скачать книгу бесплатно
She paused, closed her eyes and prayed. Please, Lord, help us to become a family. Don’t let me lose everything I gained when I married Abraham. A family. A home. Children who needed her.
Mary Ruth’s and Hannah’s sweet behavior would have made her feel at peace, if not for the knowledge that Zack would return soon and disturb the life she’d made for herself with the children.
Ah, Abraham, I’m sorry. ’Twas my fault that you’re no longer with us.
Tears filled her eyes as she plied needle to cloth in tiny, even stitches. She recalled her husband’s face and his eyes, which had eventually looked at her with more than kindness, with caring that had turned into love. In the months before he died, Abraham had begun to see her as a wife rather than a housekeeper and helpmate.
She sniffed as she set down her sewing and rose. She was tired. She undressed by candlelight, carefully removing the straight pins securing her dress, and got ready for bed. She brushed her hair, recalling with a smile when she’d brushed out her youngest daughter’s hair earlier.
Her hip ached and she reached for the menthol and camphor salve to rub on the sore and swollen joint. The scent was strong, but she was used to it, welcomed it because any little pain relief was worth it. She could take aspirin or ibuprofen, but she’d used so much of it recently, she decided it was best to save it for when the pain became unbearable without it.
She moved toward the bed, pulled back the quilt and climbed onto the mattress. She heard a gentle knock on her bedroom door. “Ja?”
“Mam?” The door swung open, and her youngest daughter, Anne, peeked inside, holding a flashlight.
“Anne,” Lizzie murmured. She waved her in. “What’s wrong?”
Her daughter approached the bed. “Mam, do you think our grossmama will like us?”
Lizzie smiled reassuringly. “She will love you,” she said, believing it to be true. “You are her granddaughter. All of you children are her grandchildren. Why wouldn’t she love you? Love all of her kins kinner?”
Annie tilted her head as she regarded her with unusually grown-up eyes. “Will she love you, too?”
Lizzie smiled, unable to assure her when she didn’t know. “You are worrying too much, Anne. They will come and all will be well.”
The child smiled. “I am glad. I want us all to be happy together. It is time for us—you—to be happy.”
Lizzie reached for the girl’s hand, pulled her close. “I am happy,” she said sincerely. “You and your sisters and brooders make me very happy.”
“Even though Mary Ruth can be sharp to you?”
She nodded. “Ja, no matter what. I am happy with you all, and I love you.”
Anne grinned and leaned over to hug her. “I love you, Mam.”
Lizzie closed her eyes as she held on to her daughter. “I love you. You all are everything a mudder could ask for and more.” She released her child to pat her cheek. “Now run off to bed. We’ve a busy day tomorrow.”
Annie nodded vigorously and spun to race out of the room, pausing on the threshold to glance back at Lizzie. “Danki.”
Lizzie raised her eyebrows in question.
“For being my mam,” Anne explained before she hurried on and shut the door behind her.
Lizzie blinked against happy tears as she leaned to blow out the candle. As the room plunged into darkness, she relaxed and lay back against her pillow. She felt sleepy and hopeful for the first time in a long while.
* * *
The next morning she was up and ready to begin her day. Now that the dawdi haus was prepared for guests, she needed to clean the farmhouse. She made breakfast first, and soon the children joined her in the kitchen, ready to eat. Lizzie beamed at them as they sat down.
“Hungry?” she asked. “I made pancakes, bacon, sausage and eggs.”
“It looks goot,” Hannah said.
“It tastes goot.” Matt had grabbed a piece of bacon and popped it into his mouth.
“Matthew, mind your manners and put some on your plate.”
“Ja, Lizzie.” Matt nodded, looking solemn, and then he grinned.
Lizzie laughed; she couldn’t help it. The boy was looking at her with such delight that the pure joy of the moment deeply touched her. It was nice to hear laughter in the house again.
Her older children helped the younger ones get their food. Lizzie watched with fondness as Rebecca cut up little Jonas’s pancakes for him.
This is what family is about, she thought. Had she ever felt so lighthearted when she was a girl? She couldn’t recall laughing at the dinner table. Her mother had treated her differently than her siblings because of her disability. It was as if she’d been unable to accept that her daughter wasn’t perfect.
“Anne, be careful with your milk,” Lizzie warned without anger.
Anne set her glass down and smiled at her with milk-mustached lips. “When do ya think Onkel will be here?” she asked.
“Onkel Zack,” Hannah corrected.
Lizzie sat down and filled her plate. “I don’t know. Surely by next week.”
“What else must we do to be ready for him?” Hannah asked.
Lizzie looked at her fondly. “I thought we should clean our haus next. We wouldn’t want Onkel Zack, Grossmama and Endie Esther to see a dirty haus, would we?”
“Nay!” the children chorused. The family teased each other as they ate breakfast, and when they were done, Lizzie and her daughters rose and tackled the kitchen first before moving on to clean the rest of the house. She sent the boys outside to make sure that there were no sticks in the yard and the porch was free of any balls and play items. She’d asked Matt to check the honeysuckle bush near her vegetable garden to see if it needed to be pruned back.
Later that afternoon when the children were at the kitchen table enjoying a snack, Lizzie heard a car in the barnyard. She hurried toward the door in time to see Zachariah Fisher climb out of the front passenger side of the vehicle and then reach to open the back door. A woman alighted as Zack went to the trunk and waited while the driver met him. The Englisher lifted out two suitcases and set them on the ground.
She saw Zack exchange words with the driver. Then he and the woman approached the house. Lizzie stepped out onto the porch to meet them. She heard the children behind her, chatting happily after seeing who had returned.
Lizzie was startled to see him. She hadn’t expected him back so soon. His gaze locked with hers as he drew closer. Her heart started to pound hard.
Chapter Three (#ulink_13dcf876-4a83-56bf-aaa4-1c926bacc48d)
He inclined his head. “Lizzie.”
She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “Zack.”
He drew the woman forward. Lizzie saw that she was older than Zachariah but not enough to be his mother. “This is—”
“Esther,” Lizzie said with a smile. “Your schweschter.” She was pleased to note Zack’s surprise when she’d addressed his sister by name. “We’re glad you could come and stay with us.”
Esther’s gaze warmed. “And you’re Lizzie.”
Lizzie nodded. “Are you hungry? May I offer you a snack to hold you until supper? There are cookies and apple crisp. The cottage is ready for you. I believe you’ll be comfortable there.”
“We all helped to fix it up for you,” Rebecca said as she joined Lizzie on the front porch.
Mary Ruth and the rest of the children stepped out of the house and gathered behind Lizzie and Rebecca. Anne and Matt stood behind them, inside the door.
Esther smiled. “Hallo. So you are Abraham’s children. My nieces and nephews.”
Rebecca stepped forward. “Would you like to come in? Matt can put your luggage in the dawdi haus for you,” she told her aunt. She glanced at her brother and, understanding, Matt came out of the house and approached.
“Danki. I wouldn’t mind coming in for a bit,” Esther agreed.
Zack captured Lizzie’s gaze as he handed Matt a suitcase and picked up the other one. Her heart gave a little jump before it started to beat normally again. “I’ll go with Matt,” he said. “We’ll be right back.”
Esther nodded before she followed Lizzie and the children into the farmhouse. Once inside, she paused to study her surroundings. “Everything is the same, but different,” she said.
Lizzie understood. She hadn’t given much thought to the fact that Esther, Abraham and the rest of their siblings had lived here with their parents before their father’s passing. As they continued through the house and into the kitchen, Zack’s sister smiled appreciatively. “It smells wonderful in here.”
Hannah smiled. “We baked today. Would you like some apple crisp?”
Esther shook her head. “We stopped to eat on the way.”
“Tea?”
At Lizzie’s invitation, Esther sat down at the kitchen table. “Ja, that sounds goot.”
Lizzie studied her sister-in-law. Esther Fisher was a tall, attractive woman with warmth in her brown gaze and soft pretty laugh lines at the corners of her eyes and near her mouth. She wore a black traveling bonnet and a blue dress with black cape and apron. Her features were kind and full of character, and Lizzie immediately felt comfortable in her presence. She thought that she and Esther might become good friends once they got to know each other.
* * *
Memories assailed Zack as he entered the dawdi haus. His grandparents had lived here when he was a young child. They had passed on when he was seven in a terrible accident. A drunk driver had slammed his car head-on into their small open buggy as his grandfather drove Grossmudder and himself to Sunday service. That he and his family were in the buggy several yards in front of his grosseldre’s vehicle saved their lives, but Zack had gotten a good view of the awful scene. It had been a traumatic experience for everyone but most especially Zack.
As he followed his nephew through the house and into a bedroom, he noted slight changes to the cottage. There was no sign that his grosseldre had lived there. He sighed silently with relief as he set his suitcase in the closest bedroom and then followed Matt into the next room, where his sister would stay.
“Lizzie and the girls made up the beds and put stuff in the kitchen for you,” Matthew told him. “They stocked the pantry and the freezer, but Lizzie said that you are willkomm to eat with us. She wanted you to have food in case you got hungry or didn’t feel like coming over.”
Zack studied the boy and nodded. “That is kind of her.” He examined Esther’s room, pleased how clean and comfortable it appeared. A lingering scent of lemon oil intermingled with the fresh air gently billowing the white window curtains. A quilt in soft blues, greens and cream covered the double bed.
“Lizzie made the quilt,” Matthew said after apparently noting the direction of Zack’s gaze. “She quilts a lot and makes wonderful things. She sells her quilts at Beachey’s Craft Shop.”
Zack couldn’t help but admire the bedcover. The pattern and colors were striking, but plain enough to be used within their Amish community. He walked to the bed and ran a hand over the soft cotton in solid colors. “Beachey,” he murmured. “Ellen Beachey’s family?”
When his nephew nodded, Zack smiled. “They’ve owned the shop since Ellen was a child.” He felt a softening inside at the memory of Ellen Beachey, remembering her as a young feisty girl. She was older than him by about ten years, pretty, but she’d been a handful to her parents, although she’d been respectful to the church and the folks within Honeysuckle. He remembered that she and Neziah Shetler had been sweethearts, but by the time he’d returned home for a visit, the couple had broken up. He wondered whom she finally married.
“Do you know she has a bright lime-green push scooter?” Matt said. “She rides it down the hill from her house to the main road and uses it to ride to the craft store.”
Zack chuckled. “That sounds like Ellen.” He envisioned her flying down the hill, her prayer kapp barely held on by bobby pins, her eyes bright with excitement. Following his nephew into the kitchen, he listened as the boy showed him the contents of the food pantry. “Ellen still works at the store, then,” he murmured after he’d nodded approvingly at his food stock.
“Ja.” Matt closed the pantry door and faced him. “We’re glad you’re here,” the boy said. His expression became solemn. “We miss Dat.”
Zack understood. “I haven’t seen your vadder in a long time. I regret that I won’t have the chance to see or talk with him again.” He felt a keen sense of loss, but somehow, for his nephew’s sake, he managed to smile. “But he is with Gott, and so is your mudder.”
“You knew my mam?” The boy seemed eager to hear more about his parents.
“Ja. Ruth and your dat were married before my vadder— your grossdaddi—passed and we moved away.” Zack recalled how difficult it had been for them, especially his mother, who’d loved her husband deeply and felt the terrible loss. When his father had died, his mother hadn’t wanted to stay on the farm. She had moved with her younger children to Ohio to live near his eldest married sister, Miriam, who lived with her husband and children in Walnut Creek. His older brother, Abraham, had remained behind to run the family farm and build a life with his new wife, Ruth.
“We miss Mam, too,” Matt said as they walked together out of the house and across the yard.
“She and your dat loved each other.” Zack noted the boy’s features so like his brother’s. “You favor your vadder.”
“I do?” Matt appeared pleased by the thought.
“Ja. You’ve got his eyes, yet you have a bit of your mam, too.”
Matt blinked. “I— Danki.” The whispered word held a wealth of meaning and gratitude.
“Let’s go back to the haus. Lizzie and your endie Esther will be wondering why it’s taken us so long.”
Matt picked up his pace, and Zack followed, glad he had decided to return to Honeysuckle, if only to get to know his brother’s children.
Zack pulled the screen door open and waited for Matt to enter first. He noted the difference in the gathering room as he headed toward the kitchen and the sound of laughter coming from the rear of the house. As he entered, he saw his oldest niece, Mary Ruth, chuckling at her little brother Ezekiel, who was grinning from ear to ear as the three-year-old put forkfuls of apple crisp into his mouth. “Ezekiel, slow down,” his sister Hannah warned, “or it will choke you.”
The boy stopped for a moment and blinked up at her. “But it tastes goot, and I’m hungry.”
“Zeke,” Zack heard Lizzie say quietly, “your sister is right. If you aren’t careful, you will choke and hurt yourself. If you take your time, you will enjoy it more.”
Zack watched with surprise as the little boy nodded and grinned in Lizzie’s direction. “Ja, Mam,” he said, and then he began to eat more slowly, chewing his food thoroughly before swallowing. His brother’s widow smiled at the child with affection, clearly pleased by his obedience.
Lizzie looked up then as if sensing a presence, saw him in the doorway and stood. “Zack,” she said, her expression becoming shuttered. “May I get you something to eat? Some apple crisp—”
“It’s goot, Onkel Zack!” little Ezekiel told him with a mouthful of the treat and a grin.
Zack shook his head. “We ate ourselves full on the way here.”
“’Tis delicious.” Mary Ruth smiled as she held up the plate as if enticing him to try it.
He had the sudden urge to grin. “Hmm. May we take two pieces to eat later?”
“Ja. I’ll wrap them up for you.” Lizzie cut two slices of the apple treat, set them on a plate and covered it with plastic wrap. She placed the dish within his easy reach. “Is everything in the cottage all right?” she asked almost shyly, referring to the dawdi haus. She sat down and cradled her teacup with her hands.
“Ja. It looks goot. We’ll be most comfortable there.” He saw that she looked satisfied. As he sat and waited for his sister to finish her tea, Zack studied his late brother’s wife. Dressed in a light blue dress with a full-length black apron, Lizzie was stunning. Her dark red hair had been rolled in the Amish way and tucked beneath her white head covering without a single strand out of place. Her green eyes appeared large in her pretty feminine face; her nose was well shaped and small, her lips pink and full. Despite her young age and obvious handicap, he could see why his brother had chosen to make her his bride. He looked away, startled by the direction of his thoughts.
“We should get settled in,” he said.
Esther agreed. “Ja. The tea was goot.” She stood and picked up the plate of apple crisp. “We will eat this later.”
Zack rose and nodded his thanks. “We will see you tomorrow,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”
Lizzie stood. “Don’t hesitate to tell us if you need anything.”
He followed Esther through the back door of the farmhouse and sensed Lizzie’s presence as he stepped outside. He turned to see her standing in the open doorway. She locked gazes with him. He felt a tightening in his chest before she broke eye contact. The children pushed by her and stood in the yard watching as he continued to the dawdi haus behind his sister.
