Elijah clasped his hands and rested them on the bishop’s table. Lord, give me the right words. And let the words spoken be pleasing to Your ears.
“First, let me introduce myself. I’m Dr. Wellington, but please call me Dennis. This is an unusual situation. I’ve been in prayer about it ever since we ran into you at the auction.”
“Me too.”
“Julie came to stay with us on the ranch a few months ago, and I’ve come to think of her as a daughter.”
Elijah bit his tongue, stopping himself from correcting the man about her name. At the moment, it was more important to hear the doctor out.
“I know a lot about the Amish way. I know when a man gets married, he grows a beard. Is Julie your fraa?”
“Nay, I’m a widower. Mei fraa died of cystic fibrosis. Catherine is the woman I love. The woman you call Julie.” He studied the man’s expression but couldn’t get a feel for what he thought about not being her husband.
“She was the one who told us her name was Julie.”
Elijah shook his head. “I don’t know why she would do that. She has a niece by that name. What else has she told you about her life?”
“Nothing, and that’s what makes it so puzzling. As you’re probably aware, her long-term memory has been, simply put, short-circuited. Sometimes the brain shuts down when there’s been severe trauma.”
“She was in a bus accident.”
“I understand, and from what I read in the paper it was a bad accident. I wasn’t her doctor, but from what I’ve heard, she came into the hospital with a subdural hematoma, which is bleeding between the skull and brain. The pressure builds, and it can be deadly. Fortunately for her, the doctors were able to release the pressure, and she recovered.”
“Just not her memory.”
“That’s the troubling part. It should have returned, and bits of it has, only she didn’t recognize it.”
“What do you mean?”
“She made yummasetti. I recognized the dish as something mei fraa used to make. When I asked her about it, she had made it without a recipe. I told her it was delicious in Pennsylvania Deitsch and she replied in the same language automatically. So the memories are there, but that leads me to wonder what’s hindering the rest. Was she running away from the Amish? Is that why she was on the bus?”
“Nay. We’re from Michigan, and her cousin in Florida asked if she would come down and help in her bakery. I went along to make sure she arrived . . . safely.”
“So you were in the bus accident as well?”
Elijah nodded. “And I’ve looked for her ever since that day. You can ask the sheriff’s department how many times I’ve been there to see if there’s been any news.” Tears fell freely. “I love Catherine. I’m lost without her.”
“I can see that.”
“Catherine loves the plain way of life. She would never walk away from her belief. Never.”
Dr. Wellington wiped the moisture away from his eyes.
“Please take me to her. I have to talk to her. I have to know she’s all right.”
The doctor was silent for several seconds. Finally, he nodded, and a rush of relief washed over Elijah.
“You have to understand,” the doctor said. “I can’t force her to remember you—and neither will you.”
Seated on the front porch, Julie grabbed another potato to peel. “Cynthia, are you going to tell me what’s been wrong with Doc these past few days?”
For days now Doc had been too quiet. It seemed he either locked himself in his study or went on long walks alone. He wasn’t himself, that was for certain.
“He has a lot on his heart.” Cynthia peeled the potato without looking up.
“That’s why I’m so worried. It hasn’t been that long ago that he had to take pills for his chest pain. Do you think he’s having pain again?”
Cynthia finished the potato and tossed it into the bowl. She picked up another one, then set it and the paring knife on her lap. “What do you know about the doc’s late wife?”
“Her name was Hannah. She was the one who wanted to make this place into a children’s ranch.” Julie shrugged. “Her favorite flower was lilacs, which is why there’s a grove at the end of the pathway.”
“Did you know she was Amish?”
“No.” She stopped peeling and gave Cynthia her full attention.
“He used to treat a lot of Amish folks, and he hired her to work as a receptionist in his office. They ended up falling in love, and it created a lot of problems. She was shunned from the community and disowned by her family.”
“That’s sad.”
“In some ways she was tormented by the separation, but she loved Doc.”
“Did her family ever come around?”
Cynthia shook her head. “They would turn the other way when they saw her in town. When she was dying, Doc went to see her brother, but even knowing his sister wasn’t going to live long, he refused to see her. Doc was devastated when she died. He went through all the stages of grief, only he never got over his bitterness toward the Amish. In some ways, I believe when he’s thinking about Hannah, he automatically stirs up the anger pent up toward her family. He hated them for a while.”
“That would rot anyone’s heart.”
Cynthia nodded. “I’ve prayed for years that he would forgive— for his own sake.”
“I’ve been praying for God to heal his heart physically, but now I’m going to pray that God deals with his soul.” Julie sighed. Now it made sense why Doc had shuttled her out of the auction so fast when the bearded man in suspenders called her someone else. Without peripheral vision, she had been startled when he grabbed her arm. She hadn’t even noticed he was Amish until Doc whirled her into his protective arms and got her to safety outside the building.
Doc’s truck pulled into the yard, and Cynthia was quick to start peeling again. “He’s home. Let’s not talk about Hannah anymore.”
Julie focused on the potato she was working on and didn’t look up until a second truck door closed.
“Looks like we have company,” Cynthia whispered.
Amish company.
“Julie.” Doc approached the porch steps. “There’s someone who would like a few minutes of your time.”
“I know who he is,” she said.
The Amish man smiled.
“You grabbed my arm at the auction.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” The man was soft-spoken. Sincere.
She glanced at Doc and tried to read his expression.
“I think you need to talk with him.” He motioned with a nod to Cynthia. “We’ll be in the house.”
Julie followed them with her gaze, but neither Doc nor Cynthia looked over their shoulders before going inside. When she turned her gaze back to the Amish man, he was on the porch.
He motioned to the chair Cynthia had just vacated. “May I sit down?”
“I suppose.”
“Mei name is Elijah Graber.” He paused as if she should recognize the name. “I understand you have some problems with your memory. So what I’m going to tell you might nett make sense, but please hear me out.”
She took in a breath and held it.
“We were in a bus accident. January 17.”
“We?” she rasped.
“Jah,” he said softly. “Your name is Catherine Rosemary Glick. I call you Cat, which kind of bothers you sometimes.” He grinned sheepishly but sobered again when she remained stoic. “The first time we met, you were ice skating—and upset with me because I was there to cut the ice.”
“Why?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “We use the slabs to keep the icehaus kalt.”
There was something very endearing about this man. He seemed sincere enough. Lord, do I know him? Is what he’s telling me true?
“I’ve been searching for you since January. When I saw you at the auction . . . Well, you know what happened.”
“I didn’t see you. I lost my peripheral vision in my right eye.”
“I’m sorry.”
She slipped her fingers under her scarf and touched her scar. “I still have some fuzziness, but that usually happens when I’m overly tired.” She wasn’t sure why she was sharing about herself. She didn’t know this man. Or did she?
“Your family back in Michigan are worried about you.”
“My family?”
He nodded. “You live with your bruder, George, and his fraa, Gwen. They have three children—Leah, Jimmy, and Julie.”
“Julie?” She stood and paced to the end of the porch. “So I do have a brother named George,” she muttered to herself under her breath. Perhaps she’d been dreaming about her niece when Amy overheard her say “Julie.” Images flashed before her eyes of a restaurant, Elijah running for a bus. She faced him. “Tell me why we were on a bus.”
“Your cousin in Florida asked you to help in her bakery for the winter.”
“I’m a baker?”
He nodded. “You’re a cook at The Amish Table too.”
She closed her eyes as bits and pieces flashed like snapshots before her. The bus. Headlights. Children crying . . . Golden eyes looking down at her.
Elijah stepped closer. “Are you remembering something, Catherine?”
“Will you excuse me?” She rushed down the porch steps and ran as hard as she could to the narrow pathway. She had to find the man with red hair. The man who told her about Kimberly— the same man who had carried her to safety after the bus accident.
She reached the lilac grove. Most of the blooms had fallen off the trees and now carpeted the grass with different shades of purple. Searching the area, she found that the redheaded man was nowhere to be found. She plopped down on the bench. “Who is he, Lord? An angel?”
A tap on her right shoulder bolted her off the bench, her heart hammering and lungs gasping for breath.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Elijah lifted his palms out in a surrendered position. “I thought you saw me.”
“Nay!” She pointed to her face. “I don’t have full vision.”
Color drained from his face. “Oh, Catherine, I’m so sorry. I forgot.”
She grinned. “Nau who’s the one with the failing memory?”
“Guilty.” He shrugged.
His cheeks turned a rosy pink, which made his eyes more blue than gray. If everything he was telling her was true, she could see how she was smitten by him. She sat down, leaving him room on the bench to join her.
He motioned to the bench. “May I?”
She nodded.
“Did I say something to send you off running?”
“It wasn’t anything you said . . . I had some images flash across mei mind that—that I wasn’t prepared for.” A reappearing man with red hair and flecks of gold in his eyes. No, I can’t tell Elijah about someone who showed up only to disappear again. “Were you running to catch a bus?”
“Jah. Your tote bag was stolen in an alley outside a restaurant we had stopped at. I ran off to chase the thief, which wasn’t wise.”
“Sounds brave to me.”
“Nay, I shouldn’t have left you alone in the alley. The bus was coming and—” He shook his head. “It was a foolish thing to do.”
“Maybe the foolish part was being in the alley in the first place.”
His brows arched. “You remember?”
Her puzzled expression must have clued him that she didn’t, because his brows dropped and his eyes lost their sheen. “So, why were we in the alley?”
“You insisted on feeding a cat your leftover sausage.”
She tried to picture it all but drew a blank.
Elijah shifted on the bench. “Is that all you remember—me running for the bus?”
“I remember bright headlights and children crying and . . .” She cleared her throat. “You never said if you were injured badly.”
“Mei lung was punctured, and I dislocated mei shoulder, but other than that, just a few stitches.”
She studied him a moment, wishing her mind would cooperate and something would jar her memory. “I should get back to the haus and help Cynthia with supper.”
“Oh.” His shoulders dropped. He blinked a few times and forged a smile.
She couldn’t describe the thoughts scrambling her mind, but suddenly she didn’t want their conversation to end either. “Would you like to stay for supper? I’m sure Doc and Cynthia won’t mind. I mean unless you have other plans.”
“Nay—I mean nay, I don’t have plans. I’d like to stay for supper. Yes—yes, I would.” He blew out a breath and dialed down some of his eagerness. “I guess it’s obvious that I want to spend more time with you.”
She smiled. “I enjoyed our talk too.”