“Nope. He told me to come see if you—”
“I’m fine,” Anna interrupted, hugging herself. Emotion caught in her throat at the sheer mention of Samuel’s name. “Just go away, please.”
The door opened wider, and her sister’s round face appeared. Anna could see her through the filmy, white shower curtain.
“Are you blue, Anna? Will the blue come off? Will you be blue on Sunday? At church?”
“Susanna! I’m in the shower.” Eli had promised to fix the lock on the door a few weeks ago when he’d put the doorway in between the room over the kitchen and the upstairs hallway in the main house, but he hadn’t gotten to it. She’d have to remind him because right now there was no privacy in the upstairs bathroom. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“But Anna …”
“Anna,” repeated little Mae.
Susanna had brought Mae to the bathroom! Anna took a breath before she spoke; there was no need to take this out on Susanna. It was all her own fault. “Take Mae back downstairs to her father. See them out. And give them some biscuits!”
Without waiting for an answer, Anna turned the hot water knob all the way up and stood under the spray. Give Samuel biscuits? Had she really said such a thing? Was there no end to her foolishness? Samuel didn’t want her biscuits. After the way she’d embarrassed him, he’d probably never again eat anything she baked.
Anna could hear Susanna and little Mae chattering in the hall and she felt trapped. If Mae was still in the house, Samuel had to be. She couldn’t possibly get out, not with him still here.
“She has to go potty,” Susanna piped up over the drone of the shower. “Mae does. She has to go bad.”
Gritting her teeth, Anna peered around the shower curtain. The water was beginning to get cool anyway. They had a small hot water tank that ran on propane, but there wasn’t an endless supply of warm water. “All right. Just a minute. Close the door and let me get dried off.” She jumped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself. “All right, Susanna. Bring Mae in.”
Susanna pushed open the door. “There’s the potty, Mae.”
“Do you need help?” Anna asked the child. Mae shook her head.
Anna wrapped a second towel around her head. “When she’s done, wash her hands, then her face. Clean up her dress and bring her into the bedroom. We can fix her hair.” She smiled down at the little girl. “Would you like that? I never pull hair when I do braids. You can ask Susanna.”
“Anna does good hair braids,” Susanna agreed. “But I fink she needs a bath,” she told Anna. “She looks like a little piggy.”
A quick examination of the little girl convinced Anna that she wasn’t all that dirty, she’d just lost a battle with her breakfast. “We don’t have time for a bath. I’m sure Samuel needs to be on his way.”
Susanna wrinkled her nose as she looked at the little girl. “You spill your oatmeal this morning?”
“‘Frowed it. It was yuck,” Mae said from her perch.
Susanna’s eyes got big. “You throwed your oatmeal?”
“Ya. It was all burny.” She made a face. “It was lumpy an’ I ‘ frowed it.”
On her father as well, Anna realized, suddenly feeling sympathy for both father and daughter. “Well, don’t do that again,” she admonished gently, tightening the big towel around her. “It’s not polite to throw your breakfast. Big girls like Susanna never throw their oatmeal.”
“Ne,” Susanna echoed, helping the little girl rearrange her dress. “Never.” She turned to Anna. “Are you going to court Samuel?”
Anna gasped. “Susanna! What would make you ask such a thing?”
“Because Samuel said—”
“Were you listening in on our conversation, Susanna?” Anna’s eyes narrowed. “You know what Mam says about that.”
“Just a little. Samuel said he wants to court you.”
“Ne,” Anna corrected. “You heard wrong. Again. That’s exactly why Mam doesn’t want you listening in.”
That, and because Susanna repeated everything she heard, or thought she heard, to anyone who would listen. Obviously, she had misheard. They’d both heard wrong. That was why Anna had lost her balance and fallen off the ladder. She’d misunderstood what Samuel said. There was no way that he wanted to court her. No way at all. She was what she was, the Plain Yoder girl, the healthy girl—which was another way of saying fat. But was it really possible that they had both misheard?
More possible than Samuel wanting to court her!
Anna hurried out of the bathroom. “Bring her in as soon as I’m decent.”
She dashed down the hall to the large bedroom over the kitchen and quickly dressed in fresh underclothing, a shift, dress and cape. She combed her wet hair out, twisted it into a bun and pinned it up, covering it with a starched white kapp. A quick glance in the tiny mirror on the back of the door showed that every last tendril of red hair was tucked up properly.
The few moments alone gave her time to recover her composure, so that when the girls came in, she could turn her attention to Mae. Please let me get through this day, Lord, she prayed silently.
When Susanna and Mae came into the bedroom, Anna sat the child on a stool and quickly combed, parted and braided her thin blond hair. “There. That’s better.” She brushed a kiss on the crown of Mae’s head.
“She needs a kapp,” Susanna, ever observant, pointed out. “She’s a big girl.”
“Ya,” Mae agreed solemnly. “Wost my kapp.”
“Find me an old one of yours,” Anna asked Susanna. “It will be a little big, but we can pin it to fit.”
In minutes, Mae’s pigtails were neatly tucked inside a slightly wrinkled but white kapp, and she was grinning.
“Now you’re Plain,” Susanna said. “Like me.”
“Take her downstairs to her father,” Anna said. “Samuel will be wondering why we’ve kept her so long.”
“You coming, too?” Susanna asked.
Anna shook her head. “I’ll be along. I have to clean up the bathroom.” It wasn’t really a fib, because she did have to clean up the bathroom. But there was no possibility of her looking Samuel in the eye again today, maybe not for weeks. But she couldn’t help going to the top of the stairs and listening as Samuel said his goodbyes.
“Don’t worry, Samuel,” Susanna said cheerfully. “Anna wants to court you. It will just take time for her to get used to the idea.”
“Court you,” Mae echoed.
What Samuel said in reply, Anna couldn’t hear. She fled back to the safety of the bathroom and covered her ears with her hands. She should have known that her little sister would only make things worse. Once Susanna got something in her head, it was impossible to budge her from it. And now Samuel would be mortified by the idea that they all thought he wanted to court her instead of Mam.
Anna stayed in the bathroom for what seemed like an hour before she finally got the nerve to venture out. She might have stayed all morning, but she knew she had to clean up the paint before it dried on Mam’s floor. She would have to mop up everything and get ready to start painting again tomorrow, after she and Susanna went into town to get more paint. The trip itself would take three hours, beginning to end.
Anna wasn’t crazy about the idea of going to Dover alone in the buggy; she liked