Of course, it would never do to spend too much time thinking about him. In fact, after hearing part of their argument, she suspected he would soon sell the house and move back to New York.
It was her opinion that Logan’s wife was very spoiled and more in love with herself than with her husband. If she were married to someone as handsome and kind and thoughtful as Logan, she would never speak so angrily to him!
Where had that thought come from? She put that idea away and quickly asked God for forgiveness. It was a terribly sinful thing to imagine being married to another woman’s husband.
“Go outside and play, Adam,” she called. “I will be down soon.”
Satisfied that his mother was within easy reach, he happily obeyed.
She went downstairs and was folding up blankets that had been left strewn about on the couch when she heard Logan’s car pull into the driveway.
She tried to hurry with the straightening up because she didn’t like to stay once Logan arrived, but the dishes were not done, and she wanted to put some of the good bread she had set to rising to bake in the oven. It was very inconvenient when he came home early.
She heard him outside talking to the children and smiled as she heard them trying to speak to him in English.
He came into the kitchen where she was starting the dishes to soak. “I brought some gummy bears for them from Violet’s shop. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Children like sweets.”
“What about their mother?” He produced a large package of Coblentz chocolates from behind his back.
He was smiling, but his smile faltered when she merely stood there with her hands in the suds.
“Don’t you like chocolate?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
She dried her hands on her apron and reached for the box, a little unsure what to do about this. Chocolates were a gift that a man gave to his wife or his sweetheart. She was torn. Coblentz chocolates were also a local delicacy. They were delicious . . . and expensive. She rarely got any. It was a hard gift to turn down.
“Thank you,” she said. “I do like chocolate very much, but it is not an appropriate gift to give your housekeeper.”
“Huh?”
She laid the chocolate box on the table and turned back to her dishes. Her face was burning. She should not have said anything.
“Hope?”
“Ja.”
“You have worked for me several weeks now, and you have done an excellent job. Beyond excellent. But sometimes you act as frightened as a rabbit when I’m here. Have I done something wrong?”
She scrubbed at a pot. Marla had apparently tried to make oatmeal and burned it. The pot might not ever be the same. “No.”
“Have I frightened you in any way?”
“No.”
“Then enjoy the chocolate. I don’t mean anything by it. I just thought you would enjoy it. And . . . I also wanted to apologize about Marla. She can be pretty high-strung sometimes.”
“Thank you.” She continued to work on the dishes and did not look at him. “But it is not necessary for you to apologize for someone else’s behavior.”
“Marla’s a city girl. Being in the country isn’t easy for her. She doesn’t know what to do with herself.”
She could start by picking up her own towels, Hope thought.
“It is fine.”
“Thanks for understanding.” He left and went upstairs.
Tonight she would allow herself to enjoy some of the chocolate, but not while she was here. The way she figured it was that she had earned it.
A few minutes later Logan came thundering down the stairs dressed in nothing but running shorts, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. She quickly turned away. She was not used to seeing so much of a man’s legs. Seeing him in bathing trunks in a photo was one thing, but to be standing there only a few feet away—well, she hoped no one saw him go outside like that with her still here in his house!
“I’m going for a run, Hope,” he said. “Thanks for straightening up my bedroom. I went ahead and put that picture Marla brought with her in my bedside table drawer. I found it facedown, so I’m guessing it bothered you?”
“I did not want Adam looking at it.” She thought perhaps this might be an opportunity to let him know that she did not appreciate the way he was dressed, either. “We try to teach our children to dress modestly.”
“Of course you didn’t want Adam looking at a woman in a bathing suit. I apologize for that, too. Marla can be very thoughtless sometimes. She should never have brought that picture here.”
With that, he was out the door. She peeked out the window and saw him bounding down the road with his shorts and his long, embarrassing bare legs. She let the curtain drop and shook her head. It was just like each time she tried to make sense out of the little colored cards taped all over her old bedroom. The Englisch were crazy people. That’s all there was to it. In her opinion, it made no sense for a grown man to run around on the roads unless it was an emergency.
Because it was starting to be winter, and chilly outside, Logan had recently purchased what he called a “stationary bike” as well as something he called a Bowflex. These items now sat in his front room, taking up space and needing to be dusted.
He told her that he sat so much at a desk, he needed to stay in shape, and so he had started running—when there was no reason to run—and on especially cold days, he used that silly bicycle that pedaled to nowhere, and then, presumably, he’d use that thing with the pulleys and ropes.
She agreed with him that he needed to move his body after sitting at a desk for so many hours, but she did not understand expending that much energy to accomplish nothing.
Amish men bicycled, but they bicycled to work every morning and home every evening. It was more convenient and kind to park a bicycle outside a woodworking shop than to keep a horse and buggy there. Amish men lifted weights, but usually in the form of bales of hay or lumber or firewood, and they used their muscles holding a plow steady against the pull of a team of horses.
If Logan had told her he needed exercise, she would have been happy to recommend a few chores to him. She would have handed him a shovel and had him turn over the garden she intended to plant. Or she might have suggested he get himself a nonstationary bicycle and ride it to the antiques store each day instead of burning gasoline everywhere he went.
Amish men had common sense, and plenty of it. Englisch men . . . well, from what she could see, not so much.
She liked her employer, but she did not understand him. How could a married man act so cheerful with his wife so far away? After meeting Marla, she wondered if he was relieved to have an excuse not to be living with her. It was a puzzle.
On the other hand, when he was home, she could frequently hear him upstairs in that room with the index cards on the wall, talking to himself. Sometimes he’d storm down the stairs, look at her with wild eyes, and say something crazy like “what’s another word for infectious?”
She would shake her head in bewilderment and he’d turn and stomp back upstairs.
He was a very nice man. He paid her well and treated her with respect, but had he been an Amish man, she would suspect that he had some screws loose in his head. As it was, she simply wrote it off to his being Englisch.
chapter FIFTEEN
“Everything looks good,” Grace said. “You and the baby are doing well.”
Levi’s wife, Grace, took the stethoscope from around her neck and stuck it into the pocket of her smock as she helped Hope off the examining table.
“That is such good news.” Hope adjusted her clothing and glanced around the comfortable room. Claire and Grace had done a good job of making the examination room feel homey, with Amish quilts hung on every wall, but also easy to keep clean, with its shiny wood floor and sparse furnishings. “It is wonderful to have this clinic so close to home.”
Grace took a bottle of prenatal vitamins out of a pine cabinet and handed them to her. “When I was working as a military nurse
in Afghanistan, the last thing I would ever have imagined myself doing is running a home birthing center in partnership with my Amish mother-in-law.”
“It’s working out well for you?”
“Claire is such a skilled midwife that I have learned a great deal from her.”
“Thank you.” Hope put the vitamins in her purse. Grace gave her a thirty-day supply every time she came for her once-a-month visit. “I’m certain Aunt Claire has learned much from you as well.”
“We make a good team, but we had to get over quite a few hurdles first.”
Hope glanced into an antique wall mirror to make certain her hair and Kapp were tidy. “Like what?”
“It took a while for her to stop resenting me for being part of the reason her son left the Amish church. Then it took me a while longer to stop resenting her for being so good at absolutely everything! The woman can grow anything, cook anything, sew anything, make a living for her family midwifing, and raise a houseful of kids at the same time. There’s no way on earth I could ever measure up. It was easier on my ego to just go to work at a hospital where no one expected me to turn a half-acre of cucumbers into pickles.”
“Aunt Claire can be a little intimidating,” Hope said. “She caught me in bed one morning a few weeks ago, with my cow still unmilked!”
“Gracious!” Grace exclaimed in mock surprise. “I’m shocked Claire didn’t call the sheriff.”
Hope could see the humor in it now, even though it hadn’t been much fun at the time. “I got a good talking-to!”
“I’ll just bet you did! What time was it, anyway?”
“Seven-thirty.”
Grace burst out laughing. “Claire probably already had the week’s wash hung out on the line, done her spring cleaning, and had plucked and butchered a chicken for dinner!”
“I don’t know about that, but she had already baked an apple pie from scratch. It was still warm when we had it for breakfast.”
“See what I’m up against?” Grace pulled off the sheet of paper upon which Hope had been lying and put a fresh one on the examination table. “The woman truly is remarkable.”
“How did you get over your problems with her?” Hope asked.
“I made myself stop feeling like I had to be in competition, and just started appreciating the amazingly talented woman she is. Besides, when you work as a team day after day helping bring the miracle of new life into the world—it tends to draw you closer. We’ve turned into pretty close friends.”
“It is a great relief to have you so close . . . and family,” Hope said.
“When Elizabeth proposed that we combine our skills, it felt like an answer straight from God. It still does. I don’t know why we didn’t see earlier that we could join forces and make a difference for the women of the area.”
“I bet Levi didn’t mind doing the carpentry necessary to turn this house into a clinic. I know he was not happy with you working at the hospital.”
“I never saw a man so focused. Didn’t he do a good job?”
Grace opened the door of the examination room and led her out to the front room. It was interesting to see how Levi had remodeled Elizabeth’s old house. He had somehow found room to create three birthing/examination rooms without taking anything away from the large, old, original kitchen, which was fitted out now with comfy chairs in addition to the central table. There was enough room for at least five or six women to nurse babies or just have a cozy place to visit.
“Doesn’t Elizabeth mind using her house for this?”
“You don’t know my grandmother,” Grace said. “She comes over and spends part of each day sitting here chatting with the women who come to see us and handing out advice right and left. She’s in her element and feels like her home is being used for something important.”
“Are you seeing Englisch patients, too?”
“No.”
This was a surprise to Hope. “Why not?”
“We would never be able to afford the insurance on this place if we accepted Englisch patients. The chance of a lawsuit with non-Amish people is simply too great. It would take only one lawsuit to shut us down. We trust the Amish and Mennonite women of this area not to take us to court. It’s against their beliefs. That’s why Claire and I can afford to charge really modest rates. If we had to insure this place, we could never have afforded to open it.”
“Well.” Hope picked up her purse. “I am glad you are doing this. How much do I owe you?”
“Oh, sweetie, you know I don’t charge my family.”
“Then you will not get rich around here,” Hope joked as she reached into her purse. “We’re pretty much all related, and I do have a job now.”
“I’m serious.” Grace put out a hand to stop Hope from handing her cash. “There are plenty of pregnant women around here with husbands who can afford to pay our fees. I’m not charging a widow with small children for the honor of helping her through her pregnancy. I know it is hard to go through this without your husband at your side, but I hope that knowing Claire and I will see you through it helps a little.”
“It grieves my heart not to have Titus here to see our new little one, but having you and Aunt Claire so close does help a lot. I can pay you for the vitamins?”
“You can pay me for the vitamins,” Grace said. “Next visit.”
Hope closed her purse. “Levi made a good choice when he married you.”
“Even though I was Englisch?” Grace teased.
Hope smiled. “Even though you were Englisch.”
As she left, it struck her that both were speaking in the past tense, as though Grace was no longer Englisch, even though neither she nor Levi were exactly Amish. What were they now? It was a great puzzle. She suspected that it was a puzzle to Levi and Grace as well. Where did one go to church after coming from such different backgrounds? She was grateful that she did not have to make that decision.
In the meantime, the big news was that all was well with her and her child. The baby’s heartbeat was strong. She felt physically well. Grace continued to offer her services for free—which was a great blessing, and she was beginning to feel that she had a good friend in her cousin’s wife.
She did not want to take Grace’s services for granted, and had saved back part of her salary just in case her cousin’s wife decided to charge her this time. Now that she had a little extra money, she considered stopping at the Scratch ’n’ Dent store up the road and stocking up on what groceries she could find there.
The only problem was, Abimelech and his older children ran that store, and she was trying her best to avoid him. That was a sacrifice, because sometimes she found good bargains there.
Every Amish woman in the Holmes County area worth her salt had her favorite Scratch ’n’ Dent store. They were discreetly tucked away in various hollows and hills all over the area along back roads, usually where no one would think to look. The Amish knew where to look, though, and many grateful local mothers frequented these stores and filled their buggies with good deals.
It was sometimes a challenge to use up everything before the expiration date came around—but it was worth it in savings. Today, however, she could not make herself face the possibility of seeing Abimelech again. She did not know for certain if the bishop had talked with him yet, and it would be exceedingly uncomfortable if there was no one else in the store and she had to shop with him staring at her.
Even though her buggy ride home took her straight past his store, she decided to not stop in. She would simply spend a little extra money at Walmart in a couple of days when her mother and aunt shared the cost of a van to go do their weekly shopping. They always invited her and the children to go along.
Unfortunately, she was not able to get past Abimelech’s store without him seeing her. He was outside, stacking boxes in front, and waved her down.
She was too well trained in politeness not to stop. He seemed happy to see her, and acted as though their conversation at Logan’s house had not happened.
“I—I have been very busy,” she said.
“Too busy cleaning an Englisch man’s house.” His voice held contempt.
“Ja.” Her back straightened. “I have been cleaning two houses, my employer’s and my own. Plus I have been caring for two children.”
“And what were you doing down at Grace and Claire’s clinic?” His eyes dropped to her stomach and lingered.
She gasped. The man really was too much. At five months, she knew she was showing—but he did not have to stare!
“That is none of your business.” She clicked her tongue at the horse and tried to leave. Abimelech grasped the reins and held the horse back.
“I have a gift for you and your children,” he said. “Some overstock. The truck brought too much. I will load up the back of your buggy with some extra food.”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s a gift, Hope. You and your children have to eat and I doubt the Parker man is paying you all that well.” His voice took on that cunning sound again. “Or is he?”
She lifted her chin. “I make a modest salary.”
“Modest.” He let loose of the reins. “Don’t be foolish, Hope. There’s no need to turn this food down. Just keep the buggy still, and I’ll put these boxes in.”
“I will pay.”
“It is a gift.”
“I will pay,” she insisted.
He ignored her and loaded several boxes of canned and boxed goods into her buggy. “There. That should keep you and the children filled up for now.”
Fearless Hope: A Novel Page 12
