Her Restless Heart (11 page)

"The bishop visited the shop?"

She nodded.

"Well, I never thought about him doing that. Was he buying a gift like I did?"

She gave a derisive laugh. "Hardly. He came to tell us that he didn't like what we were doing. I think he was especially displeased by what I do."

"You?"

"Some of our things are too modern. Not Plain enough. We're supposed to be representing the Amish with traditional crafts, he said."

"Really?" He sat back, trying to absorb what she said.

"I love what Grandmother has encouraged us to do. Naomi and Anna and me, I mean. I'd hate to think that it's causing a problem for her."

"What do you mean? Is he threatening to go to the church elders about it?"

She shook her head. "He didn't say that today. But I'm afraid that's the next step."

Shaking her head again, she sighed and leaned back in the booth. "I wonder what Daniel's bishop in Florida is like?"

The minute Jamie walked into her apartment with Mary Katherine, Jamie kicked off her shoes and walked over to collapse on the sofa.

"I'm going to put the leftover pizza in the refrigerator," Mary Katherine told her. "Unless you want another piece?"

"No," Jamie said with a moan. She put her arm over her face. "I feel sick. I think I ate too much."

"You're not the only one," Mary Katherine told her. "Maybe I should wrap the pieces in aluminum foil and put them in the freezer."

"Good idea."

When Mary Katherine returned to the living room, Jamie wasn't lying on the sofa anymore. The bathroom door was closed, and when she heard the toilet flush, she knew where her friend was.

Then the door opened, and Jamie appeared, leaning dramatically against the jamb. "I feel so sick. I can't seem to keep anything down lately. Why I thought I'd get away with pizza— especially stuffing myself with it—is beyond me."

"Is it the flu? It's going around."

Jamie's face contorted. "I don't think so. I'm—I'm scared to death I'm pregnant."

She said it with such bitterness and despair, Mary Katherine was shocked. A
boppli—
baby—was eagerly looked forward to by the Amish. Well, they weren't perfect, she reflected; occasionally there were couples who anticipated their vows, who married and had an early baby.

"Think? You haven't gone to the doctor?"

"I can't afford it," Jamie said, returning to the sofa to flop onto it and cover her face with the afghan.

"Then you should at least take a pregnancy test from the drugstore."

Jamie pulled the afghan down, revealing her face. "How do you know about this?"

"I'm Amish. Not ignorant," Mary Katherine told her briskly. She stood and pulled her purse strap onto her shoulder. "Then that's the first thing you need to know. The drugstore is probably still open. We'll go get a pregnancy kit."

"I think I'm going to throw up again." Jumping up, Jamie bolted for the bathroom and slammed the door.

This wasn't looking good, thought Mary Katherine. She walked over to the door and knocked on it. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"I don't want to leave if you're not okay."

The toilet flushed, and water ran in the sink. Jamie opened the door. She was wetting a washcloth. "All better now."

"I'll go by myself. You don't seem to be in any shape to go."

"Thank you," Jamie told her.

She looked wan, but her voice was heartfelt.

Mary Katherine started for the door. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Chocolate," Jamie said in a muffled voice as she wiped her face with the washcloth. "A couple of pounds of chocolate."

"Chocolate never cured anything," Mary Katherine told her, but she couldn't help smiling a little.

"It never hurt, either."

Mary Katherine was holding two pregnancy kits—wondering which was better—when she felt someone watching her. She turned and someone—a man—darted behind a display of cereal.

Shrugging, she turned back to her study of the kits. One promised that fewer mistakes were made with it and that it could detect a pregnancy earlier than any other tests on the market. She checked the price. It was two dollars more, but she figured it was worth the price.

Satisfied, she walked to the checkout and was digging in her purse for money when she realized that everything had gone silent. Glancing up, she saw that the clerk and two staff members were standing there, staring at her.

She felt a moment's twinge, then dismissed it. They didn't know her, and she didn't know them. And most importantly, she wasn't wearing her Plain clothes. They probably thought she was
Englisch,
so no one in her community would ever know that she'd bought a pregnancy kit.

She quickly handed over the money, got her change, and held out her hand for the package safely hidden now in a plastic bag.

Hurrying back to Jamie's apartment, she thrust the package into her friend's hands. "There. You can find out now."

Jamie stared at the package as if it were a snake.

"Well, I thought you'd want to find out right away."

Lifting her eyes, Jamie shook her head. Her lips trembled. "I do. But I'm scared everything is going to change if—if—"

Mary Katherine hadn't ever been faced with something like this. But she could see Jamie's terror, could almost feel it. She'd never even thought of what might happen if she got pregnant outside of marriage because she'd been so determined to avoid dating until she figured out where she belonged.

But fear—she'd known fear, and she saw it now. So she did the only thing she could think of. She reached out and hugged her friend.

"Let's just get it over with," she murmured. "The sooner, the better. Then we'll talk about whatever you need to do."

Jamie's breath hitched, and she nodded. "Okay." She backed up. "Thanks."

"The instructions say it's really easy. That it's hard to get the results confused."

"Really?" Jamie's laugh was more an exhale of air than a sound of mirth. "Well, that's good to know." She rubbed at her forehead. "It's just been such a difficult semester. I took on too many classes to get out sooner, then I had my hours cut back at work. My roommate moved out. I'm scared I won't have my rent money this month. And I let myself get talked into—" she stopped and blushed.

Mary Katherine hugged her again. "Everything will work out."

"I don't know how." She turned and walked toward the bathroom with slumped shoulders and closed the door behind her.

"I'll pray for you," Mary Katherine whispered.

Mary Katherine took a seat on the sofa and did as she'd told Jamie she would do: she prayed for peace, and for guidance, for her friend.

She realized at that moment that she had turned to God for the first time in a long, long time. She'd asked Him for peace, for guidance—things she hadn't asked Him for herself. And she'd asked, believing that He was listening to her when she hadn't felt that way for months and months.

The next day, Jacob sat in his kitchen, brooding over a cup of coffee while he waited for the oven timer to go off.

He couldn't forget Mary Katherine's question from the night before: "
I wonder what Daniel's bishop in Florida is like?"

Why had the bishop picked now to visit the shop and make his comments to Leah? Mary Katherine had been so upset. Jacob didn't see anything wrong with what they created and sold at the shop, and he didn't think anyone else in their Plain community would.

And it didn't make sense that if the bishop wanted Mary Katherine to join the church, he would be critical of her. Then again, he was an authority figure who didn't go around trying to be liked. Instead, he was looked on as being someone who saw to it that the
Ordnung,
the unwritten rules, were strictly obeyed.

Mary Katherine had been so upset with the bishop she told Jacob she had left the shop for a walk to cool off.

He could only wonder if she'd view what had happened with the bishop as just another reason she shouldn't stay in the Plain community. The timer dinged, and he rose to pull the baking pan from the oven. Setting it on top of the stove, he used a toothpick to check to see if it was done. Satisfied that there was no uncooked batter on the toothpick, he turned off the oven.

The pan was still warm when he knocked at his sister Rebecca's door a little while later.

He heard yelling through the door, and then it was opened by one of his nephews.

"
Mamm! It's Onkel
Jacob!" he yelled.

She held her hands over her ears and winced. "
Danki, liebschen.
Next time please use your inside voice. Now go back to your homework."

Jacob watched him drag his feet back to the kitchen. He remembered the days of homework and winced. Then he realized that his sister was standing there rubbing at the small of her back, an expression of pain on her face. He stepped inside and closed the door.

"I brought you a peace offering." He held out the coffee cake.

She took it from him and sniffed at it. "Smells good.
You
made it?"

"
Ya.
Here, let me carry it into the kitchen and you sit down. You look exhausted."

"Well, if you go around saying things like that, it's no wonder you're not married," she told him with a trace of tartness.

"I'm sorry, but—"

She held up her hand. "Never mind. You try being pregnant for nine months and see how good
you
look."

He felt himself pale. "That's not funny."

Yawning, she leaned against the chair of her oldest and watched her do her sums. "What I wouldn't do for a nap."

He looked around the table. His nieces and nephews were busily working on their homework. Such quiet, well-behaved children, he couldn't help thinking. Even the youngest, a four-year-old boy who was the spitting image of his mother, was quietly coloring a blue squirrel within the outlines of a coloring book.

"Tell you what," he said, placing the coffee cake on the kitchen counter. "How about I watch the
kinner
so you can lie down?"

She walked over to him and thrust her face uncomfortably close to his. "Jacob, don't be joking about something like that with an overdue pregnant woman."

Jacob backed up. "I wouldn't joke about that. I meant it."

"You have the time to babysit my five little monsters? Well, four. One of them went to town with his
dat."

"Four, five," Jacob said, shrugging. "Doesn't matter. I'll watch them." He frowned when he saw her trying to suppress a smile. "What?"

"You'd be surprised," she told him dryly. "But I'm going to take you up on your offer. You won't think it's so easy after you do it."

Now she was making him uneasy. "I never said it would be easy. I learned never to say that anything you or any other woman does is easy."

"So, is the coffee cake safe to eat?" she asked, breaking off a piece and trying it.

"Well, that's pretty good."

She pulled a roll of aluminum foil from a kitchen drawer and covered the top of the pan with it. "This is dessert. No one gets it until after supper."

"We can't have some now?" Mary asked. She gave Jacob a winsome smile. "It's hours and hours until supper."

"And we're starving," her six-year-old brother added.

"You had cookies and milk and fruit when you came home from
schul,"
his mother reminded them.

"Hours ago," John said with a nod.

"Ignore them," Rebecca told Jacob. "They're little eating machines."

"
Kinner
get hungry," he said, shrugging. "I remember those days."

"You still eat like them." She waved a hand at the oven. "Supper will be ready in an hour." She sighed. "Nap. I can't remember what a nap feels like."

Jacob kissed her cheek and then gently pushed her toward the stairs. "It means sleep. Now go. No worrying about anything."

"You've never taken care of them. You've never taken care of a single
kind."

"No playing with scissors," he whispered in her ear. "No running screaming around the house. No fighting. And definitely no more snacks, especially coffee cake."

"How bad can it go?" he heard her say as she left the room. "I'll be right upstairs if you need me," she called over her shoulder to him.