“Are you alright, Anna?” Aaron asked and his voice was so sympathetic, for a moment he sounded just like Fletcher. But then he added, “You look as if you’ve been wrestling a greased pig.”
“And she lost,” Melinda added, crowing uproariously.
“I’m fine, denki for asking,” Anna replied in her politest voice to show they hadn’t ruffled her feathers. But suddenly, she changed her mind and said. “Actually, Melinda, you’re the one who looks as if she’s been wrestling a greased pig—and he’s sitting right there beside you!”
Then she spun around, leaving them to stare at each other in shocked silence.
* * *
Fletcher was exhausted. It was nine o’clock and he wasn’t nearly finished laying the customer’s floor. As he headed for home, he mentally reviewed the dispute he’d had with Aaron earlier that afternoon.
“You know what Anna said about how worried their mamm gets when they arrive home later than expected,” Aaron argued after announcing he was leaving work at four o’clock and taking Roy and Raymond with him.
“Jah, but I can’t finish this project on my own. Why don’t you just take Roy and leave Raymond here with me? I’ll bring him home when we’ve finished.”
“Jah,” Raymond said. “I’ll stay here.”
“I can stay, too,” Roy volunteered. “I need to learn all the steps of installing flooring. Since you said you arranged to pick up Melinda in town anyway, you can just ask her to relay the message to Mamm that we’ll be late.”
“See what you’ve done?” Aaron asked Fletcher. “You’ve trained the apprentice to think his preferences override the foreman’s decision.”
Fletcher saw the sense in what Raymond and Roy were suggesting and he appreciated their dedication. But, from his recent heated interaction with Aaron, he also recognized his cousin probably felt his authority was being challenged, so Fletcher tried to show his support.
“They respect the fact that you’re in charge,” he said. “They were only trying to be helpful.”
“If they want to be helpful, fine, they can be helpful, but it will have to be on a volunteer basis. They’ve been here for over eight hours already today and we’ve got a busy week in front of us. I can’t pay them to stay after hours.”
Fletcher again tried to reason with his cousin. “Look at that section there—it hasn’t even been stapled yet. Then we’ve got to take care of the baseboards, the gaps, the puttying—”
“I know the order of layering a floor,” Aaron jeered. “Listen, we tried our best to finish it today, but it just wasn’t possible. If you feel obligated to keep working on it, that’s up to you, but I’ve made my plans for the evening clear and I’m not changing them.”
Fletcher was so frustrated he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t understand why Aaron didn’t pride himself on his work ethic, the way virtually all Amish people did. Yet even as the thought entered his mind, he realized he was guilty of judging another person. Running his hand over his face, he silently prayed, Dear Gott, please forgive me for judging my cousin and enable me to be a help, not a hindrance, to my onkel’s business.
“Fletcher,” Raymond suggested, “maybe you should take a break. Kumme have supper with us and then we’ll all return to put in a few more hours—how’s that?”
“Speak for yourself!” Aaron chortled.
“Neh, you go ahead,” Fletcher told Raymond. “But let me give you a note for Anna.”
After finding a scrap of paper, he removed the pencil he kept tucked behind his ear. Dear Anna, he wrote. I hope you are feeling better. I have to work late tonight, but I will see you tomorrow. I haven’t forgotten my promise.
While he paused, deliberating whether to sign the note “your Fletcher,” or just plain “Fletcher,” Aaron ribbed him, “Hurry up, will you? I’m hungry!” So he simply signed the note “F.”
Now, some five hours later, Fletcher decided he’d better let Aaron know he was unable to complete the project and they’d need to return in the early morning. He made a detour toward his uncle’s house. There was still a lamp lit in the kitchen, so he gave a quick rap on the door before entering the house, where he found Isaiah sitting at the table, drinking something that appeared to be lemonade.
“It’s apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, ginger, honey and everything else except the kitchen sink,” his uncle joked, raising the mason jar. “It’s supposed to help my arthritis. Want some?”
Fletcher laughed. “Denki, but I’ll pass. I stopped by to talk to Aaron. Is he still up?”
“Up? He’s not home yet,” Isaiah said. “I’m waiting for him myself. Is there a message you want me to pass along to him?”
“Well...” Fletcher hesitated. He was concerned he might get Aaron in trouble with his father if Isaiah found out they hadn’t completed a project before taking on a new one again.
Isaiah prompted him, “At this time of night, there must be a gut reason you came here.”
“Jah, if you could tell him I’ll be installing the floor early tomorrow morning, I’d appreciate it.”
“Will do,” Isaiah confirmed.
Fletcher was about to board his buggy when he heard the familiar plodding of a horse’s hooves, so he waited until his cousin pulled into the yard and explained the situation to him.
Uncharacteristically amenable, Aaron said, “That’s fine. I’ll join you, if I can pull myself from bed that early. I didn’t mean to stay out so late, but you know how it is when you’re having fun—you lose track of time. You should have been there. After Anna made supper, we all played Dutch Blitz for hours.”
“Anna doesn’t like to play Dutch Blitz,” Fletcher argued. “She says it makes her head swim.”
“That goes to show how well you really know your fiancée,” Aaron responded. “She not only suggested the game, she beat us all!”
How could that be? Fletcher wondered, long into the night. She told me her preferences hadn’t changed. His old worry about what else she might feel differently about plagued his thoughts almost until the sun came up, and by then it was time for him to rise, too.
Chapter Nine
The next morning Anna got up early to fix a tray of coffee, eggs and toast for Naomi before making breakfast for the rest of the family.
“Are you awake, Naomi?” she asked as she slowly pushed open the door to her stepmother’s room.
“Oh, guder mariye, Anna,” Naomi replied, lifting her head from the pillow. “This looks wunderbaar, but I feel much better now. I can get up.”
“Please don’t,” Anna pleaded. “I’ve already checked on Eli and he’s sleeping peacefully, so I thought I’d sit here with you and drink my kaffi before the boys kumme in from milking. I stayed up too late last night.”
Naomi held a forkful of eggs midair. “You weren’t ill again, were you?”
“Neh, I played several games of Dutch Blitz with Melinda, Aaron and the boys. It was nearly nine o’clock when we stopped and then I had to do the dishes.”
“But I thought you loathe playing Dutch Blitz?”
“I do...but I was trying to make peace with Melinda and Aaron. Lately I’ve made a few comments to them I wish I hadn’t.”
“Whatever you said, I have a hunch they deserved it.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d heard the remark I made to them yesterday,” Anna hinted before detailing her exchange with them.
“Oh dear,” was all Naomi said when Anna was finished.
“I told you it was bad!” Anna lamented. “What I need to do is apologize. Do you suppose I could make a special dinner tonight and invite Aaron, by way of smoothing things over?”
“But you’ve been ill—”
“I’m all better now,” Anna asserted. “In fact, at the clinic yesterday I bumped into Dr. Donovan and we discussed what was ailing me and he said everything I’m experienci
ng is perfectly normal.” Anna didn’t clarify that what was ailing her was emotional, not physical.
“Really?” Naomi questioned. “I’m so glad to hear it! In that case, jah, we can serve a special dinner tonight. I was invited to Ruth Graber’s for supper this evening, but I’ll stay home to help you instead—”
“Neh!” Anna butted in. “You deserve a night out with your friends. Please go!”
Naomi hesitated before surrendering. “I’ll go under one condition,” she stated seriously, holding up her finger for effect. “Whatever you do, don’t make ham or pork chops for dinner. Otherwise, Melinda and Aaron might question how sincere you are about apologizing for calling anyone’s behavior piggish!”
They burst into laughter as the door swung open. It was Eli, declaring he was starving. While Naomi went to fix breakfast, Anna returned to her room to tell Melinda about the special supper, but her cousin had a pillow covering her head and was snoring softly.
Anna took out a notepad and wrote, Dear Fletcher, I hope you will be able to come to supper tonight. Without thinking twice, she signed it, Your Anna. Then, she scribbled an invitation to Aaron, too. Aaron, you’re invited to join us for supper tonight. —Anna.
For their meal, Anna made beef stew and corn bread, with sugar cream pie for dessert, since it was Melinda’s and Aaron’s favorite treat. After Naomi had left for the evening and the four boys were finishing their evening chores in the stable, Anna approached Melinda and Aaron in the sitting room to apologize before Fletcher arrived.
“I want to apologize to you both for the remark I made the other day,” she said, glad the room was dim so they couldn’t see the heat rising in her cheeks. “I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Melinda stuck out her lower lip. “If you must know, I’ve grown accustomed to your surly disposition since the accident and I’ve learned to overlook it, but Aaron isn’t used to your attitude. He was upset for a long part of the evening, weren’t you, Aaron?”
Anna linked her fingers behind her back, squeezing them together as tightly as she could as a reminder to hold her tongue, even though she was thinking that Aaron wasn’t so upset he couldn’t play several games of cards.
“Jah,” he admitted. “I never expected you to make such a churlish remark, Anna.”
Please, Lord, she silently prayed, give me grace. “I understand how surprising that must have been for you,” was as close as she could come to expressing further regret. “I assure you it won’t happen again. Now kumme, supper is ready.”
“Wait!” Aaron leaped to his feet, positioning himself directly in front of Anna and boring into her eyes with his. “I’m sorry, too. I could sense you were in pain or upset and I...I tried joking to make you laugh. I always used to be able to make you feel better, but lately, it’s as if...I don’t know, as if we’re enemies or something.”
Anna’s feet seemed nailed to the floor and her mouth fell open. She hadn’t heard Aaron sound so contrite since before Melinda came to live there. Perhaps she’d been judging him too harshly?
“We’re not enemies at all,” she said, smiling graciously to prove her point. “In fact, we’re about to become family.”
“Now there’s the dimple I’ve missed seeing!” Aaron declared, taking a step closer.
“Am I too late?” Fletcher asked from behind Anna.
She twirled, eager to see his toothy grin once more, but she was met with a somber frown. “Neh,” she consoled him. “That’s the gut thing about stew. It can simmer on the stove until we’re ready to eat it, which we are! Kumme.”
“Stew?” Aaron sounded pleased. “Did you make corn bread, too?”
“Jah,” Anna replied distractedly, leading them to the table.
“I haven’t had your stew and corn bread for ages,” he commented. “No one makes it quite the way you do.”
During their meal, Eli and Evan recounted the fiasco they’d witnessed that day in school when one of the oldest scholars got wedged between the rungs of the porch stairs during lunch hour and couldn’t get free. Then, the men summarized their newest project at work, and afterward, Melinda described her activities assisting customers at the shop.
“It’s always so busy there,” she remarked to Anna. “I enjoy it, but sometimes I long for the days when I was home and I could have a cup of tea or take a little nap whenever I wanted.”
“I’m sure you do,” Anna replied, getting up to bring the pie to the table.
“Is that sugar cream pie?” Aaron asked. “My favorite!”
“It’s one of Melinda’s favorites, too,” Anna said. “That’s why I made it.”
“Will we need forks to eat it or are you going to serve it in cups?” Aaron questioned.
For a split second Anna didn’t understand what he was referring to, but then she exclaimed, “Oh! I almost forgot about that! The first time I invited Aaron over for Saturday night supper with Daed and Naomi, I made this pie—do you remember, Roy and Raymond? I was so nervous I forgot to put in cornstarch and I doubled the cream. No matter how much I beat it, the mixture wouldn’t thicken, but I put it in the oven and hoped for the best.”
“It was runnier than that gravy!” Ray chortled, pointing to Evan’s half-eaten bowl of stew.
Anna giggled into her napkin. “Jah, but if I recall correctly, that didn’t stop Aaron from eating his entire serving! He said he wanted a spoon so he could get every last drop.”
“I was trying to make a gut impression on your daed and Naomi,” he confessed.
“I have to give you credit for that, especially because of the stomachache you endured for two days afterward,” Anna said, catching her breath.
She remembered how her father’s eyes had twinkled when he’d come home from work and confided to her and Naomi that Aaron spent the better part of the following Monday morning locked inside the men’s washroom. Picturing her father’s amusement as she conveyed the anecdote made Anna smile from ear to ear.
“You’ve become a much better cook since then,” Aaron said through a mouthful of pie.
“Denki,” Anna said. “At least, I haven’t poisoned anyone lately, have I, Fletcher?”
She reached for his hand beneath the table but he pushed back his chair and dropped his napkin on his plate. “I need some fresh air,” he said. “Eli and Evan, do you want to go turtle hunting down at the creek with me?”
The three of them were out the door before Anna had time to put the leftovers away.
* * *
Fletcher took such long strides the boys had to run to keep up. He could hear Anna calling him from a distance, but he didn’t stop until Evan said, “Fletcher, I think Anna wants to kumme, too. We’re supposed to wait whenever she calls us.”
He stopped abruptly but didn’t turn around to watch her approach. When he heard footsteps and the rustle of her skirt behind him, he resumed walking.
She instructed the boys, “I’m going to walk with Fletcher and I’d like the two of you to give us our privacy. You may run up ahead of us, but what’s the rule at the creek?”
“We have to stay ten steps back from the edge unless an adult is present,” they droned, before sprinting down the hill.
“Are you trying to stay ten steps away from me?” she breathlessly called to Fletcher, who slowed his pace slightly.
“Do you want me to?” he asked.
“Of course not! Why would I want that?”
Fletcher didn’t mince words. “You seemed to be standing very close to Aaron when I came in. I thought perhaps your preferences had changed.”
Anna grabbed his wrist, pulling him to a complete stop. Her brows formed a severe line across her forehead as she glowered at him. “Whatever are you talking about, Fletcher?”
“I’m talking about the fact you spent the evening playing cards with him yesterday. You sent him a personal invitation this morning. You were practic
ally standing nose-to-nose with him when I walked in this evening. You made his favorite dessert for supper. And you spent the entire meal reliving your courtship. That’s what I’m talking about!” he ranted.
Anna didn’t so much drop his wrist as flung it at him before she wordlessly tromped down the hill.
“Is that your response?” Fletcher shouted after her. “You have nothing to say?”
Twirling around, she glared at him and shouted back, “Believe me, you wouldn’t want to hear the things I might say if I didn’t hold my tongue at this moment. Besides, I’ve lost sight of the boys and I need to make sure they’re okay.”
Although he was seething, Fletcher followed her at a distance, also concerned about the boys’ safety. After cutting through the woods, he spotted them overturning rocks along the upper embankment. Anna was watching from her roost on the boulder. Fletcher picked up a handful of pebbles and tarried midway between Anna and the boys, aimlessly chucking the stones one by one into the water.
“I think if there are any turtles here, they’ve gone in for the night,” Eli hollered.
“Jah, probably,” Fletcher called back. “They like warm sunshine, not cool evening air. But the frogs might be out. See if you can sneak up on one of them.”
While the boys dropped to their knees in the grass, Fletcher ambled over to where Anna was sitting and leaned against the far edge of the same boulder. Her profile was set like concrete as she gazed across the creek and spoke in a controlled monotone.
“The card game, the invitation, the special dinner—it was all because I referred to Aaron as a pig yesterday. I was trying to make amends. When you entered the parlor before dinner, I’d just finished apologizing. You can ask Melinda and Aaron if you don’t believe me.”
Feeling like a fool, Fletcher said, “That won’t be necessary, Anna. I believe you.”
Anna's Forgotten Fiancé (Amish Country Courtships Book 2) Page 15