CHAPTER SEVEN

 

One down and nine more cards to go.  Martha’s mind was fixated on the little notes that rested in the basket as she spread the peanut butter spread onto the thick sourdough bread.  Just as she had done when she was a small girl, she carefully sliced the honey pears into thin slices, leaving their fragrant brown peels on, and placed them on the peanut butter spread sandwiches.  Alice’s mouth watered as she sat at the kitchen table and sipped her milk.  The sweet smell of peanut butter and molasses filled the large kitchen. 

Martha placed the second thick slice of sourdough bread atop the apple and peanut butter spread layers, making a rich, delicious sandwich, and handed it to Alice.  Alice savored the first three bites and then sipped her cow milk.  Her little eyes kept staring at the oil lamp, but she didn’t ask her mother why it was on the table. 

Martha caught the shadow of Ray Miller in through the back glassed-in sunroom entrance and wondered how he’d gotten in without a key.  He has a key to my haus? God forbid that she’d just walked into an odd life, even odder than the gunshots of the Harrodsburg projects. 

Martha reached up and pushed her stray blonde hair back beneath her white prayer covering and crisscrossed the kitchen floor to the back entrance.  He looked a few inches taller than he had been earlier in the day, and his face was fuller as was his strong biceps.  “Did you eat at Yoder’s Kitchen?  If not, would you like to eat with us?”  She asked, but he shook his head and gazed into her eyes.  He was too busy daydreaming how her eyes looked the night that they had conceived Alice, and he had to admit that he would give anything to have not been drunk that night in the loft.

Martha wanted his baby blue eyes to turn as he was making her feel a bit on the edge, for they twinkled, and she wondered if he saw any sparkle in her eyes, the one that all of her former boyfriends had charmingly claimed existed. “Your eyes twinkle.”  She was upfront.

Ray didn’t deny it.  “All the women tell me that, but that’s not why I am here.”  He whipped out a checkbook and a black ball point ink pen and began writing.  He tore it out and handed it to her.  The corner of his thick, red lips turned a soft smile, his eyes reattached to hers.  “Your sparkle, sweetheart, but I bet that you haven’t been told that, being that you’re a single mamm.  You do Rumspringa?  He leaned down, drinking the aquatic water from her eyes.  “I bet you did, pretty one. Who was the lucky guy that got to kiss you on Rumspringa?  Lucky man! Here’s a check for groceries.  I may eat a meal or two here.  I’ll need your help in the apple orchard tomorrow.”  He nodded, winked at her, turned and walked out through the side door. 

Martha grinned and willed her bare feet to move, but they would not.  She’d been taken by his generosity and attention to her eyes.  My eyes sparkle.  She took a deep breath and uttered, “His hair matches my dochder’s red hair; he’d make a good daed.” Sure, lots of men had told her that her eyes sparkle, but he was the first that had meant that they sparkled.

Ray opened the back door and looked in, “Did you say something?” He’d been standing outside, watching her through the tiny glass window in the door, but she hadn’t looked up enough to notice.  “Who’s your dochder’s daed?” He grinned.  ‘I bet he’s handsome, a hard-worker, and most of all Old Order.”  He shut the door.

“Are you still there? He didn’t answer, so she turned and walked back into the kitchen.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this had been her haus, her garden out back, and her red-headed husband?  And if she could go back and conceive Alice with this handsome red-headed man so that he could be her daed and not selfish Jeremiah. She wiped her hands on her apron and sent a prayer up.  “God, please let my Order accept Alice and I.” She felt half-fulfilled, just from the attention that the handsome man had given her, and being back at home almost made completed her.  All that she needed was to become his fraa.

******

Ray Miller leaped away from the white farmhouse with an oversized smile and much contentment about him.  His sin had been, according to Mrs. Dailey, who was his grandmother, the sweetest secret, and he now knew why she’d packed her bags and followed her great-granddaughter.  Having only great-grandsons, Alice had been the first great-granddaughter, so Mrs. Dailey had wanted to watch her grow up.  A stray tear ran down his right cheek, turning cold just below the side of his tanned check.  The other side followed. 

Ray wouldn’t wipe the sadness away because he couldn’t wipe his sin away. Adding to the sin, he’d sent his twin bruder, who had chosen to be Mennonite, to lie to Jeremiah for him, and he knew that had been wrong. If truth be told, he had never needed a fraa, and he’d been told many times, by his mamm that he was too strong-willed to need one.  He was now thinking otherwise.  He needed the love that a sparkling brown-eyed woman could give, and he needed to be in his dochder’s life.

Gazing into the mother of his child’s brown eyes, and then turning to see his dochder’s beautiful face, took his breath away. He stopped, turned and looked at the farmhouse.  He didn’t want to eat without her.  He wanted to sit at the kitchen table as a familye.  She’d been Englisch for so long. Could she work the farm like a real farm woman?  That would be her only obstacle to win his heart.  He looked down at the dirt ground and thought of how brown is much prettier for the color of eyes than his baby blues.  Maybe he would have to teach her to farm.

Ray watched his black boots flip the dust around the path to the back of the farm.  The rolling green hills, fenced off to the left and the right of the tiny dirt road, showcased the mighty step hills, sloping down into the lush green dips with mighty oaks, maple, and hickory trees. A light breeze blew from the west, feathering his thick red hair.  His eyelids relaxed, his mind taken away, his brown straw hat carried in his left tanned hand. The lush slopes of greenery took his breath away, and it always did, exactly like the first day that he, his bruder, and mamm had moved in with his grandmother.  It was autumn now, and soon the mighty trees would turn into deep, warm hues of yellow, orange, and red before shedding their coats.

Martha was on his mind again as he swung his arms back and forth and hymned a praise song from The Ausbund. Praise was what he’d been taught, even when life gives you a sour taste.  There was nothing sour about Martha Yoder coming into town, even the basket of secrets that she had carried in, for unknown to the community, his grandmother had a humorous side, and he’d heard her say, more than twice, “They will all laugh at themselves when I pass on; making amends to each other, those that they have wronged.” 

Whether the notes had any laughs was yet to be known, but if the sweetest sin was helping conceive a beautiful, French-braided eight year-old with red hair, baby blues, and the cutest little freckles, he had to think that the rest would not be too sour. 

Ray’s mouth got an instant desire to sample the apples.  The red tart apples were good sugared down.  He leaned up, plucked one from a branch, wiped it off with a cloth and sunk his sharp, white teeth through its delicate brown skin. He grimaced. The honey pear was a little immature.  Like the red apple that he looked down at, he’d been a little immature back in Rumspringa days, but it wasn’t anything that a little sugar couldn’t fix; hopefully sugar from the ruby-red lips of his precious new tenant farmer would sweeten the whole orchard up; his lips tingled with immense anticipation of their first kiss.  Would he be good enough for her? Actually, it would be their second, third, or maybe fourth kiss?  How many kisses had led to them conceiving Alice? It was unknown because they were drunk with strong alcohol.  Regardless of the count, he couldn’t wait to kiss her sweet lips again.