"Maybe you're pregnant?"
Pain lanced through her heart. Having just had her period, Jenny knew for certain that she wasn't. "No," she said firmly and she shook her head.
"Taking care of someone who's sick is very tiring," Naomi said. "I remember what it was like to be up day and night taking care of Isaac, my brother, last year."
Lydia nodded. "If you'll tell us what you need done we'll be happy to do it or you can just leave it up to us what to do."
"I—" Jenny spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know what to say."
"Say you're going to go take a nap," Naomi suggested. "We'll be quiet as mice."
"But what if Phoebe wakes up?"
"We'll come get you if we need you," Naomi said firmly.
A nap sounded so good. But there was so much to do.
"Shoo, shoo," Lydia said. "I'll bring you up a nice cup of tea in a minute and I want to find you lying down. Possibly already snoring."
The women giggled like girls.
Jenny wanted to refuse but just didn't know how she was going to keep going. Matthew did what he could after his own long, hard day, as did the children after school. But Phoebe's care fell on her and sitting up at night when Phoebe was having a bad spell was wearing her down.
Smiling and laughing in spite of herself, Jenny caved. "Twist my arm," she muttered. She stifled a yawn. "Okay, okay, you win. I'll lie down for an hour. And then we'll have a nice visit and you ladies will go home. I'm sure you have enough to do for your own families without being so generous with mine."
"Now you know we all help each other out. You go on to bed before you fall down."
"Danki," she said fervently and beat it up the stairs before she could change her mind.
When she came downstairs two hours later the kitchen floor was spotless. A pot of soup simmered on the stove. The breakfast dishes had been washed and put away. And her friends sat at the big kitchen table sipping tea and chatting quietly.
"Well, you look refreshed," Lydia said with a smile.
Jenny took a seat. "That was wonderful. I didn't mean to sleep so long."
Naomi got up to fix Jenny a cup of tea and pushed the plate of cookies closer to her. "I peeked in on Phoebe and she's still asleep but she didn't feel like she had a fever. We've got the soup simmering for when she wakes up. She loves my chicken corn soup with rivvels."
"There's a scalloped potato and ham casserole in the oven for supper," Lydia said. "Just warm up some canned vegetables to go with it and you're done."
The women rose in a group and left in a flurry of goodbyes and requests for Jenny to give Phoebe a hug for them.
"Remember to tell her the quilting circle is getting together in two weeks. We're contributing quilts for the auction to raise money for Haiti. You'll come too, won't you?"
"My quilting's not very good," she demurred.
"It just takes practice like anything else," Lydia assured her. "You're getting better."
"Slowly, just like my cooking," Jenny said with a selfdeprecating laugh.
"You're a fine Amish fraa," Fannie Mae told her. "Why, sometimes it's hard to remember that you weren't born here."
Jenny gave her an impulsive hug, then turned to do the same with Lydia and Naomi. "And sometimes it's hard for me to remember I had a life before. This is home."
Joshua answered the front door after supper and came to report that Hannah wanted Jenny to come to the door of the dawdi haus.
Curious, Jenny walked back there and when she opened the door, she found Hannah and Chris standing on the porch wearing big grins. Hannah held something behind her back.
"What's going on?"
"We want to see Phoebe," Hannah told her, almost dancing with excitement.
"But she's still sick—"
"We know, we know. Ask her to look out the bedroom window?"
"Okay." Jenny went into Phoebe's room.
"What's going on? Did I hear someone at the door?"
Jenny picked up the robe at the end of the bed and held it out to her grandmother. "You did. Do you think you can get up for a few minutes to look out the window?"
"Ya. What's going on?"
"I don't know. Hannah and Chris want to show you something."
After helping Phoebe put on the robe, Jenny wrapped the shawl they kept on the bed around her shoulders.
"I'm not going outside," Phoebe said with a smile.
"I don't want you to catch a chill."
Jenny pulled the rocking chair over to the window and helped Phoebe sit in it.
Hannah and Chris came close to the window and waved.Phoebe waved back.
"We have something to show you," Hannah yelled through the glass. "But it's just for you. Turn around, Jenny."
Puzzled, Jenny did as they asked. When Phoebe gasped, she started to turn but Hannah called out warning her not to.
"I thought you didn't want to know if the baby was a boy or a girl," Phoebe said.
"We still don't. But the midwife I'm using was concerned about something and sent me for a sonogram. Everything's fine, but I thought you might like a preview, Phoebe."
"I want to see!" Jenny yelled.
"Too bad!" Hannah returned and she was laughing. "And you can't tell anyone, Phoebe. Not even us!"
"Can I turn around now?"
"In a minute," said Phoebe. "Hannah, it's a little hard to see.Can you bring it closer to the window?"
"I'm pressing it to the glass," Hannah called in. "The nurse said she wrote on the side margin what the baby is."
"There—oh, my, I see what she wrote now!" Phoebe exclaimed. "What a miracle, taking a picture of what's inside your womb. It's a miracle." Her voice was soft, reverent.
"It's not fair!" Jenny yelled again, but she was laughing. This was totally ridiculous but so, so sweet it brought tears to her eyes.
Hannah was giving Phoebe something to look forward to.
"Maybe we'll let you see when you give us Phoebe back!" Chris called.
"No deal!" She had an idea. "So Chris, you must want to know if it's a boy or a girl."
"I do but I'm going along with Hannah on this one since I can't help her carry the baby."
There was a knock on the door frame. "Jenny? What's all the commotion?"
She gestured for Matthew to come in. "Hannah and Chris came over to show Phoebe a sonogram of the baby."
"I thought they didn't want to know."
"They still don't. It's just for Phoebe to know." She turned to him. "Why don't you try talking to them? You know you want to know."
"No I don't."
She pushed him toward the front door of the dawdi haus. "Sure you do. You want to know so I can know."
He stood firm and no amount of pushing would budge him.He turned and kissed her. "I don't know who's crazier right now—my sister or you."
"Her. C'mon, Matthew, she'll listen to you."
Laughing, he hugged her. "You're wrong."
He fell silent for a moment as they watched Phoebe. "Look at her, Jenny, just look at her," he whispered in her ear. "Look at the color in her cheeks. What Hannah's doing is as good as medicine."
"I know." She watched, love swamping her as she rested against him. Tears were running down Phoebe's cheeks and she looked like she never wanted to stir from the window.
"We better go," Chris called in. "It's getting cold out here. I don't want Hannah to get sick."
"Danki," Phoebe called. She pressed her fingers to her lips and blew them a kiss. "Danki, both of you. I love you!"
She turned and saw Jenny and Matthew. "What a wonderful surprise."
Pulling a tissue from the pocket of her robe, she wiped her cheeks. "I'm sorry she doesn't want me to tell you."
"I made some potato soup," Jenny said persuasively.
Phoebe laughed. "Not even for your potato soup."
"Jenny! What a surprise!" Hannah said when she opened the front door.
Then her eyes narrowed. "I'm not showing you the sonogram."
Laugh
ing, Jenny stepped inside when Hannah moved, taking her enormous abdomen out of the way. "I came over to get some clothes for Phoebe. She said she had some more nightgowns and another robe."
"How is she doing, really?"
"The coughing's still really bad," Jenny told her honestly.
There was no point in sugarcoating anything. If she acted like Phoebe was better than she was and she unexpectedly took a turn for the worse, it would be too much of a shock.
"And she's really weak. This thing has taken so much out of her." Then she smiled and touched Hannah's arm. "But she's got so many people praying for her. I'm feeling a little better about her."
She sighed. "Some extra things for her will help with laundry. There's enough of that to do with three children. And a husband who farms."
Hannah nodded and rubbed her lower back. "Go on in and get what you need. I'm going to make another run to the bathroom.The baby stopped kicking up under my ribs and now he—" she stopped to stare meaningfully at Jenny, "or she— wants to stand on my bladder."
Chuckling, Jenny walked into her grandmother's room and went straight to the closet for a robe. She set the robe on Phoebe's bed and turned back to the closet. Maybe a sweater, too, she thought, for times when it would be warmer than a shawl when Phoebe sat up in bed or a chair.
A sweater was folded neatly on the top shelf of the closet. Jenny reached for it but as she pulled at it a button must have caught on something. She tugged and the sweater came free, bringing down with it a box filled with papers. Placing the sweater on the bed, she turned back and knelt on the floor to pick up what appeared to be old letters tied up with a ribbon.Several of them had slipped from the ribbon so she started picking them up.
And when she held one in her hand she gasped. The handwriting on the envelope looked familiar—a bold, masculine scrawl she'd seen before. She looked at the return address and saw her father's name.
She hesitated and then she found herself opening the letter.
"Dear Mudder," she read. "Thank you for letting me know about Jenny's infatuation with Matthew Bontrager. You're right, I don't want her converting to the Amish faith and marrying him or any other boy. I want her to go to college the way her mother and I talked about, get an education, and have a future, not live a way of life I left."
Shocked, she tried to make sense of it all. Phoebe had contacted her father about how she and Matthew felt about each other? She'd thought that Phoebe approved . . . never thought about her disapproving or letting her father know. She'd been so in love, so enraptured with Matthew, that she hadn't even thought about what would happen if her father found out.
"Jenny? Are you finding what you need?"
Startled, Jenny got up and found herself automatically stuffing the letter into her pocket. Quickly, she scooped up the rest of the letters, put them in the box, and placed it up on the top shelf again.
"Yes! Almost done!" she managed to say.
She had the robe and sweater in her arms when Hannah poked her head in the doorway. "What about a cup of tea?"
"Can't. I left Phoebe by herself. I have to get back."
"You okay? You look pale."
"I'm fine," Jenny assured her quickly. "I'll see you later."
She hurried out, feeling as if her world had suddenly shattered.
8
Jenny! Jenny!"
She jumped when she felt a hand on her arm and spun around.
"Chris! You scared me!"
"Where are you going in such a hurry?" He put his hands on his hips and stared at her. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," she said, clutching Phoebe's robe and sweater to her chest.
"You don't look fine. You look awful," he said bluntly. "Almost shell-shocked, like you just got bad news or something."
"Phoebe's getting better," she told him quickly. "I just got some of her clothes. And don't you know you don't tell a woman she's not looking well?"
"Okay," he said slowly, rocking back on his heels as he studied her. "Then maybe we need to get you more help."
"Some of Phoebe's friends have been coming by with food, even cleaning help. But I need to get back now. I left Phoebe alone."
Chris pulled off his hat and wiped his forehead with a bandanna. He squinted at the sun pouring down as he scanned the fields to the rear of the farmhouse.
Jenny was reminded of how she thought he looked like the All-American boy when she first met him at the veteran's hospital.Now he seemed so at home here, fit into the community well after he'd studied to become Amish and married Hannah.He'd converted to the Amish faith when they married and even wore a beard the way all the men did here when they were married.
He returned his gaze to her. "I'd better get back to work.Tell Phoebe I miss her."
Jenny had started to move away from him but she heard the emotion in his voice.
"I'd—think a fairly newly married couple would enjoy some time without anyone else in the house," she teased him.
"You'd think wrong," he said quietly. "And we're hardly 'fairly newly married' in any case. I've grown close to Phoebe since I came here. She's—" he stopped and took a breath."Well, I can't even think what it would be like without her."
Jenny patted his arm. "She's hanging in there. But I left her alone to get some things and I need to check on her."
He nodded. "I know Matthew's in town today. If you need anything, just holler, okay?"
"I will."
Her heart pounded as she walked into the house and she felt sick—physically sick. Once she shut the door she leaned on it and tried to think. It couldn't be true. It couldn't. She knew Phoebe loved Matthew, had always loved him like a son.And she'd seemed to approve of their budding relationship back then.
There was no doubt that her father was strict, always making her abide by a curfew when she went out with friends or on the occasional date. She understood that and appreciated it.After all, if he didn't care, he wouldn't be that way.
And while he had decided not to stay in the Amish community and join the church, he had never kept Jenny from seeing her grandmother. He'd been fine with Jenny visiting her for those two summers.
She looked at the connecting door to the dawdi haus. What was she going to say to Phoebe? She wanted to rush into her grandmother's room and demand to know why she'd betrayed her.
How different my life would have been if you hadn't interfered all those years ago! she wanted to cry out. I missed out on all those years I could have had with Matthew if you hadn't interfered, if you hadn't written my father. I wouldn't have been miserable for the first year at college. I wouldn't have chosen the job I did overseas and come home shattered in body and soul.
She heard a commotion on the porch, the front door opened, and in poured Annie, Mary, and Joshua.
"Mamm? We're home!"
"I see," she said, trying to summon up a smile.
"Are you all right? Mamm?"
"Yes," she whispered and she impulsively gathered them up into a hug.
"What is it?" Mary asked and her lips began to tremble. "Did Phoebe get worse?"
"Is she dead?" Annie wanted to know. "Mamm?"
She shook her head but then realized that she'd been standing there feeling so miserable she hadn't checked yet. "No, she's fine. I went to get a few of her things and I'm just a little tired, that's all."
"Can I fix you some tea?" Mary asked. "I'll be careful, promise."
"And I'll get you some cookies to go with it," Annie piped up.
"You just want to sneak some for yourself," Joshua told her with the tone only an older brother could use.
Annie elbowed him in the ribs. "Mamm? Why don't you sit down and let us take care of you?"
"I could do something," Joshua said. He thought for a moment. "But what? What do you want me to do for you?"
Tears sprang into her eyes at their caring.
And then the thought, the most hurtful thought came into her head. These would have been my children, born of my womb. I wouldn't be asking G
od each month for a baby, she thought. I wouldn't cry each time I found I wasn't pregnant.
They could have been the children born of my body, not just of my heart. I could have had all those years with them.All of us could have been spared so much pain—they the pain of losing their mother. Me, the pain of my body being so badly injured and scarred.
Why, God? Why? she screamed inwardly. Why did You let Phoebe do this to me? Why?
Phoebe's room was dim when Jenny slipped inside it but Jenny could still see her grandmother sitting up in the bed, her arms wrapped around her.
And she could hear that horrible hacking cough. She rushed to her side and sat down on the bed beside her.
"Can't stop—" Phoebe gasped. "My side—oh, it hurts so much."
"Maybe we need to go see the doctor today."
"I—" Phoebe started to refuse and then she nodded. "Feels like I broke a rib coughing."
"Let me go get Matthew—" she stopped. Matthew had gone into town, she remembered.
But Chris had said to call him if she needed him. "I'll be right back. You lie down and when I come back I'll help you get dressed. Okay? Don't move until I get back. Promise me."
"Promise," Phoebe whispered, clearly out of breath. She lay back down and Jenny drew the quilt over her.
She hurried into the house, startling the children who were having an after-school snack. Stay calm, she told herself. Don't frighten the children.
"Joshua, would you please go get Chris for me?"
"Schur. Is it Phoebe?" His glance went to the connecting door.
"Tell Chris I think Phoebe needs to see the doctor again, that's all," she said. "Why don't you help him hitch up the buggy to make it faster?"
He nodded and took off.
"Mary, wait here by the door and if Phoebe calls out for me, tell her I'm going out to use the phone in the shanty. But don't go in there unless you think it's an emergency, okay?"
Her eyes wide and round with concern, Mary nodded.
Jenny grabbed her shawl from the peg by the door and then realized that Annie was sitting there at the table, so still. She walked over and looked at her and then she wrapped her arms around the child and hugged her.
A Time for Peace Page 7
