by Adina Senft
The sound of heavy steps on the stairs meant Melvin had finished putting the horse away. He sat on the bench in the mudroom and took off his work boots. “It smells gut in here, Carrie. I’ve had a hungry day.”
“A short one, too.” She maneuvered the roasting pan onto the counter so the roast could sit for ten minutes, then crossed the kitchen. She framed his upturned face with her patchwork potholders and kissed him, whereupon he grabbed her around the waist.
“Come here, Fraa, and do that properly.” She dropped into his lap with a squeal. It was hard to kiss and laugh at the same time, but somehow they managed it.
When he set her on her feet again, and she returned to the stove to stir the corn, she was still smiling. “I thought sure I’d beat you home. Did you decide not to go to Lancaster and all you boys go fishing instead? It was a beautiful afternoon for it.”
“Nei, not at all. Brian Steiner would never leave the shop on a work day. The only things he closes for are Thanksgiving, Old Christmas, and the Lord’s Day. No, he told me before I left this morning to start packing.”
Carrie stopped stirring. “Packing for what?” Oh, surely not. Not another trip, so soon after the last one.
“Apparently there’s some kind of wood-industry trade show down in Philadelphia this weekend. He’s gone in on a booth with his cousins, who are also in the cabinetmaking business, and he wants me to go.”
“If he’s gone in on it with his family, then he should go.” Oh dear. That had come out a little sharper than she’d meant it to. She remembered she was stirring creamed corn, and turned the flame down to barely a sputter.
“Oh, he’s going, all right. But he’s not much of a talker. That’s why he wants me.”
Melvin sounded so happy that at last he had a skill someone needed that she didn’t have the heart to let him see how much the news had upset her. “How long will you be gone? Just the weekend?” Two days. She could live with two days. She had before.
“He wants us to go down on the train tomorrow and spend Thursday setting up. The show runs Friday through Monday, but of course our booth will be closed Sunday. With teardown and working up any orders, we’ll miss the Tuesday train, so I suppose we’ll be back Wednesday sometime.”
“A week.” She schooled her face to calmness, though she felt anything but.
“I know what you’re thinking, Liebschdi. And I don’t like it either, leaving you alone to manage everything. But this time it will be different.”
“Different how? Am I to go with you?”
He actually laughed, as if this idea were absurd. It wasn’t absurd at all. She would love to go to Philadelphia, even if it was to spend a day in some big Englisch convention center, surrounded by machinery and wood products and goodness knows what. At least they would be together.
“I don’t think there would be much to interest you there. Besides, I might not even come back Wednesday. If I don’t run down there Sunday, I might stop off at the home place and see Mamm and my brothers.”
“I could do that, too.” Only Emma, Amelia, and the good Gott knew what it cost her to say so. Even a day in her mother-in-law’s company was twelve hours too long—but she would do it if it meant she and Melvin could share the rest of the adventure.
“I don’t think so, Carrie,” he said gently, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and resting his chin on her shoulder. “If you came, we would have to arrange a motel room just for us, instead of all the men bunking in together to save money. And I would really worry about you, wandering around that place once you got bored at the booth. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on what Brian wants me there for.”
“I know,” she said softly, poking at the corn now with the tip of the spoon. “But I miss you so much when you’re gone. I was hoping this week we might finish picking the apples together, and there’s the two sheds to be painted before the rain starts, and—”
“And I have all that taken care of.” He released her. “Joshua Steiner is going to help us out while I’m gone.”
“He is?” Joshua Steiner had leased one of their fields, and had it planted in beans practically before he’d finished shaking Melvin’s hand. He also had his fingers in several other pies in an effort to make a living, since at the moment he didn’t have a place of his own. “How will he have time to do that when he’s the hired man at that big Englisch place down the highway?”
“Apparently it’s run pretty well, and he can take time off when he wants to. He came the other day and asked us if we had any work at the shop, of all things. Of course Brian told him no.”
Of course he had. Carrie seemed to remember a little history involving a female cousin, back before Bishop Daniel had politely asked Joshua to leave town on an extended visit that had wound up lasting ten years. The fact that the cousin was now happily married and living in another settlement obviously didn’t hold any water with Brian Steiner. Cousins or not, he didn’t have much use for Joshua.
She wondered if Melvin knew. Or if it would make any difference if he did. He hated gossip like poison, and would probably see any attempts to pass on the reasons for Brian’s dislike as just that.
What some called information or history, he called gossip.
Melvin went on, “But I caught up to him out in the parking lot before he got into his buggy, and floated the idea that maybe he could look in on you once or twice while I’m gone. To see if you need anything.”
“I don’t need anyone besides you looking in on me.” Carrie smoothed his hair away from his face. “Someone needs a haircut before he goes to the big city.”
“Then someone had better get it done tonight.” He kissed her again. “I know you don’t need to be looked in on, Carrie. Goodness knows you’ve been on your own plenty of times before. But like you say, Joshua can do those things you had planned. He can even get started painting the sheds, and I’ll finish up when I get home next week. And I’d like to talk with him about putting a second floor in the barn, too, so I can use the ground floor for a workshop.”
He wasn’t about to be talked out of a plan he’d obviously given some thought to, and Joshua had already agreed to. It wasn’t her place to argue and insist on having things her way.
She had to look beyond the inconvenience of having to give someone unfamiliar with their place instructions when it would probably be faster to do some of those things herself. She had to look at Melvin’s good heart. He cared about her, cared that she was looked after.
So she kept her unwillingness to herself, and instead, handed him the carving knife. “I think the roast has sat long enough. Would you carve it?”
She could do it herself, and had done it before.
But that wasn’t the point, was it?
* * *
Since the train left Lancaster at noon, that meant Melvin had to meet Brian at the shop at seven to catch the eight o’clock bus. It only came through Whinburg twice a day, so if he missed it, Carrie would have to drive him to the Lancaster city limits to catch a city bus, and she’d do anything she had to in order to avoid that. She hated going anywhere near the city; even the tourist area where the edges of it petered out on Highway 30 made her so nervous in traffic she could hardly concentrate. The Englisch cars went too fast, and sometimes the drivers even leaned on their horns as they zipped by on the left, frightening the horse practically into the ditch.
She had no difficulties with the Englisch as a rule—she counted many in the community as friends, in fact—but even the nice tourists who drove slowly and respectfully had a bad habit of staring. In their rearview mirrors, in their side mirrors, sometimes in no mirrors at all, simply craning their heads around to look. Even in a closed buggy with the storm front up, she felt like a mannequin on display.
The Amish looked the way they did to convey a spirit of Gelassenheit, of humility and conformity untainted by the worldly fashions of the day. But Carrie had a feeling that the only thing she managed to convey was anxiety and impatience at the driver who,
staring, swerved much too close to the buggy for comfort.
At least the drive home from Whinburg would be along familiar roads, with the mist rising off the fields and the sun beginning to warm the air. She looked forward to it.
“Good-bye, Liebschdi. I’ll see you in a week.” Melvin hugged her before he jumped down from the buggy. He could have shown his affection in the parking lot, but it wouldn’t be seemly, since there were Brian and his brother Boyd already, standing by the big family buggy and dressed in their away coats and dark pants, small suitcases on the ground beside them.
She got out and waved at them. “A safe and prosperous journey,” she called, and took Jimsy’s halter to back him around.
“Let me do that.” Startled, she turned to see Joshua Steiner crossing the yard, a hand held out. Melvin shook it and turned to her.
“I told Joshua he might come over today. It seemed like a good idea for him to meet us here, and catch a ride home with you.”
Over his shoulder, she saw Brian turn away and say something to Boyd.
Joshua’s quick eye didn’t miss the direction of her gaze. He patted the horse’s nose and his lopsided grin held ruefulness. “Don’t mind my cousin’s bad manners. He’s just glad he doesn’t have to put up with me all the way to Philadelphia.”
“Were you to have gone?” Carrie asked. “I didn’t know you were interested in cabinetmaking.”
He laughed. “I’m not. And nei, I have nothing to do with this trip. It’s just that I don’t get a chance to see this side of the Steiner family much. Meeting you and Melvin here was a good opportunity.”
Not good enough to shake hands and make up an ages-old quarrel, it seemed, but plenty good enough to rile somebody up.
Men. Honestly.
David Yoder stepped out of the back of the adjoining pallet shop, followed by Eli Fischer, Amelia’s husband of two months. Seeing her, Eli waved. “Guder Mariye, Carrie. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“She’s dropping me off,” Melvin said. “I’m going to Philadelphia with the boys, here.”
“Ah.” Eli took in Joshua on one side of the yard and Brian and Boyd on the other, but it was clear he thought nothing of it. He was from Lebanon County, and had only recently moved here for Amelia’s sake. What with having important things like courting and marrying her best friend on his mind, clearly there hadn’t been enough time to learn all the family business in the shop next door.
“Time to go,” Brian said, “or we won’t get to that bus in time.”
In the flurry of activity in the yard, somehow Carrie found herself in the passenger seat once again and Joshua driving away at a brisk pace, barely stopping to look for oncoming traffic as he guided Jimsy into the right turn at the light.
She was perfectly capable of driving her own buggy. It wasn’t like they were in the middle of downtown Lancaster. But to say so would be forward, not to mention ungracious, after he’d agreed to give them the gift of his hands and his time.
How strange it felt, him sitting there on her right with the reins in his hands. She hadn’t driven next to a man other than Melvin or her Daed in ten years. The strangeness of it made her aware that she needed to keep a couple of inches of space between them. It made her body feel stiff, without its usual easiness with the bumps and turns of the road.
“Everything all right over there?” Joshua asked, glancing at her. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“I’m not much of a talker.”
“No? I’ve seen you at church at potlucks and things, chattering away with everyone from old Sarah Yoder to the Youngie.”
“Both Sarah and the Youngie tend to do all the talking,” she pointed out. “I just listen.”
“Oh, I see.” Silence fell, in which the clopping of Jimsy’s hooves seemed unnaturally loud. “What’s the horse’s name?” he asked as though he’d thought the same thing, and it had reminded him to ask.
“Jimsy.” One of the gelding’s ears swiveled back, as though inquiring as to why his name had come up.
“That’s a funny name for a horse. Don’t the people around here call their animals things like Ajax and Caesar and Hero?”
The people around here? Didn’t he consider himself one of them? “He’s a retired racehorse. His real name is Jamieson’s Victory Dance. We thought of calling him Vic, but Jimsy seemed to suit him better.”
“A racehorse, huh? Have you ever taken him out on Camas Creek Road and put him through his paces?”
“Nei. What would be the point? We don’t want him racing, we want him to take us to town and to church and to visit.”
“Poor Jamieson’s Victory Dance. I bet he wants to race, don’t you, boy?”
For a moment Carrie thought he would actually flap the reins over poor Jimsy’s back and make him do it, traffic and curves notwithstanding. “Joshua—”
“What?”
“I thought you—” She swallowed and subsided. “Never mind.”
He shook his head. “Carrie. What a low opinion you must have of me if you’d think I would race a horse that doesn’t belong to me, while I was driving a buggy that doesn’t belong to me, next to a woman who doesn’t belong to me.”
“I don’t—”
“Your husband has entrusted you to my care for a week, and believe me, I take that seriously.”
“I’m not in your care.” It bothered her to hear him say such a thing—wasn’t he just looking in now and again? She wasn’t in anyone’s care except for Melvin’s and God’s, and that’s exactly the way she wanted it.
And now she sounded like a sulky child. “But I do appreciate your helping us,” she said in a gentler tone.
To her enormous relief, he said nothing more, only slowed the horse as they approached the highway junction. “Have you and Melvin worked out a schedule for the things he wants done?” she asked. And did he mean to start today? If he did, they would stay on the highway and go home. If not, they would make another right turn, and she would drop him at his parents’ place, where he was staying.
He nodded. “I have to go to work at Hill’s today, but I can come by tomorrow afternoon if that suits.”
“That would be fine. It’s baking day, so there will be cake to eat with your coffee, if you want.”
“That’s the second best offer I’ve had all day.” He flapped the reins and made the turn toward his folks’ farm, leaving her to wonder what the best offer had been.
And then deciding she really didn’t want to know.
Chapter 3
After lunch the following day, Carrie had barely got the first of her pans of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the oven, when she heard the crunch of wheels in the lane through the open window.
“Sorry I’m late,” Joshua called as she walked onto the porch. He jumped out and tied the horse to their rail, where he began cropping the grass. The first of her flowerbeds had been strategically located just out of reins’ reach, but the grass was fair game to visiting horses.
“I thought you were going to Hill’s first.” Her tone was friendly, but really, when a man said he was coming by in the afternoon, he didn’t usually mean one o’clock. She had cake batter waiting for when the cookies were finished, and then there was all the cleanup to do before anyone could sit at the table.
“I did,” he said. “I had to wait for the vet, or I’d have been here sooner.”
“I wouldn’t have been ready sooner,” she told him. “I’m not ready now.”
“We can talk while you work. I don’t mind.”
She did, but she tamped it down and tried to be gracious. He was here to find out how he could help. She’d better be careful, or he’d get offended and go away, and then she’d have to explain to Melvin what she’d done. He deserved a nicer homecoming next week than that.
Her timer pinged. While she took the tray of cookies out and set them on the racks on the counter, he settled himself at the table. After she slid another tray of cookies in, she got down a mug and poured a cup
of coffee from the pot on the stove.
“Thanks. Those look good.”
“They’re too hot to eat yet.”
“What else are you making?” He looked as though he was about to scoop a fingerful of cake batter out of the bowl.
“A carrot cake and a lemon–poppy seed cake. I’m invited to Emma and Lena’s tomorrow night, and I told them I’d bring dessert. Lemon–poppy seed is Emma’s favorite.”
“I remember. When we were kids, she used to get in trouble for cutting a slice out of the cake before dinner, especially when she’d made it.”
That didn’t sound like Emma. “More likely a certain person egged her on until she did it.”
He grinned, an easy smile that took credit for the bad behavior as much as it enjoyed the memory. “Maybe. Once or twice.” He gazed into the distance, in the direction of the window over the sink. “I miss those days.”
“I think Emma prefers now to then.”
His attention snapped back to the table and the present. “I suppose she does. When’s the wedding?”
“November first. Her sister Katherine and I are going to be Neuwesitzern.”
“Not Amelia? I thought you three were tight.”
She frowned at the Englisch expression, which didn’t seem so complimentary to her Amish ears. “Amelia has her boys and her husband to think of, but of course she’ll still be there. Emma and Katherine are close, and she and I are close, so I think it’s very appropriate.”
“Lucky thing you’re already married. All these weddings. What do the Englisch say? Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride?”
The timer pinged again, thank goodness, and she got up. As she transferred cookies from pan to rack and dropped raw dough onto new pans, she cudgeled her brain for something else to talk about. The subject of weddings would inevitably lead to the subject of children, which she would not discuss with someone she didn’t know very well. Or with those she did, for that matter.
