Rosemary Opens Her Heart: Home at Cedar Creek, Book Two (19 page)

“Jah, it is.” Abby slung her arm around Emma’s shoulders. “Another cup of tea?”

“I’d best get back. Lots of laundry to do tomorrow, and Dat gets up earlier and earlier
these spring days,” Emma remarked. “He catnaps a lot during the day, so he doesn’t
rest real solid at night. Or maybe that’s on account of Mamm’s snoring.”

They rose from the table and Abby walked her friend to the door. “Sure glad you brought
those lemon bars, Emma. And I—I hope you get to feeling better about the situation
with Matt. Hard as it is to accept, he’s a gut young man. Not one to be mean or hateful.”

Emma shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to rethink my future. I’m not happy about that, but
you’ve been a real help, Abby. See you soon.”

“Jah, take care, Emma.” Abby held the door open, watching as the moonlight made her
friend’s kapp glow. “Keep a pie handy. And you’ll come get me if you put it in one
of their faces, ain’t so?”

Emma’s laughter trailed behind her as she headed up Lambright Lane. And didn’t that
put a better ending on the evening for both of them? After Abby washed their cups
and saucers, she returned to her bedroom and picked up her tablet. It amazed her,
how ideas came from the most ordinary situations. She finished the paragraph about
Paul Bontrager’s passing and then pressed her pencil eraser against her cheek, thinking,
before she completed her column.

Abby glanced across the road, to where James’s lamp still burned in his upstairs window.
She prayed that Emma would find peace and that James would figure out how to handle
all the business success that had come his way. And as for whether he would ask her
out again? Well, God would have His own ideas about that, and she would wait for whatever
the new week might bring.

T
itus sat down at the table for breakfast on Monday morning wearing an expression that
told Rosemary he had something on his mind. Something he was downright tickled about.
It was a rare day when Joe’s dat cracked a smile before he’d had his coffee and a
full meal, so while Beth Ann set out the maple syrup and honey, Rosemary stood at
the stove turning their French toast in the cast-iron skillet, hoping it wasn’t another
life-changing announcement. She’d endured enough of those these past few days.

“Thought I’d wait until you didn’t have any dishes in your hand to say this, Rosemary,”
he began with a chuckle.

She looked over at him, expecting a reprimand for dropping that stack of plates the
other day, even though the Melmac hadn’t broken. But he looked like a boy who was
trying to keep a secret yet itched to tell someone about it. “I’m listening.”

Titus chucked Katie under the chin as she sat in her high chair. “Got word from Matt
Lambright that Preacher Paul Bontrager, over in Cedar Creek, passed away during the
night on Saturday.”

Rosemary swallowed, sensing another shoe was about to drop. “I’m sorry to hear that,”
she murmured. “I know he was one of your friends from a long time ago.”

“Was he the really old fellow who gave the first sermon at the wedding?” Beth Ann
asked.

“Say there! Watch your tongue, when somebody’s got a lot of miles on him!” Titus laughed,
apparently unconcerned about his own mileage—which was a huge improvement over the
mood he’d been in for most of the winter. “Jah, that was Paul, who also owns the farm
across the road from the Lambrights. His pasture adjoins the Graber place,” he continued.
“And when I go to Paul’s funeral on Thursday, I’ll be asking his son, Perry, if he’d
be interested in selling that property—or at least a gut chunk of it. Perry works
at Graber’s Custom Carriages, you see. He doesn’t work the land himself. Has Carl
Byler raising the crops there.”

Rosemary’s heart stopped. Oh, but she knew where this conversation was going. She
stabbed the first pieces of French toast with her fork to keep from making a remark
she might regret.

“So why would you buy land clear over in Cedar Creek, Dat?” Beth Ann looked perplexed.
Like her father, she’d enjoyed visiting for the wedding, but she hadn’t realized how
much
Titus had liked it there.

Rosemary dipped another slice of bread into the egg and milk mixture, allowing it
to absorb the liquid. It was best to let father and daughter have this conversation
while she got her runaway pulse under control. It was easy to imagine how tickled
Matt must be about this situation.

“After talking to Matt about our flocks, and after visiting with your uncle Ezra and
other fellows from Cedar Creek—friends I’ve known since I was your age,” Titus added
emphatically, “I’m figuring out a way to move us back there, where we’ll be close
to family. With your older brothers and sisters married off and scattered all over,
it seems like a gut thing to do.”

As this news sank in, Beth Ann’s face fell and she looked ready to cry. “But what
about
this
farm? And this house? And where will I go to school? And—” She stopped abruptly when
her dat’s expression warned her that she was crossing a line.

Rosemary’s heart thudded. She hadn’t considered Beth Ann’s position in all of this
talk of a potential move: leaving her school, not to mention her homeplace, would
mean a total upheaval for the twelve-year-old girl.

“I’ve got some ideas about this place, and there’s no need for you to go worrying
about it.” Titus gazed steadily at his youngest child, not angry but not apologetic,
either. “It’s my job to see that we’ve got a roof over our heads and food on the table.
We can do that just as well in Cedar Creek as we can here. Maybe better, if Matt and
I share the work and expenses for our flocks.”

Beth Ann shot Rosemary a worried look and then busied herself with setting silverware
at their places. No matter how she felt about so much potential change, she knew better
than to protest. Plain girls learned early on that while their fathers loved them,
they wouldn’t consult their wives or daughters about decisions or pander to their
wishes.

Rosemary lifted three more pieces of crispy, fragrant French toast from the skillet
and carried the platter to the table. She took the plate of bacon from the warming
oven and, after they were all seated, they bowed their heads for a moment of silent
thanks.

As they ate, Titus talked about the lay of the Bontrager land and how much easier
it would be for him to manage his flock with Matt as a partner. He had obviously spent
a lot of time considering all the benefits of a move. Beth Ann ate about half of her
French toast and then began to drag a piece of it through the syrup left on her plate.

Rosemary glanced at the clock, sighing inwardly. Titus’s plans would get his daughter’s
day off to a worrisome start, but this wasn’t the time to discuss Beth Ann’s emotions…the
friends she would miss, and the way leaving this house would mean leaving behind reminders
of her mother, as well. “Won’t be long before the Schlabachs and the Millers are waiting
out by the mailbox,” she said gently. “Have a gut day at school.”

Beth Ann rose from the table, plucked her lunch bucket from the
countertop, and grabbed her shawl from a peg by the door. “Bye, Dat,” she murmured.
“See you when I get home, Rosemary.”

“Jah, Katie and I’ll be waiting for you.” Beth Ann and the other children along this
road walked about a mile to the one-room schoolhouse situated on a corner of Bishop
Chupp’s property, so they got an early start each weekday morning.

Rosemary glanced at Titus’s plate. “More French toast? Or some eggs, maybe?” She broke
more of the fried bread into pieces for Katie.

Katie grabbed the largest chunk and dunked it in the puddle of strawberry preserves
Rosemary had spooned onto her plate.

“A couple of eggs would be gut,” Titus replied, and then added, “Make it three. My
appetite seems to be coming out of hibernation, maybe from thinking about all the
effort it’ll take to shift us from this farm to a different one.”

Rosemary rose to fix the rest of his breakfast. “Well, you dropped enough weight while
Alma was sick that your pants got baggy. So maybe this means you’re coming around
now, back to normal.”

“Normal?” Titus let out a short laugh. “Whatever
normal
is, I feel like I’ve gone way beyond it. I’m excited, Rosemary—even though I’m in
for a lot of work if I’m to make all these plans come to pass.”

She cracked three eggs against the edge of the counter, dropping them one by one into
the skillet in which she’d fried the bacon. Even before Alma and Joe had died, her
father-in-law had never sounded so exuberant about
anything
. “So…what if Perry Bontrager doesn’t want to sell?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Titus replied with a shrug. “With his dat gone, he’s in the same
situation I am—most of his kin scattered someplace else. His wife’s family lives over
around Clearwater, so what’s to keep him in Cedar Creek? Especially if I make him
a gut offer.”

Rosemary’s heart constricted. How was it that, less than a week after Zanna’s wedding,
so many major changes had taken place? Was it God’s doing when circumstances seemed
to mesh so quickly? As
she stood by the stove, watching the eggs crackle beneath a shaking of salt and pepper,
she fought a new surge of anxiety.

What’s to happen with
your
land? You can’t leave Joe’s investment behind or let Titus blend it in with his farm
when he sells it. Or would you stay here in Queen City, near Mamm and Malinda? He
can’t make you move to Cedar Creek…

Rosemary flipped the three eggs, not caring that some grease splattered the stovetop.
Realizing that she had options—that she did not have to go along with every move Titus
made—gave her a different perspective on this surprising development. After all, she
had blueprints for a new home…plans that she and Joe had made before tragedy turned
the Yutzy family upside down. It had been her choice to keep house here for Titus,
so it could also be her decision to stay in Queen City.

“I’m thinking you should go to the funeral with me, Rosemary. Get yourself out amongst
people in Cedar Creek.”

That was
not
what she had in mind. Titus’s statement hung in the kitchen as she lifted the fried
eggs from the skillet onto his plate. Rosemary considered defying him, and yet…she
might be able to use Thursday’s trip to her advantage, as far as her own future was
concerned. Maybe, since Titus had been making decisions that took her by surprise,
she should use the same strategy on him. After all, hadn’t he reminded her on the
evening before Zanna’s wedding that it was Joe who had died, not her?

Rosemary carried the rest of his breakfast to the table, her thoughts simmering. “Let
me know what time you’ll be leaving. I’ll be ready.”

“This is a surprise,” Titus said as he stepped up into the carriage early on Thursday
morning. “The way you’ve been reacting to Matt Lambright’s calls, I figured you’d
back out of going to the funeral today.”

Rather than answer, Rosemary checked the pie carriers at her
feet to be sure they would ride upright. Not often did Joe’s dat admit he hadn’t predicted
what she would do. It
would
be difficult to endure the service for Preacher Paul, but it was time she started
rising to challenges again.

“And you could’ve pushed me over with a feather when you took Katie to stay over at
your mamm’s yesterday,” Titus added. As the horse trotted onto the wet blacktop, he
looked sideways at her from beneath the brim of his black hat. “I thought you’d be
using your little girl as a distraction, for when Matt got too friendly.”

Oh, but she wanted to reply to that remark! Instead, Rosemary considered her answer.
“You probably think one of those six apple pies I baked is for him, too, don’t you?
But they’re a favor to Aunt Lois. When I called Tuesday, she said the Bontragers are
expecting a lot of kin from Indiana and Ohio. Lots of mouths to feed.”

Truth be told, Rosemary wasn’t sure she was ready to sit though a funeral. Joe’s service
had been the last one she’d attended. But a trip to Cedar Creek seemed a better way
to spend a dreary day than stewing over Titus’s dealings with Perry Bontrager. If
she was at the funeral, she could watch facial expressions while Titus and Perry—and
probably Matt—discussed the possibilities of buying that land. It seemed inconsiderate
to rush into such talk with a fellow who had just lost his father, but it wasn’t her
place to tell Titus that, was it?

As the miles rolled by and the rain pattered against the carriage roof, Rosemary enjoyed
a newfound sense of freedom, having a day away from the housework. Abby would be at
the funeral, of course, and the prospect of getting better acquainted with Barbara
and Treva Lambright appealed to her because—well, she had kept herself so focused
on her daily tasks at Titus’s that she hadn’t gone to any quilting frolics or other
activities over the winter. She craved the company of other women right now. And she
would enjoy talking to them a lot more without Beth Ann’s long face or Katie’s squirming
to contend with.