Summer of Secrets

by Charlotte Hubbard

  And behind Miriam’s sister came Mammi Kanagy and the three Schrocks, along with Lydia Zook and her two older girls. Rachel and Rhoda arrived with Hannah Brenneman and the huge washtubs of green beans they’d cleaned today. Most of these women had worked together through so many garden seasons that they fell into small groups, chattering as they boiled and peeled the tomatoes on the north side of the kitchen or processed beans at the serving window counter. The little girls prepared lids and rings while their big sisters and mothers formed assembly lines that filled the hot jars and then loaded them into the cookers like clockwork.

  Wiping her damp brow on her rolled sleeve, Miriam smiled with satisfaction. While any one of them could’ve hosted this frolic in her kitchen, they had so much more space to work with here at the café—and to put out the hot, finished jars on towel-covered tabletops in the dining room. In the café’s back corner, the smaller children played or wrote on the whiteboard while the two grandmas, Adah Brenneman and Essie Kanagy wrote out date labels for tonight’s jars. It was a wonderful thing, the way every woman could join in and feel welcome and useful.

  Come time to go home, everyone would have several quarts of beans and tomatoes, the work made easier because it was a form of fellowship ... a time to ask about Rebecca, too, and then speculate about how Preacher Hostetler was faring without his wife, and to share ideas about how to use up the overabundance of zucchini in all their gardens.

  “I’m thinkin’ a freezin’ frolic’s in order,” Lydia suggested. “Henry cleared me some space in the butcherin’ locker to store rhubarb or corn or grated zucchini. Whatever you’ve a mind to bring, if your own freezers are full.”

  “Don’t know about your house,” Leah chimed in, “but we’ve about reached our limit of stuffed zucchini and sautéed zucchini and zucchini fritters and—”

  “Jah, mine are turnin’ up their noses at limas and yella squash now, too.”

  “There it is! Got all our canners filled and cookin’!” Naomi announced above the chatter. “I’m thinkin’ a slice of cold watermelon sounds mighty gut.”

  “Jah, let’s all sit a spell and—”

  The exhaust fan overhead stopped. “Miriam, I’d like a word with you.”

  All eyes turned toward the doorway, where Hiram Knepp stood as though he were silently taking attendance at a Sunday church service. Miriam sighed inwardly, but there was no putting off the bishop: after the way he’d suggested the Sweet Seasons might be leading her away from her true purpose, she knew better than to challenge him in front of all these women.

  “When would be a gut time?” she asked with more patience than she felt. “We’re smack in the middle of our cannin’. Got lots more to go yet.”

  His dark eyes singled her out in the middle of the crowded kitchen. “Deacon Reihl, Preacher Hostetler, and I have discussed how the café might be keeping you from finding a husband ... fulfilling yourself as a woman in God’s holy order of things,” he intoned. “We’ll be here when you close tomorrow afternoon. Two o’clock sharp.”

  Miriam’s friends looked at her, silent questions in their eyes, and then focused on the bishop again. They knew better than to object or to stand up for her—if indeed they felt Bishop Knepp was overstating his case. She and Naomi and the three Schrocks were the only women here who ran shops full-time, so the rest of them had no such worldly concerns taking them away from their families. Lydia and Henry Zook simply brought their children to the market: the older ones had worked there since they’d been able to make change and reach the cash register.

  “I’ll be here,” she replied. Why did she feel like a sinner being ordered to her knees? She detested the way her heart flailed in her chest while her pulse galloped like a runaway mare.

  “And you, Annie Mae, are coming home with me!” Hiram continued sternly. “Your dear mother taught you better than to race out of the house with the kitchen in a mess.”

  “But, Dat, I asked—” The dark-haired girl who was rinsing tomato seeds from the sink let out an exasperated sigh. “Nellie said she’d redd up because she didn’t want to come cannin’ with us—”

  “And as the eldest, are you not ultimately responsible for the household?”

  Miriam sighed, feeling the painful burden the bishop’s daughter bore. Not only had Annie Mae lost her own mother when she was a young girl, she’d also begun her rumspringa—her running-around years—after her father remarried: Hiram’s second wife had been but a few years older than Annie Mae when the bishop started a second family. At nineteen, this sensitive young woman appeared worn beyond her years and ... bitter. A troublesome combination of traits now that she had to nurture her two full sisters as well as four motherless half siblings, who’d always seemed exempt from the rules and responsibilities her father imposed upon her.

  “Coming, Dat,” Annie Mae murmured.

  An uncomfortable silence rang in the kitchen, underscored by the bubbling of the pressure cookers. When Bishop Knepp had walked most of the way to his buggy, someone flipped on the exhaust fan again and the women resumed their conversations in a quieter tone.

  “I’ll bring your beans and tomatoes by on my way home,” Rhoda assured her friend.

  “Jah. Denki.” Annie Mae left the kitchen, her lips pressed into a tight line as she wiped her hands on her apron.

  “That one’s gonna be trouble if Hiram don’t watch how he handles her,” Eva Schrock predicted dourly.

  “And what’s he sayin’ about you, Miriam?” Lydia Zook asked with a scowl. “If he’s thinkin’ women have no place runnin’ a business—insistin’ they stay home to clean and cook and make babies until they die—well, I could tell him a thing or two about how our store really gets managed!”

  “Jah, and you can be sure Reuben, my cousin on the Reihl side, is gonna understand just how much business the Sweet Seasons brings the rest of us with shops in Willow Ridge,” Mary Schrock piped up. “Out here in the sticks, if we don’t have a place for tourists to eat, or just wet their whistles, they most likely won’t bother stoppin’ at all. Just as easy to go to the convenience store at the gas station up the way.”

  Miriam nodded her thanks to these friends, ever so grateful for their understanding and support. Surely if Mary told her cousin, the deacon, about the financial implications of removing her from this roadside eatery, where the Brenneman boys attracted so many buyers for their cabinet shop, and folks who’d finished their meals then wandered into the quilt shop next door ...

  But she knew better than to second-guess Hiram Knepp. The bishop and her husband, Deacon Jesse, had spent enough time out in the smithy with the preachers, discussing the business of the People, that she’d seen firsthand how this man of God conducted his earthly affairs.

  Miriam sat down at a table, amongst her friends, and closed her eyes gratefully over her first bite of cold, crisp watermelon. This business with the bishop is in Your hands, God ... but I for sure and for certain would appreciate help with the right words.

  As she smiled at the children in back, who scribbled on the dry-erase board below the day’s menu, it came to her: the way to a man’s heart was still through his stomach ... and a fellow who oversaw the welfare of hundreds of church members couldn’t argue against a ledger filled with solid, black figures.

  Could he?

  Chapter 15

  Come two o’clock the next afternoon, Preacher Tom and Deacon Reuben sat down in the café at the table in the far corner, followed soon after by the bishop—who made purposeful eye contact with Miriam in the kitchen before he took his seat. She waved and nodded—as though the Sweet Seasons ever closed when the sign on the door said it did! Rhoda poured the elders some iced tea and lemonade and then checked on the long table of ladies who’d arrived in a van from a senior center at one forty-five.

  “Well, bite my tongue!” Naomi murmured under her breath. “Sometimes I wonder how those fellows can take off from their day’s work whenever they please. But you didn’t catch me complainin’, Miriam, becau
se you let me do that, too.”

  Brushing flour from her apron, Miriam chuckled. “Didn’t hear a thing ya just implied, on account of those older ladies havin’ such a fine, fun time laughin’ over their lunch. Couldn’t ask for a better cook than you, friend.”

  “So what’ll ya say if he closes us down?”

  There was worry peeking around Naomi’s bright brown eyes, and Miriam was well aware of what her best friend’s income meant to the Brenneman family. “Not sure he’s aimin’ to shut the doors, dear. Just wants me to behave myself, is all.”

  “And he thinks keepin’ you home will do that ? Puh!”

  Miriam shrugged and cut a generous wedge of rhubarb cream pie, another of crustless fudge pie, and one of cherry. “It’s all a matter of how you consider the act of submission, Naomi. There’s the side where you roll over belly-up like a dog and always say jah, and there’s the kind where you submit the work of your hands as an offering—especially to God.”

  Naomi watched as she plated the desserts. “Hmmm ... no need to ask what ya plan to try, then.”

  “Might surprise ya.” She added a scoop of vanilla-bean ice cream to the fruit pies and topped the chocolate slice with a dollop of whipped cream and a bright red cherry. “I learned things about Hiram Knepp while Jesse was deacon, and I’m askin’ God to remind me of them at all the right times.”

  “You go along now. The girls and I’ll redd up.”

  “Jah. Denki, Naomi. Couldn’t run this place without you.”

  With her plates of pie on a tray, Miriam walked through the dining room. She chatted briefly with two of the white-haired ladies from the senior center, who asked what she’d used to season the fresh green beans. Then she set her desserts in the center of the brethren’s table. After she took a plain black book from the drawer in the serving station, she sat in the empty chair. Couldn’t miss the way Hiram had arranged it so she sat by him.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen.” She smoothed her kapp and folded her hands on her lap, waiting.

  “Well, now, Bishop—we couldn’t’ve picked a better place for this meetin’, ain’t so?” Reuben Reihl grabbed the fudge pie before anyone else could. Tom reached for the cherry, but then sat back to allow the bishop his choice.

  Was Hiram holding out to prove he could resist her offering? Or did he consider it a bribe? “As I said the other evening, Miriam, I’m concerned about the long hours this business requires of you. I fear you focus your time and attention on the café rather than upon any man who might make you a suitable husband.”

  Bless him, Tom Hostetler glanced at the stern, black-haired bishop and then smiled cautiously at her as Hiram reached for the cherry pie. Miriam flashed him a grateful grin ... she had an ally here, anyway—even if they’d have to go along with whatever the bishop decided.

  “And what’re you sayin’, Bishop? As I mentioned before, the Sweet Seasons wouldn’t be much of a bakery without its baker.” She opened the ledger and slid the book in front of him, careful not to bump his pie plate. “Not a prideful thing to say, when ya consider the wages I pay Naomi for her long days cookin’, and the way the café supports Leah’s truck farmin’, too,” she explained carefully. “In exchange for those two women not always bein’ in their own kitchens, their boys and Dan Kanagy get their breakfast here, on the house, nearly every mornin’. Not to mention the way I’ve kept myself and the girls goin’, without havin’ to request assistance after Jesse passed.”

  Hiram’s eyebrow arched. “We are to trust in God’s providential care—”

  “Jah. And I’m pleased to be an earthly hand for the gracious arm of God’s providence, too.” Miriam ran her finger under a line item she was particularly pleased about. “I made this extra donation to the church’s emergency fund last spring, on account of how Ezra Brenneman wouldn’t accept my money when he had that bad reaction to his new medication. Ended up in the hospital for more’n a week, he did. And when Reuben took a check to the hospital, my donation covered a gut part of what Ezra owed.”

  The bishop perused the handwritten entries for a few moments, absently chewing a large bite of pie. “These are impressive figures, Miriam. Almost too good to be true, considering what I’ve seen from some of our other local businesses of late.” He looked across the table. “You’re the money manager, Reuben. What do you think of these entries?”

  Reuben sent her an apologetic glance as he accepted the ledger. “I can tell ya that Miriam’s figure for that donation is accurate, on account of how she handed me the money personally.”

  “And how was the church ledger when you took it over after Jesse passed?” she asked quietly. “Were all the funds accurately accounted for?”

  “To the penny. Had no trouble a-tall knowin’ which amounts had been withdrawn, and from which accounts,” the middle-aged deacon replied. “God knew what he was doin’ when he had your husband draw that lot.”

  Miriam’s insides fluttered. She had to proceed very carefully ... walk a line as fine as the ones drawn beneath the columns of neatly written figures in her ledger. With trembling fingers she slipped an envelope out of the pocket on the first page. “You would recall, then, the way Jesse wrote and formed his numbers? As he did on this ticket he made out for shoein’ your horses and repairin’ some garden implements?”

  Beside her the bishop shifted, frowning. But Reuben’s expression confirmed her hunch about presenting her facts and figures this way, thank God above.

  “This don’t look a thing like the records in the church ledger.” Reuben blinked and then glanced at her café ledger again. “That’s the very handwritin’ in the church books, right there!”

  “And how did that happen, Miriam?” Hiram Knepp shifted closer to her, to establish his superior height and position. “Women are not chosen as officers in the church, so are therefore forbidden access to the records!”

  “Jah, Jesse knew that when the deacon’s lot fell to him,” she murmured, praying she didn’t further endanger her restaurant’s fate by being honest. “And God knew, too, that while my husband was a fine, upstandin’ businessman and committed to his responsibilities for the People, he ... well, Jesse could tote up a column of figures in his head faster than you ate that pie, Reuben. But he was dyslexic. Somewhere between his eyes and his mind, his letters and numbers got switched around, and the teachers in our Amish school couldn’t give him the help he needed, ya see. So I did his readin’ and writin’ for him, from the time we were courtin’.”

  Across from her, Tom gaped. “I—I had no idea Jesse was—”

  “Huh! Just like ole Jess not to beg off, on account of somethin’ bein’ hard for him,” Reuben replied with a decisive nod.

  “That’s the most underhanded, dishonest—” Hiram’s raised voice carried all over the room. He stood, as though he were leaving in a huff. “It is not our way to allow women access to our accounts or the overseeing of church monies—and Jesse knew that all along, yet he never confessed to this wrongdoing!”

  Miriam felt glances from the kitchen and the ladies from the senior center, who were getting their checks rung up at the door. The dining room was so quiet they heard Rhoda drop her pen at the cash register.

  “The lot fell to Jesse, Bishop. Would’ve been a disgrace to refuse God’s call, ain’t so?” she asked in a still, small voice. “He and I prayed on it. Decided that since God knew of Jesse’s disability—made him that way, for whatever reason—I was in the picture so my husband could carry out the work he’d been ordained to do. Womenfolk are to be their husbands’ helpmates, jah? The Good Book says it’s so.”

  Was that anger in Hiram’s eyes? Or did he resent how she’d proven that her house—and her business—were in order? “I’ve seen and heard enough,” he remarked as he plucked his hat from a peg on the wall. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Lantz.”

  Reuben and Tom scooted their chairs back, signaling the meeting’s end. “Gut pie, too,” the deacon murmured as he passed her.

  “Mighty gut, Miriam,” Preac
her Hostetler echoed.

  As silence filled the dining room, Miriam closed her eyes and hugged the ledger to her chest. Jesse had been a master at covering his disability: he’d been the butt of so many dummkopf jokes in school, he refused to let such indignities stand in the way of his being a successful blacksmith and church officer. He’d taken his church responsibilities very seriously, and not one penny had gone astray while he served as their deacon.

  And ya stood beside me just now, when I needed ya most. Denki, dearest Jesse—and God, You, too! Even if the bishop’s not finished with me yet.

  “I got big plans—and a big idea workin’ here—but ya gotta promise me ya won’t peek into the smithy nor let the girls go up into the loft anymore. Can ya do that for me, Miriam?”

  Miriam gazed up into Micah’s unlined face, tanned from his outdoor construction work. What a fine, handsome man Naomi’s middle son was as he stood in the kitchen doorway. “Well, it sounds easier to go along with than havin’ the brethren here, takin’ a fine-tooth comb to my accounts,” she replied pertly. “Don’t reckon anythin’ you can surprise me with’ll top that for today.”

  “It’s like nothin’ you’ve ever seen. And best of all, it’ll prove that some good came outta my visit with Tiffany.” He motioned to Aaron and Seth, who jumped down from a large wagon loaded with lumber and building supplies. “Seems you and I gotta help each other when it comes to dealin’ with Hiram’s attitude—and Rachel’s. If ya have a little faith in my work—”

  “Oh, I know whatever you’re doin’ to that loft’ll be top-notch, Micah.”

  “—maybe you and I can prove that the Old Ways’ll work even better for everybody if we give new ideas a chance now and again.”

  Nodding, Miriam stepped over to the smithy to hold the door open. The other Brenneman boys began toting two-by-sixes through the smithy and up the stairs, with Micah pointing the way. As their boots clomped up the wooden steps, her heart fluttered: What on earth was this surprise written all over their faces?