Chapter Eighteen

Riding in the car with Elli, Grace was glad to leave the closed-in walls of the shack today, still tainted by Freeman’s unexpected visit. Forty degrees with sunshine felt like a whole new world after being inside for days. Sitting alone, sewing newborn gowns and pondering Freeman’s harsh words, what would be a better distraction than a day spent in the company of Elli and the women she had come to know and care for?

Quilting bees at home were full of focus and skill, but she had a feeling that the ladies of Walnut Ridge would be the fellowship she could use right now. “Best cure for the cabin fever is sunshine and friends.” Elli bumped her shoulder and tossed her a smile.

The driver, an older woman Elli knew, fairly well by the way they teased each other, pulled into the drive and put the car in park. Elli tossed the woman a ten-dollar bill as Grace exited the car.

Three buggies sat outside Betty Glick’s home. The door opened, and Grace was met with the scent of fresh bread and peppermint. In the kitchen, Grace found the source of the aromas. Betty’s candy-making skills put anything created in her family home to shame. Christmas preparations had begun.

Grace popped a chocolate-coated patty into her mouth and let the minty flavors wash over her. After three days of an upset stomach, the peppermint was undoubtedly the best medicine, and hopefully the rest of the day would be the best cure for what ailed her.

“Look at you, my dear. You are glowing.” Betty squeezed her shoulders.

Grace beamed. Betty was a ray of sunshine on any darkened day. The women doting over her recent growth made her feel almost happy. The house stirred with activity, and she watched busy bodies ready the quilting supplies. Hannah and Betty collected threads and needles, while she and her aenti spread the quilt over the kitchen table. Once everything was in its place, Grace found a seat and studied the pattern in front of her. Swirls had been quilted already and she had only to continue what another had started. That was easy enough. Even she couldn’t mess that up.

“This will be gut for ya.” Aenti Tess set a cup of tea down next to her and walked back to her seat at the large table. Since their last conversation her aenti seemed more pleasant to be around.

“I took out another dress for you,” Betty interrupted her thinking.

“You are spoiling me, Betty. I can tend to such myself,” Grace said. Though it was a job best suited for Charity, since she sewed the finest according to their mutter, but Grace had learned the skill as well.

“Don’t discourage Betty, dear. I for one know all about her spoils. Want them or not she has a gift of knowing what we need and when we need it. Be thankful,” Elli added and passed a smile across the table to her dearest friend.

“We hear Freeman Hilty has become rather enamored with you.” Rachel was quickly replacing the thorn in her side.

“He has been very kind to me since I moved here,” Grace said, not revealing that Freeman all but planned a full future without caring for her thoughts on it.

“Very kind indeed. He talks about you to everyone.” Rachel sounded more informative than judgmental for once, and Grace could only stare at her from across the table in curiousness.

“He is very…what is the word? Determined. I have no mind to entertain his company other than being polite.” There, she thought. Point made.

Rachel’s regular tight expression softened. One could almost see the relief on her face. Grace appreciated the sentiment. Rachel must know firsthand all about Freeman’s attentions, too.

“He has a history of being a bit pushy.” Rachel added.

“I can see that.” A smile floated between them. “He was even so bold as to tell me we were courting and had a future together despite my saying I had no interest in him. I take it he does not like being told no.”

“That he doesn’t. Even as a boy, he was not one for a no. He has flirted with every girl in the community and not a one accepted his efforts,” Rachel said.

“If he is being a pest, you just tell us.” Elli quickly lifted a firm brow.

“I made him leave this morning when he brought my wages. I don’t know why Sadie gave them to him.” Grace hoped she didn’t sound too complaining, but Rachel was right; Freeman didn’t take no for an answer.

“I will see to that,” Tess barked. “That reminds me. Did Cullen deliver the sewing machine?”

Talk about timing. Tessie Miller was the queen of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. If they suspected she had feelings for Cullen, they would certainly be more stuck on it now. Rachel’s raised brows were proof of that.

Grace gathered herself and slowed her breaths. Focusing on sliding the needle along the penciled line of the quilt, she answered. “He has not.” Though she did have a new chair and the dish cabinet no longer leaned on the wall but held firmly to it. But Grace kept those thoughts to herself. Rachel scoffed in reply but otherwise kept silent.

“Very well. I think we will stop by and see that you get it. No point in putting others out when you can tend to your own needs. A busy man should not be bothered too often.”

Grace nodded in agreement. Cullen had work, a living to make, and yet made time to tend to her so frequently. It spoke volumes about the kind of man he was.

“I do not need it. I have two hands,” Grace said. Freeman said she should not sit and wait for handouts, and she hoped others didn’t see her the same way.

“It was his mamm’s. He won’t be needing it.” Betty chimed in, then snipped a yard of thread and began working.

No, Grace didn’t expect Cullen would need a sewing machine, nor have time for such womanly things, being the only blacksmith for miles, but one day it would be useful in his home again, would it not?

“What if Cullen were to take a fraa? He is still young. Why buy something that’s already there?” With her needle threaded once more, Grace eyed the place she had stopped and continued quilting again.

“No one sees Cullen Graber ever doing such,” Aenti Tess snorted. “Do not worry, he thought it would be best for you to have it with the boppli coming and all.” Cullen’s idea. Why did that not surprise her? And why did it make her all tingling inside?

Grace did her best to concentrate on her quilting and not the handsome neighbor filling her every thought. “Why wouldn’t anyone see him wed? He is strong, handsome, has his own smithy shop and home. He would be a gut catch for someone.” As the words left her, she felt strangely affected by them. Cullen was a gut catch, and suddenly imagining him with another made her uneasy.

“I knew you thought him handsome. You should see your face light up at just the mention of his name,” Hannah blurted out. Did her face light up at the mere mention of his name? Grace thought not. Hannah was being foolish and making Grace’s face warm.

“You should know Sara Shrock and Beth Zook have tried catching his eye for years now.” Was Hannah telling her she had competition?

“And Mary Beth Beiler and Bethany Zimmerman,” Elli added with a knowing grin. Grace didn’t know what to say and figured nothing was best. “They make certain to compliment the sign he made every time they stop in to purchase cheese for their mamms.” The women all laughed.

“You and Cullen Graber have much in common. It is not unlikely for you two to become freinds. Sara is my dearest freind,” Rachel muttered. Loud enough all could hear, and Grace wondered why she even attempted keeping her voice down at all. Their eyes locked in defiance of the other, the friendly moment between them gone, broken only when Rachel pricked her finger. Elli slung a dishrag in her direction and Rachel quickly covered the wound before she bled on the white of the quilt top.

“Serves ya right,” Elli barked. “Cullen is a good catch. All the available girls have tried for his attention, some still do. He has never taken an interest.”

Did Elli know something of Cullen’s well-kept thoughts that she didn’t? “I do not understand.” Grace paused, scanning the faces of everyone around the table for answers. Why would a man not want to marry? Was that not what they were instructed to do?

Setting her sights back to Elli, she watched the exchange. Elli looked to her aenti for consent before continuing further, and Tessie gave it to her. It was a bit unsettling to know the confident and forward Elli Schwartz required Tess’s approval for anything. No, that wasn’t it. The women worked as a team, a clutch of sisters. Was she part of that clutch? She thought not, but the idea she could be was pleasing.

“Cullen was a boy when he met Marty.” Elli let loose of the quilt and laid her needle and thread next to a small silver pair of scissors. Everyone grew eerily quiet. Was Marty who Cullen meant when he said, “she’s gone,” leaving her with nothing more? Grace felt her heart ache just imagining Cullen giving his heart to another only to have her leave it broken.

“Marty was an Englisch girl. Poor little thing ran wild when she was young.” Grace’s eyes went wide. She tightened her jaw to make sure it didn’t drop in astonishment. Cullen loved an Englischer, one he met as a child. The revelation was a jolt to her system.

Twice now she’d been told she and Cullen had something in common. Grace suspected they shared broken hearts, but abandonment she would have never guessed. Who would dare leave such a man?

“Well of course with no mamm at home and no daed for that matter with all his drinking and gambling and such. Kinner need direction or they become wild,” Tess added, rocking in her seat with every word she said. Grace noted that the tic of rocking like that only appeared when Tessie was upset. Not just her normal angry self but truly disturbed. Grace hung on their every word.

“Well, they grew up in this valley, and though Cullen’s parents often warned him of such friendships, Cullen couldn’t stay away from Marty, no matter the trouble it caused him.” She never would have suspected Cullen was a wayward fence jumper. She certainly couldn’t imagine him swaying from his faith. He was so solid in it. “The bishop even had to intervene when they became teenagers after Marty’s father caught them fishing over at the lake. He beat Cullen bloody for being there.” Grace gasped.

“Her daddy beat her that day, too. You all know it to be true and not idle gossip. The man was a monster to that girl.” Heads bobbed in agreement with Betty’s high-pitched comment. Betty wiped her face with a soft linen hanky and tucked it back into her sleeve. Betty had such a soft heart. So Marty was raised in an abusive home.

“That’s what happens when you go mixing the separate worlds, Mutter says.” Rachel passed her a judgmental gaze. She was right, yet her saying so didn’t lessen the sting. Shame again coursed through Grace, leaving its bitter taste on her tongue. Grace raised the second cup of tea her aenti had offered and sipped the cold, awful stuff. It tasted of lemon and honey, which she had always liked, but something bitter, strong, and woodsy was in the brown concoction that made it hard to swallow.

“When she turned sixteen she began learning our ways. She talked to the bishop, and Cullen’s mamm was teaching her cooking and sewing and all the things that make for a gut fraa.”

“She was going to join our faith?” Grace asked. Jared had once made such a promise. With ears all in, Grace listened as a child waiting for the next chapter. Cullen’s story was so like her own. No wonder she felt pulled to him.

“Grace, my dear,” Elli said, touching her sleeve. “I myself was not born Amish. I became so after raising two daughters and burying my first husband. I was blessed with a second chance and fell in love with a good man.”

That explained a lot. Grace realized her mouth was completely open and quickly closed it. “I had some suspicions.” Grace quirked the corner of her mouth and patted Elli’s hand back. “So did this Marty join the community? Was she baptized?” When no one answered, Grace lifted her gaze to the women again.

Elli got to her feet as Hannah and Rachel hurried back to quilting to avoid answering. Grace looked across the quilt. Betty was teary-eyed, and her aenti was simply staring at the colors before her as if the answers were all there. Something terrible had happened. Grace was sure of it, and just thinking it made her somber, too. Grace couldn’t deny wanting to know more, yet she couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy, too. She clutched her chest, waiting.

Elli cleared her throat again. “When Marty was ready to leave her father’s house, he stopped her, and she told him she was going to join our Amish community and marry the man she loved.” Elli took a breath to regain her composure. “Her father was drunk with her in the car and they crashed into Twin Fork Lake. A couple of kids nearby said Marty tried to save him. He was stuck and the poor thing drowned trying to free him.” Without a hand nearby to clutch, too, Grace squeezed her own together to lessen the emotions swelling up inside her. What agony, what pain Cullen must feel. “Then a few years back, Cullen lost both his parents in a buggy accident. He has lost much, but our Cullen is strong in his faith.” It couldn’t be ignored how much Elli cared for Cullen.

That was it, her mind proclaimed. Cullen waited for a woman he met as a child to make her his wife and she died saving a man who didn’t care about her? It was the most horrible, tragic thing she had ever heard. Grace’s insides screamed in protest. She no longer felt the urge to cry. If not for a few drops of moisture already, she wouldn’t cry at all. What part of Gott’s plan was that? Cullen’s loss had surpassed any she had endured. Jared was alive, but Marty was gone, never to return. Her parents were alive, despite not wanting her around. How could she even fathom one ounce of similarity to what Cullen Graber had endured? Life was so unfair.

She scanned the quilting table, damp eyes and solemn faces on them all. Grace felt her own vision blur. What was meant to be a beautiful story ended in heartache and utter tragedy. Where was the happy ending? Faith once read a story like that, but before the last pages were read, Daed had found the book, burned it in the cookstove, and punished them all for the disobedience before ever knowing the end.

What end would come to Cullen? He deserved the happiest of them all. Did she dare try to help him? Share her story in hopes he could talk about his own.

“Children always pay for their parent’s sins.” Tess muttered. Her chair fell to the floor as she marched out of the room. A pin dropped to the floor, and everyone at the quilting table heard it.