Simple Secrets (The Harmony Series 1)

by Nancy Mehl

  I looked past her and saw Sam coming our way. His face was set in stone without a hint of a smile. No sign of Mary.

  “Let’s get going,” he said brusquely as he approached the car. “We don’t want to be late for dinner at Abel’s.”

  He opened the truck door for me, and I climbed inside. He slammed it shut and rounded the front of the truck toward the driver’s side. A determined-looking Ruth blocked his way. The window on his side was rolled down, which made it easy for me to hear their conversation.

  “Did you talk to her?” she asked in a firm voice.

  “Yes I did.” By the look on his face and the tone of his voice, it was obvious Mary hadn’t taken it well.

  “Good. Now you both can move on.”

  Sam grunted. “Not necessarily. She’s pretty angry. I think I’ll have to make myself scarce for a while.”

  “Nonsense. She’ll come around. I’ll speak to her. Trust me.”

  Sam leaned down and gave Ruth a kiss on the cheek. “Well, if there’s anyone who can settle her down, it’s you. But I’m not sure even your powers of persuasion will work this time.”

  Ruth’s light, musical laugh drifted through the air. “Oh ye of little faith.” She stepped out of Sam’s way, and he slid into his truck. Then she leaned on the open window and frowned at me. “You be careful, Gracie. And remember what I said.” With that she turned and walked away.

  “What did she say?” Sam asked as he turned the key in the ignition.

  “She told me I might be getting ready to bite off more than I can chew.” I sighed. “I’m beginning to wonder if she’s right.”

  “Phooey.” Sam backed the truck up, being careful to avoid distracted churchgoers involved in animated conversations in the parking lot. “You can’t give up now. You must be on the right track. You certainly caught someone’s attention.”

  I had to agree with him on that point, but as we drove to Abel Mueller’s, Ruth’s admonition kept ringing through my mind. You be careful stirring that pot, Gracie. If it boils over, people can get burned.

  Chapter Eleven

  “This chicken is delicious, Emily,” I said, taking another bite. “And this stuffing. I’ve never had anything like it.”

  “It’s called bubbat,” she said with a smile. “The raisins add a nice flavor, I think.”

  “It’s wonderful. And these rolls.” I picked up a round roll with another round knob on top of it. It looked like a little snowman without arms and legs.

  “Zwieback,” Hannah said. “Mama makes it all the time. She’s a great cook.”

  “She certainly is.” I smiled at Emily. “I’m amazed. How did you put together a meal like this so quickly? Doesn’t your church let out about the same time as Sam’s?”

  “I cook Sunday’s dinner on Saturday,” Emily said with a small laugh. “We don’t like to work on the Sabbath. So you see, all I had to do was heat everything up.”

  “Well, you’re the best heater-upper I’ve ever met.”

  Hannah giggled, and Abel laughed warmly.

  Thankfully, dinner was relaxed and enjoyable. Whatever had caused Emily to react so violently to me in the diner wasn’t evident today. I’d been a little nervous on the way over, wondering if Abel and his family had heard about my supposed criminal activity. Sam had assured me that even if Ruth had wanted to tell Abel, there wouldn’t have been any opportunity. Two different churches, two different schedules, not enough time. Hopefully, now that Ruth had removed me from the top of her suspect list, the rumor wouldn’t go any further.

  I glanced over to find Hannah’s brilliant blue eyes fastened on me. She seemed intrigued by the new guest in the Mueller house. I was very interested in her, too. A girl with so much natural talent needed encouragement and training. Her chances of receiving it in Harmony were slim to none.

  Abel’s house felt cozy and welcoming. Not much different than my folks except for the lack of a TV or DVD cabinet. The Muellers had electricity, and a quick peek into Emily’s kitchen revealed modern appliances. What Abel told me at the diner appeared to be true. His day-to-day existence wasn’t much different than mine except for an effort to keep life simpler and free of outside distractions.

  The dining room where we gathered to eat was spacious and homey. The large oak table with twelve chairs spoke of big dinners and lots of guests. Our small group assembled at one end. A large painting of Bethel Church hung over the carved oak buffet pushed up against the wall. On the other side of the room, I spotted another painting. A girl with a white prayer cap sat under a tree and gazed out at a lake graced by a family of swans. The figure was in the distance with her face turned away. I remembered Ruth’s comment about Mennonite paintings not showing features or figures close up. Even so, there was something achingly sad about the image. The young girl had wrapped her arms around her knees, almost in a fetal position. I started to ask about the origins of the work when Abel spoke up and redirected my attention.

  “Hope you saved some room for dessert,” he said energetically. “My wife makes the best peach cobbler in Harmony.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize cobbler was a Mennonite dish.”

  Abel’s eyes widened and he let out a belly laugh, his beard bouncing up and down. “Oh, Gracie. Emily made you some special dishes passed down from her mother and grandmother because she thought you might enjoy them. But we eat the same things you do. Emily makes a mean pizza, and I’m partial to Chinese food. We even drive to Topeka once in a while to eat at the Chinese buffet.” He wiped his face with his napkin, still grinning. “And I doubt very seriously that the Mennonites can take credit for cobbler.”

  Hannah seemed particularly amused by my gaffe. I smiled at her. “I’m sorry. I guess I have a lot to learn about the Mennonite way of life.”

  “There’s not much to learn,” Emily said softly. “We’re really pretty normal.”

  “I keep confusing the way things are with the way they used to be when Bishop Angstadt ran the church.”

  The smile quickly left Emily’s face, and the tense look I’d seen when I first met her returned. Amil Angstadt seemed to be a sore subject to almost everyone who lived here.

  “As I explained to you in the café, Harmony is a much different place now,” Abel said. “During Bishop Angstadt’s day, I doubt that our little town would have deserved its name. There was a lot of unhappiness in Harmony back then.”

  “My folks don’t talk about it much,” I said. “They believe in forgiveness, so I guess that makes them unwilling to dredge up the past. But there’s still some anger and mistrust even if they don’t acknowledge it.”

  Abel nodded. “I understand. In Philippians, Paul talks about forgetting what lies behind. But over the years, in counseling folks in the church, I’ve discovered another truth: that sometimes we try to bury things that aren’t dead.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

  “Well, in Paul’s mind, his past had been dealt with. It was dead. He could look forward and knew that looking back would simply stop him from achieving everything God had called him to do. But sometimes people try to bury things they haven’t dealt with. And when that happens, the past won’t stay silent. It manifests in other ways—interfering with your life and not allowing you to move forward.”

  Abel’s wise admonition appeared to be pointed in a specific direction. I noticed that he looked at Emily several times while he spoke.

  “You’ve just described Benjamin Temple,” Hannah said in her light, girlish voice. “I think something awful happened to him. He always seemed so sad.”

  Hannah had been so quiet throughout dinner that hearing her speak startled me. I smiled at her. “You’re very perceptive.”

  “Benjamin isn’t the only one,” she said matter-of-factly. “It doesn’t take much perception to know that Harmony is a town full of secrets. You haven’t been here very long. Just wait.”

  “Hannah!” Emily’s sharp tone startled me. She turned my way, her face flushed. “I must apologize
for my daughter. She is at an age where a little drama goes a long way.”

  “Well, what about John Keystone?” Hannah shot back. She gave me a conspiratorial wink. “That man’s hiding something all right.”

  “Hannah, that’s enough. This family does not gossip.” The seriousness in Abel’s deep voice caught his daughter up short. It was obvious that when Abel stepped in, Hannah knew she had overstepped her boundaries.

  “There certainly is something wrong with that man,” Emily murmured under her breath.

  Abel frowned at his wife. “I’m sorry, Gracie. For some reason, Emily has taken a dislike to our town’s butcher. I have no idea why.”

  Emily didn’t respond, but the look on her face displayed something fiercer than dislike. What was that about?

  I glanced over at Hannah. Just what secrets could she be privy to? Perhaps talking to her privately might reveal something that would help me find out what happened to Jacob Glick. It was a long shot since she wasn’t even alive when Glick lived in Harmony, but I knew from past experience that many times children overhear things they aren’t supposed to. Most parents would be mortified if they were aware of everything their children repeated outside their homes.

  Hannah didn’t respond when her father rebuked her. Instead, she pouted. Typical teenage reaction. I tried not to smile.

  I had every intention of bringing up Glick’s name again. After Emily’s reaction at the diner, I was certain she knew something. But it felt wrong to do it now. The Muellers had graciously welcomed us to their home. Using them for information at the dinner table seemed somewhat impolite. I suddenly realized that I’d been plotting the best ways to use my hostess and her fourteen-year-old daughter for information. My stomach lurched at the prospect. Finding the truth was important, but at what cost? What lines would I cross to protect my father?

  I tried to deal with my guilty conscience as Emily and Hannah cleared the dishes. When they’d finished, Emily brought out cobbler and ice cream.

  “Why don’t we eat our dessert on the porch?” Abel said. “Hannah, get everyone fresh coffee, will you?”

  Sam and I picked up our bowls, napkins, and forks and followed him and Emily out of the dining room toward the back of the house. At the end of the hall, Abel opened a door and we stepped out into a large screened-in porch lined with pots of colorful flowers and plants. Lovely white wicker furniture with dark blue cushions and small white flowers sat against powder blue walls. A white ceiling fan turned lazily, moving fresh spring air through the room.

  “Oh, this is charming,” I said. “If I lived in this house, I think I’d spend every minute I could right here.”

  For the first time since I’d met her, Emily’s expression completely lost its haunted look. She smiled widely and her eyes twinkled with life. “That’s exactly what I do.” She set a pot of coffee on a small, nearby table and opened the lid to a large cream-colored trunk that sat in front of a set of matching love seats. “All my sewing supplies are kept in here. I sit in this room almost every day and sew for hours.” She sighed happily. “It makes me happy. When it’s nice, I love to listen to the birds singing. But I especially enjoy rainy days. I feel so safe and cozy in this special place.” She put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “I sound silly, don’t I?”

  When she laughed, I got a quick glance of the beauty she had once been—before some kind of sadness chased away much of her vivacity. Her dark eyes sparkled and her cheeks took on a rosy hue.

  “I sound a little unhinged, I know. But this room is very important to me.” She smiled at her husband. “Abel built this porch. He said I needed a room of my own.”

  Emily clearly loved the big, burly man who stood next to her. Although he blushed from the attention his wife gave him, it was obvious her joy pleased him. These two were still crazy about each other even after many years of marriage and a teenage daughter. I wondered if I would be as blessed someday as they were now.

  I glanced over at Sam who’d settled down in one of the padded chairs. His expression as he gazed at me made me feel warm inside. I quickly glanced away and had started to sit down when I noticed something in Emily’s chest. I put my bowl of cobbler on the floor next to my chair. “That material,” I said, picking up a large, folded piece of apple green–colored cloth with small, white and yellow flowers. “I saw it in the dress shop.”

  Emily took it from me and smiled. “Why, yes. I made a dress out of this.”

  “You made it?” I knew dresses didn’t just grow on trees and fall on the ground for people to pick up, but I’d never really known anyone who made clothing. My grandmother used to, when she lived in Harmony, but she only did it because it was seen as her duty. When my grandparents moved to Nebraska, she’d informed my grandfather that unless he wanted to run around naked, he’d better learn to buy his clothes from a store. Thankfully, he did just that. Mama Essie had also detested baking bread. Although she was a wonderful cook and baked all the time, she never made another loaf of bread after leaving Harmony. “For goodness’ sake,” she’d quip. “Why spend all that time on something when it’s right there on the shelf?”

  Of course, there were lots of things on grocery shelves she could have substituted for homemade—but bread was the only thing she ever skimped on. Papa Joe explained it to me once, after he made me promise not to tell Mama. Seems that when she was a girl, her mother had been especially hard on her when it came to bread making. In fact, she’d informed her daughter that if she couldn’t bake a good loaf of bread, no man would ever marry her. And no matter how hard she tried, Essie’s bread-making skills stayed woefully inadequate.

  Then she met the handsome Joe Temple who didn’t seem to know that rule. If she couldn’t even find the oven, he didn’t care. He told me he fell in love with the beautiful Mennonite girl with the reddish gold hair and flashing green eyes the first minute he laid eyes on her. Thankfully, my great-grandparents approved the union. Although marriages weren’t actually arranged in their community, they had to be agreed upon by the parents. Joe and Essie weren’t allowed to date, but they were allowed to attend church functions together and to sit next to each other at supper when the two families would meet for fellowship. Essie, on the other hand, wasn’t completely sure about Joe. She’d laugh when telling the story about how one day she watched him pick up a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. He climbed the tree with one hand while holding the bird in the other, and carefully put it back where it belonged. Joe had no idea that he’d been seen by anyone—and he never mentioned it. Yet he would stop by that tree frequently to check on the little bird’s progress. Essie figured that if he could care that much about a baby bird, he would care even more for her. She was right.

  Emily’s voice startled me out of the past and brought me back to the present.

  “This shade is perfect for your coloring. Perhaps you’d allow me to make a dress just for you?”

  “Oh, my,” I said quickly. “I—I can’t allow you to go to all that trouble. I’ll just buy the one in the store.”

  Emily’s eyes ran up and down my body. “Nonsense. That dress is for someone larger than you. It won’t fit right.” She gave me a sincere smile. “It isn’t any trouble, really. Sewing makes me happy. Please allow me to do it.”

  I swallowed the lump that tried to form in my throat. Here I’d been planning to use this woman for information, and all she wanted to do was to bless me.

  “I would absolutely love it, Emily. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No thanks are necessary. If you have time before you leave, I’ll take some measurements and we’ll talk about how the dress should look. I know our styles aren’t very hip.”

  Abel burst out laughing. “Did you just use the word hip? And where did you learn that word, my dear?”

  “Well, goodness gracious, Abel,” Emily sniffed as she closed the trunk and rose to her feet, “we don’t live in a barn. I do know a little bit about the world.”

  Abel’s hearty chuc
kle filled the room. I looked over at Hannah who grinned at her parents’ antics.

  “I’m sure you do,” Abel said with a broad smile. “I’m just trying to imagine the conversation you had where this word was used.” He stroked his beard and gazed at the ceiling. “I know. Perhaps it came from the widow Jacobs. She probably showed you her new support stockings. Or was it eighty-year-old Fred Olsen commenting on his newest pair of ‘hip’ overalls?” He sighed dramatically. “It’s so hard to figure out. There are so many hip people in Harmony.”

  Emily lifted her flushed face toward her husband as the rest of us laughed. “You’re very, very funny—you know that? Actually, it was one of the children in my Sunday school class. They told me I was a ‘hip’ teacher. Now what do you think of that?”

  Abel leaned down and kissed the top of his wife’s head. “I think they’re absolutely right,” he said gently. “You’re the hippest person I know.”