Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 (5 page)

When he nodded, she stayed silent for a minute, thinking hard. “Gideon, why haven’t you given the basket to Sarah Rose?”

“She wasn’t old enough when her mother died. I thought I’d give it to her when she would appreciate it more.”

“Maybe she’s old enough now,” Anna said. “I think when she was in the store and she saw the thimble like her mother’s, it stirred something in her. Maybe you should give it to her.”

“My daughter’s something of a tomboy,” he said. “She hasn’t really been interested in sewing and that sort of thing. That’s
one of the reasons I brought her to the store today—the promise I made to her mother that I wouldn’t let her become a wild little thing.”

“This isn’t about her having the basket so she can sew. It’s because she wants something that reminds her of her mother.”

Anna touched the basket. “I remember what tiny stitches Mary made when she quilted. How she made a crib quilt before Sarah Rose was born and talked about how much she was looking forward to holding her.”

She looked at him. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you sad.”

“Can’t be helped,” he said, putting the thimble back inside the basket and closing it. “At the same time, it helps to hear a good memory, don’t you think?”

She nodded, but the truth was, she didn’t often let someone speak of Samuel. It just hurt too much. Glancing at the kitchen clock, she stood.

“I need to go outside,” she said. “Nick will be by in a few minutes for me.”

He walked outside with her and invited her to sit in a rocking chair on the porch.

“Do you want more coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’m sorry this kept you from your supper.”

“It’s okay, really.”

She didn’t have much appetite in the evening anyway. Sometimes all she wanted was a sandwich or a bowl of soup eaten far away from the big kitchen table Samuel had built.

“I don’t know which is better,” he said finally. “Being left alone or being left with someone whose grief you apparently have failed to help.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t think you can blame yourself.”

“No? Well, you would if you were me right now.”

“Gideon, one incident doesn’t make you a failure.”

He dropped his head into his hands, then looked up at her. “It isn’t the first incident. Her grades have been dropping. I’ve had two teacher conferences this month.”

Anna fumbled for something to say. She hadn’t had children, and even though she had siblings, none of them had ever behaved like Sarah Rose.

She felt a rush of relief she tried to hide when Nick pulled into the driveway.

“I’m sorry. I have to go,” she said, getting to her feet. “Maybe we can talk sometime.”

He got to his feet and nodded. “Thanks.”

Anna got into the van, and Nick pulled out of the drive. When she looked back, Gideon waved at her and then thrust his hands into his pockets.

She couldn’t forget the image of him staring off into the distance as they drove away.

Gideon tried to concentrate on the directions for the knitting kit he and Sarah Rose had gotten at Anna’s store.

He’d decided Saturday was a good day for the activity after the morning chores had been done. Even though it was something fun and he thought Sarah Rose should stay in her room and think about what she’d done, he figured that it was a chance for them to talk father/daughter.

So after lunch they cleaned up the kitchen and got out the kit and spread it out on the kitchen table.

After donning an apron, Sarah Rose read the directions—only stumbling over a few words he helped her sound out—good practice for her reading. Her teacher had said she needed to work on it for twenty minutes a day.

Gideon spread the packets of Kool-Aid out on the table.
Interesting idea to use it as yarn dye
, he thought. The drink mix was a summer favorite Sarah Rose was allowed now and then.

“We each get to pick a color,” he told her.

“I want pink so I want strawberry,” she said immediately. “Do we get to drink some before we use it?”

“After. Let’s make sure we have enough for the dye first.”

“Grape for you?”

“I’m not wearing purple.” He hesitated, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. “Maybe blue moon berry if we make it dark.”

Gideon opened the packet of strawberry and stirred it into the big bowl of water sitting in the sink, and immediately the fruity smell of berries filled the kitchen.

“
Mamm
used to make that kind for me,” Sarah Rose told him as she carefully lowered her skein of yarn into the water. “She knew strawberry’s my favorite.”

In the act of dumping the blue moon berry in his bowl of water, Gideon’s head jerked up. He studied her, head bent as she poked at the yarn with a big plastic spoon.

“I know your
mamm
always made you strawberry.”

She looked up at him and gave him one of her solemn smiles.

“Sarah Rose, I know you miss your
mamm
. But she’s watching over you, and I think she’s feeling sad that you’re hurting still.”

“I don’t want to forget her.”

“No one expects you to. But we need to remember how God gave her to us for a time.”

“But why do other kids get to have their
mamms
a long time and not me?”

He searched for the right words. It didn’t seem fair to him sometimes, but it was God’s will.

“We don’t always know why God does what He does,” he said, swirling the drink mix into the water and pushing his yarn into the bowl until it was submerged in the dye. “We have to trust that He knows what He’s doing.”

Her bottom lip stuck out as she stirred. “I know.” She sighed, a huge sigh that said she didn’t really like what she heard but had heard it enough to know it was the truth.

“How long are we supposed to let it sit now?”

She set down the spoon and picked up the directions. “Thirty minutes.”

“So how long is that?”

She frowned. “Half an hour?”

“That’s right. How about we have some Kool-Aid and cookies while we wait?”

“That would be
gut
. I’ll get it.”

“No!” he said quickly. “The pitcher’s full. I wouldn’t want it to get spilled.”

He withdrew his hands from the bowl and wiped them on a kitchen towel.

Dye came off on the towel but remained on his hands halfway up his forearms. Shrugging, he turned on the faucet, careful not to let the stream of water into the bowl of dye. But no matter how much water he ran over them, how much soap he used, his hands were still stained blue moon berry.

He glanced over and saw that Sarah Rose was studying the directions, her lips moving as she read the words.

“Sweetheart, what does it say about getting the dye off your hands?”

“I didn’t get any on my hands,
Daedi
. I used a spoon to stir.”

He dried his hands on the towel. “Let me see that.”

She handed the paper over and then her eyes lit up and she started laughing. “Oh, silly
Daedi
!” she laughed. “You didn’t use the spoon!”

“Why didn’t you read this part?” he asked, pointing at the big warning at the top of the page.

“I didn’t know how to pronounce that
r
word.”

“This one?” he asked, pointing to it.

“
Ya
.”

“It’s
rubber
,” he told her dryly. “
Rubber gloves
.”

“Oh,” she said but with the air of unconcern that told him she really didn’t understand. “Are you getting out the Kool-Aid?”

“
Schur
.” Shaking his head, he poured her a glass and brought the cookie jar to the table.

He fixed himself a cup of coffee and sat down with the directions, praying they’d offer him some suggestion on how he was going to get rid of blue hands and forearms.

Otherwise he was going to look pretty silly at church tomorrow.

4

Anna couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but something was definitely wrong with Gideon.

Oh, he looked as handsome as ever in his Sunday church clothes, his hair neatly combed, his smile warm and friendly.

Then he reached for the plate of food she offered and her eyes widened and she bobbled the plate. He caught it before it could fall and grinned.

“I’m hoping you can tell me what to do about my little problem,” he said, glancing down at his hands. “We were using the Kool-Aid kit, and I didn’t put on rubber gloves.”

She tried to hold back a giggle, she honestly did, but it slipped out anyway.

“What’s so funny?” Sadie, one of the women helping with the small meal after church, wanted to know.

Then she caught sight of Gideon’s hands and started to laugh. She covered her mouth. “I’m sorry!”

Sarah Rose appeared at her father’s side and frowned. “It’s not funny!
Daedi
scrubbed and scrubbed his hands.”

“You’re right, Sarah Rose, it’s not funny,” Anna said. “Gideon, I thought that kit came with rubber gloves.”

“We found them in the box,” Gideon told her, nodding. “After.”

John Stoltzfus clapped his hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “My son Henry says you’re turning into one of those Smurf cartoon characters he saw in a library book. They’re blue, you know?”

Sarah Rose went still, then backed away and walked toward the front door.

Anna started to say something to Gideon, but after the initial laugh at his expense, Gideon and the other man had launched into a business discussion.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Sadie.

She walked out onto the front porch and found Sarah Rose sitting in a rocker she’d pulled into the farthest corner. The child slumped down in the chair, her lip trembling.

“Sarah Rose? Sweetheart, are you all right?”

“Fine.” She turned her face away.

“You seem upset.”

She turned around. “It’s all my fault
Daedi’s
hands are blue.”

“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t blame you.” She was silent for a moment. “I’m kind of surprised he didn’t think of the gloves.”

“I skipped that part in the d’rections.”

Directions. “But still—”

“We started talking about
Mamm
.” Her eyes grew bright with unshed tears. “I think—well, he always gets sad about her. He put his hands in the water with the dye ’cause I think he was upset and he forgot.”

She hung her head. “That’s why I don’t talk to him about her. It hurts him too much.”

Unsure what to say, Anna glanced back at the door, but Gideon was still inside.

She had to choose her words carefully; she knew from experience how the wrong ones could hurt even more than silence.

“Your
daedi
loves you so much,” she said softly. “He’d want to talk to you about anything that’s hurting you. He wouldn’t care about himself.”

Anna sighed. “And sometimes you just have to talk about things no matter how they hurt. Sometimes it can hurt more to hold things in.”

She reverted to a childhood habit and chewed on her thumbnail. “Sometimes I do that because I don’t want to talk about how I’m hurting about—about Samuel. Sometimes I think it’ll hurt someone like my grandmother because it’ll make her think of my grandfather dying young.”

Sighing, she shook her head. “Sometimes I’m up and down with my moods still. Sometimes . . . well, I’m not so pleasant with the people near me like my cousins and my grandmother.”

She remembered how after she’d found out that Sarah Rose had stolen, she’d thought about how she knew people did all sorts of things, behaved all sorts of ways when they grieved, but she’d never heard of anyone stealing.

But the way she was sometimes—was that any different from the way Sarah Rose had been acting out? The only difference was that they weren’t at the same maturity level . . .

She almost laughed. Her cousins might have disagreed with her on that.

The door opened, and Gideon came out.

“What are the two of you doing sitting out here?” he asked, his tone neutral.

But Anna saw the expression of concern in his eyes.

“Girl talk,” she said lightly.

“Oh. I guess I’m not invited.” He pretended to be disappointed and wiped away an imaginary tear.

Anna watched Sarah Rose stare at her father’s blue hands.

“
Daedi
, maybe if Anna saw the d’rections she’d know what to do to make the blue go away.”

“We read them, remember? I don’t think there’s anything else we can do. It just has to wear off.” He bent down to kiss her head. “Stop worrying. I’m not upset with you. I should have been paying better attention.”

He glanced at Anna. “I know some things can stain, so even if I’d never used the dye kit I should have known better. After all, I use gloves sometimes working on the farm.”

With a shrug, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’ll just be a funny story I trot out after I knit my muffler.”

“That’s true,” Anna agreed. “Since so many people saw your hands today, they’ll want to see it when it’s done.”

Gideon straightened and gave her a rueful look. “Thanks for reminding me how many people noticed the blue hands.”