“Prayer always helps me. Turning my problems over to God.”
She smiled sadly as she looked at him. “Trust me. I’m praying as hard as I know how.”
“Then believe God sees everything.”
“I wish He’d share a little bit of what He’s seen lately with me.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Mamm always says a gut attitude helps in any situation.”
“Even this one?”
“Why not give it a try? Maybe it’ll work.” And then you can return to your life, and I can do the same. He was contrite immediately, though he knew how Linda could mess up his well-organized life. He wasn’t going to let a pretty woman do that again.
Chapter Three
Amos came down the stairs the next morning. He’d gone up to change into clean clothes because he didn’t want to go to the store in what he’d worn all night. He’d stayed awake, making sure Linda did the same. It’d been tempting to close his eyes and drift to sleep, but he’d seen her fear when she asked him to help her to evade sleep.
He stifled a yawn as he walked into the kitchen, glad Leah had made the kaffi extra-strong this morning. His brothers and bleary-eyed Mandy were at the table, eating. With everyone having different schedules, they seldom ate together at breakfast. He listened as Micah and Daniel, the twins, debated some aspect of carpentry. They were working for an Englischer contractor to the east in Chester County.
Nodding to them and Jeremiah, who looked as exhausted as Amos felt, he went to the counter to pour himself a mug of kaffi. Ezra wasn’t in from barn chores, and Mamm was helping Leah prepare breakfast as conversations swirled around the kitchen.
It became silent. He turned to see Linda walking in from the guest room. She held Polly’s hand, and she faltered when every eye turned in her direction. A hint of color in her face suggested she was feeling better in spite of a sleepless night. Her hair was covered by one of Mamm’s heart-shaped kapps.
The now familiar yearning to protect her surged through him, and he was on his feet before he realized he was moving. He strode across the room, giving her what he hoped was a bolstering grin. “Sit anywhere you’d like and grab what you can before my brothers eat everything in sight.”
She smiled faintly while his brothers protested they’d left enough for her and the kind. When he put a steadying hand on her arm to make sure she didn’t trip on the rag rugs scattered around the pale blue kitchen, she didn’t pull away. He kept his steps short so she and Polly could match them.
Once Linda and the little girl were seated, Polly choosing a chair beside Mandy, he pointed to each of his brothers and told her their names. He sat across from her, and, after joining her and the kind in bowing their heads for grace, passed the steaming dishes of food. He frowned when Linda took a single spoonful of scrambled eggs and one slice of toast.
“Don’t you want more?” asked Mamm as she sat.
“As unsteady as my stomach is,” Linda said, “I’m not sure how much I can eat.”
“Making haste slowly is always a gut choice.”
Amos looked at the little girl beside Linda. Though her eyes were as heavy as Mandy’s, Polly filled her plate to overflowing. When some fried potatoes fell onto the table, she scooped them up and put them on the plate with a giggle.
He assisted her with putting blackberry jam on her toast, explaining about the person who’d brought the berries into the store to sell the previous summer. Both girls listened, wide-eyed, while he spun a tale about the man noticing how the bushes were shaking. He’d assumed someone else was picking on the other side. The man discovered he was right when he looked over the bush to see a bear gorging itself on the juicy berries.
“What did he do?” Polly asked.
“The bear kept picking and eating.”
“What about the man?” asked Mandy, just as excited.
Amos smiled. “He found another patch of blackberries to pick in.”
The girls giggled. His brothers guffawed, though they’d heard the story before, and Linda gave him another feeble smile. Wondering if her head ached this morning, he motioned for his brothers to be quiet. They looked startled, but nodded, toning down their voices and their laughter.
When Linda had eaten what she’d taken, he offered her more. He was pleased when she took another spoonful of eggs.
As she continued to eat, his stomach growled. He looked at his plate and realized he hadn’t taken more than a bite or two while he watched her and Polly. Digging his fork into the mound of fried potatoes, he took a bite before saying, “Linda, I was thinking—”
“You thinking?” asked Micah with a muted chuckle. “That’s no surprise.”
“He always thinks everything to death,” his twin added with a wink at Linda.
The comment annoyed Amos more than his brothers’ interruption. He didn’t want them flirting with her. He was the one who’d found her, and he had to make certain she was cared for until her memories returned. Startled by his reaction, because she wasn’t a lost puppy anyone could claim, he kept his eyes on his plate as he continued, “I was thinking, Linda, you should come to the store today. We can retrace the steps you took yesterday to figure out what happened to you. I’m sure Mamm and Leah will be glad to entertain Polly.”
Both women nodded before Mamm added, “Today is cookie-making day, and we could use help.”
“Let me!” Polly bounced in her seat. “Can I help?”
“If Linda says it’s okay.” His mamm smiled at Mandy. “We won’t make your favorite oatmeal raisin cookies until you get home from school.”
“Linda?” The little girl looked at her as Mandy grinned in anticipation.
“Ja. You can stay and make cookies.” She set her fork on her plate as the kind began to chatter with Mamm and Leah. To Amos, she added, “Are you sure she shouldn’t come? She’s sure to remember more than I do.”
“I’m not sure how much value anything she remembers will be. It was growing dark by the time you reached the store.”
Linda said nothing for a long minute, and he guessed she was considering his words. That was confirmed when she said, “You’re right. Polly would try to help us, but expecting her to fill in the blanks is too much of a burden for a little girl. It’ll be better for her to remain here.”
Glad it was decided and trying not to notice how much he looked forward to spending the day with Linda, Amos began to eat with the same gusto as his brothers. He’d almost cleaned his plate when Mandy stood to leave the table.
After she’d dressed for the cold weather, his niece waved to everyone and went out the door, almost lost in her coat and scarf and hat. In her mittened hands, she carried a green lunch box.
“Where’s she going?” Polly asked.
“To school,” he and Linda said at the same time. He felt his face grow warm and wondered why he was flushing over such a silly thing. People frequently spoke at the same time. It didn’t mean anything, did it?
The little girl ran to the window. “I want to go to school, too.”
“When you’re six,” Linda replied.
“And I need you here to help me with cookies and helping me make up the extra beds in the dawdi haus,” his mamm said.
“The dawdi haus?” Amos asked, astonished. “Are we having company for Christmas?”
“We already have company.” She glanced at Linda. “Leah has enough to do taking care of you boys as well as her husband and Mandy. I thought it’d be nice for Linda and Polly to stay with me.” Mamm smiled as Polly waved to Mandy, who was trudging along the farm lane in the snow. “From the looks of them, I doubt either girl slept much during the night.”
“I heard them giggling several times,” Leah said as she brought the kaffi pot over to refill everyone’s cups, including her own. “Separating them is a gut idea.”
Her message was clear: take care. He’d told himself that over and over, aware of how little he knew about Linda. But he couldn’t deny he was aware of the way her eyes crinkled when her lips tilted, of how her expression softened while she spoke with Polly, of how her lashes curled when she closed her eyes.
When Linda returned with her coat buttoned, Polly ran to her and grabbed her hand. “Come back. Please!” the little girl cried. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Did I leave you before?” Her eyes were bleak with dismay.
“Ja. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t,” she whispered. Squaring her shoulders, she said a bit more loudly, “Tell me about it.”
“You told me to sit at the bus station while you asked someone something.” The kind shuddered hard. “You went away for a long time. You came back. You didn’t say a word till we got off the bus.”
“Nothing?”
“No. You touched your head.” The little girl’s eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip quivered. “Poor you. You’ve got a bad boo-boo.”
“I’m feeling much better, liebling. You don’t need to worry about me leaving you. I won’t. Not ever.” She glanced over the little girl’s head toward him.
He was astonished when he realized Linda wanted him to believe her. He bit back his instinctive reply that he couldn’t imagine her abandoning the kind unless she had an important reason. But he didn’t know her. And he didn’t know what had happened to them.
Quietly he said, “There’s a Philadelphia bus that passes through Paradise Springs during the late afternoon.”
“How do you know that?” Hope brightened Linda’s face. The hope she might rediscover what she’d lost.
“I sell bus tickets, and I keep the schedule posted at the store. The new one arrived last week. I noticed one bus route changed quite a bit, but the bus still stops in Paradise Springs.”
She reached for the door. “Let’s go. I want to see where else the bus might have stopped. Maybe something will jog my memory.”
“I pray so.” He wondered if he’d ever meant words more.
* * *
“This is a comfortable buggy,” Linda said to make conversation as Amos drove toward his store. A plow must have come through during the night because snow was in foot-high banks on either side of the road.
“My oldest brother, Joshua, built it,” he replied, holding the reins easily. “He’s built or rebuilt almost every vehicle around Paradise Springs.” He paused, then went on as if he didn’t want the silence to return, “Pretty morning, ain’t so?”
“Ja.” She gazed across the sparkling countryside. The snow clinging to the tree branches plopped on the ground, making dark crevices in the brilliant white. She swallowed another yawn.
Her fingers tightened in her lap when she saw the sign for the Stoltzfus Family Shops in the distance. Amos drove to the far end of the empty parking lot. She eased the grip when her knuckles hurt, but she couldn’t help being impatient. Was it possible? Could her past be jogged from her mind by looking at a bus schedule? It was a long shot because she wasn’t sure where their journey had begun. She’d asked Polly to describe the bus station, but what the little girl could tell them didn’t help Amos or his family guess which one it was.
Her gaze flicked toward the man sitting beside her. She hadn’t known him a full day, but he seemed to be a trustworthy man from a gut family. Could she be sure of her impressions of anyone? Her mind was scrambled, and she was unsure where to turn.
Help me, God, to find the answers.
Amos stopped the buggy at the back of the building. Beyond the open space behind it was what looked like a smithy. He got out and started around the buggy. She didn’t wait, stepping down on her own. She stumbled, almost falling to her knees, but a tight grip on the door’s frame kept her on her feet.
Amos’s jaw worked, but he said only, “Let me unlock the door.” He walked to the small back porch. He left a trail of prints in his wake.
She looked at her feet. About six inches of snow had fallen during the night, and her sneakers were growing damp. She stepped onto the covered concrete porch. Shaking one foot, then the other, she watched packed snow fall off her soles. She needed boots if she planned to go anywhere, but how was she going to buy them? Other than the single penny she’d found in her dress pocket, she had no money.
Amos inserted a key and opened the door. He went in, and she heard him snap on the electric lights. A dull rumble of a propane furnace came to life as he toggled another switch.
“Where’s the bus schedule?” she asked, unable to wait a minute more.
“This way.” He walked past the first aisle to where a cash register was set on a counter. Beside it a pole held a bulletin board. In one corner, he’d tacked the bus schedule. She ran a finger along one column, then another.
“The bus that stops in Paradise Springs is this one,” he said, reaching past her to touch the sixth column from the left.
She recoiled from his outstretched arm, cowering like an abused dog. She saw his shock. She was stunned, too. Why was she cringing away from a man who’d been nothing but kind to her and Polly? Did her senses remember something appalling that her mind had forgotten?
“The bus to Philadelphia,” Amos said, his voice strained, “has stops to the west in Lancaster, York, Gettysburg and Chambersburg.” He listed off more towns. “Any sound familiar?”
“I recognize most of those towns, but I don’t remember visiting them. How far away from here does the bus stop?”
“Down by Route 30.” He hesitated, then asked, “Why don’t we walk toward the bridge and see if you remember anything?”
“Don’t you need to open the store?”
“Nobody’s here, so we have time to go to the bridge and back.”
“I’d like to, but...” She glanced at her sneakers, then put her fingers to her head. Any motion, and she wasn’t sure which one or when, could send a lightning flash of pain across her skull.
She didn’t realize she was wobbling until Amos put his hand under her arm and urged her to stand still until she was steady. A moan rose from inside her. Not from the pain, but at how he was being nice when she’d acted, moments ago, as if she feared he was going to hurt her.
The darkness nibbling at the edge of her vision faded, and she raised her head and whispered, “Danki.”
“Would you like to sit?”
Linda wanted to say ja, but even more she longed to remember her past. “Let’s go to the bridge.”
“Come with me.” He motioned for her to follow him along the aisle.
Not sure why he’d turned away from the front door, she trailed after him.
He paused in front of a large wooden crate and pulled out a pair of black rubber boots. “These look to be your size.”
She didn’t take them. “I appreciate your offer, but I don’t have—”
“Stop right there.” His mouth grew taut. “I know you don’t have any money. I’m not asking for any. Not now or later.”
“But those boots must have cost you something.”
“Look.” He pointed to the box.
She saw it was filled with boots and mittens and hats and umbrellas and a few coats.
“Folks around here,” he said, “leave clothes they can’t use any longer in this box in case someone gets caught in a storm. You might as well use these boots for as long as you’re here.”
“I hope it won’t be long until I can remember who
I am and where we were going.”
“I know. Sit down while you’re putting them on, or you may tumble on your cute nose.” He gestured toward a nearby bench as she felt heat climbing her cheeks at his unexpected compliment. “I put this here for my older customers to use if they needed a rest during their shopping. On warm fall days, after the harvest was in, it’s a gathering place for farmers to discuss the prices they hoped to get for their crops and for boys to pick apart every detail of the World Series.”
Sitting, she drew off her sneakers and reached for the boots. The world tilted, and she gripped the bench.
“Steady there,” Amos said as he knelt and helped her slide her feet into the boots. He laced them closed, then looked at her. “Maybe this is too much today, Linda. We can do this another day.”
“I don’t want whoever’s missing Polly and me to wait an extra day to learn where we are.”
She saw his doubt that they’d discover anything today while her head was still unstable. She couldn’t allow herself to believe her memories wouldn’t return. She had to hold on to hope.
Standing, he put his hand under her arm and brought her to her feet. She steeled her knees so they wouldn’t betray her. Without a word, he led her to the front door.
“Wait here while I lock the back door.” He was gone before she could reply.
She looked out the door. Clouds were building to the west and the sunshine growing thin. Another storm? It was early in the year for such heavy snow.
Amos edged around her and opened the front door. She appreciated his taking care not to move his arm close to her. What had happened to her? She resisted touching the painful spot behind her ear. Had someone snuck up behind her and struck her? But why hadn’t anyone seen that? Perhaps it had happened while she was alone, but why had she left Polly on her own in the first place? Nothing made sense.
She was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
Chapter Four
Linda stood by the concrete abutment at the far end of the bridge. Looking along the road curving toward the village of Paradise Springs, she paid no attention to the snowflakes drifting around her. The wind cut through her black wool coat, but it was not as icy as the fear inside her.
Amish Christmas Blessings: The Midwife's Christmas Surprise/A Christmas to Remember Page 11
