14

Weeks passed, and life at Windmill Farm fell into a routine. With the weather growing hotter and more humid, the family tried to rise early in the morning and do chores before the worst of the day. The baby slept for longer stretches now and was putting on weight. Now and then, he would have a colicky day, but the goat’s milk had helped considerably.

Sadie loved the baby’s soft, round cheeks best of all. She couldn’t stop kissing those fat cheeks. She wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for love and familiarity to set like mortar in bricks. Maybe that was the process described as bonding: knowing a child so well you knew him as well as you knew yourself.

As she cradled Joe-Jo in her arms, she thought about her neighbor Mattie Riehl, who had been a foster mother for a baby girl and had hoped to adopt her, but then the birth mother changed her mind and refused to relinquish parental rights. Afterward, she remembered Mattie saying that life felt overturned, like freshly plowed earth. Life had to start over.

At least every other day, someone stopped by Windmill Farm to seek Sadie out for a remedy or advice. She felt encouraged to keep going, to continue learning about healing herbs and offer remedies to people for minor ailments, aches, and pains. She loved helping others, but she assumed that she was making little difference in the day-to-day lives of most people. She rested in the knowledge that she had given them all she could to make their lives a little better.

Deacon Abraham stopped by one sunny morning to ask Sadie if she would pay a call on his wife, Esther, who suffered from persistent headaches. “She’s been to every doctor and chiropractor she can find, had every treatment and test and scan imaginable, and they can’t find anything that’s wrong.”

This was just the kind of ailment that worried Sadie. The very reason she didn’t charge people for her remedies. If the best medical minds of Lancaster County couldn’t help Esther, what could she possibly do? And on top of that worry bounced another one: Esther frightened her. Sadie had never seen a smile rise all the way to her eyes.

Abraham sensed her hesitation. “Just . . . go talk to her, Sadie. For my sake.”

So Sadie went to Abraham and Esther’s farm. The brick house lay nestled amidst a sea of carefully tended greenery and neat outbuildings. Chickens clucked in a fenced yard, and a cow lowed from a small pasture. Esther’s mare stood within the buggy shafts, her head low, apparently dozing. Sadie drew her buggy alongside Esther’s and the mare stirred, nosing the visiting gelding. He nickered in reply.

Leaving the horses to get acquainted, Sadie walked stiffly across the yard to the house.

Esther met her at the door. “Now’s not a good time for a visit, Sadie. I’ve got a frightful headache today.”

“Abraham asked me to come by.” She held up a little bag. “I brought some special tea that might help.”

Esther looked suspiciously at her. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

She opened the door and led Sadie to the kitchen. As Sadie brewed the tea, Esther told her all about the headaches. When they started, how often she had them, how they made her head pound as if a woodpecker were hammering away at her. How incompetent doctors couldn’t find any reason for them. She left nothing out, filling the air with blame for others, as if they had given her the headaches. Did Esther always look for the dark side of things and judge?

Before Esther could start on another grievance, Sadie handed her a cup of tea, and she sipped it, then made a face. “It tastes like tree bark.”

“It is. It’s made with the bark of a willow tree.” Sadie sat down beside her. “So you say the headaches started a few years ago?”

Esther nodded.

Sadie felt a strange stirring in her heart. “And the doctors can’t find anything wrong?”

“No. But that doesn’t stop them from taking my money.” That thought inspired her to launch into another tirade against modern medicine.

Sadie wasn’t really listening to her. She had traveled back to a time when a woman arrived at Old Deborah’s door. The woman’s face was tight and pale, riddled with anxiety. Old Deborah listened to her ailment—Sadie couldn’t exactly remember what it was but thought it was something like neck pain. Similar to Esther, this woman had spent a fortune on doctors and treatments and tests and scans—without any relief. Old Deborah listened carefully in that wise, knowing way she had. Then she took the woman’s hands in hers and told her what she thought the problem was. At first, the woman was shocked, angry even. Then she cried. But when she left, she was a different person. Calm, at peace, and as far as Sadie knew, her neck never bothered her again.

Sadie had the strangest feeling that the cause of Esther’s headaches was the same as that woman with the neck pain. As Esther kept talking, Sadie was praying, and waiting for an answer, listening for God’s voice to speak to her heart. She had learned that the most important part of her prayers was the waiting and listening. Go ahead, she heard God whisper. It’s okay to speak the truth in love.

Sadie’s lips quivered. Her chest grew tight. She was clasping her hands so tightly her knuckles ached. She forced herself to relax her grip, flattening her palms on her thighs. She knew one thing—she had to be willing to speak up, regardless of the response she might get. Please, Lord God, give me boldness.

“Esther, there is something I’d like you to think about. Emotions can affect the health of our bodies, for good or for bad. Stress, anger, and resentment can have powerful negative effects. Those bitter feelings are like an acid that eats away at its container.”

Esther looked at Sadie as if her barn was short a rafter.

Sadie’s heart was thumping so loudly, she was sure Esther could hear it. Why did she have to say anything like this? She could have just given Esther the willow bark tea and left it at that. That’s all Abraham had asked of her.

For a brief second, Sadie thought about running. Just dropping everything and bolting. No explanation. But what would that serve other than to confirm to Esther that Sadie Lapp was crazy? This made no sense! Still, she felt that strange inner stirring to keep going. Oh Lord God, please help! “Is there anyone in your life whom you have not been able to forgive?”

Esther’s face frosted over. Minutes ticked by while Sadie waited for Esther’s response. She opened her lips, but no sound came out.

Sadie was scared. Deborah had always said that some health problems were spiritual and emotional in nature, but she didn’t tell Sadie which ones. What right did Sadie have to ask someone such a personal question? Especially someone like Esther!

Sadie studied Esther carefully. A vision popped in her mind of watching a cobra puff up, fangs glittering, preparing to strike. Sadie scooted her chair back a little, just in case. But after a few more long, painful seconds, Esther suddenly deflated like a balloon in her chair, dropping her head to her chest. She uttered a name that Sadie would never have expected to hear from her.

“Emma.”

For a moment Sadie thought she had misunderstood Esther.

“Excuse me?”

“Emma. My daughter. For leaving the church, like she did. With that man. Steelhead.”

Sadie had forgotten that Esther’s daughter had left the church. It had happened years ago, when Sadie was just a little girl. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Without hesitation, Esther began to talk, describing how Emma had eloped with an English man—a former convict, she hastened to say, wrinkling her nose. “Emma works in a quilt shop in town. Right in Stoney Ridge! And never comes by to see me, not ever. Not once.”

“Have you ever invited her to come for a visit?”

“Of course not! Emma is shunned. I’m married to a deacon. I’m held up as an example to others. Emma is the one who chose to leave. There are consequences to that decision. There are reasons for shunning. Sin endangers us all.”

“I understand your feelings,” Sadie said. “It’s clear that you feel stress over Emma.”

Esther held her hands tightly in her lap, so tight that her knuckles had turned white. But she wasn’t ushering Sadie to the door, as Sadie had thought she would.

“You feel as if you’ve lost a daughter.”

“I have lost a daughter.”

Sadie nodded. “Maybe you even feel that she’s rejected you, as well as our church. But, Esther, this bitterness toward Emma might be hurting your health and stealing joy from your life.”

She paused for a few moments to see how Esther was responding. Her eyes were downcast, fixed to the tabletop, but her hands were tight fists in her lap.

“Jesus said that if we forgive others, he will forgive us. But if we don’t forgive others, God will not forgive us.” She reached out and covered Esther’s hands. “I think you need to forgive Emma.”

Esther looked genuinely surprised. “I don’t know . . . how I can do that.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she began to weep. Sadie got up and scrambled to find a box of tissues.

This was new territory for Sadie, but she had an idea of what needed to come next. “If you’re willing, we can pray, right now, for your heart to be changed.”

Esther was crying so loud that Sadie handed her the whole box of tissues. “I’m going to pray now.”

Esther gave a brief nod.

“Lord God, Esther chooses to forgive Emma for the things she did that hurt her. Now you continue, Esther. What do you want to forgive Emma for?”

Esther took a deep, shuddering breath before she spoke. “I forgive Emma for making poor choices. I forgive her for thinking only of herself. I forgive her for breaking her vows to you.”

“Is there anything else you need to forgive Emma for?”

“I forgive Emma for . . . for . . . choosing Steelhead over her own mother.” The words whooshed out of Esther, as if she had been waiting to say them for years. That confession started Esther on another round of weeping, but Sadie didn’t mind so much. She had the most wonderful feeling that God was doing some housecleaning in Esther’s heart.

“Esther, we all need to be forgiven. Each one of us. Would you like to ask God to forgive you for holding these feelings of resentment and bitterness against your daughter?”

Esther was so ready that she didn’t wait for Sadie’s words but offered her own. “God, please forgive me for holding this bitterness toward Emma. And . . . Steelhead, for taking her away.” It was as though a long silence between Esther and God had been broken. A sense of relief came over the room as Esther wiped her eyes and nose.

As Sadie got ready to leave, she thought that Esther hardly looked like the same person. Sadie had actually observed a calm wash over her, like an ocean wave. Her countenance had gone from austerity to softness.

Two weeks later, Sadie saw Esther at church. Esther lowered her voice and whispered, “I stopped by the quilt shop and saw Emma.” She squeezed Sadie’s shoulder. “Of course, we’ll just keep that between ourselves.”

Abraham found Sadie, after lunch, and thanked her for the herbal tea she had left for Esther. “Her headaches are so much better that she hasn’t needed any of her pain medication. Sadie Lapp, that tea of yours really worked.”

“It’s always God who does the work,” Sadie said.

Sadie had never seen anything have such a transforming power. Asking God’s help to forgive had turned a harsh woman like Esther into a kinder, gentler person. The result was amazing. Forgiveness, Sadie decided, was the best medicine of all.

Amos had been filling the lawn mower with gasoline and spilled it on his shirt. He went to the house, gave a wave to Fern in the kitchen, and bolted up the stairs to get a fresh shirt before she smelled the gasoline on him and chewed him out for ruining a good piece of clothing. At the top of the stairs, he stopped suddenly. It was a miracle, one he hadn’t even been thinking of lately. He had walked up the stairs—upstairs!—without having to stop halfway, without gasping for air. Why, he had practically taken the steps two at a time, like a young colt!

He changed his shirt and passed by Sadie’s room, where the baby was starting to stir in the basket. Joe-Jo was nearly outgrowing it, and they should be thinking about getting a crib soon. Amos listened to the even rhythm of the baby’s breathing. He picked him up and held him close, as close as he could. He put the baby’s tiny hand over his heart. “Do you feel that, little one? That’s your father’s heart, beating away.”

When he turned, he saw Fern standing at the doorjamb with a soft look on her face.

He felt a little sheepish. “At my last appointment, the doctor said that I should stop referring to it as Menno’s heart and call it mine. He said it would be better for me to think of it as mine as I take all the drugs to fool my body so it doesn’t reject it.” He kissed the baby’s downy head. “But I can’t seem to think of this heart as belonging to me.”

“Doctors don’t know everything. He didn’t know that Menno had the biggest heart in the world.” Fern walked toward him and put a hand on the baby’s back. “I can’t think of anyone’s heart I’d rather have than Menno’s.”

Amos watched her for a moment as she stroked the baby’s back and he thought it was a shame that Fern wasn’t a mother. Though, he quickly corrected himself, in a way, she was everybody’s mother. Someday, maybe soon, he would have to tell her how much he appreciated her. How much they all counted on her. What a difference she had made in their lives.

Of course, she had no way of knowing what was running through his head. She turned to go. At the door, she stopped and quickly reverted to her starchy self. “Where did you hide that shirt with gasoline? It’s going to take all afternoon to get that stain out.”

Caught red-handed! “Under the bed.”

As he heard her hunting for the shirt in his room, he leaned his chin on the top of the baby’s head and nuzzled him close. What was it about Fern that made a person feel like he was out on a snowy night and had just turned the horse and buggy down the lane that led to home?

Blessed. He was a blessed man.

One morning in the middle of May, Sadie was in the kitchen getting a bottle of goat’s milk ready for the baby as Will knocked softly on the kitchen door and waved through the window. He had started a habit of popping in for a cup of coffee after he did a dawn check on the falcon couple.

Fern opened the door for him and said, “No secret what you’re after.” She tried to sound gruff.

Will gave Fern a kiss on her cheek. “Can you blame a man? There’s no better coffee on this green earth.”

Fern huffed, pleased. She handed Will a mug of hot, steaming coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar already mixed in, just the way he liked it. Little by little, day by day, Sadie had watched Will win Fern over with his easy charm and smooth compliments.

“No eyases to report yet,” Will said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me to find a chick or two has hatched any day now.” He walked over to where Sadie was sitting with the baby.

The baby opened his eyes and blew a spit bubble. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Sadie’s voice held awe. “He hardly ever cries anymore, and I think he knows me more than anyone else.”

“I’m counting on the first smile,” Will said, watching the baby over Sadie’s shoulder. He finished off the last sip of coffee and put the mug on the kitchen table. “I’d better get back to Adam and Eve. Since it’s Saturday, the bird-watchers will be out in full force.”

“Don’t forget about the gathering tonight!” Sadie called.

Will grinned and waved to her through the open window.

“Sadie, don’t tell me you asked Will to the gathering.” Fern frowned.

“Why not? You invited him to church and he’s come twice now. Same thing.” To be fair, Sadie knew it wasn’t the same thing. She knew Fern wanted Will at church to see how very different a world he was entering.

“It’s not the same thing. Not at all.” She wagged a finger at Sadie. “I’ve warned you to not get sweet on him. A boy like that—he thinks he can talk any girl around to his side with a smile and flicker of his eyelashes.”

Isn’t that exactly how he got you in his corner? Sadie wanted to ask but knew enough not to.

Sadie couldn’t begin to explain how she felt about Will Stoltz. She couldn’t truthfully deny Fern’s assumption. A tiny piece of her was, as Fern had put it, sweet on him. How could she resist? Will had openly sought snatches of time with her, moseying by the garden when she was picking vegetables or appearing in the barn when she was preparing the horse for the buggy. She had recognized his ploys and managed to remain kind but cool in the face of his attentiveness, accepting his assistance without encouraging him to pamper her.

Will was charming. He was also handsome and funny and unpredictable and . . . oh how he made her laugh! Of course, there was always that other complication . . . he was English.

But if he weren’t—if there wasn’t a caution, an invisible boundary about the English that had been drilled into her as a child—Sadie would be falling head over heels in love with Will Stoltz.

Then there was Gid. Many times now, he had come over late at night and flashed his beam up at her window, but she ignored it and didn’t go down to meet him. Compared to Will’s silver tongue, Gid was . . . solemn as an owl. Lacking passion. He had little to say, and when he did say something, it seemed to come out all wrong.

Life was so complicated. A few months ago, everyone would have assumed that she and Gid would end up together one day. But Sadie had never felt absolutely convinced of that. She wasn’t sure what held her back from wholeheartedly returning his affection until she had started spending time with Will. In just a month, she felt as if she knew so much about Will—little things, like the fact that he hated tuna fish but loved sardines, or the reason he wore a cowboy hat was because he thought his head had a funny shape. It didn’t. His head was beautifully shaped.

And she knew big things about him too—there was pain in his eyes when he spoke about his father. He felt as if he couldn’t do enough to make his father proud of him. When Sadie held up her gentle and good father next to Will’s, she knew that her childhood was one long sunny spring picnic in the country compared to his.

Her thoughts traveled to Gideon. What could she say about Gid? She cataloged everything she knew about him:

He was almost twenty years old.

He had red hair.

He had a passel of older sisters who were married and raising families of their own. All but Alice. Oh, and Marty too.

He had a widowed father.

He was a schoolteacher.

He suffered from hay fever every spring.

He wore glasses.

He liked to read.

These were facts that everyone knew about him. Although they had grown up together, she was realizing that she hardly knew him, not really.

Gideon Smucker spent most of Saturday afternoon washing and polishing his buggy, thinking up what he would say when he stopped by the Lapps’ to see if Sadie wanted a ride to the gathering. It had to be executed very carefully so that it would seem like a casual thing and not so he would appear to be desperate or cloying. No, never that. He didn’t want Sadie to feel smothered. Girls didn’t like to be smothered, he had heard one of his sisters say.

More than a few times, he had gone over to Windmill Farm late at night to try to talk to Sadie. He flashed the beam of light against her window, but there was no response. Either she was sound asleep, not in her room, or most likely, she was ignoring his signal.

She was mad at him. Steaming mad. By now, he would have thought she might have forgiven him for assuming—like many others had—that she had a child out of wedlock. Yet she seemed far more angry with him now than she had weeks ago. Was that typical of females? For anger to multiply, like yeast in dough?

It was certainly true of Alice. She hadn’t lost a bit of her anger toward Mary Kate for the sledding accident. If anything, she did her best to try to convince Gid that Sadie’s indifference to him was a gift. A heaven-sent opportunity to avoid being permanently connected to the crazy Lapp family. “Take it and run!” Alice told him at least twice a week. But he would never do that.

Mary Kate had given him an idea at school last week. She mentioned that the baby was growing out of his basket. He would make the baby a cradle! Sadie couldn’t stay mad at him if he gave the baby such a gift—something the baby could use every day. It would be a way to show Sadie how he felt. It was always easier for Gid to show love than to say it. Trying to put what he felt for Sadie into words was impossible. To even say it out loud—those three little words—diminished it somehow, the way a firefly lost its spark in a jar. Simple syllables couldn’t contain something as rare as what Gid felt for Sadie.

He had spent the next few evenings in his dad’s workshop, cutting and sanding and staining, then placing pieces in a tight metal vise to let them dry, before coming back to stain and sand some more. He rubbed his hand along the narrow rails. They were like butter! When it was completed, he stood back, pleased with his work. Not a single nail was used. Every joint fit together like a glove on a hand. Ideally, he would have liked to wait one more day, for the glue to cure in the joints, but he really wanted to give the cradle to Sadie tonight.

At four o’clock, he set the cradle carefully in the backseat of the buggy, covered it with a blanket, and went off to Windmill Farm, reviewing again what he would say and do when he saw Sadie.

First, he would surprise her with the cradle. Then, he would offer to drive Sadie to the Kings’ for the singing. They would have time alone and he could finally explain and apologize for deeply offending her. She would forgive him and things could go back to the way they were, before she left for Berlin.

That was the plan. Ironclad! Foolproof.

As he drove up to Windmill Farm, M.K. flew out of the house, baby in her arms, to greet him before the buggy even reached the top of the drive. He barely hopped out of the buggy as she handed him the baby.

“Isn’t he precious?” she asked.

Gid looked down at the little face peering up at him. He had held his nieces and nephews and felt fairly comfortable with babies. This little one was cute, with round dark eyes and a headful of wispy hair. He held out a finger for the baby to grab. “They start out so sweet and innocent and trusting,” he said. “So full of awe at anything new, which is almost everything.” The baby was smiling at him now, really smiling. A big gummy grin.

Mary Kate leaned over and softly said, “You got the first smile! Wait until Sadie hears this. She’s been hoping for that first smile.”

Gid looked up at her. “Let’s not tell her, okay? Let’s wait for her to get the first smile.”

Mary Kate was lost in admiration. She gazed at him in such a way that he blushed. He actually blushed. It wasn’t like he was a hero or anything, but that was the way she was staring at him. As if he saved someone from getting hurt by a felled tree, or as if he stopped a runaway buggy. It embarrassed him.

“Is Sadie here?” he asked, handing the baby to M.K. He reached into the back of the buggy for the cradle.

“She left over an hour ago with Will. She wanted to show him Blue Lake Pond.”

He spun around. “The bird sitter? Blue Lake Pond?” All of his wonderful plans drifted away like smoke from a chimney.

She was staring at the cradle. “Gid, did you make that?” She bent down to rub her finger against the satin finish. “It’s beautiful. It’s the most beautiful cradle I’ve ever seen.”

He put it carefully on the ground. “Don’t use the cradle until tomorrow. Everything needs to set.”

She looked at him as if he hung the moon. “This will definitely butter Sadie up. To think you made a cradle for our baby.”

Gid was mortified. Was he that transparent? Now without a doubt Sadie would be convinced that he was desperate . . . Which he wasn’t! He definitely wasn’t. “Not a big deal. I was in the middle of making a cradle for my sister’s baby. When you said the baby was growing out of his basket—I just thought I’d give you this one. I can always whip up another one for my sister’s baby.” And now he was a liar. He hardly ever lied! Whenever he did, even a small one, he imagined the devil himself dancing with delight.

She gazed at him with clear, blue-gray eyes, their directness telling him precisely what he did not want to hear—she was probably thinking the same thing. He was a liar of the worst sort.

She sighed. “If this doesn’t convince Sadie to start talking to you again, well, then, I don’t know what will.”