by Senft, Adina
“Safe with Aendi Christina. Daniel is here, though. Do you want to see him?”
“Nei…just you.”
His hand—the one without the needle in it—fumbled for hers. She gripped it like a lifeline as he drifted off into the soft cloud of whatever drugs they had given him.
Just her. He wanted just her.
The magnitude of God’s goodness—for giving her such a gift in the midst of all this fear and pain—overwhelmed her. Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes. When the little nurse came back for her fifteen minutes later, she found Emma with her forehead resting on both hands, still gripping Grant’s hand as she gave her thanks up to God.
As was the case with many active, healthy men, the sickbed didn’t suit Grant one bit. Emma came in five days later with an unbaked chicken noodle casserole in her carry basket, plus potatoes, carrots, and a cake for dessert, to find him sitting at the kitchen table with his leg stuck straight out in front of him, attempting to slide a knitting needle in between skin and cast.
“It itches and I can’t reach it,” he said by way of greeting.
Where had he found a knitting needle? “That’s a big one, for afghans.” It must have been one of Lavina’s. “You need a number nine needle.”
With a growl of frustration, he threw it across the kitchen, where it clattered against the stove and landed on the floor. Emma tried not to smile as she stooped to pick it up. “Feeling better, are you?”
“If you’re going to tell me what I need, you’d better bring it.”
“I will, next time. Meanwhile, supper will have to do.”
His face softened and he caught her hand as she passed. “I am sorry, Emma. I’m a bear and I don’t deserve company.”
She squeezed his hand in return and began to unpack the basket. “The girls will be home from swimming at the pond soon. I need to get this in the oven. It will take an hour to bake.”
When she’d slid the pan in, she fished a box of teabags out of the basket and put the kettle on. “I know you like coffee, but if I drink it this late in the day, I’ll be up all night.”
“I could have bought some tea for you.”
“That’s all right. We have lots at home.” And with her tea in the house, it felt as if the moving-in process had begun, in the very smallest of ways. She wasn’t sure if she was being presumptuous, but when the kettle boiled and he accepted a cup of hot, fragrant tea, she figured if he was going to say something about that, he would have.
“I’m glad we have a few minutes before the Kinner come back,” he said. “I want to talk some things over.”
She waited, watching him over the rim of her cup. When he didn’t speak again, a tiny frisson of concern darted through her stomach. “Is something wrong?”
He set the cup down a little harder than he had to. “You see me like this and you have to ask that?”
She tried not to feel hurt at his tone. Of course he was frustrated. She hid behind the cup once more. “I mean…other than your leg.”
“What else is there, other than my leg?”
“The Kinner are well, the whole Gmee is traipsing in and out of here with food and household supplies, and you weren’t killed in that fall. All in all, I don’t see very much wrong…other than your leg.”
A flush burned into his cheeks, and she was very glad she’d kept her tone gentle instead of matching his frustrated temper with her own.
“Ah, my Emma. You have a way of putting things into perspective.”
My Emma. Now a flush crept into her face as she savored the words. In her heart, she had been his Emma since she turned eighteen. Would it have been this sweet if she’d heard those words then? Or would she have taken them for granted and let them fall to the ground, confident there would be more to come?
At nearly thirty-one, Emma had learned that when it came to sweet things, sometimes there weren’t more to come.
“What is troubling you, Grant?”
His tea had cooled enough for him to drink it. She pushed a plate of lemon squares toward him, and he took one.
“A whole summer of not being able to work, that’s what.”
“Are you worried about Eli’s shop? Amelia says your crew is keeping up with the job, and the other men pitch in when they can. They got the roof insulated and finished, she says, and they’ll be ready to paint next week.”
“So the crew will be getting paid, but I won’t.”
Emma remembered what he’d said about the mortgage. About living from check to check. “Is it—are you—I know I have no business sticking my nose into your finances, but—”
“You’re going to be my wife, Emma. It’s best you know that if I can’t work, you may not have a home to come to in November.”
“You have no savings?”
He shook his head. “Everything I have goes into this house, and feeding the children, and buying them shoes and clothes, and equipment for my work. And hospital bills. It’s only because of Eli paying me for the shed that I can even make this month’s mortgage payment.” His throat worked, and finally the words came out. “Do not think I’m asking you to help. I won’t think of it. I’ll find a way, even if I have to move to do it.”
The offer of her meager savings evaporated in her mouth. “But you cannot lose the house. The children need their home.”
“Others have walked away and let the bank have the house. My grandparents live here, but my folks live east of Paradise, and my father would be glad to have me. Have us.”
The thought of moving away from Whinburg—from her family, from Amelia and Carrie—made Emma’s blood run cold. “Can you ask him for a loan, just until you’re back on your feet?”
He licked a finger and pressed it into the crumbs on the plate, but didn’t eat them. “They are not wealthy people. They have rooms filled with nothing but love, but I could not ask my father for money. He would give what little he had instantly, but I couldn’t do it. And even if he did make me take it, the bank cannot make up a shortfall with love.”
Thoughts ran this way and that in her head like a flock of chickens frightened by a hawk. What could she do to help? It was too early in the season to harvest vegetables and sell them at a roadside stand. They had the quilt, but the auctions were finished…and anyway, she could not ask Amelia and Carrie to abandon their households to finish it in several frantic days of stitching. Even if they did, who would buy it? If she took it to the quilt store in Intercourse, it might be months before a tourist chose it.
They didn’t have months. They had to do something in a matter of weeks.
Unless…
Could she?
You can’t. A woman can’t have a public voice.
But this is the only way. I can’t let Grant’s home—the children’s home, my home—go to the bank.
He can ask the Gmee for a loan. Others have.
For medical expenses, yes. Not for something like this.
The elders will never allow it. Grant will never allow it. His wife-to-be? Putting herself out there like an actress or a person on the television?
The world will never see me. They will only hear me.
They will only hear you. But first, Grant must hear you.
“Grant,” she said slowly, “remember when Tyler West told you why he came to visit Whinburg Township?”
Chapter 21
By the time she finished telling him the whole story of why she had gone to New York, and why Tyler had really come to Whinburg, Grant’s whole body had gone slack with astonishment. “This was your book? You wrote a book about life among us, and Tyler West thinks he can sell it for Englischers to read?”
Emma nodded. Put like that, it did sound ridiculous. But at the same time…“It placed among the top seven in a national contest. Tyler seemed to think it would do as well if it were a real book out there being read by real people.”
He gazed into the distance, as if he were seeing not the stove but a crowd of people, all reading. “I suppose it’s better than one
person seeing a word painted on the side of a house.” His gaze flicked to her and focused. “I remember what word it was.”
L-I-S-T-E-N.
“Is that what you want, Emma? It’s not enough for me to hear you, or for the Kinner to hear you and do as you say? You must have this, too?”
She hitched her chair over to the corner of the table and took his hand. “It’s not that. I put the book on the altar of sacrifice long ago, and Tyler West went away with a no for an answer. But Grant, as things stand now, with what you are facing—what we are facing—what if he could sell it?”
He remained silent, but his hand gripped hers as it had in the hospital. Firm. Warm. His fingers rubbed the back of hers in the only evidence of his agitation.
Emma wound her courage around her like a warm shawl. “He told me that payment is usually made in three parts. One comes on signing of the contract, one when the book is turned in to the publisher, and one when it comes out. Even one of those payments would be enough to keep the bank happy for a month. Maybe two or three. Long enough for you to get back to work again. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”
“How fast do you think he can sell it?”
This was not a no. He was actually giving the plan some thought. Emma tamped down her excitement and tried to speak calmly. “I don’t know. But he seemed pretty confident in it.”
His gaze trapped hers and didn’t let it go. “A woman cannot speak publicly, my Emma. This would be very public indeed.”
“We could go to the bishop. We could at least try. Surely Daniel Lapp and Moses and the other elders would see that I’m not trying to put myself out in the world for praise. If our Gott has given me a talent that would keep a good carpenter in the district and keep him from losing his home, then shouldn’t I use it, not bury it in the ground?”
His face softened while his grip on her hand became even more firm. “If you had been born into an Englisch family, you would have made a fine lawyer.”
“If I had been born into an Englisch family, I would not have known you.”
“Then it’s my good fortune you were not.”
And before she could react or get up to pour another cup of tea or even take another breath, he leaned across the corner of the table and kissed her.
The world stopped turning on its axis as Emma’s mouth parted under his, and she marveled that a man’s lips could look so hard and determined and yet feel so soft and persuasive. An hour could have passed…or a moment…or maybe it was just the space of the breath backed up in her lungs. She drew back and raised her gaze to his, feeling the blood race into her cheeks as fast as it was racing through her veins.
“Is it all right, my Emma?” His voice was gruff, as if he had been affected as much as she.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “I never knew…” He raised a brow in silent question, still holding her hand. “I never—you—this is the first—” She stumbled to a halt, words deserting her like a box of pins knocked all over the floor.
“The first time you have been kissed?” She could barely manage a nod. “Then I am glad. Glad,” he said fiercely. “You have far more to give me than I have to give you. Your talent, your kisses, your generous, practical self…these are gifts I may open for the first time. I wish I had them to give to you, my Emma.”
“You have gifts, never doubt that,” she said softly, daring to look up into his face. “Your children. Your home. Your love. I have waited for you for twelve years, Grant Weaver. Do you think I would do that for a prettily wrapped box with nothing in it?”
His expression turned bleak. “People fall for prettily wrapped boxes every day. And they find out too late what is inside.”
“But you and I,” she said softly, “we know what is inside. We have known each other all our lives. I have seen you managing your crew, seen how you are with men and with your children.”
“And I have seen how good you are to your Mamm. I have even seen your patience under your sister’s…” He paused.
“Thumb?” she suggested with a twinkle.
“I was going to say authority, but that didn’t sound quite right.”
With a laugh, she squeezed his hand and got up to get the teapot. “Karen means well. She’s a good manager. She just forgets that some people can be managed better than others.”
“There’s that independent spirit that’s about to get us in trouble with the elders,” he teased.
“I hope not.” She settled in her place once more, the teapot warm under her hands. “I hope they will listen.”
If Grant had heard her, maybe there was hope that Moses and Daniel and the others would, too.
If not, then the only One left to listen would be God.
Amelia took off her away bonnet and hung it on a peg next to the door. “Sorry I’m late. Matthew is home with a cold and when he’s sick, all his bravery deserts him. Even knowing Eli is at the bottom of the lane painting the shed, he didn’t want me to leave him alone.” She hugged Emma and bent down to hug Lena. “Carrie’s with me—she saw Karen on the porch and got distracted by the new baby. She’ll be over in a minute.”
Emma already had the quilt top laid out on the table. “We’ll be able to start marking the feathers today. I’m anxious to see how it will look.”
Amelia surveyed the borders, almost as if she were dividing them over and over into feather widths. “Should we start in the corners or in the centers?”
“Better wait for Carrie. I vote for corners, but she may think differently.”
Amelia looked her over with the eye of long friendship. “What’s happened to you?”
“Noth—”
“I’m here, I’m here.” Carrie came through the door like a whirlwind, swinging off her shawl and hanging it up, all in the same motion. “What did I miss?”
“Emma was about to tell me a fib,” Amelia told her over her shoulder. “Don’t you think she looks different?”
Carrie gave them both a hug and greeted Lena, who smiled into her knitting and didn’t say a word. Then Carrie focused her clear gaze on Emma, who gestured at the quilt. “Should we start the feathers in the corners, or not?”
“You do look different.” Carrie ignored this poor attempt at distraction. “I mean, you’ve been looking happy since we all found out so dramatically that you were engaged, but this is more. This is…” And then understanding dawned. “Emma Stolzfus. He’s kissed you, hasn’t he? Or something pretty close to it.”
Oh, drat this blush that seemed to rise in her face whenever anyone mentioned Grant or anything to do with him. She was thirty years old, not thirteen!
She mumbled something and Amelia pounced like a kitten on a piece of yarn. “I knew it! When did it happen? What made him finally break through and do it? Or—” She made big eyes at Carrie. “Did you kiss him first?”
“I did not!” Emma said at last, goaded beyond endurance. “And it’s private, anyway.” Some moments were too sacred to share, even with your very best friends. “He kissed me, and I’m happy, and that’s that. Now can we talk about this quilt, please?”
Laughing, they settled down to work and soon decided that quilting the roses first would be the best plan. “We’re going to work from the inside out, anyway, and stitch the plain diamonds in the ditch, so it makes sense to do the feather borders last,” Carrie said. “My fingers are itching to do some stitching, anyway. We’ve been working on this quilt so long that it’s time it was done.”
And then she shot Amelia a look. Hm. What was that for?
Amelia pretended not to notice as she threaded a quilting needle. “We have until November. This quilt is more an excuse to get together, not an actual project. If it were, we’d have had it done by last Christmas.”
Wait a minute. “November?” Emma said. “Why November? The auction is in September, isn’t it?”
Amelia straightened. With another glance at Carrie, she said, “Sunrise Over Green Fields isn’t going to the auction. It’s going to you. It’s your wedd
ing gift from Carrie and me.”
Emma looked from one to the other. “No, it’s not. If anyone should have it, it’s you and Eli. Besides, I need—” She stopped.
I need the money it will bring…though by November, if the elders don’t agree to my plan, I could be living in Paradise. Or, as Grant had joked about the distance his folks lived from town, cast out of it.
Carrie turned up her nose. “Amelia and I decided back when we were piecing it that it would go to you. Though at the time we wondered if it would sit in a cupboard until God got around to leading a good man to you.”
“But—”
“There’s no point in arguing,” Amelia told her in a tone the boys must know well. “It’s two against one, so there.”
Tears welling up and blurring her vision, Emma gazed at the white markings in the squares and imagined how the borders would look—feathers twining around a central column, just as she had imagined months ago. Carrie’s clever sketches would be a reality by the autumn, if they took their time. And then the beauty of their work—their shared labor, their friendship—would go with her into her marriage, to wrap around her and Grant when the nights got cold.
She had been crazy to think for a moment she could sell this quilt. How could she when it had come to mean so much?
“Emma, what’s wrong?” Amelia, used to ferreting out the reasons for tears, slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t think these are tears of happiness. Are you upset about the quilt? Did we do wrong?”
“No, how could I be?” she choked out. “But the money it would have brought at auction…” Her throat closed.
At a loss, Carrie and Amelia turned to Lena, who merely shook her head. “Emma, tell us,” Amelia said.
And so she did. About Grant being one payment away from losing the house, about Paradise, about the impossibility of the elders’ agreeing to let her publish, everything. “I love him so much,” she concluded, still half in tears, “but I’m so afraid that loving him will mean losing everything else I love. That’s why this meeting with Bishop Daniel tomorrow is so important. If the elders don’t let me publish the book, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
