A Plain Love Song (26 page)

“That it is.” He took a big bite of the pie and let it sit on his tongue for a second. Sweet and tart at the same time. They were blessed to have fruit trees in their yard. He let the thought float away. Such an obvious statement. No need to make it. He couldn’t think of a thing to say, so he ate.

Bringing with her the clean scent of dish soap, Elizabeth plopped into the chair next to him, a bowl containing a much daintier portion of ice cream and a sliver of pie in one hand. “Especially for early August.” She smiled and stretched out long legs so her ankles peeked from under the hem of her lilac dress. “Molly will be out in a bit. She ran upstairs to look for a book she wants me to read.”

“Jah, it’s not too hot for August.” He squirmed in the chair, feeling like he did the first time he went to a singing. Like a dog in the middle of a herd of cats. “September is just around the corner.”

“Ice cream helps. Molly and the girls do crank a good batch of ice cream.” Elizabeth took another bite, a rapturous look on her face. “Vanilla is still the best. Doesn’t need a thing.”

“It’s nice having a moment of quiet.” The words sounded different spoken aloud than they had in his head. “I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” Her expression bland, Elizabeth stirred her melting ice cream. “I know it’s been a hard adjustment for y’all. Having my whole family here. My daed says it won’t be much longer. He’s got his eye on a piece of property up yonder past the Tobias Daughertys.”

“I like having you here fine.” Matthew’s face burned hot as if he’d bent too close to an open fire. “I mean, it’s no problem. We all like the company.”

“I’m headed to bed! I’m awful tired now. I’ll leave the book on the table,” Molly called from the living room, where apparently she was dawdling over the book and eavesdropping at the same time. “Have a nice visit.”

Elizabeth giggled, the fair skin of her cheeks turning pink. Chagrinned, Matthew tried to smile. What was his sister up to now? If she were trying to make a match, she was barking up the wrong tree.

He had no intention of courting anyone. He couldn’t. Adah might have kissed another man, but he couldn’t untie the strings that bound them from one minute to the next. His heart couldn’t do it. Elizabeth was nice. She never missed a baptism class and she joined in the discussions with good questions and observations about life. She was smart. And not hard on the eyes.

“I like it here too.” She giggled again. “I mean I want my family to have a place to call home, but in the meantime, this has been nice.”

“The more the merrier, right?”

“Right.” She licked her spoon and went back to stirring, turning the ice cream into a pudding. “Walnut Creek wasn’t home. Bliss Creek isn’t home anymore. So New Hope must be it. That’s what I figure.”

“It grows on you.”

“Like people do.”

Matthew stole a glance in her direction. She smiled at him. Whatever she was trying to tell him, he wished she’d spit it out. He was no good at figuring out women, with their double talk and half talk. “I reckon.”

“I reckon too.” She giggled yet again.

Maybe he was comparing her to Adah—unfairly. Adah might say one thing and mean another, but that didn’t mean all women did that. Did it? Matthew leaned back, content to let silence overtake them.

“There’s someone coming.”

“Hmm.” He open his eyes, aware that he’d been close to dropping off. Embarrassed, he straightened in the chair and set his bowl on the table between them. “What?”

“A buggy’s coming up the road.” Elizabeth stood and went to the railing. “Looks like a girl.”

He rose and stood next to her.

Adah drove the buggy that came toward them at a fast clip. That was Adah. Always in a hurry, except when it came to him and her. He crossed his arms over his chest as the peace of the evening drained away. “It’s Adah.”

“I should turn in. It’s late and we have laundry day tomorrow.” Laundry day had turned into a massive undertaking with the doubling of the house’s occupants. “Good night.”

Matthew doubted there would be anything good about Adah’s visit, but he refrained from arguing. If by some miracle there were, he would be so grateful. He didn’t need an earful tonight. He’d had enough.

Elizabeth nodded, her smile gone. She picked up their dirty dishes. He held the screen door for her, a nicety she acknowledged with a slight nod of her head as she slipped inside.

Forced to face the moment of truth, he stalked to the buggy. “Adah.”

“Matthew.”

Only two syllables, but she managed to make them sound accusing. Anger stirred in Matthew. He pushed it away. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I imagine you are.” Again with the unspoken accusations. Her gaze dropped. “I needed to talk to you and you haven’t come by in a while.”

She really thought he’d come looking for her after their last conversation? “I’ve been busy.”

Her gaze dropped. She wrapped the reins around one hand, then unwrapped them. “I know. I know.”

“What did you need to talk to me about?”

Her gaze went to the house. Something in her eyes made his gut clench. She looked so sad. “I guess I’m too late. It doesn’t matter.”

Did all women beat around the bush like this? “Too late for what.”

“For us.”

That two words could cause him such pain didn’t surprise Matthew. He waited until he was able to unclench his fists and his jaw to ask a question that surely should be obvious to her. “Is there an us?”

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“You’re not making any sense. You don’t talk to me for days.” He
fought to keep his voice low. He didn’t recognize the growl that came out of his mouth. “You don’t show up for baptism class. What am I supposed to think?”

“You were the one who wouldn’t talk to me. You yelled at me the last time I went to baptism class. You stopped shining your flashlight in my window.”

“You kissed another man.” Matthew hissed the words, aware of the open door and the woman inside. “And I have responsibilities here. Daed is thinking of taking back his offer of the land.”

“What? Why?”

“Because he thinks I make poor choices when it comes to picking a fraa, for one.”

Red splotches appeared on her cheeks and spread to her neck. She snapped the reins and clucked at the horse. “I’ll get out of your way. It looks like you have courting to do.”

“There’s no courting going on here. I promise you that.” He gripped the edge of the buggy as if he could hold it there and make her stay until they worked this out. “It surprises me that you care. Why did you come?”

Her expression crumpled and for a moment she looked like the little girl he knew back in Bliss Creek who loved to jump rope, fish, play volleyball, and swim in the creek, but had a terrible fear of snakes that kept her from the water’s edge. She stared at the reins in her hands, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

“Adah? Talk now or I will walk away.”

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“But you did. Say what you came to say.”

“I needed…I don’t know. Don’t worry about it.” She clucked and shook the reins. “I won’t add to your responsibilities. You’re better off with Elizabeth. She’s a good girl.”

“You’re a good girl too. You can be, anyhow.” She tried to be. No one knew better than he did how hard she tried. Why it wasn’t in her nature, he didn’t know. He spent so much time praying God would mold her to this life. Make it easier for her somehow. God didn’t do easy—that Matthew had learned from the move to New Hope, the attitudes of
the Englischers here, and even his groossdaadi’s condition. They didn’t have an expectation of easy, only that God would be there through the hard. “Talk to me.”

As usual, she didn’t obey. She drove away, the buggy wheels kicking up dust in his face.

She’d never been good at obeying. Surely, that was one of the things that drew him to her. Adah had a mind of her own and he never knew what she would do with it. She might not be a typical Plain woman, but he loved even that about her flawed character. Surely he was no more perfect that she. Or anyone else in their community.

It didn’t matter. She’d taken that independent streak and ridden it away. She’d made up her mind to leave him.

“Adah!”

No answer. Not even a glance back. “Come on, Adah!”

Finally, when she disappeared from sight completely, he turned and stomped up the stairs. Elizabeth stood at the screen door, staring out at him, the surprise on her face telling him she’d been listening to the entire conversation.

Chapter 23

A
dah set another plate in the drain, trying to ignore Melinda and Joanna, who were bickering over who would dry the dishes and who got the silverware. She didn’t know what difference it made, but her little sisters were like that. They loved to squabble over every little thing. She would miss that, as silly as it seemed. The two of them going on and on. If anyone said one bad thing about either one of them, the other would spring to her sister’s defense. She squeezed water from the washrag and wiped down the counter for the last time in this house. She looked around, memorizing the clean, neat kitchen and the way Melinda’s kapp always sat askew on her curly blonde hair and the way Joanna’s freckles covered her nose and cheeks after a day of picking strawberries.

She committed to memory the window over the sink where she could stand and listen to the birds chatter in the branches of the big elm in the backyard, making a kind of music that only she seemed to hear. They’d lived in this house three years, but it seemed like a lifetime. She touched the black cast iron skillet sitting on the top of the stove, waiting to be put to use frying bacon or sausage or her mudder’s fine fried chicken. A knot stuck in her throat, making it impossible to swallow. She might never see this place again.

Matthew had made his decision. He’d moved on. He had Elizabeth. He wouldn’t miss Adah in the least. Try as she might she couldn’t
stop picturing him sitting on the porch next to Elizabeth. The two of them laughing and talking, eating dessert. The picture, framed with pain and longing and jealousy, had burned in her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Elizabeth laughing at something Matthew had done or said. Matthew was like that. Funny. Sweet. Adah didn’t deserve him. She’d kissed another man and now she had to live with the consequences.

Someplace else. Not here.

“You two stop that bickering.” Mudder trotted into the kitchen, a huge laundry basket in her arms. “I could hear you all the way upstairs. I just got Jonathan back down. That cough kept him up half the night—me too. I won’t have you waking him up again. Get along or I’ll send you both to the woodshed when Daed comes home.”

Joanna hung her head. Melinda busied herself drying a platter.

Mudder, not one to be impressed by a mere show of contrition, held out the basket. “Since you have so much energy to run your mouths on and on, I think you should sort the laundry and get the tubs ready—both of you.”

Melinda slid the platter onto the shelf and dried her hands. “Sorry, Mudder.”

Joanna took the basket. “We’ll make the clothes so clean, you’ll think you did them yourself.”

They truly were two peas in a pod.

“Good. See that you do.”

Mudder rubbed her hip, her forehead wrinkled. For the first time, Adah noticed the thin ribbons of silver in her dark hair. “You’d better hurry if you’re getting a ride from Daniel. He stopped by to borrow something from your daed and said he’d give you a ride into the store. No laundry day for you.”

Adah fought the urge to wrap her arms around Mudder’s neck and hug her tight. She wouldn’t mind doing laundry. She liked the smell of bleach and soap and she liked hanging the clothes on the line and feeling the breeze and sun on her face. Instead, she busied herself covering the cinnamon rolls they’d made before dawn, serving them hot,
the frosting soft and the cinnamon and sugar gooey in the middle. Just the way Daed liked them.

“Adah, did you hear me?” Mudder grabbed a dishtowel with one hand and a wet plate with the other. “What’s wrong with you, girl? You’ve been in never-never land this morning. Have you been staying up all night scribbling on those tablets again?”

“Nee.” Not this time. Her brain had been blank her last night in her bedroom. No songs had come. The only words in her head had been
goodbye
and
sorry
. “I couldn’t sleep, that’s all.”

“It’s good to know you’ve given up that foolishness.” Mudder slid the plate onto the stack in the cabinet and dropped the towel on the counter. “It’s for the best.”

Adah clenched the washrag tight in her hands, glad her mother couldn’t see her face. She didn’t dare answer for fear her plan would come spilling out. “Is it really foolishness?”

“Surely you know that by now. You finish your baptism classes, join your faith, and then become a fraa and then a mudder. That is the proper road, the one we all take.”

Somehow Adah had missed a turn and ended up on a strange highway with no familiar landmarks. “But what if there isn’t a husband here for me?”

“What’s wrong?” Mudder’s smile faded, replaced by the faint beginnings of disappointment and uncertainty. “Does this have something to do with that Hart boy?”