by Amy Lillard
“Oh, jah.” Buddy gave an exaggerated nod.
“Then I’ll make sure they give you the biggest piece they have.”
“Danki, Sarah. Danki,” Buddy called. He disappeared back into the house as Jonah helped Sarah onto the tractor.
“You’re gut with him,” Jonah said, climbing up behind her.
She settled down behind the seat, but he caught her quick shrug. “I like Buddy.”
Jonah started the tractor. Lorie had been good with Buddy too. Most probably because her own brother, David, had a few problems of his own. David’s issues weren’t as obvious as Buddy’s, but he attended a special school for children with learning problems. “He likes you too.”
They rode into town without speaking. Strange, but Jonah didn’t feel the need to fill up every second with chatter. It felt good just being with her. The tension was absent. Or maybe it had merely shifted. It had gone from her being uncomfortable around his family to . . . something else.
There were a few tractors parked along Main Street. Jonah found a parking spot and together they made their way into the restaurant.
The few Amish who were eating at the restaurant stopped and stared as they walked in. Jonah supposed that they would get used to seeing the two of them together. Until then, they would just have to endure their looks.
“Hey, Jonah. Sarah.” Sadie Kauffman greeted them, two menus in her hand. “Table or a booth?”
“Booth,” they said at the same time.
“This way.” Sadie led them through the restaurant.
Jonah could feel the gazes following them, but he acted as if there was nothing different about today. As if this were the most natural place in the world for him to be.
“Ezra said you came out to the ranch a while back.”
Jonah nodded as he slid into one side of the booth. “You know Buddy. He loves looking at the animals. I need to bring him out again before it gets too cold.”
Sadie smiled. “You’ll have to take him over to the King place. They have several camels now.”
“I had heard something about that. So it’s true?”
“Jah. Once Titus Lambert got back into town, he bought the camels Ezra had, then a few more. They’re milking them, you know.”
So the rumors were true. Even as far-fetched as they sounded.
“What can I get you to drink?” Sadie asked.
They ordered and she moved away to get their waters, leaving them to look over the menu and the day’s specials.
“The roast beef sounds gut,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t taste the same anymore.”
He looked up from the menu, snagging her gaze. “What? How can that be?”
She rubbed a hand across her midsection. “The baby, I guess.”
It was the first time she had mentioned the baby since she had first told him about the pregnancy. “Being pregnant makes things taste different?”
“Everything is different.”
Now that he knew to be true. “Is it . . . bad?”
She shook her head. “Just different, you know? But I hear there are a lot more changes to come.”
It was the first time he’d thought about the changes they were facing. Not just with marriage but with their entire lives. They were having a baby. “Have you been to the doctor yet?” Why hadn’t he asked this before now?
“Once.”
“And you’re going again?”
“Next week.”
“Do you . . . do you want me to go with you?” The words shocked him. Evidently they had the same effect on her. She drew back, blinking with surprise.
“Do you want to?”
“Jah.” He didn’t even have to think about it. He did want to go with her. He felt far removed from the actual events, but they were having a baby. Soon her body would start to change. The baby would start to show.
A baby.
The thought made his heart pound in his chest. It was exciting. Thrilling, even. They might not have planned this, but the results were still amazing. Perhaps even a miracle.
“Jonah?”
He jerked his attention back to Sarah, only then realizing he had been staring off into nothing thinking about a son he could teach to farm or a daughter to follow him around much like Prudy did with his father.
“Are you ready?” Sadie asked.
Jonah had the feeling it wasn’t the first time she had asked. “Jah.” He turned to Sarah. “You don’t mind if I have the roast beef, do you?” He had heard some of his mother’s friends talk when they thought no men were around about the many things that could make them sick when they were pregnant. He wasn’t sure why he remembered it and why it came to mind now, but he surely didn’t want to order a meal that Sarah couldn’t stand to have on the table.
She smiled, then it disappeared in a flash. “No. That’s fine. Whatever you want.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I don’t like to eat it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.”
Jonah folded his menu back to rights and handed it to Sadie. “I’ll have the roast beef, then.”
“All righty,” Sadie said, tucking her pencil behind one ear. It was strange seeing her without the standard Amish prayer kapp, but he was slowly getting used to it. Now that she had married a Mennonite, she wore a small black doily-thing pinned over the bob at the nape of her neck. “I’ll have this out in a bit.” She moved away, and Jonah looked at Sarah.
“You ordered, right?”
She nodded. “You were a thousand miles away.”
Not quite that far. “I was just thinking.”
“Jonah,” Sarah started.
“If you’re going to apologize for my shirt again, it really is okay.”
“That’s not it.”
She had something on her mind—he could see it in her eyes and the way her hands flitted about, fussing with everything from her silverware to the little plastic box on the table containing sugar and sweet substitutes.
“This is going to take time, Sarah.” They all needed time. Time to get used to being married, time to get used to such a big change in plans, time to get used to each other.
“I know.” She shifted in her seat. “I just wanted to say danki.”
She caught his gaze with hers, her blue eyes earnest and swimming with thanks. Or were those tears again?
“Sarah?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
He was about to press the matter when she sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes widening as she stared over his left shoulder. “Oh, my.”
Jonah turned in his seat to see what had captured her attention. Lorie Kauffman Calhoun had just walked into the restaurant.
Chapter Ten
“Don’t look,” Sarah hissed. It was bound to happen. Lorie had family in Wells Landing, after all. She and Zach might’ve moved to their own house in Tulsa, but of course she would come back to visit her family. And of course she would go to her family’s place of business, the one place she had worked for as long as anybody could remember, the Kauffman Family Restaurant.
Sarah didn’t think she worked there any longer, but why wouldn’t she come on a Thursday night to see her family and maybe eat?
“Why can’t I look?”
She studied his face for some hint of his thoughts. He seemed calm enough, as if Lorie’s presence hadn’t bothered him in the least. But it was bothering Sarah.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, then shivered as her prayer kapp strings tickled her neck. “Jah,” she said. And she supposed she was. Okay, that was, except she was sitting at the table with Jonah, married and going to have his baby, when his ex-girlfriend came in the door with her new husband. It was beyond awkward. Especially since Sarah and Jonah’s marriage had been thrust upon them. “Do you think they saw us?”
Sarah looked to one side as Jonah’s maple syrup eyes stared at her intently.
“Why would I care if she sees us?”
S
arah shook her head. She didn’t have an answer for that. But she knew that Jonah’s reaction was perfectly normal. He had moved on. It might have taken him longer than it had Lorie, but choices had been made, decisions carried through. There was no hope now for him and Lorie. Not only was she married to another, so was he. Yet Sarah couldn’t help feeling that stab of guilt, or maybe it was remorse, that things would never go back to the way they were before. Yet this was the one thing she had wanted: Jonah for her very own. And then it hit her—she was worried that Lorie would think, like everyone else, that Sarah had simply gotten pregnant to trap Jonah into marriage. No one could ever understand what happened that night. She’d been there and she wasn’t sure she understood it herself. Never before had Jonah paid two ounces of attention to her, and yet he had heaped it upon her that night by the pond. It wasn’t an excuse; it was merely the truth.
“Here we go.” Sadie slid a steaming plate of roast beef in front of Jonah, then set Sarah’s plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes in front of her. It sounded so good on the menu, crispy fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of green beans seasoned with bacon and lots of black pepper, but now that it was sitting in front of her she wasn’t sure she could stomach it at all. Yet she had a feeling it had nothing to do with the baby and everything to do with Lorie Kauffman. Lorie Calhoun.
Jonah grabbed the pepper and began sprinkling it liberally on his meal.
“Y’all need anything else?” Sadie asked.
Sarah shook her head.
“No. Danki.” Jonah picked up the salt as Sadie moved away.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” He took his first bite and sighed with pleasure.
She picked up her fork and made a play at stirring the mashed potatoes. “What if she comes over here?” Sarah couldn’t say exactly why it bothered her so much, it just did. What was she supposed to say to Lorie now? What would Lorie say to them? Maybe coming out to eat tonight wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“What if?” He took another big bite, and Sarah made a mental note that the next time she was cooking dinner she would make sure to have roast beef on the menu. He seemed to enjoy it so much.
“I just don’t want her to think—” She didn’t want her to think a lot of things, but Lorie, like the rest of the town, had made up her mind. It didn’t matter how big or little the city, there was no stopping the rumor mills and gossips. She had learned that a long time ago and it still held true today. But the thought that Lorie, who had run out to the English world and abandoned all she had known her entire life, would pass judgment on her was almost more than Sarah could stand.
Movement near their table drew Sarah’s attention. Her eyes went wide and the bite of bread she just put in her mouth turned to dust. Lorie was on her way to their table.
She looked the same, only different. Her eyes were as bright as ever, her smile as sweet. Though she wore her long, blond hair down now. Sarah could tell that she had cut a great deal of it off, though it still hung halfway down her back. It looked beautiful and shiny, glinting there under the fluorescent lights in the Kauffman Restaurant. She wore jeans and a sweater, nothing fancy, nothing dressy. Around her neck she wore a thin gold chain, the cross dangling from it catching the light as she moved toward them. Sarah had always liked Lorie, hated the fact that Lorie had the one thing she wanted most. Jonah. But now Sarah had Jonah and Lorie had Zach. The tables were turned, the playing field even, as they say.
“Hi.” Lorie stopped at their table, her hands clasped in front of her.
Jonah stopped eating and sat back a little in his booth seat. “Lorie.”
She gave them both a quick smile. “I just wanted to come over and give you my congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Sarah returned her smile.
Jonah merely nodded.
“I wish you all the best.” She took Sarah’s hand into her own and squeezed her fingers.
Sarah could see the sincerity shining in her eyes. Then Lorie moved away, back toward her husband, who was sitting across the restaurant.
“That was—”
“Weird,” Jonah finished for her.
“I was going to say sweet.”
His forehead wrinkled as if he hadn’t thought of that possibility at all. “I guess.”
“It is. She didn’t have to come over here and say anything at all. And yet she wanted to wish us well.”
“I suppose.” He tucked his head over his plate once again.
“When are you going to forgive her?”
He jerked his chin up and pinned her with his gaze. “I forgave her long ago.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”
He opened his mouth, presumably to protest, then shut it again. He grunted, not much of a response, and tucked into his food once again.
Sarah picked up her own fork, her appetite returning full force after the first bite. But Jonah, it seemed, had a lot more on his mind.
* * *
“You’re right,” he said once they had paid their bill, climbed back onto the tractor, and driven halfway back home.
“Jah?”
“About Lorie. I haven’t forgiven her.” His voice was barely audible over the tractor engine.
“You two were together for a long time.” She didn’t add that she had known, everyone had known, that the two of them had plans. Then Lorie up and destroyed all of that. Of course it would take a while to get his feelings back in order, to understand what had happened and why.
“I shouldn’t be angry with her.”
“It’s understandable if you are.”
He shook his head. “It was better that she discover all this before the wedding.” He sighed. “I’m not sure there was ever a true hope for us, you know. She hadn’t even joined the church. It was as if she knew all along that she was destined for other things.”
“Maybe,” Sarah murmured. What else could she say?
Jonah grew quiet, thoughtful, and she wondered what was going through his handsome head. Was he thinking about what it would take to forgive Lorie, or was he simply lamenting the fact that he was married to her?
* * *
“Sarah.” Her mother met her at the door with a smile on her face. “What brings you out today?”
She didn’t think it would be acceptable to say that she needed to see a friendly face. “I thought it would be a gut day to come visit,” she said instead. “And make a new shirt for Jonah.”
Since Sunday wasn’t a church day, she hadn’t seen her mother since just after the wedding. It took everything Sarah had not to fling herself into her mother’s arms and hold her close.
Her mother’s smile deepened. “A new shirt, huh?”
Sarah held up the bag of dark blue fabric she’d brought with her.
“You don’t want to use Gertie Miller’s machine?”
“It’s a little different than yours.” That was an understatement. The old-fashioned foot pedal machine looked like something from a museum instead of a modern Amish house. But “modern Amish” was not a term Sarah would apply to her mother-in-law.
She didn’t need to say any more for her mother to understand. She knew that sometimes the familiar was just what a bride needed.
“I heard you and Jonah went out to eat the other night.”
“Did you also hear that we saw Lorie Kauffman?” She started clearing the table so she could lay out the fabric to cut the pattern for Jonah’s shirt.
“That I didn’t know.”
Sarah shrugged and started spreading the fabric flat. “Did you mean what you said before I got married?”
“I said a lot of things.”
“About finding love. Even after the vows are said.”
“I did.”
Sarah nodded. “I got one of Jonah’s shirts caught in the wringer washer.”
“A dark blue one,” her mother guessed.
Sarah straightened and sighed. “All my life I was raised to get married and take care of my husband. N
ow everything I touch falls apart. I burned supper, ruined his favorite shirt.”
Her mother moved to sit in one of the chairs, pulling Sarah down into the seat next to her. “You never had problems like this before.”
She never had, but then she had never been forced to cook on a wood-burning stove or wash clothes in a wringer washer. “It’s just different.” It wasn’t Gertie Miller’s fault that she didn’t have all the fancy appliances Sarah’s mamm had. And despite her mother-in-law’s obvious dislike of her, she saw no reason to shame her over things that were beyond her control.
“You know what I think? I think you’re trying too hard.”
“Trying too hard?”
“I told you that love would come. But you can’t rush it. Making Jonah the perfect supper or doing his laundry better than anyone else is not going to make him fall in love with you any faster than God intended.”
Sarah blinked back tears. Leave it to her mother to get right to the heart of the matter.
“Oh, sweetie, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
Sarah shook her head and dried her eyes on her apron. “I’m just tired, I guess.”
Her mother smiled and patted her hand. “That’s the baby taking a toll. It’ll get better.”
Encouraging words. At least one thing was going to get better. “So what do I do about Jonah?”
“Just be yourself and let God take care of the rest.”
Be herself, that was one thing she knew she could do.
* * *
“Sarah Miller.”
It took a moment for Sarah to realize that the nurse was calling her. Only because no one else moved did she stir into action. She hadn’t gotten used to her married name, especially since she rarely used it.
She stood and made her way to the door leading to the exam rooms.
“How are you feeling today?” the nurse asked.
“Fine, thank you.”
“Good, good.” She led the way to a scale and took Sarah’s weight, then motioned for her to sit in a nearby chair so she could take her blood pressure.
It was probably sky-high. She had waited for Jonah as long as she could, then left without him. She had hired a driver to take her into Pryor to the doctor’s office. Jonah had said he wanted to go to the appointment with her, and she had been ecstatic. Then he hadn’t shown up. The only answer was that he had forgotten, but it all boiled down to one thing: it wasn’t important enough to him to remember.
