Anna expected tears or even an outburst from Melinda the evening Aaron called off their wedding, but instead, the young woman almost seemed relieved.
“I enjoy working in the shop more than anything I’ve ever done,” she told Anna, taking off her prayer kapp in preparation for bed. “But I’d have to quit working if I had a bobbel after I got married. Besides, once you move out, I’ll have this entire room to myself. It will be a little bit like having a home of my own, without all of the work of a house.”
“But aren’t you sad about…about Aaron?” Anna carefully inquired.
“Why should I be sad? It’s not his fault his salary was cut because he’s no longer the foreman. His daed needs his personal help with their Highland Springs customers—it would be selfish of him to put marrying and building a costly house for me above his obligation to his daed.” Melinda lowered her voice as if to reveal a great secret. “Isaiah’s getting older, you know. He has arthritis.”
“That’s why Aaron told you he wanted to call off the wedding?” Anna asked, thoroughly astounded by his ability to concoct a tale that actually bore some semblance, however slight, to the truth. She found herself wondering if he ever truly intended to be so disingenuous, or if he simply was so optimistically self-deceived he didn’t realize how distorted his perspective was. No matter: as Fletcher reminded her, it wasn’t her place to set Aaron’s record straight.
“Jah,” Melinda said as she ran a brush through her hair. “I told him I understood, but that I didn’t know if I wanted to continue to walk out with him.” “Really?” Anna’s eyebrows shot up.
“Jah.” She leaned forward and whispered. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I heard that Joseph Schrock’s nephew Jesse is coming to visit for the summer. He’s about my age and by all counts, he’s supposedly very charming.”
Even after a year of living with Melinda, Anna still never knew what was going to come out of the young woman’s mouth next, but she supposed in this instance, it was a good thing Melinda had such a fickle attention span: it seemed to have saved her from a world of hurt.
Anna slid her feet under her quilt. Soon, it would be too warm for such a heavy bed covering. “By the way, have you seen the fabric for my dress?” she asked. “I left it in the other side of the attic but it’s missing and there’s only about a week and a half until the wedding.”
“Neh. But I thought you were supposed to be cured of amnesia.” Melinda yawned.
“I am cured. Mostly, anyway. But there’s a difference between the fabric being missing and forgetting where I put it. I’m telling you, it’s not where I left it!”
“What’s not where you left it?” Naomi asked. She’d crept up the stairs without Anna hearing her and she was standing in the doorway with her arms behind her back.
“My wedding dress fabric. I can’t find it and I hardly have any time to sew my dress.”
“That’s because you spent too much time working on Melinda’s dress, even though Dr. Donovan warned you to restrict your sewing activities.”
Anna felt her face go warm as Melinda giggled. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard Naomi scold you, Anna!”
Anna playfully tossed a pillow at her cousin. “At least I’m being scolded for doing too much work instead of too little,” she responded.
“Now, girls, do I have to separate you two?” Naomi teased, joining their laughter. She entered the room, displaying a deep green dress across one arm, and a dark purple dress on the other. “One for you, one for me, and Melinda’s dress makes three.”
Melinda and Anna both jumped out of their beds. Melinda darted to the closet while Anna approached Naomi and accepted her dress.
Holding it to her shoulders so it draped along the front of her figure, she looked down admiringly and said, “Oh, denki, Naomi. It’s beautiful. Look—I can’t even see the stitches they’re so tiny!”
“Let’s try them on, all three of us at once!” Melinda cried, sliding her own dress off its hanger.
“Melinda, you know that vanity is sinful,” Naomi chastised.
“Jah, but we need to make sure they fit,” Anna wheedled. “Please?”
“Not you, too, Anna!” Naomi clucked before agreeing it made sense that they should be certain no alterations were needed.
As soon as Melinda had changed, she twirled in a circle and asked her aunt, “What do you think?”
“It’s a perfect fit,” Naomi said carefully. “Anna did a very nice job sewing it for you.”
Melinda’s shoulders slumped and her lip jutted out. “But what do you think of how I look?”
Naomi blinked rapidly and wiped away a tear. “I think you look more and more like your lovely mamm—my sister—each day.”
Melinda pranced to the mirror to view her reflection and Naomi turned toward Anna. In the soft glow of the lamp’s light, Naomi appeared youthful and elegant, the lines of worry seemingly erased from her skin.
“I knew that color would be striking on you,” Anna whispered. “I wish Daed could see you now.”
“I wish he could see you,” Naomi responded. “But when Fletcher gets a glimpse, you’re going to set his heart aflutter!”
Anna threw her arms around Naomi, half crying, half laughing. “Denki, Naomi. Denki for sewing my dress and for your encouragement and for your prayers. Denki for everything!”
“There, there, we don’t want to wrinkle our dresses,” Naomi said, but instead of letting go, she squeezed Anna even tighter.
* * *
The wedding ceremony was everything Fletcher prayed it would be: he’d never been as certain of anything as he was when he answered “yes” to the bishop’s four traditional wedding questions, especially the one about whether Fletcher was confident that the Lord had provided Anna as a marriage partner for him. Anna’s voice rang out with an equally clear affirmation when the same question was posed to her about Fletcher.
The dinner following the three-hour sermon was especially bountiful, thanks to Naomi and also to his aunt and cousins, who generously shared their supply of celery for the traditional Amish wedding dishes, as well as other ingredients and foods they’d already begun preparing for Aaron’s wedding. Tessa and Katie Fisher spent several days baking an excess of pies, cookies and other goodies. And, despite the short notice, Faith Yoder managed to deliver the most unusual wedding cake she said any bride—including Melinda—had ever requested: turtle cake.
To her credit, Melinda was a huge help on the day of the wedding. After the ceremony, she was in high spirits, flitting about the house in her violet dress and engaging the guests in conversation as if she were the bride herself. Although Aaron appeared forlorn at first, Fletcher later noticed him laughing with the young Emma Lamp in the parlor. As afternoon gave way to evening, Naomi and his aunt and cousins spread the tables with supper and more desserts, and the last local guests stayed until after ten o’clock.
Shortly after that, Fletcher readied his own buggy while Anna was inside saying her final goodbyes to Naomi and the rest of the overnight visitors. He’d just provided his faithful horse a carrot when the door swung open and his three sisters, Esther, Leah and Rebekah, emerged.
“You look disappointed. You must have been expecting Anna instead of us,” Leah needled him. “She’ll be right out.”
“Are you getting impatient?” Esther asked.
“Neh,” he answered. “I’ll wait for Anna as long as it takes.”
“Spoken like a man in love,” Rebekah noted. “But you don’t have to wait any longer, here kummes your bride now.”
As Anna stepped outside, the light from the kitchen illuminated her silhouette. Although it was too dark to see her face, he could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Gut nacht, everyone, and denki. See you tomorrow.”
“Are you certain you don’t want to spend the night at Naomi’s house?” Fletcher asked when she was seated beside him. That was the customary Amish expectation of the bride and groom, because it enabled them to assist with the cleanup first thing in the morning.
“Just this once, I think we ought to do something irresponsible,” Anna answered. Then she corrected herself. “Well, not irresponsible, since we’ll kumme back to help bright and early, but something—”
“Out of character?” he asked.
“Jah. Besides, the house is bursting at the seams with out-of-state guests.”
“That’s true,” Fletcher said. His pulse pounded louder and louder in his ears the closer they got to home. He couldn’t wait to show Anna the alcove he’d created for her.
But when he brought the horse to a halt, she said, “Wait, before we step down, I have a gift for you. There wasn’t really any way I could wrap it, so you have to take a look at it now. It’s in the back seat, under the tarp.”
“When did you have a chance to sneak a present back there?”
“I didn’t,” Anna replied, giggling. “Your newehockers, Chandler and Gabriel, put it in the buggy for me while I distracted you. Go ahead—see what it is.”
Using the flashlight he kept secured to a hook in the front of his buggy to supply him with light, Fletcher twisted in the seat and lifted the tarp.
“A fishing rod!” he exclaimed. “Denki, Anna, it’s a really nice one.”
“Roy and Raymond told me that yours snapped the other day and I know how you enjoy fishing,” she said. “You should be able to bring in a gut catch down at the creek using that rod.”
“Denki,” Fletcher repeated. “But you’re my best catch, Anna.”
Her laughter made light work of stabling the horse and soon Fletcher was accompanying her to the house. He kissed her once on the cheek before he unlocked the kitchen door and led her down the hall in the dark.
Before illuminating the room in the alcove, he confessed, “I realize I said I didn’t want either of us to feel as if we were hiding anything from each other, but there is one thing I admit I’ve been keeping a secret.”
After Fletcher turned up the gas lamp, Anna blinked several times. Rendered completely speechless, she ran her hands over the shelves and opened each of the drawers before perching on the window seat.
“Fletcher, I don’t know what to say,” she cried. “I can’t believe how beautiful this room is.”
“I made it exclusively for you,” he said. “So you’ll have the space and privacy you need to read or write. There is one condition, however.”
“Anything,” she said.
“You can’t use the room to write, Fletcher Chupp, what a heel, in your diary,” he said softly into her ear.
“I accept the terms of the agreement,” she pledged.
“Not gut enough,” he replied. “You have to seal your promise with a kiss.”
Leaning in, he gave her a firm, meaningful kiss. When he pulled away, he stared into her eyes, which were exquisitely enhanced by the green tint of her dress.
Suddenly, Anna clapped her hands against her cheeks as her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Oh neh!” she exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“I think I may be suffering a relapse of amnesia. I can’t recall what happened just now between us.”
Fletcher threw back his head to laugh. “Don’t worry,” he consoled her. “I know how to jog your memory.”
“With sage tea?” she flirted.
“Neh,” he answered. “With this.”
He feathered his lips across hers once, twice, three times before asking, “Is what happened coming back to you now?”
“Not quite,” she teased. “It’s still a bit hazy. But that’s alright. As Dr. Donovan said, you and I have a lifetime to make memories together…”
Fletcher chuckled and wrapped his arms around her. A warm breeze wafted through the window: spring was definitely here, a season of hope, a season of renewal, a season of love. He and Anna were married at last.
* * * * *