Jonah and Annie watched from the front window as the Jeep pulled away.
“How will you ever manage?” Annie asked.
“I’ve been farming all my life. The work will get done. But I might need your help lifting a few bales into the hayloft.”
“Don’t tease me. There’s a lot I can do to help you. I can milk the cows, and tend the sheep and horses.”
“I know that.” He had worked side by side with her these past few weeks. Annie was a capable worker. A strong woman, despite her small size. “But you’ve got the hardest job of all.” When she lifted her eyes to his, he saw the storm of emotion threatening to overcome her. “You’ve got to keep those two boys upstairs out of trouble.”
She shrugged. “They’re easy enough to handle. But the farm … and Dat. Jonah, I’m so worried about him. Did you hear what the doctor said? He couldn’t even assure us that Dat would be fine. He needs a surgery.”
Jonah nodded. “But Aaron’s in good hands. Henry Trueherz is a fine doctor. He saved our Susie’s life. He might not be the one doing the surgery, but I know he’ll make sure they take good care of your dat.”
Annie bit her lower lip as tears welled in her eyes. “It’s too much. It’s just too much.” Her sob tugged at his composure, and he took her into his arms, as if he had consoled her a hundred times before. As if holding Annie in his arms was the most natural thing in the world.
How easily his arms folded around her, and the way she fit against him … She was a perfect fit. They were like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Only Annie couldn’t see that. He’d spent a lifetime trying to open her eyes, but she couldn’t see that the one thing she was missing in her life was right here in front of her.
FORTY-ONE
In the unusual quiet of the kitchen Annie slid an applesauce cake into the oven and checked the clock to see when she would need to take it out. Humming a church song, she quickly rinsed the bowl and rotary hand mixer.
The rest of the house was neat as a pin, and she had at least an hour to spare before dinner had to be started. She pulled the kitchen apron off, grabbed a coat from the hook by the door, and set out to see if Jonah needed help with farm chores.
In the three days since Dat had been in the hospital, Annie and Jonah had worked together to keep the farm and house running, and thanks to Gott, it was working.
Of course, they’d had help from near and far.
The social workers at the hospital in Lancaster had found a place for Mamm and Hannah to stay so that they wouldn’t have to make daily trips all the way into the city. After a full day at the hospital, Daniel and Rebecca came home. They went into Halfway to tend to the tea shop and harness shop each day, while Annie watched Levi here at home.
When it came time to gather up the last of the hay, Jonah had called on his brothers Adam and Gabe. Now that it was baled and stored in the barn, the heavy harvest work was over.
A good thing for Dat, who would have to rest in the house when he came home tomorrow. Because of a certain medication, Dat would need to wait a month or so for his coronary bypass surgery. Although the cardiologist preferred to keep him in the hospital on bed rest, Dr. Trueherz had intervened to get Dat released.
“A month in the hospital wouldn’t be good for anyone,” Dr. Trueherz had said when Annie had visited Dat in the hospital. “It’s expensive, inconvenient, and quite frankly, a little unhealthy. Aaron is better off at home as long as you can keep him away from chores. Rest and reading should be his tasks of the day. He can walk to and from the table to eat—and that will be the extent of his exercise until we can get this surgery done. His coronary arteries are in a very vulnerable state.”
Dat had agreed to be a good patient as long as he could go home and sleep in his own bed. “How does anyone sleep here with lights on all the time and machines beeping and whooshing all the time? I feel like a cow hooked up to a milking machine.”
Annie wanted everything to be in good shape when Dat came home tomorrow. She had baked the applesauce cake following his new low-fat diet. Jonah had been chasing sheep and trimming their hooves. They didn’t want Dat to see anything that would make him feel like the farm needed his attention.
If they did a good job, maybe Dat would stay put!
Annie didn’t see any sign of Jonah and Levi over in the pastures, so she headed into the barn. As soon as she stepped in the door, the tall wall of hay stopped her short. With everything harvested, bundles of hay were everywhere. She reckoned Jonah and the other men must have been handy with the winch to load all of this hay. By spring, most of it would be used up.
Voices came from the area where the horses were stabled, and as Annie made her way over, she couldn’t help but listen. Jonah’s voice was so low and soothing, she edged closer, wanting to be reassured the way Levi was.
“I want to give my doddy a big hug when he comes home,” Levi said. “Is he too sick for a hug if I go nice and gentle?”
“A gentle hug would be wonderful good,” Jonah said.
“Is he going to get better?”
“Let’s pray that he does. We know Gott is watching over your doddy. I think it was a guardian angel that got him to the hospital in Lancaster.”
Up on tiptoe, Annie peered over the wall of the stall to see the two of them sitting on a bale together beside Dapple, the chestnut mare Annie favored. The sight of Levi, relaxed in the crook of Jonah’s arm, made Annie’s lower lip tremble. What a whirlwind week it had been for the five-year-old boy, from his fear of the thunderstorms to his worry over his grandfather. Everyone had been in a worried state, and the boy must have felt the fear swirling through all of them over Aaron’s condition.
And through it all, Jonah had remained steadfast. Steady. Calm. And tender with little Levi.
Jonah had been here day and night, as faithful as the sun and moon.
She lowered herself from the rail and pressed a hand to her chest, sure that her heart had swelled to eight times its normal size. Why had she never noticed him before? How had she gone on all these years without seeing him, seeing the man he truly was? And these last weeks with him here on the farm, right under her nose … how could she have been so blind?
She was falling in love with Jonah King.
The next day dawned gray and damp with a mist clinging to the hills. But Annie didn’t let the rainy day dampen her mood as she washed the breakfast dishes and tidied up. Dat was coming home today, and that was the first step in getting things back to normal around here.
But the man who was rolled out of the special van in a wheelchair did not look at all like Annie’s father. Her dat was strong and robust, bold and tireless. But this man seemed small in the narrow chair that bumped along the path, pushed by a young man in a navy blue jacket. The man in the wheelchair was small and gray and light as a dry leaf in the wind.
Biting back her worries, Annie stepped down from the front porch and forced herself to smile. “Welcome home, Dat!”
The man in the chair lifted his head. His eyes found Annie, and he smiled Dat’s big smile, the one that could melt the coldest heart.
Only then did she recognize the dear father she so loved. She ran to meet him, reaching out to squeeze his hand as the attendant pushed him along.
“It’s good to be home, Annie girl.” When the wheelchair reached the single step of the porch, she expected him to get out of the chair and walk, but he waited there. As if he had surrendered to the ailment that was eating away his energy.
Mamm and Jonah were suddenly behind her. Mamm stood by, looking tired as Jonah helped the attendant lift the wheelchair onto the porch.
Annie held the screen door open as her father was wheeled into the house. Annie fully expected him to go into the kitchen for some tea and applesauce cake, but Mamm directed the man to push Dat straight into their bedroom.
But when would she be able to visit with him … talk with him?
She missed her dat.
Annie stood in the hallway, confused. “Do you thin
k he’s coming out?” she asked Jonah.
He shrugged.
A moment later, the door opened and Lovina emerged with the English man. “Thank you very much, Jerry. So we bring back the chair when he returns for surgery?”
Jerry nodded. “Make sure he uses it whenever possible. We don’t want to tax his heart in any way.”
Annie and Jonah watched as Lovina thanked the man again and saw him out. Once the door closed behind him, Annie turned to her mother. “Can I go in and talk to Dat?”
“Not right now, honey girl. He’s very tired from the trip, and rest is the main thing right now. Leave him be. Maybe he’ll come out for dinner. Maybe not until tomorrow.”
Annie nodded as her mother disappeared back into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her. She felt foolishly disappointed. How she wanted to tell her dat all about how she and Jonah had managed the farm! She wanted to see him enjoy homemade food for the first time in days. She longed to spend just a few minutes with him … to hear a few words that would reassure her that everything would be all right.
“I’m so disappointed.” She turned to Jonah. “And worried for Dat. The sickness has taken a toll on him. He’s so … so small.”
Like a withered branch.
It was as if autumn had come through and stripped him of life.
Seeing him this way frightened her more than the news of the heart attack. “Did you see him?” she whispered to Jonah.
He nodded. “He’s in a bad way, Annie. Until he gets the surgery, he’s going to need all our help and patience.”
He was right, of course, but she couldn’t forget the ghostly image of her father that had just passed by.
“Annie …” Jonah reached for her hand and held it tight. “Give him time, and pray for Gott’s healing love.”
She bit her lower lip, taking strength from the spark of determination in Jonah’s dark eyes. Time and prayer … she had plenty of those to give.
FORTY-TWO
Jonah sat at the kitchen table, his thoughts focused on a farm miles away, beyond the neat white frame of the kitchen window. Was Aaron taking it easy, as the doctor had instructed? He wondered when, exactly, Annie would be leaving for New York, though he didn’t have the courage to ask her. And he wanted to be there when that pregnant cow freshed, which could be any day now.
Most of Jonah’s brothers and sisters were gathered in the kitchen to listen in on the big discussion. Although Jonah enjoyed spending time with his family, he wished he didn’t have to be a part of this talk.
Wedding preparations …
Jonah didn’t have much interest in the details, but Adam had wanted him to be involved in the financial planning.
There was a nip in the air, but the potbelly stove kept the kitchen warm, as well as the gas stove that was heated up for baking. Remy had made hot cocoa for everyone. Jonah sipped from his mug, tuning out the talk of who would handle the horses for the bridal carriages and who would serve the meal.
The good thing about a family meeting was that it brought the family together. His grandmother sat beside him, taking notes on costs. Nell King had been the farm’s bookkeeper for more than a decade, and no one knew the family finances as well as she did.
At the far end of the big table, Ruthie, Leah, and Susie sat, tending to some kind of embroidery project. Tonight he had a feeling each was more focused on the wedding details than the needle in hand. As much as he disliked wedding plans, the girls seemed to eat them up like candy.
“My father has offered to pay for the wedding, if that’s okay,” Remy said. “I told him he would not be allowed to meddle in the plans or break Amish wedding tradition, and he’s agreed to that.”
“That would be a lot of money for one father to pay,” Mary said.
Remy lowered her mug. “In the English world, it’s traditional for the father of the bride to pay for everything, and he’s prepared to do that. He can afford it.”
Mammi Nell tapped her pencil against her open book of accounts. “As your bookkeeper, I think that would be very good. But as Adam’s grandmother, I have to say that it’s too much.”
“It is too much,” Adam agreed. “It’s not right for your father to pay for a double wedding with more than five hundred guests. Maybe you can calculate what one fourth of the cost would be, Mammi?”
“Ya, I can do that,” Nell said.
“And the Beilers are going to help with money, and the preparations, of course,” Mary said.
“Gut,” Adam said. “And did you ask about the wedding wagon?”
“I got the information from the woman who runs it.” Mary handed a folded piece of paper to Mammi. “For this price, we get the wagon a week before the wedding, so we can use it to start preparing.”
“All those pots and pans … and five gas stoves?” Mammi said as she read over the letter. “That’s gut. There’s a lot of cooking involved for five hundred people.”
“Lots of potatoes to be peeled,” Remy said.
“How many potatoes will that take?” Susie said.
“If everyone eats two potatoes, that’s one thousand,” Leah said. “We’re going to be peeling for many days and nights.”
“And it comes with a giant coffeemaker,” Mary said. “It brews a hundred and sixty cups of coffee at a time.”
“Mmm.” Nell tapped her pencil. “No waiting for a cup of coffee.”
“The wedding wagon would make things go smoothly,” Adam said. “What about the cost, Mammi?”
“It’s good.” Nell tapped Jonah on the arm, showing him the letter. “What do you think, Jonah?”
“Fine by me.” Jonah shot a look down the table at his younger sisters. “I’m just wondering who’s going to peel all those potatoes?”
“I’m a very fast peeler,” Susie said.
“My fingers are getting tired just thinking about it,” Leah said, stirring laughter at the table.
Flames curled around the log in the fireplace as Jonah sat still in a wooden rocker, staring at the dancing light. He had come down and built the small fire because he couldn’t sleep.
All the wedding talk had led his thoughts to Annie.
She would be around for the wedding, now that she had decided to stay and help out until her dat recovered. There was a part of the wedding reception where all the single young people got paired off, and he wondered if Mary would pair Annie off with him. Hmm … He would like that, but Annie, not so much.
Or would Annie go along with it because of the friendship that had grown between them in the past few weeks?
Working with Annie on the Stoltzfus farm, he had seen her in many new ways. Talking to the horses. Tending the sheep. Nurturing the little ones. Humming as she hung clothes on the line. She had insights about the animals’ behavior that could come only from growing up on a farm, and there was a certain way about her—sensitive, bubbly, but firm, too. She could be strict with a misbehaving sheep when she needed to be.
And when she was around Levi and Sam, Annie’s loving instincts came alive. She enjoyed teaching them things, and she had a talent for getting them to mind without a scolding. Someday, she’d be a fine Amish mother to her own children.
The woman he’d come to know in the past few weeks was far different from the girl he’d watched from afar when they’d been growing up. But for every quality he’d recently discovered in Annie, he’d come to love her that much more. With her gift for children and her love of farm life, Annie was heading toward the same life that Jonah had always planned for himself.
At times, he thought to take her into his arms, kiss her, and tell her that they were meant to be together. It seemed simple.
But he would never do that to her. He respected her, and he would always abide by the things she had told him. Always. She had made it clear that she didn’t favor him; he did not need to hear that again.
The stairs creaked, and Jonah looked away from the fire to find his brother Gabe in the doorway, his hair mussed, a blanket wrapped around hi
s shoulders.
“What are you doing down here?” Gabe asked.
“I couldn’t sleep. And you?”
“I just had a nightmare that made me want to go outside and check the cows.” Gabe went over to the fire and stood there a minute, warming.
Jonah shifted in the rocker, glad for the distraction. “What was the dream?”
“I dreamed that the cows had gone for days without milking while I slept in bed like a lazybones. When I realized the milking had been forgotten, I hurried out to the barn.” Gabe shifted the blanket on his shoulders. “Wouldn’t you know, Dat was out there waiting for me. ‘What happened?’ he asked. I felt so bad to let him down. But before I could explain, Emma popped out.”
“Emma?” Jonah rubbed his bare chin. “This is getting good.”
“She was standing there all proper in her sweater with her satchel. Emma said that she knew what happened. ‘I know the terrible truth,’ she said. I figured she’d tell Dat about the motorbikes, but instead, she took a stack of papers out of her satchel. ‘These are Gabe’s papers from all his school days, and they prove that he didn’t learn anything.’ That’s what she said. And then she said I would have to return to school until I got everything right.”
Jonah grinned. “That’s a telling dream.”
“You think it’s funny.” Gabe scowled as he sat down in the chair beside Jonah. “I’d laugh if it didn’t bother me so much. I never dreamed about Dat before, and he seemed so disappointed with me. And then Emma … I never want a scolding like that.”
“Teacher Emma can be very strict.” Jonah knew that it was important for an Amish teacher to have the right balance of control and compassion. “So, is Emma still being strict with you?”
“She hasn’t even spoken to me since we broke apart. She’s making a big deal about me riding the motorbikes.”
“Maybe you should give up the bikes.”
“Ach! You sound like a father.”
“Well. Dat’s not here to tell you what you need to hear.” Jonah rubbed his chin. “You know, those motorcycles are dangerous. People get killed on them.”
A Simple Autumn: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel Page 25
