Joseph did little at the services. He kept his head low and shuffled out of the house right after the meal to hitch Ali to the buggy and drive home with Ben. Dorrine took dishes of food to the Zook residence twice a week, but beyond that Joseph was alone with his rejection. Ben appeared to have put on a few pounds, so Joseph had obviously found the strength somewhere to fix that problem, even as his own frame grew gaunt.
She would weep and wail if it would do any good—but it wouldn’t. Tears were a thing of the past when it came to fixing problems. She wanted to drive straight over to Isaiah’s place this morning, throw her arms around him, and comfort him. But what comfort was she to him now? That truth stung the deepest. She had brought this upon him. Isaiah’s first frau had never shamed him like this, and Esther had not even made it to the wedding vows before bringing disgrace upon his head.
But maybe there was time yet to redeem herself. She could change her ways.
Esther turned away from the bedroom window and dressed. Each pin felt like a pound weight, and she pricked herself twice—the second time badly enough that blood trickled down her finger. Perhaps she ought to bleed herself like the sick were bled in medieval times, to cleanse herself of her illness. But how morbid that would be, and self-serving. She would only sink deeper into this dismal hole of despair.
Esther pressed in the last pin and closed the bedroom door behind her. The dawn was bright in the sky without a cloud on the horizon, and the heat moved through the house with tentacle-like fingers. She entered the kitchen and stoked the fire. The flames quickly rose from the kindling, the smoke misdirecting for a moment into the room. She waved the offending fumes away and closed the stove’s lid.
She soon had bacon in the pan and the eggs frying. Esther poured in the oatmeal when the water boiled, and dashed around the stove to blow out the flame when she spilled oat kernels on the hot surface.
“Clumsy me,” she muttered to herself, brushing the smoking debris into the wastebasket with her apron and placing the lid on the oatmeal.
Now to get Diana up. She should have woken the girl earlier. Diana needed to begin her journey back to the bouncy child she had once been, but who was she to blame Diana when such a cloud hung over the house? The girl missed Isaiah terribly, and Diana had gone over to talk to him yesterday after the service. Esther hadn’t dared ask about what the two had said—and Diana hadn’t offered to tell her.
Esther entered the living room and stopped short. Joseph’s shuffling figure could be seen coming across the lawn, his thin frame outlined against the dawn sky. She gasped and hurried to the front door.
“Has something happened?” she called to him.
He shook his head. “I would have gone to Dorrine if it had.” He lifted his bearded face and attempted a smile.
“Oh, Joseph.” Esther stepped out on the front porch. “What is to become of us? I feel so awful for how things turned out, and I’m to blame.”
He perched sideways on the upper porch step and peered up at her. “Those are exactly the thoughts I’m thinking, Esther, and we can’t both be right.”
She stared at the dawning horizon. “It was all me, Joseph. Don’t fool yourself. Only a woman could mess things up so completely.”
His laugh was gentle. “It all starts with a man, Esther, and I was the center of that storm. Me, my roses, and my stories of Silvia and our great love.”
“But they were true.”
“Oh, yah, only too true. But that doesn’t fix the present situation. I could promise to back off the rose contest in California to please Peter and Edna, but I won’t because of my memory of Silvia. And I doubt if that would help anyway.”
“I would never want that to happen. And I agree. It would do no goot now, at least for us. Isaiah’s trouble would still remain.”
“I’m sorry for what happened there.” He hung his head. “I must say that was a sad sight yesterday, to see a great preacher reduced to such shame by nothing at all.”
“By roses,” Esther mused. “And by a woman who lured him into all of it.”
“Do you think you can go back, Esther?”
“I don’t know. I’m close to trying, I think.”
“I feel so badly about everything. I felt I had to come up and say so this morning. Not a lot of goot that will do, but it soothes my feelings at least.”
“It’s not your fault, Joseph,” she told him, her voice resolute.
“You’re just beating around the bush with that attitude, Esther. Maybe if you’d blamed me instead of sticking up for me—which is what I assume you did when Arlene’s parents were here—things might have turned out differently.”
“I didn’t dare say much in front of those people,” she said honestly. She paused a moment. “Why don’t you come on in for breakfast? Feeding you is the least I can do for you. I’ll run down and get Ben. I want him here too.”
“Really?” Joseph sounded relieved at the invitation. “I’m ashamed of myself, Esther, but the kindness of a woman still touches my heart deeply.”
“Sit comfortably on the couch in case Diana wakes, and I’ll be right back.”
He entered and took a long breath. “It seems breakfast is on the stove.”
“Yah, and almost ready to serve.”
“Do you mind if I set the table and help get things ready?”
“Of course not, but you don’t have to.”
He shrugged as she left the porch steps to run down Fords Bush Road toward the greenhouse.
If anyone from the King house happened to look out a window, they might wonder why she was hurrying along so early to the greenhouse—but what did their opinion matter at the moment? Serving Joseph and Ben breakfast was the important thing. Perhaps the simple gesture would help heal the pain in both of their hearts. Something must be done.
Esther ran across the greenhouse driveway and found Ben sitting on the living room couch. His hair was still mussed, and he had sleep in his eyes. “Hello, Ben. You’re invited to breakfast this morning.”
His eyes grew large. “Where is Daett?”
“He came up to my house to tell me something, and I invited him to stay. He’s up there right now in my kitchen, so let’s get back before he burns down the place.”
Ben grinned and followed her out the door. They made their way at a slower pace back up the hill.
“How are things going for you?”
“Real goot. Daett has always done a great job of taking care of me.”
“I’m sure he has,” she said, tousling his hair. “You’re getting to be a big boy, Ben.” He objected with a shake of his head, and then he ran his fingers through his hair for a comb.
No one peered out of the Kings’ windows as they passed. In her mind’s eye, she could still see Peter’s and Edna’s faces as they scrutinized her that day from Dorrine’s front porch. The memory sent a shiver up her back.
“What’s for breakfast?” Ben asked.
“Bacon, eggs, oatmeal, and toast.”
His face glowed. “That’s a real breakfast.”
“And I’ll be making pancakes to finish things off, now that you have come.”
“You will?”
“Yah, Ben, I will. When did you last have pancakes?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a long time.”
“Then we’ll have to make them this morning for sure,” she said, holding the front door open for him.
Diana was seated on a kitchen chair with her arms propped on the table. The cast was banging on the top as she chatted with Joseph.
“Back they are!” Joseph proclaimed, taking the plate of eggs and bacon from the stove top where he had been keeping them warm.
“Yep,” Esther chirped. “Now sit down and let’s give thanks. Then you all can eat while I stir up some pancakes.”
“You are making pancakes? I don’t know if—”
“Just sit and say grace. I’m making pancakes.”
THIRTY-FOUR
More than two weeks later on a Wedn
esday afternoon, Esther held Diana’s hand as the Greyhound bus pulled into the small town of Gap in Lancaster County. Both Daett and Mamm would be at the bus station to greet her and drive her home to the old place on Hoover Road. It was where she had spent her childhood and then left all those years ago to marry Lonnie, and here she would return to lick her wounds.
Somehow she must figure out how to recapture Isaiah’s confidence in her. They hadn’t spoken more than a few words since the horrible evening when Peter and Edna had humiliated him. Isaiah had said nothing about resuming their Friday evening suppers, and she had decided not to tell him about her trip to Gap. Dorrine had driven her to the bus station in Little Falls, full of sympathy for her state and breathing hopes that a break might be exactly what was needed.
Dorrine had stayed to wave goodbye to them as the huge bus carried them southward. Esther had never liked bus travel, and this trip hadn’t improved her opinion. Thankfully, Diana hadn’t seemed to mind. The little girl’s interest was taken up by the small towns they had passed through and the foreign sights her young eyes had never seen before.
“We’re almost there,” Esther said, squeezing Diana’s hand.
Diana didn’t say anything, her eyes heavy with sleep.
The bus driver shifted gears—the engine whined slower now—and bounced the vehicle into the small station marked by the image of a stretched-out greyhound.
“Gap!” the driver hollered. “No time out here. That’s coming up in Lancaster, where we stop for thirty minutes.”
Esther took her daughter’s hand and lurched into the aisle of the bus, making her way forward. The cast had come off Diana’s arm last week, which was the main reason Esther had waited this long to make the trip. The idea had come to her that morning when Joseph and Ben had joined them for breakfast. The delay had also provided time for a letter to travel to her parents, who had responded that a visit would be greatly welcomed.
Esther helped Diana down the bus steps and collected their single suitcase from the luggage compartment. Diana waved first when Mamm and Daett appeared around the corner of the station. There was a hitching post for the Amish a block away, which was where her parents must have parked.
“Have a goot trip?” Daett called as he and Mamm approached. His gray beard was slung over his shoulder, his hat was firmly on his head, and a smile stretched across his face.
“Oh, Esther!” Mamm exclaimed, almost falling into Esther’s arms. “It’s so goot to see you again. It seems like years since we dropped you off in your new home, even though it’s only been some months. I told Daett we ought to pay you a visit, and here your letter comes the very next day. We must have been thinking the same thing.” Mamm let go of Esther to embrace Diana. “How are you, little darling? My, you have grown. How is that arm of yours?” Mamm conducted a long inspection as Esther shook her daett’s hand.
“Goot to be home,” she said, wishing she could fly into his arms. But she was a grown woman now, no longer a little girl. She was also in the middle of a major effort to become sensible and sane again. A flood of tears was exactly what she didn’t need.
“Are you okay?” he asked, tickling her chin the way he used to when she was a girl.
“Oh, Daett…I’m doing the best I can,” she said, tears beginning to form.
He pulled her close even as she muttered protests. “You’re still my little girl,” he whispered. “Even though you’re all grown up and a mamm yourself, I think you still need a loving daett.” He held her at arm’s length. “You look well, Esther.”
“I wish I was as well as I look,” she choked. “Oh, Daett, you don’t know how I’ve messed up everything.”
The words came out in a wail, and several Englisha people who had come off the bus glanced in her direction.
Daett appeared concerned. “What’s wrong, Esther? Is there some other reason for your sudden visit home—other than what you’ve told us?”
“Yah,” she admitted. “But I’ll tell you everything once we’re in the buggy.” Esther grasped her suitcase, but Daett took it from her. With Diana’s hand in Mamm’s, they made their way up the street to where Daett’s horse, Westby, was tied.
Daett put the suitcase in the back of the buggy, and they all climbed in. A few moments later, they were clattering out of Gap toward Hoover Road. Mamm sat in the back with Diana, and Esther sat in front with Daett. The whole story spilled out in bits and pieces—about those first days after they left her in the beautiful valley below the Adirondacks, her subsequent contact with Isaiah, and the confirmation that the Lord was on her side. Then came Joseph and his story of Silvia, the Englisha woman who had loved him so greatly in spite of his lame foot and his strange ways. Finally, Esther confessed how she had embarrassed Isaiah and failed in her attempt to bring Joseph and Arlene together. Daett and Mamm listened until the end without comment.
“Isaiah is still humiliated beyond belief,” Esther said. “I don’t know how to make things right.”
“Now, now,” Daett said. “It can’t be that bad.”
“But it is!”
Mamm leaned up from the backseat to slip an arm around Esther’s shoulder. “Just calm down, dear. There’s nothing that a few days at home won’t fix. We’ll think of something.”
“Like what? There is nothing to think of.” Esther covered her face and groaned.
“What’s wrong with Mamm?” Diana asked.
“See, you’re scaring the child,” Mamm chided.
Esther turned to face Diana. “I’m sorry, dear heart. It’s just that… being home where I was once a little girl makes me feel like the little child I really am on the inside.”
“That will make no sense to her,” Mamm said, smiling at her granddaughter. “We’ll go out to the barn and look at the new baby pigs when we get home. Do you remember that we have pigs?”
Diana appeared skeptical but still nodded. “I want to see them.”
“They are all pink and wiggly and cute,” Mamm cooed.
A smile grew on Diana’s face, and Esther turned her attention back to Daett. “What do you think is to become of me?”
Daett grunted. “You’re a big girl, Esther. You were the frau of a minister, and both of you were well liked in the community. There’s no reason things won’t be the same again in the valley.”
Esther kept her voice low. “That’s what my plans were! But don’t you understand all that happened, Daett? You should have seen Isaiah on Sunday as he was preaching. I have broken him and shamed him.”
“He’ll be okay, Esther. Isaiah’s a decent man from what I know of him, and he’ll be fine. You did the right thing in coming here to rest and recover. Take whatever time you need. There’s no sense in rushing back. In the meantime, the whole family will be at our place tonight for a big supper. Mamm has been doing nothing but rushing to the bulk food store and cooking up a storm the past few days. I can hardly set foot inside the house without being sent off for an errand somewhere.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” she said soothingly, and then they laughed together.
Esther exhaled as they turned down Hoover Road from Highway 30. “Thank you so much for letting me come home, Daett. You had to know I was running from something, yet you are only kind to me.” Her tears threatened again, and Esther gave his arm a quick squeeze. “Thank you for being here for your little girl.”
“You are very welcome.” Daett smiled down at her, and his eyes twinkled as he brought the buggy to a stop by the barn. “That wedding date with Isaiah will be coming off just fine, I’m thinking, and I’ll be getting to see that wunderbah valley of yours again.”
“And wunderbah Isaiah,” Esther said as she jumped down. “I think I’ve truly fallen in love with him now.”
Mamm climbed down more slowly and headed for the barn with her granddaughter as Esther undid the tugs on her side.
“So you did fall in love with him?” Daett asked over Westby’s back.
“Yah,” Esther said, feeling her cheeks grow wa
rm. “But now I feel a little guilty for not telling him I was coming home.”
“Perhaps you should have. But if he loves you, he’ll understand.”
Esther made a face. “I feel as if we’re doing this backward. What usually seems to happen is that people fall deeply in love the first time and then settle the second time around. But I don’t think I settled in my first marriage. I was quite happy with Lonnie and he was with me—at least, he never said otherwise. But Isaiah…oh, my. We had best not go there. I’m trying to get my thinking straight.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t?”
“What? Not get my thinking straight?”
“Yah.” Daett chuckled. “Trying to fall out of love may be a little difficult, and I suppose Isaiah is having the same problem.”
“Then what am I to do, Daett?”
“That’s what you’re here to find out,” he said with a smile before leading Westby into the barn.
How could Daett be so lighthearted and sure that everything would turn out okay? Isaiah had kept his distance since the disastrous evening, and she had left the valley without a word to him. How did couples survive such separations?
She wasn’t unscathed, but she was still in love. Coming back here had driven that truth home. Her heart pounded at the thought of Isaiah and his wildflowers. When she had kissed him that evening for the first time and held him close, she knew she was in love. There was no question there.
She sighed and entered the house by the familiar front door. She smelled something delicious, and tears stung as she walked to the stove and lifted the lid on the scalloped potatoes. This was a staple from home, and she had always made Lonnie scalloped potatoes over the more traditional mashed potatoes Isaiah preferred. He’d never said anything, but somehow she’d known he loved mashed potatoes. She couldn’t remember how. Had she overheard some conversation from his sisters in those long ago rumspringa days? Or perhaps his mamm had said something on the few visits she had made to the Mast home after her marriage to Lonnie? She didn’t know how she knew. She’d just known.
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