“Apologize? For what?”
“For napping when there is work to be done.”
Claire ventured back to the vacant stool beside Esther and leaned against the cushioned top. “When you are less than eight weeks from having a baby, napping is your work, Esther.”
“That is what Eli says.”
“Your husband is a very smart man. You should listen to him.”
The same smile she’d seen on Esther’s face every time Eli used to show up in the alleyway between Heavenly Treasures and Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe tugged at her friend’s mouth, and it warmed Claire from the outside in. Seven months into their marriage, it was obvious Esther was still very much smitten with her husband.
“That is what Eli says, too.” Esther laughed and then turned her head to look out the side window to its view of the empty alleyway. “Has he been here today?”
“Who? Eli? Not that I know of. Then again, Annie was here alone this morning.”
“No. I mean, was Samuel here? To see Ruth?”
She followed Esther’s gaze out the window while simultaneously working to process her friend’s words. “Samuel? Samuel Yoder?”
“Yah.”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Eli thinks they will marry this winter.” Esther lifted her own hand to her stomach and cradled it lovingly. “Perhaps, next fall, when our baby is one, there will be a cousin.”
Claire yanked her focus back to Esther. “Wait a minute. How long have they been courting and why have I not known this?”
“Because your eyes see only my uncle,” Esther replied, grinning.
“No, but I—”
“Eli says Samuel stops by the bake shop every day for lunch.”
“I know that. I’ve seen him myself, but—” Her sentence died on her tongue as she traveled back to nearly every sighting she’d had of Samuel over the past six months.
The anticipation on the Amish man’s face as he crossed in front of Claire’s shop . . .
The contented smile he wore as he headed back toward his furniture shop some thirty minutes later . . .
“I thought he just really liked Ruth’s food . . .” Bringing her palms to her cheeks, Claire shook her head at the startlingly clear reality that had somehow managed to escape her for months. How could she have been so blind?
“It is as I said. Your eyes are busy on Jakob.”
Feeling her hands start to warm along with her cheeks, Claire pushed off her stool and wandered over to the window, her initial surprise over Ruth and Samuel’s courting status bowing to pleasure. “I’m thrilled for her. Ruth is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and she deserves to be happy.”
“Yah.”
“How is Eli taking this? I mean, he’s always been so protective of his twin.”
“Eli is pleased. He believes Samuel is a good man. That he will be a good husband to Ruth and a good father to the children they will have.”
She watched a trio of tourists cross the mouth of the alley from the direction of Ruth’s bake shop, the smiles on their faces, and the red-and-white-checked bags in their hands, shifting her thoughts from romance to business. “And the bake shop? What will happen to the bake shop when Ruth marries?”
“Ruth will still make her pies and her cakes. But it will be her younger sister who will run the shop.”
Resting her forehead against the glass windowpane, Claire tried to imagine Lighted Way without Ruth’s beautiful smile. She tried to imagine taking out the trash and seeing someone else’s aproned form waving at her from the bake shop’s back door.
“You are scrunching again, Claire.”
“How do you know that? My head is against the glass.”
“You do not just scrunch with your head. You scrunch with your whole body.”
She wanted to argue, wanted to show that she was, indeed, happy, but she couldn’t. Not at that moment, anyway. “I guess I’m just going to miss Ruth when she’s gone. I keep getting attached to you Amish gals and then you up and get married on me and leave me all alone.”
“I am still here. See?”
Parting company with the windowpane, Claire turned to find Esther pointing at herself. The silly sight made her laugh. “I see, Esther . . . I see.”
“I am not far from here. You must visit more often. I will bake cookies and you can see Carly.”
“Wait! You don’t even know what the baby will be! How can you name it already?”
Esther slipped off her stool, giggling as she did. “Carly is the new horse, Claire! Not the baby!”
She matched Esther’s laugh with one of her own and made her way back to the counter. “Oops. I knew that.”
“Eli is taking good care of Carly and she is healing more and more each day. But she is a little bit of a sneak.”
“A sneak?” Claire echoed.
“Yah. A food sneak.”
Again she laughed, only this time it had everything to do with Esther and the naked amusement she saw on her friend’s makeup-free face. “A food sneak . . .”
“Yah. Cookies, cake, candy—she likes it all. But it is my sister Hannah’s candy that she will push and push until she finds.”
“I really do need to come out and see this horse sometime soon, don’t I?”
“Yah. This evening would be nice.”
She took in the clock and then glanced toward the front door. “Don’t you still have to get home and cook dinner for Eli?”
“Yah. I can set another plate.”
“Esther, I can’t. Not for dinner, anyway. I promised Diane I’d be home to help get dinner on the table for the guests.”
A flash of disappointment weighed on Esther’s smile for just a moment, only to get pushed aside by the same determination she’d exhibited while working in the store alongside Claire. “Then come for dessert. I will make cookies. And cake.”
“Cookies and cake?” she joked.
“Yah.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I want you to come. To spend time with Eli and me. To see Carly. I have missed you, Claire.”
She swallowed around the lump she felt forming in her throat and reached for her friend’s hand. “I miss you, too, Esther. Every day.”
“Then come. For dessert. Please.”
“I will.”
“When?” Esther asked.
“Would seven thirty be okay?”
Esther’s smile rivaled that of any Christmas tree Claire had ever seen. “Yah.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
Dropping her gaze to the floor, Esther’s voice turned whisperlike. “Please bring Jakob.”
Claire felt her mouth gape, and then shut, and then gape again. “Bring Jakob?”
“Yah.”
“But you can’t eat at a table with him . . .” she reminded her friend.
Esther peeked at the small mirror Claire had propped next to the register specifically for Esther’s courting days with Eli and smoothed her hands over the top and sides of her kapp. When she was done, the young woman headed toward the doorway from which she’d come, stopping midway across the room. “We do not need a table for dessert.”
Chapter 23
She was sitting on her aunt’s front porch, looking out over the fields in the distance, when Jakob pulled up, the sound of his car, followed by the sight of him behind the wheel, igniting a nervous excitement in the pit of her stomach. Toeing the ground, she brought the swing to a stop and stood.
“Hey there, handsome.” Claire crossed the porch to the steps and ventured down to the walkway. “Don’t turn off the engine just yet, okay?”
Jakob poked his head through the open window. “Is something wrong?”
“No. No. Nothing like that.” She came around the back of the car and then leaned in to look at him t
hrough the open passenger-side window. “I just thought maybe we could sit in here and talk for a few minutes. See if there’s something we could, um, maybe go and do instead of just hanging around here.”
Shrugging, he motioned her inside and then waited as she settled herself in her seat before leaning across the center console and kissing her gently on the lips. “Okay, yeah, that’s what I needed.”
She started to laugh but stopped as she noticed the tense set of his shoulders, the uncharacteristic frown lines around his mouth, and the lack of any discernable sparkle in his amber-flecked eyes. “Wait a minute. Are you okay? You look super stressed right now.”
He pulled his hand from the back of her neck and leaned against the driver-side door. “So what you’re telling me is that my plan to keep my foul mood back at the office is already showing signs of failing?” Resting his left forearm across the top of the steering wheel, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Claire. I probably should have told you I couldn’t come over when you called, but I had hoped being here, with you, could get my mind off things for a little while. Yet now that I’m here, I have a feeling I’m just going to end up ruining your evening if I stay.”
“You could never ruin my evening, Jakob.”
“Don’t be so sure.” He let his gaze drift to the left and to the tree and the scenery beyond before coming back to Claire. “Look, maybe a rain check would be wise.”
She leaned forward, tugged his arm off the steering wheel, and entwined their fingers. “What’s going on?”
For a moment, she wasn’t sure he was going to answer, as his focus drifted through the windshield once again. But, eventually, he spoke, his words, his voice laced with agitation. “I know it happened yesterday. And I know she’s fine—I saw that with my own two eyes. But I just can’t shake the notion that the man who murdered Wayne Stutzman was talking to my sister yesterday afternoon. It—it’s making me nuts just thinking about it.”
“Hey . . . she’s okay.”
“The regular guy side of me knows this. But the other side of me—the one that’s paid to know there isn’t always a rhyme or reason to crime—keeps thinking about all the things that could have happened.”
With the index finger of her free hand, she guided his chin until she was the center of his focus once again. “But they didn’t, Jakob. They didn’t.”
He tried to smile but he fell short. Instead, he glanced down at her hand in his. “Okay, so distract me. How was your day? I didn’t get to ask you about it when I stopped by the shop this afternoon.”
“It was good.”
“Tell me about it.”
Disengaging her hand from his, she reached across her right shoulder and secured the seat belt into place next to her left hip. “I’ll tell you as we drive.”
He looked from Claire to the seat belt and back again. “Oh? Where are we going?”
“To see Esther.”
“Esther?”
“That’s right.”
Slowly, he set his hand on the gearshift and moved it into reverse, the tension he’d been hard pressed to shake off suddenly cloaked in disappointment. “Is there something you need to pick up there? Or are you wanting me to just drop you off?”
“Jakob Fisher,” she admonished, “do you really think I’d invite you over this evening just so you could chauffeur me across town?”
He reversed the car, shifted into drive, and drove down the driveway toward the main road. “No, but—”
“There are no buts. I wouldn’t do that.” At the end of the lane, she pointed to the left as if he didn’t know where he was going.
If he noticed, though, he didn’t let on. “So does Esther have some new inventory for the shop or something?”
“Nope.”
“Are you dropping off payment for things you’ve sold over the past week?”
“Nope.” She braced herself for the transition from blacktop to cobblestone that was no more than a car-length away now, but it was unnecessary. Jakob’s speed adjustment as they approached the entrance to Lighted Way made it so the transition was nearly flawless.
“Are we picking up something Eli has made?”
“We’ve been invited for dessert. And to see the new horse.”
Jakob pulled the car to the right and slowed to a stop outside Heavenly Treasures. “Claire, what are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything. This was Esther’s idea.”
“Claire, I get that you’re trying to help, that you’re trying to find opportunities for me to spend time with my niece and her husband, but—”
“It wasn’t my idea, Jakob. It was Esther’s.”
He stared at her. “Esther’s?”
“That’s right.”
Inhaling deeply, he raked his hand through his hair. “They can’t sit at the table with me, Claire. You know this. And while I might be able to handle sitting at a different table with everyone’s back to me on a different day, I’m just not up for that right now. I’m sorry.”
“We won’t be sitting at the table.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Esther said we wouldn’t sit at the table. And when she mentioned me coming for dessert, she specifically requested that I bring you.”
Jakob looked out the window, across the sidewalk, up at Claire’s shop, and then finally back at Claire. “And Eli? He’s okay with this, too?”
“You know Eli respects you.”
“Claire, he has to follow the Ordnung.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t tell . . .”
“It doesn’t work like that, Claire.”
She leaned forward until her nose was almost touching his and smiled. “Look, all I know is that we—as in the two of us—were invited to come for dessert. Can we just play this by ear and see what happens?”
For several long moments he said nothing, his thoughts as much a mystery to her as the way the evening would play out in the end, but eventually he spoke, his words accompanying them back into the flow of traffic and onto the gravel road on the far side of Lighted Way. “It would be nice to see the two of them. Besides, it’ll give me a chance to pull Eli aside and let him know about the incident at Martha’s yesterday.”
* * *
She peeked at Jakob, rocking gently in the chair beside her, and allowed herself a moment to soak up the pure joy she saw on his face—a joy that had nothing to do with the pair of cookies on his lap and everything to do with the young couple sitting side by side on the other end of the porch. To an outsider looking in, she suspected his smile might be attributed to the warm summer night and the presence of loved ones. And, in some ways, they’d be right. But to truly appreciate the lightness he exuded and the smile that reached far beyond his mouth to his very being, one had to understand the magnitude behind the seemingly simple scene.
While normal in just about every home in America, the notion of visiting with family had been relegated to pipe-dream status the moment Jakob walked away from his Amish roots to become a police officer. In the blink of an eye, he lost his parents, his siblings, his friends, and his community. It was a fate he’d known and accepted eighteen years earlier, and a fate he’d lived every day since.
Yet, by the grace of God and the assistance of Esther’s pure heart, Jakob was being given a moment of normalcy Claire knew he’d remember for the rest of his life . . .
“There are more cookies to be eaten,” Esther said, rising to her feet. “Should I get them?”
Claire answered for Jakob by pointing to the cookies still in his hand. “Jakob is good, and I’ve had my fill, but thank you, Esther. They were delicious.”
“They were.” Jakob pitched his rocking chair forward to afford an uninhibited view of his pregnant niece. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe they were made from my mother’s recipe?”
Esther’s gaze dropped to the
porch floor and then fluttered upward until it was trained on her husband’s attentive face. “Yah.”
If it bothered Jakob that Esther was avoiding eye contact, he didn’t let it show. “They are just like Mamm’s. I’ve missed them.”
Unsure of what to say, Esther began to gather their plates and cups in her hands, only to set them back down at Eli’s whispered direction. When she did as he asked, Eli turned back to Jakob and Claire. “Would you like to meet Carly?”
“Who’s Carly?” Jakob asked.
“The new horse.” Eli rose to his feet and motioned to Claire for them to follow. Step by step they made their way down the porch stairs, across the gravel driveway, and into the same barn that had once housed Harley Zook’s prized cows.
“Whatever happened to Harley’s cows?” she asked as she and Jakob shadowed Eli and Esther into the barn.
“I kept some. Stutzman and Lapp took the others.”
Esther’s finger guided their eyes to three cows lazily watching them from just outside the back door. “We still have Mary, Molly, and Maggie.”
Jakob veered off from their path long enough to single out the cow in the center. “Well hello there, Mary, it’s nice to see you again. Are you behaving yourself and sticking close to home these days or are you still gallivanting around town like you were back in the fall?”
“How on earth do you know which one is Mary? They all look exactly alike.”
“They look nothing alike,” Jakob protested, shaking his head at Claire in mock disdain. “Mary’s swirls—for lack of a better word—are black trimmed in brown. Molly’s are brown trimmed in black. And Maggie”—he stopped, craned his head over and around Mary—“she’s got a little black mark halfway down the front of her chest that almost looks like a cat’s paw print.”
She sidestepped a water trough to look more closely at the cows and the minute differences between them as outlined by Jakob. Sure enough, Mary’s black spots were outlined by brown, Molly’s brown spots were outlined by black, and the spot on Maggie’s chest did, indeed, resemble a paw print. “Wow. I could have looked at nothing else for hours and still not have noticed those details.”
A Churn for the Worse Page 16
