“Jonah, I need to go. Tell Beth that I need to reschedule our meeting.”
“Will do.”
Levi untied his horse and climbed into his wagon. He soon pulled onto the main road, encouraging the horse to pick up speed. Even with his decision made, his chest had a weird heavy feeling to it. A kind of unfamiliar sadness.
But he wasn’t sure why.
Maybe it was because of how he’d treated Sadie compared to what she deserved. Or maybe the sadness was because he knew he’d damaged her, and some part of him understood that they’d never get back the easy-flowing friendship they’d had.
Sadie ran wet towels through the wringer and dropped them into the clothesbasket. Why had her grandmother started a huge load of unsorted laundry while Sadie was at the store? on a Friday afternoon? Mondays were washdays, and Sadie didn’t wash her dresses and undergarments with towels and black aprons.
She should never have come to Apple Ridge. The only reason she was here was to take a break from her parents. Well, that and she’d also needed to do some business with Beth.
And she’d wanted to see Levi.
What a mistake on every count. Clearly she’d put Levi on a pedestal. He’d seemed so nice, like a salt-of-the-earth person. How many times in life could she be fooled? How many times was she to feel this way … like an injured animal with nowhere to hide? December and the flight to South America could not come soon enough for her.
Mammi Lee pulled wet clothes out of the washer and put them into the clear water of the mud sink. “How you live isn’t normal. You need to settle down, move back home permanently.”
“I’m hoping that one day you’ll accept that I’m not normal.” She moved to the mud sink and plunged her hands on top of the soapy clothes, swishing them around. She pulled them out and plunged them again, not caring how wet she got. Her goal was to get this done and hang out the clothes by herself.
Mammi reached into the sink and pulled out a black apron. “You know the saying about bad apples? If Daniel was one, he doesn’t ruin the whole barrel of them.”
A knife plunged into Sadie’s heart. “If?” She grabbed two handfuls of wet clothes from the sink and slung them into the basket. Forget running them through the wringer. She wanted out of this room. “So you’re like everyone else and still stuck on if Daniel did what I said he did?”
Without saying a word, Mammi ran the black apron through the wringer.
Sadie picked up the basket and headed for the door. With her back against the door, about to push it open, she realized that Mammi was going to follow her. “I can do this by myself.”
“I shouldn’t have said ‘if.’ ”
“But it’s still what you think, isn’t it?”
Mammi Lee pursed her lips, looking unsure. “I’ve never heard of an Amish man behaving like that. Not ever. But if you think that’s what happened even all these years later, I tend to believe you saw it as you said.”
That wasn’t good enough, but Sadie wouldn’t challenge her or anyone else on that topic. One couldn’t make another believe. It was just that simple.
She drew a breath and stepped onto the front porch. Levi was at the hitching post, tying an unfamiliar horse. Of all the things she did not want to do, talking to him was at the top of her list.
Mammi stopped cold at the top of the steps, but Sadie descended, intending to ignore him.
“Afternoon, Verna,” Levi called out. “I’d like to speak to your granddaughter for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”
“I mind,” Sadie mumbled as she passed him on her way to the clothesline.
“It’s mighty gut to see you again, Levi,” Mammi spoke loudly. “You go right ahead, but she’s testier than a yellow jacket in fall.”
Levi fell into step with Sadie and leaned his head close to whisper to her. “That’s the mood I’ve been in today. Maybe it’s contagious.”
“Go home, Levi.”
“Come on, Sadie. Don’t be like that. I know nothing about getting along with women. So cut me some slack.”
She dropped the basket onto the ground and grabbed a dress out of it. It dripped, and she slung it, spraying water freely before pinning it to the line.
He glanced toward the house. “Could we maybe go for a walk or something?”
“No thank you, but please, by all means, go for a walk.”
“So this is how you’re going to be?”
“Pretty much.”
He sighed and walked off. She didn’t want him to go, yet she couldn’t make herself do anything about it.
“Whoa!… Whoa!”
At Levi’s holler, Sadie turned, then gasped. He was almost at her feet, flat on his back. Had he slipped on the wet grass? She knelt beside him. “Levi?”
He smiled. “You’re nicer to me when I’m on my back and you think I’m injured.”
“You faked that!” She got up, grabbed the basket of wet clothes, and dumped them on his face.
“Sadie!” Mammi yelled. “What has gotten into you?”
But he lay there, unmoving. “Denki.”
She scoffed, trying to sound perturbed, but laughter stirred within her, and she cleared just enough wet clothing from around his eyes so he could see. “What is wrong with you?”
“I have a confession to make.” His voice was muffled by the clothing.
She picked up most of the clothes and dumped them into the basket. “Doubt you can come up with one I haven’t already figured out.”
“Sadie!” Mammi sounded anxious.
Levi sat upright, picking a few more items of wet clothing off his chest and stomach. “It’s my fault, Verna. Could you give me a few minutes to get it straight?”
Mammi pointed her finger at Sadie, giving a silent warning before going into the house.
Levi remained on the ground while he held the wet clothes out to Sadie. When she took them, he hesitated about letting go. “I want to make things right between us.”
“Ya, why?” She pulled the items free from him. “So you can start some other rumor of convenience behind my back when I leave?”
“Do you have to be ridiculous about this?” He stood, catching a last article or two of clothing that fell into his hands. “I came here to make it right. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’m ridiculous? You’re the one letting people think we’re dating when you couldn’t be bribed to ask me out.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. If you thought I wanted a date, you’d bar the door and hide under the bed.” He held out the last item to her, and they both noticed it was a pair of her sky-blue lace underwear.
She jerked the underwear away from him. “You can’t use the word stupidest when talking about how I feel.”
“Okay, I promise not to use that word again. How about dumbest, most blockheaded, or dimwitted? Will those work for you?”
“Golly, you really don’t know anything about getting along with women, do you?” She threw a wet towel in his face.
“No.” He peeled it off. “But I know when I’m making progress, and you just hit me with one item instead of the whole basket.”
Their eyes met, and she saw the same man who’d recognized her voice when she came to see him and had smiled before he opened his eyes. The same man who’d planted her feet in the path of an oncoming horse because he trusted she’d know what to do if need be.
She bent, picking some black stockings off the grass. “You shouldn’t say disrespectful things about someone who’s passed. We all make mistakes, and unlike us, they can’t defend themselves or have one more day to try to make it right.”
“I said something about a dead guy?”
“Eva! Remember?”
His eyes grew large. “Ach, ya, I do, but I didn’t realize I’d said that. Look.” He took the basket from her and set it to the side. “The subject of Eva is one I try not to think or talk about. I told you she’s gone, and she is, but she packed her bags and left four years ago. That’s when I moved in with An
dy.”
Eva wasn’t dead? She’d abandoned her husband and son? That explained a lot. “And that’s when you decided you’d never marry.”
“It’s a little more drawn out than that.”
“It always is.”
“If it helps, I never lied to anyone about you or us.”
“Ya, it helps a lot.” But that was it? He wasn’t going to apologize?
She pinned a washrag to the clothesline, not at all sure she understood him, but the nice thing about being only friends was that she didn’t have to. She could benefit from the enjoyable parts of their knowing each other and ignore the rest. That’s what she’d done with her two roommates. “Katie said we’re the buzz of the community. How’d that happen?”
“My guess is Mamm has been doing some hopeful whispering, and that with all the other connections Beth and Mattie know about—my getting your address and visiting you and our combining items to sell at the store—it just grew in people’s minds.”
“Why would your Mamm say anything?”
He explained about his parents being at his brother’s house when he came back from her place with the boxes of crafts. The timing made it such that he couldn’t hide where he’d been.
She secured a dress onto the line. “And since then we’ve been writing to each other, and I send letters and packages.”
“Ya, and Tobias told my folks about the horse candle you made for me. All of it had Mamm so hopeful that I was seeing someone, and I couldn’t tell her the truth.”
“There’s no way to keep that up for long. When were you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know. Soon. But I went a few weeks with no one griping at me about not going to singings or needing a girl. It was really nice, but it was also selfish.”
Maybe he was onto something. As long as Levi and Sadie knew where each stood, what could be wrong with people thinking they were dating? “It’s not that I care whether people think we’re dating or not.”
“Wait. I’m confused. So what’d you get angry about?”
“I thought you had lied to me and about me.”
“Oh, ya, I can see where that’d be angering.”
She paused from hanging laundry and studied him. Did he know that hurt masqueraded as anger easily and often in a woman’s heart? “It hurt, Levi. A lot.”
Regret filled his eyes. “I’m truly sorry that I did anything to make you think I’d lie to or about you. I’d never do that.”
Finally she had the heartfelt apology she’d wanted. And more. She believed in him again. “Forgiven.” Ready to walk and talk, she left the clothes and went toward the dirt lane that meandered across the back field. Levi went with her.
“I think you were more selfish than you know.” She poked his shoulder with her index finger. “You benefited from this, uh, misunderstanding. Why not let me?”
“I’m confused again.”
“Maybe you don’t need to set this straight with everyone. My parents are insisting I return home after I get my business with Hertzlers’ squared away. It’s so hard to be back there after living on my own for years. But they’d let me stay in Apple Ridge if we were courting. And Mammi Lee likes you, so she’d leave me alone about hiding from men. I could put all my focus on earning what I need to go with my mission team again.”
“Isn’t this too deceptive? I mean, not correcting someone’s misconception is one thing, but to plot it out like this?”
“So we’ll date. Look at us. We’re a mess of distrust and not wanting to get involved with anyone. So if we were really dating, what are the chances of our staying together?”
“After what I just saw of us, I’d say zilch. You’d get hurt over something I didn’t understand, and I’d find it impossible to apologize when you deserved it.”
She knew he was here now only because of their friendship. If they were seeing each other romantically, they’d both have walked away today.
“Exactly. Besides, my parents say they believe in keeping the Amish ways and that I need to abide by them too, but according to the Old Ways, they’re supposed to leave the matter of finding a mate in God’s trustworthy hands, not their pushy ones. Right?”
“Ya, but I’m beginning to doubt the purity of your motives about mission work. Maybe you just don’t want to cope with your parents’ expectations.”
“And you do?”
He grinned, looking like himself again. “You know the answer to that. So for how long?”
“We could break up a few weeks before I go to Peru. That would probably buy you six months to a year after I’m gone before people start pushing you to date again.”
He looped his thumbs around his suspenders. “But if we’re still courting when you leave, it’ll be as if I’m waiting for you to return. That’ll buy me a lot more time. A year. Maybe two years.”
She turned onto the lane, and he joined her. “If we stay together and I try to leave on a mission trip, my Daed will go to the church leaders to keep me home. If he thinks I’m heartbroken, he’ll let me go.”
“Is that why they let you go the first time?”
“Ya, but I wasn’t faking then. And going to Peru helped me heal in a way nothing else could have.”
Levi nodded. He seemed to understand what heartache did to someone. “Eva shattered my brother’s heart, and she ruined his life.”
She’d had a pretty negative effect on Levi’s life too. Did he realize that? “We’ve got three months to plan the timing of our relationship’s demise.” She leaned in, bumping his shoulder with hers. “There’s something that’s really important to me, okay?”
“It’s okay with me if something is important to you.”
She laughed and pushed against his shoulder again. “I’m not your mama or your girlfriend, so as we move forward, can we agree to be totally up-front with each other?”
“I believe I can do that.”
“That includes no misdirecting me like your oddly worded statement that ‘she’s gone’ or the like.”
“Okay. But I’ve got one of those important things too.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’ve already imagined us being friends and visiting each other even when we’re old. Earlier today I thought I’d blown all chance of that.”
She put her arm around his waist. “That’s the best hope for a relationship I think I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m glad you like it.” He looped his arm around her shoulders. “Can we do it?”
She couldn’t stop her grin. “I believe we can.”
Levi fitted another piece of wood into place on the gazebo railing. The birch and maple trees around him swayed. Sadie said they were strutting their deep yellows and brilliant reds of fall like a peacock did his tail feathers.
He sighed. Girly nonsense. That’s what she had him thinking these days. When he saw her in a bit, he’d complain about it too. He peered across the backyard and into his shop to check the clock again, then he hammered another nail into the railing. There was more work to do than he had morning left to do it.
Andy came around the corner of the house, two-by-fours stacked on top of one shoulder. Tobias was on his heels, carrying a two-by-two. Andy dropped his on the ground, and Tobias did the same. The planks banged and bounced, reminding Levi of the way sounds echoed through an empty home. Noise he wouldn’t have noticed until these last few weeks with Sadie.
They used most of their courting time to work together on projects for the dry goods store. But when they weren’t doing that, she liked to take long buggy rides and discover empty homes to walk through. It was an interesting pastime. Some of the places were new, unfinished homes that the builders abandoned when the economy changed. One home they went into was off by itself, a Victorian place. She loved that one best of all. Sadie’s grandmother used to clean that house for the owners, a huge mansion Sadie had been in as a child. But the owners had passed away, and the house had yet to sell. She had few qualms about entering it, and even though the fro
nt door was locked, she’d found a side door that wasn’t. When he’d balked, she said she knew the owners wouldn’t have minded. If they were alive, she’d knock and visit with them, and she didn’t care if the police showed up. He could hear her now: “Let them take me to jail. I dare them.”
Just the thought made him laugh inside—a kind of hilarity he hadn’t known until recently, where his outward expression showed little while inside he enjoyed great merriment.
They had yet to be caught breaking into a home. Although, if an officer or two did arrive, Levi would let Sadie do all the talking. She was the one who didn’t mind defying authority as long as she wasn’t doing any actual harm.
She was an odd bird, willing to bend her knee to whatever she thought God wanted of her and yet unwilling to yield to man’s rules any more than absolutely necessary to stay out of serious trouble.
Levi had yet to fit those two women into one person—carefully defiant with a heart of utter obedience. Weird. The good news was that since they weren’t really involved, he didn’t have to be concerned about her attitude or outlook.
“Hello?” Andy set one of the boards on the sawhorses.
Levi looked up. “Did you say something?”
Andy turned to Tobias, shaking his head. Tobias clasped both hands to his head and moaned. The two kept telling him that lately he lived in a world of his own.
“I guess I was talking to myself.” Andy brushed his hands together, knocking off the dust. “So what’s today’s game plan?”
Tobias jumped into the gazebo. “Ya, so what’s going on tonight?”
Levi took a step back, looking at the clock inside his shop again. Did it need a new battery? It sure was moving slowly. “It’s the annual hayride at Lizzy’s, so I have about two hours before I pick up Sadie.”
“Just two hours?” Tobias stomped across the gazebo, never looking up as he counted boards in some game he played.
“Ya.” Levi pulled a nail from a pocket in his tool belt. “It’s called a hayride, but it’s an event for singles that starts right after lunch and lasts until midnight.”
The Dawn of Christmas: A Romance from the Heart of Amish Country Page 9
