“What do you mean?”
Naomi lowered her voice. “He was not above using his physical strength to make his point.”
“You mean, he abused his family?”
Naomi nodded. “Sarah never spoke of it, but the proof was in the many bruises we saw. She had a black eye once and said she’d fallen and hit the floor too hard.” Gazing down at Dinah, she added, “We mustn’t speak of this, of course.”
“No. We mustn’t,” Raesha agreed, her heart hurting for Josiah and Josie. No wonder neither of them had stayed here.
Earlier, Edna Weiller had come by and looked over little Dinah, examining her from top to bottom. “This child seems fit as a fiddle,” the stout woman announced, her blue eyes twinkling while she danced Dinah around. “And probably much better off now that she is with you two.”
“We are going to try to find her mother,” Raesha had explained. Then she told Edna about Josiah.
Naomi had talked to Bishop King earlier. “The bishop thinks we’re doing everything in the right way. But he expects us to alert the authorities if the woman doesn’t return in a week or so, to find out what we should do.”
“You’ll need proof on this Josiah being related,” Edna said. “If no proof is found, the Department of Child and Family Services will want to place her with a foster family until they find proof that the mother can’t be located or that Josiah Fisher is truly her onkel. The sooner you turn her over, the sooner you could have her back. Or he will, at least. But it’ll be a long shot and he might be required to go through foster training. Just warning you, but I don’t think it will come to that.” Her gaze softened. “Gott segen eich.”
God bless you.
“Denke.”
Edna handed the baby back to Raesha. “I can ask around amid the midwives. See if any of them know of this child being born.”
“That would be helpful,” Naomi said.
Troubled after Edna left, Raesha scrubbed down the house, made a chicken casserole for supper, and washed a load of clothes and brought them in to finish drying since the sky had darkened and a cold rain seemed to be on the horizon.
But she still couldn’t get Josiah Fisher out of her head.
She wanted to not like him. But something had happened to her when he’d held that baby. Raesha’s heart had felt as if she’d just fallen off a cliff. On the one hand, she prayed the baby wasn’t his niece. But there was no denying the strong possibility. Even so, she might not be able to keep the child.
She didn’t know which would be worse. Watching a stranger remove Dinah from their home or watching Josiah take the baby away but knowing Dinah was right next door. If he stayed on the old farm. What if he took the child back to Ohio?
Well, if he did stay here, Raesha could catch glimpses of the child and watch her grow up. Maybe with a new mamm if Josiah found a suitable wife. He obviously wasn’t married since he had no beard and she didn’t see a wife lurking about.
That thought made Raesha rescrub the counter.
“Ach, you’ve done enough. Stop and rest here with Dinah and me,” Naomi said, her words low while she smiled down at the sleeping baby.
Dinah had been fussy earlier. Raesha would make the short drive to the general store tomorrow since a baby’s needs never ended. For now, they had enough formula to get through the next couple of days. Raesha would have preferred mother’s milk, but that wasn’t an option. She would buy more supplies to make a more natural formula for little Dinah.
“Stop spluttering and talk to me,” Naomi called again.
She and Dinah sat by the heating stove since the day had turned chilly. The afternoon skies looked stormy and the wind blustered around the house. They’d opened the shop for a few hours but had not had a lot of visitors. So they closed the front early and left the workers in the back to their tasks.
People knew to knock on the front door if they needed to pick up an order. They also took orders to the Hartford General Store in town, the closest thing they had to a Pennsylvania Dutch market. Mr. Hartford, an Englischer, sold a lot of Amish wares on consignment and paid them as needed.
When she heard a knock, Raesha jumped. Her nerves were sorely rattled today.
“I’ll see who it is,” she said, nervous energy bouncing off her.
Raesha opened the door to find Josiah Fisher standing there, wet and shivering in the wind, his hat dripping a pool of water on the porch rug.
“Josiah,” she said on a surprised gasp. “Kumm inside.”
Why was he back so soon? Why did he look so wonderfully good, his dark eyes moving over her in shades of doubt? He had broad shoulders and a sturdy build. Why was she even thinking such things while he stood there in the damp air?
He stepped inside and she shut the door, her arms gathered against her stomach. “Did you need something?”
“I’m sorry to bother you again but it’s going to take longer than a day to fix up the house. I was headed back to the inn after I went into town to load some wood, but Mr. Hartford at the general store said you sometimes rent out rooms. I was wondering if I could possibly rent the grossdaddi haus out back. It would help me so much to be near my place and I can visit with Dinah some, too.” He paused, his head dipping down. “If that would be all right.”
His expression held a longing and a need that Raesha couldn’t deny.
But could she tolerate his being so close to Dinah?
And so near to her?
Josiah took off his hat and hung it on a peg Naomi indicated by the door. Then he sat at the kitchen table while the woman took Dinah with her and Raesha into another room to discuss whether or not they could rent the grossdaddi haus to him. He hadn’t thought this through and now he regretted blurting out his proposal to Raesha.
She obviously didn’t want him around. Did she find him revolting and unappealing or was she afraid he’d take the babe away in the middle of the night?
He’d been so frantic earlier while loading boards at the general store. With the weather turning bad and the idea of either sleeping in a cold house with a burned-out roof on one side or taking his buggy back the fifteen miles to get another room at the inn since he’d given up the one he had, Josiah had voiced his worries to Mr. Hartford.
That’s when the kindly storekeeper had suggested this solution. “The Bawell ladies are kind and they have often opened their home to those in need. They make money off their millinery shop and sell other items there—mostly for the tourists who come through. But they need all the income they can find. That’s a mighty big place.”
Josiah stood and stared out the wide window over the sink. Such a pretty spot, too. He barely remembered the Bawells but then, he’d tried to put his memories of Campton Creek behind him. He did remember that their son, Aaron, maybe a year or so older than Josiah, had spoken to him often at church gatherings and such. Raesha must have come along after Josiah and Josie had moved away.
A big mistake, that. His feisty younger sister had started acting out when she reached her teen years. He’d hoped she’d sown all of her wild oats during her rumspringa but Josephine Fisher was determined to see the world outside their small settlement. He still didn’t know if she’d ever been baptized.
But he did believe his troubled sister had been running from something.
Well, she’d seen the world all right. His