Poppy had made one stitch in the blanket. She wasn’t much of a quilter. “That’s outrageous,” she said, stabbing her needle into the fabric and giving Mary a wide smile. “I like it. It sounds like a girl who could show the boys what is what.”
Serena nodded. “I like it too. There are only so many normal Amish names to go around. No one would ever have to wonder which ElJay they were talking about.”
Hannah giggled, until she remembered that she held a sleeping baby. She inhaled mid-giggle and closed her lips. “I think it’s the perfect name. She sounds like a rapper.”
Lily looked up from her yarn. “A rapper? What is a rapper?”
Bitsy smirked. “Someone who wears his pants around his knees and can’t carry a tune.”
Hannah giggled, more quietly this time. “My bruder James is in rumschpringe. He has about a thousand songs on his smartphone. Rap is a kind of music.”
“It depends on how you define music,” Bitsy said.
“I think LJ is the name of a rapper.” Hannah furrowed her brow. “Or maybe it’s Cool LJ or something like that. I don’t listen real often because Mamm won’t let him play it in the house. She says it kills her plants.”
Mary loved how cheerful Hannah always was, as if life was the greatest thing that could happen to anyone. “ElJay it is then. I think she’ll like it.”
“And if she doesn’t, she can always change it,” Bitsy said. “I nearly changed my name to Hyacinth, but nobody could pronounce it.”
Serena had managed to sew her finger onto the quilt. “Oh, dear. I am not very gute at this.” She took the scissors and snipped what little sewing she’d done. She glanced up at Mary. “Will you stay here with Bitsy, Mary? Or do you think you’ll move on?”
Mary could sense the deep curiosity behind the question, but no malice or judgment. “I hate to be a burden on anyone, but I’m going to have to stay for awhile.” She felt her face get warm. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”
Bitsy blew a puff of air from her lips. “Farrah Fawcett is more of a burden than you are. You know you are welcome as long as you want to stay.”
Serena eyed everyone sitting at the quilt and a blush painted her cheeks crimson. “I’m new here, so you can tell me if I’m being rude. I don’t like gossip and would rather get the real story from the real person. I just wonder about you, Mary.”
That got everyone’s attention. Mary gave Serena an encouraging smile. “I’d rather that people talk to me than about me.”
Serena nodded and cleared her throat. “Ada says you jumped the fence and your parents wouldn’t let you back into the house. I just . . . I wanted to know, but you don’t have to tell me if I’m prying. I don’t want to be known as the nosy neighbor.”
Hannah giggled. “My mamm already has that title. No need to worry.”
Mary didn’t let the question hang in the air. She truly wanted people to understand. She wanted friends, not just acquaintances, and she would never make true friends without being honest. “It’s true. I jumped the fence two years ago and lived with an Englisch boy. I came back, but my mamm and dat didn’t want me back in the house. I hurt them very badly.”
Serena pushed away from the quilt and sat next to Mary on the sofa. “Ach, Mary, I’m so sorry. That must have been very hard for you.”
“It was. But I don’t blame my parents. They did what they thought was best.”
Serena patted her hand. “We all try our best, but few of us know exactly what really is best. I suppose that’s why we have to forgive each other.”
“Jah,” Mary said, pleasantly surprised that there was someone else who thought the way she did.
“It’s the same in my marriage.” Serena looked at Frieda’s mamm, maybe because she’d been married the longest. “I was upside-down in love with Stephen, but now I find I have to forgive him all the time.” She squinted as if thinking very hard. “Maybe I’m doing something wrong.”
“You’re doing it just right,” Edna said. “Marriage is tolerance and forgiveness and hard work.”
Hannah frowned. “Is it possible to be happy too?”
“That’s what happiness is,” Edna said. “You fight and you forgive and you work to make it better. Nothing worth having is easy.”
Serena smiled with her whole face. “Ach, I’m glad to know it isn’t just me. I love Stephen something wonderful, but for sure and certain he makes me hopping mad sometimes.”
Everyone laughed.
Bitsy pointed at Hannah with her needle. “I hear you may have a husband soon.”
Hannah nearly choked on her own spit. “Me? I don’t particularly have my eye on anybody.”
“But I hear there’s about five boys who have their eye on you.”
Hannah giggled as if that was the funniest thing she’d heard all day. “There are boys around the donut stand all the time, but it’s because they like my donuts, not me.”
“What about you, Mary?” Serena said. “I saw you at the haystack supper with Andrew Petersheim. Do you like him?”
Mary suddenly felt a hundred pounds heavier. What did it matter how she felt about Andrew? “He . . . I don’t think he’s interested.”
Serena obviously thought it was a topic that made Mary happy. She pumped her eyebrows up and down. “He looked very interested at the haystack supper.”
Mary reminded herself that she would rather have people talk to her than about her. She sighed and drew in a breath. “Andrew was here when Wallace and Erla Zimmerman came over.” No one was looking at their quilting now. “Andrew thinks it’s my fault Jerry jumped the fence. He said I betrayed the community.”
Serena formed her lips into a silent O.
“That boy is never allowed in this house again,” Bitsy said, winding a ball of yarn.
“Wallace is wonderful mad,” Lily said. “He thinks the gmayna should shun you, even though you haven’t been baptized.”
“But how can Andrew blame you?” Hannah said. “Jerry has been thinking about leaving for years. We could all see it.”
Mary didn’t have an answer to that, except that Andrew hadn’t really been her friend from the beginning. He was eager to side with the Zimmermans because he’d always seen Mary as a hopeless sinner, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to sin again when she got the chance. Oh, he’d been nice to her, but he hadn’t really liked her or believed her sincerity. He certainly hadn’t trusted her.
Serena lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. After I saw you together at the haystack supper, I assumed . . . but I heard he went with you to the hospital.”
“Only because he and his little bruderen were the only ones here when I went into labor. Andrew isn’t so heartless as to leave me like that, even though I told him to go away.”
Rose worried the yarn in her fingers. “You told him to go away?”
“Jah. He was mad at me. I didn’t want his sharp looks to add to the pain. As soon as I got to the hospital, I told him to leave. He was glad for it.”
Bitsy grunted. “I had to push him out of the waiting room and threaten him with a visit from the toilet paper fairy before he’d leave. You wouldn’t have wanted him to watch you deliver that baby anyway.”
“Well,” Poppy said. “I think it’s despicable.”
“That boy can’t see past the end of his nose.” Bitsy cut her yarn. “I’ve always thought so.”
Mary was immediately sorry. She had painted too harsh a picture of Andrew. As Serena said, everyone did their best. Andrew had grown up Amish. His loyalty and heart were in the community. Of course he would side with them before he sided with an outsider. He had hurt her deeply, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a gute heart. He just didn’t have a heart for her. She was hurt, but she shouldn’t be so vindictive. Andrew would be a neighbor to these women long after Mary was gone. “It-it was very kind of Andrew to get me to the hospital,” Mary stuttered. She should be grateful, even though every minute in the car was torture. “We just don’t see eye to eye.”
A very loud, very urgent knock came at the door. Poppy abandoned her needle to answer it. She wasn’t all that dedicated to the baby quilt, even though she tried very hard.
“Is Bitsy here?”
Mary craned her neck to look out the door. Benji Petersheim stood on the porch with no hat, dirt streaked down his cheek, and his hair sticking up in three different places. He looked as if he’d been in a wrestling match. Or a tree climbing contest. “What is it?” Mary called from her sofa.
Benji looked inside, grinned, and waved at Mary as if that was the reason he’d come.
Poppy smoothed Benji’s unruly hair. Two of the three tufts sprang right back up again. “You want to see Bitsy?”
Bitsy sighed and handed her needle to Mary Yutzy. “Can you finish this row for me? Then we can roll.” She lumbered to the door as if she had arthritis in her hips, though Mary knew for a fact that Bitsy was healthier than most of the people in the community. “This had better be important, Benji Petersheim, because I’ve got eight women in here with sharp objects in their hands, and some of us are running thin on patience.”
Staring up at Bitsy and scratching his nose, Benji shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, you see, Bitsy . . .”
“Yes?”
“There’s something I need to show you.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t explain,” Benji said, speaking slowly as if he was making it all up as he went along. “You need to come see.”
Bitsy’s sigh was so long and loud, she might have been a car with a stuck horn. “Where are we going?”
Benji scrunched his nose. “You know your beehives?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Jah, I know my beehives.”
“Then come see.”
Clearly out of patience but with a bucketful of affection for Benji, Bitsy snatched her bonnet from the hook. “This is so I don’t scare the bees with my orange hair.” She finished tying her bonnet and paused to look at Benji. “Will I need my shotgun?”
Benji was ecstatic at the possibility of a shotgun. “You should bring it.”
Bitsy glanced back at Mary with a wry twist of her lips, picked up her shotgun, and took Benji’s hand. “If I’m not back in an hour, call the police,” she said and closed the door behind her.
The women around the quilt laughed. Mary wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, but Benji looked too much like his bruder for Mary’s peace of mind.
Another knock at the door came not three minutes later. Poppy, who had given up on the quilt, answered again.
“Poppy. Ach. I didn’t expect to see you.”
Mary’s heart leapt into her throat, along with her stomach and half her small intestines. Ach, she should have known. Whenever Benji showed up, Andrew was never far behind.
“Who did you expect?” Poppy said, not even trying to mask the hostility in her voice. Whenever Poppy saw injustice, she had something to say about it.
“I . . . need to talk to Mary.”
Ach, du lieva. Her large intestines came up to join the small ones.
Everyone at the quilt fell silent, turned their eyes toward the door, and froze like icicles in January.
Poppy half closed the door. “Maybe you should come back later. We’re having a quilting frolic.”
“I don’t think I can manage it,” Andrew said.
What did that mean? Had he broken his legs or something?
“Please, Poppy. Can I talk to her?”
“Okay. If you’re going to make a pest of yourself.” Mary could almost hear the glee in Poppy’s tone. Andrew was going to get his comeuppance, and Poppy was looking forward to seeing it.
Mary couldn’t muster any satisfaction. Why had Andrew come? Was he trying to torture her?
Poppy opened the door all the way and motioned for Andrew to come in. He stepped into the kitchen and stopped cold when he saw eight pairs of eyes staring at him. His face turned bright red, as if it had suddenly caught fire. He glanced back at Poppy. “I thought you were exaggerating to get me to go away.”
“It’s your own fault you didn’t believe me.”
Instead of turning about and marching out the door like she expected, Andrew stood perfectly still, staring at Mary as if she was the only person in the room. It was terribly awkward and aggravatingly unnerving. What did he want from her?
“Well, look at the time,” Serena said, her gaze stapled to Mary as if Mary were a clock. Serena jumped from her seat and grabbed her bag from behind the sofa. “Stephen will wonder what became of me.”
Lily met eyes with Rose. “We’d better go. The baby will want to eat, and Dan has to milk before too long.” They both looked at their sister.
Poppy seemed to expel all the air from her lungs. “Okay. I’m going too.” She poked her finger into Andrew’s chest. “Be nice, or I’ll hear about it.”
Andrew frowned but didn’t say anything.
Hannah handed ElJay back to Mary, and she and her sister were gone before Mary could even form a thank-you on her lips. Mary almost wished she had a stopwatch. Her friends had cleared the room in less than two minutes. It was quite a thing to behold. Unfortunately that left her alone with the one person she’d rather not see again. She needed a conversation with Andrew like she needed a bladder infection.
Andrew wasn’t comfortable or happy. That was easy to see by the way he held himself, like a man being fitted for trousers with pins sticking out in every direction. His dark eyes were cold and deep like a winter’s sky, and she had to turn away. Everything hurt too much.
“May I . . . see the buplie?”
Mary tightened her arms around ElJay in an effort to protect her own heart. She didn’t want to let Andrew hold her baby, but she’d be cruel not to let him look. No one, not even Andrew, should be denied the joy of seeing such a beautiful baby. “If you wish,” she said. Who knew what Andrew really wanted?
It was a pleasant surprise when he went to the sink and washed his hands. He didn’t know she wasn’t going to let him hold ElJay, but he was still trying to be sanitary. He sat next to Mary on the sofa, too close, and sort of held out his arms as if expecting Mary to hand the baby to him, which she didn’t. He pretended she hadn’t just slighted him and nudged his pinky into ElJay’s hand. She curled her fingers around his but didn’t even stir. Mary now truly understood the expression “sleeping like a baby.”
“She’s beautiful, Mary,” he said.
“Denki.” Mary gazed at ElJay. She was the perfect excuse not to have to meet Andrew’s eye.
“My mamm said the delivery went well.”
“Well enough.” She wasn’t inclined to have a conversation with Andrew. Let him have a look at the baby and go away.
“You were wonderful brave.”
“Denki,” she said coldly, “for all your help.” If she had been feeling sweet and charitable, she would have told him she couldn’t have done it without him, but they both knew she would have gotten along just fine—probably better. If Andrew hadn’t been there, Mary and Patti would have had a perfectly lovely conversation on the way to the hospital, and for sure and certain Mary wouldn’t have fallen to pieces in the delivery room.
“Mary?” he said. “Mary, please will you look at me?”
She did her best to pretend that she hadn’t heard the pleading desperation in his voice. Glancing up at him, she gave him a polite smile that she would have given one of her customers at the bakery when she worked there.
He pressed his lips together. “You have every reason to be mad and hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“I was terrible to you, and I’m sorry.”
Mary wasn’t about to let him wheedle his way into her heart again, no matter how sincere he seemed or how gute he smelled. “We all make mistakes.”
“I didn’t mean any of those things I said. I just . . . I was taken by surprise. I felt so sorry for the Zimmermans.”
“I’m glad you didn’t feel sorry for me. I hate pity.”
“As your friend, I should have defended you,” he said.
“I forgive you.”
He studied her face and frowned in frustration. “You do not, and going easy on me only makes it easier for you to shut me out.”
Mary felt something crack inside her. Maybe it was her endurance. Maybe it was the last piece of her heart. “Well, let’s make sure we never make it easy for me,” she snapped. “It’s got to be hard for me because I deserve it.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“Don’t raise your voice. My buplie is sleeping.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not raising my voice.” His volume sank to a near whisper. “Mary, I’m asking your real forgiveness, not just the words you think I want to hear. I am so ashamed of how I acted. Please, tell me you forgive me.”
She found the low softness of his voice unnerving, but she wasn’t going to be moved by it. “You have nothing to be sorry about. At first I was upset, but you reacted exactly the way any normal Amish man would react. It was unfair and unwise of me to think you would behave like anyone but the person you were brought up to be. I know better than to expect any mercy or understanding from your kind.”
He stared at her in disbelief, not a trace of anger on his face. “My kind? Mary, you’re one of my kind.”
She sighed in longing and surrender. “I used to be, Andrew. As soon as ElJay is old enough for daycare, I’m leaving the community. There is nothing left for me here.”
His eyes grew wide as if she had slapped him. “But . . . Mary . . . you’re making friends. Look at all the women who were here today.”
“They’re very sweet, but you and Wallace made it very clear. I am not part of this community, and I never will be. It was foolish of me to believe it could happen.”
Pain burned in his eyes. “I already told you. I didn’t mean a word of what I said. Please give me another chance.”
Andrew Page 25
