My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
1 John 2:1
The next day she walked over to Adam’s house, glad that the snow wasn’t falling. She’d been doing chores for him nearly every day for the past three weeks. He waved to her and she walked over to him.
“You don't have to keep coming here. My place has never been so clean. I think you’ve paid off the debt by now.”
Was that true, or did he not want Ida to see that the two of them had become close? “It keeps me out of Mamm and Marlene's way, so I don't mind. They’re bottling preserves and jams every day. They’ve opened a small stall at the farmers market.”
“That will keep Marlene busy.”
“Jah, and Matthew’s pleased for the extra money.”
He dusted off his hands. “Come in and I'll make you a cup of tea. I feel awful that you’ve done so much around this place.”
“Don't feel bad. It was Dat who forced me to do it. I mean, I wanted to do it to pay off my debts. It was a silly thing to do.”
“Jah, it was. It was the kind of thing Marlene would do.” He stared at her and raised an eyebrow.
Grace frowned. “I suppose.”
“Let’s go.” Adam strode toward the house.
“You’re not working today?” She’d heard from Matthew that he was taking a day off.
“Jah, I’m having a rest today. I take a day off every couple of weeks besides Sunday. Other than that, I work six days a week. Come sit by the fire.” He opened the door for her to walk inside. He pulled two chairs closer to the fire. “There you go; have a seat.”
He returned a few minutes later with hot chocolate. After he passed her a mug, he sat and took a mouthful of his hot drink. He looked across at her. “You’re not sick, are you?”
Grace laughed. “I haven't been sick for a few weeks now; hopefully that's behind me.” Grace took a sip of her hot chocolate. “I heard that Ida is coming back to the community.” She said it as casually as she could.
“Jah, her vadder told me yesterday she's back and she's going to be baptized.”
“That's good. We need more women in the community.”
“She's a lot like you, you know.”
Grace raised her eyebrows. “How’s she like me?”
“She's a calming person to be around, just like you. I’ve probably never said this to you, but you have a calming effect on me.”
Grace took a sip of hot chocolate. She realized he might have been spending time working on his buggy so he could take Ida out in it. She couldn't control the pangs of jealousy that gnawed at her insides.
All of a sudden Adam laughed.
She looked at him. “What's so funny?”
He shook his head. “I was waiting until you told me yourself, but since you haven't I need to tell you that I know it was Marlene driving that buggy and not you. I watched the whole thing from my window. I heard my horse take off and I ran outside. I can see that part of the road from my upstairs bedroom. I saw you galloping along after the buggy.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what you were trying to do.”
“You saw it?”
“Most of it. As soon as the buggy tipped over, I ran as fast as I could.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? You’ve had me coming over here and doing all this work when all the time you knew it wasn’t me?” Are all men deceptive like Jeremy? “Why did you have me think that you thought I did it?”
“Don’t be mad at me. It felt nice coming home knowing you’d been here.”
She shook her head at him.
He added, “If you weren’t doing chores here you’d only be doing them at home. Besides, you were being deceptive telling me it was you who damaged my buggy.”
“I suppose you’ve got me there.”
“I’ll make it up to you, Grace. I will. I was certain Marlene would say something soon.”
Grace shrugged. “I do feel a bit sorry for her sometimes. She feels a little bit isolated and the odd one out in the house. And she also didn't want Matthew to be cranky with her. She's just going through a hard time at the moment. Like we all do sometimes.”
“You're a very caring woman, Grace.”
“Sometimes,” she said with a smile.
“You're very honest.”
“Not so honest. I didn’t tell you the truth about the buggy.”
Just when she thought he was going to say something about seeing her again or maybe taking her on a date, he leaped to his feet. “Well, finish up and I'll take you back home.”
“I can walk; I need the exercise.”
“You don't need to walk in this cold. I'll take you home. I'm going out anyway so it's not a problem.”
Grace finished the last mouthful and Adam put his hand out to take the cup from her.
“Now that I've made my confession to you about the buggy, I'll think of a way to make it up to you,” he said.
“It doesn't matter. I'm the one who’s lied to everybody telling them I damaged your buggy, so why don’t we call it even?”
“Nee.” He shook his head. “I’ll make it up to you, Grace. I won’t have you doing all that hard work for nothing.”
As Grace followed him out to the buggy she wondered whether Adam wanted to see her again or whether he just didn't want to feel indebted to her. He was so hard to read sometimes.
After he’d taken her home, she told her mother that she wasn't going to clean Adam's house anymore because he’d refused her help.
Her mother was pleased that she would now be helping her and Marlene make the jams and preserves.
When Grace’s mother went out of the kitchen for a couple of minutes, Marlene whispered to Grace, “The girl Adam likes is back in the community. Her name’s Ida and she's really pretty.”
“I heard about Ida coming back. It’ll be good to have an extra woman in the community, won’t it?” Grace fixed a smile on her face.
“You can’t fool me. I know you can’t possibly be happy about that. I know you like Adam.”
“I can’t do anything about that. I’ve got no control over Adam, or what he does. I just have to concentrate on my boppli.”
“Jah, I suppose that’s a good idea. Forget about Adam and when you have your boppli you might meet someone else.”
Grace’s mother came back into the room. “Who’s going to meet someone else?”
“Grace is. We were just taking about Adam.”
“Of course you’ll meet someone else, Grace.”
“Why don’t we talk about something other than Adam?” Grace asked.
“We’ll talk about something else, then,” her mother said. “Haven’t you got an appointment at the midwife’s house tomorrow?”
“Jah, Matthew’s driving me there. It’s at four in the afternoon.”
“Gut.”
“Your tummy’s poking out a bit now,” Marlene said, pointing at Grace’s stomach.
“Jah, you can see you’re expecting now,” Grace’s mother said.
Grace looked down at her tummy and smiled. “He’s growing bigger.”
“He’s a boy?” Marlene asked.
Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel that he might be a boy, but I don’t mind if he turns out to be a girl. I have to have an ultrasound soon. I might be able to find out but I don’t want to.”
Marlene changed the subject entirely. “I’m glad you came up with the idea for me to make these preserves and jams, Grace.”
“I’m happy that you like making them, and selling them.”
“It’s given us something to do, hasn’t it, Mamm?”
Grace’s mother chuckled. “I had enough to do before, but I do enjoy it.” They were sharing a stall at the farmers market with other people. Their day was Thursday, and they spent the week getting the goods prepared.