At Home in Pleasant Valley

by Marta Perry

  The customer finally headed for the door, apparently satisfied with the new bridle he had slung over his shoulder. He gave her a polite nod as he passed.

  The door closed behind him, and Mose turned to her.

  “Rachel. It’s fine to see you today. How are you? And the kinder?”

  “We’re all well.” Now that she faced his keen gaze, she was doubly grateful she’d brought the harness. She handed it across the counter to him. “I hoped you might have time to fix the buckle on this for me.”

  “Ach, I always have time for you, ain’t so?” He took the harness, running it through his hands as if he saw with them, as well as with his eyes. “I mind when I made this for Ezra. Five years ago, it must have been, at least.”

  “About that.”

  She glanced past him, toward the alcove behind the counter where the big sewing machines sat, all connected to a massive belt that ran through a hole in the floor to a generator in the cellar. Sometimes Mose had several men helping him there, when he was especially busy, but today all was quiet.

  She was alone with him in the shop. She wouldn’t find a better opportunity to ask for his advice, if she could just get the words out.

  Mose adjusted his glasses and began picking out the loose stitches that held the buckle, staying at the counter probably because he guessed that she wanted to talk.

  She felt tongue-tied. How could she just come out with her mixed-up feelings about Gideon?

  “Have you seen anything of John lately?” Mose gave her a keen glance, as if to assess whether her English brother was the source of her worry.

  “A few nights ago.” She remembered too well Johnny’s annoyance at her for keeping to the Ordnung. “He is doing well, I think. I just wish—”

  She paused, but Mose probably knew the rest of that thought.

  “Your daad still refuses to see him?”

  She nodded. “I don’t bring it up much, because it upsets Mamm. Even though Daadi knows other Amish parents find a way to have a relationship with their children who have jumped the fence, he won’t consider it.”

  “Ach, your daad always was one to do everything the hard way. No doubt he still hopes being cut off from his family will push Johnny into coming back to the church.”

  “It won’t.” Once she might have hoped that, too, but she’d seen enough of her brother in recent months to know the truth. He was committed to the English world and to the work that seemed so important. He would never come back.

  “No. I never thought he would return.” Mose’s face showed regret and acceptance. “Some just aren’t a fit for the life, even when they’re born to it.”

  She’d never thought of it that way, exactly, but Bishop Mose was right. “From the time we were little, Johnny was always restless, always wanting more. Impatient.”

  He nodded. “I think—”

  The bell over the door rang. Mose glanced that way, and his face stiffened. “No tourists,” he said.

  She darted a quick look. A man and woman, both with cameras hanging from their necks, had just come in. Surely they couldn’t have missed the sign on the door.

  “We just want to look around.” The woman lifted her camera. “Just take a few pictures.”

  “No pictures. No tourists.” Mose’s tone was polite but firm. “That’s what the sign says. I ask you please to leave.”

  Rachel stole another glance. The man’s face had reddened. “Listen, if you people want to have any tourist trade in this town, you’d better be a little nicer when folks come in here.”

  “My harness shop is a business. Not a tourist attraction.” Mose’s face was as stony as Moses’s must have been when he’d broken the stone tablets.

  “Come on, Hal.” It sounded as if the woman was tugging her husband toward the door, but Rachel didn’t turn around again to see, wary of the camera the woman still held up. The brim of her bonnet cut them off very nicely. “There’s a cute quilt shop down the street. I’m crazy about Amish quilts.”

  The door slammed, and footsteps thudded on the wooden steps. Rachel glanced around, just as the woman raised her camera to the glass and snapped a picture. Then, smiling in satisfaction, she went off down the street.

  Mose grunted. “It spites me when they do that. Some folks don’t have the sense the Lord gave a chipmunk. Can’t they read?”

  The flash of the camera had unsettled her, but she tried to shake it off. “They think they’re the exception to the rule. If they try that on Ruth Stoltzfus at the quilt shop, she’ll chase them out with a broom.”

  Mose chuckled, his good humor quickly restored. “I’d like to see that, I would.”

  “So would I.” She smiled, picturing plump, irascible Ruth’s reaction.

  “Now, then.” Mose returned to the buckle, but his wise old eyes surveyed her over the rims of his glasses. “I think you did not come all the way to town today just to have this buckle replaced or to talk about the ways of tourists. Or even of your brother.”

  “No, I guess not.” How to say this? “I . . . I’m concerned about something.” She took a breath and plunged in. “It’s Gideon Zook. You’ve maybe heard that he insists on building the greenhouse that Ezra promised me for my birthday?”

  He nodded. Of course he’d have heard. The Amish might not have telephones in their homes, but they had a very efficient grapevine that passed on all the news.

  “I know Gideon is not to blame for the accident.” She said the words she’d been repeating to herself, staring down at Bishop Mose’s weathered hands, darkened by the stain he used on the leather. “It was an accident, just that.”

  “But?” His voice was gentle.

  “But when I see him, I feel resentment. It’s as if I blame him for being alive when Ezra is gone.” She clasped her hands together. “That’s wrong. I know it. I have prayed to be able to forgive, to stop thinking this way, but God hasn’t taken the feelings away.”

  “We forgive, as God forgives us,” Mose said. “But God is God. We are not so gut at it as He is.”

  “I must forgive.” She could hear the desperation in her voice. “I can’t go on feeling this every time I see him.”

  “Rachel, child, when we suffer a great loss, as you have, we start by saying the words. That is gut, but we still have to go through all the grieving.” His voice had thickened, as if he thought of his own losses—a son gone in an accident when a car hit his buggy, his wife dying of a stroke a few years after that.

  Other people lost those they loved. Other people found a way to forgive and go on with their lives. Why not her?

  “Gideon says that I never liked his friendship with Ezra.” The words burst out of her. She’d been denying them for days, and that had made her no gut at all.

  “Is he right?” Mose’s voice didn’t condemn. It just asked the question.

  “I don’t know.” Her fingers twisted together, as if they fought it out. “I hope not. But maybe—well, since Gideon didn’t have a wife, I guess it seemed like he was freer than Ezra. When the two of them went off together, even if it was just to an auction, it was like they were still having their rumspringa.”

  The words that came out of her mouth surprised her. Had she really felt that? She stared at Mose, longing to hear him say she was wrong. He didn’t speak. He waited.

  “Gideon was right, then.” She said the words softly, almost to herself. “I did feel that.”

  “Rachel, Rachel,” he said. “That’s natural enough already. For sure a young frau wants to have her husband to herself. When there’s a boppli, she wants him home with her.”

  Guilt was a rock in her chest. “Ezra worked so hard. I shouldn’t have questioned it if he wanted to go off to do something with Gideon.”

  “Ach, child,” he chided gently. “Don’t start fretting about that, now. It’s foolish. You were a gut wife to Ezra, and he loved yo
u. Don’t worry that you weren’t perfect. We’re not meant to be perfect this side of Heaven.”

  “But what do I do?” Her throat was tight. “I have to make it right. I shouldn’t feel this way.”

  “The Lord calls us to obedience, not feelings.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  His face hinted at a smile. “You try so hard, Rachel. Too hard, maybe. Just think about what you would do if you truly had forgiven. Then go and do that. Du Herr will take care of the feelings in His own gut time. Ja?”

  She nodded slowly. Think what you would do if you had truly forgiven, and then do it. That was simple enough in one way.

  And in another, given Gideon’s determination to be involved in her life, it was not simple at all.

  • • •

  “What are you doing?”

  Gideon looked up at the question to find Ezra’s young son staring at him, his expression open and curious.

  He set aside the trowel he’d been using to smooth the wet cement for the floor of the greenhouse. Squatting, he propped his elbows on his knees to pay attention to the boy. “This will be your mammi’s new greenhouse. Today I am making the floor.”

  Joseph nodded. “Daadi gave the greenhouse to her for her birthday. I remember.”

  “You have a wonderful-gut memory, then. Do you think she’ll like it?”

  “It’s a nice floor,” the boy said, maybe wondering if that was all.

  Gideon smiled. Young Joseph was a lot like Ezra had been at that age in looks, but not in character. Somehow he didn’t think Joseph was as daring as Ezra, who’d found far too many ways to get into mischief, usually dragging Gideon along with him.

  “The floor is just the beginning. I still have to put up the walls and all the glass. And maybe build some tables for your mamm to put her plants on. It will take me a few days to finish it.”

  “I could help you. I helped Daadi a lot.” Joseph’s eyes clouded a little, as if the memory grieved him.

  Gideon hesitated, not because he wouldn’t be happy to have Joseph around, no matter how little help he was, but because he wasn’t sure how Rachel would feel about that.

  “You’d best go and ask your Mammi first. She might have some other chores for you to do.”

  Joseph considered that for a moment. Then he nodded and scampered off toward the kitchen door.

  Maybe Rachel would have no objection. She had seemed welcoming enough when he’d turned up today. She’d even brought him out coffee and offered to make lunch for him. But that might be nothing more than a temporary truce.

  He didn’t know whether to apologize for what he’d said about her attitude toward his friendship with Ezra or let it be. Not that he’d changed his mind. But just because something was true didn’t mean a person had to say it.

  In a way, he could understand why she’d felt as she did. Young married couples usually had best friends who were in the same situation. If Naomi had lived, they’d have been friends as couples, sharing each other’s lives as the children came along.

  But Naomi hadn’t lived. The baby hadn’t. Even after all these years, letting himself think of that was looking into a bottomless pit.

  Ezra had talked to him, just once, about remarrying. “Naomi wouldn’t expect you to live your life alone, Gid.” Ezra’s normally merry face had been solemn as he leaned against the wagon they’d been fixing. “Everyone thinks it’s time you were looking around for a wife.”

  He expected it from everyone else. Not from Ezra. He thought Ezra understood. The wrench he held clanged against the wheel rim.

  “I can’t.” His voice rasped, and he forced the words past suddenly numb lips. “I let Naomi and the babe die.” He saw the argument forming on Ezra’s face. He didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t, Ezra. No matter what anyone thinks, I’ll not be marrying again. I won’t take responsibility for another life. I can’t.”

  The back door banged, forcing him back to the present. Joseph raced across the lawn, his face alight with eagerness. “Mammi says yes, but I shouldn’t be a nuisance, and I have to give water to my goat first, and keep her penned up so she doesn’t get in the way.”

  It sounded as if he quoted Rachel. “Fine, do that.”

  The boy spun toward the barn, then paused, darting a measuring look toward Gideon. “Do you want to see my goat?”

  Something in Joseph’s expression said that this was a rare treat, so he got up from his knees. “I’d like that.”

  He followed the boy across the backyard toward the barn. The light breeze ruffled the boy’s hair as he raced ahead.

  Joseph ran the last few steps to a pen attached to the barn. A small Nubian nanny stood at the door, bawling for the boy as if he were her kid. Joseph opened the pen door and slipped inside, fending off the goat’s attempt to get out.

  “You must stay in now. Later I’ll take you for a walk.”

  The little Nubian wore a collar, as if she were a dog instead of a goat. Her coat was glossy from much brushing. She was a beloved pet, obviously.

  Joseph kept his arm around her neck and smiled proudly. “This is Dolly. She’s beautiful, ain’t so?”

  “Ja, she is.” Ezra’s son might look like him, but he had Rachel’s smile. Not that he’d seen much smiling from her lately, but he remembered the look.

  “She’s going to have a kid. Maybe two. Onkel William says that it might be twins. I’d like it if she had twins. Don’t you think that would be nice?”

  Gideon nodded. If his boppli had lived, he’d be a bit older than Joseph. They would have been friends. His heart twisted in his chest.

  Joseph patted the little nanny’s side. “I don’t see how she’s going to know what to do when the babies come, with no other goats around to show her.”

  “I’m sure it’s in her nature.”

  “Maybe.” Joseph didn’t look reassured by the glib answer.

  “I tell you what. I’ll ask my brother Aaron about it, if you want. He raises goats, so he’ll know. Then I can tell you what he says the next time I come.”

  “Would you?” Joseph’s smile blossomed.

  “Ja. Now, what do you say we get some work done?”

  “I’m ready.”

  With a final pat for the goat, Joseph hurried out, fastening the pen door carefully. Then he darted across the yard toward the construction.

  Gideon followed more slowly. He was a fine boy, this son of Ezra’s. Rachel was doing a gut job with him, and it couldn’t be easy for her, bringing up a boy without a man in the house.

  He spotted her then—coming out on the back porch to shake out a rag rug. She paused, glancing from Joseph to him.

  Taking that as an indication she wanted to say something, he detoured by the porch.

  “Don’t let him be a pest, now,” she said.

  “He’s not. He was just showing me his goat, and now we’re going to get down to work.”

  “That goat.” She shook her head. “Ezra wouldn’t approve of Joseph treating her as if she were a pet, but it’s hatt.”

  Hard, ja, it was hard for Joseph. For all of them. “Ezra would have been happy the boy found comfort. You must stop worrying about it, because that I’m certain sure of.”

  There it was, then—that smile that softened her cheeks and warmed her eyes. Just like Joseph’s.

  But Rachel’s smile was having a funny effect on him, and he wasn’t sure he liked that. Or at least, not sure that he should.

  • • •

  “Stretch your hand out, now.”

  Rachel watched as Gideon helped little Mary press her palm into the still-damp cement floor for the new greenhouse. Mary giggled a bit, but her tiny handprint took its place next to those of Joseph and Becky, marking the spot that would be the entrance.

  Joseph leaned over Gideon’s shoulder, looking at them. “My hand is bigger
than Mary’s,” he observed.

  “But mine is the biggest,” Becky said quickly.

  “It’s not a contest to see whose is biggest.” Gideon lifted Mary back away from the floor. “We put your handprints there so that years from now, when you’re all grown, you’ll look at them and see how small you were the day we started the greenhouse.”

  Rachel had a lump in her throat already, and that comment just made it worse. Panic gripped her for an instant. Where would they be, years from now? What if Isaac was right? If she couldn’t keep the farm, someone else might be looking at the handprints, wondering at them.

  The moment Gideon released her, Mary made an instinctive move to wipe her sticky hand on her dress. Rachel grabbed her just in time to avert disaster.

  “Ach, no, Mary. Becky, please take Mary and wash her hands at the pump—real gut, now. Joseph, you go, too.”

  She kept her face turned away from Gideon, hoping he wouldn’t see that she was upset. Or at least, that if he did see, he’d respect her privacy and not question it.

  “Rachel?” He rose to his feet, brushing off the knees of his broadfall trousers. “Was ist letz? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Despite her efforts, her voice didn’t sound quite natural.

  “Something, I think, or you would not have tears in your eyes.” He stood, waiting, as solid and immovable as one of the sturdy maples that had been here since before there was a farm on this spot.

  “I hope . . .” She had to stop. Start again. “I hope the children are still living here when they are grown.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” His tone sharpened.

  “If I have to sell the farm, it won’t be the same.” Even if she sold to family, and she and the children came back often, they wouldn’t really belong here.

  “You’re not going to sell the farm.” He reached out, as if to grasp her arm, but stopped, his hand falling back to his side. “You can’t just give up.”

  “Give up?” Anger spurted through her, surprising her. “Do you think it’s easy, trying to run the farm on my own?”

  “No, I don’t think that. But you have Ezra’s brothers helping you with the dairy herd.”