by Jo Ann Brown
“You grew up on a farm, too.”
“Ja, but...” How could she explain to him that in her few months away from the countryside she’d missed the open fields and the cool sensation of freshly turned earth between her toes and the rich scents of plants and animals and a snitz pie cooling on a windowsill? More than once, she’d considered leaving Lancaster just to rediscover what she’d left behind. If she had, she might not be pregnant.
She refused to think that way. She wanted to enjoy the day with the kinder, their parents...and Micah. Today was for happiness and fun. Trouble would return soon enough.
* * *
As they reached the front of the line and Katie Kay began helping the two littlest ones onto the wagon, Sean pulled Micah aside and said, “Thanks for taking the kids.” He’d already said it a half-dozen times. He must have been really worried about Gemma getting overtired. As Katie Kay had, his partner said, “I know riding around on a horse-drawn farm wagon isn’t a big treat for you, but it is for my kids.”
“Riding around on a horse-drawn farm wagon and not having to spend the whole day sweating out in the field is a big treat for me.” He laughed and was glad when Sean joined in.
Micah bent to hoist DJ up but paused long enough to sneak a glance at Sean, who had his arm around Gemma. Sean was worried about his pregnant wife. A flush of something that felt like sorrow flowed through him. Katie Kay wouldn’t have anyone to be concerned for her when she was as rotund as Gemma. The daed of her boppli had cut any ties with her in the cruelest possible ways. Nobody would stand beside her as Sean did with Gemma, encouraging her and celebrating the new life with her. She alone would have to choose her boppli’s name.
He tried not to think of that as he put his hands on Katie Kay’s still slender waist and lifted her to sit beside DJ. Climbing on himself, he pointed to one of the bales in the center. “You boys sit here, and, Olivia, you sit—”
“With Kay-Kay,” the little girl announced as she settled herself on one of the bales and patted the hay. “Come and sit with me, Kay-Kay.”
“How could I resist such an invitation?” She sat beside the kind and put her arm around Olivia’s narrow shoulders. “You will hold on to me so I don’t fall off the wagon, won’t you?”
The little girl nodded so hard her braids bounced like a pair of reins along her back.
Though the ride was around an open field with the horses plodding at a pace barely faster than the kinder could walk, the Donnelly youngsters were thrilled with the experience. They talked without seeming to take a breath.
Micah relaxed and listened as they discussed the wagon, the horses and the harvest festival in specific detail. Now that they were enjoying their ride, their next thoughts were for lunch.
Or the boys’ thoughts were.
Olivia was absorbed with a different matter. “I needs a bonnet. Girls on TV have bonnets.”
“Which girls?” Katie Kay asked.
The little girl began to chatter about a show about a family that lived on the prairie. “They wears bonnets when they ride in a wagon. Mommy says girls always wears bonnets long ago.”
“That’s true,” she replied as if the matter was the most serious one in the world.
Olivia pointed to the line, where others waited for their turn to get on the wagon. “See? They gots pretty bonnets.”
Instantly Katie Kay stiffened. He could read her thoughts as if she spoke them aloud: Were there Amish at the festival? She should have known that they could encounter plain people there.
He scanned the line again and smiled. The girls in the blue-and-white-checked bonnets were Englisch.
“I see,” she said to Olivia, and he noticed her shoulders relax.
“I wants a bonnet.” The kind looked up at Katie Kay with innocent eyes. “Where can I gets a bonnet?”
Katie Kay glanced at Micah. He shrugged. He had no idea where an Englisch girl would obtain a checkered bonnet. Were they sold in stores, or were the brightly colored bonnets homemade? Mamm had made the far simpler bonnets she and his sisters wore.
“Where’s your bonnet, Kay-Kay?” asked Olivia, obviously not ready to let the subject drop. “Uncle Micah says Amish girls wear bonnets to school and to church. You’re Amish, aren’t you?”
He waited to see how Katie Kay would answer. Did she still consider herself Amish? She used Deitsch words often and wore a kerchief over her hair when she worked around the house. But both might be habit more than anything.
“Ja,” she replied with a smile. “Amish girls do wear bonnets to school and church.”
Olivia wasn’t satisfied with Katie Kay’s evasion, and neither was Micah. He listened as the little girl asked again, “So where’s your bonnet, Kay-Kay?”
“At my daed’s house.” Katie Kay started to add more, but Olivia sneezed once, then a second, then a third time.
“Gesundheit,” he and Katie Kay said at the same time.
The youngsters giggled, and they began to talk again about the horses pulling the wagon. Micah wished he could figure out a way to return the conversation to bonnets and ask if Katie Kay planned to wear hers again.
He wondered if she’d finally faced the future and had made up her mind about what she intended to do with the boppli. Surrendering a kind was unusual in the Amish community, but it happened. A family beyond the biological parents’ districts would be found for the little one. It would be adopted by a plain couple who would love it as if the boppli had been born within that family. But the choice had to be Katie Kay’s.
The only decision he needed to make was if he wanted to sample at least once more the delight he’d rediscovered when he held her hands last night. His aim had been to offer her comfort while he posed such difficult questions. Then pleasure had skittered up his arm, and he’d found himself wanting to look into her eyes for the rest of his life.
Be careful, he warned himself as the wagon completed its circuit. He jumped off. Helping the others down, he thought about the Englisch saying Sean used often with a laugh. What was it?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
That was the one, but he didn’t feel the least bit like laughing. If he let himself be taken in by Katie Kay again, the resulting pain in his heart would be his own fault.
The boys ran to the gate where Sean and Gemma waited. Olivia sneezed again and again. Was she allergic to hay? It seemed unlikely because there were fields on every side of the Donnellys’ house. Katie Kay gave the little girl a tissue so she could blow her nose.
“She may be getting a cold,” Gemma said as they walked toward the midway. “I hope not. Once one gets sick, they all do.”
“At least you don’t have as many kinder as in my family.” Micah chuckled. “Mamm used to dose each of us as soon as one got sick. We’d catch the cold or whatever but not as hard.”
“A good idea.” Gemma hooked her arm through her husband’s. “Sean, I do believe you owe Micah a sausage sandwich.”
They laughed as they picked out what they wanted for lunch and found a picnic table to enjoy it while they watched the other festivalgoers. Micah listened to the kinder plan what they wanted to do after they ate. A single glance at Gemma told him she hoped to sit at the table for as long as possible. The only way she’d do that was if he and Katie Kay amused the youngsters.
“What do you think about doing the corn maze?” he asked her softly enough so the chattering kinder wouldn’t overhear.
“I’ve never done a corn maze. Have you?”
He shook his head. “But I’ve been curious about them. It’s got to take a lot of skill to carve a cornfield into a pattern that looks like a giant table with a turkey dinner spread across it.”
“A pattern?”
Pulling out the pamphlet he’d taken from a stack near the parking lot, he opened it. “
See? This is what the maze looks like from overhead.”
“It is a turkey!” Olivia cried as she peeked over his arm and poked the page. “Mommy, can we do the turkey?”
Gemma said, “I don’t know. That’s a long walk.”
“We’ll take them if you’d like,” Katie Kay said. “I know you want to spend time with them, too, but if you’d prefer to relax, we’ll take them through the maze.”
“And get them tired out.” Micah winked at Gemma. “That way, they’ll go to sleep right away when they get home.”
“That sounds lovely,” she said before looking at her husband. “Sean?”
“If Micah and Katie Kay want to wrangle three scamps through the maze, I say go for it.”
Micah nodded as he saw Sean’s thankful expression. “It’s a deal. Just make sure you have plenty of fried dough—”
“And popcorn,” added Jayden.
“And popcorn,” he repeated with a smile. “According to the brochure, it takes on average a little over an hour to complete the maze.”
“A feast will be waiting upon your return from vanquishing yon corn maze,” Sean said so seriously they laughed.
Leading the kids and Katie Kay, Micah went to the booth to buy tickets for them. They were asked to wait to the left of the entrance, because guests were spaced out to make it impossible to follow someone else around the twisting maze.
When it was their turn to go in, the man at the entrance said, “Have fun. When you smell pumpkin pie, you will be right close to the exit.”
Olivia giggled and grabbed Micah’s hand and then Katie Kay’s. DJ took his other hand while Katie Kay offered hers to Jayden. Together, they entered the maze.
Around them, the dried corn leaves rustled with the slight breeze they had hardly noticed before. The kids stared around, wide-eyed, but giggled at each other’s trepidation. The ground was well worn under their feet. Voices, disembodied and distorted by the stalks, reached them in snippets.
The kids asked to go ahead to the first intersection of the paths. Agreeing not to turn in any direction until the adults reached them, they skipped away. Olivia stopped to sneeze twice and then cough, but she shook her head when he asked if she needed her asthma medicine. She hurried after her brothers.
“Do you have her inhaler, Micah?” Katie Kay asked.
“No.” Dismay shot through him. “I forgot to get it from Gemma.”
“Then we should hurry. Maybe her coughing is nothing, but I don’t want her to have an attack.”
He nodded and matched her steps as they followed the kinder.
“While they’re out of earshot,” Micah said, “I wanted to tell you, Katie Kay, I’m sorry for pressuring you. When you called your little one ‘the boppli,’ I thought you’d already made up your mind about what you would do with him or her.”
“I haven’t. I don’t want to. Not yet. Can you understand that?”
“Ja.” He smiled at her as they went together to where the kinder waited impatiently.
She conferred with them about which direction they should choose. They decided to go left and ran toward the next intersection, where people could be seen walking both ways. The five of them kept to the same pattern over and over with the kinder racing to the turn ahead of them, sometimes reaching a dead end and having to turn around.
As they retraced their steps a second time back to a branch of the maze, Micah reached out for the kinder’s hands, but when his fingers closed around slender fingers, he knew he hadn’t caught either Olivia or DJ. Instead he was holding Katie Kay’s hand.
Drop it! The warning was like a fire siren blaring through his head, but he couldn’t make his fingers uncurl from around hers. Not even when other people going through the maze edged around where they stood in the middle of the path.
Drop it!
He couldn’t. He’d waited for the chance to hold her hand again. As he did, the months since the last time he’d taken her home from a singing melted away like frost on a sunny morning.
When she raised her eyes to meet his, he couldn’t mistake her expression. She was as pleased and as uneasy as he was. In spite of that, she didn’t tug her hand away.
He drew her to the side of the path, stopping though the kids waved for them to catch up. The sharp edges of a corn leaf brushed against his ear, and he edged a single step away.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” he said.
“The kids are excited, and that’s fun.”
“Being here with you is fun for me.” He ran his thumb along her palm. “I’ve missed our friendship.”
“Me, too.” She squeezed his fingers as her smile grew soft. As soft as her lips would be, he knew.
His rebellious heart leaped within his chest. He’d never wanted to kiss her—not even the first time—as much as he did now. Would friendship be enough for him with this woman he’d once loved?
* * *
An hour passed and then a second one, and yet Katie Kay remained lost with Micah and the kinder in the maze. She wouldn’t have worried except that Olivia coughed more. Was it a cold, or was she having an asthma attack? Olivia seemed to be breathing okay, but Katie Kay wasn’t sure how an attack progressed. She knew Micah was apprehensive about the little girl’s situation, too, because he picked the kind up and carried her when she lagged.
Katie Kay did the same with Jayden. DJ was no longer running ahead, and he complained on every step he was thirsty, though he’d had a full bottle of water when they entered the maze.
When they reached what seemed like the thousandth intersection in the maze, Micah pointed to the right. “I think we’re supposed to go that way.”
“No, this way,” DJ argued, gesturing left.
“Why do you think so?”
“I’ve seen a bunch of people go that way, and I haven’t seen them backtrack.”
“That’s gut enough for me.” He held out his hand, but she gave DJ a gentle shove in Micah’s direction. The little boy grasped his fingers and began to ask another barrage of questions.
They kept walking. Others passed them, obviously eager to get out of the maze, too.
“You are a gut man, Micah Lapp,” she said as Olivia’s head dropped onto his shoulder. The little girl still coughed fitfully as she slept. Jayden had fallen asleep fifteen minutes earlier.
“I try to be.” He gave her a cockeyed grin. “Glad to know I’m succeeding at least some of the time.”
“I meant what I said. You’re a gut man.” Too gut for me, she added to herself.
Micah deserved a wunderbaar woman who hadn’t ever treated him like dirt beneath her shoes. He should have a wife who was as devoted to a plain lifestyle as her sister, Priscilla, and who could make him a fine home.
The thought sliced through her like a blade, and she bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. She didn’t watch where she was going and stumbled over a stone, gripping Jayden more tightly so she didn’t drop him.
Micah caught her arm. “What’s wrong, Katie Kay? You look sick. Are you feeling bad?”
“I’m okay.” She stepped away from him. For a moment, she wished he’d refused to let her go, because she’d felt safe with his wide hands curving along her arms. Don’t let your fear betray you. “Let’s keep going.”
What did she want from him? He’d been worried about her and the boppli when he drove her to the midwife’s clinic. As well, he’d taken care of her when he discovered her wandering along the road, but wouldn’t he have done the same for anyone he encountered? There was no question that he was a fine man. She’d let her heart lead her to him once, and that had been disastrous. So what did she want from him now?
Did she want him to treat her like he used to before they walked out together? That had been such an easy time between them. He’d made her laugh
and feel special without putting her on a pedestal as other guys did. Sometimes, back then, that had annoyed her because she’d liked when the young men admired her and told her how splendid she was. As Austin had until the night he’d persuaded her to drink too much. How stupid she’d been dumping Micah when he treated her with kindness and respect and honesty. And then she’d let herself be beguiled by a man who had never really cared for her.
Suddenly Katie Kay caught her breath when she saw familiar silhouettes on the other side of the stalks. The straw hats and kapps told her who they were.
Grabbing DJ’s hand, she sprinted in the direction they’d come. She ran until she came to another dead end, paying no attention to the kind’s questions. She gasped for breath and fought not to cry.
When Micah came around the corner and stared at her, she blinked hard to hold in her tears. He set the abruptly wide-awake Olivia on her feet as he asked, “Why did you flee, acting as jumpy as oil on a hot griddle?”
“I saw people who looked like our neighbors.” She wouldn’t say the word Amish aloud for fear of being overheard.
His eyes widened a moment and then narrowed. “So you ran in the opposite direction without bothering to identify them?”
“I couldn’t let them see me.” She glanced at Olivia, who was clinging to Micah and coughing again.
“You’re going to encounter someone else who knows you eventually, Katie Kay. How long are you going to try to play hide-and-seek?”
“I don’t think I—”
“There’s the gist of the problem. You don’t think things through.”
She raised her chin. “I don’t need you lecturing me, Micah Stoltzfus.”
“No, you need—” He halted as the little girl doubled over with her coughing. Scooping Olivia up, he held one hand out to DJ. “C’mon. What we need to do is find our way out of here and take Olivia home so she can get warm again. So we all can get warm. You and I can talk later, Katie Kay.”
She nodded. She wanted to groan when she saw lazy snowflakes drift onto them. She’d wondered how it could get any worse in the corn maze, and now she had her answer.
