Secrets of Harmony Grove

by Mindy Starns Clark

  Trying to get those images out of my mind, I texted back a simple thanks to Liz.

  “Do your thumbs ever get tired?”

  I looked up to see my cousin Liesl coming toward me, grinning.

  “Not as tired as my voice would get if I had to do all of this through phone calls instead,” I replied, also smiling, as I pressed “Send.”

  Liesl stepped closer, surveying the busy scene.

  “So what is going on now? I was just heading home to help with supper, and I saw all the commotion.” She gave a small wave to Jeremy, who was deep in conversation but nodded politely in return.

  “A few new developments,” I said, offering to walk her the rest of the way home and bring her up to speed on the way. I didn’t add that I was worried about her. I would feel much more comfortable with my MK40 and escorting her than I would at watching her walk away by herself, unarmed and alone. To my experience, the Amish often weren’t as tuned in to personal safety as others were, though whether that was because of their “God’s will be done” mentality, or the fact that they were such a non-litigious group, or something else entirely, I wasn’t sure.

  Breaking away from the crowd in the grove, Liesl and I cut across the path along the edges of the beech trees behind the German Gate, up the rise of land beyond that, and then down into the shallow gully that delineated her property line. As we walked, I explained about the pesticide in the barn and the powder in the hole. I didn’t bring up anything about Emory’s arrest record—no reason to spook her too, especially given how much time she had been spending with his care—but I did bring up the diamond angle, wondering if perhaps their side of the family knew anything about that. She didn’t think so but promised to ask some of the older relatives if they had ever heard of Abe having had some diamonds.

  We reached the top of the next rise at the edge of their pasture, and as always the site of the vista in front of me took my breath away: the patchwork fields, the gleaming white structure of the rambling old farmhouse, the cows grazing beyond the fence. While we continued to walk toward the house, I told Liesl I had a few questions I wondered if she could answer. She nodded, glancing at me curiously.

  “It’s about the B and B. First of all, what can you tell me about the amount of traffic that goes in and out of there? I’m sure you don’t watch that closely, but it would be helpful if you could make a guess how often it seems full or empty. Also, have you ever noticed anything special or unusual about the people who stay there?”

  “I am sorry, Sienna, but I have never seen anyone stay there other than Floyd,” she replied. “Oh, and Troy. He would come every once in a while. But otherwise, no. No guests at all.”

  An entire bed-and-breakfast, tucked away in Lancaster County and making a profit, and only one customer once in a while? If not from guests, then where was all of the money coming from?

  “How about the cleaning you do over there?” I pressed. “Can you tell if the rooms have been stayed in or not?”

  “I do not do any cleaning there. Or least not much, anyway. Floyd calls me when he needs me, but he has not needed me all that often.”

  “When was the last time you cleaned?”

  “Two or three months ago, I think. He asked me to come and give the whole place a good once-over. Mostly, that meant dusting and vacuuming and mopping. You know, it wasn’t like the toilets were filthy or the bathtubs needed scrubbing or anything. I cleaned them, of course, but mostly I just dealt with a few cobwebs and some dust, especially upstairs.”

  Though I had half expected to hear what she was now telling me, her words still punched me in the solar plexus, leaving me winded and unsteady.

  “What about the sales in our gift shop?” I asked weakly, afraid now to hear the answer. “Have you sold a lot of quilts and toys and things through there?”

  Now she was the one to look concerned.

  “No, not at all. You and Troy placed that one big order in the beginning, of course, but there have been no orders since.”

  I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly exhausted and weighed down by the endless series of questions that continued to hammer me, the kinds of questions that had no easy or obvious answers.

  “Didn’t all that seem strange to you, Liesl? A bed-and-breakfast with no guests? A gift shop that doesn’t stock gifts?”

  She shrugged. “I was disappointed about the gift shop sales, and I did wonder how you could afford to keep the place open without any guests, but I did not think it was any of my business.”

  She and I walked along in silence until I said, “I made a big mistake here, Liesl. I was busy with my job in Philadelphia and didn’t pay attention to this place. I trusted Floyd—and Troy—and now I’m in a mess.”

  “I am sorry, Sienna. I know how hard you worked on the place and how hopeful you were about it as a business,” she said, no doubt assuming that my “mess” was merely financial.

  If only I had been that lucky! Even bankruptcy would have been preferable to what I had now: an inn with no guests but plenty of income, ties to organized crime, and the government breathing down my neck. I wanted to defend myself somehow, to say that beyond negligence and general naïveté, I hadn’t done anything wrong. Liesl didn’t seem to have passed any sort of judgment on me, but I wanted her to know that if things took a turn for the worse and I ended up being charged by the attorney general for some nefarious deed, that I wasn’t a criminal. My only crime was one of neglect.

  But in the end I didn’t say anything else about it. Instead, I simply asked her to keep me in prayer and then changed the subject, inquiring about the kids. The rest of the way to the house, I learned all about Daniel’s troubles with penmanship—or, as she said, “penning”—in school, Jenny losing her first baby tooth, little Annie’s first words, and more. It always amazed me that though Liesl and I were about the same age, she had married at nineteen, had begun having children soon after, and hadn’t stopped yet. Currently, she and Jonah had five kids ranging in age from one to nine. I couldn’t imagine a more horrifying prospect, but parenthood suited her very well.

  “And you and Jonah? The two of you are happy?”

  She looked at me strangely before answering that yes, they were fine, and why did I ask?

  “I guess because I have enough trouble making a relationship work with just two of us. I can’t fathom trying to do it with half a basketball team.”

  Liesl laughed melodically, saying it wasn’t always easy with little ones underfoot, but they managed to do okay.

  She and Jonah had always seemed to be happily married, and I wanted to ask her about that now in order to learn what their secret was. But we lived in such different worlds that I had a feeling that, even if she could articulate it, whatever it was could never translate to my relationship with Heath—or with anyone else, for that matter.

  “Someday I hope to have a marriage like that. Like yours. Like my parents’,” I said instead.

  “Jah, I wish that for you too. But it will take the right person, especially because you are so much like me.”

  I smiled, knowing exactly what she meant. Our worlds couldn’t be more different, but our personalities were very much the same.

  “I see it like this,” she added, eyes twinkling, lowering her voice. “Jonah is the string to my kite.”

  “The what?”

  “You know me, Sienna. I am the type of person who is full of ideas and plans and enthusiasm, flitting around back and forth, all too often in a frenzy.”

  This Amish gal with her steady, peaceful life didn’t know from frenzy, but I held my tongue, supposing it was all relative.

  “I may be a kite,” she continued, “but that is okay because my husband is a string. With him, I can still fly. But this way I can fly without completely flying away.”

  I was speechless for a moment, amazed that with that simple analogy I understood what she was saying.

  We reached the clothesline, and Liesl paused, lifting up her hands to feel along the seams of
the first few items hanging there. As with most of the Amish homes in this area, their clothesline was mounted at an upward angle so that she could easily stand at one end to hang the clothes, but as she fed the line through the pulley, they would be swept much higher off of the ground at the other end, away from the dust and dirt that was kicked up by the animals and farm implements.

  “From what I hear, you have been seeing someone. A doctor, I believe?”

  I smiled at the thought of the old familiar Amish grapevine.

  “Yes. His name is Heath Davis. We met in January and have been dating since.”

  “And you met how?”

  I explained that Heath had been working in the emergency room one night when my dad had had to bring in my mom. A rash had broken out all over her body, and they were afraid it was a side effect of her chemo drug.

  Dad had called me in the city that night and told me I should come too, that it was important. Fearing the worst, I flew straight from the office, where I had been working late, to the hospital in Bryn Mawr. It wasn’t until I arrived there that I learned my mother was absolutely fine, and that the rash had come from a reaction to the generic laundry detergent my father had recently bought and started using. The “important” reason I had been summoned was that they wanted me to meet her nice young doctor, a handsome and intelligent man who just happened to be a Christian and single and “exactly the guy” for me. Mortified, I was screaming at them on the inside even as I forced a polite smile and shook the good doctor’s hand and accepted his invitation to go upstairs to the cafeteria for some coffee. By the end of that single encounter, I had stopped plotting ways to get even with my parents and had begun hoping Heath would call to ask me out on a real date. Which he did before I even got back home that night. We had been seeing each other exclusively ever since.

  Liesl finished her inspection of the drying clothes, saying that they needed another hour or two yet, and we continued on past a lush vegetable garden toward the house.

  “I hear that rain may be coming our way. Cooler air too,” I said, hoping to move the subject away from my love life.

  “So will you marry this doctor, do you think?” she asked, not to be deterred.

  I hesitated, not sure how to reply. Heath had broached the topic of marriage several times, but each time I told him we hadn’t yet been dating long enough to have that sort of discussion yet. The truth was, I wasn’t sure if the timing had anything to do with my reluctance to discuss it or not. Heath could be the string to my kite, I had no doubt about that, but in our case I didn’t necessarily see that as a blessing.

  Sometimes, what I most wanted wasn’t a string at all but another kite, flying wildly alongside mine, the two of us soaring together as high as we both could go.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “I don’t know if Heath and I will end up getting married or not. Ask me again in a year. Right now it’s too soon to tell.”

  Liesl studied my face, and I knew what she wanted to say. I wasn’t getting any younger, my biological clock was ticking, I would never know any blessing greater than that of a loving husband and children. I felt sure she was right on all three counts, but I would rather stay single forever than decide too quickly and regret it for the rest of my life.

  “Well, I hope we have the chance to meet him soon,” she said finally.

  “He’ll be here this weekend,” I replied. “So now that I think about it, you might want to make sure the coast is clear before you…well, you know…”

  She paused, one hand on the doorknob.

  “Before I what?”

  I shrugged.

  “Before you go running around the woods in a nightgown with your hair down.”

  She squealed, swatting me with her hand as both of us laughed.

  As we opened the door of her home and stepped inside, we were greeted by Liesl’s mother-in-law, my cousin Lucy, not to mention the most incredibly delicious smell that had reached my senses in a long time.

  “Lucy! Am I smelling what I think I’m smelling?” I gasped, thinking of the delectable casserole she always served with pitchers of homemade chicken gravy.

  “Jah. As soon as they said Sienna was in town, I went outside to pick some celery for the filsa. I will send Jonah over with it later.” The older woman enveloped me in a hug, smelling like sage and other spices, her embrace a welcome comfort to my weary soul. “How are you, sweetheart? I am so sorry for all the trouble you are having over at Harmony Grove.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it, so I thanked her for her concern and immediately asked about her health, knowing that cousin Lucy could go a good hour on her gallstones alone. Launching into the tale of her latest myriad of problems and treatments, she turned back toward the counter where she had been kneading some dough. As she did, Liesl gave me a wink before interrupting to ask about the children.

  “Annie is napping, and Jenny and Nellie are downstairs scrubbing the baseboards.”

  “I am so sorry you have had to keep them inside all day,” Liesl said as she removed her shoes near the door and tied on her apron. “Where is Jonah?”

  “He went to pick up the boys from school. Until they know for sure about the wild animal, he does not want them walking home alone.”

  “Good idea,” Liesl replied, though I had to wonder if the kids would be any safer in a horse-drawn buggy than on foot, should a wild beast actually materialize.

  “Let me tell the little ones hello and then I will chop the carrots,” Liesl said.

  I was about to go with her when Lucy replied, “No rush. Sienna and I will catch up here while you do. She has not even heard about my sciatica yet.”

  Biting her lip to keep from laughing at my self-made situation, Liesl gave me a look and then disappeared down the basement stairs alone. Stuck in the kitchen for the time being, I offered to help, and soon Lucy had me at the sink as she tried to describe the levels of pain that shot down her legs at various points during the day.

  I usually couldn’t stand the tedium of washing dishes by hand, but today the warm water felt good on my sore knuckles. Taking my time, running a dishcloth around the inside of a mixing bowl, I wondered what Heath was going to say when he learned that I had been working out with the punching bag just one day after I had fallen and landed on my hands and knees. Neither he nor my surgeon approved of my exercise of choice, but I persisted regardless, convinced that my mental health was even more important than my physical health, and boxing was one of the most mentally healthful things I knew how to do. At least I had hired a trainer to come up with some accommodations that might prevent injury, not to mention to teach me the best ways to compensate for a weak left jab that wasn’t likely ever to get any stronger than it already was.

  With Lucy at the stove and me at the sink, strains of childish laughter occasionally filtering up the stairs, for a while it almost felt as if time was standing still. As Lucy went on about her ailments, I half tuned her out, thinking instead about my own situation, of how ironic it was that all of the chaos of last night and today had been happening out here in Lancaster County, one of the most bucolic and pastoral places in the world. I was always on guard for danger when I was in Philly, but never here. Here, I had always felt safe. Until now. I could only hope once this mess was behind me that I could learn to feel safe at Harmony Grove again.

  “Towels for drying are in there,” Lucy instructed me suddenly, pointing toward a cabinet door. I supposed that was her polite way of saying that I was moving a little too slowly. As she returned to the biscuits she was cutting from the dough and the tale she was telling, I rinsed and dried the bowl, set it on the counter, and moved on to the other items that were waiting to be washed.

  Moving into the rhythm of washing, rinsing, and drying, I thought how quiet it was here, even with Lucy’s nonstop monologue. Being around my Amish relatives always served to remind me how noisy my world had become back home, how stressful and busy I kept every moment of every day. I could appreciate the quiet now, but
as a younger woman, as much as I loved my Coblentz relatives, I usually kept my visits here short, often finding the quiet tones and the slow pace almost excruciating. Any brain that was used to constant stimulation in the foreground and background would have had a hard time sitting at a kitchen table and shelling a pile of beans with nothing but soft, occasional conversation to help pass the time, not even music from a radio.

  During the renovation, when I was spending more time with the relatives than I had in years, I had even done an experiment, privately taking note of how I was feeling and when. Over and over, the way it went was that at five minutes, I would finally stop listening for a radio or TV in the background. At fifteen minutes, even if the company was interesting and the conversation stimulating, I would find myself glancing at my phone wondering if e-mails had come in, discreetly checking for texts. At twenty-five minutes, I would wonder to myself how these people could possibly live like this. Weren’t they bored out of their minds?

  It usually took about an hour before my muscles would finally start to relax. By the two-hour mark, I would find a stillness I forgot I could even experience. To their credit, this kind of silence was intentional. As isolated as the Amish often seemed, it always surprised me how very aware they were of the impact noise could have on a life and the damage confusion and chaos could wreak on a soul.

  Ultimately, beyond that hard-won stillness came the true goal: a oneness with God. Was it any wonder I always felt spiritually renewed when I spent time in Amish country? By turning down the noise of my life, I was able to hear those still, small whispers of a loving God, whispers that filled my heart and never failed to refresh my soul.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The current stillness was interrupted, just as I was finishing the last dish, when two little bodies burst out at the top of the stairs calling my name. Liesl appeared behind them, explaining that she hadn’t even told the girls I was here until they finished with the job they had been sent down to do. The noise of our greeting must have awakened the smallest one, because soon we heard a little cry bleating from the crib in the next room.