Rachel's Garden (30 page)

“Forgiving can be hard. Maybe the hardest thing of all. That’s why it’s so important, and why we have to keep learning that lesson over and over again. Jesus forgives us, and He expects us to forgive others.”

“I want to.” Becky turned her face against Rachel’s sleeve, wetting it with her tears, her voice muffled. “How can I?”

Rachel stroked her hair, knowing that she had the answer but hating to reveal so much of her own failure. But maybe that was part of the lesson God had to teach her.

“You know, for a long time after your daadi died, I had trouble forgiving.” Her throat tightened, not wanting to let the words out. But she had to speak them. “I knew it wasn’t Gideon’s fault that he lived when Daadi died, but I was angry, and I blamed him for it.”

Becky didn’t speak, but Rachel knew she was listening with all her heart.

“It was wrong, that not forgiving, and it hurt me even more than it hurt Gideon. I had to find a way to forgive and let go of the hurt.”

“How, Mammi? How did you do it?” Becky tilted her face back, looking up into Rachel’s eyes, her whole body seeming to yearn for an answer.

“I talked to Bishop Mose. And you know what he told me? He said that I had to act as if I’d forgiven, no matter what I was feeling. He said I should think of what I would do if I had forgiven, and do that. He said the feelings would follow. And he was right.”

Becky’s forehead knotted as she struggled to understand.

Rachel stroked the wrinkles gently with her finger. She had to concentrate on teaching forgiveness now, and leave the difficult lesson of when it was right to tell on a friend for another day.

“What would you do if you really had forgiven Elizabeth for telling on you?”

“I would go to the quilting and play with her.” That answer was obvious.

“Then that is what you must do.”

Becky hesitated for a long moment. Then she gave a nod, slid off the bed, and fished for her shoe.

Forgiving others wasn’t easy. Gideon’s painful confession, never absent from her thoughts, demanded her attention. Gideon had to master an even more difficult task. He had to learn to forgive himself.

 

The
living room at Leah’s seemed about to burst from the sheer volume of conversation as the women gathered around the quilting frames. Leah’s mamm was there, of course, and one of her aunts. Two of her sisters-in-law, also—Barbara, plump and cheerful, had her six-month-old on a blanket at her feet, while Myra divided her attention between the quilting frame and the boppli who slept in a cradle near her chair.

Leah had placed herself and Rachel at the second quilting frame with her other sister-in-law, Esther, newly returned from her wedding trip, and one of their running-around friends from school, Naomi Miller.

Was Leah thinking about the person who wasn’t there as she handed round spools of white thread? Rachel knew how much Leah grieved over her baby sister, Anna, lost to the English world. How happy it would make her if Anna walked in the door right now, to take her proper place around the quilting frame. But it wouldn’t happen, not today

Rachel thought of Johnny. Maybe never.

She was not nearly as accomplished a quilter as some of the others were, so maybe she’d best focus on her work.

Esther glanced toward the other frame. “They are going to have theirs done long before we do, that’s sure.”

“The fastest quilters are all on one quilt.” Leah sent a teasing look at her mamm’s frame. “Maybe we should make them send one over to us.”

“Or tie one of Barbara’s hands behind her back,” Naomi said.

“Ach, I have one hand occupied with the boppli as it is.” Barbara chuckled, her good nature unimpaired by the teasing. “Wait until you all have babes to deal with.”

Since both she and Naomi had children, that comment was obviously aimed at Leah and Esther. Leah ignored it, her hand swooping smoothly over the surface of the quilt, while Esther’s rosy cheeks grew even pinker. Had Esther come back from her wedding trip pregnant? If so, she didn’t seem inclined to announce it with her mother-in-law sitting at the other frame.

The chatter proceeded as quickly, as the tiny, almost invisible stitches traced their pattern across the quilt. No one would admit it, but each one wanted her stitches to be as perfect as possible. Not a matter of pride, Rachel hoped. Probably the others felt, as she did, that this baby quilt was a precious gift for the child Leah had never expected to have.

Rachel caught Leah’s gaze across the frame, the delicate pattern stretched between them. Leah smiled, her eyes glowing with a kind of inward light, and Rachel’s heart lifted. It wouldn’t be long until Leah held that babe in her arms instead of beneath her heart.

By the time Rachel rose to follow Leah into the kitchen to set out the midmorning snack, the other group, for all their talking, had predictably made more progress than they had.

“They’re showing us up,” she murmured to Leah as they reached the kitchen.

“Let them.” Leah glanced back fondly at the women around the frame. “It will give Barbara something wonderful gut to brag about.”

Anything that kept Barbara focused on her own business instead of everyone else’s was just fine. They both knew that, though they’d try not to say it. Leah exhibited endless patience with her tactless sister-in-law—far more than Rachel would be able to manage, she feared.

Leah lifted the coffeepot from the stove. “I’m so glad to see Becky and Elizabeth playing happily together again.”

Rachel’s fingers tightened, crumbling a piece of cinnamon-walnut streusel cake. “Leah, I am so sorry I didn’t even realize that Becky was holding a foolish grudge until today. I should have known. I should have seen.”

“How could you if she didn’t want you to?” Leah was calmly reassuring. “Now, don’t start blaming yourself for that. Think of all the things we kept from our mamms when we were their age.”

“I suppose so, but still.” She couldn’t dismiss her sense of guilt that easily. “Sometimes I think that Ezra was much better with the children than I am. I don’t remember having these kinds of problems when he was with us.”

Leah set the coffeepot on a hot pad and snitched a corner of the coffee cake Rachel had broken, popping it in her mouth. “Of course not. They were smaller then, and their problems were smaller. The bigger they get, the bigger the problems. My mamm always says that, and I’m beginning to think she’s right about a lot of things.”

“Maybe when we’re as old as our mothers, we’ll be as wise.”

“You’re already a wise mother.” Leah patted her hand. “Never think that you’re not. You’re just not perfect yet, is all.”

“That’s certain sure.” Rachel smiled, feeling some of the burden slip away just from sharing it. It was always that way with her and Leah. She hoped their girls would be as fortunate in their friendship. “Will I tell the others to come in now?”

At Leah’s nod, Rachel went to the doorway to announce that the food was ready. The quilters flowed into the kitchen on a current of talk and laughter.

Rachel found herself next to Naomi as she took a slice of rhubarb coffee cake.

“How are the children doing?” she asked in an undertone. Two of Naomi’s three children had the Crigler-Najjar syndrome that affected too many of the Amish, and it was always possible that Naomi didn’t want to talk about it today.

“Doing well, denke.” Naomi’s smile blossomed. “We are wonderful lucky to have the clinic where your brother works. They are saving lives, I know, and one day perhaps they will find a cure.”

Rachel’s heart warmed to hear Johnny spoken of so naturally Before she could respond to Naomi, Barbara said her name.

“Rachel, I hear you and Isaac are on the outs these days.” Barbara’s smile was as cheerful as if she were talking about the weather. “He can be a stubborn one, can’t he?”

Several women sent sidelong glances toward Barbara and then looked studiously at their plates.

Rachel shrugged, hoping Barbara would take the hint.

“Your raspberry cake is delicious, Barbara,” Naomi interrupted forcefully “You must let us have the recipe.”

“Ja,” Leah’s mother said. “It’s wonderful gut.”

Barbara flushed with pleasure. “I will. But I was talking to Rachel about Isaac.”

“I don’t think Rachel wants to talk about that.” Leah’s mamm tried to rein in her daughter-in-law, and Rachel shot her a look of gratitude.

“Ach, I’m just saying what everyone is thinking,” Barbara insisted. “Naturally Isaac feels he has a right to interfere as head of the family. But if Rachel were to marry again, then it would be none of his business.”

She stopped, finally, smiling as if pleased that she’d come up with the solution to all of Rachel’s difficulties.

Several people tried to say something, anything, to cover the moment. If she’d been dipped into a pot of boiling apple butter, Rachel couldn’t have felt hotter.

The spatula Leah was holding clattered to the table, startling everyone to silence. “That’s enough.” Leah’s voice snapped in the tone she had used in the schoolroom on the rare occasions when her students had gotten out of line. “Barbara, whether it is Isaac’s business or not, it is certainly not yours!”

Silence. Stillness. No one moved, no one spoke. Impossible to tell what they were thinking. Shocked, most probably. For Leah, calm, patient Leah, to lose her temper—Rachel could not have been more surprised if the table had cracked under the weight of all those dishes.

Barbara laughed. An unconvincing sound, but at least she made the effort. “Ach, I’m sorry. I’m talking out of turn again, I guess. Levi’s always telling me to think before I speak, but I can’t get in the way of doing it.”

“Just keep trying,” Naomi said, surprising them and reducing the tension in the kitchen by a few degrees. “Maybe it’ll take.”

To give Barbara credit, tactless as she was, she took the rebukes gracefully “Forgive me, Rachel.” She looked as if she wanted to say more but firmly closed her mouth on the temptation.

“Of course,” Rachel murmured, grateful that the others had begun chatting, maybe a little desperately, on whatever popped into their heads.

The moment was over. She could forget it, couldn’t she?

Perhaps not. Because if Barbara was saying it, that meant other people were thinking it, and she couldn’t doubt that the person most of them had in mind for her future husband was Gideon. And aside from her own confused feelings, one thing was clear. Gideon would never risk loving again.

 

If
he could have gotten out of it, Gideon would not be helping to set up for a singing at the Miller barn. He’d have been taking refuge from his scrambled thoughts by working, as hard and fast as his body would let him.

But getting out of it wasn’t an option. He’d agreed to help chaperone the singing, and that’s what he would do. Aaron had come along, ostensibly to help, although he was more likely to enjoy a nice long chat with Nathan Miller instead of looking after a barn full of young people.

“Watch out.” He swung his end of a plank out of the way of several running kinder who were as excited by the singing as their older brothers and sisters were.

Aaron grunted, taking a firmer grip on the long board as he headed for the barn. “Time those young ones were in bed.”

“Too excited.”

Gideon paused just inside the barn doors. The barn had been scrubbed as clean for the singing as it would be for worship. But instead of the backless benches they’d have for worship, Nathan and a couple of boys were creating long tables with planks set on sawhorses in the middle of the barn floor. More sawhorses waited along one side, where they’d need tables for the food.

“Come on, let’s get this done with,” Aaron grumbled.

“Anyone would think you’d never gone to a singing. Never kept your eyes peeled for that special girl you were hoping to see. Hoping she was looking for you, too.”

His brother grinned, hefting one end of the plank onto a sawhorse. “You’re sounding like a youngster yourself tonight. Ja, I remember my rumspringa. But I wouldn’t go back and live those days over again for anything. Too much time spent worrying about what the girls were thinking, that’s certain sure.”

“You didn’t have to worry. Lovina was set on you from the first grade, as I recall.”

“Maybe. But she led me a merry dance along the way, I’ll tell you that.”

Nathan finished the table he was working on and came over to them. “Denke.” He rapped the board with his knuckles. “We can use more tables, if everyone comes we’re expecting.”

“More planks in the wagon,” Aaron said. He nudged Gideon’s shoulder. “Komm, Gid. Let’s get the work done.”

“I’ll send the boys to do that.” Nathan beckoned to the teenage boys who were helping him. “Here, you two. Go and fetch the rest of the planks from Aaron’s wagon. Schnell.”

Jostling each other, the two of them set off at a run.

“Better for you to do the setup,” Nathan said. “They’re so ferhoodled over the singing that any tables they knocked together would probably collapse halfway through. Glad you came, both of you.”

“Gideon’s a favorite of the younger crowd when it comes to chaperones. They must figure he’s more likely to let them get away with things than us old folks with families.”

Aaron didn’t mean anything by his careless words. Gideon knew that. Still, they stung with the reminder. He didn’t think he gave any outward sign, but his brother’s face changed.

“Gid, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. Let’s get on with the work.”

“Right.” Aaron slid a long bench into place alongside the table Nathan had completed. “So, how is young Joseph’s doe? Did she kid yet?”

Gut thing he was bent over to pick up one of the hay bales that Nathan was setting around the edges of the singing area. By the time he straightened, he made sure his expression didn’t give anything away.