Mary put one block too many on top of the huge tower William had been constructing with the children, and it collapsed with a satisfying clatter. Mary giggled, not a bit sorry, while William groaned nearly as loudly as Joseph did.
William grabbed Mary, tickling her. “Schnickelfritz,” he exclaimed. “You did that on purpose, ain’t so?”
She just giggled all the more, clutching him around the neck.
Joseph’s lower lip came out. “Mammi, Mary did that on purpose. Onkel William said so.”
William exchanged glances with Rachel as he set Mary back on her feet, and he seemed to sober with an effort.
“I was teasing, that’s all. Komm, let’s pick up the blocks.”
Rachel suppressed a smile. William went from playing as if he were one of the young ones to being the serious adult, but she suspected he didn’t do it easily. Playing with them was more to his taste than enforcing any rules, much as he might try.
“It is time to clear up anyway,” she said. “Becky and I will finish up the supper dishes while you do that.”
“Not so soon, please, Mammi,” Joseph protested. “I want to play with Onkel William some more.”
“Not now,” William said. “Now you must do as your mamm says. And I must get home to bed myself, so I can be back here early to tend the cows.”
Amazing, that William could talk to the children without stammering at all, but could barely get out a sentence among adults. When he finally fell in love, would he find that with his special girl there would be no stammering either?
Rachel paused in the doorway long enough to be sure there’d be no more grumbling from Joseph. Then she and Becky headed back to the kitchen sink.
“Onkel William likes to play games,” Becky observed as she picked up the dish towel.
“I was just thinking that myself.” Rachel plunged her hands into the warm, soapy water. “Ach, he is not so very older than you, ain’t so?”
Becky nodded, wiping a plate with careful circles of the towel. “He is not very much like Onkel Isaac.”
“No, I guess not.” Was there disapproval of either of her uncles in that? Rachel hoped not. “Brothers and sisters are sometimes alike and sometimes very different from each other.”
“Onkel William is more like Daadi, I think.” Becky set the plate on the counter and took a cup from the rack. “Daadi liked to play with us, too.”
The towel might as well be tightening around her throat. “Ja, he did.”
William came in from the living room, silencing whatever else Becky might have said about her father. Would she ever know? Did she want to?
She wiped her hands on a dish towel as she turned to William. “Denke, William, for playing with the little ones. You are a gut onkel.”
He colored, ducking his head. “S-s-supper was a fine meal. You were kind to invite me.”
She’d probably said too often how much they owed him, so she just patted his sleeve. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Ja.” For a moment he hesitated, as if he’d say more. Then, perhaps thinking better of it, he went out, the door banging behind him.
The house was quiet when he’d gone, with only the soft voices of Joseph and Mary from the other room to make a sound. Rachel turned back to the dishes.
Or maybe it just seemed quiet because she was the only adult in the house now. Once, she’d have been looking forward to Ezra coming back in from the evening round he’d always made to check on the animals. She’d have been thinking of the things she wanted to tell him after the little ones were in bed—the small details of her life that interested no one but him.
And now interested no one at all.
She washed a plate with conscious care. The gloomy thoughts could gather too quickly in the evening if she weren’t careful. She would not let them take control.
“My mamm and I used to do the dishes together always. Course, I was the only girl. Soon we’ll have Mary to help, too.”
Becky’s nose crinkled. “She’d break things, Mammi.”
“Well, and you did when you started, too. Breaking things is part of learning to do them right.”
Becky made a small sound that indicated doubt. “Did you know that English people have a machine that washes and dries the dishes? That would save a lot of time.”
“I guess so. But if we’d had a machine to wash the dishes, my mamm and I would have missed out on a lot of talking with each other. And I’d surely miss talking to you. So I’d rather do things our way.”
Becky considered that for a moment. “I guess maybe I do, too.”
“Gut,” she said softly.
“I brought a new book home from school,” Becky said, with the air of one veering away from an emotional moment. “Teacher Mary said that since I liked the Little House books so much, I might like this one.”
“Maybe we can read together for a bit after the younger ones are in bed. Would you like that?”
Becky nodded.
It was tempting, so tempting, to be content with the fact that things seemed easy between them again. To believe that everything was all right.
But it wasn’t. Becky had done a dangerous thing in climbing up in the barn, and Rachel still didn’t really know why she’d done it. She’d hoped Becky would bring it up herself, given a little time, but she hadn’t.
As Becky’s mother, she must push it, no matter how easy it would be to let it slide. That had been Ezra’s way with the children, not hers.
Her hand stilled on the casserole dish she was washing. That thought had been almost critical of him. She hadn’t meant it that way, had she?
She set the casserole dish in the drainer and took Becky’s hand when she would have reached for it.
“Just let that drain. I’ll put it away later. Now I want to talk to you.”
Becky’s small face tightened. Natural enough, wasn’t it? Every child knew that the talk probably wasn’t going to be a happy one.
“I have to understand, Becky. Why did you climb up in the barn?”
Becky shrugged, turning her face away. “I just did.”
“That’s not an answer.” She took Becky’s chin in her hand, turning her face gently. “Tell me.”
Something that might have been rebellion flared in Becky’s eyes. She shook her head, pressing her lips together in denial.
Rachel would not show the pain that squeezed her heart. “Komm.” She drew Becky to the rocker. Sitting down, she pulled her daughter onto her lap.
Becky came, limp as a faceless doll and betraying just about as much emotion.
Please, Father. Show me. Give me the words. There was more than a little desperation in the prayer. How had she and her daughter gotten so far apart?
She set the rocking chair moving almost automatically, closing her arms around the unresisting, unresponsive child.
“I am your mamm, and you are my dear daughter.” Through a shimmer of tears, she stared at the part in Becky’s hair. It was almost, but not quite, straight—a sign that she had done it herself.
Pain tightened its grip on Rachel’s heart. How had they slipped away, those days when her child depended upon her for everything? Not that she wanted to keep Becky a boppli forever—no, not that. But somehow, in the past year, preoccupied with grief and the struggle just to keep going, she hadn’t even noticed the steps of her daughter’s growth.
She pressed a kiss to the crooked part. “It has been too long since I’ve rocked you like this.”
“I’m too big for rocking.” But she didn’t pull away.
“I hope you will never be too big for Mammi to love you.” She smoothed her hand down Becky’s back, feeling the sharp little angles of her shoulder blades. “Or to worry about you. Did you climb up because you remember Daadi doing that?”
Becky made a convulsive movement, and Rachel hugged her close.
“Daadi was a gut climber,” Rachel suggested. “Were you trying to do what he would have done?”
For a moment Becky was still in her arms. Then her small face turned into the curve between Rachel’s shoulder and neck, snuggling into place, gentle as an infant at the end of a feeding.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe. We were playing in the barn, and Elizabeth said how high it was, and the next thing I knew, I was saying I could climb up.”
Rachel’s breath seemed stuck. Whatever she said now could mean the difference between learning and rebellion.
“I expect you had a picture in your mind of Daadi climbing up in the barn.” She fought to keep her voice calm. “I do, too. Daadi liked to do things that were a little daring. But—”
“He wouldn’t want me to do it.” Becky muttered the words against her collarbone, so that she seemed to feel them as well as hear them. “If he’d had to climb up and get me, would he have been angry with me?”
Becky was echoing the question Gideon had asked her. So he had made her think. That was more than Rachel had been able to do, it seemed.
“Not angry, no. He’d have been afraid for you, first of all. And then—well, I think he might have been a little bit disappointed that you’d do something—”
“Foolish,” Becky finished for her.
“Yes.” She wouldn’t gloss it over by calling it anything else. “But he would hug you very tight and love you just the same. You know that, don’t you?”
Becky nodded, her face rubbing against Rachel’s dress. “I guess so.” Her voice was very soft. “Mammi—do you ever think you’re forgetting Daadi?”
The question pierced her heart. Forget? Did her children think she was forgetting him when she talked so much, thought so much, about the things she did now that she’d never done with him?
Was she? How often in the past few days had she thought about him, not wondering what he’d think of her struggles with Isaac or her worries about the children, but just thought of him, pictured his dear face, imagined the feel of his arms around her?
“. . . talking to Gideon.”
Preoccupied with her own self-doubt, she’d missed the beginning of what Becky said, and the words were like a blow to her heart. Was Becky thinking that her mother was turning to Gideon in the way she’d once turned to her daadi?
“He remembers when Daadi was a little boy,” Becky added. “I like to hear about that.”
Rachel could breathe again. Becky was talking about herself, not her mamm.
“It’s nice to hear other people’s stories about Daadi,” Rachel said. “We can see him through their eyes then, can’t we?”
Becky nodded. She leaned against Rachel’s shoulder, as relaxed as the babe Rachel had imagined moments ago. She snuggled her face closer to Rachel’s.
“I’m glad we talked, Mammi,” she murmured.
“I’m glad, too.” A barrier that had been separating her from Becky dissolved as simply as a patch of snow in the spring sunshine.
Thank You, Father.
But another worry had sprung up in its place. Would she have jumped to that conclusion about Gideon if the thought hadn’t been in her mind to begin with? Was she talking to him too much? Confiding in him too much?
If she was, what did that say about her feelings for him?
• • •
“I said, are you going to hold this board straight or not?” Aaron’s exasperated tone penetrated Gideon’s thoughts.
“I am.” He leveled the top stall board by a fraction of an inch. “It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with my eye.”
“Not when you’re paying attention, there’s not.” Aaron’s tone was that of every older brother who’d ever lived, Gideon suspected. And the truth was that he had been woolgathering.
“Mahlon and Esther Beiler will be back from their wedding trip tomorrow, I hear. We didn’t get this work frolic scheduled any too soon.”
Aaron drove a nail home with a single swift stroke. “I hear tell they were going to stay out in Illinois a bit longer, but decided to come back early. The Beilers will have been missing Mahlon, him being the youngest boy.”
“Ja.” Not that any son wouldn’t be missed, having been away for months on an extended visit to kinfolk out in the Midwest.
But Leah’s parents had lost her little sister, Anna, their youngest, to the English world a year ago. No doubt they were still grieving that. They’d be glad to have the newlywed couple to fuss over.
And the community was made stronger when they gathered for a work frolic, getting the couple’s new home ready for them. Rachel was here somewhere, he had no doubt—maybe working with some of the other women in the house.
“Rachel Brand will be here today, ain’t so?” Aaron’s words, echoing his thoughts, made Gideon blink.
“Guess so.” Gideon turned the question over in his mind. Aaron wasn’t one to say something for the sake of hearing his own voice. If he asked about Rachel, there was a reason.
Aaron was frowning down at his toolbox, face turned away.
Gideon planted his hands on the stall bar, giving it a shake to be sure it was secure. “Why the interest in Rachel?”
Aaron shrugged. “No reason. I was just thinking—well, you’re spending a lot of time over there. Lovina will have it that you’re courting her. Are you?”
“No.” He bit off the word. “I’m being a friend. If a man can’t help out a neighbor without folks thinking he’s courting—”
Aaron raised his hand to stop him. He clamped his mouth shut. Not because of Aaron, but because of what he might give away if he responded too strongly.
“I wouldn’t think anything about it. But the thing is—well, Isaac Brand’s been to see me about Rachel. And you.”
Gideon wouldn’t have been more surprised if Aaron had swung a two-by-four at him. “Isaac?” He forced back the angry words that sprang to his lips. “What has Isaac to say about my doings? Or Rachel’s, for that matter?”
Aaron shrugged heavy shoulders. “Nothing to yours, I’d say. As for Rachel—well, as her brother-in-law, I guess he feels he has a duty to be concerned about what she’s doing.”
There were a lot of things Gideon would like to say to that, but only one that really made a difference. “Why did he come to you?”
“I had a little trouble figuring that out myself.” His eyes crinkled. “Talked around and around about how worried he was about Rachel and those children and how he wanted what was best for everyone. But when he finally got to the point, it seemed he doesn’t like our taking Rachel to market. ‘Encouraging her to be willful’ was what he said.”
Gideon could only stare at him. “What is willful about earning money to support her children?”
The twinkle in Aaron’s eyes brightened. “I expect Isaac thinks anyone’s being willful who doesn’t do exactly what he says.”
Gideon found the twinkle reassuring. “And what did you tell him?”
“That I appreciated his concern, but that decision was up to Rachel.”
Gideon blew out a breath. “That’s what I’d expect from you. So why did you look so worried when you asked about me and Rachel? Just because Lovina’s not happy unless she’s matching folks up in pairs—”
“It’s not that.” Aaron leaned his elbow on the railing, turning toward him. The pose was casual, but his expression wasn’t. “Rachel Brand is a fine woman, and nothing would make me happier than to see you settled with a wife and children.”
Gideon started to speak, but Aaron was clearly not finished, so he held his tongue.
“We’d be happy if you and Rachel made a match of it, that’s certain sure. But if you were doing it out of a debt to Ezra, that wouldn’t be right for either of you.”
He couldn’t be angry with his brother, not when Aaron was looking at him with such caring in his eyes. But he also couldn’t tell Aaron what he felt, when he didn’t know himself.
“Don’t worry,” he said finally. “I promise you, that wouldn’t be the reason if ever I did ask Rachel Brand to be my wife.”
He shoved himself away from the stall and headed for the door.
“We’re not finished in here. Where are you going?”
“To find Rachel. To tell her what Isaac is trying to do.”
Aaron moved quickly. He put an arm the size and strength of a young tree trunk across the doorway. “Just hold on a minute. You go find Rachel looking like a thundercloud, do you think people aren’t going to notice?”
“Let them notice.”
“And then there will be more folks thinking the same way Lovina is.” Aaron clapped him on the shoulder. “Komm, simmer down a bit first. You can talk to her more natural-like over lunch.”
Gideon itched to push his way past his brother—to find Rachel and tell her exactly what Aaron had told him.
But maybe Aaron had a point. If people were already talking about them, speculating about them—well, did he really want to stoke that fire any hotter?
And then there was the fact that this would hurt Rachel. She was so sensitive to Isaac’s feelings, even if he didn’t seem to return the favor.
Gideon’s jaw clenched. Probably the real reason that he wanted to put his fist through the board they’d just put up was that this was going to make Rachel’s decisions even more difficult, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about that.
• • •
It was wrong to be angry with a brother. Rachel kept reminding herself of that as she worked her way toward Isaac. It was against the teaching of the Bible, and against the beliefs of the church.
She should not tell herself that Isaac had been wrong to try to control her actions by intervening with Aaron that way. One sin did not excuse another.
She would talk to him calmly. She would make it clear to him that she had no intention of giving up the market with the Zooks. That she needed the income it provided to support her children.
Around her, the work frolic was coming to an end. Some buggies had already moved off down the lane, mostly women who were headed home to fix supper for their families. Small groups of people still clustered here and there—the women chatting as they packed up boxes of cleaning supplies or food left over from the lunch; the men catching up on the latest news now that the work was finished.
Isaac was at the center of one such group. He leaned back against the split-rail fence, elbows resting on it as he talked, looking relaxed and expansive, the center of attention.
Rachel halted a few feet from the group. What she had to say wasn’t for everyone else to know. If she waited until later—
Isaac caught her gaze, just for a second. Then he turned back to his conversation.
He was keeping her waiting deliberately. A fresh spark of anger ignited and had to be extinguished. She’d been fighting that battle since Gideon spoke to her.
Gideon had been reluctant to tell her, she suspected, but he’d been right to do so. If Isaac was going to people behind her back, she needed to know that. As for what she was going to do about it—
The men’s conversation ended on a rumble of laughter, and Isaac turned toward her. “Do you need something, Rachel?”
His tone seemed to imply that of course she did and that it was natural for her to come to him with her needs. Fortunately no one could see how tense her hands were under the concealment of her apron.
When she didn’t speak right away, he raised heavy brows. Then his gaze shifted to someone behind her, and his features rearranged themselves into a smile.
“Isaac. Daughter.” Her father came to a stop next to her, surveying Isaac with an expression she didn’t understand. “You wouldn’t be talking business, would you?”
Isaac straightened, as if reminding himself that his casual pose was disrespectful to the older man. “Not on my account. Rachel’s the one who wants to see me.”
The men’s gazes swiveled toward her, pinning her to the spot. Was it going to be easier or more difficult to bring this up in front of her father? She wasn’t sure. She simply knew that she couldn’t keep silent. Isaac had gone too far.
“Perhaps we could talk more privately,” she suggested.
Isaac stared at her for a moment, then shrugged and moved a few feet off to the side. It was hardly out of earshot of the other men, but they drifted off, leaving her alone with her father and her brother-in-law.
She took a breath, willing herself to calm. “I understand you had a conversation with Aaron Zook about me. About the fact that I’ve been going to market with him and Lovina.”
“I might have done. Hard to remember everybody I’ve talked to.” But his gaze slid away from hers, denying the casual tone of his words.
“According to Aaron, you want him to stop taking me to the market.”
“I suppose Gideon told you that.” Isaac’s voice snapped the words, and she could sense her father turn to look at her.
“Does it matter how I learned of it? Aaron would have no reason to make up a story about it.”
“No, he would not.” The low rumble of Daad’s voice startled her. “Is this true, Isaac?”
Isaac’s jaw clenched until he looked as stubborn as the mules he used to pull his plow. “It seems to me that Rachel would be better off staying home with her children than leaving them to spend the day at the market, talking to outsiders, taking advice from folks who aren’t even her kin.”
She was ready to defend herself, but before she could speak, her father beat her to it.
“Are you saying that Rachel’s children are being neglected because they spend her market days with their grossmutter and me?”
“Now, now, I didn’t mean that.” Isaac backpedaled away from the implication she was sure he’d intended. “But a young widow has to be careful about the appearance she creates.”
Words pressed at her lips, demanding to be let out. “A young widow who is earning money to support her three young children is surely creating the right impression, don’t you think?”
“You wouldn’t have to earn money at all if you’d just listen to me.” Goaded, Isaac’s temper, always a little uncertain, slid from his control, his face flushing and his hands closing. “You’re just being stubborn, clinging to the farm instead of taking my offer for it, as Ezra surely would want.”
There it was again—that idea that he, and he alone, knew what Ezra would have wanted. Rachel had to clamp her lips shut to keep from flaring out at him. They were dangerously close to an open breach, and she would shrink back from that, whether Isaac did or not.
“We none of us know what Ezra would want.” Her father said the words that she was thinking. “The farm belongs to Rachel and her children now, and it’s for Rachel to decide about selling.”
Given how her father felt about the subject, that statement astonished her. If Isaac had gone about this in a different way, he’d have probably been able to get Daad lined up firmly on his side. Maybe she was fortunate that Isaac didn’t have a lot of tact.
Isaac glared. “You can’t think that Rachel can make a go of the dairy farm herself. It’s nonsense. And who is she going to sell to, if not to me? That Englischer who’s been hanging around?”
Daad swung to stare at her, and she could feel the warmth mounting her cheeks. Isaac had done that deliberately, but how had he even known about the man?
“Rachel?” Her father was looking at her with doubt and questioning in his eyes.
“I suppose you’re talking about Mr. Carver from the dairy. He has been to see me twice.”
“About dairy business?” Daad looked a little reassured at that. After all, most of the Amish dairy farms in the valley did business with Carver.
“In a way.” She wasn’t ready to talk about this yet, but she was being pushed irrevocably toward a decision she wasn’t sure she wanted to make.
Isaac snorted. “He wants to buy the farm, ain’t so? Everyone knows he’s trying to expand. I’d never believe that my own brother’s wife would think of selling his farm to an Englischer instead of to his own family.”
“It’s not like that at all.” She pressed her fists hard against her skirt, trying to hang on to the calm that was rapidly deserting her. “He’s not trying to buy the farm.”
“Then what does he want?”
Daad’s question demanded an answer. She was going to have to come out with the man’s offer and why it mattered to her. She’d have to find out if the dream that had been drifting through her mind more and more lately would stand the light of day.
She fixed her gaze on her father’s face, praying he’d understand. “He offered to buy the dairy herd. He’d lease the barn and the pastures, paying me rent for them. That way, I could keep the farm for the children’s future, and I’d still have the house and enough land for my needs.”
That was hurt in his face now—hurt that she was considering this without talking to him first and embarrassment that he was hearing about it in public.
“You might as well break up the farm completely as do that.” Isaac had found his voice, and it exploded with fury. “The idea that you’d deal with him—and what do you need land for, anyway?”
There was the question. She had to answer it. Ready or not, as the children called when they played at hide-and-seek in the twilight.
“I need it for the flowers and shrubs I’m growing. I’m going to start a nursery business of my own.”
Silence greeted her words. She looked at her father, praying she’d see support, or at least understanding, in his face.
He stared at her. Everyone within earshot stared at her. And no one spoke.
She had never felt so alone in her life.