Esther rose to her feet and looked at him. Her expression was joyful. She was in her element. He was the one on the outside looking in.
“Frank would like to meet Olive, if that’s okay.”
“Tell him that’s fine. Come along and I’ll introduce you.”
Esther quickly signed his reply, and the little boy beamed with delight. Randy took the boy’s hand and followed Gabe to where the mare was dozing. Gabe picked up the boy and spoke softly to Olive. She reached out to nuzzle Frank’s arm. He drew back in fright. “Nee, it’s okay. That’s how she gets to know you,” Gabe said.
The boy turned to his father, who signed Gabe’s reassurance. The child nodded and held out his hand. His grin widened as the horse touched him with her lips. He pulled his hand away, but he was still smiling.
Gabe glanced at Randy. “Would it be okay if I put him on Olive’s back?”
“Sure.” The man signed for the boy, who clapped eagerly.
Gabe settled the child and showed him how to hold on to Olive’s harness. The boy made a quick motion with his hands. Gabe turned to his father.
Randy chuckled. “He wants to go for a ride.”
“Would your daughters like to join him?” Gabe glanced at the girls, who were standing with downcast faces.
“I’ll ask.” Frank signed to them, and they dashed toward Gabe.
He held up his hand to stop them. “Don’t run near a horse. It can frighten them.”
“Okay.” The one with a pink headband signed to her sister. She turned and held up her arms to Gabe. “I’m Sophie. This is Carmen. She’s deaf.”
Gabe lifted Sophie to Olive’s back behind Frank and noticed the girl’s headband had one of the hearing aids attached to it. The second little girl wasn’t wearing one.
With Randy walking beside the children, Gabe led them on a circuit around the parking lot. Olive had given up her fidgeting and walked patiently and carefully. She knew she had children on her back.
When the ride was over, Gabe and Randy lowered the kids to the ground. They hurried away to their mother, where they vied with each other to tell the story in sign for her.
“Thanks, that was kind of you,” Randy said.
“You are blessed. Children are Gott’s most marvelous gift to us.”
“I am, although some people wouldn’t see three hearing-impaired children as a blessing.”
Gabe nodded solemnly. “Those are the people in most need of our prayers, for they are blind in the spiritual sense no matter how good their eyesight is. Can I ask you a question about Sophie?”
“You are wondering why she wears a hearing aid and Carmen doesn’t. Heather mentioned you had questions about the same kind of device for Esther.”
“Ja.”
“Carmen couldn’t get used to being bombarded with sounds after being deaf for four years. She found it distressing. It may be a reaction to the neglect she suffered. To her, silence may be better than the screaming, shouting and fighting she witnessed when she was with her mother. We can’t be sure. She is happier not hearing. Heather and I are comfortable with her choice. Frank will never hear. He was born without the nerve that connects his inner ear to his brain. No hearing aid can help him. We are a blended family in more ways than one.”
“Danki—thank you.”
“Sure. I do have to say you may have ruined my son’s upcoming birthday.”
Gabe frowned. “How so?”
“My wife and I are getting a pony for the kids. He may not measure up to Olive in their eyes.”
Gabe laughed. “A horse of their own is a fine gift that they will soon love. They are welcome to come see Olive anytime they want a ride on a giant again.”
“I’ll tell them.”
Sophie dashed toward them but slowed a few feet away and walked slowly to Gabe. “Mommy says you and Esther are invited to Frank’s birthday party on Friday. Can you come?”
“Tell your mother I thank her for the invitation.”
“Can you bring Olive?” Sophie asked hopefully.
Gabe glanced at Randy, smothered a smile and shook his head. “Olive will be busy working that day. My brothers are cutting wood for the winter, and she must pull the big logs with her sister Honey.”
“Oh. Well, you can still come. You really have two giant horses?”
“My family owns six draft horses, plus two ordinary ones that pull our buggy.”
“It must be nice to be Amish. We don’t even have one horse. But we do have a dog.” She turned and went back to her siblings.
Randy patted Olive’s shoulder. “That’s a fine harness Olive is wearing. Did you make it?”
“I did. That’s my main business.”
“I’ve been thinking about having our pony trained to pull a cart for the children. Can you recommend a trainer?”
“My brother Asher. Olive is an example of his success. We bought her as an untrained two-year-old. She’s four now. You can see how well she turned out. I’m sure Asher would be interested in training your pony.”
“Great. How do I get ahold of him if I decide to go that route?”
“We have an answering machine in the phone booth we share with our Amish neighbors. You can leave a message there.” Gabe gave him the number, and Randy typed it into his cell phone.
“Esther appears to be in a spirited conversation with the teachers from the School for the Deaf,” Gabe said. “I’ve seen her using ASL with her family, but it isn’t like that.”
“Are her other family members deaf?”
“They aren’t.”
“I’ve read that the Amish speak their own language called Pennsylvania Dutch. Is that true?”
“It is. We call it Pennsylvania Deitsh or just Deitsh. I learned Englisch when I started school, as do most Amish children.”
“Do you speak more freely in Deitsh?”
“I do. I have to think about my Englisch words.”
“It’s the same with ASL. If you use it every day, all day long, it becomes second nature. If you only use it when the deaf family member is in the room, you need to think about what you are signing. It doesn’t come naturally.” Randy walked back to join his wife.
As Gabe watched Esther, he wondered if his attempts to sign amused her. He was little more than a toddler uttering his first words compared to the people she was talking to now. She was like one of the wild birds he liked to watch. She was freely fluttering her wings in the sunshine. Her song was one that only another deaf person could hear.
No matter how hard he studied sign language, it would take him years to become so accomplished. How much of what he wanted to tell her would remain unsaid or missed? He tried to imagine being married to her. How would he speak to her in the night?
Now he saw why she wanted a deaf spouse. She deserved a man she could understand and converse with easily. A man she didn’t have to try to guess at what he was saying.
He cared deeply for her, but was that enough? Unless there was a hearing device that worked for her, Gabe wasn’t sure he could sway her to consider him or that he should try. He wanted more than the half life she had with him now.
* * *
By the time the market closed at four o’clock, Esther had helped sell almost all of the merchandise she and Gabe had brought with them. She was delighted that her pink purses with their flowered borders had sold out, and she had orders for six more in different colors. When they finished packing up and headed for home, Esther realized that Gabe had been very quiet for the past few hours.
“We did well today,” she said, looking for his reaction.
He merely nodded.
“I have orders for a half dozen more purses.”
He glanced her way. “That’s good.”
“This trip to the farmers market was a success. And yet you don’t seem happy.”
; That drew his attention. “Of course I’m happy.”
“So what is on your mind?”
He shrugged. “Nothing in particular.”
“There must be, because you don’t usually snub me.”
He looked startled. “I’m not snubbing you. I had a nice day. I saw you had a wonderful time with your new friends.”
“Is that why you are upset? Because I made new friends?”
“Of course not.” He didn’t say anything else.
She studied his profile as he kept his eyes straight ahead, but she couldn’t drop the issue.
“Yesterday you kissed me, and this afternoon you can barely look at me. Are the two related?”
He turned Olive off the highway onto a patch of grass and stopped. He twisted in his seat to look at Esther.
“Maybe they are related. Today I saw you as you truly are.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I saw you excited to be with people like yourself.”
“Deaf people.” She crossed her arms against the chill that suddenly struck her. “You didn’t like what you saw.”
“Nee, that’s just it. I loved what I saw. I’ve never seen you so comfortable and happy. Watching you I realized you are always focused on trying to understand what is being said by me and others. I thought your intense concentration was just part of who you are. I didn’t realize it was part of your struggle. Jonah told me speech-reading is hard, but I didn’t realize how much effort you put into it until today. With those people, you didn’t have to work at understanding them. It was amazing to see.”
She had no idea what to say. After a few moments, he got the horse moving again. She traveled beside him in silence wondering how his revelation would change things between them, because she sensed that it had. When they reached his home, he carried the leftover merchandise back in the shop and set the box on his desk.
“Are we going to work this evening?” she asked.
He shook his head and then turned around. “I must help my father and brothers cut wood. They are working down along the river. I’ll join them shortly. I’d like you to make a few dozen more purses and key chains. Those were popular.”
She didn’t want him to leave with this strain between them. “It was nice of you to give Heather’s children a ride on Olive.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I liked Heather’s kinder and her husband.”
“Are you going to Frank’s birthday party?”
“Maybe. Will you go?”
“I’d love to, if you wouldn’t mind taking me. I don’t like to drive.”
“I did not know that. Of course I’ll take you.”
“Danki. Gabe, are we okay?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not any different than I was two days ago.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded. “Maybe I am. I want you to be happy. You know that, don’t you?”
She gestured around the room. “Well, this makes me happy.”
He pushed away from the desk. “That’s good, because we have a lot more work to do.”
After he left, Esther set about cutting out several more patterns. She had been working for about half an hour when the outside door opened. Mr. Jefferson walked in. He scanned the room. “Where’s Gabe?”
“Down at the river, cutting wood. If you would like to leave a message, I think I have a pen and paper here somewhere.”
She opened her satchel, searched for a suitable piece of paper and then pulled it out along with a pencil. When she looked up, Jefferson was walking out.
“So no message?” she signed in annoyance.
She walked to the door to look out and saw him driving away. Shrugging off his brusque manner, she went back to work.
That evening after supper, she sat on the sofa putting the finishing touches on a new dress. Jonah walked by with the book of sign language that had come in the mail for Gabe that day and carried it to him. She couldn’t see what Jonah was saying, but she imagined he was asking Gabe if he wanted to learn some new signs.
Gabe shook his head, took the book from Jonah and laid it aside. “Let’s play a game of checkers instead.”
“Mr. Jefferson stopped by,” she said. “Did he find you?”
Jonah turned to her. “Gabe wants to know what he wanted.”
“He didn’t say. He just left.”
Gabe never even glanced at her.
Esther focused on her needlework again. Something had changed today. In her heart she knew they weren’t okay.
Chapter Fourteen
Esther was glad when Gabe left to cut wood again after lunch. Their morning work had kept them both busy. They found little time to speak to each other. Or rather, they had avoided speaking to one another. She didn’t understand it. Had his amazing kiss meant nothing?
If he wasn’t upset that she had made new friends, what was the issue? Had she somehow offended him? It wasn’t like Gabe to be so withdrawn. They had been able to talk about almost anything. Why couldn’t he tell her what was wrong? Should she press him when he returned? She wasn’t sure what she should do.
She was cleaning up the leather scraps from around his cutting table when Julia came in.
“I came to let you know that I’m leaving with Bessie on Saturday,” she signed.
Esther set her broom aside. “Why?”
“I’m ready to go home.”
“Is it because of Danny?”
Julia nodded. “He came to see me yesterday. I told him not to come back. I think the best thing is to leave before he does.”
“Sister, you must tell me what’s going on.”
“You know I rejected Ogden Martin’s proposal last fall, but you don’t know everything. I tried to let him down gently, but he was persistent. He followed me wherever I went, to town, to visit friends. The worst of it was when his parents came to chastise me for treating their son so poorly.”
“I knew they came to see you. I didn’t realize that was why.”
“Ogden cornered me in the grocery store a few days later to tell me I had broken his mother’s heart. It was the last straw. I told him to stay away from me or the bishop would hear about his behavior. I honestly never thought I would have to do that, but when Ogden stopped me on the road a few days later, I felt I had no choice. The bishop was sympathetic to me. I had feared he would take Ogden’s side, but he went to Ogden’s home to speak to him. Ogden’s parents were mortified, but at least he finally stopped bothering me.”
“What does that have to do with Danny? Is he behaving poorly?”
“Danny and Ogden are cousins who were very close when they were young. Ogden wrote Danny to tell him I would be visiting the Fishers. Danny sought me out here to find out if I was as heartless as Ogden said and to ask why I treated him so badly. I foolishly thought it was because he liked me.”
“He didn’t say that, did he?” Esther was shocked. Danny had seemed like such a nice man, though she had only met him briefly.
“Danny has his mind made up about me. I am not going to try to change it. So I’m leaving.”
“Julia, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I believe the Lord is leading me toward a single life. I will be the doting aenti for Nancy and Pamela’s children. And for yours.”
“You will be a wonderful aenti. Clearly, Danny is a fool if he can’t see what a sweet person you are.”
“What about you? Are you ready to go home? You looked so glum at breakfast this morning.”
Maybe that was what she was supposed to do—go home. Gabe would have to manage his business alone, but she had done a lot to improve his chances of success. “I’m not sure what I should do. Part of me wants to stay here until after the festival. Another part of me says there isn’t much point.” Not unless something changed.
>
“I would dearly love to have your company on the trip home.”
“I’ll consider it.” She gave her sister a hug. “I will miss you, even if it’s only for a short time.”
Julia drew back and signed, “I will miss you, too.”
After Julia left, Esther sat down at the sewing machine. It didn’t seem fair that her oldest sister’s hopes for marriage and motherhood had been dashed by two men in the same family. Danny was a friend of Gabe’s. Would Gabe intervene if Esther told him what Julia said?
* * *
After five hours spent with a chain saw, Gabe was happy to finally get the wood chips and sawdust out of his hair. As he stepped out of the bathroom after washing up, he almost ran into Nancy as she came bouncing down the hall.
“Have you seen Moses?” she asked cheerfully.
“He’s bringing up the last sled load of logs. He should be here any time.”
“Okay, danki.” She turned to go back the way she had come, but Gabe stopped her. “Nancy, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
He took a few steps closer to her. “The day Esther and I went to the clinic, you picked up a brochure on a new kind of hearing aid.”
“I did. What about it?”
“Esther said she wasn’t interested, but you took one, anyway. Why? Was it for Esther? Do you think it can help her?”
Nancy grew serious. “I took it for myself.”
He frowned. “Are you losing your hearing? Jonah said he believed it skipped you and your sisters.”
“My hearing is fine. It’s just that I know that any children I have may go deaf. I want to be prepared. I want to learn as much about treatments as I can.”
“I see.”
She smiled. “I have told Moses about my concern. He said Gott decides.”
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