Christmas in Apple Ridge (2 page)

Fannie and Susie rose and began clearing the table. Beth went to the dessert counter and picked out a pie. She set it on the table beside her
Daed
, cut a slice, and placed it on his plate. Then she slid a piece onto her Mamm’s plate before passing the pie to her brother Emmanuel. She took her seat next to her mother, still chatting about the upcoming spring planting. Lizzy hoped her brother saw what she did—a daughter who continued to shun all possibility of finding new
love. Beth clung to the past as if she might wake one day to find her burning desires had changed it.

Fannie began gathering glasses that still held trace amounts of lemonade. “You’ve got to join us this time, Bethie. It’s been too long.”

Flatware stopped clinking against the plates as all eyes turned to Beth.

Susie tugged on her sleeve. “Please. Everyone misses you.”

Beth poked at the meal she’d barely touched as if she might scoop a forkful of the cold food and eat it. “Not this time.
Denki
.”

“See, Beth,” Lizzy said. “Every person here knows you should be out socializing again. Everyone except you.”

Beth’s face grew taut, and she stood and removed the small stack of plates from Fannie’s hands. “Go on. I’ll do these.”

Fannie glanced to her Daed.

He nodded. “Why don’t you all finish up and go on out? Emmanuel and Ira, do you mind helping set up the volleyball nets?”

Emmanuel wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin. “We can do that.”

Chairs screeched against the wood floor as most of the brood stood. Fannie and Susie bolted for the door. Two more of Beth’s sisters and two sisters-in-law went to the sink, taking turns rinsing the hands and faces of their little ones before they all went outside.

Lizzy longed to see Beth in colored dresses, wearing a smile that radiated from her soul. Instead Beth pasted on smiles, fooling most of those around her into thinking her heart continued to mend. But her quieter, more stoic behavior said things no one else seemed to hear. Lizzy heard, and she’d shared her concerns with Beth’s Daed, Stephen.

Beth took a stack of dishes to the sink and flicked on the water.

“You can leave that for now,” Stephen said.

She turned off the water and remained with her back to them.

Beth’s Mamm glanced at Lizzy as she ran her finger down a tall glass of lemonade. “Beth, honey—”

Beth turned. “I’m fine, Mamm.”

Stephen got up and piled more plates together. “Of course you are. And I’ll throw my favorite pie at anyone who says otherwise.” He stuck his finger into his half-eaten piece of chocolate pie, placed it in his mouth, and winked at Beth.

She smiled, an expression that probably looked real to her Daed but reminded Lizzy of fine silk flowers—only beautiful to those who aren’t gardeners.

“Beth, sweetheart,” Stephen said, “you know how me and your Mamm feel. We love you. It’s no secret that you’re different from our other girls. You’ve always had more of a head for business than a heart to find a beau, but now … well, we just want to make sure you’re doing okay. Since you don’t live with us, that’s a bit hard to know sometimes.” He set the dirty dishes beside the already full sink before he rinsed his hands and dried them. “Officially, your period of mourning was over nearly six months ago, but you haven’t joined the young people for a single event. You’ve not left the store for your usual buying trips. You eat half of what you should. You continue to wear black. And those are things a stranger would notice.”

“I … I could plan a buying-and-selling trip. It’ll take me most of the summer to get completely organized for it, but I can be ready by August. I know I should have sooner, but …”

Lizzy hoped Stephen didn’t fall for the diversion tactic Beth had
just thrown his way, but since Beth was listening to him without getting defensive, Lizzy wouldn’t interfere.

“Good. If that’s where you feel like beginning, I’m glad to hear it. I know the community will be too, because without you they can’t sell near as many of their goods.” He walked to the table, took a seat, and motioned for Beth.

She moved to the chair beside him.

“But other people’s financial needs are not what this is about. Tell me something good and hopeful about you—something I’ll know in my gut is true—and I’ll end this conversation right now.”

The four of them remained silent as shouts and roars of laughter echoed from outside. If anyone could touch Beth’s heart and cause her to change, her Daed could. But the silence continued, and Beth’s inability to think of anything hopeful to say made Lizzy sick with worry.

The grandfather clock chimed the half hour, startling Lizzy, but no one spoke. Long shadows filled the room, and she lit a kerosene lamp and set it in the middle of the table.

Whatever happened the night Henry died consumed Beth. When Lizzy arrived on the scene, her niece didn’t even acknowledge her. The only words Beth spoke were the ones she whispered for days—
God, forgive me
. Lizzy had tried to talk to her about it, but Beth never broke her polite silence on the topic.

Beth’s Daed cleared his throat. “I’ll wait all night for an answer if I need to, Beth.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but it was another five minutes before she uttered a word. “I don’t trust my feelings about … certain things anymore, Daed.”

“Then can you trust mine?” her Daed asked.

“Always, but I don’t want to be one of the single girls looking for a husband. Not ever again. Is that such a horrible thing?”

“It’s not what we’d figured on, but we can adjust.”

Lizzy repositioned her glass of lemonade. During church the singles sat separately from the married couples. Lizzy’s memory of growing too old for the singles and removing herself from them still stung. From that day on she’d carried the title of
alt Maedel
—old maid. She’d been older than Beth’s twenty-six years, and her prospects of finding someone had faded into nothingness. If Beth thought navigating life after Henry was difficult, Lizzy dreaded the pain that lay ahead for Beth when she openly admitted to the Amish world that she didn’t fit—not with the single folk and not with the married ones.

Stephen had yet to mention anything about the color of mourning Beth still wore. If she would wear something besides black, young men would gravitate to her, and she stood a chance of finding someone.

He covered Beth’s hand with his and bowed his head, silently praying for her. He lifted his head. “There’s somewhere you’d like to be tonight other than washing dishes or working in that stuffy office in the store. Am I right?”

“Ya.”

“Then go.”

Beth kissed her Daed’s cheek, told her Mamm and Lizzy she’d see them later, and left.

Lizzy moved to the window and watched as her niece walked past small groups of young people. She overheard both women and men asking Beth to stay. Beth shook her head, smiled, and waved
before making her way across the road and into the pasture near their store.

“You said nothing that will nudge her to change how she’s handling life,” Lizzy said.

Stephen placed his hands on her shoulders. “Henry’s death is the hardest thing this family has faced. Pressuring Beth isn’t the answer. Trusting God is.”

Lizzy stood in silence as Beth harnessed her mare to a carriage. She knew where Beth was going.

The cemetery.

Again. And again. And again.

“Please, dear God, move a mountain for her.”

Stephen squeezed her shoulders. “Amen.”

S
itting inside her small office, Beth could hear the bell above the door softly jingle each time a customer came in or went out of the store. But the stack of paperwork spread out in front of her was a clear reminder that helping to run Hertzlers’ Dry Goods was only a small part of her work.

When dozens of wall clocks chimed the noon hour, Beth jolted. Her day was getting away from her. She grabbed a utility knife and opened the box beside her desk. It’d been delivered that morning and contained stacks of her catalogs from the printer. After pulling one out, she moved the kerosene lamp closer. The heat from the small flame added to late summer’s soaring temperature, but she needed the extra light to view all the details of the ordering magazine. The photos were of almost every item she carried, and they looked fantastic.

Lizzy will love it
.

Beth’s practice in creating a periodical had paid off. A few years back she had gotten special permission from the church leaders to use a camera for the purpose of developing a sales publication. Her first few tries were very clumsy compared to this.

She organized the papers on her desk and shoved some into her satchel. With her itinerary, a catalog, and stacks of order forms in hand, she blew out the kerosene lamp and left her office. As she stepped into the dry goods store, she noticed customers in every aisle, Amish and Englischers. She’d been focused on her trip plans for months, and she finally took a moment to actually see the place. Lizzy ran the day-to-day operation of the store, and by the looks of it, she was having a particularly good season.

Beth went to the door that led to her living quarters. As she climbed the darkened stairwell, the well-worn steps moaned, and the aroma of old wood filled her senses. It made her wish for time to sit on the steps and just breathe it in. Even after she rounded the first landing of the stairway, she could hear the buzz of customers in the shop below. Some days she didn’t feel Amish at all. She only felt busy and overwhelmed. It took a lot of Englischer-type work to provide middleman services for a multitude of Amish districts, but she loved it.

“Beth?” one of the Petersheim girls called from the foot of the steps.

She stopped climbing and went back down the winding staircase. “Yes, Lillian?”

“Mr. Jenkins is here. He wants to place an order for his store.”

“His appointment was last week, and he missed it. Does he think it’s for today?”

Lillian moved to the first step and closed the door behind her. “No. He apologized for not being here when he should’ve. A family illness kept him away, but he’s in the area today and hoping you’ll let him place
an order before you leave on your buying trip. I told him you’re leaving in a couple of hours, but that only made him more determined.”

“Okay, I’ll take his order, but I need to finish packing first. Help him look through the catalog and the display room while he waits, and take really good notes. It’ll speed things along. And please tell him I have to be gone by two o’clock.”

Lillian nodded and left.

Beth turned and headed up the stairway. In spite of her best efforts, which began four months ago, she still had too much to do before leaving. Half a dozen calls had to be made, and she needed to sort through her mail before the driver arrived. Right now she intended to finish packing. It wouldn’t do to leave without plenty of clean clothing. It was hard enough to earn respect among the Englischers as a businesswoman when wearing Amish clothing, let alone dirty Amish attire.

When she stepped into her attic bedroom, she expected a few minutes of solitude. Instead, she found her aunt going through her closet. Lizzy’s youthful face and bustling energy kept her from looking twelve years older than Beth. Her aunt carried a couple more pounds of weight than she had a decade ago, and her dark hair had a few strands of gray, but Beth thought she looked much younger than her actual age of thirty-eight.

Lizzy motioned at the closet and then faced Beth. “Have you discarded every dress you own that isn’t black?”

Beth lowered her eyes and studied the pages in her hand. Black hid things—much like ever-darkening shadows in a deep forest. And as odd as it seemed, black helped her carry things too.

Secret things.

She tapped the itinerary. “If I’m careful to stick to the schedule, before my three weeks are up, I’ll be able to visit every Amish and Englischer store that we do business with—furniture, quilt, dolls, crafts—you name it. I have an appointment to see each owner, buyer, or manager we’re connected to in Pennsylvania and Ohio.” She held out the updated catalog.

“It arrived!” Lizzy stepped away from the closet and took the publication.

“I told you it was scheduled to get here this morning.”

Her aunt’s dark brown eyes reflected awe as she looked at each page. “Wow, Beth, this is the best one yet.”

“The community has waited a long time for me to resume traveling, and I intend for this trip to be very successful.” After setting the rest of the papers on her nightstand, Beth stepped around her aunt. She grabbed several dresses from her closet and tossed them onto the bed.

Lizzy removed the hangers and folded each dress. “Beth, honey …”

Beth swallowed, her mind racing with ideas of how to avoid the impending conversation—the one her aunt had started trying to have a few days ago. “Mr. Jenkins is waiting for me downstairs, and I have phone calls to make before Gloria arrives. Can you finish packing for me?”

Her aunt’s frame slumped so slightly Beth doubted if Lizzy even knew it’d happened. After emptying a drawer of her dresser, Beth shoved the stockings and underwear into the traveling bag.