Thursday's Bride

by Patricia Johns

  “Happiness—what is it?” his father barked. “I want my sister to be happy, too, but how does one even measure that?”

  Levi looked back at Stephen but didn’t answer.

  “Is getting your way happiness?” Stephen went on. “Is selfish gratification happiness?”

  “Aaron arrived at Josiah’s place just as we were leaving,” Levi said. “And she . . . I don’t know. She lit up.”

  “Lit up?” Stephen repeated the words slowly.

  Levi shrugged.

  “Is happiness in the moment worth a lifetime of regret?” Stephen asked. “Because my sister is a beautiful woman, but her childbearing years are behind her. And while she looks quite young now, that won’t last long. What happens when she looks like his mother? Will Aaron be satisfied then? Will Ketura regret a hasty marriage when her husband is no longer attracted to her?”

  His father had a point. Whatever a couple felt in the moment, did not necessarily turn into happiness for a lifetime. He’d be wise to keep that in mind, too.

  “The community would have a hard time accepting this, too,” Levi said.

  “There is wisdom in a community,” Stephen replied. “Those who are older than you and more experienced have a better idea of how life unrolls.”

  And yet, Ketura had been married twice, had buried both her husbands, and was no spring chicken anymore. She had a very good idea of how life unrolled.

  “What will Aaron’s family think of this, I wonder?” Levi said, knocking a shovelful into the barrow.

  “If he’s coming to you, then he isn’t asking them,” Stephen replied. “These are the hesitant first steps, seeing if there can be any support. If his family were on board, his father would have been the one coming to me.”

  “There are marriages that go against public opinion, you know,” Levi said.

  “Yah. And if this one goes through, it would go completely against public opinion. It’s more realistic for Aaron to look for a woman his own age, maybe a woman who has lost a husband. Rosmanda will need to find another husband one of these days. . . .”

  Levi looked up at his father, and the older man smiled ruefully.

  “You don’t like that,” Stephen said.

  “No, not a lot,” Levi replied. “She’ll marry again, I know, but not Aaron. He’s not the right match.”

  “Says who?” his father retorted. “She needs a husband and those girls need a new daet.”

  “He’s not asking for Rosmanda, is he?” Levi retorted.

  “Are you asking for her?” his father asked pointedly.

  Rosmanda—the woman whose very presence in his home was proving to be a dangerous distraction . . . He’d never quite gotten her out of his system. Did he want to marry her—claim her as his?

  Levi sighed. “No.”

  “Then who are you to stand in her way?”

  “We weren’t talking about Rosmanda. This was about Ketura,” Levi said, irritated. He straightened and turned back toward his daet.

  “Yah,” Stephen replied. “But I’m more concerned about you now, Levi. You’ve really been straightening yourself out. And I’m glad to see it. You’re home again and working with me . . . And you’re old enough to find a wife.”

  A wife. He was a red-blooded man, after all, and he knew all the comforts he was missing out on, but just any woman in an apron in his kitchen wasn’t enough.

  “One step at a time, Daet.”

  “You and Rosmanda had something between you once,” his father pointed out.

  “It’s in the past.”

  “Yah, but things change. She’s here, and so are you—”

  “Daet, Rosmanda blames me for Wayne’s death.”

  His father sighed. “She won’t forever.”

  “Won’t she?” he retorted. “Maybe I blame myself. Wayne was trying to look out for me, and it wasn’t just because I was his brother. It was because he felt like he owed me after what he did.”

  “This isn’t about Wayne,” his father replied. “Your brother is with God. We have to trust that God knew what He was doing when He took him.” His father’s eyes misted, and the older man dropped his gaze. He sucked in a breath, seeming to rally his self-control once more. “Levi, Rosmanda will need support.”

  “And I’m willing to provide for her. She can stay here with us, can’t she? There is no pressure for her to leave.”

  “She’ll need a husband, Levi. There is more to life than food and work. You should know that.”

  Was his daet going to give him a lecture about the satisfaction of physical needs? He certainly hoped not.

  “Rosmanda made her choice between us,” Levi replied. “She knew what she needed and what she wanted, and it wasn’t me.”

  “Are you holding a grudge, Son?” his father asked. The disapproval of such a thing was between the lines. Forgiveness was the only way forward for any close-knit community. And maybe Levi was holding a bit of a grudge. But it went deeper than that. Wayne had betrayed Levi by moving in on the girl he’d been in love with, but Rosmanda had betrayed him, too . . . even more deeply.

  “Daet, that woman knew me. It was no idle flirtation on my part. I opened up. I showed her who I was, what I wanted out of life, what scared me. She knew me, Daet!”

  “And she chose your brother.” Stephen sighed. “Yah, I get that.”

  “And I can’t say that I’ve improved a whole lot over the last five years,” Levi added. He hoisted another shovelful of hay and dumped it into the wheelbarrow. “I’m not a new man! If anything, I proved just how low I could go. So I don’t need a woman who saw me at my best and figured I wasn’t good enough.”

  He didn’t need a woman who had held his heart in her hands, and then tossed it aside for his brother, of all people.

  “So what kind of girl are you going to marry, then?” his father asked. “Because you’d best be thinking about it. If Rosmanda isn’t for you, that’s fine. But you’ve got to find someone.”

  Someone. A woman in an apron waiting for him at the end of the day. But the face was still blurred. He couldn’t put a woman he knew into that role, somehow.

  “I don’t know,” Levi admitted. “I guess I need a woman who can see me for who I am and see the best in me. I need her to know the worst and still feel safe in my arms.”

  His father nodded a couple of times, then pursed his lips in thought. Levi shoveled for another minute or two, the only sound between them the clank of the shovel knocking against the side of the wheelbarrow. He was waiting for his father to say something—to set him straight, so to speak. When Levi had finished with that stall, he straightened.

  “Well?” Levi asked testily. “You have nothing to say about that?”

  Stephen shrugged. “It might be better to find a girl who doesn’t know about your past at all. And then keep it that way.”

  Stephen wheeled the barrow out of the stall and down the aisle toward the side door once more. Levi watched him go, trying to put a cap on his own anger.

  Levi wasn’t mad at his daet—Stephen hadn’t done anything to him. He wasn’t even angry with his dead brother, although his feelings for his brother were complicated. He was furious with himself, because he didn’t blame Rosmanda for the choice she’d made. He hadn’t been good enough back then, and he wasn’t good enough now. But she wasn’t the only one who’d have to marry sooner than later. There was no way around it. And when he saw a woman in his kitchen, the wife to share his life and his bed, it wouldn’t be Rosmanda.

  It couldn’t be. And that fact stung.

  Chapter Seven

  Rosmanda reached into her bag of scraps and pulled out a rust-colored cloth. She took her shears and cut a piece off, and then measured it against her patchwork quilt. She folded down an edge and eyed it for a moment, then stood up and went to the stove where an iron stayed hot. She used an oven mitt to bring the iron to the board and put the heavy metal over the cloth fragment, pressing down the fold. It would do. She returned the iron to the stove and w
ent back to her seat at the table.

  “No, don’t touch,” Rosmanda said, looking down at Susanna, who had clutched at a handful of fabric that fell off the table. Rosmanda picked it back up, getting all of her project clear of curious little fingers. “That’s for Mamm. You play with your blocks.”

  Susanna and Hannah sat on a quilt on the floor, their colored blocks spread out around them. For the moment, they were satisfied on the floor, and Rosmanda had to make use of this time. She turned back to her work and ran her fingers over the patches of orange, gold, and red that she’d already sewn into place over the last few months, and each piece was attached to a memory. She’d started the quilt in memory of Wayne, but it had become so much more than that as she sewed. Every patch contained a prayer—the deep kind of prayer that sank down into her very soul. Grief had a way of laying bare everything else around it.

  Rosmanda threaded her needle with the crimson thread she’d been using for this quilt, and she tied a knot at the end. So far, this quilt had been an act of love, but it was going to have to change form. She’d need to finish it up so that she could sell it. It would lay on someone else’s bed—an Englisher bed, no doubt. And no one would understand the heart that had gone into every piece.

  No one would think of Wayne, of Hannah and Susanna, of her daet back home in Indiana, or of her mamm who wrote letters every month. No one would look at those patches and remember the prayers she’d silently said while she’d stitched them.

  Even Levi had been a part of that quilt—an angry part, mind you. She’d hated him because it was easier to unload her rage on her rebel brother-in-law than it was to face her more complicated feelings for him . . . and to face her own regrets.

  Wayne had gone behind her back to visit his brother—why? Levi was right. It was because he hadn’t trusted them together—that spark, whatever it was that she’d shared with Levi, hadn’t sprung up between her and Wayne, and she had never reassured Wayne. She’d never once told him that she didn’t need that to be happy—that she only needed him. She hadn’t thought she needed to say it, because she thought whatever she’d had with Levi was safely hidden away.

  She’d been wrong. So wrong, and Levi’s confession that Wayne had gone to visit him secretly had been weighing on her. Wayne—sweet, honest, noble Wayne had kept secrets.

  She should have known.

  Even now, it was easier to stay angry than to face that. But Levi hadn’t changed over the years—not really. And that wasn’t a good thing. He was still handsome and roguish. His dark gaze could still start a blush all the way down in her toes, and he was no safer than he’d ever been. And he was here—sleeping under this roof and eating the food she cooked each morning. He reminded her of earlier years before she had the worries of a married woman and a mamm. He reminded her of the days when she thought she’d fall in love and then get married—the order being of some importance.

  She’d had an aunt once who laughed at her when she said she’d fall in love and then marry a man.

  “Will you now?” she’d chortled. “A boy will choose you, and if you’re foolish enough to fall in love with one before he’s chosen you, then you’re likely as not to have your heart broken when he chooses another girl. You’ll take your pick from the ones who offer themselves . . . if there is even more than one. And you’ll be grateful for it.”

  Her aunt had seemed so brittle and heartless back in her girlhood, but Rosmanda could see the wisdom in her words now. She’d fallen for Levi, but he wouldn’t have made a good husband, and she knew it. She hadn’t been in love with Wayne when she married him, but she’d respected him a great deal, and she’d been truly grateful that he’d offered himself to her. But love?

  What was love anyway? It was a broken heart when that husband died in an accident. It was a torn and aching body when she gave birth to her twins. It was a heart filled with memories and a quilt dedicated to those memories of a life together cut short.

  Had she loved her husband after all? It would seem she had.

  Outside, there was the rattle of a buggy, and Miriam went to the window.

  “Who is it?” Rosmanda asked.

  “It’s Ketura,” Miriam said. “Stephen is out there. He’ll help her unhitch.”

  Rosmanda didn’t look up as she began stitching the piece into place, her needle flashing in the midmorning light. She pulled it out of the fabric, the thread sliding through until it tugged tight. Then she pushed the needle in again and caught the fabric in two stitches at once.

  “It’s nice of her to show you how to make a bit of a business,” Miriam added.

  “Yah, it is,” Rosmanda agreed. “I’m grateful for it. I’ll work hard.”

  “You’ve been working on that quilt for months, though,” Miriam said.

  Rosmanda had a part of her quilt in a smaller frame so that she could keep the section she was working on nice and flat, but the rest of it lay in a rumpled heap on the table beside her.

  “I had no rush to finish it then,” Rosmanda replied. “I do now. It’ll be done in a week.”

  Miriam didn’t answer. She likely didn’t believe that Rosmanda would be able to come through on that promise, but Rosmanda was determined.

  This quilt might be full of memories, but her daughters had needs in the here and now.

  There was a knock at the door, and Ketura opened it and came inside without waiting for anyone to open it.

  “Hello!” she called.

  “Come on in, Ketura,” Miriam called back. “I’m just getting the tea on.”

  Ketura came into the room, unwrapping her shawl as she entered the warm kitchen. She spotted Rosmanda’s quilt and immediately crossed the room, folding her shawl over her arms as she approached.

  “Can I see it?” she asked, but she paused when she saw the twins on the floor. She bent down and scooped up Hannah, then turned her attention to the first layer of quilt that was nearly finished. She lifted the folds of fabric, smoothing her fingers over the stitches, and when Hannah reached for the fabric, too, Ketura lay it out flat so she could see the pattern better and took a step back.

  For a moment, Ketura was silent, and she pursed her lips, looking at the quilt from one angle and then another. Miriam dropped a tea bag into the pot, and then froze, watching Ketura, too.

  “Well?” Rosmanda broke the silence.

  “This is good.” Ketura tapped the tabletop through the fabric. “This is more than good . . . Rosmanda, this is art.”

  Rosmanda felt some warmth in her cheeks, and when Susanna started to crawl off the blanket, she secured her needle into the fabric, and stood up to fetch her daughter.

  “But will it sell?” Rosmanda asked as she picked up her daughter and kissed her plump cheek.

  “Yah, it’ll sell,” Ketura replied. “For the right customer, this could go for several thousand dollars.”

  Rosmanda gaped at her. “Several thousand?”

  “For the right customer.” Ketura nodded. “We need to be able to offer pieces at a few different price points. Some of the tourists can’t afford much, but they want a keepsake from their trip. Others are willing to spend a bit more for a quality Amish quilt to use at home. And then there are the rare few who come looking for something truly extraordinary, and they are willing to pay . . . They don’t come every day, mind you, but if you have something like this on display when they do—”

  “People will think I’m high on myself if they see a price like that,” Rosmanda said.

  “You don’t put a price on it,” Ketura said with a shake of her head. “In fact, you say that it’s personal and it isn’t for sale. There is something about a story behind a piece, it raises the value for them.”

  “It is personal,” Rosmanda replied. “It’s a mourning quilt, of sorts. I started it when Wayne died. It . . . helped me think.”

  Ketura’s expression softened. “Are you willing to sell it? Really?”

  “Yah. I have to start somewhere, don’t I?”

  “Then
that will be perfect. We’ll call it a mourning quilt, and it will be for display only. Until the right customer comes.”

  Rosmanda nodded, and a lump rose in her throat. It wasn’t even finished, and it already felt so final. Everything changing, slipping out of her fingers.

  “You could make some smaller pieces in fall colors,” Miriam suggested. “Maybe potholders or lap quilts, and with somber enough colors, they could be mourning pieces, too. If that’s . . . something that sells.”

  Ketura looked over at Miriam with raised eyebrows. “That’s a good idea. I could work on some smaller pieces, myself. I have enough heartbreak to pour into them.”

  “Don’t we all,” Miriam murmured with a smile. “At least it’s worth something to someone.”

  Mourning pieces. Heartbreak in stitches . . . Funny the sorts of things that people would pay for. But if it was worth that much money to the Englishers, then the things that broke her heart could at least pay for her future.

  “We should work together one of these days. Are you free on Wednesday?”

  Rosmanda looked up at Miriam.

  “I’d be happy to babysit,” Miriam said with a smile. “You two should focus on this. I have a good feeling about it.”

  It would seem that Rosmanda was part of the business now.

  * * *

  Levi hoisted his bag of tools a little higher on his shoulder. He’d been out fixing a hole in the fence, and as he walked across the field toward the house, clouds rolled in, covering the sun and dropping the temperature. The clouds were low and heavy, and he could smell the moisture in the air.

  The cows were grazing, their calves next to them. It looked like they had another three or four new calves today—tiny, wobbly legged creatures. They were all cleaned off, though, and two were nursing from their mothers, so there was no worry. He’d mention them to his daet, all the same. The herd was growing—that was a good thing.

  Levi hadn’t slept well last night. He’d been kicking himself for going downstairs to see Rosmanda. What had he even been thinking? Getting alone with her had been a bad idea from the start. There was something about that woman that woke up the man in him still, and all he’d been able to think about in that kitchen was pulling her into his arms and kissing her. She’d been so close, so fragrant, and when she’d looked up into his eyes, it was like all the years evaporated and it was just him and Rosie again, when his heart belonged to her and every day was another challenge to find a way to see her....