Felty’s brows inched together. “Three years? Are you sure?”
“Jah. She died two months before Beth and Tyler’s wedding, and their third anniversary is in September. I never forget an anniversary.”
“It seems shorter,” Felty said.
“Jah,” Anna said. “Because Aaron still acts as if it happened yesterday.”
Felty got that unsettled look in his eye he always had when something troubled him. “It hit us all wonderful hard. They were only married half a year. It’s best to stay an old maid, Suvie. Aaron will never get over Mary.”
Suvie fingered one of her kapp strings. “I don’t expect him to get over her. I’m just hoping he can find room in his heart for me too.”
Felty shook his head. “Mary’s memory casts a long shadow.”
Suvie didn’t seem especially distressed by this bad news. “I’m sensible enough to know that I could never replace Mary. But I want to try to win a small piece of Aaron’s heart even though it might be hopeless to try. That’s why I came to you for help.”
Anna didn’t think it was as hopeless as all that. In her eighty-five years of experience, she hadn’t seen much heartache that romance couldn’t cure. And Aaron was going to be her next victim . . . er . . . match.
She went to the junk drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a pencil and her trusty notebook. “You’ve come to the right place,” she said, sitting next to Suvie on the sofa and holding her pencil at the ready. “We are happy to match you up with our great-grandson at no charge. Aren’t we, Felty?”
“Of course, Banannie. I don’t mind paying for extra yarn, especially when your dishrags help so many people fall in love.”
Suvie’s smile narrowed. “Ach, vell. I don’t mind paying.”
Anna threw out her hands and very nearly lost her pencil. “Absolutely not. Gotte has given us our unique talents to help forlorn and desperate people like you. We wouldn’t dream of charging money for it, no matter what Esther says.”
Felty nodded. “Our daughter means well, but she thinks yarn doesn’t grow on trees.”
Anna tapped the eraser side of the pencil against her cheek. “So, Suvie, if we’re going to couple you up with Aaron, we need to know what we have to work with. Tell us a little about yourself.”
“The most important thing you need to know . . . well, maybe not the most important, but it might be an obstacle. I am three years older than Aaron. Is that bad?”
“My brother was six years younger than his wife,” Felty said. “They were very happy.”
Anna nibbled on her eraser. “It is a concern, but it’s not exactly robbing the cradle.”
Suvie settled her back against the sofa and smiled as if all Anna’s grandchildren were coming for a visit.
Anna wrote “nice teeth” in her notebook. It was gute to keep a record of everything, just in case Aaron needed convincing.
“I’m a hard worker,” Suvie said, “and a gute cleaner. I can make a linoleum floor shine like it was made of marble.” She hesitated and scrunched her lips to one side of her face. “I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging.”
Anna shook her head. “There’s no pride in telling the whole truth. I need all the facts if I’m going to help you catch Aaron.” She wrote “humble” in her notebook.
Suvie giggled. “Okay. I love to work in the garden and to grow plants at my greenhouse. My mamm says I have two green thumbs.” With her smile in place, she sighed as if one of her plants had just died. “But I don’t cook and my sewing skills are lacking, though I know how to make a dress if it’s an emergency. My sister says I’m too cheerful and that I laugh too much, but I’d rather laugh than cry since crying makes my eyes puffy. I tend to be bossy, and I chew my fingernails, and I don’t like grapes. Dogs make me sneeze and cats make me itch.” She pulled her sleeve above her elbow and pointed to a patch of bumpy skin. “I have this scar on my arm where I burned myself on the water heater, and I have another scar on my scalp from when I fell backwards off the wagon.”
“Hold on,” Anna said, furiously scribbling notes in her notepad. “What did you say after making an emergency dress?”
Suvie caught her breath. “Ach, I almost left out that I can’t knit or crochet.”
Anna wrote “NO KNITTING” in capital letters and underlined it for good measure. She glanced up at Felty. What would he think about the fact that Suvie couldn’t knit? It was a disability, to be sure.
Suvie’s smile drooped. “Do you think you can help me?”
Felty nodded with that wise glint in his eye that always made Anna glad she’d married him. “I think we’d be selfish not to try, for Aaron’s sake, but when all is said and done, we will have to leave it in Gotte’s hands. Aaron thinks his grieving proves how much he loved his wife. A boulder might be easier to move than our great-grandson.”
Suvie didn’t lose her smile. “I lift feed sacks and piles of dirt around all day. I’m pretty strong.”
Felty stroked his salt-and-pepper beard. “You’ll have to be. A memory is a hard thing to budge.”
Chapter 2
Aaron Beachy ate his cold cereal and toast in silence, just like he had every morning for three straight years. He hadn’t had the enthusiasm or the skill to make himself a hot breakfast since the funeral. Cooking for one wasted time and dirtied too many dishes. Soggy bran flakes were good enough, because he didn’t really feel like eating anything anyway. When he was feeling especially glum, he mixed the bran flakes with All-Bran, which usually made him feel worse.
As he stared out the window, he washed down his bran flakes with a few gulps of kaffee. Only eight a.m. and the sky was as dark as if it were already dusk. A storm was brewing, and it looked like it might make down hard before the morning was over.
The overcast skies suited Aaron’s mood perfectly. His life had been one cloudy, dismal day after another since Mary had died three years ago. His family had done their best to try to cheer him up, but they would never understand how deep his pain went—so deep that he would never see the bottom of it, so deep that it was impossible to “move on,” as his dat had admonished him to do months ago. “Moving on” meant forgetting Mary and the love they had shared. He had promised his love and loyalty when they were married. Her death didn’t undo what he owed to her.
Everyone else might forget, but he would never forget. Mary deserved that much.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone knocked on the door. He wasn’t expecting anybody this morning, and he certainly didn’t want to have to try to be polite to a salesman. He turned to stone and sat quietly, hoping whoever it was would give up and move on to the next house.
The second knock was louder and more insistent than the first. Aaron swiped the moisture from his eyes and hunkered down in his chair, as if that would make a difference to the person at the door. He hardly dared breathe. No one must suspect he was here or they might not leave.
He jumped a second time when a head popped into view outside the kitchen window and a woman in a black bonnet knocked even more enthusiastically on the glass. “Aaron, Aaron,” she said. Her voice was muffled, but he heard her well enough because she was practically yelling. Yelling and laughing and smiling like a cat who’d eaten three fat mice for breakfast.
“Aaron Beachy,” she said, still knocking on the window. “I brought something for you.”
Was that . . . Suvie Newswenger, the pretty girl who worked at the feed store? Why was she here? Did they make some sort of appointment he’d forgotten about? He jumped to his feet, opened the back door, and stuck his head out. “Hello? Do you need me for something?”
Suvie just grinned and grinned as she tromped over his sorry, unkempt grass and through a modest pile of dead leaves that had been sitting there since autumn two years ago.
“Wie geht, Aaron Beachy?” she said as she continued her tromping clear up the back porch steps. “I’m glad I caught you home.” She pointed to the tall pile of rocks sitting in the center of his backyard. “A
re you planning to build something?”
“That is what I’m building.”
Puzzlement traveled swiftly across her face, but she didn’t dwell on it. “I brought you some petunias and a casserole.”
Aaron didn’t know what to say to that, especially since she had neither a casserole nor any kind of flower in her hands. He tried for a polite nod, as if it were perfectly normal for a woman to be sneaking around to the back of his house with no casserole and no petunias.
“Ach.” She laughed, and her eyes danced with amusement. He’d seen that look several times at the feed store. Suvie seemed to always be laughing. “You’re probably wondering. I left the petunias and the casserole on the front porch so I wouldn’t have to haul them all the way around the house. Your great-grandparents are watching them.”
“My great-grandparents?”
Suvie’s lips twitched, whether in amusement or uncertainty, Aaron couldn’t tell. “Jah. They’re waiting at the front door.”
Aaron was getting more and more confused. “You left my grandparents on the porch?”
“They’re not in any danger.”
“I’m sure they’re not in any danger, but why are my grandparents on the front porch?”
“They didn’t want to walk all the way around the house to find you. They volunteered to guard the petunias and the casserole from raccoons and stray dogs.”
Surely his brows were touching at the middle of his forehead. Suvie had brought Mammi and Dawdi along to hold her petunias?
“Do you want to see them?” Suvie said.
Aaron wasn’t sure if she meant his grandparents, the petunias, or the casserole, so he simply nodded and plastered what he hoped passed for a smile on his face.
Suvie practically skipped down the porch steps, and Aaron had no other choice but to follow her. He couldn’t very well leave his grandparents to languish on the front porch, even if he had no idea why they were here or why Suvie had brought them.
Or maybe they had brought Suvie.
Dare he ask? “So, what are you doing here?”
Suvie turned and grinned at him. “Well, somebody had to bring the casserole.”
And why was the casserole here?
It would probably be easiest if he didn’t ask.
His house wasn’t big. They made it around to the front in ten seconds flat. His great-grandparents stood on his front porch as promised, Mammi holding a white pan in her hands, Dawdi with a flat of petunias.
“Oh, Aaron, how wunderbarr,” Mammi said, lighting up like a double propane lantern when she saw him. “I just knew you’d be home and looking very handsome. Didn’t I tell you, Felty?”
“You’re smart as a whip, Banannie.”
Mammi wore a bright pink dress under her black apron, which made a very stark contrast with her snow-white hair and twinkly blue eyes. Nobody had the heart to tell her that elderly Amish women were supposed to wear black, or if they were feeling especially daring, charcoal gray.
Aaron cracked a smile. Even though it wasn’t a proper color for an old lady, he sort of liked the pink. So many fraas dressed as if they were expecting to die soon and wanted to save their families the trouble of dressing them for their funerals.
His smile drooped. Life was so short and so sad. It was a wonder everyone didn’t wear black. His mammi wore pink because she didn’t understand how hard life really was.
Mammi handed the casserole to Suvie and wrapped her arms around Aaron’s waist. She was short and sweet and couldn’t reach her arms around his neck, even when she stood on her tiptoes. All of the Helmuth grandsons and great-grandsons had inherited their height from Dawdi Felty. “Now, Aaron. We’re not going to stay, but we wanted to come with Suvie and make sure you got settled in okay.”
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Settled in?”
Mammi patted Aaron on the arm. “I mean that we always like to keep an eye out for our grandchildren and help wherever we’re needed.” She took the flat of petunias from Dawdi and handed it to Aaron. “Our work here is done. We’ll see you next week at Titus’s barn raising.”
Aaron stared down at the petunias in his arms, not quite sure what to do with them. “You’re leaving already?”
Mammi’s eyes glistened like stars. “Don’t be sad. Suvie will be here, and we’ve already overstayed our welcome.” She took Felty’s arm, and they ambled toward their buggy.
Suvie will be here?
Aaron slowly turned his gaze to Suvie, who clutched the casserole in her hands and smiled at him as if she expected him to tell her a joke or something. She didn’t look like she was planning on going anywhere anytime soon, which only increased his confusion and made him a little wary.
A lot wary.
What did she want? Was he supposed to know?
Suvie transferred the casserole to one hand and waved to Mammi and Dawdi as they drove away. Then she eyed Aaron like a cow at auction, and her smile got wider. “Let’s get started then,” she said.
“Get . . . get started with what?”
“I guess I don’t mean us. I mean me. I brought this Spam asparagus casserole for you to eat, and I’m going to plant these petunias in your garden.”
He studied the casserole in her hands. Bits of asparagus and Spam swimming in a runny, orange cheese sauce. The petunias looked little better. The few flowers on the stems drooped forlornly, and the plants themselves were about three days from drying up completely and blowing away. He was at a complete loss for words, except for the question on the tip of his tongue. “Why?”
Suvie reached out and plucked a dead flower from one of the petunia stems. “Why what?”
“Why did you bring me this?”
“A widower like you doesn’t get a hot meal very often. Bake at 375 for thirty minutes.”
“Did you . . . did you grow the petunias yourself?” Suvie had a greenhouse where she raised plants to sell to local gardeners, but if she cooked like she grew flowers, he might be better off just throwing everything in the trash.
“Nae. I sold out of my petunias weeks ago. I bought these at Walmart, and they were almost the last ones they had.”
Aaron tried for a smile, but he just couldn’t muster one. “Why?”
“The season to plant is over. Most people planted their petunias in May. The tenth of June is a little late so most stores are out of flowers.”
“But why did you go all the way to Walmart?”
“I needed petunias.”
“Why?”
Suvie finally seemed to comprehend what he was asking. She beamed like a sunrise. “Ach, I wanted petunias because I remembered that they were one of Mary’s favorite flowers.”
Aaron’s heart felt heavier at the very mention of Mary’s name. “How did you know?”
“She told me. Roses and petunias. She loved them both. One fussy flower and a sturdy one. I thought you might enjoy some in your garden in memory of her.”
Was it his imagination, or did the clouds part for a few seconds? Somebody else remembered Mary. Someone besides his mother-in-law was willing to say her name out loud. “Denki. That is very thoughtful of you. I’ll plant them tomorrow.”
Suvie raised her eyebrows and shook her head as if he’d just made a grave error in judgment. “These flowers are mere hours from death. I’m going to plant them now so they might have a chance to bloom before September.”
“It’s going to rain.”
She shielded her eyes from the nonexistent sun and gazed up at the sky. “It won’t rain for at least another hour. I’ve got time.” She took the flat of petunias from him and gave him the casserole, then turned her back and marched toward the narrow flower bed up against the house.
Aaron frowned. Should he offer to help? He wasn’t especially eager to make friends with a girl, and he wasn’t especially good at it either. Making conversation took too much work. He didn’t need the aggravation or the bother. If Mary were alive, she would have been the one to roll up her sleeves and plant petunias with Suvie News
wenger. “Do you need gloves or anything?”
“I brought my own trowel and gloves and a tin of fertilizer.”
“Okay.” He stood looking at her for a few seconds before opening his front door and awkwardly strolling into his own house. With the door shut, she couldn’t see him, so why did he feel so uncomfortable?
Probably because Suvie wasn’t above peeking into other people’s windows and making herself right at home. He’d pull the curtains just in case she got tired of planting petunias and snooped around.
He peeled back the plastic wrap from the pan, stuck his finger in the casserole, and took a taste. It tasted like watery Cheez Whiz with just a hint of Spam. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for supper. It couldn’t be worse than three years of ramen soup.
Suvie had been the teacher’s helper in school when Aaron was in fifth grade, and she always held her own with the rowdy boys who tried to give her a hard time. She was three or four years older than Aaron, and he couldn’t begin to guess why she wasn’t married yet. She had a pretty face and seemed nice enough.
Suvie was always so cheerful, as if she didn’t know any other way to be but happy, as if she didn’t even care that there was sadness in the world. Aaron couldn’t muster that kind of cheerfulness. His world had stopped turning the day Mary died, and it made him sad that other people had gone on with their lives. Only days after the funeral, his own mamm had taken a trip to the market and his dat had started working in the fields again. Life did not go on. Why were they so determined to pretend it did?
Weeks, months after the funeral, it had been all Aaron could do not to lash out at family members who smiled or laughed or acted as if no one had died. Didn’t they know that the world was over? His family had tried to console him, but their words had been empty and meaningless and—although they didn’t mean it—cruel. Gotte didn’t need another angel in heaven, and nobody really knew for sure that Mary was in a better place.
A ping sounded against the kitchen window. And then another. And another. In a matter of seconds, the window was streaked with water droplets. He’d told Suvie it was going to rain.
Amish Brides Page 2
