Wounded Heart (9781455505654) Page 24

  “We’ve done good work,” Carrie said.

  “No pride there,” Emma teased her.

  “I can tell the truth without pride,” Carrie retorted. “Facts are facts, and it’s a fact that we work well together.”

  “That is a gift from God,” Amelia told them. “Imagine trying to make a quilt with Mary Lapp.”

  “Or Mary Lapp and my mother-in-law,” Carrie added. “Imagine what that would look like.”

  “A crazy quilt?” Emma suggested.

  Amelia choked down a giggle. Carrie tried to stifle one, too, but the harder she tried not to laugh, the worse it got, until finally the two of them gave up entirely and just let go.

  “Good thing the boys aren’t here,” Amelia gasped, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “They would be correcting us for our disrespectful ways.”

  “It wouldn’t be so—” Carrie stopped when Emma lifted her head, listening. “Was isht?”

  “There’s a car coming up the lane.”

  Amelia flew to the front window to see a small blue car nosing its way up a lane that was four inches deep in snow. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest.

  A woman was at the wheel. A woman with red hair who clearly hadn’t been exaggerating—who had meant it when she’d said she’d drive the results over personally if she had to.

  “It’s Dr. Stewart!”

  She wrenched open the front door and would have run down the steps if Carrie hadn’t grabbed her arm. “Amelia, you have no shoes on!”

  So she was forced to wait behind the screen door until Dr. Stewart climbed out and waved a brown envelope. “Hi, Amelia. I have your results here.”

  She could not ask. If the news was bad—if she still had to face the years with MS—she could not bear it. Suspended between hope and despair, she watched the doctor pick her way across the snowy yard and up the porch steps.

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?” Dr. Stewart prompted.

  Amelia opened her mouth, and no words came out. A huge lump had formed in her throat, and she couldn’t force a single sound around it.

  “I will ask for her,” Emma said, reaching out to take the envelope. “I am Emma Stolzfus, her friend from the farm next door. What did the tests say?”

  “Your blood is full of heavy metals.” Dr. Stewart’s gaze locked with Amelia’s. “You don’t have MS,” she said clearly, slowly, as if she wanted to make sure there would be no misunderstanding. “You have mercury poisoning, and starting today we’re going to do something about it.”

  Amelia’s legs gave out, and she fell to her knees on the cold boards of the porch floor.

  But it had nothing to do with nerve damage—and everything to do with an overwhelming surge of gratitude that lifted her soul into the sky.

  Chapter 20

  Dear Eli,

  Merry Christmas. I hope this letter finds you well. We are all well here, except that my two youngest brothers and my second-youngest sister tried to go ice-skating on the pond. It would have been fine except none of them know how to skate, so my sister is upstairs with a sprained ankle and my brothers have extra chores to do as punishment for not taking care of her.

  I don’t know if you heard, but I got a letter to the editor published in the Whinburg Weekly. People think it’s foolishness, but I’m happy about it. Emma Stolzfus writes letters to Family Life all the time, but she doesn’t use her name. I don’t think people realize how many opinions of hers they’ve read or whose advice they’re taking. Maybe if they knew, they’d think different about her.

  I suppose you’ve heard we’re courting. Me and Emma, I mean. People can say what they want, I guess, whether it’s true or not. She’s a smart woman. My old man says I’m not very smart, and maybe that’s true. But at least I got a letter published and he hasn’t.

  Let’s see, other news. We have about a hundred relatives here for der Grischdaag. And Amelia Beiler hasn’t sold her shop yet. She got spoken to by the bishop and told to stay put. Mamm says she has lead poisoning and has to have all her teeth pulled, so I guess she’ll be staying put for sure. My dad says if people would obey God and not get big ideas about going to Mexico, things like this wouldn’t happen. I don’t know about that. Last I heard, going to Mexico wasn’t a sin. I’d sure like to go there someday.

  I’d settle for Lebanon, though. Any sign of folks needing a hand up your way? If I don’t get out of Whinburg, I’m liable to go crazy. All the girls here are too old, too young, or related to me. I’m strong, and I have my own buggy. Let me know.

  It was nice to have you visit. Mamm says to come back anytime.

  Your cousin,

  Aaron King

  That winter, the old-timers said, brought the most snow any of them had seen since the 1950s. The days were dark with lowering cloud, and when it wasn’t snowing, people emerged to dig themselves out with gradually decreasing patience. Even Bishop Daniel was heard to say that surely God Himself must be tired of snow. But the gloominess of storm following storm only made the rare sunny day more precious, the way a jewel in a tarnished setting shines more brightly for its surroundings. Then the boys were able to go outside, and even through the kitchen window Amelia could hear their shouts of laughter as they rode pieces of cardboard down the hill.

  Her days were not easy.

  After she’d made several visits to the dentist that seemed to take hours apiece, Amelia’s mouth was finally rid of all the metal that had been working its damage. Then it was time for the cleansing process: vitamins, supplements, and strange new routines to help her body purify itself.

  “For your personal hygiene, don’t use things that contain petroleum,” Dr. Stewart advised her, which meant she had to go to Karen Stolzfus for a beeswax lip balm instead of the store-bought one she’d been using since she was a teenager, and she had to change to a natural shampoo and homemade hand cream. “And eat lots of raw honey and olive oils.” The first was easy—Karen bottled honey for the tourists in the summer from the bee boxes in the orchards. The second meant a trip to the fancy grocery in Strasburg and a little change in the flavor of her cooking.

  The boys never noticed. And no matter how strange it sounded, Amelia followed the doctor’s instructions to the letter. She was well schooled in obedience and taking no chances.

  When the snow finally showed signs of easing up and the snowdrops on the south side of the house raised their shy heads to look about them, Amelia put on her prayer covering one morning and pinned it to her hair. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the stairs to make breakfast that she realized she’d done it without thinking—without that fierce concentration that made mechanical movements as laborious as threading a needle with mittens on.

  She paused on the stairs, hand over her pounding heart. Her range of motion was coming back.

  It was working.

  She tried to tamp down her excitement, to think practically and not get caught up in a tiny bit of progress and imagine herself cured. When they’d manifested, the symptoms had always come and gone like clouds in April. They would likely come and go for a while yet on their way out.

  That’s what her rational side said. The rest of her rejoiced at every molecule of change. Even a tiny step—the merest twitch of a muscle—was reason for celebration.

  She was so focused on the climb out of the pit of despair that she had a hard time following the snowdrops’ example and lifting her head to look about her. As a result, when Aaron King dropped into the shop one afternoon at the slushy end of January, for a split second she wondered why on earth he was so late for work.

  No, no. What’s the matter with you? He hasn’t worked here in months. The mind was a funny thing. Maybe hers was so determined to block out that terrible time that it had skipped right over it and brought two separate days together the way she brought the two corners of a sheet together to fold it.

  “Hello, Aaron. Wie geht’s? ”

  “Hey, Amelia.” For once he was dressed Amish, with broadfall pants and a plain shirt under
his sack coat. His broad-brimmed black hat was pulled low over his forehead, as if he were trying to keep his ears warm. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”

  She raised her brows. “Why not? Did you think I’d sold it?”

  “No, I knew that Bishop Daniel told you not to. I just thought that with lead poisoning, you know, you wouldn’t be up for it. Where’d you get that, by the way? I read on the Net that these kids in South America got it by chewing on the windowsills and eating the paint. Is that why you had to have all your teeth pulled?”

  Was the boy crazy? “Was in der Himmelswelt sagst du?”

  At her tone of astonishment, he looked nettled. “That’s what Mamm said you had.”

  Amelia recovered herself. The grapevine did not have its facts in order, as usual. “I don’t have lead poisoning, Aaron. It’s mercury poisoning. From the fillings in my teeth. I had them taken out and replaced with composite. See?” She opened her mouth, and he peered inside. “No lead, no metal, just my own teeth. You shouldn’t listen to gossip. It’s a bad habit and just gets us all in Druwwel.”

  With every word she spoke, he hunched his shoulders a little more. “Uh-oh. I guess I’m in it deep with Eli, then.”

  “Eli who?”

  Now it was his turn to raise his brows at her. “Eli Fischer. Who else?”

  Her heart jerked in her chest, and she took several deep breaths, reaching for calm. “Oh?”

  “He’s at our place. We were talking at supper last night, and he asked about you. About whether you had false teeth.” He peered at her, and she stifled the urge to bare her teeth like a horse to show him again. “Guess not.”

  Eli. Well. The man had a perfect right to visit his relatives whenever he wanted. She had to stop thinking she might be a reason for anyone to do anything at all. That was vain and arrogant, and after all she’d been through, she should know better.

  “I hope he’s enjoying his visit,” she managed to say in a normal tone.

  “I don’t think he is. So you haven’t seen him?” He looked around the office as if the man might be hiding behind a cabinet, then strolled to the door to look in the back. But there was no one there except David and Melvin, hard at work on an order that Melvin had brought in after he’d talked the ear off some poor Englischer at a machine shop in Lancaster.

  “I’d have told you if I had,” she said. “If I’m not selling the shop, as you say, then he has no reason to come down here, does he?”

  “Whatever. Guess I’ll be on my way, then. I’ll probably see him at dinner.”

  “Good-bye, Aaron.”

  When the door closed behind him, Amelia collapsed in her chair. Breathe. In. Out. This means nothing to you. Whether he’s been in town for a week or a day, it doesn’t matter. And yes, you will see him on Sunday, and you will treat him as you would any friend. Nothing more.

  It wasn’t as if they’d been corresponding, after all. She had not answered his impassioned letter, nor did she believe he expected her to. He had asked to court her on the spur of the moment, out of pity. At best it had been a burst of manly protective instincts. It didn’t mean he’d been carrying unwanted feelings in his heart all this time and come dashing fifty miles or more when he heard news of her.

  That was like something out of one of those novels Emma used to read when she was younger. Such things didn’t happen in real life. Sensible plain people depended on the Lord to reveal His choice of partner, not their own flawed desires and impulses.

  But her heart was not listening to this bracing lecture. Instead she felt a squeezing in her chest, as if two hands had taken her heart between them. How long has he been in town? He hasn’t come to see me. He took me at my word and has learned not to care. And I am a fool for wishing he hadn’t.

  She must not let this grieve her. She had work to do—good work that provided for her boys and made her useful. She picked up her pencil and prepared to do battle with the accounts payable once more, when the phone rang and made her jump.

  It won’t be Eli. Control yourself. “Whinburg Pallet and Crate, this is Amelia Beiler speaking.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Beiler, remember me?”

  She smiled, and it spread into her voice. “Mr. Burke, of course I remember you. You’re one of my best customers. How are you?”

  “I’m well. Better than well. I’m the happiest man in the world, and you’re the woman I hold responsible for it.”

  Good heavens. Had he forgotten she’d told him weeks ago that the sale of her shop was off ? “And why is that?”

  “Remember that lunch we never had? And you told me the cook at the Dutch Deli was a widow?”

  “Yes.” That conversation belonged to another life, to a woman who seemed much younger and more innocent.

  “Well, that cook’s name is Liza Nielsen, soon to be Liza Burke! I proposed yesterday, and she said yes, and it’s all your fault.”

  Amelia laughed. “I’d say you had something to do with it, too. I’m very happy for you. She’s a lucky woman.”

  “I’m the lucky one. Would you be able to come to a garden party we’re having by way of reception in the spring? Not the ceremony, because we’re just going to a JP, but a little do afterward at our new place?”

  By April she ought to be able to manage a knife and fork in public, one in each hand. “I would be honored. Thank you for thinking of me, Mr. Burke.”

  “Bernard. If you’re going to eat canapés in my backyard, the least you can do is call me by my name. Liza would say the same.”

  What was a “can of pay”? Never mind. “Bernard, then.”

  “I’ll send you an invitation with all the details as soon as we work them out.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. Thank you.”

  “No, thank you. If not for you, I’d still be grouchy and single and wondering what to do with myself. Now I’ll be grouchy and married and helping to run a fine little restaurant. You’ll have to come by. I still owe you lunch.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing, but I will come by sometime soon. Good-bye, Mist— Bernard.”

  She hung up the phone, still smiling. How kind people could be. She’d never been to a worldly wedding reception, but maybe it was time to learn a new thing or two. She couldn’t picture Bernard Burke in anything but his baggy overalls and a trucker’s cap. Maybe he would change clothes for his wedding.

  Maybe Eli Fischer is here to find a different woman to drive home from church.

  Angrily, Amelia chased the thought out of her mind, and it flapped off to sit in the distance, waiting for her next unguarded moment.

  And there would be one. Of that she was sure.

  Such a moment came that very evening. Amelia had just kissed Matthew and Elam good night—smiling because they could barely keep their eyes open long enough to say their prayers and sing a little verse after all their exercise in the snow—when she heard a knock on the kitchen door.

  He’s come. Her heart jumped into a gallop the way Daisy did when she got spooked by a gopher at the side of the road.

  Nei. Schtobbe dich. It was probably Mamm, plowing over here in her rubber boots to give her the homemade hand cream she’d asked for or the shampoo she’d already gently refused because it smelled worse than any amount of dirty hair.

  She forced herself to cross the kitchen at a walk, and when she pulled open the door, Emma blew in on a whirl of snowflakes.

  “Oh, no, has it started snowing again?”

  “Ja, just now. I can’t stay long—I want to get home before Mamm goes to bed. She mustn’t try to manage both the kerosene lamp and her oxygen tank.”

  Amelia kissed Emma on her red and chilly cheek and took her coat while the latter unwrapped her knitted kerchief. See? Emma. Stop longing for what you can’t have and be grateful for the gifts that come unannounced. “I’m glad to see you. Please don’t tell me you’re here to say we can’t come over tomorrow.” It was Emma’s turn to host the quilting frolic. How was she going to manage to avoid the subject of Eli Fischer fo
r two hours? Maybe she should read the paper so she had plenty of other subjects to talk about.

  “No, everything is fine.” Emma took the iced cookie Amelia offered her and bent to pet Smokey. “I wanted to know if you’d heard.”

  “Heard what?” There could be any number of things to hear. Emma could be engaged to Aaron King, for all she knew.

  Emma straightened, and Smokey vanished upstairs. “That Eli Fischer is back and staying with the Martin Kings.”

  “Aaron was by the shop today. He told me.”

  Emma’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do that? It’s one thing for me or Carrie to say such a thing to you. Aaron has no business—”

  “It’s just as well. Apparently the word among the King connection is that I’ve got lead poisoning because I’ve been chewing on windowsills. No wonder I had to have all my teeth out and get false ones.”

  Emma practically spat cookie crumbs, and Amelia handed her a napkin along with a cup of Kamilletee—one of the things that Ruth was skilled at compounding. When she could speak, Emma said, “Well, that does beat all. Even the Youngie couldn’t come up with that one in their games of Telephone.”

  “What it tells me is that Eli hasn’t come back because there’s…anything to attract him in Whinburg. Who would drive fifty miles because of a story like that? There must be some other reason.” And I don’t want to know what it is.

  “The mud sales don’t start until the end of February, so it can’t be that. Another wedding, maybe.”

  “It’s awfully late for a wedding.”

  “There’s still lots of time.” Emma twinkled across the table at her. “Stop playing like you don’t know what he’s here for.”

  “It’s not me. If it were, he’d have come calling already.”

  “Maybe he’s working up the courage to try again.”

  “Maybe you’re imagining things.”

  “I don’t think—”

  Amelia held up a hand. “Emma. Much as I love you, you have to stop.” Her voice wobbled, and all the humor drained out of Emma’s face. “I have no hopes in that area, and it just hurts me when you talk as though I should. I told him no when he asked to come around. He’s not going to ask again.”