The Tempted Soul (7 page)

Carrie supposed there were college graduates among other Amish groups, maybe, but she’d never heard of any. “Are you saying you will leave your family and friends, then, Alvin?” she asked softly. “Is it worth it? Besides counting the cost of such losses, how will you pay for it in actual money?”

“I’ll work my way through, somehow,” he said, ignoring the first part and going straight to the second. “I’ll talk to a counselor at the correspondence school. They’ll know.”

“And what about Sarah Grohl?” Carrie persisted. “Does she know about your plans?”

“No.” The word sounded as though it had been dragged out of him against his will.

“Then you have her to think of as well,” Emma said. “Do you really want to deceive an innocent girl like that? Because you will have to give her up if you go ahead with this.”

“Maybe she’ll come with me.”

“And maybe it isn’t fair to ask that of her. While you’re going to college and working your way through, what is she going to do with her eighth-grade education? Stay alone in your one-room apartment and mend your socks?”

Silence hung in the shadows of the back of the buggy, which rocked as Carrie turned into the lane of the Stolzfus farm. She drew Jimsy to a halt in front of the path under the trees that led to the
Daadi Haus.

Emma climbed down. “
Gut Nacht
, Alvin. I pray God will help you with your choice.
Denki
, Carrie. Tell Melvin we’re all anxious to hear about his trip to Philadelphia.”

Carrie waited until the lamp in the sitting-room window dimmed and brightened to signify that Emma was safely inside, and then she turned the buggy. Alvin climbed into the front as she headed for the road.

“I’m not a fool,” he muttered. “I’m just not cut out to be Amish.”

“We all have to make our own decisions,” Carrie said. “But it’s when we involve other people in the actions we take that it gets dangerous.”

“Correspondence courses never hurt anybody.”

“No, probably not. But the attitude behind them, the deception, can hurt any number of people. Emma, your parents, Sarah. Think of them and how your unwillingness and disobedience can hurt them.”

He propped his elbows on his knees and let his hands dangle between them, head down. Carrie knew when to plant a word in season, and when to let it rest in the soil. She made up her mind to enjoy the silence of the evening for the rest of the ride.

Alvin didn’t speak again until she drew level with the lane to the Esch place. “Just drop me here,” he said. “If they hear a buggy, everyone will come out to see who it is, and Mamm will have a hundred questions.”

Giving a brother a ride didn’t seem to Carrie worthy of a hundred questions, but she brought Jimsy to a halt anyway. “
Gut Nacht
, Alvin.”

He mumbled something and jogged up the lane, keeping to the grass on the wayside so his boots didn’t crunch in the gravel. Carrie shook her head and started Jimsy for home.

Choices.

In the end, weren’t they what created a happy life or a miserable one? And the problem with being sixteen was that sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference.

T
he next day, Joshua arrived after lunch, put away his horse, and got to work painting the equipment shed like the very model of a hired man. It was as though last night’s brush-off of poor Emma had never happened…or since it had, he wasn’t allowing it to bother him.

Carrie had often thought how lucky she was to be Melvin’s wife. A man like Joshua just proved how right she was to feel that way. And now with Melvin coming home tonight, she wanted everything in the house to be perfect. She’d been up cleaning since six a.m. The house’s inside sparkled, at least. There wasn’t much she could do about its shabby exterior, but if Joshua pitched in to help them, maybe they’d get it painted before the rain started.

At five, she put a casserole in the oven, closed the chickens into their coop for the night, and hitched up Jimsy. She was leading him out of the barn door when Joshua came around the corner with a bucket of scraping tools and brushes.

“Where are you off to? I was hoping we could pick some apples.”

“Melvin and your cousins will be getting into the bus station at quarter to six. I’m going to meet them.”

“That’s right. I forgot they were coming back today. You’ll be glad to see him.”

“Yes, I will.” Carrie climbed into the buggy and gathered up the reins. “We should be back at quarter past, and the casserole will be ready to come out. Are you still planning to stay for dinner?”

“If you don’t mind.” He grinned at her as though her reaction to his presence ought to mean something.

Honestly. Melvin was an hour away and any man with a brain in his head would know Melvin’s wife would be looking forward to seeing
him
, not Joshua. “Of course I don’t. It’s what we had planned.”

“Do you want company for the ride?”

“
Nei
. You’d do better to spend the time cleaning those tools.”

The mischief in his face seemed to increase at her tone. “You’d do better not to tell a man how to do his work. I’d like to come.”

He was imposing on her, but to admit that out loud would be ungracious. “What if Brian and Boyd need a ride?”

“They have wives, who are probably just as anxious to see them as you are to see Melvin. What’s the matter, Carrie? A man would almost think you were afraid to be alone with him.”

Did he always refer to himself in the third person, like a king? “Don’t be silly. Hop in, then. And try not to get dirt on my dress.”

He swung in next to her. “I’m looking forward to telling Melvin all the things we got done while he was gone.”

I would rather have spent the ride with him in private, and it’s my place to tell him the news of our place, not yours.
But she couldn’t say that. If a sister could do something for a man when he asked her, then it was her place to make that sacrifice for him. Whether he was willing to make the same sacrifice in return didn’t really matter. One didn’t do things for people to get a return.

They had just passed the turn for Edgeware Road when the slight figure walking at the side of the road turned to see who was coming up behind her. Under her black cape and apron, she wore a dress of a fabric Carrie had seen some of the girls fingering in the fabric store. It was a coral so pretty that she had no doubt that being the first to wear it would kick off a fad among the girl’s buddy bunch.

Not to mention attract the attention of the bishop’s wife.

As they drew closer, Carrie got a glimpse of red hair curling under her white organdy
Kapp
. “
Guder Owed
, Lydia Zook,” she called as she pulled out a little farther onto the highway to pass the girl.

“Hi, Carrie.” Her shawl dangled from her fingers as though she were deliberately giving the whole world a look at her new dress, despite the rapidly falling temperature. She peered past Carrie to see who her passenger was, green eyes bright with interest. “Hallo, Joshua.”

“Hallo, Lydia. That’s quite the dress you have on.”

“
Denki
.” She swished the skirt. “I was visiting north of Highway Three-forty, and lots of the
Youngie
wear colors like this. Yellow, pink, even cherry red. I decided it was time for a change down here in our district.”

“Maybe it is,” Carrie said, “if you can convince Mary Lapp that anything but green, burgundy, purple, and blue are appropriate.”

Lydia made a rude noise. “Only old ladies wear those colors.” Her gaze bounced off Carrie’s green dress and lifted to take them both in. “Any chance of a lift to town?” she asked brightly.

“All the shops will be cl—”

“Sure, hop in.” And before Carrie could finish her sentence, Joshua had squished her over to the right and Lydia was perching on the leftmost edge of the bench, with one foot outside.

“Lydia, get in the back.” Carrie felt like she was about to fall out the door. “Joshua, we’re not teenagers, for heaven’s sake, with six people packed in here. Give me some room.”

Lydia edged two inches to her left, and Joshua laughed. “Relax, Carrie. We’re almost to town. It’s not often this thorn gets to sit between two roses.”

Two pressed roses, maybe.

Fuming, Carrie flapped the reins. The sooner they got to the bus station, the better. Being smashed up against a single man might be fine when you were a teenager like Lydia—thrilling, even, if it were someone less annoying than Joshua—but it was a different matter altogether when you were a married woman on your way to meet the husband you hadn’t seen in a week.

Jimsy seemed to feel her tension, because he sped up to a very smart pace indeed. While Joshua and Lydia traded nonsense remarks—what a flirt she was! Did her father know she spoke to men like that?—Jimsy trotted through the last traffic light and they arrived at the bus station in about half the time it had taken the week before.

And just in time, too. Carrie had no sooner tied up to the rail than Melvin and the Steiner men came out the door. She threw propriety to the wind and hugged him right there in the parking lot.

“Guess I was too long away,” he said to no one in particular, grinning down at her. “Are you well,
Liebschdi?
”

“I am now.” The blue eyes she knew so well softened as he took in the smile she couldn’t keep off her face, and it was a moment before he looked up at someone over her shoulder.

“
Guder Owed
, Joshua.” He set Carrie on her feet, but pulled her against his side, where she was content to stay. “Have you come to meet your cousins?”

“
Nei
, I came with your wife to meet you.”

“And Lydia,” Carrie put in. “Where did she go?” For the girl had vanished, and a look along the two major streets that formed the intersection didn’t offer even a glimpse of coral cotton. “We gave her a lift into town, but I can’t think why. All the shops are closed.”

“Maybe she was meeting someone.” Joshua’s hazel eyes twinkled. “Come on, Carrie, there’s more to an evening than making supper.”

“I’m surprised to hear that, considering I made supper for you, Joshua Steiner.”

Melvin’s arm tightened around her waist as he waved good-bye to the others, who were already climbing into their buggies. Then he pulled her in the direction of their own. “What’s this about supper?”

“Carrie invited me for dinner.” Joshua climbed into the back without an invitation, leaving Melvin standing by the driver’s side with an eyebrow raised.

“She did?” As Carrie untied the reins and handed them to him through the tilted-up storm front, Melvin said, “I’d sort of hoped…well, never mind.”

Well, what was she to say to that?
I’d hoped the same, but Joshua invited himself along.
That would have the dual effect of making Joshua feel unwelcome after all the work he’d put in for them, and calling him a liar to boot.

“Joshua was anxious to tell you about the progress he’s made,” she said quietly when she settled in next to him and they’d followed Boyd’s buggy out of the parking lot.

“He could have done that tomorrow when he came over.”

“I thought you’d be back at work,” Joshua put in, “so I didn’t make plans to come tomorrow. It’s better this way. We can work out a plan for the rest of the week.”

Carrie resisted the urge to tell her husband that the man had been over every afternoon, regular as a clock, and that there was no reason he couldn’t come tomorrow. But she was no authority on Joshua Steiner’s schedule—other than that if there were a way to gum up somebody’s works or aggravate them into the bargain, it was guaranteed he would find it.

Maybe Hill Farms really did need him all day tomorrow. Maybe they didn’t. But now that Melvin was home, he could deal with him and she could retreat into the background with relief.

Melvin put away the horse while Carrie hurried into the kitchen to check the casserole. It had browned nicely, so she turned off the gas oven and cut up a green salad, boiled some string beans with onion and bacon, and had everything ready by the time the men came in.

She wasn’t expecting to enjoy dinner much. But to her surprise, Joshua seemed to relax, and between his funny stories of attempting to help with the apples, and Melvin’s stories of the trade show—including one crazy
Englisch
man who wanted a full dining set for his store
by the following weekend
, custom made—two hours had passed before she looked up from dessert and realized what time it was.

Melvin finished his coffee and stretched in his chair so hard Carrie could hear his spine crack. “That was a
gut
meal and
gut
company.” He smiled at them both. “I’m bushed. Joshua, not to hurry you away, but maybe we can talk a little about what’s left to do out in the barn, and I’ll help you hitch up your horse.”

Carrie had done the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, and gone up for the night by the time she finally heard his boots drop on the kitchen floor, a piece of wood heavy enough to last all night being shoved into the stove, and his footsteps coming up the staircase. He never used a lantern to light his way. “I know my place by day or night,” he’d told her once, and he seldom bumped into furniture or ran into doors the way she would. She had a lamp burning in the bedroom, though, and when he stepped through the door, she snapped an elastic around her long braid and went into his arms.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she breathed.

“Was it so bad?”

“
Nei
.” It hadn’t been as bad as other times, when the silence made her a little crazy, when she would rather sleep in the coop with the chickens just to be near another breathing soul. “Joshua was here, and I saw quite a bit of the girls, and I had dinner with Lena and Emma one night. But I still missed you.”

“And I missed you.” Gently, he set her away from him and sat on the bed to take off his socks. “How did it go with Joshua? You can tell me the truth, now that he’s gone.”

“He picked bushels of apples, so the drying boxes were full all week. And he scraped and painted the equipment shed, and got the chicken coop ready for its first coat.”

“He told me all that. I meant, how did it go between the two of you? Believe me, I got an earful on that subject from Brian and Boyd, all the way to Philadelphia on the train. It made me wonder if I’d have done better hiring one of the young boys to do the work. Alvin Esch, maybe, or your brother Orval.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing I’d want to upset you with.”

“Dearest, you forget Emma is my best friend. She grew up with Joshua, and there isn’t anything he’s done that she hasn’t told me about. Including the story of that girl up in Shipshewana.”

Melvin’s brows contracted briefly as he unbuttoned his shirt. “It’s an ugly story. I don’t want you to dwell on it.”

“And an untrue one, as it turns out. The girl’s baby had skin the color of a good walnut stain, and she married the father, according to Emma.”

“Is that what he told her?”

She was silent for a moment, kneeling beside him next to the bed. “Is that not the truth?”

His shoulder touching hers, Melvin clasped her hand between both of his and began to pray. And when she had added her prayers to his and they were both in bed, Carrie snuggled up next to him with her arm across his chest.

She waited for some time, but the answer to her question never came.

Carrie had always been close to her sister Susan, probably because Naomi was several years older than the two of them. So even though Melvin had just come home Wednesday, on Thursday night they went to her birthday party at Carrie’s parents’ farm.

Susan loved the wreath she’d made from bright autumn leaves, penny plants, red berries, and twists of wheat. “You’re the artist in the family,” she whispered in her ear as they hugged. “
Denki
for sharing your gift with me.”

Drat her fair skin that showed every emotion with a blush—especially in front of a room full of people. Carrie squeezed her hand and hoped that Daed had not heard. While their mother encouraged them to explore their gifts in small ways that glorified God, Daed shared Bishop Daniel’s opinion that anything that brought attention to the self and made it stand out was a thing to be tied on the altar of sacrifice. And the sooner the better, which was why Susan had stopped singing when she had been nine and Carrie eight. Oh, she sang in church, sure enough, but always under everyone else, blending in, instead of soaring above them like she could have.

“Do you ever sing anymore?” she asked Susan under the guise of hanging the wreath in the spot over the pantry doors where Carrie had hoped it might go. “Do you ever want to?”

“Sometimes.” Susan tapped a small nail into the paneling, hung the wreath, and Carrie stepped back to admire the effect. “But I make sure the urge only comes when I’m alone with the babies and the windows are closed.”

“Does Thomas share Daed’s views?”

“Daed’s mellowed over the years, Carrie. He was never as strict with Orval as he was with us.”

“Maybe we taught him a thing or two.”

“Maybe seeing you run off to those band hops and take those trips to Hershey with that girl—what was her name?”

“Malinda King. And it was only the one trip. Once was enough to take all the rebellion right out of me, and show me my real friends were Amelia and Emma. Before that, I’m ashamed to say I took them for granted.”