A Heart Made New (28 page)

“And you came back because this is where you want to be. This is who you want to be. I saw the way you looked at Miriam that day in front of the blacksmith shop.” Her tone hardened. She stared at him with a look that spoke volumes. Jealousy. Frustration. Sadness. “She’s what you want. Someone who won’t pull you out of your world. I get that.”

“You think you can be that woman?”

“Look at me. I’m cleaning houses to earn money to support myself so I won’t be a burden to my cousin and her family.” She patted her kapp with a self-conscience smile. “I’ve been talking with the deacon every morning as soon as the sun comes up. Rachel is teaching me to sew and how to bake bread.”

“Sewing and baking bread and cleaning the mayor’s house won’t make you a member of this community.”

“No, but I should get a reward for all the stuff I do around here. It’s been a week and I’m still finding dirty cups and cigarette butts all over the house from a party the mayor threw days ago. It’s gross, but I don’t care. I’ll do anything that helps me fit in.”

Fit in. Charisma’s words flitted around inside his head. Miriam didn’t have to learn to fit in. She just did. She belonged here.

“Sarah, I don’t want you to sacrifice your happiness, your whole life for me.”

“I’m not. I’m a believer.”

“You’re not.”

“You’re sure full of yourself. You think I’d clean toilets for you?”

“I think you idealize what we had.”

“What we have.”

“You romanticize the time we spent together. We fought all the time.” The alcohol-drenched memory of arguing with her on an apartment balcony made his stomach lurch. “I nearly killed myself over you.”

Tears bright in her huge eyes, she stood and sauntered toward him. Every fiber of his being wanted to pull her into his arms. Only propriety kept him from acting on his desire. He’d learned some self-control in the last year. She laid a hand on his chest and his heart pounded. “We fought because we love each other. You jumped off that apartment balcony because I said no when you asked me to marry you. If I had it to do over again, I’d say yes.”

“I fell off that balcony because I was drunk.” He steeled himself against the wave of nausea that always came when he tried to grasp the fragmented memories of that day in Wichita. “I wouldn’t ask you again.”

“Maybe not today. But you will. I know you will. Feelings like that don’t just go away.”

“I’m not that boy anymore. Those were…what I felt for you wasn’t love.”

“What was it?”

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. “It was a boy feeling things for a girl. It was a boy wanting what he knew he couldn’t have.”

“Life with me will never be boring, Josiah.”

He had no doubt of that. She would be the bored one. “Don’t you miss your friends and your music and the parties?”

“I miss you, only you.”

He studied her beautiful face, then tried to remember what Miriam’s looked like. A steamy fog blocked it out.

Sarah laughed, the notes like a birdsong. “Don’t look so freaked out. We have time. I still have to do a bunch of lessons and junk before I can be baptized.”

“Junk? Junk!” His heart slowed. The fog lifted. “You’re just playing along to get what you want. Is that what you’re saying?”

“You know what I mean.” She grabbed his arm and leaned into him. The smell of roses enveloped him. “The same stuff you need to do. Let’s be baptized together.”

He couldn’t help himself. He leaned into her touch, mesmerized by her scent and her softness. Her hands touched his face and her fingers traced his lips. “Kiss me, Joe, like you used to. Please.”

She lifted her face to his and he leaned down to meet her. He drowned in the emotion that poured from her. His own emotions battered him. Could he live without her? Was she the one all along? Her lips parted. Beautiful lips.

His muscles froze. No. Not like this. Charisma’s face floated between him and Sarah. The words she had spoken in the garden penetrated the desire he felt.
Look at Sarah and see me.
Charisma’s advice. The package did not reflect what was inside the box. Sarah could look like a Plain woman, but her actions spoke of an entirely different woman.

Battered, but still standing, propriety won out.
Thank You, God.
For Luke and David and years of sitting on the bench at Sunday prayer service. For Mudder and Daed and the lessons they had drilled into him. A powerful wave of remorse pounded him. It took every ounce of moral strength he could muster, but he managed to jerk back. “No.” He whirled and stumbled toward the door. “No.”

“Joe!”

He blocked out the sound of her calling and shut the front door behind him, then leaned against the solid wood. “God, help me.” The words sounded desperate spoken aloud. They were. Josiah needed help. “Save me, Lord. Save me from myself.”

A
nnie swaddled little Luke David and lifted him onto her shoulder. He continued to wail despite having a clean diaper. He certainly had a healthy set of lungs. “Sh-sh-sh-sh.” She patted his back and paced the room while Charisma’s head bent over the treadle sewing machine. She had a determined look on her face.

“If I can just get this thing to go in a straight line.” She pumped the treadle twice. “Oh, no, it’s totally crooked and now the thread is tangled. This is crazy. How will I ever have enough to keep this little poop-maker in diapers at this rate?”

She snipped the thread and tossed the cloth to the side. “Store-bought diapers would be so much easier.”

“If you could afford to buy them.” Annie shifted Luke David so he lay in the crook of her arm. He huffed and wailed some more. Annie talked a little louder. “Besides, these soft diapers feel so much better on your little behind, don’t they, Luke David?”

“Then you’ll have to do the sewing and let me do the walking-the-floor thing.” Charisma stood and tugged at an oversized T-shirt that hung down to her thighs. “Give him to me. It feels like my milk came in. Finally. If he can get some real food, he’ll stop fussing.”

The voice of experience. Charisma might not know much about sewing and cooking, but she knew how to take care of babies. Annie
willingly handed Luke David over. Her shoulders ached and her eyes burned. Between the bakery, chores, and helping with the baby, she wasn’t getting enough sleep, but she was determined to make sure no additional work fell on Leah. Luke had been clear about that. Charisma and the baby could stay until the trial was over. After that, the family needed to find their own home. How that would be possible boggled her mind. God would provide, she told herself. And she would help. Somehow.

Charisma sank into the rocking chair in the corner and began feeding Luke David. His crying turned to eager suckling sounds. Charisma grimaced. “Ouch! At least this doesn’t cost anything.”

Annie moved to the door. Even her feet hurt. “And it’s good for him. If you’re okay for a while, I think I’ll get some sleep.”

“Sure, I’m fine.” Her tone didn’t match the words. “He’s my baby. I can take care of him.”

“I didn’t mean to say you couldn’t—”

“I know what you meant.”

Annie turned to go.

“Do you think I’m a bad person?”

“What?” Once again Annie turned back.

“Do you think I’m a bad person? I have two kids and I’m not married. I don’t even love their daddy.”

“We all do bad things. God forgives.”

“Back to God again.” She snorted. “You think what I’ve done is wrong. Does that make Gracie and Luke David mistakes? Does it make it wrong for me to have them?”

“I’m not very smart.” Annie eased into the chair by the door. She picked her words carefully. “I don’t know much about anything, really, but whatever you’ve done, it’s not their fault. God loves them and He has a plan for them. You ask Him to forgive you and He will. In the Bible, Jesus says, ‘Go, and sin no more.’ You have to stop doing what you’re doing. Live your life differently. You ask Him to show you what you should do now and He will.”

Charisma grunted and shifted the baby to the other side. He made
a happy gurgling sound. “Where was God when my dad was beating on me? Where was He then? Was that part of some big God plan?”

“Do you remember the story about Adam and Eve eating the apple?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t? I think they talked about it at every Vacation Bible School I went to. And the nasty serpent. What does that have to do with what happened to me?”

Annie tucked away the concept of Vacation Bible School to think about later. “The point is the world filled up with sin and disease after they did that. God doesn’t make bad things happen.” Even as the words came to her, Annie knew she believed them. And David needed to believe them too. “He wants us to cling to Him when they do. He helped you get away and He helped you find a safe place to be. You got through it the best you could. It’s not the way He would’ve wanted it, but it doesn’t mean He doesn’t love you.”

Her gaze distant and unseeing, Charisma stroked the silky down on her baby’s head. “Maybe you’re right. I hope you’re right.”

A
nnie smoothed the tiny outfit she’d made for Luke David as she trudged up the steps in front of the courthouse. Most everyone had gone inside already. Between bathing and dressing the children and the long buggy ride, they were late. Hastily, she handed the sleeping baby to Charisma, who accepted with one arm while keeping a grip on Gracie’s hand. “Logan will be so happy to see him. Now go on. Get in there before it’s time for them to take him into the courtroom. Sergeant Parker is around here somewhere. He’ll show you to the holding room or whatever he called it.”

Sergeant Parker had visited the bakery the previous day to offer Charisma a chance to talk to Logan before the trial started. He said Logan was in a bad way—depressed and homesick. He needed to know Charisma would be in the courtroom. Annie couldn’t forget the look on Charisma’s face that day in the hospital room when she said she didn’t love the father of her children. She’d been reluctant to visit Logan now, but Sergeant Parker had persuaded her. Annie found the fact that he cared endearing. She had known he had a heart, but not just how big it was.

“I don’t understand why you can’t come in with me.” Charisma tugged at the dark blue dress Annie had made for her. Her baby belly gone, she didn’t look as if she’d given birth only two weeks earlier. “You
don’t have to come into the courtroom. Come with me to the holding room.”

Annie didn’t bother to answer. Charisma had been trying to convince Annie since they left the house. She refused to understand Luke’s prohibition. He didn’t want Annie in the courtroom. Period. So far no one had shown up at the farm or the bakery to serve her papers requiring her to be there. Luke seemed to think seeing her would jog their memories—as if they’d forgotten she, Sadie, and Miriam were witnesses to the armed robbery. Not wanting to cause David any grief, she hadn’t mentioned his discussion with the mayor to her brother. Mayor Haag wouldn’t want to rock the boat with the Plain people in her community, not when they contributed so much to its well-being.

“Go! The longer you argue with me, the less time you’ll have to spend with Logan before they start the trial.” She smoothed Luke David’s bib so it covered his new shirt. “Bring the children over to the bakery later. I’ll watch them or Sadie will until it’s over for the day.”

“It’s probably not going to be a long visit, anyway. I may not even stay for the trial.”

Something in Charisma’s expression caused the hair on Annie’s arms to prickle. “Why? Logan needs your support.”

“He may not want it after our visit.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“I have to tell him I don’t love him. I can’t go on like this. I need to get my life together.” Charisma’s nose turned red. Big tears teetered in her eyes, preparing to fall. “I can’t wait around for him.”

“You can’t tell him now, not when he’s facing prison.”

“Better I should tell him when he’s actually in prison? Write him a
Dear John
letter?”

A
Dear John
letter? Annie skipped that question. “Can’t you just let him hold his son in his arms and enjoy that one moment before you break his heart?”

“You’re so naïve. It won’t break his heart. He won’t have to worry
about trying to be a dad from prison. Or supporting me. He’ll be relieved.” Charisma tugged on the dress again. “Did you have to make this so long? I feel like somebody’s grandma.”

“It’s respectful.” Annie cocked her head. Charisma looked young and pretty—too young to have two children and be facing the prospect of trying to support them alone. “It’s dignified.”

“That’s not the look I usually go for.”

His steps loud on the cement, Sergeant Parker slipped between two men in suits and pounded toward them.

“All right, he’s in the holding cell now.” He stopped, a strange look on his face. He took his hat off. “You look real nice in that dress, Miss Chiasson. He’ll be happy to see you.”

Charisma smirked at Annie. “Annie made it.”

“I figured as much. She can cook and she can sew.” His face suddenly a blotchy red color, Sergeant Parker twisted the hat in his hands. His gaze whipped to Annie, then back to Charisma. “As soon as I get you in the visitors’ room I’ll bring him in.”