind.
Mervin’s parents had the farm next to ours, although their house was on the far side of their property, as far away from ours as possible. But still we’d grown up together—gone to the same school, the same singings, the same parties. He was like a brother to me.
My best friend, Hannah Lapp, and Mervin had been courting. But around the time my Dat passed, they stopped spending time together. Usually I would know what was going on, but for the first time since I was six and she was five, I hadn’t kept up with Hannah. I hoped she understood.
Standing beside the greenhouse, I searched the field of nursery stock. Hydrangea, forsythia, and azalea spread out in front of me. I walked along, peering down each row. Next came cherry, myrtle, and plum trees.
A flash of yellow made me smile.
“Here, Love!” I called out to our lab.
She darted out from between the trees and rushed toward me. She’d been Dat’s dog, and he had named her Love, he said, because God had blessed him with a life of love.
I thought it a ridiculous name at first, especially when Dat called, “Here, Love!” but it grew on us in time. And it turned out to be the perfect name for her. All dogs loved unconditionally—but Love would have won the first-place prize if one existed.
She’d refused to leave Dat’s side when he’d fallen, and now she’d wait beside the back door at night, as if still believing he would come home.
With Dat gone, she tended to follow Mervin around when he was working. Otherwise she held Mamm and me in equal esteem, but Beatrice had never bonded with the dog much.
As Love reached me, I spotted Mervin by the dogwood trees, a black hose in his hand, his straw hat riding back on his head, his aviator sunglasses perched on his long nose. Wondering how he’d known what Mamm wanted him to do, I made my way down the row of trees, my flip-flop-clad feet sinking into the soft soil, Love at my side.
“Have you learned to read minds?” I called out to Mervin.
He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose to where the tops were level with his sandy-colored bangs, met my gaze, and pursed his lips.
“How did you know what you were supposed to do?” I asked.
Mervin shook his head. “Your Mamm told me—yesterday at quitting time.”
Mamm had been forgetful lately, but I’d chalked it up to Dat’s death. All her energy had gone into coping—how could we expect her to keep track of mundane details?
But her giving Mervin instructions and then entirely forgetting she’d done so was something new. And she was only sixty-three. It had to be stress related—not age.
“Did she tell you to repot the geraniums too?” I stepped closer to Mervin, reaching down to pet Love as I did.
“Jah. In fact she told me more than onc
e.”
I shoved my hands into the pocket of my apron. “How many times?”
“Four. Maybe five.”
“Oh dear,” I whispered. Then in a normal voice, I said, “Denki for all your hard work. I don’t know what we would have done without you these last months.”
I turned to go but had only made it a step when Mervin said, “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Jah.” I stumbled on a rock, stubbing my toe, as I turned back around.
Love pressed her body against my leg as Mervin steadied me.
“Denki,” I said, pulling away, aware of his hand on my arm.
“I was wondering,” he said, his voice deep and strained, “if you’d go to the singing with me.”
I tilted my head. So things had come to an end between him and Hannah. Most likely months ago. I hadn’t been to a singing since Dat died. “Could I let you know tomorrow?”
“Sure,” he said, but his voice sounded down.
“I’ll see you after dinner.”
He nodded in response. Even though workers often ate the noon meal with their Amish employers, we’d worked out the routine of him going to his house for dinner. His Mamm always fixed a big meal, and that way if Mamm, Beatrice, and I just wanted to eat leftovers we didn’t feel pressured to do a lot of cooking. All three of us had lost our appetites—except for when Edna visited.
Love stepped back to Mervin’s side.
“Is she bothering you?” I asked.
“Of course not.”
I patted the dog’s head and made my way back to the end of the row. When I reached it, I kicked my flip-flops off, shook the dirt off of them, and dragged my bare feet along the grass. As I came around the side of the greenhouse, movement across the highway caught my attention.
A man driving a team of mules was cutting alfalfa. Certain it was Phillip Eicher and not wanting him to see me, I hurried toward the house. We’d dated—briefly—but he’d broken it off, much to my chagrin. I told people it didn’t work out; he told people I wasn’t the right girl for him—which was obviously true. Still, it had hurt my feelings and, to be honest, also my pride, even though I knew that was wrong.
Hannah had laughed when she found out Phillip had broken up with me. That hurt too. “Oh, Molly,” she’d said, “it’s only funny because this is the first time in your life you didn’t get what you wanted.”