Secrets of Harmony Grove (31 page)

“I don’t know if Heath and I will end up getting married or not. Ask me again in a year. Right now it’s too soon to tell.”

Liesl studied my face, and I knew what she wanted to say. I wasn’t getting any younger, my biological clock was ticking, I would never know any blessing greater than that of a loving husband and children. I felt sure she was right on all three counts, but I would rather stay single forever than decide too quickly and regret it for the rest of my life.

“Well, I hope we have the chance to meet him soon,” she said finally.

“He’ll be here this weekend,” I replied. “So now that I think about it, you might want to make sure the coast is clear before you…well, you know…”

She paused, one hand on the doorknob.

“Before I what?”

I shrugged.

“Before you go running around the woods in a nightgown with your hair down.”

She squealed, swatting me with her hand as both of us laughed.

As we opened the door of her home and stepped inside, we were greeted by Liesl’s mother-in-law, my cousin Lucy, not to mention the most incredibly delicious smell that had reached my senses in a long time.

“Lucy! Am I smelling what I think I’m smelling?” I gasped, thinking
of the delectable casserole she always served with pitchers of homemade chicken gravy.

“
Jah
. As soon as they said Sienna was in town, I went outside to pick some celery for the filsa. I will send Jonah over with it later.” The older woman enveloped me in a hug, smelling like sage and other spices, her embrace a welcome comfort to my weary soul. “How are you, sweetheart? I am so sorry for all the trouble you are having over at Harmony Grove.”

I didn’t want to talk about it, so I thanked her for her concern and immediately asked about her health, knowing that cousin Lucy could go a good hour on her gallstones alone. Launching into the tale of her latest myriad of problems and treatments, she turned back toward the counter where she had been kneading some dough. As she did, Liesl gave me a wink before interrupting to ask about the children.

“Annie is napping, and Jenny and Nellie are downstairs scrubbing the baseboards.”

“I am so sorry you have had to keep them inside all day,” Liesl said as she removed her shoes near the door and tied on her apron. “Where is Jonah?”

“He went to pick up the boys from school. Until they know for sure about the wild animal, he does not want them walking home alone.”

“Good idea,” Liesl replied, though I had to wonder if the kids would be any safer in a horse-drawn buggy than on foot, should a wild beast actually materialize.

“Let me tell the little ones hello and then I will chop the carrots,” Liesl said.

I was about to go with her when Lucy replied, “No rush. Sienna and I will catch up here while you do. She has not even heard about my sciatica yet.”

Biting her lip to keep from laughing at my self-made situation, Liesl gave me a look and then disappeared down the basement stairs alone. Stuck in the kitchen for the time being, I offered to help, and soon Lucy had me at the sink as she tried to describe the levels of pain that shot down her legs at various points during the day.

I usually couldn’t stand the tedium of washing dishes by hand, but today the warm water felt good on my sore knuckles. Taking my time, running a
dishcloth around the inside of a mixing bowl, I wondered what Heath was going to say when he learned that I had been working out with the punching bag just one day after I had fallen and landed on my hands and knees. Neither he nor my surgeon approved of my exercise of choice, but I persisted regardless, convinced that my mental health was even more important than my physical health, and boxing was one of the most mentally healthful things I knew how to do. At least I had hired a trainer to come up with some accommodations that might prevent injury, not to mention to teach me the best ways to compensate for a weak left jab that wasn’t likely ever to get any stronger than it already was.

With Lucy at the stove and me at the sink, strains of childish laughter occasionally filtering up the stairs, for a while it almost felt as if time was standing still. As Lucy went on about her ailments, I half tuned her out, thinking instead about my own situation, of how ironic it was that all of the chaos of last night and today had been happening out here in Lancaster County, one of the most bucolic and pastoral places in the world. I was always on guard for danger when I was in Philly, but never here. Here, I had always felt safe. Until now. I could only hope once this mess was behind me that I could learn to feel safe at Harmony Grove again.

“Towels for drying are in there,” Lucy instructed me suddenly, pointing toward a cabinet door. I supposed that was her polite way of saying that I was moving a little
too
slowly. As she returned to the biscuits she was cutting from the dough and the tale she was telling, I rinsed and dried the bowl, set it on the counter, and moved on to the other items that were waiting to be washed.

Moving into the rhythm of washing, rinsing, and drying, I thought how quiet it was here, even with Lucy’s nonstop monologue. Being around my Amish relatives always served to remind me how noisy my world had become back home, how stressful and busy I kept every moment of every day. I could appreciate the quiet now, but as a younger woman, as much as I loved my Coblentz relatives, I usually kept my visits here short, often finding the quiet tones and the slow pace almost excruciating. Any brain that was used to constant stimulation in the foreground and background would have had a hard time sitting at a kitchen table and shelling a pile of
beans with nothing but soft, occasional conversation to help pass the time, not even music from a radio.

During the renovation, when I was spending more time with the relatives than I had in years, I had even done an experiment, privately taking note of how I was feeling and when. Over and over, the way it went was that at five minutes, I would finally stop listening for a radio or TV in the background. At fifteen minutes, even if the company was interesting and the conversation stimulating, I would find myself glancing at my phone wondering if e-mails had come in, discreetly checking for texts. At twenty-five minutes, I would wonder to myself how these people could possibly live like this. Weren’t they bored out of their minds?

It usually took about an hour before my muscles would finally start to relax. By the two-hour mark, I would find a stillness I forgot I could even experience. To their credit, this kind of silence was intentional. As isolated as the Amish often seemed, it always surprised me how very aware they were of the impact noise could have on a life and the damage confusion and chaos could wreak on a soul.

Ultimately, beyond that hard-won stillness came the true goal: a oneness with God. Was it any wonder I always felt spiritually renewed when I spent time in Amish country? By turning down the noise of my life, I was able to hear those still, small whispers of a loving God, whispers that filled my heart and never failed to refresh my soul.

The current stillness was interrupted, just as I was finishing the last dish, when two little bodies burst out at the top of the stairs calling my name. Liesl appeared behind them, explaining that she hadn’t even told the girls I was here until they finished with the job they had been sent down to do. The noise of our greeting must have awakened the smallest one, because soon we heard a little cry bleating from the crib in the next room.

“Quit your
Brutzin
,” Liesl called out to the baby as she went to get her up from her nap.

I let Jenny and Nellie lead me across the wide, open room to the couch in the sitting area. They were both talking at once, and though I was flattered that they seemed to remember me, they had obviously forgotten that I didn’t speak Pennsylvania Dutch. As that was all they spoke, and they wouldn’t learn English until they got to grade school, we had to communicate through hand gestures and facial expressions instead.

“Jenny is telling you about the new animals that her father has purchased for the farm,” Lucy said as she checked the biscuits in the oven. “Says she named the big one Peanut.”

“Er isst aus meiner hand heraus,”
Jenny added, and when I looked to Lucy she interpreted.

“He eats right out of her hands.”

I was about to ask Lucy if these new animals were horses or cows—or
maybe even goats—when the front door opened and Jonah and his two sons came inside. Now the whole family was here.

For the next few minutes, as Lucy manned the kitchen and Jonah worked to replace an empty propane tank in a floor lamp at her request, the children clustered around me on the couch and chatted softly with each other in Pennsylvania Dutch. Stephen, the oldest one at nine, was also the shyest of the bunch, but I noticed that even he stayed nearby, settling in a chair and listening to his siblings and finally interpreting some of their words into English for me. I asked him how school was going so far this year, and he was listing his favorite subjects when Jonah interrupted to say that as soon as he was finished with the lamp they would be heading outside to do chores.

“You must stay close to me, remember,” Jonah added sternly, “and your little brother will need to remain inside this time.”

Seeing the flash of disappointment on the younger boy’s face, I suddenly felt guilty, as if their imprisonment was all my fault. I could only hope that the matter would be resolved soon.

Liesl finally emerged from the next room carrying a tiny bundle of adorableness, apologizing that it had taken so long but that the baby’s hair had come loose in the crib and had needed to be combed out and rebraided.