A Simple Winter: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (31 page)

“And I wanted to see Remy,” Ruthie said.

“Me too.” Simon seemed happy to include himself.

“We’re all so very relieved, Remy. The children couldn’t sleep one wink until they knew you were safe,” Mary said. “Now that you’ve seen her, it’s time for bed.”

“But if we don’t have school, why can’t we stay up longer?” Susie asked.

Mary shooed them toward the stairs. “The cows still need milking before sunrise.”

“The cows don’t get a snow day,” Simon said.

That brought laughter from the girls.

“That was funny, Simon,” Ruthie said, patting his back as they headed up the stairs.

While Remy changed into a borrowed nightgown and toweled off her wet hair, Mary warmed milk on the stove.

When they convened on the daybed in the kitchen, near the warm glow of the potbellied stove, Remy’s body was weighed down by weariness. “I feel like someone put me through that wringer on your washing machine.”

Sadie adjusted the quilt on Remy’s shoulders. “No wonder. You had a rough night.”

“Drink some milk, and then it’s off to bed with you,” Mary said in a tone as warm as a mother’s embrace. Funny, Mary was younger than Remy, and yet she was so capable and caring.

“I can’t believe I wrecked my car.”

“What happened to it?” Sadie asked.

“It went off the side of the road. It’s still there, stuck in a ditch, but I can’t drive it. The air bags popped out.” Remy sipped the warm milk, not wanting to recount that terrible moment when she lost control. The skidding tires. The impact. The crash of metal against earth.

She shuddered. “I’m thankful to Adam for rescuing me. I … I don’t think I got a chance to thank him.”

“You’ll have your chance in the morning.” Mary patted her knee. “Now, finish up your milk. You will stay with us as long as need be.”

Remy swallowed, hugging the warm mug. “Adam is not going to like that.”

“Don’t let my brother’s ways offend you.” Mary sat back, smoothing the apron pinned to her dress. “His role in this family is an important one. On most matters I wouldn’t dream of arguing with him, but sometimes he pushes us all down a difficult road.”

Remy thought of the cold, detached way he’d asked her to leave … and then the exquisite gentleness he’d displayed when he’d helped her from the car. What had she called it? Killing her with kindness. “He’s a man of contradictions.”

“That he is,” Mary said, “but his heart is in the right place.” She rose and tucked her chair under the table. “You get some rest. If you need anything, just ask Sadie.”

“You’re in the girls’ room, just like last time,” Sadie said, taking the empty mug from Remy.

Upstairs, Sadie led the way to the familiar room with its dusky rose walls and six beds, three of which were occupied by Ruthie
and the twins, already fast asleep under their quilts. This was the room she had slept in more than two weeks ago, though it seemed to be an older, cherished memory, like the locket she’d had since childhood, the heart-shaped charm holding a tiny picture of her mother’s smiling face.

Sitting on the edge of a bed, Remy yawned. If it weren’t for the overwhelming weariness, she would have stayed awake to savor the safe, peaceful feeling of being in a room full of sleeping girls, their hair splayed over pillows, their chests rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep.

“This reminds me of summer camp.” Keeping her voice to a husky whisper, Remy turned down the quilt and slid into bed. “I always loved sleeping in the cabin with my friends.” The air in the room was cool, but it was cozy under the covers.

“Sweet dreams,” Sadie said, shutting off the gas lamp.

As the light faded and the room’s rosy hues gave way to velvet darkness, Remy found comfort in the deep quiet broken only by the stirring of breath. Real peace abided here. Secure in that comfort, she let go of her worries and found her way to a blessed sleep.

now.

It covered everything as far as Remy could see. The barn and outbuildings, fence posts and fields, tree branches and troughs. Every hill and valley was made white, smooth, pristine. Dancing flurries filled the air, adding magic to the scene, as if someone had shaken a snow globe of a Tyrolean village in the Alps.

The white covering brought its own illumination to the purple light of dawn, making it easier for Remy to watch from the bedroom window as Adam and Gabe, flashlights on their heads, guided the cows in for milking.

Milking time. She had to get out and help.

Turning back to the room, she was amazed at how quietly the other girls had slipped out without waking her. It was actually the moo of a cow that had pulled her from sleep. That and the fact that she had probably gotten to bed before nine
P.M
. and slept straight through.

She crossed the room, taking a moment to bounce on her bed
and take it all in. Amazing how your disposition improved with a good night’s sleep. She straightened the pillow and smoothed the quilt, then hurried downstairs.

The kitchen was empty, though the coffeepot on the stove was still warm. A quick search revealed her clothes hanging on a chair by the potbellied stove. Still damp. Whatever.

She pulled her leather jacket on over the nightgown, stepped into a pair of muck boots on the porch, and headed out to the cowshed, the section of the barn with stalls for milking. Although she hadn’t had success with milking last time, she’d learned that there were plenty of things she could do, from cleaning the cows’ teats to toting pails of milk to the larger vats.

The large barn door was still slightly open, and Remy slipped into the welcome warmth as well as the earthy smells of hay and animal. Cows were tied to the posts, and Remy could make out the forms of people seated beside each creature, milking by hand.

“Good morning!” Ruthie called as she lugged a silver vat down the aisle. She wore a bright blue bonnet that covered her ears and tied like a gift package under her chin. “Come for another milking lesson?”

“I think I’ll stick to the manual labor,” Remy said. “How about that snow? Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“No school today!” one of the girls chimed in from behind a cow. “Adam said we’ll turn into Popsicles if we try to walk in this weather.”

“No school!” Ruthie clasped her hands under her chin. “That makes it a very special day!”

“I have half a mind to hitch Jigsaw up to the old sleigh.” Jonah was milking the cow to Remy’s right. “Do you think it would work, Adam?”

“Depends on how well packed the snow is.” Adam’s voice came from up the aisle. “If this keeps up, we can give it a try. It’s really
coming down and from the way the air feels, the look of that sky, I don’t see it letting up anytime soon. You’re probably stuck here for the day, Remy.”

“Oh.” Just like that, he was giving up on getting her out of here? Not that she minded so much. It was nice to be welcome, and today he didn’t seem at all upset about the prospect of her staying on.

Still, if Adam couldn’t help her find a way out by noon, she would find a towing service to retrieve her and her car. “That’s okay. But it might stop, right?”

Jonah turned to her, his eyes dark with the serenity of a person who accepted things as they were. “That’s not likely.”

Adam’s head poked out from under one of the cows. “Remy?” He stood up for a better look. “That’s some getup you’re wearing there.”

“Do ya think?” Remy swirled the skirt of the nightgown around her knees. “My clothes are still drying.”

Sadie peeked out from under a cow and gave a little laugh. “You may be on to something. I want to do the morning milking in my nightgown.”

“You didn’t have to come out here.” Adam’s voice sounded kind today, without a trace of the disapproval she’d faced the night before. “Especially after the accident. You should probably take it easy.”

“But I want to help,” Remy insisted as Ruthie handed her a pair of work gloves. More than that, she wanted to be a part of the easy banter that passed as they kept to their tasks.

“Don’t let Mary see,” Gabe said. “She gets upset when I get mud on my trousers. But a nightgown?”

“There’s no mud.” Jonah stood and moved out of the stall, three-legged stool in one arm, bucket in the other. “Everything is frozen solid.” He handed Remy the pail of milk. “If you’ll take this, I’ll move on to milk Elma.”

“Got it.” Remy took the bucket, though it weighed down her left arm considerably.

“I’ll show you where to pour that.” Ruthie picked up a bucket from Sadie’s stall and led the way down the aisle toward the back of the cowshed.

As they worked, Ruthie explained how the big vat was hooked up to a refrigeration unit that kept the milk cool until the driver, a Mennonite man who had worked for their family for years, came and carted it off in a big truck.

“Most of it goes to our uncle Nate’s farm, where it gets turned into cheese,” Ruthie explained.

Remy glanced back down the aisle, where Gabe was moving some of the cows out the wide barn door. “And you have to milk them twice a day, every day?”

“Every day.” Ruthie rolled her eyes. “Even on Sundays.”

“And snow days.”

“But Adam says it’s going to get easier. We’re getting milking machines, like the ones at Uncle Nate’s farm. You just hook up the hoses and it does all the work, easy as pie.”

“Really? With a machine like that, maybe even I could milk one of your cows.” As Remy poured milk from a bucket into the larger vat, some of the liquid splattered onto the hem of her nightgown.

“Oops!” Ruthie’s eyes went wide. “There goes Mary’s nightgown.”

Remy stepped back from the vat and flapped the damp fabric in the air. “That’s what I get for going out to the barn in a nightgown.”

“Don’t worry. Mary will understand.” Ruthie picked up the empty bucket in one hand and assessed Remy with narrowed eyes. “Mary is just your size. I think she’ll loan you a dress you can wear while you’re out and about in the snow.”

“That would be perfect.”

“You’d better go back to the house,” Ruthie advised with grave authority. “You can’t sit at the breakfast table in a wet nightgown.”

“You are so right.” The girl was wise beyond her years, Remy thought as she hitched up her nightgown, ducked out of the barn, and ran through the snowstorm, rubber boots flopping all the way back to the house.

Breakfast was sausage and granola cereal and a scrambled egg casserole everyone called Hidden Eggs that smelled of melted butter. Wearing a deep purple dress that Mary generously loaned her, Remy sat at Adam’s right hand, but not before she noticed a new face at the far end of the table.

“Remy, I don’t think you’ve met our grandmother, Nell King.” From Adam’s relaxed demeanor, Remy sensed genuine affection for his grandmother as he made the introduction.

Remy gave a respectful nod. “I think we met at the market, but not officially.”

“Ya, I remember.” The older woman nodded, the hint of a smile on her lips.

“She lives in the Doddy house.” Sadie placed a pitcher on the table. “It’s the little cottage down the lane, just past the vegetable garden.” She said something to her grandmother in Pennsylvania Dutch and took the seat beside her.

The older woman’s dark eyes, magnified by her spectacles, held a bit of amusement as she responded in kind. Remy suspected that their grandmother didn’t miss much.

“I couldn’t open my door this morning. The snow was this high.…” Nell King lifted a hand above her head.

“Oh, Mammi!” Susie’s eyes were bright with amusement as she took a seat. “Did you dig a tunnel to us?”

“Jonah came to my aid. Jonah and his horse.”

“The horses like the snow.” Jonah stepped in from the door of the porch. “The ice can be a problem, of course, but they can gain steady footing in the snow, and they’ve got a thick coat to protect them from the cold.”

“The only thing is …” Simon held up one finger, capturing everyone’s attention. “You must make sure the horse’s legs are dry at the end of the day. They can get very sick from wet legs. Their legs get chapped and cracked, like our lips.”

Adam nodded in approval. “Someone has been paying attention.”

From the encouragement given to Simon, it was clear everyone in the family was pleased with his progress. To think that he hadn’t been able to speak more than a word or two just a year ago—it was a wonder that he’d come so far.