AR01 - A Road Unknow Read online

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m not dating him.” She set her spoon down and sighed. “Paula, I don’t think Saul would ever want to date me after what I said to him today. I told him I ran away from home because I got so tired of helping my family.”

  “It doesn’t make you a bad person if you get tired of being a caretaker.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Paula said definitely. “A person can suffer caretaker burnout.”

  “Even nurses?”

  “Especially nurses.” She pushed her empty bowl away. “Do you remember the story of Martha? From the Bible? She complained to Jesus because Mary got to sit at his feet and listen to him, but she had too much to do. She told Jesus her sister had left her to do all the work by herself, and she wanted Him to tell Mary to help her.”

  Elizabeth gestured to the empty bowl. “Want more?”

  When Paula nodded, she got up and filled the bowl again.

  “Anyway, Jesus didn’t tell Martha she was a bad person, did he?”

  “No. But the Amish love children. I’m not sure I’ll ever want them. It doesn’t make me good material to become a good Amish fraa—wife” she said. “And it’s the reason the Amish date. To find the person we want to marry.”

  “What did Saul say?”

  “Nothing. He just looked at me, kind of stunned.”

  “It doesn’t mean he thinks you’re terrible,” Paula pointed out. “It just means you surprised him. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. And if it’s important to you, you could even ask him. If he’s judgmental about it, then he’s not the right guy for you.”

  “I’m not looking at him as a man to date.” But she had thought about it . . .

  “But you do see Bruce that way?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Bruce is fun.”

  “And you just want some fun at this point. I can understand that. But just be careful. Bruce is a little self-centered, and Englisch guys seem more interested in getting what they want from a girl than Amish guys, if you know what I mean.”

  She paused and ate more soup. Then her spoon clattered in her bowl and she looked at Elizabeth with a stricken expression. “Elizabeth, you’re not thinking of—of—”

  “Of?” Elizabeth supplied helpfully.

  “Of—oh, don’t make me spell it out!” Paula stared at her, looking exasperated. “You know what I mean! You’re not going to do anything with Bruce, are you?”

  “We’re going out tomorrow after I get off work.”

  “Elizabeth! Stop being dense!”

  She laughed. “Sorry. It was too much fun to tease you. I’m Amish, not unaware. I was raised on a farm, Paula. I know about the birds and the bees.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize the Amish raised those,” Paula said dryly.

  Elizabeth stared at her for a long moment and then she laughed.

  10

  Elizabeth felt grateful the store was busy from what seemed like the moment she walked in on Monday.

  All she got to do was say a quick hello to Saul and customers began arriving. It stayed busy for most of the morning.

  “If it keeps up like this, I may call Katie and Rosie in early,” Saul said.

  She nodded at him, but before she could speak, a woman walked into the store and straight for her.

  “My mother was in recently and she told me I needed to visit,” she told Elizabeth. “I had the day off and thought it was a good time to start shopping for Christmas. I have a large family.”

  She lifted a full shopping bag she carried in one hand. “As you can see I’ve already gotten a good start today.”

  Elizabeth saw the Stitches in Time store logo on the bag. “I haven’t been there yet. I’m new to town.”

  The woman looked around. “If you like this store, I think you’d like it.”

  She chose a quilt for her grown daughter, a carved horse paperweight for her husband, and a wooden pull toy for her first grandson. When she left, she carried a second shopping bag as full as the one from Stitches in Time.

  Finally, just before lunch, the stream of customers became a trickle.

  “Go take a break,” Saul told her.

  She nodded. A quick trip to the ladies room and then a cup of coffee sounded too good to refuse.

  In the act of pouring herself a cup, she saw her cuff was fraying. She frowned. Her clothes were starting to look a little shabby. No wonder. She had just two dresses and a good church dress. But even if she could squeeze out the cost of fabric from next week’s paycheck, she didn’t have a sewing machine to make a dress. When she got home, she’d have to ask Paula if she knew anyone she could borrow one from. She could set up the machine on the desk in her room and sew it in the evenings after work.

  Saul joined her just as she sat down with the coffee and poured himself a cup.

  “Katie and Rosie just got here.”

  “One of my customers said she was shopping for Christmas. She bought a lot.”

  Saul sipped his coffee. “I think we’re going to have a really good season. I’ve ordered extra inventory, so I’ll be busy unpacking it in the next week or two.”

  She nodded and blew on her coffee, trying to cool it so she could drink it and get back to work. And away from him.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry,” he said, giving her a rueful grin as if he knew what she was doing. “I’m not going to dock you for taking a break. You work hard.”

  “Danki.” She bit her lip and thought about what to say.

  “I—” they spoke at the same time. Stopped. Then did it again.

  “I’d say ladies first, but I want to clear the air,” Saul said. “I’m glad you were honest with me yesterday. It couldn’t have been easy for you to leave home.”

  “My family thinks I’m selfish.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m not judging you, Elizabeth. But it sounds like you’re being very hard on yourself.”

  “I don’t know anyone who’s done what I did,” she said quietly. “Would you have?”

  When he hesitated, she persisted, “Would you?”

  He glanced at the doorway, then back at her. “I had some . . . reservations about taking over the store. I always enjoyed working here, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this the rest of my life. ”

  She stared at him, surprised. “You seem to enjoy it.”

  He shrugged. “I grew to like it. Well, everything except doing inventory. The important difference is I felt like I had a choice, Elizabeth. It doesn’t sound like you feel like you had one about staying there.”

  Katie stuck her head in the door. “Saul, Mervin is here.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

  “I need to get back to work,” Elizabeth said and she stood.

  “Elizabeth!”

  He held out his hand, but she pretended she didn’t see it and hurried from the room.

  The twins were helping customers. Elizabeth walked to the front window and looked out. The day had turned gray and drizzly. It usually meant people wouldn’t be out shopping.

  A woman hurried toward the store holding an umbrella. Elizabeth opened the door and was pleasantly surprised to see Jenny Bontrager.

  “Hello,” she said with a big smile. She shook the rainwater from the umbrella outside before she entered the store. “The weatherman is finally right. He’s been predicting rain for two days and we have it at last.”

  She put the umbrella in the big ceramic pot near the door intended for just such a purpose. “I spoke to Matthew and he said to tell you the two of you are indeed cousins. Second cousins. He’s looking forward to meeting you soon.”

  “I’m looking forward to it, too.”

  Jenny glanced around. “Well, then, I have to stop by Stitches in Time for some thread.”

  “I haven’t been there yet.”

  “Is it near your lunch hour? You could go with me.”

  Elizabeth felt warmed by the invitation. “I’ll have to ask Saul.”


  He was just coming out of the back room with Mervin when she started there. He nodded and walked past her.

  “Would you mind if I went to lunch a little early?”

  Saul waved at Jenny. “Of course not.”

  She proceeded to the back room, retrieved her purse and jacket, and went back to Jenny. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “How nice!” Jenny said. She glanced out the window. “Why, look! The sun’s out.”

  Elizabeth reached for the umbrella. “Don’t forget this. You might need it later.”

  “True. Danki.” She opened the door. “I’m hoping Mary Katherine will be working today. I’d like the two of you to meet.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  Jenny gave her a mischievous grin. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.”

  Saul had said Jenny would be able to find out about her, calling her a mystery lady. Elizabeth decided Jenny had a mystery of her own. Intrigued, she followed her out of the store.

  Saul watched Elizabeth leave and thought about the conversation they’d had in the back room.

  They had so much more in common than she knew. But he could never tell her. Because when his mother had needed him, he’d stayed and Elizabeth had—in her own words—run away.

  It wasn’t because he was a better person than her. Someone—something—had made up his mind for him.

  Its name was cancer.

  From the moment his mother came home with the diagnosis, he’d known he couldn’t leave the area to go to another county to work with a friend on a construction job. Who would run the store?

  And so he’d called his friend and shown up at the store bright and early the next day. He’d never looked back. His father spent his days going to chemotherapy appointments with his wife, traveling to a cancer center in a neighboring state when the first round of chemo didn’t work. Cancer sucked the life out of hours, days, weeks, months—years of time, energy, and money.

  Saul knew he’d given his father the freedom to concentrate on helping his mother fight the battle of her life—the battle for her life.

  He figured it was a small thing to do when the woman had given him life.

  She’d won the battle and recent tests had shown she was in remission. Saul waited for his father to say he wanted to come back to the store and told himself he’d be happy to hand the reins over to him even though he’d come to love running it. His father surprised him by saying he wanted to retire.

  Saul smiled at the memory.

  “Something funny, boss?” Katie asked him.

  “Nothing important,” he said. “I think I’ll go eat my lunch if you don’t need me for anything.”

  “We can run the store without you,” she said confidently.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He strolled into the back room and got his lunch from the refrigerator. His mother insisted on packing his lunch so he reached into the lunch box and spread a feast out on the table: cold sliced roast beef and bread from last night’s dinner, potato salad, dill pickles she’d canned from cucumbers grown in her garden. A handful of peanut butter cookies for his sweet tooth. She’d even included a thermos of lemonade.

  While he ate he read through the latest issue of The Budget, the national Amish and Mennonite newspaper and caught up on what was happening in the community. Before long, he was reaching for the batch of invoices he needed to take care of before the end of the day. Working while eating was a bad habit he’d tried to break, but other than talking briefly with his father about Christmas orders he didn’t take his work home with him.

  He glanced at the clock and wondered where Elizabeth had gone with Jenny Bontrager. Elizabeth had left her lunch in the refrigerator, so she was either going to return to eat it or they were going to a restaurant and she’d eat it another time.

  The holidays were coming up soon and he couldn’t help wondering if she would return home—or if she would even be welcome after what she’d said about leaving the way she had. His daed had been correct when he’d said one day Elizabeth was running away from something, not running around.

  Maybe Jenny and Matthew would ask her to join their family for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Maybe he should ask his parents if they would. No, it might be a bad idea. He wouldn’t want his mother to get the idea he was interested in Elizabeth as anything more than an employee.

  Rosie walked into the room and frowned at him. “Working while you’re eating is bad for the digestion.”

  “It’s called multitasking.”

  “I’m familiar with the term. I believe it’s why many Englischers have ulcers,” she informed him breezily.

  “Did you need me for something?” he asked mildly.

  She chuckled. “Ya. Barbie is here to see you.”

  “Great. Show her back.”

  Rosie glanced at the door, then back at him. “She’s got Lillian with her. I swear, I think the girl lives to flirt with you.”

  Saul kept his smile in place, but it was hard. So Rosie had noticed, too. “Great. Show them back.”

  He quickly cleared away his lunch remains and wiped down the table. Then he unlocked the cabinet where he kept the business checks. Seeing Lillian with her mother might not make his day, but he was about to make her mother’s day. Her first delivery of quilts had sold out and he couldn’t wait to tell her he’d raised the prices after a customer’s comments. She’d not only be getting a check today, but it would be one for more than he had estimated.

  He couldn’t help thinking this might be the start of a long and prosperous business relationship for them both. The fact the store not only prospered him and his family but the lives of others in his Plain community had become his favorite part of his job.

  His mother’s cancer might have seemed like an awful thing—and it had been. But it had been part of God’s mysterious plan and he thanked Him for it every day.

  Elizabeth stepped into Stitches in Time and her eyes widened in delight.

  The shop looked like a kaleidoscope full of color: walls of bright yardage, tables of fabrics of cotton, silk, and other fibers. Women sat in a circle around a quilt and stitched and chatted before a cozy fireplace. A very pregnant woman knitted a baby cap, while resting her feet on a footstool.

  And in a corner, a baby napped in a crib near a woman whose loom made a soft, rhythmic clacking noise as she wove a striped throw.

  “I knew you’d love it,” Jenny said as Elizabeth stood there just drinking in the scene.

  “Jenny!” an older woman said as she walked toward them. She took Jenny’s hands in hers and studied her with kind, faded blue eyes. “Wilkumm! How are you?”

  “I’m doing well,” Jenny told her. “This is Elizabeth. She’s a cousin of Matthew’s who’s working at Saul’s store. Elizabeth, this is Leah.”

  “You have the look of Naomi Bontrager,” Leah said, eyeing her with interest. “She moved away to Goshen so many years ago.”

  Elizabeth’s heart warmed. “I’m so glad you remember her! She was one of my grandmothers.” The nice one, she thought, but didn’t say it.

  “I always wished she’d made it back for a visit. Have you time for a cup of tea? I’d love for you to catch me up on her and the family.”

  “I’m on my lunch break.”

  “Well, then, tea and a sandwich,” Leah said. “We have plenty left from lunch. Even with some of us eating for two,” she said with an indulgent grin at the pregnant woman near her.

  “This is Anna,” she told Elizabeth. “And Mary Katherine is at the loom. Naomi isn’t in today.”

  She was greeted with welcoming smiles before Leah led the way to the back room. Leah bustled around making tea, while Jenny with the ease of a frequent visitor, found a plastic container in the refrigerator and brought it to the table.

  “Roast beef, tuna, or egg salad,” she announced as she set it before Elizabeth.

  She chose half a roast beef sandwich and put it on her plate. Jenny shook her head and added another, telling her she needed to
eat more than that.

  Then Jenny chuckled. “Sorry, I’m a mother.”

  “I don’t mind,” Elizabeth told her. She really didn’t. Her mother was usually so busy with the younger children she didn’t have time to tell her eldest to eat. And truth be told, Elizabeth had always been a healthy eater and needed no urging.

  “There are cookies as well,” Leah said, bringing the cookie jar to the table.

  They sat and chatted easily and Elizabeth liked how comfortable Leah made her, never asking her why she’d left Goshen.

  Jenny glanced at her watch and said she had to get home. Leah got called away for a customer who came asking for her. She got up and left Elizabeth to finish her lunch promising to return as quickly as possible.

  Mary Katherine came in, fixed herself a cup of tea, and sat down at the table. “Leah asked me to come in and keep you company until she gets back.”

  “I appreciate it, but you don’t need to. I mean, you looked busy,” she stammered, hoping she didn’t sound unfriendly.

  “I do most of my weaving at home,” Mary Katherine told her. “I only come in two days a week now since I have little Isaac. We leave in time to be home for his brother who’s in schul.”

  She opened the cookie jar and withdrew two chocolate chip cookies, then held out the jar to Elizabeth who gratefully took two. They were her favorite.

  “Jenny thought we should talk,” Mary Katherine said.

  “Really? Why?”

  Mary Katherine took a sip of her tea. “When Jenny found out you were here without your family, I think she thought we have something in common. You see, years ago I wasn’t sure where I belonged—I was in my rumschpringe like you. I didn’t get along with my dat and I felt a lot of pressure to join the church. I just felt so frustrated.”

  “I get along with my father, mostly,” Elizabeth said. “It was my mother. And it wasn’t as if we didn’t get along. I just got overwhelmed with helping at home. I have eight brothers and sisters—all younger than me. I started thinking I’d never get out and date and get married one day.”

  “I almost turned away Jacob—the man I ended up marrying—because I was afraid of being trapped in a marriage like my parents,” Mary Katherine told her quietly.