Harvest of Blessings

by Hubbard, Charlotte

  Millie backed away from her grandfather, as though his scowl and words frightened her. Hiram stepped in then, offering the preacher a steadying arm. “Got you covered, Gabe,” he murmured. “We keepers of the faith have to stick together.”

  And what did that mean ?

  When Luke looked from Millie to Nora, his previous speculations about his new neighbor began spinning in his gut. Gabe might have just denied that he had a daughter, but there was no getting around it: Nora and Millie were kin. Luke doubted the old preacher would be making such a fuss if Nora were Millie’s aunt, so did this mean . . . ?

  This was no time to ponder such a startling idea, however. As Ben and Ira made their way toward Millie, Luke strode between the tables to where Miriam had slung her arm around Nora’s shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked earnestly. “I don’t know what that was all about, but—”

  “You will,” Nora rasped. “You and everybody else have just witnessed my humiliation—”

  “Honey-bug, ya did your best,” Miriam insisted. “Ya made the first move, tryin’ to make peace with your dat about your daughter, and ya knew it might not go so well.”

  So there you have it. Nora is Millie’s mother. Luke fought the urge to grasp Nora’s shoulder. Miriam’s protective tone implied that Nora was no stranger to her. The recollection of her red BMW racing away from the Glick place took on a whole new meaning for him: Nora had grown up in that house and had been banished. Yet she’d come back.

  From across the crowded café, the expression on Millie’s face tore at him. She didn’t know Nora, but on a gut level she was piecing this puzzle together, just as he was. “Nora, how can I help?” Luke murmured. “If you want to speak with Millie—”

  “We could let ya into the quilt shop, where it’s private,” Miriam suggested. “The Schrocks won’t open it until nine.”

  When Nora gazed again at the girl who could be her double, Millie pivoted toward the door. Ira and Ben went outside with her, talking in low voices.

  “I’ve blown it again,” Nora whimpered. “Why did I think this reunion was a good idea? Or that it would go as I’d seen it in my mind, hundreds of times?”

  “Seems to me you’ve got two choices,” Miriam insisted gently. “Ya can catch Millie now, while Ben’s with her. Or ya can wait. I can understand why you’d like some time to get your nerves together again. And I can see where leavin’ this to hang—takin’ your chances that other folks might tell her things ya wish they hadn’t—might make it even harder to approach her next time.”

  “I’ll go with ya, if ya want,” Bishop Tom offered as he approached them. “This isn’t an easy situation you’ve set yourself up for, Nora, but I believe you’ve done the right thing.”

  “I’ll go with you, too, if you’d like,” Luke murmured. “Or I can get Ira out of your way so you and Millie can talk. He means well, but sometimes he doesn’t have a clue.”

  When Nora gazed up at him, Luke’s stomach did a flip-flop. Her eyes shone like honey mixed with cinnamon and gratitude. Red flags flapped in his mind, warning him that he was getting way too involved in a sticky situation, yet he held her gaze, awaiting her answer.

  Nora grabbed his hand. “Let’s catch them before they cross the road, or—well, before Millie gets hurt any further.”

  Luke followed her outside, sucking in fresh air to fortify himself. Nora’s hand felt like a branding iron but he couldn’t let go. They spotted his two brothers walking on either side of Millie, slowly heading up the lane toward the Lantz house. Ira was holding her hand while Ben was talking to her, his head bent near the kapp that covered her auburn bun. When they stepped into the grass near the apple trees, Nora clutched Luke’s hand.

  “Wait!” she called out. “Millie, please wait for me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Millie stopped. The woman’s voice sounded achingly familiar even as she knew that was impossible. Surely the thudding of her heart and the rush of her thoughts were affecting her hearing because—except for a glance at this woman yesterday, when she’d worn shorts and a sparkly ball cap instead of a cape dress and a kapp—Millie had never seen this stranger.

  But deep down, Millie vibrated with the truth.

  She closed her eyes. Maybe if she pretended this wasn’t happening, she’d awaken to find she’d been caught up in a bad dream. She could forget that yesterday she’d learned her dat had a sister, yet moments ago her grandfather had denied he had a daughter. She could chalk it all up to a huge misunderstanding or a coincidence that someone who looked just like her had bought the house on Bishop’s Ridge Road.

  That someone was approaching her now, even as Millie squeezed her eyes tighter.

  “Come on, Ira. Let’s make ourselves scarce,” Luke said from a few feet behind her.

  How ironic that yesterday Ira had been drooling over this woman—Would ya look at those wheels!—yet now he was standing with her. Millie released his hand when he eased it away.

  “This’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to, Millie,” Ben murmured as he went with his brothers. “We’ll all be prayin’ for ya.”

  Millie nearly begged Ben to stay, but her throat was too tight to say anything.

  So she stood alone, with the breeze teasing her skirt and her kapp strings. The apple trees whispered in the morning sunlight that warmed her face. Millie sensed this moment would be etched in her memory forever, whether or not she wanted it to happen. She’d once considered herself reasonably intelligent and perceptive, yet the knots in her stomach suggested that she’d remained blissfully unaware of the unspoken truth, like a mushroom growing in a dark cave. How is that you’re the last one to know?

  “Millie. I . . . I don’t know what to say, honey. But I love you so much.”

  “Who are you? Why are you here?” Millie blurted. She crossed her arms tightly, in case this woman tried to grasp her hand.

  “I’m your mother, Millie,” the woman replied in a breathless voice. “I’m sorry we got off to a rough start. I never intended to hurt—”

  “You got off to a bad start!” Millie retorted. “I was minding my own business, taking care of my grandparents and—”

  “Thank you for doing that. I admire you for giving up your rumspringa,” the woman continued in a voice that hitched a time or two. “It should’ve been me taking care of them in their old age.”

  “So why didn’t you?” Millie demanded.

  The stranger sighed. She was still standing behind Millie, not touching her but so close that the heat of their bodies mingled. “Your grandfather ordered me out of the house when we learned you were on the way,” she murmured. “He said I was evil. Told me never to come back again.”

  Millie winced. She had no trouble believing that stern, stoic Dawdi had said such awful things, but she wouldn’t give this stranger a moment’s sympathy. “So why did you?”

  “I—I wanted to make amends. Wanted to ask forgiveness, especially of you, Millie, because I was hoping we could be together. Not a day has gone by that I didn’t think of you, or wish I’d done things differently.”

  Millie pivoted. “So ya bought Hiram’s house? And ya came here with your shiny red car and your English clothes, thinkin’ that would make everything right with me?” she demanded shrilly. “Let me tell ya somethin’, lady. Lizzie Glick is my mamm, and she would never ever do those things to make me love her. Leave me alone! Get out of my life!”

  With no idea of where she might go, Millie took off across the Lantz orchard. She passed beside the big white house where Miriam’s daughter Rachel and her husband, Micah Brenneman, now lived, then curved left at the pasture where Dan Kanagy’s sheep watched her through the fence as they chewed their grass. She kept going, past the new house Seth Brenneman was building for Mary Kauffman and her kids, without really seeing any of these things through her tears.

  Except for Mary, who was new in town, did all of these neighbors know that Atlee and Lizzie Glick weren’t her birth parents? Did they remember that N
ora woman from when she’d lived here, and recall the reason she’d left town? Why didn’t anybody tell me the truth? I’ve trusted everyone in town—especially the people I believed were my parents—only to find out they’ve been keeping a huge secret about who I really am.

  “Liars,” Millie muttered as she continued past Bishop Tom’s dairy farm and onto the gravel road. Every last one of them’s a liar—my grandparents, the bishop, Miriam, Mamm and Dat. It would serve them right if they all went to hell for their lies!

  Blinded by tears, she stopped where the road forked. One path led around in a circle that defined the edge of Willow Ridge and then ran in front of the Wagler place and Bishop’s Ridge to the Hooleys’ new mill, while the other path led toward home and eventually to Morning Star and Higher Ground. But is that really home now? How can ya face those people again, knowing they’re not really your parents ? Knowing they’ve kept the truth from ya for your entire life?

  For a brief moment, it comforted Millie to realize that Atlee Glick wasn’t her father. He was a difficult man, with a chip on his shoulder and a short fuse. She had his red hair and freckles, but he was actually her uncle.

  No, you got your looks from that Nora woman. Who was your father, really?

  Millie mopped her face with her apron. So many questions overwhelmed her that she couldn’t think straight. She didn’t want to return to her grandparents’ place, because Dawdi would be in a foul mood and Mammi would be upset—and they had kept the truth from her, too. And she certainly didn’t want to deal with Mamm—um, Aunt Lizzie?—even though she’d had the decency to look upset yesterday when she’d heard Nora had returned. And she’d at least hinted to Millie that something huge was about to happen.

  So where should she go? What should she do until she could figure out how to handle this life-changing information?

  Millie walked slowly along the road that circled Willow Ridge. She passed a few neatly kept places that belonged to various Schrock families, including the three women who ran the quilt shop next door to Miriam’s café. In her present state of mind, a stroll along the river sounded like the best way to deal with her churning emotions. As she got closer to the mill, maybe she would confide in Ira, who’d so gallantly held her hand and taken her side—and maybe she wouldn’t. In his way, he’d betrayed her, too, by ogling his new neighbor . . . who is my mother.

  It was all so confusing.

  Chapter Eight

  Nora dropped onto her couch, feeling as wrung out as an old dishrag. Could her encounters this morning have gone any worse? As she sat in the big living room that was still strewn with half-unpacked boxes, she felt the overpowering urge to stuff her belongings back into them—to call the Realtor and stick a For Sale sign in the yard and get out of Willow Ridge in a hurry.

  But that couldn’t happen. She had nowhere else to go, and no savings left to take her there. And now that she’d opened the Pandora’s box Hiram had talked about, there was no turning back. No coaxing the secrets into hiding again, and no erasing the way she’d disrupted everyone’s lives, thinking her need for reconciliation was noble enough to warrant the pain and upheaval she would cause.

  Millie, I’m so sorry I’ve hurt you.

  If she sent out that mental message, would her daughter receive it? And if she did, what would stop Millie from turning away again? If she lived to be a hundred, Nora knew she’d never forget the anguish that had puckered Millie’s sweet, innocent face this morning. And she hadn’t anticipated the depth of the torment she’d opened herself to, either, when Millie and Dat had refused to accept her.

  “Nora? You in there?”

  Nora grimaced. Luke Hooley was the last person she wanted to see, but she didn’t have the energy to send him away. He was standing at the screen door, gawking this way and that to find her in the shadows of the house. It occurred to her that she hadn’t hooked the screen door—that she was already slipping back into the Willow Ridge level of home security. “Yeah. Come on in.”

  He entered cautiously, sensing she was in an iffy mood. He was holding a handful of Queen Anne’s lace and black-eyed Susans she’d seen growing along the riverbank. Even clad in broadfall trousers with suspenders and an unironed yellow shirt, Luke possessed a confidence—a trace of class—that set him apart from the Amish guys she’d known as a kid. He lowered himself to sit on the floor in front of her. “How’d it go with Millie?”

  “Badly.”

  Luke sighed. “For what it’s worth, I was ready to clobber Gabe when he called you Satan and then shoved you aside,” he said in a rising voice. “That whole shunning thing is exactly why I can’t join the Old Order. It’s the most unforgiving attitude in the world, yet the Amish supposedly base their faith on forgiveness and living Christlike lives. Go figure.”

  Nora smiled weakly. She really did appreciate his supportive attitude even if she wasn’t in the mood to discuss Amish theology. “Technically, I wasn’t shunned, because I hadn’t yet joined the church. I was only sixteen when my parents sent me away to an aunt’s house to have my baby.”

  “But for your father to claim he never had a daughter—and with Millie standing right there,” Luke protested. “That was just wrong, Nora.”

  She shrugged. “Old Order men stand by their right to be right—to dictate the script their families will follow,” she replied with a sigh. “And while I anticipated my father’s reaction, I didn’t realize how crushed I would feel, even after all these years. I’ve been so naive, thinking I could make this work.”

  “Will, um, Millie’s father help you out?”

  “He’s dead.”

  When Luke’s eyes widened, Nora hoped he’d take her unspoken hint and not ask any more about that part of the story. Though her new neighbor piqued her interest, some information just couldn’t be entrusted to a man she’d only known for twenty-four hours—especially considering how the Hooley brothers thought they had dibs because they lived next door.

  “So what will you do now?” Luke asked in a low voice. “Not intending to be nosy, understand. Just . . . interested. There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye, Nora.”

  She let out a humorless chuckle. Allowing Luke’s curiosity to evolve into a romantic entanglement wasn’t in her best interest. “I have no idea. I’m so drained, I might just sit here on the couch for the rest of the day, surrounded by all this stuff, ” she blurted, gesturing at the mess around them.

  When Luke smiled, Nora thought she saw a gentle sadness etched around his eyes—not an emotion she’d expected when he’d first introduced himself. “Well, I’d better get back to the mill,” he said as he stood up. “I wanted to be sure you weren’t in the mood to self-destruct, or to give up on reconciling with Millie. She’s a sweet girl—”

  “And she’s what—half Ira’s age?” The words sounded harsher than Nora had intended, but guys at the Hooleys’ life stage had certain needs.

  Luke looked her straight in the eye. “He’s never taken advantage of her innocence, if that’s what you’re thinking. Maybe having Millie’s mother next door will make him quit sitting on the fence and commit. They’ve been dating for a long while.”

  Nora sensed Luke was the sort of big brother who thought it’d be right for Ira to follow the rules—to remain sexually honorable—even if he himself showed no inclination to settle down. But she wouldn’t raise that issue while she had so many other emotional fires to put out. “Thanks for the wildflowers. That was sweet of you.”

  His lips curved. “I’ll stick them in water and get out of your hair. Take care, Nora.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  She heard water running in the kitchen and then the closing of the back door. Nora let her head fall back against the couch. She hadn’t felt like chatting with Luke any longer, but the silence of the house closed in on her after a few minutes of being alone. What would she do now? How could she possibly believe anything positive would come of the fiasco she’d caused this morning?

  When you’ve been knocke
d to the bottom of the pit, the only way is up.

  Nora chuckled glumly. Miriam’s words had rung with the staunch belief that all things worked out to the good for those who loved God, but Nora wasn’t setting her heart on a happy ending. Not anymore. Her original good intentions had gone so wrong she didn’t see any way to reclaim them or to start her reconciliation efforts again.

  Figuring it was better to move than to remain mired in her defeat, Nora went into the kitchen. If she emptied a box of towels and moved a bunch of gadgets from the table into the drawers, she would have the satisfaction of a single room that looked settled. She gazed at Luke’s bouquet of wildflowers, sitting by the sink. If only the beam of light shining through the window, making the water glow in the drinking-glass vase, could be a ray of sunshine for her soul, as well.

  Luke’s not as shallow as I thought, Nora mused. But she knew not to count on him. She’d be better off getting some sort of business established in that huge barn, creating a badly needed income—

  “Nora? The men will be here soon to remove my Bishop’s Ridge sign from your driveway,” an all-too-familiar voice said through the screen door.

  Nora scowled. You forgot to hook the screen door—again!

  This morning’s scene in the Sweet Seasons had rushed past her in some ways, but she hadn’t missed seeing Hiram Knepp in the doorway, smiling smugly when Dat had shoved her aside. And then Hiram had helped Dat go home. Who knew what he might have told her parents about what she’d paid for the house, or what other damning details he’d shared with them?

  “All right, fine,” she called out, hoping that was the end of the conversation. She had nothing more to say to the former bishop.

  She slit the tape on the box of kitchen towels with a paring knife and then stiffened. The screen door creaked. Footsteps echoed in the entryway.