by Jo Ann Brown
Jeremiah had told her Caleb and his sister were living in one section of their main barn while they fixed up the house, which would have fallen in a few years if they hadn’t come to rescue it. So she wasn’t surprised when, exchanging places with Sunni and taking the reins as Hero pulled the buggy onto a farm lane, he drove to where other buggies were parked near a barn in desperate need of paint.
Stepping out, Mercy made sure Sunni was holding her hand. A boy led Hero toward the lower portion of the barn, and Jeremiah motioned at a door on the upper level that was up a sloping concrete apron.
“Usually,” he said, “we gather outside and enter in a certain order, but it’s too cold for little ones and the oldsters to stay out a second longer than necessary.”
“And everyone else in between,” she managed to get past her teeth, which were clenched so they didn’t clatter together.
Mercy didn’t say anything as they entered the barn. Ropes had been hung from side to side, and bright quilts hooked to them with clothespins. It was an ingenious way to make individual rooms out of the large space. However, the center of the space was open and filled with simple benches. A dozen benches faced the other dozen, and she guessed the women sat on one side and the men on the other. It was the same in the church she attended.
About thirty people milled around, and she was amazed they made up only six Amish families. She’d known Amish parents had many children and multiple generations lived beneath a single roof, but she was overwhelmed by the number of members attending the service. Especially when she realized most of the people were around her own age. That made sense, because it would be the young people seeking a new life by Harmony Creek.
She couldn’t fail to notice the shy glances in their direction. She realized a few of the prayer coverings were quite similar to hers while the organdy on other women’s heads was heart-shaped. The women must come from different church districts, maybe different states.
When a tall blonde walked toward them, Jeremiah grinned.
Mercy was shocked at the pulse of something unpleasant racing through her as the lovely woman approached. It couldn’t be... No, it was impossible she was jealous of how the blonde returned Jeremiah’s smile so warmly. There couldn’t be any future for Mercy and Jeremiah other than as friends. She should be happy for him that a beautiful Amish woman was pleased to see him.
Lord, please keep my heart from making another mistake. I don’t know if it can survive shattering again.
Jeremiah turned to her, and she schooled her face into the best imitation she could of a calm expression. His brows lowered. He was puzzled by her reaction.
So was she!
“This is Caleb’s sister Miriam,” he said. “She was a teacher in her old community, so I asked her to translate for you. Miriam, these are the Bambergers. Mercy and Sunni.”
“We’re so glad you’ve decided to join us for worship today.” Miriam’s voice was like a song, each word a pleasant note, but Mercy had noticed a flash of discomfort in her eyes when Jeremiah mentioned she’d been a teacher. Maybe she missed that job.
Mercy dampened her curiosity, knowing she couldn’t pose such a personal question to someone she’d just met. Instead, she said, “Thank you. I hope I can follow along.”
Miriam gave her a warm smile. “If you need help, squeeze my hand, and I’ll translate or explain.” She glanced at Sunni and away. “The other kinder are over there on the far side of the room. They’re waiting for you.”
Her daughter didn’t need a second invitation. She crossed the space in her rolling step. Two girls close to her age met her about halfway, talking over each other in their excitement to meet her.
When it was time for the service to start, Sunni sat on one side of Mercy and Miriam on the other. Mercy tried not to stare at the massive man sitting in the first row. His gray beard reached to the center of his chest, and his deep-set eyes had an intensity that awed her.
“Is that Abraham, Mommy?” asked Sunni in a stage whisper.
Miriam had overheard Sunni’s question. Her answer was serious, though Mercy saw her eyes twinkling. “That’s Wayne Flaud. He’s our acting bishop.”
“He looks like the picture of Abraham in Mommy’s Bible.”
Hushing her daughter, Mercy hoped the bishop hadn’t heard her daughter’s comments. If he had, he didn’t react as the Leit stood for the first hymn.
It was sung, as Jeremiah had warned her, at a very slow pace, taking two or three times longer to sing than it would have during a Mennonite service. She bowed her head and joined in the silent prayer, grateful for this opportunity to discover more about Jeremiah’s world. She hoped it would help her understand him better, because he was becoming a bigger and bigger part of her and her daughter’s lives.
* * *
The afternoon sun had warmed the air considerably by the time Jeremiah drove the buggy toward Rudy’s farm. Sunni was asleep, her head on Mercy’s lap, exhausted from playing outside with the other kinder after the communal luncheon in the barn.
“What did you think of the service, Mercy?” Jeremiah asked. “Other than how uncomfortable the benches are?”
“Was I that obvious?”
He rushed to answer as he struggled to keep from laughing at her shocked and humiliated expression. “No, you weren’t obvious. It’s the complaint we often hear when someone who isn’t Amish attends our services.”
“I’ve got to say I missed the comfortable pews I’m accustomed to. The way you sang the hymns was amazing. The man who started each line—”
“The vorsinger is what he’s called.”
“He kept everyone together, so nobody got too far ahead or too far behind.”
He turned the buggy into Rudy’s drive. Drawing back on the reins, he stared at the black car parked there. A tall, balding man was stepping out. “You’ve got company, Mercy.”
He felt her flinch. “It’s Alfred, my father’s oldest brother.” She hesitated, then said, “I think.”
“You think?”
“I haven’t seen him in ten years. He lives in California, and he only comes for funerals.” She sighed. “Though he didn’t come for his father’s.”
“Was there bad blood between them?”
“My uncle doesn’t get along well with anyone in the family. He thinks nobody is ever right except him.”
His brows rose in astonishment. Mercy spoke her mind and was determined to take over her grossdawdi’s farm, but on other subjects, she tried to look for a solution that worked for everyone involved.
Her onkel glanced from her to Jeremiah and Sunni, his frown deepening with each passing second, while they got out of the buggy. The little girl must have sensed the tension because she didn’t say a word.
Jeremiah saw a flood of questions in the older man’s expression, but her onkel asked, “Why is the door locked?”
Mercy took Sunni’s hand before walking between the snowbanks to where her onkel had gone up onto the porch. She gave the cantankerous man a kiss on the cheek.
“Why didn’t you let me know you were coming, Uncle Alfred?” she asked as she pulled the key out of her purse.
Instead of answering her question, he tapped his toe impatiently. Color faded from Mercy’s face.
Jeremiah struggled not to frown when he realized her onkel saw her as a kind, no older or more responsible than Sunni.
“I’m tearing down wallpaper and painting,” she answered, but her voice quavered, “and I didn’t want someone to walk in and trip over the mess.”
“You shouldn’t be doing anything to the house until its future is decided.”
“Dad knows I’m working on the house, and he agreed anything I do will increase the property’s value.”
Onkel Alfred waved aside her words. “You shouldn’t lock the door. This door was never locked while my father and mother lived here.”
Doubting she’d get anywhere with her onkel, who wasn’t interested in what she had to say, Jeremiah stepped past Mercy. He opened the door and led the way into the house. He waited for the explosion he guessed would come when her onkel saw the changes she’d made.
Alfred began to list everything he thought Mercy was doing wrong. She seemed to shrink within herself, and Jeremiah respected how she didn’t fire protests to defend herself.
Just as an Amish woman would do, whispered his own thoughts. Silencing them, he was shocked when a small hand slid into his.
He looked at Sunni’s troubled face.
“I don’t like that loud man,” she whispered.
“He’s your grandfather’s brother.”
“Still don’t like him.”
He gave her a quick smile. He didn’t like Alfred Bamberger, either, though he’d barely spent two minutes in his company. Any man who bullied Mercy and acted as if he knew everything and she knew nothing wasn’t, in Jeremiah’s estimation, worth getting better acquainted with.
“Mercy, have you forgotten your manners?” demanded her onkel, gesturing with his head toward Jeremiah.
Her cheeks became red, but she said calmly, “Uncle Alfred, I know my parents have told you about my daughter, Sunni.”
The little girl greeted him with a tentative smile.
Alfred ignored her. “And who’s he?”
“This is Jeremiah Stoltzfus,” Mercy said, putting her arm around Sunni’s shoulders. “Jeremiah, this is—”
“Are you the one who intended to buy the farm from Rudy?” asked the older man.
Jeremiah’s first reaction was to laugh at the man’s hypocrisy, but he hid it, because he wasn’t really amused by how Alfred Bamberger dismissed Mercy. “I am.”
“You’re Amish, aren’t you?”
“I am.” He wondered if the man was always this rude. If so, he could understand why Alfred didn’t get along with his siblings.
“What did you intend to do with the farm?”
“Farm it,” he said in the same clipped tone the older man used. “I’ve got ten dairy cows in the barn. I’d arranged for their purchase before I came here, because Rudy said it was okay.”
Alfred rubbed his eyes with his thumb and finger before sighing. “That sounds like my father.” He grimaced. “Father hated the idea the farm might be subdivided and sold as house lots.” Again, his gaze drilled Jeremiah. “He was so eager to keep the land as a farm he would have agreed to any deal.”
“The price we agreed upon was fair.” He wouldn’t pretend not to understand what the other man was implying.
“That’s yet to be seen. On behalf of my brothers and sisters, I’ve come to get an appraisal done on the property. An honest appraisal, not what Rudy believed it was worth to someone who said he planned to work the land.”
Jeremiah didn’t wince, not outwardly, as Alfred’s words slashed through his tattered hopes. That the family might demand more in exchange for selling the farm wasn’t something he’d considered. He and Rudy had negotiated in gut faith, and the Realtors involved must have agreed it was a fair deal.
Hadn’t they?
“Dad didn’t mention you’d be coming,” Mercy said in the same deferential tone.
“He doesn’t know, but he’ll be grateful when he has the facts from someone who is truly part of the family, which you aren’t, Mercy.”
Jeremiah looked at her in horror. How could Alfred throw in her face she hadn’t been born a Bamberger? That was beyond cruel.
But Mercy motioned for him to say nothing.
Her onkel asked a couple more questions and walked into the living room. When they didn’t follow, he bellowed Mercy’s name.
Jeremiah grasped her arm as she stepped forward to follow. “He shouldn’t speak to you so,” he hissed, fighting to control his outrage.
“It’s okay, Jeremiah.” She patted his cheek gently and smiled. “I’m used to him, and it’s nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal? He said—”
“He’s said the same thing to my sisters-in-law and my cousins’ spouses. He doesn’t consider anyone a true part of the family except him and his siblings, and those siblings reluctantly.” Her smile broadened. “He’d prefer he was an only child.”
“But—”
“Thank you, Jeremiah.” She glanced at the door to the living room when her onkel shouted again. “But let me handle this.”
She was gone before Jeremiah could agree, which was for the best, because for the next hour Alfred interrogated Mercy and him on every facet of the farm. That they could answer his questions seemed to irritate him. The man had come to the house with a chip on his shoulder. Whenever he could, Jeremiah deflected questions fired at Mercy by answering them or turning the conversation to the land rather than the house.
Alfred left with a warning not to change another thing before the appraisal. “I’m sure the family has other plans for this property than a silly summer camp.”
Jeremiah bit his lip when he saw tears blossom in Mercy’s eyes. Arguing with her onkel could make the situation worse. When the older man shot a rancorous glance in his direction, Jeremiah knew the warning was aimed at him, as well.
When the door shut behind Alfred Bamberger, Sunni rushed to throw her arms around Mercy.
“I don’t like him, Mommy,” the little girl said, hiding her face in Mercy’s apron. “He didn’t speak to me. Not even when I said hi.”
Jeremiah squatted by the kind. “Sunni, some people are so angry inside they can’t be anything but angry on the outside. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“That’s right,” Mercy said. “Uncle Alfred isn’t a happy person.” Helping her daughter out of her coat, she added, “I think I’ll make hot chocolate for us. Do you like that idea?”
With a cheer, Sunni hugged her mamm, but with excitement this time. The kind ran into the kitchen to select the cups they’d use for the treat.
Jeremiah came to his feet as Mercy asked, “You’ll stay, won’t you?”
“I need to get Hero in, but then I’ll come back.” Putting his hands on her shoulders, he knew he might be foolish, but he couldn’t let her bear the burden of her onkel’s threats alone. “Mercy, you can’t be certain anyone else in your family will listen to what he plans.”
She sighed again. “I know Uncle Alfred. That he’s talking about subdividing the land to build houses means that’s what he wants to do.”
“It would probably bring the greatest return to your daed and his siblings, but only if they sell each lot themselves. A building contractor might offer less than I did because a builder would need to make a big profit in return for his investment.”
She looked out the window at rolling hills set against purplish mountains reaching up into the clouds. “I can’t imagine these hills covered with houses.”
“Don’t worry.”
“How can you say that?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Because I trust in God’s plan for my life.”
“I wish I could, too.”
At the regret in her voice, he longed to draw her into his arms and hold her until her fears vanished. It would be a mistake because he could be jeopardizing everything he was working so hard for.
Chapter Ten
After her onkel’s visit and his determination to squeeze every possible penny out of the property, Jeremiah wasn’t sure if either of them would end up with the farm. He didn’t say that to Mercy, but he guessed, by the way she evaded his eyes, she’d had similar thoughts as she threw herself into preparations for Parker Kenton’s arrival, the foster kind being placed with her.
She and Sunni ignored her onkel’s edict and painted one bedroom a fresh blue for the boy. A bed was found in another room and cleaned. After a new mattress was delivered at the beginning of the week
, she topped the bed with a duvet decorated with circus animals. Rudy’s black-and-white afghan was draped over the footboard.
Jeremiah was asked over and over for his opinion of the room. “Because you’re a boy,” Sunni said each time.
Everything in the bedroom was ready by a chilly Tuesday afternoon when a silver car rolled to a stop in the yard. When the driver got out, Jeremiah recognized her as the social worker who’d come to speak with Mercy. She glanced at where he stood with Mercy and Sunni, but said nothing. She went to the passenger side and opened the door.
No one emerged.
The woman—her name was Whitney, ain’t so?—bent and spoke quietly.
Sunni cut her eyes to Mercy, who was looking at the car with anticipation and anxiety.
Patting the little girl’s shoulder, Jeremiah guessed Mercy was considering the changes another kind could make in their lives. Including his. The thought was a sure sign he was too involved with the Bambergers.
A boy oozed out of the car. The first word that came to Jeremiah’s mind was sullen. The kind stared at the ground and didn’t acknowledge them.
Parker was short for his age and skinny. He wore a new winter coat with blue jeans and stylish sneakers. His previous foster family must have provided for him well, though they weren’t able to continue caring for him. When he pulled off his knit cap, his fine black hair danced with static electricity.
He glowered and licked his fingertips before running them over his hair. Most of the strands settled, but others stood up like insane cowlicks.
Whitney put her hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. He walked to where Jeremiah stood with Mercy and Sunni on the front porch. He didn’t say a word.
Mercy opened the door and ushered everyone through the elegant front entry and into the living room.
Whitney undid her coat and motioned for Parker to do the same. He balled up his coat and threw it on a chair. The social worker started to reprimand him, but Mercy shook her head gently.
Arching her pale brows, Whitney said, “This is Mercy and her daughter, Sunni. Sunni was born in Korea as you were.”
