Harvest of Blessings

by Hubbard, Charlotte

  Her father smiled. “Amazing, what that little breathin’ contraption on my bedside table has accomplished,” he said in a clear voice. “When your mother and Millie and Bishop Tom told me what-all I’d been doin’ and sayin’ every time ya came around me, I was—well, I honestly can’t recall a lot of it. That’s no excuse. But it tells ya how far gone I was . . . in more ways than one, Nora.”

  Nora sucked in her breath. Dat had spoken her name! He was gazing at her, showing no signs of rancor or rebuke. “I’m glad Andy checked you out when he did—”

  “I’ve come to ask your forgiveness. Daughter.”

  Nora blinked rapidly and swallowed hard. Everyone in the room was focused on her and Dat, gripping their glasses. Holding their treats instead of eating them.

  “This doesn’t come so easy for an old fella who’s set in his ways,” her father went on in a voice that sounded raspy with nerves. “I spent most of the morning apologizin’ to these other folks in our family. I know Jesus has expected much better of me than I’ve been givin’ to any of them.”

  Dat sighed, gripping the arms of the wooden rocking chair. “I stared death in the face a couple times while I was out of my head—knowin’ I was by myself in that house because I’d gotten too cranky for your dear mother to tolerate me,” he murmured. “That’s when God reminded me how He struck Saul down in the road and blinded him for persecutin’ Christians. Said He could just as well knock the stuffin’ out of me for treatin’ folks so mean and hateful.”

  Her mother leaned closer to squeeze Dat’s arm. “But it’s forgiven and forgotten now, Gabe. That’s the grace of Jesus at work.”

  Dat patted Mamma’s hand. “I’m lucky. I got another chance to make amends before I go.” He focused on Nora again, his expression rueful. “I vaguely recall spewin’ at ya in the café, Nora, callin’ ya the Devil’s own name. And I’m sorry I did that. Real sorry.”

  Nora swiped at the tears that were streaming down her face. “Well, I did show up from out of nowhere and sort of backed you into a corner,” she murmured.

  “And I spouted off again, that Sunday Bishop Tom told me I was to repent,” he went on with a sigh. “Don’t remember what-all I said, but it was surely as uncalled-for as the other vinegar I spat at ya.”

  “Apology accepted,” Nora replied in a tiny voice.

  “But I’m not done yet!” her dat insisted. He sucked in a deep breath, gazing around the circle of people who sat with them. “I realize now that I spent sixteen years of my life shuttin’ ya out, believin’ ya to be responsible for the baby ya carried,” he admitted sadly. “When Lizzie and your mamm told me what Tobias Borntreger had done—how he swore ya to secrecy and said ya were goin’ to hell if ya told anybody about him, well—”

  Her father’s head dropped so his chin nearly hit his chest. As he removed his glasses to wipe them with his handkerchief, Nora realized the lenses were wet.

  “I had to chew on that for a while,” Dat continued.

  “Part of me had never understood why ya refused to name the fella who got ya in trouble. Since everybody’s been insistin’ these past few days that it really was Tobias, I’ve had to adjust my thinkin’. A lot.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Nora murmured. The tightness was slowly leaving her body. Her heart was pounding but it no longer throbbed painfully. It was more like the gentle meter of the hymns she’d sung this morning, keeping a steady, reassuring beat as her father’s words came through. “As I’ve thought more about it, I’ve realized you reacted like any Old Order dat would’ve—”

  “Jah, but I felt like I’d been stabbed with a knife, straight through my heart, Nora, all those years I didn’t know where ya were . . . how ya were doin’,” Dat said, covering his nerves with a cough. “When I insisted that no one ever speak your name again, it was mostly because I was . . . afraid to hear it. Afraid I’d back down from a decision that went along with our ways, because what I’d done to ya caused me more pain than I could talk about.”

  Nora’s eyes widened. In all the times she’d imagined her father offering his forgiveness, she hadn’t expected him to reveal his emotions this way. Gabe Glick had never been known to go soft about anything.

  “So I’ve come to say that I really can’t forgive ya, Nora—”

  Her heart clutched painfully. Had this discussion been a cruel joke? An act, to suck her in?

  “—because it wasn’t you who committed the sin,” Dat went on doggedly. “But ya asked, so I do forgive whatever ya feel needs forgivin’. And I—I hope you’ll return the favor to an old man who stands corrected about a lot of mistaken assumptions, for a lot of wasted years.”

  “Oh, Dat.” When Nora mopped her face with the back of her hand, she noticed that she wasn’t the only one in the room who was crying. She set her glass on the coffee table and knelt on the floor, gazing up into her father’s wrinkled face as she grasped his hands. “I forgive you, too, Dat. I want us to let go of the mistakes we made and start fresh.”

  He gripped her fingers, breathing in ragged bursts. Mamm and Millie and Lizzie were blowing their noses. Even Atlee sat wide-eyed and silent, too moved to watch her and Dat.

  Time felt suspended. Nora knew she would recall this pivotal moment for the rest of her life. Years she had longed for her family’s acceptance and her father’s change of heart, and today—thanks to God’s grace and Andy’s medical attention—she had received so much more than she’d asked for.

  Dat stroked her hands with his leathery thumbs. He seemed as overwhelmed by this momentous occasion as she was, even as the deep lines of his face relaxed into a smile. “We’ve invited Tom and Nazareth, and Ben and Miriam, to join us for supper tonight,” he said. “I’m gonna ask them if I can do my kneelin’ confession next Sunday, rather than lettin’ another month of shunnin’ separate me from my family.”

  “I think Bishop Tom’ll go along with that,” Nora whispered. “He’s a very forgiving man.”

  “We’re hopin’ you’ll come to church with us that mornin’, Nora,” her mother said. “The calendar says August, but to me it feels more like Easter—a resurrection of your dat’s true spirit.”

  Nora withered inside. After so much positive momentum had brought her family together again, she hated to hesitate with her answer. Should she postpone her baptism? Or should she disappoint her parents?

  Lizzie leaned forward. “Has somethin’ else come up, Nora?” she asked. “A cloud just shadowed the sunshine on your face.”

  Sighing, Nora decided to tell the truth—to reveal who she was and who she was becoming. “Next Sunday I’m to be baptized into the Mennonite fellowship in Morning Star,” she murmured. “Preacher Stephen and I believe I’m ready.”

  This time the silence wasn’t as awe-inspiring as the earlier moments they’d shared, yet no one appeared upset, either. “Jah, you’ve said that branch of the faith fits ya better than our Amish beliefs do,” her mother remarked.

  Dat squeezed her hands a little harder. “It’s not what I’ve been prayin’ for,” he murmured, “but after all your years of livin’ amongst the English—and after the way Tobias played ya so false when ya were barely Millie’s age—I’m just glad you’re returnin’ to Plain ways.”

  “I—I could ask Preacher Stephen to postpone my baptism to the next Sunday,” Nora stammered. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if—”

  “Stick with your plan, Daughter,” Dat said with a nod. “None of us knows when Jesus might call us home. If I’ve been reinstated into the church’s gut graces and you’ve been saved, we’re both better off. Readier for the Judgment Day.”

  Nora let out the breath she’d been holding. While thoughts of death and judgment were far from her mind, her father’s sentiment made sense. And it made peace with the differences in the faiths they each embraced. “ That’s a gut way to look at it,” Nora replied. “Denki for understanding why I want to follow a different path.”

  “Even if you stayed English, you’d still be our Nora,” Mamma
spoke up in a shaky voice. “After watchin’ how Miriam’s embraced her Rebecca, even though she’ll never be Plain, I can do no less. God brought ya back to us, and I won’t turn away His gift because of a few religious differences.”

  “That says it all, Mamma,” Nora murmured. “I can’t add a single thing.”

  As Luke gazed out the open window of the apartment above the mill, he braced himself for Ira’s return. His younger brother was coming home from supper at the Glick place, walking alongside Nora as though it were the most natural thing in the world. As their laughter drifted up to him on the evening breeze, Luke kicked himself yet again.

  That could be you beside her. Get a grip and get over yourself.

  When Nora and his brother reached the intersection of the county blacktop and Bishop’s Ridge Road, they slung their arms around each other in parting. Luke bristled. There was nothing romantic about their gesture, but the carefree nature of their loose embrace sent envy through him like a jagged lightning bolt.

  Soon Ira opened and closed the mill door downstairs. As he took the steps two at a time, he called out, “Should’ve been there, Luke. Everybody asked where ya were.”

  Luke watched Ira enter their small front room, irritated at his buoyant mood. His brother had the nerve to wave a covered foil pie pan at him, his dark brows arched above teasing brown eyes. “Wilma felt sorry for ya and sent ya a go-box,” he said as he set the package on the kitchen counter.

  Luke inhaled the aroma of fried chicken, realizing how hungry he was. “What’d you tell them?”

  Ira shrugged. “I said you were lickin’ your wounds after—”

  “You did not!”

  “—a lover’s quarrel,” his brother continued cheerfully. “What else could I say? It’s the truth.”

  Luke stood up to look out the other window, where he watched Nora’s kitchen light come on. “And what’d Nora say to that? If that’s what you really told everyone—”

  “Guess you’ll have to ask her, ain’t so? What’s your problem with that, anyway?” Ira demanded in an edgier tone. “What with Gabe takin’ her back into the family, and Nora gettin’ baptized into the Mennonite church next Sunday, you’ll never find her in a more forgivin’ mood. Go talk to her!”

  Nora was getting baptized next Sunday? Although this information came as no surprise to Luke, he hadn’t realized the fetching redhead was so close to becoming a church member. And with Ira taking his instruction, probably to join the Old Order in another month or so, Luke felt a gnawing emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

  Merely a month ago Nora had turned Willow Ridge on its ear by buzzing into town in her shiny red convertible and short-shorts—and his brother had been a freewheeling bachelor enjoying an extended state of rumspringa. Two people Luke admired for their rebellious sense of fun-loving freedom were settling down, signing on to accept responsibilities he’d so enjoyed avoiding.

  Where did that leave him? It was probably only a matter of time before Ira married Millie, too. And if Nora met up with some fellow in the Morning Star congregation . . . Mennonite couples had to be baptized into the church before they could marry, the same as Amish couples . . .

  Do you have to be as stubborn as you are stupid ? Is Hiram going to win this one?

  “I really don’t get you anymore, Luke,” Ira remarked with a disgusted sigh. “You used to go after every little thing you wanted from your women, and you got it! Now you’re mopin’ around—poutin’ ! What are ya, thirty or thirteen?”

  “Lay off.”

  “Fine. Have it your way,” Ira retorted. “After all the roads you and I’ve run together, I never figured ya for a quitter, Luke. Or a coward.”

  Luke let that last remark pass. It came too close to the truth.

  “And ya know gut and well that if ya keep this up, Bennie and the aunts’ll be quizzin’ ya, and buttin’ into your private life,” Ira went on. “Whatever ya did to Nora—or whatever she did to you—it’s gonna keep chewin’ on ya until ya kiss and make up. She seems just fine. Which tells me you’re stewin’ in your own juice.”

  “Okay, so you’re right,” Luke snapped. “And it’s none of your beeswax, so lay off, got it? I’ll handle it.”

  Totally irritated, Luke tromped downstairs and strode across the back lot toward the riverbank. His mind buzzed with opening lines, apologies, and other clever yet heartfelt words that might regain Nora’s affection, but he paused to sit on the big boulder to get his script just right.

  From this vantage point Luke could see Nora moving in her kitchen, and shortly after the light went out in that room another one flickered on upstairs. Thoughts of her undressing, getting ready for bed, tormented him—but he’d waited too long. No decent man would knock on her door now, even though it was only nine o’clock and not quite dark.

  So Luke sat there for a long while, watching the fireflies drift up from the grass. The lights in the houses around Willow Ridge blinked out as the darkness deepened. It was a peaceful scene, with the river murmuring its lullaby and a few bullfrogs singing along with the cicadas as they’d done for countless years.

  But change was in the air.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Matthias, this saddle looks fabulous!” Nora said as he positioned it over a sawhorse she’d draped with a striped blanket. “I’m so glad to have some masculine things in my store instead of just girlie stuff.”

  His smile brought back memories from when they’d been much younger, going to singings on Sunday evenings. “With so many hobby farms around here, maybe some of those English folks’ll realize they could be buying their tack locally,” he remarked. “Rebecca gave me the idea for these tote bags with the fold-over flaps. What do you think?”

  As her neighbor lifted two tooled leather bags from his box, Nora let out an appreciative oooh. “These could be computer bags, or purses, or carry-ons, or—well, whatever anybody wanted them to be,” she replied. “I didn’t know you made pieces like these, Matthias. I might have to buy one of them myself.”

  He shrugged almost shyly. “Doesn’t hurt to branch out from the usual harnesses and horse collars,” he remarked. “Now that you’re opening a place to display stuff like this, a lot of the locals might think of things they could be making in their spare time. I—I’m glad you’re back, Nora.”

  Her heart fluttered at the hopeful expression on Matthias Wagler’s chiseled face. He’d lost his pregnant wife, Sadie, to an asthma attack a while back, and now he was sharing his home with Adam and Annie Mae—not to mention teenage Nellie and the four younger Knepp kids. No doubt he was feeling a bit displaced these days.

  “It’s gut to be here with my family again,” she replied. “And such a relief to have all the secrets out in the open and the mysteries about Millie revealed.”

  “Jah, I wondered where you’d gone all of a sudden, back then,” he replied. “When rumors about you having a baby started around, I didn’t want to believe them. You weren’t that kind of girl, Nora—and when folks quizzed me about it, as though the baby might be mine, I set them straight, too.”

  “Denki for that,” Nora murmured. She suspected Matthias was working up his courage to suggest a date, but he was a member of the Amish church, so there was no point in encouraging a romantic relationship. “Things fell into place pretty fast once I bought this property,” she said. “It’s wonderful that Millie has accepted me as her mother—and come Sunday, I’m getting baptized into the Mennonite church, and the next weekend the store opens. That’s a lot of progress in a short time!”

  Regret flickered in Matthias’s eyes, but then he smiled. “You’ve not allowed any grass to grow under your feet,” he agreed. “Guess I, um, should’ve figured from your pretty print dress that joining the Willow Ridge church wasn’t part of your plan. But I wish you all the best, Nora.”

  “Denki, Matthias. It’s nice to be welcomed back.”

  After they hung three horse collars on the wall to complete the display of Matthias’s work, he got in
to his open wagon to return to his harness shop down the road. When he was nearly there, he waved and Nora waved back. If their lives had gone differently, maybe the romance that had been budding between them would’ve bloomed into something rich and rewarding.

  No sense in regretting what might have been—with Matthias or with Luke, Nora reminded herself. She’d been disappointed when her neighbor on the other side hadn’t come to supper Sunday night and hadn’t made any effort to talk with her this week. It hadn’t been polite of her to slap him so hard, but Luke’s remarks about Hiram had been way out of line. If he approached her, she would accept his apology before it was all the way out of his mouth—but Luke would have to make the first move.

  The crunch of gravel made her turn to watch a horse-drawn wagon loaded with furniture come up her driveway. Aaron Brenneman, the youngest of the brothers who ran the local cabinet shop, grinned at her as he halted the massive Belgian. Seth hopped down from the other side of the seat.

  “How’s it goin’, Nora?” Aaron called out. “If you’ll open the door, Seth and I’ll put this stuff wherever ya want it.”

  As Nora hurried ahead of them, she was glad she had a big barn door that slid sideways on a track. She’d arranged her store to make it easier for clients with larger pieces to move them in—and for buyers to haul them out. “I’ve saved you a spot on the main level, front and center,” she called over to them.

  “Denki for not makin’ us haul these pieces up to your loft!” Seth replied with a chuckle. He and his brother were carrying a dining room table between them as though it required no effort whatsoever, but she could tell it was solid and heavy.

  When they’d angled the table on the floor the way she wanted it, Nora buffed away their fingerprints with a rag while they went after the chairs. The finish was a beautiful shade of walnut in the center and it darkened as it reached the edges—an effect she’d never seen anywhere else. The backs and the seats of the six sturdy chairs were finished in the same way, and when all seven pieces were in place, the set was a sight to behold.