by Kelly Irvin
Laura shook her head. “I’ve known Zechariah all my life. I remember how sweet he and Marian were together. He was the light of her life. That speaks to what kind of mann he was. He was a hard worker and a gut father too. The grouchiness is a new thing, brought on by the death of his fraa and two kinner followed by an awful disease I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
“Well, I guess you told us.” Bess held up her needles as if in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to speak ill of your special friend.”
“He’s not my special friend.” Heat burned Laura’s face. So much for keeping her feelings to herself. Her friends knew her far too well. “We played checkers and drank tea. That’s all. We didn’t even finish the game.”
“This does sound like something is simmering at Ben’s house that has nothing to do with babies or cooking and cleaning.” Jennie went back to her quilting, but her expression held obvious mixed emotion. “We want you to be happy, my freind, but be careful.”
Even a blissfully happy second marriage couldn’t keep caution from Jennie’s every move. Ever the nurturer, she didn’t want others to experience what she had with Atlee.
“You’re putting the cart a hundred miles before the horse. We played checkers because I’m there taking care of the kinner. That’s all.” Laura picked at the bits of oatmeal on her apron. She couldn’t deny the thought of a man replacing Eli had crossed her mind a time or two over the years, but it was always followed by the assurance that no one could replace him. Nor did she need a replacement. She lived a life filled with kinner and friends and faith. It was just dark winter, filled with short days of little sunshine, long evenings, and cold nights that made a person start to think about such silliness. “I remain content with what Gott has given me.”
“Maybe He’s planning to give you more. Ever think of that? Maybe Gott is waiting for you to get up and get moving on His plan.” Bess’s needles paused. “I hear Joshua fussing at Delia. He is not gut at sharing. He has to learn.”
She settled her partially completed pale-blue shawl and skein of wool onto her chair and bustled across the room. Her expression thoughtful, Jennie watched her go. “If it’s not Zechariah, what is bothering you? If it’s the gossip about Tamara, don’t worry about it. Mary Katherine talked to Ruby. She’ll talk to those gossipers, count on that.”
“It’s Tamara—whom I intend to speak to today if I have to tackle her—and then there’s Hannah—”
“I heard. I tend to hear everything at the store. If I don’t, Leo does. He often forgets to tell me, or I have to drag it out of him, but between the two of us, we hear just about everything.” Jennie made a tsk-tsk sound. “Every time one of the women delivers their goods to the store, a little more of the story gets told. Of course, I don’t believe everything I hear, and I surely don’t repeat it.”
“I can’t believe the grapevine got a hold of her already.”
“Her, but not the daed. They’re saying she’s leaving the Gmay to live with some Englisch man.”
“Not true.” Nausea bucked in Laura’s stomach at the thought of people gossiping about her sweet Hannah. The bacon and biscuit she had for breakfast rose in her throat. She swallowed. “What possesses people to make it up as they go along?”
“Nothing better to do, I reckon.”
“I know it’s a sin to worry, but I think of her being banned for a month or six weeks or even longer, on her own.” Laura cleared her throat. She plucked her glasses from her face and made a show of wiping them on her apron. Hot tears welled, but she whipped them back by sheer force of will. Jennie squeezed her arm. Laura breathed. “She’s a sweet girl who made a terrible mistake. We’ll love her and help her raise her bopli, but there’s so much hurt and pain in between.”
“If she’s truly repentant, she’ll do fine.” Jennie wiped at her cheeks. She was a good friend who had her share of experiences raising teenagers, especially her son Matthew, who had suffered lingering effects from his dead father’s anger issues. “We love our boplin, no matter their ages, but we also have to let them suffer the consequences of their actions. It’s the only way they can grow up and become Gott-fearing adults who raise gut kinner themselves.”
“We all make mistakes. Sometimes we teeter on making grave errors, but somehow, we pull back from the cliff or someone or something pulls us back.” Like Eli’s offer to give her a ride home one night after a singing. Those simple words, “Will you take a ride with me?” changed her life. “Didn’t you ever come close to making a mistake as grievous as Hannah’s?”
“Atlee swept me off my feet, for sure. I’d never been kissed before. He took my breath away.” Jennie’s voice faltered. Her cheeks turned as red as a fresh tomato. “I was all mixed up. I thought it was love. I thought this was what grown-ups did.”
“So when he asked you to marry him, you said jah.”
She wiggled in her chair and ducked her head. “I did. It didn’t take long for me to realize lust and love are not the same thing.” Her needle paused in midair. “Leo is different. The two are bound so tightly—we’re bound so tightly—there’s no unraveling where one ends and the other begins.”
“I don’t think I need to hear about this.”
They both laughed, the embarrassed chuckles of two old women. Jennie rolled her eyes. “It’s not only the young who are tempted by pleasures of the body. I’ll leave it at that.”
“Danki.”
They were silly old ladies who couldn’t hold their emotion any more than their tea. Jennie stuck her needle in the material. She leaned back and folded her hands in her lap. “What will you say to Tamara?”
“I’m praying for the right words.”
“You’re never at a loss for words.”
They both laughed again. Laura wiped at her face with her sleeve. “So much is riding on the right words.”
“Gott is in charge. He’ll give you the words. He knows the outcome, so there’s no reason for you to get all tied up in knots over it.”
The older Jennie grew, the wiser she became. Soon she would overtake Mary Katherine and Laura both. Her words were as bracing as cold water splashed on Laura’s face on a winter morning. “Time to wade into the fray.”
“I think she’s been avoiding you.”
“I know she has, but I’m spryer than she thinks.”
“There she goes to talk to Ruby.” Jennie cocked her head toward the other end of the room. “You know more than she does about life. Never forget that. I don’t.”
FOURTEEN
ONE ZIG, TWO ZAGS, AND LAURA HAD TAMARA CORNERED between Ruby’s quilt rack and the circle of chairs where smaller crib quilts in various stages were being finished. Or she thought she did. Tamara simply squeezed past her and trotted toward the kitchen.
“Tamara! I’ve been looking for you.”
Ruby, caught in the middle between her mother and her daughter, smiled, but sadness deepened the lines around her eyes and mouth. “That’s what she does to me every time I try to talk to her.” She stabbed her needle into a purple-and-yellow Double Star baby quilt that surely would be a Christmas gift for her daughter Cassie, who was expecting in the spring. “My mann won’t even look at her anymore.”
“She can’t do that with me. I’ll run her down, don’t you worry.” Laura marched into the kitchen, where the scent of cinnamon rolls mingled with lilac sachets and vanilla candles in various stages of production. Tamara stood at the table where her mother had arranged platters and bowls of food brought to the frolic. She picked up a plate. Laura did the same. “How have you been?”
Tamara laid a peanut butter spread sandwich on her plate, then added two molasses cookies and two walnut cookies. The girl had a sweet tooth. She sighed and held her plate out to Laura. “Would you like a cookie? Mudder made the molasses ones. They’re so gut.”
Knowing what a good baker Ruby was, Laura took one of each. She had her own sweet tooth. “Let’s take a walk.”
“It’s too cold. And we have work to do.”
“We still have time. Christmas is three weeks away. Besides, the wind has died down.” Laura wrapped the cookies in a paper napkin and laid them on the table. She tugged on her favorite mittens knitted by her granddaughter Jana for Christmas the previous year. “I could use a breath of fresh air.”
She told the truth. The smoke from the fireplace, mixed with the crush of women chattering and the perfumed potpourri scents had given her a headache.
“You’ll bend my ear. I know it.” Tamara’s cheeks reddened, but her gaze didn’t waver. She set the paper plate on the table and picked up her sandwich. “My mind’s made up.”
“Not here.” Laura slipped her arm through the crook in Tamara’s and propelled her toward the back door where they grabbed coats from the hooks. “This is a private conversation.”
Outside, she took a deep breath of December air and exhaled. The white puffs lingered a second, then dissipated. Gray clouds covered the sun, but the air still felt crisp against her skin. She could think more clearly despite her fatigue and concern. She needed to think clearly to convince a smart girl like Tamara, who was always sure she was right. Just like her grandpa Eli. Only not as smart as he was. “Much better.”
“Better for what?” Tamara tugged away and clomped down the steps. “I don’t need anyone else to bark at me.”
“Bark at you? Is that what you call it when your mudder and daed talk about how concerned they are for your eternal salvation?” Laura followed her. Tamara looked like her mother, which meant she looked like Laura when she was young. Except her eyes were cocoa colored, not green. Over the years, Ruby had suffered through many heart-to-heart talks with Laura, but never one like this. “Is that what you call it when they want you to know how much they’ll miss you? How their hearts are broken?”
Tamara’s face flushed scarlet. She tossed her bread to the birds gathered under her daed’s bird feeder. “I’m not a mean person.” Her pace picked up to match her agitation. “I have to do what’s right for me. It would be wrong to be baptized if that’s not what’s in my heart. You taught me that.”
The boisterous laughter of more than two dozen children playing hide-and-seek among the buggies and farm equipment seemed out of place as a backdrop for this discussion. Laura gritted her teeth and sallied forth. “You told your mudder I gave you the idea of leaving Jamesport and becoming a doctor. I figure I have a say in this.”
“I didn’t put it quite like that. I said watching you gave me the idea.”
“Watching me deliver babies made you want to leave your faith and your family to become a doctor.” Laura understood the desire. She’d felt it herself. But her faith and her love for a good man had kept her from taking that road. Tamara had decided to put this desire for her vocation before her faith. And she hadn’t found her Eli—not yet. “Help me understand.”
Tamara veered left and came to a stop between two buggies. The horses had gathered around a pile of hay left there by her father for that purpose. They chewed with a contented air. She ran her long fingers through the ginger mare’s mane and began to braid small pieces of it. “I don’t know if I can explain it. Martha’s baby died.”
“Jah.”
“And I felt helpless watching. Rachel was helpless.”
“Rachel did what she could. Even if Rachel were a doctor and the bopli born in a hospital, she would’ve died.”
“I’m not sure of that. You weren’t there and you can’t know either.”
“I know Rachel would do everything she could to save a bopli. I know the rest is in Gott’s hands. So you are smarter than Gott?”
“Nee. I would never say that.”
“You’re Plain.”
Tamara laid her head on the horse’s neck and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. She sniffed. “I hate breaking Mudder’s heart. I hate making Daed look sad and mad at the same time. He’s never been mad at me before. Ever.”
“You are a gut and smart girl. He knows that.” Laura leaned against the wooden fence. Her legs were tired, but her mind was more tired. “He has a plan for you that has nothing to do with brains and everything to do with heart and soul.”
“I have no special freind. You know that. I have no one to love, and I like the idea of learning more than I like cooking or sewing.”
“You’ve got this all figured out.”
“I talked to Dr. Reeves.” One of Jamesport’s family doctors. “I have a plan. I’ll take the GED—that’s the General Equivalency Development test—and get my high school equivalency diploma. She thinks with the extra reading and work I’m doing I can pass. But I don’t know if I have enough science and math. Especially math.”
The cold air had nothing to do with the red on her cheeks now or the way her dark eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. Everything about her changed. She stood taller. She spoke with more confidence. She was a smart girl. If anyone could pass this test, she could.
Which scared Laura. “Maybe you need to study more before you give it a try.”
“You’re trying to delay the inevitable.”
A smart girl, indeed. “I’m more worried about your spiritual smarts than your book learning.”
“I can still worship Gott and believe everything you believe. Plain folks aren’t the only Christians in the world.”
“No one likes a smarty mouth.”
Tamara abandoned the braid she had been attempting in the horse’s mane and stalked toward the dirt road. A fine mist of sleet mixed with snow began to fall. It sparkled against the dark of her wool coat. Like the ideas that sparkled inside this too-smart-for-her-own-good girl.
Another girl just like Tamara stalked along the road with her. The one Laura had been at nineteen. So sure of herself. The girl who longed to do more and be more. More than a wife and mother. Laura had wanted to be a doctor once. She’d been certain she would never be happy unless she became a medical doctor. The struggle between her faith and her calling had kept her awake night after night.
Then God revealed His plan to her. She met Eli. Her plans fell away like a house built on the sand. One kiss and the desire to know the world had faded away in the happily ever after of being the wife of a man who could sweep her off her feet without touching her. She could be a midwife, remain with her family and her faith, and find happiness.
Tamara whirled around and walked backward with all the confidence of a woman who had eyes in the back of her head. “I’m waiting until after Christmas.”
So little time to convince her. Or find her a special friend. Matchmaking was not Laura’s favorite activity. But anything to derail this plan. “So you can spend one more of Jesus’ birthdays worshipping with family?”
“Jah, that too. But also because the new semester begins in January. Dr. Reeves is helping me fill out the paperwork for financial aid and admissions at the community college in Trenton.”
That answered the question of how she would pay for it. Trenton was only thirteen miles from Jamesport. But once Tamara made good on her intention to get a college education, it might as well be five thousand. She hadn’t been baptized so there would be no official Meidung. Instead, she simply would lead a different life, one that didn’t involve her family. She would wear English jeans and T-shirts and likely learn to drive. She’d talk about current events at coffee shops and spend all night in the library with other students intent on saving the world while they lost their souls.
“Community college is gut enough to get you into medical school?”
Tamara lifted her face to the ping of the sleet. Her damp cheeks and clothes didn’t seem to bother her in the least. The cold invigorated her, it seemed. Or maybe it was her plans for a future that didn’t include Ruby and Martin and her eight brothers and sisters. “Nee, but it’s a long road. I’ll transfer from community college to the university in Kansas City or St. Louis in two years. I need a four-year premed degree with perfect grades and great recommendations. Then I apply to medical school.”
“It sounds expensive.”
Dr. Reeves had lived in Jamesport most of her life. She knew what she was doing when she interfered in a Plain girl’s life. Good intentions or not. Laura added a visit with the doctor to her to-do list.
Not that it would help now. Tamara had such a blithe attitude. And how had she accumulated so much knowledge of this world so quickly? “You’ve been thinking about this and planning it for a while.”
“Since I turned eighteen.”
Four years. “You’ve been studying this whole time.”
“I knew I couldn’t compete without learning a lot more than I did in a one-room schoolhouse and an education that ended at the eighth grade.”
Compete. Not something a Plain person did. They competed with no one—not with each other or the Englisch. Without a word to anyone, Tamara had plotted and planned. “You want to be better than others. You want to show them up. Have you learned nothing of Gelassenheit?” Laura’s body heated despite the cold air. Anger burned and sparked like dry kindling suddenly lit with a match. “Have you no respect for our belief in surrender, in resignation, in humility, and sacrifice that honors Gott? We have no need to show off to the world. We have no need of science or years of study. We know what we need to know. That Gott is in charge. We need only surrender to His plan.”
“Weren’t you ever tempted?” Tamara’s voice rose. “I know you were. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Lying would be a sin and not one Laura intended to embrace in the middle of a tirade about the virtues of Gelassenheit. “I was, but Gott showed me His plan and I’m so thankful and so blessed to have had a life as a fraa and a mudder and a midwife. I would’ve missed all that if I’d run away from this life.”
