Rachel's Garden (37 page)

Thank You, Father.
Rachel felt the tears Mamm was stifling, felt her own eyes prick.
Thank You.

 

A
few hours later, Rachel knew that her opening was a success. She’d been steadily busy, selling to English and Amish alike.

She knew, well enough, that the Amish had turned out to support her and might not prove to be continuing customers, but that didn’t matter. Plenty of English had come, praised the quality of her offerings, and promised to tell others.

Everyone had come—everyone except Gideon. Rachel tried telling herself that she was foolish. She had every reason to be happy today. Her business was booming, her friends had turned out to support her, the breach with Isaac and William was well on its way to being healed.

Best of all, her father and brother were working their way toward a new relationship. God had answered her prayers in an amazing way, and she was truly grateful.

Yet each time she looked at the greenhouse, overflowing with plants, each time she saw the windmill, its blades circling gracefully, each time she let her mind stray to Gideon, her heart grew heavier.

Nodding and smiling as she waited on a customer, she tried to be sensible. Gideon had done what he’d set out to do. He’d fulfilled his promise to Ezra, and thanks to him, she would become self-sufficient.

She still had to make a decision about the farm, but with Isaac no longer pressuring her and some money coming in, she could take her time. She would listen for God’s leading and trust that He would show her the right decision at the right time.

And then she saw him. Gideon worked his way through the crowd toward her. He carried a windmill—the model windmill he’d shown her the plans for, that day when she’d begun to feel she knew him.

She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “You’ve made the model windmill you talked about. It turned out so well. You must be pleased with it.”

“Ja.” He set it at the edge of her flowerbed, twisting it to settle it firmly into the damp soil. “I made it for you. For the business, I mean.” He was staring at the windmill instead of her. “Maybe folks will want to buy them for garden ornaments.”

“Maybe they will.” Was that the only reason he’d come? To try to give Ezra’s widow another small source of income? She swallowed, trying to relieve the tension in her throat. “You’re very kind.”

For an instant something flared in his eyes at her words. It was gone so quickly that she couldn’t identify the emotion.

He cleared his throat, as if his was as constricted as hers. “I wonder—” He glanced around, seeming to register the other people for the first time. “Could we—there’s something in the greenhouse I want you to see. Can someone else take over here?”

Before Rachel could speak, someone bumped her elbow. Lovina had slipped behind the table where she kept the cash box.

“Let me handle the sales for a bit. You’ve been working all day.”

“Denke, Lovina.”

She wouldn’t let herself imagine what this might mean. Instead, she walked steadily across the lawn to the greenhouse. Gideon came beside and a little behind her, not touching. He ducked his head to follow her into the greenhouse and closed the door behind him.

She’d forgotten how much he filled up the greenhouse when they were inside together. With plants hanging all around and filtering the sunlight, it was as if they’d sheltered inside a quiet cave.

Gideon took a breath so deep that his chest heaved. “This is not a gut time. Your opening—” He stopped, shook his head. “I know how William feels when he can’t get the words out.”

Somehow his awkwardness gave her courage. “Just say it, Gideon. Whatever it is. You can tell me anything. We’re friends, ain’t so?”

“Can I tell you that I love you?” His hands clenched. “Ach, I’m making a mess of it, but I want, I need for you to know my heart.”

Love. She heard the word, and her own heart seemed to swell to meet his. She reached out her hands to him, hardly knowing that she was doing it, and he clasped them in his.

“I think I’ve loved you for a long time, but I couldn’t accept it. How could I love you when Ezra was gone? How could I love you when Naomi was gone?”

“Having loved before shouldn’t keep us from loving again.”

“No. It shouldn’t.” His fingers moved caressingly on the backs of her hands, and the touch went straight to her heart. “But I was blind to that, tied up inside myself.”

“What changed you?” She wanted to put her hands to his face but held back, almost afraid to believe this was happening. “At Leah’s, you said—”

“I was stupid.” His mouth curved just a little. “Lovina has been aching to tell me so. I don’t know why she hasn’t.”

A bubble of happiness was rising in Rachel, filling her with warmth and light. “Because Aaron told her to be patient.”

Gideon’s chuckle was soft and deep. “Bishop Mose ran out of patience with me.”

“Bishop Mose? What did he—how did he know—”

“He knows everything, I think. Especially the things we don’t say.” His eyes darkened. “He told me that not forgiving myself was a sin. That it was refusing to accept God’s forgiveness, thinking that I knew better than God.”

“Gideon, I’m sorry.” She wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know how.

“Don’t be. At first I felt as if he’d hit me between the eyes with a two-by-four. It knocked me to my knees. And then I knew it was true. I’d shut myself away from the Lord with my stubbornness, and shut my heart away from loving, too.”

“We make mistakes. It’s only human.” And how often those mistakes came down to forgiveness—forgiving yourself, forgiving others, even forgiving God for taking away someone you loved.

“Can you love someone so stubborn and foolish, Rachel?” He raised her hands to his lips, and his breath crossed her skin in a promise.

She seemed to see Ezra’s face in her heart. He would always be there, but he wouldn’t regret the happiness she and the children would find with Gideon.

“I can,” she whispered, lifting her face for his kiss. God had brought them both through the darkness to new life. They would cherish every day, in His name.

GLOSSARY OF PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH WORDS AND PHRASES

ach.
oh; used as an exclamation

agasinish.
stubborn; self-willed

ain’t so.
A phrase commonly used at the end of a sentence to invite agreement.

alter.
old man

anymore.
Used as a substitute for “nowadays.”

Ausbund.
Amish hymnal. Used in the worship services, it contains traditional hymns, words only, to be sung without accompaniment. Many of the hymns date from the sixteenth century.

befuddled.
mixed up

blabbermaul.
talkative one

blaid.
bashful

boppli.
baby

bruder.
brother

bu.
boy

buwe.
boys

daadi.
daddy

Da Herr sei mit du.
The Lord be with you.

denke.
thanks (or
danki)

Englischer.
one who is not Plain

ferhoodled.
upset; distracted

ferleicht.
perhaps

frau.
wife

fress.
eat

gross.
big

grossdaadi.
grandfather

grossdaadi haus.
An addition to the farmhouse, built for the grandparents to live in once they’ve “retired” from actively running the farm.

grossmutter.
grandmother

gut.
good

hatt.
hard; difficult

haus.
house

hinnersich.
backward

ich.
I

Ja.
yes

kapp.
Prayer covering, worn in obedience to the Biblical injunction that women should pray with their heads covered. Kapps are made of Swiss organdy and are white. (In some Amish communities, unmarried girls thirteen and older wear black kapps during worship service.)

kinder.
kids (or
kinner)

komm.
come

komm schnell.
come quick

Leit.
the people; the Amish

lippy.
sassy

maidal.
old maid; spinster

mamm.
mother

meddaagesse.
lunch

mind.
remember

onkel.
uncle

Ordnung.
The agreed-upon rules by which the Amish community lives. When new practices become an issue, they are discussed at length among the leadership. The decision for or against innovation is generally made on the basis of maintaining the home and family as separate from the world. For instance, a telephone might be necessary in a shop in order to conduct business but would be banned from the home because it would intrude on family time.

Pennsylvania Dutch.
The language is actually German in origin and is primarily a spoken language. Most Amish write in English, which results in many variations in spelling when the dialect is put into writing! The language probably originated in the south of Germany but is common also among the Swiss Mennonite and French Huguenot immigrants to Pennsylvania. The language was brought to America prior to the Revolution and is still in use today. High German is used for Scripture and church documents, while English is the language of commerce.

rumspringa.
Running-around time. The late teen years when Amish youth taste some aspects of the outside world before deciding to be baptized into the church.

schnickelfritz.
mischievous child

ser gut.
very good

tastes like more.
delicious

Was ist letz?
What’s the matter?

Wie bist du heit.
It’s nice to meet you.

wilkom.
welcome

Wo bist du?
Where are you?

 

 

An Excerpt from

ANNA’S RETURN

Pleasant Valley
BOOK THREE
by Marta Perry

 

Coming in June 2010
from Berkley Books

S
he
was beginning to fear that the prodigal daughter wouldn’t make it home after all. Anna Beiler pressed on the gas pedal. “Come on, you can do it.” The old car responded with nothing more than a shudder.

Daad would probably say that this was what she got for depending on something so English as a car to get her home, and maybe he’d be right. Just the thought of seeing her father made her stomach queasy. How would he, how would any of the family, react to Anna’s turning up at her Amish home three years after she’d given up all they believed in to disappear into the English world?

The car gave an ominous sputter. It might be her prized possession, but she didn’t know much about its inner workings. Still, that noise and the shaking couldn’t be good signs.

She gripped the steering wheel tighter, biting her lip, and faced the truth. She wasn’t going to make it to the Beiler farm, the place where she’d been born, the place she’d left in rebellion and disgrace. She’d been nineteen then, sure she knew all about the world. Now, at twenty-two, she felt a decade older than the girl she’d been.

But there, just ahead, she spotted the turnoff to Mill Race Road. Two miles down Mill Race was the home of her brother and sister-in-law. Joseph and Myra would welcome her, wouldn’t they?

Forced into a decision, she’d have to take that chance. She turned onto the narrow road, earning another protesting groan from the car. Her fingers tensed so much that she’d have to peel them from the steering wheel. Worse, now that she was so close, all the arguments for and against coming here pummeled her mind.

Was this the right choice? Her stomach clenched again. She didn’t know. She just knew returning was her only option.

It was strange that things looked the same after three years. Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania, didn’t change, or at least not quickly. Maybe there’d been a little more traffic on the main road, but now that she was off that, not a car was in sight.