Jane spent the next day with Abigail, making candles. She came home with a half-dozen rose scented beeswax candles and another half-dozen of lemongrass scented ones.
“How was your candle-making session?”
“Lovely, and she let me have all these. I’ll share them with you.”
Sadie laughed. “I have so many candles. Just give me one.”
Jane put the box down on the kitchen table, and told her which ones were which. Sadie reached in and chose a rose one. “I’ll light it tonight in the living room and put it in the window. Now, I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
“I have a letter for you. It came today.”
“A letter for me?”
“Jah, unless I have another Jane staying with me who has exactly the same last name.” Sadie giggled.
“That's odd. The only person who has this address is the bishop.”
Sadie turned the envelope over and looked at the back. “Hmm. This person could've got the address from the bishop. Know someone with the first initial of I? I for Isaac, maybe?”
“Isaac’s my neighbor. Oh no, I hope there's not something wrong with my haus, but then I suppose since it belongs to the bishop it would be he who’d write to me.”
Still holding onto the letter, Sadie said with more than a hint of mischief, “Didn't you tell me you and Isaac were a little more than friends?”
Jane felt bad for deceiving Sadie, and even worse now that her fabricated stories were coming apart at the seams. “That's right. But that doesn't mean he would write to me … necessarily. It’s a very new relationship.”
Sadie put the letter down on the coffee table and placed her hands on her hips. “You're not fooling me for one minute, Jane. You're not even excited to see you have a letter from Isaac, your supposed boyfriend.”
“I don't get excited easily. I don't even know what it says yet.”
“You're in love with my son, always have been.”
Jane had no words for that comment. She reached forward and grabbed the letter. “I should read this.”
“You read it. I'll put the coffee on, and then when I sit back down, we can talk.” Sadie headed off to the kitchen.
Jane sat on the couch with her fingers trembling, half due to the cold and half from nerves about what the letter might say. Carefully, she ripped open the envelope.
Dear Jane,
This is a difficult letter to write. We've lived beside each other for so long and I knew I liked you, but it was only when you left to help out your friend that I knew the true extent of my feelings …
Jane read on. In the rest of the letter, he expressed his feelings toward her. Feelings that she didn't return. Maybe, just maybe if she hadn't seen Matt again, she might’ve fooled herself into thinking something could happen between them, a courting kind of relationship that would lead to marriage.
She folded the letter into three and set it onto her lap, and then she looked into the crackling fire as it sent off sheets of golden amber flames into the darkness of the chimney above. Isaac was a good man and he had that darling little girl who could keep her busy. A little girl who needed a mother so badly.
Maybe this was the right choice, the perfect choice.
Gott was giving her a lifeline so she could have children. Isaac was such a good man.
It would be silly to refuse him. Her own marriage to look forward to would certainly quell the pain she’d feel when Matt got married by his deadline of Christmas.
Sadie brought out a tray of coffee items and placed them on the low coffee table and then sat beside Jane. “Well?”
“He misses me.”
“He tells you that, does he?”
“He does.”
“Has he proposed to you yet?”
“Nee. Not in a letter.”
“So he hasn't done so in that letter?”
Jane shook her head.
“Well, what is he waiting for?”
Jane decided it was time for the truth to come out. “I guess he's waiting on me to show some signs of liking him in return.”
“That’s simple, isn't it? Do that. Show some signs of liking him in return.”
“You're right. Things sound so simple when they come out of your mouth, Sadie.”
“Love shouldn't be so complicated. In my mind, if love is complicated that means there's a problem. When he’s the right one, you don't have to ask anyone their opinion because you know it in your heart.” Sadie shook her head.
Jane looked at the large white coffeepot, knowing that Sadie was really talking about Matt. “Shall I pour?”
“Nee, I'll do it.” Sadie poured out two coffees and then topped them with milk. “Two sugars for you isn't it?”
“Jah,” Jane said feeling more like five spoonfuls of sugar to give her some much-needed energy.
“Don't look so worried all the time, Jane. You’re making wrinkles on that pretty forehead of yours.” She passed the coffee mug over to Jane.
“It's a little late for that, I’m afraid.”
“Jane, it's not. You're always putting yourself down. I can hear it in the little things you say.”
“Better to put myself down before other people do it.”
“Nonsense. Let people say what they will.”
Jane took a sip of coffee. “They probably wouldn't say it, but they’d think it. I'm too tall and I have red hair, which no one seems to like. They like dark hair or they like blonde, anything but red.”
“Golden red hair is delightful, so unusual, so dreamy-like. And your skin is fair with sparkles here and there.”
Jane smiled. “You've become a poet.”
Sadie laughed. “I'm not trying to be. What's inside a person, that’s what counts and you have that Jane. You have beauty on the inside and on the outside. What man could resist that combination?”
Jane sighed. She was doing a lot of that these days. “Only every man I've ever met so far.”
“Rubbish.”
“Well, I'm not married.”
“Perhaps it's you who’s your own worst enemy because you don't know your true worth. If you don't realize your true worth, how do you expect anybody else to?”
Jane’s gaze dropped to the letter in her lap. “Perhaps Isaac realizes it.” And for that reason maybe he deserved a chance. “I'll see what happens with him when I get back.”
“Well don't take too long, will you? I don’t approve of what Matt’s doing.”
“I won't.”
“I just want you to both find happiness and love. I thought you’d do that together, but I guess it’s not to be. Surely Matt must know which one he likes in his heart.”
“I agree, Sadie. He's just waiting on my approval for the one he's chosen. I'm sure that's it.”
“It wonders me he’d need anybody's approval if his love is love, truly love.”
Jane sighed for the fifteenth time that day, feeling sorry for herself. She was over thirty after all and had never even had one single marriage proposal. She was an oddity in her Amish community. “Perhaps I'll never be in love, not with anybody.”
“You might be right, Jane. Not everybody finds love. It would be nice, but I know that not all find it.”
Jane stared down into her coffee. The worst thing was that her love for Matt wasn’t returned. It would’ve been far easier if she had never found anyone to love. That, she thought, she could’ve lived with.