A Time to Love (23 page)

"What about me?" he asked, pretending to sulk "Maybe I cried, too."

She stood and kissed his cheek. "I doubt that."

He wrapped his arms around her. "I missed you so. I should have gone with you."

"It's just as well you didn't," she said, standing in his embrace. "I think I needed to face it myself. And it was important for you to be here with the children." Moving back, she looked up at him as she found her own handkerchief to wipe way her tears.

She wanted to tell him Hannah's news but that was for her future sister-in-law to tell. So, instead Jenny said, "Come inside and have some coffee and the treat Hannah baked."

There was one more snow after those first daffodils, and then spring was very much in evidence with its sweet promise of new leaves on the trees and men plowing and planting the fields.

Though the air still held a nip, children ran barefoot and enjoyed being outdoors. There was more work for everyone.

Jenny helped with spring cleaning as her grandmother swept through the house looking for every speck of dirt. Even when she didn't find it, she cleaned some more.

Shaking her head as the older woman made her sit and rest while she carried rugs outside to beat the dust—what dust?— from them, Jenny hoped one day when she was fully recovered that she would have such energy.

Now that she had made the commitment to stay, Jenny joined her grandmother in attending Sunday services at the various homes in their community. She could move about better in the kitchen afterward, helping the women to set out the food while the older girls watched the children and the men tended the horses, although she still had to sit down often. And the cane she hated so much was always at hand. But it was better than the walker she'd been able to give up.

As they saw that she was not just Phoebe's visiting granddaughter but a woman who had come to join them and marry one of their favorite sons, she felt the other women warming to her.

One day they surprised her with a quilting at her grandmother's home.

"We thought we'd make a quilt for you," one of the women said. "For you and Matthew. For your bed."

For our marriage bed,
thought Jenny.

One older woman showed her how to cut squares of different fabrics to begin a quilt. Although she'd been watching Phoebe, this was the first time she'd tried it for herself.

Naomi, a woman about Jenny's age, showed Jenny a quilt she'd made of scraps of material she'd had left from making clothes for her children.

"Whenever I look at my favorite quilt, it helps me remember the dress I made for Anna Mae or the shirt Amos loved," Esther said.

Jenny found herself remembering the brightly colored head scarf a young Afghan girl had once given her. Maybe one day she'd make a quilt with a design incorporating that and some clothing she'd bought overseas, she thought, moving some squares around on the table. The task reminded her of how hard she'd worked to pick up the pieces of her life again, make some sense of it, gain some order. Find peace and faith in her God.

Maybe this is
why women love quilting.
It isn't just a way to make something beautiful and creative as well as the all-important
useful.
It's a way to sit and think about the order and purpose in one's life.

Now she had purpose, she realized. She was regaining her mobility with more of the hated physical therapy, writing her book, and learning about the ways of the community. Soon, she'd become a new wife to Matthew and a stepmother to his kinner. She was meeting more of the people in the community and finding herself embraced by a growing group of friends, such as these women who sat around in a circle and showed such willingness to welcome her—and show her how to make the things they loved, like their precious quilts.

Well, it seemed she was welcomed by so many—but not everyone was friendly. Josiah popped into her thoughts. He remained distant and suspicious.

But Jenny was a veteran of TV news and that job was not for the fainthearted. When she got her first nasty letter at the network, David had told her everyone got them and she'd need to develop a thicker skin. After all, no one was liked by everyone. He said a psychologist friend had told him that a person was lucky if half the people who met them liked them.

Perhaps she wasn't doing so badly if Josiah was the only one who didn't seem to like her here. Then again, she had no idea if other people were merely being polite.

Enough,
she told herself. What a silly thing to waste time on. It was a relief finally not to be so housebound. People in the community began to approach her, and she was enjoying things like this quilting circle and work frolics and all the other functions where she wasn't sure if the fun of socializing was more important or the work.

The nicer weather brought out the tourists. They passed the house often each day and milled about in town. Jenny came to accept them as part of life and ignored the occasional questions about why she wasn't "dressed Amish" when she was with her grandmother or Matthew and the
kinner.

She'd enjoyed taking over the reins when Matthew let her drive, so Phoebe showed her how to hitch up her horse to the buggy and encouraged her to take it out if she liked. After all, if Jenny was ever to get around by herself she would have to learn.

Daisy, her grandmother's horse, was patient as Jenny struggled to do the hitching up by herself. She was feeling pretty good when she drove up to the road in front of her grandmother's house and looked both ways for traffic.

Just then, she saw Josiah going past in his buggy. Jenny lifted her hand in greeting and he turned his head to regard her with a stony face, then stared ahead.

Shaking her head, wondering if he would ever change his mind about her, she called to Daisy and gave the reins a shake.

Daisy stepped onto the road and then hesitated. She cocked her ear and stopped.

"C'mon, Daisy, let's go!" Jenny called to her.
Cars don't do this,
she thought. "Go, horsie! Now!"

Shaking her head, Daisy moved forward, entering the road.

It happened so suddenly,
Jenny would think later.

A speeding car came out of nowhere. The driver honked the horn and brakes squealed as the car tried to avoid the buggy entering the road.

Jenny tried desperately to get out of its way, pulling at the reins, but Daisy reared up in panic and jerked the opposite way, and the buggy skidded and toppled over.

Jenny screamed as she slid across the seat and threw out her arms to break her fall. Her head hit the side of the buggy, and she blacked out.

Matthew heard a car horn and the scream of brakes. He dropped the bag of seed he was holding and rushed out to look down the road.

Josiah was turning his buggy around.

"What happened?"

"Accident. Get in."

But Matthew ran, too terrified to ride. There was an overturned buggy down by Phoebe's house.
What if it is her—or Jenny—in it?

A car was parked beside the road. He looked further and saw Daisy struggling to get free of the buggy that lay on its side.

"Dear God," he cried. "Please, let Jenny and Phoebe be all right."

He ran past the
Englisch
woman who had been driving the car. She had a cell phone in her hand.

"I called 911," she called to him. "Someone's hurt in the buggy."

Phoebe rushed out of the house. "Matthew? What happened?"

His steps faltered and his heart leaped into his throat. "It's Jenny? Jenny's in the buggy?"

He ran and peered into the buggy. Jenny lay crumpled on her side in the wreckage. Grabbing Daisy's bridle, he worked to restrain her from pulling at the buggy and further injuring Jenny. The horse's eyes were wide and wild.

"Phoebe, see how badly Jenny is hurt."

Frantically, he freed the horse.

Josiah took her reins and led her away, talking quietly to calm her.

Phoebe looked up from where she knelt beside Jenny's prone body. Her face was white and her eyes were filled with fear. "Matthew, she's unconscious."

He checked for a pulse but it felt weak. "She's breathing."

"I don't know where she's hurt." Tears ran down Phoebe's cheeks. "Oh, I feel so helpless!"

Then, just as she said the words, she took a deep breath and Matthew could see her willing herself to calm.

"God is in charge," she said, as if reminding herself. "There is no place He is not." She began praying as she stroked the hair back from Jenny's pale face.

"They said the ambulance is on the way," said the driver."We're not supposed to move her."

The sound of sirens grew louder as emergency vehicles came up the road.

Jenny was carefully lifted from the wreckage and placed on a board. The paramedics carried her to the waiting ambulance and put her inside.

"You her husband?" a paramedic asked Matthew.

He knew they were asking so that they could let him ride with her to the hospital. For a moment, he was tempted to say yes, but he couldn't lie.

"Not yet," he said. "This is her grandmother."

The paramedic turned to Phoebe. "Do you want to ride with us, ma'am?"

"Yes, please."

They helped her into the ambulance. The doors shut, the siren started, and the ambulance took off in a burst of speed.

Matthew realized that Josiah was speaking to him.

"Get in the buggy," the older man said. "I'll drive you to the hospital.

Matthew hesitated.

"Please. Get in the buggy. I've already taken the horse to Phoebe's barn."

He climbed inside, and Josiah jerked the reins, urging his horse to a gallop.

"She will be all right," he told Matthew. "She's a strong woman. You and I have seen that, have we not?"

Surprised, Matthew glanced over at him. He didn't know what to say so he said nothing.

"We must do as Phoebe did," the older man said. "We must pray."

Matthew nodded and asked God to take care of Jenny. The moment Josiah pulled up to the hospital's emergency entrance, Matthew jumped out of the buggy.

"Thank you," he managed to say before he bolted into the hospital.

Phoebe was in the waiting room. He went to sit with her, and they held hands while they waited.

"Jenny woke up in the ambulance," she told him. "She was talking to the paramedics, and they said that was good."

An eternity seemed to pass. Matthew smelled the disinfectant smells and watched the nurses taking patients behind the closed doors. Other people sat in the waiting room, wearing worried expressions. Everyone looked up expectantly each time a doctor or nurse entered. Tension filled the room, a familiar tension and dread.

"You can see her now," the nurse came to tell them.

Phoebe got up and turned to him when he didn't follow."Matthew?"

But he couldn't make himself move. "I—" He shook his head. "You go first."

"You know that you'll just sit here and worry. And she'll want to see you."

Matthew got to his feet. He fought the sense of panic as they walked down the hallway behind the nurse.

Jenny was sitting up on a gurney in a cubicle, looking unhappy as she held an ice bag on her wrist. There was bruising on her forehead, and a small bandage covered one eyebrow."I can't believe what happened," she said when she saw them."Please tell me that driver got a speeding ticket!"

"I don't know," Phoebe told her as she bent to hug her. "I rode in the ambulance with you. What did the doctor say?"

"I have a sprained wrist," she said, holding it up for them to see how swollen it was.

Then she was staring at him. "Matthew?"

Her voice echoed in his ears as if he stood in a tunnel."I—I'll be right back."

He stumbled out of the room and down the hallway, nearly running someone over in his rush to get outside. There, he took several deep breaths to steady himself.

What must Jenny have thought?
he asked himself. Had he offered her comforting words, or said he was glad she was not seriously injured? No, he'd stood there, silent, and then had rushed out of the room.