The Heart's Journey: Stitches in Time Series #2

by Barbara Cameron

  “Can we sit down?”

  “Schur,” she said. “What’s wrong? It’s not Naomi, is it? She just left with Daniel. There hasn’t been an accident?”

  “No, no, I’m sorry, I’m just making this worse,” he said. “Come, sit down, and let me talk to you.”

  He told her about how Naomi had reacted at the beach not once but twice, the latter time right after John had returned home. She listened but didn’t react with surprise.

  Then she reached over to touch his arm with her small but firm hand. “I know about John,” she said quietly.

  “And you think it’s okay for her to marry him?” he nearly yelled, jumping up from the table so impulsively that his chair fell over backward, the noise jarring in the small house.

  “No, no, of course not,” Leah said quickly. “I’ve spoken to Naomi about it and I was glad when she came here with me so that she’d have a chance to think about what she needed to do.”

  Nick closed his eyes and then opened them. Relief left him feeling dizzy. Then he realized that just because Leah wanted her granddaughter to break off her engagement, it didn’t mean that Naomi would do so.

  “Would you like some coffee or tea?” she asked.

  “Only if you put that ankle up on a chair and let me make it.”

  “Always thinking of other people, aren’t you, Nick?”

  “I’m no saint,” he muttered, pulling out a chair and gesturing at it.

  Only when she put her foot on it did he move to fill the teakettle and set it on the stove burner.

  “Tea?”

  He shrugged. “You’ve gotten me to liking it. Sometimes.”

  She stared at him, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “What?” he asked as he returned to the table.

  “Have you come to care for Naomi?” she asked point-blank.

  She made him think of his own grandmother. It was unnerving the way she reminded him of his mother’s mother—gone now—and the way she’d always known when he’d gotten into mischief. He’d sworn that Grandma Iris had known he’d done something before he’d actually had a chance to do it.

  “You know I think you have three fine granddaughters—well, the ones I know,” he said carefully. “I’m aware you have many more, but I’m talking about Mary Katherine, Anna, and Naomi. I’m fond of all three of them.”

  “But you don’t look at Mary Katherine or Anna the same way.”

  The teakettle hissed. He turned off the flame, poured hot water into cups, and brought them to the table.

  “Good thing,” he told her lightly. “I doubt Mary Katherine’s husband would put up with that. And Anna would just laugh at me if I started looking at her …” he trailed off. Romantically? He was afraid to even say the word.

  He pushed the bowl of tea bags toward her and then chose one for himself. Opening it and dunking it into the hot water provided a nice diversion. But when he finally had to look up, she was still staring at him.

  “I’m just worried that John will hurt her,” he told her. “I swear that’s all I care about. I know that any feelings I have can’t go anywhere. She’s been baptized. She’d be shunned. I couldn’t let that happen. Her faith, her family and friends … I couldn’t—”

  Leah laid her hand on his and it was cool and dry and firm. “Does she know how you feel about her?”

  He remembered the kiss on the beach and he didn’t dare look at her or she’d know what happened. “I think she’s guessed I’m attracted to her,” he said honestly, meeting her gaze. “But I promise you I won’t pursue a relationship with her, Leah. Just help her break things off with John. I beg you.”

  Leah’s eyes widened and she blinked. “Oh my,” she whispered. “You’re in love with my grossdochder.”

  Groaning, he put his head in his hands and slumped in his chair. Lifting his head, he stared at her. “Are you related to my grandmother?”

  “It’s written all over your face,” she said sagely.

  They sighed in perfect unison.

  The door opened and Naomi breezed in, then stopped as she saw Nick sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he said quickly. “We were just talking about how sorry we are that we’re going home soon.”

  “Yes, well—” Naomi looked like she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Why are you home so soon?” he asked her.

  “I forgot my money,” she said, and then she frowned. “How did you know I’d gone anywhere?”

  “Because you weren’t home when I got here.”

  “Oh.” She appeared to think about it. Then she shrugged. “Well. Okay. I should get my money. Daniel’s waiting.” She headed for her room.

  Leah started to say something but Nick quickly shook his head and touched a finger to his mouth, indicating she should stay silent.

  Naomi came out of her room, tucking some bills into her purse. “Grossmudder, Daniel wants to know if we’d like to have supper with him tonight. He says I should invite you too, Nick.”

  Daniel walked inside. “I thought we could go to this great sushi place.”

  Nick watched Naomi make a face. “Will they cook mine if I ask? I don’t think I’d like raw fish.”

  Daniel laughed. “I was just joking. Nick, you joining us?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “He doesn’t even care where we go,” Daniel teased.

  “Hey, I’m a guy,” Nick said with a shrug. “I like to eat.”

  “We’ll be back around six and figure out where we’ll go then. Okay with you two?”

  “Not earlier?” Nick pretended to complain. “I’ll be really hungry by then.”

  Leah patted his hand and smiled at him. “I’m sure we can find something for a snack for you, Nick. No one goes hungry in an Amish home. You know that.”

  He waited until Naomi and Daniel left, then turned back to Leah. “I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful with Naomi. I just didn’t expect her to walk in. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “You’re not very good at lying,” she said.

  Nick fidgeted. “That’s a good thing, right?”

  She regarded him sternly. There was that reminder of his grandmother. “Ya, that’s a good thing,” she agreed dryly.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s why I’m worried about Naomi,” he said. “Amish girls are sheltered. Naive. And there’s pressure on them to conform to tradition. John is probably using all those things to get her to stay with him. Abusers are smart. They’re manipulative. They know how to work on women—make them feel guilty. Damage their self-esteem. Make them think everything is their fault.”

  “How is it you know so much about this?” she asked quietly as she refilled their cups.

  She leaned over to snag the cookie jar and slid it across the table to Nick. He thanked her but shook his head. His stomach was knotting up more and more as they talked.

  “A friend of mine had the same problem years ago when we were in college,” he told her. “And I read a lot. It’s a big problem.”

  So many women hid the abuse for months. Years. What if Naomi’s arm wasn’t the only place she was injured? Plain dress covered a woman; if he hadn’t innocently touched her, he’d never have known she was hurt.

  “If you weren’t so worried, I wouldn’t have talked about this with you,” Leah said after a moment. “It’s between Naomi and John—”

  “Are you saying you won’t do anything if she doesn’t break it off with him?” he demanded, frowning at her.

  “Nee, I’m not saying that at all,” she hurried to assure him. “I can talk to her again. I can ask the bishop to …” she trailed off. “Well, it might not be a good idea to consult with him,” she mused, and became lost in thought. “But let’s see what she does when we go back home.”

  She brightened. “Maybe John will decide that she’s not fraa material after all,” she said. “He didn’t look happy when she wouldn’t st
op to talk to him that day when we left. And Naomi said he didn’t like that she told him to go home when he surprised us with a visit—”

  She stopped and grimaced. “Please forget that you heard that from me. I doubt she wanted me to share that.”

  “She won’t hear it from me.”

  Hmm, he thought. Maybe it was a sign of hope. It showed some backbone on Naomi’s part. Then again, John might not appreciate it and might see it as a sign that she was rebellious. Disobedient. Noncompliant with his wishes.

  Who knew how he would behave?

  Leah glanced at the kitchen clock. “Well, the quilting circle is coming in a half hour. Would you like to stay and help us?” Nick scrambled to his feet. “Thank you for the invitation but I have to run.”

  “Is that the truth, Nick?” She regarded him sternly.

  “Yes, really, I have to run,” he said. “I had my daily slice of peanut butter pie at Yoder’s. I need to run off the calories.”

  He jogged for the door. “See you back here at six.”

  11

  It was a good thing their vacation was ending tomorrow, thought Naomi, because she thought she might become a beach bum.

  Well, as much as an Amish girl could be. Relaxing on the beach was still a little hard … at first. Once the sun had begun warming her skin and she watched the waves for a few minutes, though, pure bliss set in and she felt herself unwinding and not urging herself to get something useful done.

  Nick and Daniel were out deep-sea fishing today—she’d declined, not interested in going out on a boat—and her grandmother and Ida wanted to spend the day just relaxing at home.

  Naomi wanted to be out in the sun. So she did a little research and found out she could catch a bus to the beach. While she didn’t intend to go so far as to wear a swimsuit, she’d picked up a light cotton denim skirt that barely hit the knees and a T-shirt on one of her shopping forays. It felt totally different to walk out of the house today wearing them, along with a kerchief tied over her head instead of her kapp. She slid her feet into the new flip-flops Nick had bought her after the incident with the gator, and her outfit was complete.

  No one gave her a second glance on the number nineteen bus crowded with passengers from Pinecraft. They seemed to want to bring everything with them—not just totes with food and insulated containers of drinks, but a volleyball net and ball, lawn chairs, and toys for any children who came along.

  Daniel had warned her to get there early to get a seat, and so she sat on the bus, watching as people piled on with their things. The bus driver occasionally shook his head and rolled his eyes at all the paraphernalia but stayed good-humored about it.

  The ride didn’t take long and the view was worth the crowded conditions. Naomi carried her tote down to the sand, set it down for a moment to shed her flip-flops, and then walked to a place where she could spread her quilt.

  She plopped down on it and gave a big sigh of pleasure. The sky didn’t have a cloud in it and there was a warm breeze blowing off the ocean. Perfect day.

  Remembering that first day when she hadn’t used sunscreen and had gone home looking like a lobster, she pulled out the bottle and slathered it everywhere there was skin showing. Then she set the little kitchen timer she’d brought from the kitchen. No way she was going back with a nasty sunburn. One thing she knew about herself: once she’d learned a hard lesson, she didn’t repeat it.

  She hoped. Please, God, don’t let me ever fall in love with another man like John, she prayed.

  The tiny cottage they’d been staying in had two very small bedrooms, and in one she’d found a shelf of books left behind for guests. Most weren’t really of interest to her, but a little, dog-eared copy of Gift from the Sea by a woman named Anne Morrow Lindbergh caught her attention with its cover featuring shells scattered on a beach.

  She quickly became engrossed in the short essays within that centered on a message the author had gleaned from studying a shell she’d found on the beach during a vacation from her family.

  It was an odd concept, taking some extended time away from family, since Naomi’s whole experience had been so focused on being with so many, many members of hers since she’d been born.

  At first, she thought she’d feel that the author didn’t love her family enough or that she was selfish. But as she read about women needing to have some alone time to renew their emotional strength in order to have it to give to family, Naomi could see the sense in it.

  She looked up from the book and watched the ocean. In the beginning, she’d been so in love that she’d wanted to spend every minute she could with John. Then when she had gotten some complaints from her family that she wasn’t seeing them enough, she’d tried to back off a little. Now she could see that she felt drained by his constant demands. And tired of the way he became more and more critical.

  As much as she enjoyed having family and friends around—and as much as she’d loved the time she’d spent here with Nick—she thought it was kind of nice to be by herself a little today to read and to think about … well, everything or nothing at all. It was her choice.

  She went back to the book and kept reading. The story about the chambered nautilus shell fascinated her the most. They’d all gone to a shell shop one day—Nick insisted that the three of them had to take some shell souvenirs back home. It was required, he’d said, and the shells could be plain or they could be made into all sorts of things, from a mermaid to a vase. Actually, the more elaborate the decorations the more he seemed to enjoy looking at them.

  Naomi just didn’t know anyone who she thought would want to decorate their house with a pirate ship made of shells.

  The one item she’d bought herself was a chambered nautilus that was sliced so that all the interior chambers could be seen. So she was fascinated by Lindbergh’s story of how as the animal inside the shell outgrew the home—the chamber—it moved into a bigger one and now it used a gas to create a buoyancy to propel itself up and down in the ocean.

  She thought about the example of the nautilus having many homes and remembered the passage in the Bible about how in God’s house there are many mansions. Wasn’t even one of His lowliest creatures using something from its past to learn how to lift itself to something higher?

  She couldn’t blame God for her making a mistake with John. If anyone had made a mistake, maybe it was she, because she’d wanted to believe so badly that he was the one for her. She needed to pray for guidance and know that all was working according to His plan.

  Ding! went the timer. She laughed, thinking it sounded like she’d had a brilliant idea.

  “Man, this is the life,” Nick said, leaning back in his chair on the boat and gazing at the cloudless sky. “I have to say I don’t usually envy anyone, but to be able to do this most days where you live … wow.”

  “You could move here,” Daniel said casually.

  “Yeah, right.” Nick tilted the brim of his ball cap to shield his eyes.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t think I’d find as much work.”

  Daniel tested his line and decided he had no bites. “I’m serious. You could come work for me.”

  “I’m no farmer.”

  “Me neither.”

  Nick was taken aback. “I thought your family farmed.”

  “We used to. Sold the place in Pennsylvania. Remember?”

  “But I thought that was so you could just farm here. So what do you do here?”

  “I own a landscaping business,” Daniel told him. He reached into a cooler, pulled out two soft drinks, and handed one to Nick. “And I have a growing business installing solar panels.”

  “Solar panels?”

  Daniel grinned. “Yeah, kind of ironic, huh? Even more so if I were Old Order Amish—not Beachy Amish Mennonite.”

  He climbed back into his chair and popped the top on his drink. “Think about it. Solar energy is a green business that helps the environment. No coal messing up the air and no transporting oil. No worryin
g about nuclear power. I always thought it made no sense to be using up a resource heating or cooling our homes when especially in the South the sun is there to use.”

  “There’d be less sun some days up north,” Nick said slowly. “But I see the possibilities. I don’t plan to move, though.”

  “Yeah, wonder why,” Daniel said with a grin as he took another gulp of his soft drink.

  Nick’s line bobbed. He put his drink in the holder on his chair and fastened his seat belt, then took his rod and began reeling in.

  A huge marlin burst from the water and yanked at the line as it plunged back down into the ocean. He’d always thought it was an amazingly beautiful sport fish with its silver and blue colors, curving sculptured tail, and long pointed snout.

  Daniel jumped to his feet, spilling his soft drink. “Wow! Look at that!”

  One of the crew came to advise Nick on how to bring the fish in, and for the next twenty minutes Nick held onto the rod and wrestled the fish. It took two of them to bring it to the side of the boat.

  And then Nick broke their hearts when he shook his head and insisted that they return the fish to the water.

  “I’m going to cry,” the crew member said as he walked away. “Who doesn’t keep a fish like that after he landed it?”

  Nick looked at Daniel. “You think I’m nuts, too, don’t you? I just couldn’t let it die. It’s too beautiful.”

  Daniel clapped him on the back. “You’re a strange dude, my man.”

  “Dude?” Nick laughed. “You’re calling me a dude? Who does that?”

  Nick whistled as he drove home a couple of hours later.

  Ten pounds of less attractive fish that he’d caught were tucked into the insulated carrier on the floorboard of the front passenger seat, all cleaned and filleted.

  If Leah and Naomi wanted, he thought he’d fry up the fish for supper. He’d see if one of them would make some cole slaw and that Southern delicacy known as hush puppies. Amish women knew how to cook all kinds of food. Surely, they knew how to make hush puppies

  He passed several people walking from the bus stop. They were younger than him, in their late teens, and already their skin looked bright red. He remembered how Naomi had gotten burned that first day. She’d said she was going to the beach today. He hoped that she’d remember and use the sunscreen he’d bought her.