Keys of Heaven (20 page)

“I know, and I'm sorry. Take Eric with you.”

“Henry!” they both complained.

“Now, please. Eric, I'll come over and get you when I'm ready to start on the glazing.”

Slumping, dragging their heels, the boys slouched out of the barn and their voices faded as they climbed the hill.

“That was a shot for a different commercial,” Carmen remarked. “Did I really just see two teenage boys do what they were told?”

“Never mind,” Sol said. “Come on over here and we'll film Henry working. Tight focus on his hands, and Henry, if you'll just wear the hat, we can do some three-quarter shots from above with the voice-over.”

Pointedly, Henry hung the hat on its nail near the barn doors, and took his seat at the wheel. Sol sighed and turned away to give Kyle some instructions about the lighting.

Maybe the key was to be very un-Amish and not cooperate much. The sooner he did that, the sooner he could get this crew out of his barn and get back to work.

S
arah set off for sisters' day at Corinne's with a couple of jars of face cream for Amanda in her basket, a letter for Corinne in her pocket, and a heart lighter than it had been for some time. The prospect of actually sewing had always been a daunting one for her, and her family seemed to have determined by mutual consent that she should be the one in the background of a quilting frolic making everyone comfortable—seeing that there was enough coffee made, preparing the snack for after the work was done, and sweeping up the cut threads around the quilting frame.

As long as no one put a needle in her hand and expected ten stitches to the inch, it was a place she was happy to fill.

Corinne's delight at the sight of the letter warmed Sarah's heart. Her mother-in-law wanted for nothing, so it wasn't often Sarah could give her a gift that made her as happy as sharing a letter from Simon.

“That is such
gut
news,” Corinne breathed, passing the letter on to Amanda, who read it eagerly while Miriam did the same over her shoulder. “I know you didn't want him to go out there and did everything you could to stop it—but Sarah, if it makes him realize his need for God and the church, then it has all been for the best.” Corinne took her seat on one side of the new quilt, a Flower Basket that she and Amanda had pieced and was now neatly pinned to its batting and backing and rolled up on the frame, ready for its first stitches.

“I see that now,” Sarah said, “but if I had it all to do over again, I'm not sure I could stop myself from trying to do the same.”

Amanda handed the letter to Barbara Byler and went out of the room. When the door closed to the bathroom down the hall, Sarah pulled up a chair next to Corinne and said in a low tone, “What has happened to Amanda? She's so pale. Is she sick?”

“Lovesick,” Miriam murmured, threading her needle with a long skein of black thread.

A niggle of worry swam through Sarah's stomach. So much had been happening in her own life and that of her patients that she had not given a single thought to Silas, who had been staying with Miriam and Joshua. “What happened?”

“I wish I knew,” Corinne said. “She hasn't confided in me. She just keeps refusing dessert and half her dinner and won't say what's on her heart.”

“She talks to you,” Miriam said to Sarah. Down the hall, the toilet flushed, and she said quickly, “See if you can get her to tell you what the problem is. Because she's not acting like the usual girl in love.”

Amanda wasn't like other girls, so that wasn't surprising. Then again…lack of sleep and weight loss weren't so unusual if you were staying up late with someone and trying to slim down a little. But as Sarah moved between kitchen and dining room, stealing glances at Amanda's face and downcast eyes as her dutiful needle rocked through the layers of the quilt, she realized that the girl hadn't been using the skin cream she'd given her, either.

A woman who wanted to bloom for her man by losing weight would not skip the skin regimen that would add to that bloom.

Something was wrong.

There was nothing to do but bide her time until the quilting was done. The quilters spent the morning anchoring the layers of the quilt, beginning in the middle and stitching in the ditch along the flower basket blocks. They managed to anchor about half the queen-sized quilt before sore hands demanded that they break for snack time and coffee. Even then, Amanda did not seem inclined to take herself off alone so that Sarah could corner her. It wasn't until Miriam and Barbara had gone, taking their oldest sister and her two nearly grown-up daughters with them, that Sarah and Amanda finished doing the dishes and Sarah saw her chance.

“Amanda, maybe you could come out to the garden with me? Corinne said she has a big crop of dock leaves out behind the springhouse, and I want to send Simon another batch. Between him and the little boys around here this summer, mine are nearly all used up.”

Amanda hesitated, but her giving nature overcame whatever had briefly held her back. “I'll get the garden scissors.”

Fed from the spring that bubbled up out of the ground and ran down a dip in the property that led to the larger body of Willow Creek, the dock leaves were luxuriant and bursting with the curative agent that God had put in them.

When she said this to Amanda, the girl smiled, a poor replica of her usual twinkle and humor. “Are you going to tell that to Simon's foreman, who wants to know what's in the leaves that heals so well?”

“I just might. It's the truth—and while I might look up what the curative compound is in my herb book, it doesn't hurt to give a word in season.”

She slid her sister-in-law a glance. “What's wrong,
Liewi?
You're pale and thinner, and you're not taking care of your skin like you have been.” She wouldn't even mention the dark circles under her eyes. That would just heap more on a soul that was probably already far too aware of her own imperfections.

Amanda snipped at a clump of leaves, the sound sharp and artificial under the soft rustle of the breeze in the trees behind them, and the melody of a pair of wrens circling the bark looking for insects. Off in the field, a bobwhite asked his eternal question, calling for a mate.

“I can't talk about it with you.” Her voice was nearly as soft as the rustling leaves.

Sarah knelt next to her, struggling against the ambush of pain. There was nothing they couldn't tell each other, except maybe details of marriage and childbirth that weren't fitting for an unmarried woman to hear. But when God changed that, Sarah had no doubt that she could share those things freely, too.

And then the last few words sank in. “With me? Why not with me?”

But Amanda just shook her head, and tears beaded on her lashes.

“Is it Silas? Has something happened?”

Amanda straightened and turned away, the scissors dangling from her hand. Finally she tossed them to the ground and wrapped her arms around herself—a protective gesture that Sarah didn't miss.

“Have you been seeing something of each other?” Sarah asked softly.

“
Ja.
I've been over to Miriam and Joshua's a number of times to see the progress on the bathroom. It's done now. As you probably noticed, Miriam is as happy as if fifty Christmases were all rolled into one.”

“I did notice when we were talking around the quilting frame. But if the renovation is done, does that mean Silas will be going home?”

“That…is the problem.”

“If you care for him, I can certainly see that it would be.”

“
Du versteht nichts
, Sarah.”

“Help me understand, then,
Schwechsder
.” Sarah slid an arm around her hunched shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Whatever it is, I want to help you. This pale face and these unhappy eyes hurt my heart, and I don't think that any of my teas and tinctures will cure it.”

Amanda nodded. “I should know better than to keep anything from you.” Still hugging herself, she raised her face to the sun, its late-afternoon light turning the curves of her face a buttery gold. “You remember when Zeke and Fannie were here and I told you that Silas spent most of our ride home asking questions about you?”

Sarah did, all too clearly. “
Ja.
”

“Well, over the last several days we've had other things to talk about—the renovation and how it was going, the latest edition of the
Budget
, what we heard in church, and lately, that funny
Englisch
boy who is staying at your place. Silas was quite concerned about that.”

“Why? He's just a boy.”

“I don't know. But he seemed quite exercised about it. Anyway, the renovation was done and I walked over to see it, and after supper, he hitched up the buggy and gave me a ride home.”

“That was kind.”

“And he said that he was ready to go to
his
home, but if he had a reason to stay, Miriam and Joshua had made it clear that he could use the guest room at their place as long as he wanted to.”

“Doesn't he have his own farm?” Sarah tried to remember the details. “All I can think of is that cellular phone tower in his field and how Zeke disagrees with him for allowing it to be there.”

“I gather the farm is mostly in hay because of it. His bishop might have something to say if too much money comes in and he risks becoming proud or complacent, so he didn't plant his fields with a cash crop.”

“Silas doesn't strike me as a proud man.” Hay took care of itself; it didn't have to be weeded or even watered much. A month's absence by the husbandman wouldn't bother it a bit. “So during your ride, then, did he ask you to give him a reason to stay?” She hoped so. Oh, how she hoped that he would finally have seen Amanda's wonderful qualities and realized he mustn't miss his chance.

“He did. And I asked him a question in return.”

“That must have taken courage. What was it?”

“Whether he was staying for me, or because he still had some hopes of you.”

Sarah's heart gave a great thump and she pulled in a couple of deep breaths to steady it. “Me?” she managed.

“He told me that he had asked to court you first. And that you said you were not ready for courtship because you were setting yourself apart for the work of a
Dokterfraa
.”

“That's all true.”

Amanda whirled on her. “Then why didn't you tell me, Sarah? All this time, we've been having family dinners and sisters' days and going to church together, and you didn't say a word—you just let me like him and have my silly dreams and all the time he wanted
you
—had spoken to you so you knew he did!”

“I didn't—I—”

But Amanda plowed on, the lid blown off the pressure cooker at last. “The last thing I want you to think is that I'm proud, or offended. But Sarah, it would take a much better woman than me to be happy about being a man's second choice.” She choked. “Is it so much to ask to be a
gut
man's first choice? Will I ever get that chance? And if I don't say yes to Silas, will I ever get a chance of any kind?”

The corners of her mouth pulled down as the rain followed the storm on her face, and she yanked up her apron to scrub the tears from her cheeks.

“Amanda. Oh,
Liewi
, I never meant to hurt you so.” Sarah pulled her unwilling body into her arms and let her cry, shaking with sobs and gripping Sarah's dress as though it would hold her up. Sarah eased her down to the grass and simply held her, letting her get it all out before she tried to speak.

Amanda gasped for breath and hunted blindly in the pockets of her dress, but Sarah beat her to it with a hanky. When she'd blown her nose and quieted a little, Sarah sat back on the grass and let the warm breeze flow between them for a few moments.

“The whole time he was talking to you about me,” Sarah said gently, “I was talking to him about you. Every chance I got, I put the two of you together. I found out that Fannie and Zeke and even your Mamm were planning to try their hands at some matchmaking between him and me, and I put a stop to it before it could even get started.”

“And yet…he hoped.”

“It's what we frail humans do, don't we? Even in the face of sure disappointment, we think that if only we try hard enough, or argue long enough, or come again faithfully enough, the person will see it our way. I have to give him credit. After our second discussion on the matter, he finally accepted that what I said was what I meant, and after that it seems he focused his attention on you, where it should have been in the first place.”

“He thinks he's too old for me.” She blew her nose again.

“Do you think so? Have you heard his story?”