“Why is Samuel coming over tomorrow?”
“He does my heavy chores for me.” Sadie turned to her. “Didn’t I tell you? He comes by to clean the chicken coop and cut the grass, and whatever else might need doing. He comes every Monday.”
“Then Judith and Esther should come with him whenever he comes. We could have a sewing time every week,” Ida Mae said. She was clearly excited about the idea.
They rode in silence for a while, and Mary watched the way ahead through Chester’s upright ears. Now that she and Ida Mae were here, Samuel wouldn’t need to bother doing Sadie’s chores for her. She and her sister were more than capable of taking care of things without a man around.
As they passed the lane to the Lapps’ farm, Mary glanced toward the house and barn. The odor of a pigsty drifted through the air.
Aunt Sadie had spoken of the Lapps as if they were a normal Amish family, but Samuel wasn’t a normal Amishman. He had been pleasant enough at church, but some of the folks had spoken of him as if there was something very wrong.
“Why don’t some of the men like Samuel? The women seemed to like Judith and Esther.”
“Sometimes Samuel is too much like his father.” Sadie’s voice was so soft that Mary barely caught her words. “He is a troubled man. He learned some bad habits from Ira, but there is hope for him.”
Less than a half mile down the road from the Lapps’ farm, Chester turned into the drive of Aunt Sadie’s place without any signal from Mary. Mary pulled up at the narrow walk for Ida Mae and their aunt to go into the house, and then she drove the buggy the short distance to the small barn. As she unhitched the buggy and took care of Chester, her thoughts went back to the Lapp family.
It wasn’t unusual for sisters to keep house for their brother after their mother passed on, but both Judith and Esther were pale and worn, like they worked too hard. Mary smiled to herself as she brushed Chester’s coat. Here she was, judging people before she got to know them again. The sisters seemed like nice girls. And since they were Aunt Sadie’s closest neighbors, they would be able to spend much time together.
Their brother, though...
Mary turned Chester out into his pasture and hung up the harness.
Samuel was a strange one. Mary had never met anyone quite like him. And what had Aunt Sadie meant when she said he was a troubled man?
Underneath the grouchy stares and gravelly voice, he was quite good-looking. And when she had apologized to him, he had been friendly. Even intriguing. And Aunt Sadie seemed to be very fond of him. He might be a puzzle worth figuring out.
Mary stopped her thoughts before they went any further. She wouldn’t be the one to figure out the puzzle that was Samuel Lapp, so she should just forget about him. Forget about all men.
But she couldn’t forget. It was too late. Her thoughts went on without her, down into that dark hole. Her skin crawled as if she could feel Harvey’s sweaty palms through her dress, pressing close, and closer. She shuddered, willing the memory to disappear, but Harvey’s hands groped and pulled. His breath smelled of stale tobacco and beer as he pushed his kisses on her.
Mary forced her eyes open, trembling all over. She concentrated her thoughts, trying to remember where she was—in Sadie’s barn, hanging the buggy harness on its hooks.
Stroking the smooth leather of the harness, she focused on the buckle, the straps, the headpiece still damp from Chester’s sweat. She kept her breathing even and controlled as she counted the tiny pinpoints of the stitching where the straps were fastened together until she reached one hundred.
Mary took a deep shaking breath. The memory had retreated to the back of her mind. She leaned her head against the warm wood of the barn wall. Someday those memories would stay buried. As long as she avoided men, she could forget the past.
But Samuel would be at the farm tomorrow, and she would see him again on other days. Mary pushed at the shadows that threatened at the edge of her mind. A brother. The shadow retreated. She would treat Samuel the same as she treated her brothers. He wasn’t Harvey Anderson.
Monday morning dawned with the promise of a hot, sticky day ahead. On the way back to the house with the basket of eggs, Mary stopped by the garden to look for some early peas to go with their noon dinner. Noticing some stray lettuce seedlings among the beans, she bent to pull them out, but then saw how many there were. It was as if Sadie had planted the beans and lettuce in the same row.
She left the lettuce where it was and picked a couple handfuls of peas from the vines in front of her for lunch. Continuing on to the house, she paused at the sink in the back porch to wash up. The others were in the kitchen fixing breakfast.
“I want to ask Judith about the knitting pattern she brought over yesterday evening if the girls come this week,” Ida Mae was saying.
Mary set the peas on the counter. “What is the pattern?”
“It’s for stockings that you knit from the toe up, rather than the top down. I’ve never seen one like it. I was trying to figure out how it works last night, but it’s beyond me.”
“Margaret used to make stockings like that,” Aunt Sadie said. She sat at the table, paring potatoes. “Margaret Lapp, Judith and Esther’s mother. I have a pair of stockings she made. I’ll show them to you...” Her voice trailed off as she dropped her knife on the table and started to rise.
Mary put a hand on her shoulder. “You can show us after breakfast. There’s no hurry.”
Aunt Sadie sank back down into her chair. “Ja. No hurry.” She sat with her hands in her lap, a frown creasing her brow.
“What’s wrong?”
The older woman startled and looked at Mary. “What was I doing?”
“You were peeling potatoes.”
Aunt Sadie looked at the paring knife and potatoes on the table, her face vague. Then her brow cleared. “Ach, ja. The potatoes.”
Mary glanced at Ida Mae. This wasn’t the first time they had needed to remind Aunt Sadie of what she had been doing. In the six days since they had arrived, small lapses in their aunt’s memory had been frequent. Perhaps their older relative did need them to take care of her, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.
They finished fixing breakfast in silence, each of them caught up in their own thoughts. As Mary scrambled the eggs, Ida Mae fried the potatoes and onions, the aroma filling the little kitchen.
Mary hoped the move to Indiana would be the healing balm her sister needed. The death of Ida Mae’s young, handsome beau in a farming accident six weeks ago had been a terrible thing, and even though Ida Mae had put on a brave face this morning, grief still shadowed her eyes.
At least Ida Mae’s tragedy gave Mary an excuse whenever someone questioned her own pale face and shadowed eyes. No one needed to know the real reason for her own grief, even her closest sister.
Mary set the table, laying the spoons next to the plates, carefully lining them up next to the knives. One by one she set them down, her fingers lingering on the smooth handles. She missed, ne, she craved Ida Mae’s cheerfulness. She relied on her sister to keep things going, to keep Mary’s mind off the past.
Soon, though, Ida Mae would move on. She would meet a young man, get married, have a family of children and be happy again. The same dream that Mary had shared with her sister for so many years.
She blinked back tears as she straightened the fork she had just laid on the table. Ida Mae would see her hopes fulfilled,