Material Witness (11 page)

M
ELINDA SET
H
ANNAH
in her high chair and placed two toys on the tray, then turned to the sink full of breakfast dishes. She took her time with the plates and cups, allowing her hands to linger in the warm, sudsy water.

Every day included chores, but holidays like Fall Festival seemed to bring extra work for each member of her family — including both boys.

Matt was in the barn, mucking out stalls.

And Aaron, well … Noah had a plan to see what Aaron was capable of doing.

The kitchen window looked out over the side yard as well as an area Noah had put together for the chicken pen. He’d even smoothed a path for Aaron’s wheelchair.

Though Melinda understood Aaron needed chores like everyone else, it was still difficult for her to watch him struggle to remove the lid from the barrel, scoop out the correct amount of feed into the bucket he had fastened across his lap, then work his thin arms, wheeling the chair down the path.

Noah had also set the pen up with two gates, knowing Aaron wouldn’t be fast enough to keep the chickens from escaping if there was only one. The dishwater grew cold as she watched Aaron
open the first gate, wheel through and shut it, then open the second. He was instantly surrounded by noisy, hungry chickens. He scattered feed with one hand as he wheeled slowly with the other, attempting to spread the food out for the large group of hens, just as his father had shown him.

“How’s he doing?” Noah’s soft voice in her ear caused Melinda to jump, sending suds and water flying.

“He’s fine.” She grabbed the dishtowel and wiped her apron. “But it seems so hard for him. I could have done it myself in half the time, and you know I don’t mind.”

Noah took the towel from her hands, turned her so she was facing the kitchen rather than the window, and wiped the water off her neck. “
Ya
, you were always
gut
at feeding the chickens.”

He smiled and kissed her gently on the lips, which sent a stream of warm feelings down through her stomach all the way to her toes. “It’s not you that needs to learn though, and it’s not you that needs to grow stronger.”

Melinda closed her eyes, forced herself to lay aside her fears for one more day. “I know you’re right. Still … I worry.”

“Which is one more thing that makes you a
gut mamm
.”

Reaching past her to hang up the dishtowel, he gave her the smile that had the power to settle her world, then walked over to the high chair and picked up Hannah. “Thought I might take this little girl to check the crops with me.”

Hannah squealed and reached for her daddy’s beard.

“Want to ride with your
dat
? Want to ride behind the big work horse?”

At the word
horse
, Hannah began hollering, “Down. Down,
dat
. Down.”

“You’ve done it now. She means to go and find her shoes.”

“A
gut
idea, baby girl.”

When Hannah had toddled out of the room as fast as her chubby legs would take her, Melinda confessed to Noah what
had been bothering her from the moment her eyes had opened earlier that morning. “After last night, after what Aaron saw, I was wondering if I should allow him to rest today.”

“It was a terrible thing for him to witness, for sure. If he has questions or worries, I believe he’ll talk to us, Melinda. Besides, do you think he’d be better off inside chasing it round and round in his head?” Noah scooped Hannah up as she came tumbling back into the room carrying her shoes. Before he walked out the door, he stepped closer to Melinda, kissed her once more, and whispered, “Look at your son now,
Mamm
. I think he’s going to be fine.”

Melinda turned and looked out the window. The picture that met her eyes was a bright fall morning, like so many others in her heart. It caused her breath to catch in her throat and her hand to fly to her lips. There wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t thank God for her family — even with all the worries and fears Aaron’s special condition brought. Even though she watched Hannah constantly, concerned perhaps she too would have the same disease. Melinda trusted God, trusted his provision and care. When she thought of having another child though, a part of her heart shrank back — afraid.

Could she bear watching another child suffer as Aaron suffered?

Still, when she looked out the window as Noah had told her to, she couldn’t help but know Aaron was blessed by God. She couldn’t help but be grateful he was a part of her life.

The sun had broken through the clouds that the weather forecast had said would scatter by noon, and her son sat in a patch of sunlight. The hens were all busy with the feed Aaron had managed to scatter, and he had somehow reached down and caught one of the baby chicks. He was holding it carefully in one hand and petting it with the other. Even though she couldn’t see it from this distance, she knew that a look of pure wonder covered his
face. It was only a chick and the boy who had managed to surprise it away from its mother. Melinda knew Aaron had held plenty of chicks before; she’d handed him one last week. But he’d managed to catch this one himself. It was his secret, and hopefully, even if only in some small way, it would help heal a portion of what had happened to Aaron the night before.

As she watched, he set the chick carefully on the ground, put his skinny hands on the wheels of his chair, and made his way slowly, laboriously, back through the gates and along the path — a look of marked determination on his face.

It was a few minutes before noon when Esther pulled up to Melinda’s house. Simon was sound asleep in the wooden carrier Reuben had designed that fit perfectly on the floorboards in the back. Esther hoped she wouldn’t wake him carrying him inside, but she needed to talk to Melinda, and she needed to do it before continuing to town. So she picked up her bag of quilting supplies, then reached for her infant son.

She’d barely stepped away from the buggy when Melinda was at her side.

“Let me help you. I’ll take him.”

“
Danki
. Where are the boys?”

“They finished their chores a little while ago and have gone to fish at the pond behind the barn. Is Leah with your parents?”

“Ya.”

“I can fix you some lunch if you’d like.”

“No. I ate an early lunch with Tobias. Then I dropped Leah off, and Simon fell asleep before we’d even made it to the main road.” They walked up the steps of the front porch and into the sitting room.

“Hannah’s down for her nap as well. I can’t believe how this
boppli
is growing, Esther.”

“Tobias says he’s longer each week, but I refuse to believe it. I want him to stay exactly this size for a while.”

“He’s beautiful.”

Melinda traced Simon’s face with her finger, a wistful look shining in her eyes — a look Esther recognized all too well. Esther had waited a long time to have another child, waited a long time for Tobias to come along. She certainly never thought she’d be happily married again after the death of her first husband, but God had had other plans for her.

“I was on the way into town to stop at the shop to see if Callie could use my help.”

“I suppose you heard about yesterday.”

“
Ya
. Aaron’s okay?”

Melinda sighed and adjusted Simon in the crook of her arms as she sat back on the couch. “Aaron appears to be fine. Don’t ask me how. I would probably be having nightmares if I saw a woman killed.” She shook her head, causing her
kapp
strings to brush against Simon’s baby blanket.

“Last night Aaron was able to relay facts to Shane, and for the most part he didn’t become upset — not until the very end. He did seem more tired than usual, falling asleep in his chair before I could put him in the buggy. I can’t remember the last time he did that. But otherwise, it’s as if he can put the events he witnessed behind him.”

Esther barely flinched at the mention of Shane’s name — another sign God was still in the business of changing hearts. But then, without Shane, her marriage to Tobias would be an entirely different thing. His cousin Reuben might be serving a life sentence in jail right now. Shane had solved the case of Katie’s death. He was the reason her family was whole.

Esther pushed away the memories of last fall’s tragedy.

“Tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you. My
mamm
wasn’t very clear.”

After Melinda had related the night’s events, Esther stared at her in disbelief. “How can this be happening to us again?”

“I know. It doesn’t seem possible.”

“At least none of us are wanted for this murder. I suppose that’s a blessing.”

“Ya.”
Simon began to stir and root around, so Melinda handed him back, a grin spreading across her face. “I believe he’s looking for you. I’ll go and grab us two mugs of tea while you allow him to nurse.”

“Tea would be great. Do you have something herbal?”

“
Ya
. Of course.”

By the time Melinda returned with the drinks, Esther remembered the other reason she’d stopped by. “I wanted to talk to you about these quilts that we’re restoring. The work’s more challenging than I expected.”

“Yours too? I can see why they’re valuable — the stitching is exquisite, but I can’t figure out the pattern on the border.”

“I agree. That’s why I brought mine over. I’ve never seen a quilt pieced together like this before. I asked my
mamm
about it, and she said it looks like a storybook quilt to her.”

Melinda pushed up her glasses and cocked her head at the same time. “Hadn’t thought of that. I’ve never seen an actual storybook quilt, though I have heard of them. Hang on a minute.”

When Melinda returned with her quilt, Simon was done nursing. He burped, then smiled at them both.

“That boy is as charming as his father.” Esther spread Simon’s quilt on the floor and placed him on it, then stacked pillows around him.

“Here’s the quilt I’m supposed to restore. I’ve gotten as far as reinforcing the stitching on the first few panels.”

“But the border makes no sense on yours either.”

Melinda frowned. “The top and bottom do. I had no problem there.”

“Which is odd in and of itself. When was the last time you saw
a quilt that had a border change on two sides? I don’t even know what I’m sewing on my quilt.” Esther bent over the tiny stitches that constituted the side borders. “At first I thought it was a type of pattern work, but it doesn’t repeat in any way that makes sense. Look at mine. It’s the same.”

Esther went to her sewing bag and pulled out the quilt top of the piece she’d agreed to restore. “Now the workmanship is excellent, as you pointed out. I’d say it’s better than what even you or I or Deborah are able to do.”

“
Ya
, some of the older women had a real gift. My
mamm
said that Mrs. Hochstetler was the finest quilter she had ever known — that she taught many of her generation how to quilt and that plain women from several counties once came to learn stitching from her.”

Esther frowned. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”

“I believe she stopped quilting before we started. You know I visited with her more than you did because my
mamm
’s
aenti
and Mrs. Hochstetler’s
schweschder
were
freinden
. I was never clear on how they knew each other. But she would show up at our family gatherings, and she’d always comment on my quilts or offer to show me how to improve my stitching. She couldn’t sew very much herself at that point because of the arthritis in her hands. It was quite crippling.”

Melinda’s expression grew distant, a look Esther had seen far too often on her friend’s face.

“What is it? What did you remember just then?”

Smiling, Melinda stared down at the quilt again. “Mrs. Hochstetler had a special way with Aaron. Where other people would ask about him in general or maybe shy away from the topic, she would want to know specifics — like whether he’d managed to pull himself up yet, or if he could put on his own clothes. She wasn’t being nosy either. She took a real interest. She was a sweet lady, and I’m going to miss her.”

Esther reached out and patted her friend on the arm, but then she remembered the problem facing them. “I wish she’d thought to tell you more about these quilts before she passed. I have no idea what to do with this border. Honestly, mine is as big a mess as yours, and it’s going to have to be redone before we can sell them. Look at this —”

As she was talking, she’d laid her quilt top down beside Melinda’s on the floor, laid it down so that they could see how one quilt was in as bad a shape as the other.

Instead, what they saw was that, when laid together, the two quilts looked like two pieces taken from the same puzzle — except they didn’t quite fit together.

“It still doesn’t make any sense.” Esther stood and frowned at the two quilts. “It almost looks like —”

“I’ll tell you what it almost looks like.” Melinda’s voice filled with wonder, sounded exactly like Tobias’ when he spoke to his newborn son. Melinda stayed on the floor, kneeling beside the two quilts, but she reached for Esther’s quilt and turned it so that the top borders were now side by side and the side borders — the borders that were indecipherable — now touched.

“It almost looks like the borders we couldn’t figure out form an old German script.” Melinda glanced up, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Script that is divided between two quilts.”

“So you can’t read it, unless you put the two quilts side by side.” Melinda’s smile widened.

They stared at each other in surprise.

“Your quilt has the top half of the words,” Esther whispered.

“And your quilt has the bottom.”

“Exactly like a puzzle.”

D
EBORAH DIRECTED HER BROWN MARE,
Cinnamon, into the parking lot of Daisy’s Quilt Shop just as the downtown clock was striking noon. As she pulled in, she remembered she was supposed to have called first. Well, obviously the shop was open, so no harm done. She’d hoped to arrive an hour earlier, but Joshua had put her behind schedule. Her two-and-a-half-year-old had decided to pull off his diaper and run around the house naked, which had resulted in not one but two accidents. It was definitely time to potty train her youngest, and she intended to — soon. But festival weekend wasn’t the ideal time.