Why did they run out of parts at the worst possible moment?
Groping in his tool belt pocket for another bolt, Micah appraised the metal structure that would support the solar panels on Reuben’s roof. He and Sean had started working at the bishop’s house early that Saturday morning. They wanted to get as much done as possible because they wouldn’t be able to return next week. The harvest festival would eat up their whole day. When Micah had explained this to Reuben a couple of days ago, the bishop had accepted the delay.
“All things happen in God’s time,” Reuben said, “including harvest festivals.” His grin had been bright through his gray whiskers. “Enjoy yourself with your friend and his family. The panels will be done when they’re done.”
The bishop’s generous words and kind smile had added to Micah’s guilt at not mentioning one important fact—Katie Kay would be going to the harvest festival with him and the Donnellys.
This morning, his stomach had twisted around and around on the drive over in his buggy to meet Sean at the Lapps’ house. Facing Reuben and not being able to tell his bishop the truth about Katie Kay had kept him awake most of the night. The fear Sean might accidentally mention Reuben’s daughter had prevented him from sleeping the rest of the night.
He’d been able to breathe a bit easier when he discovered Reuben was visiting a family in his other district and would be gone most of the day. Before Sean arrived with their equipment, Micah had spent a few minutes speaking with Marnita and Ina Sue, Katie Kay’s two younger sisters. They were excited about the young people’s singing planned for the following evening and talked of nothing else.
It was odd to think that not long ago, he anticipated youth events with the same eagerness. That time, which was simple in retrospect, seemed like someone else’s life.
Once he had climbed onto the roof with his partner, Micah had tried to lose himself in his work. Instead he kept losing the bolts and nuts he need to assemble the framework.
Looking over at Sean, he asked, “Do you have more of those small bolts? I’m out.”
“That makes two of us,” Sean said after checking the pockets of his work apron. “Guess it’s time to run over to the hardware store and replenish the supplies. I should have gone yesterday after work, but our house guest made her delicious chocolate cake and I didn’t want to risk having it all eaten by three kids and one pregnant wife before I got home.” He bent and gave a gentle tug on the framework. “It’s not going anywhere. We’ll get back to it next weekend.”
“Ja.” He was accustomed to his partner stating the obvious. Shortly after they’d begun working together, Micah realized that talking aloud was Sean’s way of reviewing the next steps on a project.
After they’d collected their tools and climbed down, Sean carried a length of the metal framework to the van. They’d need it to make sure they got the right-sized bolts. Micah followed, pausing to let Reuben’s daughters know he and Sean were done for the day.
“We’ll be back the Saturday after next to finish the work,” he said, though Reuben knew already.
“Danki, Micah.” Ina Sue, who must be almost twenty, smiled at him. “You’re nice to do this for Daed and for us.”
“Sean is helping, too.” He sounded idiotic, but he hadn’t expected Katie Kay’s sister to regard him with an invitation to linger.
“Will you be at the singing tomorrow night?”
“I don’t think so.” Most of the kids who joined in the youth events were too young for him. The guys were interested in pushing the envelope of their plain lives and trying to get a girl to drive home. A few had jobs beyond their family farms, but they hadn’t decided what to do with their lives.
Telling the girls he’d see them at church in the morning, he strode to the van. He was walking a narrow line between his Amish life and the Englisch world where he worked. Every step had to be made with care.
Did Katie Kay feel that way, too? Or was she more comfortable among the Englischers? She continued to wear Englisch clothing but had begun to cover her head when she was doing housework. Was it a sign she was considering a return to her family? He’d heard her telling Sean’s kinder about the school she and Micah had attended. The wistfulness in her voice had given him hope, but he cautioned himself not to be overly optimistic. She might not intend to resume her life among their people.
Micah was glad that, while they drove to Sean’s house, they made a list of items they’d use the following week for the work on Reuben’s house. He wrote down each part and the quantity they needed, adding in the ones he thought of while Sean called out others. Focusing kept him from thinking about Katie Kay.
For a few seconds anyhow.
As they entered the house, he heard the rumble of the vacuum. The kids came running, and the loud noise turned off. While Sean greeted his kinder, Micah watched Katie Kay lean the vacuum against a chair.
She went to the sofa and assisted Gemma to her feet. Gemma put her hand to her side, grimacing, but her smile returned while she thanked Katie Kay.
Waddling to the entry hall, one hand under her distended belly, Gemma asked, “What’s brought you home early, Sean? Not that I’m complaining.”
“We’ve got to run to the hardware store for some parts. I wanted to see if you needed anything from Strasburg while we’re over that way.”
“Pumpkins!” shouted DJ.
“Let Mommy answer.” Sean gave his eldest a chiding frown.
DJ wasn’t cowed. “But, Daddy, you promised to take us to get pumpkins the next time you went to the hardware store. Big, medium and small.”
When Micah saw Katie Kay’s confusion, he said, “Sean started a tradition a few years ago of making pumpkin people. Because the cold can cause Olivia to have an asthma attack, she can’t build snowmen. They solved the problem and got a jump on the cold weather with pumpkin people. They use carrots for noses, though a hole has to be carved out to fit the carrot in. The kids help set them up and then they paint clothes and faces on them out in the front yard.”
“With the paint they don’t splash on themselves,” Gemma added with a tired smile.
“Can we go?” asked the kinder in unison.
Micah smiled at how the Donnelly kids could be of one mind when they wanted something.
Sean hesitated. “I know I promised, but Mommy is tired.”
“I can go,” Katie Kay piped up. “Micah and I will help to keep an eye on them while they pick out their pumpkins. That makes one kind for each adult. It should be simple.” She glanced at Micah. “Ain’t so?”
He nodded because he could see how exhausted Gemma was. Having the kids whining because of a broken promise would upset her. She needed her rest and peace and quiet.
“Thank you.” Gemma’s grateful smile was aimed at them. “I think I will—”
“You will sit and watch TV or take a nap.” Katie Kay put her hands on the other woman’s shoulders and steered her to the couch. “While Sean and Micah help the kids get their coats on, I’ll make you a cup of herbal tea to sip on while we’re away.”
“But supper—”
Again Katie Kay interrupted. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it later. Enjoy your quiet time. You know it won’t last long.”
Micah said nothing as Gemma nodded, her every motion heavy with fatigue. She trusted Katie Kay with her kinder. The two women had grown closer as they spent more time together. He was tempted to ask Gemma how that had happened. Every attempt he made to heal the wounds between him and Katie Kay failed.
Because you keep pressuring her to make a decision instead of letting her find the way with God’s help.
He was getting really annoyed with his conscience. At the same time, he had to be grateful for its guidance. It hadn’t steered him wrong in the past, so he should heed it now.
Helping three small kinder into their coats was like trying to capture newborn piglets. They wiggled and jostled and reached in front of one another to collect hats. Three kinder seemed like a dozen. Micah wasn’t surprised that Katie Kay had already returned from the kitchen with a cup of steaming tea by the time they finished getting the youngsters dressed.
When Jayden announced he needed to go to the bathroom, she took his hand and motioned for Micah and Sean to take his siblings out.
“We’ll be there before you get them strapped in,” she said, leading the little boy to the downstairs bathroom.
Micah had no doubts about that. DJ and Olivia ran in circles around him and Sean as they went outside. They bounced like a pair of rabbits and asked questions without giving him or Sean a chance to answer.
“We’ll take Gemma’s van.” Sean grinned. “It’s easier than moving their car seats. I already put the structure piece from Reuben’s house in the back. Do you have our list, Micah?”
“I’ll get it.” He strode to the work van and opened the passenger door. His clipboard had fallen on the floor, so he shook dirt off it as he returned to the other vehicle.
He was glad, when he got back, that Katie Kay was sitting with the kinder and helping Jayden into his car seat. The ancient Volkswagen microbus had a bench seat in the front with seat belts for three adults. Sitting next to Katie Kay during the ride to the hardware store would be exquisite torture.
His fingers itched to caress her cheek, which he knew was silken-soft. His arm ached to curve around her shoulders as it had when he’d drawn her to him in his courting buggy. His senses recalled the sweet scent of her shampoo.
Micah forced the memories away as he climbed into the front seat and didn’t turn to look at her and the kinder. Whenever he remembered what he and Katie Kay had shared—for such a brief moment—in the past, he couldn’t imagine a future without her.
Though she’d given him no sign she felt the same.
Fool!
That was what he was. The biggest dummkopf ever.
Yet, knowing that, why couldn’t he put her out of his mind? He needed to find an answer right away.
* * *
The hardware store in Strasburg was set behind its narrow parking lot. Unlike the fancy outlet mall on the Lincoln Highway in Ronks or the shops in Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand, this store focused on service for local farmers rather than tourists. A large sign painted Hardware was set atop the roof of the front porch running the length of the building. On the concrete floor was a variety of items, some on sale and others, seasonal clearance. Dried cornstalks were stacked on either side of the door, and pumpkins were heaped beneath a lean-to shed to the far left side of the building. A pair of horses waited with their plain buggies near a hitching rail.
Micah was glad to hear Katie Kay insist that each of the kinder must hold a grown-up’s hand before they started across the almost empty parking lot. Cars and trucks often zipped in and out.
It took about five minutes—far less time than Micah had expected—for the kinder to pick out the pumpkins they wanted. Sean lifted their choices onto a flatbed cart. He let his kinder “help” pull the cart toward the outside register, where they paid for nine pumpkins.
After putting the pumpkins into the van, they went into the store to look for the parts they needed. Sean asked Micah to help Katie Kay with the youngsters.
“I will get what we need,” Sean said with a grin. “And I’ll do it much faster without small fingers exploring what’s in the bins.”
Something about how his partner’s eyes twinkled warned Micah that Sean had an ulterior motive for sending him with Katie Kay and the kinder. He was tempted to tell Sean that matchmaking could undermine their friendship, but he knew it wouldn’t. And Micah couldn’t be certain that leaving him with Katie Kay was Sean’s primary motivation, especially when they were chaperoned by three imps who demanded all their attention.
After nodding to Sean, Micah looked at the kids. “What shall we look at first?”
“Need paint! For our pumpkin people,” announced DJ. “Black paint.”
“And white,” added Olivia.
Jayden refused to be left out. “And bluenette.”
“Bluenette?” Micah asked.
“For a pumpkin lady’s hair.”
Micah remained puzzled until Katie Kay whispered, “I think he means brunette.”
He had to pretend to cough so he didn’t laugh as they walked along an aisle. Jayden selected a small can of paint with a bright blue lid and announced he was painting his pumpkin lady with bluenette hair. Arching a brow at Katie Kay, Micah took the can from the little boy.
“Bluenette, it is,” Micah said as he collected the white and black cans from the other two kinder. “Let’s go and pay for these.”
He had taken two steps when he realized Katie Kay wasn’t following. Did she need something else? He couldn’t imagine what she might be shopping for at a hardware store. Turning around, he was astonished to see her holding on to a shelf, her face as gray as the labels on the paint cans beside her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Shhh!” She put her finger to her lips.
He raised his brows in a silent question.
“It’s your brother,” she whispered.
“Which one?”
“Your twin brother.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ja. Daniel looks just like you.”
Micah frowned. He should have remembered that coming with Katie Kay close to Strasburg was a risk. For the past six months, Daniel had been overseeing a massive project on a farm outside the village. His brother was a skilled carpenter, but he’d been challenged since he was hired by an Englischer to repair an old stone-end farmhouse and its half dozen outbuildings. As Daniel had said more than once, the only thing holding up the structures were the termites.
He wanted to ask Katie Kay if she was sure about what she’d seen; then he heard Daniel’s laugh and the low rumble of his brother’s voice that others told him were much like his own. Hoping both he and Katie Kay were wrong, he peered around the end of the row to confirm their suspicions.
Daniel was talking to the store manager at the rear of the store. He couldn’t have seen Micah or any of them. So far, so gut.
Micah said in not much more than a whisper, “I’ll distract him while you slip out the door. Get in the van and keep yourself and the kinder out of sight until I join you.”
She nodded, and he realized how distraught she was. Shrinking along the aisle and drawing Sean’s kids with her, she motioned for him to hurry.
Micah hoped she’d be sensible. He almost laughed aloud at the thought. If she’d done the sensible thing and gone home, she wouldn’t have to skulk through the store. Maybe this encounter would persuade her to reunite with her family.
As if he didn’t have a care in the world, Micah sauntered around the end of the aisle. He set the three cans of paint on the counter and greeted his brother.
Daniel grinned. “What are you doing down here? I thought you were working on Reuben’s house today.”
“We are, but we needed to stock up on a few things.” He glanced into the basket his brother carried. “More drywall screws? I thought you had the walls up.”
“In the main house. Mrs. O’Neill has decided she wants to use the old stable as a guesthouse, though there are five guest rooms in the big house.”
Micah congratulated himself on changing the subject. It was his brother’s first large project as a general contractor, and Daniel was enjoying every minute of being his own boss, a goal he’d set for himself when they were teens.
Trying not to be obvious, Micah glanced toward the front door several times. Why hadn’t Katie Kay slipped out yet? He could keep his brother chatting, but eventually Sean would be done.
His brother stopped in the middle of a word and looked past him. “Did you see her?”
“Her?” He was glad Daniel wasn’t looking at him, because he guessed his face revealed his anxiety.
“By the front door.”
Micah turned around, holding his breath as he prayed he wouldn’t see Katie Kay at the door. When an elderly man walked into the store, he looked at his brother. “Have you thought about getting glasses? That guy doesn’t look like a her.”
“Not him. A woman just left. She looked a lot like... Okay, you’re going to find this strange. She looked a lot like Katie Kay Lapp.”
“Did she?” Micah wouldn’t lie to his twin brother. If Daniel asked him if he’d seen Katie Kay, he’d give his brother an honest answer. “I didn’t notice any plain women in here.”
“She didn’t look plain. She looked like Katie Kay would if she were Englisch.” He grinned. “Maybe I do need glasses. What would she be doing here?”
“Who knows?”
“I sure don’t.” His smile widened. “You dodged a bullet there.”
“Dodged a bullet? Where did you learn that saying?”
Daniel’s grin became a laugh. “Believe or not, from Grossmammi Ella. She learned it from one of the therapists who help her hold on to what memory she has left. For someone who has trouble recalling names, she can remember bizarre phrases and uses them over and over until the rest of us pick them up.”
“How’s she doing?” Micah was again relieved that Katie Kay was no longer the subject. Grossmammi Ella was the great-grandmother of Daniel’s fiancée, Hannah, and Daniel had a great deal of affection for the cantankerous, headstrong old woman who sometimes, while lost in her memories, believed he was her late husband.
“Better than we thought a few months ago. The memory exercises she’s doing seems to be stabilizing her Alzheimer’s. We know it’s not a long-term solution, but we count each day she’s able to recognize us a blessing.”
Micah paid for the paint and then stepped aside to let Daniel check out. When Sean walked toward them, Micah waved him back. Renewed guilt bore into him, and he knew only one way to ease it.
Katie Kay needed to go home, and he had to help her see that. He prayed God would send inspiration to show him how.
* * *
If the kinder thought she’d lost her mind as she hurried them to the van and helped them in, Katie Kay didn’t try to persuade them otherwise. Instead she made a game out of keeping hidden in the van. She heard them whispering together about surprising their daed and Micah with cries of “Boo!”
Daniel’s buggy was on the other side of the parking lot, and he wouldn’t hear the kinder from there. He might, however, notice the little ones moving about the van, so she devised excuse after excuse, each one sillier than the one before, for them to crouch between the seats.
“I want to see my pumpkins,” DJ announced, a sign he was bored with the game. He started to scramble over the seat as the unmistakable sound of metal buggy wheels and iron horseshoes sounded on the asphalt.
She grabbed the little boy by the heels and pulled him down beside the rest of them on the floor. Before he could protest loudly enough to be heard outside the van, she began making goofy faces at the three kinder and dared them to do the same. As they distorted their features into every possible shape, they laughed. She kept up the game until she knew the buggy must be gone.
Looking out, she saw Micah and Sean walking toward them. She started to get up, but this time the kinder reminded her to stay out of sight because they wanted to “scare” their daed and Micah. As she joined in with their game, she wondered how much longer she could avoid making the inevitable decisions about going home...and about Micah.
* * *
Gemma was asleep on the sofa when Katie Kay walked into the living room. Before she could ask the little ones to be quiet, they ran to their mamm and began chattering about the pumpkins they’d found. Half-asleep, Gemma gathered them to her and listened to their excitement, though her face was pale and she winced when she sat.
“Stay where you are,” Katie Kay urged. Looking over her shoulder, she added, “Sean, sit and enjoy your family while Micah and I make supper.”
“I don’t cook,” Micah protested.
She laughed at his shock at doing what was considered among the Amish women’s work. “Then it’s time you learn. With Wanda getting married soon, you may be on your own to prepare your supper.”
“Leah usually—”
“Ja, I know you depend on your sister-in-law to cook for you when you’re not eating here. However, it won’t hurt you to flip grilled cheese sandwiches while I make soup.”
Sean grinned as he took the bag of paint cans from Micah. “She’s got you there, my friend. I think your masculinity will survive giving her a hand making one meal.”
“You’re no help,” Micah tossed back but grinned. “Show me what you need me to do, Katie Kay.”
In the kitchen, she was pleased to discover he wasn’t as inept as he’d complained. He followed her directions and got bread out of the drawer, as well as butter and cheese from the fridge. Spreading the ingredients across the table, he left her the small area by the stove to cut vegetables into a soup she was making with leftover chicken from earlier in the week.
Neither of them spoke of her near encounter with his twin brother at the hardware store. She wondered if he was relieved to focus on cooking and let everything else go. She was, because she could talk and laugh with him without having any of the issues plaguing them intrude.
During supper, Katie Kay enjoyed the calm within herself. She had to make decisions but not at that moment. She listened as the three youngsters told their mamm—again—about their trip to the hardware store and their plans for the pumpkins. Gemma’s lips twitched at Jayden’s intention to paint “bluenette” hair on his pumpkin person tomorrow after church. He didn’t notice because he was excited. It would be his first time to help with the painting.
Katie Kay, along with Sean and Micah, insisted Gemma rest after the meal. When Micah offered to help clean up, Katie Kay was pleased. It was lonely in the kitchen while she listened to the family enjoying each other’s company in the living room.
Taking the plates and bowls from the table, Katie Kay set them on the counter. She frowned at the solidified cheese sticking to the top one. It needed to be removed before it could be washed.
“I’ll scrape,” she said, “if you’ll load the dishwasher, Micah. You do know how to do that, don’t you?”
“Gemma taught me long ago.”
She chuckled as she handed him the first plate, and he put it in the proper part of the dishwasher. As they were finishing, Olivia ran in and gave her a hug. Jayden did the same. She wished them a gut nacht, which made them giggle as they did whenever she used Deitsch. She edged aside as they embraced Micah and ran back into the living room. Hearing the Donnellys heading upstairs to put the kinder to bed, she reached for another plate.
“The kids like you,” Micah said.
“They are sweet and funny.”
“I wasn’t sure at first if you liked kinder.”
She halted with the final plate held over the trash can. Setting it on a nearby counter, she asked, “What gave you that idea?”
“You never offered to watch the little ones during church services.”
“I spent every waking hour, except those few at church every other week, taking care of my younger sisters. To be able to sit and listen to God’s word and not have to worry about someone sticking a finger into the washer’s wringer or trying to see the bottom of the well was wunderbaar.”
Resting his hand on the counter, he faced her. “I didn’t realize that.”
“I know. I didn’t want to shame Daed by whining.”
“Why not? All of us kids complained about our chores at one time or another.”
“But you weren’t the bishop’s kind. We’re held to a higher standard so other kinder can strive to do as we did.”
When he didn’t reply, she finished the plate. She handed it to him along with the rinsed bowls. He put them into the dishwasher.
As he snapped the door shut, he said, “I guess I should have known how it would be for you, but I never thought about it.”
“It was all we were allowed to think about.” She didn’t add that Priscilla had mentioned the need for them to be role models at least once a day before she married. After that, her older sister had repeated the words each time she arrived for a visit and every time on her way out the door.
“Can I tell you something I’ve been wondering about?” he asked.
“What?”
“Something that isn’t any of my business.”
She sat at the table and looked at him with a grimace. “Which means it’s something to do with me and the boppli.”
“How did you guess?”
“Because you act as if you’re tiptoeing through a rattlesnake nest whenever you want to talk about the boppli.”
He pulled out the chair next to hers and moved it so their knees were only an inch from each other. Abruptly she was aware of him as she hadn’t been since they walked out together. No, that wasn’t true. She was always vividly connected to his voice, where his hands were, what he was looking at. It was the only way she could keep the barriers up between him and her heart, which teased her to reconsider what she’d said to him when she’d ended their relationship, not guessing then that she also had rung a death knell over their friendship.
When he took her hands and folded them between his, she was so stunned she didn’t jerk them back. And then it was too late because the heat seeping from his fingers to hers was delightful, and she didn’t want to put an end to it.
Ice froze her next breath when he said, “I’ve been pondering this question for a while. Do you intend to keep your kind, or are you planning to give it up for adoption?”
Words vanished from Katie Kay’s mind. Usually she had a quick answer for any question, whether it was a gentle word for a kind or a scathing one for someone who annoyed her. Now she couldn’t come up with anything to say as he asked about the subject she’d avoided thinking about.
“I haven’t decided what I’ll do when the time comes.” That was the truth.
He sighed with relief. “I’m glad to hear that because I thought you had.”
“Why?”
“You say the boppli, never my boppli.”
Did she? She hadn’t noticed that. Was it a habit, or did the choice of words have a deeper meaning? She cringed when anyone mentioned the boppli was Austin’s, whether she was among Englischers or the Amish. But she hadn’t realized she never spoke of the kind growing within her as hers.
“I’ve been praying for guidance,” she said softly.
“You have?”
“Why do you sound surprised? I didn’t leave Paradise Springs because I wanted to get away from God.”
“Then why did you leave?”
For a moment, she considered giving him the same excuse she’d used whenever anyone asked her the question. She’d been honest with him. Why not continue?
“I needed to see what else the world had to share with me. I left because I felt caged.”
It was his turn to be speechless. She took advantage of his astonishment to slip her hands from between his and hurry out of the kitchen before he could ask another question that made her face what could become a bleak future.