Lavinia glanced out the van window as Liz drove past Abe’s farm. A young Englisch man was talking to Abe as he sat behind the farm stand where Waneta enjoyed selling her homemade cheese and ice cream. Something about the man looked familiar, but she couldn’t think why.
She was getting out of the van when she remembered. He was the man who’d stopped his car when she’d run out into the road in front of Abe’s house when he fell off the roof. She’d been so upset that day seeing Abe fall off the roof in front of her, then lie there unconscious, his body twisted on the ground. She wasn’t schur she’d thanked the man properly before she climbed into the ambulance and rode to the hospital with Abe. For a moment, she thought about walking back and thanking him now, but she talked herself out of it. That would mean seeing Abe, and she didn’t want that.
She went inside her house, and as she put away her things, she wondered what the man was doing talking to Abe. When she tried to remember details about the stranger, she recalled him giving her a business card and urging her to call if he could help in any way. She couldn’t remember if she’d given the card to Abe.
The house was quiet. Her mudder must still be over at Sadie’s. Had her dat gone there as well? She glanced out the kitchen window and saw that the barn door was open. That meant he was home and doing evening chores.
She decided she should start supper. Her mudder would undoubtedly be making schur that Sadie was taking care of her new boppli and not on her feet cooking. A search of the refrigerator freezer revealed a big empty space where her mudder usually kept a number of frozen casseroles prepared ahead of time that her dat could put in the oven for supper while Lavinia and her mudder were traveling home after work. She had a feeling that those casseroles were probably residing in her schweschder’s refrigerator freezer now, as worry-free meals for the coming week.
After she got out a pound of ground chicken and set it on a plate on the counter, she checked the pantry and saw the items she needed for tacos. Grabbing a basket, she went out to the kitchen garden and walked around gathering a head of lettuce, some ripe red tomatoes, and a few peppers and onions.
She stared at the patch of celery in the corner of the garden for a long moment and felt a pang of regret. It was a Lancaster County custom to serve celery at Amish weddings, either raw or creamed or both. Sometimes it was possible to guess that a familye was planning a wedding by the amount of celery they were growing in their kitchen garden. With a sigh, she pulled a stalk from the ground, put it in her basket, and went back inside.
She washed the vegetables and set them in a big colander to drain, then got out a skillet and began browning the chicken. After it was cooked, she drained it on a paper-towel-lined plate, used another paper towel to wipe out the skillet, then returned the meat to it and stirred in a jar of tomato sauce her schweschder had canned. She felt herself relaxing as she worked. The simple chores of gathering vegetables from the garden and cooking were ones she enjoyed, even after a long day at the shop. The scents made her realize she was hungerich.
While the chicken and sauce simmered, she put a can of refried beans on to warm, then chopped the vegetables and set them in bowls. Planting and caring for the kitchen garden was a lot of work for her mudder and herself on top of their shop work, but the bounty of fresh produce in summer and the cans they used in the winter were such a blessing.
The kitchen door opened, and her dat walked in. He sniffed as he went to the sink to wash his hands. “Smells gut. What are we having?”
“I thought chicken tacos would be nice.”
He nodded, turned off the faucet, and dried his hands on a dish towel. “Your mudder called me earlier and said not to wait for her. She’s going to eat at Sadie’s.”
“Allrecht. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
He poured glasses of iced tea for them and settled at the table as she finished putting bowls of chopped vegetables and refried beans on it.
Her dat wasn’t the only one who liked tacos. They were a favorite of hers as well. Her mudder kept boxes of tacos and cans of refried beans in the pantry for use in quick meals. They were fun to assemble, and she’d always enjoyed putting the amount of each ingredient that suited her in a taco. First came the chicken, followed by lots of grated cheddar cheese, then lettuce and juicy tomatoes, and finally, salsa they’d canned on top. It was a hearty meal that satisfied. And there was plenty left over for her dat to have for lunch the next day.
He helped himself to a handful of chocolate chip cookies from the jar for dessert and pronounced himself full.
Lavinia cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes while he went back out to finish the evening chores in the barn, taking a couple of carrots with him as treats for their horses.
She settled down at the table and worked on a rug. The shop was too busy to do them there, and they were running low.
Her mudder returned as dark fell and was full of stories of what the new boppli had done that day.
“You’re not going to tell me he smiled at you, are you?” Lavinia asked indulgently.
“Nee, not yet. But he looks at me so seriously, as if he’s trying to figure me out,” she said, fixing herself a glass of tea and settling down for a chat.
They talked about how the day had gone at the shop, although Lavinia left out how she and Emma had talked about Abe.
When she couldn’t stop yawning, Lavinia tucked the rug in her work tote, packed lunches for herself and her mudder, and went on up to bed.
After she’d changed into a nightgown, unpinned her kapp, and brushed out her hair, she climbed into bed. She lay there waiting for sleep to come and tried not to look at the calendar hanging on her wall. The days were passing so quickly. Wedding season was coming too soon. She sighed and lay there awake too long into the night.
* * *
Abe thought long and hard about what to do about Lavinia. Chocolates weren’t going to help this time. So he spent all that evening and most of the next morning working up a plan. The last time he’d seen her had been in her house after the church service. When she’d said her piece and walked away and there had been nothing he could do about it.
This time, he needed a time and place where she’d have to listen to him. He might even have to grovel. He wasn’t looking forward to that. But apologizing to her—getting her to forgive him and say she’d still marry him—was too important. He’d gotten so worried about what he thought he was supposed to do for her as her mann that he’d forgotten what she’d done for him before they’d even married.
That website guy—a stranger to him—had told him how she’d run out into the road to get him help. What the man didn’t know was Lavinia had broken a rule of their faith and lied about being his fraa so that she could go with him to the hospital and make schur that he got the care he needed until she could contact his eldres for him. And then she’d sat at the hospital for hours with him until they came. And even after they’d arrived safely, she’d spent a lot of time away from her job and her familye visiting him, and he schur hadn’t always been in the best of moods.
Before all this had happened, he’d felt she was the woman God had set aside for him. Her actions since then had shown him what kind of fraa she would be. He was lucky that she’d felt he was the man she wanted to be with the rest of her life, in spite of the way he’d let the accident affect him. The way he’d let fear of the future keep him from living for each day he had now.
She’d told him that she’d had enough that fateful Sunday. Could he convince her to change her mind?
He was determined to try.
He woke before dawn like usual and worked with Wayne to get the milking done. Then he went into the house to eat breakfast. As he sat at the table drinking his coffee, he happened to notice how threadbare the rug that lay in front of the kitchen sink was.
Rug.
Lavinia made rugs. Pretty rugs woven from colorful scraps of fabric. An idea began to form. Schur, there were more romantic places to propose, but first you had to figure out how to get the woman to talk to you. If he went into town and saw Lavinia in her shop, she’d have to talk to him. Be polite. Right?
It was a start.
“Abe?”
“Hmm?” He dragged his attention back to see his mudder standing before him holding a plate. “You off visiting some planet?” she asked as she set the plate down in front of him.
“Bu’s been doing a lot of thinking lately,” his dat said as he used a piece of golden-brown biscuit to sop up the yolks of his dippy eggs.
Abe took the plate from his mudder and thanked her. Then he looked at his dat. “I need to run into town. Allrecht if I take the buggy?”
“Schur. Not going anyplace today, are we, Waneta?”
She shook her head. “Only out to the front of the house to sell ice cream and cheese.”
“I’ll be back in time to sit out there during the worst of the heat,” Abe told her. “Promise me you two won’t get overheated.”
“I’ll make schur she doesn’t,” his dat told him, reaching over to pat his fraa’s hand as she sat to drink a cup of coffee.
She snorted. “I have to keep an eye on you like a hawk. Take your medicine, Faron. Get some rest, Faron. Don’t eat so many sweets, Faron.”
He chuckled. “Don’t overdo, Waneta. Don’t—”
“Oh, shush,” she said, chuckling.
They were a pair, Abe thought as he ate quickly. He hoped he and Lavinia would have as loving—and as long—a union.
He finished eating, drained his cup of coffee, then rose and put his plate and cup in the sink.
“Danki for breakfast.”
His mudder started to say something and then stopped.
“I wasn’t going to ask him,” he heard her mutter to his dat as he walked away.
“You know you were,” his dat said.
Abe grinned as he heard her sigh. She’d stopped finding ways to let him know she was disappointed about not seeing Lavinia. He figured that she knew that he had no doctor appointments in town, and he seldom went in without some purpose. But he couldn’t tell her the reason he was going into town was to see Lavinia when he had no idea if his mission would be successful.
Traffic was heavier in town than the last time he’d driven there. Tourists thronged the sidewalks in order to get as much shopping and sightseeing in as possible before it got hot. He parked behind Lavinia’s shop and took a deep breath before walking inside.
Rachel saw him first and looked surprised as she stood at the shop counter and tucked a customer’s purchase into a shopping bag. She nodded at Abe and then glanced at Lavinia, who stood in an aisle looking as pretty as ever as she spoke to another customer.
Abe waited until Lavinia finished talking with the woman and then stepped up to her. “Guder mariye, Lavinia,” he said quietly.
She turned and stared at him, looking startled. “Abe, what are you doing here?”
“I came in to see you.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m working. I haven’t got time to talk to you.”
He was prepared for this. “I’d like you to show me some of your rugs.”
She stared at him blankly. “My rugs.”
“Ya. You still carry them here, right? I’m in the market for one.”
“You don’t need a rug.”
“I do. For my kitchen. What do you think would go well in front of the sink? Mamm always keeps one there because she says it’s hard on the back standing on the wood floor when she washes dishes. Well, that rug’s looking pretty worn.”
Lavinia sighed. “Allrecht, I’ll show you a rug.”
She walked quickly to the next aisle and gestured at several of them displayed on a shelf, then started to leave.
“Which one would you choose?” he asked her. “You know the colors in the room. Which one would you buy?”
“Abe—”
“I remember how we stood at that sink and washed dishes together,” he said, moving closer. “I always pictured you there one day in the future, the two of us talking after supper was over, the day winding down. Thinking about how soon we could go upstairs.”
“Don’t do this to me.” She closed her eyes and then opened them. “It’s not fair.”
“My mudder calls the kitchen the heart of the home,” he told her as he looked deep into her eyes. “You have such a big heart, Lavinia. Marry me. Make a home with me.”
She opened her eyes, and he hurt when he saw there were tears in them.
“I was wrong to tell you we should wait to get married, Lavinia. You were right. We belong together now. I need you in my life, however it’s going. Somehow we’ll make things work.” He reached for her hand. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been old-fashioned and stubborn. I’m a farmer. Always have been. Always will be. It’s my nature to tend, to take care of what I love, whether it’s the land or the animals in my care or the people I love. But you’re right that we’re supposed to be partners, that we’re supposed to trust God to provide. Lavinia, you proposed to me and I said yes. Will you do the same?”
“This year?” she asked him.
“This year.”
A tear spilled from one eye, and she nodded. “Ya. I’ll marry you, Abraham Stoltzfus.”
He sealed the promise with a quick kiss, vowing to do better when they weren’t in the shop.
When a customer approached, he stood back while Lavinia answered her question.
“I don’t suppose you can go to lunch with me before I head home?” he asked when she joined him again.
She laughed and shook her head. “Nee, we’re too busy.”
“Allrecht, then I’ll pick you up and take you to supper after the shop closes.”
“That would be wunderbaar.”
He started to walk away, but she touched his arm. “I thought you wanted a rug.”
“I do.” Inspiration hit. “I want you to make one in the colors you love and give it to me as a wedding gift.”
“I can do that,” she said, and her smile was so bright. “I can do that.”