Abe hadn’t let her pay for their pizza date, so she suggested they go for a picnic on Saturday, and she’d make fried chicken and potato salad.
Summer was the worst time to be standing in a kitchen frying chicken on a hot stove, but it wouldn’t be a picnic without it. Not to her, anyway, she thought as she turned the pieces in the cast-iron skillet.
“Smells wunderbaar,” her dat said as he walked into the kitchen and got a glass from the cupboard.
“I’m making enough for your supper as well as the picnic,” she told him. “And I just made fresh lemonade and put it in the refrigerator. Have some.”
“I do believe I will. Where’s your mudder?”
“Went to deliver some casseroles to a friend. Should be back soon.”
She used tongs to lift chicken onto a plate lined with a paper towel to drain it. When she added more chicken to the skillet, the bubbling oil popped and hit her hand. “Ouch!”
“You allrecht?” her dat asked.
“I’m fine.”
Amos set his glass down and walked over to her. He took her hand in his and examined it. “Go run some cold water on it and I’ll get the burn ointment.”
“It’s fine.” But she did as he said as he rummaged in a cabinet for the first aid kit.
She kept a careful eye on the chicken frying as she turned off the tap and dried her hand on a dish towel. Her dat dabbed burn ointment on the spot, then kissed her cheek.
“I remember the first time I did this,” he said as he capped the tube. “Your mudder was teaching you to fry chicken.”
“Guess I haven’t learned much, have I?”
He shrugged. “Accidents happen. Feel any better?”
She nodded. “The ointment helped. Bacon’s the worst. It pops a lot more unexpectedly than frying chicken does. Seems to hurt a lot more, too.”
After she finished with the chicken, she turned off the flame under the skillet and poured her own glass of lemonade. The battery-operated fan on the nearby counter didn’t do much to cool things off. She took the glass and rolled it across her forehead and felt a little cooler.
“Here, you can snack on this so you don’t get into the chicken I put in the refrigerator for supper for you and Mamm,” she told him. She set a plate with a chicken leg and some potato salad she’d made the night before in front of him.
“You’re a gut dochder,” he said, grinning at her.
“I know how you are with fried chicken,” she told him fondly.
When she climbed into Abe’s buggy a few minutes later and he sniffed appreciatively at the basket she set on the seat between them, she wondered if all men felt the same way about it.
“A picnic with your fried chicken is the best date ever.”
She smiled. “Better than pizza?”
“You bet. It’s going to rain in a few hours, though.”
They went to a favorite park and enjoyed their food, but before they got to the cookies she’d packed, they heard the rumble of thunder overhead.
Summer and late afternoon showers just seemed to go together. They ran for the buggy and laughed as they piled inside, damp but cooler. Rain pattered down and enclosed them in their own private shelter as eldres scrambled to get their picnic things and kinner inside their vehicles.
Lavinia sat there watching and felt mixed emotions. Ya, she and Abe were closer than ever, but she wondered if he was going to ask her to marry him this wedding season. She knew he was very traditional, like many Amish men, but was she going to sit passively and then be sorry if they just drifted along and it became too late to marry until next year?
Impulse had her turning to look at him, and she caught him peeking into the picnic basket. “Abe?”
He jumped, and the lid slammed on his fingers. “Ouch!”
“We need to talk about our relationship.”
“Allrecht.” He looked at her warily.
“I think we should get married,” she blurted out.
“You—” he began, then cleared his throat. “You do?”
She nodded. “I love you, and if you don’t know it, then there, I’ve said it.” Emboldened, she went on. “I don’t think you realize how soon harvest will be over—”
“I know when harvest is,” he interrupted her.
“Well, you seemed surprised at what time of year it was when you picked me up in town to have pizza.”
“I just haven’t been in town to notice how busy it is now,” he said defensively.
She shook her head. “We’re getting off track. If you don’t love me—if I’m completely wrong about the way you feel—then say so.”
Looking chastened, he reached for her hand. “I do love you. When you were walking out of the shop yesterday, it hit me. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know if you felt the same way.”
She stared at him. “Would I have spent so much time with you in the hospital if I didn’t love you? Worried about you? Visited you at home since you were released?”
“We’ve always been friends, but…I guess not. Still, I don’t think I realized it until yesterday.” He shook his head. “Guess I’m slow.”
“Ya.” She waited. “So?”
Abe frowned. “I worry that I can’t offer you much, Lavinia. All I have is a dairy farm that’s hanging on by a thread.”
“Do you think I care about that? I know how traditional you are, Abe, but don’t you think that’s really being old-fashioned?”
“Nee, I think it’s being realistic.”
“I’m schur your eldres would tell you that every farm goes through its ups and downs. My own familye’s certainly has. But having a partner to work with you helps, don’t you think?”
“That’s what my dat has told me,” he admitted. “But if we wait until things are more stable—”
“We might be old and gray,” she snapped.
His eyes widened. “I wasn’t thinking of waiting that long.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have been so blunt. But it needed to be said. “I don’t want to just sit and hope things will get better,” she said. “Why can’t we be together while we’re working to make the farm profitable? Why do we have to be apart?”
Abe studied their clasped hands. “We don’t,” he said after a long moment. “Lavinia, will you marry me?”
She smiled and nodded and felt like laughing with joy. “I thought you’d never ask.”
They kissed and sat for a long time, listening to the rain and making plans for the future.
* * *
Abe was driving them home and meant to only wave at his eldres, but Lavinia tugged at his sleeve.
“Stop! I want some ice cream. I love your mudder’s ice cream.”
“You want to tell them?” he asked.
“Do you want to?”
“It’s up to you,” he said as he pulled the buggy over in front of the house.
She shook her head. “It feels a little new. Does that make any sense?”
“I guess.” He sat there studying her. If she wanted to wait, that was fine with him. It still felt a little strange to be engaged—in a gut way—to him.
They got out and walked over to the farm stand. Abe tried to hold back his grin when the clackety-clack of the machine grew louder as they approached it. It was such an outlandish contraption, but his dat got such a kick out of it, and it was proving to attract people to stop and sample the ice cream. Two cars pulled up behind his buggy as they walked to the stand.
Lavinia reached into her purse for money, but Abe stopped her. “You are not paying for it.”
“Absolutely not!” Waneta agreed. “We have vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.”
“Strawberry for me.”
“Cone or cup?”
“Cone.”
“Strawberry for me, too,” Abe said.
“As if I didn’t know,” his mudder said with a smile. “He’s asked for strawberry since he was a bu. When I’d send him out to pick them, he’d come back with strawberry juice smeared all over his face and a half-full pail in his hands.”
“Funny, I don’t remember it that way,” Abe said, looking embarrassed.
Waneta scooped up ice cream and handed Lavinia a cone with two big scoops.
“Wow. That’s a lot,” Lavinia told her. “Maybe make me one with one scoop and I’ll give this one to Abe.”
Waneta grinned and shook her head. “Nee. Cones come with two scoops.” She made a cone for Abe and then turned to her other customers.
Abe ate his cone while she served up ice cream and Faron collected money.
When the customers had walked away with their treats, Waneta turned to Faron. “I think I’m going in to get a glass of water. Feeling pretty warm out here.”
Faron looked up from squirting oil on the chain of his machine. “Bring me out one when you come back?”
“Schur.” She looked at Lavinia. “Want to come with me?”
“Allrecht.” Lavinia licked her cone as she walked with the older woman into the house.
Abe finished his cone and watched his dat fussing over his beloved contraption. Well, he guessed the man deserved to have a hobby after all his years of working hard.
* * *
Lavinia sat at the table eating her cone as Waneta got a pitcher of ice water from the refrigerator and poured two glasses.
Waneta fanned her face with her hand as she drank thirstily. “Are you staying for supper? We’re just having some leftovers. I have baked chicken from last night, some macaroni salad and such. It’s so warm today.”
Then she set the glass on the table so suddenly water sloshed in it, and she fell to the floor.
Shocked, Lavinia dropped her cone and rushed to her side. She knelt beside Waneta and called her name but the woman lay still and silent, her eyes closed, her face so pale.
Pushing to her feet, Lavinia ran to the front door and yelled for Abe and Faron, then rushed back to Waneta. She wet a dish towel with the ice water from one of the glasses and knelt to press it to Waneta’s forehead.
The men came into the kitchen as fast as they could, both limping a little and leaning on canes.
“She was complaining about being warm and then just collapsed!” Lavinia cried as they approached.
As Faron joined her at his fraa’s side, Waneta stirred and opened her eyes. “What happened?” she asked, looking confused.
“You just fell,” Lavinia told her as she stroked the wet cloth over her forehead. She looked at Abe. “Call nine-one-one.”
“Don’t be silly.” Waneta struggled to sit up. “The heat just got to me. Could happen to anyone.”
Abe looked at his dat. “Daed?”
Faron frowned. “Let’s get your mudder up off the floor and see how she does.”
“Let us,” Lavinia insisted, worried that with his MS Faron could lose his balance and end up on the floor along with his fraa.
Waneta fussed at them as Lavinia and Abe grasped her elbows and helped her to stand, then lowered her into a chair at the table. As she reached for a glass of water, her hand shook, but she drank the contents. “I’m feeling better,” she declared. “No one is calling nine-one-one.”
“Always was stubborn,” Faron said as he took a seat.
Waneta pushed one of the glasses toward him. “There’s the water I was going to bring you.”
“You’re looking awful pale.”
“Faron, I’m allrecht.”
“Mamm, I think we should have you checked out,” Abe said.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’m going to cool off, then I’m going to go out and get everything inside.”
“Nee,” Abe said firmly. “You’re going to sit here and rest. I’ll go out and take care of it.” He turned on the battery-operated fan on a nearby counter and directed it to blow on her. “Daed, keep an eye on her and yell if you need me.”
“Will do.”
Abe walked back out to the farm stand with Lavinia. “It’s all my fault,” he said as he began piling the insulated chest with the ice cream and cartons of cones into a wooden wagon his mudder used to transport them from house to stand.
“How do you figure it’s your fault?” she asked as she gathered up the metal ice-cream scoops and basket of paper napkins and put them in the wagon.
“She’s been doing too much to help around here since my accident. They both have. They’re too old to be doing all they do.”
“They love every minute of it,” she told him.
He shook his head. “It’s too much. I need to find a way to get them both to stop overdoing.”
She put her hand on his arm. “They will as soon as you’re better.”
A car pulled up, and kinner began tumbling out of the back doors as their frazzled-looking mudder called after them to wait for her.
“Ice cream!” the oldest, looking about seven or eight, cried.
Abe hesitated. He had almost everything packed up. But one look at the mudder and he couldn’t send her away with disappointed kinner. So he pulled the ice chest out of the wagon and began taking orders for cones. The kinner wanted double chocolate cones, but their mudder shook her head and said to give them single scoops. After an apparent battle with herself, the mudder asked for a single strawberry cone. Lavinia handed out plenty of napkins.
“Thank you so much,” the woman said. “It looked like you were shutting down just as we pulled up. I don’t know what I’d have done with the kids if you hadn’t served us.”
“It’s our pleasure.” He scooped up the last of the strawberry, piled it into a cone, and handed it to her.
She took a taste and sighed. “Oh my, this is delicious. We’ll be back.”
He shook his head when she handed him money. “It’s on me. Call it a mom special.” He didn’t want to tell her she might not get to stop by again if he had his way.
The woman tucked her money back in the pocket of her shorts. “Thank you. That’s very kind. Kids, say thank you to the nice couple.”
“Thank you!” they chorused.
She shooed them back into the car, and they waved as they left.
Abe went back to packing everything up again. “If Mamm doesn’t look better, we have to find a way to make her get checked out.”
Lavinia took a deep breath, then let it out. “This should be interesting. Like your dat said, she’s one stubborn woman.”