Different Paths (4 page)

Chapter Seven

Nick’s phone rang only once before it was picked up. But it wasn’t Nick’s voice I heard. I suppressed a groan. “Miranda?”

A quick breath. “Oh, it’s
you
.”

“Where’s Nick?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Look, what do you want?”

I stifled a swear word. “What do you think I want? I want to talk to Nick.”

“Well, you can’t. He’s not here.”

I didn’t feel guilty any longer about wanting to smack her on the head. “When’s he getting home?”

“Don’t know. He’s pretty busy today.”

“Okay. Fine. Will you at least leave him a message to call me?”

“I’ll leave a message.”

Spoken like I’d asked for the world.

“Thank you,” I said. “So much.” I don’t think I was successful keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. I slammed down my phone.

“Who was that?”

I looked up and leaned back in my office chair to stretch, my feet still resting on the desk. I was pooped from an afternoon of chores: finishing up the water cups, checking fences, cleaning the heifer barn… I’d checked on Wendy several times, but she still hadn’t produced much more than that cud she kept recycling.

“It was Nick’s annoying sister.”

Lucy grinned. “The younger one. Miranda.”

“Yeah. The older one’s fine.”

“Liz, right?”

I grunted a yes. I didn’t want to talk about Nick’s sisters, who knew his schedule better than I did. Knew what he was busy doing, and would be seeing him yet that day.

I pulled my feet off my desk. “Lucy?”

She was flipping through folders in the filing cabinet, pausing now and then to check a tab before moving on. “Yeah?”

“How long do you think you’re going to work for me?”

She looked up, her fingers stuck in the drawer, holding her spot. “What?”

“You think you’ll want to work for me for a while?”

She frowned. “Well, sure. Why would I stop?”

I looked down at my desk, then back at her. “Just wondering.”

“Stella—”

“Never mind. I’m just…trying to plan.”

She pulled her hand out of the drawer and turned toward me, crossing her arms over her chest. “Stella, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“But—”

“You heading out for supper soon?”

She stood there, eyes narrowed.

I stared back.

She finally gave a little shake of her head. “I thought I would go home for supper, since you’re taken care of for food.”

“You can always go home, even if I’m not having supper made for me.”

She breathed a laugh through her nose. “Like I’m going to leave you to your toast and apple butter every night.”

“Apple butter? Who gets that gourmet?”

Now she laughed out loud. “Have fun at Ma’s. I’ll be back to do the milking, as usual.”

“Zach still here?”

“Nope. He just took off with Randy to go check on Randy’s calf. Zach’s supposed to be at Ma’s house for supper, too, so you’ll see him there.”

“Randy can drive?”

“Got his license two days ago.”

I shivered at the thought of Zach in a car with a sixteen-year-old driver, even if that driver was Zach’s responsible and good-natured friend Randy. They attended 4-H meetings together and Randy had bought one of my calves that winter to be his project. He and Zach made a good team. But that didn’t mean I was comfortable with my “nephew” in the hands of a teen-age driver. And a boy driver at that.

“What’s he driving? Don’t tell me some suped-up Trans Am or something.”

Lucy smiled. “Nope. An old Caddy. One of those huge ones. If he gets in a wreck it’ll be the other car that suffers.”

“Unless it’s an SUV.”

She sobered. “We’ll just keep our thoughts positive, won’t we? And pray for safety on the roads.”

“I’ll leave that up to you. You’re better at it.”

“Praying or positive thinking?”

“Both.”

She sighed. “Oh, Stella. I wish you’d—”

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Don’t know if I’ll see you tonight or not. Depends how late you’re out partying with the Grangers.”

“I’m gonna eat and run.”

“Really?”

“That’s my plan.”

“Yeah?” Lucy smiled. “Well, good luck with that.”

***

I set my helmet on the ground by my bike because there was no point in taking it into Ma’s house. She knew I always wore it, and nobody else would dare say anything. Besides, no one would swipe it from under my bike in her neighborhood.

The small front porch was crammed with people, and I took a deep breath before heading up the sidewalk. I responded to the greetings as nicely as I could, but was glad to escape the crush, especially since there were several faces I didn’t recognize. I let myself in the front door as quickly as I could, only to find more people in the living room. I waved at Jethro and Belle, Zach’s parents, but continued past them. Ma was in the kitchen, taking the Saran wrap off the top of some almond spinach salad, and I leaned against the counter as she crumpled up the plastic and threw it away.

Mallory, Zach’s older sister, sat at the table with her boyfriend, Brady Willard, Detective Willard’s son, who had met the Grangers—and therefore Mallory—through trouble at my farm. Now they were scooping homemade strawberry jam into a couple of cut-glass bowls, trying to keep the sticky mess from getting on their fingers.

Ma glanced up at me, then at her watch. “Glad you could make it.”

“I’m not late.”

“Didn’t say you were. But come on now, it’s time to eat.”

Mallory and Brady led the way with the jam while I followed Ma into the dining room and listened as she called the rest of the folks to the table. Two couples I didn’t know—who’d been on the front porch—filed into the room, and Ma grabbed my arm and dragged me toward them.

“Katherine and Alan Hershberger,” she said. “This is Stella Crown, my all-but-formally-adopted daughter.”

“Pleased to meet you.” The man, Alan, held out a hand, and I shook it.

“So you’re here to take over one of the churches, huh?” I said. “Kulpsville, is it?”

He smiled crookedly and looked at his wife, dropping my hand.

Katherine laughed. “Actually, I’m the one stepping into the pulpit. But don’t worry, you’re not the first to make that mistake.”

Whoops. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed…”

She glanced at Alan and slid a hand around his elbow. “Really, it’s all right. It’s perfectly natural for you to expect a male minister. My feelings don’t get hurt that easily. Oh.” She gestured to the couple beside her. “This is my sister, Tricia, and her husband, David Stoltzfus.”

David grinned and nodded. Tricia gave me a tight-lipped smile and stood close to David, her arms flat against her sides. Looked like she enjoyed large get-togethers about as much as I did. She was a tallish woman, her head about even with mine, but standing next to her husband she looked small. David was huge. Not a lot of height, but built like a brick chicken house, as my high school phys ed teacher would’ve said.

Beside Tricia stood a young woman who was practically a carbon copy of her. Although this copy was young, fresh, and holding out her hand. “I’m Sarah. Their daughter.” She tilted her head toward Tricia and the Schwarzenegger look-alike while she gripped my hand so hard I winced.

Katherine looked around the room. “Our son, Trevor, is here somewhere…”

Ma clapped her hands. “Have a seat, everyone. Wherever you fit is fine. No need to be formal.”

I found a chair next to Zach and he smirked at me from under his bangs. “Smooth move with the lady pastor.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Randy, who was a member of Katherine’s new church, had followed Zach to supper, and sat on Zach’s other side. He grinned, too, and I gave him a glare for good measure.

Ma stood at the head of the table. “Katherine has agreed to offer the blessing, so if you’ll take the hands of the people next to you…”

Zach offered his hand on my left and Katherine’s sister, Tricia, who had slid into the chair next to me, took my right.

When everyone had settled in Katherine smiled. “Let’s pray together.” She closed her eyes and began speaking. “Our loving God, we gather together today as old friends and new, looking forward to a renewal of relationship and the celebration of relationship to come. We thank you for the people gathered around this table and for the food we are about to eat. Please bless it to our bodies and bless the hands that prepared it. Bless also our conversation and our fellowship so that it may all be pleasing in your sight. In the name of our risen Lord, Amen.”

Murmurs of “Amen” echoed around the table, and I dropped my neighbors’ hands. The prayer had been a good one, but what had interested me even more was the fact that neither Alan nor the Hershbergers’ son, Trevor—who had showed up to the table just in time—had closed their eyes during the prayer, instead choosing to stare either at the tablecloth or the ceiling. I wondered if Katherine was aware of this, or if it was just a one-time thing. It would be kind of embarrassing, I thought, for a minister’s family not to pay proper respect during a prayer.

But then, I wasn’t about to tell her. Besides it being none of my business, the fact that I saw them with their eyes open meant mine hadn’t been shut, either.

“So where is Tori these days?” Jethro boomed out. “Some fancy new job?”

Alan shook his head. “Actually, she’s on a mission trip to Honduras. She graduated this spring with a B.A. in International Relations and headed right down south to put that diploma to work.”

“Good for her,” Ma said. “She’ll do a bang-up job.”

“You know her well, then,” the brother-in-law, David, said, smiling.

Ma shook her head. “Not well. I’ve met her a time or two. But I know her mother here, and if Tori’s anything like Katherine was at that age, she’ll be setting the world on fire before we know it.”

Alan laughed. “You’ve got that right. Like mother, like daughter.”

“Sarah decided to step out on her own, too.” David put his arm around the back of his daughter’s chair. “Was accepted into Temple Law School last week. Tricia and I are proud as peacocks.” He looked toward his wife, his face alight with excitement.

Tricia, beside me, scraped her food around on her plate with her fork before offering another tight smile. I guessed she was following through with the whole peacock idea, letting her husband strut his stuff.

“We’re proud of Sarah, too,” Katherine said. “She’s worked hard through college, and it’s paid off.”

“Of course it did,” Ma said. “From everything I’ve seen so far, Sarah’s a smart girl.”

Sarah laughed. “I try. I just can’t wait to get started this fall. Being a lawyer will just be, you know, so exciting.”

She was just so, you know,
young
.

I saw Katherine sneak a smile at Ma and tried to figure out the connection between these two families. “So you’ve known the Grangers a while?” I looked at Katherine, remembering the mention of “old friends” in her prayer.

“Oh, boy.” She caught Ma’s eye. “How many years would it be?”

Ma’s forehead crinkled even more than usual. “How old are you?”

“Forty-three.”

“Then I’ve known you forty-three years. And Tricia for forty-one?”

Tricia nodded.

I frowned. “How come I’ve never met you folks?”

Katherine took the plate of mashed potatoes Alan handed her and plunked a spoonful onto her plate. “Our family moved away when I was twelve and Tricia was ten. Went up to New York State to plant a church. I met Alan and stayed up there. Most of my communication with the Grangers these past…thirty years?…has been through my parents and then through letters. And now e-mail. I’ve been back a time or two, but nothing recently.”

“And you?” I turned to Tricia.

She looked over at me briefly, then back down to the roll she was holding. “I met David at a Mennonite youth convention during high school, and after we got married I moved down to Lancaster to be with him. I haven’t been back here since I was a kid. Didn’t keep in touch like Katherine has, either.”

Well, that explained it, then. I hadn’t “joined” the Granger family until I was eleven and had saved the youngest Granger son, Abe, from drowning. After that I’d been welcomed into the Granger fold, which was good since I lost my mother five years later. My dad had already been gone a good dozen years before that. Other than Howie, who’d served as my guardian and farmhand, I’d have been alone in the world if it hadn’t been for this loving and blessedly large family.

“And Trevor,” Ma said, passing him the bread, “you’ve certainly grown up since I saw you last.”

He peered at her. “When was that?”

“He would’ve been…what?” She looked at Katherine. “When was the last time you were here?”

“Ten years ago, maybe. He was only seven.”

“So that means…” I looked at Mallory. “He’s your age?”

She made a face that said she didn’t know, and Brady shrugged.

“He’ll be a senior at Christopher Dock this year,” Alan said. The Mennonite high school where Mallory and Zach both attended. So Mallory
would
be in his class that fall.

“A tough year to move,” I said.

Trevor finally looked up, right at me, but didn’t say anything. The expression on his face was enough to tell me what he thought. It hadn’t been
his
choice to move before his last year of high school.

“We considered that, of course,” Katherine said. “It was a hard decision for all of us.”

I didn’t look away from Trevor, and he ducked his head toward his plate. I wondered how much say he’d actually had in the matter.

But then, like the eyes-open-during-the-prayer thing, their family business was certainly not mine.

Ma set down her fork. “I was so sorry not to get to your mother’s funeral this spring.”

Tricia made a choking sound beside me, and I looked to make sure she was all right.

“We did miss you,” Katherine said, “but we understood. You were going through some rough times here, too.”

I looked at Ma, who met my eyes with her sad ones. Just this spring her son Jordan’s fiancée had been killed, and he’d been a mess. It must have been during that time that Katherine and Tricia’s mother had died, and Ma felt she couldn’t leave Jordan alone. Or expect him to attend another funeral.