Evening light shone through the new plate-glass windows of the pharmacy as the last few customers of the day continued to shop. Holly smiled at the blond-and-gray-haired Old Order woman standing at the pharmacy counter. “Rosanna, I’m so glad you came in today to pick up your meds. I was getting worried you would run out.”
“Truth be told, I wasn’t sure you were open, what with the accident and all.”
Holly’s smile wavered at the thought, and she tried to shore it up. Greene’s had been closed only two days, and even now, three weeks later, those couple of days were having long-reaching effects on their business. “Nope, we’re good as new.”
“I can see that.” Rosanna looked over her shoulder. Ivy was in the display section of the new windows, hanging shiny tinsel and Christmas lights.
What a relief to have the front of the pharmacy whole again! It’d taken a while to make and ship the new plate glass in the exact size they needed. Before the glass was installed, Greene’s had temporarily used a side entrance for both employees and customers, and the store’s business had been obviously slower without the easy-to-access front door. Yesterday Ivy came up with the idea to put out some of the Christmas decorations for a few days—or weeks—to attract attention to the fact that Greene’s pharmacy had new windows and a fully repaired front entrance. A “Christmas in July,” complete with sales on a few select front-store items.
Holly handed Rosanna the three white prescription bags. “Did you have any questions today on those medicines?”
“Nee, denki, dear. We’ve had them all before, as you know.”
Holly told Rosanna the total, and the middle-aged woman paid her in cash. At least this customer had returned despite the store having been closed for a few days and being a mess to navigate until the last forty-eight hours.
After saying goodbye to Rosanna, Holly looked up at the Rhythm Clock hanging on the wall. Twenty till seven, almost Greene’s closing time. Good. Brandon stood at his station, working on the daily legal paperwork. She still had time to finish inputting the prescriptions that customers would come for tomorrow morning, and then she could go on her Friday night date with Josh.
The door chimed as her customer left. Holly could now see her sister on a ladder leaning across the new front door to drape a garland covered in fake snow over the doorframe. Hopefully Ivy’s decorating wouldn’t bother any of their Amish customers. Holly had never heard a complaint from them about the decorations. Then again, Greene’s had never before decorated for Christmas in July.
Holly still had the same questions she’d had for weeks: What was bothering Ivy, and why wasn’t she telling Holly about it? Usually when Ivy decorated or cleaned the pharmacy, she did so with a song on her lips and a wide smile across her face. She seemed so…off. And it couldn’t be about the car hitting Greene’s. During the past several weeks, the Swartzentruber brother had taken over the milking chore that Ivy hated. And as far as Holly knew, Ivy hadn’t dated anyone or ended any relationships. So what was the deal? Holly had tried to ask Mamm once, but Mamm had changed the subject in a way that discouraged asking again. So she hadn’t. She and Ivy used to talk every Saturday night for hours until they fell asleep. Between work, night school, and time with Josh, Holly and Ivy hadn’t spent a Saturday night like that in six months. She’d make sure it happened tomorrow night. Surely her little sister would tell her everything then. Focus and finish the scripts. She could think about only one thing at a time, and it was critical that she be accurate when entering prescriptions into the computer. It’d taken her years to get fast and accurate with her typing, but now it came easier than writing with a pen.
The front door chimed again. Holly didn’t look up but continued typing the medication’s detailed instructions. As her fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard, she checked back and forth between the script and the computer screen to make sure she had it right.
She finally glanced up to see an older Amish man with a long gray beard staring at her. “Good evening.” She kept typing. “How can I help you today?”
“I’m Stephan, the bishop for Joshua Smucker’s district, Shady Valley Amish.”
Oh. She immediately stopped typing—and even breathing. This was not what she expected at the end of a long Friday shift.
“H…hallo. I’m Holly. Glad to meet you.” Was she glad to meet him? It would’ve been nicer if this meeting had happened in a different setting, like Joshua’s farm or at church.
He looked around the pharmacy. “Joshua suggested I stop by and see this pharmacy that an Old Order member is so passionate about working for.”
She laughed, hoping she didn’t sound too nervous, and held out her hands. “Well, here we are.”
Ivy was hanging off a ladder, stringing Christmas lights. Good grief. Was it possible he came in the side entrance and hadn’t noticed her?
“You like working here?” He sounded confused, but his eyes were focused on the shelves of medicine, not on Ivy.
“Ya. Lyle and Brandon are good pharmacists.” She waved at Brandon, who was still at his station and giving her the usual look when he was trying to decide if he should step in with a customer. “We get to help all sorts of people here at Greene’s.”
“That’s good for now, but after you’re married, you don’t really want this kind of stress on you, ya? Wouldn’t you rather leave that to Joshua while you’re raising babies?”
His words about her having Josh’s babies made her cheeks warm. “I certainly look forward to having a family with Josh and everything else related to God, marriage, and the Amish community, but I also feel led to help others through medicine.”
“Led?”
“My heart longs to continue helping people get well and understand the importance of the medications prescribed to them.”
He seemed unsure, but he nodded. “Holly, I admire your bishop, Benuel Detweiler, and respect his decisions regarding your work as an unmarried woman, but I have to say, what I see today gives me pause about your marriage plans.”
What? Pinpricks ran hot over her skin, and her head spun. The sound of glass breaking made everyone turn in that direction to see Ivy with a gold-and-silver garland wrapped around her neck. She held up both hands. “It’s okay. Remain calm. I dropped a glass ornament. That’s all.”
Holly’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak. She pressed her hands down the front of her black apron and counted to three. “I’m sorry. Can you tell me what you mean exactly?”
He pointed at Holly’s computer. “You’re using that thing like an expert. And”—he motioned toward Ivy, shaking his head—“there’s another Old Order woman putting Christmas decorations in the window in the middle of summer. I was under the impression from Joshua that this store was more in line with our ways. It seems to me like a very worldly place.”
It’s a modern pharmacy, she wanted to exclaim, but she chose a calm tone and gentle words. “I’m sorry. It does look that way at first, but the decorations are to catch people’s attention and alert them that our pharmacy is indeed open and back to business as usual. You may have heard that a car ran into the front of the store three weeks ago.”
He nodded.
She tried to swallow but failed. “We use computers in the pharmacy to allow our pharmacists to catch more errors and to easily file our Englisch patients’ medications with their insurance companies.”
He nodded a few more times. “Holly, I’m glad I came in today. I’ll pray for you. God will guide you on what you need to do.” With his hands in his pockets, he turned and walked out the store’s side entrance.
Holly stared at her computer, not really seeing the words on the screen. What just happened? Somehow things were looking even worse for her and Josh. Before they were dating, she’d worried about her bishop’s reaction, but Benuel had been gracious. He’d seen the value of what Greene’s—and Holly—brought to the Amish districts in the area.
“Something I can help with?” Brandon walked over to Holly’s station.
“No, afraid not. That was Josh’s bishop. He’s not happy with my plan to continue working after Josh and I marry this December.”
“But you said that your bishop approves.”
“Ya.”
“Then I don’t understand the problem. You’re all Old Order Amish.”
She looked up at Brandon. Wearing that clean white coat, he reminded her of a younger Lyle. She and Brandon had been kids when she started working for Lyle and his wife, Beverly. Last year Brandon had achieved his goal of becoming a pharmacist. Could Holly still achieve her goal to become an LPN without having to sacrifice the beautiful life she wanted to build with Josh?
“I know you don’t understand.” She ran her fingers over the keyboard. “Unfortunately, my bishop has to stay out of the way of Josh’s bishop, giving room for the man to come to his own conclusions—whatever that final decision is.”
In the front of the store, Ivy climbed down from her ladder and then closed it. “Holly, I’m all done, so I’m going to head out. See you at home later.”
“Sure. Thanks, Ivy.” It was past closing time now.
As Ivy opened the door to leave, Julie and Josh walked in. His face lit up when he saw Holly, and her heart raced. If only they could go back to their normal, planned date instead of talking about this. She corrected her attitude. This was life, and she couldn’t avoid telling him what his bishop had said. Would Stephan change his mind?
Holly opened the gate that separated the prescription-filling area from the over-the-counter store. She went through the gate and walked across the shop to the front door.
“Hi. So someone came by today…”
“Ya, Bishop Stephan. I saw him as he was walking down the sidewalk, and he stopped to talk to me.”
Holly stepped between Josh and Julie and then locked Greene’s front door. The only silver lining to the car accident was that the antique lock had been replaced with one that was easy to bolt.
“Bishop problems?” Julie gave Holly a side hug.
“Probably nothing unexpected, right?” Josh hugged Holly’s other side.
Holly took a centering breath. They could get through this. She had Josh, good friends like Jules, Brandon, and Lyle, and a supportive family and bishop. She squeezed both of their shoulders, and then they released the hugs.
Holly noticed a few over-the-counter medicines that were askew and bent down to fix them. “We’re having some issues with the Amish rules regarding me continuing to work after marriage, but that’s how family works. We have to balance expectations from our order with our own dreams. These things often have to be navigated and negotiated.” Well, they were navigated and negotiated for men. She knew of no married women who’d been allowed to bend the rules when it came to work.
She stood and saw Brandon locking the gate to the prescription filling area and arming the alarm. He crossed the store and gave Julie a kiss on the forehead. Holly smiled. Brandon and Julie were taking things slowly, but the two of them made a cute couple and were great partners in health care.
“We good to go on closing?”
“Yep, all set. Jules and I are going to the diner. You and Josh want to come along?”
Holly met Josh’s eyes, and he gave a little nod. “Ya, we can start with that. Josh and I were going to get some food and take a walk.”
They all stepped outside, and Holly relocked the door. The sun was low enough that the worst of the heat had broken for the day. A lovely evening for a walk. “I guess I haven’t shared a lot of the issues we’re dealing with regarding my working after marriage, not even with Mamm and Ivy.”
Julie adjusted the strap on her bag as they started walking toward the diner. “If it would help, Holly, once you’re living on the farm with Josh, I can pick you up on my way to the clinic and take you home. Then you won’t have to hire a driver after you move. It’s less than ten minutes from my house, and my little car gets excellent gas mileage.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind. It’d certainly save us a lot of money and hassle. But the real issue is our order typically doesn’t approve of a married woman having a career outside the home. My bishop has been unusually understanding.”
Josh took her hand and squeezed it. “And mine holds firm to the traditional values.”
Brandon scratched his head. “Holly’s family has a farm with plenty of room. Couldn’t you move in with her once married?”
“Josh can’t leave his farm or parents. His Mamm has diabetes, which she’s still adjusting to, and he and his Daed run their free-range egg business. There’s a reason you’ve never heard of a farmer living twenty miles away from his farm. He has to be there, just like you can’t go to the hardware store down the street and fill prescriptions for people. He has to keep the flock safe from predators like foxes and safe from sudden storms rolling in, and—”
“Got it. But couldn’t you”—Brandon looked upward as he paused—“rent a house just over the district line from where his farm is and move the chickens?”
Holly shook her head. Maybe working as a pharmacist all day, solving medication and insurance issues, had put Brandon in a fixing mood, but there wasn’t an obvious solution to this problem. “Josh’s family has had a chicken farm on that land for generations. Egg-laying houses are expensive to build, and should his family leave everything they’ve already built to start fresh because one bishop disagrees with me working? No.”
They arrived at the door to the diner, and Brandon held it open. “That one bishop is sure being a thorn in your side.”
It was a seat-yourself place that they’d been to multiple times over the past few months. The familiar aromas of toasted bread, bacon, and coffee hit her nose as she entered the restaurant. Still holding Josh’s hand, Holly crossed the black-and-white-checkered tile floor. She released his hand as she and Josh slid onto the bench of their usual booth.
Holly adjusted her apron. “Josh’s bishop isn’t being a pain on purpose. He was polite and pleasant. It’s his job as bishop to make sure everyone holds on to the Old Ways. If they don’t, in a generation those ways will be gone, and we’ll fade into the rest of society.”
Julie and Brandon sat down on the bench across the table.
“Makes sense.” Julie tapped her fingertips on the table. “From what I’ve seen, the Amish believe that family and community should reflect God’s ways, and a wife taking care of just the children and the home is the easiest way to make that work.”
Josh folded his hands on the table. “Women are the backbone of our society in many ways. They sacrifice a lot of themselves, especially after marriage.”
Holly smiled at him. He was such a good man. She loved him more than she could say. “There’s no easy solution to this, but I’d like to pray about it. Would you two mind joining us?”
Brandon and Julie clasped their hands together on the table. “We’d be honored.”
Everyone bowed heads.
Holly closed her eyes. Would the bishop’s heart soften concerning a woman working outside the home?
If Josh’s bishop didn’t change his opinion, how would she possibly choose between giving up her dream of bringing health care to her Old Order community, after all she’d gone through to get to this point, and marrying the perfect man for her, the one she longed to spend her life with and build a family with?
God, I can’t see the right path to take, but I know You can.