by Kelly Long
The woman waved a dismissive hand. “She’d be lost in all that lace. I think something more simple with elegant lines.”
Lilly almost choked on a laugh as she thought about her current nightgowns; the word elegant had absolutely no remote relation. Serviceable maybe.
“What about this?” The woman drew a simple white gown from a rack, but it was clearly cut to fall at thigh length with a tempting hem of rich embroidery around its base.
“What do you wear over it?” Lilly asked, rather in desperation at the thought of appearing before Jacob in such a garment. It would be like wearing nothing.
“Over it?” The saleswoman frowned, confused.
“She’ll take it,” Alice said decisively with a clap of her hands.
“I will not!” Lilly hissed, but the woman was already walking back to the counter with the wispy garment in tow. “Alice, I can’t possibly wear that.”
“Shhh . . . listen, do you want Jacob to be undistant? Well, this will do the trick; I guarantee it.”
“How would you know?”
“Intuition.” Alice smiled and winked.
Lilly frowned darkly. “He may well tell the bishop and think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Somehow, I don’t think so.”
Somehow Lilly didn’t think so either—not the man who’d revealed how he’d practiced kissing with such a blatant display. No, he’d probably be far from distant. She shivered in faint delight at the thought.
Alice was at the counter, paying the outrageous price for the gown, while Lilly watched in fascination as the woman wrapped it in pastel tissue paper and lifted an “Emily’s Mystery” box from a shelf.
“Uh—” Lilly’s voice made her pause. “You’ve wrapped it beautifully, but could you please put it in a—”
“A more Amish-appropriate wrapping? No problem.” The woman smiled and slipped a simple brown bag from beneath the counter and gently tucked the wrapped item inside.
Alice passed the bag to Lilly, who took it with a murmured thanks.
“All right, ladies. Come again. Anytime. I’m beginning to think I should run an Amish discount now and then.” She gave them a sunny smile and Lilly could not contain her mirth when Alice made a gay rejoinder.
“Jah, that would be a gut idea!”
Jacob entered his home as late as he dared without missing supper entirely. He’d been trying to hold off the last few days and treat his wife like the lady she was to him. He’d had no business making sensual and personal revelations to her innocent mind and kissing her senseless in the middle of the outdoors. She probably thought he was just interested in a hurried marriage consummation when he’d promised her a long courtship. It didn’t matter what he desired or how irresistible he found his wife; he was determined to be a man of his word, no matter what torment it cost him.
So when he came into the kitchen to be greeted by his mother-in-law alone, he was both surprised and disappointed.
“To town? With Alice? At supper time?” His brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“Jah, but a woman needs her time to do spontaneous things, Jacob. And she did want to make sure that you would eat.”
He sat down to supper, not really sure what he ate. It was completely unlike Lilly to be impulsive—unless she was harboring a horse thief, or throwing away her reputation on someone like him. He frowned at the thought and concentrated on making pleasantries with his mother-in-law, trying not to notice the deepening dark outside. He was more than glad when Lilly burst breathless into the kitchen and rose to greet her.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Jacob.”
Her beautiful face was flushed and her blue eyes sparkled with some suppressed excitement.
“That’s all right. I was just worried a bit. That’s all.”
She brushed past him with a pat on his arm and a paper bag in her hand. “Nothing to worry about. Alice just wanted to give me uh . . . a late wedding present.”
And with that he had to be content, he thought, as she put her parcel away and returned to calmly begin grading the papers waiting for her at the end of the table. He wondered what the present could be but couldn’t think of a way to ask without appearing too interested in her doings. He had to remind himself that he was courting her, winning her, wooing her. So, half an hour later, he gave her a very chaste kiss on the brow and went to toss in frustration on the bedroom floor.
In the ensuing weeks, Lilly sought in vain for the courage and opportunity to try out the special gown, but nothing seemed to present itself. At first she tried it on, taking it off—immediately—her cheeks flushed, her heart pounding, and her entire self embarrassed. Once she rehearsed keeping it on and reminding herself that it was not vain to be beautiful to her husband, she was able to picture herself stepping out in front of him, wearing this airy gown.
Yet, even after a handful of more horse-riding lessons, where she thought she was progressing very well, he’d merely pat her back and give an encouraging word of praise. He simply continued to behave as if they were in a stage of early courting. Still, Lilly reminded herself with the stirring remembrance of his kisses on the trail, it was courting. And that had to lead to something else sometime.
CHAPTER 44
O ne evening in March, the small family was seated around the light of a kerosene lamp, talking pleasantly of the day’s work while Lilly graded papers.
Jacob was pleased to see his mother-in-law looking so well and he’d come to enjoy her tart humor. But now she sighed with a dreamy look on her face.
“What, Mamm?” he asked with interest.
“Ach, nothing . . .”
“What is it?” Lilly looked up.
“I just had the thought that I wish I’d been well enough to host a wedding quilting for you, that’s all.”
Lilly smiled and rose to hug her mother. “I have you back, Mamm. A wedding quilting doesn’t matter.” But she spoke with such an unconscious wistfulness that it echoed in Jacob’s heart.
All right, that’s it!” Seth tossed a bridle at him, and Jacob caught it with ease.
“What?”
“You’ve been moping around here for the past two days. I took your advice and got over myself. Now I’ll ask you what your problem is . . . besides the fact that you can’t seem to bring yourself to . . . cherish your wife with husbandly affection.”
Jacob hung the bridle up and looked at his brother with a growing light in his eyes. “Well, if you really want to know—you could help me.”
Seth backed off, hands up. “Oh no, that’s between you and your fraa.”
“Seth,” Jacob said, a bit disgusted, “don’t let your artist’s imagination run away with you. I need your help in a very different way.”
“I wasn’t offering help. I thought you were sad, not plotting. I don’t want any part of this—”
Jacob linked his arm over his bruder’s shoulders. “It’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”
Lilly kept her gaze discreet while sitting in the buggy in the cool evening air. By now, though, the group of Amish women who exited the church in Lockport where the depression support groups were held had become familiar to her, and her waiting presence to them. The group served a wide area of about fifteen miles or so and she didn’t recognize anyone from her community. There were about twelve women in all, including her mamm, and they often bade each other good night or stood talking in pairs for a few moments when the meeting was done. For Lilly, it was exhilarating to see her mamm pause and speak to someone, sharing concerns and laughter before coming to the buggy.
“How was it tonight, Mamm?”
Lilly had discovered, to her surprise, that her mother liked to talk about the things she’d learned during the meetings. Lilly had grown to treasure the buggy rides home as a time to feel closer to her mamm.
“It was gut.” Her voice was quiet.
Lilly glanced at her mother’s profile. “What’s wrong?”
“Ach, nothing. The discussion really was good, but one girl
brought up the fact that she’d been told that if she only had more faith, then she wouldn’t be depressed.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No, not at all. But it’s still difficult to hear such words.”
“Mamm, Dr. Parker said that depression is a very real illness. Can faith help you as you recover? Surely. But to link faith or more faith with not having depression isn’t fair—”
Her mother laughed and patted her arm. “It’s all right, Lilly. I know all that. I felt bad for the woman who’d had someone say that to her; that’s all. I don’t want her to feel shame over false words.”
“Oh.”
“I’m feeling better, Lilly. Really. For the first time in months I feel like there’s a break in the clouds. But I’m not fool enough to think it’s over. I’ll have to be careful and conscious of this illness for all my days.”
Lilly nodded as her throat filled with happy tears. She was so pleased to hear her mother talking seriously, if not matter-of-factly, about her illness. She lifted her eyes to the star-strewn sky and thanked Derr Herr once more for using for good what had so recently seemed like such an irreparable time in her mother’s life.
CHAPTER 45
Three weeks after their secret plan was put into motion, Seth hustled Jacob upstairs after he’d dropped by his old home for a visit. Lilly had stayed home to do some extra school preparations.
“You’d better sit down.”
Jacob dropped to his brother’s bed and stretched.
“Now what’s the matter?”
Seth tossed a stack of thick envelopes at him, then slid into a chair at the end of the bed, propping up his long legs.
“Letters from ladies for you, dear bruder. It seems that your brilliant idea for me to send out requests for quilt squares for your wife and a possible wedding quilting—hosted by us men—got circulated around. And, by the evidence, it has endeared you to the hearts of Amish women everywhere. All those letters have quilt squares and you’re going to have to listen to each note because women will be able to tell whether or not you have read them.”
Jacob picked up a handful of envelopes. “Women? How many? How many requests did you write? Only a handful of people will fit around the frame, right?”
“Besides the fact that this is going to be the oddest quilting party in the area yet—being given by two men—I’d say we’re going to have to have revolving seats for the quilters, because there are a lot of women who want to quilt.” He stretched and scooped up a handful of the letters.
“Ach, here we go. One of my favorites—the lyrics to an Englisch quilting song, apparently from the late 1800s and dedicated to you by a Miss Lena Christner. I will not sing it, but I’ll recite it later—much later.” He rambled on. “Miss Lena also includes a patchwork square.” Seth waved the fabric. “And, she wishes you the best in life and love and so on.”
Jacob stretched out on the bed and yawned. “Keep going. I’m listening.”
“You’d better be. Now we have a novel quilting technique from our local postmistress, a ‘yo-yo’ square.”
“Like the toy?”
“Yeah, that will fit real comfortably into a bed quilt. No—circles of fabric are gathered into flat pouches and sewn together. See? It’s like a bunch of little colorful circles; I like this one.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve learned enough about quilting that I feel like I ought to wear a skirt.”
“You’d look good in anything.”
“I’ll ignore that comment.” Seth pulled another square out of an envelope. “I guess this one is called ‘appliqué.’ You see? This smaller piece of cloth is cut into a shape and sewn onto a larger piece.”
Jacob stared at his narrish bruder.
“Then we have the French Knot—”
Jacob laid back on the bed, feeling his eyes drift closed. A moment later, the sudden weight of his brother centered on his chest.
“Get off,” he gasped.
“Nope. Not until you listen.”
“But it’s boring, Seth.”
“It was your idea. Now get up, gather your love letters and quilt squares, and go down and tell Mamm what you’ve done. She’s the only one who can sew these all together in time to make the quilt top.”
“The . . . quilt . . . top?” Jacob feigned ignorance to bait his brother.
“The quilt top! The thing that fastens to the frame that the ladies quilt on. I’m telling you this is the last time that I will ever—” It was probably Jacob’s hiccup of swallowed laughter that clued Seth in. He gave a tremendous heave and landed his brother on the floor with a loud thump. A shower of envelopes followed.
“Boys!” Mamm’s admonishing voice floated upstairs from the kitchen, just like when they’d been kinner. “What’s all the racket?”
Jacob sat up and lifted a pretty pink rose square from the litter around him. “This is nice.”
Seth narrowed his eyes. “You mock it now, but remember, this is important to your fraa. You can’t make fun of things that are important to her.” He shook his head. “Don’t you know anything about marriage?”
“All right. I’ll go talk to Mamm. But clean up the mess, Seth, and stop getting so involved in every little thing I ask you to do.”
He was too fast for the long leg that shot out to trip him and laughed out loud on his way down the stairs.
CHAPTER 46
The Saturday of his wife’s wedding quilting dawned bright and clear. Jacob slipped out of the room at 4:00 as usual and rode Thunder as fast as he could to his old home. Mamm was already up cooking for the others sitting around the table—Seth, his daed, and a grinning Tommy.
The kitchen was filled with the smells of good things. Jacob hung up his coat and hat, then went to give his mamm a hug at the stove.
“Danki for doing all this . . . I had no idea how much work was involved.”
His mother looked up from the huge tray of apple dumplings she was sugaring and raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to do it, sohn, but to invite droves of women was a bit much.”
Jacob turned to look at Seth, who was now fiddling at the quilt frame with their father and Tommy.
“Droves? How many are droves?”
“Who are these people?” Daed asked.
“Well-wishers, romance lovers, and quilters from as far away as two valleys over. I never put specific names on those letter requests, just handed them to whoever, and somehow or another they just got circulated around. And, I think most women want to come simply to see men try to quilt.” Seth shrugged.
Jacob surveyed the huge frame that took up nearly all of the sitting room. He and Seth had hauled it from the Kings’ largest barn when Sarah’s mother remembered that the bigger frame had been stored there and hadn’t been used in well over fifty years.
The long lengths of wood for holding the layers of the quilt taut so that they could be quilted together, without folds or puckers, had needed a few repairs. But now the full frame held the entire quilt, stretched out for the beginning of the quilting. Then the side rails would be rolled up within the quilt as sections were completed.
“Well, we ought to get it done fast, right? With all those ladies quilting?”
Seth rolled his eyes. “And talking, and eating, and visiting—and we’re supposed to be the hosts! I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“Boys!” Mary Wyse called. “This is for Lilly, for a lifetime of memories. And it’s a gut symbol for the beginning of a marriage—you have to work to put things together, to make things work in your minds and hearts. And certainly everyone from here to Elk County will remember this quilting. Now come get the ham out and run down to the cellar for a half-dozen jars of white navy beans. Hurry. The guests start arriving in a few hours and I’m not near done cooking, even with all the dishes the neighbors are bringing.”
Jacob hastened to obey and breathed a quick prayer that all would go smoothly on this special day for his wife.
It was a fresh
Saturday morning, and Lilly sighed to herself that she was stuck in the classroom for an annual round of teacher training. The topics were really things she’d gone over before or already had teaching strategies for, and she thought she’d much rather be spending time with her husband. But, Jacob did say that he had a lot of things to catch up on. And, to make the day even more dull, Alice was surprisingly absent when she’d promised to come.
At 10:00 a.m. the mentoring teacher gave them a break. As Lilly stood and smoothed out the back of her dress, she had a sudden inspiration. she’d drive home and surprise Jacob with a half-day off, even though he was working. Perhaps she might arrive in time to have lunch with him.
She trotted Ruler, the buggy moving briskly, ignoring what stares she knew she was probably getting for leaving early, but choosing not to mind. She drove on and saw a lone Amish woman walking along the roadside. She would have passed by with a called greeting but when she drew abreast of the woman, she recognized Kate Zook.
She drew the buggy to a halt on some instinct and found herself asking if the girl needed a ride. Since the day of the cleanup at the classroom, she’d heard through the community grapevine that Kate had ceased to see Tommy Granger, even though the buwe was close at hand at the Wyse farm. Yet, she also knew that Kate was rather on the outside of the tight-knit community as she had yet to repent of her rebellion and express a desire to join the church.
Kate squinted up at her in the morning sunshine. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you want to give me a ride?” There was something flat and halting in the girl’s tone. Lilly recognized the resignation of her expression and felt a surge of empathy.
“Because you might need one. Come on.”
Kate clambered into the buggy and stared straight ahead.
“So, how are things going?” Lilly asked softly.
“Great.” The girl’s pretty mouth twisted in bitterness. “Just great.”
Lilly though for a moment. “Kate, I know we’ve never gotten along. I was very jealous of you and your feelings for Jacob, but I’m over that now.”
