Sarah's Garden (26 page)
She stepped next to him and gently brushed his hands away, then worked the button into its place. She looked up into his eyes, sliding her hands up his arms, her lips poised to speak the words of love that thrilled her soul.
A look of deep pain passed over his handsome face, and he set his mouth in a grim line.
“Don’t Sarah . . . please . . .”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her heart bursting like a glowing star within her. She ’d felt the realization wash over her like a cresting wave—she loved him. She loved his dear face, and his kind hands, and his quick mind. She ’d been so foolish to not admit it to herself and to him before. But now he stood tense beside her, as if the words would burn his skin if she uttered them aloud. Perhaps she had misread his intentions; perhaps he regretted the things he ’d said to her, a simple Amish girl. She slowly moved back, letting her hands slip from his arms.
He looked at her, a quick glance that made her flush in its intensity when she caught his gaze. She still didn’t understand, but something about his reaction was making her angry. Didn’t he feel free enough to say anything that he liked, whenever he liked, no matter how it might cause her to feel?
“You’re a puzzle, Grant Williams. How do you even know what I was going to say?” She spread her hands before her in frustration, and he moved then, caught her wrists, and pulled her up close to his face.
“Because I have wanted to say the same thing for months—say it, scream it . . . Do you think that I don’t want—that I honestly don’t . . .” He broke off and kissed her once, hard, then thrust himself from her. He stuffed his instruments into his bag and slung his coat from atop a stall door.
“Keep the lamb warm—you know that. And go in the house before you catch a chill yourself. Oh, I forgot . . .” He slammed the barn door and stomped outside. He came back just as heavy-footed and tossed a new saddle atop a bale of hay. “Give Luke my best wishes, and Merry Christmas, Miss King.” He left, sliding the barn door open so hard that it rattled on its hinges and closing it with just as much ferocity.
Sarah began to sob. She couldn’t understand what had just happened, only that he had not wanted to hear words of love from her.
J
anuary set in with ruthless cold, but it didn’t keep Sarah from a two-hour-long tramp round and round her snowy garden. She entered the kitchen and stripped off her wet outer things, intent on going upstairs to get dry socks.
Mamm
called after her. “
Ach
, Sarah, I forgot. There’s a letter for you on your bed.”
And if
Mamm
’s voice trembled a bit, Sarah was too hurried to notice.
Sarah opened the thin envelope that had been left for her and pulled out a single sheet of writing paper and a key. She began to read, sinking to her bed as the words telegraphed their meanings across the page.
My Dearest Sarah,
I must tell you that I regret having had to be so cold to you that night in the barn, but I had to steel my heart against the feelings that I have for you. I love you. There, it’s said. I didn’t choose this love or you; God did. He also chose how much I love your people, their community and closeness and grace. But I am
Englisch
. Because of this, I must go away. I cannot explain why or where I’m going; I can’t even promise that I’ll come back. I don’t want to write things like “please wait for me.” I want the Lord to be in charge, not me.
Someone told me once that if I truly loved you, that I would set you free—so I do. You are free to love and choose to love as you see fit. I have asked the Bustles to take care of the farmhouse, and I do take the liberty to ask you if you would mind watching over the greenhouse for a few months. I received permission from your father for this, and he agreed. If you do not wish to watch over the plants, please ask Luke.
I wish that I could write more or explain more, but I cannot. Our differences stand between us, as you have often reminded me, but please know that my heart sees or feels no difference—just love. I love you, Sarah.
Good-bye, Grant X. Williams
She read the letter, then read it again, hoping to find a greater answer in the strong loops and curls of his handwriting, but nothing came. It was a farewell letter. She clutched the key until it left an impression in her hand; she didn’t understand. She felt that she must have driven him away somehow, and she lay facedown in her pillow and sobbed until a gentle knock sounded at her door.
She sniffed and lifted her head. “
Jah? Kumme
.”
Father entered, and she swiped hard at her face to try and hide her crying.
“
Ach
, Sarah. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not any longer,” she said, though stray tears dripped from the corners of her hazel eyes.
“May I sit down?” Father asked, indicating a rocking chair in the corner of the room.
She nodded, brushing away tears.
“He is gone?” Father asked.
Jah
. . . How do you know it?” “
Father gazed at the ceiling and then nodded his head. “I told him to go.”
“What?”
“He came to me when I was still in the hospital one night; I told him it was too great a risk to see an
Englischer
marry an Amish girl.”
Sarah stared at her quilt, a white-hot fury burning in her chest. She had never felt such anger against Father, and she was both ashamed and taunted by the feeling.
“I love him, Father, and you, of all people, who told a story to win
Mamm
’s love, you should believe in true love,” she cried.
“
Jah
, I know. I have also come to know that I was wrong to speak to him like I did. There might have been a way . . . to make things all right.”
“But he’s gone now,” she sobbed. “Maybe we can ask the Bustles; they might know where he is.”
“Sarah, do you hold the letter of a man who wants to be found? Or one of a man who wants the Lord to lead his path?”
She bent her head, fresh tears dampening the paper she held.
Father sighed. “As we get older, it seems that life is full of more difficult choices, but it is the simple faith of a child that leads the best. Ask the child in your heart what to do, Sarah, and then wait upon the Lord. He will help you. And we will all help you, my daughter. A broken heart”—he tapped his chest—“takes time to mend.”
“
Jah
, Father,” she whispered and understood what the doctor had meant about ice forming on the heart.
G
rant admitted his midnight-hour guest and pressed his finger to his mouth to indicate the need for silence. The two men walked quietly down the hall to the doctor’s office, where he closed and locked the door and then switched on the small desk lamp.
The doctor rested a lean hip against the edge of the desk while his guest took a chair.
“So, it’s done then?” Grant asked.
“All is arranged . . . it’s just up to you to finish.”
“I know; I will.”
“I’m counting on it.” The other man grinned in the shadows of the light.
“So am I.”
S
arah’s dreams became more vivid, haunted by the presence of a handsome lean face, and the golden blue eyes that seemed to burn through her with all the intensity of the sun. She dreamed that he called for her, through a flurry of rose petals, and that she ran to him, unabashed. He caught her in his long arms and pressed his lips close to her own, breathing soft words of love into her mouth, causing her to labor to breathe. And when she woke, there was that breathless abandon shaking her to her very core, until she clutched her quilt about her and hunted the shadowed corners of her room with restless eyes as if he might be there.
One night she awoke from a deep sleep and sat straight up in bed. Turning up the kerosene lamp, she leaned over and lugged the wooden box of quilt squares onto her mattress, laying her shaking hands on top of the lid. It seemed important that she remember the quilt squares, and it felt like an eternity since Grant had given them to her. She felt so different inside now—turned over, exposed, like fresh soil waiting for the sun. She lifted the lid and stared at the wealth of fabrics and colors. Then she began to lay each square out on her quilt, side by side.
When she came to the iridescent fabric, she remembered everything he ’d said to her, and she recalled how he’d reacted to her garden. “A patch of heaven,” he ’d called it. Her slender fingers felt the shining fabric and thought about how its brightness was like God’s light in her life—always coming after the more dull or difficult colors of time to brighten and anchor her thoughts and her soul.
She turned the kerosene up a bit more and got on her knees with purpose. She hadn’t pieced a quilt alone since the very small one that she did for Chelsea, but now it felt like there was a garden of a quilt calling to her from the box, a garden illuminated with bits of God’s brightness and the potential for hope—for heaven.
She began to hum softly, feeling her heart lift as she thought of the words to the melody. “Oh, who will give me wings of a dove? So that I can at any time fly over mountain and hill and seek where my Jesus is.” She reached for her mending basket beneath the bedside table and began working the squares until the light of dawn replaced the oil in the lamp.
She was amazed to hear
Mamm
call for her and realized that her neck ached from the many hours bent over her bed with thread and needle in hand. A brisk knock at her door sounded, and
Mamm
poked her head in.
“Sarah,
kumme
. . . What are you doing this . . .” Her words stopped as she entered the room and stared at the basted quilt top that covered and overran the sides of the bed like a waterfall of color. “Sarah, child, it’s beautiful!”
Sarah smiled up at her mother, who reached a tender hand to touch the beauty of the pattern and the fabric.
“
Danki
,
Mamm
.”
“I’ve never known you to quilt like this; usually you cannot stand to be still for so long. I’ve always thought your garden was your quilt.”
Sarah swallowed hard as she remembered Grant’s similar words.
“I stayed up the whole night working on it,
Mamm
.”
Ach
. . . but it was well worth it. What do you call it?” “
Sarah gazed down at the rich pattern that seemed unique out of all those she ’d ever seen quilted. Her eyes caught on the iridescent pieces of fabric, and she smiled. “A Patch of Heaven.”
Mamm
swallowed and reached her hand to cup Sarah’s cheek. “
Jah
, that name is just right. It honors the Lord and His work in our lives.” She sniffed, then withdrew a hankie from her sleeve and blew. “We must have a quilting, of course, to finish it.”
“
Jah
,
Mamm
. I’d like that very much.”
T
hough a quilting frame was a permanent fixture in the front room of the King household and many Amish households, it was a special pleasure to call for a quilting time when the weather was wearing thin on the nerves and made it more difficult to gather together for visiting. On a large frame, such as the Kings’, twelve women could fit easily and
Mamm
and Sarah sat together after the breakfast dishes had been put away to decide who should be given a letter of invitation.
Sarah knew of peers who would only invite the best quilters to a quilting, because they wanted their skill and not to see their faces, and she was determined to have no such invitations to her quilting.
“I want it quilted with love,
Mamm
. That’s what makes the best quilt or garden or anything worth doing.”
Mamm
eyed her askance but did not disagree. If she knew of the doctor’s letter, she did not speak of it, and Sarah was grateful for this.
“Well, there ’s you and me.” Sarah listed names on a yellow tablet. “And Chelsea.
Ach
, and I’d like to invite Mrs. Kemp, John Kemp’s
mamm
. That leaves eight more.”
Mamm
chewed her fingertip. “You don’t want to offend anyone by leaving them out.”
“
Nee
, but I do not want to invite just to invite. Suppose I ask the bishop’s wife? Is that a good idea? Or will it offend the wives of the other deacons?”
Mamm
continued to ponder, sighing. “I think it makes good sense to have the bishop’s wife; I don’t think the deacons’ wives will mind that much.”
“Good,” Sarah continued to write. “And
Grossmudder
King, of course.”
“Of course,”
Mamm
agreed drily.
Mamm
was not fond of her mother-in-law’s often critical observations about life and limb any more than Sarah was, but the old woman could not be overlooked.
“You’re a model daughter-in-law,
Mamm,
” Sarah encouraged.
“
Danki
. . . Now, I know—Mary Wyse.”
“Of course,” Sarah agreed, bending her head to write. She hadn’t spoken to Jacob since that day in her kitchen, but that was no excuse to exclude his gentle mother.
Sarah finally chose a former schoolmate who was yet unmarried, added Aunt Ruth, then wrote down Mrs. Bustle ’s name, wondering what
Mamm
would say.
Mamm
nodded. “Mrs. Bustle is a good friend and neighbor; I’ve no doubt she ’ll bring a lot of love to the frame, if not plenty of skill.”
“Good.” Sarah finished the last invitation in her copperplate handwriting. “Three weeks should be enough notice.”
“And time enough for you to do any last-minute stitching on the top quilt, though I declare, it’s as fine a piece of workmanship as I’ve seen.”
Mamm
rose from the table and patted Sarah’s shoulder, going into the kitchen to start supper.
O
n the day of the quilting, the boys double-checked to make sure everything was secure with the frame, and then
Mamm
and Sarah stretched the material taut while everyone worked to baste a heavy twine around the edges of the quilt and then to wrap it around the frame to hold it in place. The frame was secured on chairs, a hand-hewn pine frame passed down from
Mamm
’s mother as a wedding gift long years ago. Sarah had already sewn together the top and bottom pieces of the quilt and stuffed it neatly full of cotton batting before closing it off. To see the fabric squares ready to be quilted was a true pleasure, for they looked all the more attractive in the winter morning light that streamed in from two large windows nearby.