by Kelly Long
Sarah scooted into the chair opposite her and braced her elbow on the table in front of her, chin in one hand. A most thoughtful pose. “Did Jess bring you home?”
“I knew it. You planned this, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Sarah’s sly smile belied her innocent words.
“Well, I’m certainly grateful that Jess was willing to bring me home. Otherwise, I might still be standing in the parking lot trying to figure out how to get here, since my darling cousin left me to fend for myself.” She crossed her arms and glared at Sarah.
“And he’s looking for a wife.”
Bernice shook her head, though the thought of being Jess Schmucker’s wife sent a tingle through her. So he was a bit grumpy and a little unkempt, he had a good heart. She just knew it. He had been through so much. And he had the most adorable girls that she had ever seen. “I’m not getting married,” she said, reminding herself of the fact. She needed to keep her head about her and remember that when the night turned magical.
“What are you going to do if I get married again?” Sarah asked.
A fist gripped her heart. “Are you thinking about it?”
“Well, no, and if I was, I wouldn’t tell you. But if I did, what would you do?”
Bernice shook her head, somehow sorting through her cousin’s confusing words. “If you were to get married again, then I guess I would just live here.”
“In the dawdi haus.”
She nodded.
“All by yourself.”
The thought of coming home every night to an empty house made her stomach pitch. If Sarah were to get remarried, then she would move out and Bernice would be out of an excuse to remain in Paradise.
“Maybe go back home.” But she didn’t like that idea any better. She shook her head. “Why are we talking about this?”
“I just think you should give it some thought.”
“You are thinking about getting remarried! Who is it?”
Sarah smiled, but picked at the corner of the napkin on the table next to her coffee cup.
“Does Onkle know?”
“No, and you’re not going to tell him.”
“What’s to tell?” Bernice asked. “You haven’t said anything.”
“You just make sure you keep it that way.”
CHAPTER 8
“Dat?” Constance tried her best to make her voice sound like she wasn’t nervous, but she was. Her sisters were depending on this. On her.
“Jah?” He forked up another bite of his dinner, completely unaware of the turmoil raging in her belly. At least he acted like he didn’t know.
How could he?
“I—” The words just wouldn’t come. “I—”
Her father turned his attention to her, then reached for the bread plate.
She tried again. “I . . .”
“Spit it out, child.”
“I was standing in the line at the post office yesterday, just like you told me to do, and I heard some people talking. I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t help it, and they said that you said that you were going to find us a new mamm, and well, we want to know if that’s true.” The words came out on one long rush of air, without pause or separation.
Her father stopped chewing, stopped buttering the piece of bread, and looked at each one of them in turn. Her, then Hope, Lilly Ruth, then back to her again.
“You heard this?” He returned to his meal like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Constance breathed a sigh of relief. If he was acting like it was no big deal, then surely he wouldn’t punish her for listening in on others’ conversations.
“Jah,” she whispered.
“And if I tell you that it is true, what then?”
We want our teacher for a mother. That was what they had all agreed she would tell him, but the words were stuck in her throat. “I don’t know,” she mumbled with a shrug.
Thankfully he didn’t fuss at her for not speaking up, but his next words were no more reassuring.
“I think it’s time.”
“Ow.” Constance rubbed her leg and glared at Hope.
Her sister pressed her lips together and gave a sideways nod toward their father.
“Quit kicking me,” Constance said where only Hope could hear.
“Constance.” Lilly Ruth’s tone was much like Hope’s, but this was harder than Constance could have ever imagined.
Their dat was finally back to acting like normal. Was it worth the risk to upset him by suggesting that he marry Bernice Yoder? There had to be some other way.
“Just shush,” she told them both in that same mumbly tone.
“Girls.” Her father’s voice was low and rumbled like warning thunder. She knew that tone, and it was time to let it drop.
They finished their meal in silence, but Constance could feel her sister’s stares as she pushed her food around. She just didn’t feel like eating any more tonight.
Not since she had messed up the plan. Now how was she going to get her dat to notice their teacher? At this rate they would never get a new mamm for Christmas.
Sunday dawned, clear and bright, though the air held a strong reminder that Christmas was just a week away.
Jess bundled up his girls, loaded them into the buggy, and headed for his parents’ house. It was their turn to host the service. He especially enjoyed when the services were held there. It was familiar, comfortable, and somehow soothing. He loved the old barn. Always had. Seemed like he’d spent more time in there as a child than he ever had in the house. He smiled a bit at the thought.
“Chris Lapp says we’re going to have a white Christmas,” Hope chatted as they rolled up the narrow lane that led to the house.
“Chris Lapp likes you,” Constance teased.
“He does not. You take that back!”
“What’s a white Christmas?” Lilly Ruth asked.
“I’m not going to take it back because it’s the truth.”
“Constance.” Jess said no more than her name as he pulled to a stop in line with the rest of the buggies.
“Sorry, Hope.”
“Huh,” she replied.
He didn’t look but he had a feeling that the sound was accompanied by her sticking out her tongue. “Hope.”
“Forgiven,” she said. Her tone carried a bit of a lingering huff, but he let it rest.
He really needed to talk to Carrie. The girls needed a mamm, a firm hand, a parent who wasn’t so exhausted that the constant reprimanding of their antics wasn’t enough to send them into fits. And that was almost where he was. He loved his girls, but they were acting out, proving to him more and more that his decision to get remarried was a sound one. They needed a mother. And even more, they needed a father who only had to worry about being a father to them.
“What’s a white Christmas?” Lilly Ruth asked again.
Jess parked the buggy, then swung his youngest to the ground. “It’s when it snows on Christmas Day and the ground is covered in white.”
He watched the dreamy light dawn on her face, then he smiled a little to himself and helped Constance and Hope down to stand beside their sister.
“A white Christmas,” Lilly Ruth murmured in awe. “I’m going to start praying for that right now.”
Why, oh why, oh why did she have to sit behind Jess Schmucker during the preaching? Bernice stifled a sigh and tried to turn her attention back front. Or maybe the question was, why did she have to sit across from and three rows behind Jess and three rows behind Carrie Byler on the women’s side?
Now she could see every time Carrie glanced toward Jess and every time Jess looked over at Carrie. Thankfully Bernice didn’t have to witness any lengthy, loving stares. That would have been plain embarrassing. But there was definitely something going on there.
Sarah tapped her on the arm and nodded her head toward Jess. He looked sort of lonely sitting there all by himself. She supposed he wasn’t completely by himself. His brothers sat on eith
er side on him, his father, too, among the mix of Schmucker men. Jess’s girls were sitting with their aunt and grossmammi two rows in front of Bernice and Sarah. They were old enough to know that their friends were sitting with their mamms and theirs had gone on to be with God.
Just then Jess turned his head to the left and glanced at the women’s side. He might as well have had one of those fancy English flashing signs above him that said I WANT TO COURT CARRIE BYLER.
And any hope Bernice had of courting Jess shriveled up to nothing. She had prayed about it and asked God to give her a sign. So it wasn’t fancy or English or flashing, but it was easy enough to read. Sometime in the near future Jess and Carrie would publish their intentions, and that would be that.
After the final prayer, the women got busy setting up the benches as tables and laying out food for everyone to eat. Thankfully, they could fit in the barn and in the house to keep out of the cold.
The women served the men, then got their own plates and found their places to eat.
Bernice was settling down with Sarah when Reba came bustling up.
“Bernice, can you do me a big favor?” The poor woman looked a bit harried and flushed.
“Of course.” Bernice put her plate aside and stood, brushing the hay from her dress. “What do you need?”
Reba gave her a grateful smile, then handed her a plate with a single piece of cherry pie resting in the center. “Take this to Jess for me.”
Bernice looked to the pie, then up to Reba’s face. Was she serious? She looked serious enough. She reached out to take the pie plate. Reba let her. Maybe she was serious. It was too late to back out now.
“Go on,” Sarah urged her from behind, sealing the suspicion that she had been set up into hard fact.
If she backed out now, these two would never leave her alone about it. No, it was best to meet this head-on, take the pie to Jess, wait on him to stare at her like she was off in the head, then come back and finish her meal.
She took the plate and headed off to where the men were sitting. It didn’t take long to find Jess. He and his five brothers were a fine sight and hard to miss. All of them had hair the color of sunshine, red-gold and shiny. They were all big strong men, and Bernice supposed that their mother had to say a prayer every night to ask God’s forgiveness over her pride in her family.
“Jess.”
He looked up from his plate when she approached. In fact six sets of nearly identical blue eyes turned to survey her.
“I, uh . . . Reba said I should give this to you.” She kept her gaze glued to him, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t see a couple of the brothers nudging each other. Were they all in on this? And why? Was this some sort of joke to them?
Jess took the plate she offered. “Danki,” he said as if it wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. Or maybe his sister sent him a piece of pie via an unsuspecting woman after every church service.
“You’re welcome.” She turned to leave, all too aware of his gaze on her.
She had almost made it back to where she and Sarah had been sitting, when Constance approached, carefully carting a steaming cup of coffee.
“Bernice,” she said, though she didn’t take her eyes off the coffee. She was trying so very hard not to spill it. “Will you take this to my dat for me?”
Inwardly Bernice sighed, but not at all where the young girl could hear her. She was too young and sweet and innocent to be pulling the same prank as her cousin and his sister. The maedel was just trying to take her father something to drink.
“Jah, of course. Would you like to come with me?”
Constance flashed her that engaging smile that Bernice had fallen in love with the first time she had seen it. “Oh no, Mammi is waiting.” She turned on her heel and skipped away, leaving Bernice holding the cup of coffee and staring after her.
“Here she comes again,” Ben said.
Jess didn’t need to look up to know that his oldest brother was talking about Bernice Yoder. And why he knew was not something he was willing to think too much about.
“I think she likes you,” Abner said. As the youngest, he was easily the most swayed by the thoughts of those around him, a dangerous habit as his rumspringa neared.
But Jess’s heart gave a skipping pound as he thought of Bernice. Maybe he should get an appointment with a doctor. He’d never had a problem with his heart before, but these days it seemed to be constantly skipping beats, jumping in his chest, and sometimes it seemed to stop altogether.
She cleared her throat as she approached. As if he needed any reminder that she was near. “Constance asked me to bring this to you. Since it was so full and I didn’t want her to burn herself, I naturally agreed.” She held out the cup toward him.
“Naturally,” he replied, taking the cup from her. It was a reasonable excuse. The cup was full and the coffee hot. Maybe Bernice wasn’t coming over to him by any design of her own.
He had asked Reba to save him a piece of cherry pie. He’d seen Bess Ebersol bring them in, and everyone knew she made the best cherry pies in three counties.
Bernice gave him a quick nod, her prayer kapp strings dancing around her slim shoulders. Then she turned and made her way back through the milling churchgoers.
He watched her go without a backward glance. Jah, that was all it was. Nothing more than her being the friendly, kind person that she was.
After all, what would a beautiful young woman like Bernice Yoder want with an old widower such as himself?
“Did it work?” Hope poked Constance in the ribs.
“Ouch! Quit.”
“Well, tell me what’s going on.”
“Jah,” Lilly Ruth said, planting what felt like a foot in the small of Constance’s back.
“Quit pushing! I’m doing the best I can.” In fact, it had taken all of her running skills to make it back to their hiding place before Bernice managed to get the cup of coffee over to their dat. But she had managed.
“Are they in love yet?”
“I told you, dummy. That’s not how love works.” Hope snorted.
“How do you know?” Lilly Ruth countered. “You’re only seven. And quit calling me a dummy. Mamm would wash your mouth out with soap if she could hear you.”
“Well, she can’t.” Hope sounded close to tears, but then again so did Lilly Ruth.
“Both of you hush up.” Tears rose into her own eyes. “How can we get ourselves a mamm if we’re fighting?”
“I’m sorry,” Lilly Ruth cried.
“Me, too.” Hope bumped her as her sisters hugged through their problems and tears.
“What’s happening now?” Hope asked.
Constance shook her head. “She gave him the coffee and left.”
“That’s all?” Her sisters’ disappointment was apparent.
“Jah.” But neither of them were more saddened than her.
“How are we supposed to make them fall in love?” Hope bemoaned.
Constance thought about it a moment, but the answer didn’t come. They were just little girls. “We can pray about it,” she suggested.
“Do you think God knows about love?” Lily Ruth asked.
“Of course He does,” Hope started in, her earlier apology quickly forgotten. “God knows about everything.”
“More than you, anyway.” Lilly Ruth was right; Hope didn’t know about love. She was only seven, but at almost nine, Constance didn’t know much more.
But she knew one place where she might be able to find out. “Do you remember those books Mamm used to read?”
Lilly Ruth shook her head.
“Jah,” Hope said.
“They were about love, right?”
Her sister nodded.
“All we have to do is get one of those books. That’ll tell us how to make him fall in love with Bernice.” It was the perfect idea. Or at least the best idea she’d had so far.
“Here’s the plan,” Constance said, giving each of her sisters her best mamm-in
-charge look. “When we get home, I’ve got to help Dat with the milking. You two get in the house as soon as you can. Get up to Dat’s room and look in the old trunk at the end of their bed. I think the books are in there.”
“Then what?” Hope asked.
“You take one.”
Lilly Ruth gasped, but it was Hope who protested. “Won’t Dat get angry?”
“Not if he doesn’t know.”
“I don’t know . . .” Hope hedged.
“Do you want a mamm or not?”
“I want a mamm,” Lilly Ruth said.
Hope nodded.
“Then get in there and get one of those books.”
CHAPTER 9
“Can I have a word please?” Jess shifted and shook in his boots as he waited for Carrie Byler to acknowledge his request.
She turned and leveled clear blue eyes on him. They weren’t hostile or unkind. So why was he so nervous? He wasn’t this jittery when he talked to Bernice Yoder. Maybe he needed a rest.
“Jah?” Carrie prompted. She dressed in her usual black. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him. It just did. She patted her hair in place and smoothed her hands down her apron as she waited for him to continue.
Jess cleared his throat. “I wanted to invite you to supper tomorrow night.”
A knowing light dawned in her eyes. “That would be gut, jah.” She smiled and the tension left his shoulders. His nervousness remained, but at least he wasn’t wound up like a wooden top.
“Should I bring something?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Of course not. You just come and be my guest.”
“Six o’clock?” she asked.
He nodded in return. “Six o’clock.”
She moved away to stand by her cousin and her friends.
Jess paused for a moment, then spun on his heel and went in search of his sister.
He found her with their mamm, and thankfully for once, she wasn’t glued to Bernice Yoder’s side. “Reba, I need your help.”
