Katie's Choice (15 page)

“We’ve come to fix your roof,” Abram repeated, his voice still as loud as ever.

“
Danki, danki
,” the deacon yelled in return. Zane realized the man was remarkably hard of hearing.

“Why doesn’t he get himself a hearing aid?” Zane asked John Paul.

The young man shrugged. “He’s Amish.”

Zane opened his mouth to ask what that had to do with anything when John Paul interrupted. “If the good Lord wants a man deaf, who is he to go against the Almighty’s wishes?”

“The same thing could be said about your mom’s cancer.”

“
Jah
, that it could. But she and
Dat
prayed about it, and the Lord told her to fight.”

Zane was glad that He had. For if Ruth Fisher hadn’t decided to battle the cancer, then he never would have come to Oklahoma.

All things for a reason,
Katie Rose would have said. As easily as that, she entered his thoughts once again. He pushed her out of his mind and got down to work.

The men had just unloaded the wagon when a buggy carrying Katie Rose pulled up.

From his thoughts to reality
.

Katie Rose Fisher hopped down from the buggy, then pulled a cloth-covered basket from behind the seat. She looked as fresh as ever in a royal-blue dress that only made her eyes look greener. The black of her apron and cape made a handsome contrast over the dress. Despite the dark colors, she reminded him of a daisy, crisp and full of sunshine. Her hair was the same as always, parted down the middle and pulled back from her face into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Zane wondered how long her hair was. He’d never seen it down, but the urge to move close to her, pull it from its confines, and see just how long it was ricocheted through him.

He adjusted his suspenders to give his hands something to do. He’d let out the black elastic to keep them from hiking his pants up and make them ever shorter, but now all that happened was they slipped from his shoulders with clockwork regularity.

“
Guder mariye, dochder
,” Abram called. “What brings you here this fine morn?”

She smiled prettily for her father, but her eyes never once moved toward Zane. It was as if he didn’t exist. “Mary Elizabeth and I just came to check on the deacon. Have him some bread here.”

“And some pickles?” Esh called. It seemed his hearing improved greatly when there was food involved.

“And some pickles.” Mary Elizabeth laughed as she pulled the cardboard box from behind her seat. “
Guder mariye
to you, Zane Carson.” She smiled a greeting to go along with her words.

He nodded in return, noticing that only then did Katie Rose’s gaze flit in his direction.

He watched the women walk toward the house, Katie Rose nodding toward her host before she stepped over the threshold.

John Paul clapped him on the shoulder. “Time to work, city boy. You know how to roof a house?”

Zane watched Katie Rose disappear inside, then turned back to the younger man. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

“I think he likes you,” Mary Elizabeth said.

The blush rose in Katie Rose’s cheeks. She hid her face in the refrigerator under the pretense of cleaning it out, hoping that Mary Elizabeth wouldn’t notice. “You’re just being plain silly,” she said.

“He was watchin’ you the whole time we were outside.”

“That doesn’t prove a thing. Now make some lemonade. The men will be mighty thirsty when they are done.”

“What?” Ezekiel yelled from his perch at the table.

“I said the men will need some lemonade when they’re done.” Katie Rose dearly loved the old man. He and her grandfather had been close friends back before
Grossdaadi
had gone on to see the Lord. Katie Rose felt an even greater responsibility to see after the old deacon than even the
Ordnung
demanded. Every Saturday she and Mary Elizabeth brought over the extra bread they had baked that week, along with other foods, and cleaning supplies.

“What about the
Englischer
?” The man had the uncanny knack of hearing the very thing a body didn’t want him to hear.

Mary Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something, but Katie Rose shot her a quelling look. The young girl closed her mouth with a secretive smile.

“It’s good for him to come and help,
jah
?” It wasn’t a lie, but even so, Katie Rose felt a smidgen guilty. No sense getting the church elder riled up over Mary Elizabeth’s foolish girlhood dreams, though. Even if he had been looking at her, Katie Rose knew it wouldn’t be like
that
. He was of the world, an outsider. She had seen the town’s women come into the general store with their man-made fingernails and cosmetic-painted faces. Beauty in the outside world and in the community held two different definitions, and she knew she could not compete with all that man had devised to make a woman more desirable.

Good thing such matters weren’t important to her. She squelched down any opposition to this philosophy and poured the lemonade into four plastic cups. She had been duly surprised to see her
dat
, her
bruder,
and their
Englisch
guest already at the Esh house.

It surely wasn’t
gut
the joy she felt at seeing him once again. She hadn’t seen him since that Tuesday when he had visited the school. She knew she had no cause to be disappointed by his absence. She had still missed him all the same, his questions about their way of life, his different take on things. Yet he seemed to understand the importance of their rules and the life they led. Maybe it was all those years growing up in . . . what did he call it again? A cooperative? She supposed that the church district could be called a cooperative. That was what they did. They all worked together for the common good of the community. Everyone pulled together for something greater than themselves.

She wanted to ask him more questions about his growing-up years, what he meant by “without God.” How could an entire community be without God? That just didn’t seem possible.

But she knew that getting to know Zane Carson would not give her a true understanding of why Samuel had left. Why the lifestyle they grew up in could no longer satisfy him.

“He seems to be a
gut bu
.”

Boy wasn’t quite the word that came to Katie Rose’s mind when she thought of their
Englisch
visitor, but she supposed to Ezekiel Esh, most people seemed young.

Katie Rose nodded since it seemed a response was demanded of her. “He seems to be a hard worker.”

“More than the average
Englischer, jah
?”

What was the old man hinting at?

“I suppose.”

“And not hard on the eyes a’tall.” Mary Elizabeth said the words as lightheartedly as if she were talking about sewing fabric.

Katie Rose frowned at her niece. There was no need going ’round adding fuel to fires that weren’t going to burn.

“He has a lady friend back in Chicago,” the deacon said.

Katie Rose tried not to whip around, but she did anyway, making herself dizzy-headed in the process.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I reckon Abram told me . . . or maybe it was Annie or young Gabe.”

Or John Paul
, Katie Rose thought. Her brother had been appointed as Zane Carson’s companion of sorts. She suspected that her father was trying to keep both men on a short leash, tethering them together to keep them from getting into trouble. The wisdom of the decision had not yet been seen.

“Said he was goin’ to marry her once he prints his story in that fancy magazine of his.”

Katie Rose tried not to let her disappointment or surprise show. Of course Zane Carson had a girl back home. He was handsome to a fault, hardworking, and . . . well, nice. Zane Carson was considerate of others, caring to those around him. Whether it was the years he spent with his uncle or the ones with the hippies, someone had taught him the Golden Rule—treat others as you would have them treat you.

“Aw-ah.” Mary Elizabeth groaned, her disappointment clear.

Ezekiel pointed his knotty cane at her. “Surely you didn’t have your sights set on him as a potential suitor. You are way too young, Missy Mary.”

Mary Elizabeth blushed. “Of course not. But I was hopin’—”

Katie Rose elbowed her into silence.

Her niece shot her a look, then continued. “He seems like such a
gut
man.”

Ezekiel started shaking his head before she was even halfway finished. “I can’t believe the bishop would agree to let another outsider in—even if he wanted to join up. Which no one has even thought about.
Ach
, t’would be a mess, it would. You girls best leave that young man alone and worry which Amish man’s heart you can capture.”

Katie Rose opened her mouth to protest, but closed it instead. More and more these days it hurt to say the truth out loud: that if she was meant to have an Amish man, she would have found him by now.

Or that she had found her Amish man, but hadn’t been able to compete with the lure of the
Englisch
world.

The men made short work of the roof repair. As far as Zane was concerned, the old man’s house needed a new roof, and he mentioned the idea to Abram.

“
Jah
,” he said, “but it will have to wait till spring.”

Zane dipped his chin in agreement. The days had been unseasonably warm, but if he’d understood the talk at the general store, a cold snap would be coming soon. Surely the repairs they made today could withstand the mild Oklahoma winters. Then once spring came back around they would . . .

Zane’s thoughts came to a sudden halt. Once spring came he’d be in Mexico.
And
he’d be married. He couldn’t imagine Monica traveling to Amish country Oklahoma to help an old man with his caved-in roof. Her idea of helping the needy was donating last year’s clothing to the Salvation Army. That didn’t make her a bad person. She’d just been raised differently. When someone needed something, she’d write a check, take the tax deduction, and jot a checkmark next to “good deeds.”

This cohesiveness that the Amish displayed was part of their raising as well. They didn’t keep score. They did what needed to be done because it was the right thing to do. What made Katie Rose so different than the rest, he had yet to figure out.

7

K
atie Rose took another step down the dirt road. It was a fine day for fishing, that was all. The birds were still singing their summer song. The trees had started their turn from green to shades of red and gold. Soon fall would be in full swing. Sometime next month, the courting couples of the district would state their intentions, and wedding season would be upon them.

And soon, it’d be too cold for fishing. In fact, this might be her last chance to fill up the freezer with bass and tasty
katfisch
, which the boys so loved. So while they had been harvesting the last of the pumpkins and squash, she’d decided to get out her rod and reel and head over to old Ezekiel Esh’s pond. With any luck she might have enough
fisch
to spare for the deacon’s freezer as well. But that might take an extra hour or two, maybe more.