A Season for Tending (9 page)

The girl peered at her with large brown eyes as if trying to decide whether to trust her. Or maybe she was just hung over. “Leah King.”

Rhoda picked up a whiff of cigarette smoke and alcohol on her breath as well as an Amish accent.

“Sorry to bother you.” The girl stood slowly, wobbling. “I’ll be off your property as soon as—” Crumbling to her knees, the poor girl retched.

Rhoda pulled a cloth out of her apron pocket, the one she kept handy for wiping her forehead when the day grew hot. When Leah finished emptying her stomach, Rhoda handed it to her.

“Thanks.” She wiped her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

“No worry.” Rhoda stood. “I add all kinds of odd things to the soil to help my plants grow. You may have provided a new kind of nourishment.”

The girl’s eyes widened with embarrassed horror, and she trembled with hurt that Rhoda could neither absorb nor understand. The girl seemed to be a torn soul—caught between pushing her boundaries and regretting her choices. “Kumm. I’m sure I have something cleaner that you can wear.”

The girl looked at her immodest clothes. “Are you going to call my parents?”

“No.” Rhoda started for her house.

Leah grabbed her arm. “Who’s inside?”

“No one. Everyone went to Lancaster yesterday to visit relatives. My brothers and their wives are house hunting, and they’ll be out with a real-estate agent until late this afternoon. Kumm.” She led the way through the berry patch, across the driveway, and into the house.

It was probably a good thing for Leah that Rhoda’s parents were gone. They would surely frown on an Amish girl who smelled of sin and puke coming into their home. And her brothers and sisters-in-law wouldn’t appreciate
Leah’s getup or the questions she’d cause their children to ask. But Rhoda wasn’t a purist. “Pretty is as pretty does” was a stupid cliché in her estimation. Pretty is what God does in the hearts and minds of people who are a mess—whether outwardly or inwardly or both. Rhoda hadn’t felt that beauty inside herself for two years now, but she believed she would again someday.

“Do you feel steady enough to take a shower?”

Leah stared at the ground. “I don’t want to be more of a nuisance than I’ve already been.”

“Gut.”
Rhoda lifted the girl’s chin. “Then stop acting like you’re a troll and I’m a saint. Ya?”

Leah’s eyes welled with tears, and she shrugged.

Rhoda lowered her hand, wanting to engulf the girl in a warm embrace. How long had it been since Leah felt loved or worthy? “Do you live nearby?”

Leah shook her head. “I’ll have to call someone to come get me.”

“Do you want to be in those clothes when they arrive?”

“No.”

“Then kumm.” Rhoda led her to the bathroom. After getting a clean washcloth and towel from under the sink, she doused the rag with cold water and passed it to Leah. “Put this on your lips. It’ll help you feel less nauseated, and I’ll be right back.” She went to her mother’s bedroom and grabbed a set of clean clothes that would fit: a sage-colored dress, black apron, and a prayer Kapp. Once in the bathroom again, she put the items on the counter. “You need anything else?”

Leah shook her head.

Rhoda pulled the door closed behind her. While Leah took a shower, Rhoda washed the dishes from earlier and prepared Leah some breakfast.

The door to the bathroom creaked as it opened slowly. Leah’s footfalls were light as she hesitantly entered the kitchen, carrying her dirty clothes inside a towel. Her wet hair was pulled back in a long ponytail. She looked like a different person from the one Rhoda had found near her grapevines.

“You must be hungry.” Rhoda poured her somber guest a cup of hot tea
before putting scrambled eggs and toast on a plate. “This should make you feel better.” When she set the plate on the kitchen table, Leah hung back. “Well, come on.”

Leah put her bundle in a corner. When she sat down at the table, Rhoda nudged the mug toward her. “There’s nothing like a nice cup of licorice-root tea to calm an upset stomach.” Leah scrunched her face, making Rhoda chuckle. “Try it. It’s delicious and naturally sweet.” Rhoda couldn’t grow her own herbs anymore, but she could still purchase whatever she wanted. She’d found a wonderful herb place in the historic section of Mechanicsburg—an old home called the Thyme House and Gardens. Rhoda hired a driver to take her there the first time, but since then she’d placed her orders by phone.

Leah took a tentative sip, and her face relaxed. “Denki.”

“Eat up. Those eggs will help remove the toxins from your body. And the natural fruit sugar in that blackberry jelly will give you back your energy.”

Leah looked skeptical. “I thought dry toast was better for … upset stomachs.”

Rhoda knew she meant hangovers but didn’t want to admit it. “Trust me.”

After Leah took a few tentative bites, her appetite appeared to kick in a little, and she ate half of what was on her plate. Her washed-out cheeks regained some color. “I do feel better. Do those foods really help, or did you make that up?”

Rhoda went to a bookshelf and waved her hand across three rows. “That kind of information and more is in here somewhere.”

“But you didn’t eat any of it.”

“I had breakfast before I went outside to work.”

Leah groaned and slouched. “Chores,” she muttered. “The curse of being Amish.”

Rhoda refilled Leah’s cup from the pot on the stove. “Oh, I don’t know. Work has plenty of benefits. And if you discover a job you’re good at, it comes to mean a lot to you.”

Leah lowered her eyes. “I’m not good at anything.”

“Nonsense. You just haven’t found what your specialty is yet.”

Leah folded her arms, looking sullen. “I’ll never live that long.”

Rhoda heard the words
I hope
at the end of Leah’s sentence as clearly as if the girl had said them.

EIGHT

Leah stared at the honey-colored liquid in her mug. Would the embarrassment of last night ever end?

Waking up in a stranger’s garden was too humiliating. Did Michael have a clue she was missing? Did he care? And what about her cousin and friends? They’d left without her.

Rhoda reached for the plate. “You done?”

“Ya.”

Rhoda removed it from the table and put it in the sink. “Where do you live, Leah?”

This woman had more questions than a parent. “Harvest Mills.” She lifted her eyes to watch Rhoda, feeling like the troll she’d mentioned earlier. Rhoda was beautiful. Thin. Clear skin. The bluest eyes ever—almost hauntingly so. No. This girl had never had boy problems a day in her life. Never been disgraced in front of a crowd. Never been called fat.

Rhoda wiped off the kitchen table. “And where do your folks think you are?”

“Camping out with my cousin Dorothy in Lancaster. She went to the party, but she left without me.” Leah looked at the clock on the wall. It was past seven already. “Maybe four hours ago.”

“Don’t you think you need to call your cousin and find out what’s going on?”

Leah hated that idea, but she nodded. Feeling like a criminal going before a judge, she followed Rhoda to her phone shanty. The message light on the phone blinked.

Rhoda pulled out the chair for her. “Just ignore the flashing light. I have calls to tend to later today.”

Rhoda left, and Leah called her cousin. She got an earful about how Dorothy suddenly felt sick during the party and had someone take her home. Leah had serious doubts about Dorothy’s explanation. She’d probably gone off with one of the guys from the party, but Leah had no proof, so she didn’t challenge her.

“Anyway,” Dorothy said, “I woke up worried about you, so I called your place. Samuel answered.”

“What?” Her cousin hadn’t cared enough last night to let Leah know she was leaving, and then once the alcohol wore off, Dorothy had sobered up and realized she’d abandoned Leah. “Good grief, Dorothy. I hope you used your brain and didn’t say anything stupid.”

“I had no idea where you were.”

Leah’s stomach rolled, and she wished she hadn’t eaten. “I can tell you exactly where I am—in trouble, thanks to you. Now Samuel knows we didn’t camp out together, and he’ll ask where I was.”

“Well, forgive me for being worried about you.”

“If you’d held off calling my place, we could be talking cover stories right now.” Leah needed smarter friends, hopefully ones who had at least a few ounces of loyalty. “I gotta go.” She had the phone halfway to its cradle when Dorothy said something else. Leah put the phone back to her ear. “What now?”

“Samuel thinks you’re missing. He’s calling every number he can think of to find you. If he doesn’t locate you soon, he may call the police.”

Leah hung up, mumbling to herself, “Do yourself a favor and never make plans with Dorothy again.” She rubbed her aching stomach and then dialed the number for her family’s barn office. Before the first ring finished, someone picked it up.

“Leah?” Samuel barked.

“Ya. And I’m fine.”

Her brother spewed angry questions mingled with half lectures for a full
minute before he drew a breath. She hadn’t wanted to tell him that she woke up in someone’s garden, but during his rant he insisted she tell him where she’d slept last night.

He sighed. “So where are you?”

That was a good question. She looked through the papers on the homemade counter where the phone sat.

“Leah?”

“I’m, uh …” She moved a thick phone book and flipped through it, finding nothing useful.

“You don’t actually know where you are, do you?” Her brother’s disgust was clear. What she wouldn’t give to leave home and never return.

“Of course I do.” She found a sheet of paper with a header and Rhoda’s name and address on it. “You got a pencil and paper ready?”

She shared the address, and he growled his way through telling her his plan. It was never simple to get their uncle’s driver to lend a hand in carting them around. Craig always managed to help, but it took him time to finagle it around his workday. “It could be hours, Leah. And when I arrive at this address, you’d better still be there.” He hung up.

Leah wanted to punch out his lights, beg him to hold her, and curl into a ball and cry—all at the same time. Who had that many emotions colliding at once? Why was she such a mess? Fresh heartache pounded as she remembered Michael taking up with someone else last night.

She left the phone shanty and spotted Rhoda picking blackberries in her garden.

The
clippety-clop
of a horse and rig passing by grated on her nerves. If she could, she’d own a car and would never get into a carriage again.

She went to the white picket fence. “My eldest brother will come get me later on.” Leah hated that her voice trembled, making her sound like a frightened child. Beyond Samuel’s anger, he sounded disappointed in her.

Rhoda left her basket and came to the fence, her stark blue eyes studying Leah. “Are you afraid of him?”

“He’s furious.”

She nodded, but Leah detected genuine concern for her.

“Why don’t you come into the garden?” Rhoda gestured toward the gate. “I’ll show you around. It’d do you good to get some exercise helping me and then to rest for a bit.”

Leah hoped to make herself at least sound appreciative. “Sure. What all do you grow?”

She went into the garden, and by the time the dew had dried off the ground, Leah had learned how to cut ripe strawberries from their stems and had managed to almost fill a bucket. Rhoda told her that strawberry season was supposed to be over several weeks earlier. Leah wished they were already gone for the season, but she pushed against the desire to move slowly. She needed Rhoda to give Samuel a good report. Her hands trembled as she wiped sweat from her forehead.

Rhoda glanced at her and straightened. She’d picked several buckets of blackberries and didn’t seem bothered by the scorching heat. “Why don’t you take your container of strawberries to the cellar and set it near the sink? Then go inside and lie down.”

Although Leah wanted nothing more than to get out of the sun and lie down, she said, “But Samuel should be here soon—”

“It could be a while yet, and you need some rest. Besides, I’d like to talk to him for a bit before you go. My room is the second on the left at the top of the stairs.”

Relief on both counts flooded her—to stop working and to have someone else face Samuel first when he arrived. “Denki, Rhoda.” She carried the berries to the cellar and then walked to the door of the house. The moment she went inside, she appreciated being out of the sun.

What was Michael thinking about now? Leah went up the stairs and sprawled across Rhoda’s bed. Maybe he regretted what he’d done last night.

Maybe he still loved her.