Abby Finds Her Calling (23 page)

Sneaking a call… Not that it was any of his business. Not two
weeks ago, Preacher Abe spoke about how it was wrong to listen to other folks’ messages.

But this
was
his business! Zanna was the woman he’d vowed to marry, and she had contacted that no-account bad apple who’d taken advantage of her.

Old news, remember? She confessed and now you’re to forgive and forget.

James winced. His conscience was right, but it still burned him that Zanna and Jonny Ropp were apparently
not
old news. If he’d wanted proof that she didn’t love him, and that he should move on, here it was.

The realization still left him feeling battered. Just when things had gotten easier because Sam had declared Zanna wasn’t to work in the mercantile anymore, he’d heard
this.

Why not cut my heart out with your sewing scissors, Zanna? It’d be a lot less painful
.

James inhaled deeply, aware that his pulse was racing. He needed to finish this inner drama, somehow. Over the past five and a half weeks that he’d been working on that white princess carriage his raw feelings should have had time to heal. Sunday marked the last day of Zanna’s ban. He was to forgive her in his heart even if she didn’t ask him to—even if her swelling belly didn’t let him forget what she’d done.

Yet in lonely moments James still recalled the laughter in her eyes after he’d teased her… and the sweetness of her eager kisses…

He jabbed the
ERASE
button.

James closed his eyes then, groaning. While he didn’t want to hear Jonny Ropp’s voice ever again—nor did he want Zanna or Emma or anyone else to hear Jonny’s message—it wasn’t his place to delete it. He knew better! Yet in a heartbeat his despair had gotten the best of him and had taken control of his finger.

Well… if she called and didn’t leave Jonny a message, she had nothing important to say to him anyway, ain’t so?

That wasn’t a good excuse. If he were truly a mature, forgiving man, he would tell Zanna that Jonny had called, and he would apologize for erasing a message meant for her.

With a sigh James pressed the
PLAY
button again and jotted down a couple of numbers so he could call back about two new orders for courting buggies. It would be good to have his two employees, Leon Mast and Perry Bontrager, returning after Thanksgiving, so he could get the shop back into full production again. He felt grateful for work that would keep him busy as winter set in, yet at this moment he was just peeved enough to walk away—start over someplace far, far from Cedar Creek. The work would follow him, for he’d built up a fine reputation and every Amish community needed carriages.

“James? You done in there?”

He blinked. Emma was peering in the frosty window.

Slipping the phone numbers into his coat pocket, James stepped outside. “Sorry. Just thinking my thoughts.” He put on a smile for his sister, who was shivering as the bottom of her coat flapped in the brisk north wind. “Is everything all right?”

“I’ve been to the merc. I need a hand getting some crates of canned peaches and baking supplies home when you get a minute.”

James raised his eyebrows. “Dat’s not feeling up to that today?”

“Mamm’s got him bringing up jars of grape juice and whatnot from the cellar, packing them to go to Iva and Daniel’s for Thanksgiving tomorrow,” she replied, shaking her head. “She doesn’t want Dat out walking in this snow, for fear he’ll fall—not that he’s happy about being cooped up.” Emma cleared her throat purposefully as they stood beside the road. “And what’s on
your
mind, James? You looked ready to punch your fist through something.”

She’d caught him on that one. But did he really need to admit what he’d done… what he’d heard? Would it count as his confession if he told his sister instead of confronting Zanna or bending Preacher Paul’s ear?

James considered what Emma had just said about packing for the trip. For the first time in their lives, Thanksgiving dinner would be someplace other than here at home: at the wedding, their older sister Iva had realized that Mamm was getting to be more of a hindrance than a help in the kitchen. So tomorrow, early, they were driving the ten miles to Queen City in time for the big family dinner and then staying over for a couple of days. Had Zanna been here to help Emma cook, the plans would no doubt have been different.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

His parents were agitated about the trip tomorrow—another change in their lives—and they were wearing Emma thin with their fretting, so his frustration about Zanna and Jonny seemed petty in comparison—not a burden his sister needed to bear right now. “I was a little peeved about a message, jah, but I’ll get over it,” James hedged. “I’ll go fetch those groceries for you and be right back.”

Emma raised an eyebrow, as though she intended to wait him out.

“Go on, now,” he prodded her. “Mamm will fuss at you for staying out here in the cold too long.”

James headed back toward the mercantile, thinking again about Jonny’s message for Zanna, and his anger which had flared so suddenly. He’d better get over Zanna’s calling Jonny and move on. She had her own life now.

He stepped onto the mercantile’s porch, past the display of sleek wooden sleds Ezra Yutzy had made, and entered the store. The bell above the door still thrilled him—as it had when he was a kid, until Mamm had scolded him about going in and out just to hear it jingle. The aroma of dried spices and freshly ground peanut butter soothed him, the plank floors were swept clean, and the shelves were arranged so Sam could see over the tops of them from wherever he was working.

Sam waved at him from a bin near the back, where he was stacking big bags of road salt. “I loaded your sister’s crates into a wagon,”
he said, pointing toward the side door. “Easier than wheeling a grocery cart over the road. Got a few icy patches out there.”

“Denki, Sam. I appreciate that.” James took a deep breath, happy that while so many things he’d taken for granted had changed recently, the Cedar Creek Mercantile remained the same as when Leroy Lambright—and Leroy’s dat before him—had been running it. James started over to where the wagon awaited him, passing the same sorts of men’s hats, suspenders, and work gloves that had been for sale there all his life.

“Emma says you folks are heading to Iva and Daniel’s early tomorrow,” Sam remarked. “Have a gut trip. Travel safe.”

“It’ll be a new adventure, for sure,” James replied. “A break for Emma, too, since Iva’s in charge of the cooking.”

The wooden stairs creaked and he looked up to see Abby coming down from her loft, smiling at him. “And speaking of Emma,” she said, “I have a little surprise for her. Let me grab my coat and I’ll walk over with you.”

James smiled to himself. It was just like Abby to sense when Emma was feeling frazzled. The two of them hadn’t buddied back and forth as much since Zanna had moved into Abby’s spare bedroom, and James understood how they could miss each other’s company, now that so many of their other friends were married. He picked up the wagon handle, and when Abby came out of the back room in her black coat and bonnet, he pushed open the side door for her. She was carrying a long, dark garment bag on a hanger, holding it high so it wouldn’t drag on the ground.

“And are you all packed and ready for your trip, James? Hope the weather holds for your drive over to Iva’s,” she said brightly.

James chuckled. “Doesn’t take much packing for Dat and me, you know, and Emma’s packed an extra dress or two for her and Mamm. It’s the other boxes—jars of canned vegetables and jellies, and bags of sweet corn and peas from the freezer—that has them in a dither, I think.”

“Deciding what all to share?”

“Figuring out how to fit all those boxes in the carriage and still have room for the four of us.”

Abby’s laughter blew away on a gust of wind as they paused at the side of the road to allow a pickup to go by. Her cheeks had turned pink and her brown eyes sparkled as though whatever she carried in that bag was something mighty special. James glanced inside the empty phone shanty… and wondered if he should admit to Abby that he’d erased that message from Jonny Ropp. As he thought about it, Jonny hadn’t relayed any important information, as such. He’d only returned Zanna’s call and teased her about missing him.

Abby might be happier not knowing about that call, especially when she was bursting with the anticipation of giving Emma her surprise. He decided to deal with deleting that message—and his feelings about it—himself, for now.

As they entered the snowy lane to the house, Abby dashed ahead of him, her sturdy boots crunching in the snow. “I’ll get the door for you, James—”

“I’ve got a piece of plyboard under the porch,” he called out, chasing after her. The heavy wagon clattered on the hard-packed snow. “I’ll lay it on the steps and wheel the wagon right on up to the door. Saves me hauling up several armloads.”

Abby seemed invigorated by the cold weather, and it lifted his spirits to be spending these few moments with her even though it was Emma she was coming to see. He propped the plyboard to one side of the three steps, like a ramp, and up he went with the wagon. As Abby held the door to let him precede her inside, her smile took him back more than a decade, to when they were scholars together in the one-room school. So carefree and happy she seemed right now, despite all that was happening with her younger sister.

You could take a lesson from Abby Lambright. Attitude is everything.

James was about to say how much he had enjoyed her company, but the way Abby was smiling up at him, her wind-flushed face
framed by her bonnet, left him temporarily speechless. For fear of sounding juvenile, he merely murmured, “Denki, Abby. Mighty kind of you.”

“You’re welcome, James.” She nodded and let him pass in front of her. Was that a sigh he heard, as though she’d been hoping he’d say more?

When Abby saw Emma at the kitchen table, loading quart jars of vegetable soup and apple pie filling into a milk crate, her excitement filled the room. “I brought you a little something,” she said with a big grin. “An early birthday present—and a Thanksgiving gift. Because I’m ever so thankful you’re my friend, Emma.”

Emma’s eyes widened. Her mouth made an O as she held the sides of the garment bag that was suspended in Abby’s hand. James thought his sister might cry. “Now what did you go and do?”

“Open it and see.”

Emma glanced at James, as though asking if he knew what the dark bag concealed. James shrugged and took the first crate of canned peaches from the wagon. It wasn’t even a gift for him, yet he vibrated with anticipation. If Abby had chosen it—or made it—whatever it was would be nothing short of wonderful.

“Oh, Abby! A dress—”

“Couldn’t let your mamm be the only one at the table tomorrow wearing something new.”

“And made from this gabardine I spotted from clear across the store the minute I walked in last week.”

Abby chuckled slyly. “Didn’t I tell you I see everything that goes on from my little perch? I thought this rusty red color was the nicest of the lot—different from anything you had. And different from the ones I made your mamm.”

Emma grabbed her in a hug and held her for several moments. “You have no idea, Abby, how you just brightened my day—my whole week,” she murmured. She pulled away so she could smile into her best friend’s eyes. “And I’ll have you know, Mamm’s wearing the
cranberry dress tomorrow. I saw her looking at it this morning, grinning like a kid at Christmas.”

“Happy to hear that,” Abby replied. “I know she was perturbed at you for clearing out her old ones.”

Emma released her to hang the new dress on a peg where it wouldn’t get wrinkled. She ran her fingers over the fabric… a new dress, the matching V-shaped cape, and a crisp white apron, as well. The expression on her face made James realize how perfectly Abby had pleased his sister. Emma had so little time to sew, and was so used to putting Mamm and Dat’s—and his—needs before her own, he couldn’t recall the last time she’d worn something new.

And wasn’t that one of the things Abby Lambright did best? She quietly watched, and waited for just the right time to share her love and her talents… the way she had taken Zanna into her home and then convinced the naysayers around Cedar Creek that her sister should keep her baby because she loved it.

“I’ll miss coming over tomorrow night for a piece of your pumpkin pie, Abby,” Emma said. She reached into the box on the table and handed Abby a jar of strawberry-rhubarb jam.

“You’ll have a gut day with Iva and Dan and the rest of them,” Abby assured her as she tucked the small jar into her coat pocket. “We’ve got the whole holiday season now to enjoy pumpkin pies—and we will!”

A
s Abby and Zanna stepped into the kitchen where Mamm, Barbara, and the girls bustled about, Abby closed her eyes in sheer delight. “I don’t care how much gut food we cook, week in and week out, nothing else smells like Thanksgiving Day!” She set down her pie carrier to remove her coat while Zanna closed the door against a brisk wind.

“That comes from not eating all morning, waiting for the feast.” Mamm finished rolling out the whole wheat dough so Ruthie could cut circles with a biscuit cutter and then fold them into a “pocketbook” shape.