CHAPTER
42

Freed from their stanchions, the host family’s dairy cows moved through the grazing land opposite the large bank barn as Tom arrived at Singing to drop off his courting-age sisters. They seemed to know for certain they were getting rides home from each of their beaus, so he wasn’t staying for long. Just long enough . . .

The sun cast extended shadows as he got out of his buggy. Even though the People did not revert to “fast time,” as the English did, Tom loved the light at the end of the day.

After tying up his horse, he walked around the back of the barn to the grassy ramp and entered by way of the haymow. The wood floor had been swept clean for the large assembly tonight, and tables were set up in a straight line with benches on either side.

Will Danny propose to his sweetheart tonight? he wondered, observing his sisters milling about with Linda Miller and other young women their age. Tom waved to several of his male cousins, but it was Orchard John he was looking for.

When he spotted John, Tom hurried to relay the news that Gloria had left for home that afternoon as planned. He did not mention the fact that her father had shown up and caused some trouble at Pete and Millie’s.

“So what do ya think will happen now?” John asked dolefully.

Tom shook his head. “Leona’s awful disappointed.”

“Jah . . . I can sympathize.” John rubbed the back of his neck. He added that he’d come to Singing for the sake of fellowship. “Just don’t want to be alone. Nothin’ more.”

“Well, do ya wanna stay or go an’ get some coffee with me?”

John glanced over to where the young women were gathering. “Where’s Leona? Is she too upset to sing tonight? Don’t see her here.”

“She’s not comin’.”

So John agreed to ride with him, since he’d come on foot. “Denki for the suggestion.”

“Thought you might need a gut friend.” Tom led the way out of the hayloft and down around to the carriage.

Sitting in her room, Leona stared out at the fading sky, thinking about the Singing, wishing she’d gone. She prayed softly, not the Amish rote prayers she had been taught, but as if God were her friend.

I’m blessed with so much, she realized anew. I have my family and Tom and his family . . . and Gloria’s ongoing friendship. I have a feeling we’ll always be close from now on, she thought, hoping.

There was a distant rustling in the driveway outside, and it wondered her, if only for a moment. She thought of the verses her father had chosen for the reading earlier, and she pondered the coming months, all of the preparations ahead with Tom. Oh, she must keep her mind on that, and she was looking forward to seeing the blueprints for the house—their eventual home.

We have lots to do, she thought, looking forward to making bed quilts and using all of her hope-chest items to help furnish the house Tom was so eager to build.

Going over to the spare room, she noticed a cluster of bills on the dresser with a note.

Thanks for everything, Leona. Here’s the money I promised to help with your trip out to Arkansas, remember? I also jotted down my mailing address so that you have that and my cell phone number. We can keep in touch either way, okay?

Your friend for always,
Gloria Gingerich

Leona returned to her room and reached for her devotional book, Streams in the Desert, trying to set her mind on other things. She was thinking about getting ready for bed early tonight; it might do her good. That had always helped in the past when she was feeling blue.

As she opened her dresser drawer to get her nightgown, Leona detected the sound of the back door opening downstairs. Maybe Dawdi Benuel wants a piece of pie, she thought, smiling. And Mamma might want another piece, too. After all, it had been a difficult day all around—going from a rather miraculous sort of afternoon to this.

There were footsteps in the kitchen, and voices. She didn’t try to listen, but someone had come quite late to visit.

Feeling fidgety herself, Leona left her room and headed for the opposite end of the hall to look out front, thinking she might spot a carriage, perhaps relatives dropping by for an after-supper dessert and some fellowship.

She wondered what Tom was doing tonight. Was he finishing up chores in the barn, talking with his deacon-father as he liked to do?

“Leona,” she heard her mother calling from the foot of the stairs. “Someone’s here for you.”

“I’ll be right there,” she said, hurrying to her room to see if her hair was all schtruwwlich, which it was. She smoothed the loose ends and tucked them beneath her Kapp, which had also gone topsy-turvy. She straightened it, just in case it might be Tom checking up on her, kind as he was.

Then, mystified, Leona made her way downstairs.

———

Gloria was standing just inside the back door, her suitcase at her side. “Your Mamma says her offer still stands. Okay with you?”

“You’re back?” Leona pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, Gloria!”

Gloria patted herself all around. “Well, I’m not a ghost, if that’s what you think.”

“Oh you!” Leona went to her and hugged the stuffing out of her.

“I’m back to stay,” Gloria said, reaching for her suitcase.

Leona was flabbergasted. Seeing her again after mere hours had stretched into what seemed like weeks, she was dying to ask what precipitated her return.

Leona waved her forward. “Come upstairs right quick and tell me everything.”

“Well, let me start with my car—I handed over my keys to my father,” Gloria said, following her upstairs to the spare room. “Once home, he’ll sell it for me.”

An enormous step, thought Leona, ever so grateful Gloria had stood up for herself. This was just unbelievable!

“Also, my dad felt bad about coming on so strong earlier, here with all of you,” Gloria told her. “He wanted me to apologize.”

Sitting on the bed, Leona listened as her friend recounted the miles she’d driven and the long talk she’d had with her father. Gloria had also called her mother to say she was putting everything on the line for what she wanted to do—what God was nudging her to do—for the rest of her life. “Mom’s disappointed that I’m not coming home with Dad, but she seemed to understand when I shared my heart,” Gloria said. “She’ll ship the few personal items I requested.” She glanced around the tidy room. “I won’t clutter up your guestroom.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “You and your family . . . I just don’t know what I would’ve done without all of you. I wish I could explain how peaceful I feel now.”

Leona was tempted to pinch herself. “I can only imagine, since you’ve made your choice.”

Nodding, Gloria admitted, “It’s strange, but I’m not even tense about calling Darren tomorrow.” She shared that she disliked the idea of ending their relationship over the phone. “But I see no better option.”

“Surely he won’t make things difficult.”

Gloria shrugged. “Either way, I’m settled on my course.”

“I hope it’s all right that I told Tom you’d left when he stopped by earlier. I thought you were gone for good, but he was happy to hear you’d spoken to his father today ’bout possibly joining church.”

“Well, that’s on hold for now,” she said. “I just pray it’ll be possible . . . someday. The biggest hurdle is to prove to the deacon that I’m here for the rest of my life . . . with the right motives.”

“Ach, it’s a dream come true for me.” Leona smiled, amazed to think that Gloria had turned around and driven right back here.

“Dad and I stopped to have coffee in Clayton, Maryland, and I kept mulling over what Deacon Ebersol had asked me: What would I do if my family objected? And you know what? That question actually gave me the courage to tell my dad that I really didn’t want to go back to Arkansas. So I let him know that my heart is here, with you and the People.”

“And Orchard John, too?”

Gloria dipped her head. “Once I’m baptized—if the ministers accept me—I’ll know better about your cousin.”

Leona reached to hug her and suppressed a little squeal. Oh, what a day this had turned out to be!

Following breakfast the next morning, Leona and her mother worked together to get the first load of laundry out on the line while Gloria went to the clearing to make her phone call to Darren Brockett. She’d called Hampton the evening before while having coffee with her father, so she guessed he would pave the way for her call to Darren today. Leona hoped the breakup wouldn’t be too stressful for either of them.

Leona and Mamma headed for the house, setting down their wicker baskets to wait for the second big load. Mamma asked if she’d sit and have some iced tea with her, and Leona chose peppermint.

“I’ll have the same.” Mamma seemed to want to slow down the morning to put things into perspective, reciting the helpful psalm that Dat had read last night before Gloria’s surprise return.

When Leona came to the table with the iced tea, Mamma smiled all of a sudden and said quietly, “That was quite something, you bringin’ Gloria back to the fold, dear.”

Leona drank in her words. “Truly, it was the Lord’s doing,” she said. “And it’s kinda funny . . . because I thought bringing her home again was my dearest wish, Mamma.” She stopped again, hoping her mother might fully understand what was in her heart. “But I was wrong.”

“Oh?” Mamma’s eyes probed hers, questioning.

Leona tried to keep her tears in check as a newfound understanding seemed to pass between them. “In many ways, it was Gloria who brought me back . . . to you, Mamma.”

Her mother took a sip of tea, eyes glistening as she shyly averted them. “You couldn’t have known it, Leona, but that was my dearest wish.”

Leona’s tears slipped down her cheeks. She felt ever so amazed . . . and blessed.

As planned, Leona met Tom after breakfast Tuesday morning. Their walk over to his father’s land couldn’t have been lovelier, and Tom seemed to especially enjoy holding her hand again, since they’d missed their usual date after the Sunday night Singing.

When Leona first laid eyes on the lot for their future home, she noticed the view they would have of the green hills in the distance, and her father’s own woods . . . as well as Mose Ebersol’s meadow, dotted with black-eyed Susans and hollyhocks.

“It’s ever so perty,” she said. “Tranquil, too.”

They strolled along the border, still hand in hand, Leona ever so happy to be by Tom’s side.

Later, in his mother’s kitchen, Tom rolled out the blueprint, and together they decided on having four bedrooms on the second story and one large one on the main floor for guests. “That way, when we’re too old to climb stairs,” he joked, “we’ll have a place to lay our heads.”

Leona added her two cents as he’d requested, maintaining she wanted a kitchen similar in size to Ada Miller’s. “And with custom-made cupboards, too,” she hinted. “Is that possible?”

Not long ago, Mamma had asked for wedding gift ideas, and Leona had decided on a set of pretty dishes with a delicate rose-and-vine motif—service for twenty as a starter set. Someday, as their family grew, she would need more place settings.

“There’s plenty of room for our children to play,” Tom said when they returned outside to walk back toward the clearing.

“I trust we’ll have lots of little boys and girls,” she said, never wanting her children to feel as lonely as she had growing up.

Tom stopped walking, and in that very private haven, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips for the first time. “I love ya, sweetheart, ever so much.”

She could scarcely speak after the tender moment, and reaching up, she hugged his neck, yearning to be his bride.