At Home in Pleasant Valley

by Marta Perry

  The chatter proceeded as quickly, as the tiny, almost invisible stitches traced their pattern across the quilt. No one would admit it, but each one wanted her stitches to be as perfect as possible. Not a matter of pride, Rachel hoped. Probably the others felt, as she did, that this baby quilt was a precious gift for the child Leah had never expected to have.

  Rachel caught Leah’s gaze across the frame, the delicate pattern stretched between them. Leah smiled, her eyes glowing with a kind of inward light, and Rachel’s heart lifted. It wouldn’t be long until Leah held that babe in her arms instead of beneath her heart.

  By the time Rachel rose to follow Leah into the kitchen to set out the midmorning snack, the other group, for all their talking, had predictably made more progress than they had.

  “They’re showing us up,” she murmured to Leah as they reached the kitchen.

  “Let them.” Leah glanced back fondly at the women around the frame. “It will give Barbara something wonderful gut to brag about.”

  Anything that kept Barbara focused on her own business instead of everyone else’s was just fine. They both knew that, though they’d try not to say it. Leah exhibited endless patience with her tactless sister-in-law—far more than Rachel would be able to manage, she feared.

  Leah lifted the coffeepot from the stove. “I’m so glad to see Becky and Elizabeth playing happily together again.”

  Rachel’s fingers tightened, crumbling a piece of cinnamon-walnut streusel cake. “Leah, I am so sorry. I didn’t even realize that Becky was holding a foolish grudge until today. I should have known. I should have seen.”

  “How could you if she didn’t want you to?” Leah was calmly reassuring. “Now, don’t start blaming yourself for that. Think of all the things we kept from our mamms when we were their age.”

  “I suppose so, but still.” She couldn’t dismiss her sense of guilt that easily. “Sometimes I think that Ezra was much better with the children than I am. I don’t remember having these kinds of problems when he was with us.”

  Leah set the coffeepot on a hot pad and snitched a corner of the coffee cake Rachel had broken, popping it in her mouth. “Of course not. They were smaller then, and their problems were smaller. The bigger they get, the bigger the problems. My mamm always says that, and I’m beginning to think she’s right about a lot of things.”

  “Maybe when we’re as old as our mothers, we’ll be as wise.”

  “You’re already a wise mother.” Leah patted her hand. “Never think that you’re not. You’re just not perfect yet, is all.”

  “That’s certain sure.” Rachel smiled, feeling some of the burden slip away just from sharing it. It was always that way with her and Leah. She hoped their girls would be as fortunate in their friendship. “Will I tell the others to come in now?”

  At Leah’s nod, Rachel went to the doorway to announce that the food was ready. The quilters flowed into the kitchen on a current of talk and laughter.

  Rachel found herself next to Naomi as she took a slice of rhubarb coffee cake.

  “How are the children doing?” she asked in an undertone. Two of Naomi’s three children had the Crigler-Najjar syndrome that affected too many of the Amish, and it was always possible that Naomi didn’t want to talk about it today.

  “Doing well, denke.” Naomi’s smile blossomed. “We are wonderful lucky to have the clinic where your brother works. They are saving lives, I know, and one day perhaps they will find a cure.”

  Rachel’s heart warmed to hear Johnny spoken of so naturally. Before she could respond to Naomi, Barbara said her name.

  “Rachel, I hear you and Isaac are on the outs these days.” Barbara’s smile was as cheerful as if she were talking about the weather. “He can be a stubborn one, can’t he?”

  Several women sent sidelong glances toward Barbara and then looked studiously at their plates.

  Rachel shrugged, hoping Barbara would take the hint.

  “Your raspberry cake is delicious, Barbara,” Naomi interrupted forcefully. “You must let us have the recipe.”

  “Ja,” Leah’s mother said. “It’s wonderful gut.”

  Barbara flushed with pleasure. “I will. But I was talking to Rachel about Isaac.”

  “I don’t think Rachel wants to talk about that.” Leah’s mamm tried to rein in her daughter-in-law, and Rachel shot her a look of gratitude.

  “Ach, I’m just saying what everyone is thinking,” Barbara insisted. “Naturally Isaac feels he has a right to interfere as head of the family. But if Rachel were to marry again, then it would be none of his business.”

  She stopped, finally, smiling as if pleased that she’d come up with the solution to all of Rachel’s difficulties.

  Several people tried to say something, anything, to cover the moment. If she’d been dipped into a pot of boiling apple butter, Rachel couldn’t have felt hotter.

  The spatula Leah was holding clattered to the table, startling everyone to silence. “That’s enough.” Leah’s voice snapped in the tone she had used in the schoolroom on the rare occasions when her students had gotten out of line. “Barbara, whether it is Isaac’s business or not, it is certainly not yours!”

  Silence. Stillness. No one moved, no one spoke. Impossible to tell what they were thinking. Shocked, most probably. For Leah, calm, patient Leah, to lose her temper—Rachel could not have been more surprised if the table had cracked under the weight of all those dishes.

  Barbara laughed. An unconvincing sound, but at least she made the effort. “Ach, I’m sorry. I’m talking out of turn again, I guess. Levi’s always telling me to think before I speak, but I can’t get in the way of doing it.”

  “Just keep trying,” Naomi said, surprising them and reducing the tension in the kitchen by a few degrees. “Maybe it’ll take.”

  To give Barbara credit, tactless as she was, she took the rebukes gracefully. “Forgive me, Rachel.” She looked as if she wanted to say more but firmly closed her mouth on the temptation.

  “Of course,” Rachel murmured, grateful that the others had begun chatting, maybe a little desperately, on whatever popped into their heads.

  The moment was over. She could forget it, couldn’t she?

  Perhaps not. Because if Barbara was saying it, that meant other people were thinking it, and she couldn’t doubt that the person most of them had in mind for her future husband was Gideon. And aside from her own confused feelings, one thing was clear. Gideon would never risk loving again.

  • • •

  If he could have gotten out of it, Gideon would not be helping to set up for a singing at the Miller barn. He’d have been taking refuge from his scrambled thoughts by working, as hard and fast as his body would let him.

  But getting out of it wasn’t an option. He’d agreed to help chaperone the singing, and that’s what he would do. Aaron had come along, ostensibly to help, although he was more likely to enjoy a nice long chat with Nathan Miller instead of looking after a barn full of young people.

  “Watch out.” He swung his end of a plank out of the way of several running kinder who were as excited by the singing as their older brothers and sisters were.

  Aaron grunted, taking a firmer grip on the long board as he headed for the barn. “Time those young ones were in bed.”

  “Too excited.”

  Gideon paused just inside the barn doors. The barn had been scrubbed as clean for the singing as it would be for worship. But instead of the backless benches they’d have for worship, Nathan and a couple of boys were creating long tables with planks set on sawhorses in the middle of the barn floor. More sawhorses waited along one side, where they’d need tables for the food.

  “Come on, let’s get this done with,” Aaron grumbled.

  “Anyone would think you’d never gone to a singing. Never kept your eyes peeled for that special girl you were hoping to see. Hoping she was lo
oking for you, too.”

  His brother grinned, hefting one end of the plank onto a sawhorse. “You’re sounding like a youngster yourself tonight. Ja, I remember my rumspringa. But I wouldn’t go back and live those days over again for anything. Too much time spent worrying about what the girls were thinking, that’s certain sure.”

  “You didn’t have to worry. Lovina was set on you from the first grade, as I recall.”

  “Maybe. But she led me a merry dance along the way, I’ll tell you that.”

  Nathan finished the table he was working on and came over to them. “Denke.” He rapped the board with his knuckles. “We can use more tables, if everyone comes we’re expecting.”

  “More planks in the wagon,” Aaron said. He nudged Gideon’s shoulder. “Komm, Gid. Let’s get the work done.”

  “I’ll send the boys to do that.” Nathan beckoned to the teenage boys who were helping him. “Here, you two. Go and fetch the rest of the planks from Aaron’s wagon. Schnell.”

  Jostling each other, the two of them set off at a run.

  “Better for you to do the setup,” Nathan said. “They’re so ferhoodled over the singing that any tables they knocked together would probably collapse halfway through. Glad you came, both of you.”

  “Gideon’s a favorite of the younger crowd when it comes to chaperones. They must figure he’s more likely to let them get away with things than us old folks with families.”

  Aaron didn’t mean anything by his careless words. Gideon knew that. Still, they stung with the reminder. He didn’t think he gave any outward sign, but his brother’s face changed.

  “Gid, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay. Let’s get on with the work.”

  “Right.” Aaron slid a long bench into place alongside the table Nathan had completed. “So, how is young Joseph’s doe? Did she kid yet?”

  Gut thing he was bent over to pick up one of the hay bales that Nathan was setting around the edges of the singing area. By the time he straightened, he made sure his expression didn’t give anything away.

  “Ja, she came through it fine. Twins, she had.”

  Fortunately a wave of boys came in just then, all of them helping to carry the planks. Pressed into service by their friends, no doubt. The barn was suddenly noisy enough and busy enough that Aaron wouldn’t be asking Gideon any more questions.

  Not that he’d been keeping it from Aaron. The trouble was that talking about the kidding brought that night back too vividly. Made him too aware of everything he’d thought and felt and said.

  He’d told Rachel things he’d never confessed to a living soul. Was it the circumstances that had loosened his tongue? Or was it Rachel herself, with her caring eyes and her stubborn chin?

  It didn’t matter. He tossed a bale into place with unnecessary vigor. What he felt for her didn’t count next to what had happened to him. He’d twice survived when he’d gladly have died in place of others. Even if he could forgive himself, he wouldn’t risk living through that again.

  And yet . . .

  The yearning was there, deep in his heart. He had to find some way to deal with that.

  The level of noise in the barn had steadily risen. Abruptly, it lowered—not ceasing, but changing in quality. Gideon glanced toward the door. The girls were coming in. Demurely, for the most part, in pairs or in giggling groups, they filed into the barn, stealing glances at this boy or that.

  For a few minutes neither boys nor girls made a move. Then they began to drift toward the tables, the girls’ dresses like flowers in the lantern light. The boys moved, too, in an awkward surge, as if in silent argument over who would go first. The girls took their places along one side of the table; the boys filed in opposite them.

  A moment of silence, and then the high, clear notes of a familiar hymn soared toward the rafters. The boys, a little slower, joined in, and the sound grew richer, fuller.

  Gideon realized he was holding his breath, and he let it out. Foolish, he supposed, to be so touched by the moment. They would spend the next couple of hours singing, with a lot of covert flirting thrown in. Then it would be time for the food, which was already appearing on the tables against the wall—eating, talking, maybe some discreet smooching in dark corners.

  Some of them, the older ones, would pair off, with the boy driving the girl home if he was lucky enough to have a courting buggy. And in the fall, it might be that marriages would be announced.

  Some of these very young folks, Gideon had no doubt, were engaging in riskier rumspringa behavior. Their parents, indeed their whole community, would turn their eyes aside and pray, trusting that God would bring them back to the fold in time. And mostly, it worked.

  He stretched, tired. Aaron had already disappeared. Nathan, too, most likely. Duty said he should stay, but he could at least get something to drink and pull up a hay bale, while he was at it.

  Cold jugs of cider, homemade root beer, and lemonade had already been placed on the table, along with trays of cookies. The rest of the food, tons of it, would be brought out from the kitchen before too long. He poured a glass of cider, snagged a couple of snickerdoodles, and headed for the nearest hay bale.

  He rounded the end of the table and nearly collided with the woman carrying a tray full of moon pies. “Rachel.” He steadied her quickly, dropping the cookies as he did. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

  She looked equally surprised to see him. “Naomi talked me into it.” The tray wobbled a little, and he helped her set it down. “I must be clumsy tonight. I’ve knocked your snickerdoodles to the floor. Let me get you more.”

  “Leave it. I really just wanted a drink anyway.” He lifted the cup and drained it quickly, the cider tart and cold on his tongue.

  “You were helping to set up, I guess.”

  He nodded, reminding himself that he needed to deal with these foolish fancies he had where Rachel was concerned. If he had any brains, he’d make an excuse and walk off.

  But Rachel’s eyes glowed in the lantern light, and her head was tilted back to look at him, as if she really was glad she’d walked into him tonight.

  She nodded toward the singers. “Remember when we were the ones sitting at those tables?” Her eyes went soft with the remembering. “We’d pretend we were concentrating on the songs, when instead all we could think of was each other.”

  His throat tightened. He did not want to remember, but he couldn’t hurt her by saying so.

  “You and Ezra were paired off right from the start, I remember.” He hesitated. “Does that bother you, to think of how you were then?”

  She tilted her head to the side, considering. Several other women came through the door with trays, and he guided her a step or two back, where they were out of the way of traffic. Out of the light, too, it seemed, but he could still make out her features.

  “A few months ago it would have,” she said. “But now—well, now it seems I can think of those happy times with joy, not pain.” She put one hand on his arm as if eager to make him understand. “I’ve made my peace with Ezra’s dying, maybe. Seems as if that’s opened my heart to remember and cherish.”

  “I’m glad.” He muttered the words. Did she really feel that? Or was she trying to fool herself into thinking that was true?

  “Gideon.” She said his name softly, her fingers insistent on his arm, so that it seemed he could feel her touch to his very bones. “Don’t you see? You can’t fight the pain. You have to walk through it and reach for the other side.”

  She was looking up at him, her tilted face very close to his, her eyes pleading. She wanted, so much, to heal his pain. And he wanted . . .

  Without letting himself think, he lowered his face to hers and claimed her lips. He felt the sudden intake of her breath, inhaled the scent of her skin. Only their lips and their hands touched, but he was on fire with longing to hold her, protect h
er, love her—

  The word jolted him back a step. He stared at her. Then, before he could say or do anything to make it worse, he spun and walked out the open door into the dark.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Worship had ended, and folks were gathering to talk over the week’s events, as always. How many of them were talking about her?

  Rachel shepherded the children toward the picnic tables that were set up under the trees at Aaron and Lovina’s farm. Prideful, that’s what it was, to imagine that she was the topic of people’s conversations. They had more important things on their minds than her little problems, didn’t they?

  “Rachel, over here,” Mamm called, and she veered thankfully in her direction.

  What if the rumors were true, and Isaac had talked to Bishop Mose and the ministers about her? That didn’t necessarily mean they’d agree with him. At least that was what Daad said, and the strength of his support warmed her like the sun on her back.

  “Can we go and play until the meal is ready, Mammi?” Becky tugged at her apron. “I want to see Elizabeth.”

  “Go, then, but mind you come straight back when it’s time to eat.” At least Becky’s relationship with Elizabeth was mended, and that was certainly something to be thankful for. “Mary and I will be with Grossmutter.”

  Mary went running to her grandmother, and Rachel followed quickly.

  “I’ll just go and see if Lovina needs any help in the kitchen, if you don’t mind watching the little ones.”

  “Ja, go.” Mamm scooped Mary up onto her lap, tickling her. “We’ll be fine, ain’t so, Mary?”

  Before she could let herself glance at Gideon, who stood talking with his brother, she hurried toward the kitchen. Surely she had enough things worrying her to make it easy to avoid thinking about those moments at the singing with Gideon. Not so.

  The kitchen swirled with activity as women grabbed filled trays and carried them outside, and fortunately the busyness made it possible to join the parade without getting caught up in conversation with Lovina. Lovina’s quick curiosity might easily lead her to detect that something was different, just through an unwary word or expression.