Hidden Life (9781455510863) Page 5

  Hm, that would make a good article. Not “The Signs of Spring,” which any farmer could write, but maybe “The Practical Side of Beauty.” Because, to a forget-me-not, those burrs would ensure the continuation of the species.

  Amelia’s five acres were too small to farm, but the perfect size for a home, a barn for the horse and buggy, a chicken yard, and a huge garden. It was evident that, in between converting motors, a certain someone had borrowed equipment and plowed up a couple of big plots out of what had been wild grass. Amelia was definitely planning on planting enough to feed a hungry man all year.

  Smiling, Emma mounted the steps and let herself into the house, where, to her enormous surprise, she found Ruth Lehman in the sitting room where they usually worked, regaling Carrie and Amelia with some big piece of news.

  “Oh, Emma,” Carrie said, turning from the table to look up at her. “Did you hear? Isn’t it strange?”

  “Hear what?” Amelia turned as well, and Emma’s stomach plunged. “What is it? It’s not the children? Or Eli?”

  “No, no.” Amelia crossed the room and gave her a hug—a harder hug than usual, as if she were glad Emma was standing there in the flesh, unharmed. “It’s Grant Weaver.”

  Emma sucked in a lungful of air and felt herself go lightheaded. “Grant? Oh, no, no. I just saw him at lunch yesterday. It can’t be. He’s working up at our place. He—”

  “No, not Grant himself,” Ruth said. “Goodness, child, you look like you’re about to faint. Sit down.”

  Emma pulled Amelia down on a chair beside her at the table. “What then? What happened?”

  Ruth resumed her place as the bearer of the news. “It seems Lavina has gone missing. Grant told his grandfather that he went to the police station and filed a missing persons report. And Will Weaver, being a great friend of Isaac’s, told him when Isaac was helping him put the corn in. So of course Isaac told me when he came in for lunch. Did you ever hear the like?”

  Emma had lost the thread back at gone missing. “But she’s been gone for years. What would make him do such a thing now?”

  “Apparently they’ve been in touch all this time,” Ruth said. “A regular correspondence. I don’t know whether that man is a saint or a fool for keeping it up, but anyway, he hasn’t heard from her since Christmas. Turns out the man she was living with hasn’t, either. She just didn’t come home one day.”

  The lightheaded feeling was swimming through Emma again.

  They’ve been in touch all this time. Two years of regular correspondence. He never gave up on her, even when she left him, left the children, left her church and community for an Englisch man. Oh, Grant…

  “Well, where is she, then?” Carrie asked of no one in particular. “How do you just not come home?”

  Ruth shrugged and got up. “I suppose if you walk away from one life, you can walk away from another.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if Grant believes that,” Amelia said. “A missing persons report sounds serious to me. Oh, I hope no harm has come to her.”

  It sounded serious to Emma, too. Their people had as little to do with the police as possible. Oh, they obeyed all the laws and carried their identification cards and made sure they knew the laws of the road when it came to driving a buggy, but aside from that, some folks could go their whole lives without speaking to a policeman.

  What must it have taken for Grant to walk into that station and tell them his wife, who had left him two years ago, had gone missing? And what about the man she’d left with? Was he not concerned? Were the two working together to find Lavina?

  Questions buzzed in Emma’s head like wasps looking for something to land on and sting.

  Because they did sting. Oh yes, they did.

  Corresponding all this time. He had never stopped loving her. Not once, despite what she’d done. And now he was prepared to involve the police to find her.

  Emma Stolzfus, you are the biggest fool God ever made. Now will you stop mooning over this man?

  When the door closed behind Ruth, Amelia shook out the quilt top, and Emma opened her bag and took out the strips for the long side that she planned to sew today. There was comfort in the orderliness of piecing a quilt—the way each piece went together with its neighbor, each fitting against the next. There were plenty of rough edges—no getting around that—but they were concealed on the inside, so all you could see from the outside was the beautiful pattern.

  Lavina Weaver had been like a piece of silk tossed down in a patchwork of kitchen cottons. She had always been different—prettier, livelier. If one of the girls had news, they told it to her first. If a boy told a joke, he would look at Lavina to see if she laughed. And if she had something to say, the whole room fell silent with interest while she said it.

  Emma fingered the border of dark green. She herself was like this—solid, dependable, good for working in the background so that others showed to their best advantage. No one would ever accuse her of trying to attract attention. No one would believe that her dearest wish was to be heard the way Lavina had been heard.

  That was why she wrote, wasn’t it? To make people listen.

  But no one could hear Lavina now.

  Except maybe her husband.

  During the weeks that followed, the addition took shape on the big house as different helpers arrived every day to augment Grant’s core crew. The sheathing went up, then insulation went in, and when the roofing crew arrived, Emma knew it wouldn’t be long before Karen would be able to move in the crib and all her baby things.

  On the Monday following the spring Council Meeting, the men arrived with paint cans in their buggies, and Emma saw Grant turn and walk down the lane to the Daadi Haus instead of climbing up onto the scaffolding at Karen’s. Hastily, she slipped around the side of the house and got busy pegging out the wash on the line, which ran from the back porch out to a pole on the far side of the lawn.

  “Guder Mariye, Emma.” He stepped carefully through the beds of budding day lilies, giving her time to school her face into that of a friend instead of a woman whose treacherous, foolish heart had just thrilled to the sound of her name on his lips. “You might need to move this end of your clothesline when you bring your clothes in tonight.”

  “Guder Mariye.” Good. A calm, friendly tone. “Are you boys ready to start over here?”

  “Does tomorrow morning suit you?”

  “Ja. Would you like breakfast first?” Karen had been feeding the crew and there was no way Emma would do less. She could not offer much in the way of comfort, whether he knew the whole community knew his business or not, but she could feed him, at least.

  “Nei. I don’t like to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. Mamm and I have to eat anyway, and we’re early risers.”

  He nodded, slapping his straw hat against his knee. A little puff of fine sawdust drifted to the ground. “I’ll have a few of my crew with me. Three of us okay?”

  As long as he was among them, she would feed as many as he could bring. “Sure. Say, seven o’clock?”

  He nodded, turned as if to leave, then paused. He looked up at her, swinging his hat against his leg. “I suppose you heard about Lavina.”

  Goodness. She had not expected him to speak so bluntly about something so personal. “I did,” she said awkwardly. “I—I hope she is all right and that you will hear from her soon.”

  “I hope so, too. I spoke to a police officer in Whinburg, but he only said they were still looking into it. He said to tell him if I heard from her.” He paused. “You’re quite a writer, Emma.”

  A blush rose into her face. On the tip of her tongue teetered her news about finaling in the contest, like a red-winged blackbird balancing on a reed singing its heart out. But she bit it back. Instead, she savored the gift of his compliment. Already she knew she would be taking it out again and again, a treasured heirloom in a chest of silence, to turn it over and marvel at its beauty in private.

  “I know you write for Family Life
,” he said. “And those letters I see in the Whinburg Weekly signed E.S.…I wonder whose those could be?”

  “I wonder,” she replied. What was he getting at? The beating of her heart slowed to a workaday rate. Did he plan to go to the bishop about this troublesome woman who too conveniently forgot the principles of Gelassenheit with her attention-seeking ways?

  Was that a smile hidden in his beard? “I won’t say a word. When God gives a talent, it would be a sin to bury it in the ground.”

  “You’re the only one who thinks so, then,” came out of her mouth before she could stop it. Heat rose in her cheeks again.

  “I keep my thoughts to myself as a general rule. God has given you this talent. Be sure you use it for His glory and there will be no harm in it. There might even be some good.”

  Emma’s heart turned over in despair. Here was someone who understood—no, more than that: who was everything she admired in a man—hardworking, kind, even perceptive. And she could never, ever tell him or so much as hint that she felt this way.

  “I wonder if I could ask you to do something?”

  “Of course.” What could she possibly do for a man who was so capable?

  “I wonder if you could write a little article about Lavina for Family Life. It goes to Amish folks all over the country. I was thinking maybe if somebody read it and saw her, they could ask her to write home. Or they could write, themselves.”

  All she could do was nod. Her powers of speech had deserted her completely.

  He slapped his hat on his knee with the sound of finality. “Gut. Denkes, Emma. I appreciate it. We will see you in the morning, ja?”

  When he was out of sight and hearing, she turned her face into a cold, damp towel hanging on the line and wept.

  Chapter 5

  May 7, 2012

  Dear Ms. Stolzfus,

  We have received our judges’ feedback on the finalist entries in the Commonwealth Prize fiction contest. While the competition was very strong and your entry received close consideration, we regret to say that it was not chosen as the winner of the publishing contract.

  However, your entry showed such merit that it was the judges’ consensus that you should pursue publication through the normal channels. We on the contest committee wish you the best of luck in your literary endeavors.

  Sincerely,

  Tiffany Hickman

  Contest Coordinator

  Emma folded up the letter with its New York postmark and stuffed it in her pocket. She had never expected to win; had never even allowed the possibility to take root in her mind. To believe she was better than six of the best writers in the contest smacked of arrogance, and her soul flinched from that.

  But oh, how wonderful it must be for the person who had received a different letter this morning!

  Well. Genunk.

  She had exercised the gift that God had given her, and it had produced a few moments of fleeting joy, as worldly gifts tended to do. She had done what she had done, and now it was time to move on and be realistic. When they sent it back, she would not burn the manuscript, because the story was part of her and to harm it would be like cutting off her hair and burning it. So it would stay hidden in the closet and maybe once in a while she would take it out and read it, the way one read old letters from a close friend simply because they were good for the soul.

  Meanwhile, God had given her other gifts—and one of them was the cause of the squeaking sounds she could hear through the trees. Emma delivered Karen’s mail to the big house and paused at her end of the lane to watch Grant and one of the teenage boys he employed as they labored over her porch. Each rocked the claw end of his hammer against the wood, yanking up the nails one by one. The porch already looked like a skeleton, and soon even the supports that had held up the roof as well as her purple clematis would be gone. Behind the house, the boy’s brother did the same, the shriek of wood yielding up nails a sound sweet to her ears.

  The men had made short work of her eggs, ham steaks, and biscuits this morning. It wasn’t often she got to appreciate a hungry man at her table, so to have three of them all at once was a novelty she would almost rather have sat back to watch. And she learned one more thing about Grant Weaver: He was a coffee drinker. Not just at breakfast, but all through the morning. She had already made three pots and it was only eleven o’clock.

  She hugged this knowledge—the kind of knowledge a wife might have—to herself as she went in through the kitchen and got busy making another pot. They’d be in for lunch at noon.

  You are pathetic. You’re like a sparrow, darting under the table for a tiny crumb and calling it a gift from God. Probably half the women in the district know he’s a coffee drinker.

  If a person ranked God’s gifts by size, she was walking a dangerous, arrogant line.

  Stop thinking about him. That’s the dangerous line you should be worried about.

  But Emma couldn’t.

  God had shown her abundantly how silly and pointless her feelings were. Grant was married. Even though she’d been gone two years, he still loved his wife. Emma knew that. But try as she might, she couldn’t make them go away.

  What would Amelia and Carrie say if she didn’t turn up for their quilting frolic this afternoon, and stayed to savor the experience of having him around the place instead? By this time next week, she would have new porches and Grant would move on to his next project. If what the other women had been talking about after Council Meeting were true, he would be building a home for Daniel Lapp’s daughter Mandy and her new husband, who had been married the previous fall. She was the last of five daughters to be married, but the first who had chosen a man who loved farming, so Daniel had ceded a hundred acres to the young couple. Now they needed a home to live in.

  The Lapp property extended from the county highway in the north down to the far side of Edgeware Road from the Stolzfus place. Emma would be able to see the new house going up in the distance if she stood at the mailbox. Maybe she would see the builders arriving if she happened to be down there picking up the mail.

  Ja, and maybe they would all get a clue about what you were doing there, and the talk would go around the district that Emma Stolzfus was setting her Kapp for a carpenter.

  Never mind. Better she spent her time on profitable things, and Tuesdays were sewing days, not mooning over men days. The Crosses and Losses quilt was going together so slowly that the average Amish woman could have made two in the time it was taking. But no one was judging them on their speed.

  “Just because it’s a winter project, doesn’t mean we have to complete it in the winter,” Carrie said when Emma told them her thoughts—well, some of them—that afternoon at Amelia’s. “It’s Tuesday, and we’re sewing, aren’t we? Just like all the other women in the district.”

  “All the other women in the district are sewing Kapps and pants and things their households need,” Emma pointed out.

  “We’ll finish the borders today,” Amelia said from behind her treadle, the needle beginning its march up several feet of green border in tiny steps. “It might be slow, but it’s coming together. And I don’t know about you, but I can make shirts and pants for the boys and Kapps in the evenings.”

  “Your Mamm would think all this time we’re taking is a disgrace,” Emma said. “I know mine does, but she’s too kind to say so in case she offends one of you.”

  Amelia mumbled something about not everyone being so considerate. Then she said more clearly, “As you say, getting this quilt done isn’t the point. The point is that we’re together doing it. And if you need to do some mending or make a new Kapp, you bring it along and go right ahead.”

  “I’ll tell you what I did bring along.” Emma took out the second letter from New York and read it aloud. “So that’s that. It was fun while it lasted, but now it’s done.”

  “At least you had a few weeks of knowing your work was among the best,” Carrie offered.

  “It still is,” Amelia pointed out. “What was that part about
having merit?”

  “They were just being nice.” Emma folded up the letter and put it back in her pocket. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Maybe not, but it was good of them to say it.” Carrie could find something positive in a torrential downpour on a stormy day. “I wonder what ‘the usual channels’ are?”

  “No idea.” Emma didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Amelia, have you heard from Eli this week?” Eli had gone up to Lebanon to visit his family.

  The march of the needle stopped. “I have. He’s coming back soon. Sometime in the next ten days. He says he needs to find an Englisch man with a backhoe.”

  “When are you two going to announce your engagement in public?” Emma asked. “I mean, you’re planting a bigger garden, he’s here every other week, and now he’s hiring equipment…to do what?”

  “What do backhoes do but dig foundation trenches?” Carrie’s eyes were big and blue and guileless. “Do you know, Emma?”

  Amelia shot her a look that plainly said, Who do you think you’re fooling? “Very funny. There will be no digging up my front acre yet. Eli just wants to be prepared for when the day comes.”

  “I think a wedding day had better come before anybody starts digging anything up,” Emma said dryly. “What will the neighbors think?”

  “You are the neighbors,” Carrie said. “What do you think?”

  “I am shocked and appalled that anyone would even mention a backhoe before asking a certain question,” Emma said firmly, trying to keep her lips from twitching. “It’s positively indecent. What kind of example is that for the children?”

  “Well, he did say he had something to talk about besides backhoes.” Amelia looked down at her seam and blushed scarlet.