by Senft, Adina
If this conversation went on any longer, she was going to have to put the receiver down and speak into it with her useless hands in her lap.
“A hundred thousand?”
A trip to Mexico, airfare for four, and accommodation for four months. There. Just laid out before her like a Christmas gift. And some money left over to start again, like a pretty bow on top.
“I’m not a rich man, Mrs. Beiler. I’ll tell you straight, I’ll have to take a loan out for part of it. But like I told you, I’m ready to retire, and I want a nice little business to keep me active in my golden years.”
“Doesn’t the seed company give you a pension for driving the truck?”
He paused. “I don’t just drive the truck, ma’am. I own Lincoln Seed with my son Frank.”
It was a few seconds before she could say, “Oh.”
“He’s got big ideas, so he’s going to buy me out. I’ll move to Whinburg, find me a nice widow who can cook as well as they do at the Dutch Deli, and settle down…again.”
“The cook at the Dutch Deli is a widow,” she said automatically, her mind spinning with figures and possibilities.
“Then it’s a match made in heaven. So what do you think, Mrs. Beiler?”
Amelia scrambled to find her common sense, which was like trying to catch one starling in a flock wheeling up off the lawn. “I hardly know what to think. I need a few days to…to get counsel and think it over. Would that be all right?”
“Sure, sure. Take as much time as you need. I’m not going anywhere. Well, except out of this parking lot and back on the road, eventually.”
“I believe I should tell you, Mr. Burke, that one of…well, another party has expressed interest, too.”
“Has he? No dummy, I expect. Well, if I get beat out, I do, but I wanted to lay my cards on the table. No fuss, no ulterior motives. Just my figure and my feelings about it.”
“I respect that. May I let you know later? Perhaps next week?”
Maybe the elders wouldn’t come to a decision before then. She had no idea how long it would take a sale to go through, and she was not a woman who rushed things. But at least she could make a decision in a week’s time, couldn’t she?
“That would be great. I’ll give you a call then.”
“As long as it’s not lunch.”
He chuckled, and this time there was no embarrassment. “I’ll have them deliver that Reuben to your shop. Lunch is on me—and if what you say about that widow is true, I might just place my order in person.”
Laughing, she hung up.
It took a few minutes of hard thinking before she came to herself and realized that the back of the shop had gone silent. How long had it been since she’d heard the percussive sound of the nailer?
Had Melvin been listening?
And just how much had he heard?
Chapter 13
I’m out here.” Through the open sliding door, Amelia saw Melvin wave from behind the lumber pile. “Just getting some studs. Did you need me?”
“No. I’ll come and give you a hand. Just let me find my gloves.” With a cheery return wave, Amelia said nothing, merely went back into the office. Her gloves sat by the door in the basket with the others, but she had something to do first.
She was foolish to mind whether or not Melvin could have heard her end of the conversation. Things like this had a way of getting out—she’d be lucky if her secret survived until Sunday. She had no reason to believe that he would be interested in buying the business. Neither he nor Carrie had ever mentioned it, and how could he do it, anyway, without selling the farm?
No, she wouldn’t think about Melvin. But she did need to think about Eli Fischer. It was only fair to tell him about Mr. Burke’s offer, and the sooner the better.
She rifled through the desk drawer. Aaron King had a cell phone, which his father did not know about. But she did. Where was the number? Under a package of erasers, she found a slip of paper with his untidy scrawl, and she dialed.
“Yo.”
“Aaron, it’s Amelia Beiler. Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah.” She heard the clang of metal and a whoosh of water. “I’m just cleaning out the milking pen. Wassup?”
“Is Eli Fischer still with you? He hasn’t left town yet, has he?”
“No, but he’s planning to. Friday, I think.”
She had no time to lose, then. “Could you ask him if he would be free to come to my parents’ house for dinner tonight? Six o’clock?”
It would not do for him to come to her house now that he had let his feelings be known. The last thing she needed was for people to think he was courting her. Of course, once it got out that he had offered on the shop, it would be the first thing they’d think. Lucky Eli, they would say. A wife, a family, and a business all in one stroke. The only thing that would prove the whole district wrong in its assumptions would be her departure for Mexico.
“I don’t know if he’s here, Amelia. I haven’t been in the house in a couple of hours.”
“As soon as you see him, then. If it’s before four, maybe you could call me back here at the shop and let me know.”
“Okay. I gotta get this place cleaned out before my dad comes back. Later.”
“Denki, Aaron. You won’t forget, will you?” But he had already disconnected.
When the phone rang at three-thirty, it was Aaron—for once doing what he said he’d do. Eli would be happy to have dinner at the Lehmans’, and Aaron’s mother would send along a coleslaw.
That left only her parents. Amelia caught a ride home with one of the Steiner boys from the shop next door and crunched her way up the drive of the home place. Her sons had been watching from the front window and, as soon as they caught sight of her in the twilight, ran out onto the porch to meet her.
She squatted to hug little Elam as the warm lamplight spilled out through the doorway like a blessing. “Schatzi, here you are in your sock feet. Es ist zu kalt fer dich. Into the Haus with you!”
Matthew pressed himself against her side and beamed up at her as they went in. “Mammi is making mincemeat pie, and she’s letting me cut out leaves to put on top.”
“Mmm, that sounds wonderful. You will be quite the baker, between Mammi and Auntie Carrie.”
The kitchen smelled spicy with the jars of mincemeat Mamm had put up. “Will you have room for one more tonight? I hope it’s all right that I asked Eli Fischer to come.”
Ruth stopped rolling out pastry dough to stare at her, and Amelia could practically count every question as it crossed her face. She held up a hand to stem the flood.
“No, it’s not what you think. He is not courting me, and he never will, so put that out of your mind right now. But I need to have a talk with him about the shop, and it would look better to have it here than at my house.”
“What’s that?” Daed walked in from the living room, folding the newspaper. He laid it on the stack in the cardboard box next to the woodstove, which was piling up now that it was winter and the stove was never allowed to go out. “Was machst with the shop now?”
Matthew returned to his careful cutting of leaf shapes from some leftover pastry, so Amelia sat at the table and pulled Elam into her lap for a cuddle.
“The man from the Lincoln Seed Company called this afternoon and made me an offer,” she said simply. “I want to give Eli a chance to do the same before I call this man back with an answer.”
“You’re going ahead and selling?” Her father’s eyebrows lifted.
“How much did he offer?” Ruth draped the pastry over the pie dish and cut away the excess with a knife. That was her mother all over. Get straight to the point, with no messy extra details.
“One hundred thousand.”
With a clatter, Ruth dropped the knife, but before it had stopped rocking on the table, she’d corralled it so it wouldn’t hurt either Matthew or the clean pastry. “So much!”
“Not so much after you take out the cost of the treatment in Mexico, getting down
there, and somewhere to stay while I’m there.”
Daed gazed at her. “I did not know you had decided on this course. Do Daniel and Moses know of it?”
“Not yet. But as soon as it gets out that I’m selling, I’m sure they will.”
Her father did not allow her to slide out from under the real question. “But I was in the room when they told you they had to lay this matter at the Lord’s feet. Have they received an answer so soon?”
“Not that they’ve told me.” She raised her head and looked at him directly. “I’m going ahead with it, Daed. I can’t do anything else, for the boys’ sake.”
“But if it goes against the Ordnung, will you wish you’d done something else?”
She ran a hand over Elam’s head. His hair was getting long. Time for a haircut, before all the family got together at Christmas.
“Amelia?” Her father was not taking silence for an answer.
“Maybe,” she said at last. “But I hope they will forgive me. I’ve talked it over with Carrie and Emma, and they see this plan as God opening a window where I only saw a closed door before.”
“Going on this medication for MS is not a closed door.” Ruth scooped mincemeat out of a bowl on top of the sliced apples she’d laid in the pie shell. “If anything, having medication is your open window, not this harebrained Mexico scheme.”
“Mamm, you’re the first one to try a new home remedy. I thought you’d be behind me with this.”
“My remedies have been used for decades. Generations. They’re not some crazy doctor’s excuse to take fifty thousand dollars from someone.”
“She’s not getting the money. The clinic in Mexico is.”
“More crazy people.” Ruth dropped the pastry lid on the pie and crimped its edges together with energy. “But you’re not crazy. You need to be obedient and not do this thing.”
That was the crux of the matter. Was she an obedient child of God or was she risking her very life in the church for her own selfish will?
Even now, when she thought she’d made up her mind, Amelia felt at odds with herself.
“I am obedient. I accept that the church can’t pay for it, even if it means giving up my livelihood. And I truly believe that if I come back well—or at least with the disease stopped or slowed down—I can be a productive part of the Body. Isn’t that what God wants?”
“He wants you to submit to the elders, who know better than you what is best for the Body.” Daed’s voice was firm, though distress and confusion lurked in his eyes. He would never admit to doubt in the church’s leadership, though. A man of humble authority himself, he just didn’t have it in him to go against those God had chosen to be his spiritual leaders.
Where had this rock in the stream of her obedience come from? Was it fear? Did she not trust God’s leading enough?
Elam gripped her bad hand, and a bolt of pain shot up her arm and into the bottom of her skull, rattling her brain. If it hadn’t been for iron self-control, she might have leaped off the chair and dumped him on the floor. “Wait, my little man.” She eased him off her lap, nearly gasping with the pain, as if she’d laid her palm flat on the hot stove.
“Amelia, are you all right?” Ruth examined her, brows furrowed together. “You’re as white as this pastry.”
“I— Yes.” She rubbed her hand, hiding it in her apron. “It’s a little sore today.”
This was a new development. The Anabaptist martyrs of old had withstood fire and stoning and all kinds of awful deaths for the sake of their faith, and here she was, flattened by a burst of nerve pain from a system that was slowly going haywire. Had Lila Esch had to deal with this, too? If she’d had a chance to go to Mexico, would she have taken it, or continued on the path the church said was the right one?
Amelia would never know now.
While Isaac and Elam tended to the fire, the little boy carefully putting in a small log despite his wariness of the glowing red coals, she got busy washing the baking dishes in the sink as she’d done since she was small. When those were finished, she prepared brussels sprouts with bacon and made gravy for the roast.
By the time they heard the sound of a buggy in the lane, dinner was ready and the smell of baking pies filled the house. Isaac brought the boys out with him to see to Eli’s horse, and Amelia took advantage of the quiet to give herself a talking-to.
No blushing, no babbling, and no sneaking peeks at his nice eyes, Amelia Beiler. Keep this friendly but businesslike, and don’t lose your composure if he smiles at you.
Not that that was very likely. She’d turned down his offer of help and all that it implied, hadn’t she? The man had no reason to waste any smiles on her anymore. Not the kind a man gives a woman he’d like to see in his home anyway.
When everyone came in, she was ready with a company smile and the offer of a cup of coffee while Ruth bustled from stove to table, setting out all the food.
“Denki, Amelia. That would be nice—warm these cold fingers right up.”
She set the cup and saucer down at her oldest brother’s place next to Mamm, then settled on the other side of the table with Matthew and Elam. After they all said a silent grace, she helped Elam to some potatoes and handed them to Matthew. But instead of taking them, Matthew gazed at Eli.
“Are you going to buy our dad’s shop?” he asked.
Isaac looked down, smiling into his beard. Ruth said, “Matthew! That’s none of your business.” And Amelia just stared at her firstborn. What on earth had possessed him to blurt out such a thing?
Eli looked a little startled but covered it with a smile. “Not that I know of. I don’t think your Mamm is keen on selling right now.”
“Matthew, have some potatoes.”
He took the bowl and looked up at her. “But, Mamm, you just told Daadi you were going to.”
“I know I did. And little pitchers have big ears, it seems.”
Eli spooned brussels sprouts onto his plate, not looking at her, giving her a chance to smooth things over.
Well, she had to tie the knot in the bull’s tail now. She’d invited him over to talk about this very thing, hadn’t she? “I’ve decided to sell the shop, Eli, as Matthew said.” She nudged the boy with her shoulder to show him he wasn’t in trouble for poking his nose into adult business. “There’s an expensive treatment for my condition—” Oh, just say it. “The MS—that won’t be funded by the church, so I need to raise the money for it.”
He made an encouraging noise, eating Ruth’s good roast beef with zest and making it obvious without being rude that he already knew the details. She did like a man who appreciated a woman’s cooking—and knew how to consider her feelings.
“The thing is, one of our customers has made me an offer. And since you were interested, too, I thought it only fair that you have a chance to say your piece. If you are still interested, that is.”
“I hear you were planning to head back to Lebanon soon,” Ruth put in. “Friday?”
“I was.” Eli took a sip of coffee, though it must be tepid by now, what with the amount of milk he’d put in it. “I’ve had a good look around Whinburg, and there are one or two prospects for work.”
“There are?” Amelia asked. “From what Mel—from what some of the other men have said, not too many Amish folks are looking for help. With the economy the way it is, even the Englisch are cutting back and not expanding.”
“While I was looking around, I noticed that there weren’t too many of the men doing electrical conversions—you know, taking Englisch washing machines and dairy machinery and suchlike and converting them to run off air pumps or batteries.”
“You’re right there,” Isaac said. “We get that done in Strasburg, or we do it ourselves.”
“So I thought I might try my hand at that. I could have a little shop with a wagon and travel around helping the men with their conversions.”
“So you’re not interested in pallets, then.” Amelia wondered why this sudden shaft of disappointment had lodged itself
in her middle. She was merely being polite in giving him the chance to offer, wasn’t she? She’d practically already decided that Bernard Burke and his hundred thousand were the prime candidates.
“I didn’t say that,” Eli replied, with a smile across the table at her. “If I were going to settle here, I’d need something useful to do, that’s all.”
“And are you planning to settle?” Amelia would never have been so forward as to ask, but Ruth had no such qualms. “That’s a big decision.”
“It is,” Eli agreed. “One I’ve been mulling and praying over for some time. The Lord still hasn’t made it clear to me what His will is, though.”
And behind the quiet words, Amelia heard: If I had a chance with you, it would be plenty clear.
If only things were different! A person could get used to sitting across a table from that smile. Matthew and Elam seemed to like him, too—otherwise Matthew would never have opened up and spoken so boldly to him.
But she just couldn’t sentence this kind man to years of caring for an invalid. Oh, life might be very sweet—at first. But they would pay for that sweetness in month after month of the kind of hardship Emma had endured—the kind that had made Lila Esch’s husband, Milner, lose forty pounds and put years of pain in his eyes.
No. She must resist the silent wish of a man who would never speak it out loud until he had a sign from her. She must be strong for both their sakes.
And if he moved here and took up a business—any business—and decided to give up and marry someone else…well then, she would have to be strong about that, too.
A sinking feeling of cold despair slid down her spine and into her belly.
She would be strong, for the boys’ sake. God’s will might be her first priority, but He would not have blessed her with them if He had not believed she would put them first, too, would He?
The potatoes and gravy felt like wallpaper paste in her mouth. She drank a little water and said, “So this customer, he offered me a hundred thousand dollars for the shop, based on a forty-thousand-dollar profit last year. That would include the land and equipment, as well as the materials on hand.”
