He’d gone over to her house with an apology and now he was returning in utter failure.
Fortunately, his parents had gone upstairs so he didn’t have to tell his mudder what happened. He went upstairs quietly and threw himself down on his bed.
The thought of a future without Lavina in it was inconceivable.
He rolled over and punched his pillow, trying to get comfortable when his mind whirled and whirled with disturbing thoughts.
Hours later, he got up and got ready for bed, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep that night.
He was downstairs before either of his parents the next morning, drinking coffee as the sun came up.
His mudder walked into the room and gasped when she saw him. “What are you doing up so early?” She narrowed her eyes. “Or are you just coming in?”
He’d have laughed at the irony of her thinking he’d been out having fun if it hadn’t been so sad. “Couldn’t sleep.” He drained his cup and stood. “Going to take care of chores,” he said briefly and headed out before she could ask more questions.
When he returned his dat sat drinking coffee at the table, and his mudder was transferring fried eggs from a cast iron skillet to a platter that held bacon. She smiled at David. “Just in time.”
She set the platter in front of Amos. He immediately transferred two eggs and several strips of bacon to his plate.
David washed his hands at the sink. “Danki, but I’m not hungry. I’m going on in to work.”
Waneta turned off the gas flame and put the back of her hand against his forehead. “Are you coming down with something?”
“Nee.” Just a terminal case of heartbreak, he wanted to say. But how melodramatic was that?
“Something’s wrong.” She studied his face. “Tell me.”
“Leave the boy alone. He’s said he’s allrecht.” Amos heaped peach preserves on a piece of toast.
“I’m fine,” he said again.
“Here, let me pack you a sandwich to take with you.”
“You already packed me a lunch,” he said, gesturing to the lunch box on the counter.
“This is for breakfast.”
Because he didn’t have the energy to argue with her and it was faster to give in, he watched her make a breakfast sandwich with a fried egg and several slices of bacon. She wrapped it in aluminum foil and put it in a brown paper bag, adding an apple and a couple of cookies.
“Quit fussing,” Amos told her. “Wouldn’t be the end of the world if he left without breakfast.”
“Nee, it wouldn’t,” he agreed. “That ended last night.”
His mudder frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.” He picked up his lunch bucket and started from the room, but his mudder grabbed his arm and wouldn’t let go.
“Tell me.”
“Lavina broke up with me.”
“What’d you do now?” Amos asked him. “Have a fight with her?”
“I didn’t do anything.” He clenched his jaw. “I invited her to supper. You remember what happened?”
Amos had the grace to redden.
“Ya,” he said. “She told me she didn’t think she could handle it if we got married and had to live here and go through something like that.”
Waneta burst into tears and fled the room.
Shaking his head, David left. He hadn’t meant to upset his mudder. Hadn’t even meant to upset his dat—if such a thing was possible. What gut did any of it do anyway? Nothing changed. Lavina had been right about that.
He left and drove to work. The weather suited his mood—heavy, gray clouds hung in the sky.
Bill found him doing inventory when he came into work.
“Boss told me you were in here. What’s up?”
“Came in a little early and he put me to work in here.”
“Something tells me it didn’t go well with Lavina.”
“She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
“She dumped you?”
David winced. “I’m not sure everyone heard that.”
“Sorry. Geez, she was that upset?”
“Seems she can’t think about living in my house after we’re married.”
“But wouldn’t you get your own place?”
“How am I going to do that? Most couples live with their parents until they can afford to buy their own home.”
Bill sat down heavily on a nearby crate. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Unfortunately, she did.”
Their boss stuck his head in the door. “Bill, I’m not paying you to sit around and gossip.”
“No sir. What would you like me to do, sir?”
“Vinnie needs some help on the loading dock. Then you and David can make deliveries.”
David couldn’t help hoping it would take Bill a long time unloading. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about what had happened last night when he talked with Lavina.
***
Lavina loved her schweschders, but she didn’t know how she was going to get through the day if they kept asking her how her evening had gone last night at David’s house.
So she told them about the meal Waneta had prepared, how Amos looked, about every minor detail she could think of without mentioning the big blowup and without lying, and quickly changed the subject.
She just felt too raw inside to tell them what had happened. And it was so close to Christmas . . . which, when she thought about it, depressed her even more.
Fortunately, they were busy finishing up Christmas orders and no one noticed.
Except their mudder. Every time Lavina looked up she saw that her mudder was watching her and looking worried.
“Lavina, come help me fix lunch,” she said, rising and setting aside her work.
She followed her downstairs into the kitchen.
“Allrecht, what happened?” her mudder asked gently.
She could have said she didn’t want to talk about it and likely her mudder would have accepted that. Amish parents usually gave their grown kinner privacy about dating matters. But the sympathy in her mudder’s eyes undid her.
So she told her the story, and as she did she kept a watch on the doorway to the stairs, so they wouldn’t be surprised by her schweschders entering the kitchen.
“I’m so sorry, kind. Are you schur you don’t want to see David again? It’s a long time until next fall. You don’t know that you and David wouldn’t have your own home when you married.”
“Mamm, what if I go through another year waiting for David and nothing changes?”
Linda took her hands in hers. “Can you see yourself wanting to marry anyone but David?”
“I think I have to try.”
Her mudder hugged her. Just then they heard the clatter of footsteps on the stairs. Lavina pulled away and rushed to the refrigerator. Linda went to the stove and turned off the flame under the pot of soup that had been simmering since early morning.
“Oh, we thought lunch was ready already,” Rose Anna said.
“Hungry?” Linda asked her. “You can wash your hands and slice the bread.”
“Yum, I love soup on a cold day like this,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I’ll set the table.”
Mary Elizabeth and Rose Anna chattered happily about Christmas. Since Mary Elizabeth had nearly finished the quilt begun before the stolen one was returned, she would be getting some extra money when she took it into Leah’s. Rose Anna suggested that she could help finish it so they could go into town and do a little Christmas shopping. They always made most of their presents, but it was fun to see what was happening in the shops and say hello to friends like Leah and her grossdochders and Elizabeth and Saul.
“Why don’t you two finish the quilt and Lavina and I will make some cookies?”
“Oh, I’d rather do that than sew,” Rose Anna said, pouting.
“You promised,” Mary Elizabeth reminded her.
“We’ll bring the first batch up and have a tea party,” their mudder said.
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Rose Anna brightened and followed Mary Elizabeth upstairs.
“Danki, Mamm.”
She smiled. “That wasn’t just for you. I feel in the mood to do something fun.”
They were in the middle of stirring up a batch of gingerbread cookies when they heard a knock on the front door. Lavina went to answer it and was startled to see Waneta. Her thin face looked pale, and her eyes were red and puffy as if she’d been crying.
“Can we talk?”
Lavina held the door open. “Of course. Come in. Please sit down,” she said, gesturing at the living room sofa. “Can I get you some tea or coffee?”
Waneta shook her head. “Nothing, danki.” She pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her nose. “I came to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For the scene you witnessed in my home. David said—David said—” she broke off and began sobbing.
Lavina sat next to her on the sofa and patted her back. “What did David say?” She hoped he hadn’t been harsh with his mudder.
“He said you told him you didn’t think you could live in our home because of the way Amos and I got along.”
Lavina didn’t know what to say. She had said that.
“I’m afraid David’s going to move out again,” Waneta cried. “I can’t lose him again. I don’t want to lose you.” She wiped her eyes with the tissue. “You’ve been like a dochder to me. Please tell me you’ll reconsider.”
“Waneta, he’s not going to move out,” Lavina said. “Not now.” Surely he wouldn’t when his dat was still ill. And it was so close to Christmas . . .
But who knew what he’d do? He’d told her he was staying, but that was before she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore.
“Lavina, who was at the door?” her mudder asked as she walked into the room. “Oh, Waneta. Are you allrecht?”
Waneta just shook her head and began sobbing again.
Linda sat on the other side of her and put her arm around the woman.
“I’ll go get some tissues,” Lavina said and hurried from the room. She grabbed the box from the kitchen counter and tried to think what to do. In the end, she walked back toward the living room.
Her mudder was murmuring something to Waneta as she returned to the living room. Lavina sat next to Waneta and offered her the box.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come,” Waneta said, plucking some tissues out and mopping her face.
Linda patted her hand. “We have to trust God, Waneta. If our kinner are meant to be together, they will be.”
She sighed. “I know.”
Lavina didn’t think she sounded like she really believed it.
“I should get back.”
But she made no move to get up.
The oven timer buzzed. “Why don’t you come in the kitchen and have some coffee and some gingerbread cookies before you leave?” Linda suggested.
“Gingerbread cookies?”
Linda nodded. “Come on. You can take some home to Amos if you want.”
“I don’t know as I feel nice enough to do that now,” Waneta muttered as she followed them into the kitchen. She took off her coat and bonnet, hung them up on pegs near the door, then sat at the table.
Linda pulled two trays of cookies from the oven and set them on racks on the counter to cool while Lavina poured coffee for the three of them.
Lavina used a spatula to move the cooled cookies to a plate and set them on the table before Waneta. She took one for herself and bit in. It tasted spicy and reminded her of all the Christmases she’d made them with her mudder and her schweschders.
Waneta sipped her coffee and ate three cookies and began to look more cheerful. Linda stirred up some royal icing and set out little bowls of it with raisins, gumdrops, and other candies to decorate the cookies.
Mary Elizabeth and Rose Anna came downstairs and looked surprised to see Waneta.
“We smelled cookies,” Mary Elizabeth said after greeting Waneta.
“When were you going to call us?” Rose Anna asked, looking disgruntled as she picked up a cookie.
“We were going to eat them all ourselves,” Lavina said with a deadpan expression. She laughed when Rose Anna realized she was being teased.
The kitchen filled with laughter as they sat at the table and tried to outdo each other decorating the cookies. An hour passed before Waneta remembered that she’d said she had to get home.
“Have you gotten the results on the test Amos had?” Lavina asked her.
“Not yet.”
“Let’s make up a box of cookies for Amos,” Linda suggested.
Each of them contributed a couple of cookies they’d decorated. Lavina wondered if the cheerful icing grins on the cookies would make taciturn Amos smile.
“I’ll make schur he shares some with David,” Waneta said.
Lavina felt her smile start to slip, then she forced herself to nod and smile harder.
Her mudder packed a basket with a frozen casserole and a fresh loaf of bread, as well as the cookies, and invited Waneta to stop by to help make more Christmas cookies anytime.
Lavina drew on a shawl and walked Waneta out to her buggy.
“Can I give you a hug?” Waneta asked her, looking uncertain.
“Schur.” She found herself wrapped in arms that trembled.
“I’ll pray for you and David,” she said. Then she climbed quickly into the buggy and drove away.
Lavina stood there watching the buggy travel down the road and felt unbearably sad.
***
David took the long road home.
He’d volunteered for overtime, stopped by to help his former landlady with a few errands, done everything he could think of for the past week to keep from going home right after work.
And he wanted to shut his eyes as he passed by Lavina’s house on the way to his, but he didn’t dare or he’d run off the road.
It had been one of the the longest days of his life—on a par with the first days he’d left the community last year.
David wondered if there was a worse time to be without the one you loved. Locals and tourists crowded the sidewalks of the shops he passed in town. Everyone looked happy and carried bulging shopping bags.
Englisch homes were decorated with lights and Christmas trees shone in front windows. His mudder had even attempted to make their house festive with evergreen boughs on the mantel and pots of bright red poinsettias. But she was quiet and moved like a ghost through the house. His dat spent a lot of time in their bedroom the last couple days.
When he pulled in the drive and shut off the truck engine, he sat there staring at the fields that lay barren waiting for spring planting. Who knew what would happen by then?
A buggy pulled in behind him. His mudder got out carrying a bag from the pharmacy.
“Why didn’t you call me and ask me to pick that up?” he asked her as he waved to his Aenti Anna as she drove away.
“She came by and got me out of the house for a while.”
They went inside and David set his lunch bucket on the kitchen counter. “I’m going out to the barn.” He grabbed up the apple Nellie would expect and headed out.
When he returned his mudder met him at the back door. “Was your dat in the barn?”
“Nee. Why?”
“He’s not in our room or the living room. Is the buggy in the barn?”
“Ya.” David looked at the pegs near the door. “His jacket’s here. He has to be in the house.”
“I checked every bedroom,” she said, her voice rising. “Where could he be?”
Their gazes went to the door of the dawdi haus. He was the first to move. “Stay here.”
He opened the door and walked into the small apartment where his grosseldres had lived when his dat and mudder had taken over the farm many years ago. It smelled a little musty. The combination kitchen and dining area was empty, as was the tiny living room. He walked toward the bedroom and saw his dat stretched out on the bed, hi
s eyes closed. David couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
“Amos!” his mudder cried behind him.
He held her back with his arm and hurried toward him, fearing the worst. “Daed?”
“Amos!”
He jerked awake, pressing his hand to his chest. “Mein Gott! What is it? You scared me!”
David sank down on the bed, his knees weak. “What are you doing in here?”
“What, I can’t take a nap in my own haus?” he demanded.
“Of course. But you’ve never come in here before,” Waneta said, taking a seat in the armchair next to the bed.
He sat up. “I’m trying it out.”
“Trying it out?”
Amos swung his legs over the side of the bed. “For when your mudder and I move in here.”
David wondered if he was hearing things. “Well, that’s never going to happen.” He got to his feet.
“It will next fall.”
Hadn’t the man hurt him enough? “I told you, Lavina broke up with me.”
“So talk to her.”
“Amos, I told you I went to see her,” Waneta said. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Something has. I called the doctor’s office today. The PET scan results came back. There’s no sign of cancer.”
“Mein Gott,” Waneta whispered, touching her hand to her throat. “Is it true?”
He nodded.
“I’m happy for you,” David told him. His words came out sounding funny. It must be because he had trouble getting them past the lump that clogged his throat. “So this means you’ll be out there planting your crops again like you said you would. I knew you could beat this.”
“God’s giving you another chance,” Waneta said.
Amos looked at Waneta. “Ya. That’s what I figure.” He turned to David. “You ready to take over the farm?”
David was glad he was sitting. He felt the breath knocked out of him. “You mean that?”
Amos nodded. “Doesn’t mean I won’t have something to say sometimes.”
“I—I’m schur you will.”
“But it’s yours to take on now. You better do a gut job.”
“I will.”
Amos glanced around the room. “This place will need to be fixed up some before your mamm and I move in here. It’s sat empty since your grosseldres passed.”
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