The Quilting Circle

by Amy Lillard

  Obie relaxed a bit. Until that moment, Clara Rose hadn’t realized how tense he was. He straightened up again. “Okay. That’d be good. Okay.”

  What was wrong with him?

  Before Clara Rose could ask, he grabbed the plate and started filling it with the treats. Once he neared the table, the rest of the women noticed he was there. Everyone had to stop and talk to him, ask how things had been going, if he had any new golden retriever puppies, and if his twin brother, Zebadiah, was ever going to come back from Pinecraft and join the church.

  Clara Rose watched as he talked to each woman in turn, then glanced back at her as if something was on his mind.

  He had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. Her own mother and Eileen, Obie’s aunt, had been the best of friends growing up. She’d never experienced a time when she didn’t know Obie. And she had come to depend on his crooked smile and perpetually messy black hair. He was as handsome as God made them, but he showed no interest in dating. Or at least none that he told her about. They were such good friends Clara Rose was sure that she would be the first one he would tell—aside from the girl, of course—when he finally fell in love.

  “Something’s up.”

  She whirled around, caught off guard for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. “Tess.”

  “What are you daydreaming about?”

  Obie’s name sprang to her lips, but she managed to keep from saying it out loud. It didn’t sound proper to be daydreaming of Obadiah Brenneman when she was so close to marrying Thomas Lapp. But most people in these parts knew what good friends she and Obie truly were. Even Thomas was understanding of her unusual relationship with Obie. Lifelong friendship was a true gift from God, and no one should take it for granted.

  “Nothing,” Clara Rose mumbled.

  Tess shot her a knowing look.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Shaking her head, Tess went back to the table for another cookie without responding.

  “Mammi.” Clara Rose approached her grandmother from the side, as she talked to Mariana. The woman still wore that same dazed look she had when Fannie had asked her about foster children.

  “Yes, dear?” Mammi asked.

  “I’m getting a ride home with Obie. Is that okay?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “I’ll see you at home. And don’t drive too fast, jah?”

  Her grandmother only chuckled.

  * * *

  “For someone who wanted to talk, you sure aren’t saying much,” Clara Rose said. They had been riding in the buggy for almost twenty minutes, and Obie had yet to tell her what was on his mind. And there was something on his mind. Clara Rose could see it. His shoulders were tense, and the muscle in his jaw was jumping like a bullfrog on hot tin.

  “It’s not Zeb, is it?”

  “No. Zeb is fine. Do you mind if we go out to Millers’ pond?”

  She frowned. “What’s at the pond? No one’s there this time of year.” It had been warm lately, but not warm enough to get in the water.

  Obie shook his head, but she noticed he had turned his tractor toward the Miller place.

  But still he didn’t talk as they chugged along. He’d said nothing was wrong with his brother, but something was definitely amiss. Obie was normally bright and bubbly, full of laughs and jokes and mischief. But today it seemed as if a dark cloud had descended on his personality and was raining on his normally jovial spirits.

  Whatever it was, she would have to wait to find out, though. He seemed intent on reaching Millers’ pond before he let her know exactly what was on his mind.

  In no time at all, they had pulled to a stop in front of the crop of trees that sat in the middle of the Millers’ cornfield. A well-beaten path led from the road at the edge of the field and into the trees, where the pond hid like an undisclosed oasis.

  Obie came around to her side of the tractor and helped her down. But he was still acting strangely, jerking away from her as if her touch had burned him. Had he always been like that? Was she just hypersensitive to the fact that he was acting strange now? “Do you want your sweater?” Obie asked.

  She nodded. It was warm enough out here, but once they got into the trees it would be much cooler by far. Fall was definitely upon them. Obie handed her her plain black sweater. She folded it over her arm, but was careful not to let it snag on the fence as they ducked through it into the cornfield.

  But she was oh so aware of Obie walking behind her. It was strange, for she had never felt this way before. Was it because he was acting so weird? Or was something else happening today?

  He didn’t say a word, just followed behind her as they walked to the crop of trees.

  The pond wasn’t huge by any stretch of the imagination. Just big enough to allow the kids a place to cool off in the summertime. It boasted a thick rope swing, though everyone knew to be careful jumping in. The pond wasn’t deep enough to support too many antics.

  Clara Rose walked into the clearing and over to a fallen log. How long the tree had lain there was anybody’s guess. But it had become a customary seat for the pond’s visitors.

  She folded her arms under her sweater and waited for Obie to tell her what was on his mind. Her heart started to pound in her chest, as if what he was about to say was going to change both of their lives.

  Obie took off his hat and twirled it in his hands as if he needed something to do to disperse the nervous energy coursing through him. “Uh . . .” he started, but those green eyes darted to everything around but her.

  “Obie,” she started, “you’re scaring me. Is everything okay?”

  He stopped running his hat and trained his suddenly hard gaze on her. “No, everything is not okay.” He practically yelled the words.

  She’d never seen him like this, angry and agitated. She jumped to her feet. “What’s happened? Please,” she beseeched him.

  “I can’t let you marry Thomas Lapp.”

  Clara Rose’s mouth went instantly dry. “What?” She licked her lips to no avail. “What are you saying, Obie?”

  He started that hat-twirling thing again. “I’m saying that I’ve kept silent for too long. And I can’t see letting you marry Thomas.”

  Clara’s heart kicked up another notch. It beat like the bass drum in the marching band they had each year in the Christmas parade.

  “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “You just can’t marry him is all.”

  Clara stared at him, unsure of what to say. “Did he do something? Does he . . . love someone else?” The words were painful to say. How could he love someone else? She had known they were going to get married ever since the first time she had seen him. They had naturally fallen into friends the minute they met, but she knew they weren’t friends like her and Obie. Theirs was a different kind of friendship.

  She and Obie had been friends for so long, his friendship was like a warm winter coat to wrap herself in and keep her snugly always. But Thomas was different entirely. It was a more mature feeling. She knew he was going to take care of her, and she would take care of him. They would have a farm and raise chickens and babies, and life was going to be perfect from there on out. She just knew it. So why was Obie bringing all this up now?

  “Obadiah Brenneman,” she started, her voice stern with her growing annoyance. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I’m leaving.” The situation had lost its humor, if it had ever had any to begin with.

  “You can’t marry Thomas Lapp,” he said again, as if those simple words explained it all.

  “Why not?” Clara Rose shot back. Her words echoed in the alcove of trees where they stood.

  He shook his head and took her hands into his. “I have a bad feeling about this. Just don’t marry him, Clara Rose. Promise me.”

  Chapter Two

  Obie dropped her off at the end of her driveway and chugged his tractor toward home. He hadn’t said a word to her as they drove back to her
family’s farm. Not one word. She had expected something. Maybe him explaining himself as to why he thought she needed to call off her wedding to Thomas. It just didn’t make sense. They had announced their engagement in January; everything was set and ready to go. In just a few short weeks, she and Thomas would say their vows and eat wedding cake, and she would start her life anew as a married woman.

  She let herself in the house, wondering if Obie had gotten too hot that day. Maybe that was it. Heat stroke. So it wasn’t extremely hot, but it was warm for October. That should count for something.

  “Clara Rose, is that you?”

  Her mamm came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel as she walked.

  “Yes, Mamm?”

  “It’s good to see you home—my goodness, child! Whatever is wrong?”

  Clara Rose supposed the shock and surprise of her conversation with Obie was evident in her expression. But it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. Not with her mother. Her mother was levelheaded, staid, and true, and Clara Rose was certain the only answer she would get from Nancy Yutzy was that Obie would get over his doubts soon enough and that Clara Rose had already made her promises to Thomas. No, what Clara Rose needed was a different perspective.

  “Is Mammi back yet?”

  “She’s in the dawdihaus.”

  Clara Rose gave a small nod and headed toward the back door.

  “Only stay a minute. You have to come back and help Anamaria with supper.”

  Her sister was eighteen and fully capable of cooking for the four of them by herself, but Clara Rose stopped that thought in an instant. She was being selfish and ungrateful.

  Lord, forgive me, she prayed. This whole ordeal with Obie had her thinking all messed up. “I just need a minute to talk to her about something.” Clara Rose rushed past her mother without a second look.

  “Okay then,” Mamm called after her. But Clara Rose could still hear the questions in her voice.

  It was a short walk from the back door to the front of the dawdihaus. In fact, before her father had died, he had built an aluminum cover that stretched from the porch of one house to the other so his mother wouldn’t get wet when she came in to eat. Clara Rose remembered looking out the back window at her dawdi holding an umbrella over Verna’s head as they walked together to come eat in the main house.

  Things had seemed so simple then. She hadn’t thought about it at the time, only now, when it seemed that everything was more complicated than ever before.

  She knocked lightly on the door, then realized that Mammi, with her hearing, might not respond right away. She knocked louder.

  “Keep your apron on! I’m coming.”

  Her grandmother threw open the door, those sassy blue eyes scraping over her from head to toe. “My goodness, girl. What’s wrong?”

  Clara Rose opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She shook her head and stepped into the house. She closed her mouth and opened it once more to try again.

  “Spit it out,” Mammi said.

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “The beginning is always the best place.” Mammi took Clara Rose by the elbow and led her to the blue upholstered couch in the living room. Once upon a time, it had sat in the living room of the main house. Clara Rose could clearly remember so many days spent sitting on that couch and playing with her dolls, Anamaria next to her. Again, she was confronted with the simplicity of life then and the complexities of life now.

  “Obie told me I can’t marry Thomas Lapp.”

  “It’s about time that boy said something.”

  “What?” Surely she hadn’t heard her correctly.

  “It’s about time that boy said something.” Mammi pronounced each word clearly and slowly as if speaking to someone who might not have ever heard English spoken aloud.

  “I heard what you said,” Clara Rose said as respectfully as possible given her current situation. “I just don’t understand what those words have to do with anything I just said.”

  Mammi shook her head and came around to sit in her rocking chair. She reached into the basket next to the chair and pulled out her mending. One of her mother’s church capes in a beautiful green. The same shade as Obie’s eyes. Once again, he was right there in her thoughts. “You young people,” Mammi started, but then broke off as a shake of her head was more expressive than mere words could be.

  “What?” Clara Rose asked, more confused than ever.

  “Did you ask Obie why he didn’t think you should marry Thomas?”

  “Jah, of course.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he didn’t have a reason. Just a bad feeling.”

  Mammi nodded knowingly. “That is telling in itself.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Mammi shook her head once again, then peered at Clara Rose over her silver-framed glasses. “And that, child, is what you must figure out for yourself.”

  * * *

  Her grandmother’s words stayed with her as she cooked dinner, said the silent prayer before the meal, ate, and said the silent prayer afterwards. She and Anamaria cleaned the kitchen, put up the dishes, finished the outside chores, took quick showers, then retired to their bedroom. There were two extra rooms upstairs so each girl could have her own if they so chose, but they never had. She and Anamaria were like opposite ends of bookends. Mirrors of each other, only a few years apart.

  Tonight, Clara Rose was even more thankful that she shared a room with her sister. She sat on the bed and brushed her hair, hoping the familiar activity, as mindless as it was, would shed some insight into the turmoil this afternoon had brought.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Other than Obie, Anamaria was her best friend.

  “What would you say if I told you that Obie said I shouldn’t marry Thomas Lapp?”

  Anamaria’s gray eyes clouded over like the sky during a summer storm. “Thomas is such a good man. Why should you not marry him?”

  “That’s what I keep asking myself. This is what I have wanted forever.” Well, at least for the last three years.

  “I know,” Anamaria said, a strange tone coloring her words, but Clara Rose’s thoughts were in such a jumble she couldn’t pluck out another detail even if her life depended on it.

  “Thomas is handsome. He has a good job with his father. He’s kind and gentle. He’d make a good father to our children. . . .” What more could a girl ask for in a husband?

  “But do you love him?”

  Clara Rose scoffed. “Of course I do.” But her heart pounded in her chest and the words dried on her tongue. Nerves. That was all. She had been planning this wedding for so long. This was exactly what she wanted from her life. Exactly.

  “Then that’s all that matters.”

  * * *

  Clara Rose tossed and turned long into the night. She kept telling herself that she didn’t have to decide this today. And what was there to decide? Everything had already been decided, from the color of their dresses to which female family members would serve as bridesmaids. There was nothing left. She was getting married in six weeks to the man God had sent just for her. At least that’s what she told herself. Yet that nagging feeling held on. She prayed about it, but still found no answers. She tossed and turned some more, said another prayer, then went through the whole process again.

  She must’ve fallen asleep sometime around two o’clock in the morning only to be awakened by the rooster shortly afterward. The bad thing about Buster was that he didn’t wait till sunrise to start crowing. He tried to get an early start to the day, usually beginning somewhere between four and four-thirty every morning. Anamaria thought he was out to get them for the times they chased him out of the henhouse when they wanted the hens to lay, but Clara Rose suspected that he secretly wanted to belong to a dairy farmer. Either way, his summons had her up at four when she’d barely gotten any sleep at all.

  Quietly, she got out of bed and padded down the stairs
and into the kitchen, careful not to wake anyone else. Maybe having an early start to her day was a good thing. The more time she was awake, the more time she would be able to figure through this mess of her thoughts. But after a cup of coffee she realized this wasn’t a mess. Obie was nervous that their friendship would change once she and Thomas got married. It was completely understandable, but she couldn’t let Obie’s fears tarnish her own hopes and dreams. And those hopes and dreams were just about to become a reality. In just a few more weeks, she would be Mrs. Thomas Lapp. And once Obie saw them together, happily married and standing side by side, he would know without a doubt that she and Thomas definitely belonged together.

  * * *

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight, Clara Rose. You got something on your mind?”

  “Well, actually . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

  She and Thomas were on their way home from the Sunday night singing. The clop of the horse’s hooves on the roadway was soothing after puttering around on the tractor all week. Most of Wells Landing drove their tractors during the week, if they had them, and their buggies on the weekend. Sunday was a good day to go at a slower pace. Though her thoughts were anything but slow.

  “Nah,” Thomas started. “You can’t say something like that, then say never mind. What’s captured your thoughts tonight?”

  Clara Rose pleated her fingers in her apron and tried to find the right words to tell Thomas what was on her mind. But she knew better than to blurt it all out. Thomas might not be as understanding as she was about the situation with Obie. Sure, they had known each other about as long as he had known her, but it was something different altogether when love was declared.

  “It’s Obie,” she said. “He . . . I think he’s just worried that our friendship is going to suffer once you and I get married.”

  Thomas gave a stiff nod, then clicked the reins on the back of the horse’s rump. It seemed his horse liked an even slower pace on Sunday. “Well then, he would be right about that, jah?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not feasible to think that after the wedding things will remain the same. You won’t be able to spend as much time with Obie as you do now. You’ll be spending time with me.”