CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I said my good-byes to Juliet and her pig and walked beyond the church, past the newly renovated playground to the Sunbeam Café. The bright yellow sun painted on the side of the building was cheerful, as was the yellow awning, but I wasn’t feeling cheerful. Just days ago, I had been reunited with my childhood friend for the first time in nearly twenty years, and now I considered her granddaughter a murder suspect? That was no way to rekindle a friendship.

I straightened my shoulders and went into the café. A bell jingled when I entered. Today, the only guest in the café was the man that I had seen previously, clicking away on his laptop. I had arrived between the breakfast and lunch rush.

“You drink up that coffee. Seems to me you have a lot of writing to do,” Lois said to the man sitting by the window.

I had noticed him the day before, but I hadn’t looked at him carefully. He had close-cropped hair, wore jeans, and was very tall. I could see that by the way he had to tilt his legs so that they would fit under the table. He had a plain face and utterly forgettable features. This was probably why I didn’t remember the details of his appearance from the day before.

“Millie Fisher, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon!” Lois said and set her coffeepot on an empty table nearby. “I was kicking myself that I didn’t get your phone number—I assume you have access to a shed phone somehow—or your address before you left, and here you are in the flesh.”

I smiled. “It’s good to see you again.”

“I am so glad to see you. I wasn’t sure if Ruth would let you all come back here to host another quilting circle. I was going to reach out to ask you to visit whenever you might be free.”

“Oh, I’m sure that we will be back with the quilting circle,” I said with a smile. “Ruth doesn’t have veto power over the rest of us, even though she might think she does.”

“When we were children and Ruth agreed to play with us, she thought she had veto power over our games too.”

“She was wrong then too,” I said with a grin.

She laughed. “Darn right.”

She pointed at the man with the laptop. “Bryan, you good?” She held up her thumb at him.

“I’m fine, Lois. I’m just grappling with these characters that don’t want to listen to me.”

I must have had an inquisitive look on my face because Lois said, “Bryan Shell is a writer and is currently at work on the great American novel—right, Bryan?”

The writer held up his thumb at her this time but never looked up from his computer screen.

“He’s been here almost every day since we opened last month,” Lois said to me. “He’s a nice young man.” She ushered me forward. “Enough about that. Take a seat, take a seat. I’m tickled that you came back and left Ruth Yoder behind this time.” She shook her head. “That woman! Is she just as judgmental as she was when we were younger?”

“More now, I would think. She’s older and she happens to be the bishop’s wife.”

Lois laughed. “The bishop’s wife? There will be no stopping her now.”

Lois didn’t know the half of it.

“Do you still like your coffee black with no sugar, cream, or flavor?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well, you’re not getting it today.” She shook her glittery pink-tipped finger at me. “You are going to have one of Darcy’s mochas. She taught me how to make it. Don’t you worry—it’s delicious!”

I opened my mouth to protest. From what I remembered Lois was as terrible a cook as her mother had been. She grew up on TV dinners or ate at my house when we were children.

“No, I’m not taking no for an answer. There is nothing un-Amish about a mocha.” She paused. “You’re not diabetic, are you?”

I shook my head and sat down at the table closest to the counter.

“Good. You look fit as ever, must be that clean Amish living. You haven’t rounded out like I have, but seeing that I’m a grandmother, I don’t mind having a little extra weight on my hips. It gives me grandma cred. You look like you could use something to eat. My granddaughter makes the best vegetable soup you’ve ever tasted. I’d challenge any Amish cook to claim that she makes a better one. You need a large bowl of that and some crusty bread. You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.” Her face broke into a smile. “We didn’t have a chance to catch up! And our reunion is twenty years in the making—I’ve missed you, Millie!”

I felt something catch me in the throat. I had missed her too. I’d thought of her often over the years.

She clapped her hands. “But we need to feed you before we get down to business.”

Business? What business could we be getting down to? As happy as I was to see her again, she didn’t know why I was really there, to talk to her granddaughter about Zeke Miller. Before I could ask, she disappeared around the counter and through the door into what I guessed was the kitchen. I sat there for a moment, trying to process all that had happened in the last three minutes.

Lois, that’s what happened. I never thought for a moment when moving back to Ohio that I would see Lois again. The last I heard she’d moved to Cleveland. The last time I had seen her had been at my husband’s funeral twenty years ago. After Kip died, my family circled around me, pushing everyone else away. I had been in too much shock to argue with them. By the time I came out of my fog, Lois had moved away, and no one could tell me where she had gone. I had been devastated because I thought I’d lost my friend forever, but here she was again many years later.

I smoothed the swirl-covered tablecloth on the table. There had been many times in the last few years that I’d wondered what had happened to my childhood friend. I regretted not having tried harder to find her in all these years.

I glanced around the café. Bryan was hunched over his laptop computer as if his very life depended on whatever he was doing. Seeing his dependence on electronics, I was happy that wasn’t a concern in my own life. There were many perks to being Amish, and no computers, in my opinion, was one of them.

“This will fix you right up,” Lois said as she came through the door from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a huge bowl of soup and two of the largest coffee mugs I’d ever seen. They were dripping whipped cream from the sides.

I squinted at the concoction. “That looks more like a dessert than a beverage.”

“That’s the idea!’ ” Lois said with a smile and set the tray in the middle of the table. “Also, Darcy was back there and made the mocha for you.” She wagged her finger at me again. “I saw the look on your face when I said I was going to make it. You panicked. Truth be told, my cooking hasn’t improved a whit. I help Darcy out in the café, but mostly stick to taking the orders and cleaning. I leave the culinary arts to her. Who knew I would have a granddaughter who was a good enough cook to open up her own café? It boggles the mind.”

“Do you have other grandchildren?” I asked.

“Darcy is the only one I have. After my disastrous marriage to Rocksino-man, I decided to come back to my roots and help Darcy open this café.” She moved the items from the tray onto the table. “Not that she needed much help. My Darcy has a good head on her shoulders when it comes to business.”

“I am so happy to see you,” I said. “It’s been twenty years. I’m surprised you recognized me after all this time.”

She laughed. “Oh, Millie, you are funny. We might be wee bit older, but I would recognize you anywhere. It’s not like your style of dress has changed.” She laughed at her own joke.

I felt myself relax. “It hasn’t. Neither has yours.”

She patted the top of her aggressively lacquered hair, and it barely moved. “When you find something that works for you, why change? That’s what I always say.” She settled back in her seat. “I am happy to see you too, my friend. I have thought of you often over the years. Mostly wondered what you would think I made of my life. When I came back to the village, I asked after you but heard you’d moved away.”

I nodded. “I moved back to Harvest this winter. I was in Michigan caring for a dear sister. She passed on,” I said sadly.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Which sister?”

“Harriet.”

“How sad. She was my favorite of your sisters.”

“Mine too.” I shook my head, not wanting to dwell on sad things.

Lois removed the glasses from the top of her head and perched them on her nose. “Now you tuck into the food. The chocolate in the mocha is from the candy shop on the other side of the square, so you know it’s good.”

“Swissmen Sweets?”

“You know it?” she asked.

“Everyone in Holmes County knows it.”

“It’s just delightful, and it’s a quick walk from the café. I can walk around the square, burn calories and earn them back with a bit of fudge. As long as I break even, I’m doing just fine.”

I chuckled. “I don’t think one quick walk around the square is going to cancel out a piece of fudge from Swissmen Sweets.”

She sniffed, but she was still smiling. “Don’t you mess with my delusion, Millie Fisher.”

I grinned. “That’s not the first time you’ve said that to me.” When we were girls, I always was the one who brought Lois’s fantasies back to reality. She dreamed about being a movie star or traveling to faraway places like Egypt. I always asked her how she would do those things. In return, she always said, “Don’t you mess with my delusions, Millie Lapp.” It had been a running joke between us ever since.

Oh, how good it felt to share jokes with an old friend again.

“I have no doubt that you will succeed in all you want, Lois, by sheer force of will.”

She blew on her mocha, and a light spray of whipped cream dusted the top of the table. She grabbed a napkin and cleaned it up. “I need to keep everything as neat as a pin around here. Darcy is a ball of nerves. Margot Rawlings from the town council is supposed to drop by the café any day to take a look at things. You know how nitpicky that woman can be. She hasn’t changed in forty years. She’s much like Ruth Yoder in that way.”

Ruth complained about Margot’s vision for the village often. Margot wanted to make it more of a tourist destination, and Ruth didn’t want to lose the true Amish essence that Harvest had. They were constantly at odds.

“Go on, go on and try the mocha before it gets cold. The soup too. You shouldn’t be sitting there waiting for an invitation.” She picked up her own mug.

I took a sip of the mocha. It tasted just as I imagined it would. Chocolate and sugar to the nth degree. It was delicious, but I felt I would need a nap right after drinking it.

The vegetable soup was soothing and warm, and Lois was right—it was just what I needed with the state I was in. The beef and vegetables plus the crusty bread warmed me all the way through. I had come to the café to find Zeke’s Englisch girlfriend and instead I was having a delicious meal while chatting with my childhood friend and possibly getting a sugar overdose from her killer mocha.

“I’m sorry we lost touch all those years ago,” I said between bites.

“Me too. I thought about you often, but life has a way of getting away from us. And it’s not like you can watch my updates on Facebook.”

“Facebook?” I wrinkled my nose.

“It’s on the Internet.”

I knew that there was such a thing as the Internet, but I had no interest in it.

“I’m so glad that Raellen suggested our café for your quilting circle. I guess we were destined to see each other again,” Lois said.

The soup and mocha mingled in my stomach and I felt ill. It pained me that Lois was so excited to see me and catch up when I was there to confront Darcy about her relationship with Zeke. I felt I was betraying her in some way. I didn’t know how to start the conversation either. How did I ask my dear friend such a thing about her only grandchild?

I took a deep breath. “Lois,” I began just as Darcy stepped into the main room from the kitchen. She was tall with wide-set green eyes. She had a wide mouth that I guessed would turn into a beautiful smile, though she wasn’t smiling at that moment. The feature I noticed most, though, was her hair. It was shoulder length, blond, and incredibly curly, just as Tucker had described and just as I remembered it.

“Grandma,” Darcy said, “I hate to ask this, but can you run to the store for cheese? The grilled cheese sandwiches have been our most popular item, and I’m not sure I can wait until morning to restock. What if Margot Rawlings wants a grilled cheese sandwich? That could just be the thing that ruins me.” Darcy of the beautiful blond curls smiled at me. “I’m sorry to interrupt. My grandmother said that an old friend was here. I never expected for her friend to be Amish.”

I turned to face her head on, and she grew pale. “You!” She pointed at me and then burst into tears.