by Jo Ann Brown
“Isaiah and I,” she said, “are concerned because the twins tell us someone told them not to laugh. We’re assuming it happened during the funeral.”
“They don’t laugh?” Wanda’s eyes grew round as dismay lengthened her face.
She shook her head. “When I laughed, they were distressed until they decided the order wasn’t for me. Just for them. But Isaiah and I’ve been trying not to laugh when they can hear.”
Reuben began, “But they didn’t react when I...?”
Wanda reached across the space between them and patted his hand. “Reuben, I’ve told you more than once you sound like an old mule braying. They probably weren’t sure if that sound was a laugh.” Looking back at Clara, she said, “Let me think and pray on this. There has to be something we can do.”
Clara nodded but said nothing more about the problem. Instead, she welcomed the kinder onto the porch for more cookies and cool water. It was gut to see Isaiah had been right when he said the people of Paradise Springs were nice. She hoped so. She didn’t want to meet more like his sister-in-law.
Dear Lord, help me find the words to explain to Orpha I’m the last person she needs to worry about interfering with her plans to marry Isaiah. She meant the prayer with all her heart.
Chapter Five
Isaiah arrived home in time to see his mamm and Reuben getting into their buggy. From where Clara stood, she could hear him talking to them. He was pleased they’d come to check on her and the kinder. He gave her a wave before he went into the barn to do chores. She hoped he didn’t hurry, because she needed extra time to prepare their dinner after having company that afternoon.
When he came into the house after changing his clothes and his hair damp and smelling of strong soap, no remnants of smoke from his forge arrived with him. She appreciated that, because the odor would be tough to get out of the house.
“Wow! The chicken and parsley smell good,” he said as he put his straw hat on the peg by the door.
“Perfect timing,” she replied. The kinder were in their seats, because they’d been watching out the window to see when he emerged from the barn.
Isaiah reached the table as Clara put two plates containing freshly baked baking powder biscuits topped with gravy mixed with chunks of chicken in front of the girls. She gave him a smile before going to collect the boys’ meals. On the table were bowls of cranberry sauce and corn.
As she placed a plate with three biscuits and chicken gravy in front of him, Clara said, “Don’t worry. I saved a couple of your mamm’s cookies for you.”
“More cookies?” asked Andrew, his eyes lighting up.
“Once we eat our dinner.” She added as the twins reached for their forks, “And we’ll eat after Isaiah leads us in saying grace.”
Waiting until Clara had served herself and was sitting with the girls, Isaiah bowed his head. Again she watched the youngsters do the same, and grief pulsed through her. Their parents had taught their kinder to be grateful to God. She hoped Isaiah would make sure they didn’t forget those lessons.
With the first bite he took, Isaiah turned to her with an astounded look. “This is amazing. You had only a few minutes to prepare the meal.”
“It’s a quick one.”
“These biscuits are so light they would float away if they weren’t weighed down with the chicken and gravy.”
“Danki.” She hoped her face wasn’t red at his compliment. She shouldn’t take pleasure in his praise, but she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had complimented her cooking.
“Did you enjoy Mamm’s and Reuben’s visit?” Isaiah asked once he’d cleaned his plate.
“We did.” Clara smiled as she placed a cookie beside each kind’s plate. “They’re an adorable couple.” She set the last two cookies in front of him.
Again he regarded her with astonishment. “My mamm and the bishop aren’t a couple. Just gut friends who have known each other for years.”
“Are you sure?” She took her seat again and picked up her cookie. Her smile broadened as she took a delicate bite.
“Very sure. Don’t start playing the matchmaker, too.”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “I don’t have any interest in that. I was remarking on what my eyes showed me.”
He paused, not answering for a long minute. When he did, incredulity remained in his voice. “I want to say your eyes are mistaken, but I can’t help thinking of the number of times Mamm and Reuben have been in each other’s company the past six or eight months. Reuben has joined us for dinner at least a couple of times each month, and I’ve seen her talking with him on church Sundays while the two of them walked alone together. I guess I should take a closer look myself next time.”
Clara was grateful when Andrew started talking about what the kinder had done that day. Isaiah must have been, too, because he listened and asked questions and kept the twins chattering about their games and their chores and how Clara had taught them a fun way to bring their dirty laundry downstairs while they sang a silly song.
A quick glance told her he was well aware of what he was doing, but she didn’t attempt to turn the conversation to the subject of his mamm and Reuben. Probably he wanted to avoid talking about anything to do with matchmaking, too.
As far as she was concerned, that was the best plan ever!
* * *
When, after dinner, Clara had the twins help her clear the table and do the dishes, Isaiah went out to do the last of the chores. He’d noticed his buggy horse, Chocolate Chip—or Chip for short—had been favoring his front right leg on the way home. A quick check showed no signs of damage, but he wondered if the horse had strained the leg. Perhaps Clara would be willing for him to use her Bella tomorrow.
His mind was reeling about Clara’s comments about Mamm and Reuben. What if Clara was right? How could he have failed to notice his mamm’s interest in Reuben? They’d lost their spouses at least five years ago. He almost groaned aloud. If Reuben married Mamm, the pressure would increase for Isaiah to find another wife. On the other hand, he wished the bishop and his mamm every happiness, so maybe he could find a way to turn Marlin’s attention from Isaiah to the fact their bishop was getting remarried. No, Marlin was like a hound dog with a scent. He wasn’t going to let up until after Isaiah’s wedding supper.
Isaiah walked from the stable to the house, hurrying to put his thoughts behind him. When he came inside, he saw the kinder had gathered around Clara, who sat on the rocking chair. Andrew leaned his elbow on the arm and watched what she was doing. The others stretched out on the floor with their coloring books.
As he came into the living room, Andrew grinned at him. “Guess what, Onkel Isaiah?”
“What, kiddo?” he asked, as he did each time one of the twins asked him that question.
“We’re writing to Aenti Debra,” crowed Andrew. “Next we’re gonna write to Grossdawdi and Grossmammi.”
“Here’s my picture,” said Nancy, holding up a page she’d torn from her coloring book. She edged around him and held it out to Clara. “Give to Aenti Debra? She see how gut I color.”
Clara smiled. “You asked first, so you can put your picture in to your aenti. Nettie Mae, why don’t you color one for your grandparents? Then tomorrow night, it’ll be the boys’ turn. That way, it’ll be easy to keep track of whose turn it is each day.”
“You’re writing to their grandparents?” Isaiah asked, shocked.
“I will be,” she said without looking up again or pausing as she filled the page with her neat penmanship. “After I finish this letter to their aenti. I found their addresses in a book in a kitchen drawer, and the twins were willing to share stories about their day.” She smiled at them before raising her eyes toward him.
Her smile faded, and he knew he’d failed to keep his thoughts hidden. When she asked what was wrong,
he didn’t answer. Instead, he asked a question of his own. “Can we talk about this after they’re in bed?”
She nodded, and he saw her bafflement. He couldn’t blame her. His voice had been sharper than he’d intended, but to apologize in front of the kinder was guaranteed to bring question after question from them. He couldn’t explain to them when he wasn’t able to explain to himself why seeing Clara write the letter bothered him.
But his request put a damper on the twins’ excitement. Their voices were subdued, and they glanced uneasily at him while Clara wrote to their grandparents. She promised she would take the kinder to the post office tomorrow to buy stamps and send the letters.
“I’d be glad to do that,” Isaiah said, as she put the letters on the table beside her chair.
“We can do it.” Her voice was prim and cool. “I know how pressured you are to get your job completed.”
“True.” Why did he sense that a scold underlined her sympathetic words? Maybe because his old companion—guilt—was rearing its head again. How many times had he said the wrong thing and upset Rose? For a man who’d been ordained as a minister and who should know the weight words possessed, he spoke too many times without considering which ones he chose.
When he asked if he could use her horse tomorrow, she agreed and didn’t ask why he needed Bella. Instead, she herded the kinder upstairs. He followed, feeling like an outsider in the house he’d considered as much his home as his less than a mile down the road.
Isaiah went back downstairs as soon as the kids were tucked in their beds. He’d seen the glances they aimed at him and Clara. They sensed the wall she’d thrown up in the wake of his unthinking question.
Going outside to get a breath of fresh air, he glanced at the sky. He’d been sticking his foot in his mouth a lot lately. Was it because he’d put distance between him and God since Rose’s death? He’d guarded his prayers as he’d tried to figure out why a loving Father would let his wife die alone. Couldn’t God have given him a hint to stay home that day? What other mistakes was Isaiah going to make as he bumbled forward?
He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to guess.
The door opened behind him, and Clara stepped onto the porch. The moonlight washed out her ginger hair, but his mind recreated the vibrant color. He shouldn’t be thinking about how pretty she was, but he couldn’t deny what his eyes showed him.
“I thought you might like something cool to drink.” She held out a glass to him. When he took it and peered into the glass, trying to figure out its contents, she added, “It’s ice tea.”
She sat on the glider, right in the middle, in an unspoken warning she didn’t want him beside her. He often sat on it because he liked its easy motion, but a glance at the road passing by the house warned him that anyone driving by would have a clear view of the porch. Besides, he couldn’t blame her for making it clear she was perturbed with him.
Leaning against the rail, he stared across the yard. If she were only perturbed, he’d be relieved.
“What’s bothering you, Isaiah?” she asked when he remained silent.
“I assumed you’d talk to me before you made any decisions for the kinder.” As soon as the words left his lips, he realized how petty they sounded.
“I will if that’s what you want.” Her voice became as icy as the cubes in his tea. “But you hired me to take care of them. I can’t do that if I have to wait to talk to you about everything.”
He grimaced. “I know. Forget I said that.”
“What’s bothering you, Isaiah?” she asked again. “What’s really bothering you?”
“If I tell you I don’t know, please don’t think I’m trying to be evasive.” He sighed. “I’d like to blame it on stress.”
“Why don’t we?” She gave him a faint smile. “We’re trying to help the twins, and there are bound to be times when we rub each other the wrong way.”
“I appreciate it.” He did. She could have quit; then what would he have done? Finding someone else and disrupting the kinder who were already close to her would be difficult. Unless he asked Orpha, and he didn’t want that trouble. “Why don’t you tell me about these letters you and the twins were writing?”
“They are a sort of circle letter with their family. From what they told me earlier, they don’t know any of them well, and I doubt their aenti and grandparents know much about them. This way, they can get acquainted so when the kinder go to live with whomever will be taking them, they won’t feel as if they’re living with strangers.”
He was astonished at her foresight. He’d been busy trying to get through each day, dealing with his sorrow and trying not to upset the grieving kinder. He hadn’t given the future much thought. Or maybe he didn’t want to admit that one day soon the youngsters would leave Paradise Springs. His last connection to his best friend would be severed. No doubt, the twins would stay in contact with him at Christmas or maybe on their birthdays, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see them again once they moved to California or Florida or the gut Lord knew where with their family.
The thought pierced his heart, and he turned and put his hands on the porch railing as his stomach twisted. The moon was rising, its cool light unable to ease the hot pain within him. His hands tightened on the wood, driving chips of paint into his palms.
Clara said, “If you’d rather I didn’t send out the letters—”
“Send them,” he interrupted and saw shock widening her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound upset.”
“But you are.”
He nodded. “Upset and guilty.”
“Don’t feel guilty you have to work and can’t spend every minute with them.” She gave him another whisper of a smile. “I don’t spend every minute with them, though I don’t let them out of my sight. They’re young, and they don’t want to be shadowed by an adult.”
“Everything you say makes sense.”
“But?”
“I can’t help believing that I’m shunting my responsibilities off on someone else.”
“Esta must have used a babysitter sometimes. The kinder didn’t go to the auction with her and Melvin.”
“Thank the gut Lord they didn’t.” He let his sigh sift through his clenched teeth. “Like I said, everything you’re saying makes sense, but I want to make sure Melvin’s faith in me as a substitute daed wasn’t misplaced. The twins deserve a gut daed, but all they have is me.”
“You’re doing fine under the circumstances.”
“You mean when the funeral was such a short time ago?”
“No, I mean when every single woman in the district is determined to be your next wife, and your deacon is egging them on.”
In spite of himself, Isaiah chuckled quietly. He didn’t want the sound of his laughter to reach the kinder upstairs. Clara’s teasing was exactly what he needed. Her comments put the silliness into perspective. If he could remember that the next time Marlin or someone else brought up the topic of him marrying, maybe he could stop making a mess of everything. He hoped so.
Chapter Six
As he reentered the front room of his brother Joshua’s house where the worship service was already underway, Isaiah tried to convince himself this day was like every other church Sunday since he’d become one of the district’s two ministers. Earlier, he’d greeted the members of the Leit as they gathered outside the barn before the worship service started. The men entered, followed by the women, both accompanied by the younger kinder. Next came the older girls with unmarried women. At the end were the unmarried men and the boys who no longer had to sit with their parents. While the Leit began the first hymn, he’d joined Reuben, Marlin and Atlee in a separate room to pray and plan the three-hour-long service. Isaiah was chosen to give the first sermon, the shorter one that lasted about a half hour.
Exactly like many other church Sunday
s since he was ordained.
But nothing was as it’d been before.
The Beachy twins were with Clara instead of their parents, and he wouldn’t be able to look over at the men’s side and see his best friend, who’d been encouraging when Isaiah was first chosen as a minister. Melvin had listened while Isaiah poured out his worries with his Rose’s dismay at having the lot fall on him.
Dear Rose. As fragile as the blossoms of the flower that shared her name. She’d come to see the selection as part of the path God had set out for them.
Far better than Isaiah had accepted her death as God’s will. He didn’t understand how God could take Rose when everything was beginning to go well for them. Every way he looked at it told him submitting to God’s will was the sole way to comprehend what had happened. It should be simple for him, as a minister in their district, to take the path laid out in front of him. It should be, but it wasn’t.
When Das Loblied, their second hymn, was finished, Isaiah didn’t sit like the rest of the worshippers. He moved to the front and greeted the congregation before he began to speak. The thoughts he’d organized during the long, slow singing of the hymn tumbled out of his head when his gaze collided with Clara’s. Somehow, in the past hour, he’d forgotten how remarkable her brown eyes were. They were filled with anticipation for what he was about to say.
He opened his mouth, ready to give voice to his thoughts, but what came out was, “I—I—I...th-that is, I—I—I wa-wa-wanted to s-s-say...”
Astonishment filled the faces looking at him, but nobody was more surprised than he was. Not once, not even the first time when he’d stood to give a sermon after the lot fell upon him, had he stuttered over his opening words. Each time, he’d easily shared his faith with those who sat in front of him.
Shock raced through him. Had inspiration left him because he’d been fighting the path God had set out before him? Or was it something far simpler—and far more complicated at the same time? Was it because Clara Ebersol sat among the women?
