Millie carried her two suitcases to the waiting rig while Ira ushered Mammi outside, carrying her careworn suitcase and the duffel. It felt odd to ride away from the old farmhouse as though she intended to be gone for a long time. She worried that her grandfather would get sick or hurt himself—perhaps intentionally—to get back at her and Mammi for leaving him.
Millie hated thinking such thoughts about her grandfather. He wasn’t the same steadfast man she’d known when she was younger. It seemed his hatred and bitterness had crippled his heart as surely as arthritis had bent his body.
When they got to the big house on Bishop’s Ridge Road, Nora held the door so Millie and Ira could carry in the luggage. “Let’s put you in this room off the kitchen, Mamma,” she said, pointing them in the right direction. “And Millie, I’ve got a spare room upstairs between my bedroom and my studio. You’ll have a view of the river, and you can make it your own space. I’m so glad you’re both here!”
Nora’s enthusiasm lifted Millie’s spirits. It was fun to be staying in this large, airy home filled with her mother’s bright colors. When she and Ira got to the upstairs room Nora had described, Millie went to the window. If she looked to the far right, she could see the mill wheel. The rest of her view was filled with wildflowers, trees, and the ripple of the flowing, sun-dappled river.
“I think I’ll be just fine here,” Millie murmured.
Ira came to stand beside her. “Your mamm’ll see to that,” he replied. Then he gently turned her to face him. “About my joinin’ the Old Order . . . I, um, meant it when I said I’d wait for ya, Millie. You’re awfully young to commit to the church or to me. I don’t want to deprive ya of your rumspringa—especially now that you’re dealin’ with your dawdi.”
Millie’s heartbeat quickened. He was hinting about marriage someday, without expecting her to reply. “That’s sweet of ya, Ira. I’ll have time these next several weeks to think things through. But I’m glad ya decided about your faith,” she added. “Glad ya went your own way instead of followin’ Luke’s example just because he’s your brother and your business partner.”
Ira lowered his mouth to hers for a tender kiss. “We’ll be fine, Luke and I. Nothin’ll change, far as how the mill’s to be run—and if he goes the Mennonite route, it’ll be easier to keep some of the power equipment we’ve set up.”
Millie nodded. “It’ll all work out,” she mused aloud. “And I have a feelin’ that work is what’ll get Mammi and me through Dawdi’s shunning. After that, we’ll see what God’s got waitin’ for us. Thanks for helpin’ me through today, Ira.”
He kissed her again and then smiled. Even with the ridge around his head where his hat had flattened his hair on this warm day, Ira looked very strong. Very masculine and attractive. “You’re welcome, Millie. I’ll see ya soon, all right?”
“I’m countin’ on it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Miriam took a break from rolling out piecrust dough to amble around the Sweet Seasons dining room. The baby was very active—a blessing that made her smile as she wrapped her arms around her growing girth. Andy Leitner had told her it was better to move around every now and again rather than to stand in one spot for so long while she baked, so these little trips between the wooden tables in her café were just what the doctor ordered.
When she reached the front window, however, she frowned. Across the road at the Glick place, every room was lit up. Again.
Miriam hugged her little miracle as she considered what to do. She’d taken Gabe some food yesterday afternoon, and he’d seemed grouchy but grateful. Ben had tended the livestock chores and looked in on their aging neighbor at dusk. He’d said Gabe was restless but basically all right. So why had the lights remained on these past three nights since Wilma and Millie had moved to Nora’s place?
Miriam had wondered if Gabe was afraid of the dark—yet she thought his penny-pinching ways would’ve kept him in one illuminated room to save on lamp oil. It was probably difficult for him, being by himself in that house, although he’d done all right when Wilma had been hospitalized in recent years.
“Have the lights been burnin’ all day, too, ya think?” she murmured as she swayed with her baby. When nobody else was around, Miriam often conversed with her unborn child because it deepened her connection to the wee one she was so eager to see and to hold. “Let’s make a phone call and then get back to work, shall we?”
Miriam strode through the kitchen and out the back door to the white phone shanty. She wouldn’t be able to set aside her fears until she’d called in some knowledgeable help.
“Jah, Andy, it’s Miriam,” she said when the clinic’s message machine prompted her. “Stop at the café first thing this morning so we can talk about Gabe, will ya? I’ll have somethin’ fresh for your breakfast whenever ya can get here.”
When fifteen fruit pies filled her ovens, Miriam sat on a tall stool to form long logs of dough for cinnamon rolls as she considered the day’s menu. Local gardens had overflowed with produce lately, and she’d been happy to pay her sister Leah, her daughter Rachel, and Nazareth Hostetler for the boxes of red and green sweet peppers, onions, and tomatoes that sat on her kitchen floor. She had also cleaned out her deep freeze at home—had brought over remnants of bread loaves, along with stale biscuits and muffins—that would make tasty bread pudding for the breakfast buffet.
“And what if I put crushed pineapple in it today, punkin?” she asked the baby as she arranged thick spirals of dough on baking pans. “Baked pineapple and bread pudding combined, sweet and creamy with milk and eggs—”
When the baby kicked, apparently excited about this suggestion, Miriam laughed. “Jah, you’re right, honey-bug, the fellas will gobble that concoction right down. I’d better make a couple-three big pans of it.”
Two hours later, when Andy knocked on the back screen door, Miriam was drizzling frosting over her pans of warm cinnamon rolls. “Come on in,” she called out. “Your timing’s perfect. I’m finishin’ up these goodies for the bakery case.”
As her future son-in-law stepped into the kitchen, he peered into a pot of simmering sausages, gazed at the lineup of pies cooling on her countertop, and shook his head in amazement. “You’ve made all this stuff already?” he asked as he removed his straw hat. “How do you do this day in and day out, Miriam?”
Shrugging, she reached for a small plate. “It’s always been my purpose to feed people. Cookin’ and bakin’ is what I know. Here—enjoy your breakfast.”
Andy gazed at the fresh confection as though it were a treasure before he began to unwind it. “There’s nothing like the smell of cinnamon and the softness of a warm roll. Wow,” he murmured after he took his first bite. “So what’s this about Gabe? From what I hear, Millie’s been to visit him and—”
“Jah, Ben and I have been lookin’ in on him, too,” Miriam remarked as she continued working. “But every room in his house has been lit up since Wilma left. That doesn’t set right with me. Gabe’s so tight, he won’t turn on his furnace in the winter until his windows frost over.”
Stuffing another bite of roll into his mouth, Andy went into the dining room to peer across the county highway. “I see what you mean,” he remarked as he returned to the kitchen. “So tell me this about Gabe. Has he always been such a surly man, or has this moodiness come over him just recently? I was shocked at the way he talked back to Bishop Tom on Sunday.”
“Jah, retired preachers don’t act that way, even when they’ve got a bone to pick,” Miriam confirmed. “Gabe’s always been hardheaded, but this business about refusin’ to forgive Nora has me worried. Maybe it’s guilt eatin’ away at him, in spite of—”
“And maybe there’s a physical imbalance at work, too,” Andy mused. “I’ll take my medical bag and check him over. While I understood Wilma’s reason for getting out of the house, I figured something like this might arise once Gabe was left on his own.”
“Denki for understandin�
��. We’ve seen enough drama of late, without havin’ something happen to Gabe,” Miriam replied. She reached for a white paper sack. “Take him a couple of these rolls—and let me know what’s goin’ on after you’ve looked him over, all right?”
“Will do. And by the way,” he added with a boyish grin. “Rhoda and I have set the wedding for Thursday, September twenty-fifth. You’re the first to know.”
“Congratulations! I’m so happy for the two of ya,” Miriam said gleefully. “And by then Rachel should be recovered from birthin’ her wee one, too.”
“The baby and God already have their calendars marked, so we’ll go along with whatever they’ve decided,” Andy teased as he put his hat on again. “It’ll all work out.”
“Jah, it always does.”
“And meanwhile, you should be putting your feet up every chance you get, Miriam.” He gazed at her with the no-nonsense expression she’d seen a lot during her recent appointments with Andy. “We don’t want the mother of the bride sidelined with complications on our wedding day. You should be hiring some extra help, so you’ll be covered when your due date arrives in December. Right?”
“Jah, jah, I’ve been thinkin’ on that,” Miriam murmured as she frosted the last of her rolls. “You and Ben are fussin’ over me like I’m some helpless girl who’s got no clue about childbirth. I figure havin’ triplets gives me more experience than either one of you fellas has had.”
“Just advising my favorite patient,” Andy teased as he went to the door. “I wouldn’t pester you if I didn’t love you, Miriam.”
As the screen door closed, Miriam’s heart swelled. She was a blessed woman to be welcoming such a compassionate man into her family. Her Rhoda couldn’t possibly have found a better match, even from among longtime members of the Amish faith.
She sent up a prayer on Gabe’s behalf and then went on about her cooking. The bread pudding filled the kitchen with the heavenly sweet aroma of pineapple, and the Italian sausages scented the air with their spicy perfume, as well. Miriam sautéed fresh onions, bell peppers, and tomatoes for a rich red sauce to add to the meat.
She sang to the baby while she worked, as happy as a woman could possibly be. She was giving Naomi and her daughter Hannah a good start on the day’s lunch offerings—and when they arrived in about half an hour, she’d think about getting off her feet for a while. Maybe.
As Nora gazed through her binoculars, her insides tightened. From her second-story bedroom window she was watching Andy Leitner’s horse-drawn clinic wagon roll up the lane to Dat and Mamma’s house. While she, Mamma, and Millie had noticed that every room in the place had been lit up for the past few nights, Mamma was adamant about not checking on Dat after Millie reported that he was getting by. Nora sensed she’d better waken the two of them anyway.
She slipped into the adjacent bedroom, savoring the sight of her sleeping daughter’s face. “Millie,” Nora whispered as she leaned close to the bed. “Millie, we should get up.”
“Mmm?”
“Jah, come on, sweetie,” Nora insisted. “Andy Leitner’s over at Dawdi’s. We need to be ready if he goes to the hospital.”
Millie’s eyes flew open then. “Dawdi’s sick?” “Maybe my hunch is a false alarm,” Nora said as Millie swung her feet to the floor. “Maybe I’m a worrywart.”
“Mammi thinks he’s out of his head, burnin’ all the lights,” the girl countered as she took a fresh dress from the closet.
“I’ll wake her and keep an eye out over there. Can you pack us something that’ll be easy to eat?” Nora asked. “If Andy takes Dawdi in for medical care, we might not get home for a while.”
Millie frowned as she twisted her long hair into a bun. “What about the gals who’re comin’ today to get your store ready for its grand opening?”
“We’ll change the cleaning frolic to another time—if we need to,” Nora added. “I could be jumping to all sorts of conclusions.”
“Same ones I’ve jumped to,” Millie remarked. “Dawdi’s not been himself for a long while, and Mammi and I probably tipped him over the edge when we left. But I sure hope not.”
On the way downstairs to rouse her mother, Nora stepped back into her room to peer out the front window again. Andy’s wagon was still parked in front of Dat’s house—
But Andy’s coming down its ramp with a gurney. That can only mean one thing.
When Nora hurried down the stairs and into her mother’s room, she was relieved to see that Mamma was out of bed and groping into her clothes. “You all right, Mamma? I was just ready to—”
“Heard ya walkin’ around upstairs, talkin’ to Millie,” she said in a worried voice. “If something happens to your dat because I walked out on him, I’ll—”
“Let’s not go down that road,” Nora interrupted emphatically. “Andy can handle whatever’s going on, and he’ll let us know about it.”
Nora went back up to slip into her own cape dress and kapp, watching out her bedroom window as she dressed. By the time she’d scribbled a note to the ladies who were coming to help her clean, the lights at Dat’s were blinking out room by room, as if each window was an eye closing in sleep. Andy would’ve called an ambulance if he’d found her father in serious condition, so Nora took comfort from the methodical way the local nurse was preparing to leave the house.
When Nora got downstairs, Mamma and Millie were in the kitchen tucking some snacks into a canvas tote bag. She was pleased that they had made themselves at home here so quickly, and grateful to be getting reacquainted with them at long last. It seemed they’d gone through one crisis after another since she’d come back to Willow Ridge, yet Nora believed they were stronger as a team than any one of them could be separately while this situation with Dat unfolded.
“I’m going to tape this note to the shop door,” she said, waving her paper. “Be back in a few.”
“We’ll start walkin’ that way, in case Andy needs anything done at the house,” Mamma replied. “Awful nice of him to look in on Gabe—it truly is.”
The August morning already felt dense with humidity, promising a scorcher of a day by noon. Nora taped her note to the barn door with a sigh. She’d been looking forward to the cleaning frolic, gratified that so many ladies had volunteered to help her prepare for the opening of Simple Gifts—but Dat’s health was a higher priority, even if her shop wouldn’t be in perfect condition when her merchandise started arriving. As she joined her mamm and daughter at the end of the lane, Andy’s horse-drawn wagon was rumbling toward them on Bishop’s Ridge Road.
“Why am I not surprised to see you ladies here?” he asked as he stepped out of his unique vehicle.
Nora took heart from Andy’s composure, his easygoing smile as he greeted them. “So—what can you tell us about our patient?” she asked. “I’ve been watching ever since your wagon pulled up at the house.”
“No secrets in Willow Ridge,” the nurse replied with a chuckle. “A visit to the emergency room is the best way to keep him under observation while we get him hydrated again and get some oxygen to his brain.”
“Never did drink enough water,” Mamm muttered. Andy nodded. “I also suspect he’s suffering from sleep deprivation. He was, um, seeing mice scamper across the ceiling while I checked his vital signs.”
Millie’s eyes widened. “He’s not been sleepin’ through the night for a long while—at least since I’ve been helpin’ with Mammi,” she remarked. “He falls asleep in the middle of a sentence sometimes—”
“That’s a common symptom,” Andy remarked.
“—and jerks awake after wee little naps,” the girl continued earnestly. “But he denies doin’ that, of course. He didn’t realize I could hear him rummagin’ around in his room at night.”
“Here’s our chance to fix those things,” Nora said. “Shall I follow you in my van, Andy?”
“Or can we ride with Dawdi—if it won’t confuse him?” Millie added. Her expression suggested she was eager to see inside Andy’s wagon yet appreh
ensive about her grandfather’s condition.
“Might be a gut idea if he has some company,” Andy replied with a nod. “I gave him a light sedative when I hooked up his IV, but if he decides to yank it out while I’m driving, you’ll be there to hold his hands.”
“But if he’s snoozin’, we’re gonna let sleepin’ dogs lie,” Mamma insisted. “If Gabe’s seein’ mice, there’s no tellin’ what he’ll think if the three of us show up all at once, like we’re gangin’ up on him.”
“Excellent point,” Andy said as he opened the driver’s door a little wider. “You can sit in the built-in seats where I usually draw blood or consult with patients. When we get to the hospital, I’ll let you check him in at the admissions desk. I think he ought to stay at least overnight for observation.”
After Andy helped her mother step up into the wagon, Nora preceded her daughter into the most interesting rig she’d ever seen. It looked like a very basic examination room, with cabinets and medical instruments along the walls above the cushioned seats Andy had mentioned. Colorful posters presented inside views of the body’s major organs and a fetus growing inside its mother. Most of the space was filled with the gurney, where Dat lay with a little hose up his nose and a bag of clear fluid hanging on a pole beside him.
He looks so old and fragile beneath the sheet, Nora fretted as she gazed at him. He was dozing, so she lifted a finger to her lips to suggest silence.
Mamma and Millie nodded. They quickly took seats, as though they, too, were struck by how Gabriel Glick, the preacher who’d railed about their sinful disrespect on Sunday, seemed to have drifted beyond his earthly ability to communicate. Andy clucked to his Belgian and the wagon rolled into motion. It seemed almost like a wake, with nothing to look at except her frightfully quiet father, so Nora was relieved when they pulled into the entrance of the hospital in New Haven about twenty minutes later.
Nora couldn’t miss the surprised expressions on the faces of the people who watched them emerge from Andy’s unique horse-drawn wagon. Once they were inside the hospital, however, several of the personnel wearing scrubs greeted Andy as though they knew him well.
Harvest of Blessings Page 20
