“I’m sorry. I thought you were mad at me, or that you were trying to handle things on your own, and I wanted you to know I’m here to help.”
Esther’s eyes got sort of misty. His chest tightened in sympathy. “You complicate things, for sure and certain,” she said. “But if you stopped coming here, I think I’d go crazy. Ivy can be insufferable, and I need you to keep me from doing something rash like clawing her eyes out.”
Levi cocked an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t really?”
“I’d be tempted to think about it.”
He laughed. “It would be better if I bought you a new set of pickleball paddles. You could take your frustrations out on the apricot tree.”
“Ping-Pong paddles are better. You can get a set of four for ten dollars at Walmart.”
“Ping-Pong paddles it is.” Levi swiped his hand down the side of his face. “I’ll come twice a week like I always do, to finish the floor and work on the rest of the bathroom. I’ll be kind to Ivy. Jesus said to be kind to everyone. At the very least, I should be a good disciple. I believe Gotte will honor our efforts and make all things work together for our good. For Winnie’s good too.”
“Maybe your kindness will convince her to sign the adoption papers and maybe it won’t. But you’re right, we should be kind for kindness’ sake, and Gotte will turn it to our good.”
“Okay then,” Levi said. “We have a strategy.”
Esther huffed out a breath. “I don’t know if kindness is a strategy, but I know it’s the best policy.”
“Nae. Honesty is the best policy.”
Esther made a face at him. “Whatever.”
He reached out and pulled the tiny stocking from behind her ear. “Did you misplace this while doing laundry?”
Grinning sheepishly, she snatched it from his hand and scrunched it in her fist. “Winnie has suddenly decided she hates getting her diaper changed. She won’t stay still, and I have to sling my leg over her stomach so she won’t roll over. She lost a stocking when she was trying to kick free. I just tucked it over my ear for safekeeping and forgot to put it back on her foot after I changed her.”
He winked at her. “You never know when you are going to need a stocking.”
“You can collect interesting pebbles in it. Or keep one ear warm.”
Levi nodded teasingly. “Very practical.”
Esther relaxed her fist and gazed at the sock. “It wonders me if Winnie’s foot is cold.”
“Nae. It’s July. Her other foot is probably too hot.”
Esther smiled at him. “Who really knows with babies?” She slipped the stocking into her apron pocket, pulled a small sprig of evergreen from the misused bush, and tucked it behind her ear. It looked very nice there. Whether it was a stocking or a piece of greenery, Esther was by far the prettiest girl in Colorado. After making sure the evergreen sprig was in place, she squared her shoulders. “Okay then, enough lollygagging. Let’s get in there before Ivy sets the house on fire.”
Chapter Ten
Levi’s laughter carried down the hall and into the kitchen, where Esther was cleaning up supper dishes. Esther had never felt so unwanted or so unnecessary in her entire life, which was a silly sentiment, since she was obviously very necessary to Winnie. Winnie needed her. Maybe Winnie even loved her. She most certainly loved Winnie, even if Winnie’s own mother didn’t.
More laughter. Ivy and Levi must really be enjoying themselves. Esther growled and tried to block out the sound by running water into the sink. Lots and lots of water. Ivy had dirtied just about every pan and dish in the house in an attempt to make Levi spaghetti for lunch. Of course, Esther was left to clean the kitchen, because Ivy couldn’t be troubled to clean up her mess, not when Levi needed her help so desperately in the bathroom.
Winnie was down for her afternoon nap, and Ivy and Levi were working on the bathroom plumbing.
Ach, vell, Levi was working on the plumbing. Ivy was working on Levi.
Three weeks ago, Esther had finished grouting the tile, and now Levi was working on the plumbing for the toilet, sink, and tub. It was truly something Esther couldn’t master with a few short lessons, so Levi had taken over the bathroom remodel. That’s when Ivy had pounced. As she had told Esther, with her one good arm she certainly couldn’t be expected to take care of the baby or do much of anything else around the house, but she could hand Levi tools or get him drinks of water or flirt with him while he installed a new showerhead. And since there really wasn’t enough room in the bathroom for Esther, Winnie, and Ivy, Ivy had sort of crowded Esther out and banished her and Winnie to other parts of the house. Ivy was tricky, and it seemed foolish for Esther to insist that Ivy let her be in the bathroom too, even if she missed spending time with Levi, even if Ivy was doing her best to make Levi fall in love with her.
Esther was truly happy that Ivy had neither the ability nor the desire to take care of Winnie. There was less risk of Ivy becoming attached to her own daughter if she ignored her.
Nae, Esther didn’t mind Ivy’s neglect at all.
But Esther missed spending time with Levi, and it stung just a little that Levi seemed to be enjoying Ivy’s company, maybe even more than he had ever enjoyed Esther’s. The plan was to be nice to Ivy, not fall in love with her. Maybe Esther had been fooling herself all along. Maybe Levi hadn’t really enjoyed the time they had spent together. Maybe he had tried to be nice to Esther too, when all he had really wanted to do was finish the bathroom and be done with her.
Esther plunged her hands into the water and got her sleeves wet up to the elbows. She was quite irritated with herself for being envious of Ivy. She knew what Ivy was like. Ivy liked to flirt, and the boys had always been fascinated with her. Menno had been so fascinated he’d ruined any chance he had with Esther just for a few of Ivy’s kisses. Her fiancé had certainly made Esther feel like a mess of pottage that day. Esther understood Ivy’s tricks. It was irritating that Ivy still had the power to unsettle her so.
Esther took a deep breath and rolled up her sleeves. What did Esther care if Levi preferred Ivy? Esther had resigned herself to the fact that Levi was going to Ohio to find a fraa. He wasn’t interested in Esther. It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it mattered very much.
A hitch in Esther’s breath betrayed her. She cared about Levi. He didn’t scold her for throwing apricots at the house or stabbing seam rippers into doorjambs. He taught her how to lay tile, and he played with Winnie and changed diapers and gave Esther rides to the library. The only reason she hadn’t let herself love him was because he could never love her, and he’d made that perfectly clear. She was too old, every girl in Byler wanted to marry him, he was going to Ohio, end of story.
Once she had finished the dishes, Esther couldn’t bring herself to tend the garden and leave Levi and Ivy alone in the house together, so she puttered around the kitchen, wiping counters that were already clean and rearranging food in the fridge just to have something to do. Then she started washing windows. She really should work on her latest quilt, but she didn’t have the heart to even look at it. It was a baby quilt for one of Rita’s online customers, blue and white and black with an elephant blowing bubbles in the bottom left-hand corner. Every time Esther worked on the quilt, she thought of how badly her heart ached for Winnie. And maybe, maybe just a tiny little bit for Levi.
Ach. What a fool she was.
As she reached up to wipe a window in the front room, her hand bumped the curtain rod, and the valance and rod tumbled to the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air and knocking her on the head. She gasped and pressed her fingers to her forehead. It didn’t feel like it was bleeding, but she was going to have a nasty goose egg. She scooped up the valance, pulled it off the rod, and ripped one of the panels in half with all the fury of her pent-up frustration. She picked up another panel and ripped it in half as well. The drab green fabric made a satisfying tearing sound. The valances had come with the house, and she had never liked them. They were covered with dust, and she’d never
cleaned them, because before Winnie came into her life, she had been planning to replace them. Now was as good a time as any to get rid of them.
“Is everything okay?” Levi stood in the front hall, eyeing her with concern and maybe a touch of amusement. Ivy stood right behind him, looking for all the world like a concerned sister.
Esther snatched at a cobweb dangling from her kapp. “Just doing some redecorating.”
Any amusement Levi might have been feeling vanished as his gaze flicked to her forehead. “Ach. You hurt your head.” He was by her side in a single heartbeat.
“The rod fell on it.”
He brushed his thumb lightly over the injured spot. She winced. “Do you feel dizzy?” he said.
“Nae. I’m fine. I was just cleaning the window and got careless.” And lost her temper.
“You’re going to have an impressive goose egg.” He turned to Ivy. “Can you get a towel with some ice?”
Ivy shrugged. “I really can’t. I only have one good arm.”
Whatever was Ivy to do when her collarbone got better? She certainly wouldn’t have an excuse for laziness anymore. “I don’t need ice,” Esther said. “It’s just a little bump.” Levi grabbed Esther’s arm and pulled her into the kitchen. “Cum. Sit here. Ice will stop it from swelling and eating your brain.”
She cocked her eyebrow. “Do you really think there’s any danger of that?”
“Can’t be too careful.” He pulled a towel from the drawer and got a few cubes of ice from the freezer. After twisting the towel around itself, he handed it to her. “I’ve always hated those curtains,” he said, giving her a half-hearted smile.
“Me too. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. They had to go.” She laid the towel against her forehead. It was too cold to feel good, but it felt good to think maybe Levi cared a little.
Ivy snorted. “The whole house is an interior designer’s nightmare.”
Levi studied Esther’s face with a question in his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She looked down, because she didn’t want him to get any answers from her face. “How is the bathroom coming along?”
“I’m ready to put in the toilet, and I wondered if you’d like to help.”
Esther pulled the towel from her head. “Really? I’d love to.” She cleared her throat and tried to wipe the smile from her face. She was going to be an old maid for at least fifty more years. She’d need to know how to install a toilet someday. That was the only reason to get excited about it.
“You don’t need Esther,” Ivy said. “I know what most of the tools are, and I like to think I’ve been a great help to you already.”
Levi gave Ivy a very attractive smile that made Esther’s head hurt. “You have been a great help, but I promised Esther I’d teach her how to install a toilet, and I’m going to need two extra hands and you only have one.”
Ivy stuck out her bottom lip. “I want to be of use to you in any way I can.”
That smile again. Ach. Esther’s head felt worse when Levi smiled like that. “You’ve been a great help. I couldn’t have installed that showerhead without all the tools you handed me.”
How many tools did it take to install a showerhead? And just how indispensable did Levi think Ivy was?
Mollified, Ivy laid a hand on Levi’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make us all some lemonade, and we can sit outside in the shade and drink it after you put in the toilet.”
“That’s a wonderful gute idea,” Levi said.
Well. Not really. Ivy would probably make another huge mess in the kitchen and leave it for Esther to clean up. But if she made lemonade, she’d at least be out of their hair, hopefully for long enough to get the toilet in without having to work around Ivy.
Esther glanced at the clock. Winnie wouldn’t sleep more than another half hour. They’d better get to that toilet. She stood and set her towel of ice in the sink. “Okay. I’m ready for the toilet.”
Levi nodded and headed down the hall. “Let’s go do it.”
“Have fun,” Ivy said, with that sarcastic edge to her voice that she used when she wanted to make it very clear how important she was and how dumm she thought you were.
Levi didn’t seem to notice her tone, or perhaps he chose to ignore it. He turned and winked at Esther. “Ach, we will have fun. I love watching Esther do the work.”
Esther’s heart skittered around her chest like a skater bug on the water. Maybe Levi didn’t mind her company so much.
And maybe she shouldn’t get her hopes up.
Levi picked up the toilet that had been sitting in the back hall and carried it into the bathroom. He smiled at Esther as if she was part of his close circle of friends and family. As if she mattered. “It seems a shame to put anything on this beautiful floor, even the toilet.”
“Ach, I’m very pleased with how it came out.”
“Maybe you should come with me into people’s homes and design their bathroom floors. I bet I’d get more business that way. Maybe I should put that on our flyers. Let the quilting lady design your bathroom.”
Esther laughed. “It wonders me if that would kill your business.”
“People would love it.” He reached into the tub and pulled out a large brown ring. He looked at her sideways. “Do you know what this is?”
“I think so. Isn’t it the wax that goes around the bottom of the toilet, like a seal?”
Levi grinned. “I’ve never met anyone as smart as you are.” He lowered his voice. “I miss watching you work on the bathroom while I play with Winnie.”
Esther’s stomach fluttered. “You’ll do anything to get out of work.”
He laughed. “I like that you have an opinion and that you think things through before forming that opinion. I like that you are willing to learn anything. I even like it when you set me straight.”
“Somebody has to.”
“Nobody actually sets me straight but you.”
“So you’re saying I’m the only one rude enough to tell you how I really feel?”
He shook his head. “You’re the only one who thinks I need to be set straight. Everyone else adores me.”
Esther sighed dramatically. “None are so empty as those who are full of themselves. I’ve single-handedly taken on the task of making sure you don’t get a big head. You should be grateful.”
His eyes flashed with amusement. “Oh, I am.”
Levi talked her through all the steps to installing a toilet. Some of them she could do herself, like setting the wax ring in place. Other things Levi had to do, like lifting the toilet onto the anchor bolts and reattaching the tank to the water supply. But when they were done, Esther felt like she could maybe do it by herself the next time, even the lifting.
Just as Levi was wiping the floor around the toilet, Ivy appeared in the doorway holding a pitcher of lemonade. “Um, Esther, I think I heard Winnie fussing. Can you get her? I can’t pick her up with one arm.”
Esther bit down on the inside of her mouth and tried very hard for the hundredth time not to panic. For the last three weeks, Ivy had been acting as if she were the one in charge of Winnie, but only when Levi was around. When Levi wasn’t there, Ivy, thankfully, ignored Winnie as always, but the minute Levi walked in the door, Ivy fussed over Winnie, pretended to love her, and gave Esther instructions about Winnie’s care, as if Ivy knew better than Esther how to be a mother. And maybe she did. Maybe just the process of giving birth made Ivy a better mother than Esther. That thought made Esther’s heart hurt. Would Winnie be better off with her natural mother?
But another part of Esther, the part of her with a bad temper, just got angry. How dare Ivy abandon her child, then come back three months later and think there wouldn’t be consequences? Esther had been the one to get up with Winnie every night. She’d cleaned her spit-up and changed her messy diapers. She’d nursed her through chicken pox and colic, bathed and fed her. Had done her best to give Winnie a gute home and as much love as any baby could ever want. I
vy had no right . . .
Esther clenched her teeth. Ivy had every right. And Ivy wasn’t stupid. She saw how much Levi doted on that baby, and she knew that if she wanted to make a gute impression on Levi, she had to make him believe she cared about Winnie. Not only that she cared about Winnie, but that she would be a gute mater to as many children as Levi wanted to have. It was a horrible way to try to get someone to fall in love with you, but Ivy certainly didn’t look at it that way. She wanted a husband. She needed a gute, stable man. She knew what she had to do and who she had to be.
“I’ll get her,” Levi said. “It always makes me feel good that she’s so happy to see me.”
“Oh, she loves you, Levi,” Ivy gushed. “You’re a natural father. Winnie can tell.”
Levi walked out of the bathroom, and Esther glanced at Ivy. “How many more children do you want?”
Ivy gave Esther a flippant grin. “You know I don’t want any more. Labor was the worst experience of my life. But Levi doesn’t have to know that until after the wedding.”
“That’s dishonest, Ivy.”
Ivy swatted away Esther’s concerns. “Whatever. He never has to know anyway. He’ll be so happy married to me, he won’t care about more children.”
Esther chose her words carefully and ignored the throbbing ache in the middle of her chest. “I don’t think most men are keen on raising another man’s child. If you truly want him to consider marrying you, maybe you should leave Winnie with me. Tell Levi you want a fresh start. That might make him more likely to want you.”
Ivy thought about it for half a second. “It’s easy to see that Levi loves Winnie. She’s more of an attraction than a difficulty.” Jah. Ivy wasn’t stupid. She’d obviously thought it through. But no matter what Ivy said, Winnie would become a difficulty the day after Ivy was married. Esther had to get Ivy to sign those adoption papers. But now it seemed harder than ever.
Ivy and Esther met Levi and Winnie in the kitchen. As expected, the kitchen was a mess and Ivy unapologetic. Levi smoothed his hand down Winnie’s downy-soft hair. Ivy had noticed what Esther already knew. Levi looked so natural and so content with Winnie in his arms. “Her diaper is changed, and she’s ready for an afternoon snack.”
The Amish Quiltmaker's Unexpected Baby Page 18
