The Patch of Heaven Collection

by Kelly Long

  Jah . . . “She walked on, feeling both relieved and discontented somehow. She would have to go over the conversation” in her mind later. “My favorite plants for this moment are the pumpkins.”

  “Great. I love pumpkins. Do the Amish celebrate Halloween?”

  “Ach, no! It’s an Englisch holiday and doesn’t have the best meanings, jah? Do you . . . celebrate it?”

  “Well, I have carved a pumpkin or two in my time, but it’s not my favorite holiday.”

  “What is your favorite?”

  “Christmas,” he replied.

  “Jah, me too.”

  “Ah, finally we agree.”

  “Do we . . . disagree a lot?” she asked.

  She watched him kneel to feel one of the Long Island cheese pumpkins, running his hand over the rind that resembled a wheel of cheese. He looked over his shoulder at her.

  “I’m Englisch, remember?”

  She bit her lip. “Of course . . . I just meant . . . I . . . don’t know what I meant.”

  “I can relate.” He rose and stepped between the rows until he reached the white pumpkins. “What are these?”

  She followed him. “The gooligan whites. We cut off the stem, scoop out the seeds, and add maple sugar, brown sugar, butter, and a sage leaf. They’re very gut . . . good for eating.”

  He nodded and glanced out to where the largest pumpkins lay, growing shadowy in the oncoming of twilight. “What about those giants?”

  She laughed. “This is the large Yellow of Paris pumpkin. It is the giant original from which all giant pumpkins have come. Sometimes it grows to over one hundred pounds.”

  “An heirloom seed?”

  She shook her head. “From the seed catalog.”

  “Ah.”

  He turned and she followed his gaze, watching as the last of the sun’s rays cast one stretching glance over the field, catching it and them between shadow and light, poised and motionless, until the orange light surrendered and sank behind the mountains.

  “I’d better be going,” the doctor sighed.

  “Certainly,” Sarah agreed, though she felt a little hurt without quite knowing why.

  He moved close to her and bent over until she could see the golden gleam of his eyes in the dusky light. “Don’t think that I want to go,” he murmured.

  “I don’t think . . .”

  “Neither do I; not around you . . . That’s why I’m going. Thank you for sharing your paradise.” He ran the back of one hand down the curve of her soft cheek, then dug his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

  “You’re welcome,” she said with sincerity. She watched as he walked away, his long shadow stretching back to touch her own. She listened for the turn of the engine of his automobile, then heard him pull away and down the drive, leaving her alone with a pounding heart, damp palms, and feelings of uncertainty. She drew a deep breath and marched off to the apple grove to wake her errant chaperone before Mamm came looking for them.

  Blamed fool!” Grant exclaimed to himself as he ground the gears of the car, fleeing the King farm like he was being pursued by a winged nightmare. He didn’t know how or when or why, but he’d gotten his heart entangled with the pretty little vines of Sarah King, and he wasn’t sure how it sat with him.

  He recalled a girl he’d dated somewhat seriously during his first year of college. She’d seemed to take a special pride in being territorial with him, often hanging on his arm when other girls were around or taking time to tell everyone within earshot that he “belonged” to her. He hadn’t liked it a bit, but he sure wished Miss King would exercise even a drop of that possession. Instead, she tended to avoid him, or when she did respond, she felt so guilty about it afterward that it made him feel guilty too. But, he reasoned, he had no right to be thinking these thoughts. She was Amish; he was an outsider to her no matter how much acceptance he might feel from the community. And he knew that they could never be together—an Amish woman who married outside her faith risked being shunned by the entire community. He sighed aloud at the thought.

  He pulled into his own lane and decided that he was bone-tired. When he unlocked the door, the cat ran a ring around his legs, and he bent to pet it. Then he made his way upstairs to the room he’d chosen as his own.

  He’d shied away from the master bedroom, finding it too large and oppressive, and had picked one of the smaller rooms that must have belonged to the brothers, because bunk beds were still in residence. His clothes were unpacked into a hand-hewn bureau, thanks to Mrs. Bustle, but there was no closet—something he’d noted in each of the bedrooms. He’d read that the Amish would hang their clothes on nails or hooks on the wall beside the bed. He found such a hook and hung up his shirt, then lay down in the bottom bunk.

  He slept fitfully until he finally had a dream, but it was troublesome, and he tossed against the images in his mind. Sarah King was at the roadside stand, but she was wearing Englisch clothes, a denim skirt and a blouse. Her hair blew in long, loose tendrils, and he felt like he could touch one stray curl if he could just reach it; but he couldn’t make it up the steps. His legs kept collapsing beneath him, again and again, until she turned away. He knelt on the steps as she leapt down from the side of the stand and began to walk away. He called out her name in desperation, but she did not turn.

  He woke to find his hair damp with sweat and his body shivering in the bunk; he half rose on one elbow to gasp into the dark. When he realized it was nothing but a dream, he kept his eyes open, staring upward at the wooden bed slats above him, until dawn began to break through his window and he rose to greet the day.

  CHAPTER 7

  Sarah knew her community had an incredible “grapevine,” as the Englisch would say, and news traveled fast, though there were no phones but the emergency ones in the shanty sheds in the middle of fields. Within several weeks of saving the bishop’s cow, she was hearing Dr. Williams’s name mentioned at hymn sings, sewing circles, and picnics, and it was all in good favor, which gave her a curious warmth in her heart.

  They’d finished his own garden the Sunday afternoon before, with both Luke and Samuel in attendance to help lay the plants. Mamm had come along to visit Mrs. Bustle and to show her how to make friendship bread, while Father had stayed home to read his Bible.

  Sarah had sketched out a map on a brown bag and then presented it. “Here’s a simple map of an Amish kitchen garden.”

  “Is it like yours?” Grant asked, glancing at her from gold-flecked eyes.

  Jah . . . I mean . . . well . . . it’s rather close.” “

  “Miss King,” he chided.

  “My garden has had more time to build. Yours will be lovely, I’m sure.”

  He caught her hand. “Your garden has the special touch of the hummingbird, and that cannot be duplicated.” He gently rubbed the calluses on her palm, then laughed when she pulled away. Luke and Samuel seemed not to have noticed as they trotted the seedlings Sarah had assembled from the wagon to the plot. “And I’m going to need a greenhouse put up to get any progress out of these plants once the fall sets in; that’s something you’ve probably never used,” the doctor observed.

  “No,” she admitted. “I like the changing of the seasons in the garden.”

  He took the proffered map and studied the neat drawing. Each part of the garden was labeled with a letter that corresponded to a legend of plants written below. He was amazed at the foresight and variety of what she intended and handed the map back.

  “Miss King, please, I defer to your expertise. Would you conduct the layout?”

  Ach, jah . . . thank you.” She appeared delighted and he felt “an odd thrill in his chest, like the exhilaration that came when he was able to counter an animal’s hurt with his medicine and God’s help. He knew from their brief discussion on her inability to quilt well that she probably used her garden as the sole outlet for her sense of creativity among purposeful work, and he was glad to give her the opportunity to shine.

  He watched as she stood poi
sed on the edge of the plot. Luke rolled his eyes, then sighed.

  “Ach, go ahead, Sarah . . . We’re ready.”

  She clasped her hands in front of her, crumpling the map as if she didn’t need it, and her cheeks took on the bloom of a new rose. Grant smiled to himself, thinking that she truly did resemble a conductor, preparing to bring great music to an appreciative audience.

  “Jah, but first the trellises; we need three. You forgot.”

  James said nothing but headed back to the wagon.

  “Please, Miss King . . . you’re going to have to let me pay for all of this,” Grant exclaimed.

  “Nee, you’re our neighbor. This is a pleasure for us, jah, Luke?”

  “Jah,” came the dry response.

  Grant hid another smile as Samuel returned, carrying three cross-worked, wooden trellis pieces that he and Luke proceeded to bury without fuss across the back width of the plot.

  “Now, we’ll start,” Sarah said. “In the back far left of the plot, on either side of two of the trellises, we’ll put the Amish canning and paste tomatoes.” She looked at Grant. “The paste tomatoes look like teardrops when they come and are meaty with flavor. The others grow fruits that are almost all similar in size . . . They’re good for canning in the fall.” She skipped along after her brothers and Grant followed, watching as she double-checked the placement of each plant, her small hands capable and steady in the soil. Then she stood by the nearest trellis and shook it slightly, testing its firmness.

  Luke sighed aloud.

  “Next, the Amish snap peas need to go on the trellises. They’ll give peas for more than six weeks, if you pick them regularly.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell the Bustles—or maybe I’ll do some picking myself,” Grant acknowledged.

  She glanced at him doubtfully, and he tried to look capable in return.

  Luke and Samuel set each one of the pea plants while Sarah coaxed the leader tendrils of vine onto the lowest levels of the trellis. She was humming and Grant watched the tenderness with which she placed each baby green curl. He understood that what she was doing was planting with love, and he thought that it was something he could watch forever.

  She moved to the third trellis. “On either side here, the Brandywine tomatoes. These are spicy, and one tomato can grow as large as to weigh one pound.”

  “Or less, with worm rot,” Luke offered and Grant watched Sarah dart him a daggered look. For all their wonderful simplicity, even the Amish crossed cultural lines in their dynamics between siblings, and it provided fun observation.

  Sarah stepped back to the front of the first trellis. “Now, the Amish ghost tomatoes . . . these come out all white but sweet, and we also need the vernandon bush beans. These must have room but are worth it. They are like slivers of green richness in a salad.”

  Grant felt his stomach as well as his mind become engaged in the activity as Sarah moved between the second and third trellis. In truth, she was like a darting hummingbird, her green-brown eyes sparkling, stray tendrils of gold escaping from her head covering, and her hands moving in quick time to match her directions.

  Ach . . . now one of my favorites—the white wonder “cucumber.”

  “Not green?” Grant asked. “I’ve never seen any but green.”

  “Perhaps there is much that you have not seen,” she shot at him sassily, and he laughed aloud in surprise. “Nee, but they are white-skinned, and they grow best when the weather is the hottest. We make fancy pickles out of them.”

  She paused in the middle of the plot, wiping her hands on her clean apron, careless of the dirt. Samuel and Luke waited as she considered the next planting. And then she was moving again.

  “I think We’ll do a miniature white cucumber here, in front of the bush beans.” She leaned down to pat the soil.

  “Two types of cucumbers?” Grant asked with a smile.

  “The miniature ones grow only as long as three inches, and you don’t need to peel them. They can simply be washed, cut, and put directly into your salad.”

  Grant realized that the days of Mrs. Bustle’s elaborate roast beef meals would probably go by the wayside in the face of all of the kitchen produce Miss King was planning. He patted his already lean stomach and wondered if he could grow used to salad for breakfast.

  Sarah was pacing along, pointing out two areas about five feet apart. “You will need some peppers, Doctor, for seasoning and spices . . . We’ll put the Alma paprika pepper here and the Beaver Dam pepper over here.”

  “Beaver Dam?”

  She laughed, the sound spinning into his chest as he watched her face turn upward to the sun.

  “I don’t know why it’s called Beaver Dam . . . I know it is Hungarian, and we slice it and eat it raw in sandwiches with cheese. It’s not too hot—do you like hot?

  “Hot is good with me.”

  “Gut—good . . .”

  “Sarah.” Luke’s tone was impatient.

  Sarah rolled her eyes at the doctor. “My bruder . . . the only Amishman who is in a hurry.”

  “Maybe he’s got a date,” Grant suggested. “Or a girlfriend.”

  She laughed and so did Luke and Samuel. “Nee, he hurries too much to even have an aldi . . . a girlfriend.”

  Grant laughed with them and felt like he belonged; it felt good.

  Sarah was at the plants again. “The lavender-rose eggplant here and the purple dragon carrot over there.”

  Grant shook his head at the outlandish names and wondered what Mrs. Bustle would do with purple carrots.

  “Back to the herbs,” Sarah instructed. “Luke, will you and Samuel go get that last lot from the wagon?”

  Her brothers walked off but not before Sarah saw them exchange glances. Dismissing it, she continued her stroll. “We need some chamomile for the stomach and to sleep, the basil for soup, and lavender to soothe and relax, and just to be pretty. Do you know lavender?”

  Grant nodded, thinking of laundry detergent. She must have noticed his look because she danced close with a delicate strand of purple and held it up to his nose. He smelled the plant, but he also smelled her, a sweet, soft scent like mint and something long-forgotten from his mother and childhood. He pretended to study the lavender while enjoying her closeness and took the plant piece when she turned, easing it into the front pocket of his jeans just as Luke and Samuel came back.

  “We’re nearly done for now,” Sarah encouraged. “We’ll have the spinach and the hailstone radish . . . these really do look like small pieces of hail.”

  “I’ve never seen actual hail,” Grant stated.

  Samuel laughed. “Isn’t there any hail in Philadelphia?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.” He paused, then amended himself. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  It was true; he’d spent the last years of his life so buried in books or animal anatomy that he probably couldn’t even tell what day it was, let alone what season. But here was a group of people dependent on the seasons, the mercurial weather, and dealing with the threat of things like hail that could hamper their financial existence. It was all the more reason to have a faith in God’s presence as they did, and it made him respect their culture even more.

  “Well, you’ll notice hail here,” Luke broke into his thoughts. “Bet you’ll get to be delivering cows in it too.” Again the mutual laughter, the gentle teasing. Grant felt something shift inside of him, and his throat worked against a rush of emotion.

  “What next?” he asked.

  “Only three more things for now,” Sarah stated, a small dirt-stained finger pressed against her lips as she thought. “The lettuces, onions, and garlic.” The brothers produced the plants, and Sarah gave a final pat to the earth. Then they all four stood back to consider.

  “There,” Sarah announced, her hands clasped once more before her.

  For Grant, it was as if the climax to some great symphony had just concluded. He saw the garden, not in its tender beginnings, but in the full-blown profusion to come. There was a balan
ce, a purpose, and a function for each plant, but there was also a threading of beauty running through each row. He had the strange thought that Sarah’s garden, for he could not think of it as his own, was a living quilt with each plant a square and each leaf a stitch.

  “It’s like a quilt,” Sarah proclaimed, startling him with the similarity of their thoughts.

  “I was just thinking that.”

  Samuel and Luke had gathered their few tools and headed back around the side of the house while he called his thanks. He was left alone with her, and the garden, and their shared thoughts. She must have become aware of the gentle quiet, because she self-consciously began to tuck her hair back.

  “Please don’t.”

  “It’s vain to have my hair show.”

  “No, it’s beautiful . . . just like what you’ve done here. How can I ever thank you?”

  She shrugged. “They’re simple plants.”

  He stepped nearer until he could see the threads of gold that shot through a single tendril of her light brown hair in the sunlight.

  “I don’t mean the plants, I mean watching you do this for me. It was a gift.”

  She bent her head and he caught up one of her dirt-stained hands into his own. She allowed it, causing him to catch his breath.

  “Sarah,” he whispered, raising her hand to his lips. He unfolded the fingers of her hand, like the petals of a new flower, and pressed his mouth into her palm, closing his eyes. He expected her to pull away and was trying to savor as much as he could of the taste of earth and warmth and something distinctly woman. But she didn’t struggle, and he lifted his head and opened his eyes to stare down at her.

  She was looking up at him, mesmerized, and he watched awareness swamp back into her eyes as she pulled at his grip. He let her go and she turned, hugging her arms about herself, her head down.

  “Sarah . . . Miss King, I meant no disrespect. I just wanted to say thank you. I know it’s not proper in your world . . .” He floundered and had to clench his hands into fists to keep from touching her again.

  “Not proper,” she repeated in a choked whisper. “What is proper?”