The Amish Bride (34 page)

Even though I knew what was coming, I tensed as I read the next entry.

August 22, 1918—Clive has passed on, taken by the flu pandemic, somewhere on the western front. He was buried in France. A Red Cross worker came to the hospital today to tell me. I thought he had come to give me an assignment.

September 9, 1918—The Red Cross has put a hold on my application. The rumor is the war will end soon. It turns out Clive left a sizable bank account. I will not have to worry about money—although I feel as if I have been robbed.

October 20, 1918—The flu pandemic has reached Indiana. I am working
long shifts, nearly around the clock. This is what God has for me, for now. The war continues on…I’ve been reading in the book of Isaiah: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” I long for that day.

November 11, 1918—Armistice Day. Thank God this horrid war has ended.

In January 1919 she wrote that the flu pandemic had returned with a vengeance.

Many say it’s worse than the bubonic plague. How much more must we suffer? I’ve heard predictions that more will die from the flu than in the war.

April 12, 1919—I am worn out. I’ve been in Chicago for the last month, working at the Marine Hospital, taking care of veterans. Amputees, mustard gas wounds, and those with shell shock. One could drown in this sorrow.

The sound of the city grates on my nerves. I do not want another person to bump into me on the busy streets. I despise the factory whistles and the smoke pouring from the chimneys. I long for the country.

April 23, 1919—I am going home and never leaving again. I’ve lost two husbands—Gus, my adventuresome first love, and Clive, my intellectual match. I’ll never love again, I know.

And because I’m going back and Alvin still hasn’t found a wife and, according to Mother, he seems more out of sorts than ever, I’ll write again in code.

I felt wrung out from the pain of her story, again. I couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t quite imagine her loving someone more than Gus to start with, but then to have a second husband die too. And one who was so smart and daring, so well traveled and educated. I could see why she thought she would never love again.

No wonder she wanted to return to the Home Place, but to think she went from being married to someone who was so dashing to marrying a Plain man like David Berg. I was baffled. Did she love him? Enough to join the Amish? Oh, how I wished I could break the code and find the answer, but it was looking less and less likely.

The next week I worked in Plain Treats, did all the cooking, weeded the garden, baked more bread, and was ridiculed two more times by Pierre.
On Sunday I went to church with Rosalee again, this time at the home of a family about two miles away. The two of us rode in her buggy.

The Klines were already there when we arrived, and I noticed Millie talking with a tall young man beside a brand-new buggy. Judging by the way they were looking at each other, I had a feeling that not only did Millie have the responsibility of taking care of her family, but she was also courting. I wondered who would take care of the Klines after she married.

Jacob preached again, this time from First John 4:8. I listened closely as he read the Scripture in German. Thankfully, he followed with the English, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Rosalee began translating for me, so quietly I had to really concentrate to hear her. Jacob talked about a father’s love, and how if one didn’t have a loving father, it was sometimes harder to comprehend God’s love. He said he wanted to make sure we understood what the perfect love of a father was. It wasn’t someone waiting with a switch, ready to strike when we did something wrong. It wasn’t someone who was always disappointed in us.

“Our Father God delights in His children.” Jacob repeated this in English, perhaps just for me. “There are times when He must discipline His children, but He’s thrilled with all they learn, all they create, all the relationships they forge. God longs to keep leading us, long after we are adults. Long after our earthly fathers have released us. God created us—and He wants to relate with us.”

It reminded me of Sarah’s writings about worshipping God through her work and art. I wondered if she felt she worshipped God through the work she put into her relationships too, although besides Alvin she didn’t seem to have much conflict in her life, at least not the way I did.

M
y lessons of
l’art du pain
ended with baguettes, which I thought turned out perfectly. Pierre said they tasted like straw and asked if I’d used it as filler. He was the type of teacher who seemed to need to choose one student to target. I was the one with the bull’s-eye on my forehead—or maybe on the top of my prayer covering. He threw darts during every class, sometimes lobbing them in my direction and sometimes sending zingers that caught me by surprise.

The truth was that I was learning much more from Rosalee than from Pierre, and my bread at the bakery always turned out beautifully, whether white, whole wheat, or French. So did my muffins, scones, pretzels, and biscuits at home.

On Monday of the first week of the pastry-making course, I decided to ride my bike into town again with business cards for Plain Treats, thinking I’d give it one more try, this time taking soft pretzels, which packed better. I stopped at all the same places I’d been to, including the café. I dropped off two pretzels for Wes and Kendra. They were happy to see me, and before I left, Wes said he’d decided to order a few pies and told me which ones they wanted. I was ecstatic. As I left, Wes winked at Kendra. I couldn’t see her expression, but I was pretty sure she was smiling. I didn’t
care if she’d talked him into it. I loved to see them together and couldn’t wait until Ezra and I could work someday the way they did, sharing inside jokes and knowing looks.

With Penny’s help, I dropped off the pies the next day on the way to South Bend, hoping the delivery was the beginning of a profitable future for Rosalee and Plain Treats.

On Friday afternoon I noticed the corner of a piece of paper sticking out of Eddie’s pocket.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, something I found.”

“May I see it?”

He handed it to me. It was folded in fourths and looked fragile.

I unfolded it carefully. It was a picture of a kitten and obviously drawn by Sarah. “Where did you find this?”

He blushed.

“It’s okay, Eddie.”

He hung his head. “There’s a metal box in the floor of my room. It has a bunch of squares of paper. I like to play with them. It’s like a game.”

“Game?”

He nodded. “Kind of. I’ll show you.”

“I’d like that,” I said, doing my hardest not to sound too eager. “After you nap and I close the bakery.”

By the time Eddie woke up, the day had grown overcast and cool for June. Walking through the woods and then veering around the slash pile on the edge of the pasture that was growing larger from Darryl and Tom’s logging, I rehearsed what I would say to Millie. It sounded so ludicrous. “I think the other half of a game my great-grandmother made years ago is hidden in Eddie’s floor.” That sounded ridiculous. And even if it was true, that didn’t mean I had a right to it. It was their property. And their house.

Thankfully, Millie was at the house alone. Cora had gone to a quilting frolic. Eddie scampered ahead and up the stairs as I explained to her what was going on.

“I’ll need to talk to
Daed
,” she said. “I’ll have to see what he says.”

“I think Eddie’s getting it right now. Is it okay if I have a look?”

“I suppose that wouldn’t hurt.”

Eddie hurried into the kitchen, a grin on his face, but it dissipated when he saw Millie’s serious expression.

He handed me the box. It was also a cookie tin. I pried open the lid. The squares of paper were all loose. I estimated there weren’t as many as I had, but that made sense. Children had been in charge of this one. There were the birds and household items and trees and a baby and herbs, just like the other set Sarah had done.

“Eddie, how long have you had this?” Millie was kneeling beside him.

He shrugged. “A while.”

“It’s definitely Sarah Berg’s work. I found an identical set over at the Home Place.”

“Well, I’ll talk to
Daed
.”

“Eddie,” I said. “Is there anything else under your floor? Other drawings? Paintings? Anything like that?”

He shook his head solemnly.

I held the tin toward him. “You should put the kitten back with the others.”

He did so reluctantly.

“Maybe we can play the game sometime,” I said.

He nodded solemnly.

I ran my fingers through the squares again and then picked some more up, turning them right side up. There was the willow tree and a rosemary plant. I stared at the next one. I hadn’t seen it before.

“This is odd: 1+1+1=1,” I read out loud.

“There are two of that one,” Eddie said, “but only one of all the rest.”

Millie laughed. “Your great-grandmother wasn’t very good at math.”

“How strange,” I said. I was certain Sarah Berg knew the right answer to that equation. Maybe this was part of her code with the numbers.

Millie held out her hand for the box, and I closed the lid and gave it to her.

“I’ll let you know what
Daed
says.”

I thanked her, told Eddie goodbye, and then headed back through
the woods. When I reached the Home Place, Luke was parking the tractor by the barn. I waited until he jumped down and then said there was something I wanted to tell him about. I relayed the story of the two boxes. When I explained Millie was going to talk with his
daed
, his face reddened.

“Do you think you could say something to him? I’d really like to have the pictures.”

He nodded but didn’t speak.

A raindrop fell and then another. I thanked him.

Luke started toward the barn but then stopped and walked back toward me.

“You should brace yourself,” he said. “
Daed
doesn’t think very highly about things like that.” He kicked at a rock with his boot. “He doesn’t like it when I get drawing books from the library, even though I use them to draw inventions—like the gate latch.”

I nodded. I remembered. More raindrops fell.

“
Daed
thinks things are pretty black and white.”

I shaded my eyes. “And Tom agrees with him, right?”

“Two peas in a pod is what
Mamm
says.” Luke had a pained expression on his face. “
Daed
and Tom have always gotten along.”

“And you and he haven’t?”

“Oh, he loves me all right. I know that. But we don’t have much in common.”

“Is that why Rosalee wanted you to work at her place?” I realized my hand was balled in my apron pocket, wadding the fabric.

“I suppose so,” he answered. “Plus, considering Tom will take over the dairy someday, she probably thought working here would give me extra experience to hire out.”

“That hardly seems fair—”

He held up his hand. “It’s fine. Really. God will provide.” With that he turned and walked away again.

I was pretty sure that was the most he’d ever said to me. It was certainly the most he had ever said to me about himself.

I slept fitfully that night. Though they might not seem important to Darryl, the drawings were priceless to me and, of course, irreplaceable. Before dawn I woke for what seemed like the tenth time that night.
I decided to go ahead and dress. I might as well head down to the bakery with Rosalee to start the bread for the day. But first, kneeling at the bedroom window, I prayed more than that God’s will would be done—I prayed that He would soften Darryl’s heart.

I said “amen” out loud and then stared off into the trees. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks. In the dim light it looked as if a strong wind was blowing through the woods. Then I saw a faint orange glow that seemed to come from over on the Klines’ side.