by Kelly Long
Father nodded, involved with Uncle Zebediah’s storytelling.
Indeed, all of the family was engaged in the tale, holding their sides or wiping their eyes with laughter.
Sarah pulled on her wraps and Mamm’s coat and went out into the brisk cold of the starry night. Christmas Eve. She smiled as she blew out a stream of frosty breath and gazed at the lights in the Fisher farm across the way. She decided that a quick run across the half mile of frozen field would be the best way to reach the doctor. She’d only gone a few feet when she realized that her feet were freezing and that she had to break through the icy top layer of snow with each step, but she persevered with thoughts of the straining ewe forcing her to plunge onward, despite the fact that it had begun to snow.
When she mounted the steps of the doctor’s house, she could hear the strains of Christmas music playing from inside. It seemed as though the doctor had guests, given the blur of color and movement that she could observe through the glass-paned door, and she bit her lip, not having thought of this. Still, she knocked and Mr. Bustle opened the door.
“Miss King . . . whatever are you doing out in this cold? Please come in.”
Sarah stepped inside, only too aware now of her oversized clothing and soaking feet. The shawl she’d wrapped around her bonnet also dripped with snow and she stared at the puddle she was making on the floor.
“Why, look what the cat dragged in.” An Englisch woman in a startling red dress stopped in front of her. Sarah glanced at the crystal glass the woman held filled with some mysterious bubbling drink. “Grant, come and see, one of those Amish girls, I think.”
Dr. Williams came through the slight crush of guests, dressed in a magnificent dark suit, white shirt, and wine-colored tie.
“Sarah . . . what is it?” he asked, accepting the blanket Bustle produced and enveloping her in it.
“I shouldn’t have come; I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just that a ewe is having trouble delivering. If you could just tell me what to do . . .”
The woman in the red dress laughed. “Mary had a little lamb . . .”
Grant turned. “Bustle, would you mind serving Miranda some coffee . . . black, if you please. And I’ll get my bag.”
“A case, sir?”
“Yes, at the Kings’. I should be back shortly. Please keep the party going.”
Sarah shivered when they went back out to the car, aware of her sopping feet, but also feeling distinctly angry and curious about the woman in the red dress. Grant turned the heater on full blast. “I’m sorry about Miranda. She’s not always aware of the impact of what she says.”
Sarah said nothing, her teeth chattering, her temper churning.
“Why didn’t one of the boys come?”
“They’re having fun with my uncle,” she explained with a frown. “The sheep are mine to tend in the winter anyhow, but I certainly did not mean to interrupt your party.”
“You didn’t interrupt, but a winter lambing?” He shifted gears as the car began to slip on the icy road. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t think I need to be explaining that to a doctor, do I?” she shot back, and he laughed.
“There’s that sassy mouth of yours. All right, Miss King, you’ve got me, but do tell me how it is that this event is not in the spring. Are you trying alternate breeding techniques?” His voice was serious, but all she could think of was the women in the vile red dress. She tried to chide herself into extending a spirit of goodwill toward the woman but couldn’t quite do it.
“Are you listening?”
“Of course,” she replied icily.
She felt him glance at her. “Okay, well then, I actually can’t think of anything more symbolically wonderful than a lamb on Christmas Eve, can you?”
She shook her head, realizing the importance of his observance. She prayed to herself then that the lamb would survive as a celebration of the Lamb of God’s birth and tried to dismiss the other woman from her mind.
They pulled past the gathered buggies and horses, and Sarah clambered out and headed toward the barn. The doctor looped his bag over one arm and caught her close with the other when she slipped on an icy patch.
When they entered the barn, the warm, mellow light of the kerosene lanterns and the warmth of the animals’ bodies greeted them. Sarah led him to the stall where the ewe labored and was disappointed to see that she’d made no progress.
Grant took off his coat and suit coat, and he loosened his tie. He rolled up his sleeves and started to scrub up.
“Do you think it’s breech?” he asked, approaching the animal.
“No, but it’s got one foot back and I can’t bring it forward. I’m afraid of hurting her.”
“Well, you’re right,” he said after a brief examination. “The secret is hooking a finger around the front foreleg and then wiggling it bit by bit into place. Do you want to try?”
“Ach, no. She’s been laboring too long.”
“The heartbeat’s strong, and there’s no twin there. Come here and have a go.”
Sarah sighed and did as he asked, not wanting to be near him when she knew that he had his party and guests . . . or guest . . . to return to. She rolled up her sleeves and disinfected her hands and arms, applying the proper lubricant in abundance.
She knelt down, smelling his familiar soaping, and swallowed back tears. She’d missed him so, even in such a short time as it had been since that afternoon, but he must not feel the same.
“Okay, now picture things inside there in your head. Think about the positioning of the leg; forget about what you’re feeling and try to ease it back around.” Sarah did as she was told, trying to concentrate, and felt the delicate limb begin to slide forward into place. In less than two minutes, the lamb was born and the mother was licking it clean. Sarah laughed aloud for the joy of the moment as they both plunged their hands into the bucket of fast cooling, soapy water that she had brought out from the house.
The doctor began to roll down his sleeves, his blond head bent and his thick lashes catching on the light of the lamp.
“What’s wrong, Sarah?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Lies, and on Christmas Eve too . . . What has become of your virtue, Miss King?” His tone was teasing and she wanted to smack him a good one.
“My virtue? My virtue . . . why, who are you to talk about virtues when you’re attached to that . . . that . . . woman!” She rose to her feet and glared at him.
He got up too, one sleeve hanging loose, and stared at her like she’d lost her wits. “Woman? What woman?”
“Ach,” she snapped. “You’re impossible.”
He caught her by the arm and she jerked away so hard that she would have fallen backward if he hadn’t caught her. “What woman?” he asked again seriously, and she sneaked a glance at him.
“The one in the red dress.”
“Red dress? You mean Miranda?” He threw back his handsome head and laughed and she longed to kick him in the shin.
She was just taking aim when he looked down at her. “Sarah?” He stroked her arms. “Miranda is my cousin.”
She opened, then closed her mouth.
He looked into her eyes. “There is no other woman, none but you.”
She caught her breath at his words as his hands encircled her waist. “I’m sorry. I was—”
“Jealous?” he supplied gently.
“Very. I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.” He leaned down to press his lips to the delicate line of her throat and she arched her neck.
“Oh, Grant . . .,” she whispered.
He seemed to shake himself then and let her go, stepping away to concentrate on the wrist buttons of his hanging sleeve while Sarah grappled with her emotions. She watched him struggle with the button and had a sudden urge to do it for him. Though the Amish in her community did not use buttons on men’s sleeves, she saw herself buttoning his sleeve, not only now, but for a thousand t
imes to come. She understood with blinding clarity in the idea of that simple act of service that she loved him. Her heart began to pound, and her mind raced as she tried to trace time through seconds to discover when she had first started loving him and decided that she had all along.
She stepped next to him and gently brushed his hands away, then worked the button into its place. She looked up into his eyes, sliding her hands up his arms, her lips poised to speak the words of love that thrilled her soul.
A look of deep pain passed over his handsome face, and he set his mouth in a grim line.
“Don’t Sarah . . . please . . .”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her heart bursting like a glowing star within her. She’d felt the realization wash over her like a cresting wave—she loved him. She loved his dear face, and his kind hands, and his quick mind. She’d been so foolish to not admit it to herself and to him before. But now he stood tense beside her, as if the words would burn his skin if she uttered them aloud. Perhaps she had misread his intentions; perhaps he regretted the things he’d said to her, a simple Amish girl. She slowly moved back, letting her hands slip from his arms.
He looked at her, a quick glance that made her flush in its intensity when she caught his gaze. She still didn’t understand, but something about his reaction was making her angry. Didn’t he feel free enough to say anything that he liked, whenever he liked, no matter how it might cause her to feel?
“You’re a puzzle, Grant Williams. How do you even know what I was going to say?” She spread her hands before her in frustration, and he moved then, caught her wrists, and pulled her up close to his face.
“Because I have wanted to say the same thing for months—say it, scream it . . . Do you think that I don’t want—that I honestly don’t . . .” He broke off and kissed her once, hard, then thrust himself from her. He stuffed his instruments into his bag and slung his coat from atop a stall door.
“Keep the lamb warm—you know that. And go in the house before you catch a chill yourself. Oh, I forgot . . .” He slammed the barn door and stomped outside. He came back just as heavy-footed and tossed a new saddle atop a bale of hay. “Give Luke my best wishes, and Merry Christmas, Miss King.” He left, sliding the barn door open so hard that it rattled on its hinges and closing it with just as much ferocity.
Sarah began to sob. She couldn’t understand what had just happened, only that he had not wanted to hear words of love from her.
CHAPTER 21
January set in with ruthless cold, but it didn’t keep Sarah from a two-hour-long tramp round and round her snowy garden. She entered the kitchen and stripped off her wet outer things, intent on going upstairs to get dry socks. Mamm called after her. “Ach, Sarah, I forgot. There’s a letter for you on your bed.”
And if Mamm’s voice trembled a bit, Sarah was too hurried to notice.
Sarah opened the thin envelope that had been left for her and pulled out a single sheet of writing paper and a key. She began to read, sinking to her bed as the words telegraphed their meanings across the page.
My Dearest Sarah,
I must tell you that I regret having had to be so cold to you that night in the barn, but I had to steel my heart against the feelings that I have for you. I love you. There, it’s said. I didn’t choose this love or you; God did. He also chose how much I love your people, their community and closeness and grace. But I am Englisch. Because of this, I must go away. I cannot explain why or where I’m going; I can’t even promise that I’ll come back. I don’t want to write things like “please wait for me.” I want the Lord to be in charge, not me.
Someone told me once that if I truly loved you, that I would set you free—so I do. You are free to love and choose to love as you see fit. I have asked the Bustles to take care of the farmhouse, and I do take the liberty to ask you if you would mind watching over the greenhouse for a few months. I received permission from your father for this, and he agreed. If you do not wish to watch over the plants, please ask Luke.
I wish that I could write more or explain more, but I cannot. Our differences stand between us, as you have often reminded me, but please know that my heart sees or feels no difference—just love. I love you, Sarah.
Good-bye, Grant X. Williams
She read the letter, then read it again, hoping to find a greater answer in the strong loops and curls of his handwriting, but nothing came. It was a farewell letter. She clutched the key until it left an impression in her hand; she didn’t understand. She felt that she must have driven him away somehow, and she lay facedown in her pillow and sobbed until a gentle knock sounded at her door.
She sniffed and lifted her head. “Jah? Kumme.”
Father entered, and she swiped hard at her face to try and hide her crying.
“Ach, Sarah. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not any longer,” she said, though stray tears dripped from the corners of her hazel eyes.
“May I sit down?” Father asked, indicating a rocking chair in the corner of the room.
She nodded, brushing away tears.
“He is gone?” Father asked.
Jah . . . How do you know it?” “
Father gazed at the ceiling and then nodded his head. “I told him to go.”
“What?”
“He came to me when I was still in the hospital one night; I told him it was too great a risk to see an Englischer marry an Amish girl.”
Sarah stared at her quilt, a white-hot fury burning in her chest. She had never felt such anger against Father, and she was both ashamed and taunted by the feeling.
“I love him, Father, and you, of all people, who told a story to win Mamm’s love, you should believe in true love,” she cried.
“Jah, I know. I have also come to know that I was wrong to speak to him like I did. There might have been a way . . . to make things all right.”
“But he’s gone now,” she sobbed. “Maybe we can ask the Bustles; they might know where he is.”
“Sarah, do you hold the letter of a man who wants to be found? Or one of a man who wants the Lord to lead his path?”
She bent her head, fresh tears dampening the paper she held.
Father sighed. “As we get older, it seems that life is full of more difficult choices, but it is the simple faith of a child that leads the best. Ask the child in your heart what to do, Sarah, and then wait upon the Lord. He will help you. And we will all help you, my daughter. A broken heart”—he tapped his chest—“takes time to mend.”
“Jah, Father,” she whispered and understood what the doctor had meant about ice forming on the heart.
Grant admitted his midnight-hour guest and pressed his finger to his mouth to indicate the need for silence. The two men walked quietly down the hall to the doctor’s office, where he closed and locked the door and then switched on the small desk lamp.
The doctor rested a lean hip against the edge of the desk while his guest took a chair.
“So, it’s done then?” Grant asked.
“All is arranged . . . it’s just up to you to finish.”
“I know; I will.”
“I’m counting on it.” The other man grinned in the shadows of the light.
“So am I.”
CHAPTER 22
Sarah’s dreams became more vivid, haunted by the presence of a handsome lean face, and the golden blue eyes that seemed to burn through her with all the intensity of the sun. She dreamed that he called for her, through a flurry of rose petals, and that she ran to him, unabashed. He caught her in his long arms and pressed his lips close to her own, breathing soft words of love into her mouth, causing her to labor to breathe. And when she woke, there was that breathless abandon shaking her to her very core, until she clutched her quilt about her and hunted the shadowed corners of her room with restless eyes as if he might be there.
One night she awoke from a deep sleep and sat straight up in bed. Turning up the kerosene lamp, she leaned over and lugged the wooden box of quilt square
s onto her mattress, laying her shaking hands on top of the lid. It seemed important that she remember the quilt squares, and it felt like an eternity since Grant had given them to her. She felt so different inside now—turned over, exposed, like fresh soil waiting for the sun. She lifted the lid and stared at the wealth of fabrics and colors. Then she began to lay each square out on her quilt, side by side.
When she came to the iridescent fabric, she remembered everything he’d said to her, and she recalled how he’d reacted to her garden. “A patch of heaven,” he’d called it. Her slender fingers felt the shining fabric and thought about how its brightness was like God’s light in her life—always coming after the more dull or difficult colors of time to brighten and anchor her thoughts and her soul.
She turned the kerosene up a bit more and got on her knees with purpose. She hadn’t pieced a quilt alone since the very small one that she did for Chelsea, but now it felt like there was a garden of a quilt calling to her from the box, a garden illuminated with bits of God’s brightness and the potential for hope—for heaven.
She began to hum softly, feeling her heart lift as she thought of the words to the melody. “Oh, who will give me wings of a dove? So that I can at any time fly over mountain and hill and seek where my Jesus is.” She reached for her mending basket beneath the bedside table and began working the squares until the light of dawn replaced the oil in the lamp.
She was amazed to hear Mamm call for her and realized that her neck ached from the many hours bent over her bed with thread and needle in hand. A brisk knock at her door sounded, and Mamm poked her head in.
“Sarah, kumme . . . What are you doing this . . .” Her words stopped as she entered the room and stared at the basted quilt top that covered and overran the sides of the bed like a waterfall of color. “Sarah, child, it’s beautiful!”
Sarah smiled up at her mother, who reached a tender hand to touch the beauty of the pattern and the fabric.
“Danki, Mamm.”
“I’ve never known you to quilt like this; usually you cannot stand to be still for so long. I’ve always thought your garden was your quilt.”
